Just say no

What is it about organizations like the Taxpayers' Alliance that makes them incapable of making truly radical statements even when they clearly would like to? Well, I assume they would like to. I recall asking one of their high panjandrums (yes, I do converse with people of that calibre occasionally) about foreign aid and what their policy was. Well, he said proudly, we are calling for its freezing. Oh really, said I. How about calling for its abolition for a number of excellent economic, political and social reasons? At this point the high panjandrum realized that there was somebody at the other end of the room he absolutely had to talk to.

Here we are again. At the UN David Cameron (that was before he disgraced himself and his school on the Letterman programme) reaffirmed that" that 0.7 per cent of national income should be spent on overseas aid by 2013" . It won't be, of course, but that is not the point. He is still proclaiming the same mantra despite decades of evidence that foreign aid does not help countries to build up their economy, develop strong social structures or promote democratic and humane policies. On the contrary, it strengthens bloodthirsty kleptocrats, prevents the growth of a link between government and governed and allows governments to mis-allocate their income.

So, is the TPA saying this? Errm, no, not exactly. What they are saying is:

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has long argued against increasing the budget of the Department for International Development (DfID). It should not be immune from having to find ways of delivering more for less like all other government departments (except Health), especially when serious concerns remain about whether value for money is being delivered out of its existing budget.

Those concerns have been voiced for many a long year and the sort of scandal Andrew Gilligan has once again uncovered is not new either. The only purpose foreign aid serves, apart from filling up the coffers of the people Mr Gilligan so aptly names "Poverty Barons" and of the aforementioned kleptocrats, is to make us all feel so virtuous with no effort of our own. The money goes, we feel virtuous and to hell with the recipient countries and their people.

Just a reminder

Things are happening out there in the big bad world. Bad things. And article in the Wall Street Journal about the Libya debacle says quite firmly: the more we learn about Benghazi the more it looks like a gross security failure. Indeed, it does. What with that and things looking nasty between China and Japan, it is hard to find our own party conferences in the slightest bit interesting.

Who is this "we" Mr Greenslade?

Roy Greenslade in today's Media Guardian is proposing a solution to a problem, according to him, "we" have all been pondering over:

We have been puzzling for years about how to subsidise journalism once it makes the final transition from print to net (see here and here and here). One obvious model is the funding of the BBC through its licence fee.

Well, speak for yourself, Mr Greenslade. I have not been puzzling about it at all.

I do know that various media and other outlets have been working out how to make the internet pay and have come to various, mostly unsatisfactory answers. One solution would be a pay wall on all newspapers and news sites but that is not a viable one as long as the tax-subsidized BBC can pump huge amounts of money into its own site without needing to charge consumers.

Mr Greenslade now proposes a similar arrangement for all or some newspapers on line (well, actually, he is repeating a solution proposed by one of his colleagues, David Leigh) and that is a levy on all broadband users to distribute in some unexplained fashion between various hacks on the net because the world cannot manage without them. There are, he acknowledges, some practical problems around but he is sure they can be overcome.

At a time when ever more people are beginning to realize that the BBC's fiscal model is unjust, ridiculous and out of date, it takes some doing to propose a similar one for all journalists. I am delighted to say that the comments make short work of Mr Greenslade's arguments.

What Medvedev does, Putin undoes

This seems to apply to big things and small. (I have not yet written about President Putin cheerfully or as cheerfully as he can with that eerily smooth face admitting that yes, of course, he had planned to have a war with Georgia for a while before it actually happened and yes, of course, the main strategic object was to discredit Medevedev but I shall. Let me just say that neither of those statements exactly astonished me.)

What did make me smile is this story about clocks and time zones. Those of us who have to deal with Russia or Russian news stories did note that not so long ago, the government decided to abolish daylight saving and kept the clocks unchanged, winter and summer. Apparently, President Medvedev had decided on this because he was not allowed to pass any other legislation he wanted to reduce stress in the population. Why it would be stressful to change clocks was not really explained. I have found many characteristics in Russians over the years I have known many of them and that is all my life but I have never found that many of them are easily stressed by having to change clocks twice a year.

In fact, it seems that they are rather unhappy with the situation as it is because they see even less daylight than they would have done otherwise. President Putin has already made it clear that there will be some rethinking on this as "something might not have been thought through".

President Medvedev's other innovation, the abolition of two time-zones, reducing their number to nine across Russia also seems unpopular and is about to be reversed.

It wasn't the film, after all

For days people who know about the Middle East, including the Libyan President have been saying it: those attacks on 9/11 and in the subsequent couple of days may have used that wretched film that nobody has seen but were actually co-ordinated terrorist attacks.

No, no, no, said the State Department and other spokespersons for the Administration. It was that terrible provocative film and we shall lean on Google to withdraw it.

Well, what do you know? Apparently these were terrorist attacks and the State Department has now admitted it. Let us be thankful for small mercies.

UPDATE: Ex-Gitmo detainee is reported to have been involved in the attack. Oh surely not.

Charlie Hebdo again

This time the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (about which I wrote here, here and here) has decided to go for equal opportunities insults with a cover that shows Mohammed in a wheel chair being push by a Hassidim rabbi. Inside there are, apparently, more cartoons of the Prophet, including some that show him naked. (No nonsense about toplessness.)

Yes, dear reader, you are quite right: those not particularly good cartoons have caused all sorts of problems with representatives of one of the "insulted" groups (funnily enough, not the other) demanding satisfaction and the French authorities running around, heightening security in all sorts of places, especially for the coming Friday. 

The French government, which had urged the weekly not to print the cartoons, said it was temporarily shutting down premises including embassies and schools in 20 countries on Friday, when protests sometimes break out after Muslim prayers. 

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby called the drawings provocative and outrageous but said those who were offended by them should “use peaceful means to express their firm rejection”.

Tunisia’s governing Islamist party, Ennahda, condemned the cartoons as an act of “aggression” against Mohammad. It urged Muslims, in responding to it, to avoid falling into a trap designed by “suspicious parties to derail the Arab Spring and turn it into a conflict with the West”.

In Lebanon, Salafist cleric Sheikh Nabil Rahim said the incident would raise tensions that were already dangerously high.

“We will try to keep things managed and peaceful, but these things easily get out of hand. I fear there could more targeting of foreigners, and this is why I wish they would not persist with these provocations,” he said.

In the northern Paris suburb of Sarcelles, one person was slightly hurt when two masked men threw a small explosive device through the window of a kosher Jewish supermarket, a police source said, adding it was too early to link the incident to the cartoons.

We shall just have to wait and see, I suppose. Would it be possible for some other publications across the world to show some solidarity with Charlie Hebdo on the basis of "I may not agree with your views but I shall defend to the death your right to express them"?

No-one can beat Stalin for bullet points