Greenpeace: profiteering from whaling too

According to the environment section of The Guardian, the environmental organisation Greenpeace have been making more money from whaling than Iceland. These claims were made by Captain Paul Watson, the co-founder of the Greenpeace Foundation and Greenpeace International.

Captain Watson flatly refused to attend last years Greenpeace office Christmas party, he argued that the Greenpeace campaign against whaling was really all about 'making whale "snuff flicks" and exploiting bleeding, suffering whales to wring out every emotional dollar it could from the public'.

Greenpeace have indeed made boatloads of money from weeping over whaling, $103m (£53m) according to The Guardian - and for what? For sailing two ships to the Antarctica in 2005, taking a few photos and holding up a couple of banners?

In defence of immigration

Most people these days (even in Britain) seem to accept that immigrants make great contributions culturally, politically and economically to the nation they migrate to. Even the critics of Britain's current open-door policy find it difficult to dismiss the benefits gained from the current wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe - except, Migrationwatch that is.

Having said that, the chairman of Migrationwatch, Sir Andrew Green, actually conceded that of 'course many immigrants make a useful contribution to the economy but, taken in total, the economic benefit is at best marginal'. The fact that the host nation and the immigrants themselves both benefit seems to be lost somewhere in translation. Indeed, it is left to the astute blogger, Tim Worstall, who kindly reminds us all that such benefits is normally known as 'Pareto improvement'.

Who needs the British National Party when we've got Migrationwatch?

Poverty: what is to be done?

The Conservative press consultant Ellee Seymour, provides a good piece on what poverty is like in her neck of the woods, Norfolk, England.

As to the question of 'what is to be done'? It seems that many on the right in Britain haven't got the faintest idea. I argued that rapid and unprecedented economic growth should do the trick for the worst off in our society.

However, in the comments section, I thought it was rather worrying, that even amongst some Tories', who are normally pro-economic growth - there was a palatable air of disdain about the notion of rapid economic growth - what seems to me to be an obvious answer to poverty.

Slavery: reparations for today's blacks is immoral

The issue of reparations for descendants of slaves, is on top of this weeks British political agenda - but, it's still not entirely self-evident as to why the British state should have to pay monies to today's blacks, for a system that was abolished long, long before any of our parents were even born (let alone my generation).

If anything, the very idea of reparation for today's black Briton’s is in the first instance, a diabolical insult. The assumption underlying reparation is that slavery still shackles the feet of today's black Briton's - this notion is rubbish. What I find most objectionable, is the fact that it's millionaire black American lawyers who are the driving force behind all much of this foolish talk.

Besides, Britain cannot seriously afford to entertain ideas about shelling out tonnes of cash to all who demand compensation for things that happened in the distant past - because, it would be only a matter of time before the descendents of Chinese opium dealers come banging on British court doors demanding millions in compensation. Followed closely behind by the Boston tea merchants, and why not South African Boer farmers?

Multi-million pound payout will not heal any division there may be in our society, but it will surely succeed in incensing a whole generation of white Briton's who could rightfully argue that all this nonsense 'is not fair'.

'War' on climate change? Looks just as 'bogus' as the 'war on terror'

According to Michael Meacher, the former environment minister, the British state is now apparently 'at war' over climate change, just like back 'in 1939'. The ex-minister added that 'I think we are at war over climate change and I think we [New Labour] can lead the country'. In case we didn't quite understand what Meacher was saying, he noted that global warming was a challenge to the very 'future of the human species on the planet'. Ok, message received.

Is Meacher really calling for the re-militarisation of our society, with his ideal image of WWII and wartime rationing? Even back then in 1930s, wartime rationing was only achievable by terrifying the British public into believing that Britain was about to be invaded, hence the need for militarising society and austerity measures.

More to the point, Meacher's bogus call to arms against climate change is totally unconvincing - the idea that the future of the whole of humanity somehow hangs in the balance because of climate change, is risible. This is not science speaking, Meacher's doom and gloom predictions are based on pure speculation.

Meacher once took the British government to task for its role in the bogus 'war on terror'. He bemoaned the fact that Britain had launched a full-scale war against Iraq based solely on dodgy information about WMD. Yet, Meacher's theories about the 'end of humanity' are just as 'bogus' as the original reasons why Britain went to war with Iraq. Indeed, Meacher’s theory has failed a basic test, Karl Popper's test of falsifiability. Meacher's dire warning says far more about him, than it does about the future of humanity.

Carbon rationing? Emm... No thanks

Normally whenever I think about rationing, I think about the period of instituted austerity for civilians during World War II, that didn't even end until the 1950s. The image is of people queuing up in long lines with ration books in hand to get their 'fair share' of scarce resources like food or clothing.

These days, the scarce resource seems to be energy, and environmentalists are demanding that it's time we made World War II like sacrifices for the sake of the planet. In the Newstatesman, Mark Lynas argues that it's not enough to drive less, fly less or consume less, we need to do much, much more that. Indeed, he argues that the;

"best indication of whether a person truly grasps the scale of the global climate crisis is not whether they drive a hybrid car or offset their flights, nor whether they subscribe to the Ecologist or plan to attach a wind turbine to their house. The most reliable indicator is whether they support carbon rationing".

In an era of plentiful, Lynas is openly advocating imposing harsh austerity. It hasn't even occurred to Lynas, or George Monbiot that there might be an alternative to green authoritarian carbon rationing. The author Daniel Ben-Ami points out that giant hydroelectric dams and nuclear power for example do not emit any greenhouse gas - geoengineering also offers many possibilities in the future in terms of energy. Ben-Ami also adds that carbon rationing 'would literally leave billions of people mired in poverty' - but what would environmentalists care about that? All they seemed to bothered about is the 'war against climate change', like nothing else mattered

Flag burning? Why not, it's a free country

The Guardian reported that the British police want to see the burning of flags at demonstrations in the UK outlawed. Indeed, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Len Duvall argued that people;

"have the right to [demonstrate] but they must do so peacefully and without causing undue offence."

The Labour MP Shahid Malik also supports the police proposal; he added that these 'appear to be sensible proposals which I believe all sensible people, irrespective of religion or race, will support'.

Well, I'm sorry, but the police and Shahid Malik are talking complete and utter nonsense. For a start, the proposal is a blatant restriction on our right to free speech. I personally don't go around burning flags at demonstrations, but in a free society if other people want to do such things, why can't they?

Whether we like it or not, flag burning is a form of political speech. If the police, or anyone else for that matter finds it offensive, then that's just tough. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society where the police determine how offensive a demonstration may be.

I militantly agree with Brendan O’Neill’s assessment of this issue, it's bad enough that free speech is under attack, on top of that, the police want to restrict our right to be offensive at demonstrations too - well, as O'Neill rightfully argued, they can just f**k right off.

Head of Commission for Racial Equality, is a bigot

It's bad enough that the British government have unveiled a dodgy plan, to basically treat Romanians and Bulgarians as if they were the new 'white niggers' of Europe. On top of that, the head of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, thinks it's perfectly acceptable to label these migrants as 'racists' , even though he admits it's based solely on 'anecdotal evidence'.

Neil Davenport, a writer for Spiked Online recently commented that 'Phillips comments also show what a dramatic turn around there has been on the immigration debate'. He's not wrong there. In the past, it was old-fashioned racists who wanted tighter controls on immigration to keep blacks out. Today, it's anti-racists who demand stricter rules on new migrants all because they apparently want to keep racists out of Britain. The truth is, old school, and new school ignorant attitudes towards immigrants, are just bad as each other.

UPDATE: The Times (London) also thinks that Trevor isn't all that clever.

Blair and his army, marching to different tunes

The British Prime minister Tony Blair, went to extraordinary lengths last week to deny that there was any difference of opinions between him and the head of his army General Sir Richard Dannatt.

Blair tried in vein to argue (but rather unconvincingly) that, in fact, he had agreed with 'every word' that Gen Dannatt had said in the Daily Mail interview. The truth is, the generals’ comments have sent the government all out to sea, more importantly, it has exposed deep divisions and lacklustre loyalty amongst the higher ranks of the military, and the government.

Ever since the Gen Dannatt made his comments, many have hailed him as some type of 'hero'. Indeed, the Stop the War Coalition wasted no time in reprinting the army chief's remarks in their national petition, demanding that the British government withdraw from 'a war and occupation which is now opposed not only by the majority of the British public but by their own army chief'. It's as if the anti-war movement are using the military commander as some kind of pin-up poster boy for peace.

The anti-war movement, while they were falling over themselves must have forgotten that General Dannatt only wants to withdraw from Iraq because he wants those troops to fight in Afghanistan instead. In any case, who ever heard of a serving British general attending an anti-war demonstration?