Denialists in Denver & St Paul

From our U.S. Political Correspondent: Senator S. Hello-Il

OK, OK, you’ve had to read the same entry for weeks. But you people don’t know just how time-consuming it is to be a member of the "vast, well-funded Denial Industry" (VWFuDI) [1].

Of course I had to work at both US conventions. Denver with the Democrats wasn’t too bad; when you’re a mile high, the thin atmosphere makes black-bear bile-duct liqueur (Alc: 89%) kick in pretty damn quick and whale sushi is even more irresistible. On the other hand, at the Republican Convention, St Paul felt uncannily like Minneapolis – think Antarctic but with less groovy nightlife and ten-times the wind-chill factor. No sign of Global Warming there - zilch … not a sausage … bugger all.

I was “surplus to requirements” during the Democratic convention – apparently Obama has enough arms up his backside already. However, my puppeteering partner Kim Jong-Il was on overtime operating Joe Biden’s new hair, Ted Kennedy’s old (very old) jowls and Maria Shriver-Shwarzenegger’s bleached, skeletal, brittle-bones. Kim’s years as Miss Piggy’s tail have never been wasted.

For the Republicans in St Paul, I personally, puppeteered Sarah Palin’s hair and glasses – which was exhausting but I held my own. Everybody noticed her beehive quiver and swell when she praised “small town America” and the sadomasochistic gleam in her eyes when she demanded oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge – that flinty glint is my speciality! My final performance was as Bristol’s foetus, providing a few good kicks for the reporters from Fox News.

Poor old Kim Jong-Il, after the fatiguing week in Denver, he was expected to puppeteer McCain’s hair and neck. He was, clearly, pooped. His biceps, triceps, pecs, lubricales, flexor digitorum profundi etc., simply gave way, he couldn’t hold up either head or hair ... let alone both! It was the Haliburton straw that broke the Lockheed-Martin back.

So, McCain had no hair or neck. He looked like an albino Tahitian turtle, captured by Captain Cook during the transit of Venus in 177?? [Sub-Editor: please check Wikipedia for correct dates], which then spent the next 230 years in a veal crate. You and I know that McCain has had three or four deadly carcinogenic melanomas removed so must avoid sunlight (just like Angel in that fab ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ series). But the great American public probably thinks he’s just a really pasty, neckless, old geyser in a permanently bad mood. (Incidentally, I’ve had two cancerous Basal Cell Carcinomas removed, one in front of each ear. Pick the right dermatologic surgeon – mine is on 57th Street Manhattan – and you can get an eye-lift included in the price).

Sadly, poor old McCain has already had so much flesh removed from his face that he looks like an older, more surgically-manipulated Joan Rivers – with the complexion of the new, de-improved (i.e. non-ethnic) Michael Jackson.

I tell you, it was a relief to meet Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton in the steam room on the last night to collect the suitcase full of cash.[1] (BTW - if you’re ever in that situation, keep your back to them and pour a bucket of water over the hot rocks before you turn around – ophthalmologists say the visual trauma of uncovering such despicable nakedness should only be temporary but why take the risk of permanent blindness?) Even with thick steam, Cheney's beady eyes will burrow into your soul so keep the meeting short. Denial is a dirty job but somebody has to do it.

Kim Jong-Il is resting comfortably back home in Pyonyang; should be back on his feet in no time, don’t believe the capitalist media about him having a "stroke". It's just good, old-fashioned puppeteer poopedness.


Ref: 1. The Denial Industry. http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read.asp?id=102958862007

Poor farmers embrace GM technology

The Philippine Star provides an important good-news story. After the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in June 1991, much of the farmland in the Barangay area of the country seemed to be ruined. Deposition of volcanic ash and the effects of the corn borer insect pest threatened the end for an important food producing region.

However, a few years ago, farmers started planting GM corn that resist the insects. They achieved such starlingly good results that the good news spread rapidly and now 95% of farmers use the GM corn seed.

With the GM variety farmers have increased yields to as much as 10 tonnes per hectare - three or four times the yield of conventional corn - pesticide use has plummeted and beneficial insects are back.

Philippines: GM Crops Provide Key to Greening Barren Lands

- Rudy A. Fernandez, The Philippine Star, July 27, 2008

Once lahar-mantled, now lush greenfields. Barren hills once upon a recent time, now lush corn farms. Open fields that used to reek of the acrid smell of toxic pesticides, now wafted by fresh, healthful air. The friendly insects are back too, helping Mr. Farmer control the insects that have been attacking his cornfields.

These are some of the magical transformations in many areas in the countryside, thanks to Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) corn. Bt is a bacterium that naturally occurs in soil. Through biotechnology or genetic engineering, a specific Bt gene has been inserted in the corn variety. Bt corn produces its natural pesticide against the Asian corn borer. One of the most destructive pests attacking corn in Asia, including the Philippines.

For almost a decade now, the new genetically modified (GM) corn variety has excited the interest of many Filipino farmers because of its high yield and resistance to the dread corn borer. Take the farmers of Barangay Anao in Mexico, Pampanga. Following Mt. Pinatubo's eruption in 1992, the village's farms were covered with lahar. But Bt corn brought back greenery to the landscape.

When we visited Anao two years ago, we learned that almost all its farmers were already planting the transgenic crop. A barangay leader had told us that GM corn yield as much as 10 tons per hectare, or three or more times the yield of ordinary varieties.

In one cropping season (more than three months), a farmer using the biotech crop can earn as much as P100,000. Another said he could now send his children to college because of the bountiful harvest from Bt corn.

About 95 percent of the barangay's farmers are now planting biotech corn, Anao outstanding farmer Carlos Guevarra recently told Sonny Tababa, coordinator of the Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture-Biotechnology Information Center (SEARCA-BIC).

Many farmers in Iloilo also have a success story to tell: Their Northern Iloilo Corn Producers Association Inc. (NICPAI) won the PLEDGE, the highest international award given by Monsanto, a global agriculture corporation, to outstanding projects in agriculture.

NICPAI's "From Grassland to Corn Land" saga bested 197 other entries to get the Judges' Choice Award and $20,000 cash prize.

The farmers' group started in 2005 as the Sara Corn Financiers' Association organized by youthful farmer-leader Delson Sonza of Sara town.

Before, many farmers in northern Iloilo could hardly eat three meals day. Their lives have improved considerably since they turned to GM corn.

"With biotech corn farming, families without a carabao and other farm implements can now cultivate their grasslands which were converted into corn lands," Sonza told journalists at a science forum held recently in Makati City. Monsanto, assisted by NICPAI, had earlier introduced the zero and minimum tillage technologies to the farmers. In just three years, the area covered by GM corn significantly increased from 800 hectares to 9,300 ha.

Now, Sonza said, the farmers can afford to buy home appliances, vehicles, and postharvest facilities. "The families can now send their children to school and provide well for their needs." In view of the strides achieved in GM crop production, the area devoted to biotech corn continues to expand, noted Dr. Randy Hautea, global coordinator of the International Services for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

As of 2007, about 300,000 hectares had been planted to transgenic corn in the Philippines, he reported at a recent media forum in Los Baños jointly sponsored by ISAAA, SEARCA-BIC, US Agency for International Development (USAID), and Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD).

The country is now the world's 10th biggest grower of GM crops, thus, joining the ranks of biotech "mega-countries" (those planting biotech crops in 50,000 ha or more).

Global Warming - fewer & less intense hurricanes

Remember 2005, when the climate doom-mongers blamed global warming for hurricanes Katrina and Rita which caused so much damage in New Orleans, Texas and other US states that lie on the Gulf of Mexico?

They all said it was ‘A Sign’ that hurricanes would be much worse in future. Sadly for the eco-fundamentalists (but good news for everybody else) was that the hurricane seasons of 2006 and 2007 were among the mildest on record. Strangely, Greens did not say that 2006-2007 were ‘A Sign’ that global warming might cause fewer hurricanes.

But, the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – which few of the Green lobby actually seem to read - actually does say that global warming is likely to cause fewer hurricanes and cyclones!

Chapter 10 of the 2007 IPCC report – ‘Global Climate Projections’ – summarises the computer models that predict what will happen with tropical cyclone/hurricane intensity in future decades.

Naturally, with computer simulations, you can get pretty much whatever outcome you want. The surprising thing is that even the most extreme predictions for global warming over the next several decades seem to indicate that there will not be an increase in cyclone/hurricane activity at all.

Most computer simulations at the larger geographical scale of 50-100km (Yoshimura 2006, Sugi 2002, Chauvin 2006) seem to show that there will be fewer cyclones overall and in the North Pacific, a slight increase in the North Atlantic, but no overall increase in intensity. With a few different wind circulation parameters the same simulations show fewer weak cyclones/hurricanes and no increase in more intense storms. One of the models indicates increased rain with the same number of cyclones.

Two more computer models (Hasegawa 2005, Bengtsson 2006) indicate fewer and less intense cyclones/hurricanes, but again more rain with those that do occur.

Only when scientists simulated 80 years of increasing CO2 and a tripling of current levels of CO2 could computer models be made to predict an increase in the number and severity of cyclones/hurricanes by 2090.

So, next time a climate change “expert” tells you that global warming is causing an increase in the number and intensity of hurricanes and cyclones, tell them to read the IPCC Report and that for at least the next 75 years, global warming will cause fewer and less intense storms.

Get the IPCC 2007 Global Climate Projections from:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter10.pdf

Apologies for last week's missing blogs

Two weeks ago, all members of the Illuminati, the Denial Industy, The Elders of Zion and the Freemasons were contacted in the middle of the night and whisked away in Black Hawk helicopters to attend the annual Top Level Conspiracy. When I arrived at Bohemian Grove, California, it was looking particularly verdant and lovely for the time of year - but when I discovered that my bunk-mate was Dick Cheney I was, too say the least, little pissed off. Last year I bunked with George Clooney and made a bomb from selling his used socks, undies, toothbrushes etc.

It was a miserable meeting with a lot of backbiting. The 2000 meeting was a jolly singsong in contrast. Back then, both Presidential candidates were members of the Skull & Crossbones society at Yale. Bush simply had a better average in the beer bong contest - Gore new it wasn't his turn and nothing could be done. If he'd just waited his turn until 2008 everything would have been fine.

Now look at the cock-up! We have ExxonMobil and BP-Amoco supporting McCain, Monsanto and GE-Westinghouse supporting Obama. Creatinionst supporting Palin, Catholics supporting Biden. This is exactly what Bohemian Grove is supposed to iron out! At least we can be sure that Nader will run - so all the crackheads and people with alien chips in their brains will be instantly identifiable as they come out of the polling booths (apparently that's the best possible time for abductions and experiments).

Naturally, I have come back from all these TOP LEVEL meetings with instructions on how to cope with all the new data that the Earth is cooling again. For example, the increase in sea ice at the North Pole is a totally expected sign of climate catastrophe; similarly, the minor hurricane Gustaf proves that global warming is on the rise.

Apologies to porphyriacs

Sincere apologies to all those with porphyria of any type: acute intermittent, porphyria cutanea tarda, erythropoietic protoporphyria, delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase deficiency, congenital erythropoietic, hepatoeryrthropoietic, hereditary coproporphyria, variegate or dual.

In a previous post I may, inadvertently, have given the impression that your disease could make you as crazy bonkers as Prince Charles or, indeed, George III.

I wish to make it clear that the madness of Prince Charles is his and his alone and cannot be blamed (entirely) on any metabolic disorder whatever. One would have to have both the peculiar genetics of HRH Chucklehead and his very peculiar upbringing to exhibit any such unique, disturbingly and extraordinary pathology

Please donate to the British Porphyria Association (or other national equivalent) - give whatever money you save by not buying overpriced Duchy Originals organic crap.

Get all the facts about porphyria here.

British Porphyria Association
http://www.porphyria.org.uk/facts.htm

Prince Charles - astute businessman???

For those seriously interested in biotechnology, Andrew Apel has an excellent website – GMObelus. Andrew also puts together the weekly AgBioView newsletter which covers biotech news from all over the world and makes one realise how isolated a backwater Europe is when it comes to agricultural progress.

As Andrew points out, there was almost unanimous disagreement with Prince Charles’ mad outburst against scientists, the modern world and GM crops in particular. But he warns us all not to be complacent; there is still a lot of fighting to be done against the forces of reaction.

I think Andrew gives Prince Chucklehead too much credit when he speculates that the crazy outburst may be part of a PR stunt to herald the entry of Duchy Originals into the Indian market. There was certainly outrage in India that Charles deemed the Green Revolution a failure – hundreds of millions of Indians are alive today because of the agricultural breakthroughs 40 years ago. But, just as in the west, there are also reactionary forces in India – like the ludicrous figure of Vendana Shiva (never knowingly missed a banquet) – who think it is spiritually enriching to starve.

Why on Earth Indian’s would want to buy Duchy Originals organic crap is beyond me – even Sainsbury’s won’t take Charles’ shrivelled, overpriced carrots any more.

From the Independent:

The Prince is entitled to his views - but not his ignorance

It's shocking to hear this millionaire Gloucestershire farmer denounce the 'Green Revolution' in India

- Dominic Lawson, Aug. 15, 2008

There are any number of reasons why someone such as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales should be passionately opposed to genetically modified crops. For a start, his own position - and future one as head of state - is based entirely on genetic purity (formerly known as "royal blood").

One characteristic he might have inherited from his grandfather, King George VI, is a propensity for sudden, almost incoherent, rage. This week, that excellent journalist Jeff Randall gently suggested to the heir to the throne that the future of farming might be with industrial-scale production, rather than the sort of methods he practises. "What?" exploded the Prince. "All run by gigantic corporations? That would be the absolute destruction of everything!" Randall went on to report that "bouncing in his chair", the Prince set out a nightmarish vision in which millions of small farmers "are driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness".

The Prince, predictably, continued his rant by attacking GM technology - although Randall had never raised it - which he said was: "Guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time. Snakes, some of them thousands of miles long, will roam the countryside." Well, I made that last sentence up, but you get the gist: the world as we know it will come to an end if wicked big business is allowed to introduce GM crops on an industrial scale. The main empirical problem for this argument is that GM crops have already been grown for more than a decade across the globe, providing trillions of meals, with no observable malign consequences for humanity or the environment. Quite the reverse, in fact: many types of GM crops have been designed to produce high yield with minimal soil tillage; others require much lower use of pesticide than conventional crops, thus saving vast amounts in agricultural fuel use.

Now that the area covered by GM crops has reached more than 100 million hectares, involving farmers in countries as varied as China, Uruguay, South Africa and Iran, it is possible to assess the truth of the various "Frankenfood" scare stories promulgated by the likes of the Daily Mail (which yesterday was alone in publishing a leading article endorsing every word of the Prince of Wales's outburst).

Such a study has recently been published by the European Commission. This is especially significant because the member countries of the EU have been more nervous about the consequences of GM technology than any other developed nations. The report, ominously titled "Economic Impact of Dominant GM Crops Worldwide", gives the lie to the notion that GM is somehow only designed for large-scale agribusiness. It states that "analyses show that adoption of dominant GM crops and on-farm economic gains have benefited both small and large farmers... Moreover, detailed analyses show that increases in gross margin are comparatively larger for small and lower-income farmers than for larger and higher income farmers." In other words, Prince Charles's notion that such methods will in themselves cause the extinction of small farmers is simply refuted by the experiences of real people in the real world.

Read on at the Independent website:

Buy a hybrid - today!

It must be a sign of getting old and cranky, but Jeremy Clarkson is starting to make sense all of a sudden.

The mad ranting of our next king

With his over-emotional, fact-lite insistence that GM is ‘destroying everything!’, Charles echoes his unfortunate ancestor George III.

No one ever accused Prince Charles of having a good grasp of science or a keen analytical mind. But, even by his standards, his complaints about GM crops last week were quite bizarre.

In an interview with the UK Daily Telegraph (1), the prince blamed scientists and multi-national companies for ‘an experiment with nature which had gone seriously wrong’, for ‘damage being wreaked on the earth’s soil’ and for ‘huge salination problems in Western Australia’.

‘Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?’ he whined. To which the obvious answer is – not because of GM crops, which have only been planted since 1996 and, if anything, global warming has slowed in the last decade. Nor have GM crops ever been planted in Western Australia; the state government has a moratorium on them – to the increasing fury of farmers who hope GM will be part of the solution to their agricultural problems.

Most of Charles’ misinformation seems to come from the Soil Association (2), which campaigns for and certifies organic farming. Though even the Soil Association’s chief propagandist, Patrick Holden, was unable to defend Charles’ position on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. In April 2008, the Soil Association issued a press release (disingenuously called a report) on the ‘latest available research on GM crops’. This ‘report’ contains misquotations, distortions, dishonesty and deceit on a truly heroic scale.

Of 24 references, only nine are actually peer-reviewed studies or reports from scientific bodies. Every peer-reviewed study is misrepresented in the ‘report’ – along the lines of a theatre hoarding that boasts ‘spectacular’ when the reviewer really said ‘this play is spectacularly awful’. The remaining ‘references’ are to newspaper articles, websites or propaganda from other anti-GM pressure groups.

For example, a 2003 study in Science reported that, ‘Field trials carried out with Bacillus thuringiensis [GM] cotton in different states of India show that the technology substantially reduces pest damage and increases yields. The yield gains are much higher than what has been reported for other countries [emphasis added] where genetically modified crops were used mostly to replace and enhance chemical pest control.’ (3) The Soil Association twists that positive conclusion and states that yields have been disappointing in developed countries – because the increases have been much greater in developing countries! It says: ‘A 2003 report published in Science stated that “in the United States and Argentina, average yield effects [of GM crops] are negligible and in some cases even slightly negative” (Qaim and Zilberman, 2003). This was despite the authors being strong supporters of GM crops.’ (4)

Anti-GM vested interests ignore two genuine scientific reviews of the first decade of GM crops – one from the United States Department of Agriculture (5), the other a very detailed international study from a UK economics consultancy (6).

Global Impact of Biotech Crops: Socio-Economic and Environmental Effects, 1996-2006 was published just months ago and exposes every deliberate lie of the opponents of GM.

GM crops are benefiting farmers in developing countries (7) – over half the decade’s cumulative total of £33.8billion additional value has been created on Third World farms by small farmers. GM crops have reduced pesticide use by 286million kg; there has been a 15.4 per cent reduction in environmental impacts and GM crops have reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 14.76billion kg CO2 equivalents in 2006 – equal to taking every car in Britain off the road for a year.

In contrast, new studies of organic farming show just how destructive that out-of-date system can be. Researchers at Boston College grew soybeans by three methods: no-till conservation (no ploughing, drilling of seeds into ground prepared with weed-killer); conventional tillage, and organic farming (8). No-till conservation produced both the highest crop yield (15 per cent more than conventional and 110 per cent more than organic farming) and held the most carbon in the soil (41 per cent more than conventional tillage and 48 per cent more than organic). Sequestration of carbon prevents release of CO2 or methane into the atmosphere – thus limiting global warming. Higher yield and lower environmental impacts are essential for developing countries. These results confirm a Defra Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) report of 2006 (9), which concluded that organic farming caused more GHG emissions, generated more acid rain and released more nitrogen pollution into the environment than conventional farming.

Given the Soil Association’s ‘loose handling’ of scientific evidence it is surprising that Defra quotes its figures as official government statistics on organic food sales in the UK – even when the numbers are clearly invented on the back of an envelope. For 1996, the Soil Association claimed £260million in sales of organic food; for 2006, it claimed sales of £1,937million (10) – both numbers included as fact in Defra publications and press reports.

What an eagle-eyed civil servant or hack would have noticed is that 260 compounded at 25 per cent annual interest for nine years is exactly 1,937! Which is more likely: the organic food-buying public has been as regular as clockwork for 10 years, or the Soil Association publishes dodgy dossiers that are swallowed unquestioned by a gullible government and media?

Those interested can listen to the interview with the prince on the Telegraph’s website (11). As his voice cracks with emotion at ‘they simply will not understand!’ the impression is of impotent rage, self-pity and persecution. Described on BBC radio as ‘verging on the extreme’, the interview reminded me of psychiatric patients who have their delusions challenged – they become confused, aggressive and make wilder and wilder claims to reinforce their delusion (for example, the janitor who believes he is Napoleon will present his in-growing toenail as an injury from Waterloo).

Is it possible that Charles’ state of mind – seemingly irrational, confused, entrenched – has echoes of the beginning of his ancestor King George III’s long illness? George did not manifest psychiatric symptoms until after he turned 50 – Charles is 59. George is thought to have had an unusual form of porphyria (a blood disorder that causes metabolic disturbances) brought on by arsenic prescribed by his doctors. If Charles had a similar genetic predisposition to the disease, it may have been masked for years by a high intake of the anti-oxidant beta-carotene and certain fish oils.

But if his intensive vitamin and supplement regimen were to change suddenly, or if he were to take St John’s Wort (a herbal remedy for anxiety or depression) or alter his drinking habits, his metabolism might, if he is predisposed to this illness, be tipped over into a type of porphyria. Swings in mood and delusions will eventually be followed by a blotchy red face and skin, discoloured urine and a painful abdomen. Sadly, if any of these symptoms were to arise, Charles would probably call a homeopath, meaning the disease would progress to more overt signs of confusion and disturbed behaviour.

If anyone knows a real doctor connected to Buckingham Palace, maybe it’s time to give them a nod in Charles’ direction. Just to be on the safe side

References

(1) Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster, Telegraph, 12 August 2008

(2) New Soil Association report shows GM crops do not yield more – sometimes Less, 14 April 2008

(3) Yield Effects of Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Countries, Science; p299 and p900-902, 7 February 2003

(4) New Soil Association report shows GM crops do not yield more - sometimes less, Soil Association, 14 April 2008

(5) Economic Research Service/USDA: The First Decade of Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States/EIB-11 (pdf)

(6) Global Impact of Biotech Crops: Socio-Economic and Environmental Effects, Brookes and Barfoot, 1996-2006

(7) See concluding comments on p29 in Global Impact of Biotech Crops: Socio-Economic and Environmental Effects, Brookes and Barfoot, 1996-2006

(8) Improved Crop Production And Fewer Greenhouse Gases ScienceDaily, 30 March 2004

(9) Environmental impacts of food production and consumption, Defra 2006 (pdf)

(10) Soil Association helping organic farmers meet demand, 25 January 2008

(11) Jeff Randall interview with Prince Charles, Telegraph, 12 August 2008


reprinted from: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5601/

Landfill

The Ecologist story on Landfill contains all the tired clichés we have come to expect from the nitwit-wing of the green movement. This time represented by Annie Leonard, an American “academic” who has put together a little 20 minute video of such immense banality that you just have to watch it.

With the up-to-the-minute contemporary humour of Karl Marx and the insightful dialectic materialism of Harpo Marx, she explains how capitalism works with the enthusiasm of a drunken sailor, the vocabulary of a Sesame Street character and the rigorous intellectual analysis of a paranoid harpie.

In her video The Story of Stuff she summarizes 300 years of scientific, technological, philosophical, medical and educational progress – into a resource that only the brain dead could get excited over.

Here’s her thesis in a nutshell.

Capitalism is evil. Its aim is to trash the planet as quickly as possible. We have already used up 1/3 of all the world’s resources. [Note – we haven’t even got through 1/3 of the resources in the Earth’s crust, which is only 5% of all the Earth’s resources!]

The USA is, especially trashing foreign countries. Over 80% of the world’s original forests are gone. [Note – 100% of all the world’s original forests were gone 400 million years ago – forests die, fall down, get replaced all the time for millions of years]
This is called Extraction. Once extraction is done, we move to Production: toxic chemicals are used to create toxic products.

Toxins in = toxins out.

They build up in breast milk so babies are getting high doses of toxins. We do not know the impact of these toxins. [Note – except that, for 250 years life expectancy has increased, infant survival has increased, cancer rates (age-standardised) are falling, children are bigger and healthier than their parents.]

To increase production, in poor countries 200,000 people move from the countryside to the city every day, this is bad. [Note – people move because life on farms is very, very hard – life in cities is just very hard. Ask how many living in cities want to go back to the country … none.]

There is a lot more in the same, depressing, ignorant, unimaginative vein.

Eventually, she gets to Planned obsolescence – of mops DVDs, cameras and computers. Strangely, she seems to think your computer needs a new central chip every year, but because the new one is a different shape it won’t fit so you have to buy a new computer(??!!?!whaaaaaa??).

This suggests she has never bought a computer and certainly doesn’t know how one works.

Eventually, she tells you to ask your Grannie whether we were all happier in the 1950s because that’s when studies show maximum satisfaction from life. She thinks its because there was less consumerism then, but surely its more likely because:

Men and women knew their place. Men at work, women in the home cooking and cleaning.

A woman simply must accept a certain amount of domestic violence to maintain a happy home.

If a woman did work outside the home, she must get used to being judged on her looks, being paid less than men, and having sexual innuendoes thrown at her every day.

Blacks also knew their place – at the back of the bus, separate schools, separate toilets, separate lunchrooms, different hotels, no voting rights.

Jews knew their place too – not in country clubs, not in certain neighbourhoods, not in some companies.

This is the dreamy wonderland to which the anti-globalisation-brigade wants us to return. Interesting that the leader of this movement in the US is a “feminist academic” and in the UK The Ecologist is owned by a family of far-right politicians.

DUMB ECOLOGIST: Bees, Landfill, Gandhi-Greens

This week please panic about: Bees, Landfill, Gandhi-Greens or Techno-Greens

No Ecologist newsletter for two weeks - but finally, they've made up for it with an edition of spectacular inanity.

First topic - where are all the bees going? Apparently bees are dying off all over the world. Naturally, the Ecologist's nitwit correspondent blames GM crops and EM radiation; even though bees are disappearing where GM crops have never been grown and the EM radiation emitted by the Sun is millions of times greater than that from your iPod.

Imagine the conversation deep in the bowels of the Ecologist:

"Zac, where are the bees?"

"I had one of my maidservants take them away for cleaning."

"What? All the bees in the world?"

"No silly, the B's on your keyboards. My psychic said 'There will B trouble at the office this week.' So I had them removed as a precaution."

"We believe in the Precautionary Principle." Say all staff in hushed tones.

"No Zac, I mean where are the buzzy bees that flit from flower to flower to pollinate the fruit and vegetables?"

"Ah ... you should have said. That smacks of interference with the natural order. Who are these bees to be picking up pollen from pistels willy-nilly and shoving it down the stamens of unrelated species. It's genetical modificational gone mad!"

"Bees are all employed by Monsanto," quoth Melchett, the loyal Fool as he pranced atop the spring-water-cooler. Hey Zac, how much subsidy did you get for your farm this year?"

"Over £5,000 ... that will make a nice little bet when I go to the casino tonight."

"Ha ha, Ya Boo, I got more than youhoo - they gave me £55,000."

Zac was not amused (he rarely is - £10 prize for a photo of him smiling - not counting when he emerges from his mistress's house). He picked up a fly-swat and whacked Melchett unconscious.