Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

Wrong terminology. "From one sector of NATO's war on Russia to another."

[Mick Harper]

The International Criminal Court at the Hague does some useful work and gets acres of publicity when it weighs off some elderly git for past misdeeds but it would be much more useful if it turned its attention not to past war crimes but to present financial ones.

Al-Jazeera is currently regaling us with how billions (that's no exaggeration) are getting creamed off by the crooks governing South Africa and Zimbabwe and into the gold entrepôts of Dubai. I have no idea whether any or all of these states recognise the Court but that shouldn't stop it having a good go. Or maybe international jurists like unending grinding poverty in gold-rich southern Africa.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

An important development in British politics today. Marina Hyde has been taking the thunderous piss out of Labour in her Guardian column. And where Marina leads, the rest of the liberal commentariat follow. This is all quite normal when there's a Labour government but doing it under the Tory jackboot means only one thing

[Mick Harper]

It is not often that the title of 'worst country in the world' gets competed for in my head but a casual listen to Radio 4's History Hour introduced me to Eritrea. Even granted the appalling role played by outsiders from Ethiopia to the USA -- the Russians even proposed it be handed back to the former colonial power, Italy, in the 1950's because they thought the Italian communists would take over Italy -- Eritrea is a very, very nasty place.

The History Hour concentrated on, of all things, conscription because conscripts, both men and women, are expected to serve for life, either guarding the frontiers or just working (for subsistence pay) doing whatever the state tells them to do. It's kind of like Stalinist communism minus the ideology. The bloke that led the thirty year war of independence against Ethiopia which had decided, in 1962, Eritrea was part of Ethiopia, is still in power so, I suppose, their best last hope is that he will die of old age soon.

But if I know my Africa, things can only get worse when he does. I think the Russians had a point.

[Mick Harper]

I finally got round to reading the Manchester Guardian Special Issue 'Cotton Capital' -- I'm a pushover for economic history. But it was entirely about slavery and black people so, after checking whether there was anything about the black players of United and City (there wasn't), I regretfully laid it aside. But not before I had read the opening para

[Mick Harper]

There was a disturbing Newsnight piece on the cyberwar being undertaken between Ukraine and Russia with -- but of course -- all the plaudits going to Ukraine. However, the West shouldn't get too gung-ho about it because we've got an awfully lot more to lose than anyone else on the cyber-battlefield. It all started when the Americans developed Slugworm (was it?) to interfere with Iranian uranium refining and were mightily surprised when the Iranians turned it back on them to start interfering with their power grids, airports and what have you.

Nor is it the imbalance of potential targets that is the only worry, the 'other side' (as an AE-ist, I shouldn't have one) have a huge advantage in terms of computer experts. True, we've got more and better ones than they have but theirs have official resources and facilities to back them up. Ours are constantly handicapped by "Are you going to be on that computer all night? You've got school in the morning."

[Mick Harper]

Brazil's new lefty president is in China to conflab with their old (left/right/who can tell?) president. This is all part of BRICS (originally Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) an attempt by various countries to counterweight perceived western dominance. We can all get behind that in a let-a-hundred-flowers-bloom sort of way. But Ukraine keeps on being the spectre at the intended feast.

Poor old presidents Lula and Xi are perfectly aware they have no business doing other than condemning one country invading another country for no overwhelmingly good reason but they are also perfectly aware that if they do, BRICS will collapse before it has left the drawing board. So Lulu has joined Pong in calling for negotiations. Next!

[Mick Harper]

So they won't be joining any great sanctions-on-Russia programme. Nor should they. Let us observe what has happened so far:

1. The entire world has been plunged into instability because Russian energy and agricultural products have been either withheld or diverted, meaning sky high prices for both
2. Europe has been especially affected because of its proximity to and reliance on Russian energy and agricultural products, meaning reluctance by various parties to prosecute the war vigorously
3. Sky high prices in their two major export sectors means Russia has benefited substantially because of sanctions

Consider what would have happened if no sanctions had been applied.

1. The entire world would have breezed along, free to oppose Russia (or not) to their heart's content
2. Europe would have breezed along, free to oppose Russia tooth and claw
3. Russia would have been slightly worse off and not able to galvanise its population quite so readily because those dastardly westerners were making their lives a misery

Does this mean, when a similar situation arises in the future, anyone will say, "Yes, I know it feels bad not doing everything in our power to hurt the bastards but let's think about it just for a few moments before we rush headlong into it"? What do you think?

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

All of this may be true. The point I am making is that sanctions have hurt the sanctioners way more than the sanctionee. The other point (that I didn't make) is that there is no sign that the sanctions will achieve or are likely to achieve their purpose i.e. bringing Russia to the negotiation table. If they didn't achieve their purpose anyway, what was the point of imposing them? Just for the sake of it, I reckon.

[Mick Harper]

It was depressing watching German Greens celebrating the announcement that the last of their nuclear power stations are being phased out ahead of time. There are lots of arguments that can be made, for and against, when it comes to building new nuclear plants but there is not a single viable (Green) argument about closing down existing ones. And definitely not German ones where safety and waste disposal is toppo notcho.

It is not disputed that nuclear is the best option for carbon-free base-load electricity generation so getting rid of ones that are already there, bought and paid for, is completely stoopid. But Germany has been exceptionally dumb about the whole question ever since Angelica Markel started closing them down in the wake of Fukushima. Get a lot of tsunamis round your way, do you, pet?

The Brits are building new ones. The two biggies are, as per, over budget and never-finished but the new mini-ones will get planning approval as soon as we can find a cluster of non-Nimbies outside Cumberland. Though why we can't build them all up there I don't know. (Grid overload problems?) But mini-nuke farms, that's the way to go. Offshore nuke farms even. Off-planet nuke farms if we can solve the grid problems.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]