statism watch

Stephen Glover, Daily Mail
October 16, 2008

We live at a time when many of the certainties taken for granted by our parents and grandparents are being destroyed under our very eyes.

Even in the socialist Seventies, no one imagined the Government could control not one, not two, but three High Street banks. Our forefathers also believed, with some justification, that Britain was the freest country in the world.

Unlike some Continental nations, let alone those in the Soviet Bloc, we did not have a large state apparatus spying on people’s private activities.

However, since 1997 New Labour has progressively undermined this assumption.

We have more CCTV cameras than any other country in the world. Our DNA database, which comprises four million people, many of whom have committed no crime at all, is also bigger than that of any other country. Identity cards are in the pipeline.

Even so, I am dumbfounded by proposals unveiled by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, in a speech yesterday.

The Government is considering creating one vast database which will contain details of every single e-mail and telephone call, mobile or otherwise, made in the United Kingdom.

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David Harris, in the article below, says “How on earth anyone could declare this was not terrorism at this early stage is beyond me.”

Early stages are precisely the time one avoids running off at the mouth before you have all the facts.

CSIS media reports are already painting native people as terrorists, especially in the runup to the Olympics. Who will get fingered for this? Greens? The nearby Metis community?

Perhaps a ‘private security expert’ should remain that and refrain from shouting wolf, lest someone suspect he – a regular talking head on the ‘dangers of immigration’ and his company – Insignis Strategic Research, a beneficiary of numerous government contracts – might stand to benefit from an atmosphere of increased fear.

CBC News
October 16, 2008

Former CSIS strategist David Harris says a weekend explosion near the town of Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. fits the description of terrorism, despite police statements to the contrary.

Sometime overnight Saturday, someone detonated a large explosion next to the sour gas pipeline about 50 kilometres from the B.C.-Alberta border.

The blast did not rupture the pipeline but blew a 1.8-metre crater in the ground, which was discovered by a hunter on Sunday. [Ed. Note - This is 'large'? Look at the picture]

“How on earth anyone could declare this was not terrorism at this early stage is beyond me. Terrorism is associated with an attempt by threat or actual violence … to change policy,” said Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and now a private security expert.

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BBC News
October 16, 2008

CHRIS MORRIS, DELHI, INDIA

Ordinary Indians are facing significantly increased hardship because of the rise in the cost of food. The rate of price increases seems to have slowed, but many basic foodstuffs like rice and lentils are far more expensive than they were a year ago.

‘Alarming’ hunger in Indian states

And that means people on or below the borderline – hundreds of millions of people – are struggling to make ends meet.In the most extreme cases, severe malnutrition is a life-threatening condition. There are about eight million children under the age of five in India who are in urgent need of therapeutic feeding and nutritional treatment.

But there are also tens of millions of children who suffer from chronic malnutrition which may not be immediately visible. They are deprived of many of the nutrients they need to lead healthy productive lives.

In India, the rise in the cost of food has not created a crisis, it has simply made a bad situation worse.

Rising inflation has received considerable attention in the Indian media, but the recent focus has been on the global financial turmoil, and its impact on Indian markets.

That is of little immediate relevance, though, to the vast majority of people in this country. What matters is the price of vegetables, the price of flour, and whether there is any work to be had to buy the food they need.

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