Blue Crab Boulevard

On a number of occasions, I have pointed out that the elitists who are pushing the biggest "environmentalist" agendas like global warming have no intention of living with the limits they plan on imposing on the less-than-elite. The phrase I use for that is that they will wave from the limousine as they pass the shivering masses. I expect a rousing chorus of "told ya so."

Ministers are using a secret limousine service to ferry them around the country, a Mail on Sunday investigation has discovered.

Senior Labour figures are quietly using £60,000 gas-guzzlers to whisk them around in comfort – despite claims that politicians have switched to smaller, cheaper models that are less damaging to the environment.

Among the prominent politicians using the secret luxury car service is the Speaker Michael Martin and his wife Mary, who travel regularly in top-ofthe- range Mercedes and Jaguars.

This newspaper has established that a fleet of expensive cars operates discreetly from South London, away from the Westminster base of the official Government Car Service.

Kelly Executive earns £500,000 a year carrying out up to 50 journeys a day for politicians, including the Speaker, from its fleet of 30 chauffeur-driven limos.

The Government also uses a number of similar private companies in other cities. Ministers and Labour MPs such as Mr Martin frequently use the firms to pick them up from the airport and take them home.

Significantly, none of the limousines appears on the public list of cars in the official Government car pool, which handles the transport arrangements for Ministers and civil servants.

Last year the Government announced it had spent £900,000 buying 110 hybrid-engined cars for the Government Car and Despatch Agency to cut down on carbon-dioxide emissions, to show voters that it was doing its bit to save the planet.

However, it is an open secret that many Ministers do not like the Toyota Prius – of which 98 were bought.

It has been nicknamed "the milk float" by Government drivers who say the car is slow and has a "tinny rattle".

Ministers privately complain that they miss the comfort of the executive cars that the Prius replaced.

Kelly Executive has 20 S-class Mercedes, which emit up to 355g of CO2 per kilometre – well above the 226g level at which London Mayor Ken Livingstone has levied a new environment-driven congestion charge of £25 a day.

The Speaker uses Kelly Executive in London, but when travelling to his constituency home in Glasgow he favours local company Little's Chauffeur Drive, which boasts of "utmost discretion and an impeccable chauffeuring service" used by "the world's most important people". 

Yes, indeed. They will tout their carbon-neutrality while riding in the finest - and least eco-friendly - cars. No worries. They'll wave if you can see them through the blackout windows. Meanwhile, in other "eco-friendly" news, the Telegraph points out that "fair trade" coffee is anything but.

“Fairtrade purports to work within the market economy but its rise has been largely based on marketing subsidies and public-sector procurement,” says Tom Clougherty, policy director of the Adam Smith Institute. Despite huge pressures on the public purse, local councils are squandering large sums becoming Fairtrade towns and cities, distributing posters and leaflets to nanny people into only buying Fairtrade. Meanwhile, the Fairtrade Foundation has received over £1.5m from the Department for International Development. It wants more. In December, reminiscent of 1970s-style industrial policy, it called for £50m of development aid to be spent as “strategic investment” on Fairtrade.

Monday sees the start of Fairtrade Fortnight, the time each year when we are hectored into paying more for a cup of coffee. Charities, politicians and primary school teachers will deliver the scheme as an undisputed good. With all this effort, it is a pity Fairtrade does not work.

Fairtrade’s supporters blame the plight of coffee farmers on world prices and ruthless multinational companies. But supporters ignore the real causes of poverty among growers. Farmers I interviewed in Kenya told me that the problems they face are not caused by global influences but their own government’s interference. They are forced to use milling companies granted regional monopolies, who fleece them. They want to boost productivity by using fertiliser, but they cannot afford the inflated prices demanded by the government fertiliser monopoly. Imported tools and machinery would transform their output but are subject to punitive tariffs. Police roadblocks slow their goods and involve money exchanging hands.

On top of that, the growers selling to fair trade programs are also selling on the free market. The free market pays premium for high quality so the best beans are sent to the free market. The leftovers are sent to the "fair trade" market to garner the guaranteed higher-than-market value prices.

It has never been easier - or more lucrative - to rape the planet. 

No, it is not John McCain's campaign. It is the San Francisco Chronicle of all media outlets. They blast the Times for it's report on McCain, calling it nothing more than gossip - and a discredit to the profession of journalism. 

The fact that some of McCain's advisers were "convinced the relationship had become romantic" in 2000 is not the same as them having evidence of infidelity. It is a suspicion, otherwise known as gossip. If these anonymous sources did have persuasive evidence of such misconduct, they either failed to provide it to the newspaper - or the newspaper declined to offer it to its readers.

Allegations that senior campaign advisers were so concerned about the McCain-Iseman relationship that they "took steps to intervene" - a top aide said he met with her in Washington - were wrapped into a 3,000-word, textured piece about McCain's quasi-cozy interactions with various special interests. Much of it centered on his solicitations of donations from companies that lobbied his Senate Commerce Committee. Iseman represented telecommunications companies that had a huge stake in the committee's decisions.

But Times editors had to know that the suggestion McCain was having an intimate affair with a woman who was lobbying him was far and away the most serious and sensational allegation in the story. The posting of the story on the Times Web site instantly caused a crawl-line explosion on cable news Wednesday night. Both McCain and the Republican Party seized their moment of indignation to blast out fundraising pitches. "We'll never match the reach of a front-page New York Times article, but with your immediate help today, we'll be able to respond and defend our nominee from the liberal attack machine," the McCain campaign said in its e-mail solicitation to donors.

Regrettably, the Times left itself and our profession open to such allegations of bias by publishing soft-focus evidence of what would be an outrageous breach of public trust.

Pretty strong stuff from an unexpected source. The Times slime job is rapidly unraveling with a report that the former head of lobbying for Paxson denying any meetings and casting doubt on reports that the former CEO of that company ever did, either.

WASHINGTON - A former Paxson Communications president said Saturday he never met with John McCain about the Arizona senator writing letters to the Federal Communications Commission regarding the regulatory delay of a Pittsburgh TV station sale.

Dean Goodman, who was in charge of the company's lobbying efforts in 1999, told The Associated Press he also doubts that chief executive Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson met with McCain over the issue, and said he doesn't recall such a meeting.

McCain's presidential campaign said the Arizona senator and then-chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, before sending the letters, which have drawn controversy in recent days. But Paxson told The Washington Post in a story published Saturday that he and "probably" Iseman met with McCain on the matter several weeks before the senator sent the letters.

Goodman, who left the company a year and a half ago, took issue with that account in a telephone interview from West Palm Beach, Fla.

"I never met with or discussed this with Senator McCain," Goodman said. "I don't recall Bud meeting with McCain. It would be extremely rare that there would be a meeting that I didn't attend, and I can tell you that I didn't have a meeting with McCain on this issue."

"Whether Bud discussed it with him or not, via some other mechanism, I can't rule it out," Goodman added. But, he said, "I don't think there was a meeting."

This is a classic, innuendo-driven hit job by the Times. The paper is rapidly descending into irrelevance. Even fellow journalists are appalled by the Times behavior. That should tell you a lot.

Due to complaints - well OK, due to one complaint - about the Jacuba spell checker, I have turned it off and activated IeSpell instead. You can only use that with Microsoft Internet Explorer and will have to install a plugin to use it if you don't already use it. It will not run in Firefox, but that is immaterial, Firefox has integral spell check. I was also having problems with Jacuba. It would run in the comments section but would hang in my post editor. It finally got on my very last nerve and is now history.

It has been quiet here today because I had a class to attend all day. I'm just getting back up to speed on the day's events.

Four Cuban dissidents freed from prison reportedly through the intervention of the Spanish government, are telling of their brutal treatment at th hands of their jailers.

Four dissidents freed this week after five years in inhumane conditions in a Cuban prison have revealed the dark side of Fidel Castro’s regime.

The four - José Gabriel Ramón Castillo, Omar Pernet Hernández, Alejandro González and Pedro Pablo Álvarez - described regular beatings, humiliation and arbitrary punishment with long periods of solitary confinement in cramped cells with cement beds.
 
They said they were deprived of food and water in conditions which resembled "a desert".

Arriving in Spain to be reunited with their families, they exposed the routine abuse of political prisoners which marked Castro’s five decades in power.

The four were part of a group of 75 dissidents who were jailed in 2003 by Castro’s regime in a move which caused an international outcry. The official reason given for their release was "health reasons".

But behind the scenes pressure from the Spanish Government on Havana is believed to have been the key to setting free the long-term opposition activists, who all have relatives in Spain.

Mr Castillo, 50, a journalist who wrote articles critical of the regime, told The Sunday Telegraph: "It was terrible. It was like being in a desert in which sometimes there is no water, there is no food, you are tortured and you are abused.

"This was not torture in the textbook way with electric prods, but it was cruel and degrading. They would beat you for no reason even when you were in hospital.

"At other times they would search you for no reason, stripping you bare and humiliating you. There was one particular commander at a jail in Santa Clara who seemed to take delight in handing out beatings to the prisoners."

Mr Castillo, who claims he was denied proper medical aid for diabetes and heart problems, added: "We are nothing more than a reflection of the human cost of the fight being waged by the Cuban people."

While the dissidents tasted freedom, 58 of the original 75 jailed for long terms in 2003 are still behind bars.

Yet Barack Obama is willing to meet with the Cubans without conditions. Say, Senator, would you have the courage to meet with some of Fidel's victims first and listen to their stories?

Maybe you should. We won't hold our breaths waiting, though. A blue complexion is so unflattering.

Mark Steyn thinks the Hillary Clinton campaign is just about over - and he writes on the reasons why it is.

Bill Clinton understood a crude rule of show business – that, if you behave like a star, there are plenty of people who'll treat you like one. The apotheosis of this theory was his interminable ambulatory entrance down mile after mile of corridor at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, when Slick Willie finally out-Elvised Elvis – or, more accurately, out-Smarted the opening sequence of "Get Smart."

Apparently, no one had thought to tell him to try to get within four miles of the stage before the introductory video ended. He was, by my calculations, outside the men's room on Corridor G27, Sub-Basement Level 6 of the Staples Center. As he began the long, long, lo-oo-oo-oong televised walk to the podium the crowd watching the monitors cheered – and, 20 minutes later, after he'd strolled down the first three or four windowless tunnels of attractive luminous drywall, hung a left by the water cooler, taken the emergency stairs, cut across the stationery closet, moved smoothly through the boiler room and had still only reached the Coke machine on Sous-Mezzanine Level 4, and there was at least a mile and a half between him and the stage, and the Democratic activists out in the hall were beginning to figure they could get dinner and a movie and still be back in time for the last third of his walk-on, they were nevertheless still cheering.

In effect, President Clinton dared them not to cheer. Tom Jones wouldn't have risked it. Engelbert Humperdinck would have balked. But, after eight years of talking the talk, Bill walked the walk. In the hall, the delegates' hands were raw, bleeding stumps, but the Slickster knew that, even if he started his entrance in Idaho, those Dems would cheer him every step of the way.

The Clintons turned the Democratic Party into a star vehicle and designated everyone else as extras. But their star quality was strictly comparative. They had industrial-strength audacity and a lot of luck: Bill jumped into the 1992 race when A-listers like Mario Cuomo were too cowed by expert advice that Bush the Elder was unbeatable. Clinton gambled, won the nomination and beat a weak opponent in a three-way race, with Ross Perot siphoning votes from the right. He got even luckier four years later. So did Hillary when she embarked on something patently absurd – a first lady running for a Senate seat in a state she's never lived in – only to find Rudy Giuliani going into instant public meltdown.

The SAS, Britain's special forces, have a motto: Who dares wins. The Clintons dared, and they won – even as almost everyone else in their party lost: senators, congressmen, governors, state legislators. Even when they ran into a spot of intern trouble, sheer nerve saw them through. Almost anyone else would have slunk off in shame, but the Clintons understood that the checks and balances don't add up to much if you're determined not to go: As at that 2000 convention speech, they dared the Democrats not to cheer.

Now, however, the Clintons find their old niche filled by a usurper. There's a new messiah on the block, so to speak. And so the long, twisted narrative of the Clintons is drawing to a close. Oh, personally I don't think Hillary is quite finished yet. She'll be back at some point. The Clintons have been declared politically dead many times in the past and have always come back - it's sort of like a B-grade zombie flick. At some point, they'll reanimate.

Longtime readers here will find nothing new in this article from Bloomberg. I have written many times about the wasteful fraud of ethanol. It diverts much needed food, causing food prices to skyrocket. It is a grossly inefficient fuel that is actually worse for the planet than the alternative. And it is making big agriculture interests gobs of unneeded cash. 

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) — U.S. plans to replace 15 percent of gasoline consumption with crop-based fuels including ethanol are already leading to some unintended consequences as food prices and fertilizer costs increase.

About 33 percent of U.S. corn will be used for fuel during the next decade, up from 11 percent in 2002, the Agriculture Department estimates. Corn rose 20 percent to a record on the Chicago Board of Trade since Dec. 19, the day President George W. Bush signed a law requiring a fivefold jump in renewable fuels by 2022.

Increased demand for the grain helped boost food prices by 4.9 percent last year, the most since 1990, and will reduce global inventories of corn to the lowest in 24 years, government data show. While advocates say ethanol is cleaner than gasoline, a Princeton University study this month said it causes more environmental harm than fossil fuels.

“We are mandating and subsidizing something that is distorting the marketplace,'' said Cal Dooley, a former U.S. congressman from California, who represents companies including Kraft Foods Inc. and General Mills Inc. as president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association in Washington. “There are no excess commodities, and prices are rising.''

The energy bill requires the U.S. to use 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, of which about 15 billion gallons may come from corn-based ethanol. The nation's current production capacity is about 8.06 billion gallons. 

Mind you, the industry lobbyists are very, very bullish on ethanol - so much so that they are touting "and then a miracle happens" as the next solution. Despite the environmental damage already being done:

 Researchers led by Timothy Searchinger at Princeton University said their study showed greenhouse-gas emissions will rise with ethanol demand. U.S. farmers will use more land for fuel, forcing poorer countries to cut down rainforests and use other undeveloped land for farms, the study said.

Searchinger's team determined that corn-based ethanol almost doubles greenhouse-gas output over 30 years when considering land-use changes. Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington, said the study used a flawed model and overestimated how much land will be needed.

Ethanol is important in reducing emissions, ending energy dependence on the Middle East and creating jobs in rural areas, Dinneen said today at the USDA conference.

“There are still some who want us to choose between food and fuel,'' said Dinneen, whose organization represents ethanol producers including Archer Daniels Midland Co. “I don't think we have to choose.'' Research shows cellulosic ethanol made from grasses and crop waste may contribute 21 billion gallons by 2022, and farmers will be able to boost yields, he said.

Pigs may get wings and fly about fanning us with gentle breezes, too. It is not exactly a great idea to base policy on what may happen. What we already know is that ethanol is a bad bargain that is having real, immediate  consequences that we will all pay for. 

Let's see. Inflation at the highest rate in the entire hemisphere, severe food shortages leading to food riots, crime increasing exponentially, popularity polls heading into the tank. What to do? Well, that's simple!

Dig up a long dead guy to prove one's lunatic theories.

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez begins his 10th year in office with inflation in Venezuela the highest in Latin America, food shortages prompting rioting, crime growing and the populist leader's own popularity sliding.

But among Chávez's new priorities is proving that Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century hero who is the inspiration for his movement, was slain by corrupt oligarchs and did not succumb to tuberculosis. Historians from Caracas to London agree that the great liberator died in his bed in Santa Marta, Colombia, fevered, sick and broken, on Dec. 17, 1830.

Now, as Venezuela's official Gazette recorded on Jan. 28, Ch¿vez has convened a high commission, led by his vice president and composed of nine cabinet ministers and the attorney general. Their job is to exhume Bol¿var's remains, which lie in a sarcophagus at the National Pantheon in downtown Caracas, and carry out the necessary scientific tests to confirm Chávez's contention — that treacherous assassins murdered Bol¿var.

"This commission has been created because the executive considers it to be of great historical and cultural value to clarify important doubts regarding the death of the Liberator," the Venezuela's official Gazette said.

The president's latest focus on Bolívar, the Caracas-born aristocrat whose rebel armies freed from Spanish rule what would become six Latin American countries, is understandable. Bolívar is so revered by Chávez that he calls his transformation of Venezuela a Bol¿varian Revolution, has renamed the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and has reportedly left a chair empty at meetings to honor "the Liberator."

Chávez's version of Bolívar also fits the president's ideology. Bolívar, Chávez said, was a socialist like himself, stridently opposed to the United States and determined to build a classless society. And because Bol¿var's dream of uniting Latin America would have been a blow to oligarchs and imperialists, Ch¿vez said, the corrupt high classes in Bogota and Caracas conspired to kill him.  

You go, Hugo! Mind you, most of the people interviewed for the story do think Hugo has, indeed, gone. Right around the bend:

In Venezuela, though, even some of Chávez's most ardent followers say he may be taking an obsession with Bolívar too far.

"This doesn't make any sense," said Alberto Mueller Rojas, a retired general who serves as an adviser to the president on international affairs and military matters. "Why should I care? Bol¿var died. If they killed him, they killed him. If he died of tuberculosis, he died of tuberculosis. In this day and age, this doesn't have any significance." 

Gee, if his supporters are saying that, what do you suppose his critics think? (You can go over and read the rest to find out.) Obviously, Chavez is thrashing right now and, like a man caught in quicksand, is sinking faster as a result. His country is rapidly descending into chaos, yet this is one of his top priorities. Have some more coca, Hugo. The results from the last dose are amusing.

At the latest Democratic debate, Barack Obama was happy to announce that he would meet with Raul Castro "without preconditions " just as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. Hillary Clinton showed at least some understanding about what Cuba is under the communist dictatorship Raul inherited from his better known brother Fidel and pledged she would only meet if things were shown to be changing. 

Obama fails to understand what exactly life is like for those who have dissented with the "fatherly" Fidel and his regime. There are those who would rather that Fidel Castro, who, in the words of Fidel's trained media seals "has managed to transcend political life to insert himself as an intimate in the family life of the overwhelming majority of Cubans," really had not done so. And they see no chance that things will improve under Raul.

HAVANA — I imagine that the outside world sees the latest developments in Cuba quite differently from what we are shown here. Reacting to the message this week from "El comandante en jefe," Fidel Castro, that he is stepping down, Lazaro Barredo, editor in chief of the Communist Party newspaper Granma wrote approvingly the next day that "Fidel has managed to transcend political life to insert himself as an intimate in the family life of the overwhelming majority of Cubans."

In my family this insertion was a very painful one. In March 2003, a group of police officers invaded our home and began a 15-hour search of our small apartment. They took away my husband, Omar Rodr¿guez Saludes, a journalist who dreamed about a prosperous Cuba and wanted our fellow citizens to be happy. Omar was sentenced to 27 years in prison for "acts against the independence and the territorial integrity of the country." In reality, this was for writing articles and taking photos and publishing them in one of the few samizdats that saw the light of day on our island, called — fittingly — "De Cuba." The indictment notes tools of his supposed crimes that were confiscated from him: a tape recorder, a microphone, a cable, a battery charger.

My husband, the other 73 men and the one woman detained in this roundup were all declared prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International. I have no doubts on whose orders this act of repression was carried out, so I do not view the announcement from El Comandante objectively.

Obama would meet with the successor to the man who jailed Ileana Marrero's husband and hundreds of others "without preconditions." He would not even insist that those political prisoners be freed before meeting. He would lend the power and prestige of the American presidency to a totalitarian regime and to its new, hereditary ruler.

Clinton at least had a somewhat better take on it. John McCain had an even better one. He hopes Fidel Castro gets to meet someone soon: Karl Marx.

Politically incorrect? Why not ask Ileana Marrero? Or better yet, ask her husband, Omar. Oh, that's right, you can't. He's rotting in Cuba's Toledo Prison in a filthy cell.