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Reuters:

Britain’s military commanders were considering on Friday whether to withdraw Prince Harry from Afghanistan after Internet leaks he had been secretly serving as a combat soldier on front lines for 2-1/2 months.

The leaks have raised concern that Harry could now become what officials term a high-value target for al Qaeda and other Islamist militants.

Harry, 23, was deployed to fight against the Taliban in the southern Afghan region of Helmand in December, seven months after plans to send him to Iraq were scrapped following threats from Iraqi militants to kidnap or kill him.

The military posted him only after the British media and selected members of the international press agreed not to report his “presence until he had returned from a scheduled 4-6 month deployment. The embargo was broken on Thursday when German, Australian and U.S. Web sites reported he was in Afghanistan.

The breaking of the embargo, a rare agreement in Britain’s usually free-for-all media environment, infuriated the military…

Actually, it was “broken” by one web site in particular. But first, speaking only for myself of course, I have to say that the Prince serving in Afghanistan isn’t much of a “scoop”. If you think about it, one probably suspected something was going on, given that the Prince’s unit was reported some weeks ago as due to deploy to Afghanistan, and the Prince himself had fallen out of public view of late.

However, perhaps sensing something in the back of your mind is very different from having it splashed all over everything in an untimely manner, allowing an enemy perhaps to profit from what is revealed. This story is stated in today’s Independent as having been sourced originally at an Australian women’s magazine, New Idea. Curiously, a visit to that august publication leads one to no such story currently, but a search under “Prince Harry” does turn up this:

Interestingly, the link for that number 3 now goes not to a February 14 story by that title, but to his basic biography. How long that has been the case is unclear, but given that Taliban fighters don’t seem New Idea’s target audience. . .

. . . if some of them did happen to stumble on it, they would hardly be viewing it as a quality source for British military intelligence anyway.

Drudge is different, because CNN — and then Al Jazeera — follows. What is clear is that the “breaking” of this story globally two weeks later by Mr Drudge (the web site considered responsible) demonstrates what is an essential difference between true journalism and that which definitely isn’t: there is no need for me, as a news customer, to know this story . . . now.

It could have waited. Real journalists knew that. But non-journalism possesses no sense of responsibility when somehow finding itself in possession of vital — even life v. death — “insider information”; it cares about nothing other than eyeballs in front of screens. New Idea included. (But it would hardly be surprising also, given its remote location and general topic matter, that New Idea might not have even known of the pool blackout arrangement. Which may be another reason the Prince’s story has at some time since web publication evidently been hastily pulled down.)

The Telegraph’s Toby Harnden also tells us:

…This week, he posted a photograph of Barack Obama dressed in the tribal garb of a Somali elder during a 2006 trip to Africa…

…Just as he revealed details of Bill Clinton’s tawdry affair with Miss Lewinsky while “Newsweek” editors agonised over whether to publish the story, Drudge posted the news of Prince Harry’s front-line service against the Taliban on-line without regard to any niceties. Within an hour, Buckingham Palace had lifted the embargo and Prince Harry was the lead item on CNN…

Posting a photo of Sen Obama in Somali dress, or passing on the tale of President Clinton and Ms Lewinsky’s, uh, dress, are vastly different informational matters than meddling inside the realm of military professionalism, and security in a combat zone. Yet Mr Harnden’s Telegraph piece on Mr Drudge possesses this ridiculous headline:

Matt Drudge: world’s most powerful journalist

That’s insulting to journalists — of whom we suspect Mr Harnden considers himself one — because, no, Mr Drudge is not; because he’s not a journalist. Indeed, if one proclaims there is no difference now between “true journalism” and “new media”, well, we’ve just seen a major one courtesy of this episode: “journalism” isn’t about merely passing on information (anyone can gossip, as New Idea also shows us), but appreciating how to do so. Now, as a result of that non-journalist’s loose mouth, serving soldiers may today be in much greater danger than yesterday.

Similarly, back in late May 1944, while most sensed it was coming, the enemy didn’t know for certain when, or exactly where the blow would land. However, had Mr Drudge somehow gotten wind of specifics in advance, there is not the slightest reason to believe he would not have “without regard to any niceties” posted what true journalists (”At 9.06 on the dull grey morning of 6 June 1944, I landed in Hitler’s Europe…”) entrusted with the news to come then had been keeping quiet until it was safe to report. On June 5, he’d have also graffittied the coming of D-Day on his “web site”.

…Matt Drudge owns a luxurious Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island in Florida’s Biscayne Bay…

Yes, Biscayne Bay is a beautiful and a safe place. Especially compared to Helmand province. What an informational hero Mr Drudge is.

Anyone who thinks to want to pass him information regarding anything truly important, ought first seriously to consider ALL of the above.

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That doesn’t mean that some journalists do not — even now — try, uh, still to remain responsible. The BBC notes:

Many of the papers are making up for lost time after weeks of sitting on a story they were bursting to tell…

…Only the Independent and the Morning Star have no mention at all of Harry on their front pages…

As to the former, that would be about what one would expect.

[NOTE: I have made a few changes to the initial post, mostly regarding New Idea magazine.]

UPDATE: The BBC reports:

Harry withdrawn from Afghanistan

The Telegraph breaks down who seems to have said what first.

Also, it was as might have been suspected. The Guardian:

…Today New Idea pleaded ignorance of knowingly breaking the embargo. It simply wasn’t aware of its existence, explaining in a statement: “The story was published on Monday, January 7. Since then New Idea has received no comment from the British Ministry of Defence. We take these matters very seriously and would never knowingly break an embargo. We regret any issues the revelation of this story in America has caused today.”…

…the point is that the Australian and German reports [which followed on from New Idea's] did not stampede the British media into action. Why then did Drudge make a difference? I guess because he is more widely read…

Sometimes, there’s just no putting one over on some in major media. A small celeb-centered publication in Australia prints a story or two even few outside of the “blackout” much notice, and then another more one credible follows, and then it appears in a German-language publication . . .

. . . and then Drudge sees it (but does he speak German?), and plasters it on his front page. With his publication, naturally, all heck breaks out because he is far more widely read, and is also outside of the “British blackout” area.

But something also leads one to suspect that of course “scooper” Mr Drudge would have known there was a “British blackout”. (There’s always seemingly a “British blackout” of such matters.) However, as is his wont, he likely chose to ignore it, and so look like he got the big “scoop” on the story . . . no one else dared report. [Oooooooh.]

Just before sending in photos to renew a passport, a member of the wife’s family had received the following info sheet in the mail. The moment I saw it, I knew it had to be scanned. Why? Look at it carefully:

It is no secret that today there are more ways to be “British” than ever before. “Diversity” is part of Western life nowadays. However, while that above manages to be inclusive, to do so it manages to exclude most of the population.

For, according to that government handout, apparently no one in Britain today is a white male over toddler age, or a non-niqab wearing female younger than pensioner (meaning “retirement”) age. Actually, to be more precise as to that latter, there are no younger “white” women . . . except, of course, for one who manages to be a fringe part of an “incorrect” photo, that is. Indeed, perhaps we’ve stumbled upon another reason why Ms Phillips has no right to a UK passport?

The Guardian:

In the 20 years since its launch, 40m people worldwide have taken the so-called wonder drug - but research revealed this week shows that Prozac, and similar antidepressants, are no more effective than a sugar pill. So how was the myth created? Psychoanalyst Darian Leader traces the irrepressible rise of the multibillion dollar depression industry, while others explore the clinical and cultural impact of Prozac, its perceived personal benefits - and sometimes terrible costs…

Remarkable. Suddenly, on the basis of “several studies”, depression is a now mostly a “myth” created by an industry?:

…For many researchers, the PLoS findings actually reveal nothing new. Several earlier studies comparing placebo with antidepressant drugs had found that there was not much difference, yet these results had little media uptake. The new paper owes its coverage partly to the fact that it includes data from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to broadcast. As criticism of the industry’s withholding of such results mounted, drug companies were forced to make unflattering results public…

…marketing depression helped create the clinical category itself. If the new drugs affected mood, appetite and sleep patterns, then depression consisted of a problem with mood, appetite and sleep patterns. A subtle shift in the defining symptoms of depression took place over the years, so that the category itself became taken for granted…

It is hardly out of the question that the scientific notion of depression may have been given a big boost from those with what might seem to be a vested commercial interest in selling drugs to cure various ailments. Many have long suspected that way too many “miracle” drugs are handed out for seemingly just about anything. Good luck trying to sit through a television program in the States and not see a pharmaceutical company commercial, pushing something.

Yet, as Amelia Mustapha wrote in The Guardian, April 2006:

…[National Depression Week] … began with an unhealthy media preoccupation with the more modern antidepressants, SSRIs. Recommended medical practice was subverted by anecdotal evidence and shock, horror headlines of “happy pills”. Eventually, the good work of many years to defeat stigma and get seriously sick people to their GP was destroyed.

At Depression Alliance we began to receive many more calls from people who had stopped taking their medicines in the belief that they should be able to “pull themselves together”. Depression once again became a dirty word not worthy of proper medical attention or proper medical treatments….

We seem on the cusp of that, once more. And why? Because, we are now told, “the drugs” didn’t work. Instead, “go for a bracing walk“, in the words of the Guardian.

Undoubtedly, rarely a bad idea. Still, this is astounding. And we see no apologies from media for accepting with little question what, according to media now, may be the biggest fraud in the history of modern medicine, with its attendant voluminous impacts on wider society. Yet media — aided by monies injected (no pun intended) by drugs companies? — was evidently breezily willing to go along for over two decades with what the Guardian now tersely, and suddenly, labels a “myth”? Also suddenly, and obviously coincidentally, the “research” that revealed that “myth” will now require this Government to create taxpayer-funded jobs for another over 3,500 therapists?

All about par for the media course. Indeed, consider this, too: for most media content simply to accept a “consensus” in this other area, the “marketing” of “climate change” by those with a vested interest in finding it, has certainly not “helped create” that scientific area itself. Oh, no, that science is indisputable. Well, for now, anyway.

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UPDATE: What’s the BBC worried about? It’s a new world this week. These women obviously just need to get out in the fresh air, and taxpayers clearly don’t need to fund a British “study”.

Sky reports:

…Ben Griffin, says he left the [British] Army on moral grounds last year after serving three months in Baghdad because he disagreed with the tactics of US troops…

…Mr Griffin, 29, is believed to be the first SAS soldier to refuse to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds.

He said US fighters viewed Iraqis as “sub human” and were incapable of winning the hearts and minds of the local population…

Hmmm, but it seems, though, that not quite all take that “view”; nor are all quite so “incapable”:

Reuters:

Climate protesters scaled the roof of parliament in a major security breach on Wednesday and threatened further direct action as a public consultation into the expansion of Heathrow airport came to an end.

Three men and two women from the “Plane Stupid” group spent around two hours on the Commons roof after hanging banners down the side of the building…

Rarely, if ever before, has a lobbying group contrived a name for itself that manages to be so appropriate.

CNN:

Hillary Clinton appeared to suggest Barack Obama has consistently received favorable treatment at recent Democratic debates, saying Tuesday night she is often the first one to field questions from the debate moderators.

“Can I just point out in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time?” Clint (sic) said during the second question of Tuesday’s debate. “And I don’t mind, I’ll be happy to field them. I just find it curious that I keep getting the first question on all the issues.”…

At least she’s starting to say aloud something regarding that which many of us some weeks ago had perceived, albeit jokingly.

In any debate, forming a response to an initial question is always easier than fielding the initial question. For any retort permitted to answer the response is usually curtailed sharply by time requirements. (”Now, you have 8 seconds to answer Senator Obama’s wonderfully articulate and inspiring response…”)

Think about it. It’s not unlike always having to bat first. And much as getting to bat in the bottom of the inning tends to be an innate advantage given to a home team, being always handed “the response” is generally tactically better for a debater than always facing the top of the inning question.

Agence France-Presse:

…A team of sociologists at Cambridge University suggested that the stress of a system-wide banking crisis could lead to a 6.4-percent surge in heart attacks in high-income countries such as Britain and the United States.

In Britain, from 1,280 to 5,130 people could die if a significant number of banks suffered a meltdown and developing countries could also be hit hard. In India, heart attacks could increase by as much as 26 percent, they said.

The study, entitled “Can A Bank Crisis Break Your Heart?”, based its findings on comparisons of World Health Organisation and World Bank data on mortality rates and previous banking crises between 1960 and 2002…

No, really . . . that is evidently a serious academic study. Of more immediate danger to some early this morning, though, the BBC reports:

The biggest earthquake in the UK for nearly 25 years has shaken homes across large parts of England.

People in Newcastle, Yorkshire, London, Manchester, the Midlands and Norfolk felt the tremor just before 0100 GMT.

An elderly man suffered leg injuries when a chimney collapsed in Wombwell in South Yorkshire, emergency crews said…

It seems a study on heart attacks post-earthquakes might also be useful? Or fear of earthquakes, as leading to heart attacks? ITN:

…East Midlands Ambulance Service - which serves the Lincolnshire area - said they had received many emergency calls although nobody was injured.

A spokesman said: “Most of them were from elderly people who were quite frightened.”…

Incidentally, while we are on the subject: Mrs Obama was a sociology major?

Oh, socio-capitalist-patriarchal afterlife construct God. Well, knowing that was her major now explains loads about her essential world view. Especially according to at least three influential approaches.

The BBC’s Paul Reynolds is perplexed:

Five years since the conflict in Darfur began, BBC News website’s World Affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds asks why international concern has not been translated into effective intervention…

But why? Given he has never much approved of “intervention” (well, at least insofar as we’ve been able to discern, owing to his convoluted writing style), he must be pleased we don’t do “intervention” any longer.

Harriet Harman MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, responding to the above question yesterday, in The Independent:

Hero of the left – but time for Cuba to move on.

Daniel Finkelstein in The Times provides “the top ten reasons why she is wrong.”

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Today, this Independent headline tells us:

Poll puts Tories on course for overall majority in election

So, thankfully, it seems Britain is poised to “move on” as well.

Here’s one you don’t hear of very often. The Hull Daily Mail:

The Government has been criticised in the national media for refusing to let Deborah Phillips remain in the UK and look after her elderly mother.

Despite huge support from people in East Yorkshire, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne has rejected her latest bid for a carer’s visa…

What’s Ms Phillips’s situation?:

…As previously reported in the Mail, Deborah was born in the UK (sic) but moved to the UK with her US father and British mother in 1963.

She attended school in Hull, but joined the US Navy in London, aged 21.

After quitting the Navy and working in the US, she decided to join her family in East Yorkshire in December 2003.

She helped care for her father Phil, who died in 2005 from Alzheimer’s disease…

To clarify a typo above in the Hull Daily Mail, she was born in the U.S. Yet given her parentage, one would have thought this would be a breeze: that as a daughter of a British citizen, even if she were not a British citizen herself she would have a right to apply for a UK passport, and wouldn’t need any extraordinary permission to remain? And that that would be so routine, that none of us should now know her name?

Except it’s not that simple, of course. Insofar as it is possible to peer inside “the official mind”, Ms Phillips was born outside of the UK to a British mother after 1949 (ticked that box), but before 1961. So it doesn’t matter if she were born of a British citizen before 1983. (Are you following closely?) As GMTV tells us:

…She misses out on automatic citizenship by 15 months after a rule change in 2003…

So regardless of her mother’s British citizenship, in this instance her daughter has no right to a UK passport because of a “rule change”. Got that? On the other hand, if she had had only the most tenuous of non-parentage links to the UK owing to having been granted political asylum, and therefore “indefinite leave to remain”, before choosing to journey afterwards to, say, Taliban/Al Qaeda Afghanistan and then subsequently find herself captured in Pakistan and sent to Guantanamo, upon her return “home” here she’d have been legally permitted to resume . . . remaining here, indefinitely.

Makes sense that, for as the Home Office reminds us, “The integrity of the immigration system depends on such leave being granted only in exceptional circumstances and, in some cases, for a limited time.” In this instance, such “integrity” evidently includes ignoring an immediate and indisputable family link to Britain; this “caring” Government can’t even find a way to give her a “carer’s visa”. It would be better instead, clearly, for already overburdened local council taxpayers eventually to pay true foreigners to look after her octogenarian (and, naturally, getting older with each passing day) British mother.

The Press Association:

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis has branded the decision to deport a woman who wants to stay in the UK to care for her elderly mother in Hull a “disgrace”…

And thus does non-sensical Labour continue . . .

Telegraph Political Editor Patrick Hennessy (via my wife):

…Council tax bills have remained a source of controversy, with the typical household paying £1,078 in 2007 compared with £564 in 1997, a rise of 51 per cent against a 31 per cent increase in inflation…

Political journalists trying to do math is apparently another source of controversy. A 50 percent increase from a base 500 is 250. So a 100 percent increase from a base 500 would be 1,000.

Therefore, given that £564 is the base figure cited, if council tax were now about £850 that would be a 50 percent increase. So that tax being now an average of £1,078 makes it — very roughly — a bit under a 100 percent increase.

In other words, a £514 increase from the 1997 average of £564 is definitely NOT just a “51 percent” increase. It’s a 91% increase, from that 1997 base. One would have thought the Torygraph Telegraph would have been happy to have pointed that out?

Similarly, ePolitix.com:

The government must address the position of England within the Union in order to prevent growing public dissatisfaction, a think-tank has warned.

Publishing two reports on Monday, the Institute for Public Policy Research said that English public opinion could threaten the future of the Union.

The think-tank said that only 22 per cent of people supported the creation of an English Parliament, with England “relatively uninterested in devolution for itself”…

Yes, “22 per cent” would seem to be a very small minority. However, note also that the population of England is slightly over 50 million, which would appear to mean then that 11 million in England support an English-only parliament. And, interestingly, the last time anyone looked, 11 million would also be a larger number than the entire population of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined . . . all of which have their own regional assembly.

The Telegraph:

A fresh row erupted over the use of British air bases by US authorities as it emerged a plane used by the CIA has landed at an RAF airstrip in the past week.

A Gulfstream IV jet, identified by Amnesty International as a plane linked to the US intelligence agency, landed at RAF Northolt in west London.

The jet, registration N134BR, which flew from Morristown, New Jersey, to Britain, landed on Wednesday and returned on Friday. It was also seen at Luton airport in January.

Amnesty is truly desperate somehow to come up with evidence that the U.S. has been grabbing jihadists off the streets in Britain, and sending them to Guantanamo. But this is now taking matters to a whole new level. For not only are CIA “rendition” aircraft eminently identifiable through their “license plates”, but the agency is now transferring jihadists from New Jersey . . . to Britain.

There is no suggestion there were prisoners on board on this occasion..

Or maybe not. No suggestion there were prisoners on board on this occasion? Nor, then, it seems anything approaching a substantive story . . . on this occasion.

…Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: “It should not be down to plane spotters and citizen activists to keep track of these activities.”

“There should be a full and independent inquiry into this country’s role in state-sponsored terrorism.”

Having reached her own “judge and jury” decision — by just pronouncing the country absolutely does have a role in what is definitely terror — the-ever-available-before-any-microphone Ms Chakrabarti hardly seems in need of an “independent inquiry”. However, anyone else trying to work out some sort of judicial process to deal with people who’ve done their level best to steer clear of state-sponsored law, is utterly distasteful to her. But politics, mind you, has nothing to do with any of this, of course.

Reuters:

A former nightclub doorman was found guilty on Monday of beating two female students to death near bus stops in London and will now be questioned over the killing of Milly Dowler, one of Britain’s most infamous murders.

Levi Bellfield, 39, from west London, was convicted at the Old Bailey of the murders of French student Amelie Delagrange, 22, and of Marsha McDonnell, 19.

He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, a student who suffered horrific injuries when she was deliberately run over by a car…

Curiously, Reuters makes no mention of his other — and apparently decidedly more relevant to the murders — means of employment. But ITN does:

Wheel clamper Levi Bellfield has been found guilty of the murder of students Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange in south west London…

…The father of 11 children by five women, Bellfield had a massive ego and a need to control his young partners.

He had been a bouncer who hit upon wheel clamping as an easy way to make money - often lying in wait for motorists in a series of vans and cars with painted-out windows.

It was these vehicles he used to stalk bus stops in the area around Twickenham, west London.

So it wasn’t Reuters’s “doorman” (or the BBC’s “former nightclub bouncer”) who did it. Rather, it had more to do with his being a clamper for hire, who worked at his own “discretion”. Those who employed his firm at one time or another in that role within “parking management”, must be “shocked! shocked!” to discover that such a line of work would ever attract such a thug.

This has been a good week, at least in terms of nailing arrogant headcases.

ePolitix.com:

David Miliband has said he will be discussing climate change and Sudan during his first visit to China as foreign secretary.

So presumably, there will be others? It won’t take him 10 years to get back to Britain?

Speaking in Hong Kong on Monday, he said “there’s a lot of work to do together” on protecting the environment…

…Miliband will travel to Shanghai later on Monday, before flying to Chongqing and Beijing and then returning home on Friday.

What a terrible era we inhabit . . . compared to ye goode ol’ days.

Recently, we’d witnessed the invention of the sail. Now, The Independent is agog over how an enterprising gentleman has invented the straw hut:

…”There’s an intense stare and total mystification, as if they can’t quite believe what they are seeing.” This may be because James’s house is made of straw and has a turf roof covered in flowers…

…The benefits run much deeper than simply wanting to save cash and the planet. “Now that it’s built, the initial buzz has grown into a sort of permanent primeval satisfaction. I sit here, it’s warm and quiet and there’s snow flying past the windows, and I think: yes, this is what it’s all about.”…

Actually, maybe it’s not really that new an invention. Consider this, from Charles Dickens, “A Child’s History of England” (1. Ancient England and the Romans):

…little and little, strangers became mixed with the Islanders, and the savage Britons grew into a wild, bold people; almost savage, still, especially in the interior of the country away from the sea where the foreign settlers seldom went; but hardy, brave, and strong.

The whole country was covered with forests, and swamps. The greater part of it was very misty and cold. There were no roads, no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would think deserving of the name. A town was nothing but a collection of straw-covered huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round, and a low wall, made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one upon another…

Thus in this newest use of the “straw hut”, we see how yet another adaptation of the environmental conscientiousness and advances of the past, in order to make for a better world today, never ceases to amaze.

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Relatedly, George Monbiot in The Guardian:

This is a column about how good intentions can run amok. It tells the story of how an honourable, intelligent man set out to avert environmental disaster and ended up accidentally promoting the economics of the slave trade…

…It is true that as people begin to starve they consume less. When they die they cease to consume altogether…

…The poorer people are, the cheaper their lives become…

And so Mr Monbiot wrestles with his story — …The extra capacity, the government says, will deliver a net benefit to the UK economy of £5bn. The climate change the runway will cause costs £4.8bn, but this is dwarfed by the profits to be made… — as he dances up to a line, but dare’nt cross over it.

Evidently, he doesn’t crave really to follow matters to their most logical conclusion. The likes of Robert Fulton have a lot to answer for: sails will not even be enough. There needs to be a more fundamental “change”.

The way to strike a true telling, immediate, blow against “climate change”? Reinstitute the legal enslavement of human beings, thus ending the need to use non-human, non-animal powered machinery. And that includes aircraft.

There now, “problem” solved. (Well, one problem, anyway.)

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Still, there might be a way at least to salvage aircraft. Rather than aviation spirit, Virgin Atlantic’s earth-attuned, sensitive corporate head has gone put “nuts” — …The fuel used was obtained from the natural resources of babassu nuts and coconuts… — into one of a 747’s four engines. Sky headline:

Green Commercial Flight Takes Off

Okay, one knows we are all supposed to be suitably enviro-overwhelmed. But it’s decidedly one thing to, say, put “nuts” into your car’s tank. After all, if your car engine stops because it doesn’t like the fuel mix, it seizes and rolls to the side of the road, leaving one livid, but likely unharmed.

In contrast, when engines stop inexplicably in mid-flight, your average 747 tends shortly thereafter to crash. Also, some one-third to one-half of everyone aboard any 747 flight — and note there were no passengers on this “commercial” flight (how does that make it “commercial” then?), and only 1 of the four engines had the “biofuel” — are (if they reflect on their current position aloft too much) already (albeit perhaps quietly) privately terrified of flying. And they are even while aboard planes powered using well-established, 60 year old fuel-technologies.

Which is partly why pre-flight airport bars tend to be jammed. So it’s hard to believe most of those customers will crave to jump aboard a 747 powered by “nuts” just yet, especially when they could just stay home, cosily, in their huts. After all, that’s “what it’s all about“. No?

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The Telegraph:

For many it is simply a sign of his charisma. But for a growing number of Barack Obama sceptics, there is something disturbing about the adulation with which the senator and Democratic presidential frontrunner is greeted as he campaigns for the White House - unnervingly akin to the hysteria of a cult, or the fervour of a religious revival…

It is not that admiring a politician makes one by definition “nuts”. Rather, the use of the term “sceptics” by the Telegraph is itself disturbing, implying that “doubting” a politician constitutes “heresy”. Huh? Are we voting for a pope, or for a president?

Actually, the main issue for “sceptics” has been not that a Sen Obama has chosen to seek the presidency. Like any politician, he’s entitled to give the quest his utmost. And if he wins the Democratic nomination, many people who didn’t vote for him in the primaries might vote for him for the presidency. Or they might not. Indeed, one wonders how many Sen Obama voters in states with “open” primaries were cross-overs who have no intention of voting for him in November, but voted for him in those primaries just to try to make sure, in eliminating Sen Clinton, that the Republican definitely wins in the general election?

We may well find out if that has been going on en masse, and if it has and his support is therefore not as deep as is believed, we will then have yet another big problem: the disillusionment of “the faithful”. For what’s worrisome is how media coverage has been — at least up until very recently — strangely muted on the “cult” (which is really way too strong a word, though) issue itself. It is only of late that media has chosen to highlight such “passion” and “commitment”, pushed into doing so mostly by readers and bloggers who keep asking, “What’s going on here?”

For think about it: if he were instead a conservative (or even a moderate) and evoked this sort of “collectivist passion” among supporters, you just know the left (including leftist media) would have months ago already been out there, screaming from every web site: “Spellbound robots! Crazed fanatics! Obama=Hit*er! Hit*er!”

What matters also in the above is not merely the issue of soldiers going wanting on any level, for however long. The senator’s reaction can also bring forth a mild expression of disbelief in the listener . . . as to how he can be stumbling over his words, seemingly incredulous, that such ever could be? Is he naive, or just pretending to be? He wants to be president, and yet he’s “gobsmacked” that not everything is always delivered “100 percent on time”?

For instance, in the final winter of another conflict which had also been raging for years, but was the overriding focus of American governmental efforts (including billions already spent secretly to develop a perhaps never to be “perfected” A-bomb), army units in northwest Europe were short of thousands of men because Washington was gearing up for the expected invasion of Japan. Hundreds of thousands of (often draftee) U.S. troops also went without winter clothing, especially warm boots, and thousands had to have amputations for trench foot as a result. Many a GI was thrilled to get hold of a German’s boots (be it from one dead or alive), because they were far warmer than the leather boots GIs were still wearing (if they hadn’t yet fallen apart) in early 1945.

GIs also admired the German “potato masher” hand grenade, which delivered a bigger explosive than their U.S. version. Americans also “borrowed” Belgian and French homes’ white linens, to throw over tanks and uniforms, for winter camouflage.

Were such shortcomings and supply failures the result of the then current commander’s-in-chief [Democratic icon] President Roosevelt’s “bad judgement”? Obviously not? Presumably, then, while his administration is focused on implementing universal health care, we can assume that when some supplies and reinforcements don’t get immediately to troops on a far-flung battlefield, it won’t be President Obama’s fault either.

(Via Murdoc.)

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UPDATE: Despite such a seemingly immature policy outlook that was never an issue for the likes of a younger master of an earlier superpower, William Pitt, former British Conservative leader William Hague, who is also author of a biography of that William Pitt the Younger — “William Hague, who knows a bit about precocious politicians, tackles the most talented of them all“… — is very impressed:

The election of either John McCain or Barack Obama as United States president would elevate US politics in the eyes of a global audience, the Shadow Foreign Secretary says…

…in an interview with the Telegraph Mr Hague calls [Sen Obama] … “an exciting candidate”…

Incidentally, it’s not yet March 5, and it’s certainly McCain v. Obama in November? Careful. For speaking out so forcefully just that bit too soon may have its longer-term consequences. Mr Hague (and his Conservatives) obviously have forgotten that a Clinton can retaliate unexpectedly.

A.P. headline:

Nader considers another presidential run

Would that be because Senator Obama is too right-wing?

The BBC reports:

Calls to put the DNA of every UK resident on a national database are impractical, the government has said.

Senior police officers have argued for a universal register after two killers were convicted on DNA evidence…

Actually, most people probably would not have any more trouble with a universal DNA database than they would with fingerprinting. The real problem is mistrust of government. This one in particular; and even this Government seems to know that:

…Home Office minister Tony McNulty told BBC that a national database was not a “silver bullet” and that it would raise practical as well as civil liberties issues.

“How to maintain the security of a database with 4.5m people on it is one thing,” he said.

“Doing that for 60m people is another.”

But some in British law don’t seem to think so:

In September 2007, Lord Justice Sedley - one of England’s most experienced appeal court judges - called for the register to be made universal and condemned the existing system as “indefensible”…

Remarkably, Britons’ freedom in this instance may be better protected by Europe:

…However, the existing register could be threatened when European judges are asked to rule next week on a test case of two Britons who want their details removed from the database.

The applicants say their human rights have been infringed by the decision to leave their details on the database, despite the fact that they had never been found guilty of a crime…

Which is why the notion of putting everyone in is simply out of the question. Police murder investigations will just have to cope with the plain fact that most people are fearful that any “everyone in Britain” DNA database sold initially to assist in murder and, say, rape cases, would invariably suffer from politico info-creep. Before long, they’d be appropriating it somehow for the likes of council tax, “recycling verification”, school attendance confirmation, “road tolls“, TV licenses, and heaven knows what the heck else.

Always, we would also be told, very sensitively . . . and, umm, perfectly reasonably.

The Telegraph:

Labour’s laws on 24-hour drinking were condemned by police yesterday as new figures showed that officers were having to deal with thousands of extra alcohol-related crimes a month since restrictions were relaxed…

As if that were not bad enough, The Times:

Senior Muslim figures have said that they are shocked that a number of Walkers snacks contain traces of alcohol and eating them is therefore against their religion…

Labour is apparently also going to have to look closely at regulating a less well known source of rampant alcohol abuse.

The Telegraph:

Leading Jewish groups and MPs have rounded on Conservative leader David Cameron after he dismissed funding to send schoolchildren to visit Auschwitz as “a gimmick”…

…The Conservatives issued a press release which attacked 26 government initiatives as”short-term gimmicks”.

Included was a £4.6m scheme announced by ministers this month to tie in with Holocaust Memorial Day the Government’s to send sixth-form pupils from every school in England to visit the concentration camp at Auschwitz…

In a speech Mr Cameron said:”We’ve never known a government that is so obsessed with short-term gimmicks, with top-down control, with endless meddling and interfering in every part of everyone’s life.

“We’ve had a gimmick for every week that Gordon Brown has been Prime Minister. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.”…

Right, right, right! And yet also soooooooo wrong!

Mr Cameron, please! We know you didn’t mean it that way. And the prize is that close! School trips to Auschwitz are not a “gimmick” to decry, or even be misconstrued as decrying! No! No! [As yours truly bashes his head repeatedly down on the desk.]

Yesterday, one Steve Wright was convicted of murdering five women in Ipswich in late 2006. It appears he may well be responsible also for a series of other murders, including the infamous 1986 killing of real estate agent Suzy Lamplugh. For it has emerged Wright had worked on the QE2 at the same time Ms Lamplugh had, and after she had left her job there, her father says Wright had stayed in contact with her. (She has been declared dead, although her body has never been found. It is a crime that so still sends chills through people here whenever it resurfaces in media from the unsolved pile, that when the wife saw the linkage being made, she could only respond with an “Oh, God.”)

Also yesterday, over recognition earlier this week of the independence of Kosovo, western embassies, particularly that of the U.S., were targeted by Serb rioters in Belgrade. The U.S. embassy was even set on fire.

Last night the BBC’s “10 O’Clock News” gave over nearly 15 minutes to coverage of the Wright conviction, and his seedy, troubled life. It followed immediately afterwards with the story that also appeared yesterday: that two planes carrying two jihadists (1 per flight) had landed briefly in 2002 at the U.S. base on Diego Garcia and refueled, and then headed to Guantanamo. (A report the wife characterized as tiresome BBC “blah, blah, blah…”. That those responsible for this brilliance within U.S. intelligence did what they did without having officially informed the British government in London, seems now supposedly to be the basis according to many for a severing of Anglo-American relations, and even a rationale for the first war between Britain and the U.S. since the end of the previous one, in 1814.) At some point, also reported was the rioting in Belgrade.

What does the liberal conscience of Britain think of all that? Well, this morning, while the Wright conviction and Serb rioting are given space inside that Independent, neither gets a front page mention. That “rendition” story, which one would have thought vital to the Indy given that, as many of you may know, the paper has led a crusade (if that is the right word?) against holding those captured in war, inexplicably doesn’t make the front page either. (Might that be because it was a story first reported in The Times?) The Independent’s front page today, however, does tell us this:

Although worth a mention inside certainly — whenever a regulator wants a look at such, it is newsworthy — unless there is credible evidence of “price-fixing”, there seems little government can do regardless. For, as everyone — well, as everyone who is concerned about such things, anyway — knows, fossil fuel sourced energy is now increasingly expensive across the board.

However, even if there were “collusion” among suppliers to rip off customers, one might well believe The Independent would actually be somewhat pleased about those constant increases? For they give gas and electric customers nowhere else to go? After all, higher prices=less fossil fuel use=reduction in “greenhouse gas emissions”. And the “struggle against climate change” is yet another Indy “crusade”, remember.

But no. Instead, after the paper had days ago given over its front page to the supposedly egregious and indefensible lack of employment diversity in a workforce (”walkforce”?) so highly paid and so small in number it’s hardly statistically significant, the same workforce which also pushes products so expensive few can afford the true items, the paper is now abuzz about threats to consumer wallets from gas and electric suppliers? Given its stances on nearly everything else, The Independent does “populism” about as convincingly as (new journalist) Naomi Campbell. Is it any wonder the paper’s circulation is by far the lowest of the broadsheets?

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UPDATE: The “World’s Greatest Newspaper” Daily Express:

Motorists were last night warned to brace themselves for even higher petrol prices – with experts predicting fuel will hit £1.50 a litre by the end of the year.

Drivers are already feeling the strain after a record 20 per cent increase in pump prices over the past 12 months. But the sky-high cost of oil means the pain will only get worse in the months ahead.

The threat of the £6.82 gallon prompted fresh calls for the Treasury to scrap its planned rise in fuel duty.

Which will mean that, in exchange rate terms, unleaded regular will cost $14 a gallon here in Britain.

The 2.35p a litre increase on April 1 will swell Government coffers but place further strain on stretched family finances. For every £1 we pay at the pumps, 70p goes to the Treasury in duty and VAT…

Government can “hide” that confiscatory level of taxation, to some degree, by conveniently burying it in the metric. By not allowing the sale of petrol (gas) by the gallon, they soften the blow to the extent that one might not quite immediately perceive the increases jumping as dramatically as they actually are. So the “pitch forks” don’t ever come out.

For instance, at one Shell nearby, it’s £1.02 a litre today v. £1.07 at the Esso just down the road. That doesn’t sound like a huge difference on the surface; but, actually, that’s roughly 20p a gallon. Yet there are always cars at the pumps in that Esso, too. (Why anyone would stop there short of a dire emergency is beyond me.)

So, what’s next for The Independent’s “populist” appeal? Decrying the spiralling cost of filling your diabolical “climate change” machine car?

1. Get attacked in your own car by knife-wielding, already wanted criminal.
2. In struggle turn assailant’s own knife on him and accidently kill him, with a single stab thrust.
3. And while you are lying inside your blood-drenched vehicle, bleeding yourself from multiple stab wounds . . . upon arrival at the scene your taxpayer-funded, helpful defenders of law and order arrest you.

Thus the saga of Labour Britain continues . . .

(Via Dock Green.)

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BBC version:

A shopkeeper has been questioned on suspicion of murder after a would-be robber was fatally stabbed…

Remarkably, the BBC confidently knows that he was definitely merely a “robber”, and even though he had stabbed the shopkeeper several times, was not a “would-be murderer“.

Concluding their sensitive coverage, reaching back to late 2006, Reuters:

Notice, elsewhere jihadists get Reuters’s every sympathy. There’s always an explanation and justification for everything. Ah, but five young women — who hadn’t sought, insofar as any of us know, to visit Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan — murdered? The “news” service