Harper's Haiti Trip - Please, MSM, Don't Go. Don't Take Photos

Whooee! Well, friends an' foes, Pryminister Harper is off to Haiti today. The official announcements say he's going there to assess the relief effort. Over at Steve V's Far and Wide, there's a lot of skepticism and at least one commenter who says Harper's visit will bolster troop morale.

Surprise visits to troops deployed in faraway locales is a trademark of tinpot heroes like Dick Cheney. I wonder where Harper got the idea he could bolster the troops -- and maybe his sagging poll numbers -- by paying a surprise visit?

Two years ago, Haitians were rioting for food and eating dirt patties to fill their empty bellies.

The food shortage was spurred by high commodities prices which the World Bank attributed mainly to biofuels. Canada was riding high on a crest of grain prices and federal and provincial "environmental" policies mandated 5% - 10% ethanol content for motor fuel. Harper and McGuinty denied the effect of their policies on world markets while thousands starved.

Today, the situation is compounded by the quake. Desperate reports from those on the ground are revealing a situation where food and water are stockpiled and people are starving.

They don't need Stephen Harper or Angelina Jolie or John Travolta scrambling for self-serving photo-ops. Harper can manage things just as well from Ottawa or Vancouver. If the troops need bolstering, he can do it via video link.

What are Harper's qualifications regarding the delivery of disaster relief? Do his medical qualifications go beyond his expertise in nuclear medicine? Where was he when they were eating dirt?

Haiti is headed for more grief. Their planting season begins in March and by all accounts, they need seeds, fertilizer, agricultural equipment and expertise to avert yet another round of starvation and desperation. Yet, little of this type of aid is reaching Haiti.

The first reports of Harper's trip said he would be sleeping inside the Canadian embassy and reporters should be prepared to sleep in tents outside the building. After a bit of negative reaction to the photo op started cropping up, the PMO quickly came out with new details. Harper will be flying in on an aid transport plane (read: white horse) and sleeping aboard a Canadian battleship anchored offshore.

Just how high does Haiti really rank in Harper's priorities? We have more troops serving as security detail for the Olympics than we have serving in Afghanistan. We have more than twice as many in Afghanistan as we have in Haiti.

If only our pandering news media would simply refuse to send anyone to cover this obvious play for approval. If only...

JimBobby

(Most of this post was originally written as a comment at Far and Wide.)

Food Crisis: Praise for George W. Bush

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, I like to give credit where credit's due an' right now, I'm gonna tip my tuque in the unlikely direction of Merkan President George W. Bush. Now, I'm gonna set aside all the dumbass stuff Dubya's done like waste a half a trillion dollars on a fiasco in EyeRack or oversee the collapse of the Merkan banking and housing sectors or suspend human rights in a trumped up War on Terror. Fer just a few minutes, I'm gonna look the other way and pat ol' Dubya on the back.

Yesterday, Bush asked Congress to dole out another $770 million in food aid. The Merkans already pumped an extra $200 million into food for the hungry a coupla weeks ago. Before that, they added an additional $350 million to the $1.6 billion the Merkans put into food aid every year.

The World Food Program has been asking for $755 million to get it over the hump in this food crisis. A coupla days ago, Canada stepped up with an additional $50 million on top of the $185 million we'd already pledged.

So, I say good on you, Georgie W, fer diggin' in and findin' that extra $770 million. It oughta go a long way in stavin' off a few million deaths by starvation.

Okay, now I'm gonna quit lookin' the other way.

When we talk about $770 million bucks, it sure sounds like a whole lotta dough. You might ask yerself what George Dubya coulda bought with that money if he hadn't decided to feed a few million hungry people. Well, here's one thing he coulda bought. He coulda bought one more day of war fightin' in EyeRack.

That's right, boys'n'girls, the Merkans spend over $700 million bucks in EyeRack every single day, 365 days a year.

Golly-gosh gee whiz, do you figger the war in EyeRack might be somehow connected to the food crisis?

Hmmm... could be... All that war spendin' without any ROI is one of the biggest reasons the US dollar's in the pooper. The low US dollar is what's drivin' up the price of oil. The high fuel costs affect transportation and grocery prices that are a part of the reason so many Merkans can't keep up with their mortgage payments. And, the collapse of the US mortgage market has driven speculators into commodities. And, along with high oil prices, commodities speculation has been another big factor in the food crisis. High oil prices have created a demand for biofuels. Biofuels are competing with traditional grains and are driving up the cost of food.

Now, everybuddy knows that hungry people are angry people. Even George W. Bush knows that. The Merkans got their CIA intelligence fellers an' gals stalkin' 'round every hellhole on the planet. I reckon main CIA headquarters' phones been ringin' off the hook the past few months. There's been food riots and violence in countries all over the world. Anybuddy don't think the CIA had somebuddy in most of those countries reportin' back to Washington?

The food crisis threatens to unleash a wave of violence that would multiply the EyeRack and Afghanistan and African and South American conflicts to worldwide chaos. The Merkans don't have enough riot police in their mighty military to quell that sorta new world disorder. The smartest strategy would be to make sure the poor bastards don't get so hungry that they storm the Bastille.

So, I'm givin' praise to George W. Bush for strategy. I can't say fer sure whether it's strategy dressed up like charity or charity with a strategic motive. It's a welcome additional $770 million whyever it got there.

JimBobby

Make Lunch, Not War

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, the new UN chief Ban-Ki Moon, is up on his hindlegs warnin' the world what's gonna happen if we don't get busy and feed the hungry folks who's sufferin' on accounta the high price of food. People will die. Governments will fall. Commodities speculators will get rich. That ain't so much a prediction as it is an assessment of what's already happening.

The UN World Food Program has said it needs an additional $500 million right now to avert catastrophe. The US came through with $200 million. Maybe that sounds like a lot of money. It ain't.

Every single day, 365 days a year, the US spends over $380 million on the war in Iraq. $200 million is what the US spends on the Iraq fiasco in about 13 or 14 hours. Every 13 or 14 hours.

If the US Iraq military spending was cut by less than 1% and the money was diverted to food aid, the threat to global security would be reduced considerably. Not only that, thousands and thousands of starving people would be able to eat enough to live. And, not least of all, the US would be hailed as saviours and heroes, instead of being damned as killers, occupiers and exploiters.

Us Canajuns ain't spending ourselves into bankruptcy quite as fast as our Merkin neighbours. We're spending $1 billion a year in Afghanistan. That's about $2.7 million per day. On war. Meanwhile, First Nations folks in Canada are rejoicing over a recent announcement of $330 million to provide clean drinking water on reserves. That's about the same amount of money that Bruce Power is over budget on refurbishing a couple of nuclear reactors; about the same amount we spend in the failed Afghan mission every 4 months.

I saw a bigass report on one of the big Merkin TV network news shows last night where they was all in a flap about the price of pizza goin' up. It's kinda tough to sympathize when we know that the poor bastards in Haiti are eatin' dirt just to get something into their aching bellies.

A couplafew days ago, I posted up a boog story entitled, McGuinty: "Let them eat dirt." In today's Trawna Star, I see my title is bein' reduced, re-used and recycled: Let them eat dirt?

I don't mind 'em usin' my paraphrase from Marie Antoinette's famous quip. Today's title, "Make Lunch, Not War", comes from an old hippie anti-Vietnam War slogan: "Make Love, Not War". The MSM is welcome to adopt it.

JimBobby

McGuinty: "Let them eat dirt."

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, ol' JimBobby's blood's a-boilin' this mornin'. I just seen a second Mop & Pail article tellin' how Premier Dalton Ginty ain't gonna rethink Ontario's ethanol policy. The dumbass Ginty don't believe that food prices are risin' on accounta gummint support fer corn ethanol.

Premier defends Ontario's growing hunger for corn

MURRAY CAMPBELL

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says he will not reconsider his government's program of helping ethanol producers despite concern that it is driving up food prices.

He said yesterday that the three-year-old program to support the production of ethanol - a corn-derived alcohol used as a gasoline additive - is not the dominant factor in increasing the price of corn and other commodities.

Mr. McGuinty said that energy prices have risen and that severe droughts in the world have limited crops. He also noted that an emerging middle class in China and India is seeking a better quality of food.

"A whole bunch of circumstances are driving up food prices," he told reporters after speaking to the fourth annual Agri-Food summit.

Ontario launched a 12-year, $520-million plan in 2005 after implementing a requirement that there be at least 5 per cent ethanol in all gasoline sold in the province. More than $26-million in capital grants to producers have been approved, with operational grants allocated for 485 million litres of ethanol in the next decade.

The incentives are luring investors into the ethanol business, and there are fears that production of the additive could eventually consume virtually all of the province's corn production of about 283 million bushels a year. The concern, which seems borne out by recent food riots in Asia, is that the scarcity of the commodity will push up prices for food processors dependent on corn for cereals and sweeteners and for farmers who use corn to feed their poultry.

Last year, about 2.1 million acres of land in Ontario were planted in corn, compared with 1.6 million acres the year earlier. Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture expect the acreage devoted to corn to increase significantly in the next few years.

The ministry estimates Ontario farms are providing about 350 million litres of the current demand for ethanol of 850 million litres. It anticipates that by 2012, Ontario will be producing 1.8 billion litres and will be an exporter, rather than an importer.

Mr. McGuinty said the government is convinced that Ontario's hunger for corn is not driving up prices.

"The big driver here in Ontario has not been ethanol," he told reporters. "All grain prices have gone up, not just corn."

Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowsky said the government has invested $7.5-million into research on ethanol production that leaves corn kernels for consumer use and derives ethanol from the husks and stalks left after harvesting.

Godammit, Ginty. Don't you understand anything about economics? Don't you know that when more corn is planted and used for fuel that less land is available for food grain production? Don't you care about anybody outside Ontario? Sure, food prices have risen in Ontario. Sure, corn ethanol, might not be the biggest factor. But, dammit, it is a factor and it's contributing to the global food crisis. People are hungry. People are starving. People are rioting for affordable food.

People are eating dirt, Mr. Premier. How much worse does it need to get?

Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt

Jonathan M. Katz in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Associated Press

January 30, 2008

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some must take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places such as Cité Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings, and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt, and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Charlene said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the slim 6 pounds, 3 ounces (2.7 kilograms, 85 grams) he weighed at birth.

Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too," she said.
(Source: National Geographic. Read more...)

And what does Ginty say?

"The big driver here in Ontario has not been ethanol," he told reporters. "All grain prices have gone up, not just corn."

Look, you dumbass, we all know that nobody's starvin' to death in Ontario. Nobody's rioting for food in Ontario. Nobody's eatin' dirt in Ontario. The food crisis threatens to destabilize poorer countries all over the world. Don't you even read the newspapers, Ginty? Are you just as uninformed that other ignoramus non-reader who also supports ethanol?

Canada needs to get off the ethanol bandwagon. Now. Not after food riots come to Canada. Not after tens of thousands perish from malnutrition and civil violence brought about by hunger. Now.

We don't live in a closed economy, Ginty. What we do here has effects in Haiti, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast and hundreds of other hellholes where people normally spend 75% of their income on food.

Here in Ontario, we spend between 10% and 20% of our income on food. If food prices double, like they have already done in many countries, we will spend between 20% and 40% of our income on food. Some Ontarians may have to forgo the Big Macs and a few Timmy's donuts. Some may need to resort to food banks. We'll need to tighten our belts and start gettin' back to basics like buyin' Ontario-grown produce and eatin' less processed crap and less fast food. For some, it'll be an adjustment. They'll live.

In places where they were already spending 75% of their income on basic foods, a doubling of food prices means they need 150% of their income for food. I ain't an economist, either, Ginty, but I know that spendin' 150% of yer income on food don't leave much for shelter or clothing or any of the other necessities of life.

When folks are starvin' to death, they got nothin' to lose. They blame their gummints and the rich assholes in the West. They are easily recruited to violent movements, jihads, revolutions and riots.

Ontario ain't the only guilty party. Ontario's support for ethanol may not be "the dominant factor" but, it's one of the factors and it's one over which the Ontario gummint has control.

Ontario cannot single-handedly eliminate world hunger. We don't need to contribute to it, though. The UN food program estimates a $500 million shortfall this year in its valiant effort to adequately feed 89 million poor bastards who can't afford basic sustenance. Instead of pumpin' our money into a scam that does nothing for the environment and is making wealthy commodities dealers salivate with glee over windfall profits, we could be helpin' the poor and hungry. We could lead the way.

Or, we can let them eat dirt.

JimBobby
pissed off

Canada's Ethanol Policy Contributing to Food Crisis

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, some dang chickens is comin' home to roost. All over the world, poor folks is strugglin' just to put one meal a day into their pitiful bodies. An' we're bitchin' about the price of gas when we hafta fgill up the chugmobile. There's close connection between the two things, too.

The bigass commodities boys sold their ethanol big lie to the top levels of government in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU. Just like the big nuke merchants, the big corn lobby didn't waste any time tryin' to figger out how they could fleece a public concerned about climate change and greenhouse gases. Ethanol and other dumbass biofuels are a big part of the reason people are riotin' an' dyin' in the Philippines, Haiti, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, Cameroon and Vietnam.

Food shortages ain't just a humanitarian issue. It's a security issue. Hungry folks who're starvin' to death got absolutely nuthin' to lose and they've got excellent motivation: life. The bigass G8's all over the problem at their big pow-wow down in Washington, DC.

Ministers representing 185 countries agreed on the weekend that soaring food prices threaten global calamity and pledged to co-operate on a solution to save the world's poorest people from starvation.
(Good Guardian article...)

Ethanol ain't the only reason folks is starvin' but it's one of the reasons. Nobody seems to be disputin' that except maybe the Brazilian cane growers and the big Iowa corn boys. In the 2006 budget, the Harper bunch gave away $2 billion fer ethanol and biofuel development. Most everyone knows by now that ethanol ain't a GHG reducer and ain't doin' a single thing to help ol' Mother Earth. It takes somethin' like 1 an' a third liters of petro to make one litre of ethanol and it gobbles up fresh water like nobody's business.

But it is somebody's business and that business got $2 billion from us while it contributed to the food crisis that's killin' poor folks all over the place.

Here's some numbers from the Guardian:

Food in figures

93,000,000 Acres of corn planted by US farmers last year, up 19 per cent on 2006.

76% Amount of US corn used for animal feed.

8kg Amount of grain it takes to produce 1kg of beef.

20% Portion of US corn used to produce five billion gallons of ethanol in 2006-07.

50kg Quantity of meat consumed annually by the average Chinese person, up from 20kg in 1985.

10% Anticipated share of biofuels used for transport in the EU by 2020.

$500m The UN World Food Programme's shortfall this year, in attempting to feed 89 million needy people.

9.2bn The world's predicted population by 2050. It's 6.6bn now.

130% The rise in the cost of wheat in 12 months.

16 times The overall food consumption of the world's richest 20 per cent compared with that of the poorest 20 per cent.

58% Jump in the price of pork in China in the past year.

$900 The cost of one tonne of Thai premier rice, up 30 per cent in a month.

Here's something that really gets under my skin. Little wee Canada gives away $2 billion to these ethanol guys and it would take only $500 million to top up the UN's food program so they could help 89 million hungry people survive. That's right. With just one-quarter of the money we spent on developing biofuels so we can drive the chugmobiles and tell ourselves we're saving the planet, we could feed the multitudes. And that's just Canada.

We need to get our gummint to quit subsidizin' these ethanol guys. I know it ain't gonna be too popular with the farmers. They ain't starvin' to death, though. Farmers ain't to blame. They do what they gotta do. They gotta buy seeds, fertilizers, tractors, combines, silos, and other stuff to grow that corn. The bigass seed and fertilizer outfits like Monsanto are the ones who engineered the lobbyin' to get all these gummints makin' laws sayin' we gotta have 10%-20% ethanol.

Us Canajuns gotta decide what's really important. Do we keep up with a corporate welfare feel-good program of promotin' ethanol? Or do we put a moratorium on biofuel until we quit starvin' people to death so's we can fill up the chugmobile an' drive three blocks to the Timmy's Drive-Thru window?

JimBobby