Don’t laugh all you smokers, it may not be too far away.

New figures today show England is the fattest country in the EU. Now Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, hopes to encourage people to improve their diets, give up smoking and exercise more.

He proposed the introduction of a smoking permit, which smokers would be required to show each time they bought tobacco. It is then their choice to go smoke free and not buy a permit.

Le Grand is not just some fringe wacko - he’s a wacko who used to be an aide to Tony Blair. 

This is what you get when you cede control of your body to the government.  The government then controls you and your body - because they know what is best for you and the collective.  It is starting to sound like the Borg.

I’m curious about why Duncan Hunter, among others, suggests we should work cooperatively with Russia to install missile defense assets in the Black Sea to protect Europe from Iranian missile launches.  We don’t live in Europe.  Let them defend themselves.

Somebody please tell me why the House of Representatives is trying to pass a resolution labeling the murder of Armenians during WWI as genocide.  I’ve been hearing about it, but I just don’t understand the motivation.  Why would we want to piss off a current strategic ally with a symbolic resolution about something that happened nearly a century ago on another continent without our involvement?

When Alabama passed a resolution apologizing for its role in the bondage of humans I could at least understand the motivation even if it was foolish symbolism.  This state contributed to the immeasurable suffering of a great many people.  The apology hurt no one.  Why not do it.  What the U.S. House is doing is a wholly different and smacks of reckless undermining of our foreign policy.  But maybe I just don’t understand.

From the Telegraph:

A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of “emotional abuse”, even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.

Social services’ recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.

Hexham children’s services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself.

Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services’ request for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day.

From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.

I can’t wait until John Edwards or one of his compatriates implements UK styled government preventative health care here.

Just when you think things can’t get any worse in Zimbabwe…

Zimbabwe has sent crack police to enforce price freezes in the rural strongholds of President Robert Mugabe, where businesses have failed to heed measures aimed at reining in inflation and halting economic collapse.

Mugabe’s government, grappling with inflation of 4,500 percent, ordered businesses last month to roll back and freeze prices on petrol, bread, milk, cooking oil and other key consumer items after a sharp increase in their prices.

The move has prompted panic buying, leading to empty store shelves and long lines at petrol stations, and pushed the economically depressed southern African nation closer to breaking point.

“We have started deploying many officers to rural areas to make sure there is compliance, and we are saying we are not going to stop until we are satisfied that there is total compliance,” police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka told Reuters.

A cursory study of basic economics clearly shows us that price controls don’t work.  Thanks to Robert Mugabe you don’t have to read the book.

Previous posts on the economic crisis in Zimbabwe:

• Zimbabwe Inflation Over 1000%
• Zimbabwe prints $Z100,000 note
• Mugabe continues eviction of white farmers
• Let them eat cake

This story is deeply troubling to say the least.

From the wonderful world of Robert Mugabe:

President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe turned 83 on Wednesday to the strains of the song “God Bless President Mugabe” on state-controlled radio, along with an interview on state television, a 16-page paean to his rule in Harare’s daily newspaper and the prospect of a grand birthday party — costly enough to feed thousands of people for months, his critics argued — on Saturday.

Zimbabwe’s economy is so dire that bread vanished from store shelves across the country on Wednesday after bakeries shut down, saying government price controls were requiring them to sell loaves at a loss. The price controls are supposed to shield consumers from the nation’s rampant inflation, which now averages nearly 1,600 percent annually.

Who would have thought price controls would cause a shortage of the product being regulated?  Governments have no way of simply “knowing” what the price of a good or service should be.  Only the free market can make that determination.  This is also the problem with having the U.S. government “negotiate” (a euphemism for price control) drug prices.

The Huntsville Times printed this op-ed written by Dan Smith, president of Raytheon Integrated Defense System. In his editorial Smith breathlessly lectures us about how China is graduating 500,000 engineers while the U.S. only churns out 70,000. He says that he got the number from a Nation Academy of Sciences study. Actually, the study he is referring to said that China graduated 600,000 engineers (press release here and full report here), but even that widely reported study has been disproven. In other words, Mr. Smith got the wrong number wrong.

Duke University had a team of students investigate the number reported in the NAS study. Their findings suggested that the true numbers were a bit more in line with reasonable expectations.

We found that the U.S. was graduating 222,335 engineers, vs. 215,000 from India. The closest comparable number reported by China is 644,106, but it includes additional majors. Looking strictly at four-year degrees and without considering accreditation or quality, the U.S. graduated 137,437 engineers, vs. 112,000 from India. China reported 351,537 under a broader category. All of these numbers include information technology and related majors.

You can read Duke’s full report here or listen to an NPR story about their research here. As the NPR story points out, the central government in China simply ordained that 600,000 engineers was their desired number and the various school heads responsible for reporting just told them what they wanted to hear. In some cases they counted repairmen and factory laborers as engineering students. In the end China’s engineering graduation rate is no threat to us. The NPR story points out that although China graduates two and a half times the number of engineers as the U.S. their population is four times ours. Hardly a cause for concern.

I hope Mr. Smith is a little more careful with his taxpayer funded work.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Zimbabwe’s national security minister has told the country’s last remaining white farmers that they will be jailed if they refuse to abide by a deadline that passed over the weekend for them to leave their farms, according to a newspaper report on Monday.
 
The official Chronicle newspaper quoted the minister Didymus Mutasa as saying police would be “unleashed” to deal with white farmers who ignored the eviction notice.

“Those farmers who do not comply with the orders to vacate the land will be dealt with severely,” said the minister, known to be close to President Robert Mugabe. The deadline was on Saturday.

Just imagine the headlines if this were a white dictator^* evicting black farmers!  There is such pervasive guilt in this country as a result of the wrongs done by our ancestors that rational judgment - even when broad and vociferous condemnation is called for - no longer seems possible.

As I mentioned back in May of last year, inflation in that country was over 1000% (not a typo) in the previous twelve months.  It is still rising at the same pace.

Part of the cause of the dramatic inflation is that the white farmers, who were experienced and competent, were replaced with people who were not as sophisticated at working the land.  The result has been significant decreases in crop yields.

Once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe has seen its status reduced to an importer of its staple maize crop since land reforms were launched.

Critics say many of the new black farmers were allocated farms on the basis of political patronage rather than agricultural expertise, and lack the dedication and financial resources to make a success of farming.

In my post from last year I linked to this story that detailed the success of the displaced white farmers in Nigeria.  When governments, businesses, or individuals discriminate on the basis of a superficial trait, such as race, scarce human resources are misappropriated.

^*One could argue that since he was elected he is not a dictator, but I would counter that the legitimacy of the elections are in such doubt that he is in fact a dictator.

From across the pond:

An overwhelming majority of people in Britain are willing to surrender civil liberties to help tackle the threat of terrorism, the nation’s leading social research institute will disclose today.

The survey found seven in every 10 people think compulsory identity cards for all adults would be “a price worth paying” to reduce the threat of terrorism. Eight in 10 say the authorities should be able to tap the phones of people suspected of involvement in terrorism, open their mail and impose electronic tagging or home curfews.

…

But fear of terrorism did not reduce people’s support for human rights in the international arena. About 84% agreed that “when a country is at war it must always abide by international human rights law.” And 78% rejected the proposition that “during a war it is acceptable for the armed forces to torture people.”

Regardless of whether torture is an effective weapon against terrorism, I think it is quite interesting that the British would voluntarily sacrifice many liberties they enjoy - a sort of subtle torture against the populace - but they are unwilling to cause any discomfort to those who would kill them.

I think that liberties are what make our country great.  I would rather see the “rights” of others, especially others who are trying to kill me, infringed before I sacrifice mine.