Correction, please!The Famine Feast ITEM: At the World Food Summit in Rome on June 10th, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (born April 8, 1938) is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1 1997 to January 1 2007, serving two five-year terms. He was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. told delegates there was "no time to waste," stated a UN press release. "If we want to reverse the current trends and halve hunger by 2015, we need a comprehensive and coherent approach that addresses the multiple dimensions of hunger by pursuing simultaneously wider access to food, and agricultural and rural development. We need an anti-hunger programme that could become a common framework around which global and national capacities to fight hunger can be mobilized." Africa especially needs development strategies, Annan said, with "outright famine" threatening southern Africa. CORRECTION: Unfortunately, government programs and corruption contribute to food scarcity, with famine more likely where there are centralized, authoritarian regimes, such as Africa. "If all black African leaders were to ... lift price controls to permit their peasants to sell their produce in open free markets," observed Ghanaian economist George Ayittey, "there would be no food crisis in the continent." Some African governments actually hurt their own people. Some block emergency aid, as in southern Sudan and Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe is also confiscating 95 percent of the land owned by white farmers and giving it to cronies -- driving production down. Inflation there has hit 113%, reports the BBC BBC in full British Broadcasting Corp. Publicly financed broadcasting system in Britain. A private company at its founding in 1922, it was replaced by a public corporation under royal charter in 1927. , and food is used as a weapon. "We've even heard of children whose parents are suspected of supporting the opposition being turned away from feeding lines at schools," remarked Andrew Natsios, head of USAID USAID United States Agency for International Development USAID Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (Spanish) . Subsidized Fuelishness ITEM: Speaking in Des Moines, the president called on Congress "to endorse an energy policy that promotes ethanol ft is a "popular cause in farm states" reported the June 8th Washington Post. Said Mr. Bush: "It is in our national interest to have more forms of energy produced at home, so we're less reliant upon foreign sources of energy." CORRECTION: The domestic energy argument might have more punch if the president hadn't just made "off-limits" some 2.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, in the Destin Dome Unit in the Gulf of Mexico Noun 1. Gulf of Mexico - an arm of the Atlantic to the south of the United States and to the east of Mexico Golfo de Mexico Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east , as a political payoff to development opponents in Florida. Massive ethanol subsidization is another political stratagem STRATAGEM. A deception either by words or actions, in times of war, in order to obtain an advantage over an enemy. 2. Such stratagems, though contrary to morality, have been justified, unless they have been accompanied by perfidy, injurious to the rights of pushed by the White House and leading Midwest lawmakers, led by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), to curry favor to seek to gain favor by flattery or attentions. See Favor, n. os> to seek to gain favor by flattery, caresses, kindness, or officious civilities. See also: Curry favor with promoters of the corn-based additive. The president made his remarks at the World Pork Expo, a suitable venue for ethanol-larded legislation mandating a tripling of its use in gasoline in the next decade. The additive already receives 53 cents a gallon in subsidies, and proposed legislation would provide liability protection for its producers and ban a competitor. Meanwhile, ignored by most "environmentalists," ethanol plants are releasing pollutants and carcinogens Carcinogens Substances in the environment that cause cancer, presumably by inducing mutations, with prolonged exposure. Mentioned in: Colon Cancer, Rectal Cancer at much higher levels than predicted. When growing and harvesting the corn for ethanol is considered, reports the Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a branch of the Library of Congress that provides objective, nonpartisan research, analysis, and information to assist Congress in its legislative, oversight, and representative functions. U.S. , overall energy consumption is not reduced. And the White House knows this, as revealed in an internal White House document that just surfaced. The president's Council of Economic Advisers, for example, calls the additional mandate "costly to both consumers and the government," acknowledging it will "provide little environmental benefit." The driving factor, however, is that ethanol is a political additive. Poor Statistics ITEM: With a headline proclaiming, "Gains of '90s Did Not Lift All, Census Shows," the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times for June 5th reported: "Despite the surging economy of the 1990's that brought affluence to many Americans, the poor remained entrenched en·trench also in·trench v. en·trenched, en·trench·ing, en·trench·es v.tr. 1. To provide with a trench, especially for the purpose of fortifying or defending. 2. , the Census Bureau reported today." CORRECTION: While facts are stubborn, statistics are more pliable -- allowing polemicists to draw their own confusions. One could look at the same figures and see that states with the greatest poverty usually had the most immigrants from poor countries. Indeed, U.S. immigration policies have imported poverty. The growth of immigration-related poverty accounted for fully three-quarters of the increase in the poor population between 1989 and 1997, says the Federation for American Immigration Reform The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization in the United States that advocates for reforms of U.S. immigration policies that would result in significant immigration reduction. . Another census document has shown that the poverty rate of the foreign-born in the U.S. is 50 percent higher than among native-born. WILLIAM P. HOAR William P. Hoar is a writer for the John Birch Society noted for very strong attacks on mainstream politicians from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush. He publishes regularly in the Birch Society magazine The New American and its predecessor American Opinion. |
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