Nine meals from anarchy - how Britain is facing a very real food crisis

A very interesting read, and too close to the mark for comfort.

The phrase 'nine meals from anarchy' sounds more like the title of a bad Hollywood movie than any genuine threat.

But that was the expression coined by Lord Cameron of Dillington, a farmer who was the first head of the Countryside Agency - the quango set up by Tony Blair in the days when he pretended to care about the countryside - to describe just how perilous Britain's food supply actually is.

G8 chiefs to tackle soaring oil, food prices

TOKYO - Finance ministers from the Group of Eight rich nations will this weekend discuss ways to limit the economic damage of soaring oil prices that have eclipsed the credit crisis as their biggest worry.

But experts said the G8 powers have few obvious options to cool the commodities boom in the near future, with any calls for the OPEC producer cartel to open up the taps likely to fall on deaf ears.

How I love OPEC! Especially our friends the Saudis!

Can Saudi Arabia Bring Down Gas Prices?

The Saudis announced a 300,000 barrel-a-day increase in oil production last month, or 3.3 percent, but the news had little impact on oil markets.

Still, according to Flynn, if the Saudis increased production by about one million barrels a day (or more than 10 percent) — the kingdom now produces 9.4 million barrels a day — the supply increase could trigger a massive sell-off in oil contracts and a dramatic drop in oil prices.

And this is just... bizarre. Korea in crisis as beef protests grow

THE administration of new South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was in meltdown last night after a month of street demonstrations against the purported danger of US beef imports broadened into the biggest anti-government demonstrations in two decades.

Hours after at least 100,000 people - organisers claimed 700,000 - spilled into the streets in a populist backlash against the country's fledgling President, Mr Lee pledged a "new beginning" as he began deliberating how to reshuffle his unpopular Government.

"I thought about a lot of things while watching protests last night," Mr Lee said yesterday. "The Government intends to make a start with a new determination."

The comments came after Mr Lee's entire cabinet offered to resign in response to weeks of rallies against the planned resumption of US beef imports, despite widespread fears American beef may carry mad cow disease.

The New York Times is disturbed that the US continues to defend the freedom of speech:

Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.

“It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”

This while Doudou Diene is traveling the US, looking for racism, and meeting with a fishy-smelling ex-CAIR operative. Joy.

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And in the world wide web of terror...

Pakistan is having hissy fits over our airstrike on the border. I myself am having doubts that their soldiers were innocent victims.

Britain's gone so far down the crapper they're just leaving their top secret documents lying around any old place.

And computers in our Capitol have been hacked by the Chinese.