To be found here.

I haven’t had time to see Cloverfield yet, but I see it is has the overly used anti-science stance of many other disaster films! (more…)

Patrick Cockburn, running against the relatively good news about Iraq’s retreat from the brink of utter disaster from other sources, finds Iraq is still an appalling mess.

I wonder what situation could ever be considered good enough for The Independent. Presumably Iraq will continue to be a mess, until it is no longer politically acceptable for it to be so. Contrast Cockburn’s take on Fallujah with that of Michael Totten. Same city, at virtually the same time, yet both articles are near polar opposites.

Can two people go to the same place and yet make such different assessments?

Warning: contains neocon propaganda designed to smear the greatest Londoner since King Ludd.

Now we all know that the one-time leftist guerilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del Pueblo (Farc) has long since ditched political struggle and degenerated into narco-terrorism. And we also know that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has spoken out in support of his nominally Bolivarist brothers across the border. But how do the 600 tonnes of Colombian cocaine produced each year move out of the country with such apparent ease?

According to John Carlin, who writes in today’s Observer, 30 percent of that marching powder is smuggled through Venezuela. Or rather it is moved openly, with the support of the Venezuelan government and armed forces. Most of that 30 percent ends up in Europe, Carlin’s intelligence sources tell us, and the drug’s street value is around €10 billion a year.

I think we can assume that a fair proportion of that Venezuelan-branded Colombian cocaine finds its way into the noses of Londoners with more money than sense, and thus provides income for the city’s organised crime gangs.

So where does the current Mayor of London fit into all this? To me he doesn’t seem the type to be interested in the devil’s dandruff. But he is best mates with Chávez, and there is a considerable amount of money tied up in that relationship. If Carlin is right, and the Venezuelan president is up to his neck in drug smuggling, it doesn’t exactly look good for Livingstone. Political careers have wrecked on far less.

Will this story damage Livingstone’s re-election campaign? Maybe, maybe not. I can to a degree understand why Londoners are so attracted to Livingstone, and I’ve followed his career since the days of the ill-fated GLC. But there must be a limit to what people will put up with. Yes, I know that the only credible alternative is a useless wastrel tosspot, but if I had a vote in the forthcoming mayoral election, I’d probably give it to Boris Johnson, if only out of spite.

But back to more important matters than the goings on in a political institution that need not exist, and to my mind serves no useful purpose.

One of Carlin’s diplomatic sources tells him:

“The so-called anti-imperialist, socialist and Bolivarian nation that Chávez says he wants to create is en route to becoming a narco-state in the same way that Farc members have turned themselves into narco-guerrillas. Perhaps Chávez does not realise it but, unchecked, this phenomenon will corrode Venezuela like a cancer.”

Maybe drugs will be the final nail in the coffin of Chávez’ Bolivarian dream.