Yanda Time

September 30, 2005

How to donate

I've been doing a few random acts of madness for various charities. For convenience sake I thought I'd list them here:

The British Red Cross
The British Heart Foundation
Children in Need
The Livia Stoyke Foundation (Canadian)

In particular, I'd like to put in a plug for the Livia Stoyke Foundation. Livia Stoyke was the sister of a good friend of mine. I think I only met her once and even that meeting may just have been manufactured in my mind from the mythology surrounding her. She was an adventurous, beautiful, creative woman who died in a whitewater kayaking accident at the age of 32.

The Foundation which bears her name focuses on five key areas:
• Fostering the Arts
• Aiding Women in need
• Helping Children
• Alleviating Poverty
• Protecting the Environment

Most of their work is local to my hometown: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. So, if you live in or come from Edmonton you may want to get involved.

Posted by YandaMan at 9:18 AM

July 21, 2005

More Explosions in London

There have been four more explosions in London today at Warren Street tube station, Oval tube station, and Shepherd's Bush tube station, as well as on a number 26 bus on Hackney Road in Bethnal Green.

So far, there has been a report of only one minor injury at Warren Street.

Posted by YandaMan at 2:42 PM

July 7, 2005

Bomb Blasts in London

The police have confirmed three explosions on the London Underground and one on a London bus near Tavistock Square in Central London.

Vicki, John, Sinead, and I are all safe.

Posted by YandaMan at 11:18 AM | Comments (1)

July 2, 2005

Canada Day

Yesterday it was Canada Day and I spent last night thinking a lot about what it means to be Canadian. One of the defining characteristics of the Canadian psyche is an insecurity about who we are. Canadians are terrified they are secretly just Americans who know the difference between a poutine and a toque. I've heard a number of definitions over the years:

"A Canadian is anyone who can make love in a Canoe."

"A Canadian is someone who says sorry when you step on their foot."

"A Canadian is a sanctimonious twit whose greatest pride is that they aren't as bad as their neighbour."

I think the first two are things to be rightly proud of. I'm not so sure about the third.

Now I consider myself a Canadian. I was born there. I lived there for 34 years. It will always be home. And I guess to me, a Canadian is

1. Funny in a goofy, self-deprecating way
2. Almost sickeningly polite
3. Frost Tolerant
4. Generous
5. Environmentally aware
6. And, yes, a teeny bit smug

However, I recently read a book called While Canada Slept - How We Lost Our Place in the World which destroyed many of my beliefs. It is all about how we as Canadians have this image of ourselves as a fair nation, an exceptionally generous nation, and the World's leading peacekeeper. This was certainly true once, but it is no longer, despite the fact that it is what most Canadians want to believe about their nation, myself included.

In 1950, along with Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and Ceylon, we helped create the world's first aid programme for the developing world. The intention of the Colombo Plan (no relation to the famous disheveled detective) was to help the people of the Southern Hemisphere lift themselves out of poverty.

In the 1970s we were one of the first nations to commit to the target of giving 0.7% of our GDP in foreign aid to the developing world. Every Canadian government since then has renewed that promise at every election. Despite this, and despite consistent public support for such a commitment, Canada's levels of foreign aid have dropped drastically in recent years. In 2001, the Canadian government contributed 0.22%, its lowest level in 37 years. Eleven other countries including France, Great Britain, and Germany have already reached their 0.7% commitment or have timelines for doing so.

No wonder Bob Geldof told Paul Martin to stay away from Gleneagles. Martin was, after all, Canada's finance minister throughout this decline.

And let us not forget that Canada is the only country attending the G8 to have a budget surplus, its 7th in a row. Personally, I'm a bit embarrassed by this. I'm proud of the fact that Canada has a surplus. Admirably frugal. Admirably sensible. But I'm embarrassed that it was ranked 19th out of the 22 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in terms of foreign aid.

And the aid that we do give often has strings attached. Canada's food aid policy is 50 years out of date and was originally designed to clear markets of surplus with little thought on the effect this might have on the recipient country. According to a recent Oxfam Briefing Paper:
"Canada is the world’s second largest food aid donor after the USA in terms of per capita donations. Its food aid policy is also the world’s second most restrictive, requiring 90 per cent of the budget be spent on the purchase and shipment of Canadian commodities. Only the USA, where virtually all food aid is tied to US purchases, is more restrictive."

This is called "tied aid". In simple terms it's like saying, "we will give you money to buy food for your people, but only if you buy it from us." This has two serious side effects. It damages more local markets for food. It can create bizarre scenarios where farmers just a few miles away from an area of famine can't sell the food they grow. It also means a large proportion of the money allocated as food aid actually gets spent on transport. According to the same report,
"Of the $165m budgeted for 2005, $66m (40 per cent) will be spent not on food, but on shipping."

Canada used to be the World's diplomat. It took an active interest in the rest of the world. It has a history that all Canadians should be proud of. And right now, there is an opportunity for Canada to reassert itself on the World stage. The Live 8 concerts and Make Poverty History campaign have sparked a renewed interest in helping eradicate the injustice in relations between the Developed and Developing worlds. I happen to think Make Poverty History is a good initiative. It has three basic principals:

1. More and Better Aid
2. Trade Justice
3. Cancel the debt of the 32 poorest countries.

Cancelling this debt would cost Canada about $100 million a year through to 2015, or about $3.33 per person per annum.

There are a number of books out at the moment discussing the debt issue. One of the better ones I've read is IOU: The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It.

And if you want an eye-opener about how Canada rates environmentally, take a look at this environmental comparison of Canada's performance against other OECD nations . I'll give you the quick executive summary. We are ranked 28th out of 29. In other words, Canada sucks monkey gonads when it comes to the environment.

In short, I think the Canadian government has let me down. Somehow it managed to brainwash me into thinking they were doing a good job with the big issues, but really they have been a bit crap. For me, that means I have two tasks.

1. I need to pressure whatever government I have any influence on to make sure they don't screw up the big issues.
2. I need to put my money where my mouth is.

I can't just sit idly by and wait for the governments of the world to spend my tax money sensibly on foreign aid and development. And so I've decided to set my own goals and ensure I spend at least 1% of my income on charitable donations which will benefit others, particularly those in the developing world.

With that in mind, I've decided to cycle the Tour de France to raise money for the Red Cross.

Well, I'm not actually going to cycle the exact same route. Unlike certain Texans, I don't have the luxury of pedalling around the French Countryside while my rockstar girlfriend pays the bills. I'm just going to see how long it would take me to cover the same mileage as Le Tour -- 3608 km. I'll do my best to keep up with the peleton but I'm going to have to fit my riding in with work and having a life and stuff.

Posted by YandaMan at 11:18 PM | Comments (1)

July 7, 2003

Big Brother Winning the Propaganda War

Today the Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee came back with their report on "The Decision to go to War in Iraq". This report was sparked at least in part by a Radio 4 story about how the Goverment asked a WMD dossier to be "sexed up". I put a couple of links to some of the ensuing war of words in The Beeb v the Government. So far, this has all been a bit interesting, but not really very scary.

But then I saw this report in the Guardian which took an objective look at the government's accusation that the BBC had an anti-war agenda during and in the months leading up to the Iraq conflict. This study suggests that the BBC's coverage was the least anti-war of the four main UK Broadcasters. That, in fact, it was the most likely to support the government's views.

This I do find a bit spooky. And the reason is that it made me realise that the government's accusation of bias against the BBC had actually affected me somewhat. Before the accusation, I didn't think about what stance the Beeb had on the war at all. When the accusation was made, I regarded it as a pretty spurious attack but, at the same time, some secret part of my brain went, well, yes, perhaps they were a bit anti-war. It wasn't something I necessarily believed but it was something I could believe.

And now, this report reveals it to be an extremely misinformed and spurious attack.

I should be relieved, I suppose, to find the BBC is as impartial and fair as I believed it to be. On the other hand, I have to admit that the Government's attack did succeed in affecting my opinion of that impartiality, which really pisses me off. it is the one aspect of this saga which has caused me to lose the most faith in the Government. They (in particular Alastair Campbell) have absolutely lost my trust with this attack. And I sincerely worry what other nefarious influence they may have had on myself and the British public which I haven't had the chance to notice.

Posted by YandaMan at 5:18 PM

June 27, 2003

The Beeb v The Government

There's a bit of a brouhaha between the UK goverment and the BBC going on at the moment. Basically, the BBC reported that a senior British official said that Downing Street had a report on Iraq's WMD "sexed up".

First of all, here is an AudioFile of the report that caused all the kerfuffle from the BBC's Today show on Radio 4.

And then here is the letter from Alastair Campbell to the BBC. Alastair is the Tony Blair's director of Communication.

And here is the response from Richard Sambrook. Richard is the Director of BBC News.

I just think it's interesting in these cases to look at the actual correspondence between the parties involved.

-- Added the following on June 28, 2003 --

And here's Campbell's reaction to the BBC letter.

-- Added the following on July 7, 2003 --

The BBC Board of Governors' Report supporting the BBC

Extract from foreign affairs select committee report regarding the 45-minute claim

And this report by the Guardian on Commons' Dossier Report has a number of useful links at the bottom including both the September and February Dossiers and

-- Added the following on January 29, 2004 --

Here is the full text of the Hutton Report:
HTML version
PDF version

In particular, it may be useful to read the Terms of Reference of the report which lays out which questions Lord Hutton intends to address in the report.

And the Today programme has put together an archive of all the Today Programme broadcasts on the controversy from the first radio report onwards.

-- Added the following on February 1, 2004 --
A Fight to the Death Transcript of a Panorama programme about the Hutton Inquiry and more specifically how the dossier at its centre was put together.

Posted by YandaMan at 7:01 PM

February 15, 2003

Anti-War Protest

Good pics of the protest are here:
/Yanda/pix/2003_02_15_good/

Crap pics are here (digital cameras are COOL):
/Yanda/pix/2003_02_15_therest/

---

Went on the Anti-War protest today, the largest protest ever in Britain. Estimates of the number of people marching in London alone ranged from a low of 750,000 to a high of 2 million. This despite the enormous problems with London transport (3 lines closed) and what was, for London, bitterly cold weather.

I went on the march because I believe the reasons put forward for this war are extremely flawed. As I understand it, these reasons (along with why I disagree with them) are primarily:

1. To discourage and disrupt Global Terrorism.
If this war goes ahead, I think it will be the best recruiting campaign ever conducted for Global Terrorism. I personally believe the recent terrorist threats in the U.K. are a direct result of the sabre-rattling by George Bush and Tony Blair. Conversely, I hope that the scale of the protests today across the globe will go some way to defusing the middle-eastern terrorist's argument that everyone in the Western world is evil and a deserving victim of terrorist attacks.

2. To prevent Sadam Hussain from using his Weapons of Mass Destruction (if they exist).
Don't agree with this either. I think (and I believe it was the view of most foriegn policy consultants in the run-up to resolution 1441) that the only way Sadam will use these weapons is if he is directly threatened (i.e. if he were to be invaded). If we recall the debate prior to 1441, an awful lot of heavy hitting pundits were arguing that containment was working and we didn't need the threat of war, never mind the actual thing. Since 1441, Bush's threats have coerced Iraq to be much more compliant when it comes with the U.N. weapons inspectors. Bush, you've won. Now go fix your economy.

3. To remove Sadam from power.
Okay, yep. I believe the combined firepower of the U.N. (especially when that of United States is included) is sufficient to remove Sadam from power. I agree he's an evil dictator almost certainly hated by the overwhelming majority of the people of Iraq. However, I'm not sure that invading a country and wiping out its head of government because he is widely loathed is a wise precedent. I believe this threat is directly related to the sudden upsurge in paranoia in North Korea which has led them to resume their nuclear weapons programme.

4. We've made the threat (resolution 1441) and not to go through with it would undermine the power of the United Nations.
So, because Bush is a terrible politician, we should all sign up to a war that is guaranteed to murder at least 10s of thousands of people directly, cost billions of dollars, and destablize the entire world. No. Absolutely not. I believe that the U.N. has obtained significant concessions from Iraq. I believe they are still trying to cheat. I believe they will continue to cheat. However, I do not believe they are much of a danger to the rest of the world. Additionally, I think the entire crisis has shown the U.N. to have considerable power. I would argue that if the current arguments in NATO and the U.N. cause the U.S. to back down and give up on this insane warmongering, it will actually demonstrate its worth to the world rather than the reverse. Can you imagine how a headline like "Bush admits he was wrong, U.S. Willing to Listen to Other Viewpoints" might damage the cause of International Terrorism against America.

These arguments make so little sense that, although I can't quite bring myself to believe it, the argument that it's all about Oil makes more logical sense to me. I can at least spot the logic in the argument, "Hmm, tax cuts for the rich don't seem to have fixed the economy. Hey! Iraq has the second largest oil reserves on the planet. They're worth billions! If we invade we could steal most of it. Fantastic. Oh, and destabilising the world should help out our defense industry."

But again, I'm too generous a person to actually believe such an argument.

Which doesn't leave me with much of a justification for this war. The only other thing that makes even the tiniest bit of sense is that George W. Bush is determined to get a bigger chapter in the history books than his father.

If that's the case, why doesn't he just get an intern to give him a blow job? It worked for Clinton.

In other words: make love, not war, Mr. Bush.

Posted by YandaMan at 11:53 PM