Looks like Bush is funding radical Islamists

Disturbing news from The Economist "Democracy in America" blog, with the original post, entitled "Known unknowns" here

AS ABC News has reported, George Bush has authorized the use of covert operations to destabilize the regime in Iran. One disturbing part of the article is the apparent American support for Jundullah, a fanatical Sunni militant organisation conducting raids into Iran from bases on the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The group is reportedly funded by the Afghan and Pakistani militaries. But, given Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s close cooperation with America, Jundullah might as well be getting the funding from America itself.
 
The parallel to America’s support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s seems almost too obvious. Back then the American government could, perhaps, be forgiven for allowing the threat of communism to trump all other considerations (like the danger inherent in arming Islamic extremists).

Scary! Unsurprisingly hypocritical!

Carbon/virtual-water labelling of products

Despite initial protests from industry about added food labelling costs, consumers welcome the ability to make informed choices, and producer have made improvements to product lines.  It’s time to start providing similar information detailing the carbon balance and virtual water content of food, and later, other items.

Carbon released by transport is the tricky part of labelling, although it is reasonable to provide this as a separate figure (using averages to retail markets), just as total energy on food labels is broken down into fat, complex carbohydrates and sugars.

The data on the label should include the cost of packaging, as well as the contents.  This would allow purchasers to discover that a drink in a plastic bottle or carton has a lower energy content than an aluminium can.

Energy and water: state ownership and market forces

The nature of businesses is to work to sell more product at higher margins.  A key strategy for climate change mitigation is the reduction of energy and water use.  Ergo, energy and water supply (especially where statewide distribution creates a natural monopoly) should be in state ownership.

This applies to reticulation, and charges to consumers, but not necessarily production of energy or water.  With governments as the sole buyer from producers, market forces can be used constructively.

With a drop in per-capita demand, and hopefully with a decline in the fertility rate, a government can determine a reasonable level of resources for domestic and general small business use, auction the remaining resources (with the total capped by government targets) to larger users, and have competitive tendering for supply.