Liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban’s anti-drug zealots has produced a record heroin crop. "Britain is already suffering from record amounts of heroin entering the country, with prices of the narcotic at an all-time low", says the Independent.

On the plus side, reports the Onion, "in spite of his debilitating addiction, junkie David Spellman is safer, warmer, healthier, and happier than nearly every poppy farmer in Afghanistan."

Richard Herring is superb: "Don’t have a go at me… You’re the one who bakes the children in pies! Morally you don’t have a leg to stand on. I agree that the pies are delicious. I’m not saying I can’t understand your motivation, but I only eat the pies because they are there. They are a by-product of the child-killing industry. You’re the one who kills children, not me."

If you want to read mindlessly offensive, badly-written drivel, but are bored of US-centric ‘nuke EUrabia’ screeds, I strongly recommend A Tangled Web. It’s horrible. I mean, really horrible: the sentiments, the writing, and the design. You’ll want to scrub your eyes with a wire brush after reading it. Highly recommended.

Alternatively, should you wish to read some pseudophilosophical religious bilge, the Anchoress is an excellent purveyor thereof: "Beware the urge to utilarianism. Everything does not have to be of "use." Nor does everyONE. It is enough to BE, if BEING is what you have been called to. The Pope is not a CEO. He doesn’t have to DO anything. He just has to BE. Terri Schiavo does not have to get up and dance a jig to be valuable. She is valuable in her BEING, as the object of her family’s love. And God’s".

The latter comes via The Asserter (are they a couple?). I’m not going to pass judgement on his site, save to note that he links approvingly to the piece above, John Lott and Oliver Kamm, and doesn’t appear to understand the difference between criticising someone’s sloppy English and accusing them of supporting mass murder…

Please welcome our new swimming pool manager, Jaws.

(via Little Red Blogger. Couldn’t quite decide which metaphor to use above; my alternative was ‘Please welcome our new school caretaker, Ian Huntley’.)

I had planned to post on a stat I found in this week’s Economist – unfortunately the Moonie Times beat me to it: "It is yet to dawn on U.S. gatekeepers that 6.7 percent of Chinese defense imports come from the United States and only 2.7 percent from Europe".

At this point, any sanctimonious American prick who’s even *considering* saying one word about the EU plans to lift the arms embargo should, broadly, go and fuck themselves. Unless they’re a pacifist. Pacifists are welcome, and correct, to point out that we should all sell fewer arms to everybody.

(Moonie Times link via The Pseudo Magazine)

From the department of "good, but it’s about fucking time", the US Supreme Court has abolished the death penalty for juveniles.

The final step towards civilisation – doing the same for adults – may take rather longer.

"The likely outcome [of a UK ‘no’ vote to the constitution] would be… something akin to Norway’s agreement with the Union. Britain would buy (for a hefty sum) access to the single market but would lose all influence in shaping its rules. Those who think that sounds like a good idea would do well to talk to Norway’s business leaders." – Phillip Stephens in the FT (subscription required, probably).

British Eurosceptics often make a similar argument, except with the spin that following the Norwegian model would be a Good Thing. I’m sceptical of such claims – but this scepticism isn’t based on much real evidence.

So, if any readers either are Norwegian business leaders or have talked to Norwegian business leaders about the consequences of being outside the EU, I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts…

"Let us congratulate the Lebanese, not those in Washington who would take credit for their accomplishments." – Ed Kilgore guesting at TPM.

I really, really, hope the Lebanese get rid of the Syrians and move closer towards proper democracy. I hope the Iranians get rid of the theocrats and move towards proper democracy (and that we don’t fuck it all up by bombing them in the meantime). I hope the Egyptians, the Tunisians, and ultimately even the Saudis, follow suit.

However, should these great events come to pass, I still reserve the right to be very, very angry about the fact that George W Bush, despite having done nothing of value to further democracy in the Middle East, will get much of the credit.

It will happen. Consider the praise Ronnie Reagan received for the collapse of the Soviet Union – which was caused almost entirely by the inherent unsustainability of the regime. The bravery of Eastern European dissidents played a significant part in ensuring that what came after was broadly good rather than bad, and rhetorical and financial support from the US had some impact on keeping dissident groups going, but this hardly warrants primary credit. And the current administration’s Middle Eastern policy is *at absolute best* no more significant.

Update: as one might expect, Stephen Pollard is first in the queue to insult the Arab world and praise the Monkey God.

Q: Why does the world hate America? A: I simply can’t imagine.

Texas congressman Sam Johnson’s comments (broadly, "we should nuke Syria out of existence") are worse than anything that anyone of any importance on the left – politicians and pundits alike – has said since 9/11. Worse in the sense of more offensive, and worse in the sense of making people outside America keener on destroying America.

Hell, if I thought Americans in general were like Sam Johnson, then I’d be keen to destroy America (as it is, I’m merely keen to destroy Texas).

Read this defence of Ken Livingstone. Not only does it do the easy thing (pointing out how completely fucking nonsensical the accusations of antisemitism over the Evening Standard row are), it also does the hard thing (coming up with a strong argument for why Ken’s decision to meet with Yousef Al-Qaradhawi was the right one).

Excellent work. You may want to read the rest of Jim Bliss’s site as well – he makes a lot of sense, for a hippy.

From the other side of the political (and idiocy) spectrum, a terror hawk named Giles at a site named Jacob’s Room has decided to run a vote to come up with a new nickname for Ken – one which reflects their belief that he’s trivialised the Jewish people’s suffering by failing to take the Holocaust seriously. The options include Blackshirt Ken, Adolf EichKen, and Kongestion Kamp Ken…