Some mornings you wake up and the world is even madder than it was the previous day. Yesterday I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news that Paul Wolfowitz had been nominated to head the World Bank. An attempt by the Bush administration to further dominate weak developing countries? If I was from Mars I would think it odd to suggest appointing the current Deputy Defence Secretary to such an important development role. From the Independent Newspaper:

So far, the US has shut the World Bank out of the reconstruction process in Iraq, a decision in which Mr Wolfowitz was almost certainly involved. Much of his credibility in the new job is likely to rest on his ability to bring the World Bank back into that process.

And, the last word to z-magazine:

The respected liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz did bring a fresh air of dissidence to the Bank, but he was quickly shown the door out. That became a typical play during Jim Wolfensohn’s regime at the bank. Other independent-minded people were kicked out or told to tone down their analysis. With Wolfowitz at the helm, the bank’s climate is likely to get worse, not better.”

I had to buy TIME magazine when I saw that they had made George W Bush their ‘Person of the year’. Not at all surprising seeing that 2003’s person of the year was The American Soldier. 2004 is Bush’s second time, he is in the company of Hitler (1938), Stalin (also named twice, in 1939 and 1942), Nixon (1971 and the following year with Kissinger), along with a number of US Presidents, saints, innovators and groups of people (the twenty-five and unders of ’66 for example).

TIME regularly name bad guys, this selection includes two commies, an Ayatollah and Adolf. No bad guys from the US of course, they probably don’t exist.

You can find a complete list here at About.com .

While I was sussing out the NZ web design scene, I came across the company that designed the Tegal poultry site. Tegal is New Zealand’s best known brand of cook-at-home-chicken and turkey, and I was relieved to read that all their chickens are barn raised (scroll to the bottom of the page):

Broiler chickens are raised in large, modern, well equipped barns. They are free to move around, with access to food and water 24 hours a day.

Excellent. But then I thought, what does barn raised really mean? I had a quick look on Google and found this on the Auckland Animal Action web site.

Broiler chickens are chickens raised for their meat. They are reared in packed sheds, with up to 45,000 other chickens. This often gives each chicken a space the size of an A4 piece of paper. They live in these sheds for the whole of their 6-7 weeks lives…

and

As if the life of a broiler chicken wasn’t hellish enough, their death is even worse.

I haven’t eaten much chicken over the last few months because I suspected that most UK/European chickens lived and died in appalling conditions. I had thought that chickens in NZ would have space to roam, but being naive I underestimated the power of the profit motive.

That about wraps it up for Tegal – I think I’ll go organic from now on.

Yep. Gotta hand it to the man. If you care to watch the last edition of the BBC’s most excellent Question Time you’ll see what I mean. Mike, do me a favour, you’re at your best live so quit it with the crappy books already. He (Moore) excels live or at least on screen and this is a textbook example of his humour defusing an argument and winning people over….

From the beeb:

“We do not believe that the Kyoto Protocol is something that is realistic for the United States and we have no intention of signing or ratifying it,” State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.

Good one, Adam Ereli. See you in hell, buddy .