This had me chuckling:

I think it’s a complete farce. I mean, the Nobel Prize now has all the credibility of the Eurovision Song Contest.

– Martin Durkin, director of the environmental polemic The Great Global Warming Swindle, talking to Sky News about Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize.

President Thabo Mbeki marked the anniversary of Che Guevara’s death by paying homage to the communist revolutionary. The man who was instrumental in establishing a brutal dictatorship in Cuba, he called dedicated to the true liberation of each people and the genuine independence of all countries. The man who lied about his credentials to work as a doctor, he says worked to emancipate the working people from the scourges of poverty, hunger and underdevelopment. Guevara’s attacks on the genuine independence of other countries by fomenting communist revolution, he calls modest efforts of assistance. The man in charge of hundreds of extrajudicial executions he calls one of the great human beings of the age. And when the Bolivians took offence and shot the murderous bastard, Mbeki calls it assassination.

Despising a communist and a murderer doesn’t necessarily mean his enemies were saints. They most certainly were not. But despising his enemies likewise doesn’t mean Guevara deserves blind reverence. In fact, even a modest amount of knowledge of his life and work would counsel against hagiography.

Assuming that Mbeki is no longer a dyed-in-the-wool communist who hails tyrants as heroes and murderers as liberators, and assuming that Mbeki remains the well-read intellectual he always was, one can only conclude that this was a cold, calculated attempt to win over the left wing of his party. Which raises the question: is there no level to which Mbeki won’t stoop for the sake of cheap political demagoguery?

Browsing the website of the state-owned electricity producer, Eskom, where “loadshedding” schedules are published, is a depressing pastime for a sunny Friday afternoon. It’s a tale of woe that underscores the truth of the classic economic argument that if you control prices, you’ll get only shortages for your efforts. Witness:

The Energy White Paper of 1998 encouraged independent power producers (IPPs) to enter the generation market. Private sector investment was not forthcoming and in 2004, Government revised its policy and Eskom was given the green light to build new generation capacity.

Because of the low South African electricity prices and the slender returns they could earn, years passed without a single IPP entering the local electricity market. Meanwhile Eskom’s fleet of power stations got closer to the end of their design life while the demand for electricity grew inexorably higher.

The government has a nasty habit of describing such reluctance of the private sector to come to the party as “market failure”. But why aren’t they coming to the party? Low prices. And why are prices low? Because they’re regulated. For socio-economic development (read “central planning”) reasons, South Africans get cheap electricity — when they can get it.

The South African electricity supply industry, long the envy of the developing world, must be allowed to restore its reputation and resume giving its customers excellent service.

To achieve this, there must be co-operation and support (Thekga) from everyone. The rebuilding of a world-class electricity supply must become a national issue – a social rallying call.

Until that happens, domestic customers would do well to have gas bottles and other emergency equipment prepared for use, in case of unexpected interruptions.

The only thing this proves is that the social rallying call should be to liberate South Africa from the shackles of government social service delivery. It ain’t going to happen, folks. And since it won’t, we might as well repeal the laws that oblige the government to provide for us, while preventing private entrepreneurs from supplying the needs of their private customers.

If that means prices are going to rise, fine. I’d rather pay more for electricity and actually get it, than pay less and be told by my state electricity supplier to invest in “gas bottles and other emergency equipment”.

As Friedrich Hayek said, the cure for high prices is high prices (hat tip: Neil Emerick, Free Market Foundation). Only when prices are permitted to rise will they attract competition and investment. In turn, this competition will result in lower profit margins and a systemic decline in prices. But much more importantly than providing cheap electricity efficiently, only by permitting prices to float freely as demand dictates, will supply rise or fall to match that demand. Price caps on electricity can have only one outcome: shortages.

“Oh Christ.” That was 88-year-old Doris Lessing’s exasperated, charming response to CNN, when she disembarked from a black cab in London to be informed by the news cameraman that she had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Why she’s so surprised is beyond me. She’s a pretty good author, has been both prolific and influential, and has sure waited long enough for the ultimate accolade. And at least she’s a writer.

What mystifies me is the Nobel Peace Prize, which according to Alfred Nobel’s will is to be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

So who gets it? A failed candidate for US president and a bevy of bureaucrats. The former has recently been going around the world using dodgy numbers and emotive images to whip up mortal fear in the hearts of millions, calling for states to impose, by force, restrictive and oppressive measures on free, industrious people. For good measure, the politico-bureaucrats have been living off taxes collected by force while they base fearful prophecies of apocalypse on statistics of dubious provenance in their efforts to scare people into expanding the power of national governments and supranational institutions. For all their entertainment value, how either Al Gore or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change created fraternity between the nations, abolished or reduced standing armies, or held and promoted peace congresses, is beyond me.

Mind you, I guess Al Gore did invent the internet. Peace, bro.

It’s a funny affair, the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s been inconsistent at best. Last year, the choice was inspired, selecting Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, which has done Bangladesh in particular and the Indian subcontinent in general a great service by proving that wealth can be created among the world’s poor through peaceful trade, without pouring billions down bureaucratic black holes. Today’s award exactly contradicts the philosophical basis and spirit of last year’s prize.

That earthquake warning, incidentally, has its epicentre in Norra Begravningsplatsen, pictured above.