Q. “Mr. President, have you approved of covert activity to destabilize the present government of Nicaragua?”

A. “Well, no, we’re supporting them, the — oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m sorry, I was thinking of El Salvador, because of the previous, when you said Nicaragua. Here again, this is something upon which the national security interests, I just — I will not comment.” — Washington press conference, February 13th, 1983, as quoted by John Pilger in ‘Heroes’

The Gipper is dead, aged 93. The little red email takes no pleasure in belittling those who have passed on, but this week-long glorification of the 40th president of the United States seems more than just a tad ridiculous. As CNN et al continue to hyperbolize over his achievements today, while the Gipper is laid to rest in a huge ceremony, we would like to remind those with short memories that this man, Ronald Reagan, has a lot to answer for in regards to the ills of today.

Think back, were the 1980s all hunky dory? During his eight years as head of the US, Reagan’s murky military support for factions in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Afghanistan and Angola to name a few caused hundreds of thousands of brutal deaths. Indeed, his support of the Mujhadeen, and some chap called Osama bin-something or another, back then laid the paving stones for the present War On Terror™ — something to think about while CNN tells you for the four hundredth time this hour that Reagan was the man who brought the Cold War to a close. The War on Drugs started here too — and that has so far proved an abject failure.

A record 138 Reagan administration officials were investigated for misconduct or criminal violations during his eight years. Perjury (eg Iran contra) and fraud were commonplace.

James Watt, Reagan’s secretary of the interior, admitted in the 1990s that, after he left government, he got $500,000 in kickbacks for arranging favourable contracts for private firms with his contacts in the department — one of very few criminals from the administration to be caught and tried.

His efforts to contain pollution were nil, even remarking on how trees caused pollution. This man, like his protégé Dubya who idolizes the Gipper, set record deficits in his time and like Margaret Thatcher in the UK, the gap between rich and poor became an ocean under his tenure. The only president further to the right than him in the last fifty years is currently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that is when he bothers to tear himself away from his beloved ranch in Texas. The similarities between Dubya and Reagan are obvious. Both pandered towards the rich, and both loved crazy military pursuits.

Reagan ultimately gave W his raison d’être in the form of both his favourite bugbears: Islamic extremists by the bucketful and Saddam’s fabled WMDs (you didn’t think Rummy went down there just to give Hussein a deluxe edition set of "Good boy" Golden Spurs™, did you?).

This past week some startling revelations have been shared at the Peak Oil conference in Berlin.

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) warns that we can expect to see oil prices four times their recent record highs of $40 a barrel in the near future. Four times as expensive would cripple most Western people’s way of lives.

ASPO is a made up of oil executives, geologists, investment bankers, academics and others who are planning for life after the end of cheap oil as production is now peaking.

People like Ali Bakhtiari, head of strategic planning at Iran’s National Oil Company (NOIC), Dr Colin Campbell, a former executive vice president of Total-Fina, and Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker and adviser to the controversial Bush-Cheney energy plan.

“Oil is far too cheap at the moment,” Simmons told the BBC. “The figure I’d use is around $182 a barrel. We need to price oil realistically to control its demand. That is because global production is peaking.”

“If we price oil correctly,” Mr Simmons said, “it could give us time to find bridge fuels, fuels to fill the gap between an oil economy and a renewable economy. But I don’t see that happening.”

“In my opinion, unfortunately, there will be no linear change,” Iran’s Ali Bakhtiari told the conference in Germany. “There will only be sudden explosive change.”

“The people who will be least affected will be the super poor, who already have no access to energy, and the super rich who do not care if oil is $100 a barrel.”

“It is everyone who is in the middle who will be hurt the most,” said Mr Bakhtiari. “When the crisis comes there will be enormous changes.”

Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, told the conference that even this year there might be severe shortages which could have dramatic effects on the global economy.

“For the time being there is no spare capacity. But we expect demand to increase by the fourth quarter (of the year) by three million barrels a day,” he said, saying that the extra capacity would come from Saudi Arabia.

“If Saudi does not increase supply by 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year we will face, how can I say this, it will be very difficult. We will have difficult times. They must invest,” Birol said.

Three million extra barrels a day would mean a huge 30% leap in output in just a few months, something that many delegates laughed off as “absolutely out of the question,” “completely impossible,” and “3 million barrels — never, not even 300,000.” The energy crunch is just beginning. It will only get worse from here on in. Energy shortages and inflation are on the horizon for the next generation. The gap between the haves and the have nots can only increase in the pursuit for oil.

“Cigarettes and french fries are both cancer sticks. One you smoke, the other you eat.”

Raphael Metzger, a lawyer suing McDonald’s and Burger King, to try and ensure all French fries come with a health warning about the risks of contracting cancer.

The problem with America’s favourite food, apart from the effect it has on your waist, is that it contains a chemical, acrylamide, which is also used to treat wastewater.

Tests in Sweden have showed that rats have died of cancer after going pigging out on super-sizes. Scientists in Japan, Switzerland and the UK all concur and the World Health Organisation has all voiced its concern over acrylamide.

To make those fries especially tasty, apart from lashings of MSG, MaccieD’s and BeeKay heat their fries to very high temperatures to get that “crunchy” taste. It is this high temperature that triggers the chemical from the potatoes.

The Guardian reports: “Americans nowadays eat on average some 30lbs of fries a year and...35 micrograms of acrylamide a day ­ many hundreds of times what the WHO judges to be safe.”

Says Metzger who is representing the Council for Education and Research on Toxics: “By targeting these two companies, the largest market share (of fry sellers) are represented. Addressing this issue with them means that the problem will be remedied in a large portion of the fast food supply, in foods that are highest in acrylamide.”

McDonald’s is only now coming to terms with the slew of lawsuits it faced for causing obesity. The US is the world’s most obese nation; it’s plumping has coincided exactly with the rise of the world’s largest fast food chain, not uncoincidentally.

Super Size Me, a hard hitting documentary, has been a huge box office hit recently

Seven years ago, (Helen Steel and Dave Morris went to a British court for what turned out to be the UK’s longest libel case. Though they lost, they got the judge to admit McDonald’s ‘exploit children’ with their advertising, produce ‘misleading’ advertising, are ‘culpably responsible’ for cruelty to animals, are ‘antipathetic’ to unionisation and pay their workers low wages.

Helen and Dave’s battle continues at their excellent website McSpotlight.

Operation Enduring Freedom is looking to be anything but that. The nation is ungovernable with warlords who have murdered thousands upon thousands over the years still controlling more than 90% of the country. Hamid Karzai, president of the embattled country, has admitted defeat and cast his lot with these thugs for the supposedly upcoming September elections.

This is just one further sign that Afghanistan has been left to rot by the US. The Pentagon, acknowledging it is already stretched in Iraq, has no intention of quelling any of the outrages committed outside Kabul and Bagram. 15,000 troops are cooped up in these two places – the rest of the country is left to plunder.

Karzai has gained the support of the Northern Alliance, the Jamiat-e-Islami party, and the Ittehad-e-Islami faction as well as unsavoury private militia bosses by offering cabinet posts since he knows he cannot control the country by himself.

“The deal that has taken place is against the national benefit and the will and desires of the people of Afghanistan,” said another presidential candidate, a doctor from Kabul, Massouda Jalal. “With this coalition, the reconstruction of Afghanistan will not take place, collection of weapons will not take place, we will keep on having instability and anarchy, the unfairness of the current situation will not improve, and the free will of the people will not be implemented.”

Getting rid of the Taliban was one thing, plunging it into this oblivion quite another.

Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has not only perpetrated mass murders but also helps to incarcerate more than a million people in the confines of extreme poverty.

According to the United Nations, since September 2000, the number of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who rely on the global body for food aid has leapt nearly ten-fold from 130,000 to 1.1 million. In that same time period, the percentage of Palestinians living below the poverty line has tripled to 60 per cent from 20 per cent. Since Sharon took power he has ravaged Palestinian territories and this damning poverty statistic must be added to his extensive war crimes list.