Blogging on liberty, capitalism, reason, international affairs and foreign policy, from a distinctly libertarian and objectivist perspective
08 August 2008
If it's good enough for Fiji
So you might ask why Idiot Savant defends the Maori seats, and David Farrar will be voting for a party that will also retain them? After all, they both consider this to be a step forward for Fiji.
Why is Fiji special?
21 July 2008
Stories from the Sunday papers
Ahmad Batebi flees into exile: The Sunday Times profiles Iranian dissident Ahmad Batebi, who has been granted refuge in the USA, after fleeing Iran with the help of a Kurdish underground group. Batebi "had been beaten with metal cables, suspended by his arms from the ceiling and taunted with mock execution and had had his head dunked in excrement until he was suffocating". He had been given a death sentence since his image appeared on the front of the Economist during protests in 1999 against the Islamist regime.
Slave children forced to perform lethal acts in Indian circuses: The Sunday Times reports on how hundreds of children are sold into slavery in India with circuses, and how charities are trying to rescue them.
The 1000 ways the state can break into your home: The Sunday Times reports on the laws that allow central or local government officials the right to enter your home, business or car without warrant. Although to be fair, it only lists five and alludes to three more.
NHS spurns gift of free cancer drug: The Sunday Times reports on how the beloved National Health Socialists (NHS) refuses to administer a drug, which is safe and approved, because the pharmaceutical company producing it is offering it free. This is because it is against policy.
ETA bombs Spanish beach resorts: The Sunday Telegraph reports on a series of small bombs detonating on the northern Spanish coast, as the Basque terrorist organisation ETA continues to operate. There were no injuries.
Iranian adulterers to be stoned: The Sunday Telegraph reports on how eight women and one man are to be stoned to death for "adultery" in the Islamic Republic of Iran. "A man is usually buried up to his waist, while a woman is buried up to her neck. Those carrying out the verdict then throw stones until the condemned dies."
However, I don't expect feminists and peace campaigners to protest about that of course.
The devil riders of Darfur: The Sunday Times publishes an extract from Halima Bashir's book "Tears of the Desert: One Woman’s Story of Surviving the Horrors of Darfur". You'll read about the atrocities of Sudan's Janjaweed militia, a situation aided and abetted and funded by Arab governments and the People's Republic of China.
13 June 2008
Still want to sacrifice wealth for climate change policy?
- In the UAE everyone drives, big cars, even short distances because daytime temperatures get between 35 and 43 degrees. That means they use a lot of petrol, per capita, adding the air conditioning that is almost ubiquitous. You see it's highly subsidised there because the country is doing quite well thanks to record oil prices. There is very little public transport.
- Buildings are almost all air conditioned, which in that heat isn't cheap. Except all of the electricity is generated from that subsidised oil.
- Water is produced from desalination, the most energy intensive way, and per capita water consumption in the UAE is one of the highest in the world.
- New Zealand's per capita GDP is around US$30,000 p.a. UAE's is over US$42,000. Even on a PPP (Purchasing power parity) basis NZ is at US$27,000 and UAE at least US$37,000.
Now I'm not picking on the UAE, it is just one example - of a so-called "developing country" far wealthier on a per head of population basis that New Zealand. Yet so many New Zealand politicians would rather it lead the way, whilst the likes of the UAE is expected to do nothing. You see, even if you accept that there should be "action on climate change", why are there a fair number of countries that are considered to be "developing" yet have lower per capita GDP than NZ? (Bahrain, Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar,Singapore and Taiwan are others)
Still feel like engaging in austerity measures to save the planet, when many countries basking in oil wealth are doing the exact opposite?
04 June 2008
UN Secretary General demands free trade in food
17 May 2008
Don't forget Zimbabwe, has Africa?
Mugabe's reputation as an anti-colonial hero is protecting him from scrutiny, criticism and from being arrested, tried and imprisoned for his role in decimating his country and oppressing his people. The tinpot Marxists and collectivist kleptocrats who bully, bribe and connive their way to power in far too many African countries have enough in common with Mugabe to not want anyone to look in their backyards. South Africa is proving also that it is led by a tinpot Marxist who'd rather protect his mate than tell him to stop murdering the common people. Zimbabweans are being murdered and beaten, and South Africa continues to feed and support those commiting those crimes.
11 May 2008
What will get YOU angry about governments?
Meanwhile, if you need a reminder of what evil looks like, BBC TV has shown scenes of Burmese citizens being marched by soldiers to vote in the constitutional referendum which will secure the rule of these thugs. Yes, the army is bullying people suffering under the cyclone to vote.
Below is Aj Jazeera's coverage of what Myanmar TV is telling its population. Liars through and through. The West is somehow scared of pushing these bastards around. Still think governments are competent?
UPDATE: Oh and CNN now reports that the junta is using aid as an enticement to vote in its filthy referendum.
20 April 2008
UN “experts” with vile credentials
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David Aaronovitch writes about two of them in The Times. Professor Richard Falk, once Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University (I remember reading some of his articles when I was at university) has been appointed expert on Israel by the UN Human Rights Council. Remember this same council selects the likes of Cuba and Libya to be on it to judge the human rights of others. Imagine an organisation of convicted child abusers advising on how children should be protected. It is that hypocritical, that despicable and that fraudulent.
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As Aaronovitch writes, Falk himself has taken to comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Falk believes “suicide bombers appeared as the only means still available” for the Palestinian “struggle” to go on. Falk also has written a chapter in a book called “9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out”, a book authored by David Ray Griffen. The book talks of how no plane ever flew into the Pentagon and how the World Trade Centre came down by a “controlled demolition” (though how they explain the two airliners flying into it is a little harder).
Of course the UN would give this intellectual with some severe problems a job.
Aaronovitch also writes about how the Swiss government convinced the Human Rights Council to appoint Professor Jean Ziegler to its advisory committee. Professor Ziegler has defended Mengistu, the former Ethiopian dictator who was responsible for the famines in the 1980s (Ethiopia once exported food until Mengistu collectivised the farms), Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro and Muammer Gaddafi.
However, given Switzerland’s proud history of sitting courageously on the fence being bankers to the Nazis whilst Europe burnt around it, I don’t expect a great deal from the Swiss. Being neutral in what was the defining war between good and evil (and evil and evil) in the 20th century is indifference to evil.
The UN of course is not indifferent to evil, just hypocritical beyond words. Of course it was created after World War 2 to stop another such war. However, imagine what harm it would have done if it had existed in advance of that. Would it have stopped the Nazi goosestepping advance across Czechoslovakia, then Poland? Would it have stopped the Japanese empire, which had already enslaved Korea advancing its racist brutal dictatorship along the Chinese coast, past Indochina and in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies? Hardly. Of course a review of the UN would only expose that it is fully constrained by appealing to the majority of states, which are typically quite corrupt and power hungry, and by not offending Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, two of which – China and Russia have been held predominantly by totalitarian or authoritarian regimes since the UN was formed. So the UN is the sum of its members, and many of its members are morally dubious, and some quite evil indeed. However that is another story.
20 March 2008
Gordon Brown to meet Dalai Lama, would Helen now?
08 March 2008
Moral equivalency again?
Palestinians choose a government committed to engaging in aggression against Israel and destroying it - Hamas
Palestinians engage in a small scale civil conflict splitting the government between Gaza and the West Bank, leaving Hamas in Gaza.
Hamas decides to make Gaza not a haven for peace, development, economic growth and freedom, but a base to wage war against Israel - indiscriminately firing rockets into Israel proper (you know the country that is internationally recognised, not occupied territories) killing and injuring Israeli civilians.
Israel puts up a blockade against Gaza to stop entry/exit of citizens across the land border, and stops selling electricity to Gaza as retaliation. Gaza still has an open land border with Egypt.
Israel is accused of being unreasonable, against those who wish to destroy it and attack it.
Hamas continues its bombardment, Israel responds by attacking bases in Gaza from where rocket attacks continue, killing 120.
Hamas sends a gunman in to shoot children at a school in Jerusalem.
So who wants to defend those who execute children for political purposes again?
19 February 2008
Kosovo independent: an all too easy solution?
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This is not the place to go into the Serbian/Albanian conflict over Kosovo, lest to say that the Serb nationalist bullies like Slobodan Milosevic who pined for Serbia’s “golden age” of being defeated in Kosovo since 1389 (yes only nationalist Serbs understand). The vile bigotry of Milosevic’s nationalism saw the Albanian language banned and cooked up fears that Albanians were harassing Serbs, which clearly would justify Serbs harassing Albanians. The conflict over Kosovo was not as bloody as Bosnia-Hercegovina, but it did involve slaughter. Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo by and large despise each other in a mutual lack of trust. The Albanians remember the repression and fascism of Milosevic and the fascist Serbian authorities, the Serbs fear the Albanian majority’s own hatred towards them, and see Kosovo as being part of Serbia, which until today it has been.
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So why is Kosovo a big deal? Shouldn’t it become independent because the majority want it?
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Unlike the US and the EU I don’t believe the answer is yes.
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The philosophy that says Kosovo Albanians should be independent could also be applied to Serbs in Bosnia, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russians in Abhazia, Basques in Spain etc. It is the notion that ethnic identity should determine statehood. The problem with this idea of course is that the psychological state of ethnic identity (which, by and large is all ethnicity it. It is in the mind), isn’t shared by those for whom boundaries are drawn around.
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Carving up Serbia sends a message that countries should exist according to the philosophy that Serb nationalists have been fighting for since the early 1990s, except this time the Serbs lost and the Albanians won. The Serbs wont forget, sadly.
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Russia has said it will take action if Kosovo becomes independent. Hardly surprising, as it has many scores it can settle, in Georgia and Moldova for starters. Will the West intervene if Russia attacks Georgia to apply the same rule to its ethnic majority areas? Would it be a surprise if Putin decides he can flex his muscles on his borders without provoking a serious response?
06 February 2008
Palestinians could change Gaza
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Let me remind you. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Withdrew, that’s right pulled out as it has been asked since 1967. It has no governance or military presence on this strip of land whatsoever. It has removed the 9000 or so Jewish settlements, it has essentially done exactly what all of its opponents asked of it, regarding Gaza. Now some argue that as Israel still controls the airspace, territorial waters and the borders with Israel that there is not complete control, but still, it is sovereign territory notwithstanding that.
The Palestinian authority elections in 2006 saw Palestinian voters have a set of odious choices. The main ones were either vote for Fatah, which supports peaceful co-existence with Israel, but has proven itself highly corrupt and administratively incompetent, or vote for Hamas, which wants to destroy Israel, but also has run schools, medical centres and tends to be far less prone to corruption. There were other parties offering alternatives that were not Islamist and with no background on corruption. Some of these could have provided a more reformist way forward, but no they chose Hamas. By choosing Hamas, Palestinian voters chose war with Israel.
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Without going into the detail about Hamas being effectively ousted from power in the West Bank, it remains that Hamas governs Gaza. Israel’s withdrawal means it is effectively the government of a rump Palestinian state of sorts. What did Hamas do with this power? It started firing rockets into Israel proper – you know, the country that is a UN member state, recognised by the vast majority of countries around the world including Egypt and Jordan. Hamas decided that it was more worthwhile to attack Israel than to try to rebuild the shattered infrastructure and economy of Gaza, blighted by conflict over decades. Why? Because Hamas has little interest in the here and now, but every interest in fighting the “infidels”.
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With over 4,000 rockets hitting Israel, Israel could, on the basis of self defence, have reoccupied Gaza to root out those attacking it. It has not. What it has done is impose economic sanctions against the Hamas regime (Western countries including New Zealand have imposed such sanctions against countries that never laid a hand on it), built a barrier around Gaza (Israeli side not Egyptian) to restrict entry by terrorists into Israel, and put up a blockade against most imports that could aid and assist those attacking Israel. It has also attacked from the air, sites from where rockets are being launched.
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If you listened to the views of Israel’s critics it should have done none of this, but sit back and watched its people’s homes be bombarded from a territory that Israel does not control. It is notable that Egypt hasn’t much tolerated the onslaught of Palestinians on its border either, but nobody blames Egypt do they?
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Gaza, of course, is in an appalling state. It has high population density (though lower than the likes of Hong Kong and Singapore), under developed and hardly a haven of prosperity. Hamas could change that of course.
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In other words, there is a chance for Gaza to, with some effort, be transformed. It is on a stretch of land that could become an attraction for tourists, it has horticulture and could become a free trade area, if only Hamas would also set up an independent judiciary that could enforce private property rights and contracts.
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I doubt whether it will, of course. You see Hamas worships the afterlife, being Islamists. It cultivates a culture that worships violence, celebrates death and honours those who give their lives to take those of others. It actively recruits the young to sacrifice their lives for this cause of violence.
16 January 2008
Green's ignore the vileness of Iran
Now of course we have Iran. Iran has a nuclear programme that it has consistently refused to allow inspections at the level of transparency required by the International Atomic Energy Agency under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Green Party believes in the abolition of nuclear weapons, so you’d think it would regard as a priority stopping new countries acquiring them – well apparently not. I haven’t seen a single protest or call by any Green MPs or letter to the Iranian embassy requesting that Iran fully comply with IAEA requirements, given that 183 other non-nuclear weapons states seem to be able to do so. No, well apparently its not important.
Iran’s President repeatedly calls for the abolition of the state of Israel, using rhetoric of annihilation. Iran funds and trains Hamas and Hizbollah, which have both repeatedly attacked Israel and are both committed to wiping Israel off the map. Iran also funds, trains and arms part of the insurgency in Iraq, committed to installing an Islamist regime there. However, the Green party isn’t too concerned about warmongering against Israel, or fighting secular and US led coalition forces in Iraq, is it now?
So what does an Iranian Islamist regime look like? Well Iran executes teenage girls who admit they have been raped. By no measure of civilisation can this be seen as anything less than vile and immoral. It also executes teenage boys for having consensual sexual relations with unmarried legal age girls. It used underage soldiers for mine clearing during its war with Iraq. Iran imprisons though who “insult Islam”, and who call for a secular liberal democratic state – you know, like the one the Green party likes to support, or indeed like the United States.
The Green (declared) beliefs in feminism, freedom of speech, secular government, liberal democracy and human rights are set to one side, along with its agenda against nuclear weapons, or even the belief in peace, because Iran is being exposed for what it is by the USA. The blind anti-Americanism is such that the Greens NEVER protest against the torture and executions carried out by Iran, and NEVER protest Iran's failure to be transparent with the IAEA (even though you profess to believe in multilateralism).
They are no different from the old fashioned Soviet type anti-Americans of the Cold War. If USA confronts another country it's baad, so a blind eye is turned to what Iran does. I for one would be thrilled if the Iranian Islamist state was overthrown, I would also prefer an airstrike against Iranian nuclear facilities over an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel, or an Iranian supplied nuclear device for terrorists to use in the West.
02 December 2007
Russia's barely democracy
Chavez threatens to not sell oil to the USA
17 November 2007
Winston in North Korea - we have much to learn from you
09 November 2007
What Winston should say to North Korea
...One day I was going to the place to load the coal, I met her. And I noticed she was exactly that woman, and I asked her, how you could survive. And she told me, that "yes, I survived". But she showed me her body, and it was all burned by fire.
...After six months I met her at the corn storage in Kusan district and found her putting on a used tire on her knees because her legs were cut off. Because of a coal mine wagon ran over her knees. And all she could do now was separate the corn grains from the cob"
01 August 2007
New Zealand to be friendly to murderers
19 July 2007
Greens cuddle up to Galloway
Besides talking nonsense like "Locke said he understood Mr Galloway represented a constituency that had a sizeable Muslim population and they were very supportive of him during elections". As George has stood for ONE election in his constituency, and he won the seat with a majority of 823, with 35.9% of the vote. Hmmm.
He has been quoted by Stuff as saying "We are very much impressed with him in his stand on Iraq."
Which stand is that then? Is it...
saying to Saddam Hussein "Sir: I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability" which he repeatedly claims is a misquote.
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or maybe his meeting with Uday Hussein reported by the Sun with photos of the video reviewing this. Given the numerous allegations around Uday murdering, torturing and raping, you have to wonder at Galloway being friendly to this late thug, and Keith Locke wanting to be associated with that (but hey, anyone who's anti American may be his friend).
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Or if not Iraq, how about his support for the Syrian invasion and occupation of Lebanon reported in the Lebanon Daily Star? "Syrian troops in Lebanon maintain stability and protect the country from Israel."
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or does Keith sympathise with his statement to the Guardian that "If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life"
Nice friends he has.
05 July 2007
Alan Johnston's release
11 June 2007
Albania welcomes Bush as a friend. Do you wonder why?
The first time I had ever heard of Albania was when National Geographic magazine visited it, in the early 1980s. It profiled a country that was, by and large, medieval. People went around in oxcarts, technology seemed to have passed it by, and it had what was, on the outside, a quaint insular appearance.