Massachusetts shrugged?

For Scott Brown, a Massachusetts lawyer and state senator - and Republican - to take the Senate seat of Massachusetts that was vacated when Ted Kennedy finally went into oblivion, is quite something. With 52% against the Democrat candidate Martha Coakley on 47%, it is a clear mandate.

You see in 2006 Ted Kennedy won the seat with a healthy 69% majority. For the Democrats to bleed almost a third of that support in such a short time will be a shock. However, what does it reflect on?

Did Brown campaign better than Coakley and was clearly the better candidate?

Probably yes, but not by THAT much. He travelled by pick up truck, painted himself as the outsider who was fiscally conservative and opposed to Obama's health reforms. Coakley by contrast seemed to assume she'd inherit the seat from Kennedy. His social views put him more in the middle of the Republican Party. He supports civil unions, but opposes gay marriage. She was far more socially "liberal", moreso than Obama. She wants US withdrawal from Afghanistan, supports heathcare reform, but has also been involved in a number of controversies as state attorney general. She played a negative campaign against Brown claiming he wanted hospitals to turn away rape victims, misconstruing his belief that religious hospitals can choose not to offer emergency contraception if they so wish. Coakley was close to trade unions, but they were clearly not decisive in Massachusetts.

However, whilst she wasn't much of a candidate, that shouldn't have meant she would get defeated on that alone. Surely Ted Kennedy personally wouldn't command an extra 20% of votes?

Was there a poor turnout, as Democrat supporters stayed home?

Apparently not. The total vote turnout in 2006 was 2,165, 490 votes. This time it is 2,249,026, a slight increase. It could be argued Republicans turned out this time because they knew they'd have a better chance, but then Ted Kennedy was a polarising figure. It is quite likely many Republicans would have wanted to vote against him on principle, even though the odds of removing him were not high.

Is this an endorsement for the Republican Party?

Well not really. After all, there is no effective Republican leadership at the moment. Mitch McConnell as Senate Minority Leader, and John Boehner as House Minority Leader are hardly household names. Sarah Palin remains one of the highest profile Republicans, but she wasn't seen (thankfully) on this campaign. The Republicans are a rallying point for opposition to the Obama Administration, but really that's about it. It is still a party pulled in different directions by evangelicals (who can't win an election), conservatives and small government liberals (in the classical liberal not US leftwing liberal) sense. Scott Brown is a blend of the last two.

Is this a rebuke of Barack Obama?

Perhaps a little. Obama won Massachusetts by 62% to 36% to McCain, so you'd think most of his supporters would vote for the woman he endorsed. Clearly not all is well with independent ly minded voters.

However, it's worth noting that neither Obama nor McCain won their party's primaries here. Hilary Clinton beat Obama 56% to 41% for the Democrat nomination. Mitt Romney beat McCain 51% to 41% for the Republican nomination. So Massachusetts is a little different from other states. It may well be that the Presidential elections reflected more disenchantment with McCain than Obama as second choice.

Obama's health care reforms have clearly rattled many voters. Given the vast majority of Americans have health care coverage, and see the looming budget deficits under the Obama Administration, there is some serious fear that they may have to pay more and get less because of it. Brown has campaigned clearly on the fact that a win for him would enable the Republicans to filibuster bills in the Senate, including health care. In other words, this very election means that Obama's health reforms will at least be delayed, at most could be seriously compromised. Brown campaigned that the Democrats wont consider tort reform to reduce healthcare costs because they are beholden to the legal fraternity, this perhaps struck a chord.

Furthermore, it has become increasingly clear that the grand promises of "change", and taking a different approach to government, have proven rather feeble. Yes, Bush is gone, but Obama has become beholden to the vast range of special interests and lobby groups that Democrats are in the pay of. It's just a change of personnel, not a change of technique. Pork barrel politics remain as much as they ever were. The hype has not met expectations. Obama is simply another politician.

Is this a rejection of big government?

I'd like to think it is, of course, and it would seem, in part that this is what it is about. Evangelical Republicans may want to pay special attention, as it is NOT social issues that have motivated the change, but it is money.

The amounts of money the Obama Administration is looking to pour into subsidising compulsory health insurance are substantial. Indeed, the Obama Administration has shown virtually no real appetite for fiscal conservatism, with the so-called "stimulus" package often going into consumption and poorly planned projects.

American taxpayers see the bailouts, see the willingness to engage in all sorts of new government projects as an unwillingness to face up to the need to cut spending. In the US, there is a particular degree of wariness about how well government can spend your own money. This is something the Obama Administration doesn't even start to understand, and it is a movement that has been catalysed by the proposals on health care. Bear in mind that nothing in the health care package would cut the burgeoning costs of Medicare and Medicaid, both of which comprise half of all US health spending. Yes - the government's health care plans have poor cost control, so why wouldn't Americans fear state run health care?

Massachusetts interesting has a public health care plan run by the state, which effectively subsidises health insurance for those on low incomes and penalises, through the tax system, those who don't have health insurance schemes. It means 4.1% of people don't have health insurance, which represents those preferring to pay the tax penalty and those who are still unwilling to buy insurance with low incomes. So do the people of Massachusetts simply not want an additional federal healthcare plan, or is it simpler than that?

Conclusion

Coakley might not have been the best candidate for the Democrats, but she didn't lose because of that. Brown might have been quite a good candidate, but he didn't win just because of that. The election was a judgment on the growth of government by the Obama Administration, particular fear of what health care reforms could mean for individual health insurance schemes and for taxation.

Ed Rollins, former political director for Ronald Reagan said on CNN:

Mr. President, don't run away from or misinterpret Tuesday's results. Don't let the Chicago sycophants surrounding you in the White House tell you this defeat had nothing to do with you or your health care legislation or your style of governing. It did big time, and every poll said it did.

You have three more years before the next inaugural. It may be yours or it maybe someone else's. But don't let your team convince you that this loss was only about Martha Coakley being a lousy candidate. (She was.) But she was good enough to win the state attorney general's job three years ago with 73 percent of the vote. She was good enough to trounce three other candidates, including a sitting congressman to win the primary a few weeks ago.

By contrast, House of Representatives lead Marxist with a silver spoon Nancy Pelosi couldn't have lied better than what she said: "We heard, we will heed, we will move forward with their considerations in mind, but we will move forward".

No Nancy, you heard, you're ignoring. This year there are mid-term elections. After two years of Bill Clinton and Hilary trying to introduce more government healthcare, Americans voted in droves to turn both houses of Congress Republican. The Republicans are not consistently small government fiscal hawks, and they are by no means great believers in slashing the size of the state, but if Massachusetts is a sign of wider discontent, the mid-term elections could cauterise Obama's plans on health care and his budgetary ambitions over the next three years.

How can John Key cut income tax?

According to the NZ Herald, the Prime Minister said "The Government would like to lower personal taxes"

Great stuff.

The solution involves two words.

CUT SPENDING.

Don't increase GST - that simply increases the viability of a free (black) market in secondhand goods, and adds to compliance costs for business.

Don't create new taxes, because it will create new ways of evading and avoiding them.

Don't even start to believe taxation on real property will address speculative bubbles in the housing market, look at how the RMA, the absurd obsession of councils with the discredited "smart growth" philosophy, the central banking system and most of all, taxes on other investment, create distortions.

So think about this John.

If income and company tax were reduced to a simple 20% with the first $10k tax free (hardly radical and not Libertarianz policy), then how much MORE would that encourage a shift of investment from land to business? Do you really think you and your crew know better how to spend more than that proportion of New Zealanders' income than they do?

If the RMA and tinpot planners in local authorities (especially the new uber council for Auckland) stopped restricting how people can build housing on land, without threatening the property rights of their neighbours, how much supply would be unlocked to ease pressure on prices?

How about a bottom up review of the central banking system, inflation targets and prospects for reform of that?

Who would Matt McCarten prefer?

Oh yes, it shouldn't be a surprise. Matt McCarten's tired old Marxist rhetoric about US foreign policy. Apparently wanting to be an ally of the US is "fawning support", something no country apparently should seek. Why? Because it Matt's world, the US is bad - very bad. In fact given his political heritage I wouldn't be surprised if he missed the Soviet Union, given that the anti-nuclear policy he supported was, in effect, New Zealand opting out of the Western alliances that saw it siding clearly with the US, NATO and Australia against the Soviet Union and its satellites. The middle ground was the middle ground of not giving a damn about which side won.

So what does he believe in?

1. That after 9/11 the US should NOT have attacked Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and overthrown the regime that provided safe haven and support for the 9/11 attacks. Of course not. Did the US deserve it Matt? Do you believe it was a conspiracy? So you prefer the stoneage misogynists of the Taliban who deny girls an education? No, you wont answer them. It's simple enough, the US shouldn't respond militarily when attacked. Of course not. The US is to blame anyway, right Matt?

2. Israel shouldn't build settlements in the West Bank. Well funnily enough Matt, the Obama Administration doesn't believe in that either. However, what would you do? Cut all aid from Israel? Tell Israel it's on its own? Let all of Palestine become a bloodbath of Islamist terror against the state of Israel? No. He doesn't have an answer to this.

3. Gaza should have open borders, and Israel should allow Hamas to import whatever it wishes, presumably including rockets to start attacking Israel again. Oh but it's ok for war to be waged by heroic militants isn't it Matt? You relate to them. After all, just because they attacked Israel proper doesn't mean anything. Not that you're going to tell Hamas to stop waging war, because it's only peace if the US or Western side surrenders right?

4. Iraq is apparently "occupied". Who by Matt? I guess that democratically elected government is illegitimate, although you claim the war against the Saddam Hussein criminal gangster regime was illegal. That means you believe the Hussein clique was legitimate. You'd prefer the Iranian back Islamist insurgents ran Iraq? The same ones who impose draconian sharia law in areas they controlled? Ahh they're not backed by the US so MUST be ok right? Yes, would have been far better to let the insurgents win. Better still to have left Saddam in power. After all, he didn't occupy Iraq did he?

5. New Zealand shouldn't be in a military alliance with the USA. Why? Because Matt and his buddies on the left don't like it. Would it harm New Zealand? Well hardly, but it does put New Zealand squarely against a whole range of rogue states that Matt presumably would like to appease. So why not Matt?

Or is it just your inherent hatred of individual freedom and capitalism that the US still (with many flaws) represents that drives you?

Police don't understand Twitter

"Robin Hood airport is closed," he wrote. "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

That's what Paul Chambers said on Twitter, jokingly frustrated about snow closing his local airport.

He was arrested under the Terrorism Act for being suspected of creating a bomb hoax. He has his iphone and computer confiscated, and was questioned for seven hours straight.

According to the Daily Telegraph: "I had to explain Twitter to them in its entirety because they'd never heard of it. Then they asked all about my home life, and how work was going, and other personal things," he said.

This hardly surprises me, as one recent experience I had with Police showed a complete lack of understanding of the internet (e.g. what's a blog, what's a message board, how can you find out who people are on the internet?).

Now Paul was foolish, and it may have been appropriate to ask him a few questions. However now it has become a thought crime, a crime to joke about blowing something up. He wasn't at the airport, and it would be clear he just should have been told his statement worried the airport company.

No. Instead he is to be treated like a terrorist, by Police who don't even know the medium he used.

Silence from the anti-Americans

If you absorb the sneering, semi-automatic anti-Americanism of the left, which is seen in the words of many intellectuals, journalists and bloggers, you'd assume the USA engages with other countries purely in an exercise of imperialism. It intervenes where there is oil to plunder.

So when the USA goes to the aid of Haiti, on a grand scale, when there is no apparent economic imperative, then you notice how silent the left are. How so many of them, who probably haven't contributed a thing to any aid appeals, don't say "thank you USA", or notice that even with rampant budget deficits, the USA is still prepared to help on a scale that dwarfs all others. US$100 million in emergency aid, and a flotilla of vessels and aircraft bringing in rescue crews and supplies.

The nasty comment from the vile Lumumba di-Aping, comparing developed country approaches to climate change as "a solution based on the same values that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces" is shown up for the disgusting, dishonest envy that permeates so much of the politics around the developing world. "Give us more" they all want, so many unprepared to produce the conditions that generate wealth in the first case. It doesn't matter that because of the wealth of the USA, it can afford to go in, anywhere in the world, and save lives - with a spirit of benevolence you will find rare in any of the kleptocratic criminal gangs that call themselves governments in much of the world.

It isn't an act of self sacrifice of course. The USA knows that a healthy vibrant Haiti is good for the Caribbean, and good for the US. It would no longer be a source of refugees, but a potential trading partner.

Ban the niqab?

With France moving to ban the niqab in public, it has proven more difficult than was first thought. It looks more like it will be a ban on specific public premises, rather than all public spaces. However, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) is now supporting the idea. No doubt knowing that in doing so, it will have the support of more than a few Conservative voters, but also tap interest from the great unwashed who see something in the BNP.

You can see women wearing the niqab regularly in London. It provokes fear in some, seeing someone completely concealed. Others see it as representing repression of women, that a woman would be required by a man to only go out in public so shrouded. It is highly likely those that wear the niqab, especially in a Western liberal democracy, and those who support women wearing them, are unlikely to be supportive of liberal capital Western society. No doubt many shopkeepers and others would prefer that people enter their property not wearing the niqab.

So is it the right response to ban it?

No.

All shopkeepers and indeed all owners of private property should rightfully be able to set rules on what clothes people can and can't wear on their property without fear of so called "human rights" legislation deeming it "discriminatory". It isn't. If I don't want people wearing certain items of clothing on my property then it is fundamental to me exercising private property rights.

However, to criminalise those who wear the niqab in public is to say the state has the right to criminalise what anyone can wear in public. That is fundamentally contrary to having a free open liberal democratic society. To criminalise it may mean some women are effectively kept at home, which is not to their advantage. Moreso, it criminalises those some who deem to be the victims, not those who enforce this ludicrous tradition.

Freedom includes the freedom of others to offend you, it includes the right to hold silly beliefs and to wear ridiculous clothes in a public place. To surrender this is to ask the question "what next" and it is to hand to Islamists demonstrable proof to them that freedom is not to be embraced, because those who purport to believe in it will abandon it when they are offended. Like banning the vile Islam4UK, banning the niqab wont reduce the presence of Islamism in the UK.

Islamism in the UK will only be confronted when central and local government agencies stop funding or supporting any non-government bodies with a religious affiliation, but most of all when all major political parties, and the general public, stop fearing declaring their utmost support for free open liberal secular British society. Britain allows all citizens to choose whether or not they want religion and to live their lives as they see fit according to those beliefs, but by no means does it tolerate those who seek to use force to change that.

In Britain it should be clear there is a very simple deal - you have freedom to choose how you live your life, and that freedom includes a right to disseminate your point of view, but not to use or threaten force to change the views or lifestyles of others.

One of those freedoms is to wear a niqab, but it is also the freedom of others to ban you from their property if you do so, and to criticise you for doing so, and to call for others to stop wearing it.

Sadly not one of the major or even secondary political parties in Britain really does believe in a free liberal capitalist society.

The spendthrift Scotsman

Scotland is predominantly governed by a devolved administration run from Edinburgh. This administration receives most of its funds from Westminster, and its government is led by a coalition dominated by the Scottish National Party (SNP) - a socialist party dedicated to Scotland becoming an independent nationstate (no relation to the neo-fascist British National Party).

It has faced a bit of a fiscal crisis along with the rest of the UK, but unlike the debate on the UK budget, Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, is pretending there isn't a problem. He is blaming a lack of money for Scotland on Westminster. He is either an economic illiterate (for which there is some evidence) or simply a nasty little nationalist who happens to be a socialist, pretending that the enormous budget deficit of the UK has nothing to do with Scotland.

He faces a budget cut in real terms of £35 billion, but is blaming Labour and by implication England, for him being unable to meet his spending promises according to Alastair Darling.

Scotland already has a GDP of which over half is generated by government - in other words it's like Hungary before the fall of communism. Scottish voters voted for the SNP because it offered the best chance to remove Labour, but the SNP has shown itself to simply be old Labour with nationalist drag. Sadly most Scots are so wedded to Nanny State, that even though the SNP is disappointing, and they are fed up with Labour, they wont dare vote for parties that ask them to take more responsibility for their lives.

You see the Scots who believed that have mostly long ago emigrated!

British Labour Pledge Card

He abolished boom and bust apparently. He ran constant budget deficits, he sold billions in gold reserves at the bottom of the market (to offset his overspending) and now he's devaluing the pound to offset his overspending, and prevent a full asset price correction.

Sadly because around a third of Britain lives directly or indirectly off the state tit, (and the Conservative party is an inspiring as a plastic wrapped premade sandwich) this lot still have a reasonable chance of continuing in their jobs.

(Hat Tip: Old Holborn)

Pity Haiti and the Vatican's hypocrisy

The earthquake has been devastating for a country beset for decades by corruption, kleptocracy, dictatorship and mysticism. It can only be hoped, and no doubt I expect private and government relief to come to this country with a history of being one of the most damned places in the Caribbean. It is ranked 156th by the CIA in per capita GDP, with the average of only US$800 per person per annum, alongside the likes of Cambodia and Chad, and the lowest in the Americas.

If ever there was a country that long needed rule of law,a culture of reason and respect for individual liberty and property rights, and the end of kleptocratic violent government, it would be Haiti.

However, whilst Catholic news services and the Vatican no doubt show true concern about conditions there, even though one questions why a military jet to fly a Bishop from Brazil does anyone any good (except a conscience), it is a shame that the Vatican can't truly be said to be morally consistent about Haiti at all. No, I'm not going to start on the idea that a loving omnipotent God might not strike the most poverty ridden countries with natural disasters like this (that's too obvious).

You see, in 1981 Mother Teresa of Calcutta went to visit Haiti. Not a big deal you might think? Well at the time Haiti was run by a criminal family called the Duvaliers. Papa Doc Duvalier ran the country with an iron fist, all media was controlled by the state and all broadcasting generated a North Korean style personality cult around the Duvalier clan. By 1981 he had been succeeded by his son Jean-Claude (Baby Doc). The Ton Ton Macoute acted as the personal army of the Duvaliers, and would abduct, torture and murder suspected opponents of the regime. Tens of thousands died at the hands of the regime. The Duvalier's meanwhile enriched themselves enormously by creaming off profits from government export monopolies, spending extravagant sums on themselves.

Did Mother Teresa go there to call for freedom, to end abuses of human rights, to call for the Duvaliers to share their ill gotten gains? No.

She received the Legion d'honneur award and praised the Duvaliers for their treatment of the poor. The picture above is of her holding the hand of Michele Duvalier, Baby Doc's wife, who endured the estimated US$3 million wedding not long before Teresa visited. She said of Michele Duvalier that she was "someone who feels, who knows, who wishes to demonstrate her love not only with words but also with concrete and tangible actions . . . the country vibrates with your life work". Vibrates with fear.

Mother Teresa provided open explicit moral support for this gang of thieving murderers. A gang who all up inflicted misery on Haiti for nearly 30 years. It was used as propaganda in Haiti, which has a strongly Catholic population. What more could the Duvaliers have wanted? How disgustingly evil was she in provide succuour to the despicable?

Pope John Paul II by contrast spent only a few hours there in March 1983 and damned the situation in the country.

Yet the Vatican still beatified her. Beatified one who gave warmth to some of Haiti's most evil rulers, who told complete lies about them, and who turned her back on the reality of the country.

No doubt Haitians will warmly welcome any assistance from Catholic charities in the coming days, weeks and months.

However, an appropriate footnote would be to strip Mother Teresa, or rather (her real name) Agnesë Bojaxhiu of her beatification, and to apologise for Haiti for her complicity in supporting the Duvalier regime. There are reports she received funds from the Duvaliers at the time as well. This should be investigated and if found true, it should be spent on providing humanitarian assistance for Haiti.

After all, it is one thing to ignore evil and say nothing, it is another to take a very long trip, to sup with evil, to receive an award, to praise it, to give it credit when it is dripping with the blood of those you purport to care for - and then for your employer to grant you one of its highest honours and respect.

Until then, the Vatican's claim for compassion is deeply darkened by its sympathy for one of its own who did great evil in embracing great evil.

Next UK government must cut spending.

Given it is UK election year, I have decided to start a secondary blog. It simply will report on every announcement by the two major UK political parties calling for increased state spending or decreased state spending.

It is entirely UK focused, and the main purpose is to expose the lies and deceit behind politicians promising to spend more money that isn't theirs, that they don't have, that they would need to borrow from future taxpayers and voters, and not be the slightest bit accountable for.

An election is an advance auction of stolen goods. This UK election is now an advance auction for future stolen goods.

Gordon Brown for 13 years has overspent and borrowed to pay for it. He did so in the good times, and has done so on a grand scale in the bad times. As a result it cripples the public finances for the next decade or so, makes the next government face the need to cut spending and/or hike up taxes. It is a chance for the next administration to seriously address the role of the state in British society, but the chances of that appear slim indeed.

So in the next few weeks there will be more on the Cut Government Spending blog.

Chinese government wants cyber order

Having mulled over how to respond to Google's threat to withdraw from China, the New China News Agency (Xinhua) has responded with a technique well honed since 1949. It evades the truth.

"China's internet is open" it says. So what is the Golden Shield Project about then? Given my blog is now blocked in China, this is demonstrably a lie.

"China has tried creating a favorable environment for Internet". No China has sought to allow the internet to be used for business, but to use it to spy on dissidents and to block discussion, debate and free speech that goes contrary to what the Communist Party of China wants people to see.

Finally it makes it out to not be a big deal at all saying "Google sent a short statement to Xinhua Wednesday, saying, "We are proud of our achievements in China. Currently we are reviewing the decision and hope for a resolution."" This minimises the whole issue, makes it look like it is only a minor point.

Most notably the report says next to nothing about why Google has suggested it withdraw, citing a "dispute" with the government.

However, a darker response came from an official spokesman quoted by the New York Times. Wang Chen, the information director for the State Council (cabinet) said:

"Internet media must always make nurturing positive, progressive mainstream opinion an important duty" as he called for internet companies to "scrutinise" information that may threaten national stability and for online public opinion to be "guided".

Wang Chen thinks he knows better than your average Chinese internet user what opinion is worth considering and what information they should see. Big Brother state is alive and well in China.

The People's Daily (the official paper of the Communist Party) is saying more:

Spinning that this is all about pornography, not free speech per se it reports "all countries should "take active and effective measures to strengthen management of the Internet and make sure their problems do not affect other countries' cyber order." Cyber order?

Then it plays the "people will be victims card" "Chinese Internet users are the real victims if Google quits China. I think Google is just playing cat and mouse, and trying to use netizens' anger or disappointment as leverage" and the government doesn't care "It will not make any difference to the government if Google quits China; however, Google will suffer a huge economic loss by leaving the Chinese market".

Meanwhile its headline talks of linking the internet with telecommunications and broadcasting networks (hardly news), no doubt with the intent of showing China forging ahead with technology and development, to attract foreign corporate interest.

Of course, business analysts are unsurprisingly wondering if Microsoft and Yahoo will reap rewards from this. Neither have shown any great concern for allowing free speech in China, and Microsoft in particular is more focused on getting the Chinese government to combat software piracy. Yahoo in China is predominantly Chinese owned now, so it's sold out, literally.

My big question is how many business people, starry eyed by the size and scope of the Chinese market have sold out free speech, property rights and individual freedoms to make some cash. How many have been disappointed that the enforceability of contracts in the People's Republic of China has more to do with connections, the size of the company you are contracting with, its relationship with the layers of government and the Communist Party? How many have wondered why theft of intellectual property is rampant, as the Communist Party has long regarded theft as a legitimate tool, like the USSR did? How many have found corruption to be rampant and have participated in it?

In other words, how many of those who seek to enjoy the fruits of capitalism spend so little energy and time in supporting the basic concepts that make it work? As such, is it any wonder that they then become victims as governments and citizens turn on businesses, assuming that capitalism unfettered doesn't mean laws against fraud or theft?

For Google, free speech and the ability to enforce laws against trespass (hacking) have proven to be critical to what it does. Maybe it is about time that other businesses in China (and indeed in all countries) paid attention too.

Google says no to the Communist Party of China

Google's enormous success as a company offering a search engine and advertising related to it has given it dominance in how people search the internet. A dominance that has upset governments, some of whom are keen to kneecap overly successful businesses (think of anti-trust/competition law agencies, none of which have learnt from the absurd attempt to kneecap Microsoft, only to find that Microsoft itself is facing both competition and the disadvantages of being too big), but others don't like the internet because of it facilitating a free flow of information and media.

Every new communications and information technology has seen responses from vested interests seeking to restrict or ban it. However, they have also proven to be the unlocking of freedom, a check on bullies, charlatans and authoritarians of every bent. It is no surprise that the Nazis engaged in public book burning, that communist Romania banned typewriters unless they were officially approved, registered and their typefaces customised so the Securitate could tell whose typewriter had produced a document.

Whilst the Nazis were the first to extensively use radio broadcasts to rally support across the nation, the discovery of shortwave radio meant that people in authoritarian regimes could get news from free countries. So the Soviets and even today regimes in China, Cuba and Iran still attempt to jam inbound radio broadcasts from the likes of the BBC and Voice of America. North Korea simply produces radios with no tuning dial, with the capacitor preset to the single state radio station.

Television became a key platform to inform East Germans of what life in the West was like, and news from a non-Stalinist perspective, with much of East Germany able to receive West German terrestrial television broadcasts. Satellite TV more recently has made major inroads across the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. However, entry into that market in China has been done respecting local censorship laws.

However, the internet has become revolutionary. As anyone online can produce content, and the content accessed is up to the person online, its scope is ubiquitous and all encompassing. However, unlike broadcasting, the internet is also an essential business tool. Email is now vital to the productivity and sales of many businesses.

In the mid-late 1990s I attended several intergovernmental meetings which discussed "regulating" the internet. At the time Saudi Arabia had banned it, because it had no idea how to handle content that was blasphemy against Islam and anything of a sexual nature. What was made abundantly clear is that with the internet comes freedom of choice, although some countries were and still are engaging in grand firewall projects.

When Google set up google.cn, it agreed to respect the censorship policies of the People's Republic of China. Google argued that participating in the Chinese market would be more positive for free speech than ignoring it. However, whilst Google would explicitly not include certain results in its google.cn searches, it was clear savvy users in China could find ways around this.

Since then, the Chinese government has expressed concern that Google facilitates access to pornography, and has called for Google to step up measures to help with its censorship efforts. It is trying to pursue an endless game and losing.

So the announcement by Google that it will pull out of China unless it can provide a free open uncensored service is astonishing. It has justified it on the grounds that there have been hacking attempts at Gmail accounts from China, and presumably it has little recourse to the Chinese authorities to prosecute this. However, it is a brave move in the country that has now got the largest number of internet users in the world.

Google has apparently stopped censoring google.cn, which must be causing great angst amongst the Chinese government and the Communist Party. Previously censored articles and images of Tiananmen Square, critiques of Mao Tse Tung and support for Chinese dissidents, Taiwan and indeed much porn will now be easily accessible.

More important than that, Google has let all users in China know of its policy. It has called upon the 300 million or so Chinese internet users to note what their government is doing, and how Google will walk if things don't change.

It is a calculated risk. In China, Google is not the leading search engine. A local variant, Baidu, (a blatant copy) is. However, it will not take long before its users learn they can access what was previously forbidden. Google risks losing advertising revenue in China, now the world's second biggest economy. Yet Google also will gain publicity elsewhere and support from millions in the free world.

So what is the likely response from Beijing? I suspect it will seek to wave Google farewell and seek to ingratiate itself with Yahoo and MSN. It is terrified of free information, protests and calls for political reform, so will itself seek to block Google. After all, the odds that millions of Chinese will revolt over this is low. Yet it will put a stumbling block in the growth of the internet in China.

However, kudos to Google. It will have declared its hand as being the search engine for a free world, it will have shown how a private company can frighten the world's largest authoritarian government. After all, look at how sanitised this report from Xinhua (the Chinese state news agency) is about the issue.

Peter Foster, the Beijing correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says: "Interestingly, for all the nationalism and anti-foreign sentiment that typifies China’s more vocal netizens, the majority of comments on Chinese web discussions forums seem to be extremely worried about what Google’s potential pull-out signifies for China in the longer term."

China has made massive progress though its own hard work and ingenuity, but it has also leant heavily on a global knowledge economy whose well-spring is the free-flow of information.

Google is a potent symbol of that idea and while China can get along just fine without Google in the short-term, a decision to shun Google (which at this point looks the likely course) would expose the inherent limits of the Chinese ‘miracle’.

Yes, the relative economic freedom China has experienced in the past 30 years has been matched by much less individual freedom, particularly when it comes to holding government and more specifically the Communist Party to account. It would appear that the Communist Party can no longer demand obedience and surrender by foreign companies seeking to reap rewards from the ample Chinese market.

Beware of consultants who know nothing

Take this piece of poorly researched nonsense from Gerson Lehrman Group.

Mistakes?

1. "As launch customer of the stretched, longer range 787-9, Air New Zealand was probably the first major carrier to abandon First Class seating and focus on making money where it counted."

What a non-sequitur. Buying the Boeing 787-9 has nothing to do with abandoning First Class as Air NZ got rid of First Class because it focused on a superior business class hard product on long haul flights, and because NZ demand for First Class is derisory. It was also far from the first "major" (!) carrier to abandon first class. Air Canada, Iberia, SAS, KLM, Alitalia and Finnair all did so, along with Northwest, Delta and Continental on international routes. Clearly the writer has no background in the airline sector.

2. "Boeing has missed a huge opportunity in getting the 787 to customers who so desperately want this new fuel efficient airliner" How? The competition is years away, and the 787 is a ground breaker because of what it is made of, but the writer never mentions that. Funny that. Boeing has screwed up because of supply chain quality and timeliness issues, but the 787 has a key point of difference that the writer doesn't note.

3. "The 747-8 has survived in large part because the passenger variant is still a couple of years away". No. It has survived because most of the orders are for the freight variant, which has successfully killed off the A380F for now.

4. On the Boeing 787 "but there won’t be any cancellations due to the set backs on the program thus far." Except for the cancellations by Qantas, Tui, LCAL and others.

5. Umpteen errors of grammar.

A tip to those who commission management consultants.

Get CVs from those expected to work on the project, seriously query their experience and knowledge. Talk to those involved to quiz them on what they know, and don't let substitutes be offered unless you vet them. Finally, contact the clients they say they have had and ask the clients what the roles were.

Another sign of peace in Iraq

Lufthansa is to be the first major airline to restart flights into Baghdad from later this year.

Austrian Airlines flies to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, but Lufthansa will be a big sign of confidence in Baghdad and Iraq. It will no doubt suddenly make Lufthansa the preferred carrier to Baghdad, although not the first Star Alliance carrier (as Turkish Airlines flies from Baghdad to Istanbul).

Let's hope the confidence is well placed.

Name suppression of ex.MP

The internet has made this entire case a bit of a game. Cameron Slater's post is skirting on the edge of the law, though he explains part of his view on name suppression here. Some have taken to assuming the ex. MP charged of a sexual offence represented this or that electorate, or is in this or that party. It doesn't helop that the New Zealand Herald said "former MP from the top of the South Island" although appearing in the Nelson District Court indicated that anyway.

Ken Shirley has incorrectly been mentioned too often in relation to this, and continuing to name people without any basis for it other than pure speculation is quite unfair. Of course, the list of possible MPs (which if you include all top of the South Island electorates and list MPs) is not great, so it puts a handful under suspicion, although no doubt their family and friends can vouch for them all, bar one.

Of course, given the internet the answer was bound to turn up, and it really wasn't rocket science to figure it out. One very well known and popular website effectively names the accused indirectly. It isn't the only place mentioning it (and no I'm not going to say).

The purpose of name suppression is primarily to protect victims or relatives of the accused. That is entirely fair and reasonable. How this is addressed when the internet is extra-territorial, and allows people to post elsewhere is difficult, as I suspect thousands now know the name and it is being mentioned in person, by phone and even by the foolish by email.

So in effect name suppression has value only in delaying not preventing circulation of names, and in the case of the unknown is likely to be effective. So the question is why should anyone, who has a public profile, be protected from the same sort of scrutiny anyone else might have? Well they should not, people should be treated on a similar basis - and if name suppression is to protect the victim, then it may not be abused like it has been in this case. If it is to protect the accused, then the question has to be asked why?

However, equally disconcerting is that other former MPs from who are nothing to do with this case are having their reputations put under the spotlight because of speculation. Similarly, if there is truth in the alleged offences, then concern should also be for the victim.

It is also fair to note that until the man concerned is convicted, he should be treated as innocent until proven guilty. However, this sort of thing should not be a game. If found guilty, then the name should be released, only if it is not detrimental to the victim. It is quite possible this whole case is very very messy given all those involved.

I am not allowing comments, for fairly obvious reasons.

Islam 4 UK driven underground

The pro sharia law organisation "Islam 4 UK" has now been declared a terrorist organisation by the UK government, banning it, which of course simply means it will regroup under a new name, and re-emerge. The move is unsurprising, but also shows the emptiness of New Labour, which like most things it doesn't like, thinks that a law banning it will make it better - this being the same government that has embraced funding Islamic groups, and has passed laws against "hate speech".

Islam4UK has responded by saying: "what is clear is that if you differ with the Brown regime and those who advocate freedom and democracy and whose citizens are supposedly dying for these ideals abroad, then freedom quickly dissipates to be replaced by dictatorship... Today's ban is another nail in the coffin of capitalism and another sign of the revival of Islam and Muslims. "

Islam4Uk openly admits it opposes freedom and democracy, and is celebrating being banned. Islam4UK after all envisages a world where you'd be imprisoned or worse for "insulting" Islam.

Is a ban helpful? No. It just shows weakness and plays into the hands of the organisation.

What would be a preferable response? A direct, open and loud declaration by all political parties that believe in it that Sharia law will not be implemented in the UK, that Western capitalist liberal democracy has survived threats from fascism and communism and wont tolerate stone age theocrats seeking to undermine it and the rights of individual citizens to live their lives peacefully as they see fit.

Oh and when Islam4UK does ever utter justification for the use of force to advance its politics, then it should be treated as a terrorist organisation (not banned), and its members and associates treated as such by law enforcement agencies.

Loser vs talent = Minto vs Peer

According to the NZ Herald, John Minto, a mediocrity, locally known Marxist, has decided to pick on Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer. Why? Because Minto opposes Israel's treatment of the Palestinians (never uttering a word of criticism of the Palestinian authorities or Hamas of course). A pathetic little man who tries to paint a private citizen as representing the politics of Israel. What a welcome!

Does Minto protest Iranians because the Iranian regime murders political opponents, homosexuals, rigs elections and is seeking nuclear weapons? No, because it's "anti-American".

Does Minto protest Zimbabweans because of the Mugabe regime? No. He has little time for Mugabe today, but once was a cheerleader for this proven murderous thug - when it was de riguer to say he was a "hero".

Does Minto get fired up about North Korea, which imprisons and enslaves young children for the political "crimes" of their elders? No.

Did Minto damn the use of violence for political means in a liberal democracy? No, and no less than fellow socialist Chris Trotter damned him for it.

He's a very selective moralist. He protests regimes that have ties to the West, protests regimes that open up to trade and capitalism. He keeps his mouth shut and stays away from protesting those that seek destruction of Western civilisation and capitalism. He didn't even note the passing of Helen Suzman, one of South Africa's foremost opponents of apartheid, because she was also an opponent of the Marxism of the ANC.

Global Peace and Justice is a Marxist organisation that is avowedly against the values of the United States, opposed to capitalism, open trade, free movement of people, goods and services and happily ignores the tyranny, murder and oppression of freedom of regimes and groups. It is only interested in peace at the price of freedom of religion (for it does not fight Iran or Hamas), and justice meaning taking property through state violence.

As such Minto should be dismissed as the fringe tired old commie that he is, after all what place is there for a man who believes that the reason a few brutally abuse children is because they don't get enough welfare money?

UK taxpayers fund Islamist enemy

Anjem Choudhary leads Islam4UK, an Islamist group that wants UK residents to embrace Islam and the UK government to submit to it, and for the UK to become an Islamist state.

He has received much publicity lately for organising a protest march in the town of Wootton Bassett, which holds unofficial public mourning events when the coffins of soldiers returned from Iraq and Afghanistan arrive from the nearby RAF Lineham base.

Choudhary wants a counter protest to represent the "Muslims who have died" implicitly due to UK involvement in war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He claims they are the true victims.

Choudhary has long expressed views contrary to that of Western civilisation, celebrating the 9/11 terrorists as "martyrs", he refused to condemn the 2005 bombings in London and has long called for Sharia law to be implemented in the UK.

Now it is discovered that this enemy of the British political system and way of life is being funded by the taxpayer. He is a welfare parasite according to Guido Fawkes, getting around £25,000 a year from the taxpayer. The beloved welfare state funding, feeding, clothing, housing a man who effectively incites terrorism (but dances delicately along the line of not breaking the law as he does). He can't be deported as he was born here, but he gives a damned good reason for why the welfare state should be abolished.

Meanwhile, the appropriate response is to counter the views he expresses, to damn Islamism and damn the idea of an Islamic state for the UK. His views need to be confronted, his lies about what British troops are doing in Afghanistan exposed for what they are, and it's a good enough reason for serious questions to be asked as to why this man can claim so much on welfare.

Iceland's revolt

Iceland has suffered more than most countries in Europe from the recent recession, not least because it became the host for a series of financial institutions that have since failed. The most notable one is Icesave, which borrowed heavily to establish itself as an institution engaged extensively in providing credit for property and offering high interest bearing bank accounts.

Like other banks that have failed in this part of the world, none of those in the sector drew any attention to the nature of the operation, and the UK regulator - the Financial Services Authority (FSA) - happily rubber stamped it all. In other words, what it did was officially approved as being robust. With Icesave, among others, very highly leveraged, the financial crisis saw it unable to rollover its debt facilities, so it all came to a tumbling end. Hundreds of thousands of depositors in the UK, Netherlands and Germany found their accounts frozen, all assuming that with state "endorsement", their money would be "safe". So the UK government decided that other UK taxpayers should bail out the depositors. Not for a moment did Gordon Brown argue that depositors should have thought more carefully, not for a moment did he seek to fire the FSA for being effectively useless, not for a moment did he think about taxpayers over investors.

So having done this, the UK looked to recover some of this from Iceland, effectively demanding Icelandic taxpayers pay the UK for its policies. Quite what Icelandic taxpayers have to do with a private Icelandic company is beyond me, after all it was a policy choice by Gordon "borrow" Brown to bail out depositors. The Icelandic government agreed to cover a portion of the deposit costs, under significant pressure, but Iceland's taxpayers have turned on their government.

The total cost of this foolish promise is £3.6 billion, for a country with the population of greater Wellington. Allister Heath in City AM points out the scale of this, which explains why nearly a third of Iceland's adult population has signed a petition demanding the President veto legislation authorising the deal:

the proposal will now be put to a referendum and crushed. The sums involved are huge: 40-60 per cent of Iceland’s national income, taking the national debt to 200 per cent of GDP. Each of Iceland’s 304,000 citizen would have to pay £11,700 without getting shares or any assets in return. The money would be gone for good. Imagine if UK taxpayers were asked to pay £700bn to overseas governments because one of our banks had messed up. We too would be up in arms.

Yes, the bank was irresponsible, but it was a private entity.
Yes Iceland's government shouldn't have agreed to help pay part of the bailout to the UK and Dutch governments, but then given the UK economy is 144x the size of Iceland's how could the UK expect much from it?
A better response from Iceland's government would be to state that its banks operate in a free market are not government guaranteed so creditors beware.

So Iceland's taxpayers, who didn't own the failed bank, didn't invest in it and never promised to bail it out and saying "enough". Good for them. Whilst some noise was made about Iceland voting in a new leftwing government, which has supported the deal, the protests have clearly rattled both it, and its belief that taxpayers are there to be fleeced for "their own good".

Big bully Brown is threatening to veto a forthcoming Icelandic application for EU membership. Iceland ought not to be too concerned, since all such membership will do is mean Iceland, as (still) a relatively wealthy European country will probably be a net payer to the socialist subsidy schemes of the EU, and Iceland's ample fisheries would be plundered by the parasitical subsidised fishing fleets of France, Spain, Portugal and the UK.

As Allister Heath continues: "The bankers were incompetent, as were the Icelandic authorities, the UK authorities, the EU and the depositors who didn’t do their research. Egged on by price comparison websites and personal finance pages, the public assumed regulators would ensure every newfangled online bank was safe and forgot that high returns often mean high risk. Instead of acknowledging this, Brown is pursuing a vendetta against Iceland, trying to recoup all of the cash from its government."

Iceland's voters will no doubt say no in a forthcoming referendum, not wanting to put themselves and their children under enormous state enforced debt. If it means pariah status from the IMF and the EU, Icelanders are likely to prefer that to being under servitude to bail out policies from other governments.

As the Daily Telegraph points out, this marks a new low in relations with the UK since the Cod Wars. The UK government classified the Icelandic Central Bank alongside Al Qaeda, under anti-terrorism laws, just so it could seize its assets. Iceland is a member of NATO.

So Iceland has served as a warning, that taxpayers will only take so much from governments claiming to speak on their behalf. Sadly, the UK is too big, and British taxpayers too inert to revolt against state kleptomania.

2010: New Zealand

To start things off I thought I'd observe, what I think will be the key things of note in various countries. Given my absence for some months, I thought New Zealand would be a good place to start.

It's been just over a year since the National - Maori/ACT/Peter Dunne government was elected, and what's been of note is that things are pretty much business as usual. After all, having defeated Helen Clark, fully supporting her candidacy to lead the UNDP (of which she is doing a less than sterling job) and granting her the Order of New Zealand, speaks volumes. Labour lite indeed.

There has been hysteria from the union and environmental movements about John Key's government being another "New Right" revolution. It shows little sign of this at all. Nothwithstanding tentative steps to open part of ACC's business to competition (deliberately mislabelled "privatisation" by Marxists), National's solution to most areas of state activity has been to spend more money. Education and health have been tinkered with, and there is more interest in using private contractors to carry out activities paid for by taxpayers. There is a tougher stance on welfare, yet the most recent expansion of the welfare state - Working for Families - remains intact. In transport, the Nats are less willing to throw good money after bad on rail (but still willing to do so), and more willing to throw bad money on roads.

There have been modest tax cuts, but little other sign of wanting to shrink the size of the state. At best, it has been slowing the growth. Auckland is to get a mega-council, without its powers constrained, only avoiding race based political representation by the skin of its teeth. The rest of New Zealand local government will still exist within the Labour/Alliance model of virtually unlimited general competence, with only some barriers to privatisation removed.

On the core activities of state, the main response has been to increase powers of surveillance and to remove presumptions of innocence around possession of property suspected to have been acquired through crime, including drug offences. There have been no apparent moves to reduce regulation or increase individual liberty, at all.

In fact, besides some minor steps, about all that's noticeable is rhetoric that is more pro-business, without the unionist tint, and a change in personnel. National is being pretty much what it said it would be, and what I expected it to be. A conservative party that changes little, that slows down the growth of the state, and is not overtly socialist, but unwilling to reverse policies that are essentially socialist in nature. Why be surprised? It was how National always has tended to be. Only from 1990-1993 did it show some promise on economic freedom, and only partly.

With the Nat's overwhelming dominance, what can be said of its political partners?

ACT can say what? It has helped create the Auckland megacity? It fought to keep it from being contrary to ACT and National party by being partly race based? It got a Brash led inquiry commissioned that the government has largely ignored? It has little to show for, which can be seen in why perhaps its greatest achievement might be Roger Douglas finishing off eliminating compulsory tertiary student union membership. Good, but little else. Will ACT supporters feel a bit cheated after three years or are they satisfied in simply being the Nat's alternative to the Maori Party?

The Maori Party of course can say it has accomplished getting more booty from taxpayers. Money for Maori homes (!) to get insulation, and support for the beleagured World Cup Rugby broadcast bid. Beyond that, perhaps the Maori Party is most satisfied at getting portfolios outside Cabinet, and not being booted out for Hone Harawira's vile bigoted comments. The Maori Party can say it is in government, and no doubt the Labour Party is likely to need it if it ever wishes to be in power again. So in essence, it can say to Maori it is better to be in power, getting something than not being there. Its core constituency is unlikely to have been burnt yet, as National doesn't NEED the Maori Party, but chose it.

Peter Dunne of course continues his career as a one man band as Minister, showing himself willing to switch sides to keep in power and now able to show off his totem of the Transmission Gully motorway as his personal achievement, at your expense.

Meanwhile, Phil Goff has sought to distance Labour from the "nanny state" past under Helen Clark. However, as long as National doesn't rock the boat, and Labour is partly blamed for the recession (or lack of growth), it faces an uphill struggle in campaigning for 2011. The Greens meanwhile face life without Jeanette Fitzsimons or Sue Bradford, and trying to cope with what is increasing scepticism about the climate change agenda. It is a brand that remains strong and full of dedicated vehement supporters, and is probably the more effective opposition. However, it is difficult to see it breaking too far out of its base. Meanwhile, expect Jim Anderton to announce his retirement, and Winston Peters to attempt to kick start his political career yet again, and fail.

The bigger event of the year politically is the local body elections, which will see most attention fall on Auckland. Some ACT supporters have suggested the mega-city will inherently be conservative and centre-right, though quite what that means other than being less fiscally loose is unclear. Leadership of greater Auckland will be coveted, because it will for the first time be the largest political entity controlled outside central government. It will potentially be a formidable ally or challenge to the Government. I for one will only be interested in whether it reduces the rates and regulatory burden on Aucklanders.

Beyond it all is the economy, which will be driven by export demand, which is likely to pick up in Australia and parts of Asia. However, the outlook for tourism remains bleak. Inbound tourism from Europe, especially the UK is unlikely to recover in the next year, likewise from North America. As the two main sources of premium value tourists, this will especially hit tourist centres, only partly offset by Australians and higher volumes of budget value Chinese tourists. Japan's long running recession will continue to hurt. New Zealand will remain vulnerable to trends towards protectionism or at least not changing the status quo in both the US and Europe, as Obama is uninterested in the WTO round, and Europe remains unmotivated.

Meanwhile, little will be done to address competitiveness. Spending more will be seen as as the solution to health and education, along with nanny state type regulations and campaigns. The RMA largely unchanged, will continue to be a barrier to the exercise of property rights and economic growth, as well as genuine environmental protection. The Nats will still seek to bind New Zealand to treaties to reduce CO2 emissions, notwithstanding that it will harm the economy and do nothing at all to the environment (and positively allow many countries to grow unhindered).

I would dearly love to be wrong, but all I can see are not enough reasons to come back. There are reasons enough to live away from NZ in terms of opportunity, pay and excitement, but nothing has been done to change my point of view. This is even though I have a standing job offer I can take if I wish, it isn't really enough to make it worthwhile.

So 2010 wont be a revolution, it wont be much of a change at all, in fact it's probably exactly what many of you wanted - change in personnel and rhetoric, but not so much change in policies.

Happy New Year

Hope 2010 brings you happiness, prosperity and freedom.

Gordon Brown's gift to the people of the UK is for VAT to increase back up to 17.5%, along with an end to the Stamp Duty "holiday" (which is a tax on real property sales of between 0 and 4%).

Hopefully UK voters will remember this before 3 June when the election deadline is.

So may 2010 bring a year when people don't initiate violence against each other, when governments don't initiate force against their citizens and people use reason not faith, values not whims.

Most of all, it would be particularly welcome if people didn't bash, rape, torture or neglect children.

No, I'm not holding my breath in hope.

2009: the year to devalue awards

After Barack Obama being granted the Nobel Peace Prize for absolutely nothing, the New Zealand Government has now granted Helen Clark the Order of New Zealand.

However, given the list of those who already hold it includes:

- Ken Douglas, who spent a good part of his career cozying up to the brutal murderous dictatorship of the Soviet Union, before softening up;
- Jonathan Hunt, a man whose Parliamentary career includes NZ$29,000 of taxi expenses, a man whose greatest achievement was being part of the reforms of the 1980s, like well just over half of the Labour caucus then (who aren't there); and
- Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan, whose greatest achievement was winning a Ballroom and Latin American Dancing contest, otherwise she has been thought of by more than one as one of the laziest Cabinet Ministers in recent history;

then you already know it's barely worth using such an award to help hold a door open.

The Key government in granting this to its political enemy speaks volumes of how nothing much has really changed. Clark's record at the UNDP is at best disappointing, at worst appalling. As Prime Minister she was notable for being a control freak, notable for increasing taxes, dramatically increasing the size of the state, widening the role of the state and using personal attacks instead of arguing politics on philosophy, economics and merit. She presided over increasing the range of people dependent on the state on income, she demanded the bureaucracy not give free and frank advice when she didn't like hearing it, but most of all she made no great particularly historic contribution. Jim Bolger at least led a government which for three years, did implement some significant reforms (not all being steps forward, the RMA being the worst).

So that's 2009 ending, with a major international award being rendered meaningless, and New Zealand's highest domestic honour proving that mediocrity remains the standard of achievement lauded by New Zealand politicians. Most of all showing that after one year, the majority might have voted out Helen Clark in 2008, but enough of you voted in her philosophical and spiritual kin at the same time, with a blue tinge. Which is, of course, what National has really always been, except for a three year period when Ruth Richardson gave the Nats a bit of testicular fortitude.

Terrorism exposes absurdities of the security bureaucrats

The attempt to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit has exposed the ongoing risk there has been, for some years, of Islamist thugs seeking to murder civilians en masse for political/religious purposes. It has exposed enormous flaws in the screening process for airline passengers, that someone on a "watch" list gets no particular attention, not too surprising in Nigeria, but appalling in Amsterdam. More disconcertingly it has given the aviation security goons an excuse to persecute all airline passengers flying to the US with such absurdities as:

- Prohibiting people from moving in the cabin in the last hour of flight, when the 9/11 terrorists made their move in the beginning of the flight (next the security goons will be demanding passengers be strapped in seats with "bed pans" to urinate in);
- Banning the use of laptops and portable audio equipment on flights, effectively making business flights largely unproductive and boosting book sales at airports;
- Requiring some airline in flight entertainment systems to be shut down early, contrasting to Air NZ's successful and popular "gate to gate" continuous running of the systems.

Christopher Hitchens in Slate says:

The fault here is not just with our endlessly incompetent security services, who give the benefit of the doubt to people who should have been arrested long ago or at least had their visas and travel rights revoked. It is also with a public opinion that sheepishly bleats to be made to "feel safe." The demand to satisfy that sad illusion can be met with relative ease if you pay enough people to stand around and stare significantly at the citizens' toothpaste.

We have already had to put up with the absurdity of being unable to take bottled drinks through airline security, but we can buy the same ones "airside" which means being price gouged at many airports (thankfully not Heathrow which has enough competing shops to make this no problem). Replacement of stainless steel cutlery with plastic was one of the most stupid, as anyone who got a glass of champagne could well figure out how a weapon could be created.

New Zealand of course coped for decades without any domestic security screening, until 9/11, and security goons were "shocked" at the knives and various objects people used to take on flights from Auckland to Christchurch. The unspoken truth is that the people who did this had no intention of using them against their fellow citizens anymore than they do on trains, buses, in shopping centres or walking the streets. It's a blessing that the Government ignored some calls for security screening for domestic flights using aircraft of less than 90 seats.

The case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wont see anyone fired from their jobs in Nigeria, Schiphol Airport or elsewhere in the security sector. There isn't accountability for failures, just as there isn't for the stupidity of the measures imposed on everyone else.

It should have been obvious to connect the likes of Abdulmutallab to needing additional screening, he was, after all, already on a list. However, that incompetence is now shrouded by adding hours of delays to travellers, hours of inconvenience and discomfort because some control freak has decided to make people "feel safe".

What the security goons and the politicians wont point out is that the risks of attacks remains constant, and ever present. In London, there is little difference today compared with 2004 in terms of the ease of being able to launch an attack on the underground or on a bus. The sheer numbers of people are so great, and the same applies to all metro rail systems. Fast intercity trains are also sitting targets, but then so are crowded downtown areas. The IRA didn't waste energy on transport networks, but waged much fear and death by using bombs on cars and vans, or in public areas.

So the message is, you can't be wholly safe anywhere. Islamist thugs will seek to attack as they see fit, when and wherever they wish. Some on the left wish to minimise this, and it should not be exagerrated, but it is real, it will exist for many years to come. Even lasting success in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel will only reduce, not eliminate the risk.

It is reasonable to take steps with aviation to stop people taking on board weapons, to screen for explosives and to use intelligence to stop those who there is good reason for suspicion, but someone needs to be responsible for the abject failings in this case and there should NOT be ridiculous kneejerk reactions just to be seen to be "doing something".

It's about time politicians and the public said no to being literally bent over and buggered by the incompetent and the inane. Aviation security is a serious business, it should be driven by real rational assessment of risk and the detailed use of intelligence to screen out passengers. Sadly what we seem to have is the sledgehammer trying to crack a seed, we deserve better from these ever burgeoning monopolies.

Christmas, Hanukkah or simply Seasons' Greetings

Yes my blogging has been very erratic as of late, not because there is nothing to write about, but because much of the month I've been spending long hours in front of a laptop and when I haven't been, I've preferred to enjoy the season. After all, with daylight starting at around 8am and ending from around 3.30pm, with ample snow, and Europe so close, I've taken the time to enjoy time with me and my other half, as well as deal with

I will write a summary to 2009 as I see it before the New Year.

I'm about to have turkey, veges, pudding, champagne and chocolate, although it is NOT a white Christmas in East Anglia today (although ice and snow remains in a few corners), but it IS rather special to have Christmas in this part of the world rather than New Zealand.

Even more special to have spent a few days in Vienna, where hot spicy drinks, strudel, torte and umpteen sausages (and all seriously good), and the colder weather, and symbolism of this time of year is much stronger. Glad also to have not chosen the "weekend in Paris going Eurostar" option given what a debacle that has proven to be.

All I miss is my family in New Zealand, but that wasn't to be this year.

I hope all of you have a good time with your loved ones, enjoy the food, drink and simple benevolence and joy of the season. For those experiencing a little sadness at this time, I hope it gives cause to remember good and happy times.

Merry Christmas and Seasons' Greetings, and may you simply enjoy life.

Australia's draconian approach to the internet

Politicians in Australia are seemingly obsessed with the "internet is evil" vision of censorship. John Howard forced taxpayers to pay for all families to have filtering software at home, but for the Rudd regime it isn't good enough.

The model for Australia? China, Singapore or the UAE. Yes none exactly known for free speech and openness. The great firewall of Australia is purportedly designed to block child pornography, which of course means anyone opposing it must be suspect.

Now child pornography doesn't sit around on websites for very long, because its very nature being illegal means that websites are set up and shut down regularly. Indeed, most prosecutions for it are by people swapping personal collections via instant messaging and peer to peer networks. Not exactly a means by which a website firewall can interfere with. In fact the one point that most of those concerned about illicit material ignores is that the internet also makes it easier to track down those who produce it and distribute it.

Now there are reports that the trial firewall is blocking legal material. The majority blocked is NOT child pornography. So it is the typical sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The simple rule that should apply to the internet and all content is that the law should be involved when the material distributed is a recording of an actual crime - that means children, that means real rape and real violence. It means the recording is an accessory to the crime, not the desire to engage in wide scale social planning.

Of course the authorities and certainly politicians have no response to the fact that increasing numbers of cases are now appearing of teenagers facing legal action because they are taking photos of themselves, which happen to be illegal. The image remains of a big bad world of adults, and a world of innocence of those under 18. The truth is there is a lot going on in between all that which parents don't know about, which politicians don't want to utter and youth culture. Sexuality is changing, the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and people's heads are in the sand.

Transmission Gully subsidy to Wellington

$3 each for a $20 a user road.

Yep, that's what the Transmission Gully boondoggle will cost. Each user will pay no more than $3, you could argue probably another 65c in fuel tax/RUC for driving 22km along the road.

So that's $3.60 per user.

How much of Transmission Gully will the toll recover? $200 million out of $1.2 billion. The extra 65c will only recover proportionately another 22% more (generously rounding up) so that means $244 million of Transmission Gully will be paid for by users.

The rest? Comes from motorists using other roads, across the country and indirectly, taxpayers who wont be charged interest on the capital put into this expensive road.

So go on, thank the government for pouring over $950 million in subsidies to road users for Transmission Gully. Then again, given the $500 million being poured in subsidies to rail commuters in Auckland, it just shows you how much interest there is in economic efficiency and user pays by this Labour government.

Yes I know the report says $2, but really we're just arguing about how bad it is aren't we?

How many of those who damned Labour for wasting money are now hopping on their new cargo cult?

Think Big hits Wellington

It seems Rob Muldoon and Bill Birch are back with big road building plans for Wellington's State Highway 1.

The list is enormous, and it is justified based on agglomeration benefits. The same benefits the UK government has long used to justify a whole range of highly borderline rail projects. Quite how agglomeration benefits the economy when it is about a city primarily set up for the state sector is beyond me.

After all it is $2.4 billion we are talking about, around $7000 per Wellingtonian. My back of the envelope estimate is that the net benefits from these projects will be less than $2 billion. So National is going to destroy wealth on a scale akin to the purchase of Kiwirail.

The project are listed in three phases.

Phase 1

Aotea Quay-Ngauranga extra lane: In other words, a subsidy to peak car commuters. After all this section of motorway flows freely the rest of the time. Price it properly and you wouldn't build it. Any chance this lane will be tolled? No. What will be the result on the local Wellington streets that don't quite have the capacity to cope now? Blank out.

Four laning SH1 Peka Peka to Otaki: Four laning of the current highway will make a big difference to safety. Not probably the highest priority though, as the Ngaruawahia Bypass on SH1 north of Hamilton ought to be more important. Still not a bad project, just wonder whether it is worth doing now.

Kapiti bypass: Essentially a four lane expressway between the current highway and the coast bypassing Paraparaumu and Waikanae. The Kapiti Coast District Council, now dominated by environmental radicals, is against it. However, it is desperately needed. Undoubtedly the best project in the package, will greatly relieve congestion in the whole District. The only reason this hasn't happened before is because previous governments left the problem to the council!

Basin Reserve flyover: A stunted portion of the Inner City Bypass Wellington should have done. Basically gets rid of the conflict between airport/eastern to region traffic and southern to city traffic. Opposition is driven partly by lies around it "destroying" the Basin Reserve, when there have long been plans to build this, as part of a proper motorway to connect at the Terrace Tunnel. On it's own, it's not really worth it, it should be part of a proper bypass of Wellington, but there is little real vision to take through traffic out of the city, to reduce the width of the waterfront route and enable Wellington to properly connect to its harbour. So what's more important?

Phase 2

Transmission Gully: Half the total cost of this package of roads is in this one road, bypassing Porirua, Mana, Plimmerton, Pukerua Bay, Paekakariki on a road just as long as the current one, with hills as steep as Ngauranga Gorge. Why? It's called politics over economics

Phase 3

Mt Victoria Tunnel duplication with 4 laning to Wellington Road: Finally, Wellington's long standing bottleneck between the airport and the city will be removed. Again though, the traffic will be dumped on an el cheapo one way system that the Greens opposed that opened only a few years ago. Again, this project is probably not worth it until a proper bypass of the city is built.

Otaki bypass and four lanes to Levin: An Otaki Bypass is no doubt good for Otaki, to some extent, and four laning is good for safety, but again this should hardly be a major priority.

Terrace Tunnel duplication: Perhaps Wellington's last bottleneck after everything else? So will all of Wellington's traffic problems be fixed? No. Ask yourself whether two or three lanes of traffic dumped from a motorway onto Vivian Street to make its way to the Basin Reserve is really going to work. Yes, it is probably worth building - with a bypass.

Given all this being funded, I can hardly imagine a big road project NOT being approved. The engineers suggest it, the Nats will fund it. A crying damning waste of money. Whilst Labour pissed money down a hole on railways (which the Nats are only slowing rather than stopping), National now pisses money down the hole of roads.

Yes there are parts of the road network that could be improved, but with a system where everyone pays the same regardless of location or time, you will get congestion. With a system that means that those who pay have no relationship with those who build the roads or run the roads, consumers will not always be happy, and the producers will waste because they don't get signals from consumers about what they are prepared to pay for.

Roads are just an economic good, like any other piece of infrastructure. You let politicians and bureaucrats make decisions about how to spend the money taken from you for using them, and now, the money taken from you for NOT using them.

The Greens will be furious, and notwithstanding their irrational hatred of motorised road transport (and hypocrisy over railways), there will be a point. Roads shouldn't be subsidised by non road users.

However, no believer in free markets, private enterprise or capitalism should applaud what is an enormous transfer of money from taxpayers across the country to road users in the capital. It is at best the grand visions of central planners gone mad, with the irrational "Roads of National Significance" moniker used to justify gold plating State Highway 1. At worst it is cynical vote buying, securing the support of the unprincipled political minnow of Peter Dunne, ensuring Labour can't promise any more, and giving National MPs some big projects to open, Stalinist style, to applause - whilst those who paid for it don't notice just a few dollars each week less in their pockets.

UPDATE: David Farrar shows his own economic illiteracy by wanting Transmission Gully to have been built two DECADES ago, when the business case would have been far far worse, with far less traffic.

Government thieving from you to build a boondoggle

So Steven Joyce has just made a political decision to piss your taxes down a hole to subsidise the building of the Transmission Gully motorway.

He's bought a series of arguments that are sheer bullshit. Why? Because I saw the evidence a few years ago when they were rejected then.

Firstly, there is the nonsense that somehow Wellington needs a motorway with a huge viaduct to "connect" it to Kapiti and Horowhenua in the event of a major earthquake. Quite what Wellingtonians will gain from this is unclear when:
- There is only one bridge over the Waikanae River;
- There is only one bridge over the Otaki River;
- There is only one route along a faultline from the Hutt to Wellington city;
- Transmission Gully itself is on a faultline.

$1.5 billion is an expensive insurance policy.

Secondly, there is the nonsense that the coastal route would cost "as much". This could only possibly be true if you engage in ridiculous green-plating and gold plating of the coastal route. Why?

Transmission Gully duplicates about a third of the coastal route as it connects near Kenepuru not Paremata.

There has long been a designation for a bypass at Pukerua Bay, it would be little effort to buy back the few properties along the route.

The coastal route could be built along what is essentially a rather mundane coastal embankment that is already reclaimed. Paekakariki can be protected from the highway by some grade separation.

Paremata/Mana does not need a bypass, as the current route is quite adequate, and ultimately a bypass can be built at grade.

Transmission Gully has a cost/benefit ratio which means the gains in travel time savings, fuel savings and pollution are half the total cost of the road. It is a massive transfer to the property owners along Mana, Plimmerton, Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki, and many on the Kapiti Coast.

Oh and it can't be funded by road user taxes or tolls, so your income tax, GST and company tax will be subsidising a road, primarily for people to commute to primarily government jobs in Wellington.

Before Labour supporters have a moan, they ought to note they started it. They folded against the pressure of the one man party, Peter Dunne, and the Porirua City Council, to have taxpayers pay for one of the biggest boondoggles in New Zealand's recent history. Labour has spent $90 million on consultants to allow Transmission Gully to be built, now National is going to spend 13 times that to build it.

Oh and Labour destroyed the political independence of the former Transfund to separate decisions on building highways from funding highways (something National opposed at the time).

So the more things change, the more they stay the same.

You thought there was a budget deficit, you thought there wasn't enough money to give you a tax cut. No, there's enough for Peter Dunne.

Gordon Brown steals for climate change

Part of the whole Copenhagen charade is that the European Union has promised £6.5 billion of other people's money to give to developing countries because of their own ineptness in industrialising over the past few decades.

What's particularly galling is that Gordon Brown increased the UK contribution of £1.2 billion of as yet unborn childrens' taxes to £1.5 billion to be thieved from the unwilling. More than any other European country. Even though Germany and France have greater GDPs, this wasteful, thieving, now increasingly socialist Labour government is out committing more borrowing to steal from kids to pay for the corrupt, protectionist and ungrateful developing world.

Gordon Brown acts as if he has money to spend, but he has none. He borrows it to leave to future governments to take from taxpayers, and he can hold his head up high, having nearly bankrupted the UK. It's repulsive.

Developing countries are spreading lies such as how they will be "destroyed" by climate change, so they have the begging bowl out, when so many of them are led by governments of kleptocracy and excess. They ignore that the biggest per capita emitters are the likes of Bahrain, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait. They essentially want Western companies and holders of intellectual property to hand over technology to the likes of China, India and others who are not creators of technology, who will then copy it and out compete the West.

It is an argument of envy, envy of the developed, envy of those that have been locations of technology, of education, of capitalism. It has become an argument for, what is quite simply, socialism.

From each according to his ability (i.e. to the extent the West can pay) to each according to his needs (i.e. the extent to which the developing world asks). It isn't really about the environment so much, because if it was, then maybe the arguments would be different?

Blood for oil? Hardly

Some of the leftwing anti-American opponents of the war to overthrow the Saddam Hussein dictatorship said it was "blood for oil". The fact the Hussein regime had ignored UN Security Council resolutions on weapons of mass destruction (and had used them previously), didn't matter. The fact that the opportunity existed to overthrow a brutal aggressive autocracy didn't matter. It was seen as neo-imperialism, and simply sacrificing lives for US oil companies to pillage natural resources.

Reuters reports this week show this to be the absolute nonsense it always has been. US firms have gained few contracts in recently signed deals to service Iraqi oil fields, with firms from many other countries gaining much of the action.

Christopher Hitchens in Slate describes the result as such:

"Three features of the outcome were worthy of note. The auction was to award service contracts rather than the production-sharing agreements that the major corporations prefer. The price was set at between $1.15 and $1.90 per barrel, as opposed to the $4 that the bidders originally proposed. And American corporations were generally not the winners in an auction where consortia identified with Malaysia, Russia, and even Angola did best."

Thus, the vulgar and hysterical part of the "war for oil" interpretation has been discredited: Iraq retains its autonomy, the share awarded to outsiders in development is far from exorbitant, and there is no real correlation between U.S. interests and the outcome.

There was always an argument that spilling blood of one's military largely for the sake of negating a threat to others should be done carefully. The case for attacking Iraq was made on various grounds. The link to Al Qaeda was spurious, although the willingness of the Hussein regime to support terrorism was clear. The suspicion on weapons of mass destruction had a real basis, given the regime's clear willingness to use chemical weapons in the past, and its previous pursuit of nuclear technology, but it proved to be a mirage that even the regime may not have understood.

So what did the war on the Hussein regime achieve? Liberty.

The war removed a malignant regime, that did yes get some Western (and much Soviet) support in the 1980s because it offered a counterweight to Islamist Iran, but most in the so-called peace movement wont let that go, even though it was three Presidents ago. The deaths in the war would easily have been rivalled by the murders undertaken by the Hussein criminal gang.

However, the mostly Islamist insurgency has murdered thousands. Some in the so-called peace movement regarded them to be "freedom fighters", ignoring that whenever the insurgency controlled parts of Iraq, it applied the same approach to freedom as Mamoud Ahmadinejad or Osama Bin Laden.

Now Iraq is far more stable, the surge, opposed by the current US President, has worked enough that the UK has withdrawn, and Iraq is becoming a fairly liberal democratic open state between Islamist Iran, tired authoritarian Syria and the ruthless autocratic Saudi Arabia. It does have almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia, and looks to be taking advantage of it with a government that undoubtedly will be more transparent, liberal and democratic than any other Arab states.

There are still those who believe this shouldn't have happened, that the Saddam Hussein regime stay in place (to say you opposed the war but also oppose the Hussein regime means you either support the outcome of the war or you're lying about it). Certainly the war was conducted appallingly after the Hussein regime was toppled, with enormous incompetence, but the outcome is looking positive, at last.

We'll never know what would have happened had the war not happened, Hussein would undoubtedly have sabre rattled some more, would have killed and tortured a few thousand more Iraqis, and continued to pillage Iraq for the gain of his vile family. Would he have backed more terrorism in Israel? Probably. Would he have sought alliances with Russia? With China? Would he have found a comfortable arrangement with Iran?

I'm grateful we can't ever find out.
What we can know is that

The state owns your shop at Easter

That's what opposing Easter trading is saying. Quite simply, it isn't your shop during Easter, and unproductive petty fascist goons will go around, at your expense, to catch you committing the dastardly deed of opening for business, paying employees and selling to willing customers.

It is disgusting, but telling of what MPs believe small businesses deserve the freedom to choose, and which ones think that this religious based public holiday is special enough that people should be prosecuted for trying to make a living.

So shame on Labour and the Greens for showing themselves up for being the petty fascist little anti-capitalists that they are.

Kudos to ACT and surprisingly Peter Dunne and Jim Anderton for actually wanting to let businesses choose. Surprised given Dunne and Anderton's previous Christian and unionist tendencies.

Kudos to Tariana Turia, Pita Sharples and Te Ururoa Flavell for supporting freedom, brickbats for Rahui Katene and the absent Hone Harawira.

However, brickbats to John Key for not making this National Party policy. For had it been so, this ridiculous victimless crime would be about to be consigned to history. Particular brickbats to busybodies Shane Ardern, Bill English, Phil Heatley, Sam Lotu-Liga, Tim Macindoe, Eric Roy, Katrina Shanks and Jonathan Young. How dare any of you claim to be "pro-business".

If you don't think a shop should be open on ANY particular day then you can do three things:
1. Don't shop there. Ever.
2. Use freedom of speech to ask others to boycott the shop.
3. Buy the shop.

Instead you choose to use force. For shame.