Brave people in Minsk remain defiant against duckling strangler

Today, several hundred demonstrators remain in the centre of Minsk protesting the “elections” which saw Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko get re-elected with a supposed 82.6% of the vote. The EU, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the White House have both condemned the outcome, saying the election was severely flawed. Russia and an observer from the Commonwealth of Independent States both claimed the elections were open and transparent – well freedom and transparency are not hallmarks of the Putin regime.
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It is unlikely that this protest will achieve change, too many Belarussians are resigned to their lot, and it is a hefty ask to sit in weather that tops -2 degrees Celsius during the day and as cold as 13 below overnight. However, there are some determined to defy the evil bully Lukashenko’s declaration that he would strangle them like ducklings. Besides being an evil thug, saying such a thing upsets small children – who wants to visualise ducklings being strangled?

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They are cute after all.

Socialist Britain protecting who

A couple of minor gripes:

1. My girlfriend injured her shoulder over the weekend, tried to find a doctor - "oh there isn't an appointment for 2 weeks", "you need three forms of ID including photo ID", "oh we can't see you till April". That's the precious NHS - because you see, GPs are "free" in the UK, so you can't see one when you are injured or sick - she was better off ringing an ambulance (for what is probably a bruised muscle) and going to accident and emergency - except she DID ring the hospital and was told it would be around 4 hours before she was seen. 4 hours!! This is what the Labour Party is so frigging proud of, a system that costs a fortune in taxes, which doesn't deliver when you need it. Where you can't find a private GP easily (they aren't allowed to advertise and the NHS helpline wont tell you who they are) , and the public ones treat you like you're applying for a Swiss passport or have you queuing up for weeks because it's not convenient that you're sick or injured today. I had the same thing happen with a chest infection last year, rang one NHS doctor to find I could be seen in about 10 days, rang another who wasn't there and rang a third who had a even longer waiting list because the masses were getting flu jabs.

2. Health and safety nazis stop a girl with a cut finger getting a plaster because "some kids might be allergic to them" part of the wisdom of council safety guidelines in Somerset - YET, this morning at my local tube station, because the exit side of the lift doors are closed (due to footpath maintenance outside the building), people at peak times are entering and exiting from the same doors. The doors are only open for enough time for one of those movements so as people go in they keep closing on your shoulders - fine for me, but if I was a child or elderly then I'd get whacked by them while some irritating school-ma'amish South Asian voice says "doors closing stand clear". Braindead fucking tube company - how about reprogramming the doors to stay open for longer, or how about the stupid council NOT undertaking footpath maintenance in peak times.

Please stop reading if you get upset at strong language, then click here.

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FUCK this stupid egalitarian socialist system. How fucking long do you have to be off work and ill before you can get service. How fucking long does someone work 2.2 days a week to pay taxes and "national insurance" and find it doesn't deliver unless you plan to be sick at a certain time or have a heart attack or accident. How many people in this country are ill because they can't be arsed wasting their time on waiting lists and how many people are seeing doctors because they have a snotty nose? All I know is this - in New Zealand, which is not exactly the land of free market medicine - the GPs are all private. People on low incomes or the elderly or children of the rich and poor get subsidised treatment, but I can usually get a doctor's appointment within 24 hours. Yes I would pay the equivalent of around £15 for the visit - but it did the trick. I also swapped doctors and lo and behold, I didn't have to take my passport, driver's licence or anything else to prove I'm not trying to steal from the system I am forced to pay for.

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The NHS is a frigging joke unless it is emergency time - wake up Britain - give up this fantasy that having all healthcare for free is working. Why don't you free GPs from the shackles of state control and let them charge you - pay for it - it will be better.

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and yes I know I can leave.

It's for the children - state surveillance is only to protect them

How ridiculous it is to oppose doing something that is good for children, stupid hysterical idiots bringing up nonsense of privacy when it is childrens' lives at stake and how best to help them.

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So the Commissar for the Next Generation Cindy Kiro has her little fascist bureaucrat eyes on a single ID for all children - so that she can put her maternal loving arms around your kids, because - you see- you're not competent enough to know what's best. You see we apparently have the third highest child homicide rate in the developed world - and that means your kids need to lose their privacy for life.

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"Oh, but these issues can be managed". Of course, who wouldn't trust education, health, justice authorities to use data collected fairly - nothing wrong with them all knowing about your kids, after all "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide". That, of course, justifies random searches of people's homes without warrants, or any state invasion of privacy.

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So how is this meant to protect your kids from abuse? Well you see, Police and CYFS seem incapable of identifying children at risk of abuse - odd really, since the worst cases mostly appear to be committed by convicted criminals as it is. Odd further that the people who do so are often welfare beneficiaries, who the state should be checking up on to see if they are looking for work and trying to get out of the rut they are in. I am not saying it is an easy job, but giving all kids a national ID is a bit like saying we should fingerprint everyone, because we might then be able to match a few crimes to suspects we don't know yet. It is presuming that every child is at risk, which is nonsense - most parents do a perfectly reasonable job of raising their kids - certainly better than the state does when it holds them in its custody.

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Kiro says ""If there is glue ear, or major issues about safety at home, then people do not learn properly. All the little bits need to come together." So glue ear means the kids are being abused does it? How do you know about "major issues about safety at home", unless the state has released convicted rapists, child abusers and murderers out and allowed them to live with children again. What is most disturbing is the phrase "all the little bits need to come together" as if bureaucrats can piece together what is about to happen. When they get it wrong it can be devastating - consider when families are split up because some busybody social worker thought that a child was being abused, and the parents (usually fathers) were guilty till proven innocent. The state rarely compensates for getting that wrong.

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You pay for Kiro and your pay for more of the incompetent abusive parents than you'd like to, and you pay for David Benson Pope, who is "seeking advice on how to set up such a scheme", not even evaluating the merits.

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Before even contemplating treating everyone's children at risk, the state might think about offering judges the option of sentencing murderers, rapists, child molesters and other serious violent criminals to be denied custody of children for life. In other words, you have lost your right to be a parent when you acted violently against another.

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For all of the allegations of DBP bullying, this is far more disturbing than any of that - because it means a national ID system for the whole country, in due course. You see all you need is to implement it for immigrants (you know those suspicious aliens who might change jobs without informing the authorities - deport them!) and within a generation, you all have a national ID - like Malaysia, Belarus, North Korea.

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PC has written a pithy piece on this and Sir Humphreys, Rodney Hide, Lindsay Mitchell have as well. However, I Hate Socialism likes the idea.

Fly from Iran to relocated cities in Asia

Go here and check out the airline that flies to Delhi in Tibet, Shanghai in Japan, Bangkok on the Cambodian/Vietnamese border, Damascus in Turkey and Bahrain Saudi Arabia. Now it might be a perfectly good airline, and presumably its pilot don't get lost, no thanks to the IT department.

Paris riots not political - just thugs

The leftie bloggers who might think the Paris riots are some sort of youth proletarian fight against capitalism. Well, one word... bollocks.

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The report this morning on the BBC World Service was from a journalist who was there, who said that he noticed the element of troublemakers who quietly were gathering while most protestors peacefully opposed the new youth employment law. Reuters reports much the same with "a few dozen youth" causing havoc. The riots were caused by teenagers out wanting to confront Police and wreck cars, vandalise and loot - many protestors distanced themselves from them - I doubt if most of the rioters even understood what they were getting involved in. That doesn't match with the romanticised leftist view of French political activism though.

Call for state funding of UK political parties

This is due to the scandal of loans given by rich Labour supporters in exchange for peerages. No doubt this happened with the Tories too. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott wants state funding for political parties, no doubt meaning most should go to Labour and the Tories. Political parties should be able to be funded by whoever wants to fund them – but that does not mean the state. The state would never fund new parties and will always be set up to primarily fund those already dominant. It is fundamentally undemocratic and corporatist – the status quo funding parties supporting primarily variations on the status quo. State funding of political parties will be resisted by many, and hopefully will be buried as a ridiculous socialist fantasy. If people wont voluntarily fund a political party, why should they be forced to pay for it campaigning to run their lives? If the British Labour Party struggles to get money (which seems unlikely), it might want to look at itself - maybe it doesn't deserve the campaign its power hungry MPs wish it to have?

Ken Livingstone blames Jeremy Clarkson for armageddon

According to The Times Red Ken - Mayor of London - has said that areas threatened with flooding will be called Clarkson zones, because he blames Jeremy Clarkson for global warming and the possible “destruction of life on earth”. Nutter. Jeremy Clarkson hosts the most popular show on BBC2 (and Prime TV in NZ), "Top Gear". Top Gear is fun because cars are fun, they are enjoyable to drive and there are millions who agree - because personal transport is pleasurable.

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Now free market me believes the only problem is that roads are run by politicians, central and local government - who administer roads for political purposes, not according to the demands of users or the costs. In some cases roads are overcharged, in others undercharged, so in some places roads are too good, others they are inadequate - pristine empty roads and congested roads - it's central planning gone mad. I support his congestion charging zone, though not the extension - and generally support road pricing, as long as it is efficient.

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You see I am neutral on whether people should drive or not, it is their choice as long as they don't expect anyone else to subsidise them and take responsibility for their actions - but Red Ken hates cars – he doesn’t own one or even drive. He blames London’s traffic problems on cars, ignoring that London has only around 9% of its land area covered by roads, unlike the average of most cities of 25%. Greenies would celebrate that, but it adds enormously to the cost of transport - and the burden on the economy, environment and people's health. It is no pleasure walking extensively on many London streets because of it - buses get caught in it too - the famous Kings Road in Chelsea was often quicker to walk than to drive or catch buses down. However, without decent highways traffic is funneled down local 2 lane streets.
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Of course, the fact Ken uses London citizens' council tax to pay for buses to run, empty or not, doesn’t help either. The Strand is full day in day out of nearly empty buses clogging up the lanes – bus subsidies promote bus companies running services regardless of demand. Ken’s policy of free bus rides for under 16yos also encourages them to bus instead of walking – hardly environmentally or health friendly (or passenger friendly).
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London would reduce emissions if a network of toll highways was built as originally planned (planned to be free, but tolls would ensure demand was reflected with user pays), completing the inner circular highways, even if tunnelled to avoid impact on the local environment. The tolls would restrain growth and the highways would remove cars from local streets, speeding up bus travel and reducing health impacts – but don’t expect Transport for London or Ken to support that – roads are evil after all. Far better to have pedestrians and cyclists choking with exhaust fumes from buses, trucks, cabs and cars.
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Don’t say people should catch public transport, only 13% of peak commuting to central London is by car, it would be difficult to increase the public transport share much more. London public transport is excellent, although at peak times is at crush capacity (and it isn't efficient to provide more capacity). Most motoring in London is suburb to suburb, where it takes far longer to bus than to drive (a bus takes a more circuitous route and stops a lot after all) and these orbital movements will continue to grow. London has one of the worst roading networks of any major city in the world – it simply needs to let the private sector provide, and to let it toll freely to pay for it.

Belarus on tenterhooks - freedom or bloodshed

This blog rails against attacks on freedom in NZ, the UK and other western countries - but we must be grateful for small mercies - I wont get arrested for what I say here. To the right is the regime's official flag, and the banned pre 1995 flag.

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In Belarus I'd be arrested, imprisoned and maybe tortured or executed - 20 years ago, half of Europe was like that, today Belarus is one of the few left which tolerate absolutely no dissent. Not heard of Belarus? Well it enjoyed receiving most of the fallout from Chernobyl, and with the breakup of the USSR it slipped quickly back into dictatorship - its early elections were dominated by Alexander Lukashenko, who supported the communist past. He may have abolished the commnist party, but he will win the rigged election in Belarus today, because, like North Korea and Myanmar, opposition isn’t really allowed. Lukashenko is Europe’s last remaining Marxist-Leninist leader, in effect. Belarus has a state owned and run economy, and as a result is a stagnant, scared and impoverished people. Well not entirely, a reasonable proportion of Belarussians support him, because they haven’t faced the reforms of their neighbours – nobody is starving, and there is stability (and low levels of crime – if you exclude Lukashenko’s goons abusing their unlimited powers). Belarus still has Soviet era factories producing Soviet era goods, including bicycles, one of which collapsed under Lukashenko when it was presented to him. If you like a boring existence where you don't starve and don't rock the boat, Belarus is for you. It is anti-capitalist after all.

Putin is backing Lukashenko, in fact if it wasn’t for the cheap gas and oil he provides, the regime would be a goner. Lukashenko has repeatedly called for reunification with Russia, but Putin is smart enough to not want to be brought down with Minsk.

Tonight as I write this, snipers have been placed around Minsk, so Lukashenko can aim at demonstrators as the results come out, which of course, appear to support Lukashenko’s overwhelming re-election. The latest report indicates no violence, although the regime has been good at ensuring the disappearance of opponents.

The UK Liberal Democrats are supporting the campaign for liberal democracy in Belarus, as is No Right Turn (the LibDem Youth wing has a magazine called the Free Radical hmmmm), and I agree. The first step towards freeing Belarus is freeing politics, allowing dissent and elections – beyond that we’d probably disagree.

I hope the people of Belarus can effect change, as has happened in Ukraine and Georgia, but I am not optimistic. If they try, many will die – as Lukashenko is not shy about shedding blood. Belarus threatens no one, except its own people, all that western countries can do is support the opposition and continue funding broadcasts of uncensored news from sources such as Deutsche Welle, BBC World Service and Radio Liberty. I wish the people of Belarus freedom – they deserve nothing less, I hope if they stand up against the heartless, lifeless evil of the current regime tonight - the puppets of Lukashenko turn their guns against the regime instead of the people. I doubt much will change.

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Read more about Belarus at the Belarus Virtual Guide and Lonely Planet guide report. If you want Lukashenko's side, the site of the Belarus Embassy and Radio TV Belarus in English will fill you with Pravda - traditional Soviet style.

Iran - such a nice regime

As the socialist peace movement starts its campaign opposing military action against Iran’s nuclear programme, the Sunday Telegraph reports the campaign of Maryam Rajavi about the brutality Iran inflicts upon teenagers accused of committing crimes. Maryam Rajavi is leader of the National Council for Resistance for Iran (NCRI), a group with a military wing described by the US, EU and UK as a terrorist group. She is criticised for being a personality cult. Her organisation is headquartered in France and calls for overthrow of the regime and installation of a government led by her, until holding free elections. Although her followers are a bit extreme, as two set fire to themselves after she was detained by French police suspected of terrorism. So one should be wary of this group, but regardless, some of the cases she cites are horrendous.

She has a book listing the 21,676 died resisting the Iranian regime, and another 120,000 executed since the 1979 revolution. She talks of a 15yo boy flogged to death for eating during Ramadan, and a 13yo girl buried to her neck and stoned for a similar offence. None of this should be a surprise. It executed two men last year for homosexual conduct. Human Rights Watch reports “Iranian law punishes all penetrative sexual acts between adult men with the death penalty. Non-penetrative sexual acts between men are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are punished with death. Sexual acts between women, which are defined differently, are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are also punished with death. “ How about charging with batons a peaceful march in celebration of International Womens’ Day on 9 March? The US State Department notes “The testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man in court. The blood money paid to the family of a female crime victim is half the sum paid for a man. A married woman must obtain the written consent of her husband before traveling outside the country”.

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Slanderous pigs like John Pilger, claiming Israel wants to wage war against Iran - which is akin to claiming that the Chinese in the 1930s were intending to attack Japan - defending North Korea seeing off the US aggressor, ignoring how aggressive the North Korean regime is against its defenceless people, starved, executed, tortured and imprisoned like animals - but hey they are anti-American and nobody would want to live in the US would they? The Iranian regime is brutal, anti-democratic and contrary to the values of civilised society - it wishes the eradication of a fellow UN member state, refuses adequate inspections by the IAEA on its "peaceful" nuclear facilities. Military action is a last resort, against an Iran which threatens to attack Israel or supply nuclear materials to its terrorist organisations. Of course, this doesn't matter to the so called "peace movement" - because only if Tel Aviv is flattened by an Iranian nuclear weapon will many of its supporters waken up and might apologise - but Pilger will probably say the men, women and children who lived their lives in peace in Tel Aviv brought it upon themselves, by not helping to eradicate Israel as the "peaceful" Mullahs in Tehran call for.

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Iran will change, a majority of those in Tehran want change, the 10% turnout for the last Mayoral elections is an indication of that. They just need encouragement and support, and the tactics needed are carrots and sticks - full transparency for the nuclear programme, an end to sponsorship of terrorism, an end to calls to eradicate Israel and a promise of no attack, end to sanctions and US diplomatic recognition. In other words, be a civilised peace-loving state.

Nanny State UK

Petty nanny statism is rife in the UK, everywhere officials are trying to regulate behaviour. Recent cases include the fine because a cop overheard one person swearing to a friend, which is illegal, or the man prosecuted for putting junk mail he received as he walked out of his home into a bin. Now there is Ofcom, the communications regulator complaining that Channel 4 – a privately owned commercial TV channel, broadcasts “too many commercials”. Now if Channel 4 broadcast too many for the viewers, viewers would change channels. Nobody is forced to pay for Channel 4, or to watch it – but Nanny Ofcom has to ensure that the British public are protected from… Channel 4 being too successful. Channel 4 depends on commercials to pay for its programmes, but that isn’t good enough for Ofcom. The Great British Battering Machine is in place – be mediocre, don’t be too successful, nobody likes it (unless it is football).

Don Foster, a Liberal Democrat demagogue said people expressed concern about More 4, a commercial digital TV channel owned by Channel 4. Well frankly those people should get a life – take their nosy little beaks out of what isn’t their business. Free to air commercial TV is something you get for nothing, a range of entertainment, news, information that through capitalism brings happiness to millions – if it didn’t it would fail. People are forced to pay £126 a year to pay for the BBC, what commercial TV does should be nothing to do with the state. Particularly now where there are 36 digital free to air channels broadcast.

Popular government of Clarkistan cannot be corrupt

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People's Government Free of Corruption

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(Helengrad, 17 March 2006) The Clarkistan Acting Deputy Commissar of Police (People's Civilian Securitat) today said that the complaints made against the Worker's Party of Aotearoa (Labour) made by the Electoral Commission were groundless in their accusations of breaches of section 214B of the Electoral Act 1993.

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"The electoral pledge cards circulated by the Popular Democratic Government of Clarkistan, which happened to include the name of the Worker's Party of Aotearoa and its distinguished Great Leader Comrade Hel En Clark, could not be an "election activity", as they merely described what the Popular Democratic Government would do, if - the people in their democratically expressed general will - elected it by their free choice. " said the Commissar.

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The Acting Deputy Commissar clarified that far from encouraging people to vote for the Worker's Party - the pledge cards represented mere promises of what would happen if the people gave a ringing endorsement, they were not "advertising" the Worker's Party or any other such absurdities. "Such criticisms were at best the utterings of a deluded fool, at worst treasonous counter-revolutionary statements indicating loyalties to the child murdering Bush and Blair imperialist aggressors" he continued "A pledge card is an affirmation of the people's love for the party and its leader, represented through the people's government, by popular acclaim, listing the forthcoming Three Year Plan as is the tradition every three years at this time. No working person cares to return to the heartlessness of an era when the government was not of the people, and the people would not endorse the release of the unplanned three years of oppression that the National Party pro-American fascist puppet clique wished to impose on the working classes. The pledge card comes from the heart of the people's love for the warm maternal bosom of the Great Leader and the loving instructions she gives us from Helengrad."

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Spontaneous demonstrations of support were observed by Clarkistanis in Helengrad, Auckland, Clarkchurch and DuneCullen, as trade unions, students and workers carried placards saying "We love Comrade Clark", "Down with the US funded National Party Imperialists", "Deport the counter-revolutionary Chief Electoral Officer" and "Clarkistan will always be for the people". TV and radio reports all had broadcasts demonstrating the confidence the people had in the righteousness of the People's Civilian Securitat's correct line.

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"Continued debate about this is as futile as barking at the moon" said the Acting Deputy Chief Commissariat of the People's Civilian Securitat.

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Of course, the Great Leader and her comrades such as the Dear Manager of the People's Treasury Great Dr Cullen were elected with an overwhelming mandate by the working classes, therefore any argument as to the democratic will of the people being thwarted was "sheer nonsense" declared the head of the People's Civilian Securitat.

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He also explained how the continued support of the Worker's Party by the Party of United Future (headed by his Holiness the Beloved Representative of Ohariu-Belmont Minister of People's Revenue Comrade Dunne) and the Party of Clarkistan First (headed by the distinguished extraordinary and plenipotentiary Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chief Custodian of the People's Baubles the Honourable Comrade Winston Peters) demostrated the broad democratic mandate for government. "If it were not for Comrades Dunne and Peters, we could not claim our mandate to govern - their continued support is proof of the veracity of our case that the people choose to pay for the election of the government they choose. Comrade Jim 'Ol Son' Anderton also gives his single Progressive voice to the People's Government- understanding that the people, the party and the government are one - and the people's government, cannot BY DEFINITION steal from the people, for it is made of the people, by the people, for the people".

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Only reckless revisionist ultra-leftists like the Green Party, counter-revolutionary capitalist roaders like the National Party and the heartless US imperialist war-mongering ACT Party could claim anything different. Their kind were dealt a harsh blow at the elections, raising questions as to whether the people could even tolerate their continued presence at elections. It is only through the generous benevolence of the Great Leader than action is not to be taken against the other parties for their breaches of the law "The state is sovereign" reminded Comrade Clark "and my generosity knows no bounds, so I grant them clemency in the face of their certain guilt. Nobody can accuse me of being anti-democratic"

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"However" Comrade Clark in her profligate magnanimity "despite the calls from so many working people, including trade unions, student representatives and correct thinking local authorities, I will not abolition general elections as of yet. They provide me and my Popular Government recurring ringing endorsements of our correct path, humiliate the counter-revolutionary forces of the left and right, and provide an opportunity for me, with help from the people's own contributions through collective revenue enhancement (tax) to declare my Three Year Plan to thwart the forces of revisionist, fascist, ultra-leftist and treasonous foreign imperialist ideas and continue leading Clarkistan into the century with the confidence of all right thinking Clarkistanis".

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In a separate report, the Chief Electoral Officer is on a sabbatical to Pyongyang and Havana to learn about how elections are meant to be held. An investigation is underway into charges of treason among the staff of the Electoral Commission who have acted in a manner contrary to the popular will. When asked what law the staff were meant to have broken, the President of the Worker's Party said "it's not clear, but we will clarify it shortly so that we can be sure of the illegality of those who are working against the people". (CCNA - Clarkistan Central News Agency)

Auckland road pricing report released

Well the government’s study into road pricing in the Auckland region is out, and it raises a number of questions. It is motivated, rightly, by the desire to reduce congestion, but some want it to raise money to pay for trains (wrong) or roads (right as long as you aren't wasting the existing money collected). It is fairly well accepted by liberal free marketers and by environmentalist lefties that road pricing makes sense – after all, it is just people paying for the use of a scarce resource – road space.
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The way you currently pay for roads doesn’t bear any resemblance to demand, just the cost of maintenance. It is right that, like phones, hotels and airlines that if you want to use a road when demand it highest you should pay for it – and as a result, you are guaranteed a certain level of service (uncongested road). The quid pro quo is that when the road is quietest you should pay very little – to encourage people to spread journey times.
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Think about it like airlines. Most business people fly at the beginning and end of the work day, simply because their time is valuable and their plans can change quickly, so they pay expensive fully refundable fares. There are a lot of them flying at the same time, so fares are expensive, rarely will you get cheap fares on those flights. On holiday most people make plans well in advance, and are price sensitive. They will fly in the middle of the day or later in the evening because they are prepared to adjust their trip around flights they can afford – they pay less, but the planes get fairly well filled. The peak time business travellers make airlines a lot of money, but off peak leisure travellers don’t – but they pay enough to make it worthwhile to keep the planes flying and offering a frequent service. With road pricing the same would happen.
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Now I could argue the case for road pricing till I am blue in the face, so what about this report?
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The Greens' reaction is the usual “need more public transport”. This is the same as the ARC which is obsessed with trains. Of course with road pricing, you don’t need to subsidise public transport – the roads are priced according to space taken up by vehicles. As buses take up less space per person than cars, then buses pay less on average. Trains pay nothing (as they should be paying the cost for using the track). Uncongested roads mean buses can travel freely, but cars travelling on those roads are paying for a good level of service – in short, you’ve levelled the playing field, letting private bus and rail operators provide service where and when there is demand. The Greens don’t want money raised from road users spent on roads – which is economic nonsense. As long as motorists are paying for the efficient use of the roading network (which at peak times would be expensive) then it is not their business at all. The Greens advocate the silly and Orwellian parking levy option, that would have every single parking space in central Auckland, on private or public land, taxed for a small period of the day. It wouldn’t work very well, except to encourage more businesses to shift out of the city to places where public transport is even less suitable for commuting to. It is wrong to think good public transport is a pre-requisite to road pricing - road pricing exists now, it's just very blunt (petrol tax) and 20% of the pricing is spent on activities other than transport. It is also wrong to think Aucklanders became "car dependent" because of poor public transport, more like Aucklander's got poor public transport because they chose to use their cars. Auckland's tram and rail systems wound down in the 1950s and 1960s because cars were more convenient and quicker - they still are in many cases. The socialist philosophy that people are forced to use cars is nonsense, as long as you have open entry for commercial public transport services (which has only existed since the early 90s).
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National has fortunately been balanced in its response, wanting to look at the report carefully. Hopefully it wont reject it outright, but consider how road pricing can be used to replace rates for funding local roads – though if that happens then governance of local roads would have to change radically to avoid local authorities gouging consumers like their gouge ratepayers.

Brian "Red"Rudman doesn't think it will happen, although he is wrong about the system for charging being expensive - it would be far cheaper per transaction that the system for the ALPURT B2 toll road being built to bypass Orewa. He is right about ARC's profligacy in seeking a $400 million more expensive version of the Avondale extension to SH20 though.
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The option not being considered in the report is network charging. There already is a form of this with road user charges, which could be extended to all vehicles using new technology – you could have a prepaid smartcard that deducts funds for distance travelled over the network, with premiums for travelling on the busiest roads at peak times, and discounts for off peak travel. However, this requires a sophisticated on board system, and should replace petrol tax altogether.

I don't believe anything will happen on this, for now. Congestion charging is very risky politically, and Labour wont want to do it, although it may encourage more toll roads or new motorway lanes being toll lanes, as exists in some states in the USA. It will be a brave government that introduces it and motorists will want something in return; far less congestion and money dedicated to roads or worthwhile alternatives. Until the SH20 western ring road is built, and of the seven segments that need completing only four have guaranteed funding (and three are actually under construction right now, and to be fair one section Auckland local authorities can't even agree on) so that it probably ten years away.

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There will probably be a populist lobby opposing road pricing, and given the options in the report I wont be surprised. There are better solutions that having a local authority controlled central cordon to raise extra money to pay for pet schemes – road pricing should be about motorists paying to use roads with the money being spent on roads. However, this is when debate should occur - Auckland's congestion wont be fixed by building new roads paid for by people who aren't using them or by building railway networks also paid for by people not using them. The roads are run by Soviet style central planning - that is what needs to change, pricing is one step along the way.

Nationalist radio quota bluff

Lindsay Mitchell and PC have both blogged on this and I agree with them. The government shouldn't be threatening the radio industry with quotas if it doesn't play enough local music. Like Oswald Bastable said in his comment, "it makes as much sense as saying we must have a percentage of NZ books in our homes". The local music industry has long wanted to force itself on listeners and radio stations - ignoring that there are few other countries where it is easier to set up a radio station and do it yourself.

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One fact that the government tends to quietly not mention is the official advice it got back in 2001 that it could not legally impose local content quotas on radio or television, without significantly renegotiating two trade treaties it has signed.
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Firstly, CER. You see for several years, the NZ film and television production industry argued in court in Australia that the Australian local content quota for commercial television (55%) should treat NZ programmes on a non-discriminatory basis. It won, and so New Zealand programmes have national treatment in the Australian market. Of course this is quid pro quo, and any New Zealand content quota for radio would have to treat Australian music as if it were New Zealand. There is no getting around this, unless CER is renegotiated, and I doubt the Howard government would want to give up one form of trade access, unless New Zealand could offer another – and there is precious little left to offer. It would also be incredibly bad form for New Zealand to withdraw access after arguing for it in Australia only recently. The CER Trade in Service Protocol is here.
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So a New Zealand quota would, at least, have to be an Australasian one.
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Secondly, New Zealand’s WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commitments include a multilateral commitment for open entry into the audiovisual services market. This includes for TV programmes and music. In short, it grants national treatment for overseas produced content. Now the Clark administration has been trying to negotiate a “cultural carveout” to trade away this commitment, along with Australia and Canada (two other culture nationalists), but it means New Zealand would have to liberalise something else in return.

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Generally, you can’t pull back a liberalisation commitment at the WTO without offering one of equal or better value in return. So, not only would a local content quota have to be Australasian, but it would have to be open to ALL OTHER WTO member states on a non-discriminatory basis. So that includes the EU, USA and well, everyone but Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Syria and half of Africa and the Arab world.
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The threat to impose a compulsory quota was effectively a threat for private radio stations to get a foreign government to argue in a WTO panel dispute on its behalf. That isn't easy, but not impossible. It is also very bad form to pass laws that are against your treaty obligations.

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and why do these obligations exist? You can thank the National government of 1990-1999 for signing up New Zealand to the WTO commitments at the Uruguay Round, and separately the CER Services Protocol because of the Lange/Palmer Labour government, of which Helen Clark was a part. Wonderful stuff!

and out comes the fascist

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Well my post on Milosevic got some excitement, if you look in the comments a foaming at the mouth Serb, who on the one hand makes a fair point about atrocities committed by all sides in the Balkans, but then defends Milosevic because you see if YOUR side commits some murder, rape and pillaging in the name of self-defence (including setting up a state just for your own kind, never mind if your neighbour has a different ancestry) it’s ok. That's why I have posted a swastika - because it is precisely the same philosophy as Hitler.
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Let’s make it clear, I fully defend the right of any person, anywhere to defend themselves, their family and their property from attack. That attack can come from your neighbour, a gang of thugs, invading army or indeed, your own government. If “anonymous the hater” had bothered to read a bit more about who I am and my philosophy, he (I assume it is male) would know this.
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I could go into the chain of events in Yugoslavia which, since I don’t come from there, I couldn’t possibly be allowed to have an opinion on (hey can’t judge the Holocaust either, how could I POSSIBLY know what the Germans were going through), but what it comes down to is one simple philosophy:
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“Our side is better than your side, and we'll kill you to prove it”
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It is a childish, pre-modern, knuckle dragging nationalism – where who you are and who your friends are is based on ancestry. That is why “anonymous the hater” likes Milosevic – he authorised the oppression of thousands of people, but hey “he was one of our guys”.
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Opposing Milosevic does not mean I don’t also oppose the nationalism of deceased Croat leader Franjo Tudjman, or the Janus like Alija Izetbegovic (Bosnian Muslim leader). A curse on all their houses when they advocate murder.
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“Anonymous the hater” however is a knuckle dragging nationalist, who Hitler, Milosevic, Pavelic and the KKK would be proud of. Let me dissect his response:
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Scott, you are so full of blind fury and hate against people you do not know in place you have never been.

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Pot calling the kettle black I think. I don’t have blind fury and hatred, I simply hate anyone who advocates murder, rape and deportation – it is utterly vile and disgusting. In this case, this was done en masse by Serb forces, and also committed by Croat and Bosnian Muslim forces as well. YOU have blind fury and hatred against Bosnian Muslims not just those who kill, but by implication the lot – you may as well advocate concentration camps and gas chambers. Actually there were camps where Bosnian Serb forces raped and abused civilians – but that’s ok because you say…

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I hate muslims with reason - majority of them think of themselves as superior and justified by god to do whatever they want to non-muslims.

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How do you know this? Asked them? Is not saying that simply showing YOU think of yourself as superior? So this justifies Bosnian Serb forces raping women and young girls because, hey, you’re superior and justified in raping and killing because YOU think THEY think they are superior. Think about it. You’re the same as those you accuse. You think you're in their heads, when you know nothing - it is no different to Hitler justifying gassing Jews for the same reason.

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My christian ancestors in Bosnia delt with hundreds of years of forced conversions, stealing christian children to be raised as yanisari, church burning, impalings on stake (read nobel prize winer Ivo Andric Bridge on river Drina) and other forms of genocide by muslims.

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You didn’t face this, and the Bosnian Muslims living today didn’t do this either – grow up – you’re not responsible for what your ancestors did, and they are not for what their ancestors did. The Cranberries song “Zombie” says a bit about the attitude you are showing.

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And we did not want to exterminate them, only to carve out our own state formed by bosnian counties where we were majority.

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Oops, shame that Srebrenica happened then – “we didn’t want to round up all the men and boys and execute them, we were just carving out a state, we just made a little mistake”. Can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs then? By the way, if every nationality in the world formed states from majority areas there would be many many thousands of countries, and it would be ungovernable. Most European countries have significant national minorities, you see many people look past ancestry. Bosnia was not majority Muslim, it was roughly 43/31/17 between Muslim, Serb and Croat - it would not have threatened Serbs or Muslims, though that is exactly what Milosevic and Tudjman claimed after stitching up their deal to partition Bosnia between them.

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As far as muslims beeing peacefull and democratic, their police celebrates as holiday the day of forming secret paramilitaly units in Bosnia in 1989 - fully 3 years prior to referendum on bosnian independance.

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The police – ok - well that covers all the civilians, including the boys and girls killed or raped. In 1989 Milosevic abolished Kosovo’s autonomy and prohibited the use of Albanian in schools, cracking down on the use of the language throughout the province, but that's ok because although Albanians were 90% of the population (see they want a state too because they are the majority there), Serbs lost a war there in 1389 and that is a reason to run the province as a police state over the majority, like South Africa under apartheid. “Their side is worse than our side” doesn’t wash. In fact, you're argument is utterly banal.

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Referendum itself was illegal since existing bosnian constitution at that time prohibited any major decisions to be made without all 3 ethnic groups agreement.

Milosevic didn’t care much for constitutions when he overrode the constitutional autonomy of Kosovo did he? I doubt that constitutions matter much in an authoritarian state anyway.

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And muslim own demographic institute (easily found on the web) shows that out of 289,000 people killed in the was only about half were mulsims, and their civilian to military casualty ratio was 2:1. One third of the victims in the war were serbs, with civilian to soldier ration 5:1. In fact if you compare numbers of civilians killed in war, it was around 90,000 muslims versus 72,000 serbs - for poor defensless victims of genocide they did pretty well.

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Stalin said 1 person dying is a tragedy but 1 million is a statistic. It is ALL bad – I never denied that, regardless of whose statistics you use.

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Muslims had much higher military casualties due to inferior armament and organization in the beggining, but soldiers killed in the battle are not victims of genocide (according to muslims they are martirs) plus they started the war fully aware that they are weaker.

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Yes, the Yugoslav National Army was controlled by Milosevic and armed the Serb forces – not exactly a fair distribution of military resources funded by all republics. I don’t know what evidence there is to say that the Bosnian army attacked Serbia after the republic declared independence, and what evidence there is that the Bosnian government started killing Bosnian Serbs as part of official policy. If there is, I’d be interested. Many Bosnian Muslims were quite secular in outlook, not the fundamentalists that you paint them to be.

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Nobody in the west ever quotes these numbers, even though they are provided by muslim sources, it is always said that as a consequence of serb "genocide" several hundred thousand people were killed.

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Well there was genocide, maybe 30,000 Bosnian Muslim civilians killed deliberately – you can’t deny Srebrenica was genocide, it was akin to the Nazis eradicating Jews from towns. Anyway, you are arguing statistics – there were plenty of Serb victims as that is no less a tragedy, but please stop denying that some on the side you support were barbaric murderers, just like some on the sides you hate were.

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We bosnian serns wanted the same deal protestants in norther ireland got - to stay with mother nation when others want to secede. Since you live in Britain you can relate to that.

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Yes I know of the disaster of Northern Ireland from 1920. Another example of mindless knuckle draggers hating each other because of ancestry and religion. Fortunately increasing number of Irish people have grown up, since Ireland is in the EU and the border between Ireland and the UK is very porous. There are no issues of trade or migration between them. There are communities in northern Ireland where foaming at the mouth hate filled cretins despise Catholics or Protestants because of who they are – but it’s just mindless bigotry. Look beyond it, it makes no sense whatsoever.

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Keep your rabid foamy blogger mouth off balkans, you lowlife scum, and do not insult the memory of bosnian serb heroes including my brother who defended their own people, and west indirectly. Hope some muslim brother blows you up in suicide bombing in London to thank you for your support of muslim cause.

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I love you too, I wouldn’t wish ill will upon you, until now - you ARE lowlife scum for hoping I get murdered because you simply disagree with me. Zeig Heil you fascist bully. I’ll comment on whatever I like, it’s called freedom of speech. Something that Yugoslavia didn’t have under Tito and which Milosevic wasn’t too keen on either. I don’t know if your brother is a hero or not, I wouldn’t dare judge individuals, but he didn't defend the West. Bosnia threatened no other country. You, on the other hand, would cheerily shoot, rape and terrorise men, women and children because of their ancestry. You want me killed because of what I have written – congratulations, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Saddam, Pavelic and Milosevic would be proud. Your attitudes belong in 1389, Serbs I know would prefer you joined the 21st century and looked forward. Imagine just for a minute what it would be like to treat people as individuals, if you didn't know their ancestry and join the enlightenment.

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UPDATE:

Just to prove my balance on the Balkans here is:

The Balkans (not much lesser) evil - Franjo Tudjman, Croatia's "Milosevic"

No sympathy for Slobo (more on Milosevic) and

Remember Srebrenica (the other side of Alija Izetbegovic and the tragedy of Serb deaths unreported)

Daily Telegraph obituary of Alija Izetbegovic

200th post

Well I can't believe I've posted 200 thoughts or rants about various things since I started - thank you for the comments, the bloggers who link to me and the ever growing number of hits.

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I started this blog to be an outlet for libertarian politics, objectivist philosophy and some considered thought about policies, current events and history. Sometimes I post vitriolic disgust at the nauseating behaviour of lowlifes, or bureaucratic busybodies, other times I take a more considered view, and then there are my rants on Transmission Gully - which is just another outrage of those addicted to Other People's Money (OPM = opium, no I wasn't the first).

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I hope to evolve the blog more in coming months, learning from those who are deserving of awards such as Not PC and Kiwiblog, and using the blog to inspire thought, rather than be a venting forum. Passion without reason is uncivilised, and reason without passion is lifeless - so I will continue to express both - in between time to work and live! I've said precious little about life in the UK so far, largely because I've been concentrating on getting established, having moved once, and settling into work and life over here with my girlfriend. However, there WILL be more on this.

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I am unapologetically a libertarian objectivist atheist, I strongly believe in the power and beauty of the rational passionate human individual, and in benevolence to other human beings who also exude and seek these values. I have been a socialist and Christian, I have voted Labour, National and ACT at various times, and came perilously close to joining both Labour and National at different points in my life. I have worked in government and the private sector, on issues ranging from transport to the internet to broadcasting to telecommunications to tourism.

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I hope you will continue to enjoy reading those posts that interest you, and if you don't well fine, bugger off then and go here.

Emirates cancels flights to Denmark because of cartoons

It appears the Danish cartoons are continuing to have an impact. Emirates has decided not to commence its planned service to Copenhagen. It has planned to fly there from 03 October 2006, but according to a Danish paper these flights have been cancelled.

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An aviation news forum quotes a TV report stating that it is not "politically correct" for Emirates to fly to Denmark.

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Is it therefore "politically correct" to fly Emirates at all?

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UPDATE: The route is postponed, but it has only been reported in Denmark. It was to have been Emirates' first foray into Scandinavia.

Wellington City not endorsing Transmission Gully

My views are pretty clear on this, but at least Wellington City Council is showing a bit of sense in digesting the Hearings Committee report before deciding what it thinks of it. It shows that once in a while, a local authority can have more common sense than MPs, which have jumped up and down like excited children at the chance to spend lots of money on a big project they would all claim is because of them - regardless of where the money came from and what projects lost out as a result. Porirua can't wait for its free ride, Kapiti can't wait for the thousands of new residents and the Hutt? Well, can't see quite what it gets out of having virtually no money for any new projects out that way after the Dowse to Petone project is finished.

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The report is full of holes, and with journalists who don't even understand the transport funding system, questions don't get asked. Even DPF has discarded his usual willingness to weigh up the opportunity costs of policy options, and just wants the next three bureaucratic groups to rubber stamp it.

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When you are talking about spending $1 billion - money that isn't just lying around, and more than any other roading project in New Zealand's history, and on a project with a benefit/cost ratio of less than 1:1 - you don't just rubber stamp it, unless a former rather authoritarian Prime Minister from the early 1980s is your role model.

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and no, the Option 3/Green/anti-car crowd have it wrong too. A lot of money is planned for rail to Kapiti, it will enable the line to be fully utilised without being ridiculously uneconomic. There needs to be road construction, the question is how much and where.

Vodafone CE opposes more telecommunications regulation

Yes, it's true. The CE of one of Telecom's major competitors has been quoted in the NZ Herald saying:

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"If we want true broadband, we're not going to get it by regulation alone. We need investment."

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Of course, unlike almost every other competitor, Vodafone has a parallel network to Telecom. It was built from scratch starting in 1993 with BellSouth, later bought out by Vodafone, and expanded. Vodafone went from Telecom having a mobile phone monopoly (since 1987) to sharing the market roughly 50/50, and good on it. There are frequencies held by Telstra Clear and others to build more mobile networks, but the government has already taken steps to force Vodafone and Telecom to share their networks with competitors. You see, when a mobile competitor reaches 5% coverage with its own network, it can force a competitor to sell it wholesale capacity to get nationwide coverage. That was a little deal stiched up so that the Maori/Zimbabwean consortia set up - Econet could operate. Here it is in the Herald bleeting on about how it needs the regulatory environment to compete, not good enough to get discounted radio spectrum. You might have noticed that five years after getting its nice little cheap spectrum deal, there is little to notice from Econet.

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So you see, Econet is another second-hander - a business demanding another business share its property, for it to exist.

Foolhardy airline entrepreneur #236

or something like that.

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Paul Stoddart has, once again, proven that the airline industry attracts fools like flies to decaying meat. The closure of his airline – Ozjet – is a classic example of ego and excitement over reason and hard headed investment. In New Zealand, the example of Tasman Pacific airways (which used the Qantas New Zealand franchise before going into receivership and then liquidation) was our most recent example of wealthy businessmen setting fire to dollar bills, but that didn't deter Mike Perot pouring plenty of his personal fortune into Origin Pacific Airways and seeing it disappear in barely visible plumes of exhaust behind the planes.
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Ozjet failed because Stoddart got the market badly wrong. He didn't like tight airline seats on domestic flights and poor service, so he thought far more people would pay loads to go business class on a 1.5 hour flight if it was REALLY swish, in fact a whole plane load. He forgot that most business people don't fly business class, a wealthy minority do, others use frequent flyer points for upgrades, and most have contract rates with Qantas. He forgot that with airlines, networks are very important, he only flew Melbourne-Sydney. He couldn't afford new planes, so got four old Boeing 737-200 series, gas guzzlers (Air NZ replaced its ones in the late 1990s) - as the price of aviation fuel soured. He certainly had comfortable planes, wide seats, plenty of legroom, meals - but no lounges to relax in before the flight - instead you hunted around the terminal looking for somewhere to perch. Leisure travellers wouldn't pay high fares, business travellers usually didn't either and those that did were tied to Qantas -so it was very very dumb, but it WAS his money. Stupid, but his and his investors' loss - not your money, which is the difference. Oh and no doubt unions will be upset about the staff without jobs, and not the entrepreneur who lost millions of dollars in creating those jobs, for the time the airline lasted. The employees walk away with salaries, CV entries - the entrepreneur with burnt fingers and less money. Capitalism is SO unfair isn't it?

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However, there is something bizarre about the airline industry that attracts mavericks willing to piss money down the drain, because planes are exciting and prestigious and sexy. They never seem to notice the graveyard of airlines that failed due to lack of capital, or sheer stupid management. Sir Richard Branson hasn't done a bad job, but then don't forget Virgin Atlantic Airways is 49% owned by Singapore Airlines (sacre bleu - why didn't the Brits stop that - fortunately Aunty Helen and Dr Cullen stopped Air NZ being tainted by such a failure of an airline).

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Oh well, there will be another fool willing to put his money in the engine of a jet, there always is and they are always men.

Slobodan Milosevic - nationalist thug

Slobodan Milosevic’s death should not be mourned by anyone with any sense of civilisation and justice, and certainly no friends of liberty. Milosevic was a calculated purveyor of racism – of a vile murderous kind, only Radko Mladic and Radovan Karadjic are more responsible for the slaughter of innocent Bosnian Muslims in the war in Bosnia.
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Milosevic was a socialist, having inherited his position in the post-Titoist Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as the communist party tried to find a future without their personality cult. Yugoslavia, through Titoism, hadn’t been as badly damaged as the rest of the eastern socialist states, largely because it was outside the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet bloc (Tito rejected Stalinism in 1948 and adopted a soft socialism – allowing small private businesses to remain and develop). However, after the fall of socialism in the Soviet bloc, there was enormous pressure to move to multi-party democracy. It was in 1990 that Milosevic, representing the Serbian branch of the Communist Party, advocated greater centralism – multiparty democracy, but dismantling the federation. By contrast, the presidents of Slovenia and Croatia wanted more autonomy, multi-party democracy and liberalism. Milosevic won the day – he had already supported the racist hysteria propagated by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and the Arts. The Academy promoted the view that Serbs had a golden age, which came about before the Serb defeat by the Turks in Kosovo in 1389. Milosevic had already just about obliterated the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina, as he kept Serbia in the socialist dark age. He encouraged the idea that Kosovo Albanians were dirty, thieves, rapists and not worthy of governing Serbs.
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He used racist nationalism to scare Serbs, particularly rural illiterate ones, into thinking the Croats, Albanians and Bosnian Muslims were out to get them. He provided fuel for his racist opponents in Croatia (Franjo Tudjman did his best to spread nationalist filth amongst Croats) and ran the very well equipped Yugoslav National Army as Yugoslavia fell apart. He used the army to attack Slovenia when it seceded, but couldn’t sustain it – but then led a prolonged war, arming Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia against the secessionist governments. In Croatia – it was a war between nationalist racists – both seeking to conquer territory, and rid that territory of those not of their ethnicity.
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This was the start of the coining of the term “ethnic cleansing”. It was applied most disgustingly in Bosnia, with the slaughter of men and boys in Srebrenica – as Bosnian Serb troops, armed and backed by the “Yugoslav National Army” cleared non Serb males from the town. Milosevic supported and encouraged Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadjic in his project of ethnically cleansing Bosnia – and no, all sides were NOT equal. The Bosnian government tried hard to promote a colourblind Bosnia, with the cosmopolitan Sarajevo as capital, Milosevic promoted a greater Serbia. He demanded peace through expanding the borders of Serbia (under the rubric of a new Yugoslavia), encouraging other ethnic identities in the former Yugoslavia to act the same way.
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However, he lost. Despite the disgusting appeasement of the European Union, helped by New Zealand, in maintaining the arms embargo on the former Yugoslavia (meaning Bosnian Muslims and Croats found it very hard to get arms for self defence, while Serbs had the resources of the Yugoslav Army), ultimately air strikes on Belgrade, and NATO intervention in Kosovo spelt the end of Milosevic’s rule in Serbia. Serbs in Belgrade became sick of having a bankrupt economy, ostracised by western Europe – as they watched their neighbours to the north (Hungary, Czech republic etc), liberalise, grow and look towards joining the EU.
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Milosevic was a racist, but not the insanely stupid National Front type, but an intellectual power hungry bully. I doubt he ever believed the racist nonsense he promoted, but he certainly hated his rivals in Croatia (Tudjman) and Bosnia (Izetbegovic) and outlived them both. His politics are the crude politics of national identity – he used fear and the brainless psychological fiction of nationalism to motivate people to vandalist, assault, terrorise, rape and kill - because of ethnicity. Yugoslavia under Tito lived under fear driven by the communist party, Milosevic replaced it with fear based on national identity - he should be remembered as the final blood thirsty gasp of barbaric nationalism in the Balkans.