Hitchens tries waterboarding

One of the most controversial actions of the Bush Administration has been the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique at Guantanamo Bay for terrorism suspects.

Critics have described it as torture - and the use of torture by a liberal democracy is an abomination, it markedly weakens the moral position of those who wish to defend free secular society from the tyranny of dictatorships whether theocratic, nationalist, Marxist or otherwise. One of the dividing lines between civilisation and the barbarity of tyranny is the unwillingness of civilised states to inflict physical harm and pain upon those it incarcerates or to use the deliberate infliction of pain to seek confessions. It is not because it is always unreliable, at times it is not. Those enduring pain that would otherwise drive you mad are more likely to do what is necessary to avoid it continuing, than concoct some elaborate fantasy. Which is why some soldiers receive waterboarding as training to prepare in the event that they face the horrors of an enemy which wouldn't dare have this debate. The preparation is because of genuine fear that torture produces results.

However torture is wrong. Interrogations are not meant to be fun, they are harrowing, lengthy and can deprive the suspect of comfort and some sleep - but they should not cross the threshold of actually inflicting pain and suffering. To inflict such suffering upon one who may be innocent is simply sadism, to trust the evidence of one who confessed or revealed information under threat of pain is far more questionable than a confession given freely.

So what is waterboarding? Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens decided to find out first hand. His account is here. As far as he was concerned it was torture to go through with it, but he also gives the argument against it. He takes a considered view which gives me pause for thought, in both directions.

"a man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is in a mood to surrender the relevant information and is unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in quite a short time. When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay....On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint."

The counter is a number of arguments, but ones that I find most compelling:

"It may be a means of extracting information, but it is also a means of extracting junk information. ... To put it briefly, even the C.I.A. sources for the Washington Post story on waterboarding conceded that the information they got out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “not all of it reliable.”

It opens a door that cannot be closed. Once you have posed the notorious “ticking bomb” question, and once you assume that you are in the right, what will you not do? Waterboarding not getting results fast enough? The terrorist’s clock still ticking? Well, then, bring on the thumbscrews and the pincers and the electrodes and the rack."

If you could prove that a crime you had been accused of had been confessed by you because the Police tied you and shot water up your nostrils repeatedly, your confession would be meaningless. This is, of course, completely right and appropriate in our judicial system. However, even taking the argument that this is a form of war, the question of where you draw the line emerges.

Finally:

"One used to be told—and surely with truth—that the lethal fanatics of al-Qaeda were schooled to lie, and instructed to claim that they had been tortured and maltreated whether they had been tortured and maltreated or not. Did we notice what a frontier we had crossed when we admitted and even proclaimed that their stories might in fact be true?"

Read for yourself, there is little doubt that waterboarding has helped extract information of value in the war against Islamist terrorism. However, the line that has been crossed is a dangerous one, and one that must be subject to full, free and frank debate. It is not a debate between those who want to be soft on Islamist terror and those who are sadistic fascists - it should be a debate about what constitutes that behaviour which is acceptable for the governments of Western free democracies to undertake. Waterboarding is, as Hitchens said, foreplay compared to how Al Qaeda operates, or Iran or North Korea or China, or indeed many other countries. The moral equivalency some on the left, including Amnesty International, applies to this is repulsive, but somewhat inevitable. I look forward to our friends on the left waging an orchestrated protest and campaign against Camp 22 in North Korea for example. However, a line has been crossed which gives reason to say the US engages in torture.

Hitchens is not soft on terrorism or Islamists, neither am I. I believe it slightly undermines the moral authority we have against Islamists who seek to portray Western secular societies as corrupt and cruel - yet it also may well have saved lives. Do the ends justify the means?

Video shows the complete fraud of Zimbabwe's election

Shepherd Yuda has fled Zimbabwe with his family, but not before he secretly filmed the most recent election. Yuda was a prison officer who decided to film what he could covertly, with assistance from The Guardian.

The story is here, with the video. It graphically shows how the ballot was anything but secret, but was cast in front of one of the so-called war heroes - you know a bit like Japanese war heroes in Korea and China during and before WW2 - thugs. In other words, they know who you voted for and you are told that MDC will never win.

The UN Security Council is debating a resolution to freeze the financial assets of Mugabe and other top members of the regime and impose a travel ban. The International Herald Tribune says Russia and China are unenthused, but considering whether or not to veto, and South Africa is thinking about it.

Russia I expect little from, murdering kleptocrats as they are. China, ditto given how they treat dissidents. South Africa? Morality can't piss on this regime of capitulating sycophants to tyranny. Seriously, who else has had enough of the South African government, that acts the high mighty and moral, but feeds, powers and shakes the blood dripping hands of their murderous friend and comrade. After all, would you shake hands with someone protecting and friends with their murdering rapist neighbour?

4th of July

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Beautiful words, thank you USA. For all the flaws, and the criticisms, you still are the repositary of the idea that government is the extension of the rights of the governed, not governing subjects.

Now to think simply this, can all the powers of government ever be legitimately more than the rights that the citizens have themselves? (self defence) and if so, why? How can government by the people, for the people have rights that the people themselves cannot delegate?

Without the Declaration of Independence, this question may not have been answered for some time - and that is why it is worthwhile to celebrate the 4th of July.

The UN Human Rights Council can go to hell

David Farrar has posted about how New Zealand is trying to join this club of the good, bad and despicable. The UN is meant to Human Rights Council, which is meant to be a forum to address human rights violations,replacing the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). The USA opposed the set up of the Council because it didn't have enough safeguards to stop abusing regimes from the organisation. New Zealand of course supported it because it didn't care enough and didn't want to seem to be associating with the USA and Israel. The UNCHR has had many serious human rights abusers elected to it, like Sudan during the start of the Darfur killings.

However, New Zealand wants to join in. So let's look at some of the other members likely to be around at the same time:

- Cameroon, which imprisons men suspected of homosexual activity and forcibly engages in anal examinations of them to seek evidence.
- Djibouti, which tends to arrest and imprison journalists who criticise the government in isolation wards;
- Nigeria, whose Police boast of 795 extrajudicial killings in 3 months, with politicians leading gangs of thugs who terrorise with murder, rape and arson against opponents or supporters of opponents;
- South Africa, which treats Zimbabwean refugees as purely economic migrants and facilitates the ongoing oppression in Zimbabwe;
- Bangladesh, which engages in arbitrary arrests, frequent torture in custody, extrajudicial killings, journalists accused of defaming the government or military get arrested and sometimes tortured;
- China, which arrests, tortures and executes political opponents;
- Indonesia, which imprisons people for blasphemy against Islam, arrests political activists in West Papua;
- Jordan, which strictly punishes criticism of the King and civil servants, detains women to protect them from domestic violence;
- Egypt, which arrests political opponents without trial, tortures and engages in extrajudicial killings, imprisons editors of critical newspapers, requires government approval of NGOs;
- Qatar, which requires all NGOs to be registered and are monitored and bans political protests, or membership of any organisation critical of Arab governments;
- Saudi Arabia, which arrests without charge, puts critics in solitary confinement, sentences those convicted of sodomy to up to 7000 lashes, grants the death sentence by decapitation to those as young as 13, enforces strict limits on criticism of the government and Islam, denies women the right to work, travel, study, marry, receive health care, and access government agencies, including when they seek protection or redress as victims of domestic violence, unless authorised by a father or husband, flogs rape victims for illegally associating with the opposite sex;
- Azerbaijan, which regularly tortures those arrested, arrests and shuts down opposition media and journalists;
- Russia, which engages in extrajudicial and politically motivated executions, tortures and kills young soldiers in its own army as part of hazing, NGOs are required to register and the government shuts down and threatens opposition media;
- Cuba, which suppresses all forms of political dissent, prohibits gatherings of groups, arrests and imprisons political opponents including classifying some as mental patients.

Yep, they'll all ensure the world is safe for political freedom, individual rights and open societies wont they?

Pravda remains loose with the truth

Earth begins to kill people for changing its climate says Pravda.

Before it killed people without sentient purpose, what with the earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanoes and the like. Nice to know it has a brain.

Of course when you read the report it's hard not to make a few points:

"At least 2.5 million people have been killed in natural disasters over the recent 48 years" Well the Khmer Rouge managed just about that in four years, Mao manage well over ten times that in 15 years, etc etc. The UN did nothing then of course, even though it was obvious what killed people.

"It was also said that the death toll in developing states exceeds the number of casualties in developed states 20-30 times" Well the population of developing states is over 6 times that of developed states, and when you're developing the value of life isn't as high to your governments. I mean look at Burma and North Korean responses to their disasters - shutting out aid unless it goes through the dictatorships.

"the frequency of catastrophes could be linked with the global climate change." Yes, or sunspots, or tectonic plate movements, or solar flares, or the capability of international news services to identify and report on catastrophes regardless of the domestic political environment (which is generally more open now in most countries than it was before).

Yep, brilliant analysis alright.

(Hat tip Tim Blair)

Oh and petrol tax and motor vehicle registration fees as well

Yes tis the season for higher charges for motorists.

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Gonzo Freakpower Brains Trust (Will de Cleene) has pointed out this report from the NZ Herald:

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ACC, the compulsory statutory monopoly for road use personal accident insurance is increasing levies to you all - and being a monopoly, it wont differentiate on the basis of risk, or past performance, so the dangerous driving accident prone lunatic will pay the same as the safe suburban driver with a clean record. What does it all mean?

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The ACC levy on petrol goes up 2.01c/litre (and the 12.5% GST on top of that). The argument being those drive more are more exposed to risk.

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The ACC levy component for petrol car motor vehicle registration and licensing goes up from $183.22 to $211.48 (GST inclusive). ACC is already most of the cost of registration and licensing.

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For non-petrol driven vehicles the ACC levy component of motor vehicle registration and licensing goes up from $281.46 to $336.69 (GST inclusive). You see as there is no diesel tax and no ACC RUC charge, the cost is higher.

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Of course you could ask this. What would happen if there were other companies you could pay your motor vehicle ACC levy to, ones that charged based on your generalised risk, such as age, driving record and location? You would be more incentivised to drive more safely, and wouldn't be cross subsidising the reckless. Labour opposes this. National had talked about it before it lost the 1999 election.

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So when you pay a higher registration/licensing fee next time, fill up the tank and see it has gone up over 2c/l more, ask yourself "did I have an accident or two last year and so i should pay this additional risk" or "did I have a clean driving record so I'm paying for someone else's mistakes"?

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Labour says we all have to pay for the recklessness, negligence and mistakes of a few - that's why you're paying more.

Random question

Would it be that the dedication of all petrol tax to the National Land Transport Fund is hiding a reduction in revenue from petrol tax, due to people responding to the high price of fuel?

If that is the case, is there a looming crisis in land transport funding as a result because the less people drive the less money there is?

For RUC it isn't quite the same, but again the less people drive the less RUC there is - although for trucks it should moderate maintenance costs.

It would be interesting to find out.

Why vote National?

NZ Herald reports "National attacked the Government yesterday over increased road-user charges and a law passed last night allowing regional fuel taxes to fund large capital projects - but won't say it would undo them"

Gee, surprise me. You could say the same about the 39c income tax rate etc etc.

Nothing like moaning about something you wouldn't reverse anyway is there? So remind me again, why does voting National do anything more than at very best stop things getting worse? Why should people opposed to the way the country had been governed since 1999 set their sights so low?

Greens so wrong on trucks

Well why should I be surprised? The Green party response to the truckers protesting against a government that lied to them is to say "It is time to stop subsidising the trucking industry". I've fisked this nonsense before, but if you dare... read on.

You really do have to wonder how these people can say on one side of their face don't subsidise one industry, but go ahead, subsidise the competing one to the hilt!

The Greens cheer lead the renationalisation of the entire railway sector, cheer lead taxpayers subsidising rail maintenance costs, cheer lead taxpayers fully funding new railway lines which only a handful of rail freight customers will benefit from and generally slobber with excitement at the prospect of taxpayers' being pillaged to prop up their totems of twin ribbons of steel on concrete. Subsidising trains is good. Remember subsidising coastal shipping is good too, so is subsidising buses - in the Church of the Uninformed Transport Environmentalist (not quite a rude acronym) these are the holy words, not to be sullied by evidence or analysis, but full of nonsensical scaremongering.

Then they say "don't subsidise trucks".

Are trucks subsidised? Well as usual the simpleton kneejerk headline grabbing approach of the Greens obfuscates, confuses, distorts and frankly gets it very wrong.

Jeanette Fitzsimons says "At the moment, truck drivers only pay 56 percent of their costs to the economy, compared to rail freight users who pay on average 82 percent and ordinary motorists who pay 64 percent, according to the Ministry of Transport's Surface Transport Costs and Charges study from 2005"

OK let's pull that one apart:

1. "At the moment" is wrong, the study was a snapshot of 2001/2002 statistics. Before the government bought back the track or the entire railway, before it started subsidising the maintenance of the railway track and before it increased Road User Charges on heavy trucks twice. Rail freight users are undoubtedly paying less than the putative 82% and truck "drivers" (well the owners) will be paying more than they are now. That's if we accept those figures, and I don't. After all I've read the report, many times.

2. If you break down the costs, which are total costs, then we go from costs that are real and actual, to ones that are putative and notional. This is when it gets complicated.

The "56%" recovery of truck costs includes such things as return on capital of recoverable assets. Now since rail isn't expected to make a return on capital on the track and right of way, we can remove those from trucks too. Suddenly this 56% figure goes up to 72%. However that includes externalities mainly for pollution. The air pollution figure is telling, as it is back in the days when diesel was dirty with 1500ppm of sulphur (which is the dominant contributor to PM10 - particulate matter, which is by far the most damaging pollutant). Diesel now has 3% of the sulphur that it had in 2001/2002, easily stripping out the majority of the air pollution "cost". Then there is noise, which is valued at $87m. Now noise tends to be factored into property values, so arguably can be stripped out as well.

So now this 56% cost recovery figure is 91%. Remember heavy RUC has now been increased twice since then, although maintenance costs have increased as well, so let's be generous and say RUC has gone up to cover that.

We know that half of the cost of local authority roads is recovered from rates. This is deliberate and could easily be addressed by another increase in RUC (but councils better be required to cut rates in compensation). Simply recovering this additional cost from trucks would more than overcompensate for the 9% "subsidy".

Still following me? Thought not.

So the 56% is rather illusory, especially when you ask trucks to be treated the way rail is now treated, when you take into account the dramatic reduction in pollution simply through now having far cleaner fuel, and you eradicate the rather esoteric monetisation of noise. The gap is simply the cost of maintaining local roads which comes from rates - and local roads do not compete with rail.

So this subsidy is not only hypocritical, but at worst a rather insignificant contribution that is about local roads - which you could also argue is about property owners paying for access to their properties.

Funnily enough doing the same rejig for cars puts cars on the same figure of about 91%.

3. Jeanette says "It is important to remember that Road User Charges for trucks have been increased only once since 1989". This is nonsense. RUC for trucks over 6 tonnes has increased twice now as of 1 July. RUC for smaller trucks has been increased several times since 1989 (trucks 4-6 tonnes) so she is wrong. However there is a reason why RUC for heavy trucks has only gone up twice. The maintenance costs for roads have not gone up at the same rate as kms driven because of the efficiencies since 1989 of contracting out maintenance to the private sector on a competitive basis, instead of having the Ministry of Works and councils doing it. Something, no doubt, the Greens probably would have opposed as "privatisation". So revenue from heavy trucks has, pretty much, increased faster than road maintenance costs until recently, when the cost of oil has meant bitumen prices have risen considerably. So the point is, so bloody what Jeanette? Why should they go up faster than costs?

4. Jeanette says "If we want to see more of our heavy freight on rail instead of big trucks on the road, we need fair Road User Charges." Fair? You mean recovering more than the financial costs they impose? How about recovering all of rail costs? Oh yes forgot that, it's ok to subsidise the church of rail - but not roads.

Now there is no point reiterating the OTHER finding of the STCC study the Greens love quoting. You see the figures Jeanette talks of are total costs, but this doesn't tell you how much extra cost shifting a tonne of freight by rail or road imposes relative to those costs. Those are marginal costs (asleep yet?). As I have said before, the marginal environmental costs of hauling freight on a tonne km basis sometimes are higher by rail than by road (between Auckland and Wellington), sometimes similar (between Napier and Gisborne), sometimes lower (between Kinleith and Tauranga).

So you see, whether or not freight is greener by rail or road depends very much on the circumstances. However the followers of the rail religion don't want to hear that - it destroys the mythology they have around transport, which quite frankly is truly bizarre.

Will Zimbabwe run out of banknotes?

One can hope, now that according to the Daily Telegraph the German supplier of paper has cancelled its contract effectively as a political statement against the regime.

"The highest value banknote is worth Z$50 billion - which is presently enough to buy one can of baked beans."

If paper can't be sourced (which seems unlikely) then it may well bring things to a head - unless the regime effectively uses foreign currency amongst itself while impoverishing the public with its worthless "money".

Should liberal democrats take up rights of smokers?

Mark Littlewood in the Daily Telegraph argues that the Liberal Democrats ought to be more consistently liberal, and argue against the smoking ban in pubs.

Now I think the point should be more direct - this is about private property rights. The right of a pub owner (or any business) to decide what legal activities should be carried out on that property. Sadly most of those fighting for "smokers rights" don't argue that point, but think they have a "right" to smoke wherever they want - they don't. That right can only exist in public places and on private property is up to the person in legal control of the property.

However there is a wider point here. The Liberal Democrats are by and large not liberal. They argue for taxes for environmental reasons, state subsidies and intervention in others, the Liberal Democrats are the new leftwing party of the UK, wanting more government, more state spending and being opposed to privatisation. It's about time the party either went back to liberal principles or admitted the change and became the Socialist Democrats.

Truck protest

The symbolism of the truck protest is so very important - it's important because it demonstrates three things.

1. A sector that has been much maligned by this government (after all the buyback of rail is about heavily subsidising that mode to take business off of the trucking industry, with subsidies for coastal shipping about doing the same - REGARDLESS of the evidence that the government's own study demonstrates), has had enough. Labour is no friend of road freight, truck operators know this, and there are more of them than there are unionised railway workers or waterfront workers. Labour is not interested in a level playing field between road and rail, it wants to save rail because of a belief, not because of evidence. Trucking is a highly competitive industry with small margins, Labour has reduced those again without appearing to give a damn.

2. Labour broke a promise. Not one that can be obfuscated or ignored. Annette King said one thing and did another. So not only has it acted in a way that would be unpopular anyway, it has treated the road freight sector as if it doesn't even deserve the respect of openness. I have met Tony Friedlander a few times, he is a very upfront guy who likes to be informed and aware of what is going on, to avoid this sort of thing. It was always made clear that dialogue and frankness would result in at least a sense of mutual respect - Annette King has squandered this and paid the price.

3. The constant increases in transport spending have finally hit the level of tolerance. You see most of you lot swallow fuel tax increases and do nothing about it - you voted for the government to be re-elected twice. You swallow increases in rates for public transport too. Truckies make a living out of this sector. The increase in RUC has been justified because it would keep the parity between petrol tax and RUC for different types of vehicles - so because YOU accept fuel tax increases, RUC goes up as well.

So while you may cheer the truckies for putting the boot into government, ask yourself this...

Do you support a major upgrade in Auckland's rail system?
Do you support a major upgrade in Wellington's rail system?
Do you support finishing Auckland's Western ring route through Waterview with an underground tunnel?
Do you support building Transmission Gully?
Do you support building new southern and northern motorways approaching Christchurch?
Do you support putting Victoria Park viaduct in two tunnels rather than just widening it?

Just a sample, but you see the longer that list is, the more money is needed - and while you're willing to pay more fuel tax for this - the truckies aren't. So are you surprised?

So if these lines closed...

According to Stuff Dr Cullen has released a list of railway lines that were "threatened with closure" if the government didn't make you pay to buy the trains that ran on them.

Let's remember the government bought the track back a few years ago, so the lines themselves wouldn't close - someone else could have operated on them. Let's also remember that even before Labour was elected, the government owned the LAND under the track, so could always have let someone else re-lay track if the railway was going to be a good idea. So in truth nothing much would have been lost. However, let's look at the list:

- the Overlander. Not a line, but a passenger train service. Now given that Toll reinstated this train without subsidy recently, either it isn't going well, or it's a bluff. Either way it's hardly that important, just nostalgia that should say the government keeps it going.

- the North Island Main Trunk line between Te Kuiti and Palmerston North: Now that sounds like a bluff. If you close that, you essentially have dismembered the key north-south container route. If the electrified main trunk line isn't worth it then there is a serious issue about the viability of long haul rail freight in NZ. I personally doubt that would have been closed, but if the figures show it isn't worth keeping open then claims about its fuel efficiency and everything else seem specious.

- Northland: Assuming that means all lines north of Helensville (where passenger service ends or is about to), I'm hardly surprised. The trains are relatively short, lightly loaded, the infrastructure is very old, and the routes circuitous and long been height/weight limited. The scope to do more in Northland is low, which is why the proposed Marsden Point branch line doesn't have Northland Port lining up to pay for it.

- Taranaki: Assuming that means all lines from Marton (and Okahutuna) through all of the Naki. Well that means milk trains from Hawera aren't viable, nor is the container traffic. Now the line from the north to Taranaki is very expensive and hardly a surprise, but from the south is. I would expect Hawera south to be marginally viable, but the rest may well be questionable.

- Napier-Gisborne: No brainer really, a couple of trains a day is not a viable rail link. It would be missed for sentimental reasons, the logs in Gisborne leave through the Port of Gisborne, and the rest are trucked the short distance to Napier.

- Hawke's Bay line: Assuming this is all south of Napier, this isn't much of a surprise. It is at least marginal, although milk south of Dannevirke would seem to be marginally profitable.

- north of Wairarapa: Again hardly a surprise, main use is as a diversion from incidents on the Wellington-Palmerston North line. Nothing much to serve here.

- Greymouth to Hokitika: Expensive to maintain old line, a bit of dairy traffic but nothing that couldn't be trucked to Greymouth. The money on the coast comes from the coal traffic, which seems secure.

- Invercargill to Bluff and Wairio: Port at Bluff is served really by Southland which means distances too short for rail and for locations where no railway exists. Wairio is about coal and is a very old line. If the coal isn't worth moving then this line has no future.

Remaining then is Auckland commuter, Auckland-Hamilton-Te Kuiti, all of the Bay of Plenty log/timber oriented lines, Wellington-Palmerston North, Wellington commuter, Picton-Christchurch-Dunedin-Invercargill and West Coast-Lyttelton for coal.

If you leave out the main trunk (which I doubt would close), then there is a lot of rail left which appears to be profitable. So why the panic? Especially since the government owned the track anyway and could allow anyone else to use it (if they were so inclined).

UPDATE: So if you read another Stuff report it also says the Picton-Christchurch line is threatened, but then only talks about "lines in Northland, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa and Invercargill." Not all then. Come on, can't the same news outfit get the same story consistent? Sheesh.

Labour legislates to allow more fuel tax

Yep according to Stuff, regional councils will be able to levy up to 5c a litre to pay for big road projects (you know the ones that the users of the road wont pay for) and another 5c to pay for transport other people use, like public transport, walking and cycling.

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Labour is making it seem soft by requiring it only be 2c a litre in the first year, but you can be sure that local government will take full advantage of tax powers that it can't be fully accountable for.

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This is an appalling way to raise funds for transport. It includes an excise tax on diesel, for the first time in many years, and will mean that again all motorists will pay for projects that only a few benefit from. It will also create an appalling boundary effect between regions. You can be sure service stations at the edges of Auckland and Wellington, which will be keen taxing regional councils will lose out, whereas those on the edges of Manawatu-Wanganui, Waikato and Northland will gain from having lower fuel tax. Fill up in Eketahuna not Masterton, or Levin not Otaki.

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This tax is unnecessary, current spending on roads and public transport is at a record high. There needs to be a serious review of the quality of that spending, and the ambitious plans of ARC to build a huge electric railway system that will need enormous subsidies need some cold-hearted hard analysis. Similarly WRC's love affair with Transmission Gully needs the same. Motorists are paying record fuel prices already, and to hit many of them for the benefit of a few, for particularly poor value projects, is not good public policy.

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National's first transport policy priority if the wins the election is to do a serious review of the economic efficiency of the projects likely to be funded by this measure, and the other major projects underway, both road and rail. Labour has poured a fortune into building roads and subsidising public transport, much of it long overdue, but I suspect it has gone too far, too fast and in the wrong ways. Of course this is what happens when other people's money starts being reallocated on the basis of politically determined strategies.

T shirt banned by NZ censors

Warning content below may offend - seriously don't read any further if you are easily shocked....

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The tshirt concerned is from the band "Cradle of Filth" and depicts a woman dressed as a masturbating nun, with the words "Jesus is a Cunt". The woman concerned appears to be enjoying herself and her breasts are bare with her genitalia concealed only by her hand. I haven't placed a copy of the image here out of respect of Christian readers, because I want them to at least understand my point - and besides, Google will enable anyone to find the tshirt within minutes.

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The Office of Film, Video and Literature Classification (OFVLC) has deemed the tshirt is now banned. Yes banned. It is "grossly objectionable due to its obscene content" and so is injurious to the public good. Yes you can face imprisonment for possessing that tshirt now, whether or not you knew it was objectionable. You could also face imprisonment for selling it, giving it away, letting a child see it - in fact, that's it. You see "objectionable" places the tshirt on a par with child pornography - so a tshirt of a piece of art is cross the threshold of unacceptability like a video of a child being raped and murdered.

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Hmmm.

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I can see why some would be upset by the tshirt. The words on the tshirt would shock and offend any Christian - but then if there was a tshirt that said the same about Charles Darwin, Ayn Rand or myself, I might be shocked, but I wouldn't want it banned. I'd think less of the person who might wear it, but that's it. Hardly a reason to make it criminal. Words on a tshirt that are not defamatory (sorry Christians, Jesus isn't alive by any objective legal definition) should not be banned - they are words, they offend but do not harm. The Society for the Promotion of Community (of Christian Fundamentalists') Standards (SPCS)said the words are "grossly obscene and blasphemous language directed at the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is worshipped, adored. praised and revered as the central Person of Christianity". As Stephen Fry once said "so you're offended? So fucking what?"
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I am offended daily by the vileness of the actions and words of individuals and governments, I'm offended by people who don't wash and use the tube, I'm offended by foul mouthed yobs at 1am shouting outside our flat randomly, I'm offended by the BBC wasting money it took from me by force to pay exhorbitant salaries to people on commercially oriented programmes, I'm offended by restaurants that don't give me what i ordered. The world does not exist so governments can protect you from being offended.

The question I want to know, is that if it is illegal to have those words on a tshirt, is it illegal for me to even have them on this blog? Well US law protects me I expect given the hosting of this site - but if you can't write that phrase, then it has serious implications as to where the line is drawn on offending people through writing!

So what about the image? Was the woman in the image (I believe it was a photograph) forced to pose that way or reveal herself? If so, then there is an issue of assault and she would be a victim. If not, then let's think carefully - could she pose like that in someone's premises legally?

The answer is yes. There is no crime in a woman dressing as a nun, exposing herself and masturbating assuming she consents and is of age, which appears to be the case. So again, we are just talking about people who would be offended by the image. So let's deconstruct this. The person depicted on the tshirt isn't offended. The person buying or owning the tshirt isn't offended, but others not involved at all in the tshirt, except seeing it - are.

So we are to protect people from being offended from seeing an image that, in real life, would be perfectly legal to copy. This is rather unlike child pornography, where you are in serious criminal charges for attempting to undertake those activities in real life.

So why ban it? Well it appears the OFVLC is protecting Christianity and chastity, which seems rather strange as I didn't think it existed to do that. SPCS quotes this statement from the decision:

"The injury to the public good that is likely to be caused by the availability of this T-shirt originates from the manner in which it associates an aggressive and misogynistic meaning of the “harsh, brutal and generally unacceptable” word c### with Jesus Christ, and depicts an image of a chaste woman engaging in sexual activity. A fair interpretation of the messages conveyed by this T-shirt is that Christians should be vilified for their religious beliefs, and that women, including chaste and celibate women, cannot stop themselves engaging in sexual activity."

So there is injury to the public good simply by using a rude word with Jesus Christ? What if I say Kim Il Sung is a cunt? That will offend millions, but so fucking what?

The "image of a chaste woman engaging in sexual activity" is a curious description of something "bad". For starters the woman may not have been chaste, but was simply a model for the t-shirt. Secondly, the first sexual activity of all women is presumably when they are "chaste".

Does the tshirt say or imply Christians should be villified? Hardly. It is anti-Christ (careful use of the word), and depicts nuns as being sexual - which undoubtedly some are, and funnily enough the law doesn't criminalise them if they do or don't. However it isn't seeking oppression of Christians, it offends their primary prophet, but it is a stretch to say it villifies them. Does it imply that women cannot help themselves engaging in sexual activity? Well it implies the one on the tshirt can't, maybe some nuns can't, but then again, so what if it does? Would a tshirt that says "slut" and depicts a woman masturbating without wearing nun gear be criminal? Would a woman wearing a tshirt that says "i'm a slut" be criminal?

Let's be clear. I wouldn't wear this tshirt, I wouldn't listen to this band. I wouldn't be impressed by someone who did wear it, but the idea that you can be imprisoned for wearing it is frankly absurd and offensive.

I know many Christians will cheer this decision - but some of them wouldn't cheer if they faced the same offence for a tshirt that might say "gays carry AIDS" or something else that reflects their own beliefs but offends others.

Censorship law should simply not exist because people get offended, it should only exist to protect victims of real crimes. No crime was committed in the production of the tshirt design, so it should be nobody else's business.

You can ban anyone from your own property from wearing the tshirt and I have no objection to a mall owner or any other private property owner telling someone to leave if they wear the tshirt. That should be your right. However, to ban possession of the tshirt generally, across the board is absurd.

So in New Zealand, wearing this tshirt in your own room is a crime. However you can have a woman doing exactly what is depicted in this tshirt and it is wouldn't be.

By the way this tshirt caused an issue in Perth, WA recently. A 16yo has been charged with "offensive behaviour" for wearing it. Yes, the Police have their priorities right, and of course the Christian right is cheering on the prosecution.

Don't believe for a moment National would change this, or even ACT. Yes I know there are "higher priorities", but think about it. If someone in your family had criminal charges for owning this tshirt, buying it off Ebay and it being intercepted by Customs and the like - and presumably even downloading the image from the internet - would you still not care?

oh and what's to be banned next?

Hattip on this case to no less than the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards, forever cheering on the suppression of tshirts with dirty words and bare breasts.

Story of a couple of neighbours

One man with a kindly face, let's call him Mr. T used to do business with the man next door. He would sell him various things and the man next door was quite wealthy, he and his wife would regularly go on overseas trips and always wore excellently fitting suits. When they were away they'd have a nanny looking after the children. The man next door, let's call him Mr. R, had quite a family of kids. However he was rather cruel to them. Sometimes they would have nothing much to eat, sometimes he or the nanny would beat them, lock them in a room and hurt them again and again, and threaten them. Well this is what the kids told Mr. T, but he wasn't so sure that they hadn't provoked Mr. R. After all, the kids used to loved Mr. R, and he thinks the kids have some other friends who tell them what to think. He tries not to notice the blood, the screams and the fact that the odd kid has scrambled into Mr. T's yard looking for refuge and keeps hiding.

This has been going on for some time and the oldest kid (Master M) had had enough and has the support of the other kids to boot their father out. However, the father threatened the kids to be on his side, he told the nanny to beat them up unless they say how much they love Mr. R. Mr T. doesn't believe Mr. R would do such a thing and that it is lies spread by the outsiders, he says the oldest kid and Mr. R need to sit down and sort things out. However, when Mr T. leaves, Mr. R gets the nanny to try to catch Master M, put him in his room and gives him a thrashing for being obstinate and ungrateful. After all Mr. R has led the household for 28 years.

Things with Mr. R have been getting more difficult though. Some of Mr. R's kids have told others that a couple of the kids have been killed by the nanny or other staff, and the kids are sick of nearly starving all the time while Mr and Mrs. R go off to Italy, Egypt or the like. Mr. T says that the kids and Mr. R need to sort it out, and continues to try to help. Mr. R just tells the kids to behave or they will be thrashed, beaten, locked up and maybe something worse will happen to them.

The story isn't over though, because Mr. T has given up worrying about Mr. R's family. It's a surprise really because Mr. T and the club he belongs to used to care a lot about them 30 or so years ago when the nasty Mr. I looked after them, and treated them all as second class citizens and beat them up if they didn't stay in their place. Mr. R said they were equals and was somewhat loved for that.

Mr. T just thinks it is up to the kids to sort out whether Mr. R is head of the household or not, he doesn't care that Mr. R is armed, his nanny and housekeepers are armed, and he has killed a couple more kids to emphasise that he is in charge. The funny thing is the kids had a vote on it, and Mr. R told them that if they voted for Master M. they would all be thrashed severely, maybe even maimed or killed. Mr. R said they wanted him anyway. That was good enough for Mr. T.

Mr. T is happy believing Mr. R that the kids who he beats, starves, tortures, maims and kills want him to still run the household. He still sells Mr. R food, electricity, petrol and the like, and still has social meetings with him. He wont help the kids, they should figure it out for themselves.

Shame it's not fiction

The arts are too important to state subsidise

An excellent article in the Daily Telegraph by conservative columnist Simon Heffer (who is regularly disagree with) today argues forcefully for the arts, but equally so that state subsidies are corrosive not conducive to civilising society.



He talks of the view of composer James Macmillan:



"He observed that we are trapped in "a cultural regime which adjudicates artists and their work on the basis of how they contribute to the remodelling, indeed the overthrow of society's core institutions and ethics"; or, in sum, the view that "anything that is not Left-wing is intrinsically and irredeemably evil".



Furthermore: "He would tell me how he would attend meetings of the Society of Composers and sit aghast as profoundly untalented people sat around complaining about the lack of state funding for their "jobs". (George) Lloyd, who had hardly ever received a penny in public subsidy in his life, could not grasp this mentality."


If people wrote music that others wanted to listen to, they would not need a cultural welfare state. As Mr MacMillan has found, they go out and buy CDs, they attend public performances, and reward excellence by patronage.


Lloyd went further: he always argued that if the state paid composers to write what they liked, they would write self-indulgent rubbish."


So state subsidies can fund rubbish, no surprise there - you are forced to pay for what you don't like, as if it is "good for you".



However Heffer argues that while the moral case for ending state subsidies is clear, the arts do need money:



"I cannot, to use an old cliché, see why bus drivers should pay taxes so that I can have a subsidised seat at Covent Garden. However, I am equally convinced that, if the arts are not subsidised in some way, we shall career ever more quickly down the path to being a nation of philistines."



By that he means tax credits, I'd argue that it would be better simply to lower taxes generally so that the arts, like all other activities would be better able to thrive as people would have more money to spend on what they enjoy.



It is always curious how those who despise elitism and business success are all too keen to force elitism onto taxpayers in the form of the subsidised arts. It is a vile concept that someone who is an "artist" deserves to be paid money by force from those who simply don't like what they produce. Why can't artists that produce what nobody is willing to pay for simply be allowed to fall by the wayside?



"Those "artists" who feel the state owes them a living, and who in return embark on the destructive project Mr MacMillan so rightly identified, would have to learn the difficulty of having no merit. State funding in its present form encourages this poison in our culture and in our society. One day, we might have a Culture Secretary with the sense, and the moral vision, to reform it."

The ACC deception

So Labour says National will privatise ACC - oh I wish.

ACC Minister Maryan Street made this absurd statement:

"Putting the world-respected ACC scheme up for sale will rob all New Zealanders of the security they have enjoyed in the event of accidents, wherever and however they occur, for several decades"

*

Hold on a minute.. "world respected"? Where in the world has the government abolished the right to sue for personal injury by accident and replaced it with a state owned insurance monopoly which pays everyone the same for any accident regardless of fault? Exactly. It was investigated and abandoned in Australia and the UK.

*

"the security" she talks about is illusory. ACC is fine if you are at the top of your career and an accident robs you of the ability to undertake that work. You'll get paid off as long as is necessary. However if you were, for example, a medical student and an accident destroys your ability to be a surgeon then tough - you don't get compensated for lost future earnings, but for lost current earnings. If you are a child and get crippled by a car accident, it's the same. So much for security, and never forget that the ACC state monopoly gives you no choice - you have to pay whether or not it is adequate for your needs.

*

Now yes ACC advocates will say you don't need a lawyer, it's fast and the risk of losing a case isn't there. However, hold on I'm not saying people shouldn't take out accident insurance. They certainly ought to choose that, and then pay according to what the insurer sees is the exposure. For example, a young person who has little driving experience and plays contact sports will pay a high premium, but a middle aged person with no claims and a clean driving record will probably be rewarded. ACC does none of this. ACC does not penalise the accident prone or reward the cautious - it charges all the same, except for employers by category. However "good" employers pay the same as "bad" employers.

Street goes on "Once National has traded away the protection the current state monopoly offers, accident compensation will become a lottery" Well hold on, how is it a lottery to pay premiums to the company of your choosing according to your own risk? Isn't it a lottery as to whether ACC is adequate for your needs or not? Why should ACC pay the criminal teenager who cripples himself in a burglary the same as the teenager who is biking safely hit by a reckless driver?

She quotes a Merrill Lynch report saying it is more expensive in other countries than NZ, yet the truth behind those figures is hard to extract. For example, what does a person get for being blinded or made quadraplegic in Australia compared to NZ? In other words, is the reason ACC is cheaper on first look because it IS the el cheapo option in terms of paying out?

It is interesting to take this point "the report found that without ACC - and under a scenario similar to that in Canada, the US and Australia – roughly 70 per cent of current ACC clients would only receive benefits through social security and the public health system, a significant erosion of the support they now get. ... individuals would be forced to take out private insurance in the event they fall off a ladder or injure themselves in a rugby game - and be left without accident compensation if they don’t.

Amazing, so the rest of us wouldn't be forced to insure ourselves against a rugby injury if we don't play the game? That's what the rest of the world offers - insurance based on your own risk. ACC socialises all risk and payments - so we all pay the same and receive in kind!

In addition:

- In other countries compensation is a single lump sum or series of lump sums, in NZ payments can continue for years and years while people are considered "unable to work". Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party candidate Michael Appleby has often said he is on ACC, it seemed to be the case election after election.

- In other countries not everyone who has an accident gets compensation. If you accident saw off your finger in other countries, unless you are insured for that, you wont get anything. In New Zealand you get paid. In other words, in New Zealand ACC pays you for being stupid or negligent, the rest of the world doesn't unless you pay to be insured on that basis.

It would be interesting to analyse further. Street just assumes.

She quotes a PWC report that says ACC is "best practice". Funny how nobody else adopts that. I have accident insurance now in the UK, if I was in NZ again I wouldn't rely on ACC for my own accident insurance - because I'd want a lot more than what it offers. However, Street may answer this?

Why shouldn't those who pay ACC pay less for no claims and more for risky behaviour?

Why shouldn't those who pay ACC pay more for higher levels of cover if they wish?

Meanwhile, I'm going to read this PWC report and examine what it is about - it deserves closer scrutiny to find out what questions were asked and which ones were not asked.

UPDATE: According to Stuff John Key confirms National will open up the ACC employer accounts to competition, WHICH the PWC report mentioned above says could, if properly regulated, result in improved outcomes and efficiencies. So let's be clear, Labour will oppose it, but its own report says there may be advantages in doing what National is proposing. However National wont privatise ACC, but the left somehow thinks opening the government sector up to competition is privatisation - maybe it fears no one will want to do business with the public sector if given the choice?

RUC f'up

Now I am not opposing the increase in Road User Charges, as long as it is transparently justified by the cost allocation model used to determine what all road users should pay to recover what is paid in road maintenance and construction costs.

Remember also that with all fuel excise duty now fully dedicated to the National Land Transport Fund (something I would have thought Labour should be crowing about), it means that the proportion of road spending paid by diesel vehicles dropped below what was appropriate, so the increase is likely to be justified (i.e. a diesel car shouldn't pay more for road use through RUC than a petrol car through petrol tax, on average).

However to lie to Tony Friedlander, the long standing chief executive of the Road Transport Forum - the main trucking lobby group - about RUC, is outrageous. Tony is a smart guy, though he was once Minister of Works under the Muldoon administration. If Annette King has said, "Look Tony, we wont give you notice anymore", he wouldn't have liked it, but at least she wouldn't have gone back on her word. Furthermore her own press release is deceptive, as it almost implies that only vehicles up to 6 tonnes face the increase, by only referring to examples up to that weight and attaching a document about vehicles up to that weight.

Of course what this means is that operators wont buy RUC licences in advance to avoid the increase, as has been done successfully in the past (and if managed well does provide a sudden cashflow advantage that could be invested wisely).

So something that arguably is justified as an increase has become a political nightmare by deception and sleight of hand.

Lynchers may be brought to justice

CNN reports that some new evidence has been found related to a 1946 lynching case in Georgia, USA.

On July 25, 1946, two black sharecropper couples were shot hundreds of times and the unborn baby of one of the women cut out with a knife at the Moore's Ford Bridge.

And in the days following the massacre, residents of the community about 40 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia, were tight-lipped with federal agents sent by President Truman to investigate.

Georgia state representative Tyrone Brooks has said "they think there was enough evidence in FBI files at the time to bring a case against the suspects. He said his group has identified five suspects in the slayings who are still alive."

If this proves to be the case, a handful of elderly men (they are likely to be in their 80s or so) will plead how unfair it is and cruel it would be to try, convict and imprison them.

No.

As long as the evidence stacks up, these men should be forced to fear the consequences of their action. Their families and friends should know what they did, and the lives of other elderly murderers should remain ones tinged with fear that their final years will be in disgrace, alone and behind bars.