Libya greets killer as a hero

Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi has been returned to Libya to be given a hero's welcome by Muammar Gaddafi. His part in blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie was not enough for him to be held in prison while he dies of prostate cancer - so he is feted by the Libyan dictatorship (which is now thought of as friendly, because Gaddafi doesn't play with terrorism anymore, and has a lot of oil).

Of course the disgrace of his release lies with the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill. The power lay with him to release al-Megrahi as it is devolved to the loony leftwing Scottish government. MacAskill's decision has been damned by the Obama Administration and David Cameron (the British government has been rather quiet). However, it is hardly surprising, MacAskill is on the left of the Scottish National Party (which itself is more leftwing than Labour or the Lib Dems), so he probably has had more sympathy for the hardened socialist Gaddafi than most.

Of course those people who died on that Pan Am flight don't get a few months to spend with family before they died...

Temporary break

Mum's very ill, so being a polemicist isn't very important for now.

UPDATE: Stable and somewhat optimistic now, a scare, so here is hoping echocardiogram produces positive results. It appears a viral infection put the body under extreme stress, causing heart failure.

Greens and the Khmer Rouge Part 1

Frogblog has posted about the evidence given by Rob Hamill at the trial of Duch, who operated the Tuol Sleng torture and murder prison in Cambodia. A chance, of course, to reflect simply upon the horrors of the Khmer rouge era. Estimates of numbers executed and starved to death by this regime range from 1.2 to 2.2 million people, between a quarter and a third of the population.

The easy target is to throw stones at Keith Locke. It is fairly well known that in his naïve youth he cheered on the Khmer Rouge victory in Phnom Penh as a liberation. Of course he was not the only one, the Lon Nol military dictatorship that had been overthrown was corrupt and brutal. Nobody missed it at the time, it was hoped things could only get better. Few paid any attention to stories coming out of Khmer Rouge occupied territory of the Maoist autarchy imposed on the local population, although images from the early 1970s showed the uniformity and order that they had imposed (ironically published approvingly by a Chinese state propaganda pictorial magazine).

However, my concern is not Keith Locke. He was young and naïve, better to forgive that and his statements about nuclear power only being safe under socialism, and cheering on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, than to dwell a quarter of a century or more later. My concern is also not Sue Bradford, who was cheerleading on Maoist China in the early 1970s, the Khmer Rouge’s chief source of funds, arms and ideology. Imagine if a senior National MP had cheered on Pinochet, Franco or Salazar in his youth and how that would be treated by the Greens, but I digress.

It is this statement

“For us in the West what we have to get our heads around is that the Khmer Rouge learnt their ideology in Paris and were able to seize power because Richard Nixon personally ordered a secret bombing campaign that killed half a million. And that US foreign policy, in particular their determination to never forgive anyone that drives them off, allowed the Khmer Rouge to occupy Cambodia’s UN seat until 1993 rather than the government installed by the Vietnamese invasion that ended their rule.”

This statement evades certain facts, and would make you think that it is all the fault of the West and the US that the Khmer Rouge came to power. This is, at best, a side effect of failed policies, and there are others who can carry far more blame.

Yes the Khmer Rouge learnt their ideology in Paris, at the Sorbonne, along with many other Marxists. Radical Maoism was de riguer among many academics, vile as it always has been. However, the Khmer Rouge was active before the US bombings. Why did the US bomb Cambodia in the first place? Because it was being used by the North Vietnamese as a bypass route to infiltrate South Vietnam. “Neutral” Cambodia was a staging ground for invasions of South Vietnam. The US response was to use bombing and then invasion to close the borders, and buy time. The bombing killed between 100,000 and 600,000 (half a million is a high estimate), and certainly gave the Khmer Rouge propaganda to attract illiterate peasants to fight for them. The US backed the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk (a very slimy long time friend of Kim Il Sung) and supported a corrupt and brutal strongman called Lon Nol. His antics also helped fuel support for the Khmer Rouge. However he achieved the primary goal, securing the borders of Cambodia and wiping out North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia.

The Khmer Rouge was backed solidly by Mao, China supplying explicit financial and material support. The USSR was more interested in Vietnam. So it was China that enabled the Khmer Rouge to fight against Lon Nol. However, it was Lon Nol himself who was so corrupt, incompetent and cruel that caused many Cambodians to join the fight against him. Note that Prince Sihanouk himself backed the Khmer Rouge as well – the “neutral” Prince backing radical Maoists so he could continue to enjoy the trappings of power. The US did not back the Khmer Rouge, it unfortunately backed its hopelessly incompetent and immoral opponents.

So the US was guilty of foolishness in Cambodia, because its goal in Vietnam propelled victims of its actions (and its friend’s actions) to support the Khmer Rouge. However, to say Nixon enabled the Khmer Rouge to seize power is evading two key points:

1. Had the Khmer Rouge not had Chinese support, it may well have failed to takeover, avoiding the massive loss of life its regime caused.
2. The US from 1970 to 1975 armed, funded and backed the Lon Nol military regime, which whilst bad, fought the Khmer Rouge. Had Lon Nol remained in power, it would have been corrupt, and far from free, but would not have been as murderous. A similar analogy is Korea, where South Korean dictatorships and military regimes ran the country from 1953 through to 1988, but which was far less deadly than North Korea for its people.

The truth is that China provided succour to the Khmer Rouge, the US lamely fought against it, but the biggest supporters of the Khmer Rouge were often Western academics.

The Greens skirt over the Khmer Rouge years. The years when umpteen Western academics embraced the Khmer Rouge, including the fool Malcolm Caldwell who decided to go visit them, and got murdered as a result. The years when leftwing pinup Noam Chomsky declared stories of mass murder and starvation from Democratic Kampuchea as CIA propaganda (the man has slithered in evasion of this statement ever since). This thesis talks of the "Standard Total Academic View on Cambodia" being "Democratic Kampuchea symbolized their wildest hopes and dreams. From the classroom to the politburo, the new Kampuchea was, to these scholars, theory becoming reality" says Sophal Ear.

You see the Khmer Rouge represented the idealistic vision of so many on the left. More on that in Part 2.

Vietnam invaded Cambodia for various reasons, including a border incident, concern over the Khmer Rouge treatment of ethnic Vietnamese (Vietnam knew only too well what was going on there), Soviet support for Vietnamese expansionism (as Vietnam was not backed by China – as was seen in a brief border war between the two in 1979).

You may find it odd that a party that opposed the US overthrowing the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, overthrowing the Taliban dictatorship and includes many who opposed the US kicking Iraq out of Kuwait, so warmly receives (or at least glosses over) Vietnam invading Cambodia.

Let me be clear, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia was moral, purely because it ended the Khmer Rouge horror, even though nobody could dare claim that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was free or respected individual rights, it fell short of the mass executions of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge had been brutal to Vietnamese on both sides of the border. However, overthrowing the Khmer Rouge does not fit well with Green Party rhetoric against imperialism and war, particularly since the government installed by Hanoi was little more than an extension of its own.

The Greens claim the US allowed the Khmer Rouge to occupy the UN seat of Cambodia rather than the Vietnamese installed regime because of a fit of pique at losing the Vietnam War. This is an element of truth evading several facts and with the wrong motive.

The seat at the UN was held by the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, shared by the Khmer Rouge, FUNCINPEC and the KPNLF, the latter two being royalist and anti-communist. This was maintained because China and the US both vetoed Soviet and Vietnamese requests for the seat to be taken up by the Hanoi led government. Of course when the Cold War ended, all of this fell away. Vietnam had withdrawn from Cambodia, and the pro-Vietnamese government engaged in a coalition with FUNCINPEC and the KPNLF, whilst the Khmer Rouge tried to continue fighting.

So why the history lesson? Well it is understandable to write about Rob Hamill testifying at Duch’s trial. It is a tragic NZ element to one of the most vile events of the 20th century. Indeed so vile it demonstrates that what is worse than war is government turning on its own people. However, the Greens couldn’t use the occasion to simply deplore the Khmer Rouge, deplore Maoism and condemn totalitarianism and communism. No. It was used to blame the United States, by selective use of the facts and evading the fundamental blame for the Khmer Rouge – Marxist scholars, Chinese Maoists and the embrace of the ideology that individuals only exist for the greater good.

The Greens implicitly endorse the Vietnamese invasion and conquest of Cambodia, because it overthrew a murderous tyranny, but don’t support the US doing the same in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, why would the Greens selectively report history to bash the US? Why not bash China for providing the greater succuour to the Khmer Rouge? Why not bash communism generally? Why ignore the US backing of the Khmer Rouge's opponents over sustained periods? Why not slam the apologists of the regime from leftwing academia (which included your own)? Why not criticise Norodom Sihanouk for letting Cambodia be a vehicle for Vietnamese communist insurgency (attracting US attention), and then being a vehicle for the Khmer Rouge to have legitimacy?

Or better yet, why not shut the hell up about a party and government that represented an idealised vision of a society without any capitalism (money was abolished), without carbon based energy, where everyone was equal, there were no possessions, where peasantry had been raised to the highest level, where everyone was meant to get what they needed, and nobody was rich. Then ask yourself, before the consequences of this vision were obvious, would you too have supported it?

Protecting Aucklanders' assets

Labour’s latest leftwing pinup MP Phil Twyford has introduced a bill to require a referendum for any privatisation of Auckland local government owned assets. He talks of protecting “our assets”.

I fully agree that ratepayers’ assets should be protected, the biggest risk to them is local government. Local government spends their money on their behalf buying assets that end up being worth less than what they were paid for, without consent from those whose money they spent.

So I propose that the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Bill be amended to be the Local Government (Protection of Aucklanders Assets) Bill, and it have a new Section 5:

The following section is inserted after section 63:
“63A Acquisition of Auckland local authority assets
• “(1) No Auckland local authority shall—
o “(a) buy or otherwise acquire, or purchase any equity securities, shares or title in any property; unless
o (b) the finances used to make the purchase have been acquired with the express consent of those who have contributed.
(2) No Auckland local authority shall—
(a) levy rates on those liable for rates within the territory of Auckland local authorities without the express written authority of those it seeks to levy rates against;
(b) levy any other taxes whatsoever.

Now whose assets was Phil Twyford interested in? The ones that are taken from those who actually pay for councils, or the ones his mates control?

Key's simpering apology for torture

Sorry John, you got it all wrong. In fact, the NZ Herald report of John Key's siding with Justice Simon France on the "Makutu" case while not surprising (it being a very big deal for any Prime Minister to criticise a High Court judge), it is disappointing. He could have simply kept his mouth shut.

Apparently John thinks being "misguided and not malicious" should mitigate any sentence someone gets for sustained acts of torture.

So the next time a sadist is up on charging of whipping his son within an inch of his life, and kills him accidentally, because he believed Satan had taken him over, then John will be sympathetic if this violent child abuser gets a community sentence.

The next time this lot have a go at getting rid of a Makutu, and ring the ambulance after whipping, burning or whatever other method of torture they wish to use against the 14yo cousin (who was next in line for their "exorcism"), then John Key and Simon France wont think they are a danger to society.

A man can molest a child and get an injunction against being near children to protect them, but a group of middle aged Maori men and women can threaten to torture someone because of sincerely held religious beliefs, and well let's not worry about that.

Oswald Bastable notes the Crown wont appeal the sentence.

So the next victim of this Dark Ages practice can point fingers squarely at Simon France, the Crown Prosecutor, and of course the PM now, for thinking this sort of precedence doesn't send a signal that "you can torture and get away with it using the "Makutu" defence".

Indeed, if there is one by someone of another religion, I look forward to the appeal on someone's sentence, on the basis that the High Court has now set a sentencing precedence.

You can assist people by choice

One Idiot Savant doesn’t understand. When referring to huge families on welfare he says:

“those children exist, and their need is real… If we want them to have any chance of a decent life (rather than creating or perpetuating multi-generational poverty), they need to be provided for.”

Why do these children exist? Who is primarily responsible for meeting their needs? Why should people who choose not to have children or to have few children be forced to fund a decent life because some parents ARE feckless? Why should people currently on welfare get more welfare if they breed more? Why is the money forcibly taken from others, a right?

However, his lack of imagination, the fundamental failure of morality shared by virtually all on the left is this statement here:

“What exactly are the right proposing here? Denying assistance to those whose need is greatest? Leaving people to starve?”

Who is leaving who to starve? Who denies assistance? Who is stopping anyone from providing assistance? Is Idiot Savant suggesting that if the beloved state doesn’t pilfer taxes from him, pay bureaucrats in the process then hand it out in welfare, that he wouldn’t help people in need?

Why are taxes, a tax collection bureaucracy and a money handout bureaucracy a sign you care, but charity – something you choose to give, through people who want to help – an anathema?

In other words – why do you need to be forced to care?

Furthermore, why is it ok to bash the people who are forced to pay welfare, but not to demand accountability and appreciation from those who get it?

McCarten's usual non-analysis on healthcare

It is pretty damned obvious that more often than not I'm going to disagree with Matt McCarten, this week using smears and distortions to spread the typical leftwing lie of American healthcare bad, socialised healthcare good. Simple concept. I'm sure it's one that the vast majority of New Zealanders agree with. Most have heard the propaganda about Americans dying in the streets without healthcare, turned away from hospitals and being ruined because of the high cost. Most of it is nonsense of course, but it suits the vested interests who profit from a state controlled and taxpayer funded system. What? Profit? Yes. You see that's one of the many points Matt gets very wrong. So what did he say?

"You only have to look at the United States to see what a nightmare it is when you mix profiteering with healthcare" Really Matt? So when healthcare worker unions go on strike demanding more pay from people who are unable to choose whether or not to take their money and go elsewhere, that isn't profiteering? Or is it ok for employees to engage in rent seeking from taxpayers? Perhaps you could look at Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands or others that have significant private sector involvement? Oh no, doesn't fit with your binary view of private sector untrustworthy, bad, rips people off vs public sector, benevolent, efficient, kindly, does it?

"Given that tens of millions of American citizens have no healthcare" Really? Nearly 85% of Americans have health insurance. Of the 15%, over a third live in relatively wealthy households (US$50,000 per annum plus), so prefer to pay for healthcare directly rather than through insurance. Let's bear in mind that all of the elderly and the very poor are covered.

So 10% of Americans have no healthcare. Bear in mind that in New Zealand (and the UK), healthcare is not always available when you need it too. Matt somehow thinks a majority will throw away what they have, but he forgets, a majority of Americans don't trust the government like he does.

"Seemingly ordinary people are mobilising noisily to oppose reform and keep their overpriced, inaccessible, ruthless health system. None of this universal, open-access health coverage for them. Apparently that's socialism" Yes Matt, maybe they know something you don't? Maybe the fact that this high price happens to deliver some of the best health professionals, leading edge procedures and technology in the world? Maybe because there isn't queuing?

Yes Matt, forcing everyone to pay for a monopoly state provider than you cannot demand service from IS socialism. You embrace socialism, are you scared of the word?

He says it is because "they've never known anything else so they can't imagine what it might be like not to live under a fear-based system". Of course Matt hasn't either, ignorant he just assumes the people campaigning are stupid. He also forgets that there is a fear based system in New Zealand as well, such as fearing when you'll get the operation you are queuing up for, when you are in pain or it is life threatening. No, forget that.

Then he completely misrepresents capitalism, describing democracy instead "a good chunk of Congress has been bought and paid for by the interests that stand to lose the most if Americans were to change their system. So it's not madness at all, it's just capitalism doing what it does best - fighting hard, and dirty, to protect its interests" Capitalism doesn't involve using the state to give privilege, no that's rent seekers, moochers, seeking state force to get what they can't get from persuasion.

However, Matt isn't into persuasion, he is into using state force to promote interests. Yes, the greatest corruption of government ARE those who use state force to get their interests - hardly surprising that health providers would do it. They do it in New Zealand, through monopoly associations and unions, but Matt thinks that's just fine.

Now he is right that some claim Obama's socialist ideas are about compulsory abortion or euthanasia, yes there are some wingnuts, but he uses that to smear the lot.

"US is becoming more a negative than a positive role model. And we can learn a lot from it, about things like keeping corporate money out of politics, about defending what we have and opposing the encroachment of the private profit-makers into matters that involve the public good." Well of course it's ok to have union money in politics, and confiscating private money for so called "public good". He loves the public good, but when it fails individuals they should just shut up and stop being selfish - I mean it's only health right?

"There's an argument that another even less savoury element underlies the screaming and yelling in America - racism. The mad-dog "birthers" who deny Obama is a natural-born citizen are its most obvious face, with those who labelled the new Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor a racist." Yes the birthers are mad, but Sotomayer DID make a racist comment, but in the world of leftwing doublespeak a Hispanic woman saying someone of her race can make better decisions than a white man - but if it was the other way round, McCarten would shout racism.

However, in the end Matt offers nothing of substance. Nothing to suggest what is wrong with the US other than it isn't government provided for all - he can't even conceive that it isn't a free market because he thinks businesses rip people off, but unions and governments are benevolent and always give good service to those who pay.

You see there is reason to have concern about costs in the US system, there are enormous distortions that privilege employer provided insurance over individually purchased insurance, costs through litigation that has become increasingly non objectively based, and the government provided medicaid and medicare systems are facing significant inflation. However, Matt has an ideological opposition to private provided healthcare, or insurance based models, even though many universal systems are dominated by private providers and insurance. Have a quick look at wiki, Singapore for example is virtually entirely private, with the government only topping up care for the poor.

Though you wouldn't expect a former Alliance Party President to spread that sort of information would you?

Trevor Mallard shows backbone

Following on from extensive comments in support of my view on Simon France's sentencing of five torturers comes Trevor Mallard, using the word torture (what are YOU reading Trevor?) to describe what these people did. He did it on the Labour Party blog. Good on him.

So what will the Minister of Justice, one Simon Power, say? Undoubtedly the standard line of not wanting to get involved in judicial decisionmaking. In fact, Simon Power was lectured by Simon France, when France was a lecturer at the law school of Victoria University of Wellington. Power was distinctly conservative at the time, so it will be interesting to see if Trevor Mallard has a better sense of what is nonsense than Power.

The Maori Party after all undoubtedly wont be speaking out about this, given Tariana Turia's own belief in anciest ghosts. No doubt, anyone thinking Maori who torture their relatives due to irrational religious beliefs should get a harsher punishment are Maori bashing - a label, ironically, that far too Maori could appropriately and sadly wear.

Guess who likes the cellphone driving ban?

Yes the Queen of prohibition herself. It's not enough though! The harpie of controlling everyone has even said "all mobile phone calls are distracting. She recommends that even drivers with hands-free car kits pull over to take calls.

Thanks Sue, maybe we should pull over when we hear you on the radio? Maybe people walking the streets should stop. Maybe there should be more rules.

Maybe we are all adults who can figure things out for ourselves.

No, it is not because I have no concern for accidents caused by distracted drivers, but rather I'd like people prosecuted for dangerous driving, not endless new little rules that control freak authoritarians just adore to tell people what to do. It's fairly obvious, holding a cellphone while driving over the Rimutaka Hill Road isn't smart, but while stuck in a major traffic jam it wont make a difference.

Oh and she loves 2 degrees demanding that its competitors be regulated as to what they charge it for terminating calls. Always waging war on successful businesses and approving of the subsidised ones, even when they are predominantly foreign owned. Of course she gets it wrong, the campaign isn't about fees to consumers, it is about fees between carriers - and of course, why let businesses in an open market set the charges they want to pay each other when the government can do it for you?

Daniel Hannan talks truth of NHS

Yes, Daniel Hannan is most well known as a Conservative MEP who attacked Gordon Brown in the European Parliament.

However, David Cameron isn't very happy with him now, because he has been telling the truth about the most centralised (and possibly most socialist) state run health system in the developed world - the NHS.

Daniel said that the US should not copy the NHS. He said so on TV and on his Daily Telegraph blog. Quite rightly he pointed out that those claiming it is the greatest British invention are forgetting the abolition of slavery, common law, penicillin and discovering DNA among other things. In short, they are idiots.

He notes that cancer survival rates in the UK are lower than in many developed countries including the US. Think tank "progressive vision" notes that Singapore spends only 4% of GDP on healthcare, but has better life expectancy and infant mortality stats than the UK - partly no doubt due to diet, but it has a private insurance based system.

He concluded by saying:

Imagine that, in 1945, we had created a National Food Service. Suppose that, in the name of “fairness” and “need and not ability to pay”, sustenance had been rationed by the state. Conjecture that every citizen had been allocated one butcher, one baker, one café and so on. We all know where that would have led: to bureaucracy, to duplication, to surpluses in one field and scarcity in another, to racketeering, to hunger.

Exactly. However, David Cameron hasn't the intellectual fortitude or the courage to handle this debate - for he knows Labour will use the old lying incandations that the NHS is sacred, and that any alternative means people dying in the streets without healthcare (apparently better to die of infections in substandard hospitals).

He said "The fact that in this country you can go to a hospital, you can go to a family doctor, and they do not ask you how much money is in your bank account ... is one of our great national institutions".

Such complete nonsense. Why not go to the supermarket and the same? Why not a landlord? Food and shelter are more important than healthcare after all. Besides, the money does come from somewhere - your taxes, by force, with no accountability.

The NHS IS a disaster, it is extraordinarily wasteful, it treats patients as production line items, and doesn't deliver the sort of results it promises, and is too big, too impersonal and full of rent-seekers who know that if they don't get what they want, they can frighten the public (and politicians) to give them more. It is time that UK public discourse started being honest about the NHS, that the socialist lying about how "great" it is be confronted, that the lies about the US system be confronted (it doesn't kick accident victims on the street if people arrive in ambulances without the means to pay) and some honest debate about healthcare occurs.

You see, without it, UK taxpayers will continue to be lumbered by ever growing costs, ever stagnating performance, and ever growing lack of responsibility for one's own healthcare.

In the meantime, the Conservatives are too gutless to take this on - so the debate needs to happen outside the three main (socialist) parties.

Torture isn't serious in New Zealand

Picture this.

A gang of your relatives believe in "goblins, ghosts and demons". They believe you contain a "demon". No doubt the more you resist, the more they are convinced you have one.

They imprison you in a flat against your will. Assault and restrain you. Engage in the systematic water torture of you, to try to “exorcise” the “demon”. It is forced down your throat and nose repeatedly while you remain inprisoned by this gang.

In other words, Guantanamo Bay treated Islamist terrorist suspects better. Waterboarding is childs' play in comparison.

Ultimately your tired body, fed up with resisting, has its lungs fill with enough water that you drown. Remember drowning? That's when you can't breathe, because every time you do, you go into an enormous cough reflex and eventually pass out in desperation, all the while this gang force feeds you water.

What do these loving relatives do? They don’t phone for an ambulance, don’t try to resuscitate you. You see they probably don’t believe in modern medicine. They grab your 14yo cousin and start the same process on her.

What are the reasonable conclusions?

1. They are sadistic murderers, out to dispose of you, but not very efficiently (unlikely in this case)
2. They are clinically insane. Seriously mentally ill and dangerous.
3. They are stupid and mindless. Not quite insane, but very very stupid and incapable of empathy when they convinced a person is a “demon”.

Note the difference between 2 and 3 is a matter of degree and legal definition.

So what should a judge do with them?

According to the NZ Herald, High Court Justice Simon France says "community based sentences". Stuff reports that this includes this horrible penalty "Under the community detention order Rawiri and Wright will be curfewed to their homes between the hours of 9pm and 6am daily for six months." How rough is that? They will have to - watch TV and sleep then!!

Yes, it is the dark ages. So all you need to do to get rid of someone you know who you don’t like is to claim you’re exorcising a demon, demonstrate it as a truly held belief, and go for it. As Cactus Kate says, “Look for the "Makutu" mitigation of sentence to pop up in child-bashing cases from now on” and don’t expect the Greens, who care so much about child abuse, to express interest in this. These people will walk free and be able to practice their mindless violent techniques again.

Yes they didn’t intend to kill her, or harm her. However, how many other crimes can be justified by that? Can a child rapist claim “I wanted her to enjoy it, I wanted it to be positive for her, I didn’t intend to hurt her”? No.

However, presumably because it is Maori religious mumbo-jumbo it is ok. I suspect had a Catholic priest engaged in such techniques for an exorcism and the result was death, that he wouldn’t be getting a community based sentence.

So in New Zealand, torturing and accidentally killing someone isn't a reason to imprison, as long as you do it under the aegis of Maori supernatural beliefs. This wont, of course, be an issue for most New Zealanders - but woe betide the children or young adults of families full of these sorts of cretins. If auntie or uncle or mum and dad talk about worrying about demons in the family, get far away, there is precious little deterrent to them torturing you to get it out.

UPDATE: Oswald Bastable agrees "these fuckers are all barking mad"

What does Clark need to do?

A few days ago I posted about the abject vacuity in the NZ mainstream media reporting about Helen Clark taking on the lead role at the UNDP. So is the UNDP just a grand generous aid organisation out to help the world develop, or is there more to it than that? Why indeed have none of the scandals that have emerged from the UNDP in recent years been raised in the NZ mainstream media? Why has nobody seriously questioned Clark about what she thinks of the scandals and whether she is concerned about the UNDP’s reputation?

UNDP Watch is a blog dedicated to reporting on issues arising from the UNDP. Of course any good journalist knows not to rely on a single source. However, let’s just do a summary of the recent list of publicised scandals arising from this organisation. Bear in mind the UNDP does not publish detailed accounts of revenue and expenditure. In other words it has less financial accountability than any New Zealand central or local government organisation or publicly listed company. That in itself is a reason for concern. Will Helen Clark ensure that accounts are published in full after this current financial year? If not, why not?

There are charges of nepotism in employment whereby a UNDP employee used his influence to ensure his daughter got a job at UNDP, despite this being against policy. This is under investigation.

There are charges of the UNDP grossly overcharging the Panamanian government for advice. In other words, acting as management consultants. Clark might want to get a robust vetting process for all contracts, and to be ruthless in firing those who don't follow procedure.

An independent audit commissioned by UNDP demonstrated how the organization “routinely, and systematically, the agency disregarded U.N. regulations on how it conducted itself in Kim Jong-Il's brutal dictatorship, passing on millions of dollars to the regime in the process”. In other words it funneled taxpayers’ money to a regime that run slave gulags containing children. UNDP should cease all activities in North Korea, much like Medicin Sans Frontieres did because it could not guarantee that the aid it supplied was not being siphoned off to the military and party officials. Clark would do good to shut down activities in North Korea.

Most of all, she could commission an independent report into the success of UNDP programmes over the past decade, checking what was expected compared to what was delivered, and whether it was worth it.

However, given she spent part of the 1980s rejecting the very transparency and accountability that the reforms of the time were promoting, I wont be holding my breath. The UNDP is rotten, with staff paid salaries that make NZ MP's incomes look very pitiful, and with performance and results that is questionable at best.

Who will be the first NZ mainstream media journalist to do a full scale investigation and then to question Clark about it? Given Barry Coleman has such a jaundiced view of bloggers, maybe it could be the NBR?

Can't they learn?

Tory MP Alan Duncan was foolish enough to say MPs live on "rations" and are "treated like shit". Of course, nobody forces him to stand, and given the competition every few years for the job, it would suggest that plenty of people are interested in the job.

Given Duncan is a millionaire from working in the energy sector, you'd have to wonder why he should care.

However, it does show a sad failure by those who get elected seeking to have power over others to recognise that they live a life well beyond the means of many of their constituents.

It is something MPs in New Zealand, on all sides of the house, may think carefully about.

Privatisation improved train reliability in UK

Yes, this is according to a BBC report.

"According to Hassard Stacpoole, media relations manager for the Association of Train Operating Companies, the value of improvements to punctuality is greater because the network is getting more crowded.

He said: "You will find that we are running 20%-plus more trains than we were under British Rail, in what is a busier network.

"Overall we would say punctuality is much better than even under BR. We have one of the most punctual railways in Europe.

So the doomsayers are wrong, railways in Britain are carrying more people than they have for over 50 years, and more reliably.

"Mr Stacpoole adds that commercial incentives, which did not exist under the nationalised BR system, work as a safeguard to improvements.

"If the trains are not going to run on time that's going to cost you money. Network Rail will have to compensate the operators or vice-versa (depending on who is at fault).

"There's an incentive to get things right. People expect their trains to run on time. "

You see if it is the fault of the track owner (Network Rail) the train operator, which pays to use the track, gets compensated. If the train operator is late in using its slot, then it pays more to use it later, as others are disadvantaged by the change.

Now there remains mistakes, massive subsidisation of major infrastructure projects that should have been financed directly. Political subsidisation of uneconomic lines and projects, but by and large, it has been a success going this far. Another loony leftwing legend about "good old British Rail" (which closed more railway lines than private railways ever did) is blown away by the facts.

New reasons to abolish the ARC

Number 1: ARC wants to force people to pay for a tourist tram. It is already going to waste Auckland ratepayers' money on a "feasibility study", even though it doesn't own the roads or property that such a tram would run on. Given the loud silence from the private sector, this is just another toy from the same people who made you pay for a big elaborate train set to replace commercially viable bus services. Of course it hasn't stopped legions of gormless idiots saying it's a great idea on the NZ Herald website, none having the slightest idea as to how to pay for it.

Number 2: ARC wants to force people to pay for a far more elaborate SH20 motorway extension. Whilst there are issues with the government's less expensive plan to complete the South Western Motorway in Auckland (mainly how it wont obtain consent from all property owners), the ARC has shown that other people's money is no object. Again. It is campaigning to extend the motorway from the current end at Mt. Roskill through Rosebank Peninsula to the North Western motorway. Why? It is "superior" strategically, and has less environmental impact. Given the ARC has no responsibility for roads at all, belongs to the railway religion, and the views are expressed by hard-left shrews like Sandra Coney, you can see where economics escaped them all. Mike Lee is "annoyed" this very high cost option was ruled out. Well Mike, it was ruled out by the previous government as well, and nobody sees the ARC coughing up money to pay for it (let alone the private sector).

So couldn't Auckland local government reform simply wind up the ARC as a good start?

Simple policy lesson on energy

The Electricity Commissioner position was created by the Clark Labour Government.

It was never needed before. Jim Anderton and Helen Clark were keen on Ministerial Inquiries into industries that had no fundamental problems.

The Electricity Commission isn't needed, nor is an Electricity Market Authority.

My first step would be to choose another electricity SOE to privatise. Although whilst National has promised to sell nothing, there is no reason why it cannot issue shares in an electricity SOE watering down the shareholding. Similarly, shares could be distributed to everyone. Private owners, after all, demand better performance and seek to be more competitive than the state.

Lines companies should be allowed to retail electricity, as the recent review recommends.

So hopefully Cabinet will agree on modest steps to liberalise and get crony bureaucrats out of the way - and so the question will arise as to why the government owns the majority of the generation and retail market.

Driving distraction

I'm not surprised at the ban on using handheld mobile phones while driving.

It is politically popular with older drivers, and undoubtedly there are people who can't drive while talking on the phone.

Although I recall discussions with the then Land Transport Safety Authority a few years ago which confirmed that far more accidents at the time happened while people fiddled with the car stereo. Changing radio stations and fumbling about for CDs (and before that cassettes), was a bigger distraction because it involved a fairly short burst of activity and frustration.

There are other distractions while you drive. Talking to other passengers, controlling children, pretty girls on the side of the road as you drive by. All of these can contribute to a driver failing to take care.

However isn't THAT the issue? The philosophical belief that when people cause an accident, it isn't them to blame per se, but because they did something they shouldn't have. Why is it easier to produce a rule to ban something, than to focus on people who drive dangerously and cause an accident?

Is it because it is easier for the Police, who can treat talking on the cellphone as the reason to prosecute, rather than negligent driving?

Or is it because of ACC? ACC remember removes your civil liability from being to blame for causing personal injury by accident to anyone else (although not property damage). Indeed your ACC levies for owning a car (equivalent to accident insurance) don't vary if you have a good or bad driving record. So perhaps opening THAT up to competition, so bad drivers pay far more for accident insurance, and good ones pay less, might make a modest difference?

You see, I by and large don't give a damn if stupid people cause accidents damaging their car and themselves. The state has better things to do that protect people from themselves. I do care about such people taking me or others with them. That is where rights to drive should be removed and penalties imposed.

It would be simpler though, if roads were privately owned. Road owners wouldn't want accidents to be common. Accidents generate blockages and cause congestion, making it less attractive to use the roads. Accidents can damage road property or property of adjoining road owners, which could see the road owner liable for letting idiots use its property in a way that could reasonably endanger the neighbours. Other road users may feel the same way. So the incentives to have a safe road are quite high, much like airlines which know a bad safety record is devastating to revenue. Korean Air was aware of this in 1999 and made radical changes, because non-Koreans would deliberately avoid the airline due to safety concerns.

However, selling roads may be a step too far for this government - but changing the incentives around ACC, and encouraging the Police to do their job (enforce dangerous drivers not victimless offences) would help. Dangerous driving causing death, injury or damage should subject people to prosecution and removal of their driving licence for any period from 6 months to life. Dangerous driving recklessly endangering people or their property should mean fines commensurate to a disincentive to stop. Driving in a way that poses a slightly higher risk than otherwise (and is no different from other behaviours that are legal) shouldn't.

Otherwise, the next road safety initiative will be to ensure all good looking women (and men) dress to cover themselves up when they walk adjacent to any road.

Why bother with PPPs?

You see I have friends who can't wait for this - they would make a fortune screwing public servants of money to do something none of them really understand. The key to getting the best value out of them is simply letting the private sector build something and charge people for using it, and bear the risks of overspending, poor customer service and lack of demand for the service - like the Melbourne Citylink toll motorway - a great success, because the private consortium that designed it, chose the route, bought the properties, built it and now operate it - were allowed to do so, albeit with enormous contracts and a legal framework to keep (excessive) oversight. In that case the road exists because the owners borrowed to pay for it, and use tolls to pay back the debt. You wont find too many PPPs quite that elegant.

PPPs make sense when governments want to hide borrowing they make. PPPs probably make sense in developing countries when they want to build infrastructure and don't have legal frameworks to readily allow private investment to be securely made. However, I am not convinced they are better than privatisation OR the state sector contracting out activities it isn't any good at.

Bill English is keen on public-private partnerships, the privatisation you have when you want to privatise profits and socialise the risks.

He waxes lyrically about how much it is done in Australia. Music to the ears of management consultants, lawyers and the big 4 accountancy firms all keen to have a slice of the expensive pies involved in setting them up. You see, precious few public servants have a clue about what to do, so a lot of your money would be expended on consultants to help them out. Given I know some of the people who would do this, it is pretty clear to me that the you better have a good reason to spend such horrendous amounts of money trying to match clever people in the private sector out to milk profits and minimise risks.

English lists sectors he clearly approves of being involved in PPPs. Lets go through them:
- Roads: Well quite simply there aren’t enough road projects in New Zealand big enough to be worthy of the transaction costs involved in a PPP. Far better would be to allow private companies to design, build, own, operate and toll roads with little government involvement at all, except interconnecting with existing roads. For example, the Auckland Harbour Bridge and the approaches from the Central Motorway Junction to as far north as Constellation Drive, could be sold – lock stock and barrel, it could have included the Victoria Park Tunnel project and the right to toll (and either refund road taxes spent using the road or pro-rata the payments to the company). THAT would have made a lot of sense and be a model for the rest of the country.
- Rail: Look it isn’t profitable. Unless you’re going to sell the freight business off, then this is just paying the private sector to manage a black hole. A PPP would be worse than the status quo.
- Water: Why not privatise? It has been successful in England, and has addressed serious deficits of core infrastructure. Besides, this is a local authority function. Private providers would encourage water conservation, because they would seek to maximise returns by charging what the market could bear.
- Energy: Given it is partially privately owned, why even think of a PPP? Contact Energy works, so lets just privatise the other three SOEs and Transpower.
- Defence: A core role of the state. Why would you allow anyone to profit from supplying property and managing national security? What happens if that PPP provider is sold to a foreign owner with hostile intent? Certainly you may contract the private sector to manage property or assist in advice, but supplying infrastructure?
- Hospitals: Again, why not just let private companies supply hospital capacity that you buy services from? Why sign up to a monopoly provider to guarantee its returns?
- Schools: As with hospitals.
- Prisons: As with defence. Management contracts and advice are all very well, but having the private sector responsible for incarceration has always worried me.
- Radio networks: Why own these at all? Radio New Zealand can hardly be privately run as a PPP given it makes little revenue, so why not just privatise it and let people pay for it voluntarily?

With that, and his ever bright and political popular ideas of a capital gains tax and reintroducing the land tax that Ruth Richardson abolished, is it any wonder that Bill English is starting to look like the Finance Minister we might have got had Labour been re-elected?

Don't give to Tearfund

Because it wastes your money hiring an intellectual minnow called Sara Shaw. She works for Tearfund (a Christian poverty relief charity) as "Policy Officer - Climate Change". I am sure that its money could be better spent hiring someone who can actually do some serious work in the developing world, rather than lead statist political causes.

She recently wrote this nonsense criticising the New Zealand Government's policy on climate change:

"Poor people, already being hit hard by climate change, have once again been disappointed by another developed country taking a weak and self-interested approach"

Hit hard by climate change how? No evidence, just part of the zeitgeist promoted by Shaw that climate change is happening, real and the poor are suffering because of it. Secondly, she claims to speak on behalf of poor people. Funny that, not being one herself, or even a member of parliament for any country. Thirdly, she criticises taking a "self interested approach", which of course poor people never do - they are always willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good.

This follows from her earlier banality and economic illiteracy in promoting the faith based idea that by penalising "non-Green industries" and subsidising "Green ones", everyone wins. Not a shred of evidence or economics, just faith.

She presumably thinks she does great work to "save the world" and "help the poor", when she isn't doing a concrete piece of positive work in developing countries, for education, health or to improve infrastructure.

If she really gave a damn she'd be pushing for the European Union to abolish its Common Agricultural Policy, eliminate agricultural export subsidies, eliminate barriers to importation of agricultural products into the EU, and abolish domestic subsidies. That would make an enormous difference to farmers in developing countries, but no - she worries about climate change - a distraction from doing real good for people who are impoverished. She could campaign loudly and vigorously for good governance, the end to the corrupt kleptocracies that plague Africa and don't protect private property rights or have independent judiciaries.

However no, Shaw would much rather finger point, pontificate and preach, blaming the developed countries, and suffer the poor, ever patronaged, people in the developing world. She is chasing the ever illusion, the idea that destroying wealth creating industries will help the poor, and taking money from those who create wealth and give it to those who don't helps them too. There are undoubtedly charities that help impoverished people without being distracted by Green politics and agendas of economic illiteracy, big government and finger pointing rather than evidence.

Tearfund isn't one of them.

Bullshit on right and left

Right wing bullshit

Well known is the inane bullshit promoted by some on the conservative right that Barack Obama's birth certificate is fake or not original or something of the like. It is a very sad sign of the Republican Party that too many of its own kind will latch onto this rather than argue the very valid points about Obama's policies. Arguing against his socialised healthcare and his "spend it up large and hope" big government economy boosting policy seems too hard. I am no supporter of Obama, but I am quite convinced that he was born in Hawaii. Those continuing to ride on this bandwagon will look crazier as time goes on, and show how little they truly have in cogent arguments against the man. It is like "we can't say he's no good because he's black, so we'll say he's not American instead". Mindless, conspiratorial rubbish. In fact, it is the sort of thing that should cost the anti-business, pro-big government halfwit, Lou Dobbs, his job at CNN. Dobbs has long campaigned against free trade, foreign investment, globalisation and conspired against China's economic success. I also guess none of these wingnuts wishes the constitution would be different to allow Arnold Schwarzenegger to stand for the Presidency?

Left wing bullshit

On the left is a New Zealand blog that prides itself on being fair, honest and open. No Right Turn is a blog I usually disagree with, but does make some well researched points from time to time. However, to characterise the stupid referendum on smacking (stupid because of the wording) as "New Zealand is voting on whether it should be legal for parents to punch children in the face or hit them in the head with a piece of concrete" is an outright lie.

That was never legal before, and is not legal now, and indeed despite the poorly worded referendum, smacking is NOT punching or hitting the head with concrete. However, it does show how some on the left use language to distort and lie, to get their own way. To demonise their opponents as grossly violent child abusers, rather than average parents who use mild smacking as correction.

Bear in mind I despise smacking, I despise corporal punishment altogether and wish it would never be used - I also despise criminalising those who use it mildly. It is NOT for the state to say that using force against children is wrong. It isn't. It is sometimes in their best interests to protect them (or others) from danger. Which is why I don't have a strong view on how to vote in that referendum. I don't believe smacking is "good parental correction", but I also don't believe it should be a criminal offence, unless it is repeated and physically damaging. I do not endorse the current law, but I equally do not endorse the view by many that smacking is a "good" thing.

So do I vote to endorse smacking, or do I vote to endorse an interfering state criminalising behaviour I don't think should be criminalised? Or do I abstain?

In that same article he cites a New York Times article that is quite disconcerting, about how some disabled children have been physically punished. That indeed is disturbing, but then to say "Just another example of what a cruel and barbaric place the US is". Of course, it really is, a barbaric place that millions try to flee, so much crueler than New Zealand, where all children are raised by loving parents who would never abuse their kids.

Funny how he has never ever blogged about the gulags that keep children as slave labourers in North Korea. He wouldn't, of course, endorse that at all, but why do these Nazi style concentration camps, with summary executions, rampant torture, incarcerating entire families from elderly to babies as political prisoners, NOT get the same passionate attention as does the torture of Islamists in Guantanamo Bay?

Imagine if the political left actually starting protesting on a grand scale about this atrocity. Oh what government does the North Korean regime condemn the most? The USA - guess they are not all that bad then, right?