North Korea to undertake nuclear test

Alarming? yes. Surprising? No. What can be done about it? Nothing much – just simply impose strict sanctions upon trading with the regime and maintain the current deterrence by the US and South Korea. If you want an example of a modern day government that entirely enslaves its population, has no regard for whether its citizens live or die, and which strips the entire dignity of the individual to be sacrificed for the state – it is North Korea.
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It is a hideous repulsive regime – one which should humiliated daily for being so utterly grotesque. If you think a nuclear test is bad, try the thousands in gulags – the men, women and children who work from dawn to midnight as slaves for this nightmare state. Try the public executions, the state promoted glorification of brutal violence against enemies of the state, the constant surveillance of work, street and home – the complete suppression of dissent.
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Military attack against North Korea would result in the deaths of millions in South Korea and Japan – this price is too high to pay to try to confront a regime that, albeit noisy, is unlikely to take military action itself. Kim Jong Il knows the US is formidable, and he also is not a religious nutter - he has no wish to undertake jihad - just a wish to deter attack. The bigger risk is him selling a bomb to those who DO wish to undertake jihad - but I'd be watching Pakistan before North Korea on that score!

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By the way, you might want to remember the $1 million or so of your money spent by current and past government to persuade North Korea to not develop nuclear weapons.

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Oh and don't blame Bush - this started in 1994 when Clinton was President. Anyone who defends this murderous regime should wonder why they don't defend Hitler in 1938, and blame the rest of Europe for provoking him!

Clark hates Brash - but why?

Following the cancerous term and the continued attacks by Labour on Brash, the bottom line is that we now have, for the first time for some years, genuine hatred by one political leader for the other. I don't think it goes the other way. If it does, Brash is too smart to make it show.
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If you go back through recent history you wont find these level of enmity between:

Clark and English (Clark thought English was lightweight, English was fearful of Clark)
Shipley and Clark (They weren't friends, but had some level of respect)
Bolger and Clark;
Moore and Bolger (though it came close, Moore didn't like Bolger one bit);
Palmer and Bolger;
Lange and Bolger;
Lange and McLay.
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or even Muldoon and Lange. Muldoon thought Lange was a buffoon and didn't respect him, but didn't hate him.
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Muldoon was the same towards Rowling. He saw Rowling as a bit of a joke, and voters did as well - at least voters in marginal electorates.
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Clark's hatred is visceral, almost tribal. It goes back to her prejudice against the National Party, which she sees as the party that didn't advance women's rights, Maori self-determination, the fight against apartheid, gay rights, peace and disarmament - all of the big passionate issues that she cut her teeth on at university and beyond.

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Clark sees National as backward looking, as being the party of businesses that don't care about workers, conservative men who sneer at powerful women, who denigrate people about being gay/lesbian and who don't invite differently coloured people around for dinner. She sees it as the party of people who cared more about the All Blacks playing rugby than life under apartheid - as a party that secretly thought apartheid wasn't that bad. She sees National as a party that, until Doug Graham came along, saw Maori as fodder for factories and not much more, who believed in integration and ignoring indigenous culture. She sees National as the party of dawn raids on Pacific Island families, and the party that bought in to ANZUS, the nuclear deterrence and the Western alliance. These are things she has a deep personal philosophical loathing for.
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Clark, unfairly, sees Don Brash as the personification of much of that. He is, after all, an older man, heterosexual, caucasian, economic rationalist - exactly the type of person Clark sees as having "ruled the world" when everything was so much worse, so much more conservative and bigoted - the type of man she thinks likes keeping women down making muffins and cups of tea, while the men sit around smoking cigars talking dismissively about how the dark skinned people don't behave and don't do so well at school. The type of economic rationalist she had to keep her mouth shut about when she was in Cabinet in the 4th Labour government, and privatisation and deregulation were the order of the day - except the Rogernomes let a parallel leftwing agenda go forward too (nuclear ships, environment, women's affairs, Treaty of Waitangi).

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Politics is, for people like Clark (and others across the political spectrum) a deeply held set of views about what is right and wrong.

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Unfortunately, no matter how she paints it, Brash is enough of a classical liberal that he would be comfortable in ACT. He is no social conservative, and deeply repulsed by racism and sexism. She thinks he is behind or supports those trying to dig dirt on herself and Peter Davis regarding sexuality - he isn't, but she can't believe it to be true -and she knows the public don't tolerate such dirt digging. Brash knows this too, and wont be drawn into what is an irrelevant issue.
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Bolger was far closer to the sort of man Clark dislikes than Brash, but Bolger sold his soul for power (1996) and could be the compromising "statesman" (hey he sold his soul to Kiwibank). English was a minnow and didn't threaten Clark or the politically correct status quo.
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Brash does threaten it - he doesn't accept the power structure based post-modernist new leftist politics, and he is no old fashioned conservative either. She essentially called the first Orewa speech racist and had to recoil from that when many NZers responded by saying "are we now?".
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She fears the reality that the majority of the NZ public are not in her ideological, political world view - something she has been careful to cultivate. The majority don't share her view on race relations, and don't believe in the political correctness she supports. However a majority do support the centre-left agenda of more money for health and education. Her desperation to sling mud to defend herself has backfired, and now she is hoping that there is time on her side - time for this issue to become history.
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The public have short memories, and the political zeitgeist in 2008 could have moved considerably from where it is now - which is exactly what Clark wants. She will temper her hatred in the coming months so that the public don't see this nasty side in a couple of years.

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However, she will need to take some chill pills - a lot - especially if Brash is not rolled as leader before the next election. Which is why she wants him to be ousted. He has made National a genuine threat and she hates him - and voters don't respond well to nastiness. The polls are showing this.

The end of the Christian Heritage Party

As PC and David Farrar have reported - the Christian Heritage Party is having a funeral and will be buried - with the hope of some that it will be resurrected in some form.

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Well the website is down. Though Google has it cached.

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About the only two things I can say to its credit is first - it distanced itself completely from Capill, of which nothing more need be said, second it is folding.

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It advocated the end to the separation of church and state. It campaigned vigorously on maintaining and strengthening restrictions on what people did with their bodies, what they could read, watch and produce in the media, and how they could live their lives.

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On the other hand it advocated choice in education, and a tougher approach to welfare, although this was so, on the one hand - they could indoctrinate their children more easily into their irrational view of the world (which is their right!) and on the other hand, to tell lazy people that they are naughty and shouldn't get benefits if they aren't prepared to work in the community (isn't entirely unfair).

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All in all they were puritans - that nearly managed the 5% threshold with the Christian Democrats (now part of United Future) - if it hadn't been for Capill and his barely shrouded homophobia putting off voters on television (don't get me started on Capill grrr). Fortunately they failed, and have been on a long path downwards ever since. The CHP lost many voters to United Future, as the former Christian Democrats sold United Future as a way of getting Christian views into Parliament (while Peter Dunne downplayed it to not scared off his middle of road urban liberal voters). The CHP also lost to Destiny NZ, which has played a more radical fire and brimstone form of ayatollah like Christian politics. Also National played up to the Christian vote indirectly in 2005, mainly because they could see a chance to get rid of Helen Clark and her bunch of Godless women, which many on the Christian right deplored for their tolerance of homosexuality.

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Will there be a new Christian party? Well the Family First lobby looks like the CHP reborn except it isn't a party. However, there is easily a good 2-3% of religious nutters who want the government to lock people up for kissing people of the same sex, or reading Lady Chatterley or saying "Jesus Christ" as an expletive. These are bullies of the same order as the far left - invading our bedrooms and homes, as much as the left wants to invade boardrooms, businesses and schools. The Family First lobby is promoting the same sort of Biblical married straight couple having kids "family", its first principle is:

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"We affirm that the natural family, not the individual, is the fundamental social unit"

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Hmm so that's me running the other way already. Damned if I'm having no rights that aren't subordinate to the family - and they would probably agree!

Hone Harawira not totally lost

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Yawn yawn “Don Brash is racist” says Hone Harawira. You’d think he’d know what racist means, since he is in a party which is all about race. You see Hone misses the point. Brash wasn’t saying Maori are not a distinct culture, he was simply questioning how one can talk about a separate justice system for a people that are not that separate – and let’s face it, the concept of being Maori – according to Hone Harawira – is subjective. It is psychological.
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Harawira is delusional if he thinks Brash want Maori to disappear – he simply doesn’t care whether or not you are Maori. He doesn’t have a strong sense of ethnic identity – unlike Harawira who lives and breathes a collective identity.
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You see Harawira is proud to be Maori – because for him he believes there is no choice – even though, in fact, there is. He is proud of being aligned to a collective group but more importantly he hit it on the nose with this comment that Maori identity:

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“is as much a recognition that being Maori is partly blood, but it’s also a love for a culture, a language, and a way of life”.

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Indeed, that could be so. In fact that is all that ethnicity is. There is nothing inherently wrong will people choosing that – and I doubt Don Brash would think so either. The bottom line is, most New Zealanders, including supporters of Don Brash don't care what race you are, are not racist, are not Maori bashers and are happy to see Maori succeed individually, in business or in any walk of life - on their own merits. They just don’t expect the state to give Maori individual legal privileges because of it, or special quota positions at university and they are damned if they think the state should give someone who has a love of Maori culture, language and way of life money for their business, education, healthcare, car or whatever - taken from their pocket.

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That's the point - let Maori do as they please with their own bodies and property. Let private individuals give donations or privileges to Maori, Chinese, Italians, lesbians, the unemployed, farmers, sock fetishists or pavlova makers, or deny it from them. However, the state should be blind to this - completely. That is what Brash is saying - take race out of the equation. The state should neither discriminate against OR for.
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Unfortunately Harawira doesn’t want to engage on that level. He's with those who don't think Maori can be racist. He doesn’t want to defend special laws for Maori or funding, because he knows it is difficult to defend – he’d rather call Brash racist and a Maori basher because it is easy. Easy to call someone names and dismiss their arguments, isn’t it?

Conservatives still lost

The Conservative Party conference has kicked off in Bournemouth with David Cameron saying he wont be promising tax cuts at the next election. He is saying this because the Tories have promised tax cuts before and lost – and because apparently a lot of Brits dont believe health and education can get better with tax cuts. Meanwhile, the honeymoon poll period he’s been enjoying is over. Labour and the Tories are virtually neck and neck, and one big reason is because people don’t know what the Conservative Party stands for. Sound familiar?
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In 2002, following three years of the Clark government, Bill English presented to the New Zealand electorate a lacklustre campaign which talked a lot about education, the economy and values, but said nothing substantial. He wasn’t prepared to talk about tax cuts, he wasn’t prepared to talk much about reforming the economy or the state sector and he certainly wouldn’t have said that the reason so many Maori have lung cancer is because they choose to smoke. National hadn’t learnt from 1999, when a bitter electorate was sick of the party that sold its soul to govern with Winston, and then sold it again to remain in power with the likes of Alamein Kopu, Tuariki Delamere and Tuku Morgan.
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Labour sold a message of three years of strong stable government, which saw big spending increases in areas the public likes (health and education), lots of booty for its supporters (Maori, arts sector, environment) and the union movement getting the repeal of the Employment Contracts Act. Labour was riding high on a growing economy, low unemployment and a sense of contentment. Clark was a formidable debater, she knew what she believed in and could articulate it strongly – English never could. Bill English is a hardworking and honest man - but he fears having strong convictions, and it showed. He never looked like he believed he could win the election – as a result, Labour increased its share of the vote, and the disenchanted voted for NZ First (revitalised with Winston’s “3 policy” pledge), United Future (also revitalised having adopted the Christian Future NZ party and being the media darling with his “common sense” cliche) and ACT (which got its best ever result).
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National suffered – it had its worst vote ever. Less than 21% of the vote. A year later, it was polling double that, with Don Brash as leader. Brash has been willing to take a stand on principle. Most notably he took a stand against Maori political correctness and the big elephant in the room of New Zealand politics – state privilege for Maori. He was saying what many thousands of New Zealanders had been saying, and what smaller parties had been saying. He also took a stand on tax – promising worthwhile tax cuts across the board. In 2005 the result was 39%, and near victory.
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The Tories have had a boost in support for two reasons – firstly, the public is fed up with Labour. The war in Iraq has bled support to the Lib Dems, and the constant scandals of the likes of Blunkett, Prescott and the Brown/Blair divide aren’t impressing anyone. Labour is now looking as sleazy as the Tories did in the Major era. In addition, Blair – who won it for Labour three times, is on his way out and is seen as an outgoing PM. Any support he could bring has withered away. Secondly, David Cameron is young and charismatic, and the darling of the media. His radical approach to matters such as demanding more female and ethnic minority candidates is pushing some buttons – basically he is moving towards the left, while rightwing Tories are going “shhhh don’t rock the boat”.

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You see Cameron has changed the party logo to the insipid tree at the top of this post - we have statements such as "hug a hoodie" where Cameron wants to "understand" why yobs are useless good for nothings. The answer is simple - because they aren't scared of the justice system.

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The party has released new "Aims and Values". They are hardly inspiring:

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Supporting the shared experiences that bring us together and promote well-being, like sport, the arts and culture, and reforming the National Lottery so that its proceeds are properly allocated to these purposes.
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Supporting families and marriage, and making high quality childcare more available and more affordable.
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investment in new light rail systems for cities
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Working towards the target of giving 0.7% of national income in
aid by 2013
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What party is this now?
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It is only mildly redeemed by:
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Further reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, abolishing all
remaining production-linked subsidies, scrapping import tariffs and
removing all export subsidies.
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Abolishing ID cards if they are introduced.

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Furthermore David Cameron's speech talks about "corporate responsibility" because, you see, business should feel guilty. Shadow Environment Secretary Peter Ainsworth tops the vapidity stakes by saying "We accept that the economic cost of not tackling climate change will be infinitely greater than the cost of taking action now" . Infinitely greater? Really? So it will eradicate humanity? What utter rot - pandering to the eco tax lobby, surrendering to the recycling nazis who refuse to operate landfills on a for-profit basis, and complain that people throw so much away, surrendering to the economic luddites who leave local government running roads as parts of their personal political fiefdoms.

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Cameron's approach to foreign policy has also been less than inspiring, pandering a little to anti-Americanism as he seeks the anti-war vote. He may even be listening to former PM Mike Moore (yes our Mike Moore), you could do worse than follow him on trade.

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It is the job of the Conservative Party to wean people off the state - increasingly it shows little interest in doing much beyond stopping it getting worse. It should promote getting rid of corporate welfare, being innovative about infrastructure by getting out of the way, and letting social services be driven by consumer choice rather than bureaucracy. It should be aiming to shift from welfare and public housing to employment, growth and private property ownership. It can progress beyond the prejudice of xenophobia and conservative morality that alienates it from immigrants and many of the young – while not touting bullshit like “hug a hoodie”.
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Anthony King of the Daily Telegraph says the party should focus on being anti-waste and anti-regulation – that would be a good start. This should push some buttons, many are sick of being pushed around and an anti-nanny state campaign would be something Labour would find hard to rebut -and would be playing in territory that the Liberal Democrats long abandoned, since they took over the role of Michael Foot in 21st century UK politics.
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One can only hope they realise it. You see, only 18% want the Conservatives to commit to drastically reducing the size of government – 18%!!

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Britain needs the Conservative Party. It is the only party with a decent number of members who believe in less government - it is the only party that can confront the dark deathly socialist menace of the European Commission - the number one enemy of agriculturally oriented countries - and it is the only party that has any hope of defending fundamental freedoms. Cameron has made a few good starts, he isn't promising a hardline on drugs or censorship and has sought to get rid of the grey haired old men born to rule image of the party - but he has also been throwing out some political babies, as he courts the middle ground of political vapidity.

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It would be nice to think of him as being more than just "better than Gordon Brown". The British public deserve a lot better.