Um Happy New Year

As I sit at Auckland Airport a few things come to mind before the battery on my laptop conks out....

1. The weather is bloody disgusting in NZ this visit, except my last and first day (both in Hawke's Bay) and Auckland tonight. Freezing down south, peeing down in Welly. Yuk. I am NOT happy with that.

2. The bread is wonderful in NZ - the fat and sugar added to English bread is revolting and damn if I didn't over consume vogels.

3. Air NZ international lounge complementary massage for those flying to London etc is WONDERFUL.

4. NZ newspapers are 90% crap. (wow really?)

5. NZ bogans are like kids compared to chavs in the UK.

6. Service - a phenomenon unknown in England almost without exception - it used to be like that in NZ - thankfully it has changed.

7. Furniture removalists in the UK - thieves.

Award time

While the fecking rain appears and disappears to ruin the bbq in South Canterbury, a few awards:

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1. Best left wing blog: No Right Turn. Frankly the competition is pretty slack, but more often than not there is some decent argument and thought that goes into this blog. I'd rather read this than all the others combined, because it isn't part of the Labour party felchocracy. I may more often than not disagree, but I would rather disagree with someone with arguments I think are wrong than a fawning idiot.

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2. Best new word of the year: Felchocracy (n) 1. Participating in politics by engaging in support for one party to the extent that you are willing to swallow whatever shit it excretes, and spit it in the face of all others.

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3. Best non-left wing blog: Not PC. I did think hard about this, as PC is a friend of mine, but it is consistently one of the most pithy well balanced and thoughtful blogs on the freedom side of the fence.

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4. Smartest kid I know: My niece Jennifer. At 7 she is more articulate, thoughtful and mature than plenty who are 10 and counting. I can only wish her the best for the coming year, she's top of her class (which I understand isn't hard given the state of better state schools), precocious and very cute to boot. She'll outgrow Napier quicker than her peers, I only hope that she knows - politely - how much better she is than them. As long as she can avoid the provincial NZ diseases of mediocrity, pregnancy, welfare and drug addictions - she'll be fine, unfortunately too many of her peers wont.

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5. Book of the year: Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion. I've devoured half of it on my trip so far. Absolutely gripping, entertaining and insightful. Some of the answers are not a mystery (if God created the universe, who created God? Same problem). He should produce a kids version for distribution to all schools. He gives most of the answers. I believe Objectivism gives the rest. Religion isthe second greatest cancer in the world, only second because it is a subset of the first - irrationality.

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6. Best new blog: Pacific Empire. Damned good stuff in this, thoughtful and debatable too. A few young guys who enjoy a good bit of mental gymnastics.

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Anyway enough of that, have a Happy New Year wherever you may be... I may add random ramblings at times or not... just expect not too much until after the New Year.

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but if there is one single thing to take away from this, it is to be yourself and be true to yourself. Nothing is more important to live for than your own happiness - there is nothing else. Respect the right of others to do the same.

End of year....

Well like most bloggers, I'm too busy enjoying the holidays to be arsed writing about anything much... since I am currently in South Canterbury for a few days before heading up to Wellington, I thought I'd just make a few random remarks for the hell of it:

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1. Why is it that Air New Zealand's British and Chinese cabin crews from London to Auckland were friendlier and more helpful than the Kiwi ones (or the one in the front cabin)? The difference is between people who couldn't do enough, to sour faced bitch. The Chinese cleaner at the United lounge at Hong Kong was a blessing though, she came and got me when a shower was free - THAT is what benevolence is about.

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2. Appreciate the low density housing, wide open spaces, lack of traffic (seriously NZers, get over it, almost all congestion is a joke compared to London) and room. Think carefully about those who want to impose high density living on our cities, and the arguments they put forward. I can just say that it is one of the things I appreciate the most while away from London.

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3. When thinking about recovery of fines, think about tax. Think about how dedicated the state is to taking your money to fund its activities, and think how less dedicated it is to punishing criminals, ask yourself if things shouldn't be reversed, and whether the state is more interested in growing itself than undertaking its core function - to protect you from criminals. David Farrar comments rightly about how immoral it is to fine people based on wealth. An alternative is to deduct fines from people's incomes JUST like tax, including welfare.

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4. Death of Gerald Ford - the President who pardoned Nixon and shepherded the USA until the disaster of Jimmy Carter. Sadly he wont be remembered for much more. He survived two assassination attempts. On the bright side he fought the wasteful and destructive welfarism of Johnson, he reduced taxes, and entered into the Helsinki Accords with the USSR. These accord which included commitments on human rights, such as free speech, planted a seed that undermined the communist administrations in eastern Europe over the following decade or so, it gave NGOs in those countries something to start holding their regimes to account, though few would notice how significant it was for some years. On the other side he gave Suharto the nod to invade East Timor, which saw hundreds of thousands murdered. The justification was fear of a Marxist regime following Portugal's swift decolonisation - but Suharto's blood thirsty ways had been ignored. That must surely be his darkest moment, darker than pardoning Nixon. So I am ambivalent about Ford - he recovered the dignity of the Presidency, but only just.

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5. End of Don Brash's political career - I written almost enough about this. All I wish is that Don and his family have a great holiday season. He has done more for NZ than his colleagues will ever publicly give him credit for.

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6. Politicians I most want to see the back of before the end of 2006:

- Fidel Castro (come on, I'd like the year to end on a happy note);

- Robert Mugabe (he is surrounded by so many low lifes someone must be ambitious);

- Ken Livingstone (there must be a mad bus driver somewhere ready to give productive (i.e. 10% of) Londoners an end of year present;

- Helen Clark (you haven't climbed enough mountains yet Helen, you know 2008 is virtually unwinnable - oh that's right you're facing Key and English, fair enough then);

- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (time to visit God you bigoted knuckle dragging prick).

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7. Saddam's death sentence. Yawn get it over with, the man has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands. I have better things to do than waste time giving a damn.

Corrupt influence of blogs

I am sitting in the United Red Carpet Club Lounge at Hong Kong Airport, waiting in transit from London to Auckland. Following a shower, change of clothes and a light snack I thought I'd go online using one of the terminals in the lounge, and look at some of my favourite blogs. Could I?

No.

Most of you have the word "fuck" or "fucked" or variations thereof, including my own. Since I use blogrolls to check out others, i tried google but it is blocked as a "domain with forbidden content", so I used dogpile which of course works perfectly because the censorship nazis at the lounge are too dumb to know how easy it is to get around any of this.

So I couldn't see Not PC or Kiwiblog or my own even. Others not viewable include Cactus Kate and Whaleoil

but I could see NewZeal, Lindsay Mitchell, Gman, Oswald Bastable (feck not fuck remember), Crusader Rabbit, Pacific Empire, Sir Humphreys

I didn't look at left wing ones as I am on holiday and I don't want to be pissed off (the 2.5 hour wait for takeoff from Heathrow hasn't helped).

However AJ Chesswas's one was blocked, due to a weird obsession with Bill English categorised as disturbing content.

and flight is called...

Merry Christmas Turkmenistan

To round off a year of dictators' deaths, Saparmurat Niyazov or "Turkmenbashi" as he made his subjects call him, has died. I wrote about him briefly 13 months ago here.

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Had Sacha Baron Cohen done his research properly he probably would have picked Turkmenistan rather than Kazakhstan as the subject for his succesful film. Although having said that, he may have needed protection had he done so.

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Niyazov was only rivalled by Kim Jong Il for authoritarian power in the world today. Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko may try, but Niyazov is far closer to Stalin. Pinochet was an amateur compared to Niyazov. Reporters Without Borders rank Turkmenistan as having the 2nd worst press freedom in the world (after North Korea).

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Niyazov was one of those dreary nasty Soviet Communist Party officials who worked his way to the top of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic Communist Party, and ironically got his original position because Mikhail Gorbachev fired his corrupt predecessor. During glasnost and perestroika, Niyazov largely ignored what was happening elsewhere in the USSR. He supported the failed putsch against Gorbachev in 1991, and in the break up of the USSR inherited the Presidency of Turkmenistan.

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He held an election and got 99.2% of the vote (!) and essentially continued the old USSR except in his own image (I hope Matt Robson, George Galloway and Chris Trotter observe since they miss it so such). It is a totalitarian state with any expression of political opposition resulting in imprisonment or internment in a mental hospital. The state owns and operates all press, broadcasting and publications. While water, oil and gas are "free to citizens" nothing else is and state set wages for the state owned industries (i.e. virtually all jobs) are very low. It's official GDP per capita (PPP basis) is similar to neighbouring Iran, but it is almost impossible to rely on official statistics from a regime which has been eternally optimistic. He maintained neutrality on foreign policy, allowing US military aircraft overflight rights in the war in Afghanistan, but also close trading relations with Russia and Iran. The EU even granted Turkmenistan MFN trading status, largely to access its oil and gas.

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Niyazov had run a personality cult which was only rivalled by Kim Jong Il. His name and face are everywhere on billboards, banknotes, carpets, products and of course the news media is filled with his deeds. He wrote a philosophical book called the Ruhnama, which is literally the national bible. It is compulsory reading at school and must be kissed upon entering a mosque (Turkmenistan is Islamic, but Niyazov clearly created his own religion). Knowledge of the book is required for many jobs and even a driving licence. Criticism of even inadequate reverence for Ruhnama can land you in prison or even to face torture. He had built a gold statue that rotates to always face the sun (you can see it on google earth)

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The list of bizarre features is too long for even this blog but here goes with some of them:

- He introduced a new alphabet and made it compulsory;

- The months of the year have been renamed with Turkmen heroes;

- Despite being wealthy with the world's 5th largest gas deposits, Niyazov spent many of the national wealth on projects such as a ski resort, an ice palace outside the capital, and a 130 foot pyramid;

- Banned beards;

- Banned car radios;

- Banned video games;

- Banned opera and ballet;

- Banned smoking in public;

- Closed all rural libraries saying rural dwellers don't read anyway;

- Closed all hospitals outside the capital Ashqabat saying if people are ill they can come to the capital (country is 488,000 square km in area!);

- Niyazov's short stature can never be mentioned (he was 5ft);

- Women under 35 cannot leave the country without having given birth to 2 children;

- Teachers wishing to earn more than the lowest pay scale had to write articles praising Niyazov;

- Officially defined adolescence as 13-25 and defined others (I'm a youth!).

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I hope this results in real change, I hope the struggle for succession in Turkmenistan sees someone benevolent take over, free his country and avoid the vacuum being filled by Islamists thanks to neighbouring Iran. Turkmenistan deserves to have freedom unfold, while maintaining personal security, and for its people to see the fruits of its ample energy wealth. Good luck Turkmenistanis, my best wishes are with you that your age of madness has come to an end. With 60% unemployment, it is easy to see the risk that this could unfold into a whole bloody mess. Isn't socialist central planning truly wonderful?

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Anyway I HAD to write that as I get ready to fly out of Heathrow through the blanket of fog!