Helen Clark seeking the Pacific Islander vote

Just over a month ago someone very close to me passed away. He worked for many years in Pacific Island communities, working and living in the Pacific, and knew it well. He was a long serving teacher, Justice of the Peace, and known well and respected in various communities, Roman Catholic and Jewish. He worked long and hard hours, enjoying both teaching and his small business dealing in fine arts. Indeed, as a teacher he inspired several thousands over the years, some of whom are now working all over the world. He was a generous man, independently minded, well spoken, but also did not tolerate rudeness or those who wouldn’t take responsibility for themselves. He enjoyed a whisky, loved good food including steak, liked his toast hot fresh and dripping with butter. Indeed, he enjoyed a smoke in social circles.
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However, Helen Clark didn’t go to his funeral, thankfully. He would have hated it, since she didn’t know him, and he despised her politics. However, he did a lot for the community and others, in fact I think he probably knew more about Pacific Island cultures (having lived on various islands for years) than Helen Clark.
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No, she went to the funeral of a Pacific Island woman, whose claim to fame is dying because of a combination of her lifestyle (which was not adequately changed to take into account doctor’s advice), the public health system (which let her stay at home rather than remain in hospital, which was probably an error of judgment), and her family’s failure to pay the power bill and preference for praying rather than take her to hospital. A series of unfortunate but hardly unpreventable events.

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Helen Clark spoke at Mrs Muliaga's funeral, as of course one does when you never knew the person who died. I simply don’t care about Mrs Muliaga’s death, I don’t have enough time or energy to grieve for those I didn’t know. Mrs Muliaga meant as much to me as the other 80 people who die in New Zealand every day. If it were different, I would never live, I’d grieve day after day, and it would show what little value I did have for those I DO love and care about.

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How many more New Zealanders has Helen Clark met in the discharge of her duties whose funerals she will never go to? People of all ages who may have received awards and accolades, there will be thousands for the years she has been in Parliament.
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Now you see what value Helen Clark puts on grief – it’s a PR stunt. Not content to let Mrs Muliaga’s family and friends grieve in peace, genuinely and honestly. It became a media circus, which Clark gleefully participated in.
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A funeral is about grieving for someone you knew, whether close or as an acquaintance, but rather someone who had a personal impact upon your life. You need not have met the person, but you can respect some work the person has done, whether it be literature, art or something that meant something to you. It shouldn’t be about guilt or PR, which is what Helen Clark has done.
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Clark said “What has been simply inspirational through these sad days has been the spirit of forgiveness that has radiated from this family - far more than could humanly be expected”. Inspirational how? How does Helen Clark intend to use this? Will she forgive Ian Wishart, Don Brash, the exclusive Brethren or anyone else she likes to vilify? I hardly think so. What sanctimonious rot. Will Helen Clark go to the funerals of crime victims? How about the funeral of those killed by dangerous driving? Will she find inspiration with every death?
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Will Pacific Islanders rally towards Labour at the next election because of this nonsense? Helen Clark thinks so. How despicably patronising that like some colonial mistress she can trot along to a funeral, say some words as if she knew Mrs Muliaga, completely ignore that one of HER hospitals let her be discharged in her condition, and expect the Pacific Island community to go “oh that Miss Clark she’s so caring about us, we will vote Labour again next year”.
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Regardless of the results of the Police inquiry, and indeed regardless of your personal views on blame regarding the cut off of power, Clark hopped on this sad death as a PR stunt.

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UPDATE: Apparently Mr Muliaga invited Helen Clark to the funeral specifically. In that case she was welcomed, and it is inappropriate to criticise that specifically. However, outside of that case I do wonder if the PM will attend any funeral of New Zealanders that she did not personally know, that family members invite her to? What is the criteria by which the PM decides whether or not to attend funerals of people she did not know?

5-0

Well done Team New Zealand, winning the Louis Vuitton Cup, in what is almost certainly the first government sponsored syndicate in America's Cup history (which also happens to help Emirates in its publicity efforts).

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You ought to cheer, it is your victory even if you didn't like yachting, Helen made sure you were forced to pay.

Recycling con - I told you so

Back in July 2006 I mentioned how contaminated paper can't be recycled, and have commented about the fascist lengths that some councils in Britain go to in criminalising people who don't follow the, what I call, faith based initiative of recycling.

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I asked that it was about time that someone fisked this in the mainstream UK media, and The Times has:

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The issues are:

- Combining recyclable materials making it inefficient and wasteful to separate them out, leading to cases such as "A paper recycling company in Kent is sending to landfill 9,000 tons a year of cans, bottles and plastics. These have been mixed up with the paper and the firm does not have the capability to process them. " and "A Warrington-based aluminium processor, regarded as a world leader in its field, is regularly rejecting British waste because it is so poorly sorted".

- Contaminated recyclable material which is virtually unusable. "Britain’s biggest glass recycling company is sending tons of glass to roadfill because it is so contaminated. ".

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Recycling has always happened, it has long been efficient to recycle car bodies, aircraft fuselage, unsold newspapers and magazines, and glass bottles if people hand them in. However, the obsession with recycling has a fervour surrounding it that means if you don't recycle some see you as an "environmental vandal".

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Don't forget:

- Paper is biodegradable, it is produced from a renewable resource (trees);

- Glass is made from silicon, which the second most abundant element on earth. Silicon comes from sand, ask yourself how scarce that is;

- If recycling everything made economic sense, it would be happening by now, and don't say there is an environmental cost, until you've costed it. The environment cost of landfills is not infinite, despite the Green rhetoric.

Peace protests against Russia perhaps?

"It is obvious that if part of the strategic nuclear potential of the US is located in Europe and will be threatening us, we will have to respond. This system of missile defence on one side and the absence of this system on the other . . . increases the possibility of unleashing a nuclear conflict" so said Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with The Times.

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Part of the strategic nuclear potential of the US has been located in Europe for decades, but then so has the Russian one, and still is. The missile defence system is aimed mainly at rogue states (Iran in particular) but Russia is, after all, not always that friendly and far from being a friend of liberal constitutional democracy and rule of law. Putin is dreaming if he thinks the US might attack, but then Putin is propping up a Stalinist dictatorship in Belarus and continues to play his strong man card against more open regimes in Ukraine and Georgia.

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I'm looking forward to the so-called peace movement organising protest marches with Russian flags to burn, outside Russian embassies at Putin's sabre rattling. However, it almost never in its history of protesting nuclear weapons would ever confront Russia or the USSR - which spoke volumes about its true agenda, largely hidden to many of its supporters (and well known to Moscow, which in the Cold War delighted to watch protests at Western nuclear facilities, given that any totalitarian regime can avoid such inconveniences).

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The US missile defence system if put in place in Poland and the Czech Republic, should not surprise Russia. After all, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied those countries with its puppet regimes from not long after World War 2 until 1989, when Gorbachev declared they were on their own - and like the meek little cowardly bullies those regimes were, they fell. Poles and Czechs may rightly feel somewhat fearful of the bear to the east, which has done little for it - the liberation from Nazism was like going from the fire to the frying pan.

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Putin concluded "We have brought all our heavy weapons beyond the Urals and reduced our military forces by 300,000. But what do we have in return? we see that Eastern Europe is being filled with new equipment, two positions in Bulgaria and Romania, as well as radar in the Czech Republic, and missile systems in Poland. What is happening? Unilateral disarmament of Russia is happening".

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and Mr. Putin, if you think there is any appetite by the Western world to attack you, you're dreaming. Bulgaria and Romania lost two generations to a previous version of Russian imperialism, why should you be surprised that it is suspicious of Russia?

Some answers to Jeanette's questions

"Firstly, at what level did they plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions and who will the get permits?"

None, as a country with a growing population and economy, it would be unwise for the state to set as a goal capping greenhouse gas emissions, which may cost the standing of living of the population. Most countries in the world are not intending to restrict economic growth because of this one environmental concern, neither should New Zealand - but the government should adopt economic policies that get out of the way of environmentally friendly developments and end the socialist way that some key infrastructure (especially roads) are managed, funded and charged for. This will benefit the economy and the environment.

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"Secondly, how much bigger are they prepared to allow the dairy industry to grow given its damaging effects on water quality, water allocation and climate change?"

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Given that the New Zealand dairy industry has a lower climate change impact than the dairy industries of many other countries, as much as it can grow without state intervention. Issues of water supply will be dealt with by the privatisation of waterways through farms and the institution of property rights over water. This will incentivise the cleaning up of rivers and streams. If you don't want the dairy industry to grow, then stop drinking milk and eating cheese, yoghurt et al.

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The statement that "Climate Change is the biggest looming threat to our economy and our civilisation" is sheer nonsense. The biggest looming threat is a failure to achieve agreement at Doha on trade liberalisation and a new wave of environmentally driven protectionism on trade and travel, that effectively destroys many export markets and the tourist industry.

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“The third question for John Key asks what he intends to do about the people he has labelled as the ‘underclass’. Will you make a public commitment now that benefits levels will not be cut and the conditions for receiving them will not be made more stringent under any government you lead? Will workers still enjoy the options of seeking collective agreements? Will the minimum wage be frozen at the level you inherit or will it continue to rise? Will we see bulk funding or vouchers introduced in education?”

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How about cut taxes, make the first $10,000 everyone earns tax free in the first budget. Cut GST from 12.5% to 10%. In other words, let people have all of their money while they struggle on low incomes.

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What do you intend to do about the underclass, Jeanette, with your own time and money? Answer that question before you force others to spend theirs.

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Benefits should be kept at current nominal levels and eligibility be tightened as the economy grows. Time limits on benefits would be helpful. What have benefits done for many of the underclass other than give a whole cross section a lack of motivation to do anything other than persist in their situation? Why is it caring to force New Zealanders who work hard for themselves and their families to pay for those who do not?

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Of course workers will have the options of seeking collective agreements and individual ones, we are not into banning things like you are.

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The minimum wage should be abolished as an incentive to encouraging more jobs, especially seasonal unskilled work like picking fruit. We don't believe in banning jobs.

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There should be vouchers in education as a first step. You'll be surprised, Jeanette, how the underclass often do want their kids to do well, to be well educated, but find the schools which treat all kids the same aren't that good. They want to choose the education their children have - "their" children, not yours, not the state's. You're doe eyed naivety that all schools should offer equal education is about as brainless as expecting all rental homes to be of a similar standard or all restaurants. Vouchers are one step forward, and by the way, private and integrated schools should be set free to set their own curricula. Parents, by and large, can make the best decisions for their kids on this, despite what you think.