Ahmadinejad the homophobic, anti-semitic liar

There has been much criticism about allowing Iranian dictator President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia university. However, he did show his true colours. CNN broadcast the speech/question and answer session live and while trying to come across as the diplomat, he sidestepped plenty of questions, questions that were simple and to the point. I watched it, and he was sickening in his sidestepping and outright lies - lies leftwing pinups like Michael Moore and John Pilger will ignore, because it's far simpler to just demonise George Bush and consider anyone who opposes him to be better. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger rightly said "Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator" - and like most dictators, Ahmadinejad denies the truth of his blood thirsty regime

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His answer to a question about why Iran executes homosexuals was simple... "In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I don't know who has told you that we have it". (AFP quoted him correctly) North Korea has responded similarly to UN enquiries. Of course Iran DOES execute homosexuals, over 4000 have been murdered by the regime - but then Ahmadinejad is into denial.

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On the claim that women don't have equal rights he lied again, saying they had "absolute freedom". The blood on the hands of his murderous regime includes Atefah Sahaaleh - who was hanged by a noose at the age of 16 because she admitted to having been repeatedly raped by a married man. Yes, you read right SHE was executed because she was raped and because she removed her hijab in court and dared to say the rapist should be punished not her. Previously she had been arrested for being in the same car as her male cousin, a crime as boys and girls are not permitted to meet without an adult present - she was whipped for that offence.

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Mosleh Zamani is on death row in Iran now for having sexual relations with his girlfriend, you might care to sign the petition against his execution. It helped free Nazanin Fatehi who was sentenced to death for stabbing a rapist.

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He slithered around questions about Holocaust denial, claiming that research should never stop on anything scientific or historical and that he is an "academic" and why should people blame him for encouraging more research? There is no more need to research whether the Holocaust happened than there is need to research whether the earth is round not flat. Well, when you invite racist scum like David Duke, your claim to academic or scientific credentials holds no water. Gutless and dishonest, he deserves to meet a number of Holocaust survivors to stare into his eyes and tell him what happened to them, for the men who found the camps in 1945 to tell him what they saw.

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He also slithered around the question about whether he or the Iranian government sought the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state, claiming that the "people of Palestine should hold an election" and it should be respected, and claiming that the state of Israel was formed purely because of Jewish suffering in Europe. Gutless again. Everyone knows he has called for destruction of Israel - he couldn't even admit that he said that.

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He lied blatantly by claiming that Iran complies with all the IAEA requests. The IAEA doesn't think so itself, given it voted 27-3 to submit its concerns to the UN Security Council, which passed a resolution on this, which the IAEA has also admitted Iran has failed to comply with. The UN Security Council can't pass something solely on the votes of the US and the UK! Of course oil rich states need enriched uranium.

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He slithered out of concern for terrorism by saying Iran was a victim of terrorism, as if that justifies Iran's support for it. He also implied that 9/11 was more complicated than it first appeared, with oblique references to who was REALLY involved and why - he could have been implying the increasingly common references in the Islamic world to propaganda that 9/11 was a CIA/Jewish conspiracy - you know the same one that Robert Fisk has signed up for.

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He spoke of peace, of wanting to be friends with all nations, he spoke of being friends with the Jews (well presumably not those in Israel or those claiming to be Holocaust victims, or those wanting to promote Judaism in the religious bigot land of Islamist Iran), but I thought his statement about homosexuals said it all - they don't exist - just how chillingly Hitler liked to think of the Jews.

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I wonder if the feminists on the left, who claim to give a damn about womens' rights will ever have the courage to stage a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in Roseneath, Wellington against the murder of rape victims for daring to defend themselves. They'll protest outside the US embassy like lemmings on automatic (imagine if one ever questioned being anti-American, it would be like farting in front of the Queen), but wont confront true despicable state sponsored evil - they'll use the freedoms that are taking for granted in the West but never confront the dark ages violence of Islamist Iran. They'll accuse the open Western media of being biased, but wont ever fight for ANY media plurality in Iran, where the state owns the media and punishes swiftly any freedom of speech.

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So go on, I look forward to the freedom loving left protesting outside the Iranian embassy against executions of homosexual and rape victims. No? Didn't think so. However, I bet you'll all be sheeplike at the next pro Islamisation of Iraq anti US forces in Iraq protest - mindless drones!

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UPDATE: Full transcript of Ahmadinejad's lies, denial and slithering here, the best lie has to be "Women are the best creatures created by God. They represent the kindness, the beauty that God instills in them. Women are respected in Iran. In Iran, every family who is given a girl -- is given -- in every Iranian family who has a girl, they are 10 times happier than having a son. Women are respected more than men are. They are exempt from many responsibilities. Many of the legal responsibilities rest on the shoulders of men in our society because of the respect, culturally given, to women, to the future mothers. In Iranian culture, men and sons and girls constantly kiss the hands of their mothers as a sign of respect, respect for women. And we are proud of this culture. " Respected until they are raped of course

Socialism's striving for medals

I remember well the Olympics in Seoul, one of the most competitive countries was East Germany, with an impressive medal tally - 102 - unfortunately what was also noticeable was how some of the female athletes looked little like being female. Critics at the time would be accused by leftwing feminists of being patriarchal and judgmental - the truth was bleaker, the steroid many were forced to take were changing their hormonal balance. Heidi Krieger (now Andreas Krieger), 1986 European shot put champion, had a sex change operation in 1997 directed attributable to the drugs she was forced to take to perform. She could have said no? Well of course, and no longer been an athlete and be seen to be disloyal to the great socialist state.

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Of course, the Olympic spirit was that politics and sport should not mix, but that was hardly the case for decades. Hitler ensured the 1936 Berlin Olympics were to be a triumph of Nazi glorification of order and prosperity. Certainly Moscow in 1980, LA in 1984 and Seoul in 1988 were all about thumbing noses ideologically. The Stalinist authorities of East Berlin treated it as such, as East Germany's best athletes were encouraged to perform their best for the "German Democratic Republic" - this meant being forced to take steroids. Now, as the Sunday Telegraph has revealed it included construction of an underground training facility which included a depressurised bunker designed to mimic conditions at an altitude of 4,000 metres, as athletes would have to produce more red blood cells, improving their performance.

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"Athletes were ordered to train underground for weeks on end, being sent off to big contests only when their red blood cell count was drastically raised. Because of the immense psychological strain of the hard training in an isolated subterranean environment, some considered it a form of torture"

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Only slightly amusing is how in the underground facility, banned Western songs by Bruce Springsteen and Supertramp were among those played, as a "reward", so that they could be happier while training.

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The tragedy of lives ruined by the 20th century experiment with Marxism-Leninism continues to be found. Around 2000 former athletes in the GDR had their health damaged due to Erich Honeker's enslavement of them for medals, how many in China face the same pressure today?

Global warming's agenda of fear

Few policies can be quite as bizarrely dreamt up as carbon trading at the purely national level by a small, export dependent economy, which faces highly subsidised and protected competition from around the world. We all know that if New Zealand became uninhabited tomorrow, that it would make not one iota of difference to global warming -it is similar to someone with a bach on Lake Taupo deciding that they better not pee in the lake.

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The hyperbole about global warming is wrapped up in the armageddon complex that has had its previous incarnations in fear of nuclear holocaust (which was eased by the surrender of the Soviet Union - not by the bleetings of the peace movement which treated both sides of the Cold War as being morally equivalent), ozone depletion (eased by a technological solution, albeit agreed by global treaty), acid rain (never really a problem anyway, and partly cleared up by the end of the Cold War shutting down filthy communist era factories) and the coming ice age (yes in the 1970s that was the fear). Of course there have always been "end of the world" nutcases claiming mankind is doomed, driven either by eternal pessimists who are so bleak and depressed with their own lives they want everyone else to feel the same, or more importantly by the irrepressible human urge to judge and damn.

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In the UK you can see it in those who engage in school prefect like finger pointing against those who don't recycle as much as they could, those who drive big cars, those who fly, even those not buying (heavily subsidised and sometimes more carbon intensively produced) local food. It has become a national obsession by some media (BBC, ITV, The Independent) to the point that it is akin to the days when people finger pointed at couples who lived together unmarried, or single men in their 40s and up who seemed to have male "companions", or women who got pregnant without a husband. I've encountered a handful of people who seem to get off on criticising people for what they do with their own money and property, because that - fundamentally - is what this is about. The Liberal Democrats are the biggest cheerleaders for this, but Labour and the Tories have joined in.

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The Greens of course love it, Sue Kedgley is the pin up big sister who if she had half a chance would want to raid your kitchen and your home, police your parenting (ala Cindy Kiro) and tell you what choices you should be making. It is the new puritanism.

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Now I don't mind choosing myself when to switch off lights, appliances and the like because it saves me a little money. Recycling would be a worthwhile activity if:

- It happens to be a commercial viable way of recovering basic commodities for reuse. It is for metals used in motor vehicles and aircraft, it isn't for plastic bottles;

- Councils privatised landfills and rubbish disposal so that people paid a realistic price for waste disposal. In other words, stop subsidising the act of throwing away rubbish and recycling might stand up on its own.

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Recycling has always happened, it's just now an obsession. I can proudly say I virtually never recycle, because the apartment block I live in has no such facilities. I am proud of it because it is a big "fuck off" to the people who want to tell me what to do, and it makes no difference.

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I buy food from wherever I want to, and I tend to prefer buying it from outside the EU because of the vast economic (and environmental) nightmare caused by the Common Agricultural Policy. Food miles are (of course) bullshit.

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I like flying, it is one of the most remarkable achievement of humanity in the past century, it is cleaner and more fuel efficient than it has ever been, and it would be more efficient if it weren't for governments propping up inefficient airlines (Alitalia, Olympic Airways), or engaging in protectionism (virtually every country barring NZ, Singapore and a handful of others).

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I like driving too. However, governments own almost all roads, in the case of the UK and USA they often get poorly maintained, increasing fuel consumption. Moreover, governments strangle road building and don't properly price the roads to smooth demand, which would reduce congestion and significantly improve fuel efficiency. Roads are congested because they are operated effectively as public domain.

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Carbon dioxide is not a "pollutant", if you're that concerned about it slit your wrist now, you'll produce more of that than you will any bodily fluids or gases in your life. Don't have kids either, because they'll breathe, drive, fly, use electricity. If humanity is contributing to climate change then ask yourself this - what are the solutions put forward by those who claim to care?

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If the solutions are new and innovative technologoes, then ask yourself whether there are wider benefits to these? Such advocates at least appreciate science, although there is a risk they are engineering bound.

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If the solutions are government stopping the protection and subsidy of carbon intensive activities, or the taxation and regulation of carbon neutral activities, then they are being advocated with the desire for more freedom, and to let choices to be made on an economically neutral basis.

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If the solutions are to subsidise "green" initiatives with little clear evidence that the initiatives actually are "green", then they are probably bandwagons - a bit like recycling fanatics.

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If the solutions are to call for you to restrict your behaviour, move around less, punish you for owning or using things you bought yourself and involve widespread setting of rules and judging those who fail to follow them, then call their bluff - these people are little Hitlers, tell them to fuck off and get a life.

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It's about time more people told the environmental nazis of our day to leave us alone - maybe they might care about the child slaves of North Korea instead of whether I drive or catch the bus - but then most North Koreans throw out little rubbish, don't own cars and never fly anywhere - and most environmentalists seem to care less about human beings that are tortured and enslaved than animals. The proof is in the Greens.

Christian politics NZ - the triumph of commonsense

MMP brought with it high expectations from the Christian Heritage Party. It saw a chance to hold a government to account according to Biblical principles - you know, reversing the Enlightenment concept of separation of church and state - as it believed it could easily rally 5% of voters to stand behind "traditional values". Meanwhile another group had a similar idea, backed by the homophobic advocate of strong censorship laws, ex. National MP Graeme Lee. The Christian Democrats and the Christian Heritage Party were competing at the soft and hard end of Christian politics, but even when they came together as the Christian Coalition in 1996, 5% couldn't be reached.

Brian Tamaki promised great things for his flock - the flock that sadly or stupidly, depending on your point of view, present tithes to keep him and his comrades in a style very few of his flock would be accustomed to. It certainly shouldn't be banned, but there is something immoral about spreading judgment among the ignorant, and convincing them to pay him to live a lavish lifestyle, while condemning those who don't to hell. Tamaki's promises that the Destiny NZ party would enter Parliament in 2005 and be in government in 2008 were either a marketing exercise or the voice of the truly deluded. No one looking relatively objectively at NZ politics can see fundamentalist Christian politics having much of a market.

The best a Christian party has done in NZ was when Peter Dunne's centrist (middle muddle ground as Bob Jones once called it) United Party, which had been languishing at 0.9% merged with the happy clappy Christian Democrats (once led by a charismatic young preacher, of whom it has been said fell from grace following allegations of conduct that is all too often laid at the feet of high profile Christian politicians, although nothing like Graham Capill). Dunne becoming the media darling in 2002 saw his party hold the balance of power then, and now - and we have the Families Commission. However, with United Future halving its vote in 2005, and Dunne distancing himself from the Christian dimension, AND Gordon Copeland slipping away, it would look like United Future will be a party of Dunne only in 2008 - which of course, is a triumph of commonsense. Dunne after all is a man with more intelligence than he has shown, with a political career of highlights such as creating the useless Families Commission, appealing to homophobes by not debating civil unions, but saying they are a proxy for gay marriage (without saying whether he thought that was bad or not, but implying that it was), and campaigning for a cargo cult highway with a billion dollar cost that the funding system he supported in Cabinet has constantly rejected.

The relaunch of Destiny as PC has pointed out, has to make you laugh.

What the new party will do is continue to attract a small number of voters who, in all probability, would either have voted National or stayed home. However, Brian Tamaki's time will come.

I believe fundamentalist pre-enlightenment Christian politics are a potential disaster for humanity, fortunately in New Zealand (as in the UK), the appetite for going back to witch hunts, jailing heretics and abolishing free speech on Christian grounds, is not high. What good that some churches offer their members in setting some rational moral rules around treating others, and instilling some discipline and respect is not seen in Christian politicians - the likes of Tamaki have no respect for those of other religions or no religion - they are the wannabe Taliban of New Zealand.

Over 95% of New Zealand voters reject this, now if only the US could follow...

National socialist Party again - John Keycescu

I see the Dominion Post reporting that on Cindo Kiro's Stalinist plan to track all NZ children, that
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"The proposal calls for a database to track the development of New Zealand children, which Mr Key would not oppose. "You have to balance the intrusion of privacy over the need to try to get a resolution to an issue that is of quite great concern. In this case the issue warrants that." "
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Kim John Key, John Keycescu, Mao Key John.
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What a fucking waste a vote for National is then - want a reason to join Libertarianz? Don't want your family tracked by the state and Cindy Kiro's social worker mates? Well go on go here.
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Yes I know Family First is against it, but they'll track your internet use and burn books.