At last a peace protest against Russia in NZ!

Good on Mary Wareham and the Aotearoa New Zealand Cluster Munition Coalition which is going to be delivering a protest letter to the Russian Embassy in Karori.

Yes it is a protest about a particular type of weapon being used (and I recall Billy Connolly making fun of those upset about weapons of mass destruction but not so fussed about conventional weapons - because it matters when you're dead from them!) BUT it is more than what the Greens have said or indeed any other peace campaigners.

Surely the next step is to call for Russia to withdraw its advance into Georgia and for Georgia to guarantee the fair treatment of civilians in South Ossetia. Or even to condemn Russia for talking about striking Poland?

A sense of life

Just read this regularly - life is finite, bloody awful how the culmination of that comes sooner than later for some (and indeed vice versa).

However read it with joy, as someone who has a life definitely worth smiling about, but for one grossly inconvenient bother.

Kedgley says what she doesn't do

Yes, she's at it again. Whilst I agree on one level with Sue Kedgley that Transmission Gully is a waste of money, the reason she gives for opposing it is another one of her hysterical raves.

She is claiming that by the time the goldplated boondoggle is built, "oil will have increased to a point where many Wellingtonians will not be able to afford to drive on the new motorway". She of course assumes no only that oil will get that expensive, but that there wouldn't be any replacement. You see she is almost gleeful that she thinks people will have "moved beyond the private vehicle as a means of transport".

Yes, the inexorable trend of the last 80 years of people moving towards private motorised transport will be reversed. What utter nonsense.

She continues "The Government is already spending six times more on roading than it does on superior options such as rail, which are far more efficient, safe and needed than roads" Six times!! Yes well Sue, the money DOES come from road users (you always leave that one out don't you?) and roads DO go everywhere (most of the country is miles away from any railways), so half the spending on roads is maintenance. So you'd rather roads just were potholed would you? Usual Sue Kedgley mindless rants with nothing intelligent behind them.

and Sue if rail is superior, why don't you use it regularly? Why don't you get the Overlander everytime you go from Wellington to Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North or the like? Or why don't you get the ferry and the TranzCoastal to Christchurch? If it is so "superior", why do you use a car at all you hypocrite?

She talks of urgent "investment" in public transport. So go on Sue, set up your own bus company, or buy some railway carriages, if you're convinced the private motor car is doomed surely you'll make a fortune out of this "investment".

No? Oh yes it's just a lot of hypocritical hysterical nonsense isn't it?

Labour thinking about regulating franchising

Yep, ever the politician looking for something new to control, Lianne Dalziel is to launch a discussion document on regulating franchises.

Nothing like having someone who has never owned or sold a franchise thinking about regulating them.

The tribalism at the heart of Georgia vs Russia

The Guardian reports the dark local level side of this conflict - Georgians abducted and held hostage by South Ossetian militia, amid reports of it being in response to Georgians holding Ossetians.

A simple reminder that on the ground, far too much of the basis for these conflicts are knuckle dragging tribal fears - and the brutality that such brainless collectivism leads people into.