Amnesty silent over Hamas encouraging child martyrs

So Amnesty International, once a proud defender of free speech, the right to a fair trial and an open liberal society is now calling for an arms embargo on Israel and Hamas. It calls the rocket attacks by Hamas, and Israel's overwhelming response both illegal and immoral.

The fact Hamas started it is, of course, besides the point.

However, what particularly grates is the political imperative behind Amnesty in making this call. It knows it will go nowhere, primarily because the US wont isolate Israel. Imagine if Israel DID suffer an arms embargo. Might that embolden Iran? Which wants Israel wiped off the map, and is developing a nuclear weapons capability. No, Amnesty is silent about that. Wouldn't Hezbollah then start attacks? No, Amnesty doesn't care about that. Idiot Savant thinks it would help. It's incredibly naive to think that. Hamas is fundamentally evil, it should send shivers through the bones of any liberal minded person in the West to think of such people gaining power - much like neo-Nazis. Sadly, the left just sees someone fighting Israel and turns a blind eye.

More importantly, has Amnesty raised concerns about how Hamas encourages children to be martyrs?



No. Amnesty KNOWS the debate wont be about isolating Hamas and Hezbollah, two organisations that if they ever got into power would be egregious violators of human rights. They would oppress non-Muslims, they would discriminate against women, and brutally suppress non-Islamist politicians, media or speech. Amnesty wont say that.

So fuck them. I'll tell the next naive student who asks me to support Amnesty that I wont as long as it refuses to campaign against Islamism, and while we are at it, it remains next to silent about North Korea's gulags which enslave children.

Farewell to the wolf in sheep's clothing

The departure of Jeanette Fitzsimons from Parliament has produced understandable fawning from the Greens, as she was an asset to that party. An asset only due to the inept vapidness of so much of the media that this earnest, hard working, but not very bright woman is seen as the most trusted politician in the country. The left are uncritical of her, and DPF hasn't a bad thing to say which Cactus Kate rightfully pulls him into line over.

While the Greens obviously love her, the way most of the media have not applied scrutiny over this MP absolutely disgusts me.

The public face of Jeanette Fitzsimons demonstrates that mental emptiness in the media, as public sector officials I knew who dealt with her found her honest in her intentions, someone who listened, but also not the sharpest knife in the kitchen. Although she could bring out the knife when she wanted to.

Her image hid the fact that she led a party that has been one of the biggest cheerleaders for initiating force. The peace and non-violence of the Greens are an absolute farce, as it is the party that most avidly promotes the state increasing the scale and extent of force it applies to people and their property.

I fisked her a while back because of her sheer stupidity:

- She doesn't understand trade. I recall many years ago she once said how bad it was that ships went from country to country, passing each other, when people could just enjoy the things they make in their own country;
- She worships at the altar of the religion of rail. She pushed to make you subsidise long distance passenger trains that she, of course, never uses. Seen her use the Overlander from Wellington to Auckland lately?;
- She led a campaign of irrational scaremongering about genetic engineering, that is akin to saying electricity should be kept in the lab because it hasn't been proved safe yet. ;
- It is ten years since she said it was the last Christmas you could eat potatoes you could trust;
- She doesn't believe in private property rights, talking often about "our land";
- She promotes the anti-nuclear hysteria;
- She promotes hysteria over global warming and the belief that the only way to address it is through austerity, not prosperity and technology;
- She demands private companies be split up to allow competition, but state ones be made into statutory monopolies;
- She spread malicious lies that Don Brash wanted to smash Maori culture and force women to be subservient to men.

There is much more than can be laid at the feet of the wolf in sheep's clothing. She looks like and generally talks like she wouldn't hurt a fly, but the truth is that she has been a force against reason, against science, against economics, against individual rights and has happily used personal attacks when she saw fit to do so.

She is a simpering vapid scaremongerer. New Zealanders should be pleased this nice but dim woman has not been in Cabinet, and has at the most dabbled around the edges of power rather than been in control of it.

A little bit of scrutiny might have asked why someone who says:

“We want more people to share the secret of real happiness and satisfaction in life, which comes not from having more but from being more, and from being part of a society that values all its members, and values the land, the water and the other species with which we share them.”

wants to use force to do this.

So farewell Jeanette, you've been very lucky. However, not as lucky as everyone else who has largely avoided the crippling irrational authoritarianism of your policies.

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Well that worked

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Another reason to avoid Ryanair

Ryanair launches in-flight mobile phone calls

Now I've never flown this airline that exists largely for the lager lout, chav, cheap weekend student and typical Brit drink/shag hedonistically weekend market (and to be fair all the eastern European workers who live in the UK and rightly prefer to fly instead of getting a bus to Romania - yes you can get a bus from London to Romania!).

Some of those using it paying bugger all moan incessantly about why they got no ground service, why Ryanair reschedules flights at times that the trains and buses from the airport stop running, they can't board because they are too late checking in when it is 90 minutes before the flight. You get what you pay for.

I've read enough about Ryanair to know that while Michael O'Leary is a business genius for running a safe cheap and nasty airline, it isn't aiming at those of us willing to pay a little more to fly from airports close to where we leave and where we are going, who have lounge access, business class checkin and luggage allowance as a right with airline alliances, and don't want to be crammed into the tightest possible seats with the demographics listed above.

Frankly when I can book weekends away with BA, Swiss, Lufthansa or other proper airlines for less than £150 return in Europe at good times, why use Ryanair? Especially when even business class within Europe (typically a huge ripoff as the seats are worse that Air NZ premium economy, but you get an empty seat beside you, and a proper meal) now can have surcharges of only £80 each way. I can check in online, choose seats, have decent baggage allowance, pay however I want, have lounge access and pay hardly any different from the likes of Ryanair. Why?

Business air traffic in Europe has collapsed, and airlines serving Heathrow know they lose their valuable slots if they don't use them after a while. So they rather fly empty planes than surrender slots that are typically worth tens of millions of pounds if they can sell the slots. So proper airlines have many cheap deals.

So why the hell do I want to sit on a plane while some onanist says "Hi i'm on the plane" at the top of his lungs like some retarded child excited about the amazing technology that allows him to talk to people far away while being 9km above the earth.

There have been phones on planes for years.

I can only hope that proper airlines resist this, especially in the front end where the money is made. I know Emirates has joined the mobile phone club, which is another reason to not use it (besides it not offering frequent flyer points for Star Alliance or One World). Most such airlines have phones at those seats as it is, which are rarely used, indicating how little demand there really is for this. An alternative is to set aside a small area for people to use to make calls, like the lounge on the Qantas A380.

One of the most annoying features of modern life are ring tones, especially the fools who don't switch off the common bog standard ones. Nokia ones are particularly bad.

So good one Ryanair, attract all the people who want to use their mobiles on planes - and help ensure the proper airlines with service, remain free of noise.

No future for rail freight?

I'll give credit to the Green Party Frogblog for the post "The End of Kiwirail?" which shows that someone from the party at least went to hear David Heatley from the NZ Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation talk about"The Future of Rail in New Zealand". That presentation is now on Powerpoint here.

It is well worth a read.

The presentation addresses some simple myths about rail:
1. Rail network shrinked due to privatisation. Wrong. Almost all line closures were under state ownership when rail had a statutory monopoly on long haul freight!
2. Rail stopped being viable after free market reforms. Wrong, it stopped being consistently financially viable by 1945. It short pockets of profitability since then.
3. Track Maintenance was run down after privatisation. Wrong, it was already being run down in public ownership, track was run down more, but sleeper replacement under private ownership increased.
4. Rail is worth a lot as an asset. Wrong. The NZ$12 billion book value of rail on the Treasury accounts is a nonsense, equating it to all other SOEs combined (e.g. 3 power companies, Transpower, NZ Post) which all make profits. Most of the value is based on a replacement cost if it was built today, which of course would never be done. I'd argue it is probably worth 4% of that at best.
5. Rail only needed rescuing after privatisation. Wrong. It has been rescued several times before, then the commercialisation was reversed because of political pressure. It has long had serious economic viability issues.
6. Rail is good to reduce accidents, congestion and environmental problems Wrong. "the optimal level of externalities is not zero – at some point it becomes more expensive to lower them than the welfare created by their further abatement" Rail related deaths only slightly lower than truck related. No evidence that it reduces congestion. Sea freight is twice as fuel efficient than rail, but little interest in that.

Like I said before, the presentation basically says that rail is not as fuel efficient as is quoted, and that only 30% of the current network handles 70% of the freight. It suggests concentrating on the main trunk, and lines to the Bay of Plenty and the West Coast.

Sadly, Frog doesn't think the presentation answered concerns about peak oil or climate change, or if you "think trains are cool". Let's ignore that last remark as just light hearted, not a basis for sound public policy.

In the comments I have battled a bit with most others who worship the religion of rail, and give largely highly misinformed comments. One that, to be fair, I did once believe in before I did extensive work in the transport sector, because I quite like trains. However, the overwhelming evidence sadly doesn't match my personal nostalgia to keep lots of railway lines open with trains on them - as I can hardly justify making people pay for something they don't use.

If you want a bit more, check out this two part report (Part one, part two) the Treasury received a few years on the economics of rail in New Zealand. It starkly shows that compared to the US and Australia, the volumes and distances for rail in New Zealand are small, and fuel is only a small proportion of costs.

The rail religion remains a faith not a fact based initiative. I'd just like to know why environmentalists think subsidising a dairy product exporter, a coal exporter and logging companies is good? The entire West Coast railway network is dependent on exporting a dirty fossil fuel to Asia!