Say no to knighting Ted Kennedy!

The execution by the "Real IRA" of two British soldiers in Northern Ireland comes days after the British government announced that Senator Edward Kennedy is to get a knighthood, for of all things, services to Northern Ireland.

How ironic.

The "Real IRA" sprayed the two soldiers with bullets, including the two men delivering pizzas to them, one of whom was a Pole. They then approached the shoulders and shot them dead on the ground.

Charming.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the sectarian barbarians say Northern Ireland is still "occupied", even though most people in Northern Ireland are glad for peace, and even had the audacity to say that targeting the two pizza delivery men in their bombing was justified because they were "collaborating". What sort of peculiar insanity is it, except the kind of warped Orwellian doublespeak to say that a couple of young men simply making a living were in some way "collaborating" with the Army.

Furthermore, whilst Gordon Brown rightfully described the incident as "evil and cowardly attacks", Sinn Fein (you know, the other IRA's political wing)'s leader Gerry Adams didn't say it was evil.

No. It was "wrong and counterproductive" and "Those responsible have no support, no strategy to achieve a United Ireland." So as the Daily Telegraph's Philip Johnston says it is about tactics, not morality. How could it be, Adams happily believed in executions and violence for decades.

So what about Ted Kennedy? Well quite simply, the Senator for many years was one of the chief agents to raise funds and moral support for the IRA. Simon Heffer describes the honour as a snub to those murdered by the IRA.

We should never forget the support granted by NORAID to the murder and violence in Ulster. Kennedy's positive role in persuading the IRA to give up terrorism is little redemption for the decades he was funding it, and was only due to Al Qaeda's actions on 9/11 which make terrorism suddenly impossible for US citizens to support.

A growing movement is against giving this hypocritical amoral lowlife any honour, see here.

Andrew Roberts in the Daily Mail gives a damning overview of the life of this scoundrel, including his reckless actions in killing Mary Jo Kopechne and being expelled from Harvard for cheating at exams.

Ted Kennedy exemplifies the worst of politics in the United States - a fraud, a thieving conniving pork barrel peddling image merchant who has supported murder and violence. A nasty piece of work if ever there was one. The last Labour government granted Nicolae Ceausescu a knighthood, which was stripped from him a day before his execution. Kennedy is no Ceausescu, but it would be nice if Gordon Brown and this Labour government remembered what an enemy to the UK that Ted Kennedy has been.

Obamaphile kiwis can go suck on...

This.

Yes the Obama administration has ceased discussions on a Free Trade Agreement with New Zealand. Of course the Green Party will be delighted, but the other parties in Parliament (with the possible exception of the Maori Party) should be disappointed.

There was little NZ media coverage when Obama supported a US$40 billion boost in agricultural subsidies back in May 2008, opposed by John McCain.

So he is playing to form, a form that too much of the fawning media ignored, because of the significance of his race. Now you're seeing that he is hardly a friend of the NZ economy, as he does not come from a background interested in free trade.

The negotiations were about a multilateral open trade deal that would include Chile, Singapore, Brunei, and hopefully reports that it is a suspension mean it is a temporary cessation.

My advice to John Key after the election that Tim Groser ought to be heading to Washington as soon as he can after the Obama inauguration can only be re-emphased.

Clint Heine expresses his disgust too.

UPDATE: The Standard ignores the Labour party (as Phil Goff was hopeful it could still proceed) and isn't disappointed at all, showing continued economic illiteracy. Apparently the Standard thinks you should be taxed for wanting to buy something that isn't Noo Zilnd made. How damned ignorant does someone living in an export dependent country have to be to oppose free trade?

Obama's second rate gift to Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown's trip to visit Barack Obama was of no great significance, but what has got the UK media talking is the disparity between the thought and imagination put into Gordon Brown's gifts to Barack Obama and his family, and what Obama gave in return.

Gifts from Gordon Brown to Barack Obama:
- an ornamental desk pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slavery Naval vessel HMS Gannet;
- framed commission for HMS Resolute, a vessel that came to symbolise Anglo-US peace when it was saved from ice packs by Americans;
- first edition set of the seven-volume classic biography of Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert.

Barack Obama's gift to Gordon Brown:

- A 25 DVD set of classic American films including ET, Psycho and Lawrence of Arabia (barely American at all of course). The Daily Mail has the whole list.

Gifts to Malia and Sasha Obama:

- a TopShop dress for each of the daughters and matching necklace;
- Six books by British childrens' authors as yet unpublished in the USA;

Gifts to Fraser and John Brown:

- Two models of the Presidential helicopter Marine One, apparently identical to ones available on Amazon.com at US$15 each.


As Iain Martin in the Daily Telegraph says "Oh, give me strength. We do have television and DVD stores on this side of the Atlantic. Even Gordon Brown will have seen those films too often already." Anyone could have compiled that gift given half an hour on Amazon.com or in a major music/DVD shop.

One suggestion is that the DVDs may even be for Region 1 NTSC format for the US, not playable on a standard DVD player in the UK, I wouldn't be surprised.

On the gift to the Browns' children, the Times suggests it was a last minute purchase "having an aide pop to the White House gift shop for a piece of merchandising does not imply a great deal of thought" and more telling that the one official photo showing Sarah Brown and Michelle Obama meeting is hardly flattering, and may indicate how frosty the exchange was.

Of course if Bush had done it, we'd (rightfully) never hear the end of it (such as when Bush gave Brown a jacket)

It's a minor gaffe, but one helluva insult to the United Kingdom and Gordon Brown. Maybe it's because the new US Administration has aides who are thoughtless and unimaginative, but for Obama to accept a series of thoughtful generous gifts from the UK taxpayer and to give something as common and meaningless as a DVD pack is in astonishingly bad taste.

ACT and crime

I've blogged before about how I believe that "three strikes" as a concept is a good idea, but not in the blunt way it has been proposed, rather by granting to REAL crimes, points so that recidivism is reflected in sentencing. For example, two murders should probably see someone in preventive detention, like three rapes. That concept has merit. My chief concern was extending it to victimless crimes.

However, when ACT MP David Garrett, who we have been reminded drunkenly linked homosexuals and pedophiles on TV, dismisses the Bill of Rights Act, you have to really wonder why the hell the man is in a so-called liberal party. Lindsay Mitchell expresses reservations about Garrett's comments, quite rightly. Now I'm willing to have a debate about three strikes being compliant with the Bill of Rights Act, but the latest dirty deal about gang insignia is sickening.

Blair Mulholland calls it "Nazi" and a dirty deal
Lindsay Mitchell says "I understand that being in government comes at a price. But it's just getting too expensive for this supporter."
Tumeke covers it well too.

David Garrett cheering on the bill that would "also ban intimidating tattoos" should scare the bejesus out of Rodney Hide. This guy should go. He is a NZ First MP in drag.

His maiden speech was about a justice revolution, and indeed there was little I could disagree with. However, he has shown himself to have little regard for individual freedom, and an intolerance of people who are "different" to him, but otherwise harmless.

If ACT proceeds to vote for a bill to ban clothing and tattoos it deserves to be utterly eviscerated internally by its members. The efforts Rodney Hide has made since 2005 to move ACT away from the conservative elements in the party and be more liberal will have been smashed up in one move.

It is right to be tough on real crime, and reoffending. It is right to take ideas LIKE three strikes, and as David Farrar wrote, the Broken Windows methodology. I'd also like, if not a repeal, a significant shift in Police efforts away from victimless crimes to genuine crimes, everything from vandalism and car conversion to violence.

It IS after all the core role of the state to discuss and implement policies that best address protecting citizens from criminals. However, in parallel is ensuring individual liberties of the innocent are not curtailed.

Sadly, not only does David Garrett not get it, but ACT seems to have sold out in the process. It is without any glee that I can say thankfully I didn't vote ACT.

Labour's Newspeak

The Standard has linked to a Stuff report about words and phrases circulated around the Health Ministry that Ministers would prefer to be used and not used.

"Among terms now considered "out" were public health, social change, inequalities and advocacy"

All standards for the left. Public health is a collectivist term, social change is social engineering said nicely, inequalities is used as a proxy to claim outcomes are related to being treated differently, and advocacy is what lawyers do, not public servants.

The Standard calls it Newspeak. It may be, but I find it curious that when National does this, public servants leak it to the press and the press takes it. However, when Labour did the very same thing it didn't make news. Either officials were more loyal to Labour, or the media was not interested (or I suspect, the way Labour did it was less formal).

What happened? Well I was told by officials of the Department of Internal Affairs that there was a clear directive from then Local Government Minister Sandra Lee that using words like "accountability, transparency and efficiency" were no longer acceptable in briefings or Cabinet papers because they were "Business Roundtable speak". Obviously, accountability and transparency are hienous plots to bring down the people's government!

The word "efficiency" was dropped in briefings and reports on transport in favour of "value for money", because efficiency sounded like "New Right economics" to some Ministers of the previous government.

Quite clearly Ministers would get very irritated if they thought advice was suggesting policies of the previous government, or that Labour policies were too hard or expensive to implement.

The vetting of all these came through a new level of engagement between departments and Ministers - the Political Advisor. Political advisors are an idea from the Blair administration in the UK, and they are designed to ensure Ministers get official advice politically vetted in advance. Political Advisors would reject briefings or Cabinet papers before they even got to Ministers, to make sure the (truly) politically correct language and the correct advice was being given. Heather Simpson led this, and she became the vetting agent for all Cabinet papers. She was often referred to as the "Associate Prime Minister" and had power that was only rivalled by Cullen at Cabinet. I wrote extensively about H2 (Helen Clark was H1) over two years ago.

H2 would pull Cabinet papers from the agenda and insert new ones. She would edit Cabinet Minutes if they didn't reflect the "correct" view of what was decided.

I'd be very curious to know what our "friends" on the left would think if National adopted exactly the same techniques, and more curious if anyone in the know (e.g. David Farrar) is aware if the current government has Political Advisors for Cabinet Ministers, and is there is a J2.

John Key said before the election that a National led government would listen to the public service and I gave a few idea about what to ask. Is National exercising political control over the advice given to it?