Yes let's listen to Gaddafi says McCarten

So says former Alliance President Matt McCarten.

Why is this fool given space in a mainstream newspaper when it is best left to some leftwing rag?

He says "Rather than reporting fully on some of his valid commentary, the international press almost universally portrayed Gaddafi as some sort of nutty clown"

Of course, given that anyone who dares make fun of him in Libya will get dispatched to prison at best if not oblivion, we shouldn't laugh should we Matt? I mean, a man who gained power through military coup, and has been directly responsible for funding, arming and training murderers the world over, yes, let's not poke fun at him should we?

He is a nutty clown, and if you can't see it through his mad grand projects, his ridiculous cult of personality with statements like "I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam (leader) of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level" and his prize for human rights, then you're a fool or willfully blind.

"The description of his flowing robes, large rings on his fingers and his insistence in staying in tents was intended to make him look comical rather than the cultural racism it is."

Oh yes, silly me, the fact that OTHER Arab leaders don't get the same media treatment (or stay in tents) wouldn't make that just another cheap "racism" jibe, would it Matt? How fucking DARE people make fun of this murdering tyrant?

"we would have learned some valuable insights, such as Libya and almost all Middle East nations don't support Iran being nuclear armed."

Valuable insights? Really? So he can speak on behalf of "almost all Middle East nations", by what mandate? None Matt, Gaddafi doesn't speak for any other states, just the dictatorship of his own. Besides, it is long known that the Arab world opposes Iranian nuclear weapons, if you didn't know then it speaks volumes about any value in your point of view on the topic.

"Unsurprisingly, they want Israel to dismantle their atomic arsenal too." Amazing, who'd have thought?!! Oh and the word is "its" not "their" Matt, there is only one Israel.

"there should be one secular state within the current greater border. This is the most sensible solution for both peoples and needs more air time. Everybody knows the current situation in Israel/Palestine is apartheid, and that it's not sustainable." The current situation isn't sustainable, but isn't Israel not far from being secular as it is? Hamas isn't secular Matt.

"Gaddafi also supports the establishment of a Kashmir state to resolve conflict between India and Pakistan. He even argued the Taleban had a right to form a state too. This is also worthy of further discussion." Oh wonderful, Matt is keen on telling Kashimiris to live together but separate from the two big countries either side of them, and he thinks it's worth discussing putting some people under the joyless tyranny of the Taliban.

Isn't he so nice, drawing lines, creating states? However Matt loves the state doesn't he?

"His best contribution was his expose of the hypocrisy of the United Nations. The UN Charter claims all its nation members are equal. Yet it's run by a Security Council with five nations (US, Britain, France, Russia and China) who can veto any decision." Expose? Yes nobody ever thought of that before. Matt, it might pay for you to read some books on international relations before thinking Gaddafi teaches you things everyone else has heard of.

Matt goes on about the tired old story that the UN Security Council should be restructured to include a bunch of other states, including the veto, then he finds something new, for him...

"his most blistering accusation is that the Security Council is the cause of many wars. Sixty-five wars have occurred since the UN was founded and a permanent member on almost every occasion used its veto to prevent the rest of the world stopping it."

65 wars? Well Gaddafi said so, he MUST be right. What superficial nonsense. The Cold War veto use is well known, but more recently it has primarily been Russia and China to wield vetoes. Not that Matt would want to point that out, see he really likes how Gaddafi lays into the Western World. That's why he mentions about Gaddafi blaming Bush and Blair for killing innocent people, without noting at all how Gaddafi knows about killing innocent people.

Libya is a sad country, it is awash with oil wealth that is wasted on profligate projects, the military, enriching Gaddafi and his stooges, and not much else. Libya is quite third world for most of its inhabitants, and nobody dare utter a word of criticism. You see Libya imprisons and executes political prisoners, it doesn't have the slightest notion of a free press or media.

Read the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information report on Libya

and ask yourself if Matt McCarten might think less about being offended about Gaddafi being called a clown, if he might search out other sages for ideas on international relations, and might give at least a sentence to his articles to give a damn about the people who live under Gaddafi's rule. The man who has supported Idi Amin deserves no respect.

This apologetic naive article shows Matt at best as a shallow badly informed fool, who worst of all has just written a nice piece of propaganda for Gaddafi's sycophantic media.

Can Matt get any worse? Is Kim Jong Il just misunderstood Matt because he's "ronery"?

Kids evade fitness pushers

Got to laugh at this:

"Children taking part in a study to measure how much exercise they do fooled researchers by attaching their pedometers to their pet dogs.

"But after a week we found there were some kids who were extremely active but still obese," said Professor Maffulli.

Human beings have a particular knack in pursuing incentives to evade the instructions of those who tell them what to do.

Hat tip: Vindico

Farewell Sue Mao Bradford

Naturally I can barely concede my joy at this news. Bradford is a Marxist who unashamedly embraces a big violent interfering state that treats the economy as a self-sufficient xenophobic fortress and which has its eyes and hands freely in the homes and bank accounts of everyone, to take what it needs to give to what it wants, and make sure you're being good. What can I say?

Well I do love Not PC's summary of the Greens:

What’s unique about the Greens, of course, is nothing more than their combination of authoritarianism and ludditery – with a a caucus composed almost entirely of the intellectual remnants of the Socialist Workers’ Party they’re little more than a bunch of authoritarians with a marketing wing.

So what has Sue Bradford done that is positive for freedom and prosperity? Let me look back at the times I've referred to her in my posts:

Sue Bradford hates Chinese Workers as she opposed Air New Zealand (mostly state owned which she would consider to be a good thing) buying foreign made uniforms. So she despises trade, wants foreign workers to lose their jobs and is economically illiterate. She'd have NZ pursue a kind of North Korean autarchic self sufficiency no doubt. Didn't stop her flying Air NZ at taxpayers' expense of course. She pushed to make you pay for a Buy NZ Made promotional campaign, that she wouldn't pay for herself of course.

Sue Bradford embracing Cindy Kiro's neo-Stalinist plans to have Big Mother watching over every child, monitoring them all, in case you've been bad parents, rather than focusing on targeting children of parents known to the Police, known to be negligent. She even acknowledged in her press release that "I realise some parents will be horrified by the idea that their children will have regular checkups at key stages of their lives" but it was justified by protecting the kids. Given Sue spent many years gleefully supporting China under the rule of Mao (and drifting away when it started opening up), you can see what her role models are.

Sue Bradford's express belief that nobody should be "forced" to work for a living as she embraced the dole. In other words, why shouldn't everyone just sit on their arses and do nothing and magically food, clothes, electricity, homes, everything you consume will magically appear. Given she long led the self-styled "Unemployed Workers' Union" (quite the oxymoron), you have to wonder how hard she thought anyone should look for a job?

She also demanded the nationalisation of the voluntary sector, by forcing taxpayers to pay for it - which of course, means it is no longer voluntary is it?

Sue Bradford's opposition to Air NZ's efficiency drive which includes cutting staff, she said it wasn't bailed out to become a "mean anti-worker" company. Of course it wouldn't have needed to be bailed out had the likes of Sue and the Greens not rallied wholeheartedly against Singapore Airlines (or any foreign company) increasing its shareholding in the company.

Sue Bradford makes a little news that the SIS was spying on her which a naive reporter thinks it amazing. Hardly a shocker. Trevor Loudon long ago outed her lifelong communism here here and here.

So freedom? Nothing to see here. Prosperity? Nothing to see here.

The truth is that had Sue Bradford's politics had her way some time ago, then none of you would be reading anything other than state approved literature, you'd be working for the state , assuming the People's Republic of Aotearoa had survived the difficult period after 1989. She was a member of the Workers' Communist League in the 1980s after all. Charming really, not that the mainstream media can cope with people having been communists, since the little darlings don't really understand it.

So the Greens and we are all safer without her in Parliament, and this may be a fit of pique at Metiria Turei being selected over her (though Metiria is almost indistinguishable in her views) which of course hardly means the Greens are free of their corrosive, pro-state violence view.

What have others said:

Phil Goff “I admire her passion for the causes she fought for, even if I didn’t always agree with everything she said,” Well at least he wasn't fawning.

The Youth Union Movement cheered her on for increasing youth unemployment by raising the youth minimum wage to the same as the adult. Cheerleaders for Marxism as they are. Finsec and NDU share similar sentiments.

Barnados and Plunket has nailed its colours to the mast of an every interfering state, so maybe some wont be donating so much in the future. Plunket of course was set up to be a eugenics organisation (which it never admits).

Tariana Turia and the Maori Party loved her, birds of a feather they are.

The Maritime Union, the most hardened Marxists of the union movement, and most featherbedded (the single biggest reason why the NZ shipping industry has shrunk to what it is) also embrace her because she advocated protectionism.

Might it be time for the government to stop funding her training camp for radicals in Northland?

Sex with a teacher

Time to take a risk - add sex, a minor and the law, and you get heated views, and the one I'm going to express will be controversial.

A 26 year old teacher has a sexual relationship with a 15yo student (who will be 16 by the end of this month). Your automatic reaction? Appalled. It shouldn’t happen, the teacher should be punished and the student given the support needed.

However in this case there are some more interesting facts:
- The teacher is a woman, the student is a girl;
- The girl and the teacher were close, in love in fact and both apparently still are;
- The sexual relationship was initiated by the student, indeed she pushed for it over some time period;
- There is no victim statement from the student, who did not testify against the teacher. The victim statement is from the parents.

The teacher concerned was a child prodigy, undoubtedly smart and talented, it isn’t hard to see what the student might see in her. The teacher herself, helped to grow up fast because of her talent, may well emotionally be better able to relate to someone younger. Of course, we’ll never know. Indeed none of us should have known about this.

The only reason this got to court was because a woman got wind of the affair, after rumours spread, a meddler told the parents. The parents have reacted feeling betrayed, no doubt as much by their lying daughter as by the teacher, but it doesn’t look like they have spent much time thinking about the consequences of complaining to the Police about it. The likelihood is that their relationship with their daughter, now thoroughly humiliated and guilty for this, will deteriorate. After all, given she initiated the sexual behaviour, her guilt and blame for the devastation of the life of her teacher will be palpable. The teacher is getting 15 months in prison and being put on a sex offenders' registry (notice there is no violent offenders' registry, so you never know if you're going to hire or live near someone who has stabbed, beaten up or shot someone else) for ten years, and can never work with children again - because, of course, a lesbian adult is going to be a threat to 8 year olds presumably!!?!!

So where is the victim? The girl is distraught by the whole case because of how she and the teacher are being treated. In other words, the criminal justice system is caring not a jot for the so-called “victim”.

Let’s be clear here. A teacher should not engage in sexual relations with a pupil, it is entirely inappropriate. This is something that is appropriate to expressly forbid in employment contracts and in gaining teaching accreditation. Breaching this can quite rightly be grounds for dismissal and deregistration. In the UK it is a crime for a teacher to have sex with a pupil under 18, whereas anyone can have sex with those aged 16 and over.

However, the real question is whether it is a criminal matter when the only credible victim feels a victim BECAUSE of the criminal justice system pursuing the case.

In the current age some will feel “well if it had been a male teacher with the girl nobody would be asking these questions”, perhaps. What really matters here though is what is the role of the state in dealing with this case? If the teacher loses her job and her ability to pursue her job as a result of breaching terms and conditions, then so be it, that is appropriate. Beyond that the state is essentially saying the 15yo girl cannot make decisions for herself around sexuality to such a degree (yet she could these choices months later with men and women from aged 16 to 106) that the person who she pursued deserves a custodial sentence. Who is protected by this? What is gained by it?

If you were the parent you would be distressed your daughter went behind your back, and that the teacher and daughter lied continuously about the relationship. Why did they do that? Well it is obvious why they hid it.

Is it a reason to throw the woman in prison, given she can never teach again and faces having to rebuild her life from scratch because of that?

The judge in this case did make an interesting decision on contact between the two parties which speaks volumes about why this should not be a criminal matter. There is no prohibition on them having contact when the girl turns 16, including while the teacher is in prison. In effect, the judge acknowledged the two of them are in love, but the girl was the wrong side of the age line, marginally.

This is, after all, not about someone who is a child. This is not about the teacher approaching the pupil or just submitting to a flirtation, it is about a teenager and a young adult becoming emotionally close, and crossing a line by initiation of the teenager.

Would it not be preferable that in a case like this, there should be no criminal prosecution if the so-called “victim” objects? The question is at what age can one start to allow that, I would suggest the age of criminal responsibility. If someone is deemed old enough to know what she is doing as being right and wrong, surely that person is old enough to decide whether she is a victim.

It’s worth noting, of course, how hypocritical the UK is generally on this sort of thing. The Sun, for example, has had a voyeuristic field day on the case, of course knowing that not a few of its readers will wish that it could publish as many lurid details as possible. Similarly, in England you can be tried and found guilty of murder and rape if you are 10 or over, in other words, you’re an adult in terms of being a criminal from that age. On the one hand, many in the UK want to crack down on youngsters committing crime, quite rightly so, but equally want to treat them as victims and protect them. The truth is that they are somewhere in between that, and sadly the criminal justice system wont deal with that, and no politician would ever try.

The bigger issue is that teenage sexuality is problematic for so many. The reasons being that people are pulled between wanting to let teenagers be themselves and on the other hand shield them from something that is taught to be both very desirable and incredibly awful. That of course is another story, but in a country where all adults who have contact with children are to be treated as perverts unless they can prove their innocence, it is hardly surprising that sensible discussion is nearly impossible. This sort of nonsense which implies that the case of Madeleine McCann has some parallels, is the order of the day. Compare to this case of a 22yo female teacher and a 17yo male student, which was not a crime at the time.

You’re either in favour of being draconian or you’re a suspect. I would suggest that this article may actually have the more important point to be made here. Is it not time that young girls and boys did not feel that sexuality is about attracting attention, rather than reflecting who you are?

After all, it is only when a more rational and humanistic view of sexuality can be taken, will there be the ability of politicians to reflect wider views. Meanwhile, this is the country that plays the draconian card, and which at the same time has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, stuck between guilt, shame, judgment and a massive undercurrent of hedonistic desire and perversion.

What's wrong with US politics

David Walker, in The Wall Street Journal says:

"Members of Congress ensure they have gerrymandered seats where they pick the voters rather than the voters picking them and then they pass out money to special interests who then make sure they have so much money that no one can easily challenge them,"

"He notes that today the role of the federal government has grown such that last year less than 40% of it related to the key roles the Founders envisioned for it: defense, foreign policy, the courts and other basic functions. "What happened to the Founders' intent that all roles not expressly reserved to the federal government belong to the states, and ultimately the people?" he asks. "I'm pleased the recent town halls show people are waking up and realizing it's time to pay attention to first principles."

Who is he?

"He rose to be a partner and global managing director of Arthur Anderson, before being named assistant secretary of labor for pensions and benefits during the Reagan administration. Under the first President Bush, he served as a trustee for Social Security and Medicare, an experience that convinced him both programs are looming train wrecks that could bankrupt the country. In 1998 he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to head the GAO, where he spent the next decade issuing reports trying to stem waste, fraud and abuse in government. Despite many successes, he was able to make only limited progress in reforming Washington's tangled bookkeeping. When he arrived he was told the Pentagon was nearly a decade away from having a clean audit, or clear evidence that its financial statements were accurate. When he left in 2008, he was told the Pentagon was still a decade away from that goal. "If the federal government was a private corporation, its stock would plummet and shareholders would bring in new management and directors," he said as he retired from the GAO."

Oh and he hasn't noticed any change he can believe in since the election of Barack Obama.

"He says his stimulus bill was sold as something it wasn't: "A number of people had agendas other than stimulus, and they shaped the package."

However, I guess since he's criticising the Obama Administration, he's racist, is that right ex.President Carter?