Maori TV offended - so what?

I didn't see the TV3 sketch obviously, I don't care whether I did or didn't, but notwithstanding that TV3 should have a right to free speech. It is privately owned, you don't have to pay for it or watch it. If its customers are offended then they can pull advertising if they wish.

There is no right to not be offended. It doesn't matter if you didn't find it funny.

In a free country nobody else is required to please you.

After all, the Maori Television Service is highly offensive to those who don't want to be forced to pay for any TV channels. I have never considered TVNZ to be anything to do with my values or my culture, for example.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority is increasingly anachronistic when anyone can easily obtain video and audio content from across the world via the Internet, not that international broadcasting is new. It is time to wind it up, and for people, parents especially, to be reminded that:
1. Owning a TV is voluntary. I know of at least two families who deliberately do NOT.
2. Turning the TV on is voluntary, and you can turn it off too.
3. What is broadcast by television is the choice of the broadcaster. If you don't like it, don't watch it.
4. Unless a broadcasting is inciting commission of an actual crime, the broadcaster is party to a crime, engaging in defamation of an individual or breaching copyright, there should be no legal remedies against it.

So next time TV3 offends you, turn it off. Next time Maori TV offends you, turn it off.

Shame you can't stop paying the state when it offends you.

Helen sends UNDP back into North Korea

Despite a major report outlining questionable UNDP practices in North Korea before (such as hiring North Korean staff selected by the regime for sensitive job positions), the UNDP is back.

UNDP Watch notes:

The regime employees filled such critical jobs as UNDP finance officer; program officer slots that helped to design and oversee UNDP projects in the country; technology officer, who maintained all of UNDP’s internal and external communications and servers; and even the assistant to the head of the UNDP office, who presumably was in a position to see much, if not all, of the boss’ paperwork.

The staff were paid in US$, and the capacity for fraud and diversion of aid for political purposes was enormous. $9.13 million was paid directly from UNDP to North Korean government agencies for projects approved by UNDP.

Who says the UNDP is back? Well the Korean Central News Agency. All other reports rely on that coverage. So who knows how true it is.

The Heritage Foundation is outraged for a very good reason. In a totalitarian state, any aid given is approved by the regime and benefits it. The regime's top priorities are:
- The tightly knit senior leadership surrounding Kim Jong Il and his non-estranged family;
- The military and secret police; and
- High ranking party members.

By NO means can money or aid going to North Korea that is used by its own government agencies ever be verified as having delivered assistance to those in need. It would be like funding Concentration Camp commanders to assist their captives.

So how is Helen Clark justifying this? Or is it just plus ça change... ?

I'm sure the New Zealand mainstream media are working hard to investigate this one, like they did before entered the role.

Pictures from a nearly car free society

The Times has a new photo-gallery of, where else?

(and yes it is a trolley bus not a tram)

Police accountability

I'm astonished that I'm going to agree with both David Garrett and Idiot Savant, but maybe there is a bit a belief in individual rights that can be nurtured?

Garrett describes a case as follows "Last month, while attending a call-out in Khandallah, police used force against a teenager they mistook for a gatecrasher at an out-of-control party. During the incident, the teenager suffered broken vertebrae in his neck after being struck with a baton. When he asked for the officer's badge number, he was told to 'eff off' – in direct contradiction of long-standing and established police guidelines"

Idiot Savant, beyond some cheap nastiness about Garrett caring about "rich kids", agrees. The question I would have is whether both men can ever possibly be consistent on this. Garrett after all has little history about caring about individual rights, Idiot Savant of course thoroughly embraces the thieving leviathan of a socialist state.

The fundamental problem with the Police, as I have described before, is that the separation of powers between the law enforcement, judiciary and legislative arms of the state means that the Police believe themselves to BE the law, and not accountable to those who pay for them, but most of all that their attitude to civilians - you're a suspect until we're satisfied otherwise- just wont do. The Police attitude to criminal justice policy is telling.

The Police exist as an extension of our own rights to self defence, they are paid for that purpose. When they turn on people without warning they are going completely against that.

Both myself and Trevor Loudon have presented options for Police reform. It would be good if some government would consider them.

Nanny Tories to tax alcohol more

Why be surprised? It is in the school prefect, oh "the working classes as so incompetent we must save them" holier than though attitude that the party sadly personifies too often.

You see the problem isn't the drinkers, it is apparently those who sell to the drinkers. Well you shall not do that, of course young bankers who get bladdered on champagne wont be affected, after all drunk upper class people are just funny aren't they?

Nice cheap way to excuse not focusing the criminal justice system on real offenders.