Prince Charles frustrated using Youtube

Well I'm guessing that's whats going on.

Imagine being Prince Charles. Never a worry about where to live or how to afford to do anything really, never a concern about being unable to generate publicity, and then not actually having a coherent philosophy about anything at all. More recently, this man with many a car to his name, called on Britons to drive less and walk more - the height of elitist hypocrisy if ever it could be.

Now he wants to make Britons pay so that rural folk can have broadband, presumably because he sits on one of his estates unable to watch funny videos on Youtube because of a lack of broadband access at prices he is willing to pay.

He is fighting for rural Britain, which he could well do with his own ample resources and fundraising. Good luck to him doing that. However he's more concerned about farms going to the wall when subsidies drop in 2012:

"Quite frankly, the fear that many of us hold is that after 2012, when support from the E.U. will alter so dramatically, it may be simply impossible for our family farmers to continue – particularly in the remote uplands, where farming is at its toughest. If they are to stay on the land they will need all the help they can get, and denying them broadband, and effectively cutting them off from the Internet, will only be more likely to drive them off the hills and into the towns and cities taking with them generations of inherited knowledge. "

Yes Charles, where farming is uneconomic, where the environment should be left to be as it was. Nobody denies them broadband, they just aren't willing to pay for it. It could be available via satellite and other means, but people in cities, who pay much much more for living space, face chronic congestion and overcrowding on roads and public transport, don't expect a subsidy for their high costs.

A better approach would be to encourage farms to consolidate, become more efficient and to attack the one tax that hits rural areas unfairly - fuel tax. Fuel tax recovers four times what is spent on roads in the UK, and given rural areas disproportionately face relatively low road costs (getting little capital investment), it should drop or be replaced with road pricing.

Charles, farmers are struggling in many countries. Farmers in Europe are among the most feather bedded in the world, and if they were so efficient they'd have nothing to fear from reduced subsidies, as their European compatriots would face even tougher conditions.

Of course, given you're own status as one of the bigger receivers of EU subsidies for your own properties, you can excuse someone for claiming that this is a hint of vested interest in this.

To say "the stakes could not be higher" shows how incredibly out of touch he is, peculiarly so. Farmers in Australia and New Zealand were weaned off of many and all subsidies respectively a couple of decades ago. It's time to grow up, and to find stakes that are higher. I'd have thought the living conditions of children growing up in homes of violence, neglect and poverty would be more important a charitable cause than subsidised farmers who find it hard to use the BBC iPlayer or video porn.

Herald on Sunday so wrong about TV

The Herald on Sunday has joined the chorus of defending TPK (read "your taxes") paying for the Maori Television Service to bid for the free to air broadcasting rights to the Rugby World Cup.

For some it might be petty minded racism, but for me it's simple.

It's anti-competitive and grossly unfair. It gives a state owned broadcaster an advantage over privately owned broadcasters using money taken by force.

If those interested in Maori broadcasting think it is "money well spent" then spend your own money. That's what the shareholders of Sky Television in the early days (when it was primarily owned by NZ entrepreneurs) did. It is what regional broadcasters across the country wish they could do as well. What a shot in the arm it would be for them to get such rights for their regions, but don't expect that to be considered special - and quite rightly so.

You see TVNZ does NOT spend taxpayers' money bidding for sports broadcasting rights. It is financially self sustaining, and the only taxpayers' money it gets is essentially the same as the Maori Television Service is entitled to, funding for specific programmes through NZ On Air (Te Mangai Paho for the MTS).

To quote TPK's remit as "to contribute to "Maori succeeding as Maori, achieving a sustainable level of success as individuals, in organisations and in collectives ... Our investments in Maori development build resources."" is facile. TPK takes from Maori as much as it gives, it spends money taken money from people who succeed and dishes it out, whilst taking a share for its own staff.

It's this blatant inability to acknowledge where the money came from, and that MTS's competitors do NOT get the same privileges, that is at issue here. For you see, if MTS borrowed the money and won the rights, then made money from it, then at least at a time of budget deficits there would be less reason to be concerned.

When Chris Trotter is partly right

From Bowalley Road:

"As New Zealand’s leading conservative party, founded in 1936 to restrain state power and protect the rights of the individual citizen, National should be the most avid defender of the ancient rights and privileges of the people. Sadly, on matters of law and order, National long ago surrendered to the irrational populism of the Mob."

He's not entirely correct, some of the "irrational populism" is a genuine sense of frustration at how repeat offenders get the opportunity to create new victims, but he's right. National shows precious little interest in restraining state power.

I don't share Trotter's view that "a huge number of otherwise sensible and compassionate people are no longer able to see that, for all but a few moments of life-transformingly bad decision-making, most lawbreakers are indistinguishable from themselves", which minimises when people DO use violence, rape or break and enter a property as being a "bad decision", rather than a violation of the rights of another, but he is indeed right that the presumption of innocence is fundamental.

However, whilst in principle he is right, is he right about the proposals he listed?

- Tougher bail laws when the issue is a person being a likely threat to public safety is not inconsistent with protecting individual rights.
- Abolishing the right to silence is not quite what it seems, it is in fact allowing it to be mentioned in court in evidence that the accused used the right and the Jury can interpret it as they see fit. The state should not force someone to speak. I hope I am correct in the interpretation.
- Cutting back on legal aid is essentially a welfare matter, but in essence nobody should be without defence counsel in court.
- The use of "teleconferencing" should not be ruled out because Trotter is old;
- Finally, the right to a jury trial, which Power intends to restrict only to offences where one faces 3 years in prison or not, IS fundamental. Power also suggests an inquisitorial approach to rape cases. This is a fundamental change to the entire criminal justice system, for one crime. One should tread carefully before considering this.

Jury trials are expensive and slow, but they are critically important. Though to be frank, I doubt I'd choose a jury over a judge if I was accused.

Note Power also talks about a "positive definition" for consent in sexual crime cases. At its extreme this would mean a signed form for sexual encounters to say you consent, which of course wouldn't obviate a last minute "no" for whatever reason. Rape is an inherently difficult crime for the justice system because it involves the greatest physical intimacy combined with violence, and too often includes people who already know each other, and circumstances that allow reasonable doubt to be presented.

However, that is not a reason to destroy that assumption.

So Trotter is somewhat right.

You see Simon Power's biggest error is this claim "The people in our prisons right now are there because they committed crimes against other New Zealanders.". For many he is right, for a few he is dead wrong. Not all crimes in New Zealand have victims. Remove victimless crimes from the books and he would be right.

However he made the point in a wider context in that the high prisoner population "is primarily a symptom of a much more fundamental problem – crime itself."

So the focus COULD be on removing victimless crimes from the books, emptying the prisons of those with such convictions, and focusing on real crimes with real victims.

That WOULD be a reason to celebrate law and order reform.

Obama Nobel Peace Prize?

Yes, Reuters states Obama has won it.

For what? You might ask. Have tensions with Iran eased? Has he improved the situation in Iraq? Have the Taliban been defeated? Has North Korea agreed to stop calling for seas of blood in South Korea and Japan? Has Russia stopped seeking to dominate its neighbours? Has the risk of Islamist terrorism dramatically reduced? Has the Arab-Israeli conflict lessened? Has Sudan stopped oppressing the people of Darfur?

Well given the Nobel committee gave it to Al Gore two years ago, one can see the value of this prize deteriorating rapidly (although Martti Ahtisaari was deserving last year).

The list of all Nobel winners is here on Wikipedia.

Of those, surely the deserving ones are the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, John Hume and David Trimble, Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk, Sadat and Begin, Lech Walesa and Norman Borlaug (not an exhaustive list).

However, Barack Obama?

Surely, even his greatest enthusiasts would struggle to say anything substantive has been achieved in a matter of months.

UPDATE: Benedict Brogan at the Daily Telegraph is damning.

"President Obama remains the barely man of world politics, barely a senator now barely a president, yet in the land of the Euro-weenies (copyright PJ O’Rourke) the great and the good remain in his thrall. To reward him for a blank results sheet, to inflate him when he has no achievements to his name, makes a mockery of what, let’s face it, is an already fairly discredited process (remember Rigoberta Menchu in 1992? Ha!). That’s not the point. What this does is accelerate the elevation of President Obama to a comedy confection, which he does not deserve, and gives his critics yet another bat to whack him with."

Even the usually pro-Obama Guardian online poll is 2 to 1 against him winning it.

It's not easy stopping P

There is little that need be said about the crackdown on P purchasers and suppliers that hasn’t been said before. Many users of P may be nihilistic and destroying themselves, and causing heartache for those who love them or depend on them, but criminalising them and the suppliers of what they seek will not change that.

Legalising P is the long term answer, but in advance of that much else needs to be done, in order that people become responsible for their own actions, and suppliers having to consider product liability. However, as there are already links on this I’d like to suggest something else that is more important, and nothing directly to do with politics.

Culture.

Most people take illicit drugs because they make them feel better, feel good. It is for pleasure. That, in itself, is not necessarily bad. However, it is clear that excessive use is about something else, escaping reality.

Whilst escaping reality is seen as a legitimate way to cope with overwhelming emotions, it is hardly a solution. Regular use of P helps people escape reality, with the logical consequences of abandoning reason – self destruction.

The decline through the 1950s to 1970s of the Christian-oriented basis for how many people saw life and existence saw holes filled with a range of philosophies. One of those was a nihilistic approach to life “there is no point”, “nothing means anything” etc. A destructive attitude that sees the only point to life the immediate satisfaction of pleasure, with the inevitable need for more of the same, greater, faster, longer, bigger, until ultimately you wake up from it all needing to eat, wash and find money so you have somewhere to live and pay for all of it. Whereas people once found solace in religion to cope with grief, relationship stresses, anxieties and the trials of life, some found solace in escaping it all.

None of this is new of course. Alcohol has a long history of supplying such escapism, but P has a completely different level of intensity. The problems attributed to both have the same source – philosophy.

The answer is to have a personal philosophy of embracing life, applying reason and enjoying existence for what it is. Enjoying your potential in whatever fields you get passionate for, whether business, the arts, sport, science, travel, social activities or anything else. For reality can be a pleasure of the senses, and a reason to live. The point to your life being to live it, enjoy it and share it if you wish with whoever shares your vision and values. The only limits being reality and respecting the same rights in others.

If the dominant cultural meme was like this, the prevalence of escaping reality would reduce, and then people would focus on assisting loved ones or others who needed help through difficult times. Criminalising those seeking to escape reality is likely to increase their willingness to escape reality. Making people responsible for their actions, through the health care system, welfare reform, criminal justice system and reform of ACC/tort law would be a step along the way to addressing it. These are all ways drug users escape the reality of any consequences of their actions (and indeed everyone else).

It is clear the status quo has both failed and is immoral. National is perpetuating it in the vain hope it will make a substantive difference, when the main effect will be to inconvenience people with cold and flu symptoms, and to harass tourists bringing in now restricted medications.

Meanwhile, guess how many pharmacies will have such medications in short supply by the end of the week?