The sideshows

So politicians like to take advantage of their salary and perks that come with it, some within the rules, some outside the rules.

Like you should be surprised. Of course it isn't quite on the grand scale of rorts that the British House of Commons has been, but still it demonstrates self seeking that people bizarrely think shouldn't occur from people meant to represent you.

Are you surprised the MSM spends so much attention on it? You shouldn't be. You see it has two characteristics that work so well for the modern reporter:

1. It's a scandal that people are interested in. It is something people can relate to.
2. It's incredibly easy to get the concept across. MP, gets paid a lot (well, to the average punter), gets overseas holidays, flying business class. It is an outrage.

However, as much as it gives sound reason to be a little cynical about them all, it is chicken feed in the scheme of things. It doesn't require much analysis, as a binary deal, it fits in with television especially, where TV news in essence likes to boil things down to an All Black test. Good vs bad. Right vs wrong. Simple.

You wont get any real debate about whether education should continue to be a compulsorily funded state system, or not. You wont get any real debate about whether the war on drugs is really the right response to the problems with P. You wont get any real debate about whether it makes sense for the state to own three power companies and a coal company. You wont get any real debate about whether spending half a billion dollars on electrifying Auckland's train system is good value for money. You wont get any real debate about climate change, whether New Zealand should sign up to something that far richer and larger CO2 emitters per capita are having little to do with.

In other words, debate about policy.

Too many in the MSM pander to a tabloid sensationalist view of politicians. However, do any ever ask "why should you trust these people to buy your health care" or "retirement income" or "accident insurance" or "kids' education" or "transport system" etc? Is it because you don't actually care, but just care about personalities? You're that vapid?

For you see, both Mr Hide and Mr Harawira are in part responsible for the current government and passing supply bills to do all of those things. If you get annoyed at these antics, and antics of past politicians of all colours, why do you keep thinking putting your trust in them is going to get better?

A walk on the 5th of November in London

Some gentlemen and ladies are taking a stroll today in London.

It starts at 11.30am from Chandos Pub at 29, St. Martins Lane, London, WC2N 4ER. Where it is expected they will proceeds down Whitehall to Downing Street and then to Westminster Arms 9 Storey's Gate, SW1P 3AT at Noon.

Why?

Details here.

This is not a protest. It is Old Holborn's day out.

For more context, look here. It's an annual occasion.

UPDATE: I manage to scoot down to catch them at Whitehall and DID witness the attempted handing of a Carson Rose to a policeman at Downing Street, which was finally accepted. Images here

Highest CO2 emitters largely ignored

Further to my earlier post about how climate change negotiations arbitrarily categorise some rather wealthy countries as "developing" and vice versa, it might be better to think of this issue in terms of per capita CO2 emissions. After all, if reducing CO2 emissions matters, then why shouldn't the highest ones be considered the highest priority?

So what countries emit the most per capita? According to Wikipedia they are:

1. Qatar
2. United Arab Emirates
3. Kuwait
4. Bahrain
5. Aruba (a colony of the Netherlands)

So the top five are developing countries.

6. Luxembourg
7. Netherlands Antilles (colony of the Netherlands)
8. Trinidad & Tobago
9. United States
10. Canada

So only now do we get some countries that are considered to be industrialised.

So where does NZ fit in? NZ is 50th.

What developing countries (not territories) (by Kyoto Annex definition) are ahead of NZ in per capita emissions (besides the ones listed above)?

Brunei
Saudi Arabia
Nauru
Oman
Singapore
Israel
Kazakhstan
South Korea
Equatorial Guinea
Turkmenistan
Libya
South Africa

So again, why should New Zealand sign up to do more than any of this lot, when the residents of all of these countries contribute more, per capita, than New Zealanders do?

Remember 9th of November

Boris Johnson writes in the Daily Telegraph how we should all remember the 9th of November - the day the Berlin Wall was breached for good.

He says:

It is precisely now, when the public mood is so bitter towards bankers, so hostile to profit, so seemingly brassed off with the very idea of wealth creation that we should remember how ghastly, grim and unworkable was the alternative – state-controlled socialism.

He said it was a moral disaster, a cultural and artistic wasteland and ... "It was a complete and utter environmental catastrophe, as anyone who travelled behind the Iron Curtain will remember. I don't just mean Chernobyl; I mean the cynical way in which socialist planning obliged human beings to endure the proximity of some of the filthiest factories in the world, the roiling clouds of smoke that seeded the warts and the cancers on the skin and in the lungs and the eyes of an innocent public."

"after an exhaustive test it was our system that triumphed, not just because of the material advantages of capitalism, but because a liberal free-market democracy has proved the best way of allowing individuals and families to realise their hopes, and to make something of their lives as independent and rounded moral agents. That is the freedom those crowds recognised and wanted in Berlin. It is the freedom of the human spirit, and it is worth infinitely more than some fancy BMW."

and then finally

"Remember, remember the 9th of November, and remember all the idiots – some now running this country – who supported communism in their youth. Peter Mandelson, Alistair Darling – how will you be celebrating the Fall of the Wall?"

Or indeed Keith Locke...

You may also read Richard Ebeling's piece on the Berlin Wall (Hat tip: Not PC Twitter):

"On this 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we should remember all that it represented as a symbol of tyranny under which the individual was marked with the label: property of the state. He not only was controlled in everything he did and publically said, but his every movement was watched, commanded or restricted.

Freedom in all its forms – to speak, write, associate, and worship as we want; to pursue any occupation, profession, or private enterprise that inclination and opportunity suggests to us; and to visit, live, and work were our dreams and desires lead us to look for a better life – are precious things."

Remember, nobody was killed trying to move from the west to the east.

UPDATE: Mikhail Gorbachev reveals in the Daily Telegraph how he was advised he could have crushed the rebellion against the dictatorships in the Warsaw Pact countries, but refused because he believed in open democracy and feared World War 3 could have started from it.

He "quipped that he had "a good night's sleep" after the Wall was opened.

"I am very proud of the decision we made," he said. "The Wall did not simply fall – it was destroyed just as the Soviet Union was destroyed.""

The great shame must be that for all he did, so much has been rolled back in Russia, by a new generation of thuggish kleptocrats.

British Muslims for secular democracy

Yes, you read correctly. British Muslims now organised to defend the interests of the British constitutional system and freedoms.

On Saturday 31 October an Islamist group called Islam4UK had planned a demonstration to promote applying Shariah law in the UK. Its express purpose being the Islamification of British society. The group cancelled at the last minute, but a counter demonstration went ahead from British Muslims for Secular Democracy. More images of this can be seen here.

BMSD (don't get those letters round the wrong way!) expressly believes in the separation of religion and state, and for religions to flourish in the private voluntary sphere. While it intends to promote Islam and information about Islam, it strongly defends secular democracy, free speech, tolerance of other beliefs including atheists, and strong opposition to Islamism.

So if you wondered if British Muslims were predominantly either quietly acquiescent or secretly all wanting Shariah, this group aims to prove this wrong. May it grow and prosper and become the overwhelming voice for British citizens and residents who are proud of what the British legal-political system offers, and who happen to be practising Muslims in their private lives.

It is about time, and the posters that you can see come from images from the counter-demonstration on 31 October in London. In contrast to those who call for death to those who insult Islam, BMSD calls for debate and discussion.

Take this statement from Shaaz Mahboob, BMSD Vice Chair:

Our counter-demonstration is based on our belief in, and commitment to, those liberal values that define the British state, including legal and constitutional equality for all, equal rights for women and minorities, and religious freedom, including the right to be free of faith. We are turning out to defend all of these virtues of a secular democracy that Islam4UK so despises and daydream of taking away from the British public.

Be nice if the British government believed in them too.