Khrushchev and Stalin

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Today is the day that Khrushchev made his famous “secret speech” on the last day of the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, denouncing Stalin. The day that the human excrement called Stalinists were stunned, and either followed Khrushchev or refused and continued to follow their blood thirsty hero. Think about those who deny the crimes of Stalin's regime in the context of Holocaust denial today!
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The speech rejected Stalin’s personality cult as being contrary to Marxism-Leninism (Mao, Hoxha, Kim Il Sung and Ceausescu all ignored this), it spoke of Stalin’s oppression and murder of Communist party members and innocent civilians, and the forcible deportation of nationalities or any groups Stalin feared.
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Around 2.9 million were deported under the rule of Stalin, as he shifted populations around from borders or regions that he thought might just be disloyal. However, this is nothing compared to the culture of fear and mass murder, directly through executions and sending dissidents to Siberia to die in gulags, and indirectly through ruinous policies that starved millions. He ignored warnings of the coming Nazi Germany invasion, costing millions of military and civilians lives in the siege of Leningrad. He had policies such as summarily executing soldiers if they retreated without orders and terrorising the families of those who did. The hero status he gained from World War 2 was unearned – the cost of Stalin’s regime is estimated at around 20-30 million people.
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Stalin was responsible for the invasion and occupation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the forced communisation of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, and east Germany. He was responsible for the blockade of Berlin after the war, and for instituting communist rule in the northern half of Korea, putting Kim Il Sung into power and encouraging him to start the Korean War in 1950. He refused US offers of help to rebuild eastern Europe through the Marshal Plan, and because of the implementation of Stalinist economics, is responsible for eastern Europe today being a generation behind in GDP terms from western Europe.
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He was one of the most avid warmongerers of the 20th century.
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Stalin put enormous effort into making Soviet scientists develop nuclear weapons, as he was convinced of the inevitability of armed conflict with the west, Berlin and Korea were his two attempts. He strongly supported Mao Tse Tung, and rejected Tito of Yugoslavia, for taking a softer line by allowing small business and private property to exist.
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Khrushchev repudiated the inevitability of armed conflict as he believed that the “superiority” of the Soviet system would win out over capitalism by example, and revolution would happen abroad because people would want it.
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Khrushchev’s speech had two impacts:
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- It destroyed the personality cult of Stalin in the USSR and most of its eastern European allies. Czechoslovakia even destroyed an enormous monument to Stalin in 1962 after pouring a fortune of national GDP into it. The level of repression eased, summary executions became less common, but the apparatus of Soviet terror remained; and

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- It precipitated the Sino-Soviet split. Mao was close to Stalin and did not believe in peaceful co-existence and believe it was important to support revolution abroad, and to remain in conflict with the capitalist world. This split continued through till Gorbachev led the final years of the USSR. It saw border skirmishes between the USSR and China in the 1960s, China developing nuclear weapons on its own, aimed at the USSR and much endless rhetoric from China about the Soviet “revisionists”, and from the USSR about the Chinese “ultra-leftists”.
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Of course, there was a time when Stalin was much loved in the West - Time magazine made Stalin man of the year twice (1939 and 1942)! The repudiation of Stalin also had one very convenient effect for communists – they blamed the extremes and repression on Stalin, not Lenin. This ignores the apparatus of terror and culture of murder and deportation that Lenin instigated. Lenin was no angel, he expanded labour camps and engaged in deportation and mass executions – but he is still the pinup boy of the left. The difference between Lenin and Stalin is one of scale, and it was natural that Stalin follow from Lenin.
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Of course, Khrushchev did not mark the end of Soviet totalitarianism. The USSR suppressed the popular uprising against the Stalinist regime in Hungary in November 1956. Dissidents were still arrested, imprisoned and sometimes executed – simply the hysterical mass expulsions and extermination of groups had ended. He precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis, and because he withdrew, was deposed, replaced by Brezhnev and placed under house arrest. The USSR until Gorbachev reformed it in the late 1980s was still a state of terror, where you dare not challenge the power or decisions of the Party, and where you didn’t complain or talk about things you shouldn’t.

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Today is a day to remember how lucky we all are that the USSR is gone. Stalin was the 20th century's second most murderous tyrant (after Mao), Khrushchev was not averse to spilling blood, just less thoroughly and more selectively, we can be glad that Khrushchev took one bold step to pull the USSR out of the sheer hell of Stalinism, and place it one step better than that, but that is all.

Highway hoo ha

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Today Transit will release its draft 10 year State Highway plan for 2006/07-2015/16 – and the media will make it an enormous deal, the one-time ACT supporting Kim Ruscoe already has (I know this because I overheard her saying so a few years ago), even though it really isn’t meant to be.
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The plan is a forecast, based only on the revenues and anticipated allocations of Land Transport New Zealand over the next ten years. It does not mean any project will or will not proceed – at all. Funding is NOT decided by Transit New Zealand, it is decided by Land Transport New Zealand (formerly Transfund), which most reporters in New Zealand can't grasp, even though every frigging year the process is the same, and has been since 1996 when it was changed by National!
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The process goes like this:
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- Transit every year prepares a draft State Highway Programme, a bidding document which outlines the projects and outputs it will seek funding for from Land Transport NZ in the following financial year. This is based on the priorities for the current year and indications of available funding provided by Land Transport NZ based on the latest forecasts of revenue from fuel tax, road user charges, motor vehicle registration/licensing fees and Crown account allocations. The draft is for consultation with the public and local authorities, largely on the priorities Transit has set and also because local authorities produce their own bidding documents for funding their local road networks (and for subsidising public transport).
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- The draft Programme consists of detail of the projects and outputs for the following financial year as the focus. However, to give context and to encourage Transit to plan and prepare for the ongoing maintenance and development of its network, it also prepares a plan for the following nine years as a forecast, to indicate what might be done under current policy and revenue settings.
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- Following consultation, Transit’s board takes this into account and agrees on a final State Highway Programme which is submitted to the board of Land Transport New Zealand. Land Transport NZ, along with the programmes of 86 local authorities, considers the latest revenue forecasts (this is May by now) and prioritises the expenditure across all those entities, and releases the National Land Transport Programme for 2006/2007. That programme determines the allocations by activity class (e.g. State Highway Construction) and the amounts for maintenance, public transport subsidies and bulk funding for projects (and the list of approved projects) that are worth less than $3.5 million each.
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- Transit simultaneously releases the final agreed State Highway Programme for 2006/2007, which INCLUDES a forecast for following years.
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- However, final approval for funding for any single project over $3.5 million still requires signoff by the Land Transport NZ Board following evaluation of the costs and benefits of the project.
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So what does this mean? Once it is released, it is a draft and when it is finalised it is still only an indicative programme.

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Ruscoe's interviewing her typewriter with claims like "The worst-hit site in the Wellington region is believed to be the planned Paekakariki interchange, a flyover to move traffic safely on and off State Highway 1. It was set down in a proposed western corridor plan for 2007, but Transit's forecast stated that the earliest start date would be 2015, a source said."

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Well Kim, read the CURRENT year's final plan and there was no year for the Paekakariki Interchange. The proposed western corridor plan is a consultation plan, and has not been approved, and was prepared based on forecasts that are now over 6 months old.

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Yes, there is probably a funding gap, although Transit theoretically should not develop a programme which is unfundable – that is the whole point of this sort of forward planning. The big issue is whether the amount of road construction underway now, which is at levels unprecedented for over 30 years, is entirely efficient. In many cases it is, but you have to ask yourself questions about why the new motorway north of Orewa is in a tunnel now, instead of the original design for a cutting, in order to reduce environmental impact - for a good $35 million?

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There are two big issues:

- Inflation of project costs (caused by increases in oil prices, increased construction margins because of the huge rampup in road spending in the last two years and greenplating/goldplating by Transit engineers blaming the Land Transport Management Act for requiring high standards of environmental and social mitigation);

- Decreasing petrol tax revenue (caused by reducing traffic growth and increasing efficiency of the petrol vehicle fleet - this doesn't effect road user charges revenue of course).

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The appropriate answer is for Transit to become a company and to run at a profit, and to shift funding from being bureaucratic to being Transit charging customers directly - like National once proposed. Then it could borrow to build roads, paid back from road user charging.

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You see, Telecom, Contact Energy and Air New Zealand don't decide the amount of money they spend on capital every year based on annual surplus cash flow, and just spend that - they borrow, to spread the cost of the new asset across its depreciated life. Road users, on the other hand, pay taxes now, which are spend to build roads, that future road users use (albeit most of them are current ones, but since the depreciated life of a highway cutting is over 50 years) and don't pay anything towards the capital of. The Auckland motorway network was paid for by past generations, and only maintained by current ones - but phone lines, power lines and aircraft are not funded that way. If they were, you'd get congested lines, old planes as Air NZ saves up for new ones and slow progress. Imagine if you could never borrow for a home, you'd have to save up for decades until you could buy it - cash - while chasing the price of property.

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- then Transit would be engaging in cost control, but also delivering what its customers wanted and charging them appropriately for it. In the absence of that, the funding system should be revamped to have a tighter focus on economic efficiency and to ensure that projects don't proceed if they have benefit/cost ratios that are very low - and there needs to be a bigger shift to user pays, which means, for now, moving more petrol tax revenue into roads - and looking more to direct user pays to replace petrol tax.

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By the way, if the SH20 Avondale extension was not built, all the other roads could be easily funded, because it is estimated to cost around $1.2 billion, which over five years sucks out $240 million a year - but if you borrow over 35 years, it would spread it out, even taking into account the cost of borrowing.

David Irving

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Not PC, No Right Turn and DPF have blogged on David Irving being imprisoned for denying the historical fact of the Holocaust. It is very simple, anyone denying the Holocaust is engaging in an exercise of intellectual fraud and almost certainly has an anti-Jewish, pro-Nazi agenda (although it astounds me that people who are anti-Jewish and pro-Nazi can’t explicitly defend something that their philosophy endorses). As No Right Turn has pointed out, there is little doubt that many in the Middle East will find his conviction hypocritical, though hypocrisy lies on both sides as we know from the vile antisemitic cartoons that appear in Arab papers.

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It notable that the Daily Telegraph reports that “Dr Romain, rabbi of Maidenhead Synagogue, said: "I welcome yet another public rebuff for David Irving's pseudo-historical views, although personally I prefer to treat him with disdain than with imprisonment."”

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Exactly. None of us have anything to fear of the likes of Irving or anyone who engages in absurd historical revisionism. If we apply this law universally, Noam Chomsky should have been jailed for denying the mass murder and starvation that occurred in Cambodia under Pol Pot.

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The challenge to free speech is to defend those that most offend you, most distress and whose views or publications you find the most vile – because you must.

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On one side of the spectrum lies Galileo Galilei in the 17th century, as the Roman Catholic Church found it offensive that he dare challenge Ecclesiastes 1:5 by declaring the Earth orbits around the Sun, not vice versa. He fought for the right to free speech because of science. On the other is Larry Flynt, a far from delightful man, who fought for the right to publish photos of naked women in explicit sexual positions – he fought for the right to free speech because these were adults wanting their images taken and adults wanting to see them. Both men at different times had many wanting to shut them down – both had the right to say as they said, David Irving as vile as his writings are, is in the same boat.

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The only way to respond to free speech you don’t like, is to use free speech itself to challenge it.

UPDATE: Removed reference to Japanese government attitude to Japanese colonial atrocities, see comments.

Kim Jong Il what a guy!

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Happy 65th birthday Kim Jong Il (last Thursday) - General Secretary of the Worker's Party of Korea and Leader (not "dear" anymore) of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Not that he needs it, with his legions of teenage girls specially selected to provide him with carnal relief, and his obscene kleptocratic wealth.

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Yes 65, not 64 as CNN claims. He is one of Vyatskoye's most successful sons - not Korea's. You see he was actually born in 1941 in the Soviet Union, and his birth year was altered in the mid 1970s so that it would coincide with his father Kim Il Sung’s birth year of 1912 so son would turn 40 and 50 and dad 70 and 80 in the same year.
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CNN reports on his feats, such as having a photographic memory that he can recall everything everyone in a cemetery did (possibly because he put them there). Although there are stories galore in his biographies about him literally walking on water and other such feats
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You can read more of the official North Korean version of Kim Jong Il’s exploits on the websites of the Korean Central News Agency and the DPRK publications. However it is far more fun to go to NK News, a searchable database of North Korean propaganda that includes a random insult generator and some fun searches of terms like “human scum” (which is used to describe anyone who fled North Korean from the gulags. You can see how vociferously nasty and funny North Korean propagandists are. My insult was:

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"You anti-socialist beast, your accusation against the DPRK is no more than barking at the moon!" ahhh memories.
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You can also look up New Zealand and see our own sycophantic scum licking the arse of this vile regime – although it could well only be Don Borrie (a man who has praised Kim Il Sung much as George Galloway has Saddam Hussein, and who thinks that there is a need to deal with historic hurt caused by our involvement in the Korean War!). Don't be surprised that Keith Locke cites Don here as a reliable source of news about North Korea, if it were 1938 I am sure Keith would be saying that it would be better to be nice to Mr Hitler.

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The UK has its own nearly illiterate sycophants of scum at this blog and site. Human scum THEY are, but fortunately their blogs and message boards are so quiet you can see the tumbleweeds.
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Did you know Whale Rider has been shown in North Korea?
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North Korea congratulated Helen Clark on her election and Winston Peters on becoming Foreign Minister (as is the normal diplomatic protocol).
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What I am waiting for is whatever gift that the New Zealand ambassador sends on Kim Jong Il's birthday, as is expected in Pyongyang.
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Kim Jong Il recently visited China and said in his speech:
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"Touring on this occasion various special economic zones making a great contribution to the socialist modernization drive with Chinese characteristics, we were more deeply moved by the Chinese people’s enterprising and persevering efforts and fruit borne by them.
In a word, our visit to the southern part convinced us once again that China has a rosier future thanks to the correct line and policies advanced by the Communist Party of China.
The astonishing changes that have taken place in the vast land of China have been possible because the CPC laid down a new line and policies that suit the specific conditions of the country"
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Yes comrade it is called capitalism - it suits your country too, look south of the DMZ - it's not too late to try it yourself, make it your birthday goal next year Kim Jong Il - if you do, you might even deserve a birthday present.

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By the way if you want one book to read about North Korea, it is Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader: North Korea And The Kim Dynasty by Bradley Martin (St. Martins (October, 2004)). Truly well researched and eye-opening insight, and I have read more books on North Korea than most.

Muslims in the UK

An ICM poll published in the Daily Telegraph found that 40% of British Muslims want Sharia law instituted in the UK, though 41% oppose it. 20% have sympathy with the “feelings and motives” of the July 7 bombers, although 99% thought it shouldn’t have been carried out (1% did) and 75% don’t have sympathy. Hmmmm.
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It is encouraging that Muslims in the UK are split on Sharia law, although 40% is a high figure. Why go to a free country and want to put it under the slavery of religious law? It is more encouraging that 75% don’t have sympathy with the suicide bombers. How about the rest?

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This poll can be seen in two ways depending on whether you want to worry about Muslims or not - there is a clear majority not interested in Britain becoming Iran, but a sizeable minority who are against British laws and values - in which case they might wonder why they chose to live here.

South Park and its opponents

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As PC has said, you’ll already know what I thinks and will know what Libertarianz thinks – in short, Canwest owns C4 and has the right to choose, and this is freedom of speech. Those offended have the right to turn off, or boycott advertisers - that is their freedom too. I doubt if any of those calling for it to be off air have seen it, though the description is pretty clear. DPF is also the nominated representative SouthPark fan for Newstalk ZB, I am sure he gave a good defence.

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The boycott campaign by NZ Christians, trying to mirror the same pressure brought upon US networks, will do one thing above all – ensure a record audience for the programme, and for the advertisers around it. The PM has already said that "Those who publish in these circumstances of course have their right to free speech in New Zealand, but that doesn't take away from others the right to say what they think about it. " which is rather enlightened, a line she should have taken on the Danish cartoons. Although she added the "As a woman I find it offensive." remark. One of those vapid assertions that begs the question "What are you when you don't say "as a woman" and how do you know any different?
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I look forward to seeing who advertises in the slot – hopefully Inland Revenue! I wonder if the Christians looking to boycott Canwest also boycott The Breeze, More FM and the umpteen other radio stations owned by Canwest - probably not.
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Anyway, what is notable is the response of politicians – Helen Clark seems less upset about SouthPark than the Danish cartoon that offends Muslims. I guess she couldn’t pretend to have a sense of humour about it – that would be politically unwise.
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The campaign against it has a website with some tortured English as below (website quotes in italics)...
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“Why take action against this offensive program?
a) Simple; because we respect love women and we value and respect a New Zealander's right to hold a religious faith without condemnation.

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(shudder "respect love") Well nobody is condemning anyone’s right to hold a faith – don’t watch the programme
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However, the true agenda of this group is shown here:
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Our opposition to Bloody Mary is about more than just this one episode of South Park, it is about opposition to a growing tide of anti-religious ridicule and obscenity that has become ingrained in the NZ media.
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Tough! Humanity for centuries tortured and murdered people for ridiculing religion, some countries still do. Religion deserves ridicule, as it is a whole field of philosophy based on worshipping ghosts – entities that cannot be objectively proved to exist. I don’t believe in ghosts – the enlightenment came some centuries ago.
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The usual straw men are placed up that those opposing it aren’t “anti free speech”.
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“Freedom of speech exists to allow the free debate, discussion, and expression of ideas, philosophies and religious beliefs. This program does not even come close to meeting these criteria.”
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Yes and it allows the right to humour. This is like saying you can discuss politics but you can’t poke fun at our politicians – just because you don’t like the humour or don’t find it funny, does not mean it isn’t a right. As George Carlin said, anything can be funny.
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There is nothing positive or redeeming about this episode of South Park, it is merely intended to shock and outrage and it will hurt many people in the process.
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There is one thing positive and redeeming about this episode – one is that thousands of people will laugh because of it. Laughter is important - the scariest societies are those without it.

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There is no benefit in this show, unless you consider it beneficial to provide grossly offensive programming that caters only to the lowest common denominator and is a heinous abuse of women.
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There is no benefit in spending time and money worshipping ghosts – if that is the test, then religion wont stand up to it. This pomposity is akin to saying that the filthy masses shouldn’t be catered for – well women watch SouthPark too. YOU don’t have a monopoly on them. Free speech means accepting that which is offensive.

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Is it opposing free speech to prohibit the broadcasting of child-pornography? Well, if we accept the logic of CanWest then it is.
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No crime was committed in the production of the cartoon. Child pornography involves the recording of sexual offences against children – a real crime with real victims. That isn’t about freedom of speech, it is about being an accessory to an offence that magnifies the original offence, by invading privacy and using the image of the victim without his or her consent. Banning child pornography is about publications produced in the commission of an actual crime - not offending people.
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Why don't you just change the channel if you don't like it?
That’s like a bully getting on a bus and punching a child in the head, taking his lunch, stealing his seat and then telling him that if he doesn’t like it he shouldn’t ride the bus.

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No it ISN’T. Being offended is NOT violence. There is NO equivalency between seeing and hearing something you don’t like and having your body violated. If there was, you’d have the right to punch anyone who offends you.
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If CanWest is going to broadcast a program that is so obscene and cause so much offence then they need a legitimate reason for doing so.
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Canwest is singular so not “they” – I find it obscene that so many New Zealanders butcher the English language like a carcass, so I want to see a legitimate reason for doing so or I will ask the government to shut this website down. Got the picture? Freedom of speech does NOT require a justification – I can say “flibble de gibble nip nep nob neckt pah” and have no legitimate reason. This is NOT a police state and you have NO damned right to ask that legitimacy be proven before expression is made.
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It is not good enough to broadcast something so derisive and offensive and then tell a huge majority of Kiwis that it's too bad if they don't like it - they should just change the channel.

There comes a time when we have to take objection to this kind of offence, if we don't then where does it stop and we just end up surrendering the power to decide what is acceptable and what is objectionable content to big media corporations who act like bullies.
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Yes it is good enough - and those who are offended are not “surrendering power”. Canwest is hardly a bully - it doesn't make you pay for it, or watch it or have anything to do with it. It is entirely peaceful.

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Let’s look at what this is:

1. A privately owned TV channel: The state isn’t involved, so nobody who is offended has a stake in this and can claim that it is “my channel”;
2. Broadcasting free of charge: So those offended don’t have to pay for it, it is free to air;
3. To televisions: Which you don’t need to own and don’t need to watch.
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No initiation of force!

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However, I will agree with one thing. Boycotting advertisers is a legitimate form of protest and if those campaigning are NOT calling for the government to intervene or a change in the law, but merely expressing their disgust – then so be it. It is their right.
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Just as it is my right to disagree and support Canwest broadcasting the episode. Ultimately Canwest must have that choice - if I owned a TV channel I would want that choice.

Sue out to spend your money again

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Sue Kedgley is the mistress of hyperbole claiming demanding that other people’s money be used to pay for an exhorbitant upgrade of the Johnsonville rail line because :
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“it is clear there is a need to transform the Johnsonville line from a run-down, dilapidated suburban rail service into a modern rapid transit system, preferably using light rail.”
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No it isn’t Sue, keep your knickers on, the Northern Wellington Public Transport study isn’t over yet! Why is light rail preferable, because it costs even more and the units can’t run on other lines in the region? You’re just making it all up following a Green fetish that light rail is inherently “good”. $3-4 million is the cost of one average light rail vehicle, so we are talking about $40 or so million!! A new bus is around $250,000. Don’t forget light rail needs new platforms as well and is not compatible with heavy rail services.
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The money you’re already committing from rates and petrol tax to upgrading the existing trains is nothing to the Greens:
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“At present a mere $5.4 million has been allocated to refurbishing 50-year-old carriages on the Johnsonville line. What this survey shows is that we need to invest in new train carriages, not just patching up old stock, and increasing the frequency of services during the morning peak.”
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Well Sue, the reason that the current trains are being refurbished is to provide three to five years of service until either new trains or replacement buses can be introduced. If it didn’t happen, the trains would literally stop running. What is this “we need to invest”? Invest? In a line that costs millions of dollars a year in subsidies? Ever been on these trains outside the morning peak Sue? No, of course not, you drive most places. I took one a couple of years ago at 5pm from Johnsonville and there were 3 people on it and nobody was standing on the evening peak one. You don’t invest in something that loses money. That is why no government has done anything other than refurbish the current lot of trains, this is their third refurbishment.
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"In the 21st century, standards for rail have improved and people expect modern, accessible, reliable trains, not ancient carriages and unreliable services,"
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Yes and we’d all like new things. However Sue, unfortunately people using the line are unwilling to pay for new trains – you see you’d have to double the fares to even start to break even, and a lot of people wouldn’t want to do that.
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Don’t give me nonsense about they would all use cars if the trains were not there either – most would use the buses, especially if you had bus lanes from Kaiwharawhara through Thorndon and in Ngauranga Gorge. The Johnsonville line is quaint and scenic, but unless you can dramatically increase patronage and pump up the fares, it isn’t a goer.
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If it were me, I’d let the study run its course and accept its recommendations, which, in the absence of politics, are probably to close the line when the trains are unserviceable and replace with commercially viable buses following a similar route (and express buses down Ngauranga Gorge). It is cheaper to put in bus lanes in Ngauranga Gorge than to convert the Johnsonville line to light rail.
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However, I have a pretty good idea what WILL happen. Whatever the result of the study, the line will remain open, paid for by your taxes and rates. The region will be getting brand new electric units to replace the old ones within five years, but they will NOT run on the Johnsonville line. Instead, the floors of the tunnels of the line will be lowered, and the passing loops extending (for around $12 million) and the existing, not so old, Ganz Mavag units, running on others line, will operate on the line as well. It’s not what Sue wants, but should keep the pundits happy – all with a bit more of your money, for at least 10 years until those trains need a major refurbishment!

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Half the time the Greens just want to piss your money up a tree!

Islamofascists indeed... still

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Some objectivists have used the term Islamofascist to describe Muslim activists who want a theocracy based on Islam - I wholeheartedly agree with that term.

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Hat tip to Robert Winefield’s blog on SOLO Passion, who got this from a German blog and German TV news site.
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See if any New Zealand media will have the courage to print this. The Islamofascists join the National Front - evil twisted scum the lot of them. Defend this you simpering leftwing totalitarian arse licking bastards on the left!

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UPDATE: Well Ruth may be right, it could be fake, although apparently CNN reported it too.

Where is the love?

Hat tip to Tony Milne.

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A letter from a 12yo boy to Tim Barnett with a drawing of how he should be hanged and then shot by Brian Tamaki.

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Charming stuff - where does this come from? Love for people you disagree with?

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I thought it was topical given my exchanges with AJ Chesswas - since this is the logical conclusion of a philosophy which effectively calls gay people depraved and perverted.

The reason for freedom - to come

Allan has asked (see his response to my earlier post) for a justification, objectively, of my philosophical position. This will come in the next few days (I don't have much blog time for the next two).

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It appears his position is that there are behaviours he asserts are destructive and that it is the duty of other people to not only inform you that they are, but to stop you. He extends that to the state. Instead of making your own judgment, the matter is not even up for debate. This justifies censorship of material that supports, for example, homosexuality and certainly depictions of sexuality. It also justifies charging, convicting and incarcerating adults for what they do in their personal relationships - out of love - to protect them - because some people need to lead and others to follow.

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There is a fundamental similarity between this, Marxism-Leninism, National Socialism and fundamentalist Islam - it is authoritarian and is a "we know best" attitude, about moulding people (and imprisoning or killing those who resist or who are inferior) into "perfect citizens" experiencing the ideal life. Allan may not be advocating killing people, but that is only a matter of degree - he is advocating using force to punish people for what they do to their own bodies.

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Of course we already do this for illegal drugs - so he has a point, if you want to be consistent you need to lock people away for doing other things that are "bad for them", although the evidence about sex outside marriage being bad is not quite like drugs. Drugs also are not always bad.

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If this is what he is advocating, then he should be honest about it. It means that adults do not own their bodies, their bodies are owned by everyone - and the state, as the expression of "society" enforces the rules that are "agreed" and punishes transgressors and does not even allow debate or expressions of contrary perspectives.

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Why does it matter? Because nothing is more personal than one's own body and the intimate relationships that are formed with it. The idea that your neighbour, or group of neighbours or bureaucrats and politicians know better what to do with it than you do, is treating you like a child, imbecile or slave.

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The question comes down to - who owns your life? You? Society? The State? or "God"?

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I believe I do, and it is your business when something I do interferes with your ownership of your life.

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UPDATE: Too much work to do, so it will come out in the weekend!

Lego Bible - a little like South Park

Hat tip to Maia for the link to the Brick Testament - which has the Bible in Lego. It isn't complete yet but...

it's frigging hilarious!!!

See naked Adam and Eve and then not.

Noah found naked and drunk, and how seeing this was avoided and other weird goings on.

When you can murder your family, the ban on bestiality, women dressing like men, men dressing like women

It's addictive!

Smoking in England

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If there ever was an issue that conflicted me personally it is smoking in bars. The House of Commons has voted to ban smoking in all workplaces, bars, restaurants and even private clubs in England.
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I loathe tobacco smoke, I am asthmatic and lived in households full of smokers for years. I doesn’t induce my asthma (I think I became immune), but I do find it revolting and bars/restaurants which are free of smoke are wonderful for me personally. It is easier to breathe and my clothes don’t absolutely reek at the end of a night out.
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However, I disagree with the banning of smoking in bars and restaurants. Why? Because it is, fundamentally, not up to me. A bar or restaurant is not a public place – it is private property that the owner has let open to people to access on the owner’s terms. This includes employees and customers. This is why bouncers exist at some bars, to remove people the owner does not want. This is why the owner should decide whether or not smoking is allowed.
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The employees of bars and restaurants can decide whether they prefer to work in a smokefree environment or not – many will find they can’t negotiate that or find few like that, some will. However, the employees do not own that space and should not dictate to the owner what is allowed or not allowed, unless it conflicts with their employment contract.
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The patrons can decide to enter the bar or restaurant or not. There are increasing number of restaurants in the UK with large smokefree zones, indicating customer demand for such an environment. That is the way it should be. You have no more right to demand a restaurant be smokefree than to demand its waiting staff be topless or that it have a vegetarian option. If you don’t like it, you wont be giving the owner your money – the owner misses out as much as you do. The owner takes the risk.
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Part of the problem is a mentality that somehow the government must direct you on this – some bars claim they have to allow people to smoke. No they don’t. It is your choice – choice for the owner, assessing how to meet the demands of the greatest number of patrons. Choice of the worker, deciding whether a smoky environment is worth the pay. Choice of the patron, whether they want to go somewhere where smoking is allowed or not.
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One final argument is that this will produce enormous health benefits. I actually believe this is true – as it will, no doubt, reduce exposure to tobacco smoke. It will also encourage people to stop smoking when they go out drinking and I think the English prefer to drink over smoking anyday!
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However, the ends do not justify the means. Just because people make bad choices does not mean the state should make them for them. Some are prepared to trade their health for the pleasure of smoking – it is their life after all. It is disturbing that no decision had been made yet on banning smoking in cars - you can see where it is heading can't you?

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Note also that many airlines that had allowed smoking stopped it out of passenger choice - the last time I was on a flight with smoking was in the late 90s with the now defunct Swissair, and there were only two seats in one corner of business class with it. Swissair banned smoking in 2000, although it had nothing to do with its bankruptcy in 2002!
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Only private homes, care homes, hospitals (!), prisons and hotel bedrooms are exempt from this ban in England, effective in just over a year. Have to wonder why someone owning a bar has less rights than a prisoner, and why the state, which owns the majority of hospitals in the UK, doesn’t ban it in hospitals in its capacity as owner. Interesting the House of Commons are exempt from the ban, as a Royal Palace its precincts are exempt from statutory health and safety provisions - Hells' Bells and they aren't all dead yet or injured without the protection of the state?

TV2 funding TV1 doesn't stack up

I see the party keeping Labour in government – NZ First (who voted for Pita Paraone?) – is supporting a commercial free TV 1 funded by TV2 profits – which of course, doesn’t stack up.

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Even if TV1 ran on half the budget of ABC TV in Australia ($250 million, lets be generous and convert A$ into NZ$), there would hardly be enough money.

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TVNZ as a whole ran a surplus of around $57 million last year. Now TVNZ without ads on TV1 would make a smaller surplus, not 50% (as TV2 generates most of the revenue) but maybe around 20% - it also depends on whether you allow TV1 to advertise TV2 programmes or not - these are not legally commercials, but highly valuable in retaining audience share.

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So, anyone for a $40 million a year public service channel? Maori television gets $26 million a year of your taxes for programmes and to cover operating costs, AND it has advertising revenue, and it broadcasts only in the evenings, is that what TV1 is to become? The BBC World feed for overnight isn't cheap either, that would have to go.

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Now I note Sue Kedgley supports this too, but then she’s always been a fan of forcing people to pay for things she likes and banning things she hates, as PC so wonderfully has demonstrated.
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Compulsory pay TV should be resisted. NZ On Air should be wound up with its funding for TV programmes to cease, and TVNZ should be sold – having access and potential control over a means of disseminating information is something governments should stay far away from.

Transmission Gully still not worth it

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yes Transit still wants to build the coastal expressway instead of Transmission Gully. (the image is the profile of Transmission Gully compared to the existing route)
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Good.
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There isn’t the money for Transmission Gully – it is an uneconomic project and the media have been hoodwinked by Porirua City and the shockingly poor policy advice that sits within it. Porirua City Council does not know better than Transit, Greater Wellington Regional Council and peer reviewed consultants about roading costs – it just has a blinkered agenda. It wont raise rates to pay for Transmission Gully, even though its citizens would be some of the major beneficiaries. Porirua doesn't have the money - all the road user taxes from Wellington are committed for the next ten years (including the money that goes into the Crown account) - so it would have to be money taken from other government spending/tax cuts/borrowing to build a project with an economic return of 50c for every dollar spent on it. Wellington City Council has been trying to point much of this out - and it has a more credible policy department than any other Wellington territorial authority.
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The coastal expressway does not need building now – the median barrier along the coast does, and that has funding from Land Transport NZ (see your petrol tax sometimes is spent well). The barrier costs around $16 million, 4-laning costs around 30 times that, Transmission Gully costs around 70 times that.
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The focus for the corridor between Mackays Crossing and Paremata should be on a bypass for Pukerua Bay and a flyover at Paekakariki, which will make access in both communities safer and quicker. Congestion at Paremata has been ameliorated by the recently opened upgrade. Transit can pursue options for four-laning along the coast after that, and when congestion gets bad enough. Notice the road hasn’t been closed for a while – because it mainly gets closed due to accidents. When the barrier is up, there will be even fewer accidents and it will rarely be closed. With four lanes it is extremely unlikely all lanes will be closed at once – hardly worth an extra $500 million at that point, when you can use that money for something else – like remaining in your pocket!
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The argument that Transit promised Transmission Gully and residents planned on that basis has some validity – but by no means was funding ever promised – the study that preceded the current round of consultation demonstrated that Transmission Gully was over three times what previous estimates had been.
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Besides that the other components of the Western Corridor plan are difficult to argue against, the Kapiti Western Link Road (as a 70km/h arterial please!), extension of the rail service and higher frequency services, the Petone-Grenada link road and some other improvements are all worth proceeding with.
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The next step is to see what the conclusion of the hearings panel are, and then the final recommended corridor plan adopted by the GW regional council and Transit. By the way, a good question and answer summary is on the GW website here and the whole proposed Western Corridor plan on a pdf document here.

Fund your OWN public TV

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Stuff reports a call by a bunch of high profile New Zealanders for a compulsory pay TV channel – sold as a public non-commercial channel. It would be compulsory pay TV because you would be forced to pay for it regardless of whether or not you watch it.
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As such channels exist overseas, they think you should be made to pay for one here, as you are made to pay for National Radio and Concert FM
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Of course, there is little stopping this parade of rather wealthy New Zealanders setting it up themselves, buying frequencies and running such a channel with donations. TVNZ, after all, holds frequencies for a nationwide UHF TV channel, and the Maori reserved UHF frequencies still exist (Maori Television uses a frequency owned by Sky).
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Unfortunately I doubt the people concerned are willing to put their hands in their pockets for a non-commercial TV channel. You see, when you want something expensive, most people would rather spend their money on other things, like holidays or Sky TV.
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Public funded TV is expensive. ABC TV in Australia costs A$526 million a year , and the BBC sucks £123 (around $300) a year from British households to fund 2 analogue and 4 digital tv channels, and half a dozen radio stations for the whole country. Of course there are about 15x the households in Britain. Around a third of New Zealand households pay around 50% more than that for dozens of channels that they presumably want.
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The big problem is that those advocating public TV complain about a lack of decent local programmes and too much advertising. Well ask those who produce the programmes. If people who worked in the industry charged less for their services there could be more programmes. If people wanted them they would pay for them – ahhh but they cost far more than imported programmes you say. It is a bit like complaining that too many fly economy class, it would be better to have decent seats with decent food, like those people who fly business class – someone else ought to pay!
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Ah but it is about our culture. This is the argument I heard from the local content lobbyists for years - why make the conversation about money! Whose culture? So public TV reflects culture does it? Is that why 80% of Australian TV viewing is NOT done in front of the half billion dollar compulsory pay TV channel? Is that why public TV is almost invariably rather leftwing in outlook? (though TV3 news can give them a run for their money).

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Well if it is about culture then stop trying to put your hand into other people’s pockets and work for free or a lot less. If the culture vultures care so much about culture they wont charge what they do for their services because it will be done out of love – after all socialists often say how much they wish so much was not about money.
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They claim most people are ready to throw their tvs out the of their windows. Who is stopping them? Do something else, listen to the radio, play your own music, read a book, talk to people, go outside!
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Television is not a right – it is a service and it can be funded in three ways:
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Advertising: Where you, the viewer, get a free service in exchange for businesses (and the state!) promoting products and services to you. However to keep you watching, the channel must give you shows you want to watch, so that the audience is at its greatest.
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The people advocating public TV don’t like commercial television though. There is an undercurrent of thinking that what the great unwashed like the most is poor quality – the proletariat only like rugby, imported comedies and reality TV shows. This is not good enough for our esteemed New Zealanders who despise this as drivel. Commercial TV targets particular audiences that may be interested in particular products, so beyond that we have…
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Subscription TV: To convince people to pay for extra channels has been quite a feat, mostly by putting sports on it. However it does mean that people get what they pay for, and the choice is growing year by year. Again the public TV lobby see this as crass “why should you have to pay for it”, as if Dame Malvina would do all her concerts for free. Well pay TV is like buying magazines, people increasingly buy the channels they want and at any time, can give it up.
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Voluntarily funded TV: US PBS is largely this, as are the handful of non-commercial (but not commercial free) channels around the country. People donate money and the station operates. You make a decision whether public TV is something you want to support, or you would rather save up for something else. Triangle TV in Auckland is a hybrid of this and commercial broadcasting, and there are similar channels in Dunedin and Nelson.
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None of this washes with the public TV lobby, but fortunately the government wont give them what they want. This is because Treasury looked into this some years ago and the cost is astronomical – those public TV people don’t come cheap you know!
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So I suggest the coalition of the (willing?) raise cash, buy some frequencies and transmitters and have a go themselves. They will soon see that most New Zealanders couldn’t give a damn or are not willing to put their money where their mouths are.

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I've found in the UK that the most challenging programmes are not on the BBC, but on Channel 4 - which is prepared to show documentaries such as "religion the root of all evil". Commercial TV can be different - the BBC wont even call terrorists terrorists as it is too scared of offending anyone!

War with Iran

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The Oxford Research Group has released a report on the consequences of war with Iran (whether Israeli or US attack), to strike at its nuclear facilities and capability to retaliate. It estimates that it could lead to a wider war in the Middle East, kill 10,000 people and solidify backing for the current regime, and anti-American feeling in the Middle East. Iran could retaliate with suicide speedboats against oil tankers and a ground offensive would be untenable, requiring 100,000 troops.

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The full text of the report is here. It recommends that all non-military options be pursued to respond to Iran's nuclear programme - which, of course, should be pursued first. Diplomatic and trade sanctions may have a better chance of helping the regime topple than war. However, Iraq's nuclear facilities is Osiraq were knocked out by Israel in 1986, which did not result in war - but that was simpler.
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However.
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Nuclear attack on Tel Aviv, population 358 000. Imagine one third killed = 129 000.
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Maybe Iran is bluffing. Maybe Iran wont use nuclear weapons, maybe it wont supply nuclear materials to terrorists it supplies, funds and trains now. Maybe....

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Hopefully a diplomatic solution can be found that is verifiable, and Iran can be brought back from the brink. If it can't and Iran uses what it looks like it is acquiring, then it will be too late.

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Iran needs to be threatened with economic sanctions and isolation if it continues, and an opening up if it opens it facilities for full inspection and verification. Its government and people should know that there is a willingness to strangle Iran economically if it persists, and to use military force if necessary. As long as Iran has murderous intent against Israel, Israel will not sit by and watch hundreds of thousands of its civilians be incinerated.

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After all, if Iran uses a nuclear weapon against Israel - there should be no doubt that the Israeli and US response will make that the end of the Islamic Republic.

Bottled water and waste

Now the Greens have this as their latest guilt trip for consumers. Lindsay Mitchell agrees with them in part (and is probably slightly concerned about that).
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People spending their own money to buy something they want – bottled water. This is despite the quality of tap water getting better and despite many people not knowing the taste difference.
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A lot of that may be true. It may also be true that people are drinking more water, because of the health benefits, and that more people in air conditioned environments are feeling dehydrated. People buy bottled water for when they exercise, and travelling on planes and trains. Some (like me) buy bottled water because the tap water is foul (though I am in London) and I am prepared to pay for water that I prefer.
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The main whine appears to be that people are wasting money – like they “waste” money buying petrol when they could be travelling by other means. It sounds just as paternalistic and school prefect like as the Christians are on sex. It may cost 10,000 times more to bottle water than reticulate it, but if people are willing to pay for it, it is no different than buying too many pairs of shoes – nobody else’s business!
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However, a more substantive concern is “what about the plastic bottles”. Now there may be arguments that if people are replacing drinking other bottled drinks like soft drinks, then there is no net impact at all. Some bottles are recycled too. Regardless of that, there is a legitimate question.
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Is the world going to be swamped with all these bottles using up land and making our cities and landscapes ridden with garbage?
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No.
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“Our landfills are creaking” gives as image of mountains of rubbish about to spill over. There is plenty of land for landfills – think of where the main Wellington city one is in Happy Valley – vast acres of valleys and land to the west and south of it where landfills could exist with nobody being affected. It is more a matter of whether it makes economic sense. Bjorn Lomborg claims that the entire waste of the US for the 21st century, assuming the population doubles, would take up an area roughly 28 miles square and 100 feet high. Not exactly overflowing is it when the USA covers 3537441 square miles. It is no reason to not reduce waste, but one problem is the incentives.

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Local government typically runs landfills and does not always operate them to make a profit, like an investment. If it did, the cost of using them would go up, increasing pressure for waste reduction and improving the economics of recycling. Ah, but people will tip rubbish in public areas you say. The tragedy of the commons - and something that tends to only occur on public land. Time to sell that land too, but in the meantime this is where law enforcement and councils could focus their efforts - sell the landfills and enforce laws against tipping. Littering is something that environmentalists spend far too little time being concerned about.

Christian fundamentalism and sex

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Who put the mental into fundamentalism?

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I have been engaging regularly with another blogger who has decided (for unrelated reasons) to cease blogging on political matters – this is AJ Chesswas. I did so because I have, what some may say is a masochistic tendency, to engage with those and ideas that are almost the complete opposite of mine. Friends know this in my collection of North Korean propaganda, but I also find engagement with socialists, ecologists, religious zealots and racists all intriguing. At best it challenges me on what I believe and tests it, at worst it just gets me wound up.
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My main engagement has been the curious religious fascination with sex. As Muslims get all agitated about cartoons depicting Mohammed, Christians get most agitated in New Zealand about sexual behaviour. The opposition to the Civil Union Bill was driven by people opposed to homosexual behaviour and relationships. Simple as that.

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Opposition to legalising prostitution was driven by people opposed to sex being a commodity – although there is a wider concern about this, as prostitution makes many people uncomfortable with the “what if it was your daughter” argument. Few defended the right of adults to choose to have sex with money exchanging.
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Christians got extremely wound up when sodomy and male same-sex acts (they ARE different, sodomy is not just a homosexual practice and lesbian sex has never been prohibited) were legalised in the 1980s. Marches with the flag and enormous petitions, concern that teenage boys would suddenly start bumming each other because it was legal. I was 15 at the time and it didn’t cause me to look at my friend’s bums in a new light.
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So why do they get so wound up? I figured AJ Chesswas would enlighten me as his views on these matters are some of the most radical I have seen. I didn’t want just some quotes from the Bible, but some reasoning and to be fair, scripture was the weapon of last resort.
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He, after all, got extremely agitated when I explained I had engaged in behaviour that, at one time, was illegal in New Zealand. Check out this :
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“When a person consents to making a bad choice there is a huge duty on us to help prevent them doing it. How much more a duty when we are the one causing them to do it? How much more when as a man we're abusing the fickle choice of women who we know are so easily manipulated?”
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“If only you knew the repulsion and wrath that is flamed in the belly of a God-fearing man when he hears of a woman being sexually perverted. Get help Scott. That is both an insult, a compliment and a threat.”
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So before the lynch mob was sent on a plane to London (where, frankly we are talking genocide proportions if all the people in Britain who did this are going to get punished), I had to ask. Why does this matter? Why do they get SO angry?
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If people respect each other, don’t assault, steal or defraud from each other and get along peacefully, isn’t that enough? Why should the state be involved in private matters and why, indeed, should individuals give a damn whether their neighbours are married or not, enjoying sodomy, banging their sheep or making chocolate capsicum and parsnip cupcakes?
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It is a fundamental liberal maxim that people should be able to do what they wish, as long as they do not infringe upon the right of others to do the same. Christian fundamentalists dismiss this as a secular religion - and say to enforce this is "forcing my views on them", as if NOT doing something is MAKING you do something. Leaving people to choose is not forcing anyone, it is free will.

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Not only is liberalism utility maximising (allowing maximum creativity, risk taking and accountability for risk taking), but is moral. It is moral because people own their lives – anybody else owning your life is called slavery. It is also moral because it seems absurd and offensive for anyone else to have control over your body - if you (and whoever you are with) consent to do something, why is someone not participating in a better position to not only say no, but to punish you for not agreeing? What made that person the guardian of your body?
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Well this is the answer I got:
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"Sex is a private act, and that is the basis of my resistance to what has become a very public debate. But it is only a private act when that privacy actually means something - ie when it is expressed monogamously in a committed and covenantal relationship. When it is exposed, or people expose themselves, that deviant sexual practices are not only common but being publicised, celebrated and encouraged - then sexuality is of significant concern to any moral person who's in touch with the next generation".
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A private act, but only when you do it the way they want you to (and because they don't want any manuals of naked people showing you different ways of doing it), because otherwise it is a "bad choice”. Although he wanted to punish people for the bad choice too because:
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“What I'm saying that where a choice is a bad choice then it doesn't matter whose consent is involved - it is a bad choice and both participants are acting in a destructive, irresponsible, undignified and inhumane manner.”
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Not clear why it is destructive to enjoy a sexual act, irresponsible to whom, undignified (is just an expression of taste) and inhumane is unclear when two adults consent.
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Then there is a plea to the majority – with one problem. Unfortunately Christian fundamentalists surround themselves with people who agree with them (as many of us do, life is happier when you don’t have to deal with others) he said:
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“most people need little help in trying to understand how the practices you talk of are perverted!! Most people couldn't bear to even use the srts of terms you are using in this discussion!”
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I said sodomy, oral sex and masturbation. Terms I have used in discussions with quite a few people. I think most people would not think of those as perverted, particularly the latter two – some may not be a personal preference, but he is clearly deluding himself if he thinks "most people" think that way. Given the best Christian political result in the elections has been around 6% for United Future (and much of that vote was not on religious ground), it is clear that, as a bumper sticker in the US read, the "moral majority is neither"!

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However then we come to the crux of it – scripture was quoted and:
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“In marriage a husband and wife have chosen to refrain from the most pleasurable experience available to them, and save that as a gift for each other. This gift and its ongoing life withtin their marriage is a symbol of the exclusive love and life they share in their hearts for each other. When people figure out the right place to put things the blessing that follows is the joy of being a parent. The joy of bringing into the world new life, and meaningfully recreating something that will live and last because of you”
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Ok, I would disagree with much of that, but – setting aside agreement on this - this surely is still a matter of choice. Why regulate to require people have no sex unless it is heterosexual coitus within marriage? Why throw people in prison for sodomy? Well..
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“How can such an important matter not be the interest of a people's government? This is even more important than things like smoking, alcohol and obesity, because it deals with a person's core relationships and identities. If we get this right, and children are given the right start to life by two parents who truly love each other, we probably won't even have to deal with the problems and addictions that arise from a person's depression and lack of meaningful relationships and identity.”
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Furthermore..

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“And if there are any sexual acts that are more risky than sodomy they certainly should be illegal!! Force is certainly a very good argument when dealing with the immoral and unreasonable!”
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I wont even mention a long list if he wont search the internet for them!

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Apparently the state should control our core relationships and identities. Keen on a state arranged marriage anyone? Can’t have been hooking up with the wrong partner now can we? Should the state determine your career (identity)? What else must the state protect us from?

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Two people apparently will truly love each other if they withhold sex and this will deal with the problems from depression and lack of meaningful relationships. Of course if you are gay, then the glowing “love” of those who “care” will seek to “cure” you, because, after all, just because you are “immoral and unreasonable” doesn’t mean you can’t repent – rather like those who offend against the Party under communist systems.
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So there you have it – beyond simply saying the Bible says so (the Bible bans eating shellfish as well) it is simply immoral, offends Christian fundamentalists and apparently has some amazing effect on depression, meaningful relationships and identity. Anyone who has had a less than optimal marriage or is gay will find this laughable. I believe Christian fundamentalists (and other religious fundamentalists) have an obsession with sex for bigger reasons. Yes, the Bible is strict on these things (although the Adam and Eve story means that humanity was bred from the incestuous coupling of their children), but I think sex cuts to the heart of what it is to be human in many ways and that is why religious people want it regulated. Mr Chesswas once argued:
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“Comparing fihgting to sexual immorality is like comparing apples to sausage rolls. It really bugs me when people say it's hypocritical of Christians to want to ban pornography, but not violence.”
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Well when you are into banning, which is a violent act in itself, it would be more hypocritical to ban people from it! In short, this was in the context of how good fist fighting can be!! Mr Chesswas regards that as ok, but many sex acts as abominable.
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Sex is an expression of self – the most selfish act anyone can commit. You can’t have sex (short of lying on your back and thinking of England) properly without it being something you want and enjoy. If you do it just to give someone else pleasure (while you are nonchalant about it) you are – more than any other activity – being untrue to yourself, and you wont do it very well. Sex is THE act of selfishness, two people (or more) getting immense personal pleasure from performing acts for their own gratification. It just so happens that you enjoy giving the other person their gratification as well, as it heightens YOURS.
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It is immensely pleasurable, one of the most highly regarded entertainment activities – partly because it doesn’t happen very well without someone else wanting to do it, and because it involves revealing physical and personal traits and habits that most of us don’t want to observe in most people we know. In short, most of us find a small proportion of people attractive for sex and of them, a small proportion find us attractive, and of them, some still wont regardless – making it highly prized, highly pleasurable and very selfish. Sex is the ultimate hedonistic experience – highly desired and often denied and often restrained by reality – you can never always have sex with whoever you want. When you use force or try with those unable to consent, it is a crime and rightfully so.
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Christians don’t like the pleasure from sex – they prefer sacrifice. After all, they worship a God who is said to have sacrificed the life of its son for the sake of everyone else alive then and forever more. Not just sacrifice the life, but through an enduring humiliating painful torturing death. The omnipotent God does this to its son and this is an act of love? Bizarre. However, throughout Christianity is an asceticism and denial of self. Christians accept sex for procreation because biology means they have to. You can live your life without any sex of any kind – women will still menstruate and men will still ejaculate spontaneously (through overflow), but it is rather sad. It is no coincidence that nuns and priests are meant to be celibate (choir boys were nowhere in the Bible as an exception), sacrificing themselves to God.
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Christian fundamentalists have taken this further by celebrating the pleasure of sex within heterosexual matrimony as a privilege that is granted by God – in thanks for you making a procreative couple. If God wanted children (explains the interests some priests have in them) then, the omniscient being could have ensured women laid countless eggs and men fertilised them extra-corporally.
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It is a paternalistic authoritarian attitude which effectively claims ownership of everyone’s lives under the umbrella of “love”. In George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 – the state had perfected artificial insemination, in order to ban sex and intimate relations between people. This was because they interfered with love for Big Brother. How close is that to the theocracy proposed by Mr Chesswas? The acts are to be banned and depictions and promotion of them too – so your body is controlled and your mind too, through censorship.
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The best explanation of the attitude was in THIS comment
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“There is a big difference between administering law and punishment responsibly and lovingly, and doing it hatefully a la Hitler. This is very much a reality in the way a loving parent disciplines and punishes their children..
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No there isn’t – it is mere semantics and a matter of degree. There is nothing loving about locking someone in prison, the difference is that Nazi Germany exterminated many of those it despised – a matter of degree. The state lovingly will do violence to you, lock you up and tell you what you did is wrong – because the state is controlled by people who believe in a ghost you don’t believe in and which cannot be proven to exist. Brian Tamaki and those Christian voters who switched to National in their droves last election are seeking an Iranian style theocracy - like Europe had in the middle ages. One that treats you all as children, and which has the state controlling your body and your mind. The fundamental difference with Nazi Germany or Maoist China is degree – theocrats would probably not be genocidal, just prison wardens.
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There is no substance of reason behind Christian fundamentality – it is as dangerous an idea as Islamic fundamentalism – both forms of religious fascism, both trying to enforce a subjective supernatural based belief system and ban others. The key difference with Islam is that, outside the USA, there are very few Christian fundamentalists. They want your body and your mind, as the followers of fundamentalist religion not only know the truth, but they will use all means they can to enforce it.
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As a footnote Mr Chesswas has noted that he is being challenged already because of “a romantic involvement with a Labour party campaigning feminist law graduate! All of this has resulted in a significant challenge to my views on biblical literalism. But then, as has so often been pointed out, if I were to truly be a biblical literalist I’d have to tie scriptures to my hands and my forehead, refrain from trimming my beard, and not wear clothing made of different types of material!”
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Indeed! I think it is odd that people who hold a book in such esteem then decide it is appropriate to skip over significant portions of it. Now I am no theologist, but I don’t think the Bible says anywhere “these chapters supersede these ones”. That is why I find it difficult to understand people who choose a religion, but only those parts they like, it is like they want a “god” but the “god” they want must be too nice to have meant all that was said in that “holy book”. Maybe they are too scared to do this.

The West should treat Islam the way it wants Islam to treat the West

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said so.

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Indeed. We want an open and free debate and exchange of views - without violence, without threats against our citizens, and without threats to wipe Israel off the map. I haven't noticed Westerners using terrorism against Muslims - or indeed

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He also said "Muslims for their part had to avoid "sweeping denunciation of Christians, Jews and the West". As my post a few days ago on the anti semitic cartoons, there is still some way to go on that one.

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Mr Abdullah is a moderate - that's why he shut down a newspaper that now said it made an "editorial oversight" for publishing the cartoons, and he declared that possession of them was now banned.

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That's the difference - so Malaysians, particularly the 40% who are NOT Muslim, here are the cartoons. Judge for yourselves - after all, they are not meant to offend you and I think you are all adult enough to make your own mind up.

Boo to you Yahoo

The reports that Yahoo may have supplied information to Chinese authorities that led to the arrest of a dissident journalist shows a disjunct between legality and morality among that is utterly reprehensible. A company that flourished due to the freedom of the USA is willing to actively participate in repression.

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Reporters Without Borders claims that Mr Li Zhi received an eight year prison sentence for attempting to join a banned political party and Yahoo China gave the government details of his online registration. Yahoo is to look into this, as it is to appear before the US Congress to discuss its policies in relation to human rights in China.

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Of course it is well known that Google has a censored version of its search engine for the Chinese market, but Google at least has kept its email server outside China. Microsoft also has shut down an anti-government blog in China.

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The companies concerned don't want the Chinese market to be taken by someone else, by ignoring it they claim they are not helping Chinese freedom (the internet is probably on balance a liberator even when it is partially censored, than not) and that it will simply mean others will enter and take market share.

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However it is one thing to operate within the laws of a country in how you provide a service - another to gather information and supply it so that country's government can oppress its citizens. Yahoo may have blood on its hands - for shame!.

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Note if you search yahoo China for tiananmen massacre, you get nothing. If you search for BBC news or Voice of America, you get sites that have nothing to do with it. Back to shortwave radios in China then is it?

Worthless MP

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Remember Richard Worthless?
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The header on his website claims he is the MP for Epsom, look at the VERY top of your browser to see what it says. He just doesn't get it does he? The man who was convinced that, somehow, National had a better chance governing with him winning the Eden seat, rather than a list place, rather than National ALSO getting Rodney Hide and whoever ACT could bring along, has shown more of his true colours.
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He doesn’t believe in free speech any more than Tariana Turia does.
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In his virtually audience less newsletter “Newsworthy” he said:
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“The media defence of "freedom of speech" overlooks two important points:
* Freedom of speech is not an unconstrained right. Whilst the New Zealand Bill of Rights in section 14 refers to the right of freedom of expression, there are a raft of laws which impinge dramatically on that right.The laws of criminal contempt and defamation are clear illustrations of that.
* We still have our on statute books the crime of blasphemous libel which carries a maximum jail term of one year. “
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Nice to raise that point, as if he was a prefect pointing out that "it's illegal" like some arrogant little do-gooder! When Richard Worth was at school was he hated because he told teacher whenever kids broke a rule? If he were a cop would he have given you a ticket for going at 101km/h (it’s the law!)?
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The law of blasphemous libel does exist, Worth fails to point out that the Crimes Act S.123(4) points out that no one shall be prosecuted for this offence without leave of the Attorney General. This demonstrates that it exists for exceptional cases – though it should not exist at all – it should not be a crime to blaspheme against any religion.
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Worth wasn’t just pointing out the law, he was effectively endorsing it by saying:
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“Comments and caricature ridiculing or attacking the religious beliefs of others are dangerously divisive in any community. Such comments bring unpredictable response actions from extremists and often the tacit support of more moderate adherents.”
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On one level he is right. Imagine if you lived in a society where your beliefs and opinions were typically considered extreme, ridiculous and stupid. Ever been a libertarian? Ever been an atheist in an avowedly Christian or Muslim town? Think the law should protect me, Not PC, Lindsay Perigo from ridicule? No. We wont threaten to burn down your buildings or behead you.
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"Comments attacking the religious belief of others" should be suppressed because someone will lose the plot and give an "unpredictable response action". So free speech now must have permission from people who tend to act violently when their belief in ghosts is attacked. So we must shut up because some psychotics will murder us due to the offence caused. There are plenty of reasons to criticise religions because they are ridiculous - that is different from harassing people.
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Rodney Hide (the real MP for Epsom) said, “we must be respectful of other people’s cultures and beliefs. That’s a simple matter of politeness and a pragmatic recognition of what it takes to live in a diverse and tolerant world.” You don’t go around and tell your Muslim neighbour everyday his religion is stupid or tell the local priest how evil you think Catholicism is.
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However, Worth is not saying that - he separates lampooning from ridicule and attack - because making fun of religion is not ridicule? How does he write this sort of vapid nonsense?
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Worth deserves the ridicule of the title Worthless - not as an insult, but because he is worthless in a party that nominally supports personal freedom. Presumably he is seeking the religious minority vote at the next election, given that the MP for Epsom has staked his colours to the mast of freedom on this issue.

Labour bought the election?

Well of course it didn't - it isn't as simple as that, but it doesn't look like it played by the rules or the law.

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David Farrar has reported here and here on the Electoral Commission referring the Labour Party to the Police for an alleged overspend of $446,815 over and above the limit of $2,380,000. This is because Labour believes that the pledge card should be a government not a party electoral expense - because policy pledges are not about getting elected are they?

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Are they BOLLOCKS.

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Had National done this, Labour would have given it enormous grief - and would have claimed taxpayers bought National the election - well I don't think amount of spending is as important as the nature of the spending. What IS wrong is taxpayers helping fund party campaigns, particularly just one party - that is corrupt.

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The lame excuse is that "the electoral law was outdated and unclear". Oh dear, that's what to use in court - sorry judge, the law is outdated and unclear, I wouldn't have broken it otherwise, I'd like it to change. Outdated? So it should be legal for governments to spend taxpayers money on promoting the encumbent party in power?

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If Peter Dunne and Winston Peters have any conscience, they will pull support if Labour is found guilty - the election was too close a race to make this NOT worth pursuing. Labour has played on an uneven pitch - and kiwis don't like unfair play. If things pan out, then there will be prosecutions and the issue remains as to whether Parliament in its current form should continue.

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As much as the cost is something to baulk at, for Labour to retain any shred of credibility in this government, Parliament should be dissolved and another election called within 6 weeks. If Labour wont do it, National should call a no confidence motion and every party in Parliament should (Labour excepted) support it. What's a bet even the Greens and the Maori Party might even support it.

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Labour has handed National a gift horse on a plate, heated it and served it with cutlery - now is National smart enough to know how to carve it?

Morales makes sense on one point

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New Bolivian President Evo Morales sides with Castro and Venezuelan socialist strongman Hugo Chavez, and is rabidly anti-capitalist, but he has made sense on one point. Legalising the international sale of Coca.
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He said to The Guardian: .

“You have to realise that, for us, the coca leaf is not cocaine and as such growing coca is not narco-trafficking," he says. "Neither is chewing coca nor making products from it that are separate from narcotics. The coca leaf has had an important role to play in our culture for thousands of years. It is used in many rituals. If, for example, you want to ask someone to marry you, you carry a coca leaf to them. It plays an important role in many aspects of life."
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"I want to industrialise the production of coca and we will be asking the United Nations to remove coca leaf as a banned substance for export," he says. "That way, we can create markets in legal products such as tea, medicines and herbal treatments. There has even been research in Germany which shows that toothpaste made from coca is good for the teeth.

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Coca-colgate? Maybe Coca Cola should have kept some in it for dental hygiene? Seriously though, this should be supported. I don't like Morales cuddling up to socialist dictators and his anti-capitalism, and I don't agree with them that cocaine should remain illegal, but it would be a good step forward to give Bolivia this carrot.

If the US legalised coca products, it would improve relations with Bolivia and help to nullify the new Latin American socialist alliance developing between Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba.
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Sadly, I doubt if it will. The US commitment to the war on drugs is only matched by the degree to which it has failed to stem the demand and supply.

£100 parking ticket!

Annoyed about a parking ticket you recently got? Think your council is screwing money out of you? Well you're probably not in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. British local government likes screwing the public for cash to pay for their petty planning, whilst still being incapable of maintaining high standards of street maintenance (most NZ councils have far better local road surfaces because the funding is tied to performance).

I was in a pay and display park on the street on Saturday morning in Chelsea – I was ticketed for being six minutes over the displayed time. I found this out about eight minutes over (when I went to check to buy another hour at the standard rate of £3 an hour). I couldn't find the fascist parking cop who did it - although K&C has a reputation for being strict on this, and I suspect it finds it easy to get fascists by hiring people outside the Borough who can't wait to punish the "evil rich people" who have cars in Chelsea.

So anyone in New Zealand ever got a £100 parking ticket for being six minutes over time (that you paid for) on a quiet back street?

Whither Iran

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The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been most vocal in the discussion about the cartoons and has tastelessly announced a Holocaust cartoon competition.
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As if comparing the belief of a religion (which is supernatural) to a historically documented genocide is equivalent. However, education in some Islamic societies teaches that the Holocaust didn’t happen.
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It looks, on the face of it, given the intransigence of Iran on its nuclear programme, its desire to destroy Israel, its ongoing support, training and funding of terrorism, that it is looking for conflict.
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The problem is that Iran is deeply divided. One argument made is that much of the Iranian population, particularly the 50% under 30, are pro-Western and have little time for Islamic fundamentalist. The fire of the Islamic revolution has by and large gone for that population. Don’t forget that Iranians are NOT Arabs and most do not speak Arabic, and the affinity that Ahmadinejad has with the Palestinians is not one that Iranians ethnically share. Iran’s political system does not provide a particularly good outlet for alternative views.
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At the top is the Supreme Leader, who is the religious and state head of the country, selected from an Assembly of Experts (pope style). He then appoints the religious members of the Council of Guardians, who with members selected by the Parliament, vet political candidates for their consistency with the Islamic constitution.
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So for starters, you can’t be a non-Islamic candidate or a Muslim candidate who does not believe that Islam should be the deciding factor in government. As a result, turnout at elections has varied. Only 10% turned out for the Tehran local elections, so Ahmadinejad was a Mayor with very little support.
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Reformists have called for those opposing the regime to boycott the elections, but still 59.6% turnout for the 2005 Presidential election was reported, with Ahmadinejad getting 61.69% of the vote against more moderate reformist candidate Akbar Hāschemī Rafsanjānī. While not an overwhelming endorsement, it is still one that George Bush would have been very happy with. Democracy is, after all, the counting of heads, not what is in them.
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So what does this mean? It means that given half the chance, a lot of Iranians would cheer the downfall of the Islamic Republic, particularly citizens of Tehran, and that by sheer demographics this will occur. The problem is it wont be soon enough.
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You see Iran has a nuclear programme – one ironically that was started with the help of the USA in 1975 under President Gerald Ford. The objective was to help Iran develop nuclear power in order to free up its oil reserves for export to North America. Of course back then, Iran was governed by the Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was overthrown an alliance of opposition groups (liberal and conservative), which was subsequently overtaken by the Islamic revolution. A Siemens/AEG Telefunken joint venture had signed a contract to build a nuclear power plant which was terminated after the revolution.
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Iran’s nuclear programme was in abeyance during the 80s, due to the war with Iraq and a lack of interested western partners. In the 1990s Russia helped Iran develop the Bushehr facilities, under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.
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Iran under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty has the international legal right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, as long as it accepts inspections by the IAEA to ensure it is not developing a military capability. In 2002, an Iranian dissident pointed out there are secret nuclear facilities at two locations not subject to these inspections. By 2004, the IAEA is not convinced that Iran has responded adequately to these allegations, in response the Iranian government breaks seals of the IAEA on its equipment, and resumes building nuclear centifuges. By September 2004, the IAEA calls on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme. By November 2005, following the Iranian elections, the IAEA is impatient, rightfully so, as Iran still refuses to allow inspections it is treaty bound to comply with.
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So now the IAEA has voted 27-3 to submit its concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme to the UN Security Council. The Council can impose economic sanctions on Iran. Iran meanwhile has said it will resume uranium enrichment, denies it is pursuing nuclear weapons (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons on August 9, 2005, while its President sabre rattles against Israel.
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Iran must not gain nuclear weapons. If it wanted to prove it had no such intent, it could do so by opening up its facilities to inspection. The fact that it refuses to do speaks volumes. Iran has several motives for gaining nuclear weapons:
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1. Regime survival: Having been branded as part of the Axis of Evil by George Bush and seen the regime change the US implemented in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is reason to believe it could be next. Having a nuclear capability would deter the US, the sooner it gets it the better.
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2. Threaten Israel: Iran would want to deter any possible Israeli strike of Iranian facilities and to use a nuclear capability as a bargaining chip for its proxies (Hizbullah) in the region. At worst, it could supply terrorists with a small device to explode at an Israeli target, dramatically raising the stakes of the Palestinian conflict.
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3. Status in the region: With neighbours Pakistan, India and China all nuclear, Iran will feel it can have a greater say in regional affairs with a nuclear capability.
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So what now? Dialogues, sanctions, war, overthrow of the regime? Are enough Iranians disenchanted that they will deal to the government if it goes too far, or do words need to be backed up by action? More to follow tomorrow.