Nanny's ever creeping hand.... while she allows scum to party at our expense

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The oppression of adult smokers continues with Julian Pistorius blogging about a proposal in New South Wales to ban smoking in cars!! Your own private property, your own space – well, given so many acquiesce to it being banned in businesses you own, its only natural that the anti-liberty brigade would choose cars next. Not exactly rocket science to figure out what is next. The idea, you see, is to protect children. Now this is easy to understand by motive – see I have asthma and both my parents smoked at home until my late teens – something they both regret now. It would be preferable if parents didn’t smoke around their children. It would be preferable if parents did lots of things and didn't do others - the things is there are laws to prohibit parents neglecting, physically and sexually abusing their children. They do little to stop it happening, but it does mean they are brought to account.

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Now you know my opinion on smoking, I hate it personally, but believe it is up to adults to decide what they put into their own bodies, and whether or not they allow smoking on their property. That was explained in my post on the forthcoming ban in England.

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This call for banning smoking in cars - to protect children - is far more insidious. The road to hell is paved with good intentions - and the means to this end are terrifying indeed. How is this going to be enforced? Are you going to be fined and stopped by cops for smoking in your own car? Remember the odds are that if your car is stolen it will get next to no police attention, but ohhhhh smoke in it - then you're in trouble, breaking Nanny State's Parenting Laws.

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This can't be the end though - you see, if parents are to be controlled according to what is harmful to their children, what next will it be? After all, the harm caused by exposure to tobacco smoke in cars would be minor. Banning smoking everywhere must be next. Then limits on alcohol storage and consumption by parents? Regulations on storing poisons and knives? Regulations to prohibit male parents being alone with their children (sex abuse). How about a daily diet ration for children so parents don’t feed them too little, too much or the wrong food? How about banning books that are suitable only for adults in parents' houses? After all - it is for children - what's more important than protecting children from negligent or harmful parents?
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Oh I forgot to say, the Bill to ban smoking in cars covers ALL cars, whether you're a parent or not - after all, can't be TOO careful when we are protecting people from themselves?

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So who wants to do this? Political correct socialists? No. The Reverend Fred Niles, well known NSW evangelist MP who leads the Christian Democrats and hates homosexuals and wants to ban Muslim clothing. Fred clearly thinks that the state should regulate parenting.

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Of course we know the Maori Party would condone this – being the fascist bullies who want to ban smoking. Lindsay Mitchell and ZealandWhinge both blogged on this. The Maori Party wants to "protect children" by taking away the rights of adults - seeing the state as parents of Maori who it does not think can make their own minds up themselves.

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So think, if you're a non-smoker - what does banning smoking in cars mean? What does it mean that there are people wanting to expand the justice system's role into prosecuting smokers - when at the same time, a woman can kill a baby girl and get four years of prison she describes as "It's not as hard as people make out". The Sunday Star Times reports how she enjoyed drugs, porn and partied in prison - if the Maori Party can't get viscerally outraged by the entity that killed Lillybing like it gets outraged by smoking, then it can't even pretend to have any interest in the issues that truly hurt Maori people.

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and you might think about where state priorities should be.... smoking, or child killers?

Gee the market is working - people consuming less sugar

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The Daily Telegraph reports that, surprise surprise, demand for sugar filled soft drinks in the UK is declining! Sale of chocolate, potato chips and other snacks are also down as people watch what they eat. People are preferring water and juice to sugar based soft drinks, and apparently the UK is one of the few countries where artificially sweetened soft drinks outsell conventional ones.

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As the head of Pepsico in the UK is quoted as saying:

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"The calorie intake of Britain has been falling over the last few decades, according to the Government's own figures... There's a massive demand for a stage villain and the food industry has stumbled into the role."

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Exactly - personal responsibility is the key issue, and it is clear more and more people are thinking about what they eat and drink - because it is in their interests to do so. The slobbering big statists like the Greens, want to boss you about and take more of your money to make you be good, because you can't figure it out for yourself - you idiot!! Sue Kedgley can run your life and spend your money better than you can. A government campaign or a tax or regulations wont work, they'll just be seen as big nanny "telling you off for being naughty" as pathetic little petty-fascists rub their hands with glee in bossing others about.

Death of Harry Browne - former US Libertarian Party Presidential candidate

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Harry Browne was the US Libertarian Party's Presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, and he died on 1 March 2006, aged 72, after suffering for some months from Lou Gehrig's disease. In 1996 he got around 485 000 votes (0.5%) for President, doing only slightly worse in 2000 with 0.4%, coming 5th both times (after the 2 main party candidates, Ralph Nader and in 1996 Ross Perot and in 2000 Pat Buchanan).

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Browne's greatest successes was arguably his books "Why Government Doesn't Work", and How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. he would appear on radio and TV shows across the states, though typically on smaller independent stations, as the major networks have little interest in minor party candidates until they get around 20% poll support - and to some extent that is "chicken and egg" with media coverage being necessary to get it. However, Harry didn't want the government to make people give him publicity - he believed unequivocably in freedom. He was controversial though - opposing the war in Iraq, and believing very much in the US taking a more isolationist foreign policy. He was also involved in a scandal involving a Libertarian Party worker assisting him with his primary campaign before he was selected as the 1996 presidential candidate, as this was seen as a conflict of interest that caused much infighting with the US Libertarian Party.

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He was an articulate and interesting speaker, who came across very well on television when given the chance - one of the best advocates for liberty the US has had in recent history. I saw him on C-SPAN debates in the 1996 campaign, and he could have battled with the big two candidates any day. James Babb has a great letter from Harry Browne to his daughter on his blog- for Christmas, which says a great deal about his philosophy. He also had an article of his published in The Free Radical.

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Egocentricity has republished one of his articles. One of the better quotes is:

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"You don't control government. It's easy to think of the perfect law that will stop the bad guys while leaving the good guys unhindered. But no law will be written the way you have in mind, it won't be administered the way you have in mind, and it won't be adjudicated the way you have in mind."

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Several sites are commemorating Harry's life including Downsize DC blog from the Downsize DC organisation he helped follow, Hammer of Truth and the US Libertarian Party website. Others include:
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Kolehardfacts
Third Party Watch
Chrislib
Atavist
Spelunking through the chaos
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So RIP Harry Browne - you will be missed.

The entrepreneurial second-hander

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Annette Presley likes the limelight, a bit like Sir Richard Branson. However, unlike Branson she doesn't always produce products or services with her own property, she also likes using the property of others - sometimes for nothing.

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You see her protest for her ISP, Slingshot, besides being a clever marketing stunt, is part of her one woman campaign to appear to be on behalf of the consumer - when she is as interested in making a profit as Telecom is. "What's wrong with that" I hear you say, well she has a record of wanting to use Telecom's network to compete with it, and complaining to the government about when Telecom wont give her what she wants on her terms.

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The page on Slingshot's website "The Battle to Unbundlle" (sic!) has a lot of links about her complaining about the regulatory environment. She calls for a "level playing field" which, of course, largely exists - just she isn't prepared to put her own money into a local access network (far better to make your competitor do it, at prices that are forced upon it). To her credit she has been at the forefront of a company cutting call charges, despite how "unfair" the system is. Unlike Telstra Clear, Slingshot does compete.

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However, Annette is no friend of the free market, check out this comment from her letter to the Minister of Communications, David Cun liffe:

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"Telecom does represent 20% of the New Zealand share market and as Telecom is 75% overseas owned these profits go offshore. 􀂃 Since the government sale of Telecom, more than $8 billion has been remitted overseas to their foreign share holders, and they still have an unrealized capital gain of more than $5 billion. 􀂃 One would question why is the government propping up a foreign owned monopoly and supporting its control of the NZ market."

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Of course, unlike Telstra Clear which is 99% non-NZ owned. More importantly, who cares if the owners of a company have gained dividends on their investment? Annette doesn't live the lifestyle of the poor. Telecom is also NOT a monopoly (after all Slingshot competes with it in the national call, international call and ISP markets), it is not propped up by government (its customers pay for it) and the extent of its control of the NZ market is due to others not setting up in competition, and it having customers that continue to use it. (Besides that, the letter is plagued with grammatical errors!).

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Annette is pleading socialism - a private company can't pay dividends to its shareholders and can't operate in a free and open market, because SHE wants to be propped up by the government granting HER property rights over another company.

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Remember a few years ago she bleated on about her free ISP - i4free - which has disappeared since Telecom renegotiated the interconnection agreement that was funding the company. i4free boasted about giving free dialup internet access - of course it wasn't really free, Telecom was paying for it. You see i4free would get a Clear local line, and Clear would get paid, per minute, the interconnection fee Telecom would have to paid for calls from a Telecom local line to a Clear line. Now those interconnection rates were meant to cover voice calls, but the internet meant that many people would spend hours online and so Telecom was paying well over the cost for Clear to terminate the calls - so Clear would use the money to share with i4free, to basically pay for the free internet access. Telecom couldn't charge this to the user because of the KiwiShare, so there was a dispute as Telecom introduced the 0870 numbering scheme to bypass the interconnection agreement.

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Annette screamed on and on about how unfair it was that Telecom was changing its numbers for ISPs and it was jeoparding free Internet when, in fact, TELECOM was paying for her company to operate - almost all i4free revenue would have come from interconnection fees, because, despite her bleatings, i4free free internet disappeared once the interconnection agreement had been renegotiated. She claimed:

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"i4free will earn its keep from what she describes as a "next-generation" consumer marketing and shopping network model that has been successful overseas. Advertising will play a small part."

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Yeah right!

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Annette Presley runs a good ISP with a national/international call service that is competitive - she built up a business based on reselling the services of other operators, which is fine if she negotiated such resale agreements on a voluntary basis - but she needs to learn that it is immoral in business to force people to do business with you, to use the government to grant you property rights in the business of others. She should get on with doing business, with those who choose to do business with her, and tell the government to leave it alone - unfortunately, she has a record of doing the exact opposite. Being an entrepreneur means producing or selling something you made or bought freely on the market - not selling something someone was forced to sell you.

Pope assassination attempt was Soviet plot

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Associated Press is reporting that an Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that the USSR was behind the 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II given his role in supporting the Solidarity movement in Poland - which, naturally, was seen as a challenge to communist rule and Soviet hegemony over eastern Europe. The report details the draft report from the commission into the involvement of the KGB in Italy during the Cold War.
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Has Keith Locke apologised to the people of eastern Europe for supporting the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80s?

Republic of Black Mountain

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The Parliament of the republic of Montenegro has agreed to the conducting of a referendum on whether or not to secede from Serbia-Montenegro. If the referendum carries a yes vote, this will be the final part of Yugoslavia breaking away. Since Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in 1991, Bosnia-Hercegovina in 1992 and subsequently Macedonia (no Greeks flaming me about the name, I KNOW your issue), at last Montenegro (literally black mountain) may unshackle itself from Belgrade (Kosovo has status yet to be finalised).
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This wont please the large Serb minority, or Serbia itself which loses access to the Adriatic – but given that both Serbia and Montenegro are more interested in joining the EU, it hopefully wont fuel tensions among angry nationalists. The last opinion poll showed 43% in favour of independence, with 31% against, the remainder undecided.
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Europe has had a plethora of breakaway states in the last 15 years, plus one unification (Germany). Since 1991 the following countries have established recognised independent governments:
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Latvia (now EU)
Lithuania (now EU)
Estonia (now EU)
Belarus (Stalinist outpost)
Ukraine
Moldova
Slovakia / Czech Republic (both EU)
Slovenia (now EU)
Croatia
Macedonia (formerly, “former Yugoslav republic of”)
Bosnia-Hercegovina
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And that doesn’t include Russia, assuming it succeeded the USSR. The greater Serbia that Slobodan Milosevic murdered for is slipping away, if Montenegro goes, Kosovo will be next!

Riots in South Africa spell end of ANC honeymoon

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Well not entirely, the ANC will still win most of the local body elections, but the riots in Khutsong township bear witness to disappointment over the ANC gravy train – the party that keeps winning election after election doesn’t feel like it needs to deliver, and has also been dominated by socialists with little inkling about economic rationality. Corruption and a creeping lack of transparency and accountability are becoming the hallmark of the ANC – after all it is lead by a sympathiser of Murderer Mugabe. Check out the writings of the ANC on local government, it has all the rhetoric of a Marxist-Leninist party, which it just about is:

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We also urge all our cadres and members to sustain their interaction with the masses of our people to encourage them to exercise their democratic right to vote, and thus select municipal legislatures and governments of their choice.
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However, the ANC will remain in charge of most local authorities, although the Democratic Alliance, (the heirs to the Democratic Party – the only legal party during the apartheid era that for decades spoke out against apartheid) hopes to take Cape Town.
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Having said that, South Africa is enjoying good economic growth, 6% last year, partly because the government has abandoned pursuing socialist policies extensively. It can’t afford to, literally. As long as it pursues reasonable economic orthodoxy it will continue to look better than its neighbours, but the growing arrogance of the ANC is a worry – few in South Africa look longingly at Harare and what has become of that former economic performer.

Lib Dem leadership race or who gives a ....

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.
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*empties the sick bag* – the leftie values of the Liberal Democrats from the website, who are having the most boring leadership contest in the UK right now.
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Oh YAWN! Which politician with no aspiration to do anything beyond be in Opposition (or having delusions of grandeur) wants to lead the socially liberal economically conservative democrats? What DOES being Liberal Democrat mean anyway? What sort of stupid name for a party is “democrat”? (this applies to the US, Australian, NZ and all the other stupid “Democrat” parties, are any of them any good?) It’s not as if democracy is up for the vote is it now? In Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) makes sense, because Zimbabwe is hardly a fair democracy. The LibDems could be pro-MMP, but neither major party is stupid enough to go for that (look at NZ!). However, do the Liberal Democrats want everything to be by popular vote? In which case why bother? The majority rules, you don’t need principles. How about the word “Liberal”? Yes there is room for a liberal party in the UK, Labour is sometimes liberal socially, other times is all for state surveillance and nannying everyone. The Tories are, well, Conservative and David Cameron is hardly liberal when he doesn’t want to rock the status quo NHS disaster or cut taxes.
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So I don’t care!! let the LibDems to have the least competent leader possible, after eviscerating Charles Kennedy, who, albeit as a leftie, saw the LibDems get their best result ever, because the uptight bastards didn’t like him being alcoholic. The LibDems only deliver value when they are concerned about civil liberties, the rest of the time they are high tax socialist opportunists, who deserve to go the way of Michael Foot's Labour Party.

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The UK has the socialist LibDems, the civil liberty hating nanny stating, but sometimes sensible Labour Party and the somewhat liberal, but slitheringly left leaning new Tories - nice to see how statists have so much choice here!.

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and no, I wont tell you who the contenders are and what they stand for - you have better things to worry about.

Airline leg room varies...

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I'm not tall, but I'm not short - I'm 5'10" - and long haul flights in economy class, with tight leg room don't please me, in fact I think it is uncivilised to sit upright for hours on end cooped up in an aluminium tube with dry air and sitting nearly on top of other people.

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That's why a few years ago I learnt that airlines have different seat pitch - that is, the distance they place each row of seats from the other. The pitch is the measurement from one point of the seat to the exact same point in the next seat - so airlines with deep/thick cushioned seats might have great pitch, but little legroom, whereas thin, but modern contoured seats can give you more legroom with less pitch - got it?

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So, while you might choose your airlines on the basis of fares, service, entertainment system and schedule, for me one important factor is room - I like space, and so I've done a bit of research into airline seat pitch, in economy, for airlines flying to and from New Zealand. The worst seat width is Emirates, it squeezes in a 10th seat per row on its 777s, whereas Singapore Airlines and Air NZ only have 9 seats. So here is the list, if I missed any I apologise, but these are only those flying to NZ:

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AIRLINE SEAT PITCH

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Air NZ Boeing 747 34"

Singapore Boeing 777 34"

Thai A340/747 34"

Malaysian 747/777 34"

Aerolinea Argentinas 34"

Emirates 777 33-34" (but only 17" seat width)

Garuda 33"

Korean 33"

Air NZ Airbus A320 32" (17.9" seat width)

Air NZ Boeing 777 32" (but 17.8" seat width)

Air NZ Boeing 767 32" (17.5" seat width)

Singapore Boeing 747 32" (17.5" seat width)

Cathay Pacific 32" (17.5" seat width)

Royal Brunei 32"

Lan (Chile) 32"

Air Pacific 32"

Air Tahiti Nui 32"

Air Calin 32"

Polynesian blue 32"

Emirates Airbus A340 31" (17.5" seat width)

Qantas 31" (17.2" seat width)

Pacific Blue 30-31"

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So there you have NZ is one of the better ones with its 747, Qantas one of the worst. However, Qantas is there with other big airlines, like British Airways, Virgin Atlantic (which sometimes has as low as 29" seat pitch, but is standardising at 31"), United and Lufthansa - most of them are cheap on space in economy. Frankly 31" is an insult for a 12 hour flight, especially since Air NZ's domestic 737s has the same pitch for its domestic Saab 340s and ATR 72s!! It shows how little people travelling care about legroom!

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Given that I've booked a trip back to NZ for April - in Air NZ's new premium economy class. Cost about $600 more above a flexible economy ticket to get 6 inches more legroom, and a slightly wider seat, and more recline, which is all I really wanted - the better drinks service and sitting upstairs are bonuses. There were only 3 seats left in premium economy, proving it is popular - as more people don't want to fly for 24 hours sitting in classic "scum class" as a dear drunken friend of mine once declared as she walked into economy on a flight to Singapore a few years ago. I'll let you all know what it is like once I've done it - remember airfares in nominal terms have not changed in 20 years - it still costs around NZ$2000 to fly return to the UK in economy class, as it did in 1985, it still costs NZ$7000 and NZ$12000 to fly business or first class (though only Emirates and Singapore Airlines fly the whole way first class now). So I'm not too fussed about paying a bit more for a bit more comfort, plus premium economy class is pretty much the standard (of seating) as business class used to be when it was introduced.

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If you want more info about airline seating, go to Seat Guru and Airline Quality websites, they are unaffiliated with airlines and have reasonably up to date info about their seating.

Stick brainstorming up your....

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PC has a great post about how brainstorming is a waste of time. It is part of the school of office psychobabble that has brought us all plenty of mindless exercises like:

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- open plan offices (a bit like saying 40 person chauffeur driven car - it's not a frigging office!) guaranteed to at best disturb you with background noise, nose picking, eating and general lack of privacy, at worst you get idiot interrupting you blathering on about whatever they want to talk about and people flirting endlessly with the hot members of staff they like (my work only has the noise);

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- planning days - when an enormous amount of labour sits largely idle while one person is paid to talk to them, encourage them all to participate, yet less than 50% do and, at worst, play games of trust, give praise or positive criticism. Perfect for paving over the real issues;

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- meetings to share information - basically for people who can't be arsed reading and those who can't be arsed writing about it. These can be useful, in small quantities - but meetings day in day out are a big waste of time;

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- any use of democracy at work - counting heads, not what's in them. Useful for "where shall we go for annual team lunch", but not much else. Useless for asking for bright ideas, even more useless when asking if people are more likely to stay if they are paid more - well duh! If most people are happy at work, it will show by them staying - if not, the turnover rate is high. It is pretty simple. There need to be ways of dealing with dissatisfaction, which boils down to talking to managers or having someone else to talk to if the manager is the problem;

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Brainstorming has weaknesses when anyone involved fears the opinion of others, or if it isn't chaired properly and it has to be seen to be a better use of time that people working independently. You see most people have most of the same ideas most of the time in most fields. It is a bit like asking - how should we fix the health system? The ideas would be spend more, spend less, privatise, nationalise, decentralise, recentralise - and that's really it. Far better for someone to produce a paper with options and circulate it for comment, than to sit around having a ....

The full report PC's post referred to is here.

Road sanity then madness

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Stuff reports that Treasury has backed up the costings commissioned by Transit New Zealand on the comparative costs of the coastal expressway upgrade between Paremata and Mackays Crossing, compared to Transmission Gully. The real dispute is "which projects are included in each option", because Porirua City Council claims a whole series of projects don't need to proceed if Transmission Gully is built, which is wrong as Transmission Gully - untolled - will still see around 40% of current traffic remaining on the current highway. A tolled Transmission Gully would probably see around 70% of traffic on the current highway. So hopefully the debate will cease to continue to be silly.

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However, it will be - because politicians know sweet bugger all about roads - just as they wouldn't know what clothes to order for the nation or the amount of vegetable soup that people would consume. They are not professionals in producing ANYTHING, and they are not trying to convince you to pay for something out of your own choice - they are trying to convince you to elect them every three years to spend your money and tell you what to do and what not to do.

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Just to prove it, naive new National MP for Wairarapa, John Hayes wants a road tunnel under the Rimutakas. He could have gone to the Wellington public library, or asked the Transit regional office or even the Regional Council for some background, but no. A road tunnel was investigated thoroughly about 15-20 years ago, along with other options and was ruled out as ridiculously uneconomic. John Hayes has no idea about the cost, but the reported $1 billion would be conservative, as modern standards for tunnel safety would mean a wide tunnel, with shoulders, about the width of the Terrace Tunnel. Even if traffic doubled to 8000 vehicles a day, it would still be a toll of around $20 a trip to pay the capital cost and interest to fund it - and the private sector is free to have a go - but I doubt if it will, unless there is a keen interest in a property developer wanting to open up Wairarapa for commuters.

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No - Mr Hayes doesn't know much about roads - he should probably go back to his earlier work as an economist and do some thinking before he talks. If he thinks it is a good idea, find some private investors to put a proposal together - if they wont, and people aren't prepared to pay a toll for it, then give it up - don't just ask for some taxpayer pork for your electorate! Roads aren't special.

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As Mayor of Masterton Bob Francis (and former MP Wyatt Creech) know well, after the study undertaken many years ago, the focus shifted to the Kaitoke hill realignment now nearly completed, and easing some of the worst bends on the hill road, with some longer passing lanes. There is a longer term proposal to gradually upgrade the whole hill road to a 60-70km/h standard with continuous uphill passing lanes - but frankly, at easily $200 million, that would be a dog of a project too, in terms of net economics.

Today in history

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1854 The Republican Party is founded in Wisconsin – the party was founded on the principles of opposing the growth of slavery (good), strong national defense (good), but also highly regulated and protectionist business (bad). Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President.
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1972 The Shanghai Communique was issued jointly by Mao Tse Tung and Richard Nixon on the conclusion of Nixon’s groundbreaking visit to communist China. At that point, the US continued to not recognise the People’s Republic of China, but maintained diplomatic relations and military bases on the Republic of China in Taiwan.

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The key breakthrough was the following portion of the Communique
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“There are essential differences between China and the United States in their social systems and foreign policies. However, the two sides agreed that countries, regardless of their social systems, should conduct their relations on the principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, non-aggression against other states, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. International disputes should be settled on this basis, without resorting to the use or threat of force. The United States and the People's Republic of China are prepared to apply these principles to their mutual relations. “
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..and more shocking for Chiang Kai Shek, precipitating the Republic of China (Taiwan)’s withdrawal from the United Nations, was the announcement by the US that:
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“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes.”
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In short, the US announced it was abandoning its direct defence of Taiwan against Chinese attack – Chiang Kai Shek felt betrayed by the USA. Peace between the USA and the murderous tyrants that butchered and starved tens of millions of Chinese seemed like madness. However, Nixon was not concerned with anything other than isolating the Soviet Union – he knew that peace with China would help protect US interests in Asia, and see China turn its effort towards the USSR. It was realpolitik – your enemy’s enemy is your friend. After the 1972 New Zealand election, one of the first foreign policy moves of the Kirk Labour government was to recognise the People's Republic of China, which meant concurrently terminating diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan).
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And in 1983, the last episode of MASH was broadcast to a US audience of over 100 million viewers.

Abolish the crime of blasphemy!

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No Right Turn has drafted a bill to abolish the crime of blasphemy. I blogged a while ago about how Richard Worth MP for – not Epsom - had noted this crime remains in the Crimes Act, but hadn't shown any appetite for repealing it. It can only be prosecuted by agreement of the Attorney General, but it is still there - and no free and open society should retain it. Duncan Bayne has also supported it on his blog.
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I fully the repeal of this odious crime and I am certain Libertarianz will as well. I challenge Rodney Hide or Heather Roy to make it a private member’s bill, and help prove ACT can be a liberal party. I doubt Labour will support it, with mealy-mouthed words about protecting our trade with Islamic countries, I doubt National will either - too many Christian conservatives riled up with the South Park cartoon no doubt!
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Ghost of Goldwater, has blogged delightfully, but in a blasphemous way. Should doing this remain a crime - subject only to the Attorney General being a religious zealot?

David Benson Pope

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I have only one comment about DBP – I appeared in front of a select committee that he sat on, to present a submission on a Bill. He was rude and obnoxious, and wasn’t unafraid to express his contempt that “we” had even bothered to put in a submission. He asked questions about why a libertarian would be in an organisation, because aren’t we all individuals, he asked whether Libertarianz as a party really existed. He wouldn’t discuss the Bill concerned, wasn't interested in debating why he supported it, he just wanted to be abusive. Of course, as much as I wanted to tell him to stop being an uglier version of David McPhail’s Muldoon, I had to be polite – you don’t get allowed into select committees any other way.
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What a prick.
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I don’t really give a damn how much of a bully or pervert he was as a teacher – if there are people who are victims, then let them press charges or stand up in public to do their finger pointing. However, he is a bully, and he props up a government that used taxpayer’s money to campaign – the people of Dunedin South have a lot to answer for, and I hope the bastard’s political career is over as soon as possible.

Why freedom?

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AJ Chesswas challenged me a couple of weeks ago to give a "philosophical and moral justification of libertarianism" after I blogged about his views on sex, morality and the state (he has since decided to stop blogging and the vigorous debates on his blog have been removed by him).

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So here it is, after some attempt at writing a summary, I decided to be as succinct as I could be, while still walking through it step by step. The briefest version is:

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- existence exists - human beings have consciousness to perceive reality - human beings are living creatures and the sustenance of life is fundamental to anything else they do - in order to sustain life human beings must apply reason - in order to apply reason they must be protected from the initiation of force against their body and property, and have the freedom to think and act according to reason - and the highest reflection of life is the pursuit of happiness - as such, government should exist to protect people's bodies, property and freedom from the use of force by others, so they can sustain life and enjoy it. *phew*

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The longer version is:

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The libertarian position on government, is that government must exist in order to ensure that the four fundamental rights of humans are protected. These rights are:
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- life;
- liberty;
- property; and
- the pursuit of happiness.
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Government has a monopoly of legitimate violence to protect those rights, because individuals have those rights and have created government to serve them. The only action that can erode those rights is the use of force or fraud, force can end life, can restrain your freedom by prohibiting or compelling you, can take or destroy your property and can, as a result of losing the other rights, interfere with your happiness. Government exists to defend you against other human beings interfering with those rights. Your personal sphere is where all your rights exist, and your interaction with others is done on a voluntary basis, where rights are only important when the principle of voluntarism is abridged, because they PROTECT it.
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Why those rights? Why are there not other rights and why are these “rights” at all? The answer is simple – because they are absolutely necessary preconditions for life itself and arise from the facts of life.
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You may think that the “right to life” is all you need. However, the right to life per se, is quite fundamental and basic. It is your right not to be killed – but your right to not have force inflicted upon you although absolutely necessary, is insufficient in itself. Without this right, human beings live in anarchy and in need to be constantly vigilant against attack, which limits their potential to do anything beyond mere survival. This is, fundamentally, the right to deny others to violate your body, except by your choice (in which case it is not violation).
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You also need a right to “property” (I’ll come to liberty in a moment). Property is the fruit of what you produce, by applying your mind to the world around you. Whether you invent, discover or undertake actions that trade value for value, you gain property – such as food, tools, clothing, shelter. Without such property, you are unable to sustain life, because you need food, shelter and warmth – if you had no such right, others could steal and occupy your property, denying you the basics of survival. Having a right to property enables you to not only survive, but produce a surplus, and trade – enhancing your life. This is control over what you produce or earn (whether by work or as a gift, from a relationship). It is the right to deny others the possession or control of your property, except by your choice.
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You need “liberty” because in order to live, act and pursue property, you need the freedom to make your own decisions and act on them. This means not being compelled to act in ways that are contrary to your mind, or being prohibited from doing so. Liberty is freedom to be creative, to experiment, to explore and to make decisions surrounding your life. Without this, someone else is making your decisions and that person may not be motivated to protect your life or property. More importantly, it cannot be assumed, except in the transitional period of childhood (when reasoning matures) or severe cases of mental injury or disease, that one adult knows best how to respond to the environment for another. Why? If you assume a right to life and property, that means control over that life and property – the control over another’s life and property is the relationship of a master and slave. Regardless of whether or not the person wishing to inhibit liberty has good intentions regarding the life of the other person, denying that person the liberty to choose is abandoning the brain of that person. What may to one person be a destructive and negative action by another towards himself, may, to that other, be the pursuit of a rational value – for example, a person may wish to protect someone inventing a flying machine, because it could be damaging, but the person risking their life with such an invention is pursuing life, through valuing discovery and science. Similarly, it would be inappropriate for the person inventing to compel others to help, because others are pursuing different values - that are life affirming.
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So what about a man doing something “so clearly harmful” to himself. Is there not an obligation to act to protect him? No, there is no obligation. There is the freedom to advise, and attempt to convince – but to use force against his body or property assumes that, given all of the available facts, you know better in the pursuit of that man’s goals. Perhaps your goals for him are better. So why not? Firstly, you may not have all of the available facts, in which case you would be violating him. Note that you will never always be in a better position than someone else to make those decisions, and if you are in error, you have not only violated his body and/or property, but have made or prohibited him acting in a way that is consistent with his values – something you yourself would personally resist. Secondly, if you do, it is presumably because you have better values or better pursue his values .

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In order to determine if those values are legitimate, then you must define the purpose of your existence and the purpose of the existence of others. The answer to that is simple – life.
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Living creatures have one distinct difference from objects, in that they must act to sustain themselves to exist and reproduce. If they do not act, they will die. Life as a value is fundamental to everything else that a living organism may do – without it, everything else is utterly irrelevant. So the first value of every human being must be life. The process of sustaining life sees organisms sensing responses from their environment according to their actions – in general, actions which sustain life are pleasurable, such as food, satisfaction from completing a productive task and positive relationships. Those which are contrary to life produce pain, such as starvation, injury, frustration and sacrifice for no personal goal. As the sustenance of life is the fundamental goal of human beings, then the pursuit of happiness is the highest achievement of that goal. Human beings strive to experience pleasure, which is why the fourth right is the “pursuit of happiness”. The pursuit of happiness is fundamental to the sustenance of life, because nothing else motivates the continued sustenance of life other than happiness.
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This does not mean pursuing happiness in ways that are contrary to life – the short term pleasure from ingesting harmful drugs can result in subsequent pain. Hedonistic pleasures that ignore the need to sustain existence and pursue longer term happiness may not be in support of life. However, this then raises the issue as to whether there is any justification for one man to use force to stop another man from making choices in pursuing happiness that are destructive to his life. There cannot be. This is why you cannot force others to not undertake actions or to undertake actions that you believe are best for them - because you cannot experience the happiness of another or understand it. If you use force contrary to that person's happiness, then it is a direct violation of that person's life.
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The fundamental tool all human beings have to sustain their existence and pursue happiness is reason. Reason is a tool that cannot be used when force is inflicted, as force is a direct attack on reason. Force is the tool of the savage who seeks not to produce, trade or convince others of the merits of his ideas, but to make them – to enslave them. The rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness demand that no one initiate force against others. Indeed, liberty cannot exist when someone has the right to stop you from using reason in your pursuit of life, property and happiness.
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Can you argue that some people are not using reason in their pursuit of happiness so you have the right to do so, to stop them from acting contrary to their lives? No. If this were the case, then government could extend its powers into every action of a person’s life to protect them, to the point where it would micromanage what you eat, wear, where you live, your job and your relationships – because you did not make “rational decisions” in relation to them. Liberty to act in the pursuit of your own happiness, limited only by the rights of others to have the same liberty, is essential because there is no “other” way for happiness to be pursued. Happiness does not exist when life is governed by others using compulsion to short-circuit your mind.
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Now this is not all encompassing and does not answer all of the questions that will be raised, but I considered it better to write this and publish it, than to write a long explanation covering all eventualities. It also goes beyond libertarianism, because it is more than just about government, but about life and existence. It is Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism. It is also explained by Harry Binswanger on this posting by PC.

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Another post worth reading on this are on harmony of interests by PC, and Joseph Rowlands on the Meaning of Life. Even more from the Objectivist Centre on Objectivist morality. That article explains why honesty, integrity, independence, pride and benevolence are all virtues.

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So there you have it - prove to me that my life is yours!

Sue has no clue on business

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Sue Bradford has shown the Green Party ignorance about business by calling for Air New Zealand to “pull out of its job-shedding tail spin”.
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You see, despite it being your money that rescued the airline after your government refused to allow Singapore Airlines to give it the capital injection it badly needed to survive, the Greens don’t really mind if you don’t get a return on that investment. Earth to Sue, the airline industry is enormously risky and generally a bad investment (largely because many of those in it do it out of love not money), Air NZ is trying to save itself by being more efficient.
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She is concerned there hasn’t been consultation with the unions, which is slightly hilarious because, let’s face it, the unions aren’t going to say “well you’re right, all these departments really don’t do much good, so get rid of them and you can cut 20% of these departments because their practices aren’t up to world best in the airline industry”. Of course, if you read Air NZ's press releases, I doubt if too many of the jobs to be lost in the recent announcements are unionised - you see Sue, some of us don't want to join commie collectives with political agendas to represent our employment. I certainly never did - I had better things to do with my money that help get the Labour Party re-elected.

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However she gets two things wrong in her funniest statement:
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“We bailed out Air New Zealand because of the disastrous decisions of the former owners and management. We did not do this to see Air NZ become a mean, anti-worker company making more bad decisions.”
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Well, no Sue. Air New Zealand was bailed out because for months on end Cabinet refused to agree to the recommendations of the Air NZ board, and officials, that Singapore Airlines be allowed to make a major capital injection into the airline which would have raised its shareholding from 25% to 49%. That would have enabled Air New Zealand to carry out the massive restructuring that Ansett Australia badly needed (which only could be carried out after Air New Zealand acquired 100% of Ansett), largely resisted by the Aussie unions and conditions put on the sale of Ansett (so they lost the lot) and to survive the downturn of post 9/11 aviation. The government stopped the private sector from operating because it sat on its hands, and Qantas and Richard Branson did very well out of that.
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Secondly, besides the silly “mean anti-worker” comment – after all, if the employees didn’t like it, they wouldn’t stay, why is it a bad decision to become more efficient? Especially since whether Air NZ remains taxpayer owned or is privatised at some future date, this will indirectly benefit all taxpayers?

Compulsory pay digital TV?

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Well it is what Steve Maharey reportedly means. This is about how TVNZ moves from analogue to digital broadcasting, as is happening in the UK and Australia. The UK is successful because the BBC and umpteen commercial broadcasters are using digital to launch a whole host of channels, many of which were not originally available on Sky - and the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 etc have got the programmes to do this! I bought this digital freeview box a few months ago for £70, and get around 30 channels, can pay for another 10 more if I wanted to, and get around 20 radio stations as well. Of course in the UK, being high density and relatively flat, it is pretty cheap to provide digital terrestrial TV.
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The NZ Herald says the NZ government is keen on a BBC approach – which, of course, is utter bollocks, because it is not going to set up a commercial free TV broadcaster with a mammoth TV licensing fee. What it means is that two commercial free digital TV channels could be set up, with the intention that they be free to air and broadcast. The Herald suggests that:
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“A factual channel could show high-end international documentaries, re-runs of One News and minority programmes with a high local content. A second channel primarily for children could screen serious drama and arts at night.”
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Now setting aside the merits of the programming, much of which you can get on various Sky channels (although TVNZ has an enormous library of local programmes, of mixed quality), you have to ask a number of questions:
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1. Is TVNZ digital TV just about supplementing the existing channels or is it also about broadcasting the existing channels in a digital format (which allows a degree of interactivity)? Elsewhere (UK, Australia) this is about phasing out analogue television, which ultimately makes sense, but for which there is no real hurry in New Zealand.
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2. What is the platform? Is TVNZ seriously going to set up its own network of terrestrial digital TV transmitters across the countryside parallel to the current analogue network, just for two minority interest channels? Or is it going to piggyback off of Sky, or at least the Optus (or other?) satellites? Terrestrial digital TV isn’t cheap.
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3. When it chooses its platform and standards, what will Canwest and other terrestrial broadcasters do? Is it appropriate for the state broadcaster to do this unilaterally?
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4. Why should we be forced to pay for it? We’re not! I hear you cry – well you are. TVNZ is owned by you and pays dividends to the government that reduce its need to take so much tax. If these TV channels are going to be wholly subsidised by the commercial TVNZ channels, you’re propping them up by the loss of dividend. If they were commercial channels, then it would be different.

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Of course NZ already has two digital TV platforms in commercial operation now - Sky digital nationwide and the Telstra Clear recently converted to digital, cable TV system in Kapiti, Wellington and Christchurch. You didn't have to pay for either of those. If TVNZ was privatised you wouldn't have to pay for this either.

Red Ken suspended

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No not the shampoo, but the leftie Mayor of London who only ever redeemed himself partially in my eyes by introducing congestion charging.
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He has been found guilty by the Adjudication Panel for England of bringing the office of Mayor into disrepute by his comments comparing a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard. The reporter is Oliver Finegold of the Evening Standard – the London paper that has waged an anti-Ken war since he got elected, and was re-elected.
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Ken has been suspended from office for four weeks.
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The Guardian reports the incident itself as follows:
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Mr Livingstone had asked the reporter if he was a German war criminal and then, after learning that he was Jewish and had been offended by the question, compared him to a concentration camp guard.
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The reason he did was he was “expressing his long and honestly held political view of Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail and Evening Standard.” according to the Independent (see I dont only read pro-Tory papers). The Daily Mail in the 1930s had written editorials criticising Jewish immigrants, being supportive of the British Union of Fascists and more recently has taken a conservative stance on asylum seekers.
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Oh well, good – the man is into tax and spend, and is responsible for giving all children free bus travel, children being those under 16 – which means buses can be packed with obnoxious brats who are too lazy to walk. He got upset because Westminster City Council didn't want a statue of Nelson Mandela put up in its borough - rightfully so - why Nelson Mandela? The man who left South Africa with Thabo Mbeki, a man who denied that AIDS could be caught from HIV, that props up Mugabe's thugocracy and a corrupt ANC government that ever so gradually is slipping the way of Zimbabwe.

Labour's biggest asset - dependency

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Bill Deedes, Daily Telegraph columnist, once editor (1974-1986) and Cabinet Minister under Harold Macmillan has written in the Telegraph this morning quite succinctly putting down the problem the Tories have, which, I believe, National also faces in New Zealand:
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“When people talk to me optimistically about Conservative prospects under David Cameron, as many now do, I gently remind them of the huge dependency factor that Labour enjoys. Never before in our history have so many voters depended on a government for their jobs or their benefits.

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Why should they vote Tory, any more than we would expect turkeys to vote for Christmas? The private sector in this country, which retains Conservative instincts, has waned. The public service element has waxed exceedingly. Labour today has a far bigger dependency vote than when it took office."

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Indeed, think about how the Working for Families package does the same for Labour in New Zealand, as does the growth in public service "jobs" sucks up university students when they graduate.

Snow, foxes and where is Brian Tamaki?

It snowed!! For the first time during the day this year, in London.

I have seen foxes twice in the small park in the middle of my street too, and I'm only in Camden borough!

and where is Brian Tamaki? No, really, he maintained a very high profile running up to the election and for at least a year and a half beforehand - and now, with the party having got less than 1% of the vote (and no press release from it since September) - is it over, or is he making hay (=$$$$$$$) while he still can, or is something else going on? Even the pisstake site is down but is available cached on my mislocated lower sidebar!

Telecommunications and Russell Brown

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I have refrained from writing on telecommunications, although I have a background in telecommunications policy until now – and it is partly in response to the inaccuracies in Russell Brown’s column cited by David Farrar. Russell wrote a lot, and this post is in response to some of what he said which is clearly wrong.
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Paul Hewlitt’s article he cites is largely quite good although out of date (Vodafone does make a profit in New Zealand), fails to criticise major reports that are full of errors, such as the Todd report commissioned by Clear Communications and the Australian Productivity Commission report (both using out of date data, besides why would Clear produce an objective report?) and makes claims about Ministry of Commerce analysis which are false such as "The Ministry has no real view about these critical issues, despite 'presiding over' ten years of a deregulated marketplace, because it has no objective information, having done no work on behalf of the Crown or taxpayer to understand what has been taking place in the market. " He might want to do an OIA request on this.
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Russell criticises the regulatory regime, which relied on the Commerce Act and threat of regulatory intervention by saying “It is difficult now to credit the stupidity of those who devised the policy.” Really Russell? New Zealand was the first country in the world to fully open up its telecommunications market to competitive entry – the US still had protected infrastructure monopolies for local calls, and the UK had a regulated duopoly. Those were better models? At the time, it made perfect sense to treat telecommunications like every other industry, and use the agreement with Telecom to provide fair and reasonable interconnection as the benchmark, and the Kiwishare obligations to protect a certain level of local service. The Internet, as far as New Zealand was concerned, did not exist.
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"After Telecom was sold to Ameritech and Bell Atlantic (themselves, ironically the product of the greatest regulatory intervention in telecommunications history - the forcible break-up of AT&T in 1982) for $4.25 billion (the money was prudently used to retire external debt) in 1990". First, the break up of AT&T was by court order, not an action by a regulator (although it is in response to anti-trust law which was generic), secondly Telecom’s sale money was only partly used to retire external debt, the remainder was used to finance Labour government social spending in the ill-fated 1990 budget.
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“It wasn't all bad: Clear Communications entered the market, negotiated an interconnection agreement for distance calling and set toll rates on a steep slide.” Well when Clear’s entered the market, its toll rates were the same as Telecom’s for residential customers. Clear made it "Clear" it entered the NZ market to compete on service NOT price. It wasn’t until 1995/1996 when Telstra, Worldxchange and Sprint entered the market that Telecom was the first to dramatically reduce national toll calls with $5 weekends- Clear followed. It took the extra players to encourage competition, and Telecom was the price leader. Note also that on international routes Telecom faced competitors with significant overseas partners able to undercut it on key routes, BT and MCI owned Clear in those days, but Telecom introduced capped international calls to Australia, UK and the US - not Clear!
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Meanwhile, other nations began to embark on a different path. When they broke up their public monopolies, they either completely separated the wholesale and retail elements of those networks, or foreshadowed local loop unbundling, Nobody broke up their public monopolies, they tended to be corporatised, privatised and opened up to competition. Most foreshadowed local loop unbundling, but it was a new concept in 1996. Nobody completely separated wholesale and retail! Australia had a regulated duopoly until 1996 and most of the European Union did not open its markets until 1999, and the incumbents were not split.
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The various permutations of Saturn, Clear and Telstra installed cable in parts of Wellington and Christchurch but ran out of money. Telstra ran out of money? The majority Australian federal government owned behemoth? Give me a break Russell – it simply changed its business model and when government policy changed in 1990, the incentives changed. It also faced enormous RMA issues in Auckland as NIMBYism meant people didn’t want overhead wires for a competing network. Once Auckland became too hard it abandoned Hamilton, Tauranga and Dunedin.
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Russell also talks about how great the British unbundling experience is. Well this needs some closer examination. I used to live in Chelsea, hardly remote and somewhere you’d think you could get high speed broadband via BT unbundled line, but no – 512kb/s was what was available from my exchange. I could have gone to NTL, which has a competing network and got 2Mb/s of course, but ended up moving anyway. Not that this is much evidence, but it is as valid as ones of people Russell DOES know.

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The current price range for broadband in the UK is between £13 and £25 a month, costing more if you don’t want to be hooked into a 12 month contract – so this is about NZ$35 to NZ$60, cheaper than NZ when you consider that plans tend to have no download cap. Yes, the UK has cheaper, faster broadband, but in main cities there is infrastructure competition from cable operators too. The main cable TV providers NTL and Telewest are about to merge making them a more formidable force in broadband.
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"The British regulator's report had another line of considerable interest: "There are no Disputes in progress at the present time." In a market where there is "a dispute in progress" most of the time that sounds pretty damn good. " Not the regulator Russell, the Adjudicator. The regulator is Ofcom, and its report is here, there are plenty of disputes.
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“Woosh Wireless may have sorted out its technical issues by now, but its residential service offerings are abysmal. BCL shows no sign of moving into the residential market and, even with WiMax looming, I'm still waiting for someone to show me that wireless will be anything more than a niche” Well, BCL wont, but people thought DSL was a niche in the mid 90s, because Hybrid Fibre Coax was the way of the future – and were proven wrong. Unbundling will help to kill off wireless as a competitive option, and the uncertainty around the regulatory regime wont be helping wireless.

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Yes, the number of New Zealand broadband connections grew nearly 70% between Q3 2004 and Q4 2005, but that's still less than Thailand, India, China, Pakistan and Australia, in the Asia-Pacific region alone. Oh please Russell, if National quoted all the developing countries and said how appalling our GDP growth rates are compared to them you know what you would say. Australia IS legitimate, but it is also working off of a similarly low base, with unbundling.
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"Full LLU would also, of course, immediately introduce something that the nearly 20 years since corporatisation has conspicuously failed to deliver: nationwide competition on residential voice calling services. " What nonsense, there has been nationwide competition on national and international calls for over ten years. For local calls there is Telstra Clear reselling Telecom services, and Vodafone provides a competing voice network (not as cheap, but it can be used without line rental).
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McLeod's column hails the progress of Vodafone in our "competitive" mobile calling sector, without acknowledging that the benefits of that competition have failed to flow through to the consumer: our mobile termination rates (especially when calling from fixed lines) are the highest in the OECD. Oh the consumers have not benefited from a second cellphone operator? Would we have prepaid phones and text messaging if it were not for Vodafone? There is plenty of opportunity to have a third network – the spectrum is held now, and if Bellsouth/Vodafone can do it, so can Telstra Clear or Orange or another major international operator – might help if the RMA wasn’t such a barrier though. Other countries have additional networks, and that is reflected in price.

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Finally specious phrases like “Let's put it another way: would we want our roads run like our telecommunications? You won't get many backers for that motion, Rob.” Why is this a bad idea? Do you find it hard to get a phone call through at peak times Russell? Why is it that new technologies get implemented roughly according to demand, but that money for roads is always short?

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So things are not as clear as he makes out. I will blog later on what I think should be done about New Zealand telecommunications, after reading the report from InternetNZ. It comes down to being more creative than simply the government taking away property rights, but about those who want a better deal negotiating it and using the power they have. After all, Telstra is hardly a minnow in the lake.
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Mugabe's last birthday (please)

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Following on from Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe has turned 82. May he never reach 83.

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The government owned Zimbabwe Herald published a 16 page supplement congratulating him. A four day party is being held to celebrate it. You can read about it on the paper’s very slow website (you see there is no hard currency to pay for hosting it outside Zimbabwe).
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The Zimbabwe Herald said:
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“the whole nation joins the First Family in celebrating the life of the greatest hero ever to grace Zimbabwe and Africa.”

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However, as reported by the Daily Telegraph:
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“The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, unable to import fuel for a year, said in its quarter-page birthday advertisement that it valued his "wisdom". The Zimbabwe National Water Authority, unable to supply clean drinking water to the capital Harare, congratulated his "legendary existence".”
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The forced takeover of farms, destruction of homes, rigging of elections and jail and torture of dissidents in Zimbabwe is well known and does not need repeating here, simply read the report The starvation in a country that once exports food is another legacy of Mugabe.
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However, one small reflection should be about those who supported him through the 80s and 90s – the ones who ignored the murderous record of ZANU, and who saw in Zimbabwe an optimistic “African democracy” – former ambassador Chris Laidlaw once wrote of this optimism, about a one-party state that was destroying property rights.

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Meanwhile, may Mugabe be captured, tortured and killed sometime in the near future - he deserves nothing less, and may his flunkies run like the vile rats that they are. However, if you want a taste of day to day life in Zimbabwe, try the blog of journalist Peta Thornycroft, reporting for the Daily Telegraph.

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.