Blogging on liberty, capitalism, reason, international affairs and foreign policy, from a distinctly libertarian and objectivist perspective
12 July 2006
Pathetic
07 July 2006
Fear
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I wasn’t here when the bombings happened, but I was here when the second lot of attempts happened. I work very close to a well known building that could maybe be a target, but damn them to hell. London has gone through worse.
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The blitz was perhaps the scariest time for this city, and 43,000 people were killed in Britain during it. During the first phase of the blitz, every night for three months, 200 German bombers bombed London. There are plenty of people alive who can remember that, and they didn’t run – they didn’t try to “understand the German point of view”, and didn’t apologise.
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London also suffered under IRA bombings through the 70s and 80s, although the casualties were low in number. Fear was the main driver. Fear removed rubbish bins from the tube, saw CCTV cameras installed and fear saw thousands avoid the tube one year ago after the bombs.
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Today London is defiant. The evil of the terrorists, who happily see the blood of hundreds of innocent people, of all political beliefs, faiths or no faith and nationality, is not winning in London. The city thrives, it thrives with one of the most diverse populations of any major city in the world. There are probably about 7,000 people in this city right now who supported the bombings and would commit more – that represents the proportion of adult Muslims who in the most conservative polls endorse the terror attacks. I simply wish they would leave, they are not welcome.
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However, perhaps the best statement I have seen comes from no other than Mayor Ken Livingstone. Livingstone was in Singapore at the time, at the International Olympic Committee meeting, following London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympics:
“Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life. I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others - that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail. In the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential. They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”
For one of Britain’s most renowned/notorious leftwing politicians, Livingstone has set an example. He was right, they will fail and they have. May they go hide in their pathetic little warrens of hate, or go where hatred is glorified and live in the dry dusty dirty heat of it all. Go live in your caves, form a little society of reason hating, anti-individualist primitives, enjoy the life of pre-civilisation – you add nothing to the modern world.
I am slightly nervous I must admit, but I am not changing my habits to suit Al Qaeda, which released a video to Al Jazeera yesterday of one of the suicide bombers for the 7/7 attacks. Al Qaeda should be defeated, as Nazi Germany was – and nobody who believes in freedom or civilisation, across the political spectrum, should rest until the last member of Al Qaeda surrenders or is killed. The people of London, let alone New York, Madrid, Baghdad and elsewhere, deserve nothing less.
05 July 2006
He's just ronery
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Damned CNN, BBC, NHK, I watch them all the time and I not been on them for agesssssss. What's wrong? Aren't I still the scary guy who runs a country the way half of you wish you COULD? Right... I gotta do something.
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Damn you rot, NOTICE me, I’m Kim Jong Il, the Dear Reader, the peerressry great man. I might not be Arab, or Musrim but I’m GREAT. I want presents, I want visits, I want bronde radies from Sweden.
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That’s it. You’ll pay attention now. I got missiles. Yeah you know it baby. I got missiles, they are BIG missiles, better than that stupid Saddam, he don’t know how to run a dictatorship, the wuss. You don’t go round attacking countries, you just threaten to and make sure your missiles work buddy.
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OK here we go………. *fizzzzzzzzzzzzz* fire ONE. Woooooooooo this one is for the sea near Japan… there you go wooooo. Party dudes, hey lets do another *fizzzzzzzzzzzzzz* fire TWO. That show you Koizumi, you shoulda come over with your best chef and we have a sushi party night in Pyongyang. Right me on a roll now, *fizzzzzzzzzzzz* fire THREE…. Yeah I can show Japan, show Putin too, show the South Korean puppets that I can KICK some ass yeah… gimme another Cognac right another? *fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzztzttttt* fire FOUR. See I can make GOOOD missiles, come on Ahme baby you wanna gimme some oil for my missiles? Hey Assad baby, your dad and my dad were buddies baby, you wanna gimme some oil for my missiles too? Come on, you see they work. OK Bush – this is for not giving me the Xbox I wanted and the Vegas porn babes, get out the big one. OK I’m gonna show you I reach Araska baby. Right *fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz tzfr tzt tzt* *kick* *Fzzzzzzz* see it go near America. Ohhhhhhh *fzz* *fzzzt* *fzzzzzt ppupp* ooops .. that virrage not important anyways, it full of imperiarist rackeys of the Americans. Hey army dude what happened? *shot fired* he wont be embarrassing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea again. OK last one.. *fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* yeah Japan, so there woooooooo. Yeah ok radies, I go for a rie down now.
Another domestic airline?
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Well, some entrepreneurs are going to pour money down a blackhole in the hope they can make a buck out of flying from Auckland to Wellington and Queenstown at least. Fares to be as low as $12 Auckland-Queenstown, $2 Auckland-Wellington, with a start up sale of 10,000 seats at 2c each. (Of course you’ll have security levies etc to pay on top of that).
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The website is here, it is called FirstJet.com and it intends to fly before the end of the year using a Boeing 737. It says it can do it cheap by using planes as billboards (though most of the time these billboards are out of sight) inside and out. I think it will try to be a Ryanair, without the volumes of traffic.
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Hmmmm, interesting. A trial website, without even using the domain name, sounds like bollocks to me. On the one hand, routes like Auckland-Wellington make Air NZ a bucket, so there may be room for a third player, but on the other hand the money is mostly made from business travellers, filling up planes, many paying fully refundable fares with corporate discounts. Those travellers want:
- Frequent flights;
- Connections to other destinations;
- Koru Club.
Tourists get the leftover seats, particularly at off peak times, but without that core business traffic, the airline business is dead unless you can maintain consistent high volumes of traffic.
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Remember, Qantas doesn’t make money on NZ domestic routes, Origin Pacific is barely breaking even. However, good on them for having a go, without taxpayer money – if it succeeds, thousands will be better off, if not, then the market was not there to make it pay. Nevertheless, I doubt that this will be off the ground - it looks like the professionalism of teenagers.
EU is the bad guy in world trade
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The United States, typically pointed out to be the bad boy spends LESS THAN ONE-THIRD what the European Union spends, at just short of US$43 billion. This is 44% of the EU’s budget. Although the US is the third biggest agricultural subsidiser, after Japan which spends US$47.4 billion on securing votes for the Liberal Democratic Party by propping up inefficient rice farmers. Fourth is South Korea, spending US$23.3 million on pretty much the same as Japan. Interestingly the only OECD country to significantly increase subsidies since 1988 has been Turkey, which has seen the proportion of farmer’s income supported by subsidies increase from 15% to 25%
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So why doesn’t Oxfam storm Brussels? It does call for reform, but it is muted compared to its call for aid. Why isn’t Bob Geldof and Bono damning France, the primary culprit in this? The Bush Administration is very keen on cutting subsidies as long as it is done multilaterally, and France in the EU says it has “done enough”. No it hasn’t, not by a very long shot.
London at 32 degrees celsius
1. British media are weather obsessed;
2. Transport is designed for winter, the tube is hot and stinky, Victoria and Bakerloo lines are by far the worst as they are the deep level lines with the worst ventilation and oldest rolling stock. The best thing is, a lot of people know this and are using it less.
3. Women go to work wearing essentially weekend clothes (tanktops dresses and jandals), men wear suits not lava lavas. No shorts, socks and sandals.
Blog searches and the World Cup
masturbating using toothpaste (someone in India)
French samoan race pictures
Sexy blow yobs
Dirt on rob fyfe
Penis size images (someone in Sioux falls, South Dakota is interested)
04 July 2006
Celebrate the United States
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For today I will ignore the naysayers and those who will point out, many with good reason, the failings of the USA in terms of liberty, the mistakes of the past and those who tarnished the American dream. Today, because this is a chance to celebrate what is great about the United States, and to note why Americans, far more than the British, New Zealanders or Australians, feel pride in the USA. That pride is not a form of tribal knuckle dragging nationalism, of the kind that has left the Balkans dripping with blood, but a pride in a migrant nation of people who fled tyranny, judgment of religion and inherited privilege - to forge something new. 300 years ago many would have laughed at the idea that the migrant colonies in the New World would eventually come to be the greatest military and economic power on the planet. The Cold War saw the USA and its allies demonstrate, profoundly, the difference in both material wealth and personal happiness between capitalism (albeit tarnished) and cold, heartless, authoritarian bullying of the state.
Transmission Gully not a sure thing by a long shot
Quite right too. Only a fool would say built it at any cost or regardless of priorities anywhere else. $1.5 billion, $2 billion, $3 billion? The decision to proceed with a very very expensive investigation and design of Transmission Gully has been done because of a loud campaign by those wanting their property values enhanced by a highly subsidised uneconomic road - backed by National and ACT MPs (and Labour and United Future) who only care for popularity, not economics. Transmission Gully may continue to prove to be not worth it.
03 July 2006
Latest Green fascism - compulsory recycling
To hate America is to hate mankind
England mad over World cup loss
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At that point, it is reported that the M2 motorway was seen to be strewn with discarded England flags from cars, when drivers heard on the radio that it was over.
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The Sunday newspapers reported it as national tragedy – the Express headline being “End of the World”. The madness continued with the England team flying back home yesterday (you’d think men who were dedicated to the game would want to hang around to watch the semi finals and finals, but no they go home to sulk like babies) and both BBC News 24, Sky News and Sky Sports News channels interrupting regular broadcasts for continuous coverage of their BA plane sitting at the airport waiting for them – then they arrive – plane takes off. Then after an hour or so, plane lands at Stansted, plane sits on tarmac for ages, some of them get out, into cars and drive off. I switched channels and came back later to see news, and the plane was in Manchester!
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How fucking boring!! Seriously! Does anyone really give a flying fuck if you watch their plane – you know a BA Airbus A320 they chartered, like dozens that fly every day – and watch them get on and off it, into cars with their WAGS (wives and girlfriends). On 3 channels? With running commentary about what is going on and what is going to happen, repeated again and again.
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The real World Cup news was Brazil being defeated by France, and it was beautiful. The football superpower and several times champion, showed that it couldn’t hack it – it has played Croatia, Australia, Japan and Ghana, and only against Ghana and Japan did it really show what it had. So England will get over it, Brazil will be crying for the rest of the year. This is because Brazil has nothing else that it has pride for internationally. It is known for crime and environmental degradation, football is symbolically the only known path of social mobility for young men. Maybe Brazil will figure out that it needs a better totem to worship?
Ticketing for revenue or safety?
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This sort of thing pisses off Ministers no end. Transport Minister Annette King isn’t amused, and I know that previous Transport Ministers, Labour and National have also been furious with reports like this. Ministers have denied it, and it has certainly not been policy of any Labour transport Ministers under this government, or recent National ones. In other words, this is NOT a political driver for money (it is pittance regardless and the Police don’t get the money as a kickback). The Police are funded for safety enforcement from the National Land Transport Programme by Land Transport NZ – it comes from your road taxes, and the targets the Police are meant to achieve are about reducing crashes in areas and on roads that have poor safety records. This isn’t about revenue collection (and the National Land Transport Fund does not receive fine revenue). Unfortunately, there is no competition for this. Nobody else has the powers to undertake the Police traffic enforcement work, although in the UK the trend has been for the Highways Agency to have its own unit to cope with non-enforcement activity that the Police often do, like directing traffic. I am sure more of this could happen in NZ too.
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NZ First is calling for a dedicated traffic enforcement unit, which has some merits, although we’ve been down that path before where someone would drive like a maniac past some cops and nothing would be done about it.
New Jersey state government shutdown
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Even privately owned casinos are being ordered shut down by Wednesday because they require by law state monitoring. Why they couldn’t remain open and gamblers warned that there are no state monitors and they gamble at their own risk (!) is beyond me.
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It’s a perfect example of how much COULD operate properly if it wasn’t run by the state. Road building, for example, should be about the road owner and its contractors, and the money would come directly from road users. Parks and monuments could be privately run, charging entry fees or with sponsorship and donations.
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The main point in dispute is that the Governor wants to raise the state sales tax by 1% point, the legislature doesn’t agree. No guesses as to what side I’d be on!
29 June 2006
Dunne full of it on Transmission Gully
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He says “the Gully route is now at the top of Transit New Zealand's Wellington roading construction programme” No it’s not. Table 2 of the Forecast indicates that next year $5.12 million is being spent on investigation of this project. It also indicates that the Dowse to Petone Interchange on SH2 is at the top of new projects for construction – in fact it is the only major new project that is likely to get construction funding in 2006/07. So Dowse to Petone is at the top, followed by Basin Reserve interchange, then investigation and design for Transmission Gully. They are listed in priority order. There is no construction funding in the next ten years. Why? Because there isn’t the money for it, and Transit wont know the costs with enough certainty until it has finished the $10 million investigation phase.
“He confirmed with Finance Minister Dr Michael Cullen in Parliament today that it was the confidence and supply agreement between United Future and the Labour-led Government that enabled the Government to set aside the necessary funding in the last Budget.” That funding was $80 million for investigation and design – not construction, except the finishing of the environmental tree planting to avoid runoff, but as I said, that was approved five years ago – United Future wasn’t part of the government then. The necessary funding for construction does not exist.
“Dr Cullen further confirmed that the Wellington Regional Council's view that there would be no decision on constructing the Gully motorway for at least five years was not consistent either with the confidence and supply agreement nor Transit's announcement.”
Actually it is consistent with Transit’s announcement. Read the 10 year State Highway forecast Peter, there is nothing in there specifically about construction of Transmission Gully – and given the size of the project, it will take about five years of investigation and design to get a billion dollar motorway costs and specifications sorted out to go to tender. Although Transit has said “The construction of Transmission Gully Motorway has been included in the corridor plan, but is subject to a funding plan being finalised by the region. Funding for investigation and preliminary design has been included in the 10-year forecast. Initial work on this will begin immediately but full development will be contingent on a funding plan being approved.” The tables do not show a construction symbol within 10 years. So you will be waiting at least that long.
Sorry Peter, Transmission Gully wont be getting built at the next election, and it wont be built at the one after that. It certainly is impossible to get it started within five years, as this would be the largest most expensive roading project in the country’s history – and the big risk is cost. It is $1 billion now, what if, as is likely, it is $1.5 billion in 5 years? Then the current level of funding will only buy you a third of it – and tolls 5% of the cost. Then what Peter? Might you start to admit that your single highest profile policy obsession needs rethinking?
Darnton v Clark
Racism in Parliament and Winston's betrayal
"The purpose of this Act is to amend the principal Act to remove the
Government’s exemption in respect to discrimination on grounds of race or
ethnicity in the provision of goods and services."
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Radical isn't it. Imagine it as being a Bill to abolish apartheid in South Africa, or in the 1960s in the USA. No.
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It was the Human Rights (One Law for All) Amendment Bill, a private members Bill introduced by Rodney Hide. I bet if you polled New Zealanders, you'd get a majority in favour of it.
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Now you expect the Maori Party, Greens and Labour to vote against it. All are long time advocates of state racism. As much as Labour has tried to refashion itself as being about need not race, few truly believe this.
National supported the Act Bill. Good.
United Future didn't - so Peter Dunne remains the conservative extension of the Labour Party and little more. Statements about race based legislation before the election were for nothing.
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However, most hypocritically, NZ First didn't support it. Remember one "reason" Winston is a Minister outside Cabinet, is so NZ First can actually criticise the government according to its policies and principles. Remember also that this Bill was not a matter of confidence and supply, and that it would have been defeated anyway with the Labour, Greens, Maori, United Future numbers.
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Let me quote this from Winston Peter's speech on 31 July 2005 last year "New Zealand First is the only choice for change when it comes to tackling race based funding." or when he said "At the next election voters will have a choice of uniting as one nation or continuing down the present path of racial separatism." at his speech to the party convention 31 October 2004 .
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Winston is so full of bullshit.
Dummies guide to the National Land Transport Programme
- In the next year, the government intends to net $1.81 billion from your road user charges, motor vehicle license/registration fees and the fuel tax dedicated to the National Land Transport Fund. It also intends pumping in another $538 million from the Crown account - this is equal to all the rest of the petrol tax that you pay that used to get spent on everything else. So as of 1 July, you can actually say, for the first time ever, that all of the money collected from road users is being spent on land transport. The total funding being spent is now 90% more than it was 4 years ago - while you may say this is good, the growth has clearly been inflationary in the construction sector as road project prices go through the roof.
- Land Transport NZ decides how this money is spent based on bids from Transit and local authorities. Transit and local authorities cannot make Land Transport NZ fund anything, and both get turned down from time to time, or get less than they ask for. So Transit actually funds nothing, virtually all of its money has to be approved by Land Transport NZ.
- The National Land Transport Programme is Land Transport NZ's INDICATIVE allocation of funding, by activity class, for the next year. Most projects listed in the Programme are either already approved in the past year, or MAY be approved in the coming year. Approvals are made on a case by case basis for projects over a certain. It is NOT approval for big state highway projects, it does NOT mean certain projects are definitely going ahead - but it does mean that they COULD be funded, if the final bid is up to scratch, costs haven't blown out and there aren't other pressing priorities (i.e. natural disaster sucking up emergency road funding).
- For the first time it now integrates funding for Police traffic enforcement and safety education campaigns, so that tradeoffs can be made between building roads or improving safety through education or enforcement of traffic rules.
- About $324 million is allocated to public transport, walking/cycling, rail/sea freight and travel demand management (i.e. not roads), around 16% of the total. The Greens will say it is not enough, but this is over three times the proportion that used to go into those activities when the Nats were in power. Half the reason it isn't more is because in some cases councils are bidding for crap projects, or they want a higher proportion of subsidies Remember also that most of that funding only cover half of the cost of the subsidy, the other half of the subsidy comes from councils, and there are costs paid for by users through fares. Road users fully pay the costs of state highways - the majority of public transport users are subsidised by those road users.
- Almost everything local authorities get funding for from this has to be part funded by them, which means your rates. Your rates may be paying from anything between 55% to as little as 13%.
Now compared to other countries where politicians decide ever project that gets funded, this system is a vast improvement - but with the Crown money being inserted, specifically to go to specific regions, with Ministers saying what that money is expected to fund, this is getting a bit blurred. The Greens will say that road building is pointless and the roads will be empty soon - noticed that happening have you? Labour will think this enormous spend up is fulfilling all everyone ever wanted.
So will the National Party or ACT criticise the politicisation of funding? Maybe they will criticise the end of benefit/cost ratios as the determining factor for funding projects (it is now only one factor). Maybe they will suggest it would be better if the highways at least were run by the private sector, as is starting to happen in the US, with a direct relationship between what road users pay and what they get in service, or maybe they'll just moan that certain porkbarrel roads they think are important aren't getting funded quickly enough. *snort*
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Get the National Land Transport Programme in full or for regions here.
Get Transit's State Highway Plan for the next year here.
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UPDATE 1: I am disappointed again at the shoddy journalism. For starters:
Rebecca Quilliam in Stuff said "For the first time Transit's funding includes $224 million for police road enforcement". Um no, Transit doesn't allocate the funding and hasn't for ten years now - sheesh learn about what you write - and it doesn't have anything to do with "police road enforcement". The NZ Herald makes exactly the same mistake.
and "Auckland's roads are to get 26.7 per cent – or a $558.7 million cut." Really? Given that this figure comes from a table that includes $146.9 million for passenger transport (and lesser amounts for other non road activities) it is more like $400 million - in fact had you taken 30 seconds to read up the table, you'd have SEEN that figure. The NZ Herald makes the same stupid mistake.
and "A significant amount of funding will be spent on projects including the Manukau Harbour Crossing " Actually no money for that has been approved, and what has been indicated that MAY be approved, is a tiddling $17.4 million on investigation and design - not construction.
and "At least $33.46 million has been put aside for construction of new state highways, which will include helping to build the Transmission Gully motorway. " She means for Wellington, and she means upgrades not NEW state highways, and no - virtually nothing about construction for Transmission Gully, but around $10 million MAY be approved for investigation. Not construction, unless you count the $400,000 for finishing the long approved tree planting along the route to contain runoff. Sorry Rebecca, nothing dramatic there.
In the Dominion Post, Adam Ray and Colin Patterson make similar mistakes saying:
"Work worth $80 million investigating Transmission Gully, a proposed new inland motorway to enter Wellington, will begin straightaway. " Um no. Investigation costs $10 million, the other $70 million is detailed design. The $10 million is likely to be approved this year, but has not yet been approved, it wont be happening straightaway. Transit at best is putting together a bid for the $10 million identified as likely to be funded.
So where did this all come from? Easy. Reporters (not fucking journalists - journalists do more than parrot what others say) have taken, for example, this statement:
"A particular focus is on high priority Auckland projects such as the SH20 Manukau Harbour Crossing which is part of the strategic Western Ring Route."
and said instead that "A significant amount will be spent on projects including the Manukau Harbour Crossing ".
None of them understand that this is an indicative programme and actual funding is decided on a case by case basis. Wellington's Inner City Bypass was in the programme for three years, before it actually got funding, so was the ALPURT B2 motorway bypass of Orewa. The Manukau Extension of SH20 had funding approved two years ago and has yet to have a sod turned on it. Why? Don't ask me - get one of the "journalists" to ask these questions. You rely on them so much else information, tell me now that you trust them.
World Cup - sad loss of Aussie
28 June 2006
What to do with North Korea?
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North Korea is an enormous threat to South Korea, Japan and the US. It has a standing army of 1 million vs 650,000 in South Korea, and you can be sure that after the top echelons of the leadership and the secret police, the armed forces get fed and looked after. Sure it does not have the high tech weapons systems that the US possesses, but it does not really need them. It would take half an hour for North Korean troops to reach Seoul by road, and under ten minutes for missiles to hit it. It possesses large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and one of its biggest exports is arms. There is little doubt that North Korea has the potential to kill millions in South Korea in days, either as a first strike or in response to any military attack.
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That is why an attack on North Korean military facilities is out of the question. It would almost certainly start a second Korean War, and you can be sure that not only South Korea, but Japan and possibly Alaska or Hawaii would also be subjected to attack (although I would bet on US ABM capabilities over North Korean missiles anyday). The cost in lives in South Korea and Japan would be enormous, and hardly worth it. North Korea has sabre-rattled for decades, launched minor border skirmishes, attacked boats and engaged in terrorism (although that ended after the Cold War) , but has not launched another war and its number one motive is survival. Kim Jong Il is no fool - he knows that if he launched any attack on the south, he is finished if he launched a nuclear attack, the US, south Korea and a substantial coalition of the willing would finish off North Korea. China would not step in to save him.
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He is using nuclear weapons to do two things. Firstly, to deter an Iraq style attack by the US. While the odds of the US attacking first have always been very remote, nuclear capability rules it out. Remember this nuclear capability was being pursued well before this Bush administration, and reflected more the end of security guarantees from the USSR and China, and the evidence from the Gulf War of US military superiority over the 1960s era military of Iraq.
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Secondly, North Korea wants to be noticed. Its economy is virtually bankrupt, the majority of its GDP is sucked into the armed forces, which keep a significant portion of the population mobilised against the pretend foreign threat (keeps them from local issues) and much of the rest is sucked into propping up the elite (Kim Jong Il has been the world's largest individual buyer of Hennessy), and the resources poured into monuments and propaganda. It wants aid, it wants technology and it wants investment. If it did not pose a military threat, most of the world would quietly ignore it and wait for the regime to collapse.
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So what can be done? If you cannot attack North Korea, you can either maintain an icy Cold War against it, attempting to undermine it, or engage and try to reform the regime through incentives. The former means letting it gradually fall over, with the possible risk that in its dying days it lashes out with the military to bring down the south with it, the latter means using government aid to, inevitably, boost the wealth of the oppressors, rather than the oppressed.
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The first priority is to retain a tough defence and deterrence, making it clear that any North Korean first strike will mean the end of North Korea's regime. Following that needs to be espionage, to infiltrate the regime, assisting dissidents, dropping radios into the country on balloons so that the people can listen to south Korean radio and engage in a quiet process of undermining the regime. Thirdly, it is aid on our terms. Let non government agencies enter North Korea to deliver aid personally to those who need it so it is not diverted.