Greens talk bollocks on transport (again)

Green MP Russel Norman claims that the government is subsidising the country’s trade deficit because he claims road transport is subsidised ahead of other modes. His theory is that rail is always more fuel efficient than road, so by definition the more road freight the more money spent on fuel, hence a greater trade deficit.

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Now first it is wrong, as it ignores whether the road freight is generating exports that would not have otherwise occurred. It totally ignores the output of transport (facilitating trade in both directions), and Russel has no figures to argue this either way.

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However, his main use of figures is to cite two reports to support this, unfortunately both have figures that are slightly dated, and one of the reports he has used very selectively indeed.
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For starters he claims that “road freight transport is the most energy intensive mode of transport consuming four times as much energy for each tonne of freight per kilometre compared to rail; and nine times as much energy as coastal shipping (according to a 2000 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority report).”. Well, the “four times” figure was a comparison made in 1981 (and truck efficiency has increased more than rail efficiency). Railways ran a test comparing a train with a truck moving the same weight of goods between Auckland and Wellington - this was part of its justification for the government continuing to cover its mounting annual losses and to argue against deregulation of freight transport (at the time trucks were legally prohibited from hauling most goods greater than 150km). Since then technology has moved on, particularly for road transport. When comparing long haul bulk/containerised freight today, road uses about 2.5 times more energy than rail. However, note the proviso – long haul bulk/containerised freight. Most freight trips are short to medium, and involve less than wagon loads of freight. Rail is generally no more efficient for trips of less than 150kms (i.e. Auckland to Tauranga, Wellington to Wanganui), and certainly never efficient for moving less than wagon load (a wagon being a modern one which has the capacity of a large truck not the old little 4-wheel ones) of freight.

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Secondly he claims “a 2005 Ministry of Transport study showed that truck users pay only 56% of the costs they impose on society while rail freight users pay 82%”. Now this study covered data for the 2001 year, since then the government has committed $200 million to subsidise rail infrastructure for freight. However, more importantly Norman hasn’t burrowed down to see what these so called “costs” are.
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Strictly financial costs (costs that government actually pays directly – roads, police, administration) see trucks producing a surplus of $45.6 million (from Road User Charges, although this is reinvested in upgrading the road network). Beyond that though, the costs Russel is concerned about are monetised costs for air pollution, accidents, climate change and noise. Now air pollution is largely a factor of particulates, and the amount of sulphur in diesel (which is the source of most particulates) has been reduced by two-thirds since the study (as the Marsden Point refinery is getting upgraded). It is about to be reduced by another 90%, so in fact this is changing. The figures for air pollution should be different now and about to be even more different.

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It is also not a monetised cost – the cost is from health expenses, which are notoriously difficult to attribute to “trucks”. The accident costs are largely born by the private sector (damage to property, time etc), and the ACC no fault system that we have for personal injury by accident means that it is difficult to attribute costs to those who actually cause the accidents. Most trucks are not involved in serious accidents. The climate change cost is only relevant in terms of meeting Kyoto Protocol obligations, so is not a cost independent of government decisions, and noise – well that is factored into property prices. What is ignored are positive externalities, like increases in commercial land value for truck access, and the spinoffs for business in having transport for inputs and outputs of production. Never mind, no other sector covers any of these either.

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So this simple comparison is not so simple at all.
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Russel ignores other parts of the report that don’t suit his “world view”. One is the detailed case studies into long haul freight, which actually looked at the marginal cost of shifting freight between rail and road on three routes. Table 3.6 of the main report indicates that moving freight between Auckland and Wellington, the marginal cost of rail is HIGHER on environmental grounds than road. It is the same between Napier and Gisborne, but a quarter between Kinleith and Tauranga. Kinleith to Tauranga by rail is, of course, through a tunnel, whereas the road is over the Kaimai ranges. The results, in other words are not so black and white.
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What other results he wont like from the same study are:
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1. Rail passengers pay only 35% of the total cost of providing Auckland suburban passenger train services. In Wellington it is 56%. (page 57 of the report)

2. The roads that recover the least of their operating costs are rural local roads (page 50). Urban state highways recover the most (hardly a surprise that the busiest roads generate the most revenue). Railways aren’t going to be an alternative for lightly trafficked rural local roads. The problem with local roads is that they are rates funded, which carries its own inequities.

3. The environmental impact of buses in cities is around 18.2 times that of cars. This means a bus should ideally be replacing 18 cars, to break even with cars on pollution. (page 64)

4. For trucks “Current charges (mainly RUC) are in most cases greater than the level of marginal provider/external costs (principally accident externalities and marginal road wear).” (page 107)

5. For freight comparisons between road and rail “For the primarily rural movements analysed, the environmental impact costs are similar in magnitude by the two modes.” (page 107)

6. On Auckland and Wellington passenger trains and buses “If charges were to be set to cover only the marginal costs in both periods, then peak charges (fares) would broadly double, while off-peak fares would reduce by half or more.” (page 106)
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The Greens are good at selectively using facts. I have just done the same, and there are some important points about transport in the report, but it does not simply say "trains good trucks bad". The study needs updating, as subsidies for rail have increased markedly, and charges for road use (and money for roads) have also increased (while a major source of pollution has been reduced). Now there are problems with road transport, for starters ratepayers shouldn’t be paying for local roads – that should come from road users. In addition, congestion in cities should be managed by charging being higher at peak times and lower at other times - but that requires replacing fuel tax with electronic tolling.

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However, it is simply false to claim road freight is subsidised more than rail freight – and that shifting freight to rail through subsidies will automatically be cheaper for the country and better for the environment. Sometimes rail is cheaper and cleaner than road, usually in the cases when it is most widely used - sometimes road is. It is a not a banal contest which says "wheels on steel good, wheels on bitumen bad" - although sometimes you have to wonder if that is what drives Green thinking on transport.
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Draw your own conclusions if you dare, from the full main report of Surface Transport Costs and Charges study.

Blair urges people to take more responsibility

According to the Daily Telegraph, one of Tony Blair's advisors said:

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"It is really important that you should take more exercise, it is really important you should worry about children's obesity, but we are not the ones who should make you do it."

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In short, he is saying the government can give people information, but it is up to them as to what they do. In essence he has acknowledged that Nanny State wont work and that the problems with the NHS are due to a lack of personal responsibility. Blair himself said:

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"It has got to be about prevention as much as it is about cure," he said. "This is important because going forward we can't afford the health care costs if we don't take some of the responsibility as individuals for our health care."

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Indeed, Tony. A start would be to shift national insurance contributions to being personal ones, and varying them on risk, or allowing people to shift them to private providers. He wont do that though. What he might do is deregulate medicine a trifle:

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"Mr Blair said barriers between the NHS and the private and the independent sectors needed to be broken down and more use made of the expertise available in pharmacies. Richard Baker, the Boots chief executive, has urged ministers to let doctors and consultants practise in his stores. Mr Blair praised the company for helping people lead healthy lives."

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Heaven help the NZ Labour Party advocating such a thing.

Greens want Nanny State to nanny your kids

So the Greens support Cindy "Stalin" Kiro's grand plan to plan and monitor all children from birth till....

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Essentially it means "Checks would be done during the first two years of a child's life, when children went to school, during their adolescent years, and in the "youth transition period" when teenagers left high school to take up jobs or enter further education. " You're paying for these checks, and would I be right in guessing that when it comes to actually checking those kids in "at risk" areas, that there wont be the staff willing to go around Kaikohe, Wairoa or Flaxmere? Far easier to check all those middle class kids in Takapuna, Karori and Invercargill isn't it?

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A grand big nanny-state plan that has as its basic premise that parents generally don't know what is good for their kids. Now I believe that, by and large, they do. Some don't, some are so appalling at it that they should never have custody of children again. However, just because there are cases of nearly useless parents and guardians neglecting and abusing their kids, doesn't mean that Nanny Cindy should be keeping her eye on what you're doing.

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I pointed this out before when she commented on the Kahui case. So what IS a solution? I suggest a targeted response. Let's remember that most kids turn out ok, most don't get murdered, raped or become hardened criminals. Let's also remember that the fault of those kids who are neglected and abused is not YOU, or ME, or the state, it is the parents! You see in post-modern world, we don't blame anyone for bashing their kids to death. You don't dare deprive parents of their biological children - it offends too many to say that, but in cases you should. So a few steps:

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1. Include in sentencing for serious violent or sexual crimes the denial of future custody of current or future children if there is reason to believe the offender could, on the balance of probabilities, pose a risk to a child.

2. Deny any parents convicted of physically or sexually abusing their own children custody or the right to be alone with their own children, until the children are adults.

3. Deny any person who has a serious violent or sexual conviction welfare benefits of any kind, including state housing.

4. Have the right to use adoption and fostering to permanently or temporarily remove children from parents who repeatedly put them in danger from adults who are past offenders. It is one thing for a single parent to hook up with someone who she didn't think was abusive and boot him out/charge him if he is caught abusing - another thing to remain in the relationship knowing the kids are getting harmed. If you can't protect your kids then you lose the right to have them.

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The failure is NOT families not getting the support they need - it is families failing the kids. People are to blame - they are to blame for hurting children, for neglecting them and for failing to be good parents. These are people you make us pay for, that sit on their arses and beat up their kids or ignore them. They are human scum - they are the cause of so much of what is wrong with society, the kids who turn out bad, the unemployable, the people that others fears, that vandalise, steal and hurt others. There are few of them, but they should not ever have children - they shouldn't breed. They don't abuse because they are poor - poverty does not make you punch a child in the stomach - it is a complete lack of any empathy, concern or willingness to be a parent, or a civilised human being.

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Stop this nanny stating about - call scum scum - it is what most people think they are, because most people don't need their kids monitored.

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The glee at which the planners find new ways to plan your childrens' lives is insipid and vile, and Lindsay Mitchell rightly points out that there may be an issue with inflating child abuse figures.

End to long distance rail travel in the North Island (updated)

I am slightly sad that the Overlander (Wellington-Auckland train) is ceasing to operate from 30 September, if only because it is the end of the era of long distance rail travel in the North Island. Since 1908, when the main trunk line was opened, business, tourism and simple access between Auckland, Wellington, Palmerston North, Hamilton and numerous communities in between was facilitated by train. It took two days back then, but was down to 16 hours and today 11 hours. It has gone from 3-4 trains a day to only 1, and reached it peak in the 1960s, before the Boeing 737 and cheaper cars and better roads saw people drift from the rails. Businesspeople increasingly flew and families went by car, and with competition in the air from the 1980s, more people flew. Air fares have continued to plummet as Air NZ has worked to increase the size of the market and ironically - the state owned transport operator has killed off the operation of a privately owned one running on government owner track. However, the killing off has been due to demand - neither Air NZ's main trunk operations nor the Overlander are subsidised.

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I caught the Northerner and the Overlander, and its predecessor the Silverfern, several times as a student and as a child, as well as trains to and from Napier to visit relatives. It was a relaxing way to travel, and in recent years has been air conditioned, with reasonable food and comfortable seats - but alas, no more passenger trains on the Main Trunk line (outside Auckland and Wellington commuter runs).

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It is for good reason it is ending. It's unprofitable, and newer more comfortable buses undercut the train at the budget end, and cheap airfares at the top end. Certainly I've not thought about catching a train from Wellington to Auckland for around 14 years or so. The trip is also not really scenic enough to attract tourists, there are some great scenes in the central plateau but most of the trip between Wellington and Hunterville and Te Kuiti to Auckland is dead boring.

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The Greens are claiming that "peak oil" will bring it back, but they are dreaming. For starters, Toll can run the Palmerston North-Hamilton service with electric locomotives but it is not worth it. As I blogged about a few weeks ago, the high price of petrol is benefiting buses because they are newer and more fuel efficient - but there simply isn't enough people travelling Wellington to Auckland on a budget willing to take an 11 hour train trip. Flying is such an enormous time advantage that it is beyond belief that one would do anything else. Fortunately the Greens aren't asking for a subsidy but that the infrastructure be retained - since the main trunk line is one of the most profitable sections of railway for freight (on average a train every hour), I doubt it is at risk.

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By the way, do the Greens take the Overlander every time they travel between Auckland and Wellington and the centres in between? Honestly, do they?

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Anyway, if you want to take a trip before it goes, just to see the scenery or show your kids what its like to go on a big train (because you can be sure the last trips will be filled with rail nuts and Sue Kedgley catching the train for the first time, like she did with the Bay Express a week before it stopped), go here and get a ticket.

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UPDATE: The RMTU chief Wayne Butson wants you to subsidise his members’ jobs and those who want to catch the Overlander. Given you don’t subsidise the bus or airline companies that compete with it, why the hell should you subsidise the train? (the train was subsidised from the 70s through till 1988, when Prebble told the Railways that the government wasn’t into subsidising long distance passenger train travel, and suddenly the service improved dramatically, and it stopped losing money).
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Butson claims “We have a rail network which is supposed to pay its entire cost of operation through the operator at the same time as we have a national roading system which is available for any commercial entity to use at minimal cost when the vast burden of the infrastructure is paid for by the private motorist.” He is talking nonsense. The government is pouring taxpayers money ($200 million) into the rail network, which is hardly being paid by the operator. Given the train has largely lost out to airlines, the road network is only part of the competition and bus operators pay road user charges (which are not “minimal cost”) to use the highway. That RUC easily pays for the damage caused by the buses to the highway, a review carried out five years ago proved that.
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Fortunately, the Greens aren’t calling for it to be subsidised, which is surprising but good.

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UPDATE 2: The Waikato Times reports Hamilton East MP, David Bennett (National!) saying the government should intervene to ensure the Overlander continues! What sort of muppets are National getting selected as candidates? If Labour and the Greens wont "intervene" what the hell is a National MP asking for? Is he is in the right party?? Shouldn't Don Brash be giving him a right bollocking?

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UPDATE 3: Ruapehu District Council's Mayor wants you (through the government) to be forced to pay to subsidise the train, because its loss will cost jobs in the district. Yes it will. However, it is a privately provided service. Presumably the councillors concerned used the train several times a year? There is nothing stopping anyone else wanting to start a service on the route once Tranz Scenic has withdrawn. It is one reason, after all, why the government renationalised the rail network from Tranz Rail. So roll up, roll up, if you care, put your money where you mouth is - either invest in another train, or use it between now and September enough so it is worthwhile for Tranz Scenic to keep.

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UPDATE 4: Stuff report the subsidy Tranz Scenic sought to keep the Overlander was $1.75 million p.a. with a $0.5 million capital injection! That's over $32 per passenger. Dr Cullen was smart enough to say no. Jeanette Fitzsimons says the $120 million spent on maintaining the rail network is peanuts compared to roads - no shit sherlock - got a railway going to every house, every shop, every farm and every town?

High density housing and public transport not the answer

Not PC has done a great job of fisking the anti-sprawl dogma that completely dominates most NZ, Australian, UK and many US local authorities, who have taken on the mantra that says:

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1. The problem with cities is that people "drive too much" and use "too much land". They use too much energy.

2. Less land and less driving would occur if everyone lived closer together, and the places they want to go (work, shops, leisure) were all sited in centres.

3. People should lived in high density housing around corridors for public transport, which is a good thing, because it means people don't drive.

4. The best public transport is rail, because it just is, it doesn't involve roads. It is also the most expensive, but don't let that put you off, people like trains more so it is worth paying 3-4x the cost of buses. You need lots of people living close together near railway stations all wanting to go to the same places.

5. People buying big houses with sections on their own are bad, because it wastes land and energy, and they are far away from everyone else - this means they drive needlessly and are "dependent" on their cars. People in apartments living on top of each other are good, because the use less energy and can walk places more.

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What they ignore is that high density living doesn't mean people don't want cars, also because planners want you to live in an apartment doesn't mean you do. People still want houses and they don't want to live next to the railway.

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An article in the Toronto Globe and Mail by Margaret Wente continues to make the point:

"The idea that people will use public transit to get to work ignores the fact that most people don't want to live near their work. And because people are so mobile, they no longer have to. On top of that, people use their cars for much more than commuting. According to one study, 20 per cent of all trips by auto are for work, 20 per cent for shopping, and 60 per cent for things that are "social." The idea that public transit can replace the car in people's busy lives is a fantasy."

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Indeed it is, you see public transport can be sustainable and profitable (unsubsidised). Half of the buses in Auckland used to be like that, until the ARC started pouring money into rail and making some of the bus routes no longer viable. Hong Kong and Singapore's metros make profits. The London Underground is not far short of breaking even too.

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PC blogged about the book by Robert Bruegmann: Sprawl a Compact History. Margaret Wente quotes from it:

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"Very few people believe that they themselves live in sprawl. Sprawl is where other people live, particularly people with less taste and good sense than themselves. Much anti-sprawl activism is based on a desire to reform these other people's lives"

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Indeed, and Wente herself is pretty good on figuring out what the solutions to urban air pollution and congestion actually are. She said:

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"If we really wanted to tackle smog and congestion, we wouldn't be fantasizing about massive new investments in public transit. We'd be investing in transportation infrastructure, less polluting fuels, more intelligent roads and vehicles with sensors to control traffic flows, peak-time user fees and more flexible forms of public and private transport, such as group taxis. But you won't find the planners talking about these things because, to do so, they would have to concede defeat to the unwholesome lure of the automobile -- to say nothing of the overwhelming preference of the public. And that would be very, very wicked."

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Given I have heard one of the Green Party's key advisors on transport say that anyone who owned a car with an engine above 1.3 litres is evil, then I find it hard to believe that those on a mission to promote trains and not roads, are simply just on a crusade. Private transport is hear to stay, it is roads that need to be managed better.

Market working again! *sigh*

According to Stuff new large car sales have plummeted, because of petrol prices. From around 24% of the market in 2000 to 11% today, that's quite a shift - it may be because of demographics too (baby boomers kids starting to leave home, so large cars are less needed), but nevertheless consumers are reacting to market based price signals, and buying more fuel efficient cars because they want to.
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Not because some nanny statist environmentalist wants them to, not because of some tax incentive, or preferential motor vehicle licensing fee or the rest, but because they want to.
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Amazing really – a resource becomes more expensive and more scarce – the government and environmentalists worry themselves silly that it will run out and demand that something be done so people don’t keep “wasting it” – the price goes up, and consumers make their own judgment about whether they are willing to pay or not, and quite a few choose to save on fuel (buying smaller cars, catching public transport). Money goes from buying large cars and more petrol, to smaller cars and other things, or buses.
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Planners can’t make this happen. It is the decisions of thousands weighing up how best to use their own money – and they happen to know better than the government.

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Unfortunately, former Labour Cabinet Minister Peter Neilson (now Chairman of the Business Council for Sustainable Development) wants the government to use YOUR money to subsidise the price of buying new small efficient cars. Why should you, whether you own a car or not (and many don't), especially since most people don't buy brand new cars, subsidise those who do? Neilson calls for up to $3000 per vehicle. $3000!!! Money that you could spend on your kid's education, or shoes, or a holiday, or books, or a secondhand car. Hopefully the Greens will reject a subsidy for car ownership.

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By the way I noted a report in the Times motoring supplement (not online) that sales of hybrid cars are declining, because motorists are increasingly wary of paying the premium for a car that isn't that much more fuel efficient than many new diesels - in addition, the resale value is poor.

Labour's tax cuts

So Labour is talking about tax cuts? Now there’s a strategy to try to win the next election – given that the current one nearly lost it for them last time. It is a vindication for National, that Labour is now adopting a small part of its policies and all of the leftwing naysayers either eat their words about tax cuts, or can oppose Labour. However, it does appear to be because United Future and NZ First demanded it – you wouldn’t be getting this with the Greens and Maori Party. (Peter Dunne and Winston will go on about this endlessly no doubt)
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However, no reason to get too excited, and few are (the state sector unions predict doom and gloom because their solution to prosperity is to take more of your money to "invest" in what bureaucrats do) it is mostly about cutting company tax from 33 to 30% (nice but only a first step and the top personal rates should also follow it), targeted tax credits (more picking winners) and changing depreciation rates. Dr Cullen has said this also could mean changing thresholds for income tax – hardly exciting stuff since he announced that in last year’s Budget. Remember the 70c a week tax cut? Maybe it will be a dollar - wow.
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So I’m underwhelmed, at best it shows that even Labour sees some merit in tax cuts – the question is whether you want hardly any (Labour), some (National), quite some (ACT), or a lot (Libertarianz).

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although with it being reported that National would "probably" cut company tax, you have to wonder! Why the "probably"?

News on Sunday - leftwing incompetence at its best

On TV last night was a hilarious documentary called “lefties” where the BBC reminisces about the “good old days” when unreformed communists were fighting for a socialist Britain. This has been a series that I have largely been missing, but last night was classic – it was about a failed attempt at a national socialist newspaper in Britain (bigger than the Morning Star and more leftist than the Guardian) – the News on Sunday. It was inspired by John Pilger and the desperation of trade unions and socialists “convinced” that despite Thatcher winning two elections, the mass of the British public could be encouraged to vote Labour (pre-Blair get Britain out of NATO Labour) because socialism was good for them – if only they realised it!

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The News on Sunday attempted to mobilise the working classes to support Labour and its hard left agenda of socialism. It failed, the Daily Mirror and the Sun have proved that, by and large, the British working classes want newspapers with royal/celebrity gossip, football and pictures of women with big tits - they don't want to read about strikes in Mexico, Brazilians selling kidneys for cash, or any bunch of murdering militia that the left supports this decade.
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However, back to the paper. It was a catalogue of disasters in many ways, and showed a litany of sheer incompetence. Remember, these sort of people wanted to take more taxes, run your education and health system and economy. Why oh why would you trust them?
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1. In the early days Pilger fled to Australia to make one of his “documentaries” for several months, and when he found out the editor was putting together the paper in ways he didn’t like and not running it past him (kind of hard given he was far away), he immediately resigned and wrote articles in other papers damning the News on Sunday before it was even published.
2. The paper was based in Manchester, because it didn’t want to be London focused and saw its heartland as being the working class north. As a result it was distant from capital city politics, and advertising agencies and a pool of more experienced potential employees.
3. The paper advertised for journalists. Something not done in the print media as people usually are discovered or passed on by word of mouth. The number of applications were so high that most did not get a reply, after a few were looked through they were given jobs, there were few interviews and no screening of the vast bulk of applications. Very fair employment policy.
4. Virtually all of the senior staff had never worked on a national newspaper before, many not in the newspaper sector. So there was very little experience of the business.
5. Many of the senior staff had no experience in their administrative roles. For example, the head of personnel had never worked in HR (a qualification that is positive in my view for today), the head of finance had never done accounts for a business, ever!
6. There was an “equal employment policy” which effectively meant if you were an ethnic minority, disabled or gay/lesbian you were more likely to get the job. The goal was to have more diverse points of view in the paper – the result was a combination of hiring people with little skill or at worst incredible patronising of some groups. The black editor had no experience being an editor before. The head of HR described how the paper treated disabled people “we hired all deaf people in the mailroom and to do deliveries, because they could communicate together”. How fucking patronising is that?
7. There was a focus on political correctness rather than good management. One former staff member described how around a week before the first issue he had arrived to work at the office to find it empty. The whole staff were sent on a “deafness awareness course” which consisted of “walking around Manchester wearing earplugs”. How mind numbingly stupid is that?
8. Decisions were made on “consensus” were certain key individuals having “golden shares” that meant they could veto decisions. In effect, there was no clear leadership and endless committee meetings and relitigation of decisions. A democratically controlled workplace saw people observed saying one thing in one meeting and changing for another. As a result, it was dysfunctional.
9. The £6.5 million raised to fund the paper came from trade unions and local authority pension funds. The stereotypical loony leftwing Labour council was not just a stereotype, as several Labour controlled councils frittered away their employees’ savings on this venture. How utterly incompetent is that? What pension fund decides a good way to make money is to back a new leftwing newspaper that is run by amateurs? Why weren’t the councillors being sued by the union? Gee, I wonder.
10. The paper commissioned an advertising agency to launch it. The agency came up with the slogan “no tits but lots of balls” to make the point that it wasn’t a page 3 girl tabloid, but “gutsy journalism”. It upset the feminists too much that the word “tits” was mentioned (as it is degrading to women to use the word – shame so many women use it”), that the campaign was dropped.
11. Leftwing millionaire businessman Owen Oyston offered to take over the paper and inject more money into it if the “golden shareholders” agreed. They didn’t, he walked away and it went bankrupt.
12. The paper ran at a loss through to the 1987 general election, with the staff working to ensure it didn’t go bankrupt before the election – because it would look like major Labour supporters can’t even run a viable newspaper. Which of course, they couldn’t.
13. Owen Oyston bought it off the receivers, and lost around £2 million before folding it 8 months later. Subsequently Oyston was sentenced to six years for raping a girl of 16, this was not the first allegation of rape against Oyston and he claimed it was a conspiracy to “set him up”.
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The first issue sold 500,000 issues, not bad? Well it needed 800,000 to break even. By the eighth week it was down to a circulation of 200,000. Alan Hayling, who is now head of BBC documentaries (!! Yes the BBC is so demonstrably unbiased) who used to work at a Ford assembly plant, became the Editor – and got several ex. Ford employees to piss money down the drain invest in the project. Those workers were more abused by Hayling and the left than by Ford.

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Pathetic really - a wonderful test of trust (pillaging pension funds and pissing them down a drain), anti-capitalist principles of running business (no decision making, no accountability - everyone blamed everyone else, few with skills or competence) and the reality of leftwing politics - it is an orchestrated arrogance of intellectual minnows who claim to know what's best for the so-called "working classes" when the working classes don't actually want it!

Hizbullah proud of hiding behind civilians

What's it going to take for the moral relativists and the supporters of Hizbullah - the ones who chant down Queen Street and want to "burn Israel" to sit back and see Hizbullah for what it is.

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They were chanting

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"Victory to Hizbullah"

"Up, up Hizbullah"

"Burn down Israel"

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If this was 1940, no doubt they would have been cheering the Nazis (after all "national socialism" seems such a nice idea, and Hitler and Stalin were allies, both nice anti-imperialist anti-capitalist men). I hope they put their money where their mouths are and become human shields for Hizbullah. Peace? My arse. These evil bastards have NO interest in peace when they chant "burn down Israel". I would also like to see them go to Iran, go see how much chance they have to protest on whatever they want, see how easy it is to be openly atheist, to wear what you want, to listen to music you want, to be openly gay or lesbian, to publish leaflets promoting what you want.

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Hizbullah is NOT liberal - it is NOT tolerant and furthermore, it is PROUD of its civilian casualties and PROUD that it is hiding behind civilians, including children - the "martyrs" for their evil cause. So fucking lovable that little self-obsessed wanky students, union officials and other flotsam and jetsam of society want our society overthrown for Islamic fundamentalists.

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Hizbullah is proud of this – proud that they hide behind civilians and they bear the brunt of the suffering, while they can fire back behind them. In any civilised society this would be seen as barbaric and cowardly – but what do you hear from the left? Nothing, but hyperbole about how Israel is out to destroy Lebanon. What utter rot. Israel has explicitly said it has no quarrel with the Lebanese government, Israel has no desire to eliminate any country in the Middle East, unlike Iran, Syria and its agent Hizbullah – and there was little upset from the left when the totalitarian Syrian government sent troops into Lebanon and occupied portions of the country for the following 19 years. You see, it is one thing for US backed Israel to do it, but when (then) Soviet backed Syria – a one party state with no freedom of the press, a secret police that crushes dissent and a personality cult for the Presidency (which has just been passed down by inheritance) , silence because Syria is at least not the evil pluralistic, open USA.

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Check out Not PC for an excellent image which can be applied to Hizbullah.

Church says flying is a sin

"If man was meant to fly God would have given him wings"

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No not that, but it may as well have been. The Bishop of London has been reported by the Sunday Times (London) as saying:

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"Making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions.”

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How absolutely evil. A large car could be because you have a large family. Flying might be because family or friends live far away, or because you want to learn about cultures outside your local nutty leftwing parish. The consequence of flying is that you arrive somewhere quickly, and efficiently and can enjoy different cultures, places and people. It is called civilisation. e'll want us to turn the light off when we aren't reading, or use less appliances. How about that wasteful blogging, using up energy.

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Claire Foster, the church’s environment policy director, said: “Indiscriminate use of the earth’s resources must be seen as profoundly wrong, just as we now see slavery as wrong.”

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What rot. So wasting water is as wrong as enslaving a man? Nonsense. The church wastes the eart's resources, and time and produces nothing. If all religion was shut down, there would be an enormous amount of energy saved, time for family and friends and productive activity. I think it is profoundly wrong that the futile nature of religion causes such waste.

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Besides which, if the Church of England (surely one of the longest running charlatan churches on the planet) wants to exercise "moral authority" on the environment, it should be pointing fingers at the Supreme Governor of the Church - the Queen. She regularly has entire planes just for herself, her mad racist husband and their entourage - so send the Queen by boat everywhere, and her family, then come back to me.

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Meanwhile I've booked my flight to NZ and back for Xmas/New Year - and the Church of England can get fucked if it thinks that is sinful.

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UPDATE: Interesting article in the Telegraph fisking the Bishop, who took a free luxury cruise, including connecting flights, over Easter. Although, it still buys into the protestant "don't fly as much" ethic.

Ding dong Ta Mok is dead

Another one, one of the worst, of the murderous butchers of Cambodia is dead.

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Ta Mok, believed to have directed the most deadly of the purges of the Khmer Rouge regime, died on 20 July after falling into a coma.

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Words cannot describe the brutality and cruelty this man was a part of - the movie the Killing Fields showed, believe it or not, a sanitised version, the book Survival in the Killing Fields by Dr Haing S Ngor (who played Dith Pran in the Killing Fields) tells it all.

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Dr Haing S Ngor survived the brutality that Ta Mok inflicted with his comrades, supported by Maoist China, while leftist pinup boy Noam Chomsky claimed stories about the Khmer Rouge horrors were "concocted by the CIA".

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In order to survive Dr Ngor had to pretend to be an illiterate taxi driver, when he was in fact, an obstetrician. His wife died in childbirth as he watched and could do nothing, because had he revealed his medical skills, he would have been murdered for being "too clever". The Khmer Rouge only valued uneducated labourers, everyone else was a capitalist exploiter or had "foreign allegiances". Dr Ngor, escaped, told his story, the book and movie were made, and then was murdered by a streetgang who demanded the locket around his neck (which contained a picture of his late wife). He refused - the thugs who killed him are in jail.

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Unfortunately, Ta Mok never saw justice. 2 million Cambodians died due to the Khmer Rouge, Ta Mok is responsible for plenty of them.

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Nobody should forget what happened in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 - it was the logical end point of radical collectivism and anti-capitalism. The individual was explicitly nothing, money was abolished, any form of foreign education or intellectualising (besides Maoism) was reason to kill. People who used their hands not their heads were worshipped and lauded, everyone who used their minds was put into slavery or killed. Individual homes and all private property was abolished - you lived together, worked together, slept together (not that way), ate together and then had to criticise each other and yourself. Who else thinks money is the root of all evil?

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Shame Chomsky didn't visit Cambodia like Scottish Khmer Rouge apologist Malcolm Caldwell did mid revolution. Caldwell was killed by members of the Khmer Rouge keen to "embarrass" the regime - justice indeed.

Hizbullah says children they kill are martyrs

Yes, these are the people that so many are willing to appease. Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, on Al Jazeera is reported as saying that the two Arab children killed by one of Hizbullah's rockets in Nazareth were "martyrs for the Palestinian cause".

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Pig.

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That's a great excuse. Of course, if they were Jewish, Christian or atheist children, he would damn them to hell. By the way, that goes for your children too.

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You see Hizbullah's patrons, Iran - that nice regime that has not been meetings its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and wants to wipe out Israel and the USA, should know about children being martyrs. It used to send teenagers into war.

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In addition, on May 23, 2005, Amnesty International reiterated its calls to Palestinian armed groups to put an immediate end to the use of children in armed activities: "Palestinian armed groups must not use children under any circumstances to carry out armed attacks or to transport weapons or other material". In 2002 current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said "At least 40 children in Rafah became cripples after their hands were blown off by pipe bombs. They received 5 shekels [slightly over $1] to throw them". Not Hizbullah? No, but its spiritual allies.

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and yes. I know Israeli attacks have killed children in Lebanon. There is a difference though. Israel wont call them martyrs for its cause, and wont celebrate their death. Israel doesn't want to wipe out Lebanon. Israel was not the party that started this conflict - Hizbullah did, and it is responsible for putting at risk Lebanese civilians who live near the sites where it launches attacks.

Credit card carbon

According to the Daily Telegraph, UK Environment Secretary David Milliband has proposed carbon “smartcards” whereby people would have a set allowance of carbon which you would need to use (or buy more from others) to spend on energy, transport and well anything I guess. He doesn’t say anything, even though he should. After all, a tin of pineapples could well have used more energy in its production and transport than a drive to the shops.
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As usual, the analysis is one sided. Carbon dioxide emissions are bad and must be stopped. It isn’t asked WHY the emissions happen. You’re emitting carbon dioxide now, should you pay for that?
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Milliband says that people on low incomes would benefit because they could sell credits. Sell them to do what? They can’t have a car, or travel, or buy an appliance that uses energy. Marvellous – they might be able to buy a turnip. Then there are those buying them. What happens if it is your work that flies you overseas, does a company get credits or does work buy credits off of someone else, or use yours and if it can’t, can you not go inspect that project underway?
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For starters, it isn’t carbon per se, it is carbon dioxide, and that is not the only “greenhouse gas”. Methane is another significant one, but let’s not have the science get in the way of a great way for government to control what you buy.
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Secondly, who is going to value the “carbon content” of what you buy. What regulatory body will carbon rate shoes made in Indonesia (were they shipped or flown?), bread made in the local bakery (did they use gas or electric, do they get credits for selling products made using carbon like GST or is it double counted, so that the power generation carbon is paid by the power company, the bakery and the bread buyer?), Sky TV transmissions, or how about that bus when you’re the only passenger (do you pay marginal costs or total costs, will it vary per trip?).
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Thirdly, what happens to migrants and the new born. Do children get an allowance too, is it the same? Does it encourage people to breed (yay we can use the new kids carbon allowance to pay for the new car) which is hardly environmentally friendly? When do they get control of it, does everything you buy for someone else have to use your carbon credits or theirs, if yours does that mean the end of gift buying (Happy Birthday Mum, I bought you some plants because it’s the only thing I could get credit to come visit you in my car).
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Fourthly, what happens to exports and imports? Does it kill off exports because it would make them uncompetitive? Do imports get hit even though you may have no idea what carbon content there is for something made in Peru? Does it create a new class of smuggler?
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Fifthly, do people or companies undertaking activities that remove carbon dioxide (e.g. planting trees) get credits? If so, do inspectors come round and assess the value of your tree? Does it mean major companies will buy up forests en masse? Does it mean the government owning national parks has credits it can dish out to its friends or spend on things it likes doing? What if the government hasn’t enough, does it tax you some credits as well?
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Finally, do energy companies have to buy credits if they discover more hydrocarbons? If so, does it mean the hydrocarbon industry may as well give up now, what are the consequences for global wealth and income?
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You see it is part of the Green religious faith that the main problems in the world are transport and energy, ignoring that these are also two of the most fundamental pieces of infrastructure for civilisation to function. Without energy, it’s cold (or hot) and dark with little way for people to control their environment, without transport you are stuck with what you can get within walking distance. The “twin evils” are in fact what makes the world go round – unless you are living as a subsistence farmer in Africa, in which case you would dream about having such things. It might be nice if they stopped interfering in the energy and transport markets in ways that promote the retention of inefficient technology and practices - that might make a bit of a difference.

Bush vetos stem cell research bill for the wrong reason

George W. Bush’s greatest failing is his faith applied to politics. It is no secret that one major reason Bush was re-elected in 2004 is because he fired up the significant minority of evangelical Christians in the USA to vote. For all of the Democrats who despise Bush, he fired up the hell and brimstone religious conservatives to keep him in power. He hasn’t forgotten them.
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He has used his Presidential veto the first time in his Presidency to veto a Senate Bill for federal government funding to use human embryo stem cells in medical research.
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I'm an atheist and I believe it was the right thing to do, but not for the reason Bush believes. The federal government should not be using taxpayers’ money – money taken by force – to fund research that many taxpayers would not choose to fund themselves. That is what the bill was about - it wasn't about allowing stem cell research. That is not prohibited, it was about the federal government funding it.
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Unfortunately, Bush’s veto had nothing to do with freedom, but everything to do with his own personal view. He believes stem cell research is immoral. It isn’t. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger supported the Bill, and many Republican Senators did too. As typically conservative Senator Orrin Hatch said “A critical part of being pro-life is to support measures that help the living”.
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Embryonic stem cell research could bring enormous medical benefits to cure diseases such as Alzheimers, Parkinsons disease and spinal cord injuries. This should be wholeheartedly supported – but it should be supported from money given out of choice. I would certainly do so.
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However, government does not exist to force people to pay for research that offends them. If the federal government was funding research into the “intelligent design theory” it would be widely derided, and rightly so. Similarly if it was funding research into alternative therapies, like reiki or iridology, or how about whaling for scientific purposes. How about government research into whether masturbation was good for you? .

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How about research being funded by those who support it?

Why democracy is not THE answer

It is generally a truth that democracies don't wage war - this is one reason why the US and its allies have been promoting democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere. Open transparent democracies do provide A check on government's abusing their authority and attacking their citizens and neighbours. However, many democracies are not open and transparent (South Africa is slipping down that path, Egypt isn't much of a democracy and neither is Russia), and it is A check not THE check. You see, it is fine if the majority want peace and to live in harmony with each other and their neighbours - but what if a democracy votes to destroy a neighbouring democracy? This is what the Ayn Rand Institute rightly points out in its latest Op-ed - because the US promotion of democracy is entirely consistent with Hizbullah being part of the Lebanese government, and with Hamas running the Palestinian Authority.

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"The essence of democracy is unlimited majority rule. It is the notion that the government should not be constrained, as long as its behavior is sanctioned by majority vote. It is the notion that the very function of government is to implement the "will of the people." It is the notion espoused whenever we tell the Lebanese, the Iraqis, the Palestinians and the Afghanis that the legitimacy of a new government flows from its being democratically approved.
And it is the notion that was categorically repudiated by the founding of the United States."

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Exactly. The US was founded on having a constitutionally limited democracy.

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The op-ed continues:

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"America's defining characteristic is freedom. Freedom exists when there are limitations on government, imposed by the principle of individual rights. America was established as a republic, under which the state is restricted to protecting our rights. This is not a system of "democracy." Thus, you are free to criticize your neighbors, your society, your government--no matter how many people wish to pass a law censoring you. You are free to own your property--no matter how large a mob wants to take it from you. The rights of the individual are inalienable. But if "popular will" were the standard, the individual would have no rights--only temporary privileges, granted or withdrawn according to the mass mood of the moment. The tyranny of the majority, as the Founders understood, is just as evil as the tyranny of an absolute monarch. Yes, we have the ability to vote, but that is not the yardstick by which freedom is measured. After all, even dictatorships hold official elections. It is only the existence of liberty that justifies, and gives meaning to, the ballot box. In a genuinely free country, voting pertains only to the means of safeguarding individual rights. There can be no moral "right" to vote to destroy rights."

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Germans elected Hitler and his allies, and they then destroyed German democracy, freedom and went out to destroy millions of people.

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Democracy is now being used against the US and the West, because it has handed to people on a plate, the tool to legitimise their murderous intent.

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"But then, if a religious majority imposes its theology on Iraq, or if Palestinian suicide-bombers execute their popular mandate by blowing up Israeli schoolchildren, on what basis can we object, since democracy--"the will of the people"--is being faithfully served? As a spokesman for Hamas, following its electoral victory, correctly noted: "I thank the United States that they have given us this weapon of democracy. . . . It's not possible for the U.S. . . . to turn its back on an elected democracy."

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So is it any wonder that some in the Muslim world believe the US is hypocritical. It has been pushing the wrong barrow. It is harder to promote individualism is a world dominated by nationalist, religiously inspired tribalists dedicated to bullying their way around the lives of others.

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The point about democracy has been made by PC several times and myself. Democracy is not THE answer, at best it is one small component. Government is like an engine on a car, democracy is a steering wheel, but without individual rights - there are no brakes on it.

Indonesia tsunami

On Monday afternoon, in less than an hour, Java gets hit by a Tsunami that has killed 500 and 50,000 are homeless. You see according to the BBC "It currently takes scientists up to 60 minutes to receive and analyse the data from 30 seismological stations and send out a warning. ".

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Well that's helpful. Tsunamis should always be well over an hour from shore.

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"We were told that there had been an earthquake and the tsunami might come in a couple of days... we never expected it." said one local.

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So even when the information is disseminated it is wrong. Yes, it is difficult to get this right under short notice, but the excuses are appalling. Broadcasting messages across all radio stations is easy, sending police vehicles with loudspeakers around villages is easy.

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"US and Japanese agencies issued tsunami alerts for parts of Indonesia and Australia, but the Indonesian government says it was unable to relay the message to the coast. "

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Funnily enough, while Indonesia is now relatively free and open, totalitarian societies very quickly round up dissenters and put down demonstrations because it is in their interests to do so. Presumably it wasn't sufficiently a priority for the Indonesian authorities to warn their people of the tsunami. Hopefully there wont be a third time.

Hotter still

35 degrees where I am, which is why the Daily Express (ugh) printed this photo. Predicting 37 degrees. Smart people are leaving dogs in closed cars or sheds without water - something which should be done back to them.

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Nice to see British roads being torn up too, maintenance on many London roads is utter crap because it is decided by politicians who prefer to direct funding to largely empty buses.

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The Daily Mirror reports that London public transport is experiencing temperatures illegal under EU regulations for transporting animals:

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"One bus hit 126F(52C), while 117F (47C) was registered on the Central Line Tube. EU guidelines say animals should not be transported above 81F (27C)."

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Of course the fun Nazis are out in force, including the school that banned pupils taking sunscreen to school in case it gives any of the other kids an allergic reaction. "We have over 200 children and some might have allergies to nut oils and other allergens. They'd go into each other's drawers, share it and might even eat it." said the HeadMistress, who to be fair was only following "health and safety rules". Well maybe the teacher could have it and apply it, nooo that might be sexual abuse rubbing sunscreen on a child's legs - what is a teacher to do?

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Damn Britain is weather obsessed, I wont blog about this again!

What Lebanon is really about

Tony Blair has railed against Syria and Iran’s proxy war being waged with Hizbullah.
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Blair is quoted by the Daily Telegraph this morning:

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“At root, we need to recognise the fundamental nature of the struggle in the region, which has far-reaching consequences far beyond that region and even in countries like our own. All over the Middle East there are those who want to modernise their nations, who believe as we do in democracy and liberty and tolerance. But ranged against them are extremists who believe the opposite, who believe in fundamentalist states and are at war not against Israel's actions but against its existence."

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He has been supported by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (not exactly a paean of freedom and democracy, but Egypt too has faced Islamist terror). Mubarak considered the actions of both Hamas and Hizbullah as " losing sight of the main Palestinian goal of obtaining an independent state." He is right. There wont be a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza as long as Israel is getting attacked directly by the terrorist wing of the Palestinian government.

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Meanwhile, Syria and Iran have issued a joint statement calling on Israel to withdraw completely from the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and Jerusalem (the last mentioned so that the Palestinian government led by people committed to wiping out Israel can have a capital there), get rid of its nuclear deterrence and let Iran do as it wishes with nuclear technology. None of it says that Israel will then be secure, none of it calls on Syria and Iran to recognise Israel's right to exist, none of it says that terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbullah would then be disarmed, none of it says that Syria's one-party state will be open to political plurality and freedom of speech. Interesting that an Islamic fundamentalist state (Iran) and a secularist one-party dictatorship (Syria) are such good friends.

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The funniest part is this "The two sides expressed concern over continuation of foreign intervention in the internal affairs of the countries in the region drawing attention to the negative repercussions of such intervention on stability and security of the region." Funny that they are concerned about something both of them do regularly, but then this is how Syria treats those who might raise this issue in Damascus:

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"A metal seat with movable parts to which the detainees feet and hands are tied. By bending the chair’s main frame to the rear so that immense pressure is exerted on the neck and joints. This creates great difficulty in breathing and may lead to unconsciousness. One version of these chairs is called the Syrian Chair, where the metal parts are fixed at the front chair legs, to which the detainee’s legs are tied. This leads to the bleeding of the ankles, and is accompanied with beating."

Hysterical Greens says Federated Farmers President

Stuff reports that Federated Farmer’s President Charlie Pedersen has been laying into ecologists saying:
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“I say shame on the people who elevate environmentalism to a religious status, shame on you for your arrogance, shame on all of us for allowing the environmentalists' war against the human race to begin, and take hold,"
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Quite right. It is a war against the human race. What human beings create and consume is bad, whereas what nature creates and destroys is good. Most environmentalists think they are at tune with humanity, but the “it’s compulsory or banned” ethos of many of the Greens reveals this attitude that the Green’s interest in democracy and peace draws the line when the majority choose to buy what the Greens don’t like (e.g. cars), or grow what they don’t like (in which case peace is the last thing on the mind of ecologists).
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Unfortunately Charlie Pedersen hasn’t heard of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) otherwise he wouldn’t have said "I am yet to hear any environmentalist admit that rolling back agriculture's intensification would have to be matched by worldwide starvation or a matching reduction in population”. Because VHEMT believes that world population should reduce, not to 5 billion or 1 billion or even 1 million, but zero. These perverts think that which was created spontaneously by nature is beautiful, but the only creature on the planet that understands how it was made, how it works and can harness it to do things that defy nature (e.g. travel beyond the speed of sound, communicate vast distances showing images and sound) are bad. This is the natural endpoint to radical environmentalism - killing off humanity.
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The key difference between many ecologists and the likes of Pedersen (and myself) is that we don’t believe that preserving nature is, by itself, of inherently greater value than any other activity. After all, New Zealand would be a third world nature park if much of its land hadn’t been cleared for agricultural use. This is not a “pave the world” argument, it is moving from the extremism that says that (to borrow from Monty Python):
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every tree is sacred,
every bird is great,
if a dune is built on,
Greens get quite irate.
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every bush is wanted,

every swamp is good,

every bug is needed,

in your neighbourhood.
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To recognition that sometimes people value nature, millions like tramping, sightseeing, have their own gardens, visit parks in cities and national parks. Those are activities that (assuming those that value it pay for it) demonstrate that many people in the capitalist developed world value nature, enormously.
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Pedersen continued “Many ordinary citizens had bought into the environmental teachings that the world was on the road to ruin, and with it, mankind. They were adopting these teachings without proper scrutiny because of the "green" movement's momentum.” This is all true, the Greens have an Armageddon mentality. It is one that the media loves to use, because it sells papers and gets attention on broadcasts - in addition, most reporters aren't very bright. They take what lobby groups tell them and don't do any investigations themselves - this is why the word nuclear is a synonym for hysteria in New Zealand, but not France or Japan.

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The current fads for the "end of the planet" are peak oil and global warming, past ones being overpopulation, water “running out” and a new ice age. Now if human induced global warming is happening, it is NOT the end of the world, humanity wont die out – it doesn’t mean that roads will be empty because nobody will have a car, it doesn’t mean mass flooding and bad weather everywhere. It may be cheaper to do nothing about global warming that to undertake interventionist measures that reduce net welfare (e.g. focusing on expensive local production of goods rather than cheaper more efficient imports, which may exacerbate poverty in poorer countries). Technology already means that new cars today burn less fuel and burn it cleaner than ever before, and that power generation is equally more efficient and cleaner - in other words, economic efficiency can be parallel to environmental efficiency. However you can hardly plan it, like the Green obsession with trains.
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A key problem is the shrill loud voice of the irrational emotive environmental lobby. One of those is Cath Wallace, who is reported as describing Mr Pedersen's comments as "hysterical" and said he had missed the point of debate about sustainable development. Cath Wallace would know about hysterical – she waged a hysterical campaign against National’s relatively minor proposed tinkering of the RMA in the late 90s. Check out this quote from an article written by her:

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“We could aim to maintain and protect natural, cultural and social capital – and to be as vigilant about these as we are with public and private financial capital. This means that we would maintain the environment intact, with limits to protect natural processes, systems, places and ecosystems. Decision rules such as the precautionary principle that suggest that we avoid actions with significant irreversible adverse consequences or consequences which we cannot predict.”

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So you see she knows the value of natural capital or even cultural and social capital. Meaningless concepts being thrown about. Her advocacy of the precautionary principle would have seen aviation banned from the start because planes could fall out of the air and set some bushes on fire, or the electric light (who knows what damage that could do to plants photosynthesising at night) or antiseptic in hospitals (the disposal of antiseptic could damage all sorts of precious ecosystems). Avoiding actions with consequences which we cannot predict would stop almost everyone doing almost anything interesting - don't set up a business, don't meet new people, don't invent something new, don't develop a new drug - just be a sticky beak taxpayer tit sucking econazi telling people what not to do because of the "intrinsic" value you place on anything not produced by human being. Absolutely absurd.

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A more recent press release from her and one of her supporters commenting on the 2006 Budget says:

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“In stark contrast there is no major increase in public transport funding, yet this is urgently required. This does double harm. We will have more greenhouse gases, more lethal air pollution, higher future health costs from vehicle pollution and from the spread of infectious diseases as our climate becomes more mosquito friendly to spread diseases like Ross River Virus, dengue fever and other nasties."

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There is no evidence whatsoever that subsidising public transport reduces greenhouse gas emissions. None. There is evidence that building some road projects reduces greenhouse gas emissions, by easing congestion and eliminating bottlenecks. So because public transport isn't getting more subsidies, New Zealand might get dengue fever. A flyover on the Western Hutt Road gets built getting rid of two annoying sets of traffic lights on a 4-lane highway, and fuck me silly but the Tropic of Capricorn is now the Tropic of Milford and dengue fever is rife along the Manawatu River.

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What’s more hysterical than that?

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The education system has inculcated this guilt trip for a good generation now. This is why as Pedersen puts it:

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"They often give support to relieve themselves of any guilt about their lifestyle. Kiwis must understand that ill thought out environmental controls based on emotion rather than science will inevitably lead to a reduced standard of living."

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Indeed!

London 34 degrees celsius

Best place to be? Primrose Hill with a cool drink
Worst place to be? Bakerloo or Victoria tube lines

Why do tourists come here at this time? When it is this hot, there are plenty of nicer parts of England to go to, or rather nicer parts of Europe.

The recipe for reducing global poverty - Part One

Plenty of bloggers have talked about this (Not PC, Lindsay Mitchell, Writeups, Elliot Who) and they are right , Bob Geldof can just fuck off.

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His contribution to reducing world poverty is nothing compared to the efforts of others who, despite their mixed record, have achieved far far more than he ever could. Take Deng Xiaoping, who took the world’s most populous country and turned its back on policies that saw it stagnate and 60 million of its citizens starve. Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, who, by ending the Cold War, ended the proxy wars and backing of most of the mad socialist states in Africa and Asia. Democratic accountable government has the best chance in Africa that it has EVER had, but sadly Zimbabwe and South Africa are going in the opposite direction
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Poverty will never be history. There will always be people who through bad luck (disaster), or incompetence lose property and the means to make a living suddenly. There will also always be people who are the far left end of the bell curve – not through illness or disability, but through sheer stupidity. Those people often breed and produce children who, because the parents are incompetent and can’t teach them much, turn out stupid too. All that can be done is to ensure that those who have some competency are not prevented from using it, so that those with a lot of competency can hire them. Remember poverty is almost always relative. By any global measure, there is hardly poverty in New Zealand. Nobody starves to death, few are homeless and all get access to healthcare that everyone else pays for. It is remarkable how so many of the poor have reticulated water, electricity and telecommunications, and have appliances that would hardly ever be seen in an African village. One "answer" to global poverty would be a global welfare scheme - which almost everyone in New Zealand would be paying towards as almost everyone earns more per capita than the global average - of course that would bankrupt humanity.
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So what could dramatically reduce poverty around the world?
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No it is not being an undertalented rock “star” famous for one song (Sir Humphrey's has a marvellous reworking of that song's lyrics) and his (no doubt good intentioned) celebrity guilt mongering.
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No it is not about giving away lots of money to developing countries, it is about getting out of the way of them creating wealth and teaching good governance.

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The first step is freeing up global trade. If Bob wanted to make a difference he would shame the European Union, and France in particular, to making a bold move at the WTO negotiations. The US offered to end agricultural export subsidies, which would be a good step forward, but the EU refused because France says that the EU has “already reformed” its unsustainable and immoral Common Agricultural Policy. If the EU and the US together ended agricultural export subsidies and ended bans and quotas on agricultural imports this would pressure the likes of India and Brazil to open up their markets to more manufactured goods, and pressure Japan to liberalise its markets. This would all benefit developing countries which are more efficient producers of many goods, particularly agricultural commodities, than the EU and US. The most scandalous distortion at the moment is the EU, and while it is too much to hope for all EU agricultural protectionism to end, it is not too much to expect it to open its markets and stop subsidising exports to other markets.
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Secondly, support good government. That is government that has as its cornerstones the development of a clean and independent judiciary and police force. This also means laws to protect private property and enforce contracts. One of Latin America’s biggest problems has been corruption in the core functions of the state. People do not believe they can get justice, so either don’t complain or take matters into their own hands. Good government at its very basics requires:
- Transparent clear laws on real crimes (attacks on people and their property);
- A well paid and adequately equipped Police force which focuses solely on the enforcement of those crimes;
- An effective Police monitoring agency, independent of the Police, to root out corruption, Police malpractice and acts as the public’s watchdog;
- A well paid, politically independent court system. This will include an appeals process. Judges who cannot be bought mean judges paid well and provided adequate protection for verdicts against those who may threaten them.
- A well paid and managed prisons/corrections system. This requires particular monitoring to avoid corruption and abuse, but is more than just managing prisons. This also means the collection of fines and debts for lawsuits. This operation also must be well paid, but is critical to managing the credibility of the judicial system – most commercial infractions are not going to be enforced through prisons.
- Well defined property rights. This may include a land register for identification of land/buildings, or even registers for vehicles. This ensures that title and boundaries in property have certainty.
- Adequate contract and tort law. Agreements between citizens have to be able to be enforced as contracts. Citizens also must be able to sue for actions by individuals, that are not intentional which cause harm.
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Thirdly, support accountability in government. This accountability means not only liberal democracy, free speech and the rule of law, but having the powers of the state limiting itself. It means that governments can be taken to court and decisions overruled for being unconstitutional. It means that politicians are not above the law, and can be sued, charged and convicted when they act illegally.
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Beyond that there are economic policies that will work, and people can give aid voluntarily to support infrastructure development (e.g. clean water supplies, vaccination) which clearly works. The details of all that are for another time, because without government that works, government that can protect the rights of individuals to live and interact with each other voluntarily, everything else will be a struggle. People must have the right to own what they produce, to be able to call upon the state when their body or property is violated, and to not be pushed around by politicians who want to "plan" their lives, and in the meantime harm their livelihood.

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Economic independence requires the state to protect people from thieves, con-artists and the most artful example of those is politicians. There is little point giving a starving man food, if it can be stolen when you have gone. There is little point in helping fields be irrigated, if the state kicks the farmer off the field.

May Israel destroy Hizbullah

Israel's current campaign against Hizbullah has the most honourable and moral of objectives - to destroy a murderous organisation, which has as its goal the destruction of Israel.

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Israel has my complete support.

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Hizbullah launched its attack on Israel, abducting two soldiers and launching rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns. It has been attacking Israel for decades, it supports and sympathises with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and its suicide bombing attacks on Israel.

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Here are the facts:

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1. Hizbullah – a radical Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organisation has been using bases in Lebanon, including residential areas, to fire rockets into Israeli territory. ISRAELI territory, not the occupied West Bank or Gaza, but northern Israel.
2. Hizbullah abducted two Israeli soldiers in order to force Israel to surrender Hizbullah prisoners. Prisoners arrested because they are terrorists and planning attacks against Israel!
3. The government of Lebanon, through its own internal weakness, is completely incapable of controlling Hizbullah.
4. The Israeli government has a choice – either sit back and let its villages and houses of its citizens be bombed by terrorists lobbing rockets at them, or resist.
5. Hizbullah is backed by Iran and Syria, and has a stated goal of eradicating the state of Israel. Iran ships by air the weapons it supplies to Hizbullah. It aims indiscriminately at military and civilian targets, and shields behind civilians by locating its rocket firing operations in densely built up residential areas.
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So who is responsible for Lebanon being bombed? Would Lebanon be getting bombed had the Lebanese government fought against Hizbullah’s gang using the country as a base for attacking Israel? Would Lebanon be bombed if Hizbullah ceased attacks?
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There is your answer.
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You can choose to apologise for terrorists who would kill you in an instant, who want a UN member state wiped out, who want an Iranian style Islamist regime in Lebanon and Palestine. You know, the type of regime that sends kids to wars, that applies the death penalty for homosexual acts and adultery, that stones men, women and children for unIslamic behaviour. The type that simply does not tolerate atheism, Christianity, Judaism, women wearing what they want, or people writing or reading what they like. Or you can support a country defending its territory from attacks. What side are you on?
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Rape and little boys

Maia’s post about a friend’s little boy and this conversation between her and the friend has created a lot of reactions. Insolent Prick has provided an excellent response to the strange fear that your baby might become a rapist. However, first let’s get a flavour of the kind of thinking in this different “world view”:
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“we didn't know whether it was worse to raise a girl and be afraid that when she grew up she'd be raped, or a boy and be afriad that when he grew up he might rape someone.”
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Now we know that it is more likely that a girl will be raped than a boy, and more likely that a man will be convicted of a violent crime than a woman. This is a world where boys are not victims and girls are never violent, but let’s just pause for a moment to figure out where they are coming from.
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Imagine being that little boy or indeed a little girl around such adults, and taking in the message that “I am innately capable of hurting people” or “I am innately capable of being a victim”. Now both are true. Feminists who haven’t lost the plot completely acknowledge that all initiation of violence against people of any sex or age is wrong. Funnily enough, that’s what libertarians and objectivists think too. However, what thinking causes one to “fear” the victimhood of your daughter or the “latent violence” of your son?
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Psychosis. Transferring your own issues onto the child.
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Your children will become whoever they are due to many reasons. Your parenting will be the dominant influence, their genes will play an important part too. Their peers and other family members will influence them for better and for worse, and the older they get, the more responsible they are for their own behaviour. Adults are fully responsible, and the world doesn’t make them do things – assuming their brains are physically fully functional, adults decide whether they rape, beat up their kids or abandon them.

Take this “Right now he's amazing and beautiful.” The baby boy is amazing and beautiful because he is totally dependent, totally helpless and barely an individual. Imagine telling him in 13 years time that he “once was amazing and beautiful”, now he has an erection and thinks about girls all the time – better watch out, he might rape. Maybe, just maybe, if he is brought up respecting other people, their bodies and their property, he wont even think about using force to get his own way.
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After all, if you thought this, wouldn’t you simply not breed and turn yourself in for therapy about how scary the world is:
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“I'm so scared of what this world will turn him into. That's one of the things that the US soldeirs who have raped Iraqi women makes me think about. How our world in general, and the army more than anything, makes men into monsters. At the moment we can protect him from all that. I can sing him songs of hopes and struggle and there ain't nothing can harm him. But that only works so long.”
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Time for a reality check. The “world” doesn’t make anyone into anything. People become victims and people choose how they react to that. Who made Rachealle Namana or Tania Witika the evil abusive women they are? Well feminists might say they were abused too - much like how many male sexual abusers were also abused. How can that possibly excuse it?

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However, remember in a philosophical environment where you surround yourself with female victims and talk about the vile men who abused you, you can find the world a bit skewed. You probably don’t associate with female offenders and male victims. You may not even associate with women who have not been abused or men who don't abuse - after all you probably can't trust any man who says he has never raped, because so many get away with it (which is true, some men rape and get away with it, but many don't rape).
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It is a little as if someone was badly assaulted by a young Maori male, and suddenly fears all young Maori males (which is a natural instinctual, albeit irrational reaction).
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Now I don’t think Maia is a man hater “all men are rapists” feminist, and it is too easy to dismiss someone for such views. I read her posts to test my mind, and find she blames capitalism for all that is bad in the world, but has no alternative. It is like blaming planet earth for having tectonic plates that cause earthquakes and volcanoes, but not suggesting somewhere better to live.

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I don’t minimise rape, anymore than I minimise any form of severe violence. It is unconscionably evil, no matter who perpetrates it. It is revolting that in the not so distant past the Police wouldn’t believe the victims, and today the Police, depending where you are can either be helpful or make things worse. However, there are many many men who abhor rape, and abhor violence against women, children and men. You don’t need to have a vagina to feel that way. Men are as likely to be attacked in the street as women, because idiotic drunk louts are more likely to get aggro towards other men than women, for no reason at all. Most men have encountered them, but they are often so drunk they can be ignored or knocked over easily enough if they attack.
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The solution to rape, sexcrimes and violence is a culture that values being human, and what is great about being human. It respects people’s bodies and their property, and enjoys the joy that is life. It abhors the use of force as the tool of the barbarian, and instills the use of the mind as the driver of the heart and hands as being what is great about being human. It is not a culture of fear, but one of confidence and believe in oneself. It is not a culture of victimhood, but of strength – strength in mind and body. It is a culture that is benevolent towards those you love and towards your fellow human being. It is the kindness of strangers, not the guilt of unchosen obligation. It is a culture of honesty, friendship, good will and acknowledgment of excellence, effort and being creative.
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You wont find that culture in Islam or Christianity either.

Small local government will take some hard work

PC has blogged about the Nomorerates.com campaign, and I agree with him. It isn’t a campaign I can wholeheartedly support.
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The only good side is that it promotes restraint in council spending. Something that was going to get worse with councils getting the “power of general competence”, a major change in local government legislation that came about with the Local Government Act 2001 – a Labour/Alliance/Greens concoction. You see before then, all local authorities could only do what legislation empowered them to do, specifically. Regional councils were essentially restricted to emissions under the RMA, public transport contracting and water catchment/pest control – now they can do what they want, subject to “consultation”. Consultation means that they ask you regularly, but you don’t have the time to tell them to “fuck off”. Instead the little lefty lobby groups who claim to represent “the community” agree to any expansion of activities as long as it never involves user pays – because they want to use it for nothing.
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There were warnings at the time. The Business Roundtable through the Local Government Forum said:
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“The proposals contained in the Bill place unwarranted faith in the efficacy of democratic processes at the local level. The activities that councils may engage in should be tightly circumscribed and enumerated in the new act. The deliberate specification of limited powers is a vital constraint on local government. A power of general competence is inconsistent with New Zealand's longstanding constitutional arrangements and the common law, and is a threat to personal and economic freedom.”
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Libertarianz also opposed the Bill. Many of you voted Labour, Alliance or Green, and voted most of them back in again in 2002 and 2005. Many of you voted for councillors and Mayors who are growing their councils. So what are you complaining about?
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The nomorerates.com campaign is supporting Rodney Hide's Rating Cap Bill which is a useful first step, but there needs to be more. Even that Bill wont be supported by the government, which has its local government footsoldiers happily pillaging your pockets for more money every year. Local government is where petty fascists go when they can't get elected to central government.
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However, I am wary of the campaign. For starters this press release seems to claim that user pays for water and sewerage is unfair, because it isn't eligible for a low income rebate.

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Why should you pay for water or sewerage or rubbish collection through tax, instead of the services you use? Why aren’t environmentalists, like the Greens, supporting user pays for waste disposal, such as rubbish and sewerage, and user pays for using reticulated water? Why should you be forced to pay for libraries or swimming pools you don’t use?
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The problem of local government profligacy requires two approaches.
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First, confront local authorities. Prepare submissions opposing their big spending plans and support candidates at the next local body elections who want council to do less. Good luck finding candidates, although Libertarianz did stand a handful of candidates last time. Remember, the left gets enthusiastic (ick) about local government, and the conservative right is often not much better - so it is time to ask candidates what they will CUT from council spending. They will look at you bewildered - since most moaning minnies who go to local government meetings have their hands out for more money, not wanting their own money back.
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Second, change the Local Government Act 2002. I don’t mean tinker with it, I mean constrain local government. This means voting for parties that will cut the size of local authorities, get them out of business and out of social welfare, get them out of providing services that nobody is willing to pay for, and make them start charging user pays for those that people want - then sell them.

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Libertarianz Leader Bernard Darnton announced a first step along that path last year with the party's local government policy:

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"A Libertarianz government would permanently cap all Council rates; require Councils to implement user pays where possible; and divest all activities that can either be provided or maintained by private organisations and individuals. Libertarianz would also scrap the RMA and regional councils"

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That would cut everyone's rates bill by a long margin. Yes, you might have to pay for what you use instead, but do you use everything council provides? And, if you do, why should everyone else pay for you?

The Free Radical - bigger, better, revamped

PC, Julian Pistorius and Trevor Loudon have all said this, but it is worth repeating.
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The Free Radical - New Zealand's only consistently pro small government, libertarian and objectivist publication has been revamped, expanded and improved. The latest edition is now out, so subscribe to a hard copy or pay only US$6 for a downloadable PDF version. A subscription is less than what you pay every year to NaZis on Air to feed you statist nationalist nonsense on TVNZ, Radio NZ and Maori TV and radio.
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All those who are sick of Nanny State and big government, give it a go, you wont regret it.