Bypass my ass?

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the final portion of Wellington’s Inner City Bypass is open. The moaning of the Greens is not surprising, and indeed many Wellingtonians have been frustrated too. Well, half finished roads rarely show much promise, and now that Vivian Street is finally operating eastbound (it hardly goes south!) things should flow smoothly. However, it will take easily a couple of weeks before traffic light phasing it sorted out.
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I grudgingly supported the bypass, largely because almost all those arguing against it were doing so from a position of abject ignorance, and some of its key opponents would outright lie about what it is. Sue Kedgley far too often called it a “motorway extension”, which is an enormous stretch of the truth – at best the motorway has been extended one block south, but even then not to motorway standards or speeds. In addition, the now defunct leftwing free paper “City Voice” once reported that Sue Kedgley voted in FAVOUR of the inner city bypass option when she was on the Wellington City Council – someone ought to research that some more too.
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For me the Wellington Inner City Bypass is a stopgap – it is simply a more efficient one-way system between Taranaki Street and the motorway than the old dogleg route of Vivian/Ghuznee Street. That’s it!! It is no big deal. If you want to see serious inner city roading, check out the Grafton Gully motorway extensions in Auckland – that was a serious inner city motorway - but the Greens weren’t at all excited about that. The bypass is grossly inadequate, it will reduce congestion, but only provides a more efficient through route and removes one set of traffic lights from the trip between the Basin Reserve and the Terrace Tunnel.
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The Wellington Inner City Bypass is in fact an abject lesson in two significant political and public policy issues in New Zealand.
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One, is the strategy of the Greens around issues that a small number of members get passionate about. It is the abandonment of reason and analysis, in favour of emotion and a quasi-religious obsession with single issues, with the tendency to deceive and exaggerate about what is going on. It is about diverting attention from the real agenda, which is a vehement moral opposition to private motoring, and about scaremongering its members and supporters into thinking that what is happening is different from reality. The fact that Labour Government appointed boards of (then) Transfund and Transit New Zealand supported the project, along with a former Labour Mayor (Fran Wilde) and a Labour led Regional Land Transport Committee should tell you volumes.
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The second is the fundamental failure of a politically driven process to deliver the roading infrastructure necessary for Wellington. It can be seen only too readily in how central and local government agencies, and politicians have treated the bypass vs. Transmission Gully. Transmission Gully is an extremely expensive long term solution to road access to/from the north of Wellington – it is an inefficient project (in fails to have benefits that meet its costs under benefit/cost analysis) and is a classic example of a boondoggle – a pork barrel politically motivated project with insufficient merit to justify itself. Peter Dunne is the piggy with his snout in the trough on this one, for some unfathomable reason. By contrast, Wellington had a proposal for a serious 4-lane bypass, built in a cut and cover tunnel, between the motorway and the Basin Reserve. It had a benefit/cost ratio over 2, and would, in todays dollars, cost probably about half that of Transmission Gully. It would have removed most through traffic from Te Aro and relieved Wellington’s waterfront route sufficiently that it could’ve been reduced from 6 to 4 lanes without worsening congestion. It was abandoned because of a council with insufficient vision, and because no central government Wellington politician could see what a difference such a highway would make. Labour never had the vision for it, and few National politicians did either - in fact one National Transport Minister - Rob Storey (who was a rural MP)- did more for the Greens in stopping road construction in Wellington than any other transport Minister in recent history.
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I’ve already told the Transmission Gully story (in five parts starting here) – the last chapter being that $9 million of taxpayers’ money (note NOT road users, this is coming from the Crown account – and no, this is after ALL petrol tax is spent) is now being spent on detailed investigation of Transmission Gully. This is the pork that Peter Dunne demanded to keep Labour in power – not much really, although around ten times that will be needed if it goes to detailed design. $90 million to design Transmission Gully – seriously!
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So today I am starting the story on the Wellington Inner City Bypass, it is a tale of high ambitions and persistence, which pitted on the one hand roading engineers and visionaries, and on the other hand local opponents to any new road construction, and more latterly the anti-road movement of the Greens.

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By the way if you want to see what the bypass COULD have been like (and the later design was to put it all in a cut and cover tunnel), go here.

The railway religion

You, through your taxes, are paying to reopen the Onehunga railway branch line so that a new passenger rail service can be started from Onehunga to Britomart. Yes there is a railway there, but the passenger service ended in 1973 (a decision by Ron Bailey, Minister of Railways in the Kirk government – hardly a government of neo-liberal economists!). Freight services dried up some years ago with the termination of contracts for serving the wharf at Onehunga. The line simply has no economic use, unless some major freight customer wants to use the wharves at Onehunga.

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One commenter on the NZ Herald website looks at it critically (Tony - most of the rest commenting are muppets)
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$10 million is needed to bring the line up to scratch – that’s your taxes. As much as $5 million more is needed to build a station, that will probably come directly or indirectly from Auckland regional ratepayers. There will need to be more trains to provide the half hourly service (yes half hourly!! The tracks will sit empty every 15 minutes – imagine a new road like that!) . So another $9 million for 3 2-car diesel units for a half hourly service, double that if you want quarter hourly, double it again if you want a service that reflects the minimum efficient capacity of a passenger train (three busloads). However I’ll be conservative and argue $9 million, not $36 million for a frequent high capacity service.
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So $24 million before we’ve carried a single passenger. There will be fare revenue, but it will recover about 40% of the operating costs (based on recent cost recovery ratios from fares) – that doesn’t include renewals.
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So how many people will this be for? 300 more rail passengers in the two hour peak by 2011. Of that 300, only 57% will actually be at the two stations on the line, the rest will be people at the stations on the main line (catching it because of a higher frequency service, which could be achieved without spending $15 million on the line itself). So that’s 129 passengers on the branch itself. Of those let’s conservatively assume half are a transfer from the local bus service, (which I believe is a commercial – i.e. not subsidised, service). So we are down to 60 people a day. 60 people to shift mode for $24 million. $400,000 per person to shift mode!! Add in the remaining 85 on the main line (remember 171 would use the trains for the line at stations on the main line, and half of those were bus passengers), who can share the cost of the rolling stock and the subsidy, and we are down to $374,000.
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And that’s before you’ve paid 60% of the cost of running the damned train from your fuel taxes and rates.
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But this is a good deal according to the Greens - because trains are good, always, without fail, even services that couldn't stack up in the days the railways were run as an employment scheme with a monopoly on medium to long haul freight.
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Of course the next step they all say is a rail service to the airport hmmmm, with a bridge no doubt. Remember the city-airport rail service in Sydney isn’t economically viable, and Melbourne looked at it and couldn’t justify it, developing an express bus service instead (which was introduced after the Citylink tollway was built, greatly reducing travel times to/from the airport). Ask yourself how many people going to Auckland airport actually start their trips anywhere convenient to the rail line between Britomart and Onehunga - why would you get the train from the North Shore (you're going to transfer downtown really?), Waitakere and Manukau or even most of the isthmus. Would Helen Clark get it from Mt Roskill? Hardly.
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Nevertheless, this is a religion – the rail religion – devoid of economics and reason. 129 people on 4 train services in the 2 hour peak is around 33 people a train - that's called a bus load - and a train that short is NOT environmentally better than a bus, because trains are heavier and consume more fuel - that's why a general rule of thumb is you need 3 bus loads to make a train start to be worthwhile.

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Now if you talked about the corridor being used to take trucks (and buses) between Onehunga and the Southern motorway, you might have a better case.

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No - you're gonna to be made to pay $374,000 up front to shift one person from car to train, and subsidise 60% of that person's trips, whereas before you didn't. You could always buy them small apartments next to work instead.

Does IQ match income?

"The government thinks our IQ is based on our income" so said a young mother from one of London's less well off east/south east suburbs on BBC Breakfast TV this morning when asked about government interest in teaching parents how to feed their kids.

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"I know about how to eat healthy and all of the parents I know too, just because we're not well off doesn't mean we're stupid. The government thinks we all eat ready meals, when I find it a lot cheaper to buy fresh food and make my own meals for the family, and they are healthier too." She said the main problem was the food supplied at schools, and the snack vending machines there, which are unhealthy. Her two kids (one had the name Zeppelin - she admitted she had been a hippy) seemed happy and healthy.

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That's what she said -with a very strong east end accent (too strong for EastEnders) and I think the BBC Breakfast hosts were slightly taken aback.

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You see this is a problem, do-gooding bureaucrats and MPs think the problem is that people ARE stupid and don't know how to eat and don't know smoking is bad for them, and if like concerned parents they get told enough - they might learn.

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In most cases people continue to smoke or eat badly because they choose to do so, not because they don't know fruit and veges and freshly made food is better than fast food and snacks. Honestly, the only people who don't know better are mentally retarded.

Where is the Conservative Party?

I cautiously welcomed David Cameron as leader of the British Conservative Party. I thought he might bring some energy, ditch the old-fashioned fuddy duddy school prefect type “tell you what you do” nonsense that IS conservative, and provide an electable alternative to New Labour. Britain is one helluva nanny state, you seriously cannot believe how much the media and politicians regard government as the solution to almost anything. There are regulators for just about every sector, deregulation means reregulation, and the state is there to hand hold them all so people don’t do anything that might harm themselves – while taxing ever more and more.
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Cameron might have sold a Conservative Party that wanted to reduce nanny state, and start to wind back the nauseating bureaucracy that is UK central and local government. Well maybe, there is a little bit of that, but the latest policy takes the cake on outflanking New Labour on the left. It is a tax on aviation. The purpose is to cut the number of flights and tax more polluting aircraft (which is ridiculous since most airlines optimise fuel efficiency with their fleets for obvious reasons, traded off against capital availability).

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The Tories want to tax domestic flights, and to tax international flights on the basis of everyone being permitted one shorthaul (European) international flight a year (return), beyond that you pay. Consider first the bureaucracy of a ration book system for flying, but mostly consider why this is to happen – to combat climate change.
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Reason has gone out the door on climate change policy in the UK, the two main parties believe in unilateralism with absolutely no evidence of any benefits from their climate change policies. Taxing aviation will do nothing besides give David Cameron a new source of income, though he says he will cut other taxes in exchange – which is shuffling money around. Especially as it is another tinkering of tax in the form of "a new transferable tax allowance for couples with young children". Typical politician, wont cut basic taxes - just hand out little lollies - like Dr Cullen.

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Taxing aviation will do absolutely nothing to change temperature around the world, it wont change behaviour (airfares are too high relative to the taxes talked about for it to matter or be factored into travel decisions) and at worst will see a shift in airport hubbing away to other countries in Europe. Heathrow is the best airport hub in the world, and this may reduce its competitiveness.
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However, besides all that, it is absolutely galling to see the Tories propose a ration card type tax on aviation as if to say “you’ve flown once, now go off and sit in your flat and think of England – you’re not allowed to fly more unless you can pay – and we all can, rah rah rah”.
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UKIP is a hopelessly incompetent alternative protest vote, and I want rid of New Labour, primarily because of ID cards, but also because I don’t believe Gordon Brown can bring anything essentially new and exciting to free up Britain – quite the contrary. However, vote Tory and pay aviation taxes makes me go cold. Where has the party of Thatcher gone?

Britain's independent nuclear deterrent

As I write this the House of Commons has voted for the replacement of the UK’s Trident nuclear submarines, carried only because the Conservative Party almost entirely is voting with the Labour government – as nearly 100 Labour MPs have voted against it. 409 in favour, against 161.
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The arguments put in favour of Trident are that it is inappropriate for the UK to abandon its nuclear deterrent when nuclear proliferation (Iran, North Korea) continues, potentially posing a serious threat to its security. Another consideration is that while Russia is no longer an enemy, it is not exactly a very good friend – the risk that Russia could once again have ambitions eastward cannot be foreseen 25 years in advance. Indeed, anyone who 25 years ago would have forecast a quasi-genocidal war in Sarajevo would have been looked at askance. In addition, having a nuclear deterrent puts Britain with France and the US, as the three leading Western defence powers. While the UK could certainly expect the US nuclear umbrella to be used for its defence, abandoning its nuclear deterrence would send a negative message to the US, and greatly harm bilateral relations.
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Those against Trident believe it is a waste of money (£15 billion) that could be spent on social services (note they NEVER argue for tax cuts, funny that), but are primarily driven by two motives. First is a utopian vision for nuclear disarmament, with the naïve belief that if the UK disarms, it will encourage non-proliferation elsewhere. Those opposed to Trident are part of the so-called “peace movement” and claim to want a nuclear free world.
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Let’s look at nuclear disarmament, which has happened on a grand scale since the end of the Cold War, with the US, UK, France and Russia all substantially reducing their nuclear arsenals since the late 1980s. This happened not because any one party unilaterally disarmed, but because the USSR – a regime far too many in the “peace movement” either supported or whose sins it ignored – was defeated economically, politically and philosophically. Had the nuclear disarmament called by the very same type of people in the 1980s occurred, the Soviet Union would not have been brought to its knees – something that far too many in the so called “peace movement” didn’t like (ignoring the Soviet launched imperialist wars in Afghanistan, Korea and the Middle East).
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Further nuclear disarmament or the termination of nuclear programmes has occurred either because a threat was removed (South Africa) or a threat was real (Libya). North Korea pursued a nuclear weapon because it lost the Soviet nuclear umbrella and needed a tool of blackmail so its bankrupt system – and it seems to have worked. India and Pakistan had the capability for many years before “turning the last bolt”, but the sub continent’s nuclear deterrent has worked. Iran on the other hand is pursuing nuclear weapons as it embarks on its own ambition to obliterate Israel. Israel’s nuclear deterrence is just that – it has also largely worked to defend it since the Yom Kippur War. None of the almost all fascist Arab states dare touch it – and Israelis wont dare remove their greatest tool. Meanwhile, on its own, and subject to few protests from the so-called peace movement, China builds up its nuclear arsenal. However, that’s apparently ok (don't see Chinese flags burnt or major protests outside Chinese embassies).

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There is an argument that since the end of the Cold War, Europe is at peace and no longer needs nuclear weapons. This is incredibly naïve – while many ex. communist states are now EU members (indeed almost all European ones are now), Russia is not. Russia remains a state to watch. Britain’s nuclear deterrent keeps Russia from doing anything silly.
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A nuclear weapon free world will only come will all those holding nuclear weapons at present are truly open liberal democracies, with no sectarianism and no states vowing to wipe them off the earth, with no terrorists seeking to fight jihad, and no rogue states engaging in blackmail. That means an end to Islamism, an end to Marxism-Leninism, an end to kleptocratic fascism. In other words, a truly free world of secular peaceful states.
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Unfortunately the so-called peace movement grants moral equivalency between the UK, Iran, North Korea, Russia and China. The UK has never seriously threatened its nuclear weapons in anger, Russia (as the Soviet Union) not long ago sought to eliminate freedom and liberal democracy in the West.

Now is not the time to be naïve and pander to the one eyed hypocrisy of the so-called peace movement, which seeks as a priority disarmament of open free liberal societies, but has little interest in disarming closed, authoritarian states. Stupid or another agenda? You decide.

Accidents at Penrith station

What did they fight for?

So you risk your life for your country, for freedom and your local RSA has a few pokie machines that you like to put some money in from time to time for a bit of fun as you sit with a beer with some mates of yours. You’ve looked into the eyes of danger, maybe even directly into the eyes of those who would strip away what freedoms we have for the sake of racial superiority, the great people’s revolution or the emperor. You know how to handle your own money, shit, you handled a gun or even a plane or a boat. You can look after yourself, you helped look after the whole country and its allies. However few bother to give a damn.
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People like the snivelling little upstart who is the gambling inspector. Maybe he was some young whippersnapper, dressed smartly in his Hallenstein’s suit, with his nasally whiny voice pointing out how your RSA doesn’t have a gambling licence and had failed to pay the problem gamblers levy (you can’t remember the last time anyone there had an addiction, except for Jimmy but hey it was only when he had had a few, and was remembering his best mate who he had to leave for dead). Looking into the eyes of that little bastard, what does he know? He wouldn’t even get his shoes dirty, and I’m sure he’d cower if you threatened to punch him.
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Maybe he was in his 50s, one of those who is just a bit too young to have been in Vietnam, with his grey shoes, his polyester suit, large tufts of hair either side that he wets and pulls over his bald spot, sneering and officious with no respect. He thinks you’re just a bunch of gun loving old bigots, and don’t understand your responsibility to society – what a bloody arsehole – never worked a productive day in his life.
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Both of them are the sorts I thought I’d fought to avoid, like the joyless telltale at school who ran to teacher because someone was smoking behind the bikesheds. Sticklers for rules, couldn’t turn a blind eye to those who did more for the country in one week than they will in a lifetime. No respect. No fucking respect.
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Like Director of Gambling Compliance, Mike Hill – Director of fun regulation more like. How about the prosecuting lawyer, Mark Woolford, wonder what sort of kick he gets out of prosecuting an RSA and removing a source of fun for its members. He doesn’t believe that they have private property rights though and that people who gamble take the risk themselves on the RSA’s property. It doesn’t matter as he gets paid far more than the members even did. I wont blame Judge Lindsay Moore, though he didn’t need to have the machines forfeited – they do own them after all, not the state, though give him his due for discharging the manager without conviction. He was just doing his job.
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That Green MP Sue Bradford is into all this though, remember her, the one who went to Maoist China, the same government whose soldiers would bury our guys standing up in holes in the ground to be prisoners in Korea. What does she know,

Helen Clark confronts food miles

It's about time and I'm very pleased, but more needs to be done. Publicity is needed in the UK on this, it is still almost invisible that there is more to carbon emissions than how far food has travelled. For every day you delay, is another day when UK media bleets on this lie, like it has today here, here, here and here.
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Amazingly, a green oriented site has actually started to talk a bit more sensibly about this quoting the Lincoln University study.
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How about the Nats having a policy?

The rail network is worth what?

Stuff reports that the Crown Accounts now show the rail network as being worth a ridiculous $10.6 billion, as this would be the replacement cost if tomorrow there was no rail network and you wanted to start from scratch. Imagine if Telecom's "value" was the replacement cost of its network?
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Of course, nobody would pay $10.6 billion for it, the government paid $81 million for the Auckland network and $1 for the rest, and the total value of TranzRail/New Zealand Rail was never close to a billion dollars when it held the lot.
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Cullen doesn’t even believe it is realistic. You couldn't charge track access charges to recover a bank deposit rate of return on an asset valuation like that, minus maintenance costs.
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The appropriate value should be the market value – what would the government get if it sold it off, which would be, in many cases, the scrap value of the track and the sliver of land the network is on. You could make a bit out of the rail corridors in Auckland and parts of Wellington, but most of it would be a marginal addition to farm land. The value of the asset as a railway is only reflected by how much rail companies would pay to use it, and it is unlikely to be very much (with little left behind after you cover the cost of maintaining the track, signals etc).

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The value of the rail network is as a sunk asset in most cases. Nobody seriously would build a brand new line from Napier to Gisborne for example.
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So how much of the Crown’s net worth is this sort of snake oil?

Are you banned in China?

China, the great capitalist powerhouse of Asia is also the great censorship powerhouse. The freedom loving guys at Pacific Empire have an excellent post on this, including the link to the Great Firewall of China website - where you can check to see if your website or blog is banned in the People's Republic of China. Pacific Empire is, this blog is not as of ... right now.

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However if you go to my blog through the firewall and THEN connect to Pacific Empire there doesn't seem to be a problem. Technological barriers to censorship are, by their very nature, subject to many many holes.

Steve Jobs on TV and education

Julian Pistorius has an excellent post on Steve Job's views on TV and how public education has contributed to it... his basic points are:

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Most TV is of poor quality because most people want to switch off their brains.

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Educationists want technology to fix their problems, when the problem is people, incentives and unions and administrators that don't want to confront poor performance.

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He said "The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it's not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy".

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The full post Julian quoted from is here. As long as teacher unions continue to think that teachers cannot be paid and evaluated based on performance, they will continue to be defenders of mediocrity - and who in their right mind thinks all their teachers were equally worthy.

Charles not fit to be King

Prince Charles’s environmental fetish is well known, but I believe his latest outburst proves how completely unfit he is to be King. He wants McDonalds banned.
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According to the Daily Telegraph, when visiting the United Arab Emirates he said “Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s, have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key”.
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Fascist! So you want a dictatorial kingdom of old Charles? Well frankly you are not fit to be King – how can anyone trust you to legitimately be the sovereign and accept the advice of your democratically elected government when you’re just a rather loopy leftwing nutter? You’ve never had to work a day in your life, the work you have done is by choice – you are one of the most privileged people in the world, you have not the slightest idea of what it is like to risk your own money on a business franchise (and risk bankruptcy), or to have to get a basic job. Your children don’t either.
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How you express such an explicitly political point of view, condemning a legal business operating in the UK?
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Set aside your own prejudices about McDonalds. The bottom line is that it gives a lot of people pleasure, and a lot of people jobs. Many of you have gone there, and those who don’t are fine – you don’t have to eat at fast food restaurants. If you want to get it banned, then fine, be a fascist – be honest about it. Charles is meant to be apolitical – but he is not, and as such he is not fit to be the constitutional monarch of the UK or indeed New Zealand.

Local government - fascist and wasteful

Recent reports of the latest Auckland City Council junket are not surprising. Sister City status is nothing more than a way for councils in both cities to justify expensive holidays in each others’ cities for nothing more than a junket. The trip by three to Hamburg to discuss an “economic alliance” is bullshit – absolute bullshit. For starters, what does Auckland sell that Hamburgers (yes yes) want to buy? Is Auckland City going to Hamburg to demand that Germans lobby for the EU to open up its agricultural market? Does Hamburg have so much in common with Auckland that Auckland can learn? Hardly. If Auckland wants expert advice on anything it ought to turn to its own advisors, who get paid for the job and for consultants on a case by case basis. Would they hire three consultants from Hamburg to fly over and advise Auckland on… whatever? No. It is what it is – a junket – a junket that Auckland property owners pay for compulsorily because Auckland voters chose that council and the Labour led government gave carte blanche for councils to do what they want.
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Of course Daily Telegraph reports the UK faces the same, petty fascist councils wanting to interfere almost endlessly. Prosecuting people for not recycling a piece of cardboard, or putting an envelope in the street rubbish bin that a person carried from home, charging exhorbitant parking fees because you have the wrong car.
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The thing is almost nobody standing for local government wants councils to do less and spend less. Seriously, even the non explicitly leftwing candidates are, almost to a T, big government oriented.
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New Zealand adopted the UK model for local body powers – so watch and learn. Local government in the UK is responsible for far more than in NZ (education and police for example), but its standards are lower than what I’ve seen in some NZ councils.
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Rodney Hide had a Bill that would’ve been a useful first step to dealing with this, but we see what happened to that. Maybe this year you’ll all vote for councils that want to do less and do what they are meant to do, better and more efficiently. I’m not holding my breath.

Do you care about the roads?

Well respond to Transit’s draft 2007/2008 Land Transport Programme, which lists the road projects Transit will be seeking funding for in the coming financial year and the priority given to them. Remember Transit does not fund anything, Land Transport New Zealand does, and Transit is purely state highways, not public transport.
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You can be sure that politicians who go on about their pet projects don’t bother to make a submission, but you should if something you think is worthwhile has a low priority or vice versa. Transit is seeking to spend $1.25 billion next year, of which £1.16 billion will come from your road taxes (the rest from borrowing against future toll income). The draft programme gives you maps showing where projects are and lists of projects and descriptions of what it sees as major issues.
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However Transit has taken a different approach to presenting all this information. You no longer get the estimated costs of future projects, lest it show that costs escalate year by year. You no longer get proposed exact years for starting construction, lest a project be advanced or another dropped. Much of this makes sense, but there are estimated costs behind major projects that Transit is not publishing
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You have until 30 March to make a submission.

Given my Wellington heritage, the main points for Wellington appear to be:
- Starting the Dowse to Petone interchange on the Western Hutt Rd (gets rid of the first two sets of traffic lights leaving Wellington and provides a new entrance to Hutt City from the south, relieving Melling bridge);
- Completing design and starting construction of Stage 1 of the Kapiti Western link road (a new route starting halfway between Waikanae and Waikanae Beach to Raumati via Kapiti Road, taking local traffic off of the highway);
- Designing and starting construction on an interchange at Haywards to replace the traffic light intersection between SH2 and SH58;
- Investigating and designing a major improvement to the Basin Reserve, meaning probably a flyover from Mt Victoria Tunnel to Buckle Street across the northern corner of the Basin (relieving bottlenecks around the Basin in the AM and PM peaks);
- Investigating and designing Transmission Gully.
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Hardly grand road building when only three major construction projects are set to start, (given one is complete and two more are about to be completed in the current year, it is really about maintaining the same level of activity). Of those three, two are just about getting rid of traffic lights on four-lane highways to make them run more efficiently, and the third is about providing a safer local connection in Kapiti Coast so that traffic (including cyclists and pedestrians) don’t have to mix with highway traffic. I’d be interested to see what Tom Beard thinks of this.
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Aucklanders can take heart that it is full steam ahead with a bunch of projects to be completed in the next year, and more to start such as the Hobsonville deviation (which will link the NorthWestern motorway to the soon to be completed Upper Harbour Bridge duplication and Greenhithe motorway to build a complete Upper Harbour Motorway from the North Shore to Waitakere), and Brigham Creek extension pushing the North Western motorway further towards Kumeu. Meanwhile lots of large motorway projects continue to be under construction, from the ALPURT motorway extension from Orewa to Puhoi, to extending SH20 north to Mt Roskill and south to the Southern Motorway. Most of this is a backlog of work that should have been built years ago.

AJ Chesswas abandons blogging for lent

The renowned Christian fundamentalist blogger AJ Chesswas is applying his own approach to life and is not blogging through Lent. He has a lengthy explanation here. However he says:
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“I need to slow down and absorb a bit more of life. I need to feel again. And, obviously blogging is a distraction in this regard.”
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Fair enough too. He goes on “It is after all my most distracting and compulsive addition, and self-denial is what lent is all about”. The state really ought to regulate it!

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He gets his last word in on a number of things, the highlights for me are:

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“Smacking is crucial to communicating respect for parental authority to our children, and for helping build good taste and manners, so make sure Sue Bradford doesn't get away with trying to ban it” Why I agree it shouldn’t be banned, smacking is NOT crucial, in fact I regard it to be a failure of parenting. Violence does not communicate respect, in me it communicated power and an unwillingness to communicate anything besides “I’m bigger than you and I can inflict pain on you to make you do what I want”. Smacking builds good taste?? “Oh Michael likes coprophagia because he wasn’t smacked” (don’t look up the word).

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“British identity is alive and well both in the motherland and in her colonies” Well perhaps, though if he visited here recently he’d know it is a matter of much debate. The colonies? You mean Pitcairn? Gibraltar? St. Helena? Tristan da Cunha? New Zealand stopped being even the vestiges of a colony in 1946.

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“Ecological and social issues are directly related to one another, and can only be resolved through decentralisation and an agrarian revival of faith, farm and family” Well so he’s joining the Green Party? Decentralisation of what? This could mean being a libertarian, but agrarian revival? We’ll all be in the cornfields singing Kumbayah with the family? The planet will be saved by everyone farming?? Africans will be thrilled they have the ideal life.

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“The only legitimate place for the expression of human sexuality is within a heterosexual marriage of a man and woman who are committed to each other for life.” Who decides legitimate? A Naki farmer interpreting books written centuries ago, the preacher of the church of the Naki farmer, or the people whose bodies actually have to undertake this? Presumably this married couple can enjoy oral sex, as an expression of human sexuality? (nope, but then AJ thinks that most people find this completely abhorrent).

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“Bill English is much more preferable than John Key” Sorry AJ he wont sleep with you, despite you posting his image more often than David Farrar posts images of sexy women. About the only difference so far is that Bill English decimated the National Party in 2002, John Key hasn't.... yet.

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“A woman with a strong desire for faith, farm and family is much more preferable than a woman with a strong desire for cosmetics, cars and career.” Each to their own. I’d pick the latter myself, though a strong desire for cosmetics doesn’t impress me, but career and cars are fine by me.

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I wouldn't mind if he simply made these statements as ways to live his own life.

Nanny State comment of the day

“We know that more and more people are beginning to realise the dangers of smoking.”
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Beginning? Hell, the evidence has been around since the 1950s, I was aware of it as a child and virtually everyone I ever met who smoked was well aware of it. How damned stupid or insular do you have to be to not know? If you are that stupid then frankly fine – you are like the people who ignore level crossing barriers or handle appliances with wet hands – it isn’t just a mistake it’s systematic stupidity. I don't give a damn about people who are stupid, they are the bane of my life (and it's amazing how there is a link between stupidity and violence).

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We are so glad that Damien O’Connor, Associate Minister of Health and Minister of Blokey Real Men Affairs, has figured out that in 2007 people are “beginning to realise” how dangerous smoking can be. Maybe it has taken that long for enough of his constituents (particularly those who vote for him) to realise that?

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One piece of advice Damien, people do things that are dangerous at times even though they know this, because they value SOMETHING ELSE. Adults can make their own decisions and if they decide to smoke, they take the risk with their own bodies. You see people don't always live in a world of being safe and good.

Mile high

Ridge and Loos try it on on Air NZ flying from London to LA.

The NZ Herald reports that:
“Passenger Rachel Bernam, told London newspaper The News of the World: "It was pretty obvious what was going on." She added: "They started snogging and then she disappeared under the blanket. I was shocked - it was then the steward told them to knock it off." An Air NZ spokeswoman said the airline was "not at liberty" to discuss individual passengers. "However, we can confirm there were complaints in the premium cabin on NZ1 on February 2 that required cabin crew to ask a couple of passengers to modify their behaviour"

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However the Brisbane Courier Mail tells more:
“Ridge was busted receiving oral sex from girlfriend Rebecca Loos on an Air New Zealand flight from London to Los Angeles last week. Crew had to interrupt the pair after passengers complained. "It was pretty obvious what was going on. She was giving him oral sex . . . and he was loving it," said passenger Rachel Bernam, seated behind the former league star.”

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Now there are planes and seats better suited to this than the Air NZ business class pods. For starters, the bathrooms at the back of a 747 are many and not well monitored, especially at night. The rear of the front cabin (nose) on a 747 tends to be quite discreet and private, the back rows especially. The upper deck isn’t as good as it seems, because the galley is at the back and the crew rest areas and cockpit at the front. There is another crew rest area which most passengers are unaware of, but unless the crew want to share you, you’ll get no chances there. Some Airbus A340s have downstairs toilets or galleys (Thai, Cathay, LAN, Aerolineas Argentinas all fly these to NZ).

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So some basic rules of thumb:
1. The bigger the plane the better your chances. Boeing 747s and Airbus A340s are the biggest in the air now, the A380 may offer even more chances.
2. The more exclusive the cabin the better your chances. This is mainly because some airlines make the first or business class toilets bigger, and there are more of them per passenger. It also reflects bigger more private seating, but that is all.
3. Do it in the dark. Wait till after dinner on an overnight flight and then slink off when the lights are dimmed. By then the crew are doing little, most people have their earplugs and eye masks on.
4. Find banks of toilets that are not monitored. Rear ends of planes that don’t have galleys are best (747s) though this goes against rule of thumb 2.

Rail crash

The only point I want to make of this is how wonderful technology is that this train has survived crashing at 145 km/h with only one fatality. None of the windows broke, none – the Italian made tilting trains (Pendolinos) that Virgin uses are clearly a winner! The carriages are by and large intact, which is a far cry from previous rail disasters. The nay sayers who regard rail privatisation as the source of all ills may look at Virgin Trains having leased trains that have three times the crash resistance of the required safety standard. It helps that the competitive pressure through the franchising system incentives private rail operators to operate trains and services that maximise revenue (and Virgin Trains has done quite well in winning passengers from other modes).
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Yes there are issues around the track at this particular location on this occasion, and Network Rail may well be culpable. However, rail accidents are going to occur from time to time. What this train has proven is that it is possible to protect people from death and serious injury at high speeds with good design. Imagine taking any road vehicle and sending it off the road at 145 km/h.
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It gives me added comfort as I catch these trains nearly every week!

Should incest be legal?

This will stir people up.

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Patrick Stübing and Susan Stübing are taking a case to Germany’s constitutional court to get a law overturned. Patrick Stübing is 29 years old and his sister Susan is 24, he was given a sentence of 2.5 years for incest. They are adults and in love. He was adopted in east germany at the age of 4, and was not allowed to find his biological family until he was 18. The details are in this story in The Independent, but in short they fell in love and had four children, all but one is in care and two have “mental damage” from inbreeding. Patrick has been in jail twice, his sister in the care of social services. Patrick has since chosen to be sterilised, but his relationship with his sister remains criminal. You might think they are probably stupid or ugly or something else, you know the sort of things that lesbians get accused of as to why they don't want sex with men. I don't know if they are or not, and frankly it doesn't matter. The concern in Germany is that the law against incest has its origins in the Nazi era - which makes sense if it is all about reproduction. In NZ and the UK it has religious origins, even though it is impossible for the bible to make sense without incest (who did Adam and Eve's kids breed with?).
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Now the first reaction of most to this is rather quick judgment. Starting with “eww yuck”, which frankly is irrelevant. I can think “ew yuck” if I think about sex with most people I know, or meet. What you think of a particular relationship is per se, neither here nor there. Secondly, remove any questions of abuse or violence, as there is none. Presumably the sexual relationship started once his sister was of legal age, as prosecution for that would have followed as well. Besides, today they are both adults. Thirdly, the issue that most raise is “what about inbreeding”, in which case I would ask, what is your eugenics policy?
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It is not illegal in Germany (or New Zealand) for people with hereditary diseases from having children even when there is a very high chance the disease will be passed on. Two of the four children the couple had were “mentally damaged”, but the other two were not. It is not a good idea for siblings to reproduce, but should it be criminal?
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Furthermore, given the couple can no longer reproduce, why is it anyone else’s business whether an adult brother and sister live together as a couple and have sexual relations? Ask yourself if your revulsion is no more different than the revulsion 20-30 years ago for same-sex relations, and whether that revulsion justifies a criminal record. Who are these people harming? Is the “yuck” factor enough to put someone in prison? Seriously!
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Finally, the word incest automatically brings to most people images of abusive relationships, and these do exist and the law exists to rightfully prosecute the offenders. However, some brothers and sisters (and sisters and sisters etc etc) do engage in sexual play in their youth. Would it be more appropriate to treat incest as a factor to consider in sentencing in cases of abuse, rather than for it to be a crime in itself?

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By the way, about twice a year a similar case arises in New Zealand between adult siblings, and typically the man gets convicted. I wonder why?

Eco-labelling - our saviour or our undoing.

According to the Daily Telegraph, UK Environment Minister David Milliband is to announce today that he is considering eco-labelling for food that will outline the amount of greenhouse gases used in production and transport of food. This will be greeted with cheers from European farmers, even keen to suckle the Brussels tit and ever keen to block out food imported from more efficient food producers. However, as has already been explained it should not be a matter of simple reporting “food miles” – one of the greatest green crocks of our time, but the total cost of production.
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Now I oppose compulsory labelling. If the producer doesn’t want you to know something about the food then you have the choice of buying it or not. However, New Zealand should agree to provide input into this analysis, which will surely be impossible for all food imports, but also provides an opportunity to do two things:

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First, is to transparently and objectively determine the entire carbon impact, which in many cases benefits New Zealand farmers. However this wont happen without a fight. British farmers will baulk when NZ cheese appears in supermarket coolers with a lower greenhouse rating. However, lest Britain be hauled up in front of the WTO, it must not be a barrier to free trade.
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Secondly, how about identifying food by subsidy levels, e.g. 25% of the cost of producing this block of cheese was paid for by EU subsidies, or US subsidies etc etc. Now that wont happen, but the first could be pushed for. We can’t sit back and let this be defined by those with the loudest voices, as the “Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will work with producers and retailers” according to the Daily Telegraph. This doesn’t mean our producers or importers. Stop sitting back New Zealand, bloody well do something!