Tough on youth crime?

Two people killed and two seriously injured because a 16yo brat thought he could do what he liked.
^
His punishment? 3 months supervision. He’s away laughing, the poor bubba.

^
Look how effective the criminal justice system is. The NZ Herald reports he had first embarked on a criminal life five years ago. At 11! Last year he faced 43 motor vehicle, burglary and theft charges.

^
43!

^
So every time he steals, violating people’s property and their lives, he’d get the proverbial wet bus ticket and be told “don’t be so naughty”, and he does it again and again.
This time he deserves ten years. Ten years will deny him a good part of his youth, given he has denied life to others and doesn’t care. Meanwhile his parents can be sent the bill if they think he isn't a grownup yet.
^
Either he is a child and they are responsible, or he is an adult and can be punished. How much damage can an individual cost in terms of property, people's personal wellbeing and time before you decide that it is time to protect people from a petty thug.

^

and yes I know he wont come out better, but you might have avoided hundreds of thefts, burglaries and the like, and even deaths and injuries by keeping him locked away.

^

See how little of a disincentive the criminal justice system to youth offenders?

Women are special according to AA

American Airlines thought it was clever targeting women with a special website dedicated to female travellers. According to the New York Times, many women are far from happy about being patronised by the airline, and treated like they have "special needs".

^

It talks about women connected to each other, because after all, an airline that is not sex specific clearly baffles women, and they feel alienated to those big phallic things called planes! No wonder women (ha!) need a special website, which when you look at it, has exactly the same information that I'd expect it to have for men - except it's a women's page (all breath "aaaaaaah") so you can't feel oppressed by the testosterone of aviation (which let's face it, is about planes and jets and speed, damned manly stuff right?).

^

However, it does have slightly different advice for safe travel. Points like "If you need directions, ask other women or couples". Yes, don't trust those men, they are just out to lure you back to his dungeon for a good ol' bondage and discipline session. Couples, after all, are always safe, none of them are twisted and perverted.

^

One comment on this attempt is:

^

"As a female frequent traveler for both business and leisure, I’m quite indignant that AA thinks this kind of silly fluff is going to appeal to me. I want a clean plane, a comfortable seat, and good service at a fair price (not cheap, just reasonable). That’s what my husband wants. That’s what my colleagues of both genders want.”

^

Yes American Airlines is a private company (mollycoddled by US protectionism that reserves the domestic airline industry to US owned airlines, and the subsidies thrown at it), and can do what it likes, but there remains an absolutely yawning gap between the standards of virtually all US airlines and the likes of BA, Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific and even Qantas and Air NZ.

^

This is because US consumers don't demand better, and because the US airline industry lobbies for less competition.

Congratulations Tesco

How sad it is to see and hear the evil envy dripping rhetoric from the BBC (which every TV owner is forced to pay for), about Tesco (which nobody is forced to pay for).
^
Tesco has made a record profit of £2.6 billion. I would like to say simply – well done! This is a 20.3% increase in profit on last year, with a 10.9% increase in sales. Why has this happened? Two reasons:
^
1. Tesco is selling what people want to buy at a price they are willing to pay;
2. Tesco runs an efficient tightly managed operation that keeps costs down low (and as a result avoids waste).
^
Tesco has not got a statutory monopoly, or a de facto monopoly (there are plenty of shops selling the different merchandise Tesco sells), nor is it subsidised (unlike many of its suppliers, such as European farmers who whinge and moan about their buyers wanting a good price – which effectively means they want consumers to pay more).
^
Britain is the only country I know of that considers a market with four major retailers, all competing vigorously on quality and price, and umpteen smaller retailers, a “monopoly problem”. What is DOES have is an envy problem, arising from middle class Guardian reading, Radio 4 listening wankers who decry that Britain doesn’t always have the smattering of small, high priced, low variety shops that add so much quaintness to the shopping experience – while at the same time they sneak off to Waitrose to get their organic mungbean surprise (or whatever).
^
Tesco succeeds for the most democratic of reasons – people choose to shop there. Despite all of the media bashing by the envy classes (who look down their nose at the average family who simply want cheap good quality groceries, instead of locally grown or fair-trade organic, hand made, in season chelseaberries), shoppers have voted with their pounds and pence. It is a more honest expression that any vote at any election.
^
You don’t see people traipsing into Tesco begrudgingly wishing that everything wasn’t so expensive, or the selection were better or that the queues were shorter, like they do with the state owned Post Office here in the UK. They go out of choice. Within 15 minutes walk of my place I can choose Tesco, Waitrose, M&S, Sainsbury’s or Budgens, and a smattering of smaller retailers each of whom sells some of the things those shops sell, usually at a higher price, and sometimes at better quality. I go to Tesco when it offers the best deal for what I want.

^

According to the BBC Fiends of the Earth claim that "The supermarket giant's market dominance is bad news as it allows it to dictate conditions to suppliers and to drive High Street stores out of existence". Well tough shit frankly. Suppliers are in business, they don't exist as charities, and British farmers in particular are already protected and mollycoddled by Brussels, unlike Tesco. Perhaps when they face the full force of competition from efficient and more environmentally friendly suppliers they can talk, and then maybe they might start embarking on more efficient production techniques and respond like businesses, rather than like spoilt children. After all, Tesco's suppliers would love to be monopolies screwing Tesco and consumers for all they can. The High Street stores go out of business because people don't want to shop there, because they can't buy what they want at a better price. What do Fiends of the Earth expect?
^
Tesco is a highly successful British company embarking on a worldwide expansion. The sort of expansion that should make it and its shareholders proud. The global presence usually seen in large firms from the USA, Japan, continental Europe and the like – you know the flipside of those who bemoan how the British car sector has largely disappeared. They forget that Britain’s recent economic success has been on the back of the service sector. Long may it grow.

Green fascism

Russel Norman telling you how to live you life:
^
“In a world of poverty and starvation, to spend $109,000 on a gas guzzler is downright wrong in my opinion. If you’ve got that much money spare, donate it to Oxfam and get a normal car.”
^
Why stop there? Why should you own a boat, or indeed a holiday home, or a second car, or how about designer clothing, or how about a house that has more bedrooms than the number of inhabitants, or how about that overseas holiday?
^
It is comments like this that simply want me to tell the likes of Russel Norman to fuck off.
^
Besides how leftwing and deluded Oxfam is on many things, what right does he have to tell anyone how to spend their own money?
^
If I want a luxury car, then so be it – I am likely to get something called pleasure from it – happiness, and I’m willing to pay for the petrol. I am not making Russel pay for ANYTHING, it is my money. Besides the lump of taxes the state gets from this exercise (which Russel will happily want to decide on where that is spent), it employs people producing and maintaining the car, but most of all – it is MY life.
^
Russel may think he knows best how to run other people’s live, to dictate how they spend their money, to give people guilt trips about spending money on what he thinks is “wrong” vs what others like. I think fairtrade goods are a complete scam, hiking up the price of products so that everyone along the way can cream an “over market” premium, whilst encouraging poor people in developing countries to produce goods that are in overproduction. However, Russel probably buys them. I think it is a waste of money to buy anything produced by Michael Moore – a socialist fatcat who flies first class and enjoys the high life while bleating on about poverty that he never actually experiences. I also think it is downright wrong that ultrarich “celebrities” vomit forth platitudes about “saving the planet” and making average citizens feel guilty, while they consume goods and services without that guilt.
^
The problem is Russel has the strange Green religious obsession about being “anti-car”.

Want to be forced to fund political parties?

I don't want to say too much on this.
^
Whatever way you cut it, this is compulsory funding of political parties.
^
Nobody spinning this one way or another can escape that it is making you pay for the activities of a voluntary association that you may or may not have ever chosen to join or support financially.
^
You might ask why everyone isn’t forced to pay for all other voluntary associations?
^
You should. You’ll be told “that would be ridiculous and unaffordable”, and that would be correct.
^
You next question should then be – why should I be forced to pay for YOUR voluntary association? Why is YOUR one more important than mine?
^
You may ask why the proposal is NOT that all political parties should get the same amount of money, after all, the advocates of this often go on about equality, and how unfair it is that some have more than others. They spit out their own jealous venom at those who are richer than others. However no, the biggest recipients will be the two encumbents
^
You may ask what the proposal means for you wanting to fund a campaign by your own money – remember it “your” money. Money you haven’t stolen, defrauded or cheated from anyone else, but money you have property rights over (something politicians don’t often understand).

^

Think about what it will do to that, your choices will be restricted.
^
In North Korea, Ceaucescu’s Romania, and indeed under any totalitarian government, the one think people could never escape was politics. In a free society it is something people take for granted. You need not vote, you need not be a member of any political party, in fact you can enjoy getting on with your own life peacefully.
^
Those of us in politics sometimes think that those who are completely outside it and do nothing about it are stupid, naïve or even lesser people as a result. In fact, some of those outside politics simply think there is something more interesting than choosing or supporting people who, by and large, want to tell others what to do. Unfortunately those outside politics make the biggest mistake by thinking it will all be ok, until they find some politician has actually interfered with something that matters to them.
^
I have voluntarily supported several political parties in my life, including one very small one. One reason I never joined a trade union was because I refused to support the Labour Party by proxy (another was because I didn’t think it offered me anything).
^
Political parties have come and gone in New Zealand’s history, and maybe one day Labour and National will go too. The spectre of this has haunted both parties quite recently, but survival is a fairly strong incentive to change.
^
I don’t care which part of the political spectrum you come from – it is absolutely immoral to force private citizens to pay for political parties – organisations that are not publicly elected, and are not accountable to anyone for their activities.

^
People elect political parties based upon the individuals put on the party lists and a desire for those people to govern – but they do pay taxes to fund government NOT the parties. It is the job of MPs to represent the views of their electors and to govern or to oppose. That is what they are paid to do. We do not pay political parties directly through taxes because it opens the door to corrupt, biased funding that nobody can be clearly accountable for.
^
Quite simply, if a political party cannot convince people that it is worth funding by their own choice, then by what twisted logic is it moral to force them to do so?
^
The argument that “the Labour Party exists for your own good” does not wash – in fact it is eerily reminiscent of the attitude taken in one party states. Now "the two main parties are good for you, and the smaller ones a bit less good for you, and the smallest not at all".
^
And no, the fact that some other countries do it is not a rebuttal. In fact is the argument of a person without an argument – it is like the child who tells his parents “but Johnny’s parents let Him do it?”.
^
So that is it – do you want to be forced to pay for political parties? And if so, why aren’t you paying for them now? Why can’t you and your supporters convince people to choose to pay for political parties?