Thanks Big Sister, we really need you

Big Sister Cindy "Kim Jong" Kiro has spent your money urging you to spend time with the family.

However it isn't YOUR family or YOUR kids, she notably never says that. She does say "our children" in the context of "she's a parent so she's one of us".

It shouldn't fool you. Cindy Kiro wants to nationalise the raising of children, by having a Stalinist style monitoring of every child, and a plan for every child authorised by the state from cradle till whenever. This warm and otherwise benign press release is unnecessary, but paints a picture of the Childrens' Commissioner have a useful role - when she has none. She undoubtedly cares a lot for children and abhors child abuse - hardly controversial. However, she thinks we are ALL responsible for this. This justifies her call for Orwellian monitoring of children including:

Planned assessment at key life stages, including early childhood, primary and secondary school entry, and moving to tertiary education or employment and training opportunities, is a key component of the framework. The assessment will take into account the whole child; their physical, social, educational, emotional, and psychological development.

She is either ignorant of the evils of totalitarianism, or an advocate of it! Simply, how fucking dare she call for children of responsible, loving, non-abusive parents have their kids monitored by the state?

She dilutes the blame by being unable to confront the truth - the problem is abusive families, no others. There are thousands of children barely being parented at all. Their teachers know this, and no doubt also do neighbours, distant family members and the like. THAT is where the state effort should be, as part of the criminal justice system. It is about intervening when there IS abuse, not watching everyone else. Yes, it will mean intervening in a higher proportion of Maori households than others, because it is disproportionately a problem with families of Maori background.

So no Cindy Kiro. Parents will decide what they want to do childrens' day, some will be working to pay taxes to fund your well about average income and the big nanny state you warmly embrace - think how much more time the parents might spend with their kids if they didn't need to work so hard to pay taxes (for you and the state) as well as earn a living. The children living in New Zealand are not "ours", they are not a shared responsibility. They are the responsibility of their parents and guardians, and they should be accountable when they abuse or neglect their children. If you were to do ANY justice to your job you'd stop making blanket statement about everyone, and focus on CYPFS and support efforts to intervene when there is demonstrable abuse and neglect. You would also work to deny custody of children from those who are convicted of abusing kids, permanently. Instead of monitoring all families, how about breaking up the ones that are destructive and stopping those who are from being near kids.

To be fair, Dr. Kiro is not an apologist for child bashing unlike one blogger who wants says "the structural issues which leave people so broken that they torture a three year-old", in other words "capitalism makes people torture a toddler".

Greens Canadaphobic

Sue Kedgley is at it again, hysterically trying to ban something. This time the sale of private shares in Auckland airport to a (wait for it, it is horrifying and disgusting) FOREIGN company. Those wogs (well they are Canadian, but they are foreign, so they must be inferior) can't be allowed to have "our" airport (well actually it is owned by the shareholders, but Sue doesn't understand property rights), I mean after all, think what they could do. They might want it to run efficiently, at a profit, encouraging people to use it and that would NEVER do.

Sue's press release on this says "The Green Party sees no reason why a Canadian pension fund should be allowed to gain control of the gateway to New Zealand"

Well I see no reason why it shouldn't? Why is a Canadian pension fund less of a good owner than a New Zealand pension fund, or local government, or central government (remember Wellington airport when it was majority government owned?)? Sue doesn't say, just apparently as long as the Green Party doesn't see a reason to allow something, it should be banned.

Then she goes on a little to suggest that "New Zealand cannot afford the economic, environmental, biosecurity and security risks of letting control of our main aviation gateway pass into foreign hands"

What are these Sue? Economic risks. Hmmm that it will be efficiently run, will seek to encourage passengers and airlines to operate there. Are you concerned about monopoly pricing? Well apparently not since the Green Party opposes outright Whenuapai being developed as a second airport.

Environmental risks? What are the Canadians going to do Sue? Use the airport as a toxic waste dump? Encourage less fuel efficient planes to fly in? I mean those Canadians are such environmental vandals.

Biosecurity risks? Oh yes, apparently they will take over the MAF role too will they Sue? Or the Canadians will just let it rip on foreign plagues of insects and plants to ravish our countryside.

Security risks? Yes they'll let those Canadian terrorists in to hijack planes, or Canadian thieves to steal luggage.

Not a single rational reason to stop the sale, other than xenophobic hysteria.

Blame Canada, with their evil little eyes and their heads that flap with lies.

Bloody hell Sue, take some pills and get some therapy, it's not nice to discriminate against those from other countries.

The OTHER deniers

Holocaust deniers are well publicised and hassled for their vile beliefs, albeit that they SHOULD have the legal right to hold them and express them.

However there is another group of deniers, the Stalinist deniers. These are the small group of fanatics for totalitarianism that live in the free world, but deny the evidence of the thousands of Russians who suffered terrible ordeals under Stalinism and CONTINUE to deny the evidence of the North Koreans who escape. They claim Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a neo Nazi, they excuse labour camps, executions and political oppression. They treat Saddam Hussein as a hero

They are so radical that even Arthur Scargill, mate of the former USSR, expelled them from his own Marxist party.

It is called the Stalin Society, led by an Indian migrant to the UK called Harpal Brar. He chairs the Communist Party of Great Britain Marxist-Leninist.

That party supports Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong Il.

What bloodthirsty warped scum. Are they deranged, stupid or just plain evil?

Top ten reasons Castro should be hated

The Times has produced a handy list of the top 10 reasons Castro should not be a hero of the left. Let's see the lickspittle felchers of Cuba, George Galloway and Ken Livingstone defend these, or Matt Robson, or Willie Jackson.

1. Sending homosexuals to forced labour camps.
2. Executing people attempting to leave Cuba (as recently as 2003).
3. Urging the USSR to launch a nuclear first strike against the USA.
4. Holding 316 known political prisoners in 2006.
   
5. Banning independent trade unions.
6. Single candidates for all seats in the National Assembly.
7. Computer and internet access is severely restricted.
8. In 2003, 22 libraries raided with 14 librarians arrested with jail terms of up to 26 years, for having banned literature.
9. Opposed even modest economic reforms, including the opening up by Gorbachev.
10. Cuba's imperialist adventures in Africa, including supporting the Mengistu regime that was behind the 1980s Ethiopian famines that Bob Geldof relaunched his career off of.

So how about it? How about the New Zealand supporters of this dictator repenting for their support for this scumbag?

So how many more reasons do you need to vote out Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London?

Meanwhile, Daniel Finkelstein in the Times has an excellent article asking why the left worships dictators, including the Deputy Leader of the British Labour Party - Harriet Harman. Oh and no excuse that Thatcher supported Pinochet. Two wrongs do not make a right.

Silliest British reaction to earthquake

No, it's not the people running into the street and then having to dodge masonry. No it's not the failure to give details about the depth of the epicentre as well as the richter scale reading (both are needed to explain severity).

It is the the GMTV host Ben Shephard.

This morning he asked a British Geologist if the earthquake is attributable to... wait for it ... climate change!!

Did you dream up such a brainless question or did your producer? How utterly banal. It's the sort of thing I'd expect from a NZ based television reporter (you know the sort that talk of North Koreans spontaneously taking a day off work to welcome foreign politicians).

Ben, you have a degree in Dance, Drama and Theatre Arts from Birmingham University, best to stick with that than, um, general knowledge.

Oh by the way, I went into Wellingtonian mode. It felt hellishly strong for a force 5 quake, but that reflects being in a solid building, next to a canal in Manchester!

It woke me up (in a hotel contained in a century or so old building), I shot instinctively into the doorway (lost count of earthquakes I've been woken up with in NZ), waited until it ended then went to sleep, all half dozed. Woke up thinking I must have had a helluva dream, because it didn't feel real.