A coalition between a murderer and his victims?

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who in his twilight years wont be remembered as much for his lunatic beliefs on HIV, which undoubtedly led indirectly to more deaths in his country as a result, but for his treatment of Robert Mugabe. Appeasement is being a simpering weakling in front of evil, he was never that - he stands side by side Mugabe, shaking his hand and facilitating, funding, supplying power and succuour to the man who has destroyed an economy, murdered and tortured his people and beaten them into starving submission while he and his lackeys enjoy lavish trips to shop and spend their ill gotten booty.

Some years ago another African leader, a socialist of the same political persuasion as Mbeki, saw the murder and tyranny occurring in a neighbouring state. Rivers with bodies in them, a regime running riot over its people. The country was Uganda under Idi Amin. Amin's army had started minor incursions into Tanzania, annexing a small piece of land. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere didn't simply fight to retain that land, he invaded repelled the Ugandan army from Tanzania and kept going. Within a few months it had taken Entebbe airport and then Kampala. Even with Libyan troops supporting Amin (oh yes Gaddafi has been quite a character), there was only modest resistance. Amin fled to Libya, and Tanzania installed a replacement government. Nyerere overthrew one of Africa's most brutal tyrants. The Organisation of African murders and thieves Unity of course condemned Nyerere's actions, after all most of the leaders of African countries were despotic kleptocrats who suppressed political opposition and pillaged their countries' wealth for shopping trips to Paris and London for themselves and their cronies. Africa was being as exploited by its "liberators" as it had been by the imperial powers.

*

Now Nyerere was no angel, his socialist economic policies sent Tanzania backwards from being a food exporter to being an importer, but although somewhat authoritarian he was not a murderer like Mugabe.

*

However consider Thabo Mbeki. Zimbabwe's rigged, biased Presidential election was Mugabe beaten by Morgan Tsvangarai. Only by the rigged result did he fail to get a majority. So a run off election is being held, whilst Mugabe's butchering "war heroes" (if you consider a hero someone who bashes babies against tree trunks) torture and kill supporters of the opposition, while the opposition is prohibited from holding election rallies or from getting any coverage on the state monopoly broadcasting services and newspapers. It is an election that is one step away from the Soviet variety in that there IS a second candidate, but supporting such a candidate risks your life.

*

The election is an unbelievable farce, Mugabe and his Zanu-PF thugs with the military hand in hand have essentially overridden the Zimbabwean constitution, and are murdering all those in its way. Mbeki doesn't condem the murders, doesn't damn the violence led by Mugabe, he calls for the run-off election to be suspended and for a "unity government" according to the Daily Telegraph.

*

It is scandalous and despicable.

*

Imagine if there had been a call for a "unity government" in Cambodia between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese backed forces that overthrew it, or between the Nazis and liberals.

*

As Ayn Rand once said "In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."

*

Mbeki deserves to be shunned at international fora, he is a cowardly craven fool with blood on his hands, the blood of black Africans, those he purports to support, whilst his pig ignorant blind loyalty to a tyrant keeps that tyrant fed, powered and slaughtering, starving and torturing his own.

*

If your neighbour was torturing, abusing and starving his wife and children, had promised to leave if the family agreed he should go, but tortured the kids into being loyal, and kept locking his wife away and abusing her - would you tell the wife that the two of them should stay together and work things out while the kids and her are still being abused?

*

That's Mbeki, friend of a murderer, a pathetic pointless man who should resign and stop pouring more disgrace on South Africa - a country that supports tyranny and then lets its citizens torture and murder those who flee from it.

*

oh and didn't notice all those protests like there were against apartheid, but I guess black Africans murdering and torturing their own isn't quite as important to some on the left as white Africans is it? No, once the Africans are running their own affairs, time to move on.

Slow blogging

Apologies for having a few days off, quite simply I've been away home for a while and preferred to spend the weekend with my girlfriend, having human company rather than spending more than short periods in front of this infernal thing. I'll be back at full tilt tomorrow though.

*

There is much to say about fuel prices, taxes and subsidies, David Davis and 42 days detention without trial, Bush's last trip as President to Europe, the emergence of further new technologies that could replace crude oil with oil generated by bacterium, and the tragic ongoing debacle of Zimbabwe. I am about to fly back to the Middle East. May Lufthansa treat me well (my experience is that it's ok, it's better than airlines from the US, but isn't as good as BA or Air NZ), and I'll have ample time to blog there in the evenings. Not a lot is too interesting about NZ at the moment, except for some reason I've noticed Libertarianz spokespeople appearing in mainstream media more often than in the past - maybe something is happening putting Libz in the top tier of parties outside Parliament.

*

The Green left is almost joyful over fuel and food prices, a new armageddon that means we "have to change", amid nonsensical calls to stop building roads and to all return to growing our own food. Meanwhile, spare a moment for those in Zimbabwe - they are about to have a sham election, terrorised into voting Zanu-PF, whilst the beloved ANC run South Africa appeases the blood dripping despot at its gates. South Africa can now join the ranks of China for providing succuour to murderous dictators - but don't expect those who rightfully campaigned against apartheid to campaign against the ANC, you see black Africans murdering other black Africans isn't racist, so it doesn't quite get the left as upset as racist violence. South Africans murdering and attacking the refugees from Zimbabwe, refugees because of Mugabe's filthy violence loving mates in the ANC giving him a continued lifeline of money and fuel - it makes me wonder how much longer African regimes can continue to give cover for this vile dictatorship.

*

Oh and I haven't forgot Camp 22. Others have. Amnesty International prefers to focus on Guantanamo Bay, and almost ignores North Korea. You might ask them why, you might ask why the Green Party campaigns about China and Burma, but ignores the far far more murderous and repulsive North Korea. Ignorance is hardly an excuse. So think that this morning when you woke up, tens of thousands of North Koreans were woken at dawn, in prison, men, women and children - to work till dusk, non stop, receiving starvation food rations, being physically and sexually abused. Those women with Chinese fathers having compulsory abortions, as part of North Korea's own eugenics programme against "contamination".

*

and if you think I'm exagerrating, read this book and this book and ask yourself whether these prison camps for entire families would still exist if the world united behind a message of abolishing them? Ask yourself why children should be allowed to live in this Orwellian nightmare? Ask yourself why more get agitated about whether you recycle, drive to work or fly on holiday, than the daily murder, torture and hell so many North Koreans go through in gulags - it will tell you what value many put on human life compared to the cult of ecology.

So be grateful for those who fought for our freedom, be grateful for where you are not, and it will give you some perspective.

Ireland offers chance to look at future of EU

The resounding "No" vote for the Lisbon Treaty in the Republic of Ireland is bringing out the very worst in what so many Europeans loathe about the European Union - the complete contempt that those running it have for their opinions.

*

Reports of the likes of Gordon Brown, Sarkozy and the EU Commission president all saying that"ratification" will continue, flies in the face of the fundamental point that without all 27 EU member states ratifying it, the Lisbon Treaty is not meant to proceed.

*

With the exception of Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, most of the EU political establishment is calling for things to continue as usual, as if Ireland is some small irrelevancy - exactly what so many Irish voters no doubt fear.

*

So what IS it that European voters fear? Much has been made of how Ireland has benefited from the EU. It has to some extent, on the one hand for some years Ireland received millions of Euro in subsidies for infrastructure projects as one of the "poor" countries of the 12 of the time, it also had a new open market for its products and services. However, it helped immensely that Ireland cut taxes, especially company tax, and sought to be business friendly. This was not an approach that some EU members (e.g. France, Belgium, Italy) have taken.

*

Irish voters may ask "why" the Lisbon treaty is important. Talk about it making the EU more efficient sounds rather peculiar. However more clear is the removal of the national veto for more issues, in other words evolving the EU from an association of 27 more or less equal member states to one of double majorities. It is very clear that Lisbon Treaty advocates have failed to sell the advantages, if any, of the Treaty.

*

Opposition to the Lisbon Treaty is sometimes seen to be opposition to the EU, opposition to globalisation by those on the left, and a resurgent old fashioned nationalism by those on the right. At the skindeep level I don't particularly mind this, but I embrace globalisation and find nationalism largely knuckle dragging.

*

I like the EU on one level. Let's not forget what it has done. In a generation, countries that were once at war shared open borders, within two generations former Soviet Republics were integrated into a customs union including Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, Sweden and Germany. The prospect of war among EU member states is unthinkable, which considering the history of Europe is remarkable. A similar union in Latin America or Asia, is difficult to envisage, although Australia and New Zealand (and USA/Canada) could be in such a pairing, albeit both examples would be highly unbalanced.

*

The opening up of borders to trade, investment and movement of people among EU member states is unprecedented on any other continent. It is more liberal than CER between Australia and NZ, especially between Schengen countries. It has undoubtedly contributed to the growth in wealth, diversity and prosperity for member states. However, you could argue the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) which today still exists, incorporating Norway, Iceland and Switzerland (none of which are EU members), could have delivered this liberalism.

*

Beyond free trade an argument can be made for the EU harmonising some basic laws of business and creating a customs union. Common approaches to contract law, company law, conflicts of law, land law, personal property law and commercial law can make some sense. Mutual recognition of all sorts of basic licences like driving licences, vehicle roadworthiness and the like makes sense too. Finally, a customs union - so that the EU negotiates as a whole for trade access, also has great advantages. Whether something enters in Sofia, Shannon or Stockholm, it should move freely throughout the EU.

*

As a project for liberalisation of trade in goods and services, it has done wonders. It has forced member states to open up transport, telecommunications, broadcasting, energy and postal markets. However, the EU has become far more than this, it has sought to become another layer of government, bureaucracy and rule-making.

*

The ugliness of the Common Agricultural Policy is perhaps one of the most well known examples of this. The CAP sucks the biggest part of the EU's budget from net contributors such as Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, to prop up inefficient farmers in France, Finland, Belgium and the like, it also pays some farmers to not produce, it uses the customs union to ban imports of some commodities from some countries, impose quotas on others (like dairy products from NZ) and tariffs on yet others, then it subsidises inefficient farmers to dump their goods on world markets. On top of that it isn't ever fair across the EU, as the 12 newest member states only get subsidies at one-third the level of the others, so undoubtedly the most impoverish farmers in the EU, the Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovak and Baltic ones don't get anywhere near the support of France's inefficient farmers. This monstrosity in itself should give pause for thought about the EU, but it is only part of it.

*

The EU also treats all member state Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) as common EU ocean space for fishing, all very well if it weren't for the overfishing subsidised and protected by the EU - one reason why major fishing nations Norway and Iceland have resisted EU membership. It imposes a requirement for a MINIMUM level of fuel tax for all member states - tough if you don't want one. It pursues projects of absurdity, such as the horrendously expensive Galileo satellite navigation system, a competitor for GPS and Glonass (Russia's version), except GPS and Glonass are free for users. It is costing EU taxpayers 3.4 billion euros, but the EU doesn't really care - it just sucks the money from member states.

*

You see it is spending 116 billion Euro in the current (soon to be ended) financial year. Shared among 497 million people that is 233 Euro per man/woman and child. Yes, those in Bulgaria are unlikely to have contributed as much as those from Luxembourg, but you can see the cost per family of the EU - and that doesn't include the compliance costs of business, or the cost to taxpayers for their bureaucracies to service the EU.

*

You see the EU is a synthesis of liberalisation and collectivisation. It has at once been a project of opening up the economies of member states to each other, and at the same time somewhat closing them to the outside world, whilst building up a new top layer of government, over central and local (and provincial) governments. Socialists in Europe have seen the EU become a repositary for funding regional development, in the form of massive infrastructure projects, cultural projects and others that no libertarian would see as a fit reason for the EU. Some have sought the EU having powers to interfere with tax powers of member states, to avoid the inconvenience of competing with the likes of Slovakia, which has a flat rate of income tax.

*

This tension has built within in a kind of arrogance in Brussels, that it represents what people in 27 member states want (and after all its expansion surely shows how great the EU is, doesn't it?), it is what is GOOD for them, and the attitude so many politicians have had to the Irish vote is telling indeed. It has on the one hand the kind of big power dismissive attitude that Ireland is small and shouldn't hold up the "great project", the same attitude that those people would accuse of the USA. Since none of the other member states have been willing to hold referenda on the Lisbon Treaty, it speaks volumes of the fear the EU holds for them politically with the public.

*

So while the Euroskeptics who want to throw away the EU are wrong, so are the EU adventurers who see the project as being an ever greater integration - one which is wholly unnecessary and not advantageous to Europeans. The EU should be a project of liberalisation, open up economies and markets, and letting nation states compete freely, and look outwards. Member states should be free to shrink their governments as they wish, and cut taxes, and cut regulations as they see fit - not be required to regulate because Brussels says so. Some in the east believed this is what it was - a chance to be part of a market larger than the USA (and to be fair, some money to build infrastructure wracked by decades of Soviet imperialism). Some in the west, such as France, see it as a way of cauterising liberalisation by forcing all member states to operate according to similar rules.

So it is time to have a debate - an open and honest one. Not one characterised by the EU aristocracy sighing and bemoaning critics as being narrow minded nationalists or ignorant, but also not one of shouting and EU bashing, justified though some may be. It is one about the role of the state, and what that means for the EU members. It will challenge the conservative right and the statist left to think differently - it offers the EU the chance to have the dynamism of the USA, and set its people free to develop, grow and embrace. As the EU observes Russia grow on the back of oil, the Middle East and Asia grow as economic powerhouses in their own rights, and the USA, despite current setbacks, continuing to be the world's economic superpower for the next decade or so, it might wonder whether its people can hold their own, or whether it should tie itself up in more and more little knots, called for by special interests, who see their main job being seeking favours paid for by other Europeans. Let any dabbling with socialism be a national project, than an EU member state can engage in at its peril - not one that strangles so many countries that spent over 40 years fighting to be unshackled from statist control.

Still want to sacrifice wealth for climate change policy?

Having recently returned from the United Arab Emirates, I have a few observations:

• In the UAE everyone drives, big cars, even short distances because daytime temperatures get between 35 and 43 degrees. That means they use a lot of petrol, per capita, adding the air conditioning that is almost ubiquitous. You see it's highly subsidised there because the country is doing quite well thanks to record oil prices. There is very little public transport.
  
• Buildings are almost all air conditioned, which in that heat isn't cheap. Except all of the electricity is generated from that subsidised oil.
• Water is produced from desalination, the most energy intensive way, and per capita water consumption in the UAE is one of the highest in the world.
  
• New Zealand's per capita GDP is around US$30,000 p.a. UAE's is over US$42,000. Even on a PPP (Purchasing power parity) basis NZ is at US$27,000 and UAE at least US$37,000.
  

The UAE is not doing a jot about reducing CO2 emissions. Indeed, it is making an enormous profit from those who DO emit, it is subsidising its own population burning fuel, and is an economy fueled on emitting CO2.

Now I'm not picking on the UAE, it is just one example - of a so-called "developing country" far wealthier on a per head of population basis that New Zealand. Yet so many New Zealand politicians would rather it lead the way, whilst the likes of the UAE is expected to do nothing. You see, even if you accept that there should be "action on climate change", why are there a fair number of countries that are considered to be "developing" yet have lower per capita GDP than NZ? (Bahrain, Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar,Singapore and Taiwan are others)

Still feel like engaging in austerity measures to save the planet, when many countries basking in oil wealth are doing the exact opposite?

Like you needed another reason to not fly Ryanair

Snobby elitist post...

According to ABTN "Ryanair has fitted 15 Dublin-based aircraft with technology to allow in-flight calls and text messages, with trials to start at the end of July.

By the end of the next fiscal year it wants to extend this to 50 aircraft, and across its fleet within a year and half."

So besides virtually no service groundside, no service in the air, stripping planes to the bare minimum with fixed seats, no windowshades, now you would have to put up with gobby tourists waffling on about how "I'm on the plane" or with the incessant "beep beep .......... beep beep" text messaging notification sound. Though given Michael O'Leary said “The charge you pay will be the international roaming charges" and Ryanair customers are tighter than Mbeki and Mugabe, it might be not that bad.

I say you, because I wont fly Ryanair. With Gold Elite Air NZ status I can fly in the back on short European flights with Star Alliance airlines, use business class checkin, have lounge access and business class baggage, and be with an airline that does provide some sort of service on the ground. Beyond that BA isn't half bad, sometimes has good deals in Club Europe (business class) and I am halfway to being Gold Qantas so I can do the same with OneWorld as I can with Star Alliance. Now I'm not saying flights around Europe in economy class are great, they are not that comfortable, have almost always bad food (though free drinks are appreciatd) are often late and uninspiring - but they are step beyond Ryanair's truly cattle class (and many of the people you travel with are too!). However, if you are willing to travel as freight then you'll pay - and it's the same with flying third (economy) class UK-NZ, especially without a stopover.

Fortunately tomorrow I'm flying BA back, and not in fourth, third or second class.