Gather thee all at the altar of the train

Idiot Savant once again swallows hook line and sinker the totem of railways always good in supporting the unaffordably ambitious plan to build a bespoke high speed railway network in the UK. The existing network of lines that sustain speeds of 200 km/h not being truly high speed in the European context.

Let's see where he makes mistakes and avoids facts:

1. No high speed rail network could eliminate short haul flights in the UK. All plans are largely to connect London with one corridor going to Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland. I wont be pinning hopes on people flying between Aberdeen and Norwich, Inverness and London or Southampton to Manchester getting trains. Many who use domestic flights connect at Heathrow for long haul flights, which is less convenient if done by rail then air. Indeed, whilst many air routes have competition, rail services curiously don't - but funnily enough when it involves trains, those on the left don't seem to care about competition.

2. He blames the lack of high speed rail on privatisation. How odd. Privatisation of rail in the UK started in 1994. The first TGV line in France opened in 1981. The first Spanish AVE line in 1992. The first German ICE trains in 1991. The first Italian high speed line in 1977. So get the picture? What stopped it happening in the UK when it was state owned? The nationalised British Rail was a bastion of disastrous investment decisions, like the high speed APT train, that was abandoned with the technology sold onto Fiat, which has since made a commercial success of it (so that it made the trains now used for the UK's West Coast Main Line between London and Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow). Indeed, getting new rail lines built in the UK is partly a problem of a planning process that is glacial due to prolific NIMBYism. The truth is that British Rail took passengers for granted, and subsidies, and just let its market share of domestic travel erode over decades. Funny how rail patronage since privatisation is now at its highest level since 1956.

3. He claims this will tackle climate change, but this buys into the myth that a subsidised railway with half empty trains most of the day is better for the environment that privately owned commercially operated flights. Airports are privately run and commercially operated. Airlines equally so. A high speed railway in the UK would be government funded, commercially run and carry considerable subsidies. Its major users would be business people, those willing to pay for fast travel. Why should their movements be subsidised? Is it not better that all users of transport pay for whatever the market charges, regardless of how high it is?

4. To top it off he says "its something we should start thinking about now" . By we he means the New Zealand Government, he wont be setting up a private company, seeking investors and borrowing money to do it (how absurd!), he wants to force you to pay some consultants to start thinking about it. A high speed railway in New Zealand, where most lines are already unprofitable and unviable, and where the highest speeds achievable at the moment are 105 km/h on short segments(whereas the UK reaches 200 km/h on it's NON-high speed lines), and with a topography that is obviously unsuited to long straight and flat pieces of infrastructure, is utter nonsense.

However, when you drink from the religion of the railway, then all spending is an "investment", all new lines are "great ideas", and everyone should be made to pay, whether they use it or not! The cost of this idea for the UK is conservatively put at £30 billion, but is likely to be far higher. The government's own Eddington Report criticised the idea of building high speed railways as poor value. He said:

"Given that domestic aviation accounts for 1.2 per cent of the UK’s carbon
emissions, it is unlikely that building a high-cost, energy-intensive very
high-speed train network is going to be a sensible way to reduce UK
emissions." and

"However, new high-speed rail networks in the UK would not significantly change the level of economic connectivity between most parts of the UK, given existing aviation and rail links. Even if a transformation in connectivity could be achieved, the evidence is very quiet on the scale of resulting economic benefit, and in France business use of the high speed train network is low."

You see the faster the train, the higher the carbon footprint, and building very long new strips of bespoke infrastructure in itself is a very carbon intensive activity. However, my argument is more simple. If the private sector wont invest in it, why should taxpayers be forced to?

At a time when the Labour government has squandered hundreds of billions of future taxpayers' money on growing the state and unnecessarily nationalising banks that should have been left to fail, this is just more wishful thinking by a government keen to bribe voters with the taxes of others - before it gets consigned to history in the 2010 election.

Meanwhile, the economically and environmentally illiterate rail junkies will cheer on pillaging other people's pockets to pay for their pet projects, not letting facts get in the way of their excitement. Much like what has already been happening on rail in Auckland.

UPDATE: It seems all three main UK political parties are ignoring quality advice and choosing to support this cargo cult of high speed rail. One consultant has already noted that 49% of UK domestic flights are to other islands or to destinations like Aberdeen and Inverness which couldn't conceivably have a high speed rail link. The Conservatives are stupidly claiming that cutting this small number of flights will remove the need for a third runway at Heathrow. Another case of flaky Labour lite?

An aviation lobby group fisks the idea further, and points out the hypocrisy of a Liberal Democrat MP flying instead of going by rail, because of speed. The Lib Dems are like the Green-lite party of the UK.

Even rail expert and enthusiast Christian Wolmar is sceptical, and this is in the traditionally socialist (and pro-Labour) Guardian. So is this the Transmission Gully of the UK? A massively expensive project that politicians get overly excited about, make wild claims about the benefits it will bring, but the truth is that it is largely an illusion?

Don't hit girls but...

All sounds good that. Apparently a national strategy on domestic violence includes teaching primary school kids that hitting girls or women is wrong, according to this Daily Telegraph report. Of course it's wrong, initiating force IS wrong.

However there are two rather important issues with this.

1. Why just girls? Isn’t a message that you shouldn’t hit girls going to imply you should hit boys? Or is the quite right agenda against domestic violence, led by a feminist blindness to boys or men being victims of violence? Young men are the most likely victims of assault. Why not simply say it is wrong to first hit anyone?

2. What of self-defence? In some cases it IS appropriate to hit, that is if someone ignore the rule in the first place. Flight or fight are legitimate approaches, but children need to know that if they are hit, they should be able to retaliate appropriately.

So wouldn’t it preferably just to say kids that using force to get your own way with someone else is wrong? Get them to find examples of when that is done. In fact, get them to find cases where people want to use force to get their own way, or get others to use force for them. Most political parties do, for example.

So what happened in North Korea?

Bill Clinton knows, but he's not talking. The Korean Central News Agency is claiming, understandably, that he apologised:

Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it. Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view.

However, this has been denied by an official. Obama has also said progress will only be made in relations if North Korea no longer develops nuclear weapons and stops engaging in provocative behaviour. Perhaps Kim Jong Il wanted to make peace before he passes on, what bigger coup would be than for a sitting US President to shake his hand - the great imperialist aggressor recognising it had met its match in the General Secretary of the Korean Workers' Party.

Former US Ambassador the UN, John Bolton, expressed concern that Clinton's visit showed how the US could be blackmailed through its concern for its citizens caught up abroad. The Daily Telegraph fearing that this shows North Korea being rewarded for its ill behaviour - something Bill Clinon ably did as President.

You see, the DPRK-USA "Agreed Framework" under Bill Clinton was that North Korea would be supplied with energy and technology in exchange for giving up nuclear enrichment. A total of US$1.5 billion (contributed by USA, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and others) was spent on light water nuclear reactors and heavy fuel oil so that North Korea could have a nuclear power industry that did NOT produce material able to be used in nuclear weapons.

However, North Korea had its cake and ate it too. It continued uranium reprocessing, continued developing nuclear weapons AND took the technology and oil. Why did the deal happen? The Clinton Administration foolishly thought the North Korean regime would collapse after Kim Il Sung died in 1994, though the evidence for this was fairly slender. Maybe the assumption is the same now, that Kim Jong Il's death will see major change for the regime. That, at least, has more credibility.

You see Kim Il Sung had ruled North Korea with an iron fist since the country was founded in 1948, Kim Jong Il entered the public eye in 1973 and was anointed successor in 1980. Plenty of time to ensure enemies are dispatched before his father died in 1994. It hasn't quite be long enough since then for Kim Jong Un.

So, will we find out what was said between Kim and Bill? Whilst the two women have been fortunate, does this episode provide a chance to break down barriers with this antagonistic brutal regime, or does it bolster it?

Clinton gives Kim Jong Il some propaganda

After arresting two US journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, at the border with China, North Korea has been keen to extract booty from the US for their return. It now seems it has extracted a great propaganda coup, by getting Bill Clinton to meet Kim Jong Il.

The two women were arrested amid the following claims expressed by the Korean Central News Agency, which holds a monopoly on legal reporting from within North Korea:

“The investigation proved that the intruders crossed the border and committed the crime for the purpose of making animation files to be used for an anti-DPRK smear campaign over its human rights issue.”

“At the trial the accused admitted that what they did were criminal acts committed, prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of the DPRK by faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it” or so says the Korean Central News Agency.

The TV channel the women worked for is owned by Al Gore (it’s an internet TV channel) and Al Gore had offered to go visit, but the North Koreans refused, wanting a big hitter. So Billy has come to Pyongyang. Not the first ex. President (Jimmy Carter has been more than once), but certainly it will have a significant impact, especially now CNN is publishing images showing Clinton with Kim Jong Il.

You can already see it by the headlining of the article on the Korean Central News Agency website – which tells not of why he is visiting.

The poor women arrested and languishing in a North Korean prison of course face a grim future if not released. Their “crime” of course was to enter North Korea illegally, to report on the scandal of women trafficked to China for money.

Obviously some good will come of the visit if the women are released (without a bribe) and if anything useful can be gained from meeting Kim Jong Il (to get some sense of how well the chap is). However, Kim Jong Il will see it as more important, as Clinton is the highest profile American to visit North Korea in years.

However, one small group of sympathizers of tyranny will be upset. The Facebook group supporting the arrest of the women is here. A vile little North American retard who is either too stupid to read Orwell or too evil to embrace individual rights joins a small coterie of fools who are no better than modern day holocaust deniers.

So once Bill Clinton returns, presumably with the women he sought to recover (he can't fail, can he?) then some questions need to be asked:

1. Were the women be released at no cost to the US taxpayer? (presumably excluding the likelihood that they are already paying to fly Clinton there).
2. Did Bill Clinton ask that North Korea take major steps to reduce its oppression of its own people, in particular cease imprisoning children as political prisoners (from infants)?
3. Will the move have helped to reduce the tension on the Korean peninsula, including the risk of an aggressive war by North Korea?
4. Will Clinton's visit be likely to reinforced the current regime or help encourage liberalisation and reform?

My guess is the answers are no, no, no and reinforce the current regime.

Pacific aid a waste of money?

The NZ Herald reports that Foreign Minister Murray McCully says that aid to Pacific Island countries is achieving little, despite millions of dollars being poured into the "Pacific Islands Forum" (formerly South Pacific Forum).

Quite right. The Forum has long been a typical intergovernmental organisation, filled with less than busy hardworking bureaucrats, more keen on earning high salaries that achieving much at all. In fact it demonstrates quite clearly what the approach to aid in the Pacific should be.

Firstly, if there is to continue to be aid, it should go to private charities and organisations that are motivated to achieve charitable good in the region.

Secondly, state aid should be phased out. New Zealanders who want to help Pacific Island states should donate their own money themselves (as they should for all states). Government aid creates appalling incentives of dependency, little interest in the recipient weaning itself off aid, and strong incentives to engage in rent seeking along the way. Rent seeking by bureaucrats, by aid distributors, by suppliers to aid agencies and ultimately recipients.

In other words, offering something for nothing will do precious little to generate a sense of independence, or to perform well. Remember. Africa has received increasing aid over 50 years, and much of it remains a basket case. By contrast, the likes of Chile and South Korea have adopted different national policies - of being oriented towards entrepreneurship, investment, governments that allow enforcement of contracts, and respect property rights (as well as having, now, vigorous open liberal democracies and independent judiciaries).

So when Murray McCully wants to "encourage Governments to adopt good fiscal practice, undertake some economic reform to become more globally competitive and encourage trade, and ensure aid is not squandered". He might want to tie aid to such reform, before phasing it out. After all, if you want the Pacific Island states to grow up, it might be about time to show them how and let them be.

Hamas kids TV praises suicide bombing mother

CNN reports that al Aqsa TV (run by Hamas) has broadcast a children's show (Tomorrow's Pioneers) where it glorifies that a mother blowing herself up in a suicide bombing is doing more for her children than anything else. It is designed to convince children that if their mother gets ready for such a "mission" then it is for their good. In other words, Hamas is promoting a death cult to children.

None of this is new. Al Aqsa TV has used this childrens' programme variously to promote "wiping out the Jews" and promoting martyrdom as a good thing for children.

Want a summary of the episodes? Try this Wiki article, and see for yourself how to have childrens' programming that worships death, murder and suicide. Think how much this puts back any efforts at peace with Israel, and why so many Israelis think so little of Palestinians when some of them elect these sorts of people to government.

Prepared to treat Israel and Hamas as morally equivalent still?

The nonsense of relative poverty

Socialists have long argued that measurements of poverty should not be on the basis of actual subsistence - those who do not have the basics for survival of food, shelter, clothing etc. - but on relative wealth compared to rest of the country within which someone lives.

This of course means that the poverty level for those in your average developed modern Western country would be abundant luxury for someone in Bangladesh, Chad or Paraguay. Relative poverty is a combination of socialism and nationalism (why, for example, is the comparison only with people in the same country? Wealth is not distributed by governments, well not good ones).

The BBC has on its website a graphic comparison of what relative poverty means. It comes from a report which states that pensioners in the UK are poorer, relatively speaking, than pensioners in Romania. That seems intuitively nonsensical, but it is what relative poverty does.

Move the interactive graphic on that website to see what happens when you change the median income. If incomes rise rapidly, so does the poverty threshold. The wealthiest country has a poverty threshold that would be above average income in many countries, but if wealth was destroyed systematically (the Khmer Rouge and Zanu-PF being recent examples), the numbers in poverty could arguably decrease- because the poverty measure drops dramatically.

In other words, relative poverty damns successful economies by the implicit demand that "something be done" to ensure everyone gets their incomes uplifted by prosperity, whether they contributed to it or not. It rewards failed economies, because if people are roughly on average destitute, it's "ok" - at least there aren't too many people wealthy compared to those seriously destitute.

Of course this sort of analysis of "relative poverty" fuels the likes of Help the Aged in the UK, and the Child Poverty (in)Action Group in New Zealand, who simply demand more money be thieved from taxpayers in the middle and upper incomes, to give people at the bottom more - regardless of whether they did anything for it. It encourages dependency and wants to reward poverty, regardless of whether poverty actually means not being homeless compared to not being able to afford Sky TV, or fill up the petrol tank.

After all, two of the groups people appear most concerned about for poverty are the elderly and children. The elderly could see poverty relieved if they saved for their retirement and weren't taxed on their retirement savings or income. Old age is rather predictable. The poverty of children is the fault of their parents, who are (or should be) primarily responsible for paying for them. Breeding isn't compulsory, but too many think it is a right that demands others to pay for it. Both could be addressed in part by personal responsibility, with those who are poor through misfortune able to be helped by charities. You don't notice the Child Poverty (in)Action Group ever raising funds to feed some children do you? No - it just lobbies for the state to put its hand in your pocket to pay more welfare.

Poverty will, of course, always exist, if the relative poverty measure is retained. There will always be people who through incompetence or misfortune earn less than 20% of the median income. If you think that is a problem, then instead of expecting the government - such a quick response and competent authority as it is - to do something, why don't you?

That, of course, isn't really the answer anyone on the left likes to promote.

2 degrees isn't competing on a level playing field

Now there has been much publicity about the new mobile phone network "2 degrees" with many TV ads.

What 2 degrees isn't telling you is a little about its history.

How did 2 degrees get its radio spectrum? Telecom and Vodafone both bought their spectrum in open competitive auctions. 2 degrees didn't get it that way.

You see, it was part of a deal that the last Labour government did to shut down Maori claims for the radio spectrum (which of course was often used before 1840!). The Waitangi Tribunal at the time believed that radio spectrum is a taonga and so shouldn't be sold, Labour allocated one of the 3G mobile phone spectrum networks to the "Maori Spectrum Trust" at a discount price, with some taxpayers' money to "develop it". Neither Telecom nor Vodafone ever used taxpayers' money to develop its cellphone networks. That Trust teamed up with a Zimbabwean company (Econet), which has since sold its shareholdings on. 2 degrees has had various private sector backers along with the Trust.

So, in effect, 2 degrees has radio spectrum at a discount rate, and has been subsidised to develop it.

It also isn't developing its own network to cover the country, no, it is using Vodafone's, at commercially negotiated rates, but always with the threat of the state regulating them, and with the threat that if Vodafone or Telecom told it to "go build your own" network, the government may regulate for access - like it already has to Telecom's network.

Greens think parental choice is a myth

Yes, I am sufficiently annoyed by the Soviet style brainlessness of the Greens again to post.

Catherine Delahunty, who has long demonstrated a belief in mysticism and passionate embrace of the violent state, has made a rather banal post in Frogblog about educational choice. If anything it should simply harden attitudes against the likes of her and her friends holding their hands at the windpipe of the education sector.

She sees parental choice as a “myth”. Apparently if it is not important to Catherine, it shouldn’t be to other parents. Parents making choices means they are outside her control, and they may make choices she doesn’t approve of. Maybe sending children to Montessori school, or Catholic school. I doubt she would embrace either. She describes vouchers as a failed idea. It’s not my favourite idea, but in Sweden it has been a roaring success – it has seen umpteen private schools open – commercially run ones too (yes, the horror) AND there remains universal education, as every child gets an education voucher.

It is such a failure that the only political party in Sweden to still oppose it is the Left Party, formerly the Communists, who once supported the Soviet crackdown in Hungary in 1956. Take from that as you wish.

Delahunty quotes another person with similar intellectual rigour as herself, Liz Gordon (who famously said “there is only so much freedom to go around”), who apparently has critiqued ACT policy (although this does not appear anywhere online). The concern appears to be that the real agenda is to commercialise schools, which of course can only be bad.

Then she goes off on one of her typical non-sequiturs, because she talks about a school she likes, which is state owned. Fine. However, whilst examples of good state schools and teachers exist, there are also poor ones. Does she give a way to deliver good ones? No.

She says “quality public education” should be available everywhere, not just where there are “well resourced” parents. Which of course is a subtle use of language that tells you where she is coming from.

First, it should be public education. Why? She wont say. It’s as ideological as my commitment to getting the state out of education, but it’s something she doesn’t want to go on about.

Second, “well resourced parents”. Who resources them? Oh, maybe they got their own resources themselves, through their own efforts. Ah, but that upsets Catherine’s ideology that the world is a big bad capitalist place where fat cat men “allocate resources” unfairly, instead of to those who she loves. Not rather that people get resources through their own efforts, intelligence and convincing people that what they do is worthwhile.

So in conclusion she wants to “demand more for all children”, demand from whom Catherine? Oh, the parents who you don’t think need choice. Taxpayers without children, who are imposing the lowest “environmental footprint” as a result. Yes, take more from them to pay for those who do breed.

The mindlessness of it all tragically encapsulates the empty headed vacuous nature of the Green Party. Private education is “bad” because it just is, “commercialisation” of education is “bad” because it is (even though there is no indication ACT believes in this). Public education is “good” because it just is. School vouchers have “failed” without a shred of evidence, and parental choice is a “myth”, even though tens of thousands of parents choose now with their own money, also paying taxes to educate their children. As long as private schools exist there will be choice, but it is denied parents who cannot afford to pay twice for their kids’ education.

The Greens want everyone to have “quality public education”. Who defines quality? Well they do, since they want the state to provide it, and parents to have no choice. So what does this mean? The embracing of an education model that is little different from that seen in the former communist bloc. State education for all, providing the same “quality” (defined by politicians, bureaucrats and the monopoly suppliers of labour – teachers’ unions), meaning all children get the same start.

Oh and those parents wanting choice? Just fuck off you selfish “well resourced” commercialising “freedom” junkies. You just want to take from poor children, and not have to pay for the education of other kids. You want schools to be run as businesses where kids are brainwashed with your ideology, instead of our ideology. You don’t care do you? (time to cry).

I'll conclude with a statement from a former Swedish Minister of Education, Per Unckel “Education is so important that you can’t just leave it to one producer,”. Indeed you might even go to the biggest provider of private education in Sweden and see what you think.

After all, how long do you continue with the system you have before deciding how badly it performs?

Regular service WILL follow shortly

Apologies for those who usually read this blog, I've been very slack, for a long list of reasons that I wont bore you all with. One of which has been extraordinarily long commutes for the past month which have taken up effectively 5.5 hours of each day, as well as some time off over the northern summer.

Between that, work, sleep and time with the missus, I really couldn't be arsed feeding my daily wisdom (or angry doggerel) to you all. I've enjoyed not giving a damn about the blog ratings as well - there is life outside the laptop!

However, regular service will return shortly. I've long thought I should blog quite separately on matters that I get into Aspergers' Syndrome like detail about - like transport policy and air travel experiences. So I will be doing that, and linking to it from here if it has national political implications.

Most of you couldn't give a rat's behind when horror of horrors, British Airways drops food except breakfast on flights less than 2.5 hours for people sitting in cattle class. Similarly, the intricacies of how the government structures the transport sector or the new Auckland megacity does it, are a minority interest.

However, I will continue to blog both on NZ and the UK as my main spheres of interest.

Starting again next week!

Labour and Greens hit (in the UK)

The Norwich North by-election occurred because former MP Ian Gibson (Labour) had been pilloried as part of the Parliamentary expenses scandal. He resigned in protest, after allegations that he had let his daughter live in his taxpayer funded flat rent free (taxpayer funding the mortgage), and then sold it to her at half market price - in essence, the taxpayer subsidised a gift to his daughter. So quite rightly he resigned.

Gibson won the seat at the last election with 44.9% of the vote, against Conservative candidate James Turnbridge with 33.2% of the vote. A healthy majority, given he had held the seat since 1997.

However, this time Labour has been hammered into second place. The Times reports Chloe Smith, 27 year old Conservative candidate has won with 39.5% of the vote, against Labour's Chris Ostrowski getting only 18.2% of the vote. The Conservatives picked up votes nicely, but Labour has lost more than a quarter of the total vote in Norwich North.

Now Labour will be slightly relieved by this, as there had been expectation it may be battered into third or fourth place, like the earlier European elections had done, but no. Labour has held onto second. The Liberal Democrats will be very disappointed that their share of the vote has dropped also from 16.2% in 2005 to just under 14% this time. Hardly a ringing endorsement for a party that sees this part of the country as ripe for the picking.

The bigger surprise was UKIP, which did stunningly well to come fourth with 11.8% of the vote, clearly picking up much of the former Labour vote. This has to disappoint the Greens which came fifth with only 9.7% of the vote. While the Greens will say this is a great result, up from 2.7%, the truth is that the Greens hoped this would be their breakthrough to rival the big three parties. The Greens are second on Norwich City Council with more seats than the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats combined. Many Norwich residents trust the Greens with their rubbish, roads and council housing, but not in the House of Commons. For UKIP to pip them in this by-election (as happened at the European elections), demonstrates the limited appeal of the brand.

Of course a wit would notice there was a UK Libertarian Party candidate who did far far worse, but given that party has existed for two years and put up an unknown but keen 18yo as the candidate, it isn't surprising.

NZPA stuffs up again

Yes, someone once again shows how all too many New Zealand “journalists” are not up to the mark.

You see much of this report is quotes from Helen Clark, but the imbecile who reported it (remember journalism isn’t about quoting verbatim what someone said, but actually interpreting it) starts the article with “Former prime minister Helen Clark has called for world leaders who promised aid to developed nations at the turn of the millennium to deliver on their promises”

Aid to “developed nations”? What, to EU member states, Japan, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand? Who promised that? The word is developing. What fool wrote developed? What moron can’t proof read to save himself?

Now the material issue here is whether aid is a good thing. I’ve just finished reading the rather dated book “Lords of Poverty” by Graham Hancock, which despite having a centre-left tint to it, comes clearly to the conclusion that aid is harmful and destructive. That despite billions of dollars going to developing countries since the 1950s, it has not made a material difference. State aid primarily goes to wealthy people in poor countries and wealthy people in rich countries (who go there to “help out”), and private aid is an industry in ripping people off.

Aid is a salve for consciences, as the biggest sources of developing country poverty are quietly ignored:
- Corrupt, thieving governments that don’t protect individual rights, property rights or have judicial systems to manage disputes over these (such as contracts). This is generally the rule in Africa;
- European, Asian and US protectionism against developing country goods, particularly primary produce;
- Intellectually and morally bankrupt socialist economic philosophies that damage wealth creation in favour of grandiose “national” plans and ideas.

Helen Clark feeding the patronising dependency attitude that has kept many a politician and bureaucrat well fed (especially the likes of those now working for her) is counterproductive. The adage trade not aid is right

However, you can’t expect New Zealand journalists to engage in any critical investigation or reporting on the UNDP when some don’t know the difference between developed and developing countries!

Ireland facing massive spending cuts

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph writes a depressing forewarning to those in countries engaging in massive debt funded state “stimulus” activities. He does so by pointing at Ireland, where the news is truly bleak. Given Ireland has a similar population to New Zealand, it is worth those who preach “borrow spend and hope” to give pause for thought.

Ireland, you see, has gone down the stimulus line. It bailed out its banks, guaranteeing all deposits. The result is a debt trap imposed upon the state. The interest is now crippling the Irish government. The Irish government is currently borrowing 300 million euro a week to cover this, at penalty interest rates for fear it will default. You see Ireland has external debt of 811% of GDP, albeit this includes substantial private debt held by financial institutions, but it also includes government guarantees of bank debt and the nationalisation of banks.

A report commissioned by the government aims to abolish the budget deficit by 2011, and recommends drastic cuts:
- 17,300 public sector jobs to go;
- 6,900 teacher jobs to go, with commensurate closure of many schools;
- Public sector pay cuts
- Welfare benefit cuts of 5%
- Child benefits to be strictly targeted
- Hospital A&E fees to be increased.

Without such drastic measures, Ireland risks defaulting on its debt, making future borrowing near impossible, forcing Ireland to cut even more drastically. The article expresses fear that other Western countries, such as the UK and the US, face similar risks. UK national debt is now over 90% of GDP, France is approaching that level, Italy is at 120%.

You see, Japan has been engaging in fiscal stimulus for well over a decade now, to no avail. Public debt is estimated to be 240% of GDP by 2015. Hasn’t quite worked has it?

The truth is that Gordon Brown, Barack Obama and Kevin Rudd have all embarked on a gamble with your childrens' taxes - fiscal stimulus is being undertaken because the short term political gain is to soften the recession - and because none of them have a political instinct for less government - and none of them are willing to take a gamble on "do nothing you can't fix it".

After all, do you think people in the British Labour Party, US Democratic Party and Australian Labor Party sit around thinking how they ought to get out of the way of people?

Oh and if you want to read the report on cutting Ireland's public spending go here, and here. You'll see it isn't half as dramatic as many are making out.

Goff lost the fiscal plot

Seriously!

Phil Goff. The man who brought student fees to universities, arguing for a massive expansion of the welfare state? Labour has lost the plot.

To call for the partners of those who are employed to be eligible for welfare benefits is impractical, unaffordable, immoral and destructive. Consider quite simply how many hundreds of thousands of people would then be welfare beneficiaries, consider what disincentive it creates for work, consider how much more tax on the employed partner would be needed to pay for this.
John Key says there are no pixies printing cash (he's not quite right there), but this harks back to when the Labour Party regarded fiscal prudence as some plot by the bourgeoisie.

Consider how parasitical this would make so much of the population. Husbands shouldn’t pay for their wives, or vice versa, no. The state should, and hubby can run off with ALL of his earnings (more highly taxed) and wife can just bugger off and enjoy her benefit. If the notion of the welfare state as a safety net is widely accepted by the majority of the population (doesn’t make it right), what does the Labour view of the welfare state tell you? That half of the population should be supported by the other half – with a leviathan state to enforce, violently if necessary, the leech like demands on the productive, to pay for everyone else.

Think more how many people would be grateful for this kindness, how many would vote Labour to keep it, and what a travesty of modern liberal capitalist society such state enforced dependency would represent. Not a society of free individuals pursuing their interests, desires and being what they want to be, but a society where half work hard to sustain themselves and their families, and another family at the same time, and the other half take their “entitlement” from the loving state – knowing they don’t ever have to really be accountable for it.

It’s what the Greens have always really believed in, and what Labour now espouses. So imagine a teacher asking a classroom of kids. How many want be paid for working, and pay half of what they earn to the government? How many want to be paid for not working, getting all of it from the government?

Not your's to spend Phil!

Phil Twyford, who is being touted by Brian Rudman as Labour’s big leftwing challenge in Auckland, is damning Rodney Hide’s local government policy for Auckland, with a “Not Yours to Sell” campaign regarding Auckland local government “assets”.

The campaign is to stop the government allowing the new Auckland council to sell whatever it wishes on the same basis that it currently can buy whatever it wishes. In other words, it levels the playing field ideologically between more and less government, as far as you can do. The “people’s assets” of course are anything but, since if they ever generate a financial return, the money is typically spent for local government to do more, not to reduce the burden of rates. Similarly, whenever they are a liability, few on the left are keen to let them go.

Rodney Hide’s call for a cap on rates which basically means that rates can’t increase beyond inflation, is barely a cap at all. Rates have long gone up as property values increased beyond inflation, as has the roles and activities councils have sought to pursue.

I have a simple message to Phil Twyford. Ratepayers' money is not your's to spend, or councillors. It's not your damned money! Twyford says Labour believes in "trong communities" which is code for "strong councils". Sorry Phil, communities don't exist because councils make them so, people fund raise, establish businesses and help each other out without some mediocre left wing loud mouth like Richard Northey having his hand in their wallets.

However, Twyford is of the school of thinking that government exists for the good of everyone, and if it decides to spend your money, you should gladly surrender it for the greater good (and the likes of Twyford to get a living while he spends your money).

In an age when people are scrimping and saving, and the private sector cutting back, it’s time for local government to do so as well. Rodney Hide's proposals wont decimate local government, at best they'll just stop things getting worse. What is needed at the very least is for councils to be told what they can do - and be given the next two years to get out of everything else they do.

That's the way it is, farewell Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite was the first real TV newsreading personality, reading CBS news from 1962 to 1981. His passing brings memories of the sort of newsreader he was, as he was the man who saw Americans get their news from television, for better or for worse.

CBS has much on its website about its greatest newsreader (the successor, Dan Rather was shockingly biased and fell on his sword as a result of it), who is remembered for coverage of the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing (forty years almost to the day) and the Vietnam War.

Curiously, the age of the high profile national news anchor in the US has faded away, as the generation AFTER Cronkite (Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw) resigned, died and retired respectively.

Cronkite had his own views, which came out most clearly AFTER he retired from reading news, but he was always the dignified face of US network news. Perhaps only David Brinkley of his era came close to his status.

It is no longer an age where network news is the dominant source of news for Americans. CNN, MSNBC and Fox News all provide national 24 hour news reports, and the internet has eaten away further at audiences. So there wont be another Cronkite, as television news struggles to gain audiences by pandering more and more to being folksy, and covering stories of ephemeral meaninglessness like celebrity happenings. So farewell - he set a standard as perhaps the world's first globally known television newsreader.

Garry Sheeran - 2nd rate reporter

Seriously, why do newspapers in New Zealand continue to pay reporters who can't get their facts right in their stories. The one that has caught my chagrin today is Garry Sheeran in the Sunday Star Times, writing about the idea of Air New Zealand buying Virgin Blue.

Not a big deal? No, maybe not, if you think that checking your facts is important, but I am mere blogger, not one of those paeans of journalism in the New Zealand press. So what did he get wrong?

1. He wrote, "Like virtually any other airline, Virgin could do with extra capital, in its case to stem losses being suffered on its Atlantic routes being flown by its new international carrier V Australia, launched this year". On its what routes Garry? Why didn't you go to the V. Australia website and see the routes the airline flies are from Australia to Los Angeles. Not near the Atlantic is it Garry? Oh you mixed it up with Virgin Atlantic, a different airline, but similar name. Tsk tsk.

2. He wrote "Virgin is moving towards a joint venture with Delta Airlines on their respective Australasia-US routes". Australasia? OK so does Delta fly to anywhere in the South Pacific besides Australia? No. Does V. Australia (or any other Virgin branded airline) fly to the US from anywhere else in the South Pacific besides Australia? No. So why Australasia Garry?

3. He wrote "Though Virgin is not a member of any airline alliance, Delta is the major player in the Skyways Team alliance" The what? It's called Skyteam Garry. There is a website for it. However, guessing it was easier than looking it up online wasn't it? He mentions it again "one of the two leading carriers in the Skyways alliance".

So if you paid for the Sunday Star Times today, ask yourself whether you think it is good value for money to buy a newspaper that publishes lazy inaccuracies.

So what does the DIA's software block?

The news report in the Dominion Post that ISPs can acquire filtering software from the government to allegedly "block child porn" of course all sounds good. It is voluntary, and who would oppose blocking child porn, unless you're a pervert of course.

Well, if Claire McEntee were a better journalist, she would have asked some rather pertinent questions. Here are mine:

1. What is the definition of child porn? Does the software block all "objectionable" material, which goes well beyond what people commonly think of as child porn, but also includes adults wearing school uniforms roleplaying and includes erotic stories about legal acts between adults? How focused is it? Who is really going to lobby for erotic material that is legal to be let through?

2. Isn't the bigger problem those who abuse children and in the course of that video/photograph it and distribute those images, and doesn't this do absolutely nothing to stop it (it just stops people seeing material others produce)?

3. How does DIA respond to the report in Wired that an increasing problem is law enforcement agencies finding that much "child porn" is produced by the "children" themselves with camera phones - the children being teenagers who are underage. Such behaviour is foolish and should be discouraged, but not exactly what the law should be prosecuting.

4. What is the scale, extent and main geographic sources of the real child porn problem? That means those who are underage who are abused and have images taken of this abuse and distributed. How much material circulating is decades old (when such material was sadly legal in some European countries and poorly enforced elsewhere), how much is produced in developing countries, Russia or Ukraine where law enforcement has other priorities, how much is material swapped between child rapists, how big or small is the alleged "industry"? After all, what fool would pay for illegal material online when any payments can easily be traced?

Nobody knows because nobody can undertake research on the topic without becoming a criminal, and some law enforcement/censorship agencies have institutional interests in seeking increased funding to address the problem. It is perhaps the only area of the criminal law where research is effectively closed.

Let's be clear. Laws relating to censorship should shadow those related to crime. Images of what consenting adults do (or stories) should not be a subject of the law. Real child porn - images of those under the age of consent as victims of sex crimes - is appropriately the business of criminal law, as those producing it are accessories to the crime itself. However, there needs to be some genuine open discussion about what the business of the law is, what is the extent of the problem and ensuring that measures to address the real problem,are not sledgehammers to crack a nut.

In that context, if ISPs want to purchase software to block sites, then let them feel free to do so. However, it should not be a trojan horse for censoring more than material produced in the context of a real crime.

Urumqi explodes, somewhat

Few will know of Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang province in China’s far west, but the reports from the BBC that riots that have erupted (and the news reports of them) show much about what China isn’t anymore. There have been riots, protests and counter-riots between the Uighur minority (who are the majority in Xinjiang) and the Han Chinese. Reports of 156 dead Han Chinese from Sunday’s riots are what the monopoly state media report, but some Uighur are saying many of their people were killed too. The truth is difficult to determine whilst China remains largely closed to alternative media.

It is easy to accept that China’s state media is pro-Han Chinese, so will always report the official view that all of China’s ethnic minorities are well treated and part of the People’s Republic of China family. Any protests are seen as counter-revolutionary riots inspired by foreign devils.

What has been reported so far is that there were Uighur protestors who turned on Han Chinese passers by, and the security forces. Since then, local Han Chinese have turned on Uighur owned shops and properties. In short, it is a nationalist conflict, being mediated by a state that is hardly known for its even handedness. China is, after all, a deeply racist society, which can be seen in its patronising attitude to minorities, and also if you scratch the surface about attitudes towards Africans, Europeans and other Asians.

However, let’s eliminate a few ideas about what these riots are:

1. Desire to overthrow the communist party: No, it’s not anything quite as fundamental as this. It started as a dispute regarding treatment of participants in a fight at a toy factory in Guangdong province between Han and Uighur peoples. Uighur are not so politically organised (or indeed brave) to confront that issue head on.
2. Muslim fundamentalism stoking in China: Yes Uighur are traditionally Muslim, but there is little sign that Uighur protestors are motivated by Islam.

This is a racial conflict, between Uighur who feels constantly discriminated against by Han Chinese, and now Han Chinese who are aggrieved by violence shown to them by rioting Uighur.

So what does it say about China? Well the tight security in Xinjiang seems to have waned significantly, as having protest to this extent and scale in this province is largely unknown (although protests are more common than most outsiders would believe). It also shows there will be grave fear that this could spark unrest elsewhere that could lead to the division of China – something the Communist Party fears second only to losing its monopoly on power.

It has echoes of Tibet, not that Xinjiang should be independent, but rather that calls for accountability, transparency and for the state to be colourblind are only fair and natural. However, one should be cautious about supporting the Uighur unreservedly. Turning on innocent passers by, attacking and killing them isn’t exactly a way of gaining ANY kind of moral authority.

However, it would probably be in the best interests of China, the Han Chinese and Uighur if the people of Xinjiang had the same sorts of freedoms, and independent state institutions that Chinese enjoy in another part of China – Hong Kong.

This should not be a matter for the law

The NZ Herald reports how the Auckland District Court is hearing a case of a woman who was almost 30 meeting a man who was probably (but not certainly) her father who was in his 40s, and having a sexual relationship, is not something that should be a matter for the criminal justice system.

So it may disgust many, it may offend people of many religions, but it is a victimless crime - this is NOT a case of exploitation or force, just two consenting adults. It appears to be a more a case of the girl's mother being upset, which is frankly not a reason for criminal prosecution.

So here's an idea, a simple change to the Crimes Act so that incest is not an offence if both parties are over 18 and consent.

Of course we all know no MP will take this up, because of fear of being branded perverted and having strange priorities, but then again that's how many thought in the 1960s and 1970s when consenting adult men were thrown in prison for sexual activities with each other. Very few are prosecuted inappropriately under this law, but surely it is time to tidy up this nonsense and ensure none do. It ruins the lives of people who make misguided decisions, and most of all becomes a weapon for upset partners or relatives to use against those who are acting as consenting adults.

I'd prefer an omnibus bill to remove all victimless crimes, after all why should people be thrown in prison for this?

Farewell Mollie Sugden

Yes after the hype around Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, Mollie Sugden, best known as Mrs Slocombe on "Are You Being Served", has died at age 86. She outlived Wendy Richards and John Inman from the show - it being one of those double-entendre "Carry On" type classic British comedies that went profoundly out of fashion in the 1980s.

First Class?

So Helen Clark would fly first class internationally as a matter of course? How?

There are precious few airlines flying to NZ nowadays with first class. Maybe it is why Helen Clark so welcomed the arrival of Emirates, as it always has first class, usually of a high standard as well. However, it does indicate that even she wasn't willing to support the state nationalised carrier, as Air NZ abolished first class in 2005 in favour of the upgraded business class - Business Premier - which has better seats than the old first class.

Those with first class flying to NZ are:

Air Tahiti Nui: to Papeete with connections to LA, Tokyo and Paris. Recliner seats that lay horizontal (Air NZ Business Premier would be superior).
Emirates: to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Dubai and connections to Europe. Mostly now private mini-cabins with their own mini-bar.
Korean Air: to Seoul with connections to Europe . Recliner seats that lay horizontal.
Singapore Airlines: to Singapore with connections to Europe and Asia. Fully lie flat semi-cabins (and of course suites on A380s from Singapore to London).

So first class to Australia, Europe and select Asian destinations is possible, and even LA via Papeete, but basically NZ is not a wealthy market to fly into. Unlike the UK, where BA maintains four classes, and even business class outranks what you get in NZ in terms of airport side service.

For me, I really don't give a damn, what really matters is why travel at all. There are precious few reasons to travel as frequently as most ministers do.

Ross Munro - hero of the week

It is sad that clothing firm Line 7 is going into receivership.

What was more sad was the wearisome offer by John Key that he was "prepared to look at offering assistance if an approach was made", although he preferred a commercial solution. In other words, your money might be used to bail out any business that curried sufficient favour with the government. It's what you expected with Helen Clark, and Barack Obama has shown he is quite willing to prop up failed companies, but John Key? Why is he listening to the philosophy of Jim Anderton, or is it just to grab the middle New Zealand pablum approach that "guv'mint" should always be there to help.

However, Line 7 Chief Executive Ross Munro has shown himself to be a businessman, entrepreneur and indeed a man of principle above any MP (not that hard really) by refusing government help.

On Radio NZ I heard him say "it is not the role of the Government or the taxpayer to prop up the company after its own mistakes. Mr Munro says the company, which was founded in 1963, has made its own bed and needs to lie in it."

Kudos to him, of course he does already get some support indirectly, through tariffs on imported clothing, low though they are, but still it is a welcoming statement that he is saying a flat no to your money.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party is saying not enough is being done (borrowing from your children's taxes and spending more of your money) to fight the recession. It might have been more productive had Labour not frittered money away on flights of fancy like Kiwirail, which has cost hundreds of millions of dollars. $690 million for a business that is worth $388 million (which is actually worth far less because it needs subsidies every year worth nearly $100 million to just operate) - that's how the Labour Party creates wealth, by subsidising foreign owners of businesses it wants to play with.

So today go out and buy something from Line 7 - you'll know you're supporting a brand and company that doesn't put its unwanted hands in your wallet.

Random observations while in NZ

In my time back in NZ, I have noticed a few things:
- Hysteria over Swine Flu the moment I arrived at the airport, forms to fill out so my location could be identified (yawn);
- Continued banality of so many drivers, tailgating me while I drive at 85 km/h on a windy road in pouring rain behind a truck I can't pass wont get you there faster, but it will be a bloody mess if I have to stop quickly (but I forgot physics isn't cool in Aotearoa);
- TVNZ must be the worst state owned broadcaster in the semi-free world. News that is more banal, brainless and celebrity oriented than any US TV news, with factual errors dotted throughout items. It shouldn't be privatised, it should be shut down, the frequencies sold and the equipment, broadcasting rights and other assets flogged off. It is second only to the education system in promoting the dumbing down of the broad mass of the population;
- Watch the teaching unions be scared shitless about the publication of the results of pupil performance at primary schools. Scared of providing information because parents are too stupid to know what to do with it, but the largely closed shop friends of the Labour Party know best what is good for your kids. School league tables wont make a big difference, and no they don't tell you what schools are best - but they do give an indication of the levels that schools aim for with students. Teachers' unions are scared of nothing more than performance pay and teachers being held accountable for the results of their pupils, and will do everything they can to obfuscate this issue;
- Local government is scared of Rodney Hide, this is a good thing;
- The recession has yet to seriously hit NZ. Sorry there are not shoots of a recovery, tourism is in for a long cold period of stagnation. Aussies may come to ski, but nobody from the northern hemisphere will be coming soon;
- Labour MPs don't know what to do. I briefly saw Chris Hipkins, MP for Rimutaka, rip into ACT MP Heather Roy for introducing a bill on motor vehicle dealers because it wasn't a bill about creating jobs. Even though Labour was supporting the bill, this junior retarded MP believes governments create jobs;
- Many Wellingtonians fear redundancies, but some of the smart people in the state sector are leaving, so the generically average will remain. It's like voluntary redundancy programmes, which generally incentivise good people to leave (because they always find other opportunities), but the deadwood remain;
- Nowhere is anything busy;
- Thanks to the Labour government, the telecommunications sector is now addicted to regulation. Now there is talk about the state regulating what existing mobile phone operators sell their own network capacity to resellers - apparently because it is unreasonable to expect new entrants to build their own networks, even though in the last 22 years Telecom has built 4 mobile networks and Vodafone 2;
- New Zealand also remains one of the few countries where Sunday papers are worse than weekday papers;
- Why does the NZ Herald National News section have a sub section called Child Abuse? Is it an indictment on the Commissioner for Children position that this is the case, and why are child abusers continuing to live off the back of taxpayers?
- I could buy Lurpak butter and Laughing Cow cheese in a NZ supermarket and the NZ dairy industry doesn't collapse, so why can't NZ dairy products enter European supermarkets at market prices (yes it is a rhetorical question);
- Does Air NZ charge full fares for young children in premium economy class and if not, why not?
- More women are wearing skirts in Wellington (in mid winter) than before, it this just pure coincidence with the disappearance of Helen Clark?
- For the last 5 years the highest priority road project in Wellington has been the Kapiti Western Link Road, a project led by Kapiti Coast District Council. The money exists to build it, and has for some time, but isn't the constant scope changing and the iterations between council, property developers, community organisations and central government symptomatic of the general incompetence of so many in local government to get anything useful done?
- The speed limits in downtown Wellington are now a ridiculous 30 km/h, was this because too many dopey people were being killed, or is it part of a creeping agenda against road transport?
- Why is Phoenix Cola no longer sweetened by honey?
- Why is it damned hard to get pressed fruit juice, not juice made from concentrate, except orange?
- How is it I can phone a GP in NZ and get an appointment the next day, with a small fee, having not lived here for years, but in the UK it is a big deal?
- Why isn't Richard Prebble hosting a news discussion programme on TV, it could be called I've Been Arguing?

Maoist was being spied on - wow

So Sue Bradford has been getting spied on for decades.

From the rather banal, badly researched article by Martin Kay in the Dominion Post, you might think that it was all about high school students campaigning for more rights who were getting spied on.

Well Sue Bradford was a bit more than that, visiting China in the early 1970s as a card carrying member of the Communist Party, while Chairman Mao was still in power, during the Cultural Revolution, would and should have caused some alarm at the time.

Trevor Loudon told more a few years ago, here, here and here.

Catherine Delahunty on the other had is simply crazy, but would hook her anti capitalism, anti reason train onto anything she could find - so now of course she's a Green MP

It's a recession, so have a junket

I don't begrudge MPs travel, after all some of them have constituencies, so it is reasonable to travel from constituencies to Wellington.

However for a bunch of backbenchers to have you pay for them to go on a junket to London, in mid winter (NZ) to mid summer (UK) flying business class is outrageous. It isn't the amount of money, which is piffling. It is the audacity that MPs, some of whom bemoan the tragic life of the poor, and how everyone should be made to pay more, go off in luxury, paid for by you, to "study "aspects of parliamentary practice and procedure"".

No, read the fucking book of procedures and talk to senior MPs you lazy parasitical junket junkies.

The NZ Herald reports that "They would also receive briefings on Britain's constitutional relationship with New Zealand and on issues of interest to them individually such as climate change and health"

Climate change? A Green MP is flying halfway around the planet to receive briefings on climate change? Nice that. The same party that pontificates on people sinfully driving and rich people not paying enough tax, happily pillages taxpayers to send its people business class to London in the northern summer to "receive briefings" and "study".

What's the word for it again? Hypo.....

This trip should have been cancelled, the MPs should be made to pay for it themselves (then decide if it isn't better to read books and receive briefings via the internet or phone), but most of all their constituents should be asked if they think this is a worthwhile use of their money in a recession.

Meanwhile, this single trip should help ensure all the MPs will instantly get Air NZ Silver Airpoints status straightaway, although those already clocking up quite a lot of domestic flights will get Gold this time. Gold Elite next right chaps? Ensures you keep away from the lumpen-proletariat who voted you in.

Which of course I understand, but I'm Gold Elite not thanks to the taxpayer.

UPDATE: Iain Lees-Galloway, MP for Palmerston North (Labour) is even twittering the heartache of flying business class on Air NZ

Local government cargo cult - Hawke's Bay Airport

This from Napier City Council and Hastings District Council, with central government collaboration - they hope.

Hawke's Bay Airport is a joint venture between central government and these two councils, with central government holding 50% of the airport, and the two councils owning the rest. (Napier 26%, Hastings 24%) However, it would be fair to say central government is not driven by wild ideas of expanding the airport for regional development.

So the plan to spend NZ$9 million extending the runway, for airlines that don't fly there yet, and planes nobody wants to fly there, is just local government wasting ratepayers' money for the sake of pride and regional kudos. Air New Zealand generates most of the traffic, and is perfectly happy flying ATR72 and Q300 turboprops, as was Origin Pacific when it existed providing competition on the routes. It does not wish to fly jets. Neither Jetstar nor Pacific Blue have declared serious interest in flying there, and the idea of international flights is ludicrous.

However, when you work in local government you can spend ratepayers' money on a cargo cult. In the midst of the most serious recession in the airline sector in modern history, Napier and Hastings councils think it is time to expand. It isn't a commercially sensible decision, the airport is seeking to borrow money to pay for a runway extension that nobody is prepared to pay to use.

It is a cargo cult, "build it and they will come". It didn't work for Invercargill airport, which wasted money on international facilities. There isn't enough traffic to Hawke's Bay Airport to sustain a competitor on the routes Air NZ flies (which is does show with rather high yields), so why the hell will bigger planes fly there?

The airport should be privatised, the government should flog off its ownership so that a private owner can put in some directors with some business acumen, and the councils should be required to sell off their shares. Ratepayers can then get a windfall they can use to invest on what THEY want, and Hawke's Bay Airport can then be operated on a commercially sound basis, it might start by trying to attract more airlines, rather than worship the rather childish idea that jet airliners can be the only way the airport can grow.

Britney's faux pas

"What's up London"

except it was Manchester.

Given a review of her London concert was that it it was hard to tell how much lip synching she was doing, it wouldn't be surprising to believe that she is really isn't that conscious nowadays.

If you don't retain the simple information about where you are, what sort of state are you in?

Greens should pay for fruit in schools

It's such a simple basic concept, that socialists generally can't get to grips with.

If you want something to happen, do it yourself, with your own time or your own money, by your own choice - don't moan and whinge to get someone to make everyone else do it for you.

So it's hardly a surprise that the Greens, led by chief cheerleader for compulsion Sue Kedgley are demanding that you be made to pay for fruit to be provided to kids in schools for free.

Do you see Sue Kedgley wandering down to a low decile school donating some fruit herself? No. Do you see the Green party organising a collection or a charity to do it? No. That would mean doing more than a press release. Far better to demand that nanny state pinch a bit more tax from everyone else, to make them pay for it, push the money through bureaucracies (IRD, Treasury, Ministry of Education) and have the warm embracing state feed people's kids for them. Simpler than taking responsibility yourself isn't it Sue?

So if the "Fruit in Schools" programme is to cease getting taxvictim funding, then maybe Kedgley could start coughing up her own money to help out, perhaps some of the tax cut she opposed. Indeed why don't all Green MPs do that, and Green party members too?

Or, to use Kedgley's rhetoric, does the fact that she does nothing besides shout for the "government" to act, prove that she doesn't care at all about the nutritional needs of children in low decile schools? Does it not prove that the Greens only believe things can get done if everyone is forced to pay for them, and that Green MPs would rather bark on about taxpayers paying for something that none of them will voluntarily pay for themselves?

Another day of defiance in Iran : and nothing from the "peace" movement

It's not going away, protests in Tehran and other cities continue.

The Times reports:

1238 GMT The rally begins in central Tehran. Witnesses say Imam Khomeini Square is packed with tens of thousands of black-clad people carrying candles, and banners that read "Where are our brothers?", "Why did you kill our brothers?", "We have not had people killed to compromise and accept a doctored ballot box", "We wrote love, they read dictator", "My martyred brother, I will get back your vote", and "Silent, keep calm".

1359 GMT Defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi joins the rally in Tehran, says AFP. Dressed in a black suit with a black shirt, he gets out of a car in front of the telecoms building in Imam Khomeini Square, and addresses the crowd through a loudhailer.

1430 GMT Kosoofvid has started to post video footage on YouTube , multiple videos under the same title: Tehran Rally against Election Results. They show a lot of people handing out banners, giving V for victory signs, moving slowly and peacefully. It isn't clear if the footage is from today or yesterday.

Meanwhile the Islamist Theocracy is spreading its own black propaganda, claiming that protests are fomented by foreigners (a common claim by most dictatorships, who always think the people love them, and only dirty evil foreigners could possibly want rid of them), and now claims of an Israeli bomb plot thwarted by the Intelligence Ministry. All designed to make those not protesting think, or rally them against the protestors.

Have you also noticed how the Green Party, so ready to damn China, has put out no press releases on Iran? Have you seen Greenpeace do it? Have you seen any protests organised by the so-called "peace" movement outside the Iranian Embassy in Wellington?

No - of course not. Maybe it's time someone in the media asked why they are so uninterested?

Why get local government out of transport?

Well the NZ Herald gives a great example:

"Chris Darby, North Shore City's representative on the Regional Transport Committee, acknowledged that a 34 per cent Government increase in highway construction funding over the next three years may give the country a short-term economic development boost."

You might ask what a Regional Transport Committee is needed for, before the last government it was nearly impotent.

Mr Darby condemned the (new government funding) policy statement, which Auckland Regional Council officers have estimated will require 76 per cent of land transport funds to be spent on roads, as "an absolute time warp to the 1950s."

A time warp - even though easily 40% of funds are always spent on maintenance as it is, is it that unreasonably to spend three quarters on road maintenance and upgrades? The rest of the world is building roads, but Mr Darby is a local government planner, and he wants to throw other people's money at modes he thinks Aucklanders ought to be using, rather than letting Aucklanders choose, after paying real prices for using roads and public transport.

ARTA itself admits that 86% of commutes in Auckland are undertaken by car, but only 7% by public transport (most of which is NOT rail) and 5% by walking and cycling. So it is hardly unreasonable for central government to expect 76% of Auckland transport funding to go to roads, roads move over 90% of Auckland commuters, railways move less than 2% and the rest go by ferry or footpath.

"He said it failed to provide against dwindling oil supplies and risked leaving future Aucklanders with redundant roading infrastructure and inadequate public transport to make do with less fuel.

"It will be a long-time liability - what we are seeing here really lacks imagination and I am convinced it lacks examination," he said."

Apparently Aucklanders will move by some other means, and Mr Darby is another commodity speculator who doesn't actually risk his own money on the assertion that oil prices will go sky high. If they don't use roads, will they fly? Railways couldn't physically move more than maybe 9% of Auckland commuters even if almost all those who live near them used them! So who lacks imagination?

What sort of imbecile is Mr Darby if he thinks there will be LESS fuel, not DIFFERENT fuel? Why will roads, the most flexible transport infrastructure there is, be redundant? HE is the person without examination of his assertion, they are the sort of rants of Green politicians, not anything from a transport professional.

So why should he have any say at all? He doesn't represent users, he doesn't represent producers, he represents planners.

What's wrong will letting those who maintain and build roads spend the money raised from taxing those using them. If there is less road use (as there is), there is less money and less road building. If there is more road use, then there is more money, and at peak times roads might cost a lot more (and a lot less at off peak times).

Similarly if there is more public transport use, there is more money to spend on services - oh yes, don't forget that Auckland local government has spent the last few years subsidising rail services and undermining commercial (unsubsidised) bus services, so more fare revenue doesn't mean more services, as it doesn't generate enough money for more.

So isn't it time that local government had its hands taken off one of the most essential sets of infrastructure in the country?

What Obama could say

President Obama thinks saying anything will backfire, than Iranians would rather the USA just keep quiet and see what happens.

He's wrong. While I understand the initial hesitancy, the fear that a country where thousands can be rallied for anti-USA rallies, it shows a surprising reluctance to openly embrace and project the principle that the USA should be able to expound globally.

Freedom.

So he's just an idea as a speech for Obama:

The United States and Iran have many differences, but today I want to talk not of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the people of Iran who want what we in the United States take for granted.

Freedom.

Clearly many Iranians are concerned about the conditions of the recent general election, concerns that I and many others share across the world. Free, fair and open elections are one way that people can hold governments to account and select governments, but in and of themselves they are not enough. A majority must never be allowed to vote for tyranny over a minority. You see, whatever the outcome of the election, the flame burning in the hearts and minds of many Iranians is freedom, and it is one they are risking their lives for.

Freedom to live your life as you see fit, to not be harassed by the state for your beliefs, what you wear, what books you want to read or for criticising the state. Freedom to be a human being, to think, express your thoughts, to own your life and live it, while respecting the same in others.

It is this simple basic and fundamental idea that drove millions of people across eastern Europe twenty years ago to unshackle themselves from governments that treated their people as subjects to plan, push around and run over in the pursuit of their own narrow vision. In far too many countries, government still do treat citizens as their property and a means to their own ends, rather than ends in themselves.

Iranians, like East Germans, Poles, Romanians, Indonesians, South Africans, Ukrainians, Cubans, Iraqis, Georgians and millions of others worldwide, share the desire for this basic fundamental right – to be free people. Free to be Muslims, Christians, atheists, entrepreneurs, teachers, journalists, scientists, parents or whatsoever they wish, as long as it does not harm anyone else.

It is this vision that I believe is shared by most people across the world, a common bond of humanity, for people to be themselves, not what some politician or preacher wants them to be.

So today, I say to those people in Iran who are bravely standing up, where the state is suppressing freedom of assembly or freedom of speech, that the United States supports you, and all peoples of the world that wish to break the shackles of authoritarianism from their wrists, minds, hearts and dreams.

Not because we want to control you, or make you one of us, but because we know what freedom means – our ancestors fought for freedom in this great country over 200 years ago. We know how precious it is, understand the sacrifices of those who fought for it before, as we value it as much as you do. It should be beyond debates over religion or politics.

For freedom is not simply an American value, it is a human one. The Iranian authorities clearly have the power to do great violence to those protesting for freedom, I urge them not to do so, for history tells us that the more that freedom is suppressed, the more the desire for it builds, and the harder it is for those who fall.

So while the Iranian government seeks to crudely shut down speech, debate, protest and thoughts, the means for communicating freely will remain open, with the internet, with satellite television and shortwave radio broadcasts all providing access to uncensored and open news and debate. The Iranian people will find their own way to freedom, and no violence should be done to them as they do so. History is littered with tyrants who wanted things their way – enough is enough. Let the Iranian people be.

Communications policy for central planners

If you want to see an incoherent, centrally planned vision of communications policy, tasting strongly of socialism, pilfering everyone to benefit the few, then look at the UK's latest communications white paper - the Digital Britain report.

It proposes a new tax on fixed telephone lines to subsidise broadband to rural areas. Why should anyone have broadband subsidised to them? Who knows? Books aren't subsidised, but accessing videos, music and porn seems far more important to the British Labour Party. Why subsidise rural areas? You may well ask, given people in rural areas face far cheaper land and housing costs, little traffic congestion and no parking fees, so shouldn't they all pay to subsidise housing and parking in cities? It's ridiculous of course. If you enjoy open spaces, cheap land and the quietness of the countryside, it is no wonder there aren't a range of communications networks connecting you. However, taxpayers are to ensure 2 Mb/sec access to all households - broadband socialism, and it's disgusting.

Secondly, part of the TV licence fee is to be given to commercial stations to fund childrens' programming and subsidise regional commercial news programmes. Again, nonsense. For starters, commercial TV should succeed or fail on its merits. If regional commercial news programmes cannot remain viable, they should close. Bear in mind that the BBC provides regional TV news fully funded from the licence fee already, which if ended might save regional commercial television. A better solution would be to announce the TV licence fee will be abolished, and the BBC will need to find new sources of funds, such as subscriptions, donations and sponsorship. Labour wont dare ask the question - why should people be forced to pay for ANY broadcasters?

Thirdly, FM and AM radio broadcasts, which are accessible to virtually all households, are to be switched off by 2015 in favour of the inferior digital DAB standard, which has quite low takeup. In other words, the government is willing to make almost all radios in the country utterly useless, and refuses to grant property rights in broadcast radio spectrum. Most people are quite happy with FM broadcasting, and most broadcasters get all they need from FM and AM. If broadcasters are willing to buy property rights in FM and AM frequences on the open market, then let them.

In short, stop trying to fucking plan an industry which exists to serve what people want. The internet took off without government interference, and continues to thrive. Indeed the development of broadband infrastructure is damaged by the continued local loop unbundling of BT's network, which is stifling the development of competing networks beyond the incumbent (and barely viable) Virgin Media cable TV operation.

Set commercial broadcasting completely free, let it own broadcast frequencies and stop telling it what to do. Privatise Channel 4, and start to break up the BBC into pieces.

Sadly though, Britain is so damned socialist, it thinks nobody should ever pay for what they use, but everyone else should pay for what they don't!

The voice of Ahmadinejad

Is the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) which explains all here, claiming protestors are "anti-revolutionary groups". You can always tell a censored lying official news agency, because it never broadcasts different sides to a story about what the state does, and defames anyone who dares challenge its legal monopoly on doing violence to others.

Another common claim is those from other countries criticising a government are "interfering in our internal affairs", which is of course code for "if we shoot, beat up and arrest our own citizens, just fuck off and be glad we can't reach you and treat you the same way - because our monopoly on power is worth murdering for". China uses the "non interference in internal affairs" argument frequently - it's like your next door neighbours saying "mind your own business" when you witness their kids bruised and bleeding after hearing them screaming saying "stop".

Meanwhile, the ignorant anti-semite Ahmadinejad has gone to Russia to be welcomed by some fellow authoritarians, who also share a lack of respect for the rule of law, freedom of speech and assembly, and the holding of free, fair and transparent elections. North Korea has also chimed in supporting him - nice club of blood thirsty thugs this, with the Kim Yong Nam (head of the rubber stamp Parliament) having "wished him success in his responsible work to frustrate pressure and interference of outsiders and build independent and prosperous Iran. He expressed belief that the friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries that were forged in the joint struggle for independence against imperialism would favorably grow stronger in all fields."

Yep, about that - who has nuclear weapons? Who has a non-transparent nuclear programme?

Iran simmers

The Times is giving rolling updates, which appear to include continued protests, a counter protest organised by Ahmadinejad, and rumours of a crackdown. Clearly many Tehran residents are not letting this lie, and are not meeting expectations of protests dying down. In circumstances like this either energy dissipates, as nothing changes or there is some key change with backdowns or the seizing of key locales of power (broadcast media, military/police or political headquarters). The regime clearly has decided a partial recount would cut the numbers of protestors, but are those protesting simply wanting freedom?

Could it be that rigging the election ends up being a better result for freedom than letting Mousavi win (as some mild liberalisation and end to sabre rattling would have released much pressure)?

Is Iran blinking?

The BBC is reporting that hundreds of thousands of people are at a rally in Tehran protesting the outcome of the Presidential election, an outcome that is best described as unsafe, but an outcome even if it were legitimate - does not justify the oppressive theocracy that bastardises democracy to service the will of a small group of mullahs, and sustains a brutal and malevolent state.

Shots have been fired, and although all commentators believe that it is highly unlikely that anything will come of the protests, in terms of revolution, it appears that Iranians are giving it their best go. Iran is indeed divided between the traditional, sexist and highly Islamist rural countryside, and the cosmopolitan Tehran, but if Tehran goes so does Iran.

It is notable how many Tehran women are pushing for change, given the sexist rules that apply to what women should wear compared to men.

The poorly educated anti-semitic, economically illiterate buffoon Ahmedinejad continues to make a fool of himself claiming all is well, but in fact this is the best chance Iranians have to unshackle themselves from the grip of this brutal theocracy. Had opposition candidate Mousavi won then it would have been four years of a little less strident Islamism, but Islamism nevertheless. Women, religious minorities and homosexuals wouldn't be getting a better deal, but at best the screws may have eased off.

Time (not a typically reliable source of news to be fair) has given five reasons to question the result, basically:
- Lack of independent supervision of the election (the Interior Ministry supervises it);
- Some polling stations ran out of ballots, and opposition observers were not always given access to polling booths;
- Initial results came only an hour after the polls closed, which is ridiculous in a country with manual counting of paper ballots;
- Results were strangely consistent across regions, previously support for candidates varied across regions significantly. Mousavi didn't even win his own hometown, despite apparent high popularity. Ahmadinejad won in cities, despite previous polling suggesting otherwise;
- The result was a massive increase in the majority for Ahmadinejad, despite the poor state of the economy and past elections which saw far more support for reformist candidates.

So power to those in Iran seeking freedom - as they so proudly announced. Few actions could improve the prospects for peace and freedom in the Middle East and South Asia more than an end to spending 30 years in the dark ages, of a regime that oppresses its own, spreads a doctrine of violence and death of those who don't wish to succumb to surrendering themselves to permanent submission to the decrees of elderly mullahs.

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reports on how the internet has brought down barriers between Iranian youth and the rest of the world that the Iranian government is ill equipped to handle. Iran has started trying to block BBC World Service radio broadcasts in Persian. May we cross our fingers in hope that the more the regime tries to turn on the people, the more they turn back and resist.

After all, that will do more for peace than the so-called peace movement ever could.

Are Mt Albert voters that boring?

I would have been pleasantly surprised and astonished had Julian Pistorius won, but the Mt. Albert result was disappointing. However, I guess an electorate that ticked Helen Clark consistently for 28 years was unlikely to be a place of free spirits or individuals who were gagging to have more control of their own lives. So voting Labour is clearly like breathing to most of them.

Most by-elections are interesting, and produce results well out of kilter with a general election. This one didn't. The last proper one was Taranaki-King Country, when ACT came a close second. In Selwyn, the Alliance came a close second. In Mt Albert, the voters could have voted Green to say no to motorways - but didn't. They could have voted National, but admittedly there was no good reason for that. They could have voted Libertarianz, but clearly the idea of being responsible for yourself frightened too many of them.

So all in all a bit of a yawn. The majority of Mt. Albert voters preferred Clark's vote bribe for the motorway, than stopping it at all (Greens) in favour of a railway, or private property rights (Libertarianz). They didn't want a voice in the current government (National or ACT) either.

So can anything be concluded? Are most voters just inert, and repeat what they always do? Labour is a comfort blanket and they can't bring themselves to go more radically for the state, or less?

Do the majority in Mt Albert fear not having the warm embrace of the state housing, teaching and funding them? Has Helen Clark convinced them of how generous the state is giving them so much, and how incompetent they would be choosing schools, health care and housing, and how horrible people are if she isn't there to regulate them?

Why do people vote Labour?

In fact why did many vote National? Melissa Lee was hardly a star, but do many vote National because it isn't Labour? Or do all of them support the government?
Same with ACT, presumably those voters supported the government and John Boscawen personally.

So Mt Albert has got what it asked for before - except David Shearer is more talented and interesting than Helen Clark.

So are the 35 who voted Libertarianz the only people in Mt Albert who believe in protecting their property rights?

Vote Pistorius to make Clark squirm

Well Mt Albert voters it should be simple.

You either like handing more of your life over to politicians or not.

The polls are saying the majority of you trust the Labour Party to spend your money and tell you what to do when they want you to, I think it is time for you to political catamites in the words of Jim Bolger in relation to the pollsters.

For those who believe in less government, the choice of Julian Pistorius, your Libertarianz candidate, could not be more stark.

Melissa Lee has demonstrated that the National Party is supremely competent in choosing someone who doesn't have the nouse to prepare and research what she is to talk about. She really doesn't have a chance of winning, and what if she did - she is already an MP - she can already "work for the people of Mt Albert". All you would be doing is filling in a bit more of her time. She would be a wasted vote, although many of you are tempted to vote for her just because the polls say she is one most likely to topple David Shearer. However, is she really any better that you'd positively endorse her?

John Boscawen wont win, so any vote for him is a vote to send a message. What a message to send though. The message being that for you less government means allowing bylaws to ban gang patches, and to support a mega-city. If you think National needs a message, then what does ACT need? Boscawen is already there, a vote for him will achieve nothing in terms of sending a message.

Want less government? Well it isn't with them.

Of course many will be looking to tick David Shearer - damned if I know why. He is the successor to Helen Clark, but obviously you wont be getting the Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, as she has been for the last 16 years. Beyond writings on mercenaries, he is simply another Labour party member who thinks that your life would be better if you just trusted the government more to deliver services that it wants a monopoly on. Inspiring? Well maybe if you want a lazy life on a low income as a beneficiary, but beyond that? No. Oh and if you think voting Labour somehow protects the private property rights of those in the way of a motorway, it demonstrates stupidity on a grand scale. Labour wasn't going to protect anyone's private property rights, it was going to burrow under them using a billion dollars worth of other people's money.

However, if you think politics is about using taxpayers' money to bribe voters, then I guess you fit well into the Labour mould - but don't complain when the Nats do it too!

Russel Norman? Well he is against the motorway, but then again he is against you driving at all. He think you are forced to drive, don't like using your car at all, and he wants to pillage money from you to give alternatives he thinks are cool - like trains (you see he doesn't want you paying for something you use). Seriously - don't encourage him, unless you really do feel a bit of a retard who needs nanny to look after you.

So why vote Julian Pistorius?

There are negative reasons against voting for others.

1. Don't over inflate the influence of your vote - it is one of tens of thousands, it is counted like the others, it is not counting what's in your head, just the number of heads with that view. This is a chance to choose positively what you want - not to surrender to the best of the worst.
2. It wont change the government to vote Labour, Green or ACT, it wont rock the boat at all.
3. Whoever is elected wont stop the motorway going through or the Public Works Act being used, but only one candidate will say the issue isn't about whether or not to build the motorway (as it remains a fundamentally good idea to everyone except the Greens who think road transport is a sin), but the respect or otherwise of property rights- Julian Pistorius.
4. Three candidates are already MPs - you gain nothing by adding the ticket Mt Albert to them.

However, most of all, a vote for Julian Pistorius will positively send a message in favour of private property rights, in favour of tax cuts, in favour of much much less local government and for less government generally. It will be an assertion of your individual rights and for those in the way of a motorway, your property rights. It would really piss off the narrow minded infotainment merchants at TVNZ who think politics should be about personalities and image, rather than policies and principles, but most of all it would shock the bejesus out of Labour, National, ACT and the Greens.

You see, suddenly it isn't about populism, it isn't about vote bribing and it isn't about worshipping gaia - it is about the smallest minority in the world, those who achieve everything, who create and who invent - the human individual.

Vote Pistorius in Mt Albert tomorrow - do it for you, but also do it knowing - as it said at the beginning of this campaign - that nothing will be more worthwhile that imagining the look on Helen Clark's face and the words from her mouth if she learnt that Libertarianz won "her seat", or even came second.