People don't care about state TV

Uh oh Labour MP Brendon Burns thinks you all love the beloved nanny state broadcasting to you:

"New Zealanders expect a state commitment to quality and relevant broadcasting. The Government must provide it by looking at the future of the industry and determining how it can best ensure TVNZ remains a key player"

He wants protectionism for TVNZ and private free to air broadcasters. Why? Because he thinks they are special, as they lose viewers and advertising to the internet and pay TV.

Frankly, Brendon, I doubt most New Zealanders could tell you whether TVNZ was state owned or not, particularly TV2. Indeed, more than 1 in 3 households pay for TV content themselves. (Those listening to Radio NZ know taxpayers pay for it, but that's 1 in 5 radio listeners at best).

Most people wouldn't give a damn if TVNZ were privately owned, it's only statists on the left who think there is something warm and nationalistic about having a government owned broadcaster to show people what's good for them.

Personally, I think TVNZ has done more than any other state institution, besides the education system, to promote the systematic dumbing down of the population and sensationalism about news and current affairs. So while I'd be helping selling it off, I wonder if New Zealand wouldn't be better off if it was shut down and its assets sold off. Let someone else start up a couple of TV networks from scratch, and ditch the inane, image obsessed "broadcasting to 12 year olds' "approach of TVNZ.

Remaining tariffs to stay for now

National is replicating Labour's trade policy with this announcement "Import tariffs will remain at their current levels until 2015 at the earliest, Trade Minister Tim Groser and Commerce Minister Simon Power announced today."

Admittedly they are low, a maximum of 10% now (that early agreement to freeze them in the first Labour-Alliance coalition quietly expired with that coalition), and the government has said they are subject to negotiation at a WTO round, or free trade agreements. Apparently 80% of the value of all imports is tariff free (oh the horror say the Greens, I expect), and there is already 100% tariff free trade with Australia and Singapore. Other free trade agreements will see tariff free trade with Thailand, Chile, Brunei, China and the remaining ASEAN countries over the next

This is understandable, it provides a small amount of leverage. After all, without tariffs what does New Zealand have to offer in trade negotiations? Particularly in a world with a US President with precious little interest in trade liberalisation (yes Bush actually was a positive force on free trade compared to Obama).

However, this isn't the point. Much work in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that tariffs are a deadweight cost on the economy, by increasing the prices of goods for consumers. There are benefits in abolishing all tariffs on all imports. Tariffs make clothes, carpets, some processed foods, shoes and some other products more expensive than they otherwise would be, to protect a few businesses from real market competition.

While the government may pursue free trade agreements with remaining major trading partners, the likelihood is that the US will go nowhere under Obama, neither will Japan under the new government, whereas the EU and South Korea would shut out agriculture - which frankly is the main point.

Meanwhile, New Zealand could instead be a free trade zone that is an example to the world, rather than retaining a few puny tariffs that simply punish New Zealanders.

It's time to have some courage - and to meet the commitment New Zealand made, as an APEC member economy, to have free and open trade with other APEC nations by 2010.

That would be a start.

60 years of Communist led China

Yet China could hardly be more different today than it was when Mao declared the “People’s Republic”. It is remarkable how the Communist Party of China (CPC) can even begin to claim that the China of today is a natural evolution of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse Tung Thought and is progressing towards communism. The truth is that it happens to be the centre of power, with the armed forces, for a burgeoning market economy. Even China's official media now celebrates the 30 years of opening up.

China one day, publicly, will be able to reflect with a bit more balance on the first 30 years of that period. It was a period when Mao directly through oppression and indirectly through shockingly insane economic policies was responsible for the deaths of around 60 million. Mao famously said that he didn’t fear nuclear war, because if half of China’s population were killed, there would still be over 300 million left to fight.

Today he bears the not widely recognised title of being the political leader with the most blood on his hands. Blood because the “People’s Republic” became a place where sacrifice to the common good became the guiding philosophy, the cult of Mao the national religion, the Great Leap Forward that proved to be the exact opposite, and an insane level of mass mobilisation during the Cultural Revolution that saw China stagnate and nearly break down into civil war. It is curious that Western academic and radical interest in China was primarily during that period.

China today is an astonishing contrast. With Mao gone, and the Gang of Four of totalitarian thugs arrested, China got on its feet in the 1970s, opened up to the world and Chinese people were allowed to enter business, and have private lives, again.

The results have been astonishing, China now approaches the economic output of Japan, which it is about to exceed to become the second largest economy. Instead of famine and virtually universal poverty, China has a burgeoning middle class. Instead of regimented socialist realism, Chinese citizens are part of the global community, with now the largest number of internet users of any country.

That isn’t a China under Maoist regimentation any more. For all of the symbols of Marxism-Leninism and statements about communism, the truth about China is that it is an authoritarian capitalist state, which happens to be run by the Communist Party. It is becoming more akin to the authoritarian capitalism of Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s under the Kuomintang that it is to Mao’s China, although there is undoubtedly less freedom than there was in Taiwan, China is not the totalitarian state it once was.

Media is under tight state control, but debate and discussion and criticism of current events is vigorous, as the sphere for what can be criticised ever inches wider. Education still indoctrinates into a positive history of the last 60 years, but the facts speak for themselves. China changed direction in 1978 and has not looked back.

China’s phenomenal growth has happened in spite of Mao and in spite of the Communist Party. Hopefully it will be less than 60 years before the Chinese people can more openly discuss the rivers of blood of the era (error) of Mao. Until there is a genuine free press and freedom of speech, China cannot fully progress and hold its leaders accountable, and fight corruption.

Meantime, it is no wonder, that despite the brutal mistakes of Tiananmen Square, Chinese people laud Deng Xiaoping, who surveyed years of purges to be the architect of China's transformation for the better. China's celebrations are full of communist imagery, yet celebrating a largely capitalist led transformation. Although, the authoritarianism still remains as the Daily Telegraph notes:

"The people have been told to stay away from the celebration of the People's Republic today; those whose homes overlook the route have been instructed not to hold parties. The government has banned the flying of kites in Beijing, an innocent pastime enjoyed in the city's parks by old men with weary smiles."

Note also the irony of the country that most resembles China's first 30 years, hailing its paymaster now. Many Chinese who visit North Korea today say it reminds them of life before 1976.

My hope for China is that its leaders continue to tell the people less what to do, and trust them more, and to make the grand step to make themselves accountable to the people directly, by allowing free speech, criticism and separating party, state and judiciary. Most think democracy is the key to unlocking it. It may be a consequence, but what matters most for moving China forward is freedom - and most of all, freedom of speech. No politicians should fear criticism so much that they lock people up for it. May it take much less time for the CPC to humble itself to make China really a republic for the people, as individuals, with rights. They are already halfway there.

Rudman shows why politics and transport don't mix

Brian Rudman has a cheek to call the Minister of Transport an ideologue when he is one of the true believers of the Auckland rail religion. Rudman doesn't call into question the "business cases" the ARC puts together on rail, or Mike Lee's strong leftwing political background in being mischievous towards the government before he is put out of a job.

Bear in mind a "business plan" for something that produces ongoing financial losses is a curious thing, and that scepticism from central government officials about the veracity of the ARC's work doesn't motivate Rudman to question his fellow true believers.

He damns the proposal for a Puhoi-Wellsford motorway. A project which may not be worthwhile, but only money to investigate it has been approved. Money paid for by road users of course. The same can never be said about capital expenditure on Auckland's railways. Rudman in a rather arrogant style dismisses the only major link between Northland and the rest of the country as a road to John Key's holiday bach. I guess he thinks nothing exists north of Puhoi.

Auckland's Regional Transport Committee, a hodgepodge of political interests, naturally wouldn't think so. Given it is advocating a billion plus underground rail tunnel in central Auckland, which would also run at a continued loss, it is clear it worships at the same church as Rudman and Lee.

Rudman doesn't understand why central government time and time again has said no to pouring taxpayers' money into Auckland local government's railway flights of fancy, except the last government. Maybe he should check his premises, these being the following key features of the religion he subscribes to:

- Auckland rail projects all result in ratepayers and motoring tax payers losing money year after year, but that's ok. It is for their own good, even if few ratepayers will see their property values increase as a result, and motorists wont notice a jot of difference to congestion.

- Auckland rail projects always fail conventional economic cost-benefit appraisal, compared to other public transport projects or road projects. That's because the wrong things get counted. People don't value saving travel time that much (they speed, use shortcuts and overtake because they are mean spirited), accident reductions aren't that important, and it is just really really special for people to ride by train instead of, bus.

- Just because the majority of Auckland rail users come from buses or wouldn't have taken the trip in the first place, doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile subsidising them at $4 a trip.

- It doesn't matter that 88% of Auckland jobs aren't in the CBD, where the railway is focused, it doesn't matter. Just ignore that. It will change when there is a railway, you'll see. Aucklanders who work elsewhere don't matter anyway, and we'll build more railways to serve them.

- It doesn't matter that 7% of Auckland trips are by public transport (most of those by bus), spending over a billion to get it to 15% (by 2051!) is good for you all (although 17% of trips are currently by foot).

- It doesn't matter that between 33 and 45% of peak trips to Auckland's CBD are by public transport, predominantly by bus as it is. It doesn't matter that this split is high by international standards.

- It doesn't matter how much money is spent on rail in Auckland, it must all be good, it must be good, even though the whole network was only worth $20 million to start with and wont be worth much more after $550 million is spent electrifying it. You couldn't sell it off for what has been spent on it, you couldn't sell it off for a quarter of that. However, in the church of Auckland rail, spending other people's money is a core sacrament.

- It doesn't matter that the impact on traffic congestion of Auckland rail is virtually nil. Traffic congestion is good. Car users are addicts and must be weaned off their addiction. They really don't want to drive, many don't really want to own cars, they just haven't learnt it yet.

Brian wants government to treat Aucklanders as adults. Brian, they would be better treated as adults if you let them spend their own money, respected the fact that most Aucklanders most of the time choose the transport modes that best suit them, respected the fact that most of the money you want spend on railways comes from people using roads, and respected the fact that this religion of yours is completely useless for the trips most Aucklanders do most of the time.

Maybe you should go to Penrose/Mt. Wellington, Auckland's second biggest employment hub, and ask workers there what the electrified railway will do for their trip to work?

Nationalising sports broadcasting rights

That is exactly what has now been done with your taxes, now that the government has approved taking your money so Maori TV can outbid TVNZ, TV3 and Sky (which owns Prime) in buying the free-to-air broadcast rights to the Rugby World Cup.

In short, the government has kneecapped two private companies, and its own company, in order to subsidise an already highly subsidised broadcaster. MTS gets $16.5 million of your money, through the ever accountable Te Puni Kokiri, in this year along just to broadcast. This is clearly a big piece of pork for the Maori Party. Given Maori TV is meant to exist to promote the language, not be a platform to broadcast sports, you do have to wonder about how this is compatible with it.

Of course, the strategy presumably is to get more people to get their TVs tuned into the channel, and more watching it, to boost the ratings, the advertising revenue and for that to have a follow on impact on ratings for other programmes. It's not enough that MTS gets over $300,000 a week in subsidies, no it needs the government to buy the broadcasting rights for it.

The NZ Herald reports the cost is NZ$3 million. It is, of course, worthless to you as you would have been able to see it anyway on whatever channel it is on (notwithstanding coverage issues).

Just another day in the life of a government that happily spends your money, like the last lot did, buying special interests when it feels the need to do so. Maybe Maori would have preferred the money as a tax cut?

Time to abolish NZ On Air

David Farrar has written apparently sympathetically about the idea of extending the state broadcasting subsidy body - NZ On Air - to other media. This was because Fran O'Sullivan proposed it, and Janet Wilson appeared to endorse it.

What nonsense.

As people consume media increasingly online, they are doing so without state subsidy (although Labour poured a little into subsidising infrastructure and National is keen to pour vastly more into it). In the meantime, it has never been cheaper or more accessible to produce video footage or recordings. The excuses of the expense of local production making it difficult to make "Kiwi Kontent" now lie in only one place - the salaries of those working in the sector.

NZ On Air is, in effect, a job subsidy programme. It pays for people to work in the film and television industries (and state radio), from actors to producers, directors, camera crew, editors and the rest. A labour of love for many.

The argument that without NZ On Air, national culture on broadcasting would suffer is only true if you believe that the people whose jobs are supported by this subsidy would do something else. Many wouldn't. The question really is, who should pay for something that those working in the sector say is so valuable?

Should you be forced to pay for programmes you don't watch and didn't ask for? No. Of course not.

Plenty of people provide online content and do not get subsidised. Of course a significant number of households choose to pay for TV they want, through Sky and Telstra Clear cable television. People want what those companies offer, and those who don't aren't forced to pay.

So who SHOULD pay? Those who are such loud advocates for it. The people who say it is good for you. However, most importantly, all those working in the sector should do their bit - and work for free.

How can the humble taxpaying public be expected to embrace culture they are forced to pay for, if so much of what they pay goes into the pockets of those proclaiming how good it is for them?

No. If you work in the NZ On Air subsidised sector and think it is so valuable, then you do it for free and ask people to donate for your time.

Otherwise, isn't it just another form of rent seeking?

NZ On Air should be told that no more money will be available for any future allocations. Existing contracts will be honoured, but that is it. Radio NZ will face a similar fate, but can start to tout for donations, subscriptions and sponsorship.

Suddenly, TVNZ, TV3 and Sky will find it cheaper to make New Zealand content, because a whole host of people, whose jobs were dependent on the taxpayers, have to cut their income expectations in the hope of working in the sector they love. The time has come to stop propping up this vestige of protectionism.

Whoopi Goldberg's excuse for Polanski

Just when you thought you'd heard everything, Whoopi Goldberg, who one would think of as being a feminist and someone who would embrace protecting young people from violence says:

"I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape", according to the Daily Telegraph.

Hmm drugging then telling a minor to submit to having sex with him is what then? So when a 13yo girl doesn't struggle and fight, then it's what?

Oh that's right, it's the entertainment industry. You're special, you do so much for us, it's not so serious when one of you rapes a young girl right?

You pontificate about politics, judge so many other sectors, yet far too many of you give excuses for your friends to do violence to others.

The ONLY person with any right to say anything about this case is the victim, who happens to want it all to be left alone. That is the only mitigating factor as to how it is treated now.

Oh and she isn't the only one making excuses. Here is a petition (in French) signed by more than a few famous people, appeasing the man's forcible rape of a young girl.

What to cut? Here’s a conservative list

With the party conferences of the Socialist Liberal Democrats and the Nanny Labour Party out of the way here in the UK, next comes the Conservative Party. Can it inspire so that instead of Labour simply losing the election to it, that it positively wins? I have to say it is unlikely.

However, with First Past the Post, the realistic alternatives have extremely remote chances of getting anywhere. UKIP is a party that is welcome on scepticism about the European Union grand state collectivist project, but also painfully stupid on economics with a protectionist streak. The embryonic Libertarian Party UK on the other hand is so limp wristed with its “libertarian” policies, that it looks to the left of Thatcher.

So, given the UK’s enormous public scepticism about politicians, the widespread belief that the state has grown too much and the understanding that the budget deficit must be drastically cut and eliminated, so that the huge burden of new Labour inspired public debt can be cut, I thought I’d pull together a list of spending cuts that any half arsed decent Conservative government ought to have the courage to implement:

1. Scrap the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and terminate all subsidy, loan and other forms of state support for businesses. The best support British business can get from government is to cut taxation and get the hell out of the way. No picking winners, no corporate welfare. Phase out all schemes to give money to employers to recruit and train people.
2. Lead a determined campaign at Brussels to cut the size of the EC budget substantively. Declare that the UK will cut its contribution regardless, and that if other EC member states don’t like it, then they can be reminded of their own widespread breaches of rules regarding budget deficits and the Euro. A first priority should be an immediate suspension of all export subsidy schemes, and a nominal freeze on the growth of agricultural subsidies.
3. Start a new round of privatisation. The Royal Mail and Channel 4 should be the top of the list. However it is time to be really bold and include the motorways. Don’t do the lot in one go, start by selling the tolled crossings separately, then regional networks of motorways, for extended lease periods. You’ll have to find a way to pay the new owners from taxes you collect, but give the owners a period to introduce electronic tolling, then cut back on fuel tax.
4. Cut spending on unprofitable railway projects. No new high speed railway. Let projects proceed only if Network Rail accepts full risk of borrowing and paying it back from track access charges. It is time the railway started paying for itself. Crossrail should be the last big taxpayer supported rail project.
5. Scrap the ID card scheme. It might only save £40m says the Home Office, but it is unnecessary and immoral. Write it off.
6. Scrap a wide range of major IT projects, like ContactPoint, NHS National IT Programme, the expansion of the DNA database to include innocents.
7. Scrap subsidising rural broadband. In the meantime, restore BT’s property rights over its own network. It is increasingly seen as a legacy system anyway.
8. Abolish all regional development agencies and suspend further funding of regeneration schemes. There isn’t the money to spend on state property investment.
9. Charge people on the NHS who are “no shows” for any appointments, charge all people who visit A & E with anything less than an urgent emergency, introduces charges for more than 1 GP visit a year for everyone 18-65 who is not below the poverty line. Freeze NHS spending in nominal terms.
10. Radically reform funding of the Scottish Executive, so that funding is proportionate to actual taxation raised from Scotland. Let the Scottish Executive cut what it can.
11. Eliminate extra welfare for people already on welfare who have additional children.
12. Negotiate an end to EU welfare tourism that entitles EU citizens to claim welfare in each others’ member states. The UK will withdraw from such provisions, meaning UK citizens cannot claim welfare elsewhere in the EU, and vice versa, except for old age pensions on a like for like basis.
13. Freeze all public sector pay until the budget is in surplus.
14. Terminate immediately all new taxpayer contributions to public sector pension schemes and announce that there can be no new members. This is exactly what New Zealand did in the early 1990s.
15. Abolish all new agencies created in the past 12 years. From those regulating childcare to those regulating the postal sector. Britain lived quite happily without them before, it can do so again.

Meanwhile, do not increase any taxes. Prepare for a simplification and general reduction in taxation once budget deficits have been eliminated. Announce what these are likely. Don’t cut defence. It is your core role and the mission in Afghanistan is hamstrung by appalling management and budgeting. Whilst Iran and Russia continue to sabre rattle, now is not the time to cut Trident.

Oh and really, this list is shamefully short. I have barely touched welfare, housing, health or education. This should be the easy stuff politically, although some (like Europe) will take some backbone.

What are the chances even a third of this list could be adopted?

Something else Israel's neighbours wont allow

This post, criticising some of Netanyahu's speech, in a major Israeli newspaper.

You see, the only permitted press in Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, or indeed most of Israel's neighbours (Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon far less so), would not contemplate printing a column being profoundly critical of an address made by their political leader.

It shows that there IS real debate within Israel about such things as whether the IDF acting excessively or not against Hamas in Gaza, and noting some of the treatment of Palestinian protestors.

What struck me was not the criticisms themselves, but that Israel, unlike its neighbours, has a vibrant civil society, open press and has the sorts of debates that we take for granted in the western world. The sorts of debates that are more difficult to have in other states in the Middle East, or banned in the case of Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia.

In other words, Israel's enemies fear their own people turning on them, which says volumes about their own legitimacy.

Harriet Harman ignores the US constitution

There is, in the US, a rather unpleasant website called Punternet. It effectively is a website for consumers of prostitutes to rate their experiences. It is legal in the US, indeed it is constitutionally protected free speech. The speech may be highly offensive to many, but that is not a ground to prohibit it, it is, after all, just a series of opinions about consensual experiences between adults. For many it is no doubt a bit of prurient reading, for some it may be useful. It rates prostitutes in the UK . Again, this is protected by the First Amendment. Nobody has to go there, and no crime is committed to produce the website.

However, these are boundaries that enemies of free speech don't respect. They believe free speech which offends should be banned. So what is the result?

According to The Times, Harriet Harman, the Equalities Minister (an Orwellian role if ever there was one) thinks the Governor of California should ignore the US Constitution, and ban the website, because it offends her for encouraging the "commodification of women". Whether it does or does not is besides the point.

Sorry Harriet, just because the UK doesn’t enjoy protection of civil liberties by Constitution, and just because you have a petty fascist attitude to that which “offends you”, doesn’t mean you can extend your bullying ways to the USA.

Harriet has been criticised by Carrie Mitchell, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, who said "Once again instead of prioritising dealing with rape and other violence, Harman is prioritising censorship and repression”. So not even those who represent prostitutes believe in this supposed attempt to protect them, they'd rather the Police better dealt with real crime.

Nobody has a right to not be offended, for it were true, then I’d ban Harman and most of the utterings of this contemptible government for offending me and millions of Britons every day. This latest extension of the authoritarian "do as we say for your own good" nanny state shows further how vile the British Labour Party is, wanting other countries to break their own Constitutions to extend the nanny state into their jurisdiction, because of the limits of their own authoritarian reach.

Oh and well done Harriet, you’ve made Punternet’s day by undoubtedly increasing the hit rate from the UK by a significant factor. Today it is ranked 1053rd in the UK (according to Alexa), with 36576 hits yesterday. Let’s see how it is in the next two days….

Can't rural women pay for their own broadband?

The call by Rural Women New Zealand to force taxpayers to pay for them to be able to watch Youtube more easily, listen to foreign radio broadcasts, swap holiday photos and play multiplayer computer games (and no doubt some looking at porn) is outrageous.

There is no right to high speed broadband services. Just as there is no right to free car parking next to your job, or no right to have paddocks to keep horses on.

If Rural Women New Zealand want fast broadband access, nothing is stopping them paying for it, signing long term contracts with prospective suppliers and seeing who will provide it. If no one will, nothing is stopping them entering the market themselves and providing these services which they claim are in demand.

Nothing except, they don’t want to pay the cost of providing it.

If they don’t like how much it costs, they can always move into one of the main centres where such broadband services are available. You see, if you live in remote areas why should you not be surprised that you don’t get everything that is economic to provide in cities?

In the meantime, they might contemplate why, if taxpayers are forced to subsidise their choice to live remote from telecommunications infrastructure, why they shouldn’t pay for car parking for people at work in cities (which rural people “unfairly” get for free at their jobs), pay for city home owners to acquire an acre of land each upon which their kids can play and they can keep multiple pets including ponies, and pay for increases in road capacity so city dwellers can enjoy uncongested trips, like country dwellers do. After all school children in cities miss out on having open spaces to play in, and the opportunities to interact with nature, and it is “unfair” that they don’t.

Instead, you might just accept that where you live has advantages and disadvantages, and if you live in remote areas, you get cheap land, wide open spaces, empty roads, in exchange for being remote.

Iran or Israel, how are they equals?

I fully agree with the sentiments of Not PC on the simply brilliant speech by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The video is here (in 4 parts)

However, the text is here.

He refutes the ridiculous Holocaust denial claims of the dictator buffoon Ahmadinejad, he describes the Islamic fundamentalism of Iran correctly as follows:

"Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.

It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death."

He points out the wonder of human achievement, the application of free minds to the world:

"The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.

It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet."

He describes how Israel withdrew, unilaterally from Gaza, in the hope it would bring the advancement of peace but:

"In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent."

Meanwhile, far too many think Iran can't be pursuing nuclear weapons, or if it is, it is "ok", because Israel has them. Israel has had them for some years, but hasn't threatened to ever use them, except in retaliation for use against Israel. Iran's recent military coup and election rigging is "ok", because after all, it has to be better than the USA, what with George Bush invading Iraq (another "legitimate" state perhaps) and Afghanistan. The very same cover their eyes when told of the execution of political prisoners in Iran, the second highest execution rate in the world after China, and ignore the execution of homosexuals or minors for sex crimes - being consensual sex. The very same people ignore the persecution of those who want to choose to reject Islam, and ignore the systematic oppression of free press and media.

The same who claim to give a damn about freedom of speech, about womens' rights, supporting gay and lesbian rights, but are happy to let Iranians live with none of the above.

It reminds me of the wilful blindness of the old left who wanted to "listen" to the men who rewarded snipers who shot desperate East Germans trying to cross the Berlin Wall, or "understand" what Nicolae Ceausescu's new way for Romania, without Soviet troops, or recognise the advantages that the Soviet Union brought for education, employment and in housing. The same lickspittles and sycophants who regard Western claims of militarism and human rights abuses with disdain, so denying the victims of dictatorial regimes the legitimacy of their experiences.

In which case I say this.

If you think Iran has a legitimate government with rights, then why do you not endorse a similar government for your own country? If it is good enough for Iranians to get political candidates chosen for them by a theocratic council, to have election results gerrymandered by the incumbent, for political protests to be put down by a state security agency that arrests and imprisons, for newspapers, radio and TV to be fully state controlled to prevent messages "unwelcome" to the regime being distributed, and for bloggers and others online to be persecuted and arrested for criticising the regime, then why not for YOUR country?

If you think it's ok for a theocratic dictatorship to acquire nuclear weapons, then presumably you embrace widespread nuclear proliferation.

If you think it's ok for a theocratic dictatorship to call for Israel to be erased from the map, then presumably you think so too. So go on, explain how you'd propose that be achieved? Explain how little bloodshed that would entail and how that would promote freedom, human rights and secularism in the Middle East? How would it be compatible with your opposition to the invasion of Iraq?

Pity Guinea

Guinea doesn't make the news typically. However, it is quite simply an example of a country where the state is little more than an organised gang of thieves, using its monopoly on legitimised violence, to enrich itself and to pillage and oppress the citizens.

A military coup late last year, following the death of Lansana Conte (himself President since 1984 following a military coup, and then several highly questionable elections) meant it is today a military led regime, that has pledged elections within 2 years. The coup leader and effective head of state, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has railed against corruption in the meantime.

However, as protestors filled the streets of the capital, Conakry, angry at Camara's announcement he wishes to stand in elections next year, the BBC reports soldiers have opened fire and massacred them. Reports range from 87 to 187 killed. Apparently soldiers have simply been let loose, and without control have assaulted people in the street and in their homes, with reports of looting and rape of women. Captain Camara has condemned the attacks, but claimed it was difficult to control the soldiers.

However, the Guinean army has a record of suppressing protests, having done so in 2007 with a general strike, and crackdown on the media. Guinea itself having suffered from insurgency of rebels from Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Guinea has 25% of the world's known deposits of bauxite, but with ample potential for other minerals and agriculture. Yet it is beset with decades of mismanagement, corruption and dictatorship. It is, for most, just another poster child of the failure of African leaders to provide the conditions for economic and social stability and growth, operating more as a kleptocracy than a government that defends the rights of its citizens and their property.

Meanwhile, a country with per capita GDP of only US$1002 per annum (PPP) has a 15,000 strong army destroying wealth and pillaging from the citizenry. Given Papua New Guinea has more than double that GDP per capita, as does Cambodia, it tells you just what a sorry state Guinea is in.

Gordon Brown promises bigger government

Gordon Brown has made his last speech as Labour Party leader at a Labour Party conference. In a call to arms, to fight the next election, he declared a host of new policies, policies which reflect how little he has learnt, and how dependent the Labour Party is on making people dependent on the state. He has said Labour should never stop in its goal to win the next election

He has announced:
- Electoral reform. Presumably, like the left in New Zealand in the early 1990s, he sees the future in coalitions with the Liberal Democrats, Greens or even Welsh and Scottish nationalists. For any politician facing certain defeat, calling for electoral reform is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
- A Nationalised Elderly Care Service: More government for the elderly, including “free” care in the home, which someone will be forced to pay for;
- Free child care for the poor, “paid for” by abolishing tax relief for middle income taxpayers. Given parents can’t let friends or neighbours provide it, it’s no surprise;
- Teenage single mothers to be put into government run homes to be taught how to be parents. Because it’s too difficult to teach them not to become parents or not to pay them to become parents?
- National ID cards wont be compulsory, which begs the question, why bother?
- “Create” 10,000 “Green jobs” by taxing those already with jobs and those who create jobs;
- Remove hereditary peers from the House of Lords (about the only thing I can seriously agree with);
- Expand the scope of Post Offices in banking;
- Raise tax “at the very top”, because nothing satisfies the left like punishing the successful to try to pay for its own profligacy;
- Tougher on crime, although he fails to admit the chronic under spending on prisons and the meagre sentences for violent offences, whilst the state focuses on hysteria over every adult being a potential pedophile;
- Promises on allowing weekend and evening GP visits, without addressing the chronic waste and production line standards of socialised free GP visits.

He claimed the Conservatives were wrong about the recession, yet fails to accept his own litany of mistakes from selling gold reserves to running perpetual deficits. He is proud of rescuing Northern Rock, when small to medium depositors were already protected from all bank failings by a deposit insurance scheme. Northern Rock could have been allowed to fail, and a strong message of restraint and risk management would have been taken by other banks. The wise could have taken over the weak, and future generations wouldn’t be paying the cost. Inflated asset prices (like property) would have been allowed to properly deflate, but Gordon Brown would have had to face thousands of mortgagees who stupidly borrowed too much to ride this speculative bubble. Instead, housing prices remain excessive. There was more worshipping of the NHS “which we love”, instead of noticing that for the vast increase in spending, there has been a 10% drop of productivity.

The unions are happy, which tells enough about how much he has swung Labour back to the left, back to more government, more taking from the productive middle income earners to give to the dependent and create more dependency.

So new Labour is old Labour, more government, no accountability for 12 years of deficits, wasteful spending and setting up the monetary and fiscal policies that saw the creation of the speculative bubble. A bubble that Brown hasn’t allowed to burst in the face of those who pursued it.

Gordon Brown thinks he knows best how to spend half of the money earned by taxpayers, and has been borrowing almost every year he has been in government, so that future generations can pay for the profligacy of the present. Millions of Britons live in ghettos of underclass, where many live in fear of petty crime and antisocial behaviour, unwilling to confront knife touting youths, whilst the state focuses on stopping people taking each others’ kids to sports events or babysitting them. Labour’s culture of dependency, of government solutions and strategies for everything, has been an abject failure.

Can there be hope that the other lot will be substantively better?

Hey others abuse kids too

Oh really, as true as it may be, you do have to wonder at the wisdom of Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, reported as saying that child abuse is common in other churches too. He claims 1.5-5% of clergy are involved in child abuse, which even if conservative is disgraceful.

However, there is no penance in being a party to covering up crimes to finger point "them too".

Of course, protestant churches and preachers of other religions abuse children too. Who has ever denied this? This also gets exposed and continues to be a cause of concern, but this reminds of the Albanian communist politician who on Australian TV said "every country has political prisoners" to excuse the then Stalinist state's repression of dissent.

Until the Vatican demands that all those who have committed atrocities towards children stand up and give themselves up to the authorities, and excommunicates the guilty, it can hardly start pointing fingers at others. Its own house absolutely reeks.

Nanny State Beer

No. Really!

The Daily Telegraph reports "A brewer criticised for making what it claimed is Britain's strongest beer has unveiled an ale with a 1.1 per cent alcohol content, which it has called Nanny State."

Sales Director of Brewdog said "the new beer had such a low-alcohol content that the Government did not class it as a beer and it was not subject to beer duty.

There is more on the Brewdog blog. Including how Alcohol Focus Scotland doesn't think it is funny because it"proves that once again this company is failing to acknowledge the seriousness of the alcohol problem facing Scotland". Joyless little Nanny State worshippers who don't understand people don't like being told what to do.

Of course the test will be in the tasting, time to compare Nanny State to Tokyo (the highest alcohol content beer) methinks. By the way Tokyo includes hops from New Zealand.

George Wood urges caution on Auckland rail

While the outgoing Chair of the ARC, Mike Lee, plays politics (he is an Alliance member from way back) in demanding the government cough up money for lavish rail plans that haven't even had any serious investigation done, George Wood talks some commonsense in the NZ Herald. The basic questions that rail enthusiasts, like the ARC, evade and avoid, because they have a grand vision of changing Auckland.

Wood is concerned about accurate costings and whether all these projects are good value for money, he notes "The Northern Busway Project was a good case in point. The final costs were considerably greater (nearly double) than the initial early estimations.". The record of rail project in the US shows on average public transport projects finish 20% above budget.

"A few decades ago the majority of employment was in the Auckland Central Business District. People now find their place of work is in the outer suburbs where they live, or they travel to other parts of the region.

In the case of North Shore City, in excess of 60 per cent of workers do not have to leave that city to find work. These days the majority of the Auckland region's workers never have to travel into the Auckland CBD."

He's right, but the planners still think of Auckland in the 1950s or want to go back to it. Only 11.7% of jobs in Auckland are in the CBD. So you might ask why spending over a billion dollars to service those jobs is worthwhile, particularly when half the people in those jobs don't live anywhere near a railway station or line. Half as many jobs are in Mt Wellington and Penrose, but the planners have no interest in commuters going there.

"In the next three years the operational subsidies provided by ratepayers will amount to $43.3 million. The remaining 60 per cent of this three-year operational cost, which amounts to $108.2 million, comes from petrol taxes and road user charges paid by Auckland's motorists."

So $36 million a year in subsidies, for around 8 million trips a year. So that means every trip carries a $4 subsidy. You might think it would be better if fare payers could pay that, but even if they did, it wouldn't start to cover the capital costs.

"Once the new rolling stock is purchased someone, and again it will probably be the ratepayers and motorists, will then have to pay for the depreciation of this equipment. This will amount to around $12 million a year" Oh and you're forced to pay for the rolling stock new as well of course.

"In 2001 ... we were told that 25 million passengers would be using the metro rail network by 2015. We are still a long way off this figure. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority has now revised its target down to 17 million passenger trips by 2016. This is still a huge increase when last year's annual figure was 7.9 million."

In other words, the massively inflated targets for patronage aren't being met, so the targets get revised and history is rewritten. What does that remind you of?

"Buses operating in the region carry six times the number of passengers carried by our trains. Buses are a far more cost-effective means of providing transport services to all our communities."

Indeed he is right. Buses carry around 43 million trips a year, (2007/2008) compared to around 8 million on rail. Some bus services are unsubsidised, but the annual subsidy total in Auckland for buses is around $93 million, so around $2.16 per trip. Cheaper than rail certainly, and it would be cheaper still if the ARC hadn't poured so much into contracting over commercial routes, and decimating profitable bus routes with the competing rail services. Subsidies were only $45 million in 2005, with similar levels of patronage, so the ARC geniuses have more than doubled subsidies with no net increase in patronage. Given the big increases to and from the North Shore with the new busway, this means significant declines on the Isthmus. This was before the recession.

So while George Wood is largely right, I wouldn't take the ARC or the new Supercity as the great model in fiscal prudence in looking after public transport in Auckland. I most certainly wouldn't think Mike Lee has any good record in knowing how to spend ratepayers' money. It's about time Auckland and central government took stock before pouring more money into Auckland's public transport networks.

Attacking bankers or how to chase away an industry

Gordon Brown has promised to crack down on bankers' pay and bonuses, as he attempts to cynically grab support from traditional Labour supporters by playing the envy card.

He says:

"It will mean an end to automatic bank bonuses year after year. It will mean an end to immediate payouts for top management. Any bonuses will be deferred over time so they can be clawed back if they are warranted by long term performance"

He lies that such salaries were to blame for the financial crisis, ignoring the loose credit from the Bank of England over many years, and the kneejerk willingness to bail out all banks with taxpayers' money, rewarding the foolish, whilst the prudent retain them as competition.

Allister Heath in City AM puts it well "pay's role was merely tangential during the current boom and bust – and for that matter, in all previous bubbles.

The main drivers were the ridiculously low interest rate policy pursued for years by a Fed obsessed with preventing all recessions; the crippling East-West imbalances in savings and investment flows ....; global rules which promoted low capital reserves for banks, with many loopholes; and a giant intellectual error which thought that bubbles were impossible, that house prices would never fall and that statistical models had allowed bankers and regulators to control risk completely."

furthermore "All the restrictions on bonuses being dreamt up by the Fed or G20 would have done nothing to stop the bubble. We would have had sub-prime and CDOs. Life is not that easy; what a shame nobody wants to know."

So the UK will be the first Western economy to directly regulate the salaries in the banking sector, a measure that will simply chase away the financial sector from the UK. Already it is reported that there is a drift east

"HSBC's CEO Mike Geoghegan will now be based in Hong Kong rather than Canary Wharf. This is bad news for London: the world's centre of gravity is moving East. But the real tragedy, judging from his latest anti-City rant yesterday, is that Gordon Brown wants to accelerate this power shift. Our loss will be Asia's gain – but that's the madness of populist politics for you.".

Of course, following that, the envy merchants of the left are pushing for more self destructive policies, with Idiot Savant cheering on Slovenia's crazy new 90% tax rate on salaries and bonuses in the government assisted banking sector. Sounds like a great opportunity for lawyers to find loopholes, be simpler if the banks were left to fail though wouldn't it?

While bankers should be accountable for failure, what makes politicians accountable when they destroy vast quantities of wealth in a moment? Like Gordon Brown did in selling half of the UK's gold reserves in 1997 when gold was at a 20 year low.

Why should anyone trust this man with their money?

Kiwirail's illiterate and foolish fanatics

The NZ Herald report that the government expects Kiwirail to be financially self sustaining is a relief rather than a joy. It's the bare minimum I should hope for.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party, which destroyed $330 million of taxpayers wealth by buying this ailing business, after already letting it off the hook for not paying all track access charges that were owed, is desperately wanting you to pay more of your money to subsidise the freight movements of businesses. Labour can't give a single good reason why the users of rail freight deserve privileged treatment, and besides which, farmers are NOT dependent on Kiwirail. Fertiliser can go by road, and the milk that goes by rail is for Fonterra.

The economically illiterate lobby group "Campaign for Better Transport", which is largely aligned to the Green Party in terms of policies, goes further.

It is a relentless assault on the English language, that combines illiteracy of the language and punctuation with economic illiteracy and a strong hint of paranoid conspiracy theories. It is so damned ignorant that it is no surprise it isn't taken seriously by transport policy makers. I know, since I used to be one.

For starters, who can take seriously the following failures at English:

"Steven Joyce has come out swinging today against Kiwirail, as he says it will loose $1 million per day." Loose what??

"the Campaign For Better Transport (CBT) is questioning the Ministers figures" How many Ministers?

"Recently Joyce said KiwiRail was worth around $360 million dollars which we all know is unbelieveable" Unbelieveable? No, this preteen English standard is unbelievable.

"If I was a business owner I certainly would not put Steven Joyce incharge of quotations, Reeves said." incharge? Another new word. Comma missing too.

"In recent months is has become clear" is what?

"some unusal right wing groups have been producing reports with unusal facts and figures against Kiwirail" unusal? How creative, another new unusual word.

"yet it moves over 15% of the countries freight" What are all the countries?

"the nations rail network" Again, what are the other nations?

"The Campaign For Better Transport would like the Minister of Transport like" Like, whatever?

Poor Jon Reeves, he obviously did so badly at English at school (and CBT doesn't do spell checking) but wait, there's more. He can't even get his facts right.

He claims it is "ridiculous" to value Kiwirail at $360 million. Why? Because he puts forward the ludicrous implication that it be valued at replacement cost. As if anyone would pay replacement cost for it. As if Telecom, or any power lines company could be sold at replacement cost. Jon, it is called a "sunk cost". Money has been put into Kiwirail's assets that can never be recovered. You're no market analyst or businessman. By implication, Toll Rail was stupid to sell it at such a low cost and the sharemarket so badly wrong at undervaluing it, except for one point. It is worth $360 million because that's the value it might generate either in net revenues over time, and by implication, if sold on the open market.

Oh the Kaimai Tunnel? It is 8.879 km long, not 9.5 km long. Doesn't take much to check that fact, but then you're as good with facts as you are with spelling and grammar.

You wouldn't put Steven Joyce in charge of quotations if you were a business owner? Well he was a business owner, he was a millionaire at age 38 thanks to a business he set up at age 21. I don't think he really could give a damn what you think about his business acumen. Do you?

You claim that unusal (sic) right wing groups have been producing unusal (sic) facts and figures against Kiwirail. Who are these? What evidence do you have that the trucking lobby has been "working hard" on him, when he rejected their call to abolish road user charges?

You say "The Minister is throwing $8.8 billion dollars at roads so trucks can take away rail freight business", which is a complete non sequitur. The money for roads came from road users, who pay for road maintenance and capital expenditure, and besides, most roads don't compete with railways. Besides it isn't $8.8 billion a year yet you then say "giving Kiwirail only $90 million per year yet it moves over 15% of the countries freight"(sic). The money Kiwirail gets does NOT come from rail users, but from taxpayers. The link is illogical. Coastal shipping moves a fair proportion of freight but gets no subsidy, so what?

I might suggest that besides getting some literate spokespeople, the CBT might start having even a paucity of knowledge about economics and how the transport system is funded and financed, and throw away the paranoid conspiracy theories.

A better approach would be to read this article by Luke Malpass from the Centre for Independent Studies where he says:

"the present Government has only one policy option - the reform, rationalisation and resale of KiwiRail. The difficult reality is that many of the unprofitable lines must be closed while the Government prepares to sell off separate parts of rail to interested parties in the private sector. The rail system needs to shrink substantially to become viable in the long term. Only then will taxpayers be insulated from further political expediency and foolishness.

Without such bold action, rail is going to continue to be a drag on the economy and a constant cost for taxpayers, who have already spent a billion dollars on the business in the past year."

As one sex offender finally is caught...

Like Not PC, I'm not really giving a damn about Roman Polanski finally getting caught. His achievements do not exonerate the predatory and violent treatment of a vulnerable young girl. These reports PC posted tell enough.

However, I am more concerned about this story, thanks also to Not PC. It essentially is the criminalisation of dozens upon dozens of teenage boys in the USA, for having sex, consensual factually (if not legally) with their girlfriend. The age difference is insignificant, but they are not only criminals, but registered sex offenders for life, with their names, faces, addresses constantly updated. In effect, they now have a life sentence of being unable to gain employment, or even find somewhere to live without harassment.

This is the consequence of a draconian blind war on sex crimes. The result is that the biggest victim isn't the girlfriend, but the "offender" who has, by and large, offended the precious feelings of the callous puritans.

It is a result Iran and the Taliban would sympathise about. It is a result warmly embraced by the Republicans and the Democrats.

Oh and in case you think New Zealand is immune from this, remember the hysteria from compassionate conservatives when Labour tried to amend the law to stop silly prosecutions of teenagers for fooling around with each other? Of course it couldn't do it.

Are you licensed to look after your neighbour's children?

For you see, in Britain, you might be breaking the law if you aren't.

According to The Times, Two Police officers regularly looked after each others' kids while they were on shift work. A perfectly normal voluntary arrangement between parents, for mutual benefit, and the benefit of the kids who have parents willing to work odd hours, to help raise the family.

You might think the state would simply let this be, or indeed private citizens would think nothing of it. No.

You see in Britain, there is an insipid culture that frankly would not have looked out of place in the former German Democratic Republic (that's "communist east Germany" for the confused). A neighbour noticed this arrangement and tipped off, Ofsted. Ofsted? The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills. It has existed since 2007, and of course how did Britain cope without it?

You see if you look after children, who you are not related to, for more than two hours, for "reward", you must have a licence. You need to have First Aid training, training in childcare (amazing how parents can manage without this!) and be checked as to whether you have a criminal record. Reward in this case was the reciprocal provision of the service. However, money, baking a cake or giving a lift would also be a reward.

Yes, you read right. You cannot look after someone else's children for reward without a licence.

So the vile Stasi agent style neighbour having contacted Ofsted resulted in an inspector coming to visit to ask questions.

THIS is New Labour, this is the Nanny State going yet another step into intruding into the private arrangements of citizens. It follows on from the law that requires anyone who regularly deals informally with children, whether visiting a school or giving lifts to kids to sports clubs, to be vetted not just for crimes, but suspicions by private citizens that someone is a bit weird. It should send shivers up and down the spines of most people. It has shades of the Orwellian vision Dr. Cindy Kiro shared with the Green Party, had for New Zealand families.

At what point do people stand up and say no. When parents have a door knock every year to interview little Sam and Sarah, asking them if they ever get hit, ever see daddy's penis, ever hear anything racist from mummy and daddy, ever see them put recyclable items in with the rubbish, ever see any books that confuse them, ever get scared of mummy and daddy, what they eat and drink, whether they exercise much, etc etc?

Meanwhile, do people think it's ok for the state to licence almost every arrangements parents have with other adults involving their kids?

New Labour’s Britain, with full consent by the Tories and Liberal Democrats, doesn’t trust parents to make judgments about who should look after their kids, but apparently you’re all meant to trust the state.

So when a registered, state approved person next rapes a kid, will the parents be able to sue Nanny State for failing to protect them? No, of course not. It is more intrusion, and no more responsibility.

Those providing childcare should not rely on the state to approve its workers. No. Parents should ask childcare centres to demonstrate they do criminal vetting of their staff, and provide references. Most parents will only entrust their kids to centres who prove their safety and care for the kids. To make this a state regulated activity is in effect to nationalise it. It says to parents, don’t worry, the state has vetted everyone, they are trained, they are ok.

It says to parents, don’t you make your own judgment, the state knows better, and more disturbingly, it says that the state has the right to interfere in any private arrangements you make with others. In short, you can’t be trusted. Everyone’s a suspect until proven innocent. What sort of country does that make it then?

Labour's death wish

It’s almost hilarious to see Alastair Darling in the Observer saying senior Ministers in the UK are “losing the will to live” in respect of how the government is limping along. Gordon Brown’s absolute rank incompetence as a politician is demonstrable, with Labour facing the very real risk of the Liberal Democrats getting the same proportion of the vote as Labour. Why?

Gordon Brown claims to have saved the economy, yet all that is happening is a small bubble of speculation using quantitative easing cash (borrowed money) on the sharemarket and in property. There is no real of growth in consumer confidence or employment. Besides which, his attempt to blame bankers has half backfired. After all, who was in charge at the time? Who let the property market bubble (indeed positively encouraged it with loose credit and significant state spending on the “social housing” sector)? After 12 years of government, with people seeing that the UK is worse hit than its major trading partners, is there really any credibility left with the public?

The most recent debacle has been the complete failure by Gordon Brown to portray the coming election between Labour “investing” (read, spending borrowed money from future higher taxes) in Britain and “savage” Tory cuts. The problem was that most people didn’t believe it. With public debt set to soar above 100% of GDP, with constant budget deficits, it takes little to figure out that promising to spend yet more, without substantive tax increases, doesn’t add up. On top of that, most people don’t want to spend more tax. In other words, the British public get it.

They do not believe government spending is efficient or good for them anymore, they want less, they want most of the deficit to be eliminated through spending cuts. So whilst Gordon Brown lied about there being scope for spending increases, the Liberal Democrats came out of left field (where they usually occupy) and promised spending cuts. Yes, the party that was filling the gap to the left of Labour swung into the middle and proposed a long list of spending cuts, many of which are difficult to argue against.

I'd happily tick this list off:
- Abolishing the ID card scheme;
- Freeze public sector pay;
- End civil service bonuses;
- Eliminate family tax credits for higher income earners (welfare in reverse);
- Cut public sector pension schemes;
- Abolish regional development agencies;
- Cut training and skills budgets;
- Cut export credit guarantee department subsidies;
- Sell surplus land (although selling Highways Agency land may well mean future road projects are harder to build).

Although more abolish would be preferred. Sadly, the Liberal Democrats couldn’t resist proposing to abolish Britain’s nuclear deterrent and a silly tax on homes worth more than £1 million. At least it was a start, and bolder than others.

So now Gordon Brown has admitted there need to be cuts. One nuclear submarine is one clear cut, but the rest is more mealy mouthed discussion about efficiencies and some “hard decisions”. Labour doesn’t want to play into the territory of the Tories, it wants to force the Tories to play their hand. A hand they haven’t played very well regardless.

All the Tories have said is that there will need to be cuts, BUT the NHS is immune. This is ludicrous, given that since Labour was elected the NHS has seen spending increase on average by 6.5% every year, in real terms. Most of that has been pocketed by those working there with no increase in productivity, all that has happened is that British medical professionals are now among the best paid in the world. Those who claim there is no profit in this state behemoth monopoly don’t look closely enough at the rent takers that work there.

So where does that leave Brown? Well the Labour conference in Brighton was a sombre affair, whilst Brown attempted to get them excited about fighting back, the only person with any conviction and belief appeared to be the most senior unelected person in Cabinet, Peter Mandelson. He said the “new Labour” project was “far from complete” and describe the Tories as “shallow”.

The problem is that while Mandelson is right about how shallow the Tories are, as they sleepwalk to victory, he is wrong about the future of the “project”. New Labour has increased state dependency, it has been the problem of the past 12 years, and its only achievement has been to largely leave intact much of the reforms of the Thatcher era. In the meantime, it has grown the welfare state, new bureaucracies, new initiatives and taxes, and it is this tinkering that has helped contribute to the failure seen today.

While it is difficult to see much to inspire from the Tories, with its education policy the only shining light, it is more difficult to see how new Labour – with its endless budget deficits, its submission to Brussels, its failed social policies and its ever growing nanny state, has anything left to offer Britain. The Labour Party, which for decades helped stagnate Britain in a post war time warp of planned economic policies and unionised nostalgia, before offering to abandon the Western world and be a democratic version of the USSR, has shown its project to be a failure.

Let the election roll on.

Yes let's listen to Gaddafi says McCarten

So says former Alliance President Matt McCarten.

Why is this fool given space in a mainstream newspaper when it is best left to some leftwing rag?

He says "Rather than reporting fully on some of his valid commentary, the international press almost universally portrayed Gaddafi as some sort of nutty clown"

Of course, given that anyone who dares make fun of him in Libya will get dispatched to prison at best if not oblivion, we shouldn't laugh should we Matt? I mean, a man who gained power through military coup, and has been directly responsible for funding, arming and training murderers the world over, yes, let's not poke fun at him should we?

He is a nutty clown, and if you can't see it through his mad grand projects, his ridiculous cult of personality with statements like "I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam (leader) of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level" and his prize for human rights, then you're a fool or willfully blind.

"The description of his flowing robes, large rings on his fingers and his insistence in staying in tents was intended to make him look comical rather than the cultural racism it is."

Oh yes, silly me, the fact that OTHER Arab leaders don't get the same media treatment (or stay in tents) wouldn't make that just another cheap "racism" jibe, would it Matt? How fucking DARE people make fun of this murdering tyrant?

"we would have learned some valuable insights, such as Libya and almost all Middle East nations don't support Iran being nuclear armed."

Valuable insights? Really? So he can speak on behalf of "almost all Middle East nations", by what mandate? None Matt, Gaddafi doesn't speak for any other states, just the dictatorship of his own. Besides, it is long known that the Arab world opposes Iranian nuclear weapons, if you didn't know then it speaks volumes about any value in your point of view on the topic.

"Unsurprisingly, they want Israel to dismantle their atomic arsenal too." Amazing, who'd have thought?!! Oh and the word is "its" not "their" Matt, there is only one Israel.

"there should be one secular state within the current greater border. This is the most sensible solution for both peoples and needs more air time. Everybody knows the current situation in Israel/Palestine is apartheid, and that it's not sustainable." The current situation isn't sustainable, but isn't Israel not far from being secular as it is? Hamas isn't secular Matt.

"Gaddafi also supports the establishment of a Kashmir state to resolve conflict between India and Pakistan. He even argued the Taleban had a right to form a state too. This is also worthy of further discussion." Oh wonderful, Matt is keen on telling Kashimiris to live together but separate from the two big countries either side of them, and he thinks it's worth discussing putting some people under the joyless tyranny of the Taliban.

Isn't he so nice, drawing lines, creating states? However Matt loves the state doesn't he?

"His best contribution was his expose of the hypocrisy of the United Nations. The UN Charter claims all its nation members are equal. Yet it's run by a Security Council with five nations (US, Britain, France, Russia and China) who can veto any decision." Expose? Yes nobody ever thought of that before. Matt, it might pay for you to read some books on international relations before thinking Gaddafi teaches you things everyone else has heard of.

Matt goes on about the tired old story that the UN Security Council should be restructured to include a bunch of other states, including the veto, then he finds something new, for him...

"his most blistering accusation is that the Security Council is the cause of many wars. Sixty-five wars have occurred since the UN was founded and a permanent member on almost every occasion used its veto to prevent the rest of the world stopping it."

65 wars? Well Gaddafi said so, he MUST be right. What superficial nonsense. The Cold War veto use is well known, but more recently it has primarily been Russia and China to wield vetoes. Not that Matt would want to point that out, see he really likes how Gaddafi lays into the Western World. That's why he mentions about Gaddafi blaming Bush and Blair for killing innocent people, without noting at all how Gaddafi knows about killing innocent people.

Libya is a sad country, it is awash with oil wealth that is wasted on profligate projects, the military, enriching Gaddafi and his stooges, and not much else. Libya is quite third world for most of its inhabitants, and nobody dare utter a word of criticism. You see Libya imprisons and executes political prisoners, it doesn't have the slightest notion of a free press or media.

Read the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information report on Libya

and ask yourself if Matt McCarten might think less about being offended about Gaddafi being called a clown, if he might search out other sages for ideas on international relations, and might give at least a sentence to his articles to give a damn about the people who live under Gaddafi's rule. The man who has supported Idi Amin deserves no respect.

This apologetic naive article shows Matt at best as a shallow badly informed fool, who worst of all has just written a nice piece of propaganda for Gaddafi's sycophantic media.

Can Matt get any worse? Is Kim Jong Il just misunderstood Matt because he's "ronery"?

Kids evade fitness pushers

Got to laugh at this:

"Children taking part in a study to measure how much exercise they do fooled researchers by attaching their pedometers to their pet dogs.

"But after a week we found there were some kids who were extremely active but still obese," said Professor Maffulli.

Human beings have a particular knack in pursuing incentives to evade the instructions of those who tell them what to do.

Hat tip: Vindico

Farewell Sue Mao Bradford

Naturally I can barely concede my joy at this news. Bradford is a Marxist who unashamedly embraces a big violent interfering state that treats the economy as a self-sufficient xenophobic fortress and which has its eyes and hands freely in the homes and bank accounts of everyone, to take what it needs to give to what it wants, and make sure you're being good. What can I say?

Well I do love Not PC's summary of the Greens:

What’s unique about the Greens, of course, is nothing more than their combination of authoritarianism and ludditery – with a a caucus composed almost entirely of the intellectual remnants of the Socialist Workers’ Party they’re little more than a bunch of authoritarians with a marketing wing.

So what has Sue Bradford done that is positive for freedom and prosperity? Let me look back at the times I've referred to her in my posts:

Sue Bradford hates Chinese Workers as she opposed Air New Zealand (mostly state owned which she would consider to be a good thing) buying foreign made uniforms. So she despises trade, wants foreign workers to lose their jobs and is economically illiterate. She'd have NZ pursue a kind of North Korean autarchic self sufficiency no doubt. Didn't stop her flying Air NZ at taxpayers' expense of course. She pushed to make you pay for a Buy NZ Made promotional campaign, that she wouldn't pay for herself of course.

Sue Bradford embracing Cindy Kiro's neo-Stalinist plans to have Big Mother watching over every child, monitoring them all, in case you've been bad parents, rather than focusing on targeting children of parents known to the Police, known to be negligent. She even acknowledged in her press release that "I realise some parents will be horrified by the idea that their children will have regular checkups at key stages of their lives" but it was justified by protecting the kids. Given Sue spent many years gleefully supporting China under the rule of Mao (and drifting away when it started opening up), you can see what her role models are.

Sue Bradford's express belief that nobody should be "forced" to work for a living as she embraced the dole. In other words, why shouldn't everyone just sit on their arses and do nothing and magically food, clothes, electricity, homes, everything you consume will magically appear. Given she long led the self-styled "Unemployed Workers' Union" (quite the oxymoron), you have to wonder how hard she thought anyone should look for a job?

She also demanded the nationalisation of the voluntary sector, by forcing taxpayers to pay for it - which of course, means it is no longer voluntary is it?

Sue Bradford's opposition to Air NZ's efficiency drive which includes cutting staff, she said it wasn't bailed out to become a "mean anti-worker" company. Of course it wouldn't have needed to be bailed out had the likes of Sue and the Greens not rallied wholeheartedly against Singapore Airlines (or any foreign company) increasing its shareholding in the company.

Sue Bradford makes a little news that the SIS was spying on her which a naive reporter thinks it amazing. Hardly a shocker. Trevor Loudon long ago outed her lifelong communism here here and here.

So freedom? Nothing to see here. Prosperity? Nothing to see here.

The truth is that had Sue Bradford's politics had her way some time ago, then none of you would be reading anything other than state approved literature, you'd be working for the state , assuming the People's Republic of Aotearoa had survived the difficult period after 1989. She was a member of the Workers' Communist League in the 1980s after all. Charming really, not that the mainstream media can cope with people having been communists, since the little darlings don't really understand it.

So the Greens and we are all safer without her in Parliament, and this may be a fit of pique at Metiria Turei being selected over her (though Metiria is almost indistinguishable in her views) which of course hardly means the Greens are free of their corrosive, pro-state violence view.

What have others said:

Phil Goff “I admire her passion for the causes she fought for, even if I didn’t always agree with everything she said,” Well at least he wasn't fawning.

The Youth Union Movement cheered her on for increasing youth unemployment by raising the youth minimum wage to the same as the adult. Cheerleaders for Marxism as they are. Finsec and NDU share similar sentiments.

Barnados and Plunket has nailed its colours to the mast of an every interfering state, so maybe some wont be donating so much in the future. Plunket of course was set up to be a eugenics organisation (which it never admits).

Tariana Turia and the Maori Party loved her, birds of a feather they are.

The Maritime Union, the most hardened Marxists of the union movement, and most featherbedded (the single biggest reason why the NZ shipping industry has shrunk to what it is) also embrace her because she advocated protectionism.

Might it be time for the government to stop funding her training camp for radicals in Northland?

Sex with a teacher

Time to take a risk - add sex, a minor and the law, and you get heated views, and the one I'm going to express will be controversial.

A 26 year old teacher has a sexual relationship with a 15yo student (who will be 16 by the end of this month). Your automatic reaction? Appalled. It shouldn’t happen, the teacher should be punished and the student given the support needed.

However in this case there are some more interesting facts:
- The teacher is a woman, the student is a girl;
- The girl and the teacher were close, in love in fact and both apparently still are;
- The sexual relationship was initiated by the student, indeed she pushed for it over some time period;
- There is no victim statement from the student, who did not testify against the teacher. The victim statement is from the parents.

The teacher concerned was a child prodigy, undoubtedly smart and talented, it isn’t hard to see what the student might see in her. The teacher herself, helped to grow up fast because of her talent, may well emotionally be better able to relate to someone younger. Of course, we’ll never know. Indeed none of us should have known about this.

The only reason this got to court was because a woman got wind of the affair, after rumours spread, a meddler told the parents. The parents have reacted feeling betrayed, no doubt as much by their lying daughter as by the teacher, but it doesn’t look like they have spent much time thinking about the consequences of complaining to the Police about it. The likelihood is that their relationship with their daughter, now thoroughly humiliated and guilty for this, will deteriorate. After all, given she initiated the sexual behaviour, her guilt and blame for the devastation of the life of her teacher will be palpable. The teacher is getting 15 months in prison and being put on a sex offenders' registry (notice there is no violent offenders' registry, so you never know if you're going to hire or live near someone who has stabbed, beaten up or shot someone else) for ten years, and can never work with children again - because, of course, a lesbian adult is going to be a threat to 8 year olds presumably!!?!!

So where is the victim? The girl is distraught by the whole case because of how she and the teacher are being treated. In other words, the criminal justice system is caring not a jot for the so-called “victim”.

Let’s be clear here. A teacher should not engage in sexual relations with a pupil, it is entirely inappropriate. This is something that is appropriate to expressly forbid in employment contracts and in gaining teaching accreditation. Breaching this can quite rightly be grounds for dismissal and deregistration. In the UK it is a crime for a teacher to have sex with a pupil under 18, whereas anyone can have sex with those aged 16 and over.

However, the real question is whether it is a criminal matter when the only credible victim feels a victim BECAUSE of the criminal justice system pursuing the case.

In the current age some will feel “well if it had been a male teacher with the girl nobody would be asking these questions”, perhaps. What really matters here though is what is the role of the state in dealing with this case? If the teacher loses her job and her ability to pursue her job as a result of breaching terms and conditions, then so be it, that is appropriate. Beyond that the state is essentially saying the 15yo girl cannot make decisions for herself around sexuality to such a degree (yet she could these choices months later with men and women from aged 16 to 106) that the person who she pursued deserves a custodial sentence. Who is protected by this? What is gained by it?

If you were the parent you would be distressed your daughter went behind your back, and that the teacher and daughter lied continuously about the relationship. Why did they do that? Well it is obvious why they hid it.

Is it a reason to throw the woman in prison, given she can never teach again and faces having to rebuild her life from scratch because of that?

The judge in this case did make an interesting decision on contact between the two parties which speaks volumes about why this should not be a criminal matter. There is no prohibition on them having contact when the girl turns 16, including while the teacher is in prison. In effect, the judge acknowledged the two of them are in love, but the girl was the wrong side of the age line, marginally.

This is, after all, not about someone who is a child. This is not about the teacher approaching the pupil or just submitting to a flirtation, it is about a teenager and a young adult becoming emotionally close, and crossing a line by initiation of the teenager.

Would it not be preferable that in a case like this, there should be no criminal prosecution if the so-called “victim” objects? The question is at what age can one start to allow that, I would suggest the age of criminal responsibility. If someone is deemed old enough to know what she is doing as being right and wrong, surely that person is old enough to decide whether she is a victim.

It’s worth noting, of course, how hypocritical the UK is generally on this sort of thing. The Sun, for example, has had a voyeuristic field day on the case, of course knowing that not a few of its readers will wish that it could publish as many lurid details as possible. Similarly, in England you can be tried and found guilty of murder and rape if you are 10 or over, in other words, you’re an adult in terms of being a criminal from that age. On the one hand, many in the UK want to crack down on youngsters committing crime, quite rightly so, but equally want to treat them as victims and protect them. The truth is that they are somewhere in between that, and sadly the criminal justice system wont deal with that, and no politician would ever try.

The bigger issue is that teenage sexuality is problematic for so many. The reasons being that people are pulled between wanting to let teenagers be themselves and on the other hand shield them from something that is taught to be both very desirable and incredibly awful. That of course is another story, but in a country where all adults who have contact with children are to be treated as perverts unless they can prove their innocence, it is hardly surprising that sensible discussion is nearly impossible. This sort of nonsense which implies that the case of Madeleine McCann has some parallels, is the order of the day. Compare to this case of a 22yo female teacher and a 17yo male student, which was not a crime at the time.

You’re either in favour of being draconian or you’re a suspect. I would suggest that this article may actually have the more important point to be made here. Is it not time that young girls and boys did not feel that sexuality is about attracting attention, rather than reflecting who you are?

After all, it is only when a more rational and humanistic view of sexuality can be taken, will there be the ability of politicians to reflect wider views. Meanwhile, this is the country that plays the draconian card, and which at the same time has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, stuck between guilt, shame, judgment and a massive undercurrent of hedonistic desire and perversion.

What's wrong with US politics

David Walker, in The Wall Street Journal says:

"Members of Congress ensure they have gerrymandered seats where they pick the voters rather than the voters picking them and then they pass out money to special interests who then make sure they have so much money that no one can easily challenge them,"

"He notes that today the role of the federal government has grown such that last year less than 40% of it related to the key roles the Founders envisioned for it: defense, foreign policy, the courts and other basic functions. "What happened to the Founders' intent that all roles not expressly reserved to the federal government belong to the states, and ultimately the people?" he asks. "I'm pleased the recent town halls show people are waking up and realizing it's time to pay attention to first principles."

Who is he?

"He rose to be a partner and global managing director of Arthur Anderson, before being named assistant secretary of labor for pensions and benefits during the Reagan administration. Under the first President Bush, he served as a trustee for Social Security and Medicare, an experience that convinced him both programs are looming train wrecks that could bankrupt the country. In 1998 he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to head the GAO, where he spent the next decade issuing reports trying to stem waste, fraud and abuse in government. Despite many successes, he was able to make only limited progress in reforming Washington's tangled bookkeeping. When he arrived he was told the Pentagon was nearly a decade away from having a clean audit, or clear evidence that its financial statements were accurate. When he left in 2008, he was told the Pentagon was still a decade away from that goal. "If the federal government was a private corporation, its stock would plummet and shareholders would bring in new management and directors," he said as he retired from the GAO."

Oh and he hasn't noticed any change he can believe in since the election of Barack Obama.

"He says his stimulus bill was sold as something it wasn't: "A number of people had agendas other than stimulus, and they shaped the package."

However, I guess since he's criticising the Obama Administration, he's racist, is that right ex.President Carter?