23 July 2014

Forgotten Posts from the Past : In 2009 had Obama gone conservative?

Yep, having been accused of being on the left, he's decided that the old politics of flip flopping and appealing to whoever can get him more votes is exactly what he wants to do.

According to the Times he has flip flopped on a whole host of issues:

"He told a cheering crowd of Israel's supporters of his fervent commitment to the security of the Jewish state and added, for good measure, that an “undivided” Jerusalem should be the nation's capital." So like Bush then?

"He said that he likes free trade after all, and that his primary campaign pledge to dismantle the North American Free Trade Agreement was a case of “overheated rhetoric”. " Well he still voted for more agricultural protectionism, and has done virtually nothing to restart a WTO trade round.

"Last week he expressed support for a Supreme Court decision that struck down a ban on handguns and opposition to another that outlawed the death penalty for rape of a child. " Hold on, so what party is he from again? Defending handgun ownership? Supporting executing child rapists? 

"This week he promised to expand President Bush's faith-based organisations initiative, a programme that channels funds to religious groups so that they can deliver social welfare services" say what? So church and state are separate, but funding religious groups (not mentioning non-religious) is a change?

Was it just the case that Barack Obama, far from being the "change" candidate, was the "I want power" candidate?

21 July 2014

Cheering on religious theocracy

We should live in a Christian theocracy.

Those who are not Christians can live in peace, but the laws they live under will be Biblical.  However, Muslims shouldn't expect much tolerance, for they are the enemy.  They will be driven out and should not expect mercy for they have long been oppressors of Christians. 

Christians can expect punishment if they reject Christ.  They will be discriminated against in employment and education, and if they spread their atheist heresy, they face arrest.

Women will live in their proper God-specified roles.  They wont be allowed to wear any provocative clothing, and be chaperoned by their husbands, fathers or brothers before they meet the right man to marry and have children.  Some may aspire to careers, but the new regime will favour mothers first.  Deviants who are homosexuals or lesbians will be arrested.

All children will be taught bible studies and that the literal biblical view of history is true.  This will include learning about the oppressors from other religions.  They will learn about the glory of the crusades and that dying for Jesus is a sacrifice that God understands and glorifies.

Peace and human rights activists from other countries will protest against those who do not appreciate the beauty of our society.  They will march opposing the aggressors who regard our rocket attacks on their legally recognised territory as a provocation that deserves attacks on our own people.  For once we have driven our those heretics from their "state" we will reunite our peoples under the banner of God.

You see we want a society of peaceful respect for God's laws.  We will not tolerate blasphemy against God, and will imprison those creating images of God and Jesus that are offensive, or making offensive remarks about our beliefs.  We will ban photos, movies, TV programmes, music and internet websites that are contrary to the teachings of the Bible.  We will ensure women know their place, and good Holy men are in charge of our government, our courts, our prisons and our schools.   We will ensure elections and democracy do not compromise our land of God, and ensure always there are governments under the guidance of the Bible, which we will consider to be a document alongside the constitution.

We are heartened by global peace activists and human rights activists who support us, in spite of our obvious differences in what we think are human rights.  We think women's place is specified by holy scripture, they let women be harlots and arrogantly think they can rule, or lead men.   We think homosexuals are filthy abominations, yet there are plenty of them supporting us.  We think atheists need re-education and help to find God, but many of them are atheists too.

Still, we are thrilled that the activists of the new-left peace movements across many countries don't think their heretical world view should be imposed upon our people.  Their solidarity with us, emboldens us to fire more rockets at the heathens, sacrifice more of our people for God and demonstrates to our people how righteous it is for us to defend and seek to expand our theocracy, God Willing, throughout our lands to the north and east.   They know that there cannot be peace unless others submit to the word of God, and we trust that when our friends and allies come to their lands, they too will call for understanding and dialogue, rather than oppression of our world view.

Their moral relativism, whereby the so-called "rights" of "religious freedom", "sexual equality" "gay rights" and "freedom of speech" they argue for, are not deemed applicable to our people, is perplexing, but I will leave it to my brothers in their lands to argue the soundness of absolute adherence to the Bible against the moral depravity seen in their lands.

We are willing to sacrifice men, women and children for our state of God, we are always glad to get support from others who will cheer on when our theocracy is complete, God Willing.

PS: Does all this mean there isn't a deep sense of horror and despair at what has been happening in Gaza? Of course not.   Does it mean unwavering support for Israel's policy towards the Palestinians?  No.  What it is, is a belief that they deserve freedom and basic individual rights too.  The worshippers of the death cult of Islamism not only lead away from that, but they want to bring us all down with them.

16 July 2014

Forgotten Posts from the Past : Spare a thought for the victims of NORAID

While the US media pumps sympathy for Ted Kennedy, let me add to the pertinent points raised by Blair Mulholland and Not PC about this prick, and add NORAID. You see the Kennedy gang used to raise money directly to fund the IRA - yes the people of Manchester, and the hundreds of victims of that criminal sectarian gang can thank the holy family of Kennedy - the untouchables.
.
I fail to see why anyone can worship this family, and it's not because they are left wing, it's not because they are power hungry, but because they are slime. They aligned themselves with thugs, and became the untouchable family of legend. JFK's one big victory was the Cuban missile crisis, in which he performed admirably. However Ted Kennedy has long been a sleazy creep. I wont spare a moment of my emotions granting sympathy to this wealthy former terrorist supporting legend in his own mind.

15 July 2014

Rape culture?

Rape is a good thing, the more often it happens the better.  Well that might be going too far.  How about it just not being important.  If anyone is raped, it's not important, it isn't a big deal, it's just part of life.  If anyone says they have been raped, tell them to get over it, or rape them yourself.  If young men want to go out raping, then that's just something they do, it's nothing to get worked up about and the Police really can only deal with it if they witness the crime.   Sentencing should be reflect how normal rape is in the culture and how minimised a crime it really is, indeed it's surprising there isn't a crime of inciting rape by women who are attractive to men.

That's what New Zealand is about.

Or rather that's the parallel universe that a "rape culture" would represent, if the position taken by Green MP Jan Logie is taken seriously.

However, it shouldn't be.  It is vacuous, hyperbolic and classic Orwellian collectivist abuse of language.  In fact it helps rapists to get out of personal responsibility "it wasn't me, I was raised in a rape culture, I thought it was ok".  

It shouldn't need spelling out, because it should be obvious.  Most people, women and men, regard rape as abhorrent.   If their own mother, sister, wife, girlfriend, cousin, daughter, niece or female friend was raped, they'd be horrified and appalled, and would be sympathetic.  New Zealand no longer has a culture of women and girls as possessions, as was the case both in pre-colonial society and in British society until the late 20th century (and is certainly the case in many developing countries, whether Muslim or not).  Yes, there are a tiny minority of men who rape, although radical feminists either don't believe this or simply treat men as potential rapists.   This is true, but only as much as virtually all adults are potential murderers, batterers, thieves and fraudsters. 

So let's look at Jan Logie's claims, and deconstruct them.   Of course doing this, and having a penis, means I am automatically thrown into the "minimising the crime" accusation that is lazily thrown about by some on the other side of the argument, but frankly if you can't let your own arguments be subject to rational scrutiny, then it has no place in public policy discourse.

14 July 2014

Forgotten Posts from the Past : The Tribalism of New Zealand politics seen in 2008

Much has been written about how nasty mainstream politics have become in NZ It is true, but those who participate in it often believe it is simply reactionary to the other side. It is truly tribal - tribal in that the other side are devils and their own side are angels. Those of us, like myself, outside of the mainstream, watch and can say "a curse on both your houses" with little effort, as it is obvious what commonplace techniques politicians undertake - especially in election years - to undertake the marketing of lie and obfuscations.

Power is what motivates them all. Power is particularly addictive to those who would otherwise achieve relatively average lives. You need only look at local government to find screeds of less than stellar people who get a kick out of the power they can wield, pathetic it is.

Some politicians are beyond that, and when they are encouraged to dabble in it make major mistakes. Brash was one of those.

Dr Michael Bassett (like Sir Roger Douglas) is another one of those politicians less interested in the power, but more interested in the outcomes and in making a substantive difference. His recent column mentioned Helen Clark's obsession with being the longest serving Labour Prime Minister in history by staying in office beyond July 2009. Clark's lust for power is clear and obvious. Bassett wrote:

"In 1990 at the very last Labour caucus that I attended, when everyone was moping over our well-deserved trouncing, Helen Clark, then Deputy Leader, told the assembled Labour MPs something that I wrote down carefully at the time. She said she would be – and I quote from my caucus notes – “as vicious, nasty and opportunist as anyone” in the fight to return Labour to the Treasury benches. Those remarks were a forewarning. The only religious belief most modern Labourites seem to hold is their divine right to govern, to impose their views on others. "

He notes that, contrast to the Clark administration, the previous Labour government in its final year (election year) privatised Telecom - selling it for a price well above what was expected, to an American consortium. Helen Clark, Michael Cullen and Phil Goff were all in the same Cabinet that decided this, along with the corporatisation of airports, the sale of Air New Zealand and Postbank, among other state businesses. They were part of a government that was immensely unpopular because it took decisions that had short term consequences for the long term benefit. Xenophobia was not part of any of this.

So how about now? Clark won in 1999 convincingly because the Nats had sold out so much to a flotsam and jetsum of Winston through to Alamein Kopu.    In 2002, the Nats, used to winning elections from losing governments (and focusing on an absurd strategy of constituency votes first), couldn't compete against Labour which was benefiting from the fruits of the reforms it had disowned. The Nats couldn't put forward a consistent message of opposition and floundered, and was decimated.

In 2005, the story had changed. Don Brash challenged Labour on some core points. First the long running concern of many that government was willing to give preference to Maori over all others, challenging the political correctness that being Maori was "special" politically was initially dismissed as racist - until it became clear that this was mainstream. Then he advocated tax cuts and so presented a clear different approach to government from Labour - Labour's response was to spend money from central government funds to campaign, illegally -then deny it was wrong. Then to treat the Exclusive Brethren backed campaign against Labour as a grand evil conspiracy, when it was little more significant than trade union backed campaigns against National.

The Electoral Finance Act was the latest endeavour to win at all costs. Regulating electoral speech by third parties is sold to the tribe on the basis that"money politics" is evil - excluding of course that available through bureaucratic based promotion of existing policies by taxpayers, that happens to advertise the current government. This also ignores that despite enormous funding year after year, ACT has failed to be a part of ANY government under MMP.

So it has been war. Perhaps it started when Don Brash bumped National's opinion poll rating up ten points at Orewa, perhaps it started when early on election night 2005 National looked like winning, who knows. However, the tribalism that the blue and red camps now show is bitter and venal, and whoever loses in 2008 will bear the brunt of it.

Certainly Labour wont go down without a fight, and the nonsense around foreign investment is a small part of that.

Labour's support has been under attack for the past four of so years from several fronts. The schmoozing of business that was successful in the first term is largely over, partly because business is sick of continued increases in government spendin

11 July 2014

Forgotten Posts from the Past : Support Free Trade: End agricultural export subsidies

While some on the left push the increasingly discredited "Fair Trade" propaganda against both economic theory and practice, it is appropriate to argue for free trade and highlight what protectionism means (and noting that the Oxfam, Fairtrade, left/green economic deluders tend to spend little time on these issues) and what it does.

Export subsidies are one of the more obvious and stupid forms of protectionism.  The WTO prohibits export subsidies for industrial products, but it is not prohibited for agricultural exports, which is unsurprising since both the EU and the US apply them.

Export subsidies undermine the international market prices of goods, whilst stimulating production by the less efficient producers in the countries providing the subsidies to their producers, but undermining the production and the revenue of the more efficient producers in countries unable or unwilling to take money from other taxpayers to prop up agriculture.  In short, export subsidies in agriculture undermine agricultural production in the developing world and so undermine their economies, which typically are more reliant on primary production than the countries with export subsidies.

By enabling inefficient producers to undercut efficient ones, it wastes resources, which any environmentalist ought to oppose, as well as being fundamentally inequitable.  Not only does it take from taxpayers in the countries that pay the subsidies to rent-seeking agricultural producers (and it is the larger and wealthier producers that get the biggest subsidies), but it mean efficient producers lose out in poorer countries.

Before you blame the USA for it, the EU's current WTO commitments on agricultural export subsidies are for subsidies 15 times greater than that of the USA.  

This is a European Union led problem - it is the European Union using its taxpayers' money in a way that impoverishes farmers in poorer countries, whilst calling on its Member States to increase official aid to developing countries.

It's a simple step, it should be the first priority in any new WTO trade round (if the Obama Administration bothered to care), it should be a priority for those activists, who think poverty actually matters.  Not trendy, slogan driven, producer rent-seeking schemes like "Fair Trade".   Oddly enough, they get agitated by the "unfairness" of prices set by demand and supply, not the "unfairness" of state intervention to favour their own.

10 July 2014

Forgotten Posts from the Past: Obama anti-free speech

When Barack Obama campaigned for the Presidency, one of his policies was to interfere with the media.   Fortunately both the Congress and the Constitution limit that, but take this snippet which shows a different side to the smiling "change you can believe in" mantras. 

"An Obama presidency will promote greater coverage of local issues and better responsiveness by broadcasters to the communities they serve". How?? Will he force radio and TV stations to carry local news more often? How will he punish those broadcasters who fail to serve their communities? Don't communities punish by not watching or listening, making it harder to attract advertisers?

Of course, this hasn't happened, but it shows the philosophical reach he and his campaign had in thinking the Federal Government should get involved in the content of the media.  Be grateful for Congressional gridlock that the President who doesn't appear to think his powers should be limited can't implement his long list of interventionist desires.

07 July 2014

Forgotten Posts from the past : 2007 in review

Well, it's about time to review the past year, which for me personally, has been almost entirely abominable. It's confronted me with death, twice, of people I was very close to. However this is not about me, it's about history, politics and what I found interesting.

NZ politics

This was the year the wheels truly came off the Labour machine. The well oiled spin doctoring, and schmoozing of the electorate has worn thin, and the public is truly fed up with Helen Clark and the Labour government. With polling now below when Labour got elected in 1999 (and remember Labour also had 7% from the Alliance to add onto that then), and National now polling at levels unseen since the 1975 crushing victory by Muldoon - and this is with MMP - it looks like John Key and National can sleepwalk to victory. Of course it cannot, Clark cannot be written off yet - the tax cut bribe is yet to come, and Labour can rely on a core 25% of voters who suckle off of the state tit in one mindless way or another. Expect it to get dirtier, Labour has already tried this and failed, several times, for it to stick. The true colours of Michael Cullen, once thought of as the steady hand on the finances, have come home to roost with his vile attack on John Key for being wealthy - the envious claw of the academic who loves political power over self made success. John Key and National have shown themselves as nothing greater than quietly keeping their mouths shut, unable to assert much or believe in anything. Note the opposition to the Electoral Finance Bill was a bit after the event, and after many others agitated against it - National sniffs the winds and goes with them - business as usual then.

Beyond the two main parties, the other parliamentary parties have at best been absent, and worst been shown up for the appeasers of big government that they are. The Greens have been burnt by the Electoral Finance Bill, and the absence of Rod Donald. Looking more and more like a tired cracked record wanting more and more government, they are no longer that interesting, but can't be ruled out. Few would bet the Greens will drop below 5%. NZ First is a thoroughly spent force, Winston Baubles Peters sold out on the Electoral Finance Bill, and his constituency continues to appear in the obituary columns than as new members. Peter Dunne's last minute opposition to the Electoral Finance Bill wont save his party from becoming a one man band, he looks like a Labour Minister, you clearly don't change the government by voting United Future. Finally, where is ACT? and the Maori Party continues its racist blunderings in sympathising with Robert Mugabe and throwing around the word "racist" whenever it doesn't get its own way.

The public thinks in a two party manner again, with the small parties having barely any relevance - except that National will not forget to remind voters than NZ First, United Future and the Greens keep Labour in power.

Footnote:  Yes the Nats won, Labour lost, and the Greens got a small boost.  Winston was wiped out to spend three years out, Peter Dunne lost his last colleague and ACT surprisingly picked up a bit, as did the Maori Party.  Still a lot has happened since. 

24 June 2014

Free the Al-Jazeera journalists, but what about Qatar?

There is no doubt that it reprehensible for the Egyptian government to prosecute English language journalists of Al-Jazeera for "terrorism".  The campaign #journalismisnotacrime is quite right in what it calls for. As much as I support the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood autocracy that appeared to have the view that democracy means "one vote once" in its drive to create a theocracy, it does not justify the new regime suppressing free journalism.  The response to criticism should be rebuttal, not to throw people in prison.

However, looking a little bit further behind the campaign some big questions deserve to be asked...

1.  What press freedom does Al Jazeera's owners offer in its home country?  The answer is very little. Reporters Without Borders ranks Qatar as 113th in press freedom globally.  Of course, if you're Al Jazeera journalists who dare to report critically about Qatar, you at best wont last in your job long, at worst you'll end up in prison too.  This is a country where there is a proposed crime to spread "false news".  Qatar itself gets a "not free" ranking by Freedom House, which notes that:

"Al-Jazeera generally does not cover Qatari politics and focuses instead on regional issues."

2. What about journalists arrested in many other countries?  Reporters Without Borders notes that 170 journalists have been imprisoned in over 30 other countries this year.   That includes 32 in China, 28 in the largely ignored Eritrea (the north Korea of Africa), 21 in Iran and 16 in Syria.  Why pick on Egypt?  Is it because, unlike the others, it gets US backing, rather than because journalists per se mater?

3.  Why is international attention paid to Al Jazeera journalists working for Al Jazeera English, but not when those who work for Al Jazeera Arabic are arrested?  Doesn't this feed the concern of the Anglo-centric bias of so much of the mainstream media?  Few of the journalists imprisoned in other countries work predominantly in English.  Why should that matter?  

4.  How do people working for broadcasters, owned by dictatorships that intervene in other countries, expect to be treated in those countries?  I don't doubt that many journalists who work for Al-Jazeera are professional in their outlook, and wouldn't want to act as mouthpieces for their owners, but when your employer's owners are directly funding and arming the authoritarian opposition (and former government) in a country, and you're in the country reporting on it, don't you think it raises some issues about independence?

17 June 2014

Iraq, Iran and what now

The dominant discourse as of late about Iraq has been the opportunity for those who opposed the Western intervention in Iraq to gloat, to repeat the largely vacuous claims that the war was "illegal" (when it was legally authorised by the governments concerned and to grant any legal status to the psychopathic Saddam Hussein regime is to abrogate any notion of needing law at all) and to blame the recent ISIS successes on Tony Blair and GW Bush.

The grain of truth in that is important, but it is not the key point at this stage

It is true that whilst the West was very capable, with aplomb even, in overthrowing the Hussein regime, and indeed few think that was bad in itself (although Saddam Hussein's chief sycophant George Galloway thinks so, but he has since gone on to lick the blood stained boots of Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin), but was woeful in establishing a new order and constitutional framework on Iraq.  It was completely morally correct to overthrow the regime, which itself broke international law across many fields (international aggression, use and development of weapons of mass destruction and human rights) and was egregiously evil.   However, to expend over US$1 trillion in taxpayers' money and thousands of Western soldiers lives and not have an effective plan for a peaceful future (except for the relatively successful Kurdish region, which had spent over a decade effectively protected by a UNSC endorsed No Fly Zone), was grossly negligent.

It is for that, that Bush, Blair and the supporting leadership of those administrations deserve to be damned.

Let's be clear, had the bulk of Iraqis been imbued with the belief that all other Iraqis, regardless of what sect of Islam they followed (if any) or their background, deserved to live their lives in peace, then it would have been easy.


06 June 2014

Britain matters to Germany

One of the reasons given as to why many in continental Europe do not understand the British lack of enthusiasm for the European Union is that no other country in the EU was bound by being the victor in World War Two.  The war, and being on the right side, was and remains a common cause of pride and identity for the UK.  Not for the UK is there a smidgeon of guilt over what happened in World War Two.  

Compare that to Germany, which has spent the post-war period being reminded that it was the land that started two wars in the 20th century and committed the world's first modern industrial level form of genocide.  Whereas other states on the continent were either allied to the Nazis, neutral towards them or defeated by them.  Unlike Britain, the idea that the EEC and then the EU would ensure that these countries would never fight each other again, is powerful and is fed, in part, by a sense of national guilt that their ancestors either didn't do enough for peace, or were themselves cheering on the militarism that consumed the continent.  The UK can firmly be sure that it didn't start the war, it wasn't neutral and it wasn't defeated, even if geography helped that (Ireland remained neutral, as it was solipsistically focused on its own bloody independence, rather than seeing the evil on the continent).   

Don't underestimate the different psychological effect that Britain takes for granted, in having its war veterans appear on D-Day, telling their stories, with pride and heroism.  Feeding the nationalist pride of just victory, is not something that happens on the continent.  At best some resistance fighters, at worst those who fought for fascism, genocide and totalitarianism, denies the strength of identity based on such history, refocusing pride on more benign identity points, such as language, older history and post-war culture, and the EU as the antidote to the guilt.

It understandably, is never discussed.  Indeed, the new EU Member States that once lay under the jackboot of the USSR have similar issues, with so many in those countries who were a part of systems that oppressed their fellow citizens.

So when Angela Merkel yesterday said "What would have become of Europe if the British people had not found the strength to put their existence at risk in order to save Europe?" it was a welcome sign that, despite the arrogance and smug self-satisfaction of the EU, some in continental Europe will say what is known - Europe today would not be free if it had not had the UK (and the USA) to fight against Nazism and keep Stalin behind an iron curtain.

There is no need to be repeatedly grateful for winning the war, after all most of those alive across Europe bear no responsibility or guilt for what their ancestors did.  I didn't win the war or do anything to help, so I shouldn't claim any esteem from what happened.  

However, it would do well for others in Europe to note the differences in history, and the reasons why the UK does feel confident about its own national sovereignty, history and ability to avoid declaring war on its neighbours.

22 May 2014

I'm not voting UKIP in the European elections

Why?

It said it was libertarian, it isn't, but that's not what's most important.

It campaigned on making immigration equal with all nations, then its leader singled out it being acceptable to "fear Romanians".

so despite the strong attraction to putting two fingers up the establishment, especially the utterly vile Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties, I'm going to vote Conservative.


08 May 2014

Forgotten posts from the past: The lovers of violence on the NZ left

For a while I have read Maia's blog, partly out of curiosity and an attempt to understand the thought processes of someone on the left who, I tended to think, generally had a good heart. I've come to the conclusion that she is living in a world of naive delusion.

Some of those arrested on firearms charges in the Ureweras include her friends. However, like the rest of the so-called peace loving left, she refuses to condemn the evidence presented in the Dominion Post on its content. She wont say that it is wrong to advocate assassinating John Key or President Bush, or wrong to murder people for political ends, or wrong to vandalise power stations.

Maia rightfully is appalled by much violence, specifically rape. I don't disagree. However, why do so many on the left hold within them the anger and the moral belief that initiating force is justified against peaceful people? How can they look themselves in the face and condemn some violence, but not others?

Is it that, fundamentally, their politics are all about initiating violence against others to create the "just world" they seek?

After all, the Greens talk often about peace and non-violence, but their approach to almost all issues is to pass a law to ban something or make it compulsory.  Their approach to foreign policy is to turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by authoritarian governments that share their socialist philosophy.

How do they reconcile claims for being non-violent, but sympathy towards those who are, and advocacy of violence against peaceful people?

28 April 2014

Forgotten posts from the past: Introducing the Airbus A380

The world's biggest airliner, the Airbus A380, has been creating some attention because of its sheer size. It is quite an achievement to build something so big that can fly with so many people.

Singapore Airlines will be the second airline to operate Airbus A380s to New Zealand
It promises to provide new advancements for passengers at the front (in first and business class), and maybe some modest improvements in seat width and pitch for those in cattle class - but for most it threatens long queues at bathrooms and enormous waits for luggage and checkin as 500 plus passengers fill departure lounges and the like. Airbus has made much of the ideas of onboard bars, casinos, shops and the like, but the truth is that most airlines will simply squeeze in more seats.

The A380 has been dogged by delays, partly due to Airbus not anticipating in its design the desire by most airlines to have sophisticated on demand in flight entertainment systems, and so wiring needed to be redesigned. There have also been problems meeting the promises on maximum weight, so the whole programme is behind by at least a year.

Nevertheless, Singapore Airlines was the first to fly the new whalejets, between Singapore and Sydney, and then London and Singapore. Air France announced its internal configuration for the A380. Air France is buying 12, with the first three arriving in 2009. However, Air France is promising nothing too exciting - with 538 seats.

The lower deck will have 9 first class and 343 economy class, with the upper deck carrying 80 business class and 106 more economy class seats.

Emirates has since announced its configurations. There will be three, ranging from a relatively spacious... to a tight .... heaven help you on the latter, which will probably be used for connections to and from India and Pakistan. The lower density ones are likely to operate towards east Asia, Australia and New Zealand. However, Emirates has announced nothing special, other than it will have the latest seating already installed on its newest 777s.

Emirates flys A380s 3x a day into Auckland

For New Zealanders, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Emirates will offer the best chances to fly on the Airbus A380, but probably not directly for some time. Emirates is the only airline out of those likely to fly the A380 to Auckland on a regular basis, as an extension of services between Dubai and Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.  

Certainly Air NZ has no routes consistently busy enough to justify buying the A380 in the near future.

All we know about Singapore Airlines is that its new business class (easily the best in the world and not seen on flights to NZ yet) will be seen on the A380, big wide seats that recline fully flat and not at an angle with the fuselage. Singapore Airlines is keeping what it does for economy and first class on the A380 under wraps. Others are doing the same, but it is clear Air France sees little need for the A380 to be a flagship for anything particularly special.

AND NOW

24 April 2014

Forgotten posts from the past: Compulsory welfare - a quaint remnant of nationalism?

With the whole debate about welfare one question is rarely raised - why does compulsory state welfare only apply to the poor in your own country? Why are the poor in other countries less needy?

Now the obvious answer is that it would be unaffordable to tax everyone to pay for people in other countries to be relieved of poverty, then, in which case, as with anything that you fund, you prioritise.

What is more important, a family with a TV, bed, clothes, car and ample nutrition, or a starving family with nothing?

For to simply say it is "none of our business" you're admitting you're a nationalist.  Human beings not residing in the country you live in are a lower priority to you.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating a global taxpayer funded welfare system.  I don't advocate the state based one.

However, given it is the left that is the source of the welfare state and defender of it on moral grounds, on what moral grounds is there to give money to people who, by any measure, are better off than the vast majority of humanity?

Could it simply be that socialism is nationalist too?

and isn't that rather racist?

23 April 2014

Chris Trotter: the Greens are the last hope for "we" ?

It is rare that a commentator on the left exposes so readily the fundamental difference in understanding and approach to politics as Chris Trotter most recently did in The Press.  In that article he posits almost exactly the narrative the Green Party would want you to understand - which is that the Greens, and only the Greens, are revolutionary and wise, and out for the good of the many, unlike the other parties out to sustain the status quo and the "counter narrative" of "neo-liberalism" - the pejorative term originating from the left, used to dismiss and debase any and all who promote capitalism.

The notion that the Greens are fighting a lonely vanguard in a fundamental struggle is understandably appealing to an aging Marxist, who has witnessed with almost endless bitter dismay, at the edifice of New Zealand's own - and dare I say carefully worded - national democratic socialism - crumble after it nearly bankrupted the country.  You see the autarchic, egalitarian, isolationist, "full employment" "golden age" Trotter harks back to, is reminiscent of the same sort of nationalist "golden ages" that autocrats all over the world point to.  An age that was destroyed by traitors to the cause, who "sold us out" to foreign capital.

Never fear, the Greens are here, because the new threat is global annihilation, and they alone are "dedicated to the practical application of ecological wisdom".  The "politics of ecological denial boasts some extremely powerful backers".

What untrammelled nonsense.   A ridiculously simple view that fits the intellect of someone who regards The Simpsons as a comprehensive social narrative, but one that doesn't actually fit facts.  It isn't Montgomery Burns vs. the people, as much as Trotter wishes it were.

22 April 2014

Forgotten posts from the past: Nicky Hager's communist sympathies

Remember Nicky Hager?  Called "journalist" by so much of the NZ broadcast media, but who would be called at best an "activist" elsewhere, well hardline anti-communist activist Trevor Loudon has outed some of Nicky Hager's radical leftwing past. 

I started writing about him, but simply got bored.

It's well known Hager is the poor little rich boy, who has been able to avoid having a real job through his family's comfortable assets - accumulated through capitalism, which he has since spent much time criticising taking a fairly standard hard-left, anti-Western line politically.  Most recently being known for his book that claimed to be outing a "scandal" that the National Party hired consultants to assist in campaigning strategy.  The xenophobic boogie man that New Zealand voters were conned by lying politicians on the right - which stopped them voting for the parties that are really in their interests - i.e. the Greens.

Besides supporting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua (hey Helen Clark did too), he also was a key contact in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - a pro-Soviet organisation that largely lamblasted the US, UK and France for their nuclear arsenals, calling for unilateral disarmament by the West (but never expecting the USSR, nor China, to do so).   He allied himself with the late Stalinist Ron Smith.

Of course anything Hager utters should be seen in the light that he is just a political lobbyist, he is no more "investigative journalist" than any other activist, but a supporter of the Green Party and everything he produces is intended to further his political goals.   Therefore, you'd hope that when he next comes out with some "shock horror" probe into how awful some business, centre-right politician or Western power is, that a real journalist would ask him some probing questions and take a critical look at his work.

However, such journalists are literally the proverbial hen's teeth in New Zealand.

02 April 2014

Does Nigel Farage love Vladimir Putin?

No.

However, it looks that way, and in politics that's almost all that matters.

He's made a blunder, in his venal hatred of the EU he's made it the scapegoat and the driving force for the revolution in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, he is wrong and hopefully he wont make the mistake again, as I write on my UK blog.

19 March 2014

Crimea matters, for all sorts of reasons

I don't know what has appalled me more - Putin's cynical opportunistic land-grab of Crimea, the almost complete abrogation of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Guarantees for Ukraine by the UK and US, or the extent of leftwing and rightwing moral relativism about the whole thing.

I started by writing an article about how Crimea is what happens when isolationists are in charge.  However, the reaction of much of the public is not just the isolationism that has been bred by the left (the "the West is evil as as bad as anyone else" brigade) and the right ("we're safe, they aren't coming for us, just our friends, who we can ignore"), but the moral relativism attached to what is going on.

In this age of competing media, it is easy to turn on Kremlin propaganda in English from Russia Today, and for critics of the status quo on left and right to cynically dismiss reports from the plurality of Western media sources as propaganda, but it's naive and delusional.  What is going on in Ukraine is old-fashioned power politics, because Vladimir Putin has sniffed weakness from the West and knows it will do little - as long as Barack Obama is in power, David Cameron remains beholden to the appeasement loving Liberal Democrats and the Germans remain paralysed by their own history.

So let's first knock out some of the lazy assertions, promoted by Putin's regime:


04 March 2014

So after all that

Dad was diagnosed as having terminal laryngeal cancer in April 2013 and was told he wouldn't see Christmas.
Well he did, and it was the biggest family Christmas we have had for a very long time.

I am not going to publish my eulogy to him on here.  He used to read this blog regularly and said I was bound to upset some people, but he enjoyed it.

So what I am going to say is to reflect on the dignified way he put up with the deterioration of his life and the inability of medical professionals he saw to treat his cancer.  

31 January 2014

Islamist censorship is appeased in Britain

So in the past week or so in the UK:

- The Liberal Democrats are debating whether to suspend a Muslim Parliamentary candidate who tweeted a Jesus and Mo cartoon image saying he was not offended by it (and, according to his opponents, using "colourful" language to describe his Islamists opponents).

- Channel 4 and the BBC, both state-owned broadcasters, have refused to broadcast images of the said cartoon, in reporting the story (specifically showing the image with the depiction of Jesus, but concealing the depiction of Mohammed).  The reason given by the BBC was that it would be "gratuitously offensive" to some viewers, yet it was central to understanding what the fuss was about.

This is it...


Meanwhile, George Galloway, fresh from spreading pro-north Korean propaganda on Russian propaganda channel, RT, is campaigning vehemently against the Liberal Democrat candidate.   There aren't words to describe the creature.

Even a few on the "liberal" left, which has shamefully appeased Islamist views for so long, is finally starting to wake up.

Free speech is under attack, and it is in the heart of the left liberal establishment that the challenge is happening, and they are shaking, shivering and fearful.

For there is no right to be protected from offence in a free society, and the fundamental problem is that the "liberal" left have pushed for laws to essentially do this.  To prohibit views that are offensive to many (and indeed to many libertarians and conservatives too), to seek to socially-engineer views, rather than confront them with debate, boycotts and voluntary action, but to use the state to shut them down.

The problem for them is that in creating this artificial construct, they have deemed it impossible for people of protected "oppressed" groups to be capable of committing the offences they created.  It is why it is politically impossible for many on the left to accept that people of non-European extraction can be racist, or that women can be sexist, or that the religious bigotry of non-Christians (or non-Jews) is a concern.  This doctrine is fed "protected oppressed group" identity students relentlessly, and is seen most recently in the "white privilege", "male privilege" slapdown, designed to shut down debate with a pejorative that implies you are not entitled to participate, because of your background.

Quite simply, until those of the "liberal" left eject this post-modernist collectivist identity politics fantasy, they cannot credibly take Islamists on.

So if those who proclaim opposition to racism, sexism, oppression of homosexuals and promotion of secularism cannot take on an ideology that is racist, sexist, oppresses homosexuality, oppresses any deviation from its religion, then their philosophical foundations are found wanting.

28 January 2014

Holocaust Memorial Day 2014


Whilst much of the Muslim world, and more than a few in the former Soviet bloc, and some in the West continue to want to deny the horrors of Nazism, it needs to be re-emphasised.  For a toxic coalition of the gutter-white racists and the Islamist totalitarians, are keen to revive anti-semitism, and more than a few so-called liberals, turn a blind eye to the latter group in particular.

Never forget.


For the Holocaust wasn't the angry lynching of a whole population in the rage of war, or the vile act of a small number of followers of some thug who went far too far, nor is it the act of a culture or civilisation that otherwise would be thought of as primitive.  

No, it was the act of a modern society, corrupted by the culture of virulent collectivist purging.   A technologically and artistically modern society, taken over by a totalitarian monster, that went from mere scapegoating through to a quiet, shameful, eliminationist policy, and did so with mechanical, mass-produced, efficiency - akin to the production lines invented by Henry Ford, who, of course, shared many of these views about the Jews.


"The utter complete dehumanisation of all those effectively declared "unpersons" by the Nazis remains a horror unparalleled in its comprehensive efficient single mindedness."

26 January 2014

Remembering Ahmadinejad

(From 2008..)

Ahmadinejad's speech (yeah you would figure he'd say something ridiculous) had little coverage in the media. Maybe they are all tired of the Iranian holocaust denier's comments, but they shouldn't be.


"As to the Holocaust, I just raised a few questions. And I didn't receive any answers to my questions. I said that during World War II, around 60 million were killed. All were human beings and had their own dignities. Why only 6 million? And if it had happened, then it is a historical event. Then why do they not allow independent research?

TIME: But massive research has been done.


AHMADINEJAD: They put in prison those who try to do research. About historical events everybody should be free to conduct research. Let's assume that it has taken place. Where did it take place?"

So Ahmadinejad continues his anti-semitic lunacy. His actual UN speech has some gems:

- the "passing of the era of agnostic philosophies".  In short, he believed the West is dominated by Christianity;

- he bemoans violence as a means of solving crises, he who led a regime that dished out violence in abundance;

- "Justice is about equal rights, the correct distribution of resources in the territories of different states". Chilling stuff, who decides what is correct?

- "The Islamic Revolution toppled a regime, which had been put in place through a coup, and supported by those who claim to be advocates of democracy and human rights, thwarted the aspirations of the nation for development and progress for 25 years through intimidation and torture of the populace and submission and subservience to outsiders." Irony no?  This regime that murders anyone who rejects the state religion, and flogs the victims of rape.

- "those who have actually used nuclear weapons, continue to produce, stockpile and extensively test such weapons, have used depleted uranium bombs and bullets against tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Kuwaitis, and even their own soldiers and those of their allies, afflicting them with incurable disease"  Extensively test nuclear weapons? Use bullets against tens of thousands of who?

- "After September 11, a particular radical group was accused of terrorist activities -- although it was never explained how such huge intelligence gathering and security organizations failed to prevent such an extensive and well planned operation."  9/11 conspiracist then?

- "In Palestine, a durable peace will be possible through justice, an end to discrimination and the occupation of Palestinian land, the return of all Palestinian refugees, and the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital."  Sure it will.   Bound to be a durable peace, after you've wiped out the "Zionist entity".

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a throwback, to the dark ages and is the antithesis of democracy and justice, denying anyone in the country who wishes to reject Islam, fundamental rights.

It ought to be ostracised across the Western world, universally condemned by secularists and advocates of human rights.  It is a land where individual freedom is subordinated to a theocratic dictatorship.

It's an utter disgrace that so many on the left, who are only too fast to jump on Christian conservatives, (often quite correctly), appease the beastly regime - because it fits into their visceral hatred of the United States - when, if they were living in Iran, virtually none of them would have the tolerant liberal views they express, tolerated at all.

25 January 2014

World Economic Forum 2015 should be in Detroit





Instead of the "oh so nice" politeness towards the vile and the corrupt, and the pleasantries, and the parties and the delightful atmosphere of an expensive resort.

They should congregate in Detroit and actually talk economics.

Talk about how a wealthy city has decayed because of industries that got lazy and were hijacked by those who cared about "the workers" first, namely trade unions.

Talk about how a city completely dominated by one political party, became corrupt, bankrupt and fundamentally incapable of delivering the basic infrastructure it monopolised.

Talk about how a city maximised tax revenue to try to catch up with its declining population, and simply chased more business and more residents away, except those too poor and too dependent on welfare or crime to want to leave.

Talk about what happens when a city once known for being the centre of industry and entrepreneurial spirit, becomes dragged down by growing government.

and yes talk about how the same people with that political philosophy now think it is more important to build a tram line beside a half-empty road, rather than ensuring the emergency services can respond effectively.

Shifting the World Economic Forum away from the pristine location of Davos will avoid one criticism, that it is a party of the rich and famous, and just involves the self-styled "elite" talking to each other somewhere that is nice to visit anyway.

Then every year it should be in a city that needs economic transformation, that will teach lessons of economics, and will appreciate the massive injection of economic activity that such wealthy visitors bring.

Yangon for 2016, or Bangui, or Karachi?

20 January 2014

Where is the so-called peace movement now?

The Times reported that the US Administration is claiming that the Syrian target hit by Israeli airstrikes in September 2007 was a nuclear reactor supplied by North Korea.

North Korea of course has developed nuclear weapons, in defiance of promises to the international community. It utters rhetoric constantly calling for death to the USA, Japan and south Korea. It has now been caught selling nuclear technology to Syria.

Syria is an enemy of Israel, sponsors terrorism, invaded and ran Lebanon as an extension of itself for years.

However, that doesn't matter.  

It isn't the United States, United Kingdom or any other Western liberal democratic state.  

It is basically a rule of thumb that if anti-Western autocracies engage in war-mongering, it doesn't get the so-called peace movement excited.  They excuse it because "well the USA has nuclear weapons", granting moral equivalency between a regime that brutally suppresses dissent and does not permit independent media or protests, and the relatively free West.

Update

On Syria it is more palpable.  The so-called "peace" movement happily rallies thousands to march against Western intervention in Syria, but never protest against Russian arming and assisting the Syrian regime, or Qatar or Saudi doing the same to the rebels.

No, you see "imperialism" is just ok for Arab states, Iran, Russia or indeed any country that doesn't share the political or cultural background of the Western world.

As it was in the Cold War, when the so-called "peace" movement constantly rallied against Western military spending and activity, and never protested the Soviet bloc, or China, is how it is today.

So-called "peace" activists are blind to militarism and violence from dictatorships that aren't allied to the West.  They are simply reconstructed anti-capitalist fans of violent revolution, and their self-styled calls for morality and peace are transparently vacuous.

16 January 2014

Air NZ wins "airline rating" award, so what? UPDATED

It's simple fodder for New Zealand "reporters" - a company called Airline Ratings, which is self styled as "the world’s foremost safety and product rating website" awards Air NZ "airline of the year".

So what happens?  The company press release is substantively replicated on the NZ Herald, with little analysis, just an interview from Air NZ which of course is happy to use it as a marketing opportunity.

However, did anyone think to ask who the hell Airline Ratings is, and whether there is anything substantive about this rating?

I know my first reaction (and that of some people on frequent flyer forums) was "who the hell is this"?

15 January 2014

The (last) pope got something right...

(originally 2006)

Now I didn't have much time for Pope Benedict XVI, as I am an atheist and oppose the church's obsession with controlling people's bodies, its fundamental sexism and inability to adequately confront those of its employees who have violently and sexually abused many. 

However, the Pope is a powerful man, one of the most important in Christianity. For all of the flaws of Christianity, precious few Christians engage in violence to gain converts - while many may be offended by media and statements that attack the religion, very few engage in angry rampages of violence and there are precious few examples of modern day Christian militia out to do violence (though they are not unknown in Africa). The time for that is past.

His speech at the University of Regensburg in 2006 has upset Muslims across the world - they are, matching the stereotype that is hardening in the non-Muslim world, by protesting angrily, making anti-American and anti-Israeli statements, burning effigies of the Pope - in other words, acting like uncivilised, brutalised deranged thugs.  Criticism is not taken as a reason to offer rhetoric or reason in return, but anger and violence.

They have acted exactly the way that the Pope rejected. In his speech he said:

"Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death"

It is a lesson many Christians have taken, but which far too many Muslims have not.  They seek to enforce their religion with threats and violence, treating the mind as irrelevant, not seeking to convince with arguments based on merits, but on fear.

That is the fundamental difference today, that is oft-ignored by all too many, especially on the so-called progressive left.

In many Muslim countries, choosing to reject Islam (which you are assumed to have been born with) is a crime.  The last known execution for heresy of a Christian was in 1826 in Spain.  No non-Muslim majority countries have laws restricting religion.

So when Muslims wonder why their religion appears "singled out", then they need only look at the behaviour of their fellow believers. 

It isn't Christians, Jews or atheists that people fear waging violence int he name of religion. It isn't apparent in most Muslim countries that there is tolerance for those of other religions or no religion.

Anyone who thinks that the appropriate response to those who don't share their views is to threaten them with violence, is uncivilised and barbaric.  

Unfortunately for Muslims, it is people of their religion who far too often undertake this behaviour.  

They have every right to hold uncivilised barbaric views of others, but when they cross the line to threaten violence against those they disagree with, they should reasonably expect the full force of the law.

The right to religion is a right to practice your own beliefs - it is not a right to force others to submit to them, or to protect you from being offended.

14 January 2014

Obesity - the Greens want to parent you

From 2006

The Green Party is supporting the Health Select Committee's inquiry into obesity and type 2 diabetes today. Of course MPs inquiring into obesity are the blind leading the blind, or as David Farrar puts it “like asking Black Power to inquire into gang violence”

Sue “ban or make it compulsory” Kedgley said “If we are serious about reducing the risks of obesity we have to find ways of reducing the overwhelming pressure on children to eat unhealthy food.”

We do have two ways, one is called PARENTS, increasingly incapable of deciding their children's diet, school and television viewing, the other is social pressure. What is more powerful that seeing how unpopular it is to be overweight, especially for girls? It can be cruel and soul destroying to be teased about your weight - and this in itself can have a profound effect (and also worsen it, by kids using food as a crutch).

The fundamental philosophical difference here is between:

1. Those who believe that obesity is a personal responsibility of people who eat too much and exercise insufficiently, and of parents of children who do the same; and
2. Those who believe that people are too stupid and incapable of choosing healthy food and exercise, and get seduced by big mean corporations “forcing” them to buy those things that they “can’t help but buy”.

Obesity in most cases is about making bad choices. Nobody makes you go to McDonalds instead of a fruit store. Nobody makes you buy ice cream instead of salad.

The Greens will want to tax what they see as bad choices, which are not bad if you eat them in moderation – this simply gives nanny state more of your money to spend on what the Greens want. The Greens also think that manufacturers of sweet or high fat foods are morally wrong – and should not be allowed to advertise their products when and where they wish (despite some reports from Sweden that have shown such bans to be ineffective).

I simply would say such moves increase the prevalent culture of not being responsible for your own life and choices, and treat people as children who the state needs to look after.

Who, other than a blithering idiot, thinks that eating large amounts of sugary sweets and deep fried food is good for you? Why the hell should we care if parents are too stupid to resist their children’s calls for bad food?

Update

Well I DO care about parents who let their children become morbidly unhealthy.  It raises the difficult issue as to when the state should intervene against parents who are deliberately or recklessly harming their children, because I am instinctively uncomfortable with people defining what that is.

Without a welfare state, this may be easier, and it may be easier without legislation that protects people from alleged discrimination by private individuals. 

For adults, it should be left to them, but to parents of children that are obese (and who exacerbate or don't care about the situation), is it about other relatives, friends and family caring.  I tend to lean towards the state intervening only if the parents actively take steps that are risking the child's life or being wantonly negligent.  

Meanwhile, if other people are concerned they should act.

13 January 2014

After Helen (and Phil, and David)

From 2006

Whether it limps along to 2008 or not, Helen Clark will not be leader of the Labour Party within three years. Caucus must be looking at each other and considering who the successor could be... so I thought I'd go through some of them:

- Michael Cullen. Well he could, but he's part of the same tired generation, ex. Cabinet Ministers..

Update

and that's where it ended.  Phil Goff of course succeeded and did an admirable job of ensuring Labour couldn't move beyond its core.  David Shearer has repeated this, despite being a rather decent chap, and now it is Silent T.

Labour's problem is quite fundamental.  Nowadays it touts class warfare and mild xenophobic rhetoric in the hope it can win support from the neo-Marxist Greens and the fear-mongering NZ First, but none of this is new.

Until it can be innovative, and seek to advocate more than just the usual formula of more government spending and regulation, it faces being outdone on that front by the Greens, and being seen as relatively uninteresting.   Meanwhile, the Nats can always say it is risky to vote for Labour because you'll get whacky Green policies with it - and despite the lack of serious scrutiny of the Greens, most voters run a mile from their politics.

National meanwhile is playing the semi-Muldoonist "safe pair of hands" approach, so that a plurality of voters are happy not to rock the boat.

So Labour looks like getting relatively nowhere in the 2014 general election, hoping only that the Nats might have to get into bed with Winston Peters, which ought to poison the Nats enough to give Labour a reasonable run at power in 2017 or sooner.

It's hardly an inspiring strategy.

12 January 2014

Egypt's problems wont be solved by elections

You see in Egypt the problem comes from the politicians and they arise from the culture.

Unfortunately Egypt has a culture of  kleptocracy, corruption and favouritism. 

When he was President, Hosni Mubarak enriched himself to the tune of US$42 billion.  This is scandalous but hardly unexpected, because politicians in absolute power will both use violence to retain power and will be thieving bastards one and all.  Yet this is what politics does.  By granting unlimited power to people elected or otherwise, they do violence to others, they collect money through violence and can use it to corrupt, and can be corrupted to change laws, grant contracts and the like. 

It is what politics can do and does, and liberal democracy doesn't contain it, culture does.  In the US, politics is corrupted because people seek favours from politicians in the forms of money or privileges granted by the state.  However, there is an independent judiciary and free press, so there are institutions in place that can contain this.

In Egypt this doesn't exist.  It is stuck between the kleptocratic authoritarian culture of the army, which has deep roots in business and the economy well beyond what should be its core role.  

However, Islam also has deep roots that mean that a significant plurality of Egyptians are quite happy for the state and religion to be as one, meaning non-Muslims in Egypt face serious risks of oppression and discrimination by the state.

So when foreign observers call for free and fair elections, that's all very well, but what is the reason for this?  What do they want for Egyptians?

11 January 2014

Iranians start to stand up

Following Egypt, Iranians protest against their gerrymandered theocratic "democracy", that allows any point of view as long as it supports the status quo.

Good for them.  Iran's theocratic dictatorship brutally suppresses political dissent, it executes more people than any country other than China, including rape victims and children.

update

OK so I didn't say much then.  However,  Iranians appear to have released their urge for reform by voting for the most reformist candidate they were allowed, who may - at best - ease the absurd economic policies that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had inflicted upon them all.  Hassan Rouhani has proven himself to be at least amenable to diplomacy over confrontation and has reduced internal pressure for major reform.

However, let's not get too excited.  Iran still imprisons political dissidents.  Iran still executes apostates. Iran is still intervening in the Syrian Civil War on the side of the Assad dictatorship (primarily on sectarian grounds) and in Iraq.  However, its imperialism gets nary a peep of criticism from the so-called peace movement.

There is a long way to go, and Hassani wouldn't be President if the regime thought he might seriously undermine this theocracy.

Yet it is also clear that he has been brought in to save the regime from the ineptness of past leadership bankrupting the economy and sabre-rattling.  This does not include abandoning its nuclear programme or the capability to develop a nuclear weapon, but it might mean stalling it or containing it, and drastically curtailing Iran's long standing policy of extending support to the likes of Hizbollah and other Islamists (but not Al Qaeda) in other parts of the world.

The key point being that Iran wants the end to economic sanctions so it can grow, although this wont be enough for the largely cosmopolitan population of Tehran, aching for more personal freedom, it will remove pressure for reform elsewhere.

So at best there is hope that Iran will threaten the outside world less, especially Israel, but it will still imprison and murder its own people for blasphemy against Islam and seeking a government that isn't theocratic.  For all of that, it will and should remain a pariah.

10 January 2014

New Zealanders for Gaddafi?

As Muammar Gaddafi engaged in slaughter against the Libyan people, it may be timely to note those with a high profile in New Zealand who thought he had a lot going for him.

The leftwing blogosphere has plenty wishing for his overthrow, even calling for military intervention of some kind.  The Greens are even supporting a revolution.

I guess if a high profile New Zealander talked favourably about Gaddafi now, it would not be seen in a positive light.  Though I can't be so sure of that.

Yet when it comes to those who have been to Libya, spoken favourably of it and were friendly to the Gaddafi regime, it's "ok".  Those people are forgiven.  Yet John Key when asked by a journalist whether he would tell Mubarak (a clearly far less brutal dictator, and no war-mongerer) to resign, he said no - and got excoriated for it.

The hard left community has long been soft towards Libya, because for years Libya was anti-American, it supported revolutionaries all over the world, including Maori nationalist thugs who wanted armed rebellion in New Zealand.  Gaddafi always felt a soft spot for anyone wanting to take on the liberal democratic West.

The late Syd Jackson being one of those thugs. 

He went to Libya to see Gaddafi's theories in practice and met him, and discussed Libya imposing trade sanctions on New Zealand.   Idiot Savant preferred to just consider him a union leader and broadcaster, brushing over his Gaddafi-philia.  However, the left is remarkably forgiving of its own kind being friendly with known mass murderers, typically dismissing accusations by claiming its opponents are the same - it's the plea of the man who beats up his wife who points out that the man over the road is beating up his wife too, why don't you harass him?

It is hardly a robust defence.

Hone Harawira spoke fondly of him, but only Dr. Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia - both Ministers in the current government said this on his passing:

"He had the keen intellect to grasp complex issues, a quality which you would see coming through in campaigns such as encouraging Libya to boycott trade with New Zealand".

None of those current MPs can really be said to be particularly negative towards Gaddafi.

I'm not exactly trusting of Sharples and Turia to be keen identifiers of intellect.

It is not just Syd though.  Keith Locke was once sympathetic, as can be seen in this "Just Peace" newsletter penned by him on the Green Party website where he calls for:

"if you wish to take part as one of the walking wounded representing countries bombed and oppressed by the US government" listing Libya as one of them.

The fact Gaddafi's regime was sponsoring terrorism across the world, including the UK and Germany and had been waging war against Chad didn't matter.

Keith has only just started protesting against Libya.  You see he saw Libya as a "victim" as well, with the "see no evil" hands over his eyes when Libya killed people in other countries.

Apparently ruthless military/socialist dictatorships can't be imperialist.

However, New Zealand is always so forgiving of those who cuddle up to thugs, with the mass media largely willing to give them a free pass.

and now

Gaddafi is gone, and there was nary a peep of concern expressed by those who might be thought to have been his friends.  Those who once gave succour to his regime (and gained it) will forever keep a low profile.

The posts that didn't make it

I have over 100 blog posts that I didn't finish, that got interrupted, so given my other commitments at this time, I've decided to tidy some of them up and send them out.   The main reason I didn't post them was timing, and I wasn't happy with the content, so they may be shorter than usual (some of you will be pleased). 

Given I have enough for two a week for a whole year and I'll probably cull half of them for good, I expect to send out that many over the next few months, and include a postscript that updates my thinking on the specific issue.

08 January 2014

Happy New Year 2014, and why I haven't been blogging

Well readers, for those who have stuck with me, you'll have noticed a paucity in posts, as I have been a combination of uninspired and very busy in the past few months.

Quite simply I can put it down to real life consuming my time and energy to an extent that meant that, beyond outing Gareth Morgan for his naivete over North Korea, my attention has been elsewhere.

In part it has been work, which from May till early December kept me mostly consumed for a good bit over 40 hours a week.

In part it has been the drawn out process of jumping onto the London property bubble (which still isn't over).

However, it has also been time and energy taken by four trips in under six months to New Zealand to help and be with my terminally ill father, and help my stressed and regularly distraught mother.

So for now, I'd like to talk about my Dad, as he remains with us, albeit not as active or as cheerful as he usually is.

I'd advise you to not read any further if you are squeamish or easily upset.  What comes includes some graphic descriptions of his condition.