To Sense

What price freedom?

2011-02-20T14:21:00.000+13:00

A wave of popular protest sweeps through the Middle East, threatening the autocratic regimes that have ruled for decades. In Tunisia and Egypt, the regimes have been toppled; in Bahrain, talks are about to commence; in Libya, a military backlash has been threatened; and protestors have also been active in Yemen, Jordan, Syria, and Iran. All shout the same war cries - "Freedom!", "Human rights!", "Give us our dignity!"
They want nothing more than the ability to exercise the same rights that we in the West take for granted. They want freedom from the governments which, in the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan at least, our governments have supported and maintained. They want to be able to determine their own future.
Who are we to stand in their way?

Consider this, though:

What are the possible consequences of revolution?

As we saw in France after 1789, in Russia in 1917, in Brazil in 1930-2, in Spain after 1934, in Paraguay in 1947, in the Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Portuguese Guinea, Yemen, Bangladesh, Egypt and many other new states in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and perhaps most relevantly in Iran in 1979, one revolution is not enough. In all these instances, which are but a few on the historical record, a popular uprising (sometimes supported by the military) ousted an unpopular regime, and was then itself defeated within no more than a few short years as a fringe group took advantage of the turmoil and anarchy and took power for itself. The end product was a harsher regime, a reign of terror in some cases, or a vicious civil war.

I fear the same for the Arab world.

There is so much to take advantage of. Many of those who have initiated the protests are well educated, secular, and comparatively well off. They have protested for more rights and a bigger slice of the pie, just as white collar activists have done throughout history. The protests have been swelled by common workers, the poor, the totally disenfranchised, who have nothing to lose and everything to gain from a transition of power. In most of these countries, political opposition has been banned, and so the only organised opposition has come from Islamic parties that have survived by becoming community organisations - parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood. They are well placed to lead the second revolution, to get rid of the secular and progressive educated elite which is barely more popular than the previous regime.

In a world where America has been villified, where people are all too aware that life could be better, and where the word of the mullahs and other radical Muslim preachers carries more authority and weight than any other, the power vaccuum which is left by the departure of these autocratic regimes can only be filled by one source. Unfortunately for those of us in the West, this source considers our way of life inimical to its own.

In the West, most of us accept and desire a free, secular, progressive democracy as being the only way to live in a fair (or fairer) society. Outside of the small educated elites and professional classes, many of the people in the Arab world do not identify with this world view. The rise of radical fundamentalist Islam over the past two decades has been coupled with a power which the fundamentalist Christian groups in the West can never realise. Why? Because in the West, everyone is educated. We teach freedom, respect, tolerance. Such values find any fundamentalist or extreme perspectives to be repugnant, and so we turn from them, and place our support in the centre, with the moderates. But in the Arab World, a place where close to 50% of the population is below the age of 20, the lack of anything other than the most basic education means that the bulk of the population is ignorant, and can be easily manipulated. They have not made a free choice to accept or follow a blind and narrow interpretation of one of the truly great religions; they simply do not have the ability, the sophistication, nor the will to challenge it. This makes them ripe for manipulation by those who hide behind religion, those who profess belief in a faith which supposedly abhors the actions they conduct in its name.

So this is my fear. Yay for the people of the Arab World, and yay for freedom, but unless I'm very much mistaken any "freedom" they receive may be shortlived. That's why I'm glad to see the Egyptian military take control after the protests which ousted Mubarak. From what I've seen, most of the leadership desires to model itself on that of the Turkish army, which views the military as the defender of the republic. In Turkey, religious fundamentalism is also on the rise but to a large degree it is blocked, and held in check, by a secular military.

A theocratic state can never be a free state.

And a crescent of theocratic states running from Tunisia to Iran can never see the West as anything but an enemy.

We live in interesting times. Let us hope that we, and the common people of the Arab world - those who care not about politics or enemies but about food, water, and a roof over their heads - survive them.

That's my two cents to sense.

Auckland Super-City Mayors Compared

2010-09-19T13:33:00.000+12:00

Several people have commented to me that they have no idea who they're going to vote for in the upcoming elections. I'm yet to receive my voting forms but I've spent about 12 hours over the last four days trying to find out what the candidates stand for, and I've summarised my findings below in an easy to follow, categorised package.

I've chosen six key policy areas to compare: Auckland's Assets, Infrastructure, Local Government, Public Transport, Rates, and Water. I've also put what I consider to be their political leaning (left, centre, right) or any overt party Affiliation, and any Other information I deemed noteworthy. The idea is that, with this done, I can allocate points to each candidate on each policy - 1 point for something I agree with in principle, and 2 points for something I really approve of - and the candidate with the most points will win my vote.

Some of the candidates either have no policies at all, seem to have nothing that fits into the above categories, or have not made much of an attempt to publicise themselves, so I've not included them here. My information below is a summary, in my own words, of what the candidates have provided to the NZ Herald or on their own websites and/or Facebook pages. If you think I have interpreted any particular policy incorrectly, or if you find a policy which I've left blank, please let me know and I'll amend this accordingly. I've tried my best to use the candidates' own words or what they seem to intend, rather than using my own ideas.

BTW if anyone knows how to put a table into these blogs I'd appreciate a heads up - this looks much better on my Word document as a table and it's much easier to draw direct comparisons on key issues.

Oh, and it's in alphabetical order by surname - seemed the most logical way to organise it all!

Note: PPP = Public Private Partnerships; CCO = Council Controlled Organisations

---------------------------------------------------

Aileen Austin

Affiliation - None (sounds like a conservationist)

Assets - Guardianship for future generations

Infrastructure - Maintain existing infrastructure

Local Government -

Other - Wants to defend "the NZ-Kiwi way of life"

Public Transport - "Sensible" self funding solutions

Rates - GST off rates

Water -

---------------------------------------------------

John Banks

Affiliation - National

Assets - CBD Rail loop, develop Waterfront

Infrastructure - Reduce street signage, improvements for pedestrians, invest in CBD improvements and develop world class infrastructure

Local Government - Promote local board funding and powers

Other - Current Mayor of Auckland

Public Transport - Another harbour crossing,; more development for buses, rail, ferries and an integrated network

Rates - Savings within 3 years

Water - Consumer choice vital

--------------------------------------------------

Marlene Barr

Affiliation - None (leftist?)

Assets - Council to oversee assets

Infrastructure -

Local Government -

Other -

Public Transport - Focus on improving Public Transport

Rates - Budget will be carefully examined

Water -

---------------------------------------------------

Len Brown

Affiliation - Labour

Assets - Maintain public ownership; roll out free entry to pools etc across the city

Infrastructure - Develop a high speed broadband throughout the city as a high priority, focus on developments to enhance the export and tourism sectors

Local Government - CCOs need to work for the community; bring in Maori seats for Council

Other - Current Mayor of Manukau

Public Transport - Fully integrated Public Transport system linking road, rail, ferry and air

Rates - Examine the possibility of a “Poll Tax”

Water - Maintain public ownership

---------------------------------------------------

Penny Bright

Affiliation - None (Left)

Assets - Keep in public hands

Infrastructure - Maintain at current status

Local Government - Keep out the unelected CEOs of CCOs

Other - Anti-corporate, Anti-SuperCity

Public Transport -

Rates - Decrease

Water - Council run not corporate

--------------------------------------------------

Hugh Chapman

Affiliation - None (leftist?)

Assets -

Infrastructure - Reduce traffic congestion; rejuvenate Manuaku harbour

Local Government - Local Boards should consult and listen to residents & work with CCOs; More role for Local Boards in community expenditure and planning

Other -

Public Transport - Elevated passenger transport systems; a 10 year plan to integrate Public Transport

Rates -

Water -

---------------------------------------------------

Colin Craig

Affiliation - None (rightist)

Assets -

Infrastructure - Keep costs down – no big spending or borrowing for major infrastructure work until after the recession

Local Government - Each local area is to be empowered; binding referenda will be held on major issues for the Super City

Other - Organiser of the March for Democracy (protest against the anti-smacking law and government's response to referndum) 2009

Public Transport - Anzac Centenary Bridge as harbour crossing; radical improvements to Public Trasnport required

Rates - Local Boards to set their own rates; keep rises to a minimum

Water - Opposes long term corporate monopoly on water

--------------------------------------------------

Vinnie Kahui

Affiliation - None (leftist)

Assets - Retain in public ownership

Infrastructure - Make it easier to develop sustainable buildings

Local Government - Effective engagement with communities essential

Other - Bring more events to Auckland – V8 Super cars, film and TV crews

Public Transport - Make it more effective, efficient, eco-friendly and cheaper

Rates - “Sort them out”

Water - Public ownership

-----------------------------------------------------

Alan McCulloch

Affiliation - Leader of One NZ Party (Centre-Right)

Assets - Public ownership

Infrastructure -

Local Government - Return to local Mayors for each of the regions; replace CCO directors with publicly elected officials

Other - Former Mayor, East Coast Bays.

Public Transport -

Rates - No overall rates increases

Water - Public ownership

--------------------------------------------------

Steve McDonald

Affiliation - None (Centre-Left?)

Assets -

Infrastructure -

Local Government - “meaningful consultation” between Mayor and the Council and Boards– empower local boards

Other - Has served on Henderson community board for 2 terms

Public Transport - Needs shaking up

Rates - Don’t rate people out of their homes

Water -

----------------------------------------------------

Vanessa Neeson

Affiliation - None (rightist - married to former National MP)

Assets - “I even know how to defeat graffiti”

Infrastructure - Build social capital through PPPs

Local Government - Maintain a tight relationship with CCOs

Other - 18 years as Waitakere City Councillor

Public Transport - We need a first class Public Transport system

Rates - Remove GST from rates

Water - Water provision should be first class

--------------------------------------------------

Simon Prast

Affiliation - None (Left)

Assets - No sale of public assets

Infrastructure - Funded by regional, national, and private sources

Local Government - Local boards to be fully incorporated into democratic practice

Other - Actor and Director, wants to make Auckland the First City of Pacific-Asia

Public Transport - Efficient, effective, affordable Public Transport solutions needed; a new bridge; Airport-Britomart rail link

Rates -

Water - Public ownership

--------------------------------------------------

Raymond Presland

Affiliation - None (rightist)

Assets -

Infrastructure - We need buildings and places we are proud to show off.

Local Government -

Other - Retired businessman – worked in farming and textiles

Public Transport -

Rates -

Water -

-----------------------------------------------------

Annalucia Vermunt

Affiliation - Communist League

Assets - All assets to be owned by the Public

Infrastructure - Public Works organised to provide public housing, health clinics, child care etc

Local Government - No cuts to Council services; bring in Maori seats to the Super City

Other - There is plenty of wealth in Auckland to provide for what the workers need

Public Transport - Public Works to provide the Public Transport required by workers

Rates - Opposes GST on rates but no actual statement about rates

Water - Opposes water taxes and corporate interest in water

--------------------------------------------------

Andrew Williams

Affiliation - None (Centre-Right)

Assets -

Infrastructure - Complete key regional infrastructure

Local Government - Properly resource and empower local boards

Other - Current Mayor of North Shore City

Public Transport - Fully integrated Public Trasnport system; another harbour crossing

Rates - “Don’t Waste the Rates!”

Water -

--------------------------------------------------

David Wilmot

Affiliation - None (right)

Assets -

Infrastructure - No more “lolly projects” until we get back in the black

Local Government -

Other -

Public Transport - More roads not rail; Public Transport is a dead duck and a waste of money, private automobilisation needs more support

Rates -

Water -

How do we stop crime?

2010-08-22T12:16:00.001+12:00

There's been some conversation on my Facebook profile about how to stamp out crime, specifically in light of this recent NZ Herald article about New Zealand's thriving underbelly:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10667655

I linked this article to my profile and made the following comment:

"Several answers immediately occur to me here. 1) Tighten up on our anti-money laundering legislation (already being done); 2) Tighten border control and increase customs staffing so that EVERY package coming into NZ can be searched; 3) impose the death penalty for drug traffickers, to be conducted within 6 weeks of the sentencing (appeals must be heard within 4 weeks of the first trial); 4) compulsory drug rehabilitation for anyone caught using illegal drugs no matter what age, rather than prison, and a minimum non-parole sentence of 25 years hard labour for recidivist offenders."

While a couple of respondents agreed, several others expressed a sentiment that this was reminiscient of a Nazi-style criminal justice system, and one used a derivative of Blackstone's formulation ("better that ten guilty persons go free than one innocent person should suffer") in decrying the death penalty altogether.

This belief has long been with us; in Genesis God announces that he will spare Sodom (or was it Gomorrah? Sorry, I'm too lazy to look this reference up!) if he can find but 50 righteous people; obviously he can't, so the whole place turns to salt. Exodus 23:7 tells us that "thou shalt not slay the innocent and righteous". So this kind of thinking has obviously been around for a while. Benjamin Franklin expanded on Blackstone's idea when he proclaimed that it was better for 100 guilty people to go free than for one innocent to hang. Voltaire and Rousseau also had ideas along this train of thought, as, I believe, did Burke. In fact, one might say that the entire foundation of our Anglo-Saxon jury system and the western liberal justice structure is based around the preference to let the guilty walk rather than coop up the innocent. Here in NZ we have had Arthur Allan Thomas, David Bain, and now John Barlow who have been convicted of murder, served a long stretch behind bars, and then freed or even exonerated. So it is a very topical as well as an emotional issue.

In a perfectly robust state where the police were completely above suspicion, the death penalty would work well. Unfortunately, though our police force is still very honourable and incorruptible as a whole, we do know that on occasion individual police officers have planted evidence to secure a conviction. This will always haunt the debate about the death penalty, and we do need to think about how to ensure that the right person is being executed. The article cited above was mainly to due with drugs, and how Asian crime syndicates have overseen a massive increase in money laundering, drug importation and sale in this country since the advent of P. In China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia, to name several examples, they would face the death penalty for importation; here, they face a relatively small fine, a few years in prison, and deportation. As we've seen with cases like that of Shanelle Corby, however, proving that someone is actually guilty of importation rather than being an innocent patsy can be difficult.

There is one thing which is much easier, however. Drug tests. This does not prove importation, but it does prove consumption. If there were no users, there would be no traffickers. Yes?

In Sweden, they recently took a new look at prostitution. Rather than making the sale of sex illegal, and turning the prostitutes into criminals, the Swedish government made the purchase of sex illegal - hence hitting the people whose demand for prostitutes was fuelling the sex trade. I see this as the fundamental reason behind why drug use should remain illegal - if not for the users, drugs would not be a problem. Look at the situation in Mexico at the moment, with many thousands of casualties caused by the drug war being waged by the under-resourced government against drug warlords and cartels who are funded directly by American drug users.

My thinking is simple. Death for traffickers, where guilt can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. But is this enough? That's why I advocate compulsory rehab for anyone convicted for using drugs - rehab to be done in a secure rehabilitation facility which houses other drug users but no other types of criminals, a residential facility where families can also stay to be close to their loved ones and help them through (or receive rehab themselves - lets face it, many of those using drugs are simply following in the footsteps of family members.) People convicted a second time would have the book thrown at them, for fuelling the drug industry. A choice of 25 years minimum non-parole period, hard labour, or a nice, clean death within 30 days with a $50,000 payment to their family (which will still save the taxpayers millions of dollars per inmate).

While no one likes to see innocent people suffer, we all need to get over our obsession with individual rights and start thinking more clearly about collective responsibility, safety, and security. As I wrote on Facebook, is it not better for an innocent person to give their life for the security and safety of their country, their people, their nation, rather than allowing ten or a hundred guilty people to live and potentially cause even more pain, hurt, and suffering to many more innocent people? Surely none of us can deem our own person as being more important than the community as a whole? If the part that we play in providing collective security is that we must die for it, then, to borrow from John F Kennedy, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Anarchists hijack protest AGAIN

2010-06-27T19:31:00.000+12:00

The latest round of the G-8 and G-20 meetings is currently being held in Toronto, Canada. These high level meetings are all about smoothing globalisation and addressing global issues. As such, they tend to inspire a certain level of protest by hippies, pacifists, leftists, nationalists, and pretty much anyone else who likes dreadlocks, listens to reggae, smokes a bit of ganja and generally wants to be free to bitch and moan about things he or she thinks are wrong with "the Western World", from climate change to poverty in Africa to oil to McDonalds to Hollywood to overpriced CDs to internet restrictions to AIDS to disenfranchised and culturally impoverished minorities and all that other jazz which are traditionally laid at the door step of capitalism.
Unfortunately, for the past decade or so these legitimate protests have been hijacked by serious, orgainised, violent thugs - the Anarchists. Most anarchists, from what I've seen of their antics, actually believe in nothing more than wanton destruction; they are, for all intents and purposes, initiating Fight Club's Project Mayhem. Innocent businesses are targetted, shop windows destroyed and displays stolen or vandalised in an orgy of looting and pillaging, while security forces maintain a high level of alert to prevent any of the high level dignatories present from being assassinated.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/829203--police-burned-by-protesters

The Toronto Star reports the burning of police cars, and the innocent casualties as bystanders and peaceful protestors got in the way of police action against the determined but cowardly anarchist fringe. This is why people should not attend protests - when will they realise that in doing so they simply leave themselves wide open to being used as a human shield by the anarchists and terrorists who routinely hijack such events? It appears also that misinformation is being spread by these Black Bloc anarchists, who blatantly lied in numerous twitterings about rubber bullets being fired at them.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/829194--behind-the-black-bloc-mob?bn=1

One of the anarchists claimed that their actions were not violent in themselves, but "vandalism against violent corporations. We did not hurt anybody. They (the corporations) are the ones hurting people..”. Funny. Explain that to the pack of masked protesters who attacked someone's unoccupied BMW 4X4.“Stop it. They’re not our enemies,” one protester shouted. The other retorted: “Yuppies are our enemy.”

We need to take this threat seriously. Free speech is only a right when people exercise the responsibility of respecting security and property. When thugs, looters, pillagers and hooligans descend on the streets, they need to expect a hail of bullets, a cloud of tear gas, and the baying of bloodthirsty guard dogs. Provided that police and event security inform any intending protesters that these methods will be employed if a demonstration gets out of hand, I can see nothing wrong with this. International law also needs to recognise that anyone caught at a protest in Black Bloc regalia should be charged as a member of an Anarchist Organisation (although this in itself seems a contradiction in terms!), which needs to be at the same level as a Terrorist Organisation.

That's my two cents to sense this week. I'm still too upset about the unbeaten All Whites not making it through to the second round to comment on them.

Russel's a Norman

2010-06-18T19:48:00.000+12:00

NZ is currently hosting a visit by the Chinese Vice-President, Xi Jinpin. We have a free trade agreement with China, which is supposedly a good thing - I'm not sure if there's been an increase of cheap Chinese crap in the two dollar shops or the Warehouse lately but apparently we're selling more stuff over there so that's all good.

Anyway, Dr Russel Norman, former member of the Australian Communist Party, now a NZ citizen and co-leader of the NZ Communist - sorry, Green - Party (these days its not just colour blind people that think red and green look the same!), took it upon himself to abuse his position of responsibility as a Member of Parliament and demand "democracy" for the people of Tibet while waving a Tibetan flag, in a clear publicity stunt. He was manhandled by Chinese security and has filed charges against them.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10652789&pnum=0

The Background

China invaded Tibet shortly after Mao's Communists had consolidated control within the mainland. At the time Tibet was being ruled as a feudal theocracy by a Buddhist monastocratic elite (that word probably doesn't exist, but it means monk-rulers) who prevented the majority of the population from learning to read and kept them in perpetual servitude under the "benevolent rule" of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader. Most of the Tibetan people were living in worse conditions than English serfs during the time of Robin Hood. China invaded, overthrew the monastic elite, and began modernising the state: Tibet was strategically important to the security of the new Communist power, and at this time it was looking uneasily towards the Indian border (China and India ended up going to war in the early 1970s). The Dalai Lama eventually escaped into exile and since then has been encouraging a 'Free Tibet' movement, which has some enthusiastic followers here in NZ as well as around the world. Most of the supporters of the Tibetan independence movement have no idea what conditions were like under Buddhist rule and do not appreciate that, by and large, the Tibetan people now enjoy a much higher standard of living and have much better prospects than they had before the Chinese invasion.

The Situation

A peaceful protest was being conducted not far from where the Chinese Vice-President was, in accordance with NZ law and custom. Many of the protestors seemed to be members of Falun Gong rather than any Free Tibet movement, but that's beside the point. Dr Norman, as a Member of Parliament, was accorded access to the Vice President which is normally denied to the public. In an act of blatant disregard for the obligations inherent to his position, he chose to wave a Tibetan flag in front of the Vice President and make various demands concering the Tibetan people. Now, if a representative of the Palestinian National Authority came to visit and you had an MP wave an Israeli flag at him, there would be an outcry, just as would have been the case even 20 years ago if an Israeli government official had visited and someone yelled at him while waving a Nazi swastika. (I say 20 years ago because I am sure Norman and his ilk would quite happily wave swastikas in front of Israeli officials these days.) The Chinese security accompanying Xi Jinpin, obviously not accustomed to our way of handling things, grabbed Dr Norman and pulled the flag off him. TV coverage of the event is quite funny, actually - he bleats like a little child who has had a lollipop taken off him: "give me back my flag, give me back my flag!" Well, I laughed anyway. Following the incident the Greens co-leader announced his intention of laying charges against the Chinese for manhandling him.

My Opinion

I don't particularly like the way the Chinese government does things, and have in fact conducted my own boycott of Chinese made goods since just before the Beijing Olympics, which I did not watch. However, this man was (and still is) a guest in our country. Protestors were permitted to demonstrate at a distance, so as to prevent any potential security risk such as suicide bombers or other similar attacks (you can't be too careful these days, even in NZ). Russel Norman is a member of parliament, and as such he has a level of dignity and mana which he must maintain as a representative of the people of this country. In the past week we've seen some MPs fail in this regard - Shane Jones and his use of a ministerial credit card to pay for porn in a hotel room being only the most obvious example - and today we've seen another epic failure. Dr Norman has the right to protest, just like all NZers. But if he wanted to do so, he should have been with the other protestors. Abusing his rank and position to conduct a protest is way beyond the pale.

Quite frankly, he's a dick.

That's my two cents to sense.

All Whites YAY Vuvuzela NAY!

2010-06-16T20:43:00.000+12:00

Time zones suck. For the next month many of us are going to be grumpy and sleep deprived, and those bloody plastic horns definitely don't help. Okay, blow it once or twice when a goal has been scored - no problem. But why on earth are they being blown for the whole bloody game? They're doing my head in. I watched as many football matches as I could, pretty much every single day, during the last Cup in Germany, and the Cup before in South Korea and Japan. Those were awesome tournaments - well run, well attended, well organised; the only thing wrong with them was that NZ wasn't there. Now, however, we return to the world stage, and what do we have to put up with? THAT goal by Winston Reid will go down in history, and every time we watch it we will have to endure those bloody vuvuzelas. So thanks for ruining a magical night and a great tournament, South Africa. That's the last time I ever support your hosting another international tournament. I'm boycotting all matches not featuring NZ until the semi-finals - if another billion people did the same, I'm sure the sponsors would lean on FIFA and we'd see some action quick smart.

On the plus side, NZ 1-1 Slovakia. We're ranked, what, 88th or something in the world? Slovakia's only about 50 places higher than us. But this campaign has been about going above and beyond: we played amazingly well to beat Bahrain and qualify; we had a blinder against Australia which we lost at the last minute (and we should have been playing 9 men rather than 11 for much of the game); we beat Serbia, ranked in the top 20 in the world, just a few weeks ago; and we came out all guns blazing last night. Judging by the Facebook traffic I'd say the better part of a million people must have been watching that game in the early hours of this morning. To be honest, in think the last 20 minutes of the first half and first 30 of the second were pretty much all Slovakia - their guys were just running rings around ours, and we were lucky to survive with only one goal being scored against us. Paston pulled off some good saves and there was some great defence by Reid, Lochhead, and Nelson. I got the feeling that Elliot, at 36, has definitely seen better days and was having difficulty controlling the ball - mind you, who hasn't, Robert Gates? Smeltz didn't really get out of first gear until the second half and only had two decent attempts on goal, and our entire strategy seemed to be kick the ball high and hope that Killen can connect his head to it. 3 minutes into injury time and it seemed like it was all over, until Smeltz punted the ball with pinpoint accuracy and Reid - wtf was the central defender doing in front of goal??? - guided the ball in with a flick of the neck and a tap of the forehead. Magic. I felt a little sorry for Slovakia, denied their first ever win in their first ever World Cup match, but only a smidgen. A draw's as good as a win. Our first point from a World Cup match and, would you believe it, we are now in a tie for first place in our pool. Admittedly, a four-way tie between all four teams in the pool, courtesy of an Italy-Paraguay 1-1 draw the previous night, but still, we'll take what we can get. Realistically Italy will probably teach us how to play but the Paraguayan match is shaping up to be our sudden death, do or die, one shot for glory, elimination game. Bring it on.

Headlines:

Australia longs to forget their 4-0 drubbing by Germany, claiming NZ as their own! "Australasia 1 - Slovakia 1" - wtf? :
http://www.smh.com.au/world-cup-2010/world-cup-news/australasia-1--slovakia-1-kiwis-get-the-point-20100616-ydks.html

The world press loves us, apparently:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10652249

Winston Reid sets the World Cup alight!:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/15/new-zealand-slovakia-world-cup

BBC straight to the point:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2010/matches/match_12/default.stm

Even the NYTimes has a story about us! :
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/06/15/sports/AP-SOC-WCup-New-Zealand-Slovakia.html?_r=1&ref=sports

All Whites make history:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10652220

Pointing the Finger at Me Leaves Three Fingers Pointing Back at You - Part Three

2010-06-07T02:04:00.001+12:00

My Opinion

In case it's not readily apparent, I should make my bias clear. I'm a Zionist. I believe that the state of Israel, as a descendant of the historical Kingdom of Israel, has a right to exist. I believe that the Palestinian Arabs have been used as a political pawn by the Arab World to divert the attention of their own people away from democratisation and attempts to create a more transparent govenment at home. I think that Israel needs to sort out a proper solution with the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank so that the Palestinians can see the fruits of negotiation and diplomacy and overthrow the terrorist "government" which they elected out of a sense of frustration, anger and hatred during the latest intifada.
I also think that the rest of the world needs to stop playing the Palestinian propaganda game. These guys are masters at manipulating public opinion; they know that many people on the left of the political spectrum need only a little prodding before their basic underlying mistrust of authority simmers to the surface, and only a little direction to divert that towards the Palestinian cause. There would not be a Palestinian cause if Israel's Arab neighbours had accepted the 1949 peace treaty as a firm definition of Israel's borders, and taken moves to relocate and accommodate any Palestinian Arabs who chose not to return at the stage. Subsequent invasions and plans to invade Israel led to a quite natural attempt by the Israeli government to expand its territorial holdings in order to obtain the strategic depth which is vital to the preservation of a state surrounded by enemies.

There is no easy fix to this problem, simply because we have so many people who are so completely invested in a particular outcome. The Palestinian West Bank wants East Jerusalem as its capital; Israel believes that a united Jerusalem is paramount to its nation's identity. I can't quite understand why the rest of the West Bank doesn't just join with Jordan in a Transjordanian Union, but I'm sure someone will explain why.

Like it or not, the blockade of Gaza has to be managed in such a way to retain Israel's security and international prestige (such as it remains) without giving in to the terrorists. Perhaps if the amount of humanitarian aid donated to Gaza were doubled, with Israel agreeing to match every piece of international aid given with a can of food or other such item, this would go some way to alleviating the alleged humanitarian crisis and defusing the claims of the pro-Palestinian lobby.

Those poor, innocent, misguided fools who let themselves get manipulated into taking part in protests, demonstrations, and "Gaza Freedom Flotillas" need to take a good, hard look in the mirror and ask themselves why it is that they can't see the SS uniform they're wearing. Pro-Palestinian action is a legitimate display of anti-Semitism in the Western World, and the pro-terror groups sponsoring such actions know it.

Here's some sites I used to bolster my postings today; other sources of information include many years of reading countless books on the subject and creating a coherent backstory from it, as well as Time magazine and the Encyclopedia Britannica, and a few text books we used to use when I taught the Israel-Palestine topic in Year 11 History.

Sorry, the link html isn't working - if you're interested, just copy and past the urls into your browser:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7069203.stm

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10650091&pnum=0

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/7803919/Why-has-Israel-disarmed-itself-in-the-battle-for-world-opinion.html

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10650087&pnum=0

http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010060410454/global-terrorism/israeli-palestinian-confrontation-june-2-2010.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7142977.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/06/israel-gaza-blockade

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/world/europe/05reconstruct.html?src=mv&ref=world

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/world/middleeast/06flotilla.html?src=mv&ref=world

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=177320

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=176812

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/102884/ayalon-raid-deliberately-conducted-in-international-waters.html

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/102812/israel’s-debacle-at-sea.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFKi5pdEaY4

I wonder why someone can't just buy them all a Coke and let them live in harmony ... some thing tells me that we're still going to be arguing about this in 50 years time, and 50 years after that, and 50 years after that ...

That's this week's two cents to sense.

Pointing the Finger at Me Leaves Three Fingers Pointing Back at You - Part Two

2010-06-07T01:38:00.000+12:00

The Situation

Gaza has been blockaded by both Israel and Egypt (hmm, haven’t seen many Egyptian flags burning over the past week or two...) since around June 2007 or so, as a direct result of the 2006 election victory by the terrorist group Hamas and the subsequent takeover of Gaza by Hamas forces in March 2007. Since the blockade, Israel has permitted only limited humanitarian aid supplies into Gaza – enough, the Israeli authorities say, to stave off malnutrition and hunger, but not enough, critics point out, to allow any form of self sufficiency or comfort sneak in. Israel’s navy patrols the coast to intercept and redirect any shipping en route to Gaza, while Egypt’s land forces are constructing an underground steel barrier on its side of the border in an attempt to seal off the tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle food, medicine, munitions, and weapons into the territory. While Israel’s motives for the blockade are primarily to deny sufficient resources to Hamas to allow it to continue its relentless rocket attacks on Israeli territory, Egypt’s motivation is to show solidarity with the legitimate Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Hamas is using the blockade to shore up hatred of Israel and to increase its own strength. In February 2000 Hamas “police” confiscated a large number of food parcels and blankets from the UN Relief mission, and confiscated more than 200 tonnes of food in another incident several days later. It was only a threat by the UN to suspend all its relief work in Gaza which forced Hamas to back down and return the stolen items, which observers believe would have been used as largesse to reward loyal Hamas followers in the blockaded territory.

On 31 May 2010 the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) intercepted a convoy of six ships heading for Gaza. Five of the six ships in the so-called “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” seem to have complied with Israeli instructions not to break the blockade, although they, like the sixth vessel (the MV Mavi Marmara) had earlier ignored a request to dock at Israel’s port of Ashdod, from where the approved aid items would be delivered to Gaza. The MV Mavi Marmara, the main ship in the convoy, seemed intent to break the blockade, and Israeli commandos moved to enforce the blockade by boarding the ship. Despite some footage of the events being released by the IDF (critics point out that much of the footage lacks context), we are unsure as to what exactly happened next, but what cannot be denied as that there was a struggle aboard the ship as the “peaceful” protestors sought to prevent the Israeli forces from taking control of the vessel, and 9 people aboard the ship were shot and killed, with 60 others, and 10 IDF members, being injured.

When news of the convoy’s imminent departure from Cyprus reached the Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh earlier in the week, he claimed that "if the ships reach Gaza, it's a victory for Gaza... If they are intercepted and terrorised by the Zionists, it will be a victory for Gaza, too, and they will move again in new ships to break the siege of Gaza." Interestingly enough, when the ships were diverted and offloaded at Ashdod, Hamas refused to accept any of the aid aboard the vessels – aid which, according to some reports, was composed of food past its use-by date.

As a direct result of the international reception to this event, Egypt relaxed the blockade on its end of the border; despite the apparent inspections which are going on at the Rafah border crossing, there is little doubt that this has allowed Hamas to significantly rearm itself. It also means, however, that there is no further need for “humanitarian” organisations to attempt to break the blockade, as, if they truly wanted to send aid into Gaza, they can do so from both Israel and Egypt, while there is nothing to prevent people in Gaza getting what they need from Egypt (provided they can get the requisite travel documents from their own “government”, which is problematic as Hamas will only let certain people travel outside of its demesne).

Critics of the blockade suggest that the blockade does not distinguish between civilians and military opponents (which of course it cannot because Hamas, being a paramilitary terror group, uses civilians to conduct its actions). A 1977 amendment to the Geneva Convention specifically prohibits the use of any collective measures which do not distinguish between military targets and innocent civilians. While Israel has not signed these protocols, the international community expects it to uphold them; Hamas, as a terrorist organisation administering an internationally unrecognised statelet, has also not signed the protocols and is unable to do so even if it were willing.

The September 2009 Goldstone Report into Gaza and the blockade by the UN suggested that it was a crime against humanity and recommended that the matter be referred to the International Court of Justice by March 2010 if the situation had not improved by then. Israel condemned the report as being biased and poorly researched, and stands by its claim today that the situation, while not pleasant, is certainly not fatal – at least not for those people living in Gaza, anyway.

Pointing the Finger at Me Leaves Three Fingers Pointing Back at You - Part One

2010-06-07T01:36:00.000+12:00

Recent events in relation to the Gaza blockade have once more catapulted the mess that is Middle Eastern politics into the world's living rooms - here we were thinking the BP was the devil because of the oil spill and then all of a sudden we're reminded that there's other devils still hanging around out there...

The Background

There was this guy called Abraham, and he had a son, Isaac ... okay, maybe this is going a little too far back but the problem with this saga is that it's hard to remember when it all began. We're coming in at the middle of the story, like Star Wars - when it starts, we see this tiny little blockade runner being pursued by the biggest baddest mofo of a star destroyer ( “IDF inflatable vessel”) anyone had seen to date, and over the course of the film our emotions are manipulated into thinking that the rebels ( “aid flotilla”) are "good" and that the Imperial (“Israeli”) forces are "bad". Of course, when we go back to the beginning of the story we find out that, while some of the guiding forces behind the Empire (“Israel”) may have had a rather mixed agenda (like all that nonsense with the Stern Gang and Irgun, wtf was that all about guys? Kind of like going to the Dark Side and giving in to the Sith, right?), all the Empire really really wants is peace, order, a place to call home, and security - something that the ineffectual Republic (“Palestinians”) cannot enjoy because the Galactic Senate (“Hamas”, the “PLO”, “Fatah” – take your pick) is corrupt and ill advised. The Empire, we see, is actually the good guy in all this - Imperial forces have established a relatively peaceful regime, one which is ordered and controlled and where the people are safe in their own beds, apart from the ungrateful little bastards who set up the rebellion because their piece of the pie wasn't big enough for them. Most people can’t see the Lucas layer of mystification to perceive the truth behind it, although he himself got a little mixed up with the analogy and brought in a whole bunch of cuddly teddy bear Ewoks (“Viet Cong”) to defeat the overwhelming technologically advanced forces of the Empire (in this case, the “USA”), which of course we all know is a load of crap; the only reason the VC won is because the ARVN didn’t want freedom, liberty and security enough to fight for it.

Anyway, back to the Israel-Palestine thing. It is sovereignty over the land (which they’re welcome to, by the way – NZ has much more worth fighting for than that strip of sand and dust ever will, other than some cool old ruins) to which both groups have eons-old claims which lies at the centre of their dispute; land which, until the early 20th century, was really not being utilised very well at all, so the Zionist Jews who began arriving back "home" after the centuries long Diaspora legitimately purchased the land from the Ottoman Empire and began to work it, then invited more of their brethren back to the Promised Land to purchase more of it, work it, and set up kibbutzim. The Palestinian Arabs living there were rather annoyed at these Johnny come-latelies making more money out of the land and started protesting vigorously. Britain made deals with both sides during WWI, which is usually where most synopses of this situation start, and was given a mandate over the entire area after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Some 90% of the region was converted into Transjordan, essentially a Palestinian Arab territory, while the rest - called "Palestine" by the British just to confuse everybody, allowed limited entry by some of Europe's Jews – although not enough to accommodate the many Jews who wanted entry, many of whom resorted to smuggling themselves in. By 1931 Jews formed 13% of the population of the mandated territory, but the number of Jews in the area more than doubled over the next six years with the rise of the Nazis in Germany a significant contributing factor. The situation was becoming untenable when WWII came along and with it the Holocaust, the ruthless extermination of millions of Jews and other undesirables (although not Muslims, because Hitler and the Nazis had an understanding with some of the highly ranked Muftis in the Middle East and are said to have admired the Islamic faith). Throughout the '30s many hundreds of thousands of Jews fled Germany, and millions more would have followed had it not been for the reluctance of the rest of the world to allow too many Jews into their countries (which, you have to say, was probably justified to an extent – every country has the right to limit the number of new arrivals it takes and no person has the right to enter or claim citizenship of another country just because they think they should be entitled to it). Stories like that of the MS St Louis which was denied entry from various ports as it carried a number of Jews seeking sanctuary show the exact reason for why Israel was established in 1948, and why it should still be there today – no matter what happens in the world, if there is an attempt to repeat the Holocaust against the Jewish people, there is one country that has an open border; any Jew, anywhere in the world, is entitled to entry and citizenship in Israel.

Unfortunately the Arab world was not too happy with a Jewish state being re-established in the area, and the Jews themselves were not about to let a little thing like a UN directive get in their way, not when they’d survived the worst that life can throw at you. (Interestingly none of the Arab countries supported the UN Partition Plan either.) So David Ben Gurion declared independence for Israel in 1948 and immediately thereafter the infant state was attacked on all sides by all its neighbours – Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. Oh, and it won. Some 700,000+ Palestinians fled or were felt impelled to leave their ancestral homes in the Palestine territory during this war, although interestingly enough well over a million Palestinian Arabs remained in Israel and gained citizenship of the new state, and more than 800,000 Jews left or were forced to leave the Arab World by the early 1970s; oh, and there’s only one of those groups which remains huddled in refugee shelters and dependent on overseas aid. The Jews helped their people, and enfranchised the Arabs who had remained, while the rest of the Arab World basically cursed their people and did their best to isolate them while holding them up as a tool which legitimised their hatred of Israel. Somehow we tend to forget the Arab World’s role in this massive humanitarian crisis... Anyway, the borders established in that war remain what most countries in the world still recognise at Israel’s “official” border, although Israel itself soon realised that a lack of strategic depth would be a significant weakness. A number of wars followed: in 1956 against Egypt, which had sought to block Israeli shipping in violation of a number of international agreements; in 1967 against Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq – a mass mobilisation on its borders provoking a pre-emptive strike from the IDF, wiping out the impending and seemingly overwhelming invasion forces to the north, east and west within less than six days; in 1973, as a result of Egypt and Syria’s surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holy days; in 1982, against PLO forces in Lebanon, and again in 2006, this time against Hezbollah forces there; and in 2008-9 against Hamas forces in Gaza. Notably the nature of the enemy has changed in recent years; Israel has not officially gone to war since the 1970s, and its military actions have been primarily retaliations against terrorist activities. This means that Israel has surrendered the initiative to the terrorists, and it is in this context that we must view the most recent events – ie the blockade runner.

...tbc...

Good and Bad

2010-05-26T23:15:00.000+12:00

Being a full time secondary school teacher these days doesn't leave a lot of time to write, unfortunately. It's now 10.50pm and every morning I tell myself I'm going to be in bed by 10 that night; every night I get to bed around 11.30 and the next morning I tell myself I'm going to bed by 10 ...

Anyway, some good and bad things from the past few weeks:

GOOD :)

David Cameron is now Prime Minister of Britain.

BAD :(

The Tories have to share power with the Lib-Dems. Oh, and it's also bad that he's Scottish, although he is an MP for an English seat I think. Seriously, when will England get its own parliament? The Tories would have won a clear majority if it wasn't for those Welsh, Scottish and Irish seats.

GOOD :)

METALLICA tickets!!!! YEAH!! October 13, 7.30pm, I'm going to be rocking it out in the mosh pit, wearing whichever black metallica t-shirt I can find that still fits, pulling the devil's horns with both hands and yelling along with every song. It's going to rock! Oh, advance notice - I'm not going to be at school on October 14. Deal with it.

BAD :(

Still no word about Rugby World Cup tickets, although I put in a bid last month. I think its pretty close to the cut off date for buying them now, so fingers crossed I get my ticky-tickies for the Eden Park matches and the semi at AMI Stadium. Plus it would be cool if I can get drawn for finals tickets. Might have to start saving money ...

GOOD :)

Got elected back onto the Massey Board of Trustees - this may also be BAD depending on how many late nights it is going to entail. But it is nice to win anyway :)

BAD :(

Teenage hysteria. Honestly, what's with mobs and that horrendous shriek? J Williams visited our school today. I had to ask who he was, like most of the staff (apparently once you hit 30 you no longer have any idea what's "cool", which is actually a bit of a relief, because most of what is "cool" to teenagers is actually just "stupid", "idiotic", "criminal", "irresponsible", or "moronic" anyway). He's a hip hop dancer and r&b singer apparently. Something like that anyway. Ok, so some numpty decides that he's going to have a free concert in our hall, and doesn't think that maybe security might be a good idea. I headed down to the staffroom a few minutes before lunch thinking to grab a coffee and then go out to help with crowd control. Ixnay on the offeecay, there were already 300 kids minimum blocking the narrow passage between the staffroom and admin block which leads to the hall. Spent the next ten minutes trying to calm and slow the kids down as they got into the hall and then dispersing those that couldn't fit in the hall. Those that were waiting to get in were not happy that they weren't being allowed past. I ended up essentially acting as a human wall trying to prevent this mob of kids pushing through to get to the hall. It was pandemonium. I don't think I've ever been more fearful for a students' safety than I was at that moment - we were so lucky that no one was hurt. Absolute chaos. I can still hardly believe it, it was just so unnerving. It obviously unsettled me because when this boy spun past me and made a run for it I unleashed the full fury of my angry-teacher-yelling voice for the first time ever in my teaching career. I've been involved with breaking up fights, pulling grappling kids off the middle of a main road in traffic, dealing with a bus crash while on a school trip, busting taggers in flagrante delicto (and catching the little buggers too when they thought they could run away from me), and all sorts of shit that teachers have to put up with these days, but until today I have NEVER yelled at a kid like I did then. I'm not happy that I lost my cool, but all I could see was a horde of kids following his example, and the resulting carnage would have been catastrophic. BAD :(

GOOD :)
Free beer at Bar 159. My quiz team has come second four weeks running, and the time before that we won. Prize = bar tab. Bar tab = free beer. Mmm. Whenever I tell my kids at school some random fact, I always remind them that one day it could help them in a pub quiz. Free beer is GOOD :)

Bedtime is also GOOD :)

That's my two cents to sense.

Iceland volcano = Al Qaeda agent?

2010-04-20T23:33:00.000+12:00

We were talking about the "Iceland volcano" (as all the media organisations call it) in class today. Well, okay, I was talking about it. I don't know why, I was supposed to be talking about the nature of Elizabethan and early Stuart government in 16th-17th century England, but if you've been one of my students you'll understand exactly how one of my classes can weave its way around 6000 years of recorded history, pseudo-science and conspiracy theories before eventually getting to where we were meant to be going by the end of the hour.
So, anyway, I couldn't help but wonder how Osama Bin Laden must feel about this volcano. I mean, the guys gets all these terrorists and suicide bombers and hijackers and shoe bombers and tube bombers and drink bottle bombers and stanley knife carriers and what-not over the past decade to attack embassies and airports and navy ships and aeroplanes in mid flight and world trade centre buildings and what have you, and what has all this achieved over all this time? Aircraft have been grounded for what, 12 hours? 18 hours?
This ONE volcano, in ICELAND of all places, lets off a bit of steam and releases an ash cloud, and not only has almost every country in Western Europe indefinitely grounded all air traffic, they've also stopped planes from flying in from other places for almost a week now.
If I were Obama, I'd be pretty pissed off with this volcano being able to do more in a week than I'd achieved in a lifetime. Although, maybe he's not quite sure... maybe the volcano is actually doing his work for him?
After all, look at the name of the volcano - Eyjafjallajokull. Look at the middle of it. The exact middle. Those four letters. ALLA. I wonder if the 'h' has been dropped over time...

Was the Waihopai attack justified?

2010-03-18T18:15:00.000+13:00

Back in April 2008 three men launched a raid on the so called "spy base" or Government Communications Security Bureau installation at Waihopai, near Blenheim. They broke into the facility, cutting their way in, then used sickles to slash open the plastic cover protecting one of the dishes used to receive information.
Yesterday, a jury of 11 men and women in Wellington exonerated the men, finding them not guilty of the attack to which they had confessed, nor liable for the million dollars in damage.
Apparently, the jury were convinced that the men were acting according to their consciences, and doing what they believed was right.

Here's the NZ Herald articles:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10632720&pnum=0

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10632804&pnum=0

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10619725

At first glance the last article may not appear to fit with the other two, but think about it. The anti-abortionist who killed the late term abortion doctor was also acting according to his conscience. Therefore, if he happened to get this jury, he'd been not guilty.

I'll bet the Nazi Party are wondering where this jury was during the Nuremberg trials!

What kind of weak, pathetic excuse is this for finding people not guilty? Does this mean I can blow up a McDonalds because I genuinely believe it is killing our kids by encouraging obesity, and get off scot free? Can a Maori now legitimately steal property from a non-Maori on the argument that they genuinely believe they are owed restitution from some Treaty grievance? Can I shoot Keith Locke in the head because I genuinely believe that he is evil incarnate and the longer he spends spouting his drivel in parliament, the more irreperable damage he does to New Zealand's security?

These three traitors are guilty, guilty as sin. They have attacked a key installation which serves to defend our nation's interests as a Western power. They have cost the taxpayers of NZ more than one million dollars in property damage, not to mention their legal aid fees and the cost of the trial. They have shown no remorse for their actions, and simply provided encouragement to the liberal lunatic fringe of pacifist soft-cocks who will be the first ones to throw their arms up in surrender and offer to collaborate if NZ ever gets invaded. They need to be locked up for their actions, not freed. If this is the kind of farce we get from a jury system, then maybe it is time to look at reducing the public involvement in trial by jury, and creating a number of professional jurors. The interests of the state as a whole, and the security of its people, should never be set aside for the agenda of the few who happen to live some where in cloud cuckoo land where everyone hugs each other all day and no one is trying to kill them just because they come from a Western country.

Better yet, could we please send these three to Afghanistan? If they care so much about the people there, they'll do a much better job if they're actually living in the country, and we'll be much better off without them.

Wailing about Whaling

2010-03-13T09:35:00.001+13:00

Illegal Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean has been a topic of much discussion in New Zealand for some time, and especially so in the past few months.

According to the International Whaling Convention's foundation document (retrieved from http://www.iwcoffice.org/commission/convention.htm this morning, 13/3/10), the objective of the IWC is to protect all whale species from overhunting, establish "a system of international regulation for the whale fisheries to ensure proper conservation and development of whale stocks", through the supervision of the International Whaling Commission. The Convention's aim is to allow whale numbers to increase, but it also gives the governments of signatory powers the right to carry out scientific research which involves the killing of whales - in 1986, the IWC completely banned all commercial whaling in order to allow whale stocks to replenish themselves. (Interestingly, this was the same year in which the fourth Star Trek feature film, The Voyage Home, was released, featuring a ship of unknown origin which, it turned out, was piloted by whales searching for their interstellar brethren on Earth! Thus saving the whales became an issue of intergalactic importance.) Originally signed by 15 nations, including NZ, the IWC now has 43 members.

The problem is that the loophole allowing for scientific research has been exploited to the point of insanity. According to figures presented by the NZ Prime Minister in his address on whaling,

During the previous 20 years, whaling quotas have increased ten fold, from 300 in 1990 to 3,000 for 2010 (http://www.johnkey.co.nz/archives/904-John-Key-statement-on-whaling.html)

Clearly this is not sustainable. Clearly, the current system is not working. Clearly, something needs to be done.

Some environmentalists, concerned that nothing was being done to stop the slaughter, decided to protest on the high seas against whaling in all its forms. Greenpeace and other associated organisations which oppose whaling completely (ie even if there were 100 million whales in the sea they would still oppose hunting) launched a small fleet to tail the Japanese 'scientific expeditions' on their annual whale hunts. We're used to seeing this on the news. What we were not used to, until recently, was the increasingly dangerous activity pursued by groups such as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. This group has been blatantly ignoring the rules of the sea and putting its own crews and vessels, not to mention those of the Japanese, in danger. This culminated in a collision between the Sea Shepherd vessel Ady Gil and the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru No 2 in the Southern Ocean on Wednesday 6 January 2010. Following this, the Ady Gil's captain, Pete Bethune, illegally boarded the Shonan Maru in an attempt to present a bill for the damages to his ship, which sank as a result of the collision, and to place the Japanese captain under citizen's arrest. When that failed, he then demanded to be put ashore in NZ. Yesterday, on his arrival in Japan, he was arrested by Japanese authorities.

Make no mistake, Sea Shepherd has its heart in the right place. But what the organisation is condoning is basically the 21st century equivalent of piracy on the high seas. They are nothing more than eco-terrorists. For those who would say that my use of this term is biased and clearly indicates an opposition towards the SSCS, take a look at these pictures:

http://creativelogik.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/sea-shepherd-success/ - boasting about how many ships this society has sunk.

http://thisiswhitey.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/joining-forces/ - the Jolly Roger derivative used by the SSCS vessels.

Prime Minister John Key has copped a lot of flak from environmentalists and their brainwashed adherents in the past week or so, simply because he suggested a diplomatic solution to the problem. His intention is that at the next meeting of the IWC NZ propose that the scientific research loophole be completely closed, in return for an annual quota set by the IWC for Japan to legitimately hunt. The loony liberal fringe immediately leapt to its feet and accused the National government of wanting to legalise commercial whaling again, but, as usual, they completely missed the point. Diplomatic discussion and compromise are the only way forward. Japan already feels that it is being unneccesarily picked on by the Antipodean nations, and without diplomatic negotiations the official attitude between the nations will harden. Japan is a major export and import partner for NZ, and many Japanese tourists come here every year, providing a huge cash injection for the NZ economy. While it would be wrong to put profits ahead of the survival of a species, it would also be wrong to not try and ensure a healthy relationship between our nations.

The NZ Herald and Dominion Post both contributed some interesting articles on the plan for negotiation in the past few days:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10631021&pnum=0

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/editorials/3420779/Editorial-Stop-the-slaughter-any-way-that-works

Over recent years the loony "liberal" left has become increasingly hostile to debate and compromise. It is their way or the highway. They reject democratic dialogue, and while they demand that they should have the right to speak and be heard, they often deny others that same right. This is not democracy. This is not even liberal. The hijacking of the Green movement worldwide by the remnants of various Western socialist and communist parties has been well documented, and is clearly obvious here in NZ when one examines the credentials and track records of the current leadership of the Green Party. It is no longer an environmental group, it is simply a new guise for an old foe - Comintern has reinvented itself and gone deep under cover. Perhaps the colourblind have an advantage over the rest of us - to them, red and green appear the same...

Done and Dusted :)

2010-03-13T08:44:00.000+13:00

Last week I handed my masters thesis in for marking. It proved to be a mammoth undertaking, trying to combine research with a full time job which often demands close to double the 40 hour working week we commemorate on Labour Day every year. With part time study and deferring it for a year, there were times when I feared it would never be finished. But now it is, yay!

The official title of my thesis is "Down the Toilet: The Flushing Incident and the Decline of the Anglo-German Relationship, 1890-1914". I've reprinted the abstract below if anyone happens to be interested.

The Flushing Incident of 1910-11 provides an intriguing insight into the state of diplomatic relations in north-western Europe prior to the outbreak of the First World War, and contributes to the body of evidence detailing the deterioration of Anglo-German relations during the first decade of the twentieth century. There is a gap in the existing historiography of the origins of the 1914-18 war, an absence caused perhaps by many previous historians’ lack of interest in the role played by neutral powers such as the Netherlands in the strategic planning of Britain, Germany, and France.

The public interest shown by newspapers in Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium towards the Dutch government’s decision to upgrade its coastal defences in late 1910 was immense. The Netherlands tried to remain aloof from Great Power politics in the early 1900s, but could not avoid being entangled in the web of intrigue, suspicion, and distrust which had ensnared its three powerful neighbours by 1910. The debate over the Dutch right to fortify the coastal approaches to a river within their own territory was more than an attack on the sovereign right of a nation to defend its own land. It cut to the heart of British, French, and Belgian suspicions of Germany’s future intentions. In so doing, the Flushing Incident cast a cat among the pigeons at the British Foreign Office, tasked with maintaining the balance of power in Europe and, above all, keeping the Channel ports free from any Great Power. Considered in this context, the Flushing Incident assumes a significance hitherto denied it by the historiography of this period.

This thesis aims to demonstrate the importance of the Flushing Incident in portraying the tensions that existed between Britain and Germany in 1910-11, to position it within the context of the Anglo-German relationship, and to use the incident to examine the influence played by the neutral Netherlands and Belgium on British and German strategists before 1914. The Flushing Incident has been undeservedly neglected by past historians, and deserves to be considered alongside the other crises and events which contributed to the First World War.

Minto's a Munter

2010-01-07T02:09:00.000+13:00

And I don't mean cool Munter like on O.F. either ...

Ever approaching impending thesis deadlines loom large so my blog is suffering, but I had to say something about this.

The Background

I don't watch tennis, and there are only two reasons why I know about the ASB tennis open in Auckland: (1) it makes it really hard to get to the museum which is just up the hill from where the tennis is, and (2) for the past couple of years John Minto has shown up to demand that one of the female tennis players go home.

It started last year, back when Israeli troops went in to Gaza to try to stop the constant barrage of rockets being fired into Israeli territory by Hamas militants. Said militants were of course acting up because Israel has them penned up tighter than a nun's thighs at a sausage convention, and there's a really long history of animosity between the two groups which, even if I didn't have a thesis to write, would simply take me much longer to write about than I can afford. Any way, back in January 2009 when this was going on, this female Israeli tennis player, Shahar Peer, was due to play in Auckland. Like all Israelis her age, she's been in the army; in fact, I think she's still doing her national service now, or at least she was last year, but because she's so good with a racquet the army is letting her hit balls rather than heads. So you have an Israeli woman, who, might I point out, has no involvement in the direction of Israeli foreign, domestic, or military policy, turn up to play in a tennis tournament here in Auckland, NZ. About 20 protestors hung around outside and did whatever it is protestors do.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10550934

Well, Peer - who is apparently ranked in the top 50 in the world, and was barred from competing at the Dubai Tennis Championships in February last year when the Arab Emirate refused to grant her a visa for undisclosed reasons - is back in Auckland this year, and so too is Minto. I guess he was getting a little bored over the summer.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10618592

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10618695

The Situation

So Minto and 10 supporters - only half the tiny number he could gather last year - are outside the ASB centre again callig for Peer to go home "in the name of peace". Um, she's a professional tennis player! I'd love to not go to work in the name of peace but I'd be in the same position as Peer is - I wouldn't be paid. Obviously if Minto can stand outside the tennis all day he's not going to work in the name of peace as well - unless someone's paying him?

I realised today that Minto has a lot in common with Hamas, so it's no wonder that he supports them. Here's 6 things I came up with off the top of my head:

1) MINTO and HAMAS both have five letters = 3 consonants, 2 vowels. What's more, both have two syllables. Do not underestimate the power of the syllable.

2) They both like Palestinians. Well, they both say they do anyway.

3) They both like media attention for when they are making their 'political points'.

4) Both Minto and Hamas tend to pick on innocent civilians when making these 'political points'. Minto has actually chosen a specific innocent civilian to blame for the policy of her government, whereas Hamas tend to be rather more indiscriminate in their selection.

5) Bombs. Hamas use them all the time, and, coincidentally (?) the ASB tennis stadium was evacuated on the first day because of a supposed bomb threat. Hmmm...

6) They both make wildly extravagant demands, both claim to be working for 'peace' (although something may be lost in the translation; Hamas seems to have misconstrued 'peaceful' as 'full of pieces'), and both tend to get rather upset when people point at them and laugh.

Oh, and I'm sure Minto would probably look like Hamas too if he put a tea-towel on his head and strapped some explosives to his chest.

What I find funniest about this situation is that Peer won her 1st round match and her opponent said that the protest had put her off - this is what I'd regard as being 'counter-productive' if I were one of Minto's Munters.

My Opinion

I don't know who else is playing, although no one from NZ any more after one of them pulled out before it started and Erakovic got knocked out in the first round, but I'm really hoping Peer wins. That'd be a great slap in the face for Minto and his Moronic Muppets. It'd be even nicer if she dedicated her victory to the ongoing peace process in the Middle East, because if anything can shut him up, that will.

New Zealanders get a little funny about the Israel-Palestine issue, which is interesting when you think that (a) it's so far away, (b) I didn't notice anyone in Isreal or Palestine protesting over the Seabed and Forshore 'confiscation' or whether Wanganui needs an h, and (c) I'd probably tell them to mind their own business if they did start having an opinion on things that don't concern them. January last year was a good year for crazies: you had the mad monk smearing blood on the Yitzhak Rabin peace memorial in Wellington (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/middle-east-conflict/news/article.cfm?c_id=601&objectid=10550835), there were some cafes refusing to serve Israeli customers (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/middle-east-conflict/news/article.cfm?c_id=601&objectid=10552520), and of course there was Minto.

I do find myself wondering what all those people would do or say if I suddenly refused to teach Muslims in my classroom and demand that all Muslim students withdraw school as a protest to put pressure on their religious leaders to condemn the actions of a small group of fanatic extremist terrorists who claim to be doing Allah's work in their name. Somehow I don't think I'd get away with it, and I don't particularly want a bomb in my letterbox - although it would make a difference to the my mail box's normal diet of junkmail.

In the meantime, I'm putting $20 down to start a collection to raise money to buy Minto a one way ticket to Gaza. Hopefully someone can cancel his NZ citizenship while he's over there, and then he can see how things are done Hamas styles when he tries to protest against corrupt government practices over there.

Oh, and I expect to see Minto at the next Olympic Games demanding that every athlete who comes from a country where the government oppresses at least some of its people, wages war indiscriminately against neighbouring countries or groups of its own citizens, or kills innocent people on a regular basis. He'll need more than 10 supporters though, and if he gets his way I think Norway, Finland, and Sweden will probably have their best Olympic Games ever, seeing as how they'll probably be the only teams still permitted to compete!

And that's my two cents to sense. Sorry for the wait. Happy New Year!

The Thin End of the Wedge?

2009-12-19T16:14:00.000+13:00

Wanganui gains an 'h' - how long until Auckland is officially renamed Tamaki Makaurau?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10616306

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10616467

The Background

In a compromise that seems to have been welcomed by leaders of both sides of the debate (although deplored by the increasingly liberal NZ Herald editor), the Wanganui / Whanganui debate has apparently been settled by a declaration by Land Transport Minister Maurice Williamson that people can spell the city name however they wish. although Crown entities will move over time to adopt the 'h' in their official spelling. This comes after a long and sometimes heated public debate which, on the surface, seemed rather silly really - why all the fuss about a lousy letter? Of course, the actual issue is much more than that.

The Situation

Just as we now have Aorangi/Mt Cook and Taranaki/Mt Egmont, we now also have Wanganui/Whanganui. This issue pitted a small group of local Maori, a larger group of local liberals, and an even larger group of people from all over the country against the majority of Wanganui's residents, their Mayor, and an equally large group of mainly conservative NZers elsewhere in the country.

At its heart is the problem with the word 'Wanganui', which doesn't actually mean anything at all but is a bastardisation of the word 'Whanganui' or 'big harbour' - a name already present in several other places around NZ. Local Maori began arguing against the incorrect spelling of the name in the 1970s and 80s, and were eventually successful in getting the Wanganui River's spelling changed to Whanganui in the early 1990s. To me, this was the perfect compromise - this was, of course, a natural feature with which local Maori had long historical links. The city, which was established in 1840 as one of Wakefield's NZ Company settlements and originally named Petre until 1854, could have maintained its bastardised spelling as a point of difference and interest, a historical novelty showing the difficulties of transcribing words from a non-literary culture into those recognisable by others who do not speak the language. For over 150 years the city's name has been spelt this way, establishing its own historical legacy.

The issue was brought to the people of Wanganui in two referenda, as such things should, and twice over 80% of residents chose to keep the incorrect spelling. The NZ Geographic Board, however, composed of 7 appointed members of whom two must be Maori, proposed that the 'h' be inserted despite the wishes of the city's inhabitants, and all of a sudden the dispute gained national prominence. The Board, founded in 1947, is guided by the Designation of Districts Act 1894 which specifies that any future naming or name alterations must give preference to the original Maori names, and is explicitly required to encourage the use of original Māori place names on official maps.

Why would it overrule the wishes of the majority?

My Opinion

As I see it, this is yet another example of the growing rift between Maori and non-Maori in contemporary NZ. In the past few months race relations have taken a major hit, with the animated discussion over Hone Harawira's 'white motherf@^*er' comments (interestingly enough he seems to have been slapped with a wet bus ticket and told to be a little more circumspect next time in his choice of words) and, just last week, the announcement that the Maori separatist movement's Tino Rangatiratanga flag would be flown alongside NZ's national flag from public buildings on Waitangi Day. Maori have been threatened for many years by the growing diversity of New Zealand's population. Similarly, many caucasian New Zealanders have been threatened by their diminising majority within the population. Both sides fear for the future, and Maori groups, since the 1980s, have been relentless in their attempts to secure protection and legal recognition for their tangata whenua status.

In this light, the Waitangi Tribunal process can be seen as important in seeking to rectify the illegal land confiscations of the 19th and 20th centuries, but it is rapidly approaching its use-by date. The current prevailing world view that colonialism was 'bad' has coloured historical thinking and teaching to such an extent where some Maori actually believe that ALL the social ills of their current society can be blamed on the European 'invaders'. Meanwhile, non-Maori are increasingly being put off studying NZ History because of the current historiography glorifying Maori and condemning everyone else. While there are many things which we as NZers should feel ashamed of in our past, there are many more things which we should be proud of and celebrating, but a lot of these have now been 'tainted' with the brush of 'colonialism' (as if it were a bad thing).

So the 'h' debate is more than JUST a letter, it is about who we are as a country, what we believe about our past and which direction we want our future to take. We have a shared history which is being threatened. I recall a history lecture I was attending at the University of Waikato (which was soon to be given to Tainui) in 1996 being interupted by several 'protesters' demanding that Hamilton be renamed Kirikiriroa and that Von Tempsky drive be renamed because it was an insult to Maori to have a road named after a 'murderous mercenary'. Over recent years the number of people referring to New Zealand by the modern Maori fabrication 'Aotearoa' has also increased, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this to be a future target.

I imagine this, too, will be resolved by adopting a combined name - in 2100 AD (sorry, CE - don't want to upset those non-Christians out there!) will we officially be Aotearoa-New Zealand? (The NZ Geographic Board is actually prohibited at the moment from changing the name of our country, but will this continue?) Will our largest city be Auckland/Tamaki Makaurau? Will our capital be Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington? And, some would ask, will it really matter?

I say it does. Te Whanganui-a-Tara is a local name for Wellington harbour, but not for the entire city, which did not exist as a metropolitan entity prior to the establishment of Port Nicholson. Tamaki Makaurau is a broad area encompassing even more than the Auckland supercity. Neither area had anywhere near the significance that they do now; a significance that contributes to the historical legacy of the names 'Auckland' and 'Wellington'. The significance of 'Dunedin' as a name is a significant historical recognition of the migration of the Scots to this part of the South Island (which may not be as imaginitive as Te Ika o Te Maui but at least it's more accurate). To lose these names is to lose the past 150 years of NZ history and heritage, and it is for this reason that the 'h' debate was so heated. The government's compromise on this has slightly dampened the discussion, but it will flare up elsewhere, soon, in a town, city or island near you. Of that, I have no doubt.

And that's my two cents to sense.

Conspiracy in Copenhagen

2009-12-08T21:39:00.000+13:00

I've been reading a lot about this since noticing an increase in the blanket coverage of climate change by the mainstream media in the build up to the conference, and the more I read, the more concerned I get.

This is not an article about climate change denial, despite the many thousands of scientists - 31,000 at last count, including 9,000+ PhD holders - who have signed a petition challenging the 'evidence' used by the UN IPCC scientists. This is an article about something far more sinister - the establishment of an unelected world government by stealth, deceit, and intrigue.

We, the public, have been sold the biggest bill of goods since Hitler convinced enough of the German electorate that the Jews were to blame for everything wrong in the world and that if you didn't vote for the Nazis the Commies were going to take over the place. The truth is, the people running the United Nations - by their nature most are internationalist socialists, as those are the only people who are actually attracted to the UN these days - are using the climate change panic to implement their long term goal of a global dictatorship.

Encouraged by the fact that European nations have surrendered their sovereignty without allowing the people to vote on the European constitution or to elect the European President (some pen-pusher from Belgium that few people outside the Hague have ever heard of), the UN is hoping to cash in on the global hysteria being perpetuated by an irresponsible media, slavishly served by an UN NGO (the IPCC) which has consistently fudged the figures on climate change, and mindlessly encouraged by well meaning, otherwise ordinary citizens of the world who have been brainwashed by the constant din of worst-case scenarios and are completely ignorant about how they are being manipulated and used. This scam - not climate change per se but the hijacking of the environmental movement - is truly masterful; if Macchiavelli were still alive, this is the kind of thing he'd have wet dreams about. The number of cunningly coordinated global activities that have taken place this year to illustrate 'solidarity' with action against climate change will make many of the democratic world's leaders scared of the consequences of not signing an agreement in Copenhagen.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, dated September 15, 2009, to be presented at this conference for world leaders to sign, essentially calls for a world government - this is the actual word used. The treaty is composed of three parts: government, wealth transfer, and enforcement. In 181 pages of legal-speak, how many times do you think words such as "election", "democracy", "ballot", or "vote" appear? No prizes for the correct guess - zero. Nada. Zilch. None. Never. They don't exist in this new framework for the planet's future.

As Lord Christopher Monckton said at Bethel University in St Paul, Minnesota, on October 14 this year, the Communists we thought we'd beaten in the Cold War are now about to win. Through the Greenpeace organisation - which they infiltrated so successfully in the late 1980s that they were able to completely take it over by the early 1990s - and through their cronies in the UN, they are now about to impose what will be, to all extents and purposes, a socialist world government.

This comes DIRECTLY from the UNFCCC:

"Such an Assembly [ie an enlarged UNESEC, the UN Sustainability Council] should be more than just another UN institution. It would become a building block of a new, democratically legitimate, world order"(

This is not pie in the sky stuff. Consider:

* In 2000 Jacques Chirac, then French President, described the UNFCCC's predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, as "the first component of an authentic global governance."

* The Democrat's Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, gave a speech in China in May 2009 which included this gem: "every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory [in order to combat global warming]".

* Al Gore, on 7 July 2009, gave an address where he said that: "awareness [of climate change] ...will drive the change, and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global government"

* UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, speaking on 27 October 2009, said "A deal must include an equitable global governance structure"

* The UNFCC 'draft' document (to be signed at the conference), discusses (p 18) a "scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention" containing the provision for a "global government" with the power to directly intervene in the financial, economic, tax and environmental affairs of all the nations that sign the Copenhagen treaty.

The pace at which the ball is rolling on this is amazing. Only a month ago Copenhagen looked dead in the water, no one important was going to attend and it would all be business as usual. Greenpeace and the international media pulled out all the stops on a relentless campaign to bully world leaders into going, and all of a sudden the leaders of two of the four biggest polluters, India and the USA, announced that they were going (China's and Russia's leaders were already planning to attend ... hmmm, something fishy there already...!), then the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) in the West Indies is addressed by former French President Jacques Chirac (what the hell was HE doing there? He's French! Surely the Commonwealth has at least one half decent former leader to trot out for an after dinner speech?), who admonished those leaders who did not intend to attend, then our PM decides he should go, and all the while we are getting bombarded with "special reports" on melting ice on Mt Everest and big iceburgs in the Southern Ocean etc etc etc, while there is little mention of 'climategate' at all. Just because ice is melting on Mt Everest doesn't mean humans had anything to do with it!!!! But the emotional blackmail has continued.

For me, though, the big warning bells have just now started to go off. On Monday Janos Pasztor, the director of the UN Secretary-General's Climate Change Support Team, told reporters in New York that with the U.S. Congress yet to pass a climate-change bill, a global climate-change treaty was now unlikely in Copenhagen. Then, as if on cue:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6755201/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Barack-Obama-given-power-to-cut-greenhouse-gases.html

Here's a snippet:

[Obama's] administration formally declared that the gases "endanger the public health and welfare of the America people" empowering its Environment Protection Agency to regulate them across the country under the country's Clean Air Act, without having to get a hotly-contested climate bill through the US Congress

Yes, the USA really has become a fascist state - I thought Obama's federal buy-out of private corporations was basically good economic fascism in practice, but now he has the power to enact legislation WITHOUT Congressional approval!!!! Who the hell are the EPA and how exactly do they have the right to circumvene the democratic process? Of course, this is a great boost for the world government; the US would never enact a treaty which basically surrenders its economic sovereignty to an internationalist NGO. Besides which, any such treaty would require the consent of 67% of the Senate, which is not going to happen. Now, it looks like it doesn't need to.

I'm going to read more about this ... and I think that every citizen of the planet who loves individual freedom and does not want to have their life governed by a world government they will never have any say in should as well.

That's my two cents to sense.

Conference in Copenhagen

2009-12-04T09:01:00.000+13:00

NB: I am not a climate change denier, I just hate Greenpeace. And hippies.

With the Kyoto Protocol due to expire, society-change enthusiasts are pushing the summit in Copenhagen as being THE LAST CHANCE to do something about climate change. Our Prime Minister, John Key, has changed his mind and will now be attending the conference; a reversal which was due not to the pressure by enviro-Mental activists like Xena Worrying Princess Lucy Lawlessness, but rather due to the fact that it originally seemed that most world leaders would not be attending. As momentum built and more leaders announced that they would intend, NZ risked being isolated as a country conspicuous by its absence, so of course Key changed his mind and decided to go. Of course, liberal commentators who were demanding that he do just that are now criticising him for his "flip-flop" (which in Australia is like a jandal, but in NZ means indecisiveness). Of course, if John Key ran into a burning building and saved a small child from certain death, these same commentators would no doubt blame him for not implementing proper fire safety measures...

Climate Change seems to be one of those red button topics that splits down ideological lines. Many (though not all) people who identify themselves as left wing also seem to accept the theory of anthropogenic climate change, while many (though not all) right wingers are more skeptical and either doubt the extent of humanity's impact or question climate change altogether. I think part of this is due to the ongoing battle between the less moderate right and science in general. Many Creationists tend to fall into the hard right category, and they have being waging war on the scientific establishment for years regarding evolution. It seems that people are more willing to openly doubt scientists and their evidence simply because such ideas don't fit into their own mind set, rather than because they have their own evidence.

So in light of this, it was interesting to read last week about the emails which climate change proponents had obscured or even suppressed from scientific reports (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6926325.ece). I'm not sure if it is a coincidence or not, but this has to be one of the most under reported stories of the year. At the same time, the mainstream media has stepped up its campaign on pushing the worse-case scenarios of climate change, and, as I've stated already, there has been a huge shift in leaders indicating that they will now go to Copenhagen. Conspiracy theorists see this as proof that the Establishment is pulling out all the stops and deploying their big guns to prevent the email leak from destroying their attempts at introducing further measures to bleed the world's taxpayers dry.

I do not deny climate change. I am no scientist, but I have observed in my own lifetime a shift in weather patterns and seasonal variation. I do, however, have some doubts about the extent of human involvement in this change. While I find it difficult to believe that we can pump that much CO2 into the atmosphere over 200 years and NOT make some difference, I also find it difficult to believe that we're not going through some natural change as well. To me, human activity has probably intensified this change, although by how much I cannot say. Regardless, the way out is not as simple as many activists would like us to think.

Carbon taxes will not do a lot. I like James Hansen's view on this, as quoted in a recent Guardian article, when he talks about his opposition to the cap-and-trade scheme. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/02/copenhagen-climate-change-james-hansen?CMP=AFCYAH).

"This is analagous to the indulgences that the Catholic church sold in the middle ages. The bishops collected lots of money and the sinners got redemption. Both parties liked that arrangement despite its absurdity. That is exactly what's happening," he said. "We've got the developed countries who want to continue more or less business as usual and then these developing countries who want money and that is what they can get through offsets [sold through the carbon markets]."

We live in a consumer society, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but have you ever looked around your house and asked yourself just how useful some of that junk you've bought really is? Consumerism does need to be contained, and the easiest way to do this is to add an environmental surchage to the cost of everything we buy. "Cap and trade" does nothing to prevent further environmental damage, but ethical and responsible consumerism will.

Also, if the world is to work together on trying to alleviate the impact of climate change (however bad that may be), then we've all got to sing from the same hymn book. Developing countries must use up to date methods for their industry; they cannot be given a carte blanche to continue on their merry way. They point to the West and say "well, you guys did it, so why can't we?" - essentially this translates to "they started it!" Of course, that argument never worked when I was a kid explaining why I hit my brother, and it doesn't hold any water now. In the 19th century industrialisation went forward unchecked, but hardly anyone had any idea about the future impact this would have. The developing world does not have the luxury. The Western World has modified its technology to make it cleaner and less environmentally damaging now that we all know what the repercussions are, and the developing nations cannot stick their heads in the sand and refuse to play their part.

What I'd love to see at Copenhagen (and what I can guarantee will not come out of there) is an acknowledgement that the Third World needs to improve women's access to education and contraception. These two simple tools are the most effective devices we have in reducing population growth, and are much more humane (though much more expensive) than bullets. By 2050 the world population by a third, to over 9 billion. (Check out http://www.optimumpopulation.org/ for the population clock.) This is NOT sustainable, especially in terms of water access (Yemen is about to become the first country in the world to run completely dry, and more will follow). Given that the Western World's population is actually shrinking, it is clear where this growth is occuring. Copenhagen's programme should contain a directive that all nations introduce a "Stop at Two" campaign immediately - ie, that every family limit itself to two children. This is a highly emotive subject. I have a large extended family and I love them all. I have two siblings, both of whom I love and could not contemplate having lived without, and under this scheme I would never have had a sister. But if we care for our future, we need to make some tough decisions, and this is something that we ourselves can do, rather than corporations.

Care needs to be taken at Copenhagen not to act too rashly. Imposing crippling penalties on companies will only see more people out of work and further undesirable effects on society. Whatever changes are inroduced must take into account the impact that any sudden, forced, and unpopular change will have on human societies around the world. What will come out of Copenhagen, though, will be a document so watered down that it will be almost transparent. This is a photo opportunity of epic proportions, and nothing else; and I'd love to see the carbon footprint left by the conference. I don't know what the right course of action is; all I know is that it won't come from Copenhagen.

Go the All Whites!!!

2009-11-14T16:27:00.000+13:00

1982 was a great year.

It was the year I started my formal education, starting in Mrs Slattery's J1 class at Selwyn Primary School.

It was the year the British Empire emerged from its catharsis, smashing the Argies when they tried taking the Falklands Islands away from Her Majesty.

It was the year that Chariots of Fire won the Academy Award for best picture (even though Raiders of the Lost Ark should have won), Israel invaded Lebanon to deal to the PLO, the Commodore 64 was first released and Michael Jackson's Thriller hit the shelves.

It was also the year of the 12th FIFA World Cup, the first - and, so far, only - time that NZ has played at the highest level of football, on the most global of all global stages.

How did the All Whites go back then? Well, they lost. 2-2 against Scotland after 64 minutes became a 5-2 drubbing by full time; the USSR were not seriously challenged in their 3-0 victory over our lads; and Brazil took it easy, scoring 'only' 4 unanswered goals against us. NZ finished 23rd out of the 24 nations, our goal differential being slightly higher than El Salvador's and enabling us to at least earn bragging rights over someone.

Since 1982, a lot of things have changed - or have they? I'm STILL in formal education. Israel hasn't attacked Lebanon to deal with terrorists for two years now - or at least not in any size that would make the news. Another sentimental favourite, Slumdog Millionaire, beat out the real best film of the year, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for the Academy Award (even the Reader was a better film that Slumdog!). The release of Windows 7 resulted in almost as much hype as the C64 did. Michael Jackson may not have released a new album, but Thriller was back in the number one selling slot for a time after his death. And once more the All Whites are the focus of the NZ sporting public's attention.

Tonight, in Wellington, it is do-or-die stuff. One shot for glory. NZ must beat Bahrain - and if Bahrain score a goal, NZ must score twice as many - in order to qualify for next year's World Cup in South Africa, our first appearance since those days of yore.

Tonight I, like many other NZers, will be huddled around a TV watching, hoping, wishing, praying for the dream to come true: for our lads to be make it into the world's premier sporting event. They probably won't stand much of a chance once they get there, let's be honest. But simply to make it will be enough.

Tonight, the dreams of one country will be granted, and those of another shattered.

Tonight, I'm praying for sub-ten degree temperatures, driving wind, possibly a bit of sleet as well - anything to make the Bahraini footballers as uncomfortable as possible!

Come on, All Whites!!!

The Hone Show

2009-11-14T15:47:00.000+13:00

Further developments this week in the debacle that is the Hone Harawira show. It appears that he has finally outlived his welcome within the Maori Party, and neither of the co-leaders, Tariana Turia and Dr Pita Sharples, would be too upset if he were to leave. Remember back in 2005, when he referred to them both as "square buggers" and "dull and lifeless"? I'm sure they still do!

I think this is a promising move by the Maori Party, and an encouraging step in their evolution from a reactionary grouping of disaffected radicals to a fully fledged mainstream political party. If they wish to be taken seriously, and if they wish to attract the vital non-Maori vote, they cannot afford to be linked to this racist firebrand.

It has been a difficult two weeks for Turia and Sharples, but this could well be the best thing that has happened to their party since ... well, since the seabed and foreshore legislation which created it, I guess. The sooner they shed the non-compromising separatists from their party, the better it will be for all of us. Just a couple of weeks ago I was talking with a friend of mine, who happens to be part Maori, about how well the Maori Party seems to have done since signing the confidence and supply agreement with National. The Maori TV World Cup bid fiasco aside, having Sharples and Turia as ministers has been a positive move by the National government and has wrong-footed the Labour Party, which can no longer resort to its classic claim that National is racist and only Labour truly represents Maori.

The most upsetting thing about the fiasco is the latent and unrepressed racism that it has evoked, from both Maori and non-Maori. I was so ashamed and embarrassed to hear Turia speak of the abusive emails she had received that I immediately wrote her an email myself, expressing my admiration for the way in which she and Sharples have divorced themselves from Harawira's rhetoric. I would encourage all other fair minded NZers to do the same; let it not be said that racism rules the roost in this country!

At the same time, this whole incident has proved to me that the time has come for a real debate in this country - free, fair, brutally honest, and no holds barred, but without the animosity, labels, race-bashing and seething resentment which seem to dominate the extreme radicals. True enough, the 1940s version of NZ history is somewhat different from today's, but I think most people will acknowledge that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction now. The colonists who arrived with and after the Treaty should be seen as nation builders, not rapacious land thieves. Wrongs were committed, yes, but Maori were not completely innocent - many chiefs and tribes played the game and 'sold' the same land (to which, in some cases, they did not even have a claim) to more than one agent. Likewise, greedy land purchasers and speculators sought to take everything they could get their hands on, and the land confiscations following the Northern, Waikato, and Taranaki Wars seem to have targetted the wrong tribes in many cases. But we, as a nation, need to be able to draw a line in the sand; to acknowledge that our foundation may not have been glorious, but that our future can be. What that future will be must be discussed; we must forge ahead as one people, e pluribus unum, he iwi tahi tatou, if we are to have the kind of future which we all deserve.

Racism is alive and well in NZ

2009-11-07T14:00:00.004+13:00

Imagine this for a moment.

An MP of Caucasian origin - let's call him John - is sent off to go to a conference in the Solomon Islands about postcolonial government issues. A lot of the discussion takes place at a dinner the day before the conference is held, after which John goes up to the conference host and says "look, mate, I'm not particularly interested in all this, do you mind if I take the day off and charter a flight with the Mrs over to Papua New Guinea so we can walk the Kokoda Trail - she's Australian and it's quite an important landmark in their history." The host says "sure, fine, go ahead", so off he and his wife go.

Arriving back in NZ there are some hard questions to answer - why did John go off on a tourist jaunt at government expense - with his wife! - when he was supposed to be attending a meeting?

"Well," John says, "there were two other MPs there to represent NZ and I thought - hey, when am I ever going to have an opportunity to see the Kokoda Trail again?" The public is annoyed by what he has done, but for the most part many seem to accept his reasoning and don't begrudge him of it too much, especially when it is revealed that he paid for the side trip himself.

However, John then receives an email from a colleague, also of European descent, asking how he could justify this side trip when he was supposed to be on business - after all, this is exactly the kind of conduct he's been attacking some of the Maori MPs for. John, irritated by the constant barrage of complaints, hits back, and replies:

"Mate, what the hell are you doing bringing up all this brown man bullshit? Those brown motherfuckers have been sitting on their arses and ripping off our tax dollars for centuries and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their equality bullshit? Quite frankly I don't give a shit what you or anyone else thinks about it. OK? Oh, and go ahead, send this to the media if you want. I answer to my people, not to those brownies or to anybody else."

The email is duly sent out to the press.

Now ask yourself - how does the nation react? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, as a nation, we'd be pretty disgusted and there would be calls for John's immediate dismissal as a member of Parliament - how can he do his job and represent the people of a multicultural NZ with that kind of attitude?

I would also imagine that the Race Relations Commissioner, Jorus de Bres, would get involved. I wonder what he would say ... would he fob this off as freedom of expression? Would he give a certificate to the letter's recipient for standing up to 'this kind of nonsense'? Would he organise a meeting with a History professor who specialises in the impact of colonisation on indigenous peoples? Would he go completely bananas like the rest of the country and demand the MP's head?

It's an interesting question, because this exact situation has happened, ladies and gents. It happened just the other day!

http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/mp-s-expletive-laden-email-raises-eyebrows-3115696?page=3&pagesize=5

The only difference between my account and true life is that the MP was Maori, a prominent member of the Maori Party, and his comments were about "white" people, so according to the Race Relations Commissioner this is not racist, RACIST is, as has been seen recently, when some (white) students wear Nazi uniforms to a party, or pose for a photo saluting a swastika. But this isn't that kind of abhorrent racism; no, it is just "freedom of expression".

So apparently the comments made in this email, the actual one which I amended for satirical purposes above, are NOT racist:

"Gee Buddy, do you believe that white man bullshit too do you? White motherfuckers have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bullshit... And quite frankly I don't give a shit what you or anyone else thinks about it. OK? Go ahead, send this to the media if you want. I answer to my people, not to them or to anybody else."

No, of course it's not racist.

http://newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=165908

[SIGH!] Indeed, racism is alive and well in NZ... and we can't do a thing about it.

The worst thing about this is that, until the emails leaked, this was just another offence in the long list of recently published jaunts by Parliamentarians. We've had Bill English under the spotlight for housing allowances, and Chris Carter and Rodney Hide lambasted for extensive, expensive travelling with their spouses using the MP discount. Hone Harawira was one of this group. But NONE of those other men would ever have dreamed about sending an email like the one I wrote above.

One law for all, and another for some?

Fundamentalist Islam must not be tolerated

2009-11-04T16:08:00.000+13:00

Several days ago, in Arizona, a young woman named Noor Almaleki died in hospital from injuries sustained by a motor vehicle. She and and another woman had been hit and run over by 48 year old Faleh Hassan Almaleki - her father. The reason? By the man's own admission, it was a deliberate act: an 'honour killing' to expunge the 'shame' which Noor had brought on her father and family. What had Noor done to justify this execution? According to her father, she was becoming “too Westernized”.
source: http://www.inquisitr.com/45781/noor-almaleki-dies/

Also several days ago was the fifth anniversary of the murder of Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim fanatic. His assassin, born in the Netherlands but of Muslim descent, shot and stabbed the film maker on an Amsterdam street because Van Gogh had apparently insulted Islam in his films.

What is the link between these two otherwise disparate events?

It is five letters long, starts with an "I", and ends with "Slam" - which must describe the thought's of Noor's father as he hit her with his car - "I slam my car into my daughter!".

Yesterday, the European Court of Islamic - sorry, Human - Rights (ECHR) ruled that crucifixes must be removed from Italian classrooms, after a parent complained that having these on display violated her child's right to freedom from religion. This has caused a wave of anger throughout Italy, a country profoundly linked with Catholicism, where the cross is just as much a cultural symbol as a religious icon.
source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8340411.stm

Meanwhile, I await with interest what the ECHR has to say about Cambridge University's recent decision to allow female Muslim students to graudate in a burkha. To me it is one thing or another - either you can have religious or cultural symbols on display, or you cannot. If we end up having one rule for Muslims and another for non-Muslims, we might as well just adopt sharia law and be done with it.
source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6474391/Cambridge-University-to-allow-burkhas-at-graduation.html

What many of the liberal woolly headed brigade do not realise is that the majority of Muslim immigrants to the West, until the 1960s or so at any rate, were coming to escape the persecution and tyranny of their theocratic governments at home. They were, for the most part, moderates who sought the liberty and freedom of Western civilisation and democracy.

In recent decades, the loose immigration and asylum qualifications, along with 'family reunification' policies and 'fetching marriages' has led to an explosion of more hardline Islamists ending up in the West. Throughout Europe, the state has essentially paid these migrants to remain seperate - they have subsidised housing in 'estates', their own schools, their own mosques, and their own community centres, all paid for by European taxes. Many are also receiving state benefits; in Germany, for example, the number of foreign residents (primarily of Muslim origin but also from Eastern Europe) increased from 3 million in 1970 to 7.5 million in 2000, yet the number of foreign residents in work did not change over this period.

In 1950, the number of Muslims living in Europe was negligible. Today, it is somewhere between 15-17 million. By 2050, it is estimated, many European nations will have Muslim majorities - France is expected by some people to be in this position within the next decade! This change is exacerbated by several factors - the continuing tide of immigration, the high birth rates amongst the immigrant Muslim population, and the declining birthrate of the native population; already almost 25% of Europeans are over the age of 60, and this will continue to rise in years to come.

The problem is, of course, that the West, with its declining birth rates and aging population, needs immigration. To simply shut the gates and through non-nationals over the fence is short sighted and misguided. But, in Europe in particular, very little has been done to integrate immigrants into society. Mad mullahs and insane imams have been given carte blanche to peddle their litany of lies and hatred, and because various 'social-democratic' governments have bent over backwards to allow immigrants, especially those of an Islamic background, to keep to themselves, this outpouring of quasi-religious drivel has been lapped up by people with no access to any other perspective, and no education in the liberal-democratic values of our civilisation.

It may already be too late for Europe. I see a future of European "Christian" enclaves scattered throughout the continent, confined to the countryside, as Muslim majorities establish sharia law in the cities and then spread out into the rural localities. I see Beirut and Lebanon on a Continental scale, and the destruction of some of Europe's most historic sites for the simple reason that the radical theocratic leaders dominatiing Islamic society say that they are offensive to Allah.

Where is the moderate Muslim majority? Where are the ones who have successfully integrated, who have adapted, who have learned to fit their faith into the values of the society in which they now live? Sadly, they are silent. They, their parents or grandparents may have fled this madness, but it has followed them to their new homes.

We, those of us in transplanted Europe - in Canada, the USA, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, and New Zealand - must learn from the mistakes of our mother countries. We must impose strict conditions on immigration and assimilation. We must ensure that those people who come to our country accept, and live by, the ideals and values which we hold most sacred and important. After all, they have plenty of other places to go. Those who believe in liberal democracy have few havens left...

To MMP, or not to MMP, that is the question...

2009-11-02T16:36:00.000+13:00

Nearly half say they will vote to ditch MMP
4:00AM Monday Nov 02, 2009
By Patrick Gower

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10606718

The Background:
The campaign to ditch the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system from use in NZ began almost as soon as it was voted in by a referendum in 1993. Proponents of strong government tend to mistrust MMP, while advocates of a weak government tend to support it.

In 1992, when the initial referendum was held, there was a great deal of public dissatisfaction with the governments of the past 10-15 years. New Zealand had changed considerably under the Labour governments' Rogernomics reforms, the impact of the 1987 stock market 'crash', and National Finance Minster Ruth Richardson's "Mother of All Budgets", and people wanted to find something to blame. The electoral system, which had been the subject of a Royal Commission of Inquiry in the 1980s, bore the brunt of the backlash, and people decided to get rid of First Past the Post (FPP) in favour of something else.

As a consequence, a referendum was held in 1992 to ask the voters two questions. The first was whether or not FPP should be replaced by another system, and the second asked which system voters would prefer if FPP was replaced - the choices being MMP, STV (Single Transferable Vote), SM (Supplementary Member system), or PV (Preferntial Voting system). Both STV and PV involve voters ranking the candidates in order of preference, while SM (otherwise known as the Mixed Member Majoritarian system or MMM) reserves a certain number of seats in Parliament for an FPP style electorate vote, and the rest to be determined along MMP lines.

The result of the vote was clear. 84.5% of voters voted to replace FPP, and 70.3% voted for MMP to be the replacement.

As planned, this led to a final and binding referendum in 1993, held in conjunction with the national election to encourage as many people as possible to participate. This was a pure run-off between the existing system, FPP, and the most popular challenger, MMP. Because of concerns about minority governments and increasing the number of MPs from 99 to 120, MMP lost a lot of support, but still won 53.44% of the vote and thus replaced FPP in the 1996 poll and all subsequent elections. NZ has now conducted 5 MMP elections - 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2008. National has been elected as the majority party in government in the first and last of those elections, while Labour was successful in the three middle ones.

The Situation:

The Herald-DigiPoll survey referred to by the article reveals that some 49% those polled would vote to get rid of MMP in the upcoming 2011 referendum, announced by the Prime Minister last month, while only 35.8% indicated that they would vote to keep it.

If the referendum, to be held at the same time as the next election, indicates that voters want to get rid of MMP, there will be a second referendum - in 2014 - where voters will be given the choice of MMP or another alternative. How that alternative is to be chosen has not been made clear.

Anti-MMP campaigner Peter Shirtcliffe expressed dissatisfaction with the timing of the referendum, arguing that it made any change would take 8 years to implement. However, MMP supporter Metiria Turei, who is also a co-leader of the party that can be said to have prospered most under MMP, believed that the poll simply indicated that more people needed to be educated about MMP, claiming that many people's dissatisfaction may only be with aspects of the system rather than MMP as a whole.

A public education campaign on the referendum will be conducted in the lead-up to the 2011 referendum, with a budget of $6 million.

My opinion
I am not a fan of MMP, but I fear that the public has a short memory. The problem with rule by the masses (aka democracy) is that most people are politically illiterate, and wilfully so. Many people do not take their part in government seriously; they refuse to educate themselves on the matters of importance to them, and often vote blindly or emotively.

FPP was deeply unpopular in the early 1990s. Several governments had been elected, with considerable majorities, despite actually getting less votes overall than the main opposition party. This had allowed governments to force through programmes of considerable change, safe in the knowledge that they had the numbers to vote the changes into law.

If MMP has done anything, it has made governments more responsible.

This does not in any way disguise the flaws of MMP, and there are many. The most notable flaw is that some minor parties have been able to punch well above their weight; the tail wagging the dog, as many critics argue. The status of List MPs has caused some disgust, with many leaving the parties which had got them into Parliament and then retaining their seats as unelected parasites. The problem of MPs getting into Parliament via the Party List after losing popular election for an electorate seat has also riled many. Sue Bradford was a key example of this problem - her unpopular 'Anti-Smacking' legislation has been seized upon as a major shortfall of having unelected MPs driving legislation.

In my opinion, we need some changes, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Here are my suggestions to creating a workable political system which will deliver strong government and an effective opposition in a fair manner:

1) Keep the 120 seats. NZers are still under-represented at national level when compared to other countries of our size.

2) Create a cap of 80 electorate seats - 26 for the South Island, 44 for the North Island, and 8 Maori seats. While electoral boundaries may change and shift, the number of seats must remain the same - and the South Island must be guaranteed a minimum of 20 seats no matter what population shifts occur. Including the Maori seats eliminates the chance of an overhang.

3) Create 40 List seats. These seats are voted for by the Party vote, which affects ONLY this category. Thus, if Labour wins 40% of the vote, they win 40% of the List seats in addition to however many electoral seats they win.

4) Retain the 5% threshold (or even increase it to 6%) but eliminate the 'bring-a-mate' policy. If a party wins an electorate seat, so be it - but unless they win 5% of the vote, they cannot bring any other party members in with them. This would eliminate the disproportionate power held by NZ First, the Alliance, ACT, United Future, and the Greens at various times over the past 13 years.

5) List MPs should be entitled to vote on legislation but not permitted to introduce it. Also, prohibit any List MP from being eligible to be Prime Minister - if the leader of the political party which wins the most seats loses theirs, they must step down as PM. Any List MP who defects or is expelled from the party they have been chosen to represent immediately loses their position and status as an MP and is to be replaced by the next person on their party's list.

These changes, to my mind, would make our system fairer and more workable.

And that's my two cents to sense.

Food for thought

2009-11-02T15:30:00.000+13:00

Israel arrests Jewish-American for hate crimes
10:19AM Monday Nov 02, 2009

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10606787

Just a short observation about this. Apparently a man named Jack Teitel, described as an 'ultra-Orthodox Jewish West Bank settler', was arrested by Israeli police and Shin Bet for "the killing of two Arabs, the targeting of a peace activist and an attack on a breakaway Jewish sect over a period of 12 years."

Teitel, who does not speak Hebre, had immigrated to Israel from Florida about a decade ago. Interestingly, the polics spokesperson, Micky Rosenfeld, descibed the man as "a Jewish terrorist".

Critics will point out that Teitel's most conspicious attacks were against a family of Messianic Jews (Jews who accept Christ as the Messiah but have remained Jewish), and an Israeli peace activist, but he has also been accused of killing two Palestinians in 1997 and wounding another Arab.

To me, this begs an obvious question - what do Palestinians do with their terrorists? My impression is that, while Israeli authorities are arresting Jews who have killed Palestinians, the Palestinans seem to hold parades for Arabs who have killed Jews.

Food for thought...

Sterilise the poor?

2009-10-31T11:19:00.001+13:00

Laws denies 'sterilise beneficaries' claim
12:53PM Friday Oct 30, 2009

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10606339

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/national/3012644/Laws-hits-back-over-comments

Initial reporting on Laws' comments:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/3014271/Sterilise-underclass-to-stop-child-abuse-Michael-Laws

Background:
Michael Laws, formerly an MP for NZ First and now Mayor of Wanganui as well as a radio talk-back host, is the conservative man that liberals love to hate. If liberals bought dart boards with people's faces on them, his would be a best seller. Laws has been at the forefront of the anti-PC crusade for a number of years, and has recently been villified and pilloried by the media for successfully banning the wearing of gang regalia in Wanganui and for his comments over the 'H' debacle (a blog dedicated to this will be written soon; I am currently awaiting the government's decision on whether to accept or reject the NZ Geographic Board's decision to insert the letter 'h' between the 'W' and the 'a' in 'Wanganui').

The situation:
The Dominion Post approached Michael Laws for his view on the recent death of two year old Wanganui lad Karl Perigo-Check, whose father is a member of the Mongrel Mob and currently serving a stint in Her Majesty's Correctional Facilities for his role in the murder of Black Power daughter Jhia Te Tua in a drive-by shooting several years ago. (The obvious suggestion that this is karma or divine justice would probably be unfair both to the child and his mother.) Mr Laws, who had not sought out the press but responded to the DomPost's request for an interview, said that "the children of beneficiaries, drug addicts and criminals had little chance in life". Fair enough - I personally have seen first hand from my experience of working in the state schooling system enough evidence to support this view. Laws went on to say:

"If we gave $10,000 to certain people and said 'we'll voluntarily sterilise you' then all of society would be better off. There'd be less dead children and less social problems. Do we really expect these children to become doctors or brain surgeons?"

Well! Anyone would think he'd come out and said "I think we should abuse and kill children" judging by the backlash from civil libetarians and general professional liberal "do-gooders". (I call into question what "good" these people actually "do" but that is beside the point here.)

Janfrie Wakim from the Child Poverty Action Group called the suggestions 'reprehensible' - obviously she would far rather that children live in poverty than allow any intervention which would actually successfully prevent the growth of numbers in this area. Murray Edridge of
Barnardos New Zealand believed the comments were intentionally provocative and went on to indirectly blame a lack of community support for why such children may not be able to become doctors or brain surgeons. The Child Commissioner, John Angus, described the comments as being unrealistic and unhelpful, saying that

"many children who grew up on benefits became good citizens. Wider family members often ensured children were well cared for if their parents suffered from substance abuse or mental illness".

Even (now former) MP Sue Bradford called the 'Laws solution' draconian and totalitarian and one which would never be considered by Parliament, suggesting that instead more money needs to be poured into solving the problem of dysfunctional families and abused kids.

My opinion:
Once again we see the blatant attempts of a liberal media to villify conservatives by putting words in their mouths. Laws suggests that there is an underclass in NZ society (which there is) and that perhaps some could be paid to undergo voluntary sterilisation - all at once the liberals pounce and claim that Laws wants to sterilise all beneficiaries! Where do they get this from? Like Laws, I take issue with the liberal association of 'beneficiary' with 'underclass'. Many beneficiaries are there out of compulsion rather than choice, and doing everything they can to make their dependence on the state as short lived as possible. Their children, by and large, are raised with love and values and will grow up to be honest and productive members of society.
BUT here is the point that these blindly liberal commentators just cannot see. We DO have an underclass in NZ, one which is composed of people who have performed little or any legitimate work in their lives. Their parents have been dependent on the state, as have, in some cases, their grandparents, and as will be their children. For this underclass, welfare is a right, not a privilege, and accepting welfare is an acceptable long term alternative to working. Their children grow up in households where no adult has a work history - and there are often a large number of adults in these households, pooling their welfare payments so as to be able to afford Sky TV, flash new mobile phones, i-pods, and stereo systems etc. They learn that if they get pregnant at 15 they can get the DPB; if they drop out of school at 16 they can get a youth allowance and, later, the dole. Essentially, they learn how to function as a parasite, the perennial calf sucking on nanny-state's tit. As a tax payer, that's my tit they're sucking on too - and yours!
Our society has been in a rapid state of flux for some years. Many things deemed irresponsible, sinful, or just plain unthinkable even 50 years ago are now commonplace - divorce, abortion, homosexuality, prostitution, drug use, to name just a few. It is not my place (and certainly not in this article) to pass judgement on this state of change; certainly, society 50 years ago was a lot more conservative and less tolerant of difference, some flexibilty is required if we are to function as a tolerant and respecting society. But for some reason the 'right' to bear children is still sacrosanct. Civil libertarians are all too eager to support the right to terminate a pregnancy (although interestingly most are more eager to kill an unborn child than to kill a convicted mass murderer or serial rapist...), and yet they also support the right of Mrs Smith having 25 children to 14 different fathers and claiming child support for all of them. In a world which is overpopulated as it is, where the people more likely to be breeding more often are also the ones least likely to be able to support their children, this is something that MUST change. Having a child is a responsibility, not a right. If you cannot support one, you should not have one. And if giving people $10,000 to have their tubes tied or cut or whatever helps alleviate social problems 15 or 20 years down the track, then I say it is a much more effective use of tax-payers money than having to pay for more benefits to pay the bludgers and more prisons to house the delinquents.

And that's my two cents to sense.

A Lamentation on Modern Living

2009-10-29T17:01:00.001+13:00

Here's the truth - life sucks, and then you die.

Positive self-affirmations are a waste of time. Feng Shui is bollocks. Karma is crap. Your star sign predictions in the daily paper are always wrong. Neither the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud nor the collected sayings and wise words of Confucius will ever be of any help to you. Psychologists and psychiatrists and therapists and counsellors and life coaches and motivational speakers and even Tony bloody Robbins are all speaking through a tiny hole in their massive butts. You are not significant. You are not important. You are not a valued member of our society. You can‘t make changes to improve your life; there is no twenty step programme to turn you into someone that matters.

You're not going to change the world. You have nothing to offer but a meaningless life, a parasitic existence on the planet which nurtures you even as you help to destroy it. You will never amount to anything. You pass through people’s lives like a breath of air, instantly forgotten and replaced by the next breath. The world owes you nothing and God isn’t listening.

Complete strangers win the lottery while you can’t even get three numbers on the same line.

Over the course of your entire life to date you have achieved absolutely nothing - the world would not notice your absence. Your life is completely, totally and utterly void of purpose, direction, or meaning.

You are not a sports star, a movie star, a rock star or a shooting star. You will not be famous, wealthy, a celebrity, an important personality, a millionaire, a media magnate, King of England, President of the USA, a corrupt megalomaniac Armageddon cult leader or a talk-show host. You will never marry royalty. You will never have a yacht, a private jet, a mansion, your own private movie theatre, a cereal box with your picture on it, a Playboy bunny or an island in the South Pacific. You can’t write a best-selling novel, nor think up a box-office smash-hit award-winning screenplay. You can‘t write next year‘s most popular song, and you wouldn‘t be able to sing or play it anyway.

No matter how hard you hit a golf ball, a tennis ball, or a football, you will never make any money from it. You will never be asked to endorse a clothing label, a make-up range, or a sports shoe. The closest you will ever get to a five star hotel room is seeing one on TV, and you will never even travel business class, let alone first class.

No matter how much you exercise and diet, you will never look good enough. You’ll fail the Jenny Craig diet, the Atkins diet, and the Subway diet. You're afraid that if you attain your ideal weight there will be something else wrong with you which will be even harder to fix, and if there isn’t then you will no longer have anything on which to blame your failures: you’ll be forced to accept that you really are a complete waste of a human life. All these years on the planet and THIS is all you are?

You will never meet anyone who really loves you. There is only one person on the entire planet that we are each destined to be with; you were five minutes late on the day you were supposed to meet yours, and missed her forever. Your soul mate died in a car accident, or a plane crash, or a medical mishap before you even knew she existed. Every time you think you are getting somewhere, the rug is pulled out from under your feet, again and again, and you seem to end up even further back than when you started. You will continue to mistake female friendship for adult affection, until you manage to alienate all your women friends and end up with no friends left at all. You will never again have a long term relationship, a short term relationship, a summer fling or a one night stand. You will never marry, but on the bright side you will never divorce.

You will never have children or your own house or a stock portfolio.

You will never do what you want to do, but at least you don’t know what that is, so you will never know what you're missing. You will never have a job that pays you what you are worth. You will work in one dead-end job after another until the day you retire (which you won't be able to do until you are 80 because of all the money being spent on deadbeats and layabouts who refuse to get off their butts and find a job), and you will die a week later. You will have been forgotten even before you die. Your obituary will be less than two lines on the back page of the classified section that no one will ever read. Your tombstone will not say “beloved father” or “sorely missed” or even “rest in peace”. Your entire life will be summed up by your birth and death dates. If you're lucky they might spell your name correctly on the plaque which marks your burial spot. There will be no flowers over your grave, and in fifty years time it will be ploughed under to make way for another block of low rent housing. Hordes of welfare kids and immigrants will pee on the lawn under which you will be buried, and you probably won’t even be able to haunt them.

You're nobody special, and you're pissed off about it. The worst thing is that you can only swear in one language, and all the best swear words are foreign. They never teach you the words you really want to know when you study a language at high school.

You can’t save the Earth. The only planet we have will continue to disintegrate one piece at a time as you sit in your living room, eating dinner and watching it happen on TV. Global warming, coastal flooding; El Nino, La Nina; urbanisation and traffic congestion; expanding deserts and diminishing rainforests, mass extinctions, whale hunting for ‘scientific research‘, oil drilling in ‘nature reserves‘; globalisation, global recession, unemployment, Third World debt, Hollyweird, McWorld, and Paris god-damned Hilton; declining democratic participation in the West, rising totalitarianism in the East, tyrannical theocracies and military juntas everywhere else; plagues and pestilence, the Sars virus, the Aids virus, Ebola, the Influenza epidemic, Hong Kong Chicken Flu, Mexican Swine Flu, Tamiflu; mad cows with CJD and mad scientists with DNA; wars, insurrections, famines, droughts, bush fires, deluges, swarms of locusts and rivers of blood, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, cyclones, huricanes, tsunamis and typhoons; lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Terrorists, Al Qaeda, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Taleban, Hamas, Hezbollah, the PFLP, the ETA, GRAPO, KWP, Tamil Tigers, FARC, the Shining Path, the UDF, the IRA - Real, Orginal, Official, Provisional, Continuity, and any other splinter group that exists; the Red Brigades, the Red Army, the Republican Guard, the US Marines; Iranian nuclear acquisition, French nuclear testing, North Korean chemical programmes; holy atomic Jihad; religious persecution, increasing intolerance and extreme evangelical movements, the Christian Creationist Right, the Socialist-Anarchist Left, Islamo-fascism, eco-fascism; declining moral standards, legalised prostitution, grow your own dope, do-it-yourself abortions and euthanasia but don't you dare smack your kids; over-population, declining sperm counts, increased bacterial infections, genetic modification and genetic engineering; melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, climate change or climate hoax? Obesity in the Developed World and starvation everywhere else; civil libertarians protecting skinheads’ freedom of speech, liberals protesting to stop anyone who disagrees with them from speaking, violent demonstrations hijacked by terrorists, riots, revolutions...

The Decline and Fall of Western Civilisation, brought to you 24 hours a day by CNN, the BBC, and the lovely people at Fox.

500 million Indians want their own cars - there goes the last of the oil reserves, and what did we do with that water powered engine ...?

600 million Chinese households want refrigerators - what ozone layer was that, now?

It’s not your fault that Europeans conquered and exploited the rest of the world before anyone else could do it - but you get to live with the fall out.

It’s not your fault that African nations can’t govern themselves, South American nations love military coups, Central American governments are owned by drug lords, or that Asian governments are corrupt. Why is it that the Pacific Islands can’t afford to have decent electricity generation? Who’s to blame for the fact that most sub-Saharan Africans have never heard of a computer or held a telephone? If China hadn’t destroyed their fleets in the fifteenth century, they‘d be running the world and most Africans still wouldn’t know what a microwave dinner tasted like. Should you apologise for the fact that your European ancestors were more advanced than everyone else? That they decided to bring the advantages of their more advanced civilisation to the rest of the world? Should they be sorry for trying to help? Should you be carrying some kind of racial guilt and apologising to their descendants on your ancestors' behalf? "Terribly sorry from rescuing you from those caves ..." Maybe those who complain about colonisation would like it better living in caves or mud huts again, wearing animal skins and sacrificing virgins to the sun god.

World Vision wants a dollar a day so you can sponsor some kid who will join an extreme terrorist fundamentalist group which will dedicate itself to destroying your life. The government wants you to pay taxes on every dollar you earn so it can pay other people to sit at home and watch TV all day. You are buying their cigarettes, their alcohol, their takeaways and their Playstation. You're putting clothes on their kids’ backs. You're paying for the education of children you don‘t have, for hospitals you don’t use, TV stations you don’t watch, politicians you don’t like, roads you don’t need, sports events you're not interested in, and artistic or cultural events you couldn’t give a stuff about. Charities ring you at home to beg for money you don‘t have. You obey the law and you're punished for it, but prisoners get three square meals a day, daily exercise, TVs in their prison cells, phone calls and conjugal visits. You pay more in student loan repayments than you do in rent, while juvenile delinquents get their fines written off because they can’t afford to pay them. You may be nothing special, but a word of thanks every now and then would be nice.

You're sick of life as it is, of being persecuted because you actually do care about yourself, your society, and your country. You are sick of voting for people who stab you in the back for a pay rise they don't need. You're sick of List MPs who got into Parliament without public scrutiny begin able to legislate for things that 90% of us don't want. You're alarmed by the realisation that there is nothing in our laws to prevent a List MP from becoming Prime Minister. And you're sickened by the realisation that the three-yearly lolly scramble by the same relentlessly power hungry and corrupt administration masquerading as different political parties manages to fool enough morons to allow them to retain some semblance of power. You know that democracy doesn't work, but you're labelled a Fascist for daring to say so. Democracy is moronocracy. The People? Sheeple.

Welcome to your life.

The good news is, one day it will end.

One day.

(This was first published by at http://karlgodnz.spaces.live.com) in June 2007. I may have been slightly depressed and not coping well with rejection issues at the time. That does not in any way prevent much of this from being a realistic portrayaly of life in the contemporary West.)

Destined for Danger

2009-10-29T16:44:00.002+13:00

"Tamaki's 700 'sons' swear oath of loyalty "
4:00AM Thursday Oct 29, 2009

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10605956&pnum=0 - by Garth George

Background:
The Destiny Church is a small religius community which regularly punches above its weight in terms of gaining media attention. A lot of this is due to its leader, Brian Tamaki, a media-savvy opportunist who has transformed the tiny little Lake City Church from my home town, Rotorua, into a trans-Tasman religious money spinner. Destiny Church is a Pentecostal, strongly conservative religious group which favours the more literal viewpoint of the Bible and draws in worshippers from predominantly lower socio-economic and Maori + Polynesian sectors of the community.
The Church has aroused attention over recent years due to controversies surrounding its leader and its actions. In 2003 Brian Tamaki issued what he called a prophetic announcement that Destiny would be ruling the country in five years time. (http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_national_story_skin/451171?format=html). In 2005 Tamaki had himself ordained a bishop, charging his parishoners $70 a seat to watch the ceremony amd warning that "the church must recover again its attitude of militance." He declared "war" on a so-called "evil" government (okay, it was Labour but even I would balk at calling them evil!), and on the modern "secular humanism, liberalism, relativism, pluralism" which apparently plagues our society. (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10331506) Destiny is probably best known for the creation of a Destiny Party in 2003 to contest the upcoming 2005 election (it was the 9th most popular party on election night, winning 14,210 votes nationwide,or 0.62% of the popular vote - http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2005/partystatus.html); the August 2004 "Enough is Enough" march against the civil union legislation, where thousands of black-clad marchers evoked memories of the Nazi stormtroopers in 1930s Germany; and reports in October last year that Destiny planned to build their own enclave or 'city' where all followers could live, children could be educated and the outside world kept at bay.

The situation:
Over the weekend, at Destiny Church's national conference, some 700 young men swore the following oath to Tamaki:

"To you Bishop we pledge our allegiance, our faithfulness and loyalty. We pledge to serve the cause that is in your heart and to finish that work. Success to you and success to those who help you - for God is with you."

The NZ Herald article explains exactly what this means - Tamaki's "spiritual sons" are obliged to always speak highly of their leader; to publicly acknowledge him first on formal occasions; to protect him from outsiders who are seeking to be "in his face"; to ensure that he and his wife are given "appropriate respect"; to "guard, protect and watch out for him" and his wife; to endorse and support whatever he endorses and to ensure that others do not cut in when he is speaking; to follow him on his speaking circuit in order to reflect his importance to them; to give gifts to him and his wife "on birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions or achievements" or just as a surprise; to never expose any weakness which Tamaki may have or demonstrate; to reinforce and emphasise his words, quoting him as often as possible in favourable terms; and, most chillingly,

They must never tolerate anyone (regardless of who they are) speaking or talking critically of Mr Tamaki and his wife/family or the church. "You are not only to stop them in their tracks but warn them that they criticise you when they criticise Bishop."

My opinion:
Some of my very distant ancestors, the Anglo-Saxons, swore an oath of fealty to their superiors. They would proclaim this binding oath: "I will to my lord be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns." Essentially, Tamaki could have just made his followers swear that oath, as it has the same effect. Much comment has been made in the media about whether or not this group is a cult. I say that if it wasn't before, this "cult of worship" created on the weekend confirms the status of this 'church' as a dangerous and oppressive cult. Those who challenge Tamaki now challenge 700 men who have pledged to follow and protect him, like clients surrounding their patron as he walked towards the Forum Romanum in the latter days of the corrupt Roman Republic.

Further to this are the revelations that Tamaki has, apparently, adopted the title of 'King' and that, in addition to the six figure salary he already receives from the 'church', he apparently pockets some half-a-million dollars straight from the collection plate (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10606489 and http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10606279&pnum=2). No wonder some of these people are struggling - many of his supporters being in the lower socio-economic groups anyway, struggling with paying their taxes, possibly affected by unemployment, yet having to pay a tithe to their leader AND pay to attend special services, not to mention getting guilted in to purchasing Destiny merchandise from the gift shop in the lobby. If tithing and the sale of indulgences created such a backlash against Catholicism in the 15th century, it is interesting to see a Protestant based faith going even further. This is no religion - this is a business, pure and simple.

My suggestion is that local dairies in the vicinity of Destiny Church buildings put their Refresh, Raro, and Rat-poison on sale to help Tamaki carry out his next Jim Jones impersonation. Hopefully he drinks it first and gives the rest of them time to realise that living with him was bad enough, let alone dying with him.

And that's my two cents to sense.

Maori Party acts to protect its own ... criminals, that is

2009-10-29T15:34:00.001+13:00

c Young men 'will fight back' against police, says Maori party
8:32AM Thursday Oct 29, 2009
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10606054

Background:
Yesterday the NZ Parliament passed the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill to enable police to take DNA swabs from any person they intend to charge with an imprisonable offence, from 2011. The vast majority of the House voted in favour of the bill, which was opposed only by the 13 MPS of the Green and Maori Parties.

The Situation:
According to the NZ Herald article, Rahui Katene of the Maori Party said that Maori youths would "of course" fight back if police attempt to take a swab without their consent. I'm still waiting to hear if this constitutes a violation of a person's mana or a lack of respect for Maori cultural traditions, which are the usual planks of any protest by Maori advocates when opposing any measure they don't happen to like. Ms Katene, whose concerns were echoed by new Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei (who has done one GREAT thing in her political career - her promotion to coleadership of the party directly resulted in Sue Bradford's resignation), both of whom suggested that the DNA database kept by police would become overwhelmingly Maori.

My view:
The use of DNA evidence in law enforcement has been a contentious issue for civil libertarians, all of whom seem to think that the police don't actually do anything except plant evidence at crime scenes just to make an arrest so they can knock off at five and have a drink at the pub. Personally, I think that the vast majority of law enforcement officials in this country are good, honest citizens who are trying to protect society. Collecting DNA from people they intend to charge for an offence makes sense - it could be that the DNA sample proves that person's innocence, but realistically the police would have to have some evidence with which to charge the suspected offender before taking the swab. A glance at NZ prison statistics () reveals that roughly 42% of current female inmates and 53% of men currently behind bars had already racked up 6 or more previous convictions, while only 25% of women and 17% of men in prison were there as a result of their first conviction. This suggests that crimes are more likely to be committed by existing criminals, already known to the justice system. Surely it makes sense to collect DNA samples from these people?
The Maori Party is concerned for obvious reasons - many Maori seem to have an affinity with Her Majesty's Correctional Facilities. According to the Ministry of Justice (), 45% of the male population of NZ prisons in 1995 were Maori, whereas only 10% of NZ's population at the time were Maori men. The report explains that:
"Part of the difference between Māori and non-Māori is accounted for by the younger age distribution of the Māori population, as young people in general are more likely to be offenders. However, the high percentage of Māori in prison also reflects higher offending rates (measured by the rate of prosecutions per head of population) and a greater number of previous convictions on average compared to other ethnic groups, and a greater average seriousness of offending compared to other ethnic groups with the exception of Pacific peoples."
The same report identified 49% of the female prison population as being of Maori descent.
Critics will point to the disparity in educational outcomes and socio-economic status as expalantions for this disproportionate figure, but I ahve never bought into that. Crime is crime, and there is no justification for it. I've never heard of anyone being sent to prison for stealing a loaf of bread; offences leading to conviction are not acts of desperation but of calculation.
If the police intend to charge you with a crime and you have done nothing wrong, then you should be glad to give a DNA sample to clear your name. The only reason for not wanting to do so is because you have something to hide.

And that's my two cents to sense.

A new blog

2009-10-27T20:17:00.000+13:00

With all the best intentions in the world, I honestly really mean it this time - I will try to keep regular updates on this darn thing! My old blog didn't last too long; I'll try to rescue some of the content and repost it here, but the original can be found at http://karlgodnz.spaces.live.com/ for now.

War is War, Peace is Peace, and Ignorance is Bliss

2009-10-22T20:25:00.000+13:00

A response to John Pilger's "War is Peace and Ignorance is Strength", published in the New Statesman on October 15, 2009.

(Thanks to Lawrence Hill for directing this to my attention.)

It will help to read if you read the Pilger article first: http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2009/10/obama-pilger-war-peace

Much as I intensely dislike the cult of worship which has developed around US President Barack Obama in the past 18 months or so, this article by John Pilger is remarkably unfair to him - it basically calls Obama a dishonest warmonger. While this diatribe is about what I'd expect from the pen of John Pilger, who leans so far to the left that his brains seem to have seeped out of his ear, what I find most interesting is that hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned - if old Pilgie wasn't one of those liberal commentators near the forefront of the "go-'bama" campaign in the foreign (ie non American) press then he was certainly watching with joy from the sidelines, but he's now turned his back on the Golden Child. However, it is nice to know that such people can change their minds.

I would like to address some of the key issues raised in the article, which is why, if you haven't read it, you should probably click on the link and do so before moving forward.

Afghanistan

We need to acknowledge some home truths here. The Taleban do not obey the rules of war. They are not signatories to the Geneva Convention. They kill, beat, maim, rape, torture and steal from people who do not hold their views. After the recent Afghan elections Taleban agents cut off the hands or even limbs of people they caught with the indelible ink mark imprinted on their thumbs while voting, because they did not want Afghans to vote at all. The Taleban routinely hold meetings, training camps, and recruitment posts under cover of weddings, birthday celebrations, and the like on innocent peoples farms, on construction sites, in schools and especially mosques, etc. Sometimes the people involved are forced to be there in order to provide cover; sometimes they themselves are Taleban sympathisers. The Taleban are not stupid - they know that the West puts more faith in a couple of minutes of one sided, disjointed emotive drivel on a news report than in the strategy and tactics of fighting a war against people who welcome death as martyrdom.

Yes, civilians have died, and more are dying, as a result of US and allied raids and tactics. The Taleban have been routinely killing civilians for years, raping women who go out in public without a male escort or revealing too much skin, raiding schools where girls are taught to read in order to keep the fairer sex subjugated and oppressed, murdering anyone who speaks out against them. This is a WAR, people, and until the boffins can create weapons which have a friend / foe distinguishing button, collateral damage will happen - ESPECIALLY when the enemy deliberately use civilian shields to maximise the death count.

Yes, more money does need to be spent on infrastructure such as roads, electricity, education, and medical care, but it must be noted that a lot of the money given to the government for such projects is being siphoned off and diverted to the Taleban by corrupt bureaucrats and sympathisers within the Afghan administration. A lot of the existing projects in Taleban controlled areas are being destroyed by the insurgents, so obviously we need to get rid of the Taleban first before the serious reconstruction can begin - otherwise, it's just money down a sinkhole.

Yes, the current 'President' of Afghanistan appears to have stolen the election, but he has bowed to international pressure and a new run-off election is to be held within the next fortnight.

We in the West have a choice: we fight these people on their home ground, now, or we leave them alone, wait for them to gather strength, allow their agents to infiltrate our society as 'refugees', and then fight them in our own streets when they try to force NZ neighbourhoods to adopt sharia law, female genital mutilation, institutionalised rape (aka arranged marriages, or the belief that men should rape women who are out in public and not wearing a hijab or a burqa, or even that to avenge an insult against your family the men of your clan can rape a woman of another clan, who will then be put to death by her own family in order to save face - yes these things happen, not just in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Sudan but in Amsterdam and Oslo and Bradford!) and all those other fundamentalist practices which have been adopted by Islamic extremists and which are an anathema to our way of life. Gay rights and marriage? Forget about it - under sharia law homosexuals can be stoned to death, and I don't mean the kind where they lock you in a room with several kilos of maryjane and tell you to go for it. These fundamentalists hate our way of life, and they hate our perceived weakness in accepting other ways of life, and they despise our secularism, our freedom and our democracy as an affront to Allah, who alone has the right to legislate the regulation of society (through the earthly intervention of the mullahs and imams, of course).

Pakistan

The 'war in Pakistan' has nothing to do with Obama. It is a Taleban inspired insurgency which has more to do with the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of the North-West Frontier Province and reaction to the Pakistani system of government than anything the US and its President are doing. The fact that Taleban funded mullahs have had free access in the tribal areas in the north for a number of years without the authorities intervening, providing educational and social services which were poorly funded by the federal goverment, has been a major catalyst for the extremist sympathies and anti-government feeling in this area. US pressure on the Pakistani authorities to deal with this situation before it spirals out of control (remember that many commentators believe that, if he is still alive, Osama Bin Laden is most likely in this area) fell on deaf ears for a number of years; the previous Pakistani military dictator General Musharraf used the existence of the pro-Islamist militia as an excuse to maintain a strong army and also as a scapegoat for anti-Indian agitation and action when such things occured. The new civilian government of Pakistan has taken the threat seriously but their poorly trained troops are not doing particularly well, simply encouraging the pro-Taleban cause through their ineptitude.

Iran

Obama did not lie about the Iranian cover up of a “secret nuclear facility” - Iran reported it to the International Atomic Energy Authority only after they realised that British and American intelligence knew it was there. As for the supposed dichotomy of the US supporting Israel's right to have nuclear weapons while contesting the Iranian nuclear programme, I can see how some people might have an issue with this. From my point of view, and this is admittedly the weakest part of my counter-argument, is that IF Israel has nuclear weapons (the Israeli government officially neither confirms nor denies the existence of any nuclear aresenal), then you can certainly understand why - ALL of its neighbours (apart from the Egyptian government which does not reflect the will of many of its people in this regard, and to some extent Jordan) want to OBLITERATE the nation, pound it into the dust, and forget it was ever there - they do not even officially recognise its existence! Israel is outnumbered significantly and with Iran aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons (oh, sorry, a 'nuclear power' policy) can we seriously ask Israel to give up the one deterrent it has to safeguard its existence? I can see the counter argument - with US forces in Iraq to the west and Afghanistan to the east, the theocratic powers that be in Iran may see themselves as being encircled by potentially hostile forces, and is seeking to build a deterrent. If this is the case, why not just admit it instead of lying to the international community at every turn? I'm sure a number of countries would support Iran's right to a nuclear deterrent if it was diplomatic and responsible enough in raising the issue. However, the actions of Iran's governments of late has been everything else BUT responsible - look at the crack down after the current government blatantly stole the election this year and demonstrated its contempt for any moderation of its hard line rule. Even Zimbabwe's Mugabe realised that, in stealing an election against such an obvious groundswell of opposition, you need to do a sneaky compromise and make people THINK you're going to accept change. (Conveniently killing off the wife of the main opposition partner and new government coalition ally can send a powerul message to other opponents as well!) The point here is preventing further proliferation of nuclear weapons - once the genie is out of the bottle, you can't put it back, but you can prevent others from releasing it. Am I uncomfortable with the Israelis having a finger on the big red button? Yes, of course - just as any of us are uncomfortable with any country which currently has them. Nuclear non-proliferation is not about getting countries to give up their existing arsenals (how would we ever trust that any country has done so?) but about preventing more countries from joining the nuclear club. Building nuclear power stations is a very small step before building weapons facilities, and we know Iran has been testing missiles with longer and further ranges over the past few years. I expect that at some point in the near future, if this is not resolved, we will see a repeat of Israel's 1981 pre-emptive strike on Iraq's nuclear facilities on Osirak. I find it hilarious that the Iranian nuclear programme was initially funded by the US 'Atoms for Peace' prorgramme in the 1950s, but of course everything changed with the toppling of the Shah in the late 1970s. I've read that Iran's "Supreme Leader", the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, once proclaimed in a fatwa that the use, and even production, of nuclear weapons was an offence to Allah and forbidden by Islamic law; then again, apparently there is nothing in the Koran about raping women to avenge honour-crimes so I guess some of this stuff can be made up as you go along. Certainly on 24 September 2005 the International Atomic Energy Authority's Board of Governors declared that Iran's failure to comply with the Safeguards Agreement in the past compised a "non-compliance" with the protocols of the agreement, and this remains the current view. Given the rhetoric from people such as Pakistan's President about Israel's right to exist, I think Iran has yet to prove that it is responsible enough to be trusted to develop a nuclear programme, even a peaceful one. Even at the height of the Cold War neither the US nor the USSR ever refused to acknowledge their adversary's right to exist.

Palestine

Pilger is a well known Palestinian apologist, so of course I expect him to discuss the "Israeli war crimes" without making mention of the actions of Hamas. Is firing rockets into civilian areas on a daily basis not a war crime? Again, because Hamas is an illegal terrorist organisation, it has not signed the Geneva Convention governing the rules of war. Yes, it cannot be denied that there were more Palestinian casualties than Israeli in teh recent conflict. Much of this is due to that fact that Gaza has an extremely densely packed population, and therefore more casualties will be suffered in any conflict. The vast majority of the population are first, second, or third generation refugees, descended from people who fled Israeli forces in the War of Liberation of 1948 after the sudden and immediate declaration of war on the nascent Jewish state by its Arab neighbours. Many Jewish inhabitants of those states fled or were expelled from their homes as well; they were taken in primarily by Israel and the US and their descendants are fully functioning members of those states; some 40% of Israel's population in 2002 was comprised of or descended from these refugees. Many Palestinians remained in Israel instead of fleeing their homes - 20% of Israel's population, according to the latest census, are of Arab descent, although estimates of the 1948 'exodus' are suggest that up to 80% of the Arabs within Israeli territory (perhaps up to 750-800,000 people) left of their own volition, fled the conflict, or were expelled by Israeli Defence Forces or the government after the conflict. In 1949, at the Lausanne conference, Israel offered to accept 100,000 refugees back, while the Arab states would take the remaining refugees and Israel would take the Jewish refugees from those lands. The Arab states did not agree to this proposal. So while Jewish refugees were resettled within Israel, the supposed brethren of the Palestinian Arabs on the borders of Israel forced the Palestinian refugees to live in refugee camps by not allowing them free passage into or citizenship of their countries. While we in the West are constantly castigated about not having high enough refugee quotas, those countries which are socially and culturally a better home for many of the refugees refuse to have anything to do with them, and blame Israel for the enduring poverty of their existence.

The USA

Pilger bewails the use of Long Range Acoustic Devices against protestors in Pittsburgh. My God, what does this man want teh authorities to use? Rubber bullets and tear gas? How about a full military clamp down with sub-machine guns? Crowd control during protests and demonstrations is essential because, as learnt in Somalia over a decade ago (if not in other places earlier), crowds of innocent protestors are targetted by anarchists and terrorists and used, against the knowledge and support of many of their participants, to mask violent action. The right to organised protest should never be permitted to outweigh the right to safety and security. As for calling Guantanamo Bay a concentration camp, well, in some ways it is nice to see someone who is not scared of invoking howls of outrage from Jewish lobby groups at the blatant misuse of that term, but come on - it is an internment camp. Yes, it needs to be closed if we (the West) are to retain any moral high ground, but such a closure must be managed - a vast majority of the inmates are not suspected terrorists, they are actual terrorists, and holding them saves lives; releasing them just means more people will die, and if my mother is killed because some extremist is released from Guantanamo Bay to find his way to Christchurch and blow up the NZI building at Addington as an attack on the western financial system then there will be trouble. Oh, and the convenient thing about accusing people of "secret assassinations and torture" is that you don't need any proof - it's a secret, so there is none!

Colombia

The US - Colombian military bases are primarily targeted at controlling the Western Hemisphere and intercepting the drug trade which is sponsoring the terrorists. The worst thing about the West is that we are our own worst enemy in this regard - we bleat on about drug laws and how ever many percent of our people routinely use drugs, but such recreational use creates what I call “herbological latifundia” in poor nations - farmers can earn more from growing coca and opium in one year than from growing corn or wheat in 20 years. The war on terror must tackle the purse strings as well as the terrorists. This is in no way an indication that Obama of the US plans to “rollback” the independence and democracy of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and Paraguay - it is just a recognition that the institutions in these countries are so corrupt that they cannot deal with the problem themselves. The Colombian armed forces receive military support and training from the US and Britain; I don't read anywhere in this article about the terrorist and guerrilla warfare training camps in Afghanistan and the Sudan which are run by the Taleban and/or Al Qaeda and are paid for in roughly equal amounts by Saudi Arabian fundamentalists and European governments - the latter through the excessive welfare payments made to non-integrating 'refugees' who send money back to their 'families' at home and also donate money to their local mosque, some of which then send the money on. (In some countries such as Denmark, Muslims make up 5% of the population but receive 40% of the welfare outlay.)

The Nobel Peace Prize

Finally, Pilger and I are, if not on the same page, at least within the same chapter. I agree completely that Obama should not have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at such an early stage of his presidential career; in my opinion, someone like Zimbabwe's Morgan Tsvangirai, Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, or even Chinese activist and current political prisoner Hu Jia would have been a much better recipient. I completely agree with Pilger's concerns regarding what he calls the "Call of Obama", which he describes as being "not unlike a dog whistle: inaudible to most, irresistible to the besotted and boneheaded." And I love the quote from George Clooney which Pilger uses to illustrate his point: “When Obama walks into a room... you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere." (For those keeping score, this may well be the first time I have EVER agreed with Pilger on ANYTHING apart from the issue of sweatshops in Indonesia.) And, for a record third time, I totally embrace Pilger's comments about political debate having become so debased in our "media monoculture" that issues of race, gender and class can be used as "seductive tools of propaganda and diversion." I point the finger, in part, to the education system and our curriculum; yes, as a Social Studies teacher, I must admit that I and my colleagues are part of the disease. I do as much as I can to prevent a liberal-socialist-egalitarian view point from brainwashing my students but one person can only do so much.

For those of you who are interested, I recommend you read "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within", by Bruce Bawer. It's an interesting take on the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism in Europe, written by a gay American who lives in Norway and has also lived in the Netherlands - two countries renowned for their tolerance.

Time to make a stand.

2007-11-04T19:44:00.000+13:00

Okay, it's been a while since the last post - not because there's been nothing happening, but more because I've been way too busy and there's way too much to write about. Yay for me - I got promoted at work so now I'm one step higher up the ladder and kind of like Sir Ed on Everest the day before the assault - not at the yop yet, but you can definitely see it.

Anyway, the big news that I want to write about today is the 'terrorist' camps in the Ureweras. It seems to me that the police have been getting a lot of bad press in the last year or more, and this case really just tops it off. There is a very large, radical fringe in society which is coming closer and closer to the mainstream; a sector that actively mistrusts, and deliberately disobeys, the police. They've been using this whole incident as 'proof' that the police force is actually some quasi-fascist paramilitary that is dedicated to suppressing the rights of the citizenry. What worries me more is the civil disobedience which is being advocated by such groups. And these camps seem to be part of it.

One of my good mates at uni was from the Ureweras. We went to his marae for a few days for a staff training camp, and another mate and I went back once or twice in the next few years. Very isolated, very socio-economically disadvantaged by the effects of the various fiscal policies and global changes over the past three decades. I remember when I first found out that Tuhoe hadn't signed the Treaty, when I was in my second year at uni. I hadn't thought much of it then, but as I looked around the area a few years later I could see why they hadn't been able to survive as a sovereign state anyway - not that there had ever been one there. And it is the same reason they'd not be able to today. I can't see separatism actually working here in New Zealand - we're far too small as it is, so any smaller state completely surrounded by us would not be able to survive without a generous amount of financial support. But if anyone would be advocating it, it would be Tame Iti. There's just something not quite right about this guy. Quite frankly, they should have strung him up after he shot the flag a few years back. The only thing that stops me trampling and spitting on the Tino Rangatiratanga flag every time I see it is that I really don't want to get beaten up over an insignificant piece of fabric which means nothing to me.

But back to the point. A few weeks ago we have new of this police 'swoop' on a number of 'terrorist training camps' in the Ureweras, and on a number of people around the North Island who were connected with the camps. Most of the people arrested were charged with firearms offences, rather than terrorism. In fact, I don't actually recall EVER hearing the police themselves say anything about terrorism. The only people saying it were the media, who were all excited about the coincidental timing of the raids just before new anti-terrorist legislation was coming up before Parliament. This same media then goes and interviews various friends and relatives of those arrested, many of whom claim that the suspects were peace loving and didn't even know what guns looked like, and certainly would never plan a terrorist attack.

Let's face it, this debacle is of the media's making. I don't know if there is a plot to wage an insurrectionist war against the people of NZ to secure Maori sovereignty and an end to GE trials, or whatever the reason was for these people to be working together. To be frank, I think most of those who have been accused of it probably spend way too much time pipe dreaming and pot smoking to be able to organise a Girl Guide biscuit stall, so I'm not imagining that a fully fledged plot to overthrow the state apparatus was ever even partially conceived. The only one I really think is involved in all this is Tame Iti - along with his secret cronies in the Green Party and what I like to call the Revolutionary Underground Front for Undermining the State (RUFUS). But what I suspect is that some relatively clever liberal civil rights activists (and yes, there ARE some relatively clever liberals out there, especially now they run the universities and can eliminate the teaching and even speaking of subjects and theories which they disagree with), along with some cronies in the leftist dominated mainstream media, have worked together to turn this simple case of firearms offences into some massive terrorist plot, which they can then present to the public as a farsical police operation to further besmirch the good name of the boys (and girls) in blue. The erosion of trust in our public institutions is an important step in the neo-socialist agenda to circumvent the machinery of the state, thus making it easier for them to overthrow everything else and begin creating their New Society, starting with a new flag and a new name, 'Aotearoa' - which Maori themselves never used because there was no unified nation in New Zealand until after the Western colonisation.

Watch this space - there will be very little proof, police credibility will take another hit, and more and more people will begin to doubt the integrity of the state. Less and less will participate in the democratic process, leaving the way open for the radical lunatic leftist fringe to sweep through and establish a puppet Clarkocracy under the 'beloved leader' of the mainstream socialist front organisation. Behind the scenes, however, you can be sure that the Lockes, Bradfords, Tanczos', Itis, Harawiras, McCartens etc will all be carving up this nation into a number of little Bantustans under customary tribal law. This is only the thin end of the wedge. We must stand firm and support the maintenance of law and order in our society. If we do not, if we let the Leftists have their way, then we are truly lost.

Child Abuse - A National Tragedy

2007-08-06T12:52:00.000+12:00

Q. What do Nia Glassie, Jhia Tua, the Kahui twins, Pirimai Simmonds, Jonelle Tarawa, James Whakaruru, Mereana Edmonds, Lilly-bing Karaitiana Matiaha, Tamati Pokaia and Delcelia Witika all have in common?

A. They’re all Maori kids, and they’re all dead.

Two weeks ago no one had ever heard of Nia Marie Glassie - and the chances are, given her socio-economic background, no one ever would have either.

She achieved fame through victimhood - yet another young New Zealander who has been smashed to a bloody pulp by those that are supposed to protect her.

I always thought Kiwi kids were Weetbix kids, not beaten kids.

Of course, this is not the entire issue - nothing is ever this simple.

Glassie is - or at least, she was - Maori. Which suddenly propels this even further into the media spotlight and into the dining room conversations nation wide.

I’d like to think that there would have been this much attention to the case had she and her abusers been from a white middle class family rather than a Maori dependent-class whanau, but I’m not quite sure.

The discussion around this seem to fall into two camps - either it is a major problem for Maori, or at least a sub-group of Maori, and an indication of the failures of Maori leadership; or it is all to do with the Cultural Separation Anxiety endured by Maori since 1840 and therefore “whitey’s” fault.

I don’t think you’re going to beat your kid to death just because you’re Maori. If this were true, there wouldn’t be any Maori kids left. But I also think that this is a problem more particular to Maori than any other group in society. And that CAN be proven. According to the analysis by a former CYFS employee, Mike Doolan, deaths caused by child abuse has fallen steadily over the past 20 years, down from 0.92 deaths per 100,000 children in 1987 to 0.60 in 2006. At the same time, though, deaths of Maori children from child abuse have increased from around 1 per 100,000 20 years ago to 1.34 in 2006. The silver lining to this cloud is that the rate was up to 2.40 killings per 100,000 kids in the mid 1990s - the highest rate in the Western World. So I guess some progress is being made.

It is interesting to draw a link with some other statistics here - such as the fact that the number of Maori in paid work dropped by 15% between 1986 and 1991, at a time when the total national employment dropped by only 6%; or the fact that 26% of the Maori workforce was unemployed in 1991, compared to the national average of 9%. This coincides with the increase in Maori child abuse in the early 1990s. Today, Maori unemployment stands at 8.6%, compared to 3.7% for non-Maori. The Maori child homicide rate is double that for non-Maori: 50% of the babies under one-year-old taken into state care are Maori. Maori comprise 40% of the 2000 critical and 25,000 general child abuse cases reported annually. So is there a direct link between unemployment and child abuse? According to the UN report on child abuse world wide, released in August 2006, (http://www.violencestudy.org/IMG/pdf/English.pdf), and based on WHO analysis, children in lower income countries are twice as likely to die from child abuse than in the wealthier ones - the comparative rates are 2.58 per 100,000 vs 1.21 per 100,000.

Let’s look at a comparative study. Zimbabwe has an unemployment rate of around 80% thanks to Robert “Liberal poster-child of the 1980s” Mugabe’s fantastic ‘majority rule’ debacle. According to an article on the HIV learning centre web pages (http://www.iolhivaids.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1591&fArticleId=3553717) one child in Zimbabwe is abused every hour. There were 8,600 cases of child abuse in Zimbabwe in 2005 - of which more than half involved sexual abuse. Given the prevalence of AIDS in the area, and the ongoing myth that sex with a virgin cures AIDS, this can be understood somewhat. The lack of any official census in Zimbabwe since 1991 makes it impossible to know how many kids there are in the country now. However, an estimate from the EarthTrends Environmental Information Portal (http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/population-health/country-profile-205.html) suggests that it is somewhere around 6 million kids. So, if we say 4000 cases of non-sexual child abuse, out of six million kids, we come up with a rate of 2.4 per 100,000 - the highest rate endured by Maori in the mid 1990s. So according to my admittedly amateurish research, there may well be a link between unemployment and child abuse.

However, this neglects the fact that Lisa Kuka, Nia’s mother, was NOT unemployed. She is a kiwifruit picker. This is more a seasonal employment than a long term career but nonetheless she was actually contributing to society when her baby was tortured and killed.

I’ve not found any employment details on the thugs behind the beating, but this case does highlight several other concerns.

What I find most interesting is that Ms Kuka is in her mid thirties, and one of the five who are being charged over this case, Wiremu Curtis, her partner of two years, is a 17 year old. Why has this not attracted more attention? I find it difficult to imagine a 30 man shacking up with a 15 year old girl and getting away with it, yet if we change the gender that is basically what has happened here.

Of course, most media discussion has centred around the Maori issue. Peter Dunne is quoted as saying "It's time to stop pretending that the kind of child abuse suffered by Nia Glassie and the Kahui twins is not a Maori problem. Until Maori leadership accepts that they are the key to finding a solution for child abuse by Maori, we will continue treading water waiting for the next child to die."

Labour MP Shane Jones (a list MP, it must be stated) said the Maori families who abused their children were only a small minority "who are gripped by a poverty of spirit and an impoverished morality", and called for "rapid and ruthless intervention" to remove children from such families. Is the ‘Howard Solution’ one which NZ can tolerate? I for one can’t see the bleedin heart liberals in mainstream NZ allowing poor Maori kids to be taken from their whanau and placed with well educated non-Maori middle class families - although I do recall a great Bro’Town episode on this a couple of years ago!

Pro-Maori groups are blaming a lack of culture for allowing this to happen. Anglican priest Bert McLean, a kaumatua for the Navy, blames this statistic on the generation of young Maori parents born in the 1970s, 80s and 90s who had lost contact with their culture and identity. Apparently there were 102,000 Maori who stated in the last Census that they did not know their hapu, iwi, language or culture - 18% of all Maori. "This is the subculture that are now having children," Mr McLean said. "They do not know their culture and language and tikanga and everything else, and have created a culture of their own.”

Bentham Ohia, CEO of Te Wananga O Aotearoa, believes that learning Te Reo can help Maori, as many who learn the language find they have a greater interest in their own learning and their children's learning. This, supposedly, would prevent the abuse - although I’d love to see the figures which prove that Maori who speak Maori do not beat their kids.

Pita ‘It gets more Maori votes than Peter’ Sharples, co-leader of the Maori Party, also hits out at the accusations levelled against Maori as a whole and Maori leadership in general. "How do I feel when I hear they're Maori? I feel ashamed. I feel guilty," he said in the Sunday Star Times last week. He stated that problems of child abuse stemmed from a dysfunctional culture which happened among poverty-stricken and underachieving communities, a group in which Maori were too highly represented. "It's ridiculous to blame this problem on ethnicity,” he added, “and it's equally ridiculous to think Maori aren't doing things about it. To say that it is related to genes or a culture, an ethnic group, is absolutely wrong. I don't say that Pakeha have a gene for big business fraud or anything like that... I'm not making excuses.”

Rawiri Taonui, a professor of Maori studies at Canterbury University, goes further than Sharples. He says, in an opinion piece in today’s Sunday Star Times, that it is simplistic to blame Maori. “Do we condemn all white men because they have the highest incidence of child pornography and paedophilia? Vilify all Christians because of sexual and physical abuse by Catholic nuns and priests?”

What I find REALLY interesting about Taonui is his next statement.

“The abusive `Once Were Warriors Syndrome' we have today did not exist in pre-European times; it is part of a colonial legacy that afflicts impoverished and alienated indigenous minorities the world over.” According to him, therefore, no Maori ever beat their kids to death before 1840- and because they couldn’t read and write, there will never be any proof to contradict this argument unless we invent time machines.

Taonui blames a whole raft of colonial-related issues including: “theft of land reduced Maori to poverty; suppression of te reo produced cultural alienation;” urbanisation exacerbated the effects of both. “Rejected by the dominant culture and distanced from their ancestral culture, concentrated in poor housing, working for low wages or on welfare, and subject to across the board racism, a generation of young urban Maori parents born in the 1970s, 80s and 90s entered an intergenerational cycle of poverty, alcohol, drugs, hopelessness and frustration…It is not the original indigenous culture that causes the cyclic child bashing, but the absence or distortion of culture. The highest rate of cyclic poverty, alcohol, drug and child abuse in Western Europe is in the Glaswegian south-east of Scotland - the descendants of white Highlanders who lost their lands, language and culture.” This of course neglects the majority of the population who are descended from Lowland Scots and Scots of Irish, Italian, and Asian descent, as well as the large number of refugees who have been settled there by the UK government over the past few decades, but it is an interesting point.

Still, according to Taonui, “Maori culture is not the problem, it's the solution.”

I don’t think Maori culture is to blame either. I know a bit about it - growing up in Rotorua is a culture-intensive course in tikanga all by itself. Certainly there is nothing in what I learnt about Maoridom which suggests that spinning kids around on clothes lines, practising wrestling moves on them, making them run around the house naked, leaving them outside in freezing temperatures, or putting them in a clothes dryer are seen to be normal. This is malicious, aggressive, violent, psychopathic behaviour by people who have no sense of empathy or compassion.

Personally, I think the problem is young, poorly educated, unemployed, alcohol- or drug-abusing, welfare-dependent thugs. Many of them happen to be Maori, and there have been countless initiatives to attempt to remedy this. And I see far too many of these ‘graduating’ our schools every year to believe that this will change any time soon.

Which brings me to my final point on what has been a very long post. In today’s Sunday Star Times, Lisa Kuka said she was "angry and hurting" and wanted "the mongrels" who tortured her little girl to pay for her death. She went on to say "I'm angry there's nothing being done about the mongrels that did this. Them being locked up means nothing to me. I'm just so upset because nothing has been done to them yet."

She added that it felt like she was paying for their crime.

It looks like she is trying to absolve herself of any guilt in this. But she is just as responsible. She may not have fired the trigger, but she provided both the gun and the bullets. What was she thinking, leaving her children in the care of a 17 year old son of a Black Power member, and his mates? If she’d been a responsible parent she would have left her child in the care of her own mother, who could provide a proper environment for the toddler. Instead, she left her in the house with a bunch of teenagers preparing for another 21st birthday party. What an idiot.

I’ve written a lot about this, so I’ll stop shortly. You see, for me, this a slightly more personal issue. The abuse happened on Frank St in Rotorua - the street on which my Mum grew up. She and her ten brothers and sisters all lived in that house as kids, and many of the older grandkids also spent many happy hours playing in the house and the vast section on which it was built. My grandfather’s house was one of the first to be built on Frank St - as far as I know, it is still there, although there is now a small unit in the front yard and a larger house in the back of the section as well. It is a place which holds many happy memories for me. Today I read that Kuka and Curtis met at a 21st birthday party held at Lisa's sister Louise's flat, well-known for its frequent parties, in nearby Old Quarry Rd - the road I grew up on; my parents’ first house was at number 58, on the other side of the fence from Western Heights High, and just down the road from Selwyn Primary, where I went to school. It shocks me to realise that these places where I had such a fine childhood are now tainted forever by this act of evil. The word ‘desecration’ is foremost in my mind.

Your neighbourhood will be next. Unless we cut through the rhetoric and the blame and just take action.

Confiscation of children, and compulsory sterilisation, of those who cannot look after them. Don’t keep the children in the whanau - that doesn’t work. Farm them out to well educated, well off NZers - who cares what ethnicity they are? Teach the kids proper values and give them a proper home filled with love and caring. That will break the cycle. Ethnic solutions be damned.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=252&objectid=10454811

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=252&objectid=10454524

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10454813

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=146&objectid=10453939

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=146&objectid=10454501

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/070804/3/1496.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4153173a6619.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4153195a22678.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4153194a22678.html

Transformers - More than meets the eye

2007-07-15T17:44:00.000+12:00

As a kid, I loved Transformers. They were better than GI Joe, they were better than MASK, better even than Voltron. Not quite as good as Lego, but hey - what is? My brother and I had a whole bunch of Transformers between us - he had Optimus Prime, but I had the five Aerialbots who combined together to make Superion, a much bigger robot. They were technically both Autobots but as we didn’t have too many Decepticons our battles were basically an Autobot civil war.

I must admit, when I heard of a Transformers movie I was sceptical. When I heard that it was to be live action rather than a cartoon, I was incredulous. So it was with some trepidation, and minimal expectations, that I went to see it tonight.

I was blown away.

This is the best movie I’ve seen since Revenge of the Sith - and, if I am to be perfectly honest, outdid even that movie in terms of its general excellence. Sith relied far too much on the green screen, and it showed. Transformers makes a huge use of CGI as well, but it is so seamless and realistic that you often forget that what you are seeing is the result of months and months of painstaking work, moving thousands of individual components on each robot to effect the transformation.

Bumblebee’s metamorphosis into a Camero rather than a VW Beetle was something I lamented, but having seen the movie I now agree that it added to his value rather than diminishing it. I’m still not sure about Megatron - the traditional Walther P38 into which he used to transform was a favourite of mine, whereas the new Cybertronian jet design will take some getting used to. And no Soundwave? Okay, they have Frenzy who fulfils that role, but I always liked the dynamic where you had the ever loyal Soundwave reporting on what the other Decepticons were doing to Megatron, and the rebellious Starscream who is always positioning himself to take over. Optimus Prime was awesome and probably the one who most closely resembled the traditional model.

Unlike the old toys, which as robots still looked very much like their pre-transformed forms, the Transformers in this movie look very robotic - perhaps a little too robotic, for my taste, but that is a purely stylistic and aesthetic thing.

Oh yeah, and Megan Fox? More like Mega-Fox if you ask me. Very nice.

Overall, however, the movie was extremely well done and I think that most of the 80s generation who loved the original Transformers will appreciate this film. We - and those who are being introduced to Transformers for the first time - will unite in our eager anticipation for a sequel - perhaps with Galvatron to lead the Decepticons this time?

Down and Out - and on Top of the Heap!

2007-07-04T07:52:00.000+12:00

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10449319

I wish I didn’t have a job.

I wish I couldn’t afford to rent my own place.

Then I could do whatever I wanted, confident in the government’s willingness to give me dole money AND a house.

I am always interested to see how many of the ‘assisted housing’ projects have Sky satellite dishes on the rooves. I can’t afford Sky - and if I could, I’m working too hard to get to watch it, other than the occasional rugby or cricket highlights if I was lucky. Yet somehow the bottom rung of society lives a better life than I do.

Now, apparently, not only do they NOT have to get jobs and actually contribute to the society which looks after them, but they can also do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, without fear of being thrown out of the house which the state has provided them.

The Auckland Tenancy Tribunal decided that Sharon Salt and her family, who were accused of terrorising the neighbourhood, can stay in their state house. Apparently, there was ‘not enough evidence’ to enforce the eviction sought by Housing NZ.

Somewhere, some loose connection is ringing out. Oh, yes. At least one of the suspects from the recent terror alert in London had previously been investigated, but not held ‘due to insufficient evidence’. Trial by jury, habeas corpus, and all that lovely ‘innocent until proven guilty’ stuff was all very well for a while, but now it is destroying our society. Unfortunately, until we have an impeccable and incorruptible police force and judiciary, we can’t get rid of it.

Back to the Salts. (And if any decision was an ‘assault’ on reason, this would be one!) Apparently some good has come of all this - Mrs Salt now no longer allows the worst of her nine children (NINE? Where are we, the African jungles in the 12th century? Population control, people - this planet isn’t big enough for us all to have NINE children!) to live in the house, and apparently the family’s behaviour has improved. Some say, however, that this is the result of media scrutiny - so maybe the NZ Herald can permanently employ a photographer to stand out on the public footpath and monitor the family for the next two decades, just to ensure some peace?

Oh, and this HAD to happen - Mrs Salt's lawyer (I can’t afford a lawyer! How can people who can’t afford a house somehow afford a lawyer? Oh, I forgot - Legal Aid. We’re paying for her lawyer as well. Isn’t life grand? No, apparently they are not using Legal Aid - so WHERE is the money coming from?) indicated that they were thinking about seeking compensation for police harassment, and considering action to recover the costs of fighting the HNZ eviction. A lawyer specialising in humans rights issues (therefore costing MORE money than a normal lawyer) has also been asked to review the case. (Where have they found all this money if they are not using Legal Aid? And if it was that easy to find, why can’t they rent their own house rather than a State House?) And we all know what this liberal ‘I feel so guilty for being well-off’ lawyer will come out with.

Would anyone else like to join me in seceding?

New Zealand's (in)Justice System

2007-07-04T07:34:00.000+12:00

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10449235

What do people have to do to be permanently removed from society?

Ask Roger Kahui, who was convicted yesterday on 26 counts stemming from his repeated rape of a Pukekohe woman in her own home - less than a year after his release from an eight year sting in prison.

Kahui (yes, related to THOSE Kahuis) had already racked up an astonishing 140 convictions, including rape and indecent assault, before appearing in court on the latest charges. And, surprise surprise, he claimed it was not rape - no, Your Honour, it was consensual. According to his statement, the ‘devil’ came out of him when he went to the woman’s home to get money to support his P habit. (What another surprise - are there any criminals left that DON'T have a P habit?) He also expressed regret for the consensual sex which he claimed to have ensued - and maybe I’m doing it wrong, because I didn’t realise that while having consensual sex with someone you have to put a pillowcase over their head, and afterwards you have to make them take a shower to remove DNA traces. How romantic.

"I'm not a rapist," he said. "I don't care about these chicks, I'm not worried about them."

This prince of a man will be up for sentencing soon, and the Crown will be asking for preventive detention with no definitive parole period. Let’s hope the presiding judge shows that he has some balls and actually gives this scum what he deserves.

Oh, and ask yourself what is more inhumane - the death penalty for repeat serious offenders, or releasing them back into society so they can inflict more pain on more people?

The only sentence which guarantees a 100% non-recidivism rate - Death. Think about it.

Terror in London

2007-07-03T18:16:00.000+12:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/world/europe/01britain.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2013255.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1729043.ece

Trouble in the Mother Country - a wave of terror has narrowly been averted, but who knows what may occur in the coming days and weeks?

On Saturday June 30 two men slammed a modified SUV - modified into a bomb, that is - into Glasgow Airport’s entrance doors, less than two days after two car bombs were found in London. (Apparently Thursday night is ‘ladies night’ at Tiger Tiger, the bar outside which one of the two cars was parked - while some authorities suggest it shows the disdain of the bombers towards the supposed promiscuity of Western women, I think it is actually because they were sexually frustrated ugly bastards who couldn’t get a date because none of the women liked their beards.) The attempted attacks came almost two years after suicide bombers killed 52 people in London in the ‘Tube Bombings’ of 7/7, and amid heightened awareness of the threat which is present in today’s world. All of this coincided with the first days of Britain’s new Government, under Gordon Brown (aka ‘that Scottish Git’) - the final end of English independence. Could this have been an unknown group of English Nationalists at work to destroy the foreign government?

No. Not unless English Nationalists wear turbans and shout ‘Allah, Allah’ as they are struggling with police.

The United Kingdom is now on a critical threat level - another attack is thought to be imminent - and once again those of us in the Western world have to ask ourselves why some people in the Middle East and Islamic World hate us so much as to constantly attack civilian and metropolitan areas. What can we do about it? We can only thank our lucky stars that the people behind these attacks were rank amateurs who couldn’t follow instructions from the internet adequately enough to make the bombs go boom - which any Year 12 Chemistry or Physics student here would be able to manage within half an hour.

Interestingly enough, none of the five who have been arrested for the attacks so far are British citizens - which is part of the reason for why MI5 and police were taken so completely by surprise. There are over 2000 British residents under surveillance to prevent or bust a home grown terror plot, but it is hard to keep an eye on every single foreigner that comes into the country.

It does make you wonder how many of the 2000 are natural born British citizens though. I can’t help but think back to Omar Khyam, who went on trial while I was over in London at the start of the year for planning to kill thousands of people with a 590kg fertiliser bomb in a shopping mall or a nightclub. He, apparently, was British born, yet that did not stop him from taking full advantage of the benefits free society had to offer, exploiting the freedoms he sought to destroy with such evil purpose, and betraying the country that gave him every advantage in life (as said by Mr Justice Astill as he sentenced Khyam and his cronies to life in prison two months ago).

Astill also spoke of the “spiral of contamination” which began with “the teachers and preachers of hatred and revenge who so often lurk in the shadows”. And he was right. We allow fundamentalists - not just Muslims - to poison our people with hatred and bigotry, and then wonder why they want to destroy us.

Our free society is working against us. All the freedoms which we give our people are being utilised by those who hate us, and yet we pander to foreign cultures with our political correctness and unwillingness to offend anyone for any reason whatsoever. These people laugh at the notion of freedom. They willingly risk and end their own lives to bring about international traditionalist sharia law, ending all of the freedoms which we enjoy today.

The next time a Muslim woman claims the right to wear her hijab, ask yourself if non Muslim women have the freedom not to wear them in those countries. Last month Malaysia’s highest civil court ruled that Lina Joy did not have the right to convert to Christianity - and therefore prevented her from marrying, as Muslims are not permitted to marry non-Muslims unless the non-Muslim converts. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7387C841-E8C8-455E-9AFC-5B0A132FF4CD.htm And this is in a supposedly secular country! Compare Malaysia to Iran, where you could face the death penalty for converting from Islam.

The problem is, the West still needs oil and much of it is in the Islamic world.

I actually think the oil crisis is the best thing that can happen to us, and I urge everyone out there to figure out how to create and use alternatives to oil. Not for any environmental reasons, although this would be a great side effect. Simply, if we no longer need oil, we no longer need the Middle East. And once we no longer need it, we can demand that the governments there control their people - or we won’t give them any aid. Europe needs to act now my three step programme to end the War on Terror.

I) Widen the Bosporus to at least 30 km wide (this will mean the destruction of either East or West Istanbul, and believe me as an historian I am mighty upset about that, but we’ll just have to make the sacrifice and live with it), and then either dig a 50 km canal from the Black Sea to the Baltic, or build a massive wall and keep the next 50km on the eastern side completely uninhabited and desolate, with underground microphones all around the place to detect tunnelling.

II) Ban ALL flights from the Middle East, Northern Africa and South East Asia into Europe, the UK, the Americas, Australia, and NZ - and ban anyone coming from anywhere else in the world if they have been there or were born there. (If South and Central America don’t tow the line here, then it will be a lot easier to dig a canal along the Mexican-US border, and a wall is already being built in places anyway!)

III) Accept the fact that religious freedom comes at a price - extreme fundamentalists of ANY religion will either be exiled or executed for their beliefs. We cannot live in a safe society while people within the society want to destroy it.

If Russia, China, India and other parts of the world want to remain a part of the proper world, they will have to adopt the same measures. Unfortunately our consumerist society still depends on a lot of the Third World to fuel the production of cheap and useless consumer items, so we are going to have to make a few sacrifices - and the big companies will just have to stop exploiting poor countries so that we can get cheap stuff. We have enough lowly educated people here to do all the donkey work which we normally import people from those countries to do for us (and, let’s face it, we already have more than enough over qualified taxi drivers!) - and we’ll see how the rest of the world likes living without the capitalist democratic society which we enjoy so much.

I know, I know, I should be the UN Secretary General …

Another Stolen Generation or just plain common sense?

2007-06-28T17:55:00.000+12:00

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10448242&pnum=0

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21977190-601,00.html and assorted links from this page.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/welfare-crusade-seen-as-a-land-grab/2007/06/26/1182623909300.html and other links.

This has been quite an interesting story, the first major intervention by the Australian government since the Stolen Generation days ended in 1969. (And let's not get too hung up on THAT example - we're talking about 10% of Aboriginal offspring according to some estimates (admittedly the lowest ones), all of them mixed-race rather than purely Aboriginal; but that is another debate for another time.)

Let's look at why this is all happening. Recently, a Federal government inquiry issued the Little Children are Sacred report. This was an analysis which compiled years of reports documenting sexual abuse and violence suffered by Aboriginal children throughout the Northern Territory into an account which all but forced Australian Prime Minister John Howard to announce last week that he would wrest control of remote communities from the Territory Government. (Remember that NT is NOT a state of Australia, but merely a territory; this gives the Federal government much more power to intervene than it would have in one of the six states.) Howard banned the sale of alcohol and pornography from within the affected area last week, and has now despatched members of the Australian Federal Police, supported by elements of the Australian Army, to remote parts of the Northern Territory to assess the extent of child sexual abuse and to restore law and order.

Some indigenous families, however, are reported to be fleeing their homes and taking refuge in the bush because of fears their children could be removed. According to Howard, “The whole object of the exercise is to help people, to protect people, to secure people, to reassure people ... It's got nothing to do with the election, it's got nothing to do with politics, it's got everything to do with caring for indigenous children and I don't really care what other people say about our motives, our motives are correct”. Various white professional-class liberals who should know better have been generating all kinds of scaremongering accusations, abetting the conspiracy theories of a small number of Aboriginals who believe that the Australian government want to steal their children and their desert. 90 welfare and indigenous organisations released a statement attacking the Howard Government's plan as a smokescreen to hide a land grab. Pat Turner, a former head of the now-defunct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, warned that "We believe that this Government is using child sexual abuse as the Trojan horse to resume total control of our lands."

However, the Australian Health Minister, Tony Abbott, has assured Aboriginal parents in NT that children will neither be forcibly removed nor subjected to medical testing without their permission. "The health checks for children are just part of helping make these communities safe and to have better lives in a civil society," he told The Australian. The penalty for non-involvement would be similar to refusal to participate in child immunisation - a modest reduction of welfare payments.
One of the settlements being targetted is that of Mutitjulu, near Ayers Rock / Uluru. Community leader Bob Randall said the townspeople would welcome anybody who will make things better, seemingly concurring with the comments of Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, who defended the government's drastic action by telling the Ten Network: "Tonight, tomorrow night, and the next night, kids could look forward to more hell. Well now we hope we can break that cycle ... Yes we know this is far reaching and interventionist -- but nothing else has worked till now."

On the other side of the rabbit-proof fence, Harry Wilson, a local resident, proclaims that this is another Tampa-like electioneering stunt, saying that this was "black children overboard … this Government is using these kids to win the election". His words echoed a joke drily recounted earlier to the Herald by one local official that the Prime Minister, John Howard, the magician politician, has pulled a rabbit out of his hat. "Only it is a black rabbit." Some locals question how much this action is to do with alleged abuses and problems - some of which they recognise, though they say they are now in the past - and how much relates to their proximity to the huge rock representing some of the richest tourist geology on the planet. "That bloody rock," observes one old woman, is the problem. Every day, to enter or leave their community, the people of Mutitjulu pass the parading silhouettes of the minga - literally ants but colloquially tourists - filing up and down Uluru. Pointing towards Uluru, Wilson asks: "As one of the poorest people living in one of the richest places in Australia - why is this community relying on government handouts?"

Meanwhile, at Cape York Institute's Strong Foundations conference, visiting academics and local figures have also been throwing their two cents worth into the mix. Leading US civil rights campaginer, Michael Myers of the NY Civil Rights Commission, has advised Aborigines to abandon their land and assimilate into the mainstream to escape their impoverished conditions. He said that indigenous cultures were an antiquated concept and Aborigines needed to move away from the land if they were to improve their lives. "People have to move out of their ghettoised attitudes, get away from the idea that people belong in certain lands." Mr Meyers said white Australians were threatening towards Aborigines and race relations were at least half a century behind the US. "It's like Australia is in the 50s compared to America," he said. "I've noticed that there is reticence and fear on the part of indigenous people in how they interact with white Australians. There is also an arrogance and intimidation on the part of white Australians towards indigenous people. There is very little opportunity for genuine interaction… I find it profoundly disturbing that we are still living in a world that we still think of people as indigenous."

Ken Henry, Secretary of the Treasury, blames decades of misguided government welfare schemes for consigning many Australians, especially Aborigines, “to a life of economic and social exclusion.” He said that the welfare system had discouraged recipients from seeking work that could lift them out of poverty. He suggested the creation of a system that encouraged people to leave home to find work if there were no opportunities in their community. Dr Henry said a couple with three young children could access about $36,500 a year in income support payments and family tax benefit without working. "The level of income support can discourage people from entering the workforce. The higher the base income support payment, the less likely it is that a person will enter or re-enter work after they become unemployed." He added that passive welfare had done little to encourage people, particularly young people, to embrace education. Achieving better results, he said, meant ensuring Australia had a welfare system that rewarded work and study above a life of "passivity and dependence".

Australia's opposition leader Mr Kevin Rudd said an important part of Labor’s Pearson reform plan for welfare was ensuring indigenous children attended school. This involved establishing a Family Responsibilities Commission, whose membership included local community elders and had the power to warn parents who were not sending their children to school. If that warning was ignored, it could "redirect" welfare payments to the person who was actually caring for the children.

Much of this seems to have been inspired by the comments of US poverty expert Lawrence Mead, head of politics at New York University, who told the conference yesterday that the welfare policies of the 1960s and 70s in the US had led to an increase in crime, a breakdown of families and made sections of society dependent on the dole. A reversal of these policies in the 1990s, the enforcement of existing laws and the restoration of the family had been the best way to tackle long-term poverty, he said.

Mr Mead said that "You need explicit policies to enforce work and restore the family. Dependency happens when parents do two things - first, have children outside of marriage, and second, when the men decline to support the family by working regularly. In America, research has shown it was not lack of jobs or childcare that kept people out of the workforce, but that welfare itself discouraged people from working. That's one reason why welfare and other societal problems such as crime all got much worse in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the 1980s, law enforcement has improved, and we've seen a recovery of order in American cities."

Professor Mead also said the best way to end welfare dependence was to let poor people know they were required to work. He claimed that the main reason long-term unemployment fell in the US was because people were told it was no longer acceptable to live on welfare. Mead's comments were echoed by the Young Australian of the Year, Tania Major, who said passive welfare, violence and government inaction had so ravaged indigenous communities on Cape York they were on the verge of collapse. Ms Major said sexual abuse, violence and alcoholism was now endemic on Cape York, and many communities would not recover unless they restored respect for their elders and improved educational opportunities. "We need positive social norms, which do not tolerate excessive drinking, which assume school attendance is compulsory, which condemn sexual and any other form of abuse," she said. Young people on the Cape grew up without educational or employment opportunities, were reliant on welfare and lived in communities that gave little hope. "The idea that Aboriginal people will die prematurely from diabetes and other preventable diseases, the idea that suicide is just a part of everyday living, the idea that excessive drinking is normal and necessary to prove one's blackness - these are the ideas that now underpin the identity of too many young indigenous people," Ms Major said.

Personally, my views are simple. The less government intervention in people's lives, the better. BUT if those people are dependent upon the government, and accepting welfare payments which are earned by the sweat on the brow of the honest hard working average citizens, then there should be some requirement that they do something for it. Nothing comes for free. If you take money from the government, then that same government is perfectly within its rights to investigate how it is being used. Remember, this thing isn't JUST about health checks on children. The Federal Government has put a six month ban on alcohol and pornography in place in the affected areas as well. And just as well. If these people have enough money to spend on grog and porn then they are obviously being 'paid' too much by the state.

Oh, and don't throw this whole 'cultural practice' thing at me. Cannibalism used to be a cultural practice just about everywhere in the world, but now its a crime and you can't do it. Full stop. I'm sure in some cultures, and not just in the Appalachians, it was once a cultural norm to ensure that your daughter or sister didn't go to her wedding bed without being 'broken in', but we're past that now too. It was once 'cultural' to hang or burn people that believed something a little different from you, or happened to be pretty hand with herbal remedies. Cultures are only alive if they move on and stay in touch with modern changes - otherwise they are dead, and therefore worthless.

I'll be watching developments with some interest.

16 years old: can't choose food, can choose government

2007-06-23T17:16:00.000+12:00

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10447064

With apologies to the late Johnny Cash (RIP), but no apologies to Ms Bradford - why does God only take the good ones?

A Karl Goddard original, "Sue"

She's got a mental age of somewhere round three
And she seems to have fallen out of her tree
'Cause she crazier than anyone I ever knew.
Now, I don't blame her 'cause she's raving mad
I just wish she got the help that she could have had
Before the Greens went and hand picked dear old "Sue."

Well, she must of thought it was quite a joke
As she got the doobie and took-another toke,
That she could be in Parliament before the year was through.
And October came, and we went out to vote
And I don't recall, but I didn't note
That anyone even voted for the MP named "Sue."

Well, it was Helengrad in mid-July
And we couldn't hit our kids and make them cry,
Because of Bradford's law that was still new.
And I guess she missed, seeing her name
On the front pages, so she had to claim
That yet another bill was being drafted by "Sue."

She thought to herself "When I was 16,
Back before I even heard of the Greens,
Back in the days when Social Credit was new,
And I was out of piss, and I was out of weed
And I couldn't smoke but I sure could breed
Well, voting would have been real cool to do.

"So if 16 year olds had an education,
Then surely they could run this nation
And couldn't do much worse than those who do."
But that was then, and this is now,
And 16 year olds can't even choose their chow
But she'll get them the vote, sure as her name's "Sue".

And I wish that I lived in Wellington
And had me a real nice shiny gun,
So I could practice 'til I always hit bulls-eye.
And I'd wait outside with some aggression,
Until she left a Parli-ment'ry session
And I'd say: "Your name is 'Sue!' How do you do! Now you're gonna die!!"

Cause I'm getting sick of all Parliament's shit
With un-elected MPs running it
And trying to tell the rest of us just what to do.
And I can tell you, if she were to die,
I'd laugh so much I'd start to cry
And thank the Lord that He saved us all from "Sue.'"

But don't despair, ladies and gents,
For this country of ours ain't quite yet spent,
There's an election next year, in case you never knew.
And if we're really smart, and we're really wise
And we just vote for all the right wing guys
Then the Greens will be out and we won't have to worry 'bout "Sue".

And she can crawl back into the hole she came from, too.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Sue Bradford? To reiterate - I'm in a locked room, with a revolver, six bullets, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, and Sue Bradford; who do I shoot? That's right. Sue Bradford, six times. Then I'll probably club her head in just to make sure.

Seriously though, as much as I hate democracy, I've got to admit that Sue Bradford, just by being in Parliament, helps my cause more every day than a highly trained force of 500 paramiltaries could ever hope to help by staging a coup and inviting me to be the 'interim' leader. The more she opens her mouth, the more our people will realise that NZ democracy is not only a crock, it's also anti-democratic. Any system of government which has people within it who have not been directly elected by the people is, by its very nature, not a democracy. If we are going to harp on about the 'virtues' of democracy, maybe we should actually have one first? Otherwise, lets all just install me as the head of a totalitarian state and I can tell you what to do, instead of us letting Sue do it all the time. At the risk of sounding big headed, I could hardly do any worse!

16 years old! From my recollection of being a 16 year old, I can tell you who I'd have voted for. Katherine Rich, every time. Not because she's in National. No. Because that fox is a real honey-pot!

Case closed.

Bush is best in Albania

2007-06-12T16:30:00.000+12:00

Don't you love Albania?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/world/europe/11prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

George Bush certainly does. This may be the only country in the world where George 'Dubya' Bush’s popularity is higher than Bill Clinton was at college. They have a 21 gun salute for him, crowds gather dressed in big tall Uncle Sam hats, and waving American flags, chanting “BOOSH-Y! BOOSH-Y!”, and turning the presidential visit into “a virtual mosh pit” according to the New York Times. Hands grabbing for him, women kissing him, men trying to kiss him - Bush is a rock star! Did I mention that this country has a Muslim majority?

Why is he so popular here?

Mainly, Bush wants what Albania wants - an independent Kosovo. The Russians and Serbs et al oppose this, but the UN is considering an independence plan and Bush thinks it is a good idea (and so do I, by the way). Oh yeah, that reminds me:

Several days ago - Bush: “At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you’ve got to say, ‘Enough is enough — Kosovo is independent,’ ”

Saturday, Bush: “In terms of a deadline, there needs to be one. It needs to happen.”

Sunday, Bush: “First of all, I don’t think I called for a deadline,”

The press remind him of what he said the previous day.

Bush: “I did? What exactly did I say? I said deadline? O.K., yes, then I meant what I said.”

The reporters laugh.

Here’s another reason, according to the NYTimes - “This largely Muslim country, population 3.6 million, is just the kind of nation Mr. Bush likes best: a nascent democracy whose history includes a dramatic break with totalitarian rule.”

Albania has THREE postage stamps featuring Bush (more than the USA, I believe), and the street in front of Parliament has been named after him.

Oh, and here’s why Bush REALLY loves Albania:

“U.S.A. have the right and responsibility for all the world to protect the freedom,” said Ilir Lamçe, 37, a financial analyst who was among those waiting for Mr. Bush, using English to express the views of many. “This is the right war.”

Sami Berisha, who drove seven hours from Kosovo to see Mr. Bush, said he could not understand anyone who would take part in a protest against the president. “I think these are crazy people,” said Mr. Berisha… “because democracy begins in America.”

Sadly, there are no direct flights between Auckland and Tirana - so I guess I won’t be going to God’s Other Country just yet …

Should suicide be encouraged in prisons?

2007-06-12T16:00:00.000+12:00

"Let mass murderer take his life: euthanasia advocate"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10444869
(NZH Monday June 11)

Martin Bryant is in the news again; this is the guy who supposedly killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, back in 1995 - although check out this theory by that fantastic conspiracy magazine Nexus, which I regularly read and occasionally adhere to:

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/MartinBryant1.html.

Apparently he’s attempted suicide five times since he’s been imprisoned - fair enough, he’s never going to get out of prison so what does he have to live for?

Leading euthanasia spokesperson Dr Philip Nitschke reckons Bryant should just be allowed to go for it and top himself - and I agree with the guy.

Actually, I think anyone weak, selfish or stupid enough to kill themselves should be allowed to do it. What says ‘Loser’ any worse than failing after an overdose, or not quite hanging yourself correctly? Its not like there’s a shortage of people on the planet.

In fact, I’d go a step further than this. Repeat offenders in prison for serious crimes (murder, aggravated assault, rape etc) should be ENCOURAGED to top themselves - think of how much money the state would save in prison accommodation, not to mention further trials etc when they eventually get out and then break the law again. I mean, rehabilitation doesn’t seem to work for most of our inmates - because they have it so much easier on the inside, so of course they can’t wait to get back in! All you need is for someone to go into their cell and say “look, mate, there’s no Sky TV anymore, no internet, you have to pay to use the gym or get a degree by correspondence, you’ll be eating porridge for the next five years and big Bubba over here will be sharing your cell. On the other hand, here’s a nice shiny pill which will get you out of it all. By the way, your wife has found out about your pen-pal “girlfriend” and they’re both pretty pissed off.” Easy peasy lemon squeezy. (Ah, remember the old days when you could say ‘Japanesey’ and it wasn’t racist?)

I wish I was Minister of Prisons …

Anderton no closer to retirement ...

2007-06-11T12:12:00.000+12:00

"Anderton in no hurry to join exodus" (NZH)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10444779
(New Zealand Herald, Monday June 11)

Jim “I’m so cool I had a party named after me” Anderton, who turns 70 in six months time, seems likely to stay in Parliament for at least another term yet. The former Labour Party President, who entered Parliament as a Labour MP in 1984 for Sydenham and has retained the now renamed seat of Wigram since then, is a dead cert for another term if he chooses to run again. This man is a legend. Okay, he’s awfully left wing but that doesn’t mean you can’t like the bloke. He has more class than a secondary school. So far he has belonged to five political parties - Labour, New Labour, the Alliance, Jim Anderton’s Progressive Coalition, and now the Progressive Party. What other NZ politician can you name who has had a political party named after himself? Even Winston Peters has to make do with the NZ First Party, as the Winston First Party was not well received.

I have a great affinity for Jim. Again, leave aside the whole left wing thing and hear me out. He’s a qualified teacher, like I am. He’s a Catholic, as I am. (Well, I’m more of a Unitarian Universalist these days but I’m banking on the baptism and First Communion to get me through if I’m wrong about other things.) He was born in Auckland, just like me. He loves cricket, ditto, and Canterbury, ditto. Plus we both know my father - Dad ran for Parliament in 1990 on the New Labour ticket and Jim and his wife Carole came over to our place in Rotorua for dinner one night several weeks before the election.

I have one question for Jim Anderton.

Why not just accept the fact that you are part of the Labour Party again and get rid of this one-man party you have?

Of course, you get a tonne more money for being a party leader in Parliament than for just being a party member, but Jim has never been about the money.

Let’s face it, Labour has re-branded itself back to somewhere near the left-centre position it used to hold, and Jim has never been that far left of centre himself, apart from on monetarist policy. There is not a lot of difference between the two parties, and Jim seems pretty comfortable in Cabinet - he was even Deputy Prime Minister for a while there, and currently holds a number of portfolios.

So, come on Jim - by all means, stay in Parliament another few terms (although, are there ANY other MPs in today’s Parliament who were born BEFORE WWII broke out?). But do the voters and taxpayers a favour by calling it a day on the minor party (which has never polled above 2% and only ever gets any support when Jim puts his name in front of it) and going back to your spiritual home - even if it is the dwelling place of the devil.

Greens: "Cut power prices to aid poor" - Yeah Right!

2007-06-08T18:15:00.000+12:00

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10443640

I don't know why I continue to be surprised by what the Green Party says. They have moved so far away from their traditional roots that they might as well change their name - although no one will vote for the 'Lazy Bums on Welfare' Party.
Cheap power means more power will be used - this will mean that more power needs to be generated - which means the Huntly coal station will be needed - which will pump more CO2 into the air - which is bad. So we give the poor cheap power, or else the Greens will complain; then the Greens complain about the pollution caused by this.
I'm unclear as to whether The Green Party knows what it wants.

The article starts by suggesting "an electricity pricing scheme... so families on tight budgets can afford basic power needs."

Three paragraphs later, it describes "a progressive pricing scheme would give every household a basic block of power units at a low cost each month.
Progressively higher prices could be charged for subsequent blocks of units".

I'm all for the second idea - for ALL households. As a middle class NZer I am extremely sick and exceedingly tired of being expected to pay more and more so that others can become more and more dependent. Why SHOULD I have to pay for someone else's power? So they can play PS3 all day while I'm working? How pathetic.

According to Jeanette 'I've been cooped up in an office with Sue Bradford for so long that I've forgotten what I really stand for' Fitzsimons, "This is a way of making sure households can afford the energy they need to cover their basic needs, but pay more for luxuries or wastage. So if you're using electricity to heat spa pools or have an enormous house with every room heated, or leave lights on all night, then you pay a higher price for that power." That makes sense. Perfect sense. She goes on to explain that "progressive pricing would help people on budgets, such as pensioners, because they could better manage their power use, reducing it when nearing the limit. She said the main cost increase for a large household was in water heating, which could be mitigated by measures such as having children share bath water." Okay, getting close to unhealthy touching issues in later life here but we can ignore that.

The problem I foresee is this - we have a lot of 'poor' families at the school at which I work. I can tell that this is the case because of the number of kids that can't afford to pay their school donation (but it isn't compulsary so it doesn't matter), or to buy a uniform (but we have a 'special fund' to pay for those kids), or to buy school shoes (but we have free shoes for those who can't afford them) or stationary (but we have free stationary for them as well). Many, not all, but many of these kids CAN afford to buy lunch every other day (when I was a kid we bought lunch once a year - on our birthday - and boy did it suck if your birthday was on a weekend!), and wear designer clothing (in violation of the uniform code, for not wearing the uniform they could not afford), and have flash cell phones and MP3 players which shouldn't be at school anyway. Many, not all, but many talk about watching things on Sky, which I can't afford, and playing games on PS3, which I can't afford. Many, not all, but many need to be reminded to turn lights and other appliances off when they leave the classroom. You see Jeanette, this progressive pricing scheme would be great for me, because I try to conserve power. A lot of these families use a hell of a lot more power than you think they do - so this is actually counter productive.

It's okay, go and sit in the nice green room and listen to the tui birdsong you have on CD until you are calm. Just try not to think about how much power the CD player may be using.

Let's face it, the Green MPs need to leave their comfy Beehive chairs, look out over their six-figure salaries and realise that middle NZ is not as rich as they are.
Here's a new idea - why doesn't the Green Party pay for the power bills of the poor. It can come out of their membership dues.

That way, we'll either get rid of the problem of power bills for the poor - or we'll get rid of the Green Party.

Talk about win-win.

Definitely not "Black" power

2007-06-08T17:58:00.000+12:00

The sad Muliaga saga goes from bad to worse.

If you've just crawled out from under a rock and missed it, in May (2007) Mercury Energy sent a contractor to cut the power at the Auckland home of Folole Muliaga, a mother of four, after her family fell $168.40 behind in its bill payments. Without power, an electric pump supplying Muliaga's oxygen stopped; she died shortly afterwards.

Now the family spokesperson, Brenden 'oh why was I cursed with a white skin?' Sheehan is accusing the police of racism because they had the nerve to interview the family in English!

What????

How long have these people been in NZ?

As far as I'm aware, the only foreigners allowed in NZ without passing an English test are those with more than five million dollars to invest in the country - and if the Muliaga's were in this category, I REALLY hope their investment advisor has found another calling.

According to the article (http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?l=3&t=0&id=2313) the family have been here six years. Well, I think about it like this - in NZ, you can start learning a language in Year 9, and sit Level 3 NCEA in that language in Year 13, by which time you are proficient in that language - after speaking it one hour a day, often less than five days a week, for five years of between 35-40 weeks each.

So the Muliaga family is either a) academically challenged, or b) lazy. If I went to live in France, I'd learn to speak French. If I moved to Germany, I'd learn German. Samoa, I'd learn to speak Samoan. And I'd hope that after two years of speaking French, or German, or Samoan non stop, that I'd be pretty fluent. My sister spent a year in Italy on an AFS exchange, and came back pretty fluent in Italian despite having known almost nothing before she went.

So Brenden, whose fault is it that they are not able to speak English? Probably the white middle class's fault - everything else seems to be. Maybe we need to make it compulsary for all the palagis to learn Samoan, Tongan, Fijian, Tuvualuan - oh, not to mention Maori, of course.

Isn't this guy a union organiser or something? Seems to me that he knows an awful lot about stirring the pot anyway. Here's a great quote that sums it all up for us: "These people are victims. What hope has any brown person got if they are a suspect in a case in this country?" Notice the word 'brown'. HE is making this a racial issue. No one else is. Funny how the first person to use the race card is usually complaining about something.

Oh yeah, whatever happened to 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do?' If women from NZ go to Iran, they put on a head scarf - because that's what you do over there. They don't go to a Christian mass - because if you do that in Iran, you can be executed. So we respect other people's cultures in other people's countries. In Samoa, we'd respect Samoan tradition.

I just looked on a map. Yes, just as I thought. Samoa is NOT New Zealand. The Muliaga's were happy enough to move here for the better lifestyle opportunities and the higher pay. They have to accept some kind of trade off. Imagine the chef in some high priced restaurant who is told to make an omelette, but doesn't want to break any eggs to make it. How long will that chef keep his job?

Oh, and what was this about demanding that the police stop investigating the whole incident? There is DEFINITELY something else going on here.

Gunshop worker walks free - finally!!

2007-06-07T17:35:00.000+12:00

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10444165

Our justice system makes no sense.

A guy walks into a gun shop brandishing a machete, and the guy behind the counter goes to court because he doesn’t let him steal the guns.

That’s what it comes down to.

Personally, I think ALL gun shop workers should be armed. They need an armed guard in a bullet proof booth at the front of the shop, who can pop out of the booth if and when bad guys come to rob the place.

Also, anyone who tries to rob a gun shop with a knife must have serious mental problems. It’s like turning up at a fencing tournament with a potato peeler.

The law needs to make it clear that if you choose to break the law, you are no longer covered by it. Ricky Beckham broke the law by choosing to attempt to rob the store. Greg Carvell did not break the law by taking reasonable precautions to protect the community.

This is not some dairy operator with a shotgun under the counter, pulling the weapon out and blasting the homies who are shoplifting his coke cans. Coke cans don’t kill people (unless thrown at extreme velocity or from an overbridge), so usually the theft of coke cans is not an endangerment to the community.

This is a gun store. They sell guns. And while we all know that guns don’t kill people (people with guns kill people, people without guns kill people, so no people = no people getting killed! It’s like the saying - aborted foetuses don’t kill people; Unaborted foetuses kill people!), guns in the wrong hands certainly lead to an increase in community endangerment. Here‘s a fantastic quote from the man himself about why he should be armed: "It can be a dangerous place, a gun shop. There are a lot of desirable things for undesirable people."

Give Greg Carvell a bravery medal for having the guts to shoot a criminal before he can kill his co-worker, not to mention he himself.

And give the cops the address of the nearest Black Power house and let them do something useful with their time rather than trying to prosecute good honest citizens.

Climate change, man-made or not - we still need to take action, and fast!!!

2007-06-07T15:59:00.000+12:00

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2617440.ece

Apparently scientists are concerned that 300 glaciers in Antarctica have begun to move more quickly into the ocean. They believe that the accelerated movement of glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula (up 12% on previous years) reveals that rising temperatures are causing glaciers as far apart as Alaska, Greenland and now Antarctica to break up and slip into the ocean at a faster rate than expected. Sea levels are now predicted to rise between 20 and 43 cm over the rest of the century.

I'm not one to point the finger at key allies and the defenders of Western Civilisation, but US manufacturers really need to come to the party on this. However, there are some basic things that we can all do to promote climate change action.

Number one, get out of your cars and use public transport! Imagine it - a 50c per litre tax for personal and business use of motor vehicles, and a 50c per litre subsidy for buses. More buses, more often, more networked to the train ... um ... network.

Number two, boycott anything made in the USA and China.

Not that I have anything against the Americans or the Chinese people per se. Obviously their government is a heartless, godless, communist/capitalist hybrid and secretly I wish I were in charge. (Not to mention China! Just kidding Georgie - you know I'm your biggest fan.) The US is constantly attacked for its environmental record - and Bush is actually trying to do something (although it is nowhere near good enough yet). But according to their recent climate change plan, China's "first and overriding priority" is economic development.

Think about it. According to Greenpeace (which usually tends to inflate figures as a general rule but these happen to be the only figures available from non government sources) China is the world's biggest driver of rainforest destruction, by a long shot. China has the world's largest timber trade, but they are not encouraging sustainable logging - I have no problem with logging as long as you plant 6 trees for every five you cut down. But China's economic development seems to be sucking in more and more of the earth's natural resources, at a time when we are becoming more and more aware of their scarcity. Apparently (according to the International Tropical Timber Organisation) almost five out of every 10 tropical hardwood logs shipped from the world's threatened rainforests are now heading for China. China, heavily dependent upon coal generated power, is about to overtake the USA as the world's leading greenhouse gas emitter - es, and thus become the biggest contributors to global warming and the destabilisation of the climate. If they remain uncontrolled, the growth of China's carbon dioxide emissions over the next 20 years will dwarf any cuts in CO2 that the rest of the world can make.

Second, China already has 1.3 billion people, and an economic growth rate of 8% pa. If current increases continue, by 2031 China's population is likely to be 1.45 billion and the average income will be equivalent to that of the US today. China's grain consumption will be two-thirds of the current grain consumption for the entire world. By 2031, the Chinese will be consuming 99 million barrels a day - and the whole world is currently producing 84 million barrels a day. Twice as much paper as is being produced in the entire world today will be consumed by this future society, if current rates continue. If only every 2nd person has a car (and it is more likely to be closer to three out of every four), the Chinese will have a fleet of 800 million cars - this is how many there are currently in the entire world. To drive them all, they will need more roads - about the same area of land as they currently have planted with rice.

Already, five of the 10 most polluted cities worldwide are in China; acid rain is falling on one-third of the country; half of the water in its seven largest rivers is unusable for any purpose; a quarter of China's citizens lack access to clean drinking water; and one-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air. This will magnify exponentially in the next 25 years.

Now think about this - by 2031 China will have the world's second largest population. India will be larger - and we need to think about boycotting its industry as well, for similar reasons.

Quite frankly, the current Western industrialised model just will not work if the entire world does it - it is not sustainable now, and it only involves less than 1 billion people.

I'm not saying we should all run to the hills, abandon the cities and become peasant farmers (aka the Khmer Rouge model of sustainability). I have faith that our scientists and engineers will come up with something, provided that the reactionary busy bodies let them be.

It is obvious, though, that we need to move away entirely from the fossil-fuel, throw-away consumer economy based on personal automobiles, and towards a more sustainable 'renewable, reuse and recycle' economy based on a diversified public transport system. If we do not, we will be dead. And I'm not talking about next century or even the next generation. I'm talking about us. Right here, right now.

Putin says new arms race is on

2007-06-06T13:59:00.000+12:00

Maybe I should post links for these stories ...

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=21832

Apparently Vlad 'The Impaler' Putin has got his knickers in a twist about the US plan to deploy missiles in Poland and stations for the new missile defence system in the Czech Republic - both former Iron Curtain countries and one time Soviet satellite states. So he's threatening to point missiles at European cities in retaliation.

If I were the US, I wouldn't care - Europe spoke volumes about how much it dislikes the US global stance when it refused to get involved in Iraq.

Anyway, after almost two decades it'd be nice to have an enemy we can actually find ...

Greens 'sitting on fence' ... Newsflash!

2007-06-06T11:25:00.000+12:00

Yes, my favourite party of all time (right up there with the Screaming Meemies) has had a conference over Queen's Birthday weekend (how typical - no long weekend for you plonkers, off to the party conference!) and decided to sit on the fence.

I wonder if any one has told them that the only thing you ever get from sitting on the fence is splinters up the jacksie?

Closer examination reveals that they will work with the party most in sync with their views on the environment and the poor - which counts National out because they actually want to make some poor people work for a living, God forbid! (And since when were 'the poor' environmentally friendly any way?)

Does anyone else miss FPP? It wasn't perfect but at least the Greens wouldn't be in Parliament ... neither would Winston 'Hmm, polls are low, where's some immigrants to slag off?' Peters - sounds like a win-win.

Of course we'd still have Jim 'What party am I in this time?' Anderton, Peter 'Which party have I merged with this time?' Dunne and Rodney 'Bulldog' Hide (not to mention Hone 'I can't be racist, I'm Maori' Tarawira, Tariana 'I'll say holocaust when I want, thank you very much' Turia, Pita 'if I spell it with an i and an a it looks more Maori' Sharples et al) but at least they all got in legitimately.

MMP? More Morons in Parliament.

"G-8 protests turn violent" - surprise!

2007-06-05T13:28:00.000+12:00

Trying to find a link to this article ... I can't find the USA Today article but here is a reprint of it :

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/45514/protests-for-g8-summit-turned-out-to-violence.html

This headline from USA Today - "G-8 protests turn violent" - really made me laugh.

It's like some fat guy sitting at McDonalds, eating his third Big Mac, turning to his buddy and saying 'This stuff is fattening?'

Here's another way of putting this - imagine the headline "People breathe". No shit.

I'm waiting for a non-violent G8 protest.

I feel kind of sorry for the long haired hippy peaceniks who organise these things. They think people can just come along and responsibly exercise their democratic right to express their opinion in a peaceful march. All power to them.

Of course that lasts all of 60 seconds before the neo-socialists, crypto-communists, anti-capitalists, anti-globalists, sleeper-agent terrorists (aka "asylum seekers"), anarchists and the lunatic fringe of the Wild Greens take over, and start throwing cobblestones.

Have they ever stopped to think that if they DIDN'T protest, maybe the G8 summits would achieve more? And maybe the millions of dollars spent in security and repairing property damage could be better spent on helping Africa sort itself out.

According to USAToday:

"It was an unruly start to what is expected to be a week of rallies against the three-day G-8 summit beginning Wednesday in the fenced-off coastal resort of Heiligendamm, 14 miles from Rostock.

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host the leaders of Britain, France, Japan, Italy, Russia, Canada and the U.S. for discussions on global warming, aid to Africa and the global economy. The summit, like past ones, is attracting protesters opposed to capitalism, globalization, the war in Iraq and the G-8 itself...
The protest was organized by several dozen groups under the motto "another world is possible.

" 'The world shaped by the dominance of the G-8 is a world of war, hunger, social divisions, environmental destruction and barriers against migrants and refugees'," organizers said in leaflets handed out on the streets...

"Police put the size of the demonstration at 25,000, while organizers said it was 80,000...

Some 146 police were hurt, 25 of them seriously. Police said they made 17 arrests."

Here's my two cents to sense - what's WRONG with globalisation? Almost all the problems in this world stem from the fact that we're all so different. It strikes me as ridiculous that the same people who bleat and whinge and moan about how we're supposedly all equal then turn around and say globalisation is evil - if we can create one world, with one economy, and freedom and justice for all, then where is the problem?

The problem with globalisation is that, instead of levelling the playing field like it was supposed to, it has lowered it. Who would have thought that the Third World governments would opt to keep their low rates of pay and standards of living in order to lure Western companies to relocate in favour of wages at a fraction of what they pay here, corrupt safety inspectors, and lax or non-existent regulations governing the factory floor? You can't blame the companies or their boards of directors - they are in it to make money for their share holders and investors. How about the UN get off its butt and do something constructive - an international, global minimum wage, and an international commission to ensure health and safety regulations are observed in all countries. Of course it won't, because we all know the UN is run by the hand-picked appointees of the corrupt Third World governments.

Wouldn't it be nice if we actually WERE all equal?

Mind you, if we were all equal then I'd be just as likely to win the next Olympic gold in the 100m sprints as Asafa Powell of Jamaica (the current world record holder - 9.77 seconds). See you at the finish line.