Not So Deep Throat

OK, everybody not connected with the MSM is asking whether Mark Felt was a hero. I think a hero, recognising how odious Nixon was, would have resigned, gone public and taken the heat for it. Felt's actions were no different than those of every contemporary whinger who loses a policy debate and takes the fight to the media rather than risk the pension.

Blowback in Europe

Good sense prevails in the unlikeliest of places. First the French, now the Dutch. This is blowback from the EU bureaucracy's arrogance and overreach. The mainstream media keeps leading the story with the line that "Nine other countries have ratified the EU Constitution". No, nine other parliaments have ratified because their governments feared exactly this outcome if it were put to a referendum. In a classic "Emperor is naked" moment, the EU is revealed as an elite enterprise, as breathtaking in its arrogance and in its contempt for democracy as NZ Labour. Let us hope they both pay the price.

Goodbye agriculture.

Let's hope that Nanny can step back from her narrow political interests long enough to think very carefully about what she's about to give away to the Chinese. I've seen this before. The Chinese will push for a deal requiring the transfer of agricultural technology with promises of liberalization for agricultural products somewhere down the road. NZ will sell the crown jewels for an immediate, and no doubt substantial, profit. Ten years from now, we'll be buying Chinese milk powder and all our Asian markets for fresh agricutural produce will be gone as well.

You heard it here first.

10 Reasons Not to Send Your KId to the University of Oregon

Ten more reasons to believe that American academia is one sick place. Do you really want your kids to study under people who inculcate students with ideas like this? I would pay a lot to be there when some serious gentlemen from the Secret Service show up at the idiot's door.

Free Trade

I'm normally all for free trade, the freer the better. But it doesn't work if it's only one-way. The proposed deal with China is one of those that won't work barring some unlikely concessions from the Chinese. There are lot of smaller issues like tariff equalization, but the big one is China's currency. The Chinese yuan's peg to the US dollar is effectively a 50% subsidy on exports to New Zealand (among other places) and an equivalent tariff against New Zealand exports. Somebody, any enterprising journalists out there, needs to ask some hard questions over at MOFAT about when and how the decision was made was to become an economic colony of China.

A related question is, since we don't have a military anymore, what we'll do when the Chinese navy escorts a bunch of trawlers (or dredgers, or survey vessels) into NZ's economic zone and announces they'll fish (or mine iron sands, or explore for oil) anywhere they damn well please. So what would we do about it? Complain to the UN?

Schapelle Corby

I’m seriously conflicted here and I’m almost never conflicted. On the one hand, I’d bet a month’s pay she’s guilty and at the age of 27, the foolish youth defense won’t wash. I was a consul for almost 20 years looking after our fellow citizens in third world prisons, mostly they were in for drug offenses, and I have to say they were without exception guilty as sin. There were some sentences handed out that were harsh, unjust even, --one guy did seven years essentially because he was a smart-ass. There’s reasonable doubt in Corby’s case and in a western country she would have gotten off--but this is not a western country. What would I do if it were my daughter. Well I’d pay whatever bribes are required to get her the hell out of there and then I’d then I’d thrash her within an inch of her life. Finally, you have to wonder whther Corby would be such a cause if she were an aboriginal teenager, or if she were 55 and ugly.

Amnesty International's Intellectual Gulag

Amnesty International, which long ceased being any kind of serious voice for human rights has gone all breathless over Guantanamo, calling it the "Gulag of our time." As the good folks over at Blogger News Network point out there is slight difference between the two, not so you'd notice if you happen to be as historically illiterate and ignorant as AI.

BNN notes: ' "The gulag" is a reference to the vast network of almost 500 prison camps and detention centers operated by the former Soviet Union over a span of some sixty-plus years, in which tens of millions were imprisoned and millions died. There are 540 men being held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of being part of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan or associated with the al-Qaida terrorist network.'

We've become used to this sort of gasping hyperbole from the left, but this is astounding in its disregard for history.

The Guardian Defects?

Is there a VRWC mole at the Guardian? This article manages to expose UK Greenpeace capo Stephen Tindale as the thug, twit, snob, hypocrite and fascist that he is. I particularly like the way he plays fast and loose with other peoples' livelihoods.

Recognise anyone, Nanny?

"...“pattern of weak Labor leadership nationally, particularly on the issues of appeasement, isolationism and shirking international treaty obligations”. Tim Blair has Alexander Downer's anti-left thunder. Sounds like a certain other Labour Party....except for Kyoto of course.

Newsweek and Islamofascism

Paul Marshall over at the NRO has a very pointed comment on the Newsweek matter. He's quite right in pointing that Newseek is biased and that its bias led it in this case to negligence and stupidity. He's also right in pointing out that the Koran story was only the latest excuse for rioting in all the Carpetstans. The real problems are the sick, degenerate societies produced by Islamic fundamentalism and our tolerance of same. Let's stop all the PC nonsense and say what everyone knows:

Islam gave up its protection as a religion when it became an expressly political enterprise, an ideology like Communism or National Socialism. Islam recognises no secular realm, no rendering unto Caesar. Until some Islamic Martin Luther appears, no society based on Islamic principles is going to get past the 10th Century.

The Idiots at Newsweek

Newsweek joins the major media idiot list with a fake story about US interrogators at Guantanamo desecrating the Koran. They wanted it to be true, so they were unprofessional, self indulgent, juvenile, credulous and criminally irresponsible. This is even worse than Dan Rather's descent into paranoia and dishonesty, even worse than Howell Raines' little kingdom of lies, worse than Modo's menopausal rantings. At least four people are dead, buildings burnt, and US diplomacy and Afghan democracy set back years.
What do the morons and charlatans at Newsweek have to say? "Gee, we're sorry." Assholes.

The Stupidity Defense

Well, sometimes it's true.There really are some people who are so stupid that they can't be held responsible. Lynndie England is one of these. That doesn't mean that she shouldn't be locked up for her own protection, just that she probably really is just too dumb to understand the consequences of her actions.

Root and Branch

Oh Dear. The wind blowing off Cold Mountain has upset Anonymous (whose overblown rhetoric gives him away as one B.Shuai, former editor of the Beijing based Non Union News and a dangerous, low-rent, Hunter Thmpson and savage lefty ideologue). Anon just loves the UN. Speaking of which, it was with a note of great delight that I watched Nanny Helen's love affair with the UN and all its works come to an end last week. How dare those cheeky bureaucrats-of-colour criticise Her government!? After years of slavishly bowing to the prevailing multi-lateral myths, she had to send Michael "Cannon Fodder" Cullen out to tell the UN to piss off. Great stuff.

The Arab Street Rises at Last!

The Arab street has finally gotten around to rising. They didn't care when the Taliban was sent back to hell or Saddam chased into his rathole, but when it comes to democracy they do get riled. This looks a whole lot like the days before the Berlin wall fell. So why aren't all those left o' grams flying around with "I told you so." written in big red letters. Oh, that's right, the street was supposed to rise AGAINST the west. I guess being half right is never enough.

They Just Don't Get It

This is the second best story ever showing how all the assorted tyrants, kleptogarchs, presidents for life and Grand High Poobahs that run most of the planet just don't get how western (in the sense of democracy plus free market plus rule of law equals civilisation) societies work. Bush gives Vladimir some minor aggro over lack of freedom of the press in the new Russia and Vladi, obviously carefully but incompetently briefed, starts taking up for Dan Rather.

Great stuff, but even better was the time back about 1998 when some Chinese mandarin asked a US official in all seriousness, "Who owns the Internet?" That one could be apocyphal, but I spent 5 years in China and it certainly has the ring of truth about it.

Free Arash Sigachi

Iranian blogger and freedom frighter Arash Sigachi --remember the name--has been jailed for 14 years for speaking the truth about the Mad Mullahs. Tuesday is a global action day in support of Arash. To arms.

Hunter Thompson, R.I.P

Hunter S. Thompson has left us. He may have been half mad, but he could damn sure write. He had no truck with bozo politicians, pretentious movie stars, or new age psychobabble, and for that we shall all miss him. For those my age, the quote "It was the time of Nixon, it was a time to keep your head down." summed up a decade.

I think I'll have a Jack Daniels, straight up.

Root and Branch

This story shows once again what a deeply corrupt and sleazy organisation the UN has become. Why would anyone trust these clowns with their country? It is high time that the nations which pay most of the bills to start cleaning house. The UN needs complete reformation and the place to start is the bizarre assumption that statehood alone is a sufficient qualification for having a vote. Why should anyone give a toss what Robert Mugabe thinks about anything? Why is Taiwan, with 23 million free souls, a booming economy, the most free press between Delhi and Tokyo and genuine democracy denied even observer status? The Westphalian model of states as the only legal actors in international affairs needs to be consigned to the history books as an idea past its use-by date.

Gee, Thanks Don.

What was he thinking? Maybe he wasn't thinking. Just as the Nats succeed once again in forcing Labour ever so slightly to the right, old Don goes and stuffs it up. Katherine Rich was a star in a party that could use a few. Maybe she'll join ACT. In the meantime we're almost certainly stuck with Nanny Helen for the foreseeable future.

Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain

A few thoughts on the Iraqi election. If I'm not mistaken, this the first free election in any Arab country ever. And, no, don't even think about mentioning those periodic shams where 99.99% turnout and 99.99% of those endorse wholeheartedly what ever Grand Poobah for Life happens to be at the top of he body pile at the moment.

Thw left typically, blew a fuse. Ted "I Sweat Chivas" Kennedy and his sidekick, whatshisname, the other guy from Massachusetts, both stumbled all over themselves trying to disparage the courage of the 60 odd per cent of Iraqi voters who turned out. Think about that percentage..it's a hell of sight better than we ever manage here in Godzone, and we can vote from bed.

Hillary, bless her, may be a little lefty Lenin in waiting, but she is not stupid. You didn't hear Hils dissing the election. Of cousre that all adds up to a republican wet dream for 2008--Hils as candidate and Howard Dean as Demo part chief. It's as if Labour made Tandor Nanczos chairman and ran Margaret Wilson as Party Leader.