Hemlock Jokes

This bit was over the top Europhilia even for the Guardian. The hemlock jokes came fast and furious and rightly so. Giscard as Socrates? The sleazy French fixer and international arms dealer? Andrew Sullivan has him pinned to the wall and dissected like a cockroach.

The Scott Ritter School of Weapons Inspection

One News has the story of Steve Allinson, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq. Mr. Allinson can't quite decide what he thinks. He says he doubts whether Saddam "ever had a banned weapons program", except that we know that he did because he admitted that he did, and all of it that the Iraqis couldn't hide was destroyed under UN supervision. He also thinks his team should have been allowed to work on, looking for the weapons program he thinks was never there. I find it odd that the Allies are supposed to have uncovered it all by now, given that the same bleating skeptics were adamant a year ago that the UN be given as much time as required to search for WMDs. Would it be asking too much to expect One News to ask the occasional hard question? Come on, guys, you're journalists. If I can see the inconsistencies from up here on Cold Mountain, surely you can see them even better up close and personal.

If the latest incidents of Palestinian savagery aren't enough to dent the iron skulls of Arafat's fellow travellers, ahem, that would be you, Mr. Goff, then nothing ever will be. There will be nothing like peace until Arafat, the Fatah Gang, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are gone, disappeared, sharing cave space with what's left of bin Laden. Do not waste time trying to ride a non-existent "cycle of violence" along the roadmap. The cycle is trotted out by journalists and academics who are too lazy to think.

The stated goal of the Palestinian thugocracy is the murder of every single Jew in the Middle East, the sacred duty of the Israeli government is to prevent that by any means necessary. Why do politicans persist in wishing that it were otherwise? Why do people who believe everything else that the Arafat clique says or, for that matter, everything the Israelis say, refuse to take either of them at their word on this point?

There is no more a cycle of violence than there is between the United States and al-Qaeda, or between police and criminals anywhere. Repeat after me, Arafat does not want peace. He wants his state, he wants it from the river to the sea, and he wants it born in fire and blood, not in compromise. The Israelis for their part will take peace if they can get it and still keep breathing, but will fight if they cannot.

One News has more on Georgia McCarten's death by vehicular homicide. The court didn't even bother to tell Georgia's mother that Zhao was appealing his sentence. Just an oversight, mind you. Let Phil Goff know what you think.

A Monkeypox on Your House

If you've ever doubted the great wisdom of New Zealand's biosecurity regime, then read this story on the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. What kind of an idiot would import a giant Gambian rat as a pet? If you see a MAF officer at the pub, buy them a drink. In fact, buy several.

Read Tim Blair. Everyday. Without fail. Even if you have to miss lunch. It's The Truth from Oz.

And another thing. What earthly good is a suspension of driving privileges? When Zhao killed that little girl, he was already driving without a license. Was that part of the sentence considered at all by either judge?

Today's NZ Herald has Claire Trevett's account of the outrageous blood money trial and appeal of "student" Zhao Ding Yan, who ran over and killed 4 year old Georgia McCarten-Graham while driving unlicensed at double the speed limit. The judge in the original trial had handed down an already incredibly lenient sentence of 2 years imprisonment and a five year driving disqualification. Zhao's family had offered to pay as "compensation" $40,000. Think about that....$40,000 for a child's life and a wrecked family. On appeal, Justice Randerson said the sentencing judge failed to take into account the offer of compensation, and then he cut Zhao's sentence in half and dropped his driving disqualification to three years. Right. Would you trade a child's life for $40,000? Could Zhao have avoided jail completely for $80,000? It's simple payment of blood money; just like in that other judicial paradise, China.

$40,000. About the price of a new car for Mr. Zhao when he gets out of jail.

Has anyone else noted the emergence of the psychologist school of foreign policy analysis? Today's International Herald Tribune (the overseas voice of that paragon of journalistic integrity, the New York Times) carries a story on North Korea's nuclear weapons program that states, apparently in all seriousness, that the desire to be able to incinerate Tokyo is just a cry for attention. Well, I know I feel better now.

Andrew Gimson writing on the German welfare state in the May 10 London Spectator:
"They (the 1968 'rebels") found their livelihood thanks to Bismarck. He was he who saw
that welfare payments could be used to suppress conflict and keep millions in quiescent
dependency on the state.....The will to work has been eroded, in many individual cases
beyond hope of recovery, by a welfare state which by British standards is amazingly munificent."

Recognise anyone you know?

Top of the morning. Regrettably I'm not writing this from New Zealand, but from Taiwan, in the midst of the Great SARS Epidemic. The Taiwan government's reponse will become a case study in corruption, mendacity, incompetence and sheer bloody-mindedness. We have legislators profiteering on surgical masks, presidential contenders playing media tag by pointing out little princes and princesses who who ought to be slaving away heroically on military bases and in hospitals instead cruising the streets in brand new Jaguars or just chilling out at home, doctors & nurses resigning en masse rather than care for SARS patients. Nor does this reflect well on the Taiwan public at large, their absolute and bloody minded refusal to cooperate with even the most minimal and reasonable restrictions on their activity ensures that the epidemc will rage long into the summer and perhaps the autumn. When the cyclone season brings its floods, the sewers will overflow as they always do, and the virus will be off and running again. Well, at least it's an island and easily quarantined.

Good morning New Zealand and anyone else who loves this beautiful and civilised country. I came here by long, strange road through America, Mexico and Asia, and I could have chosen to live in any of those places. On my first visit here, made after much arm-twisting by a Kiwi friend, I was overwhelmed both by the physical beauty of the place and by the good attitude that generally prevails. The "road to Damascus" moment came when my friend and I drove into Kaikoura on a stunning late October day, the afternoon sun fell on the snow-capped mountains that seemed to drop right into the sea. It had been a day of good wine and good food, a day when every bend in the road revealed another impossibly beautiful landscape, a day when I wished a thousand times for the artistic talent to capture even a fraction of what I saw. The only thought in my mind was "Why live anywhere else?" I call this blog Cold Mountain after the view that day and after the serenity of a Buddhist poet who went by that name.

I've been in New Zealand now long enough to love her, rough bits and all, and certainly long enough to call her home. I'll be recording my thoughts on events here and those elsewhere that seem interesting. I hope you'll drop in often.

"If you're looking for a place to rest,
Cold Mountain is good for a long stay.
The breeze blowing through the dark pines
Sounds better the closer you come.
Under the trees a white haired man
Mumbles over his Taoist scroll.
Ten years now he hasn't gone home;
He's even forgotten the road he came by.
Poems of Han Shan #50
translated by Burton Watson