Thought for the day...

H.L.Mencken on (green) puritans...
... Manifestly, it is impossible to put any (such) trust in a Puritan. With the best intentions in the world he cannot rid himself of the delusion that his duty to save us from our sins—i.e., from the non-Puritanical acts that we delight in—is paramount to his duty to let us be happy in our own way. Thus he is unable to be tolerant, and with tolerance goes magnanimity. A Puritan cannot be magnanimous. He is constitutionally unable to grasp the notion that it is better to be decent than to be steadfast, or even than to be just.

Notes on Democracy (Knopf, 1926)

What multiculturalism really means...

...and how PC speak has shut down debate...

Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail, 29 September 2008

On the eve of the Tory Party conference, the shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve issued a blunt warning.

In the name of multiculturalism, he said, Britain had done something terrible to itself. It had downplayed British cultural identity, leaving long-standing inhabitants fearful and new immigrants alienated, creating a vacuum ripe for exploitation by extremists.

His warning could not be more timely or appropriate. Multiculturalism and its allied doctrines of human rights and anti-discrimination are acting as a kind of corrosive acid eating away at our institutions, values and national identity. More, here...

Happy Birthday to big tobacco !

...not an old stogey, or a young fogey...but a US blogger in Iraq reflecting on life and the war on terror. G'day mate from NZ. More at the blogroll...

Vincent Gray (another heretic) writes...

I have the advantage of most other scientists of having learned my craft at a time when science was still in the business of making important scientific discoveries. As Lindzen points out, those days have gone, and science has been taken over by government politicians and bureaucrats and is largely a tool of misguided political philosophy. I remember committee meetings where we discussed science. Today, where I loyally attend Council meetings of the New Zealand Association of Scientists, the discussions are exclusively concerned with how much money science can get from the Government, and how we can compensate scientists for their poor salaries and career prospects by giving them medals. More from Vincent Gray here, and Richard Lindzen here...

The international green movement...

...will ultimately fall apart. Its disparate factions have already begun to tear away at each other, as zealots in any religion do. Their infighting will shatter the anti-capitalist, self hatred consensus that holds them together in a fragile peace...
Listen carefully, and the Pythonesque cries of "splitter" are clearly audible here...
The argument and division centres around nuclear energy. The German greens have already shown us that the fundamental wing cannot abide the realistic (pro-nuclear) faction.Finnish greens have entered into coalition with pro-nuclear parties (more here) and...
this from Mark Lynas of The Independent, and
this from James Lovelock ,
this from Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy,
.and much more, here...and
Energy spokesperson Moglen of Greenpeace believes support of nuclear power by environmentalists risks undermining the broader agenda of the green movement. "With all respect to [nuclear converts], they should not be held up as the middle, they should be held up as the periphery," said Moglen. "We should not be sidetracked into talking about nuclear. It's irreverent (sic)in the climate change debate."

Mighty methane...a perspective from Nature...

...a "global warming" accelerant ? an ongoing natural phenomenon, or Gaia in action ? More from Nature here...

Peace,tolerance,love, hope and change you can believe in...

Stephen Franks writes...

I hate what has happened to the youthful ideals of my generation, when sincerity was the virtue that trumped all others (even tolerance and certainly politeness). That generation in power has created a body of law for liars that would stun the parents we were out to shock. It rewards routine lying. Indeed it may be virtually impossible for businesses to function if they do not play the game.
I was reminded of W Peters feigned outrage before the Privileges Committee at what he considered to be Owen Glenn’s "coached evidence". I think they call it "projection".
No wonder W Peters thinks its worth spouting nonsense and H Clark can pretend she can’t act on anything less than a formal outcome of proceedings. Employment law steers people straight to lying, by forcing them to pretend they act in ways no sensible person would act, and indeed in ways no self respecting employee would want them to act...more

...it rewards routine lying...and so does our present ACC scheme. The rewards are financial for health professionals, and practical and financial (ie, free treatment) for savvy patients. Those patients who can't or won't lie, the honest elderly and others, simply don't get treated or pay a private fee or receive a different , and often lower standard of health care.(Recently the Disabled Persons Assembly took a case alleging discrimination to the High Court on this basis.)

I have protested this all my professional life, yet to my shame have continued to collaborate with this stinking system...Of course the same stink that hovers around our politicians and health care system is exactly the same pong from the same source...

This, unashamedly lifted from Cranmer...

...Thus the victor in every general election is always the ‘Centre-Left’, ‘which claims to be moderate but is in fact a swirling cauldron of wild Sixties Leftism - anti-British, anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-education and pro-crime. But if you dare to oppose this stuff, they’ll call you an extremist.’

And pro-British, pro-family, pro-Christian, pro-education and anti-crime extremists have to be eradicated. One might choose the Paxman strategy of attrition - sneering at them and hurling insults – like Alan Duncan's ‘Tory Taleban’. Or one might sack them from the parliamentary party or prevent them from ever holding positions of responsibility. Or, better still, one simply ensures they are never selected as a parliamentary candidate in the first place.

The bloodless revolution to ensure the propagation and perpetuation of the centre-left is successful and secure. God help anyone who tries to confront it. More...

Lookout, he's coming back...

...and he looks grumpy...

A modern day parable from a literary icon...

Kurt Vonnegut Jr's death was announced today. I suspect he'd have been unsympathetic to the idea of welfare egalitarianism. You can read his (very) short story Harrison Bergeron here. It begins:
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away. More here...

Cartoon of the day...

A blueprint for a new age...

There has to be a new plan say two UK Tories...the old parties and their ideas are dead. The new parties must listen to the anger of a fed up, taken for granted electorate, weary of the failings and lies of the past. The new political victory will come from more personal responsibility and much much more direct democracy...one of its many champions is the blogger Obnoxio ...more here...

OK, but what can other voters learn from this Northern hemisphere exchange? What is imperfect in the UK is little better in Australasia, in spite of proportional voting and (an Australian) upper house...what is needed is an analysis of what works well...and direct democracy via referendums, as practiced in 32 states of the USA and Switzerland, would seem to be a bloody good start...

An Aussie academic wrote a book about it...here

A large one thanks...with thanks to Dick Headley...see blogroll...

Ahh, weddings, weddings...

...the high point of our social culture. The engagement party, the stag night, the beautiful bride, the witty speeches, the food, the alcohol...the alcohol...

The Russians obviously take weddings very seriously, (see The Bride Sheila below) and celebrate the day with gusto, style and joie de vivre...But after the speeches, and when the mother of the bride meets her ex, all hell breaks loose. ..here

G'day to AgMates... (see blogroll)

The Frankfurt School...

...a fascinating discourse here from The Schiller Institute. An exploration and an expose of some of the radical forces that have shaped our lives and society...a bit dated perhaps,but a 1994 forewarning of Orwell's predicted stifling political rigidity and state control of our lives...

Climate change ? It's the methane stupid...

Methane released into the Arctic could raise global temperatures...

Millions of tons of methane stored beneath the Arctic seabed is bubbling up to the surface and being released into the atmosphere as the region warms up and the ice retreats, scientists have said.The gas is said to be 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and scientists have warned that it could accelerate global warming.It is usually locked in a deep freeze below the sea, but as the ice melts on the surface, small holes, or “chimneys”, appear and the gas escapes. (Jessica Salter, Daily Telegraph) More...here...

So the cooling predicted for the next 30 years could be offset by the warming produced by the released methane...perfect! All praise the earth mother ! Gaia in action!

The itch...a strange and frightening phenomenon...

...read this, and I guarantee you'll have an irresistible compulsion to scratch...
More...here...

Quotes of the day

Peg, you can stab me with knives, you can beat me with clubs and you can make me open my eyes when we're having sex, but there's no way on earth you can make me get a second job.
Al Bundy

I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's just bullshit. Mel Brooks

At last...a genuine incentive to list your property...

...is this the proverbial lift that the market needs?

Julian Simon's classic The Ultimate Resource...

...has not been surpassed as a tribute to the technological ability and resourcefullness of humanity. Simon took on the doomsayers, and bet them to put their money on their dire predictions, and WON...read more here.....and view this...

When the taste of whale/hval palls...

...and your guests look to you for something a little more exotic, try walrus...particularly piquant after it's been buried for six months...smells a little like blue cheese...more here...

Muriel Newman's guest columnist this week...

...at the NZ Centre for Political Research is Dr Zbignew Jarowowski another highly qualified scientist who begs to differ with the greenies... No conspiracy theorist, but nevertheless has documented conspiracy...

A conspiracy stratagem was openly presented by Maurice Strong, a godfather of the global environmental movement, and a former senior advisor to Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary-General. In 1972 Strong was a Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which launched the world environment movement, and he has played a critical role in its globalization. In 1992 Strong was the Secretary-General of the “World Summit” conference in Rio de Janeiro, where on his instigation the foundations for the Kyoto Protocol were laid.

In an interview Strong disclosed his mindset: "What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is "no." The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about? This group of world leaders form a secret society to bring about an economic collapse." (Wood,1990) .

More, here...

Keith Windschuttle...

...is a courageous Sydney academic whose blog Sydneyline outrages the politically correct hand wringers who label the colonisation of Australia as Aboriginal genocide and cultural oppression...
PKH points out that Windschuttle also has a point of view about Chicken Little Logic,aka Climate Change...worth a look...

I was born in 1948...

...when many of the men above (NZ'ers of 75 Squadron R.A.F.) were either dead or had returned safely, most to become married men and new Dads. I experienced a boyhood that involved Dads who had stories and anecdotes to tell and exchange, souvenirs and militaria (in my case friends who shared with me a hand grenade - with the pin rusted in - steel helmets, two machine guns, and several samurai swords) and a total awareness that WW2 had been a pivotal and recent event for all the adults that we knew. This awareness has lead to a lifetime's interest in the conduct of the war, (in particular a preoccupation with Bomber Command and the bombing of Germany and the terrible suffering of its citizens.)
It seems that only in the last 10 to 15 years has it been possible to read about the war from a German perspective...and this 2004 essay about being German has been on my hard drive since I first read it...

Eddie Vedder and the Chicago Cubs...

Eddie Vedder—Pearl Jam singer and avid Cubs fan—is doing his part to bring Chicago's North Side baseball team its first World Series victory in 100 years.

On Friday, he made available for digital download at pearljam.com "Go All the Way," a song he recorded during his two-night solo stand at the Auditorium Theatre in August. It's a simple acoustic folk ditty, written at the request of Cubs Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, that poetically sings the praises of the city's own field of dreams, Wrigley Field, and anticipates the day the perennial losers finally win it all:

"And when the day comes for that last winning run/And I'm crying and covered with beer/I look to the sky and know I was right today/Someday we'll go all the way."

The robust chorus turns it into the kind of sing-along sea shanty or drinking song that Vedder loves. More...here...and download the song here...

Obama's Clockwork Orange

"Righty right, me malenky droogs," said Obama, nonchalantly spinning a steel baton while pacing the stage before a packed audience at a Las Vegas baseball stadium. "Come with uncle and hear all proper! Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are all invited. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their faces, with bootsie-woots if thou it suits."

Obama said his new gloves-off campaign strategy was prompted by what he described as a coordinated effort by McCain and talk radio to distract from his message of national unity.

"One thing I could never stand was to hear a filthy, dirty old partisan bushie, howling away his filthy songs and going blurpy blurp," said Obama. "Naughty, naughty, naughty! You filthy old soomkas!"

"So great bolshy yarblockos to you, Johnny brother," he added in a stern warning to the McCain camp, "We'll meet you with chain or britva or Dailykos anytime, not having you aiming factchecks at us reasonless. Well, it stands to reason we won't have it." More...from Iowahawk...

Has the war in Iraq been won ?

....From The Wall St Journal...Gen. Keane wants to make sure people understand why the surge worked. "I have a theory" about the unexpectedly fast turnaround, he says. "Whether they be Sunni, Shia or Kurd, anyone who was being touched by that war after four years was fed up with it. And I think once a solution was being provided, once they saw the Americans were truly willing to take risks and die to protect their women and children and their way of life, they decided one, to protect the Americans, and two, to turn in the enemies that were around them who were intimidating and terrorizing them; that gave them the courage to do it."
more ...here...

It's singalong pardy time boys...

...and it's "Time for some Campaignin"...here...

courtesy PKH...

Instead of global warming...

Looks like we may be in for 30 years of global cooling...Newsweek predicted it in 1975...so where does that leave the AGW people ? What does it mean for rising sea levels, global catastrophe, end of the world scenarios ?... More...

Spare a fiver guv'ner ?

...legitimate way to make a crust ? At least appreciate the honesty and the fact that the recipient doesn't offer much of a moral challenge to passers by...contrast that with the 12 year old girl sitting with her baby by her side, no sign, no words...more...

RIP Rick Wright...

...classical music...here...

The no undie Sunday...

...in case you missed it, the bar that brought punters in by hiring dwarves to pour booze down their throats now has a new twist...

A Melbourne pub offering free alcohol to women who remove their underwear is one of a handful of maverick venues undermining the hotel industry, the Australian Hotels Association says...more here...

Scenes from Iraq...

Over five years since it began, the war in Iraq continues, but with some recent notable progress. On Monday this week, American forces formally returned responsibility for the security of Anbar Province, at one time, the center of the Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi Army and police force. Violence in the region has decreased dramatically - attacks down by 90% over the past two years. The continuing relative peace and order in the region remains a fragile scenario, with many former insurgents now acting as police, or as gunmen allied with American-backed "Awakening Councils". Here are some scenes from around Iraq (and a couple from here in the U.S.) over the past several months. (28 photos total)...the big picture here...

Bush praised,honoured by Nat.Assn.of Community Organisers...

...read this from The People's Cube (the Stalinist version of The Onion)...

The Aussie opposition elects a new leader...

Malcolm Turnbull's job...focusing the Liberal agenda on the biggest issue on Australians' minds: the economy. GDP expanded 0.3% in the second quarter, business confidence is slumping, and annualized consumer inflation is expected to reach 5% by December. The ruling Labor Party has responded by rolling back labor-market reforms, collecting taxes on alcohol and expensive cars before the authorizing legislation had even passed, and promising a massive tax on business in the form of an emissions trading scheme. Mr. Turnbull should drive a truck through this political opening, emphasizing how lower taxes and smaller government can help raise productivity, attract investment and buffer Australia against economic headwinds. Yesterday he said government's role is "to empower and enable the enterprise, the dreams, the ambitions of Australians."

More from the WSJ here...

The unshakeable foundations of British law...

...are teetering. So is the slogan "all men are equal under the law". Why? because aspects of sharia law have been approved in the main centres of England. (With the approval and probable recommendation of the Archbishop of Canterbury above.)More...


Scroll down to see also Iowahawk's take on this liberal lunacy ...and...

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.
See Cranmer, blogroll opposite...

and this...Equality before the law is dead. We might step in if some troublesome soul won't take no for an answer but otherwise many Britons now live by a different legal code to the rest of us. Such an important principle didn't die because the British public stopped caring about it or were too apathetic to make their voices heard. They reacted with utter fury at the suggestion that Sharia should be admitted as a part of British law. I'm not aware of any party manifesto ever having proposed integrating Sharia into the British legal system or even of any significant politician endorsing the idea in public. More...

Give this advertising agency its dues...

...this is a great ad...makes me proud to be aPom...

The japing ape...

is worth a look...

Macca tells the beheaders to f***k off...

...and intends to tour Israel...

Despite several threats by extremists, Paul McCartney has refused to cancel an upcoming concert in Israel. He will go ahead with a gig in honour of the country's 60th anniversary.

"I do what I think and I have many friends who support Israel," McCartney told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth this weekend.

His comments come in response to a Sunday Express interview with the militant Islamic activist Omar Bakri Muhammad. "If he values his life Mr McCartney must not come to Israel," said Bakri, who has been barred from returning to the UK. "He will not be safe there. The sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him."More...

Turning the lights on...

This good news from Canadian blogger Small Dead Animals, an observation ...linking to The Euston Manifesto here .. being a reappraisal of so called progressive liberalism...

The idea that the left is nothing but pure, sweet goodness is increasingly being challenged by the more morally-consistent, clear-headed members of the progressive left, some of whom have found themselves, especially after 9-11, unable to abide by the sort of moral blackout wrought by such unexamined self-righteousness. No group of people is immune to ignorance or inconsistency, but one of the differences between the prog/left and conservatives is that, in the Canadian context, Conservatives who espouse openly racist views simply do not rise within their political parties, nor thrive for long in the official grass roots of their party, unless they cease making such utterances. Unfortunately, this is not so much the case on the left, where relatively hateful and even fascistic views thrive comfortably at the official edges. More...

See also Canadian Terry Glavin's blogpost...
Canada's Carpenters' Union has adopted a resolution that they hope will have "a profound effect on organized labour around the world." The union has unanimously denounced the characterization of Israel as an "apartheid state" and calls for greater understanding of the plight of Israeli citizens...here

Investment bankers and climate change sceptics...

from Climate Audit...Lehman Bros. and Consensus

by Steve McIntyre on September 17th, 2008

My interest in climate change derived in part from experience in the stock market where "consensus" is not infrequently established in favor of opinions that are completely incorrect. And, in many cases, the people promoting the views are competent and serious people. How are such things possible? I read about the Bre-X and Enron failures, trying to distinguish between the "shame on you" and the "shame on me" components - i.e. yes, the original misconduct and deceit was deplorable; but at what point should proper independent due diligence have been able to detect misconduct? At what point were regulatory agencies negligent? Obviously we're going to see a new spate of such inquiries in the wake of the recent collapses.More...

Green activists keep Africa poor...

...and have to acknowledge the fact that they have "blood on their hands". Denis Dutton made this point clearly and directly in the NZ Herald in 2005. Here...
More recently, his opinion is echoed by Mark Henderson, Science Editor of The Times, here...

Quote for the day...

"All the extravagance and incompetence of our present government is due, in the main, to lawyers. Mr Stephen Franks of Wellington, New Zealand excepted.They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizen has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half."
H.L.Mencken

You Brits will never get Sarah Palin...

...in the face of European hostility an unrepentant advocate stands up for Sarah...more here...

The Giant Kaboom is on its way...

...courtesy of "unbridled leverage" and the collapse of AIG, the largest insurance company in the USA. Read more from The Market Ticker...

...be very afraid...

hat tip PKH

Dissent is alive and well in South Africa...

...judging by this rather "robust" cartoon depicting President Jacob Zuma about to rape justice. Note the shower on his head. Reference to his belief that soap and showers would defeat AIDS.
Zapiro has refused to apologise for this controversial cartoon.

The caricature shows Zuma unbuckling his belt in front of a woman representing the justice system with the leaders of the ANC Youth League, Cosatu and the SACP egging him on.

The cartoon comes as the ANC and several of its allies have been accused of attacking the judiciary as the ANC leader waits to hear if the corruption charges against him will be thrown out.

And what of the future?... this from kiwi blogger MAWM (see blogroll) (thanks mate)...

The myopia and greed of the country’s new regime of rats have eroded my faith in the specific future I had once believed in. I do not foresee, today, any significant decrease in crime and violence in South Africa; I have serious doubts that our rulers can even guarantee a safe and successful soccer World Cup in 2010; I do not believe that the levels of corruption and nepotism and racketeering and incompetence and injustice and unacceptable practices of “affirmative action” in the country will decrease in the near future.

Andre Brink - One of the famous Afrikaans Anti-Apartheid Writers, after his nephew was shot in the face and allowed to die in front of his wife and daughter, whilst his murderers continued to ransack his house.

More here from The Week (2.10.08)

Vaclac Klaus...

...adds his voice to the chorus of dissent re global warming/climate change. His plea...

I conclude with my request (made at the International Conference on Climate Change, organized in March 2008 in New York City by the Heartland Institute) that “we have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society,” because as I said many times: the current dispute is not about climatology, it is about freedom. And I would add “about prosperity and living conditions of billions of people.” To avoid a disaster, “we should trust in the rationality of man and in the outcome of spontaneous evolution of human society, not in the virtues of political activism.”

But the Greens say the science is settled, and the debate's over....don't think so.. .read more here...

Firefight in Afghanistan...

...a gripping read here of engagement with the Taliban...

Think you already own every essential home appliance ?

...bet you haven't got a LapJuicer... yet

Flying the flag...

I'm a fan of these people, and I only back winners !

This from Wattie...

...knowing how much I detest Bush jokes...

Aborigines,whale whisperers...

...and a baby whale called Colin...

HOW easily are we fooled by people dreaming up oppressive new Aboriginal "traditions"?
Answer: even a sick young whale like Collette is more sceptical than the average reporter.
Collette is the abandoned calf, or was, found listlessly drifting among the boats of Pittwater last month.
Every New Age wailer in Sydney was soon by her sickly side, sobbing, holding out buckets of milk, or crooning odes to a mammal then known, confusingly, as Colin...more
...and again from Andrew Bolt, Winning the War in Iraq...here

Stephen Franks and William Junior Rufus Marsh

...a startling story...

HADRON...

...is exciting and captivating. Refreshing too, to see and read about new research, unfettered by the constipated and fearful "precautionary principle" of the luddite Greens. Right now HADRON IS hot,hot, hot.. Wonder though if there's an advertiser's/marketer's connection involved? Consider this...HARPIC made cleaning the loo a bit of a lark for stay at home bored housewives, because it sounds soo similar to (dare I say it?) hard prick. Clever,clever clever.
Ever read Vance Packard's 1960's book The Hidden Persuaders ?
Now we have HADRON...c'mon, c'mon think about it. HADRON... an anagram of what ?
Geez, but then again, could be just a gay thing.
Hope not.
Note too, a competition for a suggested name change, and a hacker attack. Here...
...and how Bertie Wooster saw things in 1934 (in Right Ho, Jeeves, P G Wodehouse) -

"I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly a chap would feel, no doubt, if, having split the atom, he suddenly found the house going up in smoke and himself torn limb from limb.

Maybe the Hadron boys need Jeeves on hand.

Obama v McCain...

...an observation from The New Republic..."If Obama wants to win, he has to destroy McCain's image as a heroic and patriotic leader. The ONLY way he can do so in the weeks remaining is to attack the man's fitness on grounds of health. This is Politics 101. That Obama can't or won't do this is yet more evidence that he's still learning how to play this game.

Quote of the day...

I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

- Thomas Paine, from The Age of Reason

Food for thought...

...from the blog proCommerce. An retired ex-banker,C.E.O. ponders...sure he meant rubble strewn, not ruble strewn though...

When I returned from Tokyo in the summer of 2000, I started wearing a suit and tie. I had four major projects to carry out.I succeeded on two and failed on one. The fourth project remains undone because I've never found any support for it.

In my several decades of travel in third world countries, I found something few others seemed to have found. In the red dusty Sahel, in the vast flourishing markets of the Cameroon jungle, in tiny Puebla and Lake Atitlan villages, in Arab tents on the side of rocky hills, out in the rice fields of Laos and on the back ruble strewn roads of Southern India, I met countless people who loved their lives. They didn't want progress, they didn't want the Western world, they didn't want wage paying jobs or paved roads to their town.

The people I've met in third world countries don't want the modern world. They love their lives and they want their lives and their families to remain the way they are. They said it and they mean it. But they have no protection from us international purveyors of progress.

Most indigenous people seem to want a few more things available in their markets: battery powered music sources for their local music, a few effective medical supplies for childhood health, some useful farming implements and very little else.

There is no global project to protect these billions of people from the Western commercial onslaught. Creating such an institution is my fourth project.

I know how to do it but I have yet to find any allies to help me.

Will this turn out to be The Smoking Gun...

...the tip of the iceberg as it were,groan, that demolishes man made catastrophic global warming/climate change ? More...

AUSSIE,AUSSIE,AUSSIE...

...as a 20 year old, living in Bondi in 1967, working at St Vincents Darlinghurst as a radiographer I read "People,Politics and Pop" author forgotten ? Craig McClauchlan ? ...an expose (to a new Kiwi/Pommy visitor) of a barely glimpsed ethos, the Aussie persona. The book captivated me, and I never forgot the final triumphal expression of Aussie pride, the author's declaration of his Australian identity..."I am an Alf!"

This affection and glorification of the Aussie psyche is repeated in the movie Kenny. The hero, Kenny himself, is as his father describes "a glorified turd burglar" a portaloo deliverer, cleaner and collecter bloke, (his peaked cap carries the company logo - SplashDown) filled with angst regarding his own family, yet secure and proud of himself in his own world...

Reflecting on his failed marriage and his ex wife's partner he says "...f***k it,why not cut out the middle man, find someone you hate, and give them a house..."

Kenny never wavers, never loses his dignity... throughout the movie he celebrates Australia, the ordinary working bloke and his important place in the scheme of things.

Kenny, another movie that defines Australia and elevates Australians. Shit collectors some of them maybe but good blokes too...hard to think of a recent Kiwi comedy comparison. Hval Rider maybe...

McDonalds forced to put health warnings on individual fries...

...and they don't seem to mind! Listen to Nobel and Pullitzer prize winning journo Doyle Redland of The Onion Radio here...and listen to his take on the closing of the Dutch Anti-Defamation League office here...

The race is on...

A guy phoning his mate sees an accident happen...

...listen in here...

Call yourself a conservative?

Here's what Andrew Bolt has to say... I call myself a conservative. But I now need to find a new word, having learned to my surprise what conservative now means at a modern buck's party.

My lesson came thanks to stripper Linda Naggs, who yesterday was ordered to stand trial for the rape of the best man at a buck's party at Mornington Peninsula last year. More...

A magnificent analysis...

...of our biases. What makes us Labourites,Tories,Republicans or Democrats ?
...the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way. When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer.
Read this from Jonathon Haidt...

CO2 or the sun...

...influencing climate change? The theory that cosmic-rays mediate climate change is now much better backed by evidence than the politically fashionable notion that CO2 is responsible. See this from Nigel Calder ex editor of The New Scientist...and this from Sammy Wilson, East Antrim MP, whose speech Calder defends...

The Hadron Collider is on...

...Once colliding beams have been established, there will be a period of measurement and calibration for the LHC’s four major experiments, and new results could start to appear in around a year. Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to complete a journey that started with Newton's description of gravity. Gravity acts on mass, but so far science is unable to explain the mechanism that generates mass. Experiments at the LHC will provide the answer. LHC experiments will also try to probe the mysterious dark matter of the universe – visible matter seems to account for just 5% of what must exist, while about a quarter is believed to be dark matter. They will investigate the reason for nature's preference for matter over antimatter, and they will probe matter as it existed at the very beginning of time.
See the full press release here...

Greenwashing a jury...

...Greenpeace activists who claimed the threat of global warming justified their actions were acquitted by an English jury. Follow Melanie Phillips' outrage here...
and note her comments re climate scientists defecting from the global warming doomsday scenario...and read further here...

September 11th and December 7th. Days that will live in infamy...

...days that galvanised the world. From The New Republic here...
There will have been many words uttered by day's end. Respectful words, dignified words, mordant words, words of fright, words of bravery and resilience. Here and there from the Middle East we may also notice words of regret and even shame. But not many such words. In the Arab world and the Muslim Crescent blame is not usually taken on oneself. This is a culture adept at exporting responsibility for harm and loss, even tremendous harm and loss, directly on those who have suffered them. The more conspiratorial the more believable.
From Syria this...
and from a patriot, this...
First, ave atque vale. Second, the data cited by tep should be sobering to us all. It should sober us that so many citizens of our closest allies, democratic countries with a free press, are comfortable with ignoring facts, those stubborn things noted by John Adams, in favor of ideology. It should sober us that the attitudes reflected in the far-flung muslim world have moderated so modestly. Third, we should, at least today, be enormously proud that the fierce, and continuing, debate about how to react to 9/11 and how to continue to react, is here, in America. The Europeans aren't debating much; they just want to make a euro and muddle through. Same with the Japanese and the South Koreans. Neither are the muslim countries engaging in much spirited debate; there, as a general proposition, the ruling autocrats, or oligarachs, are mainly interested in keeping a lid on the volcano. Americans are the people at each others throats. Bully for us. We care, passionately, and differently, each from each. That smells like strength and vitality to me. Our story is by no means over. Our early political history was characterized by fierce and brutal political struggle. We got through it; later, other political struggle almost tore the nation apart, and, when resolved, left wounds that lingered for a century. We survived that too. I have no doubt whatsoever that today's divisions will eventually be resolved. God bless America on this painful anniversary.
Read in full here...

I have a dream...

2 indispensable resources...

Arts and Letters Daily, ALDaily.com, and ReasonOnLine

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...

North Carolina Pulled Pork Recipe...

...this sent to me by my dear brother.

Is there a cryptic message therein? Do we both know Carol? Why should the sauce never contain tomatoes?
Dunno. Check it out here...

...but who's standing up for Freedom ?

Liberty/freedom isn't high on anyone's political agenda anymore. Why not ?
We must, and we shall, set the tide running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom.—Barry Goldwater, accepting the 1964 Republican presidential nomination.

In 1986 (?), a few friends (Leo and Thea Gilich where are you ?) started the group F.A.I.R. - Freedom and Individual Responsibility. Our goal was Swiss style binding referendums and we got absolutely nowhere...until I formed a group within the National Party called National Reform... (are you there Merv Rusk and Bruce Knowles ?)and pushed the idea at 2 successive conferences. Hence our present non-binding citizens initiated referendum law...again a total flop. Every referendum since has been totally ignored.But, as I keep reminding myself, it's a start and to rescind it would be political suicide...

And what sort of country do we have now? A cringing nation of sheep. My licence plate reads BAAAAA. Which politician will be first to declare a total and absolute committment to Life,Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?

This is worth repeating...from the great socialist dictator Adolf Hitler...
The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible
reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.

Barry Goldwater in 1964 was unequivocal. Who today is prepared to stand up for personal responsibility and freedom? And when did freedom become an orphan ? ...here

Global Warming bites the dust...again...

The IPCC models and forecasts are wrong because they are based only on “mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity," he said.

The phenomenon of climate change should include other kinds of factors, both internal, such as volcanoes and human activity, and external, such as solar activity, he said.

"In this century, glaciers are growing," as seen on the Perito Moreno mountain in the Andes; on Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada; and on Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand, Velasco Herrera said.

My eye was caught in this article by the N and Z - peculiar that isn't it ? and a phone call to the Franz Josef glacier (0800 484 337) confirmed that the glacier is indeed growing...

We aren't likely to read or hear about it from our media sources though...in fact just the opposite. Give Franz Josef a ring...

September 11th, 2008...7 years on...

With respect and in memory of the dead of New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania.

We will never forget 9.11.2001...

The calm before the election...

...precedes turmoil after it. In NZ, John Key is coy about his attitude to the economic costs of decreasing our "carbon footprint". In the USA, John McCain is an orthodox global warming believer...for now. After the elections, will Key and McCain be quite as Kyoto compliant?

The attitude of the developed world (and I have to include NZ here)to nuclear energy is the key to decoding the signals from leaders in waiting. Our anti-nuclear hysteria is on the wane at last, and some rational debate may follow our November elections. In the USA I wonder whether Al Gore's visions will drive policy, or will economic and environmental common sense take over. Check this out from Reason...

Tim Blair...

the Aussie Iowahawk.,Check him out here...

Canadian Radio Classics: Warman of the Mounted

Announcer:
From the Maritimes to the Yukon, the Great White North was once a lawless land where cruel and offensive opinions roamed free - until one man stood up and brought them to justice. One mighty masked man, clad in the scarlet breechcoat of the Royal Canadian Mounted Human Rights Police, astride a golden disabled lesbian steed, with his faithful transgender Indian scout at his side. Together they rode from Yellowknife to St. John's, keeping Canadians safe from the spectre of multicultural insensitivity.

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation invites you to return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear as we tell the tales of that legendary singing Human Rights Mountie. It's time for excitement - it's time for lawsuits - It's time for... Warman of the Mounted!more...

A bit grim, but some introspective stuff from a leftist blog...

...a 15 year old girl, about to have her 3rd child, makes you think WTF's going on?

A pommy story, but it happens here...

Explore our dumb world !

...with The Onion.com!

Paper or plastics ? When freedom of choice goes too far...

That's me on the right. Don't know who the other dude is but he had a stupid hat on.


Paper or plastic? It's a question that has tormented progressives in the check-out line for decades. On one hand, paper bags are biodegradable - but they result in massive clearcuts that scar the landscape. Plastic bags, on the other hand, don't require the destruction of trees and really come in handy when huffing paint. But one can't ignore the millions of innocent sea mammals that perish every year attempting to ingest plastic bags, or by using them to explore the wonders of auto-erotic asphyxiation. So which of the two evils does an environmentally-conscious, green-thinking progressive choose? And then, how do we force everyone else to do the same?

The answer didn't come easy to the Seattle City Council. The Founding Fathers obviously didn't intend for Freedom of Choice to include things that have nothing to do with abortion. Yet if the city banned paper and plastic bags outright, people would just find other ways to carry their groceries home. And without plastic grocery bags, what would the city's homeless use for hats? The solution, it seemed, was cloudier than Amy Winehouse's urine. Luckily, the council had a veritable wellspring of wisdom to turn to for advice - Seattle's Progressive Community.

Anyhoo, I suggested that until society has evolved to the point that people no longer succumb the consumerist urge to buy groceries, a 20 cent tax per bag could be placed on all shoppers in order to discourage them from using grocery bags in much the same way that sin taxes have wiped out drinking, smoking, and gambling in our fair state.

Change will come, but it won't happen overnight. Just this morning, I saw a guy carrying two plastic bags full of groceries past the gay bathhouse, totally oblivious to the harm he was doing to society. But there are things we as progressives can do to lead the selfish idiot herds by example. For instance, I now carry all my food home from the grocery store completely bag-free, box-free, and jar-free, one handful at a time. I get some nasty stares while trying to pass my organically-grown creamed corn over the self-service scanners, but the needs and wants of the Community far outweigh any discomfort I feel over questions about my sanity.

See BlameBush!

Anti-nuclear purists no longer...

...NZ has waived its objection to the supply of nuclear fuel and technology to India, after pressure from Condoleeza Rice and India's Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs.

Good, a pragmatic decision. But where does that leave our anti-nuclear prissiness ? In the garbage that's where...As the NZ Herald says this morning, our anti-nuclear posturing looks "...narrow, opportunistic and ludicrous...nuclear puritanism is finished."

Our anti-technology, green appeasing anti-nuclear hypocrisy is on the way out. Another reason for ringing the bells...roll on the 8th November election!

The Large Hadron Collider...

...will be switched on in a matter of hours. The answers to the riddles of the universe could be within reach, as could black holes, the Higgs boson and other mysteries. Check it out here...then visit the official site here, and enrol in the global computer network to help unravel the data here...

The bells are ringing out...

...for the death of 1970's feminism.

"The nuclear family" said a 1973 UN report "is the biggest single obstacle to women's liberation".

The bell ringers are ringing out the death of that statement, and the death of the restrictive, man hating philosophy behind it. In addition they are celebrating the acknowledgment that feminism cannot be defined by ideology,and cannot villify women who don't fit the 1970's model.

It was of course the selection of Sarah Palin as Republican running mate that called the bell ringers out...See this by Kay Hymowitz in City Journal

...central to Palin’s red-state appeal is her earthy embrace of motherhood. She differs from mainstream feminists in that her sexuality and fecundity are not in tension with her achievement and power. If anything, they rise out of them. Instead of holding her back, her five children embody her energy, competence, authority, and optimism. Maybe she’s annoyed at the way the First Dude, as her husband calls himself, forgets to fold the laundry or call the pediatrician, but she’s not going to make a federal case—make that an Alaskan state case—out of it. “She’s a real woman, she’s a real feminist but she’s not strident—she’s like us,” Cheryl Hauswirth, a middle-aged mother from Wisconsin, told Politico writer Jonathan Martin. “She’s strong, powerful and opinionated, all the things a woman should be, while still retaining her femininity, her womanhood.”

The contrast with Hillary Clinton couldn’t be starker.

Whales, Hvals... they're everywhere...

Why are some societies rich and others poor?

The Culture of Prosperity
A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World
by Gregory Clark
Princeton University Press, 2007

This book is apparently well worth a read... and asks big questions: Why are some societies rich and others poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution occur in the seventeenth century, in England? Why do some societies—in Africa, for example—find sustained growth so elusive?
Forgive the reviewer his stumbles with punctuation, and press on...consider this

It is naive merely to ‘export’ formal institutions such as property rights legislation, transparency compacts, and democracy to underdeveloped societies. To do so now is almost as unsophisticated as it was fifty years ago to simply send capital goods to ports in less developed countries. What really matters is the populace’s receptiveness to freedom, which is based on deep-seated cultural institutions and attitudes, and which does not grow overnight. By overlooking the cultural foundations of prosperity, development optimists and freedom apostles in Washington and Canberra are wasting resources. Do-gooders who simply offer alms may indeed cause harm if they entrench dependency and a claimant mentality among people trapped in the ‘Malthusian mindset.’

Quite right sir. Now, if only he'd carry on to explain why Canada is a relative economic and political pygmy compared to its southern neighbour...and let's not mention the Olympics...(NB For further insight into Malthusian twaddle, see this great comment by Ronald Bailey here)...
Read the full review here...

Earth First community activists...

...display their religous fervour. "Bring me to this cathedral..." says religous penitent Moonbeam. Join the hippie throng lamenting the death of trees...but keep it in mind Earth First fantatics regard people as a malignant virus infecting the earth mother...

hat tip JD

Sex with vegetables...

...the very idea !

Samizdat.net ...

...is a treasure trove. See this re John Mckain.."Sharp Analysis of what McCain's about"...and then explore the fascinating dichotomy between Michael and Sarah Palin...

Michael Palin for President !

Tor du Vage Hval ?

...which is I think, Norwegian for "do you eat whale ?" Not yet but I've been known to blubber...

Whale meat recipes here, and extensive tips/advice on how to use whale by-products for preventing leaf mould, fires in your chimney and curing scrofula....How to spot a choice cut among the slabs of mediocre meat and a suggested menu for the next community activist meeting...

The instructional movies have been well reviewed, and the link to Trendy Hval details options for whale cutlets Mexican style...

hat tip PKH...

Here comes the bride sheila...

Monday tomorrow. Bugger. I'll start the day with one of these...

Aussie bloggers...

...tend to express themselves well. No mucking around. Check out A Western Heart,bastards Inc. and Gibbo's Place for some clear no nonsense opinion. This for example from Gibbo re education standards in Oz...

When your kids can't add up to save themselves it's not because of the politicisation of our school system by rabidly socialist teachers unions, it's John Howards fault. When your kids can't spell "proply" it's not the fault of fat-arsed lazy teachers who can only manage to work 40 weeks per year, it's John Howards fault. When your kids think that movies like Rabbit Proof Fence are actually truthful documentaries it's not the fault of an ALP State Government who is totally inept, it's John Howards fault.

Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard & Co are showing what they really mean when they talk of ending the blame game. Pissweak, eh? Grow a spine Kev.

What's REALLY wrong with Winston...

There is a very simple explanation for the disparity between Mr Peters’ and Mr Glenn’s version of events. Mr Peters is the victim of an inter-galactic practical joke.

Elvis is not dead. His death was faked by aliens who held him captive for more than 30 years before returning him to Earth to impersonate New Zealand’s former foreign affairs and racing minister.

In this guise he has gone about offering honorary consulships to people he bumps into at international sporting events, soliciting funds from wealthy expatriate businessmen and plying wealthy locals with alcohol before hitting them up for donations.

Meanwhile, the real Mr Peters, who has stumped the country, telling supporters NZ First does not accept political donations from big business, has been made to look like a hypocrite and a charlatan because of the wayward activities of his malevolent doppelganger.

Editorial, Dom.Post 06.09.08

Shut up and get to the back of the queue...