US 'needs help in Iraq'

According to the US Senate, that is. They've unanimously passed a motion asking Bush to consider asking the UN and NATO for help in "rebuilding" Iraq. There's just one problem: NATO and the UN aren't offering.

There's some enduring fantasy among Americans that all they have to do is ask, and the rest of the world will step forward and bail them out. They're wrong. After the way they shat all over the UN and international community in the leadup to this war, the rest of the world is quite willing to hang them out to dry. They are not going to sacrifice their soldiers so that American boys can be home by christmas. The US made its bed, and now it gets to sleep in it.

But it is entertaining to see that Donald Rumsfeld just doesn't get it.

(Hmm. Looking back, this seems to be becoming a recurring rant of mine...)

Publicity money can't buy

The dispute between the White House in Auckland and The White House has made the BBC.

So, what are the Americans going to do anyway - bomb the place?

A great day for open government in the UK

The British government has blocked its own ombudsman from investigating ministerial conflicts of interest on the grounds that it would be "prejudicial to the safety of the state or otherwise contrary to the public interest". So much for "open government".

Still, it begs the question of exactly what they're trying to hide. Time for the British media to do some serious digging, methinks...

You've all read this already, but...

"Senior UK Whitehall sources" believe that Iraqi WMDs are 'unlikely to be found'. Why not? Because they were "hidden or destroyed by Saddam Hussein before the war". In other words, there was no imminent threat. Another nail in Tony Blair's coffin - let's hope there's not too many more to go.

As for Bush, he's fortunate that no-one in America reads the UK papers, otherwise they'd be asking him some pretty tough questions right about now.

Why I don't like corporate welfare

NZPols is taking me to task over my recent comments on corporate welfare for foreign film-makers. Her argument is that this is a a good move for New Zealand; that attracting big films here will not only create jobs, but bring in tax revenue from those jobs, and from secondary and onflow spending. Or, as Rohan Quinby puts it on Scoop:

it seems that after years of ideological confusion, many on the left in New Zealand have forgotten what social democracy is all about. An incentive programme is an example of using the power of the state to deliver economic benefit for your country.

Have I forgotten what social democracy is all about? I don't think so. I still think it's about helping the poor, rather than wealthy multinational corporations.

It's not that I'm opposed to economic incentives per se (I'm no market purist); I object chiefly to the recipient in this case. Jim Anderton's "jobs machine" supports local companies and (ideally) helps them to grow - it's aim is to build something of lasting value to the New Zealand economy, that will stay here and produce benefits for decades to come. The film industry package, OTOH, isn't growing anything. It produces no infrastructure, no lasting investment. The model is that the film-makers come, utilise our subsidised, low-wage, non-unionised, scenic backlot, and fuck off overseas again, leaving nothing but a few stories for the women's magazines and a bunch of people looking for the next job. It's basically strip-mining.

It's also, as I said in my original post, a mug's game. The film industry is as close as you can get to a factory on a barge. By offering subsidies, we're exposing ourself to being played off against other jurisdictions to extract even more money - with the fate of all those production crew (and would-be extras) to apply as blackmail. This is not a game we should be playing - it's as simple as that.

(In other words, we should only give incentives to companies that aren't mobile enough to threaten to up and leave to extract a better deal :)

Or maybe I'm just sore 'cos I'm the only guy in the country who didn't get to be an extra in Lord of the Rings.

New Blog

Today's new blog, Crooked Timber seems to be an agglomeration of people I've never heard of; CalPundit calls it "the lefty answer to the Volokh Conspiracy"... which I guess makes sense if you read the aforementioned blog...

Anyway, it looks good. Today's interesting post: goring some Libertarian sacred cows.

Restaurant Review: Chow

More of a snide comment than a review, but here goes: Chow is a concept restaurant - the concept is selling an entree for the price of a main, and making you buy two of them. Sure, the food is good, but not that good. Except for the baked chocolate mousse with vanilla bean icecream I had for dessert - that was worth every penny.

(Monsoon Poon, which I've also been dragged to recently, is also a concept restaurant. Their concept is "hey, we're trendy and cool, give us money". So trendy and cool in fact that they will make you wait for an hour and a half just to prove it, then screw up your order...)

Sniping from the sidelines

The argument on those other blogs over the Supreme Court continues, with excellent posts on both sides. KiwiPundit responds to the charge that he supports the retention of the Privy Council simply because their decisions accord more closely with his ideological biases with the following:

The notion that we should be free to act as we please unless the law says otherwise, is not connected with any particular ideology that I am aware of. Neither is the notion that government should treat us fairly and equitably, unless the law says otherwise.

NZPols has her own reply to this, but I think there's a much simpler one - namely to say "Bollocks; they're just part of an ideology that most of us agree with".

(This seems to be a similar sort of blindness to that suffered by certain Fundamentalist Christians. They're not religious; they just believe in the truth...)

In a more serious vein, freedom, fairness and equity are perfect examples of what philosophers call "hooray-words" - words which attract emotive agreement (and which consequently tend to be fought over in arguments such as this). Unfortunately, while everyone (well, most people) will go "freedom, fairness, equity, hooray!", the words mean very different things to different people. We need only consider Isaiah Berlin's distinction between positive and negative liberty, or the very different conceptions of fairness expressed by Rawls, Nozick and Aristotle to see this.

KiwiPundit's claim that his position isn't simply one of ideological preference is only credible if we don't look at it too closely. But I suspect that if he is forced to spell out exactly what he means by the hooray-words he's using, the ideological underpinnings of his preferences will become clear...

The Python Strikes

Ex-Python Terry Jones has an interesting take on the row between the BBC and Tony Blair...

American "Justice"

The prisoner is kept isolated from the world. He is not allowed to speak with anyone, even a lawyer. He is interrogated frequently, possibly with violence. If he still refuses to give his interrogators the answers they want to hear, he is given a stark choice: confess, or face execution.

A scene from the Spanish Inquisition, Stalinist Russia, or some tinpot dictatorship like Burma? No - it's what is happening today at Guantanamo, where detainess are being told to confess or die. And with the way the rules for military tribunals have been stacked, a guilty verdict is guaranteed...

Face it people, the US has become a monster. But the sad thing is, there's nothing we civilised people can do about it, except hope they regain their sanity soon.

Destiny New Zealand

Ho-hum. The Christians launch another political party in response to the immorality of modern society. This time it's the Pentecostals, and their idea of "immorality" includes not just the expected prostitution and homosexuality, but also women in the top political jobs. Which is a fine indicator of how relevant and widespread their position is...

Thanks to our 5% threshhold, I doubt they have a chance (or rather I doubt that they and United Future have a chance) - which is why the threshhold needs to be lowered. Even the Christian parties deserve Parliamentary representation.

Irony, part II

The Guardian has an excellent Independence Day article: The tyranny of George II. A celebration of all things American, plus some comments such as this:

There is a certain irony that today the American empire is celebrating an essentially anti-imperialist event.

Those who are still in denial that America is an empire might not see it that way, but I'm sure they'd still laugh at the idea of Glaxo-Smith-Kline-Belgium.

New Fisk

How 'liberation' has brought anarchy to Kabul, and now history is repeated in Baghdad

Supreme Court Debate

Two excellent posts on this issue in the last few days: KiwiPundit lays out his position, and NZPols responds. As a non-lawyer who isn't ideologically wedded to either party in the republican debate, I'm really not fussed either way. What does piss me off however is the way National, ACT and others are using this debate to explicitly politicise the issue of judicial appointments. By saying "we can't have a Supreme Court because Labour would get to pick all the judges", they're undermining the very tradition (of a nonpolitical, independent judiciary) they claim to be protecting. It invites the public to view judges as political actors, and parties to respond to that view when appointing judges. Like ACT's views on gun control, this is another example of imported US politics we can do without.

(Of course, National, ACT etc could claim that they're exposing the dirty little secret behind our supposedly "nonpolitical" judiciary - but then I'd expect them to be presenting actual evidence of a real and systematic bias in appointments, rather than simply trying to smear the government with allegations that it might take place in the future.)

Regardless, I think NZPols has the knockdown counter for allegations of political bias. Those alleging bias are implicitly claiming that judges are political. But:

once it is accepted that judges are not simply impartial arbiters, but are in fact engaged in making 'political' decisions, it follows that those decisions should reflect the desires of the people that are affected by them, not those of judges sitting in another country. The judges appointed to our highest appellate court should be broadly acceptable to those across the poltical spectrum, but that political spectrum should be New Zealand's, not Britain's.

Hmmm. Turns out the chief argument against a local Supreme Court is actually an argument for it.

Irony

Today in the US Americans will be celebrating their Independence Day. Much reference will be made to the fact that their nation was explicitly founded on the basis of universal human rights - those immortal lines that "all men are created equal... endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights". Yet mere days before, their President decided that six men accused of terrorism will be tried in a kangaroo court, without the strong protections that America is justifiably revered for. Secret trials, with no right to select your own defence, no right against self incrimination, no right even to see the evidence presented against you, and the US military acting as judge, jury, and executioner. The rules of evidence would make Torquemada envious, and there are no appeals to an independent court.

I guess this is why irony is dead in America; because otherwise people would be suffering from overload at the sight of the "beacon of human rights and freedom" behaving like a shittly little tinpot dictatorship.

Who's on the wacky-baccy?

Peter Dunne, judging by this press release.

There's something about Nandor which drives people like Dunne mad and makes them froth at the mouth like rabid dogs. And that's precisely why I want him in Parliament.

Fair enough

ACT, National and New Zealand First have initiated a petition calling for a referendum on the government's planned replacement of the Privy Council by a New Zealand Supreme Court. They'll need 310,000 signatures, so if you feel strongly about the issue, hunt them down and sign it.

Update: KiwiPundit thinks this isn't such a good idea. I agree that the question is rather questionable ("Should the Privy Council be replaced by a New Zealand Supreme Court" would be better), and that yes, the government can always ignore it. OTOH, the clarity of the question (no messy chain of "or"s here) should make it harder for the government to do so if it gets a large vote against.

Whither National?

Via NZPundit: Jon Johansson's column in the Herald today suggests that National merge with ACT. I say "go for it, guys!" It will simply reinforce the perception that National stands for a return to 90's-style market fundamentalism, making them pretty much unelectable.

If National ever wants to broaden its appeal beyond the 5% of NBR-reading wankers who would benefit from such policies, it will have to return to the political centr. Until it does so, it will continue to languish in opposition - it's as simple as that.

Immigration changes

Well, the government has managed to ram its immigration changes through Parliament under urgency, before anybody had a serious chance to object. Which was precisely the point, I suspect. The changes are manifestly unfair in the way that they've slammed the door in the face of thousands of prospective migrants part-way through the process, but it's worse than that. We've now moved from a relatively open system to an opaque one where decisions are made essentially in secret by immigration officials, with no right of review. Worse, the certainty formerly enjoyed by prospective migrants - "if you have this many points, you can live here" - has vanished. The new ranking system means that whether you're let in or not will essentially depend on who else has applied this month, and the number of points "required" will fluctuate depending on how many people they're "inviting". And they expect employers to make firm job offers when they can't even be sure their prospective employee will be able to show up for the job?

All in all, a retrograde step, and not a day when we can be proud to be New Zealanders.

Why aren't we going to the UN?

National leader Bill English has accused the government of hypocrisy for not seeking a UN mandate for intervening in the Solomons. But according to the Herald this morning, we've already asked the UN for help - twice:

[The intervention] follows two unsuccessful appeals to the UN for intervention last year, and growing alarm in the region at the collapse of law and order and the inability of the islands' elected leaders to govern.

Why were the UN attempts unsuccessful? Because the big players on the security council didn't care, and were more focused on Iraq than helping a small nation in need. The UN's strength is also its weakness: it can only act on things the international community really cares about.

(I'm not sure that a UN mandate is actually necessary anyway, given that intervention has been invited by the Solomons' government, and there's no question of that government's legitimacy. But it would have been nice, if only so that the Pacific region didn't have to bear the burden alone)

In the absence of a UN mandate, we've still pursued a multilateral path, by seeking the cooperation of the South Pacific Forum. And given the overwhelming support from them (and the fact that half are actively contributing to the mission), I think we can feel secure that we're acting in accordance with the will of the region.