Good plumbing is the foundation of civilization

A lack of proper sewage systems in the Far North is leading to disease, pollution and contaminated shellfish.

This needs government attention now. We should not be tolerating third-world sewage systems in New Zealand. If the local district council can't carry the cost, then it's time for the government to step in and help them out. The $70 million required is chump change compared to the size of the surplus.

Perfidious French?

People who saw NZPundit's report that newly manufactured French SAMs were found in Iraq may want to read this.

Now what was that he was saying about "shouting the lie, whispering the clarification"?

Also good

The families of the Tampa refugees are being resettled in New Zealand. We did a Good Thing by taking them in, and we're doing a Good Thing here by reuniting them with their families.

The UN plays hardball

UN officials won't work in Iraq unless the US revises its resolution and grants more power to Iraqis. I guess they're not keen on dying for Haliburton either...

Good

Israel is charging one of its army officers for killing Palestinian civilians. Normally, they just look the other way and whistle tunelessly.

Resolutions

France, Germany and Russia aren't happy with the latest US draft resolution on Iraq. It doesn't grant enough of a role to the UN, and sets out no timetable for a handover of power to an Iraqi government. At the same time, it calls on member states to contribute troops and money to the occupation government, where it will no doubt be spent enriching Bush cronies.

Now, noone is going to dig their heels in and veto this. We are not going to see the sort of mess in the security council we saw before the war. But there's also an increasing recognition that there is no quid pro quo with the Bush administration, either, so there's no incentive to vote for a disagreeable resolution. What's likely to happen is that the resolution will pass, but unless the US gives ground, there'll be more than a few abstentions... which is probably more of a slap in the face than outright opposition.

More importantly, UN resolution or not, I very much doubt anyone is going to seriously contribute to the occupation. Noone wants to send their troops to Iraq to die for Haliburton; noone wants to be cannon-fodder so the the US can bring its boys home. And noone wants to fund a giant corporate welfare scheme for US corporations.

So, Bush will get his resolution (albiet grudgingly), but I don't think he'll get the troops and money he wants. Having made this mess, he'll just have to clean it up himself.

Like a broken record

The government is running a larger than expected surplus, so National is demanding tax cuts. How surprising. But there are better things we can do with the money than that.

The two previous governments have gutted public services. Defence, the police, health, welfare, education - all had their budgets lowered and were expected to do more with less. After ten years of starvation, the ribs are beginning to show.

The present government has stalled the decline, but done precious little to repair the damage. It's time to change that. Rather than giving the surplus away to the wealthy as tax cuts, they should take the opportunity to reinvest in New Zealand's public services. Cullen has already suggested putting a substantial amount towards housing, but there's a lot more to be done.

New Zealanders will happily pay taxes in exchange for decent public services. It's time for the governemnt to renew its part of the arrangement.

Moussaoui smackdown

The judge in the Moussaoui case has ruled on sanctions against the US government - and rather than dismissing the charges (which is what the government wanted), she has barred them from pursuing the death penalty, and prohibited any use of evidence linking him to the September 11th attack.

"The United States may not maintain this capital prosecution while simultaneously refusing to produce witnesses who could, at a minimum, help the defendant avoid a sentence of death," she wrote.

"It would simply be unfair to require Moussaoui to defend himself against such prejudicial accusations while being denied the ability to present testimony from witnesses who could assist him in contradicting those accusations."

Never fuck with a judge. Though I'm a little disappointed that she didn't start chucking people in jail for contempt.

Needless to say, the prosecution is appealing. Let's just hope that the 4th Circuit has a similar regard for the rights of the accused.

WMD report - zip, nothing, nada

The Iraq Survey Group has not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They've turned up some evidence of ongoing research - plans for longer range missiles etc - that could have been put into production if sanctions were eased, but no actual WMDs, or any evidence that they existed.

In other words, the war was a crock. But we knew that already, didn't we?

I'm sickened

Israeli soldiers are shooting live ammunition at Palestinians because they don't have enough rubber bullets or tear gas. People die as a result. But hey, they're only Palestinians, right?

I just like the title

Karl Rove: Boy Genius or Turd Blossom?

Bill English is calling for a law-change to require parental consent for abortions performed on under 16-year-olds. Of course, he's doing this to "promote the role of parents" rather then out of opposition to abortion.

Yeah, right.

Parental consent laws mean parents forcing their children to have children. They treat young girls in bad circumstances like brood mares. Bill English may be fine with that, but I regard it as a fundamental insult to human dignity.

Teaching values in schools

Peter Dunne thinks that our schools should be teaching "character" and values. My first thought on this was "whose values"? United Future's? Fuck that!

Most of the proposal focuses on teaching values to encourage good citizenship, but unsurprisingly for a Christian party there's also a strand in the speech about it reducing crime as well (yet another example of the Socratic fallacy that vice is born of ignorance). Unfortunately, the whole thing is based on a fundamental misconception about the role of the State in a pluralistic society.

A pluralistic society is one in which people are free to pursue multiple goods, and multiple visions of the Good Life. Another way of looking at it is a society where there is moral disagreement, and people follow different moral codes. What these goods or moral codes are is up to the citizens; the State will reflect them, but has no role in choosing them. It is not the role of the State to say "these are the goods we are pursuing, and we will indoctrinate people to pursue them".

In other words, the values should flow from the bottom up, not be imposed from the top down.

There are things a pluralistic society can do to encourage good citizenship, but they lie in providing the tools, not the values. Teaching people to think, to be reflective, and to decide for themselves what they want and how they want to live. Unfortunately, I think Peter Dunne's friends in United Future wouldn't be so keen on that...

Gordon Campbell - Worlds Apart

A Good article from The Listener that really spells out the issues around free trade and (depending on your point of view) the failure of the recent talks in Cancun.

New Fisk

Oil, War And A Growing Sense Of Panic In The US

Soros calls for 'regime change' in US

Via the ballot box, of course. He's hoping that the American people will wake up and realise what a bunch of nutbars Bush and the PNAC cabal are, and de-elect them. But the most interesting bit is this:

"There is a group of - I would call them extremists - who have the following belief: that international relations are relations of power, not of law, that international law will always follow what power has achieved," he said.

"And therefore [they believe] the United States being the most powerful nation on earth should impose its power, impose its will and its interests on the world and it should do it looking after itself.

"I think this is a very dangerous ideology. It is very dangerous because America is in fact very powerful."

[...]

"Probably President Chirac would not disagree with this philosophy but he is not so powerful - so I am not so worried about what France is doing"

Now, I think that international relations are relations of power, but I'd like them to be something else. Because as Hobbes pointed out, a world where the only relations are those of power is pretty shitty. The powerless spend all their time being screwed over, and the powerful spend all their time being paranoid that someone is going to fly planes into their skyscrapers in retaliation. This isn't good for anyone.

Absent a stronger international system or a counterbalancing power, the best we can hope for is that the United States stops using the power it has. And the best way I can see of that happening is for Bush to be kicked out of the Whitehouse in 2004, and replaced with someone (anyone!) else.

New kiwi blog

Well actually not that new, but it's the first time I've stumbled across it:

David Zanetti

What's scary is that I think I remember him from FidoNet (now that's showing my age...)

The "private good" of tertiary education

Seen on Jobstuff:

Graduate Opportunities

We currently have a number of roles suitable for graduates who are looking for work in the customer service/contact centre arena. Our client, a leading public sector organisation, is looking to recruit additional Customer Service Representatives for their fun and supportive Wellington City Call Centre.

These roles could offer successful candidates the opportunity to grow their careers and experience all the things about working life that University does not teach you.

If you have recently completed, or are about to complete, a degree or diploma we would like to hear from you. [...]

Get a degree, work in a call-centre. And people are supposed to indebt themselves for this?

Al-Qaeda plotters sentenced

Belgium has convicted 18 of 23 suspected Al-Qaeda members accused of planning an attack on a US military base. And they did it in public courts, under their normal standards of evidence - in other words, without stacking the deck.

Makes you wonder why the US can't do the same, doesn't it?

Prayers for Parliamentary workers

The National Party thinks that allowing Parliamentary Services workers to attend morning Maori prayer sessions is "PC gone mad". I'm not so sure. There's a significant question that noone seems to be asking, namely does Parliament provide equivalent chaplincy services for any other religion?

If the answer is "yes", then there's nothing mad about it; they're simply extending the same courtesy to those with Maori spiritual beliefs as (presumably) Christians. Calling this "PC" is more an inditement of the caller's illiberal attitude towards those holding spiritual beliefs different from their own than a real criticism (but then, isn't it always?)

If on the other hand the answer is "no" - that this is the only religious service established for staff members - then we would indeed have a case of religious discrimination, and the prayer sessions should stop (or equivalent services be offered to others).

I'm a militant secularist, but I understand that other people have spiritual needs - and I have no problem with employers accomodating them, provided it is done in an equal and non-discriminatory way. Which means that if some Parliamentary employees are paid to pray, or study Maori spiritual beliefs, or whatever, then DPF should be paid to drink beer - or at least paid for the time regardless of what he does with it.