Saint Augustine has a lot to answer for

The Catholic Church is telling people in AIDS-stricken countries not to use condoms, and lying about their efficacy in preventing STDs. Some priests are even saying that condoms are laced with HIV, and cause infection. They'd rather people risked contracting HIV than use effective preventative measures which also prevent conception.

Words (almost) fail me. This is so twisted, so far beyond any conception of moral value, of what is important and what is not, that I am flabbergastered that anyone could do such a thing. The Vatican's lies will promote the spread of an epidemic and lead to countless deaths. But hey, I guess their souls will be saved, right?

Salon has a who's who of who's got their snouts in Iraq's trough. The interesting tidbit at the end: pressure is growing in the US to make Iraq repay any money given for reconstruction. Yeah, so the US bombs your country, then bills you for the privelege. I bet that'll go down like a lead balloon in Baghdad.

These people do not want to be occupied

The Iraqi resistance have blown up a police station in Sadr City and assassinated a Spanish diplomat.

An interesting speech from Peter Dunne. Speculations on the demise of National, slagging off the Greens, calling for a closer defence relationship with Australia and a principled foreign policy.

Screw the US, part II

It should be obvious from last night's outburst that I'm solidly against being a subservient little client of the US. But what am I for? Well, for a start, I think that we should pursue an independent foreign policy. This means making our own minds up, rather than blindly following some larger power. Yes, we should support our traditional friends and allies, but only when their cause is just. When their cause is not just, we should stand on our principles and tell them where to go (as we did over the invasion of Iraq, and as we've done for a long time over our nuclear free policy).

The principles we should be standing on are things like justice, democracy, human rights, and self-determination. We have a long history of promoting these ideals in the international arena, and we should continue doing so. Even when it involves telling our friends that they are wrong.

Whereever possible, we should take a multilateral approach. Yes, existing international institutions are flawed (the UN because five powers have a veto, and the WTO because it is insufficiently democratic and stacked in favour of the wealthy), but they're what we've got. Where necessary we should work to reform them, or if necessary to create alternatives. A Hobbesian world where powers act unilaterally according to the law of the jungle is both incompatible with our principles and not in our interests. Only a strong international system which upholds justice and human rights for all will protect both.

Perspectives

A lovely example of the twisted reality of right-wing anti-tax wingnuts in this interview with Grover Norquist:

Grover Norquist: I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus percent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, 'Yes, well, that's only 2 percent,' or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax.

I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust. 'Well, it's only a small percentage,' you know. 'I mean, it's not you, it's somebody else.' [...]

Terry Gross: Excuse me. Excuse me one second. Did you just ...

Grover Norquist: Yeah?

Terry Gross: ...compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?

Grover Norquist: No, the morality that says it's OK to do something to do a group because they're a small percentage of the population is the morality that says that the Holocaust is OK because they didn't target everybody, just a small percentage. What are you worried about? It's not you. It's not you. It's them. And arguing that it's OK to loot some group because it's them, or kill some group because it's them and because it's a small number, that has no place in a democratic society that treats people equally. The government's going to do something to or for us, it should treat us all equally..."

Terry Gross: So you see taxes as being the way they are now terrible discrimination against the wealthy comparable to the kind of discrimination of, say, the Holocaust?

Grover Norquist: Well, what you pick -- you can use different rhetoric or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say, 'Don't let this bother you; I'm only doing it' -- I, the government. The government is only doing it to a small percentage of the population. That is very wrong. And it's immoral."

That's right - any progressive taxation is like the holocaust. Really, this guy needs a sense of perspective.

Screw the US

I'm glad to see the US ambassador receive a damn good bollocking for criticising us for not being subserviant little clients and sucking American cock like we're told to. Still, it would have been good if he'd actually got to give his speech...

Thanks, but no thanks

The Turkish parliament has voted to authorise sending troops to Iraq. Unfortunately, the Iraqi Governing Council doesn't want them.

A Kurdish member of the Council, Mahmoud Othman, described the deployment as "the wrong thing to do", saying "it does not add to security, it is not useful".

The reason he's saying this is because the Turks have repeatedly engaged in ethnic clensing against the Kurds. Sending them to occupy Iraq is like sending the SS as peacekeepers to Israel. Still, I'm sure the Americans will find them useful - given the hatred the Kurds have for them, the Turks will be a fantastic bullet magnet...

Taking the piss

Air New Zealand's bid to alcohol and drug test all 10,000 of its employees is up before the employment court at the moment and is quite rightly being contested by the unions (story here).

Now lets be quite clear on this, I think employers have a right to be protected from employees who abuse drugs and alcohol and who are unable to carry out their job properly. As it stands most employment contracts I have seen prevent employees from turning up under the influence of these stubstances and, as is right and proper, promise an absolute bollocking for any employee who does.

Air New Zealand, however wants to go much further. It is worried about employee's cognitive abilities being impaired by the long term effects of drugs and alcohol and the effects this could have on public safety. Its a prefectly valid concern, you don't want pilots having the attention span of a goldfish or maintenance people failing to put parts of the wing on properly and having it fall off over Mangere (bit late for that I guess)...but Air New Zealand's Approach is flawed.

The most obvious flaw is the fact that alcohol and drug testing will not necessarily measure cognitive impairment nor will it pick up employees who are failing to perform due to things like stress, illness, not having enough sleep, not having enough coffee or whatever else. If they actually measured cognitive ability directly or had regular performance appraisals to make sure that their employees can still do their job this would be a hell of a lot better.

Being forced to pee in a cup by your employer is pretty humiliating and I'm of the opinion that you should only be forced to do this if it is absolutely necessary. Pilots and maintenance crews have the public's lives in their hands so drug testing them is fine...but all 10,000 employees? I'm sorry but piss testing the accounts clerk, telephonist and tea lady is quite frankly unneccesary.

I'm also very uneasy about employers being able to dictate what people do outside work time to that extent...if an employee takes alcohol or drugs...doesn't turn up to work intoxicated and doesn't allow it to affect his or her work then its really no one else's business (except possibly the police's).

I think there is plenty of scope here for the courts to protect the rights of both employers and employees, lets hope they do.

It is the State's business

Circling Apollo is pretty pissed off about my pointing out the company he's keeping with his "none of the State's business" line. Wife-beaters hid behind that defence for years, and it's not surprising that those who view violence against children as acceptable are hiding behind it too.

Let's be clear: it is the State's business. Children are people, and the State has as compelling an interest in protecting them from violence as it does adults. Even if the violence is coming from their parents. Parenthood is no more of an excuse for child-beating as marriage is for spousal abuse. It's as simple as that.

Dredging the bottom of the barrel

It's always interesting to see how people get to me via Google. Normally it's things like "Paul Holmes Cheeky Darkie", "Joel Hayward", "Idiot Savant" or "No Right Turn". But sometimes I get unusual ones. Today's haul:

• telemarketing: a positive look
• Is marriage an old fashion institution?
• patrick stewart with hair
• bad landlords should we kill them

I suspect all of these people went away disappointed - except for the one looking for pictures of a younger Patrick Stewart.

Now there's a surprise

ACT opposes MP's having to declare their financial interests.

I am surprised though that there are no penalties for noncompliance - which suggests that Labour isn't really that interested in it either. I'd rather that the bill allowed a substantial fine, or sanctions by the Speaker.

Look How Much Difference a Change of Government Makes

Remember what happened last time the Chinese President came to visit? Remember how the police jackbooted all over people's rights to protest about China's annexation of Tibet? Not this time...The police and the pollies appear to have learned their lesson...and the Chinese President will be allowed to see, hear (smell) and be offended by protesters. Which is good really as the right to peaceful protest is one of the fundamental elements of a free society. Story here.

Supporting violence against children

Circling Apollo gives the predicted response to the news that the UN wants us to ban smacking:

Whether or not corporal punishment is used in the home is absolutely nothing to do with the state or the wannabe-world state

No doubt he'd say the same thing about wife-beating too.

New Fisk

Israel's attack is a lethal step towards war in Middle East

The government's response on Zaoui

"We don't care, he'll be imprisoned for at least another two months while we dither about, and we're not going to provide him with any of the 'evidence' against him".

And the Prime Minister has the gall to say that "New Zealand treats refugees and asylum-seekers very well". I think Zaoui's case gives the lie to that statement.

Geeking out

Info on New Zealand confluence points.

A crime against humanity

A few months ago, Chris Trotter described the imprisonment of Ahmed Zaoui as "a crime against humanity" because of the extreme cruelty of keeping someone in solitary confinement for prolonged periods. And now we're seeing the results:

Trauma consultant and professor of psychology, Tony Taylor has conducted a three-day examination of Mr Zaoui and concludes that he has been "mentally damaged" as a result of his solitary confinement.

Keith Locke calls this "mental torture", and I'd have to agree. And it's made all the worse because it is being done on the basis of "evidence" that is simply bullshit.

What the fuck are we doing? We've kept a man in solitary confinement for ten months, driven him insane, because our police and security services are paranoid loons who can't distinguish a conspiracy theorist's fantasies from reality, and because our Minister of Immigration cannot admit that she was wrong.

This has to stop. Now. What we have done to this man is unconscionable. We have violated some of the core principles of this country - the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, the right to due process - and all because the government wants its own side-act in the war on terror. Fuck that. Zaoui should be released, and he should not just receive a grovelling apology, but Lianne Dalziel's head on a platter.

The Medieval Presidency

Seen on Daily Kos: A column in the LA Times describes Bush's presidency as "medieval". Not because of its lust for war and conquest, but because it rejects empiricism and rationality in favour of a world-view based entirely on faith:

Incuriosity seems characteristic of the entire Bush administration. More, it seems central to its very operation. The administration seems indifferent to data, impervious to competing viewpoints and ideas. Policy is not adjusted to facts; facts are adjusted to policy. The result is what may be the nation's first medieval presidency - one in which reality is ignored for the administration's own prevailing vision. [...]

[T]he White House medievalists aren't just shading the facts. In actively denying or changing them, they are changing the basis on which government has traditionally been conducted: rationality. There is no respect for facts because there is no respect for empiricism. Instead, the Bush ideologues came to power smug in the security of their own worldview, part of which, frankly, seems to be the belief that it would be soft and unmanly to let facts alter their preconceptions. Like the church confronting Galileo, they aren't about to let reality destroy their cosmology, whether it is a bankrupt plan for pacifying an Iraq that was supposed to welcome us as liberators or a bankrupt fiscal plan that was supposed to jolt the economy to health. [...]

Bush has a religious epistemology. Having devalued the idea of an observable, verifiable reality and having eschewed rational empiricism, he relies on his unalterable faith in himself not just to inform his policies, as all presidents have, but to dictate them.

There's been a lot of jokes about "Faith-based economics" (over tax cuts for the rich), and "Faith-based foreign policy" (over Iraq), but this really puts the finger on it. The central worldview of Bush and his cronies is entirely faith-based; they're hostile or indifferent to facts because they have Revealed Truth. America - the greatest project of the Enlightenment - is being led by people with a pre-Enlightenment mindset. Is this scary or what?

(Oh; the story requires free registration; try "mediajunkie / medijunkie").

The Iraqis are revolting

A spontaneous uprising has seized control of the town of Baiji, driving out the US army and their police, and burning the mayor's office.

Unfortunately, they seem to be pro-Saddam.