Blogging like a beast

I've just noticed that the last post was the 195th that I have posted in 2009.

That makes this the busiest year on lefthandpalm since it was launched, as the total for 2008 was 194. and for 2007 a meagre 139.

And the year ain't over yet. Not nearly. I expect to reach 200 by Christmas!

Yeah, I know, some of you gits make 195 posts a day. But I have a life ... just not as much of one as I did in 2007 and 2008, it would seem.

Just sick and evil

Sue Bradford is once again being targetted with threats, specifically threatening her life:

Anti-smacking campaigner Sue Bradford has received chilling death threats and been warned she could be New Zealand's "first political assassination".

Police are looking at stepping up her personal security after the vile warnings on Twitter. The Green MP said: "There has been a whole lot of stuff. Some of it is pretty nasty."

She told Sunday News: "I was on Twitter and someone sent a tweet saying, 'Sue Bradford should be the first candidate for a political assassination’.

"There is another email that was really ugly a few weeks ago that we referred to police." (1)

Note how the sick little bastard focuses on the woman. John Key is the one calling the shots now - unfortunate choice of metaphor - you pillock.

It is interesting that the wording is almost identical to the threats made in 2007 (2). Does this mean it is the same person, or that all misogynistic rightwing knuckledragging hatefilled child beating bigots are the same?

I assume the 'big' rightwing bloggers would not endorse this sick sentiment, but I wonder if the hatred and hysteria they allow and sometime encourage contributes to this low? Some jumped up little arse decides he (or, in a slightly more unlikely scenario, she) wants to 'do a whaleoil' and comes up with this repulsive little outburst of venom.

Farrar and Whale et al might deplore and excoriate this viciousness, but at the end of the day, there blogs have provided a platform for people to shrill their hatred and grandstand. They've been happy enough to let it go on, enjoying the noteriety and the boost it gives to their profile. They built the sewer and even fed the rats now scurrying about. They have to take some responsibility for the coarsening and unpleasantness of what passes for political discourse on the right.

1 - "Death threats to Sue Bradford," by Neil Reid, 30th of August, 2009. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2815457/Death-threats-to-Sue-Bradford/)
2 - "Google shuts down controversial blog," unattributed AAP article. Published in The Age, 22nd of February, 2009. (http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Google-shuts-down-controversial-blog/2007/02/22/1171733908232.html)

And the prize for stating the bleedin' obvious goes to ...

Rod Oram, for this piece in the Sunday Star Times. In it, Oram reveals:

Nick Smith, New Zealand's climate change and environment minister, offered a much more limited economic and political ambition.

His comments, such as the need to recalibrate the ETS in light of the recession and the unrealistic timetables for bringing sectors into the ETS, left the strong impression that the New Zealand government was planning to water down an already weak ETS once the select committee reports. (1)

The article this comes from is quite good, highlighting how Australia is facing up to reality, and also seeing the new opportunities that emissions trading will bring, at least in part because the Aussie government isn't still trying to convince itself that the whole thing might just go away if they prevaricate long enough.

Where Oram fails is by identifying why Smith and National are doing so little, so late and why they are trying to weaken the ETS that Labour bequeathed them. Connecting National's dilatory efforts to come to grips with climate change with the political reality with the desires of its core constituencies - business and farming- would probably be rude. To rude for Rod.

But only a couple of weeks ago, Don Nicholson was fulminating about the evils of an Emissions Trading Scheme (2). He might have been talking to the New Zealand Plant Protection Society, but it was pretty obviously a warning to National not to even think of doing anything contrary to the interests - the very short term interests - of the agricultural sector. It was an unintentional warning to us as well, of course, revealing the special interests driving National's climate change policies, which the mainstream media don't seem to have picked up on.

Why would that be? Could the same interests that dictate how National deals with ignores climate change also influence how the media reports on the government's efforts to deal with ignore climate change? Are there other connections to be made, between the might of the agricultural sector and the mainstream media's dismal failure to take the government to task over its backpeddling on climate change?

1 - "NZ too slow on ETS uptake," by Rod Oram, published in the Sunday Star Times. Reproduced on stuff, 30th of August, 2009. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/2815445/NZ-too-slow-on-ETS-uptake)
2 - As described previosuly on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-surprise-ii.html

I'm sure that will do the trick ...

The USA has asked the Chinese government - nicely - not to collectively punish the extended family of Reeiya Kadeer:

"As a general matter, we hope that the Chinese would not undertake coercive measures against her family, and we continue to look at this very closely," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

-snip-

The authorities have given eviction orders to more than 30 of her family members including children, grandchildren and siblings living there, according to her supporters. (1)

I'm sure that will do the trick. The Bastards of Beijing have always shown themselves very responsive to the concerns of other nations, humanitarian organisations and the like.

One can't help wondering, however, why we're friends with people who need to be asked not to behave like that. Then I stopped being silly and naive, and came up with a SOLUTION.

If, by some mischance, these kind words fail to have the necessary effect, perhaps Mr Jon Bon Jovi (2) could be persuaded to do a cover of Imagine, or some similarly vapid ditty, to resolve the issue?

Certainly, it wouldn't be any less effective than asking the Bastards of Beijing not to engage in bastardry.

1 - "US asks China not to harm family of Uighur leader," unattributed AFP article. Published by google, 27th of August, 2009. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jFwICwUya26dbgQK8P2t7-QArSiA)
2 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/08/horror-horror.html

Nick Smith's gross emissions

As noted before (here and here (1)), it's a commonplace piece of misdirection to talk about New Zealand's emissions in gross terms. Nick Smith does it again, in a speech at the Australia-New Zealand Climate Change and Business Conference:

For those concerned it is not sufficiently ambitious, I would note that with our gross emissions up 24% on 1990 levels, and the age of our forests in 2020 not providing any net benefit by 2020, this target equates to a reduction from current emissions of between 34% to 44%. Be in no doubt that this is going to be a very big ask for New Zealand over the next decade. (1)

The bit Nick fails to mention is that the net emissions - once mitigation (that's trees and stuff) is taken into account - is that net emissions are up by less than 5% on 1990 levels. Which mean's Nick's target of a 34% to 44% reduction is really only 15% to 25%.

Obviously, I wouldn't complain if National were planning to cut CO2 emissions by 34% to 44% CO2, relative to the current net figure. That would make for a credible reduction, relative to 1990. But somehow, I don't think that is how it will work out.

Why are the right some people persistently using the gross figure and forgetting to mention that, hey, things aren't really that bad? They might be really stupid, and just not understand how numbers work, but I think that's unlikely. More probably they're just trying to encourage inertia by making the problem seem intractable - we can't do that, really, can we, so why bother trying - and avoid having to make the unpleasnat decisions until it becomes someone else's problem. That this strategy also makes the green and the green tinged left seem like raving fruitloops for suggesting (supposedly) massive cuts is abn added bonus.

The downside, of course, is that it will mean we're contributing to a massive problem that will unfold over decades - the social consequences (meaning mass migrations and wars) resulting from climate change - but, hey, that's going to be on someone else's watch and won't affect people likely to vote National at the next election cycle, whereas taking some proper action will.

That's probably the bottom line. No massivbe Exxon funded conspiracy, just a bunch of politicians trying to cling on to power, even if it means doing nothing and hoping everything comes out okay somehow, in the end.

And they write off the greenie-left as naive dreamers.

1 - As described previosuly on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/08/nationals-gross-emissions.html and http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-surprise-ii.html
2 - From a speech by Nick Smith to the Climate Change and Business Conference, Tuesday, 25 August 2009. (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0908/S00351.htm)

200 Uighurs tortured and killed

It's been alleged that the Chinese police tortured and killed 200 Uighurs arrested after the July riots:

Kadeer, who lives in the Washington area, said Monday she received a fax from a Uighur policeman who fled to nearby Kyrgyzstan and gave a grim account of Urumbay prison south of the city of Urumqi.

The policeman said that 196 Uighurs detained in a clampdown in the region "were tortured and killed" at the detention center, according to Kadeer.

"One of the Uighurs, named Erkin, couldn't stand the torture and killed himself," she said during a recording of a segment on the current affairs cable network C-Span about her memoir, "Dragon Fighter," which was published in May.

The World Uighur Congress leader said it was impossible to verify the account as phone lines had been cut.

"I'm sure that as soon as this is made public, China will say that it's not true," she said. "We cannot prove it because everything is down." (1)

Interestingly, there is some confusion about the number of detainees awaiting trial after the riots. Officially the total is 83, but earlier reports suggested a figure of 200:

On Monday, the state-run China Daily reported on its front page that prosecutions would begin later this week against at least 200 people involved in the violence.

But on Tuesday Li Hua, an official at the Xinjiang government media office, questioned the accuracy of the report.

"At present, there is no scheduled date for the trial," he told reporters. "I don't know how China Daily got that information, but it's not true. We will announce it to the media when there is a trial."

He also denied that the number of people facing trial was as many as 200, citing an earlier report which put the figure at 83. (2)

Perhaps somone accidentally released the figure of those who are being tried and 'dealt with' in camera, rather than the show trials?

1 - "Uighur exile airs prison killing allegation," unattributed AFP article. Hosted by google, 25th of August, 2009. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWj7kMhvfE2MZBoQ5ewS8EPyJFaA)
2 - "Confusion over Xinjiang trials," unattributed BBC article, published 25th of August, 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8219900.stm)

Is my homeland now part of the Axis of Evil?

As always, peerless Will has the best words:

... Alas, poor country!
Almost afraid to know itself.

Following the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi (2), internet campaigns has been launched to boycott Scotland, because of its craven appeasement of terrorists. This is raises some important issues.

• First, will Scotland be given official recognition as part of the 'Axis of Evil'? Surely, we have earned that distinction.
  
• Second, will I be able to claim refugee status in New Zealand, because of the nature of the regime that reigns in my homeland?
  

More seriously, I've never been convinced of al-Megrahi's guilt. On the one hand, the case against him was dubious. On the other, for reasons of parochial pride, I like to think Scottish justice would have found out the truth. Probably, it was at best a case where 'Not Proven' would have been an appropriate verdict. But I suspect that was never, ever going to be possible, given the circumstances of his trial.

I suspect the real reason he has been allowed to go home to die was to stop his appeal and to negate the embarrassment of him dying in Scotland, with big question marks remaining over his guilt.

1 - Macbeth, by William Shaespeare, Act iV, Scene iii, 188-9. (http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth_4_3.html)
2 - "Anger at Lockerbie bomber welcome," unattributed BBC article, published 21st of August, 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8213352.stm)