Blog Bits
Some good tidbits:
- The Finsec Union backs Bill English! It is over his comments that as the Government is now guaranteeing some of their risk, their margins should be lowered.
- The Tailor of Panama Street has a rare piece of good news from the UN Human Rights Council. The investigator into Gaza allegations is not an anti-semitic nutter like some of their previous investigators. That means any findings will have some credibility.
- Andrew Sullivan blogs on being a green conservative. He reviews the issues around climate change really well, and the big difference between what the IPCC says and what Al Gore says. His conclusion is to favour carbon and petrol taxes over the bureaucracy of a trade and cap scheme such as an ETS.
- Andrew Geddis at Pundit gives National two and a half ticks for their process for reviewing electoral law.
- The above named Tailor also looks at whether John Hood will be the next Secretary of Foreign Affairs. He comments “One suspects that Murray McCully will see five years of doing battle with the dons to try and overhaul 900 years of Oxford tradition as a fairly useful apprenticeship for dealing with the much larger challenge of reforming MFAT.” Hood is certainly a possibility, but I understand he may be a bit too political for the Government. The name I have heard as the appointee is NZ Post CEO John Allen. As the Tailor says though – can he afford the pay cut?
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Tags: Blog Bits
April 7th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Andrew Sullivan and a million others. Sometimes wonder if the ‘tax’ approach is avoided simply because it uses the t-word, whereas cap-and-trade sounds rather more abstract.
April 7th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
People still read Andrew Sullivan? Interesting. Has he taken Obama’s dick out of his mouth yet?
April 7th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
So what….he’s a Jew, as an example Obama’s cabinet is full of Jews who hate Israel. That means nothing. What is there to investigate anyway? Is he going to find the remains of the two soldiers who went missing beforehand….and then investigate so-called atrocities. It’s a waste of time, I wouldn’t cooperate with him either.
April 7th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Israel-hating Jews are an interesting phenomenon. Deep in the psyche, perhaps it is a hopeful way of repudiating one’s Jewishness and making oneself less of a target to age-old anti-semitism or the next round of it, than otherwise?
April 7th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Or, perhaps, some people of Jewish origin are able to view the actions of the Israeli state through more than the prism of “it is a state founded on the ideal of Jewish nationalism, I am Jewish, thus I must uncritically support its every action.” Just like some Kiwis can look at the activities of our government and say “this is wrong” (e.g. conscientious objectors in WWI and II, Pakeha who opposed the clearance of Bastion Point, Kiwiblog commentators who deplore NZ’s welfare statism). Does this make them “self-hating” New Zealanders? Or simply New Zealanders with differing views on what NZ should look like/how the NZ state should behave?
Why is it that Jews “must” support Israel? Why is it that those who don’t “hate” their Jewishness? Is this really the only ethnic group/religious belief in the world where lock-step unity is mandated, at the cost of being untrue to your very self?
April 7th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Or it could be that many people’s criticism of Israel isn’t motivated by race at all.
It fascinates me that with so much experience in dismission criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, when Jewish people criticise Israel, rather than consider the possibility of having been wrong about the racist motivations of people who disagree with the racism-explanation-preferrers, a syndrome is invented to cover up all those cognitive gaps.
It’s like, “Hmm, there are straight people calling for gay marriage too. Well, they’re either secretly gay, or somehow hate themselves for being straight.”
April 7th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
David, the finsec people forget the banks are paying quite a high price for their government guarantee. That price has in fact eroded their margins. Without the guarantee, they likely would have had no money to lend and thus even less margin cake with which to employ countless members of finsec. These finsec people would be as well to keep their traps shut and thank their lucky stars they still have jobs.
April 7th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Ah, a different Andrew Sullivan to the one who is on the NZ Green Party Policy Committee! For a moment I thought our Andrew Sullivan had achieved recognition beyond his expectations.
But I actually agree with both Andrew Sullivans.
As does the NZ Green Party – a carbon tax is by far the preferred option to an ETS. But you play the cards you’re dealt, and at the moment National and Labour hold the aces and are both playing for an ETS. If you want a carbon tax rather than an ETS, then get the Greens’ vote up to 20% or 25% at the next election, and it’s guaranteed it will happen.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Get a grip. Anyone appointed by the UN HRC is automatically suspect, so I googled the judge. Bad news, he’s activist, lobbied for this investigation and signed a petition for it. He only believes in “victims” and believes that treating terrorists badly creates an injustice which increases the “cycle of violence”. Of course he’s anti American and believes terrorists must be dealt with in open court so that all the evidence is made public.
He’s gunning for another international scalp, and Israel shouldn’t oblige him.
JC
April 7th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
It always amuses me when I hear Andrew Sullivan describing himself as a conservative. He has endorsed every single democratic candidate for president. He has some right wing views on fiscal matters and the size of government, but a conservative, hell no!
April 7th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Regarding Isael hating jews I think I can provide some insight, seeing as I am jewish myself and know of some who would fall into this category. I think there are very few jews who actually HATE Israel. They love Israel. But they are part of the left-wing liberal elite who always take the side of the supposed downtrodden and oppressed Palestinians. At least this is what they are taught to believe by their trusted left-wing media. They therefore feel guilty about being jewish and are often vocal in their opposition to the state of Israel.
I don’t see them as being too much different to the guilty, white, liberal people of Christian birth who are doing everything they can to undermine traditional Christian values. We see plenty of that in New Zealand. Most of the Labour party MP’s would probably fit that category.