USA Today ranks in order the six Star Wars films:
I’d agree with those rankings.
Can’t wait for Episode VII!
USA Today reports:
Hundreds of Saudi Arabian women ran for local public office and thousands cast ballots for the first time in an historic election Saturday in the ultra-conservative Islamic nation where women are still prohibited from driving cars.
“I have goosebumps,” businesswoman Ghada Ghazzawi told The Wall Street Journal as she entered a polling station in the city of Jeddah. “We have been waiting for this day for a long time.”
The numbers of women participating in the municipal election process paled by comparison with men and doubts ran high that any woman would be elected in the results expected Sunday. But those who participated saw it as an important first step. The only elections held under the monarchy are for local councils that approve budgets and provide oversight of urban development.
The election Saturday was only the third round of voting in the country since 2005 and only men were previously allowed to participate. More than 6,000 men and around 980 women are running as candidates for the local council seats. Some 2,100 elected seats are being contested and out of 6,900 candidates,only about 980 women.
It is good that finally women can vote and even stand in some (not all) elections in Saudi Arabia. But such a long way to go to just be treated as equal human beings:
Saturday, the women cast ballots in polling stations separate from those for men, and women had to be driven to the sites.
Can’t drive, and separate polling stations.
Campaigning was difficult for female candidates who were required to address voters from behind partitions during appearances or have a man speak on their behalf, according to the BBC
And can’t be seen or sometimes even speak!
The new voting freedom was a departure in a country where women must obtain permission from male relatives to marry, attend higher education or travel abroad.
A form of slavery.
The Guardian reports:
Governments have signalled an end to the fossil fuel era, committing for the first time to a universal agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change at crunch UN talks in Paris. …
The deal set a high aspirational goal to limit warming below 2C and strive to keep temperatures at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a far more ambitious target than expected, and a key demand of vulnerable countries. It incorporates previous commitments from 186 countries to reduce emissions which on their own would only hold warming to between 2.7C and 3C.
It’s a good thing 200 Governments managed to get an agreement. That is a huge advance on the Kyoto Protocol which was around 30 countries only.
The business as usual projections for future temperature rises were around 4.5C above pre-industrial levels. This, and previous agreements, now has a track of around 3C. It is possible that future technology may find some way to efficiently extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to get it closer to 2C. I don’t think there is anyway it will peak at 1.5C as we are already at over 1.0C.
As I previously blogged, when you take the temperature decade by decade, there has been a large increase since the 1970s. Even if you don’t find reliable the pre 1970s measurements, the trend for the last 50 years is pronounced.
The Herald reports:
Tributes are flowing for legendary New Zealand comedian and actor Jon Gadsby who has died.
The 62-year-old’s family revealed in October he was battling cancer and those closest to him were rallying around. Fans and former colleagues of Gadsby took to social media to post tributes.
Peter Rowley, who starred with Gadsby on several popular Kiwi TV productions, including McPhail and Gadsby, posted on Facebook: “RIP Jono … “Added Dave Ward: “RIP Jon Gadsby. True Kiwi entertainment came from true Kiwis teaching us that it’s okay to laugh at ourselves. Thoughts and prayers Peter Rowley, and to his family and friends. Arohanui.”
We’ve lost one of our great comics.
I grew up on McPhail and Gadsby and A Week of It. Satirical comedy was relatively new to New Zealand TV, and McPhail and Gadsby was a cultural icon of the times. It had huge viewership.
Japanese Americans interned during World War II jumped at the chance to volunteer to fight.They saw it as their last chance to prove their undivided loyalty to their country.
One Japanese father, when saying goodbye to his son, stressed that showing his loyalty to his country, if necessary through the last full measure of devotion was far more important that his returning safely to his family.
The 442nd Combat Regiment Team was the most decorated unit in World War II. Its motto was “Go for Broke”. The 4,000 Nisei soldiers in April 1943 had to be replaced nearly 2.5 times. In total, about 14,000 men served, earning 9,486 Purple Hearts.
Migrants are a cut above regarding initiative and judgement. They pass many of these traits on to their children. These Japanese Americans, both migrants and native born knew that counter-signalling was required. They had to go out of their way to show their loyalty no matter how unfair any suspicions of disloyalty among Japanese Americans might have been at the time.
I am reminded of that counter-signalling by Japanese Americans during the darkest days of World War II when I read the remarks of Julie Anne Genter and Jeremy Corbyn. Both focused their pleas on the need to be inclusive and understanding why people join violent, radical groups. They and the rest of the Twitter Left had nothing to contribute regarding strategies to deter the next attack and disrupt those that are in the planning stage, but that is not new.
The notion that bad behaviour towards minority communities leads to more recruitment to the terrorists is overrated. There will be a few wind-bags who say harsh things after each terrorist attack, but if they cross the line, they will be dealt with by the police and courts in a democracy governed by the rule of law.
Acrimony towards your community following the latest terrorist attacks has little to do with the level of recruitment to these terrorist groups either now or in the past. As Alan Krueger explains:
One of the conclusions from the work of Laurence Iannaccone—whose paper, “The Market for Martyrs,” is supported by my own research—is that it is very difficult to effect change on the supply side. People who are willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause have diverse motivations. Some are motivated by nationalism, some by religious fanaticism, some by historical grievances, and so on. If we address one motivation and thus reduce one source on the supply side, there remain other motivations that will incite other people to terror.
Malcontents join the jihadists today for the same reasons they joined the Red Brigade, the Japanese Red Army Faction and Baader-Meinhof gang in the 1970s and 1980s.
Plenty of young people were attracted to communism in previous generations as a way ofsticking it to the man. Now as then economic conditions were good as were political freedoms. Italy, Japan and Germany were all at the peak of recoveries from war. Japanese incomes are doubled in the previous decade. Germany and Italy were rich countries. As Alan Krueger explains:
Despite these pronouncements, however, the available evidence is nearly unanimous in rejecting either material deprivation or inadequate education as important causes of support for terrorism or participation in terrorist activities. Such explanations have been embraced almost entirely on faith, not scientific evidence.
Each generation has its defining oppositional identity. Radical Islam is the oppositional identity of choice for today’s angry young men and women. Mind you, they have to buy Islam for dummies to understand what they’re signing up for.
In previous generations, it was communism, weird Christian sects, eco-terrorism, animal liberationist terrorism and a variety of domestic terrorists of the left and right with conspiratorial motivations. Look at the level of diversity of the angry young men and women on the domestic terrorists list of the FBI. One jihadists when interviewed said that 30 years ago he would probably have become a Communist as his vehicle for venting his frustrations.
There is always an ample supply of troubled and angry people so trying to redress their grievances is overrated as Alan Krueger explains:
…it makes sense to focus on the demand side, such as by degrading terrorist organizations’ financial and technical capabilities, and by vigorously protecting and promoting peaceful means of protest, so there is less demand for pursuing grievances through violent means. Policies intended to dampen the flow of people willing to join terrorist organizations, by contrast, strike me as less likely to succeed.
The current appeal of radical Islam rests on what psychologists call personal significance. The quest for personal significance by these angry young men and women is the desire to matter, to be respected, to be somebody in one’s own eyes and in the eyes of others.
A person’s sense of significance may be lost for many reasons, including economic conditions. The anger can grow out of a sense of disparagement and discrimination; it can come from a sense that one’s brethren in faith are being humiliated and disgraced around the world.
Extremist ideologies, be they communism, fascism or extreme religions are effective in such circumstances because it offers a quick-fix to a perceived loss of significance and an assured way to regain it. It accomplishes this by exploiting primordial instincts for aggression, sex and revenge. MI5’s behavioural science unit found that
“far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could… be regarded as religious novices.” The analysts concluded that “a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation”
Most evidence point to moral outrage, disaffection, peer pressure, the search for a new identity, for a sense of belonging and purpose as drivers of radicalisation. Anthropologist Scott Atran pointed out in testimony to the US Senate in March 2010:
“. . . what inspires the most lethal terrorists in the world today is not so much the Quran or religious teachings as a thrilling cause and call to action that promises glory and esteem in the eyes of friends, and through friends, eternal respect and remembrance in the wider world”. He described wannabe jihadists as “bored, underemployed, overqualified and underwhelmed” young men for whom “jihad is an egalitarian, equal-opportunity employer . . . thrilling, glorious and cool”.
Chris Morris, the writer and director of the 2010 black comedy Four Lions – which satirised the ignorance, incompetence and sheer banality of British Muslim jihadists – said “Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks”.
Note cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editor.
Audrey Young writes:
The title this year goes to his deputy and Minister of Finance, Bill English, for three reasons.
He delivered on the target of getting into surplus in 2014-15; he has increased social welfare benefits for families with children beyond CPI adjustments for the first time in 43 years; and he is the driving force of a major and logical change in the way the public sector funds the provision of social services – the social investment approach which at its essence means paying more for policies that work and are shown to work.
Since 2011, English’s Budgets were forecasting a surplus in 2014-15.
He set the goal not only for fiscal discipline within Government but in his own words, as “a symbol for responsibility” for voters.
The only Budget in which it was not forecast was this year’s in May when falling dairy prices and low inflation affected the tax take and forced an adjustment to a $684 million deficit.
Andrew Little’s description of it as “one of the biggest political deceptions of our lifetime” was perhaps one of the greatest political lessons in hyperbole that he could have had.
Yep. A smart politician thinks ahead and ponders what if they do make surplus after all.
But Bill English’s social investment project is his biggest achievement.
It sounds so logical that you’d think it had always been done that way – paying for what is proven to work.
But it hasn’t always been. It now provides a clear incentive for the public sector to find out with greater clarity what works and what doesn’t.
If it becomes embedded, it will be a lasting change for good in the lives of the least fortunate.
It may do more to help the truly disadvantaged and at risk, than any previous Government.
Fairfax hands out some awards:
They also hand out some others:
Annette King – Survivor Politics award. Subject a cockroach and King to a nuclear holocaust and the cockroach may not survive, but King would still be Labour’s deputy leader.
Colin Craig – Coro Street award for best political soap opera. The year ended in a cliff hanger. Can he make a comeback? Tune in 2016.
Ron Mark – the Donald Trump award for tolerance towards migrants.
Murray McCully – the Lawrence of Arabia award for services to desert agriculture.
Phil Twyford – the Rewi Alley award for building NZ-China relations as mastermind of Labour’s “pick an Asian sounding name” housing policy.
David Cunliffe – Whack-a-Mole award for refusing to know he’s been flattened.
Simon Bridges – the Bridge too Far award for unsuccessfully parachuting policies into a by-election battle.
Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce – the Pantene award for services to hair care after his department was revealed as buying hair straighteners for its staff.
Kelvin Davis – the Santa Award for spreading the Christmas Island spirit.
Act leader David Seymour – The Bastille Day award for pointing out “the French love the coq”. Say no more.
Speaker David Carter – The Nigel Llong award for poor umpiring
Health and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse – The Bear Grylls award for highlighting the dangers of worm farming
Conservation Minister Maggie Barry – the Tame Iti award for services to Tuhoe for renaming Te Ururoa Flavell Te Urewera Flavell.
Housing Minister Nick Smith – The Promised Land award- for pointing out unattainable building sites in Auckland.
Judith Collins – The Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator Award. She’s back!
Labour MP Phil Goff – the Panasonic Microwave award for warming up his political career
Key – Bad Hair Day award for Ponytail-gate. The Ball Boy award for services in the All Black dressing room. And the John Oliver award for services to late night comedy shows. Yup. It was a big year for the prime minister.
Peters – Mr Congeniality. Okay so he’s still cantankerous and argumentative 80 per cent of the time. But he does seem to be mellowing.
Sam Lotu-Iiga – The Reverse Great Escape award for tunnelling into trouble.
Gerry Brownlee – The Snow White award for naming Treasury Dopey.
Stuff reports:
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has conceded the Government was wrong to override Pharmac and fund breast cancer drug Herceptin in 2008, as it comes under continued pressure to step in over “game-changing” melanoma drug Keytruda.
Keytruda is the brand name for Pembrolizumab, a biologic drug for terminal melanoma patients that has produced promising results in early clinical trials.
But Pharmac has described Keytruda as a low priority option for funding, saying there is inconclusive data on its effectiveness.
Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has declined to intervene over Keytruda, despite the incoming National Government making a similar decision with Herceptin when it came to power in 2008.
Asked by TV3’s Paul Henry whether overriding Pharmac on Herceptin was “the right thing to do”, Coleman said: “I don’t think it was actually, and I think history has shown that.
“The research shows that nine weeks which were funded previously is actually just as good as 52 weeks, but I think lessons have been learned.”
So it was a fairly expensive bribe which possibly didn’t even improve health outcomes. Hopefully the lesson has been learnt.
Duncan Garner writes and looks at how might replace John Key next term:
PAULA BENNETT
She’s emerged from the Collins rubble to be the frontrunner. She’s handled everything Labour has thrown at her and sent it back with interest.
She’s ordinary, common, basic and will never been confused as a Rhodes scholar. Key recognises her political talent and is broadening her appeal. She’s done the welfare stuff but Key later added local government and state services portfolios – and now the dreaded climate change to her list of responsibilities. My sources tell me she wants the job and there’s no love lost between her and Collins. She’s starting to spend more time with National’s more junior MPs to win them over. Bennett’s now first cab off the rank to replace Key as National’s next leader. From a single mum on welfare to National’s next leader – Labour eat your heart out. She would be National’s deputy if English stood down tomorrow.
JONATHAN COLEMAN
The Health Minister is ambitious and is starting to get a bigger profile – and he likes the idea that he’s being spoken about as a potential leader. He will need to show more charisma and reach out more. His management of health hasn’t been as good as Tony Ryall’s but he’s still largely on top of his game. He can come across as boring on camera but behind the scenes is personable, likeable and has a sense of humour. My sources tell me, like Bennett, he’s starting to reach out to a wider group within caucus. His time may come a little later.
AMY ADAMS
Depending on who you speak to in the National Party she’s either a leader in waiting or someone you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. Adams has been a powerhouse in the justice portfolio and her work on domestic violence stands out. She’s articulate and comes across well. Another one who likes the idea she’s being spoken about. Is also reaching out in caucus.
SIMON BRIDGES
He has long been discussed as a future National leader and that will probably mean it will never happen. On TV and radio he sucks the life out of the universe but he’s still very capable and knows his subject. Prone to smarminess but likeable and annoying at the same time. The fact he wants it so much will probably mean he’s left behind in the race for the top.
TODD MULLER
I got to know Muller when he was a Boy Friday in Jim Bolger’s office in 1996. A thoroughly smart and likeable bloke, Muller bleeds blue and has been earmarked for higher office from an early age. He has genuine private sector experience and has wisely kept his head down in his first term as an MP. He has integrity (and isn’t as old as he looks!). Even James Shaw from the Greens thinks he’s a decent bloke. Muller’s time is probably up to a decade away – he won’t be the next leader but watch this space.
National is fortunate to have multiple options.
By an incredibly narrow margin the black, white and blue silver fern has beaten out the red, white and blue design.
Turnout was 48.2% and of the 1,527,042 votes received there were 148,022 informals.
The first round of counting saw:
The second round of counting saw:
The third round of counting saw:
The final round of counting saw
Overwhelming support for the two Kyle Lockwood designs. You can see why they were both included.
The winning flag is now the distinct underdogs under the current design, but New Zealanders now have a binary choice and three months to debate and decide.
Stuff reports:
Australian Labor leader Bill Shorten has been forced to apologise after he was caught on camera using his phone while driving.
The opposition leader was filmed using his phone while driving at 40kmh on Melbourne’s Kings Way in a white 4WD.
Texting while driving at 40 km/hr is not a good idea.
In a statement, his office said whomever filmed the video was equally guilty: “It appears the witness was driving while he used his phone to film Shorten.”
What moron in his office thought it was a good idea to attack the person who dobbed him in? For all they know it was a passenger who filmed Shorten.
The incident was filmed by a witness who told the Herald Sun that he first noticed the car failed to drive off when the traffic light turned green.
The witness took out his own phone to film the car after he watched it swerve between lanes driving at a slow speed.
“He was driving all over the place,” he said.
The witness then realised Shorten was the driver. “He’s one of our leaders … he should be setting an example.”
The man said he decided to share the footage after hearing of that Shorten last month crashed his late mother’s Mitsubishi into a number of cars in Melbourne.
Shorten’s latest poll numbers are so bad he must be on borrowed time.
News.com.au reports:
Speaking at a campaign rally at the USS Yorktown in South Carolina, Mr Trump said he would look at “closing up” the internet to stop Islamic State from recruiting Americans.
While most people with common sense understand the enormity of such a task, Mr Trump thinks it is as easy as getting Bill Gates on the phone.
“We’re losing a lot of people because of the internet,” he said.
“We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening.
“We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people.”
He gets more deranged every day.
Mike Hosking writes:
I hope you’ve voted.
The first of the flag polls closes tomorrow.
I note there’s a bit of scuttlebutt about, suggesting if the turnover isn’t that high, then the pressure will go on the Prime Minister to call off the second vote in March.
I will countenance no such nonsense.
I think the turnout will be low. Why wouldn’t it be?
Getting people to drag mail in from the box, open envelopes, read instructions, sign forms and stick them back in envelopes and go find a post box is from 1992 if not earlier.
All voting should be electronic, at your leisure via phone, tablet or computer.
Your vote should be a click.
A referendum such as this would be ideal for e-voting. I submitted that it should be an option.
As Hosking says, amazing so many people can bother to find a post box today.
The only winner out of all this paperwork is New Zealand Post which is probably very grateful given the state of its company. It’s one of the ironies of the vote: people who complained about the cost mostly didn’t realise it’s virtually all stamps.
Actually changing the flag, if we do, will cost a couple of million bucks. The meetings they held, the advertising and so on is actually pocket change compared with the post bill which is about $17 million of the $26 million budget.
And arguably the net cost to the taxpayer is only $9 million as the $17 million post bill is extra revenue for NZ Post.
So to the flag itself.
I’ve voted for the Blue and Black, the black is us, it’s got the stars and the fern, it’s perfect.
If not that, I’d take the blue and red.
If perchance any of the other three pop up – which they won’t, but if they do – I’ll be sticking with the status quo.
I have never wanted change for change’s sake, I’ve wanted change because we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a statement about who we are and where we’re going.
I did red and blue first.
After tomorrow we’ll have the contender, the new flag on the block.
The beauty of that is that for the first time, we have choice, proper choice, win and lose choice.
Ranking options is choice, but nothing fundamentally changes. Once we have the two go head to head that’s when it really starts to count.
That’s when we’re going to see people really get engaged, because it actually matters.
Yep the real debate and choice starts next week. For the first time in our history people in March will get to decide what should be our national flag.
Roy Morgan have released what is probably the final public poll for the year.
The seat projections on their poll are:
Centre-Left
Centre
Centre-Right
Not bad for the start of the eight year of office.
The Herald reports:
People will be able to look for an official “cyber security tick” when they use businesses, under a Government proposal to reduce cybercrime.
Those with good cyber security practices would be able to display the tick, in a similar way to schemes that acknowledge healthy food or energy efficient appliances.
The tick scheme is proposed in the Government’s refreshed cyber security strategy, launched in Auckland today by Communications Minister Amy Adams.
Other new initiatives include:
• The establishment of a national “CERT” – a computer emergency response team, or expert group, that handles computer security incidents and will be the first port of call for organisations and individuals needing help.
• Review of the Crimes Act 1961 and other legislation to see if changes are needed to more easily address cybercrime.
Most developed countries have a CERT, and the discussion about having one in NZ has gone on for the best part of a decade. It’s good to see a decision made to establish and fund one.
Despite one less week of voting, turnout is well up on the 2013 asset sales referendum, both in gross terms, and as a percentage of the population. Votes received today yet to be counted.
So turnout so far is 47.4% and might hit 48%. How does that compare with other stand alone referenda. In order the turnout rates have been:
So the flag referendum is ahead of both the union initated referenda.
Now there is a difference between binding and indicative, but this is only semi-binding in that it is choosing an option, not a final decision. The best comparison is to the 1992 vote to choose an electoral system.
That vote got 55% turnout and the flag referendum looks to be around 48%. Now considering how massively more important the electoral system is than the flag, that’s not a massive gap.
Stuff reports:
Goff said any intervention to fight IS should be UN-sanctioned, there needed to be “clear and achievable objectives”, and there should be an acceptable level of risk.
Labour always claim an intervention must be UN sanctioned, which generally means China and Russia should get a veto on our defence and foreign policy. But regardless has he missed UN Security Council resolution 2249 (2015):
Calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter, as well as international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law, on the territory under the control of ISIL also known as Da’esh, in Syria and Iraq, to redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by ISIL also known as Da’esh as well as ANF, and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with Al-Qaida, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the United Nations Security Council, and as may further be agreed by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) and endorsed by the UN Security Council, pursuant to the statement of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) of 14 November, and to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria;
There’s your UN sanction and your clear objective.
The report is here. Nothing too startling in there, but some very useful recommendations which I hope the Government adopts. They include:
One good example of an agency stepping up is Statistics NZ. Craig Foss announced:
Statistics New Zealand has also begun publishing online, its responses to requests received under the Official Information Act.
“This is similar to the process that Treasury follows, aiming to increase the accessibility and availability of information to help enrich and promote informed debate,” says Mr Foss.
It is incredibly helpful when you can see what information has already been released. I’d love to see the Government set up a central oia.govt.nz site where all responses are made available, say five days after given to the requester.
The Herald reports:
Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei has also hit out at Prime Minister John Key’s comments on so-called “jihadi brides” – saying they are particularly insulting to Muslim women and show he thinks “the only good use of a women going overseas is as a wife”.
This is beyond pathetic. Once upon a time the Greens claimed not to do personal attacks, but that is long dead.
In case anyone else is stupid or malicious, Key was not talking about all women going overseas or all Muslim wonen going overseas. He was talking specifically about women travelling to Syria where it is controlled by the Islamic State.
Does Turei think they are there for the jobs, the tourism, the shopping, the beaches, the educational opportunities, the practice of medical skills?
It is not unreasonable to suggest that women travelling to Islamic State controlled areas are going to be jihadi brides, considering there have been numerous reports of women travelling there to do exactly that, and almost no reports of women travelling there for any other purpose.
But never mind, let’s just try and smear John Key as a sexist neanderthal because you know the Greens don’t do personal smear attacks.
Boris Johnson writes:
Look, I am no particular fan of Vlad. Quite the opposite. Russian-backed forces are illegally occupying parts of Ukraine. Putin’s proxy army was almost certainly guilty of killing the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that came down in eastern Ukraine. He has questions to answer about the death of Alexander Litvinenko, pitilessly poisoned in a London restaurant. As for his reign in Moscow, he is allegedly the linchpin of a vast post-Soviet gangster kleptocracy, and is personally said to be the richest man on the planet. Journalists who oppose him get shot. His rivals find themselves locked up. Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.
Does that mean it is morally impossible to work with him? I am not so sure. We need to focus on what we are trying to achieve. Our aims – at least, our stated aims – are to degrade and ultimately to destroy Isil as a force in Syria and Iraq. That is what it is all about.
Our mission is to remove an evil death cult, to deprive their organisation of the charisma and renown that goes with controlling a territory of some 10 million people. We need to end their hideous administration of Raqqa, with its torchings and beheadings. We need them out of Palmyra, because if Syria is to have a future then we must protect its past.
We cannot do that without terrestrial forces. We need someone to provide the boots on the ground; and given that we are not going to be providing British ground forces – and the French and the Americans are just as reluctant – we cannot afford to be picky about our allies.
I agree. In WWII Hitler was the larger evil than Stalin, so one allied with Stalin to fight Hitler.
Who else is there? The answer is obvious. There is Assad, and his army; and the recent signs are that they are making some progress. Thanks at least partly to Russian air strikes, it looks as if the regime is taking back large parts of Homs. Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants are withdrawing from some districts of the city. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so.
With Russian air support, the Assad regime is only a few miles from Palmyra – the fabled pink-stoned city of monuments, where Isil decapitated the 82-year-old curator, Khaled Al‑Assad, before beginning an orgy of cultural destruction.
Am I backing the Assad regime, and the Russians, in their joint enterprise to recapture that amazing site? You bet I am. That does not mean I trust Putin, and it does not mean that I want to keep Assad in power indefinitely. But we cannot suck and blow at once.
At the moment, we are in danger of treating our engagement as if it weresome complicated three-sided chess game, in which we are trying to neutralise the Islamists while simultaneously preventing Putin from getting too big for his boots. If we try to be too clever, we will end up achieving nothing.
Johnson is right. Work with Putin and Assad to defeat ISIL.
Stuff reports:
Wellington City Council has decided to press ahead with the new sensor park technology after a successful trial in Blair and Allen Sts. The project will cost $1.4 million.
The switch to what has affectionately been dubbed “pay and walk away” parking will mean the end of printing out paper tickets and displaying them on your dashboard.
It will also see the introduction of a new smartphone app and a website that will alert motorists when their time is running low and allow them to “top up” their parking meter from anywhere.
The app and website will also display in real-time which car parks are occupied and which are empty.
This looks great for three reasons: