MAJOR TOM TO GROUND CONTROL

The United Nations has lost all semblance of credibility with this latest effort. They have appointed an obscure Malaysian Astro - physicist Mazlan Othman to be the " first point of contact - should ET drop by for a beer and a yack.

How ridiculously and stupendously silly. People starve , people die in their millions and instead of feet on the ground the UN has its eye on the sky.

Duh.

Isn't that the place Helen Clark works now?

UPDATE: Okay so it appears that the story was based on a misinterpretation of a comment at a conference..

But it is interesting that people didnt have too much trouble believing that the UN would actually appoint someone to the alien grin and grip role.

Here is a very interesting take on the issue.

BITS AND BOBS

We have been enjoying some wild and wicked weather in Tauranga where the Aussie Rock has a bit of a bach near the beach at the Mount.

When it was fine it was splendid but the torrential rain out did the sunbeams today. For all that Tauranga and the Mount are wonderful places to visit.

We are now back in Wellington and are off to Zico's with Spaz and his angel wife.

So we have had a quick scoot round the blogs and MacDoctor has the funniest post on Sue Bradfords departure from the Greens. We agree with his sentiments entirely.

And the Australian is breathless in their admiration for Key's decision to appear on Letterman. We initially thought it was dumb. But as someone who has lived in the USA pointed out, Key's self effacing corniness would have gone down a treat there. Its their sort of humour. However we also agree with Fran O'Sullivan - we cannot lose sight of the serious stuff either. Perhaps an armchair interview on Close Up, or even the Sunday programme to talk about the serious stuff and why it matters to New Zealanders. It would be good to give it some context that a quick flick on the 6pm news cant give.


And are we the only person who is going to fess up and say they dont understand what the hell John Key's comments about having the loosest slot machines really means?

ONLY VINDICTIVE ONE IS CLARK

Clark is turning into a whinging whiny old woman. First she reckons that it was out of pure " vindictiveness that the Nats have pulled back on her " sustainability agenda." We now see pragmatism instead of dogma underpinning NZ's approach to climate change sustainability etc and we are glad of it.

Then in the wholly sycophantic piece by Tracy Watkins, we see her whinge about the decrease in funding levels for aid mismanaged by the UN. Clark would do well to remember that she is parked up in one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the world in an organisation that has written the book on bureaucratic corruption. The easiest way to ensure that poor people get what they need is to ensure that the organisation she works for cleans up its very dirty act. And for the record - how many tonnes of carbon has she racked up flying here there and everywhere to see how poor people live. A click of the button on a computer with a decent broadband should show her well enough.
Doesnt she have enough minnions to tell her?

So what is the carbon chomping airfare budget of Ms Clark and what is she doing to reduce the costs of the gold plated corrupt organisation she work for?

She is quoted as saying she had " one big job left in her."

Its a job in a big organisation - not a big job. And not one that will make a wit of difference to poor people around the world.

And by the way - who paid for watkins jaunt to the UN?

McCULLY NEEDS TO DISESTABLISH RACE RELATIONS OFFICE

As a country we are pretty grown up when it comes to Race relations - Joris de Bres is a dick. McCully has our vote to woop his arse. He went over to the UN Anti Racism conference under his own steam, (some one needs to find out who sponsored his trip) but pontificates as the Race Relations Conciliator. Bad Bad form.

So its time for him to go. enough of his PC crap. Scrap the office - we don't need it any more.

HOOTON ON GROWN UPS

We wish that the NBR would put Hooton's column on line - even if it was after midday - its always a bloody good read - short and to the point but erudite laced with irony and lashings of subtlety and we are having lunch with him next week at one of Auckland's finest dining establishments.



Ooops we digress. Anyway we went out an bought a copy of NBR and got some hamsters to type it out again -

When Murray McCully was Housing Minister, tenants in Wainuiomata reported that paint fumes were making their homes unliveable. The complaints kept coming but Housing New Zealand kept denying them.

Eventually, Mr McCully had had enough. Without telling anyone, he had a government limo drive him to Wainuiomata to visit the main complainant. The fumes were overwhelming. Mr McCully sorted the problem and everyone was happy, except Housing New Zealand. He appears to be taking the same common-sense approach to his job as Foreign Minister.

Adolescence

Prior to 1984, New Zealand had a toddler foreign policy, dependent on the UK and the US. Our approach since has scarcely been more sophisticated, being based on the ludicrous notions of “independence” and “New Zealand leadership”.

In truth, there can be no such thing as an “independent” foreign policy. Foreign policy, especially for small states, is about interdependence: assessing one’s own interests and those of others, seeing where they align, and working together to achieve them, even when this requires the odd principle to be compromised.

A foreign policy that was truly independent would be entirely ineffectual.

“New Zealand leadership” is even more preposterous. The theory was that if New Zealand became nuclear-free, even at the cost of our security guarantee, other countries would be sufficiently impressed to follow. Later, the idea came to cover everything from trade liberalisation to climate change to goody-two-shoes foreign aid. Other than ironically securing Helen Clark a job at the UN (how “independent” does it make us to slavishly follow that corrupt body?) it has failed utterly.

No country awaits New Zealand leadership. The US and USSR didn’t abandon their nuclear arsenals; the EU hasn’t opened its market; no one will follow New Zealand in destroying their economy with an all-sectors, all-gases emissions trading scheme; and everyone else understands that states don’t give charity, they pursue their interests with cash.

A strategy of “independence and “leadership”, divorced from the interests of friends and allies, does not even work for great powers, with the only recent example of someone arguing otherwise, other than Ms Clark, being George W Bush.

To believe that one can be truly independent from others, and that one’s own recklessness will impress them, is to be the one thing more annoying than a toddler. It is to be an adolescent.

Adulthood

The unlikely figure of one-time larrikin Mr McCully has emerged to lead us into adulthood.

His speech this week to the NZ/US Council was firmly founded on New Zealand’s interests. “New Zealand”, “NZ” or “we” meaning New Zealand appeared 78 times. “United States”, “US”, “America” or “you” meaning the US appeared 40 times.

The content was about working with the Americans to fight protectionism to prevent a Great Depression; the benefits to New Zealand of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan; opportunities for American and New Zealand scientists to work together to combat climate change and the importance to New Zealand and the US of a stable South Pacific. It gave no ground on the nuclear issue. It included nothing Labour Leader Phil Goff could disagree with, emphasising that Mr McCully, as Foreign Minister, speaks for both main parties, consistent with the ideal of a bipartisan foreign policy.

But Mr McCully’s speech was not arrogant. It was common sense. Everything he said was based on facts gleaned from his conversations with his counterparts rather than lectures he plans to deliver to them. It included no highfalutin rhetoric about New Zealand’s importance to the rest of the world. “Leadership” was used once, in the context of the need for American leadership if trade liberalisation is to be progressed in the Pacific. And finally, after so many years, the nonsense about “independent” and “independence” appeared not at all.

We agree with Hooton on the issue of the UN - it is a very very corrupt organisation and we think it was a masterstoke by the current administration to back Clark into the post. They win if she lessens the corruption and they win if she falls flat on her face.A classic Dark Arts manouvre - very House of Cards.