Green, lean and mean....

This leetle auto is my idea of Green heaven. Somehow, I don't think those ever-earnest actual political Greens are going to be advertising this.....

Z's dead, baby

This line is part of a now-classic sequence from Quentin Taratino's movie: Pulp Fiction. The context:

"Who's bike is that?"
"It's not a bike, it's a chopper"
"Who's chopper is that?"
"That's Z's chopper."
"Who's Z?"
"Z's dead, baby, Z's dead"

After reading the muted local response to Zarqawi's JDAM supper (Z's dead, baby, geddit?), the overseas stuff looks, as always, to be better informed and more measured in it's assessment. There is no doubt that a massive roll-up of parts of his network has occurred, due to intel confirmed during the operation, and that a chilling effect on recruitment and general enthusiasm for the jihad, will have temporarily descended. But that's a bit like the winter snowstorm currently blanketing points south of here: a week's disruption, then business as usual.

It's not as though li'l ol' NZ has a benign strategic environment any more: Timor Este and the Solomons should have put paid to that sweet foolish hope. And the unceremonious deportation of our very own Fly-boy Of A Certain Religious Persuasion may well indicate that our woeful Gummint has seen something of the light. Or had a gruelling focus group encounter on the topic of National Security.

Well, whatever. It was the right thing to do. The Fly-boy, I mean. And, of course, "Z". Didn't even need, as in Pulp Fiction, to get mediaeval on his ass. Z's ass was mediaeval to start with.

Mahmoud of Xerxes

This Radio Blogger piece, featuring Mark Steyn and Hugh Hewitt, is a Lileks translation of the now-famous 18-page Iranian letter from one prez to another. Read the Lileks parsing of it, read the original 18-pager, then when you have dried away the tears of laughter and possibly donned a new set of breeches, ask yourself the question:

'Can we do business with this guy?' (Mahmoud, that is).

Greens lack a Defence policy (quell surprise...)

A defence policy, people, resources and equipment to do the dirty deeds, and training etc is just what I expect my hard-won and reluctantly surrendered taxes, to fund, as the very first duty of Gummint. So, you (Greens) are quite correct, not having such a policy shows a fundamental unseriousness about Governing.

And your own straw person (Lord help me, I’m using the same woolly language) is the ‘illegality’ of Iraq. You’ll need to keep a careful eye on the documents now being released: the ‘Blessed July’ aspect alone (see, for example this) would make a Londoner think twice. The point is that ‘legality’ applies only to a Westphalian nation-state weltanschauung. And we’re definitely not in that Kansas any more, Dorothy.

New Zealand is strategically irrelevant to the new Great Game - the Western Enlightenment against the Third Caliphate, but does pose a security risk to the rest of the Anglosphere: our laughably lax immigration and citizenship attitudes, mean that we are seen as a ’soft touch’.

So a useful start to a Green defence policy might be to ponder awhile on the ’sustainability’ of this stance.

And this goes far beyond the electoral considerations. When you consider that the Reggie Krays of the world can now purchase submarines, aircraft carriers and crude nuclear devices (read William Langwiesche on A.Q Khan in recent Atlantic Monthlies) as well as the usual run of weaponry, and that NZ has the longest and certainly the least defendable coastline in the Pacific, all sorts of unhealthy scenarios swim up from the depths.

And Reggie, to those who knew him, had one persona that was utterly charming, urbane, philanthropic and which took in more than one ingenuous reporter. But then he also had his Little Moments.

We, of course, don’t want to be a pawn in someone else’s game. Fair enough, the quiet life and all. But then, as Trotsky noted, ‘You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you’.

Better to heed and prepare.

First Duty of Gummint - Security

This was my substantive comment on the Campbell and Fisk thread.....

The first duty of Gummint is the physical security of its citoyens.

Fisk is essentially saying, if you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you’d never go to war again.

But history is replete with cases of citizenries being trapped in what amounts to our modern eyes, as slaveries of some sort.

Tyrannies of all stripes are in fact extremely sustainable, particularly if they rely on fear engendered by letting 14-30 year old males (in ’security forces’ or the like), indulge their hard-wired tendencies to slaughter, rapine and general hell-raising.

So shooting your way into such self-sustaining loops, to release the lives of all involved for Better Fings, is literally the only way sometimes.

Fisk may well have seen a lot, and be prepared to spread a message of ‘let’s not keep doing this’. But he’s preaching to the choir. Anyone truly concerned with the sustainability of a way of life, will in a political sense, ensure that there are police, security and other specialists in violence, on hand to keep people safe. And answerable to that citizenry. So saying ‘ don’t keep doing this’ is at best mischievious, and at worst a recipe for takeover by folks with fewer scruples about employing violence.

And Campbell didn’t ask the most obvious question:

‘Mr Fisk, you have lived safely for 30 years in Lebanon, which for all of that time was a police state, client of Syria, funded by Iran. Who has ensured your own freedom over that time, and has that affected your judgement?’

Tweaking Fwogs - the CPT release

And in today’s crowning irony, solidly built chaps (and possibly chapesses, if the Special Forces have Embraced Diversity), armed with nasty shooty things, have barged their way into some poor cowering oppressed Iraqi’s shack, and forcibly ‘released’ those lovely peaceful CPT citoyens. And without dialoguing anyone, too!

That Census

Which seems to be causing a good deal of angst as folk try to figure out ethnicity, religion and other stuff that eludes, say, DNA analysis or a blood test. But the work questions are the most annoying: the good bureaucrats at Statistics NZ clearly haven't cottoned on to the Road Warrior pattern. They seriously expect a single workplace! So it's 'No Fixed Abode' for me, and (in a classic example of questionnaires influencing behaviour) I'm just about to take my new 4x4 for a run, so I can answer 'Private Motor Vehicle' to the 'how did you travel' question. Which does generally describe my work pattern quite well, really: whereever the client wants, travel by car, taxi or plane.

The West - address by Keith Windschuttle

In li'l ol' NZ, no less, A thoughtful piece, and as usual, backed up by historical research. With my having just finished Simon Schama's 'Citizens', a history of the French Revolution, the spectacle of masses being incited to acts of violence, has more than the usual revulsion factor. Never did like crowds, now there's another angle to that.

KW's closing paras:

"Today, we live in an age of barbarism and decadence. There are barbarians outside the walls who want to destroy us and there is a decadent culture within. We are only getting what we deserve. The relentless critique of the West which has engaged our academic left and cultural elite since the 1960s has emboldened our adversaries and at the same time sapped our will to resist. The consequences of this adversary culture are all around us. The way to oppose it, however, is less clear. The survival of the Western principals of free inquiry and free expression now depend entirely on whether we have the intelligence to understand their true value and the will to face down their enemies."

Schama and Windschuttle are two great writers, and their respect for the lessons of history (as records of the meanderings of human nature, which does not change) is one that is all too rarely shared.

Dem 'Toons

Lots of heat and little light in our own benighted and multi-culti-infested media warrens.

Antidotes hereby prescribed:

Belmont Club has a good set of posts on strategies, and notes that the orchestrated 'toons controversy is likely to derail radical Islam's designs on Europe by engaging it on two fronts simultaneously: not something the lead-from-some-cave-somewhere kriegmeisters had probably figured on.

Mark Steyn has a deliciously sardonic article on the topic: read it and laugh.

And just watch the hapless creatures over at FrogBlog, caught in a quagmire of cultural quailing, uneasy defence of a Press they would love to regulate, disdainful dismissals of religions as relics of irrationality, and general thrashing about while slowly sinking. Friends close, but enemies closer, that's the deal.

Great read for strategic minds

In stark contrast to the woolly-headed claptrap encountered in most comments about grand strategy, this piece hits the spot quite nicely. Fasten your seat-belts. Hat tip: Arts and Letters Daily.

Canadian election - Liberal values

Bit scary: try replacing 'Paul Martin' with 'Helen Clark' and the shoe mostly still fits.....

Housing Hi-jinks

Not pc has a good note about affordability and its inverse relationship to planning and land-use regulation. But when you look at the actual cost of new building , you start to see a significant Nanny State impost in quite a few areas.

• Fencing of sites. Never used to happen, and not too many gory tales of kiddies' hands being lost to Tools Left Lying Aboot.
• Certified scaffolding for jobs needing e.g. roof work. Ask a roofing contractor about how much per job this adds. On a say $20K job, this will be around 30%.
  
• Leaky Building levy, even though your design follows a thousands-of-years tradition, and so includes actual eaves, and has no internal gutters.

And let's not ferget what's down the track:

• Full certification needed for all tradies, on pretty much all work, maintenance, new or other. I've heard that only around 30% can possibly qualify within any reasonable grace period allowed. Think what that will do to rates, resource availability as education takes priority over chargeable time, general supply as tradies piss off to less stupid countries, and overall costs.
• Earthquake proofing of older multistorey buildings. Billions in cost, for how many lives saved, again?
• Other wonders yet to be dreamt up by our Glorious Leaders in their third go at the Great Socialist Hexperiment on us all.

So, a little prediction about the likely unintended consequences of all of this:

There will arise a thriving, and mainly underground (black economy) market segment which specialises in supplying honest maintenance and repair, made to look as though it's always been there. Some characteristics of the activity:

• performed indoors, to shut out unwanted eyes. It's quite possible to do even major structural stuff without disturbing visible outer shells of buildings.
  
• If outer shell, visible from the street has to be touched, expect the street frontage to be minimal, screened off or trompe l'oeil'ed in some fashion to ward off casual drive-by glances, and inspectors of any breed.
• use of second-hand covering materials to disguise the new bones underneath. Demolition yards will be quite busy supplying this market.
• use of antiquing, aging and patination on visible surfaces. Distressed paint finishes, coatings of old kitchen grease, scratches, nicks and obvious signs of long use will be de rigeur. See, I've watched far too many 'Antiques Roadshows', already.
  
• payoffs to neighbours and certifiers (assuming the latter are even invited in) to guarantee silence (after all, they will need to return the favour at some point in their futures)
  
• cash is king

As Stewart Brand notes, in his sublime book 'How Buildings Learn', people just never stop fiddling with the spaces they live in. And if they cannot be arsed doing it legally, then done it will be, anyway.

But, predictions aside, the unaffordability of housing is due at least in part to the cost impacts of layers of petty and mostly un-necessary (to a traditional designer) specification, levies, requirements and inspections. My bet is, around 10-15% of pure house costs are eaten up in all of this. Add that to land costs (which is what the linked article is really about) and the sum isn't pretty.

And the solution?

Wind back some of the Nanny State requirements.

And educate yourself about what to look for in building design. It's not hard, and it's fun.

Laugh, damn near peed myself

Green Speechwriting, over at Sir Humph's.

Some good stuff

Culture Cult has some good new articles up.

Eamon Duffy's seminal book on the English Reformation has been re-released with new research and words. Just finished reading t'old one, as it happens.

TCS Daily - always on the reading list.

Canadian election - can't go past the wittiest RWDB around - Mark Steyn

Cute phrases

Fitzsimons lied, foliage died.

Giving it the 'Fitzsimons Flick'

Russia as 'Nigeria with permafrost' (ht: TCS)

Cronulla comments

Mark Steyn does his usual pithy take on what's going on here. And a genuine Aussie sheila has her say as well. And Keith Windschuttle. And the good Prof Bunyip.

No prizes for guessing what's at the heart of this matter: a bunch of self-marginalised young Muslim gangsta males with quite inexcusable attitudes to women. Not that you'd read that in the dead tree editions, anytime soon.

But then our own dear Froggie has a try. Swing and a miss, I'd say. Stick to saving albatrosses, they're less complex ecosystems.

Firenze - Day 20

We have allowed just this one day, as Venice is our primary goal for the second Italian week. The Uffizi gallery is first on the list, and leaves us with the same feeling as the Vatican Museum: a display of temporal power, but with far too much religious tat. However, the more ancient pieces of statuary are great, Botticelli's Venus glows at us, and there are a couple of Canaletto's little masterpieces tucked away in a side gallery. The buildings themselves are glorious, as is their context, and having seen the copy of Michelangelo's David in the piazza outside, we don't bother with the real thing.

On to the Ponte Vecchio - the bridge over the wide and dirty Arno, where gold and silversmiths have had stalls for hundreds of years - and are still, to judge from the prices, paying off the original mortgages. Up to the Boboli Gardens the long way, via the side streets and the Roman gate at the top. This is well worth it, as the gardens have vistas, fountains, statues and well tended paths. And the ticket gives us entrance to exhibitions at the Pitti Palace, so we walk over the hill and in the back door. The Palace was very forbidding from the side streets we had originally passed it on: built to be defended against all comers. But the Boboli Gardens are, effectively, the private back yard of the Palace, and this back-garden aspect of the Palace is still formal but welcoming. And once inside, the Mythologia e Erotica exhibition is staged in a series of sumptuously painted rooms.

When you start to multiply the number of Palaces, the number of painted rooms in each, and divide this by the number of artists required, it really is no wonder that the Renaissance threw up so many gifted people. The combination of an arms race in palatial outfitting, and the fact that these were private establishments outside the death grip of Mother Church (the other major artistic patron), virtually guaranteed results.

Not that these were without their obsessions of the time: Leda and the Swan loomed strangely large in the exhibition. The signature of babies breaking out of eggs, you see. But it has to be said that mediaeval erotica is very restrained - lots of heavy allegorical allusions but practically no explicitness. Mother Church might not have approved of the exhibits, but she would surely be pleased with the extent to which the artists had internalised her messages.

Deciding against another Duomo climb (Florence's magnificent Saint Maria del Fiore cathedral has a renowned dome by Brunelleschi) on the grounds that the Boboli was higher and was a bloody long way to have walked, we amble back via this cathedral and the shopping streets. The church has a superb facade, of white, red and green marble, used in a large mosiac to stunning effect. Tesellated and inlaid columns everywhere outside, but very austere inside.

The shops entrance us: the number and variety, plus the specialisation. Florence is a city to come back to: we regret not allowing more time.

Firenze - Day 19

The Intercity stops at each major station, and our compartment is occupied with four Italian women who gossip non-stop from Roma to Firenze. They quickly establish that we have less Italian than would be useful, but one does kindly offer us fresh mandarins along the way. Firenze charms us immediately, the more so when our LastMinute hotel in Via Nazionale regretfully tells us that the room has plumbing problems, and directs us just around the corner in Via Guelfa to a family hotel run by an archetypal Italian matron.

We have a late-afternoon stroll round the block, find an Internet point, and have a quick snacketto. Already, the Cow Parade - identical cast fibreglass cows, painted up and variously altered by local artists, has impressed us. And the city is chock full of leathergoods shops - Pelle Verre - so the smell of leather is never far away.

We are of course in the Old City, a few hundred metres away from the treno (train), but unlike Rome, we feel safe and a little observation over the next two days confirms this. Firenze is a nice, family city with lots of children, lots of workers, and is cleaner. Although the old drains do smell a little in places. Can't have everything. A great pizza in a back-room frequented almost exclusively by locals (always a good sign) tops off the night. We have fallen in to the local habit of a small carafe of vino, plus a large bottle of carbonated mineral water, with our evening meals. Rehydrates, and refreshes.

Rome - last day (18)

The Metro beckons, and day tickets are only 4 Euro. So it's off to the Vatican, Cipro stop. Where the Church's profit motive and trade in religious artefacts continues. But the Vatican Musuem is a wonderful and eclectic collection of decidedly non-religious artefacts, from Egyptian figures, through the whole Graeco-Roman early periods, to the Church proper in the single-digit A.D's. The Sistine Chapel, by contrast, was a let-down: Michelangelo's ceiling is positively familiar through endless reproductions, and the walls, even though by Botticelli et al, are just standard religious kitsch. And the chapel is infested with two types of repellent turisto: the overawed Catholics, who sit around the sides and just gawp, overwhelmed; and the illiterate, who have not figured out what signs saying in words and pictures "No cameras/videos/flash", actually mean.

The sheer length and opulence of the galleries leading to and from the Sistine are the main impression. But it is an ossified exhibit: there is little life, relevance to these times, or attempt to draw parallels. Very much a case of 'look how powerful we were and still are'.

The Vatican equivalent of the Bungy Jump is of course the climb up the Duomo, the viewing gallery near the very top of St Peter's dome. We take the lift to the gallery after coughing up the obligatory indulgence fee, and being warned that the climnb is not for those of 'cardiopatic tendencies'. In the gallery, there is the sound, far below, of an ending Mass, with organ accompaniment, which puts us very much in mind of Evensongs past. Onwards and upwards: the first part of the ascent is an internal spiral stair to the base of the Dome (itself - the Dome - another Michelangelo design), then a narrow, and increasingly tilted/inclined stair around and up the Dome itself. Which is built with a double-skin, these stairs being between the two. Then, finally, a straight climb over the Dome's upper slopes, and then outside onto the viewing gallery itself. With reputedly the best view in Rome.

And a couple of things become clear. The profit motive in the Vatican fee structure may be somewhat repellent in religious terms, but it certainly funds an impressive maintenance and conservation effort. From the Duomo, Vatican City is clean, gardened, mown, clipped and litter-free in exactly the way the rest of Rome, frankly, is not, but should be. And the genuine feeling from the pilgrims to this holy place leaves it's mark: there's a civitas which is very absent from the rest of Rome.

We descend onto the roof of St Peter's, where an iced tea goes down very well. Souvenirs (yes, there are shops and loos on the very roof of the Pope's church) are purchased. And so, down again to floor level, but we are elevated by the whole experience. A morning well spent.

As always, the little vignettes amuse us. The four-wheel-drive tractor, driven straight down the (ramped) steps in front of St Peter's with bits of the papal platform in tow, after the usual 1100 Wednesday Papal appearance. The throngs of slightly unruly pilgrims leaving after this event, complete with costumes and props right out of the Pythons' Life of Brian. The obelisk in St Peter's Square: an Egyptian artefact lifted from Heliopolis, by the Roman emperor Caligula. Sanctified, it is said, by a fragment of the true cross somewhere on top. Funny thing, belief.

Metro back to Spagna, and the famed Spanish Steps. Which turn out to be just awful: thronged by tourists just like us, and the church above under renovation and scaffolding. Which latter would not be so bad if a massive Rolex ad had not been plastered all across it. It is the usual fashion now to drape such work with a trompe l'oeil wrapping which replicates the facade of the building under restoration. It's just so tawdry having advertisements instead, so we leave in disgust.

Which is only heightened when, one crowded tube trip of a single stop later, we alight to realise M's bag has been sliced, in an abortive attempt to get inside. Nothing lost, and nothing of value there anyway. But it does mean a hurried replacement bag shop, and a nasty taste left. Lack of civitas, you see. Kiwis do not easily get used to seeing themselves others can see them - as prey - and our inclination to see the best in people makes us targets. But why live this way - having to constantly scan for the predators? Still, as one of the untouched souvenirs in the bag is a pair of St Christopher medallions, we allow ourselves a superstitious and perhaps smug thought, that the thieving insects didn't realise what they were up against.

We retire, a little disillusioned, to our round-the-corner ristorante, where we are greeted like old friends and set up for another glorious meal. But the wary feeling remains somewhat, and at Stazione Termini the next morning, we see a number of pickpockets cruising. Funny thing is, a high percentage wear white trainers. Everyone has their uniform, it seems. And we have boned up on the polite and cruder forms of 'Go Away' and are happy to practise them on these low-lifes while waiting for our InterCity to Firenze.

Rome sights - Day 17

We are not about to tour sitting down today, so walk everywhere. Down to the Colosseum first, join a tour which is well worth the money, and then just wander. The Colosseum is still an amazing piece of engineering in stone, although like most of Rome, it is inadequately conserved, has little interpretative signage, is dirty and desperately needs the equivalent of the British National Trust and Heritage lottery money. Or just stop outsourcing the guding business, put things under one umbrella, and take a bigger clip of the tourist ticket for the work. But I suppose Rome has just so much heritage that knowing where to start must be quite an issue.

We wander up onto the Palatine Hill, where there are stunning views back over the Colosseum, the Forum and the ancient apartments and districts which surrounded them. Again, a distressing lack of maintenance: the gardens at the top are unkempt, littered, and signage, even of exits, is absent. But as the entire hill is a honeycomb of ruins, again, where to start? Still, cutting the grass and tending the plants do seem obvious jobs.

Down the (unmarked) back end of the Palatine, on past the Circus Maximus. Formerly Imperials Rome's chariot racetrack, it is now a jogging circuit! On to the River Tiber, which is flowing strong and dirty. We cross at Ponte Palatino, and go back over the pretty little twin-bridged Isola (Island) which houses - what else in Rome? - a church, a ristorante and a souvenir shop. Back up to the Campidoglio - a musuem and Government complex with beautiful facades and statues. Then nip around the back to the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, which has to be simply the most expansive and impressive memorial of this sort ever built. Trajan's Column off to one side. Photos ensue.

Caffeine deprivation starts to set in: we've had an indifferent pizza at the foot of Palatine to keep us going. Off in the general direction of the Trevi Fountain, picking the less travelled little streets. Arrive at a high-level entrance, and are amazed to realise that the Fountain is actually the front of an inhabited apartment block! You'd need a strong bladder to live there....

The Trevi was very controversial when built: it is scuplted as if from living rock. A glorious spectacle, once you subtract the touts, crowds and the inevitable graffiti, litter and general Roman lack of maintenance. We slip away in search of caffeine, but pick the Quirinale Hill to go over - a solid Government and Police/Defence block, it seems. So no coffee houses. We cut down through the Gardens, off the hill, onto Via Nazionale - a main drag with lots of shops, and have a very satisfactory fresh orange, and a cappo. Equilibrium is restored. There are glamorous Italian types all along this street, and a lot of clothing stores. Interesting to observe the fashions and take the odd photo of accessories and other useful bits.

Back over to the hotel area which is actually situated in a quite good area. Lonely Planet, sharpen up your locality descriptions! Theatre and Opera houses very close by, and a fascinating clutch of religious articles shops around the back of the former. We consider a Marian statue for the hall back home. Then look at the price. Around 1000 Euros... Nah. Thought the Church had stopped profiting from this sort of stuff.

We do however see, in a cheaper but similar shop, a glow-in-the-dark Joseph, Mary and kid statuette series, which prompts a small reminiscence from M:

"I don't mind if it rains or freezes
As long as I've got my plastic Jesus
My plastic Jesus on the dashboard of my car..."

We also discover an Internet cafe close by the hotel, so now have a place to post all of this....and to find ourselves a hotel in Firenze - Florence. We are rather last-minute, don't-plan-it-to-death folk, as might by now be apparent.

Both Glorious Ruin'ed out for the day, to the extent that choosing another ristorante is just too much. And it's just around the corner. And they don't laugh at our Italian: we've got a few words, and have found that, used judiciously, people appreciate the effort with a quick smile. Asking for a new word always goes down well too.

Although we don't ask for a translation of "Casa del Pudenzia", a sign just one street back from our hotel. It probably doesn't mean House of Puddings. Perhaps Lonely Planet was right, after all?