• Please leave Mike Pero alone

Yesterday Mike Pero said that he was being ‘persecuted’ and I agree with him. He was being interviewed hectored on National Socialist Radio by an unpleasant woman, who reminded me of a dog that is chewing on a clean bone and refusing to believe that there really is no meat on this particular bone.

What has poor Pero done to deserve this? After hearing that only six relatives of victims were able to go to Antarctica for the thirtieth anniversary of the Mt Erebus plane crash he decided to charter a plane that would go to the crash site and do a flyover. He’s not making any money out of this (many people would say that that was distasteful, but it is certainly not immoral) and I simply cannot see what the fuss is about. In his own words:

“When I saw that only six family members of the victims were getting to go down to commemorate this anniversary, I was moved to do something for them,” (source)

Now let’s have a look at four of the hysterical responses to Pero’s altruism…

Response #1

“Mike Pero did not engage with Air New Zealand over his plans for the flight to Antarctica or any opportunities this might present to families of Erebus victims. Therefore, the airline finds his announcement three days prior to the anniversary of the tragedy to be nothing more than commercial opportunism of the lowest kind and deeply disrespectful,” Air New Zealand said. (source)

Note the ‘therefore’. Air New Zealand is saying that just because Pero didn’t talk to Air New Zealand first he’s being disrespectful and engaging in commercial opportunism (trying to make money). That is a logical failure of the breathtaking type, not to mention grossly arrogant. Pero has said that he’s not in this for the money, and even if he hadn’t said that logic would indicate that a seriously wealthy man like him can find many better ways of making money. Also, as I said above, making money out of the flight would not be immoral. Where on earth Air New Zealand gets the notion of disrespect from I don’t know, and to the best of my knowledge there is no legal requirement to get a blessing from Air New Zealand before doing anything related to the Mt Erebus plane crash.

Response #2

Here’s another nappy gem from Air New Zealand:

Air NZ chief executive Rob Fyfe said he was personally upset by Mr Pero’s sudden plans. “I have been dealing up to 40 to 50 emails a day for the last couple of months with families and I’ve tried to build a relationship of trust and do the very best we can for the families,” he told Campbell Live.

“I’ve talked to family members and they were deeply disturbed…that someone was preying on their grief and I felt personally quite hurt by that and I guess I reacted in a way that reflected the feelings of the families that were being expressed.

“No wants controversy. There has been controversy around this issue for 30 years and I was trying to get through the weekend without more controversy and I just feel really disappointed that the families yet again are being dragged into something not of their making.” (source)

As far as I can see Air New Zealand is responsible for a lot of the controversy that has been stirred up regarding the flight proposed by Pero. Where people get the idea that Pero is “preying on their grief” from I don’t know, and Fyfe’s assertion that “I felt personally quite hurt by that” beggars belief.

Response #3

Now to a relative of a victim…

Susan O’Rourke, from Blenheim, lost her mother in the November 28, 1979, crash, in which 257 passengers and crew died.

“As an immediate family member of a victim of the disaster, I feel he is just capitalising on the situation of the 30th anniversary,” she said.
[...]
But Ms O’Rourke said the cost of Mike Pero’s flight would make it unaffordable for many families of victims.

Tickets will cost between $1400 and $8600, depending on seating preferences.

“$1400 – for a family, that’s a lot of money. Especially when there’s no guarantee they will go over Erebus. This flight can only further go to capitalise on those who have not got funds to be able to partake in the flight.”

She also questioned the timing of Pero’s memorial flight, and said it was in “poor taste”.

“If he’s so concerned, why didn’t he do it before?

“Why after 30 years? Why not after 25 years? Why now?

“At the end of the day he’s seizing an opportunity off family members that wouldn’t go.” (source)

She ‘feels’ that Pero is capitalising (making a gain from) the anniversary of the crash. This is a nebulous emotion without basis in fact. Which bit of chartering-a-plane-at-no-profit-to-help-relatives is in ‘poor taste’? As for “Why after 30 years? Why not after 25 years? Why now?”, my response is ‘Why are you asking nonsensical questions’ and ‘Why are you complaining when Pero is trying to help you?’.

As for the cost of the flight, I’m sorry if you and others can’t afford it, but life isn’t fair. Pero isn’t making any money out of this, so the ticket price is calculated thus:

Cost of charter ÷ number of passengers = ticket cost

Plane charters are expensive, so the tickets are expensive. It’s simple mathematics. Pero said:

“I didn’t set the prices. If people want to know there’s no margin [profit] in it for me.” (source)

Response #4

Here’s another relative:

One of the six relatives travelling to the crash site today, Eric Houghton, said it was a “cynical time” for Pero to promote the flight.

He was nine when he lost his father, John, in the disaster.

“This is an important time and we don’t need sideshows to distract from it,” Houghton said. (source)

I fail to see any cynicism in Pero’s plan, and the only sideshow I can see here is the one started by those who are beating up Pero for no good reason.

Conclusion

Mike Pero said

“I don’t want to do this any more. I was just out there with the best intentions and now it’s turned right round.

“All I was trying to do was facilitate what I believed were the wishes of the families. (source)

Here’s a free piece of advice: if someone is trying to help you don’t kick him in the balls, because it’s impolite and he’s likely to decide that he no longer wants to help you. Please leave Mike Pero alone.

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• A new way of monitoring heart failure

The NZ Herald has an interesting article about a new way of monitoring people who have congestive heart failure.

Basically a set of scales and a blood pressure monitor are wirelessly connected to a cellphone: that’s the Bluetooth mentioned in the article, which sends data between gadgets via radio waves. The cellphone then sends the data to the hospital each day. If people forget to take their readings the hospital is supposed to chase them up.

One of the symptoms of heart failure is fluid accumulation in the body. People are supposed to weigh themselves daily and phone the hospital if they gain more than 2 kg overnight. Of course people do forget to weigh themselves, and the hospital won’t know if they’ve forgotten. A sudden worsening of congestive heart failure often leads to hospitalisation and/or death, but close monitoring and a rapid response to problems reduces the likelihood of these outcomes. That’s why this system has people weighing themselves.

Most people with heart failure are elderly, and it will be necessary to make the gadgets user-friendly and reliable in order to overcome unfamiliarity with and resistance to technology. Those patients who aren’t able to manage this form of self-monitoring are likely to have carers who can do it for them.

No system is foolproof (at the patient end or the staff end), but this looks like a simple and effective way of improving the management this condition.

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• Nanny-state proposal for reducing smoking

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This is from the NZ Herald:

A proposal to license tobacco retailers and turn cigarette packs into plain packages bearing only health warnings has found strong support.

In planning for the “end game” of widespread tobacco use, researchers canvassed public health physicians, policy officials in the Ministry of Health and other departments, and journalists.

They floated five proposals:

[1] Creating a Smokefree Commission that could require licensing of retailers, ban sales near schools, take over wholesaling, and end the glossy branding of tobacco and cigarette packets, turning them into generic, plainly packaged products displaying only health warnings.

[2] A weaker form of the commission, with licensing, but keeping existing links between suppliers and retailers.

[3] Progressively reducing tobacco import quotas, which would probably force prices up.

[4] Changing the law to make it easier to sue tobacco firms successfully.

[5] Making the tobacco industry responsible for reducing smoking, with stiff penalties if it failed to meet targets.

There is so much wrong with this insane and evil plan that it’s hard to know where to start. Here’s a partial list:

• I find it hard to believe that anyone would be so naive as to think that this would actually reduce the consumption of cigarettes. Illegal drugs almost always come in plain packaging and as far as I know no one has said “I don’t like buying marijuana when it’s wrapped in tin foil so I’ll quit right now”.
• this is yet another example of state employees trying to tell everyone else what’s good for them
• this scheme would also be a violation of property rights, i.e. it would control what cigarette companies do with the packaging that they own (as do the current regulations)
• “take over wholesaling” – sounds like Communism to me
• banning sales near schools would be a violation of property rights that would effectively be stealing money from shop owners (by reducing their profits)
• a Commission would be yet another waste of taxpayer’s money
• licensing would be yet another compliance cost for businesses that are being bled dry by the government
• when it comes to suing tobacco companies I have no sympathy for the claimants because nowadays everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. I understand that there was a time when tobacco companies told lies and hid the truth, but even then common sense would have told people (if they’d listened) that inhaling smoke that makes you cough is bad for you. Making it easier to sue tobacco companies is a Marxist notion based on the belief that big business is bad
• making the tobacco industry responsible for reducing smoking? Have these people been smoking something that isn’t tobacco?

Where do these totalitarian nanny-state ideas come from? From a bunch of university academics of course. It’s no coincidence that these people – who are state employees – almost always come up with ideas that further the state’s plans. All around the world we see that academics are hand in glove with the state, history shows that most of the leftist ideas come from academic circles, and a great many politicians come from academic backgrounds. Why do people teach in universities (or any school)? Because they want to control what future generations think, and people who want to control other people are attracted to politics, so a move from academia to politics is perfectly natural. Just think about Helen Clark’s career.

The bottom line is this: the state has no right to control what people put into their bodies. Furthermore, it is unjust to penalise shop owners and tobacco companies when attempting to control what people put into their bodies. The state should butt out and mind its own business, because it has no business taking an interest in tobacco in any way whatsoever (no pun intended).

I hope to see a free world where shops can sell whatever they like to whoever wants to buy it and each smoker bears the cost of their decisions, rather than having taxpayers bear the cost when they are dying of emphysema. The cost of health insurance would be a true and just disincentive for smokers.

What do you think about this proposal and the points that I have raised?

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Related posts:

The pointless death of an undercover policeman

The minimum drinking age

Sue Kedgely can’t force people to live healthy lives

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• Containers might create slum prisons

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The NZ Herald has an article entitled “Containers may create ‘slum prisons’ – advocate“. It begins thus:

A 60 bed container unit will be built at Rimutaka Prison but a prisoner advocate has concerns that the containers could create “tin shanties and slum prisons”.

Howard League for Penal Reform president Peter Williams, QC, said the containers are for shifting goods, not housing people.

Personally, I’ve always thought that every prison is a slum. Visiting Paremoremo and Mt Eden prisons (voluntarily ) didn’t cause me to change this opinion.

Williams goes on to say

He said the important aspect was to keep them air-conditioned and heated in winter.

“Without air-conditioning or heating in the winter, they are almost unlivable,” Mr Williams said.

As far as I know the graves of murder victims don’t have air conditioning (yes, I know, it’s a specious argument). I’ve stayed in an old, unlined single man’s forestry hut during snow and it wasn’t “unlivable”. Practically any dwelling that keeps out the rain and wind is livable: I’ve read about people living in Alaskan huts where there was ice on the bed spreads and nails popping out of the walls. Some of them wrote about it so they must have survived.

What does Williams expect? Butlins? He is a leftie so he probably views prisoners as oppressed victims who really need a restorative holiday, instead of being subject to restorative justice.

What do you think about the use of converted shipping containers as prison cells?

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• Useless public transport information service

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Today someone in Auckland told me that the buses were on strike and that they’d heard nothing about it. This led me to having a look at Maxx website – which is supposed to be the one-stop-shop for public transport information in Auckland – and found no mention of the strike there.

I then had a look at the NZ Bus website: NZ Bus runs the Metrolink, North Star, Waka Pacific and Go West buses in Auckland. It’s the biggest bus company in Auckland, they were affected by the strike, and for some insane reason they run four brands and confuse their passengers by doing so. Anyway, sure enough, there’s a press release on their website which announce the stop work meeting and the disruption of service.

Now get this: the press release is dated 30 July and announces that there will be four-hour stop work meetings on 4 and 6 August, together affecting the vast majority of Auckland’s bus services. The people running the Maxx website had at least 4 days to put the information there but they didn’t. Surely that is a useless public transport information service.

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This is what happens when we have monopolistic government services that aren’t accountable to the public in any meaningful way. In a free market the profit motive keeps companies honest because if they treat their customers in the way that Maxx does those customers vote with their wallets and go elsewhere.

Did you hear any advance publicity regarding the strike?

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