Been away for about 10 days: travelled to Auckland & then went down the west coast. Some impressions.

New Zealand is quite beautiful. Wellington is so nauseatingly politically correct that they are still selling “I love Helen badges”.

You can get sunburnt surfing on a cloudy day, when it is raining. Being sunburnt is awful.

Hotels are as cheap as motels, but motels have more room. When you are travelling with teenage boys, you need room.

You can keep a teenage boy away from electronics for about 72hours then he will go into withdrawal.

The City of God, the eternal city, was descroned by Augustine. He claimed that the verses such as this related not to any nation or people, but to the city to come, an invisible kingdom, which is not of this world.

Psalm 46

1God is our refuge and strength,a very present help in trouble.

2Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

3though its waters roar and foam,though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah

4There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,the holy habitation of the Most High.

5God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;God will help it when the morning dawns.

6The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;he utters his voice, the earth melts.

7The LORD of hosts is with us;the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Friday, January 8, 2010.

In this world was are asked to fear and act to prevent many things: glonbal warming, invasion by this group or that. We do not fear. We do no tneed to enslave ourselves to the ideology of this day.

For our citizenship is elswhere. These kingdoms and nations are ephemeral: if the German, French, British, Tearist and Soviet empires fell last centure over but a few years when before they appeared permanent and threatening, we should not ewly on rhwm.

On the contrasts, the nations should fear, because they will be cast down and bult up. The nations are in tumult — but they always are in tumult.

Let is not accede to the fears prumulgated by the nations. They are not our refuge.

This is today’s reading. I’m interested in Jesus taking Lazarus will rise again literally. Mary knew he would rise again at the end of time. She had that faith: she was not a liberal appeaser (read Saducee).

And she said what we have all said at a funreal/

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”38Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Today.

However, Jesus did not take this figuratively. He asked a tomb to be opened and — when by four days the body would be decomposing — and then commanded Lazarus to come out.

In public.

It is no wonder that the Chief Priests and Scribes — both the liberal and conservative arms of Jewish religions and political life  between the Macabees and the Fall of the Temple — wanted to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus.

In the end, I really wonder how much of what we think is poetry in the Bible is sober description.

This was on the front page of the Sunday Rag. It was slashdotted. This is the best comment.

New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced in New Zealand giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life.

Who in the world thinks their “online life” can be kept secret from anyone? Good grief, you don't need to be the New Zealand Secret Service to dig around online to see what people are up to. Once again, if you don't want people to know what your doing, don't put it online for everyone including the spooks to see. The Interwebs are by their nature not private. And really, no one really cares what's on your Facebook except your uptight potential employer.

via Slashdot Your Rights Online Story | New Zealand Cyber Spies Win New Powers.

The comments in Slashdot are illuminating. The means by which the US government has interpreted the law are interesting, given search and seizure is unconsititunal without a warrant.

Now the US does not do one thing that would make it secure: profile and risk manage people. They are afraid of being called names. Like Racist. They should harden up, ignore the Islamists, and use all information, including demographics, in their intelligence and at border controls.

There are ways to keep your information private. The main one is to not go onl-ine. New ideas, sensitive ideas, should stay off the computer and off the internet. The first email around the idea makes it searchable and public. Which at some time you have to do, to document your ownership of the ideas.

In my view, the real issue is the threshold for a warrant.

The  UN cannot act as a policing agency. Full stop.  They require those nasty marines and brits to bleed and die.

The United Nations is temporarily pulling about a third of its international staff from Pakistan because of the deteriorating security situation, despite Pakistani objections to the move, U.N. and Pakistani officials said.U.N. officials said only “nonessential” staff were being moved out and the withdrawal would not affect operations to aid people displaced by fighting between Pakistan's army and the Taliban in the country's northwestern mountains, and refugees who have fled three decades of conflict in Afghanistan.”Our main priority is to continue all critical operations and to ensure that all our staff in Pakistan can operate in a safe manner,” U.N. headquarters in New York said in a written response to questions about the withdrawal. “We are also in the process of relocating a limited number of international staff for an interim period, many of whom will continue to support our operations in Pakistan from other locations.”

via U.N. Pulls Part of Staff From Pakistan on Safety Concerns – WSJ.com.

So what should one’s response be? Firstly, it is immoral to put troops into a position when they can die if there is no political will for them to complete their mission. The UN defines the term “wak horse”.

Secondly, the Pakis do have a bunch of allies. The Chinese. The US (sort of). India may have to allow the Chinese in — who have many years practice in dealing with insurrections — for the alternative is terror in India.

And Obama has to decide whether to stay in and accept that this war will be dirty, or get out, and stop being the world’s policeman — which is what his base wants. However, Obama is aware that the very base he is talking about cannot keep him in power.

In the days of the Empire, we recruited lots and lots of Pakistani men to fight and ide for the Empire. Anywhere but Pakistan.

Can anyone in the region play realpolitik as cold bloodedly as our Victorian forefathers?