“On the ninth of October 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends too. They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed. And out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions. But nothing changed in my life, except this. Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born. I’m not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I’m here to speak up for the right of education of every child.”
If you were in any way serious, you would have published something by Afghan women who actually know what they are talking about. I suggest you Google “Malalai Joya”.
it was very moving to watch footage of Pakistani child labourers making mud bricks on the television. Just small children excavating, hauling, forming, trimming bricks all day, everyday to earn the food that sustains them. Their learning- that life is about endurance.
And yes, I know the Americans in Afghanistan and drone attacks in Pakistan are an outrage.
That’s good, because Malala Yousafzei is certainly not allowed to state that truth. If she did, of course, she would be a “terrorist” and certainly not tolerated as a “spokesperson” for anything. It’s telling that one of the other stories on the link you provide is another attack on a democratically elected Arab government, which it calls, obediently, a “ruling faction.”…. http://www.euronews.com/2013/04/02/hamas-criticised-for-school-separation-of-the-sexes
She is stating her own truth and has been doing that for years, which is why she was a target in the first place (imo, of course). Whether that matches your ‘experience’ from afar is neither here nor there, Of course it matches the dominant discourse of the west, but that that is incidental, and yes, it does give her a platform that others who criticise western involvement in Pakistan or Afganistan might not so easily get. But that doesn’t detract from her aim of ensuring educational opportunities for girls. Sometimes even the interests of opposites coincide.
As for Palestine – it’s up to the people and their democratically elected leaders to work out whether separate schools is mainly for recognising cultural and religious norms, or whether it is about marginalising girls’ education. Time will tell, but people who don’t trust the motivations of the elected representatives have a right to voice concern – as in any country (again, imo – I’m strange like that, thinking a electors has a right to disagree with those they elected).
As for ‘ruling faction’ take how you will, but Hamas doesn’t govern Palestine does it? So it can’t be called a government, unless you have somehow converted the Gaza strip into a fully-fledged nation-state. I would have called them the ‘ruling body’ or ‘ruling council’, but that’s just because it sounds better to my English-as-a-first-language ear.
She is delivering a partial, carefully monitored narrative. If you are serious, you will watch Malalai Joya, who is not afraid of speaking the whole truth…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZhQLbvgEw
I recommend you watch the whole thing, of course, but if you are pressed for time, you should go straight to 17:34 for images of the fine work on behalf of freedom and democracy in Afghanistan carried out by the US “Kill Team” Task Force 373.
As for ‘ruling faction’ take how you will, but Hamas doesn’t govern Palestine does it?
Your ignorance is astounding. Hamas won the only full and fair democratic election in the whole of the middle east in 2006.
“Your ignorance is astounding. Hamas won the only full and fair democratic election in the whole of the middle east in 2006.”
Your reading skills leave something to be desired as well. You might care to try again and look where I said “As for Palestine – it’s up to the people and their democratically elected leaders”… My point was technical – they are not the government of Palestine – the potential homeland that included Gaza and the West Bank – if the world got it’s act together. That was what they elections were for in 2006. Despite winning the election they do not control the Palestinian Legislative Council, they administer only Gaza.
You know, sometimes you’re so arrogant, so sure of your knowledge and cynical about other people’s knowledge and keen to ‘correct’ them you can’t even be bothered to do more than skim read, it seems. Hence you miss quite a lot from people who might actually agree with some bits that you may present. And then you’re just straight out rude.
Gaza is a locked ghetto, controlled, oppressed and harassed daily by the Israeli regime. The Hamas government, elected by free and fair elections in 2006, has about the same power as the Judenrat had in the Warsaw Ghetto.
You know, sometimes you’re so arrogant, so sure of your knowledge and cynical about other people’s knowledge and keen to ‘correct’ them you can’t even be bothered to do more than skim read, it seems. Hence you miss quite a lot from people who might actually agree with some bits that you may present. And then you’re just straight out rude.
Yes, you’re right, rosy. I recognize you are an intelligent and concerned person, and I do agree with what you say, almost all of the time. There are certainly cynical and nasty people who lurk on this board; I’ll try to save my worst for them, not the good guys.
Malala is a light in a dark world. She inspires and will inspire hope and courage in millions of crushed and misused girls.
She may only inspire cynicism for you though…
What a foolish and obtuse post. The cynicism here is the fact this girl, whose country endures daily terror at the hands of the United States, is speaking at the U.N. and is not allowed to state that truth. This girl is only sixteen, and no doubt she is genuine, but she is being used by people who really are cynical—murderously cynical. I note that one of the people smiling vacantly and indulgently behind her is that corpse Ban Ki Moon.
You need to find out what “cynical” actually means before you spray that word around.
Your mode of dialogue Morrissey is often denigrating or self-congratulatory.
However, i get that you want to debate politics, not the message that Malala, this tough independent thinking young woman was bravely and eloquently communicating in one of the world’s great forums.
You may ‘cynically’ beleive that she is being used, you may ‘cynically’ think that she is ‘not being allowed to speak the truth’ (your opinion of ‘truth’ btw) and you may ‘cynically’ think that others who don’t want to focus on what you are focussing on are foolish or obtuse. That’s your right in a blog. I just don’t like your attitude or style – and that’s my right.
My comment was to respect Malala the individual, who has been through so much over the past 3 years, and who is clearly an inspiration to so many.
Your mode of dialogue Morrissey is often denigrating or self-congratulatory.
There was nothing self-congratulatory in what I wrote; my purpose was to remind you of your profligate and inaccurate use of language.
You may ‘cynically’ beleive that she is being used, you may ‘cynically’ think that she is ‘not being allowed to speak the truth’ (your opinion of ‘truth’ btw)…
I see you are still at it. You obviously did not check what “cynical” means. And you are now trying to say that the truth is something we all make up, as if what is being done in Afghanistan and Pakistan every day is merely in our minds.
My comment was to respect Malala the individual, who has been through so much over the past 3 years, and who is clearly an inspiration to so many.
Nonsense. If you had any respect for Malala Yousafzei, you would acknowledge the constraints she is under, and acknowledge the political uses she is being put to, with the utmost cynicism. (Look it up.)
Your views on how you think Malala is ‘being used’ have crowded out any possible acceptance that Malala deserves respect
But maybe you do respect her courage and her desire to promote the right of education for girls? If you do then it doesn’t reflect in any of your comments.
If you don’t respect her as a human being because you believe that she is ‘being used’ or is insincere, then imo …. you are cynical. I could have used the words heartless, or jaded, or disrespectful, but i thought cynical was a better fit.
Your attempt to impel this discussion towards a debate on what’s going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan is not what this is about.
Your views on how you think Malala is ‘being used’ have crowded out any possible acceptance that Malala deserves respect
Nowhere have I suggested she does not deserve respect. She is a brave girl. But she is being used by brutal and cynical politicians. Either you realize that and are simply pretending to be obtuse, or you approve of their cynical manipulation of her as an exhibit to somehow justify what “our” troops and drones are doing to her country.
I note that you sarcastically place the phrase ‘being used’ in quote marks, as if she is not being used.
I could have used the words heartless, or jaded, or disrespectful, but i thought cynical was a better fit.
You still don’t have a clue about the language you so ineptly use.
Your attempt to impel this discussion towards a debate on what’s going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan is not what this is about.
So it is MY attempt to impel this discussion towards politics, is it? You really are naïve if you think that the British and U.S. regimes parading this girl as an exhibit is anything other than politics of the most shameful, craven and hypocritical stripe.
well, Morrisey you have well and truly made your point that you think ‘cynicism’ is defined by the way in which Malala is, in your word, “being used” by the UN and “British and U.S. regimes”.
furthermore you continue to berate my use of language…. really? Your use of language is imo loaded and emotive – viz: “parading this girl as an exhibit is anything other than politics of the most shameful, craven and hypocritical stripe”
But i’m pleased that this little exchange has resulted in your comment: “Nowhere have I suggested she does not deserve respect. She is a brave girl.”
And with that in mind i’d like to add that nowehere in all my comments on this thread have a denied that there may be people who have engineered the publicity afforded to Malala in order to ‘cynically’ serve their own ends.
You argue your points very well, locus. I concede that my comments about you were overly harsh and, indeed, even unfair. Your reading of Malala is more nuanced than I gave you credit for—and it appears, on further inspection, that you DO know what “cynical” means.
As they say in parliament, I withdraw and apologize.
When Key came to power, he looked over the various proposals and had a word to SkyCity. I don’t care a jot that this is not exactly how things are supposed to be done in public project tenders. It was just the sort of touch I had hoped he would possess.
Right wing commentator coming right out and saying that he likes corruption in his political heroes. Nothing plainer. What is worrisome is that the current moral/political environment means that Roughan feels enabled to say it.
This is in the Herald this morning – Clare Trevett’s column.
” The coverage of the whole “man-ban” issue has exposed the party’s fundamental flaws: its factions, the tensions between the caucus and the party, and the perception that the party is overly concerned with issues of identity.
Amid the leadership issues, there has been a serious debate internally in Labour this week about the wisdom of Maryan Street promoting her euthanasia private members’ bill.
Labour is terrified it will be drawn out of the ballot.
The debate would extend into election year and give the Conservatives another platform to boost its support as a potential partner for a third-term National Government. ”
My Comment : Labour MPs need to concentrate on issues of real importance to its people – the lack of jobs, housing,
the decline in the health of rivers, lakes and beaches, whatever Tony Ryall is doing to undermine our public health system …., the list is endless. And maybe if Labour MPs did that, instead of playing with side issues it would start to get some traction in the polls. Maybe !
All is forgiven Shearer/Goff …. please just keep drifting the Labour Party into sustained decline as you are.
You can always rely on the gloriously loyal Trevett.
The theme I would encourage them to publicize is basic hope to get a better life … because with this degree of inequality, and in such a cold winter, there sure ain’t much, and people need some.
Hope of as better life? Perhaps the euthanasia bill is what is needed with a third Tory term.
Which reminds me: just because a Labour MP is pushing for a euthanasia bill, it doesn’t mean that Labour can’t focus on important issues of income, job and benefit inequity. Its not the euthanasia bill’s fault that Labour can’t get its act together on political economy issues which have more public resonance.
I can’t help but think, CV, that somewhere in NZ there’s a university-educated, lesbian, Māori policy analyst with political ambitions and a partner with a terminal illness, who managed to irk you in some way…
Huh? What and where is the clamour for the euthanasia bill?
This is the euthanasia bill for terminally ill patients, rather than the terminally incompetent current Labour leadership team and their stubborn backers and careerists?
Audrey Young has an interesting take on the issue. She says
“Cunliffe is the candidate that National believes is the greatest threat to John Key. Several ministers have said so privately. By that reasoning he is the candidate that Labour should choose.
He has behaved well for eight months now, with no undermining of the leader. He is a polished performer.
According to DigiPoll he would be the preferred replacement by 31.8 per cent of all voters (against 16.6 for Robertson and 13.5 for Little) and 37.7 per cent of Labour voters (19.1 for Robertson and 14 for Little).
His detractors believe that were he to be elected leader, the wider electorate would tire of him quickly, as many of his colleagues have.
Robertson is a less polarising figure, not tested as a minister, respected in Parliament and in the party but less known by the public.
His backers installed Shearer, the complete novice.”
To my mind if there is to be a new leader (and there can there not be?) let’s not try and predict who ahead of time. That’s why there’s a process. Having said that to my way of thinking its Cunliffe’s time. There is no way to predict the electorate’s reaction until it happens. But it can’t be worse than this. And I believe it will be a whole lot better.
I do not buy the story that Cunliffe is hard to work with – if the people in his electorate do not find him hard to work with and the people who have had him as a consultant to their businesses did not find him hard to work with, I do not see why the Labour caucus are the exception.
Instead I think that in choosing David Shearer Labour made an analogous choice to that of the Maori Party when it chose to go into coalition with National, the justification being that “you can make more gains at the table than you can away from it.” In Labour’s case, the table in question most likely includes lobbyists for the NZ elites as well as defenders of US interests. The problem in both cases is that power is so now concentrated and the demands of the powerful so antithetical to the interests of most citizens that the gains from subservience are no more than fig leaves which are not sufficient to cover a “sold out” status. Meanwhile, it is left to the legal fraternity, the HRC and John Campbell to defend the rights of New Zealanders.
I do not buy the story that Cunliffe is hard to work with…
Agreed. It’s a load of bollocks. It should be remembered that the MSM, almost without exception, pushed the ‘Shearer for leader’ line as hard as they could. Like their political counterparts they can’t admit to being wrong (maybe) so they drop in a supposed Cunliffe negative to save face.
“His (cunliffe’s) detractors believe that were he to be elected leader, the wider electorate would tire of him quickly, as many of his colleagues have………. Robertson is a less polarising figure, not tested as a minister, respected in Parliament and in the party but less known by the public.”
Cunliffe’s caucus detractors just don’t get it ! They installed Shearer, they’ve watched him muck up, and they STILL think they know best as to what the electorate wants. Robertson hasn’t had Cabinet experience – how can they possibly think he (or Little for that matter) could become Prime Minister.
Putting inexperienced people into the leadership position is doing us all a huge disservice.
ps Don’t know what’s happening with the italics – that’s meant to just be for the quoted bit.
Those who screwed up TWICE should not be players in the next step of the Leadership selection.
Shearer is a about to resign. It is weeks away. Goff, King, Mallard and a few more should announce their retirement at the next election at the same time.
Robertson has to stand down as Deputy at the same time.
Naaa Robertson should never be leader. He is one of those people that is destined to stand in the background and work there. Thats where he is good, but if he tried to step up then, Oh dear the Fat Controller has delusions of Grandeur. But who else apart from Cunliffe could lead the party AND unite the voters?
Cunliffe. Articulate, knows policy inside out, is a little arrogant but hell with his credentials he can afford to be.
Robertson?? The Fat Controller destined to be in the Background.
Little?? Has the Personality of an Envelope
Jones?? Porno anyone
\and on it goes ad infinitum. The rest are wanna be’s in comparison!
This is beautiful
Make her Prime Minister of Ireland.
Clare Daly Irish politician calls it out like it is by labeling Obama a hypocrite and a war criminal.
I suspect embarrassing and politically fatal emails or personal details about that MP would be revealed any time it looked like she might actually succeed.
Uncle Bain says nephew did it, not brother.
Nick-picking which family member was the mass
murderer. Oh wait, Uncle Bain speaks with such
authority, would rather his brother son be the
culprit. Something went wrong with that family,
and he can’t say he’s not part of that family and
also be so very much a part of the family.
Sweden to send Judge to London, and will pass
judgment by holding court over Assauge in Ecuadorean? Embassy,
if found guilty Sweden will build a cell in the
embassy for Assuage to serve his sentence.
oh, wait, Sweden is a pragmatic liberal democracy.
Atheist say on National Radio we need the God idea.
oh, wait, like the idea could be ignored and thrown
into the darkness of historical curiosity, I wish.
Claiming the distorting, the early mistakes on the road
to science and morality, ‘God’ was and still is a
necessity is true, but really, isn’t there much better
stuff on our rise to self-awareness, self-reflection.
National party, will grow NZ with gutter capitalism.
Gambling outlet to fund unethical conference centre.
Oh, wait, conference cancelled as big corporation
did not wish to be associated with growth in crime and
gambling harm. Picture of child left in casino car-park
dying of thirst causes conference of water bottlers
to cancel. Oh, wait, CEO of SkyCity, totally aware of
the connection and need to distance itself from unethical
immoral practices in case a backlash occurs against gambling
(harming future profitability). Oops, another Tolkien loving
unionist cancel family trip to hobbit movies.
Crusher “Collins” policy saves cyclist life. Oh, wait,
three injured, one dead die a young driver mows them down
in Hamilton. Hamilton is now notorious for childracers
burning up the tarmac, in a car cult of excessive car rage.
No tolerance for graffiti, massive tolerance for car rage,
as yet another night of roaring cars is heard across the
Hmailton night (and day).
New study on fracking, quoting from Science magazine (can’t find the magazine link just yet) but this needs to be read and understood:
“‘Dynamic triggering’
Quakes with a magnitude of 2 or lower, which can hardly be felt, are routinely produced in fracking, said geologist William Ellsworth of the U.S. Geological Survey, an expert on human-induced earthquakes who was not involved in the study.
The largest fracking-induced earthquake “was magnitude 3.6, which is too small to pose a serious risk,” he wrote in Science.
But van der Elst and colleagues found evidence that injection wells can set the stage for more dangerous quakes. Because pressure from wastewater wells stresses nearby faults, if seismic waves speeding across Earth’s surface hit the fault it can rupture and, months later, produce an earthquake stronger than magnitude 5.
What seems to happen is that wastewater injection leaves local faults “critically loaded,” or on the verge of rupture. Even weak seismic waves from faraway quakes are therefore enough to set off a swarm of small quakes in a process called “dynamic triggering.”
“I have observed remote triggering in Oklahoma,” said seismologist Austin Holland of the Oklahoma Geological Survey, who was not involved in the study. “This has occurred in areas where no injections are going on, but it is more likely to occur in injection areas.”
Once these triggered quakes stop, the danger is not necessarily over. The swarm of quakes, said Heather Savage of Lamont-Doherty and a co-author of the study, “could indicate that faults are becoming critically stressed and might soon host a larger earthquake.”
For instance, seismic waves from an 8.8 quake in Maule, Chile, in February 2010 rippled across the planet and triggered a 4.1 quake in Prague, Oklahoma – site of the Wilzetta oil field – some 16 hours later.
That was followed by months of smaller tremors in Oklahoma, and then the largest quake yet associated with wastewater injection, a 5.7 temblor in Prague on November 6, 2011.
That quake destroyed 14 homes, buckled a highway and injured two people.
The Prague quake is “not only one of the largest earthquakes to be associated with wastewater disposal, but also one of the largest linked to a remote triggering event,” said van der Elst.
The Chile quake also caused a swarm of small temblors in Trinidad, Colorado, near wells where wastewater used to extract methane from coal beds had been injected.
On August 22, 2011, a magnitude 5.3 quake hit Trinidad, damaging dozens of buildings.
The 9.1 earthquake in Japan in March 2011, which caused a devastating tsunami, triggered a swarm of small quakes in Snyder, Texas – site of the Cogdell oil field. That autumn, Snyder experienced a 4.5 quake.
The presence of injection wells does not mean an area is doomed to have a swarm of earthquakes as a result of seismic activity half a world away, and a swarm of induced quakes does not necessarily portend a big one.
Guy, Arkansas; Jones, Oklahoma; and Youngstown, Ohio, have all experienced moderate induced quakes due to fluid injection from oil or gas drilling. But none has had a quake triggered by a distant temblor.
Long-distance triggering is most likely where wastewater wells have been operating for decades and where there is little history of earthquake activity, the researchers write.
“The important thing now is to establish how common this is,” said Oklahoma’s Holland, referring to remotely triggered quakes. “We don’t have a good answer to that question yet.”
Before the advent of injection wells, triggered earthquakes were a purely natural phenomenon. A 7.3 quake in California’s Mojave Desert in 1992 set off a series of tiny quakes north of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, for instance.
Now, according to the Science paper, triggered quakes can occur where human activity has weakened faults.
Current federal and state regulations for wastewater disposal wells focus on protecting drinking water sources from contamination, not on earthquake hazards.
“Injection-induced earthquakes, such as those that struck in 2011, clearly contribute to the seismic hazard. Quantifying their contribution presents difficult challenges that will require new research into the physics of induced earthquakes and the potential for inducing large-magnitude events. The petroleum industry needs clear requirements for operation, regulators must have a solid scientific basis for those requirements, and the public needs assurance that the regulations are sufficient and are being followed. The current regulatory frameworks for wastewater disposal wells were designed to protect potable water sources from contamination and do not address seismic safety. One consequence is that both the quantity and timeliness of information on injection volumes and pressures reported to regulatory agencies are far from ideal for managing earthquake risk from injection activities. In addition, seismic monitoring capabilities in many of the areas in which wastewater injection activities have increased are not capable of detecting small earthquake activity that may presage larger seismic events. “
Well pickle my tit. Audrey Young header “Key defaults to arrogance…..” Connecting dots at last Auds? Finally dawning how certain things happened and why? Better late than never I spose.
The Hatchet Man Speaks
Alex Gibney interviewed by Kim Hill
Radio NZ National, Saturday 13 July 2013, 8:10 a.m.
Fans of Kim Hill’s TV and radio interviews have been treated to some pretty interesting characters over the years. There was JEFFREY ARCHER in 1994, screaming furiously: “I’ve been warned about you!” There have been the slightly sad, unintentionally funny ones, such as the witless, under-prepared U.S. ambassador CHARLES SWINDELLS….
AMBASSADOR SWINDELLS: Errrrrr… Iraq is a terrorist state. HILL:[patiently but insistently] What’s the link?
….[Long, awkward pause]…
AMBASSADOR: We are attacking terrorism on all fronts. HILL: Well, no you’re not. When are you going to attack Saudi Arabia?
…[Long, embarrassing pause]…
AMBASSADOR: Uh…..
Then there are the more malevolent, sinister ones. For some reason, Hill’s most rancorous, rankly hypocritical interviewees have mostly been Englishmen. Who could ever forget the thuggish Blair cabinet minister GEOFF HOON nervelessly insisting that “weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq”? And nobody who heard it will ever forget that neo-conservative apologist and pompous blowhard WILLIAM SHAWCROSS frothing with anger after Hill confronted him with his own hypocrisy in 2004….
KIM HILL: As you eloquently say in your book, a lot of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities were committed with the sanction of the United States. SHAWCROSS:[erupting] I DID NOT SAY THAT! HILL:[coolly] No-o-o-o-o-o? SHAWCROSS:[gibbering with fury] This is an ABSURD interview! I did NOT say that! I did NOT say that!
(FACT: He DID say that.)
She also has interviewed, and generally got the better of the slimy careerist PETER HAIN, the hapless former Australian prime minister JOHN HOWARD and the buffoonish, ignorant, malicious restaurant critic-cum-political commentator A.A. GILL.
This morning, however, she interviewed someone who for sheer malice and hypocrisy makes Archer look like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Hain like Nelson Mandela, Hoon like a choir-boy and Shawcross like Albert Schweitzer. Her guest was the unspeakable ALEX GIBNEY, the director of We Steal Secrets, an Obama-friendly Soviet-style hatchet job on dissenter Julian Assange.
I’ll let Gibney speak for himself now. Unless you are an inveterate worshipper of his heartless documentaries, and a motivated hater of Julian Assange, you will not fail to notice how flippant and cynical–as well as unfunny—so many of his little wisecracks are. Nor will you fail to be shocked by the dark, Swiftian irony of some of his observations—all of it unintended by Gibney, of course….
ALEX GIBNEY: Ahhhhh, if you have a significant amount of street cred, you ahhhhhhm feel entitled to be bad. It’s like going for a jog and then coming back and having fast food!
About Father Murphy, who got away with abusing deaf children until they exposed his crimes….. GIBNEY: People who do nasty stuff like to find rationalizations for their behavior and then that lets them walk round feeling good about themselves.
About the deaf children who exposed Father Murphy…. GIBNEY: What attracted me was their heroism. They showed this was part of a systematic ahhhhhhhhhm… KIM HILL: Cover-up? GIBNEY: Yeah, cover-up.
About Pope Benedict XVI…. GIBNEY: Ratzinger used to be in the Doctrine of the Faith, which used to be the Inquisition. …. A trail of coverups. That is the REAL crime. A systematic program of covering up. The Archbishop turned on the children and told them, “YOU are to blame for bringing shame on the Church!”
KIM HILL: This Kafkaesque nightmare when nobody believed them. GIBNEY: Yes, that’s absolutely true.
KIM HILL: As you say, “Deny, minimize and blame” has been the modus operandi of the Catholic Church. Has it changed? GIBNEY:[gravely, with utmost compassion in voice] I fear not.
….[Long, pregnant pause]….
KIM HILL: Let us turn to Julian Assange. The Assangeists, as you call them, have said it’s a very unfair attack. GIBNEY: Well I think it’s religious. Ahhhh, ha ha ha ha ha ha! The Assangeistas’ have this blind faith. What my film does is to look at the way an individual has become corrupt. It’s this noble cause corruption I was talking about….. Assange was mendacious, fundamentally wrong. He was so rigid and ideological as to endanger people’s lives. His original sin was the Swedish case. He purposely conflated it with Wikileaks, said it was a put-up job by the CIA. Now, I admit that there is no evidence that anyone was hurt by the release of the Afghan war logs. I disagree with the U.S. government on this. He was reckless to publish them without redaction. This separated him from the Guardian and the New York Times. Assange was on the moral low ground just to be “pure” to his “ideals”. KIM HILL: Is it impossible that there was a conspiracy? GIBNEY: Anything is possible! Martians might invade! But it’s quite clear this is a matter between one man and two women. Everybody was saying to him, take care of it. He made a calculated decision. KIM HILL: There’s no hero in this story. Certainly you don’t think Julian Assange is a hero but neither do you believe Bradley Manning was a hero either. GIBNEY: I think he was a kind of hero. He was naive—he didn’t think through what he was doing. Bradley Manning is an “everyday” hero, not someone like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela, but an everyday hero. …. Let’s be honest. …[snicker]… I don’t think we’d like to be in a world where soldiers routinely gave up information they had sworn to keep secret.
Re Adrian Lamo, who betrayed Bradley Manning…. GIBNEY: He’s a narcissist, I think that’s clear. Manning had to reach out to someone, and he reached out to someone who turned him in.
KIM HILL: Assange asked you for a million dollars for an interview. GIBNEY: That reveals his character. … He has defiled his own cause… I think the idea of Wikileaks in its purest form is brilliant…. Assange was overcome by narcissism and noble cause corruption. That’s what the U.S. government does: “We stand for democracy and freedom, so shouldn’t we be able to waterboard a few terrorists?” NO! No, we shouldn’t!
The interview finished, thankfully, soon afterward, and the music of the great Richard Thompson soothed the outraged sensibilities of the listeners.
Then, straight after the 9 a.m. news, listeners heard this….
KIM HILL: Lots of responses to the interview with Alex Gibney. Morrissey writes, in an outraged fashion: Alex Gibney called Julian Assange “mendacious, fundamentally wrong”, “rigid” and “ideological.” He sniggered at the “talkshow hosts and senators calling for drone strikes against Assange”; he mocked Assange for thinking “I have terrible enemies and they are coming after me!”, he coldly and calculatedly compared Assange to scientologists.
If he had any integrity, Gibney would have made a documentary in cooperation with the Catholic Church, pouring scorn and heaping abuse on the deaf children who exposed the crimes of Father Murphy.
But that would not have got him lionized in Washington, of course.
Yours in disgust at fawning liberal hypocrites….
Hmmmm…. interesting logic, Morrissey.
RESULT!!!!!
Alex Gibney is the director of Silence in the House of God, a documentary about a priest who abused deaf boys, and We Steal Secrets, a government-approved character assassination of Julian Assange. Both films are showing in New Zealand soon.
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Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...
Introduction Pickleball, a rapidly growing paddle sport, has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions around the world. Its blend of tennis, badminton, and table tennis elements has made it a favorite among players of all ages and skill levels. As the sport’s popularity continues to surge, the question on ...
Abstract: Soccer, the global phenomenon captivating millions worldwide, has a rich history that spans centuries. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, but the modern version we know and love emerged through a complex interplay of cultural influences and innovations. This article delves into the fascinating journey of soccer’s evolution, ...
Tinting car windows offers numerous benefits, including enhanced privacy, reduced glare, UV protection, and a more stylish look for your vehicle. However, the cost of window tinting can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article provides a comprehensive guide to help you understand how much you can expect to ...
The pungent smell of gasoline in your car can be an alarming and potentially dangerous problem. Not only is the odor unpleasant, but it can also indicate a serious issue with your vehicle’s fuel system. In this article, we will explore the various reasons why your car may smell like ...
Tree sap can be a sticky, unsightly mess on your car’s exterior. It can be difficult to remove, but with the right techniques and products, you can restore your car to its former glory. Understanding Tree Sap Tree sap is a thick, viscous liquid produced by trees to seal wounds ...
The amount of paint needed to paint a car depends on a number of factors, including the size of the car, the number of coats you plan to apply, and the type of paint you are using. In general, you will need between 1 and 2 gallons of paint for ...
Jump-starting a car is a common task that can be performed even in adverse weather conditions like rain. However, safety precautions and proper techniques are crucial to avoid potential hazards. This comprehensive guide will provide detailed instructions on how to safely jump a car in the rain, ensuring both your ...
Graham Adams writes about the $55m media fund — When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and ...
Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
Chris Trotter writes – MELISSA LEE should be deprived of her ministerial warrant. Her handling – or non-handling – of the crisis engulfing the New Zealand news media has been woeful. The fate of New Zealand’s two linear television networks, a question which the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications ...
TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts and , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and on climate change.The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the ...
Policymakers rarely wish to make plain or visible their desire to dismantle environmental policy, least of all to the young. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent ...
I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in places like the UK, the US, and over the ditch with our good mates the Aussies. Let’s call them AUKUS, for want of a better collective term. More on that in a bit.It used to be, not long ago, that ...
TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
The Fast-track Bill, if passed, would allow three Ministers, unchallenged and unchecked, to approve the immediate extraction and exhaustion of one-off resources. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
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Part of the speech to the UN by 16 year-old Malala Yousafzei
Interestingly, nothing about the American forces who kill more people in Afghanistan than anyone.
This girl is being used, unfortunately.
Whoosh, Morrissey. Talk about missing the point completely.
To reiterate –
If you were in any way serious, you would have published something by Afghan women who actually know what they are talking about. I suggest you Google “Malalai Joya”.
If you were in any way serious I suggest you would have looked at the link and seen the first word was ‘Pakistani’.
I’m sorry, but to dismiss someone who survived what she has is pretty callous.
[And yes, I know the Americans in Afghanistan and drone attacks in Pakistan are an outrage].
it was very moving to watch footage of Pakistani child labourers making mud bricks on the television. Just small children excavating, hauling, forming, trimming bricks all day, everyday to earn the food that sustains them. Their learning- that life is about endurance.
And (not infrequently) dying from heat exhaustion on a sun baked hell scape of clay bricks…
No wonder they want to join the Taliban!
And yes, I know the Americans in Afghanistan and drone attacks in Pakistan are an outrage.
That’s good, because Malala Yousafzei is certainly not allowed to state that truth. If she did, of course, she would be a “terrorist” and certainly not tolerated as a “spokesperson” for anything. It’s telling that one of the other stories on the link you provide is another attack on a democratically elected Arab government, which it calls, obediently, a “ruling faction.”….
http://www.euronews.com/2013/04/02/hamas-criticised-for-school-separation-of-the-sexes
She is stating her own truth and has been doing that for years, which is why she was a target in the first place (imo, of course). Whether that matches your ‘experience’ from afar is neither here nor there, Of course it matches the dominant discourse of the west, but that that is incidental, and yes, it does give her a platform that others who criticise western involvement in Pakistan or Afganistan might not so easily get. But that doesn’t detract from her aim of ensuring educational opportunities for girls. Sometimes even the interests of opposites coincide.
As for Palestine – it’s up to the people and their democratically elected leaders to work out whether separate schools is mainly for recognising cultural and religious norms, or whether it is about marginalising girls’ education. Time will tell, but people who don’t trust the motivations of the elected representatives have a right to voice concern – as in any country (again, imo – I’m strange like that, thinking a electors has a right to disagree with those they elected).
As for ‘ruling faction’ take how you will, but Hamas doesn’t govern Palestine does it? So it can’t be called a government, unless you have somehow converted the Gaza strip into a fully-fledged nation-state. I would have called them the ‘ruling body’ or ‘ruling council’, but that’s just because it sounds better to my English-as-a-first-language ear.
She is stating her own truth…
She is delivering a partial, carefully monitored narrative. If you are serious, you will watch Malalai Joya, who is not afraid of speaking the whole truth….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZhQLbvgEw
I recommend you watch the whole thing, of course, but if you are pressed for time, you should go straight to 17:34 for images of the fine work on behalf of freedom and democracy in Afghanistan carried out by the US “Kill Team” Task Force 373.
As for ‘ruling faction’ take how you will, but Hamas doesn’t govern Palestine does it?
Your ignorance is astounding. Hamas won the only full and fair democratic election in the whole of the middle east in 2006.
“Your ignorance is astounding. Hamas won the only full and fair democratic election in the whole of the middle east in 2006.”
Your reading skills leave something to be desired as well. You might care to try again and look where I said “As for Palestine – it’s up to the people and their democratically elected leaders”… My point was technical – they are not the government of Palestine – the potential homeland that included Gaza and the West Bank – if the world got it’s act together. That was what they elections were for in 2006. Despite winning the election they do not control the Palestinian Legislative Council, they administer only Gaza.
You know, sometimes you’re so arrogant, so sure of your knowledge and cynical about other people’s knowledge and keen to ‘correct’ them you can’t even be bothered to do more than skim read, it seems. Hence you miss quite a lot from people who might actually agree with some bits that you may present. And then you’re just straight out rude.
….they administer only Gaza.
Gaza is a locked ghetto, controlled, oppressed and harassed daily by the Israeli regime. The Hamas government, elected by free and fair elections in 2006, has about the same power as the Judenrat had in the Warsaw Ghetto.
You know, sometimes you’re so arrogant, so sure of your knowledge and cynical about other people’s knowledge and keen to ‘correct’ them you can’t even be bothered to do more than skim read, it seems. Hence you miss quite a lot from people who might actually agree with some bits that you may present. And then you’re just straight out rude.
Yes, you’re right, rosy. I recognize you are an intelligent and concerned person, and I do agree with what you say, almost all of the time. There are certainly cynical and nasty people who lurk on this board; I’ll try to save my worst for them, not the good guys.
http://m.spiegel.de/international/world/a-910587.html
Malala is a light in a dark world. She inspires and will inspire hope and courage in millions of crushed and misused girls.
She may only inspire cynicism for you though…
Malala is a light in a dark world. She inspires and will inspire hope and courage in millions of crushed and misused girls.
She may only inspire cynicism for you though…
What a foolish and obtuse post. The cynicism here is the fact this girl, whose country endures daily terror at the hands of the United States, is speaking at the U.N. and is not allowed to state that truth. This girl is only sixteen, and no doubt she is genuine, but she is being used by people who really are cynical—murderously cynical. I note that one of the people smiling vacantly and indulgently behind her is that corpse Ban Ki Moon.
You need to find out what “cynical” actually means before you spray that word around.
Have to agree with Mozza – Unfortunately the reaction here, is exactly what the UN speech, was designed to do !
Cynical, hypocritical propaganda, at its purist, which is terribly sad.
Your mode of dialogue Morrissey is often denigrating or self-congratulatory.
However, i get that you want to debate politics, not the message that Malala, this tough independent thinking young woman was bravely and eloquently communicating in one of the world’s great forums.
You may ‘cynically’ beleive that she is being used, you may ‘cynically’ think that she is ‘not being allowed to speak the truth’ (your opinion of ‘truth’ btw) and you may ‘cynically’ think that others who don’t want to focus on what you are focussing on are foolish or obtuse. That’s your right in a blog. I just don’t like your attitude or style – and that’s my right.
My comment was to respect Malala the individual, who has been through so much over the past 3 years, and who is clearly an inspiration to so many.
Your mode of dialogue Morrissey is often denigrating or self-congratulatory.
There was nothing self-congratulatory in what I wrote; my purpose was to remind you of your profligate and inaccurate use of language.
You may ‘cynically’ beleive that she is being used, you may ‘cynically’ think that she is ‘not being allowed to speak the truth’ (your opinion of ‘truth’ btw)…
I see you are still at it. You obviously did not check what “cynical” means. And you are now trying to say that the truth is something we all make up, as if what is being done in Afghanistan and Pakistan every day is merely in our minds.
My comment was to respect Malala the individual, who has been through so much over the past 3 years, and who is clearly an inspiration to so many.
Nonsense. If you had any respect for Malala Yousafzei, you would acknowledge the constraints she is under, and acknowledge the political uses she is being put to, with the utmost cynicism. (Look it up.)
Morrissey, you really don’t get it do you.
Your views on how you think Malala is ‘being used’ have crowded out any possible acceptance that Malala deserves respect
But maybe you do respect her courage and her desire to promote the right of education for girls? If you do then it doesn’t reflect in any of your comments.
If you don’t respect her as a human being because you believe that she is ‘being used’ or is insincere, then imo …. you are cynical. I could have used the words heartless, or jaded, or disrespectful, but i thought cynical was a better fit.
Your attempt to impel this discussion towards a debate on what’s going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan is not what this is about.
Your views on how you think Malala is ‘being used’ have crowded out any possible acceptance that Malala deserves respect
Nowhere have I suggested she does not deserve respect. She is a brave girl. But she is being used by brutal and cynical politicians. Either you realize that and are simply pretending to be obtuse, or you approve of their cynical manipulation of her as an exhibit to somehow justify what “our” troops and drones are doing to her country.
I note that you sarcastically place the phrase ‘being used’ in quote marks, as if she is not being used.
I could have used the words heartless, or jaded, or disrespectful, but i thought cynical was a better fit.
You still don’t have a clue about the language you so ineptly use.
Your attempt to impel this discussion towards a debate on what’s going on in Pakistan and Afghanistan is not what this is about.
So it is MY attempt to impel this discussion towards politics, is it? You really are naïve if you think that the British and U.S. regimes parading this girl as an exhibit is anything other than politics of the most shameful, craven and hypocritical stripe.
well, Morrisey you have well and truly made your point that you think ‘cynicism’ is defined by the way in which Malala is, in your word, “being used” by the UN and “British and U.S. regimes”.
furthermore you continue to berate my use of language…. really? Your use of language is imo loaded and emotive – viz: “parading this girl as an exhibit is anything other than politics of the most shameful, craven and hypocritical stripe”
But i’m pleased that this little exchange has resulted in your comment: “Nowhere have I suggested she does not deserve respect. She is a brave girl.”
And with that in mind i’d like to add that nowehere in all my comments on this thread have a denied that there may be people who have engineered the publicity afforded to Malala in order to ‘cynically’ serve their own ends.
You argue your points very well, locus. I concede that my comments about you were overly harsh and, indeed, even unfair. Your reading of Malala is more nuanced than I gave you credit for—and it appears, on further inspection, that you DO know what “cynical” means.
As they say in parliament, I withdraw and apologize.
thanks for your civil apology Morrissey… i recognise we were talking at cross purposes
Why don’t you write your own fucking article instead of hijacking somebody else’s then you can say what you like.
Why don’t you write your own fucking article instead of hijacking somebody else’s then you can say what you like.
I often do. Have you not noticed?
Sure have. I’ve also noticed how much is cut paste and copy V’s original work. Keep it up, it gives me something else to read.
Sure have. I’ve also noticed how much is cut paste and copy V’s original work.
There’s a quota, is there? Anyway, a great deal of my stuff on this site is composed by me.
Keep it up, it gives me something else to read.
I don’t believe you read a great deal.
Love that girl!
This should be promoted to a guest post.
Who pays this prick Roughan ?
Conscience ???
Nought but a cheerleeader for foreigner ShonKey Python’s dream of New Zealand as a global financial outpost for the already obscenely wealthy.
Mums and Dads ? Kiwis ? Bah !
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10897465
I read the first sentence which was all I needed to know that it was a PR piece for SkyCity. Pure propaganda and nothing else.
I loved this bit:
Right wing commentator coming right out and saying that he likes corruption in his political heroes. Nothing plainer. What is worrisome is that the current moral/political environment means that Roughan feels enabled to say it.
Yep, MSM commenter coming straight out and saying that they like corruption as if it’s normal. This is how NZ has become corrupt.
The Old Board Room Trout Fran – at it again – with a tone of complaint – distract distract.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10897515
This is in the Herald this morning – Clare Trevett’s column.
” The coverage of the whole “man-ban” issue has exposed the party’s fundamental flaws: its factions, the tensions between the caucus and the party, and the perception that the party is overly concerned with issues of identity.
Amid the leadership issues, there has been a serious debate internally in Labour this week about the wisdom of Maryan Street promoting her euthanasia private members’ bill.
Labour is terrified it will be drawn out of the ballot.
The debate would extend into election year and give the Conservatives another platform to boost its support as a potential partner for a third-term National Government. ”
My Comment : Labour MPs need to concentrate on issues of real importance to its people – the lack of jobs, housing,
the decline in the health of rivers, lakes and beaches, whatever Tony Ryall is doing to undermine our public health system …., the list is endless. And maybe if Labour MPs did that, instead of playing with side issues it would start to get some traction in the polls. Maybe !
All is forgiven Shearer/Goff …. please just keep drifting the Labour Party into sustained decline as you are.
You can always rely on the gloriously loyal Trevett.
The theme I would encourage them to publicize is basic hope to get a better life … because with this degree of inequality, and in such a cold winter, there sure ain’t much, and people need some.
optimistic Ad
Hope of as better life? Perhaps the euthanasia bill is what is needed with a third Tory term.
Which reminds me: just because a Labour MP is pushing for a euthanasia bill, it doesn’t mean that Labour can’t focus on important issues of income, job and benefit inequity. Its not the euthanasia bill’s fault that Labour can’t get its act together on political economy issues which have more public resonance.
/sarc
I can’t help but think, CV, that somewhere in NZ there’s a university-educated, lesbian, Māori policy analyst with political ambitions and a partner with a terminal illness, who managed to irk you in some way…
Huh? What and where is the clamour for the euthanasia bill?
This is the euthanasia bill for terminally ill patients, rather than the terminally incompetent current Labour leadership team and their stubborn backers and careerists?
Audrey Young has an interesting take on the issue. She says
“Cunliffe is the candidate that National believes is the greatest threat to John Key. Several ministers have said so privately. By that reasoning he is the candidate that Labour should choose.
He has behaved well for eight months now, with no undermining of the leader. He is a polished performer.
According to DigiPoll he would be the preferred replacement by 31.8 per cent of all voters (against 16.6 for Robertson and 13.5 for Little) and 37.7 per cent of Labour voters (19.1 for Robertson and 14 for Little).
His detractors believe that were he to be elected leader, the wider electorate would tire of him quickly, as many of his colleagues have.
Robertson is a less polarising figure, not tested as a minister, respected in Parliament and in the party but less known by the public.
His backers installed Shearer, the complete novice.”
The article is at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10897462
To my mind if there is to be a new leader (and there can there not be?) let’s not try and predict who ahead of time. That’s why there’s a process. Having said that to my way of thinking its Cunliffe’s time. There is no way to predict the electorate’s reaction until it happens. But it can’t be worse than this. And I believe it will be a whole lot better.
I do not buy the story that Cunliffe is hard to work with – if the people in his electorate do not find him hard to work with and the people who have had him as a consultant to their businesses did not find him hard to work with, I do not see why the Labour caucus are the exception.
Instead I think that in choosing David Shearer Labour made an analogous choice to that of the Maori Party when it chose to go into coalition with National, the justification being that “you can make more gains at the table than you can away from it.” In Labour’s case, the table in question most likely includes lobbyists for the NZ elites as well as defenders of US interests. The problem in both cases is that power is so now concentrated and the demands of the powerful so antithetical to the interests of most citizens that the gains from subservience are no more than fig leaves which are not sufficient to cover a “sold out” status. Meanwhile, it is left to the legal fraternity, the HRC and John Campbell to defend the rights of New Zealanders.
Agreed. It’s a load of bollocks. It should be remembered that the MSM, almost without exception, pushed the ‘Shearer for leader’ line as hard as they could. Like their political counterparts they can’t admit to being wrong (maybe) so they drop in a supposed Cunliffe negative to save face.
“His (cunliffe’s) detractors believe that were he to be elected leader, the wider electorate would tire of him quickly, as many of his colleagues have………. Robertson is a less polarising figure, not tested as a minister, respected in Parliament and in the party but less known by the public.”
Cunliffe’s caucus detractors just don’t get it ! They installed Shearer, they’ve watched him muck up, and they STILL think they know best as to what the electorate wants. Robertson hasn’t had Cabinet experience – how can they possibly think he (or Little for that matter) could become Prime Minister.
Putting inexperienced people into the leadership position is doing us all a huge disservice.
ps Don’t know what’s happening with the italics – that’s meant to just be for the quoted bit.
Its also destroying what could be promising Labour political careers early on.
Those who screwed up TWICE should not be players in the next step of the Leadership selection.
Shearer is a about to resign. It is weeks away. Goff, King, Mallard and a few more should announce their retirement at the next election at the same time.
Robertson has to stand down as Deputy at the same time.
Naaa Robertson should never be leader. He is one of those people that is destined to stand in the background and work there. Thats where he is good, but if he tried to step up then, Oh dear the Fat Controller has delusions of Grandeur. But who else apart from Cunliffe could lead the party AND unite the voters?
Cunliffe. Articulate, knows policy inside out, is a little arrogant but hell with his credentials he can afford to be.
Robertson?? The Fat Controller destined to be in the Background.
Little?? Has the Personality of an Envelope
Jones?? Porno anyone
\and on it goes ad infinitum. The rest are wanna be’s in comparison!
This is beautiful
Make her Prime Minister of Ireland.
Clare Daly Irish politician calls it out like it is by labeling Obama a hypocrite and a war criminal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhUUScVZ5Hc
I suspect embarrassing and politically fatal emails or personal details about that MP would be revealed any time it looked like she might actually succeed.
Uncle Bain says nephew did it, not brother.
Nick-picking which family member was the mass
murderer. Oh wait, Uncle Bain speaks with such
authority, would rather his brother son be the
culprit. Something went wrong with that family,
and he can’t say he’s not part of that family and
also be so very much a part of the family.
Sweden to send Judge to London, and will pass
judgment by holding court over Assauge in Ecuadorean? Embassy,
if found guilty Sweden will build a cell in the
embassy for Assuage to serve his sentence.
oh, wait, Sweden is a pragmatic liberal democracy.
Atheist say on National Radio we need the God idea.
oh, wait, like the idea could be ignored and thrown
into the darkness of historical curiosity, I wish.
Claiming the distorting, the early mistakes on the road
to science and morality, ‘God’ was and still is a
necessity is true, but really, isn’t there much better
stuff on our rise to self-awareness, self-reflection.
National party, will grow NZ with gutter capitalism.
Gambling outlet to fund unethical conference centre.
Oh, wait, conference cancelled as big corporation
did not wish to be associated with growth in crime and
gambling harm. Picture of child left in casino car-park
dying of thirst causes conference of water bottlers
to cancel. Oh, wait, CEO of SkyCity, totally aware of
the connection and need to distance itself from unethical
immoral practices in case a backlash occurs against gambling
(harming future profitability). Oops, another Tolkien loving
unionist cancel family trip to hobbit movies.
Crusher “Collins” policy saves cyclist life. Oh, wait,
three injured, one dead die a young driver mows them down
in Hamilton. Hamilton is now notorious for childracers
burning up the tarmac, in a car cult of excessive car rage.
No tolerance for graffiti, massive tolerance for car rage,
as yet another night of roaring cars is heard across the
Hmailton night (and day).
New study on fracking, quoting from Science magazine (can’t find the magazine link just yet) but this needs to be read and understood:
“‘Dynamic triggering’
Quakes with a magnitude of 2 or lower, which can hardly be felt, are routinely produced in fracking, said geologist William Ellsworth of the U.S. Geological Survey, an expert on human-induced earthquakes who was not involved in the study.
The largest fracking-induced earthquake “was magnitude 3.6, which is too small to pose a serious risk,” he wrote in Science.
But van der Elst and colleagues found evidence that injection wells can set the stage for more dangerous quakes. Because pressure from wastewater wells stresses nearby faults, if seismic waves speeding across Earth’s surface hit the fault it can rupture and, months later, produce an earthquake stronger than magnitude 5.
What seems to happen is that wastewater injection leaves local faults “critically loaded,” or on the verge of rupture. Even weak seismic waves from faraway quakes are therefore enough to set off a swarm of small quakes in a process called “dynamic triggering.”
“I have observed remote triggering in Oklahoma,” said seismologist Austin Holland of the Oklahoma Geological Survey, who was not involved in the study. “This has occurred in areas where no injections are going on, but it is more likely to occur in injection areas.”
Once these triggered quakes stop, the danger is not necessarily over. The swarm of quakes, said Heather Savage of Lamont-Doherty and a co-author of the study, “could indicate that faults are becoming critically stressed and might soon host a larger earthquake.”
For instance, seismic waves from an 8.8 quake in Maule, Chile, in February 2010 rippled across the planet and triggered a 4.1 quake in Prague, Oklahoma – site of the Wilzetta oil field – some 16 hours later.
That was followed by months of smaller tremors in Oklahoma, and then the largest quake yet associated with wastewater injection, a 5.7 temblor in Prague on November 6, 2011.
That quake destroyed 14 homes, buckled a highway and injured two people.
The Prague quake is “not only one of the largest earthquakes to be associated with wastewater disposal, but also one of the largest linked to a remote triggering event,” said van der Elst.
The Chile quake also caused a swarm of small temblors in Trinidad, Colorado, near wells where wastewater used to extract methane from coal beds had been injected.
On August 22, 2011, a magnitude 5.3 quake hit Trinidad, damaging dozens of buildings.
The 9.1 earthquake in Japan in March 2011, which caused a devastating tsunami, triggered a swarm of small quakes in Snyder, Texas – site of the Cogdell oil field. That autumn, Snyder experienced a 4.5 quake.
The presence of injection wells does not mean an area is doomed to have a swarm of earthquakes as a result of seismic activity half a world away, and a swarm of induced quakes does not necessarily portend a big one.
Guy, Arkansas; Jones, Oklahoma; and Youngstown, Ohio, have all experienced moderate induced quakes due to fluid injection from oil or gas drilling. But none has had a quake triggered by a distant temblor.
Long-distance triggering is most likely where wastewater wells have been operating for decades and where there is little history of earthquake activity, the researchers write.
“The important thing now is to establish how common this is,” said Oklahoma’s Holland, referring to remotely triggered quakes. “We don’t have a good answer to that question yet.”
Before the advent of injection wells, triggered earthquakes were a purely natural phenomenon. A 7.3 quake in California’s Mojave Desert in 1992 set off a series of tiny quakes north of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, for instance.
Now, according to the Science paper, triggered quakes can occur where human activity has weakened faults.
Current federal and state regulations for wastewater disposal wells focus on protecting drinking water sources from contamination, not on earthquake hazards.
– See more at: http://www.prairiebizmag.com/event/article/id/15229/#sthash.mfbyYJOH.dpuf
http://www.prairiebizmag.com/event/article/id/15229/
This?
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6142/1225942.abstract
“Injection-induced earthquakes, such as those that struck in 2011, clearly contribute to the seismic hazard. Quantifying their contribution presents difficult challenges that will require new research into the physics of induced earthquakes and the potential for inducing large-magnitude events. The petroleum industry needs clear requirements for operation, regulators must have a solid scientific basis for those requirements, and the public needs assurance that the regulations are sufficient and are being followed. The current regulatory frameworks for wastewater disposal wells were designed to protect potable water sources from contamination and do not address seismic safety. One consequence is that both the quantity and timeliness of information on injection volumes and pressures reported to regulatory agencies are far from ideal for managing earthquake risk from injection activities. In addition, seismic monitoring capabilities in many of the areas in which wastewater injection activities have increased are not capable of detecting small earthquake activity that may presage larger seismic events. “
From the truth is stranger then fiction department tampons are more dangerous then guns in Texas.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/tampons-confiscated-texas_n_3588177.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Well pickle my tit. Audrey Young header “Key defaults to arrogance…..” Connecting dots at last Auds? Finally dawning how certain things happened and why? Better late than never I spose.
The Hatchet Man Speaks
Alex Gibney interviewed by Kim Hill
Radio NZ National, Saturday 13 July 2013, 8:10 a.m.
Fans of Kim Hill’s TV and radio interviews have been treated to some pretty interesting characters over the years. There was JEFFREY ARCHER in 1994, screaming furiously: “I’ve been warned about you!” There have been the slightly sad, unintentionally funny ones, such as the witless, under-prepared U.S. ambassador CHARLES SWINDELLS….
AMBASSADOR SWINDELLS: Errrrrr… Iraq is a terrorist state.
HILL: [patiently but insistently] What’s the link?
….[Long, awkward pause]…
AMBASSADOR: We are attacking terrorism on all fronts.
HILL: Well, no you’re not. When are you going to attack Saudi Arabia?
…[Long, embarrassing pause]…
AMBASSADOR: Uh…..
Then there are the more malevolent, sinister ones. For some reason, Hill’s most rancorous, rankly hypocritical interviewees have mostly been Englishmen. Who could ever forget the thuggish Blair cabinet minister GEOFF HOON nervelessly insisting that “weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq”? And nobody who heard it will ever forget that neo-conservative apologist and pompous blowhard WILLIAM SHAWCROSS frothing with anger after Hill confronted him with his own hypocrisy in 2004….
KIM HILL: As you eloquently say in your book, a lot of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities were committed with the sanction of the United States.
SHAWCROSS: [erupting] I DID NOT SAY THAT!
HILL: [coolly] No-o-o-o-o-o?
SHAWCROSS: [gibbering with fury] This is an ABSURD interview! I did NOT say that! I did NOT say that!
(FACT: He DID say that.)
She also has interviewed, and generally got the better of the slimy careerist PETER HAIN, the hapless former Australian prime minister JOHN HOWARD and the buffoonish, ignorant, malicious restaurant critic-cum-political commentator A.A. GILL.
This morning, however, she interviewed someone who for sheer malice and hypocrisy makes Archer look like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Hain like Nelson Mandela, Hoon like a choir-boy and Shawcross like Albert Schweitzer. Her guest was the unspeakable ALEX GIBNEY, the director of We Steal Secrets, an Obama-friendly Soviet-style hatchet job on dissenter Julian Assange.
I’ll let Gibney speak for himself now. Unless you are an inveterate worshipper of his heartless documentaries, and a motivated hater of Julian Assange, you will not fail to notice how flippant and cynical–as well as unfunny—so many of his little wisecracks are. Nor will you fail to be shocked by the dark, Swiftian irony of some of his observations—all of it unintended by Gibney, of course….
ALEX GIBNEY: Ahhhhh, if you have a significant amount of street cred, you ahhhhhhm feel entitled to be bad. It’s like going for a jog and then coming back and having fast food!
About Father Murphy, who got away with abusing deaf children until they exposed his crimes…..
GIBNEY: People who do nasty stuff like to find rationalizations for their behavior and then that lets them walk round feeling good about themselves.
About the deaf children who exposed Father Murphy….
GIBNEY: What attracted me was their heroism. They showed this was part of a systematic ahhhhhhhhhm…
KIM HILL: Cover-up?
GIBNEY: Yeah, cover-up.
About Pope Benedict XVI….
GIBNEY: Ratzinger used to be in the Doctrine of the Faith, which used to be the Inquisition. …. A trail of coverups. That is the REAL crime. A systematic program of covering up. The Archbishop turned on the children and told them, “YOU are to blame for bringing shame on the Church!”
KIM HILL: This Kafkaesque nightmare when nobody believed them.
GIBNEY: Yes, that’s absolutely true.
KIM HILL: As you say, “Deny, minimize and blame” has been the modus operandi of the Catholic Church. Has it changed?
GIBNEY: [gravely, with utmost compassion in voice] I fear not.
….[Long, pregnant pause]….
KIM HILL: Let us turn to Julian Assange. The Assangeists, as you call them, have said it’s a very unfair attack.
GIBNEY: Well I think it’s religious. Ahhhh, ha ha ha ha ha ha! The Assangeistas’ have this blind faith. What my film does is to look at the way an individual has become corrupt. It’s this noble cause corruption I was talking about….. Assange was mendacious, fundamentally wrong. He was so rigid and ideological as to endanger people’s lives. His original sin was the Swedish case. He purposely conflated it with Wikileaks, said it was a put-up job by the CIA. Now, I admit that there is no evidence that anyone was hurt by the release of the Afghan war logs. I disagree with the U.S. government on this. He was reckless to publish them without redaction. This separated him from the Guardian and the New York Times. Assange was on the moral low ground just to be “pure” to his “ideals”.
KIM HILL: Is it impossible that there was a conspiracy?
GIBNEY: Anything is possible! Martians might invade! But it’s quite clear this is a matter between one man and two women. Everybody was saying to him, take care of it. He made a calculated decision.
KIM HILL: There’s no hero in this story. Certainly you don’t think Julian Assange is a hero but neither do you believe Bradley Manning was a hero either.
GIBNEY: I think he was a kind of hero. He was naive—he didn’t think through what he was doing. Bradley Manning is an “everyday” hero, not someone like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela, but an everyday hero. …. Let’s be honest. …[snicker]… I don’t think we’d like to be in a world where soldiers routinely gave up information they had sworn to keep secret.
Re Adrian Lamo, who betrayed Bradley Manning….
GIBNEY: He’s a narcissist, I think that’s clear. Manning had to reach out to someone, and he reached out to someone who turned him in.
KIM HILL: Assange asked you for a million dollars for an interview.
GIBNEY: That reveals his character. … He has defiled his own cause… I think the idea of Wikileaks in its purest form is brilliant…. Assange was overcome by narcissism and noble cause corruption. That’s what the U.S. government does: “We stand for democracy and freedom, so shouldn’t we be able to waterboard a few terrorists?” NO! No, we shouldn’t!
The interview finished, thankfully, soon afterward, and the music of the great Richard Thompson soothed the outraged sensibilities of the listeners.
Then, straight after the 9 a.m. news, listeners heard this….
KIM HILL: Lots of responses to the interview with Alex Gibney. Morrissey writes, in an outraged fashion: Alex Gibney called Julian Assange “mendacious, fundamentally wrong”, “rigid” and “ideological.” He sniggered at the “talkshow hosts and senators calling for drone strikes against Assange”; he mocked Assange for thinking “I have terrible enemies and they are coming after me!”, he coldly and calculatedly compared Assange to scientologists.
If he had any integrity, Gibney would have made a documentary in cooperation with the Catholic Church, pouring scorn and heaping abuse on the deaf children who exposed the crimes of Father Murphy.
But that would not have got him lionized in Washington, of course.
Yours in disgust at fawning liberal hypocrites….
Hmmmm…. interesting logic, Morrissey.
RESULT!!!!!
Alex Gibney is the director of Silence in the House of God, a documentary about a priest who abused deaf boys, and We Steal Secrets, a government-approved character assassination of Julian Assange. Both films are showing in New Zealand soon.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10897071
Juror sentenced to 10 days, for contempt!
Seems reasonable.
Except allegedly he was told by court staff that he wouldn’t be needed so didn’t make arrangements with his work.
Wouldn’t it be really, really great if the, ah, ‘inert’ Labour Party signed up to this, and meant it:
http://econ4.org/statement-on-building-the-new-economy
But, alas , I fear it is frighten the horses territory.