Funny, they weren't fussed about the break-ins at the Labour Party and Alliance Party headquarters in the mid 1990s, nor the hacking of Labour's computers around 8-10 years ago.
But I'm sure the police will pull out all stops this time. When it happens to National hell that's bad, but if its Labour well, ho hum so what…
Can you provide references for you claims of break-ins and computer hacking?
The only thing I am aware of was that the Labour Party had left their membership details unprotected, which seems a bit different to the actual theft of computers. That was Cameron Slater and Graeme Edgeler at least though that no crime was committed.
"The question then is: does Cameron Slater have authority to access the server that hosts the Labour Party website? Well, it’s a publicly available website, that they put up there so that people can go to their website and download stuff from that server into their cache to read on their browsers. If Cameron doesn’t have authority (because, for example, it’s not express authority), I don’t see how any of us can lawfully look at it."
Both burglaries occurred in the lead up period to the 1996 election. Yes, I know who was behind them, but can't confirm the identities of the actual thieves who carried out the burglaries.
The Labour Party hack is well documented. Yes, there was controversy over whether it constituted a hack or not but that was just a distraction. Information was stolen from the Labour Party and the police did f**k all. In fact further down the track they actually had the gall to target Nicky Hager as a 'suspected accessory to a crime' while ignoring the criminal activities with which National’s Cameron Slater was associated.
Police bias when it comes to politically motivated criminal activity over the years has been a disgrace.
And don't forget the illegal raid on Kim Dotcom? What's happened to him?
No I am not. I have never heard of these break-ins of the Labour and Alliance Offices and I am curious what they were about. It may of course, if they were in the early part of the decade, simply be because I wasn't living here at the time.
Asking for a reference for something stated by a contributor does not seem, to me, to be in anyway a statement that you are lying. I just want to see what the story is about. I always supply, when asked, links to statements I have made. This was I thought precisely why the second paragraph of the rules for the site seems to require that justification for comments should be available.
Now are there any available links to these stories, please. I would love to see what it was that the Police refused to investigate.
Well. I apologise for jumping to conclusions. The two break-ins in 1996 were the Auckland Central Alliance Party regional headquarters and the Auckland Central Labour Party electorate office. They were linked of course and the aim of the exercise was to gather information about their campaigns. It isn't likely links are available online because of the passage of time.
And I know who ordered the break-ins.
I didn't say they "refused" to investigate but they didn't try very hard – if they tried at all. They're very good at ‘not trying’ when they don’t want to.
Thank you. As I suggested, I wasn't living in New Zealand in 1996 so it is not surprising I hadn't heard of them. I was, from early 1995 until early 1997 touring the West Island. All of it, and boy that is a lot of territory.
I shall have to track the story down offline. As you say, once you get into last century there is very little available to Googles gaze.
Stop your stalking of me and your childish venom. If I say I know who ordered the break-ins then I know who ordered the break-ins.
And yes, I had a good idea who actually did the job but couldn't be 100% sure so no, I did not go to the police. I don’t have a high opinion of the police when it comes to political criminal activity – and for very good reason that neither you nor anyone else here is privy to.
Oh, and btw you'll be delighted to hear it wasn't anyone in the National Party.
What has that got to do with the price of fish? A break-in is a break-in no matter when it happens.
Not only is it useful to compare the difference in responses, but those break-ins were politically motivated and that was a dangerous precedent and should have been taken more seriously by the police at that time.
... the raid was not illegal.
Well something was considered unlawful. I thought it was the raid itself.
You are right, an aspect of the raid was illegal, I think it was the preceding surveillance.
As for the relevance of 25 years, it is because these events are hardly quite the huge things the partisans make them out to be. So something of relatively modest consequence 25 years ago is close to being ancient history. For instance while I might have a very clear memory of what it was like on selection night in North Shore in 1995, for everyone else it is old history.
Be that as it may Wayne but while it is "ancient history" in the eyes of most people, the difference in police responses is still pertinent.
When individuals stole material/equipment for political purposes from Labour and the Alliance Party by way of unlawful entry to their premises it was no mere "modest consequence". It was dirty politics carried out with hostile intent, and caused the victims just as much consternation and anxiety as it would today.
But it was not regarded as important 23 years ago and I venture to suggest that was in part because it was… only Labour and the Alliance Party personnel who were affected.
Anyway, it is a flawed conversation now, because it looks like National’s break-in was part of opportunist burglaries in the area targeting mainly laptops.
"The only thing I am aware of was that the Labour Party had left their membership details unprotected, which seems a bit different to the actual theft of computers."
Not this again. Lay people routinely use the word hack to refer to things that tech people don't. It is normal in English for this to happen (tech vs lay language usage).
As for comparisons, most people who give their personal details to a political party don't expect those details to be accessed by political opponents for political gain. In other words, it was wrong. Let's not forget that Slater went on to orchestrate an attempt at hacking TS, amongst his many other dubious activities.
I’m unconvinced that my argument flies as well. I was thinking out loud. The arguments against it (for example, the one from lawyer Felix Geiringer in response to my comment) have quite a bit going for them. I don’t think it is clear cut.
When you put an internal link in a comment via a straight cut and paste, the system changes that to the name of the post (without all the URL detail). Your link still works.
Ok. Thanks. It just looks funny and I thought I must have screwed it up somehow. I assume this is only if the URL is the same as the place where you are posting it, which is of course what I was doing here?
I must revert to my old habit of clicking on any link I put up as soon as I post it. I always used to do it but I have gotten lazy. As you say it actually works just fine.
TS has some newish linking changes (happened while I was away). The other main one is that if you cut and paste a link to a TS comment, the link will revert back to the post (rather than the comment). The way around that is to use the html tags to insert a link.
The only thing I am aware of was that the Labour Party had left their membership details unprotected, which seems a bit different to the actual theft of computers.
The ignorant tend to call data theft "hacking" and imagine highly skilled coders wearing hoodies in dark rooms coming up with fancy ways to bypass security protocols. In reality, most of it is exactly like the example above: someone screws up and data that should have been protected is left exposed to the unscrupulous and unethical, who put time and effort into finding such exposed data. Whether you call data theft under those circumstances "hacking" or not depends on your enthusiasm for drama, but it's still data theft. If it's not illegal under our legislation, that's a problem with our legislation, not an endorsement of the theft.
But Slater is poisonous and a complete failure. His was a career in corrupt and criminal activity and that has been proven time and time again, so why on earth would anyone be fussed that he was hacked.
It's a good thing that Slater has been crushed because it rids NZ of a particularly odious form of cancer.
Solid public interest defence for publishing information derived from that theft, but didn't the hacker admit at the time it was illegal?
By contrast I've never seen Master Slater admit doing anything wrong – indeed he has wasted many a judge's time claiming absolute purity of thought and deed.
Just don’t tell Simon that Police officers are having coffees with MPs or emotional junior staffers from the electorate offices. The poor guy’s already worried sick about top cops having cups of coffee with Ministers.
I think most systems switched off 32bit and to 64 bit unix epoch times quite a long time again. I know I did. And that is even on the little Arm 32bit processors.
Most things I work on tend to use struct timeval. 64bit seconds since the unix epoch, and 64 bit micro seconds.
so according to the orange menace no one was hurt during the little bombing raid on their Airbase in Iraq by Iran.
well funny that, cause this is the second article now that speaks of wounded soldiers being evacuated due to injuries sustained during the attack.
The first eleven were evacuated to Ramstein Airbase in Germany with 'concussions' and now this diddy about 16 being evacuated to Saudi Arabia with severe injuries.
i consider the orange menace to be as competent as i considered ronald reagan to be competent, and both were/are currently adivised by the same people. its a bit the iran/contra affair redux. the iranians will be still there when america has nuked itself.
in the meant time its the boots on the ground that die.
And there was me thinking that "fatal" was like, y'know – dead?
"16 US military men with fatal injuries sustained during Iran's retaliatory missile strikes on Ain Al-Assad base earlier this month have been taken to a hospital…"
I did give the article another few secs of reading, but gave the fuck up with the Kuwaiti paper supposedly relying on "quoted [anonymous] informed sources as saying"
There were no injuries (let alone fatalities) because Iran gave prior notice of their retaliation precisely to avoid giving the US a 'go to' excuse for fucking war.
there is not one person in this admin that wants to go on record, not even the press secretary. tells you lot does it not? as for the no fatalities. yeah, right, tui.
These guys supposedly were in the hangar with the drones blahblahblah.
They had casualties and they had injuries. I am not the betting kind, but i bet you a pint.
There is a fucked up mix of war mongering "permanent state" actors and Democratic "cold war" warriors sitting right behind the US admin's "rapture" fundamentalists right now. The Iranian government is too rational and smart to offer them up an easy pretext to rain down destruction.
You really think the US wouldn't have been parading "dead babies" and getting on its moral high horse skeletal war horse given half a chance?
So yes, i think they will try to hide very much any dead bodies they may have found in the rubble, and will declare anything less then deadly injuries a 'concussions' and such.
The Iranians raised a point. Its simply “for those of us you kill we are able to take a few of yours”. Your turn.
I don't think thew White House would keep it quiet – that place leaks like a seive.
Whether the military would tell the white house anything that could be a c. belli is up for grabs – especially if the story about dolt45 choosing the artificial "worst option" of openly killing a sitting Iranian general is true.
The US military needs a break to retrain, recover, and refocus. Organisationally they're exhibiting classic overwork signs: navy ships are failing at basic things like navigating waterways without colliding with other ships, air crew are being killed because training hours are so low, soldiers are being deployed from combat theatre to combat theatre without a break in between.
Policy is one thing, the military-industrial complex is another, but admirals and generals know that if they're the ones in charge when something hits the papers that can seriously affect their post-military careers. Oh, and some of them probably care about their organisations, as well.
tl;dr: the US military wants to get ready for a near-peer confrontation, not another counter-insurgency in ME. This might affect whether they report precisely to the war-mongering white house injuries as being of US service personnel (vs contractors) occurring as a direct result of enemy action (no it was flying glass splinters and air pressure problems wot done it) and even (although I think this one is slightly farther-fetched) "no the attack was in Iraq and this soldier died in Saudi Arabia".
edit: although the US military is not really a monolith, either, so who knows
essentially the problem of poor recruiting and quality of recruit. Instate the draft and throw a bit of money to training and voila a little soldier is created to go kill kill kill.
and yes, the pentagon is gonna lie about this, in a way. They admit to people hurt but its only a bit of 'headache' a concussion so its nothing. And frankly who would care about Jonny and Jane Sixpack from somewhere US. No one. They get injured and die every other day currently in Iraq and Afghanistan and no one gives a care. These guys are nothing but tiny little blibs. There, gone. Kanonenfutter .
It's not even a recruiting problem as such – like any machine, every so often chunks of it need down-time for preventive maintenance. But yeah, if you step on the accelerator you burn through more fuel, and people are the fuel of armed forces.
Three service members were flown to a facility at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and the others were sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany after displaying signs of concussions, defense officials said Thursday. Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said Friday that al Asad is not outfitted with an MRI machine or other tools necessary for advanced brain injury examinations.
As a standard procedure, all personnel in the vicinity of a blast are screened for traumatic brain injury, and if deemed appropriate are transported to a higher level of care,” Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in a prepared statement.
Kinda like how they do for 'sonic attacks' being unleashed on embassy staff on small Caribbean islands? (Oh. And China too…not to forget being microwaved by pesky Russians…) 🙄
You don't think that a skeletal presence was maintained following Iran telling Iraq where and when missiles were going to strike? Because just maybe there was some precautionary thing around equipment or what not being left around an entirely abandoned base? Maybe 11 or so volunteers holed up in bunkers/shelters to give an instant evaluation of damage? Maybe given a "once over" for possible effects of percussion from blasts?
I've had considerable personal contact with various Iranian people, they are widely misrepresented and misunderstood in the West. I'm assuming the Western media has fucked up this latest episode as usual.
Peeps will no doubt make of this what they will…in spite of what's actually being said.
Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Setareh Sadeqi, a PhD candidate at the University of Tehran who lost family friends in the tragic Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crash. Anya and Setareh discuss recent protests in Iran sparked by the crash, which western media have framed as an popular anti-government uprising. They also talk about the recent crackdown on Iranian news and social media accounts online, including the censorship of Press TV UK.
All I know for certain is the theocratic Iranian regime are not people whom the liberal left in the west should entertain as 'allies' in any sense of the word. No matter how anti-American they may be.
I dunno … maybe it was when I was standing next to the Iranian on the phone to his family back home, when they were explaining to him how much the government was charging them for the bullets used to execute his father. But that was a few decades ago now; maybe the leaders of this regime have transformed themselves into really nice people since.
But I tell you what, you engage with the cite I gave, and I'll give your one a go.
No it was in 1981 in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, when members of the Baha'i Faith were executed. One of them was my flatmate at the time.
The bringing of fire to the Canadian Inuit was later …
I did engage with the cite 🙄 you gave. It's junk. The very first sentence is a bit of give away – referring to the assassination of Soleimani simply as "the death of", before going to on and attempting to turn corporate media reporting upside down (I haven't seen evidence of corporate media lionizing Soleimani as claimed in that link)…and he didn't foster instability in "Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen" as claimed. Neither did he lead "a group of armed thugs"…and that's just the first fucking paragraph!
But hey. I guess when the author of the piece is a former case officer who conducted operations against nuclear proliferation and terrorism for the CIA's National Clandestine Service , then a leetle bias might be par for the course, aye? 😉
You read any of his other stuff? The guy's a bit of a hoot.
Anyway. I gave you a link to an Iranian student living in Iran giving her perspective on recent events. Now I know she ain’t no ‘Bana of Aleppo’ and therefor unlikely to be courted by western media or western opinion, but hey…
Well using the same logic I feel zero obligation to trust your source either. I mean at least you can know who mine is, this student you reference, who knows?
So you just read stuff and other stuff and it's all stuff and you haven't equipped yourself of any critical faculty that might help you discern if agendas may, are, or are not in play? And so can't navigate information…
So what do you do?
Are you akin to those liberals who smear anyone not adhering to "the script" that comes down from on governmental/corporate high?
Given the gaslighting in response to my initial comment, I guess that might be the case, aye?
Correct me if I'm wrong please, but I've read you as being consistently anti-American for a very long time. Your immediate response to dismiss any source who has previously worked in American intelligence is indicative of this. And you are certainly not alone in this bias, there are plenty of other lefties here who routinely fulminate on the putative evils of American empire.
Like all empires it has certainly had it's inglorious moments. But the notion that it's record is nothing but evil incarnate is a nonsense. What none of ever do is ask the simple question "compared to what?". What other post-WW2 counterfactual empire would have been any better by comparison? The idea that absent the Americans the world might have been a peaceful nirvana is entirely unsupported by any reasoned interpretation of history at all.
And yes all sources have their bias. It's knowing what it is that's useful.
As for good analysis coming from ex-intelligence community types and such like, well…there's Snowden and Gen Lawrence Wilkerson, and Scott Ritter just off the top of my head. And of course, there are others (ex military etc) whose names aren't coming to mind right now.
And I've no idea why you reckon I think the world would be shangri-la if the US empire was no more.
So your happy with the hard right militant Salafist Islamist crowd then Redlogix? Because that is what the US has been supporting, and that is a problem. But my real issue with you logic, is to kill the guy who helped knock off ISIS, is a real kick in the teeth to anyone who supports the rights and freedoms of people.
The left should align with people not governments on that we can agree?
Because the reality on the ground is the US is an empire, and Iran is not, no matter how shit their government is. If we support empire and empire games we are no better than the imperialist of the past – who were always the enemy of the economic freedom and rights of people at large.
So your happy with the hard right militant Salafist Islamist crowd then Redlogix?
What on earth would make you think that? I'm on record here for years as being highly critical of zealots and fundamentalists of all kinds.
But my real issue with you logic, is to kill the guy who helped knock off ISIS, is a real kick in the teeth to anyone who supports the rights and freedoms of people.
Does this mean that the enemy of enemy is always my friend? For example was the West supposed to then cuddle up to the mass murderer Stalin in the aftermath of WW2?
If we support empire and empire games we are no better than the imperialist of the past
Again I’m consistently on record as being opposed to empire and the only regular here who has constructively proposed an alternative future without it.
For example was the West supposed to then cuddle up to the mass murderer Stalin in the aftermath of WW2?
No, but the west acted in a similar manner, and Iran is a good example of that. The west established a far right government which eventually gave rise to the islamic revolution. Let's talk central america, how much mass murder with the support of the west?
The west is not pure here, and the elephant in the room is the US has acted more and more like Imperalist arseholes since WW2.
Again I’m consistently on record as being opposed to empire and the only regular here who has constructively proposed an alternative future without it.
I think you think to much of your opinion. I hardly found your solutions reasonable nor constructive, some yes – but many of you suggestions are just the same old, same old, with a big dose of sleight of hand.
Like everyone else your own ideological prejudice get in the way. Hey I'm no different in that regard. We all do it.
Back to the point, all sides are lying – but the side with the ability to wipe the other side off the face of the planet is the one I want to hold the preverbal gas light to. The one in the more powerful position has more of a responsibility to act in good faith, and it's not.
For example if I had 100kg of TNT around your house and started a fight with you – is it my responsibility to not light the TNT because I'm angry or is it yours?
I hardly found your solutions reasonable nor constructive, some yes – but many of you suggestions are just the same old, same old, with a big dose of sleight of hand.
I didn't ask you to agree with them, just to acknowledge my consistent track record in proposing a detailed vision beyond 'the age of the nation state empire'.
There really is only one path forward from here, a universal vision of a united humanity, a global moral horizon and a political framework to implement this at the same scale.
That the same Dershowtitz "respectable" liberal intelligentsia have been happy enough to give a pass to as long as he was smearing Jewish critics of Israel as antisemites? That Dershowitz?
also at least one opinion piece about how lowering the age of consent to 15 and maybe even fifteen and no claims of anything irrespective of how old the partner is. Oh gosh golly me. And he was friends with someone who liked his girls very young. Good grief. But hey Harvard or something.
It varies a lot. Age of consent laws can be quite complex, but 14 is not uncommon, Germany and China being two examples. 16 is probably the most common age, while at the other extreme is South Korea at 20.
the insurance companies must be quaking in their boots. I would like to see some numbers on total write offs, etc. It is just one thing after the other.
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
ANALYSIS:By Jennifer S. Hunt, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit different. If the last US presidential inauguration in 2017 debuted the phrase “alternative facts”, the ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby In spite of Papua New Guinea’s mandatory mask-wearing requirement under the National Pandemic Act 2020, many public servants attending a dedication service in Port Moresby have failed to wear one. They were issued masks before entering the Sir John Guise Indoor Complex but took ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University How do scabs form? — Talila, aged 8 Great question, Talila! Our skin has many different jobs. One is to act as a barrier, protecting us from harmful things in the ...
US President Donald Trump is pardoning former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who is accused of fraud in a case involving funds for the border wall. ...
Joel Little with Lorde, Dera Meelan with Church & AP, Josh Fountain with Maala and Randa and Benee – producers make good songs great. Now a new fund from NZ on Air is putting the focus on them.Six months ago it looked like the music industry was on the brink ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denise Buiten, Senior Lecturer in Social Justice and Sociology, University of Notre Dame Australia On average, one child is killed by a parent almost every fortnight in Australia. Last week, three children — Claire, 7, Anna, 5, and Matthew, 3 — were ...
This commendable and realistic decision again underlines that it is the police, not government, who are largely responsible for the reduction in cannabis prosecutions over the past 15 years, writes Russell Brown.The news that New Zealand police have discontinued the annual Helicopter Recovery Operation, which has, each summer for more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Noy, Professor and Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington We will not be able to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us until the world’s population is mostly immune through vaccination ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s US inauguration live blog: inauguration news, analysis and reaction, updated throughout Wednesday and Thursday, NZ time. Reach me at catherine@thespinoff.co.nz.4.00pm: What will Trump be doing tomorrow?It’s pretty well known by now that outgoing president Donald Trump intends to throw out the rulebook when it comes to ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is calling out Mayor Phil Goff for his undignified comment that the claim made by Councillor Greg Sayers asking why Auckland Council is funding yoga classes is “bullshit.” Yesterday, Councillor Greg Sayers penned ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne At 4am Thursday AEDT, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be inaugurated as president and vice president of the United States, replacing Donald Trump and Mike Pence. What follows is ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission. New Zealanders flocked to beaches and lakes this summer, but it wasn't enough to fill the gap left by international tourists in other regions. The tourism industry is struggling to fill a $6 billion hole left by international tourists ...
Summer reissue: Chef Monique Fiso joins us for a chat about Hiakai – her acclaimed Wellington restaurant, and the title of her stunning new book.First published November 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn ...
A new trough was brought to our attention this morning, although ethnicity will limit the numbers of eligible applicants. If you are non-Maori, it looks like you shouldn’t bother getting into the queue – but who knows?We learned of the trough from the Scoop website, where the Kapiti ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Britta Denise Hardesty, Principal Research Scientist, Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, CSIRO Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing costs economies up to US$50 billion globally each year, and makes up to one-fifth of the global catch. It’s a huge problem not only for the ...
Police stopping major cannabis eradication operations has given the green light to drug dealers and gangs to expand operations, make more profit, and continue to wreak havoc on the most vulnerable in our society, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. ...
Varieties of merino wool footwear are emerging faster than Netflix series about British aristocracy. Michael Andrew takes a look at the rise of the shoe that almost everyone – including his 95-year-old grandma – is wearing.Some might say it all started with Allbirds. After all, to the average consumer, it ...
A new report from New Zealand’s Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) highlights the realities and challenges disabled people faced during the COVID-19 emergency. The report, Making Disability Rights Real in a Pandemic, Te Whakatinana i ngā Tika ...
The Maritime Union is questioning the reasons provided for ongoing delays at the Ports of Auckland. Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Craig Harrison says there is a need for an honest conversation about what has gone wrong at the ...
As New Zealand faces a dire shortage of veterinarians, a petition has been launched urging the Government to reclassify veterinarians as critical workers so we can Get Vets into NZ. “New Zealand desperately needs veterinarians from overseas to counter ...
New Zealand is fast developing a reputation as a South Pacific vandal, says Greenpeace, as the government continues to fight against increased ocean protection. At the upcoming meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), ...
The Department of Internal Affairs and Netsafe are urging parents and caregivers to be mindful of the online content their tamariki may be consuming in the lead up to the inauguration of president-elect of the United States of America Joe Biden ...
Care is at the centre of Auckland Zoo’s mandate, and it’s clear to see when you witness the staff doing their day-to-day jobs up close. Leonie Hayden went behind the scenes to talk to two people who would do anything for the animals they look after. “We were having this ...
The Game Animal Council (GAC) is applying its expertise in the use of firearms for hunting to work alongside Police, other agencies and stakeholder groups to improve the compliance provisions for hunters and other firearms users. The GAC has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Verica Rupar, Professor, Auckland University of Technology “The lie outlasts the liar,” writes historian Timothy Snyder, referring to outgoing president Donald Trump and his contribution to the “post-truth” era in the US. Indeed, the mass rejection of reason that erupted in a ...
The internet ain’t what it used to be, thanks to privacy issues, data leaks, censorship and hate speech. But a group of New Zealanders are working on a way to give power back to the people. A flood of headlines over the last week made it clear: the internet has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW’s Grand Challenges Program, UNSW The views of women and men can differ on important gendered issues such as abortion, gender equity and government spending priorities. Surprisingly, however, average differences in sex ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer S. Hunt, Lecturer in National Security, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle In Australia and around the world, research is showing changes in body weight, cooking, eating and drinking patterns associated with COVID lockdowns. Some changes have been positive, such as people cooking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hao Tan, Associate professor, University of Newcastle Australian coal exports to China plummeted last year. While this is due in part to recent trade tensions between Australia and China, our research suggests coal plant closures are a bigger threat to Australia’s export ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asha Bowen, Head, Skin Health, Telethon Kids Institute A year ago, in late January 2020, Australia reported its first cases of COVID-19. Since then, we have seen almost 29,000 confirmed cases and 909 deaths. As cases climbed in Australian cities in 2020, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Emeritus Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne Political pressure forced the federal government in 2017 – when Scott Morrison was treasurer – to call the royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services sector. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Ellis, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle The Rise and Fall of Saint George is a story about place, belonging and community that taps into universal tensions of identity and faith in multicultural societies. Playing for ...
An in-depth analysis of media coverage of the euthanasia and cannabis referendums has found that while both sides of the euthanasia referendum were given reasonably fair and balanced coverage, the YES position in the cannabis debate received a heavily ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission Auckland has no plans to hand over the ownership of it assets under the government's planned water reforms, with Auckland Mayor Phil Goff saying his top priority is to ensure it stacks up for the city. Despite ...
Auckland Transport is putting nine new electric buses on the roads today, as it dramatically accelerates its plans to get rid of all its diesel buses – in a funding challenge to the council. Public transport operators are being told to not buy any more diesel buses or risk losing their council ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden as they find out exactly what we’re voting on in the cannabis referendum, and discover how legalising weed is a women’s issue.First published August 4, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
A principal analyst for the Climate Change Commission says more needs to be done to reduce agricultural emissions or the country will miss its methane targets. ...
New Zealand needs to be bold in making developers enhance the environment - not just limit its degradation, writes Stephen Knight-Lenihan All human activity should help restore the natural world. This is a concept that may resonate following the upheavals of 2020 and one which is beginning to appear in law. Imagine ...
Derek Challis, son of the legendary author Robin Hyde, died last Thursday. Michelle Leggott pays tribute He opens a suitcase and there they are, the precious manuscript notebooks written by his poet mother Iris Wilkinson aka Robin Hyde. We are in Dunedin for a Hyde conference. Yes, says Derek Arden ...
Former New Zealand gymnast Katya Nosova is now a champion bodybuilder, who was prepared to spend Christmas alone in quarantine to compete in the 'Olympics' of her sport. Katya Nosova was willing to do everything she could to pose on the world stage in her third Ms Olympia. Despite a ...
Concerts and some sports look likely to be on the move in Auckland after a big win for Eden Park – and politicians and officials may now want to win the public some control over the independent stadium. The advent of big concerts at Eden Park will, in all likelihood, mean ...
Despite promises of improvement, questions remain about colonoscopy services in Otago and Southland.David Williams reports The apology, when it came, was fulsome. “On behalf of the Southern DHB, I offer a sincere apology for lapses and inadequacies in colonoscopy services over the past several years,” district health board chair ...
The issues political editor Justin Giovannetti will be keeping an eye on in 2021 (that have nothing to do with Covid-19).New Zealand will be busy in 2021. The border will remain closed to nearly all travellers and Covid-19 will continue to lead the news, but the country has a packed ...
A former case manager says that his experience working with beneficiaries suggests claims of a ‘complete shift’ in the service’s approach are laughable.A former Work and Income case manager who now works with beneficiaries engaging with the service has spoken out on a “toxic” culture which he says denies beneficiaries ...
ACC Minister Carmel Sepuloni must confirm whether the Government supports ACC’s apparent policy to make payouts for illegal overstayers , says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . Union spokesman Jordan Williams says, “Since when was it ACC policy to ...
By RNZ News An independent panel says Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully in January to curb the initial covid-19 outbreak, and criticised the World Health Organisation (WHO) for not declaring an international emergency until 30 January. The experts reviewing the global handling of the pandemic, ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk Fiji’s NGO Coalition on Human Rights has called for stronger accountability and commitment to human rights at home in response to the country taking the world stage as the head of a UN body. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) elected Fiji’s ambassador Nazhat Shameem as ...
Danyl McLauchlan reviews Stuart Ritchie’s Science Fictions, which outlines the staggering systemic flaws in the funding and publication of scientific papers. Back in August of 2006 a number of New Zealand scientists were caught up in a media controversy about whether Māori had a genetic predisposition towards violent crime. It kicked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago America is currently experiencing its worst political and constitutional crisis since the civil war when the very survival of Abraham Lincoln’s government “of, by and for the people” was at stake. On ...
Manaaki Rangatahi report that young people experiencing homelessness are being further traumatized within the emergency accommodation where they have sought safety. Often these environments are unsafe, and unsuitable for young people to live in, and rangatahi ...
Can you figure out which of the above is the real Jacinda Ardern? Probably! But one day, that might not be true.There are many reasons to believe the internet shouldn’t exist. Social media empires exerting, intentionally or not, their control over sovereign governments. Baby Shark. Your aunt on Facebook.It pains ...
The Point of Order Ministers on a Mission Monitor has flickered only fleetingly for much of the month. More than once, the minister to trigger it has been David Parker, who set it off again yesterday with an announcement that shows how he has been spending our money. He welcomed ...
Ban Bomb Day event at the New Brighton Pier, 9am, on January 22nd, 2021 January 22nd, 2021, marks the first day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Enters into Force and becomes international law. Aotearoa NZ is one of the ...
Why are New Zealand’s 2 Minute Noodles called 3 Minute Noodles in the UK? It’s a puzzle that has taken hold of Dylan Reeve and refuses to let go.I’m a child of the 80s and 90s. I watched a lot of TV and was a big fan of aggressively marketed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonatan A Lassa, Senior Lecturer, Humanitarian Emergency and Disaster Management, College of Indigenous Futures, Arts and Society, Charles Darwin University News of storms battering parts of Queensland and the threat posed by Cyclone Kimi reminded me of a recent experience I’d had. ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that the use of force to effect the arrest of a wanted offender in Auckland was justified and proportionate to the risk he posed. A man, who was well known to Police, was wanted by Police for an aggravated ...
A distinctly colonial institution, banking has long ignored te ao Māori. Teaho Pihama believes investment in tikanga Māori at Kiwibank can have significant, positive outcomes for Māori.In early 90s Tāmaki Makaurau, when Teahooterangi (Teaho) Pihama was growing up riding his bike around the streets of Kingsland until the streetlights came ...
Donald Trump’s awful presidency expires at midday on Wednesday [US time] when Air Force One will have deposited him in Florida. He retreats to his Mar-a-Lago resort and Joseph R Biden Junior takes command of the White House. Trump’s has been an unpleasant presidency, brought about largely by his own ...
The New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) has elected its National President for 2021. The election took place last Friday at an NZUSA Special General Meeting (SGM) in Wellington. Andrew Lessells, 22, was elected to serve as the National ...
Think twice before you accept that surprise school reunion invite, writes Chris Schulz.It started with a Facebook notification. A school reunion was being organised. It sounded fun, with a fancy dress party set to be held in the city where I grew up, Whanganui. I hadn’t seen some of my ...
Unlike the US, there is very little NZ precedent for politicians to issue discretionary pardons – creating a challenge for those like Prof Sean Davison who might have a humanitarian claim to mercy. ...
Schools have told the Education Review Office that some children lost 10 weeks of learning in last year's lockdowns, but the overall impact of the pandemic is still unclear. In a report based on surveys of thousand of students, teachers and principals during and after last year's national and Auckland ...
The government seems to still be in holiday mode when in the past two weeks alone we have had six homicides, countless firearms incidents, and police needing to arm themselves against gangs almost every second day," says Sensible Sentencing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Crawford, Associate Professor in Construction and Environmental Assessment, University of Melbourne Over the past few years, Australians have embraced online food delivery services such as UberEats, Deliveroo and Menulog. But home-delivered food comes with a climate cost, and single-use packaging is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland When the coronavirus pandemic hit Australia in March 2020, the Morrison government took bold and imaginative action. The most notable examples were its income support programs – JobKeeper, paying a A$750 weekly ...
Ocean Ute, which arrived at Port Taranaki yesterday, is the second live export ship to arrive in New Zealand this year. Taranaki Animal Rights Group has two demonstrations planned for today. A protest at midday and a vigil at 6.30pm tonight . The number ...
The Department of Corrections is well within its rights to refuse Jared Savage’s “Gangland” book from being read by inmates and it is outrageous that resources and time are now potentially going to be wasted in court about it, says Sensible ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Cowling, Associate Professor – Information & Communication Technology (ICT), CQUniversity Australia We’ve probably all been there. We buy some new smart gadget and when we plug it in for the first time it requires an update to work. So we end ...
Re- the burglary of the National Party regional headquarters:
The blame game has started – just inferences at this stage. But it's sinister folks. It's politically motivated at the start of election year:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/video.cfm?c_id=280&gal_cid=280&gallery_id=216055
Funny, they weren't fussed about the break-ins at the Labour Party and Alliance Party headquarters in the mid 1990s, nor the hacking of Labour's computers around 8-10 years ago.
But I'm sure the police will pull out all stops this time. When it happens to National hell that's bad, but if its Labour well, ho hum so what…
Can you provide references for you claims of break-ins and computer hacking?
The only thing I am aware of was that the Labour Party had left their membership details unprotected, which seems a bit different to the actual theft of computers. That was Cameron Slater and Graeme Edgeler at least though that no crime was committed.
"The question then is: does Cameron Slater have authority to access the server that hosts the Labour Party website? Well, it’s a publicly available website, that they put up there so that people can go to their website and download stuff from that server into their cache to read on their browsers. If Cameron doesn’t have authority (because, for example, it’s not express authority), I don’t see how any of us can lawfully look at it."
Was that what you had in mind?
What were the Break-ins of the Offices you talk about?
edit. I can’t seem to get the link correct. It was a story here on the Standard but my cut and paste seems to lose the first part of the link.
David Cunliffe’s electorate office.
Ah yes. Forgot about that. From memory police did nothing about that one either.
So, you are inferring I'm lying are you alwyn?
Both burglaries occurred in the lead up period to the 1996 election. Yes, I know who was behind them, but can't confirm the identities of the actual thieves who carried out the burglaries.
The Labour Party hack is well documented. Yes, there was controversy over whether it constituted a hack or not but that was just a distraction. Information was stolen from the Labour Party and the police did f**k all. In fact further down the track they actually had the gall to target Nicky Hager as a 'suspected accessory to a crime' while ignoring the criminal activities with which National’s Cameron Slater was associated.
Police bias when it comes to politically motivated criminal activity over the years has been a disgrace.
And don't forget the illegal raid on Kim Dotcom? What's happened to him?
"So, you are inferring I'm lying are you alwyn".
No I am not. I have never heard of these break-ins of the Labour and Alliance Offices and I am curious what they were about. It may of course, if they were in the early part of the decade, simply be because I wasn't living here at the time.
Asking for a reference for something stated by a contributor does not seem, to me, to be in anyway a statement that you are lying. I just want to see what the story is about. I always supply, when asked, links to statements I have made. This was I thought precisely why the second paragraph of the rules for the site seems to require that justification for comments should be available.
Now are there any available links to these stories, please. I would love to see what it was that the Police refused to investigate.
Well. I apologise for jumping to conclusions. The two break-ins in 1996 were the Auckland Central Alliance Party regional headquarters and the Auckland Central Labour Party electorate office. They were linked of course and the aim of the exercise was to gather information about their campaigns. It isn't likely links are available online because of the passage of time.
And I know who ordered the break-ins.
I didn't say they "refused" to investigate but they didn't try very hard – if they tried at all. They're very good at ‘not trying’ when they don’t want to.
Thank you. As I suggested, I wasn't living in New Zealand in 1996 so it is not surprising I hadn't heard of them. I was, from early 1995 until early 1997 touring the West Island. All of it, and boy that is a lot of territory.
I shall have to track the story down offline. As you say, once you get into last century there is very little available to Googles gaze.
Fair enough alwyn. 🙂
Note in my response to James I clarified it was nobody in the National Party.
So someone who was not with the Nats wanted to know what Labour and the Alliance were planning?
Think back to 1996.
And look at the electorate mentioned in my comment @ 7:47pm.
Ah. Some things never change.
"Yes, I know who was behind them, but can't confirm the identities of the actual thieves who carried out the burglaries."
So if you cant confirm the identities – then you 'think' you know who it is.
Else go to the police. But I would guess you have zero idea at all.
Stop your stalking of me and your childish venom. If I say I know who ordered the break-ins then I know who ordered the break-ins.
And yes, I had a good idea who actually did the job but couldn't be 100% sure so no, I did not go to the police. I don’t have a high opinion of the police when it comes to political criminal activity – and for very good reason that neither you nor anyone else here is privy to.
Oh, and btw you'll be delighted to hear it wasn't anyone in the National Party.
Anne,
Without commenting on the merits of the issue, 1996 is nearly 25 years ago.
And as Kim Dotcom, he is awaiting the decision of the Supreme Court. Incidentally the raid was not illegal.
…1996 is nearly 25 years ago.
What has that got to do with the price of fish? A break-in is a break-in no matter when it happens.
Not only is it useful to compare the difference in responses, but those break-ins were politically motivated and that was a dangerous precedent and should have been taken more seriously by the police at that time.
... the raid was not illegal.
Well something was considered unlawful. I thought it was the raid itself.
You are right, an aspect of the raid was illegal, I think it was the preceding surveillance.
As for the relevance of 25 years, it is because these events are hardly quite the huge things the partisans make them out to be. So something of relatively modest consequence 25 years ago is close to being ancient history. For instance while I might have a very clear memory of what it was like on selection night in North Shore in 1995, for everyone else it is old history.
Be that as it may Wayne but while it is "ancient history" in the eyes of most people, the difference in police responses is still pertinent.
When individuals stole material/equipment for political purposes from Labour and the Alliance Party by way of unlawful entry to their premises it was no mere "modest consequence". It was dirty politics carried out with hostile intent, and caused the victims just as much consternation and anxiety as it would today.
But it was not regarded as important 23 years ago and I venture to suggest that was in part because it was… only Labour and the Alliance Party personnel who were affected.
Anyway, it is a flawed conversation now, because it looks like National’s break-in was part of opportunist burglaries in the area targeting mainly laptops.
"The only thing I am aware of was that the Labour Party had left their membership details unprotected, which seems a bit different to the actual theft of computers."
Not this again. Lay people routinely use the word hack to refer to things that tech people don't. It is normal in English for this to happen (tech vs lay language usage).
As for comparisons, most people who give their personal details to a political party don't expect those details to be accessed by political opponents for political gain. In other words, it was wrong. Let's not forget that Slater went on to orchestrate an attempt at hacking TS, amongst his many other dubious activities.
Besides,
When you put an internal link in a comment via a straight cut and paste, the system changes that to the name of the post (without all the URL detail). Your link still works.
Ok. Thanks. It just looks funny and I thought I must have screwed it up somehow. I assume this is only if the URL is the same as the place where you are posting it, which is of course what I was doing here?
I must revert to my old habit of clicking on any link I put up as soon as I post it. I always used to do it but I have gotten lazy. As you say it actually works just fine.
TS has some newish linking changes (happened while I was away). The other main one is that if you cut and paste a link to a TS comment, the link will revert back to the post (rather than the comment). The way around that is to use the html tags to insert a link.
That doesn't apply if you put the link in line with some text, but if you put it in its own line it won't work.
The only thing I am aware of was that the Labour Party had left their membership details unprotected, which seems a bit different to the actual theft of computers.
The ignorant tend to call data theft "hacking" and imagine highly skilled coders wearing hoodies in dark rooms coming up with fancy ways to bypass security protocols. In reality, most of it is exactly like the example above: someone screws up and data that should have been protected is left exposed to the unscrupulous and unethical, who put time and effort into finding such exposed data. Whether you call data theft under those circumstances "hacking" or not depends on your enthusiasm for drama, but it's still data theft. If it's not illegal under our legislation, that's a problem with our legislation, not an endorsement of the theft.
Sign Martyn Bradbury's petition to remove Dr Jian Yang from the National Party list.
https://www.change.org/p/national-party-nz-we-the-undersigned-demand-that-chinese-spy-jian-yang-be-removed-from-national-party-list-before-election-2020
Did that yesterday.
Me too!
Interesting that Goldsmith said the 'party' part of the office was where the laptops were, not the 'electorate' part of the office.
That suggests that the Chinese spy was the target.
You wern't that fussed when WhaleOil was hacked either.
* weren't (not often used in formal writing).
But Slater is poisonous and a complete failure. His was a career in corrupt and criminal activity and that has been proven time and time again, so why on earth would anyone be fussed that he was hacked.
It's a good thing that Slater has been crushed because it rids NZ of a particularly odious form of cancer.
Solid public interest defence for publishing information derived from that theft, but didn't the hacker admit at the time it was illegal?
By contrast I've never seen Master Slater admit doing anything wrong – indeed he has wasted many a judge's time claiming absolute purity of thought and deed.
Pretty sure that office is right next to a Police station.
Checked and yes…
Paul Goldsmith's office – 107 Gt South Road, Epsom.
Police Eastern Area HQ – 111 Gt South Road, Greenlane.
So yeah.
So it was the police wot done it.
OK. for the likes of James and co. I'm joking.
Edit: the Nats like to park their offices next to police stations. Maggie’s North Shore office is next door to the Takapuna station.
Woodhouses is on the same block as Chipmunks (the kids indoor playground).
Seymour must be envious.
Interesting how the suburb name changes..
It's called keeping up with the Joneses. Epsom is more upmarket sounding than Greenlane.
Maggie's office in Takapuna is on the second storey of the building so that she can look down on the cops next door.
Just don’t tell Simon that Police officers are having coffees with MPs or emotional junior staffers from the electorate offices. The poor guy’s already worried sick about top cops having cups of coffee with Ministers.
111 Great South Rd, Epsom is currently Presbyterian Support, not Police.
Google Streetview suggests that has been the case since at least 2015. Last image showing Police was in 2012.
One for @lprent – Y2k redux on the way (click tweet for thread):
I think most systems switched off 32bit and to 64 bit unix epoch times quite a long time again. I know I did. And that is even on the little Arm 32bit processors.
Most things I work on tend to use struct timeval. 64bit seconds since the unix epoch, and 64 bit micro seconds.
Thank goodness
so according to the orange menace no one was hurt during the little bombing raid on their Airbase in Iraq by Iran.
well funny that, cause this is the second article now that speaks of wounded soldiers being evacuated due to injuries sustained during the attack.
The first eleven were evacuated to Ramstein Airbase in Germany with 'concussions' and now this diddy about 16 being evacuated to Saudi Arabia with severe injuries.
https://en.abna24.com/news//16-us-troops-flown-to-kuwait-hospitals-with-severe-injuries-after-irans-missile-strike-paper_1003700.html
That slap in the face was a fist on the nose it seems.
Trump is a weak President who makes hollow threats. Iran's Supreme Leader must me pissing himself laughing at Trump's impotence.
i consider the orange menace to be as competent as i considered ronald reagan to be competent, and both were/are currently adivised by the same people. its a bit the iran/contra affair redux. the iranians will be still there when america has nuked itself.
in the meant time its the boots on the ground that die.
And there was me thinking that "fatal" was like, y'know – dead?
"16 US military men with fatal injuries sustained during Iran's retaliatory missile strikes on Ain Al-Assad base earlier this month have been taken to a hospital…"
I did give the article another few secs of reading, but gave the fuck up with the Kuwaiti paper supposedly relying on "quoted [anonymous] informed sources as saying"
There were no injuries (let alone fatalities) because Iran gave prior notice of their retaliation precisely to avoid giving the US a 'go to' excuse for fucking war.
there is not one person in this admin that wants to go on record, not even the press secretary. tells you lot does it not? as for the no fatalities. yeah, right, tui.
These guys supposedly were in the hangar with the drones blahblahblah.
They had casualties and they had injuries. I am not the betting kind, but i bet you a pint.
There is a fucked up mix of war mongering "permanent state" actors and Democratic "cold war" warriors sitting right behind the US admin's "rapture" fundamentalists right now. The Iranian government is too rational and smart to offer them up an easy pretext to rain down destruction.
You really think the US wouldn't have been parading "dead babies" and getting on its
moral high horseskeletal war horse given half a chance?i think the dumbarse realised that he is in over his head when it comes to Iran. Its one thing to hold people / country hostage in order to make a bit of coin or to get some dirt on someone, its a completely different thing to start a proper war in the middle east, block the straight of hormuz, have the gallon go to 5+ bring home thousands of body bags and maybe have some cleric issue a fatwah on the fat fuck in the shitty house and his family. So yeah, i think someone might have picked up a phone and explained Donnie just what the fuck he was gonna tweet next. 'https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1214739853025394693?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1214739853025394693&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fdonald-trump%2Ftrump-tweets-all-well-after-iranian-missile-attack-targeting-u-n1112211
So yes, i think they will try to hide very much any dead bodies they may have found in the rubble, and will declare anything less then deadly injuries a 'concussions' and such.
The Iranians raised a point. Its simply “for those of us you kill we are able to take a few of yours”. Your turn.
I don't think thew White House would keep it quiet – that place leaks like a seive.
Whether the military would tell the white house anything that could be a c. belli is up for grabs – especially if the story about dolt45 choosing the artificial "worst option" of openly killing a sitting Iranian general is true.
The US military needs a break to retrain, recover, and refocus. Organisationally they're exhibiting classic overwork signs: navy ships are failing at basic things like navigating waterways without colliding with other ships, air crew are being killed because training hours are so low, soldiers are being deployed from combat theatre to combat theatre without a break in between.
Policy is one thing, the military-industrial complex is another, but admirals and generals know that if they're the ones in charge when something hits the papers that can seriously affect their post-military careers. Oh, and some of them probably care about their organisations, as well.
tl;dr: the US military wants to get ready for a near-peer confrontation, not another counter-insurgency in ME. This might affect whether they report precisely to the war-mongering white house injuries as being of US service personnel (vs contractors) occurring as a direct result of enemy action (no it was flying glass splinters and air pressure problems wot done it) and even (although I think this one is slightly farther-fetched) "no the attack was in Iraq and this soldier died in Saudi Arabia".
edit: although the US military is not really a monolith, either, so who knows
essentially the problem of poor recruiting and quality of recruit. Instate the draft and throw a bit of money to training and voila a little soldier is created to go kill kill kill.
and yes, the pentagon is gonna lie about this, in a way. They admit to people hurt but its only a bit of 'headache' a concussion so its nothing. And frankly who would care about Jonny and Jane Sixpack from somewhere US. No one. They get injured and die every other day currently in Iraq and Afghanistan and no one gives a care. These guys are nothing but tiny little blibs. There, gone. Kanonenfutter .
It's not even a recruiting problem as such – like any machine, every so often chunks of it need down-time for preventive maintenance. But yeah, if you step on the accelerator you burn through more fuel, and people are the fuel of armed forces.
No injuries?
Three service members were flown to a facility at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and the others were sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany after displaying signs of concussions, defense officials said Thursday. Jonathan Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said Friday that al Asad is not outfitted with an MRI machine or other tools necessary for advanced brain injury examinations.
https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/eleven-us-troops-flown-to-hospitals-from-al-asad-air-base-in-days-after-iran-missile-attack-1.615158
uh-huh
As a standard procedure, all personnel in the vicinity of a blast are screened for traumatic brain injury, and if deemed appropriate are transported to a higher level of care,” Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in a prepared statement.
Kinda like how they do for 'sonic attacks' being unleashed on embassy staff on small Caribbean islands? (Oh. And China too…not to forget being microwaved by pesky Russians…) 🙄
Not injured., but deemed to be in need of a higher level of care following TBI screening.
Righto….
You don't think that a skeletal presence was maintained following Iran telling Iraq where and when missiles were going to strike? Because just maybe there was some precautionary thing around equipment or what not being left around an entirely abandoned base? Maybe 11 or so volunteers holed up in bunkers/shelters to give an instant evaluation of damage? Maybe given a "once over" for possible effects of percussion from blasts?
In the meantime while segments of the Western press were happy to frame Quassem Soleimani as the loss of a deeply beloved hero, while in Iran itself the regime is widely hated and ordinary Iranian's struggle with deteriorating living conditions.
I've had considerable personal contact with various Iranian people, they are widely misrepresented and misunderstood in the West. I'm assuming the Western media has fucked up this latest episode as usual.
Peeps will no doubt make of this what they will…in spite of what's actually being said.
Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Setareh Sadeqi, a PhD candidate at the University of Tehran who lost family friends in the tragic Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crash. Anya and Setareh discuss recent protests in Iran sparked by the crash, which western media have framed as an popular anti-government uprising. They also talk about the recent crackdown on Iranian news and social media accounts online, including the censorship of Press TV UK.
All I know for certain is the theocratic Iranian regime are not people whom the liberal left in the west should entertain as 'allies' in any sense of the word. No matter how anti-American they may be.
Gaslighting? Really? That all you got in lieu of engagement with or response to shared third person info/perspective?
I dunno … maybe it was when I was standing next to the Iranian on the phone to his family back home, when they were explaining to him how much the government was charging them for the bullets used to execute his father. But that was a few decades ago now; maybe the leaders of this regime have transformed themselves into really nice people since.
But I tell you what, you engage with the cite I gave, and I'll give your one a go.
Was this before or after you single-handedly brought fire to the Inuit of Canada?
No it was in 1981 in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, when members of the Baha'i Faith were executed. One of them was my flatmate at the time.
The bringing of fire to the Canadian Inuit was later …
That should read of course "The son of one of them …"
I did engage with the cite 🙄 you gave. It's junk. The very first sentence is a bit of give away – referring to the assassination of Soleimani simply as "the death of", before going to on and attempting to turn corporate media reporting upside down (I haven't seen evidence of corporate media lionizing Soleimani as claimed in that link)…and he didn't foster instability in "Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen" as claimed. Neither did he lead "a group of armed thugs"…and that's just the first fucking paragraph!
But hey. I guess when the author of the piece is a former case officer who conducted operations against nuclear proliferation and terrorism for the CIA's National Clandestine Service , then a leetle bias might be par for the course, aye? 😉
You read any of his other stuff? The guy's a bit of a hoot.
Anyway. I gave you a link to an Iranian student living in Iran giving her perspective on recent events. Now I know she ain’t no ‘Bana of Aleppo’ and therefor unlikely to be courted by western media or western opinion, but hey…
Well using the same logic I feel zero obligation to trust your source either. I mean at least you can know who mine is, this student you reference, who knows?
Back to square one for both of us.
So you just read stuff and other stuff and it's all stuff and you haven't equipped yourself of any critical faculty that might help you discern if agendas may, are, or are not in play? And so can't navigate information…
So what do you do?
Are you akin to those liberals who smear anyone not adhering to "the script" that comes down from on governmental/corporate high?
Given the gaslighting in response to my initial comment, I guess that might be the case, aye?
Correct me if I'm wrong please, but I've read you as being consistently anti-American for a very long time. Your immediate response to dismiss any source who has previously worked in American intelligence is indicative of this. And you are certainly not alone in this bias, there are plenty of other lefties here who routinely fulminate on the putative evils of American empire.
Like all empires it has certainly had it's inglorious moments. But the notion that it's record is nothing but evil incarnate is a nonsense. What none of ever do is ask the simple question "compared to what?". What other post-WW2 counterfactual empire would have been any better by comparison? The idea that absent the Americans the world might have been a peaceful nirvana is entirely unsupported by any reasoned interpretation of history at all.
And yes all sources have their bias. It's knowing what it is that's useful.
You're wrong. Are you now standing corrected?
As for good analysis coming from ex-intelligence community types and such like, well…there's Snowden and Gen Lawrence Wilkerson, and Scott Ritter just off the top of my head. And of course, there are others (ex military etc) whose names aren't coming to mind right now.
And I've no idea why you reckon I think the world would be shangri-la if the US empire was no more.
So your happy with the hard right militant Salafist Islamist crowd then Redlogix? Because that is what the US has been supporting, and that is a problem. But my real issue with you logic, is to kill the guy who helped knock off ISIS, is a real kick in the teeth to anyone who supports the rights and freedoms of people.
The left should align with people not governments on that we can agree?
Because the reality on the ground is the US is an empire, and Iran is not, no matter how shit their government is. If we support empire and empire games we are no better than the imperialist of the past – who were always the enemy of the economic freedom and rights of people at large.
So your happy with the hard right militant Salafist Islamist crowd then Redlogix?
What on earth would make you think that? I'm on record here for years as being highly critical of zealots and fundamentalists of all kinds.
But my real issue with you logic, is to kill the guy who helped knock off ISIS, is a real kick in the teeth to anyone who supports the rights and freedoms of people.
Does this mean that the enemy of enemy is always my friend? For example was the West supposed to then cuddle up to the mass murderer Stalin in the aftermath of WW2?
If we support empire and empire games we are no better than the imperialist of the past
Again I’m consistently on record as being opposed to empire and the only regular here who has constructively proposed an alternative future without it.
For example was the West supposed to then cuddle up to the mass murderer Stalin in the aftermath of WW2?
No, but the west acted in a similar manner, and Iran is a good example of that. The west established a far right government which eventually gave rise to the islamic revolution. Let's talk central america, how much mass murder with the support of the west?
The west is not pure here, and the elephant in the room is the US has acted more and more like Imperalist arseholes since WW2.
Again I’m consistently on record as being opposed to empire and the only regular here who has constructively proposed an alternative future without it.
I think you think to much of your opinion. I hardly found your solutions reasonable nor constructive, some yes – but many of you suggestions are just the same old, same old, with a big dose of sleight of hand.
Like everyone else your own ideological prejudice get in the way. Hey I'm no different in that regard. We all do it.
Back to the point, all sides are lying – but the side with the ability to wipe the other side off the face of the planet is the one I want to hold the preverbal gas light to. The one in the more powerful position has more of a responsibility to act in good faith, and it's not.
For example if I had 100kg of TNT around your house and started a fight with you – is it my responsibility to not light the TNT because I'm angry or is it yours?
I hardly found your solutions reasonable nor constructive, some yes – but many of you suggestions are just the same old, same old, with a big dose of sleight of hand.
I didn't ask you to agree with them, just to acknowledge my consistent track record in proposing a detailed vision beyond 'the age of the nation state empire'.
There really is only one path forward from here, a universal vision of a united humanity, a global moral horizon and a political framework to implement this at the same scale.
This explains a lot.
That the same Dershowtitz "respectable" liberal intelligentsia have been happy enough to give a pass to as long as he was smearing Jewish critics of Israel as antisemites? That Dershowitz?
Go on! Who'd have thunk it!!
All piss and vinegar. Been a tough day, sport?
lol
also at least one opinion piece about how lowering the age of consent to 15 and maybe even fifteen and no claims of anything irrespective of how old the partner is. Oh gosh golly me. And he was friends with someone who liked his girls very young. Good grief. But hey Harvard or something.
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/dershowitz-responds-after-1997-statutory-rape-is-an-outdated-concept-op-ed-resurfaces/
But hey Harvard or something.
Boom. (I'll throw in a smiley, because, you know, charges of "piss and vinegar") 🙂
have some beer. Some call it piss, but i like beer. Prost.
slàinte mhath
and even to fourteen.
edit ran out.
It varies a lot. Age of consent laws can be quite complex, but 14 is not uncommon, Germany and China being two examples. 16 is probably the most common age, while at the other extreme is South Korea at 20.
totally seasonal weather for OZ, totally.
https://twitter.com/tamsinroses/status/1219075347662004224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1219075347662004224&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2020%2F1%2F19%2F1912647%2F-Overnight-News-Digest-January-19-2020
this is just normal.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/19/australia/australia-hail-dust-storm-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
yeah, right Tui, is just not cutting it anymore.
A different link. Holy heck those Aussies are copping it.
yep.
the insurance companies must be quaking in their boots. I would like to see some numbers on total write offs, etc. It is just one thing after the other.
Lev Parnas starte his work for the Trumps with Fred "The elder" Trump. But the orange menace has never met him,
yeah, right Tui.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/er1930/i_dont_know_who_lev_parnas_is/
fwiw, this last three years have been an excellent soap opera. Who needs TV when you can have politics.
How amusing. The moment David Seymour uses the name Aotearoa his fans revolt in the way only far right wing nut jobs can.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12301946
It must be tough being a one-man band trying to please all the racist alt-right fuckwits. Seymour's trying really hard though.
Seymour and ACT are playing us and their supporters like a banjo: https://www.act.org.nz/cn_news
The media play the chorus, of course.
I note the ACT website was created by 'nationbuilder'. Acknowledging Aotearoa is a maga step towards that.