Sad that on top of the trickledown lie castigated by the author we are biddably complicit in a weird theism, centred on a sham Everyman who is donKey deep in the lie. Who yet himself never created a thing.
For the likes of SSLands and FizzyAnus, particularly FizzyAnus – your God is small change and small brained compared to this guy. Beware the pitchforks. If needs be they will penetrate the gated citadels of greed !
SS and Anus used to rile me, but as long as they abide by the site guidelines their babble will serve as a reminder for others.
Re North’s link; there have often been those (including third way Labourites) for whom the holy grail is capitalists behaving themselves. “rising tide floats all boats” and other variations. Good luck with that one.
I’m going to throw this one back to you Grey Warbler:
Your comment (which I agree with):
‘Why bother to make negative comment to a reasonable opinion even if overblown? The narky censorship and constant critiques of some people on this site stifle concerned opinion. People are being taken to task because they don’t think the same as the particular leftie-righteous who knows all and is so superior, and controlling. Picky, picky, and attacking in swarms at times and bloody officious.
If it isn’t blatant right wing bullshit, lies and left-hating stuff, leave it alone for pete’s sake.’
Now would you please explain why you take such a different stance toward TM’s comment than you did toward Stephanie’s (below)? Because I was about to write a very similar response to TM’s comment that you wrote to Stephanie’s.
I think North’s article makes a fair point and supports the type of issues that the left are pretty keen to address – i.e. addressing issues with a system that is not providing benefits to all people (or classes). Yet these days, it appears that noone can make a fair suggestion as to how to address these problems without a trite comment from a lefty of a slightly different view point undermining the intention.
There is nothing like working toward some sort of unity to get the focus required in order to get an aim achieved.
This is actually the core of the problem isn’t it? i.e. no system will work if the people in that system act in a short sighted manner and/or in bad faith. Please show me an example of any system that works without this qualification.
Sorry the problem with capitalism as it has been practiced for 200 years is that short sightedness and bad faith is explicitly rewarded with power, position and standing in society.
Actually CV, that is the problem with ‘purer’ forms of capitalism.
The purer the version of capitalism that is pursued – the more increasing numbers of people become disadvantaged – the more mixed version of capitalism we pursue the more increasing numbers of peoples’ interests are addressed.
Social democracy was going pretty well, as I understand it from history books – then it came to a glitch after the post-war boom died down – for which noone seemed to have any quick answers and this allowed some wacky and un-thought-through approaches to be aggressively pursued by persons who were most likely to be advantaged by them – these people marketed them well (ignoring some already established facts) and now it appears that social democracy nor its advantages ever existed – despite the fact that we continue to be advantaged by social democratic approaches in existence in our country and that we aren’t living under an entirely purely capitalist approach.
Please supply me with an example of a system where cheats aren’t advantaged; I would have thought this is the problem with cheating – it advantages the person cheating at the expense of everyone else.
Social democracy was going pretty well, as I understand it from history books – then it came to a glitch after the post-war boom died down
It reached Peak Internal Market. Essentially, productivity in the rich nations had made it so that everyone could actually afford to buy everything and everyone actually had (The same was actually happening in the poor nations as well). This meant that demand and thus profit were dropping while inflation was still going up meaning that the rich were becoming less rich. To combat this the rich got the politicians on side and spread the lie, helped by the rather stupid economists, that a free international market would make everyone richer.
So the politicians opened up the borders and dropped the protections that had built up the rich nations so that the rich could increase the size of the markets that they could sell to. This has, inevitably, dropped wages and living standards for the many in the rich countries as those people now compete with people in the poor countries for the same job. Has slowed down the development in many poor countries which now solely import high tech gear rather than seeking to make it themselves from their own resources and their resources are extracted at higher and higher rates to be shipped to the rich countries for less and less money and worsening working conditions.
Please supply me with an example of a system where cheats aren’t advantaged;
When cheats aren’t stopped and incarcerated then society pays and pays. When those same cheats are not only not incarcerated but are openly rewarded and celebrated as they are in our society today then society is fucked.
“The tendency for the rate of profit to fall” (over time and cycles), as Marx put it, is part of what is at the root of the capitalist systems inbuilt flaw. Many bourgeois economists have tried and failed to disprove this assertion.
Finance capital, the out of control once paper now digital money arm of capitalism is another major flaw. I was not having a go at North but at the subject of his link. It is interesting when capitalists do step back and observe.
Never thought you were TM. Taking the argument one step further it’s the mindless ‘theism’ attaching to the cheats mentioned by DTB and more particularly their political proxies which really worries. The ‘GodKey’ number for example. It’s a direct path to totalitarianism.
This is fairly well exactly the way I understood things had gone too and what you write fairly well points to the major problem in our society that appears to continue to be being majorly deflected from and effectively ignored; that the wealthy are not willing to drop their wealth a bit – drop their irrational need for more and more – so that society can continue to function healthily.
This is why I thought the letter North linked to had merit and is why I believe Tiger Mountain’s comment misses the mark in a big way.
What he says is nothing new and widely known – push more money into the hands of the lower incomes and the economy does better. This is the way to prosperity and healthy society. This whole wealth-creator, trickle-down idea is hocus-pocus.
What is new though is that a rich bastard is acknowledging it and doing something about it.
He’s entitled to do whatever he wants with his wealth (within reason) as are any wealthy people. If he wants to give it to the less fortunate good for him.
interesting lack of comment on the substantive points of his letter gosman… wonder why that would be? because he pierces your ridiculous ideas on how an economy needs to work perhaps?
Because it is full of the same extreme leftist spin that I have seen and responded to time and again. For a start he states inequality is getting worse all the time. There isn’t actually a lot of evidence supporting this view. Yes inequality rose greatly in the 1980’s and 1990’s but it has been pretty much consistent since then.
Gosman. The time that people will listen to the spin is coming to an end. What kind of end – well that billionaire Amazon.com foundation investor sees it coming to a very bad end for the elite.
He even makes a comment that when the brink comes there won’t be enough time to get on their private jets to head out to New Zealand.
(Although some clever ones like James Cameron took an early flight).
What tosh. Revoultions need certain conditions to be successful in the modern world. Two of these are effective revolutionary organisers and the second is broad based support or at least a significant section of society willing to overthrow the State. None of these currently exist in the US. When or more proababy if they do then the wealthy will have plenty of time to move away.
What tosh. Revoultions need certain conditions to be successful in the modern world. Two of these are effective revolutionary organisers and the second is broad based support or at least a significant section of society willing to overthrow the State. None of these currently exist in the US.
Yes they revolutions require certain pre-requisite conditions. The US fulfils most of them right now. (The two factors you list are facile and incorrect).
When or more proababy if they do then the wealthy will have plenty of time to move away.
Yes they are trying to build up the equivalent of their Versailles or Forbidden City to hideaway in. But history shows that only a small portion manage to get away in the end (how did it work out for Marie Antoinette and friends?).
How you deliberately and self-indulgently miss the point with your comment @1.2.1 Gosman. As you well know Hanauer doesn’t focus on questions of charity. His point is that exponentially advancing inequality being the result of the (neoliberal) capitalist economy as presently pursued will be its cancer and will precipitate uprising against it. The pitchfork metaphor makes his point very clear.
Do you agree or not ? And why, however you see it ?
Edit: just flicked over your comments above. The ultra-wealthy Hanauer entertains far-left, extremist dogma ? Are you mad ? Is reason not your bedfellow ?
Has it not occurred to any political journalist that the reason behind the latest MFAT stuff up, is the restructuring that McCully rammed through. Fewer staff=more pressure=inevitable mistakes. We’ve seen it at home, and over the China wharf fiasco. Yet no-one connects the dots.
Absolutely right nsg. One can only wonder what is happening in the rest of a once effective public service. Isn’t the figure of 8,000 the number of redundancies pushed through govt. departments since 2008 ?
Me too. The stuff ups with EQC in the early stages were because of gutting the Public Service. Mr McCulley didn’t do too well this morning and it is the first time that I can remember him being held to account.
I don’t remember any stuff ups when Winston was Foreign Minister?
Why bother to make negative comment to a reasonable opinion even if overblown? The narky censorship and constant critiques of some people on this site stifle concerned opinion. People are being taken to task because they don’t think the same as the particular leftie-righteous who knows all and is so superior, and controlling. Picky, picky, and attacking in swarms at times and bloody officious.
If it isn’t blatant right wing bullshit, lies and left-hating stuff, leave it alone for pete’s sake.
PS. And for the record Steph if you had bothered to go to the link you would read that the Passenger Pigeon numbers were also measured in the billions, but this didn’t save them.
(Over population’ may even be part of the puzzle of what condemned them. Lessons here for us maybe, that is if we care to look. It is possible that though overhunting is cited as the main reason for the demise if the Passenger Pigeon, problems of disease epidemic and famine that stalk unusually large populations under crisis conditions also played a role)
The primary difference between pigeons and humans is that humans constructively change their environment to suit their needs. Pigeons don’t.
Both humans and pigeons have a predilection to find patterns (ordered structures) in the world around them even when the patterns are incoherent eg (Gilovich 1993,chapter 2).
The tendency to impute order to ambiguous stimuli is simply built into the
cognitive machinery we use to apprehend the world. It may have been bred into us through evolution because of its general adaptiveness
The ritualistic behavior in Skinners superstitious pigeons (a response to chance events) is a good example.
it is also widely seen in money market brokers,who try to explain on the news wraps,variations in various indices when the variances are still well within the range of noise.
If 99.9% of humans were to die, there’d still be 7 million left.
Hardly ‘extinction’.
Lanthanide
Applying this same simplistic logic Lanth, there should be about 3 million passenger pigeons hiding about somewhere.
“The Passenger Pigeon”. Encyclopedia Smithsonian. Smithsonian Institution. March 2001. Retrieved February 28, 2012. estimated this species once constituted 25 to 40% of the total bird population of the United States. It is estimated that there were 3 billion to 5 billion Passenger Pigeons at the time Europeans discovered America.
And as you mention Lanth there is historical anecdotal evidence that Passenger Pigeon numbers oscillated wildly in response to their environment. This has been backed up by genetic evidence of something called Ne, a genetic marker of genetic variation of effective population size, the greater the amount of genetic variation the greater the chance say of surviving something like a runaway epidemic for instance. Unfortunately for us low Ne is a genetic characteristic shared by Passenger Pigeons and human beings, which indicates that these hugely abundant species were in recent evolutionary time scales quite small. Meaning we are more susceptible to black swan extinction events than one would suppose just by our numbers, especially in the event of the climate becoming so unstable that it does not allow agriculture capable of supporting a civilisation with the ability to support socialised mass public health care and the industrial scale production of vaccines.
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blockquote>These legendary North American birds’ flocks were so numerous that they blocked the sun from view for days when they flew over in the early and mid-1800s; yet less than 50 years later, they were gone.
“The passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird in the world, and suddenly it disappeared totally from the Earth.”
Mind-boggling.
But how could this be possible? Why did these birds disappear? Was this event due solely the murderous efficiency of gun-toting humans, or were there underlying factors that contributed to the demise of this species?
These are more interesting questions than they may appear to be at first glance. On one hand, it’s obvious that rare species with small geographic distributions are more likely to go extinct than are abundant, widespread species. But on the other hand, passenger pigeons had clearly defied all logic. Perhaps there was something special happening to the super-abundant and widespread birds that made them especially vulnerable to extinction? Would it be possible for the researchers identify what that could have been?….
….The researchers sequenced the aDNA using high-throughput technologies and managed to piece together high-quality genomic sequences for the passenger pigeon — the longest genome sequence with the highest quality ever obtained for an extinct bird.
Co-author Pen-Jen Shaner, an assistant professor in the the department of Life Sciences at the National Taiwan Normal University, and her colleagues, Wei-Chung Liu and Te-Chin Chu, used two different mathematical approaches to estimate the passenger pigeon’s genetically effective population size (Ne). The genetically effective population size is an estimate of the total genetic variation found within a given population (doi:10.1017/S0016672300034455). Increased genetic variation is associated with a greater capacity to survive challenging circumstances. Genetic variation arises through mutation and recombination, whilst natural selection removes variation from a population.
Since the passenger pigeon’s census numbers were between 3 and 5 billion individuals in the mid-1800s, the researchers were surprised when they discovered that the passenger pigeon’s genetically effective population size (Ne) was remarkably small. The genetically effective population size Ne was just 3.3 × 105 (95% credible interval = 3.25–3.32 × 105), which is approximately 1/10,000 of the estimated number of individuals from the mid-1800s.
This small genetically effective population size suggests that passenger pigeons were not always super-abundant. Instead, their population changed by a thousand-fold over time, a situation seen under two circumstances. First, a low genetically effective population size is characteristic for species that experience wide population fluctuations that only occasionally number into the billions during an “outbreak” phase (doi:10.1017/S0016672300034455). For example, most people are familiar with several outbreak species, particularly lemmings, Lemmus lemmus, and snowshoe hares, Lepus americanus, in the Arctic, and Australian plague locusts, Chortoicetes terminifera.
But an alternative explanation for a low Ne is seen for species that historically had small numbers and only recently experienced a population explosion — a situation occurring in humans today.
Add to to the above what we should remember is that last year super Typhoon Haiyan or Yolander as it was called by the people of the Philippines, the strongest storm ever recorded over land, made 4 million people homeless overnight.
Just imagine recurring super storms like that all over the face of the earth, how long could civilisation as we know it survive that?
But this is what is predicted to happen if the planet hits 3 degrees. And on present emissions levels we are expected to blow past 4 degrees, when the IPCC says we should not go past 2.
I have mentioned black swan events like famine and epidemic and infrastructure collapse, any of which if severe enough under the right conditions could under the conditions of a severely degraded climate see off humanity.
There is one other I forgot: If forgot to mention, insurrection, violence, chaos.
WAR
Let us take the traditional accepted microcosm of human society facing a terminal crisis.
Take your ticket and board the Titanic
I am a first class passenger, should I take my place in a lifeboat, or give it up to others?
(some did)
I am crew, should I stay at my post to give everyone else a better chance to escape?
(most did)
I am captain, should I commit ritual suicide to atone for my inaction, should I go down with the ship?
(He did)
I am the bosun, should I order the 3rd class passengers be locked below decks to give the first class passengers better chance of escape?
(He did)
I am a third class passenger should I violently overthrow the bosun and his armed officers, locking me and my family below decks?
(knowing that this will not create any more life boats or greatly increase the overall survival rate, though it might make the cull fairer. Most didn’t and died in far greater numbers because of it. Much like climate change which is hitting the poorest nations hardest)
What if the 3rd class passengers had refused to accept their lot, and violently revolted. As the violence erupted, the professional crewmen needed to lower the lifeboats would have been scattered, or become involved in the fighting to beat back the 3rd class passengers trying to storm the lifeboats. No lifeboats would be lowered. In the ensuing chaos could anyone survive at all?
On a global scale as delta nations become flooded and super storms and heatwaves make the tropic regions uninhabitable, this fighting for survival will not be done with clubs and rifles but with every modern weapon to hand, napalm, high explosives, delivered by high level bombers or drones possibly even delivering gas, nuclear and even biological weapons to beat back the doomed millions locked in the worst affected areas and trying to bust out. There is even the possibility that some of these worst affected nations will have these weapons too.
If you accept the reality of climate change then you must accept the possibility of human extinction, whether by war, famine, or disease.
To us of course this is all academic, by the time things get this bad those of us writing and reading here will have faced our own individual personal extinctions. The point is, we are the ones who could prevent it getting that bad, those who come after us won’t have that luxury.
Should we do something about climate change is a moral question. We need to put it into terms we can understand on a human level. What if instead of in the future and happening to millions it was happening in the next room to only a handful, and only we safe and comfortable in our room, were the only ones with the means to stop it. Would we? Or would we not get involved because it doesn’t affect us?
Let us be the first ones to get up out of our armchair and say enough, this stops here. Let us be the ones that give a lead to the world. We could do it easily. Remove the $155 million subsidy to Solid Energy and distribute to the workers to start new lives outside the coal industry. Remove the super cheap secret subsidised price that Comalco pays for the electricity and their other tax payer subsidies. Let that electricity flow into the National grid allowing us to close down every fossil fuel generator tomorrow. Switch the millions ear marked for Roads of National Significance (ie motorways), into public transport. Cancel all plans for deep sea oil drilling, ban fracking, stop Denniston and Mangatangi and all other proposed new coal mines. Become the first country in the world to declare war on climate change, challenge all other nations to join us.
The most interesting point in that article is this:
shows the attack was discovered on the evening of May 22, when a systems engineer working on the $12.7 million FitzRoy supercomputer at Greta Point spotted an “anomaly”.
Action was taken to combat the attack, and analysis carried out to determine its impact.
Niwa – the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research – later said the unauthorised attempt to gain access was unsuccessful.
The Mana Party is softening its stance on marijuana and will support its decriminalisation, in spite of leader Hone Harawira’s staunch opposition to the drug.
and on another topic
He was still to speak with other left-wing parties about potential electoral accommodations though he planned to do so and he called for those parties not to criticise each other going into the election as they tried to form a bloc large enough to change the government.
‘Unaffordable homes and outsourcing community housing for the poor to a community that can’t house the poor’
By Martyn Bradbury / July 1, 2014 /
“So Massey University’s Home Affordability Report latest survey shows wages have risen $35 per week on average in the past year while house prices have jumped $38,000.
How a $35 wage increase per week is supposed to offset a $38 000 jump in housing prices hasn’t been explained by the Government and the media still seem to be hunting for magical bottles of $100 000 wine to bother challenging Key on his do nothing but sprawl urban planning.
A market with no capital gains tax to reign in domestic speculators and no restrictions for foreign speculators to buy property has created a housing bubble that is great for baby boomers and crap news for every other NZer.
While this Government robs two entire generations of any possibility of home ownership, they are also busy destroying beneficiaries in state housing.
Sweeping the problem of housing for the poor into the hands of religious charities is an abdication of political responsibility, it is the Government’s obligation to house the poor, not the bloody Church!
It is a sad day when the Prime Minister of NZ can own a Parnell Palace and a Hawaiian mansion while a vast chunk of that PM’s citizens can’t afford the deposit on one house.”
Professor Shambaugh was the keynote speaker at a conference hosted by Victoria University of Wellington’s New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre on Wednesday 2 July, which contemplated the radical policy reforms that were proposed by the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee at the 2013 Third Plenum. His talk is titled: “New policies – has China done enough to secure its future? China at the crossroads.”
Despite the ‘polls’ Bearded it has always been my opinion that ”its all on” and has been so since the Slippery lead National Government barely slithered in for a second term…
Lolz, yeah that was definitely ‘laugh out loud’ stuff from David Cunliffe, i commented on it in yesterday’s Open Mike,
Worth pointing out again tho to David or His advisers that to save confusion among the Government Benches, all of them looking pretty much like ”johns” from where i sit, that it might be far less confusing should the need arise to just refer to Him as Slippery the Prime Minister thus leaving no-one in doubt to exactly who is being addressed,
Some might see this as a denigration of the Parliaments standards, i would suggest tho that Slippery Himself has already achieved this standard, aided and abetted by the Speaker of the House, with the constant use of ”Tricky” as an epithet repeatedly applied by the PM to David Cunliffe on the floor of the Parliament,
My view is that David Cunliffe need to take the fight to the PM on any level, gutter included, that the Prime Minister wishes to drag the Parliament down to…
PS, watch the Speaker suddenly find that such personal epithets, should the press begin to repeatedly use that which David Cunliffe applied to Slippery, are out of order…
How can Cunliffe do ‘much of anything’ for those struggling while in opposition?*
How does Cunliffe get to be in government when people are so happy to spread right-wing propaganda that “regardless who is in power noone does ‘much of anything’ for those struggling?”
_*Actually the way he is spreading the idea that everyone should get a share in the country’s wealth is a highly advantageous idea to have spread around our country – particularly for those struggling – and this is being done even while in opposition.
Tinfoil, you will have to expand upon that quite a bit to make it a point worth debating, ie: there is likely/unlikely to be gains for those on ”struggle street” by having David Cunliffe as the next Prime Minister simply because such a position will require Him to negotiate with any number of coalition partners who may be able to force those ”gains” as part of either coalition or confidence and supply arrangements,???…
Sorry Bad just alluding to the fact, or should I say my opinion that there ain’t too much difference between Key and Cunliffe (Nat and Lab) except at the very thin margin.
If a government of the left is to make much of a difference in NZ it is going to have to be very heavily influenced by the Greens and Mana otherwise it’s just going to be more of the same even if Labour/Cunliffe get to form the government.
To a certain extent i would agree with you Tinfoil, but, to make such a blanket assertion i would suggest is doing your argument a disservice,
Agree with you vis a vis Green/InternetMana, to make some real gains for those stuck out on the margins/marginalized it would be pretty much a given that we need a Labour/Green/InternatMana Government which if NZFirst is also included, seriously weakens any role NZFirst may have as ‘kingmaker’..
plus there is the newly extended voting period from September 3 through to September 20,
and the union “Get Out and Vote” campaign is now active http://www.getoutandvote.org.nz
and the anticipated IMP media campaign
and IMP is at 2.5% in such short time compared to ACT, Colon and Hairdo
and the TV debates and general mayhem
and a party for virtually everyone that can be engaged
the right wing dickheads, sheepshaggers, pud pullers and brown nosers don’t seem to even listen to their own dear leader who recently warned the tory faithful about complacency.
We only need around 50,000 of them to turn up and vote for parties that aren’t National or National proxies to turn NZ around. Key and his cronies only scraped in with a one seat majority last time and that majority disappeared with John Banks. Key goes into this election as lame a duck as Muldoon was in ’84.
Yes TRP, this election is finely balanced as anyone that has been paying attention and makes an effort to be informed knows, and Crosby Textor and the Hollowmen pay some of the closest attention of all.
The polls are somewhat true in their own habitat but not totally correct or absolutely predictive.
Yep, TM, all sorts of political insiders are acknowledging that it’s in the balance. It’s a shame that the likes of nakiman, gossie, srylands and the rest aren’t capable of agreeing that National is ahead in the polls at the moment but this election is going to be much, much tighter than many people realise.
Ummm… who states we can’t acknowledge that. I have stated here that I’m surprised that National is leading by as much as they are given the last election result and the election result will be close when it really shouldn’t even be a contest. Labour should be a show in. The fact they are not speaks volumes.
Fair enough, but I’d disagree that National is leading. Key is leading, National are nowhere. That much was made clear at the conference on the weekend.
“Don’t forget the missing million who will all pop up on election day dressed in red.”
and green and purple and black and white but blue with those yellow streaks? probably not so much
So the Lou Vincent disaster continues. Listen to the interview with Tony Vietch.
Vincent is pretty explicit about his “hero” being involved to a very high degree. The threat he says, of the bat threatening over his head sounds compelling. He does not name his “hero” as the police are still investigating. But not hard to join the dots. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=143949
It still amazes me he was returned to a job in broadcasting. His victims life in tatters and business as usual for him – a further injustice to the victim on top of what she had already been through.
Can’t do it ianmac, he’s tainted meat, and even if I wanted to ignore him, the rot smell in pervasive.
On the cheat Vincent’s claims, if he went public and named the ‘hero’, would the ‘hero’ take up a libel action? And ultimately, who would the court believe?
True ianmac, you were discussing Lou Vincent, not Tony Veitch.
But it’s kind of hard to ignore that Veitch is there, in his job, as if nothing happened. How can people listen to him? What kind of a society thinks its ok for a violent abuser to retain his privileged position in broadcasting?
First time I’ve seen you take a pro-stance on rehabilitating violent offenders. From your comments I take it you’re in favour of in-community rehab for privileged white male violent offenders.
As opposed to a privileged brown male multiple offender like the Maori Kings son who got discharged without conviction today as it might hurt his “career” prospects?
And his fellow thieves all got discharged without conviction in Gisborne the other day too.
It pays to go thieving with the Maori Kings son……..
I am not commenting here on the Veitch situation as I do not know the details of his sentence as well as I know others.
But I have a couple of questions for you tinfoilhat, do you believe that just because a person has done time they are rehabilitated and deserve to be completely forgiven for their wrongdoing?
When a person refuses all rehab programmes, violence prevention programmes, literacy programmes, psychological therapy assistance and other offers of rehabilitation when inside, yet still get paroled, would you call that justice for the victim?
” Do you believe that just because a person has done time they are rehabilitated and deserve to be completely forgiven for their wrongdoing?”
No
“When a person refuses all rehab programmes, violence prevention programmes, literacy programmes, psychological therapy assistance and other offers of rehabilitation when inside, yet still get paroled, would you call that justice for the victim?”
A far more difficult question and certainly might depend on the particular circumstances of a specific case but if you are looking for a simple yes or no I would veer towards a No.
Exactly Lanth. And that is the point here. The victim has the rest of her life to deal with this while Veitch has his little stint in the wilderness, the it is back to BAU.
I believe in rehabilitation when the perpetrator shows remorse and changes his actions. Vietch doesn’t appear to have done either. IIRC, he actually got rather snarky about it at the time of the trial.
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to put the rehab word up. Condemning his actions and questioning the wisdom in reinstating Veitch in his former role does not automatically equate to “don’t believe in rehabilitation for criminals”.
There’s a big leap from a restorative justice type process where the criminal begins to understand and fully own the consequences of their actions and the community enabling and supporting them through changing their behaviours TO brushing the victims experience aside and allowing some one guilty of committing violent crime (who, apart from crocodile tears, seems to have shown little remorse) back into a public facing role. Can you put yourself in the victims shoes? Her life changed forever, her abuser’s life, business as usual.
I get quite sick of the double standards we appear to have in our country. On one hand you have a group like the sensible sentencing trust who constantly demonstrate appalling ignorance around the complexities of crime and have a simple mantra “lock em up and throw away the key”. A revenge/punishment type orientation is promoted over rehabilitation.
On the other hand, sporting personalities, and I’m including Veitch as a broadcaster here, seem to have excuses made for their behaviour by the media and their peers and the harm to the victim is minimised. Guildford and Savea come to mind as rugby players who, perversely, get sympathy after complaints are made to police about their behaviour. The situation is quickly forgotten, brushed under the carpet, so they can get back to the important business of being heroic rugby players.
To emphasize your point Rosie, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=11286426
I refuse to accept there is a single youth with a licence in this country who can claim to be unaware that if they drink they cannot drive. Especially when the youth concerned is a member of such a well structured organisation as the Blues.
What are the odds I wonder that a conviction will not be entered ?
Wow. Drink driving = minor misdemeanour. Not so much if he has killed someone. It was just “lucky” he didn’t. A good example freedom of how the sports professions close ranks and protect badly behaved players from criticism and fall out. Their status seems to exclude them receiving the same treatment as regular folks would.
PS: Hope you’re doing ok after last weeks ignorance attack from King Kong. I did leave a message of support for yourself and Nick S, (as a reply to Nick), but I was a bit late to see the conversation develop and hence my response was delayed.
Thank you Rosie. It was not a great week and I sincerely appreciated your words of support, as I appreciate it every time I see Standardistas support each other.
I should have replied there and then but didn’t really know what to say. I do not enjoy exposing people to those events and withheld the more disturbing details of the attack but KK’s ignorance certainly warranted the reply, abridged as it was. We all have a past and mine is no more special than anyone else’s despite the Tarantino like aspects, but every now and then a little truth can shed a lot of light. And without light we do kind of stay in the dark. 🙂
I kind of wondered if even someone like him, like KK, after reading of your experience, may have gone away and reconsidered his lack of understanding and the harm that expressing such ignorance can do. It wouldn’t be deep thoughts, more a “holy crap” sobering kind of reflection. He may have learnt something from what you said. We can only hope. I’m just sorry you had to go through a difficult time because of him
No need to have replied either _ I wasn’t expecting you to. I think sometimes comments can be left for others, after a long or tiring discussion that can just be left at that. Not every comment needs a reply and I get the feeling that most people do follow up and read responses, but don’t always require a further response in return.
Seems our weather observations here on TS a few weeks back were on the mark. Warmest June since records began in 1909 – with 9 of those warmest years being post 1970, and 5 of them post 2000
Yeah Rosie, even yesterdays ‘polar blast’ lacked the blast bit, a normal Wellington Winter usually delivers up a series of three day events but so far this year these are happily lacking,
i fear tho for my garden at the start of Spring when the crop gets to experience the great outdoors for the first time,
Normally i plant in the first week of November and if last years conditions are likely to repeat again this year i am thinking that i might better serve my babies by delaying that planting for a week…
Edit: Perhaps in global terms the retreat of the ice sheet and the growth in depth/volume of the East Antarctic ice pack are what is lessening the frequency/ferocity of the Southerly blasts we get to feel here…
Probably means that getting the seeds growing indoors first week of September for planting Labour Day won’t be too far off the mark as summer 2015 should probably be drought ridden.
“Normally i plant in the first week of November and if last years conditions are likely to repeat again this year i am thinking that i might better serve my babies by delaying that planting for a week…”
Might be a good idea bad. Last summer was definitely the windiest I remember in Wgtn, and as James Thrace points out below we have the El Nino pattern predicted for summer (I thought we were in it already). I saw on the telly that it will most likely be windier on the west coast and dryer and hotter on the east coast. So get set for some more summer winds. Everything we grew last summer failed but the plants that survived are now thriving in our warm still winter………..
And yeah, that “polar blast” was a pretender of a polar blast yesterday. A poor effort for Wellington.
Random thought, but one that has nagged me for a while (not my wife, btw).
Arguably, the two most successful business/performance entities on the global stage from NZ are Fonterra and the All Blacks.
I saw a pie chart somewhere around here the other day which showed that NZ (read Fonterra) produced, by volume of dairy products, 26.1% of global dairy trade. More than the whole of Europe and significantly more than the USA. I know there are valid eggs-in-one-basket concerns that this trade relies too heavily on one market and that focus has been drawn away from our developing of other export technologies but nonetheless, generating over a quarter of the world’s dairy trade is quite a statistic from a nation as small as ours.
The All Blacks are the undisputed pinnacle of all rugby on the planet both historically and, more importantly for the purposes of this discussion, currently. Overall they have a 76% winning percentage, and I would say higher than that since the game went professional in 1996. They have lost just the one game since the end of August 2011, three years ago. They have held the IRB number one ranking continuously since November 2009, nearly five years ago. It appears they are only getting stronger. All this again from a nation of just 4 million.
Now, I know not everyone is into rugby and I know some are concerned with dairy farmers’ attitude to the NZ environment but it’s occurred to me that the business models of these two NZ success stories are collective and dare I say it, communist. I say “communist” as a political/business lay person (it’s a heavily weighted description with a lot of baggage) and am happy to be corrected there.
But, it’s hard to escape the irony that in an increasingly capitalist world, Fonterra, a farmers’ collective, and the NZRU with it’s central contract system, are killing it on the world stage right now.
Interestingly skycity wont release its plans for the convention centre until after the election. Of interest is the traffic chaos IF The rail loop goes ahead on schedule. Could explain the govt attempts to stall the rail loop…
So, auckland, chchch, wellington, queenstown all building international convention centres…just what we need.
” Fairfax Media understands final design plans for the NZICC are expected to be publicly unveiled later this year, likely to be after the September 20 General Election, with applications for resource consents to follow.
The agreement between the Government and SkyCity calls for construction of the NZICC to be completed by September 30, 2017.
Disruption for Auckland commuters from the NZICC construction project could combine with more traffic chaos if the City Rail Link project starts early, as is being pushed for by the Auckland Council.
The CRL would require the entire city block opposite the Britomart transport centre to be demolished and rebuilt from scratch in order to allow the digging of tunnels.
Steven Wallace could have used one eh when Constable Abbot dispensed some lead poisoning in your neck of the woods Nakiman.
Checked out Batemans and some other New Zealand History sources and it appears the Taranaki has the highest count of WWI memorials and one of the worst track records on relations with Māori. Nothing to be proud of.
Constable Abbot is a good man and did what he had to do, I hope he got good support and councilling so it doesn’t affect him negatively for the rest of his life
Because no one was ever tested we’ll never know who was half cut when they arrived at the scene or if someone under the influence of alcohol decided to settle an old score. Will we?.
What we know can lead to conclusions. Such as: “police resources are worse than useless when inadequate”, and “stop arming agents of the state with anything more powerful than harsh language and pepper spray” and a whole-of-government-approach, as opposed to putting public servants into positions where they feel there is no alternative.
“Wallace rampaged like a man possessed. Leaving golf clubs at various scenes he smashed and beat windows and cars. 3 cars were damaged. A taxi with passengers, a private car with 6 youths in it, the third car was a police patrol car. It has been said that night Wallace was intent on killing either himself or someone else and that the Senior Constable was an unwitting pawn in his game.
Collecting his pistol from the police station, Senior Constable Keith Abbott arrived at the scene of destruction. Beaten cars and 140 smashed windows a testimony of the Suspects State of mind. Steven Wallace began to aggressively advance on Abbott armed with a golf club and a baseball bat. Negotiation with the man proved fruitless. Wallace was warned that the policeman was armed and a warning shot was fired. With still no sign of the danger of the attack lessening Abbott withdrew 50m but was circled by Wallace and was cut off. When he reached 20m away Wallace threw the golf club at the Constables head causing him to duck and continued advancing with the softball bat. Abbott shot four shots before the man fell at 5-6m from the constable.”
At the end of the day feral scum always blame the police for there fuckups.
The only good thing about this is no innocent people where hurt.
People more objective than Nakiman might like to read some of the cross examination records from Abbott’s murder trial.
I make no apology for choosing a piece framed by a writer critical of Abbott who had options available other than lethal force that he chose not to take. The IPCA and other arse covering documents on this case are too nausea inducing to present here.
I read your link, I was appalled that they called the police officer the killer.
There should never have been a court case and trying to wind people up by playing the race card is a disgrace, how does that work when they are both Maori.
Must keep an eye on their facebook page to see when the roadshow reaches Wellington, might be a good chance to have a talk with Hone about growing the presence of the Mana movement here in the capital…
Ever the optimist Phillip, i am calling 4%, should they poll higher than the 2.5% of the recent Morgan Poll tho i will adjust my calculation accordingly…
(admittedly tho, such a calculation does not include the likes of something like the ‘worm phenomena’ occurring, taking everyone by surprise)…
September 3rd to 20th for voting! How can anyone believe that dragging out the time like this is going to be better for this most important event for NZ. Do it at your leisure, at your convenience! Don’t put yourself out.
Over three-four days maybe with weekend in the middle. Special votes for special people not able to make it. But then finish and we have a count and something definitive, not with something that drags on and in which all sorts of compromising mischief can be carried out.
It demeans our big election and our decision-making into an easy peasy might get round to it thing. This is a disgraceful move and no ‘reasons’ can support it.
i see nothing disgraceful about ensuring that as many people as possible can get to vote considering that we all have different lives,
There could be any number of reasons for an individual not being able to cast their votes on a specific day and there could be any number of reasons why an individual might not know in a given time frame that they cannot cast those votes on a given day,
Has postal voting ever been compromised in this country, if not i see no reason why postal voting should not be included in the individuals ability to participate in the General election just as i see no reason, IF security of the vote can be assured, that voting via the internet should not be included as a means of casting our votes…
A lot of people still do not know that you can go on the unpublished roll if you are worried about someone tracking you down for whatever reason (use your imagination), or that an employer must give you reasonable paid time off to vote on the main advertised day.
The extended early voting is to try and engage more people to vote. The final printed roll date is a bit of a spanner in the works as I understand it, but there should still be a clear week at least for unions and others to organise special polling booths in areas of reasonable concentration of voters.
Some of the permutations are for the future maybe-like the ban on prisoners voting and online voting is a really leap, but even paper forms are not perfect given the hanging chads of Florida thing from 2000 that the Supreme court allowed Dubya in on. And I often wonder about some of the old tory cows that seem to get the sweet little earner every three years and misguide people on casting special votes if they are not on the printed roll. (Basically if you are not in the system, even if late, your special vote may be wasted).
The commission used to allow voters to stay in their home electorate. No-one bothered me for 12 years about being enrolled where my parents lived, despite not living there since I left school. I liked the connection with home through making a special vote, and not being on the roll in the same place I worked. But after 2011 I was told I would be removed from it if I didn’t confirm where I lived. Breaches do not seem to be prosecuted, and I wonder how many people have dropped off the roll in the past couple of years since this was tightened up.
the thing about a successful breach is that it wouldn’t have been detected.
Nuclear facilities are probably as well protected as anything, and stuxnet still got in to trigger its payload.
So you’re not looking for assurance but a guarantee. No system can be guaranteed. And the chances are that the actions leading up to a possible breach could be detected, as they were in this case, and the breach stopped.
Stuxnet was introduced to a targeted network by USB flash drive and not a breach through the internet. Of course it’s still a concern but adequate processes and security software should keep that possibility to a minimum as well.
A vector is a vector is a vector. USB or internet or a stolen drive with the voter database.
And yes, when it comes to the very essence of democracy – one person, one vote – I want a little more than an “assurance“. I want to know that the new system is as safe as, or an improvement on, the old one.
I’m sure each of those examples was preceeded by an “assurance” of security.
Well, you won’t find me in favour of either voting machines (because they’re too open to abuse from the manufacturers) or postal voting (because it’s just too easy for the vote to be lost or forgotten) and I’m sure that online voting can be made as secure or better than the present system of going into a polling station.
And, yes, a vector is a vector and the present system has it’s own vectors. Some vectors are more easily monitored than others.
and I’m sure that online voting can be made as secure or better than the present system of going into a polling station.
Fucking stupid idea mate as I have said so before and I’ll fight you every inch of the way on this.
It’s almost like you haven’t read any of Edward Snowden’s revelations on security compromises embedded in every level of networks and PCs (from the microcode used in Intel PC and server CPUs on up), and you haven’t watched a single presentation Jacob Appelbaum has made on how PCs, networks and the internet can be attacked and compromised.
some vectora also enable thousands of ballots to be added, changed, or discarded.
Whereas one’s ability to do that with paper ballots and booths to a similar scale requires massive resources and us usually painfully obvious.
And online voting is as vulnerableas electronic voting machings, only more so because the fraudster has complete control over their hardware, without oversight.
The Tor network is somewhat inefficient because a) every PC on the network has to become a server and b) most PCs on the network are connected via low speed asynchronous connections. The latter is the big problem.
But still, the big problem exists – the storage of essential data. We really do need to be able to determine that the person voting actually has the right to vote (we can’t have a few thousand people come in from out of country to vote in our elections). We do need to be able to ensure that, though they have the right to vote, that they’re not voting twice or voting in the wrong place. Access to that data is the problem but that data can be accessed through the corruption of the present systems. The Liu saga and how the PM knew weeks beforehand that it was coming out and how the letter was released with, essentially, no warning to Cunliffe shows that quite clearly.
The Tor Project doesn’t address any of that because it fails in to accept that you cannot be anonymous within a society. In fact, I’d say that anonymity allows and even encourages criminal activity.
revelations on security compromises embedded in every level of networks and PCs (from the microcode used in Intel PC and server CPUs on up),
Then we build the stuff here and make sure that the NSA (or our own GCSB) don’t get their sticky hands on it.
some vectora also enable thousands of ballots to be added, changed, or discarded.
What a load of bollocks. Didn’t you notice that such attempts on computers are easily found out?
Such an attempt as the one you linked to would be picked up even easier. It would, in fact, be automatic rather than relying upon anyone realising that an address was cropping up a bit too often.
And online voting is as vulnerable as electronic voting machings, only more so because the fraudster has complete control over their hardware, without oversight.
The fraudster does have control over their hardware – they don’t have any control over the server. Now, if the fraudster managed to get control of thousands of machines (security set up so that it would require a Man in the Middle attack) as they’re voting and change the vote to be what they want it to be then we’d have a problem – except that the person would actually be informed as to how they voted and that they have a right to change it if it was recorded incorrectly. Such a request would have an automatic investigation attached to it.
some vectora also enable thousands of ballots to be added, changed, or discarded.
What a load of bollocks. Didn’t you notice that such attempts on computers are easily found out?
more handwaving. Heartbleed.
Previously-assured and well-respected security had vulnerability, extent of compromises not known unless hacker did something obvious, and included weakening Tor nodes.
And hackers also like to change log files and rollback states to hidetheir activities, just FYI.
Such an attempt as the one you linked to would be picked up even easier. It would, in fact, be automatic rather than relying upon anyone realising that an address was cropping up a bit too often.
And online voting is as vulnerable as electronic voting machings, only more so because the fraudster has complete control over their hardware, without oversight.
The fraudster does have control over their hardware – they don’t have any control over the server. Now, if the fraudster managed to get control of thousands of machines (security set up so that it would require a Man in the Middle attack) as they’re voting and change the vote to be what they want it to be then we’d have a problem – except that the person would actually be informed as to how they voted and that they have a right to change it if it was recorded incorrectly. Such a request would have an automatic investigation attached to it.
lol because “I’m right and the computer is wrong” arguments are funny. And it also reduces “secret ballot” to “secret until telecom yahoo accounts get hacked again”.
Seriously, we’re talking about secure online voting when the government can’t even ensure that kiosks in winz offices don’t compromise sensitive personal information, or departments email thousands of details to members of the public.
When you say “security set up so that it would require a Man in the Middle attack” you’re looking at it from a viewpoint doomed to failure, and probably guided by google.
There is no such assurance that says “the only way to attack this system is MitM”. It’s one tactic. There are many, including paying someone to drop off a USB or compromise in some other way. Any e-voting system needs to demonstrate it’s as secure as or better than ballots and booths. And that will not happen until people plausibly exploit ballots and booths in as effective way as IT is frequenty compromised.
Yes online voting is a solution lacking a problem. Well strictly speaking, it’s not a solution at all, its a quagmire of total predictable fail from the very start. Big bucks for some big consulting/IT firm though.
Not sure why you used TOR as an example Draco. The anonymity network is a crucial anti-surveillance tool despite you bagging it for no good reason. Its also not an example of what Appelbaum has talked about via Snowden’s releases which has relevance to online voting. You don’t want or need an anonymity network with regards to online voting. You need to know who everyone is, when and how they voted in online voting.
This de Spiegel article reveals more useful info. To summarise:
the NSA has defeated the security architectures and firewalls on nearly all the network hardware made by the big players CISCO, Huawei, Juniper, as well as network hardware by big players like Dell.
This opens the network door wide open for other malicious programmes, exploits and special applications to be loaded up on to the target system.
This malware can survive through multiple reboots, operating system re-installs, hard drives replaced, etc. A compromised BIOS is often key to this.
Data to and from network devices, computers, servers and even smart phones can be diverted, re-directed or even altered before reaching their intended destination. (Nothing like your vote being changed between you casting it and it being counted, right).
Hardware like rigged monitor cables, rigged keyboards etc, can let the NSA see everything typed by users or network admins managing online voting infrastructure.
The NSA specialise in creating tailor made programmes which operate invisibly to virus detection and security scanning software.
Many of these software exploits are “remotely installable.” If your online voting hardware has to be linked to the internet to receive votes, it can be easily exploited and compromised from overseas.
The de Spiegel revelations are from 2008 and they believe the technology has advanced significantly since those days.
The Tor Project doesn’t address any of that because it fails in to accept that you cannot be anonymous within a society. In fact, I’d say that anonymity allows and even encourages criminal activity.
That’s a line straight from NSA or GCHQ PR. That is: that only terrorists, criminals and dangerous people with something to hide would want privacy and use security tools like encryption, TOR, etc.
Yes online voting is a solution lacking a problem.
The problem is the lack of democracy. Or perhaps you prefer living in an elected dictatorship that answers only to the rich?
Not sure why you used TOR as an example Draco.
I used Tor because it’s a way to get around network sniffing. In other words it’s negates the NSA’s grab bag tactics. They’d have to work directly with the server or the client. But it also brings it’s own problems.
That is: that only terrorists, criminals and dangerous people with something to hide would want privacy and use security tools like encryption, TOR, etc.
You said that, not me. I said it allowed and encouraged criminal activity and provided an example.
The de Spiegel revelations are from 2008 and they believe the technology has advanced significantly since those days.
So has the countering technology.
(Nothing like your vote being changed between you casting it and it being counted, right).
Except that you can see what your vote is and change it. Kinda defeats the purpose of changing the vote en-route.
If your online voting hardware has to be linked to the internet to receive votes, it can be easily exploited and compromised from overseas.
Except that you can see what your vote is and change it. Kinda defeats the purpose of changing the vote en-route.
What are your web app skills like Draco? Mine are non-existent. But even I know that you can programme someone’s local web browser to remember what they actually voted on the web voting form. When that user queries for confirmation of how their vote was registered by the electoral system, you can simply send the voter what they expect to see based on what is stored as a local record. Which doesn’t have to match what was recorded in the ballot box voting database at all.
Now of course that’s a clutzy way of providing a voter with a false record/confirmation. Someone who actually knew what they were doing could do it a million times better.
My point – you are advocating for a system which is nothing less than a cannery for worms, which is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and which is going to undermine our democracy at every level.
The problem is the lack of democracy. Or perhaps you prefer living in an elected dictatorship that answers only to the rich?
It seems that according to you, it would be impossible to operate a true democracy in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s i.e. before the age of the world wide web.
Has postal voting ever been compromised in this country,
almost.
If they’d done it smarter it might have worked, or at least it might not have been traceable to them.
Say put mailboxes up on vacant lots, or registered one or two “voters” each on a bunch of rental properties over the three year period, so it gets lost in the short-term rental churn. Then downloaded the forms somewhere public.
Basically, it might be traceable on IP address that 500 people all used the library free wifi to download their forms, but it would take a bit more effort to detect fraud.
Yes But, if we all are issued with a specific number as an enrolled voter then it should be easy to design a program that identifies if two votes sets of votes have been cast using the same voter identifying number, or, if votes have been cast using a false voter identifying number,
The Auckland Council election incident tho didn’t seem to have specifically compromised the postal voting system per se,
The General electoral system is open to such a compromise where if i can provide an address in say Hone’s electorate, without ever having lived there befor, i can conceivably vote in that electorate,(i would obviously have to know someone who lived at the address, or, rent a PO box, so as to receive information that i was enrolled)…
You just need to know the basic details of a non-voter.
And provide a plausible address and phone number (I think the auckland guy pinged the EC sonar because all the names were registered at one address). But if you own a block of flats you can say “previous tenant, I’ll forward it”.
The thing about giving everyone a number is that it’s great for indexing, but lousy for fraud detection.
Mac, Re: fraud detection, a personal voting number tho could only be used for fraud if the perpetrator of the fraud were to know that the rightful user of the number was not going to vote???,
A mass fraud would then require the perpetrator to know of 100’s or 1000’s who were not going to vote???…
Depends.
First step is the issuing of the number – is it as difficult as currently enrolling? If so, then it’s a pointless exercise.
Second step is how easy it is to go “oooo I’ve forgotten it, how do I reenroll online without it?”
Third step is how easy is it to find out.
And then lastly, the flipside is what we saw in the US: how many voters of the other side can we turn away if the hoops are too onerous to jump through? Or if we add a double vote to a legitimate voter, would both be declined?
And that’s before we get into “errors” or hacking of voting software/hardware.
The thing about voting in person is that if the same person turns up fifty times to vote, a scrutineer or polling official will probably notice. Not so much online or through the mail.
God Mac, that all sounds so fraught i am off to hide under my bed, the present system tho can be easily gamed if you have knowledge of a registered voter who will not vote and that voters details,
The multiple votes need only be cast in multiple booths to avoid the scrutiny of scrutineers,
Lolz, i had better stop this or sooner or later i will be forced to recommend that voter identification occur as a matter of having bar-codes tattooed on the foreheads of the individual…
As you pointed out, it’d be a massive effort to try and rig 1000 votes this way. With an online voting system, altering 100,000 votes to change an election result is a piece of cake and requires only keystrokes.
the real art would be in skewing the votes at a smaller number in different electorates, over several elections, so it wouldn’t even raise any stats flags.
Yes I suppose the contractors used would have to earn their pay 🙂
Also Draco makes a serious error saying that intrusions or interference in a computer system is easy to detect. It might be, it might not be.
But imagine what would happen if after an election day, forensic evidence of widespread computerised vote rigging was found which had likely altered the result of the election 6 months previously. Utter pandemonium and chaos. Basically why would you even go there.
(There might not even have been any vote rigging on election – the “evidence” could have been constructed and introduced into systems later on to make it look like it had simply to cause scandal and chaos).
When DRO for about 12 of our elections I worked on the principle that if you turned up, not on the roll I gave a Special vote instead. The bosses would sort out after the election if it was valid or not.
In NZ every vote is checked off the Electoral Roll after the Election. This throws up any duplicate or multiple votes from one individual. The name on the roll is visited and any crime is discovered. Foolproof when using paper polls.
Well Draco. Imagine the team of astroturfers and the trolls with down time so since they are being paid to work they must fill in time by being the many false followers of Mr Key.
it takes something like 20 miles for a supertanker to even respond to the wheel but I do believe I see a swing coming.
John Keys thought he was being smart calling an early election but the people have already seen what a fraud he is and he will be gone soon like an evil spirit that has been exorcised or a boil removed off the body politic.
Anyone notice a new column just up, by Jared Savage showing that Damien O’Connor “intervened” in the Liu application? Not sure what that shows as it is official and above board I think. Everyone knew Liu was granted residency against advice. And what has the 2005 Election got to do with it?
A former Labour Minister intervened three times in the immigration bid of Donghua Liu including waiving the English language requirement for the millionaire businessman.
Damien O’Connor, in his role as the associate Immigration Minister, wrote three letters to Liu’s advisor Warren Kyd – the former National Party MP – before deciding to grant residency against the advice of officials the day before the 2005 election. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11287104
Breaking News: We have just discovered something that is common knowledge and of no importance!
Everyone knows Damien O’Connor granted Liu residency against official advice. No one knows why, and the Herald has not found an answer. They haven’t even really found a question yet, but they keep on trying.
I’m not sure how they will convert this non-story into a call for David Cunliffe to resign, but if they put John Armstrong on the case I’m sure we’ll be enlightened in no time.
but now the other questions can be asked, here are some starters
Why was a former National MP lobbying so hard on behalf of Mr Liu ?
Is the former National MP, Warren Kyd, still the advisor for Mr Liu?
Is the former National MP, involved in any of Mr Liu’s businesses?
How did Mr Liu meet the former National MP, Warren Kyd?
Despite a tradition that sitting MPs are not challenged if they seek re-selection, Kyd was defeated by newcomer Judith Collins, with allegations being made that controversial party president Michelle Boag played a part in the decision.
Under pressure???, Slippery the Prime Minister yesterday physically removed a RadioNZ National reporter from in front of Him, first saying ”get out of my way” and then pushing the reporter from His path as the reporter attempted to ask questions surrounding the PM’s involvement in the removal from New Zealand of the Malaysian diplomat,
Bet we see nothing of this on our TV’s tonight,but, expect more of the same from the PM as the pressure goes on leading into the election…
Definitely BM, why don’t you dial up the Lair in Chief and suggest He do just that, it will be perfect having the PM being investigated for assault leading into the election…
I happen to know Felix in the flesh and I really like him as a human being and as a man who knows how to stand his ground intellectually like no other on this blog. I don’t know you but playing at being the tough guy on a public blog threatening violence is, as far as I am concerned, the path of the LOOSER.
So if I where you I’d pull my head in because when push comes to shove (Oh pun! 😆 ) Felix commands a lot of respect here and that means you just upset a lot of people.
Here is what comes a bit lower in the same comment:
24.2.2
5 June 2014 at 8:11 pm
Travellerev advocates violence against convicted criminals. I didn’t get to read Naki Moran’s response but I’ll wager he was just lashing out like a person with a severely limited understanding of personal responsibility 😈
Reply
travellerev 24.2.2.1
6 June 2014 at 8:53 am
” Actually I advocate state sanctioned violence against the worst offenders. It worked wonders for moral during the French revolution.”
Not the same as threatening to beat someones teeth out of his mouth just because you don’t like what he says. Dickhead.
Were you there Ennui, at the court hearing that is, if you were a young man attending University who made a number of stupid errors of judgment and wound up befor the court it is just as likely that you would have been granted the same leniency as occurred here,
In fact, statistics would suggest that had this particular youth been Pakeha instead of Maori he would not have appeared befor the court at all, instead being offered diversion…
Yes, the court and justice system are racially and class biased big time, thats a fact. Here I am giving them shit for the reasons the Prime news reported for the non conviction…royalty and race. Read below.
As you commented the other day Phil ” .and we were smoking poisonously strong weed..and i was ripped off my tits..as was my practice. seems your brains fried from the practice.
It seems like the judge is giving this young man a chance to sort his shit out and it appears that he has strong support to deal with all of the issues a 19 year old has – with a baby coming I really hope he gets the alcohol sorted and doesn’t become another nz statistic of shame – in jail or the grave.
Mars, the judge got it 100% right with the young men, that is exactly how it should be dealt with, including the heir to the Maori “throne’. If we are to believe the news media and Tuku on the news that’s not the case with this lad. The excuse was that “if he were convicted he would not be able to ascend the throne” and that “a Maori King has to be purer than pure”…….
Now maybe I am very Bored but I hate with a passion hereditary title and any claim to it. And the concept that a Maori (or any other) kings purity was something special. The excuse is just lame bollocks. And perhaps I am more than a little jaded with that part of the establishment which fawns and slips into supplication to things Maori in a most PC manner when it suits their ends. I see that as just privileged gits teaming up, just look at the Maori Party and National wiping one another’s arses. You wont see any of them them doing anything for the under-privileged and needy be they white, brown, Martian or what ever. And that is what pissed me off most !
Fair enough. I only read the comments but they seemed to be designed for a future audience. I went to a seminar the other night about protecting children from abuse – physical, emotional and sexual and it really hit home that night how this digital culture we have really means that nothing is lost and everything will come back and haunt them once it is up on the net. That was where my head was at. I agree with you about helping the under-privileged and needy whatever ethnicity or apparent skin colour.
I had a search for discharge without conviction. The main people awarded such seem to be sportsmen for drink driving offences – because it might ruin their sporting careers by being barred from going to certain countries.
Another shocker for Fisiani, stuck like a cracked record parroting that which is of little consequence considering the pollster’s ability to have National 4–5% above the actual vote on the day…
Labour voters are too busy making ends meet to answer the phone. National voters sit by the phone waiting for pollsters to ring. It’s the highlight of their day.
Seriously though. We know there will be a swing to Labour and away from National on the day. That coupled with a “yes we can” type campaign should see a welcome change of government.
Fabulous optimism there sir. National are quaking and know they will lose. The Cunliffe will easily win all the televised debates. The GOTV will easily get out 1,000,000 extra votes. All the signs are showing that JK has just 79 days left. What on earth are you drinking?
Meanwhile, the political scene in the United States is primed for an explosion. One of my regular readers—tip of the archdruid’s hat to Andy Brown—is a research anthropologist who recently spent ten weeks traveling around the United States asking people about their opinions and feelings concerning government. What he found was that, straight across geographical, political, and economic dividing lines, everyone he interviewed described the US government as the corrupt sock puppet of wealthy interests. He noted that he couldn’t recall ever encountering so broad a consensus on any political subject, much less one as explosive as this.
I suppose we are still running a few years behind the states – perhaps when they hit the wall we will bang into them because we are following so closely.
The States is beset by massive internal culture wars which the elite have used as a distraction to take attention away from the class war that they have been waging on the 95%.
But it’s not working any more. And people are pissed off. And many of them have guns. And combat experience in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Thing in NZ – we have this massive advantage – our culture wars are piddly and although there are a million guns in this country, we hardly ever kill people with them.
if you saw Keys on the telly tonight you would know that he knows the game is up.
His government hasn’t really been a government at all.
Just a rabble sorting through the books to see what they could get their hands on.
begone foul spirits.
For those who facebook – check out the group ‘barry jenkin saved my life’ – some great bands, tunes and memories, like this one – it seems very apt for the gnats and keyworld
“This is the happy house, we’re happy here in the happy house
Oh, it’s such fun, fun, fun
We’ve come to play in the happy house
And waste a day in the happy house, it never rains, never rains
We’ve come to scream in the happy house
We’re in a dream in the happy house
We’re all quite sane, sane, sane
This is the happy house-we’re happy here
There’s room for you if you say “I do”
But don’t say no or you’ll have to go
We’ve done no wrong with our blinkers on
It’s safe and calm if you sing along, sing along, sing along
This is the happy house, we’re happy here in the happy house
To forget ourselves and pretend all’s well
There is no hell
I’m looking through your window
I’m looking through your window”
Postmodernism has long been looked upon as an indecipherable ideology and a source of amusement. In 1996 Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, had a hoax article published in ‘Social Text’ an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. In ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Anew study in Nature Sustainability incorporates the damages that climate change does to healthy ecosystems into standard climate-economics models. The key finding in the study by Bernardo Bastien-Olvera and Frances Moore from the University of California at Davis: The models have been underestimating the ...
In a recent interview with RNZ (14th of January), NZ Council of Civil Liberties Chair Thomas Beagle, in response to Simon Bridges condemnation of the post-Trump Twitter purge of local far Right and other accounts, said the following: “Cos the thing about freedom of expression is that it’s not just ...
Let’s be clear: if Trump is not politically killed off once and for all, he will become a MAGA Dracula, rising from the dead to haunt US politics for years to come and giving inspiration to his wretched family of grifters and thousands of deplorables well into the next decade. ...
Since its demise as an imperial power, and especially its deindustrialisation under Thatcher, the UK's primary economic engine has been its role as a money laundry, using its network of overseas territories as tax havens to enable rich people around the world to steal from the societies they live in. ...
Last month OMV quit the Great South Basin and surrendered its offshore exploration permits outside of Taranaki. This month, Australian-owned Beach Energy has done the same: Beach Energy Resources New Zealand has decided to abandon all of its oil and gas exploration permits off the South Island coast, including ...
The new Northland case has been linked to the South African strain of Covid-19, one of a number of new, more contagious Covid variants. Here’s how they emerge and why. Let’s start with the basics. The genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for Covid-19 is a strand of RNA ...
MARVIN HUBBARD, US citizen by birth, New Zealand citizen by choice, Quaker and left-wing activist, has been broadcasting his show, "Community or Chaos", on Otago Access Radio for the best part of 30 years. On 24 November last year, I spoke with him about the outcome of the 2020 General ...
This is a guest blog post by Daniel Tamberg, Potsdam, co-founder and director of SCIARA GmbH. The non-profit organisation SCIARA is developing and operating a flexible software platform for scientific simulation games that allows thousands of players to explore, design and understand possible climate futures together. Decision-makers in politics, business, ...
Yesterday's Gone: Cold shivers are running up and down the spines of conservatives everywhere. Donald Trump may have gone, but all the signs point to there being something much more momentous in the wind-shift than a simple return to the status quo ante. A change is gonna come. ONE COULD ...
Is it possible to live and let live in the post-Trump era? The online campaign to vilify Christopher Liddell, ex-White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to Trump, makes for an interesting case study. Liddell is a New Zealander whose illustrious career in corporate America once earned him plaudits ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 17, 2021 through Sat, Jan 23, 2021Editor's Choice12 new books explore fresh approaches to act on climate changeAuthors explore scientific, economic, and political avenues for climate action ...
This discussion is from a Twitter thread by Martin Kulldorff on 20 December 2020. He is a Professor at Harvard Medical School specialising in disease surveillance methods, infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety. His Twitter handle is @MartinKulldorff #1 Public health is about all health outcomes, not just a single ...
The Treasury forecasts suggest the economy is doing better than expected after the Covid Shock. John Kenneth Galbraith was wont to say that economic forecasting was designed to make astrology look good. Unfair, but it raises the question of the purpose of economic forecasts. Certainly the public may treat them ...
Q: Will the COVID-19 vaccines prevent the transmission of the coronavirus and bring about community immunity (aka herd immunity)? A: Jury not in yet but vaccines do not have to be perfect to thwart the spread of infection. While vaccines induce protection against illness, they do not always stop actual ...
Joe Biden seems to be everything that Donald Trump was not – decent, straightforward, considerate of others, mindful of his responsibilities – but none of that means that he has an easy path ahead of him. The pandemic still rages, American standing in the world is grievously low, and the ...
Keana VirmaniFrom healthcare robots to data privacy, to sea level rise and Antarctica under the ice: in the four years since its establishment, the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund has supported over 30 projects.Rebecca Priestley, receiving the PM Science Communication Prize (Photo by Mark Tantrum) Associate Professor ...
Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
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 ...
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. ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta today announced three diplomatic appointments: Alana Hudson as Ambassador to Poland John Riley as Consul-General to Hong Kong Stephen Wong as Consul-General to Shanghai Poland “New Zealand’s relationship with Poland is built on enduring personal, economic and historical connections. Poland is also an important ...
Work begins today at Wainuiomata High School to ensure buildings and teaching spaces are fit for purpose, Education Minister Chris Hipkins says. The Minister joined principal Janette Melrose and board chair Lynda Koia to kick off demolition for the project, which is worth close to $40 million, as the site ...
A skilled and experienced group of people have been named as the newly established Oranga Tamariki Ministerial Advisory Board by Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis today. The Board will provide independent advice and assurance to the Minister for Children across three key areas of Oranga Tamariki: relationships with families, whānau, and ...
The green light for New Zealand’s first COVID-19 vaccine could be granted in just over a week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. “We’re making swift progress towards vaccinating New Zealanders against the virus, but we’re also absolutely committed to ensuring the vaccines are safe and effective,” Jacinda Ardern said. ...
The Minister for ACC is pleased to announce the appointment of three new members to join the Board of ACC on 1 February 2021. “All three bring diverse skills and experience to provide strong governance oversight to lead the direction of ACC” said Hon Carmel Sepuloni. Bella Takiari-Brame from Hamilton ...
The Government is investing $9 million to upgrade a significant community facility in Invercargill, creating economic stimulus and jobs, Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene have announced. The grant for Waihōpai Rūnaka Inc to make improvements to Murihiku Marae comes from the $3 billion set ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
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 ...
After a raft of inquiries delving into and recommending what should be done about the politically beleaguered Orangi Tamaraki, along with the briefing papers we suppose he has been given, we imagined Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis would have no more need for expert advice. Wrong. He has ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Senior Lecturer and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University There’s a common assumption men take longer than women to poo. People say so on Twitter, in memes, and elsewhereonline. But is that right? What could explain it? And if ...
Just as sexuality is a spectrum, so too is asexuality. In Ace of Hearts, members of New Zealand’s asexual community talk about the challenges and misconceptions of identifying as ace.First published November 17, 2020.Ace of Hearts is part of Frame, a series of short documentaries produced by Wrestler for The Spinoff.“A ...
Sam Brooks wasn’t allowed to watch kids TV as a kid. Now, as a 30 year old man, he watches it for the first time.My mother’s approach to parenting was unorthodox. I wrote weekly book reports on top of my actual homework, I did maths equations in Roman numerals and ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk More leading Indonesian figures have made racial slurs against Natalius Pigai, former chair of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) – and all West Papuans, says United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda. “Since the illegal Indonesian invasion in 1963, Indonesian ...
“The Government’s failure to even conduct a standard cost-benefit analysis for the most expensive infrastructure project in New Zealand’s history is mind-bogglingly arrogant,” says New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke. “A ...
The Ministry of Health is today drawing backlash from the local New Zealand vaping industry following its release of proposed regulations for the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act. Vaping Trade Association New Zealand (VTANZ) President, ...
Sophie Gilmour and Simon Day are joined by special guest Hugo Baird, co-owner of Grey Lynn’s Honey Bones and Lilian, to talk about opening new pub Hotel Ponsonby.Auckland is a city of many bars but few really good pubs – the kind of places you’d be just as comfortable going ...
The appointment of an advisory board for Oranga Tamariki is welcome and should be a step toward a total transformation of the care and protection system to a by Māori, for Māori approach, Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft said today. Minister ...
Taking control of your financial wellbeing can have cascading positive impacts for your life and it can also be fun. With the help of the team at Kiwi Wealth, we’ve compiled some simple tricks for balancing your books in 2021. There’s something about the beginning of a new year, especially after ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of Technology As we know, getting into New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. There are practicalities, such as high airfare and managed isolation costs. And there are legal requirements, including pre-flight testing, mandatory ...
New Zealand faces the risk of a generation being locked out of the housing market unless land is freed up and more houses built, National Party leader Judith Collins says. ...
On Sunday, Stuff published a months-long investigation by Alison Mau detailing allegations of harassment and exploitation within the local music industry.The piece, ‘Music industry professionals demand change after speaking out about its dark side’, includes allegations of inappropriate behaviour and abuse of power by male artists, international acts and executives; ...
“The Government is all at sea on timelines for Australia and New Zealand’s respective vaccine roll-outs, with the worst news coming from the mouth of Pfizer Australia CEO Anne Harris,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “Yesterday, under increasing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised the US would demonstrate “global leadership on refugees”. Once elected, he pledged to vastly increase refugee resettlement in the US. If history is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Baumann, Casual Academic, School of Social Sciences & Psychology, Western Sydney University Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Lanicek, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History and Jewish History, UNSW On January 27 communities worldwide commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz — the largest complex of concentration camps and extermination centres during the Holocaust. This is the first year the International ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lorinda Cramer, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Australian Catholic University The summer break is over, marking a return to the office. For some, this ends almost a year of working from home in lockdown. Some analysts are predicting it might also mark an enduring ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 27, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato New Zealand has a strong history of protecting and promoting human rights at home and internationally, and prides itself on being an outspoken critic and global leader in this area. So, when the most ...
Good morning and welcome to the Bulletin. In today’s edition: Collins outlines the plan forward for National, no spread of Covid spotted yet in Northland, and students return for climate protest.In front of a Rotary Club at the Ellerslie Racecourse in Auckland, National leader Judith Collins yesterday set out her ...
*This articlefirst appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. The tourism industry isn't holding its breath for a trans-Tasman travel bubble being in place after Australia temporarily closed its borders to New Zealand. New Zealanders could be waiting even longer for a full trans-Tasman bubble, with the ...
We continue our week-long examination of New Zealand writer Roderick Finlayson with an essay by Anahera Gildea on cultural appropriation Every night at 7pm sharp, my Irish Catholic father and his eight siblings would have to kneel on the carpet of the living room, facing the freshly polished nudity of ...
Children's Minister Kelvin Davis will have independent eyes and ears across Oranga Tamariki over the next five months as the Government tries to change the work and practices of the ministry. The Government has created a Māori-led watchdog to oversee how the children's ministry, Oranga Tamariki, deals with parents and ...
A Covid reset will force costly and inflexible cities to take a hard look at their planning systems, or people will vote with their feet. Broken urban planning systems make for misery even in the best of times. If land use and housing regulations prevent metropolitan areas from growing up or out as ...
When an Auckland school classroom went up in flames in December last year, exploding asbestos over neighbouring houses, five separate government agencies were involved. Yet stressed residents dealing with the aftermath on their homes say the response felt chaotic and uncoordinated; even local MPs who got involved couldn't get the information they wanted. Hundreds of thousands of ...
The pandemic has accelerated the trend of doing our banking online instead of in person. This rapid digital embrace has, in turn, sped up the closure of many smaller bank branches. But, as Mark Jennings writes, there are new branches springing up with a different look and purpose. Auckland’s Wynyard ...
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http://topinfopost.com/2014/06/30/ultra-rich-mans-letter-to-my-fellow-filthy-rich-americans-the-pitchforks-are-coming
An eye-opening read. Set aside 15 minutes.
Sad that on top of the trickledown lie castigated by the author we are biddably complicit in a weird theism, centred on a sham Everyman who is donKey deep in the lie. Who yet himself never created a thing.
For the likes of SSLands and FizzyAnus, particularly FizzyAnus – your God is small change and small brained compared to this guy. Beware the pitchforks. If needs be they will penetrate the gated citadels of greed !
SS and Anus used to rile me, but as long as they abide by the site guidelines their babble will serve as a reminder for others.
Re North’s link; there have often been those (including third way Labourites) for whom the holy grail is capitalists behaving themselves. “rising tide floats all boats” and other variations. Good luck with that one.
@ Tiger Mountain
+1
I’m going to throw this one back to you Grey Warbler:
Your comment (which I agree with):
‘Why bother to make negative comment to a reasonable opinion even if overblown? The narky censorship and constant critiques of some people on this site stifle concerned opinion. People are being taken to task because they don’t think the same as the particular leftie-righteous who knows all and is so superior, and controlling. Picky, picky, and attacking in swarms at times and bloody officious.
If it isn’t blatant right wing bullshit, lies and left-hating stuff, leave it alone for pete’s sake.’
Now would you please explain why you take such a different stance toward TM’s comment than you did toward Stephanie’s (below)? Because I was about to write a very similar response to TM’s comment that you wrote to Stephanie’s.
I think North’s article makes a fair point and supports the type of issues that the left are pretty keen to address – i.e. addressing issues with a system that is not providing benefits to all people (or classes). Yet these days, it appears that noone can make a fair suggestion as to how to address these problems without a trite comment from a lefty of a slightly different view point undermining the intention.
There is nothing like working toward some sort of unity to get the focus required in order to get an aim achieved.
Tiger Mountain,
This is actually the core of the problem isn’t it? i.e. no system will work if the people in that system act in a short sighted manner and/or in bad faith. Please show me an example of any system that works without this qualification.
Good luck with that one
Sorry the problem with capitalism as it has been practiced for 200 years is that short sightedness and bad faith is explicitly rewarded with power, position and standing in society.
Actually CV, that is the problem with ‘purer’ forms of capitalism.
The purer the version of capitalism that is pursued – the more increasing numbers of people become disadvantaged – the more mixed version of capitalism we pursue the more increasing numbers of peoples’ interests are addressed.
Social democracy was going pretty well, as I understand it from history books – then it came to a glitch after the post-war boom died down – for which noone seemed to have any quick answers and this allowed some wacky and un-thought-through approaches to be aggressively pursued by persons who were most likely to be advantaged by them – these people marketed them well (ignoring some already established facts) and now it appears that social democracy nor its advantages ever existed – despite the fact that we continue to be advantaged by social democratic approaches in existence in our country and that we aren’t living under an entirely purely capitalist approach.
Please supply me with an example of a system where cheats aren’t advantaged; I would have thought this is the problem with cheating – it advantages the person cheating at the expense of everyone else.
It reached Peak Internal Market. Essentially, productivity in the rich nations had made it so that everyone could actually afford to buy everything and everyone actually had (The same was actually happening in the poor nations as well). This meant that demand and thus profit were dropping while inflation was still going up meaning that the rich were becoming less rich. To combat this the rich got the politicians on side and spread the lie, helped by the rather stupid economists, that a free international market would make everyone richer.
So the politicians opened up the borders and dropped the protections that had built up the rich nations so that the rich could increase the size of the markets that they could sell to. This has, inevitably, dropped wages and living standards for the many in the rich countries as those people now compete with people in the poor countries for the same job. Has slowed down the development in many poor countries which now solely import high tech gear rather than seeking to make it themselves from their own resources and their resources are extracted at higher and higher rates to be shipped to the rich countries for less and less money and worsening working conditions.
When cheats aren’t stopped and incarcerated then society pays and pays. When those same cheats are not only not incarcerated but are openly rewarded and celebrated as they are in our society today then society is fucked.
“The tendency for the rate of profit to fall” (over time and cycles), as Marx put it, is part of what is at the root of the capitalist systems inbuilt flaw. Many bourgeois economists have tried and failed to disprove this assertion.
Finance capital, the out of control once paper now digital money arm of capitalism is another major flaw. I was not having a go at North but at the subject of his link. It is interesting when capitalists do step back and observe.
Never thought you were TM. Taking the argument one step further it’s the mindless ‘theism’ attaching to the cheats mentioned by DTB and more particularly their political proxies which really worries. The ‘GodKey’ number for example. It’s a direct path to totalitarianism.
+1 DTB,
This is fairly well exactly the way I understood things had gone too and what you write fairly well points to the major problem in our society that appears to continue to be being majorly deflected from and effectively ignored; that the wealthy are not willing to drop their wealth a bit – drop their irrational need for more and more – so that society can continue to function healthily.
This is why I thought the letter North linked to had merit and is why I believe Tiger Mountain’s comment misses the mark in a big way.
Exactly.
What he says is nothing new and widely known – push more money into the hands of the lower incomes and the economy does better. This is the way to prosperity and healthy society. This whole wealth-creator, trickle-down idea is hocus-pocus.
What is new though is that a rich bastard is acknowledging it and doing something about it.
Great stuff.
He’s entitled to do whatever he wants with his wealth (within reason) as are any wealthy people. If he wants to give it to the less fortunate good for him.
interesting lack of comment on the substantive points of his letter gosman… wonder why that would be? because he pierces your ridiculous ideas on how an economy needs to work perhaps?
Because it is full of the same extreme leftist spin that I have seen and responded to time and again. For a start he states inequality is getting worse all the time. There isn’t actually a lot of evidence supporting this view. Yes inequality rose greatly in the 1980’s and 1990’s but it has been pretty much consistent since then.
Gosman. The time that people will listen to the spin is coming to an end. What kind of end – well that billionaire Amazon.com foundation investor sees it coming to a very bad end for the elite.
He even makes a comment that when the brink comes there won’t be enough time to get on their private jets to head out to New Zealand.
(Although some clever ones like James Cameron took an early flight).
What tosh. Revoultions need certain conditions to be successful in the modern world. Two of these are effective revolutionary organisers and the second is broad based support or at least a significant section of society willing to overthrow the State. None of these currently exist in the US. When or more proababy if they do then the wealthy will have plenty of time to move away.
the hubris is strong in that one…
..very late-stage edwardian..
What was the catalyst for revolution after the period in question you mention?
i was referring more to yr certainties..
‘how could this ever change..?’..the edwardians mused…
Yes they revolutions require certain pre-requisite conditions. The US fulfils most of them right now. (The two factors you list are facile and incorrect).
Yes they are trying to build up the equivalent of their Versailles or Forbidden City to hideaway in. But history shows that only a small portion manage to get away in the end (how did it work out for Marie Antoinette and friends?).
History shows the opposite.
How you deliberately and self-indulgently miss the point with your comment @1.2.1 Gosman. As you well know Hanauer doesn’t focus on questions of charity. His point is that exponentially advancing inequality being the result of the (neoliberal) capitalist economy as presently pursued will be its cancer and will precipitate uprising against it. The pitchfork metaphor makes his point very clear.
Do you agree or not ? And why, however you see it ?
Edit: just flicked over your comments above. The ultra-wealthy Hanauer entertains far-left, extremist dogma ? Are you mad ? Is reason not your bedfellow ?
Nobody is entitled.
Wealth is underwritten by everyone.
We all work together to make a efficient society.
Following the road rules keeps roads efficient for society.
Obeying the Law keeps retaliation and revenge from overtaking us.
And progressive taxation keeps the wealth in their place.
yeah..that’s a recommend-read..
North, the author Nick Hanauer is the one who gave the supposedly “banned” TED Talk: Rich People Don’t Create Jobs.
A five minute watch.
that also is highly recommended..
..i put that up you-know-where way back when it happened..
..and how about that you-know-where..!..eh..?
..always first with the best..
labour deserves ‘ups’ for their school-donation policy..
..the principal of a low-decile school says currently they only collect $3,000 per yr in donations..because parents ‘can’t afford them’..
..this policy means the school will not only be able to stop putting poor parents thru that ongoing humiliation/added-stress..
..but that the funding they will receive from this will be $20,000 per yr..
..(which..as the principal pointed out..will mean ‘a huge’ difference’ to what they will be able to offer their pupils..)
..hard to fault the policy on any level..really..
..labours’ best yet..
Yep agreed Phil, very clever policy striking a chord.
Has it not occurred to any political journalist that the reason behind the latest MFAT stuff up, is the restructuring that McCully rammed through. Fewer staff=more pressure=inevitable mistakes. We’ve seen it at home, and over the China wharf fiasco. Yet no-one connects the dots.
Absolutely right nsg. One can only wonder what is happening in the rest of a once effective public service. Isn’t the figure of 8,000 the number of redundancies pushed through govt. departments since 2008 ?
Me too. The stuff ups with EQC in the early stages were because of gutting the Public Service. Mr McCulley didn’t do too well this morning and it is the first time that I can remember him being held to account.
I don’t remember any stuff ups when Winston was Foreign Minister?
Can a successful and abundant species whose numbers measure in the millions be put on the endangered list?
Yes
Passenger Pigeon
Tricolor Blackbird
Emporer Penguin
Time to take drastic action before we have to add another numerous and successful species to the endangered list?
(for those who can’t get the hint, I am talking about Sapiens sapiens, the worlds most successful and abundant primate)
False equivocation. There aren’t just “millions” of humans.
Why bother to make negative comment to a reasonable opinion even if overblown? The narky censorship and constant critiques of some people on this site stifle concerned opinion. People are being taken to task because they don’t think the same as the particular leftie-righteous who knows all and is so superior, and controlling. Picky, picky, and attacking in swarms at times and bloody officious.
If it isn’t blatant right wing bullshit, lies and left-hating stuff, leave it alone for pete’s sake.
Nicely put Warbs. Onya.
Thankyou ‘Grey’
I get what you’re saying Stephanie, human numbers are measured in the billions, so no matter how appalling the slaughter gets, some should survive.
Hmm?
Long as it is not you or your family, eh Steph.
PS. And for the record Steph if you had bothered to go to the link you would read that the Passenger Pigeon numbers were also measured in the billions, but this didn’t save them.
(Over population’ may even be part of the puzzle of what condemned them. Lessons here for us maybe, that is if we care to look. It is possible that though overhunting is cited as the main reason for the demise if the Passenger Pigeon, problems of disease epidemic and famine that stalk unusually large populations under crisis conditions also played a role)
Historical evidence suggests that passenger pigeon numbers oscillated wildly in response to changes in their environment.
The primary difference between pigeons and humans is that humans constructively change their environment to suit their needs. Pigeons don’t.
The primary difference between pigeons and humans is that humans constructively change their environment to suit their needs. Pigeons don’t.
Both humans and pigeons have a predilection to find patterns (ordered structures) in the world around them even when the patterns are incoherent eg (Gilovich 1993,chapter 2).
The tendency to impute order to ambiguous stimuli is simply built into the
cognitive machinery we use to apprehend the world. It may have been bred into us through evolution because of its general adaptiveness
The ritualistic behavior in Skinners superstitious pigeons (a response to chance events) is a good example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstitious_pigeons
it is also widely seen in money market brokers,who try to explain on the news wraps,variations in various indices when the variances are still well within the range of noise.
If 99.9% of humans were to die, there’d still be 7 million left.
Hardly ‘extinction’.
Applying this same simplistic logic Lanth, there should be about 3 million passenger pigeons hiding about somewhere.
And as you mention Lanth there is historical anecdotal evidence that Passenger Pigeon numbers oscillated wildly in response to their environment. This has been backed up by genetic evidence of something called Ne, a genetic marker of genetic variation of effective population size, the greater the amount of genetic variation the greater the chance say of surviving something like a runaway epidemic for instance. Unfortunately for us low Ne is a genetic characteristic shared by Passenger Pigeons and human beings, which indicates that these hugely abundant species were in recent evolutionary time scales quite small. Meaning we are more susceptible to black swan extinction events than one would suppose just by our numbers, especially in the event of the climate becoming so unstable that it does not allow agriculture capable of supporting a civilisation with the ability to support socialised mass public health care and the industrial scale production of vaccines.
<
blockquote>These legendary North American birds’ flocks were so numerous that they blocked the sun from view for days when they flew over in the early and mid-1800s; yet less than 50 years later, they were gone.
“The passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird in the world, and suddenly it disappeared totally from the Earth.”
Mind-boggling.
But how could this be possible? Why did these birds disappear? Was this event due solely the murderous efficiency of gun-toting humans, or were there underlying factors that contributed to the demise of this species?
These are more interesting questions than they may appear to be at first glance. On one hand, it’s obvious that rare species with small geographic distributions are more likely to go extinct than are abundant, widespread species. But on the other hand, passenger pigeons had clearly defied all logic. Perhaps there was something special happening to the super-abundant and widespread birds that made them especially vulnerable to extinction? Would it be possible for the researchers identify what that could have been?….
….The researchers sequenced the aDNA using high-throughput technologies and managed to piece together high-quality genomic sequences for the passenger pigeon — the longest genome sequence with the highest quality ever obtained for an extinct bird.
Co-author Pen-Jen Shaner, an assistant professor in the the department of Life Sciences at the National Taiwan Normal University, and her colleagues, Wei-Chung Liu and Te-Chin Chu, used two different mathematical approaches to estimate the passenger pigeon’s genetically effective population size (Ne). The genetically effective population size is an estimate of the total genetic variation found within a given population (doi:10.1017/S0016672300034455). Increased genetic variation is associated with a greater capacity to survive challenging circumstances. Genetic variation arises through mutation and recombination, whilst natural selection removes variation from a population.
Since the passenger pigeon’s census numbers were between 3 and 5 billion individuals in the mid-1800s, the researchers were surprised when they discovered that the passenger pigeon’s genetically effective population size (Ne) was remarkably small. The genetically effective population size Ne was just 3.3 × 105 (95% credible interval = 3.25–3.32 × 105), which is approximately 1/10,000 of the estimated number of individuals from the mid-1800s.
This small genetically effective population size suggests that passenger pigeons were not always super-abundant. Instead, their population changed by a thousand-fold over time, a situation seen under two circumstances. First, a low genetically effective population size is characteristic for species that experience wide population fluctuations that only occasionally number into the billions during an “outbreak” phase (doi:10.1017/S0016672300034455). For example, most people are familiar with several outbreak species, particularly lemmings, Lemmus lemmus, and snowshoe hares, Lepus americanus, in the Arctic, and Australian plague locusts, Chortoicetes terminifera.
But an alternative explanation for a low Ne is seen for species that historically had small numbers and only recently experienced a population explosion — a situation occurring in humans today.
http://www.scilogs.com/maniraptora/journal-club-passenger-pigeon-extinction-its-complicated/
Add to to the above what we should remember is that last year super Typhoon Haiyan or Yolander as it was called by the people of the Philippines, the strongest storm ever recorded over land, made 4 million people homeless overnight.
Just imagine recurring super storms like that all over the face of the earth, how long could civilisation as we know it survive that?
But this is what is predicted to happen if the planet hits 3 degrees. And on present emissions levels we are expected to blow past 4 degrees, when the IPCC says we should not go past 2.
‘
Over 18,700 and climbing
Add your vote
I have mentioned black swan events like famine and epidemic and infrastructure collapse, any of which if severe enough under the right conditions could under the conditions of a severely degraded climate see off humanity.
There is one other I forgot: If forgot to mention, insurrection, violence, chaos.
WAR
Let us take the traditional accepted microcosm of human society facing a terminal crisis.
Take your ticket and board the Titanic
I am a first class passenger, should I take my place in a lifeboat, or give it up to others?
(some did)
I am crew, should I stay at my post to give everyone else a better chance to escape?
(most did)
I am captain, should I commit ritual suicide to atone for my inaction, should I go down with the ship?
(He did)
I am the bosun, should I order the 3rd class passengers be locked below decks to give the first class passengers better chance of escape?
(He did)
I am a third class passenger should I violently overthrow the bosun and his armed officers, locking me and my family below decks?
(knowing that this will not create any more life boats or greatly increase the overall survival rate, though it might make the cull fairer. Most didn’t and died in far greater numbers because of it. Much like climate change which is hitting the poorest nations hardest)
What if the 3rd class passengers had refused to accept their lot, and violently revolted. As the violence erupted, the professional crewmen needed to lower the lifeboats would have been scattered, or become involved in the fighting to beat back the 3rd class passengers trying to storm the lifeboats. No lifeboats would be lowered. In the ensuing chaos could anyone survive at all?
On a global scale as delta nations become flooded and super storms and heatwaves make the tropic regions uninhabitable, this fighting for survival will not be done with clubs and rifles but with every modern weapon to hand, napalm, high explosives, delivered by high level bombers or drones possibly even delivering gas, nuclear and even biological weapons to beat back the doomed millions locked in the worst affected areas and trying to bust out. There is even the possibility that some of these worst affected nations will have these weapons too.
If you accept the reality of climate change then you must accept the possibility of human extinction, whether by war, famine, or disease.
To us of course this is all academic, by the time things get this bad those of us writing and reading here will have faced our own individual personal extinctions. The point is, we are the ones who could prevent it getting that bad, those who come after us won’t have that luxury.
Should we do something about climate change is a moral question. We need to put it into terms we can understand on a human level. What if instead of in the future and happening to millions it was happening in the next room to only a handful, and only we safe and comfortable in our room, were the only ones with the means to stop it. Would we? Or would we not get involved because it doesn’t affect us?
Let us be the first ones to get up out of our armchair and say enough, this stops here. Let us be the ones that give a lead to the world. We could do it easily. Remove the $155 million subsidy to Solid Energy and distribute to the workers to start new lives outside the coal industry. Remove the super cheap secret subsidised price that Comalco pays for the electricity and their other tax payer subsidies. Let that electricity flow into the National grid allowing us to close down every fossil fuel generator tomorrow. Switch the millions ear marked for Roads of National Significance (ie motorways), into public transport. Cancel all plans for deep sea oil drilling, ban fracking, stop Denniston and Mangatangi and all other proposed new coal mines. Become the first country in the world to declare war on climate change, challenge all other nations to join us.
The Prime Minister is a big-noting lightweight fool.
….. and look at the comments section of the 7 so far. Alert alert alert @ Gosman, Fizz, Srylands and co – action needed on Stuff.co.nz
The most interesting point in that article is this:
polling released today in pennsylvania shows 84% support for legalising medical-marijuana..
(and i will repeat my contention that should the internet party come out with a colorado-model of legalisation/regulation/taxation of cannabis..
..that they will take votes from labour..from the greens..and from the soft national underbelly…
..and anyone doubting the potential for soft national votes..
..should recall the recent poll showing that 45% of national party supporters support ending prohibition..
..and given the seachanges in public opinion on this issue over recent years..
..and the galloping legalisations in america/globally..
..i am puzzled that labour so shy away from the issue..
..and the greens are so shy about promoting their medical-marijuana policies..
..there are all those votes up for grabs..(?)
..and it looks like they are there for the taking..
..by the internet party..
and of course the mana party has a medical-marijuana policy..
..so there will be no policy-clash/friction there…
Mana have said this
and on another topic
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10227887/Mana-supports-decriminalising-marijuana
This shows the mana of Hone and the fact that Mana isn’t a one man band. Changing the government is the focus – they have to go!!!
‘Unaffordable homes and outsourcing community housing for the poor to a community that can’t house the poor’
By Martyn Bradbury / July 1, 2014 /
“So Massey University’s Home Affordability Report latest survey shows wages have risen $35 per week on average in the past year while house prices have jumped $38,000.
How a $35 wage increase per week is supposed to offset a $38 000 jump in housing prices hasn’t been explained by the Government and the media still seem to be hunting for magical bottles of $100 000 wine to bother challenging Key on his do nothing but sprawl urban planning.
A market with no capital gains tax to reign in domestic speculators and no restrictions for foreign speculators to buy property has created a housing bubble that is great for baby boomers and crap news for every other NZer.
While this Government robs two entire generations of any possibility of home ownership, they are also busy destroying beneficiaries in state housing.
Sweeping the problem of housing for the poor into the hands of religious charities is an abdication of political responsibility, it is the Government’s obligation to house the poor, not the bloody Church!
It is a sad day when the Prime Minister of NZ can own a Parnell Palace and a Hawaiian mansion while a vast chunk of that PM’s citizens can’t afford the deposit on one house.”
Coming up soon on Radionz.
Professor Shambaugh was the keynote speaker at a conference hosted by Victoria University of Wellington’s New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre on Wednesday 2 July, which contemplated the radical policy reforms that were proposed by the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee at the 2013 Third Plenum. His talk is titled: “New policies – has China done enough to secure its future? China at the crossroads.”
So Labour stuck in the high 20s, that’ll be a concern for those on the list.
Yes but I am sure its just another rogue poll besides there is still plenty of time until the election.
Latest Roy Morgan: Lab/Green/IMP 42.5% Nats 48% (down from 52.5 a month ago).
After McCully, school donations policy and the Congress it will be 44% v 46%.
It’s all on for the campaign.
Despite the ‘polls’ Bearded it has always been my opinion that ”its all on” and has been so since the Slippery lead National Government barely slithered in for a second term…
Yep Bad agreed: what I liked in parliament yesterday was that when Key called Cunliffe “tricky” Cunliffe came straight back at him with “slippery”.
Lolz, yeah that was definitely ‘laugh out loud’ stuff from David Cunliffe, i commented on it in yesterday’s Open Mike,
Worth pointing out again tho to David or His advisers that to save confusion among the Government Benches, all of them looking pretty much like ”johns” from where i sit, that it might be far less confusing should the need arise to just refer to Him as Slippery the Prime Minister thus leaving no-one in doubt to exactly who is being addressed,
Some might see this as a denigration of the Parliaments standards, i would suggest tho that Slippery Himself has already achieved this standard, aided and abetted by the Speaker of the House, with the constant use of ”Tricky” as an epithet repeatedly applied by the PM to David Cunliffe on the floor of the Parliament,
My view is that David Cunliffe need to take the fight to the PM on any level, gutter included, that the Prime Minister wishes to drag the Parliament down to…
PS, watch the Speaker suddenly find that such personal epithets, should the press begin to repeatedly use that which David Cunliffe applied to Slippery, are out of order…
Key calling Cunliffe tricky… Cunliffe calling Key slippery…. pity neither of them do much of anything for those in NZ on struggle street.
How can Cunliffe do ‘much of anything’ for those struggling while in opposition?*
How does Cunliffe get to be in government when people are so happy to spread right-wing propaganda that “regardless who is in power noone does ‘much of anything’ for those struggling?”
_*Actually the way he is spreading the idea that everyone should get a share in the country’s wealth is a highly advantageous idea to have spread around our country – particularly for those struggling – and this is being done even while in opposition.
Tinfoil, you will have to expand upon that quite a bit to make it a point worth debating, ie: there is likely/unlikely to be gains for those on ”struggle street” by having David Cunliffe as the next Prime Minister simply because such a position will require Him to negotiate with any number of coalition partners who may be able to force those ”gains” as part of either coalition or confidence and supply arrangements,???…
Sorry Bad just alluding to the fact, or should I say my opinion that there ain’t too much difference between Key and Cunliffe (Nat and Lab) except at the very thin margin.
If a government of the left is to make much of a difference in NZ it is going to have to be very heavily influenced by the Greens and Mana otherwise it’s just going to be more of the same even if Labour/Cunliffe get to form the government.
To a certain extent i would agree with you Tinfoil, but, to make such a blanket assertion i would suggest is doing your argument a disservice,
Agree with you vis a vis Green/InternetMana, to make some real gains for those stuck out on the margins/marginalized it would be pretty much a given that we need a Labour/Green/InternatMana Government which if NZFirst is also included, seriously weakens any role NZFirst may have as ‘kingmaker’..
yes Bearded Git…
plus there is the newly extended voting period from September 3 through to September 20,
and the union “Get Out and Vote” campaign is now active http://www.getoutandvote.org.nz
and the anticipated IMP media campaign
and IMP is at 2.5% in such short time compared to ACT, Colon and Hairdo
and the TV debates and general mayhem
and a party for virtually everyone that can be engaged
the right wing dickheads, sheepshaggers, pud pullers and brown nosers don’t seem to even listen to their own dear leader who recently warned the tory faithful about complacency.
Don’t forget the missing million who will all pop up on election day dressed in red.
We only need around 50,000 of them to turn up and vote for parties that aren’t National or National proxies to turn NZ around. Key and his cronies only scraped in with a one seat majority last time and that majority disappeared with John Banks. Key goes into this election as lame a duck as Muldoon was in ’84.
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/5664-new-zealand-roy-morgan-poll-july-2-2014-201407020558
Yes TRP, this election is finely balanced as anyone that has been paying attention and makes an effort to be informed knows, and Crosby Textor and the Hollowmen pay some of the closest attention of all.
The polls are somewhat true in their own habitat but not totally correct or absolutely predictive.
Yep, TM, all sorts of political insiders are acknowledging that it’s in the balance. It’s a shame that the likes of nakiman, gossie, srylands and the rest aren’t capable of agreeing that National is ahead in the polls at the moment but this election is going to be much, much tighter than many people realise.
Ummm… who states we can’t acknowledge that. I have stated here that I’m surprised that National is leading by as much as they are given the last election result and the election result will be close when it really shouldn’t even be a contest. Labour should be a show in. The fact they are not speaks volumes.
Fair enough, but I’d disagree that National is leading. Key is leading, National are nowhere. That much was made clear at the conference on the weekend.
Agree with TRP
The Nats have so touched lucky with Key up till recently, “nobody knows where love goes but when its gone; its gone gone gone”.
brilliant
Really?
I agree that National is ahead in the polls at the moment but this election is going to be much, much tighter than many people realise.
And here you have it, even a broken clock can be right twice a day
“Don’t forget the missing million who will all pop up on election day dressed in red.”
and green and purple and black and white
but blue with those yellow streaks? probably not so much
So the Lou Vincent disaster continues. Listen to the interview with Tony Vietch.
Vincent is pretty explicit about his “hero” being involved to a very high degree. The threat he says, of the bat threatening over his head sounds compelling. He does not name his “hero” as the police are still investigating. But not hard to join the dots.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=143949
Kicked her so hard he put her in a wheelchair. Thanks but no thanks to the listen to woman beater Vietch.
It still amazes me he was returned to a job in broadcasting. His victims life in tatters and business as usual for him – a further injustice to the victim on top of what she had already been through.
Tony Veitch is not the story here. Ignore him.
Can’t do it ianmac, he’s tainted meat, and even if I wanted to ignore him, the rot smell in pervasive.
On the cheat Vincent’s claims, if he went public and named the ‘hero’, would the ‘hero’ take up a libel action? And ultimately, who would the court believe?
True ianmac, you were discussing Lou Vincent, not Tony Veitch.
But it’s kind of hard to ignore that Veitch is there, in his job, as if nothing happened. How can people listen to him? What kind of a society thinks its ok for a violent abuser to retain his privileged position in broadcasting?
For goodness sake Rosie do we on the left believe in rehabilitation for offenders or don’t we.
“do we on the left believe in rehabilitation for offenders or don’t we.”
Feel free to let him date your daughter, sister or mother.
So that’s a no from you then.
First time I’ve seen you take a pro-stance on rehabilitating violent offenders. From your comments I take it you’re in favour of in-community rehab for privileged white male violent offenders.
I’m in favour of rehabilitation of any and all offenders, otherwise we’ll continue to reap the cycle of repeat and even intergenerational offending.
As opposed to a privileged brown male multiple offender like the Maori Kings son who got discharged without conviction today as it might hurt his “career” prospects?
And his fellow thieves all got discharged without conviction in Gisborne the other day too.
It pays to go thieving with the Maori Kings son……..
I am not commenting here on the Veitch situation as I do not know the details of his sentence as well as I know others.
But I have a couple of questions for you tinfoilhat, do you believe that just because a person has done time they are rehabilitated and deserve to be completely forgiven for their wrongdoing?
When a person refuses all rehab programmes, violence prevention programmes, literacy programmes, psychological therapy assistance and other offers of rehabilitation when inside, yet still get paroled, would you call that justice for the victim?
” Do you believe that just because a person has done time they are rehabilitated and deserve to be completely forgiven for their wrongdoing?”
No
“When a person refuses all rehab programmes, violence prevention programmes, literacy programmes, psychological therapy assistance and other offers of rehabilitation when inside, yet still get paroled, would you call that justice for the victim?”
A far more difficult question and certainly might depend on the particular circumstances of a specific case but if you are looking for a simple yes or no I would veer towards a No.
so what do you believe “we on the left” need to do?
Not sure that Veitch ever really showed guilt or remorse for what happened, or suffered too much in the way of penalty for it.
Exactly Lanth. And that is the point here. The victim has the rest of her life to deal with this while Veitch has his little stint in the wilderness, the it is back to BAU.
And a no from you.
I believe in rehabilitation when the perpetrator shows remorse and changes his actions. Vietch doesn’t appear to have done either. IIRC, he actually got rather snarky about it at the time of the trial.
Sorry mate you can’t have special favours for your mates and call that “rehab”
In this case with Veitch it looks more like a consequence free ride with no payment of his dues to society or his victim.
agreed, lanth. I seem to recall he did the crying-on-tv thing, but it mostly revolved around the effect his offending had had on him.
Rehabilitation varies from offender to offender.
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to put the rehab word up. Condemning his actions and questioning the wisdom in reinstating Veitch in his former role does not automatically equate to “don’t believe in rehabilitation for criminals”.
There’s a big leap from a restorative justice type process where the criminal begins to understand and fully own the consequences of their actions and the community enabling and supporting them through changing their behaviours TO brushing the victims experience aside and allowing some one guilty of committing violent crime (who, apart from crocodile tears, seems to have shown little remorse) back into a public facing role. Can you put yourself in the victims shoes? Her life changed forever, her abuser’s life, business as usual.
I get quite sick of the double standards we appear to have in our country. On one hand you have a group like the sensible sentencing trust who constantly demonstrate appalling ignorance around the complexities of crime and have a simple mantra “lock em up and throw away the key”. A revenge/punishment type orientation is promoted over rehabilitation.
On the other hand, sporting personalities, and I’m including Veitch as a broadcaster here, seem to have excuses made for their behaviour by the media and their peers and the harm to the victim is minimised. Guildford and Savea come to mind as rugby players who, perversely, get sympathy after complaints are made to police about their behaviour. The situation is quickly forgotten, brushed under the carpet, so they can get back to the important business of being heroic rugby players.
To emphasize your point Rosie,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=11286426
I refuse to accept there is a single youth with a licence in this country who can claim to be unaware that if they drink they cannot drive. Especially when the youth concerned is a member of such a well structured organisation as the Blues.
What are the odds I wonder that a conviction will not be entered ?
The Blues do look after their boys
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/driving-offences/news/article.cfm?c_id=179&objectid=10902579
“He was pulled over on Auckland’s southwest motorway in April, on his way to a Blues team appointment.
Saili had only just received a notice that he had been suspended from driving for 28 days after racking up too many demerit points.”
Unfortunately, very high. Getting sick of seeing a few people treated differently from the rest of us because of their profession/wealth.
Wow. Drink driving = minor misdemeanour. Not so much if he has killed someone. It was just “lucky” he didn’t. A good example freedom of how the sports professions close ranks and protect badly behaved players from criticism and fall out. Their status seems to exclude them receiving the same treatment as regular folks would.
PS: Hope you’re doing ok after last weeks ignorance attack from King Kong. I did leave a message of support for yourself and Nick S, (as a reply to Nick), but I was a bit late to see the conversation develop and hence my response was delayed.
Thank you Rosie. It was not a great week and I sincerely appreciated your words of support, as I appreciate it every time I see Standardistas support each other.
I should have replied there and then but didn’t really know what to say. I do not enjoy exposing people to those events and withheld the more disturbing details of the attack but KK’s ignorance certainly warranted the reply, abridged as it was. We all have a past and mine is no more special than anyone else’s despite the Tarantino like aspects, but every now and then a little truth can shed a lot of light. And without light we do kind of stay in the dark. 🙂
I kind of wondered if even someone like him, like KK, after reading of your experience, may have gone away and reconsidered his lack of understanding and the harm that expressing such ignorance can do. It wouldn’t be deep thoughts, more a “holy crap” sobering kind of reflection. He may have learnt something from what you said. We can only hope. I’m just sorry you had to go through a difficult time because of him
No need to have replied either _ I wasn’t expecting you to. I think sometimes comments can be left for others, after a long or tiring discussion that can just be left at that. Not every comment needs a reply and I get the feeling that most people do follow up and read responses, but don’t always require a further response in return.
Hope this week is shaping up better. Take care.
I guess the carefully constructed tearful mea culpa and persistent advocacy from Deaker didn’t help.
Seems our weather observations here on TS a few weeks back were on the mark. Warmest June since records began in 1909 – with 9 of those warmest years being post 1970, and 5 of them post 2000
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1407/S00007/june-climate-summary-warmest-june-on-record.htm
Yeah Rosie, even yesterdays ‘polar blast’ lacked the blast bit, a normal Wellington Winter usually delivers up a series of three day events but so far this year these are happily lacking,
i fear tho for my garden at the start of Spring when the crop gets to experience the great outdoors for the first time,
Normally i plant in the first week of November and if last years conditions are likely to repeat again this year i am thinking that i might better serve my babies by delaying that planting for a week…
Edit: Perhaps in global terms the retreat of the ice sheet and the growth in depth/volume of the East Antarctic ice pack are what is lessening the frequency/ferocity of the Southerly blasts we get to feel here…
El Nino prediction for 2014 Bad.
Probably means that getting the seeds growing indoors first week of September for planting Labour Day won’t be too far off the mark as summer 2015 should probably be drought ridden.
“Normally i plant in the first week of November and if last years conditions are likely to repeat again this year i am thinking that i might better serve my babies by delaying that planting for a week…”
Might be a good idea bad. Last summer was definitely the windiest I remember in Wgtn, and as James Thrace points out below we have the El Nino pattern predicted for summer (I thought we were in it already). I saw on the telly that it will most likely be windier on the west coast and dryer and hotter on the east coast. So get set for some more summer winds. Everything we grew last summer failed but the plants that survived are now thriving in our warm still winter………..
And yeah, that “polar blast” was a pretender of a polar blast yesterday. A poor effort for Wellington.
Random thought, but one that has nagged me for a while (not my wife, btw).
Arguably, the two most successful business/performance entities on the global stage from NZ are Fonterra and the All Blacks.
I saw a pie chart somewhere around here the other day which showed that NZ (read Fonterra) produced, by volume of dairy products, 26.1% of global dairy trade. More than the whole of Europe and significantly more than the USA. I know there are valid eggs-in-one-basket concerns that this trade relies too heavily on one market and that focus has been drawn away from our developing of other export technologies but nonetheless, generating over a quarter of the world’s dairy trade is quite a statistic from a nation as small as ours.
The All Blacks are the undisputed pinnacle of all rugby on the planet both historically and, more importantly for the purposes of this discussion, currently. Overall they have a 76% winning percentage, and I would say higher than that since the game went professional in 1996. They have lost just the one game since the end of August 2011, three years ago. They have held the IRB number one ranking continuously since November 2009, nearly five years ago. It appears they are only getting stronger. All this again from a nation of just 4 million.
Now, I know not everyone is into rugby and I know some are concerned with dairy farmers’ attitude to the NZ environment but it’s occurred to me that the business models of these two NZ success stories are collective and dare I say it, communist. I say “communist” as a political/business lay person (it’s a heavily weighted description with a lot of baggage) and am happy to be corrected there.
But, it’s hard to escape the irony that in an increasingly capitalist world, Fonterra, a farmers’ collective, and the NZRU with it’s central contract system, are killing it on the world stage right now.
Do collective arrangements work better?
Yes they do especially when they’re backed by the entire community as both the NZRU and Fonterra are.
Interestingly skycity wont release its plans for the convention centre until after the election. Of interest is the traffic chaos IF The rail loop goes ahead on schedule. Could explain the govt attempts to stall the rail loop…
So, auckland, chchch, wellington, queenstown all building international convention centres…just what we need.
” Fairfax Media understands final design plans for the NZICC are expected to be publicly unveiled later this year, likely to be after the September 20 General Election, with applications for resource consents to follow.
The agreement between the Government and SkyCity calls for construction of the NZICC to be completed by September 30, 2017.
Disruption for Auckland commuters from the NZICC construction project could combine with more traffic chaos if the City Rail Link project starts early, as is being pushed for by the Auckland Council.
The CRL would require the entire city block opposite the Britomart transport centre to be demolished and rebuilt from scratch in order to allow the digging of tunnels.
Stuff
”
Internet Mana road trip in Far North, starts July 15 in Kaitaia.
https://www.facebook.com/InternetPartyNZ
Do you think they will wear bullet proof vests?
You’re quite the coward, nakiman.
“Coward” How would Hone wearing a bullet proof vest make me a coward?
Will the fat German fraudster be there or will he be in court?
Nothing to do with Hone, nakiman. You’re a snivelling, gutless creep.
Hook line and sinker
Oh well, at least this one owns up to just being a shit stirring troll just for shitstirring’s sake. Yawn!
This comment Nakahi man simply says that you are trawling ‘Open Mike’ looking to start a flame…
Steven Wallace could have used one eh when Constable Abbot dispensed some lead poisoning in your neck of the woods Nakiman.
Checked out Batemans and some other New Zealand History sources and it appears the Taranaki has the highest count of WWI memorials and one of the worst track records on relations with Māori. Nothing to be proud of.
I was in waitara early the following morning before they had opened the road.
Abbot was also a neighbour of mine a few years earlier.
Hope you didn’t practice your short game in the back yard.
Constable Abbot is a good man and did what he had to do, I hope he got good support and councilling so it doesn’t affect him negatively for the rest of his life
Yeah, if he hadn’t have shot him Wallace might have smashed even more windows. Good call, that man.
Or he might have killed someone else we’ll never know but what we do know is Abbot was on the scene and made the call
Because no one was ever tested we’ll never know who was half cut when they arrived at the scene or if someone under the influence of alcohol decided to settle an old score. Will we?.
What we know can lead to conclusions. Such as: “police resources are worse than useless when inadequate”, and “stop arming agents of the state with anything more powerful than harsh language and pepper spray” and a whole-of-government-approach, as opposed to putting public servants into positions where they feel there is no alternative.
I think the only window Abbot would have been worried about was the windscreen of his car as the golf club came through it towards his head.
‘cept that didn’t happen. Abbott wasn’t in the police car, he arrived separately, in his own vehicle. Doofus.
Reality’s Liberal bias strikes again.
“Wallace rampaged like a man possessed. Leaving golf clubs at various scenes he smashed and beat windows and cars. 3 cars were damaged. A taxi with passengers, a private car with 6 youths in it, the third car was a police patrol car. It has been said that night Wallace was intent on killing either himself or someone else and that the Senior Constable was an unwitting pawn in his game.
Collecting his pistol from the police station, Senior Constable Keith Abbott arrived at the scene of destruction. Beaten cars and 140 smashed windows a testimony of the Suspects State of mind. Steven Wallace began to aggressively advance on Abbott armed with a golf club and a baseball bat. Negotiation with the man proved fruitless. Wallace was warned that the policeman was armed and a warning shot was fired. With still no sign of the danger of the attack lessening Abbott withdrew 50m but was circled by Wallace and was cut off. When he reached 20m away Wallace threw the golf club at the Constables head causing him to duck and continued advancing with the softball bat. Abbott shot four shots before the man fell at 5-6m from the constable.”
At the end of the day feral scum always blame the police for there fuckups.
The only good thing about this is no innocent people where hurt.
People more objective than Nakiman might like to read some of the cross examination records from Abbott’s murder trial.
I make no apology for choosing a piece framed by a writer critical of Abbott who had options available other than lethal force that he chose not to take. The IPCA and other arse covering documents on this case are too nausea inducing to present here.
http://murderpedia.org/male.A/a/abbott-keith.htm
And Nakiman, your comments on Hone Harawira are despicable.
I read your link, I was appalled that they called the police officer the killer.
There should never have been a court case and trying to wind people up by playing the race card is a disgrace, how does that work when they are both Maori.
Usually when one person kills another, the one who does the killing is called the killer. That’s just how the English language works.
You went to Auckland Grammar, nakiman. You ought to have learned some of these basics.
“Do you think they will wear bullet proof vests?”
Incredibly callous and insensitive remark there. Shame on you GoNaddy Man.
Must keep an eye on their facebook page to see when the roadshow reaches Wellington, might be a good chance to have a talk with Hone about growing the presence of the Mana movement here in the capital…
that is a good idea…
..the internet/mana voter-drive/election-campaign is going to kick-arse…
..and will be a multi-pronged beast..
..awesome to behold..
..i’m still calling sub-10% (just.!.)..and feeling conservative with that..
..stand aside..!..coming thru..!..
Ever the optimist Phillip, i am calling 4%, should they poll higher than the 2.5% of the recent Morgan Poll tho i will adjust my calculation accordingly…
(admittedly tho, such a calculation does not include the likes of something like the ‘worm phenomena’ occurring, taking everyone by surprise)…
September 3rd to 20th for voting! How can anyone believe that dragging out the time like this is going to be better for this most important event for NZ. Do it at your leisure, at your convenience! Don’t put yourself out.
Over three-four days maybe with weekend in the middle. Special votes for special people not able to make it. But then finish and we have a count and something definitive, not with something that drags on and in which all sorts of compromising mischief can be carried out.
It demeans our big election and our decision-making into an easy peasy might get round to it thing. This is a disgraceful move and no ‘reasons’ can support it.
i see nothing disgraceful about ensuring that as many people as possible can get to vote considering that we all have different lives,
There could be any number of reasons for an individual not being able to cast their votes on a specific day and there could be any number of reasons why an individual might not know in a given time frame that they cannot cast those votes on a given day,
Has postal voting ever been compromised in this country, if not i see no reason why postal voting should not be included in the individuals ability to participate in the General election just as i see no reason, IF security of the vote can be assured, that voting via the internet should not be included as a means of casting our votes…
A lot of people still do not know that you can go on the unpublished roll if you are worried about someone tracking you down for whatever reason (use your imagination), or that an employer must give you reasonable paid time off to vote on the main advertised day.
The extended early voting is to try and engage more people to vote. The final printed roll date is a bit of a spanner in the works as I understand it, but there should still be a clear week at least for unions and others to organise special polling booths in areas of reasonable concentration of voters.
Some of the permutations are for the future maybe-like the ban on prisoners voting and online voting is a really leap, but even paper forms are not perfect given the hanging chads of Florida thing from 2000 that the Supreme court allowed Dubya in on. And I often wonder about some of the old tory cows that seem to get the sweet little earner every three years and misguide people on casting special votes if they are not on the printed roll. (Basically if you are not in the system, even if late, your special vote may be wasted).
‘A lot of people still do not know that you can go on the unpublished roll if you are worried about someone tracking you down for whatever reason (use your imagination),’
There appears quite a high threshold for acceptance: http://www.elections.org.nz/voters/get-ready-enrol-and-vote/unpublished-roll
The commission used to allow voters to stay in their home electorate. No-one bothered me for 12 years about being enrolled where my parents lived, despite not living there since I left school. I liked the connection with home through making a special vote, and not being on the roll in the same place I worked. But after 2011 I was told I would be removed from it if I didn’t confirm where I lived. Breaches do not seem to be prosecuted, and I wonder how many people have dropped off the roll in the past couple of years since this was tightened up.
See above.
And your point is Draco,???…
That it’s obvious that such security can be assured.
the thing about a successful breach is that it wouldn’t have been detected.
Nuclear facilities are probably as well protected as anything, and stuxnet still got in to trigger its payload.
So you’re not looking for assurance but a guarantee. No system can be guaranteed. And the chances are that the actions leading up to a possible breach could be detected, as they were in this case, and the breach stopped.
Stuxnet was introduced to a targeted network by USB flash drive and not a breach through the internet. Of course it’s still a concern but adequate processes and security software should keep that possibility to a minimum as well.
A vector is a vector is a vector. USB or internet or a stolen drive with the voter database.
And yes, when it comes to the very essence of democracy – one person, one vote – I want a little more than an “assurance“. I want to know that the new system is as safe as, or an improvement on, the old one.
I’m sure each of those examples was preceeded by an “assurance” of security.
Well, you won’t find me in favour of either voting machines (because they’re too open to abuse from the manufacturers) or postal voting (because it’s just too easy for the vote to be lost or forgotten) and I’m sure that online voting can be made as secure or better than the present system of going into a polling station.
And, yes, a vector is a vector and the present system has it’s own vectors. Some vectors are more easily monitored than others.
Fucking stupid idea mate as I have said so before and I’ll fight you every inch of the way on this.
It’s almost like you haven’t read any of Edward Snowden’s revelations on security compromises embedded in every level of networks and PCs (from the microcode used in Intel PC and server CPUs on up), and you haven’t watched a single presentation Jacob Appelbaum has made on how PCs, networks and the internet can be attacked and compromised.
some vectora also enable thousands of ballots to be added, changed, or discarded.
Whereas one’s ability to do that with paper ballots and booths to a similar scale requires massive resources and us usually painfully obvious.
And online voting is as vulnerableas electronic voting machings, only more so because the fraudster has complete control over their hardware, without oversight.
Appelbaum on the Tor Project
Not Even the NSA Can Crack the State Dept’s Favorite Anonymous Network
The Tor network is somewhat inefficient because a) every PC on the network has to become a server and b) most PCs on the network are connected via low speed asynchronous connections. The latter is the big problem.
But still, the big problem exists – the storage of essential data. We really do need to be able to determine that the person voting actually has the right to vote (we can’t have a few thousand people come in from out of country to vote in our elections). We do need to be able to ensure that, though they have the right to vote, that they’re not voting twice or voting in the wrong place. Access to that data is the problem but that data can be accessed through the corruption of the present systems. The Liu saga and how the PM knew weeks beforehand that it was coming out and how the letter was released with, essentially, no warning to Cunliffe shows that quite clearly.
The Tor Project doesn’t address any of that because it fails in to accept that you cannot be anonymous within a society. In fact, I’d say that anonymity allows and even encourages criminal activity.
Then we build the stuff here and make sure that the NSA (or our own GCSB) don’t get their sticky hands on it.
if we build te stuff here, we’re at the mercy of whomever we trust to provide security “assurance”.
the penalty for failure is just too great when you’re talking about elections.
“the present system has it’s own vectors”
What are the vectors in the present system that justify changing to a less secure system?
What a load of bollocks. Didn’t you notice that such attempts on computers are easily found out?
Such an attempt as the one you linked to would be picked up even easier. It would, in fact, be automatic rather than relying upon anyone realising that an address was cropping up a bit too often.
The fraudster does have control over their hardware – they don’t have any control over the server. Now, if the fraudster managed to get control of thousands of machines (security set up so that it would require a Man in the Middle attack) as they’re voting and change the vote to be what they want it to be then we’d have a problem – except that the person would actually be informed as to how they voted and that they have a right to change it if it was recorded incorrectly. Such a request would have an automatic investigation attached to it.
more handwaving.
Heartbleed.
Previously-assured and well-respected security had vulnerability, extent of compromises not known unless hacker did something obvious, and included weakening Tor nodes.
And hackers also like to change log files and rollback states to hidetheir activities, just FYI.
lol because “I’m right and the computer is wrong” arguments are funny. And it also reduces “secret ballot” to “secret until telecom yahoo accounts get hacked again”.
Seriously, we’re talking about secure online voting when the government can’t even ensure that kiosks in winz offices don’t compromise sensitive personal information, or departments email thousands of details to members of the public.
When you say “security set up so that it would require a Man in the Middle attack” you’re looking at it from a viewpoint doomed to failure, and probably guided by google.
There is no such assurance that says “the only way to attack this system is MitM”. It’s one tactic. There are many, including paying someone to drop off a USB or compromise in some other way. Any e-voting system needs to demonstrate it’s as secure as or better than ballots and booths. And that will not happen until people plausibly exploit ballots and booths in as effective way as IT is frequenty compromised.
Yes online voting is a solution lacking a problem. Well strictly speaking, it’s not a solution at all, its a quagmire of total predictable fail from the very start. Big bucks for some big consulting/IT firm though.
Not sure why you used TOR as an example Draco. The anonymity network is a crucial anti-surveillance tool despite you bagging it for no good reason. Its also not an example of what Appelbaum has talked about via Snowden’s releases which has relevance to online voting. You don’t want or need an anonymity network with regards to online voting. You need to know who everyone is, when and how they voted in online voting.
This de Spiegel article reveals more useful info. To summarise:
That’s a line straight from NSA or GCHQ PR. That is: that only terrorists, criminals and dangerous people with something to hide would want privacy and use security tools like encryption, TOR, etc.
With all due respect Draco, you are a fool.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html
The problem is the lack of democracy. Or perhaps you prefer living in an elected dictatorship that answers only to the rich?
I used Tor because it’s a way to get around network sniffing. In other words it’s negates the NSA’s grab bag tactics. They’d have to work directly with the server or the client. But it also brings it’s own problems.
You said that, not me. I said it allowed and encouraged criminal activity and provided an example.
So has the countering technology.
Except that you can see what your vote is and change it. Kinda defeats the purpose of changing the vote en-route.
That’s up for debate and I don’t think it’s as easy as some believe.
What are your web app skills like Draco? Mine are non-existent. But even I know that you can programme someone’s local web browser to remember what they actually voted on the web voting form. When that user queries for confirmation of how their vote was registered by the electoral system, you can simply send the voter what they expect to see based on what is stored as a local record. Which doesn’t have to match what was recorded in the ballot box voting database at all.
Now of course that’s a clutzy way of providing a voter with a false record/confirmation. Someone who actually knew what they were doing could do it a million times better.
My point – you are advocating for a system which is nothing less than a cannery for worms, which is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and which is going to undermine our democracy at every level.
It seems that according to you, it would be impossible to operate a true democracy in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s i.e. before the age of the world wide web.
Totally false dichotomy.
almost.
If they’d done it smarter it might have worked, or at least it might not have been traceable to them.
Say put mailboxes up on vacant lots, or registered one or two “voters” each on a bunch of rental properties over the three year period, so it gets lost in the short-term rental churn. Then downloaded the forms somewhere public.
Basically, it might be traceable on IP address that 500 people all used the library free wifi to download their forms, but it would take a bit more effort to detect fraud.
Yes But, if we all are issued with a specific number as an enrolled voter then it should be easy to design a program that identifies if two votes sets of votes have been cast using the same voter identifying number, or, if votes have been cast using a false voter identifying number,
The Auckland Council election incident tho didn’t seem to have specifically compromised the postal voting system per se,
The General electoral system is open to such a compromise where if i can provide an address in say Hone’s electorate, without ever having lived there befor, i can conceivably vote in that electorate,(i would obviously have to know someone who lived at the address, or, rent a PO box, so as to receive information that i was enrolled)…
You just need to know the basic details of a non-voter.
And provide a plausible address and phone number (I think the auckland guy pinged the EC sonar because all the names were registered at one address). But if you own a block of flats you can say “previous tenant, I’ll forward it”.
The thing about giving everyone a number is that it’s great for indexing, but lousy for fraud detection.
Mac, Re: fraud detection, a personal voting number tho could only be used for fraud if the perpetrator of the fraud were to know that the rightful user of the number was not going to vote???,
A mass fraud would then require the perpetrator to know of 100’s or 1000’s who were not going to vote???…
Depends.
First step is the issuing of the number – is it as difficult as currently enrolling? If so, then it’s a pointless exercise.
Second step is how easy it is to go “oooo I’ve forgotten it, how do I reenroll online without it?”
Third step is how easy is it to find out.
And then lastly, the flipside is what we saw in the US: how many voters of the other side can we turn away if the hoops are too onerous to jump through? Or if we add a double vote to a legitimate voter, would both be declined?
And that’s before we get into “errors” or hacking of voting software/hardware.
The thing about voting in person is that if the same person turns up fifty times to vote, a scrutineer or polling official will probably notice. Not so much online or through the mail.
God Mac, that all sounds so fraught i am off to hide under my bed, the present system tho can be easily gamed if you have knowledge of a registered voter who will not vote and that voters details,
The multiple votes need only be cast in multiple booths to avoid the scrutiny of scrutineers,
Lolz, i had better stop this or sooner or later i will be forced to recommend that voter identification occur as a matter of having bar-codes tattooed on the foreheads of the individual…
lol
As you pointed out, it’d be a massive effort to try and rig 1000 votes this way. With an online voting system, altering 100,000 votes to change an election result is a piece of cake and requires only keystrokes.
the real art would be in skewing the votes at a smaller number in different electorates, over several elections, so it wouldn’t even raise any stats flags.
Yes I suppose the contractors used would have to earn their pay 🙂
Also Draco makes a serious error saying that intrusions or interference in a computer system is easy to detect. It might be, it might not be.
But imagine what would happen if after an election day, forensic evidence of widespread computerised vote rigging was found which had likely altered the result of the election 6 months previously. Utter pandemonium and chaos. Basically why would you even go there.
(There might not even have been any vote rigging on election – the “evidence” could have been constructed and introduced into systems later on to make it look like it had simply to cause scandal and chaos).
When DRO for about 12 of our elections I worked on the principle that if you turned up, not on the roll I gave a Special vote instead. The bosses would sort out after the election if it was valid or not.
In NZ every vote is checked off the Electoral Roll after the Election. This throws up any duplicate or multiple votes from one individual. The name on the roll is visited and any crime is discovered. Foolproof when using paper polls.
In reaction to the five people fined for not or partially filling in their census form up in North land this week the following musings: On Census Forms, The Right To Remain Silent And Boiling Frogs. Enjoy!
Fifty six percent of John Key’s followers found to be fake.
lol. (Not very) dedicated followers of (outdated) fashion.
Well Draco. Imagine the team of astroturfers and the trolls with down time so since they are being paid to work they must fill in time by being the many false followers of Mr Key.
it takes something like 20 miles for a supertanker to even respond to the wheel but I do believe I see a swing coming.
John Keys thought he was being smart calling an early election but the people have already seen what a fraud he is and he will be gone soon like an evil spirit that has been exorcised or a boil removed off the body politic.
Anyone notice a new column just up, by Jared Savage showing that Damien O’Connor “intervened” in the Liu application? Not sure what that shows as it is official and above board I think. Everyone knew Liu was granted residency against advice. And what has the 2005 Election got to do with it?
A former Labour Minister intervened three times in the immigration bid of Donghua Liu including waiving the English language requirement for the millionaire businessman.
Damien O’Connor, in his role as the associate Immigration Minister, wrote three letters to Liu’s advisor Warren Kyd – the former National Party MP – before deciding to grant residency against the advice of officials the day before the 2005 election.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11287104
Hi Ianmac,
Whilst I am sure you will not be falling over in surprise over this; it looks to me that Mr J Savage is doing the National Party’s bidding:
West-Coast Tasman is one of the electorates that the National Party intend to target in this year’s election.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11284798
(Note the ‘marvelous’ choice of photo they chose…)
Breaking News: We have just discovered something that is common knowledge and of no importance!
Everyone knows Damien O’Connor granted Liu residency against official advice. No one knows why, and the Herald has not found an answer. They haven’t even really found a question yet, but they keep on trying.
I’m not sure how they will convert this non-story into a call for David Cunliffe to resign, but if they put John Armstrong on the case I’m sure we’ll be enlightened in no time.
Everyone knows why, the amount of money he promised to invest outweighed the english language requirement.
I wonder if the letters of support from national mps have been released yet?
but now the other questions can be asked, here are some starters
Why was a former National MP lobbying so hard on behalf of Mr Liu ?
Is the former National MP, Warren Kyd, still the advisor for Mr Liu?
Is the former National MP, involved in any of Mr Liu’s businesses?
How did Mr Liu meet the former National MP, Warren Kyd?
That does raise questions on Mr Kyd’s involvement.
Will Jared release the name of his informant? Doubt it.
maybe he just did 😉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Kyd
Something went badly wrong didn’t it.
Nicely timed eh Herald? Another round of Labour /Liu hysteria designed to reach its peak this coming week-end?
Labour’s Annual Conference (called Congress in election year) is this coming week-end.
w.t.f. is seymour from act doing taking part in that celebs sleeping rough thing 2nite..?
..how deeply cynical is that..?
..when acts’ policies/core-beliefs are to tear away support from the weakest/poorest/sickest..
..fucken rand-ite scum that they are..
..i hope to fuck someone calls him out 2nite..
..and asks him:..’w.t.f. r u doing here..?..’
I bet you Goldsmith aint there …
i’ve heard tell goldsmith is a hologram..
..apparantly yr hands can pass right thru him..
I see what you mean Freedom. I expect that Mr Kyd is away on some safe holiday somewhere – like Hawaii perhaps?
Obviously Jared has been instructed to rewind the Dong Liu Saga, to take the heat of the Malaysian Sex Scandal.
Under pressure???, Slippery the Prime Minister yesterday physically removed a RadioNZ National reporter from in front of Him, first saying ”get out of my way” and then pushing the reporter from His path as the reporter attempted to ask questions surrounding the PM’s involvement in the removal from New Zealand of the Malaysian diplomat,
Bet we see nothing of this on our TV’s tonight,but, expect more of the same from the PM as the pressure goes on leading into the election…
Should have gone Bob Jones on his arse.
Definitely BM, why don’t you dial up the Lair in Chief and suggest He do just that, it will be perfect having the PM being investigated for assault leading into the election…
It’s why I’m not in politics, I just don’t have the patience for that sort of bullshit.
You get a warning ,if you don’t comply, you’re picking up your teeth.
BM, that’s just wankers talk…
Hone wouldn’t agree.
Duck,dive, divert right BM…
“You get a warning ,if you don’t comply, you’re picking up your teeth.”
Bahaha you dick. You think people have to “comply” with you?
Absolutely, if you were here right in front of me, [Come on BM you can do better than this – MS]
Ok tough guy.
that’s what you tell your mates at the
pubwine bar, anyway…Wine bar, LOL, I don’t think there’s been a wine bar in NZ in 20+ years.
Anyway, better things to do than drink at the pub.
“Come on BM you can do better than this – MS”
[citation needed]
I happen to know Felix in the flesh and I really like him as a human being and as a man who knows how to stand his ground intellectually like no other on this blog. I don’t know you but playing at being the tough guy on a public blog threatening violence is, as far as I am concerned, the path of the LOOSER.
So if I where you I’d pull my head in because when push comes to shove (Oh pun! 😆 ) Felix commands a lot of respect here and that means you just upset a lot of people.
LOOSER.
It’s loser, you loser.
LOOOOOOSER! ROFL and that would be loseress to you.
“I don’t know you but playing at being the tough guy on a public blog threatening violence is, as far as I am concerned, the path of the LOOSER.”
Wow, I’m flattered!!
Here is what comes a bit lower in the same comment:
24.2.2
5 June 2014 at 8:11 pm
Travellerev advocates violence against convicted criminals. I didn’t get to read Naki Moran’s response but I’ll wager he was just lashing out like a person with a severely limited understanding of personal responsibility 😈
Reply
travellerev 24.2.2.1
6 June 2014 at 8:53 am
” Actually I advocate state sanctioned violence against the worst offenders. It worked wonders for moral during the French revolution.”
Not the same as threatening to beat someones teeth out of his mouth just because you don’t like what he says. Dickhead.
You’re too kind 😀
My pleasure F
Yeah I always suspected BM meant Big Man in your little brain.
“It’s why I’m not in politics”
HAHA, there’s more than that preventing you, fuckwit.
Did Mr Key use the immortal words, “Get out of my way. Don’t you know who I am?”
Lolz ianmac, i only heard the ”get out of my way”, i would have to assume that the ”intent” was there tho…
no..he said:..’i’m not ‘relaxed’ about this!’..
The Maori Kings boy escapes conviction because he is “royal” and “Maori”.
So if it were me? White. Commoner!
I fekken hate this racist divine right crap.
Were you there Ennui, at the court hearing that is, if you were a young man attending University who made a number of stupid errors of judgment and wound up befor the court it is just as likely that you would have been granted the same leniency as occurred here,
In fact, statistics would suggest that had this particular youth been Pakeha instead of Maori he would not have appeared befor the court at all, instead being offered diversion…
Yes, the court and justice system are racially and class biased big time, thats a fact. Here I am giving them shit for the reasons the Prime news reported for the non conviction…royalty and race. Read below.
putting yr heavy-breathing to one side..
..the stats will show that ‘white/commoner’ has a far better chance of discharge without conviction..
..than brown/commoner..
..so if u were thinking of using this as a racism-trampoline..
..as in ‘po’ white-boy!”..’
..you really wd b just full of it..eh..?
and of course the most famous ‘white/commoner’ currently angling for one of them..
.. is john ‘what helicopter-ride?’ banks..
..i wonder how he’ll get on with that promise..?
As you commented the other day Phil ” .and we were smoking poisonously strong weed..and i was ripped off my tits..as was my practice. seems your brains fried from the practice.
but bored
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10229216/Maori-Kings-son-avoids-conviction
were they also ‘royal’?
It seems like the judge is giving this young man a chance to sort his shit out and it appears that he has strong support to deal with all of the issues a 19 year old has – with a baby coming I really hope he gets the alcohol sorted and doesn’t become another nz statistic of shame – in jail or the grave.
Mars, the judge got it 100% right with the young men, that is exactly how it should be dealt with, including the heir to the Maori “throne’. If we are to believe the news media and Tuku on the news that’s not the case with this lad. The excuse was that “if he were convicted he would not be able to ascend the throne” and that “a Maori King has to be purer than pure”…….
Now maybe I am very Bored but I hate with a passion hereditary title and any claim to it. And the concept that a Maori (or any other) kings purity was something special. The excuse is just lame bollocks. And perhaps I am more than a little jaded with that part of the establishment which fawns and slips into supplication to things Maori in a most PC manner when it suits their ends. I see that as just privileged gits teaming up, just look at the Maori Party and National wiping one another’s arses. You wont see any of them them doing anything for the under-privileged and needy be they white, brown, Martian or what ever. And that is what pissed me off most !
Fair enough. I only read the comments but they seemed to be designed for a future audience. I went to a seminar the other night about protecting children from abuse – physical, emotional and sexual and it really hit home that night how this digital culture we have really means that nothing is lost and everything will come back and haunt them once it is up on the net. That was where my head was at. I agree with you about helping the under-privileged and needy whatever ethnicity or apparent skin colour.
Thanks, I should have said about the excuse first up, I’d just watched Tuku and wanted to re arrange his visage (metaphorically of course).
I had a search for discharge without conviction. The main people awarded such seem to be sportsmen for drink driving offences – because it might ruin their sporting careers by being barred from going to certain countries.
Another Roy Morgan shocker for Labour. Stuck in the 20’s
Another shocker for Fisiani, stuck like a cracked record parroting that which is of little consequence considering the pollster’s ability to have National 4–5% above the actual vote on the day…
Labour voters are too busy making ends meet to answer the phone. National voters sit by the phone waiting for pollsters to ring. It’s the highlight of their day.
Seriously though. We know there will be a swing to Labour and away from National on the day. That coupled with a “yes we can” type campaign should see a welcome change of government.
Fabulous optimism there sir. National are quaking and know they will lose. The Cunliffe will easily win all the televised debates. The GOTV will easily get out 1,000,000 extra votes. All the signs are showing that JK has just 79 days left. What on earth are you drinking?
I certainly hope so. This country deserves better.
JMG, as usual, is excellent
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/in-handful-of-dust.html
I suppose we are still running a few years behind the states – perhaps when they hit the wall we will bang into them because we are following so closely.
The States is beset by massive internal culture wars which the elite have used as a distraction to take attention away from the class war that they have been waging on the 95%.
But it’s not working any more. And people are pissed off. And many of them have guns. And combat experience in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Thing in NZ – we have this massive advantage – our culture wars are piddly and although there are a million guns in this country, we hardly ever kill people with them.
if you saw Keys on the telly tonight you would know that he knows the game is up.
His government hasn’t really been a government at all.
Just a rabble sorting through the books to see what they could get their hands on.
begone foul spirits.
For those who facebook – check out the group ‘barry jenkin saved my life’ – some great bands, tunes and memories, like this one – it seems very apt for the gnats and keyworld
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeBMHnJqAvM
“This is the happy house, we’re happy here in the happy house
Oh, it’s such fun, fun, fun
We’ve come to play in the happy house
And waste a day in the happy house, it never rains, never rains
We’ve come to scream in the happy house
We’re in a dream in the happy house
We’re all quite sane, sane, sane
This is the happy house-we’re happy here
There’s room for you if you say “I do”
But don’t say no or you’ll have to go
We’ve done no wrong with our blinkers on
It’s safe and calm if you sing along, sing along, sing along
This is the happy house, we’re happy here in the happy house
To forget ourselves and pretend all’s well
There is no hell
I’m looking through your window
I’m looking through your window”
Anyone having trouble loading/sending comments or is just my Firefox?
https://www.national.org.nz/news/news/media-releases/detail/2014/07/01/chief-victims-advisor-underpins-package-to-prevent-family-violence
Another example of working for New Zealand from Team Key
You mean after all the cuts in funding to women’s refuges under the watch of Team Key?
Another ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, you mean.
Where is the commitment to tackling the causes? Why does this government persist in treating symptoms and passing it off as policy?
to PREVENT family violence is NOT ambulance Duh!
cluebat for the local moron:
when all seven of the bullet-point actions in your link involve “sentencing” or “victims”, it’s not “prevention”.
If it was genuinely about “prevention” there would be no “victims” and no need for “sentencing”.
Oh look. The Herald has another Liu story. What’s the bet that one of their hacks calls for another Labour resignation whilst defending McCully?
NZ Herald – John Key edition
I’ve just posted the Fairfax-Ipsos Preferred PM breakdowns by Party Support here…http://sub-z-p.blogspot.co.nz/
Still have other demographics to do, though.
Chur dude having a read now 🙂
Very interesting swordfish. That huge proportion of undecided are ripe for picking/persuading.
Crystal clear format thanks swordfish.