Key is not the only one at fault here, Goff is playing his game, and the media chase ratings rather than fair democracy. But he can lead on this or he can diss us and try and do his own thing.
Several things lately have made me wonder how genuine you are in representing the people that elected you. Your ordinary blokeness seems to be deserting you, and that could lead to my support deserting you.
Key and Goff can pick and choose who they will debate with. And we can pick and choose who to vote for.
Er, no. Both have obviously got their heads around MMP, Labour formally and National by virtue of their electorate deals with ACT and United Future. Goff has said his major reservation is coat-tailing. National’s major reservation is that Labour might win.
MMP does not mean coalition deals or whoring and supply agreements.
It is not a de-facto FPP agenda driven race to do as much damage as possible before the next election. We have not yet had a MMP government and i hope to see at least one before i shake loose this mortal coil.
What is a MMP government?
It is so simple. A group of people who a whole bunch of electorates said represent them,
sit in a big room. Nominations are put forward for PM. A vote is taken. continued untill resolved. The PM nominates a cabinet, votes, objections, votes etc for a week or so maybe then reality transpires, things settle down and just like that we have a MMP Government.
It is a group of elected people in a room, drawing bills from ballots and debating them untill consensus is achieved and the process of Parliamentary Democracy is implemented fully.
If it takes eight months to agree on a tax cut it takes eight months. If your pet roading project gets suspended due to the Country’s sudden desire to assist the victims of , i don’t know, say an Earthquake, then the Government presents a choice for the Parliament to decide.
it is not the agenda of a Party but the decisions of a Parliament that should dictate a Nation’s future,
I’d like to see something like that too. It won’t happen, unless the current status quo is given a big shakeup, and that will only happen if voters initiate it.
It is up to us. It is up to the people! It is that simple. Some wise words were said in a cheesy movie many many years ago “no-one said it was going to be easy, at least no-one said it to me”
We must take control of our own Democracy and stop allowing the dictatorial manifestos of bankers to populate the stromwaters of history with our children’s futures
The switch from aggressive oppositional politics to representative politics. No single party leads and the bills are determined by the populace and actually debated upon their merits rather than the closed ideology of a party.
-and this from, according to TVOR, a rabid right wing nutter. Nutter? well that depends on which of my friends you speak to. But if i am right wing either the left is really in a lot more trouble than any of us ever realised or the right is getting desperate for membership đ
Yesterday, a friend send me a link to a doco called Defamation. It is a film made by a young Israeli Jewish director called Yoav Shami and in the film he poses the question; What is Anti-Semitism today?
And I found it to be an honest journey into one of the most controversial subjects on our planet today. From young Israelis travelling to Poland to confront the horrors of the concentration camps and the anti Defamation league, Rabbis in New York and Russia to the Anti Zionist Uri Avnery, and Norman Finkelstein the entire Scala of emotions such as a sense of exceptionalism, pain, anger, grief and the need to progress into the future are being addressed in a thought provoking manner.
Actually, many young Israelis do feel empathy for the victims of their government’s crimes. Thousands of them refuse to “serve” in the IDF, and many Israelis (young and old) go to the Occupied Territories to attempt to prevent some of the depradations of the “settlers”—such as uprooting of their olive trees, burning their crops, and harassing and beating children on their way to school.
Phil Goff and Kennedy Graham both – with passing references to notes. Can’t say the same for the seemingly “dutiful” readings from hand-held speeches given by others…
I recently read that Labour MP Grant Robertson describe National’s candidate selection for Epsom as a “stitch-up” at the “expense of the people of Epsom who deserve some respect”.
Anthony Robins hasn’t had a strong opinion on the topic, but he commented recently that he’s starting to come down on the side of âif you canât beat them, join themâ.
Evidently Jim Anderton endorsed the “stitch-up” approach.
I look forward to Grant Robertson withdrawing his scurrilous comments about National’s Epsom candidacy announcements and acknowledging the practices in Eppsom AND Wigram as politics as usual.
So far, this is all I’ve seen in the MSM about Steven being reported to the Speaker of the House for lying.
Two years ago, responding to the written question on whether he had had any such correspondence on the issue of structural separation, Mr Joyce categorically denied it. Now it transpires he “overlooked” a letter sent to him by Mr Reynolds.
Did I mention I’m in bloody good company where it concerns my doubts about the official conspiracy theory of 911?
Here is the first trailer of a doco which will be released in honour of the tenth anniversary of the 911 attacks! 1500 Architects and Engineers speak out. Oh and chemists, Chemistry professors and physicists too!
There will be opportunities to watch the doco in Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland as we mourn those lost as a result of those attacks
I am finally quite intrigued by all this building collapse stuff, and admit to not having looked at it in detail before and in fact skated over the long discussions on this blog. Time to catch up a bit.
Who? and Why? are the big questions. Were explosives used to enhance the actual demolition while the planes were what got everyoneâs attention, the ideological hit so to speak. People with explosives had been apprehended in the basements of the WTC years before I do remember.
It is so counter intuitive to consider that even the yankee imperialists would pull such a stunt in their own backyard.
Funny that you should mention the 93 attacks! Turns out the FBI wanted to bomb the buildings then too. Here is a doco with regards to that event.
They have done it multiple times TM.
Here is Northwoods which was called of. There is the gulf of Tonkin incident which started the Vietnam war. The sinking of the Maine which started the American Spanish war
And yes, it took me about three months after I started reading up on this before I could even begin to contemplate the evil involved in these events if the official Conspiracy theory could not have happened. It was terrifying.
Four years of ridicule pales to absolute insignificance to having to admit to myself that what the US government tried to sell us could not have happened the way they said is did.
this is a publicly available documentary made during the WTC construction. it falls outside of all agendas from any parties involved. It existed unchanged and is the most accurate vehicle to fully grasp the intense construction methods employed in a project designed to withstand multiple strikes from aircraft. Familiarise yourself with the structure. Then re read the official story, and the simple fact that planes, fire damage and jetfuel cannot bring down hundreds of thousands of tonnes of welded and riveted steel.
there are many recent doco’s, see Trev for current lists, i recommend anything by A&E for 9/11 truth and also the recent doco called Zero. The more recent ones deal purely with the science for that is where the answers lay
Are you aware of what was housed there?. Can you stop shitting on the graves of innocent people, it is not funny. There is no conspiracy theory, there is a mountain range of incontravertable fact which destroys the potholes of an official story a thousand times over. If you were told the official story in any other context than the nightly news you would have asked for your money back from the ticket office. Do some research for yourself on one of the most heinous crimes ever perpetrated on the free world. Or do like the look of blood on your hands?
I love the look of blood on my hands, freedom, and I hate it when my stigmata heal. I’m sorry I don’t buy the rightwing 911 fantasy and that upsets you so much. Building 7 collapsed because a larger building fell on it. That’s the story, right there. No domestic conspiracy, no CIA, no black ops, just the most succesful guerilla attack in modern times.
Â
I appreciate that there are some lefties whose anti-americanism will always make them suckers for this kind of immaturity, but the fact remains that the only people shitting on the graves (as you so diplomatically put it) are the Tea Party types and their dimwitted or wilfully naive overseas followers.Â
Â
 Ten years on and still not a shred of evidence. And this in the country where even a simple hotel burglary can’t be succesfully carried out without bringing down a government.
TVOR
To make such an ignorant statement only declares to the world that you have not even begun to investigate for yourself any of the data you have been supplied on numerous occasions. Your willingness, and that of many others, to swallow the story is a trauma that societies never fully recover from. Those that remain deaf to the screams of the murdered, will still have to face their own conscience when truth finally defeats the hate.
As I said, not a shred of evidence in 10 years. No emails, no phone calls, no whistleblowers, no proof what so fucken ever. Nobody amongst the vast army needed to pull off this Mission Impossible who has ever dobbed in the rest or tried to sell his story to the media. Indeed, not one story in the media of any merit whatsoever in a country where a President can’t even shag the help without it being a major constitutional crisis.
Get back to me when the coppers start making arrests and I’ll take an interest. Till then, it’s just pants and more fool you for being a tool of the frothing right.
130.000 employees most of whom only found out what they had been working on when the news broke of the bombings in Japan.
There are many whistle blowers who have come forward with regrds to 911 but people like Barry Jennings and Danny Jovenko the demolition expert in the trailer have either had car accidents or died under mysterious circumstances and there are several Whistleblowers who only want to talk if and only if there is a formal investigation with independent investigators and protection for them.
Anthony Shaffer was a high clearance intelligence officer testified to the 911 Commission about how his investigation was stopped into the alleged hijackers during operation able danger and it cost him his career. He was one of many officers and other people who came forward but whose testimony did not appear in the final report.
Many members of the 911 commission have denounced the final report because they felt they had been lied to by the military and other high officials
So no evidence at all, then? It’s so strange that among the cast of thousands who perpetrated this crime, not one has dropped a dime, either publicly or anonymously. It’s almost like it never happened, but then, that’s what they’d like us to think, eh.
Â
You’re dead right that a lot of Manhatten project workers were kept in the dark about the true aims of the project. That’s one of the reasons it was so succesful. It has nothing to do with a conspiracy though, it’s just routine in the military to keep stuff on a need to know basis, particularly in wartime.
first up, it only took a few dozen to pull this off as the level of authority gave all the cover for any technical or logistical aspect to be implemented.
One example: When a team is hired to paint fireproofing onto steel and told they are applying a new fire retardant, they do not get told they are painting a high tech thermade agent that will result in the pulverising of hundreds of tonnes of concrete into pyroclastic clouds of dust.
you just said why are there no whistle blowers blah blah–then go on to say how the military in war keeps things quiet, what the hell do you think is going on today…if you do not see we are in a state of war then you are absolutely without hope. Perhaps what you do not realise is who the combatants are?
what did Dubya say?
‘ you are with us or against us ‘
you really think you are one of the us? good luck with that
Pick your side very carefully tvor. Your grandchildren will be watching.
You only get to choose once and history will be the book-keeper, not your back slapping, trade chomping, soul swilling mates
Jeez TVoR do you actually stop and read what you write sometimes?
People (Nowhere does it say that if the military does something in secret it isn’t conspiring) who organise something in secret are conspiring. Period.
Conspiring is the most common crime. Banks do it, the military does it (In covering up friendly fire or other war crimes), out leaders do it and the common criminal at the street corner who decides together with his mates to rob a liquor store does it.
The Manhattan project can arguably be called a conspiracy. For those of us who think Nuclear weapons are an abomination it sure is.
Second; were do you get the “rabid right” from. If we are right it was the rabid right in the form of say the neocons (New American Century) and the military industrial complex who had both the means, the motivation and the opportunity to organise it.
If we are right it was the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld whom even by the easiest of standards can not be called left wing who were involved. If we are right the Americans are no longer in control of their own country because most people who voted fro Obama did so because he promised to stop the wars but instead he started 4 additional wars: Pakistan, Libya, Soedan and Yemen. Black or white is not the issue here but the fact that he lied and that he follows the same disastrous path as his so called right wing predecessor! Â
Most 911 truthers are vehemently anti war. Especially the wars started in the aftermath of 911 and want a return to a peaceful coexistence with the rest of the planet and be able to rebuild America in peace with their fellow man. What is so right wing about that?
If we are right and the US has been hijacked by very dangerous greedy people I can’t (Although I’m a pacifist myself) really fault a lot of Americans for wanting to be able to arm themselves against these idiots destroying the planet with their Depleted Uranium weapons. So what is so rabid right wing about that?
Alex Jones whom you might call a red neck right wing Texan loud mouth is the only one who will have Cynthia McKinney on his show and she is a black ex congress woman standing for the Green party of America when she is in Libya reporting on the many sorties and bombardments of NATO and the US. So how is that Rabid right wing?
Â
Cheers, guys. As I said earlier if you ever come up with any proof, let me know. Ten years and counting …
Â
Without wanting to rub your nose in it, freedom, you are buying into a right wing fantasy, perpetrated by people who think Cheney is a softy liberal. The same people who have just been in the news trying to bankrupt America to stop that uppity Kenyan from helping the poor.Â
Â
It’s entirely your business whether you want to waste time on something that has no credibility or substance and serves the ends of the enemies of everything else you appear to believe in, but every time this reactionary bollocks is aired here, it wastes a shit load of bandwidth and time, including my own. But I’m happy to continue to mock the madness and I’ll still ask the same question every time it does come up. And that question is, where is the proof?
Â
TVoR,
see you choose to ignore my request for an explanation as to why 911 truth seekers equate with rabid right while lashing out unmotivated by reasonable arguments it seems at to why he or I are from the Rabid right!
Added to that VTO request you tell him what building fell on WTC7 so how about it?
And before you go into bullshit mode let me point out that NIST after 7 years came up with a scenario that even they thought was not very likely to happen and that they dismissed the damage from other buildings caused the collapse scenario.
Â
vto. here’s popular mechanics summary of the NIST report on WTC7:
“The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7,” NIST’s Sunder tells PM. “On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottomâapproximately 10 storiesâabout 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out.” NIST also discovered previously undocumented damage to WTC 7’s upper stories and its southwest corner.
NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe structural damage contributed to the collapse, though assigning the exact proportion requires more research. But NIST’s analysis suggests the fall of WTC 7 was an example of “progressive collapse,” a process in which the failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or “kinks,” in the building’s facade just before the two penthouses disappeared into the structure, one after the other. The entire building fell in on itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling down the west side in a diagonal collapse.
According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building’s failure: In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each floor. “What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors,” Sunder notes, “it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down.”
There are two other possible contributing factors still under investigation: First, trusses on the fifth and seventh floors were designed to transfer loads from one set of columns to another. With columns on the south face apparently damaged, high stresses would likely have been communicated to columns on the building’s other faces, thereby exceeding their load-bearing capacities.
Second, a fifth-floor fire burned for up to 7 hours. “There was no firefighting in WTC 7,” Sunder says. Investigators believe the fire was fed by tanks of diesel fuel that many tenants used to run emergency generators. Most tanks throughout the building were fairly small, but a generator on the fifth floor was connected to a large tank in the basement via a pressurized line. Says Sunder: “Our current working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time.”
WTC 7 might have withstood the physical damage it received, or the fire that burned for hours, but those combined factorsâalong with the building’s unusual constructionâwere enough to set off the chain-reaction collapse.
You’ll note that PMs description of what NIST says differs from how truthers regularly describe what NIST says. I haven’t read the full report, but I have my suspicions about who is misrepresenting it.
In response to Pascal’s bookie here is a link to a thorough debunking of the popular mechanics articles. It’s only part 1 of 9 but you can find the other parts on the same page.
Here is an analysis the collapse of WTC 7 of Tony Samboti engineer and listen to him thouroughly debunking NIST and Popular mechanics.
But why put the YouTube commentary on the building collapses “aside”? In many of those videos, highly qualified expert architects and engineers speak, as well as people who were at ground zero.
Because unless it explains that PM is totally misrepresenting what the NIST report says, it is beside the point I am discussing.
Truthers often talk about what the NIST report says. I’ve not read the full report. But very often, when I check aspects of the report against what truthers claim about what it says, I find that truthers are not being particularly truthful.
So the question remains. Is PMs description of what the NIST report says more accurate, or less accurate than what truthers say about the NIST report.
Well P’s b, thanks for the popular mechanics info. To be honest I don’t know what to believe. Considerable building and engineering knowledge and experience tells me that the building should not have come down. At all. And the way it fell.
Yet then I read the “official” story and that nakes some sense though very limited.
And on top of that I do not trust “official” much at all. Everybody on this earth conspires, many on a near daily basis from things as small as staying in bed pretending to be asleep so someone else has to go out and get the paper in the frost, to as large as Bill English planning with John Key and Nick Smith to cut ACC while at the same time knowing they will restore it a later date for political pleasures, to even larger again such that JFK’s head blasts back in one direction when the bullet came from a completely different direction. Anybody who says conspiracies do not exist is a true fool. They are part and parcel of manwomankind’s heart and soul. In fact such secretive planning is probably what has led manwomankind to the place it is in today.
The collapse of these buildings is of great interest and I continue to watch. I just wish I could see tvor’s larger building which fell on wtc7…
Re conspiracies in general vto, sure, they are real.
But they are hard to get the truth of, so it comes down to guess work and evaluation right.
On this one, what kills it for me is this:
Assuming AQ was involved, (and there is very very good reason to believe they did indeed recruit and train people to hijack planes and fly them into buildings on 9/11), then
For it to be a false flag op, then the govt had to know that the AQ attack was going to take place. They had to know for certain. They had to have target details, time details, the works. They then had to set up the black op to make the AQ attack worse than it would otherwise have been, by somehow rigging those three buildings to come down in such a way that the aircraft crashes would not upset the demolition set up. They had to set this up under severe time constraints, with limited personnel and be confident that no one would discover that these buildings were rigged for demo.
The demo itself, would have to sound like no other demo I’ve heard. They all sound like a long series of large but discrete explosions as the building is destroyed. No such series can be heard while those buildings come down. So it must have been a new technique with special explosives. Fair enough. But again, that increases the risk of failure/detection. Above someone posits that the explosives were disguised as fire retardent paint and applied by unwitting painters. those painters would have to have had as a term of the contract for fire proofing the WTC, that they use this paint sourced by the contractee. The paint would have to look at act enough like normal paint that it would fool them. etc.
All of this, through every step of the operation, going back who knows how long. All of it set up just to make an attack they knew was coming, worse.
Remember too that he Bush gang had been downplaying and mocking the idea of terrorism as a threat. They were far more focussed on star wars spending and ‘rogue nations’ flinging nukes.
So if the conspirators were confident enough that AQ were going to attack, right down to knowing the target set (incidentally, Mohammad Atta only confirmed that target set to AQ leaders in afghanistan about 1 week before launch, but we’ll ignore that for the moment), if they knew AQ was going to fly airliners full of civilians into buildings, why wouldn’t they just let them do it and use that as the excuse for war.
Such an attack would already be cause for war. Far easier and much less risky to prepare a propaganda campaign saying that AQ were in cahoots with whoever it was you wanted to attack. Knowing they were going to attack yuo could be releasing forged documents in the month before the attack saying anything you like. Then when the attack comes; boom. the population goes crazy for you. Why on earth run the extraordinary risk of organising an incredibly complicated black op to achieve something you could achieve by just doing nothing?
Instead, they had been down playing and ignoring the risk of AQ, they treated AQ as a joke and a non threat prior to 9/11.
That oversight failure is enough to warrant the secrecy and lies and coverups truthers point to in the 9/11 report.
As I said, not a shred of evidence in 10 years. No emails, no phone calls, no whistleblowers, no proof what so fucken ever. Nobody amongst the vast army needed to pull off this Mission Impossible who has ever dobbed in the rest or tried to sell his story to the media. Indeed, not one story in the media of any merit whatsoever in a country where a President canât even shag the help without it being a major constitutional crisis.
Get back to me when the coppers start making arrests and Iâll take an interest. Till then, itâs just pants and more fool you for being a tool of the frothing right.
Swearing and arrogant abuse are not good debating tools, just saying..
As for no one has ever tried to sell his story to the media, how do you know? Do you think the media would dare run it? Grow up! As for the President shagging the help, I presume you’re referring to Clinton and Monica… It’s good to see you remember a scandal from 12 years or more ago, it makes such a good distraction from more recent and more heinous crimes! Gullible twat.
vto, other claims worth looking hard at are the free fall claims. Look at the vids. Watch the debris. The cloud falls faster than the building, obscuring it.
“Iâve not read the full report. But very often, when I check aspects of the report against what truthers claim about what it says, I find that truthers are not being particularly truthful”.
PB, I’ve read the full report. Of course like all things done with hindsight you can pick on the minutiae, but I think it explains a lot. Funny that no 911ers I know have read it. Nor do have they been to any sites that try to debunk their conspiracy theories. They spend hours watching and pausing videos but no time reading the interviews of eyewitnesses and others who were directly affected – just other people’s interpretations of what they said. (Note I’m just talking about the ones I know).
VTO,
Please take into account that WTC 7 fell in the late afternoon many hours after the other buildings had collapsed and that the collapse was announced by both CNN and the BBC between an hour and 20 minutes before the collapse happened and that until then not a single steel framed building other than WTC 1 and 2 had collapsed and that it never happened afterwards with the exception of controlled demolition
âGullible twat.â
I guess youâd have a lot in common with the truthers, Deb, what with all the blind faith involving in worshipping the unprovable.
If you think ‘gullible twat’ is either swearing or arrogant abuse, then you must be an ickle bubby! đ
Did I say you could call me Deb? No, I didn’t, and you can’t, as that’s what my friends call me – fake lefties will never be my friends!. The sneer about my religion is characteristic – but unwarranted.
Watch the footage and then tell me WHAT building fell on it. It was a controlled demolition Supports kicked out and the building just falls down into it’s own space. I did notice something ‘funny’ All the buildings went straight down at first.
they go straight down except for the top of Tower 1 where twenty plus stories are falling out from the line of the building, in an arc, as it should, with the path of least resistance. Then ‘pooof’ it explodes into dust and collapses straight downwards against its predetermined axis. Completely against all known physical laws
Here is a presentation of Dr. Graham McQueen about how the towers collapsed. It is in four parts and is a very dispassionate analysis of what happens and how it could and more importantly could not have happened and for you information. Graham is a Zen Buddhist and lifelong peace activist. Nothing rabid or right wing about him.
Iâm sorry I donât buy the rightwing 911 fantasy and that upsets you so much. Building 7 collapsed because a larger building fell on it. Thatâs the story, right there.
Do stop being such a plonker VoR. I know I am more left-wing than you are, as you’ve confessed to being a Randbot, and no matter how many of the blinkered tell me they’re “left-libertarians”, I know there’s no such animal… Being in favour of marijuana and abortion for all doesn’t make you a left-winger. Neither does being a try hard, oops, I mean hard out atheist. So many followers of the official story simply hate Muslims!
You’re wilfully blind about the WTC. I’ve yet to come across a right-winger who wasn’t deeply in love with all things American, which probably explains it.
I think you’ve got me confused for someone else, Deb. I did admit to once owning a Rush album, but that’s as far as it goes in Randian terms. I’m a socialist, have been all my adult life. Also an atheist, a vegetarian and a soccer player, which makes for some interesting discussions with the red necked and red nosed farmers at my semi rural local most Friday nights!
Â
BTW, most of my contact with people of the muslim faith was on the soccer field at Hagley Park in Sunday arvo pick up games with the immigrant community. Wonderful, peaceful people who taught me a lot about humility and the love of the game.
Â
Â
What ever it was someone wanted it gone big time, but it begs a coupla questions. How long was building 7 rigged for doomsday ? Did they have advance notice of the hijackings and targets ?. Who really runs things in the US ? Damn time for the tinfoil hat again.
I’d suggest the most heinous crimes were the coalitions retaliation strikes on Iraq and Afghanistan to find weapons of mass destruction and the links between Saddam and Al Queda – remind me how many innocent civilians have died during that?
Iâd suggest the most heinous crimes were the coalitions retaliation strikes on Iraq and Afghanistan to find weapons of mass destruction and the links between Saddam and Al Queda â remind me how many innocent civilians have died during that?
CIA head quarters, Giuliani’s emergency bunker which was deserted for some reason before the first building collapsed, and the building was twice reinforced to withstand a nuclear blast. Oh, and all the legal documentation pertaining to Enron and other Wall street scandals.
Here is a list of Tenants up until 2001
Not the sort of building were 19 Arab terrorists can just walk into. Here is a witness telling about what he saw in the building before the other buildings collapsed. (This witness by the way died under very suspicious circumstances)
Travrev, you should add he died just before his testimony was to be given in a pivotal civil case taken up by the families to re-open an investigation into the murder of their children, their families and their friends
leave Chomsky alone…his betrayal of logic is the crime in that video. He has rejected so many of the values he once espoused. He has become a somewhat tragic figure with a diminshing authority and a growing pool of detractors for his ridiculous kowtowing to the official story.
None of which negates his fine work in Linguistics and associated fields
a person’s views and a person’s work can be exclusive of each other, look at politicians, some of them were once productive members of society
What’s more Gormy,
Chomsky came around and said that we have not been told the truth about what happened on 911 and let’s face it the man is in his eigthies and has done excellent work but he’s a bit passed it.
hey travellerrev, do you know of or have you ever heard a single person refer to Cheney as a softy liberal? just about split my hernia scar when i read that one.
Can’t say that I have F.
Satan, Prince of Darkness, He who shoots friends in the face, Bastard, the real president! Many names but never a softy liberal or it must have been the people to the right of him who felt he should abandon his daughter for being gay! ROFL.
Ahem. Try googling ‘cheney too liberal’. About 1,630,000 hits as of a minute ago.
Â
But seriously guys, you’re not fools. You know this, along with the pathetic birther idea, is an obsession of the right, more specifically the ‘states rights’ and similar anti-federalists. You’re like Dylan’s Mr Jones; you know something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is.Â
Â
I’ve got a proposition for you both. Why don’t you put up a left wing case for the truther movement? Write it up as a guest post and I’m sure the mods will give consideration to putting it up. I’m not assuming either of you are left wing, but I’m sure you are more than capable of framing the argument in left wing terms, if that’s at all possible.
Â
Or maybe give me the name of one of the on the ground conspirators and the proof against that individual. Whichever’s easier for ya.
Â
Edit: Couldn’t find any live Bob, but here’s some kid giving it heaps.
Â
There is a huge volume of info, dis-info and opinion out there Voice on all sides of the 9/11 argument. I am skeptical as to the inside job claims but when people start quoting Popular Mechanics as an authoritative source-really…
The collapse of those buildings looks a hell of a lot like a routine retired Chicago project going down to me.
An ugly munted few floors and some still left standing makes more sense.
A left wing view? Well, historically whatever the US ruling class is up to can only be bad news for most of us. From a materialist perspective, if it was a false flag they are not going to admit it are they. Look at the US roll of dishonour of invasions and dirty tricks. The UK supporting Saddam in earlier years, surely not? Blairâs âDossierâ -what fuckers.
3 large steel framed buildings suffering significant assymetrical damage, falling completely symmetrically on to their own foot prints, with large percentages of the building structures ejected as a fine particulate dust during the fall, instead of collapsing into rubble, leaving pools of molten metal at ground zero which were roasting hot more than a week after collapse.
Tiger, I quoted PMs report of what the NIST report said.
The NIST report says something. What it says is verifiable. That NIST report would be the ultimate authority on what the NIST report says, but secondary summations are much easier to read.
If PM is misrepresenting what the NIST report says, or if wikipedia is also misrepresenting what the NIST report says, I’d love to be corrected, and PM should get all the scorn one can muster.
By the same token, that scorn should be applied to truthers if it is they who are misrepresenting what the NIST report says. Right?
The only “truthers” you should listen to are the ones who have done specific investigative work, and are preferably highly quaified architects and engineers themselves.
To quote a bunch of peeps making random comments on a YouTube clip as “Truthers” in order to demonstrate the lack of credibility of the very real questions being asked does not seem fair.
Personally I think the material presented by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 is pretty reasonable and reasoned.
Here is a video of two scientists who analysed the NIST report and one of them (Kevin Ryan) was working for Underwriters laboratories and got fired for speaking out with regards to the NIST fire testing for which his company was hired to do.
Both Proffesor jones and Dr. Kevin Ryan speak in the AE911truth video which will air in September.
Also in this video is a professional smelter who adds to their NIST debunking.
About NIST. They only reported until the “inevitable” point of collapse and as such felt they did not have to explain how the buildings could have exploded into a pyroclastic flow and collapse into their own footprint within free fall speed. I hope you will agree with me that that is unscientific to say the least.
The remark that NIST states that their collapse theory has only a low probability of actually happening was a remark in the WTC 7 report and was added after they had to withdraw several hypothesis because there was so much criticism and peer pressure from other scientists. Â
Colonial Viper is correct and you should only study the Architects & Engineers and scientist 911 sites to stay within scientifically and peer reviewed boundaries. Everything else is for now relatively unimportant as a lot of questions remain but the unexplained free fall collapses of the three buildings, the Nano thermite residue and the millions of molten micro spheres are in and of itself proof that two planes could not have caused the collapses and if that is so we need a new and fully independent investigation and let the chips fall were they may.
I am sure that there are people who think that Cheney is a liberal. I know of one who actually said so. His name is Erik Prince and he runs Blackwater now known a Xe services. He lives in Dubai and is by most 911 truthers considered to be a war criminal and part of the cabal whom we hope will be dragged before the courts for the war criminal he is.
There are enough testimonies (not in the final report) from people like Minetta putting Cheney firmly in control of some crucial events on 911 to make him very muc” a “person of interest” to be dragged before the commission who investigates the 911 crimes in the future.
The video is about the NIST report if I am correct. I’m knackered now so don’t bite my head off as I’m trying to give the correct info. I’ll respond if need be tomorrow morning after I’ve had some kip. Cheers!
The remark that NIST states that their collapse theory has only a low probability of actually happening was a remark in the WTC 7 report and was added after they had to withdraw several hypothesis because there was so much criticism and peer pressure from other scientists.
I can’t see anyting in the link (‘added’) that supports the claim. The FEMA report says they weren’t confident about their conclusions, which is what led to the NIST investigation…
Chomsky came around and said that we have not been told the truth about what happened on 911
Chomsky, like all reasonable people, was concerned with the makeup and the conduct of the inquiry. But he has never suggested that there is any credibility for these bizarre “inside job” fantasies. In fact, he has on several occasions expressed his impatience with the “Truther” movement, which he says is irrational and a distraction from serious criticism of the government.
and letâs face it the man is in his eigthies and has done excellent work but heâs a bit passed it.
That’s nonsense. You obviously haven’t read anything he’s written or heard anything he’s said over the last six months.
A cartoon in the Christchurch Press 1st August shows what Labour and Goff are up against.
It portrays Goff in an airport imaging security device as having no substance.(If anything it should have pictured Key as the one with image only and no substance).
Can’t remember who the cartoonist was but I can’t think of a word more emphatic than scurrilous to describe the mind of the ‘artist’ or the editor who must have Okay ed it.
It’s about the same level intellectually and politically as Fox news (specifically psycho Glenn Beck) and ethically comparable to those who orchestrated the ‘ditch the bitch’ posters during the last election campaign.
Congratulations Fairfax..You must be so proud of your professional fair and balanced approach.
How on earth does Labour counter this kind of trash? Any ideas?
Canât remember who the cartoonist was but I canât think of a word more emphatic than scurrilous to describe the mind of the âartistâ or the editor who must have Okay ed it.
So this cartoonist is unfunny, unfair, and unashamedly partisan in his support for the National government. Sounds like the mirth-free Queenstown beardie Garrick Tremain.
What the? dept:
Media reports claim Colin Craig is starting a new Conservative Party (work for the dole, usual stuff) and may stand in Epsom. He did not do too well in the supercity Mayoral contest or at organising a march in Queen St despite his dosh.
Did the Conservative Test. I think 3 out of 19 suggests I won’t be going on their mailing list. Have a try and see if you too are a secret pinko or made of the right stuff.
Â
Also heard Craig on the radio this arvo. I missed the start of the interview and for five minutes I thought he was Andrew Williams talking about NZ First! Looks like he’s gonna run in Epsom, but he sounds like he’d probably personally vote for John Banks, because none of what he said was any different from the average Banks soundbite.
Suggest you contact one of the private firms that will be tendering for this. The 40% increase in budget will equate to the 50% they will need to be paid and the 20% that will be cut from rehablitation
In Parliament Tau Henare is telling me that if I don’t want to belong to an organisation I don’t need to.
So, I don’t want to belong to this government; I don’t want to be bound by any of their neo-conservative attack legislation on the rights of workers, i.e. those rules that prevent New Zealanders from having a support system that believes in them and protects their rights.
Freedom of Association Bill – Moana Mackey is now telling me that only 10% of students have to demand a referendum to require voluntary student membership and it was never achieved. Yet Act is forcing this bill upon us.
I’ve been watching the Act minister Heather Roy smiling to herself thinking, finally, she has forced something upon students that they didn’t want. This is all about weakening youth’s ability to stand against future strangulation of their democratic speech and student rights to fair treatment. This is all about weakening support for workers’ rights as those students will realise to their disadvantage as they enter into the workforce.
Students and youth in general look to adults to protect their rights while they enjoy their freedoms before taking on the responsibility of looking after this country and its growing aged. I hope they forgive what this government has forced upon them as they lose their umbrella support, their support infrastructure and their physical infrastructure.
This government lied before the 2008 election about not forcing through this legislation.
Paul Hutchison; you are a liar. You lied about your promise not to drag Franklin assets into the Auckland pit of debt. Now we find out you lied to our youth. Shame on you. To think that the people of Frankin/Hunua will vote you back in just because it is a National nest speaks volumes about National/Act’s lack of credibility and National/Act’s voters’ self-respect.
It was a disgrace as far as I am concerned and I am Dutch but the truth is that they were there in a passive capacity and were not equipped to deal with the murderous intend of the Serbian warlords. Why Holland ever committed to this role without being properly equipped to deal with these circumstances putting their soldiers in that position is something you can blame the government for but I thought at the time it was an absolute disgrace.
National is helping Act to remove the rights of students to decide whether they wanted to find 10% of students to force a referendum on whether they wanted to pay student association fees which cover a range of advocacy services and clubs, etc or not.
Since this government is removing the rights of students to decide how they want to handle their university services, I decided to remove the right of Tau Henare to speak in my House and put him on mute. He looks hilarious waving his arms about, trying to bluster over the fact that when he was in the other party Pacific… he was all for advocacy.
I’ve given him a verbal lobotomy; it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
You seriously are a fuckwit; before student unions students had pitiful rights. In the modern age of higher education, where dollars are everything, their voice needs to be heard.
Earlier this week the students were questioning the overseas travel at Auckland Uni and whether this was value for money. Can you imagine if a single student had the gaul to do this – they would be out.
What you and your ilk do not like is anyone collectively challenging you value system.
If this goes through, a bill supported by a party that gained 3.7% share of the vote, it will be one of the saddest days for democracy in NZ.
RWNJs love breaking down civic and collective institutions. Atomising people into their individual selves weakens them and breaks communities and resistance down.
Yep – most students don’t want to associate with universities that have a large chunk of freeloaders making student-provided services untenable. NACT are taking that option away.
I have now created the “Standard Commentators Association” as you have commentated here, you are a member. Your bill for $400 for this 1/4 is in the mail.
Ian, is anyone being stopped from participating in the associations?
Enclosed is my formal notification of conscientious objection to membership of your association. Failure to act on this will result in me choosing to comment on any of the other half-dozen leftish political blog sites in NZ.
“Force” my arse.Â
   Â
Nobody “forces” anyone to go to that particular tertiary education provider, if membership of that particular students’ association one can object to membership, if there are issues around objection procedures the association needs to work under the democratic rules of societies’ legislation, and if the association is completely unresponsive to the needs of students a simple petition necessitates a referendum of all students regarding membership criteria.
  Â
ACT’s last gasp is to overrule all that and the democratic wishes of students with a dictat from Wellington. When our PM can’t remember whether he opposed sporting contacts with Apartheid South Africa.
McFlock, when I went to Uni I had no option but to join, it was on my invoice every semester, if I wanted the expensive piece of paper, I had to pay the fees for an association that I did not want to belong to. Admittedly, they did a fair amount of good at my campus, I would rather have had the option of joining or staying out.
You are now also enrolled in the association of commentators at The Standard, your bill is also in the mail for this 1/4
Really? No obtion for conscientious objection whatsoever?
  Â
My uni assoociation did, although I never bothered with it. I’m not a Jehova’s Witness or a self-obsessed tory who’s convinced I’ll never need help.
 Â
I bet you never used any association services, either (/bullshit).
So other than any association reps on university committees including the Council, academic policies regarding fairness and clarity in marking or library use, class reps, (and probably student publications, events around Orientation and so on), you only ever went to the pub a couple of times and never joined a club or society in three years.
Yep, you got nothing from your membership.
Â
Difference is The Standard doesn’t provide you with counselling services, discounts on things, sports facilities, clubs, funding, meeting space, medical services, legal back up, etc.
I’ll gladly pay the $400 per year when you start offering them to me đ
NB I already pay $80 a month to my union for similar representation; whilst I begrudge the $80 when it is deducted I also acknowledged that others who have paid before me have fought for and won many of the rights I now enjoy, not only as a worker, but as a human being.
… The precincts of parliament? What part of the anatomy is that? Watching that waste of space during the debate this evening, suggests that Henare is still suffering from concussion. He is obviously an embarrassment to the intellects in his party – they must cringe when he opens his mouth.
He is obviously an embarrassment to the intellects in his party â they must cringe when he opens his mouth.
If National Party members had any standards at all, they would cringe whenever Key opens his mouth—especially his statement that the shooting of Norwegians by a Norwegian Christian fanatic is “why we are in Afghanistan”.
Did you watch the link above of Key reading his âcondolencesâ speech?
Yes I did. Key’s speech (Part 1) was as uninspiring and insipid as anything he has delivered, though it was interesting to see that he has dropped his grave assurances that “this is why our troops are in Afghanistan”. Note, straight behind Key, the hapless Hawkes Bay drone Chris Tremain dutifully looking concerned and occasionally nodding his head throughout the speech. Talk about a wasted life.
I skipped the rest, except for John Boscawen (Part 5), who seems utterly bewildered and out of his depth. As usual. Note that the grossly under-performing National backbencher Alan (“I am not a stupid man”) Peachey is fast asleep throughout Boscawen’s speech.
PB,
Could not find a way to link to the previous thread so I’m responding a fresh.
Let me start that over the many years I have done this the pile of books, rapports, counter reports, video’s, radio programs has grown so voluminous that errors are almost inevitable. that does not mean they ar on purpose or to mislead.
Having said that Here is a link to the response of a group of scientists and engineers who respond to Both NIST and FEMA in their peer reviewed article in the Bentham open journal. This was written before the NIST WTC7 report was published and it shows you are right and that the FEMA report stated that their best hypothesis had a low chance of occurring.
However NIST had to detract their timeline for the collapse of WTC 7 upon strenuous and well founded criticism after they denied that WTC 7 had collapsed in free fall speed when the same group of Engineers and Scientists reviewed their report on the collapse in the peer review process. As it should be I might add.
Now you can say: see, see she’s got it wrong but the fact is that two scientific institutions financed by the US government have not bee able to give satisfying answers to the urgent question as to why three steel framed buildings could collapse (Two in an exploding fashion and one in an imploding fashion) into a pyroclastic flow and that until today this only happened on 911 even though more devastating fires in more fragile build buildings have not been able to replicate these collapses other then ones rigged with explosives.
No proper criminal investigation has ever been allowed to take place and a small group of people has become even more hideously wealthy in the war efforts that followed. Â
Have to be off, won’t be able to answer until midday.
Here’s what NIST say about the rate of collapse as far as I can make out:
The analyses of the video (both the estimation of the instant the roofline began to descend and the calculated velocity and acceleration of a point on the roofline) revealed three distinct stages characterizing the 5.4 seconds of collapse:
âąStage 1 (0 to 1.75 seconds): acceleration less than that of gravity (i.e., slower than free fall).
âąStage 2 (1.75 to 4.0 seconds): gravitational acceleration (free fall)
âąStage 3 (4.0 to 5.4 seconds): decreased acceleration, again less than that of gravity
This analysis showed that the 40 percent longer descent timeâcompared to the 3.9 second free fall timeâwas due primarily to Stage 1, which corresponded to the buckling of the exterior columns in the lower stories of the north face. During Stage 2, the north face descended essentially in free fall, indicating negligible support from the structure below. This is consistent with the structural analysis model which showed the exterior columns buckling and losing their capacity to support the loads from the structure above. In Stage 3, the acceleration decreased as the upper portion of the north face encountered increased resistance from the collapsed structure and the debris pile below.
PB,
Just so we are clear here. A 47 floor 186 m high building twice reinforced to withstand a nuclear blast collapses into a fine dust and steel beams just the right length to fit on removal trucks in 5.4 sec (I thought 6.5 seconds) into it’s own foot print, the path of most resistance, as the result of mere office fires and you are OK with that because the absolute free fall time would have been 3.9 sec?
Come on!!!
Here is what Physicist David Chandler (One of the people criticizing NIST with Architects and Engineers) has to say about it!Â
the north face descended essentially in free fall, indicating negligible support from the structure below. This is consistent with the structural analysis model which showed the exterior columns buckling and losing their capacity to support the loads from the structure above.
Whoah, that is a totally unwarranted conclusion. Structural elements which fail take time to fail. They don’t fail as if they are not there. You have to remember that a good MAJORITY of the structural beams in the building were INTACT.
What you are proposing is that all those intact beams wnet ahead and failed SIMULTANEOUSLY in such a way that they acted as if they had ZERO structural strength.
Well of course there are circumstances where that could happen to a building, and has been seen to happen before e.g. a carefully timed controlled demolition.
CV,
Just to support your comment, here is a video with both the real world collapse and the framework computer model showing completely different collapses
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 19.1.2.1.1
Yeah, seems a bit of a circuitous conspiracy. You want to go to war against Iraq. You need a pretext. You involve hundreds of people in your conspiracy planting explosives and such (none of whom ever leak about it).
But then, you don’t frame Iraq, the country against whom you want to go to war.
gormyone
“Forget about the fucking buildings and tell me why. ”
Gold Oil Drugs
sum it up for you?
if not then you may want to recall they had to hit Afghanistan first before they could whip up the frenzy to allow the illegal and unwarranted attack on their patsy Hussein. Then as the opium trade exploded in selected areas of Afghanistan, protected by the US forces of course, they could focus on Iraq and once the first million civilians had been killed they had to fire the Army so the country could properly disintegrate and the US could supply stability to the oil pipeline, i mean the oppressed people.
Why not just use the actual AQ attacks as pretext? It’s not like everyone thought it was no big deal until after the buildings came down, and only then did the tv people start saying hell this is pretty freaky.
Even while the planes were still flying around people were describing it as the most serious and audacious terror attack in history. There is your pretext, right there.
You only need to run a false flag op when you opponent isn’t actually attacking you.
“Even while the planes were still flying around people were describing it as the most serious and audacious terror attack in history. ”
you really do come up with some amazing crap.. Weren’t you at all suspicious that within an hour of the first Tower being hit Osama was the man and every station on the planet knew it. .. kind of like when Oswald’s full bio and backstory turned up in NZ papers within hours of the event…. now back to your Airplane problem .. in the USA…any commercial aircraft that deviates from its course for whatever reason and does not respond to three calls to the flightcrew has an interceptor aircraft launched.
This did not happen for four passenger aircraft that as you state above were known to be highjacked and were tracked for over an hour over land.. The interceptors were sent out to sea.
A couple of months before 9/11 longstanding protocols were changed so all calls for interceptors had to go directly to the Secreatary of Defense. A couple of weeks after 9/11 the long standing protocols were re-introduced.
HOW and WHY…. PB.. HOW and WHY ?
I do not have time this week to continue but i am more than willing to deal with this next week. 9/11 is perhaps the most difficult subject for people to discuss, not because of the info-disnfo war, not because of the wars that it led to, not because the threat of actual terrorism is a real danger in the 21st Century. The real reason is people fundamentally do not want to accept that a small number of very powerful people conspired to slaughter millions for nothing else but Gold Oil and Drugs and the power they supply.
Freedom, perhaps you didn’t actually read my comment.
The question I’m asking is why would you need to go through with a highly risky task of rigging three buildings to blow up, when the AQ attacks alone would serve as your casus belli.
Responding that in fact, everyone was already itching for war on AQ after only one hour explains my point perfectly.
And no, I wasn’t suspicious at all about the fact that AQ was being fingered. When I first saw the shit goin down, and it became clear it wasn’ an accident, I thought, shit AQ have got their A game on.
It’s not like they hadn’t been threatening war on US soil for years. They were the obvious suspect, to everyone but the Bush administration (who were under the spell of neocons who believed that non state actors simply don’t have the capacity for this sort of thing).
Tomorrow, tired now. And I would like to know what AQ stands for. Blond perhaps but remember English is my second language and sometimes abbreviations slide by me. Cheers
“Structural elements which fail take time to fail”.
The way I understand it is that they had been progressively failing all day from uncontrolled fires on 10 floors. So much so, that instead of pulling the building down (as they had several others in the complex), the firemen left it to burn because they knew it was going to fall down anyway.
The most important operational decision to be made that afternoon was the collapse (Of the WTC towers) had damaged 7 World Trade Center, which is about a 50 story building, at Vesey between West Broadway and Washington Street. It had very heavy fire on many floors and I ordered the evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our members, so we had to give up some rescue operations that were going on at the time and back the people away far enough so that if 7 World Trade did collapse, we [wouldn’t] lose any more people. We continued to operate on what we could from that distance and approximately an hour and a half after that order was [given], at 5:30 in the afternoon, World Trade Center collapsed completely.
Eve posted some statements as to what she claimed the NIST report said, saying that they had to adjust their timeline implying that the new timeline would no longer support their theory of what happened. I posted what the NIST report says. As far as I can tell, what the NIST report says is not very much like what eve claimed it said.
Point the second:
There seems to be some astonishment at what I posted. It is as if, as Rosy talked about in an earlier comment, people aren’t actually familiar with the theory they are criticising.
Instead of dealing with that, I’m asked if I believe the same tired old strawman about ‘small office fires’. It’s almost like I haven’t linked to what the actual theory is. It is quite something.
Point the third:
CV look again at the threes stages NIST talks about. When is the support for the building being lost? Stage 1, 2, or 3?
No, actually I think that difficult though it may be he is actually trying to engage. Something you wouldn’t know how to do if it hit you between the eyes. Hence the questions and the links.
Wrote this an hour ago and thought I’d send it off. That is the problem when you have about a hundred tabs open. My bad!
We are nitpicking about 1.6 seconds here in the collapse of a 47 floor steel framed building for fucks sake I it had taken 1.5 hours it would still be impossible!
NIST stated it did not investigate for explosives because there was no proof of explosives. WTF?
First of all there was ample recorded testimony and video material showing clearly that explosive events took place BEFORE the planes hit the buildings and there is recorded testimony of explosive events in WTC 7 before the buildings came down and they did not investigate because they did not find evidence?????
This is what Eric Lawyer (also speaking on the AE video to come) Fire fighters for 911 truth had to say about that.
This is what appeared on Italian MSM about the WTC 7 demolition here the explosions just before the buildings collapse and oh oops, here are the fire fighters saying they knew it was coming down before hand even though this had only happened twice before on the same day!
if you read The Project for a New American Century it spells out that ‘nothing short of a new Pearl Harbour’ would have been enough of a catlyst to form the required level of hysteria that would allow the implenmentation of a long standing warplan on the Middle East.
The plans of which you may recall were dumped on the desk of the Secretary of Defense within 48 hours of the attacks on the WTC. Full plans, costs, including an exit strategy. All tied up with a nice blood red white and blue ribbon but the reality is there should have been nought on top but a white feather for their cowardice.
The AQ attacks fit the bill. Which is why they used it. Doesn’t explain why they would take he risk of getting involved. And it sure as hell doesn’t explain why their propaganda before the event wasn’t helping them. If they had known exactly what was going to happen, they would have been laying the ground about ties between AQ and Iraq and building up the threat AQ posed. Instead, they were ignoring them.
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 20.1.1
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Governmentâs Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. Itâs important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes –Â The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that âthe first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.â When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECDâs second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commissionâs 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the governmentâs official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious:Â we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisition  NOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamarikiâs statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. âThere are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a âfirst strikeâ (that is, a âstage-1 convictionâ under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a âsecond strikeâ. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesnât normally happen in politics. Thatâs refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to âsaveâ the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Governmentâs official website – arrived in Point of Orderâs email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive  Melissa Lee â as may be discerned from the screenshot above â has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Governmentâs focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes –Â Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu â often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the governmentâs readiness to make urgent changes to âthe resource management systemâ through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes donât go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a âmedia summitâ to discuss âthe state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalismâ. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes –Â This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
 Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for âfast trackâ consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill â currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes-Â The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you arenât wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said âSince we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Te PÄti MÄori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veteransâ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veteransâ affairs spokesperson Greg OâConnor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxonâs management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonightâs court decision to overturn the summons of the Childrenâs Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about MÄori without evidence, says Te PÄti MÄori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. âThe judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last yearâs severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labourâs environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our countryâs most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Governmentâs Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a âget out of jail freeâ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te PÄti MÄori Justice Spokesperson, TÄkuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, MÄori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealandâs good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National governmentâs lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te PÄti MÄori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. âThis act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.â Said Te PÄti MÄori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for TÄmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te PÄti MÄori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mĆ TÄmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with MÄori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Governmentâs democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Governmentâs proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change thatâs great for the planet and great for consumers after her memberâs bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the countryâs books after Teanau Tuionoâs membersâ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his memberâs bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Todayâs advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. âWe know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,â Dr Reti says. âEvery day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikoheâs new $14.7 million sports complex. âThe completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,â Mr Jones says. âThis facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Petersâ engagements in TĂŒrkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges.  âReturning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,â Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen â good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood â a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - Â It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Â Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Â Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. âOur Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealandâs hydrogen future, with the opening of the countryâs first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. âI want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealandâs own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealandâs energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. âThe report shows that New Zealandâs emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,â Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where heâll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Governmentâs work to restore law and order. âAttending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealandâs human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the worldâs largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. âThe reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealandâs wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin  NgÄ mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho  Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today.  I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. âOur Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealandâs overseas missions.  âOur diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealandâs interests around the world,â Mr Peters says.  âI am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. Â âOver 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. âIt is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. âOur coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
âChina remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,â Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says.  Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. âRecently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachersâ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul.  âThe Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. âScience, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During todayâs meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. âThe Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in TaupĆ as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the TaupĆ International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. âAnticipation for the ITM TaupĆ Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. âThe coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. âThis project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sectorâs productivity,â Mr Jones says. âThe project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Governmentâs plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. âBenefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Governmentâs commitment to doubling New Zealandâs renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealandâs latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. âOur Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. âNew Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Governmentâs intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. âThe introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Todayâs announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Governmentâs plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. âInflation is now at 4 per ...
Asia Pacific Report From France to Australia, university pro-Palestine protests in the United States have now spread to several countries with students pitching on-campus camps. And students at Columbia and other US universities remain defiant as campuses have witnessed the biggest protests since the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid eras in ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Governmentâs Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. Itâs important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our Whatâs Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scoutâs human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird â she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including âterribleâ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking âdo you have what it takes to be a popstar?â 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar â a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldnât stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes â while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. Itâs not often an episode of a childrenâs cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but thatâs exactly what happened this week when ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people ⊠and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minuteâs silence to mark the âblood debtâ owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. âA promise to most people is a promise,â Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an âadministrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the countryâs major TV network of broadcasting âpropagandaâ backing Israelâs genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to menâs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock âChildhoodâ and âdementiaâ are two words we wish we didnât have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The governmentâs Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9â17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University Thereâs been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russiaâs war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peaceâs new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a womanâs hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Booksâ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingwayâs Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time â ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australiaâs fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The âWicked Gameâ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didnât stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from âWicked Gameâ, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called đ, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao MÄori and remove many specialist MÄori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, weâve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedinâs India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoaâs drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says itâs hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoffâs morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. Itâs been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you donât believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Iâm going to do it, right now. Iâm going to say ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Itâs not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 26 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Muskâs vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandelaâs grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Key is not the only one at fault here, Goff is playing his game, and the media chase ratings rather than fair democracy. But he can lead on this or he can diss us and try and do his own thing.
Key and Goff can pick and choose who they will debate with. And we can pick and choose who to vote for.
One thing is for sure: Neither one of them is interested and in full support of MMP.
Er, no. Both have obviously got their heads around MMP, Labour formally and National by virtue of their electorate deals with ACT and United Future. Goff has said his major reservation is coat-tailing. National’s major reservation is that Labour might win.
MMP does not mean coalition deals or whoring and supply agreements.
It is not a de-facto FPP agenda driven race to do as much damage as possible before the next election. We have not yet had a MMP government and i hope to see at least one before i shake loose this mortal coil.
What is a MMP government?
It is so simple. A group of people who a whole bunch of electorates said represent them,
sit in a big room. Nominations are put forward for PM. A vote is taken. continued untill resolved. The PM nominates a cabinet, votes, objections, votes etc for a week or so maybe then reality transpires, things settle down and just like that we have a MMP Government.
It is a group of elected people in a room, drawing bills from ballots and debating them untill consensus is achieved and the process of Parliamentary Democracy is implemented fully.
If it takes eight months to agree on a tax cut it takes eight months. If your pet roading project gets suspended due to the Country’s sudden desire to assist the victims of , i don’t know, say an Earthquake, then the Government presents a choice for the Parliament to decide.
it is not the agenda of a Party but the decisions of a Parliament that should dictate a Nation’s future,
Couldn’t agree more freedom.
I’d like to see something like that too. It won’t happen, unless the current status quo is given a big shakeup, and that will only happen if voters initiate it.
It is up to us. It is up to the people! It is that simple. Some wise words were said in a cheesy movie many many years ago “no-one said it was going to be easy, at least no-one said it to me”
We must take control of our own Democracy and stop allowing the dictatorial manifestos of bankers to populate the stromwaters of history with our children’s futures
The switch from aggressive oppositional politics to representative politics. No single party leads and the bills are determined by the populace and actually debated upon their merits rather than the closed ideology of a party.
yup, sounds good doesn’t it ?
-and this from, according to TVOR, a rabid right wing nutter. Nutter? well that depends on which of my friends you speak to. But if i am right wing either the left is really in a lot more trouble than any of us ever realised or the right is getting desperate for membership đ
Key is primarily at fault. Â Goff said that he would debate with the others of Key would. Â It is Key’s insistence that means it will not happen.
Stop trying to blame Goff.
Is this the new diversionary meme of the day?
Shall we now spend all day debating how “being prepared to debate with the others” means “not prepared to debate with the others”?Â
Goff’s reaction didn’t look good either. He could get a few lessons off Russell Norman on how to look like an Opposition leader.
But Pete you are suggesting Goff is refusing to debate with the others.
Â
He is not.
Then we have to impress upon him how vital it is that he attend ALL debates. Leaves Jonky pulling his pud.
thisis remeniscent of the Clark-Key arrangements in 2008.
The more thiungs change the more they stay the same…
Yesterday, a friend send me a link to a doco called Defamation. It is a film made by a young Israeli Jewish director called Yoav Shami and in the film he poses the question; What is Anti-Semitism today?
And I found it to be an honest journey into one of the most controversial subjects on our planet today. From young Israelis travelling to Poland to confront the horrors of the concentration camps and the anti Defamation league, Rabbis in New York and Russia to the Anti Zionist Uri Avnery, and Norman Finkelstein the entire Scala of emotions such as a sense of exceptionalism, pain, anger, grief and the need to progress into the future are being addressed in a thought provoking manner.
Well worth watching!
…young Israelis travelling to Poland to confront the horrors of the concentration camps
Young Israelis are going to Poland? Why?
Why don’t they travel a few kilometres and visit the modern-day equivalent of the Warsaw Ghetto?
Good question and one which is actually addressed (Or rather their lack of empathy) in the doco.
their lack of empathy
Actually, many young Israelis do feel empathy for the victims of their government’s crimes. Thousands of them refuse to “serve” in the IDF, and many Israelis (young and old) go to the Occupied Territories to attempt to prevent some of the depradations of the “settlers”—such as uprooting of their olive trees, burning their crops, and harassing and beating children on their way to school.
It’s not easy, especially when the IDF “soldiers” just stand by, doing nothing, and let bullies like this do what they like…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0fM58jBYzY&feature=related
Indeed!
Would like to watch yesterday’s parliamentary messages of condolence to the Norwegian people. Is there a replay link?
http://inthehouse.co.nz/search/apachesolr_search/norway%20tragedy
Â
messages of condolence to the Norwegian people
What do Norwegians think about the New Zealand prime minister’s thoughtful and insightful comments on this atrocity?
They thought ‘why is Obama letting the White House wine waiter speak?’.
âwhy is Obama letting the White House wine waiter speak?â
LOL.
The replay demonstrates for the most part that we possess some real statesmen who can deliver a message from the heart on our behalf.
Goff spoke eloquently and with genuine feeling.
Phil Goff and Kennedy Graham both – with passing references to notes. Can’t say the same for the seemingly “dutiful” readings from hand-held speeches given by others…
I recently read that Labour MP Grant Robertson describe National’s candidate selection for Epsom as a “stitch-up” at the “expense of the people of Epsom who deserve some respect”.
Anthony Robins hasn’t had a strong opinion on the topic, but he commented recently that he’s starting to come down on the side of âif you canât beat them, join themâ.
Evidently Jim Anderton endorsed the “stitch-up” approach.
I look forward to Grant Robertson withdrawing his scurrilous comments about National’s Epsom candidacy announcements and acknowledging the practices in Eppsom AND Wigram as politics as usual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45jpTqjtC5Y&feature=youtube_gdata
“There is no press more shameful than the Canadian press.”
—Norman Finkelstein, at the University of British Columbia, 12 January 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45jpTqjtC5Y&feature=youtube_gdata
I agree!
So far, this is all I’ve seen in the MSM about Steven being reported to the Speaker of the House for lying.
And it’s an opinion piece by Simon Cunliffe
Did I mention I’m in bloody good company where it concerns my doubts about the official conspiracy theory of 911?
Here is the first trailer of a doco which will be released in honour of the tenth anniversary of the 911 attacks! 1500 Architects and Engineers speak out. Oh and chemists, Chemistry professors and physicists too!
There will be opportunities to watch the doco in Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland as we mourn those lost as a result of those attacks
What was in building 7 ?
Lots of high grade explosives and a crack team of CIA black ops demolition experts according to the voices in my head.
I am finally quite intrigued by all this building collapse stuff, and admit to not having looked at it in detail before and in fact skated over the long discussions on this blog. Time to catch up a bit.
Who? and Why? are the big questions. Were explosives used to enhance the actual demolition while the planes were what got everyoneâs attention, the ideological hit so to speak. People with explosives had been apprehended in the basements of the WTC years before I do remember.
It is so counter intuitive to consider that even the yankee imperialists would pull such a stunt in their own backyard.
Funny that you should mention the 93 attacks! Turns out the FBI wanted to bomb the buildings then too. Here is a doco with regards to that event.
They have done it multiple times TM.
Here is Northwoods which was called of. There is the gulf of Tonkin incident which started the Vietnam war. The sinking of the Maine which started the American Spanish war
And yes, it took me about three months after I started reading up on this before I could even begin to contemplate the evil involved in these events if the official Conspiracy theory could not have happened. It was terrifying.
Four years of ridicule pales to absolute insignificance to having to admit to myself that what the US government tried to sell us could not have happened the way they said is did.
i recommend to begin at the beginning
http://www.question911.com/linkout.php?filename=Building%20the%20World%20Trade%20Center.wmv
this is a publicly available documentary made during the WTC construction. it falls outside of all agendas from any parties involved. It existed unchanged and is the most accurate vehicle to fully grasp the intense construction methods employed in a project designed to withstand multiple strikes from aircraft. Familiarise yourself with the structure. Then re read the official story, and the simple fact that planes, fire damage and jetfuel cannot bring down hundreds of thousands of tonnes of welded and riveted steel.
here are some of the earlier docos on 9/11
http://www.question911.com/linksall.htm
there are many recent doco’s, see Trev for current lists, i recommend anything by A&E for 9/11 truth and also the recent doco called Zero. The more recent ones deal purely with the science for that is where the answers lay
TVOR
do You even know what Building 7 was?
Are you aware of what was housed there?. Can you stop shitting on the graves of innocent people, it is not funny. There is no conspiracy theory, there is a mountain range of incontravertable fact which destroys the potholes of an official story a thousand times over. If you were told the official story in any other context than the nightly news you would have asked for your money back from the ticket office. Do some research for yourself on one of the most heinous crimes ever perpetrated on the free world. Or do like the look of blood on your hands?
I love the look of blood on my hands, freedom, and I hate it when my stigmata heal. I’m sorry I don’t buy the rightwing 911 fantasy and that upsets you so much. Building 7 collapsed because a larger building fell on it. That’s the story, right there. No domestic conspiracy, no CIA, no black ops, just the most succesful guerilla attack in modern times.
Â
I appreciate that there are some lefties whose anti-americanism will always make them suckers for this kind of immaturity, but the fact remains that the only people shitting on the graves (as you so diplomatically put it) are the Tea Party types and their dimwitted or wilfully naive overseas followers.Â
Â
 Ten years on and still not a shred of evidence. And this in the country where even a simple hotel burglary can’t be succesfully carried out without bringing down a government.
TVOR
To make such an ignorant statement only declares to the world that you have not even begun to investigate for yourself any of the data you have been supplied on numerous occasions. Your willingness, and that of many others, to swallow the story is a trauma that societies never fully recover from. Those that remain deaf to the screams of the murdered, will still have to face their own conscience when truth finally defeats the hate.
As I said, not a shred of evidence in 10 years. No emails, no phone calls, no whistleblowers, no proof what so fucken ever. Nobody amongst the vast army needed to pull off this Mission Impossible who has ever dobbed in the rest or tried to sell his story to the media. Indeed, not one story in the media of any merit whatsoever in a country where a President can’t even shag the help without it being a major constitutional crisis.
Get back to me when the coppers start making arrests and I’ll take an interest. Till then, it’s just pants and more fool you for being a tool of the frothing right.
Manhattan project
130.000 employees most of whom only found out what they had been working on when the news broke of the bombings in Japan.
There are many whistle blowers who have come forward with regrds to 911 but people like Barry Jennings and Danny Jovenko the demolition expert in the trailer have either had car accidents or died under mysterious circumstances and there are several Whistleblowers who only want to talk if and only if there is a formal investigation with independent investigators and protection for them.
Anthony Shaffer was a high clearance intelligence officer testified to the 911 Commission about how his investigation was stopped into the alleged hijackers during operation able danger and it cost him his career. He was one of many officers and other people who came forward but whose testimony did not appear in the final report.
Many members of the 911 commission have denounced the final report because they felt they had been lied to by the military and other high officials
So no evidence at all, then? It’s so strange that among the cast of thousands who perpetrated this crime, not one has dropped a dime, either publicly or anonymously. It’s almost like it never happened, but then, that’s what they’d like us to think, eh.
Â
You’re dead right that a lot of Manhatten project workers were kept in the dark about the true aims of the project. That’s one of the reasons it was so succesful. It has nothing to do with a conspiracy though, it’s just routine in the military to keep stuff on a need to know basis, particularly in wartime.
first up, it only took a few dozen to pull this off as the level of authority gave all the cover for any technical or logistical aspect to be implemented.
One example: When a team is hired to paint fireproofing onto steel and told they are applying a new fire retardant, they do not get told they are painting a high tech thermade agent that will result in the pulverising of hundreds of tonnes of concrete into pyroclastic clouds of dust.
you just said why are there no whistle blowers blah blah–then go on to say how the military in war keeps things quiet, what the hell do you think is going on today…if you do not see we are in a state of war then you are absolutely without hope. Perhaps what you do not realise is who the combatants are?
what did Dubya say?
‘ you are with us or against us ‘
you really think you are one of the us? good luck with that
Pick your side very carefully tvor. Your grandchildren will be watching.
You only get to choose once and history will be the book-keeper, not your back slapping, trade chomping, soul swilling mates
Jeez TVoR do you actually stop and read what you write sometimes?
People (Nowhere does it say that if the military does something in secret it isn’t conspiring) who organise something in secret are conspiring. Period.
Conspiring is the most common crime. Banks do it, the military does it (In covering up friendly fire or other war crimes), out leaders do it and the common criminal at the street corner who decides together with his mates to rob a liquor store does it.
The Manhattan project can arguably be called a conspiracy. For those of us who think Nuclear weapons are an abomination it sure is.
Second; were do you get the “rabid right” from. If we are right it was the rabid right in the form of say the neocons (New American Century) and the military industrial complex who had both the means, the motivation and the opportunity to organise it.
If we are right it was the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld whom even by the easiest of standards can not be called left wing who were involved. If we are right the Americans are no longer in control of their own country because most people who voted fro Obama did so because he promised to stop the wars but instead he started 4 additional wars: Pakistan, Libya, Soedan and Yemen. Black or white is not the issue here but the fact that he lied and that he follows the same disastrous path as his so called right wing predecessor! Â
Most 911 truthers are vehemently anti war. Especially the wars started in the aftermath of 911 and want a return to a peaceful coexistence with the rest of the planet and be able to rebuild America in peace with their fellow man. What is so right wing about that?
If we are right and the US has been hijacked by very dangerous greedy people I can’t (Although I’m a pacifist myself) really fault a lot of Americans for wanting to be able to arm themselves against these idiots destroying the planet with their Depleted Uranium weapons. So what is so rabid right wing about that?
Alex Jones whom you might call a red neck right wing Texan loud mouth is the only one who will have Cynthia McKinney on his show and she is a black ex congress woman standing for the Green party of America when she is in Libya reporting on the many sorties and bombardments of NATO and the US. So how is that Rabid right wing?
Â
Cheers, guys. As I said earlier if you ever come up with any proof, let me know. Ten years and counting …
Â
Without wanting to rub your nose in it, freedom, you are buying into a right wing fantasy, perpetrated by people who think Cheney is a softy liberal. The same people who have just been in the news trying to bankrupt America to stop that uppity Kenyan from helping the poor.Â
Â
It’s entirely your business whether you want to waste time on something that has no credibility or substance and serves the ends of the enemies of everything else you appear to believe in, but every time this reactionary bollocks is aired here, it wastes a shit load of bandwidth and time, including my own. But I’m happy to continue to mock the madness and I’ll still ask the same question every time it does come up. And that question is, where is the proof?
Â
tvor, which building did you say fell on building 7? I just can’t see it anywhere.
TVoR,
see you choose to ignore my request for an explanation as to why 911 truth seekers equate with rabid right while lashing out unmotivated by reasonable arguments it seems at to why he or I are from the Rabid right!
Added to that VTO request you tell him what building fell on WTC7 so how about it?
And before you go into bullshit mode let me point out that NIST after 7 years came up with a scenario that even they thought was not very likely to happen and that they dismissed the damage from other buildings caused the collapse scenario.
Â
vto. here’s popular mechanics summary of the NIST report on WTC7:
You’ll note that PMs description of what NIST says differs from how truthers regularly describe what NIST says. I haven’t read the full report, but I have my suspicions about who is misrepresenting it.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/debunking-911-myths-world-trade-center#wtc7
In response to Pascal’s bookie here is a link to a thorough debunking of the popular mechanics articles. It’s only part 1 of 9 but you can find the other parts on the same page.
Here is an analysis the collapse of WTC 7 of Tony Samboti engineer and listen to him thouroughly debunking NIST and Popular mechanics.
Popular mechanics… FFS!
Predictable eve. But the question remains, and it’s a simple one. Is PMs description of the NIST report accurate/
That’s what I linked to, a description of the NIST report.
Youtubed ‘debunkings’ aside, what does the NIST report say?
Who describes it more accurately?
But why put the YouTube commentary on the building collapses “aside”? In many of those videos, highly qualified expert architects and engineers speak, as well as people who were at ground zero.
Why exclude them from your consideration?
Because unless it explains that PM is totally misrepresenting what the NIST report says, it is beside the point I am discussing.
Truthers often talk about what the NIST report says. I’ve not read the full report. But very often, when I check aspects of the report against what truthers claim about what it says, I find that truthers are not being particularly truthful.
So the question remains. Is PMs description of what the NIST report says more accurate, or less accurate than what truthers say about the NIST report.
Well P’s b, thanks for the popular mechanics info. To be honest I don’t know what to believe. Considerable building and engineering knowledge and experience tells me that the building should not have come down. At all. And the way it fell.
Yet then I read the “official” story and that nakes some sense though very limited.
And on top of that I do not trust “official” much at all. Everybody on this earth conspires, many on a near daily basis from things as small as staying in bed pretending to be asleep so someone else has to go out and get the paper in the frost, to as large as Bill English planning with John Key and Nick Smith to cut ACC while at the same time knowing they will restore it a later date for political pleasures, to even larger again such that JFK’s head blasts back in one direction when the bullet came from a completely different direction. Anybody who says conspiracies do not exist is a true fool. They are part and parcel of manwomankind’s heart and soul. In fact such secretive planning is probably what has led manwomankind to the place it is in today.
The collapse of these buildings is of great interest and I continue to watch. I just wish I could see tvor’s larger building which fell on wtc7…
Re conspiracies in general vto, sure, they are real.
But they are hard to get the truth of, so it comes down to guess work and evaluation right.
On this one, what kills it for me is this:
Assuming AQ was involved, (and there is very very good reason to believe they did indeed recruit and train people to hijack planes and fly them into buildings on 9/11), then
For it to be a false flag op, then the govt had to know that the AQ attack was going to take place. They had to know for certain. They had to have target details, time details, the works. They then had to set up the black op to make the AQ attack worse than it would otherwise have been, by somehow rigging those three buildings to come down in such a way that the aircraft crashes would not upset the demolition set up. They had to set this up under severe time constraints, with limited personnel and be confident that no one would discover that these buildings were rigged for demo.
The demo itself, would have to sound like no other demo I’ve heard. They all sound like a long series of large but discrete explosions as the building is destroyed. No such series can be heard while those buildings come down. So it must have been a new technique with special explosives. Fair enough. But again, that increases the risk of failure/detection. Above someone posits that the explosives were disguised as fire retardent paint and applied by unwitting painters. those painters would have to have had as a term of the contract for fire proofing the WTC, that they use this paint sourced by the contractee. The paint would have to look at act enough like normal paint that it would fool them. etc.
All of this, through every step of the operation, going back who knows how long. All of it set up just to make an attack they knew was coming, worse.
Remember too that he Bush gang had been downplaying and mocking the idea of terrorism as a threat. They were far more focussed on star wars spending and ‘rogue nations’ flinging nukes.
So if the conspirators were confident enough that AQ were going to attack, right down to knowing the target set (incidentally, Mohammad Atta only confirmed that target set to AQ leaders in afghanistan about 1 week before launch, but we’ll ignore that for the moment), if they knew AQ was going to fly airliners full of civilians into buildings, why wouldn’t they just let them do it and use that as the excuse for war.
Such an attack would already be cause for war. Far easier and much less risky to prepare a propaganda campaign saying that AQ were in cahoots with whoever it was you wanted to attack. Knowing they were going to attack yuo could be releasing forged documents in the month before the attack saying anything you like. Then when the attack comes; boom. the population goes crazy for you. Why on earth run the extraordinary risk of organising an incredibly complicated black op to achieve something you could achieve by just doing nothing?
Instead, they had been down playing and ignoring the risk of AQ, they treated AQ as a joke and a non threat prior to 9/11.
That oversight failure is enough to warrant the secrecy and lies and coverups truthers point to in the 9/11 report.
Hmmm, roger some most of that. Battery almost out … have to get back
Swearing and arrogant abuse are not good debating tools, just saying..
As for no one has ever tried to sell his story to the media, how do you know? Do you think the media would dare run it? Grow up! As for the President shagging the help, I presume you’re referring to Clinton and Monica… It’s good to see you remember a scandal from 12 years or more ago, it makes such a good distraction from more recent and more heinous crimes! Gullible twat.
“Swearing and arrogant abuse are not good debating tools, just saying.. ”
“Gullible twat.”
I guess you’d have a lot in common with the truthers, Deb, what with all the blind faith involving in worshipping the unprovable.
tvor, now that you’re back can you please tell me which “larger building it was that fell on building 7”?
vto.
WTC 1
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_qa_082108.cfm
aha I see, the falling debris
hmmmmm.. think think think
Cheers, Bookie, and apologies for not spotting your question earlier, vto.
vto, other claims worth looking hard at are the free fall claims. Look at the vids. Watch the debris. The cloud falls faster than the building, obscuring it.
Here, seeing folks are linking to youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLShZOvxVe4&feature=player_embedded
Here’s footage of wtc7 burning, with live voice track of police and fire peeps. They are already saying they think it will come down.
The wtc7 vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afb7eUHr64U&feature=player_embedded
“Iâve not read the full report. But very often, when I check aspects of the report against what truthers claim about what it says, I find that truthers are not being particularly truthful”.
PB, I’ve read the full report. Of course like all things done with hindsight you can pick on the minutiae, but I think it explains a lot. Funny that no 911ers I know have read it. Nor do have they been to any sites that try to debunk their conspiracy theories. They spend hours watching and pausing videos but no time reading the interviews of eyewitnesses and others who were directly affected – just other people’s interpretations of what they said. (Note I’m just talking about the ones I know).
Well now having spent some mini time watching various vids etc on wtc7,,, on the balance of probablities the jury is still out imo.
At least the issue won’t go away for while so I’ll continue to watch for some sign of weapons of mass destruction…
VTO,
Please take into account that WTC 7 fell in the late afternoon many hours after the other buildings had collapsed and that the collapse was announced by both CNN and the BBC between an hour and 20 minutes before the collapse happened and that until then not a single steel framed building other than WTC 1 and 2 had collapsed and that it never happened afterwards with the exception of controlled demolition
If you think ‘gullible twat’ is either swearing or arrogant abuse, then you must be an ickle bubby! đ
Did I say you could call me Deb? No, I didn’t, and you can’t, as that’s what my friends call me – fake lefties will never be my friends!. The sneer about my religion is characteristic – but unwarranted.
Watch the footage and then tell me WHAT building fell on it. It was a controlled demolition Supports kicked out and the building just falls down into it’s own space. I did notice something ‘funny’ All the buildings went straight down at first.
they go straight down except for the top of Tower 1 where twenty plus stories are falling out from the line of the building, in an arc, as it should, with the path of least resistance. Then ‘pooof’ it explodes into dust and collapses straight downwards against its predetermined axis. Completely against all known physical laws
Here is a presentation of Dr. Graham McQueen about how the towers collapsed. It is in four parts and is a very dispassionate analysis of what happens and how it could and more importantly could not have happened and for you information. Graham is a Zen Buddhist and lifelong peace activist. Nothing rabid or right wing about him.
Part 1, 2, 3, 4
Do stop being such a plonker VoR. I know I am more left-wing than you are, as you’ve confessed to being a Randbot, and no matter how many of the blinkered tell me they’re “left-libertarians”, I know there’s no such animal… Being in favour of marijuana and abortion for all doesn’t make you a left-winger. Neither does being a try hard, oops, I mean hard out atheist. So many followers of the official story simply hate Muslims!
You’re wilfully blind about the WTC. I’ve yet to come across a right-winger who wasn’t deeply in love with all things American, which probably explains it.
I think you’ve got me confused for someone else, Deb. I did admit to once owning a Rush album, but that’s as far as it goes in Randian terms. I’m a socialist, have been all my adult life. Also an atheist, a vegetarian and a soccer player, which makes for some interesting discussions with the red necked and red nosed farmers at my semi rural local most Friday nights!
Â
BTW, most of my contact with people of the muslim faith was on the soccer field at Hagley Park in Sunday arvo pick up games with the immigrant community. Wonderful, peaceful people who taught me a lot about humility and the love of the game.
Â
Â
What ever it was someone wanted it gone big time, but it begs a coupla questions. How long was building 7 rigged for doomsday ? Did they have advance notice of the hijackings and targets ?. Who really runs things in the US ? Damn time for the tinfoil hat again.
I’d suggest the most heinous crimes were the coalitions retaliation strikes on Iraq and Afghanistan to find weapons of mass destruction and the links between Saddam and Al Queda – remind me how many innocent civilians have died during that?
Absolutely right, Ian!
CIA head quarters, Giuliani’s emergency bunker which was deserted for some reason before the first building collapsed, and the building was twice reinforced to withstand a nuclear blast. Oh, and all the legal documentation pertaining to Enron and other Wall street scandals.
Here is a list of Tenants up until 2001
Not the sort of building were 19 Arab terrorists can just walk into. Here is a witness telling about what he saw in the building before the other buildings collapsed. (This witness by the way died under very suspicious circumstances)
Travrev, you should add he died just before his testimony was to be given in a pivotal civil case taken up by the families to re-open an investigation into the murder of their children, their families and their friends
Please feel free to share this watershed moment with me and give all the info you have. đ
Edge. Abyss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwZ-vIaW6Bc&feature=related
leave Chomsky alone…his betrayal of logic is the crime in that video. He has rejected so many of the values he once espoused. He has become a somewhat tragic figure with a diminshing authority and a growing pool of detractors for his ridiculous kowtowing to the official story.
None of which negates his fine work in Linguistics and associated fields
a person’s views and a person’s work can be exclusive of each other, look at politicians, some of them were once productive members of society
What’s more Gormy,
Chomsky came around and said that we have not been told the truth about what happened on 911 and let’s face it the man is in his eigthies and has done excellent work but he’s a bit passed it.
hey travellerrev, do you know of or have you ever heard a single person refer to Cheney as a softy liberal? just about split my hernia scar when i read that one.
Can’t say that I have F.
Satan, Prince of Darkness, He who shoots friends in the face, Bastard, the real president! Many names but never a softy liberal or it must have been the people to the right of him who felt he should abandon his daughter for being gay! ROFL.
Ahem. Try googling ‘cheney too liberal’. About 1,630,000 hits as of a minute ago.
Â
But seriously guys, you’re not fools. You know this, along with the pathetic birther idea, is an obsession of the right, more specifically the ‘states rights’ and similar anti-federalists. You’re like Dylan’s Mr Jones; you know something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is.Â
Â
I’ve got a proposition for you both. Why don’t you put up a left wing case for the truther movement? Write it up as a guest post and I’m sure the mods will give consideration to putting it up. I’m not assuming either of you are left wing, but I’m sure you are more than capable of framing the argument in left wing terms, if that’s at all possible.
Â
Or maybe give me the name of one of the on the ground conspirators and the proof against that individual. Whichever’s easier for ya.
Â
Edit: Couldn’t find any live Bob, but here’s some kid giving it heaps.
Â
So perfectly blindfolded that you think the darkness you see so clearly is the reality of the world.
So unquestioning, unable to draw out a single conclusion or supposition which has not been spoonfed through official channels.
Every idea fragment which does not fit exactly into your predetermined narrative dismissed.
Fighting so hard to stay in the dark.
Nicely put, CV. You were talking about them, right? ; )
There is a huge volume of info, dis-info and opinion out there Voice on all sides of the 9/11 argument. I am skeptical as to the inside job claims but when people start quoting Popular Mechanics as an authoritative source-really…
The collapse of those buildings looks a hell of a lot like a routine retired Chicago project going down to me.
An ugly munted few floors and some still left standing makes more sense.
A left wing view? Well, historically whatever the US ruling class is up to can only be bad news for most of us. From a materialist perspective, if it was a false flag they are not going to admit it are they. Look at the US roll of dishonour of invasions and dirty tricks. The UK supporting Saddam in earlier years, surely not? Blairâs âDossierâ -what fuckers.
3 large steel framed buildings suffering significant assymetrical damage, falling completely symmetrically on to their own foot prints, with large percentages of the building structures ejected as a fine particulate dust during the fall, instead of collapsing into rubble, leaving pools of molten metal at ground zero which were roasting hot more than a week after collapse.
These facts are not in dispute.
Tiger, I quoted PMs report of what the NIST report said.
The NIST report says something. What it says is verifiable. That NIST report would be the ultimate authority on what the NIST report says, but secondary summations are much easier to read.
If PM is misrepresenting what the NIST report says, or if wikipedia is also misrepresenting what the NIST report says, I’d love to be corrected, and PM should get all the scorn one can muster.
By the same token, that scorn should be applied to truthers if it is they who are misrepresenting what the NIST report says. Right?
its not an argument about who can quote the NIST report most precisely. Nor about where ‘scorn’ should be heaped.
Ok, it’s a question about what the NIST report says. Is the PM summary accurate, or is what truthers say accurate?
Is it true that the NIST report said structural damage from WTC1 played no role in the collapse?
Does the NIST report say the fires were small?
Does it say that what they found was unlikely to cause the building to collapse?
These are all claims that truthers regularly make.
And they regularly heap scorn on nontruthers. Read the comments in this thread.
I think I’ve been pretty polite, all things considered.
The only “truthers” you should listen to are the ones who have done specific investigative work, and are preferably highly quaified architects and engineers themselves.
To quote a bunch of peeps making random comments on a YouTube clip as “Truthers” in order to demonstrate the lack of credibility of the very real questions being asked does not seem fair.
Personally I think the material presented by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 is pretty reasonable and reasoned.
Here is a video of two scientists who analysed the NIST report and one of them (Kevin Ryan) was working for Underwriters laboratories and got fired for speaking out with regards to the NIST fire testing for which his company was hired to do.
Both Proffesor jones and Dr. Kevin Ryan speak in the AE911truth video which will air in September.
Also in this video is a professional smelter who adds to their NIST debunking.
About NIST. They only reported until the “inevitable” point of collapse and as such felt they did not have to explain how the buildings could have exploded into a pyroclastic flow and collapse into their own footprint within free fall speed. I hope you will agree with me that that is unscientific to say the least.
The remark that NIST states that their collapse theory has only a low probability of actually happening was a remark in the WTC 7 report and was added after they had to withdraw several hypothesis because there was so much criticism and peer pressure from other scientists. Â
Colonial Viper is correct and you should only study the Architects & Engineers and scientist 911 sites to stay within scientifically and peer reviewed boundaries. Everything else is for now relatively unimportant as a lot of questions remain but the unexplained free fall collapses of the three buildings, the Nano thermite residue and the millions of molten micro spheres are in and of itself proof that two planes could not have caused the collapses and if that is so we need a new and fully independent investigation and let the chips fall were they may.
I am sure that there are people who think that Cheney is a liberal. I know of one who actually said so. His name is Erik Prince and he runs Blackwater now known a Xe services. He lives in Dubai and is by most 911 truthers considered to be a war criminal and part of the cabal whom we hope will be dragged before the courts for the war criminal he is.
There are enough testimonies (not in the final report) from people like Minetta putting Cheney firmly in control of some crucial events on 911 to make him very muc” a “person of interest” to be dragged before the commission who investigates the 911 crimes in the future.
Are talking about the FEMA report, the one that preceded the NIST report?
PB,
The video is about the NIST report if I am correct. I’m knackered now so don’t bite my head off as I’m trying to give the correct info. I’ll respond if need be tomorrow morning after I’ve had some kip. Cheers!
Not the video. I was wondering about this:
I can’t see anyting in the link (‘added’) that supports the claim. The FEMA report says they weren’t confident about their conclusions, which is what led to the NIST investigation…
Chomsky came around and said that we have not been told the truth about what happened on 911
Chomsky, like all reasonable people, was concerned with the makeup and the conduct of the inquiry. But he has never suggested that there is any credibility for these bizarre “inside job” fantasies. In fact, he has on several occasions expressed his impatience with the “Truther” movement, which he says is irrational and a distraction from serious criticism of the government.
and letâs face it the man is in his eigthies and has done excellent work but heâs a bit passed it.
That’s nonsense. You obviously haven’t read anything he’s written or heard anything he’s said over the last six months.
A cartoon in the Christchurch Press 1st August shows what Labour and Goff are up against.
It portrays Goff in an airport imaging security device as having no substance.(If anything it should have pictured Key as the one with image only and no substance).
Can’t remember who the cartoonist was but I can’t think of a word more emphatic than scurrilous to describe the mind of the ‘artist’ or the editor who must have Okay ed it.
It’s about the same level intellectually and politically as Fox news (specifically psycho Glenn Beck) and ethically comparable to those who orchestrated the ‘ditch the bitch’ posters during the last election campaign.
Congratulations Fairfax..You must be so proud of your professional fair and balanced approach.
How on earth does Labour counter this kind of trash? Any ideas?
It needs to get the meme out there that the MSM is unfair, unbalanced, and unquestioning. That and have separate Left leaning media channels.
Canât remember who the cartoonist was but I canât think of a word more emphatic than scurrilous to describe the mind of the âartistâ or the editor who must have Okay ed it.
So this cartoonist is unfunny, unfair, and unashamedly partisan in his support for the National government. Sounds like the mirth-free Queenstown beardie Garrick Tremain.
What the? dept:
Media reports claim Colin Craig is starting a new Conservative Party (work for the dole, usual stuff) and may stand in Epsom. He did not do too well in the supercity Mayoral contest or at organising a march in Queen St despite his dosh.
New Conservative Party. It’s “test” is an exercise in sloganeering.
FFS what a crock!! You’ll be pleased to know I did not meet the criteria to join – where is the contact link – wanted to send some abuse!
hehe my anti-virus software won’t open that page. Says it’s a potentially dangerous site.
Did the Conservative Test. I think 3 out of 19 suggests I won’t be going on their mailing list. Have a try and see if you too are a secret pinko or made of the right stuff.
Â
Also heard Craig on the radio this arvo. I missed the start of the interview and for five minutes I thought he was Andrew Williams talking about NZ First! Looks like he’s gonna run in Epsom, but he sounds like he’d probably personally vote for John Banks, because none of what he said was any different from the average Banks soundbite.
http://www.thenation.com/article/162390/sex-sells-sex-not-womens-sports
fascinating piece on how even sports sticks women into a box.
My question is: Who chose that ridiculous outfit for that team to wear? Please tell me it wasn’t a woman.
Apart from that, read The Nation; it has some good articles in it and it isn’t owned by Rupert Murdoch.
A while ago I read that National had bugeted a 40% increase in the prison budget. How do I get an actual breakdown of the math on this.
Suggest you contact one of the private firms that will be tendering for this. The 40% increase in budget will equate to the 50% they will need to be paid and the 20% that will be cut from rehablitation
In Parliament Tau Henare is telling me that if I don’t want to belong to an organisation I don’t need to.
So, I don’t want to belong to this government; I don’t want to be bound by any of their neo-conservative attack legislation on the rights of workers, i.e. those rules that prevent New Zealanders from having a support system that believes in them and protects their rights.
great, can we have our roads, health care, and policing back?
Law,
Who is ‘we’?
Freedom of Association Bill – Moana Mackey is now telling me that only 10% of students have to demand a referendum to require voluntary student membership and it was never achieved. Yet Act is forcing this bill upon us.
I’ve been watching the Act minister Heather Roy smiling to herself thinking, finally, she has forced something upon students that they didn’t want. This is all about weakening youth’s ability to stand against future strangulation of their democratic speech and student rights to fair treatment. This is all about weakening support for workers’ rights as those students will realise to their disadvantage as they enter into the workforce.
Students and youth in general look to adults to protect their rights while they enjoy their freedoms before taking on the responsibility of looking after this country and its growing aged. I hope they forgive what this government has forced upon them as they lose their umbrella support, their support infrastructure and their physical infrastructure.
This government lied before the 2008 election about not forcing through this legislation.
Paul Hutchison; you are a liar. You lied about your promise not to drag Franklin assets into the Auckland pit of debt. Now we find out you lied to our youth. Shame on you. To think that the people of Frankin/Hunua will vote you back in just because it is a National nest speaks volumes about National/Act’s lack of credibility and National/Act’s voters’ self-respect.
How is the Labour filibuster stacking up? Will it get to the vote this parliament?
Hey Colonel Viper you know how you don’t believe Nato bombed Yugoslavia into non existance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeCNl2oY9wE
Maybe they were trigger-happy after Srebrenica
I think you will find that when Srebrenica occurred Nato had already occupied and was in control (supposedly) of Bosnia.
In fact the wimpy Dutch were keeping order in Srebrenica but they ran away like little girls when the going got tough.
You continue to be full of it.
You didn’t know the Dutch army ran away from Srebrenica?
Hell the Dutch Government fell over that little detail
It was a disgrace as far as I am concerned and I am Dutch but the truth is that they were there in a passive capacity and were not equipped to deal with the murderous intend of the Serbian warlords. Why Holland ever committed to this role without being properly equipped to deal with these circumstances putting their soldiers in that position is something you can blame the government for but I thought at the time it was an absolute disgrace.
National is helping Act to remove the rights of students to decide whether they wanted to find 10% of students to force a referendum on whether they wanted to pay student association fees which cover a range of advocacy services and clubs, etc or not.
Since this government is removing the rights of students to decide how they want to handle their university services, I decided to remove the right of Tau Henare to speak in my House and put him on mute. He looks hilarious waving his arms about, trying to bluster over the fact that when he was in the other party Pacific… he was all for advocacy.
I’ve given him a verbal lobotomy; it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
Jum, did you ever go to university?
What is the difference in forcing students into associations that they do not want to be a part of and forcing motorists into being members of the AA?
You seriously are a fuckwit; before student unions students had pitiful rights. In the modern age of higher education, where dollars are everything, their voice needs to be heard.
Earlier this week the students were questioning the overseas travel at Auckland Uni and whether this was value for money. Can you imagine if a single student had the gaul to do this – they would be out.
What you and your ilk do not like is anyone collectively challenging you value system.
If this goes through, a bill supported by a party that gained 3.7% share of the vote, it will be one of the saddest days for democracy in NZ.
RWNJs love breaking down civic and collective institutions. Atomising people into their individual selves weakens them and breaks communities and resistance down.
LWNJ’s love being control freaks. See, I can throw around pointless slogans too.
LWNJ’s aren’t the ones ignoring the democratic wishes of students.
you mean by letting them decide if they want to join or not? yeah…. that sounds like they are taking away their democratic rights….
Yep – most students don’t want to associate with universities that have a large chunk of freeloaders making student-provided services untenable. NACT are taking that option away.
Ummm no, they weren’t “pointless slogans”; RWNJs really like to breakdown civil and collective institutions.
The only collective institutions that RWNJs like are socialist groups of billionaires, major shareholders and other investors.
play the ball, not the man.
I have now created the “Standard Commentators Association” as you have commentated here, you are a member. Your bill for $400 for this 1/4 is in the mail.
Ian, is anyone being stopped from participating in the associations?
Enclosed is my formal notification of conscientious objection to membership of your association. Failure to act on this will result in me choosing to comment on any of the other half-dozen leftish political blog sites in NZ.
If only it was that easy for me to opt out of my Uni Student Association…
When was this?
started in 03
Could have gone to Waikato or Auckland Uni (one or both were voluntary around then)- nobody forced you to go where you did.
“Force” my arse.Â
   Â
Nobody “forces” anyone to go to that particular tertiary education provider, if membership of that particular students’ association one can object to membership, if there are issues around objection procedures the association needs to work under the democratic rules of societies’ legislation, and if the association is completely unresponsive to the needs of students a simple petition necessitates a referendum of all students regarding membership criteria.
  Â
ACT’s last gasp is to overrule all that and the democratic wishes of students with a dictat from Wellington. When our PM can’t remember whether he opposed sporting contacts with Apartheid South Africa.
McFlock, when I went to Uni I had no option but to join, it was on my invoice every semester, if I wanted the expensive piece of paper, I had to pay the fees for an association that I did not want to belong to. Admittedly, they did a fair amount of good at my campus, I would rather have had the option of joining or staying out.
You are now also enrolled in the association of commentators at The Standard, your bill is also in the mail for this 1/4
Really? No obtion for conscientious objection whatsoever?
  Â
My uni assoociation did, although I never bothered with it. I’m not a Jehova’s Witness or a self-obsessed tory who’s convinced I’ll never need help.
 Â
I bet you never used any association services, either (/bullshit).
Other than the going to the new bar that they got on campus…… no I honestly did not. And I am not a Jehova’s witness either, nor am I self obsessed.
what a waste of space
will just have to defeat you RWNJs at the polls
So other than any association reps on university committees including the Council, academic policies regarding fairness and clarity in marking or library use, class reps, (and probably student publications, events around Orientation and so on), you only ever went to the pub a couple of times and never joined a club or society in three years.
Yep, you got nothing from your membership.
Â
Difference is The Standard doesn’t provide you with counselling services, discounts on things, sports facilities, clubs, funding, meeting space, medical services, legal back up, etc.
I’ll gladly pay the $400 per year when you start offering them to me đ
NB I already pay $80 a month to my union for similar representation; whilst I begrudge the $80 when it is deducted I also acknowledged that others who have paid before me have fought for and won many of the rights I now enjoy, not only as a worker, but as a human being.
Law,
The NActs hate any support systems that strengthen people. If you can force people into individual actions you can weaken them.
Why am I bothering to answer your question when others have said it so much better?
I know – because you’re a f……….. who needs a truth being constantly repeated until it sinks in.
…decided to remove the right of Tau Henare to speak in my House…
One of the few good things Trevor Mallard has done in his mainly odious career was punching Henare in the precincts of parliament.
… The precincts of parliament? What part of the anatomy is that? Watching that waste of space during the debate this evening, suggests that Henare is still suffering from concussion. He is obviously an embarrassment to the intellects in his party – they must cringe when he opens his mouth.
He is obviously an embarrassment to the intellects in his party â they must cringe when he opens his mouth.
If National Party members had any standards at all, they would cringe whenever Key opens his mouth—especially his statement that the shooting of Norwegians by a Norwegian Christian fanatic is “why we are in Afghanistan”.
Did you watch the link above of Key reading his “condolences” speech?
Did you watch the link above of Key reading his âcondolencesâ speech?
Yes I did. Key’s speech (Part 1) was as uninspiring and insipid as anything he has delivered, though it was interesting to see that he has dropped his grave assurances that “this is why our troops are in Afghanistan”. Note, straight behind Key, the hapless Hawkes Bay drone Chris Tremain dutifully looking concerned and occasionally nodding his head throughout the speech. Talk about a wasted life.
I skipped the rest, except for John Boscawen (Part 5), who seems utterly bewildered and out of his depth. As usual. Note that the grossly under-performing National backbencher Alan (“I am not a stupid man”) Peachey is fast asleep throughout Boscawen’s speech.
Anyone see the T.V. news showing Bill English being removed from the chamber today?
For what?
Precisely, but imagine if it had been an opposition MP. Headline news, particularly in election year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9xPcXFEIpB8
A prediction – the first post on Open Mike tomorrow will be Pete George and it will contain a link to his blog…
I was correct
PB,
Could not find a way to link to the previous thread so I’m responding a fresh.
Let me start that over the many years I have done this the pile of books, rapports, counter reports, video’s, radio programs has grown so voluminous that errors are almost inevitable. that does not mean they ar on purpose or to mislead.
Having said that Here is a link to the response of a group of scientists and engineers who respond to Both NIST and FEMA in their peer reviewed article in the Bentham open journal. This was written before the NIST WTC7 report was published and it shows you are right and that the FEMA report stated that their best hypothesis had a low chance of occurring.
However NIST had to detract their timeline for the collapse of WTC 7 upon strenuous and well founded criticism after they denied that WTC 7 had collapsed in free fall speed when the same group of Engineers and Scientists reviewed their report on the collapse in the peer review process. As it should be I might add.
Now you can say: see, see she’s got it wrong but the fact is that two scientific institutions financed by the US government have not bee able to give satisfying answers to the urgent question as to why three steel framed buildings could collapse (Two in an exploding fashion and one in an imploding fashion) into a pyroclastic flow and that until today this only happened on 911 even though more devastating fires in more fragile build buildings have not been able to replicate these collapses other then ones rigged with explosives.
No proper criminal investigation has ever been allowed to take place and a small group of people has become even more hideously wealthy in the war efforts that followed. Â
Have to be off, won’t be able to answer until midday.
Here’s what NIST say about the rate of collapse as far as I can make out:
Link for that:
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_qa_082108.cfm
PB,
Just so we are clear here. A 47 floor 186 m high building twice reinforced to withstand a nuclear blast collapses into a fine dust and steel beams just the right length to fit on removal trucks in 5.4 sec (I thought 6.5 seconds) into it’s own foot print, the path of most resistance, as the result of mere office fires and you are OK with that because the absolute free fall time would have been 3.9 sec?
Come on!!!
Here is what Physicist David Chandler (One of the people criticizing NIST with Architects and Engineers) has to say about it!Â
Whoah, that is a totally unwarranted conclusion. Structural elements which fail take time to fail. They don’t fail as if they are not there. You have to remember that a good MAJORITY of the structural beams in the building were INTACT.
What you are proposing is that all those intact beams wnet ahead and failed SIMULTANEOUSLY in such a way that they acted as if they had ZERO structural strength.
Well of course there are circumstances where that could happen to a building, and has been seen to happen before e.g. a carefully timed controlled demolition.
CV,
Just to support your comment, here is a video with both the real world collapse and the framework computer model showing completely different collapses
Forget about the fucking buildings and tell me why.
If the point was to provide a pretext for a war against Iraq, why not frame Iraq?
TGFFKAO
Did you not hear? Saddam Hussein had WMD and proven links with Osama bin Laden, more than enough to take pre-emptive action for regime change đ
Well so claimed Faux News đ
Yeah, seems a bit of a circuitous conspiracy. You want to go to war against Iraq. You need a pretext. You involve hundreds of people in your conspiracy planting explosives and such (none of whom ever leak about it).
But then, you don’t frame Iraq, the country against whom you want to go to war.
Isn’t that just a bit…insane.
gormyone
“Forget about the fucking buildings and tell me why. ”
Gold Oil Drugs
sum it up for you?
if not then you may want to recall they had to hit Afghanistan first before they could whip up the frenzy to allow the illegal and unwarranted attack on their patsy Hussein. Then as the opium trade exploded in selected areas of Afghanistan, protected by the US forces of course, they could focus on Iraq and once the first million civilians had been killed they had to fire the Army so the country could properly disintegrate and the US could supply stability to the oil pipeline, i mean the oppressed people.
But why get involved in the 9/11 plot?
Why not just use the actual AQ attacks as pretext? It’s not like everyone thought it was no big deal until after the buildings came down, and only then did the tv people start saying hell this is pretty freaky.
Even while the planes were still flying around people were describing it as the most serious and audacious terror attack in history. There is your pretext, right there.
You only need to run a false flag op when you opponent isn’t actually attacking you.
“Even while the planes were still flying around people were describing it as the most serious and audacious terror attack in history. ”
you really do come up with some amazing crap.. Weren’t you at all suspicious that within an hour of the first Tower being hit Osama was the man and every station on the planet knew it. .. kind of like when Oswald’s full bio and backstory turned up in NZ papers within hours of the event…. now back to your Airplane problem .. in the USA…any commercial aircraft that deviates from its course for whatever reason and does not respond to three calls to the flightcrew has an interceptor aircraft launched.
This did not happen for four passenger aircraft that as you state above were known to be highjacked and were tracked for over an hour over land.. The interceptors were sent out to sea.
A couple of months before 9/11 longstanding protocols were changed so all calls for interceptors had to go directly to the Secreatary of Defense. A couple of weeks after 9/11 the long standing protocols were re-introduced.
HOW and WHY…. PB.. HOW and WHY ?
I do not have time this week to continue but i am more than willing to deal with this next week. 9/11 is perhaps the most difficult subject for people to discuss, not because of the info-disnfo war, not because of the wars that it led to, not because the threat of actual terrorism is a real danger in the 21st Century. The real reason is people fundamentally do not want to accept that a small number of very powerful people conspired to slaughter millions for nothing else but Gold Oil and Drugs and the power they supply.
Freedom, perhaps you didn’t actually read my comment.
The question I’m asking is why would you need to go through with a highly risky task of rigging three buildings to blow up, when the AQ attacks alone would serve as your casus belli.
Responding that in fact, everyone was already itching for war on AQ after only one hour explains my point perfectly.
And no, I wasn’t suspicious at all about the fact that AQ was being fingered. When I first saw the shit goin down, and it became clear it wasn’ an accident, I thought, shit AQ have got their A game on.
It’s not like they hadn’t been threatening war on US soil for years. They were the obvious suspect, to everyone but the Bush administration (who were under the spell of neocons who believed that non state actors simply don’t have the capacity for this sort of thing).
“Werenât you at all suspicious that within an hour of the first Tower being hit Osama was the man and every station on the planet knew it”
Why wouldn’t they finger AQ? They people and involved in the 1993 attempt were the same crowd.
Tomorrow, tired now. And I would like to know what AQ stands for. Blond perhaps but remember English is my second language and sometimes abbreviations slide by me. Cheers
AQ = Al-Qaeda
ROFL! God, I’m blond sometimes. OK I’ll read up on it tomorrow because I really am beyond tired now. Cheers, PB.
“Structural elements which fail take time to fail”.
The way I understand it is that they had been progressively failing all day from uncontrolled fires on 10 floors. So much so, that instead of pulling the building down (as they had several others in the complex), the firemen left it to burn because they knew it was going to fall down anyway.
– Daniel Nigro, Chief of Department http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/Nigro_Daniel.txt
Ok. Once again.
Point the first:
Eve posted some statements as to what she claimed the NIST report said, saying that they had to adjust their timeline implying that the new timeline would no longer support their theory of what happened. I posted what the NIST report says. As far as I can tell, what the NIST report says is not very much like what eve claimed it said.
Point the second:
There seems to be some astonishment at what I posted. It is as if, as Rosy talked about in an earlier comment, people aren’t actually familiar with the theory they are criticising.
Instead of dealing with that, I’m asked if I believe the same tired old strawman about ‘small office fires’. It’s almost like I haven’t linked to what the actual theory is. It is quite something.
Point the third:
CV look again at the threes stages NIST talks about. When is the support for the building being lost? Stage 1, 2, or 3?
Are you completing a project for a psych paper or are you just a glutton for punishment ?
No, actually I think that difficult though it may be he is actually trying to engage. Something you wouldn’t know how to do if it hit you between the eyes. Hence the questions and the links.
Wrote this an hour ago and thought I’d send it off. That is the problem when you have about a hundred tabs open. My bad!
We are nitpicking about 1.6 seconds here in the collapse of a 47 floor steel framed building for fucks sake I it had taken 1.5 hours it would still be impossible!
NIST stated it did not investigate for explosives because there was no proof of explosives. WTF?
First of all there was ample recorded testimony and video material showing clearly that explosive events took place BEFORE the planes hit the buildings and there is recorded testimony of explosive events in WTC 7 before the buildings came down and they did not investigate because they did not find evidence?????
This is what Eric Lawyer (also speaking on the AE video to come) Fire fighters for 911 truth had to say about that.
This is what appeared on Italian MSM about the WTC 7 demolition here the explosions just before the buildings collapse and oh oops, here are the fire fighters saying they knew it was coming down before hand even though this had only happened twice before on the same day!
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-03082011/#comment-360390
reply to PB
if you read The Project for a New American Century it spells out that ‘nothing short of a new Pearl Harbour’ would have been enough of a catlyst to form the required level of hysteria that would allow the implenmentation of a long standing warplan on the Middle East.
The plans of which you may recall were dumped on the desk of the Secretary of Defense within 48 hours of the attacks on the WTC. Full plans, costs, including an exit strategy. All tied up with a nice blood red white and blue ribbon but the reality is there should have been nought on top but a white feather for their cowardice.
I’ve read the PNAC docs. Lot’s of times.
The AQ attacks fit the bill. Which is why they used it. Doesn’t explain why they would take he risk of getting involved. And it sure as hell doesn’t explain why their propaganda before the event wasn’t helping them. If they had known exactly what was going to happen, they would have been laying the ground about ties between AQ and Iraq and building up the threat AQ posed. Instead, they were ignoring them.
..and it was such a huge risk and highly probable that they would have got found out.
Tomorrow, tired now, want to make sense when I write response.