Estimates are over ten thousand foreign fighters in Syria, Jenny. Some of them are now expecting to receive artillery and AA guns from France.
Others aren’t even interested in Syrian politics or the Syrian people, they just want to speed the set up of a Muslim religious state in Syria to replace the secular government there currently.
Not only are you prepared to overlook Assad’s appalling human rights record. You keep making up facts that you think in your mind excuse mass murder.
How about providing a link to your claim of “over ten thousand foreign fighters in Syria”. And If you can, not the same sort of rubbish you used to back up your fictitious claim that the West was supplying the rebels with Weapons. That an anonymous “diplomat’ said France “may” supply weapons to the rebels type nonsense.
Just wondering how you validate the authenticity of the informtion which you post here.
Same question applies to all information we try to decifer these days, because most of it exists to deceive, and misdirect.
What is known is that the ME situation is not what you believe it to be, simply look at what has happened in Libya and Egypt to see what is happening in Syria. It is complex, awful and tragic what is happening to those innocent people around the world who are simply collatoral for these “wars”, and absolutely it is right that people should speak on behalf of those who are treated as expendable.
It is wrong however to ignore the obvious facts that what is going on in Syria, is not as simple as you would like to believe it, and what will your position be (if)/when Assad goes, and Syria its people, the woman and children become dominated by more draconian, fundamentalist mindsets, than what you make out Assad to be?
……what is going on in Syria, is not as simple as you would like to believe it,
muzza
Muzza you are the one being simplistic. Your cartoon caricature of Arabs, in particular Syrians, as religious extremists who automatically want to impose sharia law and return Syria back to the middle ages, if the dictatorship is removed is actually quite racist.
Yes, nominally the majority of Syrians are believers, and probably in greater proportion than New Zealanders. But just because their religious faith, and culture is different to ours does not make it inferior or more extreme than Western Judeo Christian faith.
Your assumption that if the Syrian people throw off the rule of the dictatorship that they will replace it with something worse. That Arabs cannot be trusted with democracy, is in my opinion, based on little more than Islamaphobic prejudice.
…..what will your position be (if)/when Assad goes, and Syria its people, the woman and children become dominated by more draconian, fundamentalist mindsets, than what you make out Assad to be?
muzza
Muzza, if in the unlikely event that the Syrian people replace the Assad terroristic regime with something even worse….. I will tell you my “position”
I will not overlook mass murder and torture.
I will not support the strafing of civilian towns and cities from the air.
I will not support the machine gunning of peaceful demonstrators.
I will not condone the detention torture and murder of the wives and children of soldiers as a justifiable tactic to keep soldiers from deserting.
I will not ignore the existence of death squads deliberately organised on sectarian lines to deliberately exploit differences in race or religion to keep a corrupt and murderous tyrant in power.
Not under any circumstances. No matter how complicated..
The question for such clever people like yourself. Is why do you do all of those thing now?
Maybe these are the foreign infiltrators that Colonial Viper is talking about
According to the Syrian National Council media officer Ahmad al-Halabi there are more than 30 opposition groups fighting in Syria and Jacques Beres, co-founder of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, has reported that foreign jihadists are involved so take your pick.
i have to rewrite this (like do a 100 lines) as it disappeared
i am really sorry to all the people i hurt and or damaged on my path through life
-my mother, stepfather and brothers
-my daughter
-my bioligical siblings ( i hope the m.c understand)
-my friends and former partners
-the employers i let down
-the people i lied to
-the people i stole from
i have not been very well most of my life and this led to some unhelpful paths
i have learnt many things and will continue to keep many secrets
often, i lashed out violently or angrily, generally under the influence of some form of medication,
self or otherwise. sometimes Chris, i could not even control myself, i would feel so hurt and angry
for some reason, God let me live this long, even though i was often harmful to those around me.
since my revelation, which included an awareness of my own sins, i have only tried to be helpful
i hope you understand. i was, and will continue to be, a man of Peace
Americans are not as stupid as the media think they are
What happens when people are given an opportunity to say what they really think about the media? Well, have a look at this clip from 2006, celebrating ten years of MSNBC. At the time, Israel was killing hundreds of civilians in Lebanon to punish them for supporting the Hezbollah resistance movement. As usual, the U.S. media, including MSNBC, was monolithically supportive of Israel’s aggression.
But people, no matter how saturated with propaganda, still think for themselves, as you’ll appreciate if you watch all ten minutes of this video.
Watching the forced cheering and flag-waving here, the first impression is that this Philadelphia crowd is pretty mindless. But as it goes on, you see many of them are actually thoughtful and concerned people.
The problems here are one Michael Smerconish, an extreme right wing Catholic radio jock, and MSNBC host Chris Matthews, an ostensibly “liberal” broadcaster who is too scared to say what he really thinks.
Watch from 1:20 to 1:52, when Smerconish claims that people don’t care about the Israeli assault on Lebanon as much as they do about the comments of a Hollywood actor. Host Chris Matthews asks how many people think Mel Gibson is more important than what is happening in Lebanon? There is complete silence, then someone yells: “MSNBC does!”
Then, at the 4:52 mark, listen to the reaction just after Smerconish claims that all that stations like MSNBC do is give people what they want.
Dutch disease is the negative impact on an economy of anything that gives rise to a sharp inflow of foreign currency, such as the discovery of large oil reserves. The currency inflows lead to currency appreciation, making the country’s other products less price competitive on the export market.
In the NZ case the discovery of high overnight interest rates,( In comparison to often negative returns in Europe) make it a haven to park substantial short term overnight deposits.
“So even if the government said, ‘well look, we want to have a lower exchange rate,’ how could we do that? The answer would be we’d have to move away from a floating exchange rate,” Key said.
“We’re a massive capital importer – we don’t have the luxury that some countries have. And if you look at what [intervention is] currently costing the Swiss National Bank, New Zealand cannot afford to follow a policy like that. It’s inherently very risky,” he said.
Key said while new Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler was coming on board very soon, and was in the process of having to renegotiating a new policy targets agreement with the Minister of Finance, the early advice he’d had was it was very unlikely there would be any significant changes to the PTA.
“If there was an easy way of moving our exchange rate down, certainly [with] the New Zealand-US exchange rate we’d certainly do that, but I don’t think it’s easy,” Key said.
In effect the cash and carry (arbitrage) industries can in effect borrow at close to zero say in Europe and invest in NZ which distorts the capital flows.
The simplest constraint is to reduce exposure to short term borrowing and increase exposure to long term borrowing.Here an inverse stepped witholding tax for non NZ residents by increasing tax for short term investments,and decreasing for longer investments would decrease short term fluctuations.
Increasing the WHT to 17.5% for non residents for less then 1 yr would be a clear signal.
I have a long history of being anti complex gadgets and an equal distrust in technology and faux progress….so for all of you with smart phones and IPads I thought this Kunstler prediction was very appropriate.
TV commercial seen during the Women’s finals of the US Tennis Open:
Cadillac is bragging that they have replaced the old dashboard knobs and toggles with a “smart” iPad-type control system. Has a car company ever done something so fucking stupid? The whole point of knobs and toggles is that you can keep your eyes on the road while adjusting things by feel. An iPad you actually have to look at to see what you’re tapping on. Expect a colossal death toll from buyers of the latest Cadillacs in the next couple of years. I suppose there’s poetic justice in the automobile age winding down on a note of such supernatural idiocy.
Reminds of the Dilbert animated series where Dogbert comments that the entire technology advances in efficiency of the 20th century have been undone by everyone waiting for their browser to refresh.
I can’t believe the number of cell phone calls where I can’t hear people properly. And where people can’t hear me. And we all just pretend it’s ok. Telemiscommunications. Nostalgia for phones that had 5 numerals for the phone number.
In laymans terms (been involved in this stuff for years)…Before we had “cellular” we were on the PSTN (plain old telephone system) which had developed over a century and even on crap copper gave reasonable phone quality. Cell phone technology is reasonably recent, because it is on the “air” as opposed to within a reasonably “clean” copper environment it is far more open to quality issues (interference, distance issues etc)…HOWEVER it could get better if there were more transmitter / receivers (cell sites) plus switching capacity between the cell sites. The major issue you have with quality I put down to lack of investment (NZ is simply too large with too few people and too many competitors).
Mobile phones are only good for texting and mobile internet usage anyway. Phoning someone on a mobile is only practical for if you need to get in touch someone quickly.
Is there any reason why no-one has seeked to adapt text messaging to land lines? Kinda like what they did with telex/teletype?
“Has a car company ever done something so fucking stupid? ”
I often wonder who regulates car design. There’s a number of modern cars that have indicators that are hard to see. Possibly this is NZ’s intense light that makes it harder (the indicators aren’t very bright). They also don’t appear to be that visible from the side. Weird.
The “market”…I heard somebody state that the number of people killed in car crashes now exceeds the front line deaths in two world wars. Mind boggling.
Cars also seem to have various levels of blindingly bright head lights, including the newer models with slightly blue colour which daze the eyes nicely.
Add to that the now common practice of using fog lights at all times of day, really does beg the question about reglation/policing.
The Herald is pumping up The Conservative Party over the CP’s increased poll support allegedly around the same sex/gay marriage (Marriage Equality) issue.
A thoughtful article at Kiwipolitico backgrounds why the Herald would use inaccurate terminology http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2012/08/framing-marriage-equality-to-win/
Lew at KP looks at the importance of “framing” with contentious issues. Supporters of the Wall bill have done well so far but better get their act together with the media before we have another Section 59 debacle. ‘Kid beaters’ won that framing tussle and the removal of a defence for assault on a child forever became the “Anti Smacking Bill”. Supported hilariously by John Key, which the foam flecked kiwiblog lot always seem to overlook in their fear and loathing.
The Herald has to support CP, ACT is gone… we’re all just subsidising Mr Banks right now, he doesn’t actually do anything for his pay.
Aside, yesterday was my last visit to Herald online. New format sucks and I have finally had enough of them. They gave us free newspapers for a week, which ended on Sunday when I said ” nope, just went straight int he bin”. Stunned silence on the phone followed by “thank you for your time”.
Who cares about old conservatives who are still running on paper*. I’m having problems remembering the last time I read a paper copy of any newspaper.
They updated the website at the same time. needless to say it is now harder to find anything on the page because the sections have less in them. However they appear to have finally gotten a faster and marginally better search feature.
* BTW: Has anyone else ever seen young kids dealing with books these days? They start trying to press the paper and swiping it to change page because they expect it to be interactive.
Who cares about old conservatives who are still running on paper*.
Er – lots of people! It’s not just ‘old conservatives’ either – I for one, hate reading off a screen….and although I am old (compared to some) I am not conservative. If some people here are correct and we’re headed back to the past, as everything turns to custard, then we still need paper books etc. For the same reason, I still keep my manual typer…
* BTW: Has anyone else ever seen young kids dealing with books these days? They start trying to press the paper and swiping it to change page because they expect it to be interactive.
It depends on the kids! My students (aged from 17 to 32) all have technology up the wazoo, but they all also still use books. My sons (25 and 36) are still voracious reader of paper books, and always have been, despite that they are ‘early adopters’ of whatever tech exists.
I was wondering who I’d get the rise out of…. I just gave away almost of my thousands of books when we moved. I hate reading books on computer screens. But tablets are a whole different feel. I had most of the books as epubs. And it was easier to move without the books. Just kept 40-50 reference books.
The kids I was talking about are pre-school and have had access to smartphones, tablets, notebooks, and paper books. I haven’t seen a toddler yet who doesn’t like playing with their parents electronics… I always introduce them to “cat piano“. But I’m a sadistic uncle…. 😈
And a couple of days ago gaynz was reporting that a recent poll showed that the Conservative party had been on a slide since the marriage equality bill had been drawn from the hat. they refer to a Roy Morgan Poll, so they must have in ind the latest Roy Morgan – when was that? End of August?:
Colin Craig’s anti-gay Conservative Party has continued to slide downwards in a leading poll since Louisa Wall’s marriage equality bill was pulled from the ballot.
The Herald is pumping up The Conservative Party over the CP’s increased poll support allegedly around the same sex/gay marriage (Marriage Equality) issue.
I’m not completely sceptical about the idea that opposing the marriage equality bill has increased the Conservatives’ support – the sheer volume of coverage of said opposition has to have increased their name recognition, and there’s probably a few former Nat/Act supporters pissed off about Key/Banks’ support of the bill.
The fact that the bump is so freaking tiny pretty much says it all for the appeal of social conservative bigotry in NZ.
External consultants were hired for short-term work on specific projects and were not the result of staff changes, she said.
This is absolute BS – rates are paid above the market (accross the board), and its not uncommon to see contractors/consultants running BAU functions, and those on programmes inside for years at a time. There are instances where non PSL companies have been formed by external consultants to supply themselves into positions, and control swaths of IP etc. Its endemic, and by no means the exception from what I have encountered!
Short term does not exist, not in the public sector, not if you are one of the boys!
Although he could not provide specific figures, it was “spiking up enough that we’re going to put serious time into it to resolve it”.
Shoplifters caught in the past month tended to be women aged between 18 and 25, with a high percentage stealing “necessities of life”, he said.
Meanwhile Key and Bennett keep of fiddling and smearing the poor! Time to put serious time into developing policies that will do something to turn this appalling amount of poverty around.
Love the “Welfare payments costs around $7.6b every year.” end line.
My God! $7.6b! Something must be done!
Until you look at the make-up of that $7.6b. Because it sure as fuck isn’t (as implied) made up from those claiming UB and the likes. How much do pension payments account for? Or housing entitlements (they include working people)? Or care givers (not including parents of children)? And so on.
“Social development minister Paula Bennet has just announced new ‘social obligations’…” Did anyone else just feel a cold shiver?
So this week benes are bad parents. Does she have a pile of these ready for each week? Or does she spend wed-fri chugging Starbucks in her cubicle brainstorming the next one?
I’ll go! Benes must carry ID at all times. Spot fines for benes who don’t wash their hands in public toilets. Benes are now subject to random home inspections to make sure they’re not cooking P. Every week one randomly selected bene must work for free cleaning the Beehive toilets.
On a separate issue, what have you guys done to your website? Its thrown a complete spazz. Takes way longer to load, have to refresh a couple times, posts go missing etc etc
Can’t you call in some web site geeks to sort it out?
I think it’s more a general connection issue, I’ve had multiple sites take forever loading despite not downloading anything and connection speed on steam went down to 250-300Kb/s from the usual +600kb/s.
Could be the result of work being done on exchanges that are hooked up to the underwater cables, or work on the backbone systems, but it’s not like Telecom and Chorus will ever tell internet users before hand.
If ever you hear someone say “oh New Zealand is just the best place in the world, we don’t have terrorists or dictators, poisonous snakes or arabs” make sure you jump on them.
Sometimes I think we are more than half asleep. As far as I recall we have had terrorist attacks (Wellington union building, rainbow warrior, ureweras), dictators (Muldoon, Ecan), poisonous snakes (John Key) and arabs (John Banks). We have also been bombed by russians and germans, flown over by japanese warplanes, bombed by the French, had our own kind of civil war …… yet people thinkw e are somehow immune from these things? I mean even Helen Clark reckoned we live in a benign environment… sheesh.
In my opinion we have had all of those things and we still do today. It doesn’t take much to push things just that bit further so things really get out of hand.
And now we have Fiji politics with the likes of Amy Adams and David Carter acting exactly like Bainimarama.
What is it about these things that people don’t get?
I think we are still relatively protected from the nasty in the world, that’s the point. We don’t believe it can happen here, so we don’t see it when it does. I agree with you about Canterbury, we should be very concerned about what is happening there.
Not sure about terrorism though. We are thus far very lucky. The Rainbow Warrior was shocking but didn’t leave us with a sense of personal danger that terrorism does (although I’m sure that changed for Greenpeace and similar activists).
Ureweras was state terrorism. That’s scarey shit, and yes not enough people were scared by the right thing.
Great article by Gordon Campbell on Woody Guthrie, on Woody’s 100 birthday this July.
I was a fan of both Woody and Bob Dylan’s songs in my youth. Since then I’ve been a bit sceptical about how the US mainstream promotes and appropriates its pop culture folk heroes, in order to preserve it’s image as the home of democracy and freedom to speak truth to power.
Not that there isn’t something in these left wing critics of the status quo, but that one needs to be wary about the complexity of their role in the total fabric of US mainstream mythology:
I’m not suggesting Guthrie was a fake, or something not as labeled. Its just that the role is a complex one. In reality, almost every bard of Americana from Guthrie to Bascom Lamar Lunsford to Mark Twain to Walt Whitman has had variations of the same charge levelled against them – that beneath the veneer of homespun virtue and natural born talent there lurked a master showman, ever ready for the chance to peddle to America an image of its own best intentions. The United States seems to feel an ongoing need for such figures, as cultural and political icons. Right now for instance, the United States is in the midst of another election year round of self-delusion about its essential decency and shared sense of purpose. The strain involved in such fakery is immense. Ironically, it is more likely to be the Tea Party that gets together this year and sings “ This Land Is Your Land” as a rebuke to the folks in Washington.
Woody was born middleclass into a family that fell on hard times – father had been a land speculator.
Campbell’s article is also interesting for highlighting how the whole dustbowl thing of the 30s has been mythologised and distorted, masking other changes that were happening in the US at the time. The dustbowl erosion did happen, but the migration from the south west preceded and succeeded the dustbowl years, as many middleclass US-ians looked for opportunities elsewhere.
11 Years ago Mrs Cintron died when the tower she was in exploded into its own footprint in free fall speed.
She left us with some remarkable footage. She stood in the hole made by one of the planes and held on to one of the steel columns while waving to a helicopter. The very same steel columns which where soo hot the building could not help but collapse. I say we honour her and demand a new and independent investigation into the events of 911
Yes, I can see how my respect for the those killed in the 9/11 attacks could be seen as pathetic by a saddo like yourself, muzza. But I’ll stick to reality, you can stick to the fantasy.
Yes, I can see how my respect for the those killed in the 9/11 attacks could be seen as pathetic by a saddo like yourself, muzza. But I’ll stick to reality, you can stick to the fantasy.
Let’s examine that comment shall we…
Your contention of Ev, was that her making the statement she did, was disprespectful to those who lost their lives on 9/11 – What planet do you live on, jeez!
You then go on to say Yes, I can see how my respect for the those killed in the 9/11 attacks could be seen as pathetic by a saddo like yourself,/i> – As some strange attempt to emphasise your make believe show of respect, and validate your ridiculous statement!
1: Feign respect by having a go at those who ask questions – ODD
2: Defend position using second attempt to validate “said respect” – Nah cos people are allowed to ask questions, and in fact it should be mandatory. Its people like yourself you make this world lesser for the rest of us, and the saddo if you, because you think that people like Ev asking those questions are at fault – You are backwards!
3: Claiming to be sticking to reality – Sure mate, if that helps you out!
4: Claiming I am a fantasist – Nah, thats your projection!
We are all being lied to on a daily basis, so much so, that it is becoming harder to find ways to come to what might/might not be truthful. My only contention is that when the default position of TPTB is to lie/cover up, and then in many cases over time be caught out, and actually admit to those lies, then why on earth would you think that 911 is any different!
If your inclination is to believe “TPTB” lie all the time, why do you believe them when they “admit to those lies”? Maybe they’re just lying to cover up the fact that 20-odd dudes with boxcutters managed to kill 3,000 people right under the noses of US law enforcement.
More seriously, though – you guys have turned the recent deaths of people into a hobby. Sleep well under your tinfoil hat, Mr/s Aramoana was a false-flag op.
Hey McFlock – You reckon your council will be next inline for the ‘commissioners’?
Yup, not easy to drill through the confusion and false leads is it, and that was my contention, as I clearly indicated above. Some things pretty much speak for themselves though don’t they, and if you want the quentessential FF, then 911 is it. Not just something smells bad, the whole thing, and every event which has flowed out the back of it, has been 100% lies!
Still got your g-string in a bunch over the other stuff I see, could be best you put your energies into getting on your local councils back bro!
Well mr non-putake, in my opinion the real loons in the world today are those who believe the ‘official’ version. Mindless non-thinkers wandering the hollows of their lifeframe …
Which is not to say I agree with all ev’s bits and pieces. But I most certainly do not trust authorities to teel the full truth. Do you? And if so, why?
I don’t implicitly ‘trust’ authority, VTO, but I don’t find myself inclined to side with rambling right wing racists such as Ev, either. The facts about 9/11 are straightforward and there is not a jot of evidence to suggest otherwise. Occam still wins, despite the best efforts of the terminally deluded reactionaries who peddle 9/11 misinformation.
Right wing loon? Coming from you my dear Voice that’s a compliment.
As for being called a racist? To be honest I’d rather be friends with the much coloured Hone whom I’m honoured to say actually consented toe be a facebook friend of mine after he read my contributions for awhile plus the many, many Mana groups online that the sad narrow minded creature that calls himself Te Reo Putake for some reason.
It seems to them I’m not the rampant right wing racist you make me out to be. Funny that because they have access to exactly the same information if not more than you.
With regards to his Climate Change accusation: I question weather events as there is more and more material out there that suggests active weather modification by TPTB. Do I ignore Climate Change?
I live within my Carbon footprint, limit trips to town to the minimum, I support my husband in research he does into renewable sources of energy and probably have the lowest count of non recyclable waste a person can have (a garbage bag every 8 weeks).
With regards to the Truther accusation: Buildings do not collapse as teh result of Carbon fires. The only ones who did collapsed on 9/11 in free fall speed breaking all laws of Physics.
That presents me with a problem because as an ex special effects engineer and model maker(18 years) who’s main job it was to create the illusion that those laws can be broken I know they can’t. So I support the global 911 truth movement in their demand that a new and independent investigation must be held into the events.
With regards to the Birther accusation: TPTB in the mainstream media have equated doubts about Obama’s right to be the President of America on the grounds that he is not a native born American citizen with racism.
The fact is that Kenia claims he was born in Kenia, Hawaii can’t produce a legitimate birth certificate and the only document they did produce was a multi layered Photoshop/Illustrator file with numerous errors.
The argument to call this racist is because if he had been white people would not have asked that question.
Here is what I believe. Bush, Blair and Obama are all war criminals. Obama is a proven liar (the all are of course) who promised the end of the wars and the end of excessive debt. He is a puppet for the real and very white powers that be and I hope that one day these very white people burn in hell for using a man like Obama, brown handsome, young and charismatic to once again blindside the US population.
They are the ones who used his race in a cynical and evil way.
To ask that everybody keeps to the laws of the land and be able to prove he is has nothing to do with racism but with the laws of the land.
To say we can not hold everyone no matter what his collar to those standards is what is really racist and TRP hates it when I point that out to him.
I am going to be the first of the 4000 people involved in this secret to break my silence.
9/11 was a fake. It was retribution from Britain for the US involvement in the death of Princess Diana (US didn’t like all the fuss she was making about landmines most of which are manufactured by Haliburton).
We actually took the towers down with massive vats of acid.
As one of its last acts before disbanding, in July 2004, the 9/11 commission made referrals to the inspector general’s offices of both the Department of Transportation (which includes the F.A.A.) and the Defense Department to further investigate whether witnesses had lied. “Commission staff believes that there is significant evidence that the [Pentagon’s] false statements made to the commission were deliberately false,” Farmer wrote to me in an e-mail summarizing the commission’s referral. “The false testimony served a purpose: to obscure mistakes on the part of the F.A.A. and the military, and to overstate the readiness of the military to intercept and, if necessary, shoot down UAL 93.” A spokesman for the Transportation Department’s inspector general’s office told me that the investigation had been completed, but he wasn’t at liberty to share the findings, because the report had not been finalized. A spokesman at the Pentagon’s inspector general’s office said its investigation had also been completed, but the results are classified.
Yep, as I said CV, not a jot of evidence to suggest otherwise. Ten years on, nothing. Nada. Not a skerrick. The final nail in the coffin was the Toronto tenth anniversary conference which was such a miserable failure its hard to see how there will be a 20th anniversary bash.
Each generation has it’s conspiracies. Lindberg baby, UFO’s, HUAC, JFK, Elvis etc. But as time passes, they get shown to be the embarrassments they are.
ps, if an ostrich has it’s head in the sand, surely it doesn’t matter if it’s one eyed? ; )
According to the quote you highlighted “The false testimony served a purpose: to obscure mistakes on the part of the F.A.A. and the military, and to overstate the readiness of the military to intercept and, if necessary, shoot down UAL 93.”
So they said they were better and more prepared than they were. Who hasn’t gilded the lily on their work experience and capability? Does that then automatically place us on the grassy knoll?
The hearings after the event had arse covering on all directions. Plenty of detail in that linked story about what the CIA was saying to the white house before 9/11 and why the Pentagon would be telling lies about what they were saying and focussing on.
So they said they were better and more prepared than they were. Who hasn’t gilded the lily on their work experience and capability? Does that then automatically place us on the grassy knoll?
But we’re not talking about exaggerating the number of A’s you got in uni, or the fact you got a degree when you didn’t, are we.
And people lose their jobs for even that simple no-consequence shit, let alone providing deliberately false testimony to a Federally appointed commission.
With regards to his Climate Change accusation: I question weather events as there is more and more material out there that suggests active weather modification by TPTB.
Do I ignore Climate Change? I live within my Carbon footprint, limit trips to town to the minimum, I support my husband in research he does into renewable sources of energy and probably have the lowest count of non recyclable waste a person can have (a garbage bag every 8 weeks).
With regards to the Truther accusation: Buildings do not collapse as teh result of Carbon fires. The only ones who did collapsed on 9/11 in free fall speed breaking all laws of Physics.
That presents me with a problem because as an ex-special effects engineer and model maker(18 years) who’s main job it was to create the illusion that those laws can be broken I know they can’t. So I support the global 911 truth movement in their demand that a new and independent investigation must be held into the events.
With regards to the Birther accusation: TPTB in the mainstream media have equated doubts about Obama’s right to be the President of America on the grounds that he is not a native born American citizen with racism.
The fact is that Kenia claims he was born in Kenia, Hawaii can’t produce a legitimate birth certificate and the only document they did produce was a multi layered Photoshop/Illustrator file with numerous errors.
The argument to call this racist is because if he had been white people would not have asked that question.
Here is what I believe. Bush, Blair and Obama are all war criminals. Obama is a proven liar (the all are of course) who promised the end of the wars and the end of excessive debt. He is a puppet for the real and very white powers that be and I hope that one day these very white people burn in hell for using a man like Obama, brown, handsome, young and charismatic to once again blindside the US population.
They are the ones who used his race in a cynical and evil way.
To ask that everybody keeps to the laws of the land and be able to prove he is has nothing to do with racism but with the laws of the land.
To say we can not hold everyone no matter what his collar to those standards is what is really racist and TRP hates it when I point that out to him.
Trav, I don’t agree with you that 9/11 was a conspiracy. Full stop.
I also don’t agree with the accusations you have been subject to. You should not have to defend yourself against labeling. It seems as I observed yesterday that we are truly a house divided, too fast to cut the person to the bone for alleged impurities. Carry on please.
You should not have to defend yourself against labeling. It seems as I observed yesterday that we are truly a house divided, too fast to cut the person to the bone for alleged impurities
Although I found Ev to be the kind of person who will cheerfully bite someone who agrees with her if they disagree about other issues, I am seconding you here.. 🙂
trav physics what bullshit you’ve got more than 1/2 a million tons of building above the point of impact that starts moving downwards inside an exoskeleton building whats going to stop that sky hooks. Get real
Climate change i’m with you on that but don’t put them together they are totally different subjects.
Another idjit who doesn’t understand the third law of Physics:
For every force there is an opposite and equal force.
The amount of tonnage above the impact was more than met by the amount of tonnage below. The theory has been thoroughly discredited. Architects and engineers for 911 truth
“The only ones who did collapsed on 9/11 in free fall speed breaking all laws of Physics.”
If it was breaking the laws of physics it wouldn’t have fallen.
It has to obey the laws physics, every physical object does.
“For every force there is an opposite and equal force.”
The building fell like cards, the top stories fell into the one below, which fell into the one below and the one below that and so on. It wasn’t the top floors vs’ the rest of the building. It was the top floors vs. the single floor immediately below it.
Well i wouldn’t place any faith in their abilities but as i have studied physics and your argument literally doesn’t Stack up The twin towers were built quickly .to make sure that tenants were able to occupy as soon as possible. the only method that was able to deliver on time was the inferior exoskeleton kit set prefabricated construction type
The other reason it was used is that it had the maximum floorspace more profit margin
No other buildings have been constructed in this method since the 1950’s or since.
You don’t understand the basics of physics momentum once 1/2 a million tons starts moving its very hard to stop just like a train which is on a smaller scale. so tell me hoe do you stop 1/2 a million tonnes thats gaining momentum. With a conspiracy theory.
The tube frame structure of WTC wasn’t invented till the 60s. From Wikipedia
The first building to apply the tube-frame construction was the DeWitt-Chestnut apartment building which Khan designed and which was completed in Chicago by 1963.[5] This laid the foundations for the tube structural design of many later skyscrapers, including his own John Hancock Center and Willis Tower, and the construction of the World Trade Center, Petronas Towers, Jin Mao Building, and most other supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s.[6]
Yeah right gravity doesn’t exist.
The theory what theory!
Practice is the proof .
The CTV bulding another example of collapse of inferior construction.
The CTV bulding another example of collapse of inferior construction.
The CTV building failed as buildings normally fail in earthquakes. Unevenly, with floor structures intact and identifiable, with the mass of building materials present and indentifiable. Fires broke out in the rubble, but they were not hot enough to melt the steel present in the building.
Mike e I suppose you mean the law of Gravity. the one that dictates every object falling finds the path of least resistance making a lie of the Hammer theory? The one you espoused before.
Here is what happened with the start of the collapse of the North tower. First it keels over as if to follow the path of least resistance before it evaporates leaving no mass for the hammer theory.
Yes insider i’ve got mixed up with the type of trusses used which are no longer allowed to be used, clip in trusses are the reason the domino effect of the collapse.
The clip in Floor trusses were outlawed by the NYFD in the 1950’s .
With the heat from the fire only having to reach 450 to 650 degrees Celsius for these clip in floor trusses to fail.
And the cores of these buildings are no longer aloud to be from top to bottom but have to be offset to allow people to escape easier.
And for those of you curious about what many of the survivors and family members want: Press for truth or answers to the many questions left unanswered by the 911 commission for starters.
And voice? Whatever!
Follow the evidence say the various architects and engineers for truth re 911, and that is a good postition to start from. NIST appears to be rather full of it. Nearly anyone that sees building 7, not hit by a plane, go down, says instinctively yeah that looks like one of those old Chicago projects being demo’d like you see on TV.
My problem initially was with the level of ‘suspension of disbelief’ required. Getting past “why would a government do that to it’s own people?” It is incomprehensible at first, but not in reality. They are quite happy to do it to other populations around the world. The US government while running a country also has a military industrial complex and associated spook offshoots that merge lethal force and profiteering on behalf of US capital and finance capital. Black ops and false flags abound. The US nuked two Japanese cities to destruction, and still hold the planet to ransom if not with a MAD (mutally assured destruction) strategy as in the 60s-80s then with a still massive nuclear arsenal. In our lifetimes more will come out about 911 and the war on terror.
I’ve found it works both ways in this argument though. There are many pieces of evidence that are wrong on both sides. A cynic like me tends to lean towards a deliberate skewing of the information on the truth side in order to limit the impact on Americas current geopolitical aims in the ME, which are built on a decade of war for revenge. When it’s really blood for oil, war for big business.
Trav conspiracy theorist I’ve been in the building Industry for probably longer than you have been alive.
The construction of the twin towers exoskeleton type was outlawed by the NY fire dept in the 1950s because of the danger of collapse in fires .
Because the metal hooks that clip each floor panel in can deform with just moderate heat not melting as you conspiracy theorists claim.
All the steel in the twin towers were coated with fire proof silica fibre which was supposed to be maintained ,thats how the builders got round the ban.
But the maintenance was not kept up due to corruption by the contractor kickbacks to the mafia controlled contractor who took the money but never did any maintenance.
(Mafia are well known in New York for their involvement in the construction industry)
The weight of each of the twin towers aprox 5 million tons each caused building seven to collapse not thermite, thermite is an extremely volatile substance to move it contain it to stop it reacting when you don’t want it to ,is outside the realms of you and your theorists.
We don’t have any thermite in this country because no shipping company in the world will touch it!
Trav you are just giving the RWNJ’s a home run.
If you want to expose you pathetic Conspiracies go to one of the many glossy sites on the net that back it without proper evidence.
Interesting comment re the construction type and its weaknesses, I have often wondered about the lifespan of these buildings and how they are maintained.
Also like the “mafia” angle…there is a realistic conspiracy theory.
Let’s ignore the 47 Steel Columns in the centre of both buildings shall we?
If I were you I wouldn’t make it known that you were in the building industry cause you sound thoroughly ignorant of the construction of the twin towers or the freefall collapse of the third building that day
Exo skeleton my dear trav the columns on the interior of the building were exactly the same type of con struction the giant floor panels had to clip into something as well as the elevator shaft not shafts no other sky scrapper has been built with just one coe elevator shaft because it is a weaker form of construction as w
I think I have seen this debunked, the source pictures that showed the melting were actually taken from close ups of workers cutting through rubble.
They then showed up as conspiracy evidence for the steel beams melting from the fire.
They failed to show the full source image which showed workers cutting beams in the background.
I do think that the 911 commision was a failure and the American Defence department owed Americans and Victims the truth. That’s where I see issue of negligence that in turn bolstered support for a decade of violence.
Exo skeleton my dear trav the 47 steel columns on the interior of the building were exactly the same type of construction as the exterior columns,the giant floor panels had to clip into something as well as the elevator ‘shaft’ not “shafts”no other sky scrapper has been built with just one core elevator shaft because it is a weaker form of construction as well as being very dangerous in case of fires burning up your only escape path thats why all other sky scrappers have offset lift wells .Just having one lift well with fire also means your building is more prone to heat damaging the 47 steel columns. the hot air rising causes an inferno.
No other sky scrapper since the 1950’s has been constructed in this manner.
But then Nano thermite is only made in high end US military laboratories. Wonder how residue and unexploded chips of that got in the buildings. Mind you it is argued that Nano thermite while melting steel very quickly at very high temps would not have been enough for the explosive demolition of the Twin towers.
You might want to reread your essay’s before you post them becasue this sentence makes absolutely no sense at all:
If you want to expose you pathetic Conspiracies go to one of the many glossy sites on the net that back it without proper evidence.
Thermite can also be manurfactured accidently by the rubbing of two metals together into a powdered form which could easily be explained by the huge weights involved in the collapse of the 3 buildings at the world trade center
Here is an analysis of the mass and potential energy of WTC 1. Give that to an engineering friend and he/she might be able to calculate it for you. One thing is for sure the Boeing and hte Kerosene paled in comparison with the buildings mass and potential energy http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200703/GUrich/MassAndPeWtc.pdf
More BS trav the av gas can reach temperature of up 1300o cel when high winds are forced throught a narrow passage ie oxygen mixed with feul like a bunsen burner but that temperature did not need to be reached a temperature of 550 to 650 would be enough to cause failure with the huge weight above and only and exo skeleton no other support even the empire state building was built better back in the 1930’s
This is a result of greedy capitalism poor building substandard buildings.
Not your looney conspiracy theory.
The CIA Knew had information about the attack but it never got to the right people .
Thats what they are covering up.
Also a govt investigation is looking at a CIA member who put a large forex trade making him millions on the advent of an attaack on the US.
Mike you’ve been caught several times making “mistakes’ and getting confused and all. Must be the age eh?
Meet Mrs Cintron, the lady who stood in the holes were fires raged so hot it could melt steel also the problem with steel is that it serves as a heat sink. That’s those strange shapes inside your amplifiers.
Not just one member of the CIA Mike whole banking sections around the globe were betting with foreknowledge
Wow, even 11 years later not one of these people with foreknowledge, which must number in the 1000’s in order to pull this off, has ever uttered a word to anyone or slipped up in anyway?
Government groups so inept they can nothing else secret have managed to keep this secret as well as civilians?
The fire’s above her, the steel she is leaning on projects from below, it has clearly been severed by impact not heat distortion. WHy do you think it would be hot and so proves anything at all?
How did 19 young Muslims break all the laws of Physics and get past the US Air force for 1.5 hours breaking every flight protocol and still traceable by radar and fly 757 Boeings in complex flight patterns they had never flown before while they were incapable of flying a Cessna?
The theory says there were Unscheduled Fire Drills in the weeks leading up.
I don’t really support the theory, it’s abit far-fetched.
But the insurance angle is pretty interesting, the building was poorly maintained and a large policy was taken out just month’s before or something like that.
I tend to find theories like this have within them half-truths or hidden truths. Usually regarding political corruption and corporate frauds.
But who has the time to filter and check bullshit from fact?
only ‘a bit’ far fetched? And is ‘or something like that’ a good basis for a theory. The insurance negotiations were incomplete. The building management had just changed, or something like that
Well I’m not an expert on engineering or building construction. So I can’t really judge, who am I to say it’s completely looney. I have no expertise in the collapse of buildings so have to follow the logical explanation (which is the common explanation).
At the same I can understand how the events of that day prompted over a decade of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq at the benefit of quite a few people within that Government’s inner circle.
So I guess all in all, I wouldn’t be shocked either way.
False flags are an admitted part of America’s involvements in previous wars and to write it off as completely impossible… na I’ll keep in the neutral area of this one and just stick to “I don’t know what happened, what ever happened was horrible”
EDIT – As I said, I’m no expert on the theory, I’m not stating it as a concrete point hence “or something like that”, was merely contending that Trav’s theory does have a reference. If your considering my post as an all out support for the theory, well you’ve read it wrong.
“The theory says there were Unscheduled Fire Drills in the weeks leading up.”
To attached thermite charges to what would have had to have been more than one floor would mean walls are being removed, workers poking around and wires being laid.
Careful demolition of a building takes weeks to wire properly, with no one noticing in a building with high security, 24 hours usage and, not least, bomb sniffer dogs.
Sorry, do you have anything which isn’t elephant hurling?
Please be specific instead of linking to an entire site
And what does it matter how hard or easy it is to fly?
Are trying to state they weren’t flying the planes and someone else was? Or they had training elsewhere? If so, where and what evidence is there that anyone from the CIA/Govt/US had anything to do with it?
And for those of you who want to know how totally ridiculous the official Conspiracy theory is here is a hilarious five minute video spelling it out: 911 in five minutes
So you don’t answer specifics are just keep hurling out claims without addressing anything?
like:
Are trying to state they weren’t flying the planes and someone else was? Or they had training elsewhere? If so, where and what evidence is there that anyone from the CIA/Govt/US had anything to do with it?
And:
How did the thermite get into the heart of the building?
As well as:
Even 11 years later not one of these people with foreknowledge, which must number in the 1000′s in order to pull this off, has ever uttered a word to anyone or slipped up in anyway?
the planes flew themselses to the nearby vicinity autopilot and the suicide pilots only had to bank the planes into the buildings at 400knots and job done 30.000 litres of av gas did the rest
the planes flew themselses to the nearby vicinity autopilot and the suicide pilots only had to bank the planes into the buildings at 400knots and job done 30.000 litres of av gas did the rest
😀 Read that aloud to yourself and maybe you will hear how absurd that sounds 😀
Broke the laws of the country not physics trav baffling people with BS doesn’t make an argument.
What about the laws of Gravity you haven’t explained how you stop a 1/2 million tonnes of weight stopping in its tracks after gaining momentum thats real physics not bs fantasies!
OK we hate GW Bush as much as the next man but making up stories is not winning any one any on this side of the argument over.
Your just encouraging the RWNJs to call us the looney left.
“…a ban for making a moderator have to exert too much effort.”
Classy.
EDIT: That was in response to the awesome moderating below. Stay Classy, LPrent.
“I’m a lazy moderator, so fuck you”
[lprent: You don’t want an enthusiastic moderator ever. Just think it through for a second. If they were enthusiastic then getting to a good effective state would only be the start. They couldn’t leave it in just an ok and relatively cheap to maintain state. They’d have to invent new sinsoffenses to deal with all of the time straining towards perfection and the reinvention of the concentration camp. The maze rat addiction problem of self reinforcing positive feedback. I’ve seen forums like that happen over the last 30 years in net systems many times.
What works better is having people that will prefer not to exert effort. They prefer minor warnings. But who are willing to put considerable effort once aroused in to making sure they don’t have the same problem again. You have to have the latter because in the end it is better that people control themselves. The best way to do that is to make the risk levels somewhat uncertain. This provides a much lower effort negative feedback system. Where people think about what they do before they do it or get concerned about consequences, whilst leaving enough room for them to take some risks….
Don’t worry, Old Wolf. You don’t have to explain to me. Your remark is so dripping with magnanimous ‘the king has spoken! And he is just!’ leadership that I might swoon with justice and good governance.
😈 there are some benefits for doing the work on the site. One of those is to set the limits. The downside is how much work is required to earn that benefit/responsibility. Which is why this is a collective rather than a ego blog. Others do posts or moderate weekends or even just comment or whatever. I mostly run the hardware, software, and social/wetware systems. Systems are my favorite task always.
It’s not the left that promotes this disrespectful and fanciful garbage, mike e. It’s almost exclusively pushed by the ‘don’t tread on me’ rednecks and related conservative groupings. Most lefties can spot the difference between the real class warfare capitalism wages against the earth’s peoples and the Mission Impossible/WACO style fantasies of the 9/11 truth deniers.
It’s why right wingers like Ev who push this rubbish also tend to be climate change deniers and are so racist that they deny Obama is an American citizen just so they can pretend they’ve never really had a black President.
As I’ve said before, 9/11 truthers are just the KKK at the keyboard. More fool those that give them any credence.
[lprent: Is your alternate identity Fran O’Sullivan?
I had thought that she had the local franchise on making a complete pillock of herself with KKK comparisons without bothering to justify why she is using them with actual historical relevance. Don’t you start as well.
Find something less likely to initiate a flamewar before I drop KKK into auto-moderation along with troll (about the only other word being misused at present) and you into a ban for making a moderator have to exert too much effort. ]
This is the interesting part of all conspiracy theories. Figuring the writers angle.
They fundamentally believe what they write happened but when you visit certain sites, it’s impossible not to pick up on the overly racial tone of the writing.
chemtrailers/NWO Conspiracy theorists that I know are as you say committed to the left. But then so are some climate change deniers I’ve met who think it’s NWO tax scheme on the people.
The stupidest thing about this nonsense is the time and mental energy wasted on them. We could end cancer overnight if all that effort was channeled into finding a cure.
So anyway, to save me from joining these “debates” every day for the rest of my short life, here’s what happened –
1) Neil Armstrong went to the moon.
2) Obama was born in the USA
3) The Holocaust happened
4) Terrorists hi-jacked planes and attacked buildings on 9/11.
5) France won the Rugby World Cup.
That would have been the secret offline WC that only John Key and his bankster mates could afford to go to as opposed to the ones I’ve seen where France got beaten in the finals or before.
Conspiracy theorists can all be classified as “right wing” for the simple reason that the things they believe are all bullshit, the arguments they employ are feeble and frankly delusional, and their motivation is paranoid suspicion of the government.
The individual details of their delusions are irrelevant.
They may believe themselves to be left wing, but they also believe themselves to be right about the moon landings.
The right wing is characterised by people who promote anecdote and advocacy over evidence. Show me how that is different from the average conspiracy theorist.
If he believes conspiracist bullshit, yes, but Chavez is first and foremost a populist – hence his deification of Bolivar.
PS: by definition, the left attempts to form policy on the basis of factual analysis. Can you see how people who make stuff up don’t exactly fit the mould?
So there can never be a left-wing conspiracy theorist because they believe “things they believe are all bullshit, the arguments they employ are feeble and frankly delusional and their motivation is paranoid suspicion of the government.”
Outside of the paranoid suspicion of government you have just described religious people too, who also believe things that “are all bullshit, the arguments they employ are feeble and frankly delusional”.
“by definition, the left attempts to form policy on the basis of factual analysis. Can you see how people who make stuff up don’t exactly fit the mould?”
So Christians can’t be left-wing either?
What about people who believe in their own forms of spirituality? They have just ‘made stuff up’, can they not be leftists?
Sure it isn’t, but I think my definition works a lot better than vague notions of the “political spectrum”.
Perhaps it’s easier to consider policy – with fact based policy on the left by definition, and other approaches (the sociopathic novels of Ayn Rand, the notions of the Chicago School etc.) on the right.
If you can cite a single example of a fact-based right wing policy that works as intended (ie: does what it’s author claimed it would) I’m all ears.
But I’ll give you an example of a left-wing conspiracy theorist.
There is a highly popular Chemtrail movie called “What in the World are they spraying”and in it that interview a family running an organic farm who are complaining about the chamtrails ruining their crops so that they are forced into buying seeds from the big corporates. they were mad that people might destroy the environment for profit.
You’ll have to watch to understand but this family was in no way right-wing.
@Bill
No that isn’t true.
My sister, for example, supports her left-wing beliefs with faith in Jesus and his message of tolerance and forgiveness as well as her environmentalism with Gods command to look after his creation
Wouldn’t agree with that at all. I’ve never noticed much correlation of religious faith with political leanings.
I have noticed a correlation with noisy in your face religious nutters trying to tell others how they should live their lives with being right wing. But I suspect that being right wing and being judgemental interfering busybodies fusspots is the correlation – not an ability to have faith.
After all we only have to look at Whaleoil (I’d use some of my distant relatives as examples – but they don’t blog) to see the obsessional lengths that sticky beak obsession can get to – even when he hadn’t succumbed to being (possibly) serious about having a religious addiction.
I much prefer those who prefer to live the religion and lead by example rather than merely being loud and obnoxious about it. Like a few of our authors around here who are definitely left-wing AND religious.
So if a person can still be left-wing if the believe in god despite belief in god being right wing then it stands to reason a believer in conspiracy theories can be left wing also.
To rephrase: since left wing philosophy attempts to pay attention to reality. conspiracy theories are necessarily right wing, irrespective of the political affiliations of the individual victim. 🙂
Ok, just quickly while dinner is combobulating itself;
KKK are defunct in all but name, they are pretty much a reinactment society these days. The same instincts that drove them, natavism, fear and mistrust of the elites, etc, are what drove the rise of the militia movement in the eighties which really took off on the nineties.
NWO was a code that started to replace the older ZOG (zion occupied government, subtle stuff eh) then G.H.W. Bush uttered the NWO phrase when talking about his Iraqi adventure, and boom, cross cultural NWO reference between left and right conspirologists, someone they both hated using the phrase in an adventure they both mistrusted.
After that, cross pollination was enivitable, Alex Jones catapulted a lot of the ideas as he’d put anyone and everyone on his show. You’ve got waco and Ruby ridge and all that stuff leading up to the Murray bombing, all of that was pretty much on the right side, with the militia movements and the sovereign citizen dudes.
The righties pretty much calmed down after the truck bombing, and the lefties took the front running on 911. they hated GWB and weere receptive to the truther movement, the TM got pushed by Alex Jones, and voila, the stuff that the Militia movement formulated started to get tacked onto the grand theory; NWO, FEMA camps, black helicopters and all that jazz.
That link upthread to today’s NYT about the CIA warnings that GWB ignored.
He ignored them because the neocons he’d appointed to the pentagon (Feith et al) had their own conspiracy theory about terrorism. The Oklahoma bombing was the work of Saddam Hussein according to these clowns. Pretty basic thread of neocon thinking is that states are the bees-knees of international politics.
NGOs, (including militant groups), are powerless and ipso facto fronts for states. The green and anti-nuke movements were a front for the sov1ets. hizbollah = Iran. etc. So the oklahoma bombing had to be the work of a foriegn power,, tadaaa, Iraq.
So, they focussed the shit on the axis of evil and star wars and rogoue states, and ignored the shit out of the CIA and Clinton’s warnings about AQ. As far as they were concerned, AQ didn’t have the support of a powerful state so was not a threat. Nek minnit.
Now, the irony bomb.
Truthers and the like are mostly Nader supporters.
No Nader vote in 2000, Gore wins, neocons don’t take over the intel at the pentagon, the CIA doesn’t get ignored, Clintons anti AQ taskforce actually gets worked up.
Umm,
Here is where I draw the line. I can handle a lot of trolling but this is just downright slandering and trolling of the nastiest lowest level.
I request the moderators have a look at what the voice is making me out to be.
I object strongly to the fact that Te Reo Putake has been given total freedom to slander, stigmatise and smear without ever having been called to task about the total lack of rebuttal he has given to my links and information. Most people here are at least partly interested to respond but this is just not cool.
Smearing people with KKK associations is basically saying he it’s ok to compare people to the Nazi’s (the use of the word for which I will no doubt disappear in purgatory) without any repercussions.
You are letting te Reo Putake behave like a bully while others have being banned for less that this.
[lprent: I agree on the KKK comparison. There was no reason stated why to use that as a comparison. That made it largely pointless.
So I’m unlikely to start banning on a instance of its usage. However what is more irritating is its repetition in the replies. Most of those appear to be in the context of either asking why it was being used as a comparison, or history on the KKK.. If it starts getting to turgid then I auto-moderate the word and start banning.
Nazi isn’t in the auto-moderation at present. It hasn’t been misused for some time. However “troll” is.. I’ll keep a closer eye on the OpenMike discussions. I do have a tendency to ignore reading some topics out of sheer boredom. ]
Hey, LP, I stand by the comment. And I provided more than adequate historical and topical context in the first para.
That organisation has now effectively fractured and its adherents are now most often found in like minded movements. At the nastiest end, that’s the white power groups. But many are attracted to the various kinds of ‘the gummint is out ta getcha’ beliefs. That is the case for birthers and truthers; they are a safe haven for people who think they look fetching in a sheet.
That doesn’t mean I think Ev is a Grand Knight, by the way. But as a climate change denier, a birther and a truther, she must know she walks in their world.
Everyone thinks everyone else is some kind of nutter – which is why I usually don’t bother with moderating nutty behaviour when I am moderating*. I mostly look at the things that are going to cause flow problems in the debate.
I’m afraid the playing “pin the obsolete historical label on the donkey” seldom works to enhance debate. It usually just causes really dumb debate about semantics and is typically done to dumb down the debate into a boring tit for tat.
So you’d have noticed that when a historical or semi-historic label gets overused and is primarily used for starting flamewars that the word tends to wind up in the auto moderation pretty fast and I leave it there for a long time. It is my favored technique to un-Godwin my part of the net. Be fresh…
As a general rule I find that making up a new label (and making it sticky) usually works better to reflect a new way of being daft. This goes for everything from ABC’s to truthers to the Peters lynchmob. So I don’t usually get in the way of this developing shorthand language.
Now I associate KKK with dumb and vicious economic exploitation which incidentally used a racial component, religous overtones, political elitism, and some really stupid psuedo science as justification. Most people will have some variant of a combinaion of those factors in mind when they view KKK as a comparision.
I can’t really see much in common with Tev’s obsessions. No economic basis, no exploitation, no religous hypocrites, little evidence of political effect etc… Even her science is well argued even if I personally think it is more hopeful than accurate.
Arguing that they share a conspiracy theory as a commonality (which I have seen a bit of here today) is a bit of a stretch – it is hard to find a single group anywhere in the world that does not.
Doesn’t matter if it is a millionaires country club or a meeting of unionists or a cargo cult in 1950’s New Guinea, the only thing they will have in common apart from being of the same species is a group paranoia that always expresses as a conspiracy theory. It is like arguing that animals with fur are all the same species because they all have fleas and scratch.
* Except (there is always an exception) I seldom moderate climate change posts myself except for people wallpapering my posts. I can use them to keep my atrophied live dissection techniques and skills honed. So people usually don’t get my more moderate behaviour there – they get an old wolf exercising instead.
“So people usually don’t get my more moderate behaviour there – they get an old wolf exercising instead.”
Been hitting the cognac tonight, Old Wolf? Feeling that over inflated sense of self-confidence that comes with 2 shots of heavy liquor and a dose of banhammer?
Nope. Lyn drank most of the wine. She had a hard day… Because she started at 0530
I just went to bed early (because of that 0530 gym) rather than attacking the next feature requirement for work. That means I have some spare time to explain in more detail than usual.
But have you ever seen me in climate change posts when someone starts being stupid? It really is a lot of fun going hard out tearing others weak arse arguments apart while doing the picador trick wih their egos and winding their blood pressure up. It is something that I have been doing on various forms of the net for decades. Like all things, experience and practise count quite a lot.
Problem is that I’m working too hard at present to have time. But on October 1 we should freeze the code, and I get more free time.
Err….thermite is a fuel, iron, aluminium, magnesium, zinc etc, and an oxidiser, iron oxide, copper oxide etc, and a thermal lance can be as mundane as a length of galvanised steel pipe filled with welding rod butts with one end connected to an oxygen source.
“Labour Party leader David Shearer has rejected suggestions that making national standards optional for schools would create a confusing dual education system.”. Today’s NZ Herald.
This is a position Shearer should not be in. In trying to please each side he frustrates both. Not good.
Er, sux to believe what you read in the Herald, Chris. It’s an online survey and therefore meaningless. But if believing that Labour isn’t going to lead the next Government cheers you up on a wintery day, all power to you.
The Herald Digi-Poll isn’t an online survey. It’s the traditional phone poll.
From the evidence of last year, it was clear that those polls slightly overestimate National support. But that doesn’t change the underlying problem for Labour. In a period of several weeks where many things have been going badly for the government, the main opposition party has failed to make ground. Even allowing for the margin of error, they have been static at best.
This is entirely as expected, and discussed countless times on this blog. When there is a vacuum, somebody will fill it – whether it’s the Greens, NZ First, even Colin Craig. It is Labour themselves who created the vacuum – starting with the leadership.
Voters have not been switching to Labour simply because they had no reason to. On Sunday, that finally changed … about nine months late. Can they follow it up?
Yes, quite right about the DigiPoll. I thought Chris was referring to the related reader poll which has Labour on 22%, the Greens on 14%.
However, Chris is still wrong when it comes to the NZH Digipoll, which is another bad result for the Government and confirms the trend shown in the most recent Roy Morgans’ that the opposition parties now have the majority support. Given that this particular poll consistently rates National 3-5% higher than reality, this really is a shocker for Team Key.
Er, quite. You do realise that the item you linked to at the start of this thread is an opinion poll? That uncomfortable prickly feeling you are now experiencing will be that ‘burn’ you mentioned a few minutes ago.
Ok I could see how you might think that except that its the only way to find out how people are going to vote. I would like to use my crystal ball instead but its not working at the moment so I’ll have to go with an opinion poll.
Um – what was it, a fraction of a percent change up to 48-odd percent with minimal party friends, from a poll that was in favour of the nats by 3% just before the election? Not exactly “rogue”. Static and to close to call if there were an election tomorrow, more like.
Either bloc is in a position to lose this election, but neither would be assuming victory just yet.
the NZH Digipoll, which is another bad result for the Government
It really isn’t, and I really don’t think that you think so either, TRP.
The poll tells us that a large number of Labour voters are picking Key over Shearer. That’s a shocker. Even people who want the government out don’t see the Labour leader as a future PM. And that’s not at all surprising, becasue he obviously isn’t.
“The poll tells us that a large number of Labour voters are picking Key over Shearer.”
Yeah, Key is popular. I already knew that, but as we don’t directly elect our PM’s, it’s not a concern. Remember, Goff was way less popular than Shearer is and he came within a whisker of being PM at the last election.
What counts is the blocs and at the moment, the opposition is in the ascendency. That’s now confirmed by the Herald poll, which as we know, is the most blue tinged of all of them. If I remember correctly, Granny had National at over 50% in the days before the last election and the actual result was a wafer thin majority. Now that the Herald records National at significantly less than 50%, it’s fair to assume that the trend picked up by the Roy Morgans is correct and that a Labour led Government is now at least as likely an outcome as a National led one.
It’s probably time Key was rolled, so that National don’t lose too heavily 😉
Yes, it’s perfectly possible that Labour could lead a bloc, with the Greens, NZ First and maybe Mana/Maori (whoever’s left standing).
But that is setting the bar so low. Labour could – should – aim to form a majority Labour/Green government (e.g. 40/10, 38/12). Labour could – should – be riding a wave of public disenchantment right now. What do they need? 10% unemployment?
It’s possible for Labour MPs to spend the next two years in a deep sleep, and still have the numbers after MMP negotiations. It’s possible for Shearer to become PM just by dithering along, and hoping National continue to screw the country. But as a strategy and vision, it’s feeble. Because that vacuum is going to be filled by somebody. Do Labour want Winston at 10%? Do they want some nutjob from “Investigate” to hold them to ransom?
Their job is to maximise the Labour vote. Not hope somebody else maximises the opposition vote, and then demands God knows what post-election.
Politics in a nutshell – work out what your opponents want. Then don’t give it to them. So what do National want? Labour/Shearer to continue just as they have been. That’s the answer, right there.
Credit where it’s due, Chris Finlayson deserves recognition in his efforts to redress the grievances. He’s one of the few National MPs I find tolerable.
Seems to me to be an OK compromise I can live with. Devil will be in the detail though
It will be interesting to watch the self governance arragements for Tuhoe unfold. Though I am a bit concerned that this is a stalking horse for privatisation/shrinking of the welfare state.
I actually think that the government should have offered Tuhoe an option to purchase a share in the Waikaremoana power scheme, that has actually huge potential. In practise, the operation of the plant would still rest with Genesis, but Tuhoe would be able to share in the revenue generated — maybe even set up its own power retailer for its rohe — creating jobs, etc..
Chris Finlayson is good with the Treaty settlements, but in any other context I wouldn’t call him tolerable. He’s incredibly hard to listen to in Parliament because every time he opens his mouth he’s full of sneering condescension.
I think Morrissey is suggesting that the sensible sentencing trust is very selective about who they target, and who they consider a victim.
The sensible sentencing trust promote fear, are illogical in their demands, and conveniently forget about white collar crime. They hate poor people more than they hate crime.
If Matt Dillon Shannon poured petrol on a middle aged, middle class person, and then set them on fire…do you think Garth McVicar would ignore it?
If Matt Dillon Shannon poured petrol on a middle aged, middle class person, and then set them on fire…do you think Garth McVicar would ignore it?
Actually, I was simply giving Mr McVicar the courtesy of treating him seriously and assuming he was consistent. If he were a serious and consistent thinker, he would support the actions of Matt Dillon Shannon, and be all over the media pouring abuse and calumny on the head of his victim.
Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction
Director: Monte Thompson | Producer: Chera Van Burg
Genre: Documentary | Produced In: 2010
Synopsis: If current trends continue, scientists warn that within a few decades at least HALF of all plant and animal species on Earth will disappear forever. “Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction” is the first feature documentary to investigate the growing threat to Earth’s life support systems from this unprecedented loss of biodiversity. Through interviews with leading scientists, psychologists, historians, and others, the film explores the causes, the scope, and the potential effects of the mass extinction, but also looks beyond the immediate causes of the crisis to consider how our cultural and economic systems, along with deep-seated psychological and behavioral patterns, have allowed and continue to reinforce the situation, and even determine our response to it. “Call of Life” tells the story of a crisis not only in nature, but also in human nature, a crisis more threatening than anything human beings have ever faced before.
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The Dodo didn’t matter. But have you got a plan Bee?
[lprent: I fail to see the relevance to the post. Moved to OpenMike. Don’t make me have to fix attempted thread jacking too often. I eventually make the problem extinct. ]
Sorry IP
Thinking light bulbs etc is just keeping the extinction levels up.
All good, I was going to stick it here anyway, until I saw the light bulb post
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
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 ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
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 A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
Assad forces attack refugee camp.
http://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/palestinian-camp-in-syria-stormed-by-assads-troops/
Maybe these are the foreign infiltrators that Colonial Viper is talking about.
Estimates are over ten thousand foreign fighters in Syria, Jenny. Some of them are now expecting to receive artillery and AA guns from France.
Others aren’t even interested in Syrian politics or the Syrian people, they just want to speed the set up of a Muslim religious state in Syria to replace the secular government there currently.
Not only are you prepared to overlook Assad’s appalling human rights record. You keep making up facts that you think in your mind excuse mass murder.
How about providing a link to your claim of “over ten thousand foreign fighters in Syria”. And If you can, not the same sort of rubbish you used to back up your fictitious claim that the West was supplying the rebels with Weapons. That an anonymous “diplomat’ said France “may” supply weapons to the rebels type nonsense.
Pilger has some interesting things to say about this issue..
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-liberal-way-to-run-the-world-improve-or-well-kill-you-by-john-pilger
Hi Jenny,
Just wondering how you validate the authenticity of the informtion which you post here.
Same question applies to all information we try to decifer these days, because most of it exists to deceive, and misdirect.
What is known is that the ME situation is not what you believe it to be, simply look at what has happened in Libya and Egypt to see what is happening in Syria. It is complex, awful and tragic what is happening to those innocent people around the world who are simply collatoral for these “wars”, and absolutely it is right that people should speak on behalf of those who are treated as expendable.
It is wrong however to ignore the obvious facts that what is going on in Syria, is not as simple as you would like to believe it, and what will your position be (if)/when Assad goes, and Syria its people, the woman and children become dominated by more draconian, fundamentalist mindsets, than what you make out Assad to be?
What will you say at that time Jenny?
“What will you say at that time Jenny?”
She will say exactly what British state television, Fox News and MSNBC say. Just as she has been doing all along.
Muzza you are the one being simplistic. Your cartoon caricature of Arabs, in particular Syrians, as religious extremists who automatically want to impose sharia law and return Syria back to the middle ages, if the dictatorship is removed is actually quite racist.
Yes, nominally the majority of Syrians are believers, and probably in greater proportion than New Zealanders. But just because their religious faith, and culture is different to ours does not make it inferior or more extreme than Western Judeo Christian faith.
Your assumption that if the Syrian people throw off the rule of the dictatorship that they will replace it with something worse. That Arabs cannot be trusted with democracy, is in my opinion, based on little more than Islamaphobic prejudice.
Muzza, if in the unlikely event that the Syrian people replace the Assad terroristic regime with something even worse….. I will tell you my “position”
I will not overlook mass murder and torture.
I will not support the strafing of civilian towns and cities from the air.
I will not support the machine gunning of peaceful demonstrators.
I will not condone the detention torture and murder of the wives and children of soldiers as a justifiable tactic to keep soldiers from deserting.
I will not ignore the existence of death squads deliberately organised on sectarian lines to deliberately exploit differences in race or religion to keep a corrupt and murderous tyrant in power.
Not under any circumstances. No matter how complicated..
The question for such clever people like yourself. Is why do you do all of those thing now?
According to the Syrian National Council media officer Ahmad al-Halabi there are more than 30 opposition groups fighting in Syria and Jacques Beres, co-founder of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, has reported that foreign jihadists are involved so take your pick.
Or these
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/middle-east-in-turmoil/rebels-execute-20-syrian-soldiers-in-aleppo/story-fn7ycml4-1226471503849
i have to rewrite this (like do a 100 lines) as it disappeared
i am really sorry to all the people i hurt and or damaged on my path through life
-my mother, stepfather and brothers
-my daughter
-my bioligical siblings ( i hope the m.c understand)
-my friends and former partners
-the employers i let down
-the people i lied to
-the people i stole from
i have not been very well most of my life and this led to some unhelpful paths
i have learnt many things and will continue to keep many secrets
often, i lashed out violently or angrily, generally under the influence of some form of medication,
self or otherwise. sometimes Chris, i could not even control myself, i would feel so hurt and angry
for some reason, God let me live this long, even though i was often harmful to those around me.
since my revelation, which included an awareness of my own sins, i have only tried to be helpful
i hope you understand. i was, and will continue to be, a man of Peace
Please forgive me. i am truly sorry
You okay, dude? That was pretty heavy.
Good on ya, fnjckg. Its a big call, confronting your impact on the lives of others.
Try not to be to hard on yourself fnjckg. We are all human, We are all in the same condition, kia kaha.
Americans are not as stupid as the media think they are
What happens when people are given an opportunity to say what they really think about the media? Well, have a look at this clip from 2006, celebrating ten years of MSNBC. At the time, Israel was killing hundreds of civilians in Lebanon to punish them for supporting the Hezbollah resistance movement. As usual, the U.S. media, including MSNBC, was monolithically supportive of Israel’s aggression.
But people, no matter how saturated with propaganda, still think for themselves, as you’ll appreciate if you watch all ten minutes of this video.
Watching the forced cheering and flag-waving here, the first impression is that this Philadelphia crowd is pretty mindless. But as it goes on, you see many of them are actually thoughtful and concerned people.
The problems here are one Michael Smerconish, an extreme right wing Catholic radio jock, and MSNBC host Chris Matthews, an ostensibly “liberal” broadcaster who is too scared to say what he really thinks.
Watch from 1:20 to 1:52, when Smerconish claims that people don’t care about the Israeli assault on Lebanon as much as they do about the comments of a Hollywood actor. Host Chris Matthews asks how many people think Mel Gibson is more important than what is happening in Lebanon? There is complete silence, then someone yells: “MSNBC does!”
Then, at the 4:52 mark, listen to the reaction just after Smerconish claims that all that stations like MSNBC do is give people what they want.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVFe1rLKA1k&feature=g-vrec
There is a light that never goes out
Calling Redlogix plus anybody else who attended the Steven Keen events
Anything we should know, worth commenting on?
Over at the Dim-Post, Ben has a good summary.
http://dimpost.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/the-big-lie/#comments
The PM thinks AUS has Dutch disease,and the high Australasian exchange rates are a symptom of the disease.
http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=Dutch-disease
Dutch disease is the negative impact on an economy of anything that gives rise to a sharp inflow of foreign currency, such as the discovery of large oil reserves. The currency inflows lead to currency appreciation, making the country’s other products less price competitive on the export market.
In the NZ case the discovery of high overnight interest rates,( In comparison to often negative returns in Europe) make it a haven to park substantial short term overnight deposits.
“So even if the government said, ‘well look, we want to have a lower exchange rate,’ how could we do that? The answer would be we’d have to move away from a floating exchange rate,” Key said.
“We’re a massive capital importer – we don’t have the luxury that some countries have. And if you look at what [intervention is] currently costing the Swiss National Bank, New Zealand cannot afford to follow a policy like that. It’s inherently very risky,” he said.
Key said while new Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler was coming on board very soon, and was in the process of having to renegotiating a new policy targets agreement with the Minister of Finance, the early advice he’d had was it was very unlikely there would be any significant changes to the PTA.
“If there was an easy way of moving our exchange rate down, certainly [with] the New Zealand-US exchange rate we’d certainly do that, but I don’t think it’s easy,” Key said.
In effect the cash and carry (arbitrage) industries can in effect borrow at close to zero say in Europe and invest in NZ which distorts the capital flows.
The simplest constraint is to reduce exposure to short term borrowing and increase exposure to long term borrowing.Here an inverse stepped witholding tax for non NZ residents by increasing tax for short term investments,and decreasing for longer investments would decrease short term fluctuations.
Increasing the WHT to 17.5% for non residents for less then 1 yr would be a clear signal.
http://www.interest.co.nz/currencies/61067/nz-govt-thinks-australia-has-dutch-disease-pm-key-says-us-and-europe-deliberately-d
Very simple answer chimpankey print some money like they are doing.
Ask King Kong
I have a long history of being anti complex gadgets and an equal distrust in technology and faux progress….so for all of you with smart phones and IPads I thought this Kunstler prediction was very appropriate.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/09/zeitgeist-failure.html
Sidebar on How “Smart” We Think We Are
TV commercial seen during the Women’s finals of the US Tennis Open:
Cadillac is bragging that they have replaced the old dashboard knobs and toggles with a “smart” iPad-type control system. Has a car company ever done something so fucking stupid? The whole point of knobs and toggles is that you can keep your eyes on the road while adjusting things by feel. An iPad you actually have to look at to see what you’re tapping on. Expect a colossal death toll from buyers of the latest Cadillacs in the next couple of years. I suppose there’s poetic justice in the automobile age winding down on a note of such supernatural idiocy.
Reminds of the Dilbert animated series where Dogbert comments that the entire technology advances in efficiency of the 20th century have been undone by everyone waiting for their browser to refresh.
I can’t believe the number of cell phone calls where I can’t hear people properly. And where people can’t hear me. And we all just pretend it’s ok. Telemiscommunications. Nostalgia for phones that had 5 numerals for the phone number.
In laymans terms (been involved in this stuff for years)…Before we had “cellular” we were on the PSTN (plain old telephone system) which had developed over a century and even on crap copper gave reasonable phone quality. Cell phone technology is reasonably recent, because it is on the “air” as opposed to within a reasonably “clean” copper environment it is far more open to quality issues (interference, distance issues etc)…HOWEVER it could get better if there were more transmitter / receivers (cell sites) plus switching capacity between the cell sites. The major issue you have with quality I put down to lack of investment (NZ is simply too large with too few people and too many competitors).
PSTN (public switched telephone network)…used to be run by the Post Office as a public service……interesting concept which we might reconsider.
Mobile phones are only good for texting and mobile internet usage anyway. Phoning someone on a mobile is only practical for if you need to get in touch someone quickly.
Is there any reason why no-one has seeked to adapt text messaging to land lines? Kinda like what they did with telex/teletype?
“Has a car company ever done something so fucking stupid? ”
I often wonder who regulates car design. There’s a number of modern cars that have indicators that are hard to see. Possibly this is NZ’s intense light that makes it harder (the indicators aren’t very bright). They also don’t appear to be that visible from the side. Weird.
The “market”…I heard somebody state that the number of people killed in car crashes now exceeds the front line deaths in two world wars. Mind boggling.
Cars also seem to have various levels of blindingly bright head lights, including the newer models with slightly blue colour which daze the eyes nicely.
Add to that the now common practice of using fog lights at all times of day, really does beg the question about reglation/policing.
The reason why new cars are so expensive is because car companies seem to be wanting to add on feature after feature..
The Herald is pumping up The Conservative Party over the CP’s increased poll support allegedly around the same sex/gay marriage (Marriage Equality) issue.
A thoughtful article at Kiwipolitico backgrounds why the Herald would use inaccurate terminology
http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2012/08/framing-marriage-equality-to-win/
Lew at KP looks at the importance of “framing” with contentious issues. Supporters of the Wall bill have done well so far but better get their act together with the media before we have another Section 59 debacle. ‘Kid beaters’ won that framing tussle and the removal of a defence for assault on a child forever became the “Anti Smacking Bill”. Supported hilariously by John Key, which the foam flecked kiwiblog lot always seem to overlook in their fear and loathing.
The Herald has to support CP, ACT is gone… we’re all just subsidising Mr Banks right now, he doesn’t actually do anything for his pay.
Aside, yesterday was my last visit to Herald online. New format sucks and I have finally had enough of them. They gave us free newspapers for a week, which ended on Sunday when I said ” nope, just went straight int he bin”. Stunned silence on the phone followed by “thank you for your time”.
“New format sucks”
I suspect this was a case of “how do we copy stuff and make it look like we didn’t copy them?”
My first thought on seeing the online version was that they’d copied the format from The Standard 😈
We copied the ideas from several uk news site
Tracey
Heard from a number of oldies “Print size too small”.
They have reduced the font size.
Need stronger reading glasses.
Who cares about old conservatives who are still running on paper*. I’m having problems remembering the last time I read a paper copy of any newspaper.
They updated the website at the same time. needless to say it is now harder to find anything on the page because the sections have less in them. However they appear to have finally gotten a faster and marginally better search feature.
* BTW: Has anyone else ever seen young kids dealing with books these days? They start trying to press the paper and swiping it to change page because they expect it to be interactive.
Er – lots of people! It’s not just ‘old conservatives’ either – I for one, hate reading off a screen….and although I am old (compared to some) I am not conservative. If some people here are correct and we’re headed back to the past, as everything turns to custard, then we still need paper books etc. For the same reason, I still keep my manual typer…
It depends on the kids! My students (aged from 17 to 32) all have technology up the wazoo, but they all also still use books. My sons (25 and 36) are still voracious reader of paper books, and always have been, despite that they are ‘early adopters’ of whatever tech exists.
I was wondering who I’d get the rise out of…. I just gave away almost of my thousands of books when we moved. I hate reading books on computer screens. But tablets are a whole different feel. I had most of the books as epubs. And it was easier to move without the books. Just kept 40-50 reference books.
The kids I was talking about are pre-school and have had access to smartphones, tablets, notebooks, and paper books. I haven’t seen a toddler yet who doesn’t like playing with their parents electronics… I always introduce them to “cat piano“. But I’m a sadistic uncle…. 😈
I find the new Herald format unreadable. Finding relevant information in any kind of density is a futile, slow task. I just look at the pictures now.
An NZ Herald digipoll? And it certainly is all in the framing!
And as far as I can see the Conservatives are up 1% to 1.5%…. a bump? Really slight margin of error stuff.
The Greens and NZ First have gone up slightly more: over 1% each, the Green by 1.6%. (but still margin of error stuff)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10833189
And a couple of days ago gaynz was reporting that a recent poll showed that the Conservative party had been on a slide since the marriage equality bill had been drawn from the hat. they refer to a Roy Morgan Poll, so they must have in ind the latest Roy Morgan – when was that? End of August?:
http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_12255.php
The Herald is pumping up The Conservative Party over the CP’s increased poll support allegedly around the same sex/gay marriage (Marriage Equality) issue.
I’m not completely sceptical about the idea that opposing the marriage equality bill has increased the Conservatives’ support – the sheer volume of coverage of said opposition has to have increased their name recognition, and there’s probably a few former Nat/Act supporters pissed off about Key/Banks’ support of the bill.
The fact that the bump is so freaking tiny pretty much says it all for the appeal of social conservative bigotry in NZ.
Consultants cost agencies millions
Now who didn’t see that one coming?
External consultants were hired for short-term work on specific projects and were not the result of staff changes, she said.
This is absolute BS – rates are paid above the market (accross the board), and its not uncommon to see contractors/consultants running BAU functions, and those on programmes inside for years at a time. There are instances where non PSL companies have been formed by external consultants to supply themselves into positions, and control swaths of IP etc. Its endemic, and by no means the exception from what I have encountered!
Short term does not exist, not in the public sector, not if you are one of the boys!
Poverty causing shoplifting for necessities, while, as Bomber says:
https://twitter.com/CitizenBomber/status/245245214581731328
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/7649186/Single-mothers-shoplifting-to-make-ends-meet
Meanwhile Key and Bennett keep of fiddling and smearing the poor! Time to put serious time into developing policies that will do something to turn this appalling amount of poverty around.
Here’s her latest effort…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7653313/Welfare-reforms-target-kids-education-health
Useless fucking cow!!!!!!!!!!!
Love the “Welfare payments costs around $7.6b every year.” end line.
My God! $7.6b! Something must be done!
Until you look at the make-up of that $7.6b. Because it sure as fuck isn’t (as implied) made up from those claiming UB and the likes. How much do pension payments account for? Or housing entitlements (they include working people)? Or care givers (not including parents of children)? And so on.
“Social development minister Paula Bennet has just announced new ‘social obligations’…” Did anyone else just feel a cold shiver?
So this week benes are bad parents. Does she have a pile of these ready for each week? Or does she spend wed-fri chugging Starbucks in her cubicle brainstorming the next one?
I’ll go! Benes must carry ID at all times. Spot fines for benes who don’t wash their hands in public toilets. Benes are now subject to random home inspections to make sure they’re not cooking P. Every week one randomly selected bene must work for free cleaning the Beehive toilets.
Oh God, just what we need, women taking responsibility for their children by stealing nappies. Bring back public floggings
On a separate issue, what have you guys done to your website? Its thrown a complete spazz. Takes way longer to load, have to refresh a couple times, posts go missing etc etc
Can’t you call in some web site geeks to sort it out?
My browsers have been loading slowly on all sites since last night.
Its just this site for me. Hard to reply to someone when it won’t refresh.
completley agree.
Have give up on the iphone as any task takes way too long
I think it’s more a general connection issue, I’ve had multiple sites take forever loading despite not downloading anything and connection speed on steam went down to 250-300Kb/s from the usual +600kb/s.
Could be the result of work being done on exchanges that are hooked up to the underwater cables, or work on the backbone systems, but it’s not like Telecom and Chorus will ever tell internet users before hand.
.
Canterbury is now like Fiji.
We have dictators.
If ever you hear someone say “oh New Zealand is just the best place in the world, we don’t have terrorists or dictators, poisonous snakes or arabs” make sure you jump on them.
Sometimes I think we are more than half asleep. As far as I recall we have had terrorist attacks (Wellington union building, rainbow warrior, ureweras), dictators (Muldoon, Ecan), poisonous snakes (John Key) and arabs (John Banks). We have also been bombed by russians and germans, flown over by japanese warplanes, bombed by the French, had our own kind of civil war …… yet people thinkw e are somehow immune from these things? I mean even Helen Clark reckoned we live in a benign environment… sheesh.
In my opinion we have had all of those things and we still do today. It doesn’t take much to push things just that bit further so things really get out of hand.
And now we have Fiji politics with the likes of Amy Adams and David Carter acting exactly like Bainimarama.
What is it about these things that people don’t get?
The best slave is one who believes he is free….
I think we are still relatively protected from the nasty in the world, that’s the point. We don’t believe it can happen here, so we don’t see it when it does. I agree with you about Canterbury, we should be very concerned about what is happening there.
Not sure about terrorism though. We are thus far very lucky. The Rainbow Warrior was shocking but didn’t leave us with a sense of personal danger that terrorism does (although I’m sure that changed for Greenpeace and similar activists).
Ureweras was state terrorism. That’s scarey shit, and yes not enough people were scared by the right thing.
As was the raid on Dotcom.
The police had absolutely no cause to use anti-terrorist commando tactics against the man and his family.
Two constables, a squad car, and “Sir, you need to come down to the station with us now” would have done the job.
Don’t worry, it’s democracy National’s way. Or as you like to call it Dictatorship. I suspect Joyce would call it democracy delegation
How apt :- Scammers claim to be IRD ‘John Key scheme’ | Scoop News
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1209/S00120/scammers-claim-to-be-ird-john-key-scheme.htm
Well it will make a change from the calls telling me I have a problem with my computer OS.
Great article by Gordon Campbell on Woody Guthrie, on Woody’s 100 birthday this July.
I was a fan of both Woody and Bob Dylan’s songs in my youth. Since then I’ve been a bit sceptical about how the US mainstream promotes and appropriates its pop culture folk heroes, in order to preserve it’s image as the home of democracy and freedom to speak truth to power.
Not that there isn’t something in these left wing critics of the status quo, but that one needs to be wary about the complexity of their role in the total fabric of US mainstream mythology:
http://werewolf.co.nz/2012/09/woody-guthrie-at-100/
Woody was born middleclass into a family that fell on hard times – father had been a land speculator.
Campbell’s article is also interesting for highlighting how the whole dustbowl thing of the 30s has been mythologised and distorted, masking other changes that were happening in the US at the time. The dustbowl erosion did happen, but the migration from the south west preceded and succeeded the dustbowl years, as many middleclass US-ians looked for opportunities elsewhere.
11 Years ago Mrs Cintron died when the tower she was in exploded into its own footprint in free fall speed.
She left us with some remarkable footage. She stood in the hole made by one of the planes and held on to one of the steel columns while waving to a helicopter. The very same steel columns which where soo hot the building could not help but collapse. I say we honour her and demand a new and independent investigation into the events of 911
And I say you should stop abusing Mrs Cintron’s memory, you right wing loon.
Voice – Pathetic point of view!
Bend down, touch your toes and take it, ask no questions, just take what they give you!
Your weakness shines through, because you can’t ask hard questions yourself, so you react poorly to those who can.
Don’t be scared, just toughen the fcuk up in your head!
Yes, I can see how my respect for the those killed in the 9/11 attacks could be seen as pathetic by a saddo like yourself, muzza. But I’ll stick to reality, you can stick to the fantasy.
Let’s examine that comment shall we…
Your contention of Ev, was that her making the statement she did, was disprespectful to those who lost their lives on 9/11 – What planet do you live on, jeez!
You then go on to say Yes, I can see how my respect for the those killed in the 9/11 attacks could be seen as pathetic by a saddo like yourself,/i> – As some strange attempt to emphasise your make believe show of respect, and validate your ridiculous statement!
1: Feign respect by having a go at those who ask questions – ODD
2: Defend position using second attempt to validate “said respect” – Nah cos people are allowed to ask questions, and in fact it should be mandatory. Its people like yourself you make this world lesser for the rest of us, and the saddo if you, because you think that people like Ev asking those questions are at fault – You are backwards!
3: Claiming to be sticking to reality – Sure mate, if that helps you out!
4: Claiming I am a fantasist – Nah, thats your projection!
We are all being lied to on a daily basis, so much so, that it is becoming harder to find ways to come to what might/might not be truthful. My only contention is that when the default position of TPTB is to lie/cover up, and then in many cases over time be caught out, and actually admit to those lies, then why on earth would you think that 911 is any different!
If your inclination is to believe “TPTB” lie all the time, why do you believe them when they “admit to those lies”? Maybe they’re just lying to cover up the fact that 20-odd dudes with boxcutters managed to kill 3,000 people right under the noses of US law enforcement.
More seriously, though – you guys have turned the recent deaths of people into a hobby. Sleep well under your tinfoil hat, Mr/s Aramoana was a false-flag op.
Hey McFlock – You reckon your council will be next inline for the ‘commissioners’?
Yup, not easy to drill through the confusion and false leads is it, and that was my contention, as I clearly indicated above. Some things pretty much speak for themselves though don’t they, and if you want the quentessential FF, then 911 is it. Not just something smells bad, the whole thing, and every event which has flowed out the back of it, has been 100% lies!
Still got your g-string in a bunch over the other stuff I see, could be best you put your energies into getting on your local councils back bro!
How can you “clearly indicate” anything when you assign your own random meanings to words?
You have no idea what you’re talking about, but are happy to use murdered people as a hobby – worse than Rupert Murdoch.
You have your conversations crossed, we are talking to what my contention above was only, in this instance!
The opposite is in fact true, and the long bow you draw, very telling!
you bounced from 911 conspiracies to whether my local council will be replaced by commissioners. Yet I’m the one with conversations crossed?
I’m not sure you’re using the English language. Just something that uses the same phonemes.
Well mr non-putake, in my opinion the real loons in the world today are those who believe the ‘official’ version. Mindless non-thinkers wandering the hollows of their lifeframe …
Which is not to say I agree with all ev’s bits and pieces. But I most certainly do not trust authorities to teel the full truth. Do you? And if so, why?
I don’t implicitly ‘trust’ authority, VTO, but I don’t find myself inclined to side with rambling right wing racists such as Ev, either. The facts about 9/11 are straightforward and there is not a jot of evidence to suggest otherwise. Occam still wins, despite the best efforts of the terminally deluded reactionaries who peddle 9/11 misinformation.
Right wing loon? Coming from you my dear Voice that’s a compliment.
As for being called a racist? To be honest I’d rather be friends with the much coloured Hone whom I’m honoured to say actually consented toe be a facebook friend of mine after he read my contributions for awhile plus the many, many Mana groups online that the sad narrow minded creature that calls himself Te Reo Putake for some reason.
It seems to them I’m not the rampant right wing racist you make me out to be. Funny that because they have access to exactly the same information if not more than you.
Climate change denier, truther and birther. Ignorant, deluded and racist.
For those of you new here: This is TRP’s mantra.
With regards to his Climate Change accusation: I question weather events as there is more and more material out there that suggests active weather modification by TPTB. Do I ignore Climate Change?
I live within my Carbon footprint, limit trips to town to the minimum, I support my husband in research he does into renewable sources of energy and probably have the lowest count of non recyclable waste a person can have (a garbage bag every 8 weeks).
With regards to the Truther accusation: Buildings do not collapse as teh result of Carbon fires. The only ones who did collapsed on 9/11 in free fall speed breaking all laws of Physics.
That presents me with a problem because as an ex special effects engineer and model maker(18 years) who’s main job it was to create the illusion that those laws can be broken I know they can’t. So I support the global 911 truth movement in their demand that a new and independent investigation must be held into the events.
With regards to the Birther accusation: TPTB in the mainstream media have equated doubts about Obama’s right to be the President of America on the grounds that he is not a native born American citizen with racism.
The fact is that Kenia claims he was born in Kenia, Hawaii can’t produce a legitimate birth certificate and the only document they did produce was a multi layered Photoshop/Illustrator file with numerous errors.
The argument to call this racist is because if he had been white people would not have asked that question.
Here is what I believe. Bush, Blair and Obama are all war criminals. Obama is a proven liar (the all are of course) who promised the end of the wars and the end of excessive debt. He is a puppet for the real and very white powers that be and I hope that one day these very white people burn in hell for using a man like Obama, brown handsome, young and charismatic to once again blindside the US population.
They are the ones who used his race in a cynical and evil way.
To ask that everybody keeps to the laws of the land and be able to prove he is has nothing to do with racism but with the laws of the land.
To say we can not hold everyone no matter what his collar to those standards is what is really racist and TRP hates it when I point that out to him.
“The only ones who did collapsed on 9/11 in free fall speed breaking all laws of Physics.”
But you cannot break the laws of physics!
Enough already.
I am going to be the first of the 4000 people involved in this secret to break my silence.
9/11 was a fake. It was retribution from Britain for the US involvement in the death of Princess Diana (US didn’t like all the fuss she was making about landmines most of which are manufactured by Haliburton).
We actually took the towers down with massive vats of acid.
no KK diana died in a mercedes because she wouldn’t be seen dead in a jag!
I think the only acid was the acid the cospiacy theorists dropped!
Te Reo Putake said:
😯
You really are a one eyed ostrich, TRP.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/08/norad200608
(emphasis mine)
Yep, as I said CV, not a jot of evidence to suggest otherwise. Ten years on, nothing. Nada. Not a skerrick. The final nail in the coffin was the Toronto tenth anniversary conference which was such a miserable failure its hard to see how there will be a 20th anniversary bash.
Each generation has it’s conspiracies. Lindberg baby, UFO’s, HUAC, JFK, Elvis etc. But as time passes, they get shown to be the embarrassments they are.
ps, if an ostrich has it’s head in the sand, surely it doesn’t matter if it’s one eyed? ; )
it is known that Pentagon officials deliberately lied to the investigation but you deliberately maintain that “the facts are straight forward”?
Why?
According to the quote you highlighted “The false testimony served a purpose: to obscure mistakes on the part of the F.A.A. and the military, and to overstate the readiness of the military to intercept and, if necessary, shoot down UAL 93.”
So they said they were better and more prepared than they were. Who hasn’t gilded the lily on their work experience and capability? Does that then automatically place us on the grassy knoll?
Relevant to this discussion is this from today’s NYT;
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=1&smid=tw-share
The hearings after the event had arse covering on all directions. Plenty of detail in that linked story about what the CIA was saying to the white house before 9/11 and why the Pentagon would be telling lies about what they were saying and focussing on.
But we’re not talking about exaggerating the number of A’s you got in uni, or the fact you got a degree when you didn’t, are we.
And people lose their jobs for even that simple no-consequence shit, let alone providing deliberately false testimony to a Federally appointed commission.
For those of you new here:
This is TRP’s standard mantra.
With regards to his Climate Change accusation: I question weather events as there is more and more material out there that suggests active weather modification by TPTB.
Do I ignore Climate Change? I live within my Carbon footprint, limit trips to town to the minimum, I support my husband in research he does into renewable sources of energy and probably have the lowest count of non recyclable waste a person can have (a garbage bag every 8 weeks).
With regards to the Truther accusation: Buildings do not collapse as teh result of Carbon fires. The only ones who did collapsed on 9/11 in free fall speed breaking all laws of Physics.
That presents me with a problem because as an ex-special effects engineer and model maker(18 years) who’s main job it was to create the illusion that those laws can be broken I know they can’t. So I support the global 911 truth movement in their demand that a new and independent investigation must be held into the events.
With regards to the Birther accusation: TPTB in the mainstream media have equated doubts about Obama’s right to be the President of America on the grounds that he is not a native born American citizen with racism.
The fact is that Kenia claims he was born in Kenia, Hawaii can’t produce a legitimate birth certificate and the only document they did produce was a multi layered Photoshop/Illustrator file with numerous errors.
The argument to call this racist is because if he had been white people would not have asked that question.
Here is what I believe. Bush, Blair and Obama are all war criminals. Obama is a proven liar (the all are of course) who promised the end of the wars and the end of excessive debt. He is a puppet for the real and very white powers that be and I hope that one day these very white people burn in hell for using a man like Obama, brown, handsome, young and charismatic to once again blindside the US population.
They are the ones who used his race in a cynical and evil way.
To ask that everybody keeps to the laws of the land and be able to prove he is has nothing to do with racism but with the laws of the land.
To say we can not hold everyone no matter what his collar to those standards is what is really racist and TRP hates it when I point that out to him.
Soooooo …. CC Denier, truther and birther. Ignorant, deluded and racist, as I’ve already pointed out. But thanks for the confirmation, Ev.
Trav, I don’t agree with you that 9/11 was a conspiracy. Full stop.
I also don’t agree with the accusations you have been subject to. You should not have to defend yourself against labeling. It seems as I observed yesterday that we are truly a house divided, too fast to cut the person to the bone for alleged impurities. Carry on please.
Although I found Ev to be the kind of person who will cheerfully bite someone who agrees with her if they disagree about other issues, I am seconding you here.. 🙂
trav physics what bullshit you’ve got more than 1/2 a million tons of building above the point of impact that starts moving downwards inside an exoskeleton building whats going to stop that sky hooks. Get real
Climate change i’m with you on that but don’t put them together they are totally different subjects.
Another idjit who doesn’t understand the third law of Physics:
For every force there is an opposite and equal force.
The amount of tonnage above the impact was more than met by the amount of tonnage below. The theory has been thoroughly discredited. Architects and engineers for 911 truth
“The only ones who did collapsed on 9/11 in free fall speed breaking all laws of Physics.”
If it was breaking the laws of physics it wouldn’t have fallen.
It has to obey the laws physics, every physical object does.
“For every force there is an opposite and equal force.”
The building fell like cards, the top stories fell into the one below, which fell into the one below and the one below that and so on. It wasn’t the top floors vs’ the rest of the building. It was the top floors vs. the single floor immediately below it.
There’s ya physics.
Well i wouldn’t place any faith in their abilities but as i have studied physics and your argument literally doesn’t Stack up The twin towers were built quickly .to make sure that tenants were able to occupy as soon as possible. the only method that was able to deliver on time was the inferior exoskeleton kit set prefabricated construction type
The other reason it was used is that it had the maximum floorspace more profit margin
No other buildings have been constructed in this method since the 1950’s or since.
You don’t understand the basics of physics momentum once 1/2 a million tons starts moving its very hard to stop just like a train which is on a smaller scale. so tell me hoe do you stop 1/2 a million tonnes thats gaining momentum. With a conspiracy theory.
Trav So you have found the secret to negate the effects of GRVITY!
@ mikee
The tube frame structure of WTC wasn’t invented till the 60s. From Wikipedia
The first building to apply the tube-frame construction was the DeWitt-Chestnut apartment building which Khan designed and which was completed in Chicago by 1963.[5] This laid the foundations for the tube structural design of many later skyscrapers, including his own John Hancock Center and Willis Tower, and the construction of the World Trade Center, Petronas Towers, Jin Mao Building, and most other supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s.[6]
Yeah right gravity doesn’t exist.
The theory what theory!
Practice is the proof .
The CTV bulding another example of collapse of inferior construction.
mikkee
I’m not arguing with your conclusion, just your premise re none of these types of buildings having been built since the 50s
mike e said:
The CTV building failed as buildings normally fail in earthquakes. Unevenly, with floor structures intact and identifiable, with the mass of building materials present and indentifiable. Fires broke out in the rubble, but they were not hot enough to melt the steel present in the building.
I wonder what the CTV building would have looked like if another hundred stories hand landed on it?
Food for thought.
what about moonlanding in the basement.
What about it?
More 9/11 conspiracy rubbish?
Come on, it has been 11 years and every argument presented by truthers has been explained over and over.
Mike e I suppose you mean the law of Gravity. the one that dictates every object falling finds the path of least resistance making a lie of the Hammer theory? The one you espoused before.
Here is what happened with the start of the collapse of the North tower. First it keels over as if to follow the path of least resistance before it evaporates leaving no mass for the hammer theory.
http://www.sealane.org/writings/newSTCsub.pdf
not up to much on momentum, are you.
Yes insider i’ve got mixed up with the type of trusses used which are no longer allowed to be used, clip in trusses are the reason the domino effect of the collapse.
The clip in Floor trusses were outlawed by the NYFD in the 1950’s .
With the heat from the fire only having to reach 450 to 650 degrees Celsius for these clip in floor trusses to fail.
And the cores of these buildings are no longer aloud to be from top to bottom but have to be offset to allow people to escape easier.
Far right trp
And for those of you curious about what many of the survivors and family members want: Press for truth or answers to the many questions left unanswered by the 911 commission for starters.
And voice? Whatever!
Follow the evidence say the various architects and engineers for truth re 911, and that is a good postition to start from. NIST appears to be rather full of it. Nearly anyone that sees building 7, not hit by a plane, go down, says instinctively yeah that looks like one of those old Chicago projects being demo’d like you see on TV.
My problem initially was with the level of ‘suspension of disbelief’ required. Getting past “why would a government do that to it’s own people?” It is incomprehensible at first, but not in reality. They are quite happy to do it to other populations around the world. The US government while running a country also has a military industrial complex and associated spook offshoots that merge lethal force and profiteering on behalf of US capital and finance capital. Black ops and false flags abound. The US nuked two Japanese cities to destruction, and still hold the planet to ransom if not with a MAD (mutally assured destruction) strategy as in the 60s-80s then with a still massive nuclear arsenal. In our lifetimes more will come out about 911 and the war on terror.
+1 Follow the evidence.
I’ve found it works both ways in this argument though. There are many pieces of evidence that are wrong on both sides. A cynic like me tends to lean towards a deliberate skewing of the information on the truth side in order to limit the impact on Americas current geopolitical aims in the ME, which are built on a decade of war for revenge. When it’s really blood for oil, war for big business.
But that’s just me.
Trav conspiracy theorist I’ve been in the building Industry for probably longer than you have been alive.
The construction of the twin towers exoskeleton type was outlawed by the NY fire dept in the 1950s because of the danger of collapse in fires .
Because the metal hooks that clip each floor panel in can deform with just moderate heat not melting as you conspiracy theorists claim.
All the steel in the twin towers were coated with fire proof silica fibre which was supposed to be maintained ,thats how the builders got round the ban.
But the maintenance was not kept up due to corruption by the contractor kickbacks to the mafia controlled contractor who took the money but never did any maintenance.
(Mafia are well known in New York for their involvement in the construction industry)
The weight of each of the twin towers aprox 5 million tons each caused building seven to collapse not thermite, thermite is an extremely volatile substance to move it contain it to stop it reacting when you don’t want it to ,is outside the realms of you and your theorists.
We don’t have any thermite in this country because no shipping company in the world will touch it!
Trav you are just giving the RWNJ’s a home run.
If you want to expose you pathetic Conspiracies go to one of the many glossy sites on the net that back it without proper evidence.
Interesting comment re the construction type and its weaknesses, I have often wondered about the lifespan of these buildings and how they are maintained.
Also like the “mafia” angle…there is a realistic conspiracy theory.
Let’s ignore the 47 Steel Columns in the centre of both buildings shall we?
If I were you I wouldn’t make it known that you were in the building industry cause you sound thoroughly ignorant of the construction of the twin towers or the freefall collapse of the third building that day
Exo skeleton my dear trav the columns on the interior of the building were exactly the same type of con struction the giant floor panels had to clip into something as well as the elevator shaft not shafts no other sky scrapper has been built with just one coe elevator shaft because it is a weaker form of construction as w
Sigh!
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/NISTandDrBazant-SimultaneousFailure-WTCCollapseAnalysis2.pdf
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/ProfMorroneOnMeltingWTCsteel.pdf
And for those just beginning to scratch their heads:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/beginners.html
I think I have seen this debunked, the source pictures that showed the melting were actually taken from close ups of workers cutting through rubble.
They then showed up as conspiracy evidence for the steel beams melting from the fire.
They failed to show the full source image which showed workers cutting beams in the background.
I do think that the 911 commision was a failure and the American Defence department owed Americans and Victims the truth. That’s where I see issue of negligence that in turn bolstered support for a decade of violence.
Exo skeleton my dear trav the 47 steel columns on the interior of the building were exactly the same type of construction as the exterior columns,the giant floor panels had to clip into something as well as the elevator ‘shaft’ not “shafts”no other sky scrapper has been built with just one core elevator shaft because it is a weaker form of construction as well as being very dangerous in case of fires burning up your only escape path thats why all other sky scrappers have offset lift wells .Just having one lift well with fire also means your building is more prone to heat damaging the 47 steel columns. the hot air rising causes an inferno.
No other sky scrapper since the 1950’s has been constructed in this manner.
And Sigh again!
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/NISTandDrBazant-SimultaneousFailure-WTCCollapseAnalysis2.pdf
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/ProfMorroneOnMeltingWTCsteel.pdf
And for those just beginning to scratch their heads:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/beginners.html
Plain thermite= Aluminium and Iron powder?
But then Nano thermite is only made in high end US military laboratories. Wonder how residue and unexploded chips of that got in the buildings. Mind you it is argued that Nano thermite while melting steel very quickly at very high temps would not have been enough for the explosive demolition of the Twin towers.
You might want to reread your essay’s before you post them becasue this sentence makes absolutely no sense at all:
We used Thermite to weld railway tracks many years ago, very impressive stuff.
mike e; must be some still around.
Sorry I got the wrong chemical
Thermite can also be manurfactured accidently by the rubbing of two metals together into a powdered form which could easily be explained by the huge weights involved in the collapse of the 3 buildings at the world trade center
Certainly a feasible argument…
not to mention an aluminium tube colliding with steel trusses and rebar at a few hundred kph.
How much do ya reckon would be needed to bring down the WTCs? I’ve asked a few times but no one wants to discuss the mechanics alternate theories.
Here is an analysis of the mass and potential energy of WTC 1. Give that to an engineering friend and he/she might be able to calculate it for you. One thing is for sure the Boeing and hte Kerosene paled in comparison with the buildings mass and potential energy
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200703/GUrich/MassAndPeWtc.pdf
So ten+ years later and there hasn’t been any work done by truthers on what their alternate theory would entail?
Rightio. Obviously serious people.
More BS trav the av gas can reach temperature of up 1300o cel when high winds are forced throught a narrow passage ie oxygen mixed with feul like a bunsen burner but that temperature did not need to be reached a temperature of 550 to 650 would be enough to cause failure with the huge weight above and only and exo skeleton no other support even the empire state building was built better back in the 1930’s
This is a result of greedy capitalism poor building substandard buildings.
Not your looney conspiracy theory.
The CIA Knew had information about the attack but it never got to the right people .
Thats what they are covering up.
Also a govt investigation is looking at a CIA member who put a large forex trade making him millions on the advent of an attaack on the US.
Mike you’ve been caught several times making “mistakes’ and getting confused and all. Must be the age eh?
Meet Mrs Cintron, the lady who stood in the holes were fires raged so hot it could melt steel also the problem with steel is that it serves as a heat sink. That’s those strange shapes inside your amplifiers.
Not just one member of the CIA Mike whole banking sections around the globe were betting with foreknowledge
Wow, even 11 years later not one of these people with foreknowledge, which must number in the 1000’s in order to pull this off, has ever uttered a word to anyone or slipped up in anyway?
Government groups so inept they can nothing else secret have managed to keep this secret as well as civilians?
The fire’s above her, the steel she is leaning on projects from below, it has clearly been severed by impact not heat distortion. WHy do you think it would be hot and so proves anything at all?
How did all the thermite get into the very heart of the building?
How did 19 young Muslims break all the laws of Physics and get past the US Air force for 1.5 hours breaking every flight protocol and still traceable by radar and fly 757 Boeings in complex flight patterns they had never flown before while they were incapable of flying a Cessna?
Ummm, no one “broke the laws of physics”.
And answering my question with one of your own answers nothing.
How did the thermite get into the heart of the building?
They broke all the laws of physics? What about the law angular momentum?
Standard building dems team protocols are well known.
So no-one in the WTC noticed demolition teams wiring up thermite to the inner pillars?
The theory says there were Unscheduled Fire Drills in the weeks leading up.
I don’t really support the theory, it’s abit far-fetched.
But the insurance angle is pretty interesting, the building was poorly maintained and a large policy was taken out just month’s before or something like that.
I tend to find theories like this have within them half-truths or hidden truths. Usually regarding political corruption and corporate frauds.
But who has the time to filter and check bullshit from fact?
only ‘a bit’ far fetched? And is ‘or something like that’ a good basis for a theory. The insurance negotiations were incomplete. The building management had just changed, or something like that
Well I’m not an expert on engineering or building construction. So I can’t really judge, who am I to say it’s completely looney. I have no expertise in the collapse of buildings so have to follow the logical explanation (which is the common explanation).
At the same I can understand how the events of that day prompted over a decade of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq at the benefit of quite a few people within that Government’s inner circle.
So I guess all in all, I wouldn’t be shocked either way.
False flags are an admitted part of America’s involvements in previous wars and to write it off as completely impossible… na I’ll keep in the neutral area of this one and just stick to “I don’t know what happened, what ever happened was horrible”
EDIT – As I said, I’m no expert on the theory, I’m not stating it as a concrete point hence “or something like that”, was merely contending that Trav’s theory does have a reference. If your considering my post as an all out support for the theory, well you’ve read it wrong.
“The theory says there were Unscheduled Fire Drills in the weeks leading up.”
To attached thermite charges to what would have had to have been more than one floor would mean walls are being removed, workers poking around and wires being laid.
Careful demolition of a building takes weeks to wire properly, with no one noticing in a building with high security, 24 hours usage and, not least, bomb sniffer dogs.
more absolute bullshit modern planes can be flown quite easily its landing and take off that takes years of learning.
Here is what pilots have to say about the easy to fly planes: pilotsfor911truth.org/
Sorry, do you have anything which isn’t elephant hurling?
Please be specific instead of linking to an entire site
And what does it matter how hard or easy it is to fly?
Are trying to state they weren’t flying the planes and someone else was? Or they had training elsewhere? If so, where and what evidence is there that anyone from the CIA/Govt/US had anything to do with it?
And for those of you who want to know how totally ridiculous the official Conspiracy theory is here is a hilarious five minute video spelling it out:
911 in five minutes
So you don’t answer specifics are just keep hurling out claims without addressing anything?
like:
Are trying to state they weren’t flying the planes and someone else was? Or they had training elsewhere? If so, where and what evidence is there that anyone from the CIA/Govt/US had anything to do with it?
And:
How did the thermite get into the heart of the building?
As well as:
Even 11 years later not one of these people with foreknowledge, which must number in the 1000′s in order to pull this off, has ever uttered a word to anyone or slipped up in anyway?
And those are just from me
the planes flew themselses to the nearby vicinity autopilot and the suicide pilots only had to bank the planes into the buildings at 400knots and job done 30.000 litres of av gas did the rest
😀 Read that aloud to yourself and maybe you will hear how absurd that sounds 😀
With a box cutter at their throats
Broke the laws of the country not physics trav baffling people with BS doesn’t make an argument.
What about the laws of Gravity you haven’t explained how you stop a 1/2 million tonnes of weight stopping in its tracks after gaining momentum thats real physics not bs fantasies!
OK we hate GW Bush as much as the next man but making up stories is not winning any one any on this side of the argument over.
Your just encouraging the RWNJs to call us the looney left.
It isn’t just the left, there are people on the right who think the same.
“…a ban for making a moderator have to exert too much effort.”
Classy.
EDIT: That was in response to the awesome moderating below. Stay Classy, LPrent.
“I’m a lazy moderator, so fuck you”
[lprent: You don’t want an enthusiastic moderator ever. Just think it through for a second. If they were enthusiastic then getting to a good effective state would only be the start. They couldn’t leave it in just an ok and relatively cheap to maintain state. They’d have to invent new
sinsoffenses to deal with all of the time straining towards perfection and the reinvention of the concentration camp. The maze rat addiction problem of self reinforcing positive feedback. I’ve seen forums like that happen over the last 30 years in net systems many times.What works better is having people that will prefer not to exert effort. They prefer minor warnings. But who are willing to put considerable effort once aroused in to making sure they don’t have the same problem again. You have to have the latter because in the end it is better that people control themselves. The best way to do that is to make the risk levels somewhat uncertain. This provides a much lower effort negative feedback system. Where people think about what they do before they do it or get concerned about consequences, whilst leaving enough room for them to take some risks….
ie the reason for your EDIT is a case in point. ]
Don’t worry, Old Wolf. You don’t have to explain to me. Your remark is so dripping with magnanimous ‘the king has spoken! And he is just!’ leadership that I might swoon with justice and good governance.
Talk tomorrow, my grace,
😈 there are some benefits for doing the work on the site. One of those is to set the limits. The downside is how much work is required to earn that benefit/responsibility. Which is why this is a collective rather than a ego blog. Others do posts or moderate weekends or even just comment or whatever. I mostly run the hardware, software, and social/wetware systems. Systems are my favorite task always.
It’s not the left that promotes this disrespectful and fanciful garbage, mike e. It’s almost exclusively pushed by the ‘don’t tread on me’ rednecks and related conservative groupings. Most lefties can spot the difference between the real class warfare capitalism wages against the earth’s peoples and the Mission Impossible/WACO style fantasies of the 9/11 truth deniers.
It’s why right wingers like Ev who push this rubbish also tend to be climate change deniers and are so racist that they deny Obama is an American citizen just so they can pretend they’ve never really had a black President.
As I’ve said before, 9/11 truthers are just the KKK at the keyboard. More fool those that give them any credence.
[lprent: Is your alternate identity Fran O’Sullivan?
I had thought that she had the local franchise on making a complete pillock of herself with KKK comparisons without bothering to justify why she is using them with actual historical relevance. Don’t you start as well.
Find something less likely to initiate a flamewar before I drop KKK into auto-moderation along with troll (about the only other word being misused at present) and you into a ban for making a moderator have to exert too much effort. ]
I have some lefties supporting 9/11 theories. A good conspiracy crosses party lines.
Many chemtrailers/NWO Conspiracy theorists are also committed greenies and supporters of left wing politics.
That’s what makes these grand conspiracy theories so powerful.
What make’s them like the KKK?
This is the interesting part of all conspiracy theories. Figuring the writers angle.
They fundamentally believe what they write happened but when you visit certain sites, it’s impossible not to pick up on the overly racial tone of the writing.
chemtrailers/NWO Conspiracy theorists that I know are as you say committed to the left. But then so are some climate change deniers I’ve met who think it’s NWO tax scheme on the people.
Indeed, Conspiracy Theories have angles that suit many political ideologies.
That is their great power
The stupidest thing about this nonsense is the time and mental energy wasted on them. We could end cancer overnight if all that effort was channeled into finding a cure.
So anyway, to save me from joining these “debates” every day for the rest of my short life, here’s what happened –
1) Neil Armstrong went to the moon.
2) Obama was born in the USA
3) The Holocaust happened
4) Terrorists hi-jacked planes and attacked buildings on 9/11.
5) France won the Rugby World Cup.
Cheers.
Don’t forget:
6) Contrails are not chemicals
7) HAARP does not cause earthquakes
8) The Pope is not a lizard
re # 5
That would have been the secret offline WC that only John Key and his bankster mates could afford to go to as opposed to the ones I’ve seen where France got beaten in the finals or before.
Conspiracy theorists can all be classified as “right wing” for the simple reason that the things they believe are all bullshit, the arguments they employ are feeble and frankly delusional, and their motivation is paranoid suspicion of the government.
The individual details of their delusions are irrelevant.
They may believe themselves to be left wing, but they also believe themselves to be right about the moon landings.
“Conspiracy theorists can all be classified as “right wing”
Suuuure…
The right wing is characterised by people who promote anecdote and advocacy over evidence. Show me how that is different from the average conspiracy theorist.
“Reality has a liberal bias” – get over it.
Hugo Chavez is a right-winger?
Are you seriously trying to tell me that there has never been a left-wing conspiracy theorist?
If he believes conspiracist bullshit, yes, but Chavez is first and foremost a populist – hence his deification of Bolivar.
PS: by definition, the left attempts to form policy on the basis of factual analysis. Can you see how people who make stuff up don’t exactly fit the mould?
Hugo Chavez says the USA caused the Haiti earthquakes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9QtZkT8OBQ
So there can never be a left-wing conspiracy theorist because they believe “things they believe are all bullshit, the arguments they employ are feeble and frankly delusional and their motivation is paranoid suspicion of the government.”
Outside of the paranoid suspicion of government you have just described religious people too, who also believe things that “are all bullshit, the arguments they employ are feeble and frankly delusional”.
“by definition, the left attempts to form policy on the basis of factual analysis. Can you see how people who make stuff up don’t exactly fit the mould?”
So Christians can’t be left-wing either?
What about people who believe in their own forms of spirituality? They have just ‘made stuff up’, can they not be leftists?
“It’s not up to you…”
Sure it isn’t, but I think my definition works a lot better than vague notions of the “political spectrum”.
Perhaps it’s easier to consider policy – with fact based policy on the left by definition, and other approaches (the sociopathic novels of Ayn Rand, the notions of the Chicago School etc.) on the right.
If you can cite a single example of a fact-based right wing policy that works as intended (ie: does what it’s author claimed it would) I’m all ears.
You are going a little off topic here.
But I’ll give you an example of a left-wing conspiracy theorist.
There is a highly popular Chemtrail movie called “What in the World are they spraying”and in it that interview a family running an organic farm who are complaining about the chamtrails ruining their crops so that they are forced into buying seeds from the big corporates. they were mad that people might destroy the environment for profit.
You’ll have to watch to understand but this family was in no way right-wing.
S’cuse me for butting in, but is it true or not true to claim that only right winger’s believe in God?
Says you. I note their suspicion of corporate influence puts them squarely in Tea-Bagger territory.
@Bill
No that isn’t true.
My sister, for example, supports her left-wing beliefs with faith in Jesus and his message of tolerance and forgiveness as well as her environmentalism with Gods command to look after his creation
@KTH
It also puts them in with Occupy Wall Street
Bill, I’d put it differently – I’d say that belief in god, based as it in on anecdotes and advocacy, is right-wing.
So anyone who believes in God is right-wing?
Wouldn’t agree with that at all. I’ve never noticed much correlation of religious faith with political leanings.
I have noticed a correlation with noisy in your face religious nutters trying to tell others how they should live their lives with being right wing. But I suspect that being right wing and being judgemental interfering busybodies fusspots is the correlation – not an ability to have faith.
After all we only have to look at Whaleoil (I’d use some of my distant relatives as examples – but they don’t blog) to see the obsessional lengths that sticky beak obsession can get to – even when he hadn’t succumbed to being (possibly) serious about having a religious addiction.
I much prefer those who prefer to live the religion and lead by example rather than merely being loud and obnoxious about it. Like a few of our authors around here who are definitely left-wing AND religious.
No. read what I said – the fact of belief despite evidence is right wing, not the person.
So if a person can still be left-wing if the believe in god despite belief in god being right wing then it stands to reason a believer in conspiracy theories can be left wing also.
Following the logic as you have described.
Hmm. You may be onto something there.
To rephrase: since left wing philosophy attempts to pay attention to reality. conspiracy theories are necessarily right wing, irrespective of the political affiliations of the individual victim. 🙂
Well, this has been an interesting discussion, thanks KTH.
Time for dinner. Enjoy ya evening buddy.
What make’s them like the KKK?
Ok, just quickly while dinner is combobulating itself;
KKK are defunct in all but name, they are pretty much a reinactment society these days. The same instincts that drove them, natavism, fear and mistrust of the elites, etc, are what drove the rise of the militia movement in the eighties which really took off on the nineties.
NWO was a code that started to replace the older ZOG (zion occupied government, subtle stuff eh) then G.H.W. Bush uttered the NWO phrase when talking about his Iraqi adventure, and boom, cross cultural NWO reference between left and right conspirologists, someone they both hated using the phrase in an adventure they both mistrusted.
After that, cross pollination was enivitable, Alex Jones catapulted a lot of the ideas as he’d put anyone and everyone on his show. You’ve got waco and Ruby ridge and all that stuff leading up to the Murray bombing, all of that was pretty much on the right side, with the militia movements and the sovereign citizen dudes.
The righties pretty much calmed down after the truck bombing, and the lefties took the front running on 911. they hated GWB and weere receptive to the truther movement, the TM got pushed by Alex Jones, and voila, the stuff that the Militia movement formulated started to get tacked onto the grand theory; NWO, FEMA camps, black helicopters and all that jazz.
Good analysis there PB.
You like that?
here’s some weapons garde irony for you.
That link upthread to today’s NYT about the CIA warnings that GWB ignored.
He ignored them because the neocons he’d appointed to the pentagon (Feith et al) had their own conspiracy theory about terrorism. The Oklahoma bombing was the work of Saddam Hussein according to these clowns. Pretty basic thread of neocon thinking is that states are the bees-knees of international politics.
NGOs, (including militant groups), are powerless and ipso facto fronts for states. The green and anti-nuke movements were a front for the sov1ets. hizbollah = Iran. etc. So the oklahoma bombing had to be the work of a foriegn power,, tadaaa, Iraq.
So, they focussed the shit on the axis of evil and star wars and rogoue states, and ignored the shit out of the CIA and Clinton’s warnings about AQ. As far as they were concerned, AQ didn’t have the support of a powerful state so was not a threat. Nek minnit.
Now, the irony bomb.
Truthers and the like are mostly Nader supporters.
No Nader vote in 2000, Gore wins, neocons don’t take over the intel at the pentagon, the CIA doesn’t get ignored, Clintons anti AQ taskforce actually gets worked up.
Nevermind Nader, truthers these days are all Ron Paul Revolution baby
Umm,
Here is where I draw the line. I can handle a lot of trolling but this is just downright slandering and trolling of the nastiest lowest level.
I request the moderators have a look at what the voice is making me out to be.
I object strongly to the fact that Te Reo Putake has been given total freedom to slander, stigmatise and smear without ever having been called to task about the total lack of rebuttal he has given to my links and information. Most people here are at least partly interested to respond but this is just not cool.
Smearing people with KKK associations is basically saying he it’s ok to compare people to the Nazi’s (the use of the word for which I will no doubt disappear in purgatory) without any repercussions.
You are letting te Reo Putake behave like a bully while others have being banned for less that this.
[lprent: I agree on the KKK comparison. There was no reason stated why to use that as a comparison. That made it largely pointless.
However the use of “KKK” has generally been contextually correct in recent times
http://thestandard.org.nz/?s=KKK&isopen=block&search_comments=true&search_sortby=date
With exception of Fran O’Sullivan being a idiot of course…
So I’m unlikely to start banning on a instance of its usage. However what is more irritating is its repetition in the replies. Most of those appear to be in the context of either asking why it was being used as a comparison, or history on the KKK.. If it starts getting to turgid then I auto-moderate the word and start banning.
Nazi isn’t in the auto-moderation at present. It hasn’t been misused for some time. However “troll” is.. I’ll keep a closer eye on the OpenMike discussions. I do have a tendency to ignore reading some topics out of sheer boredom. ]
Hey, LP, I stand by the comment. And I provided more than adequate historical and topical context in the first para.
That organisation has now effectively fractured and its adherents are now most often found in like minded movements. At the nastiest end, that’s the white power groups. But many are attracted to the various kinds of ‘the gummint is out ta getcha’ beliefs. That is the case for birthers and truthers; they are a safe haven for people who think they look fetching in a sheet.
That doesn’t mean I think Ev is a Grand Knight, by the way. But as a climate change denier, a birther and a truther, she must know she walks in their world.
Everyone thinks everyone else is some kind of nutter – which is why I usually don’t bother with moderating nutty behaviour when I am moderating*. I mostly look at the things that are going to cause flow problems in the debate.
I’m afraid the playing “pin the obsolete historical label on the donkey” seldom works to enhance debate. It usually just causes really dumb debate about semantics and is typically done to dumb down the debate into a boring tit for tat.
So you’d have noticed that when a historical or semi-historic label gets overused and is primarily used for starting flamewars that the word tends to wind up in the auto moderation pretty fast and I leave it there for a long time. It is my favored technique to un-Godwin my part of the net. Be fresh…
As a general rule I find that making up a new label (and making it sticky) usually works better to reflect a new way of being daft. This goes for everything from ABC’s to truthers to the Peters lynchmob. So I don’t usually get in the way of this developing shorthand language.
Now I associate KKK with dumb and vicious economic exploitation which incidentally used a racial component, religous overtones, political elitism, and some really stupid psuedo science as justification. Most people will have some variant of a combinaion of those factors in mind when they view KKK as a comparision.
I can’t really see much in common with Tev’s obsessions. No economic basis, no exploitation, no religous hypocrites, little evidence of political effect etc… Even her science is well argued even if I personally think it is more hopeful than accurate.
Arguing that they share a conspiracy theory as a commonality (which I have seen a bit of here today) is a bit of a stretch – it is hard to find a single group anywhere in the world that does not.
Doesn’t matter if it is a millionaires country club or a meeting of unionists or a cargo cult in 1950’s New Guinea, the only thing they will have in common apart from being of the same species is a group paranoia that always expresses as a conspiracy theory. It is like arguing that animals with fur are all the same species because they all have fleas and scratch.
* Except (there is always an exception) I seldom moderate climate change posts myself except for people wallpapering my posts. I can use them to keep my atrophied live dissection techniques and skills honed. So people usually don’t get my more moderate behaviour there – they get an old wolf exercising instead.
“So people usually don’t get my more moderate behaviour there – they get an old wolf exercising instead.”
Been hitting the cognac tonight, Old Wolf? Feeling that over inflated sense of self-confidence that comes with 2 shots of heavy liquor and a dose of banhammer?
You been having a few shots of Irrelevant Pain in the Ass yourself I’m guessing, right?
Don’t worry kid, one day you’ll make moderator.
Nope. Lyn drank most of the wine. She had a hard day… Because she started at 0530
I just went to bed early (because of that 0530 gym) rather than attacking the next feature requirement for work. That means I have some spare time to explain in more detail than usual.
But have you ever seen me in climate change posts when someone starts being stupid? It really is a lot of fun going hard out tearing others weak arse arguments apart while doing the picador trick wih their egos and winding their blood pressure up. It is something that I have been doing on various forms of the net for decades. Like all things, experience and practise count quite a lot.
Problem is that I’m working too hard at present to have time. But on October 1 we should freeze the code, and I get more free time.
Just what we need, a Tory Telepath
Two words: Utter bollices.
Err….thermite is a fuel, iron, aluminium, magnesium, zinc etc, and an oxidiser, iron oxide, copper oxide etc, and a thermal lance can be as mundane as a length of galvanised steel pipe filled with welding rod butts with one end connected to an oxygen source.
Hi – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCf2987uWI8&feature=relmfu
Oh, I was going to brag about you giving me permission to link to it but great to see you here 😀
The southland times today has a cartoon of ‘monkey’ at apec,the online version of
the paper will have it,i have the paper version.
“Labour Party leader David Shearer has rejected suggestions that making national standards optional for schools would create a confusing dual education system.”. Today’s NZ Herald.
This is a position Shearer should not be in. In trying to please each side he frustrates both. Not good.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10833189
Sucks to be a Labour supporter. The Greens on the other hand…
Er, sux to believe what you read in the Herald, Chris. It’s an online survey and therefore meaningless. But if believing that Labour isn’t going to lead the next Government cheers you up on a wintery day, all power to you.
The Herald Digi-Poll isn’t an online survey. It’s the traditional phone poll.
From the evidence of last year, it was clear that those polls slightly overestimate National support. But that doesn’t change the underlying problem for Labour. In a period of several weeks where many things have been going badly for the government, the main opposition party has failed to make ground. Even allowing for the margin of error, they have been static at best.
This is entirely as expected, and discussed countless times on this blog. When there is a vacuum, somebody will fill it – whether it’s the Greens, NZ First, even Colin Craig. It is Labour themselves who created the vacuum – starting with the leadership.
Voters have not been switching to Labour simply because they had no reason to. On Sunday, that finally changed … about nine months late. Can they follow it up?
Burn…
Rest assured Chris, that when the left finally dump the time-servers and no-hopers, only the Nats will be burning.
I noticed you said ‘when’, not ‘if’.
yup and two or three terms after that national will be in…
Yes, quite right about the DigiPoll. I thought Chris was referring to the related reader poll which has Labour on 22%, the Greens on 14%.
However, Chris is still wrong when it comes to the NZH Digipoll, which is another bad result for the Government and confirms the trend shown in the most recent Roy Morgans’ that the opposition parties now have the majority support. Given that this particular poll consistently rates National 3-5% higher than reality, this really is a shocker for Team Key.
I always wondered what happened to Comical Ali…
So, not a big fan of facts then, Chris? Sux to be you.
Facts yes, opinion not so much
Er, quite. You do realise that the item you linked to at the start of this thread is an opinion poll? That uncomfortable prickly feeling you are now experiencing will be that ‘burn’ you mentioned a few minutes ago.
Ok I could see how you might think that except that its the only way to find out how people are going to vote. I would like to use my crystal ball instead but its not working at the moment so I’ll have to go with an opinion poll.
But don’t worry I’m sure its just a rogue poll…
Um – what was it, a fraction of a percent change up to 48-odd percent with minimal party friends, from a poll that was in favour of the nats by 3% just before the election? Not exactly “rogue”. Static and to close to call if there were an election tomorrow, more like.
Either bloc is in a position to lose this election, but neither would be assuming victory just yet.
the NZH Digipoll, which is another bad result for the Government
It really isn’t, and I really don’t think that you think so either, TRP.
The poll tells us that a large number of Labour voters are picking Key over Shearer. That’s a shocker. Even people who want the government out don’t see the Labour leader as a future PM. And that’s not at all surprising, becasue he obviously isn’t.
“The poll tells us that a large number of Labour voters are picking Key over Shearer.”
Yeah, Key is popular. I already knew that, but as we don’t directly elect our PM’s, it’s not a concern. Remember, Goff was way less popular than Shearer is and he came within a whisker of being PM at the last election.
What counts is the blocs and at the moment, the opposition is in the ascendency. That’s now confirmed by the Herald poll, which as we know, is the most blue tinged of all of them. If I remember correctly, Granny had National at over 50% in the days before the last election and the actual result was a wafer thin majority. Now that the Herald records National at significantly less than 50%, it’s fair to assume that the trend picked up by the Roy Morgans is correct and that a Labour led Government is now at least as likely an outcome as a National led one.
It’s probably time Key was rolled, so that National don’t lose too heavily 😉
Yes, it’s perfectly possible that Labour could lead a bloc, with the Greens, NZ First and maybe Mana/Maori (whoever’s left standing).
But that is setting the bar so low. Labour could – should – aim to form a majority Labour/Green government (e.g. 40/10, 38/12). Labour could – should – be riding a wave of public disenchantment right now. What do they need? 10% unemployment?
It’s possible for Labour MPs to spend the next two years in a deep sleep, and still have the numbers after MMP negotiations. It’s possible for Shearer to become PM just by dithering along, and hoping National continue to screw the country. But as a strategy and vision, it’s feeble. Because that vacuum is going to be filled by somebody. Do Labour want Winston at 10%? Do they want some nutjob from “Investigate” to hold them to ransom?
Their job is to maximise the Labour vote. Not hope somebody else maximises the opposition vote, and then demands God knows what post-election.
Politics in a nutshell – work out what your opponents want. Then don’t give it to them. So what do National want? Labour/Shearer to continue just as they have been. That’s the answer, right there.
Sucks to be reposting links too……
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-11092012/comment-page-1/#comment-519945
The herald also points out $ 1 billion being wasted on consultants since National have been at the helm
The Crown and Tuhoe reach a settlement
Credit where it’s due, Chris Finlayson deserves recognition in his efforts to redress the grievances. He’s one of the few National MPs I find tolerable.
Seems to me to be an OK compromise I can live with. Devil will be in the detail though
It will be interesting to watch the self governance arragements for Tuhoe unfold. Though I am a bit concerned that this is a stalking horse for privatisation/shrinking of the welfare state.
I actually think that the government should have offered Tuhoe an option to purchase a share in the Waikaremoana power scheme, that has actually huge potential. In practise, the operation of the plant would still rest with Genesis, but Tuhoe would be able to share in the revenue generated — maybe even set up its own power retailer for its rohe — creating jobs, etc..
Chris Finlayson is good with the Treaty settlements, but in any other context I wouldn’t call him tolerable. He’s incredibly hard to listen to in Parliament because every time he opens his mouth he’s full of sneering condescension.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7653313/Welfare-reforms-target-kids-education-health
Speaking of winning votes…
Is Matt Dillon Shannon being supported by Garth McVicar
and the Sensible Sentencing Trust?
And if not, why not?
http://www.3news.co.nz/Teenager-set-fire-to-friend/tabid/423/articleID/268931/Default.aspx
Not too sure what you mean there…
I think Morrissey is suggesting that the sensible sentencing trust is very selective about who they target, and who they consider a victim.
The sensible sentencing trust promote fear, are illogical in their demands, and conveniently forget about white collar crime. They hate poor people more than they hate crime.
If Matt Dillon Shannon poured petrol on a middle aged, middle class person, and then set them on fire…do you think Garth McVicar would ignore it?
If Matt Dillon Shannon poured petrol on a middle aged, middle class person, and then set them on fire…do you think Garth McVicar would ignore it?
Actually, I was simply giving Mr McVicar the courtesy of treating him seriously and assuming he was consistent. If he were a serious and consistent thinker, he would support the actions of Matt Dillon Shannon, and be all over the media pouring abuse and calumny on the head of his victim.
Mr McVicar has always been consistent…just like how my bowels are consistent.
Not too sure what you mean there…
Oh come on, millsy, you must remember this….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-09032011/#comment-306178
Way to much reality here
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/festival/play/7350/Call-of-Life–Facing-the-Mass-Extinction
Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction
Director: Monte Thompson | Producer: Chera Van Burg
Genre: Documentary | Produced In: 2010
Synopsis: If current trends continue, scientists warn that within a few decades at least HALF of all plant and animal species on Earth will disappear forever. “Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction” is the first feature documentary to investigate the growing threat to Earth’s life support systems from this unprecedented loss of biodiversity. Through interviews with leading scientists, psychologists, historians, and others, the film explores the causes, the scope, and the potential effects of the mass extinction, but also looks beyond the immediate causes of the crisis to consider how our cultural and economic systems, along with deep-seated psychological and behavioral patterns, have allowed and continue to reinforce the situation, and even determine our response to it. “Call of Life” tells the story of a crisis not only in nature, but also in human nature, a crisis more threatening than anything human beings have ever faced before.
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The Dodo didn’t matter. But have you got a plan Bee?
[lprent: I fail to see the relevance to the post. Moved to OpenMike. Don’t make me have to fix attempted thread jacking too often. I eventually make the problem extinct. ]
Sorry IP
Thinking light bulbs etc is just keeping the extinction levels up.
All good, I was going to stick it here anyway, until I saw the light bulb post
No problem. Just a warning. I left the light bulb one there because it was on topic..
Goodbye Fisher and Paykel.
Another NZ company affected by fuckwittage and exchange rates.
Long Live The Emperor!