In America the Fossil Fuel Resistance has already won some serious victories, blocking dozens of new coal plants and closing down existing ones – ask the folks at Little Village Environmental Justice Organization who helped shutter a pair of coal plants in Chicago, or the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which fought to stop Chevron from expanding its refinery in Richmond, California. “Up to this point, grassroots organizing has kept more industrial carbon out of the atmosphere than state or federal policy,” says Gopal Dayaneni of the Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project. It’s an economic resistance movement, too, one that’s well aware renewable energy creates three times as many jobs as coal and gas and oil. Good jobs that can’t be outsourced because the sun and the wind are close to home. It creates a future.
You don’t need to go to jail, but you do need to do more than change your light bulbs. You need to try to change the system that is raising the temperature, the sea level, the extinction rate – even whether civilization will survive this century
…..there were thousands in the crowd also working to block fracking wells across the Appalachians and proposed Pacific coast deep-water ports that would send coal to China. Students from most of the 323 campuses where the fight for fossil-fuel divestment is under way mingled with veterans of the battles to shut down mountaintop-removal coal mining in West Virginia and Kentucky, and with earnest members of the Citizens Climate Lobby there to demand that Congress enact a serious price on carbon. A few days earlier, 48 leaders had been arrested outside the White House – they included ranchers from Nebraska who didn’t want a giant pipeline across their land and leaders from Texas refinery towns who didn’t want more crude spilling into their communities. Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham was on hand, urging scientists to accompany their research with civil disobedience, as were solar entrepreneurs quickly figuring out how to deploy panels on rooftops across the country. The original Americans were well-represented; indigenous groups are core leaders of the fight, since their communities have been devastated by mines and cheated by oil companies….
Forget about North Korea. We need to declare war on Climate Change
I expect some serious resolutions and demands to come out of this conference.
1/ The immediate closure of Tiwai with good redundancies and retraining packages, for all the Tiwai workforce. (Not just union, subbies and casuals as well).
2/ The halting of all coal exports from this country as a moral lead to our closest neighbour and friend Australia. As an example of what must be demanded of them too. To have any chance of saving the climate.
3/ The founding of a professionally supported resistance organisation to achieve (at least) these two basic aims.
Joe Stiglitz hit the nail on the head with this op-ed saying that the US tax system is stacked against the 99%.
Another insightful point he made: lower tax rates at the top have not motivated entrepreneurial activity and growth – they have motivated rent seeking behaviour as the rich look at making their money earn more money from the poor.
Hence a less progressive tax system increases inequality in at least two ways – the rich keep more of their money, while they grow in ways to increasingly rent seek off the poor.
I just couldn’t think of any other noun worse than war, to describe the affects of climate change, millions dead. Nature ravaged. On a scale never matched by any war in the whole history of humanity.
If you can think of a word that better describes what is happening to us and how we should respond to it. I would be grateful.
Following the daily financial news makes you feel like you know what is happening but too often you end up being distracted by the froth and the bubbles and not noticing which way the tide is actually turning.
If you need a daily fix zerohedge.com is good, the posts there are a good mix of pure neoliberal/right wing conservative, to excellent non-orthodox economics and independent financial observations. Can get pretty saucy.
Keiser Report on youtube; Max and Stacey seem to do 2-3 shows a week and they always focus on current events but always relate them to larger themes. Max’ style is rather…inimitable.
For the big picture on where the world is at in terms of finances, investment and banking I don’t think anyone really beats Kyle Bass for setting context.
Once you get to grip with what these guys are all saying, suddenly the day to day froth of the financial news starts to make real sense.
Hi jenny
The War against climate change is already lost because positive feedbacks are now increasingly manifesting. Here are four to begin with:
” Methane hydrates are bubbling out the Arctic Ocean (Science, March 2010)
Warm Atlantic water is defrosting the Arctic as it shoots through the Fram Strait (Science, January 2011). This breakdown of the thermohaline conveyor belt is happening in the Antarctic as well.
Siberian methane vents have increased in size from less than a meter across in the summer of 2010 to about a kilometer across in 2011 (Tellus, February 2011)
Drought in the Amazon triggered the release of more carbon than the United States in 2010 (Science, February 2011)
“In other words, Obama and others in his administration knew near-term extinction of humans was already guaranteed. Even before the dire feedbacks were reported by the scientific community, the Obama administration abandoned climate change as a significant issue because it knew we were done as early as 2009. Rather than shoulder the unenviable task of truth-teller, Obama did as his imperial higher-ups demanded: He lied about collapse, and he lied about climate change. And he still does.”
Obviously continuing to burn more fossil fuels will boost the process even more. If Lovelock is right we are heading for a new, never before experienced by humanity, hot planet equilibrium well past the global average increase of 2C.
Hi jenny
The War against climate change is already lost because positive feedbacks are now increasingly manifesting. Here are four to begin with…..
johnm
johnm missed out the biggest feed back of all.
CO2 is not the biggest green house gas. Neither is methane. The biggest green house gas in the Earth’s atmosphere is water vapour. Warm air holds more water vapour, which causes more warming which leads to warmer air which holds more water vapour which leads to etc. etc.
That this is so, is witnessed by what has been termed snowmageddon and by unprecedented record breaking rainfall and consequent disastrous floods experienced around the world. Ironically tied to extreme drought in other areas.
The new Pope Francis is already declaring himself as a died in the wool conservative – though I’m sure he goes about it with ever so much “loving care”.A wolf in sheep’s clothing? . See RT news report which reports unchanged hardness of heart toward the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (represent 80% of nuns). Little sign of his promised “tender and ethical responses” here – but then he is harsh toward women which is hardly to be unexpected. Such lovely people on the surface can be beastly in practice.
DrT, methinks we think differently to Francis. And I wonder why anybody would think that the head of the bastion of arch social conservatism would be any different? We on this blog like to think we are more “advanced” with our secular religion of arch modernism, with all its Bacchanalian liberalism thrown in. We happily destroy any conservative boundaries, declaring them morally bankrupt, outdated, misogynist etc. And we happily declare our value judgments supreme.
Francis I suspect belongs to a far different tradition, and note the word tradition: his social precepts have survived two thousand years, and for most of that time fitted the everyday social realities. Who is to say how long and how fitting our “advanced” precepts will fit our changing realities?
Indeed. The other thing is that Pope Francis has a massive internal politics and internal stakeholders that he needs to deal with. He is going to have to carefully choose where he spends his political capital, after a period where the former Pope appears to have run into major internal problems.
In that sense, imagine the internal constraints that National or Labour deal with every day, x10,000.
I stumbled across this statement made by Kim Dotcom on March 1, 2012. He apparently said:
“It’s kind of like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, you know? If you want to go after someone and you have a political goal you will say whatever it takes.”
Did you see Pilger on Maori TV last night, in a doco on Latin America and the US political interventions?
The fascinating bits for me were:
* Kissinger denying involvement in Chile: bare faced lies that Goebbels would have been proud of. With him was Nixon, a flawed but not I suspect an evil individual. Contrasting the elected and accountable Nixon was Kissinger, the l’eminence grise hitch hiking behind the power, the unelected, unaccountable modern bureaucrat. Pure evil.
* Bush declaring what great work those “boys from the Chicago school” had done for the Chilean economy when he was in full knowledge of the “dirty deeds”. The transition from accountable democratic presidency to elected divine right presidency very evident.
* Pilgers interview with a CIA operative who unashamedly justified any brutality as “a defense of US interests”. According to this man what was good for the US transcended any moral decency or human rights. Transported back 50 years he would have run a death camp, or commanded a gulag. Scary.
Counterpunch relates how the Obama administration is justifying current drone killings by the Kissinger/Nixon illegal bombing of Cambodia. ‘War Crimes as Policy’. Chilling stuff.
El Gringo Yankey john is a U$ neoliberal privatising plant in N$Z who is continuing the trashing process of everything that made this a great country to live in.
(A minor point: in the paragraph re July 2012, I presume that “Ian Foster” should read “Ian Fletcher”.)
I have also found the Toby Manhire timeline your comment links to useful and worth checking from time to time as he appears to be continually updating it. The links within that timeline under the 9 April 2013 are also useful.
Do you know what affidavit Peters was referring to in the House today – from Sept 2012, and included something signification on page 2, about Kim Vestor, I think?
Also prior to official name change to Kim Dotcom, he was previously known as Kim Jim Tim Vestor according to his Wiki page and annotated to Washington Post ! Fascinating ……
Yes. And that’s why I think the Hansard transcript is wrong. I looked at the Sept 2012 memorandum linked to int he waitakere news post (link above) and can’t see any mention of Vestor there.
Just read it again and it says the residency application WP referred to was 2010, but the doc he entered into the record was from 2012 of evidence from Wormald … perhaps Kim Dotcom is watching and can tell us ?? I have tweeted him, but no reply as yet … first time tweet but I’d love to know !
And do you know where/how we can access the introduced document on Parliament website ?
I think the affidavit was tabled as evidence that Dotcom was known to Immigration NZ as Kim Vestor. Wormald says the Immigration file was headed “VESTOR/Kim” aka “DOTCOM/Kim”. Interesting.
Key’s answer was “no” but he looked uncomfortable.
In a matter of days John Key has turned into Dubya. First terrorists and WMDs, now our very own mini-patriot act legislation proposal materializes. How can it not be obvious to all that this is about abusing his power to cover his own arse now, and protect his own political agenda in the future?
Both of framu’s links are a must read. As Sam95 in the Stuff link commented:
“But the proposed changes would mean network operators would be obliged to “engage with the Government through the GCSB on network security”, where it might affect New Zealand’s national security and economic well-being, she said.”
Economic wellbeing? That’s a pretty low bar. Does it mean the Gvt could, for example, spy on workers they think are planning to strike?”
Anyone who looked at the American madness under Bush and said “that can’t happen here,” might want to wake up about now.
“Economic wellbeing? That’s a pretty low bar. Does it mean the Gvt could, for example, spy on workers they think are planning to strike?”
Yep. Or anyone protesting for instance against the TPP. Or any other thing the govt deems necessary for our economic wellbeing.
However, I’m pretty sure the economic wellbeing criteria came in post-911 with NZ legislation changes done in the 2000s. The changes now are to include the GCSB to allow it to extend its powers to NZ citizens.
Thanks for that link. Yes, this is why, even though the GCSB regulations may need to be updated, there needs to be time for a full and thorough examination of the intelligence services and wide consultation on proposed changes.
“Yes, this is why, even though the GCSB regulations may need to be updated, there needs to be time for a full and thorough examination of the intelligence services and wide consultation on proposed changes.”
That’s quite well written by Trotter and is a bit of an eye opener. When they revealed that 85 people had been spied on my own first pick was Jane Kelsey, interesting to see Trotter picked her out too. A lot of the TPPA revelations were being leaked out of the USA and Kelsey has pretty clearly been getting access to information that she’s not supposed to see.
The negative publicity arising from it will be pissing off the vested interests concerned and I’d lay odds they’ve been trying frantically to find & close the leaks of ‘secret’ TPPA documents. It’s not a long stretch of the bow to assume they’ve been monitoring who she communicates with in the hope of finding the source(s) and to be forewarned of what she might have to say next. Not a nice thought.
the Act Party have principles of libertarianism and freedom from Government intrusion and over-reach. Of course they will oppose the Bill. Really, I’m just sure of it.
“That’d be like saying its fair to judge a cat as a dog because the owner calls it a dog.”
Not the point. They’re trying to sell a cat dressed as a dog, in which case it’s reasonable to measure it against the standards you’d expect of a dog, and to point out where it is found wanting.
“ACT is just a rich, white, conservative party with a religious bent now.”
Yes, and they should stop bullshitting about being free market social liberals.
Rt Hon Winston Peters says safeguards must be written into the legislation to ensure the GCSB does not operate outside the law.
These are:
• Each surveillance to be authorised by warrant by the responsible minister
• The warrant to comply with specified criteria to identify the potential security risk
• The method of surveillance and the time frame of the operation
• Every warrant to be reviewed within three weeks by an independent authority selected from the Judiciary, Defence Force and Police
I believe Dunne has said UF will support the Bill in the first reading.
However, a spokesman for Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said the party would “never agree that New Zealand citizens should be under surveillance by the GCSB”.
“Maori people are disproportionately affected by laws on offending and arrest. It could be alleged that we will be similarly affected by spying – and who would ever know? We must review these laws and practices.”
Fuck this “responsible minister” lark. National have made it a contradiction in terms.
It’s quite obvious intelligence and law enforcement need a cross-party oversight committee with govt and opposition mps and a high/supreme court justice to do these warrants, at the very least review all warrants on a monthly basis.
Ok, the government are trying to prevent the same thing that happened in the Arab Spring where people used social media to ignite the revolution. They don’t seem to understand that the policies of the government were the fuel.
Theresa, who teaches in the working class suburb of Wainuiomata, said the national performance standards were “absolutely disgusting”. She said it was “heart-breaking for parents to read that their kids are failing against some bar that might not even be of any relevance.” She explained: “The scary thing about national standards is the computer system, which will effectively label students and take the teacher’s decisions away. Teachers know children. Nobody always does the best they can do on a test.”
Gary said that under national standards “education is reduced to performance along three lines, reading writing and maths … That sort of campaign has always been associated with a hard-right government, a government that does not want to cultivate in its citizens a capacity to think independently.” He said it was “horrible”, that “primary schools are moving to produce consumers and taxpayers” and “the idea of having an education which produced a well-rounded, balanced child who can think critically is being discarded.”
This is real ‘social engineering. Add to it the money being poured into private religious schools for the wealthy, and you can see the National education agenda clear as day. Presumably there is a Labour Party education spokesperson who can say bluntly ‘we will reverse this’. ???
Obama is not in Kansas now. ‘Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn’t, didn’t already have,
“Sometimes late when things are real
And people share the gift of gab between themselves
Some are quick to take the bait
And catch the perfect prize that waits among the shelves…”
although the number of people drinking alcohol, nationally has dropped slightly,
1 in 5 surveyed have a hazardous drinking pattern; those 18-24 are most at risk where-in are 1 in 4 women.
Hear ye? Hear ye! At 4:06 pm Sunday 21 April: Constitutional Review Debates.
On Radionz – some lively minds applying their intellect to THIS IMPORTANT SUBJECT of our country’s basic legal measures. See the blurb from Radionz below. (This is the second one but you can still listen to the first.)
Sundays 14 April – 12 May 2013 during 4 ‘Til 8
Coming Up
4:06 pm Sunday 21 April: Constitutional Review Debates
Reforming our Democratic Institutions
Featuring Dr Maria Bargh, Colin James, Professor Elizabeth McLeay, Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC and Steven Price
This debate looks at the term of parliament (and whether it should be fixed), the size of parliament, the size and number of electorates, and Maori electoral representation.
Debating the Constitution 1: What’s the problem?
Kicking off a series of debates inspired by the current Constitutional Review, Professor Claudia Geiringer; Professor Bruce Harris, Dr Carwyn Jones, Dame Claudia Orange, and Dr Matthew Palmer explore the background issues with moderator Steven Price. (53′03″)
From Constitutional Review Debates on 14 Apr 2013
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
Charred fragments believed by some to be Goebbels’ notes for a funeral eulogy.
Party comrades,
It has to be recognised that the Fuehrer did arouse strong feelings in certain quarters; some have even called him a divisive figure. But this is a solemn funereal occasion, which ought to be conducted in the best possible taste. It is a moment to commemorate positive achievements only; let not the good be “interred with his bones” as Mark Anthony would put it. Many of those young people who so glibly denounce “Hitlerism” simply cannot remember what a mess Germany was in before he came to office. That mess was largely inherited, it cannot be said too often, from the social democrats who had spent million on municipal social programmes financed by borrowed money. Germany’s international standing was low; the French had literally walked all over us. Strikes and street riots were commonplace. ….. But there were no strikes or riots, absolutely none, after Adolf Hitler came into to office. This was due the uncompromising anti-trade union legislation of a man whom history will surely count as the world’s leading anti-Communist… A towering international figure, Adolf Hitler was a conviction politician; his name will be long remembered as byword.
In his personal life Adolf Hitler was abstemious and reserved, but he was always a generous patron of the arts, and he often relished a heated argument when at table. Those of us who worked with him will remember a side the public could not see: his extraordinary personal considerateness toward members of his immediate staff. They will also know of his unusual kindness to animals. “The animals are my friends” he would often say “and I do not eat my friends.” …. Among the legacies of this great moderniser are the spacious roads that now stretch across Germany and our distinctive “People’s Car” that will one day happily throng along them….
And an excellent op ed, by the always-worth-reading Yasmin Alibhai Brown, on Thatcher’s racism: “Beware of the rabid right, not the loony left”.
In the ceaseless cacophony following her death, scant attention has been paid to her supremacist views of Empire (Bruge Speech, 1992) or the race riots, or the many deaths in custody of black men, or government-sanctioned unfair policing, or her deep hostility to immigrants of colour or concomitant warmth towards white Zimbabweans and South Africans. As the blogger Jacqueline Scott writes: “Racism fattened under Thatcher”. Forgotten too is her vendetta against the GLC and ILEA, those London bodies that did not fall in line with her little-Englandism. The politically correct, radical right has silenced all such talk and much more besides.
Make no mistake, the most intolerant, Stalinist and insistently PC forces today are on the right, not on the so called “loony left”.
Unbelievable performance by Parata! Just came back into my home office to catch her final few moments – and the camera cutting across to the empty Labour seats.
And now we have Louise Upton, Key’s sychophant of late with patsy questions, waxing lyrical about handbags…..and Thatcher.
And Ianmac, I agree that is what they should have done re the funeral. Laughed when I saw that a few days ago.
Oh godz: I can’t take much more from the Natz women in the House lauding Thatcher and Jackie Blue & Thatcher as feminist icons, leading the fight for women. Very good rebuttal from Moroney.
Agreed – especially about Sue Moroney’s rebuttal. Sue is wasted where she is now …..
Just saw some of Jackie Blue’s speech and have to say I was impressed with her inclusiveness of women across the spectrum in the House. I am trying to keep an open mind on her new appointment; time will tell. Cannot say the same for the Devoy appointment.
I personally knew Jackie many years ago; haven’t been in touch for a long time but she’s one very, very intelligent person. I’d be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in her new role.
If nothing else I’d read the resignation as a Nat MP in a positive light.
Have to say that I’ve noticed in the past that she has often looked bored and not very impressed with some of the infantile one-upman-ship that goes on – even from her own team. She may well prove to be a Nat. crony appointment who is an exception to the rule.
Mine technology was making mining less labour intensive, it was inevitable that the mining industry would have to shrink under whoever become leader of Britian. How Thatcher went about it says much about how many now feel about her.
Imagine a world where countries would seize islands off their coast, like the Fawklands, what would have happened in the Pacific, would China have seize islands??? It was unimaginable that the west, which had grabs so many islands globally, could allow the Fawklands to fall. And would also speak to the UN moves to give islands autonomy now. So the idea that she did something decisive is a illusion, once again she was at the whim of trends long entrenched.
Her legacy is the stauch way the media backed her, and media even today, fail to address her legacy with any truth. The middle east oil wells ere opened up, the western economy boomed
for 30 years, the richest wanted the lion share of that wealth and so instead of redirecting it into
bring the world out of poverty, ending war, it was funneled into the biggest market collapse since the great depression. Her legacy is that she was a tool, and still is.
How on earth did this bloke get a law degree?
Jordan Williams’ fertile mind was fertilizing prodigiously this afternoon.
The Panel, Radio New Zealand National, Wednesday 17 April 2013
Jim Mora, Josie McNaught, Jordan Williams
One of the more unpleasant commentators in this country is the anti-proportional representation campaigner Jordan Williams, a right wing lawyer who in a short time in the public eye has established himself as one of the go-to guys for any lazy journalist wanting a quick soundbite with an extreme right-wing taint to it. Williams evidently thinks that talking quietly and slowly and deliberately will fool people into ignoring the poverty of his thinking and to regard him as, ummm, …. errrr, ….pause…. thoughtful and serious. In fact, in his several appearances on The Panel, Williams has revealed that he is not much more than an indolent recycler of Reader’s Digest-level bromides against democracy, civil rights, rational thinking, and other left-wing, liberal, namby-pamby, nanny-state, commie nonsense.
If his voice was aged by thirty years, and gnarlier, and tobacco-thickened, Jordan Williams could be mistaken for poor old Garth “Gaga” George, or the C-grade movie bully-boy John “Barney” Barnett, or the hapless NBR editor and not-so-bon vivant Nevil “Breivik” Gibson. But more than anyone else, Williams sounds very like a youthful edition of the libertarian nut, S.S. counsel and cod-philosopher Stephen Franks. This is no doubt largely explained by the fact he works for Franks & Ogilvie, and has no doubt taken to faithfully aping the style of the old ACT back-bench-warmer.
On today’s show, the first half passed uneventfully, with some dull and spurious anti-gay rhetoric posing as “legitimate concerns” about the Marriage Equality Bill, then a brief and unenlightening discussion about Justin Bieber, and then an appalling, absurdly punctilious parsing of President Obama’s words following the Boston Marathon atrocity.
After the 4:30 news, it was time for the Soapbox….
JIM MORA: All right, it’s that time when we ask our Panelists what they have been thinking about. Jordan Williams, what’s on your mind?
Williams had obviously been waiting for this one for a long time. Unfortunately, however, it did not improve the quality of his talk one whit; anyone tempted to think about engaging the professional advocacy services of this fellow should listen to the quality—or lack of quality—of his performance here.
Williams proceeded to indulge in a wandery and incoherent rant against Victoria University’s refusal to have anything to do with the unhinged, wild-eyed, walking disaster known as Screaming Lord Monckton. Throughout his poorly prepared speech, Williams several times said that the university was treating Monckton “like a Holocaust-denier”. Actually, Williams unwittingly was stating the truth here: Monckton has the status and intellectual credibility of a Holocaust-denier. Williams also kept referring to Monkton, a notorious crank, as a “climate change skeptic”. To her credit, Josie McNaught took Williams up on that, pointing out that Monckton had no respect at all in the scientific community, and that he is accurately described as a denier, not a skeptic.
That simple act of contradiction almost caused Williams to melt down. He stuttered and frothed, shouted “No he’s NOT!”, stammered for several minutes, admitted that he knew nothing about climate science—“I’m only a lawyer”—and then returned to his theme that refusing to acknowledge that pop-eyed fruitcake was equivalent to curtailing free speech on campus.
I flicked off the following email to the programme…
Jordan Williams’ tolerance for loons
Dear Jim,
Does Jordan Williams support our universities extending respect to people who claim to have been abducted by aliens?
“To her credit, Josie McNaught took Williams up on that, pointing out that Monckton had no respect at all in the scientific community, and that he is accurately described as a denier, not a skeptic.”
Err, no she didn’t.
That simple act of contradiction almost caused Williams to melt down. He stuttered and frothed, shouted “No he’s NOT!”, stammered for several minutes,”
Well, I listened to it as well and while I might mark friend Morrissey down just slightly for a spot of (entertaining) hyperbole, he does correctly identify Williams’ “little lawyer” prissiness and the absence of a cringeworthy self-consciousness in the other panellist Josie McNaught.
Also occurs to me that were the entitled right-wing fantasist Monckton not the subject of VUW’s “piss-off you nutter” (a similar attitude taken by institutions all over the world), and rather it were some left-wing loon, then Jordy might well not have been so quick to lambast VUW. I mean some people just aren’t worth dealing with at all. Monckton is one such. All Thatcheresque hooting and pretension.
Williams has the stripe of another we know – Simon Bridges. Bright young man on the way up blah blah blah. Bright about what is not immediately apparent but let’s be charitable and leave it with, ummmh – “bright”. Wouldn’t frighten the horses sort of thing. Will be a safe pair of hands.
Anyway, how the stuff are the callow likes of him calculated to add anything to any panel anywhere ? He is after all only a poster-boy anointed by that anti-MMP dinosaur Shirtcliffe. Much like Simon and Key. Early trough-training.
Mora’s invitation list gets more and more skewed to the right…
You’d think, from the amount of libertarians and radical free marketeers on his show, that ACT won 15% of the vote last election.
So why does a national broadcaster that is supposed to be balanced, clearly not reflect the wishes of the people.
It is not Mora who selects the balance of his guests, surely. Who does?
“Well, I listened to it as well and while I might mark friend Morrissey down just slightly for a spot of (entertaining) hyperbole, he does correctly identify Williams’ “little lawyer” prissiness and the absence of a cringeworthy self-consciousness in the other panellist Josie McNaught.”
Sorry North but correctly identifying someone’s prissiness is a fucking mile away from saying ‘he said this, then she said that’.
He made that whole conversation up. McNaught never made any distinction between denial/skepticism and Williams didn’t shout ‘No he’s not’ (or anything else) or stammer for two minutes.
That’s not hyperbole, North, it’s making up false quotes. Lying is another word.
And Morrissey does it all the time with no indication that he’s writing fiction.
I challenge you to listen again, see if you can find the bits Morrissey quoted, and let me know the relevant min:sec. It doesn’t exist.
You mean, good-looking young man. He’s not that bright. I urge you to track down last night’s interview with Mihi Forbes on Maori Television. Bridges clearly lacks the wherewithal to engage in intelligent and robust discussion. Last night he was stressed and tense and irritated throughout the interview; I thought for a minute or so that Mihi Forbes was going to drive the poor fellow into a Jordan Williams-style meltdown.
Wow! Apparently it wasn’t only Jordan Williams that exploded with incoherent rage yesterday afternoon. Let’s look at what our friend Felix has tried to assert. To match his spirit of angry insistence, I’ve highlighted Felix’s words in bold type….
1.) To her credit, Josie McNaught took Williams up on that, pointing out that Monckton had no respect at all in the scientific community, and that he is accurately described as a denier, not a skeptic.
Err, no she didn’t.
She did exactly that, in slightly more circuitous and hesitant language, but Williams understood the import of her words perfectly; she had skewered him in public.
2.) That simple act of contradiction almost caused Williams to melt down. He stuttered and frothed, shouted “No he’s NOT!”, stammered for several minutes,
Err, no, that didn’t happen either.
Yes it did, and you know it did. Williams was utterly incapable of dealing with being contradicted—perhaps something in the diffident but persistent manner of Josie McNaught enraged him on some primeval level.
3.) Morrissey, you’re making shit up. Again.
Look carefully at my report. I didn’t write it up as a transcript, other than the one introductory bit by Jim Mora. I dashed it out in haste and rage—controlled rage, not incoherent spluttering like Jordan Williams’ rage—and put it online. I have no doubt that I have strengthened Josie McNaught’s role here; she was not as succinct in her statement as I have made her appear. However, there is no doubt that she bothered Williams, even when she was extremely polite and roundabout in the way she phrased her dissent after his crazed rant in support of that science denier.
Your allegation that I made this up is easily disproved by listening to the recording that you so unwisely provided as evidence. Your nasty little suggestion that I have “made shit up” in the past has been dealt with by me and others forcefully on several occasions. You seem to be either a slow learner or simply a sucker for punishment. Have you thought of going to a dominatrix?
4.) Here’s the audio:
I urge anyone who is interested, to listen to that tape and then to let Felix know what is meant by such concepts as “gist”, “essence” and “summary”.
It doesn’t matter whether you call it a transcript or not. When you say “x said this and that” and they didn’t say anything of the sort you’re lying.
Show where McNaught said anything – anything at all – about the difference between deniers and skeptics.
Didn’t happen. You made it up. She never touched the subject.
Likewise Williams. Show where he yelled anything in defiance of the thing McNaught never said.
Simply didn’t happen. There was no yelling, no stutterring, no several minutes of stammering. You made it up.
You’ve been caught out doing this before Morrissey. You admit it’s just an impression – fine – so write it as a fucking impression, not as a factual account you fucking child.
“Show where McNaught said anything – anything at all – about the difference between deniers and skeptics.”
If she didn’t say it then she should have said it. Morrissey has used her as a character in the service of his mission, which is to pin up the grisly exhibit “Jordan Williams”. Shakespeare did the same kind of thing, when he put eloquent words into the mouths of thugs like Brutus, Cassius, and Titus Andronicus.
Although this fellow Williams reminds one more of one of the pathetic and mewling hypocrites that fawned over the likes of Henry VI.
Morrissey, does it really not occur to you that when you make shit up that people can easily check, not only will your credibility vapourize, your perceived level of intelligence will also plummet? I kind of feel a little sorry for you.
I think he really believes he’s being roughly accurate, but he’s explained before that he doesn’t actually transcribe this stuff while listening to it but rather writes his impressions some time later.
Memory is a funny thing. By the time he writes his impressions, he doesn’t remember exactly who said what, and bits from other interviews get mixed in, and snippets of other conversations, and other impressions of things people might have said on this and other topics get thrown in and it all gets a bit fragmented and then he puts it all back together in a way that seems to make sense.
And it does – it sounds just like something Williams would say. It’s just that he didn’t.
There’s nothing wrong with this sort of writing, but there’s a name for it. And that name is fiction, not transcription.
To be fair to mike, Morrissey has been called out for making up his “transcripts” before (which is what CV was getting at) and he tends to be a real dick about it.
I disagree. I think people who present a made up fiction as a transcript of something someone said deserve what they get. I also think you’ll find a big ol’ slab of sarcasm in CV’s comment.
Oh dear, breakfast news – SkyUk – Thatcher’s funeral – desperate to appear even-handed, talking about Thatcher’s divisiveness to the posh people in their hats and medals. All the while saying protesters are ok as long as they’re ‘respectful’ and questioning a lone protester about the appropriateness of holding up a sign questioning the £10m cost of the funeral.
Respectful is the word of the day it seems. The more I hear it the more I’d be looking at heading out to make a noise if I lived there. I can’t work out whether to switch it off or watch to remind me of the true colours of these people.
Edit: I did try to watch the marriage equality debate, (much more meaningful) but it won’t stream – there must quite a few people watching online.
UPDATE WITH MY PRIVACY ACT REQUEST TO THE GCSB – FYI 🙂
As I am concerned that I may have been one of the 88 New Zealanders unlawfully spied upon, I have made a ‘Privacy Act’ request to the GCSB, following advice I received from the Prime Minister’s office, as to the proper process to follow.
After initially being given an incorrect email address for the GCSB, I made a phone call to the Prime Minister’s Department, and was given the phone number for the GCSB – (04) 472 6881 .
I was put through to the EA for Director Ian Fletcher, who confirmed that the correct email for the GCSB is Information@gcsb.govt.nz
I have since received confirmation that the GCSB have received my Privacy Act request and that I will here back from them ‘in due course’.
Given that Prime Minister John Key is trying to change the law regarding the GCSB in rather a hurry, on Tuesday 16 April 2013, I spoke to the GCSB staff member responsible for handling Privacy Act and OIA requests, who informed that there had been a huge number of requests which the GCSB are processing.
If the GCSB were keeping their records in a proper way, as required by the Public Records Act 2005, I pointed out, wouldn’t they just look under ‘B’ for ‘Bright’, in order to confirm whether they had files on me or not?
I did not get any framework as to how long it would take for a reply from the GCSB.
Yesterday, I invested some hours actually studying the GCSB Act 2003 and the Kitteridge Report.
(a)continue the Government Communications Security Bureau and establish it as a department of State:
(b)specify the objective and functions of the Bureau:
(c)specify the circumstances in which the Bureau requires an interception warrant or a computer access authorisation to intercept foreign communications:
(d)specify the conditions that are necessary for the issue of an interception warrant or a computer access authorisation and the matters that may be authorised by a warrant or an authorisation:
(e)specify the circumstances in which the Bureau may use interception devices to intercept foreign communications without a warrant or an authorisation
___________________________________________________________________________
Having had a Quality Assurance and tertiary training background, I was absolutely horrified at the ‘pigs’ breakfast’ which is the GCSB.
Seriously – an organisation which deals in information – which doesn’t have a proper ‘Information Management System’?
“151. An example of this issue is that GCSB has only in the last few months introduced its first electronic document records management system (EDRMS). It had not previously had a centralised electronic document management system of any kind. Records were kept in hardcopy (and the files maintained by a very effective Registry), but electronic records such as emails were kept in people’s personal drives. The introduction of the EDRMS is a very positive step for GCSB, although the transition to it is not yet complete.”
157. I should add that some parts of GCSB are very thorough in their record keeping. For example, my review of warrants and authorisations revealed a good level of record keeping.
The reason is likely to be because these files are reviewed by the Inspector-General on a regular basis. Other parts of the organisation, however, are less clear about their obligations, and use adjectives like “variable” to describe their record-keeping practices. All said that they hoped the EDRMS would assist with centralised filing, and I am sure it will. There are questions, however, about how important business information is recorded and filed, especially considering the classified and unclassified systems, and the plethora of databases and information tools. An Information Manager would help to assess this issue and to address it.
“158. I think it is unlikely that GCSB complies fully with the Public Records Act 2005 although the move to the EDRMS is a big step forward. The current situation also presents challenges in terms of meeting statutory obligations relating to the Official Information Act 1982 and the Privacy Act 1993. In my view, in order to support good business practices across the board, including compliance, it is essential that this part of the business be properly supported with the right information management strategy and business disciplines.
159. I note, finally, that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security in Australia remarked to me: “record keeping is not just about having an EDRMS. It is about the will to record in a way that can be found and assessed. Very significant problems occur where there is poor record keeping. ”
The GCSB Act 2003, is actually VERY clear, in my considered opinion as a successful ‘lay litigant’ – who has never been to University, or has never had a day’s formal legal training, but who can and actually does bother to READ THE LEGISLATION?
Not only should the GCSB not be spying on New Zealanders, (and that is also clear in the Hansard record of the debate in the House on the GCSB Bill – which I have also read) – but there is NO lawful provision for the GCSB to rely on warrants obtained by the SIS or Police.
The GCSB have to obtain their own ‘interception warrants’.
The only person who can apply for a GCSB ‘interception warrant’ is the GCSB Director; this authority cannot be delegated, and the warrants must be issued by the Minister.
So – HOW ON EARTH did there end up being 85 SIS warrants and 3 Police warrants used as the basis for GCSB spying on New Zealanders when the LAW covering the GCSB is arguably so clear on this point?
Has the Prime Minister actually bothered to READ the GCSB Act 2003 for himself?
How about the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security – Paul Nazor?
How about the Director of the GCSB – Ian Fletcher?
How about the GCSB employees who actually acted upon these SIS and Police warrants?
Good grief.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
In my view – it’s really simple.
In order to confirm that I am one of the 88 New Zealanders who has been unlawfully spied upon by the GCSB, all that the ‘Privacy Officer’ needs to do is to go to the file which contains these SIS and Police warrants (because according to the Kitteridge Report – that is one area where the record keeping is satisfactory), and check under ‘B’ for ‘Bright’.
How hard is that?
Perhaps I could offer to come down and check it myself – but given that I was on Muldoon’s famous ‘SIS list’ as a ‘subversive’ during the 1981 Springbok Tour, and given that Head of the SIS Warren Tucker wouldn’t give me my SIS file when I requested it some time ago – I probably wouldn’t get security clearance?
“The GCSB have to obtain their own ‘interception warrants’.
The only person who can apply for a GCSB ‘interception warrant’ is the GCSB Director; this authority cannot be delegated, and the warrants must be issued by the Minister.”
If this is correct then there are two scenarios for the Dotcom warrant that I can see.
1. The GCSB have been breaking the law on this aspect, by not getting a warrant from the Minister.
2. The warrant for Dotcom, far from being an ‘operational matter’, and not discussed at briefings, as John Key said, must have been discussed and the warrant issued (signed?) by the Minister.
Yes rosy and Penny. Maybe Kim Dotcom has a copy of the warrant signed by John Key as the Minister in charge of GCSB. Wonder how John would get past that.
Say he forgot?
No one asked him.
Bill English must have forged his signature.
Kim Dotcom forged his signature.
or any of many varied answers including that the Law has been changed (soon) so it is irrelevant.
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New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Hon Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises A new ‘super depot’ to be built for NZ Post in Wellington will create around 350 jobs during construction, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises Shane Jones says. Shane Jones today attended a ground-breaking and blessing ceremony for the parcel-processing depot ...
Our strong economic management prior to COVID-19 - with surpluses, low debt and near-record-low unemployment - put us in a good position to weather the impact of the virus and start to rebuild our economy much earlier than many other countries.Now we're putting our plan to recover and rebuild ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order Recently released Police fleeing driver statistics have shown yet another increase in incidents with another record-high in the latest quarter. “This new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014. The data shows incidents ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio is pleased to announce the inaugural launch of Kiribati Language Week as part of the 2020 Pacific language Weeks programme. “I am so pleased that this year we are able to provide resourcing support to the Kiribati community in Aotearoa which will ...
Wildlife institutions affected by a loss of visitor revenue during the COVID-19 lockdown are set to receive government support with nearly $15 million of funding available announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. “Eco-sanctuaries, zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks, and wildlife rescue, hospital and rehabilitation facilities provide crucial support for the recovery ...
The Government is expanding and accelerating frontline mental health and wellbeing services at tertiary education institutes (TEI) to help students manage ongoing stresses related to COVID-19. “The lockdown has been hugely disruptive for students. Many of them have had to relocate and move to online learning, isolating them from their ...
The Minister of Police says a major operation against the Mongrel Mob in Waikato will make a big dent in drug harm and violent offending linked to organised crime networks. “Senior leadership of the Waikato Mongrel Mob has been taken out as a result of Operation Kingsville, which resulted in ...
The Government is extending the border exception criteria to enable some offshore victims and support people of the Christchurch mosque attacks to attend the sentencing of the accused beginning on 24 August2020, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “We want to support our valued Muslim brothers and sisters who were directly ...
A project to support volunteer efforts to look after streams and rivers is getting a boost thanks to support from DOC’s Community Conservation Fund announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “The government is backing efforts to look after waterways with $199,400 for the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust from ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter today announced that funding for the COVID-19 Community Fund for women and girls will be doubled, as the first successful funding applications for the initial $1million were revealed. “Women and girls across the country have suffered because of the effects of COVID-19, and I ...
The Government’s books were better than forecast with a higher GST take as the economy got moving again after lockdown, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Crown Accounts for the 11 months to the end of May indicate the year end results for tax revenue will be stronger than forecast. ...
A plan to revitalise New Zealand’s strong wool sector and set it on a new, more sustainable and profitable path was unveiled today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The newly-released report - Vision and Action for New Zealand’s Wool Sector - was developed by the Wool Industry Project Action Group ...
Community efforts to create a Predator Free Whangārei will receive a $6 million boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. The new funding, through Government company Predator Free 2050 Ltd, will create around 12 jobs while enabling the complete removal of possums over ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that the New Zealand Government is reviewing the settings of its relationship with Hong Kong. “China’s decision to pass a new national security law for Hong Kong has fundamentally changed the environment for international engagement there,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand remains deeply ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced details of a multimillion-dollar investment in Whangārei for infrastructure projects that will help it recover from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200 jobs are expected to be created through the $26 million investment from the Government’s rejuvenation package ...
Following a second incident in which a person escaped from a managed isolation facility, security is being enhanced, including more police presence onsite, Minister Megan Woods said. “The actions of some individuals who choose to break the very clear rules to stay within the facilities means that more resourcing is ...
Waste reduction and recycling programmes in Kaipara are set to get a boost with Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announcing a $361,447 grant from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) Sustainable Kaipara. “The new funding will allow Sustainable Kaipara to partner with local schools, kura, community ...
The Government will support the Southland economy in the wake of multinational mining company Rio Tinto’s decision to follow through with its long signalled closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. “This day has unfortunately been on the cards for some time now, but nevertheless the final decision is a ...
New tools being developed to help boost Aotearoa’s Predator Free 2050 effort were unveiled today by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. A new rat poison, a camera with predator recognition software to detect and report predators, a new predator lure and a ...
The Coalition Government has approved the purchase of a fleet of Bushmaster vehicles to replace the New Zealand Army’s armoured Pinzgauers, Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced today. The new fleet of 43 Australian-designed and built Bushmaster NZ5.5 will provide better protection for personnel and improved carrying capacity. “The age ...
The Government’s three prevention frameworks to reduce family violence in Aotearoa were launched this week by Associate Minister for Social Development Poto Williams. The frameworks were developed in partnership with communities around New Zealand, and build on the work the Government has already begun with its new family violence prevention ...
The Government is pleased to confirm funding for improvements to radiology and surgical services at Hawke's Bay DHB, Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. "The Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson and former Health Minister Dr David Clark approved funding for Hawke's Bay DHB’s redevelopment of their radiology facilities ...
• New funding for four beds at Napier’s Springhill Residential Addiction Centre • A new managed withdrawal home and community service, and peer support before and after residential care at Tairāwhiti DHB • A co-ordinated network of withdrawal management services throughout the South Island • Peer support in Rotorua and ...
Introduction, seafarers and POAL Good morning everyone, I am delighted to be online with you all today. Before I begin, I have to acknowledge that COVID-19 has disrupted the maritime sector on an unprecedented scale. The work of seafarers and the maritime industry is keeping many economies around the world ...
A $13 million investment from Government will create jobs and improve the resilience of the rail connection between Christchurch and the West Coast, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones and Regional Economic Development Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau say. The funding comes from the tagged contingency set aside in Budget 2020 for infrastructure projects ...
The Government is investing $761 million to assist local government upgrade under-pressure water services across the country, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The announcement was made at the site of the water bore that was found to be the source of the fatal ...
Recognised Seasonal Employers and migrant seasonal workers stranded in New Zealand will be able to continue working and supporting themselves with more flexible hours and roles, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. The time-limited visa changes are: Stranded RSE workers will be able to work part-time (a minimum of 15 hours ...
The Government is making immediate short-term changes to visa settings to support temporary migrants already onshore in New Zealand and their employers, while also ensuring New Zealanders needing work are prioritised, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. We are: Extending temporary work visas due to expire by the end of 2020 ...
Professor Peter Skelton CNZM has been appointed as Chief Freshwater Commissioner and Alternate Environment Court Judge Craig James Thompson as Deputy Chief Freshwater Commissioner for the newly established Freshwater Planning Process (FPP). Environment Minister David Parker today also announced the appointment of Chief Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook as the ...
Auckland Queen’s Counsel Neil Campbell has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Campbell graduated with a BCom and LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland in 1992. He spent two years with Bell Gully Buddle Weir in Auckland before travelling to the United ...
The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to better enable the development and operation of commercial film and video facilities in Christchurch. The Proposal, developed by Regenerate Christchurch in response to a request from Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section ...
The Government has launched a bold plan to boost primary sector export earnings by $44 billion over the next decade, while protecting the environment and growing jobs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today released Fit for a Better World – Accelerating our Economic Potential, a 10-year roadmap to unlock greater value ...
A new approach to prevent family harm that encourages greater collaboration across government and community groups is being celebrated at the opening of a new facility in Auckland. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today opened the Multi-Disciplinary Family Harm Prevention Hub Te Taanga Manawa in Lambie Road in Manukau. The facility ...
The Government has released a major new report on the options for relocating the Port of Auckland’s freight operations while deferring any decision on the issue. “That decision needs to be informed by policy analysis that is still to be completed. As a result it will be up to a ...
The history of Rāpaki is being restored through the inclusion of te reo in thirteen official place names on Te Pātaka-o-Rākaihautū / Banks Peninsula and around Lyttelton Harbour/Whakaraupō, the Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, announced today. “I am pleased to approve the proposals from Te Hapū o Ngāti ...
Bookings for seats on Air New Zealand flights into New Zealand will be managed in the short term to ensure the Government is able to safely place New Zealanders arriving home into a managed isolation or quarantine facility, says Housing Minister Megan Woods. “Last week Air Commodore Darryn Webb and I ...
Grant Robertson has today announced the first major release of funding from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced at Budget 2020. “Today we’re setting out how $80 million will be invested, with $54 million of that over the 2020/2021 financial year for organisations from community level through to elite ...
The Government is maintaining current levy rates for the next 2 years, as part of a set of changes to help ease the financial pressures of COVID-19 providing certainty for businesses and New Zealanders, ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “New Zealanders and businesses are facing unprecedented financial pressures as a ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $1.5 million to ensure QE Health in Rotorua can proceed with its world class health service and save 75 existing jobs, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development, Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. The PGF funding announced today is in addition to the $8 million ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
The Professional Hunting Guides Association is welcoming the High Court decision on DoC’s controversial tahr campaign. The High Court in Wellington was asked on Wednesday by the Tahr Foundation for a judicial review of DoC’s plan to kill thousands ...
With the 2020 general election nearly three months away, a new campaign is asking voters to vote in line with the future. Vote Climate 2020 aims to highlight the opportunity to build momentum behind climate change, ensuring climate justice is a key election ...
“ACT will target the gangs by hitting them where it hurts – their pockets,” according to ACT Leader David Seymour and Firearms Spokesperson Nicole McKee. “New Zealanders deserve to be safe and secure, but violent gangs are a scourge on our ...
Waffles don’t need to be sweet – these cheese and onion numbers make an excellent savoury breakfast with an egg, or an equally tasty dinner with leftover mince.It’s easy to default to sweet breakfasts without thinking. At least that’s the case in our household, as porridge or bircher muesli is ...
The government is revitalising the wool sector, splashing out on freshwater restoration projects, relieving student stress and showing kindness to Muslims by extending the border exception criteria. It is also increasing its support (in announcements from two separate Green Party Ministers) for women and for wildlife institutions. And it is ...
People have called it for it be pulled from the service, but the escapist fantasy of 365 Days is nothing new, writes Alie Benge.To every generation, a bullish alpha-male psychopath is born, and is for someone reason considered a romantic hero. We’ve been through a lot this year, and instead ...
As Aucklanders reluctantly adjust to the inconvenient practice of water conservation, a drought-savvy Northlander shares the tips and temperament needed to get through the dry times.Auckland’s water shortage was recently reported on The Project, and viewers were earnestly exhorted to fill their dishwashers completely before turning them on. My husband ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk A request by the Philippines’ biggest radio and TV network for a new franchise has been rejected by a congressional committee in a vote that will go down in history as a flagrant violation of the country’s constitution, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The Paris-based media ...
Hamish Walker's privacy leak debacle dominated the news this week, but it's not the first time a southern MP has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, writes Daisy Hudson. ...
Let’s not allow the focus on big-budget infrastructure projects to detract from the vital role public transport will play in revitalising our cities in a post-Covid world, says Greg Pollock.The recent match between the Blues and the Hurricanes was one of the world’s first major post-lockdown sporting fixtures. It was ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
In the heart of Christchurch is a Designated Character high school. What makes it unique? And should there be more like it? Frank Film visits Hagley College Paddy Grant was a 27-year-old truck driver when he rocked up to Christchurch’s Hagley High School, as it was then known. It was ...
"After he calms down we share the pie and talk about how hard the years since the show have been for him": a short story by Wellington writer Jordan Hamel. Every morning it’s the same. Cling wrap on the toilet seat, a pop up snake in my can of breakfast ...
Childcare centre closures have left families and staff out in the cold. In some cases, they were given just three days’ notice, Laura Walters reports Staff and families of Auckland’s Discoveries Educare branches feel blindsided by the sudden closure of the early childhood education centres. The Ministry of Education has ...
Controversy and the America's Cup go hand-in-hand and the latest edition is no different with Emirates Team New Zealand at the centre of financial mismanagement allegations. Extra Time unpicks the debate and ponders what does the latest Cup drama mean? And should we care? A study has revealed racial bias ...
Over the decades, Mike Fox has witnessed the housing market progressively tilt towards larger, more expensive homes. Without a major overhaul of the current regulatory processes, he says, things will never change.It’s one of the biggest problems our country faces – we cannot produce the affordable housing that’s so desperately ...
So-called dirty deals have been roundly denounced over the years. Hayden Donnell argues that they need to be normalised, and even embraced, in September’s election.Just before the 2011 general election, Patrick Gower was confronted with a political act so stomach-churning, it forced him to abandon his trademark reserve. John Key ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia Victoria has recorded 288 new COVID-19 cases since yesterday, the largest daily increase we’ve seen so far. This big jump must have the Victorian government and health authorities very concerned, especially since nearly ...
The controversial 101 East episode Locked Up in Malaysia’s Lockdown on 3 July 2020. Video: Al JazeeraPacific Media Watch Newsdesk Malaysian police summoned six Al Jazeera media workers today for questioning relating to an investigation for defamation and violation of Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA), reports IFJ Asia-Pacific. ...
Analysis - A National MP destroys his career, the government explains how someone with Covid-19 could walk around a supermarket and the closure of Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is announced. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abrar Ahmad Chughtai, Epidemiologist, UNSW Australia’s chief medical officer Paul Kelly today recommended people in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire wear masks when leaving the house: […] If people have symptoms and they need to go for a test, for example, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rochelle Wynne, Director, Western Sydney Nursing & Midwifery Research Centre, Western Sydney University Over the past week, we’ve seen a spike in the number of COVID-19 infections among health-care workers in Victoria. This includes a doctor at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, one ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon and Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan discuss the week in politics including the return to lockdown in Victoria, National Cabinet setting to slow the flow of Australian’s ...
We prefer our heroes untarnished. And few match the heroism of Winston Churchill. But a recent report in the Times reminds us of the inevitability of human frailty and the consequences of keeping it under wraps.During the second world war, Britain’s greatest single loss of life at sea was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ou Yang, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne Donald Trump has ordered US federal agencies to bypass environmental protection laws and fast-track pipeline, highway and other infrastructure projects. Signing the executive order last month, the US president declared regulatory delays would hinder “our ...
SAFE CEO Debra Ashton says "The NZDIA has done the right thing, and we’re glad to see Bertram has been held to account over his actions. He should take this as an opportunity to right his wrongs and show that he takes animal welfare seriously." ...
Takuta Ferris, Te Tai Tonga candidate for the Māori Party, is urging government to place whānau first in the wake of announcements around Tiwai Point. “The declaration that one of the region's major employers the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter is closing ...
Dietary Requirements is The Spinoff’s monthly podcast in which we eat, drink and talk about it too, with special thanks to Freedom Farms. This month, we’re joined by The Spinoff’s managing editor, mall rat and self-confessed food philistine Duncan Greive.On this month’s Dietary Requirements, the gang’s back in the studio, and ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Chart 1: United States and Australia rising. Chart by Keith Rankin. These charts look at Covid19 incidence in China (the most important first-wave country, with a limited second wave), Italy (the lead second-wave country), and USA and Australia (second-wave countries – drawing their caseload from Europe ...
The Government must listen to the Muslim community to rectify its failure to act in the past, says the Human Rights Commission. The Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand (IWCNZ) submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry was released this week. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics. Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre., Griffith University Earlier this week, 150 high-profile authors, commentators and scholars signed an open letter in Harper’s magazine ...
You can’t keep a good woman down and Helen Clark is no exception. Her new appointment, as co-chair of a review of how the World Health Organisation handled the coronavirus pandemic, will test her formidable political skills. Sitting with her is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Liberian president, who handled the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Connor, Lecturer, James Cook University While many people may enjoy a game of backyard cricket, only a few go on to become elite professional batsmen in Australia. Cricket batting is example of what human skills can achieve. The fastest bowling delivery ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University This article is a preview of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a multimedia project launching on Monday July 13. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native ...
CEAC review of pre-election National’s “outline plan” just sent to us by Todd Muller 9/7/20 was actually his speech about his plan and was described as ‘an outline’. So in our review of National Party response to A Greener, Smarter Future; climate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Podger, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University In Hidden Hand, China scholars Clive Hamilton and Marieke Ohlberg examine the Chinese Communist Party’s influence in Europe and North America in a similar way to how Hamilton dissected the CCP’s influence ...
“I can see why people are fed up, many are wondering how to clothe and feed their kids, or how they are going to pay their rent next week and still others are wondering what has happened to our beautiful Kiwi Way of Life. Well no party in parliament ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Sixty press freedom groups and civil society organisations, journalism institutions, filmmakers, and other supporters have formed a coalition in support of Maria Ressa and independent media in the Philippines, united around the call to #HoldTheLine. Today the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Center for ...
National MP Michael Woodhouse also received Covid-19 patient emails from Michelle Boag, and deleted them when he realised she was implicated in a separate email scandal. National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also ...
The government is extending border exceptions to allow overseas victims of the Christchurch mosque attacks and their support people to attend the shooter's sentencing. ...
Ever wanted to be Iron Man? Sam Brooks prefers Pepper Potts, but he had a great time stepping into the iron suit anyway.The first few moments of Iron Man VR are where it plays its hand, confidently and assuredly. You hold your palms out in front of you, and Iron ...
SAP has released to the public a policy paper, “Helping Kiwis get back to work: How data and technology can drive a bigger, better, faster economic recovery.” ...
A new poem by Jordan Hamel.Mermaids When you lose grip and start to drift.The first thing you’re supposed to do issteer into it or steer away? Not all mermaids are royaltysomeone needs to audit the oceanprovide cashflow projectionssome mermaids are actuallymiddle-aged accountants named Stephendreaming of a land-view holiday home. I saw a ...
Want to work for The Spinoff? We’re looking for someone to fill an exciting new role based in our Auckland office. We’re looking for a video and podcast content manager: an experienced writer or sub-editor with a strong understanding of social media to manage our video and podcast content across various channels. ...
National Party leader Todd Muller says no further MPs in his party received confidential information from Michelle Boag, after revelations today that Michael Woodhouse also received four unsolicited emails. ...
By RNZ News Opposition National list MP Dr Jian Yang has announced his retirement from New Zealand politics and says he will not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. He said politics was “demanding” and he wanted to spend more time with his ...
Bayer-Monsanto's June 24 announcement of a US$10.9 billion pay out (1) to people who have been harmed by Glyphosate, is effectively an admission of guilt. Spokesperson for The People’s Inquiry 2020 Asha Andersen says, “The Ministry of Health, The ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has filed a complaint with the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Speaker’s Office over Lawrence Yule’s new taxpayer funded billboards promoting Mr Yule as the ‘Voice in Tukituki’. Union spokesman, Louis Houlbrooke ...
Ten points, two plans. Which points are whose? With an election within spitting distance, Aotearoa’s two biggest political parties are all about the plans. “You don’t have a plan!” says one party to the other. “Yes we have a plan, or certainly a plan to have a plan, or a plan ...
Four months after he announced his re-selection, a National Party MP whose links to Chinese spy agencies attracted the interest of New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service has announced he will not stand in the next election A three-term National Party MP who studied at an elite Chinese spy school before moving to ...
National list MP Dr Jian Yang announced his retirement from politics and said he would not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus. ...
A new political party, the New Zealand TEA Party, with headquarters in Auckland, has been established. The party aims to contest the queen- or kingmaker position to form a coalition with the largest parliamentary party as part of the general elections ...
A review has determined fish oils are non-hazardous and no longer require oversight by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). We regulate pesticides, household chemicals and other dangerous goods and substances under the Hazardous Substances ...
New Conservative calls on the government to join with our Five Eyes allies and add New Zealand's signature to a joint statement condemning the continued removal of freedoms in Hong Kong. New Conservative also calls on the government to give safe-haven ...
Latest from the Beehive – Hard on the heels of the government promising help for the Southland economy in the wake of Rio Tinto’s decision to close the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, it was announcing the delivery of more money to the North, at the other end of the country. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luciano Beheregaray, Professor in Biodiversity Genomics, Flinders University As the global climate shifts, it’s important to know which species have adaptations to survive. Our research published today in PNAS found it largely depends on where they evolved. We looked at the capacity ...
From eggplant emojis and twerking llamas to sweaty anthropomorphic butts, we present some of the most fascinating, hilarious and outrageous complaints dismissed by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) from 2019 to now.Avocadon’t (January 2019)The ad: In this ad from Specsavers, a man gets ready to join a cricket match, but ...
They might sound like the same thing, but light rail is quite different from light metro – the system that transport minister Phil Twyford now favours for Auckland. Katy Wakefield and Jessica Rose of Women in Urbanism explain why the metro option is a poor substitute for LRT. Transport is ...
Why isn't the Government spending $30m to extend Tiwai Point's 2,600 jobs until after the Covid-19 recession, after Manapouri's power can be transmitted elsewhere, and after there's a hydrogen plan for the smelter site, Bernard Hickey asks. The sense of shock and foreboding about the future was clear in Invercargill Mayor ...
An intensive care doctor is outraged health officials are giving helicopter rescue trusts a daily list of Covid-19 patients, saying it's completely unnecessary. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Seth Lazar, Professor, Australian National University In the US, tireless opposition to state use of facial recognition algorithms has recently won some victories. Some progressive cities have banned some uses of the technology. Threetechcompanies have pulled facial recognition products from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia Facial recognition technology is increasingly being trialled and deployed around Australia. Queensland and Western Australia are reportedly already using real-time facial recognition through CCTV cameras. 7-Eleven Australia is also ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol T Kulik, Research Professor of Human Resource Management, University of South Australia The coronavirus pandemic has forced many of us to work from home, often in less than ideal circumstances. Many employees had little choice in the decision, limited time to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katja Hogendoorn, University of Adelaide This article is a preview of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a multimedia project launching on Monday July 13. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Sign up to The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By SriPallavi Nadimpalli, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne Women manage many overlapping responsibilities in both public and private spheres. Their busy routines leave them with just a little time to take a break or a pause in their activity. These pauses are a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Naoise McDonagh, Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Adelaide The pandemic has changed the way we think about supply chains, in particular the chains that feed our need for food, medical supplies, and defence equipment. It has led Prime Minister Scott Morrison ...
Open mike 17/04/2013 
Todd Muller - Dishonest National Party leaderIt seems that dishonest Todd Muller is, like many right-wing politicians, entirely morally bankrupt. I mean just look at the National Party’s leaking omni-shambles over the last week or so. They’ve imploded in a spectacular display of backfiring dirty politics, the likes of which ...5 hours ago
TUESDAY JULY 14Yorkshire Airport (Prime, 7.30pm). Bloomin’ ’eck, behind the scenes at Leeds Bradford Airport. Apparently, there is plenty of “northern charm”, although reaction in the UK ranged from “brilliant” to “patronising”. It is narrated by Hugh Dennis, whose middle name might be “Arch”.WEDNESDAY JULY 15Queen: Live at Wembley (Prime, ...6 hours ago
Simon Bridges must be the unluckiest person in New Zealand politics. When he was elected as leader of the National party, he also became Leader of the Opposition – a position, he was entitled to assume, that would require him to “oppose”. But the government he set out to oppose ...7 hours ago
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Check out Speak Up For Women’s new podcasts: Episode 3 In this episode Speak Up For Women spokeswoman Ani O’Brien (@aniobrien) is joined by Beth Johnson (@beth_nosnhoj) to discuss the proposal from Statistics NZ to change standard data collection policy to “gender by default” rather than sex. They discuss why the ...22 hours ago
During a recent public consultation on the future of Archives New Zealand, a key report was suppressed. The Ombudsman has ruled that the refusal was unjustified. Sadly, the consultation was over by the time of the the decision has been made. However, the law on the use of the ...23 hours ago
Everyone is paying attention today to the Supreme Court ruling that the President is not above the law and that Trump's tax returns can be given to a New York grand jury investigating him. But the Supreme Court decided another, far more important case yesterday, and effectively restored Native American ...1 day ago
Transcript: National Party policy announcement on roads – 8 July, 2020 Muller: Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for coming. Reporter 1: Is Hamish Walker a racist? Muller: Hang on… you haven’t even said good afternoon to me yet. Reporter 1: Good afternoon Mr Muller. Is Hamish Walker a racist? ...1 day ago
Today’s content Tiwai Point to close Hamish Rutherford (Herald): Government subsidising practically everything plays hardball with Rio Tinto (paywalled) Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Sudden closure of aluminium smelter worst outcome for jobs, consumers and the environment Brian Fallow (Herald): Tiwai closure sad news – and an opportunity for the environment (paywalled) Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Rio ...1 day ago
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Anja Mizdrak, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael Baker The pandemic-related lockdown is possibly the most dramatic public health intervention in NZ history. It helped achieve the elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 virus in NZ. But it was also associated with 548 fewer total ...1 day ago
Reprehensible: There is much that could be said about Michael Woodhouse, but what would be the point? Any man who willingly involves himself in a situation as reprehensible as the one depicted in the above photograph has already vouchsafed all that decent people need to know about his character. That there have ...1 day ago
79 Articles Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Six hundred years of South American tree rings reveal an increase in severe hydroclimatic events since mid-20th century (open access) Late summer temperature variability for the Southern Rocky Mountains (USA) since 1735 CE: applying blue light intensity to low-latitude ...3 days ago
Some are surprised at this sudden brain implosion on the part of both Michelle Boag, former National Party President, and the National Party in general, in exposing the private, confidential details of COVID patients. Others…? Let’s be blunt: not so much. Too many of that Party have long operated with ...3 days ago
...5 days ago
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Some good news.
The Fossil Fuel Resistance
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-fossil-fuel-resistance-20130411/+1
In America the Fossil Fuel Resistance has already won some serious victories, blocking dozens of new coal plants and closing down existing ones – ask the folks at Little Village Environmental Justice Organization who helped shutter a pair of coal plants in Chicago, or the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, which fought to stop Chevron from expanding its refinery in Richmond, California. “Up to this point, grassroots organizing has kept more industrial carbon out of the atmosphere than state or federal policy,” says Gopal Dayaneni of the Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project. It’s an economic resistance movement, too, one that’s well aware renewable energy creates three times as many jobs as coal and gas and oil. Good jobs that can’t be outsourced because the sun and the wind are close to home. It creates a future.
You don’t need to go to jail, but you do need to do more than change your light bulbs. You need to try to change the system that is raising the temperature, the sea level, the extinction rate – even whether civilization will survive this century
Forget about North Korea. We need to declare war on Climate Change
The Green Party Conference on Climate Change to be held in the Legislative Council Chamber on June 7 will be a the opportunity to publicly and loundly declare war on Climate Change, and launch the Fossil Fuel Resistance in this country.
I expect some serious resolutions and demands to come out of this conference.
1/ The immediate closure of Tiwai with good redundancies and retraining packages, for all the Tiwai workforce. (Not just union, subbies and casuals as well).
2/ The halting of all coal exports from this country as a moral lead to our closest neighbour and friend Australia. As an example of what must be demanded of them too. To have any chance of saving the climate.
3/ The founding of a professionally supported resistance organisation to achieve (at least) these two basic aims.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/aug/29/environment.science
Jenny – Stop using the term *Declare War* – Its bloody distasteful, and best left to the likes of John Key, and the other chicken hawks!
Read through the link above, and read some of the links from that article, it will help with general understanding!
Keep up the good work…
(sorry this was meant to be a new comment)
Joe Stiglitz hit the nail on the head with this op-ed saying that the US tax system is stacked against the 99%.
Another insightful point he made: lower tax rates at the top have not motivated entrepreneurial activity and growth – they have motivated rent seeking behaviour as the rich look at making their money earn more money from the poor.
Hence a less progressive tax system increases inequality in at least two ways – the rich keep more of their money, while they grow in ways to increasingly rent seek off the poor.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/a-tax-system-stacked-against-the-99-percent/?src=me&ref=general
CV
100% right. In the end the poor are serfs in their own country.The other method is to trash the commongood and privatise everything.
Damn straight… it’s neo-feudalism.
Dunno which “most economists” he was talking to but most of the ones I’ve met think inequality is fine and just proof that the “market” is working.
Other than that it was a good read.
Since the above sentence was obviously written before he had closed off his comment.
This looks suspiciously, more like an obvious threadjack.
That Colonial Viper is a long time climate change apologist is just too coincidental
All I can say, is that to resort to such underhanded tactics, CV must have run out of all his excuses for continuing with climate change.
killing in the name of…sulphur
Outta Control – Iron
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/17/canada-geoengineering-pacific
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/15/pacific-iron-fertilisation-geoengineering
Now ya do what they told ya…
Indeed
I just couldn’t think of any other noun worse than war, to describe the affects of climate change, millions dead. Nature ravaged. On a scale never matched by any war in the whole history of humanity.
If you can think of a word that better describes what is happening to us and how we should respond to it. I would be grateful.
So who is the enemy?
Climate Change is the enemy. Once you declare that, you can then work out a strategy to beat it.
Or at the very least. Beat an orderly retreat with as few losses as possible.
Maybe the only way ahead is to suppress human population back under 6B and reduce per capita energy use?
Germany might turn off the Fawcett. Far-out
http://www.ibtimes.com/german-debt-rises-dangerous-highs-1197869
Europe, unlike the UK and US, have not recapitalised their banking system yet.
As far as I understand it, the vast majority of major European banks are insolvent, with very large and undisclosed bad debts and toxic assets.
Basically the EU banks are at the stage the US banks were at before the massive bailouts, TARP etc.
see the “cabbages” link? How often you read the IBT; what else is a good daily gaze for a sayer?
Following the daily financial news makes you feel like you know what is happening but too often you end up being distracted by the froth and the bubbles and not noticing which way the tide is actually turning.
If you need a daily fix zerohedge.com is good, the posts there are a good mix of pure neoliberal/right wing conservative, to excellent non-orthodox economics and independent financial observations. Can get pretty saucy.
Keiser Report on youtube; Max and Stacey seem to do 2-3 shows a week and they always focus on current events but always relate them to larger themes. Max’ style is rather…inimitable.
For the big picture on where the world is at in terms of finances, investment and banking I don’t think anyone really beats Kyle Bass for setting context.
Once you get to grip with what these guys are all saying, suddenly the day to day froth of the financial news starts to make real sense.
Gold moving faster than cabbages 😀
http://www.ibtimes.com/chinese-consumers-rush-buy-gold-global-gold-prices-plunged-last-week-1204823
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-20/10-signs-paper-gold-crash-unleashed-unprecedented-demand-physical-gold-and-silver
there’s going to be a big divergence between highly dodgy “paper” gold and silver, and the good old physical stuff.
Sounds reasonable. If we don’t take some action now. Nature and physics will do it to us regardless.
Hi jenny
The War against climate change is already lost because positive feedbacks are now increasingly manifesting. Here are four to begin with:
” Methane hydrates are bubbling out the Arctic Ocean (Science, March 2010)
Warm Atlantic water is defrosting the Arctic as it shoots through the Fram Strait (Science, January 2011). This breakdown of the thermohaline conveyor belt is happening in the Antarctic as well.
Siberian methane vents have increased in size from less than a meter across in the summer of 2010 to about a kilometer across in 2011 (Tellus, February 2011)
Drought in the Amazon triggered the release of more carbon than the United States in 2010 (Science, February 2011)
Peat in the world’s boreal forests is decomposing at an astonishing rate (Nature Communications, November 2011)”
Refer Guy Mcpherson’s article:
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/
“In other words, Obama and others in his administration knew near-term extinction of humans was already guaranteed. Even before the dire feedbacks were reported by the scientific community, the Obama administration abandoned climate change as a significant issue because it knew we were done as early as 2009. Rather than shoulder the unenviable task of truth-teller, Obama did as his imperial higher-ups demanded: He lied about collapse, and he lied about climate change. And he still does.”
Obviously continuing to burn more fossil fuels will boost the process even more. If Lovelock is right we are heading for a new, never before experienced by humanity, hot planet equilibrium well past the global average increase of 2C.
johnm missed out the biggest feed back of all.
CO2 is not the biggest green house gas. Neither is methane. The biggest green house gas in the Earth’s atmosphere is water vapour. Warm air holds more water vapour, which causes more warming which leads to warmer air which holds more water vapour which leads to etc. etc.
That this is so, is witnessed by what has been termed snowmageddon and by unprecedented record breaking rainfall and consequent disastrous floods experienced around the world. Ironically tied to extreme drought in other areas.
The Fossil Fuel Resistance
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-fossil-fuel-resistance-20130411/+1
US carbon emissions are the lowest in 20 years,a situation brought about by cheaper cleaner energy ,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-2012_n_1792167.html
The new Pope Francis is already declaring himself as a died in the wool conservative – though I’m sure he goes about it with ever so much “loving care”.A wolf in sheep’s clothing? . See RT news report which reports unchanged hardness of heart toward the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (represent 80% of nuns). Little sign of his promised “tender and ethical responses” here – but then he is harsh toward women which is hardly to be unexpected. Such lovely people on the surface can be beastly in practice.
DrT, methinks we think differently to Francis. And I wonder why anybody would think that the head of the bastion of arch social conservatism would be any different? We on this blog like to think we are more “advanced” with our secular religion of arch modernism, with all its Bacchanalian liberalism thrown in. We happily destroy any conservative boundaries, declaring them morally bankrupt, outdated, misogynist etc. And we happily declare our value judgments supreme.
Francis I suspect belongs to a far different tradition, and note the word tradition: his social precepts have survived two thousand years, and for most of that time fitted the everyday social realities. Who is to say how long and how fitting our “advanced” precepts will fit our changing realities?
Indeed. The other thing is that Pope Francis has a massive internal politics and internal stakeholders that he needs to deal with. He is going to have to carefully choose where he spends his political capital, after a period where the former Pope appears to have run into major internal problems.
In that sense, imagine the internal constraints that National or Labour deal with every day, x10,000.
’til the end my long lost friend, ’til the end,
2PAC
Downloaded a new Ring Tone.
BIG BEN has lots of resonance!
I stumbled across this statement made by Kim Dotcom on March 1, 2012. He apparently said:
“It’s kind of like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, you know? If you want to go after someone and you have a political goal you will say whatever it takes.”
Sums it up perfectly …
Did you see Pilger on Maori TV last night, in a doco on Latin America and the US political interventions?
The fascinating bits for me were:
* Kissinger denying involvement in Chile: bare faced lies that Goebbels would have been proud of. With him was Nixon, a flawed but not I suspect an evil individual. Contrasting the elected and accountable Nixon was Kissinger, the l’eminence grise hitch hiking behind the power, the unelected, unaccountable modern bureaucrat. Pure evil.
* Bush declaring what great work those “boys from the Chicago school” had done for the Chilean economy when he was in full knowledge of the “dirty deeds”. The transition from accountable democratic presidency to elected divine right presidency very evident.
* Pilgers interview with a CIA operative who unashamedly justified any brutality as “a defense of US interests”. According to this man what was good for the US transcended any moral decency or human rights. Transported back 50 years he would have run a death camp, or commanded a gulag. Scary.
Takes a certain kind of character, and plenty of sacrifices (usually from others…) to run and maintain an empire.
Counterpunch relates how the Obama administration is justifying current drone killings by the Kissinger/Nixon illegal bombing of Cambodia. ‘War Crimes as Policy’. Chilling stuff.
http://issuu.com/counterpunch
That’s all really really bad.
saw that – well, before dozing off on the couch 🙂
was pleased and amazed it was being screened on any kind of TV, let alone free to air TV
Im intrigued about just how many people watched and went “WTF? didnt know any of that”
Hopefully it wasnt a preaching to the choir event
Hi Ennui
El Gringo Yankey john is a U$ neoliberal privatising plant in N$Z who is continuing the trashing process of everything that made this a great country to live in.
Was it called *The war on democracy*?
I have a DVD by that name, fronted by Pilger..
The likes of Kissinger, are still *taking care of interests*!
A very relevant comment at present, MS.
And I recommend to others your latest post on your own blog re Dotcom, the GCSB and related legal issues – http://waitakerenews.blogspot.com/2013/04/dotcom-rattles-key.html
(A minor point: in the paragraph re July 2012, I presume that “Ian Foster” should read “Ian Fletcher”.)
I have also found the Toby Manhire timeline your comment links to useful and worth checking from time to time as he appears to be continually updating it. The links within that timeline under the 9 April 2013 are also useful.
Cheers Veuto
Have corrected the name …
Thanks for the link, veuto. Excellent and very helpful analysis, micky.
Thx for fine summation MS .. very useful indeed .. but I couldn ‘t find the link to Toby Manhire’s timeline ? Can someone help please ?
( Just dreaming but it will be hysterical if Warners get the rights to the movie and chooses to make it in Australia !!!)
Hi yeshe link is at http://www.listener.co.nz/commentary/the-internaut/kim-dotcom-megaupload-new-zealand-timeline/
Do you know what affidavit Peters was referring to in the House today – from Sept 2012, and included something signification on page 2, about Kim Vestor, I think?
Not Bestor as in the transcript.
karol … Kim Dotcom seems to have the name Kimvestor as a company handling Megaupload …
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=kimvestor+ceo+kim+dotcom&aq=2&oq=kim+vestor&aqs=chrome.3.57j0l3.12444j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Also prior to official name change to Kim Dotcom, he was previously known as Kim Jim Tim Vestor according to his Wiki page and annotated to Washington Post ! Fascinating ……
Yes. And that’s why I think the Hansard transcript is wrong. I looked at the Sept 2012 memorandum linked to int he waitakere news post (link above) and can’t see any mention of Vestor there.
Just read it again and it says the residency application WP referred to was 2010, but the doc he entered into the record was from 2012 of evidence from Wormald … perhaps Kim Dotcom is watching and can tell us ?? I have tweeted him, but no reply as yet … first time tweet but I’d love to know !
And do you know where/how we can access the introduced document on Parliament website ?
I think the affidavit was tabled as evidence that Dotcom was known to Immigration NZ as Kim Vestor. Wormald says the Immigration file was headed “VESTOR/Kim” aka “DOTCOM/Kim”. Interesting.
Key’s answer was “no” but he looked uncomfortable.
You have to wonder why Peters chose then to spring it on Key.
I think Peters was referring to the following affidavit that is on scoop. I am not sure of the significance yet but no doubt all will be revealed!
Thanks, micky.
thx micky …
aargh, maybe here be fiery dragons …
Re Yeshe’s comment at 4.2.3 – in particular the second para re Warners.
You might also enjoy this bit of satire by Toby Manhire in the Herald last week
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=10877017
Thank you .. did see it last week and enjoyed his brilliance !
okaaaayyyy – were moving far to fucken fast on this shit
Oh look it seems like a pre-prepared agenda and operational plan is now being put into action.
Great.
chris trotters article on the daily blog about the kitteridge report was also quite interesting
sorry – gotta dash – cant remember the exact day it went up, so no linky from me on that one
[karol: added the link for you]
What. The. F*ck.
In a matter of days John Key has turned into Dubya. First terrorists and WMDs, now our very own mini-patriot act legislation proposal materializes. How can it not be obvious to all that this is about abusing his power to cover his own arse now, and protect his own political agenda in the future?
Both of framu’s links are a must read. As Sam95 in the Stuff link commented:
“But the proposed changes would mean network operators would be obliged to “engage with the Government through the GCSB on network security”, where it might affect New Zealand’s national security and economic well-being, she said.”
Economic wellbeing? That’s a pretty low bar. Does it mean the Gvt could, for example, spy on workers they think are planning to strike?”
Anyone who looked at the American madness under Bush and said “that can’t happen here,” might want to wake up about now.
“Economic wellbeing? That’s a pretty low bar. Does it mean the Gvt could, for example, spy on workers they think are planning to strike?”
Yep. Or anyone protesting for instance against the TPP. Or any other thing the govt deems necessary for our economic wellbeing.
However, I’m pretty sure the economic wellbeing criteria came in post-911 with NZ legislation changes done in the 2000s. The changes now are to include the GCSB to allow it to extend its powers to NZ citizens.
“…seems like a pre-prepared [sic] agenda…”
That’s a horrifying piece of redundancy.Tidy up your act, please.
🙂
Thanks for that link. Yes, this is why, even though the GCSB regulations may need to be updated, there needs to be time for a full and thorough examination of the intelligence services and wide consultation on proposed changes.
“Yes, this is why, even though the GCSB regulations may need to be updated, there needs to be time for a full and thorough examination of the intelligence services and wide consultation on proposed changes.”
That’s quite well written by Trotter and is a bit of an eye opener. When they revealed that 85 people had been spied on my own first pick was Jane Kelsey, interesting to see Trotter picked her out too. A lot of the TPPA revelations were being leaked out of the USA and Kelsey has pretty clearly been getting access to information that she’s not supposed to see.
The negative publicity arising from it will be pissing off the vested interests concerned and I’d lay odds they’ve been trying frantically to find & close the leaks of ‘secret’ TPPA documents. It’s not a long stretch of the bow to assume they’ve been monitoring who she communicates with in the hope of finding the source(s) and to be forewarned of what she might have to say next. Not a nice thought.
So where are Dunne and the Maori Party in this GCSB legislative coup?
and the act party – theyve gone a bit quiet
the Act Party have principles of libertarianism and freedom from Government intrusion and over-reach. Of course they will oppose the Bill. Really, I’m just sure of it.
huh? oh, the act libertarian, act free, act honest party. it’s just an act.
It has been a long time since could be considered libertarian in any sense.
They still promote it as such, so that’s still the standard they’re measured against.
Fair?
That’d be like saying its fair to judge a cat as a dog because the owner calls it a dog.
ACT is just a rich, white, conservative party with a religious bent now.
Fucking hopeless would be a better description.
how about a cat in a dog suit that goes woof occasionally?
seems a better analogy for how act portray themselves
but as for the rest – agreed, but i would switch conservative for “authoritarian plutocrats”
Your analogy sux. In fact, it doesn’t even come close as the cat isn’t claiming to be a dog.
While still claiming to be Liberals.
“That’d be like saying its fair to judge a cat as a dog because the owner calls it a dog.”
Not the point. They’re trying to sell a cat dressed as a dog, in which case it’s reasonable to measure it against the standards you’d expect of a dog, and to point out where it is found wanting.
“ACT is just a rich, white, conservative party with a religious bent now.”
Yes, and they should stop bullshitting about being free market social liberals.
NZ First will support it with some qualifications.
I believe Dunne has said UF will support the Bill in the first reading.
The Maori Party look like they won’t support it:
Fuck this “responsible minister” lark. National have made it a contradiction in terms.
It’s quite obvious intelligence and law enforcement need a cross-party oversight committee with govt and opposition mps and a high/supreme court justice to do these warrants, at the very least review all warrants on a monthly basis.
they are running out of hairs-breath
Yup, as it was planned to be – Wonder where the UFB fits into all of this ….
Everything on the network can easily be traced.
Indeed, the grid is being laid, and its not looking good for the punters!
Smart meters already being rolled out, many people don’t even know they have one!
Convergence will happen sooner or later!
Ok, the government are trying to prevent the same thing that happened in the Arab Spring where people used social media to ignite the revolution. They don’t seem to understand that the policies of the government were the fuel.
You think NZ is anywhere close to a revolution? Or do you mean that the govt is looking ahead?
The government is looking ahead to prevent people from revolting.
Theresa, who teaches in the working class suburb of Wainuiomata, said the national performance standards were “absolutely disgusting”. She said it was “heart-breaking for parents to read that their kids are failing against some bar that might not even be of any relevance.” She explained: “The scary thing about national standards is the computer system, which will effectively label students and take the teacher’s decisions away. Teachers know children. Nobody always does the best they can do on a test.”
Gary said that under national standards “education is reduced to performance along three lines, reading writing and maths … That sort of campaign has always been associated with a hard-right government, a government that does not want to cultivate in its citizens a capacity to think independently.” He said it was “horrible”, that “primary schools are moving to produce consumers and taxpayers” and “the idea of having an education which produced a well-rounded, balanced child who can think critically is being discarded.”
New Zealand teachers’ protests:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/16/nzed-a16.html
This is real ‘social engineering. Add to it the money being poured into private religious schools for the wealthy, and you can see the National education agenda clear as day. Presumably there is a Labour Party education spokesperson who can say bluntly ‘we will reverse this’. ???
Obama is not in Kansas now. ‘Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn’t, didn’t already have,
“Sometimes late when things are real
And people share the gift of gab between themselves
Some are quick to take the bait
And catch the perfect prize that waits among the shelves…”
although the number of people drinking alcohol, nationally has dropped slightly,
1 in 5 surveyed have a hazardous drinking pattern; those 18-24 are most at risk where-in are 1 in 4 women.
Vanilla Ice Coney Island Baby
Hear ye? Hear ye! At 4:06 pm Sunday 21 April: Constitutional Review Debates.
On Radionz – some lively minds applying their intellect to THIS IMPORTANT SUBJECT of our country’s basic legal measures. See the blurb from Radionz below. (This is the second one but you can still listen to the first.)
Sundays 14 April – 12 May 2013 during 4 ‘Til 8
Coming Up
4:06 pm Sunday 21 April: Constitutional Review Debates
Reforming our Democratic Institutions
Featuring Dr Maria Bargh, Colin James, Professor Elizabeth McLeay, Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC and Steven Price
This debate looks at the term of parliament (and whether it should be fixed), the size of parliament, the size and number of electorates, and Maori electoral representation.
Debating the Constitution 1: What’s the problem?
Kicking off a series of debates inspired by the current Constitutional Review, Professor Claudia Geiringer; Professor Bruce Harris, Dr Carwyn Jones, Dame Claudia Orange, and Dr Matthew Palmer explore the background issues with moderator Steven Price. (53′03″)
From Constitutional Review Debates on 14 Apr 2013
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
Charred fragments believed by some to be Goebbels’ notes for a funeral eulogy.
Party comrades,
It has to be recognised that the Fuehrer did arouse strong feelings in certain quarters; some have even called him a divisive figure. But this is a solemn funereal occasion, which ought to be conducted in the best possible taste. It is a moment to commemorate positive achievements only; let not the good be “interred with his bones” as Mark Anthony would put it. Many of those young people who so glibly denounce “Hitlerism” simply cannot remember what a mess Germany was in before he came to office. That mess was largely inherited, it cannot be said too often, from the social democrats who had spent million on municipal social programmes financed by borrowed money. Germany’s international standing was low; the French had literally walked all over us. Strikes and street riots were commonplace. ….. But there were no strikes or riots, absolutely none, after Adolf Hitler came into to office. This was due the uncompromising anti-trade union legislation of a man whom history will surely count as the world’s leading anti-Communist… A towering international figure, Adolf Hitler was a conviction politician; his name will be long remembered as byword.
In his personal life Adolf Hitler was abstemious and reserved, but he was always a generous patron of the arts, and he often relished a heated argument when at table. Those of us who worked with him will remember a side the public could not see: his extraordinary personal considerateness toward members of his immediate staff. They will also know of his unusual kindness to animals. “The animals are my friends” he would often say “and I do not eat my friends.” …. Among the legacies of this great moderniser are the spacious roads that now stretch across Germany and our distinctive “People’s Car” that will one day happily throng along them….
Chilling but a thatch of resonance! Clever connections.
And an excellent op ed, by the always-worth-reading Yasmin Alibhai Brown, on Thatcher’s racism: “Beware of the rabid right, not the loony left”.
Thatcher’s hate speech and what could be done with the money spent on her burying.
I prefer Frankie Boyle’s suggestion to spend only 3 million pounds and give each person a shovel to hand her to Satan personally.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/margaret-thatcher-anti-gay-speech_n_3071177.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/apr/16/margaret-thatcher-funeral-10-million
As some else said, “To respect her belief in Market Forces, put her funeral out to tender and choose the lowest offer.”
And now we have the crushless ones doing a fan-girl rave about the wonderfulness, and always correctness of the departed one.
Unbelievable performance by Parata! Just came back into my home office to catch her final few moments – and the camera cutting across to the empty Labour seats.
And now we have Louise Upton, Key’s sychophant of late with patsy questions, waxing lyrical about handbags…..and Thatcher.
And Ianmac, I agree that is what they should have done re the funeral. Laughed when I saw that a few days ago.
Oh godz: I can’t take much more from the Natz women in the House lauding Thatcher and Jackie Blue & Thatcher as feminist icons, leading the fight for women. Very good rebuttal from Moroney.
Agreed – especially about Sue Moroney’s rebuttal. Sue is wasted where she is now …..
Just saw some of Jackie Blue’s speech and have to say I was impressed with her inclusiveness of women across the spectrum in the House. I am trying to keep an open mind on her new appointment; time will tell. Cannot say the same for the Devoy appointment.
I personally knew Jackie many years ago; haven’t been in touch for a long time but she’s one very, very intelligent person. I’d be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in her new role.
If nothing else I’d read the resignation as a Nat MP in a positive light.
Have to say that I’ve noticed in the past that she has often looked bored and not very impressed with some of the infantile one-upman-ship that goes on – even from her own team. She may well prove to be a Nat. crony appointment who is an exception to the rule.
+1
Mine technology was making mining less labour intensive, it was inevitable that the mining industry would have to shrink under whoever become leader of Britian. How Thatcher went about it says much about how many now feel about her.
Imagine a world where countries would seize islands off their coast, like the Fawklands, what would have happened in the Pacific, would China have seize islands??? It was unimaginable that the west, which had grabs so many islands globally, could allow the Fawklands to fall. And would also speak to the UN moves to give islands autonomy now. So the idea that she did something decisive is a illusion, once again she was at the whim of trends long entrenched.
Her legacy is the stauch way the media backed her, and media even today, fail to address her legacy with any truth. The middle east oil wells ere opened up, the western economy boomed
for 30 years, the richest wanted the lion share of that wealth and so instead of redirecting it into
bring the world out of poverty, ending war, it was funneled into the biggest market collapse since the great depression. Her legacy is that she was a tool, and still is.
This.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/16916-focus-tennessee-ayn-rands-vision-of-paradise
Keyboard setup for macrons
Thanks but the Maori option is not there for me – have windows 7 op system.
That’s surprising – you may need to install it directly.
Oh dear, the John Key condition is infectious and has spread to Tony Ryall who cannot get his story straight in the House now!!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8561516/Fisherman-told-crossing-was-safe-father
So Talleys only talked to him about the catch ……………………………………………………
That is not a freak wave / out of nowhere / instantly changed…… it is well spotted
Suffer the people
… these too-hard talleys ….
they should go somewhere else
How on earth did this bloke get a law degree?
Jordan Williams’ fertile mind was fertilizing prodigiously this afternoon.
The Panel, Radio New Zealand National, Wednesday 17 April 2013
Jim Mora, Josie McNaught, Jordan Williams
One of the more unpleasant commentators in this country is the anti-proportional representation campaigner Jordan Williams, a right wing lawyer who in a short time in the public eye has established himself as one of the go-to guys for any lazy journalist wanting a quick soundbite with an extreme right-wing taint to it. Williams evidently thinks that talking quietly and slowly and deliberately will fool people into ignoring the poverty of his thinking and to regard him as, ummm, …. errrr, ….pause…. thoughtful and serious. In fact, in his several appearances on The Panel, Williams has revealed that he is not much more than an indolent recycler of Reader’s Digest-level bromides against democracy, civil rights, rational thinking, and other left-wing, liberal, namby-pamby, nanny-state, commie nonsense.
If his voice was aged by thirty years, and gnarlier, and tobacco-thickened, Jordan Williams could be mistaken for poor old Garth “Gaga” George, or the C-grade movie bully-boy John “Barney” Barnett, or the hapless NBR editor and not-so-bon vivant Nevil “Breivik” Gibson. But more than anyone else, Williams sounds very like a youthful edition of the libertarian nut, S.S. counsel and cod-philosopher Stephen Franks. This is no doubt largely explained by the fact he works for Franks & Ogilvie, and has no doubt taken to faithfully aping the style of the old ACT back-bench-warmer.
On today’s show, the first half passed uneventfully, with some dull and spurious anti-gay rhetoric posing as “legitimate concerns” about the Marriage Equality Bill, then a brief and unenlightening discussion about Justin Bieber, and then an appalling, absurdly punctilious parsing of President Obama’s words following the Boston Marathon atrocity.
After the 4:30 news, it was time for the Soapbox….
JIM MORA: All right, it’s that time when we ask our Panelists what they have been thinking about. Jordan Williams, what’s on your mind?
Williams had obviously been waiting for this one for a long time. Unfortunately, however, it did not improve the quality of his talk one whit; anyone tempted to think about engaging the professional advocacy services of this fellow should listen to the quality—or lack of quality—of his performance here.
Williams proceeded to indulge in a wandery and incoherent rant against Victoria University’s refusal to have anything to do with the unhinged, wild-eyed, walking disaster known as Screaming Lord Monckton. Throughout his poorly prepared speech, Williams several times said that the university was treating Monckton “like a Holocaust-denier”. Actually, Williams unwittingly was stating the truth here: Monckton has the status and intellectual credibility of a Holocaust-denier. Williams also kept referring to Monkton, a notorious crank, as a “climate change skeptic”. To her credit, Josie McNaught took Williams up on that, pointing out that Monckton had no respect at all in the scientific community, and that he is accurately described as a denier, not a skeptic.
That simple act of contradiction almost caused Williams to melt down. He stuttered and frothed, shouted “No he’s NOT!”, stammered for several minutes, admitted that he knew nothing about climate science—“I’m only a lawyer”—and then returned to his theme that refusing to acknowledge that pop-eyed fruitcake was equivalent to curtailing free speech on campus.
I flicked off the following email to the programme…
Jordan Williams’ tolerance for loons
Dear Jim,
Does Jordan Williams support our universities extending respect to people who claim to have been abducted by aliens?
And if not, why not?
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
“To her credit, Josie McNaught took Williams up on that, pointing out that Monckton had no respect at all in the scientific community, and that he is accurately described as a denier, not a skeptic.”
Err, no she didn’t.
That simple act of contradiction almost caused Williams to melt down. He stuttered and frothed, shouted “No he’s NOT!”, stammered for several minutes,”
Err, no, that didn’t happen either.
Morrissey, you’re making shit up. Again.
Here’s the audio: http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/aft/aft-20130417-1633-the_panel_with_jordan_williams_and_josie_mcnaught_part_2-048.mp3
I’m sure Morrissey was just providing us with an ‘approximate transcription’
Well, I listened to it as well and while I might mark friend Morrissey down just slightly for a spot of (entertaining) hyperbole, he does correctly identify Williams’ “little lawyer” prissiness and the absence of a cringeworthy self-consciousness in the other panellist Josie McNaught.
Also occurs to me that were the entitled right-wing fantasist Monckton not the subject of VUW’s “piss-off you nutter” (a similar attitude taken by institutions all over the world), and rather it were some left-wing loon, then Jordy might well not have been so quick to lambast VUW. I mean some people just aren’t worth dealing with at all. Monckton is one such. All Thatcheresque hooting and pretension.
Williams has the stripe of another we know – Simon Bridges. Bright young man on the way up blah blah blah. Bright about what is not immediately apparent but let’s be charitable and leave it with, ummmh – “bright”. Wouldn’t frighten the horses sort of thing. Will be a safe pair of hands.
Anyway, how the stuff are the callow likes of him calculated to add anything to any panel anywhere ? He is after all only a poster-boy anointed by that anti-MMP dinosaur Shirtcliffe. Much like Simon and Key. Early trough-training.
Mora’s invitation list gets more and more skewed to the right…
You’d think, from the amount of libertarians and radical free marketeers on his show, that ACT won 15% of the vote last election.
So why does a national broadcaster that is supposed to be balanced, clearly not reflect the wishes of the people.
It is not Mora who selects the balance of his guests, surely. Who does?
“Well, I listened to it as well and while I might mark friend Morrissey down just slightly for a spot of (entertaining) hyperbole, he does correctly identify Williams’ “little lawyer” prissiness and the absence of a cringeworthy self-consciousness in the other panellist Josie McNaught.”
Sorry North but correctly identifying someone’s prissiness is a fucking mile away from saying ‘he said this, then she said that’.
He made that whole conversation up. McNaught never made any distinction between denial/skepticism and Williams didn’t shout ‘No he’s not’ (or anything else) or stammer for two minutes.
That’s not hyperbole, North, it’s making up false quotes. Lying is another word.
And Morrissey does it all the time with no indication that he’s writing fiction.
I challenge you to listen again, see if you can find the bits Morrissey quoted, and let me know the relevant min:sec. It doesn’t exist.
Simon Bridges. Bright young man…
You mean, good-looking young man. He’s not that bright. I urge you to track down last night’s interview with Mihi Forbes on Maori Television. Bridges clearly lacks the wherewithal to engage in intelligent and robust discussion. Last night he was stressed and tense and irritated throughout the interview; I thought for a minute or so that Mihi Forbes was going to drive the poor fellow into a Jordan Williams-style meltdown.
Wow! Apparently it wasn’t only Jordan Williams that exploded with incoherent rage yesterday afternoon. Let’s look at what our friend Felix has tried to assert. To match his spirit of angry insistence, I’ve highlighted Felix’s words in bold type….
1.) To her credit, Josie McNaught took Williams up on that, pointing out that Monckton had no respect at all in the scientific community, and that he is accurately described as a denier, not a skeptic.
Err, no she didn’t.
She did exactly that, in slightly more circuitous and hesitant language, but Williams understood the import of her words perfectly; she had skewered him in public.
2.) That simple act of contradiction almost caused Williams to melt down. He stuttered and frothed, shouted “No he’s NOT!”, stammered for several minutes,
Err, no, that didn’t happen either.
Yes it did, and you know it did. Williams was utterly incapable of dealing with being contradicted—perhaps something in the diffident but persistent manner of Josie McNaught enraged him on some primeval level.
3.) Morrissey, you’re making shit up. Again.
Look carefully at my report. I didn’t write it up as a transcript, other than the one introductory bit by Jim Mora. I dashed it out in haste and rage—controlled rage, not incoherent spluttering like Jordan Williams’ rage—and put it online. I have no doubt that I have strengthened Josie McNaught’s role here; she was not as succinct in her statement as I have made her appear. However, there is no doubt that she bothered Williams, even when she was extremely polite and roundabout in the way she phrased her dissent after his crazed rant in support of that science denier.
Your allegation that I made this up is easily disproved by listening to the recording that you so unwisely provided as evidence. Your nasty little suggestion that I have “made shit up” in the past has been dealt with by me and others forcefully on several occasions. You seem to be either a slow learner or simply a sucker for punishment. Have you thought of going to a dominatrix?
4.) Here’s the audio:
I urge anyone who is interested, to listen to that tape and then to let Felix know what is meant by such concepts as “gist”, “essence” and “summary”.
It doesn’t matter whether you call it a transcript or not. When you say “x said this and that” and they didn’t say anything of the sort you’re lying.
Show where McNaught said anything – anything at all – about the difference between deniers and skeptics.
Didn’t happen. You made it up. She never touched the subject.
Likewise Williams. Show where he yelled anything in defiance of the thing McNaught never said.
Simply didn’t happen. There was no yelling, no stutterring, no several minutes of stammering. You made it up.
You’ve been caught out doing this before Morrissey. You admit it’s just an impression – fine – so write it as a fucking impression, not as a factual account you fucking child.
“Show where McNaught said anything – anything at all – about the difference between deniers and skeptics.”
If she didn’t say it then she should have said it. Morrissey has used her as a character in the service of his mission, which is to pin up the grisly exhibit “Jordan Williams”. Shakespeare did the same kind of thing, when he put eloquent words into the mouths of thugs like Brutus, Cassius, and Titus Andronicus.
Although this fellow Williams reminds one more of one of the pathetic and mewling hypocrites that fawned over the likes of Henry VI.
I’m not arguing the quality of the character development in this piece of fiction, I’m arguing that it shouldn’t be presented as fact.
And despite Morrissey’s lame protestations to the contrary, that’s exactly what he did. In black and white, Prof.
to people who claim to have been abducted by aliens?
It wasn’t so much the abduction that pisses me … it was the dumping me back here in this shit-hole.
lol
Morrissey, does it really not occur to you that when you make shit up that people can easily check, not only will your credibility vapourize, your perceived level of intelligence will also plummet? I kind of feel a little sorry for you.
I think he really believes he’s being roughly accurate, but he’s explained before that he doesn’t actually transcribe this stuff while listening to it but rather writes his impressions some time later.
Memory is a funny thing. By the time he writes his impressions, he doesn’t remember exactly who said what, and bits from other interviews get mixed in, and snippets of other conversations, and other impressions of things people might have said on this and other topics get thrown in and it all gets a bit fragmented and then he puts it all back together in a way that seems to make sense.
And it does – it sounds just like something Williams would say. It’s just that he didn’t.
There’s nothing wrong with this sort of writing, but there’s a name for it. And that name is fiction, not transcription.
Little bit personal there mike re Morrissey. It’s hardly an emergency. CV’s got it right.
To be fair to mike, Morrissey has been called out for making up his “transcripts” before (which is what CV was getting at) and he tends to be a real dick about it.
I disagree. I think people who present a made up fiction as a transcript of something someone said deserve what they get. I also think you’ll find a big ol’ slab of sarcasm in CV’s comment.
well, I / We find them funny and enjoyable tales to read Morrissey
So do I ghostie.
Love you, felix. I’ll try to be more rigorous, and accurate in future.
Oh dear, breakfast news – SkyUk – Thatcher’s funeral – desperate to appear even-handed, talking about Thatcher’s divisiveness to the posh people in their hats and medals. All the while saying protesters are ok as long as they’re ‘respectful’ and questioning a lone protester about the appropriateness of holding up a sign questioning the £10m cost of the funeral.
Respectful is the word of the day it seems. The more I hear it the more I’d be looking at heading out to make a noise if I lived there. I can’t work out whether to switch it off or watch to remind me of the true colours of these people.
Edit: I did try to watch the marriage equality debate, (much more meaningful) but it won’t stream – there must quite a few people watching online.
UPDATE WITH MY PRIVACY ACT REQUEST TO THE GCSB – FYI 🙂
As I am concerned that I may have been one of the 88 New Zealanders unlawfully spied upon, I have made a ‘Privacy Act’ request to the GCSB, following advice I received from the Prime Minister’s office, as to the proper process to follow.
After initially being given an incorrect email address for the GCSB, I made a phone call to the Prime Minister’s Department, and was given the phone number for the GCSB – (04) 472 6881 .
I was put through to the EA for Director Ian Fletcher, who confirmed that the correct email for the GCSB is Information@gcsb.govt.nz
I have since received confirmation that the GCSB have received my Privacy Act request and that I will here back from them ‘in due course’.
Given that Prime Minister John Key is trying to change the law regarding the GCSB in rather a hurry, on Tuesday 16 April 2013, I spoke to the GCSB staff member responsible for handling Privacy Act and OIA requests, who informed that there had been a huge number of requests which the GCSB are processing.
If the GCSB were keeping their records in a proper way, as required by the Public Records Act 2005, I pointed out, wouldn’t they just look under ‘B’ for ‘Bright’, in order to confirm whether they had files on me or not?
I did not get any framework as to how long it would take for a reply from the GCSB.
Yesterday, I invested some hours actually studying the GCSB Act 2003 and the Kitteridge Report.
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2003/0009/latest/DLM187184.html
3 Purpose
The purpose of this Act is to—
(a)continue the Government Communications Security Bureau and establish it as a department of State:
(b)specify the objective and functions of the Bureau:
(c)specify the circumstances in which the Bureau requires an interception warrant or a computer access authorisation to intercept foreign communications:
(d)specify the conditions that are necessary for the issue of an interception warrant or a computer access authorisation and the matters that may be authorised by a warrant or an authorisation:
(e)specify the circumstances in which the Bureau may use interception devices to intercept foreign communications without a warrant or an authorisation
___________________________________________________________________________
Having had a Quality Assurance and tertiary training background, I was absolutely horrified at the ‘pigs’ breakfast’ which is the GCSB.
Seriously – an organisation which deals in information – which doesn’t have a proper ‘Information Management System’?
______________________________________________________________________________
“151. An example of this issue is that GCSB has only in the last few months introduced its first electronic document records management system (EDRMS). It had not previously had a centralised electronic document management system of any kind. Records were kept in hardcopy (and the files maintained by a very effective Registry), but electronic records such as emails were kept in people’s personal drives. The introduction of the EDRMS is a very positive step for GCSB, although the transition to it is not yet complete.”
157. I should add that some parts of GCSB are very thorough in their record keeping. For example, my review of warrants and authorisations revealed a good level of record keeping.
The reason is likely to be because these files are reviewed by the Inspector-General on a regular basis. Other parts of the organisation, however, are less clear about their obligations, and use adjectives like “variable” to describe their record-keeping practices. All said that they hoped the EDRMS would assist with centralised filing, and I am sure it will. There are questions, however, about how important business information is recorded and filed, especially considering the classified and unclassified systems, and the plethora of databases and information tools. An Information Manager would help to assess this issue and to address it.
“158. I think it is unlikely that GCSB complies fully with the Public Records Act 2005 although the move to the EDRMS is a big step forward. The current situation also presents challenges in terms of meeting statutory obligations relating to the Official Information Act 1982 and the Privacy Act 1993. In my view, in order to support good business practices across the board, including compliance, it is essential that this part of the business be properly supported with the right information management strategy and business disciplines.
159. I note, finally, that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security in Australia remarked to me: “record keeping is not just about having an EDRMS. It is about the will to record in a way that can be found and assessed. Very significant problems occur where there is poor record keeping. ”
______________________________________________________________________________
The GCSB Act 2003, is actually VERY clear, in my considered opinion as a successful ‘lay litigant’ – who has never been to University, or has never had a day’s formal legal training, but who can and actually does bother to READ THE LEGISLATION?
Not only should the GCSB not be spying on New Zealanders, (and that is also clear in the Hansard record of the debate in the House on the GCSB Bill – which I have also read) – but there is NO lawful provision for the GCSB to rely on warrants obtained by the SIS or Police.
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/0/e/d/47HansD_20030325_00001124-Government-Communications-Security-Bureau.htm
The GCSB have to obtain their own ‘interception warrants’.
The only person who can apply for a GCSB ‘interception warrant’ is the GCSB Director; this authority cannot be delegated, and the warrants must be issued by the Minister.
So – HOW ON EARTH did there end up being 85 SIS warrants and 3 Police warrants used as the basis for GCSB spying on New Zealanders when the LAW covering the GCSB is arguably so clear on this point?
Has the Prime Minister actually bothered to READ the GCSB Act 2003 for himself?
How about the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security – Paul Nazor?
How about the Director of the GCSB – Ian Fletcher?
How about the GCSB employees who actually acted upon these SIS and Police warrants?
Good grief.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
In my view – it’s really simple.
In order to confirm that I am one of the 88 New Zealanders who has been unlawfully spied upon by the GCSB, all that the ‘Privacy Officer’ needs to do is to go to the file which contains these SIS and Police warrants (because according to the Kitteridge Report – that is one area where the record keeping is satisfactory), and check under ‘B’ for ‘Bright’.
How hard is that?
Perhaps I could offer to come down and check it myself – but given that I was on Muldoon’s famous ‘SIS list’ as a ‘subversive’ during the 1981 Springbok Tour, and given that Head of the SIS Warren Tucker wouldn’t give me my SIS file when I requested it some time ago – I probably wouldn’t get security clearance?
🙂
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption / anti-privatisation’ campaigner
2013 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Occupy Auckland Appellant
http://www.occupyaucklandvsaucklandcouncilappeal.org.nz
“The GCSB have to obtain their own ‘interception warrants’.
The only person who can apply for a GCSB ‘interception warrant’ is the GCSB Director; this authority cannot be delegated, and the warrants must be issued by the Minister.”
If this is correct then there are two scenarios for the Dotcom warrant that I can see.
1. The GCSB have been breaking the law on this aspect, by not getting a warrant from the Minister.
2. The warrant for Dotcom, far from being an ‘operational matter’, and not discussed at briefings, as John Key said, must have been discussed and the warrant issued (signed?) by the Minister.
Yes rosy and Penny. Maybe Kim Dotcom has a copy of the warrant signed by John Key as the Minister in charge of GCSB. Wonder how John would get past that.
Say he forgot?
No one asked him.
Bill English must have forged his signature.
Kim Dotcom forged his signature.
or any of many varied answers including that the Law has been changed (soon) so it is irrelevant.
I genuinely have no clue.
Pfffffffffffffffffst!