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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A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Normally heaving year-round, Queenstown has ground to an eerie halt as Covid-19 cases rise and tourism income plummets, reports Paul Taylor. On a hill behind Queenstown's coronavirus Covid-19 community testing centre, the resort's iconic Skyline gondola sits motionless. More than 17 million people are estimated to have ridden the gondola ...
Are we drinking more in the lockdown? Hard to know, writes David Slack, but we’re certainly having to get creative about it. Almost every phone call I’ve answered this week has begun the same way: “You still off the drink, then?” Fair question. What a time to be not drinking. ...
Kiwi clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson is stuck with her family in Spain and has written a guide in Nature: "Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak." It’s Day 17 of the Covid-19 lockdown in Spain. In a small village on the Mediterranean coast, about ...
"Will our ills be cured? Will our feet carry us? For how long?": a short story set in Henderson by West Auckland writer Serie Barford.I learned to drive a tractor when I was a kid feeding out hay with my cousins on a dairy farm down the line. I ...
Without active testing in the community our Covid-19 picture isn’t complete, an epidemiologist says. David Williams reports. There are worse places to be self-isolating than Whakatāne, in the Bay of Plenty, says Bridget Robson, who lives on a two-acre block and keeps chickens. “We live in a beautiful part of ...
‘Stay in your bubble’ didn’t exist 100 years ago, but our ancestors would want us to know how essential it is to do so, says Jai Breitnauer.It was a warm but slightly grey January day in 2019 when I pulled the car over to the side of SH1, just south ...
David Clark’s misadventure in mountain biking was a stupid, but ultimately forgivable offence. The bigger problem is the continued uncertainty around what is and isn’t appropriate activity in lockdown, as Sam Sachdeva writes. Given the pressure he and his Cabinet colleagues are under, it is little surprise Health Minister David ...
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...
Every day at 1pm New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announces precise figures on the number of confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in the country. He is working on the best information available, and during this week the level of community transmission was put at around ...
Most of New Zealand's MPs are in lockdown just like the rest of us, confined to their neighbourhoods and stuck in their bubbles. Checkpoint called a few to ask them what they're doing. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Deery, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, University of Melbourne “Stupid coronavirus!” I heard my six-year-old mumble while talking in her sleep. Earlier that day her swimming and basketball lessons were cancelled, a birthday party postponed, and she had to race with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University “Zoombombing” in case you haven’t heard, is the unsavoury practice of posting distressing comments, pictures or videos after gatecrashing virtual meetings hosted by the videoconferencing app Zoom. With hundreds of millions ...
Analysis - A leading epidemiologist says health authorities 'really have no idea' of the extent of community spread, Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee gets its teeth into what's going on during the lockdown and the horrendous economic imp ...
The fifth in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ...
The Finance Minister says struggling companies will be able to put some debt into hibernation, under new legislation unveiled today. Watch the latest government update here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government.This article ...
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling What does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like? For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Gallasch, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,” wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), “but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the ...
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Of the larger European countries, Italy is now in third place for known cases per person in the population. Spain has overtaken Switzerland for ...
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and Te Kaahui o Rauru are celebrating the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South Taranaki Bight. The Court of Appeal found that there ...
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...
Pacific Media Watch The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has strongly condemned the shoot-to-kill order by President Rodrigo Duterte this week as a ‘dangerous’ opening to target and kill anyone in a public space. “We are raising the alarm in the international community on President ...
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...
Four PhD students engaged a clinical psychologist to help them navigate an uncertain time in their studies. They share their findings here.As four PhD students from Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research we, like many others, can’t stop reading and talking about the unfolding events that have gripped our ...
The SpinoffBy Ashleigh Rushton, Lisa McLaren, Marion Tan & Sara Harrison
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Kang, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney Young people in Australia are among the fastest-growing group to contract COVID19. According to the Department of Health, there are now more cases in Australia among people aged 20 – 29 years than any ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Pattinson, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times. But it can be even harder when you’re anxious or have something on your mind – a global pandemic, for example. ...
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...
The Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand is delighted that the government has moved quickly to provide an initial financial support package for pharmacy. The $15 million package was paid this week to pharmacy contract holders. Pharmaceutical Society president ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...
A new poem by Wellington poet and bookseller Ash Davida Jane. washed up! it gets tiring pushing the fire alarm every nightbut things keep catching on fireor sometimes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Welcome to the second edition of our lockdown Top 10s. A reminder that this chart has nothing to do with sales or launches or the publishing cycle; these are just books the Unity team love – and this week it’s westerns, full of big skies and long rides and showdowns.AUCKLANDAll ...
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster’s plan to cover revenue shortfalls through borrowing without cutting low priority spending is immoral, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . “Businesses and households across the country are meeting financial challenges ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin John Brophy, Emeritus Professor of Creative writing, University of Melbourne “Katrina, I had in mind a prayer, but only this came,” Bruce Dawe wrote to his infant daughter, new-born, in intensive care, her life in the balance, declaring as poets must ...
The shock closure of Bauer NZ – and with it all of the country’s current affairs magazines – is a stark reminder of the fragile state of local media, writes Mel Bunce, the author of a book on the subject.It is a dark week for journalism in New Zealand, with ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāmere/FridayWe made it to the end of week one e te whānau. It wasn’t that hard! In fact it was… Māori made easy.To end our week of pronunciation practice we’re going to revisit everything we ...
India faces more challenges battling Covid-19 than any other country in the world. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, hundreds of different languages spoken, and an estimated 80% of the workforce daily wage earners currently without jobs, it could be a recipe for disaster.I’ve been living in India for more than three ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi of Pacific Media Watch The Vanuatu government is using the Covid-19 to impose draconian measures and authoritarian rule by end of last month. Wholesale censorship of all Covid-19 related content has been instituted. Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) took the extraordinary step to ...
People with lower credit scores increased their borrowing upon news of the lockdown, while those with higher scores dropped away. March data from the credit-reporting agency Centrix, which runs credit checks on behalf of banks, finance companies, online lenders, and buy now pay later schemes, showed credit inquiries dropped sharply ...
Small business owners say commercial rent relief is desperately needed if they are to survive past the Covid-19 disruptions. While the wage subsidy helped with staff costs, there is currently no government assistance for commercial rent - which typically accounts for 40 percent of a firm's fixed costs. Landlords and ...
SkyCity is making 200 staff redundant as part of cost cutting because of the Covid-19 virus. The casino operator said it had no choice but to cut the size of the workforce given that once business resumes it will be at much reduced level. Chief executive Graeme Stephens said it's ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University At several points in the history of our planet, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused extreme global warming, prompting the majority of species on Earth to die out. In ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentMedia Henry Cooke (Stuff): There’s no easy way for Government to save media drowning. But a fast fix is ...
Just after midday a cyclist was killed on a straight road on a clear day, after being hit by a van in North Canterbury. Lucinda Rees from NZ School Speeds is asking for the mandatory cyclist/vulnerable road user passing gap, which is in consultation, ...
By Indra Singh in Suva Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says that if Fijians continue to disregard the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic directives from authorities, a nationwide 24-hour curfew could be imposed. His comments come as Fiji yesterday recorded its two latest coronavirus cases, taking the total to seven. Bainimarama said ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée.Yes, a few cyclists out and about. I remember my first bike bought from Farmers around 1942, five shillings a ...
Internal memos from NZ’s biggest magazine company, which announced its sudden closure yesterday, state they were lobbying to change a ban on publication. But the minister responsible, Kris Faafoi, has doubled down on rejecting that position, calling those internal communications ‘contradictory’ to what they said to him directly.Magazine publishing giant ...
Up to 100,000 foreigners could be seeking to leave the country in coming weeks, now the Government has relaxed domestic travel restrictions for them. ...
The loss of a loved one can be difficult in the best of times. But it’s even more painful when the planes are grounded.Late on Saturday night, three days into New Zealand’s level four lockdown, Harish got a call from his sister in India telling him that his father had ...
Health Minister David Clark has flouted the Government's advice to exercise locally after confirming he drove to a park to go mountain biking on Thursday. ...
Covid-19 cases top 1m; Trump brags he's #1 on Facebook and says he knows about the virus because a 'friend' got it; UK testing scandal grows; Cats more vulnerable to virus than dogsTicking up to a million cases: A gruesome landmark was passed today when we go over one million ...
“So do not fear, I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” Isaiah 41:10 COVID-19 - Lock down: one week on Welcome to the latest Policy Watch ...
Workers at the Port of Lyttelton are resisting the introduction of casual cargo handlers due to concerns about COVID19. RMTU South Island Organizer John Kerr says there is concern about a Lyttelton Port Company (LPC) proposal to "bring in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Strangio, Associate Professor of Politics, Monash University One of Australia’s preeminent historians, Stuart Macintyre, once observed of John Curtin, the Labor Party leader revered for navigating this nation through the dangers of the second world war, that he would have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Adelaide New research the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that SARS CoV 2, which causes the disease known as COVID-19 coronavirus, is more stable on plastic and stainless steel than on cardboard or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW The Australian government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy, estimated to cost A$130 billion, is a crucial measure to help keep the economy from completely cratering. But, even if COVID-19 is sufficiently under control for the economy to return ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gordon Menzies, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Technology Sydney During this pandemic, our twin health and economic crises require two different types of concern, and they operate differently. For the health crisis, a high level of concern is necessary. Saving lives ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Harriette Richards, University of Melbourne Times of instability and crisis produce increased nostalgia for the past. We long for a time that no longer exists, or never existed. Like melancholy, nostalgia is a sentiment of loss – one that’s particularly familiar to ...
RBNZ bans bank dividends; Who is next after Bauer's shock closure? Vital plan blocked; Commission wins in real estate price fixing case; Softbank walks out WeWorkNo you won’t: The Reserve Bank took the unprecedented step of prohibiting the banks from paying dividends during the coronavirus crisis or redeeming any ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Media reels after horror week, Wellington Council facing massive budget crunch, and highest single day of new Covid-19 cases.It had always been clear that this was going to be a difficult time for the media, with the Covid-19 downturn hitting ...
Former National Finance Ministers Steven Joyce and Bill English question the severity of the Covid-19 lockdown and ask whether the Government has an exit strategy. Andrew Patterson reports. Steven Joyce and Bill English have seen their fair share of financial crises and natural disasters as the last National Government's finance ...
There is no sign the government will tighten quarantine controls for those arriving at the border, in response to calls from the Opposition to quarantine and test everyone. ...
Two new cases of Covid-19 have been identified in Fiji, prompting a lockdown of its capital. Teuila Fuatai reports. Fijian health authorities are scrambling to identify close contacts of its latest two Covid-19 cases. The couple, from Nabua, Suva, appear unrelated to the country’s previous five. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama ...
Open mike 17/04/2013 
We must root out the traitors among us! ...10 hours ago
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...18 hours ago
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of a pretty flower, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a cute animal video. . . . =fs= ...19 hours ago
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...22 hours ago
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...23 hours ago
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...1 day ago
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...1 day ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...1 day ago
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...2 days ago
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...3 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 3 days ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...3 days ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...3 days ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...5 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...7 days ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...1 week ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...1 week ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...1 week ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world". Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...17 hours ago
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...7 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!
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1303/Wormald_Affadavit.pdf
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’?
______________________________________________________________________________
http://www.gcsb.govt.nz/newsroom/reports-publications/Review%20of%20Compliance_%20final%2022%20March%202013.pdf
“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!