Following the deafening silence from the Race Relations Commissioner over revelations from the IPCA, that several of the police actions taken against Tuhoe were illegal.
Plus the following statement from the Commissioner of Police Peter Marshall, that no disciplinary actions of any sort will be taken against those responsible for these illegal acts. You might think that as most of these illegal police acts were perpetrated against Maori. And that the police are not interested in disciplining those responsible. The Race Relations Commissioner might have an opinion.
But no. Nothing at all from the office of the Race Relations Commissioner, either for, or against Peter Marshall’s decision not to act on admitted police wrong doing against Maori.
And now another wondrous tale from the log of the amazing Race Relations Commissioner, who isn’t.
Winston Peters has again resumed mining the rich vein of anti-Asian racism that has served his so well. The Race Relations Commissioner says she “doesn’t want to get involved”.
….Susan Devoy has refrained from joining critics of NZ First Leader Winston Peters’ latest attack on China’s growing influence in New Zealand, saying she doesn’t want to get involved.
The clock must be ticking on our Squash Relations Commissioner.
Things have got so bad, that Judith Collins who appointed Devoy to the role. Had to personally issue a statement to fill the vacuum left by Devoy. Collins statement labelled Mr Peters’ comments “confrontational” and “insulting”.
When the Minister has to step in, this farcical appointment must be nearing its end,
I think Dame Susan is waiting for Ansell or Brash to complain about the racism of Mowree places at Medical School before she’ll have an opinion. Or the racism and apartheid of Mowree seats in Parliament. She probably has views on that too.
Just saw a report on AL Jazeera’s NewsHour about a Waikato Treaty settlement. It portrayed it as part of a reconciliation process and ended with the line:
A country facing up to its painful past
If only more of the country were interested in such settlements and the history leading up to them!
The report included a speech from Finlayson and critical comments by Winston Peters.
‘It is definitely a fit-up.’
GCHQ employees on Assange rape allegations
Authorities at GCHQ, the government eavesdropping agency, are facing embarrassing revelations about internal correspondence in which Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is discussed, apparently including speculation that he is being framed by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape allegations. The records were revealed by Assange himself in a Sunday night interview with Spanish television programme Salvados in which he explained that an official request for information gave him access to instant messages that remained unclassified by GCHQ.
A message from September 2012, read out by Assange, apparently says: “They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ … It is definitely a fit-up… Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate.”‘
A message from September 2012, read out by Assange, apparently says: “They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ … It is definitely a fit-up… Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate.”‘
This makes me trust Assange even less.
If he had released the whole of the information received from GCHQ then it would give people the chance to judge for themselves and it would demonstrate an openness about the information. As it is, he is selectively quoting. It looks like in an attempt to make out he is innocent of the rape allegations and that he is the victim of a conspiracy, but his actions now are the actions of someone with something to hide.
Likewise Morrisey, your highlighting of “it is definitely a fit up” as the headline in your comment, misleads as it implies that GCHQ think that. Instead, when you read the Guardian article, it looks more like the anonymous speculation of a single GCHQ employee taken out of context with no analysis or conclusion.
It would help if you used the html tags to make it clear that the words in your post are quote from the Guardian rather than your own thoughts.
The other alleged text message Julian Assange read out, and Moz forgot to quote, is far more apt:
“He reckons he will stay in the Ecuadorian embassy for six to 12 months when the charges against him will be dropped, but that is not really how it works now is it? He’s a fool… Yeah … A highly optimistic fool.”
Come now TRP, either the GCHQ staffer has good judgement on how these things work or doesn’t. You don’t get to cherry pick which messages are credible according to your own preselection bias.
Spies are always good at what they do or always bad at what they do? What I took from the article is that these were messages being sent as part of ongoing communications. Until we have context and see what was done with the information in those communications it’s hard to know the value ot place on them.
We also don’t know how many people are being quoted (did Assange choose that?).
If this was a serious discussion, it would be classified. The fact it was released suggests it’s just idiots blathering.
Fool, you know as well as the rest of us that this was a statement of truth by someone required to carry out wicked deeds for the state. And what the hell do you know about the protocols involved in classifying internal communications?
The only idiots blathering here are the likes of your good, albeit bewildered, self.
It looks like you are trying to suggest that there are not people conspiring to get this dissenter, whom you dismissively refer to as “the guy”.
If you are trying to suggest that, you have even less integrity than the egregious Paul Holmes (R.I.P.) who at least had the honesty to admit that the U.S. and U.K. regimes “will have to kill him.”
Maybe you should read it again, and try and address the point that if the charges are a fit up, then discussing the fit up would be classified.
Given that the discussion is not classified, that suggests that it was a casual communication between people speculating, rather than official records of actual events and official conclusions.
Maybe you should read it again, and try and address the point that if the charges are a fit up, then discussing the fit up would be classified.
That is not the point, of course. The point is: GCHQ operatives have been caught acknowledging that the charges against this dissenter—who you dismissively refer to as “the guy”—-are fraudulent. That they probably broke some protocol designed to protect their criminal behaviour from public scrutiny is a matter for the ethically void mandarins who run that thoroughly discredited department.
Given that the discussion is not classified, that suggests that it was a casual communication between people speculating, rather than official records of actual events and official conclusions.
“Speculating”? They were stating the truth—not a good career move in a branch of government dedicated to the precise opposite. But it is the truth, nonetheless.
Morrissey, you are not thinking clearly about this.
The communication that was released was determined not to be sensitive enough to classify.
There was no ‘protocol’ broken here. There is a communication, of some sort, that was deemed to be ok to release. That’s what you haven’t explained. If the people speaking actually know what they are talking about, and reaching official conclusions, then it would have been deemed highly sensitive, especially if Assange is in fact being stiched up.
But it wasn’t deemed sensitive at all. These are the only actual facts we have: Snippets of what was said, and the fact it wasn’t classified.
You very much want to believe that this is some sort of official finding. If it was, it would have been classified. We don’t know for certain what it is, because the details and context are not things that Assange has chosen to disclose as yet.
If they were ‘stating the truth’, why wasn’t it deemed sensitive enough to classify?
Yep, fair enough. But does Assange still have access the internet? Why not publish what he was given? (or leak it if he can’t publish it himself). That was really my point – Assange has this information and he is manipulating us by how it gets fed into the public domain.
I also think that Morrissey is manipulating the information, so by the time it gets to the Standard, it’s hard to know what is going on 🙂 If I was in Morrissey’s position, I’d look further to see where else Assange has permitted this information to be used. Unless of course that would make Assange look bad 😉
If I was [sic] in Morrissey’s position, I’d look further to see where else Assange has permitted this information to be used.
If I were in YOUR position, i.e., embarrassed and floundering, I would try to divert the discussion away from the key admission, which is “It is definitely a fit-up.”
Which is what you are doing, badly. Be advised that you should desist from this, because you will be called on it, as you are being called on it right now.
Have a good day, my feathered friend, and try not to let the bile levels affect your functioning as a human being.
Wow, so many words to say, well, bugger all. I already addressed the point that you think is key (“it’s definitely a fitup”). It looks like one comment, from one staffer, in a casual communication, and devoid of any context or official conclusion.
Go ahead and see if you can call me on the actual points I raise instead of spending three parapgraphs correcting my grammar, trying to put me down and marginalising my comments by attributing nasty qualities that you’ve made up.
“So many words”? Fool, I edit my writing very carefully, and I don’t mess around with empty verbiage. I pulled you down, dispatched you, roasted you and served you up as an example of hapless bewilderment in a few well executed words.
Not a word too many, not a word too few. (I know you’re protected and all, but it had to be done.)
I already addressed the point that you think is key (“it’s definitely a fitup”).
“The point I think is key”? That is the whole point of the release; it’s not very often that these frightening people let their guards down and tell the truth like that. People who care about ethical standards and justice—not you, obviously—will be heartened to see that even GCHQ spooks have a conscience.
And here YOU are, trying to diminish, even deny, the massive significance of that rare moment of honesty. You’re not clever enough to get away with such brazen tactics, buddy.
Go ahead and see if you can call me on the actual points I raise instead of spending three parapgraphs correcting my grammar, trying to put me down and marginalising my comments by attributing nasty qualities that you’ve made up.
You are the one who waded out of your comfort zone. Your self-pitying reproaches cut no ice with me.
I edit my writing very carefully, and I don’t mess around with empty verbiage. I pulled you down, dispatched you, roasted you and served you up as an example of hapless bewilderment in a few well executed words.
That should be:
I edit my writing very carefully. My concise comments made you an example of hapless bewilderment.
If you wanted to avoid your claim to outstanding prose contradicting itself. Christ knows the rest of your claims only reflect reality by occasional happenstance.
If you wanted to avoid your claim to outstanding prose contradicting itself.
Since I’m in a magnanimous frame of mind today, I would have liked to correct and tidy up that sentence before critiquing it. However, it is utterly incomprehensible, and I feel unable to help you out at this stage.
Please resubmit it, this time with the words you have so clearly forgotten to put in.
Christ knows the rest of your claims only reflect reality by occasional happenstance.
At least that one internally coheres, even though it is an utterly vacuous and untrue assertion.
That should be “I edit my writing very carefully. My concise comments made you an example of hapless bewilderment” if you wanted to avoid your claim to outstanding prose contradicting itself.
Funny how a wee bit of non-standard punctuation and formatting made you as stupid as a ZX81 attempting the Turing Test.
If you read the article Weka you will see Assange says
“We have just received this. It is not public yet,”
Don’t you think that the founder of Wikileaks knows about the importance of public disclosure. It seems here he managed to get GCHQ to blow their own whistle.
Indeed – and Assange knows the importance of not just timing information releases for maximum coverage, but also co-ordinating it with other events and documents.
I did read that red rattler, and of course I know what Assange is capable of re information disclosure. Did you read my comments, as that was one of the points I was making.
Or to put it another way. Why let the Guardian selectively quote, so that it looks like ‘idiots blathering’, when you could make the whole thing public, in context, and make things transparent rather than appearing to be manipulated (by the Guardian, by Assange, by whoever)?
Let me guess: your “distrust” of Assange is matched by your faith in the people who are targeting him. I hope you get some sort of civic recognition for your faithful devotion to state propaganda—if you’re doing this for free, you’re an even more hapless fool than you seem.
Likewise Morrisey, your highlighting of “it is definitely a fit up” as the headline in your comment, misleads as it implies that GCHQ think that. Instead, when you read the Guardian article, it looks more like the anonymous speculation of a single GCHQ employee taken out of context with no analysis or conclusion.
Like the internal state documents exposed by the likes of Ellsberg, Chomsky and many other dissenters, this is damning evidence because it shows what the people hired to carry out these lethal state duties actually think about what they are doing. You can shout and scream abuse at them if you like, but truth will out in the end. As it most certainly has in this case.
Oh the irony. You do realise you just had a go at me for believing state propaganda, and then ended by attempting to use state evidence to support your cause.
I don’t particularly trust Assange, nor the State. But in either case I judge on a case by case basis, rather than assigning prejudice like you do. In case you don’t remember, (but I am sure you do, and are just being a deceptive shit head), I’m quite prepared to believe that various states in the world are trying to undermine Assange in various ways. I just don’t think that makes Assange an angel or the Great Hero you profess him to be.
I’m sorry you live in a such a black and white world where any criticism of Assange = non-belief in his persecution. The world I live in is more complex.
As is often the case your debate technique is poor. Not sure if that is because you just can’t put the arguments together more coherently, or if it’s because you understand that asserting opinion as Truth serves your cause better.
WHAT? Clearly, you have about as much understanding of the concept of irony as Alanis Morissette.
You do realise you just had a go at me for believing state propaganda, and then ended by attempting to use state evidence to support your cause.
No I didn’t.
I’m sorry you live in a such a black and white world where any criticism of Assange = non-belief in his persecution.
“Criticism” of Assange? What you and the other unwitting dupes of the British secret service are doing is not criticising Assange, it is simply adding to the blackening of his name and adding to the climate of fear and loathing against this dissenter. If this was Soviet Russia in 1937, you would have been blithely repeating Stalinist rhetoric against those dastardly doctors.
I don’t particularly trust Assange, nor the State.
Rubbish. Your posting history is all over this mostly excellent forum. Do you want me to embarrass you by digging up some of your more credulous posts?
The world I live in is more complex.
Obviously. Maybe that explains the bewilderment.
As is often the case your debate technique is poor. Not sure if that is because you just can’t put the arguments together more coherently, or if it’s because you understand that asserting opinion as Truth serves your cause better.
I didn’t assert my opinion, I posted up EVIDENCE—irrefutable evidence—that even the people charged with persecuting this dissenter openly acknowledge the allegations against him are utterly spurious.
Congratulations. You have succeeded in posting up a response even more abjectly limp than Descendant of Smith’s moronic “whatever” during a football debate the other day.
Can’t even be bothered answering if you are going on with the character maligning every time you can’t address a point properly.
I posted up EVIDENCE—irrefutable evidence—that even the people charged with persecuting this dissenter openly acknowledge the allegations against him are utterly spurious.
Lol
Nope. You posted private comments attributed to professional conspiracy theorists in which they apparently speculate that a conspiracy occurred.
Sacré bleu! First there was Descendant of Smith with his “Whatever”; then there was poor bewildered weka with his abject “Boring”, and now here YOU are with the most witless signifier of inadequacy of them all! I’d like to put it down to the likelihood that you’ve had (another) bad day, but I’m sadly aware that I’m probably clutching at straws. I’m concerned about your lack of performance, my friend, I really am.
Nope. You posted private comments attributed to professional conspiracy theorists in which they apparently speculate that a conspiracy occurred.
Two GCHQ people dare to speak the truth about the frightful business they are being employed to carry out, and they are immediately transformed into “professional conspiracy theorists”!
As shown by your witty reply on this thread, written at 5:01 p.m., you do possess a sense of humour. For your sake, I hope the mad and desperate rhetoric you’re now engaging in is just some kind of barren exercise in intellectual jousting. I’m still inclined to the view that you’re just having a laugh; the alternative is just too depressing.
Just goes to show you shouldn’t spend bullshitting emails to your workmates, which is what the guardian quotes look like.
Intelligence work is largely about constructing theories and assessments about human networks and plans from the available data. Gchq employees are paid to do this.
They weren’t transformed into professional conspiracy theorists, that’s their actual job.
Your “irrefutable evidence” is simply at least two people speculating about what happened based purely on timing. Nothing we haven’t seen here.
Now, if they’d said that they had direct knowledge that the complainants were part of a plan by an intelligence service, you might merely be overstating a point (“irrefutable” my arse). As it is, you’re in Fantasy Land again.
Your “irrefutable evidence” is simply at least two people speculating about what happened based purely on timing. Nothing we haven’t seen here.
Two spooks speak frankly about the craven dishonesty of their mission. This is a rare and (for those souls who support this official attempt at lynching) devastating revelation. You can, for whatever reason, try to trivialize and scoff at it, but it only has consequences for your credibility, I’m afraid.
Now, if they’d said that they had direct knowledge that the complainants were part of a plan by an intelligence service,
They did say that, and they do have direct knowledge of it. They are involved in this crime up to their elbows.
… you might merely be overstating a point (“irrefutable” my arse).
Two spooks calling it as it is. speaking plainly about a man their organization is trying to “fit up”, i.e. frame him on entirely bogus charges; you know and everyone else with an IQ above room temperature knows that they were speaking plainly and honestly. Still, let’s be philosophers for a moment and consider the other possibility, the one to which (for whatever reason) you are subscribing: these spooks are so brilliantly deceptive that they are speaking in some weird code which renders their private correspondence as contrary to truth as their official lying.
As it is, you’re in Fantasy Land again.
That’s not any sort of argument. You’re the one who actually buys in to (or pretends to buy in to) this squalid official fantasy.
Many people have noted the disquieting similarity of the persecution of Assange to what happened to official enemies in Moscow in the 1930s; trying to discuss this rationally with you puts me in mind of what Noam Chomsky said about trying to engage in debate with the darling of the extreme right Christopher Hitchens: it’s like trying to argue with a Soviet commissar.
Seen juila gilards speech on muslems fuckn nailed it ,tho many on here will know doubt have a promblem,but the majority of assies’s and n zs would agree
This f..boy doesn’t smell right, I don’t think he is of the agricultural persuasion. No lovely whiff of sheep nuts or cow pats at all. More like an overflowing septic tank.
See also….
No. 10: Boris Johnson: “Londoners have… the best police in the world to keep us safe.”
No. 9: NewstalkZB PR dept: “News you NEED! Fast, fair, accurate!” No. 8: Simon Bridges: “I don’t mean to duck the question” No. 7: Nigel Morrison: “Quite frankly, they’ve been VERY tough.”
No. 6: NZ Herald PR dept: “Congratulations—you’re reading New Zealand’s best newspaper.”
No. 5: Rawdon Christie: “…a FORMIDABLE replacement, it seems, is Claudette Hauiti.”
No. 4: Willie and J.T.: “The X-Factor. Nah, nah, there’s some GREAT talent there!”
No. 3: John Key: “Yeah we hold MPs to a higher standard.”
No. 2: Colin Craig: “Oh, I have a GREAT sense of humour.” (TV3 News, 24 April 2013) No. 1: Barack Obama: “Margaret Thatcher was one of the great champions of freedom and liberty.”
I notice what isn’t included…no allegations of sexual abuse. Is that because they never occurred, or because any complaints were shut down? And only ONE reported incident of client self harm (for example) – isn’t that a suspiciously low number for this type of facility?
Reported incidents at Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust 2010-2012
17 escapes
14 alleged assaults of clients
3 alleged client assaults/threatens staff
2 alleged abuse
2 clients charged by police
2 inappropriate behaviour by client
1 medication error
1 client hospitalisation (medical condition)
1 fire
1 car accident
1 inappropriate restraint of client
1 property damage by client
1 client self harm
With knowledge of the atrocious treatment of marginalised individuals in every kind of institutional care, I think many thought we couldn’t do much worse by those in need of care and support, if such services were taken out of the hands of the state.
So now we sell off the care of the most powerless to the lowest bidder in a race to the bottom free-market of neglect and abuse. That, or offer no help at all.
I know! put ’em in the Army, or the Police! and show ’em some discipline. We might even be able to get them to do our dirty work, and when things turn sour – we’ve got the perfik scuse.
Kim Hill interviewing NZs of note that we should all know about. These should be our stars so we hear lots about them and less sports trivia, including from overseas now such as the Boston Red Sox and that sort of thing. Note I said LESS sport only.
9:05 David Skegg
Professor Sir David Skegg is a New Zealand epidemiologist, and the President of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Otago, and Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine. http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/ http://www.otago.ac.nz/
9:45 Phoebe Hayman
Phoebe Hayman is the CEO of toy craft-kit design company Seedling NZ. The company’s gnomes are being showcased in London this week at the centenary celebrations of the world’s most famous gardening event, the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show, overturning the Show’s long-standing prohibition on gnomes to raise funds for the Show’s school gardening campaign.
10:05 Playing Favourites with Gifford Jackson
New Zealand industrial design pioneer Gifford Jackson spent 37 years as a design consultant here after working in New York for 17 years. His life and work is celebrated in the new book, Gifford Jackson: New Zealand Industrial Design Pathfinder by Michael Smyth (Creationz, ISBN: 978-0-473-23882-7).
And Joan Baez interview preparation for her coming here in August I think.
Re the TPPA. I assume that like most of the other agreements we have such as with Australia and China, that the TPPA will be signed on behalf of the crown for Aotearoa?
What wouls happen then, in the instance that Aotearoa becomes a Republic? Does that mean the agreements signed on behalf of the crown become null and void?
Only if the way we become a republic includes abrogating every single agreement and contract the Government has been involved with for 150 years. All those people sentnced to preventative detention by the Crown just gonna go walk? Not likely.
Cars in the USA had a terrifying plunge into freezing waters from a broken bridge. A beam had been hit by an over-sized load of drilling equipment. There are calls now for the old bridges in the USA to receive much needed attention.
The ability of business to externalise their costs there is the same here. Longer trucks, heavier trucks here are causing problems on the public roads.
Drilling equipment will be a growing blockage on our roads. The USA isn’t up to the problems that their pursuit of business cause. Neither are we.
Interesting how the USA could spend a measley $75B doing up their old run down transport infrastructure (the budgetary equivalent for developing a single major weapon like a stealth fighter) and in doing so create jobs for 1M people…but unlike the days of the New Deal, they can’t be assed this time around.
Randle, I really hope you don’t mind but the way he was out of sync with the field of view was bugging me so I took the liberty of giving him a back, to sit him in the picture better.
(I couldn’t do anything about his lack of spine) http://postimg.org/image/rd2ctavur/
There are problems with all this, to be sure – that’s the whole point of Blyth’s book. But the story austerians like to tell is considerably simpler than the messy details of how it all falls apart time after time after time after time. What’s more, there’s a rather compelling moral overtone involved: You’ve got debts? Pay them! It’s what individuals, households and businesses must do, why not governments as well?
Why not? The anti-austerity case is two-fold: First, as Blyth repeatedly points out, there’s the fallacy of composition: what’s true for any one individual isn’t always true for the whole, and in the case of cutting spending in a recession, it’s exactly the opposite of what’s needed, since one person’s spending cut is another’s drop in income, which only increases the need to cut spending more, creating a vicious downward spiral. Second, governments alone have the ability to resist this self-defeating logic. Governments sovereign in their own currencies – like the US and Britain, and most of Europe before the creation of the eurozone – have the power to borrow as much money as necessary to break the downward cycle of deflationary fear (moreover, Keynes specifically said that governments should pay down debt once the economy recovered, and the US consistently didreduce its debt burden [debt/GDP ratio] throughout the post-World War II period when Keynesian policies dominated. That’s what ensures their long-term ability to keep intervening with expansionary spending when everyone else is cutting back).
It seems that the book missed the most important part about countries being sovereign – they can print their own money and thus have no need to borrow.
The bit that seems to have been missed is that that fallacy of composition is the entire basis of our economic system. The economists take a single actor Homo economicus and expands it out to every single person and company in the world and is precisely what the fallacy of composition is.
The entire neo-liberal economic theory starts with a fallacy and goes downhill from there.
Indeed, one of the evident subtexts of Blyth’s book which cries out for futher systematic study is the ways in which socio-political power relations are first mystified, and then magically transformed into psuedo-natural laws, which in turn leads directly to TINA-style arguments. Or, more simply: how the golden rule works out in metaphysical practice: those with the gold make all the rules, not just about how the world does work, but about how it possibly can work.
Hits the nail on the head there though. The problem we have is that it’s the rich making the rules.
Thanks for that link to a very interesting review. Also this weekend, I read this that relates to your last sentence, DTB, about the rich making the rules. Paul Krugman on The Smith/Klein/Kalecki Theory of Austerity.
Noah Smith recently offered an interesting take on the real reasons austerity garners so much support from elites, no matter hw badly it fails in practice. Elites, he argues, see economic distress as an opportunity to push through “reforms” — which basically means changes they want, which may or may not actually serve the interest of promoting economic growth — and oppose any policies that might mitigate crisis without the need for these changes:…
What Smith didn’t note, somewhat surprisingly, is that his argument is very close to Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, with its argument that elites systematically exploit disasters to push through neoliberal policies even if these policies are essentially irrelevant to the sources of disaster.
And I also read this book review, on David Stuckler’s latest book: review title ‘Recessions can hurt, but austerity kills’. Stuckler’s book is about the impact on health, and the related increase in homelessness that has resulted from “austerity”.
In a powerful new book, The Body Economic, Stuckler and his colleague Sanjay Basu, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiologist at Stanford University, show that austerity is now having a “devastating effect” on public health in Europe and North America.
The review focuses on the impact of austerity, and compares that with countries, like Germany and Iceland, that have included policies to lessen the impact of the recession on people’s health and levels of poverty. From the review, it seems to me the book has only looked to compare with less austere policies, and doesn’t look to a totally different alternative. Though comparisons are also made with US and UK policies of the Great Depression, and the post WWII investment in the UK welfare state.
The Book of Amos.
Amos, not a man of court like Isaiah, or a priest like Jeremiah. Earned his living from tending the flock and the sycamore-fig grove. Skilled with words. Great range of general and historical knowledge (not an ignorant peasant). Went from Judah to announce God’s judgement on the Northern Kingdom (Israel). Few, if any, clues to the chronological order of his spoken messages-he may have repeated them often to reach everyone. Prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah over Judah, 792-740, and Jereboam II over Israel, 793-753.
Both kingdoms enjoyed great prosperity and had reached new political and military heights, yet they were spiritually smug; prosperity had increased Israel’s religious and moral corruption. Israel had a worldly view of even the ritual that the Lord himself had prescribed. They thought performance of the rites was all God required, and with that done they could do what they pleased.Also a time of idolatry, extravagant indulgence in luxurious living, immorality, corruption of judicial procedures and oppression of the poor. As a consequence, God would soon bring about the Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom.
5:42 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream.
Amos condemned all those who make themselves powerful and rich at the expense of others. Those who had acquired two splendid houses, expensive furniture and richly furnished tables by cheating, perverting justice and crushing the poor would lose everything they had. God’s imminent judgement on Israel would not be a mere punitive blow to warn, but an almost total destruction. The unthinkable was about to happen.
The God for whom Amos speaks is God of more than merely Israel. He uses nations against each other to carry out his purposes. He is the great King who rules the whole universe. All sovereign, the God of Israel holds the history and destiny of all peoples and of the world in his hands. Israel must know not only that he is the Lord of her future, but also that he is Lord over all, and that he has purposes and concerns that reach far beyond her borders. Israel had a unique, but not exclusive, claim on God.
3:17 Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plans to his servants, the prophets.
Revelation 11:18 That you should destroy those who would destroy the earth.
from The Nation
-if councils don’t sign the accords, they (Central Government) intend to come in over the top.”
-Len Brown.(accord, if ratified, doesn’t come into effect until the Unitary Plan is notified, in September.)
some interesting observations from the Parata article;
Boag- (Parata is ) “warm, articulate, engaging and very bright”.???
Jones-(charged with) “reigning in teacher unions political power”.
Peters- “eat a dead rat everyday under National’s leadership”.
(Govts education policy is deficient and the communication of said policy, is deficient).
and Parata’s educational ethos? “that individuals excel”.read INDIVIDUALS! despite her background, no better than Paula Bennett.
But the minister says he’s no puppeteer.
“I have no idea what he’s talking about in that regard, but I will do my job, which is to try and encourage job and growth for New Zealanders and investment in the economy,”
“I have no idea what he’s talking about in that regard, but I will do my job, which is to try and encourage job and growth for New Zealanders and investment in the economy, irrespective of the effect on the environment”
May 25, 2013
Awesome effort!
Category: Media
Posted by: admin
A huge thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas, time and submissions. What an outstanding effort – we have already called out Steven Joyce on 3 News Friday 24th May, and the website has only been up 3 days.
Mr Joyce told 3 big lies in the interview and as soon as the news clip is posted here we will show you what they were. He also made one thing abundantly clear – he is in charge. So for any of you who had doubts about where the buck stops, you just had it confirmed that he is the man.
Now is the time to get the word out and ramp up the submissions. Please tell anyone you know that we are on a roll, and that if they help by submitting in the box above we have a lot better chance of saving our clean water. Get the message out though email, facebook and twitter.
Haven’t read all of the above comments so this may have been discussed already – that covered – who wrote this shit editorial in the Herald ? Sounds like something from that facile and unaccomplished trougher, the flibbitigibbert Hekia Potato Parata:
And on what authority does the writer float this business about the people who speak for legal aid lawyers not enjoying the confidence of those they speak for ? Complete and unadulterated bullshit to the point of being a wilful fabrication. Examples of any such lack of confidence please, liar.
Own goal CV, this is in reference to ones, who have enough savings they can live off, comfortably. So the argument of poverty becomes a bit obsolete then. If the argument is about too low interest rates, so that interest does not cover living costs, how can you justify this to people that have not even any savings, no interest earned and so forth? I am sorry, I feel you did not view and listen to the whole story there. No, this is BS.
People that are so wealthy, that they can live off interest are NOT Poor!
A cop car featured heavily, once again, on the front page of the Herald Online last night, all about “hostage taking” and inguries and so forth. There was also a mention about “teen porn”, about other “scandalous” stories, and the list goes on. NZ media is now gutter media, for sure, as headlines are competed for, such “news” needing to be “enhanced” or “hyped up”.
Nothing is normal anymore, nor do the shit consumers bother to demand it. It is the new game for the new generation, full of trivia, and contempt for anything that should be taken seriously and be treated with due respect.
Generation X is followed by Gen Y, the most ruthless, selfish and jerkish lot I ever met.
That is supposed to be our “future”. If I as an ageing person, NOT having been able to provide for retirement savings, having to “depend” on such bastarts of a mentality, I rather take my life before I hit the retirement age.
Yes, we have no more solidarity and not a caring society anymore, unless perhaps as baby boomer parents you managed to tie your kids into some commitment.
No, I have no such family, and I will die, I will die a lonely death, a life will be concluded in despiccable conditions, by the fucked, shit arsed selfish generation I see every day. I am contemplating about how to deal them a blow before they fucking retire, the selfishly rotten brats. They deserve to be taken apart, and punished, for not caring, and I see and hear it every day. Paula Bennett, Key and crims love them, as they are their voter base.
The left do not get it, yet! Many of you should damned bloody worry, we have a rotten next generation that is semi fascist and capitalist, your damned traitor kids!!!
..and you seem to be discounting the greed-is-good! /there-is-no-alternative! those ‘y’s were force-fed with all their lives..
..they are just a product of that conditioning/brainwashing..
..conditioning/brainwashing done by your generation..and an unthinking/craven/self-serving mainstream media..(and craven/self-serving/self-muzzling politicians – of all stripes..)
..and the good/cheering news is that i think that many of those ‘y’s are waking up to the poisoned-package they were sold..
“..they are just a product of that conditioning/brainwashing..
..conditioning/brainwashing done by your generation..and an unthinking/craven/self-serving mainstream media..(and craven/self-serving/self-muzzling politicians – of all stripes..)
..and the good/cheering news is that i think that many of those ‘y’s are waking up to the poisoned-package they were sold..
..after all..the evidence is all around them..”
Of course my comment was well over the top, as I must admit, but it is frustrating and angering, to see so much indifference and apathy out there, except where it comes to serve selected own interests and chasing opportunities and exciting perks.
While you raise valid points, I must say though, that much that is said in defence by many of the younger generation, is just a cop-out. The internet makes available sufficient information and offers alternative choices, and there are also other ways to find out the truth about most things.
Yet it is not taken advantage of by so many, and I notice and have heard and seen, that most cannot be bothered to make much effort in seeking true, factual information, in taking a stand on issues, or to even bother voting.
They rather escape into personal distraction, little bits of private indulgence, and leave the rest to others more senior, to do the work and thinking for them. That is luckily not all, but sadly too many. Willing consumers of products and services (brainwashing included) offered by corporate ruled capitalism, that seems to fit the description of most.
As for “xtasy”, I choose to stay away from drugs, believe it or not.
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland A bright Eta Aquariid meteor photobombed this photo of comet C/2020 F8 (SWAN) in May 2020.Jonti Horner Meteors – commonly known as shooting stars – can be seen on any night of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Flannery, Honorary fellow, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock Current concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in Earth’s atmosphere are unprecedented in human history. But CO₂ levels today, and those that might occur in coming decades, did occur millions of years ago. ...
Winston Peters has been keen to dismiss speculation on our involvement in Aukus but will give a speech tonight on the direction of our foreign policy, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Usmar, Lecturer in Critical Media Literacies, Auckland University of Technology Getty Images With the coalition government’s ban of student mobile phones in New Zealand schools coming into effect this week, reaction has ranged from the sceptical (kids will just get ...
A new report on protecting journalism and democracy in New Zealand recommends a levy be charged on global platforms like Facebook and Google to fund media firms undertaking public interest reporting. It also calls for the reinstatement of a powerful Broadcasting Commission to distribute public funding for journalism and other ...
On International Workers' Day, also known as May Day, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi and the wider union movement are celebrating the proud history of the labour movement during a tough time for working people. ...
From bills to beards, a walk through the former Green co-leader’s time in politics. After close to a decade in politics, James Shaw is preparing to bid farewell to parliament. Tonight will see the former minister deliver his valedictory address, certain to be a speech filled with Shaw’s trademark wit ...
Two months ago, MPs unanimously voted to give themselves a week off in Efeso Collins’ honour. On Tuesday, most were too busy to give even an hour of their time. The day Fa’anānā Efeso Collins died, parliament felt different. In a building that operates at a breakneck pace, everyone stopped ...
India’s election involves hundreds of millions of people and is a months-long affair. Here’s how voting works and what’s at stake.The biggest-ever election in world history started on April 19, with more than 10% of the world’s population eligible to vote. Elections in India, the world’s most populous country ...
Comment: Journalists are very good at telling other people’s stories, but they fall well short when writing about their own profession. Perhaps that is why it is so undervalued. Every successive poll on the public’s attitude toward journalism is more alarming than the last. In the last month we have ...
Opinion: A young Māori woman and her Pacific partner arrive at their local hospital by ambulance. She has gone into labour at just under 24 weeks, but the couple haven’t recognised the symptoms – and don’t know the risks of premature birth for their baby. By the time they arrive, ...
Behind closed doors, NZ First will be arguing fiercely against any watering down of the ministerial decision-making powers in the Bill The post Bishop backtracks after fast-track backlash appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Emotional scenes played out in the Invercargill courthouse on the first two days of the coronial inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones, in which the boy’s mother was accused of disposing of her son’s body. The second season of Newsroom’s award-nominated podcast The Boy in the Water ...
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After the Christchurch earthquake, the then-national civil defence boss compared his experience to “putting a team on the rugby field who have never ever played together before”. Now, eight years later – and following a damning inquiry into the emergency response of cyclones Gabrielle, Hale and the Auckland anniversary weekend floods – ...
“I had just come off the end of a major robbery case which I had been working on for six months when I got a call on the afternoon of September 1, 1992, that some remains had been found at a building site in Devonport, so I drove over with ...
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Asia Pacific Report A Pacific civil society alliance has condemned French neocolonial policies in Kanaky New Caledonia, saying Paris is set on “maintaining the status quo” and denying the indigenous Kanak people their inalienable right to self-determination. The Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGOs) Alliance, representing some 15 groups, said in ...
Koi Tū New Zealand cannot sit back and see the collapse of its Fourth Estate, the director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, Sir Peter Gluckman, says in the foreword of a paper published today. The paper, “If not journalists, then who?” paints a picture of an industry ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Foreign investment proposals with implications for Australia’s strategic or economic security will face tougher scrutiny, under a policy overhaul to be announced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Wednesday. At the same time, the government ...
A Waitangi Tribunal inquiry report has warned government that a repeal of Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act could cause harm to children in care. ...
The Treasury has published today three new papers covering government consumption multipliers, automatic stabilisers and the impacts of global shocks on New Zealand’s economy. ...
Asia Pacific Report The Pacific state of Hawai’i’s House of Representatives has joined the state’s Senate in calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, becoming the first state to pass such a resolution, reports Hawaii News Now. In March, the Senate passed a ceasefire resolution with a 24–1 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ferrie, A/Prof, UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research and ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Technology Sydney PsiQuantum The Australian government has announced a pledge of approximately A$940 million (US$617 million) to PsiQuantum, a quantum computing start-up company based in Silicon Valley. Half ...
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SPECIAL REPORT:By Eugene Doyle He is the most popular Palestinian leader alive today — and yet few people in the West even know his name. Absolutely no one in Gaza or the West Bank does not know him. That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Will McCallum, PhD Candidate – School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University Earlier this year, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of not supporting Operation Sovereign Borders – the military-led border security operation that has “closed Australia’s borders ...
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Publisher Chris Holdaway reflects on the unique project of collecting the work of the late, terrific poet Schaeffer Lemalu. One of the nice things you can do as a truly independent publisher is to make the books that writers want to make, whatever they happen to be. That’s how I’ve ...
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Last night’s dismal poll result for the coalition government shows the limits of trying to govern as an opposition, argues Joel MacManus. There’s a quote from the American political activist Barbara Deming: “Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people’s minds, the thought ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wasay Majid, Research Assistant , University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau New Zealand’s accommodation supplement scheme is facing scrutiny, with Social Development Minister Louise Upston recently saying “there is merit in considering whether the current settings are fair and sustainable long-term”. The ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor The first prime ministerial candidate has been announced in Solomon Islands and it is not Manasseh Sogavare. The man of the hour is Jeremiah Manele, the MP for Hograno/Kia/Havulei constituency in Isabel Province, who served as minister of foreign affairs in the last government. ...
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Above the Fold: On Monday, the biggest Māori screen production company faced down the biggest funder of Māori content at the High Court. It was an incredibly tense moment – then, just as quickly, it resolved. Duncan Greive breaks down a strange day in the screen sector.Yesterday morning, Māori ...
Fantastic to see our new Race Relations Commissioner articulately condemning Winston Peter’s comments and she should get a pay increase:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10886045
/sarc
‘
Following the deafening silence from the Race Relations Commissioner over revelations from the IPCA, that several of the police actions taken against Tuhoe were illegal.
Plus the following statement from the Commissioner of Police Peter Marshall, that no disciplinary actions of any sort will be taken against those responsible for these illegal acts. You might think that as most of these illegal police acts were perpetrated against Maori. And that the police are not interested in disciplining those responsible. The Race Relations Commissioner might have an opinion.
But no. Nothing at all from the office of the Race Relations Commissioner, either for, or against Peter Marshall’s decision not to act on admitted police wrong doing against Maori.
And now another wondrous tale from the log of the amazing Race Relations Commissioner, who isn’t.
Winston Peters has again resumed mining the rich vein of anti-Asian racism that has served his so well. The Race Relations Commissioner says she “doesn’t want to get involved”.
The clock must be ticking on our Squash Relations Commissioner.
Things have got so bad, that Judith Collins who appointed Devoy to the role. Had to personally issue a statement to fill the vacuum left by Devoy. Collins statement labelled Mr Peters’ comments “confrontational” and “insulting”.
When the Minister has to step in, this farcical appointment must be nearing its end,
Our dearest dame doing her darndest not to fking get involved, nor even fronting up to say that, but getting her ‘spokeswoman’ to say that !?!
. . . . .
But Dame Susan was not willing to comment last night.
“It’s just not a discussion she wants to get involved with,” a spokeswoman said.
. . . . .
“Not a discussion she wants to get involved with”!
Huh?? Wot?
In the famous two-word question from Pauline Hanson (yes, one needs to resort to quoting that thing): “Please explain?”
Wtf, darn de Void, wtf-ing wtf.
Maybe Collins should make the spokeswoman Commissioner.
While apparently the current RRC is AWOL, At least she fronts up.
She couldn’t be worse than the current office holder.
I think Dame Susan is waiting for Ansell or Brash to complain about the racism of Mowree places at Medical School before she’ll have an opinion. Or the racism and apartheid of Mowree seats in Parliament. She probably has views on that too.
Why would anyone give a shit about Peters? Waste of fucking oxygen he is.
5%-6% of parliament is why.
Possible kingmaker in the next parliament is why.
Just saw a report on AL Jazeera’s NewsHour about a Waikato Treaty settlement. It portrayed it as part of a reconciliation process and ended with the line:
If only more of the country were interested in such settlements and the history leading up to them!
The report included a speech from Finlayson and critical comments by Winston Peters.
It’s probably this settlement.
‘It is definitely a fit-up.’
GCHQ employees on Assange rape allegations
Authorities at GCHQ, the government eavesdropping agency, are facing embarrassing revelations about internal correspondence in which Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is discussed, apparently including speculation that he is being framed by Swedish authorities seeking his extradition on rape allegations. The records were revealed by Assange himself in a Sunday night interview with Spanish television programme Salvados in which he explained that an official request for information gave him access to instant messages that remained unclassified by GCHQ.
A message from September 2012, read out by Assange, apparently says: “They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ … It is definitely a fit-up… Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate.”‘
Read more….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/may/20/julian-assange-gchq-messages-extradition
A message from September 2012, read out by Assange, apparently says: “They are trying to arrest him on suspicion of XYZ … It is definitely a fit-up… Their timings are too convenient right after Cablegate.”‘
This makes me trust Assange even less.
If he had released the whole of the information received from GCHQ then it would give people the chance to judge for themselves and it would demonstrate an openness about the information. As it is, he is selectively quoting. It looks like in an attempt to make out he is innocent of the rape allegations and that he is the victim of a conspiracy, but his actions now are the actions of someone with something to hide.
Likewise Morrisey, your highlighting of “it is definitely a fit up” as the headline in your comment, misleads as it implies that GCHQ think that. Instead, when you read the Guardian article, it looks more like the anonymous speculation of a single GCHQ employee taken out of context with no analysis or conclusion.
It would help if you used the html tags to make it clear that the words in your post are quote from the Guardian rather than your own thoughts.
The other alleged text message Julian Assange read out, and Moz forgot to quote, is far more apt:
“He reckons he will stay in the Ecuadorian embassy for six to 12 months when the charges against him will be dropped, but that is not really how it works now is it? He’s a fool… Yeah … A highly optimistic fool.”
Come now TRP, either the GCHQ staffer has good judgement on how these things work or doesn’t. You don’t get to cherry pick which messages are credible according to your own preselection bias.
Spies are always good at what they do or always bad at what they do? What I took from the article is that these were messages being sent as part of ongoing communications. Until we have context and see what was done with the information in those communications it’s hard to know the value ot place on them.
We also don’t know how many people are being quoted (did Assange choose that?).
Pretty sure it was Morrissey who did that.
What reason do we have to think the fit up line shows good judgement?
If this was a serious discussion, it would be classified. The fact it was released suggests it’s just idiots blathering.
If this was a serious discussion, it would be classified. The fact it was released suggests it’s just idiots blathering.
Fool, you know as well as the rest of us that this was a statement of truth by someone required to carry out wicked deeds for the state. And what the hell do you know about the protocols involved in classifying internal communications?
The only idiots blathering here are the likes of your good, albeit bewildered, self.
lol.
So there is a grand conspiracy to trump up charges against the guy, but it’s not classified because why on earth would you do that?
It looks like you are trying to suggest that there are not people conspiring to get this dissenter, whom you dismissively refer to as “the guy”.
If you are trying to suggest that, you have even less integrity than the egregious Paul Holmes (R.I.P.) who at least had the honesty to admit that the U.S. and U.K. regimes “will have to kill him.”
Maybe you should read it again, and try and address the point that if the charges are a fit up, then discussing the fit up would be classified.
Given that the discussion is not classified, that suggests that it was a casual communication between people speculating, rather than official records of actual events and official conclusions.
Maybe you should read it again, and try and address the point that if the charges are a fit up, then discussing the fit up would be classified.
That is not the point, of course. The point is: GCHQ operatives have been caught acknowledging that the charges against this dissenter—who you dismissively refer to as “the guy”—-are fraudulent. That they probably broke some protocol designed to protect their criminal behaviour from public scrutiny is a matter for the ethically void mandarins who run that thoroughly discredited department.
Given that the discussion is not classified, that suggests that it was a casual communication between people speculating, rather than official records of actual events and official conclusions.
“Speculating”? They were stating the truth—not a good career move in a branch of government dedicated to the precise opposite. But it is the truth, nonetheless.
Morrissey, you are not thinking clearly about this.
The communication that was released was determined not to be sensitive enough to classify.
There was no ‘protocol’ broken here. There is a communication, of some sort, that was deemed to be ok to release. That’s what you haven’t explained. If the people speaking actually know what they are talking about, and reaching official conclusions, then it would have been deemed highly sensitive, especially if Assange is in fact being stiched up.
But it wasn’t deemed sensitive at all. These are the only actual facts we have: Snippets of what was said, and the fact it wasn’t classified.
You very much want to believe that this is some sort of official finding. If it was, it would have been classified. We don’t know for certain what it is, because the details and context are not things that Assange has chosen to disclose as yet.
If they were ‘stating the truth’, why wasn’t it deemed sensitive enough to classify?
Are you going to address this at all?
“He’s a fool… Yeah … A highly optimistic fool.”
So they don’t particularly admire the dissenter—after all, they ARE working for the government’s notoriously unreliable and corrupt secret service.
But, to the evident consternation and embarrassment of the likes of you and poor old weka, the key words here are “It is definitely a fit-up.”
You know it is, too, but I don’t think you have the moral courage to actually admit you were foolishly taken in by these folk.
Weka, has it occurred to you that its the reporter (or their editor) selectively quoting that passage, not Assange?
Yep, fair enough. But does Assange still have access the internet? Why not publish what he was given? (or leak it if he can’t publish it himself). That was really my point – Assange has this information and he is manipulating us by how it gets fed into the public domain.
I also think that Morrissey is manipulating the information, so by the time it gets to the Standard, it’s hard to know what is going on 🙂 If I was in Morrissey’s position, I’d look further to see where else Assange has permitted this information to be used. Unless of course that would make Assange look bad 😉
If I was [sic] in Morrissey’s position, I’d look further to see where else Assange has permitted this information to be used.
If I were in YOUR position, i.e., embarrassed and floundering, I would try to divert the discussion away from the key admission, which is “It is definitely a fit-up.”
Which is what you are doing, badly. Be advised that you should desist from this, because you will be called on it, as you are being called on it right now.
Have a good day, my feathered friend, and try not to let the bile levels affect your functioning as a human being.
Wow, so many words to say, well, bugger all. I already addressed the point that you think is key (“it’s definitely a fitup”). It looks like one comment, from one staffer, in a casual communication, and devoid of any context or official conclusion.
Go ahead and see if you can call me on the actual points I raise instead of spending three parapgraphs correcting my grammar, trying to put me down and marginalising my comments by attributing nasty qualities that you’ve made up.
Wow, so many words to say, well, bugger all.
“So many words”? Fool, I edit my writing very carefully, and I don’t mess around with empty verbiage. I pulled you down, dispatched you, roasted you and served you up as an example of hapless bewilderment in a few well executed words.
Not a word too many, not a word too few. (I know you’re protected and all, but it had to be done.)
I already addressed the point that you think is key (“it’s definitely a fitup”).
“The point I think is key”? That is the whole point of the release; it’s not very often that these frightening people let their guards down and tell the truth like that. People who care about ethical standards and justice—not you, obviously—will be heartened to see that even GCHQ spooks have a conscience.
And here YOU are, trying to diminish, even deny, the massive significance of that rare moment of honesty. You’re not clever enough to get away with such brazen tactics, buddy.
Go ahead and see if you can call me on the actual points I raise instead of spending three parapgraphs correcting my grammar, trying to put me down and marginalising my comments by attributing nasty qualities that you’ve made up.
You are the one who waded out of your comfort zone. Your self-pitying reproaches cut no ice with me.
That should be:
I edit my writing very carefully. My concise comments made you an example of hapless bewilderment.
If you wanted to avoid your claim to outstanding prose contradicting itself. Christ knows the rest of your claims only reflect reality by occasional happenstance.
If you wanted to avoid your claim to outstanding prose contradicting itself.
Since I’m in a magnanimous frame of mind today, I would have liked to correct and tidy up that sentence before critiquing it. However, it is utterly incomprehensible, and I feel unable to help you out at this stage.
Please resubmit it, this time with the words you have so clearly forgotten to put in.
Christ knows the rest of your claims only reflect reality by occasional happenstance.
At least that one internally coheres, even though it is an utterly vacuous and untrue assertion.
I thought you were better than this, McFlock.
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/1677672704/h4A6096A1/
Lol.
Funny how a wee bit of non-standard punctuation and formatting made you as stupid as a ZX81 attempting the Turing Test.
Well, anyone can OIA the exact same information if they wanted too…or even just do an OIA on his OIA.
From the piece it seems that the request is for info regarding the person making the request. More like our privacy act than our OIA
Maybe CV, but my point was about why Assange wouldn’t just make the whole bundle public. What do you think?
If you read the article Weka you will see Assange says
“We have just received this. It is not public yet,”
Don’t you think that the founder of Wikileaks knows about the importance of public disclosure. It seems here he managed to get GCHQ to blow their own whistle.
Indeed – and Assange knows the importance of not just timing information releases for maximum coverage, but also co-ordinating it with other events and documents.
I did read that red rattler, and of course I know what Assange is capable of re information disclosure. Did you read my comments, as that was one of the points I was making.
Or to put it another way. Why let the Guardian selectively quote, so that it looks like ‘idiots blathering’, when you could make the whole thing public, in context, and make things transparent rather than appearing to be manipulated (by the Guardian, by Assange, by whoever)?
This makes me trust Assange even less.
Let me guess: your “distrust” of Assange is matched by your faith in the people who are targeting him. I hope you get some sort of civic recognition for your faithful devotion to state propaganda—if you’re doing this for free, you’re an even more hapless fool than you seem.
Likewise Morrisey, your highlighting of “it is definitely a fit up” as the headline in your comment, misleads as it implies that GCHQ think that. Instead, when you read the Guardian article, it looks more like the anonymous speculation of a single GCHQ employee taken out of context with no analysis or conclusion.
Like the internal state documents exposed by the likes of Ellsberg, Chomsky and many other dissenters, this is damning evidence because it shows what the people hired to carry out these lethal state duties actually think about what they are doing. You can shout and scream abuse at them if you like, but truth will out in the end. As it most certainly has in this case.
Oh the irony. You do realise you just had a go at me for believing state propaganda, and then ended by attempting to use state evidence to support your cause.
I don’t particularly trust Assange, nor the State. But in either case I judge on a case by case basis, rather than assigning prejudice like you do. In case you don’t remember, (but I am sure you do, and are just being a deceptive shit head), I’m quite prepared to believe that various states in the world are trying to undermine Assange in various ways. I just don’t think that makes Assange an angel or the Great Hero you profess him to be.
I’m sorry you live in a such a black and white world where any criticism of Assange = non-belief in his persecution. The world I live in is more complex.
As is often the case your debate technique is poor. Not sure if that is because you just can’t put the arguments together more coherently, or if it’s because you understand that asserting opinion as Truth serves your cause better.
Oh the irony.
WHAT? Clearly, you have about as much understanding of the concept of irony as Alanis Morissette.
You do realise you just had a go at me for believing state propaganda, and then ended by attempting to use state evidence to support your cause.
No I didn’t.
I’m sorry you live in a such a black and white world where any criticism of Assange = non-belief in his persecution.
“Criticism” of Assange? What you and the other unwitting dupes of the British secret service are doing is not criticising Assange, it is simply adding to the blackening of his name and adding to the climate of fear and loathing against this dissenter. If this was Soviet Russia in 1937, you would have been blithely repeating Stalinist rhetoric against those dastardly doctors.
I don’t particularly trust Assange, nor the State.
Rubbish. Your posting history is all over this mostly excellent forum. Do you want me to embarrass you by digging up some of your more credulous posts?
The world I live in is more complex.
Obviously. Maybe that explains the bewilderment.
As is often the case your debate technique is poor. Not sure if that is because you just can’t put the arguments together more coherently, or if it’s because you understand that asserting opinion as Truth serves your cause better.
I didn’t assert my opinion, I posted up EVIDENCE—irrefutable evidence—that even the people charged with persecuting this dissenter openly acknowledge the allegations against him are utterly spurious.
Boring. Can’t even be bothered answering if you are going on with the character maligning every time you can’t address a point properly.
Boring.
Congratulations. You have succeeded in posting up a response even more abjectly limp than Descendant of Smith’s moronic “whatever” during a football debate the other day.
Can’t even be bothered answering if you are going on with the character maligning every time you can’t address a point properly.
Translation: I got nuthin’.
Lol
Nope. You posted private comments attributed to professional conspiracy theorists in which they apparently speculate that a conspiracy occurred.
Lol
“Lol”?
“LOL”?!?
Sacré bleu! First there was Descendant of Smith with his “Whatever”; then there was poor bewildered weka with his abject “Boring”, and now here YOU are with the most witless signifier of inadequacy of them all! I’d like to put it down to the likelihood that you’ve had (another) bad day, but I’m sadly aware that I’m probably clutching at straws. I’m concerned about your lack of performance, my friend, I really am.
Nope. You posted private comments attributed to professional conspiracy theorists in which they apparently speculate that a conspiracy occurred.
Two GCHQ people dare to speak the truth about the frightful business they are being employed to carry out, and they are immediately transformed into “professional conspiracy theorists”!
As shown by your witty reply on this thread, written at 5:01 p.m., you do possess a sense of humour. For your sake, I hope the mad and desperate rhetoric you’re now engaging in is just some kind of barren exercise in intellectual jousting. I’m still inclined to the view that you’re just having a laugh; the alternative is just too depressing.
Just goes to show you shouldn’t spend bullshitting emails to your workmates, which is what the guardian quotes look like.
Intelligence work is largely about constructing theories and assessments about human networks and plans from the available data. Gchq employees are paid to do this.
So yeah, lolz.
Gchq employees are paid to do this.
And they’re not paid to speak plainly about unhelpful matters like morality and human rights. The damned fools broke all the rules.
Oh for fuck’s sake, try to stick to the point.
They weren’t transformed into professional conspiracy theorists, that’s their actual job.
Your “irrefutable evidence” is simply at least two people speculating about what happened based purely on timing. Nothing we haven’t seen here.
Now, if they’d said that they had direct knowledge that the complainants were part of a plan by an intelligence service, you might merely be overstating a point (“irrefutable” my arse). As it is, you’re in Fantasy Land again.
Your “irrefutable evidence” is simply at least two people speculating about what happened based purely on timing. Nothing we haven’t seen here.
Two spooks speak frankly about the craven dishonesty of their mission. This is a rare and (for those souls who support this official attempt at lynching) devastating revelation. You can, for whatever reason, try to trivialize and scoff at it, but it only has consequences for your credibility, I’m afraid.
Now, if they’d said that they had direct knowledge that the complainants were part of a plan by an intelligence service,
They did say that, and they do have direct knowledge of it. They are involved in this crime up to their elbows.
… you might merely be overstating a point (“irrefutable” my arse).
Two spooks calling it as it is. speaking plainly about a man their organization is trying to “fit up”, i.e. frame him on entirely bogus charges; you know and everyone else with an IQ above room temperature knows that they were speaking plainly and honestly. Still, let’s be philosophers for a moment and consider the other possibility, the one to which (for whatever reason) you are subscribing: these spooks are so brilliantly deceptive that they are speaking in some weird code which renders their private correspondence as contrary to truth as their official lying.
As it is, you’re in Fantasy Land again.
That’s not any sort of argument. You’re the one who actually buys in to (or pretends to buy in to) this squalid official fantasy.
Many people have noted the disquieting similarity of the persecution of Assange to what happened to official enemies in Moscow in the 1930s; trying to discuss this rationally with you puts me in mind of what Noam Chomsky said about trying to engage in debate with the darling of the extreme right Christopher Hitchens: it’s like trying to argue with a Soviet commissar.
Um, no. The clue is that the emails used the words “they” rather than “we”. Referring to intelligence services of another nation.
They say neither. You are reading shit that is not there. Just fyi.
Seen juila gilards speech on muslems fuckn nailed it ,tho many on here will know doubt have a promblem,but the majority of assies’s and n zs would agree
de di ding ding ding ding ding ding ding …
Seen juila gilards speech on muslems fuckn
Lyn, just a couple of weeks ago, this hapless fool was banned for posting nothing but idiotic, illiterate provocations. I see he is still at it.
What gives?
“That’s nice”.
This f..boy doesn’t smell right, I don’t think he is of the agricultural persuasion. No lovely whiff of sheep nuts or cow pats at all. More like an overflowing septic tank.
nice to no you love smelling sheeps nuts prism,and i thought you were a lessy
you are a straight up nutbar farmboy, have you anything to say that is at least based in reality?
Where’d you ‘see’ this speech farmboy?
link plz.
Farmboy illustrates ‘lessy’ is not more(y).
What has Gillard said? She is not anti-Muslim. What is the problem?
Is this about the hoax email that was doing the rounds:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/gillard-muslims-leave.shtml
Poor Farmboy, so easily duped into believing such an obvious hoax.
Here’s the even sadder part: he’ll be angrier at us for pointing it out than he will be at the manipulative wretch that lied to him.
We need better wingnuts.
LIARS OF OUR TIME
No. 11: Brendan O’Connor
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Australia’s approach to refugees is compassionate and generous.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
—Australian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Brendan O’Connor, after a damning Amnesty International report.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1769562/Australia-‘going-backwards’-on-asylum-policy
See also….
No. 10: Boris Johnson: “Londoners have… the best police in the world to keep us safe.”
No. 9: NewstalkZB PR dept: “News you NEED! Fast, fair, accurate!” No. 8: Simon Bridges: “I don’t mean to duck the question” No. 7: Nigel Morrison: “Quite frankly, they’ve been VERY tough.”
No. 6: NZ Herald PR dept: “Congratulations—you’re reading New Zealand’s best newspaper.”
No. 5: Rawdon Christie: “…a FORMIDABLE replacement, it seems, is Claudette Hauiti.”
No. 4: Willie and J.T.: “The X-Factor. Nah, nah, there’s some GREAT talent there!”
No. 3: John Key: “Yeah we hold MPs to a higher standard.”
No. 2: Colin Craig: “Oh, I have a GREAT sense of humour.” (TV3 News, 24 April 2013) No. 1: Barack Obama: “Margaret Thatcher was one of the great champions of freedom and liberty.”
Richmond not doing their job AGAIN. When is it that those who care for disabled and mentally ill will be held to account?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/8715951/No-place-left-to-feel-safe
In other news, abuse is apparently “normal” for patients in residential care. So much for human rights. What else is happening that isn’t in the news?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/8712369/Abuse-claims-at-seriously-dysfunctional-care-home
I notice what isn’t included…no allegations of sexual abuse. Is that because they never occurred, or because any complaints were shut down? And only ONE reported incident of client self harm (for example) – isn’t that a suspiciously low number for this type of facility?
Reported incidents at Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust 2010-2012
17 escapes
14 alleged assaults of clients
3 alleged client assaults/threatens staff
2 alleged abuse
2 clients charged by police
2 inappropriate behaviour by client
1 medication error
1 client hospitalisation (medical condition)
1 fire
1 car accident
1 inappropriate restraint of client
1 property damage by client
1 client self harm
47: TOTAL
Well said in both comments.
With knowledge of the atrocious treatment of marginalised individuals in every kind of institutional care, I think many thought we couldn’t do much worse by those in need of care and support, if such services were taken out of the hands of the state.
So now we sell off the care of the most powerless to the lowest bidder in a race to the bottom free-market of neglect and abuse. That, or offer no help at all.
I know! put ’em in the Army, or the Police! and show ’em some discipline. We might even be able to get them to do our dirty work, and when things turn sour – we’ve got the perfik scuse.
Now this is shaping up to be quite a fight, in one corner the Brewing barons, and in the other the Fracking barons. And in the middle Angela Merkel.
Now it gets serious: Fracking could RUIN BEER
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/24/german_brewers_warn_that_frackng_could_contaminate_beer/
Kim Hill interviewing NZs of note that we should all know about. These should be our stars so we hear lots about them and less sports trivia, including from overseas now such as the Boston Red Sox and that sort of thing. Note I said LESS sport only.
9:05 David Skegg
Professor Sir David Skegg is a New Zealand epidemiologist, and the President of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Otago, and Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine.
http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/
http://www.otago.ac.nz/
9:45 Phoebe Hayman
Phoebe Hayman is the CEO of toy craft-kit design company Seedling NZ. The company’s gnomes are being showcased in London this week at the centenary celebrations of the world’s most famous gardening event, the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show, overturning the Show’s long-standing prohibition on gnomes to raise funds for the Show’s school gardening campaign.
10:05 Playing Favourites with Gifford Jackson
New Zealand industrial design pioneer Gifford Jackson spent 37 years as a design consultant here after working in New York for 17 years. His life and work is celebrated in the new book, Gifford Jackson: New Zealand Industrial Design Pathfinder by Michael Smyth (Creationz, ISBN: 978-0-473-23882-7).
And Joan Baez interview preparation for her coming here in August I think.
Re the TPPA. I assume that like most of the other agreements we have such as with Australia and China, that the TPPA will be signed on behalf of the crown for Aotearoa?
What wouls happen then, in the instance that Aotearoa becomes a Republic? Does that mean the agreements signed on behalf of the crown become null and void?
Only if the way we become a republic includes abrogating every single agreement and contract the Government has been involved with for 150 years. All those people sentnced to preventative detention by the Crown just gonna go walk? Not likely.
I suppose it is slightly comforting to know that NZ isn’t the only place with nutbars in control
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/fema-plans-clear-cutting-85000-berkeley-and-oakland-trees
Cars in the USA had a terrifying plunge into freezing waters from a broken bridge. A beam had been hit by an over-sized load of drilling equipment. There are calls now for the old bridges in the USA to receive much needed attention.
The ability of business to externalise their costs there is the same here. Longer trucks, heavier trucks here are causing problems on the public roads.
Drilling equipment will be a growing blockage on our roads. The USA isn’t up to the problems that their pursuit of business cause. Neither are we.
Interesting how the USA could spend a measley $75B doing up their old run down transport infrastructure (the budgetary equivalent for developing a single major weapon like a stealth fighter) and in doing so create jobs for 1M people…but unlike the days of the New Deal, they can’t be assed this time around.
Well they did say they were going to starve the beast.
http://uglybridges.com/1589303
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2013/05/bridge-collapses-on-interstate-5-over-skagit-river/
http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-22/americas-broken-bridges
http://www.governing.com/blogs/fedwatch/gov-highway-trust-fund-future-jeopardy-infrastructure-transportation.html
we have surveyed infrastructure collapse before; guess China (or Aus.) could sell them steel smelt with the Denniston coking coal, at the right price.
I’ll just put this here for the next time John Key gets in deep shit
http://i41.tinypic.com/1yx374.jpg
He will smell a little better in cowshit than in dogshit.
Randle, I really hope you don’t mind but the way he was out of sync with the field of view was bugging me so I took the liberty of giving him a back, to sit him in the picture better.
(I couldn’t do anything about his lack of spine)
http://postimg.org/image/rd2ctavur/
The poverty of austerity exposed
It seems that the book missed the most important part about countries being sovereign – they can print their own money and thus have no need to borrow.
The bit that seems to have been missed is that that fallacy of composition is the entire basis of our economic system. The economists take a single actor Homo economicus and expands it out to every single person and company in the world and is precisely what the fallacy of composition is.
The entire neo-liberal economic theory starts with a fallacy and goes downhill from there.
Hits the nail on the head there though. The problem we have is that it’s the rich making the rules.
Thanks for that link to a very interesting review. Also this weekend, I read this that relates to your last sentence, DTB, about the rich making the rules. Paul Krugman on The Smith/Klein/Kalecki Theory of Austerity.
And I also read this book review, on David Stuckler’s latest book: review title ‘Recessions can hurt, but austerity kills’. Stuckler’s book is about the impact on health, and the related increase in homelessness that has resulted from “austerity”.
The review focuses on the impact of austerity, and compares that with countries, like Germany and Iceland, that have included policies to lessen the impact of the recession on people’s health and levels of poverty. From the review, it seems to me the book has only looked to compare with less austere policies, and doesn’t look to a totally different alternative. Though comparisons are also made with US and UK policies of the Great Depression, and the post WWII investment in the UK welfare state.
I’ve sent a few contributions in lately and they seem to disappear into a black hole.
If it is a fault with the email you may want to fix it.
If, on the other hand, the Standard dosn’t want to publish them, fine. That is your right. But please let me know so I know not to bother.
[r0b: Hi KJT – I’m not sure who reads that email, probably Eddie or Lprent – I’ll ask lprent to take a look…]
What email address are you using? I think it’s better to email someone direct rather than use the submission function on the site.
The gmail one on the submissions page.
The submission function has never worked on firefox for me.
Me I am afraid. No time. I will email you…
The Book of Amos.
Amos, not a man of court like Isaiah, or a priest like Jeremiah. Earned his living from tending the flock and the sycamore-fig grove. Skilled with words. Great range of general and historical knowledge (not an ignorant peasant). Went from Judah to announce God’s judgement on the Northern Kingdom (Israel). Few, if any, clues to the chronological order of his spoken messages-he may have repeated them often to reach everyone. Prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah over Judah, 792-740, and Jereboam II over Israel, 793-753.
Both kingdoms enjoyed great prosperity and had reached new political and military heights, yet they were spiritually smug; prosperity had increased Israel’s religious and moral corruption. Israel had a worldly view of even the ritual that the Lord himself had prescribed. They thought performance of the rites was all God required, and with that done they could do what they pleased.Also a time of idolatry, extravagant indulgence in luxurious living, immorality, corruption of judicial procedures and oppression of the poor. As a consequence, God would soon bring about the Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom.
5:42 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream.
Amos condemned all those who make themselves powerful and rich at the expense of others. Those who had acquired two splendid houses, expensive furniture and richly furnished tables by cheating, perverting justice and crushing the poor would lose everything they had. God’s imminent judgement on Israel would not be a mere punitive blow to warn, but an almost total destruction. The unthinkable was about to happen.
The God for whom Amos speaks is God of more than merely Israel. He uses nations against each other to carry out his purposes. He is the great King who rules the whole universe. All sovereign, the God of Israel holds the history and destiny of all peoples and of the world in his hands. Israel must know not only that he is the Lord of her future, but also that he is Lord over all, and that he has purposes and concerns that reach far beyond her borders. Israel had a unique, but not exclusive, claim on God.
3:17 Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plans to his servants, the prophets.
Revelation 11:18 That you should destroy those who would destroy the earth.
…for much is determined. 😉
Nice work, ghostrider. A brave and principled modern prophet, Noam Chomsky, is often cited as the modern equivalent of Amos.
you are very kind.All is clear to see for those who have eyes.
I trust that unlike Chomsky, Amos wasn’t taking a hefty paycheck from an organisation he professes to despise as an instrument of oppression.
Thank God for the Welfare State!
from The Nation
-if councils don’t sign the accords, they (Central Government) intend to come in over the top.”
-Len Brown.(accord, if ratified, doesn’t come into effect until the Unitary Plan is notified, in September.)
some interesting observations from the Parata article;
Boag- (Parata is ) “warm, articulate, engaging and very bright”.???
Jones-(charged with) “reigning in teacher unions political power”.
Peters- “eat a dead rat everyday under National’s leadership”.
(Govts education policy is deficient and the communication of said policy, is deficient).
and Parata’s educational ethos? “that individuals excel”.read INDIVIDUALS! despite her background, no better than Paula Bennett.
forgot this. Not! 😉
“Why are our rivers so polluted?
Ask Steven Joyce.”
http://www.3news.co.nz/Campaign-blames-Joyce-for-river-pollution/tabid/1160/articleID/299039/Default.aspx
Heh, good for Snowdon.
But the minister says he’s no puppeteer.
“I have no idea what he’s talking about in that regard, but I will do my job, which is to try and encourage job and growth for New Zealanders and investment in the economy,”
“I have no idea what he’s talking about in that regard, but I will do my job, which is to try and encourage job and growth for New Zealanders and investment in the economy, irrespective of the effect on the environment”
FIFY Mr Joyce.
http://www.askstevenjoyce.org.nz/
May 25, 2013
Awesome effort!
Category: Media
Posted by: admin
A huge thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas, time and submissions. What an outstanding effort – we have already called out Steven Joyce on 3 News Friday 24th May, and the website has only been up 3 days.
Mr Joyce told 3 big lies in the interview and as soon as the news clip is posted here we will show you what they were. He also made one thing abundantly clear – he is in charge. So for any of you who had doubts about where the buck stops, you just had it confirmed that he is the man.
Now is the time to get the word out and ramp up the submissions. Please tell anyone you know that we are on a roll, and that if they help by submitting in the box above we have a lot better chance of saving our clean water. Get the message out though email, facebook and twitter.
North Korea and China ‘penpals’ again
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10886121
Porn: “it’ll make ya go blind”.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10886042
Running themselves into the ground.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10885992
Budget: Incredulity.tsk tsk.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10886008
Haven’t read all of the above comments so this may have been discussed already – that covered – who wrote this shit editorial in the Herald ? Sounds like something from that facile and unaccomplished trougher, the flibbitigibbert Hekia Potato Parata:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/employment/news/article.cfm?c_id=11&objectid=10885737
And on what authority does the writer float this business about the people who speak for legal aid lawyers not enjoying the confidence of those they speak for ? Complete and unadulterated bullshit to the point of being a wilful fabrication. Examples of any such lack of confidence please, liar.
What a piece of shit the Herald is !
In New Mexico, we recognise a war on the poor
Congressman Pearce.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-24/jack-lews-triple-whammy-irs-ignorance-corzine-corruption-and-war-poor
Own goal CV, this is in reference to ones, who have enough savings they can live off, comfortably. So the argument of poverty becomes a bit obsolete then. If the argument is about too low interest rates, so that interest does not cover living costs, how can you justify this to people that have not even any savings, no interest earned and so forth? I am sorry, I feel you did not view and listen to the whole story there. No, this is BS.
People that are so wealthy, that they can live off interest are NOT Poor!
A cop car featured heavily, once again, on the front page of the Herald Online last night, all about “hostage taking” and inguries and so forth. There was also a mention about “teen porn”, about other “scandalous” stories, and the list goes on. NZ media is now gutter media, for sure, as headlines are competed for, such “news” needing to be “enhanced” or “hyped up”.
Nothing is normal anymore, nor do the shit consumers bother to demand it. It is the new game for the new generation, full of trivia, and contempt for anything that should be taken seriously and be treated with due respect.
Generation X is followed by Gen Y, the most ruthless, selfish and jerkish lot I ever met.
That is supposed to be our “future”. If I as an ageing person, NOT having been able to provide for retirement savings, having to “depend” on such bastarts of a mentality, I rather take my life before I hit the retirement age.
Yes, we have no more solidarity and not a caring society anymore, unless perhaps as baby boomer parents you managed to tie your kids into some commitment.
No, I have no such family, and I will die, I will die a lonely death, a life will be concluded in despiccable conditions, by the fucked, shit arsed selfish generation I see every day. I am contemplating about how to deal them a blow before they fucking retire, the selfishly rotten brats. They deserve to be taken apart, and punished, for not caring, and I see and hear it every day. Paula Bennett, Key and crims love them, as they are their voter base.
The left do not get it, yet! Many of you should damned bloody worry, we have a rotten next generation that is semi fascist and capitalist, your damned traitor kids!!!
bloody hell..!..xstasy..!
..i think you need some xstasy..eh..?..
..and..not met many idealistic-millenials then..?
..and you seem to be discounting the greed-is-good! /there-is-no-alternative! those ‘y’s were force-fed with all their lives..
..they are just a product of that conditioning/brainwashing..
..conditioning/brainwashing done by your generation..and an unthinking/craven/self-serving mainstream media..(and craven/self-serving/self-muzzling politicians – of all stripes..)
..and the good/cheering news is that i think that many of those ‘y’s are waking up to the poisoned-package they were sold..
..after all..the evidence is all around them..
..phillip ure..
“..they are just a product of that conditioning/brainwashing..
..conditioning/brainwashing done by your generation..and an unthinking/craven/self-serving mainstream media..(and craven/self-serving/self-muzzling politicians – of all stripes..)
..and the good/cheering news is that i think that many of those ‘y’s are waking up to the poisoned-package they were sold..
..after all..the evidence is all around them..”
Of course my comment was well over the top, as I must admit, but it is frustrating and angering, to see so much indifference and apathy out there, except where it comes to serve selected own interests and chasing opportunities and exciting perks.
While you raise valid points, I must say though, that much that is said in defence by many of the younger generation, is just a cop-out. The internet makes available sufficient information and offers alternative choices, and there are also other ways to find out the truth about most things.
Yet it is not taken advantage of by so many, and I notice and have heard and seen, that most cannot be bothered to make much effort in seeking true, factual information, in taking a stand on issues, or to even bother voting.
They rather escape into personal distraction, little bits of private indulgence, and leave the rest to others more senior, to do the work and thinking for them. That is luckily not all, but sadly too many. Willing consumers of products and services (brainwashing included) offered by corporate ruled capitalism, that seems to fit the description of most.
As for “xtasy”, I choose to stay away from drugs, believe it or not.
“Generation X is followed by Gen Y, the most ruthless, selfish and jerkish lot I ever met.”
Would this be because we’re getting on with it and have no particular use for you and your entitled hysterical, paranoid blatherings?
so young for such gnarled hands.