General Debate 7 September 2010

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Sideoiler

Oh Yes
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September 7, 2010 8:04am
Murray

Giddidy giggidy giddidy.
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September 7, 2010 8:09am
minto57

An Evil little peice of legislation
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September 7, 2010 8:21am
mickysavage

So DPF

Have you apologised to Jim Anderton for spreading a lie about him?

[DPF: I reported in good faith a story from the NZ Herald and NewstalkZB. The moment I was aware it was inaccurate I corrected it. As the fault was not mine, I have nothing to apologise for.

But you know who is partly to blame – Jim Anderton. He was asked (on tape) about saying that only an earthquake could stop him winning, and he did not tell the reporter that he did not say that. He is as much to blame as the media.

While we are talking apologies when will the Labour MPs be apologising for their months of attacks on Sam Lotu-Iiga for being a Councillor and an MP, and their hypocrisy in total support for Anderton to be a Mayor and MP]
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September 7, 2010 8:23am
Murray

…and the freak show begins.
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September 7, 2010 8:26am
Pete George

Are they more interested in inter-channel rivalry and ratings than the effectiveness of their coverage?

TV3 anchor lets rip online at coverage

“What it reflects is a poor decision by 3 not to go with continuous coverage throughout the day. No lead-in.”
– Mike McRoberts, TV3 newsreader, on Twitter, Sunday night.

“TVNZ’s ratings are great … I imagine they’ll be delighted. Very good ratings indeed.”
– Rachel Smalley, TV3 Nightline presenter, on Twitter, Sunday night.

“I think Twitter conversations can lead down some paths and it would probably be better if they didn’t take place.”
– Mark Jennings, TV3 director of news, Monday afternoon. TV3 newsreader
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September 7, 2010 8:32am
Inventory2

Cue a fist-pump from Wendy Petrie …
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September 7, 2010 8:35am
Neil

How many bloggers heard the interview,11.10 am, on RNZ yesterday. From the right Matthew Hooten and the left Alister Campbell.
Of course the main discussion was about the ChCh earthquake. All agreed that efforts so far had been quite effective. Good.
However Campbell decided to have a spray at John Key for being too flippant about the situation- remember Key talked about his sister texting using a word that rhymes with truck. Campbell criticised Key in a very negative way and sounded bloody biased and irrational.Shows how low Labour can go.
Anjd o0f course Anderton made that statement on Friday which if expressed by a right wing candidate would have been criticised hypocritically.
No one died, things fell into place however things are serious. Key summed up the situation well and remained positive and human. Key acted like a human being not like a robot that I feel people like Obama and our former Great Leader Helen Clark
Labour apparatchiks always seem to bring out the worst feelings
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September 7, 2010 8:42am
Inventory2

Did anyone else feel outraged about the twit from UNITE trailing TV cameras around Christchurch yesterday in the search for “unscrupulous bosses”?

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2010/09/unite-fail.html

I hope that Matt Jones gets a call from Matt McCarten today to tell him to pull his head in!
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September 7, 2010 8:51am
Pete George

“Did anyone else feel outraged about the twit from UNITE”

It wasn’t a good look. I wouldn’t say outraged, but I agree with the twit bit.
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September 7, 2010 8:55am
Swiftman the infidel

Mmmmat MaamaaaCarten has devoted his life to hate-mongering
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September 7, 2010 9:02am
Inventory2

@ Swiftman – I don’t believe that Matt McCarten would stoop this low
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September 7, 2010 9:06am
krazykiwi

I quite like AirNZ’s new online booking engine. Clear simple. Good seat options etc. Well done AirNZ.

The thing I REALLY dont like is having the quoted airfares exclusive of taxes. Some discount flights I looked at doubled once airports and govt charges are added.
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September 7, 2010 9:16am
Kris K

Recent New Zealand Earthquakes

This is a list of the latest thirty New Zealand earthquakes.

Interestingly 29 are all centred on Christchurch (one was off White Island), and all are well after the big one at 4:35 am Saturday 4th September. All range between 3.2 and 5.0 magnitude.

The one 30 earthquakes ago was – NZST: Sun, Sep 5 2010 8:13 am – over 24 hours after the big one.
Quite incredible when you think about it.

Update:
I made the above observation at 12:13 pm on yesterday’s GD.
The current last 30 earthquakes were ALL centred on Christchurch, and are from between the times of “Mon, Sep 6 2010 9:46 am” and “Tue, Sep 7 2010 8:24 am”. They obviously encapsulate the swarm (largest of 5.4) around midnight, and the large one (5.4) at 3:24 am. They range between 3.0 and 5.4 magnitude.

One gets the feeling this may go on for quite a while …
Keep your chins up Cantabrians.
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September 7, 2010 9:30am
MikeNZ

One could look at that a few ways KK.

1. ANZ want people to see their charges without all the add ins – so its a protection in a way.
2. They want you to think they offer cheaper airfares, but we don’t see it because of the add ons.
3. they want you to see the % the other bits are of the total, which they have no control of.
4. when the other bits go up you’ll see what % of cost the other bits are and won’t blame them.
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September 7, 2010 9:32am
MikeNZ

When’s Welly’s turn?
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September 7, 2010 9:32am
ciaron

The cluster last night was the most worrying time, waiting for the services to get knocked out again…. NOT conducive for sleep.
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September 7, 2010 9:37am
MikeNZ

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

Great explanation of the socialista in the white house acting to type just like our Labour/Green party.

The breakup of the family is yet another means of maintaining a dependent electorate. Multi-generational families are self-supporting entities, both for moral and practical reasons. Breaking up self-supporting entities that are not dependent on the state is a priority. And when the broken units of the family structure try to function, the state is there to pick up the pieces, acting in loco parentis for the children, and in place of the children for their aging parents. The state becomes the perpetual parent of adult children, and the guardian of their parents, the husband of single mothers and the father of their children. The state becomes the family, which empowers it to become a true nanny state.

Dependency breeds complacency and an unquestioning attitude. We are more willing to challenge people whom we are not dependent on, than those whom we are dependent on. And the more their dependency on the state increases, the less many people are willing to challenge the limits of its authority.
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September 7, 2010 9:38am
MikeNZ

So now we don’t get permission to edit our comments?
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September 7, 2010 9:39am
backster

Compassion is alive and well in official circles. It was heartwarming to hear that the criminals in Christchurch Prisons are to be flown out of the stricken city to more comfortable safer cells in other parts of the nation where the improved water pressure will enable them to have long hot showers. Perhaps now that the homeless frightened children, elderly, and other s who sought refuge at the Burnside High School Gym have to get out and find a safer shelter they could be accomodated in the prison cells where they will have a room each and other comforts even if they have to put up with a lessened water pressure.
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September 7, 2010 9:51am
ciaron

Bit fucked up innit?
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September 7, 2010 9:54am
MikeNZ

Certainly is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgu7RtVUxqA&feature=player_embedded#!

What’s on your mind?
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September 7, 2010 10:05am
Viking2

Reflections on the past for moment.

Imagine if Helen was still in charge.
The words “haters and wreckers” come to mind, all because the policeman gave her greif because she/they were speeding on the Canterbury Plains.

Despite me often criticizing Key for his socialist behavoir, I am impressed with his leadership thus far in this crisis. Swift action,
empathy with issues and people. Right person, right place.

Well done.
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September 7, 2010 10:24am
Kris K

More rewriting of history by those who wish to minimise the Islamic threat.

New Book Wrongly Blames Nazis for Muslim Hatred Of Israel

Muslims were not and are not inspired by Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler and the Nazis were inspired by Islam – just as modern-day Muslims hate Jews because the Qur’an and Islam tell them to. Islamic scholar Robert Spencer explains:

There is a strong native strain of anti-Semitism in Islam, which is rooted in the Qur’an. The Muslim holy book contains a great deal of material that forms the foundation for a hatred of Jews that has perdured throughout Islamic history. It is virulent and hard to eradicate. The Qur’an portrays the Jews as the craftiest, most persistent, and most implacable enemies of the Muslims — and there is no Islamic authority that has moved to mitigate the most destructive interpretations of all this. The Qur’anic material on the Jews remains the prism through which far too many Muslims see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict–and Jews in general–to this day.

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was the Muslim Hitler. He continually coaxed, urged, and demanded Jewish annihilation. And it was not that he got with the Nazi program: he preceded it. He mentored it. His role is irrefutable, and is documented in thousands of pages of documents released after the war.

The Mufti, whom his nephew Yasser Arafat called “our hero,” was famous for his fanatical Jew-hatred. During World War II, he lived in Berlin, where he met Hitler and traveled in top Nazi circles (he even stayed in Hitler’s bunker toward the end of the war). Among his close friends was Adolf Eichmann, who is sometimes described as the “architect” of the Holocaust.

But the Mufti may be more deserving of that title. According to the Arab Higher Committee, “in virtually identical letters, the Mufti, in the summer of 1944, approached Germany, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary to speed the extermination of the Jews by sending them to Poland where the Nazi death chambers were located.”

These death chambers may have been his idea. Adolf Eichmann’s assistant, Dieter Wisliczeny, testified during the Nuremberg Trials that the Mufti:

… repeatedly suggested to the Nazi authorities – including Hitler, von Ribbentrop and Himmler – the extermination of European Jewry. … The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan… He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures.

During World War I, Hajj Amin al-Husseini was an officer of the Ottoman Empire, which used primitive gas chambers to exterminate Armenians. The Nazis used these gas chambers as templates for their own, more sophisticated versions – maybe the Mufti gave them the idea while he was urging Eichmann to “accelerate the extermination measures.”

[continues]

Well worth reading the whole article.
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September 7, 2010 10:43am
RightNow

QUAKE (Wellington)
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September 7, 2010 10:50am
Kris K

RightNow 10:50 am,

QUAKE (Wellington)

Was there? – didn’t feel it, and I’m sitting at my desk.
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September 7, 2010 11:01am
RightNow

Yep, about 15 seconds long, pretty mild but a definite shake. Waiting to see where it was centred.
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September 7, 2010 11:07am
MT_Tinman

# Kris K (2,974) Says:
September 7th, 2010 at 11:01 am

RightNow 10:50 am,

QUAKE (Wellington)

Was there? – didn’t feel it, and I’m sitting at my desk.

You’re welcome to some of ours.
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September 7, 2010 11:07am
MT_Tinman

Having bowled, rather conclusively, damned all of the churches in and around Christchurch the weather gods have produced only fine warm conditions for the clean-up.

Could there be a message there somewhere?
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September 7, 2010 11:09am
RightNow

It’s on the seismograph, but I can’t figure from that where it was centred:
http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/drums/index.html
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September 7, 2010 11:10am
Kris K

RightNow 11:10 am,

It’s on the seismograph, but I can’t figure from that where it was centred:
http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/drums/index.html

It features on their “30 latest earthquakes” page (as featured in my 9:30 am comment):

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

Reference Number: 3367989
NZST: Tue, Sep 7 2010 10:48 am
Magnitude: 5.2
Depth: 15 km
Details: 20 km south-east of Porangahau

The page shows a map location for Porangahau.
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September 7, 2010 11:31am
Kris K

MT_Tinman 11:07 am,

You’re welcome to some of ours.

I wouldn’t be surprised if us in Wellington get one centred here – with all the activity in Canterbury, and then the two just up in the Hawkes Bay/Upper Wairarapa region (3.6 & 5.2) – we’re pretty much right in the geographic centre of these two regions.
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September 7, 2010 11:41am
RightNow

I think it just took a while to show up on the latest quakes page.
Stuff now has a breaking news banner: “5.2 magnitude earthquake rocks Central Hawke’s Bay”
I think it’s time for an overseas holiday…
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September 7, 2010 11:46am
krazykiwi

5.2 in HB? Not liking living in Wellington just now.
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September 7, 2010 12:09pm
MikeNZ

Change subject a mo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100903/us_yblog_upshot/pentagon-declined-to-investigate-hundreds-of-purchases-of-child-pornography
But new Project Flicker investigative reports obtained by The Upshot through the Freedom of Information Act, which you can read here, show that DCIS investigators identified 264 Defense employees or contractors who had purchased child pornography online. Astonishingly, nine of those had “Top Secret Sensitive Compartmentalized Information” security clearances, meaning they had access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets. All told, 76 of the individuals had Secret or higher clearances. But DCIS investigated only 52 of the suspects, and just 10 were ever charged with viewing or purchasing child pornography.

Bit worrying if the pentagon doesn’t follow up on their staffers paying for child porn, hope the NZDefence force isn’t so tolerant.
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September 7, 2010 12:11pm
Kris K

MT_Tinman 11:09 am,

Having bowled, rather conclusively, damned all of the churches in and around Christchurch the weather gods have produced only fine warm conditions for the clean-up.

Could there be a message there somewhere?

Churches have a special “Assurance clause” in their policies 😉
********

RightNow 11:46 am,

I think it’s time for an overseas holiday…

You and I both – I’m hoping mine has a significant ‘upward’ component – what with the earthquakes here at home, and the Muslim induced civil unrest in much of the rest of the world.
“Beam me up, Scotty”.
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September 7, 2010 12:13pm
Put it away

Odd that they call themselves “Unite” when everything they do is divisive.
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September 7, 2010 1:02pm
Pete George

The Search facility on Geonet is cool, you can download data (hundreds since Saturday morning), and also:

Mapped Canterbury quakes since Saturday

This illustrates the number and extent of the shakes.
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September 7, 2010 1:17pm
MT_Tinman

# Pete George (6,798) Says:
September 7th, 2010 at 1:17 pm

The Search facility on Geonet is cool, you can download data (hundreds since Saturday morning), and also:

Mapped Canterbury quakes since Saturday

This illustrates the number and extent of the shakes.

Between you and me I want information on the next ‘quake, not those I’ve already survived.
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September 7, 2010 1:59pm
Fot

Have a listen to the house, Goff is behaving in an unbelievable manner, he is using the Canterbury tragedy for political gain.

Clearly the left have no shame at all, they are scum.
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September 7, 2010 2:11pm
Pete George

MT-T – you might have to put in a mod request with Geonet. They should have predicted this one, they said it’s only 16000 years (or maybe a tad more) since the last movement on this fault. It’s not as if the ground moves all over the place like the air, they should be better than weather forecasters.

Talking of the weather, has anyone else heard the usual claims that the weather is always calm before earthquakes, always stormy after them etc etc? I don’t see how weather systems coming across the Tasman are able to pick an unknown fault and give it a nudge. Maybe increased ground water after a wet winter could tweak something, but I doubt even a very low pressure system would have much immediate effect on what is happening kilometres underground.
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September 7, 2010 2:14pm
krazykiwi

Video: Faultline rips open landscape.

Looks amazing from the air.

I wonder how many other undiscovered faultlines there are around the country?
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September 7, 2010 2:37pm
lastmanstanding

Lately Ive been feeling a bit depressed and couldnt figure it out.

Then I realised its because since November 2008 we of the RIGHT havent had Clark Cullen and the rest of the Socialists to bitch slap every day.

I mean they painted a target on their foreheads every time they opened their mouths.

They provided huge if expensive entertainment as did their hald arsed supporters.

And now they are gone and their supporters have crawled back under their rocks.

Goff Cunliffe et al are just not in the same bitch slap league They just not worth the effort
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September 7, 2010 3:16pm
Pete George

“I wonder how many other undiscovered faultlines there are around the country?”

How many silted over areas are there? Post ice-age silt covered Canterbury and presumably many other areas. And how much area is covered by lakes or the sea? Rivers tend to cut though faults – the Clyde Dam straddles a fault line.
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September 7, 2010 3:25pm
Rodders

Bob Katter has just announced he is supporting Tony Abbott & the Coalition. That leaves only Tony Windsor & Rob Oakeshott to show their hands
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September 7, 2010 3:48pm
krazykiwi

the Clyde Dam straddles a fault line

So does the beehive, but only one of these concerns me 🙂
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September 7, 2010 3:49pm
Rodders

Just had a listen to Bob Katter’s bizarre and rambling press conference, where he made his announcement. Is there an interpreter handy?
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September 7, 2010 4:16pm
MT_Tinman

# Rodders (70) Says:
September 7th, 2010 at 4:16 pm

Just had a listen to Bob Katter’s bizarre and rambling press conference, where he made his announcement. Is there an interpreter handy?

Why the F#@& would you want to understand that?
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September 7, 2010 4:30pm
hj

“National’s new bill to repeal the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed Act is a sell-out to corporate iwi and the Maori Party”, Dr Hugh Barr, spokesman for Coastal Coalition said today. The Coastal Coalition represents thousands of New Zealanders who want the foreshore and seabed retained in Crown ownership for the benefit of all.

“By defining tribal customary title in the broadest possible way, National has substantially lowered the bar for those seeking customary title.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1009/S00084/foreshore-seabed-bill-a-sell-out.htm
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September 7, 2010 6:58pm
pentwig

I have been away for 6 weeks and must say the standard of comments has improved immensely since the forced absence of the phool.

I see in the system he has only been banned for 1 month.

Damn!!
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September 7, 2010 8:04pm
reid

Excellent 3-parter from Pepe Escobar on Afghanistan insights from being there pre-911 projecting his thoughts as to the present and future. Some excerpts:

Every dejected Kabuli intellectual I had met invariably defined the Taliban as “an occupation force of religious fanatics” – their rural medievalism totally absurd for urban Tajiks, used to a tolerant form of Islam. According to a university professor, “their jihad is not against kafirs; it’s against other Muslims who follow Islam”.

He [Mullah Omar] had never been photographed, never had met with foreign diplomats (and that is still true to this day). His famous “orders” still came on pieces of wrapping paper or cigarette matches. Beside his working desk, he kept an aluminum trunk full of Afghanis, and another one with US dollars; these constituted the Afghan Federal Reserve.

Even in Kandahar it was clear that for the Taliban what really mattered was not a pan-Islamic jihad; it was to control their land. It was also more than evident that Talibanistan had no system. Everybody monopolized authority. Nobody accepted alien authority. Deobandi culture hates the public sphere; it is only interested in the meticulous respect of dogma.

I felt depressed for days. This was what the degree zero of culture was all about; a group of eminent professors at what was once one of the best universities in the world subjected to the sermons of a mediocre madrassa student who never finished the equivalent of primary school.

The oasis of Herat – established 5,000 years ago – is the cradle of Afghan history and civilization. It boasts the richest soil in Central Asia; Herodotus dubbed it “Central Asia’s granary”. For centuries it was a crucial crossroads between the Turkish and Persian empires. The whole population was converted to Islam in the 7th century. When I entered the grand mosque – built in the 7th, rebuilt in the 12th century – I felt I was really in Persia.

During the Middle Ages, Herat was a great Sufi center – mystical and profoundly spiritual Islam. Not by accident the city’s patron saint is Khawaja Abdullah Ansari, an 11th-century Sufi poet and philosopher. Genghis Khan conquered Herat in 1222 and spared only 40 of its 160,000 inhabitants. Less than two centuries later the city recovered its glory when Tamerlan’s son and his wife – queen Gowhar Shad – transferred the capital of the empire from Samarkand to Herat.

Tamerlan’s empire was the first to mix the nomadic culture of the Turkish steppe with the extreme sophistication of Persian culture. At the bazaar, septuagenarian traders told me – the first foreigner they had seen in almost two years – how at the beginning of the 15th century the city was as wealthy as Venice, producing the finest carpets, jewelry, weaponry and miniatures as well as mosques, madrassas, public baths, libraries and palaces…

…The Taliban had no idea of the prodigious cultural, literary and political history of Herat. What mattered for them was Herat as a golden goose – the crossroads through which passed the non-stop smuggling of second-hand vehicles, consumer electronics and computers from Dubai and Bandar Abbas on the way to Pakistan. The taxes paid by the hundreds of lorries crossing Herat every day fed the Taliban central bank and financed the war to conquer the north of Afghanistan still escaping their control.

A horizontal canyon of containers fries in the Balochistan desert, casually watched over by a turbaned army. Inside, a Babel of conspicuous consumption, from Japanese video cameras to English knickers, from Chinese silk to computer parts from Taiwan.

In this Taliban version of Ali Baba’s cave you can buy anything – cash; no major credit cards accepted. A few yards away, monster hauls of heroin, Eastern European Kalashnikov replicas and Iranian oil converge in an apotheosis of free trade. Yes, because 10 years ago “free trade” was not in the World Trade Organization in Geneva; it was here, in Spinbaldak – a ringside seat to the largest smuggling ring on the planet, involving the Taliban, Pakistani smugglers, drug lords, tribal chiefs owning transport mafias, bureaucrats, politicians, the police and selected army officials.

This low-tech version of the Silk Road – where lorries replaced 5,000-camel caravans – was the Taliban’s real golden goose. The Silk Road linking China to Europe via Afghanistan and Central Asia was controlled by the same tribal chiefs and nomads who today roll in Mercedes…

…Drug and transport mafias – all across what today the Pentagon calls AfPak – united in merry convergence. The Taliban, since taking power in 1996, were encouraged by transporters to open roads for mass smuggling. It was the Quetta (Balochistan’s capital) transport mafia that forced the Taliban to capture the Persianized Herat, and thus totally control the way to Turkmenistan. What a Pakistani diplomat had told me in Islamabad still rings true to this day; “It’s this mafia that ultimately controls the fate of governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan…

…All this stuff came by ship from Yokohama to Bandar Abbas in Iran, via Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The transport of a container full of dodgy goods was $4,000, maximum. In Bandar Abbas, the container paid a harbor tax. From Bandar Abbas, it crossed the Iran-Afghan border and arrived in Spinbaldak on top of a lorry. Entering Afghanistan, the importer paid the Taliban up to $7,000 in taxes per container, or $3,000 if these were toys. For each imported Toyota, the Taliban got a cool $1,000. From Bandar Abbas to Spinbaldak, transport expenses would run to $600, paid before entering Herat – the Taliban’s golden goose…

…The border with Iran, in Islam qila, a wasteland battered by endless sandstorms worked in the same register. Iranian lorries got rid of their containers, immediately lugged on to Afghan trucks that inevitably would fall prey to the sandstorms. The layout of Afghan “customs” was a row of transportation companies’ offices. Faced with a few questions, the Iranian officials were as polite as a mortal Pasdaran enemy of still living Saddam Hussein.

It was only in 2000 that Pakistan actually woke up to the billions of dollars in taxes it was losing in this free-for-all. The informal economy at the time was 51% of gross domestic product (not much has changed). Smuggling was – and remains – an immense network trespassing Central Asia, Iran and the Persian Gulf (that’s one of the reasons why sanctions against Iran will never work)…

…The Cousin of the Mine King is naturally evasive. He would love to sell his collection to a Western museum – but can’t get it out of the country. The Guimet Museum of Asian Arts in Paris had recently reopened after lavish restoration work worth $50 million; they would kill for this “private collection”. He “obtained most of the statues from the Bamiyan valley”. Some of them “came from the Kabul museum”. The methods were effective: “We just went there and took them”.
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September 7, 2010 8:09pm
reid

“I see in the system he has only been banned for 1 month.”

Did you tap the dial to see if it was stuck?
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September 7, 2010 8:12pm
Hurf Durf

Gwen Dire in the Huruld, again. Scruffy bastards thinks that radical Islam isn’t even in the top three threats to Western security. I’d like to ask him: who tops it then? Because if he lists China or the 10,000 warheads shared between the US and Russia, the guy’s an idiot who doesn’t understand rational actor theory or basic international politics and should be laughed at whenever he prints even more shit.
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September 7, 2010 8:16pm
dad4justice

I am enjoying a very enjoyable aftershock party. The old turn table keeps jumping around, but we are all happy. We in Canterbury can’t wait to GST goes up John Boy Wee!
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September 7, 2010 8:21pm
krazykiwi

@reid / @pentwig – I recall philu’s ban being permanent. A series of grossly offensive insults to DPF in the one thread (which I can’t find just now)
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September 7, 2010 8:34pm
pentwig

Reid

As of 5/9 1 month. Previous to that I do not know but I do enjoy the respite.

I also note redbaiter has 2 weeks. Although I often do not agree with his extreme right right philosophy I do enjoy his comments.

I have to say that kiwiblog is looking good.
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September 7, 2010 8:35pm
Luc Hansen

Poor Hurf

Common sense eludes him

Say, Hurf, when you turn off your bedroom light at the door do you take a flying jump straight to your bed so those nast radical islamists hiding under your bed don’t nip out and bite your ankles?

Poor boy, you should receive the same counselling as the CHCH are receiving after enduring this earthquake(s). Sounds like you are just as much in need. As are the children of Gaza, by the way, who have endured much, much worse, but that help is denied them.
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September 7, 2010 8:41pm
reid

phil got all emotional one day kk which resulted in a somewhat injudicious comment to which our host replied he was banned for a long long time, or words to that effect. That was about 3 months ago. IIRC he didn’t say forever.

Look who knows. Maybe the latest round of drinking in Sydney has made our host a bit emotional as well.

Not that that’s a bad thing…
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September 7, 2010 8:41pm
hj

Meteria Turie (Green Party Co Leader):

““I sympathise with the Maori Party who have found themselves backed into a corner on this issue, but their commitment should be to their people first and foremost and I am incredibly disappointed that they have chosen to support this bill.”
……..
What about the general population of all races who see the beach as a common heritage?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1009/S00091/foreshore-bill-repeats-original-injustice.htm
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September 7, 2010 8:42pm
reid

“radical Islam isn’t even in the top three threats to Western security”

Really? Perhaps Gwen should apply for a junior security analyst position at MI-6 to see just how little we care about that. I suspect that Gwen’s top three includes conservative bankers, Israeli citizens and National Party voters in general.

Why are lefties so blind?

The top three threats are of course:
1) Radical Islam
2) Moderate Islam
3) Democracy and the media in general.
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September 7, 2010 8:47pm
reid

“What about the general population of all races who see the beach as a common heritage?”

Tell that to the Coastal Coalition, who are strangely silent, tonight of all nights.
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September 7, 2010 8:50pm
MikeNZ

Reid
I would put the UN as no 3 (as they are the hinge the Lefties, radical Islam and the NGO’s all work around.
REM the Organisation of Islamic Conference has 51 members in the UN so it is a power group.
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September 7, 2010 9:00pm
Pete George

Interesting looking at the earthquake patterns today. Canterbury keeps getting a few, a few followups in Hawkes Bay, and also this afternoon a couple slap bang in the middle, Cook Strait.

Probably unrelated….
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September 7, 2010 9:04pm
reid

The UN is a threat Mike but its real significant actual actions which change things, are controlled by the Security Council members, period.

Nothing happens without their say-so. It is a talk-fest but it’s the only one we’ve got. If you’ve got nations on the verge of war or at war, is it better or worse to have something like this?

Sure, the UNHCR and UNESCO etc do their bit to undermine humanity as we know it as well, but they don’t do pointy things and its only the pointy things I myself watch out for.

Got a link Pete?
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September 7, 2010 9:15pm
MikeNZ

I think you are shortsighted.
The OIC increasingly influences all UN organs and therefore the UN’s actions on the ground thorughout the world.
It is called creeping sharia.
When France UK and Russia go Muslim +30% then where will your pointy things be?
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September 7, 2010 9:32pm
reid

“It is called creeping sharia.”

Mike, one of my study hobbies that we all pick up over the years, happened to be Communist Russia and the Cold War. I studied that in depth for a long time and consequently I know in detail precisely what events history now proves to be bullshit and which events weren’t. I see the same errors unfolding via-a-vis Western Islamic sentiment today.

France, UK, Holland have a muslim issue. Russia doesn’t and never will, because the Russians won’t let it become one. This is because they’re the ones that aren’t stupid.

Mike, I drew you the official and real not just apparent lines of command in the UN. Argue with it if you like, but do you have real examples of the exercise of such by this alternative group?
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September 7, 2010 10:03pm
Hurf Durf

Are you going to address the point, Puke, or are you just going to pointlessly mock?
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September 7, 2010 10:08pm
hj

Does anyone understand on what basis meteria Turie believes Maori should be able to make a claim to the foreshore and seabed? Is she saying Iwi/ Hapu should have a common law right to areas they occupied in 1840 (all 60,000 or so of them)?

““Instead of letting Maori have claims to customary title determined by common law, this bill spells out what those rights entail. These are substantially weaker than the private title rights enjoyed by non-Maori [and Maori] owners.

“Under this bill, Maori will only get what the Government has decided they can get, irrespective of the strength of their claim under common law.

“Yet 12,500 private titles over areas of the foreshore and seabed are unaffected [includes Maori owners]. This is unfair and creates a double standard which treats Maori customary title as inferior.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1009/S00091/foreshore-bill-repeats-original-injustice.htm

Foreshore and Seabed – FAQs
What are common law customary rights?

These are rights, interests, practices and activities exercised by Maori prior to the acquisition of sovereignty by the Crown (although there is a strong argument that that sovereignty was never ceded only kawanatanga). The basis of common law aboriginal title is the legal recognition of the continuity of aboriginal property rights upon the Crown’s acquisition of sovereignty. Native title is neither an institution of the common law but is recognised by the common law. Therefore they exist prior to the Treaty (but are guaranteed by it).
http://www.greens.org.nz/factsheets/foreshore-and-seabed-faqs
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September 7, 2010 10:10pm
Pete George

“Got a link Pete?”

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html
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September 8, 2010 6:35am
Viking2

Anderton displays just what and ars****e he is.

Parker’s 20-hour days for ‘a personal thing’
By GLENN CONWAY – The Press

What has kept the exhausted mayor going?

“There is a really important job to do. This is a very personal thing,” he said. “It’s our city, our families, our friends, and we are all working together to do our best.”

Parker said his head was not in the right place for next week’s scheduled Press mayoral debate, which has been cancelled.

His main challenger, Jim Anderton, wanted the event to go ahead, saying he did not want to see the elections cancelled or delayed.

“I think we have to be careful not to too easily suspend democratic processes,” he said.

He was still campaigning – not to create photo opportunities but to help people with all sorts of issues, both before and after the quake.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/canterbury-earthquake/4105709/Parkers-20-hour-days-for-a-personal-thing
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September 8, 2010 6:39am
Pete George

“radical Islam isn’t even in the top three threats to Western security”

Petraeus Warns Against Planned Koran-Burning

Burning copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, “would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence,” the commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus said.

“It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort. It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community.”

Terry Jones, the pastor of the tiny Florida church that plans the Koran burning, says that as an American Christian he has a right to burn the Koran because “it’s full of lies.”

An obnoxious US pastor with a 50 member church could potentially spark off more of threat to Western security. Large problems can have small causes (like world wars).
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September 8, 2010 6:58am
Nefarious

Pete you fucking retard, that example you give simply proves that the problem IS with islam.

It’s a book and burning it harms no one, sure it may offend but that’s what freedom is about.

The threat is the stupid twats who believe in the fairy stories.
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September 8, 2010 7:29am
Pete George

“The threat is the stupid twats who believe in the fairy stories.”

Just some? Or all, including those who carefully orchestrate events they know will antagonise others?
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September 8, 2010 7:45am
dad4justice

“Pete you fucking retard”

Amen to that. I wish the troll would fly away.
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September 8, 2010 7:48am
krazykiwi

I’ve already commented that this stunt is stupid and unneceserialy provocotive. But Nefarious is absolutely on the mark with the comment about freedom.
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September 8, 2010 8:01am
Nefarious

Is anybody or any hidden force compelling these fucking lunatics to attack those that offend them?

Would it be ok for me to come smash your face in because your stinking socialist hand in my pocket offends me?

Is it possible for Perpetually Postulating Pete to actually think rather than just ask inane questions continually?

No body makes the christian loonies burn books ok, but in burning those books they are only hurting some other loonies feelings. Boo fucking hoo.

Now does that make it ok for the hurt feeling loonies to kill the christian loonies? If in your world it does, then I hope to god some fucking right wing nutbar takes offence to your collectivist shit and does us all a favour.

Sorry, did I offend you?
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September 8, 2010 8:06am
MikeNZ

HJ
“Under this bill, Maori will only get what the Government has decided they can get, irrespective of the strength of their claim under common law

That’s the problem, they are taking away our ownership and deciding what the Maori will get and I don’t believe I remember that as one of their election platforms, do you?
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September 8, 2010 8:21am
MikeNZ

Sorry KK
That’s not fair, that only applies to everyone else not to something feminists, socialists, homosexuals and islamists would be offended about.
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September 8, 2010 8:23am
Pete George

Being provocative doesn’t justify an over-the-top response.

“Would it be ok for me to come smash your face in because your stinking socialist hand in my pocket offends me?”

No, especially because I don’t stink, I’m not a socialist, and I don’t have my hand in your pocket, so your offense is mistaken.

Obviously everyone has the “right” to do whatever they are able to do. But most people aren’t stupid enough to call the police pigs on a Saturday night, or to park outside a Mongrel Mob house doing brown-eyes.

Terry Jones can burn Korans or Torahs or whatever he wants to burn, and he can try and stir up as much publicity as he can. And most people will see it is stupidly provocative and for no good purpose. Very in-Christian.
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September 8, 2010 8:23am
MikeNZ

Reid
Will answer later.
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September 8, 2010 8:26am
krazykiwi

@Mike, they’re being much more clever that simply taking away ownership. They’re redefining the term ‘ownsership’ so that it can be used to mean one thing to one group of voters, and something completely different to another group. It’s dishonest, power-assuring stuff, and certainly not what I voted for.

@Nefarious – ‘Perpetually Postulating Pete’. Very good.
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September 8, 2010 8:26am
Nefarious

Right Triple P, we are finally getting somewhere I see.

Being provocative doesn’t justify an over-the-top response.

So what would be a reasonable response to burning the koran?

Who is the biggest threat?
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September 8, 2010 8:47am
Pete George

Obviously world wide riots (or any local riots) are not reasonable, far from it. Muslims should ignore the stupidity. But neither is it being reasonable to be unnecessarily provocative.

The biggest threat is people overacting and overreacting. The US were sort of justified by trying to clobber Afghanistan (but it was far from necessary apart from trying to restore some sort of “honour”), but certainly overreacted invading Iraq. Imagine the possible result if they were right and Iraq did have major WMD, and used them.
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September 8, 2010 8:53am
hj

jh
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Posted September 8, 2010 at 7:08 PM
Sam b Says:
“Yes, BJ, but jh understands that in the political arena, the winner is not the person with the best arguments or the most supportive facts, but the person who keeps shouting the same thing over and over until their opponents give up, or the point has been repeated so often that it slips into the popular mind as a fact.”
….
Kerry Tankard will be well known to some readers.

She is a Wellington based anarchist, connected to the 128 Abel Smith Street crowd. She also worked with three of the “Urewera 17″ Simon/Rongomai Bailey, Emily Bailey and Marama Mayrick, on the anarchist/Green Party supported radical environmentalist film Kotahi Ao.

Tankard, is also a Green Party activist and often posts on Green Forum under the name Katie.

She posted this on Green Forum, the day after the October 15th anti terror raids.

Location: Aro Valley, Wellington

Activist arrests in Wellington Posted: 16 Oct 2007 21:36

In the interests of supporting those who have been arrested, discussions were held last night at 128 Able Smith St.

I am re-posting a statement verbatim from Indymedia Collective, as a response to those who are concerned or confused about what is being said in media and local gossip.

Quote:

This morning I opened the herald to see what the bullshit the media were spinning about the raids and saw a comment allegedly from a flatmate of one of the activists arrested yesterday in Auckland.

I thought it would be obvious not to comment to the media but apparently not.

I guess I just want to remind people not to talk amongst themselves and speculate and especially do not talk to the media. They are not your friends and they will use you to get the inside scoop.

This was obvious in another article I got forwarded this morning from Bomber’s blog. He was sniffing around last night at Unite and had cornered some less experienced activists and was asking them what was going on…

As someone quite rightly put it last night….’if not one talks, everyone walks’.

It is not gossip it is fucken serious and some of our comrades are facing a long time behind bars, it would be good if people could remember that.

Now is an important time to remember AND PRACTISE those good old rules about security culture and solidarity!

The media are easy to ignore however the filth is a different story and it is likely that they will want to ‘talk’ to some people. If you are concerned about this and don’t know what your rights are etc… please seek the advise of an experienced activist who you TRUST. Maybe we need to have a workshop around this sometime in the next few days so that everyone is confident.

Love and solidarity!

Please respect the very serious position that the arrests have put some of our very dear friends in.

We have already seen a former policeman, Detective John Dewar, convicted for perverting the course of justice in the Shipton/Schollum/Rickards case; we know they lie.

The case at hand is under District Court strictures, there are suppression orders in place. We would prefer activists not to be branded as terrorists, in the face of Police PR and dubiously executed search warrants, and media clutching at straws to create a “good story”.

To all who have offered support, thanks on behalf of activists who do not have access to these forums. A legal fund has been started, and practical support for the arrestees on remand has begun.

Kerry Tankard
(Katie)
Member
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2007/12/evidence-of-green-partyanarchist.html
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2010/09/05/general-debate-september-5-2010-2/#comment-150156
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September 8, 2010 7:12pm
hj

Peace and solidarity comrades and no one talk to the filth, radicals, IRD (or PTA).
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September 8, 2010 7:16pm

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