The Guardian reports:

More than 530 Republican primary voters were polled this week on their support for Republican candidates and foreign policy issues including banning Muslims from entering the US, Japanese internment camps from the second world war and bombing Agrabah, the kingdom from Disney’s animated classic, Aladdin.

In its poll, Public Policy Polling asked the 532 Republicans: “Would you support or oppose bombing Agrabah?” While 57% of responders said they were not sure, 30% said they supported bombing it. Only 13% opposed it.

Public Policy Polling also polled Democratic primary voters: only 19% of them said they would support bombing Agrabah, while 36% said they would oppose it.

People are getting excited about this, but it doesn’t really say a lot except that people don’t like to admit they don’t know where a place is.

I suspect most respondents just thought Agrabah is a city in Syria. And the question was asked as a direct support/oppose. The majority of Republicans actually said they were not sure, which is what everyone should say.  Also of note is 19% of Democrats said they support bombing it.

Thomas Lumley at Stats Chat damns the poll question:

I’m pretty sure that less than 30% even of Republican voters really support bombing a fictional country. In fact, I’d guess it’s probably less than 5%. But think about how the question was asked.  You’re a stereotypical Republican voter dragged away from quiet dinner with your stereotypical spouse and 2.3 stereotypical kids by this nice, earnest person on the phone who wants your opinion about important national issues.  You know there’s been argument about whether to bomb this place in the Middle East. You can’t remember if the name matches, but obviously if they’re asking a serious question that must be the place they mean. And it seemed like a good idea when it was explained on the news. Even the British are doing it. So you say “Support”.

The 30% (or 19%) doesn’t mean Republicans (or Democrats) want to bomb Aladdin. It doesn’t even mean they want to bomb arbitrary places they’ve never heard of. It means they were asked a question carefully phrased to sound as if it was about a genuine geopolitical controversy and they answered it that way.

When Ali G does this sort of thing to political figures, it’s comedy. When Borat does it to unsuspecting Americans it’s a bit dubious. When it’s mixed in with serious opinion polling, it risks further damaging what’s already a very limited channel for gauging popular opinion.

I agree.

Merry Christmas to all my readers. Hope you have a peaceful day with family and friends and a relaxing holiday break.

The Press reports:

 The report by Miriam Dean QC on Christ Church Cathedral gives two clear options for the quake-damaged building: reinstate or replace.

Dean was brought in by the Government to break the deadlock between church leaders, who wanted to partially demolish the building, and heritage campaigners, who wanted to save it. It was hoped the building’s future would be decided before Christmas.

She managed to get both sides, and their engineers, to agree on the feasibility of the two options and the costs.

The options are:

-Reinstatement, through a mix of repair, restoration, reconstruction and seismic strengthening, which would likely take until the end of 2022 and cost $105 million.

– Replacement with a new cathedral. This could be completed by the end of 2019 and cost $63m to $66m.

I don’t care which option is pursued so long as it is done with private money, not public money. Taxpayers should not fund a church.

If people in Christchurch want to reinstate the Cathedral, then they should fund-raise for it to cover the gap between what the Church has in insurance, and the cost.

The Herald reports:

A public, and at times nasty, tug-of-love battle over an adored pedigree cat has come to an end, with a court order that the chinchilla persian be returned to its original owner.

Social media sensation Caitlin Davidson, known as Caito Potatoe to her almost half a million followers, today returned the cat – via an intermediary and an Auckland vet clinic – to Grey Lynn woman Joyce Quah.

The Herald reports:

A man who defaced the MediaWorks building with anti-Paul Henry graffiti was the same man found guilty of shoving and spitting at him, it can now be revealed.

The incident at the Flower St premises came just hours after 35-year-old Diego Chavez was found guilty of assaulting the controversial presenter on December 2.

Christian Marcel Cebolledo-Gutierrez was charged with intentional damage following the incident and, though he missed his first Auckland District Court date, today he pleaded guilty.

Court documents showed the defendants shared the same date of birth and court staff confirmed they were the same person, using aliases.

He doesn’t speak English, so I’m assuming he is not a NZ citizen. As a recidivist offender can’t we just deport him quickly?

On Friday the NZ Herald editorial proclaimed:

Strange things started to happen rather quickly. Not enough subscribers were keen to switch to the more expensive connection, so Chorus raised the price of copper connections to $45 a month to make fibre more attractive.

An organisation of users protested. The Commerce Commission, which can regulate network pricing, stepped in and forced Chorus to lower its copper charge to $32.45. At that, Chorus appealed and the commission has spent the past three years reviewing its calculations.

The following Wednesday their editorial back downs:

Last Friday, our editorial expressed concern that the charge being set for telecommunications on the copper network was being artificially inflated to make the Government-inspired roll-out of fibre optic cable more competitive.

That view has been strongly contested and we need to reconsider a number of issues. Few costs in an economy are more important than the price of its vital infrastructure.

Chorus, the network provider, does not set its own charges. They are done entirely by the Commerce Commission. We have been assured the charge determined by the commission last week has nothing to do with the cost of fibre connections, the uptake of which is at 16.4 per cent of customers served so far.

Kudos to the Herald for admitting they got it wrong. Not so good they did an editorial in the first place they was so poorly researched.

Stuff reports:

“After a year of real change, a bit of turmoil, a bit of introspection I guess, we’re the strongest we’ve ever been. And I’m really pleased, ” says Turei. 

Strongest they have ever been?

Here’s the average of the public polls since 2011.

Quite the opposite. They’re polling the lowest they have been in the last five years.

Over that time it would be no surprise if poll numbers had fallen, but in fact their base support has held. 

Static this year but well below what they polled last cycle.

Psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald has been leading the charge for John Key to be removed from being a patron for the White Ribbon Trust because the PM was the recipient of a radio station prank that joked about picking up the soap in the shower.

MacDonald has done press releases, petitions and op eds on it because he is so offended by it.

This is the same Kyle MacDonald who did a very friendly interview with Tom Scott of Homebrew, AFTER Scott had released his song about wanting to rape the PM’s daughter.

I’m not the only one who thinks perhaps politics is at play with a but of a double standard. Do a song about wanting to rape the PM’s daughter and get interviewed on his radio show, while be the recipient of a crass joke by a radio station and you’re deemed unfit.

MacDonald has every right to be inconsistent in his views, and attack the PM. But it would be nice if if wasn’t left to bloggers (in fact I only found out through a commenter in General Debate) to publicise the inconsistency so members of the public are in a better position to decide how genuine the outrage is.

The Wellington Sevens seem to be dying.

I recall the days when the tickets sold out in three minutes. The Internet would freeze as Wellingtonians tried to be one of the lucky ones to buy their tickets online. There would be dozens of people queued up outside Post Offices and the like, to buy tickets.

Now the stadium barely gets half full. Even with three months of selling tickets, and huge price drops, less people want to go.

The question is why?

One reader e-mails:

For me the 7s died the day they banned Borat.  It’s essentially been killed by the thought police, rules, regulations and a general ‘we know better’ attitude.  Not to mention the extortionate beer prices and disgusting overpriced food.  Why would anyone want to attend?

What do you think?

As I have done in previous years, I’ve compiled some of my blog posts where I have criticised, attacked or disagreed with the Government. I am a supporter, but not an uncritical one. When I agree with them, I say so. When I don’t, I say so. This seems difficult for some people to comprehend.

• 24 September 2014 – criticised the hint by the PM David Seymour would be made a Minister immediately.
• 30 September 2014 – criticised the PM for his comments on the currency
• 4 October 2014 – agreed with Sam Morgan’s comments criticising the Govt’s R&D policy
• 10 October 2014 – attack Steven Joyce’s announcement of funding a golf tournament
• 12 October 2014 – support a NZTU report attacking the Govt’s corporate welfare spending
• 14 October 2014 – call on Govt not to rush the anti-terror laws
• 16 October 2014 – critical that the PMO did not communicate with Judith Collins over her title
• 31 October 2014 – disagree with Govt ruling out congestion charges or tolls for Auckland
• 4 November 2014 – said Kim Dotcom should not be deported for not declaring his speeding conviction
• 12 November 2014 – I call allowing Phillip Smith to escape a clusterf**k and criticise Key’s joke
• 22 November 2014 – I call on the Govt to cease funding Team NZ
• 24 November 2014 – I say the case has not been made by the Govt for the emergency surveillance provisions of the Govt’s Foreign Fighters Bill
• 27 November 2014 – I propose Labour MP David Shearer me made MFAT Chief Executive
• 27 November 2014 – I oppose the surveillance provisions of the Govt’s Foreign Fighters Bill, in a submission
• 16 December 2014 – I criticise the Govt for not reining in spending more, as a surplus looks unlikely
• 23 December 2014 – I call on Govt to walk away from Sky City deal, rather than give taxpayer dollars
• 7 February 2015 – I disagree with the Govt that the EQC model is working, and call for reform
• 10 February 2015 – I disagree with the PM on Sky City
• 11 February 2015 – I promote a petition against the Govt giving money to Sky City
• 17 February 2015 – I support the Greens on banning animal testing for cosmetics
• 19 February 2015 – I support a Labour call for an inquiry into petrol margins
• 2 March 2015 -I criticise the PM’s announcement that changes to MPs pay will be made under urgency
• 3 March 2015 – I highlight a massive blow out in IRD computer costs
• 6 March 2015 – I slam a Customs proposal for them to have the power to demand passwords
• 10 March 2015 – I again criticise the PM for commenting on RB interest rate decisions
• 10 March 2015 – I reveal that the Govt’s law change to reduce MP pay rises, would have in the past seen them get bigger pay rises
• 10 March 2015 – I call on the Govt to release BCRs for their proposed Northland bridges
• 11 March 2015 – I dig at the Govt over their $30 million subsidy to Rio Tinto
• 19 March 2015 – I criticise the Govt’s proposal to not have full Ecan elections in 2016
• 23 March 2015 – I again attack the proposal for Customs to be able to demand passwords
• 25 March 2015 – I criticise the HDC Bill
• 29 March 2015 – I critically analyse why National lost Northland
• 20 April 2015 – I attack Nathan Guy’s announcement of an industry dominated group to review overseas betting
• 22 April 2015 – I’m the first commentator to label the PM’s actions with hair pulling inappropriate and he should apologise
• 24 April 2015 – I again criticise the Govt over their $30 million subsidy to Rio Tinto
• 6 May 2015 – I criticise the high proportion of Whanau Ora spent on administration
• 8 May 2015 – I criticise the Government for warning backbench MPs off attending Falun Gong events
• 21 May 2015 – I say I can’t support the Budget as there is too much extra spending
• 7 June 2015 – I praise the performance of Lianne Dalziel
• 8 June 2015 – I call the Saudi farm deal a form of corporate welfare
• 9 July 2015 – I say the Government should have full elections for ECan in 2016
• 15 July 2015 – I slam the attempt by Customs to gain powers to require passwords to devices on travellers
• 17 August 2015 – I criticise the Government’s Chidl Protection Bill for requiring registered offenders to hand over passwords for the Internet accounts
• 18 September 2015 – I say the Government should not change the law to stop it having repay underpayments to beneficiaries
• 24 September 2015 – I oppose the Government saying it will contribute towards pandas
• 13 October 2015 – I call on the Government to support a bill by Green MP Gareth Hughes
• 15 October 2015 – I support Labour’s bill to include Under-Secretaries in the OIA
• 9 November 2015 – I support Phil Twyford’s policy on funding new home infrastructure
• 26 November 2015 – I slam the Government decision on iPredict as “nuts”
• 16 December 2015 – I criticise the Government’s excessive use of urgency and bypassing select committees this year

I’ve now read the 271 page ruling of Judge Dawson in Dotcom et al extradition hearing.

Any doubt on there being a case for extradition crumbles when reading the ruling.

In fact, the evidence in there is so strong, that I think the chance of a successful prosecution in the US is now very high. Previously I was quite unsure if there would be proof beyond reasonable doubt.

I encourage people to take the time to read the ruling. Any thought that Megaupload operated like Youtube or Google Drive gets blown away. The paragraphs from 200 to 300 get into the meat. Here are some extracts:

DOTCOM sent an e-mail message to VAN DER KOLK, ORTMANN and BENCKO in which he complained about the deletion of URL links in response to infringement notices from the copyright holders. In the message, DOTCOM stated: “I told you many times not to delete links that are reported in batches of thousands from insignificant sources. I would say that those infringing reports from MEXICO of ’14,000’ links would fall into that category. And the fact that we lost significant revenue because of it justifies my reaction”

ORTMANN told VAN DER KOLK “Maybe try undeleting them” and VAN DER KOLK asked “You want to risk that?” Then VAN DER KOLK said “I mean MX is just MX, we could ignore them”, and ORTMANN added “It’s not like Mexico is going to sue us in Hong Kong”. ORTMANN continued “Just for testing, we should undelete those files”, “for one day”, “we can excuse it as a tech glitch”. VAN DER KOLK added “I often ignore reports from certain countries, such as VN”. In this context, the abbreviations “MX” and “VN” appear to refer to Mexico and Vietnam, respectively.

So they decided not to delete material from countries they didn’t think were powerful enough to pursue them.

Later that day, DOTCOM instructed ORTMANN, in German, “And please do what I wrote bram. Undelete everything that was in the last 4 weeks reported from non first world countries. SIMPLY everything. And you will see we have daily record again”

So direct instructions from Dotcom to undelete files that they had been told breached copyright.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia expects a representative of the FBI to testify to the following facts: a. On or about December 26, 2008, via Skype, ORTMANN said to VAN DER KOLK, “wow, an Indian subpoena requesting MV uploader credentials…” VAN DER KOLK responded, “wow,” “ah that one from the police,” “I think I saw that one.” Later, VAN DER KOLK said, “it’s just Indian police,” and ORTMANN responded,” yes, we can probably ignore this one.” VAN DER KOLK suggested, “we can always say that we never received their e-mail,”

Not exactly honest are they?

On or about October 25, 2009, Mr van der Kolk instructed a Mega Conspiracy employee through an e-mail, written in Dutch, how to alter the “featured” videos list on Megavideo.com and the “Top 100” list on Megaupload.com. Mr van der Kolk wrote, among other things, that the Top 100 should not list any copyrighted files, but instead should list game demos, software demos, and movie trailers. Mr van der Kolk instructed the employee to track what was currently popular on the Internet and to download material from websites such as download.com, apple.com/trailers, and gamespot.com. Mr van der Kolk further instructed the employee to create fake accounts on Megaupload.com and Megavideo.com and to upload the files to those accounts, so that it would appear that the files were uploaded by active users instead of Mega Conspiracy employees.

So they knew the material downloaded most was copyrighted, and they faked their top 100 list to exclude that.

On or about November 19, 2009, via Skype, DOTCOM sent ORTMANN a Skype conversation between DOTCOM and VAN DER KOLK, during which DOTCOM said: MV is full of problematic content on the [publicly viewable] video pages. I told you how important this is. Every day counts, especially since we have articles out there comparing us with napster and putting us in a bad light. WHY THE FUCK did you not take care of this? You told me you will do this WHILE you are in HK. I just spoke with mathias [ORTMANN] and he told me he informed you long time ago about fixing this. WHY do you risk our good running business with not following up on important matters like this. If you look at the latest video pages now it is FULL with the latest commercial stuff. FUCK THIS BRAM!

The problem wasn’t that their most popular content was commercial stuff, it was that they were admitting this on the public pages.

And ORTMANN added, “the important thing is that nobody must know that we have auditors letting this stuff through.” VAN DER KOLK responded, “yes that’s very true also.” ORTMANN replied, “if we had no auditors – full DMCA protection, but with tolerant auditors, that would go away.” And VAN DER KOLK replied, “yes true”.

There are scores of references to them hiding what they really were doing.

On or about April 10, 2006, Van der Kolk sent an e-mail to Ortmann asking, “Do we have a server available to continue downloading of the Youtube’s vids? … Kim just mentioned again that this has really priority.” In addition, Van der Kolk wrote, “Hope [Youtube.com] is not implementing a fraud detection system now… * praying *”. Van der Kolk also wrote: “Well we only have 30% of their videos yet.. In my opinion it’s nice to have everything so we can descide and brainstorm later how we’re going to benefit from it.”

They decided to download nearly the entire contents of Youtube onto Mega, so they could falsely claim the majority of their users are uploading home videos, not commercial copyrighted content.

Judge Dawson concluded:

The overwhelming preponderance of evidence produced by the applicant in the ROC and the SROC establishes a prima facie case to answer for all respondents on each of the counts. …

Pursuant to s 24(1) this Court finds that the respondents are all eligible for surrender on all thirteen counts in the superseding indictment.

Hard to read the judgment and come to any other conclusion.

The District Court has ruled that Kim Dotcom is eligible for extradition.

No doubt he will appeal, and claim all sorts of conspiracies. But this was a matter decided by a judge, after 50 days of hearings. I doubt any person has ever had a longer or more well resourced defence case.

He has 15 days to appeal to the High Court, which can be on a matter of law only.

In a way this is a pity. I’d be quite keen for him to remain in NZ and spend another $5 million on trying to overthrown the Government, to have it all backfire again!

The Herald reports:

Kids need to be taught the joy of winning and the pain of losing.

That’s the message from World Cup-winning coach Steve Hansen in a wide-ranging interview with the Herald.

The All Blacks coach believes coaching took a wrong turn when emphasis was changed from winning to participating.

Let alone when kids now don’t even get told the score!

He believes his hatred of losing is his greatest strength and greatest weakness as a coach, and as he has grown to accept losing as an inevitable byproduct of competitive sport, he has become better at his job.

“The fact I hate it so much, I’ve got to learn to control it. There’s no point having a hissy-fit just because you’ve lost, but it doesn’t mean you just accept it,” Hansen said.

“There are so many things you can learn when you lose if you’re open to it.

“At the same time you’ve got to have that huge love of winning that can motivate you to make sure you don’t lose too often but you can’t allow that to overshadow the process of how you win.

“That’s the most important thing in sport.”

Hansen believed that it was unnatural to minimise the importance of competition when coaching kids.

“Where we got it wrong a number of years ago was when we said winning was not important.

“You ask any kid from the age of 10. Whether it’s rugby or two kids playing marbles, they want to win, that’s a natural instinct,” Hansen said.

It’s very natural. You can teach to be a gracious winner and an accepting loser, but that’s different from teaching that winning isn’t important.

The Telegraph reports:

However, it is illegal to offer sex in return for lessons.

Transport minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen and Justice minister Ard van der Steur addressed the issue in response to a question tabled in parliament by Gert-Jan Segers of the socially conservative Christian Union party, noting that, although ‘undesirable’, offering driving lessons with sex as payment is not illegal.

Fairfax asks people what they think will be the top five issues in 2016. Their answers:

John Key

1. Economy
2. Terrorism and global security
3. The Environment
4. Water
5. RMA reform
6. The flag

Andrew Little

1. The Kiwi dream
2. Jobs
3. Standing up for NZers
4. Home ownership
5. Leadership

Shaw and Turei

1. Standard of living
2. Housing
3. Winter power bills
4. Climate change
5. A mood for change

Flavell

1. Poverty
2. Whanau/Family
3. Housing
4. Whenua/Land
5. Whakapapa

David Seymour

1. Coalitions
2. The business agenda
3. Assisted Dying

Peter Dunne

1. Security
2. TPP
3. The flag
4. Public services
5. The iPhone generation

The Herald profiles a teenpreneur:

Nineteen-year-old Stephanie Benseman is a co-founder of Filtr, an online platform that helps connect students to potential employers. She also works as a project coordinator for the Young Enterprise Trust, which runs the Young Enterprise Scheme in schools, and is a Victoria University student.

What set you on the path to becoming an entrepreneur?

My parents own a business, and I always wanted to be a designer like my dad. So my plan was to go to Massey University and study design. But I didn’t really get into the idea of being an entrepreneur until I was in year 13. I had a friend at Garin College in Nelson who was doing really well in the Young Enterprise Scheme, but they didn’t offer it at my school – Marlborough Girls’ College – so I nagged them until I could do it extra curricular. With four other friends, we set up a company called Reverb, which created dresses made out of recycled fabrics, and won best YES company in the Marlborough region in 2013.

Doing that programme was the best decision of my life because it helped me realise being an entrepreneur is my career path.

When and why did you start Filtr?

I attended the accelerator programme Venture Up in Wellington at the beginning of this year, which was like YES on steroids. I started a company out of that originally with four others called Filtr, and there are now three of us who have continued working on that venture. The company connects students to the coolest companies in New Zealand to find them jobs relevant to their degree. Students sign up and can apply for jobs advertised by companies on the platform. Obviously students’ grades are important in the recruitment process, but we also want to focus on getting the right cultural fit for students with a company. We do that by getting the students to create a short video where they answer practical as well as fun questions, so potential employers can get an idea of what they’d be like in a business situation and also as a person.

I love the fact that the Internet has opened up such great opportunities. When you were at school previously, your aspiration would be to get a degree or go work for someone else. Now you have teenagers wanting to set up their own businesses and compete globally. It’s great stuff.

What are the pros and cons of being such a young entrepreneur?

You’ll obviously never know it all in business, but when you’re really young you really don’t know it all! Like with running Filtr, I often have no idea what I’m doing but I’m doing it anyway and we’re just figuring it out. Luckily we have a lot of inspirational mentors who are helping us, like Mark Vivian at Movac who always gives us the best advice.

One of the pros is people can be impressed by your age so they’re willing to help. New Zealand has such an open culture, especially in the startup community where everyone is so helpful. Also, I think in business it’s always okay to fail but when you’re young you have that extra leeway where if it all turned to crap and you lost all your money you’d still just be a poor student anyway. It’s not a huge loss.

It is the risk of failure that drives business success.

Stuff reports:

The group protecting an ancient West Auckland kauri tree say it was attacked early on Wednesday morning.

The Titirangi tree, which experts say is impossible to age accurately but could be up to 600 years old, was at the centre of a protest in March after it and a 300-year-old rimu were about to be felled to make way for two houses.

On December 11 at dawn, protester and arborist Johno Smith climbed into the canopy of the ancient kauri on Paturoa Rd after attempts were again made to chop it down. He has remained there ever since.

But early on Wednesday, Smith reported noise below and saw eight people, who he believed were security guards, cutting the tree with chainsaws while he was still in it.

The Save our Kauri group said neighbours tried to stop the men but were too late to stop them ring barking the tree.

Save our Kauri spokeswoman Aprilanne Bonar said it was a vengeful action and the perpetrators needed to be “brought to justice”.

The three belongs to the owners. They have permission from the Council to fell it. So long as the ring barking was agreed to by the owners, the only people who need to be brought to justice as the trespassers.

If they want to save the tree, they should but the land it is on.

But anyway do you note how the tree is now magically up to 600 years old. Previously they only claimed it was 500 years old.  But actually Auckland Council has said several arborists have said it is 150 to 200 years old – making it no different to probably tens of thousands of trees.

The media just report the claims of 600 without scrutiny.

Stuff reports:

Of the 75 political claims by Donald Trump during the current campaign that have been vetted by the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact checking organisation Politifact not one – not a single one – has been rated as “True”.

Politifact has a six-point rating scale from True to Pants on fire. It rates five of Trump’s comments to be Mostly True and 13 to be Half True. It considers 16 to be Pants on Fire, 29 to be False and 12 to be Mostly False.

By comparison Politifact has rated 140 claims by Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton and found 39 of them to be True, 32 Mostly True and two to be Pants on Fire.

In the last debate Trump’s latest idea was that the US should proactively target and murder innocent people if they happen to be related to terrorists. We’re not talking collateral damage here, but actually go out and execute people because of who their sister or brother is etc.

His ability to not just get things wrong, but refuse to ever concede he got something wrong is what his fans like about him, but it is what you expect more from his good friend Putin, than a potential US president.

The Herald reports:

Merry Christmas Kim Dotcom – you could be in jail on December 25.

No he won’t be. I do wish the Herald wouldn’t feel the need to sensationalise. There’s a 15 day appeal period. I can’t imagine there is any chance bail will be revoked until appeals are done.

The Courts of New Zealand website has just forecast that a decision is coming tomorrow in the Megaupload extradition case.

It said through its Twitter account that the “USA v Dotcom & Ors decision will be delivered” tomorrow afternoon by district court judge Nevin Dawson.

While being picky the website doesn’t have a twitter account. The Department of Courts does.

The decision comes after a two-month hearing in which the United States put forward its application to have Dotcom and three others arrested in New Zealand in 2012 extradited to face criminal copyright and related charges.

Dotcom and the other – Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato – have strenuously denied the charges, which were connected to the operation of the Megaupload filesharing business operating out of Hong Kong. The business was one of the most popular on the internet, and carried popular movies and music.

Judge Dawson’s decision will reveal whether he considers the required level of evidence has been produced to show there is a case for the men to answer in the US.

If Dotcom loses tomorrow he will no doubt blame some global conspiracy. But the reality is he has had every opportunity to make his case that there is no evidence of offending. He had 50 days of courtroom argument where his lawyers put up every argument imaginable, and the Judge hearing the case has considered them all.

If the judge does find he should be extradited, that does not mean he is guilty. It simply means that there is enough evidence to warrant him being sent to the US to stand trial. And no doubt in the US he will also have a legion of highly paid lawyers arguing he has done nothing wrong. And he may win in US court.

Of course it is possible the NZ Judge will decide he is not eligible for extradition, and if so then he can stay in NZ.

No doubt if he loses, he will appeal. But you can only appeal the decision on a matter of law, and to the High Court only. However there may be other aspects of the court process that can be appealed higher, and no doubt they will be.

At the end this is a matter of law, not politics. We have an extradition treaty with the US and many other countries. This is what allows people who commit crimes in NZ, to be returned to us to face trial, and vice-versa.

I’ll do an update once we hear the decision.

Whale Oil reports:

AN IRATE Chris Kahui has taken to Facebook to support Maori nationalists seeking to undermine the John Key-led National Government.

The usually reserved Kahui, who was acquitted back in 2008 of murdering his three-month-old twin sons Chris and Cru, has fallen in behind extremists wanting Key’s Government to legislate for the return of confiscated Maori land. …

Recently Kahui ‘shared’ this post from Maori Life on his Facebook page: “What a pathetic leader you are John Key and your best mate Paula (Bennett) who likes to tell people they can’t have the support like she did many years ago. These two should be run out of the country for good. Two low life scum of the earth people,”  

You know having Chris Kahui call you a low life scum of the earth person is probably a great compliment.