Sir Don Brash

If I were running odds I'd put Brash's chances of getting a knighthood by the end of next year as maybe as strong as $1.15. For services to the national party. They won't implement even a fraction of his tinder dry Tory wish list, but as an exercise to move the policy thinking in a rightwards direction it will warm the hearts of the top couple of percentage of income earners that constitute the primary concern of the Nats. But it's reception has been chilly at best.

The recommendation to have no capital gains tax - while hugely advantageous to the wealthy - is out of step with everything Bill English has been hinting at. It's "interesting" - but it's not exciting and it's not worthwhile, or - as implied in the heading - it's not practical either.

So Dr Brash has recommended some impractical things that are electoral suicide - that is what the National leadership have told us thus far.

The report has been a cosy jobs-for-the-boys retirement sinecure for an ex-Reserve Bank Governor who would have been scribbling away at it - trying to be relevant - regardless. So why not pay him a no doubt extravagant fee for having someone type up the notes of his economic wet dreams? That's privilege. Did he have to competitively tender for that report contract? Of course not - he's their mate. That's how it works. Did David Caygill and the others on this taskforce get appointed on merit? — or because they are mates of the Tories and will produce the requisite right wing recommendations? That's a culture of entitlement right there. And it culminates in a knighthood.
2025 taskforce. It's mission is premised on the notion that most people in this country will leave for Australia to make more money. It's just another outlet for the NZ inferiority complex. This is not to say that regaining our position income-wise relative to Australia in 1974 would be a negative aspiration, but appointing Brash and his acolytes (Caygill's congratulatory and encouraging emails to Brash were exposed in the 'Hollow Men') to undertake the work is going to warp and taint the taskforce's output as ideological and pre-determined.

Phil Goff isn't racist - he 's just appealing to racists

So much petty dumb bullshit in the in tray this week. Top of the petty dumb bullshit heap was Phil Goff being a boring grey baby boomer thrust to greatness by an evacuation of senior executives and desperate for traction in the marketplace saturated by the opposition. He's like the CEO of DEKA - had it survived to now.

If his career path had taken him somewhere else he would probably be the general manager of Rendall's right now. A reliable senior executive with solid management skills and a good rapport and thorough familiarity with the organisation who can take over in a crisis situation. That's who anyone would appoint to take over - they don't have to be charismatic. They just have to get Labour's vote to within two or three percent of National on election night to be in a negotiation position with the smaller parties to form the government. Is that such a big ask?

Does Phil Goff think he can get to within two or three percent of National by making a speech entitled "Nationhood" and having it about the foreshore and seabed supposed racial polarisation - take a look at the branding:It so closely resembles Brash's atrocious hate-mongering Orewa script that Goff could be the second great plagiarist unveiled this month. It's all the same thing, but this time it's from the Labour Party leader:

New Zealand is at a cross-roads.

We can celebrate the rich tapestry of our heritage and use it to move forwards as a nation; or re-open wounds and divisions where there can be healing.

I want to talk about some of these issues today, and the choices that the Government is making this week, and in weeks ahead.

It will make choices in the global community of nations about climate change. It will make choices about Treaty settlements relating to forestry and about the foreshore and seabed.

And Brash:

[...]And fifth, the topic I will focus on today, is the dangerous drift towards racial separatism in New Zealand, and the development of the now entrenched Treaty grievance industry. We are one country with many peoples, not simply a society of Pakeha and Maori where the minority has a birthright to the upper hand, as the Labour Government seems to believe.

Over the next few months, I plan to give a major speech on each of my five main priorities, but today I want to speak about the threat which “the Treaty process” poses to the future of our country. I am focussing on this topic because, just before Christmas, after Parliament had risen for the year, the Government announced its foreshore and seabed policy, a policy with potentially huge significance for the future of our country.

So let me begin by asking, what sort of nation do we want to build?

Is it to be a modern democratic society, embodying the essential notion of one rule for all in a single nation state?

Or is it the racially divided nation, with two sets of laws, and two standards of citizenship, that the present Labour Government is moving us steadily towards?


Blah. Blah. Blah. Crisis. Division. The past. Those tricky, but pathetic Maoris. The long-suffering Pakeha taxpayer... It's like a twist-a-plot novel where you are asked to either chose the wealthy privileged, aloof, geeky white guy leading a party manipulated by interest groups and powerful lobbyists to run a Prime Ministerial dictatorship with barely any constitutional controls for three years at a go, or the only other option is that Tame Iti and Tipene O'Regan get to run the country as feudal-corporate overlords in an Apartheid state with the help of some conniving race-traitor. This is what the voters are being presented with when politicians pick this path and in essence it is every bit as absurd as any insane pastiche I can concoct.

Do I have to read Goff's pile of bullshit to know that it looks and smells like the same bullshit as Brash? Sold for the same reasons, to the same people - and it will in the end have the same effect. Brash lost. Goff will lose. Then there will be someone new. Do I have to read it all - do I have to read to the inevitable bit about Maori "privilege" and the patronising padding? Well it's not going to be worth it is it. It's not going to worth dignifying it with serious inspection is it. It's going to be a waste of my time to read it. I'd rather spend the time talking about why he's going there.

Trevor Mallard kept popping up the blog-whistle posts on Red Alert, and he finally got a ticking off over the obvious anti-Maori post on a sentencing issue in which he also criticised a judge. It was like a tacky, shitty, moronic pizza campaign stunt. It was the first test of whether the Maori Privilege line would work. That was the feedback from their listening to the provinces tour. Be more racist. A lot, lot more racist. So Trevor Mallard gives them a test run... and I guess no-one did a good enough job in convincing him that an anti-Maori line for the Labour Party is just about the most idiotic thing imaginable.

Why would any Maori - let alone anyone at all - lift a finger to help the Labour Party when their leader is a wannabe Don Brash? This is why Tariana Turia - the only Maori in the Labour caucus with any balls - left the party. She had to. Because it was run by ruthless, opportunist... mofo a la blanc as Hone Harawira might say [because he mangles his words, it's "les mofos blanc" apparently.]

The answer is - contrary to what Trevor Mallard may think - no one but the hard core of Labour support will vote for any version of Don Brash as leader of the Labour Party. You think they would have learnt that. You think they would have learnt that going to the right in 1949 was a failure, but they repeated that again this time 'round and got the same result. And now - only a year after being thrown out they are right back to a failed strategy of trying to be more racist than the Tories. It is the most idiotic tactic for Labour to adopt. Does it have to be spelt out? Are they that thick? Let's make Phil Goff seem more right wing!? His weak point sure ain't that he's not right wing enough. More right wing than now? They already have invented a party for that and it's called National.

Phil Goff is at 5% - and this is how to lower it:
By making a speech called Nationhood in all the crispy starched white wrapping with exactly the same message as Brash. Now why would someone want to vote for that - why would you? Why would anyone?

People will vote for a solid Labour leader, not a Labour leader trying to be a Tory arsehole. If they want to vote for a Tory arsehole they will vote for the real McCoy every time. How can these people who have been active in the party since their teenage years and running in elections for decades in Phil Goff's case not have understood that by now?

So Phil Goff has been given a hospital pass from Trevor Mallard — that is the most charitable possible gloss that can be applied to this risible foray into overt race-baiting; but it's difficult to be that charitable.

It's so much more pathetic that the appeal to the paranoid angry white man comes from a Labour leader. It was pathetic when Helen Clark retreated into the dark cave of the unspoken white assumption of superiority over the coloured peoples of the Earth and the role of the white race of British peoples and it's pathetic now the inheritor of the club starts down into the same recesses. That was some nadir - the foreshore and seabed confiscation - it looked like they had adopted Cullen's re-position submission, but now all that consensus seems to be drowning in this Brash rhetoric - despite no official re-flip-flopping.

The thought that lurks behind Brash and Clark, and evidently Phil Goff's thinking, is that rich vein of white entitlement and the reaction when that is challenged. The beneficent colonising force delivering social progress and a classless utopia upon the altar of Civilisation that latter day Rhodesians, like Chris Trotter, think justifies ripping off Maori for centuries comes with the deep insecurity that it's all proven to be merely a temporary advantage of technology and militarism in a period of an Imperialist trading empire and premised on a continuous supply of the white race of British peoples for the perpetual economic expansion and social enrichment of the white race of British peoples populating the country already and to the disadvantage in just about every way to Maori and that the ideas used to justify the situation are myths and that it is unjust and unsustainable. It's bouts of guilt and anger for the inheritors and traders in Maori land. But they firmly believe they are the finest, fairest and most noble race of men ever and also the least racist of all the white colonies — and if those goddam ungrateful niggers say otherwise we'll kill every last one of them like we did in Tasmania.

That is what is lurking down there. That's the dark well from which Phil Goff wishes to draw upon. That's the target demographic when he opens his pie hole and it's Don Brash's speech notes that come out. There is absolutely no escaping that conclusion. That's all their own marketing.

It's so many levels of stupid below where they usually are that maybe it really just is as reflexively racist as it seems. That the area of their brain clouding their judgment is the racist bit - because this makes no sense in terms of winning the next election or helping the party long-term. It alienates the wrong people, it seeks to attract people ignorant enough to only be appealed to on a race basis and those people will evaporate before election day. It's lose - lose all round.

And then confirmation:Phil isn't a racist.

Honest. Parekura says so.

And Shane Jones - who was on the Fisheries Commission, double dipping as an MP as well for some time - part of the privileged Maori tribal elite by any definition - is going to say what about this attack on him from his own leader? That sell-out who won't stand in the Tai Tokerau seat against Hone Harawira because he has a personal pact with him not to; this blathering lightweight who slithered onto the list when they were confiscating Maori land, what does this dribbler of verbiage have to say to this criticism from his boss:“Phil Goff”s robust speech on nationhood yesterday was an invitation to get in the ring and debate the issues of the future. The Maori Party response is to hide behind the fig leaf of race rather than account for why they do sly deals with a privileged tribal elite."

Like him. He is the tribal elite. Like Dover Samuels before him, like Nania Mahuta. Does it get more privileged and tribal elite than that? It's a joke. It's a woeful, pathetic, grossly hypocritical joke.

The fact is that John Tamihere, the Great Brown Hope before Shane Jones - when he was in Cabinet - threatened to derail the entire fisheries settlement unless he got for him and his mates' Maori urban corporations (incl. Willie Jackson) a cut of the cash with no strings attached to fisheries. A straight out rort at the highest level. Tamihere then retires immediately back to being the CEO of Waipariera Trust (who had paid him a fat golden handshake while he was an MP) after getting thrashed by Pita Sharples in the election. From whence he will participate, no doubt, in distributing the cash he managed to screw out of the rightful beneficiaries. That's just a very small taste of Labour's record on the matter.

There are probably more tribal elite issues for the Labour Party than for the Maori Party. All the side deals by Cullen in the run up to the election over the foreshore and seabed are examples of favouritism - both Parekura Horomia and Nania Mahuta had the main Iwi in their constituencies paid off and promises made in a hope they would retain their seats - and unfortunately they did. But to focus on Maori alone would let the Labour party off the hook. Within a year of coming to power in 1999 - for example - Labour gave over 100 million dollars to the marginal West Coast seat in an attempt to buy off the overwhelmingly Pakeha district - and that was partially successful. There are so many instances of Labour's favouritism and privilege towards it's chosen groups - that it is astounding that the leader of the party would ever want to risk raising the issue.

I've met Phil Goff on a few occasions - mostly non-political events - and he's a decent chap and would make a safe and cautious PM I am sure; but Phil Goff is like an old Tony Blair for a country that never cared for a Tony Blair. He's left his run 20 years late and spinning out race baiting bullshit barely fit for one of Trevor Mallard's blogs is a mark of desperation.

Legendary

Go the Bay! So excellent.

Pointing out the Maori Party has Stockholm Syndrome is not race baiting

Goff accused of using race card
Phil Goff has been accused of sparking racial divisions with an "Orewa-style" speech after he attacked National-Maori Party deals signalling the foreshore and seabed will again be a political football.

Goff’s speech has had an interesting response.

Tim Watkin over at Pundit fears race wars and blood in the street (I’m being factitious) over Goff’s supposed race baiting, even The Standard seemed to jump to conclusions…

I just can’t believe that Goff and his advisers didn’t know what they were doing with this speech. And in doing so they’ve alienated much of the left and done huge damage to Labour’s relationship with Maori. To much of the rest of the electorate he just looks desperate.

..ouch, did we read the same speech? I don’t think pointing out that the Maori Party is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome is race baiting. I don’t agree with Goff building Hone up further than it needs, Christ Phil there’s much more Pork to slice off Rodney than Hone for Mill grist. But the Emission Trading Scam needs a response that is critical and claiming the race card won’t deflect that criticism.

I also think claiming this is Goff’s Orewa speech is just bullshit. Read the Hollowmen and see the emails at the time when Brash’s spin Dr’s knew that the Maaaaaaori get too much line was just a lie but they used it anyway. Goff is actually pointing out the bleeding obvious, that’s a planet away from what Brash attempted to do.

I think Gordon Campbell has the best take on this speech,

On one level of course, this is merely postmodern politics : ie, Goff is trying to pre-empt criticism by acknowledging its likelihood. Goff is not politically naïve. He knows he is playing to a gallery that includes racists, and that Labour can expect to reap a political advantage from that quarter. Yet the issues he was raising in Palmerston North were also substantive, and not reducible to mere dogwhistling to rednecks. Given the nature of the deal done between National and the Maori Party in Parliament this week over the ETS, he was in something of a ‘damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t’ situation when it came to mounting an attack on it. Calling the deal ‘ shabby’ and opposing its benefits to particular Maori tribes ( and large iwi corporations) at the taxpayer’s expense is not playing the race card. It is more like truth in labeling.

His critics – especially those on the left – need to consider where they stand on the issues he dealt with in the Grey Power speech. Do we think that ‘ full and final’ Treaty settlements should be open to further compensation if and when unforeseen events – like an ETS – lower the value of some of the components of that deal ? Given the historical grievances at the core of those settlements, there is a strong case for doing so. Goff does himself few favours by waving around the legal opinion by Helen Aikman QC that the Crown has no legal obligation to do so.

Bomber's Blog - The War on News

The War on News


Wank o the week


The show plays on Sky 89 & simulcast on Freeview 21 10pm Tuesdays. Replayed on Triangle TV 9.45pm Wednesday and posted on Scoop, Cheese on Toast and Tumeke by Friday.

Where are the defenders of the Iraq War now?

I remember those NZers who screamed that we should invade Iraq, I remember the lies spun to justify the unjustifiable. They tend to move on to Climate Denial now as their issue of the day, but I remember wading through the crap used to explain why the world needed to invade Iraq, they are quiet now as the level of out right deception is explored in the latest inquiry into the reasons why Britain went to war…

Blair's view on Iraq 'tightened' after Bush meeting
Tony Blair's view on regime change in Iraq "tightened" after a private meeting with President Bush in 2002, the UK's former US ambassador has said. Sir Christopher Meyer said no officials were at the Bush family ranch talks - but the next day Mr Blair mentioned regime change for the first time. The ex-diplomat also said officials had been left "scrabbling" for evidence of WMD as US troops prepared for invasion.

…there can be no enjoyment in pointing out how wrong the pro-war lobby got it when we consider the destruction the Iraqi people have had to endure from this lie. Iraq is another sad reminder that we are forever doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Thou shalt not molest children and cover it up

What is it with the Catholic Church and covering up the abuse of children? What’s with that? Is it because there is no specific ‘Thou shalt not molest children and cover it up’ in the 10 commandments?

Irish Church accused of abuse cover-up
A damning report into child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese has criticised the Catholic Church hierarchy for covering up the abuse. The report investigated how Church and state authorities handled allegations of child abuse against 46 priests. It found that the Church placed its own reputation above the protection of children in its care. It also said that state authorities facilitated the cover-up by allowing the Church to operate outside the law. Reacting to the report, the current Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said "no words of apology would ever be sufficient" and offered "to each and every survivor, my apology, my sorrow and my shame for what happened to them".

Whenever I listen to that funny bloke in a dress get on his high horse to wag his moral finger around the world I fondly remind myself of this type of hypocrisy.

Perhaps if the Catholic church was a little less concerned with a woman’s right to an abortion or keeping gay people from getting married or preventing women from leading the church and a little more concerned with their Priests molesting children and covering it up the world would be a little bit closer to heaven.

Social Devastation 101

It’s not National’s fault that there was a global recession, there is an irony that National wish to enact the very same free market deregulation that caused the global recession, but it’s seeds are not John Key’s to own.

However his Governments ill conceived response to date certainly is his legacy. More comment today about the growing tsunami from the W recession that is about to hit NZ, and to date, John Key’s response to this tsunami is the Government standing on the beach with an umbrella.

Unemployment will go well above the 7% National have claimed it will peak at, and as I have posted numerous times, this recession demands a response well above what this Government have offered, we know recessions damage our society...

Richie Poulton and David Craig: Crisis may just be starting for poor
Responding to recent rising unemployment figures, Social Development and Employment Minister Paula Bennett's response was to point to positive signs in the end of the recession and in falling numbers actually eligible to receive the unemployment benefit. And a decision to increase training opportunities for young people.

Business New Zealand's Phil O'Reilly noted: "It is very hard for unemployed people and their families. We do however have a sound unemployment support system and there are many public-private initiatives under way to help provide employment for those affected."

This week's release of the New Zealand Children's Social Health Monitor (www.nzchildren.co.nz) however raises important questions about whether the crisis has passed, and whether youth training will do the job. The report, launched at the New Zealand Paediatric Society's conference, was put together by a consortium of health researchers through the New Zealand Child and Youth Epidemiology Service, which supports DHBs and government around child illness and its causal factors.

It summarises extensive research, including New Zealand's own lifecourse studies of children's wellbeing, which suggests that children exposed to low family income in the early years, in addition to experiencing higher hospital admissions and mortality in the short term, also have worse long-term results.

This includes poorer cardiovascular and oral health, and an increased chance of becoming dependent on alcohol. Critically, moving out of poverty by adulthood, otherwise known as upward social mobility, does not appear to mitigate or reverse the long-term damage associated with childhood disadvantage. Worse, the negative consequences go well beyond the physical realm, and include leaving school early and without qualifications, being unemployed in later life, and falling into an intergenerational cycle of early parenthood and disadvantage.

Much of this is established scientific fact. But this report also points forward, reminding that in the previous recession, recovery of employment and incomes among families with young children was slow.

And just as the public turn in desperation to public services they will increasingly be reliant on. Bill English swings the axe on budgets…

Get ready for Budget axe, warns English
Finance Minister Bill English is sharpening the axe for big spending cuts in next year's Budget. Warning of more red ink in next month's half-yearly economic update, Mr English said yesterday that greater spending restraint would be needed just to keep debt levels on their current track. He said no sector or government department was immune. He also confirmed the Government had dropped the previous commitment to add $750 million each year to the health budget. The comments prompted Labour to warn people to expect "the father of all budgets" next year, with "savage" cuts to ACC, education and health.

Forget the power saving lightbulbs and water saving shower heads of the talkhate radio Nanny State myth, the Daddy State is about to offer up the Father-Fucker of all budgets.

How is that change feeling?

Being Charitable to the Sensible Sentencing Trust

Trust will fight to keep charity status
The Sensible Sentencing Trust says it will not give up its status as a charity without a fight. The trust says its existence is under threat after being told its status as a charitable organisation is likely to be revoked. Charities Commission chief executive Trevor Garrett says organisations whose main focus is political advocacy, are not eligible to be officially recognised as a charity. "The courts have been quite clear that political advocacy is not a charitable purpose. That's why for example a political party can't register as a charity."

Now I don’t like the Sensible Sentencing Trust, I think we can all agree with that right? But I have a big issue with this ruling, Greenpeace are a charity, so are Amnesty International, both seek to change policy and are political advocates and there is no way in hell I would want to see either one stripped of their charity status for attempting to do exactly what the Sensible Sentencing Trust does. You can’t push for an advantage against your opponent that you would never tolerate against your own. Better that there are changes all round that force public disclosure of donations, forget canceling the SST’s charitable status, I don’t care about that, what I care about is who funds the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

It has always been my suspicion that the SST are funded by GEO – the private prison corporate who are anxious to start running prisons in NZ. Overseas private prison companies fuel shrill victims rights groups to create a public discourse that warps hate into social policy.

The Standard touched on these concerns earlier this year

Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group, a deafening silence
Yesterday Tane did an excellent post speculating on links between the Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group. GEO Group derived from the notorious Wackenhut Corrections and it now wants to run privately run and publically funded prisons in NZ. In the US, the GEO Group supports organizations preaching almost exactly the messages as the SST does here.

So Garth, who is funding you?

National endanger lives with law rammed through under urgency

Court cells to be used for prisoner overflow
The Government has pushed through legislation allowing court cells to be used for prison overflow. However, Corrections is concerned the move may cause problems. The move is part of Government plans to address the burgeoning prison population. In August, a record 8300 prisoners were housed in 20 prisons. Total prison capacity is currently 9131. Police cells are already used for emergency prison overflow. There are also about 100 court cells that can be used as temporary prison cells. However, the Resource Management Act (RMA) prevents them from being used as overnight prisoner accommodation. Corrections believed planning permission moves would cost about $200,000, and the Government may not win the case.

So instead of upgrading the cells or fight the case, National just rammed through under urgency law that simply allows them to hold people at Police cells that are utterly incapable of being used as over night prisons.

When hatred twists social policy in the manner it has in NZ, this is the result. Ill thouight out shit rammed through that will make those forced to be held in police cells less safe and allow more attacks to occur within them.

It is not just the bullshit National are ramming through, it is the manner and process they are doing it by that is truly horrifying. It doesn’t matter what part of the political spectrum you come from, the fact that National has spent 35% of the time passing Bills in Parliament under urgency is a shocking disgrace for democracy. You would need to go back to Rodger Douglas for a comparable example of this abuse of process.

If Labour had pulled shit like this, if they had read bills straight into law, then there would be riots within the mainstream media, National passes 35% of legislative time under urgency, no select committee oversight, no public debate, bills read straight into law.

Who ever you voted for, this is an abuse of democratic procedure, all done with the smirking John Key out front letting National off the hook.

Disgusting.

Climategate and hacked emails a joke (climate deniers have a bad day)

Climate scientists attack criticism
New Zealand climate scientists wonder where the next attack on their work will come from in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate talks. Scientists yesterday rubbished claims from New Zealand climate-change sceptics that temperature data from around the country had been deliberately tampered with to show a higher degree of warming.

While Australia is facing catastrophic fire danger with temperatures soaring way above their average, while Melbourne faced flash floods and a recent report warned of vast coastal erosion; with all these erratic weather conditions occurring all at the same time, the Liberals still have a vast chunk of their party who believe climate change from man made pollution is still a myth.

This is a case of Nero playing a didgeridoo while the outback burns.

We have our own climate deniers, and Gareth over at Hot Topic has done another great job knocking over their utter bullshit...

NZ sceptics lie about temp records, try to smear top scientist
The cranks in the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition have sunk to new lows in a desperate attempt to cash in on the far-right driven furore about the Hadley CRU data theft. Here’s an extract from a press release which was doing the rounds of NZ’s newsrooms this morning:

New Zealand may have its own “Climategate”, including manipulation of temperature readings, according to a combined research project undertaken by members of the Climate Conversation Group and the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition. The researchers claim that temperature readings from seven weather stations throughout New Zealand have been adjusted to show a higher degree of warming than is justified by a study of the original raw data.

The author of the press release and the “research project” into NZ’s long term temperature record is blogger Richard Treadgold, not unknown to readers of Hot Topic. Unfortunately for him, and for the credibility of any of the members of the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition, Treadgold’s approach to the issue is ignorant, his results meaningless, and he can have no excuse for not knowing he was wrong. Worse, Treadgold, Dunleavy and the rest of the NZ CSC seem determined to smear NZ’s best-known and most respected climatologist, Jim Salinger (who did much of the early work on NZ’s temperature record), based on little more than straightforward lies. Their press release continues:

“NIWA’s official graph (done originally by Dr Jim Salinger, who features also in the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia) shows considerable warming, which they give as 0.92°C per century, saying this is consistent with global warming over the 20th century. But the actual temperature readings taken from the thermometers show an almost flat trend for 150 years.

“These figures all come from NIWA. So, why are they so different from each other? Because NIWA has adjusted the earliest temperature readings downwards by up to 1.3°C, which has the effect of introducing a false ‘warming’ as the graph then ‘climbs’ to the present day. It’s a disgrace. So far, neither Dr Salinger nor NIWA has revealed why they did this,” said Mr Treadgold.

The real disgrace is that this analysis has been conducted by a team seemingly hell bent on ignoring the facts, preferring instead to make up their own.

Gareth goes onto utterly dismantle their bullshit, check it out blow by blow if you have any doubts.

The denial some will go to in claiming climate change from man made pollution is a hoax is so extreme that in a decades worth of leaked emails, all the climate deniers have is one sentence from a scientist talking about a trick to show temperatures have increased. His explanation when quizzed is that trick is a euphemism for ‘clever trick’, in a decade worth of emails, climate deniers get one line and use that to prove climate change from man made pollution is a hoax.

Global Warming due to man made pollution is real, it is happening and unless urgent change is sought in the manner we allow consumer capitalism to continue to denigrate our biosphere it will bring about violent and erratic changes in our global environment.

That's a fact. Climate deniers are the creationists at an evolution conference, they should be politely ignored, we have a planet to save.

Meanwhile our Prime Minister still refuses to go to Copenhagen after passing an Emission Trading Scam with a bribed Maori Party that pays corporate big pollutors to keep polluting...

Key keeps to schedule despite Obama plan
Prime Minister John Key says he is not reconsidering whether to attend a climate change summit in Copenhagen, despite reports that United States President Barack Obama will now go. Mr Key said he was standing by his position that he would not go to the leaders' meeting at the United Nations summit next month unless a definitive deal on climate change targets was on the table.

Romance advice with P-Money

I think I want to start taking romance advice from DJ-about-town P-Money, here's his advice on his blog for meeting girls from March 4th

"The crowd was overwhelmingly filled with screaming teenage girls in Auckland
tonight (great crowd by the way, cheers). So if you're a high school age dude I
HIGHLY recommend you get down to one of these gigs. Just tell the girls that
you know P-Money and you're in bro! lol."

You just know P-Money and you're in bro.

Private Prisons quietly rammed through under urgency

Jailed 'psychopaths' behind rise in attacks
Dangerous psychopaths are behind a near doubling of serious assaults on prison guards, says Corrections Department chief executive Barry Matthews. The increase in assaults emerged yesterday as the Government pressed through a bill under urgency to allow privately run prisons.

So was this the other piece of legislation the Nat’s wouldn’t declare before they entered urgency to ram through law minus any select committee oversight and minus any public scrutiny? Private Prisons will not work, here is the argument…

This article is so good at demolishing the Private Prison Debate, it requires a thorough blow by blow account…
Private prison companies dispute criticisms
The State should be responsible for prisoners not private companies, the Human Rights Commission said today.

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan appeared before Parliament's law and order select committee which is considering the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons Amendment) Bill.

Senior managers from private prison company GEO Group were present and heard groups condemn their business.

The firm ran Auckland Central Remand Prison (ACRP) for five years until Labour won the 1999 election and refused to renew its contract.

Ms Noonan said protecting the rights of detainees was a key function of government and should not be contracted out.

"The management of prisons involves the exercise of some of the state's most coercive powers against individuals," the commission's submission said.

"There should be direct accountability for the exercise of such powers. A government department directly accountable to a minister provides the clearest accountability."

And this is the philosophical crux of private prisons, we should never hand over the full coercive power of the State to a mere company. Such power has to be unblinkingly monitored through the direct accountability of an MP responsible for prisons. Placing a company into that mix removes direct responsibility, not only allowing a company to have the full power of the state but profits from a motivation that can seriously damage the wider community. Rehabilitation isn’t in the private prison profit motive, paying victims rights groups large sums of cash to call for longer and longer sentences so that those prisoners are locked in for longer is where the Private Prison Company gets it’s profit.

If the bill was to go ahead the commission wanted its monitoring measures beefed up.

Recommendations included protecting staff from being sacked if they gave information to monitors and permitting prisoners to complain directly to monitors. Also prisons should be required to comply with international conventions around torture.

Dick Cheney’s private prison industry is under investigation for torturing prisoners.

Ms Noonan said early intervention would make the biggest difference.

She called for willingness across parties not to make political capital out of the issue.

National and ACT started this raw meat circus where hate has warped social policy, and there is no sight yet that they are going to do anything to stop the prison population rise.

Catholic organisation Caritas was concerned problems in the United States' private prisons – such as beatings, rapes, suicides and other deaths in custody – would be repeated here.

It noted that in the US the same people running private prisons were also involved in lobbying government for longer sentences.

And isn’t it interesting that the Sensible Senetencing Trust WILL NOT release any information on their donors, they have been challenged to prove that they are not receiving money from the GEO Group and have refused to say outright that they are not.

GEO Group Australia managing director Pieter Bezuidenhout said his company had managed prisons in Australia for 17 years, operating in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales.

He said he had listened to criticisms and said his company could only do what governments told it to.

"We've got no say in terms of the length of sentence. We've got no interest in the length of the sentence," he said.

"We are paid on a bed capacity. . . It's up to the state or government to fill those beds. There's no interest for me to have longer sentences or lesser sentences because I am getting paid for 500 beds."

OH COME ON! Does he really think his logic on this will convince NZers that the private prison industry isn’t in it for the money and want to lengthen the sentences? Listen to him, “We are paid on a bed capacity”, so what would happen if GEO built a 1000 bed prison, it would fill, pretending that he is ‘capped’ by current bed numbers to prove he doesn’t want to lengthen sentences is a joke.

While National MPs had emphasised cost savings, that should not be the only driver, Mr Bezuidenhout said.

"Privatisation is not about cost savings. If that's all you want to achieve I am saying that you are knocking at the wrong door.

And isn’t this the most damaging part so far, the head of the private prison industry telling us straight up that this isn’t the way to save money – THE MAIN REASON NATIONAL HAVE EMBARKED UPON THIS PRIVATIZATION OF PRISONS – and the head tells us that won’t happen.

"Privatisation will bring an enhanced public service because you've got a mixed economy, and in a mixed economy both the private operator and the public service will improve and enhance service."

What? Mixed economy? Is that the fucking best they’ve got? We should have a company take the rights off citizens and allow them to make profit from incarceration at the risk of their profit motivation sending us into a prison nation all for the none-definable reward of a ‘mixed economy’? Oh come on, someone paid for this guys airfare for crying out loud and that’s the best he’s got? Jesus mate did you come up with that in the taxi ride in? Oh the joy of a mixed economy, let us flutter in the memorial garden of Adam Smith, we have a mixed fucking economy. Mana from heaven brothers and sisters, there is no depression in NZ. Is he for real?

He said in NSW prisoners spent 30 per cent more time out of their cells than those in public prisons.

GEO was aware of problems in the US but said there was high awareness about issues in Australasia and the company had to protect its reputation so would not cut corners.

Oh he’s killing me, because their reputation in the US is shit, they’ll be real careful to treat us right? Who is believing this bullshit? They must know they have it in the bag to not even pretend to try and eliminate any of the criticisms thrown at them.

Dom Karauria, a former general manager for ACRP and now executive general manager for the firm's operations in Australia, said politicians had the power to ensure safety.

"The answer is you people. You people here are representing the New Zealand public and I'm sure the final legislation that is determined will ensure there is no avenue for those difficulties to occur here."

Oh my God, this guy is already shifting the blame to the Government before they’ve even started operations, showing they will duck and dodge everything, even the first law and order select committee meeting.

MPs asked about penalties for errors. Mr Bezuidenhout said in Queensland a death in custody, not from natural causes, resulted in $100,000 penalties.

Mr Karauria said in Auckland the prison was penalised $50,000 per escape and there were two in the five years the company ran the prison.

Great, fines work, put them on the Public service.

Labour's Rick Barker questioned about whether GEO would be open to being covered by the Official Information Act and be audited by the Auditor-General.

Mr Bezuidenhout said that was up to the Government.

"If the State determines, when you tender, that you will make everything available then so be it. . .I'm purely there to serve what the state tells me to do."

So we don’t even have it clear that there will be full transparency over the operation of Private prisons in NZ? Unbelievable.

Hate has become the main driver of prison policy in this country now, so much so this Government (who have done everything they can to play to the baying mob of anger) is looking to Private Prisons and shipping containers cells to contain the costs.

Private Prisons are the worst and most vicious example of a social system taken over by hatred, to allow a corporation the full power of holding another citizen against their will is a disgusting advance of corporate power over civilians. These Private Prisons are building an empire of suffering the results of which will seep poisonously back into society to choke our rage.

It’s a dreadfully sad day for NZ.

National Education Standards doomed to fail

New educational standards will fail, academics say
A system of new national educational standards to assess primary school students is doomed to fail, academics across New Zealand say. Their doubts over the new standards-based system to rate children join those of teachers and parents expressed earlier this month. In an open letter to Education Minister Anne Tolley, four education academics from Otago, Waikato and Auckland universities highlighted "fundamental flaws" in the hastily developed system. Professor John Hattie, from Auckland University, Professor Martin Thrupp, from Waikato University, and Otago University's Professor Terry Crooks and senior research fellow Lester Flockton submitted the open letter yesterday. Prime Minister John Key previously said Professor Hattie introduced the idea of the standards-based system to him, though the academic now warned the system was flawed. The standards had been developed too quickly and were not ready to be brought in over the next three years, the group said.

Yesterday in Parliament Anne Tolley attempted to defend this abortion of education policy by claiming that parents supported her plan, that is a bare faced lie…

'Three Rs' plan alarms parents
AN OFFICIAL report reveals one-third of parents had concerns about the new national school standards system before it was launched – despite the government's claims the system has a "strong mandate" from parents.

Folks why is the minister of education so uneducated? These league tables National have been trying to smuggle in under the national standards regime have been sold to NZ as having the support of parents yet an official report released in the weekend shows that 38% of parents made negative comments about National’s plans and only 14% made positive comments. Yet Education Minister Anne Tolley’s press release on the report read, ‘Patents support National Standards’ – no they didn’t only 14% did, 38% were negative.

National are pretending there is support for their national standards because their secret motive for league tables to create false competition is an education reform they know they can’t be upfront about.

The National Standards are a League table in disguise to create false competition within Education, and to forward these ideological goals, National are risking the education standards of the every child throughout the country.

If Labour had pulled a stunt like this, the NZ Herald editorial staff would be firebombing Government buildings.

Christian pro smacker now in the family

Families appointee opposes law on smacking
Smacking law opponent Bruce Pilbrow is being promoted to deputy chief families commissioner as the Government continues to shake up the Families Commission. Social Development Minister Paula Bennett confirmed yesterday she intended to promote Mr Pilbrow, whom she hand-picked for the commission this year alongside Christine Rankin. The appointment of Ms Rankin, who is also an opponent of the child discipline law that the commission officially endorses, caused controversy, but Mr Pilbrow's selection was more low-key.

Hey, isn't that neato, crazy social conservative in a mini skirt, Christine Rankin, has a pro smacking conservative fundy Christian friend to join the now discredited 'Families Commission'. I've always found these types of people are the ones who use family as a word to alienate people as in, "You don't make up a family as we define it, get out". Paula needs a think tank to create crazy conservative harsh old Testament social policy to enforce in Social Welfare and the Families Commission just became that conservative harsh old Testament think tank.

Ugly.

Emission Trading Scam is an utter failure

A costly exercise in hypocrisy
OPINION: The Government has made an utter mockery of the emissions trading scheme. Such is National's abuse of policy-making, consultation and parliamentary process, the country will pay dearly for the government's ETS mistakes for years to come.

Prime Minister John Key should care enough to stop the nonsense, even if motivated only by National's political self-interest.

If you want a flavour of the shambles created by Climate Change Minister Dr Nick Smith and endorsed by the prime minister, download the report on the legislation by the finance and expenditure select committee at www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC/Documents/Reports/.

The committee was supposed to consider submissions on the extensive changes to the ETS the government proposed, gather analysis from Treasury and other expert witnesses, and make appropriate changes to the bill before sending it back to parliament.

Instead, the committee, chaired by Craig Foss of National, failed to execute all three of its tasks. Unable to produce a majority report, it sent the bill back without a single amendment. Instead the report consists only of minority reports from each of the parties represented on the committee.

That's Rod Oram ripping the Government a new one over this appalling Emissions Trading Scam that National have rammed through under urgency last night with help from a bribed Maori Party...

Maori Party rift widens over ETS
Cracks are appearing in the Maori Party over controversial climate change laws that will see taxpayers subsidise big polluters. Changes passed into law yesterday to the former Labour government's emissions trading scheme have delayed the scheme by six months and shifted a greater share of the costs from big polluters on to the taxpayer. The Government has halved projected power and petrol price rises under Labour's scheme. It says loading too big a cost on business risks "snuffing out" a fragile economic recovery. But the deal could come at a political cost for the Maori Party, with grassroots members questioning its support for the measures. The party is already divided over MP Hone Harawira, who has been outspoken in his criticism of National's emissions trading scheme. He is on leave after falling foul of the party over recent outbursts.

...what a shameful day for the Maori Party to support subsidizing corporate big polluters and deny NZ do anything more meaningful for climate change. This Emission Trading Scam does NOTHING to prevent climate change it simply put a hundred Billion of our dollars into the pockets of big polluters.

We are not clean and green, this scam is an abomination.

How is that change feeling that everyone voted for last November?

By passing Emission Trading Scam, Hone is actually helping the white mofos rape and rip off the land

Goff: Iwi tree deal little help to Maori
A deal worth up to $50 million with five iwi to gain Maori Party support for the Government's emissions trading scheme has been criticised as giving special treatment to some tribes and doing little to help Maori households. The Maori Party yesterday gave its support to passing the revised emissions trading scheme into law after securing the iwi deal and other gains. The scheme is expected to be passed under urgency in Parliament this week, before ministers travel to Copenhagen for UN climate change talks. Part of the deal allows Ngai Tahu and four other iwi to plant trees on 35,000ha of Department of Conservation land and keep profits from the carbon credits. The deal will last for 70 years and is valued at $25 million to $50 million, depending on the price of carbon. The agreement also allows for more Crown/iwi partnerships in tree planting on conservation and Maori land. The Government has also agreed to include a Treaty of Waitangi clause in the bill, securing specific rights of consultation. Labour leader Phil Goff said the concessions the Maori Party had gained would give Maori companies preferential treatment which other forestry companies would not get.

The very brilliant Idiot/Savant notes that this scam is being rammed through under a ANOTHER misuse of urgency, even National Party Svengali Richard Long calls the law a dog.

Disciplined Smith weathers the storm
The measure of that erosion were remarks made by Richard Long, a former National Party chief of staff. The politically astute one-time press galley journalist had described National's emissions trading legislation as a "dog" which, resulting in part from a race-based deal and lacking across-the-board backing, was akin to Labour's death-rattle, the Electoral Finance Act.

Here are my objections:

The right wing try and pretend that if polluters were forced to pay for their pollution that the big polluters will pass that cost onto us, so we shouldn’t force big polluters to pay for their pollution. Here’s the problem…

1: We are already bloody well paying for these big polluters with an additional $110 Billion now, that $110 Billion should be going into health, or education or job creation or a myriad of other social programmes rather than National’s big polluter corporate mates.

2: If the polluters are forced to pay for their pollution, they will be forced to cut back and look to redesign their production methods and there is an incentive to allow new players to come in and provide cleaner products. Even if the polluter passes that cost to the consumer, we have the power to decide if we should pay for that product putting the power back with us the consumers.

3: The Government amendment means that we will be subsidizing big polluters to the tune of 55% till 2050, that is atrocious (the Arctic is predicted to be ice free by then) and shows the kind of greenwash National have always bee suspected of. Their concern is for their big business donors, not the environmental well being of the planet. National and ACT (who changed their environment policy to climate skeptics after skeptic Alan Gibbs donated $100 000 to them) are in denial over global warming.

And why should we try and stop climate change?

New Zealand was a friend to Middle Earth, but it's no friend of the earth

Because if we don’t want to be seen as eco-hypocrites, we have to make clean and green real, not just a slogan.

This Emissions Trading Scam does nothing to stop climate change, ends up paying big polluters to keep polluting and has managed to pass because the Maori Party have sold out to their corporate whanou for a measely $50 million.

If you aren’t angry, you haven’t been paying attention.

Bomber's Blog - The War on News - 10pm tonight Sky 89 & Freeview 21

Bomber's Blog - the war on news is on tonight, 10pm simulcast on Sky 89 and Freeview 21. It's replayed on Triangle 9.45pm Wednesday. It will be posted on Tumeke, Youtube and Scoop on Friday.

F**k you, pay me

Impey steps down from MediaWorks
MediaWorks chief executive Brent Impey is stepping down at the end of the year after 10 years at the helm of the TV3 owner. Impey, who has a background in media law, announced today he will step down from the position he has held since 2000.

Well it had to happen at some time didn’t it? The IronBridge Aussies who borrowed large and bought high now have to service that massive debt while their asset gets perversely hit by higher ratings and falling revenue.

Brent’s sudden departure suggests their solution won’t be palatable to him. Brent was a good boss, connected and made personal friendships with those he worked for and I doubt he could tolerate sticking around while the company was chopped up and sold in a fire sale.

The question is, what will get carved off, the radio, the TV or both and who will buy them?

Shameful day for Maori Party Emissions Trading Scam

'Sellout' claims over Maori ETS deal
The Maori Party is being accused of "selling out" Maori families after a deal over the Government's climate change law that delivers concessions to big iwi. In exchange for the party's support, the Government will make conservation land available to some iwi to plant trees for carbon credits, but says public access is guaranteed. There is also more money to insulate low-income households.

Shame on the Maori Party, shame. Helping to pass an emissions trading scam that will give over an eye watering $100 billion to corporate big polluters until 2050, or when the Arctic Sea is predicted to be ice free.

John Key passed this Emissions trading scam with a little help from his friends the Maori Party, who agreed to sell out NZs aspirations to do something meaningful on climate change because they were able to get $50 million for their corporate Maori mates in a deal that helps less than 1% of the population.

Isn’t that whacky, Hone Harawira is now helping the white mofos rape and pillage the land.

Jetstar crash and burn again

Jetstar wheelchair policy angers Paralympian
The Human Rights Commission will be asked to look into the wheelchair policy of Jetstar after Australian Paralympian Kurt Fearnley slammed the airline for making him check his personal chair in with his luggage. Fearnley, a wheelchair marathon champion, says he chose to crawl through Brisbane Airport rather than use an unsuitable chair offered by the airline.

Oh. My. God. He dragged himself through the airport in disgust. This in the wake of Jetstar complaining that Air NZ was smearing them by pointing out Jetstars appalling service failures. Personally I felt that blaming Air NZ for their self inflicted media cock up just added ‘whiny’ to a long list of words to describe their poorly serviced budget truck-to–the-abattoir-is-more-comfortable-than-you-are airline.

Having the dignity of a paralympian denigrated in this manner formally makes Jetstar the by-word in customer service public relation jokes untill they are bought out, the name changed and logos burnt. The Jetstar name is now that bad.

The debt trip

The NY Times has some steep figures on the debt avalanche. Because of the skewing of the US federal debt portfolio to short-term issuance to overcome the credit crisis $1.6 trillion of the $12 trillion US government debt falls due before 31 March. On top of this everyone is forecasting that the interest rates will have to go up (esp. as Germany, Japan and the UK all compete to finance their blow-outs) which leaves the US in a costly predicament when they are forced to lift their near-zero rates.The assumption underlying this debt is that the US will not default — that is why the risk is considered to be so low that lenders accept interest rates that are minimal; but one of the risks - after the recessionary bite has abated - is inflation. It will be very tempting for the US to inflate its way out of the debt mountain. The consumers won't be happy with the rising prices, foreign creditors will be aggrieved as the relative value of their holdings slips away, and the exchange rate will deteriorate making gold at $1050 an oz. and oil at $70 a bbl. look like a time of modest and affordable living.

Congratulations TVNZ7

Well done TVNZ7 for an amazing show last night. After such an inglorious start with the Bill English promo farce, Beyond The Recession was brilliant and intelligent television, congratulations to Corin Dann who hosted this brilliantly and allowed so many informed voices discuss the challenges facing the NZ economy.

Housing, capital gains tax, the reality of a w recession, all were thoughtfully discussed like adults and it was fascinating.


Don Braid of Mainfreight had some really good ideas, John Whitehead from Treasury had some interesting things to say on property tax. Geoff Ross and Pauline Kingi from TPK were highlights as was Helen Kelly from the CTU. Robert Reid from NDU was fired up about the dollar. Interestingly it was the Banker David Green from ANZ who was the most nervous (what does he know that he wasn’t saying?). Poor Anna Stretton came across like she would eat her first born.

It was so refreshing to see adults discussing important issues of the day. As things get much worse economically, we will need to have many more of these debates.

It was public broadcasting at it’s best, well done TVNZ7.

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian children

School Run Security For West Bank Children
Military protection for Palestinian children on their way to and from school has been ordered by the Israeli Knesset after attacks by settlers near the settlement of Ma'on and outpost of Havat Ma'on. But Palestinians say their children are still in danger. The soldiers do not always turn up and they only escort the children some of the way, leaving them exposed to the risk of further attacks.

Those whacky Israeli settlers, attacking Palestinian children on the way to school ON LAND THE SETTLERS STOLE. I wonder why so many find this behaviour unacceptable after a brutal 4 decade long occupation that has turned Gaza and the West Bank into the largest open aired prisons on the planet.

There can’t be peace until there is justice and the Israeli’s are forced to leave land they have stolen.

National to enter urgency (again) to pass flawed ETS as a pathetic response to climate change

I know some poor liddle NZers are sick of being told they are destroying the planet and that the usual quack climate deniers are waving a bunch of leaked emails as proof that man made climate change isn’t real while National are ramming through under ANOTHER misuse of urgency an ETS that will subsidize their corporate chums big pollution till when the Artic Pole is predicted to be ice free – I know all that, yet still the evidence comes that erratic climate change caused by man made pollution as predicted in the climate change models is increasingly impacting upon us…

World's largest ice sheet melting faster than expected
The world's largest ice sheet has started to melt along its coastal fringes, raising fears that global sea levels will rise faster than scientists expected. The East Antarctic ice sheet, which makes up three-quarters of the continent's 14,000 sq km, is losing around 57bn tonnes of ice a year into surrounding waters, according to a satellite survey of the region.
Scientists had thought the ice sheet was reasonably stable, but measurements taken from Nasa's gravity recovery and climate experiment (Grace) show that it started to lose ice steadily from 2006. The measurements suggest the polar continent could soon contribute more to global sea level rises than Greenland, which is shedding more than 250bn tonnes of ice a year, adding 0.7mm to annual sea level rises. Satellite data from the whole of Antarctica show the region is now losing around 190bn tonnes of ice a year. Uncertainties in the measurements mean the true ice loss could be between 113bn and 267bn tonnes.

And it goes on…

Worst UK floods in a 1000 years
THE worst rains "in 1000 years" have turned streets in the United Kingdom and Ireland into rivers, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of homes in dozens of towns. In Cumbria, bridges collapsed and main streets lay more than two metres under water as 314.4mm of rain fell in 24 hours.

…all the while Kiwibloogh and Ian Wishart continue to pretend global warming isn’t happening because of man made pollution and Kiwibloogh continues to run propaganda lines for the climate denial circus despite what the scientists have to say…

Weather to get more extreme, say scientists
Weather forecast for 2100: more rain in winter and spring for the West Coast and Southland, getting drier for those in the east and north. Sea levels higher than average. Scientists gave an update yesterday on the state of the climate ahead of next month's world negotiations in Copenhagen at which countries will decide how much to curb greenhouse gas pollution by from 2012. Scientists believe some global warming is inevitable even if emissions were halted today - meaning an increase in westerly wind flows over New Zealand bringing more rain to the west and south.

…and pretending that NZ is only a small player in emissions is a lie…

Nasa: Methane effect worse than thought
Climate change specialists say New Zealand would face environmental challenges if the danger of methane gas is revised. Photo / Supplied New Zealand may be making a bigger contribution to global warming than scientists thought. A Nasa study says climate scientists have underestimated by 20 to 40 per cent how much methane warms the planet - even though it is already believed to be 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

…while our Australian neighbors face their own climate change meltdown and mass coastal erosion…

Soaring temperatures threaten another crisis
CANBERRA - Spring across the southeast of Australia has become a furnace, breaking records with heatwaves scorching Melbourne and Adelaide and turning vast tracts of bush and farmland into tinder.

…the fact is climate change from man made pollution is now out of control and fast becoming a run away event. Capitalism has a problem, I’m not talking about the inherent injustice of a few having all the money or the slavish ideological worship of the free market or even the IMF and worldbank genocide of poor people they commit every day with policies that promote Western mega corporations and their ability to dump heavily subsidized mass produced food on countries thus destroying the local markets – oh no, I’m talking about it’s impact on the environment. The reality is that the filth we pump into our planet has an impact on that planets health, a truth that the right wing desperately want to cover up.

We have had to put up with oil funded skeptics claiming the entire global warming idea is a hoax created by Greenpeace to make money for tree huggers for too long. The reality is that our pollution created by an unsustainable consumer greed capitalism is killing the planet and we push the environment to its very edges of being able to sustain our civilization with our denial of this fact. Right now we have a climate change denial Government in power, led by a man who initially didn’t believe in global warming supported by a political party that claim C02 is a misunderstood nutrient and that a 2 degree rise in temperatures would be “beneficial” for NZ, who took this position after climate change denier Alan Gibbs donated $100 000 to ACT. In their first week in power, nACTional have destroyed the Emission Trading Scheme and they embarrassingly set up a select committee to examine the 'science' behind global warming to provide pollution Industry funded quack science with a platform.

This isn’t a debate about science because the science has been ‘settled’ in the same way evolution science has been ‘settled’, this is a culture war. Those in denial will not accept that their lifestyle is part of the problem and their ego’s are so inflated that to admit ‘tree huggers’ (a group they despise as much as their mythical ‘nanny state’ bullshit) are right and they are wrong would be such a devaluation of their status driven personalities that they fight with the venom of vanity. Would Paul Henry or any of his ilk ever admit they were wrong? We know the answer to that. They’re petty denial should be viewed with the contempt it deserves and their role in the debate should be as marginalized as much as one would marginalize someone trying to argue the planet is only 5000 years old at an evolution conference.

How will we explain all of this to the next generation? That we didn’t know? How will we explain the way we ignored the warning signs? We didn’t see this…

Iceberg 'halfway to Australia'
A large iceberg has been spotted off an island about halfway between Antarctica and Australia, a rare sight in waters so far north. Australian Antarctic Division researchers working on Macquarie Island, about 1500km southeast of Tasmania, first saw the iceberg last Thursday about 8km off the northwest coast of the island. The iceberg, about 50m high and 500m long, is probably part of one of several larger icebergs that broke off Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf between 2000 and 2002, Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young said. Several icebergs have been drifting slowly northward with the ocean current toward the island over the past year, but it is uncommon for them to move so far into warmer northern waters, he said.

…chunks of fucking Antarctica are floating past us folks. This bullshit response by the Government to subsidize big polluters is not a solution, it’s a greenwash sell out.

If you are not angry, you haven't been paying attention.

Aucklanders get shafted by National’s new boundaries

You have to hand it to National, after annexing the entire city via a misuse of urgency, after killing off Maori representation, after hand appointing Rodney Hide’s mates to run the transition team, National now get a dream run by setting the boundaries to favour their white rich provincial voting base.

As Labour’s Auckland Issues spokesperson Phil Twyford points out…

“For example, the changes would give Rodney residents a third more voting power than a central Auckland resident, which is clearly unjust. And a vote in Waitakere is worth almost 3/4 of one Hibiscus-Albany-East Coast Bays vote.

“Labour will strongly oppose the current structure and is urging all Aucklanders to make submissions in favour of fairer ward boundaries.

“I’m also concerned the proposal for eight two-councillor wards will further disenfranchise some voters, especially in particularly diverse communities.

“In the Orakei/Maungakiekie ward there are extremely wealthy communities and others with entrenched poverty. Labour’s concern is that the voices of the more vulnerable might be shut out of local democracy as a result – and that smaller single-councillor wards would help counter this,” Phil Twyford says.

“The Government’s decision to restrict the number of councillors to 20 for a population of 1.4 million does, of course, lie at the heart of all these representation problems,

How is that change feeling Auckland? Rodney gets a third more voting power than central city Aucklanders? WTF?

You’ve been had Auckland.

March for democracy threat to be taken to other cities? LMAO

Anti-smacking march may move to other cities
The organisers of an Auckland protest against the anti-smacking legislation are threatening to take their march to other cities, but say their next step will be determined by Prime Minister John Key.

LMAO – Oh god if you were Colin Craig’s accountant you’d be contemplating suicide wouldn’t you? After blowing $450 000 and promising 45 000 protestors on an ego wank of a march trying to sell a narrow social agenda as broad based in a fight for democracy, Colin’s march only attracted 2000 people!

WHERE WERE THE OTHER 43 000 PROTESTORS?

Where were they? And now he’s threatening to take it to other cities? LMAO, knock yourself out buddy, the law isn’t going to get changed, you are not marching for democracy, you obviously don’t understand what a non-binding referendum is and if you really have all this cash to blow and you really are concerned with child abuse donate the money to Women’s refuge.

“Threatening to take it to other cities” – hilarious.