Line of the Day: Greg O'Connor
Being Maori isn't an occupation, it's a race.Perfectly put.
Labels: Politics-Maori_Party, Racism
. . . promoting capitalist acts between consenting adults.
Being Maori isn't an occupation, it's a race.Perfectly put.
Labels: Politics-Maori_Party, Racism
As recent digital forays by Amazon and the BBC demonstrates, however, it turns out charts that tell you what CDs sell most in a week -- on which the playlists of so many radio stations and restaurants and drinking halls are made up -- don't actually provide a reliable guide to popular taste.Final figures from the BBC show that the complete Beethoven symphonies on its website were downloaded 1.4m times, with individual works downloaded between 89,000 and 220,000 times... According to Matthew Cosgrove, director of Warner Classics, it would take a commercial CD recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies "upwards of five years" to sell as many downloads as were shifted from the BBC website in two weeks.
That was 2005. Now at the end of 2007, news is in from Amazon who have just begun selling online digital music downloads -- and who do you think was the most popular artist at the beginning of October? The Beach Boys? Rolling Stones? Pink Floyd? Someone called Kanye West? Well, they're all in the top ten, true, but beating out al that dross for number one spot is a chap by the name of Richard Wagner! How about that! Nearly one-hundred and sixty years after he began writing it, his four-opera fifteen-hour extravaganza known as the 'The Ring Cycle' is back on top.Labels: Music
Neil Miller from RealBeer discusses the global phenomena which is Oktoberfest...
Only beer from the local Munich breweries are served in the massive beer tents which can each hold thousands of drinkers. Brewed specifically to be available at festival time, Hofbrau Oktoberfest (5.7%) is a sandy, smooth, subtle beer with a peppery finish.Labels: Beer and Elsewhere
Labels: Free Speech, Humour, Politics-UK
Labels: Politics-World, War
This isn't a Maori issue, this is an issue of public safety.And so it is. Weapons have been seized (yes, weapons, Pita) from people of all colours from light brown to unwashed off-white; it should be obvious enough to everyone except the fellow travellers of the arrested and those with a pre-prepared axe to grind that this is not about race.
Mrs King [said] suggestions the arrests were politically motivated are untrue, as the Government only found out about the camps late last week. She says it was the Police Commissioner's decision to make the arrests, based on the risk to the public.It's true, isn't it. And there's something else of which people should be reminded. It's the job of the police to bring evidence and lay charges. It's not the job of the media or of Keith Locke or Pita Sharples to hear that evidence, it's the job of the courts. I'd suggest those who want to 'jump the gun' to instead try and follow Horomia's advice:
Mrs King says police have to make decisions on the evidence they have. She says if anything had happened, people would have been asking "why the useless cops hadn't done anything about it".
Many of us find it hard to believe that the behaviour of these characters might amount to terrorist activity. But the police wouldn't have raised this potential lightly, so let's wait and see.Yes. Let's.
Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell will take part in a hikoi being held through the streets of Whakatane today to protest about police tactics used during the terror raids at the foot of the Urewera Ranges... President of the Police Association Greg O'Connor is [however] denying claims armed police stormed the school bus. "The only time a school bus every got searched up there was four years ago when a Kohanga Reo bus was stopped and two gang members were on it. They were trying to escape through a checkpoint following a shooting and homicide."Frankly, the critics don't want to wait. They want to make up stuff while keeping their axe ground. If anyone has any evidence that a school bus was stormed, then let's hear it. Otherwise, the hikoi be damned.
Mr O'Connor says critics of the tactics police used should hold back until all the evidence is available.
...it’s a matter of principle. Symbolically damage things, absolutely, take up arms against my fellow countrymen, never, that ain’t my bag baby. Yes I’m angry our friends have been arrested, yes I’m angry at the way they have been treated, yes they are not terrorists, but anyone attempting to justify social justice through violence is the most backwards step I’ve ever seen, the activist community have got to demand our civil rights while renouncing any use of guns to force social change. In a functioning democracy, we fight with words and ideas, not grenade launchers.Bravo.
Labels: Keith Locke, Politics-Labour, Politics-Maori_Party, Politics-NZ, Te Qaeda?
The word politics is derived from 'poly' meaning many, and 'ticks' meaning small blood sucking objects.If men want to oppose war, it is statism they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some alleged "good" can justify it -- there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations.Mao's career once again provides the evidence. He proved himself perfectly prepared to plunge the world into war simply to gain some (often illusory) political advantage for himself - threatening Taiwan and invading Korea and India simply in order to gain technology from Russia -- technology China was in no position to use. He sponsored conflicts in Indochina, for no reason other than to acquire further influence and more technology he couldn't use, that left millions dead across Vietnam and Laos and the killing fields of Cambodia , and scars that still exist to this day across every country involved.
If nuclear weapons are a dreadful threat and mankind cannot afford war any longer, then mankind cannot afford statism any longer. Let no man of good will take it upon his conscience to advocate the rule of force -- outside or inside his own country. Let all those who are actually concerned with peace -- those who do love man and do care about his survival -- realise that if war is ever to be outlawed, it is the use of force that has to be outlawed.Is that lesson so difficult to understand*?
Labels: Books, China, Crime, History-Twentieth_Century, Socialism, War

Labels: Music
Labels: Heroes, History, Individualism, Maoritanga, New Zealand, Politics-Maori_Party, Socialism, Te Qaeda?
In the name of family values we must say "Whose family?"Asked this morning if leadership would be a threesome with Bishop Brian, Lewis indicated he has "the full support of Bishop Brian Tamaki of the Destiny Church although he will not be speaking publicly on behalf of the Family Party." Good luck with that.
Labels: Density Church, Politics-Density, Politics-NZ
In establishing the conditions for awarding this Prize, Alfred Nobel stipulated in his will that it go to the individual who had done "the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace conferences."He concludes,
The problem is that neither Nobel nor any of his succession of executors of the Peace Prize has ever had any fundamental knowledge of the requirements of "peace" ...
By awarding Gore the Peace Prize, which he will share with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Nobel Committee revealed itself as being on the same intellectual level - a very, very low and clueless one - as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which earlier this year awarded an Oscar to Gore's propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth.
It is interesting to note that it was Hollywood that made Gore's movie possible, and not any special marketing savvy of the former vice-president's... Leave it to West Coast, anti-American lefties to help a failed politician perpetrate a fraud, a big lie... From one perspective, one cannot help but view Gore's An Inconvenient Truth as his vengeance for having lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush... From a more fundamental perspective, however, environmentalism, which has become a no-questions-permissible secular religion (and the last graspable straw of the left wing), is Gore's Allah, to which he is urging everyone to bow - or else.Read Gore's Pulp Fiction - Ed Cline, The Rule of Reason.
Labels: Environment, Global Warming, War
Labels: EFB, Minto, New Zealand, Politics-NZ, Te Qaeda?, Tuhoe, War, Youth
The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq...
There is widespread agreement that AQI has suffered major blows over the past three months. Among the indicators cited is a sharp drop in suicide bombings, the group's signature attack, from more than 60 in January to around 30 a month since July. Captures and interrogations of AQI leaders over the summer had what a senior military intelligence official called a "cascade effect," leading to other killings and captures. The flow of foreign fighters through Syria into Iraq has also diminished...
The deployment of more U.S. and Iraqi forces into AQI strongholds in Anbar province and the Baghdad area, as well as the recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters to combat AQI operatives in those locations, has helped to deprive the militants of a secure base of operations, U.S. military officials said.
Labels: Iraq, Politics-World, Socialism, War
Now, with all these types of urban housing available, most of them enormously popular overseas (and some of them once very popular here), ask yourself how many of them a land-owner would be allowed to build on his typical bit of land in a typical NZ city...
The answer (with rare exceptions) is that for most bits of land in most NZ suburbs, all of the housing types listed that make the least use of scarce urban land are allowed, and all those that help increase the number of housing units that can comfortably work in a city -- and that are enormously popular overseas -- almost all of these urban housing types are disallowed.
Is this smart, do you think? People who complain about the number of single family homes that are built on eighth-of-an-acre sections right across NZ cities (which is mostly what NZ District Plans are written to protect) should direct their ire at those who ensure this is the only thing people are allowed to build: at the planners and the Resource Management Act that gives the planners their power.
Planners have placed restrictions on the height of what you can build, on the setbacks of new buildings from the street and from boundaries, and most importantly restrictions are place on the density of new building -- on the number of housing units one may build on one's own land.
It is the restrictions on density that exert the biggest stranglehold on our cities. At a density similar to some of the better parts of London for example, with which many NZers are familiar, the population of Auckland could be easily fitted on the ishthmus, with plenty of land left over for parks, and plenty of land left over outside the isthmus for decreased densities if people so wish.
In some parts of some NZ cities, further restrictions have been placed on land, protecting the cold and archaic early twentieth-century housing that still disgraces so much of the early urban landscape.
Planners have restricted the supply of urban land, making it even scarcer than it needs to be, and restricted the housing choices that New Zealanders are allowed to make to a one-size-fits-all bland-and-blander straitjacket, making urban space duller and even scarcer still.
What's wrong with choice? Why do we give these people such power? We let them ring-fence the city and stop people heading out and building away from the city when they want to -- "sprawl!" is the all-too hysterical cry -- and then we let them stop other people building higher density urban housing when they want to. Instead of leaving people free to choose, we have these boring "halfway houses" that some people like, but that many simply accept because that's all that's available, and they don't know any better.Labels: Architecture, Building, Housing, Politics-NZ, Property Rights, RMA, Sprawl, Urban Design
With one exception each charge laid in Wellington alleges that a relatively large group of people – a number of other people have been arrested in Auckland and the Bay of Plenty & Palmerston North – were “unlawfully in possession of a firearm except for some lawful purpose” in Rotorua on each of six occasions.Charge sheets filed in Wellington alleges offending occurred on:Names mentioned so far as being either arrested or targeted include Tame Iti, "peace" activist Sam Buchanan, Radical Youth organiser and Students for Justice in Palestine head Omar Hamed, Save Happy Valley Coalition organiser Francis Mountier, and Jamie Lockett, and members of organisations like Radical Youth (which explains why John Minto was out and about last night defending those arrested) , the Wildcat Anarchist Collective, and A Space Inside (aka Necropolis) . Blogger Trevor Loudon, who likes to keep an eye on those with indelicate designs on the country has run profiles on all of these characters in recent months, which he's already re-posting. Keep an eye out.
16th-19th November 2006 (with a semi-automatic rifle)
10th to 14th January 2007 (a rifle)
26th to 29th April 2007 (firearm)
21st to 25th June 2007 (rifle)
16th to 19th August 2007 (shotgun & rifle)
13th to 16th September 2007 (Molotov cocktails & military semi-auto rifle)
This is a vicious, violent cowards attack and demands a measured response. I propose that monies be raised in cyberspace and anyplace in order to predict when exactly the police minister and PM will be permanently retired... Fuck the democratic-socialist scum that always turn to fascism - we will bury you. You want the fucking dark ages back you better be careful what youse wish for.And Martin "I'm a fat poseur" Bradbury insists he has inside information that "when it comes out what they were planning Middle NZ is going to go fucking nuts" -- which could mean whatever you want it to mean, really -- the Maori Party claim this is a move against Maori
The arrest of members of pseudo-Mordi Sovereignty cells, green groups and "peace" activists for their participation in terrorist training camps in isolated areas of New Zealand's Bay of Plenty should surprise no one, says SOLO (Sense of Life) Principal Lindsay Perigo. "Especially when Annette 'I jumped for joy after 9/11' Sykes comes out in their defence. We've long known these types had the destruction of western freedoms in their sights. "The police are to be congratulated on doing their job for once, instead of persecuting marijuana smokers and those who defend themselves from murderous crims.With so little information so far, it's impossible to judge whether actions so far are justified, but we do know already from their past histories that the people arrested are not friends of freedom, and from the weapons seized that "peace" activists shouldn't always be taken at their word. I would hope that if the charges are justified that justice will be allowed to be done and that we can see it being done -- and that we won't see a gutless backdown and the release of people full of hate with new grievances to nurse.
It is understood the people under investigation had been attending military-style training camps in the Ureweras for months. Police are believed to have suspected that some of the instructors at the remote camps had Army or police backgrounds and were experienced in handling weapons.Police investigations indicate some members of the Tuhoe tribe, who point out their ancestors never signed the Treaty of Waitangi, have been involved... Sources have suggested the training camps were intended to prepare a terrorist group that planned assassinations for causes such as declaring the Tuhoe region in the Bay of Plenty an autonomous state.Two other sources told the Herald they had attended military-style guerrilla training in the Ureweras.UPDATE 3: Lockett has been released on bail. "Judge Josephine Bouchier said that on the evidence before her at the moment, Lockett could not be considered to pose such a significant danger to the public that he should be in custody." Summarising, says Stuff:
Nope. Nothing in statements like that and the possession of weaponry with which to do it to indicate he'd be a danger to the public.The Crown said police had intercepted communications in which statements like the following had been uttered:
"I'm training up to be a vicious, dangerous commando"; #para "White men are going to die in this country"; #para "I'm at war. I'm declaring war on this country very soon". #para It described Lockett as someone who was an active participant in a group that had the potential to make a violent impact on New Zealand society.
This is the Trade Me feedback page for one of the men arrested, who traded as hunt4life. He bought a hell of a lot of stuff -- ammunition, combat gear, at least one semi-automatic rifle (of a type that could plausibly used for hunting) -- and sold very little. Whatever else might be discovered about hunt4life, his Trade Me rep was first-class.UPDATE 5: A commenter asks me, " shouldn't there be a libertarian right-to-bear-arms defence in this case?" And is answered by another intelligent commenter:
I didn't see cyber-hori's feedback, but Scoop's photograph of the search warrant for the Wellington house suggests a similar haul.
Would these people really do what is alleged? I don't know, but this blog, which seems connected to some of those arrested, seems to countenance armed resistance in theory. On Indymedia, one looney (who also wanted to come to the New Year "freedom fighters" gathering that seems of interest to the police) is calling for an end to peaceful protest and to "rise and strike down those who have inflicted their pain into the Name of Freedom."
In itself, I don't see a problem with having firearms training.So there's the point in a nutshell: Training with firearms to commit crimes is not okay, and anyone doing so should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The problem is that self-defence isn't properly recognised in NZ law, and we've learned that those who administer NZ law can't exactly be taken on trust. In other words, we won't know for sure whether "a libertarian right-to-bear-arms defence" exists until or unless the full case is presented before a court.
The important factor is the intention: training with firearms for sport or personal reasons - ok. Training with firearms for committing crimes - not ok.
Judging by the number of firearms charges, it's likely that the use of firearms hasn't exactly been legit. Then again, "except for some lawful purpose" is dubious - self defence isn't even considered a lawful purpose in NZ.
Whatever Tame Iti and his ilk were planning and training for was not peaceful protest. The nature of the groups involved—communist, eco-terrorist, brown supremacist, Islamo-fascist—and the reported weapons seizures puts paid to any idea of lawful protest. Groups such as those are fighting for one freedom only, the freedom to oppress others at the point of a gun. These self-described “freedom fighters” are fighters of freedom, not for it. They are enemies of individual liberty. But the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. This is still Nanny State that we are dealing with here, and she is still, for the most part, an evil old bitch.He points out that because "the state has arrested the 'bad guys' does not instantly make them the 'good guys'."
We must not lose our heads, and we must not allow agenda-driven MPs to manipulate the masses into supporting anti-freedom legislation.New Zealand First MP Ron Mark [for example] has already raised the idea of abolishing the right to freedom of association. More calls for more state oppression of individual liberty will follow. People should not allow fear to cloud their judgment.
Labels: Ban Bans, Crime, Minto, Nanny, Politics-Greens, Politics-NZ, Te Qaeda?, Tuhoe, Waitangi, War, Youth


A simple timber and glass Brazilian bach, which I pinched from this blog here, where blogger Nick reckons at its latitude in Brazil, it will have just the right amount of overhang to block out the midday sun, yet let in all the light in winter.
Labels: Architecture
Labels: Self-defence
The Government's non-energy strategy -- banning the construction of fossil fuel power stations and insisting NZers rely instead on wind and other "renewables" for energy -- has inspired a reinterpretation of Raymond Briggs' cold-war story-telling...Stripping away the pages of numbers and formulae and meaningless hyperbole such as “New Zealand’s quest for sustainability” and talk of a “carbon neutral nation”, what the strategy does is put some flesh on the bones of Labour’s previous pledges to halve emissions from the transport sector by 2040 and to have 90 percent of electricity produced by renewable energy sources from 2025.But when you strip them down you find these are bones without any muscle, any flesh, or any lifeblood for an industrial country like this one. Renewables are a pipe dream. When it comes to renewables, "wind farms suffer from the NIMBY syndrome" (and the need to provide reliable new power stations for baseload backup, and "major scale hydro projects are unlikely," which rather wildly understates the unlikelihood.
Demand for power is growing at 2% a year. The energy strategy states this will fall to 1.5%, which is an arguable point, but even accepting this, that means that over the 18 years before 2025 the country will require 27% more energy than it currently has available just to maintain the status quo. Add immigration, economic growth, and Kiwis’ seemingly insatiable desire for new electronic gadgetry into the equation, and it’s starting to look a little dodgy. Given that the security of our energy supply is already questionable (remember the cold showers and the brownouts every time there is a “dry year”?) and the Government’s decision to [ban the construction of new coal and gas power stations and] can the 500MW Rodney station has a whiff of political craziness about it.It's more than just crazy, it's suicidal.
Labels: Ban Bans, Energy, Politics-NZ, Renewable Energy
the BSA has ordered Alt TV to refrain from broadcasting programmes between 12pm and 5pm this Labour Day and instead display a statement which summarises the Authority's decision and apologises to viewers. The BSA has also ordered Alt TV to pay the maximum award of costs to the Crown of $5,000.
Labels: Ban Bans, Crime, Free Speech, Waitangi
Around 1.5 million women and children currently die from the use of dirty fuels, such as wood and dung*. Replacing these fuels with electricity, even from coal-fired power stations, would substantially improve the lot of the very poorest people on the planet – but this is opposed by people who promote restrictions on fossil fuel use.So a prize for "peace" is at least surprising. As John Beralu argues,
this choice, more than any other Nobel Committee selection, marks the end of a 105-year era. In direct contradiction of Alfred Nobel's last will and testament, the selection of Gore essentially means the Peace Prize can no longer be said to be an award for improving the condition of humankind.UPDATE 1: Says Andrew Walden,
An “inconvenient” court ruling was not Gore's only hurdle. Gore had to beat back another last minute challenge -- this one posed by the protests of pro-democracy Buddhist monks facing murder and torture at the hands of Burma’s socialist dictatorship... The Nobel committee has reached a new low by honoring a pompous, self-enriching fraud whose work is aimed largely at keeping the third world in poverty by blocking industrialization. Any Burmese monks able to escape the slaughter should immediately demand a recount.UPDATE 2: And the Wall Street Journal has a list of dozens -- indeed thousands -- of others who the Nobel Committee had to overlook in awarding the gong to Gore, "men and women [who] put their own lives and livelihoods at risk by working to rid the world of violence and oppression. Let us hope they survive the coming year so that the Nobel Prize Committee might consider them for the 2008 award."
Labels: Al Gore, Crime, Global Warming, Politics-World
Labels: Auckland, Local Government, Politics-NZ
Two years ago the World Bank's environmental economics department set out to assess the relative contributions of various kinds of capital to economic development. Its study, "Where is the Wealth of Nations?: Measuring Capital for the 21st Century," began by defining natural capital as the sum of nonrenewable resources (including oil, natural gas, coal and mineral resources), cropland, pasture land, forested areas and protected areas. Produced, or built, capital is what many of us think of when we think of capital: the sum of machinery, equipment, and structures (including infrastructure) and urban land.What's missing in those traditional measures is what links the human mind with productivity: the rule of law. In a sentence, the creative human mind is more productive the more that the rule of law is recognised.
But once the value of all these are added up, the economists found something big was still missing: the vast majority of world's wealth! If one simply adds up the current value of a country's natural resources and produced, or built, capital, there's no way that can account for that country's level of income.
All this intangible capital ... boosts the productivity of labor and results in higher total wealth. In fact, the World Bank finds, "Human capital and the value of institutions (as measured by rule of law) constitute the largest share of wealth in virtually all countries."This "intangible capital" can be quantified, and what we find when that exercise is done is that "the natural wealth in rich countries like the U.S. is a tiny proportion of their overall wealth—typically 1 percent to 3 percent—yet they derive more value from what they have."
Once one takes into account all of the world's natural resources and produced capital, 80% of the wealth of rich countries and 60% of the wealth of poor countries is of this intangible type. The bottom line: "Rich countries are largely rich because of the skills of their populations and the quality of the institutions supporting economic activity."
Cropland, pastures and forests are more valuable in rich countries because they can be combined with other capital like machinery and strong property rights to produce more value. Machinery, buildings, roads and so forth account for 17% of the rich countries' total wealth.So what does this mean for New Zealand, and any hope we have of getting rich, and getting back into the top half of the OECD?
Overall, the average per capita wealth in the rich Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) countries is $440,000, consisting of $10,000 in natural capital, $76,000 in produced capital, and a whopping $354,000 in intangible capital. (Switzerland has the highest per capita wealth, at $648,000. The U.S. is fourth at $513,000.)
By comparison, the World Bank study finds that total wealth for the low income countries averages $7,216 per person. That consists of $2,075 in natural capital, $1,150 in produced capital and $3,991 in intangible capital. The countries with the lowest per capita wealth are Ethiopia ($1,965), Nigeria ($2,748), and Burundi ($2,859).
Labels: Economics, Ethics, Mining, Politics, Politics-World, Property Rights