Posts by chris
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Seriatim,
housing for all
*Excludes those with Chinese names.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Jason Kemp,
No, he won’t twist Turnbull’s arm or anything, and as soon as Malcolm moves the subject on to something like rugby he may even let out a big sigh of relief.
Where's that arm twisting PM we've been promised for so long.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Helen Clark played a similar line to what turned out to be a largely imaginary middle NZ at the time of the Urewera raids. It’s early days yet.
You could have knocked me down with a feather! Didn't she preside over the enhancement of human rights?:
While recognising important areas of difference between New Zealand and China on human rights, it does not follow that ending economic relationships or political dialogue with China is the best way to promote human rights there. Nor does New Zealand have the luxury of trading only with countries with similar political and social values as ours. Were we to do so, there would be a great many countries with which we would be excluding an economic and trading relationship. That would hurt New Zealand without advantaging those whose human rights we want to enhance.
Across the board:
The detainees were placed in the middle of one of the compounds while the SAS troopers stood guard and waited for sunrise, when the US transport helicopters were due to return. One trooper says he fed some of the Afghans chocolate.
The SAS did not take the detainees’ names. Instead, each detainee had a numbered prisoner-of-war card affixed to him, along with a bag with a corresponding number that contained documents or other items of interest, such as a mobile phone.
When the helicopters arrived, the detainees were marched to the landing zone and put on board. At Kandahar airbase the Afghans, still handcuffed and blindfolded, were handed to American soldiers for transfer to the nearby US detention centre. “And that,” said one SAS trooper, “is the last we saw of them.”
One detainee, 50-year-old Mohammad Wali, says it was terrifying not being able to see. “When they took us off the helicopter, the guard dogs were barking at us and sniffing and touching us.”
Abdul Wahid, 30, says the Americans forced him to sit with his legs bound and his hands tied very tightly to a piece of wood. It was so painful he passed out. “Later they took us to another room and they tore off all our clothes. Then they took us to an area where some Americans were sitting and they made us walk in front of them naked,” he says.
Surely things were different at home:
Prime Minister Helen Clark admitted yesterday that she could not back up a statement issued by her office, linking asylum seeker Ahmed Zaoui’s former political party with al Qaeda.
At least there’s a positive in that the good folk of New Zealand might get a BSA complaint upheld.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Kumara Republic,
an outlet for people to let off as much steam as they like, in the absence of a proper platform to hold the powerful to account.
But is it real steam if it’s not RL? The streets are empty.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Danielle,
instead of
Human rights issues in Australia ! Big Topic. Well out of reach of the New Zealand Parliament. Overcompensate they will.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Russell Brown,
Thanks for that clarification, it did feel a little too slick.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Alfie,
On 3News tonight Patirck Gower had a document he’d just received from the PMO stating there are 22 murderers etc.
ETA
Figures released later show Australia has 585 Kiwis on its deportation list including 34 child sex offenders, 22 murderers, 16 people conficted of rape and sex offences, 121 people conficted of assault, including grevious bodily harm, 83 people with theft, robbery, breaking and entering offences to their name and 64 people convicted of drug offences.
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Speaker: Are there opportunities within…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Katharine’s more recent posts aren’t showing.
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Will removing GST on fresh fruit and vegetables achieve its stated aim? (2010) Concl.
Eating habits are a complex mix of learned behaviour, education, food preparation and cooking skills, cultural and personal expectations, food availability and affordability, income, and personal preferences. Playing around the margins of one small aspect of this mix – price – is unlikely to move those habits. Policies need to address the harder issues of income and socioeconomic inequality to begin to make a difference.
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Up Front: Fringe of Darkness, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
We need more education. To allow a better understanding of indoctrination. To be able to recognise it. To be able to walk away.
It’s problematic in that if we were able to successfully indoctrinate the masses in ways to avoid indoctrination a whole lot of the world’s problems might be solved. Unfortunately we live in societies where I imagine far more money is spent on researching how to indoctrinate people, put to good use in advertising, marketing, education, political campaigns etc.
I recall emerging from my first Critical Thinking lecture blown away by the impact conjunctions have on a sentence. When presented in that manner the mechanisms seemed so simple that you could probably teach them to an eight year old, but we don’t. Fortune favours the manipulative.