Hard News: Need to Know
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Do we still get a music, vid and usual Friday post Russell?
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Do we still get a music, vid and usual Friday post Russell?
It's coming. It just seemed inappropriate to combine it with the above.
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I would only support an inquiry if it also looked into the Te Quaeda raids. Spying on groups is spying on groups whether they are Greenpeace or Maori activists.
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Wow. That NBR guy didn't think very hard before he opened his mouth.
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The Police have also been infiltrating Unite and other lefty unions, according to an interview Matt McCarten's just done on RNZ National.
He gave various examples of infiltration and how that paid informant Russell mentions had been identified by Unite members.
This is really going to get nasty and the police are going to have a lot of explaining to do over this.
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Oh wait, now I've seen the interview to the end. Who employed that twit to edit a major newspaper? Shouldn't he be helping produce Investigate or something?
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But can I say four words to people like Bill Ralston complaining about the "weak" response from Key and Police Minister Judith Collins: Don Brash and Helen Clark. Two people who did themselves no favours publcally musing that the Police were not only "politicised" but actively corrupt and acting unlawfully.
Basically, standing up and saying "I suspect the Police Commissioner is so full of shit we should privatise him as mushroom fertiliser" is a pretty serious step. And I hope you will understand why I was highly sceptical of the original story, given the Operation Leaf debacle. ("Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" is a good principle, IMO.) But I do think there's grounds for Collins to order an inquiry.
Still, isn't it rather funny how a few months ago most people around here were clapping their hands with glee at the secret taping of people at a cocktail party whose politics you didn't like at all?
Before someone stands up and starts sqealing "false moral equivalence", let me retort with a statement of what should be the bleeding obvious. We can't have a civil society without confidence that our legislators, civil servants, judiciary and law enforcement are as virtuous as Caesar's wife. And those who fail to be scrupulous in their observance of the rule of law cannot be tolerated.
But, not for the first time, it's pretty damn clear that the paranoid style in politics is mututally parasitic, self-perpetuating and damn ugly. I first met David Farrar at a Clubs day at Victoria, and he told me years later that when I signed up to the Vic Young Nats there was some suspicion I was a Labour Yoof plant. Why? Because, apparently, some people thought someone who was chatting away to pals at the Queer Soc talble couldn't be as right-wing as I am and be for real.
I can laugh about it now, but at the time I'd have been very pissed off and found it more than a little weird.
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I trust the police weren't too busy checking up on fifteen year olds protesting for the end of youth wages ( is wanting more money for equal effort anti capitalist?) to miss the 'jihadi leaning' Dominican friar savage the Waihopai spy dome...
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The NBR editor was quite spectacular. Oliver Driver queried him on a number of occasions, I don't think he could quite believe what Gibson was letting out of his mouth! Truly disturbing that such a person edits a major newspaper in this country...
On a personal note Russell,As a long time reader and not often commenter, thanks for keeping Public address rolling along. It has been a great(almost) daily read. It makes a refreshing change from the majority of the right wing nutjob blogs in this country so happy holidays to yourself and your whanau, and keep up the good work!
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I recall just after 9/11, when Parliament convened an emergency session, Richard Prebble effectively compared Marx Jones' act of airborne civil disobedience to mass murder by passenger jet.
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Oliver Driver was brilliant interviewing the NBR twit.
Kept asking questions just seriously enough to keep the suit talking and digging an ever deeper hole. In one interview Driver has to have ended the guy's career since nobody could possibly take him seriously after that.
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Pita Sharples shares a ministerial portfolio (Corrections) with Judith Collins, who says there is no problem here, police are just doing their job, to keep us safe.
Pita Sharples shares a caucus room with Hone Harawira, who (according to Matt McCarten) has been one of the people monitored, to keep us safe.
Wouldn't it be cheaper just to get Pita to report to Judith about Hone?
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Off topic, but did anyone see the bizarre Tourism video featuring John Key doing the rounds yesterday? It's been taken off YouTube so I can't link to it anymore.
John was wearing a lovely salmon coloured shirt...
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Has it been taken down Mark? LOL
I like the campaign idea (get random ol tourists to talk about how they're loving it) and like the fact our PM got in there. But it was such a cringeworthy performance... -
DeepRed, I remember that, and his point was actually how crap it was that Labour had got rid of the strike wing of our airforce. He didn't really follow through on the ramifications of shooting down a plane over a crowded stadium, surrounded by crowds of demonstrators, but since everyone was feeling sorry for the Americans his stupidity was allowed to slide.
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In one interview Driver has to have ended the guy's career since nobody could possibly take him seriously after that.
Hey, if you can take Oliver ("__Naked News__ is a post-modern meta-parody of the vacuity of modern media NOT a tawdry attempt to get attention") Driver seriously, anything is possible. And someone should tell Oliver that he's doing breakfast television, and adopting a 'I'm so above this shit' attitude while exchanging lame banter with a pack of telebimbos just makes him a whore in denial.
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Hey, if you can take Oliver ("Naked News is a post-modern meta-parody of the vacuity of modern media NOT a tawdry attempt to get attention") Driver seriously, anything is possible.
To start arguing with myself (and how meta is that), I do take Driver very seriously as an actor -- he was fine in Silo's excellent production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal earlier this year. In a perfect world, he'd be able to make a decent living at the one thing he's actually very good at. But we don't live in a perfect world.
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We can't have a civil society without confidence that our legislators, civil servants, judiciary and law enforcement are as virtuous as Caesar's wife. And those who fail to be scrupulous in their observance of the rule of law cannot be tolerated.
Quite, and reporting pollies real thoughts as opposed the their spin is against that how?
But, not for the first time, it's pretty damn clear that the paranoid style in politics is mututally parasitic, self-perpetuating and damn ugly. I first met David Farrar at a Clubs day at Victoria, and he told me years later that when I signed up to the Vic Young Nats there was some suspicion I was a Labour Yoof plant. Why? Because, apparently, some people thought someone who was chatting away to pals at the Queer Soc talble couldn't be as right-wing as I am and be for real.
And there you have direct access to the way David P Farrar thinks, because that's what he would have done. He never seems able to grasp that other people don't think like he does.
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BTW, flase moral equivalence. But you knew that.
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or even "false"
[bugger]
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Flasé - a florist who doesn't care?
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You're on the money RB. And don't overlook OFCANZ now it has lost a bit of direction...
But keep in mind that if the Police weren't doing it, who would? (Hint: TLA)
And have a think about the scope of this guy... I think that might be the root of the issue...
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On the subject of Collins - I'm trying to decide how bemused I am by the angle on this one:
Corrections Minister makes historic visit to prison
Corrections Minister Judith Collins today visited Rimutaka Prison in the first official inspection of a New Zealand prison by a woman Corrections Minister.
Prime Minister, Governor-General, Chief Justice and now, finally, Corrections Minister!
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Still, isn't it rather funny how a few months ago most people around here were clapping their hands with glee at the secret taping of people at a cocktail party whose politics you didn't like at all?
Well, I recall specifically saying that things like wire taps, bugging a person's home etc (ya know, the illegal stuff) would be wrong. But what the Nat secret taper did was not illegal, in terms of recording a conversation you're involved in. How ethically dubious it is to do so is another question, but that depends on the circumstances. For example, it might be justified if you were attempting to encourage...
... a civil society without confidence that our legislators, civil servants, judiciary and law enforcement are as virtuous as Caesar's wife. And those who fail to be scrupulous in their observance of the rule of law cannot be tolerated.
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In her valedictory speech a couple of months ago, outgoing MP Marian Hobbs despaired that media analysis of such things as penal policy rarely goes beyond the obligatory picture of prisoners' Xmas dinner.
And so it appeared this morning in the Dompost alongside a report of Judith and Pita's trip to Rimutaka prison with Pita Sharples proclaiming it was better than you would get in many restaurants.
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