Posts by Chris Waugh
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When discussing this new bill requiring intercept capability and the various services mostly physically located in North America, one of your guests, Peter Griffin, I think, raised the possibility of NZ simply walling itself off from Skype then said that that would be unthinkable. Oh no it's not. For example, I can't watch the videos in your post without switching on a VPN or similar service to burrow under or jump over the Great Firewall. No reason why NZ couldn't build it's own mini Great Firewall. And when ethnic rioting broke out in Urumqi a few years back the government of Xinjiang simply unplugged the internet.
That censorship regime Australia tried to set up during Rudd's first go at being PM looked oddly familiar to me. Rudd certainly seemed to have learned a lot during his time in China. This current government, particularly people like John Key and Judith Collins, strike me as being the type that would quite happily do the same in NZ.
And the proposed expansion of the GCSB's powers really worries me. I don't have a problem with them being able to assist domestic law enforcement agencies or the military where appropriate, but the powers of all these agencies need to be as tightly restricted as possible. But the government seems to be slowly edging us every closer to a police state (odd thing for somebody who's lived in China for 14 years to say?). But of course, if you've done nothing wrong, if you've got nothing to hide, then you've got nothing to worry about, right? Tell that to Arthur Allan Thomas.
And this longer version of Paul Buchanan's recent Herald article is well worth a perusal.
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In the meantime: got any work?
I need a new teacher to start in September. Want to move to Beijing?
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Capture: Upside Down, Inside Out, in reply to Nora Leggs,
Eight, and the puddle must've evaporated by now considering yesterday's clear blue skies and fearsome heat.
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Keeping time.
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Capture: Ans Westra - Ngā Tau ki Muri…, in reply to Leigh Russell,
No need to apologise, Leigh, I certainly wasn't meaning to get competitive about the air pollution, and we're working on moving somewhere cleaner than here.
Cripes, London 1952 sounds a lot worse than Beijing 2013! As bad as it may get here, I guess we've still got more efficient machines and better filters, scrubbers, catalytic converters and whatnot. I've certainly never seen visibility drop to a couple of yards! Still get the fingers turning black after touching stuff, though.
Beautiful beach. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can take my wee one there.
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Capture: Ans Westra - Ngā Tau ki Muri…, in reply to Leigh Russell,
Hi Leigh, I've got too many responses to your post. I'll try and distill them.
First of all, at least you can see that cloud. Days like today up here all that is visible beyond a few hundred metres is a uniform grey.
But so much depends on your circumstances, and until last January, no matter how bad it got in Beijing I'd just remind myself I'd seen and survived worse. Now I'm not so sure and I'm really worried about my daughter's lungs. It's really worrying when you walk out into murk like this and you can smell the air - not today, but it happens.
And the rest of your comment has me thinking of the Ziggy Marley song "Dragonfly".
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Sinking sun yesterday afternoon. Today we're back to what the weather forecast says is "fog and light smog". Well, it certainly is at least partly fog.
Oh dear, seems I went a bit overboard playing with that photo....
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Awesome shot, Jos
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So it takes me sitting bored in the entry-exit bureau to think, wait, I could use my phone to check PAS - and I wonder if I can post a photo. PSB sloagan either reflected in the window or floating above the 2nd ring road, hope it works
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Speaker: Music Extra: Manic Street…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Will they play “if you tolerate this…” ?
Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes! I bloody hope so!
In part because I remember standing in a queue at WINZ listening to that song over the radio. But only in part...
