Posts by mark taslov
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Beautifully put Tussock, timely and mindful.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
dangerous loose cannon
You’ve gotta admit though, having our Minister of Tourism use a nationwide radio station to broadcast that one of our American visitors is “a loser” just 3 days into his New Zealand trip totally is one hell of an innovative marketing strategy for our country. #outthere
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Hard News: 2014: The Meth Election, in reply to nzlemming,
And are spectacularly bad at running it as a business unless, of course, their exit strategy is a buyout…
Following the links via Bryce Edward’s Herald piece to Stephen Keys' blog (might be one for the sidebar Russell) and one of his pieces on Chris Hedges, onto the video therein where I encountered the term Inverted totalitarianism:
In inverted totalitarianism, every natural resource and every living being is commodified and exploited to collapse as the citizenry are lulled and manipulated into surrendering their liberties and their participation in government through excess consumerism and sensationalism.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to nzlemming,
Thanks for these clarifications Sir, very telling, and immensely helpful in preparing us to better grasp the implications of whatever’s coming.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Alfie,
I’ve been wondering whether in fact the Five Eyes partners merely have an agreement whereby they analyse each others’ data. That way each state could claim full deniability, as Key has done many times, while enjoying the “benefits” of massive surveillance operations being conducting against their own citizens. So Waihopai could be processing all US data (for example).
Deferring to nzlemming, and just for the the record, there doesn’t seem to be much leeway there.
The general point I would make Chairman is that uh, uh, absent an appropriate authority, um, GCSB does not go, of, certainly of its own will to go off and collect bulk data. The point about lawful and then authorised is an important one.
Um, uh and certainly the second point I would make is that, uh, we do not, and indeed, careful reading of some of the documents which we’ve been, uh, disclosed in the media recently will show, um, there this argument being made, um. We do not use partners to circumvent the legal arrangements in New Zealand and indeed our partners don’t use us for the same purpose either.
Ian Fletcher at First Public Intelligence and Security Committee Meeting
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Kia Ora Welcome to New Zealand Mr Greenwald.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I know one guy who managed it.
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ETA: Needles?
Yeah, only if you’d not found work in the 3 month window and been forced to switch to a family L to remain in the country before finding a new job . Not for standard Z renewals, just the transfer back to Z. In the past I've been in the position of accepting a less than ideal position or holding out for something better/ needles. And yes, you’re quite right, that was my reason for moving down to Shenzhen. A friend based in Shanghai, who was in a similar boat, was visiting me every few months until recently. ¥.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Chris Waugh,
My experience – limited to China, which is probably not very comparable to Anglo countries – is that expats never really have ‘Home’ far from their minds, and that although home is where they’re living now, capital H Home is their home countries, in which they’re still well invested, at least emotionally and, ummmm…., identificationally
And that’s putting it pretty mildly Chris. Though I’m not completely au fait with the 2013 China visa revisions, I’ll assume (and correct me if I’m wrong) that for a large portion of your time in China you’ve been on year long (Z) working visas, issued by your University, restricting you from working anywhere except that University. I’ll also bet the house you’ve never legally bought any land here.
In the eventuality that for whatever reason you left that job at any time, you would then have been faced with cancellation of the visa and the prospect of either 3 months to find a new job/ get a family (L) visa/ leave the country and be separated from your family. If you had not found a compatible job within that time and instead been forced to procure the year long family visa, you would not have been eligible to work, but if on the family visa you had then found a job in a company qualified to provide working visas you would have again had to submit to the invasive medical in order to garner another year long stay.
For my own part I got tired of the rigmarol, I was unwilling to submit to more needles, and found bequeathing an employer that much power untenable. So despite being married to a Chinese citizen and having lived here over 10 years, I settled for the freshly minted low frills family visa meaning I’m ineligible to work and must leave and reenter the country every 60 days and in each instance I must reregister with the police or face fines of 100NZD a day. Some, many even, may categorize this as a privilege. But with that kind of security/ stability, letting the capital H drift far from mind is not in any way a realistic proposition.
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Hard News: 2014: The Meth Election, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Add alcohol withdrawal to that equation:
He's taken a vow of abstinence from booze until the election, he has trim milk in his coffees, and Diet Coke.
