General Debate 6 October 2009

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village idiot

John Key .v. Pita Sharples – it’s going to be a fight that rivals Tua and Cameron’s brief punch-a-thon!

Sharples has landed the first blow with his unilateral $3 million jab at the World Cup.

Key’s responded with his trademark ‘big sister’ slap-down.
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October 6, 2009 8:38am
scanner

Not very PC, but just a little funny

In South Sydney, a fire destroyed a multi story block of flats.

A Nigerian family of six con artists lived on the first floor, and all six died in the fire.

An Islamic group of seven Pakistani welfare cheats, all illegally in the country, lived on the second floor, and they, too, all perished in the fire.

Six Maori, ex-cons lived on the 3rd floor and they too died.

Four Aboriginal families in the 2 flats on the 4th floor also perished.

One white couple lived on the top floor. The couple survived the fire.

Relatives of the deceased and local do-gooders were furious. They flew into Sydney and quickly demanded a meeting with the fire chief. On camera, they loudly demanded to know why the Nigerians, Muslims, Maoris and Aboriginals all died in the fire and only the white couple survived.

The fire chief quietly replied, “They were both at work.”
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October 6, 2009 8:39am
starboard

5-10% of the commentary for the rugby world cup will be broadcast in maori….Id rather watch Emmerdale Farm…
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October 6, 2009 8:44am
getstaffed

Ms greenfly – Ask for a new set of talking points.

Perhaps they might include permission to debate issues, suggest policy initiatives and/or generally offer some views on taking NZ forward.

Or perhaps they will, as usual, simply direct you to troll mindlessly. Which you do quite well.
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October 6, 2009 8:44am
Angus

“Ms greenfly – Ask for a new set of talking points. ”

He’s shocked that the Green MP’s aren’t in fact the sanctimonious holier-than-thou champions of honesty and transparency they made themselves out to be. No, instead they are yet another bunch of double dippers rorting the system. Politicians of all political hues degenerate into this sort of institutionalised quasi-within-the-rules cash grabbing eventually . .

Get used to it.
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October 6, 2009 8:50am
lofty

Hey Idiot, I’d like to help you out, which way did you come in?
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October 6, 2009 8:52am
pentwig

I see John Key is not going to make an issue for political gain of the greens rort.
Certainly shows the measure of the man. He is very astute.

Ms Greenfly you can release a sigh of relief and perhaps learn to play the issues and not the man/woman.
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October 6, 2009 8:53am
getstaffed

pentwig, he will. But not now, and when this one’s cashed in it’ll be someone else (Brownlee?) doing the mud slinging closer to the election. Sounds like a former PM doesn’t it!
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October 6, 2009 8:58am
village idiot

getstaffed – all my own work. No body directs me anywhere. The Sharples/Key conflict over the rugger – think it’s not real, do you?

We shall see.

Angus – bull.

Lofty – the same way you did – how the hell did you think I came in, ffs!

Pentwig – really, oh, really!!! How astute!! You’ll note, penty, that this is what I have said all along.
Key’s ‘decision’ is nothing of the sort. There was nothing to be gained and Farrar, I and anyone with any sense, could see.
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October 6, 2009 9:00am
Rakaia George

@starboard – if we get Murray Mexted’s 30% replaced by 5-10% Maori, I’d say that’s a win 😀
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October 6, 2009 9:02am
lofty

Your a bit touchy this morning Idiot…Don’t let your mind wander, it’s too small to be let out on its own. 🙂
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October 6, 2009 9:07am
Patrick Starr

“No body directs me anywhere” obviously just chooses to use low pressure showers then?
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October 6, 2009 9:08am
davidp

This made me smile… The Day Obama Care Died, sung by B Obama:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3KDmEvNmJ0&feature=player_embedded
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October 6, 2009 9:12am
CraigM

CHICAGO 2016 now faces closure and has to lay off it’s 57 full-time staff.

Apparently, despite the huge sacrifice made by Mrs Obama in flying to Europe in luxury on Air Force One and taking Oprah along for the ride, there is no truth to the rumour that Mr Obama will provide a bail out for Chicago 2016 staff. “The organisation just does not meet the bail-out criteria, Mr Obama said, alluding to fact that no-one in the organisation in the past, or is likely in the future, to be in a position to provide million dollar campaign contributions.

Chicago 2016 staff had previously applied for jobs at ACORN, just in case the bid failed, however sources close to ACORN state that Chicago 2016 staff are unlikely to be accepted by the troubled organisation. A spokesperson for ACORN was overheard saying that there is no room in their organisation for losers.

However if the Chicago 2016 staff wanted to use their offices to open a brothel in the downtown area and employ local under-age girls , ACORN had a business plan they would be willing to share.

(slow news day)
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October 6, 2009 9:13am
Michaels

May a Judge with the longest rope enter the courtroom today.
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October 6, 2009 9:20am
pentwig

Idoit

I meant it to be as a refreshing new way Key is taking politics as opposed to the dirt mucking crap that the left use.

I agree with lofty, you seem to be rather testy this morning. Didn’t you sleep well after reading the report that NZ will need
3 times the amount of electicity as we use now by 2050 – pushed partly by the fact of recharging electric cars – and maybe
have to have a joint nuclear plant with Aussie. Must be very worrying for you.

Reminds me I must go and fill up the V8.
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October 6, 2009 9:20am
village idiot

Showers Winston? Given Key’s obsession with showering (he was even willing to endanger lives to get a sluice-down in Samoa and no one can forget his desperation at Kevin Rudd’s door) I am getting a new perspective on why the Nats so vehemently opposed energy-saving shower-heads.
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October 6, 2009 9:21am
Elijah Lineberry

John Key vs Pita Sharples.

Does anyone else feel Mr Key is ‘pussy whipped’ by Sharples?

Does anyone else get the impression Key looks like a waiter who has just been ordered to “get me a cup of tea and a newspaper, boy; and hurry up about it!” by an obnoxious customer?

And like all waiters in that position he rants and raves to the other staff in the kitchen, fuming at the humiliation of having to serve this imbecile, but when he re-enters the restaurant acts all smiling and light and servile towards his customer.

http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
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October 6, 2009 9:23am
KiwiGreg

“I am getting a new perspective on why the Nats so vehemently opposed energy-saving shower-heads.”

Cant speak for the Nats but I dont need anyone telling me how to have a shower. I dont care about saving energy or water, I’ll pay for what I use.

On other matters, it’s too cold for October, we are losing the cricket and the kiwi is at 73 cents.
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October 6, 2009 9:24am
Patrick Starr

so we can agree then. You and other greenies wont be told what to do……but you have no problem telling everyone else what to do..
…(there’s a name for that)
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October 6, 2009 9:25am
village idiot

Lofty – a bit ‘touchy’ – are you some sort of ‘feely-goody holistic yoga macrobiotic personality guide flake who deeply cares for the well-being of all creatures on this beautiful planet we call home’ kinda guy?
I’m feelin’ good, thanks, but have to work all day, so having a quick ‘heads-up’ before I get out of broadband range.
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October 6, 2009 9:25am
CraigM

Michaels – shall we run a pool ?

Jail time?
Community service- Perhaps laying tiles at the community hall?
Home detention?
Wet bus ticket – slap?

My cynical side says a deal has been done and there will be no jail time. Field knows where skeletons are buried.
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October 6, 2009 9:30am
Luc Hansen

Greece has elected a new government, ousting the conservatives and installing the ” Socialist Party”

Labels don’t mean what they used to these days, but the interesting aspect of the win is that the election was fought on economic issues. The outgoing govt responded to the financial crisis with an austerity programme. The victors have promised a 6 billion dollar cash injection. In this case, conventional wisdom is on the side of the spenders!

We in NZ remain in limbo as we take time out to have a breather, but are we bottom bouncing or perched on a crumbling ledge above a long drop. National has not enacted any more than its pre-determined election platform even though the scale of the problem only became apparent during the election campaign. Bill English is doing exactly what he is hard wired for and enacting an austerity programme.

And I have yet to see a convincing case made for a party that banged on for years about the rewards to the economy of tax cuts – remember the billboards? – cancelling them at exactly the time we need a boost to the economy from the bottom up.

Are tax cuts a fair weather friend only? Is laissez faire dead? Again.
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October 6, 2009 9:34am
Blue Coast

Do gooders will push his “community service” whilst on the public tit as a defence against doing time. As much as I would like to see him banged up for at least 7 years he will get the wet bus ticket treatment.
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October 6, 2009 9:40am
Pete George

Tricky judgement, no guidance from precedents. Deterrence shouldn’t be much of a factor. And really – is there much if anything to be gained by a prison sentence? An appropriate sentence would be something like a year attending parliament.
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October 6, 2009 9:41am
village idiot

Sharples/Key. Wrestlin’. Maori TV has the coverage.
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October 6, 2009 9:43am
Patrick Starr

Anyone notice if ‘global warming’ victim Tuvalu got washed away in the tsunami? – they were only a few hundred mls further from the epicentre than samoa
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October 6, 2009 9:44am
getstaffed

Pete – I disagree. Corruption by an elected official *should* be punished very, very severely. There will be plenty of current and former MP’s taking an awkward gaze at their navels right now, and I’d like this sentence to be one that benchmarks voter demand for integrity.
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October 6, 2009 9:47am
Grant Michael McKenna

Village Idiot claimed that John Key was “willing to endanger lives” to have a shower. This statement seems to me to meet the test for libel- it is malicious, false and defamatory, but perhaps he has evidence to back up his claim. It seems to me that Village Idiot is however lying [deliberately telling an untruth with the intention to mislead].
John Key was in a motorcade in Samoa which exceeded the speed limit. The motorcade was controlled by Samoan police, and at the first opportunity the NZ team got the Samoans to slow down. Despite Labour’s seeming belief that Samoa is a fief of New Zealand, as evidenced by the sight of their MPs running around acting as if they had authority, Samoa is in fact independent and so John Key’s team had to request [not order] that the motorcade slow down.
This is quite unlike the UN apparatchik who in 2004 rushed from Waimate to Christchurch Airport at speeds of up to 170km/h so as to be present at an All Blacks rugby test in her attempt to be ‘of the people’. As we remember, Our Former Great Leader denied having ordered the speeding, claimed not to have noticed, and blamed the driver.
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October 6, 2009 9:52am
david

A year or three rebuilding in Samoa (as a builder’s labourer) might be an appropriate sentence for phil
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October 6, 2009 9:53am
frankflintstone

This bid by Maori TV highlights that Maori TV can’t be accessed right through NZ. This will be seen as some sort of “treaty breach” and the government will need to give them more money to increase coverage.
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October 6, 2009 9:59am
Elijah Lineberry

I think Field will get 4 years (and at the time of writing this – 10:01am, I have not heard anything).

This will means he will spend his time in a minimum security prison weeding the garden or chatting with the (surprisingly large number of) defrocked solicitors in the library, and be paroled in February 2011 to return to his vast investment portfolio and be laughing all the way to the bank.

A slightly different situation for the taxpayes, however, being several million dollars out of pocket with the cost of the trial and his incarceration.

http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
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October 6, 2009 10:05am
starboard

…good point Rakaia George….while we at it..lets give Hamish McKay the DCM as well…
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October 6, 2009 10:06am
Colonel Masters

5-10% of the commentary for the rugby world cup will be broadcast in maori….Id rather watch Emmerdale Farm…

Emmerdale – it hasn’t been called Emmerdale Farm since 1989. (Or are even 20 year old reruns preferable to Te Reo?)
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October 6, 2009 10:06am
philu

british torys have a good idea…’armchair auditors’..

(can we have the same..please..)

http://whoar.co.nz/2009/conservatives-plan-to-open-up-all-government-spending-to-armchair-auditors/

“..“..In perhaps the most radical plans, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, announced that private-sector executives would form the majority of new non-executive members of government department boards ..

.. and be handed powers to recommend the dismissal of permanent secretaries, the most senior civil servants in Whitehall.

At present most non-executives on departmental boards hail from the public sector.

Maude is also proposing that the top two tiers of the civil service be put on fixed-term contracts.

Drawing on experience in US states such as Missouri, the pay of the 35,000 most senior civil servants, but not their identities, would be published online.

Every item of government spending over £25,000 would also be recorded on the web.

All government contracts worth more than £10,000 would be published online ..

.. unleashing in the words of Maude “armchair auditors” ..

.. happy to crawl over government accounts..”

(anyone here up for that..?..being an ‘armchair auditor’..?..

really ‘open government’..eh..?)

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 6, 2009 10:10am
starboard

Emmerdale – it hasn’t been called Emmerdale Farm since 1989. (Or are even 20 year old reruns preferable to Te Reo?)
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October 6, 2009 10:14am
nickb

That is excellent news phil, thanks for the news, final some fiscal accountability by governmnets, somewhere!

JK take note, who would the public rather trust with their money, some private sector employees on a contract to reduce wasteful spending, or a bunch of commies, Marxists, school teachers, unionists and green hippies?

I hope the Nats take note.

And BTW philu, have you ever thought of perhaps just posting a direct link to the material you are linking to, rather than shamelessly link whoring in an attempt to get us to read the grammatical abortion that is your website? (not that I click on your links).
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October 6, 2009 10:16am
tom hunter

It’s always fun watching some newbie to Kiwiblog going gaga, particularly when they’re the owner of some sad little website that has few visitors and almost no comments, mainly because it is less a pool of information than a showcase for their particular obsessions.

Staggering out from such Stygian gloom into the bright glare of a larger blogsite, they’re overcome with the thought that so many people are reading or watching. Besotted by the audience they perceive, filled with energy, certain that they’re revealing whole new vistas of understanding to the poor benighted bastards of this newly discovered land.

So it has been with Luc Hansen these past few days. He really does seem to think that few, if any, of the regular commentators on Kiwiblog, have heard of or read the likes of Finkelstein, Cole, Mearshiemer, and of course, Chomsky.

For me, the blackest humour has obtained from watching the whole Chomsky-Faurisson / Finkelstein-Zundel linkage play out in minature as Kiwiblog’s prime right-wing jew-hating-bigot has cuddled up to Luc with cooing sighs of approval.

That aside, it was no surprise to see Luc reference the likes of Finkelstein and Cole. The voluminous screed of words, almost every sentence of which is designed not to argue but to emote; guilt, shame, anger, hatred, the endless demonisation of opponents. All of this mixed in with soundbite “facts” pulled from the arse, as if they are not debatable in and of themselves. I call these “onion lies”, each layer built upon the other and each requiring one requiring lengthy rebuttals that, in a verbal contest, make it no contest.

If I can find the time I’ll pull some of the stuff I have from the mouth of Finkelstein and Cole themselves so that readers can see just what sort of academic experts Luc has enlisted. But for the moment I just want to look at three examples from Luc’s mind as an example of his “fresh” thinking.

….Shonky elections are nothing new. Dubya’s Florida “victory”? Muldoon twice forming a govt when the popular vote went for Labour and Bill Rowling? These are internal matters.

If you’re going to talk of shonky elections in the US you might want to include JFK’s 1960 “win” over Nixon, courtesy of all those Chicago graveyards and the “Vote Early, Vote Often” ethos of the old Daley machine. I don’t recall any Republicans moaning and bitching publically about that one, even though they had plenty of shit to throw and the Dems in the town were not exactly hiding their lights under a bush. Or how about LBJ’s first Texas senate win?

But of course, as a leftie you’ll go for the Dubya victory every time. For all the moaning and groaning face facts, the US Supreme Court made a judgement based on hearing arguments from well-heeled, smart lawyers from both sides. Moreover, whatever qualms I might have about an extension of the equal protection clause or limits on states rights, the fact remains that the Florida Supreme Court had actually decided to ignore Florida electoral law by a majority of just 4-3, SCOTUS is actually empowered to make sure that states don’t override the written US Constitution.

And Muldoon? That was the result of the FPP system, which had always contained the possibility for such a result.

Moreover, in both of these cases, the objections, arguments and proposed solutions were transparent and out in the open. For all the immediate partisan squawking, no liberal lawyer has managed to produce even a good, let alone convincing, legal argument against the SCOTUS 2000 decision. Here in NZ the ‘78 and ‘81 elections, combined with the aftermath of the 1984-1993 neo-liberal dominance, resulted in our MMP system – which has it’s own potential for producing results that are not reflective of the will of the people.

The key point that you shamelessly try to obfuscate with this equivalence nonsense is that both the western examples you cite are still light years better than the farcical crap we’ve seen in Iran, where candidates were winnowed out by a selection committee even before the vote rigging got started, and where the end result was authoritarian thugs beating and killing ordinary Iranians who felt cheated that even the pathetic choice they were given was ultimately not allowed.

These are internal matters? The last time I recall that argument being made was by supporters of the old white regime in South Africa. I don’t recall any leftie of the day being too impressed by it.

Iran was invaded by Iraq at the behest of the US (we all understand this, don’t we?)….

I stand before nobody in the degree to which I despise former President Jimmy Carter, a man I would rate as the worst, or perhaps second worst US President of the 20th century.

But even I have never swallowed the idea that Carter requested, ordered, or in any way persauded Saddam Hussein to attack Iran in 1980. I realise that dear old Christopher Hitchens still adheres to this claim, but I figure that’s either a personal foible or just a stubborn refusal to admit that his Trotskyist analysis of 1980 now looks like any other hair-brained leftist theory of imperialist power – perhaps a desparate attempt to maintain some lines of communication with the left that he abandoned with his support of the Iraq War.
We’re asked to believe that Carter gave Saddam a “greenlight” for the attack – and the source for this is one written sentence from Haig to Reagan, summarising that Haig was told by Prince Fahd of Jordan that Carter was on board with the Saudi’s advice to Saddam to go for it. And that’s it! In all the decades since nothing more definitive has ever emerged – no notes from the Saudi side or other Arab parties, who surely now could not give a shit about Carter’s reputation.
No cables. No telegrams. No transcripts of phone calls. No multiple sources with their memories! No records of any kind that indicate when and how Carter got the message across. Not even sidebar discussions from similarly de-classified documents that make references or hints to this claim – or are we to believe that one note was declassified just to stir up the far-left, whilst others remain secret.
It’s far more likely that no other such documentation exists because the Saudi’s were simply bullshitting Saddam in order to bolster his confidence during their August 1980 meeting with him, and then bullshitted Haig later as a way of saying, “hey, even the previous administration was on board with this”.

But this is the reed on which Luc builds his bridge of … At the behest of the US….”.

The “evidence” for it is not even on a par with the crap that was run about Saddam and Kuwait (I’m sure you know that one too), with that poor bloody ambassador, April Glaspie being screwed over by the likes of you after the fact, all because she told Saddam that the US did not take positions on border disputes between frendly countries – their standard stance, and the very thing that many of your intellectual heros claim to desire of them. At least we have multiple sources for that one – and none of them agree with the claims of the far-left.

…..Iraq had been under severe sanctions which, incidentally, directly led to the deaths of over 500.000 Iraqi children.
This nonsense served the anti-American left very well in the 1990’s, when not even they imagined that a US President would actually use military force to overthrow a guy seen as their “pet thug”. It had three sources.

The first was from 1995, when the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) gave officials from the Iraqi Ministry of Health a questionnaire on child mortality and asked them to conduct a survey in the capital city of Baghdad. On the basis of this five-day, 693-household, Iraq-controlled study, the FAO announced in November that “child mortality had increased nearly five fold” since the pre-sanctions era. Richard Garfield, a public health specialist at Columbia University, (and a crtiic of the sanctions and embargos) wrote in his own comprehensive 1999 survey of under-5 deaths in Iraq:

“The 1995 study’s conclusions were subsequently withdrawn by the authors….Notwithstanding the retraction of the original data, their estimate of more than 500,000 excess child deaths due to the embargo is still often repeated by sanctions critics.”

Then, in 1996, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its own report on the humanitarian crisis. It reprinted figures — provided solely by the Iraqi Ministry of Health — showing that a total of 186,000 children under the age of 5 died between 1990 and 1994 in the 15 Saddam-governed provinces. According to these government figures, the number of deaths jumped nearly 500 percent, from 8,903 in 1990 to 52,905 in 1994.

But then the fun really started. Based on these two reports — a five-day study in Baghdad showing a “five fold” increase in child deaths and a Ministry of Health claim that a total of 186,000 children under 5 had died from all causes between 1990 and 1994 — a New York-based advocacy group called the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) concluded in a May 1996 survey that

“these mortality rates translate into a figure of over half a million excess child deaths as a result of sanctions.”

Impressive. CESR not only doubled the Iraqi government’s highest number and attributed all the deaths to the embargo, but they also came up with a very creative comparison that I’m sure you’ve chewed over many times:

“In simple terms, more Iraqi children have died as a result of sanctions than the combined toll of two atomic bombs on Japan.”

Finally, an actual figure of 500,000 was arrived at by UNICEF in a 1999 report that took the Iraq infant and child mortality reduction trendlines of the early 1980’s, calculated (e.g. guesstimated) what they should have been in the 1990s, and then noted the difference. Very sophisticated extrapolation. But even they got pissed off later with the way the claim was being used, to the extent that they began issuing regular press releases stating that:

“The surveys were never intended to provide an absolute figure of how many children have died in Iraq as a result of sanctions [rather they] “show that if the substantial reductions in child mortality in Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s — in other words if there hadn’t been two wars, if sanctions hadn’t been introduced and if investment in social services had been maintained — there would have been 500,000 fewer deaths of children under five.”

Three soundbites from Luc: three throwaway comments that you figured were such minor historical footnotes condemning the West that you could get away with them. And this is before I waste my time looking at the more detailed (cough) arguments of Cole and Finkelstein that you have run here. I see that KIA has has a good go at you and the best you’ve come back with is a kneejerk belief that he’s feeding us “Mossad propaganda”.

Absolutely pathetic. If you want to see criticism of Israel and the US that actually has some weight, and is not grounded in the batshit theories of post-colonialism, multiculturalism, neo-marxism, and is not argued in an hysterically emoting, demonising style – something worth arguing with in other words – I suggest you take a look at virtualmark’s arguments.

In the meantime you deserve the friendship of the likes of David Duke, and you’ll get it.
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October 6, 2009 10:21am
Elijah Lineberry

I was somewhat surprised to read in the NZ Herald that the now in receivership Crafar dairy farm empire owes PGG Wrightson $25 million.

No wonder the share price has collapsed if they are such prize bunnies they allow credit of more than $1 million per farm to a customer.

I know it can be a bit awkward to ask a very good customer for money (and the one thing I have always hated doing in business) but surely someone from PGG Wrightson could have popped around on the day Crafar got a cheque from Fonterra and asked for a payment on his account; Crafar certainly seems the sort of fellow who would have been apologetic and immediately written PGG Wrightson a cheque had his local rep been standing there in front of him.

http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
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October 6, 2009 10:23am
philu

“..(not that I click on your links)…”

ah well..!..no worries for you then..eh..?..nckb..?

and hey..!..your loss..

not having the option to view the twenty+ other stories/links..each day..

(all good shit..!..eh..?..)

so..y’know..!..

(you’d better rush back to the herald..eh..?

wd hate to ruffle the surface of your mental pools of ignorance..

..eh..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 6, 2009 10:27am
Patrick Starr

Phool -Armchair auditor? If you like we already have that in NZ in local government – its called the Annual Plan/LTCCP. Central government decided to subject local government to further public scrutiny and accountability, making a public submission process that ran into the thousands, taking weeks (in some cases months) of public hearings – questioning everything from budgets to park bench placements.

What did it achieve? – quadruple the amount of time to get anything done and increase $rates costs to the levels we see today
If you ever wonder why you don’t get good people working in the public sector it because of the very process you’re subscribing to.

(besides – who are you to question how anyone does their job?)
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October 6, 2009 10:30am
philu

elijahs’/world/vocabulary is ful lof ‘fellows’/’chaps’..

he probaly has ‘high-tea’..

and of course..

would only drink english breakeast..

(maybe darjeeling..(in a pinch/’tight spot’..)

pip-pip..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 6, 2009 10:31am
Elijah Lineberry

Oh no, Phil, I dislike things which are ‘foreign’; I only drink Bell Tea because that is from Dunedin and local. 🙂

http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
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October 6, 2009 10:35am
philu

hooker/stripper ‘starr’…

boy..colour you dumb..eh..?

(do try to keep up..!..eh..?..

you haven’t been inhaling sequins again..?.have you..?.)

the idea is freelance punters..not more civil servants..

say..a retired plumber…

crawls thru the specs/demands of any government contracts on offer..

and can call ‘bullshit!’..at will…

i think it is an excellent idea..

for a raft of reasons..

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 6, 2009 10:37am
Patrick Starr

oh phool – are you stupid or what – its not “more civil servants” that make submissions through LTCCP you numbnuts – its the retired plumbers
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October 6, 2009 10:41am
philu

yeah..ok starr..

whatever..!

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 6, 2009 10:53am
gravedodger

David 09 53, However laudable, TPF to Samoa to assist with reconstruction will not work as his ideas of helping people has the net result of helping himself and I don’t think the Samoans should have to bear that. To demonstrate the gravity of his wrong doing gaoltime is appropriate in spite of the well known mana it is supposed to bring to a certain lawless section of our society.
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October 6, 2009 10:54am
Brian Smaller

More good news. Graham Capill denied parole. Kids everywhere safe until 2014 when he gets released anyway.
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October 6, 2009 11:06am
malcolm

I’m amazed that Crafarms could owe an average of $9M per farm. The papers keep mentioning 20,000 cows on 22 farms, which are very big units for sure, but for a business apparently built up over many years they have an enormous amount of debt.

They don’t look like they squandered much on women and fast cars, either.
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October 6, 2009 11:08am
nickb

Looks like they may have acaught the Norsewood gunman.
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October 6, 2009 11:11am
malcolm

More good news. Graham Capill denied parole. Kids everywhere safe until 2014 when he gets released anyway.

He’ll probably find Jeeesussss in prison and come out a righteous and repentant man, hellbent on arresting the moral decline of young NZers . . . . Oh, wait.
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October 6, 2009 11:17am
Patrick Starr

“yeah..ok starr..
whatever..!”

apology accepted
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October 6, 2009 11:18am
malcolm

Looks like they may have acaught the Norsewood gunman.

He probably wished he was the Norsewear gunman.
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October 6, 2009 11:25am
philu

here is some round-up..

for any ‘green-shooters’ lurking in the vicinity..

http://whoar.co.nz/2009/bernankes-remedy-pump-more-blood-into-a-corpse/

“..Credit is everything.

Without credit expansion there’s no recovery because there’s no pick-up in overall demand.

But credit growth is going backwards.

The banks have tightened lending standards and the pool of credit-worthy applicants has vanished.

Bank lending is off 14 per cent since October 2008.

Private credit is presently decreasing at a 10.5 per cent annual rate.

The situation is getting worse, not better.

From the UK Telegraph:

“Both bank credit and the M3 money supply in the United States have been contracting at rates comparable to the onset of the Great Depression since early summer ..

.. raising fears of a double-dip recession in 2010 .. and a slide into debt-deflation…

“Similar concerns have been raised by David Rosenberg, chief strategist at Gluskin Sheff, who said that over the four weeks up to August 24, bank credit shrank at an ‘epic’ 9pc annual pace, the M2 money supply shrank at 12.2pc and M1 shrank at 6.5pc.

“’For the first time in the post-Second World War era, we have deflation in credit, wages and rents and, from our lens, this is a toxic brew,’he said. (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, “US credit shrinks at Great Depression rate prompting fears of double-dip recession”, UK Telegraph)

Foreclosures, delinquencies and defaults are all up.

Foreclosure activity is currently at 300,000-plus per month and rising.

A huge shadow inventory is being kept off-market to maintain prices.

The drip, drip, drip-effect of excess inventory dumped onto the market will keep housing in the doldrums for a decade.

Homeowners are unable to borrow on underwater homes.

Everything points to a long-term slump in spending.

Corporations are finding it harder to roll over their debt, bank loans are defaulting at a historic pace ..

.. and commercial real estate is imploding.

Credit destruction is unprecedented, massive and ongoing.

The capital hole is bigger than the Fed and bigger than the Treasury.

It can’t be plugged with liquidity alone.

For now, the government can fiddle GDP with $800 billion infusion of stimulus ..

.. but what happens when the political will for more deficit spending dissipates?

What happens when foreign investors demand the Fed stop writing checks on an overdrawn account?

The Fed has fixed nothing.

The banks are still underwater, output is at record lows, and unemployment is climbing towards 10 per cent.

Fed chair Ben Bernanke’s multi-trillion dollar rescue programs have kept a wobbly system upright ..

.. but nothing more.

The economy’s underlying problems are still the same.

The Fed’s quantitative easing (monetization) program has sent stocks surging ..

.. but done nothing to stimulate the economy.

That’s because equities bubbles have negligible impact on aggregate demand;..

.. there’s no knock-on effect.

The real economy is still flatlining .. while Wall Street parties on.

Bernanke’s plan has been a total wash.

The government cannot deficit spend forever..”

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 6, 2009 11:27am
side show bob

PhilU, let me know when Shonkey hires a armchair auditor to take inventory of our folks that have a strong aversion to work. I’m sure you could be of service and point out characteristics of those long term unemployed. And perhaps a website displaying names for those on a benefit for more then six months, those with the longest benefit history get top billing at the front of the list, now that would be interesting reading.
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October 6, 2009 11:30am
nickb

And your answer to this phil would be for government to spend even more?

LOL. I try to take you seriously, but I do find it hard.
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October 6, 2009 11:33am
side show bob

“The government cannot deficit spend forever..” . So true, be it the US or NZ. Time to tighten that belt. How can we as a country borrow 400 mill a week and lie straight in bed at night ? Just as Bernanke’s plan “has been a total wash”, Bill and John’s plan is for the shit heap.
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October 6, 2009 11:44am
Luc Hansen

Wow, Tom, nice to see you care. You are perfectly entitled to your own interpretation of historical events. Although you do perhaps show your true colours with the screeds of personal invective and a rejection of post-colonialism and multi-culturalism. Intolerance and racism writ bold.

Conflating apartheid with election irregularities is quite stunning and diminishes apartheid as the crime against humanity it was and is now in historic Palestine. Under FPP gerrymandering was often alleged so MMP removes that potential irregularity from our system. . Florida was shonky for lots of reasons beyond the final court vote which was strictly along partisan lines. If the court’s alignment had been reversed, so would the result. In my view, that’s shonky no matter which way it went.

We don’t go to war over shonky elections was my point. Do you disgree?

As regards the US complicity in Iraq’s invasion of Iran, what evidence do you expect to find? Written orders to Saddam in the public record? The fact is that the US and Britain supplied Saddam with the chemical warfare capacity he used to devastating effect against Iranians. There is no doubt the US cuddled up to Saddam in an effort to remove the ” heinous” Islamic regime whose main crime was to remove the Shah and take control of their own resources.

With regards to the effects of sanctions on Iraq’s children, your post is a little confusing. Unicef suggested 500,000 for the decade, you suggest 48,000 over 4 years. Generally, I take UN figures if they are available. Either way, it adds up to a lot of kids who took the brunt of totally unnecessary and cruel sanctions, which I opposed from the moment of being enacted for exactly the reason that the young and the poor would suffer the most. You want to nibble around the edges and I’m not exactly sure what your point is.

I have already pointed out to Kiwi that world opinion is well and truly in favour of a two state solution in Palestine “48. If it wasn’t for one country, the US, Israel would have been forced to enact the international consensus. Instead we have this interminable to and fro about who did what, when and to whom, and red herrings (eg Iran as an existential threat – just a joke!)

Have a nice day.
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October 6, 2009 12:37pm
Hurf Durf

energy-saving shower-heads.

LMAO. Keep playing that one, greenfly, if you want your party will crash below 5% in 2011.

If it wasn’t for one country, the US, Israel would have been forced to enact the international consensus.

If it wasn’t for the US in 1948, Israel would have been strangled at birth by eternally angry Arabs. General rule is: Hamas disarms, peace comes. Israel disarms, Israel is destroyed.
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October 6, 2009 12:59pm
Hurf Durf

This is bound to make the socialist fringe extremely unhappy.

Local Government Minister Rodney Hide wants a Boris Johnson-type to lead the new Auckland Super City.

Mr Hide, who has publicly stated he does not think any of the incumbent mayors are up to the Super City mayoralty, has fallen for the colourful personality of the London mayor.

Their paths crossed when Mr Hide was meeting the deputy mayor of London, Richard Barnes, on a Super City fact-finding visit to London, Toronto, Portland and Los Angeles.

Mr Johnson told the Act leader to “seize power” when it comes to the Auckland Super City.

Mr Hide said he took the advice to mean to go for it and not waver in the biggest shake-up of local government since 1989.

Mr Hide said Mr Johnson, a conservative politician who swept to power in May last year, was clearly eccentric but also super intelligent and had given London a great personality and focal point for leadership.
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October 6, 2009 1:07pm
david

Field got 6 years
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October 6, 2009 1:12pm
adc

anyone else think the designs for Queen’s Wharf are all sh*te?

http://www.queenswharf.org.nz

The first one looks like someone dumped a scrap-yard on it. Who is judging this?
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October 6, 2009 1:14pm
RRM

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/2934748/Taito-Phillip-Field-jailed-for-six-years
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October 6, 2009 1:18pm
Inventory2

So – if Taito Phillip Field got six years when he was “only guilty of trying to be helpful”, what might he have been sentenced to if he’d been corrupt?

A just end to a shameful saga.
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October 6, 2009 1:19pm
Elijah Lineberry

“The racist, capitalist, member of the ‘boss class’, Samoan hating Judge has really given Phillip Field the shaft; an unfair six years in prison for only trying to help poor people in need; those unfortunate souls who are also victims of similar capitalist racism…”

Oh, sorry, was just composing a Labour party/Field family press release 😉

http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
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October 6, 2009 1:25pm
RRM

Quoting http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com:

Speaking of appropriate… let this be a lesson to political party selection committees; if you add Field to Melissa Lee, Hone Hariwira (acting as his own bagman), Alamein Kopu and that Tory Sikh chappie you can see what happens when seats in Parliament are given to people not suited to such responsibility.

I long for the days when our Parliament consisted of ‘normal’ people; rich, white, middle aged men; before Parliament was turned into a multi cultural freak show where foreign wideboys got elected and started ripping everybody off.

/quote

[DPF: What a sad viewpoint. First of all, all of the above are not foreigners. They are Kiwis. Secondly anyone can selectively pick and generalise. Does he think Hekia Parata, Sam Lotu-Iiga etc are not capable MPs?]
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October 6, 2009 1:31pm
gravedodger

Sadly RRM, TPF was elected and reelected by his people in spite of his obvious predilection to what most regard as corrupt practice and he still has an army of supporters who don’t regard him as crooked. I accept and concur with the problem, you have with parties “balancing” their ticket with ethnic representatives for general appeal. Enough ‘substandards’ get elected to electorate seats as it is and that is the main point of my personal opposition to MMP and list candidates. I think he deserved a longer sentence but am so relieved he didn’t get less. As for the judge allowing an 18 month discount for his “good works”, well ROTFLMAO
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October 6, 2009 1:57pm
tom hunter

You are perfectly entitled to your own interpretation of historical events.

Gee, thanks Your Majesty. Presumably you won’t be reporting me to the Human Rights Commission as you threatened to do with another poster here the other day.

Although you do perhaps show your true colours with the screeds of personal invective and a rejection of post-colonialism and multi-culturalism.

You quote and refer to Finkelstein and Cole and have the chutzpah to write that! Sweet.

I think that you’ve attempted to endulge in their debating style – the misdirections, the throwaway soundbites, the refusal to argue on point, and of course the constant implication that your debating opponent operates from the most base of motives while indulging in special pleading about the need for civility. But given your sad attempts here it would seem that you just don’t have the chops to pull it off…..

Tom, nice to see you care.

……and as such I no longer have to, but can simply endulge in mockery:

Either way, it adds up to a lot of kids who took the brunt of totally unnecessary and cruel sanctions, which I opposed from the moment of being enacted for exactly the reason that the young and the poor would suffer the most.

How caring and compassonate of you.

Without that one veto, Israel would by now be suffocating under extensive sanctions.
</blockquote

Oh dear. Perhaps young and poor jews don’t suffocate as easily as young and poor Iraqis, but I'm sure you're the expert on that.

Intolerance and racism writ bold indeed.

Irony – esp. Dramatic or Tragic Irony
literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character’s words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.
Oxford American Dictionary
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October 6, 2009 1:58pm
Luc Hansen

So what’s English going to get?

i wonder if a little shiver ran down his spine.
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October 6, 2009 2:09pm
Inventory2

Luc – I didn’t realise that English had broken any laws.
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October 6, 2009 2:22pm
Luc Hansen

geez, hurf, you really show your ignorance above.

The US was barely involved at all. Checkoslovakia sold Israel arms during the truce, and these arms meant Israel carried on the fight to seize more land and expel more Palestinians. from memory, I think Russia recognised Israel even before the US. Early Zionists were socialists – did you know that, hurf? The unquestioning support from the US really took off after 1967, purely a geo-political power play supposedly in the US national interest. it’s coming back now to bite them on the bum!

I see that http://www.palestinianmothers.com has been hacked. Other pro-peace sites have been hacked recently. No prizes for guessing the nationality of the hackers! I guess I will find out how good MacAfee is…so far so good.
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October 6, 2009 2:33pm
Hurf Durf

So the USSR and socialism is reponsible for evil imperial Zionist Joooooooooooooooooooooo Israel? Colour me shocked.
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October 6, 2009 2:51pm
virtualmark

Luc, I don’t buy the “if it wasn’t for one country, the US, Israel would have been forced to enact the international consensus” [for a two-state solution].

Voting for a soft resolution at the UN asking for a two-state solution is one thing. Being asked to actively support or force its implementation is quite another. I really don’t think the West has any appetite to force Israel into a two-state solution. And the Arab regimes don’t have any appetite for it either.

Sure, there’s no end of special envoys to the Palestineans. And ex- or soon-to-be-ex- Presidents looking to burnish their chances of a Nobel Peace Prize. But those are the product of playing to other Middle Eastern powers and/or personal ambition. Western countries do not have the appetite to compromise their own positions to help a bunch of Palestineans who have consistently shown themselves to be self-destructive.

And ultimately a two-state solution is an illusory solution. It is not a solution since Palestine would be independent in name only. It would be economically and geographically dependent on Israel.

So frankly, the reality is that Palestine is trapped four ways. First, they are trapped by the Israelis. Second, they are trapped by the Arab regimes. Third, they are trapped by geography, which makes any settlement a preface to dependency on Israel. Finally, they are trapped in the reality in which they exist, which oscillates between being minimally bearable to unbearable and back. Their choices are to give up autonomy and nationalism in favor of economic dependency, or retain autonomy and nationalism expressed through wars that they can survive but can never win.

The Palestinians only solution to this dilemma is the destruction of Israel. But they lack the ability to destroy Israel. So the destruction of Israel represents a far-fetched scenario, that were it to happen, would mean that other nations hostile to Israel play a major role. But if they did play such a role, there is nothing in their history, ideology or position that indicates they would find the creation of a Palestinian state in their interests. Each would have very different ideas of what to do in the event of Israel’s destruction. They all want a greater Syria, or a greater Egypt, or a greater Jordan.

And this “destruction of Israel” is why the Palestinians have always been a threat to other Arab states. Achieving their national aspiration requires significant risk-taking by other states. This divergence of interest between the Palestinians and existing Arab states always has been the Achilles heel of Palestinian nationalism. The Palestinians must defeat Israel to have a state, and to achieve that they must have other Arab states willing to undertake the primary burden of defeating Israel. This has not been in the interests of other Arab states, and therefore the Palestinians have persistently worked against them (for example, the PLO’s problems with Jordan).

So, the Palestinians can neither live with a two-state solution, nor achieve the destruction of Israel. Nor do they have room to retreat. They can’t go forward and they can’t go back. They are trapped, as Palestinians seemingly destined not to have a Palestine.
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October 6, 2009 3:50pm
DJP6-25

davidp (626) Made me smile too. I bookmarked it.

cheers

David Prosser
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October 6, 2009 6:14pm
TimG_Oz

Great post Tom Hunter.

Yes I thought it was interesting this LH guy shows up. Within his first few posts he had basically stated “All Israeli (Jews) are untrustable evil bastards”. Then he has carried on to call anyone racist who might not think that Israel existing is such a terrible thing.

It is a very bizarre obsession of his over Israel indeed. Why post endlessly on a NZ political blog about the (supposed) “evils” of Israel? Why the obsession? He said he grew up in a household that supports Israel, but has given little else away.

For the record, when I was there I was very optimistic about a lasting peace with a two-state solution. If anyone is interested (probably not), I would be very happy to share my observations during my time, when I was hosted by Jews (Religious, secular, Yemeni, Russian etc), Arabs, Christians, Druze, Bedouin, as well as many other parts of the diverse population.

I was never hosted by Hamas or Hezbollah, but I don’t think that denies a balanced viewpoint 😉
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October 6, 2009 6:19pm
DJP6-25

virtualmark (838) That’s the best analysis of the situation I’ve seen on a blog. I couldn’t agree more.

cheers

David Prosser
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October 6, 2009 6:22pm
Fletch

Dammit, these new ads on Kiwiblog are seriously slowing down the loading of the page (I’m on dialup) >:(
Not sure if it’s the adsfacs ones or the scoop ones. I have them all adblocked in Firefox but they still seem to need to load in the background before the page is displayed. It’s taking like 30 seconds after I click on a post.
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October 6, 2009 6:44pm
Luc Hansen

Inventory2:

Well, we learn something every day, don’t we.

All these MPs making ” mistakes.” Charge the lot with fraud, I say!

Not just the Samoan one.

The rest of you will have to wait, but the personal vitriol is just so predictable.
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October 6, 2009 7:15pm
malcolm

Fletch, I’m also on Firefox with Adblock. Of course I wouldn’t possibly condone visiting Kiwiblog and blocking the very ads which help pay for it…. However, I suggest you check the url patterns. Sometimes the url which adblock suggests is not general enough.
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October 6, 2009 7:21pm
Viking2

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5389461/the-great-global-warming-scam-ctd.thtml
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October 6, 2009 7:39pm
getstaffed

TV3 has revealed that our resident you’re-only-picking-on-me-beacuse-i’m-gay MP spent $131,000 on travel in 6 months. An increase on what was previously reported beacuse $48,000 on one trip has only just been added to his total.
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October 6, 2009 8:03pm
thedavincimode

“(all good shit..!..eh..?..)”

Well done little fetid mini Man Magpie aka the lone blogger at the end of the cubicle. 50% correct.

Great also to see you take such an interest in the expenditure of public funds. Feel free to make a contribution some time.

He must be close to 15 by now – only a year to go?
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October 6, 2009 8:13pm
malcolm

Chris Cash Carter:

$57,408 for him and his partner Peter Kaiser to spent 11 days in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and China.

I know what you’re all going to say. But wait. It wasn’t a big piss-taking jolly on the taxpayers. No. He was New Zealand’s representative at the Asia Pacific Interfaith Co-operation for Peace and Harmony.

So there.
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October 6, 2009 8:41pm
kaya

Close up tonight was a tragic case of “When bureaucracy goes REALLY bad…..”

A couple of ladies had been making jams and cakes for the local hospice to sell for fundraising. Got the hospice about $5000 per year. The council shut them down because someone complained they weren’t in a commercial kitchen and didn’t comply with Food Safety regulations………………

OK the dude from FSA fronted and looked suitably sheepish, though he did say they had been working to resolve the regulation for a couple of years. WHAT?????!!!! HOW LONG????!!! He did look embarrassed poor bastard, must have drawn the short straw.

Alison Lees, media person for the Far North District Council came across well, right up until you interpret what she actually said. “We received a complaint and we have to act on it, not what we want to do but……..” She deserves the old Noel Edmonds award The Jobsworth. Wouldn’t you just tell the complainant to go and boil their head then sit back and accept the applause of 99.99% of the country?
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October 6, 2009 9:36pm
nickb

What a joke kaya. Shame that thousands of our small businesses have to wade through this kind of socialist quicksand everyday.
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October 6, 2009 9:44pm
Patrick Starr

“He must be close to 15 by now – only a year to go?”

unfortunately he can keep collecting the shiny bits until Jnr’s 19 – so long as he stays in school, which I’m sure big Magpie has made sure of.
Nonetheless he wont be able to stay home alone (allowing big to work in paid employment) until he’s at least 20 which will then allow big magpie to stay financed for another 4 years before he moves to the dole (or super)
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October 6, 2009 9:45pm
getstaffed

From Stuff:

Pilots, cabin crew in mid-air brawl
A mid-air scuffle between pilots and crew of an Air India flight at the weekend did not endanger the 106 passengers on board, said a spokesman for the airline which has ordered an inquiry.

Just when we thought in-flight entertainment couldn’t become any more crap, Air India raises the bar. Slugging, wrestling and scratching no doubt. Someone should have found the jelly 🙂
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October 6, 2009 10:12pm
Luc Hansen

Hi Tom

thank you for your reply: nice inversion argumentation.

But Tom, you wrote: the batshit theories of post-colonialism, multiculturalism, neo-marxism…

I haven’t even bothered looking up neo-marxism. But we can see from that comment that you are an imperialist and a racist, can we not? By all means expand on your world view if you think I have done you an injustice.

The only point to the rest of your rant that I can decipher, aside from the usual ad hominem attacks, is creating an equivalence between sanctions on Iraq, controlled by a ruthless dictator and a ruling class who simply passed the human cost of sanctions onto the weakest and most vulnerable in that society, and sanctions on Israel, a genuinely democratic society and a society that likes to believe it is legally and morally correct. Of course, in regards to Palestinians and their Arab neighbours, they are not. Their self-delusion is entirely self-inflicted but, nevertheless, real for them.

Tom, I admit, I’m just missing something here – your suggestions as to how to resolve the situation of the ongoing oppression of real human beings, living under the constant threat of imprisonment or death at the hands of Israel, and Jewish Israelis living in fear of ongoing terrorist attacks by Palestinians.

Instead of hurling abuse and disputed ” facts”, how about offering solutions. Now that would be a debate worth having. Don’t forget to factor in an equality of a right to exist between, if you like, two peoples.

I look forward to your response.
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October 6, 2009 11:05pm
philu

gee stuffed..!

whoar had that story..yesterday..

(‘always first with the best’..eh..?..

or is it ‘always best with the first’..?..)

spoilt for choice..eh..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 6, 2009 11:10pm
Luc Hansen

TomG_Oz

Thank you for the misrepresentation. I will restrain myself from comments on underarm bowling. Your opening comments are simply untrue. I showed up here posting on anything but Israel/Palestine, but did, provocatively, I admit, link my name to my blog. After a few posts, the invective began.

I especially like the generalisation that I said ” BASICALLY” all Jews are blah blah blah when I said and believe nothing of the sort. Good diversionary tactic.

I only label as racist people who post racist comments. Diminishing Palestinians as a people is racist. Even Jewish Israelis say ” two states for two peoples” even if they really mean: we want the whole lot!

I’m not sure what you mean by an obsession about Israel. The Israel/Palestine conflict has been very prominent for a very long time. Naturally, I have taken an interest in it and tried to be evenhanded in my deliberations. A blog is a great way to keep track of events and thoughts. I have other blogs. Are they obsessions too? If you want to know why I linked my name to this particular blog, the answer is because after keeping an eye on this place for a while, I decided to dip my toes into the water. After all, this site is the Fox News of Aotearoa’s blogosphere! 🙂

It’s great that you were optimistic about a two-state solution but you miss this very salient point:

It is not what the Zionist Ashkenazi elite who control Israel want. I base this statement entirely facts. I am happy to expand on that and if you visit my blog you can contact me directly, no worries. Even if you then publish my email address on here, still no worries. I have the courage of my convictions. But I am open to persuasive arguments in rebuttal.

Try me.
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October 6, 2009 11:43pm
Luc Hansen

VM

That’s a thoughtful post and I appreciate the total absence of personal insults. Many thanks.

When I say ” force” I actually invoke the desire of Israelis to be seen as good global citizens, even if their actions denote the exact opposite. Just the imposition of sanctions would result, I believe, in great soul-searching in Israel and a realisation that the disapproval of their conduct is permanent and even valid.

I disagree that Palestinians have shown themselves to be self-destructive. There are two problems with that statement. One is that it is, I am sorry to say, inherently racist. I mean, if you believed the shit in the Bible, you could say Jews, until 1948, some 3000 or more years after Judaism was supposedly formulated, were inherently self-destructive ‘cos they allowed themselves to be expelled and slaughtered by all and sundry. I don’t believe that biblical crap. Do you? But I certainly believe that Jews were cruelly mistreated by Europeans. And through no fault of their own. It’s called prejudice. It’s called scapegoating. Humans are expert at it.

Arab regimes have never been enthusiastic in supporting Palestinians. This is where misconceptions begin. If the Arab states had fully committed to eliminating the Jewish state that became Israel, I hate to think of the slaughter of Jews in Palestine that would have occurred.

Although we collectively name a grouping of people as Arabs, the truth is they are remarkably diverse and different in culture, possibly none more so than Palestinians given their geographical importance in long gone days and the relentless parade of imperialists they have endured.

In my view, beginning with the secret agreement of Jordan and Israel for Jordan to take East Jerusalem and the West Bank and not to participate in any other fighting in 1948 is yet another indication of the dupicity Palestinians are enduring to this day. By the way, you don’t see anything of the fat that late in that war, Israel, ie the early Zionists under Ben Gurion, reneged on that agreement and tried to take that territory anyway. Repelling that attempt was about the only success story for Arabs in that whole sorry saga.

The fact that neighbouring Arab states have their own agendas should not detract from the plight of the Palestinians, in my opinion.

You say the two state solution would be illusory. I agree, but for different reasons. I see the two state solution as a pause, a pause where peace can break out, where Palestinians can act as free agents, but definitely as a pause because eventually a demand for equal rights would take primacy, justifiably, in their consciousness. A civil rights movements, as in SA.

Palestinians do not have to defeat Israel, militarily or otherwise. Although, of course, that depends on your definition of defeat. Would recognition by Israel of the injustice meted out to Palestinians since early in the 20th century and redressing that imply defeat? I think it’s the reverse.
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October 7, 2009 12:43am
Luc Hansen

Here is an email to me and about 50,000 others on the result of the Goldstone enquiry and the duplicity of their now non-elected leaders and the US:

From Mazin Qumsiyeh.

This message will be rather short

It is hard to describe our emotions in the past three days in Palestine since we heard of the Palestinian “leadership” withdrawal of the discussions at the UN Human Rights Council about the Goldstone report. Can those who made the decision look straight in the eyes of the families of the 400 children butchered in Gaza and tell them that this was politically necessary because Hillary Clinton asked them to do it (the same administration that failed to even get the rapist to have a short pause in his rape!)? Maybe just one family (attached picture)? And will the rest of us (and yes each of us is responsible) be able to look into these same eyes and tell them we were satisfied with expressing sympathy and uttering words? Who decreed that popular civil action cannot be directed at those who harm the cause and happen to also be Palestinian? Will our shame, anger and revulsion be NOW moved to civil action? Will we really have a democratic civil society or one ruled by a clique of elites? Will decent people in Fateh stand-up to correct this trend? Will we say enough is enough and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Demonstration in AlManara Square Ramallah today (monday) at noon.

Palestinians drop endorsement of Goldstone report on Gaza war

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1002/p99s01-duts.html

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Decision of Palestinian Leadership and International Pressure an Insult to the Victims

Adalah * Addameer * Aldameer * Al Haq * Al Mezan * Badil * Civic Coalition for Jerusalem * DCI-Palestine * ENSAN Centre * Independent Commission for Human Rights * Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre * Palestinian Centre for Human Rights * Ramallah Centre for Human Rights Studies * Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling *

As human rights organisations we strongly condemn the Palestinian leaderships’ decision to defer the proposal endorsing all the recommendations of the Fact Finding Mission, and the pressure exerted by certain members of the international community. Such pressure is in conflict with States international obligations, and is an insult to the Palestinian people.

http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=1273&CategoryId=1

And below is the urgent statement by the The Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO)

On this issue, I will send more in Arabic to our Arab readers

Mazin Qumsiyeh

A Bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home

http://qumsiyeh.org

PNGO condemns PA request of delaying endorsement of Goldstone recommendations

PNGO expresses its bewilderment and strongly condemns the Palestinian Authority’s withdrawal of its draft resolution supporting the recommendations contained in the Goldstone Report, resulting in a deferral of a vote to endorse the report in the Human Rights Council to March 2010. The report suggests that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity were committed by the Israeli military during its 23-day offensive in Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009.

PNGO considers that this move by the Palestinian Authority (PA) is an insult to the victims of Operation Cast Lead, and actively facilitates the ongoing impunity of suspected Israeli war criminals; while the siege on Gaza enters its 28th month, Israeli military attacks on the Palestinian population are ongoing and settlement expansion in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continues unabated. PNGO is shocked at the suggestion by the PA that accountability for the victims in Gaza could adversely affect the peace process.

PNGO asks Palestinian political parties to immediately adopt a clear position about the PA decision and to request from the PA a public explanation. This decision has triggered embarrassment and disappointment among Palestinians and activists in the international community, who have made efforts to bring perpetrators of war crimes in Gaza to justice. The Palestinian Authority has wasted an important opportunity towards ensuring accountability of the State of Israel for their war crimes and human rights violations.

In the words of Justice Goldstone at the presentation of his report at the HRC on 29 September: “This is the time for action. The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence.”

The Palestinian NGOs Network(PNGO)
Ramallah
Tel: +972-2-2975320/1
Fax: +972-2-2950704
Email: pngonet@pngo.net
Website: http://www.pngo.net
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October 7, 2009 12:59am
Luc Hansen

This just came into my inbox:

This message will be rather short

It is hard to describe our emotions in the past three days in Palestine since we heard of the Palestinian “leadership” withdrawal of the discussions at the UN Human Rights Council about the Goldstone report. Can those who made the decision look straight in the eyes of the families of the 400 children butchered in Gaza and tell them that this was politically necessary because Hillary Clinton asked them to do it (the same administration that failed to even get the rapist to have a short pause in his rape!)? Maybe just one family (attached picture)? And will the rest of us (and yes each of us is responsible) be able to look into these same eyes and tell them we were satisfied with expressing sympathy and uttering words? Who decreed that popular civil action cannot be directed at those who harm the cause and happen to also be Palestinian? Will our shame, anger and revulsion be NOW moved to civil action? Will we really have a democratic civil society or one ruled by a clique of elites? Will decent people in Fateh stand-up to correct this trend? Will we say enough is enough and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back? Demonstration in AlManara Square Ramallah today (monday) at noon.

Palestinians drop endorsement of Goldstone report on Gaza war

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1002/p99s01-duts.html

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Decision of Palestinian Leadership and International Pressure an Insult to the Victims

Adalah * Addameer * Aldameer * Al Haq * Al Mezan * Badil * Civic Coalition for Jerusalem * DCI-Palestine * ENSAN Centre * Independent Commission for Human Rights * Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre * Palestinian Centre for Human Rights * Ramallah Centre for Human Rights Studies * Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling *

As human rights organisations we strongly condemn the Palestinian leaderships’ decision to defer the proposal endorsing all the recommendations of the Fact Finding Mission, and the pressure exerted by certain members of the international community. Such pressure is in conflict with States international obligations, and is an insult to the Palestinian people.

http://www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=1273&CategoryId=1

And below is the urgent statement by the The Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO)

On this issue, I will send more in Arabic to our Arab readers

Mazin Qumsiyeh

A Bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home

http://qumsiyeh.org

PNGO condemns PA request of delaying endorsement of Goldstone recommendations

PNGO expresses its bewilderment and strongly condemns the Palestinian Authority’s withdrawal of its draft resolution supporting the recommendations contained in the Goldstone Report, resulting in a deferral of a vote to endorse the report in the Human Rights Council to March 2010. The report suggests that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity were committed by the Israeli military during its 23-day offensive in Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009.

PNGO considers that this move by the Palestinian Authority (PA) is an insult to the victims of Operation Cast Lead, and actively facilitates the ongoing impunity of suspected Israeli war criminals; while the siege on Gaza enters its 28th month, Israeli military attacks on the Palestinian population are ongoing and settlement expansion in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, continues unabated. PNGO is shocked at the suggestion by the PA that accountability for the victims in Gaza could adversely affect the peace process.

PNGO asks Palestinian political parties to immediately adopt a clear position about the PA decision and to request from the PA a public explanation. This decision has triggered embarrassment and disappointment among Palestinians and activists in the international community, who have made efforts to bring perpetrators of war crimes in Gaza to justice. The Palestinian Authority has wasted an important opportunity towards ensuring accountability of the State of Israel for their war crimes and human rights violations.

In the words of Justice Goldstone at the presentation of his report at the HRC on 29 September: “This is the time for action. The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence.”

The Palestinian NGOs Network(PNGO)
Ramallah
Tel: +972-2-2975320/1
Fax: +972-2-2950704
Email: pngonet@pngo.net
Website: http://www.pngo.net
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October 7, 2009 1:05am

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