General Debate 6 January 2009

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Ryan Sproull

http://buzztracker.org/

Here’s a cool little tool. It shows where in the world most English-language stories are about. Click back over the last few weeks. You’ll find a sudden shift from stories about lots of places to most stories being in one place. Kudos to ONE News last night for reminding viewers that Darfur exists.
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January 6, 2009 10:55am
MyNameIsJack

Just gave Ryan a thumbs up, for no other reason than some twat gave him a down, probably because his name is Ryan.
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January 6, 2009 11:34am
reid

This is for those who understand what M1 is.
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January 6, 2009 12:04pm
Turpin

Thanks for that Ryan and Reid.

I looked up Dhimmiwatch this morning to fidn this,
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/

Fitzgerald: The UN: Thoroughly infiltrated and taken over by Muslims at every level

It is hard to think of an organization that has been more thoroughly infiltrated and taken over by Muslims at every level, than the United Nations. It has for decades been filled with such willing collaborators as Edward Mortimer, the former Chief Speech Writer and Senior Adviser, as he billed himself, to Kofi Annan — and for all I know, perhaps he’s still senior-advising and chief-speech-writing for that Innocent Abroad Ban Ki-Moon, especially when it comes to Muslim matters.

This infiltration can be seen everywhere, from the actual staffing of the U.N. secretariat, to the power of the Islamic bloc, which is the last sizable voting bloc left now that the Soviet bloc has dissolved. What should be the bloc of enlightened democracies has lost its way — not least because of the effect of the anti-Israel atmosphere with which the United Nations is suffused, and the atmosphere of apologetics for Islam with which it is also suffused. And then of course there are those Western countries whose elites are terrified of offending the aggressive and dangerous Muslims who are now living in their very midst, and about which they have not a clue as to what to do. At the United Nations, Islam, or the Organization of the Islamic Conference, whenever Israel or Darfur or anything to do with Islam comes up, effectively calls the tune.

.

well what do all of you fellas think about the premise that the UN has been suborned by the Islamist causes?
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January 6, 2009 12:09pm
Ryan Sproull

I think it would be difficult to imagine a United Nations that got any kind of strong approval from FrontPageMag.
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January 6, 2009 12:18pm
Ryan Sproull

Turpin,

What is the feared scenario if the infiltration continues?
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January 6, 2009 12:24pm
reid

“well what do all of you fellas think about the premise that the UN has been suborned by the Islamist causes?”

I think at any one time different people see the UN as being subourned to all sorts of causes, Turpin.

Personally I see it permanently subourned to the people that play games, like bring us the bullshit propaganda that’s resulted in (a) AGW and (b) the ‘war on terror.’ The ‘tell’ is the media’s one-sided and biased use of constant patterns to paint the pictures. Some don’t or just can’t see it, but I do. To me it’s as obvious as Hitler’s propaganda in the 30’s would have been to me if I were alive then. I observe that even some very intelligent Brits fell for it during most of that decade. To me however, it’s obvious. It’s not that every single event is manipulated, many just happen. They wind up the doll and set it in motion.
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January 6, 2009 1:12pm
Patrick Starr

DPF. You posted a while back about your MySky Hdi. Have you encountered any problems with the remote? – Mine appears to only work on occasions and when directly in from of box – also chews though batteries?
Also have you noticed the paid box offices movies only last 24 hrs on the hard drive?
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January 6, 2009 1:46pm
reid

.
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January 6, 2009 2:04pm
PhilBest

Look, anyone who expects the U.N. to devote itself to the advancement of secular liberal principles in the world, you are dreaming. Of its member states, how many are even democracies at all? Mark Steyn described the UN accurately, as 30 kgs of ice cream mixed with 160 kgs of sheep turds, and we expect the whole to taste more like ice cream than like sheep turds? Someone else who I can’t remember now, called it 160 cannibals and 30 civilised people taking a regular vote on what to have for dinner.

What the dreamers THINK we’ve got, is something like an “International Concert of Democracies”; the trouble is, we haven’t got that, if we did, it would only have about 30 members; and what’s more, if the world’s democracies DID try to establish such a thing, all those same lefty dreamers would be noisily opposing it as “racism” and “cultural imperialism” and stuff like that. One can’t help suspecting that the brightest, most knowing lefties actually regard the UN as a handy means for undermining the West along with a whole lot of the other completely contradictory stuff they support.
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January 6, 2009 2:21pm
Ryan Sproull

PhilBest,

If you haven’t seen this already, I suspect you’d enjoy it: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/
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January 6, 2009 2:25pm
PhilBest

Thanks for your interest, Ryan, yes I am well aware of “Discover The Networks”; they occupy a significant part of the home page on every issue of “Frontpage Magazine”, which is one of my “daily visit” sites. They do an incredible job.

“The Closing Argument” by John Perazzo, is one of the most outstanding things to appear on “Discover The Networks”:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2336
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January 6, 2009 2:48pm
PhilBest

And BTW Ryan, if you haven’t seen it, I just said THIS on another thread:

We need a lot more people reading “Frontpage” Magazine.

In the current issue; there is the article you (Turpin) have linked to, on Egypt’s “Double Game”; there is one on the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza; one by Alan Dershowitz on Israel’s legal right to do what it is doing; one by Theodore Dalrymple on Cuba’s 5 decades of lost hopes; one by Robert Spencer on the need to defend freedom of speech in the face of Islamist intimidation and Eurolefty appeasement; one by David Solway on examples of media bias over the last couple of days; one on “the confused economic musings of the Archbishop of Canterbury”; one very thorough one on the Hamas organisation, origins and goals; one by J J Carafano on US National Security issues for 2009; one by Steven Milloy on a recent completely nutty Greeny proposal; one by Roger Simon on the New York Times’ defamation of John McCain over an alleged affair; and a whole lot more. That is just one day’s issue; tomorrow there will be a complete fresh batch. What an incredible online resource.
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January 6, 2009 2:52pm
philu

some of you lot may enjoy this one..

http://whoar.co.nz/2009/neil-youngyesthat-neil-youngopines-on-big-green-american-carsas-ina-converted-1959-lincoln-continental-mk-iva-25-ton-195-foot-american-classic-now-attaining-65-mpg-utilizing-electricity-and-domestic-f/

phil(whoar.co.nz)..a.k.a…’the lone voice at the back of the blogosphere’..
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January 6, 2009 3:24pm
Ryan Sproull

Philu,

Is there more to the text of the article than the URL? Cos that’s a full-on paragraph in itself.
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January 6, 2009 3:26pm
Manolo

“..some of you lot may enjoy this one..”

The freeloader has struck again.
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January 6, 2009 3:28pm
fredinthegrass

And I thought M1 was a Motorway.
Both about as scary as each other.
Hope your one,reid,has an exit!
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January 6, 2009 3:35pm
Pita

Did anyone see the article in the business section of the Dom Post this morning “Questioning” the existence of Global Warming? Such heresy, I wonder which oil company is sponsoring them?
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January 6, 2009 3:41pm
Owen McShane

The Risks of Deferring to Authority.
Mr Madoff has cost his customers billions. Once again everyone is blaming the regulators and the regulations. However con men have always been with us and always will be. True to form, The 70-year-old Mr. Madoff, who master-minded the NZ$91 billion dolllar fraud, wasn’t some dot-com upstart but a pillar of the community and philanthropist. The best con men are usually “above suspicion”. The regulators and regulations are powerless because no one questions their credentials and honesty.
Human nature doesn’t change, and crooks will always be with us. The Madoff ponzi scheme reminds us all to be doubly skeptical of “the person beyond suspicion.”

The same principle applies to our institutions. The Madoff scam tended to overshadow a scam of equal proportions affecting probably many more people around the world.

Dozens of developing countries have been exaggerating figures on how many children have been vaccinated against deadly diseases which allowed them to get more money from UN sponsored programmes. A study reported in Lancet (funded by Bill and Melinda Gates) reveals that only half the children claimed to be vaccinated by these UN programmes actually were – 7 million rather than 14 million. The researchers found that while $290 million dollars had been paid for these vaccination programmes only $150 million had been received.

Philip Stevens of the International Policy Network asks “One has to wonder where the money has gone – hopefully not into Swiss Bank Accounts.” The list of worst offenders includes Armenia, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Myanmar, none of which had vaccinated any children at all. Twenty seven other countries appeared to have been recycling millions back to Switzerland or possibly to Mr Madoff in New York. Who knows? The experts said the study raised questions about the credibility of other health data and research from the United Nations. Climate skeptics will not be surprised to learn that some “experts” worry that the Lancet study, which was paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, overstated the problem and that immunisation programs would be unfairly overhauled. The United Nations is surely beyond suspicion.

Maybe not.

In the November issue of Prospect Magazine, Michael Soussan writes, opening his essay Mission Implausible, “I joined the UN as a youthful idealist, but ended up testifying to Congress on the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. For all its good intentions, the UN is broken and unfixable.” He goes on: I woke up in a cold sweat. I used to think that Hollywood exaggerated such post-nightmare scenes. That was before I started working for the largest, most incoherent and, ultimately, most corrupt humanitarian operation in UN history.”

And explains:

Despite the UN’s involvement, several billion dollars disappeared as money from oil sales was fraudulently siphoned off. Oil was sold cheaply to foreign politicians, businessmen and other influential figures, which they then resold for an instant profit. Companies selling goods to Iraq under the programme were instructed by Baghdad to pad contracts and pay kickbacks to Saddam and his pals.

We weren’t even sure how much money had gone missing—estimates range from $1.3bn to $20bn. Overall, about 2,300 international companies had participated in the fraud, and hundreds of high-level politicians, diplomats and business tycoons from Australia to Moscow had profited from the scam. The Iraqi people had been cheated out of a large chunk of the money we had guaranteed would go towards their welfare.

“Oops” was the operative word.

Moussan goes on to document the incredible machinations of the scam and observes:

Even the staunchest UN supporters felt overwhelmed and disoriented by the sheer scale of the scandal. Nobody could deny that we had ripped off Iraq’s civilians at a time when they were at their weakest. Worse yet, we did so under the aegis of the very institution that was supposed to embody the “highest aspirations of mankind.” After all of this, it came as no surprise to me when the reform proposals offered by Paul Volcker and his investigators were subsequently defeated in the UN’s own budget committee. I wondered: was the challenge really to reform the UN? Or might it be more productive to reform our expectations of it?

During the course of the essay Moussan makes it clear that the UN is actually corrupt from top to bottom, and the corruption lies not just in the individuals but in the design of the Institution itself. He explains:

The UN was never designed to be accountable in the first place. By definition, the security council, the body that is in effect the UN’s own executive branch of government, is a self-nominated group of states that determines what the organisation does through its many agencies and programmes. If the UN violates its own rules (as had been the case with oil-for-food), the only punishment its members are likely to receive is from their collective selves. None of the fraud and theft that marked our seven years of operation could have occurred without the complicity, and in many cases, active participation of member states sitting on the security council.

And yet “hardened journalists” continue to speak of the UN with reverence, as if any statement has the force of holy writ simply for being generated by processes designed by this sanctified organisation.

For example, our own MfE says:

“This inclusive review process sets the IPCC apart from most other organisations and individual opinion pieces and is the most reliable way of achieving a balanced assessment of the scientific knowledge in such a complex subject area. Thus, it also provides the best source of information on global climate change. ”

In other words, in this area, the United Nations is an organisation above suspicion.

This essay has drawn a connection between the Madoff financial scandal and the United Nations actions in vaccination programmes and climate change. However, the deference to the authority of the IPCC which characterises so much debate (or non-debate) about climate change policy is frequently followed by the rhetorical question “So you are telling us the majority of scientists, the IPCC and National Academies of Science are all wrong.” But Dr Tim Ball has reminded us that “Now the massive failure of the financial markets and financial systems shows how a majority of people including world leaders, politicians, academics, business leaders and the media were fooled.” Read Dr Ball’s excellent essay on “the ignorance of crowds”.

One might add the same crowds have been fooled about the claimed benefits of Smart Growth and the evils of Urban Sprawl. Indeed Smart Growth led to the Financial Crisis. The Centre is pleased to say we were skeptical about both frenzies and believe we are about to make it three in a row.
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January 6, 2009 3:42pm
philu

“..Philu,

Is there more to the text of the article than the URL? Cos that’s a full-on paragraph in itself…”

i do like/enjoy a good long url..

phil(whoar.co.nz)..a.k.a..’the lone voice at the back of the blogosphere
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January 6, 2009 4:02pm
reid

“Hope your one,reid,has an exit!”

I recommend gold, silver, and platinum, fred. Bullion, not certificates. Also shares in defence companies like Metalstorm, trade in commodities like coltan. They’ll be very big in future.

Scary ain’t it. Like watching a train wreck in slo-mo and not being able to do a damn thing about it.
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January 6, 2009 4:11pm
philu

is this the same reid who sneered/laughed at the warnings of just this i have been posting/relating..?

‘for..oh..!..some two and a half years now..?

..phil(whoar.co.nz)..a.k.a..’the lone voice at the back of the blogosphere’..
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January 6, 2009 4:27pm
thedavincimode

Philu

What is that – four in one day?

I know you must be all excited, just getting back from your hols and all, but you need to pace yourself for the gruelling year ahead. You don’t want to overdo it.

Love the re-branding too. I can see that you mean business this year!!

thedavincimode … aka … “thedavincimode”.
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January 6, 2009 4:53pm
PhilBest

reid (1592) Vote: 2 0 Says:

January 6th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
“This is for those who understand what M1 is….”

Thank you, Reid, that is extremely interesting.

I just read something else very relevant to that. In a July 30, 2004 report, Economist Paul Kasriel noted that 60% of banks earnings assetts were mortgage related – twice as much as in 1986. He warned that “…..any serious downturn in that sector COULD MAKE MONETARY POLICY IMPOTENT……” (My emphasis).

Just Google “Paul Kasriel”.

The more I look into this, the more guys I find were talking common sense from way back, and were being ignored. It is just sickening that so many people now talk about “failures” resulting from “deregulation”. BALLS. Everyone knew that “collateralised debt obligations” and all the rest of it, were based on mortgages, and everybody who bought them, bought them not because they were deceived by investment advisor hucksters or a lack of regulatory requirements for transparency or all the rest of it, but because “everybody” thought that house prices could keep going up faster than incomes, forever, indefinitely; and “everybody” regarded securities that were based on mortgages as both “safe” and “high yielding”.

This whole thing is a failure of wisdom, a failure of imagination, a failure of learning. It is nothing whatsoever to do with “regulations”. A scapegoat is being made out of all the wrong things, and we are in danger of derailing the whole process by which our economies grow and make us wealthier. We are STILL in denial about the whole underlying cause; we STILL want our precious house prices to stay right up there at the peak of the bubble and we don’t care how much of other people’s money (taxpayers) it costs to achieve that, or how much ruin is resulting for whole economies as a result of this massive distortion. We STILL want our investments in Hanover Finance, based on the NZ Mortgage market, to be worth something. Or worse, we still can’t face going into negative equity after having cashed out our house value appreciation and blown it on a world cruise.

The people I do feel most sorry for, are the first home buyers who stretched themselves to beyond snapping point, to leap on board the home ownership train as it chuffed off into the distance far faster than anyone can actually save money. These people actually should have been clubbing together and marching on Parliament, demanding the release of land for building in quantities that resulted in 30 thousand dollar sections rather than 200 thousand dollar sections. But the penny STILL has not dropped; these people are going on TV blubbing their eyes out about how unfair it all was, now that the’ve been foreclosed on; and yes, it was unfair; but they still haven’t worked out the source of the whole bloody shakedown in the first place.

As Robert Bruegmann says in “The Housing Bubble and the Boomer Generation”; there has been a wealth transfer unprecedented in history; from the young, first home buyer, to the old, existing home owner. If you haven’t already read it, Google it, and pass it around to everyone you know.
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January 6, 2009 5:55pm
reid

“is this the same reid who sneered/laughed at the warnings of just this i have been posting/relating..? ‘for..oh..!..some two and a half years now..?”

philu, I sneered and sneered and laughed and laughed.

I intend to continue…

🙂
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January 6, 2009 6:01pm
reid

The more I look into this, the more guys I find were talking common sense from way back, and were being ignored. It is just sickening that so many people now talk about “failures” resulting from “deregulation”. BALLS. Everyone knew that “collateralised debt obligations” and all the rest of it, were based on mortgages, and everybody who bought them, bought them not because they were deceived by investment advisor hucksters or a lack of regulatory requirements for transparency or all the rest of it, but because “everybody” thought that house prices could keep going up faster than incomes, forever, indefinitely; and “everybody” regarded securities that were based on mortgages as both “safe” and “high yielding”.

Phil one thing that’s always interested me is the coincidence of Spitzer’s fall from grace just a few short years following his proposal to the Bush Administration to setup a task-force to start looking into who was really behind those very CDOs. A proposal quashed in unclear circumstances. Wasn’t it lucky he turned out to be a real perv….
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January 6, 2009 6:54pm
big bruv

What ever happened to that nutter “Traveler” ?
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January 6, 2009 8:49pm
Patrick Starr

and whatever happened to ‘Sonic’ and ‘Ghostwhowalks’ since the election made them redundant? They seem to have been replaced with Billyborkers (no doubt on youth rates)

Huh … makes you wonder why Labour were so opposed to the 90 day trial
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January 6, 2009 9:01pm
Southern Raider

Patrick any suggestions for shopping in Bangkok since you knew all the places in Hong Kong?

I’m also going to Cambodia and will let you all know if I see Keith Locke hanging out
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January 6, 2009 9:05pm
Patrick Starr

I’ve never been to Bangkok, but my best mate owns a few resorts up that way – could ask him if you want? (but his shopping in bangkok is not a family pastime)

did you find your way to sham shui po?
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January 6, 2009 9:10pm
Southern Raider

Yes got there on the way back from the Big Buddha. Didn’t buy anything just had a good look. All the electronics (phones, cameras etc) seem to have got really expense. Would have been better to jump the border to the mainland and get some real deals.
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January 6, 2009 9:18pm
Patrick Starr

My strongest advice is dont buy any electronics from the mainland. nearly every electronic I’ve got there over the years has fucked out. I know they look the same as HK but at leats HK have a 1 year warranty (same as our CGA) Mainland have nothing. Only good for shoes and clothes.
Im lucky I travel with a full speaker, the rule of thumb is 50% lower than the price they list
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January 6, 2009 9:24pm
Patrick Starr

SR, I was in Shanghai a few months back. Even though Shangers is renown for inflated prices you can buy phones and cameras at the kiwi parallel import shops for about the same price
(recent exchange rates will have some influence though)
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January 6, 2009 10:22pm
Southern Raider

Thanks. Might just stick to the entertainment on Pat Pong Rd 🙂 and of course hunting for Keith Locke
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January 6, 2009 10:27pm
Patrick Starr

for probably $500 my friend could hook you up with some ‘guides’ who could keep your hands clean in your hunting trip
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January 6, 2009 10:43pm
Glutaemus Maximus

AGW is causing huge problems in the UK.

-11’C at Shap.

Not quite a record, but we can all worry about sea levels rising and Holland disappearing again!

We need a cold tax, ice tax, snow tax etc.

Give the money to the Scientists and the problem will go away.
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January 6, 2009 11:01pm
Glutaemus Maximus

AGW getting worse as temperatures plummet again.

There are no Polar Bears in the Antartic, and no Emperor Penguins in the Artic. All because we don’t trade Carbon.

Russia picks its time to get in a huge price increase for its Gas.

Enviroment or Money. It appears to be the same.
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January 7, 2009 7:51am
Turpin

DPF
I can’t log in on the Richard Falk post.
Is this happening to anyone else?

also my post answering Kiki has been deleted refering to http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/ and it’s answers to her assertion.

When I try and log in sometimes I have to try 4-6 times before I can log on.
Similarly often when I try and log off it won”t allow me so I have to just turn off the browser
also when I have to log on multiple times I get a page that tells me all about the system and have to port from there to kiwiblog.
Is this normal?
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January 7, 2009 8:35am
Ryan Sproull

Turpin,

Try pressing F5 after failing to log in or out. See if that works.
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January 7, 2009 8:46am
sally

So that idiot Minto wants to harass the Israeli tennis player. Strange, no calls from Minto to harass local Pakastanis over the Mumbai bombings, or harangue the Chinese over their human rights record , what about giving a real kick in the backside to the local Muslim commmunity over the situation in Darfur etc. Anyone heard any great outrage from Minto regards the basket case that is Zimbabwe……hhmmmm…thougth not.

Nah, let’s just go back to picking on the Jeeeeews, because the mentality of Minto and his ilk is that the world would be a happy place if they would just go away.
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January 7, 2009 9:40pm
Southern Raider

Sally thats because we want to rule the world, control all the money and all the media 🙂
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January 7, 2009 9:43pm

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