General Debate 4 October 2012

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Manolo

The rapacious Labour lite, the party of lower taxes.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/7765878/Government-plans-tax-on-car-park-perks
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October 4, 2012 8:12am
fish_boy

Everyone should take twelve minutes to watch this analysis of the danger of the far-rights charter school project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9XNG-S7uFQ
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October 4, 2012 8:12am
Pete George

There may have been some conclusion jumping regarding Nanaia Mahuta and her ‘enemies within’.

Felix Marwick ‏@felixmarwick

Not the politics ppl thought. Nanaia Mahuta says her recent tweets have been about Tainui politics, not Labour’s

So it may not be a comment on disunity within Labour. It’s disunity within Tainui. I wonder if it has anything to do with water and kings.
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October 4, 2012 8:12am
flipper

Yep Mano…
And they say they will centralise the economy when they are next in office…at least that is what they say and the 2012 idiot MSM report, but reality may set in sooner or later..

It would be nice, but too much to hope, that the MSM would actually pay as much attention to the economy as they do to Dottiecom. He and the like will come and go. The ecionomy matters.
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October 4, 2012 8:18am
Keeping Stock

@ fish_boy =- if it’s something that you’re recommending, I’ll give it a miss thanks all the same. You’re not exactly a neutral 😛
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October 4, 2012 8:20am
Pete George

The changes to car park taxes are to tidy up tax and remove loopholes.

“These proposed rules enhance the integrity of the tax and social assistance systems meaning greater fairness between those that receive non-cash benefits as part of their remuneration and those that receive only cash remuneration”.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1210/S00064/dunne-decisions-on-salary-trade-offs-follow-consultation.htm
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October 4, 2012 8:23am
Lance

@PG

When I used to work in the access control industry the fucking fringe benefit taxes were an object of intense hatred to all concerned.
FFS if you MUST use a car for your work then the bloody hoops you had to jump through were at best idiotic. The friggin ‘anomalies’ that force you into illogical and inefficient behaviour just to keep on the right side of this demented envy based law was enough to drive you to drink.

Ahhhhhhh
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October 4, 2012 8:37am
3-coil

Opposition Leader David Shearer was on the National Radio earlier this morning trying to skewer Key for not recalling the detail of the GCSB briefing he received in February re Mr Dotcom.

Shearer now claims that the briefing included details of Dotcom’s immigration status – that is a serious oversight on Key’s part if what Shearer alleges is true. Are the details of this February GCSB briefing now in the public domain, or has Shearer blurted out more than he should have? How can we ascertain if Shearer’s claim is accurate?
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October 4, 2012 8:38am
b1gdaddynz

The Herald online had this headline on Monday:

“I was possessed by a demon, says ex-legal high user”

Sounds scary and I know my teenagers (19 year olds) have tried this stuff so I decided to read the story to see what the deal was and maybe put my kids off it.

It goes on to quote the girl saying:

“she had been smoking the product for the past year and had developed a 6g-a-day habit costing her $17 to $20 a day.”

This just killed the article for me because it is totally incorrect; they come is 2g packs that cost $20 each so it would have to be a $60 a day habit or $420 a week. How does a teenager afford that much for a start? Any fact checking by the journalist to provide balance? Of course not don’t be stupid!

Also to me smoking 6g a day of anything would mess you up especially if you were a teenager and I asked my boys what they thought (they are 190cm and arround the 100kg mark) about that amount and they said “bullshit that would put you in a coma”!

I’m not particularly for or against this stuff as if people want to take it and it doesn’t impinge on me I couldn’t care less but I hate journalism like this because it is sensationalist and doesn’t add any value to the debate.

Mind you it did make me read the story that might be all they care about!
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October 4, 2012 8:41am
Andrei

“These proposed rules enhance the integrity of the tax and social assistance systems meaning greater fairness between those that receive non-cash benefits as part of their remuneration and those that receive only cash remuneration”

The only talent that ridiculous little man, Peter Dunne, has is spouting crap to justify squeezing ever more money from the long suffering taxpayer, money that will be misspent pandering to the various interest groups who would inflict their pathologies upon us.

Money to be spent on crap like plastic wakas and expensive studies of the history of gay sex in Auckland and other such tosh.
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October 4, 2012 8:43am
Keeping Stock

Not often I have anything nice to say about Winston First, its leader or his MP’s; but well done to Brendan Horan for hopefully saving a life yesterday in Japan; great stuff

http://keepingstock.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/well-done-brendan-horan.html
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October 4, 2012 8:44am
Nostradamus

I see the “Not Peter Burns” thread has prompted this blog post from D4J:

Blog closed down due to the coward big bruv blogger.

My blog will cease until I get natural justice. big bruv needs some mental health help.
Time to get real with the enemy.
Watch this space.

That sounds rather ominous…
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October 4, 2012 8:45am
niggly

Today, on Planet Vance (that alternative world where “facts” are made up or are unsubstantiated or personel spin is applied to her articles to direct the reader to a particular point of view):
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7765990/Kim-Dotcom-surveillance-began-earlier

The full extent of government spying on Kim Dotcom is still unclear – with suggestions he was being snooped on from last November.

But it is understood there are questions about how long the surveillance went on for – with indications that internet traffic out of Dotcom’s mansion was being monitored from early November.

Interesting and no doubt any reader would want to know more … except there is nothing more in the article to add to the claim! Conclusion – unsubstantiated claim.

But serious questions have been raised about the credibility of the organisation since the illegal spying first emerged. An internal review of files has unearthed three more possible instances of illegal spying dating back to 2009.

Serious questions? By who – you mean raised by some politicians and some in the media? Why not write “Questions have been raised ….” seeing I haven’t seen the wider general population complaining or protesting etc.

Also why add the “credibility of the organisation …”, seeing that GCSB has admitted it has assisted Police and is being reviewed (no other spy organisation in thw world would probably do this, they would likely deny etc). I would have thought the GCSB should have been praised for its openess!

It also revealed Prime Minister John Key was told about the bureau’s involvement in the Dotcom case at an electronic slide show briefing on February 29 and shown a photo of him.

Yes, told (or more like mentioned), it was mentioned on one page of a multiple page (or screen) PowerPoint presentation as an example of Police & GCSB cooperation. Which is quite different to allegedly being “briefed” on 29 Feb (which the media beat-up said yesterday including Planet Vance’s article yesterday headlined as PM being briefed in Feb). PM correctly states he was briefed in September, as in briefed by high level officials who have the authority to discuss such matters. As opposed to a mention in a PowerPoint presentation back in Feb amongst many other people of varying security-level clearances ie from junior to senior level, not the appropriate location to “brief” a PM on an issue involving Dotcom and illegal spying, which would have legal ramifications.

The Kim Dotcom case has invoked memory loss in everyone from Prime Minister John Key to MP John Banks and top spies Ian Fletcher and Roy Ferguson. Here’s a timeline to jog their memory:

Seriously – “here’s a timeline to jog their memory”?? That’s subjective and inappropriate for a Journalist to put in their personal feelings into their articles to direct the reader! On Planet Vance is she a journalist or a blogger? Bloggers are allowed to introduce their personal spin into their writings (after all Journos view bloggers with disdain as they are not “real journos” because of such personal spin and carry on etc … so perhaps Planet Vance needs to move into the blogosphere?

One of the best writing on this issue was yesterday’s Graeme Edgeler Public Address article, in which he acknowledges there are issues that need clarification by way of a review to address grey areas in the spy services and legislation, moving forward (no doubt some of these issues (and legislation) haven’t been ‘tested’ until now, so it makes sense to me to have input from the sector and public to ensure everybody is clear and supportive of the methods that can be employed by the spy services etc).

Unfortunately none of that is the angle the self-serving politicians and spinning media types are advocating for, instead just pure nastiness in an attempt to sell papers or look cool on TV by smearing NZ’s political leadership (and if this happened under Labour’s watch I’d be saying the same thing).
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October 4, 2012 8:55am
Pete George

That’s an odd reaction from D4J.

I hope big bruv has the sense to resist any antagonising of the situation.
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October 4, 2012 9:00am
Manolo

I await P.G.’s defense of the tax proposed by his leader Dunne. It promises to make interesting reading.

When comes to taxation there is little difference between socialist Labour and feeble Labour lite. Just remember excise taxes on smokes, alcohol, petrol, ETS-related hikes, ACC fees and so on.
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October 4, 2012 9:00am
Paulus

Thank goodness that we are able to keep a close watch on overseas criminals in New Zealand.
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October 4, 2012 9:07am
Keeping Stock

@ Pete George

big bruv (10,733) Says:
October 3rd, 2012 at 7:09 pm

This is fucking great news!

It means that the sweep stake is still on for December. I reckon that we could get D4J banned again inside ten minutes if DPF plays along. All it will need will be a post about Helen Clarke or Peter Daivs and the idiot will go back into melt down mode.

For those who missed it last time I can only say you really missed something very special.

BTW..I bags eight minutes and 30 seconds in the sweep stake.

Big Bruv has already antagonised the situation. I don’t have a lot of time for Dad4J, but goading him when he is not allowed by DPF to respond is beyond the pale. Dad4J and Big Bruv kind of deserve one another 😀
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October 4, 2012 9:11am
Pete George

I’m not speaking for Dunne, I’ve had no communication with him in this. All I know is what has been published on it.

The way I see it FBT is a nuisance tax that is necessary to stop some people avoiding tax (so others bear more of the tax burden). And the current measures look like a tidy up to make to application of FBT on car parks more fair, or inj other words to prevent some people making favourable remuneration/tax arrangements that aren’t available to others.

I may be personally affected, I have a car park provided as part of my employment package. I choose to drive to work. That shouldn’t provide me with a tax advantage over others.

The simpler and more even our tax system is the easier it is to lower tax for everyone (which, by the way, Dunne has done), rather than just those with clever accountants.
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October 4, 2012 9:12am
Pete George

Keeping Stock – I agree. Wanting and trying to push someone “into melt down mode” is beyond the pale.
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October 4, 2012 9:15am
tom hunter

Dad4J and Big Bruv kind of deserve one another

For some time now – every time I see Big Bruv post – I get this image of the overweight, beer-potted types I used to see in public bars at varsity. Red in the face, they’d stand belly-to-belly with one another, roaring and bellowing assertions while the beer sloshed from their jugs.

And that’s the same image I got from D4J, so I think he probably recognises in Big Bruv a kindred spirit, which is why he follows him across the blogs.
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October 4, 2012 9:26am
Falafulu Fisi

Fishboy, you linked to a professor who specializes in toilet cleaning and rubbish collection but not in education. He talks as if he knows shit about education.

Professor Peter O’connor is the type of pseudo-intellectual bullshitter that late Physics Nobel Laureate, Richard Feynman labelled as Cargo Cult Science.

If you quote some academics, please don’t quote with PhDs in rubbish collection.

I didn’t know that the intention of those who are pushing for charter schools are to make millions (according to the professor of rubbish collection – Prof. Peter O’connor). Dang! I didn’t know that? I better hurry and establish a charter school then, since I can make millions and I’m serious here. I can teach primary school kids to master algebra and introduce them to calculus in their final year at primary school (year-6). They’ll start doing physics when they’re 10 & 11 years old. I’ve done this already and my current crop of primary student kids are already achieving this, no joke here. So, if I want to make millions, all I do is to express an interest in establishing a charter school to the government, huh?

Just imagine those rich parents in Remuera lining up at Falafulu’s charter school to enroll their kids? They want their kids to achieve higher knowledge when they’re still at primary & middle schools where no state schools can do that, let alone anywhere in the world because such model, has never been done in the world before? I will be charging big fees. The beauty of charter schools is that you can do things (like what I stated above) that you’re not allowed to do if you’re a public school? That’s the advantage of it. Its just that something that current charter schools haven’t done or thought about, but if I get into it myself, that’s exactly of what I’ll do. I’ll revolutionize it. I like what KIPP is doing, but they should not just mimic what state schools are doing, they should just change completely.

The more I think about charter schools, the more about I’m thinking of teaming up with others to establish one.
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October 4, 2012 9:41am
b1gdaddynz

Falafulu Fisi –

“I can teach primary school kids to master algebra and introduce them to calculus in their final year at primary school (year-6). They’ll start doing physics when they’re 10 & 11 years old. I’ve done this already and my current crop of primary student kids are already achieving this, no joke here.”

You should definitely do that it’s the best time for them to learn it and they will have an advantage over the majority who have been held back by the Public System.
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October 4, 2012 9:50am
Falafulu Fisi

b1gdaddynz, here are some videos of one of the 5 kids I teach.

Math Kid

Math-kid above is sitting 4 papers in CIE (cambridge international exam) at year-13 level, starting in 2 weeks time. He’s doing 2 pure math (calculus), 1 statistics and 1 physics.

After the cambridge exams, I’ll make more videos with my other student kids and put them on Youtube. I have talked with their parents about it and they said its fine to do that. I had to ask them first, since some parents don’t want their kids being posted on youtube or facebook. They all agree that doing so, will make their kids feed they have achieve something. This sort of feeling will only make them want to try & achieve more. It’s a feedback that will make them drive themselves (self-drive).
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October 4, 2012 10:00am
Fletch

Not sure how to take this one…

WND has claimed to have interviewed people from Trinity Church (Obama’s former church, and the one presided over by the controversial Rev Jeremiah Wright), who claim that there is a homosexual culture there and that Obama was/is homosexual but is on the “down low”. Also claims of people (like their former homosexual choir master) mysteriously being murdered to keep them quiet?

As I said, not sure what to think about it all; whether it’s just another conspiracy theory.

The Down Low Club at Trinity “doesn’t have meetings, and it isn’t like the Rotary Club,” a source identified for this article as “Carolyn” explained to a WND investigator in Chicago.

“It was more that Wright served as a matchmaker,” said Carolyn, a 20-year member of Trinity who has played a role in church administration and knows the Obamas personally.

“He kept his eye on the young guys coming up in Trinity,” she said, “and if he spotted someone that acted or looked gay, then Wright would give them kind of a guidance counselor-type direction on how to keep down low – how to do the things they wanted to do, but then also getting married and looking ‘respectable’ – being part of black society.”

To Trinity insiders, the Down Low Club was simply known as “the program.”

“That’s the terminology. At Trinity, you’re urged to ‘get with the program,’” explained a male beneficiary of the Down Low Club. “What that means is it’s OK to go ahead and have sex with men, just as long as you ‘get with the program’ and marry a woman, somebody no straight guy would want to marry.”

[…]

“That’s what Wright did for Obama,” she claimed. “He connected Obama in the community, and he helped Obama hide his homosexuality.”

Openly homosexual author and commentator Keith Boykin, a former White House adviser to President Bill Clinton, mentions Obama’s former pastor, Wright, on pages 264-265 of his 2005 book “Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies, and Denial in Black America.” While Boykin doesn’t refer to the Down Low Club by name, he regards Wright as among a small group of ministers who are “coming to grips with sexuality and opening up a dialogue with heterosexuals, homosexuals, and bisexuals in the pews.”

Chicago-based author, businessman, speaker and HIV/AIDS activist J.L. King wrote a controversial book in 2005 called “On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of ‘Straight’ Black Men who Sleep with Men.”

He was a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s Chicago-based TV show in 2004, which described him this way: “J.L. King had a life most would envy. He married his high school sweetheart, had two healthy children and was on the fast track to success. But, unbeknownst to his family and friends, he had a dark secret—he was living on the down low.”

Carolyn and the other members of Trinity who provided statements corroborating her testimony were insistent that WND conceal their identities as a condition of being interviewed.

“I’m still scared to discuss any of this,” Carolyn said.

“At Trinity, if you even hint at talking about Obama being gay, you are reminded of our dear departed choir director,” she said. “He was killed, and it wasn’t a robbery. The Christmas presents weren’t touched. The TV was not taken, nothing in the apartment was missing.”

Carolyn’s reference was to Donald Young, the 47-year-old homosexual choirmaster at Trinity who died of multiple gunshot wounds in his Chicago apartment Dec. 24, 2007.

Young’s murder was preceded Nov. 17, 2007, with the execution-style murder of 25-year-old Larry Bland, another black gay member of Trinity United. He also was murdered in his home, dying of multiple gunshot wounds, according to his death certificate.

Just two days after the murder of Young, a third openly “gay” member of Wright’s church, Nate Spencer, reportedly died of septicemia, pneumonia and AIDS.

[…]

As WND reported last month, a prominent member of Chicago’s homosexual community claims Obama’s participation in the “gay” bar and bathhouse scene was so well known that many who were aware of his lifestyle were shocked when he ran for president and finally won the White House.

In April, WND reported a federal judge dismissed a libel case against Larry Sinclair, a homosexual who claimed Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign had paid to rig a polygraph test regarding Sinclair’s sensational charge that he had sex and used cocaine twice with Obama while Obama was an Illinois state senator. Sinclair tells his story in “Barack Obama & Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, Sex, Lies & Murder.”

WND also reported former radical activist John Drew has said that when he met Obama when Obama was a student at Occidental College, he thought Obama and his then-Pakistani roommate were “gay” lovers.

In addition, rumors have swirled around Obama’s relationship with his personal aide and former “body man,” Reggie Love, who resurfaced on the eve of the Republican National Convention to support his old boss. Love resigned from the White House in November 2011 after compromising photographs of him as a college student received wide circulation.

http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/trinity-church-members-reveal-obama-shocker/
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October 4, 2012 10:21am
tom hunter

Occasionally I’ve posited the idea that one might as well vote Labour-Green in NZ, or for Obama in the US if one is a citizen there, in order to speed the processes by which our modern states are moving towards the state of Greece.

But occasionally I see some real-world information that indicates that such an approach probably won’t work either because – aside from other things – Adam Smith’s quote remains true: Young man, there’s a lot of ruin in a nation..

In this case I suggest you read the following wry article about “quietests” in California, by historian Victor Hanson. I was struck by this observation about California …

Who cares that it is struggling with nearly 11% unemployment and facing a $16 billion budget shortfall? What does it matter that its public schools rated variously from 45th to 49th in the nation and that it is home to one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients, forty percent of the nation’s illegal aliens, and the largest prison population in the country? If Ohio supposedly has a million Obama-phones, I shudder to wonder how many are in California.

… in combination with this fact:

The bluest state is polling at a 20 to 24 point lead for Barack Obama.

Is that not amazing? Hence Hanson’s ode to the “quietests”:

How do sane people, without great wealth that might provide exemption from all this, cope? They tune out. They psychologically drop out, in the manner of the ancient quietists of Athens in the 4th-century B.C. (the apragmones in search of hesuchia) who learned that one cannot fight the mob, but only seek to escape it.

I bump into and talk with these latter-day quietists quite often. They are generally happy folk but have developed a certain psychological protocol by which to survive. The quietist trusts more the ancient wisdom in hallowed texts that warns democracy implodes when the masses finally assume absolute control and vote themselves entitlements that even the shrinking rich can no longer sustain. So they don’t get in the way between the mob and their entitlements.

Is NZ on this same path, only without the Apple’s and the Google’s to hold us up?
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October 4, 2012 10:26am
Weihana

niggly (595) Says:
October 4th, 2012 at 8:55 am

Yes, told (or more like mentioned), it was mentioned on one page of a multiple page (or screen) PowerPoint presentation as an example of Police & GCSB cooperation. Which is quite different to allegedly being “briefed” on 29 Feb (which the media beat-up said yesterday including Planet Vance’s article yesterday headlined as PM being briefed in Feb). PM correctly states he was briefed in September, as in briefed by high level officials who have the authority to discuss such matters. As opposed to a mention in a PowerPoint presentation back in Feb amongst many other people of varying security-level clearances ie from junior to senior level, not the appropriate location to “brief” a PM on an issue involving Dotcom and illegal spying, which would have legal ramifications.

Briefed… mentioned… Such semantics are surely a sign of desperation.

Kim Dotcom was in the public eye by February 29 and was the subject of numerous media interviews, articles and investigation. Whilst it is conceivable that Key would not connect the fact of Dotcom’s residency with the GCSB’s involvement and thus realize the illegality involved (because like most Ministers he is probably ignorant of the law governing his department), the notion that Key forgot that his spy agency was involved in the case is not credible given the publicity around the man.

Also why add the “credibility of the organisation …”, seeing that GCSB has admitted it has assisted Police and is being reviewed (no other spy organisation in thw world would probably do this, they would likely deny etc). I would have thought the GCSB should have been praised for its openess!

…

Seriously – “here’s a timeline to jog their memory”?? That’s subjective and inappropriate for a Journalist to put in their personal feelings into their articles to direct the reader!

On the one hand the remark “jog their memory” is inappropriate and subjective, but you would be quite happy for the media to praise the GCSB for their “openness”. Not only do you contradict yourself by suggesting the media direct the reader (in the manner you prefer) but it sounds like you would prefer the media to be more like their counterparts in the People’s Republic of China.

In any case the organization isn’t being “open”. When concerns about the legality of their activity were raised they reviewed the matter and said it was legal (despite it being plainly obvious that it wasn’t). Then only when details of their involvement start to be unraveled in the court do they suddenly discover their “openness” and miraculously discover illegality where supposed legality was previously found.
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October 4, 2012 10:35am
Pete George

More development (and jobs) that Labour are joining protests against:

New Zealand Labour Party
Next week Labour MPs will be visiting Glenorchy to show their support for residents who are opposed to the proposed Milford Dart tunnel.

Labour MPs to visit tunnel opponents

Labour conservation spokeswoman Ruth Dyson and Labour MP Trevor Mallard will visit Glenorchy on Wednesday to support residents opposed to the planned Milford Dart tunnel.

The pair, who may also be accompanied by Labour’s tourism spokesman Rino Tirikatene, are keen to visit the proposed entrance to the tunnel in the Routeburn Valley and meet concerned residents.

Ms Dyson said yesterday they would spend the whole day on the issue. “We thought we should come and meet them and see it from the locals’ point of view. We want to hear from the local people as well.”

Unfortunately the Government had “washed its hands” of the issue delegating it to the Department of Conservation, she said.

The decision in principle for the concession should never have been granted.

Ms Dyson said both she and Mr Mallard were very familiar with the area having spent a lot of time there during the past 30 years.

Many tourism operators also opposed the proposal and Ms Dyson said there was “a huge amount of opposition”.

I wonder if “We want to hear from the local people as well” means local people they want to hear from, or views from both sides of the debate.

Tourism is one of New Zealand’s biggest sectors, with probably the most potential to grow of any sector. Picking the negative side on a development like this is curious.
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October 4, 2012 11:03am
Falafulu Fisi

This is how tapa-cloth is made by villagers.

– Tapa cloth: (3) processing the mulberry

– Tapa cloth: (4) processing the mulberry
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October 4, 2012 11:04am
my 2 cents

The simpler and more even our tax system is the easier it is to lower tax for everyone (which, by the way, Dunne has done), rather than just those with clever accountants.

Pete you and I are on the same page on this one.
Ultimately I would like to see the maximum tax 25% and the govts cut it’s cloth accordingly.
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October 4, 2012 11:11am
Falafulu Fisi

This is the last part of the tapa making.

Tapa cloth: (5) Making Dyes and Painting the cloth
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October 4, 2012 11:14am
iMP

Great piece on Why NZers are so Passive by James Robinson at Stuff Nation and a great reply at CoNZervative. It’s because of zebras.

http://conzervative.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/why-kiwis-are-so-passive-has-to-do-with-zebras
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October 4, 2012 11:22am
Luc Hansen

Does anyone know if any of our radio stations are carrying the US presidential debate?

Or where I can find one on the internet that will work on my smartphone (Windows 7)?
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October 4, 2012 11:25am
flipper

Try Foxnews.com
Fox (Brett Baeir and Megan Kelly) are hosting this debate
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October 4, 2012 11:42am
KevinH

@falafulu fisi
Good luck to your idea to establish a charter school that will teach physics and calculus to year 6 kids, that would be the coolest thing to do at that age and from memory would beat the hell of out boring reading and comprehension tests. However I think you will struggle to get funding because it is highly possible that funding for charter schools will be directed towards those institutions with a christian focus that would play down any physics in favour of creationism.
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October 4, 2012 11:44am
Fairfacts Media

I don’t know of any Luc.
I guess coverage depends on how critical you can be of Romney, while ignoring Obama’s many mustakes.

Obama has been found to be race baiting and praising Rev Wright.
But the media ignores or downplays the story, like it has so many times.

Seems we did not get the post-racial president we were promised. But Obama has broken so many other promises.

As Instapundit notes-

A presidential candidate calls for bankrupting entire industry? Let’s ignore it in plain sight.
A presidential candidate call for higher energy prices for all Americans, especially the poor? Capital idea, we agree! But on the whole, let’s ignore it in plain sight.
A presidential candidate has spent years marinating in a radical chic background? Let’s ignore it in plain sight.
The Middle East is in tatters as a result of an administration asleep at the wheel? Let’s ignore it in plain sight.
A border agent killed and guns in the hands of Mexican criminals? Let’s ignore it in plain sight.
An incendiary racially-charged speech involving the man who is now the president of the United States emerges that 99 percent of the general public hasn’t seen? Old news. Let’s ignore it in plain sight.
For decades, the establishment media has been in the tank for the left — to the point where Bill Clinton was paraphrased by the Washington Post in 2006 as saying, “There is an expectation among Democrats that establishment old media organizations are de facto allies.”

But both halves of the equation used to be better at going through the motions of pretending about the nation’s welfare.

Or to put it another way, as the Washington Examiner notes tonight in an editorial, “To believe Obama is to forget the last four years.” That’s what both the Obama Administration and their palace guard are hoping.
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October 4, 2012 11:45am
niggly

Briefed… mentioned… Such semantics are surely a sign of desperation.

LOL Weihana, are you serious? Not semantics at all, after all that’s why the written and spoken language have different words to emphasis different meanings. I’d say the desperation is on your part, which I find rather suprising as you’ve struck me as one of the few intelligent commentators here 🙂

The rest of your paragraph conflates the issue of Police and presumably SIS involvement and the GCSB.

As for para 3, LOL, I’m commentating on a blog site and generally speaking on blog sites commentators and blog hosts offer subjective opinions. For a leading Fairfax political journalist to do the same in a newspaper is unprofessional and unethical. I’d go further and say Planet Vance breeches Journalist Code of Ethics. http://www.epmu.org.nz/journalist-code-of-ethics/ in the areas of (a), (d), possibly (g) and (j). And on a daily basis if one reads her “articles” or should that be blog commentary?

As for your para 4 have a read of Graeme Edgeler post yesterday, that’s the better way forward wouldn’t you say?
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/
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October 4, 2012 11:53am
graham

KevinH at 11:44 am-

However I think you will struggle to get funding because it is highly possible that funding for charter schools will be directed towards those institutions with a christian focus that would play down any physics in favour of creationism.

Have you got any facts to backup your assertion that schools “with a christian focus” will “play down any physics in favour of creationism”? I’ve had a step-daughter go to two schools with a Christian focus and I can assure you they didn’t “play down physics” or any of the other sciences for that matter.

One of them, Diocesan School for Girls, has students who have been awarded scholarships from The University of Auckland Faculty of Science, Biology Awards, in the last year (as well as The University of Otago, Russell McVeagh School Law Scholarships, Victoria University of Wellington School Leaver Scholarship for Academic Excellence, The University of Auckland Alumni Scholarship, The University of Auckland Chancellors Award for Top Maori and Pacific Scholars, The University of Auckland Scholarship, The Massey University Top Scholar Award – Academic, The Massey University Top Scholar Award – Sport, and The Massey University Top Scholar Award – Arts). Hardly indicative of “playing down” science.

http://www.diocesan.school.nz/academic/secondary-years-7-to-13/academic-success#tert
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October 4, 2012 11:59am
Luc Hansen

Thanks for that, Fairfacts Media (intentionally oxymoronic handle, obviously).

I think I’ll be able to hook into Democracy Now. They are broadcasting an expanded debate by pausing and giving two other candidates their turn. Very democratic, I’m sure you will agree.
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October 4, 2012 12:12pm
iMP

Flipper, Kelly and Baier are anchoring it for FOX not actually hosting the debate. Obama would never have agreed to that.
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October 4, 2012 12:13pm
Fletch

Luc, apart from the fact that the moderator for the debate is Jim Lehrer, who is far from moderate and will give Obama an advantage.

Brietbart has video of 30 years of Lehrer (sort of a greatest hits compilation) showing his liberal bias

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/10/03/Debate-Preview-Jim-Lehrer-Liberal
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October 4, 2012 12:28pm
Falafulu Fisi

KevinH, I’m not intending to establish a charter school, because what I currently do (career-wise) is much more interesting & challenging (research-wise, technological-wise & intellectual-wise) than being a teacher & running a charter school. I do teach kids in the evening (& sometimes the weekends) as a hobby. I don’t charge their parents for my time teaching them.

I love teaching kids to understand difficult concepts (math/physics) which gives me gratification in knowing that I have setup a kid’s education life to have a wider choice on which path to choose to go further as they progress to higher level. This is what makes me want to do it. I can make a difference to the kids’ career choice. Some of the kids I help may end up being a bus-driver, a kitchen-hand or whatever, which has got nothing to do with what they learn now (math/physics) but at least I have widen their choices of what to do in the future. As the say goes, its better to have it and don’t need it, rather than need it and don’t have it. There’s nothing with kids learning higher level knowledge at young age. They may follow higher level studies in fields related to what they’re learning now, or simply follow a different path, but at least if they decided to get back & do studies in those related fields at some stage in their life after perhaps choosing to be a bus-driver for a while, the knowledge is there already. They can brush up their knowledge pretty quickly if they’re going back to do engineering/science courses compared to someone going back to do study in those same fields who had never done high school courses in math/physics. Such person would find it more difficult to do such courses (math-based courses) considering the she’s/he’s just starting afresh on topics like calculus.

Anyway, I’m trying to encourage Richie Lewis (chair the Destiny School Governance Board) from Destiny Churches New Zealand to look into my idea for possible implementation at their school/s since Destiny has expressed an interest in becoming a charter school. I can help their math/physics teachers to design such accelerated learning curriculum. My idea is that they can start only with a few selected students in the first year, then slowly expand it to all levels over the coming years.

Anyway, I’ve coached and help Pacific Island students (from senior high schools to university levels) in math/physics over the last 8 years or so. Its only in the last 3 years that I have started coaching primary school kids. So, coaching is not something that I have just started doing over the last 3 years.

One thing that our expert educators & psychologists have missed completely. When kids are young (as they first started in primary school), their capacity to absorb knowledge is almost the same, sure there’s variances exist but overall they’re almost the same irrelevant of their home backgrounds (from rich, poor, educated, uneducated, etc,…). The effect or influence of their home-background on their education start to manifest when kids perhaps are in the last 2 years of primary schools or perhaps early 2 years of middle school. I suspect that the reason here is that kids’ brain start to be hardwired and form their own opinions which tends to be a bit difficult to change (either by school & teachers) or the kid’s community. Doing accelerated learning for higher level knowledge early on, will help them (especially the poor kids from parents who are not educated) to be self-driven. Once the kids’ become self-driven, then the rest of education/learning for the kid is history, because they will push-on on their own whether their parents give help or not or whether the parents are educated or not . The home-background of the kids become irrelevant. It will follow naturally, that if poor/uneducated parents see their child with amazing capability, they will change their way to accommodate their high achieving child. If they used to buy ciggies with whatever little money they have, they’ll make sure that they must buy food for their kid first so he/she doesn’t go hungry to school. They’ll sacrifice not smoking for a week but to buy the things that their kids need first. They make sure they buy their kid a pair of shoes to wear to school instead of walking with bear feet, etc,…

What I describe above is reverse-causation. Poor/uneducated/careless parents are changed their behavior simply because they see their kid achieving something amazing, since in their eyes, there is actually hope to break out from generation of poverty, because their kid is now having potential to move up ladder.

What I described above is something I’ve seen in some Island families. A good example was the Dux of St. Paul (2010), John Palavi (TV1 Close-Up). I know his parents who have no background in higher education. The boy changed his parents’ way of life. When he had shown earlier on at school that he was good, his parents started saving money for his education. The parents are heavily involved with their church but since they do value their son’s education achievement, then they started focus on his education rather than commitments to their church.
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October 4, 2012 12:53pm
hinamanu

http://www.secretsofthefed.com/top-five-obama-biden-tax-hikes-burying-the-middle-class/
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October 4, 2012 12:59pm
Lance

@KevinH
“christian focus that would play down any physics in favour of creationism.”

You are an ignorant man, bereft of facts but abundant with suspicions.
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October 4, 2012 1:23pm
Pete George

Whale Oil posted about the Conservative Party’s free personality test. It made me wonder about what other parties might test for – Free Party Tests.
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October 4, 2012 1:49pm
Griff

Seems sensible to me, Conservatives already have a leader so they’re looking for a personality.
rofl pg brilliant
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October 4, 2012 2:15pm
Weihana

niggly (596) Says:
October 4th, 2012 at 11:53 am

Briefed… mentioned… Such semantics are surely a sign of desperation.

LOL Weihana, are you serious? Not semantics at all, after all that’s why the written and spoken language have different words to emphasis different meanings. I’d say the desperation is on your part, which I find rather suprising as you’ve struck me as one of the few intelligent commentators here 🙂

Thanks. 🙂

But I don’t see the relevance here with the semantics. People are trying to portray this as a situation where a man has lots of meetings and he can’t be expected to recall the details of each one. That’s reasonable and fair. Except it’s insufficient in this case. No matter how many meetings a person has it is reasonable to believe that some details would stick in a person’s mind depending on the significance of those details. As of February 29 Kim Dotcom was a prominent public figure subject to intense public scrutiny. Questions were already raised about what Key did or did not know. Bets were made on ipredict about whether evidence would come to light showing that he knew about the Dotcom operation long before the raid. In this climate it is not credible to believe that the mention of Dotcom by the GCSB would go unnoticed by the PM and quickly forgotten.

As for your para 4 have a read of Graeme Edgeler post yesterday, that’s the better way forward wouldn’t you say?
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/

Probably. Not sure to be honest. All I can say is I don’t find the “unflattering conclusions” to be a satisfactory explanation, nor do I find Key’s forgetfulness to be credible. Though, would an inquiry add anything? Seems doubtful.
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October 4, 2012 2:23pm
Viking2

What your money gets spent on daily.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/32725-compulsory-car-seats-7yearolds.html
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October 4, 2012 2:51pm
wreck1080

Earthquake in the BOP? Little one, right now, 2:54pm.

Either that, or the construction site down the road 🙂
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October 4, 2012 2:54pm
hinamanu

Democracy gone in US. War declared on its citizens

http://www.secretsofthefed.com/anonymous-mess…

In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America.

The National Defense Authorization Act is being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn’t apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill, it essentially says it can apply to Americans “if we want it to.

Bill Summary & Status, 112th Congress (2011 — 2012)| S.1867 | Latest Title: National Defense Authorization Act for.

This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a “battleground” upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.

Even WIRED magazine was outraged at this bill, reporting:

Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial
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October 4, 2012 3:04pm
nasska

What a scummy lot the pedagogues who brainwash our children are. Hekia Parata gets accused of “patronising” the pathetic bastards when she pointed out to them at the PPTA’s annual conference that they couldn’t even trouble themselves to pronounce the names of their pupils properly.

Ref: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington-schools/7763698/Hekia-Parata-patronised-teachers
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October 4, 2012 3:07pm
my 2 cents

Fairfacts Media (297) Says:
October 4th, 2012 at 11:45 am

What about his lying over the racism against the people of New Orleans.

“Sarah Palin
Many of you have seen the 2007 speech in which then-Senator Obama suggested that because of racism the federal government didn’t waive the Stafford Act to assist New Orleans after Katrina. What you may not know is that 10 days before Senator Obama gave this speech, the federal government did in fact waive the Stafford Act for New Orleans. And to add insult to injury, Barack Obama was one of 14 senators who actually voted against the bill that included the provision to give supplemental emergency assistance to New Orleans. In other words, he was being dishonest and divisive, which is behavior we’ve sadly seen far too often from him in the last four years.
Like · · Share · 34,2142,2947,344 · 13:41 (about an “
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October 4, 2012 3:12pm
Pete George

Colin Craig concedes that gay marriage would have no effect on his marriage, and non-major and unknown effects on society.
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October 4, 2012 3:20pm
Lucia Maria

Romney won the debate with Obama. Just finished watching it, now they’re showing highlights. See my blog for the link.
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October 4, 2012 3:39pm
Andrei

Jeepers Pete George, running BS from Gay propaganda sites are we.

Listen you silly fellow, the most important thing any society undertakes is the raising of the next generation to replenish it.

If you fuck that up, as we have, your society and the things you care about and value are finished – kaput. End of story.

The people who will inherit the earth are the people who are good at producing and raising children and homos are not good at either, their priorities are all wrong.

Marriage is about encouraging and supporting people to raise the next generation and it is the height of utter stupidity to mess around with it to pander to the vanities of people who don’t really give a fuck anyway
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October 4, 2012 3:48pm
Pete George

Andrei, gays that are couples becoming gays that are married couples will have zero effect on the world’s breeding.

The only way you will change it is if you force gays into hetero marriages and force them to have children. Or if you ban medicine and surgery.

But the world is not suffering from a lack of population replenishment anyway.
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October 4, 2012 3:59pm
UpandComer

Romney was very good. I can imagine him as President now, and I can also imagine him cutting all the squawkers in that ridiculous government without remorse which is great.

Also, gay’s who are together aren’t married. They’re two gays living together who occasionally aren’t having sex with other gays. It’s not a marriage, and it never will be whatever the agenda people want to say.
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October 4, 2012 4:12pm
Say Goodbye to Hollywood

I have to agree that Romney won the debate. He really nailed Obama over the deficit. He come across very well, which was a surprise for me.
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October 4, 2012 4:35pm
Fletch

Missed the debate. Anywhere I can see a replay?
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October 4, 2012 4:43pm
Fletch

I think you can watch it here –

http://www.cbc.ca/news/live/2012/10/america-votes-us-presidential-debate-live-oct-3.html
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October 4, 2012 4:49pm
BlairM

Obama got his arse handed to him on a plate by Romney. Barry sounds and looks more like Jimmah Carter the more he spoke.
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October 4, 2012 5:05pm
James Stephenson

Barry sounds and looks more like Jimmah Carter the more he spoke.

Some pommy twitterer on the Telegraph said O had turned into Neil Kinnock…
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October 4, 2012 5:48pm
chiz

Kiwi spotted on Mars.
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October 4, 2012 6:52pm
Steve (North Shore)

Kiwi on Mars, see chiz @ 6.52

Now is that a modern Kiwi or a pre european kiwi?
Mork calling Orson, the Moaris will make a claim that they own Mars – just warning you
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October 4, 2012 7:01pm
nasska

The Department of Health has released a list of
symptoms of bird flu. If you experience any of the
following, please seek medical treatment immediately:

1. High fever
2. Congestion
3. Nausea
4. Fatigue
5. Aching in the joints
6. An irresistible urge to shit on someone’s windscreen.
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October 4, 2012 8:00pm
Puzzled in Ekatahuna

Urban Maori Authority chairman Willie Jackson has thrown his weight behind a visit to New Zealand by former heavyweight boxing champion and convicted rapist Mike Tyson.

‘‘I want to put Mike Tyson in front of people who need support, who need a message, who need to be turned around. Why would people be opposed to that?’’ Mr Jackson said yesterday.

Tyson was initially granted a visa under a special direction, but that was reversed by Associate Immigration Minister Kate Wilkinson after charity Life Education Trust pulled a letter of support that had been written by a trust volunteer.

But Tyson’s promoter Max Markson said from Australia yesterday that he had several conversations with talkback host and former MP Mr Jackson, who had offered a letter supporting Tyson’s entry into New Zealand, and he was hopeful the visit could go ahead.

His backing was on condition Tyson visited a marae in South Auckland and spoke to young Maori there.
“I am not going to support them coming across unless Mike came to the community,” Jackson said.
“The people I want Mike to talk to cannot afford to come to the evening.”

If the event in New Zealand went ahead in mid-October as planned, funds raised would go to the Urban Maori Authority.
“The $60,000 would be nice but it’s not the priority. My priority is the community.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7766198/Willie-Jackson-backs-Tyson-visit

Without ‘moral’ sponsorship of some kind, Tyson is not granted entry
So Jackson will sponsor him, only if he will talk to impressionable young people …
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October 4, 2012 8:10pm
Steve (North Shore)

I am starting to think Tyson will visit NZ if only to visit young Moari in sth Auckland and teach them rape is wrong.
Not to stop raping, just to tell them it is wrong.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7766198/Willie-Jackson-backs-Tyson-visit
WTF is it with these Moari savage supporters that they invite convicted rapists to tell lies about how they have rehabitilated?
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October 4, 2012 8:26pm
MH

so why hasn’t Willie away asked the former NZ olympic boxer Soulan Pownceby to speak on the sacred Marae. Is Jackson the full quid,he even sent his son to Kings College in Akld.
Tyson has said he has no message or a desire to speak about redemption,he is after the money. Another Marae benefit.

Pownceby has faced numerous difficulties throughout his life. His father, a United States Navy serviceman, has never acknowledged him, his sister was murdered by her partner in 1990, and his mother died of cancer in 1993. Pownceby was jailed in 1995 for four years for the manslaughter of his 5-month-old daughter. He was later convicted of four separate assaults committed after his release from prison, including one on a woman. In 2004 Pownceby said he could not change the past, but that he was “trying to be the best person I can be”. Since then Pownceby has graduated from Unitec with a Bachelor of Sport – Coaching and is currently half way through sociology studies at Auckland University. Pownceby also donated his first professional boxing purse to child cancer.
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October 4, 2012 8:45pm
Nookin

MH

Haven’t read much about him recently. What’s he up to now?
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October 4, 2012 8:51pm
Johnboy

He should change his fuckin name. The nicest bloke I ever met was Ron Pownceby. Taught me how to fly.

He would be flat-spinning in his grave to know that a piece of shit has the same name as him!
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October 4, 2012 9:00pm
Longknives

MH- I don’t think Pownceby is available for public speaking engagements at the moment…Maybe not for quite some time
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October 4, 2012 9:18pm
Longknives

I remember when he went to the Athens Olympics he was the Pin-Up boy for the Criminal-hugging left as he had apparently ‘turned his life around’ and been ‘rehabilitated’ etc etc
Strange you don’t hear much about their ‘Pin-up boy’ now…
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October 4, 2012 9:21pm
Viking2

Kim Dotcom’s internet connection was being diverted inside New Zealand weeks before the Government Communications Security Bureau says it started spying on him.

The focus of the early investigation is the dedicated internet connection from Mr Dotcom’s mansion in Coatesville to the Sky Tower in Auckland. It was intended to give him the fastest possible internet connection – a factor which would have been critical in his quest to be the best in the online Modern Warfare 3 game.

Mr Dotcom became the “number one” ranked player of the game before his arrest.

During the record-setting effort, Gen-I staff began an investigation into the amount of time it took for an internet signal from Mr Dotcom’s home to reach an offshore Xbox computer server.

Gen-I studied data showing the amount of time it took information on the internet connection to reach the Xbox server. It went from 30 milliseconds to 180 milliseconds – a huge increase for online gamers.

The reason for the extra time emerged in a deeper inquiry, which saw a “Trace Route” search which tracks internet signals from their origin to their destinations. When the results were compared it showed the internet signal was being diverted inside New Zealand.

The data showed the internet signal had previously taken two steps before going offshore – but was now taking five.

Spooking the Spooks.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10838484
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October 5, 2012 7:13am

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