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February 16, 2013 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 16 February 2013

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F E Smith

Kea,

I know, but I cannot help myself. Was it Luc Hansen who last year or the year before described North Korea as being a conservative State? It beggars belief, but the lefties are masters at changing history to suit their own sense of importance.

EDIT: Actually, given the bombing in Turkey the other day that was carried out by a left wing group, it seems that the lefties are still happy to use violence to get their own way. Now at almost 200 years and counting…
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February 16, 2013 3:32pm
bereal

The resident eminent (in his own mind) jurist F E Smith makes a comment he prefaces with
a reference to the Lundy case. Then gobbles on and on in a confused ramble about some obscure
case concerning one, Eddie Gilfoyle.

Maybe someone could point out the connection for us.

One thing you can take to the bank, if you ever needed a lawyer F E Smith would have
to be the very, very last cab off the rank.
In fact, you would be better off walking, even crawling.
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February 16, 2013 3:40pm
Johnboy

Hush Beryl. You are in the presence of a hugely superior mind.

How dare you comment on anything he says! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 3:44pm
Johnboy

And he gave you a thumbs down too.

He is a sad little prick! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 3:45pm
Johnboy

I’ll give you a thumbs up Beryl, just to prove I wasn’t playing a trick! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 3:48pm
F E Smith

beryl, if you cannot understand the reference I make in the first sentence of the comment that you refer to then there isn’t much that I can add to make it more clear to you.

Nice bit of unnecessary ad hominem, by the way.
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February 16, 2013 3:49pm
Kea

Nice bit of unnecessary ad hominem, by the way.

F E Smith, that is nothing. You should see a what a real beryl attack looks like. It is a very special thing. I have been the lucky respondent an number of times 🙂
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February 16, 2013 3:54pm
Johnboy

Yeah. Stop with those “ad hominems” Beryl.

Folk will start to think you cant stomach upstart/full of themselves lawyer bastards! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 3:54pm
grumpyoldhori

hinamanu Interesting, the woman just has a sign giving her name well the others have the Honourable in front of them.
I thought yanks were against using titles.
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February 16, 2013 3:58pm
Johnboy

Shit Kea and FESter play the thumbs.

Check out Beryl at 3:40

What bloody wankers.

Only sad wee bastards bother with that crap.

Still I always knew that. 🙂
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February 16, 2013 4:00pm
Reid

can I just point out that Fascism was and is considered an anti-capitalist ideology!

FES I may be wrong but my understanding of facism is the combining of the commercial operations with political direction. This is why the industrialists backed him heavily and they heavily participated in arms manufacture up to and including using slaves provided by the state. It’s not anti-capitalist at all, the Todt Organisation was a thriving facist operation using capitalist principles to run itself. And places like Krupp and Messerschmidt and Mercedes etc etc always used them throughout the war.

Personally I see shades of this in the relationship of corporate operations like big pharma and the defence companies and the media companies with the political leadership and with similar ends in mind, more and more in the US. Like in the Homeland Security suppliers for example. There’s a long way to go before it becomes as full blown as Germany’s was, but the signs are there and their influence continues to increase.
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February 16, 2013 4:21pm
bereal

Can any of the great brains (was that an adhominens ?) who gave me a thumbs down
for pointing out the garbage F E Smith posted at 2.50 please explain the connections between
the Lundy case and the Gilfoyle case .

i assume that there is one, at least in F E Smiths mind.

Who will be the first drong (was that an ad hominen ?) to step up to the plate
and try to make a cogent explanation ?

(That includes you F E Smith or any of your sycophants)
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February 16, 2013 4:29pm
Johnboy

You can’t win against the forces of FESter Beryl.

Look how his sad little minions have thumbed us! 🙂

It wouldn’t be so bad if he was a lawyer that won his cases in real life other than here in his own mind on KB! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 4:34pm
Reid

bereal, why don’t you challenge him to a paintball fight, tape it and post it on YouTube?
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February 16, 2013 4:59pm
Johnboy

FESter has gone away Reid. He sulks when I say nasty things about him (even though he cant see them).

Unless he is using his other browser of course! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 5:05pm
F E Smith

reid,

no, you do have that wrong. The point of fascism was a break away from internationalist socialism to form a sub-group that combined nationalism and socialism. That really is the key difference. Both internationalist socialism (of the marxist and the non-marxist type) and nationalist socialism rely on a command economy that required industrial organisations to adhere to centralised planning.

The fascists were very much anti-capitalist. The wiki page on the topic actually puts it very succintly:

Fascism has mixed stances on capitalism; while supportive of private property rights, fascism upholds statism and corporatism and is hostile to the concepts of laissez-faire capitalism, free market systems, free trade, economic individualism, consumerism, and bourgeois culture. Like Marxists, fascists maintain that class-conflict is a feature inherent in capitalist societies and seek to remedy it by government means.

It is wrong to say that support of private propery rights means that they are not socialist. Modern socialists also have no real nationalising bent so long as they can plan and command the economy.

While unreconstructed communists like Yoza recoil at the idea of the fascists being described as left wing, the fact is that they were. They may not have practised ideologically pure socialism, but then neither did communism. Communist and Fascists hated each other because they were variations on a theme and therefore were competing for the same supporters.

If you really want to annoy a lefty, point out that the British National Party, which is usually, and inaccurately, described as a far right party, is made up manly of disaffected British Labour Party members and sits to the left of that Party, and that Sir Oswald Mosely, the head of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s and 1940s, retained his Fabain Society membership throughout his leadership of the BUF.
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February 16, 2013 5:38pm
Johnboy

I feel quite humbled to be in the presence of such a great mind, wot can study Wikipedia with the best of us! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 5:44pm
F E Smith

Who will be the first drong (was that an ad hominen ?) to step up to the plate and try to make a cogent explanation ?

I think you shot your self in the foot there, beryl, because anybody who now tries to explain to you what the corelation is (and I suspect that in doing so words of one syllable would be required) would be admitting that they are a ‘drong’ (definition: a passageway or lane esp. between walls or hedges), which I presume is meant to be ‘drongo’ (defintion: any of a family (Dicruridae) of insectivorous passerine birds native to Africa, Asia, and Australia that usually have glossy black plumage and long forked tails, but in this part of the world also: Dumbass, idiot (Aussie slang)), but I am not sure.

Drong or drongo, I am now not giving you an explanation because I am neither.
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February 16, 2013 5:47pm
Reid

FES I don’t agree that facism is an ideology. I realise many think it is, but that doesn’t mean it is. I see it rather as an operational methodology. It’s a mere means to an end. Socialism is an ideology, National-Socialism was the ideology in question at the time, but National-Socialism with all its attendant propaganda tentacles was a means of motivating human behaviour, facism was the means of controlling it and it didn’t have to be facism it could have been some other method, it just happens Hitler chose to use facism, which proved a rather brilliant choice over time when you assess what that technique achieved in total, even if it was also unspeakably evil.
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February 16, 2013 5:56pm
Johnboy

“Drong or drongo, I am now not giving you an explanation because I am neither.”

Some may disagree. Particularly me! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 6:00pm
nasska

A border collie’s worst nightmare…..

Ref: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qe78gj5wwg7etui/Ram%20Trials.jpg
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February 16, 2013 6:03pm
Johnboy

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8313262/Palmerston-North-RSA-in-debt-to-tune-of-2m

How can a gang of drunken old bastards suck that much piss?
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February 16, 2013 6:21pm
Johnboy

Thousands of people are lining Auckland’s Ponsonby Road for the first gay pride parade in 12 years.

Among those there, and tweeting about it, is US Ambassador to New Zealand, David Huebner, who has also provided a picture of what he says is pre-parade entertainment.

Actor Madeleine Sami has also tweeted: “Pride! Yay 4 gay!!!!!”

The parade starts at the Karangahape Road end of Ponsonby Road but some pre-events have already taken place.

Among these has been the lighting of the Auckland Memorial Museum and the Skytower in rainbow colours.

Parade coordinator Jonathan Smith says they aim is to put the parade on the tourism map, in the style of the Sydney Mardi Gras.

Members of the Defence Force have been given permission to march in uniform.

Privates on parade!!!! 🙂
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February 16, 2013 6:28pm
F E Smith

Reid,

I will disagree with you on that point, but it explains how you see it differently to myself. I think that fascism is an ideology, one that Mussolini, Hitler and others very clearly developed. As a totalitarian ideology, just as communism turned out to be, it has a large element of control and propaganda, but it remains at its heart a sub-ideology of socialism, as was bolshevism.

I also don’t think that Hitler chose it. I think it fit perfectly with his own worldview, combining well with the politics that came out of Vienna in the Pre-WW1 period, which had a strong anti-semitic element to it. When you go back and look at the potential formative influences along the way, I think that Hitler was very much a product of his time rather than something that was an exception to the rule. The savagery of the implementation in Germany stands in contrast to that of Italy (which still had its moments, mind you) but Soviet Russia also engaged in similar savagery, so again I see it as not being unique.

Of course, the real lesson that we should take from this is: don’t let teetotal vegetarians have political power!
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February 16, 2013 6:29pm
Reid

Don’t let people from another land become leader of your land is the lesson for me FES.

Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon. Three very destructive leaders, all from other lands.

It’s a worry therefore about the questions over Obama’s citizenship isn’t it, for even if you’re sanguine about that, it’s a significant pointer to keep an eye on, in these times.
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February 16, 2013 6:38pm
kowtow

The so called gay pride parades are a parody of mardi gras or carnivale.

Carnivale is Latin ,”good bye to meat eating” for the penetential Lenten period running up to Easter.

I can’t help think that these guys will actually will be doing an awful lot of ” meat eating”. Some celebration!
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February 16, 2013 6:39pm
bhudson

@Reid,

Interesting view. So what you’re saying is that Hone is right and that the white mo’fos should get out of it.

As for Hitler, his world view was simple – that he should be in charge. Everything else (to him) was just window dressing.
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February 16, 2013 6:41pm
Andrei

Carnival ended on Tuesday Kowtow and where they have real Mardi Gras, like in New Orleans or Rio come midnight Tuesday it is over!

The police clear the streets of all revellers and those that wont go go to the cells.
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February 16, 2013 6:46pm
F E Smith

Oh look, Daniel Hannan has joined in at the Telegraph:

‘I am a Socialist,’ Hitler told Otto Strasser in 1930, ‘and a very different kind of Socialist from your rich friend, Count Reventlow’.

No one at the time would have regarded it as a controversial statement. The Nazis could hardly have been more open in their socialism, describing themselves with the same terminology as our own SWP: National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Almost everyone in those days accepted that fascism had emerged from the revolutionary Left. Its militants marched on May Day under red flags. Its leaders stood for collectivism, state control of industry, high tariffs, workers’ councils. Around Europe, fascists were convinced that, as Hitler told an enthusiastic Mussolini in 1934, ‘capitalism has run its course’.

One of the most stunning achievements of the modern Left is to have created a cultural climate where simply to recite these facts is jarring. History is reinterpreted, and it is taken as axiomatic that fascism must have been Right-wing, the logic seemingly being that Left-wing means compassionate and Right-wing means nasty and fascists were nasty. You expect this level of analysis from Twitter mobs; you shouldn’t expect it from mainstream commentators.

That last bit that I have put in bold is a vital point, imo.

Reid, I have no real doubt that Obama was born in Hawai, and if he wasn’t then it is too late to be concerned about it. I don’t like his policies, and I think he is deliberately divisive in his stance (and I am still not sure whether it is intentional nor not; I suspect it is) but I think that ‘birtherism’ is a pointless waste of time.

Not that birtherism is restricted to Obama’s opponents: witness the attempts in 2008 to show John McCain didn’t qualify because he was born in the US Zone in Panama.
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February 16, 2013 6:51pm
Viking2

Malaysia flexing its Xenophobia.

Nick Xenophon denied entry to Malaysia, delegation scraps visit

From: AAP
February 16, 2013 2:23PM

AUSTRALIAN politicians have called off a visit to Malaysia after Independent senator Nick Xenophon was refused entry to the country and detained pending deportation.

The group, comprising Senator Xenophon, Liberal MP Mal Washer, Nationals Senator John Williams and ALP MP Steve Georganas, were planning an unofficial visit ahead of Malaysia’s upcoming elections.

They were to meet opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, as well as Malaysia’s minister in charge of parliamentary affairs Mohammed Nazri and members of the group Bersih, the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/nick-xenophon-denied-entry-to-malaysia-expects-deportation/story-fn59niix-1226579358593
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February 16, 2013 6:53pm
Viking2

Surplus turns to $10bn deficit

by: David Crowe and Adam Creighton
From: The Australian
February 16, 2013 12:00AM

LABOR is at risk of posting a deficit of more than $10 billion this year as it seeks to fight an election on economic management, with new figures revealing a $5.2bn blow to revenue.

The revenue shortfall not only destroys the prospect of a budget surplus this year, it also casts doubt over future surpluses, amid caucus concerns over Wayne Swan’s performance in selling the government’s message.

Socialists are all the same when it comes to OPM
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February 16, 2013 6:55pm
cha

Great youtube rant.

http://youtu.be/KWu-efNN8PM
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February 16, 2013 7:00pm
cha

Details on the guy above.

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/speaking-of-atlantic-business/
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February 16, 2013 7:06pm
Reid

Interesting view. So what you’re saying is that Hone is right and that the white mo’fos should get out of it.

No, how did you draw that conclusion from what I said?

I think that ‘birtherism’ is a pointless waste of time

I don’t care about whether or not it’s real FES because I don’t care about the answer to the question, it’s not important to me. But there is considerable credible detail if one looks and even if you don’t care to look very deep, as I don’t and haven’t, where there’s smoke sometimes there’s fire.

But the reason it’s relevant is because it’s a valid part of a broader hypothesis. You look at the security apparatus and legislation in the US and you see something that has never been there before. It’s both physical as in Homeland Security with TSA in waiting as the local thug enforcers and they are thugs, not yet, but they’re low intelligence authoritative individuals instead of brainy ones which is what you’d have thought should be hired but no, they’ve hired the former not the latter and it’s in the legislation too. Legislation that eviscerates the constitution. You look at those facts and then you factor in the birth hypothesis and it’s an interesting equation.

Who knows if it will happen, but with the toxic pollution of the corporate control over Washington politics from the banks and others right now, today, that sure as hell looks a bit like facism, doesn’t it. That’s another factor. Remember these are the same folks who hollowed out the US manufacturing base by offshoring it. They obviously know what they’re doing, don’t they.

And so on.

But hey. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave right? How could it ever be otherwise? Well, those are all facts above, apart from the birther issue and who cares if Obama is a foreign leader, I mean so what. But all the rest of the things I said are facts. So in that context, the birther issue is interesting, as background. Same as why the pope really resigned is interesting as background.
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February 16, 2013 7:14pm
bhudson

No, how did you draw that conclusion from what I said?

Pretty simple really… Because you said:

Don’t let people from another land become leader of your land is the lesson for me
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February 16, 2013 7:51pm
bhudson

where there’s smoke sometimes there’s fire.

So what you’re saying is that most of the time there is no association between smoke and fire.
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February 16, 2013 7:53pm
Manolo

A bastard unmasked: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-14/a-chinese-hackers-identity-unmasked#r=read
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February 16, 2013 7:59pm
nasska

The following combinations
DO NOT go together and should be avoided:

1. A nose ring & bifocals
2. Spiked hair & bald spots
3. A pierced tongue & dentures
4. Miniskirts & support hose
5. Ankle bracelets & corn pads
6. Speedos & cellulite
7. A belly button ring & a gall bladder surgery scar
8. Unbuttoned disco shirts & a heart monitor
9. Midriff shirts & a midriff bulge
10. Bikinis & liver spots
11. Short shorts & varicose veins
12. In line skates & a walking frame

And last, but not least…..
13.Thongs & geriatric nappies.
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February 16, 2013 8:00pm
bereal

Dear, F E Smith.
further to your effort @ 2.50

i refer you to an erudite observation by Franz Kafka which is appplicable in your case.

“He has an ability to discuss minutiae to an extent which is lamentable.”

But i will put the question in plain English in the hope the penny will drop. Even for you.

Explain the relation (in your mind) between the Lundy case and the Gilfoyle case you quote ?

i note you failed to even attempt to do so in your 5.47 effort, choosing rather to attack the messenger.

If you are able, have a go.
Please keep your explanation simple as even some of your deluded admiriati may be interested.

Also, different subject ,Pete George, good reply @ 2.00 a point to you, well done and even quite witty.
i would object to any exemption to any aspect of the law on religious grounds myself even though
this does appears to be the law of the land and you are right.
But.
Someone fucked up with that clause because i am sure that you would agree that nobody knows what that
particular clause may be interperated to mean in the future.
Simple law is good law.
Any exemption from anything based on religious conviction has to be bullshit.

Wonder what the great sage F E Smith thinks about that ?

Don’t take that as an invitation to avoid the primary question F E Smith.
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February 16, 2013 8:06pm
F E Smith

beryl,

I can’t answer without admitting to being a drong (or a drongo; whichever), so I won’t. Sorry.
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February 16, 2013 8:12pm
nasska

Reid

Last week “SPC” posted a comment which gave me good cause to think. He is likening the fall of Syria to the demise of Saddam Husseins setup.

…….”The former leader of Iraq obstruced UN WMD inspections to pretend he had something to hide – to intimidate internal Shia and Kurdish opposition as well as Iran. The Americans called his bluff – lying that they feared he had WMD and invading because they knew he did not. Now the Iranians adopt his tactic of fraudulent bravado to pose as a regional strongman as their aspirations to regional leadership begin to implode. I suspect this time the Americans will simply allow the tide of regional events and the increasingly erratic responses of the regime to discredit it so that it collapses from within – much as the Soviet Union did back in the 80s/90′s.”……

To me it seems a plausible theory & may yet be what the USA are after. Any thoughts?
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February 16, 2013 8:17pm
Tauhei Notts

F E Smith,
Let me help you.
A drongo is somebody who spells bereal as beryl.
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February 16, 2013 8:22pm
wat dabney

“Don’t let people from another land become leader of your land is the lesson for me FES.
Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon. Three very destructive leaders, all from other lands.”

Eh?

That’s what you take away from it?

Mao and Saddam – to name just two – get a free pass because they’re local boys?

Really?
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February 16, 2013 8:26pm
cha

Any thoughts?

Apart from a few minor actions the Israeli’s continuing to sit on their hands indicates that both Iran and Syria pose no imminent threat.
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February 16, 2013 8:29pm
Redbaiter

F E Smith- if you’re going to be objective about Obama being a constitutionally qualified President, then don’t use the term birther, or birtherism.

This is a typically deceitful attempt to belittle and demean anyone who threatens the left’s cultural hegemony. In fact Obama was not born in Hawaii, he was born in Kenya. How do I know this?

HE HAS FUCKING WELL SAID SO HIMSELF ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS.

SO FUCKING WELL ASK YOURSELF- “IS OBAMA HIMSELF A BIRTHER???”

You profess to take an interest in matters legal. The founding fathers who wrote the constitution knew what they were doing when they specified that only a person born of two American citizens could qualify to be President. It is a loyalty issue. They wanted the President to be beyond doubt totally loyal to the US, and not share any allegiance to any other country.

Obama as President has frequently demonstrated just the disloyal mindset the founders were afraid of. Because he is not an American. It’s no surprise he is weakening the US military and destroying the economy. That is just what a disloyal president would do.

Of course with the lawlessness that exists in most western democracies where the corrupt and cowardly and dishonest left have enjoyed cultural and political hegemony for so long, it is perhaps futile trying to exercise the law as it should be exercised. Those who try to do that though are heroes and do not deserve the ignominy of a term like birthers.

They are actually Constitutionalists. People who wish for a return to lawful government. Naturally the left wants to discredit them.
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February 16, 2013 8:30pm
cha

Someone’s done some sole searching.
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February 16, 2013 8:31pm
bereal

Dear F E Smith

i unreservedly withdraw and apologise for any offence i have caused you.
Please accept my sincere apology. ( i mentioned the word drongo in the heat of the moment.)
We all make mistakes, surely you would agree.

i am sure you are able to answer the question i posed to you @ 8.06 and i am sure that
in light of my abject apology you will be big enough to at least attempt a reply.

No one reading this exchange would seriously feel that an attempt by you at reply would
be interperated as you admitting that you were a drongo.

Lets be big boys about this. O.K. ?
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February 16, 2013 8:36pm
nasska

As it stands at the moment you’re probably right cha….things would change overnight if Iran was on the verge of succeeding in its attempt to develop a nuclear bomb. If however, the sanctions really start hurting then the present regime in Iran will come under a lot of pressure from its people.

The way I see it it’s a waiting game to see what happens first.
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February 16, 2013 8:37pm
Griff

TEA BAGGER
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger
4 A misinformed, right-wing corporate media consumer who often fails to understand that BOTH major parties represent a corrupt plutocracy that steals from the middle class by taxing labor and profiting from corporate tax subsidies.

A teabagger also often fails to acknowledge that George W. Bush and his neo-conservative minions perpetrated one of the boldest and most egregious executive power grabs in the history of the United States. Furthermore, teabaggers mistakenly continue to blame a newly elected President Obama for all that ails the United States of America, based on a grossly flawed perception of reality (including latent racial prejudice) and despite the fact the U.S. economy collapsed on the previous administration’s watch.

6 A conservative republican who protests against income taxes by rubbing their nutsacks in each other’s faces.
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February 16, 2013 8:38pm
Steve (North Shore)

Good read of Blogs today. The hosts are ok like here and others.
Where is – never mind – he is sitting on the fence somewhere
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February 16, 2013 9:01pm
Reid

nasska I’ve always read Syria as a regime-change operation inspired specifically to remove Iran’s last significant regional ally. This is precisely why Russia is not allowing him to fall, if it can help it. It’s a superpower proxy game, and it always has been.

Someone like Nixon may not have been him once said something like: “if it happens in politics then it happened by design. In politics, nothing happens by accident.”

Now it may be romantic to imagine that Syrians are spontaneously uprising against a hated dictator, but you didn’t used to think like that until a few years ago when the propaganda kicked in to start teaching you that meme. That’s one of many signs BTW of a meme. That this is new.

What many don’t know because they haven’t bothered to research it, is that both the Libyans and the Syrians have by and large always been happy with their lot under their leaders, until the west decides it wants to overthrow them and all of a sudden, the people aren’t happy, after all.

Talk about being played like a violin, is my comment to people who think it’s ever been about that. Sorry. Sentiment never enters into superpower geopolitics, the opinion or otherwise of any proportion of any given population matters not a jot to the people who calculate and implement their plans at this level. They don’t give a fuck about democracy or whether or not people are tortured and killed or anything else like that, at all. They say they do of course but only fools believe that.

That’s the game and the arena we are talking about when we talk about the Syrian situation. Turkey could become the point nation if ~~the UN~~ NATO get involved. That will cause serious diplomatic ructions amongst its near neighbours. Amidst all of this, the Arab street aren’t stupid, they know what’s happening. And the question they ask of course is who is responsible for this, who has made the calculation that Iran needs to be taken out and why.

And as I keep saying, if one hallucinates the ME is nothing more than a seething cauldron of boiling hatred who just can’t wait to nuke the west, that’s a fantasy, built up by fear. Fear-driven politics is what 911 heralded and you can tell it’s bullshit by the OTT measures in both UK and US all the time based on the numbers of apprehensions which is tiny by comparison to the massive change in everyday life that they have inflicted on their respective populations. So when you drop the fear and look at it without emotion and run the numbers on the estimated terrorists vs everyone else in that region, you see a different picture to the one the propaganda has painted since that day.

Because you’re not supposed to do that, you see. You’re supposed to absorb the message that there’s danger everywhere and vigilance cannot, must not and will not be relaxed.

But that’s where the idea comes from of believing that this is a spontaneous uprising. Not from reality as it is, but from the perception of fear generated by propaganda. I mean just research the FSA composition and origins. When you penetrate the western propaganda on this you see this as a quite obvious common-or-garden regime-change plan using updated colour revolution tactics adapted for the ME setting.

But at the end of the day Syria is a mere stepping stone. That’s all she is. And Russia is in the way and she’s not backing down. Good. To me, any delay of an attack on Iran is a positive. I hope Russia never backs down and Assad is still in power in 2023.
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February 16, 2013 9:39pm
Nostalgia-NZ

Happy new year bereal.

Making any progress?

You may have heard that the blues won today, though the length of any pony tails is not reported.
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February 16, 2013 9:51pm
chiz

Reid:I’ve always read Syria as a regime-change operation inspired specifically to remove Iran’s last significant regional ally. This is precisely why Russia is not allowing him to fall, if it can help it. It’s a superpower proxy game, and it always has been.

The uprising in Syria is internally driven. It would certainly have the effect of removing Iran last regional ally but that isn’t why it is happening. And the reason Russia is not allowing Assad to fall has little to do with Iran and is instead related to its own interests in Syria.

Now it may be romantic to imagine that Syrians are spontaneously uprising against a hated dictator

That is indeed what is happening.

What many don’t know because they haven’t bothered to research it, is that both the Libyans and the Syrians have by and large always been happy with their lot under their leaders

This has to be the most ignorant comment in GD today. The Syrians have wanted reform for decades, and the Libyans hated Gaddafi.
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February 16, 2013 9:56pm
nasska

Reid

Agree somewhat….there’s little that happens in the ME that could be described as spontaneous. There are multiple layers of cause & effect. Give something a kick here & something blows out over there.

I hark back to “SPC”‘s original thesis to the effect that America is staging the same game as it used in Iraq where they use a country’s own propaganda against it. If Israel stays staunch on the nuclear watch the USA can afford to play a waiting game & let the political situation in Iran implode when the sanctions really bite. I still don’t think they have the capabilities of an extended ground campaign in Iran.
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February 16, 2013 9:57pm
tristanb

Anyone watching Stuff’s footage from the gay pride week should just skip to 1:19.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8314179/Thousands-support-gay-pride-parade
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February 16, 2013 10:10pm
kowtow

Other combinations that do not go together is a “married”

man and man

woman and woman.
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February 16, 2013 10:19pm
Reid

nasska an Iran war is not about tactics but about fallout. Right across the entire Muslim world. If you really do want to light a match to the Muslims, then the best way to do that is to attack Iran. That’s what it’s about. That’s why they want to do it.

The strategic regional calculation revolves around Israel getting rid of her public enemy #1 using the same tactics she used to get rid of her public enemy #2, Iraq: i.e. the US.

The Iranians aren’t going to implode anytime soon and the sanctions are biting, hard. But they will come through because China and Russia will keep them going.

the Libyans hated Gaddafi.

Chiz Ghadaffi got taken out because he’d started to require payment for all oil in gold African Dinars. And that pissed off the US who had become accustomed to paying for it with worthless bits of fiat currency. Do you know what the very first act of the Libyan Provisional Govt was, the very first one even before the firing had stopped. Setup a Central Reserve Bank. Now why did they do that chiz, when there must have been a gajillion other pressing concerns? I know why, personally, but do you? Because they did do that. Ghaddafi did other things too but that was the last straw. BTW in so doing the world lost one of the only four nations who don’t operate a central reserve bank, the others being Cuba, Iran and North Korea.
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February 16, 2013 10:21pm
cha

then the best way to do that is to attack Iran

The Iranian backed Alawite elites and the Sunni majority are at each others throats in Syria so why would an attack on Shia Iran unify Islam?.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4345410,00.html

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/02/al_qaedas_syrian_aff_1.php
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February 16, 2013 10:33pm
UglyTruth

They are actually Constitutionalists. People who wish for a return to lawful government.

Meanwhile here in NZ we can but hope that one day we will have one. NZ’s civil “government” came into existence by being “deemed necessary”. To deem is to create a legal fiction, in this case that a need exists. According to Bracton’s maxim (which is observed by NZ judiciary), that which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity.

Government by the consent of the governed implies informed consent, but knowledge of the nature of civil government is hindered by the use of words of art, legalese which obscures the mechanism by which the system obtains power. The central word is the ambiguous term ‘person’, which in the context of law implies a party or legal representation which has an obligation of some kind. Thus in law there is a distinction between persons and people, between personal property and real property, and between personal jurisdiction and general jurisdiction.
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February 16, 2013 10:38pm
Reid

cha Iran is seen by all Muslims as the best example of a Muslim state. Sectarian considerations don’t come into it. It’s pan-Islam. This crosses regions in that SE Asian Muslims think this as well as ME Muslims. It matters not whether or not you think this is a justified view, this is what they think.

So if Iran is attacked all the Muslim nations will see it as a Christian denigration of Islam. Again it matters not what you think about that, this is what they will see it as.

This should make the thinking person doubly skeptical about the value or otherwise of taking Iran out. But apparently most people fall for the propaganda meme that Iran is so very crazy that the first thing the highly intelligent and calculating people who run this country of 170 million will do when they get a nuke, is use it. I mean, why most people I have no idea, because it’s fucking nuts. Why would they. What would they gain. Recall we are talking about an exceedingly calculating people. You’re telling me that those people would do that? For what? So they could see their country annihilated? I mean what sort of idiot really thinks a country of Iran’s nature would do that. To think that, you’d have to inhabit some sort of Disney fantasy and guess what cha, most people do inhabit that. Isn’t it fucked.
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February 16, 2013 10:58pm
chiz

Iran is seen by all Muslims as the best example of a Muslim state

And you have evidence for this laughable claim?
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February 16, 2013 11:03pm
bereal

Nostalgia-NZ
Thanks, and hope you and yours have a happy new year too.
How things might have been different if only the previous coach had any understanding of discipline.

Regarding progress.
Note how a blowhard, self important, excuse for a lawyer was called out today and when given the chance
to explain/redeem himself there was no one home.
Retired hurt as they say.
What a sad dissapointment he turned out to be.
Just an empty blouse. (is that an ad hominen ?)

Full of it as they say. You gotta wonder about the pillocks who mindlessly gave him thumbs up.

Still, he may yet develop the guts to return and attempt to reply to my question to him/her @ 8.06
and repeated @ 8.36

Course that would require him/her to grow a pair. Beyond his/her abilities i suspect.

Good luck to your family.
G’nite.
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February 16, 2013 11:15pm
F E Smith

beryl, you are an idiot. Firstly, nobody is beholden to answer any question that you might pose. What I wrote above is self-explanatory, you appear to be the only person not to have understood it. Secondly, you can’t say that anybody who answers your questions is a drong/drongo and then expect someone to answer. Then when you don’t get your way, you hurl abuse, expecting that to obtain an answer for you.

Your 8.36 appears to be insincere, so I don’t buy it.

Quite frankly, you appear to be an egotistical, petulant little child, and I have no truck with that sort of behaviour. My not answering you is not so much that I cannot, but more that you don’t deserve it.

EDIT: anyway, I was watching rugby, which was far more interesting.
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February 16, 2013 11:28pm
Reid

chiz it’s a self-evident fact of Islamic politics. I’m sorry that you don’t understand how Muslims think but just because you don’t doesn’t mean others share the same affliction. I suggest you ask Muslims you come across what they think and start from there. That’s what I did. It seems to work.
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February 16, 2013 11:28pm
chiz

Reid, Iran is unpopular with most Muslims, especially Sunnis. Trying to pass off laughable bullshit like this is a clear sign that you don’t really understand anything about ME politics. If your belief about Iran comes from Muslims you’ve talked to I can only assume you misunderstood them.
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February 16, 2013 11:32pm
bereal

F E Smith
the only person you are fooling is yourself. And that can’t be hard.
(by the way, if you are going to use some ad hominens yourself, use some decent ones.)

Bottom line, despite all your faux protestations ,everyone reading this blog today knows the
only reason you wont answer my question is because it is beyond you to do so.
Ludicrous excuse after pittifull excuse.
You’ve beeen found out again.
You’ve made a fool of yourself.
Give up.
You just havent got it baby.
Lawyer ? You must be joking.
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February 16, 2013 11:51pm
F E Smith

bereal,

whatever.
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February 16, 2013 11:57pm
F E Smith

I mean, seriously, you begin with

The resident eminent (in his own mind) jurist F E Smith

and then go on with

One thing you can take to the bank, if you ever needed a lawyer F E Smith would have
to be the very, very last cab off the rank.
In fact, you would be better off walking, even crawling.

and continue in that vein as you go through the day, and yet you wonder why I can’t be bothered answering you?
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February 17, 2013 12:01am
bereal

But my dear F E Smith you do bother answering me,
You have been all afternoon.
but you just haven’t had the balls/ability to answer the question at hand.

And you really excelled yourself @ 11.57 with, “Whatever.”
You really rose to your level of incompetence with that one.

Like i said mate, give it away, you’r just not up to it.
Don’t make a bigger fool of yourself than you already have.
G’nite.
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February 17, 2013 12:10am
Left Right and Centre

warning: this post is a load of shit literally.

I’m fascinated by fully undigested peas. Green and good as new… that’s weird man. I eat a lot of peas for an anorexic and I think the body is telling me ‘Mate, too many peas that time. We don’t need that many thanks. Here, have them back, save them for next time’.

I’m just saying… they’re good enough to wash them and eat them again if you really wanted to… there’s nothing wrong with them.

Human body is weeeeeeeird…….
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February 17, 2013 12:37am
Left Right and Centre

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/8312109/Door-to-door-salesmen-fleecing-unsuspecting

I hate seeing people being conned out of money.

Gypsies? In NZ? That’s a bread and butter gypsy scam. That’s the old chestnut. It’s a total scam and they admit it and are proud of sucking in the weaker members of the herd. They shrug their shoulders. We’re gypsies… that’s what we do.

I feel for the people taken in… it will keep on happening and happening and what can you do about it?

It’s seems fuckin stupid that as a community we can’t just say ‘No, sorry… that’s wrong- the service provided is an obvious scam, you’re giving the cash back or going to prison. Which one?’ Wouldn’t that be good? What’s stopping us making that happen?
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February 17, 2013 12:45am
Griff

Left right and round the bend
Eating you own shit is not going to cure your anorexia.
Have you thought of professional help
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February 17, 2013 7:18am
Left Right and Centre

from griff:

Left right and round the bend
Eating you own shit is not going to cure your anorexia.
Have you thought of professional help

I’m the worst anorexic anyone could hope to ~~meat~~ meet.

I’m still the same weight I was at the start of 2013. Slightly slightly more even.

I couldn’t get down in weight from where I am…. and I’m actually on the line for being ‘overweight’. In fact on some charts… BMI is one of them… I’m at the lowest end of the overweight range.
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February 18, 2013 11:59am

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