General Debate 6 August 2013

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Nookin

Alwyn

Is this the house that Norman wants to rent out at state housing rates? We are going to tie up in excess of $2m to house an unemployed family?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/9005016/National-to-make-Thorndon-mansion-new-HQ
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August 6, 2013 1:17pm
goldnkiwi

A High Court hearing, finally regarding D.Bain and J. Collins in her capacity as Minister
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10908912
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August 6, 2013 1:19pm
nickb

I find it highly ironic that Peter Dunne is bleating so much about the GCSB saga. This is a man formerly in charge of IRD for 8 years. IRD’s search and seizure powers have been described as “the envy of other Crown agencies”.

During Peter Dunne’s tenure as Revenue Minister he let IRD continue its gross invasion of Kiwis’ privacy unabated and expanded the power of IRD (in the form of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012) to search business and private premises and engage in surveillance.

One of the most oppressive (and most often abused) provisions of our tax laws are s16 of the TAA. s16 of the Tax Administration Act provides that IRD can search business premises and take documents without any search warrant (they can search private homes with a warrant)

Commissioner may access premises to obtain information
(1)Notwithstanding anything in any other Act, the Commissioner or any officer of the department authorised by the Commissioner in that behalf shall at all times have full and free access to all lands, buildings, and places, and to all documents, whether in the custody or under the control of a public officer or a body corporate or any other person whatever, for the purpose of inspecting any documents and any property, process, or matter which the Commissioner or officer considers necessary or relevant for the purpose of collecting any tax or duty under any of the Inland Revenue Acts

Can anyone else see the hypocrisy of Peter Dunne bleating about surveillance when he presided over the arm of government with NZ’s most intrusive and oppressive powers, and expanded them?

Some links:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10756846

IRD’s powers pose “civil liberties threat”:

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/growing-aggression-ird-poses-civil-liberties-threat-lennard-gb-132059

IRD has wider powers than Police:

http://www.taxcounsel.co.nz/FAQs./Tax+Investigations.html

Does anyone else think there is a tinge of hypocrisy over Peter Dunne’s “pissing and posing” when thousands of law-abiding Kiwis have felt the wrath of the state’s tax collection arm, presided over by Dunne? I sure do. Pete George sure doesn’t. But then he is a hypocrite and an irony-free zone as he has demonstrated in the comments above.
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August 6, 2013 1:30pm
bereal

If nickb really is a lawyer, spare a thought for the poor suckers he is billing his
hours to when he spends virtually all day every day on this blog.
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August 6, 2013 1:57pm
wikiriwhis business

In one of the most shameful acts against the American people by their own mainstream press, their refusal to publish, let alone mention, Edward Snowden’s fathers open letter to Obama will stand forever as an indictment against those elites seeking to enslave these once great people forever, and as we can all read in its entirety:

July 26, 2013

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20500

Re: Civil Disobedience, Edward J. Snowden, and the Constitution

Dear Mr. President:

You are acutely aware that the history of liberty is a history of civil disobedience to unjust laws or practices. As Edmund Burke sermonized, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Civil disobedience is not the first, but the last option. Henry David Thoreau wrote with profound restraint in Civil Disobedience: “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”

Thoreau’s moral philosophy found expression during the Nuremburg trials in which “following orders” was rejected as a defense. Indeed, military law requires disobedience to clearly illegal orders.

A dark chapter in America’s World War II history would not have been written if the then United States Attorney General had resigned rather than participate in racist concentration camps imprisoning 120,000 Japanese American citizens and resident aliens.

Civil disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act and Jim Crow laws provoked the end of slavery and the modern civil rights revolution.

We submit that Edward J. Snowden’s disclosures of dragnet surveillance of Americans under § 215 of the Patriot Act, § 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments, or otherwise were sanctioned by Thoreau’s time-honored moral philosophy and justifications for civil disobedience. Since 2005, Mr. Snowden had been employed by the intelligence community. He found himself complicit in secret, indiscriminate spying on millions of innocent citizens contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the First and Fourth Amendments and the transparency indispensable to self-government. Members of Congress entrusted with oversight remained silent or Delphic. Mr. Snowden confronted a choice between civic duty and passivity. He may have recalled the injunction of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” Mr. Snowden chose duty. Your administration vindictively responded with a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Espionage Act.

From the commencement of your administration, your secrecy of the National Security Agency’s Orwellian surveillance programs had frustrated a national conversation over their legality, necessity, or morality. That secrecy (combined with congressional nonfeasance) provoked Edward’s disclosures, which sparked a national conversation which you have belatedly and cynically embraced. Legislation has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate to curtail or terminate the NSA’s programs, and the American people are being educated to the public policy choices at hand. A commanding majority now voice concerns over the dragnet surveillance of Americans that Edward exposed and you concealed. It seems mystifying to us that you are prosecuting Edward for accomplishing what you have said urgently needed to be done!

The right to be left alone from government snooping–the most cherished right among civilized people—is the cornerstone of liberty. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson served as Chief Prosecutor at Nuremburg. He came to learn of the dynamics of the Third Reich that crushed a free society, and which have lessons for the United States today.

Writing in Brinegar v. United States, Justice Jackson elaborated:

The Fourth Amendment states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reliance disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police.

We thus find your administration’s zeal to punish Mr. Snowden’s discharge of civic duty to protect democratic processes and to safeguard liberty to be unconscionable and indefensible.

We are also appalled at your administration’s scorn for due process, the rule of law, fairness, and the presumption of innocence as regards Edward.

On June 27, 2013, Mr. Fein wrote a letter to the Attorney General stating that Edward’s father was substantially convinced that he would return to the United States to confront the charges that have been lodged against him if three cornerstones of due process were guaranteed. The letter was not an ultimatum, but an invitation to discuss fair trial imperatives. The Attorney General has sneered at the overture with studied silence.

We thus suspect your administration wishes to avoid a trial because of constitutional doubts about application of the Espionage Act in these circumstances, and obligations to disclose to the public potentially embarrassing classified information under the Classified Information Procedures Act.

Your decision to force down a civilian airliner carrying Bolivian President Eva Morales in hopes of kidnapping Edward also does not inspire confidence that you are committed to providing him a fair trial. Neither does your refusal to remind the American people and prominent Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate like House Speaker John Boehner, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann,and Senator Dianne Feinstein that Edward enjoys a presumption of innocence. He should not be convicted before trial. Yet Speaker Boehner has denounced Edward as a “traitor.”

Ms. Pelosi has pontificated that Edward “did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents.” Ms. Bachmann has pronounced that, “This was not the act of a patriot; this was an act of a traitor.” And Ms. Feinstein has decreed that Edward was guilty of “treason,” which is defined in Article III of the Constitution as “levying war” against the United States, “or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

You have let those quadruple affronts to due process pass unrebuked, while you have disparaged Edward as a “hacker” to cast aspersion on his motivations and talents. Have you forgotten the Supreme Court’s gospel in Berger v. United States that the interests of the government “in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done?”

We also find reprehensible your administration’s Espionage Act prosecution of Edward for disclosures indistinguishable from those which routinely find their way into the public domain via your high level appointees for partisan political advantage. Classified details of your predator drone protocols, for instance, were shared with the New York Times with impunity to bolster your national security credentials. Justice Jackson observed in Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York: “The framers of the Constitution knew, and we should not forget today, that there is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.”

In light of the circumstances amplified above, we urge you to order the Attorney General to move to dismiss the outstanding criminal complaint against Edward, and to support legislation to remedy the NSA surveillance abuses he revealed. Such presidential directives would mark your finest constitutional and moral hour.

Sincerely,

Bruce Fein

Counsel for Lon Snowden

Lon Snowden

Source
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August 6, 2013 2:03pm
Tom Jackson

I find it highly ironic that Peter Dunne is bleating so much about the GCSB saga. This is a man formerly in charge of IRD for 8 years. IRD’s search and seizure powers have been described as “the envy of other Crown agencies”.

Just wait until the GCSB is reading your emails and bank records on behalf of the IRD. They’ll take that flippant text about doing a cash job and use it to justify cutting off your bollocks.
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August 6, 2013 2:04pm
nickb

Just wait until the GCSB is reading your emails and bank records on behalf of the IRD. They’ll take that flippant text about doing a cash job and use it to justify cutting off your bollocks.

Sadly its not far from the truth.
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August 6, 2013 2:08pm
Pete George

Just wait until the GCSB is reading your emails and bank records on behalf of the IRD.

They won’t be able to thanks to an amendment from Dunne. No other departments can be added (to SIS, Police and Defence Force) except by a future change in legislation. The original version of the bill allowed the Minister to add other departments.
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August 6, 2013 2:09pm
dime

bereal – good to see you. rumor has it you passed away after eating a lethal dose of shit. human shit.

[DPF: Demerits warning for next time]
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August 6, 2013 2:14pm
alwyn

Nookim @1.17pm
Well yes actually, although I was a little bit ahead of things in announcing his enquiry demand.
I was simply going on his past record of demanding an enquiry into anything that the Government does.
I thought referring to it as fairyland and describing his nasal whine as a clarion call might give it away.
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August 6, 2013 2:14pm
Tom Jackson

The birthday card that plays you a song has more computing power than all of the allied forces in 1945. Your cell phone has more computing power than all of NASA in 1969. Sending a man to the moon is a stunning feat but it in no way represents the pinnacle of human accomplishments. We already have the ability to send someone to Mars. The question is: at what cost and for what purpose? It’s not like Al Qaeda has a space program.

You’re missing his point. We have faster computers than we did then, but they had better ovens than people who lived 40 years before that. This is no big deal. The problem is that we can no longer execute on the big stuff or even dream big.

This is a general theme that has been running around for a while now. See:

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation

http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars

It’s not just big stuff in a technological sense, but in an aesthetic sense. Our entire society is mostly devoted to useless trivialities. Say what you like about modernism, but at least it had vision. The virtue of today’s liberal elites appears to be small mindedness.

The US can’t even build decent fighter planes any more. The country which produced the finest and most technologically advanced aircraft of the 20th century is now facing most of the 21st having to rely on a couple of lemons for all it’s fighter needs. It’s taken them three to four times as long and insane amounts of money to get worse results than they were getting 30 years ago. For example, the Australians are going to end up with the Joint Strike Fighter, an aircraft that performs more poorly than the F-18s they have now.
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August 6, 2013 2:18pm
mikenmild

An important victory for freedom of religion:
http://www.newser.com/story/171925/court-says-pastafarian-has-right-to-wear-strainer-hat.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=slate&utm_campaign=greatfinds_rss
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August 6, 2013 2:19pm
Tom Jackson

They won’t be able to thanks to an amendment from Dunne. No other departments can be added (to SIS, Police and Defence Force) except by a future change in legislation. The original version of the bill allowed the Minister to add other departments.

Just like speed cameras were never going to be hidden.

LOL
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August 6, 2013 2:19pm
Pete George

Tom, on that basis any legislation can potentially be changed in the future. Paranoia about that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t improve on legislation today.

Like the slippery slop fear of compulsory homosexuality.
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August 6, 2013 2:26pm
freemark

Dunne got (will get?) the Child Support stuff sorted.. one of the most kid friendly changes in recent history.
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August 6, 2013 2:26pm
Pete George

But you could be right Tom, now we have marriage equality it won’t be long until homosexuality is compulsory, will it.

Legislation is a slippery slope. Three strikes wil be two strikes soon. All schools will have to be charter schools. All assets will be sold, including all the houses.
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August 6, 2013 2:31pm
nickb

Dunne got (will get?) the Child Support stuff sorted.. one of the most kid friendly changes in recent history.

Sorry freemark, I think you missed the news recently. Peter Dunne has personally and professionally disgraced himself some weeks back and so won’t be playing any part in the child support amendments. Alas, he won’t lose too much financially because UF is still a “party”, you see, so he qualifies for extra perks. I always thought the dictionary of “party” referred to a group of people, but apparently not.
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August 6, 2013 2:31pm
Tom Jackson

Tom, on that basis any legislation can potentially be changed in the future. Paranoia about that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t improve on legislation today.

Wrong. The speed camera case is instructive. It makes political sense for governments that want to do something that people oppose in increments, so they can drip feed in what they want later on – and that is what happened with speed cameras. It will be politically much easier to extend the powers of the GCSB once the basic principle of allowing it to spy on New Zealanders is legal.

It’s good politics to head of potential abuses of power before they become actual.
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August 6, 2013 2:33pm
kowtow

Hizbollah seem to be arming the Muslims in Northern Nigeria.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=39523&icid=4&d_str=20130806
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August 6, 2013 2:35pm
Kea

I always thought the dictionary of …

nickb, not another one who attempts understanding through reading dictionaries 😉
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August 6, 2013 2:36pm
Tom Jackson

But you could be right Tom, now we have marriage equality it won’t be long until homosexuality is compulsory, will it.

Poor argument. The government has nothing to gain from making homosexuality compulsory (at least I cannot fathom why it would want to – perhaps you can). It had something to gain from hiding speed cameras and would obviously gain from increasing the powers of government agencies like the IRD (which pays the government) to enforce its own rules.
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August 6, 2013 2:36pm
Kea

Hizbollah seem to be arming the Muslims in Northern Nigeria.

kowtow, as oppossed to Obama arming the radical Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria… ?
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August 6, 2013 2:37pm
nickb

nickb, not another one who attempts understanding through reading dictionaries 😉

Yes, sorry Kea, I should have known better 🙂
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August 6, 2013 2:38pm
Pete George

“It’s good politics to head of potential abuses of power before they become actual.”

No more law changes, just in case? But a future government can still put through anything they can get the votes for, whether there is exisitng more moderate legislation or not.

Wearing tin foil hats could be made compulsory, and we don’t even have to hear voices in our heads now.
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August 6, 2013 2:39pm
Kea

nickb, keep that up and you will soon be the first “Freeman” lawyer.

You can also expect to end up in the cells for contempt 🙂
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August 6, 2013 2:42pm
Pete George

“so won’t be playing any part in the child support amendments. ”

In your rush to diss you revealed your ignorance nick. That bill passed in April.

And the Psychoactive Substances Bill passed last month, largely thanks to Dunne. And the Game Animal Council will still proceed, as will the Flexi-Super discussion.
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August 6, 2013 2:43pm
Tom Jackson

No more law changes, just in case? But a future government can still put through anything they can get the votes for, whether there is exisitng more moderate legislation or not.

You’re attacking a straw man. No one is saying we should oppose all law changes, or even all law changes that might lead to nasty laws being easier to pass. What’s being argued here is that we should oppose massive power grabs that will enable nasty laws to be made very easy to pass.

Wearing tin foil hats could be made compulsory, and we don’t even have to hear voices in our heads now.

I’m going to be nice about this, but what fucking planet have you been living on for the last two months?

We no longer live in a world where massive government surveillance of private communications is purely notional – we now know that it is happening and has apparently been happening for a long time now. The GCSB bill cannot be seen in isolation from the Snowden revelations precisely because the GCSB is in an intelligence sharing network that enables the spying Snowden is talking about.

You may not care if Barack Obama knows about Redbaiter’s secret collection of digital donkey porn, but Redbaiter would, and so should anyone who cares about living in an open society (and that’s almost everyone on the right and left).
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August 6, 2013 2:47pm
bereal

dime @ 2.14

Very classy post.
You would be proud of that one.
You reveal more of your true charecter every day.

Quite infantile really.
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August 6, 2013 2:48pm
nickb

The Game Animal Council!!!! Lucky that went through before his forced resignation, that would have been tragic and dire had that legislation not got through.

You are correct about the child support Bill, my apologies. You will be pleased to know that I am not so caught up in a cause that I can’t apologise when I am wrong….

Although he is still the worst Revenue Minister in history. I stand by that comment.
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August 6, 2013 2:48pm
dime

bereal – i crack myself up 😀
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August 6, 2013 2:54pm
nickb

Beryl – you should have a breathalyzer attached your your PC.

If you are 3 times over the limit for driving you shouldn’t be able to come on here and talk politics, and tell us about your eating habits.
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August 6, 2013 2:57pm
Pete George

Wrong again nick, the Game Animal Council Bill is still progressing. It is still subject to an agreement being honoured between National and United Future, where a trusting relationship remains.

“Although he is still the worst Revenue Minister in history. I stand by that comment.”

Helen Clark and John Key appear to disagree with you on that. The seem to be a bit more balanced than you.
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August 6, 2013 3:10pm
Manolo

P.G. go away. You sicken us all by your sycophantic adoration of Dunne.
Get a life, man.
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August 6, 2013 3:11pm
UglyTruth

nickb, not another one who attempts understanding through reading dictionaries

Still flying the flag for atheism, ignorance, and deceit, Kea?

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/08/police_assn_call_for_teina_pora_inquiry.html/comment-page-1#comment-1182732
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August 6, 2013 3:11pm
nickb

Wrong again nick, the Game Animal Council Bill is still progressing. It is still subject to an agreement being honoured between National and United Future, where a trusting relationship remains.

You got me on semantics there Pete. I confess to not having an intimate knowledge of the progress through the House of the Game Animal Council Bill. Clearly I don’t follow politics closely at all to have made that mistake. Sorry.
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August 6, 2013 3:13pm
Left Right and Centre

Puppy killing burglars: Another reason not to live in Auckland

If you ever catch a 16 year old burglar- smash his fucking head in if you can. Otherwise they go 100% unpunished.
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August 6, 2013 3:16pm
nickb

Helen Clark and John Key appear to disagree with you on that. The seem to be a bit more balanced than you.

Helen Clark is a raving commie prog troll who with Peter Dunne bought in WFF, the worst change to our tax system in NZ’s history. John Key needs to keep the prostitute on side in case he “needs” him come 2014. So I would hardly call their opinions either balanced or credible.
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August 6, 2013 3:18pm
Weihana

Tom Jackson (889) Says:
August 6th, 2013 at 2:18 pm

You’re missing his point.

I think the point was that human achievement reached its apex in 1969 and that the welfare state is to blame.

The problem is that we can no longer execute on the big stuff or even dream big.

The internet is pretty big.

This is a general theme that has been running around for a while now. See:

http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation

Still, I worry that our inability to match the achievements of the 1960s space program might be symptomatic of a general failure of our society to get big things done

I don’t to see a technical inability. The landing of curiosity on Mars was a major technical feat. It may not involve humans and thus generates less drama but what are we talking about here? Drama or technical achievement?

The NAVSTAR system is also a major accomplishment. But again, more technical than inspiring.

http://thebaffler.com/past/of_flying_cars

We are well informed of the wonders of computers, as if this is some sort of unanticipated compensation, but, in fact, we haven’t moved even computing to the point of progress that people in the fifties expected we’d have reached by now. We don’t have computers we can have an interesting conversation with, or robots that can walk our dogs or take our clothes to the Laundromat.

This merely reflects an ignorance of the kind of computing capabilities required for these seemingly mundane and ordinary activities such as speaking in natural language. Also not all technologies are subject to exponential improvements in performance and an inability to understand that has led to all sorts of fanciful predictions (at least within the time frames some might have assumed). I believe our predictive powers have improved but of course it will be inevitable that some or many of them will turn out differently than expected.

The US can’t even build decent fighter planes any more. The country which produced the finest and most technologically advanced aircraft of the 20th century is now facing most of the 21st having to rely on a couple of lemons for all it’s fighter needs. It’s taken them three to four times as long and insane amounts of money to get worse results than they were getting 30 years ago. For example, the Australians are going to end up with the Joint Strike Fighter, an aircraft that performs more poorly than the F-18s they have now.

I think this is missing the bigger picture. I don’t know about the F-35. I see reports that the claims about it’s poor performance are inaccurate. But who knows. I would note that the Joint Strike Fighter program attempted some fairly remarkable capabilities that it sought to integrate into one fighter. It does not seem surprising that it costs more and is more difficult to accomplish.

But the US has developed an extensive arsenal of drones. It has developed the X47B which can operate completely autonomously (as in you tell it to do something and it works out the details, no joystick, no pilot). The US military is also working to replace soldiers with robots and their robot dogs. They seem to be making fairly good progress in this area (and who knows what they haven’t told us about).

I don’t think a few concerns over one program is reflective of the demise of the US military’s capabilities.

There’s no USSR anymore so perhaps it is the fact that the US doesn’t require a big propaganda campaign to make the public believe how much more wonderful we are than the communists. Maybe that’s a problem. Maybe we need to send humans to Mars just for the PR factor and the inspiration. I think it’s possible now. But people have to be prepared to spend the money.
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August 6, 2013 3:22pm
jcuk

Elaycee (3,557) Says:

August 6th, 2013 at 10:28 am
There is reasonable if unpleasant for a rightwinger’s reasoning for the Japanese version. People merely think about the dastardly attack on a pathetically unprepared nation’s outlying post and convienientlty forget, or are ignorant of, the way the West were engaging in trade warfare to hold back the development of Japan.

This is perhaps unpleasant reading for those in the west who believe what they have been indocrintated by the ‘victors’ who always write the history of the event whenever and whatever happens.

The Japanese unfortunately under estimated the ability and industrial capabilities of the United States to recover from the attack. A country with better intelligence of their opponent would not have made the serious error of attacking Pearl Harbour however much it was justified by the actions of the western industrialists pre 1939.

So elaycee the facts support the Japanese version even if it is not particularly PC in western countries.
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August 6, 2013 3:32pm
dime

“The US can’t even build decent fighter planes any more. The country which produced the finest and most technologically advanced aircraft of the 20th century is now facing most of the 21st having to rely on a couple of lemons for all it’s fighter needs. It’s taken them three to four times as long and insane amounts of money to get worse results than they were getting 30 years ago. For example, the Australians are going to end up with the Joint Strike Fighter, an aircraft that performs more poorly than the F-18s they have now.”

LMAO yeah ok.
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August 6, 2013 3:33pm
liarbors a joke

“If you ever catch a 16 year old burglar”

Hey this guys got rights just like the rest of us , and he’s not guilty until proven otherwise.

What do you want…a return to the wild west?

Let me answer that:

Hell Yes!…string the scum up !
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August 6, 2013 3:33pm
jcuk

mandk (297) Says: August 6th, 2013 at 10:56 am

I am not sure that Germany was that much better prepared for WWII than France and the UK which had been frantically preparing for about a year …. but England called Hitler’s bluff when he invaded Poland …. it was the industrial skill of Germany as they really started to gear up for war without the pretences imposed on them by the League of Nations a a result of war starting. Subsequently it was only the industrial power of the United States, first with Lend Lease and then with full blown support after the Japanese attacked PH that started to hurt Germany, also the corrageous sacrifices of the Russian people as Hitler broke his pact with them and invaded. That even when America did get involved it was simply pure weight of numbers, ie it took five America tanks to take out a Tiger etc and things like the Thousand bomber raid from the UK that softened up German for the surrender. Even in 1944 the Germans were capable of causing considerable upset to the allies, Battle of the Bulge I think it is called.

I think perhaops younger people today should read history instead of watching Hollywood.
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August 6, 2013 3:46pm
jcuk

dime (6,955) Says: August 6th, 2013 at 3:33 pm

Didn’t the Americans have to use Rolls Royce engines in their ‘Finest and most advanced planes of the 20th C.’ to get off the ground ?
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August 6, 2013 3:51pm
Tom Jackson

Don’t have much time…

The internet is pretty big.

No. It’s a collection of small, replicable units. It’s no more remarkable that the internet exists than the telephone network existed – in fact the former piggybacked on the latter. It’s a far less difficult organisational feat than the moon landing or getting Polaris to work.

I don’t to see a technical inability. The landing of curiosity on Mars was a major technical feat. It may not involve humans and thus generates less drama but what are we talking about here? Drama or technical achievement?

Both. I agree about curiosity, but landing people on Mars would be an order of magnitude more difficult.

The NAVSTAR system is also a major accomplishment. But again, more technical than inspiring.

A glorified map…

This merely reflects an ignorance of the kind of computing capabilities required for these seemingly mundane and ordinary activities such as speaking in natural language. Also not all technologies are subject to exponential improvements in performance and an inability to understand that has led to all sorts of fanciful predictions (at least within the time frames some might have assumed). I believe our predictive powers have improved but of course it will be inevitable that some or many of them will turn out differently than expected.

Computers are an old technology by now.

I think this is missing the bigger picture. I don’t know about the F-35. I see reports that the claims about it’s poor performance are inaccurate. But who knows. I would note that the Joint Strike Fighter program attempted some fairly remarkable capabilities that it sought to integrate into one fighter. It does not seem surprising that it costs more and is more difficult to accomplish.

You only need to look at the airframe to see the problem. It doesn’t have enough lift surface in relation to its body. It’s a flying bathtub. It assumes that it can keep combat BVR, an assumption that has been proven false every time it has been tried.

But the US has developed an extensive arsenal of drones. It has developed the X47B which can operate completely autonomously (as in you tell it to do something and it works out the details, no joystick, no pilot). The US military is also working to replace soldiers with robots and their robot dogs. They seem to be making fairly good progress in this area (and who knows what they haven’t told us about).

Graeber actually addresses this later in the article.

I don’t think a few concerns over one program is reflective of the demise of the US military’s capabilities.

It’s the only two fighters they have. I think it’s a pretty big deal.

The basic point is that our political (neoliberal) and ideological (i.e postmodernism) norms are inhibiting us from getting big organisational tasks done. We prefer non coercive solutions, but there is a limit to those.
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August 6, 2013 3:52pm
Scott Chris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfrnNnukLuE
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August 6, 2013 3:53pm
jcuk

People derogatorilly refer to Peter Dunne as ‘the prostitute’ or ‘the whore’ completely ignoring that it is an honorable profession dating from beyond history and they provide a valuable service to both men and women in societies.
As does P D in our recent political history.
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August 6, 2013 4:00pm
dime

“Didn’t the Americans have to use Rolls Royce engines in their ‘Finest and most advanced planes of the 20th C.’ to get off the ground ?”

umm are we talking military?

f-14 – General Electric
f-15 – Pratt & Whitney
f-16 – General Electric
f-18 – General Electric
f-111 – Pratt & Whitney
F-117 – Pratt & Whitney
B2 – Pratt
b52 – pratt
c-17 – pratt (dime loves this plane)
A-10 Warthog – another dime fav, General Electric
U-2 spy plane.. general elecrtric.

Boeing used rolls on some of the commercial jetts. eg 747 uses a rolls or a pratt etc etc
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August 6, 2013 4:06pm
mandk

jcuk: “I am not sure that Germany was that much better prepared for WWII than France and the UK which had been frantically preparing for about a year”

I think you might find that Germany had been re-arming since the early 1930s. The Germans even had time for a dress rehearsal: i.e. the Spanish Civil War.
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August 6, 2013 4:11pm
dime

jcuk – ze germans were way ahead of the brits in military prep.

you had that piss weak chamberlain doing nothing.
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August 6, 2013 4:13pm
nickb

dime mate (and anyone else reading) – got a good book you would like (that is, assuming you like reading, and like books that I like). Wolf of Wall street. Movie comes out in October, Leo plays lead character. Just finished, now going to get catching the wolf, which is part II
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August 6, 2013 4:18pm
jcuk

This business of the United states closing a lot of its diplomatic posts strikes me as really funny … those ‘bad’ guys simply let a message be intercepted by using an un-secure medium and they cause far more mayhem than if they had to sacrifice one of their supporters as a human bomb.
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August 6, 2013 4:22pm
dime

nick – ive been meaning to read it. the wolf was in auckland earlier in the year doing seminars. my buddy was doing some promo work for him. apparently hes a smart fella.. just dodgy!

scorsese directing the movie too!
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August 6, 2013 4:29pm
nickb

nick – ive been meaning to read it. the wolf was in auckland earlier in the year doing seminars. my buddy was doing some promo work for him. apparently hes a smart fella.. just dodgy!

Really??? Gutted! Yea sounds incredibly dodgy hahaha. Awesome story though. movie should be a cracker as long as they don’t dumb it down too much
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August 6, 2013 4:35pm
bereal

dime, why don’t you and young nicky just get a room ?

Ps the mustang was powered by RR Merlin.
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August 6, 2013 4:38pm
All_on_Red

With the F22 Raptor now operational I don’t think the US is too worried about delays in the F35 program. They don’t call it an “Air Dominance” fighter for nothing. I think only the Russian SU35 and Eurofighter can come close and of course they aren’t as stealthy.
They still have tons of F18 Super Hornets working away.
The F35 program was ambitious. Stealth, VTOL/SVTOL and being able to be carrier based is a big ask.
They’ll get there though.
Still for ground support as in Afghanistan you cant beat the good old Warthog A10 combined with the C130 Spectre.
They are awesome when they light up. You couldn’t dig holes fast and deep enough to get away from them.
Poor Taliban. awwww

Trivia note- the P51 Mustang was loosely based on the original Messerschmidt 105
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August 6, 2013 4:46pm
wat dabney

“…it was the industrial skill of Germany as they really started to gear up for war without the pretences imposed on them by the League of Nations a a result of war starting. …”

In fact Germany didn’t fully mobilise its economy until extremely late in the war.
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August 6, 2013 4:58pm
UglyTruth

This business of the United states closing a lot of its diplomatic posts strikes me as really funny

Even funnier is that the British diplomatic posts were hit because of money laundering issues.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/216122/embassy-accounts-being-closed-by-hsbc-bank
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August 6, 2013 4:58pm
Manolo

Despair among the ranks at The sub-Standard, as per the comments:

Shearer speaking now on Fonterra, worst speech ever!! Really really bad… Thank God the bell has just gone!.

When you watch it, remember that this debate was called for by Shearer himself. He has not been caught on the hop, he has asked to speak, to hold the government to account. And so … he speaks. Now watch.

C’mon, there are still a few of you on here who keep saying everything will be fine for the left if we just shut up and support David Shearer. Watch that awful speech, or forever hold your peace. That man cannot be Prime Minister. Period.

Can anyone provide a link to Captain Mumbefuck‘s attempt at public speaking?
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August 6, 2013 5:04pm
jcuk

Dime … while your list of American planes looks quite exaustive it must be gleened from books whereas my scant knowledge of the situation is from being a teenager during WWII. Your list misses out planes such as the Tomahawk and Mustang and I wonder how many planes were powered by RR built under licence in the States but maybe labeled by the American builders in your source[s]

Wat D … as to if it was fully or just actively in the ‘open’ we can quibble over but the fact remains the Germans recovered from WWII with seemingly good industrial relations to be leaders in post war recovery … Britian on the other hand suffered from being one of the ‘Victors’.

Ugly T … you seem to have missed the point of my message. In any case I have not lived in the UK since just after the Coronation so have more feelings for NZ my home, than UK my birth country. Perhaps I have lived longer in NZ than you LOL. And through my step-father date back to the early days of NZ settlement,
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August 6, 2013 5:15pm
jcuk

Thankyou Bereal … my memory was not faulty LOL
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August 6, 2013 5:21pm
Fletch

Love this guy. He was a Democrat but recently switched parties to becomes Republican. Now he is leading the Free At Last PAC.
This is the sort of person needed as a leader, not the useless Obama’s of the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-s0LL_1Vk0
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August 6, 2013 5:21pm
dime

Jcuk – I only know modern planes.

But if we are talking back then… Then the yanks probably did need the Brits tech… Just like the Brits needed the yanks to win the war for them
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August 6, 2013 5:22pm
Longknives

Re WW2 planes I only know what I learned from Commando comics…

“Take that Fritz!”
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August 6, 2013 5:28pm
Sidey

liarbors a joke at 3:33 pm
“If you ever catch a 16 year old burglar”

Hey this guys got rights just like the rest of us , and he’s not guilty until proven otherwise.

Umm, I think the “he’s not guilty” bit is rather superseded by the “if you ever catch a burglar” bit. Hint: caught a burglar. Not a suspected burglar. Some loser in your house at 3am waering a balaclava and carrying a bag with your favourite Charles & Di biscuit tin collection isn’t “not guilty until proven otherwise.” Unless you mean in the strict legal sense, not in the common sense. In which case you’re not guilty of smacking the little shit in the head either.
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August 6, 2013 5:31pm
jcuk

Ugly T … I suspect you didn’t read or hear the report about HSBC properly since it seems it is a British Bank acting responsibly to counter money laundering So I guess I should be proud LOL
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August 6, 2013 5:32pm
Longknives

Sidey- Just because you catch the wee cherub in your house at 3am wearing a balaclava and stealing your stuff doesn’t make him a criminal…’innocent until proven guilty’ and all that. In fact- Obama would probably claim he was “the son I never had” etc etc if you shot him.
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August 6, 2013 5:37pm
jcuk

Yes Dime … Britain did need America to help win the war with them .. that was after she carefully drained Britian of its resources before joining in becuase of Pearl Harbour … the pathetic American mentality of hitting back instead of righting the problems, as per 9/11 in recent times. Mind you they acquired the characteristic from the European countries so who is calling who black. Was reading about the Spanish-American War recently and how the gutter press stirred things along.
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August 6, 2013 5:39pm
UglyTruth

you seem to have missed the point of my message

No, I understood what you meant about overreacting to rumour.
Seems that Al Qaeda moves in mysterious ways… :p
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August 6, 2013 5:52pm
publicwatchdog

Hi Kiwibloggers!

Seen this? 🙂

http://www.occupyaucklandvsaucklandcouncilappeal.org.nz/?p=229

6 August 2013

‘Open Letter’ to National MP for Auckland Central, Nikki Kaye, from Auckland Mayoral candidate, Penny Bright: :

(Full copy of letter here:
GCSB Open Letter Reply (Rev A) to Nikki Kaye 6 August 2013

“Please respect the ‘Rule of Law’ and ‘lawful due process and do not vote to railroad through the GCSB Bill!”

National MP for Auckland Central,
Nikki Kaye

Dear Nikki,

Thank you for your response to those over 500 signatories , (including myself), to the following petition:

To National Party Member of Parliament for Auckland Central, Nikki Kaye :

“The will of the people is the basis of the authority of Government.”

We, the undersigned, call upon YOU, as an MP, to defend the lawful human rights of New Zealanders to privacy, freedom of association and freedom of expression – that is – to oppose arbitrary search and surveillance by the State over citizens.

If YOU, as an MP, vote for this GCSB Bill, which will allow widespread spying on New Zealanders, we, the undersigned hereby PLEDGE to campaign against your re-election in 2014, and to encourage our families, neighbours and workmates to do the same. ”
________________________________________________________________________________________________

YOUR REPLY:

GCSB Nikki Kaye reply to petition pledging to campaign against her if she supports GCSB Bill 5 August 2013

5 August 2013

Dear Penny

This letter is to acknowledge receipt of your petition to me as the MP for Auckland Central regarding the GCSB Bill.

Thank you for raising your concerns, and those of the people who signed, with me.

The Bill clarifies the law that the GCSB operates under. The Prime Minister takes his responsibility for national security seriously, which is why the Government is moving to clarify the the law so that it is legally clear that the GCSB is able to assist other agencies, like the NZIS, Police and Defence Force.

Let me be clear – the Bill does not allow the GCSB to conduct wholesale spying on New Zealanders. It allows the GCSB to assist the Police NZISA and Defence when there are serious matters that need to be investigated. This Bill sits at the heart of our national security.

We have made recent changes to strengthen the Bill following hearings with the Intelligence Committee.

The Committee considering the Bill received 122 submissions, which have helped the Bill achieve the right balance between national security and privacy.

Recent changes include:

* An independent review of operations and performance of the GCSB and NZSIS and their governing legislation in 2015 and thereafter every 5 – 7 years.

* No other agencies, apart from the Police, NZ SIS and Defence can ask the GCSB for assistance unless Parliament agrees to

* The GCSB will also be required to report annually on the number of warrants and authorisations issued

It’s important to note that the Intelligence and Security Committee will hold public hearings annually to discuss the financial reviews of the performance of the GCSB and NZSIS.

The legislation also creates new obligations for the GCSB in respect of the handling of personal information, based on a number principles recognised under the Privacy Act.

This policy will be signed off by the Director of GCSB, in consultation with the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the Privacy Commissioner and compliance will be regularly audited, with results communicated to the Privacy Commissioner.

The Bill requires more transparency around how the GCSB operates, it significantly strengthens the independent oversight of the intelligence agencies, and it allows the GCSB to get on with the job of protecting New Zealanders and our national security.

Best wishes,

Nikki Kaye

Hon Nikki Kaye

MP for Auckland Central
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nikki, please be reminded that because I suspect that I may have been one of the 88 New Zealanders referred to in the Kitteridge Report, who may have unlawfully spied upon by the GCSB, I made a formal complaint to the Privacy Commission – the ‘due process’ which I was advised to follow by the Office of the Prime Minister, on 10 April 2013, with subsequent (correct) contact details given by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on 11 April 2013.

My complaint to the Privacy Commissioner (dated 15 May 2013) is available here:

http://www.occupyaucklandvsaucklandcouncilappeal.org.nz/?p=195

On 30 July 2013, I received the following update from the Assistant Commissioner, Investigations for the Privacy Commissioner:

GCSB Privacy Comm Update Letter 30_7_13

“Dear Ms Bright

Privacy Act Complaint: Penny Bright and Government Communications Security Bureau
(our Ref: C/25391)

We have received a significant number of complaints regarding access request responses made by the Government Communications Security Bureau in recent times. I am aware that you may be impatient to acquire an outcome to your complaint.

Upon receiving a complaint about an access review our responsibility is to review the reasons that an agency gives for withholding information and either agree or disagree with the agency in its use of the withholding grounds. The intelligence community provides a significant challenge in terms of the way information is managed and held.

Scrutiny of the reasons an intelligence agency withholds information and viewing of the information can only be handled by individuals with the appropriate levels of clearances.

Our Office has an overall small resource and that resource is even smaller in terms of those who have sufficient security clearances to manage these complaints.

Our practice is to meet with the agency, understand their policies and reasons for making decisions under the Privacy Act and if appropriate review information withheld. These activities take a significant amount of time. Added to our current burden is the significant number of complaints that we have received.

Please rest assured that we are actively investigating your complaint and for all the reasons I have mentioned earlier in this letter the resolution of your complaint will take time. As soon as I have some issue to report to you, you will receive a telephone call or correspondence from me.

In the meantime I thank you in advance for your patience.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Flahive
Assistant Commissioner, Investigations
______________________________________________________________________________________________

It is now 6 August 2013, and I am still none the wiser, as presumably are none of the many other New Zealanders who have similarly made such Privacy Act requests.

How can you, Nikki Kaye, in all decency, be prepared to continue to vote for the passage of this GCSB Bill, whilst the Privacy Commission is still investigating complaints made by people like myself, trying to discover and uncover how, why and upon whose instructions this unlawful spying upon 88 New Zealanders took place?

How can this GCSB Bill possibly ‘improve’ the current legislation, when nobody yet knows the ‘systems faults’ that caused this unlawful spying upon New Zealanders, because the Privacy Commission has not yet completed their investigations?

I’m sorry Nikki – but your assurance “Let me be clear – the Bill does not allow the GCSB to conduct wholesale spying on New Zealanders,” does not ring true with me.

The current GCSB Act was not supposed to allow spying on ANY New Zealanders – but this has still occurred – UNLAWFULLY.

You state: “The Bill clarifies the law that the GCSB operates under.”

The law, in my considered opinion, and apparently in the opinion of those who have actually bothered to read it, is in fact ‘crystal clear’, it just arguably hasn’t been followed:

You state: “The Prime Minister takes his responsibility for national security seriously, which is why the Government is moving to clarify the the law so that it is legally clear that the GCSB is able to assist other agencies, like the NZIS, Police and Defence Force.”

Why does the Prime Minister not take his responsibility to protect the lawful rights of New Zealanders against unreasonable search and seizure; for privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of association equally seriously?
…………
I do not agree with your statement:

“The Committee considering the Bill received 122 submissions, which have helped the Bill achieve the right balance between national security and privacy.”

I for one, am NOT prepared to have my lawful human rights to privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of associated violated, in the name of ‘national security’.

Please do not ask me to have a ‘frontal lobotomy’ and forget the ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) LIE, that was the basis for the (unlawful) invasion of Iraq in 2003?

You state:

“The legislation also creates new obligations for the GCSB in respect of the handling of personal information, based on a number principles recognised under the Privacy Act.”

How meaningful is this, when New Zealanders lawful rights to privacy, have already been violated under the current GCSB Act, when they were supposed to have been specifically protected under the above-mentioned s.14?

You further state: “The Bill requires more transparency around how the GCSB operates, it significantly strengthens the independent oversight of the intelligence agencies, and it allows the GCSB to get on with the job of protecting New Zealanders and our national security.”

Sorry, but this latest debacle over the release of the private information of journalist Andrea Vance and (former) Minister Peter Dunne, gives me no comfort whatsoever, in the ‘independent oversight’ of our intelligence agencies, at the highest levels.

It seems clear to me that neither the Prime Minister; the Chief of Staff of the Office of the Prime Minister; the Chief Executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; the (former) Chief Executive of Parliamentary Services appear to either know or follow their respective lawful roles, in a proper way, in which the citizens of New Zealand can have public confidence.

A recent change upon which you are relying is:

* An independent review of operations and performance of the GCSB and NZSIS and their governing legislation in 2015 and thereafter every 5 – 7 years. ”

Surely you can see that there MUST be a full and proper independent inquiry/review NOW (not in 2015!), into operations and performance of the GCSB and NZSIS and their governing legislation ?

Commonsense dictates that a full and proper inquiry/review cannot happen, until the Privacy Commission have completed their investigation into the unlawful spying on 88 New Zealanders.

May I respectfully suggest that you do not underestimate the real and growing disquiet of significant numbers of the voting public on this issue?
………..
On 2 July 2013, I raised my concerns directly with Prime Minister John Key, at the Security and Intelligence Committee, as one of the 128 who made submissions on the GCSB Bill:

Do I not have the democratic right as a concerned citizen / ‘Public Watchdog’ of this country to ask these ‘hard’ questions?

Is not the right to ‘dissent’ and openly ‘question authority,’ – the lifeblood of genuine ‘democracy’, to which we as New Zealanders are supposed to be lawfully entitled?

Please, Nikki Kaye, I call upon you to uphold the RULE OF LAW and LAWFUL DUE PROCESS.

I look forward to your assurance, Nikki, that you will act in a decent and proper way, and not support this GCSB legislative ‘blitzkreig’ against the above-mentioned lawful human rights of fellow New Zealanders.

Kind regards,

Penny Bright

‘Anti-corruption / anti-privatisation’ campaigner

2013 Auckland Mayoral candidate
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August 6, 2013 5:52pm
Elaycee

jcuk (3.32pm):

So elaycee the facts support the Japanese version even if it is not particularly PC in western countries.

Whaaaat? Have you been starved of oxygen on your planet? What a total load of bollocks.

The ‘facts’ actually confirm the opposite. Japan was wanting to embark on its latest (at the time) attempted expansion (especially in SE Asia) and had its eyes firmly focused on the rubber and oil that was there. They also believed they could divvy up the spoils of war with a victorious Germany. But the US stood in the way of their aspirations in the Pacific – so the Japanese decided to take out the US fleet in one go so they would be able to invade the countries with the commodities and resources Japan lacked.

And because Britain was busy in Europe and would probably not have the resources available to defend Singapore, the Japanese thought the timing of their attack on Pearl Harbour was right. But they were wrong…. we know the rest.

So sort your shit out – before you dig any deeper.
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August 6, 2013 5:54pm
nasska

jcuk

Everywhere in the world money talks but in the good old USA it yells. America became involved in the war in the Pacific because Japan was challenging its trading interests. They joined in the fray between the UK & the Axis largely because Britain’s IOUs would be worthless if the allies lost.

I’ve never met an American I didn’t like as a person….I’ve never trusted a political decision made by the American administration.
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August 6, 2013 6:00pm
liarbors a joke

Drama alert Drama alert !!

One News..

breathless reporting.. Root Wynn Williams..waving hands around

panic stricken nation..Fonterra milk products scare…mass confusion…crisis…

Breath through ya nose Root…
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August 6, 2013 6:05pm
Kea

I’ve never met an American I didn’t like as a person….I’ve never trusted a political decision made by the American administration.

nasska, Well put and many Americans would agree.
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August 6, 2013 6:22pm
Left Right and Centre

‘Snakes On A Plane’ was harmless cheesy shtick, but dammit this shit is real!!
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August 6, 2013 6:25pm
Tom Jackson

With the F22 Raptor now operational I don’t think the US is too worried about delays in the F35 program. They don’t call it an “Air Dominance” fighter for nothing. I think only the Russian SU35 and Eurofighter can come close and of course they aren’t as stealthy.

The Raptor is almost as big a lemon as the JSF.

The US doesn’t have enough Raptors (they were cancelled because they are too expensive and crap – if it is so great, why cancel it?).

It costs an awful lot to fly and has maintenance problems.

It has asphyxiated its pilots.

The benefits of stealth are vastly exaggerated (a Serbian once managed to shoot down a stealth fighter with an antiquated SAM). All stealth means is that at some angles and some distances, a plane is hard to detect. It’s also rumoured that it doesn’t work in the rain.

It gets owned by the Eurofighter Typhoon WVR (early reports of this were denied, but it’s an open secret now). This means it will get absolutely slaughtered by the supermaneuverable Russian planes.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/07/f-22-fighter-loses-79-billion-advantage-in-dogfights-report/

The F22 is predicated on being able to keep air combat BVR. If it can’t do that, it is an expensive paperweight compared to its competitors. The problem is that nobody has ever succeeded in keeping air combat BVR (the Americans should know this after Vietnam). The Americans think that competent opponents are just going to wait up in the sky to be shot at long range. That won’t happen – they will adjust their tactics.

It’s a political plane. It’s designed to prevent pilots from being killed rather than to win an air war.
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August 6, 2013 6:29pm
UglyTruth

“The will of the people is the basis of the authority of Government.”

Sorry Penny, but it doesn’t work like that. If it did then the rule of law would be irrelevant.
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August 6, 2013 6:30pm
bereal

jcuk
one fact that you can take to the bank.

Correct a silly statement from dime and thats an automatic 2 thumbs down.
One from dime and another from his little admiriati nicky. See 5.39 for eg.

Both these dudes seem to be posting all day, every day on KB
Relentless.
Talk about a mutual admiration society.
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August 6, 2013 6:31pm
Kea

Ugly, where do we find your version of the law clearly expressed for all to see ?
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August 6, 2013 6:32pm
hj

TV One said two thirds in favour of Labours move to ban foreign investment in housing.
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August 6, 2013 6:34pm
bereal

By the way.

If i were a nasty sort of bloke i may suggest that if dime and his little mate
nicky did get a room together it may be a chance for dime to get it on with
the same person twice.

For the first time in his life.

But i wont say that.
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August 6, 2013 6:37pm
Left Right and Centre

I’m officially off the low-carb high-fat ~~fat~~ fad diet.

It’s only been around six days… as science would predict the scales are just climbing.

I started off with a low reading of 79.7kg. Today I’ve had a high reading of 86.7kg on low-carb food. That’s it mate. Enough.

I can guess the rest of the pattern if I kept going. The low-carbers claim that if you follow the rules, you can eat as much as you want… you won’t gain weight.

Tried it…. it’s bollocks… NEXT!!

All I can say is that I might not have gained as much as CICO might predict. I’m happy with that. Mind you… 3-4kg in six days? You are shitting me.

There is an upside to consuming enough energy to fuel two large third-world families…. running 20kms when full of ‘premium fuel’ is a total piece of piss. I ran a fucking marathon on Saturday… energy levels through the roof from meat and dairy diet!! And I smashed ten fucking minutes off my best time. So…. if you want to load up on energy to go out and waste your running record.. LCHF diet for sure. If you want to control your weight… count calories.

Hey, I had fun… it’s a learning experience. Eating blocks of butter? Oh yeah. I can perhaps thank the low-carbers for my quick as fuck marathon time that shocked me so much that I was crying with 5kms to go…. it was that good.
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August 6, 2013 6:38pm
nasska

hj

The “two thirds” will be the illiterates who think it possible to draft legislation preventing foreign investment.
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August 6, 2013 6:38pm
Kea

LRC, most people lose weight, rapidly, when they go low carb. But it is all fluid loss and further weight loss will be difficult.
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August 6, 2013 6:47pm
hj

The “two thirds” will be the illiterates who think it possible to draft legislation preventing foreign investment.
….
or they might just smell a rat.
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August 6, 2013 6:48pm
Left Right and Centre

Kea 6:47 pm I didn’t even get the weight loss part!! I know all about ‘fluid’ gain/ loss… don’t you worry about that. I’ve expelled up to 5kg in ‘fluid’ between going to sleep and getting up. Eating high water content food and drinking lots of tea/ Pepsi Max will do that. I did notice much less ‘fluid’ on low-carb and I found myself drinking cups of water to compensate at times… didn’t do that before. Less water in LCHF food. That’s advice for noddys new to dieting… I’m used to going to bed 85kg and waking up 80.7kg for eg.

I was reading that if a person oxidizes fat from fat cells, the cells often fill up with water before emptying out a day or so later… something like that….and *then* you get the weight reduction. Things like that. It’s not all straightforward for our soul’s carry case.
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August 6, 2013 6:56pm
hj

Stranded By Sprawl
“New York Times columnist Paul Krugman looks at two great American cities, one losing population for decades and now filed for bankruptcy, the other growing rapidly but through sprawl, not smart growth. Yet Atlanta suffers lower social mobility.

Krugman asserts that “in one important respect booming Atlanta looks just like Detroit gone bust: both are places where the American dream seems to be dying, where the children of the poor have great difficulty climbing the economic ladder. In fact, upward social mobility — the extent to which children manage to achieve a higher socioeconomic status than their parents — is even lower in Atlanta than it is in Detroit.”

Krugman, who won the Nobel prize in economics in 2008, was referring to a landmark study (described here) that in fact showed that both “the Southeast and industrial Midwest are the most difficult places to rise out of poverty.”

According to Krugman, the UC Berkeley/Harvard University study “suggests that (Atlanta) may just be too spread out, so that job opportunities are literally out of reach for people stranded in the wrong neighborhoods.” In other words, the land use patterns in Atlanta, “the Sultan of Sprawl, even more spread out than other major Sun Belt cities”, are making it difficult to move up the income ladder.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/opinion/krugman-stranded-by-sprawl.html?_r=0
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August 6, 2013 7:09pm
nasska

LR&C….great news! I think I’ve found the answer to your problem. 🙂

Ref: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gi7dvowotv14n9y/Diet%204.jpg
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August 6, 2013 7:34pm
Left Right and Centre

nasska 7:34 pm hahahahaha…… love it!! I feel so honoured… I got my very own dropkickbox…. yeehaaaa!!
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August 6, 2013 7:40pm
dime

Lr&c can you list what you ate for one of the days?

Hope you went eating shit like Bereal
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August 6, 2013 7:45pm
nasska

A man and his girlfriend were driving across the
desert when they had a flat on the car. Getting out,
the boyfriend was about to start changing it when
he spotted a cowboy sitting on his horse , rolling
a smoke. He told his girlfriend that he would make
the cowboy change the tire and for her to just
wait there. “Hey arsehole, get down off of that horse
and come over here and change this tire” he said.
The cowboy continued to roll the smoke and ignored him.
“Hey shithead, I told you to get over here and change
this tire or I’m going to kick your arse”

The cowboy looked at him and then said” I’ll tell you
what, fella”. “I’m going to finish my smoke. Then I’m
going to get down off my horse, kick your arse, make
you change that tire while I screw your girlfriend”.

“And,I’m gonna make you hold my balls up out of the
hot sand while I do it”.

As they were driving on across the desert,
the girlfriend says “that cowboy was pretty tough,
wasn’t he baby”?

“Naw, he wasn’t so tough”, said the guy.
“Did you see him flinch every time I dropped
his balls onto the hot sand?
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August 6, 2013 8:00pm
Left Right and Centre

dime 7:45 pm Over the six days I ate 1kg butter, 2kg cheese, 2L cream, 500g sour cream, two dozen eggs I think, mince, steak, milk in tea, four bananas (to use them up) same with four mandarins. Ate them in one go… so one insulin spike only in theory. Onion. Tinned tomato. Mushroom.

I kept on eating the same meal over and over again… mince and onion cooked in oil with cheese and egg, diced tomato and mushroom. yum yum.

I’m thinking if there was anything else. I can’t think of anything else. One kiwifruit? All my veg… pumpkin, cabbage… fruit.. apples, kiwifruit… is still there from when I switched to LCHF. I know how to follow rules- that’s how I lost 15-20kg in three months. And as you say… ‘shit-ton of exercise’- run and lift- so I don’t think the carb count was high at all.

Before a 20km run today I was 86.7kg, and afterwards 84.5kg. That’s a hell of a lot for 20kms. Could that be LCHF?

I can see it coming from low-carbers- ‘you can’t have followed it properly’. Bullshit. Total fucking bullshit. Precisely because I thought it was crap, I followed it very closely to give it every chance of working. A bit of onion and diced tomato is not enough to count as ‘not low-carb’. It’s called ‘low-carb’ not ‘zero-carb’.
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August 6, 2013 8:05pm
big bruv

kea

“KB is educational. During my time here I have learnt:

1. There is indeed no God.
2. AGW is a scam.
3. David Bain killed his family.
4. Gay is good.”

Man, you should have been around when we had D4J. That was really fun!
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August 6, 2013 8:14pm
Left Right and Centre

Left Right and Centre 8:05 pm ah yeah… 425g tins of mackerel. Man… that stuff really started to taste like shit during LCHF phase…. I lost interest in it. Became as appealing as three day old vadge.
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August 6, 2013 8:20pm
dime

You ate way too much dairy. You’re meant to limit cheese etc

Bruv – I always thought my new handle of dime4justice was hilarious. Dpf never let it through 🙁
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August 6, 2013 8:22pm
big bruv

It was indeed Dime. Likewise, DPF put the mockers on Bruv4justice.

Have you heard what happened to him?. He seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.
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August 6, 2013 8:31pm
dime

No idea. Hopefully loving life somewhere? Busy with the Chch rebuild maybe
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August 6, 2013 8:41pm
Kea

Johnboy should be back soon 🙂
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August 6, 2013 8:43pm
big bruv

Dime

Did you ever wonder if he might be somewhere that does not have internet access?…..(if you get my drift)
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August 6, 2013 8:45pm
big bruv

Kea

What happened to johnboy?
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August 6, 2013 8:47pm
Left Right and Centre

dime 8:22 pm Dime, Dime… Dime!!

Really?

Too much dairy? Waaaaay too much huh? Is that right?

Well what the **FUCK** does that leave then? Fucking meat. Is that the big secret? Just eat meat and literally nothing else… because every other cunting thing has got carbohydrate in it.

Limit dairy. Jesus…. doesn’t that just tie in nicely with counting calories… where you limit things. So… low-carb works as long as you eat zero of every food category except for meat. Of course it fucking does if you’re restricted to eating just one thing.

I’ve seen it all now.

This is your typical LCHF fuckhole

I only know of the site because of KB commenter ‘The Scorned’.

And on that site he said eat some pig… e,i,e,i,o. And dairy. As much fucking dairy as you want.

Dairy products: Always select full-fat options like real butter, cream (40% fat), sour cream, Greek/Turkish yogurt and high-fat cheeses. Be careful with regular milk and skim milk as they contain a lot of milk sugar. Avoid flavored, sugary and low-fat products.

So there you have it. Fuckhole says ‘eat aaaaaaaall you want’. Eat as much of that dairy shit as you can without fucking puking

That’s gold man… a diet that works as long as you only eat one thing… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Faaaaaaaaark that shit. Way too much dairy!! Crack up. I followed their rules… as much dairy as you want. At the meat only point… you’d say… fuck. That. Gay. Shit. That’s just another way of counting calories… *restricting shit*. There aint jack shit magical about that.

Here’s a dude who claims to have eaten 5 800 calories… that’s 24 000kj per day… with 10% being carb. Gained 1.7kg in three weeks apparently. So… it’s their claims. Eat whatever you want meat or dairy.. fuck all weight gain.
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August 6, 2013 8:50pm

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