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February 14, 2015 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 14 February 2015

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Dennis Horne

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11401809
No double celebration for Mau.

No Mau Mau.
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February 14, 2015 8:03am
waikatogirl

Happy Valentine’s to you all. x
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February 14, 2015 8:10am
Harriet

PORK has been chopped from the menu at all primary schools in one of London’s biggest boroughs; Islington.

What was it again you progressives were telling us?

Cultural diversity? Acceptance? Tolerance?

When ‘communism’ got a bad name it became ‘socialism.’ When socialism was obviously a failure it became ‘liberalism.’ When liberalism didn’t smell so good it became ‘progressive.’

It’s not the name that’s the problem.

It’s the concept. It’s complete crap.

When Islam arrives -everything else has to leave! Ain’t that the Truth!
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February 14, 2015 8:10am
Nukuleka

Radio NZ’s lead story this morning was that The Peace Foundation opposes our sending any personnel to Iraq to support the fight against ISIS. Their spokesperson was former Labour MP and former Auckland City Councillor, Richard Northey. Quite how RNZ might consider this to be significant news is beyond me! This was a predictable response from a predictable lobby group with a predictable agenda! Not news.

Like The Council for Civil Liberties, the Peace Foundation is one of those groups- self-created and self-promoting- that only ever pops up when Radio NZ or TVNZ are wanting to try to ‘create controversy’!

Give us a break.
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February 14, 2015 8:12am
EAD

Remembering the Dresden Holocaust 70 years ago:

http://www.rense.com/general19/flame.htm

“On the evening of February 13, 1945, the war at its end, Germany lying in ruins, an orgy of genocide and barbarism began against a defenseless German city, one of the greatest cultural centers of northern Europe. Within less than 14 hours not only was it reduced to flaming ruins, but an estimated one-third of its inhabitants, possibly as many as a half a million, had perished in what was the worst single event massacre of all time. Dresden and its inhabitant were literally wiped off the face of the earth”
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February 14, 2015 8:22am
Harriet

For those ‘deviancy apologists’ who write that ‘oh, stuff like this has always gone on – it’s just a movie’ and so on: the issue is about normalizing deviant behavior.

Do we need young people to think that the subject matter of this movie is ‘just another acceptable lifestyle’? And once you lower the bar – ONCE AGAIN – on what is acceptable, what is next? – —As there is always – a lower class of people – that want to ‘push the envelope’ – who want to introduce more and more depraved behavior.

As long as feminists believe the path to liberation for females is unfettered sex, they should realise that men will lose interest while in search of the next ‘easy’ partner. And if the feminists gleefully accept that young people are going to ‘do it’ anyway, isn’t it also a given that males will use them for unfettered pleasure and not concern themselves with their partner’s ‘feelings’?

Grey is the result of removing white, not adding black — it is a steady move away from God. 😎
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February 14, 2015 8:24am
Viking2

Today in History.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Old-Wellington-Region/624647914290150?fref=nf

14 February 1915
Māori soldiers sail to war
Imperial policy was initially against ‘native peoples’ fighting in a war between European powers. There were fears that they might cause embarrassment by expecting equal treatment with European soldiers, or even turn on their colonial masters.
When it was suggested that Māori be sent to garrison the newly captured German colony of Samoa, New Zealand Administrator Robert Logan cabled the government warning that this might provoke the Samoan population. Instead, a Native Contingent of about 500 men left Wellington for Egypt aboard the SS Warrimoo on 14 February 1915.
Māori had mixed views about the First World War. Some supported the war effort and wanted to join up. Others did not want to fight for the British Crown, which was seen to have done much harm to Māori communities in the 19th century. The varied reactions reflected iwi’s (tribes’) experiences of British actions in the previous century.
The official policy regarding the use of ‘native peoples’ changed as casualties mounted and the need for reinforcements grew. The Maori Contingent had a combat role at Gallipoli before being converted into a Pioneer Battalion to serve on the Western Front.
By the end of the war, 2227 Māori and 458 Pacific Islanders had served in the Maori Pioneer Battalion. Of these, 336 died on active service and 734 were wounded. Māori also enlisted (and died) in other units of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
http://tinyurl.com/mhcevnv
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February 14, 2015 8:26am
Dennis Horne

Thank you, EAD. War is wicked, but survival is supreme.
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February 14, 2015 8:29am
Griff

Germany marks 70th anniversary of Dresden firebombing
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31452693

Commemorations are taking place in Germany to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden.

An estimated 25,000 people died in the British and American attack, which created a firestorm that left 33 sq km (12 sq miles) of the city in ruins.

Jeff Rense
Conspiracy

Jeff Rense is an American conspiracy theorist and alternative medicine woo-peddler who resembles something close to an aging hybrid of John Stossel and Michael Bolton. He is the proprietor of the website Rense.com and has his own show on satellite radio, making him something of a poor man’s Alex Jones. Topics covered include the New World Order, 9/11 conspiracy theories, UFOs, Holocaust denial, Jewish conspiracy theories, Big Pharma conspiracies, AIDS denial (Rense’s single book is entitled AIDS Exposed), and much more. The crank factor of Rense’s show and site rates fairly close to Whale.to.

You are a gullible idiot EAD.
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February 14, 2015 8:31am
Inandout

Nukuleka: Nothing new in that quarter. Even in the 1950s there was the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which was later revealed as a fully funded KGB cause. A relative once told me he was at one of CND meetings in Auckland, where they pilloried UK, US and France as the western devils for their tests. This relative stood up and asked why Russia wasn’t mentioned in their literature, and weren’t they just as guilty, but he was immediately sidelined by another question from a ‘believer’. Whenever you see the word ‘peace’ or ‘peoples’ in the name of any group, it is likely a dodgy socialist front.
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February 14, 2015 8:32am
Harriet

EAD#

It was simply a case of – surrender or cease to exist. Total war – is total war. Yeah there are rules of war – but I’d doubt there were half a million people still there – as most of the munitions factorys ect had either been shifted or been closed due to shortages of steel ect. Most people would have then been made to work elsewhere.
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February 14, 2015 8:32am
EAD

Grief – have you ever heard the phrase “history is written by the victors”

But I supposed for someone who is gullible to believe in “global warming” because the officials tell you, then you’ll believe anything.

@ Harriet – During the final months of World War II, Dresden became a haven to some 600,000 refugees, with a total population of 1.2 million. There were no munitions factories there at all.
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February 14, 2015 8:35am
Inandout

Harriet: Worry not, as Sharia will sort this problem. The days of womens’ lib are almost over.
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February 14, 2015 8:38am
IGM

Sad to see the Wimpy Weasel Goff outlining Labour’s gutless policy on ISIS. Do they think offering more Muslims refugee status is the way to go? I hope these leeching Labour bastards are thrown to the dogs completely, they have, in the past been champions of pacifism, conscientious objection, and desertion . . . things have not changed.
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February 14, 2015 8:44am
Harriet

“..There were no munitions factories there at all…’

They may not have been ‘munitions factories’ but I’m sure there had been ‘war effort’ types of production there. But I may be wrong.
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February 14, 2015 8:46am
Dennis Horne

I visited Dresden not too long ago, my son was living there. The centre was certainly completely destroyed as a punishment, not that I blame Bomber Harris. I might have done the same.

War is a ruthless nasty business. We’re too tame to win a war now.
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February 14, 2015 8:49am
Griff

EAD
Have you ever heard the phrase conspiracy nutters lack the skill of critical thinking and will believe any old nonsense feed to them. .
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February 14, 2015 8:52am
stephieboy

EAD, Dreseden a Holocaust ? Holocaust deniers like David Irving would like you to believe so rather like claiming the gas chambers at Austcwitz etc were non existent .

Irving tried to intially claim 250,000 died at Dresden when in fact only 25,000 did.He was apparently quite happy to unquestionably believe Nazi propaganda figures.

My understanding that Dresden did in fact produce munitions as well as an important and major military communications centers for the Wermacht . ..
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February 14, 2015 8:53am
Gulag1917

“The long history of quiet cooperation between Washington and America’s top technology companies — first to win the Cold War, then to combat terrorism — was founded on the assumption of mutual interest. Edward J. Snowden’s revelations shattered that. Now, the Obama administration’s efforts to prevent companies from greatly strengthening encryption in commercial products like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones has set off a new battle, as the companies resist government efforts to make sure police and intelligence agencies can crack the systems.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/business/obama-heads-to-security-talks-amid-tensions.html?_r=0
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February 14, 2015 8:58am
Harriet

Dennis Horne#

“…..Pervert ex-veterinarian Oliver Fraser Lown was first convicted of owning extreme pornography back in 2012.

The court heard how the 29-year-old recorded “grossly offensive, disgusting or obscene” videos of himself having sex with horses and dogs.
Lown, of Kesgrave, Suffolk, was struck off by the College of Veterinary Surgeons last year and told he would NEVER be allowed to work with animals in the UK.
But the former vet was arrested again in January last year when his former girlfriend alleged she had been assaulted.
Officers stormed Lown’s home – his parents’ converted garage – and found laptops and DVDs containing videos of other people having sex with animals. No further action was taken over the assault claim.
Lown was jailed yesterday by magistrates in Ipswich after he admitted to seven counts of possession of extreme pornography…”

Comment #1 “….Cor, luv a duck, he will meet up with a few more animals where he is going….”

Comment #2

“….He couldn’t speak in his own defence, he was a little hoarse.
He just stood there looking sheepish.
He said he’d been having sex with goats since he was a kid.
His doctor said he was now in a stable condition….” 😎
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February 14, 2015 8:59am
Griff

Germany lost EAD
here is the German commissions report that was completed in 2010 and gives 25000 as the total deaths.
http://www.dresden.de/media/pdf/infoblaetter/Historikerkommission_Dresden1945_Abschlussbericht_V1_14a.pdf
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February 14, 2015 8:59am
hj

EAD (1,837 comments) says:
February 14th, 2015 at 8:22 am

Remembering the Dresden Holocaust 70 years ago:
…
what’s your point EAD?

at the closing stages of a world war the winners aren’t feeling much like restraint – in fact they want to send a message and they were aiming it at Nazi Germany? You are asking for restraint and objectivity when the heat of battle hasn’t died down?
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February 14, 2015 9:00am
wat dabney

“Grey is the result of removing white, not adding black — it is a steady move away from God.”

And by “God” you presumably mean Yahweh the magical child butcherer.

Please use your deity’s (or deities’) name(s) in future so we know what you are talking about.

And of course if we want to see misogyny and extreme violence against women not just normalised but actually mandated we only have to turn to the Bible.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/women/long.html

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/fv/long.html

So a ‘steady move away from [Yahweh]’ can only be a good thing. Yahweh is, after all, probably the most evil, barbaric deity in the entire pantheon of pantheons.
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February 14, 2015 9:00am
Grant

EAD
And the point of your post at 08.22 is……….what exactly?
G

edit: hj: snap
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February 14, 2015 9:06am
Harriet

Wat Rot#

“……And by “God” you presumably mean Yahweh the magical child butcherer…….And of course if we want to see misogyny and extreme violence against women not just normalised but actually mandated we only have to turn to the Bible….”

Go on….tell us all that the West didn’t recieve heaps of benovolence from Christianity!

Christianity was THE driving force as to where we are today in the West – relatively peaceful and wealthy!

Just accept The Truth. 😎
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February 14, 2015 9:11am
Dennis Horne

Harriet, and something for you, old chap, from the University of Pittsburgh:
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/quantum_theory_waves/index.html
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February 14, 2015 9:11am
EAD

Grant – this a very significant anniversary in history – the single biggest atrocity in human history with 500,000 people were wiped off the face of the earth in a single day.

I’m probably of the Denis Horne position in that unlike many here, I see the futility of war and how good decent people are manipulated in order to die for the State or are killed by the state. (see “Democide” – 260million people killed by their own governments in the 20th century)

I fear we are at a unique point in history where it is repeating itself all over again. Our “leaders” are preparing us for World War III and we are being going to be manipulated into a war that has the potential to destroy humanity.

For the past generation, Western governments have been fueling Islamic anger at the West with invasions of their homelands, drone strikes on innocents etc. Having fueled the anger of Islam, said leaders have then invited them to come into our homelands against our wishes and deliberately encouraged them NOT to assimilate. At the same time, the MSM and political elites have been creating a pressure cooker situation by feeding us a non-stop barrage of Islamic atrocities, mostly in response to Western government actions yet have enforced draconian thought control that makes expressing anger nearly criminal.

We are being played like violins and marched into WWIII and 95% of the population refuse to see it.

http://www.threeworldwars.com/albert-pike.htm
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February 14, 2015 9:16am
wat dabney

“Christianity was THE driving force as to where we are today in the West – relatively peaceful and wealthy!.”

No, Christianity was the driving force for Europe’s hundreds of years of religious wars, pogroms, torture and murderous oppression.

Perhaps you”re getting confused with the Enlightenment.
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February 14, 2015 9:16am
Griff

EAD’s point is he follows Fascist sites and repeats the propaganda they propagate.
As such he is scum little better than Kyle Chapman and his band of rejects.
His post actually belittles the deaths in Dresden by using such an horrific incident of war as propaganda to score political points for neonazi extremists .
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February 14, 2015 9:17am
Harriet

“……from the University of Pittsburgh…”

More like from the pitts of hell Dennis. 😎
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February 14, 2015 9:17am
Harriet

Wat Rot#

“…..No, Christianity was the driving force for Europe’s hundreds of years of religious wars, pogroms, torture and murderous oppression….”

I think you will find that SOME people do things in SPITE of their Christianity.

Or are you saying that EVERY Christian that predated the Reformation done what you have listed?

There is nothing wrong with accepting The Truth Watty. Don’t be shy.
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February 14, 2015 9:20am
Dennis Horne

Stop writing and get reading, Harry. It’s a simple explanation but it still takes work. 🙂

Christianity was part of life but it didn’t advance knowledge or science.

Gods are old hat, Harry, sorry.
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February 14, 2015 9:21am
nasska

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2jsx890xgydu69u/Atheist%209.jpg?dl=0
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February 14, 2015 9:28am
Grant

I’m not sure what the soviet massacres and the Jewish Holocaust have to do with with Dresden raids other than that they are all pretty awful if you were involved in them.

I have no problem with the Dresden raid though. It would never have happened if Germany hadn’t started getting all expansionist. End of.
G
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February 14, 2015 9:28am
Harriet

“….Christianity was part of life but it didn’t advance knowledge or science….”

Hardly…science has a lot to thank Christianity for – Oxford univarsity for one, circa 1250 – hardly the middle ages. Christianity was part of life, where Christianity gave space for science to be undertaken in prosperous places – so as to advance.

Unlike Islam – however Islam did have periods where science ect could develop.

Hope that has advanced your knowledge Dennis. 😎
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February 14, 2015 9:32am
trout

Joe Karam will be watching the Lundy trial with some trepidation. The prosecution is backtracking on much of the ‘damning’ evidence presented at the original trial (no mention yet of the jogger that ‘saw’ Lundy running away) and desperately trying to build a new case. When a jailbird is used to try and incriminate the defendant by relating what he had been ‘told’ (as in the Scott Watson trial ) you know the Crown is floundering. If Lundy walks he would have the same claim to compensation as Bain; the chance of the Govt. paying out on both is no chance.
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February 14, 2015 9:32am
rightoverlabour

Corrections doing a GREAT job – NOT.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/66184341/Fury-at-breach-by-sex-offender

Now this has been reported by Stuff so there may be a few facts in the story amongst the drivel, BUT, if the gist of the story is accurate we have a problem. I have three kids. If it was me in the story the headline would be “”enraged father arrested for assault with intent to kill”….The police are concentrating on speeding offences , the courts are concentrating on name suppression for sex offenders in the community, and corrections are the employment agency for morons. (Apologies to any corrections department who are not, there may be a few of you).
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February 14, 2015 9:32am
Harriet

Now it looks like some people have a problem with the Reformation. Unbelievable!
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February 14, 2015 9:34am
Griff

I think you will find that SOME people do things in SPITE of their Christianity.

Or are you saying that EVERY Christian that predated the Reformation done what you have listed?

No harry Wat is saying that Christianity’s establishment controlled knowledge in the west before the enlightenment resulting in scientific endeavor being repressed by the church in order to keep the public in the dark and continue their position of power.

The reformation was just swapping one cults Christianity based suppression for another.
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February 14, 2015 9:43am
Harriet

“…..The reformation was just swapping one cults Christianity based suppression for another.”

That bit is crap.
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February 14, 2015 9:45am
wat dabney

Harriet,

“I think you will find that SOME people do things in SPITE of their Christianity.

Or are you saying that EVERY Christian that predated the Reformation done what you have listed?”

Well that’s more like it. From dishonestly boasting about Europe enjoying ‘heaps of benovolence from Christianity’ and it being ‘THE driving force as to where we are today in the West – relatively peaceful and wealthy!’ you are now reduced to arguing that, as not every Nazi or Communist committed barbaric acts, so not every Christian participated in the endless religious wars, the merciless torture and the murderous oppression for religious supremacy.

But let’s make one thing perfectly clear, those hundreds of years of relentless violence were carried out by Christians in the name of their religion. They were, as you try to claim, done “in spite of” their Christianity. Try not being such a weasel.

Also, my earlier post was about the barbaric acts and the disgusting evil nature of the deity called Yahweh.

I notice that you don’t try to argue that point, since the evidence is their in your own book in page after sickening page.

So the mystery really is why will you and others spend tomorrow morning literally singing the praises of the most barbaric, evil daemon in all mythology.
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February 14, 2015 9:49am
Inandout

trout: So you are saying Lundy may be innocent? Doesn’t explain his amateur theatre performance after the funeral, the pathos being straight from a silent movie.
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February 14, 2015 9:57am
UglyTruth

So the mystery really is why will you and others spend tomorrow morning literally singing the praises of the most barbaric, evil daemon in all mythology.

Looks like someone hasn’t figured out the difference between deity and the demiurge.
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February 14, 2015 10:02am
Dennis Horne

I don’t think Lundy is innocent but I’m not so sure his collapse at the funeral wasn’t genuine. Possibly realised the enormity of what had happened, especially to his daughter.

What best describes his manner in court? Attentive or furtive?
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February 14, 2015 10:03am
Inandout

Dennis Horne: It is difficult to sort fact from fiction in this case, but it was noted that once out of camera range after the funeral performance, Lundy quickly regained his composure.
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February 14, 2015 10:07am
Liberty

Stuff and the herald treat the reader with contempt with their slack description of where the whales
have beached. “near Nelson” How far is “near Nelson” 5 min. may be 15min. In reality it is a good 3hr drive with a mountain in the middle. Blenheim is closer you could drive half way to Christchurch.
.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11401990
http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/66143584/Whale-pod-stranded-on-Farewell-Spit
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February 14, 2015 10:08am
Harriet

Wot Rot#

“……Also, my earlier post was about the barbaric acts and the disgusting evil nature of the deity called Yahweh.

I notice that you don’t try to argue that point, since the evidence is their in your own book in page after sickening page.

So the mystery really is why will you and others spend tomorrow morning literally singing the praises of the most barbaric, evil daemon in all mythology…..”

“…Try not being such a weasel……Don’t try to argue the point…”

LOL Wat Rot — deep down I bet the REAL POINT is that you are pissed with me using the term “DEVIANCY APOLOGIST” in my initial post! Ain’t that the truth! 😎

Anyway here is Christianity and science for haters such as you and Ugly.

Catholic scientists, both religious and lay, have led scientific discovery in many fields. From ancient times, Christian emphasis on practical charity gave rise to the development of systematic nursing and hospitals and the Church remains the single greatest private provider of medical care and research facilities in the world. Following the Fall of Rome, monasteries and convents remained bastions of scholarship in Western Europe and clergymen were the leading scholars of the age – studying nature, mathematics and the motion of the stars (largely for religious purposes). During the Middle Ages, the Church founded Europe’s first universities, producing scholars like Robert Grosseteste, Albert the Great, Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas, who helped establish scientific method. During this period, the Church was also a great patron of engineering for the construction of elaborate cathedrals. Since the Renaissance, Catholic scientists have been credited as fathers of a diverse range of scientific fields: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) prefigured the theory of evolution with Lamarckism; Friar Gregor Mendel (1822–84) pioneered genetics and Fr Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966) proposed the Big Bang cosmological model. The Jesuits have been particularly active, notably in astronomy. Church patronage of sciences continues through elite institutions like the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Vatican Observatory.

This view of the Church as a patron of sciences is contested by some, who speak either of an historically varied relationship, which has shifted from active and even singular support; to bitter clashes (with accusations of heresy) – or of an enduring intellectual conflict between religion and science. Enlightenment Philosophers such as Voltaire were famously dismissive of the achievements of the Middle Ages. In the 19th century, the conflict thesis emerged to propose an intrinsic conflict or conflicts between the Church and science. The original historical usage of the term asserted that the Church has been in perpetual opposition to science. Later uses of the term denote the Church’s epistemological opposition to science. The thesis interprets the relationship between the Church and science as inevitably leading to public hostility, when religion aggressively challenges new scientific ideas — as in the Galileo Affair. An alternative criticism is that the Church opposed particular scientific discoveries that it felt challenged its authority and power – particularly through the Reformation and on through the Enlightenment. This thesis shifts the emphasis away from the perception of the fundamental incompatibility of religion per se and science-in-general to a critique of the structural reasons for the resistance of the Church as a political organisation.

The Church itself rejects the notion of innate conflict. The Vatican Council (1869/70) declared that “Faith and reason are of mutual help to each other”.[3] The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1912 proffers that “The conflicts between science and the Church are not real”, and states that belief in such conflicts are predicated on false assumptions.[4] Pope John Paul II summarised the Catholic view of the relationship between faith and reason in the encyclical Fides et Ratio, saying “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”[5] The present Papal astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno describes science as an “act of worship” and a way of “a way of getting intimate with the creator.” ——Wikipedia.

“….men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves…..’

Yeah….just like I said during the May Garage debate:

“…If current gays were the last people on earth – they would change to save mankind…..they arn’t the last people on earth, but it is therefor none the less true that gays CAN change.”

Well it sure as shit ain’t me who lies about The Truth to gay kids Wot Rot. 😎
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February 14, 2015 10:21am
wat dabney

Harriet,

Likewise, if you ignore the wars, the torture, the murders, the labour camps and the oppression of Communism and the Soviet Union you’ll find that Soviet scientists did some useful work now and again.
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February 14, 2015 10:29am
Dave Mann

My nomination for understatement of the year goes to TVNZ for this brilliant headline:

“Tense time for death row Australians”

http://m.tvnz.co.nz/news/world/6234576

Yes. Quite tense, I would say. Being in your final days before execution with the authorities continually refusing to listen to international pleading can make a chap pretty tense….
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February 14, 2015 10:33am
stephieboy

On a positive note heartening news about progress towards treating the Kauri die back disease that threatens our beautiful and iconic tree ,

New Hope for our dying Kauri ,

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=1521447&topic=7
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February 14, 2015 10:33am
Left Right and Centre

Stuff and the herald treat the reader with contempt with their slack description of where the whales
have beached.

The Press also dishing out the old contempt like there’s no tomorrow . . .

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/inspire-me/66158568/Christchurch-womans-battle-with-excess-skin-after-weight-loss

Story taken from social media with no interview of woman featured. Drive-thru journalism.
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February 14, 2015 10:38am
Griff

Harriet Another apologetic revision of history
We are talking about pre enlightenment and you are using post enlightenment missives to dispute that reality.
Harry when you cut and paste it is normal etiquette to give a source .
love the homophobic ending.
Always back to your obsession with bum sex .
Most heterosexuals seldom think of homosexuality when debating the church and its suppression of science
An extremely revealing Freudian slip on your behalf dont you think.
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February 14, 2015 10:39am
trout

I do not know if Lundy is innocent nor do I know if Bain was innocent. What I do know is that is that Court is a theatre; it is high drama where the best performers win (remember the Euan Macdonald trial) but the truth is largely set aside in favour of speculation and prejudice. And because of limited and biased reporting the public gets a distorted view of proceedings. Anyone that forms an opinion on guilt or innocence from what they read in the newspapers is seriously misguided. I believe the adversorial system we have is seriously flawed; I would like to see investigating judges as in France where seeking truth is more important than winning.
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February 14, 2015 10:44am
Akaroa

Dresden? Anniversary of the bombing of that German city?

Go Bomber Command, you good thing, go! Blast those Nazis and all the num-nums who support them and voted in ol’ Adolf back to the Stone Age! Its a pity even a brick was left standing in Dresden or a few other German – sorry, I meant Nazi – cities I could mention.

Those Nazi gangsters and their sheeplike great German public civilian supporters and admirers deserved everything they eventually got – and more!

After what they did to Coventry, London, Plymouth, Portsmouth etc., etc., etc.. its a pity any stone of the vicious Third Reich was left standing.

Yes, yes, I know it was a lifetime ago! Bygones be bygones and all that. Brave New World! All citizens of the new Europe!

But many in my generation won’t ever forget huddling in air raid shelters whilst Hitler/Goering’s ‘magnificent Luftwaffe’ rained high explosive down on the heart of England. Murderous thugs.
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February 14, 2015 10:45am
Fletch

Actually, Harriet is correct, in that Science wouldn’t be what it is today without the church. Oh, and during the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ it was the church that preserved knowledge.

During the period of European history often called the Dark Ages which followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Church scholars and missionaries played a vital role in preserving knowledge of Classical Learning. While the Roman Empire and Christian religion survived in an increasingly Hellenised form in the Byzantine Empire centred at Constantinople in the East, Western civilisation suffered a collapse of literacy and organisation following the fall of Rome in 476AD. Monks sought refuge at the far fringes of the known world: like Cornwall, Ireland, or the Hebrides. Disciplined Christian scholarship carried on in isolated outposts like Skellig Michael in Ireland, where literate monks became some of the last preservers in Western Europe of the poetic and philosophical works of Western antiquity.[60] By around 800AD they were producing illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, by which old learning was re-communicated to Western Europe. The Hiberno-Scottish mission led by Irish and Scottish monks like St Columba spread Christianity back into Western Europe during the Middle Ages, establishing monasteries through Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish Empire during the Middle Ages.

Thomas Cahill, in his 1995 book How the Irish Saved Civilization, credited Irish Monks with having “saved” Western Civilization:[61]
“ [A]s the Roman Empire fell, as all through Europe matted, unwashed barbarians descended on the Roman cities, looting artifacts and burning books, the Irish, who were just learning to read and write, took up th great labor of copying all western literature – everything they could lay their hands on. These scribes then served as conduits through which the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures were transmitted to the tribes of Europe, newly settled amid the rubble and ruined vineyards of the civilization they had overwhelmed. Without this Service of the Scribes, everything that happened subsequently would be unthinkable. Without the Mission of the Irish Monks, who single-handedly re-founded European civilization throughout the continent in the bays and valleys of their exile, the world that came after them would have been an entirely different one-a world without books. And our own world would never have come to be. ”

According to art historian Kenneth Clarke, for some five centuries after the fall of Rome, virtually all men of intellect joined the Church and practically nobody in western Europe outside of monastic settlements had the ability to read or write. While church scholars at different times also destroyed classical texts they felt were contrary to the Christian message, it was they, virtually alone in Western Europe, who preserved texts from the old society.[60]

As Western Europe became more orderly again, the Church remained a driving force in education, with Cathedral schools beginning in the Early Middle Ages as centers of advanced education, often evolving into the medieval universities which were the springboard of many of Western Europe’s later achievements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_the_Catholic_Church_in_Western_civilization
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February 14, 2015 10:49am
Harriet

“….Likewise, if you ignore the wars, the torture, the murders, the labour camps and the oppression of Communism and the Soviet Union you’ll find that Soviet scientists did some useful work now and again….”

Pathetic atempt at dismissal Wot Rot.

Really – don’t you have ANY faith in humans – humans under all sorts of conditions have killed ect – you may as well then say any form of government – or structure over man – is wrong!

“….Harry when you cut and paste it is normal etiquette to give a source …” I did Griff – wikipedia – it was at the end of the cut ‘n paste – before my comments. Cheers.
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February 14, 2015 10:49am
Left Right and Centre

HNZ lowlives, roaming unauthorised pitbull, dead chihaushaus. Considering prosecution ? How about evicting the bastards.
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February 14, 2015 10:51am
Maggy Wassilieff

@ Stephieboy 10:33am

but all the good work of the kauri dieback researchers re phosphite
http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/57053/kauri_PTA.pdf

might be undone by this choir wandering around infected groves
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11398257
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February 14, 2015 10:54am
Harriet

Thanks for the help Fletch.

I’ll save these couple of posts – it’ll save having to fend of accusation after accusation during the year. 😎
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February 14, 2015 10:55am
Fletch

Actually, there is another school of thought that says Islam was responsible for the Dark Ages…

The Visigoths invaded, sure, but adopted many of the Roman ways, and trade continued as before. Civilisation moved forward. It was the invasion by the followers of Islam that killed anything scholarly and led to the period we now refer to as the Dark Ages

The Belgian historian Henri Pirenne asked a related question: what, in fact, caused the Dark Ages? In his posthumous Mohammed and Charlemagne (1939), Pirenne contested the conventionally accepted explanation for the fall of classical civilization: the formal dissolution of the Western Roman Empire in 476, following its descent into decadence, paved the way for a barbarism that led inexorably to the subsequent Dark Ages of the 7th to 10th centuries.

Pirenne observed that the governing barbarians did not obliterate the Roman infrastructure, and that the overall modus vivendi carried on much like it had, prior to its fall, because the “barbarians” adopted the prevailing Roman ethos. They did not foist their own language, laws, or customs on Rome.

Pirenne stressed that the source of the Roman Empire’s vitality cannot be disassociated from its essentially Mediterranean character and orientation; that clearly remained intact for quite a while. Western trade flourished as before, connected with the great cities of the East – where prosperity, population, and learning were concentrated. The overall features of life throughout the region in 600 were similar to what they had been in 400.

It was not until the advent of Islam in the 7th century, precisely then and only then, that destruction really arrived. Recurrent Islamic raids altered the very orientation of the littoral peoples; they fled the Mediterranean and for the first time looked to the north. East was severed from West, and the previously unified Mediterranean, “having become a Musalman lake, was no longer a thoroughfare of commerce and of thought which it always had been.”

Unlike the German invaders, wherever the Arabs went they ruled. This was a dimension of their religious claims. They sought not conversion per se, but demanded subjection, creating an insuperable barrier between the conquered and the Muslims: “What a contrast between them [the Arabs] and Theodoric, who placed himself at the service of those he had conquered, and sought to assimilate himself to them!” The whole region was thereby transformed, as the Arabs ushered in “a complete break with the past.”

Egyptian papyri, which had been widespread in the West (and a solid indicator of literacy), disappeared, as did distinctive coins that were in use right up until the Arab conquest – leading to the barter system. Despite the literary and archaeological sources, however, Pirenne’s arguments were dismissed in favor of the view that Islam had been (unlike “repressive” Christianity) an enlightening force.

In Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited (2012),Emmet Scott has taken up Pirenne’s thesis. Though he is primarily interested in the controversy it generated, he does not shy away from rendering a verdict: “scholarship has now arrived at several conclusions which are really beyond dispute, and which tend to offer definitive support for Pirenne.”

In the late sixth and early seventh centuries, classical civilization was intact and humming along, even expanding. In fact, some regions were “flourishing as never before”; Spain in particular, as well as Gaul, was enjoying a resurgent late classical culture.

Scott points to the hundreds of known Visigothic-era structures, even noting that by the early 7th century architects had brought back meticulously cut stone; these structures, Scott observes, were “far superior, technically and artistically, to their successors of the tenth century Romanesque.” In fact, the rich Visigothic architectural legacy stands in conspicuous contradistinction to the “virtually complete absence of all archaeology from the first two centuries of the Islamic epoch.” Only in the mid-tenth century do artifacts reemerge.

[…]

Islamic lands, as Naipaul recounts with personalized detail, have tended to experience a measure of what Egypt did so acutely: the effective loss of her own history. Moreover, another highly significant feature is now part of the archaeological record: a layer of sediment found throughout the Mediterranean known as the “Younger Fill.” This stratum of subsoil, which is not confined to the Mediterranean but is found in all the shores occupied by Muslims, represents the “geographical signature of the end of Graeco-Roman civilization.”

This subsoil was deposited between the mid-seventh and mid-tenth centuries, precisely coinciding with the deafening archaeological silence. It can be explained by the wholesale abandonment of irrigational and agricultural systems when the littoral peoples abandoned coastal settlements for hilltop fortifications in response to unremitting Muslim raids.

So they invaded and left nothing but dirt.

What’s interesting is what Chinese scholars have recently found.

Paradoxically, scholars in Communist China, oddly enough, have discovered the truth. As Rodney Stark records in The Victory of Reason, Chinese scholars undertook a lengthy study of what ultimately accounted for the West’s pre-eminence. After decades of investigation, they concluded: not guns, politics, or economics – factors they had felt may have been decisive. Instead, they were led to something deeper:

we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.

So, according to the Chinese scholars, it is Christianity that is the reason for the wealth of the West.

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2014/how-islam-set-back-western-civilization.html
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February 14, 2015 10:57am
Kiwi Dave

EAD, in 2008 German historians estimated the Dresden death toll at between 18000 and a maximum of 25000. After WW2, communist propaganda found it convenient to boost the number of deaths as evidence of American and British barbarity while ignoring the fact that it was an important rail centre and also a centre for manufacturing high quality optics (think gun sights) and electronics (think radar).

It might or might not be reasonable to describe the bombing of Dresden as an atrocity, but it is a massive factual inaccuracy to claim that 500 000 people died in that raid, and rather disingenuous to say that the war was at its end on February 13. The Soviets were still to lose 360 000 dead or missing in the Battle of Berlin alone.
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February 14, 2015 11:03am
wat dabney

Harriet,

“Pathetic attempt at dismissal Wot Rot.”

It’s no dismissal. It’s entirely the point you are trying to make: never mind the centuries of Christian atrocities, wars, pogroms, murders, torture and oppression, and just focus on the few good bits instead.

And that’s your ‘defence of’ Christianity: to rip out most of the pages of the Bible then proudly tell us what a wonderful deity Yahweh is and what a supreme moral compass it provides.
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February 14, 2015 11:03am
Dennis Horne

None of which has anything to do with the question: Are gods real or imaginary?
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February 14, 2015 11:03am
Griff

Yes harry and fletch thanks for pointing out that knowledge and eduction was controlled by the church before the enlightenment ‘it kind of reinforces the idea that the church withheld knowledge from the common man. You do know that your church is not that which was based in the east dont you ?
In fact the Byzantine Empire was destroyed by… you guessed it the papists crusades from the western Christians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade

The Fourth Crusade (1202–04) was originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and sacked the Orthodox Christian city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. This is seen as one of the final acts in the Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church, and a key turning point in the decline of the empire and of Christianity in the Near East.

😆
home goal
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February 14, 2015 11:13am
nasska

….”None of which has anything to do with the question: Are gods real or imaginary?”….

It is too late to get a sane answer from those steeped in the fables of the supernatural or their unfortunate children. Their brainwashing is complete & the door to enlightenment has slammed shut.

Just as the leaden foot of Christianity was lifted from the throats of the people the dark ignorance of Islam races in to replace it.
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February 14, 2015 11:13am
Shane Le Brun

So time for my weekly Medpot blog post, this time as a rebuttal to the templated response email received from my Nelson Electorate MP on the issue.

http://yournz.org/2015/02/14/nationals-stance-another-rebuttal-on-medicinal-cannabis/

Alternate address for the beige haters. 🙂
https://mmj4chronicpain.wordpress.com/2015/02/14/a-rebuttal-to-nationals-stance-on-cannabis-as-a-medicine/
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February 14, 2015 11:15am
cha

Ya gotta love Christian ~~science~~ claptrap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZyIG_jZzBs

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/irate-christian-parent-i-am-getting-sick-and-tired-of-dinosaurs-being-forced-on-our-children/
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February 14, 2015 11:17am
Fletch

Saw this interesting paper today by Princeton economist Thomas Leonard. The minimum wage and living wage are historically based on eugenics / racism / progressivism. Their purpose was to rid the labour force of the “unemployable” or those deemed unfit. It had nothing to do with fairness or equity, but was based on prejudice. Sorry for the big cut ‘n’ paste –

During the second half of the Progressive Era, beginning roughly in 1908, progressive economists and their reform allies achieved many statutory victories, including state laws that regulated working conditions, banned child labor, instituted “mothers’ pensions,” capped working hours and, the sine qua non, fixed minimum wages. In using eugenics to justify exclusionary immigration legislation, the race-suicide theorists offered a model to economists advocating labor reforms, notably those affiliated with the American Association for Labor Legislation, the organization of academic economists that Orloff and Skocpol (1984, p. 726) call the “leading association of U. S. social reform advocates in the Progressive Era.” Progressive economists, like their neoclassical critics, believed that binding minimum wages would cause job losses.

However, the progressive economists also believed that the job loss induced by minimum wages was a social benefit, as it performed the eugenic service ridding the labor force of the “unemployable.” Sidney and Beatrice Webb (1897 [1920], p. 785) put it plainly: “With regard to certain sections of the population [the “unemployable”], this unemployment is not a mark of social disease, but actually of social health.” “[O]f all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites,” Sidney Webb (1912, p. 992) opined in the Journal of Political Economy, “the most ruinous to the community is to allow them to unrestrainedly compete as wage earners.”

A minimum wage was seen to operate eugenically through two channels: by deterring prospective immigrants (Henderson, 1900) and also by removing from employment the “unemployable,” who, thus identified, could be, for example, segregated in rural communities or sterilized. The notion that minimum-wage induced disemployment is a social benefit distinguishes its progressive proponents from their neoclassical critics, such as Alfred Marshall (1897), Philip Wicksteed (1913), A. C. Pigou (1913) and John Bates Clark (1913), who regarded job loss as a social cost of minimum wages, not as a putative social benefit (Leonard, 2000).

Columbia’s Henry Rogers Seager, a leading progressive economist who served as president of the AEA in 1922, provides an example. Worthy wage-earners, Seager (1913a, p. 12) argued, need protection from the “wearing competition of the casual worker and the drifter” and from the other “unemployable” who unfairly drag down the wages of more deserving workers (1913b, pp. 82-83).

The minimum wage protects deserving workers from the competition of the unfit by making it illegal to work for less. Seager (1913a, p. 9) wrote: “The operation of the minimum wage requirement would merely extend the definition of defectives to embrace all individuals, who even after having received special training, remain incapable of adequate self-support.” Seager (p. 10) made clear what should happen to those who, even after remedial training, could not earn the legal minimum: “If we are to maintain a race that is to be made of up of capable, efficient and independent individuals and family groups we must courageously cut off lines of heredity that have been proved to be undesirable by isolation or sterilization . . . .”

The unemployable were thus those workers who earned less than some measure of an adequate standard of living, a standard the British called a “decent maintenance” and Americans referred to as a “living wage.” For labor reformers, firms that paid workers less than the living wage to which they were entitled were deemed parasitic, as were the workers who accepted such wages-on grounds that someone (charity, state, other members of the household) would need to make up the difference. For progressives, a legal minimum wage had the useful property of sorting the unfit, who would lose their jobs, from the deserving workers, who would retain their jobs. Royal Meeker, a Princeton economist who served as Woodrow Wilson’s U. S. Commissioner of Labor, opposed a proposal to subsidize the wages of poor workers for this reason. Meeker preferred a wage floor because it would disemploy unfit workers and thereby enable their culling from the work force.

“It is much better to enact a minimum-wage law even if it deprives these unfortunates of work,” argued Meeker (1910, p. 554). “Better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind.” A. B. Wolfe (1917, p. 278), an American progressive economist who would later become president of the AEA in 1943, also argued for the eugenic virtues of removing from employment those who “are a burden on society.”

In his Principles of Economics, Frank Taussig (1921, pp. 332-333) asked rhetorically, “how to deal with the unemployable?” Taussig identified two classes of unemployable worker, distinguishing the aged, infirm and disabled from the “feebleminded . . . those saturated with alcohol or tainted with hereditary disease . . . [and] the irretrievable criminals and tramps. . . .” The latter class, Taussig proposed, “should simply be stamped out.” “We have not reached the stage,” Taussig allowed, “where we can proceed to chloroform them once and for all; but at least they can be segregated, shut up in refuges and asylums, and prevented from propagating their kind.”5

When U. S. labor reformers reported on labor legislation in countries more precocious with respect to labor reform, they favorably commented on the eugenic efficacy of minimum wages in excluding the “low-wage races” from work. Harvard’s Arthur Holcombe (1912, p. 21), a member of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission, referred approvingly to the intent of Australia’s minimum wage law to “protect the white Australian’s standard of living from the invidious competition of the colored races, particularly of the Chinese.” Florence Kelley (1911, p. 304), perhaps the most influential U. S. labor reformer of the day, also endorsed the Australian minimum-wage law as “redeeming the sweated trades” by preventing the “unbridled competition” of the unemployable, the “women, children, and Chinese [who] were reducing all the employees to starvation . . .” For these progressives, race determined the standard of living, and the standard of living determined the wage. Thus were immigration restriction and labor legislation, especially minimum wages, justified for their eugenic effects.

More – http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/retrospectives.pdf
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February 14, 2015 11:20am
stephieboy

Fletch, Leonard and his Moonbat beliefs are nicely summarised here which as you will see is an attempt to deflect attention away from the Neo Classical belief that the free an unfettered market is the best way of determining wages and conditions,

http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/HIST364-5.3.6.2-
StudyQuestionsEugenics-GTR-FINAL.pdf

The so called Progressive Eugenics is hokum when closely examined and unpacked and Leonard beliefs actually more equate with a crude form of social Darwinism so beloved in the past by many Neo classical liberals .

I trust Leonard feels his Princeton appointment was determined in the same way ?

I don’t think so !
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February 14, 2015 11:42am
wat dabney

“The so called Progressive Eugenics is hokum”

It is documented fact, whether you wish to believe it or not.
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February 14, 2015 11:45am
Fletch

stephieboy, and what of those he quotes to base his argument on? No matter what you think of him, those historical proponents of minimum wage said what they said and gave their reasons for it. One cannot dispute that or come to any other conclusion.

At least now you know the price for the $15 an hour proposed by the Greens et al. It will weed out the so-called “undesirables”.
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February 14, 2015 11:46am
Viking2

Lundy.
What best describes his manner in court? Attentive or furtive?

Watch his eyes. furtive almost the same as Antione Dixon. Same eye and head behavior. Look into his eyes and the pupils are extremely small. Usually associated with drug taking.

Is he feigning or going to attempt to claim Mental Illness?

Look hard next time you see his face.
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February 14, 2015 11:46am
Manolo

The triumph of shallowness:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HtBhM2wo2BQ
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February 14, 2015 11:48am
howitis

The Crown is panicking in the Lundy trial.
They lied through their teeth, their behinds and every other orifice and even created new ones to lie through in the first trial.
They initially insisted in a BIG LIE that Lundy drove up in commuter traffic averaging 100 miles per hour and that Christine was in bed at 7pm even though that was never her pattern.
Lights on and off contradicted it.
The initial case was complete bollocks including the brain tissue on a T shirt even though they said Lundy planned it with extreme cleverness which he would have had to for what cops claimed. So why would he keep the Tshirt but not the axe.
Now they are panicking and that is clear when they call 140 witnesses. This is to confuse the jury. it is obfuscation.
Jailhouse snitches are a sure sign of desperation.

Maybe Lundy did it and it is always plausible he drove up in the small hours when Christine would have been in bed and he could drive at normal speed so as not to attract attention. The big question is why did not the police present this plausible case thirteen years ago? Now witnesses are meant to recall tiny details from 15 years ago. FAIL. The whole thing is bizarre.

I agree with trout.
The current system of either ‘proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt’ versus ‘not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt’ does not establish evidence. The idea of trained judges (French method) versus a random jury is wiser. Especially when the jury can’t ask any questions. It is a WOFT. And the rule of suppressing information of convictions for prior heinous crimes such as with Ewen MacDonald (brother of a police detective) and Shipton/Schollum (former cops) prior pack rapes mean the jury are not given context to make valid decisions. If you know someone has three previous convictions for dishonesty are you going employ that person in your business to be the sole charge accountant? Context is important. Investigating judges can address this.

Meantime our NZ system is littered with dubious outcomes.

I struggle to see the Crown getting a conviction on Lundy this time based on the first week. For that we will wonder why they put up such a preposterous story the first time. If I was on that earlier jury it would have to be ‘not guilty’.

Will someone be up for perjury for telling such massive porkies in the first trial?
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February 14, 2015 11:53am
Harriet

Fletch #

“….a “decent maintenance” and Americans referred to as a “living wage…..”

We’ve been told that the socialisation of wages[unionism] has been done away with, but it remains, as the hours of work have been socialised instead – most young people in aussie do less than 35hrs as employers won’t give them more. A lot only get around 20hrs! I’d say the same thing is happening in NZ.

I’m not suggesting that the ‘unfit’ be chloroformed so as to get them out of the workforce – but I’d like to see the better workers be given more hours. Afterall, we have been productive since we lived in the caves – where able bodied people used their resources to kill MAMMOTHS. Isn’t that the same as workplaces now should be – the most skillfull people amongst us make the money from doing the BEST work available in the marketplace, and then share some with the rest? I don’t see any benefit of having those who don’t want to work – and a LOT of those are mothers – being in the workplace, as resources are spent on them when they could be spent instead on the more productive.

It won’t ever happen as governments in NZ and Aus have conned people into believing that a lower level of ‘unemployment’ is best – never mind the fact that it is due to everyone else working lessor hours – for less money. No wonder most workers are on the margins of poverty.
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February 14, 2015 11:55am
wat dabney

The Minimum Wage and Eugenics.

‘…take a look at the first modern discussions of the minimum wage appearing in the academic literature. Most of these writings would have been completely forgotten but for a seminal 2005 article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives by Thomas C. Leonard.
Leonard documents an alarming series of academic articles and books appearing between the 1890s and the 1920s that were remarkably explicit about a variety of legislative attempts to squeeze people out of the work force. These articles were not written by marginal figures or radicals but by the leaders of the profession, the authors of the great textbooks, and the opinion leaders who shaped public policy…’

“The unemployable, to put it bluntly, do not and cannot under any circumstances earn their keep. What we have to do with them is to see that as few as possible of them are produced…”

“We have not reached the stage where we can proceed to chloroform them once and for all; but at least they can be segregated, shut up in refuges and asylums, and prevented from propagating their kind…”

http://fee.org/freeman/detail/the-eugenics-plot-of-the-minimum-wage

Read the whole page.

Documented fact, stephieboy. Whether you wish to believe it or not.
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February 14, 2015 11:57am
EAD

Sheesh 20 down votes for remembering the holocaust of Dresden – Kiwibloggers are a tough bunch!

My interest in Dresden extends back to when I was a child and red a copy of Kurt Vonnegut famous “Slaughterhouse Five” which was centered on the notrious bombing of Dresden which had no military significance at all:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11410633/Dresden-was-a-civilian-town-with-no-military-significance.-Why-did-we-burn-its-people.html

I remember vividly the descriptions from the book and how it described Dresden as much, much, much worse than Hiroshima for the sheer scale of horrors and deconstruction (interesting how over time, just like this country’s reinvention of the “Michael King version of history”, history is being re-written to serve and agenda).

At least Hiroshima though had a moral case as it prevented the deaths of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of allied lives. Dresden, none whatsoever.

I still recall the descriptions of the survivors who emerged from bomb shelters to find people screaming as they melted into the superheated asphalt of bombed roads, and parents and spouses dragging their completely mutilated family members’ bodies into churches in hopes of giving them proper burials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGcO6zZ4MRM
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February 14, 2015 11:58am
wat dabney

‘the notrious bombing of Dresden which had no military significance at all’

Well that’s simply untrue.
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February 14, 2015 12:04pm
hj

“One observational basis for inferring that Ashkenazi Jews have high intelligence is their prevalence in intellectually demanding fields. While only about 3% of the U.S. population is of full Ashkenazi Jewish descent,[2] 27% of United States Nobel prize winners in the 20th century,[2][3] 25% of Fields Medal winners,[4] 25% of ACM Turing Award winners,[2] 6 out of the 19 world chess champions, and a quarter of Westinghouse Science Talent Search winners have either full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.[4] However, such statistics do not rule out factors other than intelligence, such as institutional biases and social networks. Undue weight is also given to the Ashkenazi statistics because people of partial Ashkenazi ancestry (half or less) are included, but only compared to the portion of the US population of full Ashkenazi descent.

A more direct approach is to measure intelligence with psychometric tests. Different studies have found different results, but most have found above-average verbal and mathematical intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews, along with below-average spatial intelligence.[3][5][6][7]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence

Hitler killed a lot of geniuses in the holocaust.
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February 14, 2015 12:08pm
Dave Mann

Lundy will be found not guilty, for the simple reason that nearly 15 years and 13 years respectively have passed since he (probably) murdered them and was first put on trial.

I can’t remember what I had for dinner 3 weeks ago. How the fuck does anybody think they can rehash all the arguments, stories, lies etc and come up with a ‘guilty beyond reasonable doubt’ verdict?

Another killer will go free.
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February 14, 2015 12:10pm
Manolo

Unfortunately, Dresden was part of the heavy price Nazi Germany had to pay.
Yes, it had military importance and demoralised the civil population.
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February 14, 2015 12:11pm
Gulag1917

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYTxZeGcQqU&feature=youtu.be
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February 14, 2015 12:14pm
Inandout

Maggy Wassilieff: I planted our kauri 20 years ago and it has pushed its way through the established native trees and is reaching for the sky; not once did I sing to it.
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February 14, 2015 12:14pm
waikatosinger

When ‘communism’ got a bad name it became ‘socialism.’ When socialism was obviously a failure it became ‘liberalism.’ When liberalism didn’t smell so good it became ‘progressive.’

I agree that the word ‘liberal’ is often used today in this sense, particularly in America. But remember that America, unlike Britain or Canada, never actually had a liberal party. Classic liberalism had actually been around for a very long time before the Americans appropriated and started abusing the word in this way, and it stands for something quite different.

Sir William Harcourt, a prominent Liberal politician in the Victorian era, said this about liberalism in 1872: (thanks wikipedia for the quote)

If there be any party which is more pledged than another to resist a policy of restrictive legislation, having for its object social coercion, that party is the Liberal party. (Cheers.) But liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right, (Hear, hear.) The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes; a Liberal Government tries, as far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do as he wishes. It has been the tradition of the Liberal party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the place where people can do more what they please than in any other country in the world…It is this practice of allowing one set of people to dictate to another set of people what they shall do, what they shall think, what they shall drink, when they shall go to bed, what they shall buy, and where they shall buy it, what wages they shall get and how they shall spend them, against which the Liberal party have always protested.

I find myself in complete agreement with everything in that quote and when I call myself a liberal this is what I mean – a liberal in the classic original sense of someone who advocates for liberty. Later there grew, within the British liberal party, a group called the ‘new liberals’ who, following the political fashions of the time, argued for greater government intervention and social legislation to reign in the worst abuses of the Victorian era. Eventually these people found a much more natural home in the newly formed Labour party and started calling themselves socialists. So yes there is a link between socialism and liberalism, but you’ve got it completely backwards. Liberalism came first. Socialism came only later and was not a simple rebranding of liberalism. It was an offshoot that abandoned the original principles of liberalism and took off in a different direction.
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February 14, 2015 12:26pm
Griff

Because EAD as pointed out you used a fascist far right linked conspiracy site that massively overstated the death count in order to paint the Nazis as the good guys and the allies as war criminals.

possibly as many as a half a million, had perished in what was the worst single event massacre of all time

Dresden pales into insignificance when The Nazis were gassing almost as many daily in an industrialized genocide.

You should be held to account for the crap propaganda and conspiracy you continuously spurt on here.
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February 14, 2015 12:35pm
Gulag1917

Würzburg Germany was bombed totally and there was nothing strategic there.
Worth a visit when travelling around Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZgDYUXIl4M
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February 14, 2015 12:39pm
Harriet

HAhahahahhahhahahh….guess what Grief has just said?

“….You should be held to account for the crap propaganda and conspiracy you continuously spurt on here….”

pot kettle.
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February 14, 2015 12:41pm
waikatosinger

EAD (1,839 comments) says:
Sheesh 20 down votes for remembering the holocaust of Dresden – Kiwibloggers are a tough bunch!

Yesterday you were denying that the actual Holocaust killed 6 million Jews. Today you are mourning ‘the holocaust’ in Dresden with no sign of skepticism over the death toll there. You are attracting downticks because of the combination of these things.
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February 14, 2015 12:43pm
Liberty

This is what Minto and comrades rioted in the streets for in 1981

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/africa/66188060/were-turning-into-a-banana-republic-south-africa-questions-its-democracy-after-parliament-brawl
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February 14, 2015 12:48pm
Harriet

Waikato Girl#

“…It is because they have done so that England is the place where people can do more what they please than in any other country in the world…”

That may have been then but it ain’t the case now….they can’t arm themselves for example…and they have smoking restrictions too….you can’t smoke in the workplace….and that means you are NOT allowed to smoke in a truck….any truck…even your own truck where it contains a sleeping compartment!

Thanks anyway for pointing out that liberalism was before socialism – I didn’t know that. Cheers.
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February 14, 2015 12:50pm
UglyTruth

Yesterday you were denying that the actual Holocaust killed 6 million Jews.

The number six million has no relation to the actual body count.

http://winstonsmithministryoftruth.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/145-references-to-6000000-jews-prior-to.html
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February 14, 2015 1:07pm
UglyTruth

Another killer will go free.

The presumption of innocence remains.
It’s not Lundy’s fault the system is broken.
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February 14, 2015 1:10pm
Johnboy

” not that I blame Bomber Harris. I might have done the same.”

You’d have to have got a multi-engine rating and checked your fuel a bit more carefully Dennis! 🙂
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February 14, 2015 1:13pm
UglyTruth

Just as the leaden foot of Christianity was lifted from the throats of the people the dark ignorance of Islam races in to replace it.

Atheists are fucking retarded if they think that they know enough to be sure that deity does not exist.
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February 14, 2015 1:13pm
Johnboy

For Gods sake think of the china that got destroyed when Dresden was bombed! 🙂
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February 14, 2015 1:16pm
Simon

Fabians were the biggest advocates of eugenics in the early 20th century.

“Later in the 20th century, Fabian socialists provided the intellectual justification for the eugenics policy that led to the stolen generations scandal.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/feb/14/australia
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February 14, 2015 1:22pm
Rowan

Dave Mann
I don’t believe we will ever know the truth of what really happened to Amber and Christine, if Mark is guilty then he is not going to give any answers and if he didn’t do it then he doesn’t have the answers, I have no idea if he did it or not but the case against him is far to weak for a ‘BRD’ verdict so he will likely walk at the end of the day. The NZ justice system is rotten and needs a massive overhaul starting with the establishment of an independent criminal cases review commission.
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February 14, 2015 1:24pm
mandk

@ EAD

I have been reading your whining about the Dresden bombings.

At the time the Germans were firing V2 rockets against London and other allied cities in Europe. It was obvious that they would ultimately lose the war, but they decided to fight on. The blame for the fatalities lies entirely with the German high command.
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February 14, 2015 1:26pm
Simon

The UK threaten Dresden on the Germans all during the second half of the 1930s. Didnt stop the Germans going to war.
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February 14, 2015 1:27pm
Johnboy

Lenin/Stalin/Bolshevists cleansed far more ethnics than Hitler ever did Simon!

Lefties tend to ignore this uncomfortable fact of course! 🙂
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February 14, 2015 1:27pm

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