Saturday, February 28, 2009

Ghost in the Shell

Cinema Classic

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Cuboctahedron

Well done bloggers


Internet copyright law delayed
A controversial copyright law covering the internet will be delayed to see if the sector can make it workable, Prime Minister John Key said today. The online community has been up in arms in recent weeks as the law is due to come into effect on Saturday. Protesters say Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment Act could force the closure of any internet account following any accusation of breach of copyright, even if it was not proven. A large number of websites and blogs blacked out their sites this morning to raise awareness about the issue. Mr Key told journalists that Cabinet had discussed the issue today and decided to delay the implementation for one month until March 27.

See what we can do when we work together? Well done, let's make sure National listen to the rightous concerns we've expressed ovcer this dog of a bill and don't try any tricky back door means to make it law.

Well done bloggers.

Bondage under National


$10 million carrot thrown to graduates
A $10-million-a-year sweetener is being used to lure young medical, teacher and veterinarian graduates to areas difficult to staff. The Government announced yesterday it would pay graduates to work in regions that have struggled to fill medical and teaching vacancies with young doctors the biggest winners. They will receive a salary top-up of more than $45,000, less tax, after three years, if they stay put in a speciality or job that has traditionally struggled to attract graduates.

I like the bonding idea, Drs and Nurses and Teachers SHOULD go to rural areas, it’s great to have that new talent moved around and learn a bit of humble public service, the concept that the state will give you your education in response to the graduate staying in areas difficult to staff is EXACTLY the kind of thinking that will help rebalance services. It’s a great start but one that needs to be widened well beyond the limited careers it’s being offered. This is final proof that the student loan system NEVER WORKED, user pays education for crucial public services only meant the public ended up paying for the interest as well as the education and this massive U-turn in policy recognizes this.

Cheating cops?


Police replace recruit test after discovery of cheat
Police have had to ditch their recruitment test questions and bring in a new set after they found a copy was being circulated among a small network of potential candidates. Police said they found out last Thursday that an applicant had access to the police officer recruitment test, prior to the testing day. They replaced the test with a new set of questions. They are looking at whether they can charge the person who used the circulated test questions and anyone else who might have been involved.

Hmmm, recruits who cheat to pass their exams to be a cop – not really the best start in a career of honest service protecting the public is it? How could a course that is only 19 weeks long be so difficult that you need to cheat to pass it anyway? I wonder if a new question will be asked in this exam,
If someone tries to pass off Police exams for sale do you
a) High five the officer offering the exam over a gangbang on the Clint Rickards memorial bonnet.
b) Seal the deal with a blaze up from the evidence locker.
c) Turn down the offer and become immediately ostracized by the ridiculously warped alpha male environment.

Unemployment plan isn’t working


PM rejects estimate of 11.2pc jobless
Government departments are bracing for the unemployment rate to reach double figures as the economy shrinks and the outlook for New Zealand's trading partners gets bleaker. Prime Minister John Key refused to speculate yesterday about how high unemployment could go, but rejected a calculation by think tank the New Zealand Institute that it could reach 11.2 per cent. He said the Government was concentrating on ways to curb the rise in joblessness, including options to be considered at Friday's job summit, rather than seeking regular Treasury updates.

This Government cannot claim their stimulus package is the 3rd best stimulus package in the world when they base that claim on old figures that didn’t consider the rest of the planets response since November, especially when the majority of the stimulus package is in fact money Labour put aside. Their stimulus package is more akin to a warm glass of milk before bedtime and their inability to come up with a response to the global meltdown is embarrassing and their scramble to deny how bad it will become starts looking like denial. If John Key denied unemployment will hit 11.2% what was his response to Paula Bennett’s claim in Parliament on the first day back this year that she had seen reports suggesting unemployment will be as high 14%?

John Key’s solution to all of this? A ‘job summit’ that the Labour Party aren’t even invited to, hardly the broad based discussion National had promised, the economy is in freefall and this Government has no plan other than to glide through the honeymoon period and hope for the best.

Has anyone noticed that we haven’t heard from Rodney Hide for a while, doesn’t that concern anyone? Where is he and what awfulness is he brewing?

United States of Torture


Freed Guantanamo prisoner alleges torture
A British resident held at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years has returned to Britain a free man and accused the US government of inflicting "medieval" torture on him – with British collusion.
Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen with British residence, was returned on a charter flight after the US government agreed last week to a British request to free him. All charges against him were dropped and he was never tried.
He is the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be freed since US President Barack Obama came to power with a pledge to shut the prison. Human rights groups say 241 Muslim detainees remain at the camp, including one other British resident.
Mohamed, 30, said he was "neither physically nor mentally capable" of facing the media after nearly seven years in captivity, but in a statement he denounced the US government.
"I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares," he said via his lawyers in a statement issued shortly before he stepped gingerly off an airplane at a British military airport looking thin and frail.
"Before this ordeal, 'torture' was an abstract word for me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim. It is difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways – all orchestrated by the United States government," he said.


Wow, so this is what the West did to win the war on terror, torture and abuse to bring freedom and democracy, why it almost sounds like the crazy evil we were supposed to be fighting doesn’t it folks? What a sickening reminder of the hypocray of the West and the horror of the Bush years. When the West tortures, we lose all moral high ground to lecture the dictatorships we prop up to sell us cheap oil, oh wait, we don’t have any fucking moral leg to stand on do we.

Remember all those NZers who sprayed foam braying to join the war on terror, they’re pretty quiet these days. Are we fighting for freedom and democracy when we get into these wars, is Afghanistan really about freedom and democracy? I thought we were in Afghanistan because we were trying to find Osama Bin Laden, wasn’t Alexander the Great the last military leader to hold Afghanistan? Why do we think the West with it’s hands covered in the blood of civilians think it has the moral compass to decide for the people of Afghanistan?

We lost the war on terror a long time ago.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Stephen Fry protests NZ's copyright law



See Stephen Fry flex his twitter power, objecting to copyright law in NZ.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

"It's not about Great Britain, its about Great Butter"



A post-punk head-fuck to confuse any Sex Pistols fan

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Frantz Fanon



Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was a psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and author from Martinique. He was influential in the field of post-colonial studies and was perhaps the pre-eminent thinker of the 20th century on the issue of decolonization and the psychopathology of colonization. His works have inspired anti-colonial liberation movements for more than four decades among them the groundbreaking book 'Wretched of the Earth' which not only inspired philosphy, academia, politics and many colonised societies - but Fanon's work still inflitrates hip hop, art and activism today.



Go to Frantz Fanon's Wikipedia page for more info on his life and complete works, or watch this summarised youtube eulogy

Urgency?


The Clerk of the House advises that urgency be accorded the introduction and first reading of the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill, the Gangs and Organised Crime Bill, the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill, and the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill.

Urgency is supposed to be used rarely for urgent issues, National are using it to ram through poorly thought out dog whistle legislation in a pack rape of the select committee process, the likes of which we need to go back to 1998 to get another example of. Ramming through legislation that the other political parties haven't even been able to fully read is an outright abuse of our democracy and misusing urgency is not 'change' one can believe in. Giving cops the power to rob you of your DNA merely on being arrested is despicable enough, but these pricks want the cops to have that power based on nothing more than suspicion, Jesus wept folks, if that isn't enough to scare your shit white, then look at the extra surveillance powers they want where the Police can break into your home, plant spy cameras and record you for a couple of days WITH NO WARRENT.

NZ, you are being tricked into consent of a massive erosion of civil rights by National blindsiding Parliamentary process.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Airplot thickens



In a canny move, Greenpeace UK – along with Oscar winning actress Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan and prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate Zac Goldsmith - has purchased a piece of land smack bang in the middle of the proposed third runway site at Heathrow Airport near London.

The UK government plans to go ahead with airport expansions across the country even though this would wipe out its chance of meeting its legally binding climate emission reduction targets. For some perspective on aviation’s contribution to the UK’s emissions, consider this: even if the whole rest of the UK economy shut down and reduced its emissions to zero, if every power station switched off and every car was taken off the road – aviation under the Government’s plan would alone still make the UK well in excess of its CO2 targets and a climate criminal.

Actress Emma Thomson, and British comedian Alistair MacGowan as well as the main UK opposition party (The Conservatives) environment advisor, Zac Goldsmith, have bought the land with Greenpeace. MPs from all parties, as well as a Royal Society scientist and other prominent figures, are also named on a legal deed of trust for the land and are supporting the campaign are asking thousands of people - worldwide - to ‘join the plot’ and sign up to join the legal deed of trust as well.


I have noticed that bureaucracy is a powerful tool for activism albeit too bourgeois and slow-burn for some. Much like the 'Last Auction Hero' post we had and much of the work I'm doing alongside Greenpeace, I am learning legislation is sometimes the only weapon that can swing an issue, hows that for an impotent truth.

Highly charged, intelligent and when one throws it back in the face of the red-tape inventers, pretty effective. When you hit at the heart of the corporate culture by speaking their bullshit language and then legally take it into activst realms I think it makes for one of my favourite sayings (coined by me and my sisters) "pimp the system while bad-mouthing it at all times". A pretty sweet revenge tactic on a system that doesnt work.

I wondered what Emma Thompson had been up to since her Shakespearian overload, period-piece, thee-ya-ter days lol

Extraordinary Nature of Water

Based on Viktor Schauberger's brilliant work with natural energy and water, translated and written by Callum Coats in the books "Nature as Teacher", "Living Energies" and "The Water Wizard". Viktor (1885 to 1958) made a lifelong study of water, from mountain springs to river flows and highly evolved hydraulics. He earned the name "Water Wizard" by developing a deep understanding of water... the most important life-giving and energy empowered substance on the planet.

Extraordinary Nature of Water - Callum Coats Pt 1 of 6


Daddy State inject hate into prisons and defends stealing your DNA for cops


No frills for new prisons says National
Justice Minister Simon Power says prisons built by National will not have underfloor heating, plasma TVs or flash gymnasiums and could include inmates being housed in prefabricated cells from 2012. Mr Power said the Corrections Department was investigating "prefabricated modular units", which could be built for about half the $643,000 per-cell prisons built under the last government.

No one has done more to inject hate into the law and order debate than Simon Power. He used the plasma TV issue (bought because they could be mounted flat on a wall to stop prisoners being able to touch them and being flat they could be viewed by more prisoners) and underfloor heating (the cheapest option to heat the prison) to whip up hatred towards prisoners by painting prison out to be some sort of adult Disneyland, once again this prick quips that the gyms in prison could sell annual subscriptions. His suggestion is shitty built cheap pre-fabricated prisons where they can cram as many human beings in as possible effectively warehousing prisoners, why? Because National (supported by ACT who are bloated to significance by the death penalty fantasists in the Sensible Sentencing lynch mob) have passed medieval law and order policy that will dramatically increase the already overcrowded prison population and the corporate private prisons companies they want to bring into run these things only build cheap pre-fabricated ill equipped prisons with zero interest in rehabilitation services.

Watching nACTional inject hate into social policy so that social policy becomes warped meaning we end up with worse prisons which only exacerbate the behaviour of the damaged individuals who become more damaged by the process and have the whole thing sold as a ‘solution’ makes me wonder if NZ will ever grow up. With Unemployment tipped by the Minister of Social Development to be as high as 14%, you can see why National are scrambling to put massive, cheap, private prisons into place – they have a plan for all those angry poor NZers.

Oh and notice how Simon glossed over the major change to allow the Police to take your DNA by force merely for being arrested, scrapping all judicial oversight, I said it yesterday and I will continue to make this stand, I will NOT hand over my DNA to the cops merely for being arrested, this is a gross attack on our civil rights as New Zealanders and one that I point blank refuse to be part of, I am 100% behind taking DNA if you are convicted of a serious crime, but I will act with total civil disobedience to any Police Officer trying to take my DNA merely for being arrested, and I recommend to everyother NZer to take the exact same stand. Ask David Dougherty what it feels like to have the Police use your DNA to stitch you up for a crime you haven’t committed.

Other than spitting directly into the face of the Police Officer, you can take my DNA from my cold dead hands John Key!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Fiji and understanding coup culture

Watch this interesting insight on Fijian politics and how the New Zealand media patronises this image and perpetuates stereotypes (John Key told the Fijian attorney general that he 'should be on trial' a fact which Fiji hates and NZ ignores). Mainstream journalistic irresponsibility and romanticising our own government agenda is rife, loaded deportations aplenty, not to mention it being left up to blogs to have the true political debate on the subject. Video is in 3 chapters and has a short Waitangi bonus story worth watching, more misdirected media from the crypts.

Death aiiiight!


Inspired by the 'Bad Brains' post a lil while ago I thought you mentaldetoxers might be into these cats, I know one anonymous commenter was... they're called DEATH...
They're an all black punk group, of 3 brothers from Detroit and if you dig Bad Brains, you'll love these guys (who actually pre-date Bad Brains too!)...
The story goes, back in 1975 they recorded an album, but released only one single from it before breaking up shortly after... it was said that the Hackney brother's recordings were lost, until a whanau member found them in an attic?! - so they're album is now going to see the light of day, and is set to be released off-shore later in February 2009...
Might pay to go down to your local record store now and import a copy in!
Album is called "For the World to See"
here's a link to the the promotional download of they're single that was originally released on 45, called "Politicians In My Eyes"
http://dragcity.com/mp3/DEATH_Politicians.mp3

Drowning In A Sea Of Noise...

Telling Daddy State to fuck off is in my blood (you can take my DNA from my cold dead hands)


Law change expected to extend police use of DNA
Police will be given controversial new powers to take DNA from suspected criminals under a raft of law and order changes before Parliament this week.
Under the changes, police will no longer need approval from a High Court judge before someone is forced to provide DNA before they are convicted, with samples immediately matched against samples from unsolved crimes. The Criminal Investigation (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill will eventually extend police powers to collect DNA to everyone arrested of an imprisonable offence with samples taken at the point charges are about to be laid. Samples will be destroyed in the case of acquittals or charges being dropped, but can be matched in the meantime. The bill comes after it was revealed police had stepped up the collection and use of DNA profiling, with the new hardline approach including samples taken from a man who stole vegetables from his neighbour's garden. It has raised further concerns from civil liberties lawyers who fear the system will be open to abuse.

Let me be very crystal clear I WILL NOT VOLUNTARILY GIVE THE COPS MY DNA IF ARRESTED! How dare National pass law to allow the cops to take your DNA merely for being arrested NO JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT WHAT-SO-FUCKING-EVER! On Sunday night on TVNZ was a drama on how the cops stitched New Zealander David Dougherty up falsely for the rape of an 11 year old girl by purposely ‘mis-reading’ his DNA and claiming it was him. If you are convicted of a crime, I have no issue with the Police taking your DNA, but merely for being arrested and not needing a Judge to sanction the taking of the DNA and seeing how the Police have previously used DNA to stitch innocent people up makes me incandescent with rage that National are simply handing our civil rights over to the cops without one word to the public justifying this gross intrusion of our rights. DO NOT GIVE THE COPS YOUR DNA – refuse to and make the pricks take it by force, resist EVERY attempt.

My personal pledge, I will not voluntarily give you my DNA Mr Officer unless it is spitting directly into your face, you can take my DNA from my cold dead hands (or unless I have been CONVICTED of a crime, I have no problems with DNA AFTER you have been convicted).

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Mainstream media allow John Key to have his cake and eat it to.


Aren’t we lucky to live in a country where the mainstream media actually do their job and hold the Government to account? I wouldn’t know because I live in NZ and our mainstream media do everything EXCEPT hold John Key to account, take Waitangi Day, if you had been watching Breakfast on TVNZ you’d have been left with the impression that this was the first time NZ ever HELD Waitangi Day. In Australia, Rupert Murdoch has been a major force in deforming ‘Australia Day’ into a Nationalist head fuck and our Little Brother media in NZ jumped on the same bandwagon with John Key hailed as some sort of reverse Moses who is un-dividing the red sea of NZ race relations.

What a crock of shit.

Why do so much of our media simply buy the fluff puff pastry of spin and focus on the meaninglessly empty gestures by National and not on the actual fucking policy that National have passed, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF WHICH is negative to Maoridom. We have 40 million sheep in NZ, 4 million can vote, and when they aren’t all baa-ing “C-h-a-n-g-e”, they are buying this fluff puff pastry spin that National are moderate because they have a window dressing relationship with the Maori Party, if the media spent as much time on POLICY as they have on John Key’s fucking broken arm we wouldn’t have this myth carry on.

The architect of National’s new ‘inclusive tent, European NZers only in management positions please’ is National Party svengali, Matt Hooten. In the Hollow Men (page 81), Matt implores Don Brash via email to fake an interest in Maoridom so that it would make Don look less right wing, appeal to conservative Maori and appeal to Urban Liberals. Don didn’t take Matt’s advice and ended up doing his racist “Maaaaaaaori get too much” speech. The blatant pandering to NZers garden variety talkback bigotry won him support but created a disgust from the centre and National lost, allowing Matt to try this strategy again, and hasn’t it paid divvies at the TAB. Somehow (mainly because the mainstream media are fucking idiots) John Key has been allowed to have his cake and eat it too, the empty gestures towards the Maori Party have somehow made him immune from scrutiny of the ACTUAL legislation he has passed, all of which is incredibly negative for Maoridom, let’s have a wee gander shall we….

Process: The first two weeks of nACTional were the worst abuse of process we’ve seen since National were last in power (1998) when they pack raped the select committee process by ramming through absurd legislation under urgency, a power never supposed to allow a 3 hour reading of a bill to go directly into law. For the Maori Party who have a long history since being in Parliament of reading and thoroughly researching all legislation and getting as much community feed back as possible to go along with this pack rape certainly means whatever crumbs they get off the land of the wrong white crowd’s table better be pretty bloody amazing, embarrassingly for the Maori Party they have all been major steps backwards.

Tax cuts for the wealthy: Seeing as the Maori Party were asking for a one off Christmas bonus for beneficiaries before the election and yet in their first week of ‘relationship mana enhancement’ they are voting in tax cuts for the rich as part of nACTional’s April Fools Day Tax cuts one could be forgiven for wincing when nACTional forced the Maori Party to swallow this dead rat. What happened to redistribution of wealth to those who have been marginalized by the process of colonization Hone Harawira?

Truancy fines increased to $3000: Seeing as Maori turn up disproportionately in truancy stats, how the hell does raising the fines from $400 to $3000 help Maoridom?

Medieval Law and Order Policy Maori once again are disproportionately reflected in prison stats, how does locking more and more of them up for longer and longer in an overcrowded, corrupt and racist prison system going to help? Wait, Simon Powers has an idea, let’s import Dick Cheney’s Private Prison Industry to clean up the mess, who do the Maori Party think National are building all these new prisons for? Do they think it will be the kids from John Key’s leafy suburbs who will go to these new prisons?

Dick Cheney’s Private Prison Industry: Fed the masses a hateful message and allowed hate to warp your social policy so much so that when a prisoner with obvious mental issues commits suicide in protective custody the masses cheer and this makes it difficult to justify the mountain of cash needed to fund this medieval law and order policy? No problems, have we got the solution for you, the Prison Industrial Complex, fresh from allegations of abuse in America, we will be importing private corporations to jail NZers in forced prison labour camps where the prisoner gets 60cents a day and the corporation picks up $12 in the hour, and remember if the prisoner doesn’t work, they can’t get parole. How the fuck will importing the Prison Industrial Complex help Maoridom? Is Turiana still clinging to the well funded former remand center that was a showroom prison to con politicians into allowing this abortion of justice to occur? Pity the Maori Party don’t listen to native American Indian activist Ward Churchill and his research on what the Prison Industrial Complex in America has done for indigenous people. A real pity.

Environment: For a party that sees itself as guardians of the natural beauty of NZ, how do they collectively sleep at night watching the ETS scrapped and the RMA gutted so community representation is minimized not to mention the farce of holding a select committee meeting that will challenge the science behind global warming. While NZ burns, mACTional fiddle.

Right to sack: Got a thing about Maaaris? No probs mate, National have set it up so that you can exercise your white god given right to get rid of them without all the politically correct pinko crap in the Employment Court. The Maori Party have weakly defended this as ‘giving a bro a go’ where employers will try on workers, this is nonsense and will create an environment ripe for worker exploitation.

Junk food back into schools: Pray tell how clogging the arteries and increasing the diabetes rates amongst Maori children will help Maoridom? Anne Tolley is the new Jim Bolger of National, proof that even without 5th form School C, you can still end up becoming Minister of Education.

Past the fluffy puff pastry of spin, National have only passed legislation and set policy that will hurt Maoridom, a farce the mainstream media have wholeheartedly sucked up and bought in to. Who is the relationship mana enhancing for, the Maori Party or the Maori people, because based on the policy, NOT THE SPIN, but based on the policy it is pretty evident who is getting dicked.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Unemployment goes up


Unemployment exceeds 100,000
LATEST: Economists seem prepared to dismiss a shock rise in employment to record levels as a statistical anomaly and say the jobs market looks bleak in the near future. Contrary to all expectations, Statistics New Zealand's Household Labour Force Survey for the December quarter showed that the number of Kiwis in work rose 0.9 percent to a new high of 2.19 million. However, a number of the extra jobs were part-time. Closer to expectations, but on the low side, was a rise in the number of unemployed to 105,000 from 94,000. That's the highest number out of work in over six years and brings the unemployment rate up to 4.6 percent from 4.2 percent. The apparent contradiction whereby both employment and unemployment levels rose can be explained partly through population growth due to migration and also by more people entering the workforce. The labour force "participation rate" rose by 0.6 percent to 69.3 percent in the quarter. JP Morgan economist Helen Kevans said she believed the sharp jump in part-time workers was owing to worker hours being cut back, or previously non-working members of the household returning to the workforce in an effort to make financial ends meet.

More minimum wage earners will need to stretch their pay further to cover unemployed members of family which is another reason why we need to increase the minimum wage. We are almost going to double our unemployment rate within 12 months, that has a massive negative social cost and what is National doing other than April fools day tax cuts for the rich, raising truancy fines to $3000 and allowing junk food back into schools. Un-fucking-believable. How's that Daddy State 'change' going?

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Miles Davis



So what