Christchurch

Physicist banishes talkback host to another dimension

Renowned wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking today tested a new string theory on outspoken New Zealand talkback host Michael Laws, sending him on a one-way journey to the 11th Dimension.

Professor Hawking, IQ 160, successfully inserted Michael Laws, IQ 60, into the newly discovered dimension by squeezing Laws' unusually narrow mind into sub-Planck length proportions. "Michael Laws' very special brain first came to my attention after his comments on RadioLive last week," said Prof Hawking at a press conference at Cambridge University. "Michael's mind is naturally very narrow, something less than 10^-20 nanometres wide. He was an ideal candidate for my new Large Hater Collider."

Michael Laws was accelerated to near light speeds in the LHC, before being hit head on with another similarly narrow-minded test subject travelling at the same speed, in this case Pauline Hanson. Hanson was completely annihilated in the collision, decomposing into four Letters to the Editor and a pair of dingo's kidneys, whilst Laws was squeezed through the Planck Hole, long considered to be the smallest possible length of anything in the universe.

Professor Hawking said that according to his calculations, Michael Laws has reached the Black Brane plane. However, due to nothing being able to communicate with this dimension made of singularity garbage, there is no way to confirm that Laws is still alive or dead. "I call this result the Shrodinger's Prat effect."

The injustice system

Here is the story of Peter Davy, in his own words. You can support him in his fight here, or try the Peter Davy Challenge.

My name is Peter Davy and I am 51 years old. I pleaded guilty in Timaru Court (New Zealand) to cultivation of cannabis and associated charges. The judge told me to expect a prison sentence on March 16th when I go up for sentencing because it is about the fifth time I have been convicted. I have cancer and I am 24 hour caregiver for my partner who has advanced Multiple Sclerosis. She is dying and will die without me. I am not trying to use her an excuse however... this is my crusade not hers.... just pointing out the facts... as in the complete lack of empathy and compassion in our present justice system.

This is about Medical Marijuana and a police force that continually lies to make themselves look good. Firstly I want to make it clear that I will be going on a hunger strike the moment I am given a prison sentence and I absolutely do not want to be force fed under any circumstances. I will also be refusing all cancer medication. I am 100% committed to continuing with a hunger strike until I am dead.

I want the opportunity to give my side of the story because I have been refused that right over and over. I always plead guilty so there is never a trial where I can present my side of things. At no time have I ever had a lawyer that even believes me.... let alone has the ability to give highly technical information to a court. I only started smoking marijuana ten years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer... before that I was one of the top computer engineers in the country and the IT Manager for the South Taranaki District Council. Since I started smoking cannabis I have been targeted by gangsters and police alike and already been to prison once where I attempted suicide.

My IQ has been tested by a Forensic Psychologist as being in the top 5% in the country... and that despite failing all the maths questions. So I am not a stupid man and would not willingly put myself through ten years of hell unless I truly had a good reason. I would be the first to admit that I have done some really stupid things in that ten years and paid the consequences... but my conscience is clear. I am obsessive about anything I truly believe in which is why I was such a good computer engineer. I research everything to death and am extreme in what I do. I have never been a dealer or a gangster as the police have continually tried to make out... and still are. The police like to make themselves look good and have never ever shown the slightest bit of interest in the truth.

The truth is that I genuinely believe in Medical Marijuana... not as an excuse for recreational use... but as a scientifically proven medicine for specific medical conditions. I have had to do all my own research and I have continually tried... on my own... to breed a better medical strain specifically for medical use. This is highly technical from a plant breeding perspective and a medical research perspective. I can stand up without notes and debate my science with anybody... to prove that I am not bluffing... I can explain what and why and how. I am willing to go up against any scientist anybody cares to put against me... or any Govt plant breeder.... just to show that I really do know my stuff and am genuine. I am willing to do that on live TV because I've had enough of all the lies and half truths. This is all about science... and always has been... and nothing at all to do with deliberate criminal activity.

I want the opportunity to tell my side of the story... on TV... or in the newspaper... before I get locked up. I want the public of New Zealand to know exactly why I am going on a hunger strike. Our so called Justice system has never ever given me that opportunity. If I'm wrong and my science is flawed... then so be it... but I want to go down for the truth... not a pack of lies. The sick and weak are being persecuted in this country by a police force that has become a law unto themselves and everybody is too scared to speak out. I don't blame them because everytime I've tried to speak out through the "appropriate" channels, I've been slammed. I can name over 20 politicians and Government Departments that I have approached over the last ten years and been completely ignored... or worse. You should see what happens in this country if you dare to make a complaint to the IPCA (Independant Police Complaints Authority). I have tried to talk to medical doctors (including my own endocrinologists) and they can't get rid of me fast enough.... yet at no time have I been trying to convince anybody that I am right. All I've wanted is expert opinion to add to my own research or just a chance to explain what I'm doing to somebody with enough technical, scientific or medical knowledge to understand. It's pretty lonely trying to fight the world by yourself.

Let me be clear that I hate confrontation and I hate publicity but I have nothing to lose anymore and somebody has to make a stand... or nothing ever changes. I have absolutely no experience at all at this sort of thing but all I know is that I want to give my side of the story. I truly believe in what I have been doing and in a just society I should be at least allowed to give my side of the story. I am frightened because I expect a smear campaign.... that is the way the system seems to work in this country and I have done some stupid things.... but like I said... I have nothing left to lose. My partner will die without me and it will be all because of a pack of lies.

I am also writing a book about my experiences and have currently written 100,000 words. I hope to have it finished by the time I go to prison so the whole country knows why I am going on a hunger strike. I am not a troublemaker and have tried everything I can think of to settle this matter without involving the media... instead I've just antagonised people and made things worse. Apparently one of the most serious crimes of all in this country is to dare to question the actions of the police or dare to suggest that politicians are making a mistake.

Please note that I have nothing at all against the police... other than my own personal issues. I am sure that overall they do a great job. This is really all about Medical Marijuana... not about the police. If they had been fair and honest then I would not even be mentioning them at all.

New Zealand could be leading the world in Medical Marijuana research... not following miles behind like a buch of sheep. We could be making social policy for the rest of the world to copy... instead of loading up our prison system with people who are victims not criminals. I want to be proud of my country and all I have ever done is try to make my contribution to a cause that needs champions or it will just end up in a bigger mess than it already is.

Below is just a tiny portion of my research to date:

Here are links to the medical information on the endocrine system and cannabis:

http://www.safeaccessnow.org/downloads/The%20Emerging%20Role%20of%20the%20Endocannabinoid%20System%20in%20Endocrine%20Regulation%20and%20Energy%20Balance.pdf

or

http://edrv.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/27/1/73

Please note that I am completely unbiased and the majority of information is negative... which I accept 100%. My particular interest is the use of Delta 9 THC cannabinoid to suppress prolactin production in a pituitary tumour. Somewhere I have research that actually shrunk a prolactinoma in rats till it could no longer be detected with an MRI, using only cannabis. Unfortunately I can't find that specific paper at the moment.

However here is links to scientific research that did shrink brain tumours in rats using externally administered cannabis. Note that one study used 50,000 rats which would yield a statistically significant result:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/12088.php

http://www.naturalnews.com/029780_marijuana_cancer.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14570037

Links to all the best research can be found at this site... all proper research papers and done by some of the leading medical researchers in the world. You will note that the research is overwhelming:

http://safeaccess.ca/research/cancer.htm

Please note that I accept 100% that cannabis has a negative effect in many other areas... such as lowered fertility in males and possible shrinking of gonads... though there is still some controversy about that research while there is no controversy about shrinking cancer tumors with cannabis.

A much easier text to read (for non medical people) on cannabis and the endocrine system can be found here:

http://www.ukcia.org/research/EndocrineEffects.pdf

Please note that the applicable section (for me personally) is the reduction of prolactin secretion using cannabis.

As an interested observer I find glaring holes in all the research... both for and against. The main issue is that all the research focuses almost exclusively on Delta 9 THC which is only one of the cannibinoids found in cannabis. As an example... take any antipsychotic drug that is given with another drug to reduce side-effects... in other words the second drug blocks or inhibits part of the action of the first drug. So for all we know there are cannibinoids that block or inhibit other cannabinoids. I have always said... like most things in life... it is about the balance of these cannabinoids and different balances (which can be specifically bred into a plant) will have different medical effects... both negative and positive.

All my research to date has been on very rare cannabis strains containing THCV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabivarin

I went to enormous trouble to track down seeds for these strains (there is only a handful in the whole world... all tropical), many of which are now extinct. I was the only person in the world who had the original Thai THCV strain which became extinct in the wild in 1982. A researcher in Switzerland sent me his last ten seeds which I inbred and bulked up... all of which were seized by the Timaru police.

At no time have I ever said that cannabis is a safe drug or that it should be used recreationally. I fully agree that it has scientifically validated negative effects and my research and Plant Breeding has focused on trying to breed a variety that has reduced negative effects with an increase in positive medical effects. In particular, in addition to my own endocrine issues, I have concentrated on trying to breed a plant very narrowly targeted at alleviating Multiple Sclerosis symptoms. All my research in this area can be scientifically validated:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6387-cannabis-truly-helps-multiple-sclerosis-sufferers.html

http://scholar.google.co.nz/scholar?q=cannabis+multiple+sclerosis+research&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/662254.stm

In the case of MS the negative effects of cannabis are not even scientifically relevant because people with MS (my partner who is dying) are suffering so much anyway and are in fact terminally ill. Most will die (including my partner) long before any negative effects of cannabis use manifest themselves. It is cruel in the extreme to prevent access to cannabis for MS sufferers. I challenge anybody to watch what my partner goes through on a daily basis and then look me in the eye and say she should not be allowed access to cannabis if it makes her life even a tiny bit more bearable. Easy to make these decisions about other people when you're perfectly healthy yourself... but try walking a mile in my partner's footsteps.

The research for cannabis and MS has been done over and over and the results are conclusive. I have simply been trying to extend that research into a more MS focused approach rather than just using the approach that "all cannabis is the same" because it isn't. This is my area of expertise and cannabis varieties differ enormously in effect. Most of the people in power making decisions about Medical Marijuana have absolutely no idea at all what they are talking about. They are not up with the latest research, they have their own political agendas which have nothing to do with true science and most of all they have no real world experience of what they are talking about.

As I have been saying for ten years... I am almost unique in that I have a pituitary tumour...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolactinoma

http://www.uptodate.com/contents/patient-information-high-prolactin-levels-and-prolactinomas

http://endocrine.niddk.nih.gov/pubs/prolact/prolact.htm

..... a high level of intelligence, experience in plant breeding and an almost exhaustive knowledge of cannabis... so I am ideally positioned to conduct trials and experiments on myself... which I have been doing for ten years now.  I have no wish to destroy my brain cells, that is just crazy and I was quite depressed to find out how much my brain reaction time has slowed down when I carried out an IQ test conducted by the Forensic Psychologist Dr Sue Galvin a few years ago. I have no issues with her findings and they worry me. That is the whole reason I think my research is important.

My brain used to be razor sharp and fast as lightning. You can ask anybody that knew me back then. I was one of the very top computer engineers in this country. The minute I started taking pituitary tumour drugs (Bromocriptine and Dostinex)...

http://www.druglib.com/druginfo/bromocriptine/side-effects_adverse-reactions/

.... I knew that I had lost my edge. Something was missing. My brain was all over the place and I couldn't focus on a single task anymore. I felt depressed for no reason all the time with a feeling of impending doom. I also had nausea, headaches and cold sweats. It was/is a horrible feeling. I miss my razor sharp brain. When I discovered cannabis it helped me a lot but I would be the first to admit that it still didn't give me back whatever it was I had lost. The benefits outweighed the disadvantages though. It worried me that I scored very high (top 5% of the population) on a properly conducted IQ test but Dr Galvin noted repeatedly that my reaction time (the time it took me to get the correct answer) was abnormally slow in many tests and that I displayed mental fogginess in the maths tests. Note that my score in maths tests was very poor (average to below average) yet my overall score was still in the top 5% of the population. If I had done better in the maths then my IQ would be in the genius to high genius range. Dr Galvin hypothesised that my use of cannabis may have been an influential factor in my terrible score on maths tests and I have no reason to disagree. That worries me a lot... so don't think I'm happy about needing cannabis... on the contrary I have been almost obsessive at trying to breed a strain that alleviates negative symptoms of pituitary disorder without such a negative effect on brain speed and function.

It is also important to note that I have been used as a guinea pig by a long selection of doctors who tried various prescription drugs (anti-psychotics, ant-depressants, tranquilisers, pain-killers... etc) which turned my life into a living hell. Not one legal drug had the slightest beneficial effect. They turned me into a zombie, slowed my brain to a standstill and made it feel like mush, made me suicidal, I felt half asleep all the time, I slept all the time, I had nightmares, I became impotent and my prolactin levels increased. Note that a pituitary tumour in a male causes impotence and dangerously high prolactin levels... so prescription drugs that did the same made me terribly messed up. I gave all these doctors a fair go because I wanted my life back as much as anybody.

What really upset me is that doctors hate being told that their treatment isn't working... even if it isn't. So as well as feeling like hell I had the additional stress of trying to deal with doctors who wouldn't even listen when I told them it was making me worse. Their usual reaction was to increase the dose until I no longer felt the slightest bit human at all. The adverse effects of cannabis have always been minimal in comparison to any prescription drug that I was encouraged to take. Let me make a point here... doctors go on about the "negative" effects of cannabis... but conveniently ignore the fact that the negative effects of precription drugs (especially anti-psychotics) are a thousand times worse. Severe nausea, depression to the point of suicide, mental fogginess, liver failure, heart disease, messed up white blood cells... those drugs can kill you. Cannabis has never killed anybody.

Everybody says to me "but medical cannabis is illegal." Well I know that obviously... but just because you make a law it doesn't somehow make cancer go away or cure Multiple Sclerosis. It doesn't do anything except make life even worse for sick people. If I go to court for growing Medical Marijuana and get a light sentence... then I come up a year later and the judge is angry because I offended again... I don't get it... the cancer didn't go away just because I got a light sentence the first time... nothing has changed... yet I have to present all the exact same medical evidence all over again... and invariably get a much harsher sentence and maybe go to prison. I just don't understand that. Either Medical marijuana works or it doesn't and the law has absolutely nothing to do with that. This is about science and medicine and tinkering around with the law doesn't somehow make the science more valid or less valid. If a law is unjust and inhumane then all the rhetoric in the world won't alter the underlying fact that it is a stupid law to start with.

To summarise Thoreau... "There are two types of laws: just and unjust. Every individual in a society has a responsibility to obey just laws and, even more importantly, to disobey and resist unjust laws."

or

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. – Martin Luther King Jr.

or  (my personal favourite)

If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. – Thomas Jefferson


If NZ does eventually legalise Medical Marijuana then we want the safest possible form of the drug, specifically targeted for medical use... not some generalised ad hoc form of the drug that will be abused by recreational users. I can stand up in any court in this land, without notes to refer to... and explain Mendel's theory of inheritance that I used as the basis for my Plant Breeding experiments... I can explain every single experiment I've ever done... I can explain the significance of the different alkaloids or cannibinoids and why it is the ratio that is important... rather than a single cannabinoid like THC. Non scientific people probably won't understand me but I am happy to do it none the less. I am happy to debate the matter with any scientist the court might wish to appoint if they want to try and say I am a fake.

Assurances given and accepted

New Zealand has the odd distinction of being not only one of the best places to raise kids, but also one of the worst as well. Character building, it was called back in the day. These days it is seen for what it is; child rape, child beatings, child murder. So it is all the more shocking to hear the IPCA interview on Nine to Noon that described with the usual circumlocution prevalent to the public service that cops had covered it all up.

The nation is assured in the interview that systems, processes and procedures have been right-sized and that this is a historical chapter which has since closed. Pope is out of a job, after all. Tales of woe such as this, or John Campbell's moving memories of Women's Studies students on Media 7 the other day might be be a thing of the past.

Go ahead, make Andrew Sullivan's Creepy Ad Watch day

Then again, maybe not.

The Hate State

Examples of the New Zealand government putting the hate on various minorities and breaking fundamental human rights, 1900 - present.

1900's - The 1901 Opium Act was aimed solely at persecuting Chinese immigrants and their families. The Act banned the smoking of opium. Other forms of opium were allowed for consumption, it was just the smoking of it that was outlawed. Police gained the right to search without warrant any Chinese home or business on suspicion of opium smoking, decades before the practise was made more widespread.

1910's - It was a busy decade for state hatred. Unionists and the working class were subject to Massey's Cossacks. Of course, the Germans were fair game during the Great War. Conscientious objectors to the Great War were locked up, deserters from the army were shot. And if they stayed to fight for King and Country, they were dumped on Gallipoli's coastline with others of Winston Churchill's reject colonial army volunteers - Jews and Australians - and led to senseless slaughter.

1920's - This decade was a bit of a toughie. Post-Great War, post-Spanish Flu pandemic, the state seemed to run out of hate temporarily. Massey eventually died, and it is damned hard to fault the work of the Coates' government's 3 years. Maybe the All Blacks' "Invincibles" tour of Britain and France in 1924 kept the young nation at ease. Argument's sake, let's just call the 1920's an exception to the rule.

1930's - The unemployment riots in Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland not long into the Great Depression might have made unions another easy target for the state apparatus. It took the first Labour Government to officially hate merchantalism. Cradle to the grave welfare, the Reserve Bank was nationalised, dairy prices guaranteed a minimum.

1940's - Germans and Japanese were the official villains of this decade. However, unofficially, there was plenty of hate set aside for American soldiers, as seen in the Battle of Manners Street.

1950's - Waterfront unions bore the brunt of establishment displeasure during the Waterfront 'dispute'. Teenagers first appeared on the hate radar thanks to the Maezengarb report. In fact, anything that represented un-Christian values or the other official religion of Rugby, Racing and Beer was off-limits. Barry Crump's Good Keen Man was considered a classic NZ novel. Art was for queers and queers were locked up, which explains some of the modernist monstrosities built in the name of the state during this time.

1960's - The newly established NZBC armed with the Broadcasting Act 1961 took a black pen to music, TV shows and movies. Radio Hauraki was one response to this hatred of good things.

1970's - Patricia Bartlett might have kept bleating on about morals during the 1970's, but the tide was against her as well as the anti-abortionists. The state had moved onto other hatreds. The continued French nuclear testing at Muroroa Atoll drew the ire of the Kirk government. Pacific Islanders felt the force of Muldoon's government power with the infamous dawn raids. Maori got some stick too, culminating in mass arrests at Bastion Point. It was not uncommon practice for landlords of the time to state "No Maoris" in their To Let adverts.

1980's - Who can forget the hatred that divided the nation with the Springbok Tour of 1981? John Key apparently can. Everyone hated the French in the 1980's, and with good reason. Nuclear testing was bad enough, but the frogmen and the Rainbow Warrior bombs made it worse. The very worst came with the release of Mafart and Prieur not long into their sentence, when the French government threatened to stick a butter mountain up the NZ government's bum. The French showed NZ up as the tiny, irrelevant little islands it is.

1990's - Risk is the new enemy. The rise of the safety nazis begins with the purge of smokers as people with the Smokefree Environments Act. This was swiftly followed by hatred of recreational cyclists with compulsory bike helmet regulations. Strong Asian immigration flows bring NZ's history of xenophobia to the fore. Winston Peters and NZ First are at record levels of support.

2000's - Smokers continue to lose rights as humans. It is entirely legal, if not encouraged, to discriminate against smokers as workers, tenants and parents. Winston Peters still hanging in there.

2010's - Adult Fun is facing regulation on all fronts. Alcohol, tobacco and cannabis users are now mortal sinners damned until they repent. Workers are tested in ever more invasive ways as risk attains infamy. A toke on a joint on Saturday can lose someone their job with a drug test on Wednesday, demonstrating the complete separation of impairment and risk. Local government councils and government SOEs are leading the charge into persecution with the unions in full agreement with the overlords. The infantilisation of adult life is almost complete.

Sleb Slapping

The following musical interlude is dedicated to Billy Ray Cyrus and his self-inflicted achy-breaky heart:

Cloudbusting

I have been interested in the weather ever since Weetbix had a meteorology card set and booklet giveaway way back in the 1970's. Cyclones, anti-cyclones, isobars and all that laid the foundation work that years later help me get my brain wrapped around the implications of Brownian motion and chaotic field theory. System dependent on initial conditions and all that.

One of the implications of chaos is the bloody-mindedly difficult task of lassoing it in empirical testing. How does one replicate a moment in weather when each is a unique piece of infinitely complex, delicate and unknowable whole? Where does one draw the line in objectivity when, like supercomputers crunching climate change figures, measuring affects the outcome?

Nowhere is this more evident than in alleged weather control programs:

Fleming, for his part, doesn’t believe that a single one of the weather modification schemes he describes in his book ever truly worked. Even cloud-seeding, he says, as widespread as it is even today, has never been scientifically proven to be effective. Kristine Harper, an assistant professor at Florida State University who is writing a book about the US government’s forays into weather modification, says that doesn’t necessarily mean cloud-seeding is a total waste of time, just that there’s no way to scientifically measure its impact.

HT Arts & Letters Daily. I have thought for some time that dry ice and silver iodide seeding of clouds was one giant bogus placebo, but there's never a way to prove beyond reasonable doubt one way or the other, so why bother. Nah, the thing that scares me isn't this petty voodoo, it's experiments like this that puts the willies up me.

Walk like an Egyptian

While Mubarak refuses to stand down, it is worth pondering some case studies of "the unfortunate, tragic events" with this site of Egyptian citizens who have died thus far.

Grafty Bastard

UK Foreign Minister William Hague is in deep shit after a leak pointing how he used diplomatic channels to raise the share price of an oil company at the expense of the dirt poor Ugandans:

After the visit, Mr Bellingham wrote to the Foreign Secretary, saying “My meeting with President Museveni allowed me to raise a specific trade issue, again regarding Tullow Oil.”

“Consequently, Tullow have concluded the deal with [Heritage Oil], allowing both companies’ share price to rise by approximately 50p and £1 respectively.” 

70,000 quid to save 175 million quid? What kind of unethical moron wouldn't jump at the chance?

Quote of the day

"If ever a Government indifferent at heart to basic rights were to hold office in this country, it could force through, possibly in a matter of hours and by the barest of majorities, legislation opposed to basic principles of justice. Orthodox theory has in the past been that the Courts could not intervene. I am not so sure; the authority of Parliament itself - supremacy as it is often called - ultimately turns on judicial recognition."

- Lord Cooke of Thorndon, "Practicalities of a Bill of Rights" Australian Bar Review 189,201.

Procrastinocracy

Pigs

Some of my cannabis cuzzies have been arrested over the last few weeks, including one poor sod who got busted for weed at Raggamuffin in the weekend. Raggamuffin, for Dagg's sake! This rip from Spare Room is dedicated to them. Kia Kaha.

“We were dressed as ‘Scrabble’ and asked to have a photo with the police,” says Nikki. “They had no idea what we spelt”.

Greens fall at the first hurdle

The Nats and Labour have exited the gate for election year with state of the nation speeches. The Maori party had two state of the nation speeches at Waitangi on one day. Act had their day at the Gibbs estate looking at the art and feeding David Garrett and other animals. The Greens have kicked things off by having their candidate Richard Leckinger missing the deadline for the Botany by-election.

Even the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party and the Pirate Party have their shit together better than the Greens. Thank you Greens. ALCP will eat your 756 votes, om nom nom. Following on from Russel Norman's by-election bid in Mt Albert, where the Greens outspent the Act party on dollar per vote spending, there's some serious rebooting needed within that party pronto if they want to cut the 5 percent mustard this year. The mind-mongingly bad stunts have to stop at the very least.

Reagan Exiled

I see some of my right wing mates are commemorating what would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday. The team at Exiled Online are doing their own celebration, with a litany of vicious eulogies. Here's a sample of the latest by John Dolan:

"I’ve always found Nixon a rather sympathetic figure: wretched, ugly, and without much malice for either the forests or the ordinary American. Nixon didn’t even share the worship of “business” forced on us all in Reagan’s reign. Nixon’s dreams were old-fashioned Soviet machinations, full of maps and coups; he was willing enough to toss the rest of us a few bones if we’d let him play with his schemes undisturbed. And some of the bones he tossed us were rather significant. It was Nixon who created the EPA and OSHA. Reagan would have strangled both in the cradle."

Other gold includes Homeless Mourn Passing of Reagan, The Abominable Chimp-Fucker Is Dead! and And Here Lies the Worst of All.

Arresting Moments - The Musical

Following on from yesterday's post, here is the music video of the protest:



Fortunately, the cannabis reform movement is not reliant on MSM for communications, eh.

Arresting moments

I was bemused to flip through the Weekend Herald this morning to see no trace of the protest held outside the Auckland District Court yesterday morning. Although the courts are diagonally opposite the NZ Herald head offices, and despite the protest lasting an hour and a half, not a shred of its passing reached the greater Auckland tabloid readership.

Perhaps it was too early in the morning for the repeaters, nursing hangovers, to go outside at 9am into the blare of vuvezelas outside the "halls of justice." Hey, you stop with the stupid drug war, we'll stop with the stupid annoying drone of resistance.

If one of them had enquired, they might have been told how one of our own was facing charges that morning. He had been trading Nixons for Queens and had been held up at knifepoint and robbed. He chased the thief while calling the cops. By the time the cops caught up with the chase, they arrested both of them. By this time, the robber had thrown the knife away and the cops didn't take too much time looking for it. Consequentially, one of ours is likely facing higher charges due to the Nixons.

It is unfair in the same way that unrepentant cannabis users are denied parole due to their beliefs (not addicitons), while other more needful inmates deserving a chance at rehabiliation go wanting. While killers get parole, peaceful cannabis culturalists refusing drug treatment are denied parole and have to serve the length of their sentence. That's another story missed by APN.

The last time Sir Geoffrey got stoned

I understand some media were attracted by the loud buzzing, as well as curious tourists. Maybe this old Maori woman in a wheelchair might have had a story to tell?

Where's the harm?

No arrests either. I wish that were the case across the board, not just when protesters do it.

One of own couldn't make it. He was having surgery. This is him recovering at the club with a harm minimising vaporiser, of the sort that HRH NZ Customs Service are seizing at our borders right now:

Do you really want to lock him up?

We're feeding our babies so much paracetamol, some of their livers are shutting down. Go on, arrest the hippy and keep selling painkillers like lollies in the supermarket check-out aisles, even if the deaths of paracetamol are under-reported compared with "illegal" drugs:

There are times I wish the MSM would go to pot. This was one of them.

Pubthumping

Tully might be full of cowboys, outlaws and river rats, but Innisfail is sweet as. Lots of Italian and Greek culture based on post-WWII immigration up there. Friendly Abbos too. Post-Yasi, this one's for the Garradunga Pub and the zero death toll. Also to the meteorologists who saved the world yet again.

Milk the rich

As any newbie sharemilker can tell you, cows like getting milked. Titillated, in the parlance of our times. That's their motive to walk down the shed twice a day without much effort from the dog. Dilbert guy has thrown a googlie in the Wall St Journal aimed squarely at taxing the only people who have any money these days; the super-rich:

I can think of five benefits that the country could offer to the rich in return for higher taxes: time, gratitude, incentives, shared pain and power. 

HT Bernard Hickey. The Top 10 is on fire today.

I have been pondering this type of thing for some time. Take the Goff policy of a tax-free threshold for everyone at a cost of roughly a billion and a half dollars a year in real terms. A $10,000 tax minimum would at least have been a third of a Big Kahuna. Alas, Labour would then compound the other problem with the policy, in that there's no funding for it. Tightening compliance will not net a percent of the estimated swag required.

OK, so take that $1.5 billion a year and instead give every NZ born citizen who turns 25 years old the equivalent of the annual average wage in a lump sum.* That should do a number of things, least of all reduce our fucking awful youth suicide stats. Give them a tomorrow to aim for, the maturity and network of friends to do it with, and let them go.

* This money is not for export, and it's to be used for black and red purposes only. Red, in the case of early debt problems with credit cards, student or car loans. Black, in that it is for capital expenditure, setting up a home, business, research project, whatever.

Even just looking at this side of the equation, you can see all sorts of things that could go wrong with that half of it. A black market in repeat claimants, hyper-marketing to self-destructive youth by bankers. Maybe scratch the debt part and make it optional bankruptcy at 25 too. That'll scare the suits and brown out the loan sharks' pants.

Oh, and apart from serious violence offences, their criminal records should be wiped. Everyone deserves a second chance eh.

OK, so you've given every new 'dult a fresh start they've been aiming for during the first bit of growing up in NZ. $40,000 in plain Bill English. Add a multiplier of, say, five high school buddies starting a company, there's $200,000 starting capital right there. Lend against THAT, bankers.

37,500 people give and take year turn 25 every year, and I'm proposing another 37,500 or so people pay for it. Maybe less, depending on how philantropic NZ's super rich really are. I'm sure even Cactus Kate or other ex-pats would be keen on adopting more than one Fresh Starter. I'm sure there's enough snobbery in those circles to make it self-policing too, but there's always insurance in the form of publicly published names and estimated wealth, IRD and all sorts of rotten fruit to throw at avoiders.

Of course, charity without anonymity is slavery. You can't have the super-wealthy owning these young ones. It corrupts both. That's where Central Services aka The Gummint comes in and launders the investment. Maybe both sides have the right to request who their tagged benefactor/ee was after 5 years.

Yes, this clay needs some work but I reckon I'm working good stuff if the same materiel is recognised by Scott Adams.

Pink and White, blew all over

The old man had an oil painting of the Pink and White Terraces on the wall when I was growing up. He told me how the wonder was destroyed when Mt Tarawera erupted. "How were they destroyed?" I used to ask. Were they completely blown up, buried under ash or what? Alas, the only response from Dad was "destroyed." So it is with great pleasure to read that some gronks might have found the terraces from out of the blue:

[S]cientists from GNS Science says they are 95% certain they have identified a crescent-shaped part of the terraces lying in about 60 metres of water at the bottom of the lake.

Well done, great wonks!