The American Disease

Etiquette says that it is impolite to talk religion or politics over dinner, which may go some way in explaining why I don't get invited to dinner parties. Food? Political. Choice of background music? Political. Serving white wine with steak? Political. Aaron Gilmore? Christ, what an arsehole.

The reality TV junkies have lived such short safe lives, they have lost collective consciousness of the terrors of existential threats, the miseries and humility of shared suffering. If it can't be parsed into a CSI-friendly anecdote, the eyes glaze over or the subject flips to royal pregnancies and sport.

It is disconnects like this that allow vastly ironies to go unremarked, such as the final Constitutional Debate being held the day John Key released plans for mass surveillance, and a raft of new crimes against the state.

New Zealand is getting the American Disease, a virulent STI or Security Theatre Infection. It can only be a matter of time before our first Aaron Swartz-like victim occurs, or worse.

There's hope amidst my cynicism. I'll leave you with an increasingly popular search phrase from Lord Cooke of Thorndon:

"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.

My Own Private I Dunno

Insomnia or narcolepsy; which is worse? If you're a Yank, it's narcolepsy. The US Supreme Court has just ruled that religious schools can override civil laws (in this case the Disabilities Act) and fire a teacher who developed narcolepsy. The Daily Show has more:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I presume John Banks' Charter Schools here will have their own mutant eradication solutions, probably involving a coat hanger.

Adolf was a Lutheran. Goodnight Godwin. Goodnight Yanks.

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.

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.

Any last requests?

My father was rather fortunate in his last months of cancer. He was only on morphine for the last few months. He didn't lose his dignity, like losing his marbles or crapping in the bed. Better than some.

I heartily support terminally ill Auckland doctor Dr John Pollock, who is raising the issue of euthanasia in the media:

"The law won't be changed in time for me and the only way that I can legally end my life before it is due to end is suicide and that's the cruelty of it - not only suicide but suicide alone because if I top myself with my family present then I put them at risk and I think that's hideous. It's very cruel."

NZ has a hell of a way to go in palliative care for the terminally ill. It's not about price either. The rest home boom puts paid to that excuse. It's a matter of outlook. It's the mindset. Abortion laws written by men are just as ludicrous as the presumptions of the healthy telling the dying how to die.

Hospice dwellers should be given supervised access to marijuana, Ecstacy and LSD. Some may find a peace that fills a gap that Jesus, Mohammed or Shiva never has. Dagg knows, many of the poor bastards are loaded up already on anti-psychotics or what-have-you. For the reasonably lucid others, why the hell not? I say this with the demises of Martin Hames and Bevan Burgess in mind as well.

But for the moments when there are no more good days, just a slow painful ebb into oblivion, we should reserve the right to end it on our own terms. Maybe my end will be a good one. But just the thought of having the choice to make a decision beyond reasonable doubt when the time comes, that would be some consolation.

I think that's one of the reasons my father had guns. It's certainly one of the attractions Hunter S Thompson had with guns. It is why I'm particularly concerned with WhaleOil's love of guns. And it's why I live in Wellington. There are many places to leave from around here, and you don't need a gun to do it.

No-one chooses to be born. At least allow the humans the freedom to leave, and be comforted with that knowledge.

ACTA is malware

The top secret ACTA circus is coming to town next month. Prior to these cone of silence meetings that intend to cripple the internet, InternetNZ is putting together PublicACTA. The guy who has done more to shed light on this dark ACTA material, Michael Geist, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker.

Don't let the lawyers, hucksters and business pimps win. Register your place for this vital, public and open forum on April 10th. HT Creative Freedom Foundation.

The NZ Bus gods must be crazy

NZ Bus has refused permission for an advertising campaign paid for by public donations that has already featured in the UK. The Atheist Bus Campaign, which has raised over $20,000 from NZ supporters, was going to feature the phrase, There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

Organisers of the Campaign tried to reach a resolution with NZ Bus, and later attempted mediation sessions through the Human Rights Commission. NZ Bus refused to participate in these mediation sessions. Because they are refusing to discuss the matter and reach an agreement, the organisers of the Campaign are now investigating the possibility of taking this case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

Religious ads have run on buses for yonks. Hell, even beer ads are permitted on the public-subsidised buses. I hope the campaigners do take it to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. In the meantime, I'm continuing my boycott of the proprietary Jesus card, Snapper.

To blaspheme is human

Atheist Ireland is challenging the new blasphemy laws in Ireland, starting with 25 Blasphemous Quotes:

From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted...

Despite these quotes being abusive and insulting in relation to matters held sacred by various religions, we unreservedly support the right of these people to have published or uttered them, and we unreservedly support the right of any Irish citizen to make comparable statements about matters held sacred by any religion without fear of being criminalised, and without having to prove to a court that a reasonable person would find any particular value in the statement.

 They're all good quotations, but Mark Twain is a highlight:

“Also it has another name - The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy - he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.”

Good luck with fighting this stupid and anti-democratic law. In our own small way, NZ has to deal with this issue too. Consider this story in the latest Werewolf, The Jesus Cringe:

“Christians make me feel safe. They’re less ironic and ascerbic. They’re not as judgmental and don’t make mean or rude statements that throw off a conversation. I like knowing that I’m in the presence of people who have an agreed sense of morality.”

Jon says that he is constantly aware and made to feel awkward by thoughtlessly negative comments towards religion, often around alcohol. He mentions having to point out to people that they are putting down Christianity, in front of Christians. “It is conversation that seems like easy laughs and no laughs come easier than from demeaning people that you don’t know.”

At least we can be thankful that in NZ it's not illegal to hassle the god botherers.

They are coming to cut you off, oo argh

The Fantastic Judith Collins will be thrilled with provisions of the Top Secret Copyright Treaty that have leaked out from under the cone of silence. As Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing sez, it's bad. Very bad:

• That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability. 
• That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.
  
• That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.
  
• Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)

 Mauricio Freitas at Geekzone is ashamed that NZ has anything to do with this. Computerworld has early comment from InternetNZ rep Jordan Carter:

"If correct, this is cause for alarm and shows a significant change in ACTA's focus,” says InternetNZ spokesperson Jordan Carter.

"Instead of focusing on customs procedures and stopping large scale commercial piracy, it seems the negotiations are turning to areas that should be out of bounds.

"Because the ACTA process is secret, none of us can know the precise details of what is being discussed.

"New Zealand should take a stand against any attempt to hijack the negotiations."

I hope someone starts raising the idea of protecting citizens from this sledgehammer by doing a Finland and declaring internet connection a human right. I mean, it's not as if Judith Collins has a problem with trampling the Magna Carta.

That's it. I'm off to join the NZ Pirate Party.

Long weekend links

# The Economist looks at the prehistoric Shiva impact and the rotten luck of dinosaurs.

# Elizabeth Warren-a-thon. I first tripped over the Harvard Law Professor on the Daily Show back in April:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren Pt. 1
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren Pt. 2
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Huff Post has more from the TARP fund watchdog with out-takes from Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. Matt Taibbi sez Elizabeth Warren for President.

# On the subject of Matt Taibbi, his latest sketch of the blood funnelers in Rolling Stone almost creates sympathy for former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld. Along with Bear Stearns, Lehman was a target of vast naked short selling prior to their crash. Here's a sobering morsel. HT Bernard Hickey:

The best way to grasp what happened is to look at the data: On Tuesday, March 11th, there were 201,768 shares of Bear that had failed to deliver. The very next day, the number of phantom shares leaped to 1.2 million. By the close of trading that Friday, the number passed 2 million — and when the market reopened the following Monday, it soared to 13.7 million. In less than a week, the number of counterfeit shares in Bear had jumped nearly seventyfold.

WTF is naked short selling anyway? Here's Matt Taibbi and a whiteboard.

# Mother Jones ponders whether then-Treasury secretary Hank Paulson broke the law with a Moscow meeting in June 2008 with the Goldman Sachs Board of Directors:

When Paulson and the firm's execs got together at the Moscow Marriott Grand Hotel, the Treasury secretary gave the Goldman Sachs crew his read on what was happening with the economy and his department's effort to prepare for handling failed banks. He also previewed for them an important speech he would soon deliver.

# After all this evidence of corrupt insider trading, Fran O'Sullivan's column on NZ's Securites Commission almost seems a bit of an anti-climax. Almost. Just because the US SEC is a piece of shit, it doesn't mean our own companies watchdog has to be a bit shit too:

The commission subjected 20 companies to its latest surveillance exercise. It found a widespread lack of transparency. The commission noted it was "particularly concerned" over the lack of transparency around the under-lying assumptions used to value assets, disclosures over third-party transactions and the composition of unexplained expenses.

Six companies have received "please explain" letters over their related party transactions. But if past practice is anything to go by Diplock will be easily satisfied with a promise by the companies concerned to clarify or make the necessary disclosures in their next set of financial statements.

# NatRad News is reporting that KiwiSaver is worth less than the sum of its deposits:

The scheme is managing $3.039bn of assets, which is $115m less than the total of $3.154bn invested by the public and the Crown in the two years.

# Bill Moyers Journal looks at the life of Justice Justice, the judge who brought Texas kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

# UK Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge wonders what will face juries in the 21st century, when people can't sit still and listen and think for any length of time.

# Dutch law supposedly protects client-lawyer phone calls from surveillance, which is why they are frantic about the inability to delete tapped calls from other data. How the hell NZ's new Search & Surveillance works around this here, Dagg only knows.

# And finally, because you managed to stick in there through all those economics links, here's some real good bullet time photography. HT Daily Dish:

Spy Hard

Not worried about the new search and surveillance powers that the state is hoping to pass through under the MSM radar? You should be. If the ability to remote access citizens' computers without a warrant, or install remote video and audio into homes and offices without reasonable cause, doesn't worry you, consider this: in a police state, every citizen is a terrorist.

Aardvark goes large on the matter, and Nat Rad talks to a Chapman Tripper and a computer security lecturer about the new SaS Bill too. I think that flash new Supreme Court is going to get a hell of a workout over the next ten years.

The Tuhoe Terror Trial is just the beginning.

UPDATE: Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff talks to bFM's The Wire about the agency's concern over the SaS plans.

Siemens Stains

"Notions like human rights, equality and civil liberties did not come from documents. They came from struggles. Anyone who is aware of the feminist movement in this country can see such a struggle taking place; a struggle that has yet to succeed but that probably will in time. Struggles cannot be fought from the outside; they must occur internally. What struggles will take place within the community of Muslims I would not hazard to say. Nor would I venture an opinion as to whether the Muslims of the twenty-first century will follow the direction of the West in their controversies over political and social norms, or whether they will find unique solutions to unavoidable contradictions. Either way, conflict, diversity and evolutionary change seem inevitable despite the powerful appeal of a traditional core of norms and values."

- from Columbia University's Richard Bulliet, cited in Nader Hashemi's article The Relevance of John Locke to Social Change in the Muslim World, in Iran: between tradition and modernity.

I have been fascinated by the challenges modernity poses to the various Muslim nations for some time. The House of Saud has genuflected mightily to preserve its illusion of Wahhabi puritanism whilst introducing TVs and mobile phones into their homes. In Iran, similar tensions prevail. As the Wall Street Journal has uncovered, the clerics and the corporates have a special agreement on modernity:

[I]n confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts.

The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.

Siemens, Siemens, where have I heard that name used in association with violent dictators before... Ah, that's right; in Cracked's Five Popular Brands the Nazis Gave Us:

Siemens was the major player in the Nazification of Germany. The company, run by Werner's son, Carl, and then his grandson, Hermann, struggled in the wake of World War I and the Great Depression and had to earn some dough fast. When Hitler rose to power in the 1930s, it was the signal for the Siemens executives to start building factories, and nowhere was the real estate better than near the homey neighborhoods of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

Hundreds of thousands of slave workers were employed to build all sorts of goodies for the German military to use on both the western and the eastern fronts. Though they weren't the only company at the time supplying the German war effort, they were certainly the most prolific. Siemens was in charge of Germany's rail infrastructure, communications, power generation ... the list goes on. If the Reichstag was the brain behind the war, Siemens was definitely the right hand that stroked Hitler to ecstatic glory.

And y'know how I said last week that what happens in Iran, happens everywhere? Back to the WSJ:

Countries with repressive governments aren't the only ones interested in such technology. Britain has a list of blocked sites, and the German government is considering similar measures. In the U.S., the National Security Agency has such capability, which was employed as part of the Bush administration's "Terrorist Surveillance Program." A White House official wouldn't comment on if or how this is being used under the Obama administration.

Last time I buy a Nokia, that's for sure.

What happens in Iran, happens everywhere

Can't find a bigger version. This one's nicked from The Australian.

Happy Free-from-divine-tyranny Birthday!

Today marks the 794th birthday of the first human rights declaration in the world, Magna Carta. OK, it was 1558 that it was really tested in law as such, but still. While Iran is erupting in chants from rooftops, thereby keeping things non-violent and beyond the reach of the most determined riot police, it is worth noting that while some things take time, all things are inevitable. Whoever thought that a revolution was nigh, and it would be brought about by Twitter?