Conspiracy of silence

Don't ask, don't tell.

The Werewolf Goes Down

The villagers were up in arms with torches and pitchforks. The werewolf had been cornered in a disused moonshine hut, after biting off more than he could possibly chew. It wasn't so bad in the past, when he took off with the occasional chicken, or the stray lamb or mutton. Doing him in was not worth the trouble.

But now, he'd gone too far. He had crossed the line when he nicked the town baubles. Then he started pissing on people. "The law only applies to mere mortals and not werewolves. Let supine lupines be," said he.

One night, while the woman combed the hair on his back, the werewolf got a phone call. "Start running, mate. The dogs have got your scent and they're coming for you."

"Who is this? Who's coming for me?" said the wolf with a fangled snarl.

"Everyone, mate." says the voice. "They've had a gutsful." The line went dead.

He smelled them before he heard them. Soot and sweat and the cthonic pong of dogs. He heard their yells of disgust, their tales of woe. He turned to the woman but the woman had gone. The people banged on the the doors, smashed the windows.

"Wait," sez the wolf. "Why don't we ban violent video games? Nothing wrong with Monopoly and horse races!"

"You've bent the rules too often!" said one old pensioner waving his walking frame in anger.

"I gave you a SuperGold card!" said the wolf in disbelief.

"Why would I want 10 percent off a water taxi in the South Island, when I can't afford to feed my budgie at home in Greerton?" The walking frame bounced off the wolf's head and into the fire.

Just then, a bicycle courier turned up. "Wait! Wait! I have an important message!" He gets the wolf's paw print and hands him an envelope. The wolf tears it open with his teeth.

"The dog pound has revoked my licence, those good for nothing morons."

A cheer went up amongst the throng.

"But I will go peacefully," said the wolf.

A cheer again.

"To somewhere where my skills are appreciated. I've been made ambassador to North Korea."

A Dolphin flashlight glanced his cheek and into the fire.

The High Cost of Living

While Tony Veitch roams free, two students at a NORML stall in Dunedin were arrested yesterday (vid here) on charges of resisting arrest, possessing cannabis, possessing utensils for smoking cannabis and obstruction.

Senior Sergeant Mel Aitken said police acted on information from officers at the scene that Gray was smoking marijuana at a Norml stall at a market day on the university's union lawn. Police also received a complaint from the university proctor's office.

Tell me, people, who are YOU more worried about? A coward of the country or a couple of poor Dunedin hippies?

Amalekites suck at Photoshop

Back in the '80s, I was scared shitless by the idea that a flock of geese might spark a thermonuclear Holocaust. These days, I'm more worried that Photoshop might bring it all on.

While the hawks are screeching to all go all medieval on Iran, BoingBoing has kindly pointed out that Iranian media is sexing up the rocket tests.



Iran truly sucks at Photoshop. Already the mocking has started:







Never before has the posturing on both sides been so lame. Let's remember that these missiles are about as accurate as a Scud, and even less of a threat to Israel than those lame firecrackers. Stand down, people. It's not real.

Former "M" uses "U" word

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, former "M" of MI5 until last year, has used her maiden speech in the House of Lords to call the new 42 day pre-charge detention law "unworkable":

"I have weighed up the balance between the right to life – the most important civil liberty – the fact that there is no such thing as complete security, and the importance of our hard-won civil liberties. Therefore, on a matter of principle, I cannot support 42 days' pre-charge detention. I do understand different views and that there are judgements honestly reached by others, and I respect these views."

All our heroes are dead

"We're economists. We don't celebrate." - Alan Bollard

We're New Zealanders. We don't celebrate genius. We celebrate athletic goons whose claim to fame is moving a bull's bladder across a paddock for money. We celebrate celebrities. Here's hoping the Veitch incident is the straw that breaks the camel's back to this inane worship.

If you're looking for true heroes, you could do a lot worse than follow the story of Bill Phillips, kiwi extraordinaire. Alan Bollard spins an incredible story about the man who is not famous in his own country, in an interview on Radio NZ. Hat Tip St Bernard.

The Reserve Bank is holding a symposium to mark the 50th anniversary of the Phillips curve. For the plebs like me, there's the chance to witness the first working waterworks model of an economy at the Reserve Bank Museum. Made from recycled WWII parts, it's the ultimate mash-up of art, science, economics, and sustainability. Wonderful, wonderful, and again most wonderful.

UPDATE: Better picture nicked from Wikipedia:

Stampede

The Running of the Bulls, Pamplona. One kiwi injured.



The Running of the MPs, Wellington. 4 million kiwis injured.

The Hongi and the Headbutt

"No. 1 was surly, 2 was mean, 3 was vicious and 4 was brutal - although Mean Machine, as he became to he known, was to prove most dangerous on those rare occasions when his dial setting got stuck on 4½."

Thank you frog for curing my writer's block on how I was going to start this post. Because the last week has shown that Labour has got its dial stuck on 4½ and is caught up in a headbutting frenzy.

Helen Clark's been headbutting John Key in Question Time. Michael Cullen's been using his head to drive in the last spike at KiwiRail. Annette King's been bonking Mack trucks. Phil Goff might find a few heads to smack in the NZDF (that's NZ Defence Force, not Drug Foundation). But Labour is hitting its head against a brick wall. The only damage it is doing is to itself, self-mutilation by scalping.

The masses do not not give a flying truck which PR company political parties use, whether it's Crosby Trextor or Crosby, Stills and Nash. Brian Edwards was on cruise control on this morning's Agenda, easily monopolising the segment and carpet-bombing the panel with praise for Labour. Helen Clark isn't a helpless damsel in this department.

The attacks on the ACC/Merrill Lynch connection was likewise self-defeating. The last National government in the late '90s privatised ACC, albeit too late in the play and with abysmal delivery (Many doctors I spoke with at the time complained about the added paperwork). The Merill Lynch report was only stating the patently obvious.

John Key has gone on record stating that no privatisation will occur in National's first term, and he would be a mug to renege on that promise. It's entirely sensible for National to spend the first term in government opening the books, assessing the damage caused by nine years of ineptitude and cronyism, and applying triage to the SOEs.

For example, it will take years for National to recover all the value wiped from TVNZ by Clark's administration. Bill English made a sound case on Agenda, foreshadowing an adjustment to electricity SOE accounts to enable some reinvestment in future generation capacity, as opposed to Labour's wholesale revenue-stripping to pay for pet projects.

Labour's attack on John Key's commercial history not only backfired, it portrayed Labour in the haughtiest light possible. How dare a politician have a previous life in the private sector. Philosopher Kings (and Queens) can only be ordained in the ivory towers of academia, on the slippery pole of union advocacy, the know-it-all egotism of teaching, the long and faithful service as a public sector wonk. Thank you Labour, for tarring intellectual thought in your quest for eternal governance.

These tactics, which I have seen coming for about a year, risk alienating Labour's voting base to the point where it remains an ineffective opposition for a generation or more. I keep telling Labour strategists whenever I bump into them, but it's just not sinking in.

The only saving grace for Labour at present is Russel Norman's inauspicious beginnings as co-leader for the Greens (As Jane Clifton said in Political Animals this week, nobody loves a goody two shoes). I maintain that Nandor Tanczos should have been made Greens co-leader, which would have seen the Greens come out as a serious contender to Labour at the election. Longer term, you might have seen an amalgamation of Labour and the Greens as an environmental and social democratic coalition. But coulda woulda shoulda, it's not going to be. The Greens will be lucky to get eight percent come polling day. It's all over, Rover.

The Nats, on the other hand, are an intriguing beast. Imagination is on their side. While Labour is going headbutt crazy, the Nats are demonstrating cautious humility. John Key's hongi with Tame Iti is emblematic of an openess to new ideas and inclusive consultation that eludes the Labour party.



National's team are a government in waiting. It is not a stretch to imagine John Key as prime minister and doing a better job of it than Helen Clark. Bill English as finance minister trumping Michael Cullen, Chris Finlayson as Attorney General and Treaty Settlements minister, Tim Groser as trade minister, Jonathan Coleman Associate Minister of Health in charge of drug policy. It is not a stretch to imagine that they will listen to reason, unlike their compromised predecessors.

Although my heart belongs to the Labour party long term, I'm sick to death of fisking Labour. There's no sport in it any more. It's like shooting fat, slow moving fish in a claustrophobic barrel. With an Uzi. If National can fulfil my expectations for a Labour government better than a Labour government can, so be it. Warning to the Nats though, if you're found lacking, you'll get both barrels from me ;-)

One more loose cannon on a pirate ship

Act release their Crime & Punishment policy at the regional conference in Wellington today and, Boom Shanka, I'm resigning from Act (again). Specifically:

"Just look on the internet at the publicly available version of 'Google Earth' to see how much can be seen via satellite. It is easy - if we have the right relationship with our traditional allies and they provide us with intelligence - to observe the movement of cars and individuals without the need for kicking in doors or planting bugs and GPS locators (although, clearly, the latter technologies have their role).

Power consumption analysis can show potential hydroponic growing operations, and crowd motion studies via satellite or covert filming can identify 'tinnie houses' or other sites of interest. Infra-red and related technologies can reveal certain types of illegal activity - but it is naïve to expect that staking out these sites will turn up a high-level gang boss, who will never be seen in those places."

The speech was going competently enough until these chilling ideas were introduced. This is not America, and I'll be damned if I'll support anyone who wishes to pollute this country's privacy with such notions. So what if Sweden has seen fit to legislate wiretapping of its citizens? So what if Britain is nuts for CCTVs? THIS IS NEW ZEALAND!

And forget about heat signatures from hydroponics. While Labour's changing the lightbulb from filament to fluoro, the growers are switching from Metal Halide to LEDs. No heat, no power bill. You guys have no idea what's coming.

NAG 5 is alive

An unexploded cake mix was the reason for the bomb squad sealing off a Christchurch park yesterday. No injuries were sustained as emergency services worked around the clock to defuse the confectionery.

In related news, the introduction of NAG 5 on June 1st this year has seen schools around the country eliminate WMDs (Wontons of Mass Digestion) and other hazardous items such as pies, sausage rolls and chips. Mrs Miggins, who formerly ran a tuck shop at Tutaenui High School until the Ministry of Education closed her down, is upset. "It's winter and the little dearies can't concentrate in class without the warming comfort foods of pies and such at lunch time."

Already there are signs that students are rebelling against the unsalted popcorn and fruit kebab regime, escaping from school grounds to purchase illicit items at so-called "pastie houses." Ministry of Education police have recently uncovered a "Lamington Railway" in Auckland, and children have been suspended from their Taihape school after selling peanut slabs disguised as muesli bars.

A Ministry of Education official defended the crackdown on calorific catastrophe, saying "Resistance is useless."

Pre-spent tax cut

Has Labour already spent your October 1 tax cut?

Alcohol tax up 3.2 percent
RUC fees up 7 percent
Vehicle registration levies increase between 15 and 25 percent

Flat Screen TVs 17000 percent more evil than previously thought

The manufacturing process for flat screen TVs produces a gas that is over 17 thousand times worse than carbon dioxide for global warming. Nitrogen trifluoride wasn't a big player in 1997 when the Kyoto schedule was written, and wasn't included as a Bad Gas. Around 4000 tonnes of NF3 is being produced this year, and 2009 should see output double.

Unqualified expertise

I'm glad I never took drug advice from a stuffed giraffe, nor a MethCon conman. Unfortunately, that's the sort of experts our MSM are hanging out with when looking for commentary on drug issues. Five minute phone call quotes, talking head platitudes. Good thing then, when Media7 focuses on the issue in its best episode yet.

Police Association Greg O'Connor looked decidedly uncomfortable sitting between the NZ Drug Foundation's Ross Bell (who has more drug expertise at his fingertips than Mike Sabin has in his entirely over-inflated credentials) and an unplugged Nandor Tanczos. I was hoping that O'Connor would throw up his hands and declare the war on drugs is lost, like Annette King has already concluded. There must be a better way of dealing with all this. But no, loyal to a fault, O'Connor stuck by the report even as Nandor mocked its findings.

Ross Bell spoke up about the Law Commission's review of the Misuse of Drugs Act and the United Nations review of the treaties surrounding the drug trade, two very important issues which have been ignored by the MSM. There is a generational querying of how we handle psychotropics on a global level at the same time as a domestic review. The planets are aligned, the time is right. So why put Harold the Muppet centre-stage, or get a MethCon salesman to comment on cocaine and cannabis statistics? Seriously, WTF?

Oh, there are clues. The NZ Herald, for example, classifies all illicit drug use as abuse:



Booze and fag stories are deemed of categorically National importance. Sure, there's a tag for alcoholics, but those headlines are marginalised like the dope fiends and meth heads out the back of beyond. P epidemic anyone..?

If I were feeling uncharitable towards the Herald, I would conclude that there is an inbuilt bias against cannabis, meth and other illicit substance stories as they are substitutes to many of the advertisers' products in said newspaper. The giraffe sponsors are not complaining about it, that's for sure.

But the lack of debate is not just the Herald's fault. The politicians aren't mentioning the subject because there's no votes in it, eh. Railways before rehab. The doctors aren't mentioning it, because there's no money or kick-backs in it for them. The only profit motive available is for the vested interests in Police and Customs, seeking new ways to increase their funding.

Drug policy is of huge importance. It effects the NZ economy, with whole towns existing mainly to produce drugs for the big cities. It effects crime, health, welfare, education, business, transport, culture. Anyone can score marijuana in NZ if they want it. Even the giraffe knows that. Prohibition has been in force for over thirty years and it has not worked.

There are some good frameworks developing. The British drug policy group Transform is a very good resource for alternative policy options. The Royal Society schedule of drugs is also a good start:



Unfortunately, the NZ Law Commission review doesn't include alcohol or tobacco in its terms of reference. I strongly support such a move to include both substances, not to punish the tobacconists or winemakers (blessed are the winemakers), but to deliver an honest appraisal of equivalent harms. Hell, throw Viagra, Ritalin and Prozac in there too, seeing how their recreational use has spread.

Backlash

Trucking hell. That's what tomorrow morning's city streets will be like as truckies protest the overnight decision to raise RUCs. It's a televisual nightmare for Labour. Not that yesterday's Question Time was any better. Play with hand grenades, you might lose a hand.

The wheels are coming off the rail deal pretty quickly, with cost estimates yet to be finalised, management structure to be pencilled in, pricing structure to be invented. Labour admits the premium price was due to the risk of several provincial line closures, including:

The Maharey-Bolger Line (Palmy to Te Kuiti)
The Samuels Line (Northland)
The Duynhoven Line (Taranaki)
The Cullen-Mackey Line (Napier to Gisborne)

All in all, not the most compelling of reasons. But reason left Labour back in 2006. Now it's just sheer bloody-mindedness that keeps it heading for the finish line. The Enrolled Non Vote this year will be huge.

Black and white, red all over

It's the New Zealand Women's Monthly every day for the MSM these days. Lead story on One News and 3News tonight? Professional goon gets aggro when pissed. Ye gods, is that the biggest worry?

I entirely share Paul Litterick's concern at the lack of media attention to the Iran thing. Will Israel attack first or will the US? The Observer goes in-depth with what the implications of what the recent Israel sorties in the Mediterranean might mean. A supposed strike by Israeli forces in November is timed to coincide with the US presidential election for maximum effect. Here's hoping the former head of Mossad is heard:

"Ephraim Halevy, a former head of the intelligence agency Mossad, told a meeting of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem on Tuesday that Iran's nuclear ambitions did not represent an existential threat to Israel.

'I am convinced that Israel cannot be destroyed,' Halevy said. 'We should not sink into the doldrums of "Israel is on the verge of extinction".' Ultimately, he said, the United States would talk to Iran, and Israel needed to be part of that dialogue."

Unfortunately, Bush's invasion of Iraq has given precedent to pre-emptive military action, upping the ante considerably. It is entirely plausible for Israel to consider unilateral strikes against Iran, knowing full well that the US went to war in Iraq with far less justification and got away with it.

Meanwhile, Seymour Hersh writes on the increase in Iranian Black-ops by the CIA, JSOC and others, noting:

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Destabilisation is a precursor to attack. The US hasn't learnt its lesson with the Iraqi quagmire, and enough voices in power are sabre-rattling for a fight in Iran to see it become an awful reality. With the military dangerously exposed on several fronts, the US is a Gulliver looking for a bunch of Lilliputians to get tied down to.

War, you see, is inflationary. It's non-productive spending taken to the nth degree. It's why, after WWII, steps such as the Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods and the Common Market (precursor to the EU) came to be. These structures were put in place to end war. However, as anyone who has read Watchmen knows, it never ends.

Bretton Woods is gone, replaced by the unofficial Bretton Woods II, between China and the US. Even that is by-the-by once the yuan was de-pegged from the US dollar back in 2005. Heaven forbid what would happen to the market if China decided to adopt the Euro instead of the US dollar like the drug cartels have been doing for some time (Apart from the E500 large demonination bills, the Euro has been steadily appreciating against the greenback).

Imagine what would happen if OPEC countries did the same. The run on the US dollar would be devastating. As for NZ, so much for the $4.2 billion that the Reserve Bank has bought in (assumed) US dollars on the premise that they can cash it in when the Kiwi drops against the US. What if it doesn't drop? McCain or Obama, the US deficit is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Any pay-off is on the never-never.

.......

While the Guardian has a nice page on the Large Hadron Collider, Helen Clark has unveiled New Zealand's very own black hole, KiwiRail. Unsurprisingly, the livery includes red. It's a bit of unfortunate timing for the sustainability theme. Anyone who saw the trolley bus stranded at the Willis and Manners St intersection at rush hour this afternoon would have their doubts. And to think there's a 10 percent fare increase on the way...