Global warming is happening despite what the right pretend

Deadly warning as tropics advance
CANBERRA - A widening of the world's tropical belt that will turn Sydney's climate into that of Brisbane will hammer Aboriginal communities and the poor nations of Asia and the Pacific, new studies warn. The studies say there is already evidence that the tropics are moving further north and south in a trend that will also extend the range of sub-tropical climates, drying out present fertile regions with devastating effects on health and food production. James Cook University Vice-Chancellor Professor Sandra Harding said tropical climates had already moved more than six degrees of latitude beyond the traditional confines of the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, and were continuing to expand. About half the world's population, including most of its poorest and least educated, lived in tropical climates that were also home to 80 per cent of plant and animal species, and which generated about 20 per cent of the planet's wealth. "It is in the tropics where we have new and dangerous diseases evolving and spreading," Harding said. "According to genetic studies, about 80 per cent of infectious diseases arise in the tropics, with many new illnesses resulting from viruses that jump from animals to humans. "And it's in the tropics that we are seeing massive extinction of plant and animal life, the loss of indigenous cultures and deforestation on a scale that is scarcely imaginable." Harding's warning, based on a new James Cook University review of the scientific literature on climate change, was echoed by a report by the aid group Oxfam, which found that formerly distinct seasons are shifting, destroying harvests and causing widespread hunger.

Surprise, surprise, global warming is going to crucify the poor, and as the economy tanks (because of unregulated American greed), the poor are the last ones we start to care about, as an example look at how Murray McCully killed off independence in aid and married it to trade.

According to our friends on the right (the ones who are holding the Spanish inquisition select committee into climate change) and our very own on-line right wing bloggers in this country, they can’t argue that there isn’t climate change occurring any longer (because punters can clearly see the effects of climate change disrupting the agricultural cycle), so they pretend that it isn’t man made pollution that is causing the climate to change. I believe currently Ian Wishart is claiming the Antarctic is melting because of a ‘volcano’…

Alarm grows over big melt in Antarctica
Antarctica is shrinking more quickly than expected and the pace is increasing, a conference has been told. Professor Peter Barrett of Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre summarised the latest findings at the Annual Antarctic Conference. Recent satellite pictures showed the frozen continent was calving glaciers from its edges at a rate adding up to about 0.4mm of sea-level rise a year. That might not sound like much, he said, but the rate of ice loss was increasing quickly - up 75 per cent since 1996. The Antarctic ice sheet has been stable for a million years and until recently had seemed too large and too cold to be vulnerable. But Dr Barrett said scientists now believed it could change significantly in a matter of decades. A new assessment adding up global ice loss from Greenland, Antarctica and other glaciers suggested sea levels would rise between 80cm and 2m by 2100, he said.

…that’s right folks, what the hell does Professor Peter Barrett know! It isn’t global warming from man made pollution – IT’S A VOLCANO YOU IDIOT! This is true because Leighton Smith and Ian Wishart say so! I find it amusing that so many right wing bloggers in this country take the very same ‘it isn’t man made pollution causing climate change’ attack line that the Heartland Institute takes. The Heartland Institute (who until 2006 were receiving money from Exxon Mobile) is also behind the Tobacco Industries ludicrous position that Tobacco isn’t scientifically proven to cause cancer and as such there shouldn’t be taxes on cigarettes.

Capitalism has a problem, I’m not talking about the inherent injustice of a few having all the money or the slavish ideological worship of the free market or even the IMF and worldbank genocide of poor people they commit every day with policies that promote Western mega corporations and their ability to dump heavily subsidized mass produced food on countries thus destroying the local markets – oh no, I’m talking about it’s impact on the environment. The reality is that the filth we pump into our planet has an impact on that planets health, a truth that the right wing desperately want to cover up.

We have had to put up with oil funded skeptics claiming the entire global warming idea is a hoax created by Greenpeace to make money for tree huggers for too long. The reality is that our pollution created by an unsustainable consumer greed capitalism is killing the planet and we push the environment to its very edges of being able to sustain our civilization with our denial of this fact. Right now we have a climate change denial Government in power, led by a man who initially didn’t believe in global warming supported by a political party that claim C02 is a misunderstood nutrient and that a 2 degree rise in temperatures would be “beneficial” for NZ. In their first week in power, nACTional have destroyed the Emission Trading Scheme and they are embarrassingly setting up a select committee to examine the 'science' behind global warming to provide pollution Industry funded quack science with a platform. It will be a global media embarrassment that will make NZ out to be a backwater Hicksville that seems unable to accept that the world isn’t flat.

This isn’t a debate about science because the science has been ‘settled’ in the same way evolution science has been ‘settled’, this is a culture war. Those in denial will not accept that their lifestyle is part of the problem and their ego’s are so inflated that to admit ‘tree huggers’ (a group they despise as much as their mythical ‘nanny state’ bullshit) are right and they are wrong would be such a devaluation of their status driven personalities that they fight with the venom of vanity. Would Paul Henry or any of his ilk ever admit they were wrong? We know the answer to that. They’re petty denial should be viewed with the contempt it deserves and their role in the debate should be as marginalized as much as one would marginalize someone trying to argue the planet is only 5000 years old at an evolution conference.

Royal Rayman Rife

Royal Rife Story Electromagnetic Cancer Therapy1/3

"This is the fascinating video documentary The Royal Rife Story (2004) which tells the lifestory of a forgotten medical pioneer in fields of micro optics, germ research and cancer therapy. Rife won 14 government awards for scientific discoveries, and received an honorary medical degree from the University of Heidelberg for his work in bacteriology. He is most famous for building the world’s most powerful optical microscopes which overcame the limits of standard research microscopes and became the first person ever to see a living virus. During his germ research he developed a method of destroying disease-causing microorganisms using frequencies which was later also applied to cancer with major success.

Rife’s microscopes and bacteriological discoveries were featured in many official medical reports and hundreds of newspaper articles throughout the world. Doctors used Rife’s instruments in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s and reported very high success rates. Dr. Rife’s technique was first embraced by the medical community, used by many doctors and then later rejected because antibiotics showed greater financial promise but didn’t deliver any real medical results. Now over 50 years later, there has been a renewed interest in the incredible method he used.

This video reveals the dedication and commitment of Dr. Rife, and the many medical doctors who worked with him. All their efforts were focused on helping mankind. It also takes an in-depth look at his life and the wonderful discoveries he made in bacteriology. Dr. Rife said in 1967, “Having spent every dime I earned in my research for the benefit of mankind, I have ended up as a pauper but I achieved the impossible and would do it again.” This historical documentary is a must see for anyone interested in Dr. Rife and his amazing discoveries as he already successfully cured cancer by 1934 with his expertise in optics and innovation with a specially designed microscope and frequency generator.

You have probably never heard of Dr. Royal Raymond Rife before, but in this unique documentary you will learn all about the life of this overlooked medical genius and his great scientific accomplishments which can benefit everybody if only we could learn to use them."

The Making of Turtle Pizza Cadillacs

SELF DETERMINATION

Determined in a spark

the electricity of art

creation's inspiration

multiple levels apart

but not more than the heart.

The unlimited will still travels through life

like water through light

like a kid rides a bike

all initiated in atomic time

(then someone borrows my light,

it turns out for a crack pipe

right in the middle of the sentence that I write)

and despite this the universe is prepared for the fight

it all changes if you get one thing right...

wondering what to tick....?

My friend gave permission for me to post his correspondence up ~

"Kia ora Sue,

Regarding the upcoming referendum and its ambiguous, leading question, I wanted to ask if you would make a statement of how you would suggest those who disagree with the wording of the referendum should answer. I've so far heard of a number of options: ticking every box, not answering at all. For those who are supportive of the current legislation but against the referendum, what would you suggest? There must be so many New Zealanders against the wording of it, but obviously if as many of us as possible answer it in protest in the *same* way, the impact will be felt more by the instigators, and at a government level.

Many thanks for your time Sue.
Dudley Benson"

response:


"Hi Dudley

Sue Bradford has asked me to respond to your email regarding the very confusing referendum question. You will probably have seen the intense media response to this, which has taken up a lot of Sue’s time over the last few days. However the Green “position” is that people should respond to the referendum by voting “yes” in spite of its ambiguity. This is the position the NGOs who supported the s59 Bill throughout have taken and this response is in support of them. You may know their website www.yesvote.org.nz. Sue Bradford has also launched a Private Member’s Bill on Referenda which I will attach to this email for your information.

Kind Regards

Geraldine Molloy
Executive Assistant to Sue Bradford MP"

R.I.P Michael Jackson

August 1958 - June 2009
R.I.P Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson - Rock With You (Official Music Video) - Funny home videos are a click away

Family Fist turn referendum into referendumb ( I want to hit their kids as well)

Key dragged into smacking debate
Prime Minister John Key has been dragged into the centre of the resurgent smacking debate. As the controversy around the citizens-initiated referendum mounted, one of the organisations backing it last night called for a meeting with Mr Key and said it could produce evidence that parents were being needlessly prosecuted under the 2007 law change. It removed the defence of reasonable force from the Crimes Act, effectively banning smacking as a means of correction while giving police discretion over prosecutions. Arguments have raged ever since and opponents managed to get enough signatures on a petition to force the referendum to be held. It will ask the question: "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"

What the fundie Family Fist need to understand is that if they get the legal right to hit their kids, we will all want the legal right to hit their kids. Seriously though Family Fist need to get that their expensive, ill worded tantrum isn’t going to move popular support into a reversal of the repeal of section 59 and the reason is we are as a nation in a different headspace.

The media fuelled debate over the repeal of section 59 was inspired mostly by talkback hosts convincing NZers that the Labour Party nanny state dykeocracy was kicking in the door and telling you what water shower heads and lighbulbs you are allowed to have. The Nanny State myth (a myth that NOT PC has amusingly built an entire blog site out of catering to white men who feel so threatened by equality that they bitch like little girls about their restriction of ‘freedom’s – yawn, grow some balls and be men boys) was created by talkback hosts and played into this con that ‘Labour knew best’. NZers hate that so much that they can get blinded by nothings like ‘political correctness’ and forget the actual issues. Now we have the reality of the Daddy state, the myths of the Nanny state seem far away and silly, which is where all this hysteria about the repeal of section 59 has ended up.

David Farrar, the man who was running all the technical aspects of Don Brash’s office at the time the printed emails were leaked, was yesterday saying on Kiwiblogh that he supported Family Fist because the relationship between a child and parent was special and the Government shouldn’t regulate that relationship. This was the exact same argument used by Farrar’s religious mates in the 1970s when the Government ruled that rape in marriage was a crime. The religious buddies of Farrar’s cried out just as David does now that the relationship between a married man and woman was special and that the Government shouldn’t regulate that. Thank God we’ve moved on from such a petty view of the world.

The repeal of section 59 closed a loophole in the legislation that meant the Court ended up defending parents who had assaulted their children, that was a ridiculous position to be in. The Court is there to defend the weak, and a child in the care of their parent has very little power, to end up with a situation where the power of the court was being used against the child to protect a parent who assaulted that child was a legal philosophical position that simply wasn’t tenable in a progressive country. The nonsense that the Nanny State would jail parents who smacked was hysterical verbal diarrhea from a conservative Christian clique who believe that physical punishment is required to keep Satan, the dark lord of evil, away from their children, obviously that belief isn’t tenable in a secular country, so they polished their attack and made it all about the Nanny State.

Public referendum are important, too important to let Family Fist ruin it for everyone. There is no requirement on the Clerk of the House to inform Family Fist that their question made no sense, but there is room for the question to be modified with the help of the Clerk IF Family Fist initiates that discussion. Wasting $9million on a poorly worded tantrum mocks democracy and serves no point in determining the mood of the nation on important issues. In future the petitioner needs to seek out the advice of the Clerk of the House to make sure the question makes sense and is valid in clearly calling for a change in legislation.

Regardless of where you are in this debate, this abortion created by Family Fist serves no one well.

Cops & Power

Police stop and search innocent people to balance race figures, terror watchdog says
White people are being unjustifiably stopped and searched to provide racial balance in police statistics, the antiterrorism watchdog said yesterday. Lord Carlile of Berriew, QC, described the searches in his annual report on the operation of counterterrorism legislation as “almost certainly” illegal. He said that he knew of cases where people were stopped by officers even though they did not fit any known terrorist profile. He accused the police of wasting time and money by carrying out “self-evidently unmerited searches”, which were also an invasion of civil liberties. The searches, for example, of blonde women who fit no terrorist profile came against a backdrop of complaints from rights groups that the number of black and Muslim people being stopped and searched by police was disproportionate.

TUMEKE! To make up the numbers to pretend they are not racist, UK cops have been stopping white people and putting them through ‘terrorist’ searches to pump up numbers to hide their original racial discrimination. Giving more power to the cops is always a questionable move: Police getting tasers, lowering the evidential threshold to declare you a gang member and freeze personal assets, the NZ Police taking your DNA on mere suspicion and new surveillance powers to film you secretly without judicial oversight are all examples of creeping Police powers in NZ at a time when the Independence Complaints process is only funded to independently investigate 30% of cases.

Police power without independent oversight is not security.

National green lights moves to let Japan hunt Whales (how’s that change feeling?)

When National announced that they were going to butcher Labour’s ‘hug a polar bear’ programmes, their spin drs giggled at how clever they were to avoid answering hard questions about deep social cuts by wrapping the entire affair up as some type of cleansing of political correctness from the awful Nanny State, but few would’ve guessed that National were actually serious at least in killing whales.

Murray McCully, The Dark Lord of the Sith (who NEVER seems to get criticized by Jane Clifton in the Listener*) has been screwing over international aid by removing its independence so that Murray can use the aid money to further corporate interests over and above humanitarian interests. But his latest move to let the Japanese hunt whales is surely a right wing move too far. McCully is destroying NZ’s long stand against whaling by agreeing to a compromise (something the Australians refuse to do) with the Japanese means that NZ will willingly accept that ‘scientific’ whaling is legitimate when every intelligent person knows that ‘scientific’ whaling is an utter lie.

McCully’s aim seems to be the same as his destruction of the independence of the International Aid fund, he wants to give Japan a get out of jail free card on whaling in expectation of trade interests. That this Government’s greenlighting of a concession to let Japan continue the ‘scientific’ whaling lie is more to do with McCully’s trade before aid world view and is just another example of the real type of ‘change’ these right wingers have slipped past the voters. We should NOT allow Japan to continue the 'scientific' whaling lie, and we sure as hell shouldn't be letting them do so because of McCully's bloodmoney worldview. I didn't notice National letting voters know NZ was going to bend over and take it from the Japanese by giving up on whaling protections.

(* PS – I haven’t bought a copy of the Listener since that nice Findlay stopped being editor so I was interested to peruse a free copy I received this week and oh my Christ it’s gone so hard right I had to perform an exorcism with old bong water on my copy as soon as I had read it fearing the combined evil within my house would lead me to start wanting to physically discipline children. The National Party zeitgeist that has washed over NZ is reflected in right wing columnist after right wing columnist of a once great magazine that now sums up the new Sylvia Park anti-intellectualism Ponsonby housewife perspective that the Listener perfectly represents. Won’t someone please give Deborah Hill Cone a) a cone and b) some friends to tell her those Harry Potter glasses are terribly unflattering).

Iranian watershed moment?

Day of mourning called for
Supporters of Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi are preparing for a day of mourning for eight people killed in mass demonstrations against what he says was a rigged election. Iran's English-language state television has reported eight people killed in protests since official results from Friday's poll showed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been re-elected. His huge lead on Mousavi, a moderate former prime minister, has provoked Iran's worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Bloodshed, protests, arrests and a media crackdown have rocked the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, embroiled in a dispute with the West over its nuclear programme.

I think the televised debates which caused the very foundations of the Islamic Republic to shake has changed the debate in Iran forever. I think that this is a watershed moment in Iranian history, one which the US should step back from and watch rather than directly interfere, let’s not forget that it was the CIA coup blowback 5 decades ago that created the conditions that birthed this theocracy in the first place and direct US intervention will only reopen that wound. Let’s also not forget that Ahmadinejad was elected by a freaked out Iranian population that George Bush had terrified with his Axis of Evil brainfart and by parking the US army next door to them: this is not the time to exacerbate what could be a natural evolution towards democracy.

Let’s also not get too blinded by any nonsense that Mousavi is some sort of beacon for liberal democracy, it is a sad indictment on the Theocracy as a whole that the people of Iran are so limited for real choice that Mousavi can be considered moderate. Which is why I think the change is much more profound than Mousavi winning or not. I tend to lean with STRATFOR’s assessment…

"........this election has shed light on an underlying reality that is difficult for most Western analysts and media agencies to accept. Mousavi derives most of his support from urban professional classes who responded positively to “Obamaesque” calls for change and felt that their time had come to take Iran in a different direction. The fact remains, however, that the clerical regime still carries broad support, and Ahmadinejad — despite being lambasted by his political rivals for mishandling the economy and foreign relations — has strong support among the rural, poorer and mostly deeply religious population. Ahmadinejad campaigned heavily for this election and made sure during the campaign to visit rural provinces, where some 24 million Iranians, or 34 percent of the total population, make their living. He also put a lot of money into his campaign to buy popular support. Mousavi, on the other hand, returned into the political limelight only about four months ahead of the election and struggled to connect with Iran’s lower classes, who fail to identify with the working elite or with an Ahmadinejad rival and Mousavi supporter like Rafsanjani, who is widely known and criticized for his corruptive practices."
STRATFOR

…and here’s the rub, for as much as no one likes a crank like Ahmadinejad running things, we have yet to see any actual evidence that the vote has been rigged, yes there are questions, but no proof yet, in fact in an environment where Twitter can evade state repression, it is actually of some concern that no evidence of fraud has been tweeted to the rest of the planet yet. The reality is that cheat or not Ahmadinejad may well have ‘won’ the election, but the reverberations of the open debate on TV has meant that reform must come and I think the Guardian Council is starting to acknowledge this new reality as the anger from the middle class intelligentsia continues to cleverly use street politics to force home the new paradigm they want a modern Iran to evolve into.

Iran is still on a knife edge I’m not pretending it is safe, but I think the televised debates sparked a deep yearning for reform that goes well beyond the current limitations of the Iranian state. My hope is that we are viewing the painful birthing of Iran’s maturity from radical theocratic reaction to the 1958 coup to a reasoned realignment redefining what a modern Muslim country should look like.

In Search of the Miraculous

Fragments of an Unknown Teaching
P. D. Ouspensky

Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies

Brothers Quay -1987- Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
Uploaded by petitlolotechre. - Arts and animation videos.

This is the new sound, just like the old sound, just like the noose round, over open ground

Pakistan army chief says tide turned in Swat
Pakistan's army had "turned the tide" against Taliban fighters and aimed to completely eradicate them from the Swat valley, the army chief said, ahead of a meeting with US special envoy Richard Holbrooke on Friday. On Thursday, hours after President Barack Obama's point man for Afghanistan and Pakistan visited Mardan district to see camps set up for some of the 2.5 million people who fled the conflict zone, militants shot dead five police and a soldier after first targetting a convoy with a roadside bomb. Pakistan launched an offensive to expel Taliban militants from Swat last month in a move welcomed by Western allies worried that the nuclear-armed country was sliding into chaos.

Oh you’ve won? Really? Because my reading of the situation is exactly what always happens in the Swat Valley, the Military move in, the extremists move into the mountains and restart their guerilla war against the military. Seeing as this humanitarian catastrophe that has seen millions displaced and the damage done to civilian infrastructure run into a Billion dollars has all been done at the behest of America, it is America’s responsibility to stump up the entire Billion and make sure the rebuilding of Mingora is done because if none of that rebuilding is done, all this military action will have succeeded in doing is causing the next generation of radicalized militants righteously furious at their displacement, ie the military action will end up causing more harm than it ‘solved’.

Obama needs to walk the walk as well as talk the talk because if demanding humanitarian crises via military intervention that they then don’t bother to clean up afterwards is the ‘new America’, I’ve got news for him, it’s the same old bullshit blowback America with a friendly new smile, that ain’t change.

The Rodney Hide Auckland Super City agenda a direct assault on democracy

Hide plans radical shakeup of councils
Local Government Minister Rodney Hide has Cabinet approval to look into law changes that will strip local council spending back to core services rather than cultural, environmental and social spending. The Cabinet has signed off on Mr Hide's request for the Department of Internal Affairs to review local government law, including the removal of the requirement for councils to deliver on "community outcomes" such as social, environmental and cultural "wellbeing" which Mr Hide said pushed councils into providing services well beyond their core roles. In the Cabinet paper Mr Hide said there was a need for a clearer delineation of central and local government roles. He proposed making councils more financially transparent to force them to focus on core activities. He listed these as transport and water services and public health and safety, such as rubbish collection.

AND IT BEGINS! Rodney Hide has been using the Super City as a grand privatization blueprint he intends to use for the entire country post second term of the National/ACT Government and gutting any social and community responsibility for Councils by suggesting such services are central Government responsibilities is a smokescreen because Central Government WILL NOT increase funding for those local community services at all.

Not content with annexing the entire city of Auckland and placing 5 of Rodney’s hand picked clique headed by the largest privatizer of water in the country to control Auckland (quorum is 2 for that ruling council), Rodney now wants to purge all community and social services from Council responsibilities. The true agenda of what ACT have been planning to do by forcing these hard right policies through under a misuse of urgency is nothing short of a coup, ACT have no mandate for these radical changes, and National are allowing them to push this through so John Key’s hands don’t get dirty. In the Auckland Commission Executive summary, the core brief is framed in terms of cost efficiency…

in order to maximise, in a cost effective manner,—
(a) the current and future well-being of the region and its communities; and
(b) the region’s contribution to wider national objectives and outcomes.
and so:
a secure, prosperous, and sustainable future. Maintaining the status quo, or tinkering around the edges, is not the answer. Bold change is required, and that is what the Commission is recommending.

…with so many efficiency’s created by a unitary Council, how come the Council will now have no cash to fund the crucial social services for their communities? If the social well being of the people living in the city ISN’T a concern for the Council, what the hell is the Council for? Will we allow the hard right to redefine the responsibilities of civic duty to a handful of services they intend to sell off minus a social conscience? Note of course all of this is being done without ANY mandate or ANY consultation and by misusing Parliamentary process in the manner National have throughout their short term in office, often Parliament is being asked to vote on law they have only just read at the opening of urgency, this is a coup and as the size of that coup starts to dawn on Aucklanders there will be anger.

The Auckland Commission Executive’s first quote from any interest group just happens to be the hard right think tank The Committee for Auckland…

Commenting on current financial circumstances, the Committee for Auckland observed recently, “It is difficult to imagine how New Zealand can recover, and succeed economically, unless Auckland does”.1

…their ‘plan’ for ‘prosperity’ seems to be a mass immigration policy for Auckland, they mention ‘growth’ 13 times on their first page, as my co-blogger Tim put it…

From that and the infrastructure and project pitches I take it the construction companies must be up to their manhole covers in this front group. It's all GDP and business buzz-words with a heavy large open-ended public works angle. And the immigration issue the Commissioners have alluded to only as the encouragement of talent is clearly just numbers when the veneer of "talent" is stripped away by the Committee's call to continue to deluge the city with ever more immigrants:

…so we are seeing a pro-business mass immigration ‘throw-another-million- in-there-worry-about-infrastructure’s-inability-to-cope-later ’ policy to create ‘growth’ at the exact same time they gut the Council from social responsibilities. Remember, all of this has been done without Aucklanders being consulted. This is a coup, a naked attempt to not only seize power but to recast the entire system to benefit the right’s corporate chums.

Politically correct water reducing shower heads and light efficient light bulbs don’t really seem so hysterically important in the wake of what the right are doing now do they?

How is that change feeling now folks?

Key must rein in Hide’s radical right agenda
The release of an obscure cabinet paper revealing a plan to gut local government and open the door to privatisation of assets has Green Co-Leader Russel Norman calling on the Prime Minister to rein in Rodney Hide. The Cabinet Paper, released onto the Department of Internal Affairs website and signed off by Local Government Minister Rodney Hide, seeks approval to develop legislation to amend the Local Government Act. “This Cabinet paper wants to implement ACT Party policy by narrowing the powers of local government and making it easier to sell Auckland’s $23 billion in public assets. The paper proposes to do this without public consultation,” Dr Norman said today.
“John Key needs to come clean on whether he supports the direction that Rodney Hide proposes for local government. And if he doesn’t, then he needs to rein Rodney in.” The Paper proposes to restrict the freedom of Councils to work outside a narrow band of ‘core services’ (para 13). The Cabinet Paper also complains about the “requirements to consult the public on some decisions – notably decisions to contract major council services to the private sector or to sell shares in a port or airport company” (para 18). Dr Norman said that “Hide may not like it but the public don’t want it to be easy to sell public assets or contract out core services to the private sector.” “Remarkably, Hide doesn’t propose to talk to Aucklanders about these changes to the Local Government Act but will conduct a ‘some targeted consultation’ (para 37), which presumably means checking with the Business Roundtable.” Dr Norman said that both Hide and Associate Minister John Carter should be made to explain themselves at public meetings in Auckland this week. “The people of Auckland are already under attack from the anti-democratic Minister of Local Government with the forced amalgamation of the city’s councils. John Key needs to tell us where he stands,” Dr Norman said. Local Government Spokesperson Sue Kedgley said: “This paper reveals Act’s secret agenda to castrate local democracy. He is trying to reduce local government's powers to the point where they are unable to deliver social and environmental services, which are surely their core business. An extremely dangerous agenda is revealed in this cabinet paper, and all of New Zealand, and not just Aucklanders, need to understand what Hide is trying to do here.”

Just when you thought you couldn’t hate George W Bush anymore…

Investigation finds U.S. military hardware easy to buy, ship
• Watchdog agency GAO buys military hardware, ships it overseas with ease
• Lawmaker: "Gigantic loophole" allows enemies to get U.S. technology
• Hardware that can be used in nuclear devices and ground fighting purchased
• "The scandal here may be what is legal, not what is illegal," representative says
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Military hardware that can be used in nuclear devices and ground fighting can be easily purchased In the United States and shipped overseas, a government investigation revealed Thursday. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) watchdog agency set up fake companies to obtain military and dual use items -- which have both military and commercial use -- in the United States and ship them overseas, according to a report made public at a House subcommittee hearing. The domestic purchases allow buyers to avoid U.S. restrictions on sales to foreign entities, it noted. Items purchased in the bogus transactions included parts for making nuclear devices and guiding missiles that could carry nuclear warheads, as well as night-vision devices, body armor and other hardware for ground combat, said the report provided to the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee. "There appears to be a gigantic loophole within our laws that makes it easy for our enemies to get hold of our superior military technology and use it against us," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan. Gregory Kutz, a GAO managing director who led the 13-month investigation, said it found "sensitive dual-use and military technology can be easily and legally purchased from manufacturers and distributors within the United States and illegally exported without detection." He stressed that no laws were broken by any of the companies that sold items to the undercover GAO operation, and that the magnitude of trying to check all overseas travelers and shipments made it impossible to halt illegal export of the items under current law. Committee members said the lack of regulation or export controls made the situation particularly troubling. "The scandal here may be what is legal, not what is illegal," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon.

Dear Mr Bush
Let me get this straight, in the 8 years of your “Ye-ha” as a foreign policy to fight a self created war of terror, it NEVER occurred to you to check domestic military hardware sales to the very nations you put on the list of people you would like to bomb back into the stone age for freedom and democracy??? You had time to torture, start a war based on a pack of lies, kill a million or so Iraqi’s (we’re not sure because you don’t count them when you kill them), set the economy into decline through the offensive cost of the war, set up secret CIA torture prisons in Europe, kidnap people illegally from around the planet, spy on American’s, erode their civil rights, hold people indefinitely without charging them and lower America’s standing in the world supposedly to combat extremists who wish to do the West harm YET AT NO TIME thought of perhaps passing restrictions on NOT SELLING EXTREMISTS THE BLOODY WEAPONS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!

Just when I didn’t think I could despise the moronic, ill thought out knee jerk manner in which you ran America, along comes news of the one thing you could have done that would’ve successfully stopped high tech military hardware getting into the hands of extremists and you didn’t do a bloody thing – what kept you George? Busy torturing illegally kidnapped people in secret prisons to save democracy? It didn’t occur to you perhaps to not sell extremists military hardware direct from your factories? America allows it’s corporate military industrial complex to sell America’s enemies the very weapons that could end up killing Americans!

What bold leadership, state sanctioned torture and a war based on lies to stop terrorism – yes. Regulation not to sell the extremists military hardware from your own arms industry – apparently no.