It takes a HUGE amount of skill to take a complicated issue and break it down to bite-sized chunks for those less informed... in this case Adolf has taken the budget & given a great synopsis.
Although Adolf's argument is with nay-sayers of the recent National government's budget, he has made a point that I believe needs to be loudly repeated.
Critics of this budget would have you believe that the Government acted without regard to the NZ public. Commenting on the recent confirmation of New Zealand's "AAA" credit rating by Moody's Investor Services he write
A credit downgrade would push up the cost of borrowing by 1.5 per cent.
The 1.5% may not seem that much, but when dealing with Billion dollar amounts it means millions of dollars in interest that we, the tax payer, would have to pay back if our credit rating was dowgraded. But because of the budget, NZ's credit rating remains at "AAA" and was not downgraded, we take one less hit from the recession.
Interest; The rust of the financial world, never sleeps, Bill English has given New Zealand's economy a rustproof coating... admittedly we are still driving a model A Ford, but at least he's done something positive for the country AND future generations, that fact alone is clearly bunching the panties of those on the opposition benches.
But, the most important part of Adolf's entry, to my mind, is the point he makes:
Armstrong (and National) should now be talking about mortgage interest cuts of up to three percentage points. They should be leaning hard on the banks to pass on this windfall reduction in their costs of borrowing.
While I don't have a mortgage, I do, of course, have a bank account and I'm also subject to the vagaries of Inflation. Prices go up... if my wages don't... well... the phrase "Banana republic" springs to mind.
So to the Banks I say, "Pass it on"... or admit you don't care whether we get out of the recession or not, if not; it's quite ironic given the "Devil's advocate" role you took to get us here. Anyway, it seems you might need a bit of positive PR after that $10 million hack a c c i d e n t - whoops... don't want to scare the trogs about online banking...
Reality is scarier than fiction and reality is never so scary as when the horrors of our own past come back to haunt us. In the movie 'Escape from Sobibor' the horrors of what happened in the mid twentieth century were far more horrific than anything a healthy mind could dream up. The persecution of the Jews in this movie will make even a hardened viewer feel shocked and horrified.
Based on a true story of the events of a prisoner revolt on 14 October 1943 at the infamous Nazi Concentration Camp, this movie portrays the most successful escape of Jews from a Nazi death camp during WW2. The extermination of thousands of Jews in gas chambers was made even more chilling by the fact that many Jews themselves were forced to be complicit in wholesale slaughter of their families and relatives.
The movie begins with an ill-fated escape attempt by a handful of desperate prisoners. The attempted escape occurred while a new intake of Jews arrived at the nearby train station. Prisoners from the camp sent to meet the train, were forced to give the air of normality so that the new arrivals would not make any trouble. Strauss' Tales from the Vienna Woods crackled through the station's loudspeakers, as the Commandant reassured the newly arrived Jews that although they were being separated from their partners, they would be reunited with them soon. The SS guards' deceptively hid their plans for the captives disembarking from the wagons of the locomotive.
As an elderly Jew slowly took in the scene before him, he observed the machine gun towers, the Nazi guards carrying bull whips, and the discarded passengers' luggage, he realised what the Nazis had planned for them. Faced with their hopeless predicament he refused to co-operate and was ordered to wait behind with a handful of volunteers. The old man was watching his fellow Jews herded into the camp when a senior SS solider walked to the old Jew. Resigned to his fate the old man scooped up a handful of dust and turned to the SS soldier saying, "Do you see how I am scattering this, grain by grain? That will be your filthy Reich. It will vanish like flying dust and passing smoke", drawing his pistol the solider took a step back and shot the old man in the head.
Soon after their arrival, the Jews were confronted with the reality of the camp of Sobibor. Moses, a young Jew, was presented with the surreal scene of naked Jews being herded into the gas chambers, which had been disguised as the shower blocks. Moses brother naively condemned the surviving Jews for doing nothing to save his family from death. Viewers may find themselves asking the same question, how could the Jews stand by and watch their loved ones get murdered? The movie shows us that when someone has a gun to their head they will do whatever they must to survive. The unofficial prisoner leader, Leon, fatalistically explained that although he would be in a crisis of conscience, one day he may be forced to do the same thing.
When a group of captured Russian soldiers were brought into the camp a new hope infused amongst all the prisoners. Planning a daring escape the young Russian Lieutenant boldly states that to escape they needn't kill all the guards but only the head guards and the rest would crumble. Then it would be a simple matter of the 600 prisoners walking out the front gate and down the road to freedom.
Seizing on an opportune moment when a sadistic SS guard had left the camp, a plan was devised to one by one kill the remaining head guards before roll call that morning. Exploiting the greed of the guards each of the head Nazis were lured to the prison camps workshops where they were killed. Later on at roll call and much to his chagrin, Leon could see that some of fellow prisoners were unable to restrain themselves and would give away the escape, so thinking quickly he shouted, "every man for himself". The prisoners broke rank and ran for the perimeter fence while Nazi machines gun were randomly picking off prisoners one by one. Spurred on by their desire for freedom the prisoners climbed the fence, oblivious to the pain caused by the barbed wire. On the other side of the fence was the minefield and with no apprehension they ran for the forest and freedom, ignoring the sporadic explosions.
The movie ends with the story of the survivors of the escape stating some went to live in Brazil and others stayed to fight as an organized resistance group with the Russians.
I want to beat them with their own (hockey) stick but let's be real; they're living their own peculiar form of hell in which suicide is their most environmentally friendly option; Gaia would love them... as fertiliser for cuddly Lion cubs to have grass to frolic in...
Their views have been, and continue to be, discredited by the (non-greenie) scientific community, but they have opened a pandora's box for a far more ruthless environmental guardian.
Yes, there is a huge section of the business world that have smelt blood and loosed their tame PR companies on the wounded beast that is common sense.
Now everything from toxic bathroom cleaners to toxic waste have an environmentally friendly option - at a cost.
Yip, businesses are more busy than ever pumping out those toxic fumes, all to make environmentally friendly products...
To quote Kermit, "It isn't easy being green" - but it brought home the bacon for him, just ask Miss Piggy.
When vastly outnumbered and outgunned, a wise strategy is NOT to hole up, a wise strategy is to RUN and to find a better position... Unless your intention is death... by cop or by your own hand, which was obviously the case here.
So, as nasty as it may sound I think we can safetly assume we are not dealing with the sharpest tool in the shed. Tin soldier training or not.
I was going to critisize the cops for how long it took to get gunman Jan Molenaar after he holed himself up inside a Napier property 2 days ago. I can't really.
The biggest (and possibly avoidable) tradgedy of this whole affair was the shooting to death of Police officer Len Snee and that his body lay there, for over a day, while a strategy was formulated by the Police.
But here's what I would have like to have seen: on the SAME morning of the shooting of Len Snee, I would have liked to have seen STG (The police Special Tactics Group - the NZ version of a SWAT team) establish a tight cordon around Molenaar's house. I would have liked to have seen an armoured NZ Army LAV drive the thirty minutes to the scene. I would have liked to have seen the STG lay down surpessing fire. I would have liked to have seen the LAV drive up & park between Molenaar's position and the body of Len Snee, then I would liked to have seen Snee's body removed. A few well placed smoke grenades and cover would have been assured.
The police cordoned and contained... they evacuated the citizens; not the speediest resolution, but highly effective. It took a day longer than it did to get David Gray at Aramoana.
Arm the Police, not half-pie gunlocker nonsense, strap a Glock to their side and put a Bushmaster in their car; train, retrain then train them again. Let the increasingly scarey criminals know that the Police take protecting seriously and can defend themselves, the community and unfortunates from themselves.
[Update - Why don't insurance companies sponsor the Police force? Surely cutting down crime would increase their profits.]
[Update 2 - The sight of that LAV firing a .50 into Molenaar's house was impressive... Why are we tolerating gangs again?]
The NZ Maori party has stated a desire to send a delegation to Fiji, to gain an understanding of the issues.
I think this is a fantastic thing and years overdue. Getting a complete, hopefully unbiased, view on the REAL reasons behind Commodore Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama's 2006 coup. Views that aren't delivered by a pathologically sales oriented media, canned press releases or PR companies employed by those with large financial interests in pre-Bainimarama's Fiji.
As a brief background: In 1999, Mahendra Chaudhry was elected as Fiji's first indo-Fijian Prime Minister. Believing that only indigenous Fijians should run Fiji, in 2000 a small part of the military staged a coup (headed by hard-lined nationalist George Speights) kidnapping Chaudrey and key members of his government. In control of a majority of the military, Bainimarama eventually put down the coup members and restored the status quo. Unfortunately, racial hatreds were stirred up by the Speights coup (as well as an earlier coup staged by Sitivini Rabuka) and bowing to pressure, Fiji's President Sir Kamisese Mara dissolved the Choudrey government. Laisenia Qarase, previously installed by Bainimarama to head the interim government, the former banker went on to be elected as Fiji's Prime Minister. Greatly alarming Bainimarama, Qarase hired a number of the defeated 2000 coup leaders as his personal security team.
Concerned by the Qarase government, Bainimarama warned Qarase several times that he was watching the situation very carefully and if indo-Fijian's rights weren't restored he would step in, this eventually led to a irreconcilable rift between the Government and the Military. After further erosion of indo-Fijian rights Bainimarama did exactly what he said he was going to do and stepped in, mobilising the Fijian Defence Forces to oust the Qarase government in a bloodless coup.
Just as a small aside: Remember the billion dollar Methamphetamine lab discovered in Suva, the capitol of Fiji, that was busted in 2004? That had serious links with a Hong Kong Triad... Still think Fiji is a poor, out-of-the-way country of no interest to the rest of the world? Ironically 2004 was also the year that Qarase broke off communications with Bainimarama...
I'm guessing there will be a few "democracy or bust" whingers that will be shifting their financial portfolios around about now (if they haven't already).
The biggest threat to the Maori Party's excellent offer; Greenies and Labour riding on their coat-tails to gain political body-blows against National. But in fairness, National have happily lowered their guard for a nice big haymaker to be landed.
This article was written for another purpose but I was kindly given permission to use it as a blog entry.
Tolerance is a very board subject; to discuss it in a New Zealand context presents a number of contradictions. After framing the question, I will go on to discuss why we should be tolerant towards each other. But before I begin, for the purpose of clarity, it is important to give a dictionary definition of Tolerance; this definition is taken from the Collins Dictionary (2001):
1. The quality of accepting other people's rights to their own opinions, beliefs or actions.
It is only natural to like a person with a similar view point or personality, as the saying goes, "Birds of a feather flock together". Liking a person because their personality is close to our own is not necessarily a bad thing, unless it makes us favour a certain person or group in some way which is unfair, unjust or unmerited. For example, take when a number of people apply for a job and a person is chosen based on any other criteria other than merit: this is when the infamous "Slippery slope" creeps in.
The phrase "Slippery slope" is very appropriate as once you have started on the slope of intolerance (lack of tolerance), with little or no effort you can slide down to perform much more heinous acts.
In its most extreme forms intolerance can manifest itself in the oppression of entire communities, as evidenced by the Holocaust; the genocide of six million Jews in World War Two, but more about that later.
The issue of intolerance is perhaps most obvious when discussing RACIAL intolerance: the lack of tolerance based on a person's, or groups, race.
The more intolerant people are of communities or individuals, the less likely it is that there is any real communication between them and the resulting lack of understanding can lead to mistrust and bigotry and to para-phrase Dr Martin Luther King Jr, it is natural to fear that which we don't understand.
A major driver of racial intolerance is negative stereotypes, an example of a negative stereotype is: a black man steals a car and therefore assuming that all black men steal cars. Although simplistic, this is an example of a negative stereotype because it gives a false impression of a person or a group of people. It is often the case that when people of two races have different points of view that negative stereotypes may lead to that person's view being coloured (pun intended). Negative stereotypes may often go unspoken, but they can be intimated through outward signs and can often be more obvious than saying them aloud. They may be shown through a presumption of inferiority, poverty or inability as in the short story 'After you, My Dear Alphonse' in which the character of Mrs Wilson revealed her stereotyping of black Americans when she presumed a black boy's father was a labourer. Racial Intolerance can manifest itself as something as relatively minor as a bigoted comment to something as extreme as the Holocaust and the attempted extermination of the Jews.
As I have briefly mentioned, the racial intolerance that lead to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party's pogrom on the Jews, intentionally exaggerated the notion that Germans, the Ayrian race, were superior to Jews and that Jews should be blamed for the hardships faced by Germany after World War One. In the beginning of this regime, the Nazi party "only" prevented Jews from the rights afforded to Non-Jewish Germans. But that was just the beginning of Hitler's plan for the Jews which culminated in rounding them up and having them taken to concentration camps like cattle, were they were tortured, experimented on and eventually gassed, shot or starved to death, with the lucky few being worked to death as slaves. Six million Jews were killed in these ways.
In a much less drastic, but similarly insidious way, the racial tolerance issue can be brought into a New Zealand context.
Maori were deprived of speaking their language up until the mid 1950s in New Zealand schools, which is the reason well-known Maori activist Tame Iti has given as to why he feels resentment towards the Crown. At a 2005 Powhiri for a Treaty of Waitangi event he performed a time honoured tradition and bared his buttocks (whakapohane) at officials and then went on to shoot the New Zealand flag. Actions that show how intolerance can have flow on effects in this case as Tame Iti was shown intolerance in his education he later on showed intolerance towards the crown.
If we show intolerance we run the risk of creating disharmony in society, but there is another issue and that is when tolerance is taken too far.
There is a wealth of research that links the exploitation that vulnerable women face with the organized crime, drug use and violence which surrounds prostitution. Despite the NZ Police Association vociferously warning the Labour government not to, the government went ahead and decriminalised prostitution. Moral issues aside, I fail to see how this, in any way, protects those women that are at risk of being exploited by the illegal periphery which hang on to these women like an insidious shadow.
Certain types of behaviour in our society are unacceptable and should not be tolerated. When we tolerate exploitative and objectionable behaviour, we are effectively giving a tacit, or in this case explicit, approval of it. What is considered unacceptable behaviour varies between people depending on such things as legality, culture, beliefs and values, nevertheless groups of people also have similarities between what they consider unacceptable. When a behaviour is tolerated it can be almost always be guaranteed that it will continue if not become widely spread. As an example, consider the Televison programme "Hell's kitchen" which features the world renowned Chef Gordon Ramsay. The programme fulfills the voyeuristic desires in us to see other peoples' misfortunes; in turn, this is played out under the guise of entertainment. By pandering to the worst side of ourselves we train ourselves to be more tolerant of appalling behaviour, allowing that behaviour to become our normal reaction, therefore pushing out the boundaries of what we find tolerable and intolerable.
To answer the question should NZers be more tolerant, as I discussed, we can be too tolerant just as we can be too intolerant. In general we do need to be more tolerant, but the price of that tolerance is vigilance, as we must carefully watch that we are not "killing ourselves with kindness" by tolerating the intolerable.
Hands up those who are tired of the first few words on the evening news including "Swine flu"?
Don't get me wrong here:
Of course I'm concerned, just like I am with Meningitis, Influenza, Noro virus, AIDS, Cholera, Typhoid, being hit by a car, Psychosis, Terrorism, pollution, Wars, Bubonic plague...
The media lives and breathes bad news, always chasing ratings (and ambulances) they fill time slots with carefully practiced "live" reports and biased opinions.
I have a view on reporters (moreso TV and radio, but often print too); that is that they are honestly terrified about the Swine flu. They are extremely narccistic, egotistical and literally TERRIFIED that their "Luck" may end. Combine that with their sales hungry bosses and you get Y2k, Avian flu mixed in with an AK47 wielding terrorist behind every bush.
At least now the Government's pandemic plan is carefully watching reporting of the outbreak. Sure they have done some dumb things, but they need to help dumb people. Not the armchair academic sipping pinot noir; the same academic but with a bad case of Chicken Little Syndrome... The type of person the sees Tamiflu as a cure (should I mention the shelf life of Tamiflu bought for the 'bird flu'...)
But the real question is this: bird flu rules out Turkey, swine flu rules out Pork, what WILL we eat on Christmas???
Hat tip: Adolf Fiinkensein @ No Minister
Reality is scarier than fiction and reality is never so scary as when the horrors of our own past come back to haunt us. In the movie 'Escape from Sobibor' the horrors of what happened in the mid twentieth century were far more horrific than anything a healthy mind could dream up. The persecution of the Jews in this movie will make even a hardened viewer feel shocked and horrified.
I want to beat them with their own (hockey) stick but let's be real; they're living their own peculiar form of hell in which suicide is their most environmentally friendly option; Gaia would love them... as fertiliser for cuddly Lion cubs to have grass to frolic in...
When vastly outnumbered and outgunned, a wise strategy is NOT to hole up, a wise strategy is to RUN and to find a better position... Unless your intention is death... by cop or by your own hand, which was obviously the case here.
The NZ Maori party has stated a desire to send a delegation to Fiji, to gain an understanding of the issues.
In a much less drastic, but similarly insidious way, the racial tolerance issue can be brought into a New Zealand context.
Hands up those who are tired of the first few words on the evening news including "Swine flu"?