"Ok Whalers, Beefers, Oilers or Hookers, whatever you may call yourself, here is a challenge. Inventory at Keeping Stock has sent me through the image to see if the blogosphere can assist. We found Winston's car. Now lets find a "alleged" thug. This guy is believed to be the assailant of 85 year-old WWII veteran Eric Brady. It's a long-shot, but who knows who reads If you know who this is and where they may be found then please advise me of details via the tiplines:"
It would be fantastic if Ngai Tahu et al would get off their collective backsides, stop thinking they earned the millions they have been given and start putting in place progammes that will actually benefit all their people, not just their fair weather whanau.
On a related matter:
I would LOVE to see weekly drug tests for known gang members, no test, no benefit. Either way we pay them, either through a benefit or crime (usually both), let's just cut-down one of the ways, put the money saved into increased burglary policing.
[UPDATE - This 18 year-old boy was caught... in the same clothes! I thought that he would - at least - burn them immediately after his little X-Box crime, maybe Grand Theft Auto IV doesn't have a level that warns you about covering your tracks. I hope the Police Dog had a good ol' gnaw on the rick-Pay! My best wishes go to Eric Brady!]
I've recently re-read the rather... grey book. I thought it would be interesting to pass on a few facts about 'Orwell'.
The first thing is that Orwell isn't his name, George Orwell was Eric Arthur Blair's pen name: the name in which he wrote under. He wrote "1984" in 1948 and just reversed the last two digits. The novel was a work of fiction that warns about the perils of a state aparatus that is in total control of every facet of society.
Blair lived through two world wars, which undoubtedly coloured his view of his world. He went to Spain to fight in the Spanish civil war with the explanation, "I've come to fight against Fascism". Although he went there to defend his ideological views, reality intervened and he was shot in the throat by a sniper.
Luckily the bullet narrowly missed Blair's carotic artery and he was subsequently declared unfit to fight. After a brief time in a Barcelonan sanatorium, barely able to speak, he returned to England where he made a full recovery from his near fatal wound. Blair died at the all-too-young age of 47.
The years after the end of world war II were a huge revelation to Blair. Having virtually idolised Josef Stalin and the communist utopia, he saw the massive injustices dished out by Stalin, which shook his views on communism to the core.
He wrote 1984 to warn against Stalin's gulags (Prisons).
It is possible Blair had a 'Road to Damascus' experience, but knowing what I know about him, I tend to think he suffered from the vanity that blinds most quasi-academic lefties. Lefties seem to take great pride in the academic masturbation that leads to a "unique" stance, yet glibly ignore the ramifications of their 'epiphany'.
I guess, it is understandable in a way too, it's natural to 'look beyond' the indiscretion of that which we value, be it an ideology or a loved one.
I remember one day, I was waiting in town for a job interview, it was a lovely day and I had my camera with me, so I decided to take a few photos. After a few minutes a man came up and in an American TV cop way, flipped over his wallet a flashed his DPS (Diplomatic Protection Service) badge at me. He told me that a high-profile Labour MP was giving a speech at the venue across the street (I subsequently found out it was Helen Clark herself).
The DPS are the "Secret Service" of New Zealand, they protect our politicians.
The venue was a good 35-50 metres from where I was standing.
This begs the question: why wasn't Prime Minister John Key afforded the same level of protection at the Waitangi's lower Marae?
I don't think it is right to blame the DPS too much over this one, after all, if someone is truly determined, they can get to anyone.
I'd prefer to think that the difference in responses was due to the threat levels. I'm pretty sure that Helen Clark (et al) was terrified that the unwashed masses might show their opinion of her in a violent way.
The mainstream media... If you really want to map the fall of the West, just map the rise of the media.
This entry isn't going to pull any punches, I'm going to do something the media can't do, they can't give you an honest, unfettered, uncensored opinion about ANYTHING unless their editors (ergo owners) agree with it.
I often wonder if journalists know how much they are being manipulated. Seasoned journalist have a fairly good idea, they have been in the game long enough to know that their reporting is a way to maintain their lifestyles. They know on which side their bread is buttered and serve-up their articles accordingly.
The not so seasoned journalists, the young, the idealistic and the sheep: They are the grist for the mill that is the mainstream media.
Baby journos are just like kiddy-winks, scoffing about cruel farming practices over their hamburger at McDonalds. Having their idealistic views shaped and manipulated by their news-print overlords.
Either way, the news gets reported as the newspaper (et al) want it, the irony of the simplisity is almost poetic, isn't it?
I believe this happens, not because of a "left-wing bias", no no no, I believe it is to sell their papers, magazines and news footage. Long ago they "did the numbers" and found out that bad news sells, lefties like to believe they are positive but secretly love bad news, therefore playing their part in a vicious circle.
In saying that, I also believe that some news outlets have been bought by muslims' with radical islamist agendas - scoff at it now, but I honestly believe one day you'll see the truth of my words.
That is the "big picture" behind what I want to comment on.
What I want to talk about relates to the recent Israel/hamas conflict, in particular the much publicised mortaring of a United Nation school.
Boy the media went to town on that - inferring that it was undeniable proof of the war crimes of Israel. Report after report supporting hamas a hundred percent, ironic considering international journalists were not allowed in to Gaza at that time.
Well the damage has already been done, but in an excellent (and rare) piece of follow-up journalism by Andrew Bolt, a British reporter that has "seen the light" and has been done his own digging, not just regurgitating the, "No terrorism here, move along..." line, the REAL facts come out.
The school Israel didn’t shell
Andrew Bolt
Friday, January 30, 2009 at 01:36pm
Every Israeli operation to defend itself has one. And the "bombed school" was the "Jenin massacre" or the "bombed ambulance" hoax of Israel’s operation this past month in Gaza.
In early January Israel was once again accused of a horrific war crime - an allegation that ran and ran. Some examples:
From Britain’s The Independent:
Massacre of innocents as UN school is shelled
From The Australian:
THE deaths of 42 people in an Israeli attack at a UN-run school in Gaza overnight has finally forced Barack Obama to break his silence over the conflict...
From The Age:
43 Palestinians in a UN school were killed by Israeli shelling...
From Iran:
The UN High Commissioner for Rights has also called for independent investigations into possible war crimes after Israel’s shelling of a UN school compound which killed 42 people...
From India:
Israeli tank shells killed more than 40 Palestinians on Tuesday at a UN school where civilians had taken shelter, in carnage likely to boost international pressure on Israel to halt a Gaza offensive.
The key ingredients in this latest "proof" of Israeli depravity: 43 dead, school attacked, sheltering civilians massacred. Oh, and with no good cause:
The United Nations on Wednesday denied Israeli army allegations that militants were inside a school in Gaza that was hit the previous day by an Israeli strike, killing at least 42 people.
Now for the facts of that January 6 mortar shelling of the Ibn Rushd Preparatory School for Boys, run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Yes, the 43 people are dead, and that is a tragedy, given many were undoubtedly innocent. But the rest of the allegations? False, false and false. Yet again the media has bought anti-Israeli propaganda, as a Toronto Globe and Mail investigation has found:
Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, make it clear: While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed...
While the killing of 43 civilians on the street may itself be grounds for investigation, it falls short of the act of shooting into a schoolyard crowded with refuge-seekers....
The teacher, who refused to give his name because he said UNRWA had told the staff not to talk to the news media, was adamant: "Inside [the compound] there were 12 injured, but there were no dead."
Hazem Balousha, who runs an auto-body shop across the road from the UNRWA school, was down the street, just out of range of the shrapnel, when the three shells hit. He showed a reporter where they landed: one to the right of his shop, one to the left, and one right in front.
UNRWA itself now openly concedes its school was not actually shelled:
John Ging, UNRWA’s operations director in Gaza, acknowledged in an interview this week that all three Israeli mortar shells landed outside the school and that "no one was killed in the school." ... The Israelis are the ones, he said, who got everyone thinking the deaths occurred inside the school.
"Look at my statements," he said. "I never said anyone was killed in the school. Our officials never made any such allegation."
But the Globe and Mail recalls an earlier Ging quote:
Speaking from Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as the bodies were being brought in that night, an emotional Mr. Ging did say:
"Those in the school were all families seeking refuge. ... There’s nowhere safe in Gaza."
And a World Health Organization report:
On 6 January, 42 people were killed following an attack on a UNRWA school ...
And a UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs weekly report:
Israeli shelling directly hit two UNRWA schools [including this one]...
So why did Israel lob those three mortar shells into the street outside the school? As Associated Press reported at the time:
In a statement, the Israeli army said an initial investigation found that "mortar shells were fired from within the school at IDF soldiers. The force responded with mortars at the source of fire. The Hamas cynically uses civilians as human shields." The army said two Hamas militants - Imad Abu Askar and Hasan Abu Askar - were among the dead.
Two neighborhood residents confirmed the Israeli account, saying a group of militants fired mortars from a street near the school, then fled into a crowd of people in the streets. Israel then opened fire. The residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety, said the Abu Askar brothers were known low-level Hamas militants.
"Within" is not right, of course. But it seems the real story is that 43 people, including at least two Hamas militants, were killed when Israel returned fire from Hamas mortars launched from among a crowd in the street.
You might still not like what occured. But it is very, very different to what was so widely alleged, and far more forgivable.
And after the earlier evidence of the media repeating pro-Hamas propaganda and gross exaggerations of the death toll in Gaza, especially among civilians, we need to ask again: how much can we trust the coverage of journalists and welfare groups reporting from territory run by terrorists?
I wish I could say that the truth will be reported as much as the lies, but that would destroy the world view of too many lefties.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
The best of times goes to Obama, poor old Bainimarama gets the worst of times.
It epitomises the nature of the racism inherent in the mainstream media. They go to great lengths to appear racially balanced, but they are not. If they were they would look, deeply: not just their usual superficial skim-read, to see that the Pacific has a black leader (Bainimarama) that has not just been TALKING about change, but has been DELIVERING it!
To para-phrase Holmes, it bet they think Bainimarama is a 'cheeky darky' - but they'd never admit it!
NB - John Key: I am DELIGHTED you led National to a victory - But shake up those plonkers in the Foreign ministry because they are spewing "clarkist" vitriol and need to stop ingratiating themselves to their 'chums'.
In these economic times, I'm thinking that maintaining the financial links NZ has would be a good thing, Fiji gives us more trade that we give them aid. In return NZ is trying to convince the United Nations to not use Fijian peace-keepers. How disposed to someone would you feel if they were trying to take a major source of your income off you?
If we want a great thundering Chinese naval base slapped in the middle of the pacific ocean, we are certainly doing a lot to force Bainimarama into doing just that: I wonder how the United States would view us if we allowed that to happen?
Obama's catch-phrase is, "Yes we can".
Bainimarama's should be, "Yes we can - But New Zealand won't let us".
Hat tip: Whaleoil
"1984", probably George Orwell's seminal work.
I remember one day, I was waiting in town for a job interview, it was a lovely day and I had my camera with me, so I decided to take a few photos. After a few minutes a man came up and in an American TV cop way, flipped over his wallet a flashed his DPS (Diplomatic Protection Service) badge at me. He told me that a high-profile Labour MP was giving a speech at the venue across the street (I subsequently found out it was Helen Clark herself).
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
