Councillors had “progressively” tested the size of the increase until they found a figure that most were happy with, Parker said.
Does anyone from the Peoples Republic know if “progressively” is an euphemism for pulling it out of your arse?
6 Alcohol is for the dying,
and wine for those in bitter distress.
7 Let them drink to forget their poverty
and remember their troubles no more.
Tim Blair outlines the misrepresentations of Tony Abbott’s words by media and Labor flunkies. This misrepresentation led to a near riot.
Last Thursday, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was asked this question by an ABC interviewer: “Mr Abbott, today is also the 40th anniversary of the tent embassy in Canberra.
Do you think it’s still relevant, or should it move?”
Abbott’s complete reply: “Look, I can understand why the tent embassy was established all those years ago. I think a lot has changed for the better since then. We had the historic apology just a few years ago, one of the genuine achievements of Kevin Rudd as prime minister. We had the proposal, which is currently for national consideration, to recognise indigenous people in the constitution. I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian, and, yes, I think a lot’s changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that.”
Those are the exact words that Tony Abbott used. What ensued was nothing short of a media, Labor party and Aboriginal beatup of a non-story. Manufactured outrage based on lies.
The trouble began on Thursday afternoon when word reached the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra, not far from where Abbott and Gillard were at a restaurant function, that Abbott had said something bad about the embassy. According to the PM, Hodges contacted Unions ACT secretary Kim Sattler, who then circulated the line among protesters.
Sattler, Hodges and Gillard all now claim that the message passed on was exactly as Abbott gave it on ABC-TV. That’s clearly not how protesters heard it, however. The impression they were given was that Abbott wanted the embassy to be torn down.
Remarkably, nobody in this scenario apparently sought to check Abbott’s actual comments. Hodges reportedly got his information from journalists at the restaurant. Sattler received her version from Hodges. The protesters heard from Sattler. Then all hell broke loose. As Sattler put it on her Facebook page (before changing her story): “Tony Abbott just announced the Tent Embassy should be closed down and a huge crowd from the Embassy went to greet him and he had to be rushed away with a police escort!”
If someone in this chatter-chain had paused to review Abbott’s gentle comments, perhaps trouble might have been avoided. Well, maybe not in the case of the tent embassy’s more excitable inhabitants, who would probably be provoked to screaming rage by the opposition leader quoting Enid Blyton. But what excuse can be offered by relatively senior political operatives, with their access to the latest devices?
Some media have been caught pants down too:
The media have even fewer excuses. A YouTube clip shot by tent embassy supporters last Thursday shows Ten reporter Amanda Hart at the protest being advised by an activist: “Don’t forget to say that Tony Abbott asked for the tent embassy to be shut down.”
Sure enough, on Ten’s 5pm bulletin, Hart’s piece included this line: “The protest was launched by Aborigines from the nearby Aboriginal tent embassy, sparked by Tony Abbott who said the embassy, now in its 40th year, should be shut down.”
Remarkably, the piece also carried a brief extract from Abbott’s ABC interview in which he didn’t say the embassy should be shut down. The authority of third-hand claims from some muppet at a protest is evidently superior to words direct from the source.
AAP’s first account of Abbott’s interview incorrectly summarised: “Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says it is time to move the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra. It was time it was disbanded, he said.” News Ltd isn’t blameless. A pointer on News’s PerthNow site over the weekend carried this inaccuracy: “Tony Abbott has defended comments about the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra that sparked pandemonium.” Wrong. It was sparked by invented words attributed to Abbott.
PerthNow also ran this: “Gillard brave as Abbott incites protest.” Again, wrong. And easily proved so.
Cactus Kate has a cracker of a post (no not the one about anal sex) about Maori selling land. You know, land, the taonga protected by the treaty. It seems that only Maori are allowed to sell land to ‘foreigners’ and only ’foreigners’ who aren’t Chinese.
Ngai Tgahu know all about asset sales so should be supporting National’s privatisation programme. Here are just two recent examples of Maori more than happy to flog off their assets to foreigners who need OIO approvals.
In 2010 they sold 1348 hectares in Kaikoura to an American couple for 7.5 million dollars. They paid 8 million dollars so made a $500,000 loss.
In 2011 they sold 18,000 hectares of forest to a Swiss owned family company for 22.9 million dollars. And continue to manage it. Alf Grumble reported it at the time on his blog noting the hypocrisy and lies of Tuku Morgan in relation to asset sales. Ngai Tahu sold this land under the euphemism of a “change in investment strategy”. National are having that same change in investment strategy selling stakes in SOE’s.
Maori and the left wing and assorted other whingers are now carping that the Mixed Ownership Model can be spiked via the Treaty of Waitangi. Cactus Kate pours them back in the bottle.
Now Maori wish to construct an argument that National’s privatisation programme cannot go ahead because of the SOE Act due to a conflict with Treaty Principles. More taking of the piss.
Selling assets to locals and foreigners seems to be completely in line with Maori principles of making profit or a loss when inept, for themselves. Ngai Tahu have proven that Maori principles are to sell when it suits them.
Another example of Maori completely taking the piss for their own commercial ends.
No one need think Maori are not immune from selling their precious taonga when required. And there is nothing wrong with this, just don’t hide behind the skirt of our Queen Elizabeth and some loosely interpreted Treaty principles when the Crown wishes to do likewise to pay for things like schools, health and a legacy of years of over-spending on welfare on a feral heaving pathetic underclass.
Looks like Maori and Labour shared the dux of the class in Hypocrisy School.
Apparently one way of reducing illness is daily dosage of baby Aspirin..what ever that is? I am sure MacDoctor will be along shortly to educate us all.
Image by Browserd (Pedro Rebelo) via Flickr
More important than any vaccine, he says, is baby Aspirin, famous for helping to prevent blood clots and thereby staving off heart attacks and strokes, and now revealed to be far more of a panacea than previously thought. Last year British scientists, looking at eight long-term studies involving 25,000 participants, found that 75 mg a day reduces the risk of dying from common cancers by 10 to 60 per cent. And how does Aspirin do that? It’s a powerful anti-inflammatory. Until very recently, baby Aspirin offered a trade-off for physicians and patients—blood-thinning benefits (anti-clot action) versus blood-thinning disadvantages (bleeding). Agus thinks the balance has now tipped decidedly in favour of the benefits.
They get a report saying Tony Marryatt’s pay rise exceeds the norm. They give him a pay rise. Then the LGOIMA requests come in. The report is released. The council look like plonkers.
A controversial pay rise for Christchurch City Council chief executive Tony Marryatt put his salary more than $100,000 above the median pay for similar roles, a report shows.
The report, from remuneration consultant Strategic Pay, was used to help set Marryatt’s $68,000 pay rise, taking his salary to $538,529.
Marryatt said on Friday, after weeks of public criticism, that he had asked the council to stop paying the increase.
The council released the document in response to several Official Information Act requests from media organisations, including The Press.
As I have said previously, the council doesn’t need a review of their communications. They just need to stop doing dumb stuff….and sack Tony Marryatt.
Lianne Dalziel must be desperate for headlines, or she is starting her tilt at the mayoralty early because she has been fomenting a bit of mischief:
The former homeowners of several quake-ravaged Christchurch houses to be bulldozed today are reportedly only just finding out about the demolition plans.
The first of the red-zoned homes will begin being destroyed today, with a trial demolition of 11 government-bought properties taking place on Seabreeze Close, Waireka Lane and Kokopu Lane in Bexley .
The properties will be cleared over a four-week period.
More than 2000 red-zone homeowners have settled with the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) since the Government sent out offers to purchase properties damaged in last year’s February 22 earthquake.
Labour earthquake recovery spokeswoman Lianne Dalziel this morning told TVNZ’s Breakfast that there had not been satisfactory communication from Cera to the people who had once lived in the homes that are to be destroyed.
“There are people who are only just finding out their homes are going to be demolished this week, and I think that’s really not good enough,” she said.
“Some of those people have been out of their homes since September 2010 but nobody’s bothered to tell them it’s their house that’s coming down this week.
What a whole lot of fuss over nothing. They sold their house to the government, have been paid out, it isn;t theirs anymore…and why would they want to be notified anyway…prurient self indulgence? Did they want to go around and wail in front of cameras as the house they sold and got paid out for was demolished?
Gerry Brownlee has called it for what it is:
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee is defending not telling former Bexley residents about the demolition of their old homes, accusing Labour of a “beat-up”.
Demolition of 11 homes in the Bexley residential red zone on Seabreeze Cl, Waireka Ln and Kokopu Ln began today after their former owners sold their houses to the Government and moved.
Christchurch East Labour MP Lianne Dalziel today said some former residents were upset after not being informed of the demolition.
Brownlee called Dalziel’s comments a “bit of a beat-up”.
“I think this is a demonstration of the new bipartisanship approach the Labour Party wants to take and an indication of no change,” he said, referring to Labour leader David Shearer’s recent comments that the party would take a bipartisan approach to the quake recovery.
Brownlee said residents had been informed of the demolitions and a street meeting was held on Friday.
However, with more than 5000 homes to be demolished in Christchurch’s red zones, it was not practical to tell former homeowners about the impending demolition of their homes, he said.
“Once you have settled, you know the house is either going to be moved to another site … or demolished.”
The current approach of not informing former homeowners was reasonable and would not change, he said
Typical of Labour…preying on people’s misery or in this case making up people’s misery.
Mostly American blogs but some of the ones I read…does that mean I am an amalgamation of the thoughts.
Slackstory explores what your favourite blog says about you.
What goes on in the mind of a sniper?
Chris Kyle is a sniper, the best in the world. He describes his job:
As US forces surged into Iraq in 2003, Chris Kyle was handed a sniper rifle and told to watch as a marine battalion entered an Iraqi town.
A crowd had come out to greet them. Through the scope he saw a woman, with a child close by, approaching his troops. She had a grenade ready to detonate in her hand.
“This was the first time I was going to have to kill someone. I didn’t know whether I was going to be able to do it, man, woman or whatever,” he says.
“You’re running everything through your mind. This is a woman, first of all. Second of all, am I clear to do this, is this right, is it justified? And after I do this, am I going to be fried back home? Are the lawyers going to come after me saying, ‘You killed a woman, you’re going to prison’?”
But he didn’t have much time to debate these questions.
“She made the decision for me, it was either my fellow Americans die or I take her out.”
He pulled the trigger.
Kyle remained in Iraq until 2009. According to official Pentagon figures, he killed 160 people, the most career sniper kills in the history of the US military. His own estimate is much higher, at 255 kills.
According to army intelligence, he was christened “The Devil” by Iraqi insurgents, who put a $20,000 (£13,000) bounty on his head.
Married with two children, he has now retired from the military and has published a book in which he claims to have no regrets, referring to the people he killed as “savages”.
Israeli researchers have found something a little different:
But a study into snipers in Israel has shown that snipers are much less likely than other soldiers to dehumanise their enemy in this way.
Chris Kyle killed an estimated 40 people during the second battle of Fallujah in 2004Part of the reason for this may be that snipers can see their targets with great clarity and sometimes must observe them for hours or even days.
“It’s killing that is very distant but also very personal,” says anthropologist Neta Bar. “I would even say intimate.”
She studied attitudes to killing among 30 Israeli snipers who served in the Palestinian territories from 2000 to 2003, to examine whether killing is unnatural or traumatic for human beings.
She chose snipers in particular because, unlike pilots or tank drivers who shoot at big targets like buildings, the sniper picks off individual people.
What she found was that while many Israeli soldiers would refer to Palestinian militants as “terrorists”, snipers generally referred to them as human beings.
There were about 20 gunmen escorting a convoy and one of them was unlucky enough to get in the sight of my scope. The distance was about 300m, almost nothing for a sniper.
A few seconds later I saw him lying motionless.
In the heat of the moment my only thought was to shoot more and more. I saw the figures rushing in panic and trying to hide.
We killed all of them, except three or four who were wounded and captured. Afterwards I blamed myself for not being cool-headed enough. I thought that if I had been calmer, I would have killed more enemies.
We were proud of ourselves, but now I am ashamed.
If I was asked today, I would say it’s very hard to kill, but more than 20 years ago I was too young.
“The Hebrew word for human being is Son of Adam and this was the word they used by far more than any other when they talked about the people that they killed,” she says.
Snipers almost never referred to the men they killed as targets, or used animal or machine metaphors. Some interviewees even said that their victims were legitimate warriors.
“Here is someone whose friends love him and I am sure he is a good person because he does this out of ideology,” said one sniper who watched through his scope as a family mourned the man he had just shot. “But we from our side have prevented the killing of innocents, so we are not sorry about it.”
There is a lot of fuss about Peter Whittall setting up a consultancy business dealing with mine safety.
He actually knows a fair bit about what not to do having been the boss of a mine that had a massive disaster.
I’d have to say that Peter Whittall knows as much about mine safety as the EPMU does about running a financially successful union, but more on that later.
