Posts by webweaver
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I'm also quite taken (but not in a good way) by the Minister for I Used To Be A Beneficiary But Now I'm Not And You Losers Can All Just GET FUCKED.
Apologies BTW for all the swearing today. I'm just a bit cross about everything...
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and on another note...
I just watched the Parliament debate thingy online and was completely gobsmacked by the "Conservation" minister's little rant. Oh my God, if she's in charge of conservation then our natural environment is well and truly fucked. In a supreme moment of irony she began by blaming Labour for "damaging our 100% Pure image around the world" by complaining too loudly about the government's plans to mine in our National Parks. Unfuckingbelievable.
I went and donated $100 to Forest and Bird's anti-mining campaign before she was halfway through.
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What I still would like to know is exactly how the National Govt politicians are lining their own pockets as a result of this deal. Will it be a spot on the board of directors of some mining company? Or a consultancy? Hopefully someone will be able to expose it, but these er people are pretty good at hiding their tracks.
I'm with Bart - because, from everything I've read about the back-of-the-envelope finger-in-the-wind calculations, they bear no resemblance to reality. At all.
Put aside for a second the environmental costs and just focus on the financial benefits they're promoting. If, as a number of commentators are saying, these numbers are a) pretty much made up by a mining consultant, and b) don't add up however you look at them; then either the honourable members are really very stupid, taking these numbers as gospel with no reality checking and no supporting evidence - or they know these numbers are bullshit but are determined to try to sell them to the country anyway.
In which case, what's in it for them?
Or do they just get a perverse sense of enjoyment from watching all us greenies and hippies rising up in anger, as some commenters on Your Views certainly do. (Remind me not to read that shit, BTW)
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Ben - yeah I'm thinking the NIMBY vote in Auckland might be quite important - together with the Super City it might just be the final straw. We can only hope...
That's why I'm quite surprised they started with the Coromandel - digging up parts of the West Coast? No problem! There's only a few hippies living on the West Coast anyway! Who cares about them?! Ha! You wait! IMNSHO the West Coast is the most beautiful place on earth, and they'll have this hippie to contend with if they start something there...
But the Coromandel's another story altogether - seems either unbelievably dumb as a political strategy, or it's a set-up so that they can back down on it later and then start mining places like the W Coast and Stewart Island (Stewart Island! My God!) while nobody's looking...
Oh - demo in Welli outside Parliament -
Don't Mine Paradise National - protest
Location: Parliament forecourt Wellington NZ
Time: 12:30PM Tuesday, March 30thI'll be there!
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If this gets pushed through I can see civil unrest on a scale not seen since the Boks Tour protests of 81.
My god I hope so. As I said a few weeks ago when this first reared its ugly head, there's not much that would persuade me to leave my nice comfortable life and go chain myself to a bulldozer, but this is it.
How ironic. National has turned me back into a political activist again - after about 20 years of not-doing-very-much. There's so much shit they've done over the past 18 months that I scarcely know where to begin, but for me it's National Radio (RadioNZ) and National Parks that's pushed me over the edge.
What is it with National going after anything with "National" in its name - can they not handle the competition or something? And what is it with the sustained attack on Auckland? First the Super City and now mining in their favourite getaways? I don't think so!
I joined Forest & Bird today - I felt as though I needed to express my support after the govt told DoC they were not to talk to F&B about mining. How outrageous! Gagging people won't help, dudes - it'll only make more people angry...
Metiria Turei of the Greens has set up a Facebook group - No mining in NZ's National Parks - please join if you've a mind to.
I know it's a cliche to join a Facebook group in protest, but our experience with the SaveRadioNZ Facebook group is that it can actually get the issue noticed by the media and politicians if enough people join.
I don't know if it's politicians thinking "web 2.0" is the Next Big Thing that they don't really understand but they think they should take notice of in order to "get down wiv the kidz" or if it's that they understand that for every person joining a group in protest there are 100 standing behind them never quite getting around to doing it - but it does seem to be something that they take note of. If they want numbers, we have to give them numbers!
The other really useful aspect of being part of an online community like that is that a) you realise you're not alone and that tons of other people think the same way you do and b) you start taking action in meaningful ways as a result of being part of that group - which you probably wouldn't have done otherwise. I wouldn't have created the SaveRadioNZ website (and thereby gotten more involved with the campaign), for example, if I hadn't been part of the Facebook group and gone along to the demo outside Parliament.
Anyway. The other very useful aspect of the No Mining FB group is that they are giving members help and support in writing a submission to the govt. Schedule 4 stocktake discussion paper. If ever there was a time when we all need to put our thinking caps on and take the time to write, this is it. I'm starting writing mine today.
Bomber wrote an interesting post on Tumeke! the other day - The truth about the Mining lie - which talks about how the figure of $140 billion was basically pulled out of his ass by mining lobbyist Richard Barker. Interesting. We have Gordon Campbell to thank for that piece of detective work - On the Economics of Mining DOC Land.
So... you guys who have lived in NZ longer than I (I've only been here 17 years) - do you sense that we'll finally all rise up in outrage about this and actually DO SOMETHING - or will we slip back into our normal laissez-faire "no worries" political apathy once we've had a nice cup of tea and a lie down?
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I learnt to do the binocular thing( although I don't recall using that term) so I could put down the stereoscope and just go googly eyed. It was very cool.
I taught myself how to do this when I was a kid, sitting in our dining room and staring at the wall opposite. We had this deeply 70s wallpaper, with a repeating pattern of decorated orange and brown circles marching across the wall in rows.
If I looked at one of the circles and then sort of lost focus on it and let the image of the circle next to it move across until it was sitting on top of the image of the first circle (by progressively going more and more cross-eyed), once the circles were perfectly aligned they would "lock together" and all of sudden it would all go 3D. Hours of entertainment to be had during boring family dinners.
I can still do it - it works easily with any horizontally repeating pattern - or of course with a proper stereoscopic image. You just have to find the locking point.
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Sending a virtual hug back to Islander - for completely understanding the power of childhood memories.
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Heh! Thanks Islander! I needed help with those pesky armholes :)
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<smallvoice>I quite like the idea of the Wellywood sign</smallvoice>
<evensmallervoice>...and I really loved Avatar</evensmallervoice>
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.I'll get me coat....
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Yeah you're right of course Islander - it's just that - to me, Cadbury's is my childhood...
*sniff*
Anyway... so YAY to Whittaker's bringing out a FairTrade chocolate bar. Hooray! I know what I'll be buying next time I'm at the supermarket.