Posts by mark taslov
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Hang on, I’ll join you…. tho’ I dont suffer an Election lost I just Suffer fools every day. That’s life.
Emailed, (a little more work for the machine). WIthout doubt I’m a fool, you’ve been enduring these posts for years but yeah, just for larks ’an all.
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How the fuck does an Electorate win with a large Labour vote but the Party vote go to National, time and time again. It makes nonsense. Who would vote electorate Labour candidate then Party, National?
I might get a whack over the head for saying this but if you follow that thread to it's logical conclusion you may just well walk right into my smoking room for a sit down and a bit of a natter which could in its way diminish the that sick feeling one may get from a lost election and replace it with a more calm recognition of the bigger picture. Invite Steve too.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to
I just wish that such a cabel of clever people saw some merit in Mr. Key’s effort as PM but hey, that’s tooth fairy stuff.
Over and out.He’s a liar, his legacy as PM has been increasing debt New Zealand by 80b, there’s currently 48 billion dollars in farming debt. In amassing the national debt he has cut welfare and assistance to people in need, enlarging the gap between the rich and the poor in a country whose leading trade partner barely took a scratch from the Global Fincancial crisis, whose second biggest trading partner was again almost unaffected. Under his watch rivers have filled with more shit, unions have been castrated, and he has to date still failed to successfully intervene to restore housing in a city of less than half a million people a whopping 4 years of a national disaster, whilst engaging in character assassination, overseeing questionable ethical action and extremely dubious practice.
He’s a fucking disgrace.
But to everyone else here. commiserations on this shit.
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OnPoint: "Project SPEARGUN underway", in reply to
I will, it's so strange, I immediately dismissed it, but it'd be a great story if it were found to be true.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to
And sorry Bart, I see the “asshole” you were referring to was not the “asshole” andin called me. Perhaps too many “assholes” being thrown around, perhaps too many assholes. I’m more than a little sensitive and overly passionate about this and just fucking angry watching this election result.
I meant no nastiness in my comment to Craig at all, I was agreeing with him. But the supernational surveillance itself doesn’t bother me half as much as how that data is being put to use by individual Governments (if that's still actually a tangible thing). My apologies for misdirecting my vitriol Bart.
nzlemming:
And we’re generally non-strategic – except in terms of signals intelligence. We’re ideally placed to intercept quite a large proportion of satellite traffic and that’s the only reason we’re part of the 5Eyes programme.
West Kansas is non-strategic too, but the US will never allow them to secede. Change the name, amend the laws, dispute facts, ignore findings, discredit journalists, defame whistleblowers, protest the wars, sign petitions, vote left, vote right, change the government, believe the politicians, delete the troll, but at the end of the day, despite everything:
FiveEyes4life. -
Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to
Thanks for that Tussock, and obviously not referring to you, I am mortified that any so-called athiest or agnostic is so willing and able to believe and accept anything but the dirty rotten deepset truth here.
deniers.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to
The lack of empathy, the ease with which pain is caused in others for his (assuming here) own entertainment. It’s all part of a larger picture that defines the things we need to change to become a genuinely caring and responsible country.
Empathy, by definition, is not dismissing anyone, at all. If there’s a specific point you feel I have misrepresented, debate it. The cranks, the conspiracy theorists, the tinfoil hat brigade, have been disenfranchised, dismissed, mocked, discredited, alienated for decades in the name of your empathy Bart. 700,000 people have left New Zealand, at least a few of whom may have left because they knew as I did that they were being spied on.
And even now, at the nexus, you’re still standing with the silent majority, dismissing people as assholes for doing nothing more than suggesting in the strongest possible terms that any conclusive reconfiguring the status quo is beyond the reach of just the Government. The strongest assurances of elected representatives in New Zealand to the contrary will never again stand up to the evidence they dispute. Millions worldwide see this and know this to be true.
Cunliffe has already ruled out granting asylum to Edward Snowden.
He dismissed the idea as ludicrous. I’m just not prepared to ever feed the denial, to standby and sanction the harbouring of illusions or unrealistic expectation. New Zealanders deserve to know exactly what’s up. Dismiss Greenwald, dismiss Snowden, dismiss the illiterate, dismiss Hagar. Dismiss everyone who goes to any effort whatsoever to inform or ignite discussion on these issues because you don’t like their tone, attack us, ascribe disingenuous motivation to us and keep kidding yourself that this Surveillance New Zealand that you funded and are leaving to your ancestors is just an inconvenient side effect of your brave new empathy.
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OnPoint: "Project SPEARGUN underway", in reply to
How anybody can call Edward Snowden anything but honourable
Cruising the Guardian comments amid the revelations I encountered one comment detailing that one of the things that prompted Edward Snowden to blow whistle was a New Zealander who had become aware of his spying and was able to communicate back with him and highlight just how wrong this shit the NSA is doing is. Taken to be true, this could even have been our own Rawshark.
I’ve been looking back for it for days, but it seems to have vanished, and I can’t find any other reference to this on the net.
One of the crucial things to note with that article Sofie is that the NSA is run by the department of defence while the CIA is a civilian. Snowden is nothing but honourable but I think diminishing the power of the CIA merely leaves a vacuum and more territory for the NSA to exploit.
In noting that it would be remiss not to also point out the strong connections between the Bush family and numerous other 20thC administrations with the CIA. So perhaps this could be something like the CIA as the house of Tudor being displaced by the NSA as the house of Stewart.
It's very important to note that Xkeyscore, and nearly all Snowden's revelations are related to the workings of the NSA. Diminishing the power of the CIA does nothing to diminish the power of the NSA.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to
Egypt or Bust – The Pedalling Machine Gunner (1998) – listen, I dare you.
So its not as simple as good or evil. We have to start asking ourselves better questions.
To be very clear about my attitude here Andin. I left New Zealand in 2003 because of New Zealand’s role in the Fiveeyes alliance, The New Zealand Government’s spying on New Zealand citizens, New Zealand’s support of the war in Afghanistan, the tacit auxiliary support of the war in Iraq. I left because I wanted no part in funding this expansionist and repressive ideology in “the name of democracy”. New Zealanders who have stood by for almost a year in the full and undeniable knowledge that at least 88 New Zealanders were spied on, stood by while Government(s) on New Zealanders, stood by while Kim Dotcom had his life fucked over, while you’ve shouted down people like Steve Barnes for suggesting there may be some wider conspiracy here, shouted down those lone voices who’ve from time to time emerged with allegations of Governments’ spying, while you’ve looked away during Operation 8, while a New Zealander was killed in Yemen for being a quote unquote terrorist. while even now with Edward Snowden’s evidence is released, even when Glenn Grenwald has stated:
virtually nobody in the political process, anyone outside of the military structure, even knows these partnerships exist.
Are you calling Glenn Greenwald a liar if you are, do so, don’t call me an asshole for making reasonable assumptions based on the massive body of evidence in the face of widespread apathy, that’s nothing but symptomatic of apathetic ostrich heading that got us here in the first place, and that’s how it happened. The chord augmented while you were liking someone on Facebook. Once again:
virtually nobody in the political process, anyone outside of the military structure, even knows these partnerships exist.
(For those with reading difficulty) It couldn’t be any clearer.
(unless of course your take is that he's just another left-wing conspiracy theorist)asshole
Agreed. While the rest of it was annoying, that and the diatribe immediately prior was simply nasty.No. I tell you what nasty is. Mass surveillance is nasty, Imperial expansion is nasty, spying on New Zealanders is nasty, successive democratic Governments fronting for foreign military and corporate ambitions….is nasty. Denying the truth is nasty, alienating those who for no benefit to themselves go out of their way in an attempt to wake you up to the truth is nasty.
That’s nasty.
Especially when these New Zealanders the you’re calling assholes and nasty are the New Zealanders who’ve been activists against this shit for well over 15 years. Livid, screaming at this shit. Wake the fuck up guys, it’s not and never has been me that was spying on you.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to
Katharine, though I don’t agree with everything in them by a big stretch I think these articles may offer some perspective. They are written by David Wong (Jason Pargin), author of John Dies at the End. He’s in the US where unlike our own John, Obama did come right out and admitted to this:
The 6 Weirdest Things We’ve Learned Since 9/11
7 Reasons the World Looks Worse Than It Really Is
One last thing, I do feel safer living in China than I ever did in New Zealand. But the biggest difference between the surveillance in these cases is that in China I know where I stand, while there, you’re stuck in limbo until someone in a position of power comes clean. Also here I’m an expat and China remains weary of diplomatic complications, though I’m regularly censored and an in no doubt the massiveness of it.
I’m sure many NZers still don’t believe the Moment of Truth, as for myself, all things considered, I’m stupefied by what I’ve observed this week.
#toomuchinfo