Posts by Danyl Mclauchlan
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
It looks to me as if the police might have been using the TSA as a simple effortless way to get intercept warrents authorised and then later on down the road they found themselves backed into a corner when they figured out they had to charge people with terrorism in order to present any of the evidence they obtained. It makes me wonder just how many intercepts they've applied for under this legislation and whether there's any way of finding that information out?
-
Meanwhile, the US approaches election year in its own unique way . . .
-
I don't see why it should be a question of an embarrassment for the Police.
How odd. Either the people charged were up to something or they weren't. If they were plotting something malicious the police failed to prosecute them for the appropriate crime (conspiracy to murder, say), and they now face only very minor charges. If they weren't plotting anything then the police have wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money on a snipe hunt while seriously damaging race-relations and embarrassing the government of the day. I don't see how this can be viewed as anything other than a catastrophe for the police.
-
PM & Police hysteria
Police Actions upon Ruatoki - detention, photos, & what happened with the school bus?
Who under took the Police invasion of Ruatoki & do we need them as it crosses over the SAS CTAGs role
Serindiptiy of the Raids & TSA going before Parliment
Will Broad or White take the honours or the chop?Well I'm no fancy big city psychic but my prediction is that the police will undertake a very careful investigation of themselves and find that all individuals involved were completely blameless. The problem will be revealed to be with some of their policies and procedures and a review will be undertaken to, uh, review them.
-
Yes, some employers really like programmers who write beautiful code that anyone could understand. But anytime that programmer wants a pay-rise, then they can be replaced more easily.
I worked for a bank in London who had a proud tradition of doing just that:
'Are these trading algorithms documented?'
'Yes Sir!'
'Good, now get out. You're fired.'So I set out to write the most incomprehensible code possible. Naturally I taught myself perl. I gave all my scripts names like 'ZAP!' and 'BAM!' A friend wound up supporting the trading floor for that bank last year and told me there were still cron jobs called 'ZAP' running that nobody dared shut down.
All this talk reminds me of The Story of Mel
-
The hallmark of a successful ad campaign seems to be the misuse of a song chosen because the chorus sort of sounds a bit like the message the ad is trying to get across.
One of the Reagan campaigns used 'Born in the USA' as a theme song, presumably because they never listened to any of the verses.
-
But we're supposed to have a right to protest, so I'm a little concerned that the PM sends the spies after anyone who does, especially the ones that write books or make movies critical of government policies, and I'm concerned whether they said something really stupid last year or not.
Do you really think all this is in Clark's best interests? She's about to enter an election campaign, her party is dying in the polls and now she faces the prospect of having all of her parties public events hijacked by a bunch of hysterical dread-locked jackasses wearing 'Free Che' tee-shirts.
I think the 'terrorist raids' are going to turn out to be an exercise in paranoid police idiocy, but I really don't think there's some sinister political motivation. They've already damaged Labours chances of taking back the Maori seats - this really was the last thing they wanted.
-
Truly. Barking. Mad.
Speaking of which, all of Trevor Loudens' Christmas's seem to have come at once. Trev is one of those Libertarians who thinks anyone who disagrees with his progressive notions of liberty and freedom should be arrested and imprisoned. I believe he's also Vice-President of ACT.
Trevor ties the 'Urewera 17' in which the Zapatistas in Mexico.
No, really.
-
Russell, I wouldn't mind 'what it says' if it could be relied on. The Lancet study really seems way off the mark. It's methodology is dodgy. But if it was near the 'truth', then fine. But 12,000 people a month dead because of the war since March 2003? Hmm. I certainly wouldn't like that.
Your argument seems to be that you don't think its true because you don't want it to be true, which isn't a terribly robust platform.
How unlikely is 12,000 dead a month when you consider that much of the country is without regular power and running water and contains several million homeless refugees? Even if you didn't have ethnic cleansing and civil war raging the death toll from starvation and disease in such circumstances is going to be very severe.
-
How many people would have been killed by Saddam if he was still in power? A lower number, but the country and its people have a chance of a decent future now, they had none whatsoever under Hussein.
This may have been true a year ago - its not any more. The people of Iraq no longer have a state; they have no central government and are largely ruled by decentralised religious militias, many of which are considerably more bloodthirsty than Saddam Hussein.
The Baarth government would kill you if they thought you were plotting against the state - many of the current militia's will kill you for being Sunni, or Shia'a, or Kurdish, or being a university professor or a women with a job.
In addition the people of Iraq now have the US army to contend with - and they'll blow up your house with gunships if they suspect there are 'terrorists' operating nearby, a peril that was not a feature of daily life under Saddam.