Zerodollars
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Still can’t post it. Maybe a Microsoft problem. They wouldn’t let you post a letter to Santa Claus if they thought that Santa Claus might be copyright to the North Pole.
And Windows 8.1 had an upgrade a couple of days ago. Thats always a worry . . .Dashed his off this morning. Pinched the original image from Sputnik (I don’t think they’ll mind).Free for all to use anwhere anyhow anytime. (I don’t believe in copyright).
Clicked on the “7510” video and all I get is the message
VIDEO UNAVAILABLE. Yhis video contains content from SME, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.
I Googled SME and got lots of suggestions including the Society of Mechanical Engineers, but I’m picking it might be SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.Life “Down-under” can be frustrating at times.
There is no “other” on planet earth, only “us”. ”
This is an old-ee but a good-ee, which never fails to fascinate me:
“The human body contains trillions of microorganisms — outnumbering human cells by 10 to 1. Because of their small size, however, microorganisms make up only about 1 to 3 percent of the body’s mass (in a 200-pound adult, that’s 2 to 6 pounds of bacteria), but play a vital role in human health.”
So enjoy your lunch, especially if it happened to be free, but remember its mainly for “those others” not for you.
“I’ve had dentists refuse me because I only use aspirin; refuse Paracetamol/Acetaminophen/Ibuprofen.”
Thats very interesting indeed! A few years back my GP put me on a heavy dose of Ibuprofen (for an arthritic condition). Within a couple of months I began developing a cataract in one eye, which progressed very rapidly. Rightly or wrongly I attributed the cataract to the Ibuprofen and refused to take it any more.
Some years later I developed a really painful bout of shingles, for which the GP prescribed heavy doses of Paracetamol. Within a short period, a cataract began to develop (from scratch – no prior indications) in the other eye.
So, like you, I now refuse to go anywhere near iboprofen or Paracetamol. I checked this out with my cataract surgeon – he told me that shingles can cause cataracts. I nevertheless remain skepical – is the cataract a result of the shingles or is it a result of the medications used to alleviate the discomfort of shingles? (The old “correlation does not imply causality” trap).
I’ve been a fan of Asprin all my life – somehow it just seems to ‘agree” with me. It is useful for thinning the blood in those of us who have blood types that coagulate all too readily (and are therefore likely to be hit by stroke if nothing else gets us first).
Asprin, i.e. salicylic acid. was originally derived by the Chinese from the willow (Salix) as a kind of herbal medicine. I was amazed to discover in Shanghai a few years back that it was only available by prescription (or the Chinese equivalent of that). Not sure if thats still the case, and may only apply to heavier doses of aspirin.
Dr D.
“ . . . but what can we each do but have our opinions?”
With that I absoulutely agree. So lets see if I can find anything else . . .
It seems to me that yours is a “Thin-edge-of-the-wedge” argument. That once we admit any kind of censorhip (e.g. a general ban on snuff videos or a specific ban on circulating the rambing diatribe referred to as our mosque-shooter’s manifesto or a ban on kiddi-porn videos on the internet), then censorship must inevitably escalate from that point (given an additional assumption that all governments have essentially malign intent with an end-goal of total control over their populace).
I think you might have confused Big American Corporate intent with small NZ Government intent but thats another story.
A lttle bit of history. When Jacinda was elected, a couple of years ago, she stated that she wanted to run a “government based on kindness” (or words to that effect.). You need to look at the government that she replaced in order to fully understand where she was coming from on this. There were her poltitical critics of course. “Impossible” they said. “It can’t possibly work.”
Me? Well as in Speilberg’s “Pinky and the Brain”, I thought “Well, Pinky, its wurf a crack”.
The Jury is still out on that, but we’ll see. She’s off on her first state visit to China this weekend, so that will be interesting.“ . . . but I can’t make the other kids LOVE you, and that’s really what we’re asking here, and although well meaning, it’s so diabolically tyrannical, it’s certainly the worst society that could be imagined.”.
I disagree. Its nothing to do with making the other kids love you. But it might have something to do with teaching kids to have RESPECT for others, whether you agree with them, like or don’t like the colour of their skin, their religion, their food, their culture. Or at very least it might have something to do with teaching the kids to respect the RIGHTS of others to exhibit these little cultural differences while at the same time living alongside you.
I could go on, but its looking like it would take all day and I had other things planned (and I haven’t even had breakfast yet)..
However I’ll end with a curious little news item that came out on Radio NZ yesterday: Since the mosque shootings, Immigration NZ has reported a big increase in applications from people applying for residency here. Broken down by countries of origin, the biggest increases were in applications from – wait for it – The United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
My misquote – with apologies:
QUOTATION: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
I took a closer look at Dr D’s statement: The bit that most interested me (for now) is this:
“What you CAN’T do – and again, this is the law everywhere and always – is ACTUALLY HARM someone. ‘Cause words are just cheap air, sound and fury, signifying nothing. A world where people are terrified of words alone is a world the weakest man who ever lived could conquer. ”(You could have added “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose . . . “. etc.)
I have to totally disagree that “words, unlike physical harm, do no real harm . . .” If i’ve correctly understood your thesis.
I rather doubt that Hitler was wasting his time when he wrote “Mein Kampf”. Or that Mao wasted his time writing “The Little Red School Book” . . . or that Churchill’s wartime speeches were just cheap air.
You are in fact merely raising a straw man when you state that ” A world where people are terrified of words alone is a world the weakest man who ever lived could conquer. ” I say thats a a straw man because words are never spoken or written in a situation that is devoid of CONTEXT. Put simply, there can never be a world ‘in which people are terrified of words ALONE – its a physical impossibility.
Consider the act of shouting “FIRE” in a crowded cinema where there is no fire versus shouting “FIRE” in a crowded cinema where there really is a fire. The physical context makes one helluva big difference to the meaning, significance, relevance, and in all likelihood the consquent overall harmfulness of the word(s).
I suspect that your interpretation of the meaning of the word “snowflake” – in its metaphorical extension of course – is very different from mine. As are your notions of “conquest” and “weakness” in terms of their relationship to the spoken word within the context of your thesis. (Which again, I genuinely hope I have not misinterpeted.).
But anyway, Lewis Carroll probably got it right when he said that “words mean whatever I intend them to mean” (Sorry, can’t remember the exact quote, but you’ll know what I MEAN.)
Just a couple of initial thoughts; I might get back on this tomorrow after sleeping on it. Or not, as the case may be. (Deliberately ambiguous, as is so often the case with what I seem to end up writing).
Cheers
– MInteresting posting, Dr D., thank you for writing it.
One thing I wondered, from the start, is whether or not it was a deliberate strategy on the part of Trump to simply allow the Mueller inv. to run on, under the assumption that if he gave them enough rope they would eventually hang themselves. (Quite apart from the obvious bad optics that would have arisen if he had simply moved at some point to close the thing down).
Also I sometimes wonder whether the investigation would have run for as long as it did, without the complicity or “cheer-leading” provided by the mainstream media to “egg it on”.
In the “good old days”, a newspaper or some other media outfit armed with old-fashioned integrity might have done a bit of invesigative journalism on the reputation of Steele himself and thereby cast a bit of doubt on the usefulness or otherwise of the entire Mueller exercise. As it happens, the whole thing seems to have depended upon the US Justice system turning a blind eye at the right moment, thereby failing to nip the thing in the bud (excuse the mixed metaphor).
But as you say, the MSM has been bought out by 5 or so corporates. (The way I heard it was that all of the “significant” media in the Western world are owned by six families).
I did see one posting somewhere that praised Steele and his experience/career backround to high heaven, but I took that to be a sponsored propaganda exercise.
We live in interesting times.
Well all thats really required is to simply “ban Hate-speech*. That would take care of this particular issue, along with many of the other problems that afflict the USA.
OOOps – I forgot.. Freedom of speech is one of America’s most cherished possessions; right up there with the right to bear arms. And Wall Street.
So YES, lock her up. Along with the rest of ’em.*
Thank you, Sir, for an interesting and thought-provoking post.
Cheers,
– M*p.s. It might be easier, and possibly less costly, to have a go at banning hate speech.
In my opinion, the Steele Dossier was little more than a piece of “hate-speech” that was permitted by the US authorities run amok. Paid for by Hillary and permited by “the system” to damn-near cripple Trump’s presidency (awful though it is) at horrendous cost to the taxpayers of a nation replete with crumbling infrastructure that is apparently too expensive to repair. The “revenge attack“ that will likely follow in all probability will be even more costly, and possibly more damaging to the international reputation of the USA. I’m not saying that a counter-investigation shouldn’t take place. It probably should within the parameters of the American “system”.
In NZ we march to the beat of a different set of drums. Banning certain examples of hate speech and some of its ramifications in a time of crisis is just one of those differences. If you are interested, try taking a look at our race relations and compare them to those of the USA. Not perfect here, but infinitely better than those of the United States. Or ask yourself how it is that our police can afford to be routinely unarmed while on patrol. Very different from the situation in the USA (We are currently in a state of heightened terror alert, so the police are, for the momemt, armed).
I am more than happy to be denied by our government the right to disperse hate speech in its various ramifications (in particular the so-called “written manifesto” that he sent to our PM’s office and a few other places, and the apalling live video that the mosque-shooter attempted to circulate internationally and has largely succeeded for the moment thanks to crap organizations like Facebook).
Because in exchange for this small incursion into my so-called “right to free speech” (Censorship,eh, Dr D.), I get to live in a country that is relatively free of the kind of absurdities that currently make the USA the laughing stock of the world.
I am extremely proud of the way that our country has reponded to this emergency.
Dr D.: . . . “And those are just a FEW routes by which to create a bubble every bit as anti-free-speech as New Zealand.”
Wrong.
We are not “anti-FREE-speech” in NZ. We are however “anti-HATE-speech”.There is a big difference.
To V. Arnold.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Here is just one link to a local news website. One of many stories concerning just one of the victims who survived.
I encourage everyone who is seriously interested in what REALLY happened (as opposed to the misinformation promulgated by the paranoid conspiracy theorists out there and their deluded misinterpretations of the facts) to spend a few minutes of their time browising this and other local news-sites.
There is a videoclip of the arrest of the terrorist out there somewhere. (Sorry, I just don’t have the time to track it down at the moment). It was shot on the cellphone of a driver who happened to be passing by at the time. There is also a vast amount of other information out there, for anyone who is interest in the truth about the events as they unfolded. Our local and National TV and radio ran non-stop news bulletins over the day’s events. Much of it was really harrowing stuff.
On the positive side, the outpouring of sympathy, empathy and love shown by thousands of NZers of all ages and all religions for our Muslim community was a sight to behold.
I find it almost unbelievable that many of the comments posted on some of the ‘conspiracy-theory oriented overseas websites can be so utterly ignorant and ill-informed.
– M
Yes, a touching article, and thank you for posting it.
As a local Christchurch resident, I was astounded at the number of posts on various websites (including, alas, one on this website I think) that were made by people who believe the whole thing was a false-flag “staged event”.
A lot of the posted trash seems to have originated from the “US Gun lobby”.
Just to clarify, the NZ Goverrnment has not banned guns; it is moving to ban semi-automatics and military-style assault weapons. Our government fully recognises and accepts the need for farmers, pest-control contractors and others to retain and use guns.
The ban on semi-automatics and assault-style weapons will need more work to be done around classification issues but at present the intention is for some kind of government buyback scheme to be implemented.
I am still seeing reports from ill-informed posters on sites like ZeroHedge that there was more than one gunman. the NZ police and pretty much everyone else in this country believe that the killings at both sites were carried out by the same person. They also believe that he was on his way to a third site when his car was rammed off the road by two brave “country cops” who then dragged him out of his car and arrested him, at considerable danger to themselves. They could have shot him dead in his car but chose not to. There were reports that the terrorist’s car had two improvised explosive devices attached to it. These two police in particular are heroes in the opinion of many of us. Overall, the police and the amulance services performed suberbly professionally in all respects in what was clearly an on-going and dangerous situation.
There were other heroic events. One in particuar is worth mentioning: A locally well-known Muslim who undoubtedly saved lives at the second mosque by grabbing the neaerst thing on hand as he rushed out his shop door to chase away the terrorist – an eftpos machine of all things. He threw this at the terrorist, then picked up the gun that the terrorist had dropped used it to break the windscreen of the car in which the terorist was fleeing the scene.
I know this all sounds very differnt from the screeds if ill-informed, ignorant, one-eyed ramblings that have been posted by commenters on some overseas web sites – Zero Hedge in particular.
What seems to be missing in so many of the comments that I have read with increasing anger over the past week is a complete lack of understanding of, and a total lack of empathy for the victims and their relatives. I was bought up to show respect for the dead, as were many others in this country. There seems to be nothing of this left in some communities if the comments on some of blogs are anything to go by. instead there seems to be a prevailing attitude that “we have the right to choose for ourselves what we watch on the internet.” The rights of others, far less fortunate than themselves, is apparently irrelevant to their way of thinking.
