According to the New Zealand Customs Service 2005-6 annual report, New Zealand is increasingly a staging post and destination for illegal trade; in particular, illegal drugs, pirated goods and objectionable material. They estimate that up to 10% of world trade is in pirated goods. A prime example of this trade is the recent […]

Black globalization, New Zealand, Terrorism | 4 Comments »

Here are two articles from Radio New Zealand about the Labour Party conference in Rotorua:

“Govt told to stand firm on tax cuts issue,” 10:42 am, 29 October.
“Labour Party conference ends with attack on National,” 4:03 pm, 29 October.

The time is different, but most of the paragraphs in the two stories are identical. There is […]

Politics, Labour, New Zealand | No Comments »

In Part 1 of my Extraterrestrial Life series, I posted about structures resembling trees and lichen in the southern polar region of Mars; said structures are posited by some to represent Martian lifeforms. Now it transpires that the phenomenon has it’s own Wikipedia article:
Martian “spiders” are geological formations thus far unique to the […]

Uncategorized | No Comments »

“A Mercenary Force for Darfur” - Max Boot on privatizing peacekeeping.

“The SAS and Other Demonic Forces”- interesting discussion of the “satanic ritual abuse” hysteria, and conspiracy theories in general.
Robotic exoskeletons.
“Australian Muslim leader compares uncovered women to exposed meat”
Paying African leaders to eschew corruption. When will NZ Prime Ministers become eligible for the prize?

Linkage, Mercenaries, Islam | No Comments »

Although we have found more than 200 extrasolar planets, we haven’t found any rocky ones (as expected by the crudeness of our current astronomical sensors). Luckily, there are plenty of rocky planets just a few months flight-time away from Earth. The two most likely candidates for human settlement are Mars and Venus.
Mars is […]

Venus, Mars, Science, Technology | 2 Comments »

In Part 1, I examined strange markings on the surface of Mars. In this post, we’ll focus on things a little closer to home. Crop Circles first started appearing in British fields in the late 1970s, and were instantly seized upon by UFOlogists, who soon labelled themselves ‘cerealologists’. They claim the circles are […]

Aliens, Science, Art | 8 Comments »

In a move which will shock Aussie and Kiwi expats - and possibly create a new black market - the US bans Vegemite.

Curzon of Coming Anarchy advocates environmental realism.

Australian special forces in Afghanistan: an amazing story, but what are the chances of seeing such info released by the New Zealand government?
Increased attacks on NZ police: […]

Linkage | 1 Comment »

John Robb ponders the future of cities. “Cities can be engineered to radiate instability rather than dampen it,” he points out. Irregular warfare, due to technological changes in the relative balance of power, has shifted from mountains and jungles to the interior of dense megacities. And according to Robb, small groups of […]

Infrastructure, Failed states | 1 Comment »

This executive power, with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its ingenious state machinery, embracing wide strata, with a host of officials numbering half a million, beside an army of another half million, this appalling parasitic body. . . enmeshes the body of French society like a net and chokes all its pores. […]

Quotable, Politics | 1 Comment »

Some thoughts today on nationalism, ethnic conflict and the future of Europe, prompted by a link in FP Passport to a Financial Times story about increased opposition to immigration in Europe.
“Lebanization”
Jean-Marie Guehenno, in The End of the Nation-State, warns of increasing “Lebanization” even in Western countries. His thesis is that nationalism is defined by […]

Europe, Islam | 1 Comment »