A geek is someone who has the knowledge of the geeky type stuff and has social graces.

A nerd is someone who has the knowledge but not the social graces, and a dork is someone who has neither.

Nerds are the type who live in their parents’ basements until they’re 45, whereas geeks are more normal.

— GeekDad contributor Matt Blum

This is what $50 of V looks like in my fridge. Now before you all carry on about how much I am a caffine junkie I have to make it clear that not all the drink is for me, I decided to shout my workmates a V each on Christmas Eve because we are all V junkies where I work.

In the fridge there are: 28 Cans of V, 8 Bottles of V, 4 Poweraide, 18 Cans of Coke, 1 Can of L&P, 6 Bottles of Beer

Can you see it?

A major hallmark of democracy is the ability to criticize the Government and to take protest action against it. A democracy is driven by the people not by the leaders. That is what makes the spying scandal more outrageous the mere fact that the police, the leaders in society are spying on those people who drive the society. This really grinds me.

The second is the SIG. Set up post 9/11. WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS. It has been 7 years already. We cannot use one terrorist attack killing 3,000 or so people in a country on the otherside of the world to justify our local actions or international wars killing hundreds of thousands for the next century. The madness must stop now.

I have been very busy over the last few weeks and haven’t had much time to blog or do anything much online. But I have been trying to follow the Police Spying Scandal because as the days role on it is getting deeper and much murkier.

Okay for those who haven’t been following the news recently here is a quick update: Last Sunday the Sunday Star Times (Newspaper) revealed that an key political activist was actually a police spy who had infutrated a number of left wing groups. He was reporting to the SIG a group set up after the 9/11 attacks in America to combat terrorism. The Police immediately claimed that the SIG was acting within its boundaries protecting NZ and not spying on activist groups. Since then it has been revealed that the Police through its SIG Counter-Terrorism Spying Taskforce has been spying on a number of political action groups, climate change groups, Greenpeace, the Green Party (yes the political party in parliament), a number of major workers Unions incluing UNITE, and the NDU, and students’ associations especially VUWSA.

Now this is nuts. There is a clear boundary between what is terrorism, what is a terrorist action, what is a threat to national security and the actions of small political lobby groups. I personally believe that if you have done nothing wrong then you should have nothing to hide. But that is not the issue here, the issue is police used a counter terrorism unit to spy on many harmless, democratic and legal political lobby groups.

There are two columns in today’s HoS which add more to this story (and be sure to read the other articles as well there are heaps of them - google is showing over 100 stories written already (http://news.google.co.nz/news?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&tab=wn&nolr=1&hl=en&q=police+spying&btnG=Search+News)

The first is Bill Ralston who calls for an inquiry into the issue:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10549093

Initially John Key, sensibly, said only those who “present a real or credible risk to the safety and security of communities” should be the subject of such investigations. He then passed the issue on to Judith Collins to sort out.

She spoke to Broad and promptly ruled out any need for an inquiry, saying Broad had assured her police were “meeting their responsibilities”. Hiding behind the old “Governments can’t interfere in police operations” line, Collins blithely accepted Broad’s assurance they were not targeting groups but individuals who might commit criminal acts.

Wrong. Emails from their spy show the SIG was targeting the activities of entire unions, including the EPMU, the CTU, the Maritime Union, and the Unite union.

Its spy also infiltrated the Green Party and reported on the plans of Greenpeace, conservation groups, climate change organisations, animal rights groups, and anti-war protesters.

Oh yes, police also used SIG surveillance to protect its own vested interests, targeting anti-Taser protests and investigating a man who is trying to take action against the police after he was pepper-sprayed.

The SIG was set up and received funding after 9/11 to combat the threat of terrorism. None of the groups listed even remotely come near that description. The SIG seems oblivious to the fact that peace groups are, by their very nature, largely peaceful in intent and, ironically, one of its targets, Greenpeace, is the only victim of terrorism in New Zealand.

You have to watch those dangerous unions. In emails to the SIG, its spy breathlessly reports that the NDU and EPMU were having a day of action and locked-out workers would be planning pickets and making banners. Shocking criminal acts that surely imperilled the safety and security of the community.

What has happened is that, in the hysteria after 9/11, the police got a big budget to set up the SIG which then found it had no real terrorism to combat. To protect its budget and its reason for being, the SIG and police then busied themselves with trivia.

Collins has more than enough evidence to show the SIG was acting outside its brief. She should set up a ministerial inquiry, with a QC or someone like the Ombudsman, verify the facts and get serious about cutting costs by axing the unit.

Yes that is right. The police are spying on the only group ever in NZ to have been targeted by terrorism! (and for those with poor knowledge of NZ history it is a reference to the 1986 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour by the French Secret Service.

The second column is by Matt McCarten head of the Unite Union and a victim of the police spying:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10549080

These groups which were being spied on are incorporated societies carrying out legitimate work on behalf of their members and supporters. They are democratic and transparent. No one has ever accused them of criminal behaviour, let alone terrorism.

…

Gilchrist started collecting information on our union three years ago. At that time we were running our SupersizeMyPay campaign, set up to abolish youth wages and raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour.

Through a combination of employer negotiations, community demonstrations and parliamentary lobbying, we won. Tens of thousands of workers have since had their wages lifted by more than $3 an hour, in large part because of this campaign, and youth wages were scrapped.

Are our spies seriously suggesting minimum wage workers and school kids working in fast-food restaurants were part of a budding al Qaeda network?

The actions of this spy unit go to the heart of our democracy. Frankly, their actions are worse than the so-called danger they claim to want to protect us from. What could be more of a threat to our society than a secret police force paying undercover “Walter Mitty-type” informants to infiltrate and secretly report on civil and political groups? Isn’t that what totalitarian governments do?

…

A meat worker who ran as a communist candidate in the last election was detained at Auckland Airport for four hours after returning from Australia. She was subjected to a humiliating strip search. Nothing was found. But what was disturbing is the Customs officers spent the whole time grilling her on her political activity and were well aware of her history.

The only way you can explain this is that a file has been compiled on her and given to other state agencies. If this doesn’t worry New Zealanders, we’re in real trouble.

…

The new Prime Minister, John Key, should agree to the request by the targeted unions for a full inquiry. If the unit has been spying on organisations carrying out lawful work, it should be disbanded and the Police Commissioner sacked.

In future, when our political leaders tell us we need greater police power to fight terrorism, just be aware it has little to do with keeping us safe and everything to do with keeping us under control.

And so we end up back with a scene from V For Vendetta.

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

Sure this happened a week ago but it is very funny.

Michael Cullen had great fun tripping up National over procedure at the start of the new Parliament last week. Watch a segment from it below:

Watching the video made me think of captioning what other people are thinking while this moot debate was happening. First up we have Roger Back From The Dead Douglas:

Here I am sure he is thinking: “Sell it off”, maybe I can start with Rodney’s Canary Yellow Jacket that would make me a fortune on Trade Me.

Next up we have Rodney Hide who tried to fight back against Cullen:

I bet he is thinking okay Cullen move on you made your point can I go to sleep like everyone else in this debating chamber now. I need to save my energy for denying Climate Change and your hot air isn’t helping my cause.

And finally we have the man himself Mr Johnny Key

Look at how he is slouching in his chair with the I’m too cool for school attitude. Resigned to the fact that his government just got made to look like the amateurs they are.

I got both Skillet’s Comatose Comes Alive and Rapture Ruckus’s Live at World’s End Live CD/DVDs yesterday.

What a contrast between the two albums.

Skillet’s album is fantastic. I mean more then fantastic. The DVD of the film is just amazing, lots of postproduction effects and a really good selection of songs accross their past few albums, and a one hour 20 minute show.

Rapture on the other hand is a 40 minute, 10 song show which is interrupted every second song by Parachute Music putting in a mini promo or message about something, I didn’t buy a live DVD to get advertising breaks. However the show itself is awesome.

Both albums also come with an audio cd version of the respective concerts which is good for the MP3 Player.