2024 Tiriti debate

If ever there were a politician who would benefit from some time out of Parliament, it is David Seymour.

Mostly as this would give Mr Seymour a chance to travel in the world, to gain perspective from outside the intense national microcosm in which politicians seem to hunker.

Which would be to discover how the outside world views New Zealand / Aotearoa.

From this perspective, Mr Seymour would appreciate, much as he may wish otherwise, that without Maaori culture to uniquely identify it, New Zealand would lack any recognisable personality at all.

Which is to say we would be completely lost, in profile, against the significant bulk of much larger European states from whence our dominant culture originates.

For Mr Seymour to assert there is no cultural partnership defining New Zealand, as codified most nearly in Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi, signed 1840), is just wrong on so many levels.*

Apart from the insult and ignorance the comment conveys towards ngaa iwi Maaori (all Maaori people), it can be unpacked as plain wishful thinking. Where population and economic trends indicate strong recovery from the depths of colonial oppression and displacement, that have taken well over a century to reassert, restraining this recovery for a target audience would seem to be Mr Seymour’s main purpose.

Then there is Te Tiriti itself.

“Partnership” is to forward a polite, beneficent term for the content and relationship created in The Treaty. In that the signatory chiefs, for their hapu and iwi (tribes and peoples), believed they were codifying governance authority over respective populations, with autonomy and backing from the Crown.

Of course this isn’t what soon unfolded. In that the Maaori believed Europeans were now organised to control unruly settlers and land transactions, for the benefit of all; while Maaori numerically and physically retained their broad and unquestioned authority (title) over the land and thought this could not change. Yet this would be the authority and majority that would now steadily and forcefully be wrested from them.

When words have unreliable meanings it is not hard to discover the source of the fudging, which was the establishment of British law as a model for justice, state definition and human rights: including language.

We are still in a process of defining, by growing agreement (consensus), veracity in a post-colonial world.

Truth becomes known in many tongues. It has a life of its own, outside single cultural control.

Ngaa mihi.

Kia ora

* https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/507272/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-partnership-a-misinterpretation-david-seymour-believes

Corporate fascism at #CCC: Sampson to resign #Christchurch City Council #NZLabour #nzpol #NewZealand #politics #Chch

New Zealand’s Labour Party are not trusted to govern. Such is Labour-bureaucrat hunger for power, wealth and influence that meaningful difference from the dominant National Party is long lost. Labour has cast principle of purpose aside and the public know it, distrusting evasive professional politicians. Action to rein in the runaway corporate salaries, corruption and control is what collapsing economies most need but instead Labour promotes these and obstructs any genuine opposition. Fixated upon parliamentary power in Wellington, at community level Labour’s lousy monopolist method is most readily exposed for overdue challenge.

So to the 2016 local elections.

From the Labour point of view (dishonestly branded “People’s Choice” in Christchurch) there are only two permissible actors: staff of the corporate council (that Labour battles head-on for control) and themselves. All other community voice – and actual democracy – Labour extinguishes in pursuit of absolute power. These politicians generate few ideas for solutions and specialise in obstructing other people’s (the public’s) ideas for solutions, or hijacking them sometimes instead. A monopoly of ideas works like that: primarily Labour must silence all visible alternative, by any desperate means that they can; corruption included (like National’s).

The mostly Labour people’s choice for the new south city ward has just been announced, as illustrated here:

Labour deceived people’s choices, 2016

These are all sitting representatives of the current Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board that the Labour-led council has just destroyed, stripping it of suburbs, history, and connection to the commercial inner city, but with one exception: Labour has decided to stand a senior council staff member for one of the public representative seats.

That’s right. Unbelievable but true – here in black and white print – Lee Sampson is a Senior Project Manager in Social Housing at Christchurch City Council and is proposed, by Labour, for election to a public representative decision-making seat!

Clearly Sampson cannot perform both roles, for that would be terrible conflict of interest: Sampson cannot represent both the council and its rate-paying public at the same time, or else this is pure dictatorship. Therefore Sampson must resign his council service role in order to be able to perform public representation. Sampson should do this immediately, if he has integrity, to make his loyalties and intentions clear to the public he now claims to represent!

That members Clearwater, Potter, Mautner and Coker should stand by, endorse and disguise such an appalling conflict of interest shows how far principle has fallen for each of them individually, in pursuit of outright power. And how ruthlessly desperate Labour always is to win, at any cost, to very clear detriment of democracy. The worst of it is the stupid arrogance that Labour selection seems to imbue its anointed local candidates with – all reason and listening is lost. Theirs are the only opinions brought to bear, thereafter.

Democracy is thus shown to have eroding value under Labour, which is why public decisions have also been going backwards with Labour monopoly of so-called ‘opposition’. Genuine public voice, Labour does not allow. Theirs is pretence, that political ‘left’ does not mean ‘right’ for them. Labour are professional frauds.

This explains why, under a Labour / “People’s Choice”-led council, where their party policy is ‘against’ public asset sales, corporatisation of City Care outdoor maintenance and council Social Housing have still proceeded.

New Zealand is unable to elect a different choice of government until it has thoroughly understood the so-called ‘Labour Party’, demolished it as a force and then swept it into the dustbin of history. Only then will Aotearoa-New Zealand society be able to progress past the rotten ravages of corporate fascism it now suffers systematically.

Kia ora

Ref. Southern View, 31-05-16, issuu.com/the.star/docs/116152ob, p.3.

Postscript – Fiddling while Rome burns

“#BREAKING: The Risingholme Community Centre in Chch has been destroyed by fire tonight. @NewstalkZB @nzherald” – twitter.com/lynchinnz/status/739748940900245504

“Second flare up at Christchurch’s historic Risingholme Community Centre” –
stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/80789078/fire-at-christchurch-community-centre

A horrible indictment of Labour-dominated community board, which was long-warned of this high risk to heritage but did nothing – except throw Opawa out of the ward area to advance their own career ambitions 😦 Awful loss.

FYI, re technologised work in ‘the brave new world’ – radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/queensbirthday/audio/201803432/how-to-fix-the-digital-economy-douglas-rushkoff

N.B. Post followed up here: riktindall.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/council-bullies-residents-dalziel-edwards-dictate-christchurch-adventure-park-ccc-local-democracy-chch-newzealand-nz/

#EQNZ update: worst-case scenario #NewZealand #earthquake

Noting a return of readers to my blog today, probably looking for New Zealand earthquake analysis, I will rattle this post off quickly, as a catch-up on a previously strong theme to my writing. Then I will take a good long walk to relax. As should we all.

Having accurately forecast, to within 50 minutes, a magnitude 4.7 Christchurch earthquake yesterday, what are my afterthoughts about this? Under-earth events continue for the country and are detailed here: “#Masterton‬ mag 5.2 ‪#‎eqnz‬ this morning is not alone..”[1] (Read research at footnote link). The title is only more fitting, a month to the day since it was written, when there have been two 5.2 magnitude earthquakes, this new morning. (Ironically, says the Moon Man?)

Stunning, really. Awesome Earth!

But what is the big picture, if I am asked?

Well, it’s not good. Not for New Zealand, one of the newest land masses and nations on the planet – it is likely to have to start again. In our lifetime? It seems / I would say, perhaps yes. Because a 330-year Alpine Fault cycle is sitting at year 299, approximately.

The tectonic motion we have begun to experience as a constant factor of the post-colonial state has the capacity to practically destroy it. In my opinion. A catastrophe so large is built into this land, Aotearoa – Land of the Long White [volcanic] Cloud – that it will surely cripple us one day. Soon? Hard to say. Why? It looks like this:

Current south-east/central North Island quakes are signs that the Australian Plate it is on is moving, a little bit more. When it finally gets going properly it will be a huge leap south-east, and this will spread the central plateau / Kermadec Arc enough for the Taupo super-volcano to explode again. That will obliterate the central North Island and disable both Auckland and Wellington.

What will initiate this calamity, however, will be almost as bad for the South Island  – a magnitude 8+ slippage of the Alpine Fault, disabling Christchurch and the then-isolated West Coast. This (long-term) ‘regular’ event constitutes the letting-off of the not-quite slow-moving tectonic brake, that is the Southern Alps, that keeps this geological system ‘stable’. A relative term. Long calm will resettle again, after many many large and small aftershocks.

Will Otago-Southland be left standing to pull us through? Let us hope so.

There is no way we can recover from this imminent (in our lifetime?) surety without massive international support and massive sacrifice of sovereignty.

Let us prepare for that transitional step now. However we are best able to.

But it may be that the next magnitude 8+ Alpine Fault earthquake does not release Taupo super-volcano.[2]  Let us hope so. ‘Not yet please.’  We are not ready. …

Is the Taupo volcano on a 5, 6 or 7 Alpine Fault-slip cycle? Some decade on from now, all New Zealand will be discovering this, as-yet hidden fact, together. It will be our darkest hour. Human spirit will pull through.

Kia kaha. Kia ora. Waimarie.

[1] facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209826325001836&set=a.1294734535479.2045005.1443783772&type=3

[2] “1800 years ago Taupo volcano in New Zealand had the largest volcanic eruption in the world for the last 5000 years.” sott.net/article/249473-Is-The-Super-Volcano-Taupo-in-New-Zealand-Awakening and see wikipedia.org/wiki/Taupo_Volcano “The main pyroclastic flow devastated the surrounding area, climbing over 1500 metres (5000 ft) to overtop the nearby Kaimanawa Ranges and Mount Tongariro, and covering the land within 80 kilometres (50 mi) with ignimbrite from Rotorua to Waiouru. Only Ruapehu was high enough to divert the flow.”

“Possibility of further eruptions on White Island remains high” 10 May 2016 m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11636672

“Mt Ruapehu still shaking” – top closed to public radionz.co.nz/news/national/303667/mt-ruapehu-still-shaking

“Aggressive 4.7 Christchurch shake centred close to February 22, 2011 earthquake”  stuff.co.nz/national/79890087/earthquake-rattles-christchurch and five hours later a “‘Strong’ earthquake shakes lower North Island” stuff.co.nz/national/79892918/Strong-earthquake-shakes-lower-North-Island 12 May 2016 – graphic, GeoNet.org.nz/quakes/drums:

Update 30/5/2016

Scientists prepare for Lake Taupo eruption

“A team of researchers is studying the volcano so better response plans can be put in place in case of a large eruption. The Earthquake Commission said damage from the last time the volcano erupted – almost 1800 years ago – would be large enough to destroy the central North Island…”
radionz.co.nz/news/regional/305214/scientists-prepare-for-lake-taupo-eruption

Understand that the Taupo Volcanic Zone, stretching from Mount Ruapehu to north of White Island, marks the southern pin of the broad Kermadec Arc and basin, a massive slow-spreading rift in the Earth that forever thins its crust. From this steady motion – eastwards, of the Australian Plate – re-eruption of Taupo Volcano is inevitable. It isn’t the centre of the North Island for no reason – it explains why the island is above water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taupo_Volcanic_Zone

Subduction Zone diagram

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lau_Basin + Graphic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-arc_basin

The 5th most explosive volcano event known to human scientific records:
Name: Whakamaru
Zone: Taupo Volcanic Zone
Location: New Zealand, North Island
Notes: Whakamaru Ignimbrite/Mount Curl Tephra
Years ago (approx.): 340,000
Ejecta bulk volume (approx.): 2,000 km³
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervolcano#VEI_8

Later, “Earth’s most recent eruption reaching VEI-8, the highest level on the Volcanic Explosivity Index” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taupo_Volcanic_Zone –

“The Ōruanui eruption (about 26,500 years ago) covered much of the central North Island with ignimbrite, up to 200 metres deep. Ash fallout was spread by the wind over the entire North Island, much of the South Island, and a large area east of New Zealand, including the Chatham Islands. About 1,200 cubic kilometres of pumice and ash were rapidly ejected. This caused a large area of land to collapse, forming the caldera basin now filled by Lake Taupō.”

…”Big bang – The Ōruanui eruption was so enormous that it is hard to visualise. In only a few days or weeks it ejected enough material to construct three Ruapehu-sized cones. After the eruption, the new lake gradually filled to a level 140 metres above the present lake. The lake broke out to the north, resulting in a huge flood. For several thousand years the Waikato River flowed northwards into the Hauraki Gulf, but it later changed its course to flow through the Hamilton lowlands to the Tasman sea.”

Then, …”Taupō eruption – The most recent major eruption of Taupō volcano took place in late summer–early autumn around 200 AD, from vents near Horomatangi Reefs (now submerged). The eruption produced a towering ash column, resulting in tephra-fall deposits over a wide area from Hamilton to Gisborne. The airfall deposits were much thicker to the east of Taupō because the eruption column was blown in that direction by strong westerly winds. The eruption column was followed by a devastating pyroclastic flow, blanketing a roughly circular area within 80 kilometres of Lake Taupō with ignimbrite, and destroying all life in its path. The ground-hugging pyroclastic flow appears to be one of the most powerful ever recorded, and was able to overtop Mt Tongariro and the Kaimanawa mountains, climbing 1,500 metres in a matter of minutes. The outlet of Lake Taupō was again blocked during the eruption, and the lake level rose to 34 metres above its present height, forming a widespread terrace. The lake eventually broke out in a huge flood whose effects can be traced for over 200 kilometres downstream, and include boulder beds and buried forests.”
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/volcanoes/page-5

That is, the same most recent was, the ‘Hatepe eruption’: “considered New Zealand’s largest eruption during the last 20,000 years.. ejected some 120 km3 (29 cu mi).. of which 30 km3 (7.2 cu mi) was ejected in the space of a few minutes. This makes it one of the most violent eruptions [on Earth] in the last 5000 years.. Tsunami deposits of the same age have been found on the central New Zealand coast, evidence that the eruption caused local tsunamis” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatepe_eruption

“Radiocarbon dating indicates an uneven spacing of Taupo’s eruptions, from decades to thousands of years apart. This makes it difficult to forecast when the next eruption will occur and how big it will be.” http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/volcanoes/page-5

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php#supv

http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com

http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake

Update 4/6/2016
“Magma chamber blamed for Bay of Plenty earthquake swarm.. study found the previously unrecognised magma body caused several thousand small earthquakes between 2004 and 2011.. expansion of the molten rock chamber approximately 9km below Matata has pushed up 400 square kilometres of land by 40cm.. something was accumulating at a depth of around 9.5 to 10km beneath the Earth’s surface.. The magma body could have been there for centuries or more.. The area was a ‘rift zone’ where over time the crust had been stretched and thinned – but it was not clear whether the crust was already thin, or the magma made it thin. ‘It is probably a thinner crust than the average you’d find elsewhere.. But what happens is as you stretch the crust and the hot rocks beneath come to a shallower depth, as they become shallower they get less pressure, which actually then enables them to melt and become magma. That magma, because it’s less buoyant than the surrounding rock, it then wants to percolate up through [into the crust]'”, RNZ – radionz.co.nz/news/national/305592/magma-buildup-blamed-for-quakes & Science Advances article, “results suggest that the continued growth of a large magmatic body may represent the birth of a new magma chamber on the margins of a back-arc rift system” – advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/6/e1600288.full
“A huge deposit of magma has been detected just 9km below a small North Island town – and scientists say it may be causing earthquakes. Matata is nestled between Tauranga and Opotiki, and new research using satellite image, GPS data and surveying has revealed the molten secret. The level of the town has been steadily rising over the last few years – up to 10mm per year of uplift, but it is now beginning to slow to about four-five millimetres per year. Scientists are confident there will not be an eruption in the near future, but say they will continue to monitor the magma field”, TV1 – tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/huge-field-molten-magma-found-under-north-island-town
“Rising magma to blame for swarm of quakes”, TV3 – newshub.co.nz/nznews/rising-magma-to-blame-for-swarm-of-quakes-2016060400
“Volcano status and notifications come to the GeoNet app – With the flurry of volcano activity last month, we’re pleased to add some new features to the GeoNet app so you can keep an eye on them, too”, GNS 30May2016 –
info.geonet.org.nz/display/appdata/2016/05/30/Volcano+status+and+notifications+come+to+the+GeoNet+app

Update 17/6/2016

Lake Tarawera water warning, 10 Jan 2015 – “People are being warned not to drink water from Lake Tarawera or swim in it after locals noticed the water was discoloured. It was reported to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council yesterday by Hot Water Beach residents. The council says geothermal activity could be to blame for the water’s white, milky appearance. Samples have been taken to test for the presence of algal blooms. The results are not due back until next week.”
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/lake-tarawera-water-warning-2015011012

Lake Tarawera tests positive for algae, 15 Jan 2015 – “Lake Tarawera has tested positive for potentially toxic blue-green algae, but a health warning will not be issued. The confirmation comes after samples were taken from the lake last week, as well as Te Rata Bay near Hot Water Beach. The lake is at ‘amber alert’, meaning the situation will continue to be monitored. ‘The blue-green algae identified are potentially toxic but the levels of algae are below health guidelines,’ says Bay of Plenty Regional Council science manager Rob Donald. ‘We recommend that people do not swim in the water if it is discoloured.’ Blue-green algae only recently arrived in New Zealand, but has already taken its place in lakes throughout the North Island. It causes water to appear green and cloudy, and sometimes green specks will be visible.”
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/lake-tarawera-tests-positive-for-algae-2015011517

Mt Tarawera vent erupts after 35-year slumber, 17 Jun 2016 – “One of the geothermal vents in Mt Tarawera’s Raupo Pond Crater came alive for the first time in 35 years last month, according to GeoNet. The Mud Rift feature — a 6m-wide, 36m-long, 15m-deep vent formed in 1906 that has been lying dormant since 1981 — was activated sometime between May 17 and 20 this year. A blog on the GeoNet website suggests the eruption was a fleeting event, and involved fluids flooding into the vent and causing ‘stress and browning off’ of surrounding plants. It says the eruption was mainly steam-driven, and involved plenty of water, creating what has been likened to a ‘muddy geyser’.”
newshub.co.nz/nznews/mt-tarawera-vent-erupts-after-35-year-slumber-2016061716

Update 27/7/2016
It appears this blog post has been read and authorities are now responding:
stuff.co.nz/national/82524357/team-granted-funding-to-plan-response-for-alpine-fault-megaquake

– Noting that a Megaquake could hit central New Zealand, Stuff 19 May 2015, motivating research like Simulation of a Magnitude 8.4 Megathrust Quake in New Zealand, GNS Science youtube, 12 November 2015

Stuff graphic – “Megaquake could hit central New Zealand” – 19 May 2015

#Occupy #Christchurch book-launch soon #OChch #OWS #OccupyNZ

Occupy Christchurch: In Our Own Words

Occupy Christchurch, Information, October 2011

A lot of excellent oral history work by Byron Clark is soon to add to the written record of the late-2011-to-early-2012 Occupy movement moment in New Zealand. The content progress can be followed and listened to here: archive.org/details/OccupyChristchurch

Transcript for Kindle available online here:
goodreads.com/book/show/29745296-occupy-chirstchurch-in-our-own-words

Watch for a publication date here:
amazon.com/Occupy-Christchurch-Our-Own-Words-ebook/dp/B01DMEOV5U

Well done OChch and Byron! Thank you for all your efforts.

Here’s the project website: occupychristchurch.nz

I will next write a blog post inspired by reflection upon the collective Occupy Christchurch experience, as now expressed through Byron’s work. The aim is for this to become an informed philosophical and practical talk, to also be presented soon. We look forward to the book launch!

Kia ora. Kia kaha. Ka kite ano.

Update 6May16
Occupy ref. “Noam Chomsky on the death of the American Dream
Famed scholar, activist and political theorist Noam Chomsky talks frankly to Nine to Noon’s Katherine Ryan about politics, society and his new film, ‘Requiem for the American Dream’. Filmed over five years, the 87 year old unpacks the US policies of the past half-century which have lead to an unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of the select few. The documentary gets its New Zealand premiere at this years Documentary Edge International Film Festival It screens in Wellington today and on Sunday and in Auckland on Tuesday May 24th and Saturday May 28th.” radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201799712/noam-chomsky-on-the-death-of-the-american-dream

‘Protest Is Broken’: Co-Creator of Occupy Wall Street Calls for New Mental Shift occupy.com/article/protest-broken-co-creator-occupy-wall-street-calls-new-mental-shift  “Occupy.. was a ‘constructive failure’” 2 July 2015 “..the main trigger for the next revolutionary movement will be a contagious mood that spreads throughout the world and the human community. For me, the main thing we need to see is activists abandoning a materialistic explanation of revolution – the idea that we need to put people in the streets – and starting to think about how to spread that kind of mood, how to make people see the world in fundamentally different way. That’s about it. The future of activism is not about pressing our politicians through synchronized public spectacles.. In the long run, it is much better to develop nonviolent tactics that allow you to create a stable and lasting social movement” – re new book:  The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution by Micah White micahmwhite.com/the-end-of-protest-micah-white-phd 15 March 2016

Alan Turing: The Imitation Game review. #AlanTuring #computer #history #Enigma #mythology #TheImitationGame

Thank you to all involved in making The Imitation Game film – writers, director, producer, cast and crew, etc. It is a truly insightful watch, a most excellent movie.[1] What it taught me anew was the moment of history, when war became won not by physical, material force, but by power of abstraction, by calculated information. Horrendous propaganda was met on its own terms, breaking new ground. The film too is a product of this, with shaping mythology a never-ending task – much like the mathematics profiled.

Alan Turing photo licensed under Fair Use via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alan_Turing_photo.jpg

Alan Turing’s ‘math’ (for he studied at Princeton which clearly had consequences) – arguably the pinnacle of British science in the twentieth century – cohered a team that defeated Nazi dictatorship and the leading German science of the day: there’s was rocket technology, e.g. (more on this later).
The Imitation Game portrays gargantuan subtle shift in the World War II balance, in a thoroughly believable way, and the lesson here is one every human being will benefit from learning. Immensely.
For we are all drawn ever-deeper into the technical result of Turing’s practical and theoretical work, every day – such as your ability to read this review, over ICT.[2]
The greatest mystery of our lives unfolds before our eyes – ‘the Universal Machine’ that Alan Turing uniquely conceived.
That The Imitation Game focuses liberally on Turing’s divergent, non-mainstream sexuality, that could yield no progeny, mostly misses the point, the meaning of his life. One could ask why; or just provide an alternative script..
.
Creative Britain (no, Hollywood!) proudly relates its 1940s propaganda war victory in The Imitation Game which endeavours to extend the role: many are sacrificed for the benefit of the most, purportedly, in this scenario. Turing’s ‘character flaw’ is magnified to explain his reported suicide, in the dramatisation of his life, where much more plausible is his Cold War murder. If Turing did tell his story to the Manchester detective as the movie depicts, then he had breached the state secrecy demanded of him (also shown in the movie: “If any of you breathe a word of this you’ll be hanged for High Treason”) and signed his own death warrant, effectively.
The question is, though, which secret service assassinated Turing – the British or the American? Or both together? Despite wartime integral connection, in 1954 both were building hegemony against Stalinist Russia. Bigger than this collaboration, they were at commercial conflict with each other by then too, founding competitive computer industries out of times of deep economic depression and destruction. So the United States probably had most to gain from Turing’s premature departure. A fair assumption to make, given what was at stake and what wasn’t. Turing’s post mortem report says “Death appeared to be due to violence.”[3]
But The Imitation Game maintains form and sets up the metaphors, determinedly, of the received version of Turing’s death: the cyanide spilt in the break-in and the apple shared as chief symbolic means of disassociation remedy. In this way it regurgitates the myth of a fatally flawed personality ending itself. Too convenient. Turing wasn’t unhappy. Turing knew too much.
The Imitation Game falls short of telling Turing’s main story, of documenting his real significance – the system value he created and lost. Whereas the Soviet access to academic English intelligence was part of Allied victory and explained in the film, post-war this became intolerable. Where doubt may have existed over Turing’s promises and stability, at that time could his secrets be left at risk? No, and there was likely gain in their extinguishing.
What The Imitation Game omitted, as what happened next after the breaking of Enigma, was the probably more important part of cryptographic history. And that was how Allied signals became superior.
The trans-Atlantic cable, dating back to telegraph days, could be tapped by Nazi submarine and obviously was – in the same way that Enigma-encoded radio messages could only be sent in plain sight, on public airways. What the secret breaking of Enigma-code allowed was a higher form of encryption to be invented, using the mathematical algorithms that Turing pioneered. It was these new mechanically induced algorithms that gave birth to modern digital computing.[4] Their immediate value was to securely encode trans-Atlantic signals, and these helped essentially to co-ordinate fighting resources and quicker, less expensively, win the war.
Turing’s time in America, as well as advancing his algorithmic capacity, eased the way for placing cypher and decyphering equipment at either end of the trans-Atlantic cable. This was the world’s first reproduced manufacture of a programmable computer, based on the Polish Bombe model prototype perfected by Turing and his team at Bletchley Park. It necessitated immediate shipping to the United States, which stopped any notion of copyright at step one, and the modern computer era was born – Made in the UK, and with the task of encryption and decryption over the first-ever leg of internet cable converted as its founding application – truly the century’s technical breakthrough, which the next century would open still at siege to.
But if the Germans could never access what was transmitted inside the Atlantic data cable at that time, neither could the Russians ever be allowed to.
Alan Turing’s liberal university background created doubt intolerable at the height of the McCarthyist witch-hunt: “Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested in 1950 on charges of stealing atomic bomb secrets for the Soviets and were executed in 1953.” And, the culmination of his work, built on top of Princeton US mathematical experience – Turing’s algorithmic discoveries as intellectual property – had already been transferred; under wartime conditions bankrupting of Great Britain (duress). More than just a security risk, by the 1950s Alan Turing had been made ‘expendable’.[5]
The story of the American space program, into which German scientists were shipped wholesale post-war, is very well known: success built upon that of V1 and V2 rocketry that rained automaton terror on Great Britain during The Blitz, though ultimately failing. – To where would the yet unseen impact of the V3 be directed?
The modern computer industry is the inside, even more influential story – only the contributing country was not a wartime enemy this time, but the main United States ally held over a barrel. Capitalism’s new headquarters gathered in resources cunningly from all over the globe, enabling imperial expansion on a whole new scale.
Alan Turing’s sacrifice was one further price to be paid by a long-running but finally eclipsed British Empire: trade secrets kept safe, down-payment on Cold War security.
Postscript: Author Roger Bristow, “72, who was a founder member of the Bletchley Park trust, is a former mayor who has spent almost 30 years researching Turing and his work. He has used the post-mortem evidence to develop a theory that the scientist was carrying out secret code-breaking work before his death. And he says the FBI wanted him dead because he held ‘damaging information’ on Russian agents who had managed to get themselves into top American Government jobs.”[6]

[1] The Imitation Game http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/ 2014 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_Game see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CjKEFb-sM

[2] ICT = information and computer technology

[3] What ‘The Imitation Game’ didn’t tell you about Alan Turing’s greatest triumph, 20 February 2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/what-imitation-game-didnt-tell-you-about-alan-turings-greatest-triumph/2015/02/20/ffd210b6-b606-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html “Alan Turing.. did as much as anyone to create the digital revolution that continues to erupt around us” – well-researched article with academic video clips, which include a still of Turing’s post mortem report: “Death appeared to be due to violence.”

[4] The computer algorithms that run our lives, 23 February 2015 http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/20168287/the-computer-algorithms-that-run-our-lives “Seeta Gangadharan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Open Technology Institute in Washington DC. She discusses the automated systems, known as algorithms, that are replacing human discretion more and more often. Algorithms are a simple set of mathematical rules embedded in the software to complete a task. They allow google to rank pages according to their relevance and popularity when people conduct an internet search, and allow internet sites like Amazon and Netflix to monitor our purchases and suggest related items. But open technology advocates say there is not enough oversight of these algorithms, which can perpetuating poverty and inequality.” – 20-minute audio.

[5] Alan Turing: Inquest’s suicide verdict ‘not supportable’ http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092 “the investigation was conducted so poorly that even murder cannot be ruled out.. ‘In a way we have in modern times been recreating the narrative of Turing’s life, and we have recreated him as an unhappy young man who committed suicide. But the evidence is not there.'” 26 June 2012

[6] Was Alan Turing’s death MURDER not suicide? http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alan-turings-death-murder-not-4799480 12 December 2014

Further reading:

“a number is computable if its decimal can be written down by a machine” – Alan Turing, On Computable Numbers, With An Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, 1936 http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf

http://www.biography.com/people/alan-turing-9512017

Turing Committed Suicide: Case Closed

http://www.ip-performance.co.uk/alanturingpostmortemexaminationreport.php

CHAPTER 23 “The third possibility, that Turing was murdered, might seem far-fetched, yet stranger things have been done in the national interest. There was a Cold War on. Could there have been an ‘operation ruthless’ against Alan Turing himself, now that he had managed to get himself classified as one of Europe’s security risks? In 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy had initiated America’s hysterical ‘McCarthy era’, and by the end of 1953 McCarthyism was in full spate. McCarthy declared that homosexuals who were privy to national secrets threatened America’s security.35 In Britain, David Cornwell—better known as novelist John Le Carré—worked for both MI5 and MI6 during the 1950s and the 1960s. Cornwell told the Sunday Telegraph in 2010: ‘We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations, at arm’s length.’36 ‘We did some very bad things’, he said. There is a bare possibility that Turing was murdered, but in terms of evidence the most that can said be said for this hypothesis (apart from the curious business about the shoes) is that Turing was clearly on the security services’ radar during the previous year’s ‘Kjell crisis’, described in Chapter 10.” Ref.36 ‘British spies carried out assassinations during Cold War, claims former agent Le Carre’, Mail Online, 29 August 2010. http://www.beck-shop.de/fachbuch/leseprobe/9780199639793_Excerpt_001.pdf

Was Bletchley Park code breaker Alan Turing murdered? Shocking claims made by former Milton Keynes mayor http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/local/was-bletchley-park-code-breaker-alan-turing-murdered-shocking-claims-made-by-former-milton-keynes-mayor-1-6467202

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/was-alan-turing-murdered-author-roger-bristow-says-yes.html “Turing had been doing some secret work just before he died. Roger Bristow maintains that the German Enigma code cracker was killed by the FBI because he held secrets that were either intensely embarrassing or damaging. The author further said that before he died, Alan Turing had been working on operation Verona, a top secret affair, which dealt with the deciphering of wartime radio signals for the identification of Russian agents sent as spies in the United States. According to him, several of these agents were able to penetrate prominent positions in the government including one who became a personal assistant to then US President Franklin Roosevelt.” Ref. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2870499/Was-Alan-Turing-murdered-New-book-claims-Enigma-machine-genius-didn-t-kill-all.html 11 December 2014

A Poor Imitation of Alan Turing, 19 December 2014 http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/ “even if you believe that Turing was driven to his death, The Imitation Game’s treatment of his fate borders on the ridiculous.”

Decoding Apologies to Alan Turing: Is Post-Mortem Pardon Meaningless? 31 December 2014 http://www.thecritique.com/articles/decoding-apologies-to-alan-turing-is-post-mortem-pardon-meaningless/ “In particular, the circumstances surrounding Turing’s prosecution and death have long been suspicious. Is there more to the story, and might it require government cooperation and a team of investigative historians to get to the bottom of it? I do not mean to stoke conspiracy, the McCarthy-era paranoia about ‘perverts’ going rogue and trading military secrets for gay Soviet sex makes one wonder.”

http://sites.duke.edu/randomthoughts/2015/01/18/two-movies-about-alan-turing/

The Long Road to ‘The Imitation Game’ http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/the-business/the-long-road-to-the-imitation-game “Director Morten Tyldum and writer and producer Graham Moore tell Kim Masters how the journey of making their Oscar-nominated film about codebreaker Alan Turing started years ago at a fateful cocktail party. Former sitcom writer and novelist Graham Moore and Norwegian director Morten Tyldum may seem like an unlikely pair to be behind The Imitation Game, a movie about a British mathematician in World War II. They were brought together by an independent producer who snatched up the script after it languished at a studio for a year. Now, their indie about Alan Turing is up for eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director and best screenplay. Today, Alan Turing is considered the father of computer science. But the genius who broke Germany’s Enigma code during World War II–saving countless lives as a result–was never publicly recognized for his achievements during his lifetime–or for many years after his death at age 41 in 1954. Rather he was persecuted for homosexual acts, which remained illegal under British laws that weren’t wiped from the books until 2003. Turing was granted a posthumous pardon in 2013.
In The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch plays a very eccentric Turing in a role that earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor. The film garnered eight nominations total, including including best picture, best director and best screenplay. But for years, it looked doubtful that the film would ever even get made. Our guests, director Morten Tyldum and writer and producer Graham Moore, may seem like an unlikely matchup on this project. The Imitation Game is Tyldum’s first film in English and former sitcom writer Moore’s first film period. They tell Kim Masters about the film’s creation story, from how it grew out of a chance run-in at a cocktail party, to a “lost year” at Warner Bros, to a hungover casting conversation held via Skype. Throughout it all, they were determined to stay true to their vision of telling the story of a genius and a hero, a man who was unfairly persecuted, and whose achievements had been kept secret for far too long.” – 20-minute KCRM.com audio.

Alan Turing 1912–1954

Alan Turing: The Enigma biographer website.

AlanTuring.net computing history archive.

The Turing Digital Archive TuringArchive.org

Wondering why anyone should care to write this? – There are legion amateur computing fans and everyday users not even knowing that they are (upon smartphones and touchpads). We don’t all look up to Steve Jobs or Bill Gates for inspiration, and often find, when we do look, Alan Turing’s versatile AI ideas to deify instead.

The closing scene of The Imitation Game, positing a broken Turing in love with Victory machine (somehow renamed “Christopher”) as pitiful and demented substitute for true human bond, is worse than fiction. It is sheer insult, making fetish of the individual.

The gratuitous fantasy can only serve to provoke comments like “F___ you, Weinstein. Just what are you trying to hide?” …

Nexus Turing, war became primarily one of information flow (over that of destructive arms). Which can give us hope for building a better world, starting immediately..

[Text under development – more editing likely.]

See https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=y1MjDgAAQBAJ, The Turing Guide, By Jack Copeland, Jonathan Bowen, Mark Sprevak, Robin Wilson, Oxford University Press 2017.

New Zealand drought #Canterbury #water #poem #NewZealand #drought #poetry #NZ

Dry dry dry

Ye desolate land

Where farmers flounder

And as politicians filch

To scratch a way

Through nature’s limit

Where there is none

To be found

Under ground

Over burden

Aquifers empty

Rivers a ruin

Thy cows do curse us

Dry dry dry

New Zealand drought

Irrigation storage depleted – just-food.com pic

Graphic: “Global Risk Perception Survey of 900 experts rated water crises as the ‘greatest risk’ facing the world” http://www.just-food.com/comment/new-zealand-drought-could-hit-dairy-sector_id128857.aspx New Zealand drought could hit dairy sector, 16 January 2015
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Opuha Dam, Feb 2015 pic – Stuff

Graphic: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/agribusiness/66084122/drought-declared-for-larges-swathes-of-south-island Drought declared for larges swathes of South Island, 12 February 2015

References:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/10713427/Opuha-near-low-record Opuha near low record, Concern at dropping lake level, 7 Nov 2014

Flounder invasion hits Caroline Bay http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/flounder-invasion-hits-caroline-bay-2015012318 23 Jan 2015 + “a ‘boom year’ for flounder.. the best flounder season in the past 21 years” http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/65287871/Couple-face-fines-for-huge-flounder-catch Couple face fines for huge flounder catch, 22 Jan 2015

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/265927/drought-declared-in-south-island Drought declared in South Island, 12 February 2015

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/rural/266040/opuha-dam-to-stop-all-irrigation Opuha dam to stop all irrigation, 13 February 2015

https://www.niwa.co.nz/climate/information-and-resources/drought

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/climate

Last year was Earth’s hottest on record, U.S. scientists say http://www.trust.org/item/20150116194647-nykz3 Reuters, 16 Jan 2015

Kern River, California – No Diving irony

Graphic: “An estimated $1.2bn (£790m) in maize, soy and wheat crops may be at risk in US states where competition with industrial water users, especially fracking, is high” http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/feb/10/us-food-oil-gas-water-shortages US harvest threatened by water-intensive oil and gas boom, 10 Feb 2015

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_27419553/driest-january-history-bay-area-swings-from-boom Driest January in history: Bay Area swings from boom to bust after wettest December

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/02/12/science/ap-us-sci-worse-droughts.html Study Sees Even Bigger Longer Droughts for Much of US West, 12 Feb 2015

http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/DroughtintheDustBowlYears.aspx

Starved for Energy, Pakistan Braces for a Water Crisis http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/world/asia/pakistan-braces-for-major-water-shortages.html 12 Feb 2015

McCarten Hehir Peterson union corruption: why #NewZealand sees no #Labour leader #dirtypolitics #NZLabour #nzpol #NZ

The fake-left dirty politics exposed in my previous post can be seen as Labour’s as well as Mana’s fatal flaw: trade union corruption distorting the public realm. The historic task of the New Zealand labour movement is to cast representative failings aside, and chart a courageous new course for honest direct democracy today.

The clandestine back-room dealing, plots and monopoly tactics, that discredited Mana so badly in 2014, are syndicalist labour methodology that simply has to go. It isn’t good enough to replicate National capital manipulations, on behalf of a counter-posed working class, and expect to win. The world deserves much better, through ethical and modernised inclusion.

David Cunliffe, Grant Robertson, Andrew Little, David Parker, David Shearer? and …? contest for Labour leadership, October 2014 – Newspix/NZ Herald

When the Mana Party imploded in the 2014 general elections, it was from abandoning democracy. Inside Mana, in Te Tai Tonga (the south) electorate experience, Unite union was extending corrupt hegemony over the left through amoral administrators Gerard Hehir and Ben Peterson – as a short-cut image recovery from the P-seller conviction of Peterson’s predecessor. They did this by shutting down any competing leadership voice within Te Tai Tonga, using Stalinist Fightback hatchets led by Grant Brookes. This foul play synchronised Labour campaign strategy, of stopping left candidates from competing with them in any sensitive general seats, making Matt McCarten – National Secretary for Unite and David Cunliffe’s campaign manager for Labour – a master manipulator at the tree top.

All these corrupt and anti-democratic, shady and opaque, trade union dirty politics must go, for New Zealand to breathe fresh and invigorating democratic air.

In the digital age, voter re-engagement and parliamentary bloat necessitate online direct democracy in the vision for a progressive future. Watch this space for more policy details and a whole new credible politics just waiting to be born.

Kia ora.

The end of identity politics? #NZpol #NZLabour #NewZealand #vote2014 #Scotland

What do the Scottish national No vote, erosion of Māori Party and Mana Party vote and transfer of all but one of the Māori electoral seats to Labour – despite this party’s trouncing in the New Zealand general elections – all have in common, in September 2014? – The decline of identity politics.

A product of more prosperous times, advocacy for difference no longer wins votes. More like, it rankles – as machines of uniformity roll forward. If voters are seeing any point at all, it is in greater unity of purpose.

People are far more interested in what they share in common: getting along in life with more job choice in a dynamic economy. Affordable housing is an elusive dream that all have incentive to chase – security rests nowhere else, it seems, nor even always there. This simple formula explains National’s thumping victory in the polls. Winners are emulated and adored, getting on with it; while whingers spin wheels and waste time.

‘Whining’ from special interest groups, that gained audience when progressive politics were affordable – before the 2008 credit crunch – now gains no truck. Merging with the materialist mass is where the action is, and “Parliament now has more Maori MPs than ever before” through abandonment of separate political development. *

If wages, conditions and living standards continue to decline under the re-elected government, opposing it will have to be on its own terms – a competitive vision of a stronger, greater unity.

If democracy itself is questioned for delivering inequitable outcomes, the answer is in building it forward – as an inclusive mechanism – and not retreating from it. For that is the tide of history.

‘Labour’ itself must review and take stock, as an abandoned identity – is it fit for the twenty-first century? The political centre, to which it moved, is still just as committed to labour for advancing. But it aspires to something more. – What could that cogent greater identity be, other than what we have?

This is the big question: What constructively defines Opposition, in New Zealand, as in Scotland, today?

Kia ora

* http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/news/628285561-more-maori-mps-than-ever-before
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_general_election,_2014

Māori sovereignty

Māori sovereign-T

Scotland

#InternetParty in name only ~ #OWS #NewZealand #nzpol

Q: When is a political party not a political party?

A: When it is the New Zealand Internet Party.

The internet party 101

The IPNZ must implement internal democratic processes quickly or be cast into the dustbin of history.

IPNZ must show that it respects democracy or New Zealand voters will throw it out by September.

The IPNZ leadership must be elected by the IPNZ membership, by transparent democratic process soon, or they lose what credibility they may have had: Vikram Kumar and Laila Harre can no longer represent Kim Dotcom; they are his employees and have 100% conflict of interest, as such, and are therefore unable to represent democracy at the same time.

Think of the equivalent civic voices in the New Zealand Labour Party – Moira Coatsworth and Mike Williams, current and past party presidents – elected by and accountable to the NZLP membership, to run the organisation well: working for democracy, as expression of democracy, is apparent in the party structure. But the same cannot yet be said of the Internet Party, who, on the face of it, are anti-democratic therefore.

Kumar fills the role of Coatsworth for the IPNZ, but as hired chief executive. This defines the Internet Party as a corporation operating in the political space, and not a ‘political party’ at all. IPNZ is a political corporation, so far… and, like all corporations, is anti-democratic in getting its way.

So IPNZ dangles dollars to hire representatives – of Kim Dotcom, not the New Zealand public – to push into Parliament, using multi-media advertising cash instead of traditional, on-the-ground community organising and legwork. A revolution, indeed, but not in a good way.

Hence the coat-tailing exploit by which IPNZ seeks entry to Parliament, which is wrong on numerous counts:
a) New Zealanders are not fools and reject such tactics for the scamming ruse that they are;
b) Dotcom, Kumar and Harre are dictating this strategy to IPNZ members, never thinking to consult them on what electoral strategy is best for progressive politics (top-down politics at its worst, securing only Harre’s seat);
c) denying IPNZ members and voters electorate candidate representation, to rely on the coat-tailing exploit and an untested parliamentary list, undermines the democratic process New Zealanders have and greatly value – confirming the anti-democratic nature of IPNZ so far;
d) in total this is a patently stupid, losing strategy, that wastes the opportunity to achieve more – strong and stable new coalition government with a 5%+ IPNZ contribution – which thus wastes everybody’s time and should stop. Internet Party viability looks like this.

Bring democracy to the New Zealand Internet Party, now!

The confused, right-of-centre tendency of IPNZ was further revealed yesterday:

“For me it is not about the left or the right. It is about what is right or wrong. And the Internet Party is about fixing things,” said Dotcom. – By whose rules please, and is that by fixing elections too? IPNZ unelected leaders have proudly admitted it, with their strictly-list, Mana coat-tailing campaign: “Yes, we are disruptive. Yes, we are strategic… but that is what New Zealand needs.” http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10131512/Dotcoms-political-idol-under-way – Not good enough by far! *

Without a rapid absorption of democratic principle, of authentic progressive cause, the Internet Party’s further-right opponents will surely defeat them at the election polls this year:

“we need to be damn careful before we take our vote and put it behind a machine that is possibly one of the most aborted, mangled, and ugly conglomerates ever seen” http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/opinion-mana-and-internet-party-unholy-alliance-insult-all-nz-ict-workers-dc-157308

“reading the candidate bios and watching the news footage felt like just another nail in the coffin of the Internet Mana Party’s intention” http://jononatusch.wordpress.com/2014/06/08/internet-idol-just-as-bad-as-any-other-talent-show/

http://www.3news.co.nz/Internet-Party-shortlisted-candidates-go-into-battle/tabid/1607/articleID/347501/Default.aspx

On Saturday NZ needed to see political fireworks, to maintain IP momentum. The first thing we heard as Chch-IP candidate nominees was ‘We are sinking in the polls and need something to turn that around’. The candidate screening session involved many and gave us all that boost for a week. But then ‘know better’ (Alliance?) bureaucracy took over and hosed democratic impulse down, culminating in Laila’s “reveal” – a term from game show territory.

So three weeks later, where are the ‘fireworks’ of IP energy, grabbing media attention? No doubt there are stories like this in every NZ city and town – actual political experience discarded for a manicured, often boring or twee TV performance by Kim Dotcom avatars. Laughing stocks propped up by minor celebrity, otherwise barely noticeable or managerially embarrassing.

Full marks for gender and ethnic range though, none for the ageism.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Dotcom-considers-citizenship-run-for-Parliament/tabid/1607/articleID/347547/Default.aspx

http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/kim-dotcom-eyes-seat-in-parliament-5994563

From travesty to farce.. So Laila is already deputy? This can’t sell or fly, any way you spin it. Sad.
But welcome, if you make it, citizen K.

Yet who is telling the truth here? – * “Empty seats out-numbered those taken by Internet Party supporters” or “20 crowd-sourced candidates that people can actually relate to packed out the Q Theatre on Queen Street” http://occupysavvy.wordpress.com/2014/06/08/internet-party-of-nz-crowd-sources-candidates-live/ ? …

http://torrentfreak.com/how-kim-dotcoms-5m-whistleblower-bounty-will-work-140607/

http://grumpollie.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/how-internetmana-will-appear-on-the-ballot/

Keep Calm And Carry On: Why the Left should ignore the next round of poll results

http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/internet-party-push-decriminalise-cannabis-video-5992134 – false link at TVNZ

#InternetParty viability looks like this

Full credit to Kim Dotcom for getting the IMP waka moving, but the sooner he hands over his rudder the better. Kim’s hirelings are building a ‘representative’ structure per instruction, but will Kiwi people endorse them? Only if democratic norms prevail – something New Zealanders understand and value a lot.

Without rank-and-file input for where the Internet Party is going, it is bound to hit the rocks of reaction. So let’s stand up for what is right in representation and take the reins – should Kim be willing to pass them on.

#InternetParty members withdraw labour, strike 4 #democratic elections to Kumar Harre roles. Upgrade their 1-seat campaign 2 defeat National

— Rik Tindall (@RikTindall) June 3, 2014

Otherwise the negative publicity based on sound analysis will prevail and drag Internet Party followers down:

Octo-Kim – June 2014

…… A bigger, more meaningful campaign than what has been proposed is required, to replace the National government in 2014. It must be good, just, open and fair. Let us get on with it. Stop the Internet Party write off