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It really should be a big deal. We still have major cred overseas as that tiny country with the balls to tell the yanks to fuck off with their nukes. They still haven't forgiven us for that. Yet here we are helping them damage our own reputation as a fair, fearless, and independent nation. I guess we don't need our reputation when negotiating trade deals with other countries anymore. Maybe if we grovel really hard the US will throw us some scraps instead. Look at Australia (six prime ministers no less) begging Indonesia to save the lives of two of it's citizens on death row, a year after Australia was revealed to have spied on Indonesias’ president on behalf of the US. We don't need that. Reputation matters.

I am really happy the jury acquitted the activists who sabotaged the Waihopai spy station. It shows we haven't gone completely limp yet.

The personal papers of a former NZ Prime Minister did have a top secret report about what NZ was doing in the 1980's.
Lange's secrets (15 January 2006) http://www.converge.org.nz/pma...
Of interest to NZ where Japanese and Philippines diplomatic cables, the government communications of Fiji, the Solomons, Tonga, "international organisations operating in the Pacific" and UN diplomatic cables.
It was interesting to see terms like "most of the raw traffic used" "South Pacific telex messages on satellite communications", "The raw traffic for this reporting provided by NSA the US National Security Agency).""
Japanese diplomatic cables, French Pacific satellite intercept, "French South Pacific civil, naval and military; French Antarctic civil; Vietnamese diplomatic; North Korean diplomatic; Egyptian diplomatic; Soviet merchant and scientific research shipping; Soviet Antarctic civil. Soviet fisheries; Argentine naval; Non-Soviet Antarctic civil; East German diplomatic; Japanese diplomatic; Philippine diplomatic; South African Armed Forces; Laotian diplomatic (and) UN diplomatic."
So the world has had some look at what NZ was interested in and how it was done in bulk years ago.

- it would be inane for one country to host missiles whose controls are based in another,

... It has been done before.

That's what you believe. The fact is that gun control prevents gun crime:

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/gunaus.htm
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms

The same reason we have an American spy base on our soil.

"Australia decided to remove all the guns. Crime shot up, causing more misery. (See Google)"

As someone who lives in that part of the world (Australasia), and in a country where our regular police are not even armed, this statement was news to me and I googled it...

I got a bunch of results from American sites with clear pro-gun agendas.. and I also found this one...with an anti-gun agenda.. from my country, which I'm sure you will regard is full of pinko-pussies (apart from all the hobbits) ;)

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/gunaus.htm

Some of those stats are quite amazing and tend to balance the debate the restricting guns leads to "misery"

"There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."

-- Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999

This report shows that as gun ownership has been progressively restricted since 1915, Australia's firearm homicide rate per 100,000 population has declined to almost half its 85-year average.

and it goes on...

In Canada, where new gun laws were introduced in 1991 and 1995, the number of gun deaths has reached a 30-year low.

Two years ago in the United Kingdom, civilian handguns were banned, bought back from their owners and destroyed. In the year following the law change, Scotland recorded a 17% drop in all firearm-related offences. The British Home Office reports that in the nine months following the handgun ban, firearm-related offences in England and Wales dropped by 13%.

A British citizen is still 50 times less likely to be a victim of gun homicide than an American.

Which leads me to an interesting point - I actually agree with you that gun laws would do little in the USA to curb the problem of guns and violence. The reason for 50x chance of being a gun victim there is because of deep intrinsic culture of guns and violence in states that permeates the national psyche. Guns are commonplace, everywhere, easy to get, and not something that people typically regard with a fear or abhorrence. Your response and perspective on gun laws is both the cause and effect of the national psyche, just like my abhorrence of any guns is ingrained in, and also the cause and effect of NZ's national psyche. The reason that that crackpot decided to grab a gun and go on a shooting rampage as opposed to do something else (probably equally foolish and damaging) is that he was also a product of the national psyche - albeit a warped one...

In NZ we also have had a few gun massacres where several people die due to a crackpot... generally here, because of a small population, and distance, we believe it is possible to control the sale and distribution of guns. We believe that making guns more commonplace only increases then likelyhood that they would fall into the wrong hands. I understand that this scenario would not be feasible in the US, because of the huge number of firearms, and the ease at which guns can be illegally brought into the country.

But try and picture a US without guns... I mean just for a second picture it. Image that some police officers are armed, and that is it. Imagine that homeland security, was just that, about securing your homeland, and doing their best to restrict the importation and sale of guns. Imagine if guns weren't a dime a dozen, and easy to acquire, and there wasn't a huge amount already in circulation. Imagine if getting hold of a gun was nigh on impossible, no matter how illegally you try. If that vision could be a reality would you want it? I hope so. And I hope you see why people from other countries with their country's own unique perspective on things look at the philosophy that *increasing* gun ownership, and thus further ingraining guns into the US psyche as the wrong way to head...

Does anyone else worry that the USA might use its intelligent services to give its corporate entities an advantage over foreign ones?

It amazes me that people forget that a banks job is to protect your money.

The phisher in the end shouldn't be able to get any money from this.

The banks should have in place a system that secures your money much better than this. It reminds me of the wild west where banks were robbed all the time.

Like, why do the retailers have to protect the banks? Why do they have to ask for ID when you already presented a valid banking card to them? Is this system insecure? Yes, and that's why they ask for ID. WTF?

People should consider this the same as a bank getting robbed over and over. If the banks got enough bad press from this then maybe they would do something about it.

But never forget, this is not money, it's currency backed by nothing of value and could become wortless in a day. People have been trying to tell you this for years, but you people won't read any simple banker history, it's too booring.

http://www.apfn.net/Doc-100_bankruptcy13.htm
http://www.federal-reserve.net/
http://www.converge.org.nz/pirm/fr_paul.htm
http://batr.org/verity/id6.html

The US have already been preparing an invasion of The Netherlands (Scheveningen) for a few years.
Dutch protesters already started building a defensive wall against the US

You've heard the old line "first Hitler went after the Jews, and I was not a Jew, so I did not protest"...

If you're a citizen of an Arabic or Islamic country, report to the INS

The list goes on an on... Wake UP!

• Manapouri Power station (Underground hydro-power station). Quite a cool place to visit, drive down a long tunnel to get to it.
• Tiwai Point Comalco Aluminium Smelter (near Bluff) has guided tours. See where a good fraction of NZ's electricity gets used.
• Wairakei Geothermal power station near Rotorua. (The world's first geothermal power station - you can request tours)
• Waihopai Echelon listening station (Nothing much to see but a listening station for NSA's Echelon network)

1. Perhaps we should define the term "carpet bombing." My first link included this RealVideo clip where Mr Pentagon Spokesman makes the following statement: "If the targets are large or widedespread, then it would seem logical that we might find largbe bombers with large loads are capable of attacking it just as effectively s a number of smaller tactical jets." That sounds like carpet bombing to me. What do you think carpet bombing means?

2. A B-52 would almost never be called upon to drop a single bomb within a 10-meter circle. If they are so accurate, then why did we invent cruise missiles? And even if we can, consitently and reliably, drop a single bomb within a 10-meter circle from altitude, a B-52 carries 30 tons of bombs, which, when all released over target, tend to product the "carpet" effect.

3. Did I complain that U.S. troops are too well equipped? No, I simply pointed out the disparaty. I suppose by your definition, I'm In Harm's Way when I drive to work because my little japanese car could potentially be crushed by that big truck. It rarely happens, though. Similarly, U.S. casualties rarely happen, last I checked there's more friendly fire deaths in combat than enemy fire deaths. Hmm, maybe you're right, anytime troops are deployed, they are In Harm's Way because you never know when some renegade National Guard pilot is going to ignore orders twice and decide to bomb the Canadians anyway.

If you're looking for someone who is complaining that U.S. troops are too well-equipped, that would be NATO.

4. Fine, we haven't caused 4,000 or 11,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan. The numbers you provide are between 600 and 5,000. So, let me repeat my question? What about the civilian deaths in Afghanistan (and Yugoslavia?) Is 600 to 5,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan accetpable? That'a a lot of bombs that missed the 10-meter circle if you ask me. What about use of cluster bombs in cities in Yugoslavia? Was that planned to minimize civilian casualties? Your non-response is that since my number was off (and who will ever know the exact number) then my argument is invalid. Unless you actually believe that air wars produce NO civilian casualties, in which case I would refer you to back to Dresden.

5. You are absolutely correct that WTC attacks were attacks on a civilian population. I was trying to make the point that it wasn't *just* an attack on a civilian population. It had deep symbolic significance. It was an attack on civilians, but also an attack on the perceived Excesses of the West.

6. I'm saying that the "dual use" standard knowingly puts civilians at risk. The attacks of 9/11 are just about as morally bankrupt as the destruction of Iraq's water supply in the Gulf War. Both led to tremendous civilian casualties, and had a much larger impact on the civilian populous than the military.

7. Believe it or not, I read that Atlantic article a few months ago. Post-Gulf War civilian deaths have nothing to do with the destruction of Iraq's drinking water, and that the "food for oil" program makes up for the medicine and technology which is banned by the sanctions. That must be why UN officials have resigned in protest over the sanctions. Maybe we would have finished the job in '91 if we actually cared about civilians. George Bush's post-War speech urging the Iraqi people to revolt, backed up with exactly 0 tanks, pretty much shows how little we cared.

8. We are a free nation which was brutally attacked by terrorists. So we don't have to concern ourselves with civilian casualties?

What about the many brutal regimes the U.S. has supported over the years, butchers like Pinochet and Suharto? Wake up, we have no moral high ground in the world. Neither does anyone else. Maybe Mother Teresa and Gandhi.

The problem with having the moral high ground is that your morals are unique to you and not really a basis for a rational foreign or military policy. Morally, Osama bin Laden is just as entitled to his belief of Death to America as I am to my belief that he should rot in a collapsed cave somewhere near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. None of that will ever convince us that the other is "right."

Now, clearly the 9/11 attacks were brutal and horrible. I submit that ANY TIME that civilians are killed it is a horrible thing. And the U.S. government does it ALL THE TIME. It's far easier and politically convenient to incur a few unfortunate foreigner civilian casualties (that our own military only barely acknowleges) than to send the boys home in body bags.

That, my friend is the definition of moral bankruptcy. But that's just my definition of moral bankruptcy, yours may be completely different.

The facts remain, though. We did carpet bomb Afghanistan. We did kill civilians in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. To me that is an outrage; to you it's not.

...To advance the control of public opinion and to research and expand the understanding of how to manipulate the human psyche, individually and collectively. Today this agenda includes the microchipping of people and their permanent connection to a global computer.

This is a line from this site here, and a quote from a book by a certain David Icke. I was pretty sure the bit about microchipping was pretty far-fetched.
I'm not so sure now, at least conceptually speaking. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. The desired end it would seem, can be achieved by tracking individual's movements coupled with thought manipulation through popular media.

I never said we shouldn't be helping to feed them. I was mearly pointing out that the reason they are starving to begin with is a direct result of our actions. To me, we are even more obligated to helping them then if they were just in a bad spot of thier own design.

As far as India goes, here's how we've been 'helping' India's economy:

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/apvshiv.htm