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Scoop Feedback: Joris, War, Transport and Thar
In This Edition: Joris de Bres - Please Check The Reasoning Of This Argument - Eyes Open On Transport Policy - How Bizarre
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Joris de Bres
Sir,
Joris de Bres highlights the Clark administration's tendency to select dogmatic misfits to serve in public appointments. Another classic example is "her" Minister of Defence Mark Burton who was head of the Taupo Peace Group for ten years.
The Race Relations Commissioner must be intending to generate work for his office when he utters a string of falsehoods about New Zealand history. There were many injustices against Maori. In many cases this was attributable to settlers' self interest exacerbated by extreme measures taken by local governments (not the British). This does not justify the falsehoods perpetrated by de Bres and others.
It was Sir Apirana Ngata supported by the Maori Progressive Party that insisted that Maori children speak only English at school. This was a common sense decision in the interests of their children to ensure that they got a working knowledge of English. Another myth is that the British colonised New Zealand out of self-interest. In fact they were initially reluctant to commit more resources to expanding a costly empire. A large group of Maori Chiefs asked for the British intervention not only to keep out the French and Russians, but also in an effort to establish a Westminster system to replace their destructive warring tribal system. Maori killed some 40,000 of their fellows leading up to those times.
There are countless other examples of misinformation. It is about time that people like de Bres were put in their place (which is out of public office).
Hugh Webb
Please Check The Reasoning Of This Argument
The CIA says that it is over 75% likely that Saddam, about to be toppled, will authorize biological attacks on the US homeland. When we invade Iraq to depose Saddam, we lose the deterrent card.
Iraq has smallpox. Iraq probably has the technology to make superpox, which our vaccine is ineffective against.
Delivering a highly contagious, vaccine resistant biologic weapon is as easy as infecting one person and have them ride airplanes and hang around the airport.
We will cause what we are invading to prevent.
BA
Minnesota
Eyes Open On Transport Policy
Sir,
We must not let the positive aspects of the Governments new land transport regime blind us to their continuation of the 27-year-old misappropriation of "user pays" funds by successive governments. This misappropriation was introduced by Robert Muldoon in 1975 and has been greedily and immorally continued by all governments ever since.
Many years ago, the government added to the cost of fuel a tax (or appropriation) that was to be dedicated to road construction and maintenance costs. Muldoon (and all other finance ministers since) has diverted the bulk of these funds directly into the Consolidated Fund. Had this been a general tax they would have been free to do so, but the diversion of a "user pays" appropriation is (by definition) misappropriation, or theft.
Politicians continue to talk of rising costs, but the majority these costs that they are funding involve anything but roading. Had all these diverted funds been spent on the roads, we could have had motorways from Northland to Wellington and from Marlborough to Southland. Everyone should hammer their local MP on this issue.
Hugh Webb
How Bizarre
Sir,
Does it not strike you as rather obscene how we humans can extol the virtues and visually majestic splendour of animals such as the Tahr, Deer, Elephants, Lions and Tigers and then proceed to slaughter them to adorn our walls with their heads, skins, feet and trunks.
Little wonder we have not progressed much in the way we perceive our human counterparts.
While we still massacre and dissect hoards of them annually in our quest for oil, timber, other resources, land, material goods, and religious and political dominance over each other, at least we have developed sufficiently to draw the line at hanging their severed heads on fence posts, preserving them in jars or shrinking them for mounting as book ends.
What a brave new world we live in.
Mirek Marcanik
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