Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Scoop Feedback: Cyberwar, Hypocrites And The ACC
In This Edition: CyberWar – Hypocrites - ACC Letters To The Editor - Self Serving MPs Voting For Prostitution Reform
Scoop welcomes reader feedback. Please send your views to editor@scoop.co.nz.
CyberWar
Yet another misleading White House program is the so-called Cyberwar initiative, allegedly intended to attack enemy military and infrastructure assets.
As an automation engineering person I am exceedingly sceptical of this proposal. No sane administrator of any military Command and Control network allows any kind of Internet access to their computer systems.
The concept of shutting down power, water and similar infrastructure systems is even more absurd. The vast majority of such systems are controlled by PLC (Programmable Logic Controllers) that have NO internet connectivity at all. The few that do are usually secure behind highly encrypted passwords.
The suggestion that a back room full of miltary style webhackers can remotely shutdown a country in the manner suggested is grossly misleading.
The real target of any such Cyberwar program must logically be to cripple the commercial and financial applications of the internet, and to stifle the free flow of information that otherwise bypasses the corporate controlled propaganda, oops, media channels.
Philip Wilkie
Hypocrites
Most New-Zealanders oppose the US resolution for war against Iraq. But in our hypocrisy we continue a hidden war against our own children. In 2001, this "peaceful" nation killed 15,485 children whose hearts were beating. Most abortions (94.4%) took place after 8 weeks when everything was present in the unborn child that would be found in a fully developed adult. These living, growing human, lives with beating hearts respond to touch, look and function just like we do. They're just smaller.
Unlike Hussein, these unborn children are innocent - they have not committed any crime (except to exist). They are defenceless - they cannot protect themselves against suction devices, knives and poisons (instruments of mass destruction and biological warfare. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute and W.H.O., 46 million are killed per year world-wide). They are voiceless - they cannot stage public marches to call attention to their plight.
Yes, let the UN call the shots but lets do some radical rethinking about what's happening in our own back yard. We want to be known as a nation of peace. Lets start by stopping the war against our own children. Let's be world leaders in saving the innocent lives in our own nation. Then we will not have to depend on sporting victories or green trees for national pride.
Martin Luther King Jr., said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Our unborn children matter.
Yours faithfully
Geoff Holding
ACC Letters To The Editor
Good Morning Scoop,
I find your latest article,on A.C.C by Dave The Rave, to be chillingly precise.
This is exactly what happened to my husband .He was assessed by an A.C.C specialist ,Dr M ..... as being unable to work thirty hours a week .However twelve months later ,without seeing my husband&,with information supplied to the same specialist , by case manager ,who just happens to be married to the complaints officer,that my husband is miraculously cured and able to be employed as a labourer,therefore compensation is suspended ,until such time as he can prove he is not lying about his injury ,as alledged by A.C.C `s specialist.
No account of Xrays clearing showing sciatcia ,or previous specialist opinions ,dating back to 1987.
This is clearly a case of fraud on the part of the specialist ,case manager and Auckland branch manager.,of Cataylst.
Well Catalyst ,This is the very reason ,I will never give up. I intend to have this decision reviewed, appealed in the district court ,as well as the high court ,should I need to. I was one of the first to have our area organised for the March 18 protest .Ms Dyson has sat on the sideline on this refusing to act,as expected,as has Gary Wilson.And they know nothing of what is happening within A.C.C .?
Sorry Dyson and Wilson ,I didnt come down in the last shower of rain!!!!!Unlike yourselves .
I shall stand Tall on March 18.I look forward to revealing Just who is the liar here!!!!!
Carolyn
Self Serving MPs Voting For Prostitution Reform
Judging by the commentary of the some of the 62 MP's who voted in favour of the Prostitution Reform Bill on February 19th, their self-serving ideaology seems to have a superior preference to truth. Could someone please define for Tim Barnett what a "disaster" is, because if the terminating of over 16,000 lives per year through abortion is not one (as he argues in defence of his logic), then I don't know what is.
Sue Bradford doesn't seem to grasp the fact that a "state religion" is not confined to a church - hers, and many of her supporting colleagues, is the religion of post-modernism, relative truth, pluralism, and an abhorrance of absolutes. Katherine Rich is right about the double standard in selling sex, and wrong in believing that this bill will address it - what the bill attempts to address results in more harm, not less, for sex workers.
I would invite every one of the 62 MPs currently supporting this bill to go out into the streets and witness first hand the actual ! and potential disaster they are about to unleash on those they claim to protect, comfortable in their selective research, and blind in their own arrogant stupidity. Be reminded that your authority to govern will not be separated from your accountability of the result if this Bill is passed into law.
Yours faithfully
Steve Taylor
Scoop
Scoop Independent News
Scoop is NZ's largest independent news source; respected widely in media, political, business and academic circles for being the place on the internet for publishing "what was really said", and for the quality of its analysis of issues.
Gordon Campbell: On The Hikoi Arrival, And Tyler Childers
Alastair Thompson: COP29 Erasure Story Update – All's Well That Ends Well
Binoy Kampmark: Thank You For Emitting - The Hypocrisies Of COP29
Alastair Thompson: COP29 Erasure – COP29 Media Center Crippled
Ramzy Baroud: End Of Empathy - Did The Gaza Genocide Render The UN Irrelevant?
Ian Powell: Physician Associates - A ‘Solution’ Desperately Searching For A Problem