KiwiCoromandel

howdy A of D.....welcome to beatking......cool site..... :good job:

many good questions in there...i hope that you get many right answers to them...... ;) ;)

A group of volunteers have been locked up in cages and sexually humiliated in a British reality television show that explores torture techniques allegedly used against terrorist suspects held by the US at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. The four-part series on Channel 4 asks whether such methods can be justified as a way to combat terrorism, a spokesman for the station said. "The information gained through torture has been justified as the centre of the war against terrorism," said the spokesman, who asked to remain anonymous. "We want the viewers to watch techniques that we know are used at Guantanamo and really to raise questions about whether torture is justified and if it works and what does it say about our values as a Western society," he said........ Read more........... http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_world_story_sk...6%3fformat=html

good on you mate...... :D

not every thing is perfect here...nothing ever is that good...but i`d have to say that it`s as good as it gets anywhere given the size of nz`s population (4 and a half million and the ravages of globalisation in other parts of the world.....our actual geographic isolation has attracted the interest of a lot of security conscious americans..and the anti nuclear stance taken by our country since 1984..for example, business interests have been lobbying hard for a nuclear power station..no chance..windpower is the way says our government..and many agree with their slightly ( i emphasise the word slightly) green " stance...it`s all a question of balance...and they may just have got it right down here...time will tell

under 4% unemployment at the moment.......there is a great demand for skilled labour....this government has been enjoying a pretty good ride considering the global situation in terms of economic stability....not much sign of the economy slowing..a lot depends on the greenback of course......

as many as you like mate..the huntings great down here, wild pigs, deer and politically correct feminists, many of whom are currently in the labour/progressive coalition government running nz at the moment.......we have a woman prime minister...our govt is seen as left wing , especially by our large neighbour, aussie , which of course has a conservative liberal coalition government..... but really we have an economically centre - right govt that follows free market policies, but is very liberal on social issues....for example we just had the passing of the civil union bill into law down here which pretty much legalises gay marriage and the right of gays to be parents and that sort of thing...single mothers get a lot of govt help down here and we have quite a generous welfare system...(although whether that is sustainable remains to be seen)....also we have a policy of not allowing vessels with nuclear weapons on board into new zealand ports....the bush govt has been pressuring our govt to change that policy, because it makes things very difficult when american military vessels want to berth in nz ports as your navy has a policy of "neither confirm or deny "..an american vessel had to turn around and head to aussie a few months ago because they wouldn`t say whether there were nuclear weapons on board or not..put it this way.....there is a fairly strained relationship between our two countries...... the firearm/personal freedom issue is big over here with the pro and anti gun lobbies at each others throats most of the time...nz has a fairly liberal social streak running through it and one of the most deregulated business environments in the world......personal freedoms and the maintaining of those freedoms are a very touchy issue down here..on current polling new zealanders are on track to deliver a third term for a centre - left coalition govt at our elections in 7 months....

i was going to tag the item as being from the " redneck will no doubt have a robust comment about this " department........ :rolleyes:

February 11 2005 Outraged American to Renounce His US Citizenship An American businessman who has lived in Christchurch since 2001 says he will formally renounce his US citizenship on March 1 2005 to disassociate himself forever with the United States Government and its policies. Harmon Wilfred says he has been considering the value of his US birthright for many months and made a final decision to renounce his citizenship shortly after the inauguration of President George W. Bush for a second term of presidency. However he says his decision, which is permanent and irreversible, is far more than a political gesture......... read more........... http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PO0502/S00088.htm

yummy...........my one vice..sigh...

those two came to new zealand last year..they showed an excerpt of their show on the local news...what they were doing to themselves looked like an incredibly painful and uncomfortable way to be earning a living......i was just wondering if they did their career training separately or together.......certainly " hands on " stuff......

he`s keeping an eye out for god.... :rolleyes:

kia ora slumgoddess my friend..well done...miss transatlantic if i`m not mistaken..... :good job:

kia ora red me old mate....go for it...we will settle for nothing less than world website domination..........posters of the world ....unite!! REDNECK EMPLOYMENT AGENCY I traipsed to Redneck Country While in search of fair employment, Needing cash or other subsidy To nurture my enjoyment. One feller handed me a pad With lots a questions on it, And told me to come back When I had made my marks upon it. I couldn't understand em And they nearly made me hot When they said I had to tell em, 'bout how many kids I got, And how old is my pick-up, And do I wear odd shoes And is the kinda beer I drink, The same kind they would choose? The rest wuz jist as silly, So I reckoned then as how That no matter how they begged me, I'd not work for them nohow !!

kia ora LOTD.....congrats.....onward and upward.....

" I was using atavistic in a Hunter Thompson sort of way... " i don`t consider that atavistic is actually the best word to describe or categorise hunter thompson and his frantic and crazed tripping through, say, the american landscape in " fear and loathing in l.a " i think that his journey in that respect was more a journey of heavy consumption, heavy irony and sensory overload........ " I just post to challenge people's beliefs from time to time... but there really aren't enough people here to really shock, outrage and cause this to perpetuate into the future. " there is nothing wrong with raising an informed debate in an open forum.....i would imagine that those whose shock and outrage that you would like to evoke would need to be interested enough to react in the way that you were hoping that they would......playing the devils advocate is an old and skilled game, sometimes , however that game can backfire.....the old saying " be careful what you wish for because you might just get it " could be applicable in this case........ :bigsmile:

that would have been something to see...the pilot must have wondered what hit him.....an unidentified laser object (ULO)....

me too my friend...i had years of 56 k and now i`m on very fast DSL with no data cap.....i just love it...........there`s no going back..... :P :D

Last Updated: Monday, 7 February, 2005, 11:43 GMT Why I'm giving up broadband Dot.life Where technology meets life, every Monday With an estimated five million people now connected to broadband at home, one early internet enthusiast is giving it up for good. David McCandless explains why he's given it the boot. Today, 20% of UK households - around five million people - have broadband in their homes. By the end of next year that figure will be nearer eight million. Tony Blair says every home that wants broadband should have it by 2008. I can barely believe I've done it myself. As a committed early adopter and geek, I never thought I would ever move to a backwater in the face of technological advancement. I had broadband before it was famous, way back in the 20th Century. In those days, most people drummed fingers on desks and made tea while they awaited their webpages and postage stamp-sized videos to trickle through their paltry 56K modems. I, however, had a 'phat pipe' installed at home. Every evening: me, 17 browser windows open, working the keyboard like a concert pianist, dazzling my friends with all the film trailers, terrible flash animations and MP3s I could download simultaneously. 'Bandwidth guilt' Gradually, though, the novelty of a fast connection has worn off. Disillusion has set in. I've slowly come to a terrible realisation: there isn't really that much I can do with broadband. I have no far-off relatives to wave at down a video conferencing connection. Threats of divorce stopped me playing online games a few years ago. Sure, I enjoy streaming clips of the news but I can also just turn my head slightly and watch it on my TV. There used to be some joy for me feeling secure downloading hefty Microsoft security patches, but now I've given up on Windows and got a Mac instead. Having nothing much to do with your broadband gives rise to a curious sensation that could be termed: "bandwidth guilt". When I'm not using it, I feel like I should be. I keep trying to find ways to utilise its sheer power - and justify the £30 a month fee. I feel bad if I don't. Like some kind of petrol thief, at friends' houses I can be found hooking up my laptop for a quick broadband fix'Information habit' And the only thing I've discovered that really gives my ADSL a workout is, sadly, illegal. I'd rather not go into it here. Let's just say it's the not-so-well-kept secret of what everyone is using broadband for. Depending on who you talk to, between 50% and 65% of all internet traffic is currently peer-to-peer (p2p) piracy. Everyone's doing it. Do you know what technology makes it possible? Yep. Broadband. Spending an inordinate amount of time at my computer, using my broadband, I'm developing what I can only term an information habit. Sit down to work. Ten minutes in, the new mail icon tempts me from the bottom of the screen. I'll just check. Nothing like a few juicy new e-mails. Click a few links. Scan a few websites. Oh 20 minutes has just passed. Better get back to work. Now where was I? Start work again. Feel like a reward. I'll just check news.bbc.co.uk. See if anything's happened in the three minutes since I last looked. Follow a few 'related links'... Half an hour has passed. I feel like I've done something, but actually I haven't. All that's happened is that I've been distracted by constantly rising info urges. I spend most of my day like this, divided between what I need to do and what the internet wants me to do - which is look at it. Constantly. The 56K Life So, just like a drug addict, I can't control it. If web access is there, I'll have it. Especially now, since I had wireless internet installed I can browse on the toilet, in the garden, even in the shower. There's no escape. So the only recourse for me is an extreme one: to have it chopped off. Reaction from my friends and colleagues has been extreme. Ranging from shock and surprise (Whaaaat? Why? How? Guh?) to outright suspicion ("Have you been downloading something you shouldn't?"). One friend even raged at me: "How could you? Don't you know broadband means progress?" I don't regret my decision. I have to say I feel lighter, freer. I'm certainly getting more things done, especially now I schedule a time every couple of hours to log on and check my e-mail and websites. The internet on 56K isn't as bad as I thought. Pretty much every website is designed for 56K users anyway. But I still make the mistake of impatiently opening two, three, four other browser windows while waiting for the first one to download. Will it last? I can't say I'm missing flash or streaming video. And there's no doubt it's killed any p2p temptations I may have nurtured. And that's a good thing, right, vast corporate entertainment industry? I do confess, however, that I now carry a network cable around with me. Like some kind of petrol thief, at friends' houses I can be found hooking up my laptop for a quick broadband fix. I used to spend all day slaving away at my computer, watching the day ride past my window - only to come home and do the same in the evenings. But now I've distilled the useful and vital from the compulsive (and illegal), I am left with just two online activities: e-mail and web browsing. Isn't that what the internet is really for?

kia ora mate...have a good one...... :D :D

another one gone... :( r.i.p.

now let me get this right before i dive right in.......because i do not share your apparently more extremist " vegan " views on the doubtful benefits of a wholly vegetarian lifestyle and because i eat red and some white meat, i am " atavistic ".....here is my understanding of the word atavistic..... at·a·vism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (t-vzm) n. The reappearance of a characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence, usually caused by the chance recombination of genes. An individual or a part that exhibits atavism. Also called throwback. The return of a trait or recurrence of previous behavior after a period of absence...... now tell me, which one of the above describes my unfortunate carnivorous habits again? :bigsmile:

i`ll take this one.....

i use it and find it quite handy.......i suppose that there could be certain security/privacy isssues but for me its just a quick, efficient way to get a file from A to B...i would imagine that my ISP knows as much me and my email/storage habits as google does.......

he would have paid $2.00 for a ticket to see the movie...a price thought to be shockingly expensive at the time A controversial, explicitly racist, but landmark American film masterpiece - these all describe ground-breaking producer/director D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915). The domestic melodrama/epic originally premiered with the title The Clansman in January, 1915 in California, but three months later was retitled with the present title at its world premiere in New York, to emphasize the birthing process of the US. The film was based on former North Carolina Baptist minister Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr.'s anti-black, 1905 bigoted play, The Clansman, the second volume in a trilogy: The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden, 1865-1900 The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan The Traitor Its release set up a major censorship battle over its vicious, extremist depiction of African Americans, although Griffith naively claimed that he wasn't racist at the time. Unbelievably, the film is still used today as a recruitment piece for Klan membership - and in fact, the organization experienced a revival and membership peak in the decade immediately following its initial release. And the film stirred new controversy when it was voted into the National Film Registry in 1993, and when it was voted one of the "Top 100 American Films" (at # 44) by the American Film Institute in 1998. Film scholars agree, however, that it is the single most important and key film of all time in American movie history - it contains many new cinematic innovations and refinements, technical effects and artistic advancements, including a color sequence at the end. It had a formative influence on future films and has had a recognized impact on film history and the development of film as art. In addition, at almost three hours in length, it was the longest film to date. However, it still provokes conflicting views about its message. Director Griffith's original budget of $40,000 (expanded to $60,000) quickly ballooned, so Griffith appealed to businessmen and other investors to help finance the film - that eventually cost $110,000! The propagandistic film was one of the biggest box-office money-makers in the history of film, partly due to its exorbitant charge of $2 per ticket - unheard of at the time. It made $18 million by the start of the talkies. [it was the most profitable film for over two decades, until Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).] The subject matter of the film caused immediate criticism by the newly-created National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for its racist and "vicious" portrayal of blacks, its proclamation of miscegenation, its pro-Klan stance, and its endorsement of slavery. As a result, two scenes were cut (a love scene between Reconstructionist Senator and his mulatto mistress, and a fight scene). But the film continued to be renounced as "the meanest vilification of the Negro race." Riots broke out in major cities (Boston, Philadelphia, among others), and it was denied release in many other places (Chicago, Ohio, Denver, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Minneapolis, eight states in total). Subsequent lawsuits and picketing tailed the film for years when it was re-released (in 1924, 1931, and 1938). The resulting controversy only helped to fuel the film's box-office appeal, and it became a major hit. Even President Woodrow Wilson during a private screening at the White House is reported to have exclaimed: "It's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true." To his credit, Griffith later (by 1921) released a shortened, re-edited version of the film without references to the KKK. In its explicitly caricaturist presentation of the KKK as heroes and Southern blacks as villains and violent rapists, it appealed to white Americans who subscribed to the mythic, romantic view (similar to Sir Walter Scott historical romances) of the Old Plantation South. Many viewers were thrilled by the love affair between Northern and Southern characters and the climactic rescue scene. The film also thematically explored two great American issues: inter-racial sex and marriage, and the empowerment of blacks. Ironically, although the film was advertised as authentic and accurate, the film's major black roles in the film -- including the Senator's mulatto mistress, the mulatto politican brought to power in the South, and faithful freed slaves -- were stereotypically played and filled by white actors - in blackface. [The real blacks in the film only played in minor roles.] Its climactic finale, the suppression of the black threat to white society by the glorious Ku Klux Klan, helped to assuage some of America's sexual fears about the rise of defiant, strong (and sexual) black men and the repeal of laws forbidding intermarriage. To answer his critics, director Griffith made a sequel, the magnificent four story epic about human intolerance titled Intolerance (1916).