The four – Iti, Urs Signer, Kemara and Emily Bailey – were found guilty of unlawful possession of military-style firearms and Molotov cocktails at training camps held in the Urewera Ranges in 2006 and 2007.

They were appearing in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing today.

Iti and Kemara were jailed for two and a half years.

Signer and Bailey had their sentences adjourned but home detention was signalled.

Good job.

I have blogged about Kemara’s activities before.

His computer vandalism goes unanswered?

Here is what the Police Commissioner has to say about the case and investigation. He does not mince any words. I must say it is refreshing to have  Police Commissioner who isn’t a namby-pamby toss-pot.

What’s the bet he knows more about some kind of political shit than most pundits.

An article about how rorqual whales are able to take gigantic mouthfuls of prey, it turns out they have acute sensors that can detect large amounts of prey:

Researchers have discovered how very large whales co-ordinate their jaw muscles and bones to take gigantic mouthfuls of prey.

For a blue whale, the largest animal that has ever existed, each mouthful can scoop up 100 tonnes of krill-filled water in less than 10 seconds.

Scientists have now found a sensory organ in whales’ jaws which they say links bones and muscles to the brain, making the vast lunging gulps possible.

They report their findings in Nature.

Writing in the journal, lead researcher Nicholas Pyenson, from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, explained that the rorqual whales he studied had “one of the most extreme feeding methods in aquatic vertebrates”.

This whale-specific mouth organ seems to facilitate that.

Dr Pyenson said the structure looked like a “gelatinous mess”, which could be the reason it was previously overlooked and assumed simply to be a fluid-filled joint between the two lower jaw bones.

By dissecting whale carcasses in fine detail, the researchers found that the structure was actually far more complex.

Found at the front tip of the lower jaws, the structure is laden with nerve endings. The team says that these are sensors which pick up signals from the jaw as it starts to open. Nerves from the organ then send signals to the brain, triggering the whales’ dramatic and complex feeding lunge.

Typical of the whinger and sanctimonious. Promise the world and deliver the same bile their predecessors did, with a lot of extra sanctimony. They probably eat organic food and drive a hybrid car. Next Rob Oakeshott will be calling out “Chicken” in the house.

This will be a different Parliament” Rob Oakeshott claimed when he announced he would swing behind Labor and make Julia Gillard Prime Minister, again, after the 2010 election. ”We believe in the ‘Sunshine Test’.” And Gillard responded: ”So let’s draw back the curtains and let the sunshine in, let our Parliament be more open than it was before.”

The independents have long claimed that if only the Parliament were not controlled by members of any one political party it would operate on a higher plane. Likewise, feminists promised that as more women entered Parliament they would civilise the place and reduce confrontation in favour of co-operation.

Now we have the double – a female Prime Minister kept in office by independents. So does this mean the 43rd Parliament will be remembered as the Sunshine Parliament? Hardly.

More likely it will be remembered as the Sleaze Parliament. The Speaker cannot sit because he is dealing with allegations of travel rorts and sexual harassment.

Charlie has his minions getting all uppity about bulldozing some dangerous buildings in Christchurch because they are old.

Dittmar expressed concerns over the fate of Christchurch heritage buildings in March last year.

“In the aftermath of the disaster, there can be a natural tendency to move forward quickly and a danger that the character of a place can be lost in the ensuing reconstruction,” he wrote.

Luckily the Prince and future King of New Zealand has a lot of spare change so he can pay for protecting some seriously ugly buildings.

This is going to bend a few people out of shape…oh well no matter. I expect we will get some along who will insist that the gay can be prayed away:

Every spring for six years Gentoo penguins Inca and Rayas have lovingly built a nest together, only to find that no eggs arrive to fill it. It doesn’t seem to have dawned on the couple that both of them are male.

But after the repeated heartbreak of watching other penguins become parents and raise their young, the “gay” couple finally have something to celebrate after their keepers gave them an egg of their own to care for.

Rather than questioning how the improbable scenario arose, the inseparable pair has seized their one chance at fatherhood with the zeal of a couple who know they may not get another.

Inca has taken on the “female” role of incubating the donated egg, obtained by keepers a month ago, and stoically remains atop his prize for most of the day, refusing the temptation to dip his feathers into the water.

His partner Rayas, meanwhile, keeps a watchful guard over the nest while eating whatever he can fit in his beak in preparation for the traditional male job of feeding his young with regurgitated fish.

His keepers report that Rayas has become more anxious due to nervous anticipation of his due date in June, but that the job seems to have made him into a “new penguin”, according to The Times.

Justice Timothy Brewer said the case had nothing to do with political connections and commentary.

His decision was based on the evidence in court about whether false declarations had been made on documents.

He said he found that the Crown had not reached the level of proof of beyond reasonable doubt which the judge said was a very high standard.

He said that on the evidence the most the Crown had achieved was a ‘high level of suspicion” and that fell short of the standard of proof required to convict.

The judge said he would give a written reason for his decision later.

Meanwhile Labour Leader David Shearer has confessed that the inquiry into Shane Jones won’t cover any dealings between Bill Liu and the Labour Party.

Jones stood down yesterday after his story on why he granted citizenship to the millionaire had been ripped to shreds.

David Shearer’s written to the Auditor General in the hope he can bury the scandal, then claim vindication for Jones when the AG inevitably decides that he followed the ‘process’ – because the ‘process’ is that it’s a Minister’s decision.

Here’s what Shearer told Larry Williams last night…

If Labour thinks they’ve cleverly avoided the hard questions – they should think again.

Especially with what landed in my post box this morning. The allegations contained in this letter are so explosive I have taken them directly to the Police.

It explains a great deal about why Dover Samuels is running interference for Bill Liu.

So who is the Leader of the Opposition again?

⁷ Wisdom is too lofty for fools.
Among leaders at the city gate, they have nothing to say.

Shane Jones and his apologists around the blogosphere have made much of the compassion of not sending a man back to China where he would have allegedly been executed and his organs harvested. There has not been shred of evidence produced to support that contention, but it seems that Shane Jones now infamous compassion only extends so far…to Labour party donors.

Just a few months before the Bill Liu case Shane Jones was faced with another compassionate case, that of an Iranian women who was now a christian being forcibly repatriated to Iran [emphasis mine]:

A last-ditch attempt to stop the deportation of an Iranian Christian has been rejected by Associate Immigration Minister Shane Jones.

Mr Jones will not overrule an Immigration New Zealand decision to deport 25-year-old Birkenhead resident Bahareh Moradi.

His decision writes off the last chance Miss Moradi had to stay in New Zealand.

Her three brothers live in New Zealand. All have refugee status.

The Moradi family had applied for the deportation to be put on hold until after a High Court judicial review of Miss Moradi’s case in July.

That request was turned down by the High Court in March.

As the North Shore Times went to print, Miss Moradi was waiting to be sent to Iran by immigration officials.

It is feared going back to Iran could be dangerous because she has become a Christian.

Under Sharia law, converting from Islam to Christianity is a sin and can be punished by death.

Her pastor at St Aiden’s Presbyterian Rinny Westra is shocked at the minister’s decision to uphold the deportation order.

In that case Shane Jones went with the officials advice and upheld the deportation order. The apologists for Shane Jones need to ask how come he had compassion for a Labour party donor but not for a Christian Iranian women, who actually faced death under sharia law rather than the fanciful claims of a Labour party donor.

It looks like Obama’s support for gay marriage did absolutely nothing to his support…if anything it slightly improved.

There’s been a dramatic zero-point shift in the polls since Obama came out for gay marriage.

— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) May 21, 2012

As it happens, today is the first day that all of the polls included in the Real Clear Politics head-to-head average were taken fully or mostly after May 9th, the day President Obama endorsed gay marriage. As of this morning, they show Obama with a 1.7 percent lead. Looking back at the Wonkbook Dashboards, on the morning of May 9th, however, Obama had a 0.2 percent lead in the RCP head-to-head average. So since coming out for gay marriage, his numbers have slightly improved.

A 1.5 percent swing in the polling average isn’t nothing. But it’s not much. And it’s certainly not clear it was caused by Obama’s comments on gay marriage. What we can say is that for all the hubbub, and all the column inches devoted to gaming out the political fallout, Obama’s announcement led to little evident movement in the polls, and what movement there has been has been in his favor. That doesn’t mean gay marriage can’t matter later in the campaign — if it increases turnout among Ohio evangelicals, or leads to much-improved superPAC fundraising for Obama, it could have an impact on the election without having a major effect in national polling — but for now, it doesn’t appear to be changing many votes.

The Labour Leader claims:

“He accepted the SkyCity ticket before he knew about the convention centre deal.”

Well that is interesting.  Because the Convention Centre proposal was announced by John Key on June 12, 2011.

The RWC didn’t get underway until September, 2011.

Shearer had plenty of time to decline or return the tickets, and so did all the Labour hypocrites who accepted freebies from Sky City and were benefitting from gambling proceeds.

Labour has yet again been hoist by their own petard.

So why was Jones stood down? What new information did David Shearer receive?

And if Jones is stood down, what about Cunliffe? Jones has specifically singled Cunliffe out to share some of the blame…

Whatever verdict is handed down by the court today in the Bill Liu case, there are many, many unanswered questions for Labour and David Shearer who’ve known since 2008 that this whole sordid affair would eventually come to light.

Quite apart from the outrageous lies he told on the show which I will cover in a separate post about Sunday, this comment is really beyond the pale and needs to be addressed.

He complains about me posting about his dodgy secondary business called Hunger Strike, despite that very term featuring in the emails that Matt Blomfield provide to Sunday and that they showed on screen.

“Weeman” made out on the show that his run in with Hell was over a Hell branded caravan, and only that caravan. This is not strictly true. Hell and “Weeman” did have an issue over the caravan particularly his propensity to operate the caravan and not declare the revenue from it for his franchise calculations. Then of course there was the involvement of this caravan and the missing $13,000 that Warren Powell gave to Matt Blomfield and Paul Hinton to settle up the KidsCan issue.

After the Hell branded caravan was bought off “Weeman” and paid for, apparently over $60,000, Paul Hinton then set about creating Hunger Strike caravans. Hell subsequently found out that the caravan they paid over $60,000 for did not have gas compliance.

Paul Hinton created several “Hunger Strike“caravans while still a franchisee and stocked those caravans with what he described as “tasty treats”. What that really meant was Pizzas made with Hell recipes, Hell ingredients, supplied from Hell suppliers to his Hell franchise but never booked as revenue under his Hell franchise agreement. Paul Hinton was essentially operating in competition to Hell Pizza using their products and their intellectual property. Not only that he intimated to venue operators that he was an official Hell outlet, especially at Mt Smart Stadium. He even towed and operated the caravans from a Hell branded ute.

Paul Hinton, it appears, never told the Sunday programme or John Hudson this, despite it being published on my blog weeks ago. Paul Hinton lied by omission and in the process made the Sunday programme complicit in the lies because of their poor research.

When Hell Pizza discovered what Paul “Weeman” Hinton was up to they decided to initiate termination action. But Paul Hinton was already wanting to sell the franchise, but I doubt he told Sunday that.

Recent photo of Paul Hinton wearing a Hell jacket

Did you know that the eminent QC that Shane Jones based his decision to grant citizenship to Bill Liu:

However, after considering submissions from officials and from John Billington QC on behalf of Yan, he based his decision on “humanitarian grounds” which he could not expand on until the court case was over.

This presumably is the same eminent QC also representing Dover Samuels in this matter?

 “See my lawyer!” spat Dover Samuels down the phone.

“One question, did you receive a donation from Bill Liu before 2005 –”

“I’m not prepared to answer any more of your questions! You can see my lawyer, John Billington!”

Oh dear…conflicts, murk, coincidences…inquiry?

Labour has again been caught out in a blatant double standard.

The MPs Pecuniary Interests Register tabled in Parliament yesterday, shows Labour MPs were the recipients of significant hospitality from Sky City – despite their rabid opposition to a new convention centre and over-the-top claims about problem gambling.

Labour MPs accepted more free tickets to RWC games from Sky City than any other Party.

Even David Shearer accepted some tickets, which would make these comments about ‘pokie machines’ blatantly hypocritical.

Labour leader David Shearer received 12 free tickets to various games – two for a pool game came from Sky City. He was a guest of Sky TV at the final and Telecom at the opening ceremony.

This especially interesting because David Shearer subsequently enjoyed a nice fireside dinner at the home of Sky TV lobbyist with the CEO as well. I broke that story and at the time Shearer weaseled out of it, perhaps now in light of his accepting largesse from Sky TV we should re-visit that dinner.

Shearer’s new position appears to be that pokie machines and Sky City are very bad – although me and my mates are happy to accept the freebies they pay for. He also has the position that although he enjoys corporate hospitality and home dinners and fine wine with the corporate lobbyist and CEO that they never speak of business.

Apparently it needed a scientific study to show they are jerks. They are also sanctimonious and probably vote Green.

Other groups who science will show are jerks due to their holier than thou attitudes are:

Hybrid Car Owners
Town Planners
Home Birth Midwives
Green Party Members
Opponents of Gay Marriage

This is the question Nissan is really asking….Are you an idiot?

Some customers have “failed” a Nissan test to see if they were suitable for the new Leaf electric car.

Nissan has knocked back some customers interested in purchasing its first electric car, the Leaf, because they have been deemed “unsuitable” for ownership.

The plug-in electric vehicle officially hits the market on June 1, but interested customers need to pass a two-stage approval test before being issued with a certificate that will allow them to purchase the $51,500 car from one of Nissan’s special EV dealerships.

The test involves answering five questions about their intended usage for the car, followed by a visit from Nissan’s electrical supplier Origin Energy for an assessment of the suitability of the customer’s home electrical network.

On Monday David Shearer ruled out standing down Jones over his involvement in the Bill Liu cash for citizenship case with Larry Williams on Monday night.

He explicitly said says it’s meaningless anyway.

What new information has he received that made him change his mind?

Perhaps it was the information that the herald brought to light on top of the sterling work done by Wishart on the Bill Liu case back in 08/09.

This Herald article from 2009 also makes an interesting observation:

Liu was considered a high-risk gambler by the DIA’s casino monitoring division because of his volatility, high-stakes gambling and history of self-barring, the Herald was told.

A DIA spokesman confirmed that Liu was of interest. “Mr Liu is one of a number of gamblers of significance whom the department has discussed in its interaction with SkyCity”.

Liu’s gambling also attracted the attention of the police. That interest was at times intense and included surveillance, a source told the Herald. “The focus was to see whether evidence of money laundering could be detected.” No charges have been laid.

… so Liu was being watched by the DIA and police for potentially laundering money – as well as his immigration issues – but Jones still approved citizenship.

Has Labour only just googled this stuff?

It is also interesting that apart from claiming that he would be executed he also claimed membership of Falun Gong. There is a little problem with given his propensity for gambling. Falun Gong prohibits gambling so his claim to be a member (which Jones appears to have accepted) seems a bit convenient:

As part of its emphasis on ethical behavior, Falun Gong’s teachings prescribe a strict personal morality for practitioners, which includes abstention from smoking, drugs, gambling, premarital or extramarital sex, and homosexuality.

David Shearer has kicked this to the Auditor-General but their request is for the Auditor-General to look at the process….not the decision. This is farcical.

“I’ve asked for the Auditor-General to look into all the departmental as well as ministerial processes involved in this case.

“Shane has encouraged me to take this action because he has been left in the impossible position of not being able to clear his name. An inquiry will enable him to do so.

“While the inquiry is underway, Shane Jones will stand down from his portfolio responsibilities and from Labour’s Front Bench.

Based on what Labour has asked of the Auditor-General they are simply trying on what Helen Clark did with Philip Field. There really should be a full indepedent inquiry now.

Liu claimed to be involved in ‘formalising’ agreements and good relations between NZ and China.  What agreements? Officials said they could not confirm this was true.  And how does a fugitive who supposedly faces torture and organ harvesting in China find himself helping develop good trade relations?

Of course, citizenship can be revoked if you tell porkies on your application, just like residency (and a fake name certainly qualifies) – extradition/deportation can then follow.

Jones knew this.

Furthermore - this advice to Jones (see the top of Page 7) explicitly rules out the humanitarian clause as a reason to grant citizenship.

“It is therefore considered that Mr Liu is not eligible for the grant of citizenship under the former section 9(1)(d) of the Citizenship Act 1977.”

Jones’ decision last night to parrot the claims made by Dover Samuels, made the whole thing look even more murky.

Time for David Shearer to show some leadership and demand a full independent inquiry into this cash for citizenship scandal.

Andrew Little is upset because a process server shone a torch in his eyes:

Little last week invited Collins to send “thuggish characters” and last night a process serving agent was waiting for him when he got home.

“It was dark, the guy leapt up and shined a torch in my face and served me with the papers, so fair cop.”

There was an unwritten law that politicians didn’t bother each other’s families, he said.

“I was pleased they didn’t come inside the gate, they didn’t hassle my home, that’s what I was most worried about.

“I think Judith Collins came very close to the mark. As it was the guy was sitting just outside our place, and lying in wait for me to get home.”

God he is pathetic. He started the silly game by defaming Judith Collins, then by saying bring it on to her law suit, then by skulking like a coward.

Unbelievably he still thinks Judith Collins isn’t serious.

Little said he would be consulting with his lawyer today and be releasing details of the case to back up his and Mallard’s claim they had done nothing wrong.

They would show Collins had refused to answer questions in Parliament about the leaked letter and the MPs were doing their job by trying to hold her account.

“To the extent that her reputation is based on her being a straight shooter in Parliament, there is evidence to the contrary of that and I want to get that out sooner rather than later so people can see exactly what it is she is on about.”

Little said he was convinced Collins wouldn’t want the matter to go to trial she would be forced to defend her personal reputation.

Little has said to anyone who would listen around parliament that he has consulted 4 lawyers already…now he is off to a real one as it turns out that the advice of Charles Chauvel, David Parker, himself  and Lianne Dalziel didn’t amount to much.

Emmerson is brilliant…Shane Jones movie viewing pleasures, carpet cleaners and dodgy behaviour…nice.

Andrew Sullivan posts about why he is so passionate about gay marriage.

You can feel secure but without civil marriage, you aren’t. So many of us learned this in the plague years – watching de facto spouses denied entrance to hospital rooms, thrown out of shared apartments by the spouse’s family, denied access to the funeral, brutalized by those who never cared for someone until he died. I swore to myself then that this would be my life’s work: to prevent such horror from happening again. We’ve made a start. But as this video shows, we are not close to the end yet. And that churches - churches - should be in the vanguard of brutalizing these people in this way – and justifying it -  fills me with oceans of sadness. And grief again.

How can anyone deny basic rights to those in a committed relationship? How is that conservative? How is that just? And how can politicians promote something as meaningless as a gay mardi gras instead of something as meaningful as marriage?

What Sainsbury didn’t point out during his tears and whining was that this “expert” – Roger Brooking – is a grassroots Labour activist. True to form this tool hijacked the interview to push his ideological opposition to private prisons.

If Sainsbury had bothered to look at Brooking’s Twitter account, rather than repeat crap he heard on Moaning Report, he would also have seen personal attacks on Tolley.

No wonder Anne Tolley got demoted from Education. Now in charge of prisons and still can’t add up. infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?id=87…

— Roger Brooking (@RogerBrooking) March 23, 2012

Good on her for not treating this left-wing low-life as an equal.

Close Up looks like a lame horse waiting for the final shot. No wonder the pressure is getting to Sainsbury.

Cactus compares Trevor Mallard to O.J. Simpson…and not in a good way:

Some people I know have played the game of dodging the civil serve. It can go on for months and you are well within your rights to do it and really there is no point other than adding to the psyche sport. Mallard I reckon is clever enough to drag it on for a month if he really wants to.

He is relying on the “OJ” effect, in so far that after a period of time you actually want OJ to escape as the whole process has become so hilarious.

But being neither an adored sports star or black, Mallard is probably not going to gain the same level of public sympathy.

Yes Trevor, we are laughing at you, not with you.