Different kinds of terrorist

The UK government has introduced new anti-terrorist legislation, which, amongst other things, introduces the "thoughtcrime" of "glorifying terrorism" and allows up to six months arbitrary detention.

It is interesting that there has been no mention of applying these draconian measures in Northern Ireland, where insurrection has resurfaced in the past week. Arguably the situation in the Six Counties has come much closer to the ECHR test of a "public emergency threatening the life of the nation" than Islamist activity in mainland UK - the constitutional arrangements (and indeed the continued existence) of Northern Ireland over the past hundred years have largely been driven by actual and threatened violence by nationalist and unionist groups.

Why is the UK government not planning to charge the leader of the Orange Order with "glorifying terrorism"? Or to detain hundreds of loyalists without trial? Largely, I suspect because the situation *is* seen as serious. Such measures were tried in Ireland in the early 1970's and abandoned after they simply exacarbated the situation.

It seems that because Muslim extremists are to few in number to threaten "the life of the nation" the UK government believes that repressive measures can be introduced with no risk of a widening insurrection - we shall see.

Not mainstream

I got a letter yesterday. It was addressed to Mr R and Ms J Observationz (not really, but similar).

In common, I would think, with a lot of people, I live with my partner - we aren't married yet, and she certainly doesn't use my name. Most people would either write to us separately or to both of us by our individual surnames.

I can only guess that someone assumes that if two people of the opposite sex live together, they must be married, or brother and sister. Guess who that might be?

Not hard is it - the National Party!

Both of us might consider their kind offer to vote for them (or possibly they expect the male to cast both votes in some sort of Victorian/Exclusive Brethren style). However I think we both fail their test of mainstream-ness:

Me: Immigrant (not from Singapore), living in sin, no kids
My partner: Female, living in sin, no kids, under 40.

Possibly everyone should consider their compatibility with the "mainstream" before voting for Brash (aka Victorian Dad).

Polled out

I was all set to write a post slagging off TVNZ for this self selecting, unrepresentative, pay-to-vote "poll".

I even created this spoof poll in the previous post to compare it with.

Then I noticed - they aren't going to publish the result until *after* the election. Which seems a little pointless (and wasn't mentioned on the programme). I suspect their lawyers have been having a little word - which would be a good thing.

New poll just in

The following exclusive Observationz poll rather paints a different picture of the election to those "scientific" polls in the mainstream media.

Destiny NZ      2.1%
Act             34.0%
National        14.9%
Libz            4.3%
NZ First        2.1%
United Future   6.4%
Labour          14.9%
Progs           2.1%
Alliance        8.5%
CWG             4.3%
Greens          6.4%

On this basis, I expect that ACT will be able to lead a government with the support of National - which I'm sure Don will give to the victorious Rodney - he will probably get Treasurer, or maybe Deputy PM. A few more votes could see the Libertarianz joining in though.

[Sample details: the sample of 47 was taken from Span's analysis here and is based on a self-selecting sample of those who have bothered to create a blog and declare their preference - but hey - in the words of Susan Wood it "Makes you wonder".]

Green Box

Twice in recent days we've had a mysterious box on the letter-box. The first one was red - the latest one is green - as seen below:



I'm curious as to what they are? It's been suggested something to do with orienteering. In London I think this would invite a controlled explosion....

I took the box apart - after all being on my letter box makes it mine, right?

The parts can be seen below:




It looks to me like it detects a flash or IR beam and starts the led flashing - no sounding device and no RF-like components, so it probably isn't a transmitter or receiver. I tried flashing a bright light at it, but nothing happened.

Anyone know? There was nothing marked on the PCB that I could find on Google.

I thought maybe ACT have some fiendish device to measure who reads their bogus election messages...