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Category Archives: Keep it Metal!
New Book. Twisting the Treaty.
Six notable authors, have just published a challenging new book about the way the Treaty of Waitangi has been twisted to be greatly in favour of Maori tribes in the last 30 years. These twistings include the rewriting o…f our history by political “historians”, the never-ending so called Treaty claim process, and privatising and giving away our foreshore and seabed, as well as our native flora and fauna, and the rorts that apply to our sea fishery.
If you are interested in these matters, then this book, “Twi$ting the Treaty – A tribal Grab for Wealth and Power” provides readily readable discussion on these topics. The Cover below.
Warning – the book is factual and is non-PC, one of its charms in my view.
The book is available at a retail cost of $40. It has 414 pages and 16 photo pages.
But with 16 self-contained chapters it does not have to be read all at once.
Where to obtain it:
1 Good bookstores throughout NZ or
2 Write to Tross Publishing, P O Box 22 143, Khandallah, Wellington, 6441 with your order and cheque
3 Also see our website, www.trosspublishing.co.nz for info and to order.
Enjoy your reading.
^^^^ Hat Tip: Tom Henry via Facebook.
Libertarians Tim Wikiriwhi and Guest Peter Cresswell On the New Freeland Radio Show.
Great to see Ex Libertarianz Party Leader Peter Cresswell listed as a Co Author of Twisting the Treaty!
Watch Here @ Eternal Vigilance for further commentary on this Book.
P.S Deep Purple in Concert Tonight! Yeah!
Have we reached the limits of free speech?
Man Made Super-Flu Could Kill Half Humanity
A virus with the potential to kill up to half the world’s population has been made in a lab. Now academics and bio-terrorism experts are arguing over whether to publish the recipe, and whether the research should have been done in the first place.
Have we reached the limits of free speech? Discuss.
Original sin. What is it good for?
Blaming you, that’s what. It’s your fault!
I’m fast coming around to the view that the Socialist Salvation Army expresses like this.
our first parents were created in a state of innocency, but by their disobedience they lost their purity and happiness, and that in consequence of their fall all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.
This is the doctrine of original sin. It was Adam (and Eve) who committed the orginal sin, but you have inherited that sin. You were born bad. Free will is commonly believed to be a precondition of moral agency and moral responsibility, but it’s not. Just as well, since we don’t have free will!
Contrary to popular opinion, moral responsibility is not consequent upon our actions (whether freely chosen or otherwise). Moral responsibility is not gotten through acts of commission or omission. In fact, it’s a matter of give and take. You are morally responsible if you are justly held accountable by other people (including God) or if you rightly take responsibility yourself for your own (or other people’s) actions.
The view I have just expressed is not a popular one. It gets intransigent atheists, in particular, in a real lather. Here‘s Ayn Rand.
The name of this monstrous absurdity is Original Sin.
A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man’s sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man’s nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code.
The doctrine of original sin squares the existence of morality with the non-existence of free will.
The doctrine of original sin is Biblically sound, whereas the doctrine of free will is not (notwithstanding that it’s a very popular theodicy).
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (NIV)
As strong as death
Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned. (NIV)
Blessed are the sick
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
[Hat tip: No Minister]
Eternal Vigilance is #1 for eternal vigilance!
A new life begins
Hatebreed is metal with attitude. (All true metal is metal with attitude!)
Destroy everything (x 3)
So a new life can beginDestroy everything (x 3)
Rebuild and start again
Again
The lyrics to this song make me think of Genesis 6. (YMMV.)
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” (NIV)
Fatal attraction
Today the government banned the sale of NIB (neodymium-iron-boron) magnets.
Ban on the sale of high powered magnet sets
Consumer Affairs Minister Simon Bridges has announced a ban on the sale of sets of small high powered magnets that have caused serious injuries in New Zealand and at least one reported death in Australia.
“These magnets are harmless to play with but if swallowed can cause serious internal damage that can require major surgery,” says Mr Bridges.
If two or more of these magnets are ingested they can become joined up in the digestive system and the pressure they exert can cause serious inflammation and ulceration. Left untreated, this can quickly lead to major tissue damage, perforations and potentially infection sepsis and death.
“Because of their strength, older children have been known to use these magnets as mock jewellery, such as mouth or tongue studs. Young children swallow them out of natural curiosity.
“As a result children have been seriously harmed overseas, including many hospitalisations in the United States and Australia and the death of an 18-month-old in Queensland. In December a New Zealand toddler was admitted to Auckland’s Starship Hospital after ingesting some of the magnets. Officials are aware of at least two other serious cases here involving hospitalisation and surgery.
“Though these magnets tend to be marketed at adults as office toys and many brands carry strict safety warnings, it is clear from the cases here and overseas that they pose too great a risk to children.”
The Unsafe Goods Notice for these small powerful magnets will mean that from tomorrow no one will be allowed to import or sell these magnets in New Zealand. The notice is issued under section 31 of the Fair Trading Act 1986 and will be enforced by the New Zealand Customs Service at the border and the Commerce Commission in the marketplace.
Bridges reassures us.
The action I have taken will only apply to the sales of these magnets for personal or domestic use. This ban will not affect the use of this type of magnet in schools and universities for teaching purposes nor would it affect any industrial or commercial use of these magnets.
Sure.
Imagine the sinking feeling in your stomach, caused not by ingestion of NIB magnets, but by receipt of a letter from the New Zealand Customs Service telling you that they have seized your magnets, and will destroy them, if you do not provide evidence that you imported them for non-personal use.
Is Harry Binswanger going insane?
Harry Binswanger is a rare breed of man—he’s both a philosopher and an Objectivist!
Qua philosopher, he wrote his doctoral dissertation in the philosophy of biology, later published as The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts.
Qua Objectivist, he takes credit for compiling the Ayn Rand Lexicon.
His latest piece on the current gun control debate in the U.S. is a gem. His point is a simple one, viz., With Gun Control, Cost Benefit Analysis Is Amoral.
Here’s a key excerpt.
The government may use force only against an objective threat of force. Only that constitutes retaliation.
In particular, the government may not descend to the evil of preventive law. The government cannot treat men as guilty until they have proven themselves to be, for the moment, innocent. No law can require the individual to prove that he won’t violate another’s rights, in the absence of evidence that he is going to.
But this is precisely what gun control laws do. Gun control laws use force against the individual in the absence of any specific evidence that he is about to commit a crime.
But he’s recently reported as saying this on his private list.
one thing that the law should return to doing is locking away the dangerously insane. The libertarian Thomas Szaz was instrumental in the movement begun in the late 60s to dump crazies back on the streets. He bears heavy guilt for many of these Newtown-type atrocities.
Isn’t locking away people deemed to be insane the very same evil of preventive law that Binswanger rails against in his Forbes article published only a week later? It seems that Binswanger has arrived at a contradiction.
To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.
Binswanger’s gone insane. He should be locked up, for the public good.
[Cross-posted to SOLO.]