Ani MollerOnce Upon a Time, In a Faraway Land…

As I’m sure everyone in New Zealand has heard, now former television sports presenter Tony Veitch assaulted his former partner Kristin Dunne-Powell in 2006, breaking her back leaving her in a wheelchair for a period of time, then paid her a large sum of hush money to keep the incident quiet.

There are two good things that came out of this incident: firstly, Veitch is no longer a smug cunt on television, secondly, at last a media personality is seemingly not going to get away with breaking the law just because he is a media personality (think Mark Ellis and Brent Todd’s drug scandal, various rugby players and violent assaults). The only problem is that with all the media coverage I am now completely sick of hearing about it, with such news-worthy articles as “Veitch’s wife strikes back” and “Ex-love stands by Tony Veitch“. Jesus Chris, stop the press already! Who really cares what one of his ex-girlfriend’s has to say, when Veitch has already admitted he assaulted Dunne-Powell?

I just hope this little debacle will give New Zealand celebrities a little bit more of a reason to stop being such diddles and start acting like the role models they are supposed to be.

This afternoon I visited Fleshwound to ask the lovely Timb questions as per usual to find that they will be permanently closing the gate from December 23. I understand Hamish will be taking some time off and perhaps relocating the store in the New Year to Petone, or not, with Timb moving to Australia.

I will be sad to see such an iconic Cuba Street fixture depart Wellington. I don’t know who I will go to for any possible future piercings, advice, and to get my jewellery changed because I’m too much of a baby to do it myself. Thanks to Hamish for all the great service over the years, and to Timb for my most recent metallic addition which was the easiest and most pain-free piercing I’ve had to date. Thanks guys!

LONDON (AFP) – So much cocaine is being used in London that traces of the white powdered narcotic can be detected in the River Thames, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper said.

Citing scientific research which it had commissioned, it said an estimated two kilogrammes of cocaine, or 80,000 lines, spill into the river every day after it has passed through users’ bodies and sewage treatment plants.

I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised by this. London is the most druggie town I’ve ever been to. Everyone I know in London is a waster and loves coke and/or E, which is so cheap it’s ridiculous. Kate Moss lives in London!

I’ve been following the events of the past week with disbelief as they unfolded. It is incredible to see one of the most well-known American towns become a cesspit of death, filthy water, and chaos, and many others completely wiped out. I read that the extent of the damage is about the equivilent of the entire United Kingdom. That is something that I can’t really comprehend. That is massive destruction.

I’ve been reading the news and watching news clips, and waited along with everyone else for a sign that people were quickly being evacuated. It has become a colossal disaster. The US Government has let its people down in the most atrocious of ways. No one should have to wait 6 days to be evacuated from the safe house-turned-hell hole survivors were dropped off at. No one in a supposed “first world” country, the richest and most powerful one at that, should have to wait days upon days for water. No one should be told that they have to flash their breasts to the “rescuers” to be evacuated from a flooded hotel. Officials should never evacuate people to an unsafe environment, where people steal from each other, rape women and children, and murder each other. Police should never skip town and/or go looting at Wal*Mart with everyone else. It is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I feel so sorry for everyone affected. It is unimaginable.

Following up to what I wrote on Thursday, yes indeed, four bombs exploded in London on Thursday. As it currently stands, over 50 people were killed and 700 injured. Reports say the number of deaths will rise to 60 or more once the scenes have all been cleared for forensics.

I spent Thursday worrying about my friends in London, although apparently completely unnecessarily, thank God. I spent Thursday reading the news, watching the news, and talking about it with my friends over tea. I still can’t really believe what happened. Strangely enough, people I hadn’t heard from in ages contacted me to see if I was okay – I guess they forgot that Manchester isn’t a suburb of London. The thought was there though.

As the events were unfolding, I spoke to some friends in London online. We kept each other updated with what was going on, as some of us couldn’t get news updates as the news servers were getting hammered. We did a roll call to make sure everyone was accounted for. Surprisingly, everyone was more in disbelief than panic. Once my London friends figured out how they were going to get home, a bunch of them went to the pub. They were all rather calm. It seems to be something engrained in them, engrained from years of threats from the IRA, and through the actions of their parents and grandparents from WWI and WWII. The next day, they were going about their business again.

It makes me think – as a New Zealander, I just can’t comprehend any of it. Not just the fact that bombs exploded and people died, but also the fact that most people seemed to take it with a grain of salt. Even most news organisations have been perfectly unbiased, which is refreshing after living in the United States for three years. New Zealanders are so incredibly lucky to live in such a peaceful and neutral country. The only events even slightly similiar we can relate it to are stories from our grandparents about fighting in a war we don’t really understand (New Zealand? Wars? Eh? Etc.) and the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by the French, in Auckland harbour in 1985 (which apparently Mitterand gave his personal authorisation for, that fucking bastard). But these things don’t compute – passed down tales from 60 years ago and the sinking of a Greenpeace ship. They just aren’t things that help me relate to what happened on Thursday.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by all the cowardly attacks that are going on – not just in London, but everywhere. It makes me sick to my stomach that there are people out there who are so full of hate that they want to kill innocent people in order to prove some sort of crazy point. I desperately wish everyone could just live their lives, and not enforce their views on others in such ways. I wish everyone could respect other people’s choice of religion, race, political stance, and country of residence. However, there is no reason that most of these things can not be discussed in a constructive way. Blowing shit up doesn’t solve anything.

I guess I’m just a hippie from New Zealand. Realistically, I know we can’t live in peace. But I can always hope, can’t I?

The news is saying there have been about 4 explosions on the undergound in London. At least 2 buses have been blown up. Apparently there are loads of injured, but only 1 unconfirmed fatality. The entire underground has now been shut down.

I can’t get any news website to load properly, not even the BBC. What I can get is this:

One witness told Sky there was an explosion at the back of a tube carriage.

He said there was “bodies lying everywhere”.

This week US Congress passed a bill for standardised federal IDs – the Real ID bill. The proposed Real ID will not be a replacement for a driver’s licence, state ID, or passport, but will instead be required to do absolutely anything with that involves dealing with a government department – applying for a driver’s licence, collecting social security, etc. They will also be required to board planes, but get this – states can opt out of this programme, but their residents will have to find alternative methods of identification to fly domestically. What percentage of Americans do you know with passports, and how many will be able to get them without a Real ID card in the future?

While in theory this is not a bad idea (why have various forms of ID when you could just have a standardised one), THIS IS A VERY, VERY BAD IDEA. There will be far too much information on these cards which I have no doubt will be used in ways that people will not appreciate.

The information that will be contained on the cards at a minimum will be:

• Name
• Address
• Social Security number
• Birthdate
• Sex
• ID number
• Digital photograph
• Digital signature

No problem with that, right? That’s not much more than the current driver’s licences. However, there are talks of adding fingerprints and retinal scans (!!!). The cards will also have some form of machine-readable technology, which could be a chip but has been discussed as the possibility of RFID. What this means is that one day you could be walking down the street, walk past a lamp post with an RFID reader in it which would beam your location back to whoever wants that information. You might think that is a bit far fetched, but would be nothing stopping the government from doing that. If RFID is introduced into the ID cards, anything could happen from a distance without your knowledge. If they have to be placed into a machine to be read, well that is something different.

I don’t think there is much wrong with having a standardised card, but the reasons for this being passed into law are wrong. Spending millions of dollars “consolidating” databases might seem like a good idea, but this is happening because of so-called terrorism. Bear in mind that the 9/11 suspects all had INS issued visas, if I recall correctly. This is not going to do anything to stop terrorism. This is just going to make Americans lives difficult, and start the reality that is 1984.

So, how did this get passed into law? It was attached to an $82 billion military spending bill. What god-fearing patriot is going to vote against that?

Also note-worthy, at the time of posting this issue is not even anywhere on CNN.com, aside from a brief mention of the military bill being passed, but it mentions nothing about the federal ID cards. There is something wrong with American media.

More information:
No Real Debate for Real ID
How Real ID will affect you
Analysts: ‘Real ID’ Act Could Help ID Thieves