Friday morning ramble [updated]

I’ve ended up the week with another huge number of things I’d wanted to say to you but never got the chance.  So here, in no particular order, is another ramble through some of the things I’d wanted to talk about at greater length – a bunch ‘o links you can come back to over the weekend and think about yourself.
Enjoy!

• Outgoing European Union President Václav Klaus had some unflattering things to say about his fellow European leaders, and something surprising to say about American president Barack Obama.
  Read Václav Klaus grades EU politicians. [Hat tip Reference Frame]
• Great cartoon and comment over at The Visible Hand on the controversy over Anne Tolley’s canning of night school funding.
  Head over to Cartoon: Night classes.
• College students today face an ideological onslaught from educators who are more concerned with creating "good citizens" than teaching them real knowledge, says Montessorian Marsha Enright, It's time for a new approach, she says, and she’s making one: She’s launching a “finishing school” for intelligent youngsters, to teach them everything they should have been taught in school but weren’t, and to “unteach” all the destructive nonsense they shouldn’t have been taught.
  Anyone who realises the enormously destructive role that leftist capture of the education system has played in the collapse of the culture will want to applaud her, and to read:
  Students Need Mental Ammunition.
• In fact, if you Want Excellence in Education? Return to Reason says Michael Gold at The Egoist Blog.
• And if you want cultural change, we need to get on with the essay competition I talked about last year.  And that’s just the start of it all.  Who’s with me?
• Meanwhile, Rational Jenn offers more another tip for rational parents. "Explaining the virtue of Integrity to children can be difficult,” she says. “I helped my son begin to grasp this idea by pointing out an example of when he displayed that virtue himself."
  Read A Conversation about Integrity posted at Rational Jenn.
• What sort of arsehole architect would design this excrescence on the right for a clinic to treat patients with chronic brain diseases, dementia and cognitive disorders?  Answer: that arsehole Frank Gehry of course.
• As we start to hear calls from the US for yet another “stimulus” package,  throwing good but rapidly depreciating money after bad, it’s time to get the lowdown on the crude Keynesianism at back of all the profligate stimulunacy.
• Here, by the way, are some simple experiments to prove why “stimulus” can not work.
  Read Obama: Please Try This at Home.
• And on a similar theme, why not read up On the Inescapable Contradiction of Fractional Reserve Banking.
• It’s All About Say’s Law, you know. Yes, it really is.
• Bubble, bubble toil and trouble.  Can Bubbles Also Be Made in China?  Looks horribly like it.
• Good quote here from the 3-Ring Binder blog:
  ”1.The concept of individual rights is morality applied to politics.
  2. The purpose of the government is to protect our individual rights.”
• Robert Garmong’s been teaching philosophy to prisoners, and he reports they were far better students than his usual brood. 
  Read Teaching Intro to Philosophy...In Prison.
• By the way, have you ever noticed that when you’re debating with graduates of various subjectivist philosophy courses they invariably end up telling you that your questions are “too complex” to answer successfully.  From whence comes this fetishistic complexity worship?  The Rational Capitalist explains: The Modern Intellectual's Virtue of Complexity, Part I.
• This Bryan Larsen painting (right) is beautiful.  Just thought you’d like to see it too.
  Click on the picture to see it larger.
• I’m still flabbergasted at the Nazis in Hawkes bay who are insisting that a family tear down a seawall they built to protect their home – they have been given until the end of August to pull down the wall, or face the possibility of jail time or a fine of $200000.  Just another example of why the Resource Management Act has to go so New Zealanders can get their property rights back.
• Meanwhile, the Nazis at North Shore City are adding insult to economic calamity for the city’s developers, and those who would like to buy affordable homes from them.  They’ve just hiked their thieving “development levies”  by a whopping 150%.
  Gooner has the news at No Minister: Development levies.
• Speaking of petty fascism, Margaret and Keith Berryman (right) are enduring their last kick in the face from government: delayed for years in their fight for justice by the lying, dissembling and near-fraudulence of everyone from Helen Clark to Jenny Shipley to the NZ Army and beyond, they’ve now been told by a judge that their action against the government will fail because it’s too long after the event.  Poor bastards.
  They’re poster people for Thomas Jefferson’s much-repeated dictum that a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away all you’ve ever earned.
• Mythbusters’ Andy Savage reckons the show will keep going “as long as people keep believing stupid shit.”  Looks like it will be around a long time.  Watch him interviewed here at Reason TV
• Apparently there’s to be a remake of my all-time favourite TV show The Prisoner, opening in October.  There’s a nine-minute preview below.  I’m worried by it. [Hat tip Charles Burris]
  
• The swine flu outbreak has seen everyone look to government to solve the public health problem.  Stephen Hicks offers two cautionary tales to suggest we shouldn’t be so quick to look to government to solve this problem either.
  Read Two cautionary tales about cholera, the plague, and politics.
• Canadian Paul McKeever offers “Required reading for anyone interested in the issue of socialised medicine: the Supreme Court of Canada's 2005 decision, which ended Quebec's ban on private health insurance. The reason: government health care is *rationed* care, which was leaving people to suffer and die.”
  Read Supreme Court of Canada - Decisions - Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General).
• George Reisman reckons you should listen to this phone-in interview on the ObamaCare Plan over at Fred Thompons’s website, including news of compulsory five-yearly counselling sessions on euthanasia for over-65s. “An assault on seniors” Reisman calls it.
  Listen here to the Betsy McCaughey Interview, and visit www.defendyourhealthcare.us/.
• And see also two videos on the reality of ObamaCare.
• So come on, Is Health Care a Right? Answer the question, Congressmen!
• Come on, What 'right' to health care?
• You want a quick post that gives a hint to what a true free market in health care could be like. This is it: Target's Free Market Health Care Innovation.
• Why do so many seemingly intelligent people lose their critical faculties when it comes to public transport – especially public transport by train? Liberty Scott fisks all the idiots gathered around the altar of the train.
• Architectural photographer Julius Shulman died last month. For most people, when they think of modernist architecture, it will be a photograph of Shulman’s – like the classic at right -- that will come to mind.
  Read the Wall Street Journal’s obituary here: How Julius Shulman Told a House’s Story.
• This looks like my kind of art gallery too – a Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow that “has invited art lovers to write their thoughts down in an open Bible on display as part of its Made in God's Image exhibition.”  PZ Myers reckons “It's an interesting idea. I've signed a few bibles at people's request myself — I usually mark up the first page with the question, ‘Where are the squid?’” 
  Read My kind of art gallery.
• Matt Nolan at The Visible Hand reckons there’s now fourteen economics blogs in New Zealand.  Flatteringly, he includes my bumbling efforts in the list.
• If you haven’t yet seen the video of the Inspector General of the US Federal Reserve Bank admitting she hasn’t got a clue where several trillion dollars has gone, then yyou really need to have a look now.  It’s frightening.
• And speaking of mismanagement at The Fed, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has been circling the States giving “Town Hall Meetings” to ramp up his popularity in the face of a public appalled at the almost daily evidence of the incompetence of him and his colleagues.  Jeff Perren runs the rule over Bernaanke’s Kansas meeting, saying that “During the entire period the ‘deer in the headlights’ look never left his face.”
  Read Bernanke Grilled At Townhall in Kansas, and see if you can answer Jeff’s question:
  ”It's always a little shocking to see a man who has taught at Princeton be so stupid. What remains a mystery is why men of intelligence like Bernanke absorb and accept the blatant nonsense that a healthy-minded college freshman could poke big holes through without effort.”
  Any ideas?
• What’s the answer?  End the Fed. Economist George Selgin says Congressman Ron Paul's bill may never pass, “but history suggests the US economy would be better off without the Federal Reserve.”
  Read End the Fed? A not-so-crazy idea..
• Here’s some vintage pro-inflation propaganda from America’s last Great Depression.  Maybe Ben Bernanke could re-release it?
• Take a look at America’s Debt Clock.  It’s frankly frightening.
• Speaking of a deer in the headlights, perhaps it’s a shame Mr Bernanke hasn’t got a friend like Paddy, an Irish hunter, who dialled 911 to say, "I just shot at something that I thought was a deer but it was another hunter. I'm afraid I just killed Mick." The operator says, "It's OK sir, it may not be as bad as you think. First, make sure Mick's really dead." Paddy says OK and sets down the phone. Then the operator hears a gunshot. Paddy picks up the phone and says, "OK, now what?"
• Afghanistan: Destination? Non-victory.
• Conservative intellectual Bill Kristol – America’s Matthew Hooton -- demonstrates on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart why the term conservative intellectual is an oxymoron.
  Watch here at this link, and you might begin to understand why Ayn Rand called today’s conservatives “futile, impotent and, culturally, dead.
  “They have nothing to offer and can achieve nothing [she said]. They can only help to destroy intellectual standards, to disintegrate thought, to discredit capitalism, and to accelerate this country’s uncontested collapse into despair and dictatorship.”
  Kristol is Exhibit A for the prosecution. Watch here at this link.
• Or as Andy Clarkson (aka The Charlotte Capitalist) asks, "Are Conservatives Going To Save Socialism Again?"
• If you thought those subjectivist philosophy professors were snarky about Ayn Rand in the New York Times this week, then you should have seen how Friedrich Nietzsche was received by his “colleagues” at Basel University.  Ouch!
  There’s nothing so vicious as a philosophy professor in the face of a competitor who’s telling them their time is up.
• Subjectivist philosophy professors don’t like Ayn Rand, but why are more and more businessmen falling in love with her novel Atlas Shrugged?
  Alex Epstein gives a pithy explanation in Why Businessmen Love Atlas Shrugged.
• Speaking of outraged charlatans, psychotherapists are outraged that Wikipedia has put online the Rorshach inkblot tests that they use to help practice their chicanery. Poor dears.
  Read A Rorschach Cheat Sheet on Wikipedia?.
• By the way, you won’t believe the Internet Porn Statistics, even when they’re so elegantly presented.  Watch Internet Porn Statistics.
  Thank goodness we’re all paying $1.5 billion to get broadband, eh?
• A 1951 Phoenix home that famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his son has been sold for US$2.8 million.  That’s its lounge on the right.  Head here to learn more.
• Eric Crampton reckons Phillip Field’s conviction for corruption is Eroding our Clean Green image.
  Although Jim Hopkins reckons that between Phillip Field and Bill English, they might be able to help us close at least one gap with Australia: the corruption gap.
• Here’s what some people are calling “the greatest letter of complaint ever” – a disgruntled Virgin Airlines passenger writing to Richard Branson.  Hilarious.
  Read Greatest ever letter of complaint.
• Fellow Wagner fans fearful of how Katherina Wagner is execrating her grandfather’s work might at least like to know that she’s bring the Bayreuth Festival experience to the web, including live webcasts of performances! Head to the really excellent Bayreuth website here, and you’ll find yourself in heaven. Or at least Valhalla.
• In Ayn Rand's final public talk, she exhorts a group of businessmen to stop apologizing, and stop supporting anti-capitalist institutions: "It is a moral crime to give money to support ideas with which you disagree. It is a moral crime to give money to support your own destroyers." See how the force of her ideas captivated an audience and drew a tumultuous response.
  Watch The Sanction of the Victims.

Justice at last for Keith & Margaret Berryman!

Marvellous news!  After fourteen years of having the weight of the state on their throat -- fourteen years of trying to get justice and clear their name -- Keith & Margaret Berryman have finally got justice, if not yet restitution. Story here.

I salute their heroic lawyer Bob Moodie, without whom the battle could not even have been engaged, and my thoughts go out to Keith & Margaret, two wonderful people.

Read the Berryman archives here at NOT PC to see why this victory is so special.

Berrymans' lawyer mortgages house to pay fine for seeking justice

Several years ago an embattled Adrian Chisholm placed an ad in the paper:  "Honest and a 'lawyer?" said the ad,  "then we need you."  Two lawyers phoned, one of whom had been disbarred.  The other was retired.  That's how rare is the breed that was being sought.

Rob Moodie is one of that rare and esteemed breed.  For years he has pursued justice for former farmers Keith and Margaret Berryman who, through collusion and cover-up and political legerdemain, have lost nearly everything they own -- and just recently he was forced to mortgage his home to pay a $5000 fine and $32,000 in costs awarded to the Crown after he was found guilty of contempt of court for publishing the army's 'Butcher Report' on on the Internet -- the army's own suppressed report that pointed to their culpability in the whole affair.

Poneke offers much of the story and a suitable tribute to the spirited Mr Moodie here.  (And here's Rob Moodie's own website, which I'd like to think should shortly have details of how to send financial donations to help him out.  If not, I wonder If someone might like to start such a project?)

UPDATE:  A trust has been in existence for some years for financial donations.  It is the Berryman Moodie Trust, National Bank Taupo. The Account number is 060429 - 0222810 - 00.  Donations can be made online, or at any National Bank.

Berrymans' lawyer faces court on contempt

I'm told that the lawyer for Keith and Margaret Berryman, Dr Rob Moodie, himself faces two days in the Wellington High Court at the end of January over the issue of contempt, in relation to his release of the Butcher Report. I wish Dr Moodie well. More details at a supporter's website.

You can find background on how action by successive governments has done over the Berrymans at the supporter's website, and in my own posts on the subject.

LINK: NZ Army-built bridge disaster - Supporter's website

RELATED: Berrymans, Politics-NZ

"Who the **** is Alice?" - Berrymans

Oh Lord!

NZ HERALD: Male lawyer appears in court in women's clothes

Lawyer Rob Moodie turned heads at the High Court in Wellington yesterday when he arrived dressed in a skirt and asked to be called Ms Alice...

Dr Moodie, who wore Kaftans when he was Police Association secretary, said his frustration at the judiciary's handling of the Berryman bridge case had prompted his decision to resume wearing women's clothing.

The case had caused him "to reflect on what it means to be a male in this country. I've decided I don't actually want to be part of that ethos."

I'm sure that's just what the Berrymans needed.

UPDATE: The Dom, which I should have linked before, has the 'full story,' and concludes:

...his main motivation was to highlight the injustice suffered by the Berrymans and the judiciary's inability to address it, he said.

"Two people's lives have been ruined. I will not let this issue go."

Well, thank goodness for that at least. But if this is just a protest to get attention for the case, it seems somewhat countr-productive to me. Idiot/Savant disagrees: he reckons the Dom should have ignored the dressing up and "focussed on the allegation... in this day and age, I'd hardly think of it as 'news'." Well, maybe not, but if it ain't news, it ain't useful protest. And if it's news like this, it may not be useful either.

LINK: High profile lawyer protests through dress - Dominion Post

RELATED: Berrymans

'Some rare good news' for Berrymans

Some good news yesterday for Keith and Margaret Berryman:

The High Court yesterday ruled their application for a judicial review should not be struck out.

Since Inglewood beekeeper Ken Richards was killed in 1994 when the army-built bridge leading to the Berrymans’ King Country farm collapsed, the couple have been fighting against being held responsible for the collapse. A coroner in 1997 ruled that the Berrymans had not properly maintained the bridge but the Berrymans want a second coroner’s inquest to be held to include consideration of the army’s “Butcher report”, which found fault with the bridge’s design.

The Solicitor-General last year refused to order a fresh inquest and the Berrymans are seeking judicial review of that decision. But the Solicitor-General, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) and Taumarunui coroner Timothy Scott last week argued in the High Court at Wellington that the judicial review application should be struck out.

Late yesterday afternoon Justice Alan Mackenzie ruled the application should not be struck out and that the Berrymans should be entitled to costs.

As the Wanganui Chronicle says of the decision, "some rare good news" for Keith and Margaret, and for their hard-pressed lawyer Rob Moodie.

LINKS: A break for the Berrymans - Wanganui Chronicle
Berryman saga web site

TAGS: Berrymans, Politics-NZ

The Berrymans still fighting

If you hadn't seen the story over the weekend, lawyer Rob Moodie has filed suit against the Army for $4.5 million on behalf of Keith and Margaret Berryman.

Keith and Margaret Berryman are suing the New Zealand army for about $4.5 million 12 years after a beekeeper died when his truck fell through an army-built bridge leading to their King Country farm...

Taumarunui coroner Tim Scott blamed the Berrymans for not maintaining the bridge.

But since Dr Moodie took over the case in 2004, it has emerged that the Defence Force kept information from the coroner that laid some of the blame with the army engineers who designed and built the bridge as a training exercise.

The Solicitor-General has declined four applications by the Berrymans for a new inquest.

Speaking this morning. "Mr Moodie says the Berrymans have taken the blame for too long and they deserve justice." Too right. And Keith Berryman himself argues that Helen Clark has abandoned them “She said the charges should never have been laid; now we don’t hear anything from her. She’s turned.” She certainly has. In 1998 in the midst of a hard-fought by-election Helen Clark declared, "Labour's by-election campaign has been about putting the heart back into the country, and giving hard-working people such as Keith and Margaret Berryman a fair go." In 2000 Helen Clark stood on the Berryman's bridge with Mark Burton and Harry Duynhoven and promised "when I become Prime Minister, I will ensure the Government will settle the Berrymans for this outrage."

Bullshit.

Talk about politicians' empty promises. Eight years after her first promise the Berrymans have yet to receive even the steam off Helen Clark's piss. "The government has made an offer of compensation to the Berrymans and it's up to the Berrymans to consider that," said "a spokesman for the Prime Minister" over the weekend. What that spokesman didn't say is what I pointed out here last year,

that the $150,000 offered to the Berrymans by her Government in 'mediation' is a sick joke. It does not even cover their $450,000 legal bills, does not begin to compensate for the loss of their farm (which conservative estimates say might now be worth $2.5 million), and in no way compensates for the ten years of hell both Labour and National Governments have put this couple through.

Good on Rob Moodie for not giving up on this even when all around him are falling asunder. Perhaps it might spark a similar backdown as happened recently with the long-running Contaminated Blood Scandal.

LINKS: Berrymans seeking $4.5m damages from Army - NZ Herald
Couple suing army over bridge collapse - Newswire
Helen Clark: Berryman case highlights abandonment of rural NZ - Not PC
Berrymans say PM has abandoned them - NZ Herald
$10m payout for victims of tainted transfusions - Sunday Star Times

TAGS: Politics-NZ, Politics-Labour, Berrymans

Top ten best things about Winston Peters

Winston's latest immigration grandstanding gives him headlines, hatred and polling increases, showing you can never underestimate the market for bare-faced, scaremongering xenophobia. But there are good things about Winston Peters

Here's the top ten best things about Winston Peters:

1. He's a perfect litmus test. You know immediately that when you meet someone wearing a NZ First rosette that you won't want them as a dinner companion. This immediately rules out 13% of the population, making the organization of dinner engagements so much easier.
2. Sartorial elegance. As David Lange famously observed when Winston was late for a meeting, “I expect he’s been detained by a full-length mirror.” His focus on sartorial elegance over political substance at once raises the dress-sense of parliament, and ensures little of substance is discussed there.
   
   
3. Unemployment. Winston has over the years offered benevolent assistance with unemployment for the otherwise unemployable. Who else for example would offer employment to the dozens of tailors’ dummies that occupy the other seats in the NZ First caucus?
4. The Perfect Politician. Winston is incurably lazy, possibly the laziest man in Parliament. In a politician, this is a good thing – a very, very good thing. The lazier they are, the less trouble they pose to us. As Winston showed when he was Treasurer, he doesn't want to work like a cabinet minister; he just wants a big office with his name on the door. This isn't entirely a bad thing: As Mark Twain observed, "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session" -- with more politicians in the legislature with Winston's work ethic, parliamentary activity would soon slow to a satisfactorily safe stupor.
5. Shamelessness. Winston offers willing students a master-class in grandstanding, something Rodney for example still needs help with. Winston doesn't care whether the mud he's throwing is based on fact (as it was with Peron) or on fiction (remember the grounding of the Cook Strait ferry?), but just by pure chance some of the mud that needs to be thrown and wouldn't otherwise be chucked gets an airing that it wouldn't otherwise get – such as the disgraceful corruption surrounding the Berryman affair.
   
   
6. Winston keeps the country safer. The moonbat bigot constituency on which Winston has a stranglehold has been captured in other countries by thugs that are serious about the hatred they’re whipping up. The likes of Ian Paisley, Le Pen and Slobodan Milosevic believe in the hatred themselves; they take the xenophobic bigotry seriously and do serious damage with it. Winston doesn't believe a word of it; he whips it up only so that he can be kept in a nice office and new Italian suits. As long as Winston is there, there’s no future for the National Front, and no likelihood of civil war.
   
   
7. He’s not a professional Maori. Unlike countless others of rich beige hue who make a career out of that one attribute, Winston has eschewed that easy road to sucking off the state tit … and found another.
   
   
8. Entertainment value. In a sea of grey, bland parliamentary conformity Winston stands out – and that’s just in the NZ First caucus room. When Winston wakes up every three years, whatever else you might think he does at least makes the news worth watching again.
   
   
9. He likes a drink. That’s a good thing in and of itself in my book. As long as he’s buying.
   
   
10. No government. Having Winston as a cabinet minister is certainly like having no government, but there’s even more to excite a libertarian! Remember the extended negotiations of 1996 when for several exciting weeks the country didn’t have a government (prompting The Independent to write: "The Libertarianz were right all along” as people noticed the sky wasn’t falling in.) As long as Winston is still in with a shout, we have the exciting prospect every three years of an extended period in which we actually no government at all. If only that happy state of affairs could be replicated more often.

Army quizzed over Berryman bridge

With the Butcher Report suppression now lifted The Herald has given its own summary of the Report here, and points out the Army's credibility gap over the report. Meanwhile, the Institute of Professional Engineers (IPENZ) has likened the collapse of the Berryman bridge to that of the Cave Creek platform that killed fourteen people when it collapsed. The Herald report on IPENZ's comments is here.
IPENZ didn't say it, but they might have pointed out that, like the Cave Creek platform, this bridge was built by government employees who clearly didn't know what they were doing, and who looked to shirk responsibility for the subsequent disaster.

Butcher Report suppression lifted

Court suppression of the Butcher Report - the once-secret army report into the fatal collapse of a bridge built for King Country couple Keith and Margaret Berryman - has now been lifted.

Story here and here.

Wellington High Court judge Justice Wild said "it would be futile to stop publication of the report now it is in the public domain." Good on everyone reading this who helped to put it there.

News too this morning that in 1986 Keith Berryman signed a document taking full responsibility for the army-built bridge. Says David McLoughlin's 'Dominion' article:

The Berrymans' lawyer, Rob Moodie, said yesterday that he knew of the document but believed the army could not enforce it, because Mr Berryman was a layman, not an engineer... Dr Moodie said the agreement Mr Berryman signed did not absolve the army of liability for the major construction defect that led to the collapse.

Though Mr Berryman "certainly had liability" for maintaining the bridge, he had signed the agreement as a layman and not an engineer.

Butcher Report back in parliament this afternoon

Xenophobic he might be, and election year it surely is, but Winston is still pursuing the Berryman case when no other parliamentarian cares to.

Question 9 in parliament this afternoon, from Winston, asks, "To the Prime Minister: Has she received a copy of the report by former army engineer, George Butcher; if so, does she have any concerns with its findings?" I look foward to hearing the answer, and those to subsequent questions.

Does anyone have any news on Rob Moodie's Law Society censure hearing last week?

Second Week Stats and General Business

Just finished my second full week in the blogosphere. I'm having a ball, and I hope you are too with what you see here. My special find this week is that I've learned what an RSS feed is, and now I've put one into my Firefox browser I can read every blog in creation in five minutes. I definitely commend one of these babies to your attention.

Now to the stats: The good news is that as of this morning this blog has now received 9,000 hits, the 9,000th being a visitor from Ireland. The bad news is that this visitor only stayed 8 seconds. Perhaps they had a newsreader like me? I can see too that 34% of you have Firefox browsers, and that the top five visitors are from NZ, the US, Canada, Germany, and Australia. Oddly, Guam figures in eighth - is there something I should know?

Thanks this week to all those who've linked to me this week, particularly Stephen Hicks, Chris Sciabarra, Sir Humph, Scribble Me This, good (and not as old as Vivien Leigh) Ruth again, Spotlight and No Right Turn. Right back at you, guys (and do let me know if I've missed you out!) :-)

Following NZ bloggers' mentor DPF, once again I'll list the top ten searches for this site for no other reason than that Dave does, so there must be a good reason. Fortunately there were no hits for "front bums", and a few interesting additions joined several old friends. Let me at this point offer a special welcome to those young ladies who came here seeking nannying work in Scandinavia, and another to those seeking principles in their political opposition - the unfortunate scarcity of these worldwide was enough to propel this blog to a number one ranking for this search. All hits are from Google unless otherwise noted:

1. rob moodie home page berryman (Not on 1st page)
2. berrymans/bridge (6th)
3. adrian chisholm (2nd)
4. bridge collapse timber transoms not sealed (2nd)
5. adrian chisholm sludgegate (1st)
6. bob moodie butcher report (3rd)
7. berryman report (Yahoo Search: 5th)
8. the affects of music on the brain (Yahoo Search: 6th)
9. nannying in norway (1st!)
10. principles of a political opposition (1st)

Rest assured that I'm not resting on laurels here at Not PC, and helful new features are being added all the time - feel free to make suggestions. A poll has been added, a Recent Comments panel to help navigation, and a Favourite Posts list to help you find popular pages. Clearly, the Berrymans' fight for justice continues to attract people here, and I will continue to follow this news as it unravels. I've also amended my blog listings slightly, and I'm happy to hear from Authoritarian bloggers who wish to be raised to Libertarian, or even from 'Good People' who wish to go bad. :-)

That's all the good news. An unwelcome new feature this week has been the arrival of insulting and utterly irrational anonymous posters. Rest assured that I can accept the former, but I won't accept the latter and these posts will be deleted as I see them.

DPF's rules of engagement, given here and here seem reasonable ones, and as long as I retain comments I will be adopting his policies with, however, one addition: I will not be giving the benefit of the doubt to anonymites, particularly to those offering only wilful slander or a slithering farrago of half truths. Such posts will be deleted as soon as I see them, particularly if from anonymites.

Anonymites aside, I've enjoyed my second week. I trust you have too.

Cheers,

PC
(Peter Cresswell)

Pressure mounts for Berryman justice

The pressure going on politicians over the Berryman case is slowly bringing results.

Winston Peters tried to table the Butcher Report that is now all over the internet. Yesterday former Defence Minister Max Bradford confirmed publicly that Army suppression of the Butcher Report is possibly "criminal." Michael Laws has spent the morning on Radio Live raising the case, and now, National's Rural Affairs spokesman is finally speaking out, seven years after he first raised the issue and then dropped it, saying the Berrymans deserve justice. At least he's speaking out now, and seeking 'cross-party' support for his stand.

The silence of Rodney Hide on this issue is now becoming deafening.

[UPDATE: Still nothing from Rodney Hide, but Stephen Franks has entered the fray with a very nuanced position, talking about why policians are staying silent, and what "a select committee inquiry" should do. He's not exactly calling for an inquiry though, and one wonders if it is Franks's advice that Rodney is following in remaining silent on an issue in which even Michael Laws has had a say.

Anyway, Franks suggests "The select committee will have to open up the nanny state concept of law. For 20 years the legal industry has been bent on making criminals out of people who mean no harm....The committee’s terms of reference will have to be wide enough to go past the first villains.” So there you go.]

The Ministers of Contaminated Blood

Q: What do Simon Upton and Helen Clark have in common?
A: As Ministers of Health they both presided over the Contaminated Blood scandal of the early nineties, and both have since sought to suppress sensitive information about the scandal.

In the early nineties, Clark and Upton decided that technology allowing screening of blood for Hepatitis C would not be used in the New Zealand health system; 250 haemophiliacs were infected and up to 20 people may have died as a result of this decision. Like the Berrymans, the people infected have found it impossible ever since to get justice. And as with the Berryman case, both Labour and National Governments are implicated in the commission and the cover-up.

A story in today's Press reports, "Haemophiliacs who contracted hepatitis C in the bad blood saga have won a chance at compensation, with health officials agreeing to consider a paper outlining a proposed settlement." But there are no guarantees, and as this story reminds us even getting to this stage has not been easy: "Haemophiliacs investigating the "bad blood scandal" of the 1990s have been stymied by a 30-year embargo placed on sensitive documents from Prime Minister Helen Clark's time as health minister."

It seems that the lesson from Watergate has still not been learned here in NZ, i.e., that it was the cover-up that ruined the President, not the break-in. Or maybe they're confident we don't have a Woodward or a Bernstein here to chase the story down. Or a Deep Throat.

Both Clark and Upton have been in denial of their role in the scandal ever since. Clark still suppresses documents about the scandal - why? - what does she have to hide, one wonders? - and when Upton left Parliament for his cushy sinecure with the OECD, he was asked whether he regretted anything in his career as a Minister. "No," he told Radio Pacific News, "nothing gnaws at my soul."

Perhaps he doesn't have one.

Berrymans = Silence

Try Googling these words and notice the result:

"don brash" "keith berryman"

"rodney hide" "keith berryman"

"national party" "keith berryman"

The result: silence. Perhaps you could ask them why?

Email the good doctor at [email protected]

Email Rodney at [email protected] , or you could post your question to his blog.

Feel free to post any replies back here.

Helen Clark: Berryman case highlights abandonment of rural NZ

Helen Clark has issued a press release we can all agree with saying "the Government's refusal to enter into mediation over compensation for Keith and Margaret Berryman highlights the abandonment of rural New Zealand." And so it does.

She says, "The Berrymans are victims in many ways. They are victims of bad legislation and victims of an over-zealous government department." And so they are.

"I feel really sorry for these people," says Miss Clark. "I think their lives have been ruined." And so they have.

"Labour's by-election campaign has been about putting the heart back into the country, and giving hard-working people such as Keith and Margaret Berryman a fair go," Helen Clark said.

By-election? What by-election? Yes, you guessed it, this isn't what Helen Clark said today, this was a press release issued by her five years ago at 10:30am on 27 April 1998 as part of the Taranaki-King Country by-election campaign.

It was headed "Berryman case highlights National's abandonment of rural NZ," which of course it still does. Everything she said then is right on the money.

But now, as another election campaign is now almost upon us, perhaps I could ask all of New Zealand to reflect for a moment on what Helen's subsequent abandonment of the Berrymans highlights, aside from her own abject dishonesty. Answers on a Fax please to Helen Clark: (04) 473 3579, and e-mail to: [email protected]

You might point out in your correspondence that the $150,000 offered to the Berrymans by her Government in 'mediation' is a sick joke. It does not even cover their $450,000 legal bills, does not begin to compensate for the loss of their farm (which conservative estimates say might now be worth $2.5 million), and in no way compensates for the ten years of hell both Labour and National Governments have put this couple through.

Pressure on for justice for the Berrymans

There is movement on the Berryman front. Thank God. Following Rob Moodie's release on the internet of the Butcher Report which the Army had tried to suppress, there has been a public stampede to download it, to find out the truth, and I trust to put pressure where it's needed to get justice for the Berrymans. And there has been a disgraceful move by the Manawatu Law Society to censure Rob Moodie for his spirited defence of his clients. (Feel free to write them to say what you think of that.)

Even the politicians are getting into the game - belatedly to be sure, but it is happening - putting pressure on for a public inquiry. While that would be something, it's not a public inquiry that Keith and Margaret Berryman need but compensation and their lives back. And soon. This injustice has already taken ten years of their life; any more delay would just be further injustice over something that should have been sorted years ago.

Five years ago Helen Clark stood on the Berryman's bridge with Mark Burton and Harry Duynhoven and promised "when I become Prime Minister, I will ensure the Government will settle the Berrymans for this outrage." Yeah, right Helen. If Helen thought she could simply bury this she is very much mistaken. As Adrian Chisholm said to me last night, "What she didn't count on was a Rob Moodie out there."

Rob Moodie has zero tolerance for corruption; I have zero tolerance for liars - so perhaps I could encourage you while you're writing the Law Society to fax Helen Clark's office and tell her exactly what you think of her forked tongue. Fax: (04) 473 3579, e-mail: [email protected]

[UPDATE: If you really want to push the boat out with your correspondence you might like a link to an Excel spreadsheet of email addresses for 160 candidates in the coming election, which naturally includes many sitting MPs. Here 'tis.]

Zero tolerance for corruption

Ten years ago Keith Berryman and his wife were screwed by government, and in the ten years since politicians have watched and done nothing as the Berryman's lives have fallen apart due to bureaucratic duplicity.

They lost their farm; they lost their dreams; and as Keith Berryman said a year ago, "It's totally destroyed our lives. Both my wife and I have had tremendous health issues." The Government have offered the Berrymans $150,000 in compensation (acoompanied no doubt by crocodile tears and a crawling apology), but as they say, this amount wouldn't even cover their legal bills.

Lawyer Rob Moodie is now going in to bat for the Berrymans, and he's been coming out swinging:

Lawyer Rob Moodie has defied a court order by posting on the internet a suppressed army report on the 1994 "Berryman bridge" collapse.

Dr Moodie said last night that he had posted it to expose the truth about the collapse, in which beekeeper Kenneth Richards died at the King Country farm of Keith and Margaret Berryman.

Last month the High Court ordered Dr Moodie to return copies of the report by former army engineer George Butcher. The report reveals that faulty army construction caused the collapse because timber transoms were not sealed, letting water in.

Good for Rob Moodie. On the 'Holmes' show, Rob Moodie said his motivation for releasing the report is that he has "zero tolerance for corruption." Rob Moodie is a hero. A pity parliament has so few of them.

[And no, I don't know where to find the report - although I'm told that page twenty has the crucial stuff.]

[UPDATE 1: I'm reliably informed that a polite e-mail to
this gentleman will find a report on your doorstep within the week.]

[UPDATE 2: Duncan Bayne comments on this case here, and says the Butcher Report can be downloaded through the NBR site, here.]