$1 Billion To Tinker With a Bit of Out-Of-The-Box Stasi Software | Women MPs Go Walk About

Looks like it’s an early Christmas.

IRD think they'll be able to bring their software upgrade in for about NZ$1 billion.

Unfortunately for your private life, this will necessitate re-writing, again, the powers of their access to your private data and the further weakening of tax secrecy [to allow sharing of your information with a range of government departments, including police, but also because I suspect they want ultimately to be able to conduct public shaming campaigns.] And this despite admittedly such ongoing maintenance-tinkering with the minutiae of your life is small cheese on top of their current powers of warrantless search and seizure raids, unlimited and unfettered access to your financial life – which is your life – and the Godlike ability to operate totally above our Privacy Act.

This ‘bargain’ is impressively below the original estimate of $1.9 billion, because, quoting NBR:

‘…it discovered it can use Colorado-based Fast Enterprises' out-of-the-box software …’

I look at the $300 (no more zeroes) out-of-the-box MYOB cashbook software Mrs H. uses for our business, and am scratching my head a bit. Indeed, per my comment on the NBR piece, noting I’m sure someone called Bruce will disabuse me if I’ve got my figures wrong:

So if I've got this right, after the currency conversion, for the same cost that IRD can tinker with a bit of software, $1 billion NZ dollars, Elon Musk can launch 11 Falcon rockets into space, thus advancing private space flight and the human condition, including soon the ability to mine the asteroid belt for resources, and building a human base on Mars.

I'm ecstatic.

In other news, the women opposition members of Parliament stormed out in a hissy fit today because the Prime Minister used a word: namely, 'rape'. Umbrage taking and victimhood rules in the Fortress of Legislation under its governing identity politick: so in case you've forgotten, the debate was about human rights of the detainees at Christmas Island ... But apparently, to borrow a meme, it's not all about them. And albeit the undying principle of this blog is an individual's right to do whatever they damn well like, so long as they do no harm, and that the use of force is anathema to the free society, meaning sexual assault is despicable, as is the state's unchecked invasion of our private lives, I am no doubt cast, regardless, as a rape-culture enabler - to which my defence is, bugger off. And that means you too Allan; Stephen Franks is right:

Another Rape Culture elder opines https://t.co/PnEVojF5bX

— Allan Moyle (@moylea) November 11, 2015

Re:

No - excluded for hysterical demands that others not debate their point of view in respect for claimed victimhood  https://t.co/86i3Xtdivn

— Stephen Franks (@franks_lawyer) November 11, 2015

Female members of New Zealand's parliament kicked out after sharing their sexual-assault stories https://t.co/11jTm3hbQd

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) November 11, 2015

Thank God – said atheistically – for Lindsay Mitchell:

Several female opposition MPs declared that they are victims of sexual abuse, presumably to stake their credentials for a parliament walk-out today.

The day I declare myself a victim is the day I lose control of my life.

Update 1:

If you want to know what’s wrong with this idiot identity politick conception of the world, then George Lawlor sums it up beautifully – remembering the Cultural Feminists hold I can’t even use that word – in this piece – hattip Liberty-Scott:

You see, alongside my article, I attached an image of myself [white man] holding a sign that read, ‘This is not what a rapist looks like’. The social-media reaction to that picture was revealing. In fact, many people chose to not even read my article and instead focused entirely on that image of me with the sign, scoffing, cursing and abusing me for my ignorance. I was called classist, racist and all the other debate-ending names. And, of course, I was portrayed as a pantomime-like villain for all the internet to shame, from Twitter to Tumblr.

The tragedy of all of this isn’t necessarily that I was shamed in an almost medieval fashion for having the audacity to defend myself as someone who already understands the meaning of consent – that’s a different discussion to be had. No, it’s that people so wildly missed the point of the picture.

When they looked at that picture, they didn’t see George Lawlor. They didn’t see the human being who is scared of spiders, who enjoys the work of BB King, and who only recently discovered that he can’t sing. Instead, they saw a white, middle-class, university-educated male just emanating privilege – the face of centuries of tyranny. Yes, I may fall into some of those categories, but the problem was that I wasn’t seen as an individual. I was labelled and put into a box, and that repulsive reductivism lies at the root of many of our world’s problems.

[Snip.]

There’s no doubt that certain demographic categories of people were abused and oppressed throughout history, but the best way to deal with those injustices now is to put an end to the malicious practice of seeing people superficially, in terms of their sex or skin colour. Rather, we need to treat people as individuals with unique talents, fears, beliefs and values. I don’t want my children to grow up in a world where they will be wrongly seen as symbols of oppression or victimhood. I want them to grow up in a world where my son can look up to Aung San Suu Kyi, and my daughter can look up to Frederick Douglass, and both can become inspirational individuals, freed of the chains of identity.