Congressman Ron Paul - One year ago.

The same full moon that lights up the night outside my home, lit the night sky over the rest of our little world at some point within the last 24 hours. This day will be remembered as the beginning of the end of a lifestyle.
One year ago Ron Paul stood up Congress during the debate about the US budget. He predicted the collapse of the dollar. He talked about the cost of war and the deficit. He blamed an out of control Federal Reserve for printing money, because nobody will lend the US money anymore, so they just turn on the mint presses and churn out more. This is what he said.

ETS - Money Trees

Market driven solutions to climate control and pollution will never work. If someone had dreamed up carbon credit trading as the answer to global warming 30 years ago, it may have had some impact on the number of trees we cut down, but I think it would have only dictated 'where' those trees got axed.
The surest barometer of how effective New Zealand's Emission Trading Scheme, ETS, will work is how willing the New Zealand government has been to give the forests back to Maori. Far North's Iwi are currently negotiating a return of their forests in the Aupouri Peninsula.
The Crown Forestry Rental Trust, current-day Tane Mahuta's, see the writing on the wall and are working overtime to get a deal done before parliament dissolves on October 3rd. They have thrown a quarter of a million dollars at the Te Hiku o Te Ika forum to enable Iwi negotiators to earn while doing the deal, as well as a $36k+ honorarium to chairperson Mangu Awarau, to ensure a proper result. That honorarium was a Crown Forestry Rental Trust add-on, that nobody asked for.
The forests are indeed an asset, but their value will now be dictated by their value as carbon credits in an imaginary marketplace. Converting forestry lands to other use will cost future owners dearly. In reality, the land will be held hostage to tree-making so long as the land is held in trust. It can only be converted to other use when it is transferred back to Maori and that use will have to be profitable enough to offset the penalties of cutting down the trees for the last time. The 'x-factor' of the value of carbon credits is an unknown. Carbon-credit trading is a speculators playground like the dot.com companies that went bust a short while ago. Common sense says that if solid markets like mortgage and loan companies can fail in today's economy, what hope is there for carbon credits that have yet to have any established value.
So who benefits? Since anything that can be sold or traded is taxed, the government always wins. Since title to the forests could only be transferred to Maori anyway, at least in the first instance, the real question is: Why is everyone, including Maori, in such a rush to settle, when the implications of a deal are so unclear?
The biggest question is who is pushing the deal and why.

Millie

At 20, it is difficult to predict where life will take Millie Elder-Holmes. Arrested last week, along with the kick-boxing son of a patched Headhunters member, she was charged with possession with intent to distribute. Less than a year ago, Millie stood in front of me in a lineup for lunch, at an Auckland Rehab facility. At the time I thought, 'tall, pretty, young lady.' I never saw her again, but heard she had discounted that place as the right place for her. Given its reputation as a no-nonsense facility - it was not surprising. There was no place to hide inside its environs. You were there to get well and the clinical staff did not broker any crap.
A pity she didn't take the opportunity. The literature on addiction promises this: "Institutions, jails, and death" for those who continue on the path of addiction... the only alternative is abstention. Rehab for teens is a one-in-a-thousand roll of the dice; their bullet-proof mentality coupled with the denial that feeds their use is a tough combination to beat. Even when one has lost everything and capitulates to a solid recovery programme, the odds are closer to a hundred-to-one for any long term sobriety. It doesn't look good for this young woman.
Being associated with the Headhunters will keep her safe in jail, but the other side of the coin is she will need to keep that association to survive, a prospect that bodes ill for any recovery from drugs. I'd like to see her committed to a serious residential rehabilitation programme, and the best would be Higher Ground in Auckland. But like I say, they do not tolerate behavioural issues beyond the first 40 days and it would be difficult for someone used to the limelight, to submit to being 'just another addict'. The other option would be Odyssey House, an 18-month programme that focuses on behavioural stuff. That might work although her presence would turn a community of others trying to recover in turmoil, I expect. If money were no object, the best option would be to send her to a tough programme somewhere in the US. There, she could be truly anonymous - nobody would know who she is - or care. If she were my daughter and I could afford it, that's what I would do.
Hope springs eternal, but hearts are broken all the time for addicts and their families.

Avalanche - Self Will Run Riot

This clip says just about everything about today's culture.

Wait for it

A couple of weeks ago I was prepared to write a glowing blog about Hone Harawira, Maori Party MP for Tai Tokerau. I like Hone because he is in touch with the people and knows that the basis for creating a better future for Maori lies in education and social spending. But I get uneasy when he is silent about ethical issues. He hasn't said very much about Winni-tanga and recently worked behind the scenes to squash serious assault charges against a Maori man who beat up a housing corporation worker.
Increasingly, he is being seen getting cozy with the old guard of maoridom, quietly supporting their back room tactics in dealings with Northern Iwi. I always saw him as a man of unbridled ethics, but now I'm beginning to wonder if he hasn't become too enamored with having the inside goss and being part of the larger established politic. It's a slippery slope.

Crossroads

I envy those bloggers who carve out and explore a niche. I wish I had a fetish for political campaign buttons, or thimbles, or an in-depth knowledge of anything. Then I could share my knowledge and expertise with someone wanting the quintessential one-stop-shop on something or other. Instead, I jump from thing to thing, not knowing anything in any depth, and without the insider knowledge that makes it special. I went on a rant about Winston Peters for a while because it didn't seem possible that a man, no matter how personable, could escape the rules of society that govern the rest of us. Well, the chickens have come home to roost and he will atone, at least in some way. But that still leaves me with a lot of questions about my place in the blogosphere.

Why do I do it? A part of me wants to be famous, another part just wants to leave some evidence that I existed, still another believes that what I write has value. The key question is more about the person I want to be. Do I want to be the critic and pundit? Will this advance my goal: to find serenity and some kind of spiritual path?

The truth is I do not get any residual satisfaction from criticising other people. I used to... but what kind of value is that in a world already frought with war, poverty, hate, and natural calamity? How do I contribute to making this a better world? With that question in mind I am going to change tack and begin to focus on the possitive. There are little and big miracles all around us - should we choose to seek them out.