Thursday, June 25, 2020

A Brief Timeline Of Events Pertaining To Schrodinger's Homeless Man

1. Michael Woodhouse alleges Government has inadvertently housed the homeless

2. Government carries out full-scale investigation to determine whether they have, in fact, housed a homeless man for two weeks

3. Despite putting huge resources into the above, including manually reviewing a whole lot of CCTV footage, the Government can find no evidence that this has, in fact occurred

4. Government writes to Michael Woodhouse formally requesting his assistance in investigating the matter

5. Woodhouse starts to umm and err and claims his source, while "reliable", is unlikely to want to co-operate ... and that he'd always been careful to emphasize that his claim wasn't "verified"

6. Woodhouse then turns the attack back on the Government, claiming that the fact that they've put significant resources into investigating HIS CLAIM made as a Member of Parliament that somebody got into Quarantine and stayed there for a full two weeks ... means they believe their own system's immensely flawed and it could have happened and that's what's important.

7. Or, phrased another way - "IT WAS JUST A PRANK, BRO, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN IT SO SERIOUS" ... and, of course, if they hadn't .. he'd have attacked them for that as well.

Some things are too important to "cry wolf" over. Unless you're National.

Friday, June 19, 2020

But What Of The Real Culprits ? Covid Quarantine Crisis And The Rush To Judgement And Blame

There's been a few instances over the past few months wherein the Government and the Director-General of Health have said one thing ... and it's turned out that the situation on the ground has been a little different.

A good example of this concerns the NZ Nurses Organization saying they were having issues with getting PPE, and other working conditions.

As it turned out, there were issues - and these were moved to be rectified; occasionally at a rather glacial pace by the local DHBs involved.

I was disquieted about that - as I'm the sort of person who generally presumes that if somebody on the front line says there's an issue, and somebody somewhat removed therefrom says there's not ... then you believe the ordinary worker. At least enough to take them at their word that there's something which deserves looking at - and then look seriously into it.

The past 48 hours have thrown up another cluster of such occurrences. Some events that should never have happened; some events that - with something like 19,000 people going through quarantine - were probably bound to have occurred eventually.

As applies the former, there's been a notable discrepancy between what we were told towards the start of the occurrence ... and what it is that now appears to be the case.

But here's the thing - it's tempting to go for the simplistic take on this. To assume that when there's a dysjunction between the facts-on-the-ground and the words-from-the-mouth at the Parliamentary Press Conference ... that that means somebody standing in the latter is wilfully obfuscating. Lying. Covering things (most prominently their own behind) up.

That's what National wants you to believe. And to be fair, they've got understandable reason to presume so - they've certainly done it often enough themselves while they were in Government. It's part of the nature of the game in politics, no matter which side of the aisle you find yourself upon.

Except I'm not sure that that's what's happened here. Not exactly, anyway. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that there seems to be reasonable evidence that it's virtually the opposite.

Phrased another way: I have no reason to doubt that Bloomfield et co, and even the hapless David Clark *genuinely* believed they were in possession of the facts. That procedures were being followed. That we *were* in possession of what we said we were, doing what we said we were doing, things working basically as they almost ideally should.

And that the shock and fury many of us have experienced to find out that this is not, in fact, the case - has been an emotion they've felt, too.

Because it seems like they've been operating in almost as much of an informational void about this as we have. Perhaps even more so - as they had every right, as the lawfully empowered and responsible oversight of the situation, to presume that the datastreams they were getting were reasonably accurate and comprehensive in scope.

So why weren't they. What went wrong.

Broadly speaking - I am calling this the "Yes Minister" defence.

Because that's honestly what it looks like. Multiple layers of questionable communication let alone accountability and command-and-control, between often-competent and certainly well-meaning people at the top, and often-competent and certainly well meaning people at the bottom, that have allowed the *incompetent* exceptions to not so much *test* the rule as seemingly become it.

This does not absolve the Minister or the Government of ultimate responsibility in the overarching sense - it happened on their watch. But it DOES show that in the SPECIFIC sense, decision-makers at the top weren't the directly proximate cause of these situations.

After all - superhuman though he may occasionally seem to be, it's not like Dr Bloomfield could be personally across all quarantine facilities and testing-before-release in the country.

What I'm saying is - it's easy and cathartic to focus upon the faces at the top, and fixate that they're somehow the sum totality of the problem. To do so, in this instance allows the ACTUAL cause of these lapses  to fester quietly out of sight. Safe in its relative anonymity and lack of true accountability.

At various points in the informational chains going upwards, and the implementation chains going back out, things have become broken. In fact, it's inescapable to conclude that they've actually been severely broken for some time.

Our health system has some amazing men and women operating in it - but time and again seems to find itself with feet and nervous-bundles of clay.

Just look at Dr Bloomfield's immediate predecessor, or various other bureaucrats and middle-managers who've graced the headline pages in ignominy over the past couple of years. In some ways, it's almost amazing that the system's performed as well as it has up until this point - in 'peace-time' let alone during the depths of the current crisis circumstance.

This is why the military's really been brought in. Because the Government has rapidly come to realize that really ... it can't actually trust the informational picture, and the adherence to commands from the center, of those other agencies that were hitherto entrusted with the running of our quarantine system.

Perhaps that should have happened some time before now.

Pending the no-doubt inevitable Commission of Inquiry into our pandemic response all up ... who can say.

All things considered, while I am not seeking to abrogate the burden of responsibility that is borne by those by now household names at the top of the tree ... I do think it's worth emphasizing that having responsibility for the situation, and being at fault so as to cause it - are not, strictly speaking, the same thing.

The factors that may have lead to this week's major shortfalls, or various others of the events I've subtly alluded to - would quite likely have taken place regardless of who  was Minister of Health at the time ... or even perhaps regardless of who was in Government.

In fact, while I am openly somewhat partisan about this - I actually think that had National been in the driver's seat, we would have had more numerous and risky occurrences to deal with. Simply because National has been quite plain in their intent to bring in more people with looser restrictions (particularly international students, and matching the Trans-Tasman Bubble with re-opening the border with China at the same time).

That's why I don't think sending David Clark afore a firing squad is actually going to help matters (in the short term, anyway). And why if there's going to be a Witch Hunt - it should presumably be an Inquisition whose more searching instincts are focused rather further away and into darker recesses and corners than those we can see blaring back at us from the nightly news-casts as Tova O'Brien endeavours to tear to shreds the trustworthy reputation of the man we fondly call St Ashley.

There's little to be gained from that. Except ratings and shock-value. Both for the Government's political opponents, and for a scandal-hungry news-media looking to stoke the regime-change fires of the impending Election that's coming later this year.

Our trust has been shaken, as a nation - and after what's occurred - or, should I say, what's nearly occurred (and hopefully hasn't) - this week, that's both understandable and as it should be.

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Muller's Big Speech - The Inversion Of A Copy Of A Clone Of A Success Story

I am slightly surprised that Todd Muller's big speech as leader of the National Party, is summed up by the Herald as:

"A National-led Government would not increase taxes or cut benefits, its leader Todd Muller has promised.

In fact, the new opposition leader today revealed that if he is Prime Minister, National would spend more money on the "welfare safety net".

He also said the previous National Government did not move fast or boldly enough on issues such as climate change and addressing New Zealand's social deficit."

Now, none of that's necessarily bad or inaccurate - not that one necessarily trusts a National government to actually go through with any of these things should it make it into office ... but that's not what's noteworthy about this.

Rather, it's that - as my associate Josh Van Veen pointed out - basically indistinguishable from what the Labour Party is about.

Which is an interesting inversion on what we've had for much of the past nine years, wherein the Labour Party was too often effectively about being kinda like the National Party ... but not quite as much.

Thus reflecting the fundamental truth that Kiwi Politics has generally always been a contest for 'the centre', with 'the centre' (for the past 30 years, anyway) being defined as somewhere on the neoliberal right whre ideas and vision go to die. And "Charisma" means all the appeal of a slick used car salesman in a toothpaste commercial.

Nevertheless, it's interesting to see the shoe on the other foot now - and the Nats choosing to define themselves in conscious imitation (even if they'd never admit it) to Labour. Perhaps it's the logical result of seeing just how badly Simon Bridges' constant irascible criticism of Jacinda was playing with voters. Perhaps it's actually more sincere - and a return to Bill English style Catholic Conservatism With Its Cufflinks Rolled Up. Perhaps it just plays well with focus-groups that're still shiny about Labour following the Covid-response.

Whatever the case, it's questionable as a 'winning strategy'. Although if there is a tide in the affairs of men - I suspect rather strongly that it's just naturally gone out and shall *remain* out on National for awhile yet, meaning this is effectively going to be an Election of 'damage control' uber alles.

In any case, all of this put me in the mind of a semi-parody post-modern analysis of a video-game character somebody directed my attention to years ago:

"Waluigi is the ultimate example of the individual shaped by the signifier. Waluigi is a man seen only in mirror images; lost in a hall of mirrors he is a reflection of a reflection of a reflection. You start with Mario – the wholesome all Italian plumbing superman, you reflect him to create Luigi – the same thing but slightly less. You invert Mario to create Wario – Mario turned septic and libertarian – then you reflect the inversion in the reflection: you create a being who can only exist in reference to others. Waluigi is the true nowhere man, without the other characters he reflects, inverts and parodies he has no reason to exist. Waluigi’s identity only comes from what and who he isn’t – without a wider frame of reference he is nothing. He is not his own man. In a world where our identities are shaped by our warped relationships to brands and commerce we are all Waluigi."

That's where National's at at the moment. Playing the deliberate role (for what else is left to them) of the inversion of a copy of a clone of a success-story.

Thursday, June 11, 2020

On The Seattle Commune

So for the past day or so, I've been watching developments in the Seattle "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone". It's kinda amazing.

Basically, after the Seattle police pulled out [apparently abandoning a station in the process], Anarchists and Anarcho-Communists pulled *in*, and set up some sort of commune in the vicinity - and then started quasi-fortifying it with barricades and attempts at recruiting a militia.

I predicted at the time that it was probably going to play out rather like the abortive uprising/commune from Les Miserables ... but it appears that this was perhaps somewhat optimistic.

As with many putative revolutionary efforts ... the leadership proved somewhat unstable. By which I mean, the tenure of one of the lead organizers running the show lasted approximately six hours - ending when they were repeatedly accused of domestic violence by former partner(s) via twitter ... followed by said organizer announcing their intent to vacate the office (and planet) in an act of not-exactly-revolutionary suicide. [although as far as I am aware, they did not viably undertake this, and are still alive - if off twitter - which is good, because the stated justification of their feeling unable to improve from being an abuser is .. pretty pessimistic]

Said tenure may have been brief, but it could not be termed boring - with a perhaps unexpected announcement about how "the homeles [sic] [...] took away all the food", and therefore required urgent donations of soy-based sustenance [I'm not kidding, that's literally what they were after] "anything to help us eat" ... prompting one associate to note that they'd only had 'communism' for two days and were *already* starving.

Although all of that drama cannot *hope* to hold a candle to this morning's intriguing development ... the emergence of a local AirBNB landlord/rapper and associates, who promptly declared themselves to be the new "police", and started implementing policies of 'stop-and-frisk', and gratuitous beat-downs for potentially minor offending. It's not quite the Committee of Public Safety ... but the "People's Force" is certainly turning out to be an interesting demonstration of the implicit principle around revolutions eating their own dreams for the second course.

Particularly as it appears that the man variously (if somewhat sensationally-exotically) referred to as "The Warlord of CHAZ", or by his first name - Raz .. appears to have been a vocal initial advocate and proponent of the 'revolutionary' 'secession' of the Autonomous Zone in the first place.

Sadly, however, all good things must come to an end ... and as of this afternoon, the Seattle PD have announced their intent to move in and reclaim the commune formerly known as CHAZ.

In theory you *could* suggest (in keeping with the spirit of these weeks) that they felt moved to act due to a black man and assorted associated militia now running things, rather than a 'mostly harmless' group of anarcho-larpers - although I think it may have a little more to do, in practice, with the reports that the "People's Force" of Raz of CHAZ, had started going around demanding protection money from other locals and their businesses, as well as, you know, assaulting people in the street for looking suspicious or filming them.

Which means that, I suppose, you could *also* allege (in keeping with the spirit of these times) that the underlying reason for the sudden Seattle PD interest in retaking the CHAZ - is because they absolutely *hate* having competition in these spheres. The police, after all, are a tangible expression of the concept of a state enjoying a theoretically exclusive monopoly on violence.

It certainly has been a rather curious thing to watch various persons on twitter suddenly come to grips with the notion that a localized abolishment of police may well create a vacuum into which steps something that's like the police but actually somehow *worse* and less accountable to its subjects.

Although I must confess - I wasn't expecting the development and the collapse of this entire thing to take place so rapidly, nor so ... bathotically, over a few days in mid-June 2020.

With deference to some of the rather more ... impressive communes and failed revolutionary uprisings of the past 200 years or so, it really does put one in the mind of that excellent aphorism of Marx -


We could, perhaps, term this the 20th Brouhaha of L'Raz d'Washington.

Friday, June 5, 2020

On The Attempted Distraction Of George Floyd's Autopsy Toxicology Results


It's easy to take a look at those, and just make an auto-leap; in fact, a series of auto-leaps. Either to the obvious "so that's what killed him", if you're looking for an alternate causation that's not knee-on-neck prime; or, more insidiously, "no great loss, then", if you're suddenly less bothered a man's dead because that's what the tox-screen says was in him.

Except here's the thing. Those numbers are just that. Numbers. There's no context to them - and no real way of checking, in the absence of better data, what they actually tell us or hide from sight.

They don't necessarily support the conclusions some people are quite keen to jump to. And the fact that people citing them aren't taking a bit more of a critical look before speaking, is concerning.

For a start - unless I'm mistaken, levomethamphetamine containing decongestants are still over-the-counter available in the U.S.

If he was suffering from Covid-19, it's not unreasonable to presume he might have made use of just such a medication.

Even though it's the other isomer from dextroamphetamine, it'll still show up as meth in a lot of tox-screens.

Funnily enough, a few years back, an actress called Brittany Murphy had something like this happen. Died of pneumonia, and initially due to tox-screen results, it was also chalked up to polydrug intoxication .. with the usual "actress ODs" type inferences. Except that wasn't really what happened - everything that turned up in the tox-screen was legally there, including the (levo)methamphetamine. She'd had an illness, taken something over-the-counter for it [in addition, to be sure, to several other medications for other conditions she was also suffering from at the time] ... and yet if you just looked for the presence of methamphetamine in her system without understanding why it was there, you'd come away with the conclusion that she was a recreational practitioner of the glassware barbeque.

Back to George Floyd.

The level of meth stated to have been found in his blood - 19 nanograms per millilitre - is pretty low. However, in the absence of more and better data, we can't really determine much more about this, in terms of why it might have been in his system, whether it's a false positive, or simply an over-the-counter decongestant doing what it was supposed to do.


As applies the fentanyl ... there are further potential complications.

There are several legitimate psychiatric medications that can cause false-positives in tox-screens for fentanyl; although given the presence of norfentanyl and 4-ANPP, that's perhaps less likely (but still not impossible).

Assuming that it's not a false-positive, 11 nanograms fentanyl per millilitre of blood would be notably at the higher end of the therapeutic use spectrum (although significantly within the range wherein if it were to come up at an autopsy it would ordinarily be held to be 'incidental' to cause of death).

However, this is considerably complicated by a number of factors - including the way in which fentanyl (particularly if patch administered) stored in fat, muscle, skin etc. can start to leach into the bloodstream as tissue breaks down post-mortem. Which effectively means there's no definitive way to tell post-mortem how much fentanyl was actually in the deceased's bloodstream pre-mortem.

What's peculiar is the relatively low presence of norfentanyl. Now, the reason I mention this ... is because the vast majority of fentanyl in somebody's system is reasonably quickly metabolized to norfentanyl - so unless it had been significantly recently administered, you shouldn't be expecting to see, post-use about half the level of norfentanyl in somebody's system that there is fentanyl.

All up, it's a finding that probably doesn't indicate what either 'side' were hoping for; but which again - is too ambiguous in multiple senses to be heavily read into.

Now it should also be noted that there are some further issues with the precise reliability for quick-return post-mortem drug-screening. So if I was actually particularly interested in the contents of George Floyd's blood-stream, I'd be awaiting a more full and comprehensive workup using better assessment techniques.

But frankly, I'm not that bothered about it - because I think that regardless of whether or not there's a literally microscopic residue of an illicit drug in the man's system ... that wasn't the but-for causation for the death.

But-for a pretty bizarre extended knee-on-neck there wouldn't even have been a post-mortem tox-screen for us to pour over through the press.

And frankly (further), it feels kinda ghoulish for that to happen in the first place - the contents of a man's blood as a substitute for the man's being .. being sifted through by people looking to turn a sample-slide into a two-dimensional cut-out for an agenda.

There isn't much dignity to be had in dying, face into the pavement, on camera (although it can perhaps be argued that thousands chanting your name turning you into a symbol ... may or may not possess a dignitas all its own); and having total strangers on the internet idly prognosticate as to whether you might have been on several kinds of psych meds, or run through a half a dozen other potential explanations for your blood-stream contents (up to and including the dreaded and dehumanizing label of "addict") .. feels like a set of degradations further.

I wouldn't be indulging in it, except for the fact that - as I say - I've already seen a number of people do so, and far less critically (or, if you prefer, far less 'charitably' to other potential narratives, other potential explanations than the 'easy' and convenient one for some).

There may be (partial) answers to the underpinnings of George Floyd's death to be found in this autopsy report. Of course there are. It would be difficult to deny that possessing an already-impaired cardiovascular system ... would hardly improve one's odds of coming away unscathed from spending eight minutes plus with your neck weighed down under a full-grown man's knee.

But that's just precisely the point. Now that another autopsy's out, people looking to distract from that curious knee which now protrudes through our current affairs and future history books - people are going to latch on to various 'displacement narratives' which can be even semi-feasibly extrapolated out therefrom.

Because, I suppose, the idea is it's easier to feel less compassion for somebody who theoretically 'brought it upon themselves'. Except not by, say, having a high-fat diet like many Americans. There's still too much for much of the audience to empathize with there.

Instead, it's back to the 1980s by fitting the victim into a pre-designed bete-noir role in the story of the "man on drugs". Something that would have been (and was) said regardless of whether there was any proof of anything in his system to begin with.

Perhaps I'm a soft touch - but I still don't think anything contained in that autopsy report means that he should have died like that.

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Against The Great Kiwi Firewall - Why I'm Concerned About Internal Affairs Proposal To Filter "Objectionable" Internet

A few days ago, Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin introduced a Bill into Parliament that would give our Government the power to block off portions of the internet. The official reasoning is to make it harder for Kiwis to come into contact with - or, for that matter, to share - "objectionable content" like the Christchurch Mosque massacre videos.

And while I absolutely do not have a problem with that stated object ... I'm a little concerned about the mechanism being used to go about it. Particularly the lack of independent oversight.

Why? Well, let me tell you two (brief) stories. For you see, I've been down this road before ...

A little under two years ago, I wrote an article. It was on India's geopolitical position/predicament in relation to Iran, Russia, and the United States. I thought it was pretty good, so I sent the link to a friend who was travelling abroad in the United Kingdom.

He couldn't read it. Why? Because in the UK, they have a porn-filter. And when he attempted to access my work ... he got a message saying it'd been blocked by order of Her Majesty's Government etcetera etcetera.

Now, it is well-known that I have a strong love for India ... but I don't think it's in quite the way that would usually trigger a porn-filter.

Rather, what the trouble was, appeared to be a combination of what I'd written, and the site that it appeared upon. Which is a fine international media outlet, but due to its critical stances on a fair swathe of American & NATO policy while occasionally saying not-unkind things about Bernie Sanders ... would probably be accused of attempting to hack US democracy for Putin or something. You get the idea.

So, to back the proverbial truck up - we had inadvertently stumbled across a situation wherein a pornography filter put in place to protect ordinary Britons from deplorable, objectionable content - had evidently 'decided' that journalism from a set of perspectives the Government of the day didn't like ... was deplorable, objectionable content - that you shouldn't be allowed to read in Britain.

Gosh, almost sounds like a compliment when you put it that way, doesn't it. Recalls the ancient journalistic maxim that “Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is news.”

Except this is dangerous. Either because some computer algorithm somewhere has the power to autonomously decide to blot a news site from the UK's internet ... or because somebody deliberately told said algorithm to do so, because they weren't keen for people in the UK to come into contact with our views and perspective.

I'm almost not sure which is worse. That a computer program is this breathtakingly bad at deciding what objectionable pornography is that it blocks a news site (in which case, what does it say about the sort of people who chose blithely to trust in such a mechanism); or that somebody might have gone out of their way to censor media by having it declared (illegal) pornography.

Now I mention this, because Internal Affairs Minister Martin is on-record as being quite keen on the UK's model of porn-prevention. Which, as we can see, is also a pretty handy tool for a Government to prevent access to rather more than just porn - and nobody notices.

Martin has been pushing this "particular drive of [hers]" for some years now; and while on paper there is a theoretical distinction between the regulation of internet pornography, and the blockading of other "harmful and illegal content" - in practice, the mechanisms, as well as the motivation are functionally much the same thing. And, as we have just demonstrated via reference to my article on India's geopolitical predicament - this overlap is vulnerable to all sorts of pernicious (mis)use. Indeed, some might suggest that such a potentiality is less a 'bug' than it is a 'feature'.

Who can say. In the absence of serious oversight (which this Bill currently lacks), it's open to both interpretation - and to abuse.

And those are far from the only reasons I feel a bit concerned about where we're going with this legislative proposal.

A few years ago now, I penned a perhaps somewhat controversial article. About New Zealand politics this time, it attempted to chart the course of an MP's career. That MP was current Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin. One of the more curious outcomes of this, was Martin alleging that I was in breach of the Harmful Digital Communications Act for what I had written. And I say 'curious' for two reasons.

First, because I didn't think that articles critical of political figures were what the Act was supposed to cover (although at the time, Martin was quite definite that it was her experience working on the drafting of the Act that afforded her the insight to assert otherwise) - not least because, unlike with defamation, under the HDCA "Truth" is not actually a defence.

And second, because I really wasn't expecting ACT's David Seymour to leap to my defence. Even if he phrased it as "sticking up for people you wouldn’t really want to have over for dinner."

I've always had some time for David Seymour after that. Because as it turned out, sometimes a principled libertarian really is a useful sort to have around and actively engaged in our nation's politics. A sentence the younger, and decidedly more black-and-white [in multiple shades of the term] Curwen Ares Rolinson would no doubt have been aghast at typing.

Now, I'm not bringing all that up for the purposes of point-scoring or seeking to re-open an old feud. The past is the past. Yet it can provide a usefully instructive guide to the future. To her credit, Martin did not go through with laying an HCDA complaint against me (although she obliquely and unfavourably compared me to Cameron Slater, so you win some - you lose some).

But other MPs may not necessarily have shown as much restraint. It does not take too much of a political memory to recall various instances demonstrating that this isn't an entirely hypothetical situation. At several points, the previous National-led Government subjected journalists, and a certain errant TV cameraman, to various forms of legal pressure in pretty direct response to exposes inconvenient for them.

That, I feel, is a pretty interesting test for prospective legislation, as it happens - would we be comfortable with it in place if National were to be the one using it?

And, given it was only a few months ago that the then-Leader of the National Party was surreptitiously meeting with the head of China's secret police ... some might suggest that when it comes to this kind of legislation - the National Party may be a bit too comfortable with its prospect, already.

Nobody should be looking to build a Great Fire Wall of Aotearoa to replicate in miniature the Chinese one.

And, to be fair and sure - I'm not sure that this is what Minister Martin thinks she's doing, either. I would certainly hope not.

But, as the example of my work being rendered inaccessible in the UK for allegedly running afoul (somehow) of their pornography-filter shows ... it doesn't necessarily matter what the politician enacting a law actually means nor intends for it to cover. Whether intentionally (by somebody) or inadvertently, these things grow. And they don't always grow particularly rationally, either.

Best to be very sure that this is both the path, trajectory, and mechanism we want to go down before we start upon that road.

Because the risks inherent in doing this badly - are quite some "objectionable" content and conduct, indeed.