1, 2, 3...and back in the room

After almost 3 months of hiding in a cave in a remote forest, I've returned to civilisation, ready to start poking again.
Here's some random thoughts and images about 2013:

Overweight millionaire sets up political party

View from a darkened room (iii)

I spy...

Spook balls

My first thought about the whole NSA/GCSB internet spying business it was that I would have been more surprised if they weren't spying on people. That the GCSB in both the Urewa 8 and Dotcom cases had either eavesdropped on its own citizens or received copies of material collected by another country made perfect sense. After all, what's the point in having all this luvverly technology if you don't use it. However, there's a difference in the two cases; New Zealand had no interest in the Dotcom affair apart from its role as an ally of the USA and conversely, no one without access to the fevered imagination of New Zealand's secret cops, or who weren't lawyers, could have had any purpose in paying the remotest attention to a small group of people with zero influence who were no threat to anything.