James Elliott finds proof of alternate universes here in New Zealand in his look at the news of the week
This week saw the passing of Stephen Hawking, world renowned physicist and author of A Brief History of Time, the book with the lowest have-read vs have-owned ratio in the full history of time. It’s the non-fiction equivalent to To Kill a Mockingbird.
Known for his sense of humour, Hawking would have appreciated the irony that his hypothesis about the existence of parallel universes was correct but that he was looking for them in the wrong place. It turns out they’re not in a galaxy far far away, parallel universes exist on earth. In fact there are several right here in New Zealand.
For example, elements within the NZ Defence Force appear to be living in a parallel universe of their own making. Having previously claimed that allegations in the Stephenson/Hager book Hit and Run about a controversial SAS operation in Afghanistan were bogus because the authors had the wrong village and location, the NZDF have now released documents admitting the authors did in fact have both the correct village and the correct location. That’s not so much a walk-back of their previous position as it is a full-scale retreat, albeit without a bugler because they clearly don’t want to alert anyone to what they did then and to what they’re doing now.
The NZDF are now in a hole as deep as Steven Joyce’s theoretical $11.7 billion deficit.
Even though my own military knowledge is based almost exclusively on watching countless episodes of Hogan’s Heroes I’m pretty confident in saying that the ability to read a map accurately is a fairly fundamental requirement when conducting military operations. However to be fair to the NZDF they would hardly be the first military force to confuse locations. Switzerland has accidentally invaded its neighbour Lichtenstein on no less than three separate occasions. But then to be fair to the Swiss military, on each of those three occasions they admitted their mistake without any camouflaging of the facts. And they certainly didn’t offer an entirely alternative version of what took place.
The NZDF are now in a hole as deep as Steven Joyce’s theoretical $11.7 billion deficit and the pressure is on the Government and Defence Minister Ron Mark to conduct a full inquiry into this fiasco. Mind you the Defence Minister is under scrutiny himself with allegations from National Party leadership contender turned non-starter Mark Mitchell that New Zealand First deputy leader but got no farther Ron Mark has used the Air Force as a personal taxi service to ferry him to and from Masterton. Mitchell claims that’s an unjustified and indeed expensive expense. He’s right. An Uber military flight service would be much cheaper than a taxi one. It would also be much more exciting for the, let’s face it, easily excitable Minister to watch an icon of an NH90 military helicopter icon zooming its way to the pick-up point on his smartphone.
Applying Hawking’s Hubble’s Constant formula as to the expansion of the universe, the number of government inquiries is now expanding at such a rate that each and every one of them is at risk of becoming a black hole.
However, as befits a Defence Minister, Ron Mark has launched a counter-attack against Mitchell. Minister Mark has advised that he’s going to review all NZDF flights that then-Minister Mitchell may have caught when he was Defence Minister to establish whether they were legitimate. In my view since this is a dispute between two individuals it should be resolved by an old-fashioned duel by pistols with the protagonists standing 20 paces apart and then shooting themselves in the foot.
Also shooting themselves in the foot this week while simultaneously living in an alternate universe were senior Labour Party leaders dealing with the fallout of allegations of underage drinking, drug use and sexual misconduct at Young Labour summer camps. Even the somewhat less than conscientious Sergeant Schultz from my audio-visual military history studies would have described the supervision at those summer camps as a bit lax. And while it appears that no one in the Labour hierarchy is going to be send anyone else in the Labour hierarchy to the Russian front over this matter, there’s going to be an inquiry. As well. Yet another inquiry. There are now more than 20 inquiries of different sorts under way under the new Government. Applying Hawking’s Hubble’s Constant formula as to the expansion of the universe, the number of government inquiries is now expanding at such a rate that each and every one of them is at risk of becoming a black hole.
So there you have it. In my submission, compelling evidence to prove Hawking’s hypothesis as to the existence of parallel universes. Some right here in New Zealand. And I didn’t even have to delve into Trumpworld to support my argument. It’s tempting to think that Trump is the poster man-child for living in an alternate universe but I think he’s a better example of another Hawking theory – that while alien life is quite common in the universe, intelligent life is less so, especially here on earth.
Have a peaceful weekend.
