News Zealand

In the news: 

Three guys totally trashed a government satellite thingy.  They were recently acquitted of all charges by the government even though they caused a million dollars in damage because they "believed their actions to be correct" at the time of the incident.  Apparently the satellites are so that Americans can bomb people in Iraq and these guys were trying to save lives.  And they don't have to serve jail time for it.  They knew that what they were doing was illegal, in fact, they waited to be arrested when it happened.  But they believed it to be right, and the courts agreed with them.

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New Zealanders are pretty good at protesting -- in fact they wouldn't allow nuclear test bomber boats into their harbors at all, even though the US threatened to cut ties with them.

Also they had a Green Peace boat in their harbor that would go out to float near a nuclear bomber test boat that was parked outside of their jurisdiction.  The French were testing, and it was technically their territory they were testing in, but they couldn't test if any other boats were nearby.  So this boat would just go float by it so it couldn't run it's test bombs.  Well then two French people sunk the Green Peace boat, killing one person.  They went to jail in France, got a cushy sentence, and then were hailed as heros.

All this according to my free bicycle city tour guide today.  Who seemed like he liked to smoke weed.