Open mike 24/06/2014

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, June 24th, 2014 - 240 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

openmike Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

240 comments on “Open mike 24/06/2014 ”

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  1. phillip ure 1
    24 June 2014 at 7:39 am

    “..7 Successful – Famous – Cannabis-Smoking Geniuses..”

    “..From Neil deGrasse Tyson to Bill Gates –

    • plenty of geniuses admit to enjoying pot..”

    (cont..)

    http://www.alternet.org/drugs/7-successful-famous-cannabis-smoking-geniuses

    • The Al1en 1.1
      24 June 2014 at 9:02 am

      I’m laughing, and not just because you mission accomplished with the first post of the day again, but more the content of the link.
      Apart from the successful and famous including luminaries as MC Chris, Seth green there’s Seth MacFarlane, which the article notes doesn’t smoke these days, Bill gates who had a puff way back when in college and Steve Jobs who died of cancer.

      Quality not quantity should be the credo of the hour my man.

      • phillip ure 1.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 9:20 am

        seeing as the thread opened @6.30 am..and i posted @ 7.39 am..

        ..and i have been up collating news since before the thread opened..

        ..u really r just full of shite..eh..?

        ..’mission accomplished’..

        ..and a pot-prohibitionist-’green’..to boot..eh..?

        ..and you calling 4 ‘quality’ links on here..?

        ..that’s a fucken joke..eh..?

        ..this puff-piece utter-bullshit attack on lorde..from fucken stuff..?..(f.f.s..!)..

        ..was the last thing u posted here..

        http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/10190195/Lorde-craves-luxe-buzz-after-all

        ..and i am not yr ‘man’..

        ..you pompous-prick..

        • The Al1en 1.1.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 9:25 am

          Reply to your first four lines – Tee hee

          “and a pot-prohibitionist-’green’..to boot..eh..?”

          Not at all. You should research before making such claims, even if the ? is used as a get out of jail card as it often is.

          http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-05062014/#comment-825504

          Reply to the next four lines – Oh my lorde, a lorde fan 😆

          Last two edited on lines

          Quality not quantity Philip, just saying 😉

          • phillip ure 1.1.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 9:47 am

            not so much a ‘lorde-fan’..

            ..as a virulent-reaction to crap journalism..

            ..that you are seemingly such a ‘fan’ of..

            ..crap-journalism you hold in such high regard..

            ..you feel the need to post it here..

            ..for you to even cite ‘quality’…is just a joke..

            • The Al1en 1.1.1.1.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 9:51 am

              If it’s just about linking to stuff, heaven help anyone on here who dares to do the same. Phil will be on you like a rash.

              As for quality, judge for yourself Stuff v The Hemp Connoisseur Magazine 😆

              “crap journalism….that you are seemingly such a ‘fan’ of….crap-journalism you hold in such high regard….you feel the need to post it here..”

              Again, you need to research before spewing wild assumptions, but I do note you’ve left out the question mark this time 😉

        • The Al1en 1.1.1.2
          24 June 2014 at 9:37 am

          “this puff-piece utter-bullshit attack on lorde..from fucken stuff..?..(f.f.s..!)”

          It was relevant to the posts about her not being a young nat, and using the lyrics to her co written breakthrough song and the cultivating of an image based thereon, she’s not the anti establishment, right on hipster warrior that some people are led to believe.

          Your bit on famous weed smokers, well, enough said.

          • phillip ure 1.1.1.2.1
            24 June 2014 at 9:51 am

            breaking news..!..shore-girl is natty-fan..!

            ..and going on what you have linked to..

            ..the fact that lorde sang at a private birthday party..

            ..where cristal-champagne was served..

            ..is the only basis of yr claim:..

            ..”..she’s not the anti establishment, right on hipster warrior that some people are led to believe..”

            ..u r so full of shite..eh..?

            • The Al1en 1.1.1.2.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 9:54 am

              I was more talking about the make up deal, but yep, private gigs for rich pricks does come in to it.

              For the record, I don’t mind how much money she makes, even if she co wrote all the songs on her album, but let’s drop the street warrior princess act.

              • marty mars …
                24 June 2014 at 10:04 am

                What do you actually know about her allen that you can make such harsh judgment calls. Green eyed monster in the mirror mate.

                • The Al1en …
                  24 June 2014 at 10:10 am

                  I don’t believe it to be a harsh judgement call at all, to base an image on the urban, aware vision from royals, then sign publishing deals for nz$2.5, make up deals and private gigs for rich pricks.
                  Make your money while you can, sure, but you can’t kid a kidder.

                  Green eyed monster in the mirror, no doubt and no argument here. I ache when someone else get’s their songs rewritten and made into an overnight success, but at least I’m not wearing purple lippy. 🙂

                  • phillip ure …
                    24 June 2014 at 10:13 am

                    you may not be wearing ‘purple-lippy’..

                    ..but u r rather petty…eh..?

                    ..small-minded even..?

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 10:24 am

                      I don’t believe small minded or petty comes in to the equation. I’ve clearly demonstrated the divergence between the street wise image and moneyed actuality and sent a little bit of hypocrisy in to the mix (musical pun intended).

                      Jealous, a little, but that doesn’t change anything I’ve noted.
                      You can agree or disagree, as is your wont 😉

                  • marty mars …
                    24 June 2014 at 10:39 am

                    Read up on the tall poppy syndrome – you are doing it allen

                    and you’re being snide too.

                    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 10:46 am

                      I am aware of tps and it’s not that at all. If it were I’d be bashing Kimbra and the lovely and very talented Phillipa Brown (Ladyhawke), which I am not.

                      And not snide so much, more brutally honest.

              • phillip ure …
                24 June 2014 at 10:10 am

                quite the curtain-twitcher..aren’t you allen..?

                ..i think janet frame wrote about you..

                • The Al1en …
                  24 June 2014 at 10:14 am

                  I doubt you even know what you mean, so I have no chance.

                  • phillip ure …
                    24 June 2014 at 10:22 am

                    i know what i mean..as will many others..

                    ..that you don’t..comes as no surprise..

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 10:28 am

                      Great, you’ve got me with an insult I don’t get.
                      As a serial winner, how does that make you feel? 😆

                    • phillip ure …
                      24 June 2014 at 10:43 am

                      “..how does that make you feel?..”

                      ..it clarifies for me that there is a lot you ‘don’t get’..

                      ..but i already knew that..eh..?

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 10:58 am

                      But looking at it from a different angle, it could well be the exposition of your inability to make a point in a clear and concise manner… But then I already knew that.

                      Ultimately I’d put money on you having the hump because I called you out on the the ‘best pot smokers of our time’ expose being a bit of a self serving crock and patsy post.

                      I’m feeling creative so instead of finishing up one of the few new songs I’ve been writing, I’ll do a new one for you. I’ll call it ‘My link who(a)re dope friend’. 😆

                    • phillip ure …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:25 am

                      just put yr lorde-jealousy to one side..

                      ..and get on with it..

                      ..yr working- title’s a bit bulky/clumsy..

                      ..(and yes..i did ‘get’ the pun..)

                      ..’fiend’ instead of ‘friend’ wd make it more ‘edgy’..

                      ..but you may be aiming for a pastoral/solo-songwriter vibe..?

                      ..and ‘fiend’ wouldn’t fir there..

                      ..and do post the finished result here..

                      ..it can’t be worse than yr lorde-link..

                      ..so that’s some consolation..eh..?

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:45 am

                      Settled on Link Who(a)re.
                      Got the first verse sorted and the vocal hook for the chorus.

                      Every morning I wake up and grab myself a cup of herbal tea.
                      Roll a smoke and have a toke and wish that I could have it all for free.
                      Rub my eyes in fake surprise cause someone else is loading up on me.
                      Make a quote that’s not what they wrote, but then who on earth is gonna disagree with the link who(a)re.

                      Fu*k off Lorde 😆

                    • phillip ure …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:56 am

                      (lyric-tightening-exercise..)

                      each morn i wake..and hit the tea..

                      ..have a toke..and wish it were free..

                      (you can take it from there..)

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 12:06 pm

                      A little taster is on my al1en.org playlist.

                      As for the lyric advice, ta but no ta, I’m not sharing my Emmy, Brit, Aria, Silver scroll with anyone. 😉

                    • phillip ure …
                      24 June 2014 at 12:11 pm

                      and of course..replacing ‘it’..with ‘i’…

                      ..could well send you off in new fruit-bearing directions..

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 12:22 pm

                      You can join my fan club if you like… eh…?

                    • phillip ure …
                      24 June 2014 at 6:30 pm

                      cd u plse stop making up lies about me..

                      ..i do not ‘make up’ quotes..

                      ..i have never made up quotes..

                      ..that u state that this is what i do…

                      ..actually pisses me off quite a bit..

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 6:37 pm

                      I could link to draw attention to your interpretation of Dr Russell Norman’s appearance on TV some weeks ago and his comments on mining and legalising pot, but as you’re not interested or bothered any more, I won’t.
                      I will say I do recall others here telling you that’s not what he said at all, so am I and that line really that wrong?

                      But if you take such offence, even after the swears you’ve directed my way, I’ll do a gentlemanly deed and retract.

            • James 1.1.1.2.1.2
              24 June 2014 at 10:01 am

              She’s just doing her job. Thats what she does.

  2. phillip ure 2
    24 June 2014 at 8:04 am

    (this is a 16 min masterclass from john oliver..

    ..on the art of combining relevant current-affairs..and humour..)

    http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/watch-john-olivers-latest-epic-rant-hilariously-nails-dr-oz-and-supplement-industry

  3. mickysavage 3
    24 June 2014 at 8:07 am

    What is going on with Radio New Zealand?

    Cunliffe was interviewed this morning. He said that if Labour obtained 34% then they would have x new MPs. Espiner asked if that was a target and Cunliffe clearly said no and their aspirations were higher.

    Now at 8 am they are reporting that Labour’s target is 34% …

    • Karen 3.1
      24 June 2014 at 8:14 am

      Put in a complaint, It is the only way to stop this kind of misrepresentation.

      • Colonial Viper 3.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 8:19 am

        Better still edit the two sound bites together in an MP3 – first Cunliffe’s comments, then RNZ’s news statement.

        Stick it up on the Standard and on YouTube. With the caption – “time that Morning Report woke up and paid attention.”

        • greywarbler 3.1.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 9:05 am

          colonial viper
          Good idea. I don’t know how to do it yet and can’t get the time just now to take it in, though instructed in the past, so could someone find time to do this?

          • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 9:16 am

            I’ll be a cheapskate and say if you can find me the RNZ links, I’ll sort it.

            • greywarbler 3.1.1.1.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 9:30 am

              Colonial viper
              This is featured in News, I think same as in MR Notes below. Hope that’s okay.
              http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/248021/labour-aims-for-34-percent-party-vote

              Also from Morning Report Notes –
              http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport
              Cunliffe talks about the Labour list and that bottle of wine ( 5′ 16″ )
              07:26 Women feature prominently on the Labour list, with nine in the top 20, in line with the party’s commitment to make at least 45 percent of its caucus female. Four are in the top 10 — Annette King is fourth, Jacinda Ardern fifth, Nanaia Mahuta sixth and Sue Moroney tenth.

              • Colonial Viper …
                24 June 2014 at 9:34 am

                Dude thanks!

                • blue leopard …
                  24 June 2014 at 11:28 am

                  Excellent idea CV

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    24 June 2014 at 7:51 pm

                    Long day sorry it’s late. 1.5MB MP3 for download – with a few added comments by yours truly. Sorry the sound quality is a bit off.

                    https://mega.co.nz/#!cl0DXaiA!H347R4CSBwQ1ZSGSir51JLQyb9AefGP7q4ml57ufZMo

                    • swordfish …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:06 pm

                      Brilliant, CV, and great to hear your voice – having read your comments for the last 6 years.

                      Quite extraordinary stuff from RNZ. Especially after Cunliffe had made things crystal clear.

                      And, talking of Labour support, yep – you guessed it – I’m gonna plug me blog: just added some more poll analysis and stats here….http://sub-z-p.blogspot.co.nz/

                      Trendy new design partly based on views expressed by your goodself and others a few days ago. Mind you, it’s a totally impractical design – so I’ll probably be transforming it in a week or two. But looks brilliant.

                    • blue leopard …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:28 pm

                      @ CV

                      Excellent. Hope your work gets turned into a guest post

                      Your parting comment on that linked media got a chuckle out of me. lol

                      As for the content – Guyon’s interview style with Cunliffe; he is way out of line, what an unacceptable way of speaking to someone – let alone interviewing. What the hell is going on with the media??

                      That really makes me cross – and feel suffocated – the way he puts words into Cunliffe’s mouth and then ignores the decent and clear explanation provided.

                      Cunliffe is being so reasonable and Guyon’s style can only be labeled as rabid moronia (a new word hopefully anyone reading can work out what it means).

                      It must be official by now: the New Zealand media have got Munter-itis.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:29 pm

                      Chur swordfish & BL 🙂

                      SF your blog does look awesome – albeit the black text on deep grey background is rather masochistic of you haha

                      The audio thing I did here was a bit of an experiment…I’m wondering if there is a place for it in the political/media commentary of this country…I reckon maybe…would be very interested in your collective feedback in what directions it could potentially be taken.

                    • blue leopard …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:42 pm

                      @ Swordfish,

                      Great!! I really like the way you have left the background transparent. That combined with the rain effect creates a real atmosphere and not a bog standard ‘static’ feel – really very good!

                      The dark type doesn’t work though – dark blue and grey are barely visible (I am on firefox by the way) You could just change them to lighter colours?

                      ….Or just use the dark colours for Nat results…. 😀

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:48 pm

                      I cheated and did a “select all” (CTRL A on my Windows laptop) to make it all readable!

                    • weka …
                      24 June 2014 at 11:50 pm

                      Sorry swordfish, but light text on dark background is hard for many people to read. I don’t mean to be rude, but I just wouldn’t bother reading a site that was that visually difficult. See here for an explanation of the issues http://thestandard.org.nz/ubi-addressing-inequality/#comment-761532

                      Your title colour (purplish) is almost unreadable without squinting.

                      With design, where optimal communication is the goal, best to go with the classics. I’m not that familiar with blogger.com but they must have some templates that don’t make reading text difficult. Any background with transparent overlay is going to be problematic.

                      Sorry to be critical, it’s just that I see people writing really good content, but making it less accessible though design. Let me know if you want a hand finding templates.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 3.2
      24 June 2014 at 8:31 am

      It’s because Guyon Espiner is “…a serious departure from Radio New Zealand’s editorial standards…”

    • greywarbler 3.3
      24 June 2014 at 8:38 am

      I noticed that when David Cunliffe’s interview ended Spinney just said his name and turned to the next thing. I think that the right finish is to say ‘Thank you for your comments Mr Cunliffe’ or Mr Key, and the same respect shown for any of the top positions in NZ.

      And I think that calling Espiner Spinney is an appropriate nickname after listening to the nature of his attack dog approaches to his interviewees which belabour some point or other that his tiny mind considers newsworthy.

    • Olwyn 3.4
      24 June 2014 at 8:49 am

      I have emailed in a complaint about that one, for the first time ever. I could not believe what I was hearing, especially since it was posited as “news.”

    • Once was Tim 3.5
      24 June 2014 at 9:04 am

      What is going on at RNZ???
      Crony appointments and a programme of ‘popularisation’ by moving towards the cult of celebrity.

      Nimmo and Combs have laid claim to the term “5th Estate”
      ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Estate )

      This then has to be the 6th Estate at play -an elite characterised by celebrity, superficiality, the anti-septic surface wipe, multiple ‘truths’, anti-logic, excessive managerialism, popularity polls, …….. etc

    • fender 3.6
      24 June 2014 at 9:21 am

      Guyon Le Spinner is trying very hard to sully the reputation of RNZ as well as improve sales in the alarm clock radio market (I nearly threw mine at the wall).

      Waking up to this squeaking jerk who shouts over guests is getting tedious and infuriating. It’s time he went to Egypt..

    • Te Reo Putake 3.7
      24 June 2014 at 11:28 am

      Nice work, Standardistas!

      The headline on the RNZ article has been changed to :

      Labour confident of strong party list

      And the intro sentence now reads:

      The Labour leader, David Cunliffe says his party hopes to get at least 34 percent of the party vote and six new MPs into Parliament in the election.

      • greywarbler 3.7.1
        24 June 2014 at 11:47 am

        Good the media have to know the difference between certainty in facts and scenarios or assumptions, guesses and projections. Myself, I think that is sort of important in reporting on RadioNZ. Other media will just keep on with their chit-chat over coffee tea or the most desirable bottle of wine at the present point in time, either at the end of the day or whenever they damn well choose.

      • framu 3.7.2
        24 June 2014 at 12:49 pm

        and as its online we need to go here – http://www.omsa.co.nz/how-we-work/

        written reply in 7 days

      • anker 3.7.3
        24 June 2014 at 9:25 pm

        TRP @ 3.7 100+

    • vto 4.1
      24 June 2014 at 8:47 am

      Exactly

      Vote Them Out

      (thanks Awww, we don’t get much support…)

    • Pete 4.2
      24 June 2014 at 9:04 am

      The only nuclear powered warships in the US Navy are aircraft carriers and submarines. The rest are conventionally powered. In terms of nuclear weapons, the US has gravity bombs, submarine launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles in its arsenal. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reports that the US has 2,120 of these weapons deployed out of a total inventory of 7,400 warheads.

      As things stand, the information already available in the public domain is such that the Prime Minister could confidently grant admission by US warships (aside from carriers and submarines) to our ports under section 9 of the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987. Much as we already allow French, Chinese and British warships into our ports. During the 80s it was different as there were nuclear torpedoes and depth charges deployed. These have now been decommissioned since the end of the Cold War.

      Whether we want to grant access by US ships to our ports is a political matter over whether we want a closer relationship with the Americans or not. But the merits of that is another debate. I’m satisfied that a visit by a US vessel would not break our laws, provided it isn’t a carrier or submarine.

      • McFlock 4.2.1
        24 June 2014 at 12:38 pm

        Anything that can carry a Tomahawk might have a nuke.

        Wasn’t the deal-breaker circa ’85 the fact that the US refused to “confirm nor deny” that some failry innocuos vessel (a supply ship or something) had nuclear weapons/reactors aboard?

        US ships have always been welcome.

        My last point is that your assessment might be accurate now, but as the USN transition to more laser/railgun systems then they’ll be putting nuclear reactors on more diverse vessels. The idea behind those weapons is to basically eliminate the Jutland/l’Orient/HMS Hood scenario, where warships were destroyed by their own weapon magazines. But energy weapons still need a power source, even if it isn’t explosive.

        • Pete 4.2.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 1:05 pm

          I believe the ship was the Buchanan. Anyway, our law doesn’t specifically require an explicit confirmation or denial of nukes on board. Just that the Prime Minister must be satisfied they aren’t there. My position is that an analysis of the information in the public domain is sufficient.

          The nuclear variant of the Tomahawk has been retired

          • Draco T Bastard 4.2.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 4:36 pm

            My position is that an analysis of the information in the public domain is sufficient.

            Possibly but we wouldn’t know about anything that hasn’t been made publicly available which is where the US’ neither confirm nor deny comes into it. IMO, reasonably confident one person’s say isn’t enough of a reason to break our laws. Especially when that person is a US sycophant like John Key.

            The nuclear variant of the Tomahawk has been retired

            Doesn’t mean that something similar isn’t in service and being carried.

          • McFlock 4.2.1.1.2
            24 June 2014 at 4:53 pm

            … right up until information in the public domain happens to be incorrect. Or someone misses a paragraph announcement in Jane’s Defence Weekly.

            And seriously, we shouldn’t have to run up an intelligence assessment on each ship about to visit just to see whether an ally or whatever the fuck is doing us the courtesy of obeying our laws.

            • Colonial Viper 4.2.1.1.2.1
              24 June 2014 at 6:40 pm

              Did you notice the latest leaks suggesting that senior members of the Polish govt didn’t regard being too close (uh, I think a colloquialism was used) with the US as being in their national interests?

              • McFlock …
                24 June 2014 at 9:21 pm

                lol no shit, being next to russia, and all.
                Didn’t hey the Ukraine all that much.

          • Colonial Viper 4.2.1.1.3
            24 June 2014 at 6:38 pm

            In terms of nuclear weapons, the US has gravity bombs, submarine launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles in its arsenal.

            Pretty sure the US still has nuclear tipped artillery shells (‘tactical nuclear weapons’).

            • Pete 4.2.1.1.3.1
              24 June 2014 at 8:24 pm

              Not any more. A full rundown of their arsenal is on the third page of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists link I posted.

          • RedBaronCV 4.2.1.1.4
            25 June 2014 at 12:21 am

            It was the Buchanan which was a supply boat but the US refused to confirm or deny if it was nuclear so it didn’t get in . And what goes around comes around, heard on the grapevine one of the crew spent so much time back in the US dissing NZ that the kids got curious and now he is in line for a kiwi by marriage.

  5. bad12 5
    24 June 2014 at 8:41 am

    He who speaks with two faces, Slippery the Prime Minister in today’s Herald calling on Donghua Liu to provide the proof of having made donations,

    Beg your pardon Slippery one, was it not You who from Amerika first began this little witch hunt even befor the Herald joined in by claiming that You had information that the donations were ”six figure amounts”,

    Why not ”lead” the way Mister Prime Minister and tell us all publicly from which orifice you plucked the knowledge of the supposed ”six figure amounts” from…

    • freedom 5.1
      24 June 2014 at 8:51 am

      translation: I am happy to light the touchpaper but won’t tell you who gave me a box of matches
      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=143750

      (reposted from middle-of-queens-birthday board)

      • bad12 5.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 9:04 am

        Further translation: New Zealand news media, to all extents and purposes acting as the Whore Voice of International Capital happily pour petrol on the fire once its lit,

        Then refuse to question in any depth how the Prime Minister was able to allude to ”six figure sums” as supposed donations even befor the media whores had published their rumors…

      • ianmac 5.1.2
        24 June 2014 at 9:43 am

        Though at least one reporter is asking the right questions in that interview freedom. The tricky PM slides away but the fact that she was asking shows that some are doubting the PM’s word in spite of his slipperiness. And the fact that the Herald Adam Bennett put it up online suggests that he at least is questioning Key’s credibility.

        • bad12 5.1.2.1
          24 June 2014 at 10:19 am

          Yeah ianmac, its a clever game of pretend that the Herald plays, first scream ”Foul” loud and long from the roof-tops,

          The chorus, print, radio,and television all join the chorus on the ”attack”, the damage is done,

          Later have the ”juniors” ask the odd question in the right place about ”proof”, such questions logically being those which should have first been asked befor ”foul” was screamed,

          Later, point to the questions of the ”juniors” many days after the fact as ”balance”, as Phillip would say, we deserve far far better…

        • ianmac 5.1.2.2
          24 June 2014 at 10:30 am

          Funny. That same video of PM/Liu is up twice. Under Adam’s name and Mark Mitchell’s name. Bet the Editors are unhappy.

  6. phillip ure 6
    24 June 2014 at 8:50 am

    “..Why Conservatives Should Want to End the Drug War..

    ..There are three overwhelming and compelling reasons why this is so..”

    (cont..)

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-carli/conservative-drug-policy_b_5523116.html

  7. greywarbler 7
    24 June 2014 at 8:59 am

    Good critique on IT and DHBs from Annette King this morning and interviewed in a way that she was able to voice her facts and also her concerns. And those are justified, she released some information to parliament. I think it was mainly a letter from the Chief Financial Officers of some DHBs about this Health Benefits Ltd (I think) that has been given, as a private company, to draw on government health funds at will.

    This is an aspect of the dreaded public-private hooplah that has no doubt been foreseen by those expressing the hostility to PPPs.

    And then there is the aspect of government employees at high levels of strategic control also having major interests in private companies, and perhaps dealing as a DHB or DOH executive with their own company or investment vehicle as a provider or contractor. CONFLICT OF INTEREST HERE!!!!!

    We cannot have these leeches attaching themselves to the flow of government money.
    It is fecking corrupt and it does not provide more efficient experienced business oriented managers and strategists for government.

    It provides people who can present things carefully to appear necessary for best practice or increased efficiency, get money spent on equipment and infrastructure,
    on high-technical and ‘cosmetic’ end of health provision, and get rake-offs at huge cost to the taxpayer. At the same time those rising costs will lead to budget constraints which limit elective services, and even essential ones.

    • Draco T Bastard 7.1
      24 June 2014 at 4:55 pm

      It is fecking corrupt and it does not provide more efficient experienced business oriented managers and strategists for government.

      But it is more efficient at making a few people richer. Which, from what I can make out is the full reason for the neo-liberal reformations over the last thirty years.

      The whole system is corrupt and we need our political parties, especially those from the Left, to come out and say so.

  8. Chooky 8
    24 June 2014 at 9:00 am

    ‘Key amazingly u-turns on the entire claim that Donghua Liu has donated $100 000s and watch msm spinelessly let him’

    By Martyn Bradbury / June 24, 2014

    “How genuinely upset do the Press Gallery look by being told Key doesn’t have any actual evidence of Donghua’s donations? Their depression is obvious….”

    Lets hope the Herald, msm , Morning Report and John Key Nact can have the pants sued off them for running continuously and prominently with this groundless defamation of New Zealand’s oldest political party…the NZ Labour Party!

    (….by a jumped up new immigrant with big pockets who has already corrupting John Key’s NACT Party…ooops! ….John Keys’ lot corrupted themselves and received him and his dirty money with open arms!)

    • Kiwiri 8.1
      24 June 2014 at 5:06 pm

      “John Key now calling for Donghua Liu to provide evidence of donations”

      Liu must love John Key, Williamson, Woodhouse, et al even more now.

      Still waiting to hear who were involved with organising the statement being taken from non-English literate Liu.

  9. Rosie 9
    24 June 2014 at 9:03 am

    During the combined media “three more years” campaign I have had little to say in regard to the emerging facts vs. the orchestra of spin. There was nothing more to add or anything I could say that was different to what many commenters were posting.

    What I’d like to ask, and apologies if this has been covered, what do the various media outlets, beginning with the Herald, have to gain by a National coalition winning another three years? What is their motivation to mount such a sustained attack on Cunliffe that is based on little evidence for their story?

    Secondly, apart from submitting formal complaints what can we do to challenge specific media outlets for their unprofessional and provocative behaviour?

    • vto 9.1
      24 June 2014 at 9:08 am

      Re your first question Rosie, … follow the money ….

      Somebody posted a link on the ownership of the Herald. It is owned by big business multi-national corporates. So your questions should be “who would big business multi-national corporates want as the next government?” …..

      et voila. . . . your answer

    • bad12 9.2
      24 June 2014 at 9:19 am

      Rosie, i was supposing this question in my head,(a vast space for games of supposition to be played) the other day and was wondering IF there is some policy that Labour intends to release,ie: one that directly attacks/alleviates child poverty, that offends International Capital so badly so as to have them en masse taking the wrecking ball to Labour,

      As much as i would wish it tho, i cannot see any specific policy such as outlined above occurring,(and would more than happily be proved totally wrong),

      The other aspect of my game of supposition is that a more fearful aspect of a Labour Government in the eyes of International Capital would be the inclusion of the Green Party,

      Previous attempts by the media to destabilize the Greens has worked in the reverse with Green support solidifying after such media attacks,

      Don’t for a minute consider what we have here in this country as New Zealand media, it is all owned lock.stock, and barrel by International Capital and in the case of RadioNZ which isn’t has had its top management and direction stacked by National….

      • Rosie 9.2.1
        24 June 2014 at 9:51 am

        vto and bad12, ta.

        So Big Business has a stake in media such as APN and Fairfax and their interests may be, as they most likely incorrectly perceive it, be threatened by a Labour Green coalition. RNZ’s board of governors are ALL business people with one bloke, Josh Easby having a link with APN:

        http://www.radionz.co.nz/about/board-profile

        (I think books have been written about the topic of the media state governance relationship and the influence media has over democracy, I just can’t recall the titles. That’s one of karols specialities)

        I wonder then what is going on in the meeting rooms of these corporates and what is being cooked up. (And cafe’s even? That sighting I had of Matthew Hooten and Tracey Watkins in discussion at a Wgtn CBD cafe several months ago – well I’m guessing it was her, kind of looked like her)

        And where are the whistle blowers?

        And what can we do?

        • bad12 9.2.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 10:12 am

          Rosie, dont buy into it, train your mind to treat everything as a Lie until proven otherwise, and, don’t buy it, send the Liars the odd email telling them which of their latest lies has stopped you purchasing this week,

          That’s the short answer and the more of us that do it the sooner they might stop with the BS, having said that tho, the International Banking Cartel which props up all of the shower of information, misinformation, and disinformation aka the news media the world over has pretty deep pockets…

          • Rosie 9.2.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 10:29 am

            No, I don’t buy into it bad, not one bit! I do send complaints too but this is only one aspect of challenging the media.

            Last week I sent a complaint to the author of one article, (whose writing style was remarkably similar to an internet tr**l’s) but didn’t follow it up with a formal complaint to the editor of stuffed.co.nz, so it was most likely deleted from his inbox in a fit of hysterical laughter.

            • greywarbler 9.2.1.1.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 10:40 am

              @ Rosie
              I made a comment on an online forum making unflattering remarks about the level of prejudice and hyperbole in an article.. I don’t think it ever appeared and possibly hysterical laughter was heard at the far end of it. But most of these hacks don’t respond to a rein these days, their mouths are too hard and set and don’t feel any check by gentle controls.

              How did the hot razoo fundraising consciousness raising go?

              • Rosie …
                24 June 2014 at 10:46 am

                I wonder if they have the bit between their teeth and have bolted……….to use another riding term in addition to “not responding to a rein”.

                A funny term really, as technically a horse can’t have the bit,the cruel metal controlling device that sits on the very delicate gum area behind the back teeth, which is attached the bridle, between its teeth.

                The Brass Razoo’s busking event was heaps of fun thanks and very uplifting. Smiley people and energetic sounds. I was told that there was less people around than previous audiences they’ve had due to the cold southerly.

        • greywarbler 9.2.1.2
          24 June 2014 at 10:58 am

          @Rosie
          I’ll just add another interesting, to me, wee point about Fairfax and their influence on the way our media business operates. The administration part which is done over the phone is now handled by the Philippines.

          When I phoned The Press I could not speak to a NZ person in NZ, or a Philippino person in NZ, the system is closed to NZs and all our calls go to another country. And the same applied to The Mail in Nelson. The only way that we might speak to someone in our actual country, at the news premises, is if that person has a direct line, their own number. So I imagine that the Newsroom or a reporter is still contactable, at present.

          I find that unsettling and a diminution of our country as a developed nation.

          • Rosie 9.2.1.2.1
            24 June 2014 at 11:16 am

            Thats no good Warbs, and this is such a true statement:

            “I find that unsettling and a diminution of our country as a developed nation.”

            Outsourcing is detrimental in general but outsourcing the administration tasks of media is particularly worrying.

      • The Al1en 9.2.2
        24 June 2014 at 10:33 am

        “Previous attempts by the media to destabilize the Greens has worked in the reverse with Green support solidifying after such media attacks,”

        But let us not forget the TV3 piece by Cia Aston about NZ1st on the eve of the 2008 election that played a big part in them getting under the 5% threshold.

    • Rosie 9.3
      24 June 2014 at 9:21 am

      And speaking of three more years, is that going to be National’s campaign slogan?

      On Sunday evening after the 3 news team had finished their daily (apart from Friday) attack on Cunliffe, they did a glowing piece on Baby Tory Boy Todd Barclay and showed him having a jolly time at the Queenstown winter carnival.

      Printed on the side of National’s entry in the birdman competition was “three more years”. If that is going to be their slogan they need to add an exclamation mark at the end to make it seem like an exciting prospect to gullible voters.

      Instead it reads as “three more fucking years, groan”, which is off course the true and terrifying prospect should they get back in.

      • phillip ure 9.3.1
        24 June 2014 at 10:06 am

        the only comment i have heard re promises from national re their plans for a third-term..

        ..was english ..promising ‘the most serious shake-up of state spending..in the last 50 yrs’..

        ..(and if that doesn’t make yr blood run fucken cold..i dunno what wd..?..)

        ..and i have watched/waited for those ‘warriors’ of the mainstream-media/political-pundits..

        ..to ask further/query this..

        ..but yeah..!..nah..!..eh..?

        ..lost in the liu..all of them…

        • Rosie 9.3.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 10:41 am

          “.was english ..promising ‘the most serious shake-up of state spending..in the last 50 yrs’..

          ..(and if that doesn’t make yr blood run fucken cold..i dunno what wd..?..)”

          And Grant Robertson saying last week “if you think the last six years have been bad another three years under National will be like nothing you’ve ever seen” (words to that effect, on Radio Active). Yes, it does make one’s blood run cold, at the prospect.

          But as well as being depressed and horrified at the media’s antics I have been galvanised further into action – stepping it up a notch in my little activities around the hood.

          Time for a chorus of Galvanise by The Chemical Brothers. “Don’t hold back!”

          • phillip ure 9.3.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 10:54 am

            are the chemical brothers ‘goth’-enough..?..there..rosie..?

            ..i see you more looking to a light pastoral emo-ditty from..i dunno..!..the cure..?..

            • Rosie 9.3.1.1.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 11:31 am

              lols phil. “Senior, retired” remember? The 80’s was a long time ago! They were good goth years though. Happy memories. The Cure, Bauhaus, Sisters Of Mercy, A German band whose spelling I fail to recall (Germans, still big on goth and it’s offshoots today).

              My love and appreciation of music is wide and broad (listening to concert fm right now)I’m everything but the top 40 phil 🙂

              In the 90’s I had a particular love for anything on the On U Sound label – the opposite spectrum of goth! My love of dub endures until this day.

              I used to play piano too. I learnt for 4 years then I was in a car accident and could no longer read music after that. If I had access to a keyboard I might consider learning again but instead of the classics I might get into blues. Detroit house party piano blues! Woo Hoo!

              And no I don’t greet the dawn with a hiss………..

  10. phillip ure 10
    24 June 2014 at 9:09 am

    “..I Don’t Diet – I Just Go Vegan..

    “..Even the Germans want to corner the market by bringing their wildly popular vegan grocery chain –

    • appropriately named Veganz –
    • to the rest of Europe – and quite possibly the U.S..”

    (cont..)

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoe-lintzeris/vegan-diet_b_5521449.html

    • phillip ure 10.1
      24 June 2014 at 11:02 am

      how to be old..yet ‘cut’…

      ..go vegan..

      ..and follow my low-fi daily exercise-routine..

      ..which consists of a hundred curls on each arm…(you can fit it in while waiting for the porridge to boil..)

      http://whoar.co.nz/2014/porridge-gets-a-facelift-comment-ed-and-make-sure-you-dont-forget-the-dates/

      ..that..and walking the dogs in the park…

      ..and a bit of yoga..

      ..oh..!..and no booze..eh..?

      ..that’ll both get ya fat..and fuck with yr head..eh..?

      ..(and the older you get..the worse/more obvious those outcomes become..)

      ..so there ya go..!

      ..how-to-live-a-good/better-life…!

      ..in less than 100 words…

      ..and with a dedicated exercise-routine of about 5 mins..

      ..easy-as..!..eh..?

  11. Adrian 11
    24 June 2014 at 9:15 am

    Sometimes it’s the little code words that give it away. In this mornings Herald there was a sly reference to maybe DL’s non-affadavit may have been written by a Nat MP or close associate.
    Is some arsehole on his or her way to jail?
    Has the Labour Party been defamed?
    How much should the LP sue the bastards for ?

    • ianmac 11.1
      24 June 2014 at 10:04 am

      I put this up on the Daily Blog. Might help here?
      Mr Woodhouse met Mr Liu in a hotel “sometime in April or May” (Shades of Banks vagueness?)
      The letter falsely claiming $150,000 of dollars being donated by Mr Liu was dated 3 May.
      Somehow Mr Woodhouse must be made to state the date of that meeting. See the inference?

      • veutoviper 11.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 10:36 am

        The timing of Woodhouse’s meeting was discussed at length yesterday at the lengthy 17 thread on the Middle of Queen’s Birthday Weekend post.

        Here is a link to a comment by NZFemme in the midst of that discussion

        http://thestandard.org.nz/the-middle-of-queens-birthday-weekend-yeah-right/#comment-836650

        In brief, Woodhouse met with Liu in his hotel in April or May 2013 – ie last year not this year. This came out through a number of sources in May this year – eg Parliamentary questions and on TV3 reports on 7 – 9 May this year.

        Re the $100,000 bottle of wine and the picture of Barker and Liu’s partner, there is also a great long discussion – and research on the photo – at 41 suggesting that the fundraiser was not a Labour Party fundraiser but rather an annual Hawkes Bay Wine Auction fundraiser to raise money for a Hawkes Bay hospice held on 3 June 2007. BUT the reports on that fundraiser indicate that nothing like $100k was paid for any wine….

        Here is a link to Jaymam’s comment on the photo way down the 41 thread – and he is doing more research on the photo. Details of the fundraiser are further up the thread.

        http://thestandard.org.nz/the-middle-of-queens-birthday-weekend-yeah-right/#comment-837416

        • Anne 11.1.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 11:03 am

          Considering we are only a bunch of amateur detectives, I think we’ve done well to get to the point where we can confidently point to the existence of a sinister set up between the National Party and Donghua Liu. We’ve even nailed a few of the likely identities involved. I hope someone high in the Labour Party has been following out ruminations. It all helps to paint the big picture.

          We’ve done a damm sight better than the bulk of the gullible, self-serving MSM who are now sulking like five year olds… sent into the corner for pinching cookies from the cookie jar.

          • veutoviper 11.1.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 11:13 am

            Exactly, Anne. Kudos to all those who yesterday did the research etc etc. Well done.

            I also hope that someone high up in the Labour Party is aware of that research. In fact I know an email has been sent to one about it. But perhaps others like yourself who are involved in the Labour Party could also do the same.

        • ianmac 11.1.1.2
          24 June 2014 at 11:45 am

          Oops. Thought it was in April this year. I withdraw and apologise veuto.

          • veutoviper 11.1.1.2.1
            24 June 2014 at 12:27 pm

            No need to withdraw and apologise! We were all confused on that point, and then someone did the research yesterday. Cheers.

            • Kiwiri 11.1.1.2.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 12:56 pm

              It always helps to set out a timeline, while checking against or looking up the best sources!

              I was not that sure about the timing of the Woodhouse-Liu meetings or collusions and that was clarified by NZ Femme.

              We are much more than “only a bunch of amateur detectives” (Anne is being too modest on our behalf). We fact-check more thoroughly and accurately than those salaried so-called journalists.

              • veutoviper …
                24 June 2014 at 1:08 pm

                Agree. I was actually in the process of doing a comment about the timing of the Woodhouse – Liu meeting with links to the TV3 reports that said it was last year when NZFemme beat me to it! Again, good work.

                Incidently, Rob Salmond Twitter feed has a few tweets that indicate that he/Labour are aware of the HB wine auction link, and that the bottle of wine sold for $1600. But they cannot find Liu’s name or variations of it on the purchase list. https://twitter.com/rsalmond

  12. greywarbler 12
    24 June 2014 at 9:43 am

    Auckland Transport supporters could take another tack on the use of the shuttles between Transport offices – make spare seats available to the public. Give them the option of an express service to the outer office location, and back again.

    Charge more than the bus or rail for the express but not too much. Give an option to the public to access info on the next departure time and likely availability of a seat, and also instal a couple of straps for last-minute overflows.

    Cost would come down on the shuttle and the management would be fulfilling their responsibility of providing more good public transport options, and more bums on seats, and increased use and efficiency. (The shuttle now can have spare capacity, if people were made aware of the fast service and how to access info, business would probably avail themselves of the speedy service and make it more cost-effective.)

    • phillip ure 12.1
      24 June 2014 at 11:05 am

      that’s a very good/well-thought-out idea there..warbler..

      • greywarbler 12.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 12:56 pm

        Thanks phillip u Wouldn’t it be loverly if we could put forward ideas that could be scoped for possible implementation if they are likely to be positive.

        • phillip ure 12.1.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 1:05 pm

          open-access govt…wouldn’t that be good/better..?

          (.a little govt-dept of/for ‘good-ideas’..)

          ..than what we have now..?

  13. greywarbler 13
    24 June 2014 at 11:40 am

    The Readers Digest have held a poll of most trusted person from a list they supplied.

    I would vote for most trusted person in NZ as Rod Oram. His informed and objective commentary on our financial and business matters seems reliable and he is a pleasant person with working brain and breadth of understanding and world-class analysis based on a reasoning and rule-bound civilisation and what a great person to have considering and discussing life in NZ.

    Brian Easton would be on my list.
    Jane Kelsey also

    • ianmac 13.1
      24 June 2014 at 4:00 pm

      The Readers Digest prepare a list of 100 names and people were asked to put them in order. Kelsey or Oram or Easton would not be on the List. The List is a nonsense of course.

      • greywarbler 13.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 4:12 pm

        Yes I listened to the radio discussion on it. I wondered how Willie Apirana could be top. Nice man of course but being a soldier doesn’t make you a good person or even one of real use to your country, you have to be a good person first. But someone who can make fire and light and give the people something worthwhile to follow that will help all, is good to have around, especially in winter. Everything feels bleaker then.

  14. Skinny 14
    24 June 2014 at 11:50 am

    Let hope Collin Craig and his Conservative Party will be giving Labour’s Sue Moroney a hand in Hamilton West by standing a candidate who will take their National MP’s electorate vote. Word on the street is they will be, jolly good stuff!

  15. greywarbler 15
    24 June 2014 at 12:42 pm

    Breaking news! A NACT politician says he cannot comment on a document that he hasn’t seen. That was Tony Ryall who has been a well-praised success in Health according to a report I read some years ago. But he hasn’t spoiled NACTs high record for verbal errors stuff-ups corruption dodgy or under the tender dealings after all.

    Ryall has set up a system that siphons money from DHBs into a company that I can almost categorically state is not owned or run by Maori. They have such close scrutiny they could never get away with what must be a pakeha misappropriation

    Good questions in Parliament to NACT Health Minister Tony Ryall from Annnette King No.4 in Labour:
    http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/business/qoa/50HansQ_20140618_00000007/7-district-health-boards%E2%80%94health-benefits-ltd
    Hon Annette King : Has he been informed that profound concern has been expressed at the mounting risk to the delivery of health services because of Health Benefits Ltd’s lack of transparent and timely information, lack of accountability for decision-making, lack of timely communication, and the absence of a credible implementation plan?

    Hon TONY RYALL : With change always comes worry for people, because they have uncertainty about their jobs. I am very aware that people are worried about some of these proposals, but people need to keep their eye on the real gains here, and the gains are that by working more effectively together district health boards can make significant financial savings, and those resources can go back into supporting improved front-line services, together with the average $500 million a year extra that this Government has put into the health service.

    Google headings – dhb spending
    Big money –

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/248004/leaked-memo-slams-govt-intiative
    risks to the health system posed by Health Benefits Limited (HBL).
    Crown company HBL was formed in 2010 to find $700 million of savings at the country’s health boards over five years.
    The memo, distributed to a handful of senior managers, says HBL’s drive to consolidate health boards’ back-office functions is the single biggest threat to the public health system in a generation….
    It follows a group letter from chief financial officers of district health boards, tabled in Parliament last week, expressing their severely diminished confidence in the programme.

    http://www.oag.govt.nz/2010/dhbs-spending/docs/dhbs-spending.pdf
    Sep 14, 2010 – Together, the 20 district health boards (DHBs) spend about $6 billion of public … Total DHB spending each year is about $10 billion. Spending …

    But Tony Ryall has raised the fee on each subsidised medicine obtained on prescription from pharmacies, taking precious dollars for each item from poor families with multiple sicknesses or sick members.

    In January 2013, the Government increased copayments from $3 to $5, with health minister Tony Ryall saying it would save the health budget $20 million in the first year and $40 million in following years.
    Figures obtained by Pharmacy Today under the Official Information Act show $117 million worth of copayments were collected by the Ministry of Health in the 2012-13 financial year, up $37 million from the year before.
    http://www.pharmacytoday.co.nz/news/2014/june-2014/23/extra-$37-million-collected-from-copayments.aspx

  16. greywarbler 16
    24 June 2014 at 12:51 pm

    All visits to Egypt and trade initiatives should withdraw. I thought they were an advanced nation. But once you get twisted authoritarian people looking for ways to deprive others of their human respect who are truth hating and power and resource stealing regimes then journalists and photographers are unsafe. A bad step and sad.

  17. phillip ure 17
    24 June 2014 at 1:15 pm

    (interesting question four in q-time 2day..)

    “..Hon DAVID PARKER to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with BERL that “outside of dairy and forestry, export receipts have effectively flatlined since April 2009” –

    • and that “The risks inherent in such a narrowing of our export base should be of concern to all”;
    • if not, why not?.”
  18. yeshe 18
    24 June 2014 at 1:23 pm

    Chris Trotter in Stuff this morning … encouraging story against the odds, and oh, how I hope it is read and acted upon … we have to support anything that promises us hope of escaping a third term of these avaricious bastards. Take it to the people, please ! Capture the undecideds and the fed-up.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10191543/Cunliffe-should-let-the-stump-do-the-work

    • greywarbler 18.1
      24 June 2014 at 2:27 pm

      @yeshe
      Like this –
      During one of these tub-thumping speeches a man in the crowd cried out: “Give ’em hell, Harry!’ To which Truman replied: “I don’t give them hell, I just tell them the truth – and they think it’s hell!”

      OAB says that Cunliffe has already done ‘it’. All this? It sounds like a good idea and if partly done, should be done again in full. (And another strategy, every time that NACT attacks him he has a policy ready to release and talk about and taunt the interviewer of not being interested in things important to the NZ people just wanting airheaded gossip.)

      Trotter’s opinion:
      Strategically, Cunliffe has locked himself into a political process which, at the end of every week, is leaving him weaker, not stronger.
      Political journalists have already stamped the word “Loser” on his forehead and are treating him accordingly.

      As a communications strategy, relying on the news media to transmit Labour’s policy ideas to the voters has failed. It’s time for a new one.
      If Cunliffe was to take a leaf out of Truman’s playbook he would organise and publicise a nationwide “whistle-stop” tour.

      Starting out softly in the halls of small-town New Zealand and building slowly to a resounding crescendo in the big centres’ town halls.
      And, because this is 2014, every meeting, small and large, should be broadcast live on the internet (brickbats, bouquets and hecklers included) and uploaded to YouTube the next day.

      Can’t be done? Actually, it can.
      In July last year I watched young Martyn Bradbury and his anti-GCSB team fill the Mt Albert War Memorial Hall with 500 people. And then, three weeks later, pack the Auckland Town Hall with more than three times that number. On both occasions the meetings were broadcast live, to thousands more, on the internet.

      • Colonial Viper 18.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 6:49 pm

        Works very well for Winston.

        Labour Party members old and new flocked to the Labour leadership debates. Much bigger numbers would come to something like Trotter suggests.

        Let’s do it. Fuck the MSM.

  19. One Anonymous Bloke 19
    24 June 2014 at 1:35 pm

    What would Labour do without Chris Trotter offering advice they’ve already acted on?

  20. Mr Oh Well 20
    24 June 2014 at 2:16 pm

    Now I wonder what requires more attention, Liu or the failure of electricity market in NZ. Now what again is getting all the media attention, something real and important, or something appears to be out of a cheap magazine. There is definitely asymmetry here in terms of what the media devotes its attention to. There seems to be little attention to the 19% rise. Fantastic RNZ mentioned it.

    Quote RNZ
    “New figures show power prices have risen by 19 percent since 2009 despite flat or falling demand during the period. Labour’s Energy spokesperson David Shearer said the figures reveal power price rises four times the rate of inflation. ”

    So for fun however, just taking some raw data from Stats NZ (Feb 2010 to Feb 13) , Powershop (Source: MBIE actually) and having a play I wonder how much money is going to be lost to mum and dad (corporates) investors? This analysis by myself is probably rhubarb, but what the hell

    Electricity Daily Household Yearly Cost Private Dwellings NZ Cost Total NZ
    Feb-10 $4.80 $1,752.00 1708500 $ 3,093,681,600.00
    Feb-13 $5.60 $2,044.00 1765800 $ 3,609,295,200.00
    -$ 515,613,600.00

    Lets assume just a 5 and 10% profit (so that is money lost to NZ schools, hospitals etc) on this small difference, not total costs

    5% Profit -$25,780,680.00
    10% Profit -$51,561,360.00

    How come the media dont focus more attention on issues such as this. Maybe not this analysis, but you get the point.

  21. greywarbler 21
    24 June 2014 at 2:38 pm

    The price needs to go up in times of low returns so that shareholders get a fair return, and then in times of demand it needs to go up to allow for a clear economic single and distribution of the resource fairly and not wastefully. Seems right. /sarc

    What are you saying Mr Oh Well – that we are on a hiding to nowhere? Oh well, she’ll be right, at the end of the day they are professionals and know what they are doing. (But what is it that they are doing? I want to know their plan.)

  22. bad12 22
    24 June 2014 at 3:37 pm

    Things i really enjoyed about the Parliament’s question time today: question number one where the Leader of the Opposition took to task the Prime Minister over insinuations He made to the press corp while sojourning in Amerika that the Labour Party had taken from Donghua Liu donations in six figure amounts,

    The follow up series of supplementary questions which called upon the Prime Minister to reveal the sources of the rumor he had passed on to the press traveling with Him, leaving the Prime Minister flailing and uttering abuse in an attempt to deflect such queries,

    Right, only on a planet in a universe through the other side of the mirror, instead we are subjected to a series of ‘patsy questions’ directed at the Minister of Finance by plenty from the Government side of the House joined by David Parker,(all of it as cutting as a Gerry Brownlee joke),

    If Labour in the House are not going to take the small opportunities to haul the Prime Minister through the filth of His own lies at every opportunity it simply leaves them looking as if they want to bury the particular debacle that is Liu’s donations,

    If Labour will not take the knocks from the Speaker of the House in the form of the multiple ejections that would have resulted in hauling the Slippery little Shyster we have as Prime Minister befor the Court of Truth over the insinuation that there were ”six figure donations” made by Liu to Labour then it will simply encourage that Slippery little Shyster to start making such accusations during the election campaign,

    If Labour cannot lift itself in the House to expose the Slippery little Shyster for what He is then pretty much i for one cannot be bothered much more to attempt to do so in my small way here at the Standard….

    • The Al1en 22.1
      24 June 2014 at 4:10 pm

      Yep, missed opportunity to attack and get some positive headlines from the liu saga.

    • ianmac 22.2
      24 June 2014 at 4:23 pm

      To be fair bad, I think that they are in “wait and see” mode. The Labour Party is exploring legal remedies and carrying out an audit just to make sure. The fact that some journalists are asking questions about Key’s involvement is something.
      Have another look at the clip:
      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11280186
      I had hoped that QT would bring something but even Key was steering clear. Watch this space?

      • bad12 22.2.1
        24 June 2014 at 6:35 pm

        i actually thought i was ianmac, being fair that is, the vows of silence seeming to have been taken by Labour over the issue on the floor of the House at question time today suits only Slippery the Prime Minister and National,(along with all those in the media that have spread the lies),

        The situation could be as you say, an examination by Labour of its ”options” or it could be that Labour have been ”cowed” by the likes of Fran O’sullivan going Tsk Tsk on the TV on the weekend about ”gotcha politics”,

        Very fucking cynically clever from the Herald,(after the maximum amount of damage to Labour has been done), a perfect piece of good cop bad cop in the vein of ”if only you hadn’t got Maurice the boot we wouldn’t have had to give you the payback”,

        Unfortunately for Labour, the damage has been done and the silence in the House today simply compounds that damage giving the advantage to National where the TV news should have been ALL about Slippery being questioned over His lies, and yes, a pile of Labour MP’s being ejected for refusing to allow Him or the Speaker to shrug off those lies,

        Instead on 3 news at 6.30 we get a clip of David Cunliffe this morning supporting the Green Party position on more drilling in the domain of the Maui’s dolphin,

        And then, another clip of Him backing down from that position…

  23. Blackcap 23
    24 June 2014 at 4:24 pm

    seems that a Lui donation is confirmed but Rick knew nothing of it?

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11280804

    • The Al1en 23.1
      24 June 2014 at 4:29 pm

      To a rowing club his daughter went to, so that’s still $150,000 worth of donations to labour to come clean over Mr Liu.

      • Kiwiri 23.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 4:44 pm

        Yeegodz! I must check whether donations were received from Liu by the secretary of my local sewing club which was established by David Shearer’s great-grandmother.

      • chris73 23.1.2
        24 June 2014 at 5:20 pm

        Of course theres more to come but it does no good for Mr Liu to say everything at once because he wants payback so the longer its drawn out the worse it is for Labour

        • The Al1en 23.1.2.1
          24 June 2014 at 5:21 pm

          Like you know the motive, intentions and game plan of Mr Liu.
          So far, after a week of headlines, we still have nothing. Not looking good for your man it has to be said, or those wet dreaming their way through the last seven days..

          • chris73 23.1.2.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 5:36 pm

            Let’s see, he donated to Labour and then got dragged into a political kerfuffle over his dealings with Williamson. So I’m guessing revenge is his motive, one of the alleged donations has now been confirmed and the whole point of drip feeding is to drag it out as long as possible to cause maximum discomfort

            But hey if you think its no big deal then thats cool

            • The Al1en 23.1.2.1.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 5:41 pm

              “he donated to Labour”

              Citation needed.

              “one of the alleged donations has now been confirmed”

              Not to labour it hasn’t.

              • chris73 …
                24 June 2014 at 5:54 pm

                Not to labour it hasn’t.

                • Do you not understand the point of drip feeding information?
                • The Al1en …
                  24 June 2014 at 6:11 pm

                  Do you not understand the point of being able to back up a statement?

                  • chris73 …
                    24 June 2014 at 6:16 pm

                    It comes down to believing Labour or Liu and on past history concerning Labour and funding I’m inclined to believe Liu

                    But don’t worry there’ll be more

                    • bad12 …
                      24 June 2014 at 6:58 pm

                      Liu donated 2 grand to a rowing club, please chris73 make the connection for us all wont you,

                      Did the rowing club launder the monies for Labour, Pfft even for an idiot you are just way too idiotic…

          • Colonial Viper 23.1.2.1.2
            24 June 2014 at 6:33 pm

            The biggest thing on Liu’s horizon is sentencing. Start navigating from that point.

          • greywarbler 23.1.2.1.3
            25 June 2014 at 11:21 am

            The Chinese have shot their people in the past for getting up to stuff. They don’t muck around when there is embarrassing bad publicity, fraud or malfeasance – great word! Some people who travel the world pick up clues on how to screw vulnerable people, it may be just how to haggle down prices of poor people, or it may be how to place judicious gifts and services, like confusing allegations of ‘malfeasance’.

    • McFlock 23.2
      24 June 2014 at 4:59 pm

      was he the rowing club treasurer? No?

      The sith are doing well with this “no donations for no favours” scandal they’ve invented to counter a cabinet resignation over favours to a donor.

    • millsy 23.3
      24 June 2014 at 7:19 pm

      So if I donated to the local rugby club up the road, several stalwarts of which are hardcore National supporters, does that make me a National Party donor?

  24. Clemgeopin 24
    24 June 2014 at 5:15 pm

    An EXCELLENT article about Mr Cunliffe by Chris Trotter here. Have you read it? What do you think? I found it, well, excellent!

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10191543/Cunliffe-should-let-the-stump-do-the-work

    • yeshe 24.1
      24 June 2014 at 5:36 pm

      agree 100% .. have a look at 18 and 18.1 above …

      • Clemgeopin 24.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 6:22 pm

        Yes, I hadn’t noticed that there was a discussion already! I had quickly scanned this page, but still missed it!

    • chris73 24.2
      24 June 2014 at 5:41 pm

      Comparing Harry Truman to David Cunliffe isn’t exactly comparing apples to apples is it, now if it had been comparing Cunliffe to Nixon

      • Clemgeopin 24.2.1
        24 June 2014 at 6:25 pm

        Yeah? I suppose you will agree that Key, Joyce, English, Slater and you could be compared to Joseph Goebbels.

      • Draco T Bastard 24.2.2
        24 June 2014 at 7:31 pm

        John Key is the only Nixon comparison available as he tries to dig dirt on his opponents using underhanded means.

        Although, digging probably isn’t the correct metaphor. Spraying it around after pulling it out his arse would be more precise.

    • blue leopard (Get Lost GCSB Bill) 24.3
      24 June 2014 at 5:58 pm

      Gee it is good to see Trotter showing some spine – very good article, nice that he calls the attitudes of the media in a mainstream source. Good one Trotter.

      And thanks for the link.

      • Clemgeopin 24.3.1
        24 June 2014 at 8:30 pm

        You are welcome. I think it is slowly becoming obvious that the media is giving an easy time for Key, National and the right wing while being so unfairly biased against Cunliffe, Labour and the progressives. How poorly the country and democracy is served by our news media these days!

        • blue leopard 24.3.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 11:01 pm

          Yes, I would have thought that National and the media have played their hand far too blatantly – and it is like now their cards are on the table for all to see.

          I would have thought it was now undeniable that there is something very awry going on with regard to National and the Media and their connection and I sincerely hope that you are correct and people en-masse are noticing and won’t forget – this would be good because then their crap won’t have as much effect on peoples’ minds.

          I am eternally astonished what a powerful medium the spin machine is, though, and hope they don’t somehow manage to switch people off and make them forget the blatant truth of the disheveled and corrupt state of the media that has been displayed for all to see this week.

          (is ‘en masse’ not a word – it is showing up with a red line under it – I thought that was the way to spell it – what is the correct spelling do you know?!)

          • Clemgeopin 24.3.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 11:23 pm

            You are correct.
            Main Entry: en masse
            Part of Speech: adv
            Definition: in a mass; all together; as a whole
            Etymology: French

            May be the spell checker is indicating that it is not a compound word. Or may be in America they spell it differently.

            Here is a sentence using that phrase:

            ‘On Monday, 22 Sept 2014, the National cabinet reluctantly resigned en masse. The very eminent Speaker of the house handed them a large box of tissues in sympathy’

            • blue leopard 24.3.1.1.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 11:31 pm

              lol oh how I wish…

              (Cheers for the spelling confirmation I thought that was the case! It was telling me to spell it en mass)

    • ianmac 24.4
      24 June 2014 at 6:55 pm

      Yep Clem.Optimism and hard work.

      • Clemgeopin 24.4.1
        24 June 2014 at 8:26 pm

        I wonder if Labour and Cunliffe have already chalked out such a plan. He could easily visit 3 to 4 town halls for 30 minutes to an hour each day for the next say 70 of the 90 days giving him about 250 towns/town halls. Hard work, but may pay good dividends. PLUS live broad cast online +YouTube of those meetings/speeches for the rest of the country to watch sometime. If he can cover even 200 towns will still be good I think.

  25. Morrissey 25
    24 June 2014 at 5:23 pm

    “Seven years in an Egyptian prison? I’m OUTA there!”
    The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 24 June 2014
    Jim Mora, Mai Chen, Sally Wenley

    Over the best part of a decade now, Jim Mora and his merry band of Panelists have established a long and shameful record of scoffing, sneering and laughing at the plight of journalists and dissidents who have been targeted for state vengeance….
    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19072013/#comment-664870
    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-14062013/#comment-648511
    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-17082012/#comment-509221
    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19102013/#comment-713017
    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-18072013/#comment-664502
    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15062013/#comment-648684
    http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26062013/#comment-654151

    Today’s show, however, saw an historic tilt in favor of the oppressed. There wasn’t a snort or a derisive guffaw to be heard as they talked about the horrifying overnight news out of Cairo. Well, actually, Mai Chen was a little flippant, but there was no Stalinist-style baiting of the unfortunate journalists as there usually is on this show…

    JIM MORA: [perplexed sigh to indicate moral seriousness] Ahhh, the West is reacting to the news that Egypt has jailed three Al Jazeera journalists. ….. What is Egypt doing, jailing journalists?
    MAI CHEN: Seven years in an Egyptian prison? I’m OUTA there! Huh!
    SALLY WENLEY: [uncertainly] He he!
    JIM MORA: On the program to discuss this we have Professor Al Gillespie from the University of Waikato….

    Prof. Gillespie is an honorable exception to the troubling collection of cranks and fanatics that are ensconced at Waikato, and his analysis was sound and undistorted by ideology, as it would have been if the producers had asked his colleagues Ron Smith or Dov Bing to comment. Even so, Prof. Gillespie did not dare to mention the elephant in the room here, viz., that the Egyptians have done nothing outrageous, if you judge them by the standards of the Obama or Cameron regimes. I sent Jim a friendly reminder….

    Re the persecution of journalists, the U.S. and U.K. have no moral authority

    Dear Jim,

    You ask: What is Egypt doing, jailing journalists? What Egypt has done to Peter Greste and his Al Jazeera colleagues is no more extreme or oppressive than what the United States and Great Britain have done against truth-tellers like Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.

    Unfortunately, “the West” has no moral authority to back up anything it might say to the Egyptian junta.

    Yours sincerely,

    Morrissey Breen
    Northcote Point

    • phillip ure 25.1
      24 June 2014 at 6:16 pm

      two wrongs don’t make a right..

      ..but the double-standard is kinda jaw-dropping..

      ..these tutt-tutting journalists/pundits seemingly don’t see snowden in a prison by being unable to leave russia..and assange imprisoned in an embassy..

      ..for the heinous-crime of whistle-blowing/alerting us to how those who rule over us so abuse their powers..

      ..and both assange/snowden being examples of what craven-trouts like them can never aspire to..

      ..they don’t see this as being in any way equivalent..

      ..their moral-outrage is very selective..

    • Chooky 25.2
      24 June 2014 at 6:20 pm

      good to see you back Morrissey….someone needs to monitor the radionz waves …and I like your comments often ( not always as with ‘Saint’ Chomsky) …radio ain’t the truth…and good to see it getting taken apart with irreverence….even although you yourself come in for some flak in the past

  26. phillip ure 26
    24 June 2014 at 5:41 pm

    any labourites present wanna positvely spin cunnliffe telling internet/mana to get fucked..?

    ..for me..?

    ..that it is a fight to the death..everywhere..?

    ..they’ll be high-fiving over that one down @ natty-hq..eh..?..

    ..labours’ ‘principle-based’ slow walk to defeat..

    ..and cd someone remind me again..

    ..just what that ‘principle’ is..?

    • The Al1en 26.1
      24 June 2014 at 5:43 pm

      Not a labourite, but good on DC. Last cab on the rank, just what I’d predicted and hoped for.

      • phillip ure 26.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 6:01 pm

        so..as a green..you wd rather the greens worked with winston peters..and his motley crew..

        ..than harawira/harre/sykes..?

        ..fuck..!..yr even more rightwing than i thought..

        ..and do you have any grasp at all on green party history..?

        ..vis a vis peters/greens/coalitions..?

        • The Al1en 26.1.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 6:05 pm

          Nothing to do with being right wing.
          Are you sure you don’t need to take a few minutes to have a little cry?

          • phillip ure 26.1.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 6:21 pm

            answer the preference/history questions plse..

            ..explain yr ridiculous gloating..

            ..you are coming across as a braying/ignorant fool..

    • chris73 26.2
      24 June 2014 at 5:49 pm

      Actually I think thats a good (and brave) decision by David Cunliffe

      • phillip ure 26.2.1
        24 June 2014 at 5:54 pm

        my natty-hq claim..q.e.d..

        ..the right will be orgasming over this one..

        ..them and rightwing greens..

        ..and what is becoming clearer and clearer..

        ..is that those on the left in labour..

        ..if they want some real change..

        ..their only hope is to vote internet/mana..

        • The Al1en 26.2.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 6:00 pm

          “my natty-hq claim..q.e.d..”

          Edited in after my post.

          “rightwing greens..”

          They is only in your noggin, nugget.

          I did like DC’s supplementary this afternoon in reply to key’s answer about him ruling out going with mip, key looked shocked at the thought he’d have to rule out an act, con and the ufno1 coat tailing.

          Guess if you want to get anyone into government, Philip, you’d best party vote green and electorate Labour after all.

          • phillip ure 26.2.1.1.1
            24 June 2014 at 6:03 pm

            i’d rather rip my fucken arms off…

            ..how long have you been such a peters/nz first-fan..?

            ..and you cling to yr ‘supplementary’-glow..eh..?

            ..it may have to sustain you thru the ashes of defeat..

            ..key’s huh..!..is because he cant believe how fucken stupid cunnliffe/labour are..

            ..with their bullshit ‘principled-stand’..

            ..and i am still waiting for a fucken definition of just what that wooly-headed ‘principle’ just might be..

            • The Al1en 26.2.1.1.1.1
              24 June 2014 at 6:07 pm

              Seriously, take ten, get it out of your system and have another go.

              Failing that, I’m posting 4 slips, a gully and a couple of close in fielders to catch the toys you’ll be throwing out of the pram. 😆

            • The Al1en 26.2.1.1.1.2
              24 June 2014 at 6:19 pm

              You’re going to have to stop editing after I’ve posted. I don’t know if it’s deliberate or not, but catch a grip with that, aye.

              “..and you cling to yr ‘supplementary’-glow..eh..?”

              Not as hard as you cling to an apparent inferiority complex. Sheesh.

          • bad12 26.2.1.1.2
            24 June 2014 at 6:16 pm

            Far from it, Winston isn’t a sure thing as far as getting 5% of the vote goes and Winston if He can pull NZFirst over that thresh-hold will talk to National first and National will offer Him a big enough ego trip to keep National in Government,

            i see even less impetus for any of my votes to go to Labour after today’s capitulation in the House and InternetMana will still get my Party Vote,

            i could still be swayed by Labour’s policy releases going into this election, but, seriously doubt it…

            • The Al1en 26.2.1.1.2.1
              24 June 2014 at 6:25 pm

              If we’re talking about appeal to the wider electorate, that’s not us politics junkies on here, a lab/green/nz1st government, in my opinion, will be more palatable and thus electable than anything to do with hone and kdc.
              You may not like that, or agree, but I reckon deep down, given the state of the nation, it might just be true.
              Of course, Phil’s prediction of 10% for mip might have DC doing a back track and you’ll both be laughing on election night. Only a few months to go to find out how it will go down.

              • bad12 …
                24 June 2014 at 6:46 pm

                Considering David Cunliffe’s performance today in the House i should imagine He will be thanking His lucky stars that not many of us bother to watch,

                Given TV3’s ”gotcha” of Him on the news tonight over His position Maui’s Dolphin vis a vis more drilling in their domain i would suggest by the time the vote is counted it will require either a 10% InternetMana vote or a Labour/Green/NZFirst/InternetMana coalition…

                • The Al1en …
                  24 June 2014 at 6:52 pm

                  If it has to be a 4 way coalition then so be it, still, we all have our own preferences and plenty of time to advocate them.

                  • bad12 …
                    24 June 2014 at 7:04 pm

                    The 4 way was tongue in cheek,(at least that’s where i thought i had it), what makes you think that Winston is going to entertain being in a coalition with the Green’s…

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 7:14 pm

                      It is a gut feeling based on the recent exchanges between him and key, I’d say 80/20 he’d go with labour.
                      Again, with the kiwi power thing and how the three worked together, I’d say they would be able to work towards preventing a third nat term.
                      It wouldn’t necessarily be the left wing utopia we may all crave, but three years to work towards it would be a start.

                    • bad12 …
                      24 June 2014 at 8:15 pm

                      i have to admire your optimism, i suppose to a certain extent we all are, optimists that is,

                      i would put Winston down as a 50/50 both for actually gaining the 5% and for the coalition choice,

                      Nothing for me to support there, with the codicil, Labour might after having endlessly tried to make political mileage out of child poverty come up with policy that directly addresses that,(besides all the work will set you free stuff), now there’s optimism for ya,

                      A Labour/NZFirst Government, no thanks…

                    • The Al1en …
                      24 June 2014 at 8:23 pm

                      “A Labour/NZFirst Government, no thanks…”

                      Agreed.

                      “i suppose to a certain extent we all are, optimists”

                      I’d happily accept labour wriggling up to 35% and the Greens pushed 15%

                    • felix …
                      25 June 2014 at 6:59 am

                      Al1en, I don’t know how long you’ve followed NZ politics but railing against govts before an election and then supporting them after is something Winston does before breakfast.

                      He’s 50/50 at best, and that’s the way he likes it uh huh uh huh

                    • The Al1en …
                      25 June 2014 at 8:53 am

                      First experience of NZ elections was ’99.
                      I know Winston’s form, but still think too much water has gone under the bridge for him to keep key in government.
                      You might be correct and it’s only 50/50, so best get folks out voting Green and Labour then, like I am doing.

    • Kiwiri 26.3
      24 June 2014 at 6:30 pm

      hi phillip ure

      am not a labourite but support the winning progressive bloc to govern after sep 20.

      would appreciate if you provide a link or source in relation to your comment “any labourites present wanna positvely spin cunnliffe telling internet/mana to get fucked..?”

      where did Cunliffe say that? link please.

      i have looked online and see that during question time today, he raised a hypothetical in response to john key but that can’t be read as conveying what you have indicated:

      Hon David Cunliffe: Since the Prime Minister is so fond of polls, would he like to comment on the one that says 81 percent of New Zealanders do not like coat-tailing and why he is still considering doing a shady deal with Colin Craig?

      Rt Hon John Key: Notwithstanding I do not have ministerial responsibility for that, I am happy to say this: if the member wants to rule out dealing with the Internet Mana Party, which would be coming in under the coat-tailing, and say that to the House and to New Zealand today, I will take him seriously. But guess what? When you are 23 percent, you do not rule anybody out.

      Hon David Cunliffe: If Labour is prepared to rule out a pre-election coalition deal with the Internet Mana Party, will the National Party rule out one with the Conservatives, ACT, and United Future?

      Mr Speaker: The right honourable Prime Minister, in so far as there is responsibility.

      Rt Hon John Key: What the National Government is going to do, notwithstanding that I do not have ministerial responsibility for it, is make sure that we are honest, open, and transparent with the New Zealand public—something that David Cunliffe struggles quite a lot with these days.

      Source: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1406/S00373/questions-and-answers-june-24.htm

      • phillip ure 26.3.1
        24 June 2014 at 6:45 pm

        on nat-rad..checkpoint..(should be up on their website by now..)

        ..he said labour will be going full-on to win ‘all the maori seats’..

        ..and that internet/mana were ‘last cab off the rank’ for any post-election coalition negotiations..

        ..he wd rather labour went with nz first..(!)..(who will go with national..if they get half a chance..f.f.s..!)

        ..and..just like clark said/did to the greens..eh..?..history repeats..

        ..and cunnliffe lurches back to the right..

        ..so..when the dust from this settles..it will be clear to progressives in both labour and the greens..

        ..to vote internet/mana..

        ..if they want to get the changes they want..

        ..if they don’t..they are staring down the barrel of a peters..(shudder..!..)

        ..in fact..looking at the big-picture..the arrogance of labour/cunnliffe saying they will ‘win all six maori seats’ will likely just piss off a lot of maori voters..and see them turning to internet/mana..

        ..and like i said..internet/mana are really the only option now for the progressives in labour/grns..

        ..so..all in all..this idiocy from cunnliffe..cd well help ‘my’ parties election-outcomes..

        ..face-palming first past the post thinking..from cunnliffe/labour..

        ..but we’ll take yr votes..gladly..eh..?

        ..(anyway..i’m off to yoga now..to soothe my savaged brow..)

        • marty mars 26.3.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 11:07 pm

          Phil – Hone doesn’t need a deal and this move by labour is expected – their goal is the middle and IMP are not where the middle hang their hats. And any bullshit spouted by labour now is worthless – it is just to get votes and when the votes are in anything said before the election will be forgotten and labour will come crawling for support just as we always expected them to – and good on them for that.

          • phillip ure 26.3.1.1.1
            25 June 2014 at 6:55 am

            “..Phil – Hone doesn’t need a deal and this move by labour is expected..”

            i agree with yr analysis..of the big-picture..and hone (and annette sykes’) chances..

            ..i think this cynical move to the right..revives too many memories..

            ..and like i said..i think this rejection cd well end up helping internet/mana..

            ..i guess i had been sucked into cunnliffes’ ‘workers flag is deepest red’ bullshit..

            ..and thought he actually meant it..

            ..and any hopes from any poverty-busting policies from labour..have died..

            • marty mars 26.3.1.1.1.1
              25 June 2014 at 9:14 am

              Yeah I understand that – too many times I have gone to the labour well over the years and too often it is dry and dusty. Thank the gods for some credible left alternatives to vote for.

        • Kiwiri 26.3.1.2
          25 June 2014 at 9:16 am

          hi phillip ure

          hope you had a good yoga session. i need to get back to some classes myself.

          i have looked for the rnz checkpoint piece several times but cannot find anything close. there was a piece about labour at 6:37pm that ran for under 3 minutes and i have played it a few times but that does not seem to be the one.

          can you point out the link please? i would very much like to listen to it and also transcribe it.

  27. joe90 27
    24 June 2014 at 6:33 pm

    Something nice to look at.

  28. Draco T Bastard 28
    24 June 2014 at 7:49 pm

    I do like this policy up in the Internet Party’s Policy Incubator. It’d effectively encrypt everything on the net in NZ. Meta-data could still be spied upon so we’d need to do something else there but nothing intercepted in between server and clients could be read.

    • Clemgeopin 28.1
      24 June 2014 at 8:39 pm

      What a great modern idea for political parties : Policy incubator with direct input and initiative from members! I like that!

      • Draco T Bastard 28.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 9:25 pm

        Yep, I think we’d see some serious policy changes from all parties if they did that. Policy changes that the plutocrats won’t like.

  29. Ergo Robertina 29
    24 June 2014 at 8:29 pm

    Nice to see John Campbell hit back tonight at the ‘establishment lickspittles’ who have questioned his programme’s focus on the Chch rebuild and insurance issues (in the intro to this story):

    http://www.3news.co.nz/Southern-Response-claimants-still-in-limbo/tabid/817/articleID/350012/Default.aspx

  30. phillip ure 30
    24 June 2014 at 8:43 pm

    very cool doco on the space-race.on maori tv..now..

    • phillip ure 30.1
      24 June 2014 at 9:11 pm

      back then..it seemed we had a future to look forward to..

      ..that things were just going to be ‘getting better’..

      ..is it just rhetorical to say w.t.f. happened..?

      ..who stole our future..?

      • Draco T Bastard 30.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 9:12 pm

        .is it just rhetorical to say w.t.f. happened..?

        ..who stole out future..?

        The oligarch’s did.

        • phillip ure 30.1.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 9:27 pm

          it’s time to take it back..

          ..and throw the oligarchs out on their arses..

          ..and here in new zealand..

          ..we can have our revolution at the ballot-box..

          ..no guns needed…

    • Draco T Bastard 30.2
      24 June 2014 at 9:11 pm

      Might need to watch it.

      Absolutely loved this one:

      “We wanted to have a decent image of a theory conforming Warp ship to motivate young people to pursue a STEM career,” Rademaker said in an e-mail interview. “It does have some Sci-Fi features that might never transfer to a possible final design, unless we really want to.”

      FTL coming to a spaceship near you ‘soon’.

      The hour long video linked to on that page is a must watch for those interested in these things.

      • phillip ure 30.2.1
        24 June 2014 at 10:02 pm

        heh..!..i wonder if colin craig..who thinks the moon-landings were faked on a soundstage in the desert outside of phoenix…

        ..i wonder if the barking-fool is watching this doco on maori tv..

        ..and marvelling at the level/detail/quality of the trick he thinks was played on us..?

        ..(nah..!..he wouldn’t..it’s brown-fella telly..eh..?..

        ..not craigs’ cuppa tea..you don’t need to wonder about that one..)

        ..and this is who key/the national party..are open to go into coalition with..

        ..there must be many former nattys spinning in their graves at that one..

        ..’you are gong into coalition..with a moon-landing-denier..?

        ..someone who is paranoid about chem-trails..?

        ..someone who thinks the earth is 10,000 yrs old..?

        ..are you fucken crazy..?..)

        • Clemgeopin 30.2.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 10:21 pm

          Probably thinks that the moon itself is fake! Come to think of it, may be it is! Who knows!

          Sometimes it looks big as and sometimes smaller! Sometimes round and sometimes only half its size! Other times even smaller like crescent and stuff. Some nights it is dark and disappears. Some nights moon is said to influence lovers. Other times, moon makes Nats come up with one sided crazy policies. There is said to be full moon, new moon, blue moon, red moon, purple moon and no moon. May be crazy Craig Collins has a pint after all!

          And I found this guff :
          http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/Moonphoto.htm

  31. Draco T Bastard 31
    24 June 2014 at 9:22 pm

    Antibacterial Soap is Fouling Up Sewage Treatment Systems

    Sewage treatment plants often incorporate anaerobic digesters to reduce the volume of waste they have to deal with.

    It’s a win-win system, but it won’t work without bacteria—which makes the ubiquity of antibacterial products troubling.

    And

    Insecticides put world food supplies at risk, say scientists

    “The evidence is very clear. We are witnessing a threat to the productivity of our natural and farmed environment equivalent to that posed by organophosphates or DDT,” said Jean-Marc Bonmatin, of the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, one of the 29 international researchers who conducted the four-year assessment. “Far from protecting food production, the use of neonicotinoid insecticides is threatening the very infrastructure which enables it.” He said the chemicals imperilled food supplies by harming bees and other pollinators, which fertilise about three-quarters of the world’s crops, and the organisms that create the healthy soils which the world’s food requires in order to grow.

    We just seem to keep doing things that aren’t all that great for the environment and keep failing to learn the lesson that’s been in our face for the last 40+ years – we need to stop doing things just because they make an immediate monetary profit for the plutocrats. We need to look after the environment else we’re going to find ourselves in serious trouble.

  32. Clemgeopin 32
    24 June 2014 at 9:29 pm

    Take a read of the Parliament Speaker’s ‘performance’ today during Q4. What do you think?

    Here it is:

    Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question did not—

    Mr SPEAKER: Order! I can assist the member. I listened to the question; I listened to the answer. Will the member resume his seat, please. The question has been addressed. The member has further supplementary questions if wishes to use them.

    Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would appreciate my point of order being heard before it is ruled upon—

    Mr SPEAKER: Order! I did not need to listen any further to the member—

    Hon David Parker: Oh!

    Mr SPEAKER: Order! Supplementary question, Tim Macindoe.

    Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, Mr Parker was not even able to get out what his point of order was about. I do not know how you knew—

    Mr SPEAKER: Order! I can help the member. The point of order coming from the member was that the question had not been answered correctly. I ruled—[Interruption] Order! If the members wish to stay for the balance of question time—supplementary question, Tim Macindoe.

    Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

    Mr SPEAKER: Can I just clarify that this is a fresh point of order.

    Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I am seeking some advice from you.

    Mr SPEAKER: Can we just clarify that the member is now raising a fresh point of order and is not in any way relitigating a decision I have just made? Fresh point of order, Hon Clayton Cosgrove.

    Hon Clayton Cosgrove: My question is, in respect of the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings, whether a member is entitled to raise a complete point of order as long as it is within those Standing Orders, and are you required to listen to the complete point of order?

    Mr SPEAKER: No, there is no obligation on me to listen to the complete point of order. [Interruption] Order! If the member also wishes to stay, he will not interrupt when I am on my feet. I do not want to have to warn the Hon Clayton Cosgrove of that again today. There is no obligation on me to listen to a full point of order. Many points of order take too long. If I feel I have got the gist of the point of order, I will rule on that point of order.

    Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

    Mr SPEAKER: Again, can I just clarify that this is not an attempt to waste the time of the House—is it a fresh point of order?

    Hon Trevor Mallard: It is not; it is a genuine request that you share—

    Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will now hear the point of order.

    Hon Trevor Mallard: Mr Speaker, it is a request that you share with the House the source of your prescience so we can all read the future.

    Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order, and it is the sort of thing that leads to disorder in this House. Equally, if the Hon Trevor Mallard does not start behaving himself today, he will not see the balance of question time.

    Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you tell us, as a matter of clarification, whether the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings of this House have changed?

    Mr SPEAKER: Will the member please raise his point of order again?

    Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could you please tell us, as a matter of clarification and for the edification of all of us, whether the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings of this House have changed?

    Mr SPEAKER: Well, over the time that I have been here Standing Orders and Speakers’ ruling have changed considerably. I am sure—

    Rt Hon Winston Peters: Since yesterday?

    Mr SPEAKER: Since yesterday? The House was not sitting yesterday. But, for the benefit of the member, there has been no very immediate change to the Standing Orders or Speakers’ rulings at all, but certainly over the time that I have been here and the time that the member has been here, there has been substantial change.

    Rt Hon Winston Peters: That is not what I meant.

    Mr SPEAKER: The member might want to explain himself further. I will listen.

    Rt Hon Winston Peters: Since the House sat today or commenced its sitting, has there been a change in the Standing Orders or the Speakers’ rulings of this House?

    Mr SPEAKER: I assume the member is now going back and relitigating a point I made earlier. If the member likes to refer to Speaker’s ruling 20/2, he will see that there is no obligation on a presiding officer to hear a full point of order. I presume that is the point the member is making, but no, Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders do tend to change over time.

    Gareth Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

    Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again, before I hear the point of order, I just want to clarify that the member is not in any way relitigating where we have been in this discussion. If it is a fresh point of order, I am happy to hear it.

    Gareth Hughes: It is related to the discussion. I seek to draw your attention to—

    Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. The member will sit down and resume his seat. We have now wasted a considerable amount of the House’s time. [Interruption] Order! We have now wasted a considerable amount of time. If the member wants further clarification on any decision I have made, I invite the member to come see me immediately after question time, but we are not having continual points of order being raised as a means of relitigating a decision I have made.

    • karol 32.1
      24 June 2014 at 10:06 pm

      Unbelievable…. and so goes the last vestiges of democracy.

      • Clemgeopin 32.1.1
        24 June 2014 at 10:34 pm

        I find this speaker irritating, clearly biased in favour of the PM and National MPs in their answers, attacks and behaviour, harsh and unfair to the opposition MPs and therefore, in my opinion quite a poor speaker.

        • yeshe 32.1.1.1
          24 June 2014 at 10:51 pm

          Carter’s rudeness today to David Parker was a new sunken level in a season of low tides … maybe the worst most biased speaker ever .. a complete travesty.

      • Clemgeopin 32.1.2
        24 June 2014 at 10:41 pm

        I find this speaker irritating, biased in favour of the PM and National MPs in their answers, attacks and behaviour, harsh and unfair to the opposition MPs and therefore, in my opinion quite a poor speaker. May be I am biased.

        • Colonial Viper 32.1.2.1
          24 June 2014 at 10:49 pm

          Clearly biased toward well functioning Parliamentary democracy you bad person

    • felix 32.2
      25 June 2014 at 5:58 am

      Clemgeopin will leave the chamber.

      • Clemgeopin 32.2.1
        25 June 2014 at 11:18 am

        When the Speaker makes stupid calls and actually causes the wastage of heaps of parliament time, when had he given Mr Parker ten more seconds to finish his sentence, and THEN made whatever call he wanted to make, there would not have been the problem and farce this speaker himself created. He needs to realise the MPs are the nation’s representatives, voted in by the PEOPLE of the country. For a speaker to treat them in a contemptuous, rude,biased, dictatorial and unjust manner is just on on.

        I wonder when such a thing happens why don’t the entire opposition just walk out from the chamber to show their disgust? Sure, it should not be done often or lightly, but I think at least once will be good to highlight the issue and to bring him back to some sanity and fair play.

        Here is what Jane Clifton has to on this episode by the comical Carter’s episode:
        http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/10195326/Whiff-of-the-biff-makes-Speaker-cranky

        • greywarbler 32.2.1.1
          25 June 2014 at 11:44 am

          The reason given by the Speaker for his cutting into the discussion by the Member was –
          One, that sometimes they go on for too long (so taking precipitate action now because there might be a possible repeat of some historical happening) and,

          Two, he considered he already knew what was going to be said, and so he considers his understanding to be always right, and even before he hears all the facts.
          So he speaks to an MP like the headmaster of an authoritarian school that he was unfortunate enough to attend, which taught him how to limit and channel thinking to the minimum required by the current utilitarian, right wing, establishment thought.

    • fisiani 32.3
      25 June 2014 at 7:18 am

      Seems like excellent work by the Speaker. Question was asked. Question was addressed. Where was the valid point of order capable of being raised? There was none. “My question did not……………. (irrelevant) If The Speaker thinks the question has been addressed it does not matter what the question did not do. There is no valid point of order . Well spotted by the Speaker. Simples.

      • Grumpy 32.3.1
        25 June 2014 at 7:31 am

        Agree, Clem quoted selectively from the exchange, failing to include the original question. Anyway, this speaker is much fairer than the last Labour one, the disgraceful Margaret Wilson.

        • Clemgeopin 32.3.1.1
          25 June 2014 at 11:36 am

          Hon David Parker: How does a 19 percent real decline in non-primary manufacturing exports since 2008 show that the New Zealand economy is getting more diverse?

          Hon BILL ENGLISH: What it shows is that the prices for some things in this period, like dairy products and logs, have been higher and therefore they have grown as a proportion of the total. It changes the composition of our exports. Dairy prices, however, have been dropping, and over the next 4 or 5 years as we see a burgeoning IT industry, for instance, and an increase in tourist numbers, it may well be that service exports are the star of the next 4 or 5 years. The good thing is we have got industries that are capable of competing globally. The Government does not believe it is a problem that the dairy industry has been successful and profitable.

          Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question did not—

          Mr SPEAKER: Order! I can assist the member. I listened to the question; I listened to the answer. Will the member resume his seat, please. The question has been addressed. The member has further supplementary questions if wishes to use them.

          Etc Etc. For rest of the Speaker’s ‘wisdom’ see previous posts.

      • lprent 32.3.2
        25 June 2014 at 10:24 am

        Umm. Such an interesting thought. I can see that you spend time thinking about it.

        So you think that objecting to decisions from the chair should be cut off without bothering to listen to them.

        Thank you for your ringing endorsement for future changes. This will give me new freedoms against the trolls.

        /sarc

        • greywarbler 32.3.2.1
          25 June 2014 at 10:51 am

          @lprent
          Have there been changes since yesterday in the control of speech of tr..ls? If not, why not? And will you continue to advise on what grounds you are controlling them,
          or like Mr Speaker of our august NACT Government, make it up as you go along. Largely depending, for example, on how sorely his ulcer is pulsating at any point in time.

          • lprent 32.3.2.1.1
            25 June 2014 at 12:17 pm

            Nope. Whatever you are looking at is probably a glitch.

            • greywarbler 32.3.2.1.1.1
              25 June 2014 at 12:50 pm

              @lprent
              I am not looking at anything. I take it under advisement that you are about to do something in the nature of a mistake, and therefore I order you to cease and desist. Someone in the past has made a mistake and taken far too long in the process, and that could be you.

              (This could go on interminably, I think it is called a Gerry Mander, and I will cease and desist. But how can politicians endure sitting in Parliament and listening to this farce of a Speaker carrying on. I guess that is why Key goes to Hawaii so often. I have the feeling that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote a comic opera about Parliament. If not, why not?)

      • NickS 32.3.3
        25 June 2014 at 11:17 am

        lolwat? Oh right, it okay to not follow the rules and ethical guidelines if it’s your side doing it…

        And still waiting fisi: http://http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-21062014/#comment-835915

        (gogo author search feature)

  33. Jrobin 33
    24 June 2014 at 10:50 pm

    Key and his band of thieves all scrupulously avoiding the name Liu, donations, bottles of wine. Interesting. It was good to see Key getting het up about the Greens and Labour working together in defence of dolphins. Someone should remind Labour about the pod of twelve orcas tht beached and died on the South coast while the seismic surveys were happening down near Invercargill. I notice this was never mentioned again. Orcas almost never strand, unlike pilot whales, so seems horribly coincidental that they suddenly beached and died at this time. So Key is likely to be wrong about oil prospecting not affecting whales and dolphins. seismic surveys are well known to confuse them as that is how they locate and avoid land masses,by their calls bouncing off the coastline. Good on Russell Norman for standing up to Key on his abusive replies. Mumbo jumbo is his and Hekias specialty, and didn’t he used to be a climate change sceptic. Funny how he doesn’t mention that now.

  34. Dave 34
    24 June 2014 at 11:19 pm

    You know, there is one thing I cannot understand about the political discourse in this country. Why we call children or adults who are feckin poor “the most vulnerable?” I understand the definition of the word, but it seems like a way to gloss over the issue of poverty, child or otherwise.

    • weka 34.1
      24 June 2014 at 11:36 pm

      How so?

      • Dave 34.1.1
        25 June 2014 at 3:28 pm

        I’m meaning that it is a flowery word game by trying to change the definition of poor or destitute to ‘the most vulnerable.’ It is along the same lines as calling being homeless ‘with a severely housing shortage.’ If you want to reach out to the missing 800,000, I would think some plain language in both addressing the problems and outlining the solutions that the parliament can enact to make our society a better place. Oh and term limits is a great idea, a large number of people are no doubt sick of seeing the same faces and voices and crap, for lack of a better term for the past 20 years.

    • greywarbler 34.2
      25 June 2014 at 11:07 am

      @Dave
      I have been making the point for some time that the reason that there is so much fuss around ‘child poverty’ is that the emotional appeal of small beings, in this case children, is the last vestige of caring concern and empathy that a smug, self-centred, ambitious, money-oriented, ashperashunal society can be harrassed enough to think about for even a short time.

      The ordinary poverty of little money and poor living conditions and no opportunity for betterment is normalised and passed off as due to personal failings, but children can’t be held responsible for everything, and of course the frail, elderly are also relatively innocent of the disgraceful sin of failure to ‘get on’ and may get included.

      I think, from observation and some academic study, that this sums up in everyday terms the background to the thinking behind the use of ‘the most vulnerable’ as the target for generous concern and considerate care by society.

      • Mary 34.2.1
        25 June 2014 at 12:41 pm

        “The ordinary poverty of little money and poor living conditions and no opportunity for betterment is normalised and passed off as due to personal failings”

        And trivialised by disingenuous comparisons with poverty in developing countries and the “we don’t know how lucky we are” rubbish.

        Groups like CPAG also see the practical aspect of attacking child poverty in terms of long term social change, “next generation” stuff, which is important right now given how deeply entrenched our hatred of the poor is these days.

  35. Jenny 35
    25 June 2014 at 3:48 am

    Homosaps are the most numerous and abundant primate on the face of the planet.

    2014 marks the hundredth anniversary of the extinction of the most numerous and abundant bird on the face of the planet, the Passenger Pigeon.

    Lynn Prentice who accepts the reality of climate change, caused by green house gas emissions, but refuses to demand something be done about cutting back, because this would mean breaking business contracts with the fossil fuel companies.

    Will we ever learn?

    Populations of California’s already endangered tricolored blackbirds (Agelaius tricolor) have fallen by 44 percent since 2011 and 64 percent since 2008, according to a survey coordinated by the University of California, Davis. The state is now home to just 145,000 of these birds, which live almost exclusively in California. Eighty years ago the population numbered in the millions.

    http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2014/06/23/bye-bye-tricolored-blackbird/

    The passenger pigeon or wild pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is an extinct North American bird. Named after the French word passager for “passing by,” it was once the most abundant bird in the world. It accounted for more than a quarter of all birds in North America. The species lived in enormous migratory flocks until the early 20th century, when hunting and habitat destruction led to its demise. One flock in 1866 in southern Ontario was described as being 1 mi (1.5 km) wide and 300 mi (500 km) long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds. That number, if accurate, would likely represent a large fraction of the entire population at the time.

    Some estimate 3 to 5 billion Passenger Pigeons were in the United States when Europeans arrived in North America. Others argue the species had not been common in the pre-Columbian period, but their numbers grew when devastation of the American Indian population by European diseases led to reduced competition for food.

    The species went from being one of the most abundant birds in the world during the 19th century to extinction early in the 20th century. At the time, Passenger Pigeons had one of the largest groups or flocks of any animal, second only to the Rocky Mountain locust.

    Some reduction in numbers occurred from habitat loss when European settlement led to mass deforestation. Next, pigeon meat was commercialized as a cheap food for slaves and the poor in the 19th century, resulting in hunting on a massive and mechanized scale. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a catastrophic decline between 1870 and 1890. Martha, thought to be the world’s last Passenger Pigeon, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo.

    So what has all this got to do with climate change?

    While Lynn seems blase about the millions of deaths that will result from climate change, (presumably because most of them will occur in the third world and to generations yet unborn), and as Lynn smugly says “I live on a ridge” and so feels safe from rising sea levels, storm surges and such, but maybe the threat of future total human extinction might move him.

    From the numerous stuffed Passenger Pigeon corpses in museums the Passenger Pigeon genome has been decoded, (becoming the most successful decoding of an extinct bird) and it appears that the Passenger Pigeon shares a genomic trait with humans, known as Ne, that could possibly make catastrophic population collapse a prelude to total extinction.

    <

    blockquote>These legendary North American birds’ flocks were so numerous that they blocked the sun from view for days when they flew over in the early and mid-1800s; yet less than 50 years later, they were gone.

    “The passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird in the world, and suddenly it disappeared totally from the Earth.”

    Mind-boggling.

    But how could this be possible? Why did these birds disappear? Was this event due solely the murderous efficiency of gun-toting humans, or were there underlying factors that contributed to the demise of this species?

    These are more interesting questions than they may appear to be at first glance. On one hand, it’s obvious that rare species with small geographic distributions are more likely to go extinct than are abundant, widespread species. But on the other hand, passenger pigeons had clearly defied all logic. Perhaps there was something special happening to the super-abundant and widespread birds that made them especially vulnerable to extinction? Would it be possible for the researchers identify what that could have been?….

    ….The researchers sequenced the aDNA using high-throughput technologies and managed to piece together high-quality genomic sequences for the passenger pigeon — the longest genome sequence with the highest quality ever obtained for an extinct bird.

    Co-author Pen-Jen Shaner, an assistant professor in the the department of Life Sciences at the National Taiwan Normal University, and her colleagues, Wei-Chung Liu and Te-Chin Chu, used two different mathematical approaches to estimate the passenger pigeon’s genetically effective population size (Ne). The genetically effective population size is an estimate of the total genetic variation found within a given population (doi:10.1017/S0016672300034455). Increased genetic variation is associated with a greater capacity to survive challenging circumstances. Genetic variation arises through mutation and recombination, whilst natural selection removes variation from a population.

    Since the passenger pigeon’s census numbers were between 3 and 5 billion individuals in the mid-1800s, the researchers were surprised when they discovered that the passenger pigeon’s genetically effective population size (Ne) was remarkably small. The genetically effective population size Ne was just 3.3 × 105 (95% credible interval = 3.25–3.32 × 105), which is approximately 1/10,000 of the estimated number of individuals from the mid-1800s.

    This small genetically effective population size suggests that passenger pigeons were not always super-abundant. Instead, their population changed by a thousand-fold over time, a situation seen under two circumstances. First, a low genetically effective population size is characteristic for species that experience wide population fluctuations that only occasionally number into the billions during an “outbreak” phase (doi:10.1017/S0016672300034455). For example, most people are familiar with several outbreak species, particularly lemmings, Lemmus lemmus, and snowshoe hares, Lepus americanus, in the Arctic, and Australian plague locusts, Chortoicetes terminifera.

    But an alternative explanation for a low Ne is seen for species that historically had small numbers and only recently experienced a population explosion — a situation occurring in humans today.

    http://www.scilogs.com/maniraptora/journal-club-passenger-pigeon-extinction-its-complicated/

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