The topic of holding the Government to account came up in a discussion on The Standard yesterday. The results suggest that Labour didn’t do this very well last term, failing badly in the election.
[Stephanie: This comment was literally a copy-paste of an entire post from your site. This is in clear breach of the policy on “link-whoring” and you have been warned about this before.
I wonder when you’ll tire of that approach. The same principles apply to blogging.
Perpetual pissy attacks damage your own credibility. That didn’t work out well for Labour last term. The prospects are looking better under Little but it’s up to more than just him.
People can go and read yesterday’s discussion and see how Petey spins it. What a cretin this man is.
The funniest part is how he presumes to know what and why NZers like things. He was a UF candidate and booster of various weird ideas that never seem to get off the ground. Because reasons.
If you took Key out of the equation I doubt very much National would win. The opposition must ‘keep holding them to account’, after all that’s what opposition party’s do, so can’t agree there.
The single biggest thing the opposition party’s need to achieve is working contructively together. I am all for L/G/NZF to hold primary contests in winnable seats. Vote splitting is gifting National too many seats. Deals can be done so the G/NZF party’s actually win electorate seats. I mooted this with a senior Labour MP who was quite open to this approach.
Another hurdle is the large bloc of people that don’t feel compelled to vote. So how is this to be addressed? A couple of killer policies, the less is more tactic, however will this have an effect on those who do vote.
Personally I don’t like the thought of a Labour that is nothing more than National lite.
If you took PG out of the equation, we could probably have a decent conversation. Anything that happens from this point on is just a repeated of yesterday, and all the other days when PG troled for attention and to use ts to spread his beige agenda.
Fair point Draco, it tends to niggle away in the back of ones mind. Even the Greens are positioning themselves a bit lite these days too. Cutting an MP’s pay in half may rid the troughers and get people in there for the correct reason.
MP’s get too cosy sitting on 150k, lean them up, make em hungry for the cause. Also make it that much easier to slash public & state sector executives outrageously out of control & obscene salaries.
I like the Alliance’s idea that MP’s salaries be set to the same as a third year teacher. Wonder how many of National’s MPs would complain that teachers are paid too much then 😈
I made a submission to a welfare task force years ago. They asked “How can we ensure benefits are enough to live on?” My submission was to pay MPs at beneficiary rates. For some strange reason, it was not adopted.
I am all for L/G/NZF to hold primary contests in winnable seats. Vote splitting is gifting National too many seats. Deals can be done so the G/NZF party’s actually win electorate seats. I mooted this with a senior Labour MP who was quite open to this approach.
It’s an interesting idea, but I just don’t see the public buying it?
By definition, the election is to decide who represents the electorate. Having a pre-screening ballot before the election itself, that only a minority of parties contest, doesn’t seem to pass the sniff test to me.
I will credit the senior MP for suggesting a deal that the others get electorate seats, which we concurred should happen if they come forward with their best candidates i.e Peters, Marks & Norman, Hughes as examples.
@Lanthanide Well something ‘a bit outside the box’ needs to be tried or it’s ground hog day, except it’s not day, it’s 3 years. Others keep mooting not standing candidates from the outset. Which to my thinking removes a contest, atleast what I propose entails a contest. I see the positives outweighing the negatives.
In it he talks about how Labour needs to show that it is willing to engage with the Greens in a deep multi-term partnership in government. And what you suggest would be a perfect way of starting to do that.
I recommend campaigning for preferential voting in electorates as well, so that people don’t have to worry that they might waste their vote for a 3rd party candidate any more.
You have been a myopic hot and cold blowing simpleton being fooled and enamoured by this National party/government mirage!
Are you blind to the spin, bullshit, dirty politics, lies, razzmatazz and propaganda indulged in by Key, the National party, Cosby Textor, the powerful corporates, the RW blogs and MSM outfits that manage to constantly publicise a false dishonest ‘positive’ narrative of the government, drowning or ignoring the negatives, the ineptitude, the poor policies and their corrupt practices?
In comparison to National, Labour and the left are forthright, are more democratic, have enlightened values, are modern, principled, patriotic, honest and caring for the social and economic well being of all the people and the country for both the short term and the long term.
If you are a person of integrity and honesty, you will realise the truth of what I have just said.
Think it over instead of putting Labour and the left down and batting directly or indirectly for these rotten Nats and the RW rogues.
This is in clear breach of the policy on “link-whoring”
I thought link whoring involved linking and I didn’t include a link or reference to any link. Can you please clarify the policy about unlinked comments.
Penny Bright has been pinged for the same offence. If you are going to post something it should be an original comment. The Policy says “You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.”
So posting from your site is fine as well as long as it is a synopsis rather than the whole thing.
It was an original comment. I usually do summarise or post excerpts but I thought this topic was better complete, but if you don’t want that then so be it.
Ironically someone else posted a link, not me. A bit bemusing.
[Stephanie: It was original neither in content nor the ideas therein. Your post at YourNZ made no mention that it had originally been posted as a comment here. What you “think” bears no resemblance to the clear stated policy of this website, especially given the numerous warnings you have received for this behaviour. Stop being so bloody rude.]
A quick clarification for racebaiting’s Pooter George:
Your safest bet if you’re finding this confusing would be to not post any fucken thing at all. Your credibility could do with the karmic lift that would come with making so many TS readers instantly happy.
Allow me to end your bemusement. If you go and have a squizz at this site’s comments policy, it rules out “pasting long materials from other sites.” If the definition of “long materials” is also bemusing, as a handy rule of thumb keep in mind that “entire post from your site” totally qualifies.
I’d like clarification on your judgement. I took what you refer to as meaning long quotes of what other people have posted on other sites. MS referred to “original comment”, which it was.
I presume length wasn’t an issue, posts that size aren’t uncommon here.
No, it doesn’t. Link whoring is when you just put a link with no explanation, or you link multiple times. For someone who’s apparently been on the internet as long as you, you’re really playing the Dunce tonight.
For fuck’s sake, and for the second time, try actually reading this fucking blog’s comments policy. It says, among other things:
You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.
It’s perfectly clear. If you need other commenters to read this stuff and draw your attention to it, maybe you shouldn’t comment in the first place.
Look pretty professional Pete a commercial venture like this must have caught the atention of the MSM outfits for a buy in. You must be making a tidy packet out of it so should stump up for a monthly linking fee.
“I presume length wasn’t an issue, posts that size aren’t uncommon here.”
Yes. They are.
You’ve had three very clear explanations, two of them by moderators both of whom were polite and excessively generous (myself, I wish Lynn had handled it).
What is is about micky’s comment that you don’t understand?
You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.
I swear to god, this subthread is stupid even by the beige parrot’s standards. Liked the bit about karma though.
“I presume length wasn’t an issue, posts that size aren’t uncommon here.”
To be fair, lately he’s correct. Ask anyone who has tried to scroll through Penny’s copypasta or Phil’s .. . sparse …. textual .. efforts … on a mobile screen.
Yeah, on a phone it would be pretty bad. But Penny doesn’t post that often, and phil’s comments are more punctuation disarrays than long complete comments.
“MS referred to “original comment”, which it was. ”
For the pedantic, perhaps read that as “unique comment”, though you are not the only one who pastes the same stuff on multiple blogs including this one.
Obviously I’m not a mod here. Personally, I welcome people linking to their own blogs providing they have the courtesy to explain briefly why it’s relevant to go there. Quote a par or two at most. Save my scrolling finger…
a cautionary political-history tale for the labour party..
in greece..there was/is this political party called ‘the socialist party’..
..and like labour here..they weren’t really ‘socialist’/’labour’..
..they were centrist/neo-liberal..
..and the socialist party dominated greek politics during the 80’s and 90’s..
(with the ‘conservative’party..they did a tweedle-dum/tweedle-dee swapsies at leading the country..)
..(still sounding familiar..?..)
..anyway..this socialist (in-name-only)party has insisted on still clinging to the pillars/shards of neo-liberalisim..
(as has labour here in new zealand..c.f. their election ’14 policies..which offered absolutely nothing for the poorest/to fight the worst of inequality..)
..so..we are still in lock-step..?..that mirror-effect still prevailing..?
..well..greece has just had an election..
..where a true-left party has swept into power..
..and where that clinging-to-those-shards-of-neo-liberalism ‘socialist party’..
..that ideological first-cousin of our labour party..
..is expected to get about 5%..
..now..if that tale doesn’t have labour people quaking in their boots..
Yes it is very interesting (putting aside the human cost etc)….
Greece needs to cancel its debt, or a significant chunk of it. Or repay over time, without interest. Or, as the victorious party apparently claimed to derision, print its own euros …… which would be the ultimate irony given that that is exactly what the Eurozone does anyway …. prints money
Why should lenders get money (interest) for printing euro notes?
Greece is exposing the sham and Ponzi scheme that is our money system.
i understand the new greek leadership is calling for full cancellation of the debt..
..and a fresh start..
..(polling shows most greeks don’t actually want to leave the eu..(70%+ from memory..)
..and i wd submit that the sudden decision to print money in the eu..is in part for them to have to wriggle-room/to be able to throw some money at greece/cancel debt..
..and of course there are parties echoing this greek left party..
..in span/portugal/ ireland..
..the socialist national party is going to totally wipe out both the tories and labour in scotland..(and will become the third largest party in the british parliament..making it the very large tail wagging any labour govt..)
..and like i said..to nz labour…wake up..!..
..yr very existence is in peril..
..yr only option is to return to yr roots..
..to ‘end poverty’ by announcing a universal basic income..
..and a massive programme of building smart/clever state houses/apartments/terrace-houses/w.h.y..
(..and to out-green the greens..promising to ‘clean-up’ nz..)
..and that just for starters..
..continuing to jostle with national for their space on the ideological-spectrum..
..(polling shows most greeks don’t actually want to leave the eu..(70%+ from memory..)
I bet they fucking don’t. If the Jerries were subsidising a pleasant lifestyle for NZers to the tune of billions per year, I doubt that we’d be keen to give it up either.
They’re not living high on the hog from German largesse now the bubble’s burst, no. That gravy train reached its final station in 2008. But their interest in staying within the Euro has everything to do with wanting a return to the pre-2008 lifestyle of regarding taxes as optional and having a ridiculously low retirement age (while the Jerries paying for it got to work until 65 like the rest of us).
Electing a left-wing government and rejecting the debt the austerity fans saddled them with is a start, but it’s destined for ignominious failure unless the majority start figuring out that corruption isn’t cute local colour, and demanding extensive government services while avoiding paying any taxes isn’t a good long-term prospect.
Pysycho melt down.
The Tycoons and shipping magnates are the ones paying no taxes.
Ordinary Greeks work the longest hrs in Europe and pay taxes.
Corruption of their Politicians by the most powerful corporates most likely at the behest of the Greek non taxpaying Tycoons wining and dining Greek politicians with Goldman Sachs and rorting(rating) agencies mates on these Tycoons Luxury yatchs is the reason
Why the peasants have to pick up the their Tab.
Austerity for the peasants another bailout for the Tycoons!
Psycho and Tricledown – you both have touched on the problems. They are far more complicated then a forum like this can express. And no, actually the work hours are not the longest, you need to understand that the lunch breaks during summer (6-7 months) are stretching between 3-4 hours because of the extraordinary heat. It is not feasible to work physically, really – its not possible without inciting a dehydrated breakdown. So the the day is actually broken into 2 distinctive times: 7-12noon and 4pm -9 (or beyond for nightclubs).
The second issue is that as soon as it became known that Greece is facing a financial crisis, all (and I mean ALL) wealthy people have withdrawn they wealth and moved it to the usual hiding places. (Swiss anyone?) This left the Bank close to ruin and the Government not able to borrow.
The issue that nobody is looking at is that, Greece is to a certain extent the bastion against the east, always involved in wars from the Classical, Hellenistic, Roma, Byzantine, Ottoman right trough to the WW.
This is often forgotten and that the Greek people pay the price of being the meat between the sandwich.
As for the Germans, don’t get me wrong but if many people would be as industrious and as educated as they are, things would look a hell of a lot better, belief you me. Besides, they are also just pawns in the game of the rich.
Goldman Sachs to you PM.
The loan sharks Goldman Sachs and credit rorting agencies defrauded both Greek governments and Northern European banks Psycho.
Goldman Sachs and the rorting agencies should be paying for their Ponzi scam.
But alas No Goldman Sachs managed to get their inside man appointed to become the EU’s finance minister.
So avoiding investigation and have to pack the Losses on their corrupting Ponzi Scheme!
Pssycho facts please.
Delirous rants from are expected .
Conman believable therapy is no substitute for the truth!
Psycho white washing the truth.
So why is Europe in the doldrum.
One reason is consumption is down especially in southern Europe.
Austerity is having an effect on Northern Europe because Greece and other southern European countries are not buying BMW’s,VW’s,Merc’s, Audijs Porcshe’setc!
So their production workers are not affording holidays in Greece Southern Europe!
Europe is in the dole drum because there are 33 countries and 55 languages that have to find a common ground. NZ cannot even find this often with its own Maori people. Before you have some judgement on hand, take into consideration a people 45 000 years in the making (not 800), with distinctive cultures developed over this period and many wars fought to keep the identity. To find a bridge to span this history and forge a future that has validity for all is certainly not child’s play or indeed some black and white knight sessions from the good ol’ Anglo saxen stall.
As for the bankers wishes to simplify their means to get more money out of the working people – European Union – and the convolution resulting by the immigration to mainland Europe from the East, you would talk completely differently if this would be NZ. To put this into perspective, to cope what these countries currently trying to deal with, we are talking about 47 million people who need to be housed, educated, health service provided etc. The majority moved, incidentally – to Germany. 9.8 Million or 12% increase in the population by 2010. Who knows how many that is today. Now if this would be NZ, it would mean that 500 000 additional people need to be accommodated, with that I mean full benefits or workplaces. This is the size of it. To say that Germany (or the UK or any other major immigrant nation) has to accommodate even more is just plain ignorant.
Kapa Research Exit Poll: SYRIZA 33.5 – 37.5 ND 25 – 28 Golden Dawn 5.5 – 7.5 To Potami 5
.
The whining begins,
5m ago18:20
The sniping from Europe’s elite has already begun.
Sweden’s former prime minister Carl Bildt claims that taxpayers in other European countries will have to foot the bill for Syriza’s victory.
Carl Bildt ✔ @carlbildt
Follow
Syriza in Greece has won the election by promising that taxpayers in other Euro counties will pay even more to them. Rather daring.
7:11 AM – 26 Jan 2015
An interview with economist and Syriza candidate Yanis Varoufakis.
What is the current economic situation on the eve of the elections in Greece? Can you give a kind of snapshot?
In brief, everyone owes everyone, and no one can pay. The banks are bankrupt; they owe money to the state, to each other, to foreign banks. Citizens owe money to the banks and owe money to the state. The state owes money to everyone. So we have a triple insolvency: bankrupt banks, a bankrupt state and a bankrupt private sector. There are of course pockets, like everywhere, within society of people who are really well off. They have money in banks in Switzerland, in the city of London, on Wall Street, in Frankfurt, and even some money in the Greek banks.
But the overall situation is that — even though in the last year or so there’s been a small rebound, not in terms of income but in terms of expenditure — the economy is quite clearly still in a downward spiral that is filling everyone’s soul with negative expectations.
Looks like Syriza are on the cusp of an outright majority which will actually be preferable to a coalition with the Independent Greeks who will be way less flexible than Syriza.
I really don’t know what comes next – if exiting the Euro is off the table the new Greek Government has very little ability to do anything. The end of austerity – great concept, but if you are only able to run at a 5% budget deficit cos you received EUR12 billion in direct subsidies, you don’t have a lot of ability to do anything.
With Euro exit off the table (this is the only viable tool that Greece has to make any change to their economy) and repudiation of debt already excluded by Tsipras maybe Syriza/EU have already done a deal. Business as usual, a softening of the terms, but business as usual. Maybe throw a few subsidies out to the poor, but business as usual.
With an inability to borrow, a budget deficit, and a committment to staying in the Euro, by definition nothing can change except the terms that the EU agrees to.
And interesting to note 10 billion euros of deposits outflow from the main Greek banks since December – that’s 4% of the remaining deposit base. The banks already have a pending request in to the ECB for emergency liquidity.
Overall, not too much bargaining power from Greece………
With an inability to borrow, a budget deficit, and a committment to staying in the Euro, by definition nothing can change except the terms that the EU agrees to.
Yep, Greece’s only option is to remove themselves from the Euro.
Well – whats the alternative? Please list a few ideas in bullet point format to educate the rest of us. Please note Tsipras has already ruled out exiting the Euro.
There is a certain correlation with low income areas and dog attacks. It is happens that coloured folks in habit large chunks of those areas.
TG we have a white man around to *educate* the browner ones how to behave! Pity this will get more coverage than the fact that we have dogs attacking people and this needs to be stopped.
“There is a certain correlation with low income areas and dog attacks.”
And a correlation between higher income and fences. And between number of dogs and number of attacks in an area. Further analysis before opening his mouth might have helped silly old Bob.
very surprised one would expect that regular commenter to want to achieve anything as soon as the topic turns to “not being a dick to large portions of the population”.
Pity this will get more coverage than the fact that we have dogs attacking people and this needs to be stopped.
Well, yeah, but that would involve doing something about the large number of people who own psychotic attack dogs they don’t either look after or restrain. Good luck trying to overlook the correlation between low-income areas and dog attacks while doing that…
If he’d said lower income areas instead of South Auckland and that immigrants and Pasifika aren’t natural dog owners, this would be an entirely different conversation. The media coverage would be different too.
It was very foolish of him to mention ethnicity, indeed. Still, I expect he has no education in the social sciences and the thinking didn’t go much beyond “south Auckland, hmm that’s where all the PIs and Maoris live. Must be something to do with them.” The fact that it’s a fairly typical thought process is depressing.
The stuff about migrants strikes me as a red herring. Are new immigrants to NZ really deciding that a pit-bull/mastiff cross would make an excellent family pet, or a good watchdog? Personally, I reckon that piece of poisoned thinking is local, not alien.
mr ure, how do you deal with the dulling effect that comes from use / frequent use? Having dabbled at times over the centuries I always found that the following day the mind was blunt – like running a sharp blade over a lump of granite …..
I hate smoking pot. It makes me to complete opposite of mellow and since I have ceased smoking it about a year or so ago my memory and cognitive ability has increased dramatically.
Well one positive is states and countries where pot has been legalized usage has gone down especially amongst the young!
Crime has also gone down as well.
Instead of putting money into the failed policy of eradication.
Taxes can be raised and used on education,rehab,and funding govt instead of criminal gangs!
I don’t smoke weed amy more.
I don’t like what I’ve seen it do to people I know.
I don’t like the way when I’m with my mates who smoke they become boring as bat shit after a good go at it.
I do think It should be legalized in an effort to stop the effect of having people lured into crime in a effort to make some easy cash because it fucks communities.
“I believe people are capable of amazing things and I do believe that climate change can be halted and even reversed. I just hope it happens in my lifetime. I don’t want to become the generation that future children talk of as having destroyed the planet. I’d like to be the generation that fought back (and won) against human induced climate change. The generation that worked out how to live in harmony with the planet – that generation!” DR JENNIE MALLELA Australian National University Researcher Biology and Earth Sciences
“So whilst there is enough good and committed people we can change our path of warming,” However, he went on to add, “I am always hopeful – but 4 to 5 degrees Celsius of change will be a challenge to survive.” DR JIM SALINGER Honorary Research Associate in climate science with the University of Auckland’s School of Environment.
Read More, What Scientists Feel About Climate Change; HERE
3pm today marks the start of the campaign to stop Solid Energy, the heavily taxpayer subsidised State Coal Miner reopening the mothballed Kopuku 1 open cast mine just south of Auckland.
We are not calling for currently operating coal mines to be closed, which is what the science demands, we are merely demanding that no more be opened.
The demand that No New Coal Mine operations be started, or restarted is a moderate one.
Those who support the opening of New Coal Mines in the age of climate change inhabit the lunatic fringe.
This day marks the start of an epic battle for common sense and even conservativism against extreme ego driven radicals bent on self aggrandisement at all costs to the community the environment and the climate.
Join the campaign for common sense and against climate extremism today. Details; HERE
For me the talk that we can still avert the effects of climate change distracts from what we could be doing to create resilience and community to help people cope with the effects and the changes that are here.
‘moderate’ has its place (maybe) but around climate change it seems like a waste of time. I’d like Mana to put the line in the sand and stay on that line – as we (Mana) have done on other issues – we need leadership and the kaupapa of Mana is desperately needed to help people see and find hope. Kia kaha.
Why are the flags at half mast on the Harbour Bridge?
Radio NZ National, Monday 26 January 2015
The medieval dictatorship of Saudi Arabia is, next to the United States, the biggest funder of Al Qaeda and ISIS fanatics. The terrorists that flew jet airliners into the World Trade Center in 2001 were Saudi Arabians. Public executions are common; fifteen people have been beheaded there this year alone. In spite of all this, listeners to Radio NZ National were treated to this disgusting little announcement at 9:45 a.m. ……
KATHERINE RYAN: We’ve had a lot of texts this morning, asking about the flags flying at half-mast on the Auckland Harbour Bridge today. Well, they’re flying at half-mast at the request of the Prime Minister John Key, as a mark of respect for the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
“Why are the flags at half mast on the Harbour Bridge?”
I thought those in control might be mourning that on Auckland City’s 175th birthday so many people were suffering from the exorbitant government backed housing market in their fair city.
Officially, flying our flag at half mast may be our Right Wing government’s way of showing international solidarity with the violent undemocratic Right Wing despots that rule Saudi Arabia. Unofficially, it could also be taken as a sign of grief by the International Right, at Syriza’s peaceful democratic victory in Greece.
That is absolutely fucken disgusting but I suppose it should have been expected. John Key only cares about the rich and just doesn’t give a fuck about the damage that they do to everyone else.
+100 Morriessey….very well put…and absolutely weird! ….where are the Opposition Party leaders on this is ?….they should be making mince meat out of John Key Nact!
Just wonder whether this is what NZ aspires to be if Mr Key is supporting and admiring a nation that forces its people to belong to a state religion.
Maybe he is not aware that:
Wahhabism is the Arabic sect of the muslim religion and associated with a lot of atrocities. The majority of the world’s Wahhabis are from Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Wahhabi mission, or Dawah Wahhabiyya, is to spread purified Islam through the world, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
I for one do not want to be part of this.
The same leaders who staged a march to support Charlie Hebdo will meet at the tyrant’s funeral. Maybe a few bloggers could be flogged for their entertainment? It shouldn’t be too hard to arrange for the beheading of a rape victim as well.
No way should we be mourning the death of that slave owning murderous piece of shit. No way José.
I wonder whether they would also condemn the photo of the Jewish guy on the couch, wearing a kippah. I thought the cartoon quite appropriate, although the nose maybe went a bit far.
Without John Key I suspect National would struggle to win in 2017 and 2020. Every attempt to attack the popular John Key is ignored by the public. Nicky Hagar’s and Crim Dot Con’s scurrilous attempts to try to bring down the government actually resulted in an increased National majority as National voters flocked to the polls. John Key is a phenomenon. He is admired and respected everywhere he goes. His is the voice that those at Davos listened to. National’s current polling is 52% whilst Labour wallows on just 26%.
I cannot see John Key losing an election but assume that the Left may have a chance when he eventually retires.
No, he’s doing exactly what Key did recently on the same subject – carefully misleading rather than flat-out lying.
Key recently told The Times that New Zealand voters had given National an increased number of seats, thus implying that there’d been a swing to the Party in popular support. Just like Fisi – although Fisi rather clumsily tries to reinforce the implication by going one step further with: “…….as National voters flocked to the polls.”
National, of course, did indeed increase its seat number (from 59 to 60) – a direct corollary of an increase in wasted Party Vote at the 2014 Election (relative to 2011). But, as you’ve said, their Party Vote share actually fell marginally.
As with Farrar and so on, it’s all about leaving a mistaken impression favourable to the Nats, while allowing just the teensiest bit of wiggle room for deniability if challenged.
National MP’s in 2011 59
National MP’s in 2014 60
National votes in 2011 1,058,…..
National Votes in 2014 1,131….
That’s one more MP and 63,000 extra votes
John Key is really really liked by the public. He has never lost and probably never will.
Thanks for your unfailing attention to these details, swordfish. I’ve found your analysis of polls, and particularly the analysis of commentary on them, very illuminating.
And apologies to readers of my blog for the (unplanned) hiatus. I’ve been too busy and too tired over recent weeks (and, to be honest, I can’t say I’ve been overly happy with the quality of my prose on the blog. If even I’m getting bored with my own writing then I can’t expect anyone else to be too enthused).
I’ll probably make a brief announcement on The Standard once I start posting again. Hopefully with a bit more vim.
Remind me Labour vote was lowest in 80 years. Green numbers down and Mana Dot Con came nowhere.
Face it. As long as John Key wants to be PM he will be.
“John Key is really really liked by the public. He has never lost and probably never will”
John Key is really really fooling the public by lies, bull shit, spin, propaganda, copying of many Labour policies, indulging in dirty politics and use of big donors and their money. He has lost his mana. What does it profit a man if he wins the whole world and loses his soul?
Hardly an increase flocking to the polls. Someone elses can look at issues like population increase and boundary changes. Swordfish above has a more intricate analysis, but I’m happy to still call you a liar.
“John Key is really really liked by the public”
Yeah, that’s why only a third of eligible voters voted for his party. Like I said, liar.
Mike Williams starts as he means to go on, obviously From the Left and From the Right, Radio NZ National, Monday 26 January 2015
Matthew Hooton starts off with a minatory rant, cleverly designed to undermine and cast doubts on Andrew Little. After several minutes, it is time for the representative of “the Left” to speak. This is what he said….
MIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah, I would agree with absolutely everything Matthew just said.
While he’s not a member now, Williams encapsulates or caricatures everything that was wrong with Labour for the last six years: aged, lazy, as bloated with hot air and privilege as Mr Creosote, bereft of ideas, disconnected from the people they once pretended to champion and childishly beholden to the right simply because they have lots of bling.
And the pairing of those two oxygen thieves shows what’s wrong with political commentary on Radio NZzzzz. A solipsistic Punch and Judy show drowned in cold porridge.
Now I’ve got that out of my system, I hope to do something productive today.
Perhaps you need to switch your critical faculties on prior to listening, Kiwiri. Mike Williams does not represent Labour any more than any other ordinary party member does. He has never claimed to be speaking on that show, or any other, as an official spokesperson.
Of course he has authority in the sense that he used to be president and still has contact with senior LP leaders. But that doesn’t excuse your lazy thinking, which we also see repeated here by people who think TS is the official blog of the NZLP.
PS:
Moz, I didn’t hear the words ‘just said’ in the sentence, which possibly makes the statement worse in one sense. But, clearly, he was referring to Hooton’s comments. The problem is, much of what Hooton said in his opening piece was both factually correct and reasonably framed to begin the discussion. So, basically, your criticism is that Mike Williams agreed with comments he couldn’t reasonably disagree with. That’s a poor level of analysis from someone we know has the highest standards of accuracy and astonishingly well honed critical faculties.
he doesn’t represent labour but he has authority because he is exprez and still has contact with senior members – and is on the radio with all those credentials explicitly known.
No contradiction, marty. He’s earned the right to speak authoratively about the party, but that doesn’t mean he speaks for the party. And because his credentials and current status are well known, there is no excuse for confusion.
Because he’s not,(left wing) weka.hence his downward spiral,poverty of intellect.As you might have noticed,he scoffed at the presidential candidates ability to rash money for the party,it seems he thinks he’s the only one to have had that ability.
Politically astute and aware people may not be confused in understanding the nuances and fine points you are implying regarding Mike Williams.
The problem for Labour/left wing is that most people who hear so called left wing people like Mike Williams and Josie Pagani will take on board directly or subconsciously the negative perception about Labour or left wing created by their comments, especially when the commentator agrees and endorses the RW points made by the RW supporting commentator like Hooton.
It is astounding that experienced left wing commentators like Williams and Pagani do not understand this basic media stuff and come across as weak in their passion, support and views.
Often when I hear them I think, ‘With friends like these, who needs enemies!’
Or we should just admit that Williams and Pagani know exactly what audience they are addressing, and it’s not those in the bottom 50% of the wealth pyramid.
“So, basically, your criticism is that Mike Williams agreed with comments he couldn’t reasonably disagree with.”
No. It’s that Mike Williams isn’t doing his bloody job as a left wing commentator. He doesn’t have to agree or disagree with Hooton at all. He can just respond with a left wing perspective.
Am off to dig up Pb’s very useful comment on this.
btw, as I’m sure you know, Morrisey’s transcripts are notoriously inaccurate, and reflect their perspective and perception as much as anything.
This is in response to Pagani, but it’s general themes are appropriate,
A partisan* pundit’s job is to move the conversation towards their view, and away from their opponents. By doing that they shift the centre. A political party has to capture the centre when in opposition. It’s harder to do that when the pundits who are their supposed allies are calling them and their supporters ‘radicals’ or ‘loons’ or otherwise framing their own side as weird.
This is basic, basic, stuff. If you are a left wing pundit, then every time the right wing pundits are agreeing with you about the ‘nasty left’ and saying ‘there there’ you are getting your butt kicked at your one fucking job.
You are not, (if you are a pundit), an academic analysing the left. You are the bloody left as far as the average punter sees things. So you should be attacking the right by highlighting the ways in which the right is out of step with the centre. One fucking job.
.
” … Morrisey’s transcripts are notoriously inaccurate …”
Say it ain’t so, weka!
I have it on good authority that the atomic clock is wilfully slack in comparison to Moz. He is the one constant in this world of shadows, shams and shameless distortions of the truth. Cutting definitively through the daisies of disinformation, Morrissey Breen is the last true star in the constellation of crap that passes for modern media.
No, no, NO, I say!
I’ll not have it said that he is capable of innacuracy in any form. I demand satisfaction. I will meet you at dawn with pistols drawn if you do not withdraw your vile and bassless calumny against a writer whose every utterances is as mother’s milk to a mewling baby and equally pure of heart and essence.
Hooton’s comment was indeed correct, but he can’t resist snide observations on the side about Labour leaders. He did it in a big way to Cunliffe and he’s chosen to follow suit with Little.
Whether you agree with his strategy or not, Mike Williams chooses to ignore Hooton’s put-downs and concentrates on the issue under discussion. He’s probably right to do so because it’s better to ignore Hooton than risk giving his put-downs any more oxygen. Except when he goes over the top, Ryan has adopted a similar policy.
Btw rhinocrates as far as I know Williams is still a member of the Labour Party.
Yes he did weka. What Hooton always does is to take advantage of a discussion to throw in mischievous and invariably inaccurate barbs about Labour and Green leaders. But when you take out the barbs, his analysis of a situation is usually more or less correct. Williams ignores the barbs and bases his responses on the analysis. It’s very annoying for us listeners but except when Hooton says something which is seriously over the top, it’s probably the best course of action.
I think that Pb’s analysis stands. Just don’t agree with Hooton, because that’s what people hear at the start and that sets the tone for whatever else is said next. Williams has one job, to shift the narrative to the left, and he generally fails to do that. Maybe he thinks that by agreeing with Hooton he’s being conciliatory, but it just keeps the narrative in the centre.
We really need more actual left wing commentators, esp in that spot.
@ Rhinocrates
Incisive and humorous. Are you a journalist? Where do you publish. Oxygen thieves, Radionzzzz, Punch and Judy and porridge. Brilliant descriptions. There’s something for everyone.
Nah, I’m still grumpy about the first derogatory epithet cast at Labour by Rhinocrates. “Aged” indeed.
I also listened to the first part of the political segment on RNZ. I have to agree with Te Reo Putake above when he wrote “The problem is, much of what Hooton said in his opening piece was both factually correct and reasonably framed to begin the discussion.”
I know of the criticism levelled at Williams by various commentators here on the Standard when he states his agreement with Hooton. I suspect he does it now to wind up commentators here. This time, I listened to Hooton and Williams’s response with that criticism in mind, and I had to agree with Hooton’s first comments and Williams’s approval.
Approval can mean that he agrees; it also indicates to a listener that he is not churlish about comments from a political opponent just because he said it; it gives Williams credibility in noting what is reasonable and forrest; and it also encourages Hooton to stay reasonable and factually correct.
If he ignored Hooton’s comment by not passing any judgment, as Weka suggests, then those three pluses for that style of engagement are lost.
Don’t worry mac1 – I have privileges – I’m somewhat “aged” too 🙂
greywarshark, yes I do publish, but under my own name and in other, obscure media/fora – academic literary criticism and the odd (sometimes very odd) creative work mainly. I prefer to preserve my pseudonymity here when Hoots or Curran are collecting addresses.
mac1
Willliams could try to be slightly unbalanced on the left side though! Instead of seemingly so to the right. He could say e.g. Yes you’ve got a point there, but not a strong one, and I think on the other hand that Little is shaping up well or such.
And as for winding us up!! You’re joking aren’t you. We’re not in a game.
So if he was to think along those lines, he could get on his skateboard and roll. Time for a change anyway. Who would we get instead? Someone remembering past left, recent past left and present and who still is in touch with his left side. Not some well-rounded bloke or blokess who just spins like a top with no sharp edges.
“And as for winding us up!! You’re joking aren’t you.”
Yes, I’m joking. About Williams caring about the commentators here overly much. But when the commentators, as Phil Ure states lower down, gets it wrong and mishears because of their bias, then I’m not joking. The reason being that there’s one thing in saying that it’s serious and not a game which I’m in agreement with, and with being so wound up that people hear what they want to hear, and are plain wrong.
There’s a danger there where reasonable people fear to tread…………..
If we are full of bullshit, then we lose. To the reader, and to the voters who are at the present, according to the latest Ray Morgan, happy with Key’s government and also with business confidence above the past decade’s average, which is what I suspect Williams was talking about with the Hawkes Bay references he made.
Both commentators gave the relatively new Labour leader, president to be elected and to be appointed chief media advisor a year to get this perception changed. It won’t be changed by fulminating bullshit. From anywhere, Williams, Hooton or our commentariat included.
grewwarshark @ 13.1.4
Rhinocrates has yet to surpass his brilliant piece on this site about a fictional speech given by Shearer when he was leader. The problem… Shearer was putting his supermarket shopping list together at the same time and the inevitable happened. He got the two muddled. The tears of laughter streamed down my face.
That was good rhino.
But after being stirred and shaken the next commenter produced this..
One Anonymous Knucklehead 6.1
15 April 2013 at 8:18 pm
Laugh all you want. I can reveal that dirty foreigners have accessed the National Party’s website and right now are seeking to copy the government’s education policy, assett sales and economic management program in an effort to export them and destabilise their own countries the way we have this one.
That Williams eh. Have you seen those gizmo parrots with a recording device which repeats everything you say and it’s in a funny voice. Hilarious. What a pity Radio isn’t television, it’s got as vacuous with this pair of political pollies, but the parrot must be seen to be effective comedy.
On radio the humour doesn’t come off. I suggest listening to 9toNoon at 11.45 a.m. and get Pinky Agnew and Radar et al for laughs and some political stuff gets in there, probably as much as in the official discussion. Really the two fatheads known as the Hooton and Williams duo or Mutt and Mike, are neither use nor armament (Freudian slip).
edited
..and this is one of the few times i can agree with williams saying ‘i agree with matthew’..
..’cos what hooton did..he didn’t ‘undermine’ little..he just noted that @ 26% in the polls..that little has one yr to turn that around..
..that if that is still the number then..thaat there will be more talk of a leadership-change..
..what’s to argue with about that..?
..he then went on to note that the speech from little on wed is very important..
..that little has to surprise..to do a version of brashs’ orewa speech..
..in the sense of seizing the agenda..with bold policy/ideas..
..(i wd suggest a universal basic income..to end poverty in one fell swoop..
..or a return to people being able to capitalise child-benefit for housing deposit etc..
..combined with a massive building program of smart/green/clever variations on buildings..running the gamut from tiny-houses in clusters..onwards..
..hard to see what else would grab the imagination..)
..so..anyway..that was what hooton said..
..so what was to disagree with..?..and how was he ‘undermining’ little..?
..that is a serious distortion of what actually happened..there..morissy..
..to the extent..u shd withdraw it..and apologise for misleading us punters..
..but i hasten to add that pretty much everything else williams said was absolute shite..
..at one stage he was prattling on about how he and sll his middle class mates are ‘feeling pretty good’ out there..in the hawkes bay..
..ryan called him on his bullshit..and then he furiously agres with every counter argument the compere made..(!)..(as he does..)
..i think the inside of williams head must be like a fairground at full volume..
..and hooton got in the first official chicken little/’the sky is falling in!’ rightwing bout of panic at the election of the leftwing govt in greece..
Who gives a shit, Phil? Only political tragics even know what you’re talking about. It has no relevance to the vast majority of voters, especially the yoof.
a mea culpa from little/labour for neo-lib/labour losing their way –
And the reply:
Who gives a shit, Phil? Only political tragics even know what you’re talking about. It has no relevance to the vast majority of voters, especially the yoof.
So, got a response to what I actually wrote? I reckon it’s ancient history. Your counterpoint is … ?
TRP
You are in attack mode again. I thought phil made good points. Even if they don’t praise the sainted Labour Party up to the sky they sound fair and reasoned. So does have relevance.
Yes, Phil made points. But the question remains; what would be the use of Labour apologising for Lange/Douglas? Who would care? What difference would it make?
TRP
I liked what phil said and how he went through the points in 13.3. After that it was the point about possibly saying sorry that you objected to TRP.
Perhaps if you had acknowledged the earlier points, as well as disagreeing with the sorry idea, we would have had a dozen less coments. I agree with you about not saying sorry. It is not appropriate or useful, but it would be good if it could be acknowledged that Labour had taken the wrong approach in the 1980’s..
But more than that, what would energise us now is new policies backing a determination to improve NZs wellbeing, economy and support for regions infrastructure and enterprise. And we need control over our assets and resources, including not selling houses to foreign investors, Labour should give us the ability to have a stake in our own country, not continue policies downgrading our lives to make money for a few.
1) Clamp on capital controls .
2) Hair cut 50% of every bank deposit over €200K; depositers will gain rights to Greek public land and assets as an IOU.
3) Hire 20,000 people into the public service at the minimum wage, supporting services and NGOs for the poor and homeless.
4) Issue every citizen with 200,000 drachmae, the nominal equivalent of €500 for spending. Make it clear that an annual tax of 400,000 drachmae will now be levied on each citizen.
5) 10% of all public employees salaries to be paid in drachmae. 20% for the top decile of public employees.
6) Put a fully empowered government appointed member on the board of every financial institution in the country.
7) Sign extended, cheap, energy deals with Russia.
8) All government purchasing to go to local Greek companies only.
I wouldn’t call in the Troika, they are the enemy, the banksters.
Greece is a colony of Germany and France. It has nothing to gain by forcing workers to pay EU bankers out of their miserable wages.
The EU is not a partnership of equals but a convenient fiction for the bosses to pump surplus out of workers.
The central committee of Syriza wants to stay in the EU and negotiate a fair deal. This is a delusion. Lambs lying down with wolves.
Syriza must be forced by mass protests from below to break with the banksters. Then the workers in the other PIGS will be inspired to follow. The flow on effects to the rest of Europe and the world will be strong.
* Cancel all debts!
* Expropriate the capitalists and in particular the so-called “50 families”!
* Nationalize the key corporations without paying compensation and place them under worker control!
* Break all links with EU institutions and leave the Eurozone!
* Significantly increase the minimum wage!
* For a public works program in order to rebuild the country!
* For the right of national self-determination for national minorities! Equality for migrants (full citizenship rights, right to use their native language, equal wages, etc.)!
* For a workers’ government based on action councils which will organize the workers and popular masses and establish an armed workers’ militia!
* For a workers’ republic in Greece! For a United Socialist States of Europe!
CR
Email that to the new Greek leader when h gets in. He might be pleased to know that more than people in Greece support them in their efforts to restore their economy and polity.
he new Greek government has plenty of challenges ahead of it: A towering debt, chronic unemployment and relations with the rest of Europe. But it also has an urgent security problem.
Greece has become an unwitting crossroads — both for jihadists trying to reach Iraq and Syria from Europe, and for fighters returning home from the Middle East.
So, that would be a US invasion sometime in the near future then?
Voting doesn’t cause the US and NATO to ‘lose control’.
Parliament is a fig leaf in this power game.
But it will make them play their hand, sanctions, destablisation, even invasions, which will raise the game to the next level of popular armed defence of democracy against the No 1 world terrorist.
It will also bring Russia and China into play since they have an interest in seeing that Greece is not turned into ‘failed state’ to justify an invasion.
If it looks like the Economic Hitmen can’t do their job, they’ll send in real Hitmen. If I were Tsipras I’d be making sure that all the military Generals and diplomatic protection squads were on side, ASAP.
Note that Greece has been buying billions in American and German military equipment form large western corporations, using bail out funds. These orders were not subject to the austerity measures imposed by the IMF, ECB.
An article that’s interesting – there’s ittle that’s new or secret, but that’s the point – it’s all in plain sight. Anyway, some – pardon the pun – handy ammunition:
On leaving office in 1960, Eisenhower warned of the power of the emerging “Military-Industrial Complex”. With America now a plutocracy (who can gain office without huge campaign donations and without being beholden to their donors?), it’s much worse.
Cheney’s links with Halliburton and his war profiteering are well known, but this shows that rather than being the corruption of one man, the entanglement of industry, the military and congress is now wider, deeper and more insidious.
Quote: “the Boston Globe found that 80 percent of retiring three- and four-star generals went to work for defense related firms” That is, they often become lobbyists, the leash-holders of representatives.
It may not be news to many and there’s no Snowdenesque revelation of secret material – worse, it’s all plainly known already. The tracing of names and flow of funds in an accessible form is useful.
Considering the chronic mismanagement of defence programmes such as the F-35 (a costly turkey of a plane) and pressure to retire proven effective systems such as the A-10 close-support aircraft and the forcing of unwanted production of M-1 tanks that go immediately into storage, even the right-wing hawks should be concerned at the undermining of America’s defence capacity.
We may not have Lockheed Martin here, but we do have Sky City and similar dynamics are at play.
And while the military-industrial-surveillance-complex corporations keep getting the big billions, the US military is giving thousands of its service personnel and officers redundancy notices because there isn’t enough money in the Pentagon budget to pay ordinary wages and HR expenses.
Moss said Fish & Game was concerned at the recent reporting of toxic algal blooms in the region’s waterways, and believed it was another indication that local rivers, streams and estuaries were deteriorating while agriculture intensified across Southland.
“While cyanobacteria is naturally occurring, its growth is promoted by high nitrate levels, which is generally derived from stock urine.”
Fish & Game was concerned that the recent bloom was occurring so far upstream and with indications that the remainder of the summer could be drier than normal, the situation was only going to get worse, he said.
“Unless there is a concerted effort to reduce the quantity of nitrate that is being lost to both ground and surface water, these blooms are likely to become commonplace over the Southland summer.”
“I’m sure all Southlanders look forward to Environment Southland setting robust catchment nutrient limits, as they have signalled, to make sure our rivers are safe for swimming, fishing and food gathering.”
some rivers “unswinmmable”….and some rivers ain’t there any more….disappeared between the stones ……no use going there with your togs …..just hot stone wadis…and a few ribbons of slime
so sad that we are at this stage – I really believe our rivers are like veins or maybe arteries??? Anyway… they are essential, just so important – it is getting close, if not already there, when we are going to have to fight for our rivers and by that I mean literally take back that ‘commons’.
In the bay over the weekend we swam on saturday in the sea and in a river, and on sunday did the same. Lots of people (for us) there, children, laughing and fun – and the water was beautiful, cleansing and invigorating – we reveled in the environment, in the sun and water and the gift of being there enjoying our pastimes. This is for everyone, this is living. And building connection and community and resilience. I will fight for the right for everyone to be able to enjoy clean and safe water and rivers.
clean is relative for sure – our rivers in the bay are not ‘clean’ just cleaner than some others
and in the hottest parts of the day the dairy farmers spray water across their fields, water taken from the river and aquifer, and they spray it into the hot evaporating sun and then they spray some more – that to me shows total arrogance and ignorance.
This is an intereting clip of public service broadcasting from USA. The Washington Week Webcast Extra program. Gwen Ifill is a very likeable capable interviewer. This clip would be of interest to those wondering why new tech programs while expensive, employing skilled people, often don’t work properly. There the Healthcare program started and still wasn’t working right. The word that crops up continually is ‘contractors’ Q to the lead contractor – how is it going. A. Fine. We’ve got the best people working on it. And so on down the line with all the sub-contractors. Then, later. Q. What went wrong. A. I don’t know we had the best etc. And so it goes.
The tech people at the bottom had to direct themselves it seems, and they spent a month ceaselessly working to get it going. The analogy used was they were still fixing the engines while the plane was flying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAjbCeOGb-A
1 Why does No Right Turn Idiot/Savant pieces get sampled twice in the right column?
2 King Abdullah’s death is recognised? If somebody like Chavez dies I presume we would honour him and his country the same? I wouldn’t like repressive oil barons to get all the adulation.
You ask whether we recognized Chavez’s death by flying flags at half mast.
The answer is we did, as you can see from this link. http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/40248-city-lowers-flag-chavez.html
This is from a Tauranga paper but it does say that all Government Offices flew them that way and describes the New Zealand policy.
Of course many people might say that he was also a repressive oil baron.
The president’s death is also specified under the New Zealand Flag Notice 1986. The notice describes when the flags are flown at half-mast including the days of national commemoration and in the case of the death of a foreign head of state.
From alwyn’s link.
I/S’s post might show twice if he edited/republished it twice.
Interesting article about the rise of private armies. (Extract)
Five characteristics distinguish PMCs from other armed nonstate actors in global politics. First, they are motivated more by profit than by politics. This is not to suggest that all PMCs disregard political interests and serve merely at the whim of the highest bidder, but they are fundamentally profit-seeking entities. Second, they are structured as multinational corporations and participate in the global financial system. These are not shady “lone wolf” mercenaries stalking the jungles of the Congo during the wars of African liberation. Third, they are expeditionary in nature, meaning that they seek work in foreign lands rather than providing domestic security services. There are exceptions to this, especially when it comes to homeland defense, but in general, these firms are foreign focused and are not domestic security guards. Fourth, they typically deploy force in a military manner, as opposed to a law-enforcement one. The purpose of military force is to defeat or deter the enemy through organized violence, while law enforcement seeks to deescalate violent situations to maintain law and order. This intrinsically affects how they operate. Fifth and most important, PMCs are lethal and represent the commodification of armed conflict. There will always be exceptions to these five features, but they serve as a good test of whether an armed nonstate actor is a PMC.
(Extract.)
When the United States invaded Iraq, few imagined at the time that it would also introduce a new norm in modern warfare: the privatization of war. The next chapter explores the deepening dependency between the superpower and the private military industry and implications for the American way of war.
It seems now that the latest US invasion of Iraq was in fact largely a for-profit venture. Not proftable for the USA as a nation or its peoples, but profitable for USA Inc.
@ CR
I have the idea that there was a lot of Iraq money that had been frozen, in USA coffers. If the USA declared war they could take possession of the cash as spoils of war I suppose. Then the war would be paid for by the defending state. And the arms for the war would be bought from the USA’s businesses so the money would be passed to them and some of it would come back to the US government. Also it provided employment for the USA young men and women. A good financial scheme if they had hold of Iraq’s cash
Later I seem to remember they were said to have sent container loads of cash to Iraq, a spokesperson saying lamely that it was their money. It was not channelled into needed infrastructure replacement, it was handed over to leaders who the USA chose no doubt and only a small percentage went into the people’s hands and the economy.
If anyone has a summary of the financial dealings perhaps they could put up a link as mine is from memory and may not have been correct in the first place.
From what I read it’s going to be several tens of thousands of workers. And if IBM has picked that there is going to be large scale consolidation in the industry you can expect others to follow.
Todays Australian honours list shows just what a farce the scheme is. Not only here but in alL the former Empire countries. SIr Phillip Windsor what a joke.
The Panel is off to a typically mirth-filled start today
Radio NZ National, Monday 26 January 2015
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Chris Gallavin, Julie Moffett
First up today, a thoughtful, enlightening discussion about who should and should not be called terrorists….
JULIE MOFFETT: The BBC says the people who carried out the Charlie Hebdo killings should not be called terrorists.
…..Pause to indicate they’re thinking seriously…..
JIM MORA: Nnnnyeah, you would think that the Charie Hebdo killings were reasonably terroristic wouldn’t you. CHRIS GALLAVIN: Well, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist! Oh, I don’t know WHAT’S happening Jim, quite frankly! MORA: Hur hur hur hur! CHRIS GALLAVIN: It’s summer time, Jim! MORA: Hur hur hur hur! JULIE MOFFETT: Ha ha ha ha ha!
He hasn’t appeared yet, but listeners who can bear listening to this dreck should keep an ear out for the sepulchral ex-ACT MP and S.S. man Stephen Franks, who will no doubt deliver one of his smarmy little homilies about “wickedness”.
FACT: Jim Mora never once said, last year, or in 2008-9, or in 2006: “Nnnnyeah, you would think that the Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon killings were reasonably terroristic wouldn’t you.”
.cd u plse address the issues raised in comment 13.3.
Yes, you’re correct, Phillip. Hooton was not actually lying, he was simply putting the most negative spin on the state of the Labour Party that he could possibly get away with.
My problem with Williams is that he didn’t even demur at the tone of Hooton’s disrespectful, exaggerated dismissal of Andrew Little, and announced that he agreed with everything that cynical National Party operative had just said. He was signaling from the outset that, once again, he was going to let Hooton make all the running, and was going to agree with him whenever possible. No doubt that kind of back-scratching was how Williams conducted his political career; he doesn’t seem to have noticed that there is no quid pro quo in it; Hooton simply treats him with contempt.
The grandest of the consolidated surfaces – the fifth type of terrain – is Hathor, a towering 2,950-foot (900 meter) cliff that dominates the underside of the comet’s duck-like head. Its distinctive linear features, which run both up and down and across for much of its height, reveal brighter material that suggests we’re seeing the internal structure of the comet’s head. Tucked along an alcove on the cliff are additional bright white spots less than 30 feet (10-m) across that may be patches of sublimating ice.
We should be looking for ways to nudge those comets into Mars. Get enough mass there and Mars will become livable. It’s not at the moment due to the lack of atmosphere and electromagnetic field.
Directing comets to Mars to increase it’s mass and make it livable?
Wut? Increasing Mar’s mass isn’t going to increase its magnetic field. Not to mention slamming comets into a planet is a fairly poor solution to making a planet livable.
Of course, slamming Mars with asteroids and comets still may not be enough to re-heat it’s core and thus get its magnetic field going or replace it’s atmosphere. May have to nip out to the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud and grab a dwarf planet or two.
Not to mention slamming comets into a planet is a fairly poor solution to making a planet livable.
Earth’s magnetic field comes from it’s internal dynamo. There is nothing to suggest slamming a planet with comets will do anything about reheating its core and kicking off the dynamo. Least of all anything to do with mass (look at Venus – very similar mass to earth, tiny magnetic field)
“Worked for Earth.”
Firstly it wasn’t just being slammed with comets that made earth livable but, secondly, if you have a few hundreds of million years available then go right ahead.
“May have to nip out to the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud and grab a dwarf planet or two.”
Wow…really? Just “nip” out there and shackle a dwarf planet, send it back to mars and slam it into it. Wow.
This is stupid even for you. These are events that are millions on millions on millions of the years in the making. I can’t even
not to mention all the new planetary shrapnel flying around the solar system from all these impacts.
And then rather than waiting 100million years for mars to cool enough for us to live on, maybe we should just drop some unobtanium bombs down a really long martian mine shaft and melt the core that way? 😉
“We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
(Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
We have never beheld till now!
Your link showing the supposed ‘Space Station Footage of The North Pole Opening to Hollow Earth’ seems suspect to me.
I am skeptical.
If the theory is true, then it is astonishing that the scientists have not confirmed this. Besides, there are thousands of satellites from scores of different countries circling the globe. None of them have photographed or indicated the voracity of the theory.
At the closest point to the Earth, asteroid 2004 BL86 will be at a distance of 1.2 million kilometers which – approximately three times the distance from the Earth to the moon. Estimated to be 0.5 km in diameter, it is classified by scientists as potentially dangerous.
Here is a good article to understand the ‘revolution’ that has been instigated by the young. Could be a harbinger for similar future revolutions all over the capitalist western countries sooner or later:
——————
Greece Shows What Can Happen When The Young Revolt Against Corrupt Elites
By Paul Mason
January 25, 2015 “ICH” – “The Guardian” – At Syriza’s HQ, the cigarette smoke in the cafe swirls into shapes. If those could reflect the images in the minds of the men hunched over their black coffees, they would probably be the faces of Che Guevara, or Aris Velouchiotis, the second world war Greek resistance fighter. These are veteran leftists who expected to end their days as professors of such esoteric subjects as development economics, human rights law and who killed who in the civil war. Instead, they are on the brink of power.
Black coffee and hard pretzels are all the cafe provides, together with the possibility of contracting lung cancer. But on the eve of the vote, I found its occupants confident, if bemused.
However, Syriza HQ is not the place to learn about radicalisation. The fact that a party with a “central committee” even got close to power has nothing to do with a sudden swing to Marxism in the Greek psyche. It is, instead, testimony to three things: the strategic crisis of the eurozone, the determination of the Greek elite to cling to systemic corruption, and a new way of thinking among the young.
* The Eurozone’s crisis is easiest to understand – because its consequences can be read so easily in the macroeconomic figures. The IMF predicted Greece would grow as the result of its aid package in 2010. Instead, the economy has shrunk by 25%. Wages are down by the same amount. Youth unemployment stands at 60% – and that is among those who are still in the country.
* So the economic collapse – about which all Greeks, both right and leftwing, are bitter – is not just seen as a material collapse. It demonstrated complete myopia among the European policy elite. In all of drama and comedy there is no figure more laughable as a rich man who does not know what he is doing. For the past four years the troika – the European Commission, IMF and European Central Bank – has provided Greeks with just such a spectacle.
* As for the Greek oligarchs, their misrule long predates the crisis. These are not only the famous shipping magnates, whose industry pays no tax, but the bosses of energy and construction groups and football clubs. As one eminent Greek economist told me last week: “These guys have avoided paying tax through the Metaxas dictatorship, the Nazi occupation, a civil war and a military junta.” They had no intention of paying taxes as the troika began demanding Greece balance the books after 2010, which is why the burden fell on those Greeks trapped in the PAYE system – a workforce of 3.5 million that fell during the crisis to just 2.5 million.
* From outside, Greece looks like a giant negative: but what lies beneath the rise of the radical left is the emergence of positive new values – among a layer of young people much wider than Syriza’s natural support base. These are the classic values of the networked generation:
self-reliance, creativity, the willingness to treat life as a social experiment,
a global outlook.
*I’ve reported the Greek crisis since it began, and what changed in 2015 was this: Syriza had already won the solid support of about 25% of voters on the issues of Europe and economics. But now a further portion of the Greek electorate, above all the young, are signalling they’ve had enough of corruption and elites.
* Greece, though an outlier, has always been a signifier, too: this is what happens when modern capitalism fails. For there are inept bureaucrats and corrupt elites everywhere.
* We face two years of electoral uncertainty in Europe, with the far left or the hard right now vying for power in Spain, France and the Netherlands. Some are proclaiming this “the end of neoliberalism”.
I’m not sure of that. All that’s certain is that Greece shows how it could end.
The Communist Tendency inside Syriza opposes the formation of a government with the Independent Greeks, an openly bourgeois right-wing anti-immigration UKIP-type party.
Despite winning more than 50% of the vote in the cities Syriza fell short of an absolute majority by 2 seats.
The Communist Tendency argues that this will put a limit on Syriza’s ability to pursue a strong anti-capitalist agenda that meet the needs of its popular constituency.
Being in government with a rightwing bourgeois party will also provide and an excuse for conciliatory elements within Syriza to make concessions to the Troika.
By rejecting the Independent Greeks and exposing the anti-worker refusal of the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) to join the government, Syriza sends a clear message to its supporters that it will not form a government with the bourgeoisie and should go back to the country to win an outright majority.
Another privileged farmer apologist. This one’s pretty gobsmacking. I wonder if there is some cultural reason why some farmers seem unable to understand how this would come across (although willing to bet it made plenty of other farmers cringe too).
This week, its case against AB Wood Holdings convinced the judge to impose a $134,500 fine after the death of one of its workers. The apple orchardist had dared to Grow Apple Trees On A Slope, a terrible example of Doing A Thing. Not only that, the company hadn’t bothered to flatten the slope, so the worker rolled his tractor while mowing the orchard and died.
@ weka
This Narelle Henson seems to have quite a lot of negative comment. People Thinking at the Same Time as They are Doing Things. Another example of our outdated educaton system. People who have learned to write their names, and read but not realise the import of the information or their connection with other human beings.
This is one of her items. This guy has 23 companies and 10 have been liquidated in one year, was written in 2014.
I guess this must be similar to the story of some of those cowboy builders. I have heard it said they would start a new company for each house and then close it down so there was no entity to claim on.
I have to say that is a rubbish article all right it seems like a war of the dimwitted journalist on either side of the farming fence at the mo
I can only assume stuff are cutting costs buy hiring morons.
By my informal count, every feminist active in the area is to be sanctioned. This takes care of social justice warriors with a vengeance — not only do the GamerGaters get to rewrite their own page (and Zoe Quinn’s, Brianna Wu’s, Anita Sarkeesian’s, etc.); feminists are to be purged en bloc from the encyclopedia.
There’s always going to be some issues with a community edited encyclopedia but the ones that should be getting banned from editing it are the ones that are lying.
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
The topic of holding the Government to account came up in a discussion on The Standard yesterday. The results suggest that Labour didn’t do this very well last term, failing badly in the election.
[Stephanie: This comment was literally a copy-paste of an entire post from your site. This is in clear breach of the policy on “link-whoring” and you have been warned about this before.
Anyone interested in Pete’s thoughts on the Labour party in Opposition can go here:
http://yournz.org/2015/01/26/holding-government-to-account-versus-harassment/%5D
🙄
Responses to this comment will be republished at Yawns.
I wonder when you’ll tire of that approach. The same principles apply to blogging.
Perpetual pissy attacks damage your own credibility. That didn’t work out well for Labour last term. The prospects are looking better under Little but it’s up to more than just him.
You’re too dishonest to admit that you’re soliciting free content for your own benefit, so I’m going to do it for you.
Thanks for the public service OAB.
PG’s comment above looks like a straight cut and paste from a post on his site.
🙂
People can go and read yesterday’s discussion and see how Petey spins it. What a cretin this man is.
The funniest part is how he presumes to know what and why NZers like things. He was a UF candidate and booster of various weird ideas that never seem to get off the ground. Because reasons.
I thought you did very well yesterday putting that case – watertight it was although some drips cannot be contained 🙂
If you took Key out of the equation I doubt very much National would win. The opposition must ‘keep holding them to account’, after all that’s what opposition party’s do, so can’t agree there.
The single biggest thing the opposition party’s need to achieve is working contructively together. I am all for L/G/NZF to hold primary contests in winnable seats. Vote splitting is gifting National too many seats. Deals can be done so the G/NZF party’s actually win electorate seats. I mooted this with a senior Labour MP who was quite open to this approach.
Another hurdle is the large bloc of people that don’t feel compelled to vote. So how is this to be addressed? A couple of killer policies, the less is more tactic, however will this have an effect on those who do vote.
Personally I don’t like the thought of a Labour that is nothing more than National lite.
If you took PG out of the equation, we could probably have a decent conversation. Anything that happens from this point on is just a repeated of yesterday, and all the other days when PG troled for attention and to use ts to spread his beige agenda.
It’s not as none of the main parties actually do anything for the majority of those that don’t vote.
And that’s all they’ve been since 1984.
Fair point Draco, it tends to niggle away in the back of ones mind. Even the Greens are positioning themselves a bit lite these days too. Cutting an MP’s pay in half may rid the troughers and get people in there for the correct reason.
MP’s get too cosy sitting on 150k, lean them up, make em hungry for the cause. Also make it that much easier to slash public & state sector executives outrageously out of control & obscene salaries.
I like the Alliance’s idea that MP’s salaries be set to the same as a third year teacher. Wonder how many of National’s MPs would complain that teachers are paid too much then 😈
I made a submission to a welfare task force years ago. They asked “How can we ensure benefits are enough to live on?” My submission was to pay MPs at beneficiary rates. For some strange reason, it was not adopted.
Not a strange reason – your suggestion was just stupid.
Perhaps if you had of come up with sensible suggestions you could have helped.
In what way was it stupid?
After all, the MPs have expense accounts to cover their work expenses.
apparently if we don’t pay them hundreds of thousands a year, the calibre of MPs we have will be even lower.
Let’s all just try and figure out how that might even be conceivably possible…
What’s stupid about it? Don’t they stand because they want to serve the community? They would still have their limousines and their expense accounts.
Perhaps if you had come up with a sensible reason you could have helped.
+100 Skinny…good points
YEP
+ 1..
It’s an interesting idea, but I just don’t see the public buying it?
By definition, the election is to decide who represents the electorate. Having a pre-screening ballot before the election itself, that only a minority of parties contest, doesn’t seem to pass the sniff test to me.
I will credit the senior MP for suggesting a deal that the others get electorate seats, which we concurred should happen if they come forward with their best candidates i.e Peters, Marks & Norman, Hughes as examples.
@Lanthanide Well something ‘a bit outside the box’ needs to be tried or it’s ground hog day, except it’s not day, it’s 3 years. Others keep mooting not standing candidates from the outset. Which to my thinking removes a contest, atleast what I propose entails a contest. I see the positives outweighing the negatives.
Funny thing is, the Standard just bounced me to this post that Ad wrote:
http://thestandard.org.nz/from-the-thick-of-it-to-borgen/
In it he talks about how Labour needs to show that it is willing to engage with the Greens in a deep multi-term partnership in government. And what you suggest would be a perfect way of starting to do that.
+ 1..
An interesting read looking back. This should be sorted at conference, probably the single biggest issue, along with policy platform.
@DPG yes that’s a good idea but would get gamed I suspect.
I recommend campaigning for preferential voting in electorates as well, so that people don’t have to worry that they might waste their vote for a 3rd party candidate any more.
Ahhhh good point.
PG setting the discussion agenda again. This seems to be a tactic to crowd out more useful and constructive discussion.
+1
Edit, looks like a moderator has fixed it.
Bearded
+2 To use Paul’s method of reply to PG : zzzzzzzzzzzzz
This is a polite request that people who link to Yawns do so using the “do not link” webpage, so as not to increase traffic.
http://www.donotlink.com/cf65
Pity that people rate it as “offensive” when they should just rate it “nonsense”.
Depends how you feel about beige I guess 🙂
“Anyone interested in Pete’s thoughts on the Labour party in Opposition can go here:”
Thanks, but no thanks
maybe pete should write a book..?
..’the thoughts of (former united party branch secretary)- pete’ as a working title.?
..or maybe he cd go a bit edgy..?
‘..i’m pete..!..let me p.g. all over you!’..?
..so..off ya go pete..!..
..the nation awaits..!
You have been a myopic hot and cold blowing simpleton being fooled and enamoured by this National party/government mirage!
Are you blind to the spin, bullshit, dirty politics, lies, razzmatazz and propaganda indulged in by Key, the National party, Cosby Textor, the powerful corporates, the RW blogs and MSM outfits that manage to constantly publicise a false dishonest ‘positive’ narrative of the government, drowning or ignoring the negatives, the ineptitude, the poor policies and their corrupt practices?
In comparison to National, Labour and the left are forthright, are more democratic, have enlightened values, are modern, principled, patriotic, honest and caring for the social and economic well being of all the people and the country for both the short term and the long term.
If you are a person of integrity and honesty, you will realise the truth of what I have just said.
Think it over instead of putting Labour and the left down and batting directly or indirectly for these rotten Nats and the RW rogues.
I thought link whoring involved linking and I didn’t include a link or reference to any link. Can you please clarify the policy about unlinked comments.
Penny Bright has been pinged for the same offence. If you are going to post something it should be an original comment. The Policy says “You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.”
So posting from your site is fine as well as long as it is a synopsis rather than the whole thing.
It was an original comment. I usually do summarise or post excerpts but I thought this topic was better complete, but if you don’t want that then so be it.
Ironically someone else posted a link, not me. A bit bemusing.
[Stephanie: It was original neither in content nor the ideas therein. Your post at YourNZ made no mention that it had originally been posted as a comment here. What you “think” bears no resemblance to the clear stated policy of this website, especially given the numerous warnings you have received for this behaviour. Stop being so bloody rude.]
A quick clarification for racebaiting’s Pooter George:
Your safest bet if you’re finding this confusing would be to not post any fucken thing at all. Your credibility could do with the karmic lift that would come with making so many TS readers instantly happy.
Allow me to end your bemusement. If you go and have a squizz at this site’s comments policy, it rules out “pasting long materials from other sites.” If the definition of “long materials” is also bemusing, as a handy rule of thumb keep in mind that “entire post from your site” totally qualifies.
I’d like clarification on your judgement. I took what you refer to as meaning long quotes of what other people have posted on other sites. MS referred to “original comment”, which it was.
I presume length wasn’t an issue, posts that size aren’t uncommon here.
The key words are “other sites”. Just summarise and put in a link.
“Just summarise and put in a link.”
Which often gets called link whoring. But ok, I’ll follow your advice.
No, it doesn’t. Link whoring is when you just put a link with no explanation, or you link multiple times. For someone who’s apparently been on the internet as long as you, you’re really playing the Dunce tonight.
Hmm, duncetrole, that’s a subtype I guess.
“Link whoring is when you just put a link with no explanation, or you link multiple times. ”
I don’t do that. But that’s bollocks as a definition, it’s far from all that’s referred to as link whoring.
Wiki definitions:
Noun
link whoring
(Internet, idiomatic) The practice of going out of one’s way to place links to one’s website on someone else’s webpage.
Noun
link whore (plural ‘link whoars’)
(idiomatic, Internet) Someone who goes to great lengths to get other people to link to his/her website or blog
‘link whoars’
roflnui
“I don’t do that.”
I didn’t say you do.
“But that’s bollocks as a definition, it’s far from all that’s referred to as link whoring.”
Of course, but for the purposes of this conversation it’s what gets treated as link whoring on ts.
You seem to be having considerable comprehension problems in this subthread.
…ok, I’ll follow your advice.
To the letter, I’m sure.
To the spirit, not so much.
In summation:
It was original neither in content nor the ideas therein.
…ideas that never seem to get off the ground.
Which often gets called link whoring.
For fuck’s sake, and for the second time, try actually reading this fucking blog’s comments policy. It says, among other things:
You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.
It’s perfectly clear. If you need other commenters to read this stuff and draw your attention to it, maybe you shouldn’t comment in the first place.
Look pretty professional Pete a commercial venture like this must have caught the atention of the MSM outfits for a buy in. You must be making a tidy packet out of it so should stump up for a monthly linking fee.
“I presume length wasn’t an issue, posts that size aren’t uncommon here.”
Yes. They are.
You’ve had three very clear explanations, two of them by moderators both of whom were polite and excessively generous (myself, I wish Lynn had handled it).
What is is about micky’s comment that you don’t understand?
You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.
I swear to god, this subthread is stupid even by the beige parrot’s standards. Liked the bit about karma though.
“I presume length wasn’t an issue, posts that size aren’t uncommon here.”
To be fair, lately he’s correct. Ask anyone who has tried to scroll through Penny’s copypasta or Phil’s .. . sparse …. textual .. efforts … on a mobile screen.
Yeah, on a phone it would be pretty bad. But Penny doesn’t post that often, and phil’s comments are more punctuation disarrays than long complete comments.
“MS referred to “original comment”, which it was. ”
For the pedantic, perhaps read that as “unique comment”, though you are not the only one who pastes the same stuff on multiple blogs including this one.
Obviously I’m not a mod here. Personally, I welcome people linking to their own blogs providing they have the courtesy to explain briefly why it’s relevant to go there. Quote a par or two at most. Save my scrolling finger…
a cautionary political-history tale for the labour party..
in greece..there was/is this political party called ‘the socialist party’..
..and like labour here..they weren’t really ‘socialist’/’labour’..
..they were centrist/neo-liberal..
..and the socialist party dominated greek politics during the 80’s and 90’s..
(with the ‘conservative’party..they did a tweedle-dum/tweedle-dee swapsies at leading the country..)
..(still sounding familiar..?..)
..anyway..this socialist (in-name-only)party has insisted on still clinging to the pillars/shards of neo-liberalisim..
(as has labour here in new zealand..c.f. their election ’14 policies..which offered absolutely nothing for the poorest/to fight the worst of inequality..)
..so..we are still in lock-step..?..that mirror-effect still prevailing..?
..well..greece has just had an election..
..where a true-left party has swept into power..
..and where that clinging-to-those-shards-of-neo-liberalism ‘socialist party’..
..that ideological first-cousin of our labour party..
..is expected to get about 5%..
..now..if that tale doesn’t have labour people quaking in their boots..
..and if it isn’t a wake-up call..
..they would have to be dead from the neck up..
..i.m.n.s.h.o…
Yes it is very interesting (putting aside the human cost etc)….
Greece needs to cancel its debt, or a significant chunk of it. Or repay over time, without interest. Or, as the victorious party apparently claimed to derision, print its own euros …… which would be the ultimate irony given that that is exactly what the Eurozone does anyway …. prints money
Why should lenders get money (interest) for printing euro notes?
Greece is exposing the sham and Ponzi scheme that is our money system.
Ponzi
Ponzi
Ponzi
i understand the new greek leadership is calling for full cancellation of the debt..
..and a fresh start..
..(polling shows most greeks don’t actually want to leave the eu..(70%+ from memory..)
..and i wd submit that the sudden decision to print money in the eu..is in part for them to have to wriggle-room/to be able to throw some money at greece/cancel debt..
..and of course there are parties echoing this greek left party..
..in span/portugal/ ireland..
..the socialist national party is going to totally wipe out both the tories and labour in scotland..(and will become the third largest party in the british parliament..making it the very large tail wagging any labour govt..)
..and like i said..to nz labour…wake up..!..
..yr very existence is in peril..
..yr only option is to return to yr roots..
..to ‘end poverty’ by announcing a universal basic income..
..and a massive programme of building smart/clever state houses/apartments/terrace-houses/w.h.y..
(..and to out-green the greens..promising to ‘clean-up’ nz..)
..and that just for starters..
..continuing to jostle with national for their space on the ideological-spectrum..
..will just see you ending up in the dustbin..
..along with yr greek first cousins..
..and u will be where you will deserve to be..
..(polling shows most greeks don’t actually want to leave the eu..(70%+ from memory..)
I bet they fucking don’t. If the Jerries were subsidising a pleasant lifestyle for NZers to the tune of billions per year, I doubt that we’d be keen to give it up either.
given the realities in greece..
..and austerity-policies/selling of assets demanded by merkel..
..yr claim that they are somehow living high on the hog..
..from german largesse..
..is beyond glib..
They’re not living high on the hog from German largesse now the bubble’s burst, no. That gravy train reached its final station in 2008. But their interest in staying within the Euro has everything to do with wanting a return to the pre-2008 lifestyle of regarding taxes as optional and having a ridiculously low retirement age (while the Jerries paying for it got to work until 65 like the rest of us).
Electing a left-wing government and rejecting the debt the austerity fans saddled them with is a start, but it’s destined for ignominious failure unless the majority start figuring out that corruption isn’t cute local colour, and demanding extensive government services while avoiding paying any taxes isn’t a good long-term prospect.
Pysycho melt down.
The Tycoons and shipping magnates are the ones paying no taxes.
Ordinary Greeks work the longest hrs in Europe and pay taxes.
Corruption of their Politicians by the most powerful corporates most likely at the behest of the Greek non taxpaying Tycoons wining and dining Greek politicians with Goldman Sachs and rorting(rating) agencies mates on these Tycoons Luxury yatchs is the reason
Why the peasants have to pick up the their Tab.
Austerity for the peasants another bailout for the Tycoons!
Psycho and Tricledown – you both have touched on the problems. They are far more complicated then a forum like this can express. And no, actually the work hours are not the longest, you need to understand that the lunch breaks during summer (6-7 months) are stretching between 3-4 hours because of the extraordinary heat. It is not feasible to work physically, really – its not possible without inciting a dehydrated breakdown. So the the day is actually broken into 2 distinctive times: 7-12noon and 4pm -9 (or beyond for nightclubs).
The second issue is that as soon as it became known that Greece is facing a financial crisis, all (and I mean ALL) wealthy people have withdrawn they wealth and moved it to the usual hiding places. (Swiss anyone?) This left the Bank close to ruin and the Government not able to borrow.
The issue that nobody is looking at is that, Greece is to a certain extent the bastion against the east, always involved in wars from the Classical, Hellenistic, Roma, Byzantine, Ottoman right trough to the WW.
This is often forgotten and that the Greek people pay the price of being the meat between the sandwich.
As for the Germans, don’t get me wrong but if many people would be as industrious and as educated as they are, things would look a hell of a lot better, belief you me. Besides, they are also just pawns in the game of the rich.
only public servants could retire at 55. everyone else at 65. the ps havent been able to retire at 55 for some years now.
Goldman Sachs to you PM.
The loan sharks Goldman Sachs and credit rorting agencies defrauded both Greek governments and Northern European banks Psycho.
Goldman Sachs and the rorting agencies should be paying for their Ponzi scam.
But alas No Goldman Sachs managed to get their inside man appointed to become the EU’s finance minister.
So avoiding investigation and have to pack the Losses on their corrupting Ponzi Scheme!
Pssycho facts please.
Delirous rants from are expected .
Conman believable therapy is no substitute for the truth!
Psycho white washing the truth.
So why is Europe in the doldrum.
One reason is consumption is down especially in southern Europe.
Austerity is having an effect on Northern Europe because Greece and other southern European countries are not buying BMW’s,VW’s,Merc’s, Audijs Porcshe’setc!
So their production workers are not affording holidays in Greece Southern Europe!
Europe is in the dole drum because there are 33 countries and 55 languages that have to find a common ground. NZ cannot even find this often with its own Maori people. Before you have some judgement on hand, take into consideration a people 45 000 years in the making (not 800), with distinctive cultures developed over this period and many wars fought to keep the identity. To find a bridge to span this history and forge a future that has validity for all is certainly not child’s play or indeed some black and white knight sessions from the good ol’ Anglo saxen stall.
As for the bankers wishes to simplify their means to get more money out of the working people – European Union – and the convolution resulting by the immigration to mainland Europe from the East, you would talk completely differently if this would be NZ. To put this into perspective, to cope what these countries currently trying to deal with, we are talking about 47 million people who need to be housed, educated, health service provided etc. The majority moved, incidentally – to Germany. 9.8 Million or 12% increase in the population by 2010. Who knows how many that is today. Now if this would be NZ, it would mean that 500 000 additional people need to be accommodated, with that I mean full benefits or workplaces. This is the size of it. To say that Germany (or the UK or any other major immigrant nation) has to accommodate even more is just plain ignorant.
The present Labour Party caucus still has some distance to go in terms of shaking itself off from ACTing lite after the 1980s.
Looks like a Syriza win,
Skai TV exit poll: Syriza 36-39 ND 24-27 Potami 6,5-8,5 GDawn 6-8 KKE 5-7 Pasok 4-6 Ind.Grks 2,5-4,5 GPap 2-3
Kapa Research Exit Poll: SYRIZA 33.5 – 37.5 ND 25 – 28 Golden Dawn 5.5 – 7.5 To Potami 5
.
The whining begins,
5m ago18:20
The sniping from Europe’s elite has already begun.
Sweden’s former prime minister Carl Bildt claims that taxpayers in other European countries will have to foot the bill for Syriza’s victory.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jan/25/greek-election-syriza-confident-of-victory-live-updates
Great news. That will mean that Yanis Varoufakis chap will be able to implement his ideas.
In the interview below he talks about how people have been “liquidized” during the last few years. Appropriate term.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84503534&x-yt-ts=1421914688&v=g9UFsBMFSAs
So, what will the ‘mainstream’ ‘left wing’ parties do? Solidarity or muttering nervously in a corner?
they/it is gone…their ‘labour party’ has got a single-figure result..
..’solidarity’..to what..?
..the neo-liberalism/austerity-policies that the people they used to rule over have so rejected..?
..so i think ‘muttering nervously in a corner’ will be their only option..
..and if labour here don’t get their ideological shit together..
..and ditch neo-liberalism..
..they too could well be looking for a corner to ‘mutter nervously’ in..
Brilliant site here for watching the Greek election result live.
http://ekloges.ypes.gr/current/v/public/index.html?lang=en#{“cls”:”level”,”params”:{“level”:”epik”,”id”:1}}
Click on “Parties” at the top
Thanks for that Bearded Git. Looks like the Island of Crete (long a bastion for the Left in Greece)* is leading the way, giving roughly 45% to Syriza.
*and, of course, with close WWII emotional ties to New Zealand.
David Gormley @dayvyg
Syriza supporters singing anti-fascist anthem Bella Ciao at the party’s election centre in Athens: http://youtu.be/AStrn7jDqtE
https://twitter.com/dayvyg/status/559424335329644544
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bella_ciao
An interview with economist and Syriza candidate Yanis Varoufakis.
What is the current economic situation on the eve of the elections in Greece? Can you give a kind of snapshot?
In brief, everyone owes everyone, and no one can pay. The banks are bankrupt; they owe money to the state, to each other, to foreign banks. Citizens owe money to the banks and owe money to the state. The state owes money to everyone. So we have a triple insolvency: bankrupt banks, a bankrupt state and a bankrupt private sector. There are of course pockets, like everywhere, within society of people who are really well off. They have money in banks in Switzerland, in the city of London, on Wall Street, in Frankfurt, and even some money in the Greek banks.
But the overall situation is that — even though in the last year or so there’s been a small rebound, not in terms of income but in terms of expenditure — the economy is quite clearly still in a downward spiral that is filling everyone’s soul with negative expectations.
https://ricochet.media/en/305/the-greek-canary-in-the-european-coal-mine-an-interview-with-yanis-varoufakis
Looks like Syriza are on the cusp of an outright majority which will actually be preferable to a coalition with the Independent Greeks who will be way less flexible than Syriza.
I really don’t know what comes next – if exiting the Euro is off the table the new Greek Government has very little ability to do anything. The end of austerity – great concept, but if you are only able to run at a 5% budget deficit cos you received EUR12 billion in direct subsidies, you don’t have a lot of ability to do anything.
With Euro exit off the table (this is the only viable tool that Greece has to make any change to their economy) and repudiation of debt already excluded by Tsipras maybe Syriza/EU have already done a deal. Business as usual, a softening of the terms, but business as usual. Maybe throw a few subsidies out to the poor, but business as usual.
With an inability to borrow, a budget deficit, and a committment to staying in the Euro, by definition nothing can change except the terms that the EU agrees to.
And interesting to note 10 billion euros of deposits outflow from the main Greek banks since December – that’s 4% of the remaining deposit base. The banks already have a pending request in to the ECB for emergency liquidity.
Overall, not too much bargaining power from Greece………
Yep, Greece’s only option is to remove themselves from the Euro.
I agree – and I do not see this ending well for Greece.
The banksters have the biggest guns in this game.
Paul Mason explained it fairly well in the Guardian.
Well – whats the alternative? Please list a few ideas in bullet point format to educate the rest of us. Please note Tsipras has already ruled out exiting the Euro.
The only way out would be either to forgive the debt or to space it at 0% for 100 years.
SPCA’s Bob Kerridge doubles down on his racist rhetoric about dog attacks this morning http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/20164830/head-of-auckland-spca-stands-by-ethnic-comments after being taken to task for them yesterday http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/264487/dog-attack-ethnicity-comment-%27offensive%27
There is a certain correlation with low income areas and dog attacks. It is happens that coloured folks in habit large chunks of those areas.
TG we have a white man around to *educate* the browner ones how to behave! Pity this will get more coverage than the fact that we have dogs attacking people and this needs to be stopped.
“There is a certain correlation with low income areas and dog attacks.”
And a correlation between higher income and fences. And between number of dogs and number of attacks in an area. Further analysis before opening his mouth might have helped silly old Bob.
Also a correlation between white people and racism.
stereotyping racist and bullshit artist
no wonder it never stops when those claiming the moral high ground in this arena undertake the exact behaviour they abhor
fail
very dissapointing from such an important organisation and one wonders what he thought he might achieve.
ha ha very clever, but the reference was to you weka
very dissapointing from such a regular commenter and one wonders what he thought he might achieve.
very surprised one would expect that regular commenter to want to achieve anything as soon as the topic turns to “not being a dick to large portions of the population”.
as opposed to being a dick to the largest portion of the population, as if size of the portion makes a difference ….
some things never change around here ………………………………
Touche McFlock.
oh look, mutual back-patting, how cute
And when you say something sensible, you’ll get a wee pat on the back, too.
Yeah – because non-whites cannot be racist.
I didn’t know that.
/lol
I think you and vto might have missed the point I was making. Correlation is not causation.
Probably. Brain wires have been haywire today – must be that comet getting closer …
Pity this will get more coverage than the fact that we have dogs attacking people and this needs to be stopped.
Well, yeah, but that would involve doing something about the large number of people who own psychotic attack dogs they don’t either look after or restrain. Good luck trying to overlook the correlation between low-income areas and dog attacks while doing that…
If he’d said lower income areas instead of South Auckland and that immigrants and Pasifika aren’t natural dog owners, this would be an entirely different conversation. The media coverage would be different too.
It was very foolish of him to mention ethnicity, indeed. Still, I expect he has no education in the social sciences and the thinking didn’t go much beyond “south Auckland, hmm that’s where all the PIs and Maoris live. Must be something to do with them.” The fact that it’s a fairly typical thought process is depressing.
The stuff about migrants strikes me as a red herring. Are new immigrants to NZ really deciding that a pit-bull/mastiff cross would make an excellent family pet, or a good watchdog? Personally, I reckon that piece of poisoned thinking is local, not alien.
I thought most owners of dangerous dogs tended to be bogan pakeha.
The owners of the most dangerous dogs, that are actually trained to attack people, are ngati poaka.
Funnily enough, the only dog that has ever bitten me was a Labrador, not generally thought of as dangerous.
It’s the bloody corgis I have to watch out for. Vicious little fuckers.
There is also a correlation between probability of prosecution and wealth. In this case, the correlation is negative.
kerridge..the vivisection-pimp..has also been factchecked by the head of auckland animal control..
..she says there is no ethnic-basis/stand-outs around the owners of dogs who attack..
..racist bob just disengaged his brain..
..and let his prejudices talk..
..and of course..the media..with their constant diet of nasty dogs on chains..and owned by brown-people..
..have only fed/fostered these prejudices..
..but kerridge should have known to factcheck before opening his mouth..
..as his claim is both factually-inaccurate..and racist..
That just shows that some palagis shouldn’t be allowed to use their mouths without adult supervision.
silly old men give old men a bad name
“..7 States That Are Next in Line to Legalise Marijuana..
..Four states and DC have already legalized marijuana –
– here’s the next crop..”
(cont..)
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/next-seven-states-legalize-pot
mr ure, how do you deal with the dulling effect that comes from use / frequent use? Having dabbled at times over the centuries I always found that the following day the mind was blunt – like running a sharp blade over a lump of granite …..
I hate smoking pot. It makes me to complete opposite of mellow and since I have ceased smoking it about a year or so ago my memory and cognitive ability has increased dramatically.
Well one positive is states and countries where pot has been legalized usage has gone down especially amongst the young!
Crime has also gone down as well.
Instead of putting money into the failed policy of eradication.
Taxes can be raised and used on education,rehab,and funding govt instead of criminal gangs!
@ vto..do u use alcohol..?
..’cos that hangover effect – i get that from alcohol..
..not from pot..(esp. not from moderate use..)
p. ure, no I don’t use alcohol
so no blunting of sharp mind of yours thru use of pot? hmmmmmm ………. I will believe though thousands may not ..
I don’t smoke weed amy more.
I don’t like what I’ve seen it do to people I know.
I don’t like the way when I’m with my mates who smoke they become boring as bat shit after a good go at it.
I do think It should be legalized in an effort to stop the effect of having people lured into crime in a effort to make some easy cash because it fucks communities.
Tried to fix the spelling when I push edit it goes there but won’t show offending post
i agree..it’s not for everyone..
..and i find that boring people don’t become interesting when stoned..
..but interesting/funny people often stay interesting/funny..when stoned..
Not in Saudi
Read More, What Scientists Feel About Climate Change; HERE
3pm today marks the start of the campaign to stop Solid Energy, the heavily taxpayer subsidised State Coal Miner reopening the mothballed Kopuku 1 open cast mine just south of Auckland.
We are not calling for currently operating coal mines to be closed, which is what the science demands, we are merely demanding that no more be opened.
The demand that No New Coal Mine operations be started, or restarted is a moderate one.
Those who support the opening of New Coal Mines in the age of climate change inhabit the lunatic fringe.
This day marks the start of an epic battle for common sense and even conservativism against extreme ego driven radicals bent on self aggrandisement at all costs to the community the environment and the climate.
Join the campaign for common sense and against climate extremism today. Details; HERE
Kia ora Pat
Good luck with this campaign.
For me the talk that we can still avert the effects of climate change distracts from what we could be doing to create resilience and community to help people cope with the effects and the changes that are here.
‘moderate’ has its place (maybe) but around climate change it seems like a waste of time. I’d like Mana to put the line in the sand and stay on that line – as we (Mana) have done on other issues – we need leadership and the kaupapa of Mana is desperately needed to help people see and find hope. Kia kaha.
I am extremely slow to escape moderation today.
Any reason?
[r0b: sorry – random chance – no one is about. lprent – can we fix Pat always going to mod??]
Why are the flags at half mast on the Harbour Bridge?
Radio NZ National, Monday 26 January 2015
The medieval dictatorship of Saudi Arabia is, next to the United States, the biggest funder of Al Qaeda and ISIS fanatics. The terrorists that flew jet airliners into the World Trade Center in 2001 were Saudi Arabians. Public executions are common; fifteen people have been beheaded there this year alone. In spite of all this, listeners to Radio NZ National were treated to this disgusting little announcement at 9:45 a.m. ……
KATHERINE RYAN: We’ve had a lot of texts this morning, asking about the flags flying at half-mast on the Auckland Harbour Bridge today. Well, they’re flying at half-mast at the request of the Prime Minister John Key, as a mark of respect for the death of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
https://news.vice.com/article/woman-is-publicly-beheaded-in-saudi-arabias-tenth-execution-of-2015
Excuse my language, but fuck that. Get that flag back up.
More lies and absolute hypocrisy by Key and the USA.
No credibility. None
Too late. The flag is being manipulated by tricKey. He wants to change it and is now half-masting it.
“Why are the flags at half mast on the Harbour Bridge?”
I thought those in control might be mourning that on Auckland City’s 175th birthday so many people were suffering from the exorbitant government backed housing market in their fair city.
Officially, flying our flag at half mast may be our Right Wing government’s way of showing international solidarity with the violent undemocratic Right Wing despots that rule Saudi Arabia. Unofficially, it could also be taken as a sign of grief by the International Right, at Syriza’s peaceful democratic victory in Greece.
Maybe we should ban women drivers and have some public stonings beheadings as well!
If you want those things, talk to someone from ACT, Family First and/or the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
It’s National that are lowering the flag to honour such.
Can I start my list of suitable contenders for stoning/beheading?
Taking the hands off some bankster style rentier thieves may be a start.
Put the flags on the Auckland Harbour Bridge up to top mast in international celebration.
http://socialistparty.ie/2015/01/blog-from-athens-paul-murphy-on-syriza-victory/
That is absolutely fucken disgusting but I suppose it should have been expected. John Key only cares about the rich and just doesn’t give a fuck about the damage that they do to everyone else.
+100 Morriessey….very well put…and absolutely weird! ….where are the Opposition Party leaders on this is ?….they should be making mince meat out of John Key Nact!
where are the Opposition Party leaders on this?
They’re busy writing speeches about how Nicky Hager and Kim Dotcom cost them the election.
lol…hope not
the same place they were when an innocent person was detained for intending on staying at dotcoms place…
Just wonder whether this is what NZ aspires to be if Mr Key is supporting and admiring a nation that forces its people to belong to a state religion.
Maybe he is not aware that:
Wahhabism is the Arabic sect of the muslim religion and associated with a lot of atrocities. The majority of the world’s Wahhabis are from Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Wahhabi mission, or Dawah Wahhabiyya, is to spread purified Islam through the world, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
I for one do not want to be part of this.
The same leaders who staged a march to support Charlie Hebdo will meet at the tyrant’s funeral. Maybe a few bloggers could be flogged for their entertainment? It shouldn’t be too hard to arrange for the beheading of a rape victim as well.
No way should we be mourning the death of that slave owning murderous piece of shit. No way José.
but the oil! think of the oil. And and the USA! Think of the USA!
Syriza in Greece might even achieve an absolute majority.
Also here is Syriza’s 40-point plan: http://links.org.au/node/2888
should be interesting to see what happens
A brief report of four points of their programme is compelling and persuasive enough for many:
Ensuring:
~ that no family is without water or electricity (in nine months of 2013, 240,000 households had their power cut because of unpaid bills)
~ that no one can be made homeless
~ that the very lowest pensions are raised
~ that urgent steps are taken to relieve child poverty (now at 40%)
This cartoon “violated press Standards of Practice”
according to the Australian Press Council
See the cartoon here….
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.638240
See how unfair it was by clicking here…..
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israelis-cheer-gaza-bombing
and here….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjw8U0AcH4Q
Perhaps the august and learned members of the APC needed to speak to Sir Gerald Kaufman….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8
why were these principles not applied to the Charlie hebdo thing?
Is it because the jewish religion is more important than the muslim religion?
It has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity.
I wonder whether they would also condemn the photo of the Jewish guy on the couch, wearing a kippah. I thought the cartoon quite appropriate, although the nose maybe went a bit far.
Without John Key I suspect National would struggle to win in 2017 and 2020. Every attempt to attack the popular John Key is ignored by the public. Nicky Hagar’s and Crim Dot Con’s scurrilous attempts to try to bring down the government actually resulted in an increased National majority as National voters flocked to the polls. John Key is a phenomenon. He is admired and respected everywhere he goes. His is the voice that those at Davos listened to. National’s current polling is 52% whilst Labour wallows on just 26%.
I cannot see John Key losing an election but assume that the Left may have a chance when he eventually retires.
You are telling lies Fisi. National got 47.31% of the vote in 2011 and 47.04% of the vote in 2014. That looks like a decrease to me.
http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2011/partystatus.html
http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2014/partystatus.html
No, he’s doing exactly what Key did recently on the same subject – carefully misleading rather than flat-out lying.
Key recently told The Times that New Zealand voters had given National an increased number of seats, thus implying that there’d been a swing to the Party in popular support. Just like Fisi – although Fisi rather clumsily tries to reinforce the implication by going one step further with: “…….as National voters flocked to the polls.”
National, of course, did indeed increase its seat number (from 59 to 60) – a direct corollary of an increase in wasted Party Vote at the 2014 Election (relative to 2011). But, as you’ve said, their Party Vote share actually fell marginally.
As with Farrar and so on, it’s all about leaving a mistaken impression favourable to the Nats, while allowing just the teensiest bit of wiggle room for deniability if challenged.
well said
You are probably right except that after the speciaks were counted Nationals vote was roundabout the same as in 2011.
No, he’s wrong http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26012015/#comment-957076
National MP’s in 2011 59
National MP’s in 2014 60
National votes in 2011 1,058,…..
National Votes in 2014 1,131….
That’s one more MP and 63,000 extra votes
John Key is really really liked by the public. He has never lost and probably never will.
…….
National Party-Vote Percentage in 2011 47.3%
National Party-Vote Percentage in 2014 47.0%
Opposition Bloc Vote in 2011 1,034,021
Opposition Bloc Vote in 2014 1,104,288
(= + 70,267)
Two can play at this game, sweetness.
Thanks for your unfailing attention to these details, swordfish. I’ve found your analysis of polls, and particularly the analysis of commentary on them, very illuminating.
+1
Cheers for that, Lanth and Weka. Appreciate it.
And apologies to readers of my blog for the (unplanned) hiatus. I’ve been too busy and too tired over recent weeks (and, to be honest, I can’t say I’ve been overly happy with the quality of my prose on the blog. If even I’m getting bored with my own writing then I can’t expect anyone else to be too enthused).
I’ll probably make a brief announcement on The Standard once I start posting again. Hopefully with a bit more vim.
Remind me Labour vote was lowest in 80 years. Green numbers down and Mana Dot Con came nowhere.
Face it. As long as John Key wants to be PM he will be.
Finally sussed who you are fisiani ….
http://thestandard.org.nz/trump-or-palin-for-the-us-presidency/#comment-957356
You are most definitely a loony republican..
“Green numbers down…..”
Greens down 0.4 points
Nats down 0.3 points
Both down in percentage of the vote
Both up in raw number of votes (largely due to increased turnout)
Once again, that tendency of yours to make superficially plausible-sounding claims that, on closer inspection, turn out to be utter bollocks.
“John Key is really really liked by the public. He has never lost and probably never will”
John Key is really really fooling the public by lies, bull shit, spin, propaganda, copying of many Labour policies, indulging in dirty politics and use of big donors and their money. He has lost his mana. What does it profit a man if he wins the whole world and loses his soul?
I think Key’s soul ceased to be relevant a long time ago.
probably around the time he started his BCom and (alledgedly) didn’t notice the schism in the nation that the ’81 tour caused.
Jealousy gets you nowhere
that would be why you keep hanging around.
Hardly an increase flocking to the polls. Someone elses can look at issues like population increase and boundary changes. Swordfish above has a more intricate analysis, but I’m happy to still call you a liar.
“John Key is really really liked by the public”
Yeah, that’s why only a third of eligible voters voted for his party. Like I said, liar.
Mike Williams starts as he means to go on, obviously
From the Left and From the Right, Radio NZ National, Monday 26 January 2015
Matthew Hooton starts off with a minatory rant, cleverly designed to undermine and cast doubts on Andrew Little. After several minutes, it is time for the representative of “the Left” to speak. This is what he said….
MIKE WILLIAMS: Yeah, I would agree with absolutely everything Matthew just said.
….ad nauseam….
While he’s not a member now, Williams encapsulates or caricatures everything that was wrong with Labour for the last six years: aged, lazy, as bloated with hot air and privilege as Mr Creosote, bereft of ideas, disconnected from the people they once pretended to champion and childishly beholden to the right simply because they have lots of bling.
And the pairing of those two oxygen thieves shows what’s wrong with political commentary on Radio NZzzzz. A solipsistic Punch and Judy show drowned in cold porridge.
Now I’ve got that out of my system, I hope to do something productive today.
lol
Well, when I hear Williams on RNZ, I can’t help but think that Labour has nothing much to offer, e.g. why bother.
Perhaps you need to switch your critical faculties on prior to listening, Kiwiri. Mike Williams does not represent Labour any more than any other ordinary party member does. He has never claimed to be speaking on that show, or any other, as an official spokesperson.
Of course he has authority in the sense that he used to be president and still has contact with senior LP leaders. But that doesn’t excuse your lazy thinking, which we also see repeated here by people who think TS is the official blog of the NZLP.
PS:
Moz, I didn’t hear the words ‘just said’ in the sentence, which possibly makes the statement worse in one sense. But, clearly, he was referring to Hooton’s comments. The problem is, much of what Hooton said in his opening piece was both factually correct and reasonably framed to begin the discussion. So, basically, your criticism is that Mike Williams agreed with comments he couldn’t reasonably disagree with. That’s a poor level of analysis from someone we know has the highest standards of accuracy and astonishingly well honed critical faculties.
Is it the heat?
Isn’t that a contradiction TRP
he doesn’t represent labour but he has authority because he is exprez and still has contact with senior members – and is on the radio with all those credentials explicitly known.
No contradiction, marty. He’s earned the right to speak authoratively about the party, but that doesn’t mean he speaks for the party. And because his credentials and current status are well known, there is no excuse for confusion.
The problem isn’t that he has connections to Labour. It’s that for some infathomable reason he can’t represent a left wing view.
Like so many others who were senior or well connected within Labour.
Because he’s not,(left wing) weka.hence his downward spiral,poverty of intellect.As you might have noticed,he scoffed at the presidential candidates ability to rash money for the party,it seems he thinks he’s the only one to have had that ability.
Politically astute and aware people may not be confused in understanding the nuances and fine points you are implying regarding Mike Williams.
The problem for Labour/left wing is that most people who hear so called left wing people like Mike Williams and Josie Pagani will take on board directly or subconsciously the negative perception about Labour or left wing created by their comments, especially when the commentator agrees and endorses the RW points made by the RW supporting commentator like Hooton.
It is astounding that experienced left wing commentators like Williams and Pagani do not understand this basic media stuff and come across as weak in their passion, support and views.
Often when I hear them I think, ‘With friends like these, who needs enemies!’
Or we should just admit that Williams and Pagani know exactly what audience they are addressing, and it’s not those in the bottom 50% of the wealth pyramid.
The great thing about Williams on RNZ is that he has the effect of turning off any critical faculties.
“So, basically, your criticism is that Mike Williams agreed with comments he couldn’t reasonably disagree with.”
No. It’s that Mike Williams isn’t doing his bloody job as a left wing commentator. He doesn’t have to agree or disagree with Hooton at all. He can just respond with a left wing perspective.
Am off to dig up Pb’s very useful comment on this.
btw, as I’m sure you know, Morrisey’s transcripts are notoriously inaccurate, and reflect their perspective and perception as much as anything.
This is in response to Pagani, but it’s general themes are appropriate,
http://thestandard.org.nz/josie-pagani-replies/#comment-753124
” … Morrisey’s transcripts are notoriously inaccurate …”
Say it ain’t so, weka!
I have it on good authority that the atomic clock is wilfully slack in comparison to Moz. He is the one constant in this world of shadows, shams and shameless distortions of the truth. Cutting definitively through the daisies of disinformation, Morrissey Breen is the last true star in the constellation of crap that passes for modern media.
No, no, NO, I say!
I’ll not have it said that he is capable of innacuracy in any form. I demand satisfaction. I will meet you at dawn with pistols drawn if you do not withdraw your vile and bassless calumny against a writer whose every utterances is as mother’s milk to a mewling baby and equally pure of heart and essence.
For shame, weka, for shame!
Hey, I can do bass if I really have to. So there. 😛
I’ll act as your second if you like. Weka might like to ask McFlock, or someone like that to hold his pistol for him.
Not sure who this Weka bloke is, but if McFlock is his second it’ll probably be fun to watch.
I agree with TRP @ 13.1.2.1
Hooton’s comment was indeed correct, but he can’t resist snide observations on the side about Labour leaders. He did it in a big way to Cunliffe and he’s chosen to follow suit with Little.
Whether you agree with his strategy or not, Mike Williams chooses to ignore Hooton’s put-downs and concentrates on the issue under discussion. He’s probably right to do so because it’s better to ignore Hooton than risk giving his put-downs any more oxygen. Except when he goes over the top, Ryan has adopted a similar policy.
Btw rhinocrates as far as I know Williams is still a member of the Labour Party.
I haven’t listened to the clip. Did Williams say he agreed with Hooton or not?
Yes he did weka. What Hooton always does is to take advantage of a discussion to throw in mischievous and invariably inaccurate barbs about Labour and Green leaders. But when you take out the barbs, his analysis of a situation is usually more or less correct. Williams ignores the barbs and bases his responses on the analysis. It’s very annoying for us listeners but except when Hooton says something which is seriously over the top, it’s probably the best course of action.
I think that Pb’s analysis stands. Just don’t agree with Hooton, because that’s what people hear at the start and that sets the tone for whatever else is said next. Williams has one job, to shift the narrative to the left, and he generally fails to do that. Maybe he thinks that by agreeing with Hooton he’s being conciliatory, but it just keeps the narrative in the centre.
We really need more actual left wing commentators, esp in that spot.
Someone like Scoop’s Gordon Campbell would be ideal. He wouldn’t let Hooton get away with anything.
Gordon Campbell would be great! (although I don’t think I’ve heard him on radio before).
… while I’m at it: a man dubiously blessed with the ability to suck all of the oxygen out of a room and refill it with methane. So there.
@ Rhinocrates
Incisive and humorous. Are you a journalist? Where do you publish. Oxygen thieves, Radionzzzz, Punch and Judy and porridge. Brilliant descriptions. There’s something for everyone.
Nah, I’m still grumpy about the first derogatory epithet cast at Labour by Rhinocrates. “Aged” indeed.
I also listened to the first part of the political segment on RNZ. I have to agree with Te Reo Putake above when he wrote “The problem is, much of what Hooton said in his opening piece was both factually correct and reasonably framed to begin the discussion.”
I know of the criticism levelled at Williams by various commentators here on the Standard when he states his agreement with Hooton. I suspect he does it now to wind up commentators here. This time, I listened to Hooton and Williams’s response with that criticism in mind, and I had to agree with Hooton’s first comments and Williams’s approval.
Approval can mean that he agrees; it also indicates to a listener that he is not churlish about comments from a political opponent just because he said it; it gives Williams credibility in noting what is reasonable and forrest; and it also encourages Hooton to stay reasonable and factually correct.
If he ignored Hooton’s comment by not passing any judgment, as Weka suggests, then those three pluses for that style of engagement are lost.
Don’t worry mac1 – I have privileges – I’m somewhat “aged” too 🙂
greywarshark, yes I do publish, but under my own name and in other, obscure media/fora – academic literary criticism and the odd (sometimes very odd) creative work mainly. I prefer to preserve my pseudonymity here when Hoots or Curran are collecting addresses.
I think you said it best.
Labour remains a crawling mass (mess?) of class contradictions.
@ rhinocrates
Sometime you may have to blow your own horn before the poachers come along and cut if off!
mac1
Willliams could try to be slightly unbalanced on the left side though! Instead of seemingly so to the right. He could say e.g. Yes you’ve got a point there, but not a strong one, and I think on the other hand that Little is shaping up well or such.
And as for winding us up!! You’re joking aren’t you. We’re not in a game.
So if he was to think along those lines, he could get on his skateboard and roll. Time for a change anyway. Who would we get instead? Someone remembering past left, recent past left and present and who still is in touch with his left side. Not some well-rounded bloke or blokess who just spins like a top with no sharp edges.
“And as for winding us up!! You’re joking aren’t you.”
Yes, I’m joking. About Williams caring about the commentators here overly much. But when the commentators, as Phil Ure states lower down, gets it wrong and mishears because of their bias, then I’m not joking. The reason being that there’s one thing in saying that it’s serious and not a game which I’m in agreement with, and with being so wound up that people hear what they want to hear, and are plain wrong.
There’s a danger there where reasonable people fear to tread…………..
If we are full of bullshit, then we lose. To the reader, and to the voters who are at the present, according to the latest Ray Morgan, happy with Key’s government and also with business confidence above the past decade’s average, which is what I suspect Williams was talking about with the Hawkes Bay references he made.
Both commentators gave the relatively new Labour leader, president to be elected and to be appointed chief media advisor a year to get this perception changed. It won’t be changed by fulminating bullshit. From anywhere, Williams, Hooton or our commentariat included.
grewwarshark @ 13.1.4
Rhinocrates has yet to surpass his brilliant piece on this site about a fictional speech given by Shearer when he was leader. The problem… Shearer was putting his supermarket shopping list together at the same time and the inevitable happened. He got the two muddled. The tears of laughter streamed down my face.
for those who missed it
http://thestandard.org.nz/weapons-of-mass-distraction/#comment-619185
Oh dear, I nearly split my side all over again.
That was good rhino.
But after being stirred and shaken the next commenter produced this..
One Anonymous Knucklehead 6.1
15 April 2013 at 8:18 pm
Laugh all you want. I can reveal that dirty foreigners have accessed the National Party’s website and right now are seeking to copy the government’s education policy, assett sales and economic management program in an effort to export them and destabilise their own countries the way we have this one.
That Williams eh. Have you seen those gizmo parrots with a recording device which repeats everything you say and it’s in a funny voice. Hilarious. What a pity Radio isn’t television, it’s got as vacuous with this pair of political pollies, but the parrot must be seen to be effective comedy.
On radio the humour doesn’t come off. I suggest listening to 9toNoon at 11.45 a.m. and get Pinky Agnew and Radar et al for laughs and some political stuff gets in there, probably as much as in the official discussion. Really the two fatheads known as the Hooton and Williams duo or Mutt and Mike, are neither use nor armament (Freudian slip).
edited
i have to call you on that..morrissey..
..i went and listened to it..
..and this is one of the few times i can agree with williams saying ‘i agree with matthew’..
..’cos what hooton did..he didn’t ‘undermine’ little..he just noted that @ 26% in the polls..that little has one yr to turn that around..
..that if that is still the number then..thaat there will be more talk of a leadership-change..
..what’s to argue with about that..?
..he then went on to note that the speech from little on wed is very important..
..that little has to surprise..to do a version of brashs’ orewa speech..
..in the sense of seizing the agenda..with bold policy/ideas..
..(i wd suggest a universal basic income..to end poverty in one fell swoop..
..or a return to people being able to capitalise child-benefit for housing deposit etc..
..combined with a massive building program of smart/green/clever variations on buildings..running the gamut from tiny-houses in clusters..onwards..
..hard to see what else would grab the imagination..)
..so..anyway..that was what hooton said..
..so what was to disagree with..?..and how was he ‘undermining’ little..?
..that is a serious distortion of what actually happened..there..morissy..
..to the extent..u shd withdraw it..and apologise for misleading us punters..
..but i hasten to add that pretty much everything else williams said was absolute shite..
..at one stage he was prattling on about how he and sll his middle class mates are ‘feeling pretty good’ out there..in the hawkes bay..
..ryan called him on his bullshit..and then he furiously agres with every counter argument the compere made..(!)..(as he does..)
..i think the inside of williams head must be like a fairground at full volume..
..and hooton got in the first official chicken little/’the sky is falling in!’ rightwing bout of panic at the election of the leftwing govt in greece..
..predicting doom/gloom/disaster for all..
a mea culpa from little/labour for neo-lib/labour losing their way –
– wouldn’t go amiss..
Who gives a shit, Phil? Only political tragics even know what you’re talking about. It has no relevance to the vast majority of voters, especially the yoof.
you can look at greece..and spain..and portugal..and ireland..and scotland..and say that..?
..and please tell us how a steady-as-she-goes strategy will drag (a withering neo-lib) labour above 26%..in the forseeable-future..?
..do you reckon leave it until just before the next election..?
..if not that..what..?
..and in labour election policy ’14..
..did you support the policy of doing nothing for the poorest..?
..and do you think labour should continue with such a policy..
..going into 2017..?
Put those goalposts back, Phil, they don’t belong to you.
yeah..thanks for not answering..
..do u think it makes u look good..?
..unable to defend yr orifice-pluck on any level..eh..?
..and i’ll tell u that u supported that give the poorest nothing..eh..?
Drug fucked again, Phil? Can’t even remember your original comment? Focus, man, focus!
my original comment unpacked morrisseys’ comment..
,..what on earth r u rabbiting on about..?
Yes, quite. The comment I was replying to:
a mea culpa from little/labour for neo-lib/labour losing their way –
And the reply:
Who gives a shit, Phil? Only political tragics even know what you’re talking about. It has no relevance to the vast majority of voters, especially the yoof.
So, got a response to what I actually wrote? I reckon it’s ancient history. Your counterpoint is … ?
13.3.1.1.1
So no answer at all? Ok, that was a fun discussion.
how about stopping yr stupid game..
..and answering one question..?
..did u support the labour ’14 election-policy of giving/doing nothing for the poorest..?
I asked first.
TRP
You are in attack mode again. I thought phil made good points. Even if they don’t praise the sainted Labour Party up to the sky they sound fair and reasoned. So does have relevance.
Yes, Phil made points. But the question remains; what would be the use of Labour apologising for Lange/Douglas? Who would care? What difference would it make?
quite a few people wd ‘care’..
..and it wd mark a clear break from the past..
..that is the ‘difference’ it wd make’.
..labour just doing more of the same old same old..
..will get the same old same old result..
..the withering will continue..
TRP
I liked what phil said and how he went through the points in 13.3. After that it was the point about possibly saying sorry that you objected to TRP.
Perhaps if you had acknowledged the earlier points, as well as disagreeing with the sorry idea, we would have had a dozen less coments. I agree with you about not saying sorry. It is not appropriate or useful, but it would be good if it could be acknowledged that Labour had taken the wrong approach in the 1980’s..
But more than that, what would energise us now is new policies backing a determination to improve NZs wellbeing, economy and support for regions infrastructure and enterprise. And we need control over our assets and resources, including not selling houses to foreign investors, Labour should give us the ability to have a stake in our own country, not continue policies downgrading our lives to make money for a few.
Cheers, Phil. Basically, it would achieve nothing much and risk being another ‘sorry’ moment. Why bother?
how about you now answer my election ’14 s.f.a. 4 poorest question..?
..did u support that policy..?
..do u think it is a policy labour should take into election ’17..?
“..Why bother?..”
..really..?
..u have a labour party that has slumped to mid-twenties support..
..where have all those former labour supporters gone..?
..and why..?
..and how to get them back..
..that is what shd ‘bother’ labour-people..
..and the fact is a lot left because labour has betrayed basic principles/them..
(..and..y’know..!..how cd labours’ election-policy for the poorest in ’14..
..in a country/time with record inequality/poverty (both child and adult..)
..and our ‘labour’ party..went into an election a few months ago..
..promising to do absolutely nothing for those suffering the worst from that poverty/inequality..
..how the fuck cd that not be a big fucken neon-sign..
..saying..’labour party..!..lost..!’..
..that is all just part of the reasons why u shd ‘bother’..eh..?
What Greece / Syriza / Tsipras should do
1) Clamp on capital controls .
2) Hair cut 50% of every bank deposit over €200K; depositers will gain rights to Greek public land and assets as an IOU.
3) Hire 20,000 people into the public service at the minimum wage, supporting services and NGOs for the poor and homeless.
4) Issue every citizen with 200,000 drachmae, the nominal equivalent of €500 for spending. Make it clear that an annual tax of 400,000 drachmae will now be levied on each citizen.
5) 10% of all public employees salaries to be paid in drachmae. 20% for the top decile of public employees.
6) Put a fully empowered government appointed member on the board of every financial institution in the country.
7) Sign extended, cheap, energy deals with Russia.
8) All government purchasing to go to local Greek companies only.
THEN
Invite the Troika in for talks.
Oh yeah, Syriza should enter into coalition with both Potami and Pasok to create unbreakable numbers in their parliament.
Looks like they have an absolute majority
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-25/greek-exit-polls-hint-massive-victory-syriza-live-webcast
So the don’t need to make alliances with parties that will drag them down.
I wouldn’t call in the Troika, they are the enemy, the banksters.
Greece is a colony of Germany and France. It has nothing to gain by forcing workers to pay EU bankers out of their miserable wages.
The EU is not a partnership of equals but a convenient fiction for the bosses to pump surplus out of workers.
The central committee of Syriza wants to stay in the EU and negotiate a fair deal. This is a delusion. Lambs lying down with wolves.
Syriza must be forced by mass protests from below to break with the banksters. Then the workers in the other PIGS will be inspired to follow. The flow on effects to the rest of Europe and the world will be strong.
* Cancel all debts!
* Expropriate the capitalists and in particular the so-called “50 families”!
* Nationalize the key corporations without paying compensation and place them under worker control!
* Break all links with EU institutions and leave the Eurozone!
* Significantly increase the minimum wage!
* For a public works program in order to rebuild the country!
* For the right of national self-determination for national minorities! Equality for migrants (full citizenship rights, right to use their native language, equal wages, etc.)!
* For a workers’ government based on action councils which will organize the workers and popular masses and establish an armed workers’ militia!
* For a workers’ republic in Greece! For a United Socialist States of Europe!
http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/europe/greece-election-statement/
And so it has started – the presstitutes are wanting to see Syriza break up over infighting and disagreements:
http://www.newsweek.com/greeces-syriza-could-face-schism-after-likely-election-triumph-301774
Thing is, I am betting that the Greek populace don’t give a flying &$%*(# about the corporate media any more.
CR
Email that to the new Greek leader when h gets in. He might be pleased to know that more than people in Greece support them in their efforts to restore their economy and polity.
Already done 🙂
What a world we live in…
And timed perfectly for the Syriza win:
So, that would be a US invasion sometime in the near future then?
The way I see it, the US and its proxies have pretty much already had control of Greece for the last 5 years.
But it looks like they’re about to lose that control with the voting in of Syriza.
Voting doesn’t cause the US and NATO to ‘lose control’.
Parliament is a fig leaf in this power game.
But it will make them play their hand, sanctions, destablisation, even invasions, which will raise the game to the next level of popular armed defence of democracy against the No 1 world terrorist.
It will also bring Russia and China into play since they have an interest in seeing that Greece is not turned into ‘failed state’ to justify an invasion.
Q. Do you really believe that Syriza stand a chance of being ‘let out’ without the cartels firing bigger artillery ?
If it looks like the Economic Hitmen can’t do their job, they’ll send in real Hitmen. If I were Tsipras I’d be making sure that all the military Generals and diplomatic protection squads were on side, ASAP.
He will do well to survive if he even attempts to walk the talk from a couple of years back
That said the Euro is dead in the water one way or another
The Euro is dead in the water. It was dead from the time it was mooted but the Europeans got it dumped upon them anyway.
Note that Greece has been buying billions in American and German military equipment form large western corporations, using bail out funds. These orders were not subject to the austerity measures imposed by the IMF, ECB.
What a fukcing scam.
The entire monetary system is a scam but that’s slowly becoming more known.
Nope but that doesn’t mean that Greece doesn’t get out from under the thumb of the banksters and new feudal lords.
An article that’s interesting – there’s ittle that’s new or secret, but that’s the point – it’s all in plain sight. Anyway, some – pardon the pun – handy ammunition:
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-triumph-of-the-military-industrial-congressional-complex-a27d6e5fb1a8
On leaving office in 1960, Eisenhower warned of the power of the emerging “Military-Industrial Complex”. With America now a plutocracy (who can gain office without huge campaign donations and without being beholden to their donors?), it’s much worse.
Cheney’s links with Halliburton and his war profiteering are well known, but this shows that rather than being the corruption of one man, the entanglement of industry, the military and congress is now wider, deeper and more insidious.
Quote: “the Boston Globe found that 80 percent of retiring three- and four-star generals went to work for defense related firms” That is, they often become lobbyists, the leash-holders of representatives.
It may not be news to many and there’s no Snowdenesque revelation of secret material – worse, it’s all plainly known already. The tracing of names and flow of funds in an accessible form is useful.
Considering the chronic mismanagement of defence programmes such as the F-35 (a costly turkey of a plane) and pressure to retire proven effective systems such as the A-10 close-support aircraft and the forcing of unwanted production of M-1 tanks that go immediately into storage, even the right-wing hawks should be concerned at the undermining of America’s defence capacity.
We may not have Lockheed Martin here, but we do have Sky City and similar dynamics are at play.
And while the military-industrial-surveillance-complex corporations keep getting the big billions, the US military is giving thousands of its service personnel and officers redundancy notices because there isn’t enough money in the Pentagon budget to pay ordinary wages and HR expenses.
So what ru saying phil that
I’m getting quite a few of the links opening in old posts bug. Anyone else?
Occasionally.
Yes, and the Replies tab occasionally showing someone else’s replies.
Yesterday I got all of Pete George’s replies in my ‘replies tab’. So to all of you, I’d just like to say: STOP IT!!!
😛
OMG – you have my sympathies 🙂
Yes, I’m getting this too.
Lynn, you should have a look at this.
The replies tab? He knows and is working on that.
btw, if you click on the replies tab and then refresh the page it reverts back to your own replies list.
Thanks for tip
Sometimes. Had it go to other peoples replies list a few times tonight after refresh.
Two rivers that are unswimmable,
Moss said Fish & Game was concerned at the recent reporting of toxic algal blooms in the region’s waterways, and believed it was another indication that local rivers, streams and estuaries were deteriorating while agriculture intensified across Southland.
“While cyanobacteria is naturally occurring, its growth is promoted by high nitrate levels, which is generally derived from stock urine.”
Fish & Game was concerned that the recent bloom was occurring so far upstream and with indications that the remainder of the summer could be drier than normal, the situation was only going to get worse, he said.
“Unless there is a concerted effort to reduce the quantity of nitrate that is being lost to both ground and surface water, these blooms are likely to become commonplace over the Southland summer.”
“I’m sure all Southlanders look forward to Environment Southland setting robust catchment nutrient limits, as they have signalled, to make sure our rivers are safe for swimming, fishing and food gathering.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/65339658/Waikaia-river-safe-for-fishing-but-not-swimming
The reality of our rivers today. The Waitara.
@Delwynd1 @dairymanNZ @Tikorangi @hamish_keith yes Waitara is holding…that is our new water standard…holding to wadeable not swimmable.
Council sign on risk in swimming and other activities in the Waitara river https://twitter.com/Tikorangi/status/559255523791351808
some rivers “unswinmmable”….and some rivers ain’t there any more….disappeared between the stones ……no use going there with your togs …..just hot stone wadis…and a few ribbons of slime
so sad that we are at this stage – I really believe our rivers are like veins or maybe arteries??? Anyway… they are essential, just so important – it is getting close, if not already there, when we are going to have to fight for our rivers and by that I mean literally take back that ‘commons’.
In the bay over the weekend we swam on saturday in the sea and in a river, and on sunday did the same. Lots of people (for us) there, children, laughing and fun – and the water was beautiful, cleansing and invigorating – we reveled in the environment, in the sun and water and the gift of being there enjoying our pastimes. This is for everyone, this is living. And building connection and community and resilience. I will fight for the right for everyone to be able to enjoy clean and safe water and rivers.
clean is relative for sure – our rivers in the bay are not ‘clean’ just cleaner than some others
and in the hottest parts of the day the dairy farmers spray water across their fields, water taken from the river and aquifer, and they spray it into the hot evaporating sun and then they spray some more – that to me shows total arrogance and ignorance.
“This is for everyone, this is living.”
Completely agree.
We need to legislate nature rights. It’s the only way to protect nature and human-proof it.
This is an intereting clip of public service broadcasting from USA. The Washington Week Webcast Extra program. Gwen Ifill is a very likeable capable interviewer. This clip would be of interest to those wondering why new tech programs while expensive, employing skilled people, often don’t work properly. There the Healthcare program started and still wasn’t working right. The word that crops up continually is ‘contractors’ Q to the lead contractor – how is it going. A. Fine. We’ve got the best people working on it. And so on down the line with all the sub-contractors. Then, later. Q. What went wrong. A. I don’t know we had the best etc. And so it goes.
The tech people at the bottom had to direct themselves it seems, and they spent a month ceaselessly working to get it going. The analogy used was they were still fixing the engines while the plane was flying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAjbCeOGb-A
1 Why does No Right Turn Idiot/Savant pieces get sampled twice in the right column?
2 King Abdullah’s death is recognised? If somebody like Chavez dies I presume we would honour him and his country the same? I wouldn’t like repressive oil barons to get all the adulation.
You ask whether we recognized Chavez’s death by flying flags at half mast.
The answer is we did, as you can see from this link.
http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/40248-city-lowers-flag-chavez.html
This is from a Tauranga paper but it does say that all Government Offices flew them that way and describes the New Zealand policy.
Of course many people might say that he was also a repressive oil baron.
Repressive to capital perhaps. But he did survive a US sponsored military coup, which is quite a feat.
The president’s death is also specified under the New Zealand Flag Notice 1986. The notice describes when the flags are flown at half-mast including the days of national commemoration and in the case of the death of a foreign head of state.
From alwyn’s link.
I/S’s post might show twice if he edited/republished it twice.
Interesting article about the rise of private armies. (Extract)
Five characteristics distinguish PMCs from other armed nonstate actors in global politics. First, they are motivated more by profit than by politics. This is not to suggest that all PMCs disregard political interests and serve merely at the whim of the highest bidder, but they are fundamentally profit-seeking entities. Second, they are structured as multinational corporations and participate in the global financial system. These are not shady “lone wolf” mercenaries stalking the jungles of the Congo during the wars of African liberation. Third, they are expeditionary in nature, meaning that they seek work in foreign lands rather than providing domestic security services. There are exceptions to this, especially when it comes to homeland defense, but in general, these firms are foreign focused and are not domestic security guards. Fourth, they typically deploy force in a military manner, as opposed to a law-enforcement one. The purpose of military force is to defeat or deter the enemy through organized violence, while law enforcement seeks to deescalate violent situations to maintain law and order. This intrinsically affects how they operate. Fifth and most important, PMCs are lethal and represent the commodification of armed conflict. There will always be exceptions to these five features, but they serve as a good test of whether an armed nonstate actor is a PMC.
(Extract.)
When the United States invaded Iraq, few imagined at the time that it would also introduce a new norm in modern warfare: the privatization of war. The next chapter explores the deepening dependency between the superpower and the private military industry and implications for the American way of war.
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/secrets_of_modern_mercenaries_inside_the_rise_of_private_armies/
It seems now that the latest US invasion of Iraq was in fact largely a for-profit venture. Not proftable for the USA as a nation or its peoples, but profitable for USA Inc.
@ CR
I have the idea that there was a lot of Iraq money that had been frozen, in USA coffers. If the USA declared war they could take possession of the cash as spoils of war I suppose. Then the war would be paid for by the defending state. And the arms for the war would be bought from the USA’s businesses so the money would be passed to them and some of it would come back to the US government. Also it provided employment for the USA young men and women. A good financial scheme if they had hold of Iraq’s cash
Later I seem to remember they were said to have sent container loads of cash to Iraq, a spokesperson saying lamely that it was their money. It was not channelled into needed infrastructure replacement, it was handed over to leaders who the USA chose no doubt and only a small percentage went into the people’s hands and the economy.
If anyone has a summary of the financial dealings perhaps they could put up a link as mine is from memory and may not have been correct in the first place.
Holy crap. IBM laying off 100,000 employees. That would be like a quarter of Wellington…got to have a ripple effect over in NZ
http://investmentwatchblog.com/get-ready-ibm-about-to-layoff-26-of-its-employees-starting-next-week/
Apparently tens of thousands of those jobs going will be in India. There goes India’s long heralded middle class IT boom.
10k workers is very approximately 3% of the IT workers in India, in a sector that’s adding c.200k jobs per year.
From what I read it’s going to be several tens of thousands of workers. And if IBM has picked that there is going to be large scale consolidation in the industry you can expect others to follow.
India middle class >270 million.
Drop in bucket.
“..10 best vegan cookbooks..
..the cookbooks that use the healthiest ingredients –
– and prove there is life after cheese..”
(cont..)
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/food-drink/10-best-vegan-cookbooks-10-best-cookbooks-best-cookery-books-best-cook-books-9999167.html
(i like that line..’life after cheese’..heh..!..)
Todays Australian honours list shows just what a farce the scheme is. Not only here but in alL the former Empire countries. SIr Phillip Windsor what a joke.
The Panel is off to a typically mirth-filled start today
Radio NZ National, Monday 26 January 2015
Jim Mora, Stephen Franks, Chris Gallavin, Julie Moffett
First up today, a thoughtful, enlightening discussion about who should and should not be called terrorists….
JULIE MOFFETT: The BBC says the people who carried out the Charlie Hebdo killings should not be called terrorists.
…..Pause to indicate they’re thinking seriously…..
JIM MORA: Nnnnyeah, you would think that the Charie Hebdo killings were reasonably terroristic wouldn’t you.
CHRIS GALLAVIN: Well, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist! Oh, I don’t know WHAT’S happening Jim, quite frankly!
MORA: Hur hur hur hur!
CHRIS GALLAVIN: It’s summer time, Jim!
MORA: Hur hur hur hur!
JULIE MOFFETT: Ha ha ha ha ha!
He hasn’t appeared yet, but listeners who can bear listening to this dreck should keep an ear out for the sepulchral ex-ACT MP and S.S. man Stephen Franks, who will no doubt deliver one of his smarmy little homilies about “wickedness”.
FACT: Jim Mora never once said, last year, or in 2008-9, or in 2006: “Nnnnyeah, you would think that the Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon killings were reasonably terroristic wouldn’t you.”
@ morrissy..
..cd u plse address the issues raised in comment 13.3..
@ phillip ure
You’d be lucky. IIRC Felix tried to achieve that unsuccessfully.
i am actually gobsmacked the facts of the matter were twisted so much..
..and that he won’t answer/address the questions just compounds that..
.cd u plse address the issues raised in comment 13.3.
Yes, you’re correct, Phillip. Hooton was not actually lying, he was simply putting the most negative spin on the state of the Labour Party that he could possibly get away with.
My problem with Williams is that he didn’t even demur at the tone of Hooton’s disrespectful, exaggerated dismissal of Andrew Little, and announced that he agreed with everything that cynical National Party operative had just said. He was signaling from the outset that, once again, he was going to let Hooton make all the running, and was going to agree with him whenever possible. No doubt that kind of back-scratching was how Williams conducted his political career; he doesn’t seem to have noticed that there is no quid pro quo in it; Hooton simply treats him with contempt.
space sciency comet stuff
http://www.universetoday.com/118444/latest-research-reveals-a-bizarre-and-vibrant-rosettas-comet/#more-118444
one of the few times that I rate ‘balance’ is the contrast of looking out as well as in, looking locally well as universally. Space is cool.
We should be looking for ways to nudge those comets into Mars. Get enough mass there and Mars will become livable. It’s not at the moment due to the lack of atmosphere and electromagnetic field.
Directing comets to Mars to increase it’s mass and make it livable?
Wut? Increasing Mar’s mass isn’t going to increase its magnetic field. Not to mention slamming comets into a planet is a fairly poor solution to making a planet livable.
Da faq you talking about
Molten core
Magnetic field
Of course, slamming Mars with asteroids and comets still may not be enough to re-heat it’s core and thus get its magnetic field going or replace it’s atmosphere. May have to nip out to the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud and grab a dwarf planet or two.
Worked for Earth.
Earth’s magnetic field comes from it’s internal dynamo. There is nothing to suggest slamming a planet with comets will do anything about reheating its core and kicking off the dynamo. Least of all anything to do with mass (look at Venus – very similar mass to earth, tiny magnetic field)
“Worked for Earth.”
Firstly it wasn’t just being slammed with comets that made earth livable but, secondly, if you have a few hundreds of million years available then go right ahead.
“May have to nip out to the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud and grab a dwarf planet or two.”
Wow…really? Just “nip” out there and shackle a dwarf planet, send it back to mars and slam it into it. Wow.
This is stupid even for you. These are events that are millions on millions on millions of the years in the making. I can’t even
not to mention all the new planetary shrapnel flying around the solar system from all these impacts.
And then rather than waiting 100million years for mars to cool enough for us to live on, maybe we should just drop some unobtanium bombs down a really long martian mine shaft and melt the core that way? 😉
Yeah, typical RWNJ – just can’t think long term.
Wow…
I am thinking long-term you nitwit. You are apparently not. You have really jumped the shark this time
😈 😆
lol
By the time that plan is due to work at the earliest possible opportunity, we either won’t need mars at all, or we’ll have been long-extinct.
“Earth’s magnetic field comes from it’s internal dynamo.”
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2jq9uBmpO4
😆 😆
“I’d like to see that land beyond the (North) Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the Center of the Great Unknown:”
Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd
🙄
“We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
(Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
We have never beheld till now!
Your link showing the supposed ‘Space Station Footage of The North Pole Opening to Hollow Earth’ seems suspect to me.
I am skeptical.
If the theory is true, then it is astonishing that the scientists have not confirmed this. Besides, there are thousands of satellites from scores of different countries circling the globe. None of them have photographed or indicated the voracity of the theory.
I had never heard of ‘hollow Earth’!
So I googled and found lots of links.
Here is one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4EQ-K0wUkQ
how will increasing the mass generate a magnetic field?
And how big would mars have to get, given mars is 1/10th the mass of earth. That’s a shedload of comets.
Talking about things going past at high speed:
Probably need a good set of binoculars though.
stephen franks on the panel..
..ew..!..just ew..!
..multi-layered/multi-faceted..’ew..!’..
Greece’s new Finance Minister: “we are going to destroy the Greek oligarchy system”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-25/greeces-new-finmin-warns-we-are-going-destroy-greek-oligarchy-system
And here, on the Max Keiser show some time back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQd7XOqBr3c
The Guardian : ‘”The hour of the left has come. Hope has arrived”
I hope that things will get better for Greece in the next few years.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/25/athens-celebration-of-alexis-tsipras-syriza-win
@Clemgeopin….yes hope that things will get better for a lot of people in the next few years… this is worth watching
‘Wealth Abyss’
http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/226067-great-recession-recovers-world/
Interesting and intriguing scenario in Greece!
Here is a good article to understand the ‘revolution’ that has been instigated by the young. Could be a harbinger for similar future revolutions all over the capitalist western countries sooner or later:
——————
Greece Shows What Can Happen When The Young Revolt Against Corrupt Elites
By Paul Mason
January 25, 2015 “ICH” – “The Guardian” – At Syriza’s HQ, the cigarette smoke in the cafe swirls into shapes. If those could reflect the images in the minds of the men hunched over their black coffees, they would probably be the faces of Che Guevara, or Aris Velouchiotis, the second world war Greek resistance fighter. These are veteran leftists who expected to end their days as professors of such esoteric subjects as development economics, human rights law and who killed who in the civil war. Instead, they are on the brink of power.
Black coffee and hard pretzels are all the cafe provides, together with the possibility of contracting lung cancer. But on the eve of the vote, I found its occupants confident, if bemused.
However, Syriza HQ is not the place to learn about radicalisation. The fact that a party with a “central committee” even got close to power has nothing to do with a sudden swing to Marxism in the Greek psyche. It is, instead, testimony to three things: the strategic crisis of the eurozone, the determination of the Greek elite to cling to systemic corruption, and a new way of thinking among the young.
Read more here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40812.htm
Some interesting bits from the above article:
* The Eurozone’s crisis is easiest to understand – because its consequences can be read so easily in the macroeconomic figures. The IMF predicted Greece would grow as the result of its aid package in 2010. Instead, the economy has shrunk by 25%. Wages are down by the same amount. Youth unemployment stands at 60% – and that is among those who are still in the country.
* So the economic collapse – about which all Greeks, both right and leftwing, are bitter – is not just seen as a material collapse. It demonstrated complete myopia among the European policy elite. In all of drama and comedy there is no figure more laughable as a rich man who does not know what he is doing. For the past four years the troika – the European Commission, IMF and European Central Bank – has provided Greeks with just such a spectacle.
* As for the Greek oligarchs, their misrule long predates the crisis. These are not only the famous shipping magnates, whose industry pays no tax, but the bosses of energy and construction groups and football clubs. As one eminent Greek economist told me last week: “These guys have avoided paying tax through the Metaxas dictatorship, the Nazi occupation, a civil war and a military junta.” They had no intention of paying taxes as the troika began demanding Greece balance the books after 2010, which is why the burden fell on those Greeks trapped in the PAYE system – a workforce of 3.5 million that fell during the crisis to just 2.5 million.
* From outside, Greece looks like a giant negative: but what lies beneath the rise of the radical left is the emergence of positive new values – among a layer of young people much wider than Syriza’s natural support base. These are the classic values of the networked generation:
self-reliance, creativity, the willingness to treat life as a social experiment,
a global outlook.
*I’ve reported the Greek crisis since it began, and what changed in 2015 was this: Syriza had already won the solid support of about 25% of voters on the issues of Europe and economics. But now a further portion of the Greek electorate, above all the young, are signalling they’ve had enough of corruption and elites.
* Greece, though an outlier, has always been a signifier, too: this is what happens when modern capitalism fails. For there are inept bureaucrats and corrupt elites everywhere.
* We face two years of electoral uncertainty in Europe, with the far left or the hard right now vying for power in Spain, France and the Netherlands. Some are proclaiming this “the end of neoliberalism”.
I’m not sure of that. All that’s certain is that Greece shows how it could end.
The Communist Tendency inside Syriza opposes the formation of a government with the Independent Greeks, an openly bourgeois right-wing anti-immigration UKIP-type party.
Despite winning more than 50% of the vote in the cities Syriza fell short of an absolute majority by 2 seats.
The Communist Tendency argues that this will put a limit on Syriza’s ability to pursue a strong anti-capitalist agenda that meet the needs of its popular constituency.
Being in government with a rightwing bourgeois party will also provide and an excuse for conciliatory elements within Syriza to make concessions to the Troika.
By rejecting the Independent Greeks and exposing the anti-worker refusal of the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) to join the government, Syriza sends a clear message to its supporters that it will not form a government with the bourgeoisie and should go back to the country to win an outright majority.
http://www.marxist.com/against-a-coalition-of-syriza-and-independent-greeks-decleration-by-the-communis-tendency-of-syriza-26-january-2015.htm
Another privileged farmer apologist. This one’s pretty gobsmacking. I wonder if there is some cultural reason why some farmers seem unable to understand how this would come across (although willing to bet it made plenty of other farmers cringe too).
This week, its case against AB Wood Holdings convinced the judge to impose a $134,500 fine after the death of one of its workers. The apple orchardist had dared to Grow Apple Trees On A Slope, a terrible example of Doing A Thing. Not only that, the company hadn’t bothered to flatten the slope, so the worker rolled his tractor while mowing the orchard and died.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/65410259/narelle-henson-why-farmers-doing-things-is-risky-business
@ weka
This Narelle Henson seems to have quite a lot of negative comment. People Thinking at the Same Time as They are Doing Things. Another example of our outdated educaton system. People who have learned to write their names, and read but not realise the import of the information or their connection with other human beings.
Narelle’s a RWNJ playing at being a jonolist.
This is one of her items. This guy has 23 companies and 10 have been liquidated in one year, was written in 2014.
I guess this must be similar to the story of some of those cowboy builders. I have heard it said they would start a new company for each house and then close it down so there was no entity to claim on.
I have heard stats about how marvellous we are for making it easy to do business. Our once respected and a bit slow system of registering companies has been oiled and ratcheted up so the rats can shit easier.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/63297550/Hamilton-man-fights-10-liquidations-in-nine-months
That CV is odd. I see what you mean about wannabe.
Is she the one associated with the nutjobs at Maxim?
She is connected with the Maxim Institute.
Where the hell do they find these easily chipped careerist types.
I have to say that is a rubbish article all right it seems like a war of the dimwitted journalist on either side of the farming fence at the mo
I can only assume stuff are cutting costs buy hiring morons.
Wikipedia Has Banned Five Feminist Editors From Gamergate Articles & More
There’s always going to be some issues with a community edited encyclopedia but the ones that should be getting banned from editing it are the ones that are lying.
Interesting development given Jimmy Wales basically told the gamergaters off in Dec (assuming that’s genuine).
http://www.themarysue.com/jimmy-wales-not-taking-gamergate-crap/
Nigel Haworth and Robert Gallagher nominees for Labour Party Presidency. Both are current office holders.
.
Does anyone have any direct experience of working with either of them?
.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11392042