Open mike 04/10/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 4th, 2024 - 40 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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Step up to the mike …

40 comments on “Open mike 04/10/2024 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    4 October 2024 at 9:09 am

    Imagine in the 1930s if they had the internet, and Auschwitz was being live streamed into your living room.

    And you saw the starved faces and mass graves.

    Would you do nothing about it?

    Would you remain silent?

    From the 'Times Of Israel' December 18, 2023:

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israeli-mayor-calls-for-turning-gaza-into-auschwitz-like-museum-prompting-rebuke/

    “The whole Gaza Strip needs to be empty. Flattened. Just like in Auschwitz. Let it be a museum for all the world to see what Israel can do. Let no one reside in the Gaza Strip for all the world to see, because October 7 was in a way a second Holocaust.” [Israeli Mayor, David Azoulai]

    Mayor Azoulai gets his wish.

    The deliberate starvation the mass graves, Gaza is Auschwitz

    Tell Mayor Azoulai and all other Zionist supremacists, that one Holocaust does not permit another. Nothing does.

    Join the rally in your area

    https://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2024/10/03/nationwide-rallies-this-weekend-be-there/

    Nationwide rallies this weekend – be there!

    3Oct

    Nationwide Rally list to 6 October 2024

    To view events around Aotearoa:

    • Go to the PSNA Homepage – http://www.PSNA.nz

    • David 1.1
      4 October 2024 at 12:30 pm

      Hmmm, now that would be interesting, except for the fact that Auschwitz is in Poland, in the 1930’s Poland had no concentration camps.

      What you are referring to happened from 1941ish to 1945, while the Nazi German regime were exterminating the Jews and other people who they decided were to be exterminated.

      BTW – the Israeli armed forces have just released a young woman kidnapped by ISIS and held prisoner by Hamas for a number of years. These are the same people who also wish to exterminate all the Jews, along with any one else who they deem to be unworthy of living.

      • koina 1.1.1
        4 October 2024 at 6:42 pm

        Why is invading stealing and persecuting Palestine the answer to the holocaust?

        The White Western European Christians killed the 6 million Jews.

        Muslims had nothing to do with it.

        Why not invade Europe and beat up the Christians responsible for the holocaust?

        The British and Americans did nothing to help the Jews 1940-1944.

        The Poms and the Yanks did not go to Europe until the Russians had beaten the

        Germans and the Germans had been in full retreat for 500 days.

        They waited till the hated Germans had been routed by the

        Russians with the Russians suffering 20 million casualties .

        The Poms/Yanks waited till 6 million Jews had been killed and only then turned up

        The Poms and the Yanks couldn't care less about the Jews.

        The Yanks/Poms only went to Europe to stop the Russians reaching the Atlantic.

        Yanks are only in Israel to site a huge military base to dominate 400 mill Muslims

        Why did the Jewish God Yahweh let 6 million Jews die?

        Did Yahweh agree with the European Christians or is Yahweh just a myth?

        Why did Jesus Christ let the European Christians kill 6 million Jews?

        Did Jesus Christ agree with the holocaust or is Jesus just a myth?

        • David 1.1.1.1
          5 October 2024 at 6:53 am

          Koina, you need to write your posts before smoking weed… You keep writing the same ill informed rubbish about Israel and Palestine, your statements are disingenuous rubbish.

    • Subliminal 1.2
      4 October 2024 at 12:39 pm

      On the day of the Israeli terrorist attack on the Lebanese population, Dr Nour had the two parents and their baby in her surgery when the fathers pager went off. He reached into his pocket to check the message and it exploded. She ran out onto the street to stop an ambulance and noticed

      half a dozen men, maybe more, bleeding from their hands and crouched on the sidewalk or lying semiconscious, attended to by passersby…

      Across town, the chairperson of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), Eveline Hitti, was walking out of a training session when she spotted the first casualty of the day, a young man holding on to a mangled hand.

      “All of the first casualties that came in were all just carrying their hands wrapped with bloody towels,” she said. “Those were the walk-ins.” Then came the first ambulances “carrying the people who had eviscerated eyes who couldn’t self-transport.”

      “Usually in mass casualties, you have a small percentage that are really high acuity,” Hitti said. “These are the ones that you need to resuscitate, intubate or send straight to the operating room; you have the majority that you see and send home, and then the rest are people who can be admitted and taken care of operatively the next day.”

      In the attack aftermath, Hitti said, almost none fell into these last two categories.

      “All inevitably needed some sort of surgery with hands and eyes involved,” she said…

      Of the 160 patients who came into the emergency room, 140 suffered serious eye injuries. For almost two hours, AUBMC’s head of ophthalmology, Bahaa Noureddine, conducted triage among the waiting patients to see “which were the eyes that can be salvaged,” deciding which could wait and which were beyond hope. At 7 p.m., the first case was wheeled into the operating room. Noureddine and his staff of nine surgeons did not stop operating until midnight three days later.

      This was just one hospital in Beirut.

      There are three countries in the world that have the courage to stand with Palestine in opposition to the US sponsored, Israeli executed, genocide in Gaza. They are Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. We will be placed under increasing pressure in the West to not show solidarity with these countries as the US and Israel ratchet up the propaganda in their bid to escalate towards war with Iran. This has long been a neocon fantasy and they believe that the time is now.

      Standing with Palestine and turning out at the 1 year anniversary of the genocide in Gaza is a good way to show your abhorrence for what is occuring.

      https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/doctors-describe-the-horror-of-israels-pager-attack-in-lebanon/

  2. Descendant Of Smith 2
    4 October 2024 at 10:17 am

    WTF.

    Look forward to all the right wingers lambasting this waste of money, communist government policy.

    Oh wait – tis a capitalist government policy.

    The Government is set to unveil a radical new plan to underwrite construction of new private houses, with high interest rates and recession having made it tougher for developers to get finance for new projects.

    The new time-limited scheme is designed to de-risk developments, making finance easier to obtain for developers to start building,

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350439844/government-step-and-underwrite-new-private-house-building

    • SPC 2.1
      4 October 2024 at 11:07 am

      The easy bit

      Presumably this government is not concerned to obtain any share of the profit of the said developments (30 or more homes).

      Subsidising the risk and getting no share of the profit – gives government a bad name.

      The target beneficiary group – developers who have experience in larger developments.

      Two words. Land bankers (sometimes the developer already owns the land). Migrant workers (without work).

      Five words. Impact on smaller development projects (access to staff).

      Risk

      It could end up like the finance company thing of the late 2000's, if they have to bail out developments.

      Some larger developers going out of business, if they do nothing (crisis capitalism – a few will survive and grow). Some smaller developers going out of business instead.

      Reason

      1.Low rate of consents, because of the difficulty getting pre sales with interest costs high.

      2.Bishop wants more large scale greenfield action.

    • Mike the Lefty 2.2
      4 October 2024 at 11:11 am

      Yeah I heard an item on Midday Report in the last couple of days with some financial bonce moaning that the housing market hasn't yet recovered from its "slump ". Recovery, in their lingo, meaning going back to the good old days with exponential inflated rising prices and millions being made weekly.

      This would certainly aid a "recovery " wouldn't it.

      • SPC 2.2.1
        4 October 2024 at 11:28 am

        They incentivised landlords keeping their money in old builds, rather than new builds.

        Under Labour policy, landlords were being herded towards investment in new builds (to retain the mortgage cost deductability). Given their lower levels of debt, they would not have been deterred by the interest rates.

        This leaves a period where high interest rates is deferring buying off plans and deterring some developments.

        Lack of new supply would eventually push up prices (and of course rent).

        • Obtrectator 2.2.1.1
          4 October 2024 at 10:17 pm

          Anyone who buys off plans needs their head read. Even with wads of cash obtained thereby, developers too often don't deliver, and invoke the sunset clauses in the agreement asap. Meanwhile, unlike poor old Joe Purchaser, they've had use of said cash.

        • tWig 2.2.1.2
          5 October 2024 at 10:41 am

          Palmy Council in its 10 year plan consult earlier this year put up a proposal to become its own developer: a very sensible idea I 100% endorsed.

          [Palmy is PNth’s new moniker for council business, makes a change from ‘Rose City’ of a few decades ago].

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 2.4
      4 October 2024 at 12:38 pm

      Yea, a cosy crony capitalist scheme for sure….

      and "much more difficult in the current economic downturn" ? Pretty much sheets home to NACT1 !

      Developers often have to pre-sell a proportion of dwellings in any development in order to secure finance, which has become much more difficult in the current economic downturn.

      https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350439844/government-step-and-underwrite-new-private-house-building

    • Incognito 2.5
      4 October 2024 at 2:09 pm

      Privatise profits and socialise losses.

  3. tWig 3
    4 October 2024 at 10:27 am

    Trump brings out the weird in people, and the weird people out.

    A 2020 electoral clerk in Mesa County Colorado is jailed for nine years for alllowing an unauthorised person access to voting machines, and faking their authentication.

    "She also told the judge she can’t go to prison because she needs to sleep on a magnetic mattress, which she’s been using since 1995 to help with health conditions like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia."

    • weka 3.1
      4 October 2024 at 11:06 am

      did she think she wouldn't get caught, or that if she did get caught what she was doing wasn't so bad?

    • Mac1 3.2
      4 October 2024 at 2:05 pm

      These 'weird' people sure know their science! A magnetic mattress does not interfere with the use of aluminium foil caps.

      However, the same result that was found for the research conducted by Costello, see tWig at #4 below, "which found "no compelling evidence of any benefit from the use of heated tobacco products", was also the conclusion for the effectiveness of magnetic beds for treating fibromyalgia.

      I just listened to the judge giving sentence in the Denver court. Wow! 'Excoriating' was used in a headline. The judge certainly went to the heart of the matter- and exposed her as a charlatan, a liar, an oath breaker, self-centred, defiant and dismissive of the law, her superiors at work and of the constitution, breaking court orders and using the case as a pulpit for her lies, endangering the lives of her co-workers who received death threats and the very life of the democratic voting system which was denigrated in the eyes of many by her lies.

      9 years imprisonment, straight to jail, in her late sixties. Here's the judge's verdict beginning "You are no hero" in its entirety.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXqkOM5Vbbw

    • Jenny 3.3
      4 October 2024 at 4:00 pm

      tWig @3

      4 October 2024 at 10:27 am

      Trump brings out the weird in people, and the weird people out…..

      …..she can’t go to prison because she needs to sleep on a magnetic mattress, which she’s been using since 1995 to help with health conditions like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia."

      Meet the Nazi Hippies:

      Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline

      One minute you’re doing the downward dog, the next you’re listening to conspiracy theories about Covid or the new world order. How did the desire to look after yourself become so toxic?

      James Ball The Guardian Wed 2 Aug 2023

      https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/02/everything-youve-been-told-is-a-lie-inside-the-wellness-to-facism-pipeline

      ……she caught Covid and was hospitalised, and it was then that she realised something significant had changed: a friend from the group got in touch while she was on the ward. “I had somebody I considered a real best friend of mine on the phone telling me, no, I ‘didn’t have Covid’,” she says. “She was absolutely adamant. And I said: ‘Well, why do you think I went into hospital?’”

      The friend conceded that Jane was ill, but insisted it must be something other than Covid-19, because Covid wasn’t real. Jane’s hospital stay was thankfully short, but by the time she was sufficiently recovered and restrictions had lifted enough to allow her to rejoin her meditation group, things were very different.

      “They have been moving generally to far-right views, bordering on racism, and really pro-Russian views, with the Ukraine war,” she says. “It started very much with health, with ‘Covid doesn’t exist’, anti-lockdown, anti-masks, and it became anti-everything: the BBC lie, don’t listen to them; follow what you see on the internet.”

      …..'The “wellness-to-woo pipeline” – or even “wellness-to-fascism pipeline” – has become a cause of concern to people who study conspiracy theories.

      It doesn’t stop with a few videos shared among friends, either. One of the leaders of the German branch of the QAnon movement – a conspiracy founded on the belief that Donald Trump was doing battle with a cabal of Satanic paedophiles led by Hillary Clinton and George Soros, among others – was at first best known as the author of vegan cookbooks…..

      ….Thanks to wellness, QAnon is the conspiracy that can draw in the mum who shops at Holland & Barrett and her Andrew Tate-watching teenage son….

  4. tWig 4
    4 October 2024 at 10:44 am

    Debunking Conspiracies Aotearoa FB have a great summary of the Casey Costello documents just released, plus quotes from RNZ and TV news.

    'Among the Cabinet papers and advice provided to Costello, a health analyst at Treasury also referred to a review by the Health Ministry of the most up-to-date available research which found "no compelling evidence of any benefit from the use of heated tobacco products".

    "The World Health Organisation asserts that claims of HTPs as a smoking cessation aid should not be made. We would also advise caution in highlighting positive outcomes from moving from smoked tobacco to Heated Tobacco Products," the analyst said.'

  5. SPC 5
    4 October 2024 at 11:37 am

    To expand and place in context a post yesterday

    Once upon a time …

    the government charged a rate of return for any investment in new hospital buildings. This deterred any HB asking for such money, till … they all needed significant infrastructure investment at the same time. But, if they got it they could not afford to pay the return and still afford to provide their health service.

    The government asked a rather generous rate of return – higher than the cost of public debt. And thus they could lease out at that rate and attract an investment partner. The thing is this rate had a severe impact on the health system services – placed pressure on the HB budgets, and would do the same to Health New Zealand.

  6. SPC 6
    4 October 2024 at 12:22 pm

    Given leasing back hospital buildings is in the National-ACT agreement, this should be read with the ACT policy of applying this to school buildings in mind.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/529839/government-to-shake-up-bureaucratic-and-inefficient-school-property-system

    • dv 6.1
      4 October 2024 at 12:33 pm

      Oh lookie another govt dept to be set up

      • Descendant Of Smith 6.1.1
        4 October 2024 at 12:47 pm

        They can then sell off school land like they have in the past – or in some cases tried to but failed.

        • SPC 6.1.1.1
          4 October 2024 at 12:57 pm

          This is a building and land split.

          The land is an asset that rises in value, buildings need depreciation allocation for replacement.

          The old school land sale programme should never be repeated.

          It was based on the idea of the Ministry selling off surplus land assets to create a fund for new buildings. But in their greed to build the fund they were making poor decisions (based on flawed demographic forecasts). The consequences of this when applied to a region like Auckland would have been catastrophic.

          It was wiser for the land to be retained until there was evidence it was no longer needed (grows the value of the governments assets and enables lower borrowing cost) and fund buildings via public debt.

          My objection to ACT here, is that public debt is lower cost than leasing.

          • Stephen D 6.1.1.1.1
            4 October 2024 at 6:44 pm

            Set it up.
            Sell it.

            Another step towards a fully functioning privatised education system.

    • Muttonbird 6.2
      4 October 2024 at 1:16 pm

      Too many new school buildings are based on bespoke designs that exceed what is necessary for simple, fit-for-purpose, and functional facilities.

      Welcome to Soviet Russia, kiddies.

      Here's a demonstration of the malevolent lack of ambition this ideological government has for its citizens, and particularly its young people.

      The message is clear for state school students, you do not deserve a well-planned, uplifting environment in which you can fall in love with learning and realise your hopes and ambitions. All you deserve is a prefabricated rectangle dropped on the school field and a bit of cheap landscaping.

      For the most underprivileged, the signal is even louder, you already have a shitty home, and now you can have a shitty school too.

      I can't work out why these monsters are so, so mean.

      • Descendant Of Smith 6.2.1
        4 October 2024 at 4:27 pm

        Sometimes it is just like this.

        "Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
        Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
        Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage"

        All those things that can't be done any more – universal family benefit, Ministry of Works, 8 hour working day, 40 hour working week, stamp duty, death duties, higher taxation, rail transport, rural hospitals, urban hospitals, controlled immigration, going on strike, sector bargaining ………..

        If only we had a party that represented the interests of the poor and the working class, if only we decided that these things were good once again.

      • bwaghorn 6.2.2
        4 October 2024 at 7:30 pm

        Prefads for all except the government subsidized private schools and seymours pet projects!!

  7. Reality 7
    4 October 2024 at 12:40 pm

    Many of these ministers are like kids in a lolly shop running around hyped up and wanting to spend their pocket money (our taxes).

  8. SPC 8
    4 October 2024 at 1:35 pm

    Once upon a time an empire had colonies.They brought in slaves to work in them.

    They came largely from Madagascar and Mozambique. Britain took over the exploitation of the Chagos Islands in 1814, and continued to practice slavery there until its abolishment in 1835. With slave labour outlawed, British plantation owners brought labourers from South Asia, who mixed into the Chagossian population.

    One colony included the Chagos Islands and Mauritius.

    But to get independence Mauritius had to lose the Chagos Islands – so that those on Diego Garcia could be removed (to the UK, USA and Seychelles).

    To get the Chagos Islands back, Mauritius has agreed to a 99 year lease of Diego Garcia.

    A nice little earner presumably. The Chagossian population have been told they can live in the Chagos Islands, but not Diego Garcia.

    Those 99 year long leases (1897-1997), 2024- …. .

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98ynejg4l5o