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notices and features - Date published:
6:30 pm, April 2nd, 2015 - 57 comments
Categories: open mike -
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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How would it work? Well, it is the Thursday before Good Friday. Did the government do a pre-long weekend dump?
Slump in dairy price. Winston points out poor economic management and planning.
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ckpt/ckpt-20150402-1719-govt_says_world_awash_with_milk-048.mp3
Probably not the best day to try it. I thought week days only and we should avoid holidays.
Today was an interesting day tho. Chris Hipkins tweeted that Paula Bennett attacked Carmel Sepuloni in the house and referred to her mum. If true …
Paula Bennett is a spiteful and vengeful bitch. Carmel is her superior in every possible way. I’m going to see if I can find it.
I had a look but the video is not clear. Chris Hipkins was pretty certain about it though …
https://twitter.com/chrishipkins/status/583449182716858368
Question no 11 for Paula Bennett , Minister for Social Housing. Her microphone was inactive so you can’t hear her on the video but the reaction from the Oppo. starts at the beginning of question 11 by Poto Williams.
http://www.inthehouse.co.nz/video/36555
Why did someone not raise a point of order and force Bennett to “withdraw and apologise”?
edit; the twitter responses are interesting.
Always worth giving it a go. Let’s see what this evening brings 🙂
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/26890747/family-target-of-alleged-racist-rant/
Still a few Neanderthals around – a woman this time.
That was on 3news tonight. It was awful.
From the vid in the link provided….
What’s with the fucking ‘allegedly’!? Were the neighbours, perhaps, not African? Is that the reason for the equivocation in the reporting? I mean, the video clearly show abuse being hurled.
edit – same ‘allegedly’ bullshit on TV3 newsclip. Is there a mental condition that prevents news-readers from stating the fucking obvious?
Needs to be found guilty by a court first else they can get a defamation suit thrown at them.
So… abuse cannot exist until and unless a court of law judges it has occurred? Nah. Abuse is abuse and sure, some abuse may also have legal consequences. That doesn’t prevent a spade being called a spade.
there was a reply to Weka that went something like….This fearful best be safe and couch everything as potential nothing (spit) ‘caution’ is fucking sickening.
but weka’s comment has disappeared…
sorry. It was pretty much what Draco said, so I deleted it. My bad.
tsk-tsk 😉
But that’s not the question – whether the abuse exists – it’s whether the woman charged committed the offence. If the sentence focused only on the abuse, the alleged wording could be omitted.
Alleged can also be avoided by quoting police, although that can sound clumsy too.
It might seem silly to you but it’s a convention that exists for good reason.
But they didn’t mention it in connection to an offence. If they had – to the effect that that an alleged offence had occurred – then sure, I accept they’d have to use the word ‘alleged’. But they didn’t. The report mentioned alleged abuse, not an alleged offence.
What do you mean they didn’t mention it in connection to an offence? The woman has been charged in respect of the incident.
Media cannot say people have engaged in this or that type of behaviour just as long as they leave out reference to the word offence.
Ergo. You watched the video, yes? And in the video a woman was hurling verbal abuse at others, yes? What the fuck you going you call it if you ain’t going to call it abuse?
Meanwhile, the same report (about 10 secs in) states as fact (no ‘allegedly’ or any of the rest of it) that it “ended in violence and a date in court”.
Now, how does this work that the racial abuse, that is clear for all and sundry to see and hear on the vid, is reported as ‘alleged’ while the violence is reported as cast in stone fact?
I have already said that if dealing with what happened (i.e abuse, violence), rather than who caused it, the word alleged can be omitted.
No it’s not perfect, but it’s a way of reporting events that will come before a court.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
Ah – okay, got you now.
Channel 9 did an altogether better piece of reporting on it, which I’m picking to be worth linking to.
intro
You are no doubt correct ER but sometimes it can be taken to absurd lengths – like in this clip. The worst of the foul language was beeped out, and she was brandishing a crow bar which she was clearly going to use if they hadn’t managed to wrest it off her. That’s blatant abuse with associated violent intention. So, I agree with Bill. Call it what it is and be done with it.
Looks like a sunny and warm weekend coming up. At this rate the weather stays warm, the shops selling winter gear will be looking at accummulating more stock!
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/you-re-in-surprise-weather-treat-weekend-6276318
(I wasn’t counting on doing the evening shift on The Standard but hey …)
I just got an email out from Kauri Sitter Michael Tavares. I’ll post the whole thing below (sorry, I don’t know if it’s online somewhere to link to), but basically he’s saying that he’s met with a number of MPs this week who have committed to listening to stories from people around the country about battles over saving trees and other community issues.
26,000 NZers signed the #saveourkauri petition. Tavares is hoping this is going to spark work on protecting the RMA so that it’s easier to protect the environment.
He’s also asking people to email in their stories and pictures of their trees, what they mean to people and the community they exist in. I’m not sure if it’s ok to post his email address here so will try and find somewhere online.
Bet me to it!
Here it is:
[Edit – Weka bet me to it!]
I met Michael. He is a really nice guy and very intelligent. I hope the Greens think about putting him in Parliament because the world needs more passionate young people in power.
Cheers micky.
Do you think it’s ok to put the email address here? Tavares has his own email address on his website, but it’s not the one asking for people’s stories.
Michael is not too shy so yep!
People can send stories and images about trees and the communities they live in to thewildernerd@hotmail.com
Press release about the MPs Tavares met with and the pledge they have taken
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ew-yYnOiumEsnIpgiII7IqOztPAqsFlKKb1RiLlI9zA/edit
And if you want a completely selfish reason for trying to save trees they may be our best chance of getting through climate change alive …
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150330122352.htm
Ae, can’t believe how many trees we are still chopping down in NZ. It’s like people don’t make any connection.
A good 8 or 9 very mature macracarpas felled around the corner by the lines company. I’m sure they could have pruned them instead of felling them.
And for the 20km or so into town, trees regularly felled and chipped – not even taken as firewood to be given away – for supposed safety reasons. The fact that the steep bank, that has houses on top and a road beneath, has much less holding it up and back is not, apparently, a safety issue.
50m of very broad hedgerow that gave wind shelter to farm animals and provided a habitat for however many wild creatures – gone in an afternoon of zealous digger activity for no apparent reason at all.
I have always understood that “very mature macracarpas ” as you describe them have a relatively short life span after which they are quite likely to fall without warning.
A golf club I belonged to had to remove quite a lot of very large trees because they were becoming increasingly dangerous. Some of them had started to fall on the course without any apparent warning signs and an arborist said that a large percentage of them had reached the very unsafe stage.
These trees have recently been causing problems in the Wellington area, as the example referenced below illustrates.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/66644544/Cancellations-after-Wellington-train-hits-tree
That’s mismanagement then. Everyone knows trees don’t live forever, so the solution is to manage the trees we have alongside planting new ones. It’s not rocketscience.
People that came before us knew to plant trees, how come we don’t?
Even in paradise there are arseholes
http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/67549460/Felling-of-totara-divides-community
My only slight worry about the michael email above is that I hope we don’t just focus on megaflora – the big old trees (which absolutely must be saved every time) and not also stop the multiple felling of younger smaller trees. It is easy to save the whales (relatively) but harder to save snot-nosed spiders if you know what I mean.
In the last two years I’ve seen 300+ trees on just two farms in the king country, sheep and beef farmer s doing good stuff
I would imagine farmers are on the wrong side of the tree ledger but there is still time for them to help save the world by planting trees. Be good if they all said, “we’ll take 10% of our farm today and dedicate it to non-cutdownable tree planting. I’d be happy for it to be a mixture of endemic, fruit, nut and other trees as long as they were sustainably useful.. This project could be government funded thus providing some jobs where they are needed, plus work for PD workers, income for educators, seedling growers, manure or compost makers, horse shitpickerupers, wormfarmers, sustainability experts and so on. The 10% could be all around the farm and thus provide shelter for animals, windbreaks, erosion control and so on. Local children could be invited on to plant and maybe even a tree-planting festival each year to bring the community together. THAT is what the farmers should do imo instead of letting the rivers and land deplete and go to ruin. Not much time for farmers to get on the goodperson side of the equation – if they don’t start doing it now they’ll be grouped with bankers and advertising execs when the revolution comes 🙂
+1 Marty
We just need to establish an economic incentive for them to profit by doing the right thing. An ETS where the carbon price was realistic would do it. Then they could profit while the world’s environment survived …
The government needs to lead this and fund it – I don’t agree that providing a profit motive for farmers is the way to go – that is how we have got this terrible worldwide problem, that is one of the major causes of it. No! The days of creating private profit from the ‘commons’ has to end and end yesterday. But sure I’d support a 3 year transition phase 🙂
I just wanted to balance the negative a bit if you ever get a chance drive through the king country in soom paddocks you can’t see the woolies for the trees. The council provides many popular s to farmers each year. ( not sure if they charge)
It’s a proven fact that stock grow better if they have shelter .
As for the fools clearing there trees there grubby little fools.
I know and I appreciate your comments and thoughts. I’m in GB and I’ve seen this cutting down for the irrigators and it breaks my heart.
I’ve just read an article on coppicing poplars for stock food in droughts. These farmers have seen that trees have more value than simple aesthetics, shelter or fire wood even.
http://www.nzffa.org.nz/farm-forestry-model/resource-centre/farm-forestry-association-leaflet-series/no-22-poplars-and-willows/
@ marty mars
Have you followeed the work that Dick Roberts did in Nelson region on how to plant ranges of trees of all types, after doing a survey of the controus of the land.? Even frosty places can manage sub=tropical trees if grown on the sheltered north side of a hill.
no but I’ll google it tomorrow – thanks grey – I’ve always liked the idea of being a johnny Appleseed type.
My Uncle farmed in the King Country and worked closely with local iwi on regenerating native bush on his land. his son began a nursery on the farm to propagate. When he died at the age of 88 he was buried in a cardboard coffin and asked everyone to go to where they live and plant a tree. he also fought in WWII.
My most favourite Uncle and human being of all time. I still miss him.
Btw, I do like the photo that accompanies this new post. Trying to figure out which author it is supposed to be. Is it TRP perchance? 😛
Nope he is not that pretty …
I dunno, I remember him enlightening us once about how good looking he is………..
And for the real night owls… 😉
“Democracy v Psychology: why people keep electing idiots”
http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2015/apr/02/democracy-psychology-idiots-election
John Keys popularity explained.
Of course, he was hand picked for his “oh shucks” qualities after Brash turned out to be unelectable.
I quite like this idea. Sometimes the other post is unmanageable by this time of night.
The morning after. Good Friday.
That was pretty good last night as a first go.
I was attracted to contributing on a fresh post when it was early evening.
Enjoyed reading the comments, e.g. Bill’s, and the exchanges, e.g. Anne and mickysavage. Nice also to see others around!
Rangers FC have today announced delisting from the stock market.
This second version is destined for liquidation and that cannot come too soon.
They are a sectarian hate filled club that has no place in modern civilised society.
The de-listing won’t change anything, fisiani, apart from the ability to publicly trade shares. Years of financial mismanagement and dodgy leadership at board level have knackered the club. It would be terrific if the Scottish FA simply assumed effective ownership of the name Rangers FC and sponsored the setting up of fan owned entity on the German model.
Re: the sectarianism, one of the interesting aspects of the situation is that fan groups at Celtic are reasonably sympathetic to the plight of Rangers fans. It’s not them that have bought the club down and what has happened at Rangers could easily happen to any club in Scotland (or England for that matter). And even an auld bhoy like me can work out that the SPL is a better competition with Rangers in it.
Sounds just like the National Party.
They are a sectarian hate filled party, that has no place in modern civilised society.