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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 pm, October 2nd, 2015 - 49 comments
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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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Another tough day for America. When will they require even the most minimal of screening of Americans before they buy guns or ammunition?
Common this is a country that elected j w bush TWICE!! and has the chimp trump leading in the polls.
well, once anyway 🙂
Oh yeah the Florida thing .
And Barack Obama twice. What point are you trying to make here?
They call themselves leaders ,hell they still use miles and gallons just in case you needed more proof they’re idiots not to be trusted.
Hmm – and that’s only school shootings.
To be fair, I think that was a bullshit comparison for Obama to suggest for newspapers etc. I’m sure I’ve read a breakdown that shows or claims more people killed by falling furniture in the US than by terrorism.
But then, what with most fridges being white… – sorry –
best we don’t mention the number of people of colour gunned down by police over there either – too shocking, too nauseating.
Hmm. I don’t know the numbers, so not mentioning it, but can imagine that multiplying those numbers in the graphic together might not cover it for the same time period.
not a criticism from me Bill
“US police killings headed for 1,100 this year, with black Americans twice as likely to die”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/01/us-police-killings-this-year-black-americans
that was only to July…
Best way to deal with the issue would be for teachers to be trained in the use of fire arms.
fire arms – yeah super powers would help /sarc
you really are the thickest of the thick bm
Or for trolls to be trained in subtlety.
+1
Do you understand that a college is a university, often with 10,000 or more students, and about 1000 staff, not all teaching in front of a class…
To my knowledge this was not a shooting in a “classroom”.
Sadly we have the world you seem to want for us BM.
Yeah, great idea BM, make the teacher the first target of any nutbar looking to shoot up a school. I am sure the teachers would love that.
No ones going to be banning fire arms any time soon, so provide training for the people who’ll be on the front line.
Practical ideas are what’s required, not pie in the sky lefty nonsense.
lolz, says Mad Max.
What are you going to do with the thousands of existing teachers who are not suitable to be trained in firearms use. It’s not like everyone has the capacity to shoot another person in such a situation, even with training.
But hey, award for stupidest comment of the day goes to you 🙂
Know one knows what they’re capable of until they’ve either tried it or put in a situation where you have to do it.
The other option is for every school to have armed guards walking around during school time.
I believe one school that had such guards had a massacre anyway.
Tracey I heard the other night on Radio Live that home schooling in the US has gone through the roof in the past 10 years, parents too concerned for the kids safety are pulling them out of state education. It sounded like they the parents were getting something from govt to help with their costs as well. Obama was just saying that the US was the most advanced nation on earth – this was in a speech about the latest Oregon school slaying – the man must have rocks in his head – their society is as barbaric as the dark ages. I have family who live there and fear for their safety every day.
Yes I have exactly the same opinion too Barbara. Last year when I visited my cousin in Ohio I had this feeling I was entering a very sick society. When one votes as to whether or not to fund schools and local roads – when a visitor to the country is treated as a criminal from the moment they approach the border to the moment they leave – when everyone in the country and elsewhere is spied upon continuosly, and every department store has donation boxes for the poor (many of whom are their own workers earning around $7.00 per hour – if they are lucky), where only those who are wealthy can go to a doctor or hospital when sick or injured, you have to wonder what sort of society it is, and what the heck ever happened to “Social Justice”.
your options are idiotic sadmax
you are so like your hero key it is beyond funny
What sort of practical options could be taken right now.
You can’t ban hand guns, any changes in laws regarding fire arm control will take decades to go through, if they ever go through.
C’mon, genius what ideas have you got?
I pretty sure I’m just below genius level but thanks anyway.
As for your question – guess what – having solutions put by a turd like you in the south seas to a very intractable problem does ZIP – as if any solution from said turd (you) would even be considered – don’t you get that? You are just having a sadmaxfantasywank bud.
Lol, is that right cuz, what a typical leftie fuckwit, nothing but wank.
go and put your camo pajamas on and hit the sack, your time is up
Well if it takes as long as the Brady Bill took, they’d best get started asap.
I’m just imagining if school teachers were “trained” (read “armed”, because training is useless without the thing you’re trained in) what would have happened to that kid who showed his teacher a homemade clock and got arrested for … witchcraft or something, I guess.
BM’s solution to too many guns is more guns. What a fucking numpty BM is.
His comment is so worthy of ridicule that I suspect he is winding us up.
we can only hope 🙂
Some reading about guns in USA>
1. This article is interesting because apparently while fewer households have guns, sales of firearms remains strong. . “It’s not just fewer households with guns, but also that the households that have guns actually have more guns.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/a-losing-gun-fight-in-america/article23411490/
This opinion piece from 2012 gives an insight into the type of people buying guns.
“There’s a name for those gun buyers: Republicans. As the FiveThirtyEight blog noted Tuesday, the 2010 General Social Survey showed that 50 percent of adult Republicans owned guns, while only 22 percent of adult Democrats did. This gap in gun-ownership rates has swelled over the past 40 years: In the 1973 survey, 55 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Democrats had a gun at home. Polls suggest this gap will continue to widen: In the 2008 national exit polls, the percentage of Democrats with guns declined as the age cohorts grew younger, while the GOP rate of gun ownership was the same across all age groups. Increasingly, then, it’s our shrinking Republican minority that is buying guns.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-why-does-america-have-way-more-guns/2012/12/19/0c3038e8-494d-11e2-ad54-580638ede391_story.html
My god you’re actually serious!! I didn’t comment earlier because I thought you were having a stir.
You sir have been down graded in my opinion to that of a idiot who should be kept away from society.
Following that logic about who is on the ‘front line’ presumably all staff in cinemas – or just about anywhere else in America – also need such training?
It’s not confined to schools.
I suppose that would ensure that the first people the shooters took out would be the teachers.
So much for the pen being mightier than the sword.
Here’s the thing, kiwis like Americans have a national character, a personality.
I like to walk, its good for fitness, so being offered rides or being told that there is a bench nearby has nothing to do with good naturedness, but a kiwi notion that having a go, bit of social bravado or some might say bullying due to my overweightness…
Well in America its heaps stupidier, they teach mindless adoration of nickpicking social engineering, who sprout the latest negative attack on their fellow man and leafs all to many to take up arms in singular and final counter demand. Basically reaping what is sown, is how America lives. It could seed itself with nice human beings who look out for the oppressed or not.
Blah humbug.
Follow the money.
Gun manufacturing is a major US industry. They will make sure NO one legislates gun control.
Alcohol manufacturing is our equivalent of the American gun industry and why we do so little to curb alcohol abuse.
Follow the money . . . from producers to politicians’ pockets.
Then there is this awful graphic courtesy of the guardian
994 mass shootings in 1,004 days
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/oct/02/mass-shootings-america-gun-violence
Aren’t schools shootings terrorism?
Only if you use a plane to kill the students
John Key was quoted int he US in the last few days on the TPP
“the New Zealand prime minister said Canada is “negotiating as if there’s no election….”
Bear in mind that Canada is our biggest sticking point for dairy.
Now from a US perspective…
“But the peculiarities of trade promotion authority make it impossible for Boehner to be in the speaker’s office when TPP comes up for a vote. Under the law, even if trade officials announce an agreement today, they must provide notification to Congress, wait 30 days, and then post the deal’s text on a public website for an additional 60 days before signing. Then there’s another 30 to 60 days where the administration must submit the final legal text and describe what changes to U.S. law must be put into implementing legislation. Only after that does the congressional process start.
What this all means is that an agreement announced at the end of the ministerial meetings could not reach Congress until Feb. 1, 2016, at the very earliest. Trade expert Lori Wallach of Public Citizen puts the earliest possible date at Feb. 15. And these are based on very accelerated timelines that assume no slip-ups or delays when the legal text gets scrubbed…”
Read more here
http://www.salon.com/2015/09/29/the_unexpected_upshot_of_john_boehners_ouster_the_trans_pacific_partnership_is_in_danger/
Of interest to me is how Mr Mapp (and others) invoke the notion that it is because they are hard left that they oppose TPP, yet the Republican Party in the US is also opposes it, quite vehemently.
The acceptance of the TPP, if this weekend, will run bang smack into American electoral candidate squaring off in Feb/March next year…
Grant Robertson has released some interesting documents under the OIA. Surrisingly, the government is shown to have broken another promise. Quite an important one this time… where the money from assets sales would go. I note the release has come with JK out of the country, so Bill will be the front man.
“Treasury warned National that it could not meet its public promises on spending from the proceeds of asset sales, and this would lead to a $2 billion shortfall, Labour’s Finance spokesperson Grant Robertson says.
“Documents released to Labour under the Official Information Act show that officials warned ministers in February the Future Investment Fund – made up from asset sales revenue – would not be able to cover the raft of promises the Government said it would cover.
“Most New Zealanders hated the idea of asset sales. Now the Government is rubbing salt into the wound by not following through on their health and education spending commitments.
“After promising a billion each for health and education from the $4.7 billion of asset sale proceeds, the Government was advised that fulfilling that commitment would contribute to a $2 billion dollar blowout that would have to be covered from other areas or by deferring spending to later years.
“National has chosen to break yet another election promise. This is poor financial management, and it is misleading the public. ”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1510/S00018/govt-ignored-warning-of-spending-blowout.htm
It’s been quite the Friday dump by National…
Perata has flip flopped on how she might fund schools and drawn the scorn of
Principles; and
Teachers
But, what would they know about how schools could work better… and how students could get what they need.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/72651281/has-the-education-minister-gone-a-bit-rogue
One way that ‘students could get what they need’ in New Zealand in the 21st century, Tracey, might be to be given a good grounding in basic te reo and English spelling.
Parata, not Perata; principals, not Principles.
But as a teacher what would I know about how schools could work better…and how students could get what they need.
But as a teacher what would I know about how schools could work better…and how students could get what they need.
Training teachers in the fundamentals of syntax and grammar would also be of immense help.
Training commenters in the avoidance of tautology would also help.
when i watched shepherd mcully speak on our behalf at the security council,. i cringed.
he appeared like a year 8 reading a year 12s homework.
it was appalling … until..i saw our dear leader address the same body.
suddenly mcully aint so bad.
I can’t bring myself to watch.
For those in need of a hope and inspiration boost….coverage of the British Labour Party conference and, in particular, the Corbyn Leader’s address in full.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008108p