Open Mike 04/04/2017

54 comments on “Open Mike 04/04/2017 ”

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1. Andre 1

   4 April 2017 at 6:09 am

   Putin doesn’t even try to hide it: he wants to cook the planet.

   https://thinkprogress.org/putin-thinks-russia-will-benefit-from-climate-change-and-communities-will-adjust-35a2014c28b5
   • bwaghorn 1.1

     4 April 2017 at 7:03 am

     proves what i’ve thought for a while now, we (all of us) are incapable of doing the things needed , that is why i refuse to let it get me down ,” i’m just going to get my kicks in before the shit house goes up in flames.”
     • garibaldi 1.1.1

       4 April 2017 at 8:01 am

       You are showing your Democrat inspired Russophobia again Andre. The World is going to cook anyway, and it is more thanks to the West for that rather than the Russians. Also the rest of the World is not exactly doing anything to save the planet, so why the emotive “he wants to cook the planet”?
       Bear in mind that many NZer’s think NZ will be fine and dandy with climate change.
       Let’s face it, mankind is too stupid to save itself.
       • Andre 1.1.1.1

         4 April 2017 at 8:24 am

         Did you actually read the article? Or did you just see my name and topic and jump straight into the ad-homming, whataboutery, and excusing?
         • garibaldi 1.1.1.1.1

           4 April 2017 at 9:11 am

           I read the article.
           I also read Chris Trotter’s…..thanks Anthony.
       • Tricldrown 1.1.1.2

         4 April 2017 at 4:59 pm

         Speak for your self Garibaldi.
         Your spin doesn’t cut the mustard.
         You wouldn’t get a job in Pootins govt.
         5 eyes maybe as they can’t find terrorist’s just opposition politicians.
     • weka 1.1.2

       4 April 2017 at 12:11 pm

       “proves what i’ve thought for a while now, we (all of us) are incapable of doing the things needed , that is why i refuse to let it get me down ,” i’m just going to get my kicks in before the shit house goes up in flames.””

       Lots of people are doing the things needed. Please don’t give up, and please don’t become part of the problem.
       • bwaghorn 1.1.2.1

         4 April 2017 at 12:49 pm

         ”Lots of people are doing the things needed.”
         when lots of governments are doing the things needed i’ll revue my position.
         as for being part of the problem i guess i am 1/7 billionith of the problem.
         • weka 1.1.2.1.1

           4 April 2017 at 1:14 pm

           so you want others to change first? How will that work?
           • bwaghorn 1.1.2.1.1.1

             4 April 2017 at 1:41 pm

             No i want governments (and i’ve voted with this in mind ) to be leaders, it is their job to do what needs to be done . The problem with democracy is a nation can only do what the herd lets it do.
             It’s far too late to worry about how many km’s one drives or if they can donate a few trees,
             • gsays …

               4 April 2017 at 4:58 pm

               C’mon wags, never look to wellys for leadership.

               Especially from today’s poll driven, populist MPs.

               Just like supermarkets, they will follow where the crowd goes.

               It’s up to us to give them the direction they lack.
   • millsy 1.2

     4 April 2017 at 10:45 am

     Yeah, well the Russians havent exactly been paragons of environmental stewardship in the first place.

     For starters, they have thousands of Soviet-era industrial and miltary sites that are abandoned and have been leaching heaven-knows-what into the ground for the past 25-odd years, and I cannot imagine their current plants to be any better. I think there is one smelter in the Urals where the ground around it is literally dead.
   • mauī 1.3

     4 April 2017 at 1:38 pm

     Thanks for that Andre, climate change is all Russia’s fault I see and after all they rigged the US election such is the strength of these evil doers. Can we see some more fake news articles from “progressive” journos with high carbon lifestyles who don’t have to make any changes in their own life in order to save the planet.

     It’s also a bit weird that Russia signed up to the Kyoto and Paris climate agreements if all they want to do is “cook the planet”.
2. Anthony 2

   4 April 2017 at 7:57 am

   Excellent blog from Mr Trotter today! Absolutely worth a read.

   https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2017/04/the-ideology-that-dares-not-speak-its.html
   • weka 2.1

     4 April 2017 at 9:58 am

     Shall we flip a coin as to whether it’s Trotter on a good day or a bad day? 😉
     • Anthony Rimell 2.1.1

       4 April 2017 at 2:46 pm

       Heads you win, tails…
3. mauī 3

   4 April 2017 at 9:51 am

   Small introductory piece on Jack McDonald, no.9 on the Green Party list.

   (Don’t forget to turn on the subtitles button as it’s mostly in Māori)
   • weka 3.1

     4 April 2017 at 10:03 am

     nice one thanks. I’m happy he is so high on the interim list.
4. weka 4

   4 April 2017 at 10:00 am

   Is google fundamentally broken now? I did a search for a question about Firefox and the first hit was from 2007. Ffs. Yes, I can then limit it by time, but google for me at least is increasingly giving bizarre results. It also routinely crosses out my main search terms and gives me useless results.

   Follow up question, why has a better search engine not appeared?
   • Carolyn_nth 4.1

     4 April 2017 at 10:08 am

     I haven’t had such problems from google on firefox. I only get some search terms crossed out if only one or two of several terms don’t return hits in combination with the other search terms.

     I use dogpile (a search engine aggregator) as an alternative:

     http://www.dogpile.com/
   • AsleepWhileWalking 4.2

     4 April 2017 at 10:22 am

     I’ve often wished we could select the version of Google we are using. For me I’d select the algo from 2010, pre Panda/Penguin.

     Other search engines are worse.
   • BM 4.3

     4 April 2017 at 10:26 am

     https://duckduckgo.com/

     This is supposed to be quite good, I still use google though because I find the filtering algorithm very useful for what I do.

     https://duckduckgo.com/about
     • weka 4.3.1

       4 April 2017 at 11:30 am

       Tried that a few times, didn’t stick. Maybe I’ll give it another go.
     • Mrs Brillo 4.3.2

       4 April 2017 at 2:43 pm

       DuckDuckGo uses Google for its results, but anonymously. And does not save your search record, unlike Google.
       I use it as my main search engine.
       • weka 4.3.2.1

         4 April 2017 at 2:50 pm

         I think they must prioritise hits differently though, because I did the exact same search and got completely different results.
5. fisiani 5

   4 April 2017 at 11:02 am

   Chicken’s getting truly cooked in the High Court. How much will it cost Chicken? Does he have a spare $2,000,000?

   [stop trolling – weka]
6. Kay 6

   4 April 2017 at 11:05 am

   Support Living Payment cost of living increase for this year = a very generous 50c/week.
   No increase on disability benefit cap.
   No increase on accommodation supplement cap.

   A slight improvement on the 0c of the last 3 years, so we must grovel in gratitude I suppose. How much power can be purchased for 50c?

   It’ll pay for 1 whole tablet of my unfunded medication…

   This is why the annual Govt press releases announcing benefit rises are known as April Fools Day jokes. How else should we view them?
   • weka 6.1

     4 April 2017 at 11:26 am

     yaaaay!

     /sarc

     The Greens’ welfare policy is looking smart atm, and includes this,

     Protect welfare benefit levels by indexing rates to a basket of food, energy and housing price indices and legislating for a benefit level floor to ensure main benefits cannot fall below a fixed percentage of the average wage.

     via https://www.greens.org.nz/page/income-support-policy
7. charen 7

   4 April 2017 at 12:56 pm

   I would like to know who was advising [or more importantly was not advising] Little on the Hagerman case. Little makes some, shall we say, ‘ill advised’ comments attempting to implicate National but mud sticks and in this case it stuck to the Hagermans. The Auditor General finds no connection and it drags on for a year and at the last minute Little falls on his sword, offers a full apology and 100K in reparation, but ‘too little too late’ and it’s see you in court time for defamation. Really looks at this point to be a lose-lose situation as it drags through the courts and in election year. Surely this could have been handled better ??. Maybe something brilliant will come from this but right now I can’t see it. Please inform me if I am missing something.
   • Johan 7.1

     4 April 2017 at 1:20 pm

     Whatever happened to politicians speaking their mind under the protective umbrella of the beehive? The important question is, if someone makes an unusually large donation of some $100,000 plus to a particular party, does the donor expect something in return?
     When Kim Dotcom made donations of $500,000 towards the 2010 New Year’s Eve fireworks display, and a further $50,000 to Banksie’s political war-chest, did he have any expectations that John would help him out if/when needed???
     Is this court action merely a case of vindictiveness, and politically motivated? Have the Hagamans REALLY been disadvantaged by Little’s comments, and if so where is the proof?
     • LivinInTheBay 7.1.1

       4 April 2017 at 4:49 pm

       The problem was that National weren’t involved in awarding the contract. That was a trust board that a certain Mr Ardern was a part of.
       • Johan 7.1.1.1

         4 April 2017 at 5:21 pm

         Is it that difficult to join the dots between cronyism and political party donations/affiliations. Also what was Mr McCully’s part in this sordid affair?
8. mary_a 8

   4 April 2017 at 2:35 pm

   Now Bill English has got the Whitewash out of the way (courtesy of “independent” NZDF chief Tim Keating advising), I’m picking he can now concentrate on giving Andrew Little and Jacinda Ardern some stick, through the Hagaman court case. As far as I know, Jacinda’s father Ross Ardern, was on the Scenic Hotel trust at the time of the donation/contract. So English will have a double banger to play with here!

   Desperate Natz no doubt will see this court case as being heaven sent in election year, a diversion from the appalling decision by the PM to not hold an inquiry into the deaths of civilians resulting from the botched Afghanistan raids!

   God looks after his own eh Bill? We will see, we will see ….
   • tc 8.1

     4 April 2017 at 2:55 pm

     i thought the hollowmen had calmed earl down.

     This brings another dodgy deal back into the spotlight so it cuts both ways
     • saveNZ 8.1.1

       4 April 2017 at 4:50 pm

       Yep I think it’s good for Little either way. Rich fucker wins while dying in his grave, so the warning is that Kiwis get sued literally from the grave, if they complain about how our public money is spent and whether there is connection between political donations and subsequent large sums awarded to business.

       If little wins good news again. He strikes a blow for public accountability.

       The scary part is how bad are Little’s lawyers??? Surely if he made a settlement offer for what ever reason, it should have been privileged and not read out in court as though he thought he was guilty to the RWNJ’s ????

       I have zero faith in the confidence of NZ lawyers and the judiciary system in these cases.

       It took years and millions to find out that copywrite was not a criminal case for fucks sake in NZ in the Dotcom case, you can google it in 2 seconds! How the hell they can get those unlawful warrants to stick. Go police state, yeah!

       The Mike Pero case where he has to point out that the same lawyers should not be defending and prosecuting him! Not clear to the law firm apparently.

       I hate lawyers and have little faith that the courts will make the right decision.

       Over in the US at least they still have freedom of speech and they just called Trump every name under the sun, and guess what, it’s fucking true!

       In NZ we don’t even have freedom of speech anymore, it’s just another thing the Natz have taken from the people.
9. Carolyn_nth 9

   4 April 2017 at 3:58 pm

   I’m just reading a chapter in a book Moments of Truth: 2014 New Zealand General Election about the role of political blogs in the 2014 election. It’s pretty scathing about the roles of The Standard and The Daily Blog. The chapter is by Corin Higgs “Bloggers, bottom feeders and disruption: technology in the 2014 general election campaign”.
   p199 says thus:

   While Whale Oil and Kiwiblog allegedly practised ‘dirty politics’, the major blogs of the left, the Standard and The Daily Blog, perpetuated what can be called ‘hipster politics’. ‘Hipster’ is a term used to describe a subculture focused on self-image and individuality to perpetuate a feeling of elitism and superiority to others. Culturally, hipsters focus on music, clothing and activities that are outside a supposed ‘mainstream’. for example, a stereotypical hipster believes that a vinyl pressing of an obscure band’s first album is better than anything on commercial radio. The political hipster typically uses social media and blogs to insulate themselves from, and attempt to shame, those who do not possess their self-professed superior political and moral fiber.

   The tendency of the major left-wing blogs to engage in ‘hipster politics’ hindered their influence on the mainstream media, and, by extension their relevance to swing voters. Unlike their counterparts on the right, left-wing blogs provided little assistance to political parties in achieving their electoral aims.

   Whatever faults TS and TDB may have, this seems to me to be wide of the mark. I don’t see them as individualistic and focused on self-image. Surely that’s more in keeping with the likes of WO.

   Higgs is basically saying, right wing blogs are better than left wing ones because they are in the pockets of right wing parties. He ignores the evidence of Dirty Politics and attributes the success of WO and KB to their “gossipy, engaging style that provides a crossover appeal for the mainstream and requires little translation into political stories for mainstream journalists.”
   • Muttonbird 9.1

     4 April 2017 at 5:17 pm

     Corin Higgs sounds like a boring, middle-of-the-roader. Did it occur to him that every band is obscure before they are not obscure?

     I didn’t realise RWNJs felt so uncomfortable having their lack of compassion, and poor values, pointed out to them.
     • Carolyn_nth 9.1.1

       4 April 2017 at 5:47 pm

       Yews, he does seem MOR. And also, for him elections seem to be all about winning, and using populist media and social media strategies well to win arr fine by him.

       He praised John Key’s use of selfies as a winning strategy that seemed apolitical, and thus would appeal to a wide range of people, regardless of their political views.

       i.e. Key did quick walkabouts in public spaces, stopping just long enough for individuals to take selfies with him. This was very clever to Higgs, because it meant Key wasn’t making any political statements to people, just making himself available for picks to be posted to people’s personal facebook pages. These sometimes then got picked up by the mainstream media.

       So there seems to be no place for questioning the status quo for Higgs, or for making clear politicians and parties values and/or policies.
10. weka 10

    4 April 2017 at 4:17 pm

    Gareth Morgan‏ @garethmorgannz 30m30 minutes ago

    Capitalism’s great, soaring inequality isn’t.Higher min. wage is NOT the answer. UBI or similar is critical-Buffett

    With link to Warren Buffet vid.

    https://twitter.com/garethmorgannz/status/849104995966271489

    Does that mean TOP would oppose rises in the minimum wage, or a living wage? I’d tweet Morgan to ask, but last time I asked him a question he called me a troll, and this week he’s busy burning down his twitter account.
    • Carolyn_nth 10.1

      4 April 2017 at 4:26 pm

      The thing that puts me off Morgan and TOP, is his support, celebration even, of capitalism. Capitalism ensures inequality so he’s at cross purposes.
      • srylands 10.1.1

        4 April 2017 at 4:36 pm

        So you think Gareth should promote an end to capitalism? He is not going to make the 5 percent threshold with that as a policy. Also he and his chief of staff are trained economists. They embrace markets.
        • weka 10.1.1.1

          4 April 2017 at 4:57 pm

          No, I think that lefties shouldn’t vote for him.
      • weka 10.1.2

        4 April 2017 at 4:42 pm

        Yep. I reckon he’s a modern, neoliberalism version of those old school conservatives who wanted economic conservatism but supported social support to an extent. In that sense it probably worked better pre-neoliberalism, but I can’t see how it can work now. He comes across as having these radical ideas, but we know that neoliberalism can do radical. As you say there is a inherent conflict between the paradigm he works in and social justice and equity.

        I asked him about people on their UBI being worse off and got called a troll. Someone else asked a similar question about low income people and housing and got blocked. Other things I see is he tells people to read his book or he rattles off soundbites that require a higher level of economic literacy than most people have. He’s really bad at engaging, and when the surface of the ideas get scratched they often come up wanting.
    • srylands 10.2

      4 April 2017 at 4:33 pm

      Gareth is not a fan of minimum wages. He wants a UBI. Logically that would allow the minimum wage to be abolished or set at a very low level.

      http://morganfoundation.org.nz/raising-the-minimum-wage-more-evidence-on-how-nuts-our-welfare-regime-is/

      I do not know whether TOP has this as policy.
      • weka 10.2.1

        4 April 2017 at 4:58 pm

        So keep people on low minimum wage in the meantime? Why is that?
11. Shane Le Brun 11

    4 April 2017 at 5:06 pm

    A quick press release after the unhelpful comments by the PM on Medical Cannabis yesterday. http://auckland.scoop.co.nz/2017/04/current-medical-cannabis-regime-anything-but-compassionate/
12. saveNZ 12

    4 April 2017 at 5:10 pm

    Bill Nighy takes Robin Hood tax to the G20

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/nov/03/bill-nighy-robin-hood-tax-g20
13. Bearded Git 13

    4 April 2017 at 5:15 pm

    The RMA reforms are turning into even more of a nightmare for the Nats. Read here:

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11831570

    Will just ONE of the 59 of them develop a spine and vote against this developers charter?
    • saveNZ 13.1

      5 April 2017 at 10:55 am

      +1 Bearded Git
14. mac1 14

    4 April 2017 at 6:25 pm

    I don’t often hear commercial radio, so I can’t identify the opinion maker, but this afternoon I heard a male commentator talking about the twenty or so people who have signed a letter in favour of free speech in Universities,

    This commentator cited three signatories- Brash, Turei and Jones. He then later weighed in about how liberal lefties want to get rid of free speech.

    He carefully ignored two Labour politicians, Gould and Palmrer, who had signed the letter.

    He would have destroyed his own argument there and then.

    But it showed me why I don’t listen to commercial radio. Crap argument, crappy bias, crappy listening.
15. MJH 15

    4 April 2017 at 6:55 pm

    I’ve been a reader for several years, and this is (I think) my first comment. It’s taken me a few days to post it as I’ve been mulling it over. So…this wonderful website that has discussed and debated NZ issues is being undermined. It’s fine to temporarily stop comments from obvious right wing ninnies, but that is not what is happening. Far too often the divergent views of fellow critics of the established situation are censored or banned. There are a few of the website’s editors who are most inclined towards this — one in particular brings to mind a (generally quite endearing) large brown flightless and rather feisty creature. Do other readers agree??
    • Muttonbird 15.1

      4 April 2017 at 7:36 pm

      I disagree. Right wing ninnies as you put it are given a lot of rope here but they are deliberately slow to learn the policy.
    • Ad 15.2

      4 April 2017 at 7:37 pm

      Seriously if it’s your first time commenting, add some actual political substance to the discourse, instead of going down the “I hate X editor” route.

      Hopefully you know where that will end.
16. North 16

    4 April 2017 at 7:24 pm

    The Orange (Won’t Last Four Years) Buffoon with fantasies of dynasty. “Jared’s a good kid……” What’s happened to America ?

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