Open mike 04/07/2015

34 comments on “Open mike 04/07/2015 ”

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1. AsleepWhileWalking 1

   4 July 2015 at 8:39 am

   EU open about overthrowing the Greek government.

   http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/34373

   The Deutsche-Wirtschafts-Nachrichten is reporting that the head of the EU and Merkel are now openly calling for the overthrow of the Greek Government. It is their way or no way. To defend a failed Euro, they will not tolerate any democratic process that disagrees with their vision of a federalized Europe. This is World War III, just in economic domination coming from Brussels.

   The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, has stated that holding new elections in Greece is now mandatory when the people vote for the reform program of the creditors. He insists that any relief for the Greeks, which is blackmail keeping their banks closed, will be bridged with a technical transitional government until elections are held that approve only their candidates, and that this will be a requirement of further negotiations. “If this transitional government is a reasonable agreement with the donors, then Syriza time was over. Then Greece has another chance, ” said Schulz. This is outright dictatorship for not a single member of the Troika is elected by the people including the head of the IMF Christine Lagarde.

   We have been forecasting a Crisis is Democracy would emerge by 2015.75 back at our 1985 conference. This is just how all societies collapse. Unfortunately, well – it is here.
   • Draco T Bastard 1.1

     4 July 2015 at 2:17 pm

     This is how entire countries get turned into the serfs of the rich and powerful.
2. jenny kirk 2

   4 July 2015 at 8:57 am

   Today’s Herald – confirming the Nats will sell off NZ’s state housing to the lowest bidder overseas if they think it necessary :

   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11475449
   • Chooky 2.1

     4 July 2015 at 9:57 am

     +100 …this is one of the most disgraceful things this jonkey nact government is doing…
3. Paul 3

   4 July 2015 at 9:17 am

   Further evidence of the damage neoliberalism has done to New Zealand.
   And they knight the people who did this to the country.

   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11475538
4. greywarshark 4

   4 July 2015 at 10:06 am

   The News Daily Contrast:

   http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/277739/govt-pledges-funds-for-space-project
   AUT and Victoria University are working on the Square Kilometre Array, in which two telescopes will survey the sky more than 10,000 times faster than ever before….
   [NZ]It earlier committed up to $1.6 million on the pre-construction work.
   The two telescopes will be in Australia and South Africa, with construction scheduled to begin in 2018 for initial observations by 2020. The project’s estimated cost is $3.27 billion….
   “It’s got 11 countries in it and we’re up there – New Zealand is up there, actually as one of the most critical providers in the signal processing and the science data processing work.”

   Perhaps we can form a group of coutries to fund and assist in providing a safe place in the world for the refugees, the displaced people from countries messed about from other, usually wealthier countries, often with very high-tech equipment and other materiel?

   http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/277735/refugees-still-pleading-for-nz-help
   [Mr Hassan, one of the refugees turned away from Australian waters] He said he had sent a request to the New Zealand embassy.
   “Give us just a chance for resettlement there and for a safe and peaceful life for us.
   “We request that. After that we don’t get any reply.”
   • Draco T Bastard 4.1

     4 July 2015 at 3:12 pm

     Perhaps we can form a group of coutries to fund and assist in providing a safe place in the world for the refugees the displaced people from countries messed about from other, usually wealthier countries, often with very high-tech equipment and other materiel?

     We don’t actually have the resources to do that.
5. greywarshark 5

   4 July 2015 at 10:39 am

   Can we have the Weekend Social post put up now?
   • r0b 5.1

     4 July 2015 at 10:47 am

     OK sure! Never sure if it gets enough traffic to be needed every week…
     • greywarshark 5.1.1

       4 July 2015 at 10:51 am

       Ta r0b
       I thought I would start putting things about nostalgic NZ up or NZ perspective, when I can.
       A search for ‘what are we’ focus rather than a ‘what do we stand for’ as used in the flag beat-up, which is more nebulous.
6. greywarshark 6

   4 July 2015 at 10:56 am

   Jetstar talking with airports about bringing prices down so it can come to NZ and be competition for Air NZ. If airports decide they will lower costs, why couldn’t they do that to persuade Air NZ to keep coming?
   • greywarshark 6.1

     4 July 2015 at 11:45 am

     Thinking further about Jetsar and goody, goody more competition, cheaper flights, more flights.

     We need to think strategically, not go after the easy cheapest option. It will allow Qantas into NZ to undermine our national airline and all their sweet friendly talk should not lull us into forgetting that they will empty our pockets like highwaymen, if it suits them. It’s happened before as mentioned in this Radionz piece.
     http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/276650/jetstar%27s-regional-flights-%27could-be-short-lived%27

     Aviation commentator Peter Clark said he has seen this story before.
     “We’ve already seen the Qantas colours on regional New Zealand. We’ve seen Origin Pacific, we’ve seen Ansett New Zealand all on the regional markets, you know we’ve seen a lot of casualties,” he said.
     “There’s only so many passengers you can carry out of these regions, regional infrastructure is expensive and it’s hard to establish and to be able to offer frequency to these regions is going to be hard.”
     Mr Clark said Jetstar had the deep pockets of Qantas behind it and was also relying on community demand to support them.

     The economic development agency for New Plymouth Taranaki Venture said competitive prices would not be enough.
     Its chief executive Stuart Trundle said it welcomed investment but wanted a durable service.
     “Are we talking about new destinations, are we talking about different timetables, because if all it’s doing is going head to head with the incumbent service from Air New Zealand then that economic impact won’t be that significant.”

     Jetstar will meet with airports, local government, business and tourism representatives before announcing its new destinations in September.
     The first flights are due to start in December.
7. ankerawshark 7

   4 July 2015 at 11:11 am

   My mistake to watch the Nation this morning. Note to myself “don’t bother to do that again – remember its propaganda”.

   Stephen Joyce left unchallenged by Goebbels, opps I mean Gower. No questions about how the rock star economy was really just National’s good luck or what they had actually done to diversify the economy (as Labour campaigned to do).

   Then Ron Marks interview merely an attempt to make an opposition party look fractured and stupid.

   Then Simon Wilson of Metro saying he felt sorry for Stephen Joyce (perhaps Metro need a bail out a la Mediaworks???) Simon I expect better from you!

   Then Goebbels (opps there I go again, Gower) sewing it up by warning Labour not to criticize the Govt’s reliance on dairy as they’ll look negative.

   All sewn up………………….All the opinions including on this site about what Little et al need to do to win (and no disrespect to those opinions) but with a media like this we are f…ked.
   • Charles 7.1

     4 July 2015 at 11:28 am

     There’s something over on the TDB I can’t yet bring myself to read, by Chris Trotter, about how Labour should “stay bland to win” – or so the title might suggest. I value my low blood pressure.

     Now what did your last sentence mean? Couldn’t understand where The Standard opinions fitted into the general media context. Did they comment on Mandy Hagar’s letter?
     • ankerawshark 7.1.1

       4 July 2015 at 2:53 pm

       Hi Charles,

       No reference to the Standard and the pieces written on what Little should do to win.
       Just my own very pessimistic opinion having watch The Nation, that whatever Labour or any opposition party does we don’t have a chance. This is because the whole programme was completely slanted to make National and what they are doing look good and the Opposition (s) look bad. Sorry if I didn’t make that clearer.

       Just my opinion of course and I would love to be wrong about this.
       • Charles 7.1.1.1

         4 July 2015 at 3:36 pm

         Ok I understand now. My take would be that the way National are accelerating down a steep slope of unjustifiable actions using values even their supporters can’t afford to hold on to and stay in business, they will soon begin a descent from popularity. This doesn’t let Labour off the hook of being a coherent party of course, but A. Little’s reply to Mandy Hagar sort of confirmed that he had no intention of sitting quietly on his hands. Some of her ideas were considerably “radical” compared to center-right policy direction/methods, so it should be fun to watch later on – win or lose.

         The relevance of TV news/current affairs are becoming increasingly detached from my everyday life and I often wonder who else has noticed.
8. ankerawshark 8

   4 July 2015 at 11:11 am

   [Duplicated comment. Content deleted but leaving ‘framework’ of comment up lest all the nesting and numbering goes to hell in a wheelbarrow.] – Bill
   • greywarshark 8.1

     4 July 2015 at 11:38 am

     rOb
     Could you remove this duplicate of Ankerawsharks comment. It would help the readability of the post.
9. greywarshark 9

   4 July 2015 at 11:30 am

   What if the government is thinking they might sell Air New Zealand to Qantas or a major part of it? We don’t want Aussies to siphon any more money out of NZ on top of all the bank profits and the supermarket profits from selling our basic groceries to us!

   What are we? Stupid, simple, weak-minded, like rich kids getting everything they want handed them on a platter while someone else pays? Like city kids who don’t know where food comes from, how anything is made? Who want to have shops open all the time so they can buy stuff from overseas that is cheaper than we can make it? But where is the money coming from to do so, where are the jobs enabling people to earn spending money? Where is the pleasure in life when you have to work any hour any day when ordered? The very thing that Parnell acted to stop from the first colonisation. The cracks in this mendacious economic system are showing, but it’s okay for most they haven’t yet fallen through and broken themselves in the process.

   When are we going to get a sense of practicality, of understanding the maintaining of a balanced economy centred on NZ being strong. Exporting shouldbe part of the economy, not the whole then paying other countries to supply our needs as well as wants. How weak and stupid is that, making us so vulnerable because we have lost so many of our skills and practices and normal businesses to supply basic everyday needs from our own sources. Small business providing jobs and local money sacrificed to big business that doesn’t need big labour and a diversity of jobs.

   Where are our jobs you jokers in government?? Who have you been following like sheep all these years? And by the way, where are the real sheep now? Why aren’t we able still to have a well-run sheep meat and wool business which once was an important part of our agricultural sector? It’s poor business practice from all concerned, tunnel-vision thinking, a desire to go after the Next Big Thing that is the problem with our leading decision makers. It’s abandonment of the interests and rights under the democratic system of the majority of New Zealanders.
   • Chooky 9.1

     4 July 2015 at 6:07 pm

     +100 greywarshark
10. Enough is enough 10

    4 July 2015 at 1:57 pm

    From The Herald “Last April, the (US) Department of Defence announced military recruits would start using athletic shoes 100 per cent made and manufactured in America, in recognition of a law Congress passed in 1941 requiring the department give preference to American-made goods”.

    Not after the f’ing TPP they won’t.
    • Molly 10.1

      4 July 2015 at 8:23 pm

      On the topic of shoes and war…

      Last week was reading “War Is a Racket” written by Major General Smedley Butler in 1930. Youtube reading by Jules Harlick here.

      “But here’s how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.

      Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought — and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.

      There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn’t any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it — so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet. “
11. Charles 11

    4 July 2015 at 3:26 pm

    Warawara, Pureora, Okarito

    Guvment Agencies

    Have given Private Enterprise

    Permission for to strip

    And rip-off Kauri, Totara,

    Kahikatea for to supply

    Timber for million-dollar

    Yachts and mansion

    Bastards:

    Stop your raping of the land.

    Fuck off.

    Hone Tuwhare, 1978.

    An unusual boy read these words, unexpectedly, tucked up in bed with a huge volume of NZ poetry; gripped by the intensity of the poet’s passion and violence toward a higher power. Until then he had no idea you could swear poetically and be taken seriously – you weren’t allowed! Weren’t you? It was a turning point.
    • marty mars 11.1

      4 July 2015 at 5:10 pm

      + 1 Nice post
    • joe90 11.2

      4 July 2015 at 5:59 pm

      It is Saturday night.

      Rain-maker’s Song for Whina

      I’ll not forget your joints creaking as you climbed into
      the bus at Victoria Park to bless the journey.
      When you broke down in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer,
      I thought that what you left unsaid hung more tangibly
      uncertain above us all that some intangible certainty
      that we would all get a comfortable berth in the
      hereafter.

      Saint Christopher in the rain at night, just before Mangamuka
      Gorge. People wearing Saint Christopher badges getting
      off the bus and helping to put an overturned vehicle right
      side up. No one hurt. I finger the cheap badge you gave me
      of the saint. Will it be all right?

      A couple of days later in bright sunshine, we hit the road
      Leaving Te Hapua behind. And all the way South – to the
      ‘head of the fish’, I picked up some hard truths embedded in

      Your hilarious speeches on the marae:

      No more lollies! We been sucking the Pakeha lolly
      for one hundred and fifty years.
      Look at what’s happened. Look at what we got left.
      Only two million acres. Yes, that’s right. Two million

      acres out of sixty-six million acres.
      Think of that. Good gracious, if we let them take what
      Is left we will all become taurekereka. Do we want that?

      So you listen, now. This is a sacred march. We are
      marching because we want to hold on to what is left.
      You must understand this. And you must think of your
      tupuna. They are marching beside you. Move over, and
      make room. We are not going to Wellington for nothing.
      And don’t be mistaken: Kare tenei hikoi oku, he hikoi
      Noa-aha ranei-ki te miri-miri i nga poara Te Roringi.

      E, Kui! What a way to bring the ‘House’ down. You could not
      have lobbed a sweeter grenade. I’m all eared into you,
      baby . . . Kia ora tonu koe.

      Hone Tuwhare
      • Molly 11.2.1

        4 July 2015 at 8:34 pm

        … and today just discovered that pitiful consultation for this Te Ture Whenua Māori Reform Bill has just taken place a la Climate Change consultation.

        Although it involves changes to Maori Land legislation, the Maori Land Court has only be advised on the tail end of the legislation discussions and were not involved in the drafting of the legislation.

        The reasoning behind the Bill is apparently that Maori Land has a potential economic benefit of $8 billion that is not being realised, and these changes will facilitate that realisation.

        To those of you with a greater grasp of political history and legislation may be able to outline what pitfalls there may be in these changes.

        Already, the Maori Land Court have identified difficulties in the streamlined succession proposal – as far as I am aware.
    • Chooky 11.3

      4 July 2015 at 6:06 pm

      +100…like it!
12. rawshark-yeshe 12

    4 July 2015 at 4:52 pm

    to read and weep …..

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste

    Black seabirds circle high above the giant concrete dome that rises from a tangle of green vines just a few paces from the lapping waves of the Pacific. Half buried in the sand, the vast structure looks like a downed UFO.

    At the summit, figures carved into the weathered concrete state only the year of construction: 1979. Officially, this vast structure is known as the Runit Dome. Locals call it The Tomb.

    Below the 18-inch concrete cap rests the United States’ cold war legacy to this remote corner of the Pacific Ocean: 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive debris left behind after 12 years of nuclear tests.

    Brackish water pools around the edge of the dome, where sections of concrete have started to crack away. Underground, radioactive waste has already started to leach out of the crater: according to a 2013 report by the US Department of Energy, soil around the dome is already more contaminated than its contents.

    Now locals, scientists and environmental activists fear that a storm surge, typhoon or other cataclysmic event brought on by climate change could tear the concrete mantel wide open, releasing its contents into the Pacific Ocean.

    “Runit Dome represents a tragic confluence of nuclear testing and climate change,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who visited the dome in 2010.”

    and later

    “We asked the Americans, are you going to put a sign on the dome that says ‘Don’t come here because you might get exposed’?” he said.

    “Our president asked: ‘Are you going to put a sign up so that the birds and turtles also understand?’”

    The US has never formally apologized to the Marshall Islands for turning it into an atomic testing ground. When the UN special rapporteur on human rights and toxic waste, Calin Georgescu, visited the Marshall Islands in 2012 he criticized the US, remarking that the islanders feel like ‘nomads’ in their own country. Nuclear testing, he said, “left a legacy of distrust in the hearts and minds of the Marshallese”.

    “Why Enewetak?” asked Ading, Enewetak’s exiled senator during an interview in the nation’s capital. “Every day, I have that same question. Why not go to some other atoll in the world? Or why not do it in Nevada, their backyard? I know why. Because they don’t want the burden of having nuclear waste in their backyard. They want the nuclear waste hundreds of thousands miles away. That’s why they picked the Marshall Islands.”

    “The least they could’ve done is correct their mistakes.”
    • Bill 12.1

      4 July 2015 at 5:37 pm

      The site that reporting comes from looks kinda interesting. Haven’t had time to check it out properly yet.

      http://thegroundtruthproject.org/
13. Chooky 13

    4 July 2015 at 6:03 pm

    ‘‘No more looting’: Thousands rally across EU to express solidarity with Greece’

    http://rt.com/news/271582-europe-greece-rallies-support/

    “Thousands of people have flooded the streets of EU cities in mass demonstrations expressing solidarity with Greece ahead of this weekend’s referendum on a cash-for-reform deal with its Troika of creditors….
    • Chooky 13.1

      4 July 2015 at 6:34 pm

      ‘Greek solidarity protests across Europe ahead of referendum LIVE UPDATES’

      http://rt.com/news/271468-greece-solidarity-protests-europe/
14. mickysavage 14

    4 July 2015 at 8:29 pm

    On a slightly apolitical subject all that I would like to say is …

    GO THE EFFING HIGHLANDERS!
    • r0b 14.1

      4 July 2015 at 9:56 pm

      And go they did.
15. Atiawa 15

    4 July 2015 at 10:14 pm

    Another royal visit planned later in the year. This time Charles & Camila. We love royalty, don’t we?. Key though sends a lowly ranked Minister as representative of his government for the coronation of new king Tupou V1 of Tonga.
    The arrogance of this government is embarrassing. Super rugby final more important?

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