Open mike 05/03/2011

34 comments on “Open mike 05/03/2011 ”

• Comments are now closed

1. aj 1

   5 March 2011 at 7:52 am

   Clicks and mortar.

   An interesting interactive graph of global hose prices.

   http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/10/global_house_prices
2. ron 2

   5 March 2011 at 7:57 am

   Over the years there has been a lot of discussion among community/ethnic broadcasters over the efficacy of funding. Community access broadcasters have always advocated funding local access station with a variety of programming which cater to local communities. Various empoire builders, however, have advocated national broadcasters. Thr problem with these broadcasters is, of course, that they’re based in Auckland and although they are often better rsourced the end up being an Auckland broadcaster, alienating local audiences.
   There was a failed attempt at a national Maori radio station before the Iwi stations kicked in. The “Youth Network” has mercifully never got off the ground. There is prssure to set up a national Chinese station at the moment. Niu FM is the national PI station.
   Meanwhile local access broadcasters do the local business – underfunded and often ignored in broadcasting policy discussions and supported by the communities for whom the provide broadcast facilities.

   So we get to Chch. Huge numbers of PI struggling to get information and suppoprt. ht does Niu FM do to help? Broadcasts contact numbers. They can’t do any more than that of course because they’re trapped in format and bbased in Auckland.
   What a shame there couldn’t have been an effort by authorities to help Plains FM get back on air to provide a proper information service to the 17 language communities it supports. As was suggested after the Sept. quake.
3. Adrian 3

   5 March 2011 at 8:49 am

   I’m looking for some research resources ( prefer links rather than books, times limited ) to put together a tutorial on dogwhistling and discourse controlling language particularly on health issues among minorities. Can anyone please point me in the right direction?
4. joe90 4

   5 March 2011 at 10:03 am

   The Onion: Congress names the official US language.
   • ianmac 4.1

     5 March 2011 at 10:17 am

     Where did John Campbell get trained? 🙂
5. pollywog 5

   5 March 2011 at 10:21 am

   Remember this rip off scumbag preying on vulnerable Pasifikans ?

   >Mike Neil Molan, 40, has pleaded guilty to one charge of forgery and one charge of misleading an immigration officer after a sting at his company’s offices and related Auckland-based immigration consultants.

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4641619/Workers-duped-left-to-starve

   well now he’s been sentenced and sheeeit did he get the book thrown at him !!!

   Molan, 40, was yesterday sentenced in the Hamilton District Court to 10 months’ home detention after pleading guilty to one charge of forgery and one charge of misleading an immigration officer.

   but here’s the rub…

   Otorohanga man Michael Neil Molan has now offered to become a Crown witness after he was implicated in a scheme which resulted in abandoned Fijian workers ending up so hungry they had to forage through maize fields for food

   A key player in an immigration scam in which Fijian workers paid thousands of dollars for bogus New Zealand work visas, claims he was drawn into the rort by others.

   Although Molan did not mastermind the immigration scam his involvement was necessary and crucial to the scheme’s success.

   Molan’s explanation that he was led astray by his co-accused and unwittingly signed various documents was not reflected by his guilty pleas.
   .

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/4734729/Farm-work-scammer-drawn-in

   it turns out he wasn’t acting alone, is claiming to be a front and is willing to roll over on his business partners.

   Whats the likelihood if that happens, his mates will get get charged, convicted or that the sentence will be more than a laughable 10 months of home d ?…My pick is next to fuck all.

   Meaning theres some fine upstanding good ol local boys still in business that look as though they got friends in high places with a judge in their back pocket.

   These lowlife scumbags should be outed, named, shamed and charged. I hope Molan and the crown have the cojones to follow through.

   …but i doubt it.
   • joe90 5.1

     5 March 2011 at 10:46 am

     Meaning theres some fine upstanding good ol local boys still in business that look as though they got friends in high places with a judge in their back pocket.

     Indeed PW, with friends in high places and an agreement to testify against former mates crime does pay.

     Hotchin, brother of Hanover Finance boss Mark Hotchin, resigned from the board of Nathans in April 2007.

     Four months later Nathans collapsed owing its debenture investors $174.5 million.

     So far they have recovered just 3.7c in the dollar and receivers Colin McCloy and Maurice Noone of PricewaterhouseCoopers fear investors will ultimately suffer losses totalling $168m.

     Nathans was wholly owned by listed company VTL Group, a vending machine business co-founded by Hotchin, and almost all of the money it raised from debentures was loaned to VTL and related companies.

     The statement of facts on which sentencing was based, reveals Hotchin did not want to highlight that exposure.

     And the pay off:

     In December 2005 its California franchisee Intelligent Vending told Nathans it intended to file for bankruptcy, but a year later its borrowing had blown out to $23.3m.

     Other than $15,000 repaid in March 2006, said the statement, ”Intelligent never repaid any principal or interest to Nathans.”
6. ianmac 6

   5 March 2011 at 10:56 am

   This time John Armstrong has articulated many of the observations that I have read here at the Standard. Well done writers! Back room bureaucrats V Frontline staff in relation to the Earthquake. The stress Welfare reform would place on the Budget. Key and English “fluffing ” their responses to questions from the media. A well balanced non-partisan article.
   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10710236
   • Draco T Bastard 6.1

     5 March 2011 at 12:17 pm

     The report, however, goes further. It offered a rare opportunity for serious public debate which might have seen the main protagonists take a less blinkered view.

     That sounds like he actually supports the WWG report even though he did call it more to the right than an Act manifesto.
   • mickysavage 6.2

     5 March 2011 at 10:59 pm

     Agreed ianmac and keep it up everyone. Occasionally stories or columns appear in the Herald that directly borrow from themes developed on the Standard previously.
7. johnm 7

   5 March 2011 at 11:21 am

   The U$ whose cruel vicious ideology of greed and huge wealth and income inequality Key and Nact believe must be our ultimate goal.
   The battle against neoliberal madness in Wisconsin:
   “It’s spreading nationally under Republican and Democrat administrations, but Wisconsin and Ohio are key battleground states. Wisconsin especially – ground zero to save organized labor, on the chopping block to be weakened ahead of eliminating it altogether, returning America to 19th century harshness.
   Class warfare is alive, spreading and deepening, inflicting enormous harm on working Americans losing out, mostly affecting low-income employees, many already earning poverty-level wages.
   At the same time, in a rage to privatize, Walker plans increased funding for quasi-public/private charter schools and private school vouchers, including for religious ones, violating a core church-state separation principle.

   a continuing race to the bottom cycle, hammering ordinary people most. For them, greater deprivation and despair are coming, not relief when they most need it.”
   Refer link:
   http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman040311A.htm
8. todd 8

   5 March 2011 at 11:50 am

   A new post on The Jackal: The Destructive System

   http://thejackalman.blogspot.com/2011/03/destructive-system.html

   While dealing with various Government departments, (you know who you are) the numerous tactics that will be employed include but are not limited to: extensive delays in responding, sending the wrong forms, denial of receiving correspondence, none disclosure, passing the buck, not their department, false accusations, unqualified to comment, ignoring your requests, ignoring the evidence, using only parts of the legislation, not informing of changes, not answering the phone, distance to meetings and ridicule (sometimes public) to put you off from pursuing your apparent “rights” under our current legislation.
9. Oscar 9

   5 March 2011 at 12:52 pm

   So winters kicked in already. Our three month summer is over, so best get used to eating lots of winter vegetables.

   10 years of global cooling – then we get told “shit, CO2 actually keeps the ground warm”
   Like duh. The ground has been colder than usual all summer. Have had great difficulty with a lot of summer veges I used to be able to grow.

   Have any doubts? Look in the garden. We’re heading for a red tomato shortage. Best get used to fried green tomatoes.

   “The history of science shows that clearly and accepted ideas are often wrong” – Carl Sagan.
   • ianmac 9.1

     5 March 2011 at 1:01 pm

     There seems to be other reasons for changes vegetable growth this year and last Oscar. It maybe greater variations in daily weather. It maybe variations + or _ in sunshine delivery. Differences in the bacteria/insect life in the soil. But I know of a very prolific 50 year old garden under very competent management that has shown some worrying changes for the worse. Why? No one seems to know but it is not simple.
     • Oscar 9.1.1

       5 March 2011 at 1:35 pm

       Occams Razor ianmac. The answer is smack bang in front of our faces, but because we’ve all become so indoctrinated into the 350org mindset, that many don’t want to admit they’ve been wrong all along.

       I’ve seen more insect life over the short summer months this year than I ever have. The intensity of the sun this year (and you can’t tell me it wasn’t hotter than usual) caused proliferation in insect numbers.
       Australia will soon be plagued by locusts within the next 3/4 months, destroying their wheat crops, and raising food prices yet again.

       Part of the problem is that we have rapidly reduced our CO2 output since Goreism became hot.
       CO2 does have a greenhouse effect, but with the cooling of the oceans over the past two years, it is becoming increasingly clear that the current “CO2 is evil” bandwagon is clearly not right.

       Heres’s a link for further information on how increased CO2 benefits plants

       Afterall, the UK metservice that predicted “no snow within 10 years”, and even last year they said it’d be nice for winter BBQs.
       How wrong they turned out to be.

       The greenhouse effect is what heats the land up, which in turn helps to keep the water at a higher temperature. The reduction in CO2 means we’re unable to keep the heat trapped in to warm the land up, which translates to longer winters, and shorter summers.

       The evidence is in nature. Pohutakawas didn’t flower until late November/early December 2010, and stopped flowering by mid January 2011. Five years ago they used to flower anywhere between early October – Mid November, and stop flowering by early March.

       The last 3 years, coinciding with the concerted push to reduce CO2 emissions has seen our temperature variations swing wildly.

       Earth is the icy planet, as Mars is the red planet and Venus is the hot planet. The confluence of factors that allowed for life to exist on Earth is in no small part to the CO2 concentrations that were around for the primordial ooze that processed the CO2, converting it to O2.

       If you really want to save the planet.. stop breathing. Otherwise recognise the fact that trees are the best source of energy and set up your own “carbon neutral” energy plot with trees for the sole purpose of cutting them down for firewood.

       We’re starting to realise that reducing CO2 causes colder weather… and that the increase in CO2 caused warmer weather.

       Why else were the 50’s and 60’s such halcyon days? The manufacturing industries burning all that coal and oil, releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere made sure the greenhouse effect was alive and well, keeping our temperatures at a reasonable level.
       • Bill 9.1.1.1

         5 March 2011 at 2:02 pm

         Occams Razor says we had a shitty summer. It happens. Localised weather and all that.
       • MrSmith 9.1.1.2

         5 March 2011 at 2:13 pm

         Oscar, Co2 has and is still steadily increasing, so back to Sesame st for you .
       • RedLogix 9.1.1.3

         5 March 2011 at 2:14 pm

         Part of the problem is that we have rapidly reduced our CO2 output since Goreism became hot.

         Actually no.
       • Draco T Bastard 9.1.1.4

         5 March 2011 at 2:19 pm

         Wow, you really do talk some shit don’t you oscar?
     • Bill 9.1.2

       5 March 2011 at 1:52 pm

       In these parts….shitty ‘cooler than normal’ summer. Too much rain. A gazzilion aphids.

       I’m reckoning some of my stuff also got ‘fooled’ by the quite marked changability in weather and temperature swings and bolted. But then, some stuff did great.

       But yeah. Hearing fairly wide spread stories of garden failures this year. I heard similar stories last year in these parts.
       • oscar 9.1.2.1

         5 March 2011 at 4:52 pm

         it’s called a lag effect. it’s not as if it’s cut today, show up tomorrow happens in the atmosphere.
         The one you really want to be looking at is ground based composition.
         Who needs science when you can look at nature and see for yourself.
         Give it five years, and the recorded CO2 levels will decline dramatically. By that time, you lot will still be saying it’s AGW during mid summer, freezing your tits off while I’ll be warm and snug in my possum fur lined coat, burning wood and coal in my open fire keeping toasty.
         As for localised weather patterns. They’re affected by global patterns. Ocean temperatures are now the coolest they’ve been in 50 years. What happened to the boiling seas alarmists promised us?
10. Pascal's bookie 10

    5 March 2011 at 1:44 pm

    So with the polls consistently showing about 60 % opposition to the Wisconsin governor’s union busting idea, rumours are starting to fly around that 3 GOPpy senators are rethinking the wisdom of it and starting to go all squishy. If he loses those votes then the legislation won’t pass. Ain’t necessarily true of course, quite possibly all just a ploy to get the wayward dems to front for a vote. Or not.

    wsj though, is taking the rumours seriously, slipping into ‘aaargh don’t panic, aaargh panic’ mode.

    So much so that they reveal a little too much about their thinking:

    “Republicans can’t turn back in Wisconsin,” says Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Foundation. “This will only embolden the unions and weaken efforts at reform all over the country.” It’s foolish to believe that backing down will satisfy the unions. If history is any guide, more than 90% of union money will be used to defeat Republicans no matter what happens.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580004576180670002465378.html

    Because for the modern GOP politics is, quite literally, very little more than a cash flow delivery device.
11. Sookie 11

    5 March 2011 at 2:26 pm

    That frigging idiot woodwork teacher Brownlee wants to turn Christchurch into Hamilton by bowling every single heritage building. Regardez http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10710318

    Can’t the government put anyone other than this stupid, insensitive blundering clod in charge of the recovery effort? Oh that’s right, they’re a talent free zone.
    • neoleftie 11.1

      5 March 2011 at 5:32 pm

      sookie – the defintion of a heritage building is quite broad in a real sense. Most are stuffed. The true hertiage building of chch such as the art centre etc are in very good shape.
      Talking to a planning engineer in my home town these ‘ hertitage building’ are old poorly maintained and from an era that had building codes that just dont make the grade when it come to a earthquake.
      Strengthening these Chch buildings is not cost effective and /or timely enough. We are talking 600-700 building past there ‘use by date’ and this is proven by the lastest events.
      Some prime iconic heritage building must and will be retained, rebuilt and will come up to the latest building codes.
      Think of the opportunity for the city planners of chch to seize this unfortuanate event and progress and recreate a vibrant modern safe 21st century designed living and working space which links in the retained hertiage buildings and area’s. Out of the dark tragic time something positive must be achieved.
      • logie97 11.1.1

        5 March 2011 at 7:44 pm

        Perhaps they can preserve the facade, as they have done in Queen St Auckland. Compare that to Albany and similar car barns.

        captcha: pointless
        • neoleftie 11.1.1.1

          5 March 2011 at 7:59 pm

          Dunedin has some nice heritage facades that have been retained in a cost effective and safe manner – good point
12. Colonial Viper 12

    5 March 2011 at 5:49 pm

    Good old Brownlee huh. Going on about “past history” and “future history”. What the hell. Also talks about us deciding what the heritage of the city will be (as if you can choose your own heritage). Inane.

    “While they are part of our past history, they have no place in our future history. As I’ve said repeatedly, heritage is both forward and back and from this point on, we decide what the heritage of this city will be,” he said.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10710331
    • logie97 12.1

      5 March 2011 at 7:36 pm

      … apparently though he was a woodwork teacher he was never considered the sharpest knife.
      • Jim Nald 12.1.1

        5 March 2011 at 9:39 pm

        Gerry would be more successful trying one thing – write himself out of future history.
13. logie97 13

    5 March 2011 at 7:32 pm

    Just watched the build-up to tonight’s Chiefs vs Rebels game.
    They had an item about the police Anti-bullying, Kia Kaha, programme for schools which apparently the Chiefs are taking to schools in the Waikato and feeling good about it. Go figure – the game of rugby is an ultimate expression of bullying – second only to sailing – next we will be seeing people like Coutts and Butterworth getting behind it.
14. kriswgtn 14

    5 March 2011 at 8:00 pm

    4.8 after shock felt in CHCH few mins ago
    My sister is out of there- she has had enough
15. Tigger 15

    5 March 2011 at 9:21 pm

    Wow, the selection for a Nat candidate in Rodney is in a deep mess.
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4734323/Stacking-allegations-lead-to-Rodney-seat-restart

    More sign that the National mainstream is scared of being hijacked by the religious right.

    Irony is, they already have – Mr Key is as fundamentalist as you can get, sans the actual religious observance… His personal stance on ‘family values’ would put any fundie TV American pastor to shame.
    • mickysavage 15.1

      5 March 2011 at 11:04 pm

      I have been reading Slater’s stuff on it. I know, I know but he is actually quite good when he turns on his own party. The selection is interesting in that there are South African racists, fundamentalist christians, head office interference and delegate rigging. Expect this to be messy for a while …
16. millsy 16

    6 March 2011 at 2:47 am

    Meanwhile, while everyone is too busy with earthquakes and by-elections, it appears that what last residual vestige of public service TV in this country we had in this nation is in for the chop

    TVNZ got rid of 6 the other week, to replace it with some MTV clone, so we can have Snookie wannabes all over our screens, now 7 is going to be for the chop, and all we are going to have is Desperate Houswives and cooking shows.

    And dont get me started on Sky….

• Comments are now closed

• Log in
• Donate
• Contribute post

• Articles RSS