Open mike 05/06/2015

43 comments on “Open mike 05/06/2015 ”

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1. les 1

   5 June 2015 at 7:38 am

   nice ‘ picture of the P.M smiling, holding a kitten on the NZH front page today.Was wondering why Annette King does not accuse the snaKey P.M of lying outside Parliament…it would create a focus on his serial behaviour ,and get some attention.
   • whateva next? 1.1

     5 June 2015 at 6:29 pm

     as usual distraction wheeled in by Gower’s paddy, hoping we ll missed the PM barefaced lying to the public…….whaaaaaat?
2. Ad 2

   5 June 2015 at 8:26 am

   Apparently Games of Thrones is an allegory for the human response to climate change:

   http://www.salon.com/2015/06/04/is_game_of_thrones_an_allegory_for_global_climate_change/

   The great wall signifies conscious climate change denial.

   The White Walkers signify the inevitability and destructiveness of change.

   And everything else signifies the games that the major houses/powers (read: US, China, India) are contesting over remaining realms, rather than face the power of what they are holding back.

   Personally I’m waiting for Beowulf’s dragon to make a guest appearance somewhere … signifying… hmmm … radical Islam, or terrorist threats generally, or something.
3. AsleepWhileWalking 3

   5 June 2015 at 8:51 am

   If You’re Older Than 40 And Reading This…*

   … you’re likely to either be eating out of a dumpster in your old age or be (literally) eaten.

   If you currently have counted more than 65 revolutions around the sun in your life then you may avoid this, but only through the most-macabre of means: you’ll die of something else first.

   Let me explain: If you’re between 40 – 65 you have somewhere between 20 and 45 years remaining on this planet, statistically speaking. Oh sure, some of you will do better, some worse, but those are the numbers.

   This means you must manage at least 20 years without things going to hell if you’re on the older end, and 45 years if you’re on the younger. What are the odds?
   Cont …http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=230208
   • Charles 3.1

     5 June 2015 at 9:31 am

     Dramatic language, but I understand and have accepted the sentiment. There is an alternative though, if we all voluntarily start today, that can be summed up: Whatever it is you are doing, do not flatter the greed.
   • Draco T Bastard 3.2

     5 June 2015 at 10:46 am

     A good example of someone mistaking finances for the economy.
     • Colonial Rawshark 3.2.1

       5 June 2015 at 12:20 pm

       +1000

       The people who wrote that seem to think that as long as the financial spreadsheets were better looking, then the world would be sweet. Ridiculous misconception. You cannot eat Treasury bills, and you cannot eat gold.
   • freedom 3.3

     5 June 2015 at 11:35 am

     Over the next quarter century the economic issues we face will see explosive growth in all areas of poverty, homelessness, crime and the many ills of life the contributing elements create. In the darkly brilliant Children of Men they introduce a euthanasia product, called Quietude, designed to deal with the extreme despondency the world experiences when faced with an apparently insurmountable problem.

     As depressing and controversial as the idea appears today, I have no doubt we will see similar products on our shelves by then.

     The fact none of the present doomsday scenarios actually have to happen, and could be avoided if humanity just grew up a little, is treated like some idealistic but unstable isotope. One whose steady decay is certainly useful in measuring the decline of the equality it once supported, but is seen by many as nothing more than an inevitable, even natural process, leading to the creation of exciting new elements. The reality these new elements are often dangerous & potentially toxic is apparently of little concern.
     • Colonial Rawshark 3.3.1

       5 June 2015 at 12:33 pm

       we already accept people deadening their minds, emotions and consciousness in order to “cope” with the reality that the power elite have constructed in society. Things like anti-depressants and alchohol are amongst the most profitable businesses.
4. RTM 4

   5 June 2015 at 9:07 am

   Debate: is New Zealand’s democracy an outgrowth of the European Enlightenment, or does it have local sources, in the Maori nationalist & workers’ movements? http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/enlightening-new-zealand-open-letter-to.html
5. Tracey 5

   5 June 2015 at 10:00 am

   I am a suspicious old thing, but when I read the following headline, I couldn’t help but think of the Patriot Act debate… coincidence?

   http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33017310
   • adam 5.1

     5 June 2015 at 1:28 pm

     I’d buy that for a dollar.
6. freedom 6

   5 June 2015 at 10:30 am

   Ahh, the sweet hypocrisy of it all….

   It appears that by simply signing your name on an object someone else created, it does become an artwork 😉

   http://media.nzherald.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/201523/011279278c67659ee517e871c5004b3054934cbc_220x147.jpg

   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/stratford-press/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503390&objectid=11459125

   http://www.percythomsongallery.org.nz/c_exhibition.asp
   • Tracey 6.1

     5 June 2015 at 10:56 am

     🙄

     IF John Key had sped to get to an All Black game he would be lauded as a great kiwi bloke…
   • Charles 6.2

     5 June 2015 at 11:05 am

     At least we can be certain that when he signed that matchbox, he did so in the role of Prime Minister. Unless PM stands for “Partly Missing”.
     • Clemgeopin 6.2.1

       5 June 2015 at 11:19 pm

       ” PM stands for “Partly Missing”

       PM=Ponytail Man
7. The Murphey 7

   5 June 2015 at 11:07 am

   http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h2362

   After revelations that the CDC is receiving some funding from industry, Jeanne Lenzer investigates how it might have affected the organisation’s decisions

   The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) includes the following disclaimer with its recommendations: “CDC, our planners, and our content experts wish to disclose they have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products . . . CDC does not accept commercial support.”

   One piece at a time
8. Kiwiri 8

   5 June 2015 at 11:25 am

   Lprent:

   The right bar ‘comments’ tab does not seem to provide the most current updates for who is commenting on what. It seems to be slightly behind or sometimes even stalled?

   It could be a problem with my browser but I suspect it is The Standard not updating as usual??

   Anyway, I am thinking of typing something provocative to catch your attention here so that you will come looking to ban me 😉 but I will leave you to catch up with this message in your own time.

   Btw, you’ve got my curiosity piqued about The Nation tomorrow.
   • lprent 8.1

     5 June 2015 at 12:06 pm

     I think that the caching has gotten a bit more ‘aggressive’ after a plugin update earlier in the week.

     extended:
     It is odd as it isn’t happening all of the time. Just some of the time.

     However it is unlikely to be the browser. I caught it on my linux laptop yesterday in both Chrome and Firefox out through my Spark cellphone. I’d login and get the non-logged in front page.

     Meanwhile Chrome and IE were working perfectly on another laptop on a different network, and same for Chrome and Safari on the same network on a Mac.

     It will probably be the weekend before I can do much about it.
     • Kiwiri 8.1.1

       5 June 2015 at 12:23 pm

       Cheers. Just wanted you to be aware of the issue.
9. Clemgeopin 9

   5 June 2015 at 11:44 am

   A better balanced article about the Labour Party Review report:

   http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/69097307/editorial-labour-still-has-work-to-do
10. Marvellous Bearded Git 10

    5 June 2015 at 12:36 pm

    I’m sure somebody else will have commented on this, but I was impressed with Labour’s response to the leak of their election review.

    First, when they found Gower had it, they released it immediately to the whole media, spiking Gower’s guns. Secondly, on Backbenches Jacinda cleverly dismissed the leak as (paraphrasing here) nothing new here, just stating the obvious, which defused the issue immediately.

    Maybe Labour is learning how to play the media at last?
    • maui 10.1

      5 June 2015 at 12:50 pm

      On the Gower coverage on 3 News, Andrew Little fronting the press looked drawn and on the backfoot in my opinion. That in itself is the most damaging in my opinion, reinforcing the negative messaging the media is trying to portray.
      • Marvellous Bearded Git 10.1.1

        5 June 2015 at 12:58 pm

        @maui ah ok I didn’t see that. Maybe he needs some serious media training. Crucial to do this asap.
        • maui 10.1.1.1

          5 June 2015 at 1:10 pm

          This is the clip of it: http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/where-labour-went-wrong–election-review-leaked-2015060315#axzz3c8moMdnd

          It might just be my impression though, others might have thought he looked ok. But he hasn’t looked as confident since the Super backdown.
          • Marvellous Bearded Git 10.1.1.1.1

            5 June 2015 at 1:19 pm

            @maui yep he needs to relax a bit, but what he said was ok.
            Taxes, death and Little leading Labour into the next election are the only certainties in life.
          • te reo putake 10.1.1.1.2

            5 June 2015 at 1:25 pm

            Andrew looked fine. However, David Cunliffe looked rather pale, though that might just be the lighting.
          • weka 10.1.1.1.3

            5 June 2015 at 2:49 pm

            I don’t watch Gower very often, but ffs could he be any more biased? Is this what we’ve come to, where his agenda is what informs the public about politics and current affairs? I have no doubt that he fully understands the difference between reporting and manipulating, so can only assume his agenda is motivated by politics.
    • James 10.2

      5 June 2015 at 2:20 pm

      Yep – Must have defused the issue.

      On the Herald … http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11460446

      “Labour facing ‘oblivion’ “. Yep – Diffused.
      • te reo putake 10.2.1

        5 June 2015 at 2:23 pm

        Meh, Edwards has his own little agenda, I guess. You’ll note his round up is only of links that support his ‘oblivion’ sneering.
        • lprent 10.2.1.1

          5 June 2015 at 3:08 pm

          Bryce Edwards always has had a rather strange view of Labour.

          It looks like he got stuck in a New Labour mould several decades ago and never actually fell out of the romanticism. It is a pity because he clearly has no frigging idea about how much ‘organisation’ plays in getting electoral victories. It is way way more important than his frigging beloved ‘ideology’

          Reading rapidly through the list of ‘left’ reviews, what I notice is that they were either done by
          1. People who have never been involved inside Labour, eg Mclauchlan and journos.
          2. People who left with New Labour back in what? 1991 – Trotter and ? Edwards ?himself
          3. People who were previously political employees and distinctly on the right of Labour – eg Leyland, Quin.Neither exactly had graceful exits from the jobs as I remember it. I tend to view them as more into utu than activity.

          For a review that was written for the members of the Labour party, leaked to outside the party, there is a curious lack of depth and highly selective picking of the links for people inside the Labour party exhibited in Bryce’s selection.

          It was obviously written by someone wanting to crap in the tent rather than working on it… But I rather suspect that was the intention. Bryce’s heart (as far as I can see) tends to go out to those parties of the left that spend their time in strange self-destructive immolation at election time. I guess it is romantic if you are into that kind of thing. But organisation less of the precious wee egos tends to get voters out.

          The idea of the review was to figure out how to get Labour working better for election victories. You’d think that Bryce would have had a look around and noticed the almost eerie silence from active Labour members without utu issues. But the only one in his entire piece was from Scott Yorke…. And that was a satirical post.

          It’d be nice if he’d actually look at where there weren’t reactions from. Like the many Labour members authoring and commenting here. I sure as hell noticed it.

          Just because some scumbag leaked it to Paddy Gower (and we’d all like to know who it was) doesn’t mean that Labour members are that interested in discussing their party with people who aren’t active in the party.

          Note on that last point – that doesn’t include me anymore.
11. Charles 11

    5 June 2015 at 12:52 pm

    The editorial starts by damning with faint praise, then openly attacking, running over all the same old attack lines: get rid of Cunliffe and his supporters (the bogey men), get rid of the influence of unions and other sector groups; Labour need not do anything except garnish our political system with the appearance of democracy by being in eternal opposition; the article uses hyperbole that isn’t in or implied in the original document – nothing was “slammed”, no “indictments” were made; and otherwise paints the picture that Labour is financially broke and has personnel and organisational issues that won’t stop until things that have already happened are accepted as real events in the mind of the Herald editorship – which will be never. All this from the editors who protected the “democratic acts” of Rachel Glucina by exercising their democratic right to prostitute the fourth estate to the National government’s best interests.

    Subtly, but totally unbalanced, would be my label for that editorial.
12. Graeme Stanley 12

    5 June 2015 at 1:57 pm

    Will we ever see in New Zealand The Storm is Coming “Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren politicians ” for Change for We 99%.?? Aren,t you sick and tired of the Key Zero Accountability Rhetoric and BS we voters have to put up with year after year aided and abetted by the Dirty Politics tactics of some Tame Media ,bloggers,TV clowns and Political strategists. So The TPPA agreement is visible in the The USA Why aren,t we picking up on it here?
13. adam 13

    5 June 2015 at 2:08 pm

    What can you say. Ted Cruz is a nasty piece of work.
14. Stuart Munro 14

    5 June 2015 at 4:31 pm

    Now that the government is making kiwisaver enrolment automatic, Labour should follow the example, and Hilary Clinton’s, and make electoral roll registration automatic. That is likely to lift the vote without punitive measures.
15. Draco T Bastard 15

    5 June 2015 at 4:37 pm

    Real transport for liveable cities (video)
16. b waghorn 16

    5 June 2015 at 5:46 pm

    http://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/69152950/Former-All-Black-Jerry-Collins-killed-in-car-accident-in-France-local-media-reports-say
    A sad finish to the week . One of the great characters in rugby .
17. adam 17

    5 June 2015 at 6:00 pm

    Is it just me or has something really changed over the last few weeks?

    Talking to people the mood is harsh – it’s like a veil has been lifted for many, and the light has been shown them something, they did not want to see.

    Many have woken up to the fact – that selling everything to corporations is morally repulsive, as well as, just a stupid way to run a society. The amoral outfits who wrecked the world in the name of greed just 6 years ago – have not done a damn thing to change their money grubbing ways.

    All we are left with Is bankrupt thinking at best. Messy, ugly, godless and lazy self righteous. My guess, those in power have no idea, except to cling to this bereft ideology and push polls to get them though.

    What is worse – is they are utterly dishonest about using this approach to cling to power.
    • James 17.1

      5 June 2015 at 6:04 pm

      this has been said (in words to this effect) over and over again on this blog. Still the elections and polling dont reflect what “you” people see.

      I would suggest getting out more and conversing with a wider range of folk.

      Have a great weekend.
      • One Anonymous Bloke 17.1.1

        5 June 2015 at 6:17 pm

        Pitchforks.
      • adam 17.1.2

        5 June 2015 at 7:41 pm

        James what a pathetic response – really, the polls is your defence. Where did you learn rhetoric, on the back of a weetbix packet?

        I’d say you need to take up your own suggestion. It seems you lost in lala land of your own making. Or is this the fabled planet Key? Have a wee look around sunshine. Or maybe open yourself and talk to the downtrodden. Or if you’re feeling brave, ask some of your mates how much debt they really are in.

        But I should have guessed I’d get a dishonest response, relying on the same ideological underpinnings that keeps this corrupt edifice in place.

        So God bless James, any chance you could live up to your name sake?
18. One Anonymous Bloke 18

    5 June 2015 at 6:22 pm

    RIP Jerry Collins. He showed the way to deal to the opposition. Thoughts and sympathy for his whānau.
19. Morrissey 19

    5 June 2015 at 8:47 pm

    The patently mendacious, shameful Queen’s Speech
    should have been delivered by a professional comedian
    by GLEN NEWEY, 28 May 2015
    http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/05/28/glen-newey/patently-mendacious/

    The Queen’s Speech has all the pomposity and solemnity of a panto you’re not allowed to laugh at. This bowdlerises its political content, grimly apparent were it delivered by a nerd in a lounge suit. Elizabeth lumbers in, glazed and jowly, with the familiar cast of attendant lords, including her husband, her heir and her heir’s duchess, who’s kitted out with a purple sash that could be left over from the Ukip election campaign. As ever the queen herself looks as if her breakfast porridge had too much mogadon in it. Since she always reads her script as if she were reciting the E numbers on a packet of jelly, it’s anyone’s guess what, if anything, she thinks about it. The custodian of the speech is a nerd usually seen in a lounge suit, Michael Gove, who from journeyman beginnings as a Times hack and a Commons expenses home-flipper, has now hit it big as lord chancellor. Yesterday he got to try out his new 18th-century chancellorial garb.

    Aided by the Tory speech team, Gove has clearly put his trade to work ventriloquising the queen, of whom he’s a diehard fan. Some utterances seem patently mendacious: ‘My government will legislate in the interests of everyone in our country.’ One Nation under Gove, previously the Big Society, is a bigger marquee than cynical commentators have supposed. Things will be especially nice for the well-to-do mansion-dweller, the non-immigrant, the non-zero-hours employee, the non-druggie, the non-fox, and above all for the hard-working working-class worker, his toiling family, his slavishly diligent dog and its no less Stakhanovite, busily bloodsucking fleas. The more austerity depresses output – creates more work – the more virtue there is in industry. One falls to wondering if it’s the queen or her government who counts as lying. Is she to be held responsible for what drops from her lips, or is she, as her government’s puppet, legibus soluta, no more a moral agent than Kermit the frog? Her mien suggests the queen suspects it’s the latter.

    In his online introduction to the speech, David Cameron avows his plan to get people’s noses out to the grindstone rather than ‘sitting at home’, where if not teleworking or enjoying the proceeds of their trust fund, they may be doing non-work things like bringing up children or caring for a frail relative. Whence the ‘workless households’ Cameron mentions, which menace the docility that is the Englishman’s birthright and solemn duty. Trade unions, organisations to stop workers working, get a further whack – ‘essential service’ employees will need a turnout of 50 per cent to authorise strike action, with 40 per cent of eligible voters in favour of it (so at least 80 per cent of votes on a 50 per cent turnout). The work business even pops up in the section that promises to ban so-called ‘legal highs’ (normals’ psychoactive drugs of choice – ethanol, caffeine, nicotine and so on – are unaffected; after all, you need something to make working life bearable). The ban aims to ‘protect hard-working citizens’ from psychoactive degeneracy; slackers are fair game from whom no better can be expected.

    Quasi-privatisation continues with the spread of ‘free’ schools and the enforced flog-off of housing association properties. The government still wants to crash out of the European human rights convention. There will, on top, be English votes for English laws. All this makes it likelier that the Scots try to peel off from the Union, particularly if the English (for they will be responsible) choose to leave the EU in 2017. Either the English will fume at being locked into the EU by No-voting Welsh and Scots, or the latter will resent being sprung from it by the English. Her majesty reads out the recipe for strife and the possible dismemberment of her kingdom phlegmatically. The mogadon has done its job.

    That’s more than can be said for Gove, who managed to fluff his one duty of the day – putting the speech in its fetching damask bag, an operation he’s walked through by the nonagenarian Duke of Edinburgh. On day one of his old job as chief whip, Gove locked himself in a toilet, from which someone had the heartlessness to rescue him.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/queens-speech-2015

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