Open mike 05/07/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 5th, 2013 - 113 comments
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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Step right up to the mike…

113 comments on “Open mike 05/07/2013 ”

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  1. Morrissey 1
    5 July 2013 at 6:29 am

    Humbug Corner
    

No. 12: Pem Bird

    “We’re there to do the business of advancing our people.”

    —Outgoing Māori Party president Pem Bird, Radio NZ National, 7:54 a.m., Thursday 4 July 2013

    Humbug Corner is dedicated to gathering, and highlighting, the most striking examples of faux solicitude, insincere apologies, and particularly stupid recycling of official canards. It is produced by the Insincerity Project®, a division of Daisycutter Sports Inc.

    Have a gander at all of the humbugs….
    No. 11 Whenua Patuwai: “They’re my brothers and to see one of them goes [sic]—it’s tough.”
    No. 10 “Sir” Owen Glenn: “I do care that every person, especially children, have [sic] the right to feel safe.”

    No. 9 “Sir” Owen Glenn: His abuse inquiry is floundering after revelations he was accused of physically abusing a young woman in 2002.

    No. 8 Barack Obama: “…people standing up for what’s right…yearning for justice and dignity…”
    

No. 7 Barack Obama: “Nelson Mandela is my personal hero…”
    
No. 6 John Key: “Yeah well the Greens’ answer to everything is rail, isn’t it.”
    
No.5 Dr. Rodney Syme: “If you want good, open, honest practice, you have to make it transparent.”

    No. 4 Mike Bush: “Bruce Hutton’s… integrity beyond reproach…such great character…”


    No. 3 Dean Lonergan: “Y’ know what? The only people who will mock them are people who are dwarfists.”
    

No. 2 Peter Dunne: “What a load of drivel and sanctimonious humbug…”




    No. 1 Dominic Bowden: “It’s okay to be speechless.”



  2. Morrissey 2
    5 July 2013 at 6:42 am

    Forcing down Evo Morales’s plane was an act of air piracy
    by JOHN PILGER, The Guardian, Thursday 4 July 2013

    Imagine the aircraft of the president of France being forced down in Latin America on “suspicion” that it was carrying a political refugee to safety – and not just any refugee but someone who has provided the people of the world with proof of criminal activity on an epic scale.

    Imagine the response from Paris, let alone the “international community”, as the governments of the west call themselves. To a chorus of baying indignation from Whitehall to Washington, Brussels to Madrid, heroic special forces would be dispatched to rescue their leader and, as sport, smash up the source of such flagrant international gangsterism. Editorials would cheer them on, perhaps reminding readers that this kind of piracy was exhibited by the German Reich in the 1930s.

    The forcing down of Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane – denied airspace by France, Spain and Portugal, followed by his 14-hour confinement while Austrian officials demanded to “inspect” his aircraft for the “fugitive” Edward Snowden – was an act of air piracy and state terrorism. It was a metaphor for the gangsterism that now rules the world and the cowardice and hypocrisy of bystanders who dare not speak its name.

    In Moscow, Morales had been asked about Snowden – who remains trapped in the city’s airport. “If there were a request [for political asylum],” he said, “of course, we would be willing to debate and consider the idea.” That was clearly enough provocation for the Godfather. “We have been in touch with a range of countries that had a chance of having Snowden land or travel through their country,” said a US state department official.

    The French – having squealed about Washington spying on their every move, as revealed by Snowden – were first off the mark, followed by the Portuguese. The Spanish then did their bit by enforcing a flight ban of their airspace, giving the Godfather’s Viennese hirelings enough time to find out if Snowden was indeed invoking article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”

    Those paid to keep the record straight have played their part with a cat-and-mouse media game that reinforces the Godfather’s lie that this heroic young man is running from a system of justice, rather than preordained, vindictive incarceration that….

    Read more…
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/forcing-down-morales-plane-air-piracy?CMP=twt_gu

  3. Alanz 3
    5 July 2013 at 7:51 am

    GCSB Bill

    For Dot Com to John Con: “Show me your integrity!”

    • Winston Smith 3.1
      5 July 2013 at 8:04 am

      Funnily enough John Key could say the same thing to Dot Con…

      • Suitably Clueless 3.1.1
        5 July 2013 at 8:22 am

        Wow, so they are both morally bankrupt, whoop e doo, only one was elected to the top office in the land. If you have a point, make it, troll.

        • Winston Smith 3.1.1.1
          5 July 2013 at 9:07 am

          The person making the most traction against National and John Key is fraudalent, con-artist German.

          Says alot about the collective nous of Labour.

          • One Anonymous Knucklehead 3.1.1.1.1
            5 July 2013 at 2:18 pm

            Making traction now is he? That’s what I love about wingnut arguments: they’re so utterly insincere.

  4. Winston Smith 4
    5 July 2013 at 8:05 am

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/8878710/Council-balks-at-living-wage-cost

    Yeah it sounds good in theory but when you work out how much it costs and whos going to pay for it…not so much

    • felix 4.1
      5 July 2013 at 8:18 am

      Easy, just pay a few other people a bit less. Start with the Mayor, then the councillors, then all the council execs and so on down. Hell, maybe some of those council execs aren’t really that necessary anyway.

      It’s simple circumcision theory – you can take 10% off the top of any prick. They’ll find their 600k or whatever it is in no time.

      • Winston Smith 4.1.1
        5 July 2013 at 9:14 am

        Damn this is odd but I agree with you

      • The Murphey 4.1.2
        5 July 2013 at 5:14 pm

        Q: Are independent consultants costs publicized?

        A:___

        Q: Are business cases scoped accurately, and qualified by competent levels of governance, supported by processes, designed to deliver tangible benefits for Auckland?

        A:___

        Q: Were vendor contracts negotiated by the ATA, which would ensure locked in inflated profits for many years, at the expense of Aucklanders?

        A:___

        Q: Are industry awards being handed out to provide cover for financial failures, which are not fully disclosed to the public?

        A:___

        Q: Will the true financial position be hidden, until after the city assets have been transferred to the private sector?

        A:___

        Q: Will Auckland’s true financial position be exposed, before the city officially falls into default?

        A:___

    • mickysavage 4.2
      5 July 2013 at 8:56 am

      I would be somewhat suspicious of this figure. It is not rocket science to work out how much it costs. You find out how many people receive less than the proposed minimum wage, see how much they earn and calculate how much more they will earn.

      The Councillors need to interrogate the figures more rather than just accept what they are being told.

      • Winston Smith 4.2.1
        5 July 2013 at 9:15 am

        Well thats what happens when you borrow the Greens calculator to work out the sums initially then use a normal one to confirm

        • Draco T Bastard 4.2.1.1
          5 July 2013 at 1:42 pm

          Running out of lines?

          That’s the same one you used last night but last night you said Labour.

      • weka 4.2.2
        5 July 2013 at 10:22 am

        Looks like a hatchet job to me. How did they get the figures so wrong between the first and second times?

        • One Anonymous Knucklehead 4.2.2.1
          5 July 2013 at 10:24 am

          Give you ten to one it’s snafu not conspiracy.

          Someone didn’t do their sums right.

          • weka 4.2.2.1.1
            5 July 2013 at 12:27 pm

            And where is the analysis of the difference, MSM?

            • One Anonymous Knucklehead 4.2.2.1.1.1
              5 July 2013 at 2:12 pm

              Not sure what you mean by that Weka. MSM bias/incompetence/distraction. What does this have to do with Hamilton District Council staff errors?

              • weka …
                5 July 2013 at 3:48 pm

                I just meant the story is just as much about the errors, and what the errors actually are, as it is that the council has backtracked. Yes, I know, a very thin hope that someone might actually investigate and report.

    • Rogue Trooper 4.3
      5 July 2013 at 12:35 pm

      that’s cos other people further up the pecking order want some fat in the budget for their own pay increases (RNZ), Winston Smith.

  5. Boadicea 5
    5 July 2013 at 8:05 am

    Reference the controversy about the Labour gender balancing plan for Parliament candidate selection.

    Every policy change, whether major or minor, needs to have a communication strategy attached to it. This is necessary irrespective of the merits of the policy. News management is not an optional extra, when fighting the uphill battle against a neo-liberal media.

    “Labour leader David Shearer would not comment beyond saying he was supportive of increasing the number of women in Labour. However, he is understood to have voiced concerns privately about it.”

    Shearer is on the NZ Council. “Privately” disagreeing to the media about the decision of the Party’s Governing Body is NOT the way to get on top of this particular bush-fire. The quality of advice being given to our leader is disgraceful.

    I wonder what fate the Women’s Sector have in mind for him now? Perhaps I’ll invite two sisters to join me around a boiling cauldron. “‘Tis time, ’tis time”

    • phillip ure 5.1
      5 July 2013 at 10:34 am

      there is that golden rule of politics that shearer has broken..

      ..that ‘don’t piss off the women!-dictum’..

      …i also saw that as another death-knell for him..

      ..(after/compounding his recent threats to ‘terrorise’ maori..so..if you were a maori woman in labour..?

      ..where to turn..?..)

      ..far-right nattys often sneer at key as being labour-lite..

      ..funny how shearer actually is his/this mirror-image..eh..?

      ..it’s way past time to roll him..

      ..he isn’t going to get any better..eh..?

      ..many out here would really like to see a labour party vowing to returning to their (original)-knitting..eh..?

      ..and david (bludging-benificiary-on-a-hot-tin-roof) shearer dosn’t hold that promise..

      ..far from it..

      ..phillip ure..

  6. bad12 6
    5 July 2013 at 8:41 am

    ”Does the Prime Minister stand by His statements to this House that He had no previous discussions with any of His Ministers about Kim Dot-com befor the police raid on His Coatsville mansion”,

    “Yes” replied Bill English answering on behalf of the Prime Minister,

    The House paused briefly into a silence that would best be described as ‘menacing’ but Winston Peters having asked this one ominous question didn’t come back to His feet with the expected ‘point of order’ or ‘supplementary’,

    Absent from this little exchange was the constant barking from the Government benches which had accompanied similar questions from Labour’s Grant Robertson earlier in Thursday’s ‘Question time’, the subtle difference from Winston being a specific query about Slippery the Prime Ministers discussions of Kim Dot-com with His Ministers,

    Rather than the bark of interjection from the Government benches this particular question met with such a deafening silence which literally yelled across the silent chamber ‘Gotcha’,

    Does Winston have a little knowledge that specifically shows that their were discussions between Ministers and Slippery the Prime Minister befor the raid on the Coatsville mansion, or was He just fishing to gauge the reaction from the Government benches,

    Along with the Heralds John Armstrong who in the strangest piece of journalism He has recently penned warned of the demise as Prime Minister of the Slippery one should this particular litany from the mouth of the PM also turn out to contain less than the truth, i smell blood,

    Peters question was way too specific for there not to be some mouse trail of evidence to have lead Him to ask such a specific question and next Tuesday’s question time might be worth a watch…

    • karol 6.1
      5 July 2013 at 8:45 am

      Interesting point, bad12. Going to have a look now – missed question time yesterday.

    • Veutoviper 6.2
      5 July 2013 at 9:23 am

      The questions that Peters asked the PM in Q1 on Tuesday were very specific. Peters was very careful to stick to his script, not make any asides or other comments or raise any matters following each of the PM’s answers. Most unlike Peters, normally.

      http://inthehouse.co.nz/node/19552

      Similarly Robertson was very specific in his questions in Q2 yesterday – and put emphasis on some matters (eg German resident) and was trying to get English to be specific in his responses. Peters’ question at the end of Q2 was again very specific.

      http://inthehouse.co.nz/node/19769

      Peters also claimed to “know” that Key knew about KDC earlier than Key claims, on TV3 news last night – towards the end of this link.

      http://www.3news.co.nz/Did-Key-lie-or-is-Dotcom-bluffing/tabid/1607/articleID/303806/Default.aspx

      Peters also attended KDC’s appearance at the Security and Intelligence Committee. He was sitting at a table behind Banks.

      While Peters likes to be in ‘on the act’, he is a wily old hand and has many contacts including probably Davidson QC, who headed the Wine Box inquiry.

  7. logie97 7
    5 July 2013 at 9:09 am

    Ageism, sexism, reverse discrimination, affirmative action…

    Imbalance of men to women, or is it in fact just a man’s world.
    Perhaps someone could explain the difference between these two situations (apart from the obvious that is)

    This in America – difference (38 years)
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10890976

    This in New Zealand – difference (37 years)
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10894878

  8. Descendant Of Sssmith 8
    5 July 2013 at 9:43 am

    Noticed this this morning to continue yesterday’s links on the data being collected on you:

    “We envision advertising in theatres will be based on who’s in the theatre, using facial recognition.”

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8880595/Digital-cinema-management-a-box-office-hit

    I’m clearly of the view that allowing the private sector to collect information on you enables governments to access that information. It simply shouldn’t be collected in the first place and there’s no good reason for facial recognition software in picture theatres or shops.

    The unfettered collection of information about you needs to cease.

  9. Rosetinted 9
    5 July 2013 at 10:45 am

    lprent
    Yesterday it took me one and a half minutes to get onto The Standard page. Today was quite fast, I made a comment and submitted about 10.38 a.m.,, and then counted to 200 before I shut down the blank page of the Standard. The comment hasn’t been picked up behind the scenes by the machine – I can’t see Rosetinted up with the Comments.

    Other sites are as quick and accessible as normal.

    • lprent 9.1
      5 July 2013 at 12:38 pm

      Odd. Normally I’d get a messages on my phone and email if the CPU spiked on the web systems or the database.

      Looking at the monitoring for the last 6 hours. Just looks absolutely normal. No drops which is what happens when cloudflare has an issue, and no CPU spikes (bots) and with increased numbers of connections to the DB (when the DB jams up).

      My guess is that your ISP had a problem routing to the cloudflare in sydney (the most common server for NZ connections).

      • weka 9.1.1
        5 July 2013 at 12:50 pm

        I found ts pretty slow loading for a period of time yesterday too – last night I think. Pages, and trying to post comments.

        • lprent 9.1.1.1
          5 July 2013 at 1:36 pm

          Looking…. Don’t really see it at the server side.

          The Date/Time is in UTC (Greenwich) time

          This is the last weeks average CPU at 15 minutes intervals (higher time resolutions down to a minute show similar levels).. I use 15 minutes at above 50% as my trigger point. The only day I showed a problem was NZST tuesday at 10:23, 10:51, and 13:16 on the webserver (and pretty well matched on the database). That was a new spam bot network trying to leave comments. It took a few hours before the system identified all of the IP’s it was using.

          Web server
          CPU for the web server

          Database
          Database server CPU

          BTW: We had a few outages last month mostly because I didn’t have the monit restarts running after the server shift and we had a few stoppages during the night when backups were running. This is the pingdom report from last month.

          Downtimes
          From To Downtime
          2013-06-01 04:24:42 2013-06-01 04:29:42 0h 05m 00s
          2013-06-04 06:19:42 2013-06-04 06:24:42 0h 05m 00s
          2013-06-18 02:49:42 2013-06-18 02:59:42 0h 10m 00s
          2013-06-19 02:49:42 2013-06-19 08:24:42 5h 35m 00s
          2013-06-23 09:24:43 2013-06-23 09:39:42 0h 14m 59s
          2013-06-24 02:49:42 2013-06-24 08:09:42 5h 20m 00s
          2013-06-29 01:44:42 2013-06-29 01:54:42 0h 10m 00s

          rocky will be keeping an eye on the system while I’m away investigating the network access in samoa next week (yeah there is meant to be wifi…) and warming up.

          edit: The pingdom times are in NZST. The 5-10 minute ones are usually either me doing maintenance later at night or early morning or the automatic backups. The longer ones were backup failures or plugin screwups that I missed.

          • lprent 9.1.1.1.1
            5 July 2013 at 1:58 pm

            Umm it was a quiet week last week – the bots were almost non-existent… These are cloudflare’s numbers which report everything (click to see the larger view)

            Page views
            Cloudflare pageviews

            Hits
            Cloudflare hits

            Bandwidth
            Cloudflare hits

            Oh well lunch is over. Getting back to debugging.

            edit: Opps – fixed images

            • Rogue Trooper 9.1.1.1.1.1
              5 July 2013 at 2:05 pm

              23,345 unique viewers.

              • lprent …
                5 July 2013 at 2:45 pm

                Yeah right. All of the systems measure things differently. It gets a bit meaningless..

                The numbers on cloudflare, google analytics, wordpress states, statcounter, sitemeter, and awstats (all of which I use) barely have any relationship with each other. Especially on what are bots, what is a visit, what is a visitor, and even in what is a pageview.

                They are like polls. only really useful if you don’t compare stats between different companies (ie the DPF fallacy) and only look at trends from one.

                For the record, I tend to trust google analytics the most for looking at humans because they rely at least in part on the cookies and IP info used on google sites. They show us with between 25k and 40k unique human visitors per month over the last year. And between 7k and 18k per week. And between 2k and 7k daily.

                It varies quite a lot – we get spikes when something (usually an image) goes viral offshore. But if you exclude the people that we only see once (ie find us when searching) then looking over the last 18 months you see this..

                Visitors – days since last visit
                0 80.5%
                1 7.2%
                2 3.0%
                3 1.7%
                4 1.1%
                5 0.8%
                6 0.1%
                > 1 week 5.6%

                Well over 90% of all our readers including the one page wonders are from NZ.

                In other words we’re really not interested in following the Whaleoil plan for maximizing advertising revenue.

  10. gsays 10
    5 July 2013 at 12:02 pm

    re petrol pricing:

    the problem: companies move their prices at the same time, by the same amount and apparently this is not price fixing.

    hello folks, i am appealling to the collective intelligence here for strategies to organize, inspire and educate the populace to push back at the oil companies.

    i figure if enough (10-25%) of the population where to boycott a particular company for say 3 months we may see a breaking of ranks from the oil companies and their pricing.

    the idea is that if enough of us move in one direction then we can not be stopped.
    to have this succeed sends a message to the big guys (companies and legislators) but more importantly to individuals that we do have power.

    i am not too interested in past evils of the various companies as they are kind of a must have.

    if successful it does not have to be limited to oil companies – supermarkets or other duopoly, power companies.

    i figure the AA would not be keen aas they have a loyalty scheme with one brand.

    your thoughts please

    • Tim 10.1
      5 July 2013 at 2:50 pm

      Yea – I know …. it beggars belief yes? A bit on an insult to whatever the definition of intelligence you might hold.

      Perhaps …. a single buyer model. Something akin to the electricity proposals. Either that, or complete disconnect with the means by which petroleum products are sourced (all that Singapore dependency excuse usually offered).

      Perhaps even a mission to South America – not unlike that “highly successful” jaunt John Key[s] undertook earlier this year that was going to produce results.

  11. Colonial Viper 11
    5 July 2013 at 12:10 pm

    Labour 50% women on the list proposal a disaster. The girls in a nearby office hate it – they say its put working women back 50 years. And many I know are Labour supporters.

    Out of touch on Planet Labour.

    • weka 11.1
      5 July 2013 at 12:42 pm

      “The girls in a nearby office hate it – they say its put working women back 50 years.”

      How is it doing that?

      “Labour 50% women on the list proposal a disaster”

      From what I can tell, that’s not what Labour are proposing. Would it be so hard to get our facts straight?

      • Colonial Viper 11.1.1
        5 July 2013 at 1:20 pm

        How is it doing that?

        They want an equal chance and an equal hearing based on merit. They don’t need protection by regulation and they certainly don’t want to displace someone else if they are more capable at the job.

        Disaster.

        By the way I said “girls”…these are mostly women over 40 in senior and responsible positions in education and social work, a mix of private sector and public sector.

        From what I can tell, that’s not what Labour are proposing. Would it be so hard to get our facts straight?

        I don’t know, do you think I should ask them?

        • BM 11.1.1.1
          5 July 2013 at 2:16 pm

          I agree, the woman came home last night fair bristling at what Labour was proposing.

          She’s a highly educated woman in her 30’s who is currently in a managerial role.

          • One Anonymous Knucklehead 11.1.1.1.1
            5 July 2013 at 2:21 pm

            Please, before you make your wife out to be so ignorant again, can you just check whether she understands that Labour is considering this proposal?

            • Colonial Viper 11.1.1.1.1.1
              5 July 2013 at 2:39 pm

              I give it a 95% chance of passing at Conference. It’s as good as done.

              • Jackal …
                5 July 2013 at 6:49 pm

                How would you fix the gender bias then CV? Women are simply not currently getting an equal chance and an equal hearing based on merit.

                • North …
                  5 July 2013 at 8:58 pm

                  I’m told by a reflexive “that’s great !” female mate of mine that this effective mandatory gender share thing remains not more than a remit to be put forward at the conference in November. Not formal policy of the NZLP.

                  Even the purist must acknowledge that it’s wildfire politically. See what the pigs have done with it already.

                  Please don’t let it become an issue which defines left thinking in New Zealand. Because if we do the pigs will smash us over.

                  I believe that to back it as an imperative without intelligent management is fuck’n’ hubristic and selfish. Suggestive of – “Let’s buzz OURSELVES hard. Yeah, we’re so fuck’n’ pure and intelligent”. No. Fuck you. You’re not “left” except as a self proclaimer if it’s all about YOUR imperative.

                  People have the imperatives they an afford. Many, many New Zealanders can have no imperative other than putting food on the table. Their circumstances are such that without that narrow focus there will be no bloody food on the table. Think about that. Imagine that.

                  • weka …
                    5 July 2013 at 10:39 pm

                    You had me for the first three paragraphs.

                    The fourth paragraph, I have no idea what it means.

                    The last one I call bullshit on. It’s not proposals like the one yesterday that are preventing addressing serious issues like poverty. It’s the fact that Labour is a bloody mess that is the problem. By all means stuff a whole bunch of issues back in the box, but that won’t get you anywhere useful because those issues aren’t preventing the necessary things from being done.

                    If Labour wasn’t such a bloody mess, then this proposal would have been handled in a completely different way. You’re aiming at the wrong target.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      5 July 2013 at 11:18 pm

                      “The last one I call bullshit on. It’s not proposals like the one yesterday that are preventing addressing serious issues like poverty”

                      Oh yeah, there’s no way that Labour’s great policy set on addressing working, beneficiary and child poverty is being overshadowed by this in the slightest.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  5 July 2013 at 11:21 pm

                  “How would I fix the gender bias”

                  I wouldn’t. By the way, Labour’s proposal doesn’t either.

            • chrissy 11.1.1.1.1.2
              6 July 2013 at 12:10 am

              Yessss111 Thank you! Heard on Nat Rad this morning the same premise from Sue Moroney but she wouldn’t be heard and the rest of the programme was put over to whoever was the opposing view. Nat radio seemed to be putting it as a fait accompli and not as a remit to be put forward to be discussed. Shoddy.

        • weka 11.1.1.2
          5 July 2013 at 3:39 pm


          “The girls in a nearby office hate it – they say its put working women back 50 years.”

          “How is it doing that?”

          They want an equal chance and an equal hearing based on merit.

          How nice for them. Did you point out that they don’t have that now? And ask them if they would like that fixed, and how they would like that fixed?

          And I’d still like to know how the rule change would put women back 50 years. That’s to the the early 60s, so you should be able to pull up some interesting stats to compare to.
          They don’t need protection by regulation and they certainly don’t want to displace someone else if they are more capable at the job.

          Can you please show me how the rule change would displace someone MORE capable at the job?


          “From what I can tell, that’s not what Labour are proposing. Would it be so hard to get our facts straight?”

          I don’t know, do you think I should ask them?

          Yes, obviously. What an odd question.

          It has been useful though CV to see that your objections aren’t just about timing or the competency of Labour’s PR, but that you also object because you believe the lie that women can overcome structural sexism by their own personal effort.

          • QoT 11.1.1.2.1
            5 July 2013 at 9:42 pm

            They’re in their 40s and they get referred to as “girls”. Says it all, doesn’t it?

    • McFlock 11.2
      5 July 2013 at 1:53 pm

      ANOTHER disaster? That’s like “electoral oblivion” squared!

    • Bill 11.3
      5 July 2013 at 2:04 pm

      Maybe somebody could reference the experiment that showed random selection produced the same results as targetted selection? That said, I agree this move could undermine women who are selected/promoted because, *you know*, they only got the position due to their gender rather than their ability. That, and it’s bloody window dressing…

      • One Anonymous Knucklehead 11.3.1
        5 July 2013 at 2:08 pm

        The women who would only get their position because of their gender, as opposed to the men right now who do what exactly?

        • Bill 11.3.1.1
          5 July 2013 at 2:42 pm

          Aye, but we live in a patriarchy, right? And so the potential put down that would point to a man only attaining his position due to his gender has bugger all potential at the end of the day. totally different potential if you ain’t pink and ain’t male though, aye?

      • weka 11.3.2
        5 July 2013 at 3:46 pm

        Maybe somebody could reference the experiment that showed random selection produced the same results as targetted selection? That said, I agree this move could undermine women who are selected/promoted because, *you know*, they only got the position due to their gender rather than their ability. That, and it’s bloody window dressing…

        I’d like to see how Labour thinks the actual rule change might work in practice, but if what you say is true it’s a pretty clear sign of how much of a sexist society we still live in.

    • Te Reo Putake 11.4
      5 July 2013 at 2:22 pm

      “Labour 50% women on the list proposal a disaster. The girls in a nearby office hate it – they say its put working women back 50 years. And many I know are Labour supporters.”

      Is it just me, or does that story sound like a desperate lie? Not to mention sexist, obviously.

      • Bill 11.4.1
        5 July 2013 at 2:47 pm

        So, where was I reading that this was a leak? See, if there is any story here, it’s that…or more precisely, the timing of it. There was JK and the spying debacle. And here came a free pass to distract from somebody within Labour. It’s kinda fucking unbelievable.

        • One Anonymous Knucklehead 11.4.1.1
          5 July 2013 at 2:55 pm

          The proposal has been around for “months” apparently. Clearly now was the best time to discuss it. We just had to wait for Cameron Slater to break the story.

          • McFlock 11.4.1.1.1
            5 July 2013 at 3:37 pm

            you never know – maybe whoever was the gatekeeper kept thinking that the best time to deal with the issue was “not now”…

        • Te Reo Putake 11.4.1.2
          5 July 2013 at 3:22 pm

          If there was a leaker, I’d assume it was a homophobic, misogynist MP. A name springs to mind.

        • weka 11.4.1.3
          5 July 2013 at 3:44 pm


          So, where was I reading that this was a leak? See, if there is any story here, it’s that…or more precisely, the timing of it. There was JK and the spying debacle. And here came a free pass to distract from somebody within Labour. It’s kinda fucking unbelievable.

          Smeone said yesterday (maybe this came from Labour?) that it was part of a bunch of rule changes emailed to members ahead of public release (by a few hours?). It’s not so much that someone leaked to Slater/Lusk, as Labour handed it to them on a plate.

      • Colonial Viper 11.4.2
        5 July 2013 at 10:29 pm

        Hey TRP, screw you.

        We’ll see how desperate things get as this proposal gets continuous airplay later this year.

        • Te Reo Putake 11.4.2.1
          5 July 2013 at 11:22 pm

          What ev’s CV. It appears your lifestyle defines you.

          • Colonial Viper 11.4.2.1.1
            5 July 2013 at 11:38 pm

            Remember my words. The media get another field day with this at Conference this year. What ever the final vote the proposal will be a media lose-lose.

            • Te Reo Putake 11.4.2.1.1.1
              5 July 2013 at 11:50 pm

              There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

              Oscar Wilde

  12. Rogue Trooper 12
    5 July 2013 at 1:35 pm

    ‘To be alienated means to be someone other (alienus) than oneself; It also can mean to belong to someone else. In more profound sense, it means to be deprived of one’s self, to be subjected to, or even identified with someone else. That is definitely the effect of propaganda. Propaganda strips the individual, robs them of part of themselves, and makes them live an alien and artificial life, to such an extent that they become another person and obey impulses foreign to them. They obey someone else.
    To produce this effect, propaganda restricts itself to utilizing, increasing, and reinforcing the individual’s inclination to lose himself in something (human) bigger than they are, to dissipate their uniqueness, to free their ego of all doubt, conflict, and suffering- through fusion with others; to devote themselves to a great (sic) leader and a great cause. In large groups, humans feel united with others, and therefore try to free themselves through blending. Indeed, propaganda offers them that possibility in an exceptionally easy and satisfying fashion. Yet, it pushes the individual into the mass until they disappear entirely.
    To begin with, what is it that propaganda makes disappear? Everything in the nature of critical and personal judgement. Obviously, propaganda limits the application of thought. It limits the propagandee’s field of thought to the extent that it provides them with ready-made (and, moreover, unreal) thoughts and stereotypes. It orients them towards very limited ends and prevents them from using their own minds or experimenting on their own. It determines the core from which all their thoughts must derive and draws from the beginning a sort of guideline that permits neither criticism or imagination. More precisely, imagination will lead only to small digressions from the fixed line and to only slightly deviant, preliminary responses within the framework. In this fashion, we see the ‘progressives’ make some “variations” around the basic propaganda tenets.
    The acceptance of the ‘line’, of such ends and limitations (BAU), presupposes the suppression of all critical judgement, which in turn is a result of the crystalization of thoughts (see fluidity of thought) and attitudes and the creation of taboos. As Jules Monnerot accurately said: All individual passion leads to the suppression of all critical judgement with regard to the object of that passion. Beyond that, in the collective passion created by propaganda, critical judgement disappears altogether, for in no way can there ever be collective critical judgement. Humans become incapable of ‘separation’, of discernment (the word ‘critical’ is derived from the Greek ‘krino’- separate). The individual can no longer judge for them-self due to inescapably relating their thoughts to the entire complex of values and prejudices established by propaganda. With regard to POLITICAL situations, they are given ready-made value judgments invested with the power of truth by the number of supporters and the word of experts.

    What the individual loses is never easy to revive. Once personal judgement and critical faculties have disappeared or have been atrophied, they will not simply reappear when propaganda has been suppressed. In fact, this is one of propaganda’s most durable effects: years of intellectual and spiritual education would be needed to restore such faculties. The propagandee, if deprived of one propaganda, will immediately adopt another; this will spare them the ‘agony’ 😉 of finding themselves at some event without a ready-made opinion, and obliged to think about and judge it for themselves. At the same time, propaganda presents facts, judgments, and values in such confusion and with so many methods that it is literally impossible for the average person to proceed with discernment. They are often forced to accept, or reject, everything ‘in toto’.

    -Jaques Ellul : ‘Propaganda : The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.

    Toto 😀

  13. Rogue Trooper 13
    5 July 2013 at 1:50 pm

    A Great City : small firms, smart people and connections to the outside world; the purpose behind modern cities is to pass on information, and the more effectively and efficiently they do this, the more…they blossom, the more successful and sustainable they become-Dr. Edward Glaeser.

  14. Draco T Bastard 14
    5 July 2013 at 2:22 pm

    Dean Parker: Labour must recapture the spirit of ’38

    But I’m not sure about Labour as they’ve been making the same noises as National. A new party may have better luck.

    • Winston Smith 14.1
      5 July 2013 at 2:37 pm

      Keep dreamin’, Labour will never recapture that spirit. How can it?

      The people in Labour at that time are very different from the people in Labour today, especially in life experiences.

      • North 14.1.1
        5 July 2013 at 9:12 pm

        Disingenuity is not pretty WS. You scream of it. To match your unabashed ugliness in a social sense and of mind.

  15. Tim 15
    5 July 2013 at 4:50 pm

    My Goodness! (OMG, OMFG even).
    The nicest man on Earth had an Imperator Fish on “The Panel”. Not only that, as I listened, there were no ahurr ahurr ahurrs, attempts at linguistic gymnastics, or any other humbug displayed by the nicest man on Earth host.
    Me thinks the nicest man on Earth needs a few more ‘The Panel’ guests who don’t take shit.
    Of course they run the risk of a Bradbury style excommunication.

    (Check it out @ Morissey) – still a bit of fluff, but better than most of the other MSM noises being aired at the time.

    • Morrissey 15.1
      5 July 2013 at 5:10 pm

      I heard the programme too, Tim. Yes, Scott York and Julia Hartley Moore, as well as host Jim Mora, spoke seriously and like adults. It was a pretty good programme. I missed the first part of the pre-show segment, but I did hear a little of that screech-owl Balducci guffawing at the plight of Edward Snowden yet again. Something about the possibility of him marrying a Russian woman and thereby gaining permanent asylum in Russia. I don’t know how serious the story was, but Susan Balducci certainly seemed to be tickled pink by it.

  16. Rogue Trooper 16
    5 July 2013 at 6:01 pm

    No money for Pike River families (well, maybe 5K)
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10895019
    -legal fees swallowed it all up.

    Gareth Morgan and Geoff Simmons take on taxing takeaways
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10894777
    ‘An Appetite for Destruction’- “user-pays” for poor diet marketing, those in poverty and the ‘time-poor’.(oh, and apparently, ‘the lazy’).

  17. Huginn 17
    5 July 2013 at 6:02 pm

    This is well worth reading for anyone trying to get their heads around recent events in Egypt.

    Nervana Mahmoud gives a nuanced, succinct account of how Morsi came to power and how he lost it.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/heres-why-egyptians-are-glad-the-military-ousted-their-president/article12981767/#dashboard/follows/

    • Rogue Trooper 17.1
      5 July 2013 at 6:22 pm

      the Malthusian angle was glanced upon earlier in the week on TS;
      -poverty
      -power cuts
      -food shortages
      -inflation
      -debt
      -unemployment
      -water shortages predicted
      -opaque decision-making
      -Islamization

      now the danger

  18. Anne 18
    5 July 2013 at 6:20 pm

    Campbell Live tonight:

    One of NZ’s most high profile politicians will be making a major announcement.

    Quick sweep stake: my entry

    Banks is going to announce his resignation from politics?

  19. Doug 19
    5 July 2013 at 7:07 pm

    David Shearer has a job at the UN, packing it in as Dear Leader.

  20. chris73 20
    5 July 2013 at 7:21 pm

    http://www.3news.co.nz/Study-at-odds-with-teachers-union-claims/tabid/423/articleID/303913/Default.aspx

    D’oh! Bit harder for the unions now that the media is starting to pick up on the lies…

  21. Descendant Of Sssmith 21
    6 July 2013 at 12:10 am

    It’s late and this will likely get buried as all good people are likely asleep.

    Occasionally I watch kitsch TV and caught tonights Secret Millionaire.

    What was interesting was that the millionaire looks surprisingly like our PM.

    http://www.bdainc.com/about-us/management/jay/

    What was more interesting was to see the large contrast between the way the PM speaks and behaves facially against his doppelganger Jay Deutsch who clearly has empathy and his face well shows this.

    Sure they are different people but it was a little uncanny and hinted at what was possible if Key had a sense of decency rather than self entitlement. Body language and what is behind the eyes speaks volumes.

    On a more sombre note also watched The House I Live In which looks at the imprisonment of people for drugs in the US. Sadly we’re going down the same road at the same time there is some resistance emerging in the US. The section towards the end about the steps taken to create an enemy seem particularly relevant to NZ with the steps taken to demonise the poor and beneficiaries here.

    Just realised that link I found is to a streaming (pirate) site – have removed. I can tell cause it has the latest superman movie there as well.

  22. Huginn 22
    6 July 2013 at 2:17 am

    From the Wall Street Journal:

    “Egyptians would be lucky if generals turn out to be in mold of Pinochet…who midwifed a transition to democracy.”

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324399404578583932317286550.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

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