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7:00 am, November 7th, 2019 - 70 comments
Categories: open mike -
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True and funny
True – the house of sharts begins to fall
Guess what in The High Court trial over the release of Peters confidential Social Welfare information.
National Ministers lawyers are saying they 'didnt disclose the information'
"Gray said: "They resist this. They say that neither of them disclosed the information."
Yet Tolley has
testifiedher lawyer has said – she told her husband , her sister , the former Prime Minister's chief of staff, Wayne Eagleson, ….also told a senior staff member in her office.But no her lips were sealed ! Tolley will testify today and be cross examined.
Bennett should be a hoot in witness box , acting grander than Dame Kiri !
All these very high profile trials all at once, is this a deliberate strategy by the Chief High Court Judge ?
So, no leopard print but a more demure pink perhaps and still loads of hairspray?
I don't agree with pink. She wore that at last QT in the House. It will be a neutral dress in green or blue with a white jacket symbolising the innocence and purity of her natural personality. 👿
Martyn Bradbury wins settlement over spying on him in wake of Rawshark: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/11/06/breaking-5-years-and-finally-justice-nz-police-formally-apologise-settle-for-breaching-my-civil-rights/
Had a few days off eh DoU. Now back to being the Great Invigilator on every opinion passed for discussion. DoU the pop-up guillotine to freedom of reasonable opinion and discussion. And always with a conservative 20th century bias, with the aim of thinking about new ways to cope with the present and looming difficulties of this century.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Are you trying to say something of value or have just swallowed a wasp. Or are your written views so perfectly formed they cant pass scrutiny, or you have scooped up designer socialist views of the highest quality and wish to parade them around
I contribute far more to blogs unrelated completely to NZ or politics, so I only dip in and out here
Grey that is a horrible thing to say! Duke does not need this… and I frankly would rather not see this kind of attack on Invigilators.
Right maui I understand. I also see that you do not share my concern that there are not more people coming here to have discussions and learn from each other and not getting put down and being harassed and stalked by one or two RW people. Perhaps you know who DoU is or feel so aligned to what was done as normal in the 20th century that you can't accept there is a need for change of behaviour.
I am tired of trying to get some people here to accept that we need a wider acceptance of thought and people coming here. Instead it seems that some can't stand any criticism of their favourite people or ideas, including themselves. If DoU is an invigilator is he doing his job reasonably for the purpose of encouraging thought in NZ from the ordinary citizen? Is this blog to be a nice tea party for intelligent people and/or a place for people with a grievance can get sympathy. Or is it looking at our present and our future which is dire?
As we approach tragic outcomes and seem frozen in the headlines I would like to see people here encourage others to contribute and learn and then keep contributing and honing their thoughts about getting outcomes that enable our youngsters to have a life. I am sorry if you want to run a cosy little chatroom. Perhaps I am out of place here. I don't want to waste my time coming here if I am going to be criticised all the time by some cabal of cronies.
In my experience, changing the culture of online spaces takes persistence, and working with people or building what we want, as much as negating what we don't want.
I'm not sure what the wider context is here in this instance. I disagree with DoU a fair bit, and sometimes find his posting style annoying, but he does engage with the topic at hand, is willing to be part of robust debate, and doesn't run lines that are counter to the Policy.
The commenting on TS seems at a low point currently. I'm not happy about it either and am thinking about it a fair bit. Maybe the community should talk about it more. I think attacking commenters is not the way to go, so maybe think about sharing what you want here without the aggro* stuff, then it will be easier to see what you are trying to convey.
*the general rule here is if you are on topic and making a point then you can get away with a degree of rudeness. Comments that have nothing in them other than attacking another commenter will invariably get moderator attention.
Lately there has been a tendency for a few commenters to take offence at another commenter's contribution having misinterpreted the intent of their contribution. It is incumbent on all of us if we make such a mistake to own it and apologise. There has been a notable lack of apology on the part of one or two people in recent times and that does not augur well for morale.
A small point in the scheme of things but a good time to mention it. 🙂
thanks Anne.
Best news of the day/week/month. Tom Watson is gone. Pelosi and Schumer slinging their hooks would top it I guess 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/06/tom-watson-to-quit-as-labour-deputy-leader-and-stand-down-as-mp
Mandy Henk writes about how the NZ research industry gives away all (most of) it's output so that a few transnational companies can profit from it, and locals can't see it.
Universities and CRIs can't afford to see each other's work, business people and health professionals can;'t get the latest stuff.
Other countries are starting to say enough is enough – Germany, Sweden, California have all refused to pay their subscriptions until access is made more equitable. Should we do that here too?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/science/07-11-2019/how-paywalls-are-poisoning-public-interest-research/
"…profit-focused approach to academic publishing…" sounds like a Joyce legacy to me along with his brutal restructuring and 'refocusing' of Agresearch.
Recall AyaTolley struggling to get their agenda into higher ed….up stepped bovver boy Joyce.
There are some really good open-access journals available these days (e.g. https://www.plos.org/) – people should publish on open-access as much as possible.
Perhaps should be a condition of public funding that all resulting publications must use open access channels?
Agreed, as long as funders are OK with allocating a small proportion of funding to cover the publication/page fees/charges of open access journals.
Much research in NZ is done on the smell of an oily rag, making free-to-publish, pay-to-view journals an attractive option.
https://www.plos.org/publication-fees
Very good point about the fees (Article Processing Charges). They are quite small compared to various government funded / part funded research programs I am familiar with (budgets in the millions), but could be prohibitive to a PhD candidate wanting to publish their findings, for example.
Good thing with PLOS is it is non-profit, so at least none of the fees are funneled to private investors.
Plus they have schemes to assist authors who cannot pay, and institutional /organisational funding schemes. It would not be a huge investment (and they would likely negotiate a bulk deal) for the NZ government to agree to fund all publications on PLOS from NZ authors – and thus solving access issues for all NZ-based research.
Like your idea of the government funding all publications in PLoS journals from NZ authors.
Trying to balance my previous comment, for most fields of research there will (hopefully) be free-to-publish open access journals. According to Wikipedia, these may be classified as 'Diamond' or 'Platinum' open access journals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Diamond/platinum_OA
Regrettably, there has been an astounding proliferation of potential/possible/probable predatory open access publishers. https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
We talk about wellbeing – it has come into the NZ political language. We might now go further and look at how we reach that. Is it being happy all the time? Is that what we are aiming for.
The Greeks thought about this, in ancient times they came up with delineating the word 'love'. If we want to live in a planet with people who care about it, about each other, and not just their own interests and connections perhaps we should check out the other forms that love can take instead of erotic and narcissistic.
https://www.e-counseling.com/relationships/what-are-the-7-types-of-love/
The all you can eat buffet is almost out of food…what we going to eat then?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/2018721039/transition-engineering
Susan Krumdiek is someone to watch and listen to very closely and regularly, Pat. That interview is a valuable one. I'm planning to invite Susan to speak to our council as part of our climate emergency readiness planning
I wish she would be invited to speak to Cabinet (and Treasury for that matter)….but then as she says, politicians arnt going to solve this
Heres an introduction piece for your How to get there series
https://www.the-possible.com/energy-transition-climate-change/
sometimes I read the mournful – "we don't want Asians here, they will change us" – and I remember the truth
Pākehā who find that implication troubling (that we weren't wanted here, that we changed things for the worse), might find it helpful to understand that redressing the *current wrongs would go a long way to making our presence here legitimate. As would thinking what a decolonised NZ might look like.
Love Moana Jackson, he has deep knowledge about the ways out of our predicaments.
Personally I find Moana's brand of sugar coated inflammatory racist speech deeply offensive.
Ha – his style of telling the truth does infuriate some people – I rate him very highly.
that does not surprise me
Funny video worth 9 minutes of your time. Explaining that capitalism did not make tech – but explains who did.
Excellent!!
Re Current Affairs: National is all supportive of Capitalism. Maybe that is why they fail to create or innovate? Wrong mindsets?
Oh Yeah Bernie!!
Mike Joy came to Golden Bay yesterday and gave a great talk on the future of food .
This man is hugely impressive, in his modest demeanour and plain talking. As an academic he could have played it strictly by the book, been careful, not ruffled feathers, and ended up high on the hog(insofar as academics can) but at any rate, led a comfortable, safe life. Instead of which, like Nicky Hager, he bravely opted to speak out and tell his scientific truth.
His talk was not comfortable, particularly if you'd watched Thomas Piketty's doco recently Capital in the 21st century, done by our own Kiwi film maker Justin Pemberton
He stressed the imminence of catastrophic change
Mike does not point to science for a quick fix.He has a simple message .Live simply, live well, the party's over , get back to the basics of life, ditch the damaging trimmings.Keep things local, develop community, grow food using such workable models as permaculture
I agree. Also I think what we need is a radical evolutionary change in consciousness, the next step , where we shift from competitive to co operative.Preferably before war or climate disaster forces the issue
He's not anti science, or EVs or growing trees, or solar panels, but warns they are not a silver bullet that will enable BAU.
If you can get this guy to come to your home town and give a talk, he's well worth it, very down to earth, very approachable, not in an ivory tower
Cool – good guy and nice report.
We do have some great speakers of recent times in the bay – julie Anne Genter coming up but I fear I'll get angry so doubt I'll get to the muss.
wow, that sounds great. I will go look up and see if he has a video online.
"He's not anti science, or EVs or growing trees, or solar panels, but warns they are not a silver bullet that will enable BAU."
This is so the conversation that we need to be having right now.
"what we need is a radical evolutionary change in consciousness, the next step , where we shift from competitive to co operative"
Indeed.
But we cannot rely on the government to institute such changes. Their raison d'être is not to serve us as individuals but to serve large, mostly foreign owned corporations.
Change will only come about from the ground up.
The Internet is making this possible where goods can be swapped or given freely via social media, produce sold or donated locally etc.
Farcebook does have its uses.
Not independent, instead interdependent.
Humankind, that is; not independent of the non-human world, interdependent with it. Of course, we are anyway, we just don't see it or behave that way. The time’s approaching when we must.
Have Mike and Susan shared a stage yet? I wish they would. I'd MC
Susan who Robert?
Another thing that Mike brought up was that we've (humanity) proved we can set aside our individual wants and aspirations for the common good …as in civilians selflessly helping each other in time of war.But why does it have to be so extreme?
I have the idea that war /disaster and economic depression are great levellers .We're all in the moment, impacted, in need, the notion of "we just have each other" and "we're all in this together" is prevalent.So many people of my mother's generation,who'd been through the Depression said "We were poor, but we were happy and we had such friendships"
After 30 years of neoliberalism we've been trained to be individual consumers rather than citizens
Maybe when the insurance companies stop paying out on climate disasters we'll look to each other again .In fact I have heard of insurance companies broaching the idea that "no , this is not a natural disaster, this is caused by humans who have been in full knowledge of the consequences of their actions"
I'm rambling now , but which Susan ..St John? Kedgley?
Susan Krumdiek?
Yes, indeed; she's one of the front-runners. Listen to her radio interview and you'll hear what I mean.
Yep
Missed the earlier post from Robert
Thanks for that
Trump needs to fire Pense, put in a liberal vp so the senate doesn't impeach him.
As a legal matter, Pence is the one and only person whose employment in the executive branch that Tinyfingers Tantrump can't terminate. Because he was elected to the position, not appointed.
As a practical matter, I'm curious about your opinion that appointing a liberal VP would protect America's prolapsed rectum from impeachment.
Seems to me that's one of the very few things that might actually cause him to be convicted in the senate and booted out of office after impeachment in the House. Because it would enrage his base, possibly to the point of weakening their cultish devotion. And if he no longer commands an army of blindly devoted Drumpfkins ready to primary anyone that squeaks against Glorious Dear Leader, then Repug senators might take some calcium pills, regrow their vestigial spines and principles, and vote to convict.
Trump is not the republicans. The Senate has a choice, get the base angry and get a Christian right president pence, or leave Trump unfettered second term… …and likely impeachment again, as he is just that much of a walking disaster. Trump has been reigned in for now, and so what if a few Republician Senators who were resigning, or unelectable, go out on principle. So a rump of the senate can feed off the anger from trump base, saying they stood their ground. Pence then has momentum for the republican convention.
Uh, so far there's only three sitting senate repugs that are retiring: Pat Roberts of Kansas, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Mike Enzi of Wyoming.
Those Repugs listed in that CNN piece are House Representatives.
Um, yeah.
Andre – yeah, my bad
(think I broke the thread, too)
All good.
Tolley quite the gossip, it seems: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12283097
Gosh, why wouldn't you trust an office with her as a role model?
I have always thought that if National did leak it, it was more likely to be Tolley than Bennett. Just a hunch.
The National Party mind has been attacked and corrupted by its own dogwhistle – namely that "Maori = benefit fraudster". As Tolley blabbed away over the clinking glasses of rosé , her assumption of wrongdoing by Peters was inevitable and natural.
wow – I hope she is never given any responsibility again. Even in sievey street confidentiality is a basic concept.
[headdesk]
To recycle an old line: the three "Tees" of Twentieth Century telecommunications: Telegraph, Telephone, and Tell Tolley.
Ha!
Third Reading of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Bill
3rd Reading is currently underway in Parliament and live streaming available on the Parliament website.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/watch-parliament/
James Shaw in his opening speech (of 12 speeches scheduled in the 3rd Reading), has just acknowledged the presence of Kennedy Graham as the originator of the Bill in the House, and also the many other contributors to its passage etc through the House.
FFS Joe, what alternate reality were you inhabiting from 2008 to 2016? And now, for that matter?
James Shaw's introduction to the Zero Carbon Bill was superb and he earned a standing ovation from all on the Left. Bridges is speaking now, holding back saying that his party will support the Bill….
Channel 31
James Shaw's introduction to the Zero Carbon Bill was superb and he earned a standing ovation from all on the Left. Bridges is speaking now, holding back saying that his party will support the Bill….but now he's declared, "Mr Speaker, National will support this Bill!
Fan-bloody-tastic!
The nat's supporting it is such a win for the planet and for the government because, national voters are losing their shite about it. It's a win win 🙂
I believe that the National Party was swamped with messages from business leaders to stop stalling and join in. Bridges waited till the end of his speech before announcing agreement. Petty little boy.
PC gone mad.
https://twitter.com/RobbieGramer/status/1192046877497348097
EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story accurately quoted the book as describing "PC" as standing for "politically correct" in characterizing certain Obama administration meetings. The author has since informed Fox News this was due to a misunderstanding between him and his source and that the initials referred to "Principals Committee."
https://www.foxnews.com/media/book-cia-staff-obama-white-house
From Wikipedia:
So, basically, the complaint is that there were too many meetings about national security policy issues.
"SHANE JONES may just have come up with a sure-fire MMP threshold-busting election strategy. He has committed NZ First to formulating a comprehensive “population policy”. If handled adroitly, this exercise will likely evoke a strong electoral response from “native” New Zealanders. Almost certainly powerful enough to guarantee the party’s return to Parliament."
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/11/07/has-shane-jones-just-saved-nz-first/
IF handled adroitly it may indeed do just that
It's not just going forward they need to worry about – NZF made promises prior to the last election in respect of immigration – if they give them up without a visible fight they'll shed a lot of support.
An unremarkable, moderate, 1970's-style social democrat is actually intent on mass murder. The derangement of elites is hugely funny, but dangerous too.