Open mike 07/04/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 7th, 2010 - 45 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

Comment on whatever takes your fancy.

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Step right up to the mike…

45 comments on “Open mike 07/04/2010 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    7 April 2010 at 6:04 am

    GST off healthy food: a broad campaign is the right thing to do

    by Vaughan Gunson

    Gordon Campbell, editor of the online magazine Werewolf, has written an invaluable article, Do the Right Thing, that completely knocks the stuffing out of all the arguments against taking GST off food.

    Campbell’s well researched and timely article draws on the Australian experience where there’s no GST on basic food to destroy the chimerical argument that it’s too hard to exempt food from GST. In Australia, current computer technology makes the exemption process easy.

    In December last year, the Australian Taxation Office released a computer package called GS1-Net that allows businesses to easily manage the food exemptions. The same technology could be adapted for New Zealand. The supposed difficulty has been one of the main excuses used by defenders of across-the-board GST, including the leadership of both National and Labour. But it’s simply not the case.

    Campbell also highlights the results of a research project released in March this year by the Wellington School of Medicine, which confirmed that price decisively determined people’s food choices at the supermarket. Despite education on healthy foods, when it came to loading up the trolley, people went for the cheaper options, even if they were less healthy. From the study, the conclusion of Professor Tony Blakely is that price intervention works in encouraging people to choose healthier food. The research gives support to Maori Party MP Rahui Katene’s private members’ bill to remove GST from healthy food.

    Continue at http://unityaotearoa.blogspot.com/2010/04/gst-off-healthy-food-broad-campaign-is.html

    Please forward to your own contacts.

    Feedback appreciated, send to Vaughan svpl@xtra.co.nz or make a comment on UNITYblog.

  3. Linda 3
    7 April 2010 at 9:24 am

    Getting detailed information about policy out of Ministry of Education. Very difficult to get anything of substance!! Grrr. More than 3 weeks to answer 3 questions about National Standards! And still waiting after a follow-up reminder to them. Grrr.
    So frustrating!

  4. Pascal's bookie 4
    7 April 2010 at 10:34 am

    Interesting forum post on teh teaparty faction.

    http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=565866

  5. randal 5
    7 April 2010 at 10:48 am

    well the guts of the matter is this.
    in the boondocks the political scene is almost straight out of louisiana circa huey long.
    the councils and the police and some sections of the tory party beleive they have the right to stand over anybody who disagrees and if they are able to then cut them off from civic amanties as welland menace them in the street.
    just a matter of public record.
    okay?

  6. Bill 6
    7 April 2010 at 10:48 am

    Thanks for that. Probably the most insightful thing I will read today…and tomorrow.

  8. Olwyn 8
    7 April 2010 at 4:50 pm

    Did anyone notice a small item in today’s Dom, “Today in Politics,” page 2? According to the piece, John Key attended a High School Reunion on the weekend, where a woman sought to kiss him and stick her tongue in his ear. His response was to gesture to the policeman next to him and say, “only if you want to get tasered.” What a way for our resident political sex symbol to fob off an ardent admirer! Maybe Crosby and Textor need to supply him with a few cards containing graceful “thanks but no thanks” lines from old movies.

  9. Camden Whelk 9
    7 April 2010 at 5:37 pm

    I notice that the Standard’s RSS-Feed now only contains one paragraph of the original article. This seems to have started sometime after the 29th ultimo. Is this a new policy? (in which case I must have overlooked an announcement) or is it a hiccup of the recent reboot? I enjoy reading aggregated feeds and I would be sorry to lose this one.

  10. Bored 10
    7 April 2010 at 6:07 pm

    Mining Crown land…
    Demolishing local democracy in Auckland and Canterbury….
    Benefit bashing…..
    Damming the Mokihinui.

    What a sick crowd of sociopathic bastards we voted in.

  11. kiwiteen123 11
    7 April 2010 at 7:35 pm

    Have I missed my re-banning or have I passed some sort of quota (other than my own)? Some of my comments have disappeared.

    • Daveosaurus 11.1
      7 April 2010 at 7:42 pm

      KT: try looking at the bottom of each page. I’ve just noticed that a number of comment threads seem to have disintegrated and the deeper comments have fallen to the bottom.

      • kiwiteen123 11.1.1
        7 April 2010 at 7:44 pm

        Yeah. It looks like it!
        Some comments have gone all together (I searched the page).
        LYNN! Fix it…. You are a genius.

      • KT 11.1.2
        7 April 2010 at 7:49 pm

        You were banned KT. Don’t think you just come back and pretend it never happened – MF

        • r0b 11.1.2.1
          7 April 2010 at 8:03 pm

          Michael – I think Lynn let Kiwiteen have a second chance.

          Moderators – we need a better way of handling this – a central list.

          • kiwiteen123 11.1.2.1.1
            7 April 2010 at 8:07 pm

            I need to pull back my comments.
            I have emailed Lynn to ask him if he is aware of this.
            I don’t want to be banned but it would be great if you could come to some consensus!

            • the sprout 11.1.2.1.1.1
              7 April 2010 at 8:18 pm

              maybe you could just go somewhere you’re welcome?

              • kiwiteen123 …
                7 April 2010 at 8:21 pm

                I will leave again in a couple of days but I need some consensus!
                Can I continue commenting?
                MF has ruined whole convos on the homophobic post. Is it normal practice to delete banned people’s comments? It certainly confuses people.
                I think you need a hui. Who has Lynn’s phone number?

                IrishBill: I go away for a couple of days and you start breaking your lifetime ban? All further comments by kiwiteen will be deleted.

                • the sprout …
                  7 April 2010 at 8:25 pm

                  are you familiar with the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder Katie?

    • the sprout 11.2
      7 April 2010 at 7:43 pm

      i think you may have tripped the ‘umpteen boring irrelevant comments’ detector KT.

  12. Michael Foxglove 12
    7 April 2010 at 7:47 pm

    KT was permanently banned by Irish. Suggest you go elsewhere KT.

  13. kiwiteen123 13
    7 April 2010 at 7:50 pm

    My original comment has now disappeared.

  14. felix 14
    7 April 2010 at 8:27 pm

    Lynn did say kt could comment again, on probation I think he said.

    All because of Patti Smith apparently.

    • IrishBill 14.1
      7 April 2010 at 8:30 pm

      Too bad. I banned him for life and that means he’s banned for life.

      • kiwiteen123 14.1.1
        7 April 2010 at 8:37 pm

        If Lynn says I am banned I will leave.
        Lynn has placed me in probation.
        I was under the impression that Lynn had the final say. Is this not the case?
        I am happy to leave if I am told to by Lynn. He is in charge. I respect his authority.

      • the sprout 14.1.2
        7 April 2010 at 8:57 pm

        too bad

        is your editorial authority superior to Lynn’s, IB?
        if you’re the boss, just say.

        [lprent: Nope. Its a coop. Any moderator can ban someone and the others stand by that. Otherwise we have to have meetings and none of us have time. ]

        IrishBill: The Boss? Like Springsteen? Nope. Like Lynn says we stand by each others decisions (barring the occasional communication failure) and if we don’t we kick it around until we get consensus. It’s an important part of collective action.

        • The Voice of Reason 14.1.2.1
          7 April 2010 at 9:27 pm

          From the teensters blog:

          “I was under the impression that Lynn is in charge! Is he not? Is Bill now the self-elected leader of The Standard. Who has the final call?

          This is a bad look. If I was Lynn I would be angry!”

          I for one pledge my loyalty to our new insect overlords … oh, sorry, Simpsons’ flashback.
          My only regret is the removal of KT’s comments, which trashes the context of the threads and diminishes the comments of others around his, particularly the rather good put-downs (pollywog, I’m thinking of you!).

          He was commenting in good faith, after all, and it wasn’t all petulant crap. Mostly, but not all.

          • gingercrush 14.1.2.1.1
            7 April 2010 at 9:39 pm

            Hmm I went to that as well and saw my name and email over there. Does that mean Kiwiteen got our details from here or something?

            • Armchair Critic 14.1.2.1.1.1
              7 April 2010 at 10:14 pm

              “Does that mean Kiwiteen got our details from here or something?”
              Assuming you are correct, GC, surely that would be sufficient grounds for an irrevocable permanent ban.
              Other side of the coin – I had a look and couldn’t find anything. Got a link?

            • r0b 14.1.2.1.1.2
              7 April 2010 at 10:35 pm

              GC – were these details filled in as defaults in comment authoring boxes? If so I think that’s just a wordpress thing. Cookies. My name and email details often carry over from one wordpress blog to another.

              • lprent …
                7 April 2010 at 10:42 pm

                Yeah it is. If you have a wordpress.com login or have commented on a wordpress.com then it reads those details from the cookie on your machine.

                If you lookup the cookies in your browser (on firefox on linux Edit / Preferences / Privacy / Remove individual cookies)

                Then look at wordpress.com, and the comment_author_url, comment_author_email, comment_author you’ll see your details encoded there.

                The same if you lookup thestandard.org.nz or http://www.thestandard.org.nz.

                Those cookie details are sent to web servers with the same url.

          • the sprout 14.1.2.1.2
            7 April 2010 at 9:42 pm

            i wasn’t under the illusion that Lynn was ‘in charge’ – that would take quite a leap of naivite.
            but my point more was that if one person bans someone, can nobody un-ban them?

            i would have thought that if someone did decide to un-ban a twat like Katie, it wouldn’t invoke a declaration of re-banning without consultation? to do otherwise seems un-cooperative.

            i mean this as an open and transparent discussion of what the rules of this cooperative might be.

            • lprent 14.1.2.1.2.1
              7 April 2010 at 9:59 pm

              There was a little confusion. I suspect that someone didn’t realize that I’d popped him back on probation. They could have read the discussion area. But I really need to find that notepad for the admin area. It would simplify things a bit.

            • lprent 14.1.2.1.2.2
              7 April 2010 at 10:52 pm

              It is more looking to see what had been going on. I usually do a quick search in the comments and scan down the list. Problem is that the default number of comments listed was 25 per page (I used the screen options long ago to bump that to 50 per page). There were 49 comments in the trash, so it was scanned back 2 pages.

              Whoever did the scan did not see my probation message because I was foolish enough not to leave as a note on kt’s comment, but as a reply. My bad. But I was a bit distracted by an ailing server at the time, so I didn’t follow my usual practices.

          • prism 14.1.2.1.3
            7 April 2010 at 9:52 pm

            kt has a marvellous ability to draw attention to him or herself and become the centre of attention so that the discussion is all about this individual not the detail in the blog. The kid’s ego must press against the walls of his bedroom.

            I think that Jo the Supernanny is needed here and she would prescribe time out in the reflection room (that’s the naughty seat for older kids) as just the thing needed.

          • Armchair Critic 14.1.2.1.4
            7 April 2010 at 9:53 pm

            It did spoil what was a kind of amusing conversation. He was way off topic, though, it’s a long way from “homophobic tones in a news item by Duncan Garner” to “KT123’s assignment on the French Revolution”.
            Most of the time I’m not into the “life means life” approach to sentencing; KT123 seems to be much more aligned with that part of the political spectrum, so I’m not going to be too upset if life does mean life in this case. I just hope that KT23 stops taking his sentence like a teenager.

          • lprent 14.1.2.1.5
            7 April 2010 at 10:01 pm

            Yeah I restored the comments. Screws up the comment threads otherwise..

  15. gingercrush 15
    7 April 2010 at 9:03 pm

    Um surely you mods and writers should be discussing things behind scenes and not on the open mike like you lot are doing currently. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading to be perfectly honest. Is there no private thread or something you could like discuss this?

    Yes I know its none of my business but as I said it doesn’t make for pleasant reading.

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