Open mike 07/07/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 7th, 2010 - 27 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…

27 comments on “Open mike 07/07/2010 ”

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  2. ianmac 2
    7 July 2010 at 10:21 am

    I might get smacked for this but twice now on opening online Herald pages, I glanced at the photo of Michael Jackson on the page then realised it was the ——- Australian PM.
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/headlines.cfm?c_id=280

  3. prism 3
    7 July 2010 at 10:23 am

    Put a comment on Key in Korea but can’t see the number – main number 3 clear, 3.1 visible, next me invisible. Does shadowing get washed out as numbers progress? I think numbering is good idea, helpful tracing. Though a following comment can get pushed down so far by other later ones, that it is hard to find original initiating one.

    • Lanthanide 3.1
      7 July 2010 at 10:36 am

      Yes, IMO the child numbers from x.1 downwards are just too hard to see. They need to be bolded/bigger font size/darker grey, any of the three should fix it.

  4. prism 4
    7 July 2010 at 10:52 am

    Auckland waterfront spats and spits! Interesting how all these politicians have a precise set of ideas as to how things should look. Their view seems essentially middle class bland showcase with the provenance of the suburbs in The Truman Show.

    The raw gutsy vibrant growth of a port and its trade results in its own vital attraction. Nothing wrong with keeping that. These social-climbing rich guys don’t feel that it represents them and their lifestyles. True. The hard work that goes into making and growing things, freighting them, running the businesses that create the wealth of a country is exciting and interesting and the connected buildings have an attraction. They have a lingering inbuilt memory that’s not as obvious as a smelly woolshed but the buildings housing that industry connect their past, the people who worked there to the present affluent community.

    When I was overseas years ago I noted that Sydney had a waterfront area still with old buildings, Copenhagen had a colourful port area. There is nothing wrong with some industrial-styled buildings for Auckland. An architect can make them exciting and accentuate features which will make them attractive and unique to their place. And rugby types are not known for their fine appreciation of architecture and culture – they are more interested in the inner man and his desire for pleasure not the buildings that surround him.

  5. sean14 5
    7 July 2010 at 12:35 pm

    Out of interest, was there a post on The Standard regarding Raymond Huo’s blog entry on Red Alert about China and Tibet? I didn’t detect one so I assume the issue was swept quietly under the carpet.

    I note that Phil Goff has told Huo that his posts should reflect Labour policy, even though the blog tells us that what we will read are the individual positions of MPs.

    It all seems pretty hollow considering the outrage expressed by various people on The Standard over the Prime Minister’s supposed sucking up to China after Russel Norman’s free Tibet protest when Goff seems to have gone to great pains to tell Huo off and re-affirm Labour’s commitment to the one China policy. I’m not even sure why Goff told Huo off, I would think the Chinese would love his post.

    Speaking of the evils of sucking up to China in order to secure ever greater amounts of filthy capitalist lucre, which government was it that negotiated the free trade deal with China in the first place?

    [lprent: Can’t remember one myself. The authors write about what they find interesting. Frequently that isn’t the NZLP – NACT is far more fun to poke the borax into.

    In fact I can’t remember writing one myself about the NZLP apart from a few by-election ones for my home electorate. Usually it is the authors who are not NZLP members that tend to write about the NZLP. As a NZLP member, I can express dissatisfaction far more easily and effectively within the party.

    So your point is? Probably that you need to read the last section in the About? ]

  6. sean14 6
    7 July 2010 at 1:35 pm

    My point is that Labour is as keen to suck up to China as National is, but it only seems to be worthy of comment by posters/readers on The Standard when National is doing it. Hypocrisy abounds.

    However, I fully understand that it’s not my blog and whomever’s it “is” can do what they like, or not, with it.

    • Pascal's bookie 6.1
      7 July 2010 at 1:56 pm

      I’m not even sure why Goff told Huo off, I would think the Chinese would love his post

      So how does it support your point then?

    • lprent 6.2
      7 July 2010 at 3:25 pm

      If you look back to yesterday with Julie’s post (actually the day before) you can see the frustration from readers about what authors choose to write about coming from other places than the right as well. In that case she remembered that we we’d left her a login in September 2008 and used it :). Which is why we left her the login.

      Our authors do this stuff in their spare time, we don’t get paid to do it. So it gets done as and when we feel like it. It also gets done when we have some spare time. We make no attempt to get a comprehensive coverage even of the topics we’re interested in. We’re also not a news service – we offer opinions rather than reporting.

      If you really feel strongly about it, then hit the Contribute button and write your own post. If it is reasonably well written and/or makes a good set of points then it will probably get published. That sometimes takes a while because one of us has to have the time to read it, post it, do the basic editing, and publish it. Of course it also depends entirely on the vagaries of who reads the e-mail queue if they think it has any merit…

  7. Olwyn 7
    7 July 2010 at 1:38 pm

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3892795/PM-Keys-pay-among-worlds-best-report
    http://www.economist.com/node/16525240?story_id=16525240

    Apparently Mr Key is one of the highest paid PMs, which says more I think, about NZ having become a low-wage economy than about his being overpaid.

    • Tigger 7.1
      7 July 2010 at 1:57 pm

      Why is this an issue since he gives it all (half?) away to charity…apparently…probably not…

    • ianmac 8.1
      7 July 2010 at 3:13 pm

      Thanks Pete. It could be Anne Tolley because it just slags off teachers rather than address the issue of National Standards.
      Reminds me of a boy in Primary school who punched a small girl in the head. He said it was her fault for putting her head in the way of his fist. And meant it!

      • Pete 8.1.1
        7 July 2010 at 3:42 pm

        No sweat – The first two paragraphs fail the truth test, which makes it hard to take seriously in any respect – hence why it seemed like Tolley’s doing.

        Shame this is what gets out to those with little interest in politics – which they may well take at face value.

        Your story about the boy in primary school reminds me of a line from one of the Governator’s movies where he whacks a guy of a motorbike and says “I didn’t do anything, the pavement was his enemy”.

  9. zimmer 9
    7 July 2010 at 3:21 pm

    How is the Cullen Fund going at present?

  10. Mako 10
    7 July 2010 at 3:32 pm

    More desperate anti-Brown smearing from Slater. His latest allegation is that “Looney Len” wants every school to plant 500 trees a year. A waste of our precious education budget! he wails. Child slave labour! he howls. “Surely one of his backers wouldn’t have interests in nurseries?” he blubbers. And what if the schools don’t have any ROOM for 500 trees? Utter madness!

    And you might well agree, unless you click on the link in his posting, and discover that Brown’s plan (and it’s really proposed only as a “friendly challenge”) is actually for every school to GROW – presumably from seed – 500 plants, which the Council will then match, and plant out along estuaries and creeks to beautify storm water areas and natural waterways. I’m no ecologist, but I think this idea has some merit, and I have no doubt that many school children would enjoy being involved in such a scheme.

    So Team Banksie, STOP MAKING SHIT UP. And learn how to spell “pohutukawa”.

  11. mickysavage 11
    7 July 2010 at 5:15 pm

    Woop woop

    Pete Betheune is coming home. He received a suspended jail sentence.

  12. deeeer 12
    7 July 2010 at 9:16 pm

    Lhaws may have something useful to say, despite his incoherent ramblings.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3890933/Mayor-Laws-in-fight-to-save-glass-school

  13. BLiP 13
    8 July 2010 at 5:37 pm

    tesing – one two three . . . seem to have ended up in moderation for some reason

    EDIT: Now that’s odd, working now. Very strange.

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