Open mike 07/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 7th, 2010 - 25 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.

The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

25 comments on “Open mike 07/08/2010 ”

  • Comments are now closed

    • Draco T Bastard 1.1
      7 August 2010 at 12:09 pm

      The only rational telecommunications structure is a state owned network with people competing over that network. The same as businesses presently compete over the road network.

      Deregulation and the selling of Telecom has cost us billions of dollars and set our network back ~10 years. Basically, if we hadn’t sold Telecom, we would already have fibre to the cabinet and would be starting on getting fibre to the home.

      Privatisation – an absolute failure.

  2. Outofbed 2
    7 August 2010 at 9:24 am

    fuck i hate tories
    so unemployment shoots up and whats the plan?

    all solo parents on the domestic purposes benefit (DPB) who will have to look for paid work from the end of next month under a bill reported back to Parliament this week.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10664144

    • ZB 2.1
      7 August 2010 at 10:00 am

      Oh, I get it. Job loses, National thinks the jobs are lost, and Key believes if he gets women like his mum out to looking for them then everything will be right since the jobs just ned to be found again, in the little kingdom where the Mummies make everything better.

      Go too sleep little baby Key, rock a bye….

    • millsy 2.2
      7 August 2010 at 11:26 am

      You do realise that this, in conjunction with the labour reform package, is a measure to push down pay and conditions across the board.

      Simple economics – you push a whole bunch of vulnerable people fearing starvation out into the workforce where jobs are scarce as it is, wages arent going to go UP thats for sure.

      • marsman 2.2.1
        7 August 2010 at 2:59 pm

        Exactly Millsy. Same as Shipley and English did the last time round. We must fight them this time though, don’t let them get away with ripping NZ off again!

  3. vto 3
    7 August 2010 at 11:18 am

    So quite a few people have come out in support of Hone Hatfield-Harawira over his racism in assessing his children’s future partners. And claiming it is ok and not racism…..

    Well, right on one count, wrong on anohter.

    They are wrong when they claim he was not racist. It is without doubt racist behaviour. He assesses people on the basis of race. That is racism.

    However, they are right when they claim it is normal human behaviour and people should just relax a little. Of course it is normal human behaviour for people to sticvk with their own kind – be it race, religion, football team, etc. Racism is quite normal behaviour. And it serves a purpose, as has instant prejudging since time started.

    What the whole situation illustrates is that racism is widespread and normal, but mor importantly that racism is not always a bad thing. And I agree with Hone Hatfield on that. (I wonder what his grandfather, Mr Hatfield, would think of his grandsons assessment?)

  4. ZB 4
    7 August 2010 at 11:59 am

    The splits. This mornings Nation history review of neo-liberalism, furst with a Tory Lord saying its gone too far.

    Kiwis are great, you give them a good idea and they chase it, until its well out of sytle. On the other foot, Kiwis are staggeringly arrogant, sustaining positions despite the logic or reality of the ideal.

    Not a few days ago I read yet another National Act tosser declaring how the rich should not have to pay progressive taxes because ‘they workded for their money’. Apart from the obvious fact that we all work, or invest to profit, even if its in a pokie! It all add taxes into the tresury purse. But the real arrogance of the argument, a debate killer – so National, is the obvious fact that the rich didn’t pay for the highways, didn’t pay for the politicians to write legislation, or implement accountancy rules, or defend the borders, or insure markets against failure, TAXPAYERS do. So when some fat hair act supporter declares that the rich should not pay progressive tax, despite the obvious benefits they recieve far in addition to the average citizen, as the rich use more of the services of government. So a basic rule, user pays applies, the rich should pay progressive taxes because they are advantaged.

    So we get this overshoot, neo-liberalism started by the Labour party, National caught out having to breed even more severe neo-liberals, and then the ACT party running around stifling debate with utter lying, that the rich should not pay as much tax, when they should be paying sizeably more! For fairness and balance.

    So NZ does this splits, one leg rushing to far ahead, and the other leg solid fix arrogantly to the ground.
    And finally the balls hit the ground!

    What have neo-liberals left NZ. Huge debts, huge foriegn ownership, crime, aging, the young skilled flying the nest…
    Its not a good look, yet still the ACT, Nats, are beating themselves up to be loyal neo-liberals.

  5. Pascal's bookie 5
    7 August 2010 at 12:44 pm

    Crazy wingnuts.

    Last week them there KBR folks were outraged! shocked! even and concerned(TM) that liberal authors writing for liberal magazines in the US belonged to a listserve on which they discussed liberal things. It was all a damnable conspiracy to make Palin look stoopid by secretly publishing open letters and stuff.

    I’ll bet they go apo-fucking-plectic about this:

    http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2010/08/not-digging-it.html

    Not to mention this of course, which is old news they remain, I assume, blissfully ignorant of:

    http://www.observer.com/node/48776

    An invitation-only, off-the-record gathering (Mr. Bruno and others are quoted in this story with their permission), the monthly meeting has brought together the right wing of the city’s financial and intellectual elite-among the regulars are major Republican donors and members of The Wall Street Journal ‘s editorial board. It also has created a power center whose guest list has included half a dozen U.S. Senators….

    …In many ways, the Monday Meeting has followed a recipe that Mr. Norquist developed during the 1990’s. Conservative reporters are invited, but asked not to report on the meeting.

    “Journolist controversy”, pfffft.

    • Draco T Bastard 5.1
      7 August 2010 at 2:17 pm

      Ah, conservatives at their authoritarian best – ensuring that there is no such thing as “free-speech” or anything such as “democracy”.

  6. john 6
    7 August 2010 at 2:00 pm

    Members of Nact are lucky! They believe Climate Change is probably a load of baloney. John grudgingly commented it’s probably real(Not really convinced!). However the Russian Government has blamed Climate Change for the Wild Fire disaster happening there with 40c temps in Moscow and a toxic haze blanketing the Capital refer link
    http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53704

  7. Draco T Bastard 7
    7 August 2010 at 2:41 pm

    Gordon Cambell tells us that the person least capable to conduct complaints against the police has, as a matter of fact, been appointed to do just that.

    Offhand, I can hardly think of any other New Zealander less qualified to a post that is supposed to inspire confidence in the public that their complaints against Police conduct will be handled fairly, pursued objectively and brought to public attention.

    I don’t intend to retrace the entire Zaoui case. Suffice to point to the SIS reliance on a Police report that misidentified which party in Algeria Zaoui belonged to, and then misidentified his party as a terrorist organisation. Zaoui’s innocuous travel video was then identified by Woods and his team as ‘looking suspiciously like a casing video’. Selectively and systematically, the SIS investigators distorted Zaoui’s history in Algerian politics in order to link him to extremists while ignoring the evidence of his peace-broking role. Frankly, this is the kind of behaviour the public would expect the officers of the IPCA to investigate and condemn, not have on their record.

    Obviously, the reason why we have an Independent Police Conduct Authority is to give the police a free pass – it obviously isn’t to hold them to account. If it was to hold them to account then you would put somebody in there who was capable of actually doing so.

  8. Mickysavage 8
    7 August 2010 at 5:15 pm

    Over in Aussie Liberal leader Tony Abbott has claimed that New Zealand’s economy under John Key’s National Government has performed better than Australia’s under Labor.

    To quote:

    ‘If you look across the Tasman, New Zealand has done just as well, it seems, as Australia, without going into anything like the same level of debt and deficit that we have.’

    The only problem is that under a variety of measure Australia is doing better.

    For instance, jobless rate, 5.1% to 6.8%, growth in private sector wages 2.5% to 1.4%, forecast peak debt as a proportion of GDP, 6% to 27%, quarters of consecutive negative growth 1 to 5.

    The details are in the Sydney Morning Herald at http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/abbotts-claims-dont-tally-20100806-11oe6.html

    • Draco T Bastard 8.1
      7 August 2010 at 6:30 pm

      Well, the Ozzies are a little confused – their “Liberal Party” is actually their conservative party. Ergo, the tortured use statistics to mean what the party says they mean rather than what they actually say shouldn’t be a surprise.

    • Armchair Critic 8.2
      7 August 2010 at 8:12 pm

      It might depend on what you mean by “better”. Tony Abbott probably wants to see wages drop, just like John Key did. So by that measure, Australia may well have done worse.

      • Jenny 8.2.1
        7 August 2010 at 9:04 pm

        Too right. All the leeches, speculators, parasites, profiteers and banksters have a far easier time of it in New Zealand than Australia. By that measure, New Zealand is the envy of the Australian torys.

  9. prism 9
    7 August 2010 at 10:02 pm

    Heard on radio that Joyce? is looking at how much the govt spends on public radio – a figure of over $200 million, for a year? The thought is it could be done at a lesser cost?! And perhaps combined with the public service part of television like Channel 6 and Freeview.

    Nibbble, nibble, bite, nibble, nibble bite. Gradually our country is eaten away – soon we won’t have any worthwhile public services especially ones that inform and reflect and support the country’s ideas, ideals, creativity, successes, enterprise, innovation. A third world country is where we are heading under these mendacious plutocrats in NACT.

  10. Armchair Critic 10
    7 August 2010 at 10:20 pm

    26,159 people on facebook think Mr Joyce’s idea sucks. I’m one of them.

  11. felix 11
    7 August 2010 at 10:57 pm

    Anyone see the shock-horror story on the front of the Herald print edition this morning?

    “Worker Hires Hitman to Bash Boss” or similar.

    See this is why we need to be strict with you lot. Turn our backs for a second and you’ll all be having us done over willy-nilly.

    That’s why we need the fire-at-will law you see – any of you get that “I’m gonna hire a hitman” look in your eyes and you’re sacked.

  12. the pinkpostman 12
    8 August 2010 at 3:08 pm

    Well David Cuncliffe certainly had the better of Garner and Plunket on Saturdays Nation progamme . Try as might they were unable to get the better of David . David Cuncliffe’s explanation of Labours progress on policy was precise and understandable . Try as these two Nat supporters
    delved they could not get the better of Cuncliffe. What a different story when Cuncliffe left. They spent the last ten minutes of the programe with guest John Rougham running Labour down ,using the old chestnut that Labour was dominated by the unions and that the union were taking over the party. Just watch the Nacts take this up at election time
    What is of concern is that both political programmes Q&A and Nation are chaired by Right-Wing commentators.

Links to post