Open mike 08/02/2020

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, February 8th, 2020 - 63 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

63 comments on “Open mike 08/02/2020 ”

  1. James 1

    Perhaps Nicky Hagar has a new book coming out?

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12306872

    using a personal email to deliberately get around OIA – naughty

    • Robert Guyton 1.1

      James, you sound chuffed! The emails being offered for sale, "… appear to contain deeply personal information" – does this situation excite you? You haven't decried the action so we can assume you condone it. You're not showing us a very pleasant side of your nature!

      • James 1.1.1

        From memory I didn’t see you condemning hangars book from stolen emails – from that we can assume you condone it also.

    • Sabine 1.2

      Emails apparently sent and received by Auckland mayor Phil Goff over a 12-year period have been offered with a $20,000 price tag and appear to contain deeply personal information alongside council and Parliamentary work.

      you have a funny idea about being naughty. As for private email….yeah, her fucking eamils and everyone else does it too.

      The seller claims to have more than 15,000 emails from an Xtra account in Goff's name with the database spanning from 2007 to 2019.

      yeah, cause he should only every mention business in his official account? what official account would that be dear James, considering that this is a 12 year period and the man may have had several official business accounts?

      In a statement, his chief of staff Nirupa George referred to the Herald revelation as an "alleged hack of his family email account".

      "Like thousands of other account holders across the country he assumed the service provider's email platform was secure. While the authenticity of the hack has not been verified, the Mayor has discontinued use of the email account and taken advice from experts.

      again, hacking someones private data (or business data) is NOT naughty?

      The broad use of a private, unsecured email for sensitive public service work dogged former United States presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, sparking investigations there into her handling of classified and confidential material.

      And Ivanka, and Jared, and Donald Trump and his unsecured phone, and whats app, and and and. It appears that our elected idiots here and overseas are indeed idiots. And maybe they are even naughty.

      In 2011, Goff weighed into public debate over the use of a private email account by then-Foreign affairs minister Murray McCully, which had been hacked. Goff called it a "wake-up call" and was quoted saying: "Anything (of) an official nature should be going through protected channels."

      see my comment above.

      "Considering the amount of information and the exclusivity of it I think a fair price would be $20k NZD, but happy to negotiate."

      The Herald does not engage in chequebook journalism. Our editorial today explains the rationale of why referencing the emails is of strong public interest.

      The Herald has told Goff's office it will not buy the database and has discontinued contact with the person claiming to hold the information.

      Well well, but did they call the police or is hacking now not naughty and not illegal?

      A spokeswoman for Spark, which provides customers with Xtra email accounts, said: "In line with our security protocols, when we were made aware of this issue we contacted the customer and suspended the account.

      "We are investigating the matter; however based on our current information we believe this is an isolated issue. Security is very important to us and we regularly provide information to our customers on how to keep their email accounts secure."

      Yeah, right Tui. But have they called the Police?

      and above all what has Nicky Hager to do with all of that, other then you trying to lay a big turd on the living room of the standard at this fine day?

      Seriously James, don't you have some wood to gather, some bonfire to light, and some sausages to sizzle?

    • Nic the NZer 1.3

      Using a personal email, not an employer (govt) email, during a political campaign should be the only practice. The opposite of naughty.

      • Sabine 1.3.1

        details details.

      • bwaghorn 1.3.2

        Little james is laying a very devious trap so he can try make Hagar look like the petty little crook trying to extort some easy cash out of Goff's emails .

        James is so cunning if you pinned a tail on him he'd be a weasel.

        • Nic the NZer 1.3.2.1

          You would have to have an extrordinarily low impression of Nicky Hager to believe he would do anything like that.

          • James 1.3.2.1.1

            Gee you guys are “outraged” Pitt you didn’t have the same view when whaleguys emails were stolen and made into a book (and the small profit for Hagar)

            All those that were happy with that have no leg to stand on being unhappy with this.

            • Nic the NZer 1.3.2.1.1.1

              Actually all I impied is that there is nothing dodgy about Goffs emails. Separate to stealing the emails, writing about information gleaned from stolen emails is both legal and frequently in the public interest.

            • bwaghorn 1.3.2.1.1.2

              Let's see if any greater good comes from Goff's emails . If it proves hes using a sleazy scum bag to attack innocent people in the way key was then I'll be ok with the hack . If it's just a petty crook trying to feed petty shit to Goff's enemies for profit I'll not be so forgiving.

            • weka 1.3.2.1.1.3

              "All those that were happy with that have no leg to stand on being unhappy with this."

              That's some weird arse moral compass you got there James.

              WO hack:
              – done by someone who gave for free the content to an investigative journalist for the public good

              Goff hack:

              – content now in the possession of someone who wants to be paid $20K by a MSM outlet

              See if you can spot the difference.

              As for not having a leg to stand on, you know that WOguy paid someone to hack TS to access personal and private data right? And that he got diversion instead of a conviction.

              There's a limit to how much you can troll this today, so my suggestion is you start making actual arguments instead of using the Goff hack to take potshots as the left/TS commentariat.

            • Sabine 1.3.2.1.1.4

              Question: Is Nicky Hagar being investigated for the peddling of stolen goods? Cause in the article, and i quoted a bit of it, there is no mention of Nicky Hagar.

              Or are you just flinging shit about because that is all you got?

              Also, would that fall under defamation/libel? And are you happy to spread lies just because you have got nothing much to do on this fine day?

        • James 1.3.2.2

          Yeah – he would NEVER make a book from stolen emails would he ?

          *eye roll*

          • In Vino 1.3.2.2.1

            James… Are you Righties STILL trying to divert attention away from the serious content of Hager's books by harping on minor side-issues, like 'stealing' vital evidence?

            Boring, as usual.

        • Herodotus 1.3.2.3

          Don't you mean a stoat, and we know what Weka on this site does to Stoats !!

          used this before still is a gem !!

          https://twitter.com/predatorfreenz/status/1203923424835276805?lang=en

        • Robert Guyton 1.3.2.4

          If you pinned a tail on him, all you would have would be … a tail.

    • Roflcopter 1.4

      No one cares about the "deeply personal" emails.

      The Labour Party / Campaign / Mayoralty etc emails though… let's get those out in the open.

    • joe90 1.5

      – naughty

      A disregard for the law, even.

      /

  2. A 2

    Imagine at age 17/18 being being asked to make what is probably the biggest investment of your life in terms of time and money…

    with no investment experience…

    or even any idea with what to do with your life…

    and then do this with borrowed money….

    What could possibly go wrong??

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119295242/student-loan-interest-saddening-and-heartbreaking

  3. Andre 3

    The Iowa caucuses are wildly undemocratic. For starters, there's the issue of how difficult it is to participate, which tends to inflate the results of candidates with a few rabid cultists at the expense of candidates that may have a broader but not as obsessive support.

    Then the way the state delegate equivalents are awarded shows clear undemocratic anomalies, resulting in Sanders and Warren receiving quite a lot fewer delegates than their vote count should have netted them, while Buttigieg and Biden got quite a few more delegates.

    The raw results are:

    Sanders 45,826 (26.6%), SDEs 26.1%

    Buttigieg 43,195 (25.0%), SDEs 26.2%

    Warren 34,771 (20.2%), SDEs 18.0%

    Biden 23,691 (13.7%) SDEs 15.8%

    Klobuchar 21,181 (12.3%) SDEs 12.4%

    So Sanders has a 2.6k (1.6%) actual vote lead (not 6k as wildly inaccurately asserted prominently elsewhere on this site), but receives 0.1% less in actual state delegate equivalents.

    Hopefully this debacle will bring an end to these bizarre Iowa caucuses and the frankly weird performance art politicians put themselves through to try to get a good result in what should be a low-impact state.

    • James 3.1

      So Sanders lost by the rules of the game. The rules they knew going in and I’m sure the rules that you would have been happy with had he won.

      I actually wanted him to win – not because I like him (I think he’s an idiot) but like Corbyn he will be decimated at the election

      • Andre 3.1.1

        Are you mistaking me for a Sanders fanboi? I reckon Warren has the best mix of ideas, policies, and ability to actually get things done. As well as being less alienating, so if she were the nominee she would be more likely to end up with Senate and House majorities.

        And no, when a process is as fucked up as the Iowa caucuses I'm not happy when it delivers my preference an undeserved win. I still just think it's a fucked-up process that needs to be sorted out.

        My view is the Byzantine process used in Iowa just illustrates one of the downsides of devolving authority down to too-local levels. It's the kind of clusterfuck that would be all too common if anarchists ever got their way.

    • Nic the NZer 3.2

      The 6k lead is in first round votes, e.g before participants supporting candidates with less than 15% are offered a second choice. The relevance of this to the election is questionable, but its correct.

    • Bill 3.3

      Hey Andre. I get that your more inclined to centrism than myself…

      But when you throw out "not 6k as wildly inaccurately asserted prominently elsewhere on this site" insinuating that I was lying or some such, well…all you had to do was click to the vid link to know that was a first round voting tally on less than 100% of the vote and, y'know, maybe allow for the fact that I also wrote that the 6K figure could go up or down.

      At the time, and on less than 100% of the vote counted, the realignment (ie- not the raw vote) put Sanders at 2000+ (That was also in the vid link provided).

      You think it was misleading to me to report the raw voting data while you give weight to the utterly irrelevant SDE totals? (Their irrelevance also explained in the link I provided in the post btw)

      • Poission 3.3.1

        Well Jill Stein,not being centrist seems to think that the ghost in the machine was from the Shadow.

        https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1225864750241927180

        • Bill 3.3.1.1

          Much is being written about Shadow Inc and their deep ties to both the Buttigieg campaign and the DNC.

          Indepth analysis offered here. (vid link)

          Much the same ground is covered in this article.

          edit – my initial take is it looks like a three way battle for the Democratic Party. There is Sanders. There is the incumbent established Democrat figures. And then there’s the “young pretenders”.

      • Andre 3.3.2

        It's the first vote count that is irrelevant. Its only influence is to knock out some of the less popular candidates. It has zero influence on choosing Iowa's pledged delegates that go to the national convention. Making that the headline number is wildly inaccurate, misleading if you prefer, particularly if there's no attempt at any kind of explanation in the text of the OP.

        The SDE number is widely considered the most important, because it determines most of the pledged delegates that will be sent to the national convention. With Buttigieg sitting on 26.2% of the SDEs and Sanders on 26.1%, either they will both get an equal number of national convention delegates, or Buttigieg will get one more than Sanders, depending on how the rounding in the divvy-up works out. These pledged delegates are required to vote for the candidate they are pledged to in the first round at the national convention.

        The second round vote is also way more indicative of a candidates support level, since it is after some less popular candidates are knocked out. Just like what happens in a real campaign as some candidates face the reality it ain't happening for them and drop out.

        Also, because the final round vote numbers are directly related to awarding SDEs, through a bunch of hocus-pocus scaling factors, the final vote counts are relevant. Unlike the irrelevant first vote count.

        • McFlock 3.3.2.1

          A bit more close reading of the interwebs and it seems that the SDEs assign most of the delegates within the state who will then vote on who will be the delegates at the national convention. So for Bill to call them "utterly irrelevant" is highly misleading.

  4. A 4

    IDEA Services.

    A shocking report has revealed a 23-year-old autistic man suffered repeated sexual assaults while under the care of a New Zealand disability support service over a two-year period.

    Official documents show the disability service, IDEA Services, took "little to no action" despite multiple complaints by the man's mother.

    Health and Disability Commission's (HDC) deputy commissioner Rose Wall found its area manager and service manager did not keep the man safe by failing to minimise harm when "many opportunities arose to do so".

    • Sabine 4.1

      It does not matter if the raped person is young and healthy, or old, or a baby, or a five year old, or drunk, or autistic, or in state care, or in private care, waiting for a bus, in a coma, at their place of work etc etc etc. Heck it matters so little that most raped people don't even go to the police to report it. Why on earth would anyone expect a company that makes money of warehousing people for profit do act differently.

      File this under, sucks to be that boy (or any of the aforementioned), but rapists will be rapists and nothing much can be done about it.

  5. mosa 5

    " Concerns about the climate crisis and methane emissions associated with offshore gas drilling, too, went undiscussed. Methane is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide when emitted"

    In a bitterly divided Congress, lawmakers still managed to come together to help Exxon Mobil pass major legislation that could remake the geopolitics of the Middle East and Europe.

    https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/congress-exxon-mobil-eastmed-pipeline-cyprus/

    • WeTheBleeple 5.1

      The same exxon mobil that have shed 280 billion in value recently. They'll be desperate for any lifeline they can wrangle. The shareholders want their dividends.

  6. Sabine 6

    yeah, surely this did not happen, and yeah, use your phone to call in and use this app and oh what you mean that shit can be manipulated to the point of it being rendered obsolete. OH say it ain't so!

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/4chan-iowa-caucus-sabotage_n_5e3ca6d1c5b6bb0ffc0e01b9

    maybe paper and pen is a good way to go forward.

  7. Bazza64 7

    Elizabeth Warren (Pocahontas) visits her shrink. She says “Doctor, one day I feel like a Wigwam, the next day I feel like a Teepee, can you help me ?

    The Doctor says I know your problem, you’re two tents ! (Too tense)

  8. Fireblade 8

    A short video/ad on Trump's Impeachment day. It's worth watching.

    https://www.twitter.com/Eleven_Films/status/1224906560616316930

  9. SPC 10

    China is running the most aggressive campaign against baby boomers in the world.

    It is going around houses in Wuhan and anyone who is sick is being taken into quarantine with those with coronavirus – so all the old people who just have the flu can be killed off

    I am presuming this is deliberate and not just gross incompetence of the highest order …

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/wuhan-facing-wartime-conditions-as-china-tries-to-contain-coronavirus

  10. joe90 11

    Salutary tale of the two Samoas.

    During the 1918 flu pandemic killed around 20% of the population of the then British Samoa, while American Samoa had no cases at all.

    https://tedium.co/2017/10/16/american-samoa-spanish-flu/

  11. McFlock 12

    David Icke is looking plausible: can anyone see this picture and say for sure that President Doubtfire isn't a reptilian overlord in a human skin-suit?

    https://twitter.com/photowhitehouse/status/1225909811851780096

  12. Muttonbird 13

    Russia claims the IDF is using civilian aircraft as shields.

    Konashenkov said the use of civilian aircraft as shields to deter Syrian forces from responding to attacks was "becoming a signature feature of the Israeli air force". He added: "Unfortunately, such operations of Israeli strategists do not care in the slightest about the lives of hundreds of absolutely innocent civilians."

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/119370517/passenger-jet-carrying-172-passengers-nearly-shot-down-over-syria-russia-says

    An ugly development by the IDF if true.

  13. Eco maori 15

    Kia Ora Newshub.

    Tova it is going to be a interesting election in Aotearoa 2020.

    5G is the future of communications its is great that NZ is rolling out this technology as this could boost our low carbon Internet technological business the gaming market is huge.

    Ka kite Ano

  14. Eco maori 16

    Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.

    Condolences to Mala whanau for their loss.

    Cool Te Papatuanuku tours That's the way teach the people about the ways of respecting your whenua and the history to

    Ka pai champion your whenua.

    Ka pai Hori back on the stage and telling a truthful story Provocation.

    Ka kite Ano

  15. Eco maori 17

    Kia Ora Newshub.

    Our scientists have been warning us about the effects of human cause climate change for decades.???

    2 weeks or so being isolated is not that long and those people from Wuhan. are getting all their needs met to.

    Ka kite Ano

  16. Eco maori 18

    There you go one can make a good living off the Internet.???????????

  17. Eco maori 19

    Kia Ora Newshub.

    Ka pai Tika.

    Extreme weather is the new norm and is only going to get more Extreme unless we drastically Cut carbon fuels out of our society's system.

    Who was seeking attention well you certainly got that with the words you put in that article.

    Ka kite Ano

  18. Eco maori 20

    Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.

    Condolences to whanau for their loss

    Some people don't believe that they have to give equal respect to Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa times have changed. Mana Wahine.

    He has done all indigenous cultures proud.

    Sounds like the drought in Te Tai tokerau. Council should have back up plans for wai supply's for their people.

    Ka kite Ano.