Open mike 08/02/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 8th, 2010 - 29 comments
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Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

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29 comments on “Open mike 08/02/2010 ”

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  1. Bored 1
    8 February 2010 at 6:43 am

    Tony Ryall this morning..”Most people in the country wouldn’t know a PHO if they fell over it. This plan of strong community engagement is probably more of a myth.”

    He may be right but the statement tells us more about Ryall than about health. It is redolent of Thatchers statement that there is no community, only individuals (it did not stop her sending mental health patients out into “community care”). And it tells us a lot about that standard Nat trait, the we know best and bugger any community.

  2. luva 2
    8 February 2010 at 8:06 am

    Although I think it will be a stick the left use to beat John Key for the next 4 years, it is very encouraging he is still talking about one of his key aspirations.

    I agree with Bollard and don’t think Key will be succesful here, but unlike the previous government who banned the terms ‘closing the gaps’ and ‘top half of OECD’, this government will keep talking about the very difficult but important objectives. They wont run away from them because it is too difficult.

    (link doesnt work [fixed — r0b] but it’s Key Bollard cross swords)

  3. lukas 3
    8 February 2010 at 8:59 am

    Once again, the pirates of the South Pacific endanger their lives and the lives of the Japs.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3301722/Fears-of-deaths-as-clashes-continue

  4. John Dalley 4
    8 February 2010 at 9:02 am

    @Lukas, And you know this how?

  5. prism 5
    8 February 2010 at 12:27 pm

    lukas
    “Once again, the pirates of the South Pacific endanger their lives and the lives of the Japs.”
    A few questions – hoping for some joined-up thinking explaining your comments.
    What and who are these so called pirates robbing? What advantage do the ‘pirates’ gain personally from their actions?
    There are pirates off Somalia and other countries – do you say we have such people in the South Pacific?
    What are the Japanese (Note politically correct form of address lukas) robbing?
    What are they doing in the South Pacific? Are they pirates like the Somalians for money or are they hunting seafood?

    • lukas 5.1
      8 February 2010 at 1:37 pm

      “What and who are these so called pirates robbing?”

      The SS is ramming another vessel, I am not sure about you, but if think deliberately ramming your vessel into another in the South Pacific amounts to piracy.

      “What advantage do the ‘pirates’ gain personally from their actions?”

      Personally they gain nothing, which makes their actions even more stupid.

      “There are pirates off Somalia and other countries do you say we have such people in the South Pacific?”

      No, we don’t have pirates holding people to ransom to the best of my knowledge.

      “What are the Japanese (Note politically correct form of address lukas) robbing?”

      They are not stealing from anyone. What they are doing is horrid, but not illegal.

      • BLiP 5.1.1
        8 February 2010 at 2:27 pm

        That’s the way, lu-KKK-as, don’t let the English language stop your argument:

        pirate: noun: a person who attacks and robs ships at sea.

        a person who appropriates or reproduces the work of another for profit without permission, usually in contravention of patent or copyright: [as modifier] pirate recordings. a person or organization that broadcasts radio or television programmes without official authorization: [as modifier] a pirate radio station. verb [with obj.] 1 dated: rob or plunder (a ship).

        2 [often as adj.] (pirated) use or reproduce (another’s work) for profit without permission, usually in contravention of patent or copyright: he sold pirated tapes of Hollywood blockbusters.

  6. Draco T Bastard 6
    8 February 2010 at 12:49 pm

    Damn, completely missed this:

    President Barack Obama has cancelled the American project designed to take humans back to the Moon.

    Farewell to the moon has an interesting thought about it:

    This is not the first technology to fall out of use. During the late sixties, supersonic planes were the wave of the future and the British and French governments cooperated to design and build a cutting edge airliner called Concorde. The project disastrously collided with the first oil shock and never recovered. Few planes were build. Lines were progressively discontinued until only one remained, between London, Paris and New York. The Paris 2000 crash put an end to it, and while commercial operations resumed a year later, they were quickly and quietly discontinued.

    This pattern is likely to repeat itself as the decline in net energy available to our society makes keeping an advanced technology more and more difficult. There won’t be any technological cliff, no abrupt return to the Middle-Age. Technologies will just loose momentum as the resources needed to advance them become scarcer and scarcer. They will become more and more restricted socially and geographically even as they become more and more advanced until they are reserved to a tiny elite. They then will fade out of public perception. Manufacturing will cease, for lack of a market, even though the technology itself will continue to be used, as it is the case today for the shuttle.

    On a related note, the latest Archdruid Report makes for sobering reading.

    Welcome to the beginning of the end.

    • prism 6.1
      8 February 2010 at 7:56 pm

      President Obama is flexing his brain muscles, something that Presidents don’t often do. He is stepping back from some expensive space junket.

      In link from DTB – (thinking about snappy acronyms, they seem to make policy cosier and mover on a human level.
      “While we’re cancelling Constellation, we’re not cancelling our ambitions,” said Jim Kohlenberger, chief of staff at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Let’s rearrange the letters – Science and Technology (White House) Office Policy or STOP.
      Now how about replacing it with a plan to restore and replace wetland barriers to the sea in New Orleans or NOW, along with a sister project FEW, or Florida Everglades Wetlands project.

    • prism 6.2
      8 February 2010 at 8:05 pm

      When enough reality sets in and the value of space exploration has to be argued I guess it will fade like the great Concorde aeroplane. Bold and imaginative design, and successful for its purpose but not cost sustainable.

  8. randal 8
    8 February 2010 at 1:20 pm

    Politics and sport are not supposed to mix according to the apparatchicks from the national party.
    but it is okay for richard loe to get on his hobbyhorse on radio spud with the pres of federated farmers and dish the rma and objectors with a slew of malapropisms and general all round dislike of any objection to short term profit goals of intensive farming promotors.
    well the boorokasee and the rma are their to protect everybody and not just the interests of a few so it doesnt matter how many tests you played for the allbalcks you are still playing politics and even worse you are not allowing an alternative veiwpoint.
    new zealanders are well aquainted with mad schemes but giving them a semi legitimacy by presenting party politicial boradcasts on radio spud is not demockasee.

    • vto 8.1
      8 February 2010 at 2:06 pm

      what’s radio spud?

      pres of fed farmers is a friggin’ cok imo. frequently spouts boolshit to antagonise everyone but the beloved and almighty farmer.

  9. Tigger 9
    8 February 2010 at 1:52 pm

    Key prefers a silver fern design for our flag but won’t allow debate at this time…
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10624890

    Honestly John, it wasn’t enough that you allowed some of the government to pick a flag for Maori but now you pick a design for the other flag but then say there’s to be no official discussion of it?

  10. pollywog 10
    8 February 2010 at 2:27 pm

    At what point did Maori chiefs cede their right to self governorship over their peoples ? Sure they ceded…

    to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which the said Confederation or Individual Chiefs respectively exercise or possess, or may be supposed to exercise or to possess over their respective Territories as the sole sovereigns thereof.

    …in exchange for the rights and privileges of british subjects.

    But that doesnt mean to say that by accepting those rights and privileges that they, as people, allowed themselves to be governed by british rule/law or that because of the signing they became british subjects. Seems implied that there is a choice to then, decline rights and privileges of british subjects and remain autonomous as Tuhoe, who never signed.

    http://pollywannacracka.blogspot.com/2010/02/trick-of-treatyahhh-flag-it.html

    yeah, i know its been flogged before but i’ve never flogged it…:)

    • vto 10.1
      8 February 2010 at 2:44 pm

      flogged alright. Some 2c says however that no matter the technicalities of the document / agreement, two peoples cannot live together under two different rules and systems. It quite simply creates division and resentment. Resntment quickly morphs to anger and anger to hatred. When hatred is arrived at things are virtually at an end.

      It is not feasible for the human being to live under such circumstances.

      Quite why this bigger picture is not understood bemuses my wee brain..

      • Pascal's bookie 10.1.1
        8 February 2010 at 3:41 pm

        Yes and but, though V.

        Even if I accept this:

        two peoples cannot live together under two different rules and systems.

        for the sake of the discussion, the question remains, what is to be done?

        Because if you are correct, (that trying to live up to the agreement will cause division and resentment), we will be simply creating a sense of division and resentment in those who feel that we should attempt to live up to the agreement.

        It’s a catch 22 for resentment and division;

        revision and dissent notwithstanding.

        So, for my 2 cents, we either

        i) try to live up the agreement by finding a way to make it work, or

        ii) renegotiate a new agreement,

        in good faith
        based on the precepts of the unworkable agreement.

        Meaning both parties are of equal status and neither gets a right to declare veto’s or declare unilateral envelopes or wotnot.

        • vto 10.1.1.1
          8 February 2010 at 4:06 pm

          Yes true true. Dealing with the grievances and the like needs to be attended to also – but those are quite different matters to trying to get two peoples to live with two different systems in the same land.

          There is no point in trying to live up to an agreement which creates two systems. It just wont work. People need to be honest about that fact of the human condition. Particularly on the separatist side of the discussion as they seem to completely avoid this fact and not even acknowledge it. It would be great to hear some of those leaders explain how they think they can beat this human condition.

          Then what is to be done? Good question, which I avoided …

          I imagine a couple of things;
          1. An acknowledgment and rectification of past wrongs. (currently underway)
          2. An acknowledgment that two systems (however big or small) will not work. (currently ignored)
          3. …

          I guess the big problem is, taking what you say about original intentions / precepts, that those original intentions / precepts on the separatist side cannot be satisfied. So those who imagine that the original idea was for Maori to retain some sovereignty will have to let it go.

          It has to be a base starting (or re-starting) point.

          But quite what would satisfy as consideration for such a change I do not know.

          It may well be that we will all just keep muddling along until some major geopolitical event sets a whole new paradigm in train on these islands and the treaty is simply lost …

  11. pollywog 11
    8 February 2010 at 4:03 pm

    Sooner or later some Maori will cede citizenship (they never had) from New Zealand and operate autonomously outside of british law.

    Once they realise they can draft their own constitution and get the current chiefs to sign (using their hereditary sovereignty over their people) , then use the resources of their iwi as paid out by treaty settlements to implement their own health, housing, education, jusitice/policing schemes outside of state funding, the better off they’ll be.

    I’m picking Tuhoe to be first to legitimise (if they haven’t already done so) some sort of independent nation, not unlike native american reservations where there is one people /one system.

    I’m hoping the trials of the ‘urewera terrorists’ will serve as a catalyst.

  12. pollywog 12
    8 February 2010 at 8:35 pm

    The time to cede from the treaty obligations from a maori perspective is when it is no longer a working document. At the moment it is and it is expedient for them, while there are claims and tribal disputes to be settled, to work within the parameters of the document.

    Once all claims are fully and finally settled, the treaty will cease to be seen as working in favour of disparate iwi and perhaps by then, maori will have put aside their tribal differences to unite, form their own bank and government, as they once had in the past, and help themselves.

    It’s fairly obvious looking at education and employment stats that maori as a peoples have failed to capitalise on the current system of governance by british law. Urbanisation hasnt done them any favours either. The way things are going with globalisation and capitalist greed they’d be better off building communities on iwi land, coaxing back their whanau and forming subsistence networks as in the past.

    If you were young, maori, with no real prospects to compete in the world as it stands but could live comfortably and outside of the competitive nature of capitalism on your own land in pristine locations.

    why wouldn’t you ?

    captcha :build

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