Open mike 08/09/2010
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6:00 am, September 8th, 2010 - 37 comments
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Jim Anderton tastelessly deifies Parker, Key for showing leadership following Christchurch disaster
Is there any truth to the rumours that Jim Anderton used parliament yesterday to praise the efforts of Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker and PM John Key for their leadership during the Christchurch disaster?
Why yes there is! Tasteless but true!
Excuse me while I gag. Honestly, does the man have no sense of decorum? What is wrong with people whose first thought after a major disaster is the implications for local politics?
And your point, if you have one, is what exactly? There is a world of difference between a local MP diplomatically thanking Parker and Key for fronting and a fawning fuckwit using taxpayer owned tv resources to boost the electoral campaign of one of his mates.
There’s more point to my post than there was to MartyG’s on the 6th at 10:26am
And the point is that the first fawning fuckwit who used taxpayer-owned TV resources to label Parker as Christchurch’s own Guiliani was Bob Harvey on Q+A
So not only do we have Leftards praising Parker but also claiming that Rightists who do so are only doing so to score political points.
You overlooked those little gems in your idiotic hysteria.
you’ll damage your computer if you keep crying on your keyboard, joe
Joe I am struggling to see your point.
Anderton acts responsibly and praises Parker. He did the exact opposite that you accuse the Left of doing.
Bob Harvey could not be accused of being left.
Marty’s comments are critical but totally appropriate.
Or do you prefer that issues like this are not debated?
BTW you could link to the comment.
I liked your article on saturday called ‘thank the regulators’
It seems that Rodney Hide is laying low at the moment. I wonder if anyone in the msm will ask him if he is still idealogically opposed to building standards and the building act? Especially given that it just saved thousands of people’s lives in chch.
Being a regulator myself, it is somewhat demoralising that the minister that represents our sector feels that most of what we do is a complete waste of time, and refuses to acknowledge the clear evidence that we need regulations to guarantee a safe, healthy and properous living environment.
It would be nice to see if he still feels that way…
We have volcanic soils that produce great product, and so we also get earthquakes.
Of course there is going to be reinvestment in ChCh, and after every earthquake,
and that comes from taxing the good times.
We suffer from being on the edge of the world, but this isolation means we
have no wars, no pollution from neighbors, lower population, and great ecology.
So we attract many toruists. We invest in our tourism sector to maximize our
returns. Just as we invest in our population by providing income support when
individuals, communities, or the general economy have downturns.
This is not hard to understand, so why has the right been pushing this obnoxious
tripe for so long. Well because even the left has had to go along with the religion
of no government, as cheap oil glut flushed into the west after the first oil crisis,
the governments of the west loosen finance for the economy to take up the
cheap energy to build build build. We saw less of that growth here but we saw
some, no government left or right could challenge the system and the right
took advantage of this and peddle the hardest economic extremism they could
get away with and media have been in lockstep.
Now the right are looking forward to higher oil costs, to less finance industry,
the media cannot peddle the crap anymore, Hide is hiding! And its only going
to continue, back to a moderate governance where the free market is as dumb
as it always was and requires proactive moderate government.
That’s why its so surprising Keys ad hoc approach to governing, as if he
was hoping the lavish finance of the past three decades was about to return.
That Key thought it was good politics to set his rockweiler Social Development
minister off the leash, and wrote up the 90 day, crime levy, and a raft of
wishful rightwing jerkoff, stupid city, roading.
The beauty of the collapse of world finance is Key is a dinosaur, the right
wing extremist is set for extinction, and the great wheel turns into a new era.
Yeah, the Minister of Local Govt is suspiciously queit. That’s worrying. On another point, a letter writer in the Dom on the weekend suggested that any payout for SCF should be in Govt bonds. The best bit of commonsense in a long time.
Auckland quake retrospective:
“A flurry of earthquakes had Aucklanders running into the streets as their houses shook last night”
http://www.nzresponse.info/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=99999999
These earthquakes – when did they happen? It’s just that the link gives no clue. I live in Auckland and I am seriously earthquake phobic! (You did say ‘retrospective… :))
Deb
Feb 21, 2007.
Whew!
Deb
I was just wondering, do any of you think that Smile and Wave would have phoned Julia Gillard to congratulate her and Labor on their win. He should have no excuses about knowing or not having her number given she rang him last week re the disaster in Christchurch.
What a undiplomatic fool he now looks!
ANTI SPAM WORD : lies : its just all to much!
If he does not have the number maybe he could ring John and Mary back as they seem really good at getting prime ministers phone numbers!
Not knowing her number was a pathetic excuse, because he already rang her to congratulate her when she rolled Rudd! In fact, Key was one of the first world leaders to do so!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4105595/At-last-Key-calls-Australias-new-PM
Richard O’Brien has his residency and I’m pretty happy about that: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10671865
He’s claimed by many New Zealanders whenever Rocky Horror is in the news so it seems only right that he can come and go as he pleases and retire here if he wants. O’Brien is on record as saying New Zealand’s classless society had given him the start he needed, making him realise anything was possible http://living.scotsman.com/interviews/Interview-Richard-O39Brien-writer-and.5680553.jp (Sept 2009)
“New Zealand was a beautiful place to grow up,” he says. “Its greatest gift was classlessness. It was an egalitarian meritocracy. Nobody was your social superior and to this day it’s still like that. I think it’s splendid. “When I came to England in 1964, I held this card that said Access All Areas. Nobody could stop me from going anywhere because I wouldn’t recognise their assumption that they were my superior. That was the greatest gift New Zealand gave me.”
It’ll be interesting to me to see if he feels NZ is still egalitarian. The people I know who want to come here appreciate the more subjective values (environment, classlessness, space etc) rather than requiring economic opportunities. I hate to see current policies not recognising this (especially those from the Ministers of Tourism and Economic Development).
He must have grown up in a NZ different from the one I grew up in.
I don’t get why he needs residency! I had always heard that he was a New Zealander all along! Ah following the link, I see… (I grew up in NZ from an English father, and never experienced the classless society he speaks of – maybe Rotorua where I grew up, was different?)
Deb
That’s the thing isn’t it? It’s all in the perspective. Here’s a guy born in England, subject to English class and I expect, accent-related discrimination. I think NZ class discrimination was a different beast and on a comparatively reduced scale.
“Nobody could stop me from going anywhere because I wouldn’t recognise their assumption that they were my superior”
I’m more likely to challenge assumptions of superiority than defer to them, and I think that is because I’m a NZer, not because I’m particularly assertive. From my years living and working in UK this really is a different way of being… I know other Britons who have lived here will adopt as much of a Kiwi accent (because they then can’t be placed in a class box) as they can when they go back to the UK to do exactly the same.
So it’s not that discrimination didn’t exist in NZ, (as an English-accented trannie in Hamilton I’m pretty sure he was aware of it) it was based on different assumptions and responses to it were different. I would expect that with geographic separation of the rich and poor that has occurred in NZ over the years our situation will be more similar to the British version now and as someone with egalitarian leanings he will notice this.
“Here’s a guy born in England, subject to English class and I expect, accent-related discrimination. I think NZ class discrimination was a different beast and on a comparatively reduced scale.”
Sadly, that’s not so… My sisters and I caught hell for going to a New Zealand school with English accents – so there’s your accent-based discrimination! (My mother was from a social class several notches above what she was when we were kids – and we were never allowed to forget that she had fallen from grace in marrying a working man and an English one at that!) I wish your rosy picture was right, but trust me, there was as much class-based discrimination in NZ in the 1960s and 1970s as there is now! One example that still makes me sad and angry. I never knew until 10 years after I left school, that student allowances existed and that I qualified for one – my teachers had simply assumed that kids in our family would be headed straight for shop or factory work, and so they assumed we wouldn’t want to know. Result is that I had no tertiary study until I was a “mature student”, and now I have student loans to repay. Thanks Mrs P and Mrs Y and all the rest. (None of us worked in shops or factories, you old besoms…)
Deb 🙁
This link made my day.
http://www.teapartybizopp.info/Home.html
FTW.
Hey PM, have a look at the books on the Banned/Burned book list in some of the more conservative States in the good ole USA here including:
LOL the definiton of most literature is works that are political, socialy offensive and irreligious with too much sex.
Grapes of Wrath, isn’t political, it outlines human nature. If you pay people less than living wage then overwork them, they starve.
There is no sex in Sun also Rises, because he can’t get it up. Unless you count the night Brett spends with a Bullfighter – which isn’t described.
Catch-22 outlines western capitalism in action. How is that offensive?
Because the capitalists don’t actually want people to know how capitalism works. And I really should to reading that book one day.
Its worth it – I fish it out every couple of years and enjoy it more every time. An oldie, but a goodie, definitely. Same with 1984.
Hey BLiP,
Do you remember the book within the book of 1984 – “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism”? If you liked that you may like another book along the same lines called “The Occult Technology of Power”.
I’m thinking of names for some new blind trusts.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Origin of Species and Lord of the Rings, irreligious? It is to laugh… Origin of Species is not meant to be religious, neither is LotR… 😀
Deb
That sounds remarkably like Ponzi/Pyramid Scheme.
There are many who throw bricks (Sandals) towards the US, It is nice to see the promp nature of our closer allies in asking if we require and support. Things like the good work the US does do seems to get lost by many.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6690560-new-zealand-turns-down-quake-aid
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/quake-aftermath-live-updates-3760678
TVNZ 1:404p.m.
Hey Heredotus
Remember that the US sent 20,000 Marines to Haiti after their Quake. Remember it was the US Military that occupied four airports in Haiti “denying humanitarian flights permission to land” with doctors and relief supplies. Then of course there is the whole “Naomi Kleins Shock Doctrine – Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert”.
Considering the US response to Haiti – perhaps it is not in our best interest to get help from the US.
My usual response to help from the US is to ask how much is it going to cost.
Just like those within Canterbury, when you see your neighbour/friend in trouble you offer help. Also remember how indebted the USA economy is so that makes this offer all the more touching. Where are all those rich countries (Esp the communist based & OPEC countries) with there offers.
And how much is Chinas assistance to Fiji going to increase the tension and costs for the APEC countries?
Sometimes we all need to view the world with a little less cynicism 😉
Time-lapse map of the earthquake(s), lists more aftershocks than what is available on the geonet site, including some down in the 2-3 range. Unfortunately the animation is a bit jerky.
http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/
I definitely haven’t felt all of them. Looking at the whole lot, I’ve felt maybe 30-40% of them?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/personal-finance/4108060/SCF-payout-made-for-commerical-reasons
commerical? or comical ?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/4077206/Teachers-not-in-real-world-says-PM
Wtf has Key been smoking this time?
Just did the weekly politics quiz at stuff.co.nz
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/stuff-quizzes/4104201/Weekly-politics-quiz
Strangely, at question 14 the option of “Wellington” is not available as one of the four possible answers. Evidently Option 1 is correct.