i arrived by the backdoor, my usual method gets me to ‘the page’, but, clicking on nything after the ‘Google’ has put ‘the Standard page’ up simply creates a blank white screen,
The backdoor, Google up a comment that is specific to your username,(you might be able to use any username), this brings up an old page of ie: ‘Open Mike’,
Click on the ‘comments rss’ icon at the top right of the page,
This takes you to a strange looking page with a series of comments that are obviously from the Standard,
Click on the comment with the closest date to today and hey presto you land here…
vto: just another boy who believes his hurt feelings take priority over sexual violence.
All the things we say about men, all the ways we use the word ‘man’, all the things we expect boys to do to become men, all the roles and norms we arrange for men – all of this is what ‘being a man’ is about.
Why? That is a complex and intensely personal question. The violence takes psychological and verbal form, rarely physical. It is these other two forms which cause more damage though imo. How to stop it without leaving? Dunno.
If the ‘pattern’ of the relationship is set and has been so over a long period then ‘leaving’ i would suggest is pretty much the only option,
Obviously, depending upon the level that ‘the relationship’ can be discussed leaving with a codicil of what changes need be made,(from both perspectives), might allow it to continue after a cooling down period…
Just firstly, a little nit pick. If it is psychological/verbal abuse then it isn’t “violence” because violence refers to a physical act of abuse.
Secondly, your situation sucks. There are no two ways about it. To me (because I’ve been there as well), there are a couple of ways of dealing with it and one of them isn’t actually airing it in a public forum during a discussion of physical violence towards women because it gets you either branded as disingenuous or attempting to distract from the discussion at hand.
The statement of “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them” typifies this situation because, despite the emotional suffering, your physical safety seems to still be intact. No woman has that luxury.
despite the emotional suffering, your physical safety seems to still be intact.
Which misstates the issue horribly. After all what is the difference between breaking a leg skiing and having it broken because your partner threw you out the first floor window?
I’m confused at what conclusion you are trying to draw here RedLogix? I was merely stating that within the context of his relationship, vto seems to still (at least) be safe from physical abuse by his partner. I was then using that to point out that women are always under threat of physical abuse.
If the conclusion you were trying to draw was that his suffering within his relationship is somehow equatable to domestic violence victims, then I have to beg to disagree because often they are also being subjected to the same emotional/psychological abuse that he claims to suffer as well as wearing their partners fist upon their face.
Many domestic violence/abuse help centers don’t make the distinction between physical and psychological abuse that is being made here. For example, North Harbour Living Without Violence includes verbal abuse, the use of social isolation, humiliation, name calling and other forms of emotional abuse under the rubric of Domestic Violence.
So we agree that the emotional trauma is the core of the matter. So how does it help vto to be told that ‘at least his physical safety is intact’. That isn’t what is important to him.
Instead I read it as an indirect way of minimising the situation.
Isn’t that bit of a ‘Godwin’ tho,”One of them isn’t actually airing it in a public forum during a discussion of physical violence toward women etc”
Why shouldn’t He air what He sees as violence, albeit verbal/psychological violence, in an open forum,
Are you afraid that the other side of the equation will paint women in a less than glowing light,
Simply trying to erase verbal/psychological violence from the conversation is to say the least extremely unhelpful as such violence, the verbal/psychological type, is often the precursor to physical violence,
In the complex mix of the causes of violence,(setting aside for the moment sexual violence), verbal/psychological violence can be shown to lead to physical violence committed by either the male or the female in a relationship…
@NZ Femme – fair enough. Also, thank you for providing that important information.
If I’m to be honest, my issue with vto’s posts is that they are single one liners along the lines of “men suffer abuse too” using himself as an example. I think everyone is on the same page that no-one should suffer abuse of any kind in our society.
Maybe I am bringing a little too much baggage to this conversation because I have been dealing a lot with diversionary tactics in social media over the last few days from people using the “men suffer too” line in order to derail legitimate conversation about the gender violence that overwhelmingly affects women. Often these people make arguments based on a belief that there are no services available for men (despite all government run services being 100% available to all) and feel that the services like Womens Refuge should be open to men as well. This is without them knowing that they were created out of a need by the community and are only partly funded by our government.
I will add this on here because I feel it is accurate, will be interesting to see what people say. These cries of “men suffer too” feel similar to cries of “reverse racism” or “misandry” and an attempt to deflect the discussion from the important issue of what the hell are we going to do about a country full of men who can’t keep their fists to themselves.
Zorr, that’s rather weak do you not think, ”A tongue can cut but fists can kill”, what you are doing is concentrating upon the end result of what may well have started long ago as a verbally/psychologically abusive relationship while ignoring the genesis of such violence…
@bad12 – I should have probably made it more bland so it didn’t come off silly. The point I was trying to make is that we are all responsible for our actions. No matter the provocation, violence should never be an answer.
As horrible as emotional/psychological abuse is (and I have come from that place having been raised in such a household), it is still no excuse (in my mind) for raising your fists against someone.
I understand your point around diversionary/distraction tactics Zorr; I hesitated to post for that reason. And I’ve had my own issues with VTO previously during the roast busters blow up here – before VTO disclosed that he was in what sounds like a toxic/abusive domestic situation a wee while ago.
So…I erred on the side of caution today, and am taking VTO’s disclosures as truthful. While the one-liners could be read as distraction/diversionary tactics because of the current context, I’m more inclined (now) to view them as coming/lashing out from a place of pain. I think it’s possible to acknowledge the pain of male victims of DV/abuse, and simultaneously acknowledge the horrific statistics for DV and sexual violence against women.
I’m also in the slightly weird situation of having previously experienced DV from a female partner that culminated over a period of six years and ultimately had me physically fearing for my life. So, I guess there’s also a part of me that gets the “but what about me?” stuff that seems to explode whenever we try and discuss one (very large and horrible) gendered experience of DV from the male perp/female victim spectrum. I absolutely understand and agree with needing to prioritize. I just wish there was some way of doing that which doesn’t result in minimzing the effects of DV on other groups.
I had not been aware of any previous disclosures by vto and have only seen them usually post things that I view as diversionary when taken in the context of an active political blog. With that additional information, it makes it less so and I wouldn’t have been so quick to fire my mouth. I’ve never been good at keeping my mouth shut though and dealing with the male privilege/rape culture discussion has begun rubbing raw as I’m constantly having to rehash ground with people I had thought should know better. Deconstructing #notallmen because people are wrong on the internet is possibly one of the things that has contributed to a short fuse on this issue…
My personal opinion (on this specific issue) is that domestic violence is never acceptable no matter who is involved and in what role. My favorite comment regarding humans is that we are rationalizing creatures, not rational ones. We are emotional actors and sometimes we cannot control our behaviors and actions in the ways we wish. However, if we don’t hold ourselves accountable for our actions, then who? The worst thing we can do with domestic violence is continue to sweep the pieces under the carpet and the least we can do is apologize to the victims.
Thanks for all the considered responses. It was a genuine question to vto. Puddleglum expressed it so clearly, that ‘being a man’ is a social construct that has multiple, overlapping and often mutually exclusive meanings.
All grown up. Emotionally mature? I shudder to realise that women have to see us as threats. McCully ‘did a McCully’. So do most of us.
I don’t know where in NZ you are VTO, but North Harbour Living Without Violence are an organization that can work with men experiencing domestic violence. They don’t have specific programs for male victims/survivors but from what I understand, can work one on one.
Noted NZ femme thanks. It is real, and damaging. You seem very astute in this area.
(had to bow out of the rest of that conversation – too close to the bone)
Yes it’s real and damaging – also very confusing. Abusers of all stripes are very good at keeping their target off balance. Love alternating with awful and harmful actions. I think many people experiencing abuse in a relationship find it difficult to leave for that reason. (I know I did) At some point, we’re faced with the reality that the love that (may) still remain is out-weighed by the harm experienced to our psyches. I wish you well vto. Don’t be afraid to seek help, or leave – there is still joy to be had – as unlikely as that may seem.
Lolz North, it helps if you havn’t got a clue what your doing,(my Ha Ha Ha of the day was when i thought of Googling up an old Standard comment of mine to try and get in through the backdoor, Lo and behold, there’s a whole page of 🙄 PG, i think on His own website, whining like a beaten dog about comments i had made to Him, as if anyone were interested)…
will echo that as well! 🙂
Seems a lot quicker as well. Thought about you dealing with the issues (what ever they were) yesterday lprent – many many thanks.
Note: the ‘right side’ of the Standard is now showing everything except the feed which links to other sites like the daily blog,
When posting a comment, the comment is appearing in the correct position,but after posting the comment i am being sent back to the blank page,(a true reflection of the inner workings of my mind?),
Access back is being gained from ”most visited” in my tool-bar…
try pressing CTRL+F5 a couple if times. this will refresh the browser cache. you could also try opening a windows command prompt (if you are on windows) and typing:
ipconfig /flushdns
I think some part of the site might have been moved yesterday and so your computers DNS cache might be looking in the wrong place. Although it should have sorted itself out by now.
Thanks for that Andrew, i much prefer the ”should have sorted itself out by now” method of trouble shooting, i find that this method doesn’t get me into so much trouble,
i well remember the great fun i had when i first used one of these things,(laptop), connected via Teleconned wireless aircard and being one of those who have the habit of diving in without reading the instructions first i threw in the floppy disk and proceeded to connect myself to the web,
i kicked myself later for not writing down a copy of all the steps this connection took via my new found skill as an ungenius, But, the Teleconned tech bloke assured me that my efforts had cooked the innards of the nearest cell tower,(as He begged me to stop and follow the precise instructions He gave)…
..partial-nationalise all of them..!..(kiwibank excepted..)
No, just stop them creating money and then have the government create it and make 0% interest loans. That would sort out our banking situation and make NZ far better off than what we are under the present system.
Profit is theft is that what you are saying?
The 26,000 highly paid staff and anyone in kiwi saver sharing in that profit might disagree,
so would millions of Kiwis who don’t want to lose their deposits.
So, is that the sum total of learning’s you garnered from this university education Phillip, or can we expect a gush, splash, or, spray of pearls of wisdom in such a vein,
Seriously tho, Rattus behavior is usually more deep seated in the psyche than a mere web-site outage is likely to expose…
You two are comedy geniuses phillip. It’s a bit like Laurel and Hardy type though where the slapstick got a bit physical and one was quite sick. One of them put a light globe in the other’s mouth and slapped his cheeks sharply. Luckily you two are apart and the carry-on can always be ignored phillip. It’s the only way with such a mentality.
Espiner fails to hold National cabinet members to account for not fronting to discuss important issues
Wednesday… Bennett…inequality
Thursday ….McCully…..Tania Billingsley statement.
By comparison Campbell Live make pointed comments about Parata not fronting to discuss Education policy on Monday.
Our undemocratic government is being facilitated by a public broadcaster which appears to have fallen into rogue hands.
Espiner is a total disgrace.
The appointment team are at fault primarily. They knew what they were choosing. I fear that we will see little change in Guy Le Spinner. But he did apologise the other day for making a second thrust across a comment or explanation, with a repeated question that was probably quite good. It sounded then more of a searching interview for a time, rather than a bombastic rant by some autocratic school principal.
On May 18 Australia had mass protests across the country. Friends of mine (in Perth even) only let me know now with a facebook link – and no I’m not going to promote facebook. The only thing I found in the MSM is this http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/18/tens-of-thousands-across-the-country-march-in-in-protest mmmmmmm. So big ups to our cousins across the ditch. So silly question, did people know about this? One hundred and eighty thousand people hit the streets and the media ignore it – a serious push back – and a serious issue ignored.
Meanwhile who hear knows that the last few days of Israeli bombardment (including air strikes and naval shelling FFS) has now killed and injured over 400 Palestinian civilians?
You heard about the Neo-Nazi killings in the Ukraine CV? Have a link to video – but I don’t think I want to put up – I don’t think it is appropriate to just put up for anyone to view. These are par-military groups aligned and train by the Ukraine army. Most of it is happening in the ethnically Russian parts of Ukraine. I threw up after 20 minutes in, and had to stop watching – I read the accompanying report. A Ukrainian friend I talk to in another forum said it gets worse after I stopped watching. They sat through all the footage, and helped edit it – they are now in hiding. Both side don’t want to it to get out they are targeting civilian’s. So yeah Palestine is a mess, Syria is a Mess and now Ukraine is a bloody mess as well. I think the old saying applies – we are descending to hell in a hand basket…
We in the west are the most propagandized people on the planet – usually through what we are not shown, what we are not made aware of, and perspectives that we never hear.
Every so often on telly they play some recent Chinese movies with subtitles – usually medieval/fantasy, visually impressive with bold colours, casts of thousands, occasionally lots of wire work…
The subtexts seem to almost exclusively revolve around the desirability of stable society and the hero’s duty to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good. Sometimes I find them downright disturbing.
I suppose you mean the Odessa Trade Union Building fire – which, as I recall, while the Pro-Ukraine protestors were in the wrong for throwing molotov cocktails (you remember, same as the “harmless” ones that Tame Iti and friends were partly charged over in 2007), having, I might add, been fired upon by the Pro-Russian faction first, the deaths among the Pro-Russian mob was largely because the barricated themselves in the top floors of the building and refused to leave.
This RT bullshit kneejerk calling the Pro-Ukraine element neo-Nazi is moronic. The far-right element is at best a minority of a coalition government (sort of like Internet-Mana will hopefully be following the election) and if they really were being massively funded by some secret US-EU cabal, one would like to think they would have managed a bit more influence than the Agricultural Ministry. It’s actually pretty insultig to suggest that the Pro-Ukraine faction have no legitimate agency after a generation of self-rule. That’s basically ignoring that on the one hand closer relations with the EU opens up the possibility of access to wealthy foreign markets, better employment prospects and increased social liberalisation, whereas closer ties with Russia, is a collapsing economy, and, well, Tsar Putin. You would have to be utterly stupid not to see that most Ukrainians wouldn’t particularly need much arm twisting.
This is a Ukraine activists filming the action of their own. They are not pro-Russian. And a minority who is killing civilian’s your going to compare with internet/Mana what sort of wanker are you Populuxe1? If you can justify that position in your head – sorry for you. No your proof that, neo-liberalism is so desperate to justify it debasement of humanity it would rather lie, lie, lie, to push it’s agenda. So for you Populuxe1 a few neo-nazis killing a few Russian and Ukrainians civilians’ is OK. As long as Ukraine becomes part of EU and they have western type freedom?
I see. So the Kalishnikovs just magically materialised out of the downstairs cupboard? Dear me. So tell me, Adam, if you had a choice, where would you rather live? Russia or the EU?
And if National was basically being puppeted by a foreign power behind a populist mandate and ineffectual democracy,with no real change in sight, while Key was stealing vast ammounts of public money to build a privat palace and zoo, you might get a little cross, no? smiling even more sweetly
NZ media is owned by large Australian corporates.
They don’t want us to know about this.
It’ll get in the way of their planned carve up of the country.
If you look closely, you’ll see that in fact the website is divided up into sections. It’s probably a mistake to look for NEWS in the ENTERTAINMENT section.
The ‘ownership’ of New Zealand’s media goes far further than Australia, various arms of ‘International Capital’ have large stakes in our media and thus the power to impose ‘editorial control’,
i suspect, with no actual hard evidence, that John Campbell was smart enough to wrestle from Media Works,(apparently just out of insolvency),a contract that gives Him editorial independence from the other arms of that particular mouth-piece promoting the views of International Capital…
National Nominees Limited 23.1%
Independent News & Media (Australia) Limited 17.6%
Citicorp Nominees Pty Limited 11.7%
News & Media NZ Limited 11.3%
JP Morgan Nominees Australia Limited 8.7%
Some detail on some of these shareholders.
The Irish company Independent News & Media has a large stake in the company. Two of INM’s largest shareholders are Irish businessman Denis O’Brien and financier Dermot Desmond. Dermot Desmond is an Irish businessman, financier and tax exile. He is estimated to be worth €1.35 billion and is ranked by the Sunday Independent as the seventh-richest person in Ireland.
Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd was incorporated in 1970 and is based in Sydney, Australia. Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd operates as a subsidiary of Citigroup Pty Limited.This is a foreign-owned subsidiary bank of Citigroup. Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Citigroup was formed from one of the world’s largest mergers in history by combining the banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate Travelers Group in October 1998 (announced on April 7, 1998).Citi is currently the third largest bank holding company in the United States by assets. Its largest shareholders include funds from the Middle East and Singapore.
JP Morgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational banking and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in the United States, with total assets of US$2.515 trillion. It is a major provider of financial services, and according to Forbes magazine is the world’s third largest public company based on a composite ranking.
A great quote from Adam Brandt (Green Party, Victoria) in that Guardian piece, to which every politician counting themselves as on the left should take heed; “It takes guts and courage to stand up to the powerful and wealthy but a coward to take an axe to the young, the sick and the poor,”
Very true. It makes me sick when politicians talk about having the courage to take the hard decisions, then make another attack on the poor and disadvantaged. Both NAct and Labour suffer from this. The raising of the retirement age is evidence that Labour can only take easy decisions, as demanded by capital.
Have we reached saturation point, sport being the ‘opium of the masses’ perhaps us that are now bored with it all,(even the the super14 thugby has me yawning these days), are the precursors to a mass OD as far as televised sport goes,
Televised sport, the perfect replacement for that older opium of religion, allows the masters to control the conversations that occur in the smoko rooms across the nation on a daily basis…
I think the penalty shoot out system should be abolished the way it is done now and instead, after full time the game should continue in increments of 10 minutes with one less player on each side during each of those 10 minute periods. What do you think?
The game will look like this :
First half, 40 minutes, goalie+10 players [Subs allowed as per existing rules]
Second half, Swap sides, 40 mins, goalie+10 players.
If draw, then…extra time…
Period one : 9 minutes, goalie+9 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 9 minutes, goalie+9 players
If draw, then…extra time….
Period one : 8 minutes, goalie+8 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 8 minutes, goalie+8 players
If draw, then…extra time….
Period one : 7 minutes, goalie+7 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 7 minutes, goalie+7 players
If draw, then…extra time….
Period one : 6 minutes, goalie+6 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 6 minutes, goalie+6 players
If draw, then…extra time….
Period one : 5 minutes, goalie+5 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 5 minutes, goalie+5 players
If still draw, ONLY THEN do the penalty shoot out.
Someone I know has suggested that both extra time and the penalty shoot out could be replaced by a six-a-side half-hour, which seems to follow a similar line of thought. It would be very dramatic, to see all the defenders apart from the goalies leaving the field, but it would not burden individual players so heavily.
The penalty shoot out as used now is too drastic and too unfair a method of deciding which is a superior side. Often, the penalty save is not much of a skill display but a matter of luck, more often depending upon which side the goalie decides to move to!
‘I think the penalty shoot out system should be abolished the way it is done now and instead, after full time, the game should continue in reduced time and reduced player numbers as shown below.’
It would make the game more exciting and fairer, I think. What do you think?
Yes, your idea too would have its drama, and would allow room for strategies as to the order in which the players would leave the field. I agree that the penalty shoot out is both drastic and unfair, and doesn’t reliably reflect the strengths of the two sides. Not so much in agreement with you about the luck of goalies though. I have seen some dazzling saves in this world cup, and think that goalies are often the unsung heroes.
Of course goalies do great. I am not at all putting them down about their abilities during the normal course of the game, except to say that during a penalty shoot out, there is an element of chance/intuition/luck involved as to which way the goalie moves, no matter how good a goalie one is. That is the nature of the penalty shoot out, not a negative reflection on the goalie as such.
There is then the boring possibility of the team with the initial shoot out ‘win’ playing a completely defensive ‘win’-protecting-game to preserve their advantage. For that reason alone I would not support your suggestion.
Besides, the shoot out losing team and their goalie in particular would be starting their ‘real’ game in a state of shame, fear, anxiety and be somewhat demoralized to give off their best from then on.
That is an interesting idea worthy of debate and consideration, but I don’t like it too much because a game without a goalie does not seem right,…….(unless the goals are kicked high ‘above’ the goal bar somewhat like that bastardisation of soccer, the game of rugby!..lol..A joke!)
Way back when, corners awarded used to be used to differentiate in the case of a draw. I guess the rationale was that corners indicated more attacking play. Anyway, that was dumped many years back and extra time was introduced. And at the end of extra time, if the game was still drawn, play continued until either side scored a goal. Dunno why they dumped that. Far better than the lottery of penalty kicks.
I was very pleased to notice the self-checkout machine at New World greeting me with a cherry “Kia ora” yesterday. Hopefully it’s a permanent thing rather than just being in anticipation of Maori Language Week.
Hmmm, my view is that the machine should have greeted you with ‘tena koe’ and cheerily given you the ‘kia ora’ after having swallowed your hard earned coin…
And my view is that you should have smashed the machine and demanded to be served by a human. I prefer my money goes in part to keeping my neighbours in employment.
Like jobs servants used to do in middle and upperclass households? With today’s domestic technologies, most of those jobs are now done by household members, or one or two servants in place of the whole team of servants some households use to have.
I said “we”. And by that I don’t mean political parties – or at least not on their own.
Politicians will only work to change things if we pressure them to. Trying to pressure businesses to change their system and MOs really won’t end them putting profits before people.
We wash our dishes by hand and use a clothes line – many use technology but I’d ask why? Save time? For what? Save money? Nah. It actually is fun to wash and dry the dishes imo you get to practice the tea towel flick for instance, the dryer can race the washer and enjoy putting back an unsatisfactory wash – it is what my brothers and I did growing up and it is what I want to bring into our family. Some may argue that there are better things to be doing but interacting with others in relative happiness is up there in my book – the same for checkout workers too – especially if they have the inclination. Too often nowdays they work longer hours and don’t have the time to take 20 or 30 seconds to say gidday and smile – luckily in the bay we haven’t got to that point yet.
Dishwashers are late to the game. I wash dishes by hand, too.
Until I was about 15 or 16, my mother used to do the washing for the family without a washing machine. That involved boiling up a copper, scrubbing really dirty stuff like rugby outfits, and turning a handle of the wringer.
She also used to make clothes and knit, organise to get the grocery shopping without a car, arrange for food to be fresh without a fridge, cooked food without any of the mod cons many expect to use today. Housework was a very time-consuming and energy-sapping activity. And this was when middleclass families no longer had servants as a general practice.
In past times households also coped without flush toilets or water on tap…. technologies keep being developed. Life adapts.
What needs to change, is that all people should have a living income, and jobs and enterprises need to more more focused on serving society, rather than generating profits for the (usually already) wealthy.
We wash our dishes by hand and use a clothes line – many use technology but I’d ask why? Save time? For what? Save money? Nah. It actually is fun to wash and dry the dishes imo you get to practice the tea towel flick for instance, the dryer can race the washer and enjoy putting back an unsatisfactory wash – it is what my brothers and I did growing up and it is what I want to bring into our family. Some may argue that there are better things to be doing but interacting with others in relative happiness is up there in my book – the same for checkout workers too – especially if they have the inclination. Too often nowdays they work longer hours and don’t have the time to take 20 or 30 seconds to say gidday and smile – luckily in the bay we haven’t got to that point yet.
I’m of the opinion that we’ve got better things for those people to do than sit at checkouts. Of course, our privatised system only sees those people as an expense rather than an asset that needs to be supported and cared for and thus won’t do anything to get those people doing those more important jobs.
The point i would have eventually got around to in my discussion below Draco, first we need alter the tax system so that everyone is receiving the minimum,(preferably the living), wage,
After that society can find lots of ‘work’ for people to take up, monitoring the farming industry will become a necessity in the future, just to think of one,
Workplace safety inspectors by the 100’s to think of another, the list is endless…
Yep. The problem is the competitive, private business, profit system. A better system of one that results in providing jobs beneficial to society. And we also should be working towards a shorter working week – 6 hours per day/5 days a week per person, as a first goal for fulltime workers.
But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
And you TRP have ‘smashed’ how many of these machines so far???, smashing said machnes would seem to be the perfect ‘make-work’ scheme for the plods, the judicial system, and the 1000’s of lazy sods currently employed as key janglers in the prison system,
Far from smashing the machines, would you not be better off advocating for ‘true equality’ in the vein of paying all those reliant upon the benefit system the ‘living wage’…
“Far from smashing the machines, would you not be better off advocating for ‘true equality’ in the vein of paying all those reliant upon the benefit system the ‘living wage’…”
What’s the cause of the laughter TRP, modernization of people bases systems such as the check-out operation of a supermarket are always going to leave a lag between old jobs and new jobs being created,
Your laughter instead of an actual answer to the question is suggestive of you having no belief in equality what-so-ever,
You would prefer to strike a ‘pose’ as evidenced by your absurd ”smash the machines” than pay the workers made redundant a living wage,
Arnie came across as the brainless wonder in the series of movies, your comments are beginning to portray the same…
Thanks for that TPR, it reads like the forward to ”The idiots guide to structural poverty”,
i could ask you the same about the word poverty TRP, while you continue on your blind little tiptoe down the path of ”work will set you free” you are simply a supporter and applauder of the current situation of structural poverty,
With Labour as the lead member of a coalition we will never have across the board a living wage for all workers, why don’t you try honesty for once,
What are the unemployed other than workers kept deliberately out of work…
Thank you TRP, in a word, as deserving of it as that ‘wing-nut’ below, Bullshit,
i have at this time of night better things to do with my time than play either Tic Tac Toe or dance on the head of a pin with one of the Standards resident experts in both forms,
Your whole focus of debate is to continually run away from what you publish spreading bullshit as you go…
I’m not running away from anything, Bad, but feel free to scarper if you must. I’m sure nobody will feel any less of you for bottling out of your own lost argument.
Don’t be simple McFlock I said everyone I know that wants to work finds a job within a few months. People do loose their jobs from time to time often through no fault of their own. Yes my friends and many others who want to work all found jobs within a few months. A few people that are not friends of mine and don’t want to work are as you would expect still unemployed.
you missed the point – if everyone got work they wanted, none of your friends would be unemployed for weeks, let alone months. Unless your friends wanted to loaf around dong nothing for months on end, collecting the dole. Mybe they were familiar enough with you to pretend they were looking and just couldn’t find anything.
They still would have been in the tens of thousands of unemployed that quarter.
you missed the point – if everyone got work they wanted, none of your friends would be unemployed for weeks, let alone months. Unless your friends wanted to loaf around dong nothing for months on end, collecting the dole. Mybe they were familiar enough with you to pretend they were looking and just couldn’t find anything.
They still would have been in the tens of thousands of unemployed that quarter.
That’s it exactly and why the rich have been getting all the gains from increased productivity for the last thirty years. Why we have increasing inequality.
“Our economy is based on having a permanent 5-7% unemployed. Any more leads to riots, any less leads to pay rises.”
I have been an employer in the past and when the business grew I needed more staff, I approached staff from another company and offered them more money than they were getting. It was no problem to pay good staff a premium wage, many companies do it. That might not apply to unskilled staff who tend to get replaced by machines.
Naki man was talking about his ethics in poaching staff from another company, who apparently willingly quit to go work for an arsehole for an extra $1/hr
Well said TRP. When we go to the supermarket and some nice lady “invites” us to use these machines we always refuse., and I always say to them “I will not use that thing as I am trying to preserve a rare thing called your employment.”(a bit of a Tollpuddle martyr in me”)
The sad bit is, they really don’t get the point I am trying to make.
”The sad bit is, they really don’t get the point I am trying to make”, said the condescending middle class to the poor uneducated peasants,
How the fuck would you know if they get the point or not, the people employed there are ‘watched’, they’re paid to do exactly what they do, not engage in bagging their employers to any dick that wanders in who for all they know might be the managers cousin…
True halfcrown, me too – I did use the airport one the other day although i didn’t have a bag or my code number – the machine and lovely person helping was able to find my code from my licence which was a little freaky. The one that also gets me is laptops – I remember when they came in oh the extra free time we would all have – now they are used at night, on weekends, at the beach, on the plane! Biggest have those laptops – just increased work not decreased it lol.
I’m more in agreement with bad. I use the self serve checkout machines – and am usually one who keeps the supervisor busy – especially at pak n save where it’s necessary to get a staff member approval to use your own bag. In any Auckland supermarket we need to ask a staff member, at both self-service and operator checkouts. to provide us with council rubbish bags – we aren’t allowed to get them off shelves ourselves.
The machines free up humans to do other work. Remember, barcode scanners at checkouts, saved operators time, meaning less staff needed, and ultimately, less customers for small independent supermarkets. That’s the way with technological change. If it means fewer jobs, then we need to focus more on a living wage for all, and getting people doing jobs that can be most easily done by humans- jobs that are useful and valuable to society.
Also, I’ve never really seen more/longer queues at self-checkouts than operator checkouts. Often the self-checkout moves more quickly because there are several machines for one queue.
especially at pak n save where it’s necessary to get a staff member approval to use your own bag.
Never had that happen to me.
In any Auckland supermarket we need to ask a staff member, at both self-service and operator checkouts. to provide us with council rubbish bags – we aren’t allowed to get them off shelves ourselves.
That really pisses me off but I suppose that an increasing number of people were stealing the in this rockstar economy where only the rich get better off.
and getting people doing jobs that can be most easily done by humans- jobs that are useful and valuable to society.
Well, getting the people freed up from doing jobs that machines can do to doing jobs that machines can’t. Jobs such as R&D, art, health care etc.
Where I live we have one supermarket and no self serve option but I’ve lived in the cities and i can pack my own reusable bag or use bags/boxes when necessary but i refuse to put the stuff through myself – I just cannot support that practice it really seems obviously like providing evidence why a job isn’t needed when I really think it is needed and less dropping of humans for profit is what is not needed.
Not exactly worthless but not worth a hell of a lot and there really is more important work that needs doing.
It’s actually Real Economics rather than the delusional monetary BS we normally hear about. We free up people from some work so that they can do other work that the society finds worthwhile. It’s how I know that NZ can afford a space program with tens of thousands of people involved in it.
I think the person should find the work worthwhile not just that society considers it worthwhile – otherwise we are back at the same point we are today. ‘Worthwhile’ is pretty subjective too and more important things to do – well important to whom. Anyway apart from the space race i agree with you mostly – I’d get people planting and growing food everywhere so others can eat it for free that is important and worthwhile imo.
i have to ask each time for rolly papers, and, have to admit i, after an initial ”fucking machines” response, quite enjoy the do it yourself nature of checking out my weekly shopping), specially at Pak’n’Slave where i used to end up having to bag it myself anyway,
Lolz i haven’t used Council rubbish bags for years, between my recycle bin and my garden, along with putting the shopping bags to a second use by,(deleted), i have no need of them,
The moot, often aired here at the Standard, and by plenty of politicians, of inequality is pretty much kneecapped by the majority of those, in my opinion, discussing this not doing so from the position of wanting real equality,
It would seem, and again this is my opinion, that the majority either want slightly less inequality, or, simply play lip service to such an ideal…
I got use to bagging my own groceries in England – it was the way things were done there in the 70s-90s, in the pre-barcode days. When I came back here, at first I got quite irritated at the quaint way supermarkets preferred to bag my shopping for me, – and irritated that, until the last couple of years, they were resistant to me bringing my own re-cycled shopping bags.
It saves me time at the checkout to bag it myself, and I have my own ways of packing the bags – designed to making the unpacking and putting away process easier at the other end.
It is a beat up. Here is the official text from the policy:
“Labour will allow the Law Commission to complete its review on alternative trial mechanisms, including the establishment of a specialist sexual violence court and consider reforms that provide real justice to survivors while protecting the right to be presumed innocent, including: cross examination rules, alternative trial processes, establishment of sexual violence support, specialist training including on the dynamics of violence, support services during justice processes, and changes to the definition of consent.”
IS is relying on a press release. The language is less elegant. The official text of the policy is what should be referred to and relied on.
He is not relying on a press release. This is what Andrew Little said. I heard it:
“”The Crown has to prove more than just sex; the issue of consent has to be raised by the Crown, they have to prove the identity of the offender. They would have to bear that burden of proof before a switch to the defence to prove consent,” Mr Little said.”
It’s not a precedent at all, Phil. The proposal is to use an inquisitive process (ie establish the agreed facts). That’s the way it’s done in a lot of countries already, France for one.
I agree, how is it that the left fear the GCSB and police surveillance and are quite happy to be guilty of rape until they are proven innocent. Is this why Cunners apologised for being a man.
I’ve been following this fairly closely. And I have to say, I think Little is doing a crappy job of speaking to the discussions/work/research that culminated in the Law Commissions inquiry, subsequently brushed aside by Collins.
A bit of background: in 2007, the Commission of Enquiry into Police Conduct Report by Margaret Bazley was released. Undertaken after the Louise Nicholas debacle, it led to a further investigation by the Law Commission into evidential law.
Following recommendations within that report, the Government set up a “Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence”. Different specialist groups and Government Departments researched specific areas, resulting in a number of suggestions and recommendations, including that the Law Commission undertake an inquiry into alternative trial processes.
It’s important I think, to point out that the submission made during the Taskforce enquiry to reverse the burden of proof was not proposed, and was not further investigated by the following Law Commission enquiry.
” 94. This has not been proposed as an option because a review of the burden of proof would raise major Bill of Rights concerns, such as the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.” (from the above link)
Below is a link to the background and scope of the Law Commission’s enquiry into alternative trial procedures, and information on inquisitorial as opposed to adverserial trial procedures. It was to Simon Powers credit that the work begun years earlier, was continued under his watch in 2010. He was of the belief that an inquisatorial trial model would be more effective in sexual abuse cases, and possibly DV cases as well. (the jury is still out on that – the conviction rates are similar for both styles worldwide – but it is thought that the process is less brutal for victims/survivors)
The written policy is the correct one. Humans are error prone and tend to say the wrong thing while in interviews while meaning what the written policy says.
I am concerned that men could be an easy target. Its one persons word against another. If any women wanted to set up their ex for revenge or custody or any other reason it would be easy.
The reversal of the burden of proof is batshit crazy.
so you prefer women to be the “easy target” of one person’s word against another (with a rough rate of a quarter of all women), as opposed to a false reporting rate of the minority of cases that even get reported to the police.
Moot point, because the tory hype isn’t what Labour’spolicy is, but interesting where you want the suffering of innocents to lie.
xox
National Radio is on the skids. Going the way of TVNZ. The government have frozen funding and bought in yes men and women on the board to dumb it down. Nothing direct, just mates and toadies. Sad and disturbing.
xox
Attended an informative talk by Ecologist Mike Joy, who is currently on a national tour. I recommend it to Kiwis concerned about our water quality, natural environment and democracy. You can see the video from the Royal Society of NZ website, when get it on line. Shocking, disturbing and disgraceful.
Graham Bell, Wild Bull of the Whump-Ass, continues to run amok The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 1 July 2014
Jim Mora, Graham Bell, Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, Zara Potts
PART TWO OF TWO
After the four o’clock news, not much happens for a long time. There are the interminable reintroductions of each Panelist, which often mean it’s well after 4:15 before the first topic of the day is discussed. Today there’s not a lot to talk about—actually, there is a lot to talk about, but the producers have steered well away from anything substantial. There is, however, some superficial chat about depression….
JIM MORA: Uh, the Black Dog Project—there’s been reportage of this in Slate magaz— GRAHAM BELL: That reminds me. What’s black and looks good on a criminal? A Doberman. Ho ho ho ho ho! MORA: Graham that’s a terrible joke! I REFUSE to laugh at it.
The show drifts on, aimlessly and witlessly, until the 4:30 news. Then it’s time for the “Soapbox” segment. Remember, this is where the guests are expected to talk about something they have spent some time thinking about. Listeners might be forgiven, therefore, to expect something thoughtful, something serious, something interesting….
MORA: Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, what have you been thinking about? DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Well I went to a restaurant the other night, and I was just so ANNOYED by all the people who were texting non-stop! I’m just wondering: do people not TALK any more? ….[continues ranting about texting for several minutes]….
To stop her, Mora interrupts and reads out some texts and emails about various frivolities raised during the preshow. Then it’s on to the thoughts of Dixon of Dock Green….
MORA: Okay, Graham Bell, what’s been on YOUR mind? GRAHAM BELL: I want to talk about Lucan Battison and his hair. The Battisons and the school should be ashamed of themselves. …That over-inflated CODSWALLOP that his lawyer spouted in court, comparing this case to Kate Sheppard and Martin Luther King. The only winners were the lawyers! The only LOSER is the kid himself. No employer will take him on. He’s the heir apparent to John Minto! MORA:[nervously] A lot of people think “good on him.” GRAHAM BELL:[snarling] I doubt it. Perhaps the Internet Mana Party can employ him! It’s CRAZY! DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Ridiculous! Ridiculous! MORA: He said he was arguing for a principle. GRAHAM BELL: R-r-r-r-r-rubbish! Codswallop!
….[Extended awkward silence]….
MORA: Graham Bell and Denise L’Estrange-Corbet on the Panel! It’s ten minutes to five. I want to talk about Rolf Harris. GRAHAM BELL: Rolf Harris. I’ve always thought he was odd. REALLY odd! MORA: Really? GRAHAM BELL: Wobbling a saw and singing along with it. He’s a little bit unusual. MORA: Ummm… Stripped of his BAFTA and his CBE. DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Good! Lock him up and throw away the key! He deserves NOTHING! He deserves NO SYMPATHY at all! MORA: We’re joined now by Dr. Ian Lambie from Auckland University. DR. IAN LAMBIE: Good afternoon Jim and listeners. MORA: Uh, it’s well known that celebrities are ego-driven and narcissistic. Why do people like this think they can get away with it? Why do they think they have this kind of invincibility? DR. IAN LAMBIE: They have a lot of money, a lot of power, a lot of prestige. Awards from the Queen. It takes an enormous amount of courage to speak out. GRAHAM BELL: It’s a hallmark of many sexual offenders that they would select their victims. Some sex offenders are capable of thinking right through to the trial. DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: They select them very carefully. MORA: There’s that level of malign strategy. The other thing is, Ian, that the times have been on trial haven’t they, the sixties and seventies, with Jimmy Savile, haven’t they. The times have been categorized and besmirched…. DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: I mean it surrounded Michael Jackson for years didn’t it. All sorts of different people coming forward and he’d just pay them off. And maybe people do think that if people come forward they’re just after the money. MORA: Thanks Ian. Actually, people in the seventies were just as moral as they are now. GRAHAM BELL: Oh absolutely. MORA: I mean, the times have been categorized and besmirched….
Somewhere during this borefest, Graham Bell had a go at smearing the dissident journalist Julian Assange. As always, Mora said nothing to contradict him. If somebody can track down his gouty rant, I would appreciate you transcribing it. I just can’t bear to wade through any more of it.
if bell were doing a comedy-routine..it could be (kinda) funny..in a reactionary-clown piss-take sorta way..
..but he isn’t..and it isn’t..
..but brilliant casting..!
..bell and corbet together…!..(i call her by her birth name..corbett..pre-affectation..)
..those two wd be neck and neck for thickest-panel-panellist-award..
..an antipodean-take on dumb and dumber…
(mora was grasping/struggling with their concerted-inanities..there was seperate humour to be had from that..)
..(one of the ‘circles of hell’..?..a dinner party lasting forever..with bell/corbet..and a brace of those other ignorant fuckwits they have on that panel..
..that obese beer-pusher..?..and all those other rightwing-arsewipes they trot out there too..?
The great pity, Phillip, is that when Bell is contradicted, he always folds like a pack of cards. Gordon Campbell gave him an on-air spanking a few years ago….
bell has stockholm syndrome.
he has been hanging round low lifes for so long now that he thinks like them.
i.e. fantasies of omnipotence and contempt for the rule of law.
Plods have long had a bit of a fetish about licensed premises, perhaps transference of what goes on in their home base watering holes.
Team Policing in the 80s/90s broke laws and heads with gay abandon and not just in ‘booze barns’ either. Keep the coppers out of law abiding citizens socialising please.
Top pub, Phil, if it’s the one I’m thinking of. Used to be a compulsory stop for my fellow workers after union stopwork meetings. Sometimes before them, too! I remember seeing a photo behind the bar of Jimmy Carter knocking back a beer there when he was here on a visit.
Carter must have done a pub crawl while here then TRP! because his photo was on the wall in the early opener (8am, name escapes me, had a back entrance through to bus depot) round the corner from Queen St on Quay St just down from the Seafarer’s union office.
Snake Pit was in the basement of the South Pacific Hotel near the old Post Office and where Britomart is now. Was rough, but fights were not compulsory.
Yep, that’s the one, felix. I also remember the Britomart being a good spot for a quiet one, but the Schooner had a vibe all of its own. The Prince Arthur was my favourite downtown drinker, though. A den of inequity; the rooms upstairs could tell a tale or two.
Have to admit it was “plod”, in the form of the wharf police, that saved us when our tiny Welsh engineer just had to pick a fight with the biggest Fijian in the bar.
tiny Welsh engineer just had to pick a fight with the biggest Fijian in the bar.
Amazing what beer does to some people. A few years back four of us walked into a Courtenay Place bar and some wee short -arse started to pick one with us within seconds of getting there.
Now I was twice his size and the other three with me made me look weedy. We just couldn’t believe he was doing this. His mates showed no sign of backing him. It was like brushing a humping dog off your leg to get rid of him.
Another very interesting excursion into the human/lizard brain.
Sounds like the South Pacific, as 17 year olds new to the big smoke it didn’t take us long to master the art of staying out of trouble – scarper for the corner to avoid the big boys fights, duck, preserve your drink at all costs and at the first inkling of the arrival of a team policing unit decamp with haste.
@joe90 6.17pm
I note the tram lines and overhead wires, and remember at the end of a route waiting on the slatted seats inside the tram while the driver climbed down to the street, hauled down one pole, fastened it, then raised the pole at the other end, climbed into the forward cabin and we were off again. A very different approach to public transport, visible, reliable and fairly frequent.
I saw a car like the small one in the middle of the photo the other day. People restore them lovingly.
You might be right greywarbler, but I took the photo to be the bottom of Queen St, Auckland, and the overhead wires were the trolley bus wires. I remember they didn’t remove the tram-lines for a long time after the replacement trolleys. Those drivers were much fitter than today’s bus drivers. It was impossible to make a trip into the city from the suburbs and back again without the wire contraption attached to the bus roof coming off the overhead wires usually several times a trip. The driver would jump out of the bus…run around to the front where he (always a he) would re-attach it then back round… up the stairs into his seat and off we’d go again. The game was to predict exactly where it would next happen. Kept us endlessly amused.
@Anne7.24
Thanks for that shared memory. I thought of trolley buses first and then thought that no they must have been trams, wrongly. It was the trams I particularly remembered, they were fun.
I enjoyed some years ago riding in the Melbourne ones when I was living there. And I did ride on John Britten’s ones in Chch and they have some part going again there I think. Going up the Kelburn cablecar in Wellington is a little like the old tram experience.
Nowadays I have decided to go regularly to talk to the afficionados at the train restoration and trundle trip down at the local park. These are good guys and women who have put in hours and done wonders with the old skills and knowledge. There is a charm about them and nostalgia that is a different feeling than the one I get while looking at the tall metal vehicles on big tyres that dwarf me which are the peculiar fashion in the dying days of personal vehicles.
I think it shows character when a politician admits a mistake, rather than doubling down or trying to let it slide. However, it should have been apparent to Harawira last week that cases alleging attempted rapes are big deals and trying to diminish the impact of such crimes is not a good thing.
Ok the site is fixed for the moment. It appears to have been a excessively complex set of SQL queries for the RSS Feeds on the mid-right of the site displaying information about posts from other sites. It appears to have been setting up a mutex deadlock condition under some conditions, triggered by one of the feeds from a union site.
Quite how that deadlock was triggered I still don’t know for sure. I’m going to have a look at the code over the weekend.
For the moment I have fixed it with much tighter timeouts on mutexes, shortening the idle timeouts on the connections to the database, and removing all of the union feeds until I figure out exactly which one was the issue.
What it did bring home to me was how many queries were hitting that database. Normal day to day operation was causing a several thousand queries a second all day – after many of them were forestalled by cached database results. So there is clearly some optimization that I’m going to have to put into some of the queries performed by some of the plugin code.
Sorry for having to fix this on the live site. However I couldn’t see the error happening at all on the test site, even after I piped the queries to it from the live site.
Alex from the daily telegraph decrying the unfortunate way that kinder, more socially responsible rules in the financial world don’t apply to all. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/alex/
The Panel is worse, more heartless and stupid than ever
Radio NZ National, Thursday 10 July 2014
Jim Mora, Ali Jones, Ellen Read, Julie Moffett
JULIE MOFFETT: The Israelis have an app. that predicts incoming rockets! ALI JONES: It’s AMAZING what you can do with a smart-phone now!
Judging by the assenting grunts of the others, not one of them saw anything bizarre about that. If these people had been on a vacuous radio chat show sixty years ago, no doubt they would have been impressed by measures taken by the concerned citizens of the Deep South to protect themselves from the Negro menace.
The depravity continued….
JULIE MOFFETT: Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia is removing the Confederate flag from its campus. I’m a bit mixed about that. JIM MORA: It’s historical, surely. It’s not as though they’re espousing the beliefs of the Confederacy. ELLEN READ: I’d keep it. MORA: What do you think, Ali? ALI JONES: I think I’d keep it.
I sent Jim a quick email before 4 o’clock…..
It’s the Palestinians that need the app that predicts rocket attacks
Dear Jim,
Surely it’s the Palestinian victims of Israel’s illegal attacks that need the app that predicts rocket attacks. So far, in the latest escalation of violence, Israel has killed more than fifty Palestinians—most of them civilians.
Not one Israeli has been killed or even injured.
Yet you and your Panelists pretend that it’s the Israelis that need this app.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
I’m pleased to announce that many others did too. He even read one remonstration out on air.
I dashed it down in disbelieving fury. I no doubt missed a few words here and there, but I got her vacant and amoral tone exactly right. Clearly I wasn’t the only listener to be upset by the callousness and the deliberate ignorance displayed by Moffett, Mora and the other two.
….and not actually what the Yo app does.
So what DOES it do? And more to the point: why were they pretending that Israelis need any app. to guard against rockets?
But other than that, up to your usual standards of accuracy, Moz.
It was accurate, if not word-perfect. Please provide a 100 per cent transcript to show if I have somehow misconstrued their brutal indifference to the deaths of scores of Palestinians.
I dashed it down in disbelieving fury. I no doubt missed a few words here and there, but I got her vacant and amoral tone exactly right. Clearly I wasn’t the only listener to be upset by the callousness and the deliberate ignorance displayed by Moffett, Mora and the other two.
….and not actually what the Yo app does.
So what DOES it do? And more to the point: why were they pretending that Israelis need any app. to guard against rockets?
But other than that, up to your usual standards of accuracy, Moz.
It was accurate, if not word-perfect. Please provide a 100 per cent transcript to show if I have somehow misconstrued their brutal indifference to the deaths of scores of Palestinians.
I dashed it down in disbelieving fury. I no doubt missed a few words here and there, but I got her vacant and amoral tone exactly right. Clearly I wasn’t the only listener to be upset by the callousness and the deliberate ignorance displayed by Moffett, Mora and the other two.
….and not actually what the Yo app does.
So what DOES it do? And more to the point: why were they pretending that Israelis need any app. to guard against rockets?
But other than that, up to your usual standards of accuracy, Moz.
It was accurate, if not word-perfect. Please provide a 100 per cent transcript to show if I have somehow misconstrued their brutal indifference to the deaths of scores of Palestinians.
No I like Jim’s programme except when he has Farrar on and then I switch off.
You are suggesting Farrar is worse than Stephen Franks, Neil Miller, Nevil Breivik Gibson, Julia Heartless Moore, Richard Griffin, Barry Corbett or any of the other mindlessly reflexive right wing drips that dominate this programme?
Otherwise its light, interesting educational entertainment.
the guy compares a half-arsed local tory propagandist with a hands-on mass murderer
It was not me but another writer who pointed out the similarity of Nevil Gibson’s and Anders Breivik’s thinking. It was after an insane editorial by Gibson in the NBR a couple of years ago, in which he asserted that all—i.e., every single one—of the world’s terrorists were Muslims. Even the Bush/Blair axis at its most dishonest never actually stated such an absurd lie. But Anders Breivik did. And so did Nevil Gibson.
Now I guess you will try to prove that Gibson’s words should not be held against him.
That answer point 2 for you?
Nothing wrong with light. There’s everything wrong with pretending you’re serious and then making a (feeble) joke out of nearly everything. For instance: any moral person would find something wrong with the idea of hooting with laughter at someone taking refuge from a vicious state vengeance campaign. But on The Panel it’s a source of never-ending hilarity….
“It was after an insane editorial by Gibson in the NBR a couple of years ago, in which he asserted that all—i.e., every single one—of the world’s terrorists were Muslims.”
Cite, Moz? Gibson may be regularly offensive, but he’s not an idiot. I’m picking the only person to have made that claim is actually you. Looking forward to being proven wrong, of course.
I’ve spent the last hour trawling through old NBR editorials by the great man, but I still haven’t found the one that started it all. I remember it had a few comments on it, with the most trenchant being the one comparing his rabid views to Breivik’s. I’ll track it down for you, though, and post it up as soon as I locate it.
Gibson may be regularly offensive, but he’s not an idiot.
I didn’t say he was an idiot. The old Maoist is irrational and dishonest, and possibly insane. But you’re right—he’s not an idiot, though he obviously treats the rest of us like we are.
I’m picking the only person to have made that claim is actually you.
You are wrong. I picked up on the Breivik comparison from a disgusted commenter on the NBR blog.
I wasn’t saying that you claimed he was an idiot. Rather that he’d be an idiot if he said it. And the ‘claim’ isn’t the Breivek comparison it’s the ‘all terrorists are muslim’. So far, it appears you’re the one saying that, not Gibson.
Anyhoo, good luck finding the non-existent quote. You could save some time by just admitting you exaggerated.
I’m picking the actual line you’ve distorted is this:
“But not all deaths in conflict are equal. Much of the world’s violence emanates from a single source – jihadist followers of the Islamic religion – and rarely does a news bulletin (at least on the BBC) pass without a bombing or people being killed somewhere in the name of martyrdom.”
I wasn’t saying that you claimed he was an idiot. Rather that he’d be an idiot if he said it.
He WROTE it in an “editorial” for his crummy business paper.
And the ‘claim’ isn’t the Breivek comparison it’s the ‘all terrorists are muslim’. So far, it appears you’re the one saying that, not Gibson.
No, he wrote it. Another reader picked him up on it, and compared him directly to Breivik. The comparison was apt, and I have used it ever since.
Your flippant, disrespectful attitude and your taunting does you no credit, Te Reo. Gibson said what I said he did; I did not make it up, and I did not distort anything.
I will find that moronic Breivikian editorial—unlike you, I do care about getting things right—and put it on this site. Not that that will satisfy you of course—I note you’re already putting up other irrelevant quotes and constructing an attack against me based on those.
I hope you do not conduct yourself in this unethical fashion when you are going about your Labour Party business. I recall the likes of Michael Cullen telling lies about Keith Locke in the House, and those thugs Mallard and Benson-Pope yelling “Send him home!” during debates on the mistreatment of the fugitive Algerian parliamentarian Ahmed Zaoui; your behaviour is very similar.
I wasn’t saying that you claimed he was an idiot. Rather that he’d be an idiot if he said it.
He WROTE it in an “editorial” for his crummy business paper.
And the ‘claim’ isn’t the Breivek comparison it’s the ‘all terrorists are muslim’. So far, it appears you’re the one saying that, not Gibson.
No, he wrote it. Another reader picked him up on it, and compared him directly to Breivik. The comparison was apt, and I have used it ever since.
Your flippant, disrespectful attitude and your sarcastic taunting does you no credit, Te Reo. Gibson said what I said he did; I did not make it up, and I did not distort anything.
I will find that moronic Breivikian editorial—unlike you, I do care about getting things right—and put it on this site. Not that that will satisfy you of course—I note you’re already putting up other irrelevant quotes and constructing an attack against me based on those.
I hope you do not conduct yourself in this unethical fashion when you are going about your Labour Party business. I recall the likes of Michael Cullen telling lies about Keith Locke in the House, and those thugs Mallard and Benson-Pope yelling “Send him home!” during debates on the mistreatment of the fugitive Algerian parliamentarian Ahmed Zaoui; your behaviour is very similar.
“No, he wrote it. Another reader picked him up on it, and compared him directly to Breivik. The comparison was apt, and I have used it ever since.”
Compared him directly to Breivik. That should make it a bit easier to find.
At the moment, Moz, I’m the only one of us to find a quote even remotely like your claim. And, weirdly, the second comment under the article that quote is from starts thus:
“Any introduction that starts by attributing, in unconscious homage to Anders Behring Breivik, …”
Thanks, Te Reo! Not only are you a gentleman, but you’re a first-rate scholar. That is precisely the article I have been looking for. And yes, you are correct, and I am wrong—Gibson didn’t say ALL of the world’s terrorists were Muslims, as I had claimed he did.
By the way, note the modest little contribution by commenter no. 4….
Very gracious of you, Mozza. Can you now point out the bit where Gibson wrote that “all—i.e., every single one—of the world’s terrorists were Muslims” as you claimed?
Not at all, Te Reo. And please disregard all that horrible stuff where I compared you to the gruesome twosome of Mallard and Benson-Pope. That was gutter politics on my part.
Can you now point out the bit where Gibson wrote that “all—i.e., every single one—of the world’s terrorists were Muslims” as you claimed?
To, er, quote myself from this very thread: “And yes, you are correct, and I am wrong—Gibson didn’t say ALL of the world’s terrorists were Muslims, as I had claimed he did.”
Cheers.
Cheers to YOU, my friend. You are a bracing corrective, and I appreciate your efforts to keep this writer (i.e., moi) up to speed.
1.What I’m saying is not what you are saying I’m suggesting.
You said you switch off when David Farrar is on. I pointed out that he is merely one of a whole raft of right wing and extreme right wing guests on the show. If you find him repellent for some other valid reason which excludes the others, please let us know.
2. So? light =sinful?
Making light of the persecution of journalists and dissidents is certainly sinful. Did YOU think it was funny when Chris Trotter put on a funny voice to mimic the besieged Julian Assange?
….not arguing about being a “war criminal” though……..the Left keep on producing them.
You dope. What does “right” and “left” have to do with this? Straw recycled lies about WMDs—even though he no doubt did not believe what he was saying—which puts him in the company of the extreme right, not the Left.
ABC News tells viewers that scenes of destruction in Gaza are in Israel
Submitted by Rania Khalek on Wed, 07/09/2014 – 21:49
More than fifty Palestinians have been killed and another 450 wounded since Monday in Israel’s ongoing assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” by the Israeli army.
As usual, mainstream media outlets are straining to paint Israel as the victim, defending its people against irrational Palestinian rocket fire.
There is no equating the killing and maiming of dozens of innocent Palestinians with scared Israelis seeking shelter from crude rockets that rarely cause damage. But that hasn’t stopped media outlets from trying, and in some cases, outright lying, to distort the violence.
In one stark example, ABC News’ Diane Sawyer misidentifies scenes of the aftermath of Israeli missile strikes in Gaza as destruction caused by Palestinian rocket fire.
As Sawyer segues into the segment, she says, “We take you overseas now to the rockets raining down on Israel today as Israel tried to shoot them out of the sky.” Next to her is video footage not of Israelis or even Israel, but of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
Sawyer then incorrectly describes an image of a Palestinian family gathering belongings in the smoking debris of a missile-hit home in Gaza as “an Israeli family trying to salvage what they can.”
Sawyer then describes an image of a Palestinian woman surrounded by destroyed homes as “one woman standing speechless among the ruins,” with the implication that she is Israeli.
Sawyer’s bald misreporting reflects either a deliberate lie by ABC News or willful ignorance so severe that Palestinian death and misery is invisible even when it’s staring ABC producers right in the face.
The more startling news is that our Government, with almost 50 other countries, is negotiating another secret deal in the shadows of the World Trade Organisation. They are calling to negotiate a Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa).
It is part of a troika: along with the TPP and the deal the US is negotiating with the European Union, it aims to create a new set of global rules that are designed exclusively to serve commercial interests.
This is no exaggeration. Last week US corporates held a launch for what they call Team Tisa. The co-chairs are Citigroup, Liberty Mutual, IBM, MetLife, UPS and Walmart. Leading members of Congress and the US Trade Representative were invited to speak.
This is especially scary, because it aims to extend the model of liberalised and deregulated financial markets that brought us the global financial crisis.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
We see it all the time where economists and politicians just won’t let go of the failed economic hypothesis that brought us the GFC and increased poverty and inequality.
Why don’t we, the citizens of this country, declare that any secret deals signed without due notification and transparency to be null and void.
Tim Groser has not been given the authority to commit our country to rules that have been deliberately kept secret.
How successful would it be to set up a petition about this? Why should our country be lumbered with crappy rules written by US corporates ???
Secrecy is not legitimacy, Tim Groser! It is wrong and completely unethical, (which is par for the course for this morally bereft government.)
who listened to the claptrap on Radio New Zealand this arvo.
It is becoming more and more infantilised and puerile by the day.
and the tripe about rap music.
this is vanity publishing by criminal crack dealers but here in New Zealand it is taken to be a genuine cultural phenomenon.
I suppose it is if you are into criminality, drugs and gangs.
I know many of us like to poke sticks at Chris Trotter, but have a listen to what he had to say today about, well, the patriarchy I guess: http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Audio.aspx
Go to the 2PM Thursday segment, starts about 9 mins in.
Yes. Thanks, felix. I’m a little surprised by Trotter there as well.
Rodney Hide – “it’s all about me and I’m not a bad person” – and Cunliffe’s apology is not going to go down well with male voters.. He clearly didn’t listen attentively to what Trotter said.
Trotter about the long history and legacy of men being schooled to think women should listen respectfully to them, and give more weight to their voice than to that of women.
Some time back, someone documented Key’s lies. It was an impressive list, and clearly lots more could be added from over recent times.
I have searched archived files but cannot find the link. Could some kind person give me the link.
Thank you Joe90.
My search for Key + lies highlighted just how far the NZ public has been deceived by his blatant lying. Cunliffe is hammered for a series of minor transgressions, but Smile and Wave and Lie thrives on them. Team Key is the ultimate set up for the Emperor’s New Clothes story where the the weavers (the Media) promise the wonderful clothes which are invisible to the incompetent and stupid. But the weavers and the Emperor get their beans!
I have my fingers crossed that Team Key will lose its gloss!
We seek a 50% reduction in New Zealand’s carbon-equivalent net emissions, as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. 50 by 50. We will write the target into law.
the price of goods and services has risen by 6 percent since the last election, while the after-tax average wage has actually gone up by 16 percent
no, although its a week ago and here I am being interviewed on television about them, I havn’t seen Gerry Brownlee’s comments regarding demolitions in Christchurch and which caused such outrage, but I can talk all about them
oh, maybe our SAS soldiers were in the Kabul hotel gun fight but they weren’t wounded by friendly fire
New Zealand has lost $12 billion from GDP due to the Christchurch earthquake . . . oh, it might actually be around $15 billion from GDP due to the Christchurch earthquake . . . Blinglish said what?
the GCSB needs to spy on New Zealanders because of the terrorist threat, even though official reports released over my signature say there is no risk and the SIS has the matter in hand
National Ltd™ has been working on a number of things with New Zealand First on a number of things one of which has a financial component but I can’t talk about it
the money from the sale of state assets will not be used to prop up Solid Energy
I don’t see a place for a Winston Peters-led New Zealand First in a government that I lead. It’s not a matter of political convenience, it’s a matter of political principle.
This summer is the most active season ever for oil and gas exploration, with the industry spending up to $750 million. At the same time, the Government is strengthening the regulations that govern drilling, particularly in deep water.
Labour is trying to mislead people about eligibility for Best Start because they don’t get the payment while they also get paid parental leave.
A mountain of evidence shows that the quality of teaching – inside the classroom – is the biggest influence on kids’ achievement
Governor General Jerry Mateparae has been jostled while walking onto Te Tii Marae at Waitangi .
Cameron Slater, who I speak to regularly and who told me about Winston meeting Kim Dot Com, has got absolutely nothing to do with the National Party.
The Cabinet Office has cleared Collins of a conflict of interest after it translated comments on Oravida’s website which stated that she had praised its products
My Justice Minister, Judith Collins, didn’t lie to Parliament, she just didn’t understand the question.
The [MFAT] paperwork shows right through this that not only did the Minister have a very busy programme, all on judicial and justice issues, but, secondly, all the way through it talks about a private dinner.
The economic mess inherited by the Abbott government in Australia can be likened to the economic mess inherited by National Ltd™ when it came into office in 2008.
tonights tv news.
we have the dumbest smart meters in the world.
the power companies can monitor the customers but customers dont seem to have the right to monitor their own electricity usage.
Privatisation isn’t working. We were promised a shareholding democracy, competition, falling costs and better services. A generation on, most people’s experience has been the opposite. From energy to water, rail to public services, the reality has been private monopolies, perverse subsidies, exorbitant prices, woeful under-investment, profiteering and corporate capture.
And we’ve seen the same here. Privatisation has made things worse for the majority of people while a few people have creamed it usually via subsidies from the poorest.
One wonders whether Abbott and his government really understand what has happened in the US? Does he realize that since the era of deregulation and liberalization began in the late 1970s, GDP growth has slowed markedly, and that what growth has occurred has primarily benefited those at the top? Does he know that prior to these “reforms,” the US had not had a financial crisis – now a regular occurrence around the world – for a half-century, and that deregulation led to a bloated financial sector that attracted many talented young people who otherwise might have devoted their careers to more productive activities? Their financial innovations made them extremely rich but brought America and the global economy to the brink of ruin.
Foreign credit is the most obvious yet also most needless form of Australian dependency today. It is created without cost on computer keyboards in Japan, the United States and Britain and lent out at LIBOR rates as low as 1% to arbitrageurs buying Australian securities yielding at least 4.50% and rising. The 2 or 3% arbitrage gain is a free ride for speculators – at Australia’s expense.
Over and above being a domestic expense, it must be paid in foreign exchange. This repayment will cause future pressure to drive the A$ back down, perpetuating Australia’s roller-coaster exchange rate cycle.
There is a widespread impression that if Australia created a similar amount of credit at home, this would be inflationary. That may be true – but it is more inflationary to allow foreigners to manufacture credit and add an interest charge that domestic credit creation could avoid.
xox
Thanks Morissey. So glad I missed Jim Mora and the half twits. I have given up emailing him about the manure on his program. The standard has fallen so far. We deserve much higher standards from our ‘National’ broadcaster.
I used to vote nationalbut they have disgraced themselves and played fast and loose with the law and have nasty brown stains round their mouths from too much arse kissing.
I am going to vote for the Labour Party this election and they will kick the tories arses in September and restore decency and honesty to a body politic that sorely needs it.
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Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
We know some people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill drawn from the ballot today seeks to overhaul the youth justice system by instigating a system of demerit points for offences committed by young offenders. “The ‘Youth Justice Demerit Point System’ will put an end to ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic DevelopmentThe Provincial Growth Fund is investing $6 million in a land-based aquaculture pilot to see whether yellowtail kingfish can be commercially farmed in Northland, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today.A recirculating land-based aquaculture system will be built and operated ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for ForestryForestry Minister Shane Jones has announced two One Billion Trees programme grants of more than $1.18 million to help hapu and iwi in Northland restore whenua and moana.“Many communities around Aotearoa have benefited from One Billion Trees funding since the programme was launched ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign AffairsAhead of the start of the criminal trial in the Netherlands on 9 March, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has reaffirmed the need to establish truth, accountability and justice for the downing of Flight MH17 ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime MinisterThe Government is investing $19.9 million through the Provincial Growth Fund in a game-changing hydrogen energy facility in South Taranaki, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters announced today.“The development of alternative energy initiatives like this one is vital for the Taranaki region’s economy. ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Minister for Foreign AffairsForeign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand is partnering with countries in the Pacific to ensure they are prepared for, and able to respond to the global threat of Coronavirus (COVID-19).“There are currently no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Minister of Transport Phil Twyford has today announced details of the Government’s support package to keep key air freight moving and ensure New Zealanders retain access to essential goods during the four-week level 4 lockdown. “The Government is working with airlines and air freight operators to ensure New Zealand’s key ...
New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 3 – Restrict New Zealand to move up to COVID-19 Alert Level 4 – Eliminate, in 48 hours Two-staged approach to give people and businesses time to prepare Level 3, from tomorrow Non-essential businesses must close All events and gatherings must be ...
Good afternoon The Cabinet met this morning to discuss our next actions in the fight against COVID-19. Like the rest of the world, we are facing the potential for devastating impacts from this virus. But, through decisive action, and through working together, do we have a small window to get ...
The Government is announcing significant further support for the economy, workers and businesses as the country unites to prepare for Alert Level 4 in the fight against COVID-19. Cabinet today agreed to remove the cap on the Government’s wage subsidy scheme, which will inject a further $4 billion into the ...
The Government is backing the Reserve Bank’s latest action to support the economy by reducing longer-term interest rates, meaning lower costs for businesses and mortgage holders, and a lower currency to help our exporters. The Minister of Finance has signed a memorandum of understanding and a letter of indemnity with ...
The Government has asked the Commerce Commission to take account of the exceptional circumstances created by COVID-19 when monitoring business behaviour in coming weeks. “The purpose of my request to the Commerce Commission is to make sure businesses can work together in ways that will allow them to provide ...
The New Zealand Government has temporarily closed its High Commission in Bridgetown, Barbados and its Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Due to the increasing scarcity of air links in and out of Bridgetown and Yangon, and the pressure COVID-19 is placing ...
Associate Health and Whānau Ora Minister Peeni Henare has today announced the Government’s plan to support Māori communities and businesses in the face of COVID-19. “Our Government’s $12.1 billion economic package will help many Māori whānau, workers and businesses, whether it’s through wage subsidies, income support and worker redeployment, or ...
The Government and the hospitality industry have worked together to produce guidelines to assist with managing and reducing transmission of COVID-19, Health Minister David Clark announced today. The guidelines developed between the Government, Hospitality New Zealand and SkyCity Entertainment Group, set out how the new restrictions on physical distancing and ...
Four stage Alert System for COVID-19 announced New Zealand moved up to COVID-19 Alert Level 2 – Reduce Contact New Zealanders over 70 and those with certain medical conditions told to stay at home as much as they can to reduce risk of contact with the virus Workplaces to implement ...
Kia ora koutou katoa I’m speaking directly to all New Zealanders today to give you as much certainty and clarity as we can as we fight Covid-19. Over the past few weeks, the world has changed. And it has changed very quickly. In February it would have seemed unimaginable to ...
New Zealand and Singapore have jointly committed to keep supply chains open and to remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker welcomed the commitment. “This is an important collective response, and ...
JOINT MINISTERIAL STATEMENT BY SINGAPORE AND NEW ZEALAND AFFIRMING COMMITMENT TO ENSURING SUPPLY CHAIN CONNECTIVITY AMIDST THE COVID-19 SITUATION The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis. As part of our collective response to combat COVID-19, Singapore and New Zealand are committed to maintaining open and connected supply chains. We ...
Travel restrictions, closing our border to almost all travelers came into force from 23:59 on Thursday 19 March 2020 (NZDT). All airlines were informed of these restrictions before they came into force. Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says “The transit of passengers between Australia and New Zealand has been agreed upon and ...
The Government has allocated $100 million to help redeploy workers affected by the economic impact of COVID-19, with the hard-hit region of Gisborne-Tairāwhiti to be the first helped, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford, Forestry and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Employment Minister Willie Jackson announced today. Phil Twyford ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is ramping up support for Tairāwhiti’s wood processing sector to bolster the region’s economy at a time of heightened uncertainty, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. Following earlier announcements today of a regional support package for Tairāwhiti, Minister Jones has also announced a ...
The Coalition Government has stepped in to protect Air New Zealand with a significant financial deal that protects essential routes and allows the company to keep operating. The Government and Air New Zealand have agreed a debt funding agreement through commercial 24-month loan facilities of up to $900 million*. The ...
The Government has taken further measures to protect New Zealanders from the COVID-19 virus, effectively stopping all people from boarding a plane to New Zealand from 11:59pm today, except for returning New Zealanders, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. New Zealanders’ partners, legal guardians or any dependent children travelling with ...
The Government has reinforced its commitment to protecting the health of New Zealanders from COVID-19 through the cancellation of indoor events with more than 100 people. “Protecting the health of New Zealanders is our number one priority, and that means we need to reduce the risks associated with large gatherings,” ...
The New Zealand Government is advising New Zealanders not to travel overseas due to COVID-19, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “We are raising our travel advice to the highest level: do not travel,” Mr Peters said. “This is the first time the New Zealand Government has advised New Zealanders ...
Transport Minister Phil Twyford today outlined the first tranche of the $600 million aviation sector relief package announced earlier this week as part of the Government’s $12.1 billion COVID-19 economic response. The initial part of the aviation package aims to secure the operators of New Zealand’s aviation security system, and ...
Westpac is forecasting 200,000 jobs will be lost in NZ as a result of the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Chief economist Dominick Stephens estimates economic activity during the four week lock-down would decline by a third, despite the government and the Reserve Bank having “done a lot to calm ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée.I have a wild tomato flopping all over the path down the back of the veg garden. I picked a ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here. The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Online criminals have been making the most of Covid-19 by preying on people’s fear and doubt. Here are some of the calling cards of these con artists.With most New Zealanders tucked up at home, digital devices are proving to be critical tools for staying connected with each other, making good ...
Author and illustrator Sarah Laing draws a rite of passage in The Lockdown.Reprinted with the permission of the author from Let Me Be Frank, Sarah Laing's blog devoted to "Reading. Writing. Parenting. Angsting." Let Me Be Frank is also the ...
As New Zealand adjusts to a month of lockdown, many pet owners have questions about their furry friends. Alex Casey had a chat with the SPCA – here’s what she learned.AC: My cat had a disgusting abscess on his tail and now has to get his stitches out. ...
Books editor Catherine Woulfe takes an energising walk around the lockdown block of New Zealand books. When the bubbles settled over us they settled over the books too. Libraries were the first to shut down, then the physical bookstores and finally, the hammer blow: online sales and indeed any notion of ...
Journalism commentator and former editor Gavin Ellis says media organisations play a vital role in keeping the community informed and, if possible, safe. They also have a crucial part to play in the maintenance of public order and morale, just as they did in the 1940s. With the country in ...
The country has millions of protective gowns, gloves and eyewear – midwives ask: Where are they? David Williams reports Two days into a national lockdown some midwives didn’t have any protective equipment, adding to concerns about safeguards for frontline health workers. On Friday, announcements were made by the Health Ministry ...
Convincing its citizens to take lockdown seriously will be a major challenge for Fiji’s government, writes Mandy De Vries. My husband, Howie, and I are lucky enough to live on the beautiful Coral Coast in Fiji. We started a tourism operation here two years ago which was, until recently, booming. ...
New Zealand’s businesses and government are far better prepared for the rapidly escalating global health and economic crisis than they were for the Global Financial Crisis in 2008-09 or the stock market crash in 1987, says Rob Campbell, one of the country’s most experienced corporate leaders. “Executive teams and boards ...
Covid-19 lockdown provides valuable time for planning a new business, as Dr Mary-Ellen Gordon explains You have a great idea for a business. You’ve been working to get it up and going. Then, just as you were starting to gain traction, the entire country and much of the rest of ...
Low-income workers whose jobs have disappeared thanks to Covid-19 will increasingly need to access benefit income. When this happens, however, they lose a tax credit for their children. As a direct result of the Covid-19 crisis, the Government has improved its rescue policies for business. We now need to see urgent ...
The strange energy of preparing for level four is over, now the dystopian reality has kicked in. Danyl Mclauchlan writes an essay about home life during a ‘cosy catastrophe’.We start by setting up our home workspaces, covering the kitchen table with such a thick mass of black cables and USB ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Scott Morrison will unvieil on Sunday a $1.1 billion set of measures to make Medicare telehealth services generally available during the coronavirus pandemic and to support mental health, domestic violence and community services. The “Medicare ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. There were 83 new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, down from the previous day's 85 new cases. Details of how many tests have been completed are now bing released ...
By RNZ News New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke to her followers on Facebook today from her office in Premier House. Her chat lasted about 15 minutes and garnered more than 310,000 views. She discussed wage subsidies for full-time and part-time workers, personal protection equipment (PPE) supplies for ...
COMMENTARY:By Bob Howarth (self-isolating in Australia after his latest trip to Timor-Leste) After days of web surfing for Covid-19 coronavirus news around the Asia-Pacific, two areas that appear to need improving in some countries are official communication and fact checking. So here’s my two cents, rupiah, kina or ...
Whether it’s a robot uprising, a woman catfishing into the publishing world or a bunch of lovestruck islanders, NEON has you covered. Here’s what we’re bingeing on NEON for the foreseeable future.WestworldJust in time for lockdown, there’s a buzz-worthy show with endless discussion points coming out on a weekly basis. ...
There’s been a lot of talk about PPE of late – do we have enough, is it getting to the right people, and who exactly are the right people, anyway? Here’s the latest official advice.The Ministry of Health has now circulated updated advice on the appropriate use of PPE (personal ...
A month ago, not many had heard of Ashley Bloomfield. But as the Covid-19 response has ramped up, the director-general of health has become a calm, reassuring presence in a time of uncertainty and fear. Rachel Thomas profiles him, in a piece first published on RNZ.Today, Saturday, director-general of health ...
Jim Kayes tests the waters of social media to see how people are coping with being told to avoid their favourite pastime.“There is something ridiculously exhilarating about catching a fish. The thrill might have faded for the salty angler, but for this rookie, the novice still snagging fish hooks ...
The Government yesterday reassured us there are plenty of masks for front line staff dealing with the public. Yet it seems home care workers, who provide up-close personal care for tens of thousands of people every day, won’t be given them. Yesterday two documents hit my inbox. One was a ...
Hobson’s Choice spokesman Don Brash (a former leader of the National and ACT Parties) is not alone in challenging the justification for tribes claiming to have closed roads to protect their people against Covid. Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters – his remarks apparently ignored by ...
Preliminary results from a survey investigating how well-equipped Māori whānau in the South Island are to stay at home for extended periods show that the majority are prepared to manage their short-term needs, but have increasing anxiety about ...
"The risk of fraud and corruption is compounded during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. When quick decisions are necessary to move vast amounts of resources, bribery, fraud and corruption abound," says Suzanne Snively, Chair of Transparency International ...
By RNZ Pacific Guam remains the Pacific pandemic hot spot with the number of Covid-19 coronavirus cases climbing above 50. On Friday six people tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the total to 51. Thirteen of the cases are currently in hospital. READ MORE: Al Jazeera live updates – ...
By Mong Palatino Many Indonesian internet users have expressed anger over the decision of the House of Representatives (DPR) to test its 575 members for Covid-19. Indonesia has a population of more than 260 million. As of today, the country has 913 Covid-19 positive cases with 87 deaths. But ...
New Zealand has 78 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and five probable cases, the Government has announced today, taking the total to 451. Civil Defence Emergency Management director Sarah Stuart-Black said 12 people are in hospital and two are in intensive care, including one on a ventilator. Twelve are in ...
New Zealand has 78 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and five probable cases, the Government has announced today, taking the total to 451. Civil Defence Emergency Management director Sarah Stuart-Black said 12 people are in hospital and two are in intensive care, including one on a ventilator. Twelve are in ...
By Michelle Steven in Port MoresbyPacific New Guinea’s National Capital City Covid-19 Task Force team is preparing ahead should there be a possible coronavirus case during the 14-day lockdown. NCD Governor Powes Parkop told a media conference that the capital city would be in total lockdown with no public ...
Leading immigration lawyer Aaron Martin assesses the impact of the announcement of the epidemic notice for migrants. Immigration New Zealand announced that the government epidemic management notice relating to immigration matters comes into effect on 2 ...
Just a tiny handful of print publications will continue through the lockdown, with only daily newspapers specifically identified as being able to continue. Duncan Greive spoke to publishers of magazines and community newspapers about the impact on them and their communities.Publishers of magazines and community newspapers are reeling, after a ...
Just a tiny handful of print publications will continue through the lockdown, with only daily newspapers specifically identified as being able to continue. Duncan Greive spoke to publishers of magazines and community newspapers about the impact on them and their communities.Publishers of magazines and community newspapers are reeling, after a ...
Jacinda Ardern has pleaded with the Australian Prime Minister to make an exception to the rule that bars many of the 650,000 New Zealanders there from receiving a benefit. ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, political commentator and essayist Morgan Godfery.I’M TWEETING AT 2AM.The responsible part of my brain is sending sleep signals. Inconvenient yawns. The ...
Take a vicarious roadie via Attraction, the novel by Ruby Porter that was longlisted for the country’s biggest fiction prize. Released last year, it’s now a slightly eerie snapshot of Aotearoa as we were. Attraction is a New Zealand road trip novel with a heavy dose of postcolonial guilt. Whitewashing, cultural ...
Iwi everywhere put support plans into action, focusing on their kaumātua, writes Kayne Ngātokowhā Peters. Iwi are ramping up support services to assist their people in need following the closure of Ministry of Social Development offices and the move to online and phone assistance from Work and Income. Central North Island ...
It’s been 10 years since the release of Dane Rumble’s solo album The Experiment. Josie Adams looks back on why New Zealand fell so hard and fast.At The Experiment’s launch, a decade ago yesterday, Dane Rumble had only one wish: “I just want to write the best album that I ...
"She blindfolded each of the children with a scarf, saying, ‘There’s going to be a surprise!'": a horror story set at a children's birthday party, by Dunedin writer Emma Neale. As soon as the last child arrived at Bevan’s ninth birthday party, the bashing began. Allan walloped Bevan with a ...
As New Zealand adjusts to our new normal, one thing from the old world remains – commercial breakfast radio. We tuned into the first morning of lockdown on the airwaves. In a time when the world seems completely upside-down, you can thankfully still count on commercial breakfast radio to be there ...
Dynamic Silver Ferns defender Jane Watson shares her heartrending and brave story in the final episode of the Pure As documentary series. The fading scar just below Jane Watson's left shoulder is the only clue to her until-now untold story, of the challenges that have tormented the netball world champion. The dynamic, tenacious ...
By now, everybody should know about staying in their bubble and leaving the house only for essential services and exercise, provided social distancing rules are followed. Does this mean people can still take the boat out, or go surfing? “Staying at home will save lives,” said Jacinda Ardern in a question ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here.New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Donald Trump and Boris Johnson's response to coronavirus has revealed some disturbing attitudes towards segments of the population As New Zealand enters a period of indeterminate lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we (and I mean us as a global population) have learned a lot about the importance of ...
As New Zealand entered national lockdown, The Spinoff commissioned social media polling company Stickybeak to measure the mood of the nation. Stickybeak co-founder David Brain reveals what the poll results show.As soon as the PM made her Monday afternoon announcement that the country was going to alert level three and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra All Australians arriving from overseas will be quarantined in hotels or other facilities under strict supervision for a fortnight, under the latest crackdown in the battle against the coronavirus. Announcing the measure after Friday’s meeting ...
By RNZ News As the number of Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic cases in New Zealand increases, daily demand for protective clothing for medical workers has come under pressure. On the second day of the country’s lockdown, the number of New Zealand’s Covid-19 cases has jumped by 85, with a man ...
Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr and Bernard Hickey 'Zoom' out to talk about the once-in-a-lifetime shock to the global economy this week and what it means for businesses and investors. Just as many other businesses are adjusting to the lockdown, so too are Kiwibank and Newsroom. Chief ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon MacKay, Lecturer, Business Analytics, University of Auckland New Zealand and much of the world is now under an unprecedented lockdown. Public health experts say this is the best way to suppress the spread of the virus. But how long will such ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allen Cheng, Professor in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, Monash University According to Google Trends, the top globally trending topic this week is “orthohantavirus”, as spurious sites claim it’s the next pandemic on the horizon. Take it from me: it’s not. This baseless claim ...
As soon as the Prime Minister announced that the country had moved to a Level Three alert and would then move to a full Level Four lockdown, the only thing on most people's minds in downtown Wellington was how to prepare for living and working from home for at least ...
Two Cents' Worth hosts Bernard Hickey, Nikki Mandow and Gyles Beckford reflect on the most turbulent week in New Zealand’s economic history. They look at two new tools for business and online working advice that were built over a weekend to help deal with the Covid-19 crisis. They also talk ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erica Mealy, Lecturer in Computer Science, University of the Sunshine Coast These past few weeks have shown the brittleness of Australia’s online systems. It’s not surprising the federal government’s traditionally slow-moving IT systems are buckling under the pressure. On Sunday, the federal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arindam Basu, Associate Professor, Epidemiology and Environmental Health, University of Canterbury The number of New Zealanders testing positive for COVID-19 will continue to rise despite the strict conditions of the four-week lockdown that began this week. As of today, there are 368 ...
Advocates say they’re drowning in complaints of exploitation brought on by the lockdown, Dileepa Fonseka reports Migrant associations and unions have been swamped with allegations that some employers have abused the Government’s wage subsidy scheme or skirted their obligations. Indian Workers Association spokesman Mandeep Bela said he had been “flooded” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona MacDonald, Senior Research Fellow, Victoria University For children, school is about more than just learning. This is even more the case for children living in disadvantage as many schools also provide vital food and a welcoming environment. As the COVID-19 pandemic ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University Leaders of the world’s largest economies came together at a virtual G20 this week to “do whatever it takes to overcome the coronavirus pandemic”. But the reality is that global capacity to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Sonnemann, Fellow, Grattan Institute Australian schools and teachers are preparing to shift classes online – some independent schools already have. Remote learning is likely to be the norm in the second term and possibly longer. Even if done well, there are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dilan Thampapillai, Senior Lecturer, ANU College of Law, Australian National University The coronavirus and its attendant emergency measures are set to deliver a profound shock to the residential tenancy market. How it will work out is anybody’s guess, but it is looking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Gibney, NHMRC early career fellow, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity In three short months, more than half a million cases of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, have been reported worldwide. The US now has the highest number of COVID-19 ...
By Johnny Blades, RNZ Pacific journalist A 43-year-old woman has reportedly died due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in Indonesian-administered West Papua province. It is the first recorded death from Covid-19 in the Papua region, and adds to fears that a looming surge in cases could overwhelm the health ...
By JC Gotinga in Manila Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff General Felimon Santos Jr has tested positive for the Covid-19 novel coronavirus. Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana shared the information today with reporters covering defence issues. General Santos said yesterday that he was on home quarantine after coming ...
The Fold podcast returns for March into a media world transformed by the impact of Covid-19. Host Duncan Greive records a monopod to assess its impact.In last month’s edition of this podcast, The Spinoff editor Toby Manhire and I discussed RNZ’s Concert debacle. At the time, it was the biggest ...
As New Zealand faces the most brutal recession in living memory, the battle to preserve the core of the economy deepens. Companies are cancelling dividends to protect what cash they have, others are reaching for financial aid from their banks or the government. Yet for some businesses, notably the big ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentPublic health strategy Henry Cooke (Stuff): New model shows coronavirus could kill 80,000 Kiwis without lockdown Kate Newton (RNZ): Modelling shows ...
Shoppers are ignoring physical distancing rules, while rule-flouters face jail time in Sāmoa and the Cook Islands, writes Teuila Fuatai. Scenes from one of Fiji’s best-known fresh produce markets illustrate the difficulties of clamping down on Covid-19. Footage captured at the Sigatoka markets on Viti Levu on Thursday March 26 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond University As coronavirus continues to affect all aspects of life, law enforcement agencies are playing a more pivotal role in enforcing new health and social regulations while ensuring society continues to function in a civil ...
This week in politics: Parliament authorises 'the biggest blank cheque in the history of the country', as the massive economic cost of Covid-19 starts to emerge. ...
Analysis by Keith RankinAustralia – exponential growth. Chart by Keith Rankin.Canada – exponential growth. Chart by Keith Rankin.New Zealand – exponential growth. Chart by Keith Rankin.Australian cases have been on an exponent growth path since late February, with no remission yet in sight. The good news ...
It turns out that treating allies like enemies and creating enemies out of rivals may not be a great approach to diplomacy when your problems are global – like Covid-19, writes Peter Bale After three years of crapping all over allies – like calling Germany a deadbeat over its Nato ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Fair, Adjunct Professor, School of Information Technology, Deakin University Borders, beaches, pubs and churches are closed, large events are cancelled, and travellers are subject to 14 days’ isolation – all at significant cost to taxpayers and the economy. But could telecommunications ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tauel Harper, Lecturer, Media and Communication, UWA, University of Western Australia Tonight, for the first time in its 12-year history, my weekly boardgame group will meet online, instead of our regular weekly in-person sessions. Tomorrow night, a planned dinner with friends has ...
Keith Rankin on Malthusian checksKeith Rankin.The 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic has all the visible hallmarks of a Malthusian pestilence, a necessary positive check visited upon an over‑abundant humanity. Indeed, that is a likely future interpretation of this event. It’s an important perspective which should be treated with both understanding ...
Open mike 10/07/2014 
Open mike is your post.
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...14 hours ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...19 hours ago
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...23 hours ago
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...1 day ago
1 day ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...2 days ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...2 days ago
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When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...2 days ago
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...2 days ago
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...3 days ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...4 days ago
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...4 days ago
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...4 days ago
According to Newshub, Simon Bridges is open to joining a “grand coalition” with Labour as we hunker down to go into a month long lockdown. The idea is sound. Before now, the role of the opposition was to scrutinise and oppose. In the context of what almost amounts to a ...6 days ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or ...6 days ago
A few days ago I was starting to write something about the pandemic, which now seems unconscionable. It took the form of a letter to an agony aunt:“Dear Deidre, I have an ugly confession. I am quite excited by Covid-19.”This is how the piece went:“I’m not a psychopath, honest. Although the ...6 days ago
I am a pundit, somebody who opines and comments on the news. There are no real qualifications to punditry though having a rudimentary way with words and good general knowledge helps. That is one reason there is a constant oversupply of would-be pundits and why it is quite hard to ...7 days ago
The coronavirus pandemic has of course had a major impact on individual lives and on societies as a whole. But, long after the crisis has passed (assuming it does), we will begin to realise that its real and lasting significance lies in the lessons it has taught us, if only ...7 days ago
COVID-19 has plunged Aotearoa New Zealand (indeed, the world) into territory that, while maybe not totally unprecedented, certainly hasn’t been seen during the lifetimes of most of us here today. Our borders are closed to non-citizens, we’re being told not to gather in groups of more than 500 outside/100 inside, ...1 week ago
by Jan Rivers The article has been corrected to show that it was Ewen MacAskill, former Guardian journalist and not Luke Harding who travelled to meet Edward Snowden with journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras. Some of the Guardian’s well-known journalists who did not sign the protest letter are ...1 week ago
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Some fave speeches: ...1 week ago
Many who advocated for, and voted for, the current Coalition – particularly those who voted Labour and the Green Party – expected to see a sea change in the reality of social services. A real, deep change of attitude, approach of process through which the system negotiates the difficult and ...2 weeks ago
In a world and a time when the worst off and most vulnerable have been asked, time and again, to foot the bill for the complete subjugating to the will of the 1% thanks to the GFC, at a point where the world as a whole is now seeing quite ...2 weeks ago
With the economy already reeling from a crisis that’s barely begun, the Government today sought to provide reassurance to workers and businesses in the form of a massive phallic pun to insert much-needed cash into the private sector and help fight the looming pandemic. Here are the key components: $5.1 ...2 weeks ago
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The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...21 hours ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...4 days ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...5 days ago
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...20 hours ago
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In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée.I have a wild tomato flopping all over the path down the back of the veg garden. I picked a ...2 hours ago
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Journalism commentator and former editor Gavin Ellis says media organisations play a vital role in keeping the community informed and, if possible, safe. They also have a crucial part to play in the maintenance of public order and morale, just as they did in the 1940s. With the country in ...5 hours ago
The country has millions of protective gowns, gloves and eyewear – midwives ask: Where are they? David Williams reports Two days into a national lockdown some midwives didn’t have any protective equipment, adding to concerns about safeguards for frontline health workers. On Friday, announcements were made by the Health Ministry ...5 hours ago
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Covid-19 lockdown provides valuable time for planning a new business, as Dr Mary-Ellen Gordon explains You have a great idea for a business. You’ve been working to get it up and going. Then, just as you were starting to gain traction, the entire country and much of the rest of ...5 hours ago
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Jim Kayes tests the waters of social media to see how people are coping with being told to avoid their favourite pastime. “There is something ridiculously exhilarating about catching a fish. The thrill might have faded for the salty angler, but for this rookie, the novice still snagging fish hooks ...18 hours ago
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Preliminary results from a survey investigating how well-equipped Māori whānau in the South Island are to stay at home for extended periods show that the majority are prepared to manage their short-term needs, but have increasing anxiety about ...20 hours ago
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Iwi everywhere put support plans into action, focusing on their kaumātua, writes Kayne Ngātokowhā Peters. Iwi are ramping up support services to assist their people in need following the closure of Ministry of Social Development offices and the move to online and phone assistance from Work and Income. Central North Island ...1 day ago
"She blindfolded each of the children with a scarf, saying, ‘There’s going to be a surprise!'": a horror story set at a children's birthday party, by Dunedin writer Emma Neale. As soon as the last child arrived at Bevan’s ninth birthday party, the bashing began. Allan walloped Bevan with a ...1 day ago
Dynamic Silver Ferns defender Jane Watson shares her heartrending and brave story in the final episode of the Pure As documentary series. The fading scar just below Jane Watson's left shoulder is the only clue to her until-now untold story, of the challenges that have tormented the netball world champion. The dynamic, tenacious ...1 day ago
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Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr and Bernard Hickey 'Zoom' out to talk about the once-in-a-lifetime shock to the global economy this week and what it means for businesses and investors. Just as many other businesses are adjusting to the lockdown, so too are Kiwibank and Newsroom. Chief ...2 days ago
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Two Cents' Worth hosts Bernard Hickey, Nikki Mandow and Gyles Beckford reflect on the most turbulent week in New Zealand’s economic history. They look at two new tools for business and online working advice that were built over a weekend to help deal with the Covid-19 crisis. They also talk ...2 days ago
Advocates say they’re drowning in complaints of exploitation brought on by the lockdown, Dileepa Fonseka reports Migrant associations and unions have been swamped with allegations that some employers have abused the Government’s wage subsidy scheme or skirted their obligations. Indian Workers Association spokesman Mandeep Bela said he had been “flooded” ...2 days ago
Shoppers are ignoring physical distancing rules, while rule-flouters face jail time in Sāmoa and the Cook Islands, writes Teuila Fuatai. Scenes from one of Fiji’s best-known fresh produce markets illustrate the difficulties of clamping down on Covid-19. Footage captured at the Sigatoka markets on Viti Levu on Thursday March 26 ...2 days ago
It turns out that treating allies like enemies and creating enemies out of rivals may not be a great approach to diplomacy when your problems are global – like Covid-19, writes Peter Bale After three years of crapping all over allies – like calling Germany a deadbeat over its Nato ...2 days ago
Fingers crossed the gremlins have been sorted out.
And to Tania Billingsley all I can say is RESPECT!
+1 on both counts.
I hope as as well!
Would be when I got tied down for job interviews.
A huge thank you for all your efforts lprent.
Nope, they haven’t. Still getting blank pages most times I go to a page but a reload will usually get it.
Nope, they haven’t. Still getting blank pages most times I go to a page but a reload will usually get it.
Single click, double post.
Rape culture is: describing an alleged assault as a “sex case”.
Nice to see someone is prepared to tell the truth about our bored insincere Prime Minister and his incompetent lackeys.
To add insult to injury:
“I deeply regret the distress caused to the woman at the centre of this incident…”
Can someone tell John Allen to apologise for his department’s failings or shut the fuck up? Hardly surprising that McCully’s creature doesn’t get it.
100+
Tania Billingsley. One brave young women.
YOU’RE BACK!!!
(and here was me thinking you didn’t love me any more…)
Thank you thank you thank you thank you
Now save me from the tedium that is this bullshit writing:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/10250511/Cunliffes-apology-patting-himself-on-the-back
i arrived by the backdoor, my usual method gets me to ‘the page’, but, clicking on nything after the ‘Google’ has put ‘the Standard page’ up simply creates a blank white screen,
The backdoor, Google up a comment that is specific to your username,(you might be able to use any username), this brings up an old page of ie: ‘Open Mike’,
Click on the ‘comments rss’ icon at the top right of the page,
This takes you to a strange looking page with a series of comments that are obviously from the Standard,
Click on the comment with the closest date to today and hey presto you land here…
Almost all techies are men and for the outage it must be said that I am sorry for being a man
vto: just another boy who believes his hurt feelings take priority over sexual violence.
Puddleglum at TDB./a>
No I really am genuinely sorry for being a man, even though it was my female partner who ladled out the violence last night.
What does “being a man” mean to you? I’m picking faux victimhood.
No, faux allegations in this setting. What about you?
What does “being a man” mean to you, vto, since you feel qualified to apologise for being one?
“it was my female partner who ladled out the violence last night.”
Sorry to read that, go to the authorities, lay a complaint and keep yourself safe.
Why would anyone stay in a violent relationship, no matter what side of the gender divide you were born into,
Fear of loneliness???, wanting to appear ‘normal’???, the family unit, the most dangerous place for anyone to be…
Why? That is a complex and intensely personal question. The violence takes psychological and verbal form, rarely physical. It is these other two forms which cause more damage though imo. How to stop it without leaving? Dunno.
If the ‘pattern’ of the relationship is set and has been so over a long period then ‘leaving’ i would suggest is pretty much the only option,
Obviously, depending upon the level that ‘the relationship’ can be discussed leaving with a codicil of what changes need be made,(from both perspectives), might allow it to continue after a cooling down period…
Just firstly, a little nit pick. If it is psychological/verbal abuse then it isn’t “violence” because violence refers to a physical act of abuse.
Secondly, your situation sucks. There are no two ways about it. To me (because I’ve been there as well), there are a couple of ways of dealing with it and one of them isn’t actually airing it in a public forum during a discussion of physical violence towards women because it gets you either branded as disingenuous or attempting to distract from the discussion at hand.
The statement of “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them” typifies this situation because, despite the emotional suffering, your physical safety seems to still be intact. No woman has that luxury.
despite the emotional suffering, your physical safety seems to still be intact.
Which misstates the issue horribly. After all what is the difference between breaking a leg skiing and having it broken because your partner threw you out the first floor window?
Clue – it’s not the broken leg.
Well it’s a very fine line with very wide, grey borders.
I’m confused at what conclusion you are trying to draw here RedLogix? I was merely stating that within the context of his relationship, vto seems to still (at least) be safe from physical abuse by his partner. I was then using that to point out that women are always under threat of physical abuse.
If the conclusion you were trying to draw was that his suffering within his relationship is somehow equatable to domestic violence victims, then I have to beg to disagree because often they are also being subjected to the same emotional/psychological abuse that he claims to suffer as well as wearing their partners fist upon their face.
CV – hence why I said it was a nitpick. However, to most in my experience, violence is considered an act of physical aggression.
shrug
A small nit pick with what you’ve written Zorr,
Many domestic violence/abuse help centers don’t make the distinction between physical and psychological abuse that is being made here. For example, North Harbour Living Without Violence includes verbal abuse, the use of social isolation, humiliation, name calling and other forms of emotional abuse under the rubric of Domestic Violence.
http://www.livingwithoutviolence.org.nz/dv/index.php
So we agree that the emotional trauma is the core of the matter. So how does it help vto to be told that ‘at least his physical safety is intact’. That isn’t what is important to him.
Instead I read it as an indirect way of minimising the situation.
Isn’t that bit of a ‘Godwin’ tho,”One of them isn’t actually airing it in a public forum during a discussion of physical violence toward women etc”
Why shouldn’t He air what He sees as violence, albeit verbal/psychological violence, in an open forum,
Are you afraid that the other side of the equation will paint women in a less than glowing light,
Simply trying to erase verbal/psychological violence from the conversation is to say the least extremely unhelpful as such violence, the verbal/psychological type, is often the precursor to physical violence,
In the complex mix of the causes of violence,(setting aside for the moment sexual violence), verbal/psychological violence can be shown to lead to physical violence committed by either the male or the female in a relationship…
@NZ Femme – fair enough. Also, thank you for providing that important information.
If I’m to be honest, my issue with vto’s posts is that they are single one liners along the lines of “men suffer abuse too” using himself as an example. I think everyone is on the same page that no-one should suffer abuse of any kind in our society.
Maybe I am bringing a little too much baggage to this conversation because I have been dealing a lot with diversionary tactics in social media over the last few days from people using the “men suffer too” line in order to derail legitimate conversation about the gender violence that overwhelmingly affects women. Often these people make arguments based on a belief that there are no services available for men (despite all government run services being 100% available to all) and feel that the services like Womens Refuge should be open to men as well. This is without them knowing that they were created out of a need by the community and are only partly funded by our government.
I will add this on here because I feel it is accurate, will be interesting to see what people say. These cries of “men suffer too” feel similar to cries of “reverse racism” or “misandry” and an attempt to deflect the discussion from the important issue of what the hell are we going to do about a country full of men who can’t keep their fists to themselves.
@bad12 – a tongue can cut but fists can kill.
Zorr, that’s rather weak do you not think, ”A tongue can cut but fists can kill”, what you are doing is concentrating upon the end result of what may well have started long ago as a verbally/psychologically abusive relationship while ignoring the genesis of such violence…
@bad12 – I should have probably made it more bland so it didn’t come off silly. The point I was trying to make is that we are all responsible for our actions. No matter the provocation, violence should never be an answer.
As horrible as emotional/psychological abuse is (and I have come from that place having been raised in such a household), it is still no excuse (in my mind) for raising your fists against someone.
I understand your point around diversionary/distraction tactics Zorr; I hesitated to post for that reason. And I’ve had my own issues with VTO previously during the roast busters blow up here – before VTO disclosed that he was in what sounds like a toxic/abusive domestic situation a wee while ago.
So…I erred on the side of caution today, and am taking VTO’s disclosures as truthful. While the one-liners could be read as distraction/diversionary tactics because of the current context, I’m more inclined (now) to view them as coming/lashing out from a place of pain. I think it’s possible to acknowledge the pain of male victims of DV/abuse, and simultaneously acknowledge the horrific statistics for DV and sexual violence against women.
I’m also in the slightly weird situation of having previously experienced DV from a female partner that culminated over a period of six years and ultimately had me physically fearing for my life. So, I guess there’s also a part of me that gets the “but what about me?” stuff that seems to explode whenever we try and discuss one (very large and horrible) gendered experience of DV from the male perp/female victim spectrum. I absolutely understand and agree with needing to prioritize. I just wish there was some way of doing that which doesn’t result in minimzing the effects of DV on other groups.
I had not been aware of any previous disclosures by vto and have only seen them usually post things that I view as diversionary when taken in the context of an active political blog. With that additional information, it makes it less so and I wouldn’t have been so quick to fire my mouth. I’ve never been good at keeping my mouth shut though and dealing with the male privilege/rape culture discussion has begun rubbing raw as I’m constantly having to rehash ground with people I had thought should know better. Deconstructing #notallmen because people are wrong on the internet is possibly one of the things that has contributed to a short fuse on this issue…
My personal opinion (on this specific issue) is that domestic violence is never acceptable no matter who is involved and in what role. My favorite comment regarding humans is that we are rationalizing creatures, not rational ones. We are emotional actors and sometimes we cannot control our behaviors and actions in the ways we wish. However, if we don’t hold ourselves accountable for our actions, then who? The worst thing we can do with domestic violence is continue to sweep the pieces under the carpet and the least we can do is apologize to the victims.
‘…having to re-hash ground…”
That’s the case for any issue.
Thanks for all the considered responses. It was a genuine question to vto. Puddleglum expressed it so clearly, that ‘being a man’ is a social construct that has multiple, overlapping and often mutually exclusive meanings.
All grown up. Emotionally mature? I shudder to realise that women have to see us as threats. McCully ‘did a McCully’. So do most of us.
Time for a change.
I don’t know where in NZ you are VTO, but North Harbour Living Without Violence are an organization that can work with men experiencing domestic violence. They don’t have specific programs for male victims/survivors but from what I understand, can work one on one.
http://www.livingwithoutviolence.org.nz/dv/index.php PH 09 489 3770
Noted NZ femme thanks. It is real, and damaging. You seem very astute in this area.
(had to bow out of the rest of that conversation – too close to the bone)
@vto
Yes it’s real and damaging – also very confusing. Abusers of all stripes are very good at keeping their target off balance. Love alternating with awful and harmful actions. I think many people experiencing abuse in a relationship find it difficult to leave for that reason. (I know I did) At some point, we’re faced with the reality that the love that (may) still remain is out-weighed by the harm experienced to our psyches. I wish you well vto. Don’t be afraid to seek help, or leave – there is still joy to be had – as unlikely as that may seem.
i should qualify this comment with, ”the Dysfunctional family unit, the most dangerous place for anyone to be”…
‘Feedburner’ appears to be the ‘site’ that lets me back onto the Standard,
Note: while the comment above appears on the page, after i posted the comment above i disappeared back to the blank white page,
i then accessed ‘feedburner’ through the ‘most visited’ icon on my laptop and hey presto i was back to yesterday’s ‘Open Mike’,
From there i clicked on ‘Open Mike’ which gave me access to today’s ‘Open Mike’
Don’t know if any of that helps or just makes things more confusing…
A day without The Standard is hard to bear. Glad you are back and a big thank you to lprent.
+1000
That “hard to bear” bit. True. It’s worrying. Thanks lprent. Bad……such ingenuity ! Not wired for that myself.
Lolz North, it helps if you havn’t got a clue what your doing,(my Ha Ha Ha of the day was when i thought of Googling up an old Standard comment of mine to try and get in through the backdoor, Lo and behold, there’s a whole page of 🙄 PG, i think on His own website, whining like a beaten dog about comments i had made to Him, as if anyone were interested)…
+2,000
NZ politics is a miserable place without the sunshine that is The Standard
(all hail lprent!!!)
Luckily I have a brand new kitten to occupy my free time at the moment.
And I’ll raise you a thousand on TS being BIG and irreplacable. There is no other like it.
+2,000
NZ politics is a miserable place without the sunshine that is The Standard
(all hail lprent!!!)
will echo that as well! 🙂
Seems a lot quicker as well. Thought about you dealing with the issues (what ever they were) yesterday lprent – many many thanks.
Not getting the recent comment box appearing in chrome.
Yeah true, the whole right side of ‘the Standard’ is just blank white space here, up top right there are the icons:
Login>
Donate>
Contribute>
Articles RSS>
Comments RSS>
The rest is blank, just added this in case it helps….
Yerp, confirmed what I’m seeing, or not, as is the case.
Note: the ‘right side’ of the Standard is now showing everything except the feed which links to other sites like the daily blog,
When posting a comment, the comment is appearing in the correct position,but after posting the comment i am being sent back to the blank page,(a true reflection of the inner workings of my mind?),
Access back is being gained from ”most visited” in my tool-bar…
try pressing CTRL+F5 a couple if times. this will refresh the browser cache. you could also try opening a windows command prompt (if you are on windows) and typing:
ipconfig /flushdns
I think some part of the site might have been moved yesterday and so your computers DNS cache might be looking in the wrong place. Although it should have sorted itself out by now.
Thanks for that Andrew, i much prefer the ”should have sorted itself out by now” method of trouble shooting, i find that this method doesn’t get me into so much trouble,
i well remember the great fun i had when i first used one of these things,(laptop), connected via Teleconned wireless aircard and being one of those who have the habit of diving in without reading the instructions first i threw in the floppy disk and proceeded to connect myself to the web,
i kicked myself later for not writing down a copy of all the steps this connection took via my new found skill as an ungenius, But, the Teleconned tech bloke assured me that my efforts had cooked the innards of the nearest cell tower,(as He begged me to stop and follow the precise instructions He gave)…
+1
Banksters love New Zealand.
And Aussie ones particularly adore Kiwis?
NZ banks post record profit of $4 billion
“New Zealand’s banks collectively posted a record profit in the year to April.
“The country’s eight main banks together made almost $4.3 billion which is up 22% on the previous year, according to KPMG.”
http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/nz-banks-post-record-profit-4-billion-6023659
$1000 profit per person, man women and child.
and they are complaining that mortgage-deposit requirements..
..are restricting them..
..they are like fucken farmers..those bankers..
..no matter the event/circumstance..
..it’s always an excuse for a good moan..
..about how hard done by they are..
..partial-nationalise all of them..!..(kiwibank excepted..)
..take 51% control/profits from the bankster-bastards..!
..clearly nothing else will work..
..we have one in four nz children living in poverty..
..we have 15,000 men/women/children sleeping rough just in auckland..
..and we have these bastards increasing their profits by 22% in the last year..taking billions in profit off-shore..
..and moaning with it..
..what’s wrong with that picture..?
No, just stop them creating money and then have the government create it and make 0% interest loans. That would sort out our banking situation and make NZ far better off than what we are under the present system.
just for clarification, you understand
+1
$1000 THEFT per person, man women and child.
“just for clarification, you understand”
Profit is theft is that what you are saying?
The 26,000 highly paid staff and anyone in kiwi saver sharing in that profit might disagree,
so would millions of Kiwis who don’t want to lose their deposits.
Long day with no TheStandard yesterday..
Welcome back 🙂
Yep a real long day.
No Standard- disgusting. I was a Labour supporter but now I’m going to vote National or Act or something. (joke).
having a life-diploma in addictions..
..and knowing how withdrawal-signs/symptoms manifest..
..yesterday i found out i have a standard-habit..
..(it came as a bit of a shock..i was like a rat with its’ cocaine-feeder suddenly switched off..constantly batting at the lever..but to no avail..)
..should i use the daily blog as a form of methadone..?
Have you got citation Phillip, for the bit about being like a rat because of your lack of access to ‘the Standard’…
an education could have taught u what a simile is..eh..?
..and what it is used for..
So, is that the sum total of learning’s you garnered from this university education Phillip, or can we expect a gush, splash, or, spray of pearls of wisdom in such a vein,
Seriously tho, Rattus behavior is usually more deep seated in the psyche than a mere web-site outage is likely to expose…
You two are comedy geniuses phillip. It’s a bit like Laurel and Hardy type though where the slapstick got a bit physical and one was quite sick. One of them put a light globe in the other’s mouth and slapped his cheeks sharply. Luckily you two are apart and the carry-on can always be ignored phillip. It’s the only way with such a mentality.
Are you claiming to be addicted to cannabis, Phil? I didn’t think that was possible. Habit forming, yes, but addictive, no.
nah..!
..i was thinking more heroin/cocaine/crack..
..cannabis is a healing-agent..
..that can help you kick those nasties..
..and should be available/offered as a salve to all of those trying to kick anything..
..it distracts you from and eases you thru physical/mental-addiction withdrawals..
..in my experiences..
Sweet, gotta be better than the other alternatives. Glad you’re rid of them.
heh..!..chrs..so am i…
onya phil – what a journey life is…
chrs..
..and as a point of information/warning..crack is the most addictive/obsessive of all the drugs i tried/used..
(don’t ever be ‘tempted’..people..)
..it horrified/scared me so much..how quickly i became so wired/fucked-up.. i physically ran away from it..to jamaica..
..and healed myself staying with a bunch of vegetarian rastafarian pot-growers/exporters..
..and once again..strong pot was what eased me over the bumps…
..it has been a bit of a ‘journey’..this ‘life’..
..i look back at myself at times..and go..’w.t.f. were you thinking..?’
..and when i see crack-addicts on tv/wherever..my heart goes out to them..
..i know the grip that gorilla has on them…
..and there but for etc etc…
Espiner fails to hold National cabinet members to account for not fronting to discuss important issues
Wednesday… Bennett…inequality
Thursday ….McCully…..Tania Billingsley statement.
By comparison Campbell Live make pointed comments about Parata not fronting to discuss Education policy on Monday.
Our undemocratic government is being facilitated by a public broadcaster which appears to have fallen into rogue hands.
Espiner is a total disgrace.
espiner has always been a rightwing-trout..
..he is performing as expected..
..i won’t go near it/him..
..far too annoying..
It is the editors who fail to instruct Espiner to say that National ministers are not fronting that are also at fault.
Agreed
The appointment team are at fault primarily. They knew what they were choosing. I fear that we will see little change in Guy Le Spinner. But he did apologise the other day for making a second thrust across a comment or explanation, with a repeated question that was probably quite good. It sounded then more of a searching interview for a time, rather than a bombastic rant by some autocratic school principal.
On May 18 Australia had mass protests across the country. Friends of mine (in Perth even) only let me know now with a facebook link – and no I’m not going to promote facebook. The only thing I found in the MSM is this http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/18/tens-of-thousands-across-the-country-march-in-in-protest mmmmmmm. So big ups to our cousins across the ditch. So silly question, did people know about this? One hundred and eighty thousand people hit the streets and the media ignore it – a serious push back – and a serious issue ignored.
I heard about it only via my Twitter feed…
I heard about it only via my Twitter feed…
Meanwhile who hear knows that the last few days of Israeli bombardment (including air strikes and naval shelling FFS) has now killed and injured over 400 Palestinian civilians?
Damn my system is doing double entries…
You heard about the Neo-Nazi killings in the Ukraine CV? Have a link to video – but I don’t think I want to put up – I don’t think it is appropriate to just put up for anyone to view. These are par-military groups aligned and train by the Ukraine army. Most of it is happening in the ethnically Russian parts of Ukraine. I threw up after 20 minutes in, and had to stop watching – I read the accompanying report. A Ukrainian friend I talk to in another forum said it gets worse after I stopped watching. They sat through all the footage, and helped edit it – they are now in hiding. Both side don’t want to it to get out they are targeting civilian’s. So yeah Palestine is a mess, Syria is a Mess and now Ukraine is a bloody mess as well. I think the old saying applies – we are descending to hell in a hand basket…
We in the west are the most propagandized people on the planet – usually through what we are not shown, what we are not made aware of, and perspectives that we never hear.
LOL, as opposed to countries that don’t even have unfettered internet access you mean?
aye.
Every so often on telly they play some recent Chinese movies with subtitles – usually medieval/fantasy, visually impressive with bold colours, casts of thousands, occasionally lots of wire work…
The subtexts seem to almost exclusively revolve around the desirability of stable society and the hero’s duty to sacrifice their own interests for the greater good. Sometimes I find them downright disturbing.
I suppose you mean the Odessa Trade Union Building fire – which, as I recall, while the Pro-Ukraine protestors were in the wrong for throwing molotov cocktails (you remember, same as the “harmless” ones that Tame Iti and friends were partly charged over in 2007), having, I might add, been fired upon by the Pro-Russian faction first, the deaths among the Pro-Russian mob was largely because the barricated themselves in the top floors of the building and refused to leave.
This RT bullshit kneejerk calling the Pro-Ukraine element neo-Nazi is moronic. The far-right element is at best a minority of a coalition government (sort of like Internet-Mana will hopefully be following the election) and if they really were being massively funded by some secret US-EU cabal, one would like to think they would have managed a bit more influence than the Agricultural Ministry. It’s actually pretty insultig to suggest that the Pro-Ukraine faction have no legitimate agency after a generation of self-rule. That’s basically ignoring that on the one hand closer relations with the EU opens up the possibility of access to wealthy foreign markets, better employment prospects and increased social liberalisation, whereas closer ties with Russia, is a collapsing economy, and, well, Tsar Putin. You would have to be utterly stupid not to see that most Ukrainians wouldn’t particularly need much arm twisting.
This is a Ukraine activists filming the action of their own. They are not pro-Russian. And a minority who is killing civilian’s your going to compare with internet/Mana what sort of wanker are you Populuxe1? If you can justify that position in your head – sorry for you. No your proof that, neo-liberalism is so desperate to justify it debasement of humanity it would rather lie, lie, lie, to push it’s agenda. So for you Populuxe1 a few neo-nazis killing a few Russian and Ukrainians civilians’ is OK. As long as Ukraine becomes part of EU and they have western type freedom?
I see. So the Kalishnikovs just magically materialised out of the downstairs cupboard? Dear me. So tell me, Adam, if you had a choice, where would you rather live? Russia or the EU?
So you are suggesting that the ”Pro-Ukraine faction” as you call them did not overthrow a democratically elected Government then Populuxe1,
This Pro-Ukraine faction then holding a quick ‘election’ which they were in complete control of then makes all this legitimate right???…
You mean the Pro-Ukraine faction did exactly what you long to do to a corrupt National government, Bas? smiles sweetly
Uh I think we’re going to do that on Sept 20, by conducting a constitutionally valid election that follows NZ electoral law precisely.
So not really the same as the thugs who took over the Ukrainian state machinery.
And if National was basically being puppeted by a foreign power behind a populist mandate and ineffectual democracy,with no real change in sight, while Key was stealing vast ammounts of public money to build a privat palace and zoo, you might get a little cross, no? smiling even more sweetly
@ CV See if it works on your pay system.
Haha…shall I now go into a description of how banks create money in the economy by typing in deposits into bank accounts lol
@colonial viper
Yees. That would be a great trick for me, just paid my house insurance.
NZ media is owned by large Australian corporates.
They don’t want us to know about this.
It’ll get in the way of their planned carve up of the country.
Instead they want you to know this stuff.
http://i.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/10252296/Could-the-Kardashians-win-an-Emmy
If you look closely, you’ll see that in fact the website is divided up into sections. It’s probably a mistake to look for NEWS in the ENTERTAINMENT section.
@Pop
But not unknown to find ENTERTAINMENT in the NEWS section. Do you capisce?
The ‘ownership’ of New Zealand’s media goes far further than Australia, various arms of ‘International Capital’ have large stakes in our media and thus the power to impose ‘editorial control’,
i suspect, with no actual hard evidence, that John Campbell was smart enough to wrestle from Media Works,(apparently just out of insolvency),a contract that gives Him editorial independence from the other arms of that particular mouth-piece promoting the views of International Capital…
Some background on the real owners of New Zealand’s media.
The NZ Herald is owned by APN News & Media Limited. APN News & Media Limited.is an Australian and New Zealand media company.
APN’s top 5 shareholders..the people who pay Mr Murphy and Mr Roughan’s bills and tell them what to write.
http://apn2013.annual-report.com.au/financial-report/shareholder-information
National Nominees Limited 23.1%
Independent News & Media (Australia) Limited 17.6%
Citicorp Nominees Pty Limited 11.7%
News & Media NZ Limited 11.3%
JP Morgan Nominees Australia Limited 8.7%
Some detail on some of these shareholders.
The Irish company Independent News & Media has a large stake in the company. Two of INM’s largest shareholders are Irish businessman Denis O’Brien and financier Dermot Desmond. Dermot Desmond is an Irish businessman, financier and tax exile. He is estimated to be worth €1.35 billion and is ranked by the Sunday Independent as the seventh-richest person in Ireland.
Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd was incorporated in 1970 and is based in Sydney, Australia. Citicorp Nominees Pty Ltd operates as a subsidiary of Citigroup Pty Limited.This is a foreign-owned subsidiary bank of Citigroup. Citigroup Inc. or Citi is an American multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Citigroup was formed from one of the world’s largest mergers in history by combining the banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate Travelers Group in October 1998 (announced on April 7, 1998).Citi is currently the third largest bank holding company in the United States by assets. Its largest shareholders include funds from the Middle East and Singapore.
JP Morgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational banking and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in the United States, with total assets of US$2.515 trillion. It is a major provider of financial services, and according to Forbes magazine is the world’s third largest public company based on a composite ranking.
A great quote from Adam Brandt (Green Party, Victoria) in that Guardian piece, to which every politician counting themselves as on the left should take heed; “It takes guts and courage to stand up to the powerful and wealthy but a coward to take an axe to the young, the sick and the poor,”
Very true. It makes me sick when politicians talk about having the courage to take the hard decisions, then make another attack on the poor and disadvantaged. Both NAct and Labour suffer from this. The raising of the retirement age is evidence that Labour can only take easy decisions, as demanded by capital.
this soccer game both sucks and blows..
..it’s like that ancient simpsons’ piss-take on soccer..
It’s called football, and yes, a borefest.
Well, neither team was likely to leave themselves open to Brazil’s fate. But the penalty shoot out was heart-in-mouth stuff.
Have we reached saturation point, sport being the ‘opium of the masses’ perhaps us that are now bored with it all,(even the the super14 thugby has me yawning these days), are the precursors to a mass OD as far as televised sport goes,
Televised sport, the perfect replacement for that older opium of religion, allows the masters to control the conversations that occur in the smoko rooms across the nation on a daily basis…
The only people who can afford to go to these events are the wealthy.
The Cricket is way better.
Couldn’t play the game to save myself, only got interested when the limited overs games started way back,
Pity they stopped airing most of them on free to air, if there’s one thing that can keep me watching the box its the one day cricket matches…
i want germany to win..
(my son is half-german..and germany played attacking soccer..that’s enough reasons to support them..)
..if the final is the crap-shoot of a penalty shoot-out..?
..after one of those ‘safe’-games..?
..meh..!
I think the penalty shoot out system should be abolished the way it is done now and instead, after full time the game should continue in increments of 10 minutes with one less player on each side during each of those 10 minute periods. What do you think?
The game will look like this :
First half, 40 minutes, goalie+10 players [Subs allowed as per existing rules]
Second half, Swap sides, 40 mins, goalie+10 players.
If draw, then…extra time…
Period one : 9 minutes, goalie+9 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 9 minutes, goalie+9 players
If draw, then…extra time….
Period one : 8 minutes, goalie+8 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 8 minutes, goalie+8 players
If draw, then…extra time….
Period one : 7 minutes, goalie+7 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 7 minutes, goalie+7 players
If draw, then…extra time….
Period one : 6 minutes, goalie+6 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 6 minutes, goalie+6 players
If draw, then…extra time….
Period one : 5 minutes, goalie+5 players
Period Two, Swap sides : 5 minutes, goalie+5 players
If still draw, ONLY THEN do the penalty shoot out.
What do you think?
Someone I know has suggested that both extra time and the penalty shoot out could be replaced by a six-a-side half-hour, which seems to follow a similar line of thought. It would be very dramatic, to see all the defenders apart from the goalies leaving the field, but it would not burden individual players so heavily.
The penalty shoot out as used now is too drastic and too unfair a method of deciding which is a superior side. Often, the penalty save is not much of a skill display but a matter of luck, more often depending upon which side the goalie decides to move to!
That first paragraph should read :
‘I think the penalty shoot out system should be abolished the way it is done now and instead, after full time, the game should continue in reduced time and reduced player numbers as shown below.’
It would make the game more exciting and fairer, I think. What do you think?
Yes, your idea too would have its drama, and would allow room for strategies as to the order in which the players would leave the field. I agree that the penalty shoot out is both drastic and unfair, and doesn’t reliably reflect the strengths of the two sides. Not so much in agreement with you about the luck of goalies though. I have seen some dazzling saves in this world cup, and think that goalies are often the unsung heroes.
Of course goalies do great. I am not at all putting them down about their abilities during the normal course of the game, except to say that during a penalty shoot out, there is an element of chance/intuition/luck involved as to which way the goalie moves, no matter how good a goalie one is. That is the nature of the penalty shoot out, not a negative reflection on the goalie as such.
OK. I read your piece a bit too hastily, sorry, and ended up making a straw man of what you said.
If its a draw at full time I think the goalies should leave and let the game continue without them Shoot outs seem to leave too much to chance.
How about the penalty shoot out first and then play to see if they should count it?
i like yr idea..dv..
..it wd add an extra frisson to the game..
..and wd end those boring safe-pass-fests..
i like yr idea..dv..
..it wd add an extra frisson to the game..
..and wd end those boring safe-pass-fests..
the multiple-copies virus..
There is then the boring possibility of the team with the initial shoot out ‘win’ playing a completely defensive ‘win’-protecting-game to preserve their advantage. For that reason alone I would not support your suggestion.
Besides, the shoot out losing team and their goalie in particular would be starting their ‘real’ game in a state of shame, fear, anxiety and be somewhat demoralized to give off their best from then on.
That is an interesting idea worthy of debate and consideration, but I don’t like it too much because a game without a goalie does not seem right,…….(unless the goals are kicked high ‘above’ the goal bar somewhat like that bastardisation of soccer, the game of rugby!..lol..A joke!)
Way back when, corners awarded used to be used to differentiate in the case of a draw. I guess the rationale was that corners indicated more attacking play. Anyway, that was dumped many years back and extra time was introduced. And at the end of extra time, if the game was still drawn, play continued until either side scored a goal. Dunno why they dumped that. Far better than the lottery of penalty kicks.
Try getting a job then phil, instead of sitting on your ass all day smoking pot.
@ infused..
..not sure which comment u r responding to..
..but i do have ‘a job’ actually..
..every day i aggregate/compile a local/global news-snapshot/grab..
..at a website called whoar.co.nz
(..something that pisses all over anything else in this part of the world in that news-gathering context..)
..should i be getting some ‘reward’ from/for doing this..?
..is that what you are saying..?
..i agree..!..i agree..!
..but just sitting on my arse smoking pot all day..?
..nah..!..too boring..!..eh..?
..been there..dun that..
and it’s ‘arse’..not ‘ass’..
..an ‘ass’ is a member of the donkey family..around these parts…
test 5
I was very pleased to notice the self-checkout machine at New World greeting me with a cherry “Kia ora” yesterday. Hopefully it’s a permanent thing rather than just being in anticipation of Maori Language Week.
Hmmm, my view is that the machine should have greeted you with ‘tena koe’ and cheerily given you the ‘kia ora’ after having swallowed your hard earned coin…
And my view is that you should have smashed the machine and demanded to be served by a human. I prefer my money goes in part to keeping my neighbours in employment.
You do that to ATMs too?
Used to do some creative vandalism when they first arrived, for sure.
Cool – anytime I can I use people not these machines.
Six jobs lost at a local countdown cos they’ve put in the self check out aisles. Won’t use them.
Same, for the same reason, plus prices aren’t reduced to match less operating costs.
And to queue up to check your own groceries, what a laugh.
And the “lost” jobs are still there.They’re just being done by customers, for free.
Like jobs servants used to do in middle and upperclass households? With today’s domestic technologies, most of those jobs are now done by household members, or one or two servants in place of the whole team of servants some households use to have.
…and the rest of them are now sitting in supermarkets.
I get that there are better things people could be doing, but I don’t see anyone offering it.
And that is the problem we should be working on…. changing the work system.
Do you see any political party anywhere with any proposals to change “the work system”?
I said “we”. And by that I don’t mean political parties – or at least not on their own.
Politicians will only work to change things if we pressure them to. Trying to pressure businesses to change their system and MOs really won’t end them putting profits before people.
That, believe it or not, is the governments job. The private sector won’t do it because then unemployment won’t exist to lower wages.
We wash our dishes by hand and use a clothes line – many use technology but I’d ask why? Save time? For what? Save money? Nah. It actually is fun to wash and dry the dishes imo you get to practice the tea towel flick for instance, the dryer can race the washer and enjoy putting back an unsatisfactory wash – it is what my brothers and I did growing up and it is what I want to bring into our family. Some may argue that there are better things to be doing but interacting with others in relative happiness is up there in my book – the same for checkout workers too – especially if they have the inclination. Too often nowdays they work longer hours and don’t have the time to take 20 or 30 seconds to say gidday and smile – luckily in the bay we haven’t got to that point yet.
Dishwashers are late to the game. I wash dishes by hand, too.
Until I was about 15 or 16, my mother used to do the washing for the family without a washing machine. That involved boiling up a copper, scrubbing really dirty stuff like rugby outfits, and turning a handle of the wringer.
She also used to make clothes and knit, organise to get the grocery shopping without a car, arrange for food to be fresh without a fridge, cooked food without any of the mod cons many expect to use today. Housework was a very time-consuming and energy-sapping activity. And this was when middleclass families no longer had servants as a general practice.
In past times households also coped without flush toilets or water on tap…. technologies keep being developed. Life adapts.
What needs to change, is that all people should have a living income, and jobs and enterprises need to more more focused on serving society, rather than generating profits for the (usually already) wealthy.
Yep your last paragraph sums it up well.
And a democratic say in the organisations that they work in/work for.
We wash our dishes by hand and use a clothes line – many use technology but I’d ask why? Save time? For what? Save money? Nah. It actually is fun to wash and dry the dishes imo you get to practice the tea towel flick for instance, the dryer can race the washer and enjoy putting back an unsatisfactory wash – it is what my brothers and I did growing up and it is what I want to bring into our family. Some may argue that there are better things to be doing but interacting with others in relative happiness is up there in my book – the same for checkout workers too – especially if they have the inclination. Too often nowdays they work longer hours and don’t have the time to take 20 or 30 seconds to say gidday and smile – luckily in the bay we haven’t got to that point yet.
I’m of the opinion that we’ve got better things for those people to do than sit at checkouts. Of course, our privatised system only sees those people as an expense rather than an asset that needs to be supported and cared for and thus won’t do anything to get those people doing those more important jobs.
The point i would have eventually got around to in my discussion below Draco, first we need alter the tax system so that everyone is receiving the minimum,(preferably the living), wage,
After that society can find lots of ‘work’ for people to take up, monitoring the farming industry will become a necessity in the future, just to think of one,
Workplace safety inspectors by the 100’s to think of another, the list is endless…
Yep. The problem is the competitive, private business, profit system. A better system of one that results in providing jobs beneficial to society. And we also should be working towards a shorter working week – 6 hours per day/5 days a week per person, as a first goal for fulltime workers.
Agree with the shorter working week but I’d go for 8 hours per day and a four day week.
I hate mornings – gimme 5 hours a day six days a week 🙂
Can’t say I’m overly fond of them either 😈
Can’t say I’m overly fond of them either 😈
Can’t say I’m overly fond of them either 😈
Alright, alright! we heard you the first time! (actually that just happened to me on another thread :D)
Alright, alright! we heard you the first time! (actually that just happened to me on another thread :D)
lol …that’ll teach me…
lol
Mr Keynes reckoned fifteen in five would do.
But beyond this, we shall endeavour to spread the bread thin on the butter-to make what work there is still to be done to be as widely shared as possible. Three-hour shifts or a fifteen-hour week may put off the problem for a great while. For three hours a day is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/1930/our-grandchildren.htm
And you TRP have ‘smashed’ how many of these machines so far???, smashing said machnes would seem to be the perfect ‘make-work’ scheme for the plods, the judicial system, and the 1000’s of lazy sods currently employed as key janglers in the prison system,
Far from smashing the machines, would you not be better off advocating for ‘true equality’ in the vein of paying all those reliant upon the benefit system the ‘living wage’…
“Far from smashing the machines, would you not be better off advocating for ‘true equality’ in the vein of paying all those reliant upon the benefit system the ‘living wage’…”
Well, that made me laugh, Bad. Well done.
What’s the cause of the laughter TRP, modernization of people bases systems such as the check-out operation of a supermarket are always going to leave a lag between old jobs and new jobs being created,
Your laughter instead of an actual answer to the question is suggestive of you having no belief in equality what-so-ever,
You would prefer to strike a ‘pose’ as evidenced by your absurd ”smash the machines” than pay the workers made redundant a living wage,
Arnie came across as the brainless wonder in the series of movies, your comments are beginning to portray the same…
Nah, the laughter was at your naivety. How about we get the living wage for workers first, eh? Btw, what do you think the word ‘wage’ implies?
Thanks for that TPR, it reads like the forward to ”The idiots guide to structural poverty”,
i could ask you the same about the word poverty TRP, while you continue on your blind little tiptoe down the path of ”work will set you free” you are simply a supporter and applauder of the current situation of structural poverty,
With Labour as the lead member of a coalition we will never have across the board a living wage for all workers, why don’t you try honesty for once,
What are the unemployed other than workers kept deliberately out of work…
Good of you to narrow your original claim down to just the unemployed. Hope you didn’t get any splinters in your fingers as you moved the goalposts.
Good of you to not make a relevant point in the debate Arnie, what the hell is that supposed to mean…
You originally wanted all beneficiaries to get the living wage. Now you’re down to just the unemployed. Geddit, now?
Thank you TRP, in a word, as deserving of it as that ‘wing-nut’ below, Bullshit,
i have at this time of night better things to do with my time than play either Tic Tac Toe or dance on the head of a pin with one of the Standards resident experts in both forms,
Your whole focus of debate is to continually run away from what you publish spreading bullshit as you go…
I’m not running away from anything, Bad, but feel free to scarper if you must. I’m sure nobody will feel any less of you for bottling out of your own lost argument.
“What are the unemployed other than workers kept deliberately out of work”
No government wants to have unemployed people. Everyone I know that wants to work finds a job within a few months.
One word Nakahi-man, Bullshit….(its all your worth)…
So your friends wanted to be unemployed for weeks upon weeks upon weeks?
Nobody I know wants to be unemployed, period.
Don’t be simple McFlock I said everyone I know that wants to work finds a job within a few months. People do loose their jobs from time to time often through no fault of their own. Yes my friends and many others who want to work all found jobs within a few months. A few people that are not friends of mine and don’t want to work are as you would expect still unemployed.
Nakiman, how many people who aren’t your friends do your curtains twitch for?
lol
you missed the point – if everyone got work they wanted, none of your friends would be unemployed for weeks, let alone months. Unless your friends wanted to loaf around dong nothing for months on end, collecting the dole. Mybe they were familiar enough with you to pretend they were looking and just couldn’t find anything.
They still would have been in the tens of thousands of unemployed that quarter.
lol
you missed the point – if everyone got work they wanted, none of your friends would be unemployed for weeks, let alone months. Unless your friends wanted to loaf around dong nothing for months on end, collecting the dole. Mybe they were familiar enough with you to pretend they were looking and just couldn’t find anything.
They still would have been in the tens of thousands of unemployed that quarter.
McFlock, you’re asking a tory to factor time into an equation. You know they can’t.
People are this or that, and things are this or that, and that’s all there is to this.
Our economy is based on having a permanent 5-7% unemployed. Any more leads to riots, any less leads to pay rises.
+1
That’s it exactly and why the rich have been getting all the gains from increased productivity for the last thirty years. Why we have increasing inequality.
“Our economy is based on having a permanent 5-7% unemployed. Any more leads to riots, any less leads to pay rises.”
I have been an employer in the past and when the business grew I needed more staff, I approached staff from another company and offered them more money than they were getting. It was no problem to pay good staff a premium wage, many companies do it. That might not apply to unskilled staff who tend to get replaced by machines.
in the past?
when was that – about ten years ago?
Naki man was talking about his ethics in poaching staff from another company, who apparently willingly quit to go work for an arsehole for an extra $1/hr
Well said TRP. When we go to the supermarket and some nice lady “invites” us to use these machines we always refuse., and I always say to them “I will not use that thing as I am trying to preserve a rare thing called your employment.”(a bit of a Tollpuddle martyr in me”)
The sad bit is, they really don’t get the point I am trying to make.
”The sad bit is, they really don’t get the point I am trying to make”, said the condescending middle class to the poor uneducated peasants,
How the fuck would you know if they get the point or not, the people employed there are ‘watched’, they’re paid to do exactly what they do, not engage in bagging their employers to any dick that wanders in who for all they know might be the managers cousin…
True halfcrown, me too – I did use the airport one the other day although i didn’t have a bag or my code number – the machine and lovely person helping was able to find my code from my licence which was a little freaky. The one that also gets me is laptops – I remember when they came in oh the extra free time we would all have – now they are used at night, on weekends, at the beach, on the plane! Biggest have those laptops – just increased work not decreased it lol.
I’m more in agreement with bad. I use the self serve checkout machines – and am usually one who keeps the supervisor busy – especially at pak n save where it’s necessary to get a staff member approval to use your own bag. In any Auckland supermarket we need to ask a staff member, at both self-service and operator checkouts. to provide us with council rubbish bags – we aren’t allowed to get them off shelves ourselves.
The machines free up humans to do other work. Remember, barcode scanners at checkouts, saved operators time, meaning less staff needed, and ultimately, less customers for small independent supermarkets. That’s the way with technological change. If it means fewer jobs, then we need to focus more on a living wage for all, and getting people doing jobs that can be most easily done by humans- jobs that are useful and valuable to society.
Also, I’ve never really seen more/longer queues at self-checkouts than operator checkouts. Often the self-checkout moves more quickly because there are several machines for one queue.
Never had that happen to me.
That really pisses me off but I suppose that an increasing number of people were stealing the in this rockstar economy where only the rich get better off.
Well, getting the people freed up from doing jobs that machines can do to doing jobs that machines can’t. Jobs such as R&D, art, health care etc.
pak n sav at Henderson – I think it’s because they charge you for using their plastic bags.
Ah, you’r using standard plastic bags whereas I use a ‘reusable’ shopping bag.
Where I live we have one supermarket and no self serve option but I’ve lived in the cities and i can pack my own reusable bag or use bags/boxes when necessary but i refuse to put the stuff through myself – I just cannot support that practice it really seems obviously like providing evidence why a job isn’t needed when I really think it is needed and less dropping of humans for profit is what is not needed.
The profit motive is the problem, not the destruction of worthless jobs.
The profit motive is the problem, not the destruction of worthless jobs.
Yes exactly and the jobs are also not worthless imo not even slightly.
Not exactly worthless but not worth a hell of a lot and there really is more important work that needs doing.
It’s actually Real Economics rather than the delusional monetary BS we normally hear about. We free up people from some work so that they can do other work that the society finds worthwhile. It’s how I know that NZ can afford a space program with tens of thousands of people involved in it.
I think the person should find the work worthwhile not just that society considers it worthwhile – otherwise we are back at the same point we are today. ‘Worthwhile’ is pretty subjective too and more important things to do – well important to whom. Anyway apart from the space race i agree with you mostly – I’d get people planting and growing food everywhere so others can eat it for free that is important and worthwhile imo.
i have to ask each time for rolly papers, and, have to admit i, after an initial ”fucking machines” response, quite enjoy the do it yourself nature of checking out my weekly shopping), specially at Pak’n’Slave where i used to end up having to bag it myself anyway,
Lolz i haven’t used Council rubbish bags for years, between my recycle bin and my garden, along with putting the shopping bags to a second use by,(deleted), i have no need of them,
The moot, often aired here at the Standard, and by plenty of politicians, of inequality is pretty much kneecapped by the majority of those, in my opinion, discussing this not doing so from the position of wanting real equality,
It would seem, and again this is my opinion, that the majority either want slightly less inequality, or, simply play lip service to such an ideal…
I got use to bagging my own groceries in England – it was the way things were done there in the 70s-90s, in the pre-barcode days. When I came back here, at first I got quite irritated at the quaint way supermarkets preferred to bag my shopping for me, – and irritated that, until the last couple of years, they were resistant to me bringing my own re-cycled shopping bags.
It saves me time at the checkout to bag it myself, and I have my own ways of packing the bags – designed to making the unpacking and putting away process easier at the other end.
Same with libraries
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2014/07/time-to-defend-presumption-of-innocence.html
Yes it is. One of the rare occasions Idiot/Savant gets it so right.
It is a beat up. Here is the official text from the policy:
“Labour will allow the Law Commission to complete its review on alternative trial mechanisms, including the establishment of a specialist sexual violence court and consider reforms that provide real justice to survivors while protecting the right to be presumed innocent, including: cross examination rules, alternative trial processes, establishment of sexual violence support, specialist training including on the dynamics of violence, support services during justice processes, and changes to the definition of consent.”
IS is relying on a press release. The language is less elegant. The official text of the policy is what should be referred to and relied on.
He is not relying on a press release. This is what Andrew Little said. I heard it:
“”The Crown has to prove more than just sex; the issue of consent has to be raised by the Crown, they have to prove the identity of the offender. They would have to bear that burden of proof before a switch to the defence to prove consent,” Mr Little said.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11289979
“before a switch to the defence to prove consent”. He was very clear.
this is the worrying part in yr quote..m.s..
‘..alternative trial processes..’
..w.t.f. does that mean exactly..?
..and switching the burden of proof to the accused..
..is a terrifying precedent to set…
It’s not a precedent at all, Phil. The proposal is to use an inquisitive process (ie establish the agreed facts). That’s the way it’s done in a lot of countries already, France for one.
i have no problems with the ‘inquisitive process’..
..reversal of burden of proof is entirely different from that..
I agree, how is it that the left fear the GCSB and police surveillance and are quite happy to be guilty of rape until they are proven innocent. Is this why Cunners apologised for being a man.
I’ve been following this fairly closely. And I have to say, I think Little is doing a crappy job of speaking to the discussions/work/research that culminated in the Law Commissions inquiry, subsequently brushed aside by Collins.
A bit of background: in 2007, the Commission of Enquiry into Police Conduct Report by Margaret Bazley was released. Undertaken after the Louise Nicholas debacle, it led to a further investigation by the Law Commission into evidential law.
http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/2008/06/Publication_136_405_Disclosure_of_Previous_Convictions_Report_103_WEB.pdf
Following recommendations within that report, the Government set up a “Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence”. Different specialist groups and Government Departments researched specific areas, resulting in a number of suggestions and recommendations, including that the Law Commission undertake an inquiry into alternative trial processes.
http://www.justice.govt.nz/policy/supporting-victims/sexual-violence/improvements#23
It’s important I think, to point out that the submission made during the Taskforce enquiry to reverse the burden of proof was not proposed, and was not further investigated by the following Law Commission enquiry.
” 94. This has not been proposed as an option because a review of the burden of proof would raise major Bill of Rights concerns, such as the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.” (from the above link)
Below is a link to the background and scope of the Law Commission’s enquiry into alternative trial procedures, and information on inquisitorial as opposed to adverserial trial procedures. It was to Simon Powers credit that the work begun years earlier, was continued under his watch in 2010. He was of the belief that an inquisatorial trial model would be more effective in sexual abuse cases, and possibly DV cases as well. (the jury is still out on that – the conviction rates are similar for both styles worldwide – but it is thought that the process is less brutal for victims/survivors)
http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/content/section-1-introduction
The following link contains submissions and feedback to the above:
http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/2012/12/alternative_trial_and_pre-trial_processes_submissions_summary.pdf
chrs 4 clarifying that..
The written policy is the correct one. Humans are error prone and tend to say the wrong thing while in interviews while meaning what the written policy says.
Little Andrew is going to have innocent men in prison if he has things his way.
So do you currently stick your penis in women when you’re not objectively certain (beyond reasonable doubt) that consent has been granted?
Now he’s concerned about innocent people going to prison.
I am concerned that men could be an easy target. Its one persons word against another. If any women wanted to set up their ex for revenge or custody or any other reason it would be easy.
The reversal of the burden of proof is batshit crazy.
Soft on rapists. If you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear.
A bit of free advice, Naki man – when she says no, don’t do it. If you stick to this rule, you will be fine.
“The reversal of the burden of proof is batshit crazy.”
It’s not on the agenda, Little’s incorrect understanding of the actual issues notwithstanding. See above.
so you prefer women to be the “easy target” of one person’s word against another (with a rough rate of a quarter of all women), as opposed to a false reporting rate of the minority of cases that even get reported to the police.
Moot point, because the tory hype isn’t what Labour’spolicy is, but interesting where you want the suffering of innocents to lie.
xox
National Radio is on the skids. Going the way of TVNZ. The government have frozen funding and bought in yes men and women on the board to dumb it down. Nothing direct, just mates and toadies. Sad and disturbing.
xox
Attended an informative talk by Ecologist Mike Joy, who is currently on a national tour. I recommend it to Kiwis concerned about our water quality, natural environment and democracy. You can see the video from the Royal Society of NZ website, when get it on line. Shocking, disturbing and disgraceful.
Graham Bell, Wild Bull of the Whump-Ass, continues to run amok
The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 1 July 2014
Jim Mora, Graham Bell, Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, Zara Potts
PART TWO OF TWO
After the four o’clock news, not much happens for a long time. There are the interminable reintroductions of each Panelist, which often mean it’s well after 4:15 before the first topic of the day is discussed. Today there’s not a lot to talk about—actually, there is a lot to talk about, but the producers have steered well away from anything substantial. There is, however, some superficial chat about depression….
JIM MORA: Uh, the Black Dog Project—there’s been reportage of this in Slate magaz—
GRAHAM BELL: That reminds me. What’s black and looks good on a criminal? A Doberman. Ho ho ho ho ho!
MORA: Graham that’s a terrible joke! I REFUSE to laugh at it.
The show drifts on, aimlessly and witlessly, until the 4:30 news. Then it’s time for the “Soapbox” segment. Remember, this is where the guests are expected to talk about something they have spent some time thinking about. Listeners might be forgiven, therefore, to expect something thoughtful, something serious, something interesting….
MORA: Denise L’Estrange-Corbet, what have you been thinking about?
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Well I went to a restaurant the other night, and I was just so ANNOYED by all the people who were texting non-stop! I’m just wondering: do people not TALK any more? ….[continues ranting about texting for several minutes]….
To stop her, Mora interrupts and reads out some texts and emails about various frivolities raised during the preshow. Then it’s on to the thoughts of Dixon of Dock Green….
MORA: Okay, Graham Bell, what’s been on YOUR mind?
GRAHAM BELL: I want to talk about Lucan Battison and his hair. The Battisons and the school should be ashamed of themselves. …That over-inflated CODSWALLOP that his lawyer spouted in court, comparing this case to Kate Sheppard and Martin Luther King. The only winners were the lawyers! The only LOSER is the kid himself. No employer will take him on. He’s the heir apparent to John Minto!
MORA: [nervously] A lot of people think “good on him.”
GRAHAM BELL: [snarling] I doubt it. Perhaps the Internet Mana Party can employ him! It’s CRAZY!
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Ridiculous! Ridiculous!
MORA: He said he was arguing for a principle.
GRAHAM BELL: R-r-r-r-r-rubbish! Codswallop!
….[Extended awkward silence]….
MORA: Graham Bell and Denise L’Estrange-Corbet on the Panel! It’s ten minutes to five. I want to talk about Rolf Harris.
GRAHAM BELL: Rolf Harris. I’ve always thought he was odd. REALLY odd!
MORA: Really?
GRAHAM BELL: Wobbling a saw and singing along with it. He’s a little bit unusual.
MORA: Ummm… Stripped of his BAFTA and his CBE.
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: Good! Lock him up and throw away the key! He deserves NOTHING! He deserves NO SYMPATHY at all!
MORA: We’re joined now by Dr. Ian Lambie from Auckland University.
DR. IAN LAMBIE: Good afternoon Jim and listeners.
MORA: Uh, it’s well known that celebrities are ego-driven and narcissistic. Why do people like this think they can get away with it? Why do they think they have this kind of invincibility?
DR. IAN LAMBIE: They have a lot of money, a lot of power, a lot of prestige. Awards from the Queen. It takes an enormous amount of courage to speak out.
GRAHAM BELL: It’s a hallmark of many sexual offenders that they would select their victims. Some sex offenders are capable of thinking right through to the trial.
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: They select them very carefully.
MORA: There’s that level of malign strategy. The other thing is, Ian, that the times have been on trial haven’t they, the sixties and seventies, with Jimmy Savile, haven’t they. The times have been categorized and besmirched….
DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: I mean it surrounded Michael Jackson for years didn’t it. All sorts of different people coming forward and he’d just pay them off. And maybe people do think that if people come forward they’re just after the money.
MORA: Thanks Ian. Actually, people in the seventies were just as moral as they are now.
GRAHAM BELL: Oh absolutely.
MORA: I mean, the times have been categorized and besmirched….
Somewhere during this borefest, Graham Bell had a go at smearing the dissident journalist Julian Assange. As always, Mora said nothing to contradict him. If somebody can track down his gouty rant, I would appreciate you transcribing it. I just can’t bear to wade through any more of it.
PART ONE…. /open-mike-04072014/#comment-844334
if bell were doing a comedy-routine..it could be (kinda) funny..in a reactionary-clown piss-take sorta way..
..but he isn’t..and it isn’t..
..but brilliant casting..!
..bell and corbet together…!..(i call her by her birth name..corbett..pre-affectation..)
..those two wd be neck and neck for thickest-panel-panellist-award..
..an antipodean-take on dumb and dumber…
(mora was grasping/struggling with their concerted-inanities..there was seperate humour to be had from that..)
..(one of the ‘circles of hell’..?..a dinner party lasting forever..with bell/corbet..and a brace of those other ignorant fuckwits they have on that panel..
..that obese beer-pusher..?..and all those other rightwing-arsewipes they trot out there too..?
..(shudder..!..)
The great pity, Phillip, is that when Bell is contradicted, he always folds like a pack of cards. Gordon Campbell gave him an on-air spanking a few years ago….
bell has stockholm syndrome.
he has been hanging round low lifes for so long now that he thinks like them.
i.e. fantasies of omnipotence and contempt for the rule of law.
Oh yes that’s what our society needs – undercover cops hanging out in bars. Nothing to hide nothing to fear…
Plods have long had a bit of a fetish about licensed premises, perhaps transference of what goes on in their home base watering holes.
Team Policing in the 80s/90s broke laws and heads with gay abandon and not just in ‘booze barns’ either. Keep the coppers out of law abiding citizens socialising please.
in the seventies i saw some spectacular police/patrons brawls in ‘the snake-pit’?..
..a bar downstairs in a hotel down the bottom of queen st..
..it was the favoured watering hole of seamen/ship-girls/prostitutes..and the various denizens of aucklands underworld at that time..
..it was kinda ‘rough’..
..and chairs/jugs of beer were often employed as a weapon of choice..
Top pub, Phil, if it’s the one I’m thinking of. Used to be a compulsory stop for my fellow workers after union stopwork meetings. Sometimes before them, too! I remember seeing a photo behind the bar of Jimmy Carter knocking back a beer there when he was here on a visit.
Carter must have done a pub crawl while here then TRP! because his photo was on the wall in the early opener (8am, name escapes me, had a back entrance through to bus depot) round the corner from Queen St on Quay St just down from the Seafarer’s union office.
Snake Pit was in the basement of the South Pacific Hotel near the old Post Office and where Britomart is now. Was rough, but fights were not compulsory.
No, right you are. It was the early opener I was thinking of, I’ll be up all night trying to remember its name!
Doh–The Britomart!
The early-opener with the back-entrance through to the bus depot was The Schooner.
Yep, that’s the one, felix. I also remember the Britomart being a good spot for a quiet one, but the Schooner had a vibe all of its own. The Prince Arthur was my favourite downtown drinker, though. A den of inequity; the rooms upstairs could tell a tale or two.
@Te Reo Putake den of inequity? Were the patrons in the public bar charged more than in the lounge bar upstairs?
Ha, very good. Iniquity of course.
Prince Arthur was another early morning one, wasn’t it? 7 oclock if memory serves.
Starting to see a pattern there TRP… 😉
and… felix takes tonites pub spotter award
The pub on Tatooine in Star Wars.
Looked exactly like a sailors pub.
Even the Aliens looked familiar.
Have to admit it was “plod”, in the form of the wharf police, that saved us when our tiny Welsh engineer just had to pick a fight with the biggest Fijian in the bar.
Ah yes the Mos Eisley space port Cantina
tiny Welsh engineer just had to pick a fight with the biggest Fijian in the bar.
Amazing what beer does to some people. A few years back four of us walked into a Courtenay Place bar and some wee short -arse started to pick one with us within seconds of getting there.
Now I was twice his size and the other three with me made me look weedy. We just couldn’t believe he was doing this. His mates showed no sign of backing him. It was like brushing a humping dog off your leg to get rid of him.
Another very interesting excursion into the human/lizard brain.
Sounds like the South Pacific, as 17 year olds new to the big smoke it didn’t take us long to master the art of staying out of trouble – scarper for the corner to avoid the big boys fights, duck, preserve your drink at all costs and at the first inkling of the arrival of a team policing unit decamp with haste.
The South Pacific.
i enjoyed the healthy disregard for authority..
..that was so prevalent..
..(and then there was the durban-poison..off the straat-boats..
..now that was pot that wd cause yr ears to curl…
..and pot that shows claims that modern pot is much stronger than pot of yore..
..to be complete and utter bullshit..)
This time?.
http://muse.aucklandmuseum.com/databases/image/-92310-728545.jpg?826×600.
@joe90 6.17pm
I note the tram lines and overhead wires, and remember at the end of a route waiting on the slatted seats inside the tram while the driver climbed down to the street, hauled down one pole, fastened it, then raised the pole at the other end, climbed into the forward cabin and we were off again. A very different approach to public transport, visible, reliable and fairly frequent.
I saw a car like the small one in the middle of the photo the other day. People restore them lovingly.
You might be right greywarbler, but I took the photo to be the bottom of Queen St, Auckland, and the overhead wires were the trolley bus wires. I remember they didn’t remove the tram-lines for a long time after the replacement trolleys. Those drivers were much fitter than today’s bus drivers. It was impossible to make a trip into the city from the suburbs and back again without the wire contraption attached to the bus roof coming off the overhead wires usually several times a trip. The driver would jump out of the bus…run around to the front where he (always a he) would re-attach it then back round… up the stairs into his seat and off we’d go again. The game was to predict exactly where it would next happen. Kept us endlessly amused.
@Anne7.24
Thanks for that shared memory. I thought of trolley buses first and then thought that no they must have been trams, wrongly. It was the trams I particularly remembered, they were fun.
I enjoyed some years ago riding in the Melbourne ones when I was living there. And I did ride on John Britten’s ones in Chch and they have some part going again there I think. Going up the Kelburn cablecar in Wellington is a little like the old tram experience.
Nowadays I have decided to go regularly to talk to the afficionados at the train restoration and trundle trip down at the local park. These are good guys and women who have put in hours and done wonders with the old skills and knowledge. There is a charm about them and nostalgia that is a different feeling than the one I get while looking at the tall metal vehicles on big tyres that dwarf me which are the peculiar fashion in the dying days of personal vehicles.
Climate voter is nudging close to 20,000 supporters after only three weeks.
Last count: 19,936>/b>
Make sure you add your name to the list.
http://www.climatevoter.org.nz/
Closing in on twenty grand
19,981
Just when Nationals on the ropes someone from the left comes along and saves them:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10252967/Harawira-U-turn-in-diplomat-sex-case
Thank goodness you can always rely on a left-wing brain explosion
I think it shows character when a politician admits a mistake, rather than doubling down or trying to let it slide. However, it should have been apparent to Harawira last week that cases alleging attempted rapes are big deals and trying to diminish the impact of such crimes is not a good thing.
So national was on the ropes then?
Good to know.
So national was on the ropes then?
Good to know.
Ok the site is fixed for the moment. It appears to have been a excessively complex set of SQL queries for the RSS Feeds on the mid-right of the site displaying information about posts from other sites. It appears to have been setting up a mutex deadlock condition under some conditions, triggered by one of the feeds from a union site.
Quite how that deadlock was triggered I still don’t know for sure. I’m going to have a look at the code over the weekend.
For the moment I have fixed it with much tighter timeouts on mutexes, shortening the idle timeouts on the connections to the database, and removing all of the union feeds until I figure out exactly which one was the issue.
What it did bring home to me was how many queries were hitting that database. Normal day to day operation was causing a several thousand queries a second all day – after many of them were forestalled by cached database results. So there is clearly some optimization that I’m going to have to put into some of the queries performed by some of the plugin code.
Sorry for having to fix this on the live site. However I couldn’t see the error happening at all on the test site, even after I piped the queries to it from the live site.
Chrome occasionally reports that it receives no data from the site prompting a reload.
Alex from the daily telegraph decrying the unfortunate way that kinder, more socially responsible rules in the financial world don’t apply to all.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/alex/
If I can add – this is a world cup quiz tha tells you the answers easy peasy
http://www.alexcartoon.co.uk/worldcupquiz.html
The Panel is worse, more heartless and stupid than ever
Radio NZ National, Thursday 10 July 2014
Jim Mora, Ali Jones, Ellen Read, Julie Moffett
JULIE MOFFETT: The Israelis have an app. that predicts incoming rockets!
ALI JONES: It’s AMAZING what you can do with a smart-phone now!
Judging by the assenting grunts of the others, not one of them saw anything bizarre about that. If these people had been on a vacuous radio chat show sixty years ago, no doubt they would have been impressed by measures taken by the concerned citizens of the Deep South to protect themselves from the Negro menace.
The depravity continued….
JULIE MOFFETT: Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia is removing the Confederate flag from its campus. I’m a bit mixed about that.
JIM MORA: It’s historical, surely. It’s not as though they’re espousing the beliefs of the Confederacy.
ELLEN READ: I’d keep it.
MORA: What do you think, Ali?
ALI JONES: I think I’d keep it.
I sent Jim a quick email before 4 o’clock…..
It’s the Palestinians that need the app that predicts rocket attacks
Dear Jim,
Surely it’s the Palestinian victims of Israel’s illegal attacks that need the app that predicts rocket attacks. So far, in the latest escalation of violence, Israel has killed more than fifty Palestinians—most of them civilians.
Not one Israeli has been killed or even injured.
Yet you and your Panelists pretend that it’s the Israelis that need this app.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
I’m pleased to announce that many others did too. He even read one remonstration out on air.
“JULIE MOFFETT: The Israelis have an app. that predicts incoming rockets!
ALI JONES: It’s AMAZING what you can do with a smart-phone now!
Judging by the assenting grunts of the others, not one of them saw anything bizarre about that.”
Not actually what Moffat said and not actually what the Yo app does. But other than that, up to your usual standards of accuracy, Moz.
Not actually what Moffat said…
I dashed it down in disbelieving fury. I no doubt missed a few words here and there, but I got her vacant and amoral tone exactly right. Clearly I wasn’t the only listener to be upset by the callousness and the deliberate ignorance displayed by Moffett, Mora and the other two.
….and not actually what the Yo app does.
So what DOES it do? And more to the point: why were they pretending that Israelis need any app. to guard against rockets?
But other than that, up to your usual standards of accuracy, Moz.
It was accurate, if not word-perfect. Please provide a 100 per cent transcript to show if I have somehow misconstrued their brutal indifference to the deaths of scores of Palestinians.
Not actually what Moffat said…
I dashed it down in disbelieving fury. I no doubt missed a few words here and there, but I got her vacant and amoral tone exactly right. Clearly I wasn’t the only listener to be upset by the callousness and the deliberate ignorance displayed by Moffett, Mora and the other two.
….and not actually what the Yo app does.
So what DOES it do? And more to the point: why were they pretending that Israelis need any app. to guard against rockets?
But other than that, up to your usual standards of accuracy, Moz.
It was accurate, if not word-perfect. Please provide a 100 per cent transcript to show if I have somehow misconstrued their brutal indifference to the deaths of scores of Palestinians.
Not actually what Moffat said…
I dashed it down in disbelieving fury. I no doubt missed a few words here and there, but I got her vacant and amoral tone exactly right. Clearly I wasn’t the only listener to be upset by the callousness and the deliberate ignorance displayed by Moffett, Mora and the other two.
….and not actually what the Yo app does.
So what DOES it do? And more to the point: why were they pretending that Israelis need any app. to guard against rockets?
But other than that, up to your usual standards of accuracy, Moz.
It was accurate, if not word-perfect. Please provide a 100 per cent transcript to show if I have somehow misconstrued their brutal indifference to the deaths of scores of Palestinians.
No I like Jim’s programme except when he has Farrar on and then I switch off. Otherwise its light, interesting educational entertainment.
No I like Jim’s programme except when he has Farrar on and then I switch off.
You are suggesting Farrar is worse than Stephen Franks, Neil Miller, Nevil Breivik Gibson, Julia Heartless Moore, Richard Griffin, Barry Corbett or any of the other mindlessly reflexive right wing drips that dominate this programme?
Otherwise its light, interesting educational entertainment.
Yes it’s certainly light.
1.What I’m saying is not what you are saying I’m suggesting.
2. So? light =sinful?
the guy compares a half-arsed local tory propagandist with a hands-on mass murderer.
That answer point 2 for you?
the guy compares a half-arsed local tory propagandist with a hands-on mass murderer
It was not me but another writer who pointed out the similarity of Nevil Gibson’s and Anders Breivik’s thinking. It was after an insane editorial by Gibson in the NBR a couple of years ago, in which he asserted that all—i.e., every single one—of the world’s terrorists were Muslims. Even the Bush/Blair axis at its most dishonest never actually stated such an absurd lie. But Anders Breivik did. And so did Nevil Gibson.
Now I guess you will try to prove that Gibson’s words should not be held against him.
That answer point 2 for you?
Nothing wrong with light. There’s everything wrong with pretending you’re serious and then making a (feeble) joke out of nearly everything. For instance: any moral person would find something wrong with the idea of hooting with laughter at someone taking refuge from a vicious state vengeance campaign. But on The Panel it’s a source of never-ending hilarity….
“It was after an insane editorial by Gibson in the NBR a couple of years ago, in which he asserted that all—i.e., every single one—of the world’s terrorists were Muslims.”
Cite, Moz? Gibson may be regularly offensive, but he’s not an idiot. I’m picking the only person to have made that claim is actually you. Looking forward to being proven wrong, of course.
Cite, Moz?
I’ve spent the last hour trawling through old NBR editorials by the great man, but I still haven’t found the one that started it all. I remember it had a few comments on it, with the most trenchant being the one comparing his rabid views to Breivik’s. I’ll track it down for you, though, and post it up as soon as I locate it.
Gibson may be regularly offensive, but he’s not an idiot.
I didn’t say he was an idiot. The old Maoist is irrational and dishonest, and possibly insane. But you’re right—he’s not an idiot, though he obviously treats the rest of us like we are.
I’m picking the only person to have made that claim is actually you.
You are wrong. I picked up on the Breivik comparison from a disgusted commenter on the NBR blog.
Looking forward to being proven wrong, of course.
You are wrong, and you know it.
Cheers, Moz, I know you won’t let me down!
I wasn’t saying that you claimed he was an idiot. Rather that he’d be an idiot if he said it. And the ‘claim’ isn’t the Breivek comparison it’s the ‘all terrorists are muslim’. So far, it appears you’re the one saying that, not Gibson.
Anyhoo, good luck finding the non-existent quote. You could save some time by just admitting you exaggerated.
I’m picking the actual line you’ve distorted is this:
“But not all deaths in conflict are equal. Much of the world’s violence emanates from a single source – jihadist followers of the Islamic religion – and rarely does a news bulletin (at least on the BBC) pass without a bombing or people being killed somewhere in the name of martyrdom.”
http://m.nbr.co.nz/opinion/when-war-hero-not-one
I wasn’t saying that you claimed he was an idiot. Rather that he’d be an idiot if he said it.
He WROTE it in an “editorial” for his crummy business paper.
And the ‘claim’ isn’t the Breivek comparison it’s the ‘all terrorists are muslim’. So far, it appears you’re the one saying that, not Gibson.
No, he wrote it. Another reader picked him up on it, and compared him directly to Breivik. The comparison was apt, and I have used it ever since.
Your flippant, disrespectful attitude and your taunting does you no credit, Te Reo. Gibson said what I said he did; I did not make it up, and I did not distort anything.
I will find that moronic Breivikian editorial—unlike you, I do care about getting things right—and put it on this site. Not that that will satisfy you of course—I note you’re already putting up other irrelevant quotes and constructing an attack against me based on those.
I hope you do not conduct yourself in this unethical fashion when you are going about your Labour Party business. I recall the likes of Michael Cullen telling lies about Keith Locke in the House, and those thugs Mallard and Benson-Pope yelling “Send him home!” during debates on the mistreatment of the fugitive Algerian parliamentarian Ahmed Zaoui; your behaviour is very similar.
I wasn’t saying that you claimed he was an idiot. Rather that he’d be an idiot if he said it.
He WROTE it in an “editorial” for his crummy business paper.
And the ‘claim’ isn’t the Breivek comparison it’s the ‘all terrorists are muslim’. So far, it appears you’re the one saying that, not Gibson.
No, he wrote it. Another reader picked him up on it, and compared him directly to Breivik. The comparison was apt, and I have used it ever since.
Your flippant, disrespectful attitude and your sarcastic taunting does you no credit, Te Reo. Gibson said what I said he did; I did not make it up, and I did not distort anything.
I will find that moronic Breivikian editorial—unlike you, I do care about getting things right—and put it on this site. Not that that will satisfy you of course—I note you’re already putting up other irrelevant quotes and constructing an attack against me based on those.
I hope you do not conduct yourself in this unethical fashion when you are going about your Labour Party business. I recall the likes of Michael Cullen telling lies about Keith Locke in the House, and those thugs Mallard and Benson-Pope yelling “Send him home!” during debates on the mistreatment of the fugitive Algerian parliamentarian Ahmed Zaoui; your behaviour is very similar.
“No, he wrote it. Another reader picked him up on it, and compared him directly to Breivik. The comparison was apt, and I have used it ever since.”
Compared him directly to Breivik. That should make it a bit easier to find.
At the moment, Moz, I’m the only one of us to find a quote even remotely like your claim. And, weirdly, the second comment under the article that quote is from starts thus:
“Any introduction that starts by attributing, in unconscious homage to Anders Behring Breivik, …”
http://m.nbr.co.nz/opinion/when-war-hero-not-one
Thanks, Te Reo! Not only are you a gentleman, but you’re a first-rate scholar. That is precisely the article I have been looking for. And yes, you are correct, and I am wrong—Gibson didn’t say ALL of the world’s terrorists were Muslims, as I had claimed he did.
By the way, note the modest little contribution by commenter no. 4….
Very gracious of you, Mozza. Can you now point out the bit where Gibson wrote that “all—i.e., every single one—of the world’s terrorists were Muslims” as you claimed?
Cheers.
Very gracious of you, Mozza.
Not at all, Te Reo. And please disregard all that horrible stuff where I compared you to the gruesome twosome of Mallard and Benson-Pope. That was gutter politics on my part.
Can you now point out the bit where Gibson wrote that “all—i.e., every single one—of the world’s terrorists were Muslims” as you claimed?
To, er, quote myself from this very thread: “And yes, you are correct, and I am wrong—Gibson didn’t say ALL of the world’s terrorists were Muslims, as I had claimed he did.”
Cheers.
Cheers to YOU, my friend. You are a bracing corrective, and I appreciate your efforts to keep this writer (i.e., moi) up to speed.
1.What I’m saying is not what you are saying I’m suggesting.
You said you switch off when David Farrar is on. I pointed out that he is merely one of a whole raft of right wing and extreme right wing guests on the show. If you find him repellent for some other valid reason which excludes the others, please let us know.
2. So? light =sinful?
Making light of the persecution of journalists and dissidents is certainly sinful. Did YOU think it was funny when Chris Trotter put on a funny voice to mimic the besieged Julian Assange?
🙄
🙄
You mean the besieged rapist Julian Assange?
Fool, you were stupid enough to quote a war criminal to try to bolster a case you were making a few months ago…..
Your recycling of official lies shows you haven’t learned a thing.
Too easy………not arguing about being a “war criminal” though……..the Left keep on producing them.
Too easy…
WHAT is “too easy”?
….not arguing about being a “war criminal” though……..the Left keep on producing them.
You dope. What does “right” and “left” have to do with this? Straw recycled lies about WMDs—even though he no doubt did not believe what he was saying—which puts him in the company of the extreme right, not the Left.
ABC News tells viewers that scenes of destruction in Gaza are in Israel
Submitted by Rania Khalek on Wed, 07/09/2014 – 21:49
More than fifty Palestinians have been killed and another 450 wounded since Monday in Israel’s ongoing assault on the besieged Gaza Strip, dubbed “Operation Protective Edge” by the Israeli army.
As usual, mainstream media outlets are straining to paint Israel as the victim, defending its people against irrational Palestinian rocket fire.
There is no equating the killing and maiming of dozens of innocent Palestinians with scared Israelis seeking shelter from crude rockets that rarely cause damage. But that hasn’t stopped media outlets from trying, and in some cases, outright lying, to distort the violence.
In one stark example, ABC News’ Diane Sawyer misidentifies scenes of the aftermath of Israeli missile strikes in Gaza as destruction caused by Palestinian rocket fire.
As Sawyer segues into the segment, she says, “We take you overseas now to the rockets raining down on Israel today as Israel tried to shoot them out of the sky.” Next to her is video footage not of Israelis or even Israel, but of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
Sawyer then incorrectly describes an image of a Palestinian family gathering belongings in the smoking debris of a missile-hit home in Gaza as “an Israeli family trying to salvage what they can.”
Sawyer then describes an image of a Palestinian woman surrounded by destroyed homes as “one woman standing speechless among the ruins,” with the implication that she is Israeli.
Sawyer’s bald misreporting reflects either a deliberate lie by ABC News or willful ignorance so severe that Palestinian death and misery is invisible even when it’s staring ABC producers right in the face.
The segment in its entirety can be seen here….
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/israel-hit-150-rockets-targeting-10-cities-24477752?tab=9482930§ion=1206853&playlist=24185255
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/abc-news-tells-viewers-scenes-destruction-gaza-are-israel
Jane Kelsey: Secret talks bring threat of financial crises
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
We see it all the time where economists and politicians just won’t let go of the failed economic hypothesis that brought us the GFC and increased poverty and inequality.
Why don’t we, the citizens of this country, declare that any secret deals signed without due notification and transparency to be null and void.
Tim Groser has not been given the authority to commit our country to rules that have been deliberately kept secret.
How successful would it be to set up a petition about this? Why should our country be lumbered with crappy rules written by US corporates ???
Secrecy is not legitimacy, Tim Groser! It is wrong and completely unethical, (which is par for the course for this morally bereft government.)
who listened to the claptrap on Radio New Zealand this arvo.
It is becoming more and more infantilised and puerile by the day.
and the tripe about rap music.
this is vanity publishing by criminal crack dealers but here in New Zealand it is taken to be a genuine cultural phenomenon.
I suppose it is if you are into criminality, drugs and gangs.
I know many of us like to poke sticks at Chris Trotter, but have a listen to what he had to say today about, well, the patriarchy I guess: http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Audio.aspx
Go to the 2PM Thursday segment, starts about 9 mins in.
Pleasantly surprised I was.
Yes. Thanks, felix. I’m a little surprised by Trotter there as well.
Rodney Hide – “it’s all about me and I’m not a bad person” – and Cunliffe’s apology is not going to go down well with male voters.. He clearly didn’t listen attentively to what Trotter said.
Trotter about the long history and legacy of men being schooled to think women should listen respectfully to them, and give more weight to their voice than to that of women.
Trotter wasn’t so empathetic with young women when he spoke out in defence of Willy and J.T. last year…
I haven’t heard what he said then (your link doesn’t show it).
But yes, it seems his thinking on such matters has been evolving. Hence the surprise.
I agree with you Felix. Chris Trotter is usually an astute and compassionate commentator.
He gets a hard time around here, and sometimes deservedly, but it would be foolish to ever write him off.
Some time back, someone documented Key’s lies. It was an impressive list, and clearly lots more could be added from over recent times.
I have searched archived files but cannot find the link. Could some kind person give me the link.
Thank you Joe90.
My search for Key + lies highlighted just how far the NZ public has been deceived by his blatant lying. Cunliffe is hammered for a series of minor transgressions, but Smile and Wave and Lie thrives on them. Team Key is the ultimate set up for the Emperor’s New Clothes story where the the weavers (the Media) promise the wonderful clothes which are invisible to the incompetent and stupid. But the weavers and the Emperor get their beans!
I have my fingers crossed that Team Key will lose its gloss!
Still an honest man?
‘
Current unedited raw list – any and all suggestions, comments, testing, and additions are more than welcome.
tonights tv news.
we have the dumbest smart meters in the world.
the power companies can monitor the customers but customers dont seem to have the right to monitor their own electricity usage.
The tide is turning against the scam that is privatisation
And we’ve seen the same here. Privatisation has made things worse for the majority of people while a few people have creamed it usually via subsidies from the poorest.
EDIT:
American Delusions Down Under
Australia’s Needless Foreign Borrowing
And the same is true of NZ.
‘
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11220886&ref=nextstory
xox
Thanks Morissey. So glad I missed Jim Mora and the half twits. I have given up emailing him about the manure on his program. The standard has fallen so far. We deserve much higher standards from our ‘National’ broadcaster.
I used to vote nationalbut they have disgraced themselves and played fast and loose with the law and have nasty brown stains round their mouths from too much arse kissing.
I am going to vote for the Labour Party this election and they will kick the tories arses in September and restore decency and honesty to a body politic that sorely needs it.