Open mike 11/05/2022

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 11th, 2022 - 59 comments
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59 comments on “Open mike 11/05/2022 ”

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  1. Jenny how to get there 1
    11 May 2022 at 8:59 am

    It must be hard for rebels after a life time of fighting the machine to find themselves on the side of the mainstream.

    Easier to go for some edgier conspiracy theory.

    From Common Dreams:

    There Is No Left Position That Justifies Putin's Attack on Ukraine

    David Ost, April 2, 2022 by Foreign Policy in Focus

    It is tough for leftists to be on the same side as the mainstream. We can easily feel at those times that we’re missing something, that we’re letting down the struggle, that by ganging up even on an admittedly bad actor we’re helping strengthen the nemesis at home,……

    ……for leftists to be more concerned with..

    …..a right-wing militarist power that supports itself almost entirely by the mining and selling of planet-killing fossil fuels—than with the desires of a small people hoping to secure their independence and not be invaded, is scandalous. Leftists never treat the peoples marginalized by western imperialism in such a dismissive way.

    https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/04/02/there-no-left-position-justifies-putins-attack-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR10LlTRLRJOdGLwlJ5GqoI1WI2-XhRsWa1wpLsoPgP-_gArRCr5_imQSmA

  2. ianmac 2
    11 May 2022 at 9:20 am

    Interesting that yesterday, Luxon was adamant that Nicola Willis was going to be his Finance Minister when he wins the next Election. This morning on Morning Report he says that what he really meant was that Nicola would be a good Finance Minister but it is too soon to rule out David Seymour.

    A night is a long time in politics.

    • Macro 2.1
      11 May 2022 at 9:39 am

      Can you imagine either of them as the misery of finance.? Not sure who would be worse. Ruth R the second or Rodger reincarnate. *shudder *

      • Anne 2.1.1
        11 May 2022 at 11:10 am

        @ianmac and Macro

        Thank-you so much the both of you. You both are among my favourite standardistas. Not so sure now. angry

        The sun's shining and I was finally officially discharged from the local hospital this morning after a knee replacement. Had the thing 12 weeks ago.

        Finance minister David Seymour? Oh God preserve us. Back to the days of the cavemen. Will it be legal to drag women along the ground by their hair?

        • Patricia Bremner 2.1.1.1
          11 May 2022 at 3:45 pm

          Every good wish for your heartrecovery Anne.

          [The bug is bad today; this is the 4th instance. Please check and correct your user name in the next comment, thanks]

        • Patricia Bremner 2.1.1.2
          11 May 2022 at 3:57 pm

          Hello Anne. Hope you feel a great deal better and gain mobility again All the best.smiley.

          [Please check and correct your user name in the next comment, thanks]

          • Incognito 2.1.1.2.1
            11 May 2022 at 3:59 pm

            Mod note

          • Anne 2.1.1.2.2
            11 May 2022 at 5:28 pm

            Doing well thanks Patricia. Told my surgeon I had stopped all the exercises because I was sick of them. He said "you don't need to do exercises. You're one of those who heals naturally". Thanks Mum for your good genes. 🙂

        • Anne 2.1.1.3
          11 May 2022 at 6:20 pm

          Btw, my 2.1.1 were tongue in cheek ianmac and Macro. You're still on my 'fav' list. 🙂

    • Jenny how to get there 2.2
      11 May 2022 at 10:11 am

      A waking nightmare would be a very long time in politics

      There are 2 things everyone flirting with voting National need to recognise right now….

      …..You vote National, you get ACT Far Right Policy.

      …..Sure, male voters are pissed off with the Left, but they’re not fucking insane

      By Martyn Bradbury -May 10, 2022

      https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/05/10/why-yes-act-are-very-very-very-hard-right-how-the-left-defeat-national-and-why-theyll-screw-it-up/

      Hopefully by announcing that he is contemplating David Seymour as Finance Minister, Christopher Luxon has just made his biggest ever political mistake.

      Indelicately as Bomber may have put it, I agree with him, the majority of National voters and especially the Nat curious are not insane.

      Suggesting David Seymour as Finance Minister is just a step too far for the New Zealand voting public.

      I mean even in Epsom Seymour has to by given a charity hand up to get in to parliament, and this in the most conservative wealthiest blue rinse electorate in the country.

      In the rest of the country the ACT Seymour brand is electoral poison.

      A cleverer Right Wing politician than Luxon, even if he was considering David Seymour as Finance Minister, would never have announced it before the election.

      Let us hope that Luxon does not try to walk back that he is contemplating David Seymour as Finance Minister, and belatedly try to rule it out.

      Biggest fail ever.

      • Jenny how to get there 2.2.1
        11 May 2022 at 10:24 am

        Worst Fail Ever.

        Christopher (Comicbook Guy) Luxon.

        [Please check & correct your user name in the next comment, thanks]

        • Incognito 2.2.1.1
          11 May 2022 at 1:01 pm

          Mod note

          • Jenny how to get there 2.2.1.1.1
            11 May 2022 at 1:46 pm

            FFS, (Fat finger syndrome), strikes again.

            Thanks for the heads up.

            Interesting fact.

            My current non-de-plume is the result of such an accident. I left it in place, cos I kinda liked it.

            But have been thinking about changing it again, to something shorter, and more in line with my political outlook, but still recognisable as me.

            What do you think?

            Would that be OK?

      • Incognito 2.2.2
        11 May 2022 at 1:51 pm

        If a Party polls well over 5% they’re likely to get into Parliament even without (winning) an electorate seat. Likely, in 2023 National will need ACT, at least, to form a Government with at least 61 seats. In the latest Newshub-Reid poll ACT got 6.4%, which translates to 8 seats in Parliament. Thus, Seymour is likely to get in regardless of National’s “charity hand up”.

    • JeremyB 2.3
      11 May 2022 at 10:44 am

      .

  3. Chris T 3
    11 May 2022 at 10:56 am

    Was looking at countdowns site

    Block of butter $8.90

    Holy shit.

    • Jimmy 3.1
      11 May 2022 at 12:06 pm

      But they will freeze it at that price….how nice.

      • Chris T 3.1.1
        11 May 2022 at 12:19 pm

        Lol

        I did find that report quite funny!

        Don't worry people. We are keeping these stupidly high prices!

    • Sabine 3.2
      11 May 2022 at 12:11 pm

      well you don't need butter, right, margarine will do for the poor peeps.

      • Chris T 3.2.1
        11 May 2022 at 12:40 pm

        Guess that depends on whether it happens to be the poor peeps kids birthday and it happens to be the one day a year the parents want to give the kid a cake as a luxury

        • Sabine 3.2.1.1
          11 May 2022 at 12:47 pm

          Really should they actually eat cake with butter and not just eat cake made with cheap margarine?

          • Chris T 3.2.1.1.1
            11 May 2022 at 12:59 pm

            Yes.

            Because cake made without butter is frankly crap.

            Like icing without sugar

            Or bacon and eggs made with tofu and some weird vegan soya milk

          • Chris T 3.2.1.1.2
            11 May 2022 at 1:02 pm

            It is kind of like people who go to KFC or McDonalds and buy salad.

            Admittedly I did go to KFC once and just brought potato and gravy.

            But it was a one off.

          • Jenny how to get there 3.2.1.1.3
            11 May 2022 at 2:30 pm

            Margarine is not very good for cake making. It melts at a lower temperature, making it a bit runny and hard to mix into a proper cake mix with the other ingredients.

            I have found that a workaround is to put the marge in the freezer to try and firm it up.

            But previous commenters are right, for taste and texture, a cake made with margarine is still a second rate cake.

            • Stuart Munro 3.2.1.1.3.1
              11 May 2022 at 6:11 pm

              Oil is better than margarine for some cakes – carrot cakes and brownies made with oil turn out reasonably well. Margarine is okay for pastry, but I wouldn't cook with it in general.

          • Sabine 3.2.1.1.4
            11 May 2022 at 3:09 pm

            i am very sorry that i forgot the s/ tag.

            btw, margarine is something a lot of people eat, cook with and bake with. Because they are too poor to afford butter.

            • gsays 3.2.1.1.4.1
              11 May 2022 at 6:03 pm

              A food scientist buddy once quipped margarine is one molecule off being plastic.

            • Belladonna 3.2.1.1.4.2
              11 May 2022 at 7:06 pm

              If baking on a budget, oil is a much better substitute than marge. – and a heck of a lot cheaper.
              Butter is best. But some excellent carrot cake or bran muffin recipes use oil.
              My best-of-all-time chocolate cake, cooked religiously for every birthday I bake for, uses oil….

      • Tricledrown 3.2.2
        11 May 2022 at 11:27 pm

        because of vegetable oil shortages that to is rising in price rapidly.If David Clark really wants to make a difference he would force Foodstuffs and Progressive to divest their 10% holding they each have in The Warehouse, allowing them to operate competitive supermarkets within their existing stores which are struggling against online retailers.The Cosy Duopoly must be broken at all levels.

        • Sabine 3.2.2.1
          12 May 2022 at 8:19 am

          Warehouse is already 'competitive' in some foods.

          2 ltr Dairy Dale Milk is 3 NZD for example. And they are aggressively pushing into the food market and i hope they continue to do so without any 'assistance' of the Government.

      • Sabine 3.3.1
        11 May 2022 at 12:50 pm

        Salted butter will not taste nice in sweet stuff, and can actually affect your baking/cooking due to the salt. Hence why it is generally cheaper then the unsalted butter.

        but salt was used in the old days to give shelf live in the same sense as sugar was used, both bind water and thus prevent mold and spoiling.

        .

        • Belladonna 3.3.1.1
          11 May 2022 at 7:08 pm

          Most Kiwi baking recipes use salted butter (and skip adding the pinch of salt usual in overseas cookbooks).
          Unless baking something very delicate in flavour – you're not going to notice the difference between salted and unsalted butter, by the time you've baked the cake.

          • Sabine 3.3.1.1.1
            11 May 2022 at 10:48 pm

            yeah, nah nah. I love salted butter on fresh bread with cheese, but i would never use it in baking, and fwiw, i also don't use the 'pinch' of salt in my baking.

            • Belladonna 3.3.1.1.1.1
              12 May 2022 at 9:38 am

              I think it's a Kiwi (as in brought up in NZ) thing– by-and-large we use a fair amount of salt in our cooking, salted butter is just one example.

              Certainly, when I was growing up (and learning to bake from my Nana) – all butter was salted. I expect that unsalted existed- but it would have been a very niche product – not on the main aisles of the supermarket.

              And, even today, shopping in Countdown, the bulk of the butter on sale is salted.

        • pat 3.3.1.2
          11 May 2022 at 7:08 pm

          If I recall correctly you have a cafe….how does wholesale price of butter compare?

          • Sabine 3.3.1.2.1
            11 May 2022 at 9:52 pm

            Not a cafe, I make confections – i have a Chocolate Shop. And the price of dairy is horrendous and getting worse. Luckily for those bakers that need butter they buy imported french butter which is cheaper. Yes…isn't it ironic. Imagine, all the carbon credits n footprints n stuff that could be prevented by selling butter for the price of imported french butter. lol

            • pat 3.3.1.2.1.1
              11 May 2022 at 10:04 pm

              we import butter!…good grief

              • Sabine …
                11 May 2022 at 10:47 pm

                To be fair french butter has less water content then kiwi butter and it is the best butter to use in pasty making.

                We import butter and its cheaper. Go figure.

    • theotherpat 3.4
      11 May 2022 at 4:25 pm

      but 5.80 for the countdown brand……………..

      • Chris T 3.4.1
        11 May 2022 at 4:49 pm

        Which is probably just Anchor or Westgold wrapped in a different wrapper, like most own brand things.

        Have to admit I have been buying more and more own brand stuff.

        Especially when the wrapping is obviously done by the same machine, but just different branding printed on it.

        • theotherpat 3.4.1.1
          12 May 2022 at 3:45 pm

          exactly i buy butter but mostly now nuttlex from coconut oil….saturated fat is good for you

  4. Chris T 4
    11 May 2022 at 11:00 am

    That will be me going for the Flora

    • Patricia Bremner 4.1
      11 May 2022 at 12:13 pm

      Nutlex oliveoil butter is $3.50. It is able to be used in place of dairy.

      • Chris T 4.1.1
        11 May 2022 at 12:23 pm

        Yeah, but lets face it. Oliveoil butter is shite.

        If I wanted a piece of toast with some bland hippy thing on it I would just pour olive oil on it, while cutting up bits of tofu and doing yoga.

        • Sabine 4.1.1.1
          11 May 2022 at 12:27 pm

          rather use lard, still at 6 NZD per container, but at least it has flavor and can be used for baking.

        • DB Brown 4.1.1.2
          11 May 2022 at 5:51 pm

          I bought some hippy shite (aka vegan faux butter – spread) recently and it was even more expensive at $6 for 250 grams.

          It's actually really nice, very similar to butter in taste, but wallet says ouch!

          I'm kinda laughing at dairy prices skyrocketing now as I feel slightly less shafted with my sanctimonious spread spend.

          I do the yoga with carrot greens hanging out of my ears, symbolic reins for the shagging you think you're giving vegans. cheeky

          • Chris T 4.1.1.2.1
            11 May 2022 at 6:09 pm

            Lol

            Apologies. I have an odd sense of humour!

            Too much watching Neil on the Young Ones.

  5. ianmac 5
    11 May 2022 at 3:52 pm

    Just noticed that just as so many National males look physically alike, so do the National's Nicola Willis and Nicola Stanford (and Acts Brooke van de Veldon?) also look (and sound?) interchangeable.

    Is there some sort of Genetic selection process going on here?

  6. Robert Guyton 6
    11 May 2022 at 5:13 pm

    The Spinoff has this:

    "How long till we hear that climate change, like Covid, isn’t a real threat, and that it’s just another elaborate conspiracy cooked up by the government and the media to take our jobs and rip away our livelihoods, all for their own evil ends?

    These, too, are tohu. The pandemic is not separate from climate change, but part of the powder keg of environmental forces that has given rise to it. It’s a warning. Unless the government seriously engages with the parallel universe that Māori occupy within the prism of climate change, and gives us the resource to speak to our own, whether we reside in cities or valleys or papakāinga, Māori will yet again be left out and left behind."

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/11-05-2022/riding-the-tide-home

    “Storytelling is not only the means of communicating the deep interconnectedness of our diverse realities, it’s also the instruction telling us what to do about it. Hardly “myths”, as Elsdon Best liked to call them, pūrākau are our original sources of knowledge and wisdom. These stories, embedded in and derived from the whenua, passed faithfully down the generations, are the templates that tell us how to live and adapt with and within the dynamic, ever-shifting environment. It’s in our whakapapa. And unlike the NAP, our most important stories do not subconsciously instruct us to sleep. “

    • Anne 6.1
      11 May 2022 at 8:26 pm

      The pandemic is not separate from climate change, but part of the powder keg of environmental forces that has given rise to it. It’s a warning.

      Absolutely. Yet neither governments (anywhere), nor the ‘go to’ experts or the media ever refer to it as such. Why? Are they afraid to tell the truth? Are they still living in a world of make believe?