Open mike 11/02/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 11th, 2010 - 42 comments
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Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

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42 comments on “Open mike 11/02/2010 ”

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  1. mickysavage 1
    11 February 2010 at 6:47 am

    In the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill the nats are trying to sneak through a change to the status of the Waitakere Memorial Park. Right now the ARC has to hold the park as a scenic park and as a memorial. This legal requirement will disappear.

    The change is subtle, there is one line on page 163 which says “repeal section 77”.

    The nats have previously advocated converting the parkland into a National Park.

    Brownlee’s desire to have a “stocktake” of minerals in National Parks is well known.

    Do they want to do a “stocktake” in the Waitakere Ranges?

  2. Pascal's bookie 2
    11 February 2010 at 7:35 am

    Interesting wee thingie:

    http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/06/the-inescapable.html

    you can put me down as favouring the ritual slaughter of either “deep economic integration” or “the nation state”.

    I don’t really care which.

  3. gitmo 3
    11 February 2010 at 8:06 am

    The corrections department earning their wages again.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3313787/Double-rapist-to-move-in-near-schools

    Retards.

    • Bored 3.1
      11 February 2010 at 8:28 am

      I think you might better ask a couple of questions:
      * if this individual is not safe to be out why has he been let out? (I know the legal bit….not sure if it provides adequate protection to the public).
      * if he must be let out is he safe anywhere or is it a calculated risk?

      I get the feeling corrections are between a rock and a hard place, and to use them for political footbal is not very helpful.

      • gitmo 3.1.1
        11 February 2010 at 9:17 am

        You am retard !

        It is never acceptable to release a repeat rapist to such an address, the safety and rights of those at the school and their parents/teachers are paramount.

        Corrections and their current boss repeatedly fuck it up and they do it under whoever is the government of the day.

        • Bored 3.1.1.1
          11 February 2010 at 1:00 pm

          “You am retard !”….this column is in English Mr Retard.

          “It is never acceptable to release a repeat rapist to such an address, the safety and rights of those at the school and their parents/teachers are paramount.” At what point do I disagree? I too asked why a dangerous person gets released?

          Corrections stuff it up, agreed. Find me a human, or human organisation that does not. If you have a way of ensuring in an absolute sense that humans become infallible patent it right away.

          • gitmo 3.1.1.1.1
            11 February 2010 at 1:10 pm

            You am also humourless !

            And before you continue your protection of corrections to far – go and have a look at the work history and monumental cock ups that their CEO has been involved in during his time gorging on the public teat.

            Start with INCIS.

            • Bored 3.1.1.1.1.1
              11 February 2010 at 1:18 pm

              INCIS…dont swear at me. I could list a whole pile more swear words relating to dubious or failed s/w developments around the government and corporates. And I cant say that I have ever met a senior CEO of these organisations who has been anything other than a fallible human. Then when you get to audit the policies, processes and procedures all becomes very obvious. Yes Corrections needs a bloody big boot, but as they say “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”..all guilty, put them away with the rapist.

  4. John Dalley 4
    11 February 2010 at 8:08 am

    Could the first part of the Oprah show yesterday on TV3 which was an interesting piece on city’s around the world. The first 20 mins was on Copenhagen and several interesting facts. Not sure if it can be found on TV3 on Demand or youtube but would be worth a look.
    Income Tax 50%
    Wealth gap closer togetter
    free Health
    Free (mostly) Education
    Up to 12 months maternity leave, both men and women.
    About 50% of population Cycle.

    And several other different bits of information.
    If i knew how, i would send Goober key a link.

  5. lukas 5
    11 February 2010 at 8:13 am

    What on earth did Peter smoke at Jeanette’s farewell party last night?

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3313865/We-need-new-anthem-and-I-ll-write-it-says-Sharples

  6. Tiger Mountain 6
    11 February 2010 at 9:33 am

    The Standard. Good reliable information in the graphs and reports that is most useful to some of us. Interesting opinons and views from the regular posters, but, is it just me or has moderation of some of the comments sections been a bit light recently-exhibit A- those featuring that whimp ‘Big Bruv’. It is not necessarily a barrel of fun running a blogsite which is why I don’t, so I am only making a suggestion here.

    [lprent: The long-term objective (since early 2008) has been to get the commentators to moderate themselves to the local behaviour standards.

    That is now generally the case, so the moderation has scaled back to the most nefarious cases. They tend towards get fast permanent bans (eg moon goddess yesterday, Klarkov, PT, etc) when they either do repeated stupid trolling, or sustained innocuous trolling, or in the case of Klarkov because he is a disgusting piece of crap that really needs some treatment.

    We also occasionally give people cool-off bans when they overstep the bounds of what is permitted – usually for attacking authors at a personal level. Sometimes that is because both the moderators and the majority of the commentators are sick of seeing the same unproven assertions repeated too many times – and the irritation levels start rising.

    And of course there is always IrishBill to add that crucial random element….. 😈

    It is hard to believe, but I don’t think that big bruv has ever earned a ban here. He is annoying, inaccurate, and seems to equate slogans with thinking. However he stays within the policy of the site. He has (like redbaiter and others) banned himself a few times, leaving and vowing never to return. Of course that is a bit dangerous to do if you want to come back. You might find that a moderator will help you keep your resolution, as r0b assisted redbaiter on one occassion. ]

  7. prism 7
    11 February 2010 at 10:32 am

    Perhaps some blogs are kept as a standard beyond which control is administered. The site has been refreshingly free of snippy pompous fatuous statements from certain people lately. Less lambasting everybody who doesn’t hold their self-righteous views and less dissing those who think and examine policies past and search for better future policies.

  8. Quoth the Raven 8
    11 February 2010 at 10:50 am

    Operation titstorm in Australia has been interesting. They downed a couple of Aus government websites yesterday and are continuing today.

    The Australian government like all governments has at best a tenuous connection to reality. One of the issues here is that they actually deny that females ejaculate and they want to crack down on small breasted women in pornography because they equate that with child pronography. Ridiculous.

    Govt sites buckle as Operation Titstorm launches DDoS attack

  9. grumpy 9
    11 February 2010 at 11:01 am

    I tried to ring 018 just before. I think the teacher unions are in hock to Big Business and have a cunning plan to drive down literacy standards so that when Kiwis can’t read, write, spell or speak correctly, we won’t know if we are talking to a NZ or 3rd world call centre.

  10. Mach1 10
    11 February 2010 at 11:04 am

    CIA Has Program to Assassinate U.S. Citizens

    The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has maintained an assassination list of U.S. citizens for the last eight year and has actually assassinated Americans, according to January 27 Washington Post story.

    • BLiP 10.1
      11 February 2010 at 12:35 pm

      Replace the term “al-Qaeda” with “Communist” and we see its just the same old schtick politicians have used for the last 60 years to mask the real intentions of their industrialist puppet masters.

      So far as the list of citizens that can be killed is concerned, the scary thing is the deliberately flexible definition of who qualifies for inclusion:

      whether the individual in question is “deemed to be a continuing threat to U.S. persons or interests.

      By this definition, the CIA itself would qualify.

  11. Draco T Bastard 11
    11 February 2010 at 11:15 am

    Well, JK and NACT aren’t doing anything to create in the country but they are going to do stuff that will lower wages.

    Mr Key said other changes would include “strict reapplication rules to prevent people languishing on an unemployment benefit for more than a short period between jobs”.

    “After that, they will be required to actively look for a job, to go to any job interview they are referred to, and to accept any offer of suitable employment, whether fulltime, part-time, temporary or seasonal.

    Why is it that the people who can’t lower their costs (mostly because their costs are increasing in line with inflation or, in the case of food, at a rate higher than inflation) are the ones that have to take the pay cuts?

  12. handle 12
    11 February 2010 at 2:16 pm

    Gareth Renowden dissects more climate change denial from Rodney Hide – http://sciblogs.co.nz/hot-topic/2010/02/10/the-annotated-rodney-hide-treating-parliament-with-contempt/

    “How far can a Minister of the Crown go in misrepresenting the facts of a matter before he is guilty of misleading the House?”

  13. grumpy 13
    11 February 2010 at 3:52 pm

    And now a case in Hamilton where a multiple rape accused has his name released but not his ethnicity and appearance (which remain suppressed).

    WTF is going on???

    Whale will get onto it.

  14. The Voice of Reason 14
    11 February 2010 at 9:00 pm

    Yeah, Whale will get onto it alright. When he’s double bunking with the rapist he can ask him all about it.

  15. The Voice of Reason 15
    11 February 2010 at 9:03 pm

    Nice wee campaign building in Britain to bring in a Tobin Tax. Bill Nighy features in a Richard Curtis promo, which explains the concept in a way even righties can understand.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/09/tobin-tax-nighy-curtis-film

  16. BLiP 16
    11 February 2010 at 9:43 pm

    Iprent – in the interests of my sanity, as fragile as it is, would you mind please taking your little friend under your wing and tucking him away in the creche so as to monitor his comments for adherence to policy – specifically, are the comments on topic, do they add anything to the general discourse, are they even remotely amusing etc etc etc . . . Please. Pretty please.

    • kiwiteen123 16.1
      11 February 2010 at 9:48 pm

      If that means me I’m going to try harder.
      I comment on a post and get attacked so I retaliate I will not retaliate in future. Please can you do something about the abuse towards me. It is usually off-topic.

  17. BLiP 17
    11 February 2010 at 11:03 pm

    Why would I get getting a pop up box saying: A user name and password are being requested by http://thestandard.org.nz. The site says: “Preview Site” ???

    • lprent 17.1
      11 February 2010 at 11:15 pm

      Sorry I expect that you got caught while I was shunting the caches around.

      www3 is the preview of the new site. We’ve been running it side-by-side with the primary site during final testing so we can test the changes on the same database. I was fixing a couple errors.

      But as you found out – www3 requires a login and password 😈

      Should be OK now.

  18. lprent 18
    11 February 2010 at 11:58 pm

    Turned the cache off on the new site.

    Ummm. What is going wrong – there is crossover going on that shouldn’t happen. Doesn’t on my home system

  19. lprent 19
    12 February 2010 at 12:52 am

    Finally fixed it. The config file had some new things that caused a problem.

  20. IrishBill 20
    12 February 2010 at 6:50 am

    Nope. Still happening to me every time I navigate to a page. If I press cancel on the password box twice I get to the page.

  21. Marty G 21
    12 February 2010 at 7:50 am

    Gonna be lonely here today with the anti-spam image not working 🙂

    • lprent 21.1
      12 February 2010 at 8:14 am

      Turned the anti-spam off. It didn’t like the migration of the plugins directory. I’ll look at that tonight. Manual spam cleaning today

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