Open mike 11/06/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 11th, 2011 - 50 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

50 comments on “Open mike 11/06/2011 ”

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  1. PeteG 1
    11 June 2011 at 7:10 am

    Many people talk the talk. And talk. And talk.
    Someone takes a step.

    1. Party List Candidates – Independent
    2. Dunedin South Candidate sought
    3. Dunedin North Candidate announced

    Many people say they are sick of current political options and actions and want something different. This is seriously different. To change things we need to try.

    This isn’t about individuals. It is about a new way of looking at our politics.
    Flexible. Diverse. Valuing vision and competence more than feet in concrete ideology.

    Parties may not like it because they want to retain control. This moves power to people from parties.

    Food for thought. Think beyond the traditional square.

    • lprent 1.1
      11 June 2011 at 8:25 am

      Good to see that you are not just a critic.

      But if I can relapse into critic mode for the moment. Have a look at your CSS on Your NZ’s Dunedin North page. In safari on a iPad at least, your name and the electorate name in the header are overlapping into borders around Your NZ.

      The resulting overlapping colors make it hard (and even more atheistically painful) to read. Lime on top of blue and red and green is unreadable. On top of yellow it looks disgusting.

      Whoever is doing the CSS should stop trying to coerce the page into an abnormal state, reduce the width of the text and let it resume the overflow wrapping it would do in the natural state.

  2. Morrissey 2
    11 June 2011 at 9:09 am

    What the HELL is “reportage”?

    Just heard Kim Hill ask Geraldine Brooks: “Was there an event that turned you off foreign reportage?” (National Radio, 8.58 a.m.)

    Why couldn’t she just have said “reporting”? I’ve noticed Jim Mora also frequently uses this heinous piece of pretentioso, along with the even more pretentious, and irritating, “anecdotage”.

  3. Morrissey 3
    11 June 2011 at 9:38 am

    July, 2009

    Imagine if there’d been vacuous TV talkshows in the Third Reich…

    It’s 1942. Brave little Germany is under the terrorist threat posed by the continued existence of the Warsaw ghetto, which all thoughtful analysts and comedians agree is a terrorist scourge that has to be eliminated. Mein host David Leitermann’s guest tonight is a Nazi comedian who’s fooled the desperate Jewish resistance in Poland into granting him an interview, then used this to further the Nazi state’s campaign of vilification against the Jewish resistance.

    Imagine the chilling atmosphere of such an occasion. Imagine the obscene indifference to reality of the host and the braying idiocy of the audience. Imagine laughter being elicited in the service of totalitarianism.

    Something, in other words, like the following interview, which actually took place on CBS television the other day….

    DAVID LETTERMAN: You interviewed a terrorist?
    SASHA BARON COHEN: Yeah, I interviewed a terrorist.
    LETTERMAN: How’d you do that? It can’t be EASY to find a terrorist!
    BARON COHEN: Well it’s not easy to get in touch with a terrorist. Your government has been trying to find one for the past nine years!
    LETTERMAN: Ha ha ha ha ha!
    AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
    LETTERMAN: You’re right!
    BARON COHEN: To get in touch with a terrorist, I used a CIA contact.
    LEITERMANN: [spluttering with laughter] Bruno has a CIA contact!?!?!?
    AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
    BARON COHEN: Yes. These were really nasty terrorists, from the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, the world’s leading suicide bombers.
    AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
    LEITERMANN: Ha ha ha ha ha! Okay, now, what’s this clip we’re going to see from the movie?
    BARON COHEN: Here’s where I talk to the terrorist, and insult him, and he hasn’t got a CLUE what I was saying!
    AUDIENCE: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
    LEITERMANN: Ha ha ha ha ha! This should be good!…

    [Cue clip from show]
    BRUNO: Here’s a tip: you guys should lose the beards. Your King Osama looks like a dirty Santa Claus.
    PALESTINIAN CHRISTIAN PEACE ACTIVIST: [to interpreter] What’s he saying?

    [Back to the Ed Sullivan Theater]
    LEITERMANN: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! So funny, and so brave! Bruno opens on this Thursday. Sacha Baron Cohen!
    AUDIENCE: Heil! Heil! Heil!…..

    ALAN KALTER: [sotto voce]: Am I the only one who’s noticed the guy’s not funny?
    PAUL SHAFFER [sotto voce]: Can somebody get a can of deodorant?

    • Vicky32 3.1
      13 June 2011 at 2:49 am

      Thank you for that, Morrissey. Baron Cohen is disgusting.

      • Morrissey 3.1.1
        13 June 2011 at 9:10 pm

        Actually, Vicky, I think the really appalling one in this scene is David Letterman. After all, Sasha Baron Cohen is a hardline zealot, and this kind of thing is exactly what you’d expect him to do. He can get away with it, and he does—spectacularly. I am appalled by his cynicism and his blatant dishonesty, but not at all surprised by it.

        The problem here is Letterman, who goes along willingly with this travesty. Or (more likely) he knows not to upset the status quo on this issue, i.e., absolute, totalitarian silence about the illegal 44-year-long occupation of the West Bank. We can be quite sure he will have been informed of Baron Cohen’s fanatical views before this interview, yet he does nothing to counter him or question him in any way. Laughingly playing along with Baron Cohen means he has passed up an opportunity to actually confront a slick and merciless propagandist.

        What craven behaviour Letterman shows here, and what moral cowardice.

        But that’s network TV for you.

  4. RedLogix 4
    11 June 2011 at 9:52 am

    I’m strapped for time, but this John Armstrong article begs for some deconstruction.

    The basic argument that Key is making for asset sales goes like this:

    1. These State entities are returning very low dividends for the amount of public equity invested in them. Therefore we should sell them and extract this underperforming capital.

    2. Which begs the question then, why would any private sector investor want a bar of them?

    3. Either they expect to buy them cheap in another ideologically driven fire sale (which I cannot see them getting away with in this better informed internet era).

    4. Or their new owners can see the potential to improve their returns because most of these assets operate as public service quasi-monopolies and prices can be readily jacked up to justify the price paid for their shareholding.

    Either way the NZ taxpayer is being lined up for another screwing over.

  5. jcuknz 5
    11 June 2011 at 10:33 am

    The Drug Wars.
    http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report
    Basically the report says that anti-drug efforts are hopelessly ineffective … power is where there is money and there are riches in drugs.

    But the mass of people have been conditioned to believe that drugs are bad … myself included … so we will never vote for a politician who de-criminalises those who simply use the product without harm to others and treat it as a medical problem.

  6. jcuknz 6
    11 June 2011 at 11:01 am

    If you enjoyed the story about the two elephants going about town last night or maybe night before on TV3 I invite you to visit
    http://jcuknzs.blogspot.com/2011/06/road-rage-african-style.html
    Unfortunately the photos are in reverse order so view from bottom. The VW driver got inpatient 🙂

  7. johnm 7
    11 June 2011 at 11:19 am

    AYN RAND Beloved inspiration of RWNJs. Also admired by ACT Party types and acknowledged as an inspiration by Perigo in his blog http://www.solopassion.com. Rand continues to have a major influence on America’s RWNJ Party : The parasitic Republicans who believe in their own fascist excellence:they not only will not share with their “Fellow Americans” {Sick} They actively seek to do away with medicaid and any social welfare. This vile poisonous cult has had a lot of influence on our own RWNJ people. Mark Ames of exiledonline has done a great expose of this weird freakess, refer following:

    “Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer
    Her works are treated as gospel by right-wing powerhouses like Alan Greenspan and Clarence Thomas, but Ayn Rand found early inspiration in 1920’s murderer William Hickman. ”

    “The loudest of all the Republicans, right-wing attack-dog pundits and the Teabagger mobs fighting to kill health care reform and eviscerate “entitlement programs” increasingly hold up Ayn Rand as their guru. Sales of her books have soared in the past couple of years; one poll ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second most influential book of the 20th century, after the Bible.”
    She is admired here in NZ by RWNJs who feel vastly superior to the herd: That’s you and me!
    If you look at Perigo’s blog you’ll see Deborah Coddington of the Act Party is commenting plus and article by a Republican on how to get all of the U$’s wealth for themselves by swindling ordinary non-excellent has been Americans out of any entitlements.

    http://www.alternet.org/books/145819/ayn_rand,_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders,_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killers?page=entire

  8. logie97 8
    11 June 2011 at 11:26 am

    We should be monitoring very carefully where the MSM is being directed in its discussion and reporting of issues.

    1) The issue of “encouraged” contraception in our communities.
    2) Incentives for “useful” tertiary qualifications.
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/5130562/Incentives-idea-for-useful-degrees

    We need to be mindful who is defining what is useful in this world. If we are not careful we will be ruled by a callous technocracy and those who measure life in monetary terms.
    Of course only the children of the new “successful” will be able to learn the Classics and the Arts.

    The irony is that the burgeoning congregations of fundamentalist groups, who preach “the soul” tend to be supporters of this new right.

  9. ZeeBop 9
    11 June 2011 at 11:36 am

    Key was ‘selling’ himself this morning on Nation. Not one word about peak oil.
    No analysis of World debt woes. Not one mention of Climate Change. No shame
    about mentioning kiwisaver and how Key has cut it. Same media pundit not talking
    about the tax cut to the rich list paid for by cuts in GST. Nothing about excessive
    borrowing of National at a time when manufacturers are hurting. Or why we need a
    CGT. No, we got a drive round his old haunts, how his mum was beating by world
    events into building a life for herself and her son, and was a Labour supporter.
    Not one moment did he make the connection with our present reality or the reality
    of his own mum. That the right destroyed Europe in war of dominance, and his
    mum people paid for that in the holocaust, that he however grew up in good times
    and can’t see, or won’t see the future, that we are at another of histories turning
    points. Then he has the conceit to say he is the centre gorund! On what basis?
    The poverty trap is an employment program for middle class bureaucrats, and
    Key is lock step into keeping it that way, because he will not take GST off food,
    books, baby items, he will not discuss a CGT and remove the incentive to borrow
    rather than build national capacity. He is a caretaker, a rightwing caretaker, and
    given our present economic future a undertaker still burying the stiff of neo-liberalism.
    We do need radical policies (from the center – cross party), not radical tinkering
    from the extreme right wing who havehad it too easy, think the world runs best
    when we don’t spare the rod on businesses. The good times are over, the lazy
    elites now have to be weeded and selected much more rigorously, and more of
    the same, or more radical shift to the right, forced his mum’s migrant generation from
    a self-destructive Europe, to grow up and get real, and so vote Labour.

    • prism 9.1
      11 June 2011 at 11:58 am

      Please ZeeBop put paragraphs where you detect a change in your stream of cogitation. I’ve mentioned this before to no effect. I’m not someone who is a RW troll that you might just dismiss. Your block of type is as hard to chew as last week’s quality, solid rye bread. This morning I have trimmed one into slices after hours wrapped in a damp teatowel. That enabled me to cut it and now I can comsume it. If you think you make quality comment FGS make it consumable.

      • Zorr 9.1.1
        11 June 2011 at 12:29 pm

        ^ +1

        I agree with prism. It seems you often have something to add but I never read more than the first sentence because your giant wall of text crits me to death.

      • lprent 9.1.2
        11 June 2011 at 4:04 pm

        I’d have to concur as well. 

        It tends to feel like reading a wall of obstrufucated C++. I feel like leaning towards a tool that prettifies code and makes it readable.

        • Jim Nald 9.1.2.1
          11 June 2011 at 4:38 pm

          ZeeBob’s usually like a mini treatise
          mine like a zen koan
          🙂

        • ZeeBop 9.1.2.2
          11 June 2011 at 5:34 pm

          I cannot help you diagnose your illiteracy problem, that seems rampant among a number of readers with out better clarification of the problem. I of course am concerned, and welcome the openness to discuss your problems with my text. Since communication is a two way street and I’m all ears, how would you propose I explain my ‘mini-thesis’ better. Simply its hard in the newsspeak language of today to express myself, we are missing a whole load of words that have been framed into a different context. For example, WINZ use the word respect in terms I do not understand.

          On WINZ….

          Social Phobia is a recognized diagnosis.

          http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/what-are-human-rights/the-human-rights-act/protection-from-discrimination/
          Indirect discrimination occurs when a rule or policy that appears to apply to everyone equally actually works to the disadvantage of some groups.

          Reinterpreting this statement. A rule or policy that appears to apply to everyone equally will inevitably disadvantage some groups.

          The one size fits all approach of WINZ will indirectly discriminate against the very people WINZ seeks to support the most marginalized who unlike those who dig themselves out of their problems.

          I been trawling the interent to find a NZ organisation that protects Human Rights and speachs to the socially phobic. Janet Frame, an exceptional kiwi, suffered and you’d have thought there was better protection. No wonder people drink to excess, a self-lobotomy if there ever was one when dealing with the lack of conscience in WINZ.

    • johnm 9.2
      11 June 2011 at 12:59 pm

      Hi ZeeBop
      Your Block style comment was ok by me. What you said in it was good stuff!

    • Draco T Bastard 9.3
      11 June 2011 at 1:53 pm

      I think I’ve figured it out. You’re pressing “Enter” at the end of each line rather than letting the edit box wrap the text for you. This does two things:
      1.) cuts the text so that its body is narrower than it needs to be which makes it harder to read and
      2.) makes it difficult to see where you need to put in the paragraph breaks which you do by pressing “Enter”

      Stop pressing “Enter” at the end of every line as the computer will do that for you and you will find it a lot easier to format what you write.

  10. johnm 10
    11 June 2011 at 12:07 pm

    Hi ZeeBop

    Key is “an undertaker still burying the stiff of neo-liberalism” Neo-Liberalism may be dead(Obviously a total failure except for the rich who have done famously from it) but it’s still afflicting the living like a ZOMBIE curse. And Key is leading the curse of the Zombies here with asset sales and tax breaks for the already well-off (Zombie like !) but that money is not going into making NZ a better place for all.

    Look at Ireland: The people are being impoverished there by being forced to pay for the neo-liberal speculation feeding frenzy that fell on its face (No more Zombies to feed on). Irish Private Banks who mediated this madness and should have gone bankrupt with the fiat banksters in Germany and elsewhere taking a hair cut (If Zombies can get hair cuts!) Were bailed out by the treachorous Irish Government who had every legal right not to do so! The euro has been completely trashed by Zombie Neo-Liberal greed. It is not a union for the people of Europe but one for the Zombie Wealth investment Speculative class!

    • Draco T Bastard 10.1
      11 June 2011 at 1:57 pm

      /agreed

      Which is one of the reasons why I keep saying that the best those countries worst hit by the GFC (Portugal, Ireland, Greece etc) could do would be a complete default of their debts. The bankers won’t like it but it would allow those countries to help their people rather than forcing austerity on them.

  11. prism 11
    11 June 2011 at 12:18 pm

    This morning Kim Hill spoke to Professor Novak who has written a book on his findings about the basis for altruism in humans. He has something to say about why stable co-operating communities might break down. He has good points. It is worth listening to if you have wondered why we can’t get our lives on a better road after centuries of writing and studying and practising different styles of human behaviour. And our personal philosophies and style of society are more important and central to our living standards than discussing who is going to win the next election with the hope that this lot won’t act to break our lives, incomes, housing, future.

    Can anyone explain what tax changes made earlier this year have made problems for Christchurch’s events managing entity? It doesn’t sound sensible to make events more problematic when they are already risky financially and require much careful planning for months and years before.

    An interesting comment from a much travelled NZ musician on Playing favourites this morning. Now he is back in NZ and sees us afresh, he thinks we have a great spirit, something special to offer the world.

    • ZeeBop 11.1
      11 June 2011 at 5:55 pm

      Novak made the mistake of making his faith important to the debate, then trying to assert his work had no bias in it since it was based in some absolute rigid version of scientific method. If only he’d said that in the first place he would not look like a liar like he did.

      There is none (a accepted absolute scientific method). An accomplished scientist knows this, or should, and would speak to the brand of scientific method. Obviously any purely mathematical theory will have the same problems, as any other, when applying itself to society. Indeed, first the mathematician is advised to consult with a physicist, then an engineer, then a social scientist before trying to make faith respectable since math does not do ethics.

      Prof. Novak does neither, he asks us to accept ignorance of all other science implementation.
      If you don’t understand what I mean then take the Nuclear meltdown in Japan, would you agree that because a nuclear scientist said the theory best described the processes, that we should accept that nuclear power was safe, correct, a good option. No. You would need first to consult a engineer, a social scientist….

      Simply put if you create a theory like his, then people like Karl Rove will use it to circumvent the prisoner dilemma, immediately and with haste. So altruism may indeed have foundations in self-gene theory, as a means of selfish people to trip up absolute adherents to dogma. What is the Bible anyway, but a huge wedge to keep people conforming to a blind faith.

      Genes are selfish, and select people to be generous, hopeful and what was the third thing he talked about… …in the very way that putting off a fight you are unlikely to win today can help you at some future time. For example, if you teach your kids virtues like self-sacrifice, and they become role models, then as more people join into consent for the meme then its more likely that someone out there will save you or your kid when they get into life threatening trouble, or you need to con them out of their lifesavings to funds some school in Africa (rather than solve Africas problems by asking Africans). But do remember that teaching your kids to be bastards gets them no where fast in life, House maybe an exception, i.e. be very very talented first before letting your dad teach you that nasty is a good life strategy.

      • prism 11.1.1
        12 June 2011 at 11:13 am

        ZeeBop – Could you say that Novak is being honest declaring his Christianity? And that does not make him a fundy which I think of as bad Christians because they use the Bible for the end of propaganda for their own self-serving, people-controlling dictatorship.

        Everyone has a a background that influences the way that they think and the line they take when considering any problem. I have to listen to Prof Novak some more and look at your comments before I can attempt an intelligent one. The nature and nurture thing I gues has an important part in his discussion.

        Your paragraphs are good – good for minds like mine which needs to surface, take a breather and then dive into the ideas again.

        • ZeeBop 11.1.1.1
          12 June 2011 at 2:34 pm

          No. Because Novak suggest we hold two contradictory views, that science does more than describe reality – that its more than just our building of a set of ideas to navigate through living. Then he contradicts himself by suggesting, nudge nudge, that Christianity values emerge from the mathematical theory which obviously is still theory. Christianity was an irrelevant aside, and at the same time reinvigorated by this theoretical game play. Also the Christianity he contends is reinforced does not actually come from the Bible, rather the Bible may have been the results (a lab book) of social experiment gone horrible wrong.

          “””The nature and nurture thing I guess has an important part in his discussion. “””

          No. He was talking about a mathematical result, probably true, but got lost in trying to apply that result to culture without the usual checks and balances, common sense. Remember Hitler, you know the guy that made evolution God, and God evolution. That Ayrans were the perfect choosen people, well that mistake Novak seems to make a mistake, just because an experiment works in the perfectness of the laboratory, and what more perfect experimental areas than mathematics, and then thinks the result applies to something as complex as morals and ethics.

          Legislated pi as 3.14 already.

  12. toad 12
    11 June 2011 at 1:45 pm

    Anyone for increased prescription charges?  Given the connections and form of Pharmacy Guild Chief Executive Annabel Young, I’d say it’s on the cards.

  13. felix 13
    11 June 2011 at 2:49 pm

    Notice how the same right-wingers who always say the state shouldn’t own businesses or productive assets are more than happy to have those same productive assets owned by the Chinese government?

    Why is it bad for the NZ govt to own a farm or power station but ok for the Chinese govt to own it?

    • felix 13.1
      11 June 2011 at 3:18 pm

      Oops sorry that was meant to go in open mic

      [lprent: Magik ]

    • Draco T Bastard 13.2
      11 June 2011 at 4:19 pm

      Kowtowing to power. It’s what Authoritarians do and they’ve always viewed the NZ government as having no power. Interestingly, the latter seems to make them work to ensure that the NZ government remains that way.

    • Armchair Critic 13.3
      11 June 2011 at 6:57 pm

      I want to see this very question put to Mr Key, or Mr English.

  14. ianmac 14
    11 June 2011 at 3:00 pm

    And also Kim Hill with Staff photographer for The New Yorker magazine, Platon, who has photographed all the power Leaders of the World. (Though he quickly moved on from a mention of photographing John Key.)
    In meeting and photographing the powerless he met a very battered street lady in Moscow who was 34 but looked 68. He asked her what would be her wish. She said “That she wished that Paton have happiness, and that friendship is constant where love comes and goes.” (paraphrased.)

    • Vicky32 14.1
      13 June 2011 at 6:55 pm

      He asked her what would be her wish. She said “That she wished that Paton have happiness, and that friendship is constant where love comes and goes.” (paraphrased.)

      I wish I could be as kind as she was…

  15. jackal 15
    11 June 2011 at 4:32 pm

    The week that was 4 – 11 June

    Yesterday, Australian climate scientists revealed details of offensive emails they are routinely receiving. This has raised concerns that the vitriolic campaign could deter the next generation of scientists and researchers. The revelations were made amidst an increasing campaign of disinformation and a number of murders of activists at the behest of the oil and gas industry…

    • ZeeBop 15.1
      11 June 2011 at 6:05 pm

      Everyone is a genius. National, right-wing talk that all people need to do is believe their reiteration of MSM seeded right wing orthodoxy is a sign they are geniuses and not sit down and take crap from some boffin who spends too much time in the ivory towers out of touch.

      Investment tip, anyone who supports a company that has some Executive on it who does not believe in Climate Change, who does not talk about Peak Oil, or the Debt crisis, is a bad company to be investing in. If they want investment they have to answer how this crisis-es harm their current business.

  16. logie97 16
    11 June 2011 at 6:02 pm

    Key’s headliner today. “Too many Kiwis receiving government support.”
    Okay John, you have officially fed the flame war.
    Now cut to the chase.
    Give us the exact numbers and not the rhetoric.
    . how many do you know as a fact are NOT entitled?
    . which areas of New Zealand?
    . what direct measures/actions are your government going to implement to assist in changing or remedying the situation?
    . will you guarantee to intervene to ensure that a proper informed and managed debate will ensue or will you depend on the blogs and talk back radio to do your bidding for you?

  17. MrSmith 17
    11 June 2011 at 6:41 pm

    Just took this from “New Zealand Fabian society” here thought some of you might be interested .
     
    “The Centre for Public Services in theU.K. found that staff in private prisons were paid 25 percent less on average than their state counterparts and had inferior non-pay entitlements[xiii].Castalia says they “assume a PPP contractor [in New Zealand schools] will improve the efficiency of caretaking and cleaning by 20 percent including through contracting out and stronger labour bargaining”[xiv].This in effect becomes a way of forcing down pay for public service staff. It is not an efficiency from an economic viewpoint, as the PPP contractor’s gain is the New Zealand worker’s loss. It may or may not be passed on to the government in lower charges, and it is likely that a significant proportion of the contractor’s profits will go overseas, increasing the cost to the economy.”

    • Colonial Viper 17.1
      11 June 2011 at 9:40 pm

      Foreign shareholders gain as our wages fall, and the more that our pay falls the bigger our “competitive advantage”.

      I’m sure Bill English said that was a good thing, we should trust him.

  18. jackal 18
    11 June 2011 at 6:58 pm

    FFS! You put the words “child porn” in a blog post and it gets more hits that ever. Sickos!

  19. prism 19
    11 June 2011 at 8:13 pm

    Some detail from National’s latest newsletter.
    Path to surplus and job growth
    The National-led Government is doing everything it can to give businesses the confidence to invest, grow, and create new jobs. This includes mapping a faster path back to Budget surplus, investing heavily in infrastructure, and getting better results from the public sector.
    The latest forecasts from the Reserve Bank suggest the pace of growth is picking up. The central bank is predicting 4.6 per cent growth in the year to March 2013 somewhat higher than Treasury’s 4 per cent forecast in the Budget.
    The bank also has a strong outlook for job growth, forecasting an additional 180,000 people employed by March 2014.
    Seems like jam tomorrow, rather than looking at forecasts for the rest of 2011 and 2012. And what’s this 4.6% growth. We haven’t been getting that in good years have we? Is this calculated on forced investment in Christchurch?

    Fewer people reliant on welfare
    Our Future Focus changes, which were part of National’s 2008 election policy, are delivering positive results. Our requirement that someone on an Unemployment Benefit must reapply after one year has seen more than 5000 people cancel their benefit.
    We’ve also seen more than 1000 people leave the Domestic Purposes Benefit to go into work within a month of getting intensive support from Work and Income.
    What does that mean – ‘intensive support’. And having to reapply for UB must be a real barrier in itself without the implicit likelihood of not being granted it.

  20. Dan1 20
    11 June 2011 at 9:03 pm

    I have puzzled for some time now as to why Bainimarama is the bad guy in Fiji. Granted he took over from an elected majority, but he was up against Speight and his cronies and in favour of including Chaudry and the substantial Indian minority. Can someone explain please.

    • McFlock 20.1
      11 June 2011 at 9:48 pm

      from what I recall, there have been allegations of beatings and harrassment, his relationship with the press is controlling to say the least, and so on.
       
      Maybe he’s better than Speight, maybe not, but he sure as shit isn’t close to a democratic politician. B is marginally better than A, but C is the only acceptable position.

  21. Penny Bright 21
    11 June 2011 at 10:36 pm

    Who is really running the show internationally?

    The Bilderberg – ‘conspiracy theory’ – or FACT?

    Seen this?

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/jun/10/bilderberg-2011-charlie-skelton

    Bilderberg 2011: George Osborne attending as chancellor

    Charlie Skelton spots some interesting names on the delegate list

    So this is some proper journalism what I just done.

    Early this morning a Swiss website published a genuine-sounding list of delegates to this year’s conference. A couple of names leapt out, both of them Bilderberg alumni: Lord Mandelson (2009) and George Osborne (2006-2009).

    On the 2011 delegate list, Osborne appears thus: Osborne, George, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

    I’ve just spent the entire day trying and failing and failing and trying again to get an official confirmation that Osborne is attending the St Moritz conference, and if so, in exactly what capacity he’s here.

    At long last the Treasury Press Office gave me a straight answer, but it wasn’t the answer I was expecting: “George Osborne is attending the Bilderberg conference in his official capacity as Chancellor of the Exchequer” – and he’s coming along “with a number of other international finance ministers.”

    Any Treasury staff?

    “Probably not more than one.”

    So – ok – you mean we’re paying for Osborne to be here?

    You mean he’s on Treasury business?

    You mean this is an official summit?

    You mean he’s talking economic policy with the Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, the CEO of Airbus, and Russian oligarch Alexey Mordashov, the billionaire CEO of Severstal?

    And Henry Kissinger?

    In secret?

    Behind a police cordon?

    …………………… ”

    _________________________________________________________________________

    Penny Bright
    http://waterpressure.wordpress.com

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The site will be off line for some hours.