Open mike 11/12/2009

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 11th, 2009 - 32 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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32 comments on “Open mike 11/12/2009 ”

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  1. Pascal's bookie 1
    11 December 2009 at 6:24 am

    Oh goody. The dompost excelled itself this AM in the ballancy stakes.

    RE: “climategate”

    One the one hand we have an opinion piece by “Glen MacDonald …a climate-change scientist, University of California presidential chairman and director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment.”

    Ballance this article with one by, ta daaa…..

    Sarah Palin.

    Just fncking shoot me already.

  2. Ron 2
    11 December 2009 at 6:44 am

    I’d be interested to see a discussion around why the Maori Party are getting away scot free while behaving exactly like another Tory Party.
    The are meekly supporting the Tories vote after vote AND ignoring advice about how the legislation will adversely effect Maori.
    Is it ok to do this in order to “further Maori aspirations”?.Indeed, ARE they furthering Maori aspirations?

    • lukas 2.1
      11 December 2009 at 7:40 am

      I’d be interested to see how Peter Dunne and Jim Anderton are getting away scot free while pretending to be any Party.

      • prism 2.1.1
        11 December 2009 at 8:49 am

        Weren’t Dunne and Anderton elected? They have the right to represent their electorate in parliament.
        Something needs to be done to limit the numbers of other politicians that an electorate winner with a Party under 5% votes can bring along. The limit shouldn’t go lower, but to cover the electorate winner situation I suggest one other, and this would limit the effect that fringe parties can have.

        • lukas 2.1.1.1
          11 December 2009 at 9:05 am

          yes they were elected by their electorates. Claiming to be a party and getting party leaders benefits is ridiculous though.

          I agree something needs to be done around MMP, there are too many list MP’s that are not accountable to anyone.

          • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1.1.1
            11 December 2009 at 2:40 pm

            You do know that political parties need to have 500+ people in them don’t you? I’m pretty sure that you’ll find that both the Jim Anderton Party and the P Dunne Party have far more than that.

        • Pascal's bookie 2.1.1.2
          11 December 2009 at 9:07 am

          I dunno. Initially I thought pretty much the same way, but I’ve come around to just getting rid of the threshold. If you get enough list votes for a seat in Parliament, you should have one.

          I got there based pretty much on the following, in no particular order:

          i) All electors votes should be counted equally.

          ii) Fringe parties in parliament only have the power major parties give them.

          iii) The major parties would form a grand coalition before either of them saddled up to a truly dangerous party.

          iv) Having the fringe parties represented fairly in the house denies them any legitmacy to claim they are being oppressed. Denying them their deserved representation legitimises such a complaint.

          v) Voters know if a nutjob party is unlikely to make the thereshold, this actually encourages votes for them. Protest votes are of course legitimate, but should be informal, IMV. I’d predict that removing the threshold would mean parties like ‘Bill and Ben’ get less votes, rather than getting into parliament.

          vi)Even if they did get into parliament, so what?

          • Geek 2.1.1.2.1
            11 December 2009 at 9:18 am

            I want to see a tick box on the form that says “I made the effort to show up and not vote for any of the trash on this form”.

          • lukas 2.1.1.2.2
            11 December 2009 at 9:42 am

            i) All electors votes should be counted equally

            Agree

            ii) Fringe parties in parliament only have the power major parties give them

            Disagree with that, look at the power ACT has at the moment, the power Winston had in the last term. I don’t even want to think of what the “green” Party would want in exchange for propping up a Labour lead Government in 2017/2020.

            iii) The major parties would form a grand coalition before either of them saddled up to a truly dangerous party.

            I can’t see that happening ever to be honest. Labour preferred to go with Winston than go into coalition with the greens!

            iv) Having the fringe parties represented fairly in the house denies them any legitmacy to claim they are being oppressed. Denying them their deserved representation legitimises such a complaint.

            Yet they still claim that they are oppressed. You only have to listen to the likes of Willie Jackson to know that! We hear every day on this site how the green movement is oppressed!

            v) Voters know if a nutjob party is unlikely to make the thereshold, this actually encourages votes for them. Protest votes are of course legitimate, but should be informal, IMV. I’d predict that removing the threshold would mean parties like ‘Bill and Ben’ get less votes, rather than getting into parliament.

            Not so sure about that one. I am a young guy who had some friends who were voting for the first time last year and they voted for B&B and thought it was a big joke. They don’t really care about politics and would vote for them as a laugh to get them in if there was no threshold

            vi)Even if they did get into parliament, so what?

            Seriously? You would want someone for the likes of National Front in there? What would have happened if B&B had got in?

            • Pascal's bookie 2.1.1.2.2.1
              11 December 2009 at 10:03 am

              ii)look at the power ACT has at the moment

              They have the power National gave them. No more.

              iii)I can’t see that happening ever to be honest.

              To use your National Front example, if the NF held the balance of power (unlikely) what do you think would happen to either Nat or Lab in the next election if they gave the NF any power?

              The thing about really radical nutjob parties is that they are really unpopular, that would taint any party that went into coaltion with them.

              iv)Yet they still claim that they are oppressed.

              Not quite sure what you mean but my point was quite specific, and about the legitimacy of the complaint. the complaint may well come anyway, but so what?Again, if the NF had enough votes to get a seat in the house, and you deny them that, then they have a complaint that is legitimate (if you accept my point ‘i’, which you do).

              v) What would have happened if B&B had got in?

              You tell me, you’re the one that’s worried about it. They would have whatever power the major parties chose to give them, probably none. They would be no more expensive than any other innefectual backbench opposition MP.

          • prism 2.1.1.2.3
            11 December 2009 at 10:31 am

            Question – minor fringe parties in parliament. We would hear even less in the media about the important concerns of government and parliament and more about SA driving tractors up parliament steps, WP playing media badminton, the Nazi front, the everything should be free front, and regular reports on an unofficial competing list of ‘how many women I can bed’ and drinks before I fall down from the front with a lot of front.

            PB iii) The major parties would form a grand coalition before either of them saddled up to a truly dangerous party. I don’t think that we can count on this – the assessment of dangerous depends on who is making it.

        • prism 2.1.1.3
          11 December 2009 at 9:18 am

          I didn’t say I thought that list MPs should be dealt to. I think that it opens up representation to a wider group than just the known electorate candidate. An example of the bias against new, unknown and lower social strata people being elected is seen in school board elections. I have seen good people regularly turned down because they aren’t accountants, solicitors, businessmen (middle-class women have two chances – as above or being the wife of above.)

          The list MPs are excellent for interested, keen people to serve usually as backbenchers, the country, their party and learn the political trade.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.2
      11 December 2009 at 8:25 am

      They’re furthering their own aspirations and, as they happen to be Maori, that must mean that they’re furthering Maori aspirations.

      /sarcasm

  3. Pat 3
    11 December 2009 at 8:23 am

    From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6778003/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Carbon-trading-fraudsters-in-Europe-pocket-5bn.html

    Carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90pc of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals pocketing an estimated €5bn (£4.5bn) mainly in Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland, according to Europol, the European law enforcement agency.

    Carbon trading fraud accounts for 90pc of all market activity in Europe. The revelation caused embarrassment for European Union negotiators at the Copenhagen climate change summit yesterday, where they have been pushing for an expansion of their system across the globe to penalise heavy emitters of carbon dioxide.

    Rob Wainwright, the director of serious crime squad, said large-scale organised criminal activity had “endangered the credibility’ of the current carbon trading system.

    • prism 3.1
      11 December 2009 at 9:05 am

      These fraudsters are the ultimate businessmen – wherever there’s a buck to be made they are there. In Southern Italy they have got into the rubbish tip and waste business. There was a recent doc about the declining health of their agricultural land due to leaching from tips. They probably grow their cheap tomatoes there and send them to our supermarkets to special at $1 a tin. We will have the same sterling standing soon through our cow pollution not being correctly handled.

      We can be among top leaders in the crime sector in various industries. We have had spectacular financial rorts, very successful for the perpetrators. In the drug industry I remember being in Oz when Donald Griffiths was murdered in Riverina (I think I remember right). He was an anti-drugs campaigner and there were mutterings of infiltration by Italian Mafia. But no, it was little NZ had produced a drug king. We now have a business-oriented government with elastic integrity, we’re getting privatised, and all kinds of new opportunities are opening up to loosen the bricks of stable, people-serving government.

    • Bright Red 3.2
      11 December 2009 at 10:00 am

      Pat. You mean in a human system there is corruption! That’s unheard of!

      Of course any fraud should be shut down but 5 billion is miniscule given the size of the carbon market.

  4. Bored 4
    11 December 2009 at 9:00 am

    Just love the blind faith that if you attach financial signals to a problem you can fix it. Good example emissions trading, anything we put money into will be open to and likely attract corruption, graft, avoidance etc. In the case of excess emissions what the hell is wrong with a blanket “thou shalt not pollute” or we confiscate your freedom?

  5. Sanctuary 5
    11 December 2009 at 9:31 am

    Well, having just listened to NatRad there is no need for the teachers to set an ambush for Anne Tolley, she is happy to blunder on into a fight she can’t win.

    • gitmo 5.1
      11 December 2009 at 9:47 am

      I suspect she may actually be as dim as she appears…. astounding that we can keep getting buffoons heading up education.

      I always thought you could grab a top flight principle who’s been there done that and knows what does and doesn’t need to be done to kick the shit of the sector and get it running properly but we seem to throw more money at it and get less ?

      PS me head.

  6. outofbed 6
    11 December 2009 at 9:33 am

    Carbon tax

  7. outofbed 7
    11 December 2009 at 10:32 am

    UK issues new guidance on labelling of food from illegal West Bank settlements
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/10/guidance-labelling-food-israeli-settlements

  8. felix 8
    11 December 2009 at 10:37 am

    Yep. Carbon tax.

  9. prism 9
    11 December 2009 at 10:37 am

    Kim Hill will be talking to Ayn Rand biographer Sat morning on Nat Radio.

  10. prism 10
    11 December 2009 at 10:52 am

    It will lack the personal touch I should think seeing its just a biographer. Being face to face with the celeb can spark stuff like Pilger and Lord High Winston of Britain, did you hear that one?

  12. the pinkpostman 12
    11 December 2009 at 4:51 pm

    Ron ; I can’t under stand how the Maori Party is getting further and further into the National embrace . They are becoming more Right Wing than Rodney and his mates . They are allowing their Maori people to be shafted time and again. As I have said before Tariana Tureha is driven by a unnatural hatred of Helen Clark .

  13. Rex Widerstrom 13
    11 December 2009 at 7:45 pm

    Apropos of past discussions on the decline of the MSM.

    A magazine article (I can’t find a link to it, you’ll just have to trust me) lists “The ten deadliest countries for journalists” as produced, allegedly, by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

    Protect, but not from ignorance it seems. For the eighth most dangerous country listed is “Asia”.