Open mike 15/09/2011

25 comments on “Open mike 15/09/2011 ”

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1. mickysavage 1

   15 September 2011 at 8:07 am

   I agree with Labour’s recently announced education policy BUT I wish they could sort out the messaging.
    
   Their first statement “Labour believes every child should have the opportunity to achieve to their full potential, supported by a strong partnership between parents, schools, neighbours and the wider community” is nice but a bit underwhelming.
   

   
   And true to form National have come out with an attack line that the policy has been written by the big bad unions.
    
   Cue for Tolly to come out and say that one in five children are failing and something has to be done.
    
   Labour needs something crunchy that can persuade someone within 10 seconds, something like “it costs $36 million to provide parents with a couple of graphs.  Why not use the money to actually teach our children?”
   
   • just saying 1.1

     15 September 2011 at 8:35 am

     I read that press-release as I began my morning coffee. So much gobbly-de-gook, and I came away wondering what they were trying to hide in all those words – the sheer lack of ‘decisiveness’ came across to me as artful-dodger waffle. I had no better understanding of Labours’ position on education, and what it would do. It sounded like they supported NS in secondary schools, and they are therefore both for and against NS.
     But then most of Labour’s press-releases seem that way to me. Like weasel-words.
     • Anne 1.1.1

       15 September 2011 at 10:22 am

       BUT I wish they could sort out the messaging.

       Many of us have been trying to tell them this for years. It’s like banging one’s head against a brick wall. I blame the overly earnest PC (politically correct) supporters in the Labour Party.

       Keep it simple. I would add to that and forceful.
       • tc 1.1.1.1

         15 September 2011 at 2:08 pm

         Yup, compare the material from nat and lab in my electorate. Nat’s is simple, effective and concise, albeit inaccurate but hey leopards and spots etc…. double sided A7.
         Whereas Lab’s is wordy with vital points buried in paragraphs of waffle…4 A4 pages….zzzzzzzz.
2. AAMC 2

   15 September 2011 at 8:25 am

   “The guiding idea at the heart of today’s political system is freedom of choice. The belief that if you apply the ideals of the free market to all sorts of areas in society, people will be liberated from the dead hand of government. The wants and desires of individuals then become the primary motor of society.

   But this has led to a very peculiar paradox. In politics today we have no choice at all. Quite simply There Is No Alternative.

   It’s a bit odd – and I thought I would tell a number of stories about why we find it impossible to imagine any alternative. Why we have become so possessed by the ideology of our age that we cannot think outside it.”

   Adam Curtis’s new blog post on the origins of think tanks and their ability to stifle new ideas;

   http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/09/the_curse_of_tina.html

   Which compliments this from George Monbiot;

   http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/12/thinktanks-crushing-democracy-pr-agenices?INTCMP=SRCH

   and this;

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/study-shows-revolving-door-of-employment-between-congress-lobbying-firms/2011/09/12/gIQAxPYROK_story.html?hpid=z2

   Which leads to this….

   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/13/us-poverty-rate-2011_n_959936.html
3. clandestino 3

   15 September 2011 at 9:08 am

   This is a bit old, but that cretin bigbruv made me think of it yesterday. When he’s done brown-nosing this clown maybe he’ll snap out of his self-loathing, lowly paid, lonely existence:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTzfTq88XYc&feature=player_embedded
   • Ianupnorth 3.1

     15 September 2011 at 10:07 am

     Cretin is being generous; he is far lower down the food chain than that.
   • tc 3.2

     15 September 2011 at 2:12 pm

     BB along with various cohorts are playing a trolls game, ignore them they’ll crawl back under their PPP built bridge which will duely collapse on them due to it’s dodgy construction as they warm up using the flames of ideology.
4. Ianupnorth 4

   15 September 2011 at 10:05 am

   Typical!

   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10751907

   A businessman is unrepentant after forwarding a racially charged email to a Dunedin school over its decision to fly Maori flags.

   Geoff Portman told the Otago Daily Times he was so incensed to see North East Valley Normal School flying “the so-called Maori flags” he sent the school the following email:

   “I am a concerned citizen, when I see the mixed array of flags that are hoisted every school morning outside the NEV School. Talk about mixed messages, when what this country needs is some national pride and a sense of belonging.

   “I suggest you read the attached message, and then review your confused teaching.”

   So who is worse him or Margaret Mutu? Also, the principal is mentioned as being ‘anti-national standards’ – good old unbiased herald….
   • McFlock 4.1

     15 September 2011 at 11:57 am

     Wondered why there was a news camera out there this morning.
      
     Cocksucker doesn’t represent my community.
   • prism 4.2

     15 September 2011 at 1:42 pm

     Ooh – I am a concerned citizen. That’s the first part of many a backward-looking, oppositionist statement, and offers a very spurious base of authority.
5. Brett Dale 5

   15 September 2011 at 10:12 am

   Ianupnorth:

   Margaret Mutu is worse, because she is is a professor at a University and should know better with her racist statement, shes not just some beer drinking, rugby loving, small town racist loser with nothing better to do.
   • vto 5.1

     15 September 2011 at 10:22 am

     ffs I get tired of seeing the abuse heaped on people who have certain characteristics. Here the typical beer and rugby people. And now you’ve added people who live in small towns. And called them losers. Normally the racist white aspect gets added in. Plus the gender, male, and perhaps pudgy, balding, middle class. Anything else?

     Perhaps you would care to expand on your bigoted view a little more brett dale. Let me guess – you drink wine, are ambivalent about rugby and live in one of those oh-so-civilised “cities”. Tosser.
     • Morrissey 5.1.1

       15 September 2011 at 2:18 pm

       Let me guess – you drink wine, are ambivalent about rugby

       Poor old Chris Dale is deeply ambivalent about rugby. He seems to hate it with a passion, but then (illogically) he professes to be a fan of American football and rugby league. So it would appear that he is pathologically resentful of the game for some reason which he has never admitted to. My guess is that he was never fast enough and good enough to make his high school First XV, and has been railing against football ever since.

       and live in one of those oh-so-civilised “cities”.

       He’s a Christchurch boy, who must go through Hell every day in this city of rugby fans.

       Tosser.

       You got that right, I think.
6. thejackal 6

   15 September 2011 at 11:26 am

   Green Wealth

   A report entitled REDDy Set Grow (PDF) release last Tuesday by The United Nations and a coalition of the world’s foremost financial institutions has warned that huge financial losses could eventuate if countries fail to increase private sector investment to curb deforestation. The comprehensive report outlines various scenarios to increase private finance and investment into forest conservation and enhancement.
7. Kiwisimplexity 7

   15 September 2011 at 1:13 pm

   Dutch politician comes with personal manifest
   He is idolized in the Netherlands, well-known in Europe and even America has been introduced to his views about the danger the Islam poses.
   http://kiwi-linkwhore-simplexity.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/dutch-politician-comes-with-personal-manifest/

   Blog: http://kiwi-linkwhore-simplexity.wordpress.com

   [Lynn – see my earlier warning to this person – what do you think? r0b]

   [lprent: banned for a week for stupid link-whoring. I have also mangled every link that he has left on site to emphasize ]
8. prism 8

   15 September 2011 at 1:31 pm

   Intermittent signal September 2011/6. Last 28 August 2011
   These are details which I think are largely correct.
   There is a move to unify parts of wool industry into farmer controlled operation.
   New Zealand Wool Investment company or Woolco joint venture farmer owned Wool Equities and Christchurch investment bank Ocean Partners to buy Wool Services International which runs scouring process. Is trying to raise money to buy out two companies in receivership which have strategic holdings and wants to achieve the plan by the end of October and needs $40 million.
   Aim to build a company that is strong in the NZ interests and include wool processers, and farmers who will be in the end dominant force, and that starts to look like a Fonterra achieving stability both in price and supply.
9. joe90 9

   15 September 2011 at 1:32 pm

   He’s a bit late but the war nerd writes about 11/9/2001 and the last 10 years.

   War Nerd 9/13: Ten Years On And A Long Way Down
10. uke 10

    15 September 2011 at 4:43 pm

    America: the land of poverty
     

    The census bureau figures that came out Tuesday, showing the largest number of Americans living in poverty since records began in 1959, are a damning indictment of American capitalism and the entire political system.
     
     
    In 2010 there were 46.2 million people—almost one out of every six residents—living below the official poverty line, including 16.4 million children. Of these nearly half, or 20 million, were described as living in deep poverty, subsisting on less than half the income the US government says is needed for basic food, shelter, clothing and utilities.
     
    The explosion of poverty over the last three years—along with home foreclosures, homelessness, hunger and the growing number of uninsured—takes place alongside of the accumulation of fantastic levels of wealth by the financial aristocracy that controls the economy and political system.
     
    • Vicky32 10.1

      15 September 2011 at 5:40 pm

      Yes, I heard an interview with a woman working two casual jobs, and who still can’t cope… saying she would give anything for a permanent regular job with a living wage! It must be so much worse for the unemployed there.
      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29127.htm
      • joe90 10.1.1

        15 September 2011 at 8:35 pm

        While the London riots grabbed the headlines this Der Spiegel map shows the level of frustration across Europe.

        http://www.spiegel.de/flash/flash-26759.html
11. burt 11

    15 September 2011 at 7:04 pm

    Mallard is on fire here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/5632473/Mallard-tears-into-McCully-over-World-Cup

    But look at the picture of Mallard in that link, is he trying to look like Steve Jobs or what ?
    • Draco T Bastard 11.1

      15 September 2011 at 7:07 pm

      I see burt picked up on the most important part of the page

      /sarcasm
12. rosy 12

    15 September 2011 at 7:56 pm

    Banking fraud on top of banking crisis

    “UBS has discovered a loss due to unauthorized trading by a trader in its Investment Bank. The matter is still being investigated, but UBS’s current estimate of the loss on the trades is in the range of $2bn. It is possible that this could lead UBS to report a loss for the third quarter of 2011.

    Apparently UBS had recently announced 3,500 job losses to save 2bn. This fraud is equivalent to 3,500 jobs… I wonder if the perpetrator will get sentenced above and beyond the normal sentencing guidelines due to the impact on society, not just the direct victims, like the recent rioters got.
13. joe90 13

    15 September 2011 at 9:06 pm

    Germany’s new boom: making money by making stuff</a..

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