Open mike 16/07/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 16th, 2016 - 52 comments
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52 comments on “Open mike 16/07/2016 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    16 July 2016 at 8:05 am

    Independence, Freedom, Democracy

    It is my opinion that the desire for less remote and more accountable governance, and a rejection of uncountable central authority, is what drives both the desire for Brexit in Britain and the desire for independence in Scotland.

    In an attempt to play one off against the other, Theresa May uses Scottish desire for independence from Britain, as an excuse to drag her heels over the Brexit.
    At the very least this vacillation and back tracking by the Tories, shows bad faith with the British electorate, and will weaken Britain’s hand in getting a good deal for the British people in the Brexit negotiations. And by becoming the gate keepers in defiance of the popular will, the Tory leader puts power back into the hands of the elite

    “I have already said that I won’t be triggering Article 50 until I think that we have a UK approach and objectives for negotiations – I think it is important that we establish that before we trigger Article 50,”
    British Prime Minister Theresa May

    The British Labour Party needs to step up.

    Instead of being silent on all these developments, Labour need to release a statement promising to allow the Scots to have their second referendum. And demanding that the tories also honour the wish of the British people Article 50 be triggered immediately.

    By showing respect for the desire for more independence and local democracy by both the British and Scottish people is where the British Labour could out flank the Tories.

    (Under the rules of the first referendum, a second referendum was supposed to be triggered if there was any major change in the Scottish/British political relationship.)

    In the wake of the Brexit vote, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon calls for second referendum on Scottish Independence.

    “If independence then turns out to be the best way for Scotland to remain an EU member, Sturgeon argues there should be another referendum on the issue. Polls suggest support for independence had risen since the Brexit vote.

    On Friday (Saturday NZT), Sturgeon said it would be inconceivable for a British prime minister to block a referendum voted for by the Scottish parliament.

    “I work on the basis that trying to block a referendum, if there’s a clear sense that that’s what people in Scotland want, would be completely the wrong thing to do,” Sturgeon told Sky News after the meeting with May on Friday (Saturday NZT).

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/82168082/theresa-may-says-she-wont-trigger-eu-divorce-until-ukwide-approach-agreed

    Sturgeon states that it is “inconceivable” for a British Prime Minister to block the second referendum.

    The British PM like her predecessor David Cameron, is a steadfast “Remainer”. No doubt she also intends to as much a possible to deny the democratic will of both the Scottish and British people.

    Instead of being used against each other, these two disparate strands need to be brought together.

    The Labour Party need to stand with the Scottish people and demand a second referendum and that a date be set for it to be held as soon as possible.

    At the same time Labour need to condemn Theresa May’s plan to use the Scots desire for independence as an excuse to thwart the democratic will of the British people, and immediately demand the start of the Brexit negotiations with the E.U.

    The British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn can also out flank the Right by demanding that they honour the democratic wish of the British People and that the government must pay the Brexit Dividend into National Health service, as promised by the Right Wing Leavers, but who have since backtracked on this promise.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-result-nigel-farage-nhs-pledge-disowns-350-million-pounds-a7099906.html

  2. save nz 2
    16 July 2016 at 8:42 am

    “Kennedy said famously, ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable,'”

    http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/bill-maher-sick-police-brutality-tells-colbert-he-wants-cops-take-psychology-test?src=newsletter1060161

    • Stuart Munro 3.1
      16 July 2016 at 9:16 am

      This is big – if Turkey fragments Europe’s problems get another 2.5 million refugees added to them before any local displacement.

  5. Herodotus 5
    16 July 2016 at 9:28 am

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11675391
    At some stage our Govt will have to accept that there is a housing issue, especially when the likes of this is being reported
    “But it takes bottle to confront Key’s “kitchen Cabinet” – Bill English, Steven Joyce, Gerry Brownlee and Paula Bennett – and tell them that when it comes to the housing crisis, many in business are coming to the view that their emperor has no clothes.”
    Quite telling !!!

    • Sabine 5.1
      16 July 2016 at 9:59 am

      oh lookit, are they shopping for a different Prime Minister.

      I really would enjoy if the stenographers at the Herald would finally come away from the “John Key is in denial” to “John Key does not give a fucking fuck about you , me and or our children and the same counts for his “kitchen cabinet”. In “John Keys ownership society you are on your own”.

      • Sanctuary 5.1.1
        16 July 2016 at 4:11 pm

        Interesting article, if you read it like a Soviet citizen would have read a dispatch from a party insider published in Pravda.

        For example, while the article is about the fall in tractor production a Soviet citizen would not have failed to notice the absense of Judith Collins from the “kitchen cabinet” of the central committee or the fact that clearly Key’s successor will be either Bennett or Joyce. A Soviet citizen would also note the emphasis on post-Key National, surely a crime if the head of the politburo was in full command. Finally, our comrade perusing Pravda would mull on the emphasis on the credentials of another candidate, similar to the current leader in being a leader of the militant business army, and conclude that no one on the favoured list is held in high regard by said army…

        • Wensleydale 5.1.1.1
          16 July 2016 at 5:12 pm

          Bennett or Joyce. That’s like being asked to choose between lung cancer or colon cancer.

  6. Andre 6
    16 July 2016 at 10:00 am

    Swallow your coffee and put your cup down before checking out the new Trump-Pence logo…

    https://twitter.com/darth/status/753983871880790016

    • save nz 6.1
      16 July 2016 at 10:17 am

      As bad as our tea towel flag designs…. but at least the public rejected our eyesores.

    • Colonial Viper 6.2
      16 July 2016 at 10:22 am

      Surely that can’t be serious…can it?

      • North 6.2.2
        16 July 2016 at 11:35 am

        Yes, it’s serious CV. As serious as your ‘tactical’ embrace of Trump. To teach Clinton ‘a lesson’. Fuck everything else. Just teach Clinton a lesson. Because it’d make CV feel good and vindicated.

        I’m expecting that your 40% of Sanders’ people going to Trump in high dudgeon is better than just pulled out of your arse……..Key/Smith/Bennett like CV. Is there a a poll or something ? Let’s be having it CV.

        • Colonial Viper 6.2.2.1
          16 July 2016 at 1:10 pm

          Hmmmm North, you full of shit.

          I believe Trump will be a better POTUS because he will shitcan the TPP, he will spend more money on US infrastructure and less on bailing out its banks and military industrial complex, and he will be less likely to start a shooting war in the Pacific against China and/or Russia.

          I believe that Killary will be a shit POTUS for NZ because she is bought and paid for by the big US investment banks and corporates, she is a neocon, and her decisions were partly responsible for the horrific implosion of and loss of civilian life in Libya and Syria.

          So, this is about a bit more than teaching Crooked Clinton a lesson.

          • Chooky 6.2.2.1.1
            16 July 2016 at 3:17 pm

            +100 CV…lol

          • swordfish 6.2.2.1.2
            16 July 2016 at 8:59 pm

            The always reliable Andrew Cockburn on Hillary and “Admiral Fabuloso”

            http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/15/admiral-fabuloso-hillary-syria-and-the-destructive-career-of-james-g-stavridis/

            “At least for a moment, Donald Trump seriously considered picking retired General Michael Flynn, fired as DIA chief for correctly predicting that Obama’s covert Syrian intervention would generate a jihadist monster such as ISIS.

            Hillary Clinton meanwhile is reportedly pondering the selection of retired Admiral James G. Stavridis, a former Rumsfeld lickspittle who helped destroy Libya and thinks it would be a fine idea to hook up with Al Qaeda in Syria.

            Clinton’s putative defense secretary, Michelle Flournoy, herself an ardent proponent of escalation in Syria and elsewhere, acclaims him as “one of the finest military officers of his generation.” One might think that for a candidate politically burdened by her vote for the invasion of Iraq, not to mention the Libyan disaster, Stavridis, currently Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, might not be the best choice.

            … Stavridis’ military record exhibits all the signs of an accomplished courtier, ably negotiating the reefs and shoals of service politics as he shinned up the ranks faster even than David Petraeus …

            … Stavridis insisted on the provision of a special car for himself in motorcades, while junior officers, whom he importuned to do his shopping when traveling, staggered under the weight of his bags …

            In a gratifyingly acerbic memoir, “Speech-Less,” former Rumsfeld speech writer Matthew Latimer recalls Stavridis’ assiduous toadying, offering fawning toasts to the secretary at dinners on overseas trips and busying himself with such humble but career-enhancing tasks as fixing a squeak in his master’s office chair…

            … Promoting an image as a “warrior-scholar,” he wrote fluently in the pablum that passes for wisdom in the debased culture of the Washington defense-intelligentsia. Thus in 2005 his treatise “Deconstructing War,” which opened with the fatuous proposition that “War is changing, and not for the better” and headed downhill from there, won wide acclaim among the Osrics of the think-tank/op-ed circuit …

            …Meanwhile, and unfortunately for the people of Libya, he was given the opportunity to burnish the “warrior” part of his favored appellation. When Hillary Clinton fatefully bounced Obama into agreeing to attack Libya, Stavridis was on point, overseeing the deployment of Nato air power …

            Retiring from the military in 2013, Stavridis eased into the Deanship of the Fletcher School, a perfect platform for ponderous ruminations on modish topics such as “smart power” which he defines as combining “hard power” with “soft power.” Among his ongoing and remunerative connections to the former is his chairmanship of the International Advisory Board of mega-defense contractor Northrop-Grumman, whose overseers can find little fault with Admiral Fabuloso’s enthusiastic tub-thumping for the new cold war. From Ukraine to Syria, “Stav” is in the front lines, figuratively speaking, urging escalation against Russia. The Ukrainians should have “lethal aid” from the U.S., he announced in 2015, and when asked if that might not lead the Russians to escalate in turn, he conceded blithely, “when you release ordnance, everything changes.”…

            But it is the Syrian war that has excited the warrior-scholar’s most martial instincts, an ominous indication of where the wind is blowing in the national security set. So eager is he to show that he is firmly on board that he actually touts in public what others dare only murmur in private: in confronting Russia for mastery of Syria, it’s OK to ally with Al Nusra, as Al Qaeda calls itself in Syria …

            …Such is the intellectual bankruptcy of the Clinton campaign on national security that this dangerous time-server should be deemed a serious candidate for a slot on the ticket.”

            • swordfish 6.2.2.1.2.1
              16 July 2016 at 9:33 pm

              And from his brother, Patrick Cockburn …

              http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/15/how-a-hillary-clinton-presidency-could-let-isis-off-the-hook/

              “As political leaders across the world swear to engage in total war against Isis in the wake of the massacre in Nice, not enough notice is being taken of the fact that the long-term prospects of the group will be boosted if Hillary Clinton is elected as the next US President …

              … But Hillary Clinton’s expected choice as Defence Secretary, Michèle Flournoy, has just co-authored a report by the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington that recommends that the destruction of Isis should no longer be the overriding objective of the US in Syria, but that equal priority should be given to taking military action against President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian Army …

              … This proposed change of policy by a Clinton administration is all too likely, going by her past record of choosing military solutions to complex problems even when it means fighting more than one war at a time and when the outcome is unclear. As a Senator, she voted for the Iraq war in 2003 and, as Secretary of State in 2011, she was the driving force behind the Nato military intervention in Libya that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and handed over the country to criminalised warlords. Her opinions normally coincide with those on the hawkish end of the US foreign policy establishment …

              … A frightening preview of what is to come can be found in the CNAS report, which comes across as a caricature of Washington wishful thinking that is woefully detached from real conditions on the ground.”

    • Editractor 6.3
      16 July 2016 at 12:31 pm

      Wouldn’t give trumppence for it.

  7. Draco T Bastard 7
    16 July 2016 at 10:52 am

    For 90 years, lightbulbs were designed to burn out. Now that’s coming to LED bulbs.

    JB MacKinnon’s excellent New Yorker piece tells the story of planned obsolescence and home lighting, but only skims the surface of the Internet of Things future of “smart” bulbs. It’s been less than a year since Philips pushed out a firmware update that gave its light fixtures the ability to detect and reject non-Philips lightbulbs — and thanks to laws like the DMCA, which have metastasized in the IoT era, it’s a potential felony to alter your light fixture to override this behavior and force it to work with non-Philips bulbs.

    It seems that they’re also putting in light bulbs/sockets services that communicate with the manufacturer as well giving the manufacturer information about how you use the device.

    A lot of this should simply be illegal.

  8. newsense 8
    16 July 2016 at 10:58 am

    Bernie has got the Democrats to make a Kiwibank for America one of their platform pledges

    • Ad 8.1
      16 July 2016 at 11:45 am

      That’s pretty exciting.
      Can you cite the clause from the platform?

      Very interesting to see how it’s differentiated structurally from Freddie May and Freddie Mac.

  9. Sabine 9
    16 July 2016 at 11:06 am

    People are having fun in the US

    • b waghorn 9.1
      16 July 2016 at 8:45 pm

      The tea party will love it.

      • Sabine 9.1.1
        16 July 2016 at 8:49 pm

        the tea party and the republicans are the same.
        and yes it is a party of mindfuckery the only sex they approve of. That and screwing over the poor. that too is permitted. Just all the other stuff the sweaty fun kind of fuckery is verboten. Only to make little babies 🙂 white ones of course.

  10. North 10
    16 July 2016 at 12:25 pm

    Fran O’Sullivan’s getting a bit hoha with The Weak Man. The bit questioning whether the Weak Man will even let himself hear Stephen Jennings’s unequivocal warning is very telling. Fran in today’s Herald…….

    ” Rich-lister Stephen Jennings’ warning that “we are facing an iceberg” deserves to shatter business complacency on housing.
    It should also shatter the complacency of the Prime Minister – if he allows himself to hear it. Jennings has confronted the business elite with some unpalatable truths: rising house prices and immigration-fuelled economic growth are masking an underlying “iceberg that lies ahead”.

    “We are sleepwalking into an economically ugly place,” he warns. How can we look at ourselves in the mirror and say how can we live with having one of the most unequal education systems in the Western world – and even if you are very selfish you better say to yourself that is not sustainable. Those chickens are going to come home to roost.”

    With many chickens already here, and many more arriving daily, whom is the Weak Man going to blame ? Sixteen months out from the election the knives must be out. An emperor cannot go so struttingly, so remorselessly, so revoltingly unclothed.

  11. Jack Ramaka 11
    16 July 2016 at 12:50 pm

    National is a chicken without wings relying on mass Asian immigration and inflated housing prices to prop up an economy wallowing in $120 Billion debt $108 Billion increase since National became the Government in 2008.

  12. Ad 12
    16 July 2016 at 12:54 pm

    Today I am exceedingly glad that we live in such a politically boring country.

  13. Chooky 13
    16 July 2016 at 3:35 pm

    Saudis working with who on an inside job.?

    (…so Travellerev was correct after all?)

    ‘Congress releases long-secret ’28 pages’ indicating Saudi ties to 9/11′

    https://www.rt.com/usa/351327-congress-releases-pages-saudi/

    “The long-awaited 28 pages of a 2002 congressional report on the 9/11 attacks have been released. The document indicates that prominent members of the Saudi Arabian were involved in planning and financing the terror attacks.

    The declassified documents were released by Congress on Friday and released them the same day, release of the documents confirmed suspicions that the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks – most of whom were Saudi nationals – likely received support from high-ranking Saudi intelligence officers…

  14. Peter Swift 14
    16 July 2016 at 4:22 pm

    “gets upset because he accidentally exposed his ugly side”

    Not for the first or the last time one suspects.

    “Jackboot Billy” lol

    • te reo putake 14.1
      16 July 2016 at 4:52 pm

      I think there’s a corollary with the coup plotters. If its the cult that was identified earlier behind the coup attempt, then, on the surface, they appear to be religious moderates. However, one of the the first things they intended to do was suspend the secular constitution and replace it with one of their own.
      The mask quickly slipped.

  16. Jenny 16
    17 July 2016 at 2:00 am

    Many New Zealanders have been pondering this question; “Where are the jobs and economic benefits for New Zealanders in the Deep Sea Oil industry?”

    The Labour and National Party supporters of this extreme fossil fuel technology have either been silent on the issue of jobs, or admitted that there may be none.

    But now at last, thanks to an oil industry environmental impact report, the question about jobs for New Zealanders in this industry has been answered.

    “The Draft Environmental Impact Statement identifies many economic impacts arising from an accident associated with Project operations, but fails to recognize economic activity that would be generated by spill response,”

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/15/3798835/oil-spills-good-for-economy-nature-vancouver/

    “When a spill occurs, new economic activity occurs to clean-up contaminated areas, remediate affected properties, and supply equipment for cleanup activities. Anecdotal evidence from recent spills suggests that such activity can be potentially large.”

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/15/3798835/oil-spills-good-for-economy-nature-vancouver/