Open mike 16/12/2010
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6:00 am, December 16th, 2010 - 32 comments
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The Government has done the right thing in moving to ban greyhound racing. ...2 weeks ago
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- Government to celebrate Waitangi Day around NZ
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Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...4 days ago
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State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...4 days ago
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- New Zealand to assist Vanuatu on earthquake response
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- Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 23 December
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question? Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Monday 23 December appeared first on Newsroom. ...2 hours ago
- Govt walks away from infrastructure alliance
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- Daily crossword, Monday 23 December
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- Vanuatu quake: Warnings as bad weather threat looms for Port Vila
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Cosmic CatastropheThe year draws to a close.King Luxon has grown tired of the long eveningsListening to the dreary squabbling of his Triumvirate.He strolls up to the top floor of the PalaceTo consult with his Astronomer Royal.The Royal Telescope scans the skies,And King Luxon stares up into the heavensFrom the terrestrial ...1 day ago
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QOTD: Thanks-for-tellin-it-like-it-is-your-honour(ahem) edition:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_12/027097.php
Glad this caused a stir – the guy must be supremely confident to be so up-front as to boast about his leanings.
Articles down the side for ethanol were a laugh – what will Americans eat?
ZOMG, a conservative admitting that he’s a psychopath.
Some Housing NZ staff were suspended for taking industrial action a couple of days ago:
http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/housing-new-zealand-staff-walk-job-protest-suspensions/5/75629
Regarding the 60 minutes piece on the Pike river tragedy…
Who else was absolutely disgusted with Gerry the Hut laughing his ass off in parliament a few months ago while holding the 2008 report on mining safety up for ridicule ?
No wonder he didn’t front up or was let anywhere near the media. He knew he was culpable with has blood on his hands for sitting on them when he should have been following up some of the concerns rasied in the report.
Whittal also came off as somewhat less than heroic. He flustered and denied knowledge he should have had access to in some shameful admissions regarding lack of safety policing, minimising of risk and experience of miners.
The accusations of lax safety levelled at the mine operations if found to be true are a sad indictment on the current gov’ts reluctance to put workers safety above companies profits.
Let’s see Brownlee try and laugh this one off ?
captcha : underneath (what lies)
The story is available on the TV3 website:
http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/60-Minutes-Blood-In-The-Coal/tabid/59/articleID/1717/MCat/22/Default.aspx
Well worth watching and as Pollywog hints above, the heroic glow is fading as the real story starts to come out.
Hi Pollywog,Yes 100% Right! NeoLiberalism treats workers as disposable cost units.Whereas Social Democracy emphasizes Workers as essential to the production of wealth and who should have a say,especially about safety, in the work places’ conditions.
Spot on Polly, Jerry the Hut…..wonderful.
Doom Time Again! Sorry to say but the real deal this time refer report!
# Peak oil is happening now.
# The era of cheap and abundant oil is over.
# Oil shortages will lead to a collapse of the global economy, and the decline of globalized industrial civilization.
# Systemic collapse will evolve as a systemic crisis as the integrated infrastructure and economy of our global civilization breaks down.(U$ heading for Nuclear 3rd World Banana Status)
# Most governments and societies – especially those that are developed and industrialized – will be unable to manage multiple simultaneous systemic crises. Consequently, systemic collapse will likely result in widespread confusion, fear, human security risks, and social break down.
# Economies worldwide are already unraveling and becoming insolvent as the global economic system can no longer support itself without cheap and abundant energy resources.
# This current transition of rapid economic decline was triggered by the oil price shock starting in 2007 and culminating in the summer of 2008. This transition will likely accelerate and become more volatile once oil prices exceed $80 – $90 per barrel for an extended time. Demand destruction for oil may be somewhere above $80 per barrel and below $141 per barrel.
Refer link on Peal Oil,Climate Change and Resource Depletion:
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-12-14/peak-energy-climate-change-and-collapse-global-civilization-current-peak-oil-cris
“We are in a crisis in the evolution of human society. It’s unique to both human and geologic history. It has never happened before and it can’t possibly happen again. You can only use oil once. You can only use metals once. Soon all the oil is going to be burned and all the metals mined and scattered.”
– M. King Hubbert1, geophysicist and energy advisor Shell Oil Company and USGS, 1983
Peak Oil
“Make that 2005; then we’re talking about the same planet. The implied IEA message is that the peak happened several years ago and the world didn’t come to an end. Wayminnit!!!! We are in the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression and we don’t know whether we can ever restore our earlier prosperity. My interpretation is that the 2008 crude oil price, $147 per barrel, shattered the global economy. The “invisible hand” of economics became the invisible fist, pounding down the world economic growth to match the limitations of crude oil production.”
Kenneth Deffeyes
http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html
R
Anyone looking to buy a present for a niece or nephew that likes computer games, this might be for you.
The Humble Indie Bundle 2 is now available, including 5 games by independent developers. You can choose how much you pay for it, from 1 cent up to thousands of dollars, in US$. Money goes to the developers, Child’s Play charity, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the company running the bundle, and you can choose how to split the money – so you could give it all to the charities, or all to the developers, or go with their default option which gives a bit to each.
The games should run on any recent computer, main limiting factor will be the graphics card. Best to confirm system requirements for each game before you buy.
http://www.humblebundle.com/
Lib Dems are getting crucified in the UK. Read this article in The Guardian – but even funnier, read the comments underneath it. They rip Clegg and the rest of the Liar-Dems (lol) to shreds.
Further, the Tories have played an extremely smart game while LAB there seems to be stagnating.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/14/chris-huhne-liberal-democrats-poll?showallcomments=true#comment-fold
The internets is really good at maps. And some newspapers are getting really good at the internets.
http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer
If populations were countries.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/dec/16/jobless-total-rises-public-sector
does this look familiar????
is it whats coming for NZ
Yes, it is.
NACT, destroying the economy one neo-liberal/conservative action at a time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/15/nigeria-dick-cheney-plea-halliburton
Although I’m sure that Nigeria could do with the $250m I’m also sure the world would have been better with him being convicted.
Nats’s smear machine was having a last whirr before the 2010 Christmas break?
Phil Goff has issued a statement.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1012/S00326/statement-by-phil-goff-investment-property.htm
I’m surprised no one responds to the end of Industrial Global Civilization!!!??? For you F… W… this is bullshit? Well sadly no it’s REALLY REALLY HAPPENING SO REACT!!!
JUST DRAMA REALLY! YEH!?
Hello John,
Welcome to the world of trivial deck chair politics, the big issues and the long term stories and trends tend to be a bit of an encumberance to the minds of the politically daily event hounds this site caters for. It does it well I must say and it can be fun.
As a local Cassandran nay sayer I have noticed the message does two things: it pisses people off especially if you put todays events in the context of the long term trends: it also gradually erodes the mainstream mindset and annoyingly for the locals inbeds the true state of things in their psyche. This is not a respected thing, nobody likes a smart arse, especially if they are right.
Now off to the trivial, the pathetic Goff has gaffed again.
Could Trevor Mallard be any more of a slug ?
http://tvnz.co.nz/back-benches/s2010-e43-video-3973398
I take it you haven’t seen Key’s body language when he’s on the spot in parliament? He slides down his seat into a position that’s a dead ringer for a slug down on it’s luck.
Look I’m no fan of Chris Carter but some of the stuff that mallard came out with brings politicians into even greater disrepute if that was at all possible.
Goff the gaffer strikes again. Pathetic Phil. Resign.
And dont blame National for this one Standardistas, self inflicted wounds. Get rid of the incompetent fool.
Well bugger me – looks like Goff is sucking on the public tit just as actively as all the other parasites.
So now he’s perpetrating the classic accomodation allowance rort. And using parliamentary staff to selfishly line his own pocket – the whole deal is corrupt and unethical and if Goff had a grain of conscience he’d step down immediately.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4466602/Phil-Goff-admits-house-remains-unsold
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10694770
No, really, he isn’t.
I am surprised no one else has commented
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10694765&ref=nzdailpost
thanks to the Super City I know who the mayor and his council are looking after. Promise broken rates rise 4.9% and now a pay rise after only 2 months in the job. For the deputy mayor that is an annualised pay increase of 300% !!!!
I thought some here might appreciate this. The Age (Aus.) released all the cables it holds and this appears right down the bottom:
“Kiwi Surprise ————-
8. (C/NF) Also accredited to New Zealand, Rotem said that he was very surprised at the Kiwi response to the Gaza crisis. Saying that Israel had grown used to former PM Helen Clark issuing statements on Middle East issues “that could have been drafted in Damascus,” Rotem said that the new Government has been a very welcome change. He commented that they had avoided making a public statement and then issued one that was “surprisingly balanced.” Rotem said that this was a very welcome change and that it has been noticed in Israel. CLUNE”
http://images.theage.com.au/file/2010/12/15/2096934/Cables.htm?rand=1292396653979
Yay so the politicians in the new super city have realised they can get their noses further into the trough that is tax/rate payer funds..
Talk about greedy didn’t they get enough from their buddy’s tax cuts??
farkin bludgers
Frontline services promise broken
Betcha it makes rorting the tax system easier as well.