Open mike 17/05/2022

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 17th, 2022 - 55 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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55 comments on “Open mike 17/05/2022 ”

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  1. Jimmy 1
    17 May 2022 at 8:19 am

    Were there no ram raids last night?

  2. Joe90 2
    17 May 2022 at 10:30 am

    It's almost like the invasion of Ukraine had SFA to do with NATO expansion.

    /

    https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1526175012096548864

    • weston 2.1
      17 May 2022 at 11:30 am

      Apart from the general barbarity of killing and maiming your own civilians from a distance ie by shelling the ukrainians seem to have a penchant for getting up nice an close as in this torture and detention facility recently discovered called Poloviken .

      Wonder how many of those there are in the Donbass ? could that be another motivation for Putin ?



      • joe90 2.1.1
        17 May 2022 at 12:21 pm

        shelling the ukrainians seem to have a penchant for

        /

        • weston 2.1.1.1
          17 May 2022 at 1:20 pm

          Hard to say much about this level of destruction although a brief description of where and when would be useful lest we think its berlin in 45 .

          • joe90 2.1.1.1.1
            17 May 2022 at 2:00 pm

            Groznyy. Flattened over a couple of months in 1995 by Russian artillery, killing something like 30K civilians in the process. Nobody really knows.

            The Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Aleppo, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kherson, Kyiv…the list goes on and again, dog only knows how many civilians killed.

            • weston 2.1.1.1.1.1
              17 May 2022 at 6:23 pm

              So leaving out the foreign wars sticking to ukraine only post the russian invasion to the twelve of this month about three an a half thousand civilians have died according to statista .com .Seems there are no accurate figures for how many soldiers on either side .

              • Populuxe1 …
                17 May 2022 at 6:58 pm

                What's with the compulsion to defend a klepto-oligarch like Putin? Daddy issues?

              • Jenny how to get there …
                17 May 2022 at 8:32 pm

                weston

                17 May 2022 at 6:23 pm

                So leaving out the foreign wars….

                I get it, we are only allowed to mention the foreign wars of Western imperialism as evidence of their evil.

                However Russia's foreign wars can't be ignored because they are inextricably linked to the current conflict in Ukraine.

                The same tactics the same level of atrocity, even the same hired killers.

                Russia Is Recruiting Mercenaries and Syrians to Ukraine …

                6/04/2022 — Russia's problems finding additional troops are in large measure why it has invited Syrian fighters, Chechens and Russian mercenaries to serve ..

                https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/us/politics/russia-military-ukraine-war.html

                I am pretty sure that the mukhabarat officer, responsible for the Tadamon massacre, Amjad Youssuf, would be keen, especially if as well as his pay, Amjad was offered a chance for a new identity in Russia's witness genocide protection program.

                “I’m proud of what I did”

                ….as war rages in Ukraine, a playbook of state terror on civilian populations rehearsed in Syria is being redeployed by Russian forces, as Vladimir Putin’s so-called special military operation turns into a brutal occupation of parts of the east of the country. Military intelligence units there have been at the forefront of savagery, instilling fear into communities through mass detentions and killings of the type that characterised Assad’s brutal attempts to claw back power….

                https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/27/massacre-in-tadamon-how-two-academics-hunted-down-a-syrian-war-criminal

                • weston …
                  17 May 2022 at 11:07 pm

                  Think i'll let you an joe do the globe trotting jen im just a simple chap an find one subject at a time enough to cope with

                  • Jenny how to get there …
                    18 May 2022 at 9:22 am

                    ‘
                    Two legs bad, four legs good.

                    Western imperialism bad, Russian imperialism good.

                    "im just a simple chap an find one subject at a time enough to cope with" weston

                    And that's where you go wrong.

                    In the book Snowball who coined the above phrase, tries to do good by exposing the cruelty of humans to animals,

                    Snowball is a bit like Abby Martin who hosted the show "Empire Files" and "Breaking the Set" on RT, which exposed the crimes of Western (particularly US), imperialism.

                    But unlike the ill fated Snowball, Martin knew when to jump ship. When she was called on to defend the Russian invasion of the Donbass in 2014, Martin quit RT rather than be a propaganda tool of the Russian Federation.

                    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/rt-host-who-criticized-russias-ukraine-invasion-is-leaving-t

  3. Molly 3
    17 May 2022 at 10:49 am

    Women who have had issues with breastfeeding or have restricted their diet or medication while breastfeeding, will understand my disdain – not so much for the male who appears to have a fetish – but for the supposed lactation consultant who worked with him.

    How is this discharge – full of medications – a healthy intake for a newborn?

    Systematic safeguarding failures are happening.

    https://twitter.com/miss_teabaggins/status/1526296409447743489

    • Sabine 3.1
      17 May 2022 at 11:00 am

      the future is female they say 🙂

    • CAnker the pig fucker 3.2
      17 May 2022 at 11:37 am

      Once again Molly thanks for posting.

      Child abuse

    • The Fairy Godmother 3.3
      17 May 2022 at 1:25 pm

      as a mother who fully breastfed my three infants using absolutely no formula I know breastfeeding is a huge committment it is about sustaining the baby and giving her what she needs to grow. It is about love and bonding. It is a partnership between the mother and baby. It is about the mother giving to the baby. It is about natural hormones which help the mother to relax and have the rest she needs while milk which is designed perfectly to meet the baby's needs is produced. For instance if the baby has a gastro bug and needs to feed more often the milk will be more watery. It will also have anti bodies from the mother which will help the baby to stay healthy. It is wonderful. This is just disgusting and an adult filling adult needs. Beyond belief.

    • Molly 3.4
      17 May 2022 at 3:51 pm

      Follow up link regarding Australian lactation consultant who said she was fired for not assisting men in their efforts to breastfeed

      https://www.womensforumaustralia.org/has_gender_ideology_captured_the_australian_breastfeeding_association

    • The Fairy Godmother 3.5
      17 May 2022 at 4:47 pm

      And I wonder why these men never seem to be pictured doing the things any parent can do such as feeding solid foods, changing nappies, bringing up wind, playing peek a boo, or dressing or bathing baby.

  4. Poission 4
    17 May 2022 at 11:12 am

    Sri Lanka crisis deepens.Runs out of fuel,and limited reserves for medicines.

    https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1526266177734975492?cxt=HHwWiICxyZHAsa4qAAAA

    • pat 4.1
      17 May 2022 at 6:05 pm

      The future today

      • Poission 4.1.1
        17 May 2022 at 6:16 pm

        Terrifying thread from the PM as JB said.

        The Governor of the Bank of England,suggested strongly that the current conditions from the commodities shock (food and energy) are apocalyptic.

        https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/300590783/apocalyptic-food-shortage-threatens-says-bank-of-england-governor

        The UN agrees and the DG has invited Russia to remove its naval blockade on the Ukraine to allow maize,wheat and oils to go to developing countries.

        In exchange the UN will allow Russian and Belarusian fertilizers to be exported.

        • pat 4.1.1.1
          17 May 2022 at 6:26 pm

          We are fortunate we are a country of 5 million that (may be able to) feed 40 million…provided we can maintain our infrastructure.

          • Poission 4.1.1.1.1
            17 May 2022 at 6:54 pm

            If we can start to decrease our current account deficit,we have the ability to enhance our infrastructure,without it being either sold off shore (perpetuating the debt flow)

            • pat 4.1.1.1.1.1
              17 May 2022 at 7:23 pm

              we have been supposedly trying that for 40 years….dosnt look promising

              • Poission …
                17 May 2022 at 7:42 pm

                Well think big was supposed to avert some of the problems,where we were importing high cost refined product.

                Now the owners have closed Marsden point,we are not importing say $us100 bbl of oil,we are importing $ us 250 bbl of distillate,missing out on the windfall taxes that would have arisen with 60us$ bbl cracking profits.

                • pat …
                  17 May 2022 at 7:49 pm

                  Will take your word for the taxes…I'm more concerned about the reduced capacity…we produce oil (around 40,000 bpd)….but by shutting down the refinery and dismantling it) we have lost any future capacity…we are now completely reliant on offshore supply….and we know when push comes to shove how that will play out.

  5. Molly 5
    17 May 2022 at 11:42 am

    I enjoy the brief moment of indulgence in childlike wonder when I see photos like this.

    For a few seconds all the rational thinking in the world is kept at bay, … and it's magic.

    https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/1064629/?site=msl#.YnvOWyqfr8c.twitter

    <iframe src="https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/embed/1064629&quot; width="400" height="400" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe>

    (Sorry, mods. I’ve bollixed the image.)

  6. tc 6
    17 May 2022 at 12:04 pm

    Across the ditch an insight report conducted by Treasury found $27 billion was paid to businesses that didn’t have a 30% decline in turnover as the rules dictated.

    Scumo is now throwing people's super on the table in a desperate piece of 'on the fly' policy that will inflate house prices and screw super in one hit.

    The independent media are having a field day as Murdoch's media does it's best to keep scumo in the lodge

  7. Incognito 7
    17 May 2022 at 3:01 pm

    Neat!

    Gibbs said the cableway sat outside the project footprint.

    "The project documents are very specific on where the project's footprint is and the ancillary works area around it and there was no project footprint on the summit of Mt Messenger above the tunnel.

    "That was meant to be left as an ecological corridor not clear felled and levelled."

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/467263/cableway-to-be-built-to-transport-workers-and-material-to-mt-messenger-bypass-site

  8. JO 8
    17 May 2022 at 3:25 pm

    Here is something good for a gloomy Tuesday full of fractious arguments. Reading this essay reminds me of the way a determined government and almost all the rest of us could harness our own 'immense power of citizenry' when the pandemic first hit us in 2020. It's discouraging to see how quickly that collective sense of purpose seems to have dissolved around the edges (can the centre hold?) into factions and fury.

    What all this represents is not just a contrast in strategy—with Zelensky and the Ukrainians finding a way to turn their comparative weakness into strength—but a contrast at a much more fundamental level: that between stories of the role of the individual in society. There are three such stories in play here: those of Subject, Consumer and Citizen. […]

    Putin’s attack can be understood as a pure expression of the resurgence of the Subject Story, as in “subjects of the king.” […] The logic here says: “do what the leader says, and all will be well.”

    The west’s sanction-led response comes from the Consumer Story, the story that has been dominant for the last 80 years […] The logic here says: “pursue self-interest, and all will be well.”

    The alternative, the story Zelensky and the Ukrainians are tapping into, is the Citizen Story. This reflects a deeper truth about humanity. […] This logic says: “all of us are smarter than any of us—put meaningful power in people’s hands, and we will use it well.”

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/how-zelensky-harnessed-the-immense-power-of-the-citizen

  9. newsense 9
    17 May 2022 at 3:56 pm

    Spot the difference:

    RNZ : Luxon against corporate welfare for emissions reductions.

    Top story

    Stuff: Luxon remove climate subsidies- except for agriculture

    3rd or 4th

    Herald: Amber Heard and gang violence

    Rather suggests the main outlet was RNZ. And they don’t have a Jack Tame on staff or on their news website at least…

  10. Tony Veitch (not etc.) 10
    17 May 2022 at 4:46 pm

    In the House at QT: I am sure I could never be a politician – I'm nowhere near thick skinned enough.

    Luxon humiliated by Grant Robertson, but his ego protected him from assimilating the depth of his embarrassment.

    And James Shaw on top form in reply to questions about the Climate Change response.

    Good stuff: if the '23 election depended on responses in the House, Labour and the Greens would be a shoe in!

    • Jester 10.1
      17 May 2022 at 10:35 pm

      That's good to hear that James Shaw got better during the day, as his morning interview with Hosking was a train wreck.

  11. RedLogix 11
    17 May 2022 at 7:51 pm

    I would beg to differ.

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

  12. Peter 12
    17 May 2022 at 9:46 pm

    The collective sense dissipated quickly when people realised they were being protected and weren't going to die.

    That freedom gave them the space to attack Ardern and the Government because on a daily basis they were in front of us.