Wearable technology – be it heart-rate monitors or skin response sensors – can give this underlying influence more visibility, says Coates. “You need to figure out whether you should be trading or whether you should go home. If you are trading, should you double up your position because you’re in the zone?”
A technology enhanced financial crash coming to a world near you – soon.
Really, it’s bad enough listening to these psychopaths already without getting them to do more of it faster.
Bank of America used Humanyze’s technology within its call centers to find out what made employees most productive in terms of numbers of completed calls. Yet it found that the biggest predictor of productivity was how staff spoke to their colleagues. Those with the closest ties to others in their group were more productive and less likely to quit than those who worked alone. The bank added a 15-minute shared coffee break to daily routines: productivity increased by 10 per cent and staff turnover dropped by 70 per cent.
Kinda screws the idea that high staff turnover (90 day trials and such like) or no tea breaks improve productivity. Business as sport. What horseshit. Someone having a heart attack or stroke would show up in their data as “highly productive”. I can’t believe we allow these fools to walk around freely and define our futures. I’d attach the “heartbeat” device to my cock and get a bonus every month. haw haw haw.
Just read online by someone that his mother, who is in Greece has just heard monkey being interviewed by CNBC? about the tppa. Where is he and why the secrecy? Didn’t see him rushing onto the paddock to drink from the Bledisoe Cup before anyone else.8
The neo-liberal capitalist system is destroying the earth.
“After seeing the impact of rare earth mining myself, it’s impossible to view the gadgets I use every day in the same way,” he writes. “As I watched Apple announce their smart watch recently, a thought crossed my mind: once we made watches with minerals mined from the Earth and treated them like precious heirlooms; now we use even rarer minerals and we’ll want to update them yearly. ”
Yep, the problem with capitalism is that it does not take into account all the requirements of people and the planet.
Capitalism has a very limited use. Unfortunately the trinkets that it has brought to many has blinded them into thinking that capitalism can be used for all sorts of things…. blinded by bling …..
You forget that Communism has been tried only in poor countries with despotic traditions in government. Russia is still a relatively poor country, and Stalin has been called the most recent of its succession of great but very cruel Tsars.. (A miracle that it got to be a super-power.)
Name one heavily industrialised that has tried Socialism, let alone Communism. You cannot. So there was never an even contest between Capitalism and Communism in the first place.
Easy to set up silly demands, is it not?
The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
Draco was quite specific. “Communism, expansion, maintenance, capitalism, death.” he said. Pretty much all societies have followed this course, he reckons. I’m just asking him to name one. Hardly unreasonable.
I think that by communism, Draco was not conjuring up Stalin or Mao. He meant ‘primitive’ communities living without as yet notions of private property and profit-gouging..
The word Communism is a red rag to a bull for some people, who go viral over it without thinking about what the basic meaning actually is.
Your challenge is at loggerheads with what Draco intended.
Enough misfires for a while, I think.
I got his book of images of large scale industrial impact when it first came out.
IMHO he is better on some levels than Salgado, but with less of a human touch.
“To reduce the national flag to a brand has to be the most banal, vacuous attempt by Corporate NZ to take over our identity. It shows no respect for who we are, what our national identity is, it’s crass commercialisation, nothing more. He even has the gall to boast of the “billions” we’ll make if we Coca Colarise ourselves.”
and
“The Union Jack is a clever compilation of the crosses of three members, the Stars & Stripes tells how 50 states emerged from the original 13, while the Rainbow Nation acknowledges the plethora of tribes that built South Africa. Now compare those to the Canadian maple leaf – it’s very pretty and instantly recognisable much as many corporate logos are. But what an opportunity lost – there is no underlying story, no mention of where those folk came from, who they are, where they’re going. It’s nothing more than a brand.”
yes we could tell our story, I hope we do, the real story, but somehow I think we will waste this and sell out to a corporate logo – that will fit in with the sellout of this country by TPPA and the rest of the mangey pack of dogs key is running with.
“To reduce the national flag to a brand has to be the most banal, vacuous attempt by Corporate NZ to take over our identity. It shows no respect for who we are, what our national identity is, it’s crass commercialisation, nothing more. He even has the gall to boast of the “billions” we’ll make if we Coca Colarise ourselves.”
I’m guessing he’s referring to the PM’s pushing of the silver fern and Morgan is right. The problem is, amongst others. the silver fern has become a logo.
When I see the silver fern I think All Blacks and our Netball team. It’s become a logo and also has the disadvantage of being difficult to draw. At least the maple leaf has the advantage of being symmetrical.
I quite like the stars but they need to be placed with careful consideration otherwise we end up with a third world country flag.
“Well, we’re not going to put the union jack on stuff are we?”
Well why did Key bring back British honours then? Do you not see the inconsistency? A bloke running the most cravenly sycophantic foreign policy in years pretending to strike a blow for our independent identity by changing the flag?
Hypocritical twerp.
If Morgan wants to keep the flag, he better vote in the referendum.
Key put out this vid on his face book page explaining his view on the flag, got to hand it to the man, he’s brilliant at getting people to see something his way.
yep agreed – he is good at that and we are all the poorer because of it. Often substance is more important than appearances but many in this land are just too foolish to get it – key knows this and plays on it, takes advantage of it – a small town preacher with the gift of the glib and everynight the men (and women) come around and lay their money down…
We’re trying to help you infused – though as a dyed-in-the-wool righty you present pretty strong evidence for the ‘rightwing are chumps’ hypothesis.
The Gnats tend instead to present evidence that the rightwing are crooks. Their rightwingery is secondary to their interest in stealing public property.
“…Now compare those to the Canadian maple leaf – it’s very pretty and instantly recognisable much as many corporate logos are…”
He thinks it’s about the manufacture of maple syrup? Ok so it’s stuff.co.nz opinion, and Gareth Morgan is either willfully misleading people, or doesn’t have Google, but the Canadian maple leaf has been associated with Canadian heraldry as a symbol of Canada for a hundred or so years before 1965, or whenever it was the red/white maple flag was installed.
If he wants to argue that the silver fern isn’t traditionally a NZ heraldic symbol then he might have a point, but NZ doesn’t have much heraldic history yet – people create that with their flag/coat of arms-making. Anyone looking at the Canadian flag now knows what it represents because the Canadian people have presented their actions and attitudes under that banner. Is he saying they have no national identity, no standing? Is he either insulting, stupid or condescending? Sheesh. Why be so sloppy about it if it weren’t just a propagation of lies just because he doesn’t want a new flag. Any flag starts out relatively meaningless, as simply a symbol of ideals, aspirations or values. Meaning is applied to it by people’s memories after the fact.
This was in the comments on Morgans Facebook post today I would be interested to know if this guys onto something.??
“”Hey, don’t mean to to freak y’all out (actually, yes I do!) but there’s a lot more to this NZ flag change malarkey than most people realise…
I was open to changing the current NZ flag, but I also didn’t understand (like most people) the LEGAL significance of doing so…
Why not change the flag?
Here’s why not – its called ‘Due Authority’
DUE AUTHORITY in a nation like NZ is represented on the NZ flag by the Union Jack and signifies that we are a constitutional monarchy.
A change of flag means not only that we have taken a major step to removing the DUE AUTHORITY of the crown. It also means we take away the very power which enforces both the 1981 Bill of Rights Act (the closest thing NZ has to an entrenched Constitution) and the founding plank upon which the Treaty of Waitangi has meaning.
It does not matter if you’re pro or anti monarchy but if you take away the DUE AUTHORITY of law (which includes our flag) you then open the gates of hell, or to be precise the means in which John Key can legally sign the TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement). Currently if the matter was taken to court it would undoubtedly end up at the Supreme Court.
The Privy Council is our former chief court and unlike the new US-styled NZ supreme Court, has its legal interpretation interpreted by Judges that are picked by the Law Lords of the Common Wealth.
In the new system those Judges are picked by parliament – uh oh.
At the moment it is likely that a legal challenge could be mounted against the TPPA, even if John does sign it, even with the Supreme Court Change, in that it breaches the 1981 Bill of Rights and the Crowns obligation to Iwi as set out in the Treaty of Waitangi.
However, if the DUE AUTHORITY of the State can be removed then the TPPA can not only be signed but it then means that once signed the DUE AUTHORITY of the TPPA would supersede the power of any NZ laws already in place. Such as the 1981 Bill of Rights etc.””
Please feel free to copy & paste or share… A lot of people don’t seek education but will take it when offered!
Yes just goggled “due authority” and it came up with a couple of fringe looking sites one called misty mountain , basically saying the same as the above, someone causing mischief and leading a few astray .
‘Just on half the country’s directors aren’t happy about their pay as workload piles up and more face the axe for poor performance.
Directors Institute chief executive Simon Arcus said while there had been a “moderate” 4 per cent increase in the past year, workloads had almost doubled, reflecting an environment where boards are facing more scrutiny and regulation than ever before.
Survey data shows only 50.6 per cent are satisfied with their remuneration. Median fees for private listed companies were $78,570, up 22 per cent over the past four years.’
G,Bradley…NZH…..
doesn’t your heart just bleed for these…unfortunates!
you are the one without a clue….there are many professional directors who warm seats on many boards.80hrs a week…what crap…as for fucking up…lets take a look at a few recent cases…Shipley/Mainzeal…now Genesis chair,Withers /Feltex,now at MRP….so you really are quite ignorant ,illinformed or delusional.
“………… your work week is pretty much 80 hours every week. You fuck up and it’s the end of your career. Same with ceos.”
Oh diddums my hearts bleeds for them,
That will be the day I have seen fuck ups by so called “managers” where the remaining staff has to clean up the shit afterwards and nine times out of ten they walk away with a big golden handshake, later to emerge in a top position in another organisation.,
Try running your own business as a small operator see how many hours you then work, or doing two jobs to make ends meet on very low money.
Of course if it is too much for them, they can always find a job with a zero hour contract.
Yeah man, all sympathy to you, I only work about 50 hours a week, in a physically demanding job, must be hard sittin’ on your arse for 80s hours a week!@
Sorry to hear infused but it sounds like you’re not in the ‘Club’ if you work 80+hrs and get shafted.
btw it’s not a club you get asked to join, you’re born into it or you can aspire to it but never be part of it.
Hotchin thought he was in the club like Muir, Watson etc are but he gets to hold the can in public like a good south akl boy while others skate away from the hanover/elders collapse.
Thinking about what we need to be able to manage our world better. It seems that we are at a crucial point in time. We have had two big wars that have taken us near to the highest point of modern day barbarism, have improved on that with acceptance of torture in fact and spirit, and introduced depleted uranium and agent orange. Our destructiveness and drift from afraid or vengeful human beings to callous, murderous behaviour regarded as a norm is frightening.
I think some persistent group has to introduce and carry over the years, a Day of Examination of our Souls where we meet and look at all the things that we humans have done in the past year, and find a way how we can collectively and individually do something about that for the next year. That would include approaching others, talking about how we can do something personally and collectively.
This would be a day for a person’s serious thinking, and not in churches. This is something that needs to come from the heart of people themselves – not diddling around from religions with incense and ritual and asking for forgiveness from the Great Spirit. It’s too late for that. It has happened and we have not been able to stop it. So we need to think, and gather strength from each other, and act on positive ideas put forward.
(About religion, every year the churches go out and intone the same stuff on Anzac Day. They should include something different each year – a reading of some anti-war poetry, some personal anecdote from a returned service survivor. But hey why fix something while its working smoothly. Stick with the status quo. It gives people confidence.)
I have the horrible feeling that we have reached the high point in our human time on earth and passed it. But it would be good to be wrong. There are so many wonderful people, lots of ordinary people with good traits, and some very cold, pathological people that we need to look out for and corral. If we look at our politicians and aspirational money and power people who are driven by profit to put life at risk, they are very visible. Less visible are the fellow travellers in our midst, and the weaknesses in our own hearts and minds.
While we can all criticise others, all of us need to have a strong understanding of ourselves that involves our strengths and our humbling faults. Also, then a workable ideal for how things should be, ready for when the old diseased system breaks down. Dreamers then are not much use, the people who know human weaknesses and how to avoid, manage and survive them in the kindest and fairest ways are the stalwarts, along with those with practical skills plus community spirit.
Personally I think the main thing we need is diversity: political, cultural, gender, sexual identity… as much as possible of everything.
Not as a pc platitude, the simple fact is that diversity inhibits groupthink. I was involved in the governance of a reasonable-sized organisation, and one of the most valuable roles was filled by a guy whose job seemed to largely consist of “nope: not possible/legal to do that”. So we’d work our way around the issues until we had a more robust way of actually doing what we wanted. But too many people like that guy would have restricted the variety of ideas we came up with, and we would have been stuck in that narrow “can’t do that” focus, even if the impulse had occurred to us. Different backgrounds mean different skillsets and different ideas.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think lots of people who disagree with me are dicks, but even dicks have a constructive role to play sometimes 🙂
Interesting that National would support leverage and buying businesses with the intention of stripping its assets and scraping it down to bones to get the money to pay back the lender for the purchase price. Yet they make ACC have money in hand for prophesied costs of the present injured and damaged far into the future. One law for the cowboys and another for the poorer Indians.
Key yet again rides the coat tails of the ABs win over the weekend, engineering himself closer to McCaw’s “brand” with a second knighthood offer and by saying he’d make a good prime minister.
It’s called utilitarianism. The problem with it is that the worst off end up being even worse off because the government doesn’t have to be concerned about them.
From the link:
“The Greatest Happiness principle in general is good, but it has many flaws as any ethical systems does. Due to our inability to perfectly predict the future according to our actions (assuming he future is capable of being altered with our actions), the results we desire are capable of, and often do, fall short of what was intended. If unforeseen parameters caused all of our actions to backfire, even though we were attempting to act in accordance with Utilitarianism, we would all be considered immoral as our results only caused pain. If this happened to everyone in the entire world, then no man could be considered moral. The Greatest Happiness principle also allows for us to cause pain to others as long as a majority of the people become happier. We could essentially just steal resources from smaller foreign countries and drive them to poverty as long as more people benefit than lose. Things such as slavery, bullying, rape, racism, and murder could be justified under Utilitarianism as long as the majority prefers it. Murderers could justify their action by simply killing all of those who opposed them. Once their numbers became the majority, murdering became justifiable as moral. Lastly, the Greatest Happiness principle eliminates the usage of the laws provided by our government. As long as the person’s actions increase general utility, then it does not matter how many laws are broken in the process. We could all go speeding down roads and ignoring traffic signals/signs to our full enjoyment despite there being speed limits as long as few people cared and most people would be having a blast.”
Question is what strategies do you use against a utilitarian government?
Paul Henry embarrassed by young caller this morning;
His mood was not improved by the raucous laughter at his expense. Paul Henry, TV3, Monday 17 August 2015, 8:10 a.m.
Paul Henry is a shameless National Party partisan as well as being John Key’s chief cheerleader. He is a control freak, who demands total obedience from his underlings. Neither his newsreader Hillary Barry nor his dim sports guy Jim Kayes has the ability or the gumption to challenge most of the offensive or ignorant things Henry regularly unloads. Occasionally, as we shall see, they will register their disapproval by falling silent or, as happened with the following phone call from a young viewer, join in with the subversive laughter of the technicians and producers. Henry is all too aware when his authority is undermined like this, and he takes it out on Jim Kayes above all.
But first, let’s see how a simple phone call derailed him this morning….
PAUL HENRY: We have Zakaiah from Pahiatua on the phone. How old are you, Zakaiah?
ZAKARAIAH: I’m eleven.
PAUL HENRY: All right, Zakaiah, do you think Richie McCaw would make a good prime minister?
ZAKARAIAH: Yeah, better than John Key!
EVERYONE IN THE STUDIO EXCEPT HENRY: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
….Awkward silence…..
PAUL HENRY:[grinning awkwardly, like a raccoon eating shit off a wire brush] Oooohhhh.
ZAKARAIAH: And he doesn’t need to change the flag.
…..Awkward silence…..
PAUL HENRY: Well I agree with you there, Zakaiah! But not the bit about John Key; I think he’s doing a good job.
…..Awkward silence…..
A little later, Henry reads out the nominations for the New Zealander of the Year award, with his slaves obediently providing the sound effects…
HENRY: Most of them are shite. Professor Jane Kelsey. HILLARY BARRY: Urggghhh! HENRY: Nicky Hager. JIM KAYES: Groan. HILLARY BARRY: Urrrggghh! HENRY: Helen Kelly.
……Silence. Even these two slaves know that it’s not permissible to slag off the very ill Helen Kelly, even if she is one of those despised creatures, a union activist.
HENRY: Tim Finn. JIM KAYES: Why have they nominated Tim Finn and not Neil? HENRY:[suddenly irritated] Oh I don’t know! I’m not up with the minutiae of these things. But the thing is, most of these people are shite. If
Richie was nominated, they would fall off the list. I’m going to nominate Richie McCaw for New Zealander of the Year.
….Awkward pause…..
JIM KAYES: Have you got a man crush on Richie McCaw?
….Awkward pause….
PAUL HENRY:[speaking evenly and slowly, with an angry edge to his voice] No, I haven’t. But I notice that most of the women removed their wedding rings when he came into the studio. Hillary did. HILLARY BARRY: My husband’s watching this….
Voters in rural nz are ripe for the plucking and Winston knows it.
In today’s farmers weekly there is three new listing, short notice auctions ,if kiwi farmers see a flood of land ownership go off shore look out national.
A question for any who may know and who listen to Nine to Noon on RNZ.
Why is Mike Williams unwilling or unable to dispute the propaganda espoused by Matthew Hooton re TPP , particularly noticeable these past 2 weeks. It was left to Kathryn Ryan to bring some semblance of balance and rationale to the topic today…Mr Williams may as well have been absent.
Believe it or not, Williams was there, actually: he backed up Kathryn Ryan by saying “Exactly!” in an emphatic tone of voice after she firmly contradicted one of Hooton’s rants.
At one other point, he actually had the guts to say: “I think Matt’s also been somewhat unfair to Professor Jane Kelsey.”
Otherwise it was a typical Mike Williams performance, including: “I’ve got a lot of time for Tim Groser” and (pathetically) “As Matt put it so eloquently…”
I’d have a lot of time for Groser too, to make sure the garlic, stakes, silver and holy water had taken effect. A pity Williams didn’t mean it that way though. “Useless” doesn’t begin to describe him, and I haven’t the energy to finish.
If he lived in Syria, Grant Smithies would be praising President Assad’s taste in music Morning Report, Radio NZ National, 7:56 a.m., Monday 17 August 2015
adulationn., excessive devotion to someone; servile flattery
SUSIE FERGUSON: President Obama’s Spotify account includes the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Coldplay—Guyon’s favorite band!—and Al Green. To discuss this, welcome to music critic Grant Smithies. Well, what do you reckon about the President’s taste in music?
GRANT SMITHIES: I reckon I’d go around to his place for a beer! It sounds like it’s a genuine list, and not one made up to impress the electorate, unlike, say, Gordon Brown, who proclaimed his “deep love” for the Arctic Monkeys a few years ago. It’s a pretty interesting selection, although I am concerned about the presence of Coldplay on the list. But to be fair, he’s had things to do. He’s been busy!
SUSIE FERGUSON: Ha ha ha ha ha!
GRANT SMITHIES: I wonder what sort of list George W. Bush would have made. Probably from the cheesiest end of the country spectrum, plus some triumphalist rock tunes. It would be the stuff of nightmares!
Listening to Guyon and Susie on Radionz early, I have noticed the odd banter being dropped in which makes me shudder. I am particularly sensitive to this as I have grown to hate the crap on television between partner-faces presenting there. Although there are things that I criticise about RadioNZ, I treasure them, and I also tell them so from time to time. They do a good job, and anyone who wants a reliable, truthful, well run public radio station, must listen to it and give feedback about it and its coverage, support it and ensure that it continues. We don’t want it killed by a thousand poison arrows, weak acid weakening its structure, and termites cutting through its supports!
It already is not being maintained properly as it has a decreasing budget. We don’t want government doing a HousingNZ on our radio, and the whole government house-of-cards decline policy.
I don’t want to hear on Radio details of what goes through presenters’ minds being broadcast to try connecting with the tiny minds in the youthful community. I fear RadioNZ being dumbed down to satisfy the butterfly minds of the masses and the ‘superior but limited’ interests of our chattering classes. I remember Guy and Sus bantering about fave James Bonds. This morning it was whether Cold Play was good. STFU. For sure, keep a bit of lightness in from the news or some recent event in NZ that deserves comment.
I can see the extent of the attacks which RadioNZ suffers from the eternal carping of the RW barbarians firing shots in all directions. I found an example in the July 2008 Listener item from Bill Ralston’s Life. I can’t give you a link because the Listener doesn’t put up content it just lists the headings of items.
His thoughts:’We are currently being served an insipid menu of stewed apple and bananas, admirably suited to the rest home RNZ National has become.” “I am convinced these days RNZ National is broadcasting almost solely to itself and the few dozen people who control its funding.”
Ralston flicks off RNZ to Auckland Maori Mai FM, a hip-hop station. “Aside from developing a taste for the new R&B, I have no idea why I’ve done so except for the fact the hosts sound as if they still live, breathe and have fun.
Actually, it does not matter if commercial radio is good or bad: you can simply change stations. It doesn’t cost you a cent. If public radio is bad, it costs you well north of $25 million a year, whether you listen or not.
The dreadfully smug, hand-wringing liberal contortions of RNZ could originate only from its home in Wellington…” and he has a go at politically-correct politicians. “RNZ National is the voice of Helen Clark’s [NZ]: smug, self-righteous and desperately dull.”
Strange that, to me, the same comments apply directly to his own output. He and his opinion are irrelevant to a well-functioning society. I feel his spite though, and his complaints about cost to the taxpayer echo those used to get rid of our national television service. A mother was used as a bellwether, complaining that her son needed his tv for other purposes than watching programmes, but being registered as owner, had to pay $60? for the privilege. So of course we had to get rid of taxpayer direct charging from the rest of us, despite many of us not getting much value from our general taxes.
There was a good comment by Russell Brown on Ralston’s diatribe even touching on his liberal tribe. Brown makes the point that there was at one time a tendency to resist change and need for more youth input, but that no longer applied. http://publicaddress.net/hardnews/radio-times/
+100… I agree Greywarshark….’Morning Report’ is increasingly nauseating ‘entertainment’ infotainment advertorials for the John Key Nactional Party
…I find Espiner’s ‘interviews’ with John Key ( invitation to spin and slime on and on… ) to be servile ( an interview lie down PR opportunity for John Key) …and Espiner’s questioning of Professor Jane Kelsey to be personal attacking, repetitive and shallow…only she added depth to the non-interview
At least Kathryn Ryan tackled Matthew Hooton’s spin and attacks on Jane Kelsey…rather than discussing the substantive issues at hand ….of the downside of the TPPA…and the extent of New Zealanders opposition to it…with its disadvantages to New Zealand re IT industry , copyright, medicines, sovereignty etc…
Mora in the afternoons is freakin bad too. Either deliberately nieve, plain stupid or weak, probably all of those, he will not hold anyone to account the best he’s got is a forced cold flanelling, something Key probably got from his mother when he was under the age of 10. He says things like, but they wouldn’t sign the TPPA if they knew it was going to be bad would they?
It is to my mind criminal that the marketing industry now rules our media because they fund it, and that even affects State-Owned Enterprises like TVNZ, whose current CEO is a guy from the marketing industry, not from broadcasting.
So we now have, as you say, the team of two announcers introducing their personal views onto what should be impartially-presented news, where one person is quite enough.
To make it worse, we now have regular advertising on Radio NZ. After each news-on-the-hour, RNZ advertise their own programmes, with increasingly commercial techniques.
God in heaven – I take refuge in the National Programme to get away from the vile commercial cacklemush of ads on commercial radio. And what do I find? Radio NZ National is now mimicking its inferiors. (Actually, it should still be called National Radio.)
Somebody needs to throw the money-changers out of the temple again – the best thing Christ ever supposedly did.
Are they making RNZ so close to commercial so that nobody will miss it when they finally sell it off?
@In Vino
Your opinions are what I feel. I am not absolutist about presentation, it doesn’t have to be totally dry, but I fear that the boffins at the top are hell-bent on matching targets rather than adopting a balanced viewpoint to change of presentation and introducing some ‘lighter’ news. Where is the line in the sand I wonder? And of course such lines can be washed away.
I fear that they want to dilute the hard NZ news, with world news from a narrow base, and exaggerating the importance of hard news from overseas, ie interviews with officials in the USA about their latest disaster or outrage which then gets repeated in short form every news hour during the day. That fits the mindset of politicians following ‘overseas’ practices when considering new policies, which implies worldwide, but is limited to the 5-Eyes countries only., being the dominant comet USA, trailing in its tail – UK, Canada, Australia and ….panting along, NZ.
I fear too they wish to bring magazine-type weekend listening into the Kim Hill/Wallace Chapman slot with art, leisure, food and wine, style, with middle class women and men dominating. They represent those on household incomes higher than most, and can consider such pleasant things and fob off concerns that should have time for serious discussion in these slots.
Yesterday I gave Bill Ralston’s deriding take on the RadioNZ, in 2008. I suggest that now he would come up with a similar cant, except with different targets. No changes would appease his wonky viewpoint. And aligning with him are people like Hosking, whose very expression in today’s post displays a mixture of derisive attitudes.
Personally, I do know about presentation of content from long interest in consuming it, and some efforts at presentation of facts and discussion of ideas, so when I like something on radio or not, it isn’t some random whim.
Heard that but IMO Kathryn needs to be a lot tougher on Hooton he is constantly interrupting and boring us with his right wing rubbish.
Mike also should crunch Hooton more often.
Take a leaf out of WC Fields book.
“Never give a sucker a second break”
The object I think is to draw out the right and left approach without dissecting it or boning it for the fillets! It is interesting as stats for employment are interesting – they remain committed to a method, and the differences then show up as attention grabbing and indicative.
& right at the end, when discussing the flag, Hooton checks his cards
and plays a ‘do this or the terrorists win!’
“The only issue against the black flag of course is ISIS.
The funny thing is are we going to allow ISIS because it happens to have a black flag, determine that we shouldn’t?” *Dubya & Cheney wipe away a tear*
“The point is that Mike Hosking is extremely influential because of his involvement with Newstalk ZB, TVNZ and the Herald.”
Shaw said the whole media industry was going through a period of “huge turmoil” and the result was a move away from reporting towards editorialising.
“Mike is symptomatic of a broader trend.”
Psychobabble theory says people see the world as containing more of their self-affirming beliefs than it actually does. Shaw has an interest in people being scared by various things, so he’s the opposite of the phenomena, but do people really adjust their lives to suit a Hosking/Herald/radio opinion? I regularly test the absurdity of my opinions by opening my mouth, and no one else holds my views, but what Shaw claims is that a large number – we’re talking millions – slavishly adhere to Hoskings implied commands. None them have preferences, or can choose anything of their own accord. It isn’t a very convincing claim. I’d expect people to be driving off bridges or walking in circles for hours at the supermarket if they were that lost for what to think or do. Hosking is an expression of the environment he works in, and co-incidentally, people would like to own his car. Not sure that is the same as them arriving at the conclusion that thinking like Mike Hosking will get them a Maserati. They could just steal his one, for instance, or go all hopelessly surly and scratch it, out of spite.
I bet keys thinking about leaving again now things ain’t going so good .
I just had a vision of you and hoskings hugging his leg and pleading for him not to leave yous behind as he jets off to foreign shores for good.
So, you remember when the Problem Gambling Foundation lost it’s government contract and all the RWNJs, including Peter Dunne, said it was all done above board? Yeah, about that:
So, to summarise, the High Court has just told us that the PGF lost its government contract after being very vocally critical of government policy through a process that;
1. Changed the ground-rules as to how the contracts would be awarded after organisations had bid for them;
2. So wrongly assessed the PGF’s application that the apparent result couldn’t be trusted; and
3. Used people to assess who should get the contract who were at least apparently biased in favour of some applicants over others.
“We believe a CITS would lift the standards of the cleaning industry leading to greater economic productivity, but equally important, provide a sea change in the attitudes and behaviours of cleaners as training provides them with greater skills and opportunities,” Grant says.
So, I wonder how many RWNJs are going to continue to claim that cleaners don’t have any skills or don’t take any risks.
I can’t stand this certification and having industry standards for literally everything. If you are a good cleaner then you can obviously clean well. Why should a piece of paper represent how good you are at the said skill. Say in IT, I could have all the experience in the world and not be certified, while someone could have zero experience but be certified and be looked at as the better candidate because they’re done a two day training course or something. There’s a whole lot of bullshit going around in our business world.
While I agree with you to a large extent my point was that the RWNJS always come out with the idea that cleaners and other under paid people don’t have any skills so a professional body saying that we need to recognise the skill set should put paid to that.
China’s policy shift to support exporters and stem the deepest economic slowdown since 1990 heightens the risk of competitive currency devaluations as global demand wanes.
See, this is why you don’t have FTAs that lock you into trading with a country that acts like this.
Prof. Al Gillespie: “To a degree we have to trust the government.”
Why did Jim Mora ask this fellow to talk about the TPPA? The Panel, Radio NZ National, Monday 17 August 2015
Jim Mora, Joe Bennett, Susan Guthrie, Noelle McCarthy
Jim Mora’s producers try to impart the appearance of credibility to this light chat show by going to a regular stable of academics, to get their thoughts on various issues. This can be a useful and enlightening exercise, but all too often it is neither, as anyone unfortunate enough to have listened to such academic guests as Tim Dare, Robert Patman, Jacqueline Rowarth, or Michael Bassett will testify.
Today’s big topic was the undemocratic and highly secretive TPPA talks that our government is engaged in. The token academic chosen to comment on it was Professor Al Gillespie from Waikato University. Long time Mora-sufferers will be familiar with Prof. Gillespie, who seems to have earned a doctorate in How To Say Nothing Meaningful. Unlike the formidably intelligent and forthright Jane Kelsey, Professor Gillespie is all wide-eyed optimism: “I think they will learn from this ,” he states in a tone of high seriousness, “and negotiations will not be as secretive in the future.”
A few minutes later he advises, again in the most scholarly manner he can muster: “To a degree we have to trust the government.”
Why did their producers go to this mealy-mouthed drip, instead of asking someone who actually knows something about the issue?
At 4:42 p.m. the host made what was quite possibly the most cynical and ignorant statement of the year so far—even on this dog of a programme. After Susan Guthrie, in her “Soapbox” contribution, had expressed her delight at the popularity of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, he posed the following question, in the loftiest tone he could muster….
JIM MORA: It’s one thing to say Jeremy Corbyn’s lovely and pure, but it’s another thing to make him Prime Minister, isn’t it?
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
On the few occasions there HAVE been decent and rigorous academics on the programme, they are likely to be subjected to ridicule by “comedians” like Gary McCormick….
If it doesn’t restore your faith in humanity, you would be one of the more than one thousand dolts—give or take a few comedians with a very dark sense of irony—-who clicked on the “He’s an outstanding journalist” option in the Hosking poll over on Stuff.
I see the Fucking Spiv and his pack of crooks are now clamping down on items bought overseas on the internet, and these items are going to be subject to GST. Excellent, first class, as it will “level” the playing field for the struggling retailers. The Fucking Spiv said it will “collect” the millions that is not being paid in GST. When do you think we can expect a similiar “clamp down” on the millions of tax not paid by his spiv mates through tax avoidance and tax evasion
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Verica Rupar, Professor, Auckland University of Technology “The lie outlasts the liar,” writes historian Timothy Snyder, referring to outgoing president Donald Trump and his contribution to the “post-truth” era in the US. Indeed, the mass rejection of reason that erupted in a ...
The internet ain’t what it used to be, thanks to privacy issues, data leaks, censorship and hate speech. But a group of New Zealanders are working on a way to give power back to the people. A flood of headlines over the last week made it clear: the internet has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW’s Grand Challenges Program, UNSW The views of women and men can differ on important gendered issues such as abortion, gender equity and government spending priorities. Surprisingly, however, average differences in sex ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer S. Hunt, Lecturer in National Security, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle In Australia and around the world, research is showing changes in body weight, cooking, eating and drinking patterns associated with COVID lockdowns. Some changes have been positive, such as people cooking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hao Tan, Associate professor, University of Newcastle Australian coal exports to China plummeted last year. While this is due in part to recent trade tensions between Australia and China, our research suggests coal plant closures are a bigger threat to Australia’s export ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asha Bowen, Head, Skin Health, Telethon Kids Institute A year ago, in late January 2020, Australia reported its first cases of COVID-19. Since then, we have seen almost 29,000 confirmed cases and 909 deaths. As cases climbed in Australian cities in 2020, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Emeritus Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne Political pressure forced the federal government in 2017 – when Scott Morrison was treasurer – to call the royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services sector. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Ellis, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle The Rise and Fall of Saint George is a story about place, belonging and community that taps into universal tensions of identity and faith in multicultural societies. Playing for ...
An in-depth analysis of media coverage of the euthanasia and cannabis referendums has found that while both sides of the euthanasia referendum were given reasonably fair and balanced coverage, the YES position in the cannabis debate received a heavily ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission Auckland has no plans to hand over the ownership of it assets under the government's planned water reforms, with Auckland Mayor Phil Goff saying his top priority is to ensure it stacks up for the city. Despite ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden as they find out exactly what we’re voting on in the cannabis referendum, and discover how legalising weed is a women’s issue.First published August 4, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
A principal analyst for the Climate Change Commission says more needs to be done to reduce agricultural emissions or the country will miss its methane targets. ...
New Zealand needs to be bold in making developers enhance the environment - not just limit its degradation, writes Stephen Knight-Lenihan All human activity should help restore the natural world. This is a concept that may resonate following the upheavals of 2020 and one which is beginning to appear in law. Imagine ...
Derek Challis, son of the legendary author Robin Hyde, died last Thursday. Michelle Leggott pays tribute He opens a suitcase and there they are, the precious manuscript notebooks written by his poet mother Iris Wilkinson aka Robin Hyde. We are in Dunedin for a Hyde conference. Yes, says Derek Arden ...
Former New Zealand gymnast Katya Nosova is now a champion bodybuilder, who was prepared to spend Christmas alone in quarantine to compete in the 'Olympics' of her sport. Katya Nosova was willing to do everything she could to pose on the world stage in her third Ms Olympia. Despite a ...
Concerts and some sports look likely to be on the move in Auckland after a big win for Eden Park – and politicians and officials may now want to win the public some control over the independent stadium. The advent of big concerts at Eden Park will, in all likelihood, mean ...
Despite promises of improvement, questions remain about colonoscopy services in Otago and Southland.David Williams reports The apology, when it came, was fulsome. “On behalf of the Southern DHB, I offer a sincere apology for lapses and inadequacies in colonoscopy services over the past several years,” district health board chair ...
The issues political editor Justin Giovannetti will be keeping an eye on in 2021 (that have nothing to do with Covid-19).New Zealand will be busy in 2021. The border will remain closed to nearly all travellers and Covid-19 will continue to lead the news, but the country has a packed ...
A former case manager says that his experience working with beneficiaries suggests claims of a ‘complete shift’ in the service’s approach are laughable.A former Work and Income case manager who now works with beneficiaries engaging with the service has spoken out on a “toxic” culture which he says denies beneficiaries ...
ACC Minister Carmel Sepuloni must confirm whether the Government supports ACC’s apparent policy to make payouts for illegal overstayers , says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . Union spokesman Jordan Williams says, “Since when was it ACC policy to ...
By RNZ News An independent panel says Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully in January to curb the initial covid-19 outbreak, and criticised the World Health Organisation (WHO) for not declaring an international emergency until 30 January. The experts reviewing the global handling of the pandemic, ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk Fiji’s NGO Coalition on Human Rights has called for stronger accountability and commitment to human rights at home in response to the country taking the world stage as the head of a UN body. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) elected Fiji’s ambassador Nazhat Shameem as ...
Danyl McLauchlan reviews Stuart Ritchie’s Science Fictions, which outlines the staggering systemic flaws in the funding and publication of scientific papers. Back in August of 2006 a number of New Zealand scientists were caught up in a media controversy about whether Māori had a genetic predisposition towards violent crime. It kicked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago America is currently experiencing its worst political and constitutional crisis since the civil war when the very survival of Abraham Lincoln’s government “of, by and for the people” was at stake. On ...
Manaaki Rangatahi report that young people experiencing homelessness are being further traumatized within the emergency accommodation where they have sought safety. Often these environments are unsafe, and unsuitable for young people to live in, and rangatahi ...
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Why your boss wants to track your heartbeat
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/71168837/why-your-boss-wants-to-track-your-heartbeat
A technology enhanced financial crash coming to a world near you – soon.
Really, it’s bad enough listening to these psychopaths already without getting them to do more of it faster.
Kinda screws the idea that high staff turnover (90 day trials and such like) or no tea breaks improve productivity. Business as sport. What horseshit. Someone having a heart attack or stroke would show up in their data as “highly productive”. I can’t believe we allow these fools to walk around freely and define our futures. I’d attach the “heartbeat” device to my cock and get a bonus every month. haw haw haw.
Just read online by someone that his mother, who is in Greece has just heard monkey being interviewed by CNBC? about the tppa. Where is he and why the secrecy? Didn’t see him rushing onto the paddock to drink from the Bledisoe Cup before anyone else.8
He was one TV one this morn will be on delay about 8:15 belittling protesters and saying labour did it to so snafu
The neo-liberal capitalist system is destroying the earth.
“After seeing the impact of rare earth mining myself, it’s impossible to view the gadgets I use every day in the same way,” he writes. “As I watched Apple announce their smart watch recently, a thought crossed my mind: once we made watches with minerals mined from the Earth and treated them like precious heirlooms; now we use even rarer minerals and we’ll want to update them yearly. ”
More here
http://inhabitat.com/chinas-massive-toxic-lake-will-make-you-question-buying-another-electronic-device/
Trotter had an article on that up on The Daily Blog yesterday. I left a comment:
That latter is actually the problem, the prime cause of the destruction caused by capitalism.
Yep, the problem with capitalism is that it does not take into account all the requirements of people and the planet.
Capitalism has a very limited use. Unfortunately the trinkets that it has brought to many has blinded them into thinking that capitalism can be used for all sorts of things…. blinded by bling …..
After reading history I’ve come to the conclusion that capitalism is what societies go into before they die. Like people get to old age and then die.
Life of a person goes: Born, youth, middle age, old age, death.
Life of a society goes: Communism, expansion, maintenance, capitalism, death.
Got an example of a society that has followed this cycle?
Pretty much all of them.
Pick one at random. Show how what it started with was communism. Define “death” as you have used it in this context.
You forget that Communism has been tried only in poor countries with despotic traditions in government. Russia is still a relatively poor country, and Stalin has been called the most recent of its succession of great but very cruel Tsars.. (A miracle that it got to be a super-power.)
Name one heavily industrialised that has tried Socialism, let alone Communism. You cannot. So there was never an even contest between Capitalism and Communism in the first place.
Easy to set up silly demands, is it not?
Draco was quite specific. “Communism, expansion, maintenance, capitalism, death.” he said. Pretty much all societies have followed this course, he reckons. I’m just asking him to name one. Hardly unreasonable.
I think that by communism, Draco was not conjuring up Stalin or Mao. He meant ‘primitive’ communities living without as yet notions of private property and profit-gouging..
The word Communism is a red rag to a bull for some people, who go viral over it without thinking about what the basic meaning actually is.
Your challenge is at loggerheads with what Draco intended.
Enough misfires for a while, I think.
I don’t think any of your previous history teachers would be very impressed DTB.
I suspect that consensus democracy is the early stage of societies – band cultures usually have one.
Yeah, that’s what I said.
You people will probably also enjoy this guy:
http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/
I got his book of images of large scale industrial impact when it first came out.
IMHO he is better on some levels than Salgado, but with less of a human touch.
morgan is on the money
“To reduce the national flag to a brand has to be the most banal, vacuous attempt by Corporate NZ to take over our identity. It shows no respect for who we are, what our national identity is, it’s crass commercialisation, nothing more. He even has the gall to boast of the “billions” we’ll make if we Coca Colarise ourselves.”
and
“The Union Jack is a clever compilation of the crosses of three members, the Stars & Stripes tells how 50 states emerged from the original 13, while the Rainbow Nation acknowledges the plethora of tribes that built South Africa. Now compare those to the Canadian maple leaf – it’s very pretty and instantly recognisable much as many corporate logos are. But what an opportunity lost – there is no underlying story, no mention of where those folk came from, who they are, where they’re going. It’s nothing more than a brand.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/71124585/the-new-zealand-flag-should-be-more-than-a-brand
yes we could tell our story, I hope we do, the real story, but somehow I think we will waste this and sell out to a corporate logo – that will fit in with the sellout of this country by TPPA and the rest of the mangey pack of dogs key is running with.
“To reduce the national flag to a brand has to be the most banal, vacuous attempt by Corporate NZ to take over our identity. It shows no respect for who we are, what our national identity is, it’s crass commercialisation, nothing more. He even has the gall to boast of the “billions” we’ll make if we Coca Colarise ourselves.”
I’m guessing he’s referring to the PM’s pushing of the silver fern and Morgan is right. The problem is, amongst others. the silver fern has become a logo.
Well, we’re not going to put the union jack on stuff are we?
Maybe the Kiwi with the taiaha, but it’s a bit aggressive.
The stars are a bit nondescript
Which leaves the silver fern.
When I see the silver fern I think All Blacks and our Netball team. It’s become a logo and also has the disadvantage of being difficult to draw. At least the maple leaf has the advantage of being symmetrical.
I quite like the stars but they need to be placed with careful consideration otherwise we end up with a third world country flag.
The kiwi emblem I associate with our military.
You are repeating the line you are told to like a good lapdog. Some people just can’t think for themselves.
no, BM has honestly held that belief ever since he read the talking points for the day.
I liked the one the other day – the one with the fish hook on it. I feel that it represents NZ well.
“Well, we’re not going to put the union jack on stuff are we?”
Well why did Key bring back British honours then? Do you not see the inconsistency? A bloke running the most cravenly sycophantic foreign policy in years pretending to strike a blow for our independent identity by changing the flag?
Hypocritical twerp.
+1
‘Twerp’. Now I haven’t heard that word for years..but AB You’re so right. It’s a perfect descriptor.
If Morgan wants to keep the flag, he better vote in the referendum.
Key put out this vid on his face book page explaining his view on the flag, got to hand it to the man, he’s brilliant at getting people to see something his way.
Already got 563,493 Views.
yep agreed – he is good at that and we are all the poorer because of it. Often substance is more important than appearances but many in this land are just too foolish to get it – key knows this and plays on it, takes advantage of it – a small town preacher with the gift of the glib and everynight the men (and women) come around and lay their money down…
The Left- Telling everyone they are stupid since ages ago.
foolish is not stupid but you are
No. Just pointing out the snake oil salesman.
Have you never seen anyone taken advantage of by a snake oil merchant infused?
No infused, just keeping smug arrogant wankers like yourself in line.
We’re trying to help you infused – though as a dyed-in-the-wool righty you present pretty strong evidence for the ‘rightwing are chumps’ hypothesis.
The Gnats tend instead to present evidence that the rightwing are crooks. Their rightwingery is secondary to their interest in stealing public property.
Morgan is simply exercising his right to an opinion, just like John Key is in his Facebook clip.
Don’t tell me you advocate the silencing of voices like Morgan’s and others.
Not at all.
Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one.
Morgan likes the current flag and wants to keep it, which is hardly surprising because he’s an old boy.
Myself, I want the flag changed because its naff and unrepresentative of modern NZ.
Tell the truth BM. You want to change the flag to a fern because that’s what John Key has told you you want.
So transparent.
“Morgan likes the current flag and wants to keep it”
which is why he ran a competition for ideas on a new flag…
I doubt there are half a million people who care about the flag debate enough to watch. Clearly fake view count.
Do you not under stand the power of the like button.?
Sums up BM’s world.
You do know how elections work right? It tends to help if the majority of the voting public like what you have to say
Do you not understand the power of scripts?
“…Now compare those to the Canadian maple leaf – it’s very pretty and instantly recognisable much as many corporate logos are…”
He thinks it’s about the manufacture of maple syrup? Ok so it’s stuff.co.nz opinion, and Gareth Morgan is either willfully misleading people, or doesn’t have Google, but the Canadian maple leaf has been associated with Canadian heraldry as a symbol of Canada for a hundred or so years before 1965, or whenever it was the red/white maple flag was installed.
If he wants to argue that the silver fern isn’t traditionally a NZ heraldic symbol then he might have a point, but NZ doesn’t have much heraldic history yet – people create that with their flag/coat of arms-making. Anyone looking at the Canadian flag now knows what it represents because the Canadian people have presented their actions and attitudes under that banner. Is he saying they have no national identity, no standing? Is he either insulting, stupid or condescending? Sheesh. Why be so sloppy about it if it weren’t just a propagation of lies just because he doesn’t want a new flag. Any flag starts out relatively meaningless, as simply a symbol of ideals, aspirations or values. Meaning is applied to it by people’s memories after the fact.
This was in the comments on Morgans Facebook post today I would be interested to know if this guys onto something.??
“”Hey, don’t mean to to freak y’all out (actually, yes I do!) but there’s a lot more to this NZ flag change malarkey than most people realise…
I was open to changing the current NZ flag, but I also didn’t understand (like most people) the LEGAL significance of doing so…
Why not change the flag?
Here’s why not – its called ‘Due Authority’
DUE AUTHORITY in a nation like NZ is represented on the NZ flag by the Union Jack and signifies that we are a constitutional monarchy.
A change of flag means not only that we have taken a major step to removing the DUE AUTHORITY of the crown. It also means we take away the very power which enforces both the 1981 Bill of Rights Act (the closest thing NZ has to an entrenched Constitution) and the founding plank upon which the Treaty of Waitangi has meaning.
It does not matter if you’re pro or anti monarchy but if you take away the DUE AUTHORITY of law (which includes our flag) you then open the gates of hell, or to be precise the means in which John Key can legally sign the TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement). Currently if the matter was taken to court it would undoubtedly end up at the Supreme Court.
The Privy Council is our former chief court and unlike the new US-styled NZ supreme Court, has its legal interpretation interpreted by Judges that are picked by the Law Lords of the Common Wealth.
In the new system those Judges are picked by parliament – uh oh.
At the moment it is likely that a legal challenge could be mounted against the TPPA, even if John does sign it, even with the Supreme Court Change, in that it breaches the 1981 Bill of Rights and the Crowns obligation to Iwi as set out in the Treaty of Waitangi.
However, if the DUE AUTHORITY of the State can be removed then the TPPA can not only be signed but it then means that once signed the DUE AUTHORITY of the TPPA would supersede the power of any NZ laws already in place. Such as the 1981 Bill of Rights etc.””
Please feel free to copy & paste or share… A lot of people don’t seek education but will take it when offered!
Given that we only got the flag in 1902, it looks like bollocks to me.
It reminds me of the militia-types in the US who get in a tizz because the flag in the courtroom has gold trim.
Yes just goggled “due authority” and it came up with a couple of fringe looking sites one called misty mountain , basically saying the same as the above, someone causing mischief and leading a few astray .
Dunno about causing mischief, at least intentionally.
It’s the standard internet drill: too much overthinking, not enough understanding.
‘Just on half the country’s directors aren’t happy about their pay as workload piles up and more face the axe for poor performance.
Directors Institute chief executive Simon Arcus said while there had been a “moderate” 4 per cent increase in the past year, workloads had almost doubled, reflecting an environment where boards are facing more scrutiny and regulation than ever before.
Survey data shows only 50.6 per cent are satisfied with their remuneration. Median fees for private listed companies were $78,570, up 22 per cent over the past four years.’
G,Bradley…NZH…..
doesn’t your heart just bleed for these…unfortunates!
Just shows you don’t have a clue.
As one of these people, your work week is pretty much 80 hours every week. You fuck up and it’s the end of your career. Same with ceos.
Jaysus. You work 80 hours/week and still find the time to clog the internet bitching and moaning about the Labour Party.
Depending on whom infused works for, the two aren’t completely exclusive 🙂
The other option is that the effort infused puts in to their “work” is as half-arsed as the effort they put into their thoughts here.
Poor infused, working 80 hours a week to barely achieve what others do in 40…
you are the one without a clue….there are many professional directors who warm seats on many boards.80hrs a week…what crap…as for fucking up…lets take a look at a few recent cases…Shipley/Mainzeal…now Genesis chair,Withers /Feltex,now at MRP….so you really are quite ignorant ,illinformed or delusional.
Really? So why is it that so many bank CEOs, directors and other sundries are still in control of our economies after they crashed it?
“………… your work week is pretty much 80 hours every week. You fuck up and it’s the end of your career. Same with ceos.”
Oh diddums my hearts bleeds for them,
That will be the day I have seen fuck ups by so called “managers” where the remaining staff has to clean up the shit afterwards and nine times out of ten they walk away with a big golden handshake, later to emerge in a top position in another organisation.,
Try running your own business as a small operator see how many hours you then work, or doing two jobs to make ends meet on very low money.
Of course if it is too much for them, they can always find a job with a zero hour contract.
Yeah man, all sympathy to you, I only work about 50 hours a week, in a physically demanding job, must be hard sittin’ on your arse for 80s hours a week!@
Sorry to hear infused but it sounds like you’re not in the ‘Club’ if you work 80+hrs and get shafted.
btw it’s not a club you get asked to join, you’re born into it or you can aspire to it but never be part of it.
Hotchin thought he was in the club like Muir, Watson etc are but he gets to hold the can in public like a good south akl boy while others skate away from the hanover/elders collapse.
“As one of these people, your work week is pretty much 80 hours every week. ”
Umm….. directors wouldn’t even do 8hrs per week. It’s not a full time job.
LOL who ya kidding
We need progressives to be on Boards.
And they will have to train and qualify with experience for it, like everyone else.
Thinking about what we need to be able to manage our world better. It seems that we are at a crucial point in time. We have had two big wars that have taken us near to the highest point of modern day barbarism, have improved on that with acceptance of torture in fact and spirit, and introduced depleted uranium and agent orange. Our destructiveness and drift from afraid or vengeful human beings to callous, murderous behaviour regarded as a norm is frightening.
I think some persistent group has to introduce and carry over the years, a Day of Examination of our Souls where we meet and look at all the things that we humans have done in the past year, and find a way how we can collectively and individually do something about that for the next year. That would include approaching others, talking about how we can do something personally and collectively.
This would be a day for a person’s serious thinking, and not in churches. This is something that needs to come from the heart of people themselves – not diddling around from religions with incense and ritual and asking for forgiveness from the Great Spirit. It’s too late for that. It has happened and we have not been able to stop it. So we need to think, and gather strength from each other, and act on positive ideas put forward.
(About religion, every year the churches go out and intone the same stuff on Anzac Day. They should include something different each year – a reading of some anti-war poetry, some personal anecdote from a returned service survivor. But hey why fix something while its working smoothly. Stick with the status quo. It gives people confidence.)
I have the horrible feeling that we have reached the high point in our human time on earth and passed it. But it would be good to be wrong. There are so many wonderful people, lots of ordinary people with good traits, and some very cold, pathological people that we need to look out for and corral. If we look at our politicians and aspirational money and power people who are driven by profit to put life at risk, they are very visible. Less visible are the fellow travellers in our midst, and the weaknesses in our own hearts and minds.
While we can all criticise others, all of us need to have a strong understanding of ourselves that involves our strengths and our humbling faults. Also, then a workable ideal for how things should be, ready for when the old diseased system breaks down. Dreamers then are not much use, the people who know human weaknesses and how to avoid, manage and survive them in the kindest and fairest ways are the stalwarts, along with those with practical skills plus community spirit.
Personally I think the main thing we need is diversity: political, cultural, gender, sexual identity… as much as possible of everything.
Not as a pc platitude, the simple fact is that diversity inhibits groupthink. I was involved in the governance of a reasonable-sized organisation, and one of the most valuable roles was filled by a guy whose job seemed to largely consist of “nope: not possible/legal to do that”. So we’d work our way around the issues until we had a more robust way of actually doing what we wanted. But too many people like that guy would have restricted the variety of ideas we came up with, and we would have been stuck in that narrow “can’t do that” focus, even if the impulse had occurred to us. Different backgrounds mean different skillsets and different ideas.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think lots of people who disagree with me are dicks, but even dicks have a constructive role to play sometimes 🙂
The damage of inflating one asset class using low cost credit
http://www.mybudget360.com/the-average-net-worth-by-age-real-estate-boost-housing-net-worth/
Interesting that National would support leverage and buying businesses with the intention of stripping its assets and scraping it down to bones to get the money to pay back the lender for the purchase price. Yet they make ACC have money in hand for prophesied costs of the present injured and damaged far into the future. One law for the cowboys and another for the poorer Indians.
Key yet again rides the coat tails of the ABs win over the weekend, engineering himself closer to McCaw’s “brand” with a second knighthood offer and by saying he’d make a good prime minister.
Disgraceful highjacking of the National team.
Key is becoming a parody of himself with these displays and nice to see the true intent of knighthoods being put out there by Te kaihokohoko
Why National keeps winning.
Note: Opinion.
Because they’ve figured out you don’t have to make everyone happy, you only have to make the majority happy.
http://parenethical.com/phil140win11/tag/greatest-happiness-principle/
It’s called utilitarianism. The problem with it is that the worst off end up being even worse off because the government doesn’t have to be concerned about them.
From the link:
“The Greatest Happiness principle in general is good, but it has many flaws as any ethical systems does. Due to our inability to perfectly predict the future according to our actions (assuming he future is capable of being altered with our actions), the results we desire are capable of, and often do, fall short of what was intended. If unforeseen parameters caused all of our actions to backfire, even though we were attempting to act in accordance with Utilitarianism, we would all be considered immoral as our results only caused pain. If this happened to everyone in the entire world, then no man could be considered moral. The Greatest Happiness principle also allows for us to cause pain to others as long as a majority of the people become happier. We could essentially just steal resources from smaller foreign countries and drive them to poverty as long as more people benefit than lose. Things such as slavery, bullying, rape, racism, and murder could be justified under Utilitarianism as long as the majority prefers it. Murderers could justify their action by simply killing all of those who opposed them. Once their numbers became the majority, murdering became justifiable as moral. Lastly, the Greatest Happiness principle eliminates the usage of the laws provided by our government. As long as the person’s actions increase general utility, then it does not matter how many laws are broken in the process. We could all go speeding down roads and ignoring traffic signals/signs to our full enjoyment despite there being speed limits as long as few people cared and most people would be having a blast.”
Question is what strategies do you use against a utilitarian government?
National aren’t making the majority happy – they’re only making the rich happy by helping them fuck everybody else over.
Even if that’s true people are still voting for them.
Yes, it’s truly amazing how many people will vote against their own self-interest.
Lies, damned lies, and oh look a flag!
Yep. He has spilt society and set us against one another.
An example this morning was when he trivialised the TPPA protests and compartmentalised the protesters into a box of people who don’t vote for him.
Paul Henry embarrassed by young caller this morning;
His mood was not improved by the raucous laughter at his expense.
Paul Henry, TV3, Monday 17 August 2015, 8:10 a.m.
Paul Henry is a shameless National Party partisan as well as being John Key’s chief cheerleader. He is a control freak, who demands total obedience from his underlings. Neither his newsreader Hillary Barry nor his dim sports guy Jim Kayes has the ability or the gumption to challenge most of the offensive or ignorant things Henry regularly unloads. Occasionally, as we shall see, they will register their disapproval by falling silent or, as happened with the following phone call from a young viewer, join in with the subversive laughter of the technicians and producers. Henry is all too aware when his authority is undermined like this, and he takes it out on Jim Kayes above all.
But first, let’s see how a simple phone call derailed him this morning….
PAUL HENRY: We have Zakaiah from Pahiatua on the phone. How old are you, Zakaiah?
ZAKARAIAH: I’m eleven.
PAUL HENRY: All right, Zakaiah, do you think Richie McCaw would make a good prime minister?
ZAKARAIAH: Yeah, better than John Key!
EVERYONE IN THE STUDIO EXCEPT HENRY: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
….Awkward silence…..
PAUL HENRY: [grinning awkwardly, like a raccoon eating shit off a wire brush] Oooohhhh.
ZAKARAIAH: And he doesn’t need to change the flag.
…..Awkward silence…..
PAUL HENRY: Well I agree with you there, Zakaiah! But not the bit about John Key; I think he’s doing a good job.
…..Awkward silence…..
A little later, Henry reads out the nominations for the New Zealander of the Year award, with his slaves obediently providing the sound effects…
HENRY: Most of them are shite. Professor Jane Kelsey.
HILLARY BARRY: Urggghhh!
HENRY: Nicky Hager.
JIM KAYES: Groan.
HILLARY BARRY: Urrrggghh!
HENRY: Helen Kelly.
……Silence. Even these two slaves know that it’s not permissible to slag off the very ill Helen Kelly, even if she is one of those despised creatures, a union activist.
HENRY: Tim Finn.
JIM KAYES: Why have they nominated Tim Finn and not Neil?
HENRY: [suddenly irritated] Oh I don’t know! I’m not up with the minutiae of these things. But the thing is, most of these people are shite. If
Richie was nominated, they would fall off the list. I’m going to nominate Richie McCaw for New Zealander of the Year.
….Awkward pause…..
JIM KAYES: Have you got a man crush on Richie McCaw?
….Awkward pause….
PAUL HENRY: [speaking evenly and slowly, with an angry edge to his voice] No, I haven’t. But I notice that most of the women removed their wedding rings when he came into the studio. Hillary did.
HILLARY BARRY: My husband’s watching this….
+1
+2
“PAUL HENRY: [grinning awkwardly, like a raccoon eating shit off a wire brush] Oooohhhh. ”
I like it, That must be the quote of the year
“……..eating shit off a wire brush” – the best !
Winston has been reading the standard.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11498424
Excellent piece but Winston had better be prepared for his column to be discontinued for criticising the government.
Voters in rural nz are ripe for the plucking and Winston knows it.
In today’s farmers weekly there is three new listing, short notice auctions ,if kiwi farmers see a flood of land ownership go off shore look out national.
It’s already happening. Not just Asian investors either – the whole world knows our country is ripe for the plucking..
In the US farms are generally only owned by big companies – they control everything – farming are monocultures and collect they collect the subsidies.
NZ are not selling the milk in these free trade deals they are selling the farms.
We are giving free access to buy us up, not trade with us.
QFT
Does read like it…
A question for any who may know and who listen to Nine to Noon on RNZ.
Why is Mike Williams unwilling or unable to dispute the propaganda espoused by Matthew Hooton re TPP , particularly noticeable these past 2 weeks. It was left to Kathryn Ryan to bring some semblance of balance and rationale to the topic today…Mr Williams may as well have been absent.
Believe it or not, Williams was there, actually: he backed up Kathryn Ryan by saying “Exactly!” in an emphatic tone of voice after she firmly contradicted one of Hooton’s rants.
At one other point, he actually had the guts to say: “I think Matt’s also been somewhat unfair to Professor Jane Kelsey.”
Otherwise it was a typical Mike Williams performance, including: “I’ve got a lot of time for Tim Groser” and (pathetically) “As Matt put it so eloquently…”
I’d have a lot of time for Groser too, to make sure the garlic, stakes, silver and holy water had taken effect. A pity Williams didn’t mean it that way though. “Useless” doesn’t begin to describe him, and I haven’t the energy to finish.
If he lived in Syria, Grant Smithies would be praising President Assad’s taste in music
Morning Report, Radio NZ National, 7:56 a.m., Monday 17 August 2015
adulation n., excessive devotion to someone; servile flattery
SUSIE FERGUSON: President Obama’s Spotify account includes the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Coldplay—Guyon’s favorite band!—and Al Green. To discuss this, welcome to music critic Grant Smithies. Well, what do you reckon about the President’s taste in music?
GRANT SMITHIES: I reckon I’d go around to his place for a beer! It sounds like it’s a genuine list, and not one made up to impress the electorate, unlike, say, Gordon Brown, who proclaimed his “deep love” for the Arctic Monkeys a few years ago. It’s a pretty interesting selection, although I am concerned about the presence of Coldplay on the list. But to be fair, he’s had things to do. He’s been busy!
SUSIE FERGUSON: Ha ha ha ha ha!
GRANT SMITHIES: I wonder what sort of list George W. Bush would have made. Probably from the cheesiest end of the country spectrum, plus some triumphalist rock tunes. It would be the stuff of nightmares!
SUSIE FERGUSON: Ha ha ha ha ha!
For the benefit of people like Grant Smithies, THIS is the stuff of nightmares…..
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147
Listening to Guyon and Susie on Radionz early, I have noticed the odd banter being dropped in which makes me shudder. I am particularly sensitive to this as I have grown to hate the crap on television between partner-faces presenting there. Although there are things that I criticise about RadioNZ, I treasure them, and I also tell them so from time to time. They do a good job, and anyone who wants a reliable, truthful, well run public radio station, must listen to it and give feedback about it and its coverage, support it and ensure that it continues. We don’t want it killed by a thousand poison arrows, weak acid weakening its structure, and termites cutting through its supports!
It already is not being maintained properly as it has a decreasing budget. We don’t want government doing a HousingNZ on our radio, and the whole government house-of-cards decline policy.
I don’t want to hear on Radio details of what goes through presenters’ minds being broadcast to try connecting with the tiny minds in the youthful community. I fear RadioNZ being dumbed down to satisfy the butterfly minds of the masses and the ‘superior but limited’ interests of our chattering classes. I remember Guy and Sus bantering about fave James Bonds. This morning it was whether Cold Play was good. STFU. For sure, keep a bit of lightness in from the news or some recent event in NZ that deserves comment.
I can see the extent of the attacks which RadioNZ suffers from the eternal carping of the RW barbarians firing shots in all directions. I found an example in the July 2008 Listener item from Bill Ralston’s Life. I can’t give you a link because the Listener doesn’t put up content it just lists the headings of items.
His thoughts:’We are currently being served an insipid menu of stewed apple and bananas, admirably suited to the rest home RNZ National has become.” “I am convinced these days RNZ National is broadcasting almost solely to itself and the few dozen people who control its funding.”
Ralston flicks off RNZ to Auckland Maori Mai FM, a hip-hop station. “Aside from developing a taste for the new R&B, I have no idea why I’ve done so except for the fact the hosts sound as if they still live, breathe and have fun.
Actually, it does not matter if commercial radio is good or bad: you can simply change stations. It doesn’t cost you a cent. If public radio is bad, it costs you well north of $25 million a year, whether you listen or not.
The dreadfully smug, hand-wringing liberal contortions of RNZ could originate only from its home in Wellington…” and he has a go at politically-correct politicians. “RNZ National is the voice of Helen Clark’s [NZ]: smug, self-righteous and desperately dull.”
Strange that, to me, the same comments apply directly to his own output. He and his opinion are irrelevant to a well-functioning society. I feel his spite though, and his complaints about cost to the taxpayer echo those used to get rid of our national television service. A mother was used as a bellwether, complaining that her son needed his tv for other purposes than watching programmes, but being registered as owner, had to pay $60? for the privilege. So of course we had to get rid of taxpayer direct charging from the rest of us, despite many of us not getting much value from our general taxes.
There was a good comment by Russell Brown on Ralston’s diatribe even touching on his liberal tribe. Brown makes the point that there was at one time a tendency to resist change and need for more youth input, but that no longer applied.
http://publicaddress.net/hardnews/radio-times/
+100… I agree Greywarshark….’Morning Report’ is increasingly nauseating ‘entertainment’ infotainment advertorials for the John Key Nactional Party
…I find Espiner’s ‘interviews’ with John Key ( invitation to spin and slime on and on… ) to be servile ( an interview lie down PR opportunity for John Key) …and Espiner’s questioning of Professor Jane Kelsey to be personal attacking, repetitive and shallow…only she added depth to the non-interview
At least Kathryn Ryan tackled Matthew Hooton’s spin and attacks on Jane Kelsey…rather than discussing the substantive issues at hand ….of the downside of the TPPA…and the extent of New Zealanders opposition to it…with its disadvantages to New Zealand re IT industry , copyright, medicines, sovereignty etc…
Mora in the afternoons is freakin bad too. Either deliberately nieve, plain stupid or weak, probably all of those, he will not hold anyone to account the best he’s got is a forced cold flanelling, something Key probably got from his mother when he was under the age of 10. He says things like, but they wouldn’t sign the TPPA if they knew it was going to be bad would they?
Great post, greywarshark.
It is to my mind criminal that the marketing industry now rules our media because they fund it, and that even affects State-Owned Enterprises like TVNZ, whose current CEO is a guy from the marketing industry, not from broadcasting.
So we now have, as you say, the team of two announcers introducing their personal views onto what should be impartially-presented news, where one person is quite enough.
To make it worse, we now have regular advertising on Radio NZ. After each news-on-the-hour, RNZ advertise their own programmes, with increasingly commercial techniques.
God in heaven – I take refuge in the National Programme to get away from the vile commercial cacklemush of ads on commercial radio. And what do I find? Radio NZ National is now mimicking its inferiors. (Actually, it should still be called National Radio.)
Somebody needs to throw the money-changers out of the temple again – the best thing Christ ever supposedly did.
Are they making RNZ so close to commercial so that nobody will miss it when they finally sell it off?
@In Vino
Your opinions are what I feel. I am not absolutist about presentation, it doesn’t have to be totally dry, but I fear that the boffins at the top are hell-bent on matching targets rather than adopting a balanced viewpoint to change of presentation and introducing some ‘lighter’ news. Where is the line in the sand I wonder? And of course such lines can be washed away.
I fear that they want to dilute the hard NZ news, with world news from a narrow base, and exaggerating the importance of hard news from overseas, ie interviews with officials in the USA about their latest disaster or outrage which then gets repeated in short form every news hour during the day. That fits the mindset of politicians following ‘overseas’ practices when considering new policies, which implies worldwide, but is limited to the 5-Eyes countries only., being the dominant comet USA, trailing in its tail – UK, Canada, Australia and ….panting along, NZ.
I fear too they wish to bring magazine-type weekend listening into the Kim Hill/Wallace Chapman slot with art, leisure, food and wine, style, with middle class women and men dominating. They represent those on household incomes higher than most, and can consider such pleasant things and fob off concerns that should have time for serious discussion in these slots.
Yesterday I gave Bill Ralston’s deriding take on the RadioNZ, in 2008. I suggest that now he would come up with a similar cant, except with different targets. No changes would appease his wonky viewpoint. And aligning with him are people like Hosking, whose very expression in today’s post displays a mixture of derisive attitudes.
Personally, I do know about presentation of content from long interest in consuming it, and some efforts at presentation of facts and discussion of ideas, so when I like something on radio or not, it isn’t some random whim.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201766766/political-commentators-mike-williams-and-matthew-hooton
Kathryn Ryan gets rather stroppy at old Matt Hoots…onya Kathryn.
Heard that but IMO Kathryn needs to be a lot tougher on Hooton he is constantly interrupting and boring us with his right wing rubbish.
Mike also should crunch Hooton more often.
Take a leaf out of WC Fields book.
“Never give a sucker a second break”
The object I think is to draw out the right and left approach without dissecting it or boning it for the fillets! It is interesting as stats for employment are interesting – they remain committed to a method, and the differences then show up as attention grabbing and indicative.
& right at the end, when discussing the flag, Hooton checks his cards
and plays a ‘do this or the terrorists win!’
“The only issue against the black flag of course is ISIS.
The funny thing is are we going to allow ISIS because it happens to have a black flag, determine that we shouldn’t?”
*Dubya & Cheney wipe away a tear*
http://upriser.com/posts/you-grow-up-wanting-to-be-luke-skywalker-then-realize-you-ve-become-a-stormtrooper-for-the-empire
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/71179822/opposition-political-leaders-accusing-mike-hosking-of-political-bias
Theres no arguement now that Winston Peters is the leader of the opposition
Psychobabble theory says people see the world as containing more of their self-affirming beliefs than it actually does. Shaw has an interest in people being scared by various things, so he’s the opposite of the phenomena, but do people really adjust their lives to suit a Hosking/Herald/radio opinion? I regularly test the absurdity of my opinions by opening my mouth, and no one else holds my views, but what Shaw claims is that a large number – we’re talking millions – slavishly adhere to Hoskings implied commands. None them have preferences, or can choose anything of their own accord. It isn’t a very convincing claim. I’d expect people to be driving off bridges or walking in circles for hours at the supermarket if they were that lost for what to think or do. Hosking is an expression of the environment he works in, and co-incidentally, people would like to own his car. Not sure that is the same as them arriving at the conclusion that thinking like Mike Hosking will get them a Maserati. They could just steal his one, for instance, or go all hopelessly surly and scratch it, out of spite.
No, no there isn’t.
If you want to make that assertion, there might be. What with the seating plan in the House, party votes, and suchlike.
But then you’re just shitting yourself because the opposition parties are fighting the government rather than each other.
Far too early in the election cycle to be worried about anything
I bet keys thinking about leaving again now things ain’t going so good .
I just had a vision of you and hoskings hugging his leg and pleading for him not to leave yous behind as he jets off to foreign shores for good.
This is good, now we can openly talk about media bias. Maybe we can see if any parts of the corporate sellout media don’t show a National bias.
So, you remember when the Problem Gambling Foundation lost it’s government contract and all the RWNJs, including Peter Dunne, said it was all done above board? Yeah, about that:
Totally corrupt in other words.
Federated Farmers complaining about proposed water quality standards in Southland –
http://www.fedfarm.org.nz/publications/media-releases/article.asp?id=2461#.VdFW_bKqpHw
This one is so ironic, it is actually quite funny. I recommend checking out Federated Farmer’s Facebook page to keep abreast of its latest musings.
Federated Farmers wants government to fast track dairy irrigation projects to help communities hit by the falling price of milk – http://www.fedfarm.org.nz/publications/media-releases/article.asp?id=2455#.VdFYw7KqpHx
CrestClean calls for Cleaning Industry Training Standards
So, I wonder how many RWNJs are going to continue to claim that cleaners don’t have any skills or don’t take any risks.
I can’t stand this certification and having industry standards for literally everything. If you are a good cleaner then you can obviously clean well. Why should a piece of paper represent how good you are at the said skill. Say in IT, I could have all the experience in the world and not be certified, while someone could have zero experience but be certified and be looked at as the better candidate because they’re done a two day training course or something. There’s a whole lot of bullshit going around in our business world.
While I agree with you to a large extent my point was that the RWNJS always come out with the idea that cleaners and other under paid people don’t have any skills so a professional body saying that we need to recognise the skill set should put paid to that.
China’s yuan move could reignite Asian currency wars
See, this is why you don’t have FTAs that lock you into trading with a country that acts like this.
So, RadiolLive had this poll, right, where people voted four their preferred flags, right?
This person combined them. (Warning for possible damage to sight and mind.)
Kyle Lockwood will be knighted next year for services to the National Party.
Prof. Al Gillespie: “To a degree we have to trust the government.”
Why did Jim Mora ask this fellow to talk about the TPPA?
The Panel, Radio NZ National, Monday 17 August 2015
Jim Mora, Joe Bennett, Susan Guthrie, Noelle McCarthy
Jim Mora’s producers try to impart the appearance of credibility to this light chat show by going to a regular stable of academics, to get their thoughts on various issues. This can be a useful and enlightening exercise, but all too often it is neither, as anyone unfortunate enough to have listened to such academic guests as Tim Dare, Robert Patman, Jacqueline Rowarth, or Michael Bassett will testify.
Today’s big topic was the undemocratic and highly secretive TPPA talks that our government is engaged in. The token academic chosen to comment on it was Professor Al Gillespie from Waikato University. Long time Mora-sufferers will be familiar with Prof. Gillespie, who seems to have earned a doctorate in How To Say Nothing Meaningful. Unlike the formidably intelligent and forthright Jane Kelsey, Professor Gillespie is all wide-eyed optimism: “I think they will learn from this ,” he states in a tone of high seriousness, “and negotiations will not be as secretive in the future.”
A few minutes later he advises, again in the most scholarly manner he can muster: “To a degree we have to trust the government.”
Why did their producers go to this mealy-mouthed drip, instead of asking someone who actually knows something about the issue?
At 4:42 p.m. the host made what was quite possibly the most cynical and ignorant statement of the year so far—even on this dog of a programme. After Susan Guthrie, in her “Soapbox” contribution, had expressed her delight at the popularity of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, he posed the following question, in the loftiest tone he could muster….
JIM MORA: It’s one thing to say Jeremy Corbyn’s lovely and pure, but it’s another thing to make him Prime Minister, isn’t it?
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
On the few occasions there HAVE been decent and rigorous academics on the programme, they are likely to be subjected to ridicule by “comedians” like Gary McCormick….
‘Had enough of Mike Hosking?’ – seventy percent voted to say, yes, he is clearly politically biased.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/71189005/had-enough-of-mike-hosking
For what it was worth, I registered my vote along with others who felt the same way.
Voted
At time of voting: 72% consider Hosking biased
And over 8,000 votes for the 72%.
Can anyone provide me a link to a UK based blog similar to The Standard? By similar I mean left leaning with a level of intelligent debate?
I’m keen to see how the Corbyn debate is going.
Go immediately to this site….
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/
If it doesn’t restore your faith in humanity, you would be one of the more than one thousand dolts—give or take a few comedians with a very dark sense of irony—-who clicked on the “He’s an outstanding journalist” option in the Hosking poll over on Stuff.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/08/14/fda-approves-oxycontin-kids/31711929/
Expanding the oversupply of powerful opiate based drugs to children now
Whatever could possibly go wrong….
http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html
Perhaps the expectation is by expanding the market, the number of opiate over-dose deaths may fall
You’re right, pain relief is for adults only, children should suffer….
//
Perhaps you left the sarcasm tag off, or perhaps you are just a bit thick
Nothing to note about the powerful painkillers already available to all and sundry
How about the >16,000 opiate over-doses every year in the USA alone
I wonder how many orders of magnitude it is for lives ruined / impacted through the addictions and suffering caused by these drugs
Oh, but the pain Joe, think of all the pain that has been prevented by the drugs…./sarc
Yes, people, and particularly children, should suffer with dignity and die in agony because drugs ….
//
@joe90 DNFTT
I suspect that DNFTT only works on trools, not nutbars.
Jesus Christ you actually are an idiot
Apologies, I thought you were joking
@northshoredic
Having been called out by Bill a few days back it seems you dont learn
I appreciate you have a career of endorsing protocols which are collapsing around you, that’s not an easy thing to deal with.
Either make a comment about the links and comments or take a fucken hike
Let me guess, you’re a seventh dilution woo-believer?.
Projection Deflection and Transference
These are the tactics of cowards
Run along Joe, you’re not up to it
I see the Fucking Spiv and his pack of crooks are now clamping down on items bought overseas on the internet, and these items are going to be subject to GST. Excellent, first class, as it will “level” the playing field for the struggling retailers. The Fucking Spiv said it will “collect” the millions that is not being paid in GST. When do you think we can expect a similiar “clamp down” on the millions of tax not paid by his spiv mates through tax avoidance and tax evasion
America.
julia cravenVerified account
@CurlyCrayy
Very bad call by NYT. Horrid, actually.
https://twitter.com/CurlyCrayy/status/633077080037687296
Storm clouds are gathering
“Doomsday clock for global market crash strikes one minute to midnight as central banks lose control
China currency devaluation signals endgame leaving equity markets free to collapse under the weight of impossible expectations”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/11805523/Doomsday-clock-for-global-market-crash-strikes-one-minute-to-midnight-as-central-banks-lose-control.html