Open mike 20/05/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 20th, 2010 - 35 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

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35 comments on “Open mike 20/05/2010 ”

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  1. Tigger 1
    20 May 2010 at 7:49 am

    Look Hone, all well and good you ‘breaking ranks’ but bottom line, you are keeping this government in power. Stop whining and make a stand – time to shut up or leave mate.

  2. freedom 2
    20 May 2010 at 8:43 am

    I agree, it is an obviously authorised statement, he all but admits he has permission from the caucus to speak out. Making the sacrifice to stay in Government on behalf of their people as he continues to add to the hardship of New Zealanders. The lack of honesty and integrity shown by our Members of Parliament continues to slide down the scale. One wonders how much lower they can go.

  3. Akldnut 3
    20 May 2010 at 9:18 am

    Interesting to see that Keys value has increased 2 million in two years.

    Its good to know that the tax breaks already installed are working for some of us.

    I’m still waiting for my $2.00 per week

    MONEY MEN

    1. King of Thailand: $41.6b

    2. Sultan of Brunei: $28.1b

    3. Khalifa bin Zayed President of the UAE: $25b

    4. King of Saudi Arabia: $23.9b

    5. Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister: $12.5b

    17. Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia: $85m

    18. John Key, New Zealand Prime Minister: $52m

  4. Pascal's bookie 4
    20 May 2010 at 9:24 am

    This is interesting.

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_05/023882.php

    Regarding “he said/she said” journamalism.

    “[H]e told me something fascinating, if not all together unexpected: Their fact-checking efforts are almost uniformly the most clicked and most linked pieces they produce.”

    Then we should really be seeing much more of that then, all things being equal.

  5. gobsmacked 5
    20 May 2010 at 9:34 am

    Latest opinion poll confirms National’s slow but steady decline …

    http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2010/4500/

    Losing one per cent every couple of months may not make big headlines, but it’s drip-drip-dripping away.

    John Key needs to have a re-think about pissing off the Maori Party. In 2011, National/ACT won’t get a majority by themselves (unless 4.9% waste their vote on Winston, which will only happen if Labour are dumb enough to encourage it).

  6. Alexandra 6
    20 May 2010 at 9:45 am

    I dont want Hone to shut up or leave. Hone has a lot of support outside parliament for speaking out, and in doing so reminds MP supporters of the slippery voting pattern of their party. His dissent attracts attention, sometimes for the wrong reasons but this time for the right reason. Unlike some of us here, many maori do not have luxury of examining in detail the politics of the day. Most have longed stopped listening to pakeha politicians and commentators.They are too busy just getting by. Hones challenges keeps the ill-fated decisions of the MP in everyones face and serve as a contant reminder to his colleagues, that what they may percieve as short term decisions have long term consequences. Its important that Hone stays until such time as his colleagues find the courage to leave with him.

    • Draco T Bastard 6.1
      20 May 2010 at 1:52 pm

      Most have longed stopped listening to pakeha politicians and commentators.They are too busy just getting by.

      That’s true of around 70% of NZers.

  7. Hilary 7
    20 May 2010 at 10:02 am

    I’m a bit concerned about Key’s ‘go for it’ comment about NZ aquaculture and feeding the Chinese appetite, as reported in the DomPost this morning. Aquaculture is full of environmental risks. Could this be the new ‘mining in national parks’ issue?

  8. Alexandra 8
    20 May 2010 at 10:16 am

    Hilary,
    I agree its a worry especially the prospect of the fishing quota being increased. On TV last night Key gave his economic growth rev up at a fisheries hui to what appeared to be a very pleased audience.

  9. ianmac 9
    20 May 2010 at 10:45 am

    Yahoo:”Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson has dismissed a report that the Tuhoe treaty settlement was aborted after a poll of North Shore voters indicated the Government was conceding too much to Maori.”
    And I think that the decision was made outside cabinet and without Findlayson which would piss him off wouldn’t it?
    http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/7260684/minister-dismisses-poll-report/

    • Pascal's bookie 9.1
      20 May 2010 at 11:18 am

      That’s a non-denying denial if I ever saw one..

      “In Parliament today Labour MP Maryan Street asked Mr Finlayson whether the decision had been “influenced by focus groups conducted on the North Shore during the week or weekend prior to the paper going to the Cabinet, as reported by the Whakatane Beacon?”

      Mr Finlayson: “My advice to that honourable member is not to rely on title tattle in local rags. The important thing is that this government is committed to a just and durable settlement with Tuhoe that serves the interests of both parties and we are determined to achieve that.”

  10. ianmac 10
    20 May 2010 at 11:06 am

    Has the Budget Day generated as much On-line traffic in previous years? Is it a significant trend and perhaps an unprecedented powerful scrutiny which may bother the ruling Governments of the future?

  11. marty mars 11
    20 May 2010 at 11:23 am

    I giving shane jones a nod of respect for this story. I don’t think maori traditions should be degraded in this way – a powhiri for mickey mouse – who next the easter bunny?

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3718228/Dial-a-powhiri-damaging-a-national-treasure-MP
    http://mars2earth.blogspot.com/2010/05/stop-degrading-our-traditions.html

  12. Alexandra 12
    20 May 2010 at 11:35 am

    I saw the eye popping wero on TV. The image is had to shake. The taiaha welding warrior challenging Mini and Mickey, awful.

  13. Pascal's bookie 13
    20 May 2010 at 1:15 pm

    Serious question for the macro minded folks:

    Where’s all the inflation at?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/business/economy/20econ.html?hp

    We’ve had years of, ahem, ‘quantitative easing’, a lot of fiscal stimulus, super low interest rates(again for years), so where’s it hiding at?

  14. Quoth the Raven 14
    20 May 2010 at 1:21 pm

    The Green Jobs initiative in Spain appears to have been a failure

    The government report does not expressly confirm the highest-profile finding of the non-governmental report: that Spain’s “green economy’ program cost the country 2.2 jobs for every job “created’ by the state. However, the figures published in the government document indicate they arrived at a job-loss number even worse than the 2.2 figure from the independent study.

  16. ianmac 16
    20 May 2010 at 2:00 pm

    Interesting QtR. But next time I would use the Strongly key more often as it tends to neuteralise the position.

    • Quoth the Raven 16.1
      20 May 2010 at 2:43 pm

      My results 93% economic leftist 100% anarchist 100% anti-militarist 100% socio-cultural liberal and 97% civil libertarian

  17. mickysavage 17
    20 May 2010 at 2:11 pm

    Did English just say in Parliament (beginning of Budget Speech) that in 2008 New Zealand elected a new “prosperous ambitious” Government or a “prosperous and vicious” Government?

    Perhaps he meant the latter.

  18. lprent 18
    20 May 2010 at 5:51 pm

    If anyone got their comment caught in the spam trap over the last hour (ie didn’t say it was moderated and didn’t display), I’m afraid it is history.

    There is some car part spam bot bombarding the site with messages, and the anti-spam isn’t sure if it is spam or not. I just fed 124 messages to the anti-spam confirming that it is. But I couldn’t be bothered to spend the time to pick out the few false positive messages that may have been in it.

    I’ve also trashed a few new commentators who have left idiotic troll-style first time messages today (new commentators have to have one approved message these days to stop the multiple identity trolls). It really is the epitome of blind stupidity to try to leave a first time message lambasting the site and all who comment there.

    • lprent 18.1
      20 May 2010 at 9:06 pm

      Ok stopped the prick with this in my .htaccess

      # protect the xmlrpc.php file
      Blocked him with…

      <files xmlrpc.php>
      order allow,deny
      # persistent pain in the arse spammer.
      deny from 69.174.246.208
      allow from all
      </files>

      Some moron in San Antonio Texas…
      monster-lite.com
      see http://www.geo-location.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?s=69.174.246.208

      Now lets see how we can give him an educational experience. Lets start with abuse@his_network_provider

      • Anita 18.1.1
        20 May 2010 at 9:14 pm

        *claps*

        followed up with a chaser of DOS? 😉

      • lprent 18.1.2
        20 May 2010 at 9:55 pm

        Ok – that should take care of this bozo.

        Now back to moderating the comment stream without the hundreds of spam pingbacks per hour

      • hugh jones 18.1.3
        22 May 2010 at 12:18 am

        Re: the monster-lite.com beast

        I can’t seem to stop this thing from visiting. I’ve turned off remote posting and the spam has stopped (96 the first evening!) but it keeps hitting the site with page requests, a hundred a day.
        Strangely the raw apache logs show no ip, just that machine name monster-lite . Log readers on the site show the usual ip reported but I wonder whether that’s faked. I can’t stop it with htaccess. My sysadmin has also failed to stop it calling in.
        How are you getting on with blocking it completely?

        • lprent 18.1.3.1
          22 May 2010 at 10:50 am

          Yeah, pretty annoying whoever it is. Do you run apache2? You can essentially completely deny him completely at the virtual site file or in a .htaccess on connection and before it starts running php – using the technique above.

          Check out http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/69.174.246.208. You can add a log to that site. Also check out the whois. There is an abuse@serverbeach (his provider), and if you go to peer1 (his DNS provider) you can send mail to the abuse there. Make sure that you gave a grepped server log to send as well.

  19. Quoth the Raven 19
    20 May 2010 at 5:57 pm

    Obama-Bush been paying terrorists responsible for suicide attacks to carry out assassinations? ‘U.S., Israel Paid Terror Group for Assassinations’ Wouldn’t surprise me.

  20. Quoth the Raven 20
    20 May 2010 at 8:55 pm

    This one is on Obama and farm subsidies: When it Comes to Farm Subsidies, Obama’s USDA Is Less Transparent Than Bush’s

    Our 2007 database used previously unavailable records to uncover nearly 500,000 individuals who had never been identified as farm subsidy recipients. Many had been shielded by their involvement in byzantine mazes of co-ops and corporate entity shell games. For example, the database revealed that Florida real estate developer Maurice Wilder, reportedly worth $500 million, was pulling in almost $1 million a year in farm subsidies for corn farms he owns in several states.

    Unfortunately for our 2010 update, the data that provided such a revelatory account of just who receives the billions paid out in the maze of federal farm subsidy programs is no longer available to us.

    Why not?

    That’s because Congress changed the wording of the 1614 provision in the 2008 farm bill from USDA “shall’ release such data to USDA “may’ release such data. USDA has since decided not to release the information. According to USDA officials, the database can cost as much as $6.7 million to produce, and Congress did not appropriate money to compile the database.

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