Open mike 20/06/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 20th, 2015 - 52 comments
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52 comments on “Open mike 20/06/2015 ”

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  1. Charles 1
    20 June 2015 at 6:44 am

    If you aren’t working this weekend, or even if you are, chances are you’ll waste some of your hard-earned on something you’ll wish you hadn’t. It’s not very optimistic is it? Don’t worry, it’s not a reflection on you personally, happens to everyone not just grumpy old guys in fedora hats*. It’s a sign of the times. It was simply a piece of crap…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovum-GjYWKQ

    Feel free to share your most frustrating crappy purchases, expensive attempts at saving the trees, the whales or anything else well-meaning, or alternatively, that one item you bought at a discount store that still works really well, always did, and now you want another and can’t find it anywhere.

    *Did you know that the fedora hat was a symbol adopted and worn by American Women’s Rights movement in the late 1880’s? I didn’t.

    • infused 1.1
      20 June 2015 at 9:53 am

      Haven’t had a crappy purchase in awhile, I always buy quality stuff, but I’ve had quite a few purchases where I got it and it didn’t quite do what I wanted it to do.

      Because most of them are from overseas, I never send them back as the cost doesn’t make it worthwhile.

  3. Descendant Of Sssmith 3
    20 June 2015 at 7:26 am

    I remember despairing when seeing a documentary on the guy who became a billionaire from coming up with the idea of those silly rubber bracelets that charities seemed to be pushing all over the place for a while.

    Here’s one way of dealing with the nonsense that is consumerism or is he buying into it?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/26/world/europe/Friedrich-Liechtenstein-supergeil-germany.html?_r=0

    • Tracey 3.1
      20 June 2015 at 10:48 am

      those silly rubber bracelets…

      livestrong courtesy of that athelete of integrty Lance Armstrong

    • Lanthanide 3.2
      20 June 2015 at 12:00 pm

      Its an ad for a supermarket chain.

      • Descendant Of Sssmith 3.2.1
        20 June 2015 at 12:10 pm

        You need to read the article that goes with it.

        Excerpt

        “During the week, he wandered down in his pajamas to have coffee with the employees as they arrived; after hours, and on weekends, he had the whole space to himself. He slept on plastic crates in a breezeway; his minimal possessions included a silver candlestick and a peach-colored satin vest from Japan. “A lot of things you think you need, you don’t,” he said. “I learned all I really need is a bed, a table, nice friends and something to eat.”

        He stayed for more than a year, and things began to look up. “It was winter,” he said, “and I went outside. I said, ‘World, I’m immortal. I’ll always exist. But you only exist because I see you. If you don’t give me anything, I won’t give you anything.’  ”

        • Charles 3.2.1.1
          20 June 2015 at 2:20 pm

          “… while serving in the military, Mr. Liechtenstein decided to switch careers, because he was unable to keep his personal area tidy.”

          haha would that have made it a dishonorable discharge?

  4. Morrissey 4
    20 June 2015 at 8:24 am

    Ecuador: Media lies about Correa’s free-speech record
    by CHRISTIAN TYM, 21 July 2013
    – See more at: https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/54573#sthash.3qOJOhP6.dpuf

    When Ecuador granted asylum to Assange in mid-2012, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher accused Assange of “hypocrisy” for accepting asylum from President Rafael Correa, “one of the world’s leading oppressors of free speech”.

    Annabel Crabb joined in, writing in the SMH: “A gazillion Assange Twitter fans [hailed] Ecuador and its president, Rafael Correa, as a hero of international free speech and human rights. Correa is the same guy who last year jailed a journalist and three executives from the newspaper El Universal [sic] for saying nasty things about him …[and] is expected to soon extradite the Belorussian anti-corruption campaigner Alexander Barankov to a messy fate in his country of birth … Ecuador: champion of free speech. The mind boggles.”

    The only factual errors in Crabb’s rant are that Barankov was never extradited (but granted asylum), the journalist and executives mentioned were never jailed and the newspaper is not called El Universal!

    It might read like a snide put-down of poorer nations that are somehow less capable of “democracy”, but all SMH did was read from an extensive, Washington-penned playbook on how to denounce the Latin American left.

    The El Universo Case

    The US press had been practising their denunciations of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s so-called “dictatorship” in Venezuela for years before turning their attention to Correa. After granting Assange asylum, Correa went to the top of the hit-list.

    The Washington Post, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, and Time each ran nearly identical articles on Correa’s supposed repression of free media.

    And each placed the same victim at centre-stage: El Universo.

    The saga stems from an article published by El Universo on February 5, 2011, written by Emilio Palacio and titled “No to the Lies”. The paper was then sued for libel by Correa.

    The article gave Palacio’s account of the dramatic events on September 30, 2010, when Correa was held hostage by rebellious police inside a military hospital for nine hours. ……

    Read more if you’re serious….
    https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/54573

    • Draco T Bastard 4.1
      20 June 2015 at 10:23 am

      The reality? The new law mandates that corporate media be reduced to a third of the market. Public media will make up one-third and non-profit, community media will make up the other third. This means the media will no longer be almost totally dominated by corporate interests and popular sectors will gain previously closed-off access to the media via community outlets.

      Now that’s an interesting way to do it and I can see why the corporates are screaming blue murder about it. It’s taken any possible dominance of the narrative away from them.

  5. weka 5
    20 June 2015 at 10:50 am

    Science dude* on Kim Hill is calling the government’s science policies Stalinist (because they control what science gets done and how it gets done).

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday

    *Professor Russell Gray, FRSNZ, is the Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.

    • Lanthanide 5.1
      20 June 2015 at 12:03 pm

      Ah, “science man”:
      https://youtu.be/NvpbW7JRu0Q?t=130

      • ianmac 5.1.1
        20 June 2015 at 1:38 pm

        I put it to a science man that there is no present. There is a past and a future but at this moment we are already moving into the past. He started to give me his opinion but we were interrupted and of course the moment was lost as it shot into the past. Wonder if Philomena could find out if there is a present?

    • tracey 5.2
      20 June 2015 at 12:06 pm

      Today has been one of her best line-ups EVER

  6. Tracey 6
    20 June 2015 at 10:50 am

    Have a read of some awards handed out to UK businesses… and as you read maybe think about the recent announcement of investor backed programmes for getting those with mental illness into work… and why any society would be lading such behaviour unless they seek to perpetuate it.

    https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/priti-patel-hands-award-to-poverty-pay-employer-that-pays-just-2-68-an-hour/

    and then there is this “journalistic” behaviour which put me in mind of Rachel Glucina…and Amanda Bailey
    appalling stuff

    https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/how-the-benefit-lies-begin-claimants-offered-cash-and-fame-to-say-they-dont-want-jobs/

  7. Tracey 7
    20 June 2015 at 10:59 am

    Award winning journalist banned from putting questions to crime commissioner in the UK… must submit her questions via their OIA.

    http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/award-winning-investigative-journalist-banned-putting-questinos-birmingham-crime-commissioner

  8. Marvellous Bearded Git 8
    20 June 2015 at 11:08 am

    Ports of Auckland and the Super City Council have stuffed up big time on the wharves.

    http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/auckland-council-loses-battle-over-port-2015061918#axzz3dYGw39nw

    Highly predictable decision by the High Court to set aside the original resource consents causing an immediate halt to the one wharf construction now in progress through the shonky POA/Council “compromise” deal.

    Who on earth was giving legal advice to Council that this could proceed non-notified? Council needs to get new lawyers. $500,000 down the drain on this case alone-I wonder how many dollars have been wasted by these lawyers in other futile legal cases?

    • tracey 8.1
      20 June 2015 at 12:13 pm

      J A Farmer QC, D A Nolan, M R Crotty and K M Dunn for
      Second Respondent (POA)

      Jim ($1000 per hour) Farmer

      and Russell McVeagh

      Nothing but the most expensive for the POA…

      Russell MCveagh are the biggest and most expensive but not to be mistaken for the best. Remember them in the stoush with IRD over the shonky bloodstock and fllm deals? They will spend your money trying to argue what you want them to though.

      Council paid

      A R Galbraith QC,
      A M Adams and J C Campbell for First
      Respondent

      • Save NZ 8.1.1
        20 June 2015 at 1:50 pm

        Yep, I remember the bloodstock deals, lots of lawyers also lost out on that one. Another dodgy Russell McVeagh deal.

        Yep, thanks Auckland Council dimwits – I’m so pleased my rates are going up, so I can pay expensive lawyers to defend ports of Auckland stealing our harbour.

        Next time they say we can’t afford pools or libraries, remember where the rates are really going. Environmental barristers of course! Just a wink and a nudge to the COO and resource consent officers and the consents just fly through!

        • tracey 8.1.1.1
          20 June 2015 at 3:43 pm

          exactly… 2 high paid QC’s plus their overpaid law firms… no change out of half a million is my guess… needs a LGOIMA on council, i doubt the POA will have to disclose other than as part of their overall yearly legal spend.

          • Save NZ 8.1.1.1.1
            20 June 2015 at 3:52 pm

            But are their any investigative journalists left?

            Someone should do a thorough LGOIMA search and include the CEO, councillors, resource consent officers and related barristers.

            Remember what the OIA revealed on the human rights department with Susan Devoy being instructed not to answer the phone. Big Brother.

            God knows what these council and related resource consents people are up to with our ratepayer money.

            Not legal by the ruling anyway, but anyone with a brain cell should have worked that out.

            The scary thing, is the Ports of Auckland and the Council only got caught out, because an action group paid a lot of money to oppose it, councillors were being silenced, people being bullied, and what is happening in our city, where their is not the publicity and money available?

            Not even a 500 year old Kauri or a public asset like our wharf is safe from these privatisers.

    • Save NZ 8.2
      20 June 2015 at 1:44 pm

      +100

      The Council CEO and Mayor should be taken over the coals for this one, and yes there should be a request for how much litigation on resource consents is going on especially in Auckland, because the council resource consent officers are approving practically EVERY consent, and also the ratepayers are being forced to pay council lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars of ratepayers money for the council to defend consents from the affected public (who at great expense are needlessly forced into the fray when some stupid council decision affects them is granted) which should never have been granted in the first place.

      Someone should check what a ‘growth’ industry this is, for those environmental barristers creaming the teat of rate payer money to defend bad decisions of the council.

      The fact the mayor and CEO seems to believe that the resource consent officers acted appropriately against any logical conclusion that the average rate payer could have foreseen, shows how stupid and out of touch they are.

      And the fact that the CEO has lost control of ports of Auckland who they own shows just how out of kilter Ports of Auckland board is, with such a pathetic governance to them and how greedy and stupid they all are.

      Next time you pay your rates think how much of this went on the council lawyers and how they probably will not even fire anyone in the resource consents department who’s job this clearly was or anyone from the ports of Auckland Board, and how the council seems to be encouraging stupid consents and destroying Auckland amenity as well as enriching themselves in the process.

      The public needs to demand accountability!

  9. Morrissey 9
    20 June 2015 at 12:21 pm

    “Uncle Tom? Hello?”:
    Shouting Woman Interrupts Don Lemon in Charleston

    As CNN’s John Berman and Don Lemon reported live earlier today in Charleston on last night’s shooting, a woman interrupted the broadcast to set a few things straight. “We’re mad! We’re angry! Tell the truth!” she said as Berman launched into a report about the heartbreak in Charleston, standing feet way from the Emanuel AME Church.

    See more…

    http://morningafter.gawker.com/uncle-tom-hello-shouting-woman-interrupts-don-lemo-1712369858

    • maui 9.1
      20 June 2015 at 4:12 pm

      Awesome, can we interrupt every news live cross from now on. It would quickly make the media look pretty stupid and show them as the sellouts that they are.

  10. DH 10
    20 June 2015 at 12:42 pm

    I see the provinces are being stitched up again….

    “Northlanders face $300 power hike”

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11468137

    These ‘upgrades’ are largely already paid for and shouldn’t require an increase in charges. That’s what depreciation is for but instead of using depreciation funds to replace deteriorating assets the Govt has been looting the fund for special dividends.

    • Save NZ 10.1
      20 June 2015 at 1:46 pm

      Yep, stealing from the poor to enrich the rich power companies…

      Wonder how the cost of living keeps going up, yet power, banks, etc making massive profits….

    • Draco T Bastard 10.2
      20 June 2015 at 3:01 pm

      Ah, the inevitable result of privatisation and the faux market to always produce profits that go to the rich.

      Those profits have to come from somewhere and that somewhere happens to be the poor. The richer the rich are the greater the poverty we have is.

  11. gsays 11
    20 June 2015 at 1:57 pm

    Hi ianmac, re is there a present…?
    I would venture there is only the present and that the past and future are both fictions.
    Btw, slightly related: the past, present and future walk into a bar. It was tense.

    • ianmac 11.1
      20 June 2015 at 3:24 pm

      Heh gsays. That moment of tension for the punchline. Great!
      But if there was no present then you have to find another to make up the classical three.
      Perhaps: The past, god, and the future walked into a bar. The god said, “Don’t worry. I will take care of this.” Huh?

  13. Kiwiri 13
    20 June 2015 at 3:07 pm

    Why Are Labour’s Would-be Leaders So Right-wing?
    http://www.bryangould.com/why-are-labours-would-be-leaders-so-right-wing/

    Bryan Gould’s latest piece.
    Apologies if this has already been posted.
    Am slowly catching up with reading online stuff this arvo.

    • Incognito 13.1
      20 June 2015 at 5:20 pm

      An interesting blog by Bryan Gould, but quite thin on suggestions for improvement or change, rather.

      It seems that the take-home message is that young (?) enthusiastic, motivated wannabe-politicians lose their way and get caught up in the daily grind of party politics. This means fighting a daily battle for survival in getting noticed, gaining influence, power, and control and other such individualistic pursuits. That a socialist party such as LPNZ suffers from this more, it seems, than National is perhaps because the latter is all about the pursuit of individualism and personal interest over and above collectivism and compassion for fellow Kiwis.

      Politics is, or should be, a team effort. Do aspiring politicians really enter the fray thinking that only they can make a difference through their unique and personal actions or do they think that they can make a useful contribution to the collective efforts of many for the betterment of society?

      The self-selection of practising politicians is not really any different than of leaders in general. However, if this selection process does not result in the desired outcomes for the collective (e.g. company, political party, etc.) then the rule book needs to be re-written. In other words, the party needs to change its selection process and internal governance. No party should be subject to the personal whims of its leader(s); it always ends up in tears.

      • Colonial Rawshark 13.1.1
        20 June 2015 at 5:32 pm

        An interesting blog by Bryan Gould, but quite thin on suggestions for improvement or change, rather.

        There’s a massive cultural change required within UK Labour (and NZ Labour), and it’s virtually impossible to accomplish. There are quite literally, no means of accomplishing the change that is required to survive as an independent modern political force.

        • Incognito 13.1.1.1
          20 June 2015 at 11:28 pm

          That’s quite a devastating verdict! I don’t believe in Doom’s Day thinking or fatalism; there always is a choice, how unpalatable it may be. The alternative is too bad to contemplate, and not just for Labour.

          Do you know what the antidote is for the increasing hegemony of individualism? It is not the Vulcan mind meld (and definitely like the Borg) but the human equivalent of that.

  14. maui 14
    20 June 2015 at 4:24 pm

    Ok, so it seems every week at the moment there is major flooding in Wellington, Dunedin, West Coast, and now lower North Island (I’ve probably missed out some places too). I can’t remember experiencing a period like this where regional weather emergencies have come in quick succession, although my memory doesn’t go back very far. If this is just the entree to global warming, when does the cost of these disruptions make us think about changing our lifestyles, transport methods and the industrialised world we live in? Can money always be found to repair roads, bridges, clean flooded properties, and the continuation with the status quo?

    • weka 14.1
      20 June 2015 at 7:56 pm

      I think Chch has shown us that money/resources are not always there.

      I’ve been thinking about the increase in jobs needed going forward (as a counterpoint to the automation will remove most jobs thing). Obviously emergency workers and road workers will be in high demand. Prep consultants too.

      I was impressed with one of the flood reports in Hokitika where they fixed a washed out piece of road the next day. I was also impressed by the local council’s response. When they were heading into the second night, the woman on RNZ (don’t know if she was council or CD) said the council had assigned extra staff and phones would be manned through the night. Came across way better than the DCC managed. Reassuring that some parts of NZ still know how to do it.

  15. Save NZ 15
    20 June 2015 at 4:33 pm

    And just like to mention breaking the law is nothing new for Ports of Auckland.

    Ports of Auckland has been ordered to pay $40,000 for deliberately breaking the law by employing contractors during industrial action at the port.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10853815

    Also interesting perspective from Rod Oram on Ports of Auckland Conduct prior to the finding…

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2514727/business-with-rod-oram

  16. Colonial Rawshark 16
    20 June 2015 at 5:52 pm

    Lord Ashdown says progressive parties should convene to decide joint agenda

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/19/lord-ashdown-progressive-parties-in-britain-should-work-together

    • greywarshark 16.1
      20 June 2015 at 11:02 pm

      I like this bit of Lord Ashdown’s comment:
      He told the Guardian it was time to end the fractures on the left: “As we – all of us on the left and centre-left – survey the wreckage around us after the last election, we should ask ourselves this question: is this the moment for us to retreat into tribalism, as we always do? My answer to that question is ‘no’.

      “There is much we disagree about, but there is more that we agree on. The environment, civil liberties, internationalism; how to build a strong economy within the context of a fair society; how to devolve power to our nations and communities in a way which preserves our national unity, not threatens it; the need to tackle the intolerable gap of inequality which will soon threaten our social cohesion as well as our economic success.

      Makes me feel all warm inside. Just what I need on a winter’s day. Get on the bus NZ Labour. There is a strap waiting for you to hang on to.

  17. Sacha 17
    20 June 2015 at 6:44 pm

    Ignorant churnalist manages to file two stories about Judith Collins in one day.

    “The Weekend Herald spoke to Ms Collins and her National Party colleagues about her increased profile in the media in recent weeks.”
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11468222

    “Collins has been talking about Collins everywhere.
    …
    National MPs have a number of theories for Collins’ media splurge. Her own answer to this is short and simple: “Because [the media] ask me to.”
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11468068

    Gee, I wonder who is giving her oxygen ..

  18. Morrissey 18
    20 June 2015 at 7:18 pm

    Braindead sports announcers are an insult to sports fans
    Television One News, Saturday 20 June 2015

    If you thought that sports commentary could only improve following the enforced departure of Martin “Moron” Devlin and the long overdue retirement of Murray “The Screaming Skull” Deaker, you were wrong. Devlin and Deaker are unpleasant memories, thankfully, but their legacy of shoddiness and rank stupidity has continued.

    On TV One News tonight, Jenny-May Coffin burbled that she was looking forward to “the footy in Dunners tonight.” What she meant to say, of course, was “the football in Dunedin tonight.”

    The other morning, Paul Henry’s beleaguered and harried sports jock Jim Kayes was similarly tongue-tied, using the puerile term “footy” when previewing (inexpertly) the same match. Prime’s gruesome and unfunny twosome of Mark Richardson and Andrew Mulligan also seem unable or afraid to pronounce the word “football”, as does their co-host Hayley Holt. Over on NewstalkZB, the physically fit but irretrievably dim triathlete Mark Watson and that renowned exponent of footwork, Tony Veitch, repeatedly employ the puerilism, as does Kathryn Ryan on National Radio.

    I know that the sports department is the shallow end of the gene pool, but the stupidity and/or timidity of New Zealand sports-casters seems to be almost limitless.

    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

    While Jenny-May Coffin may be too dumb to pronounce the word “football”, she does have some talent; she’s an absolute champion when it comes to doing push-ups…..
    http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/jenny-may-coffin-s-handstand-push-up-video-4831975

  19. Draco T Bastard 19
    20 June 2015 at 8:30 pm

    Earth has entered sixth mass extinction, warn scientists

    “Without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event,” said Professor Paul Ehrlich, at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

    “Species are disappearing up to about 100 times faster than the normal rate between mass extinctions, known as the background rate.

    So, there you have it – we have actually entered the first anthropogenic extinction event…

    “If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on,” said lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autónoma de México.

    Professor Ehrlich said that government must start working together to conserve threatened species.

    And we’re at the top of the list for being driven to extinction.

    • maui 19.1
      20 June 2015 at 11:50 pm

      Just listening to a Derrick Jensen interview where he talks about environmentalists work as like putting bandages on a patient who is bleeding out from being stabbed by someone. He says it’s all good work, the problem is that while they’re bandaging the patient, the victim is still being stabbed. @ 17:10 in this 1 hour long radio interview http://prn.fm/nature-bats-last-05-19-15/