Open mike 20/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 20th, 2010 - 35 comments
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35 comments on “Open mike 20/08/2010 ”

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  1. Sanctuary 1
    20 August 2010 at 7:03 am

    Blog headline of the week had to be all round genius David Farrar’s “Experts Don’t Understand…”

    Sums him up totally IMHO.

  2. vto 2
    20 August 2010 at 7:29 am

    Newspaper headline of the week has to be The Press and Sam Mahon.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4042595/Sculptor-delves-inside-ministers-head

    Totally completely 100% accurate on the spot hitting the mark pen mightier than the sword etc etc etc.

    Yesterday I called bullshit on Key (who hasn’t?). Today its cowshit on Smith. “The bullshit government”

    Brilliant

  4. vto 4
    20 August 2010 at 8:34 am

    Interesting how Bollard has singled out local authorities and power companies and told them not to use the coming GST-induced inflation spike as an excuse to put up prices.

    Why would he do that I wonder? Is it because neither of them are subject to stringent market forces? i.e. they have a monopoly type position that they have abused in the past?

    Perhaps it is worthy of a question to Brownlee along the lines.. “Why does the Minister continue to insist that power companies are subject to competitive market forces when the Governor of the Reserve Bank does not? Who is right – the Reserve Bank or the Minister?”

    • Lanthanide 4.1
      20 August 2010 at 9:40 am

      A representative of the power companies was on morning report saying he had no idea what Bollard was talking about, and that obviously costs have been rising over this period.

      So it isn’t necessarily a clear-cut jibe to take to Brownlee.

  5. Greg Presland 5
    20 August 2010 at 8:57 am

    Greetings

    For all those westies there is a new political grouping formed for the local body elections. We are called Future West. We are a coalition of Labour, Greens and independents with Alliance support.

    We are contesting the Waitakere Ranges, Whau and Henderson Massey local boards as well as the Licensing Trusts. We support Len Brown for Mayor.

    Our website is at http://www.futurewest.org.nz

    Long live the progressive movement!

    • Bored 5.2
      20 August 2010 at 10:38 am

      Nice one Greg, love the line “A coalition of westie progressives formed to campaign for the 2010 Local Body elections in West Auckland – representing your street, not Queen Street.”

      You should paste those words on Michael Bassetts fence, given he was the architect of the local body legislation that started the bigger is better drive, and our change of status from electors to ratepayers. Subtle difference but a very important one.

    • Carol 5.3
      20 August 2010 at 11:40 am

      Thanks for the link. Like the site. Tweeted the link. Some web design consultant I don’t know has picked up on my tweet and keeps tweeting me about how most people have zero comprehension of white print on black. She seems to have assumed I’m responsible for the Future West site. She is:

      http://twitter.com/Wordsontheweb/

  6. Bored 6
    20 August 2010 at 9:31 am

    From Granny Herald today:

    The National Party has received $200,000 from a wealthy Chinese New Zealand couple linked to the businessman behind the foreign bid for the Crafar dairy-farm empire.

    The sum is one of a number of large donations to the party’s campaign war chest, which has swelled by $355,000 in recent weeks.

    Auckland woman Susan Chou donated $150,000 last month on top of $50,000 the month before.

    The war chest gets bigger. Early election?
    Foreign interests dictate…are the Nats selling us off to the highest bidder?

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10667439

    • Draco T Bastard 6.1
      20 August 2010 at 10:41 am

      are the Nats selling us off to the highest bidder?

      Yes, but we already knew that from their words (Blinglish telling us that they would sell Kiwibank) and actions (Privatising ACC after making false excuses to do so).

  7. The Chairman 7
    20 August 2010 at 9:39 am

    The private sector looks set to gain influence over Government departments
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10667437

    • Bored 7.1
      20 August 2010 at 10:02 am

      Two fairly nasty implications in the article…..

      Aside from reducing the extent to which the public sector “can crowd out private-sector activity that generates jobs and wealth”,

      This translated into common parlance is “the private sector wants to reduce the footprint of government services, and supply them themselves at a profit with lower paid workers”.

      The Treasury planned to subject itself to additional scrutiny with the establishment of a “governance-focused board”, he said. “The Treasury board will bring expertise, experience and viewpoints from outside the public sector that provide additional discipline and challenge for the Treasury’s senior leadership.”

      Again translated ” the private sector, as opposed to politicians will get to say how the public sector (government) spends the taxpayers money”.

      I would describe this as creeping corporatism.Labour should be jumping up and down. The silence is deafening.

  8. Zaphod Beeblebrox 8
    20 August 2010 at 10:12 am

    Make that-

    Again translated “the private sector, as opposed to politicians will get to say how the private sector ( ie government’s friends) spends taxpayers money.”

    • Bored 8.1
      20 August 2010 at 10:31 am

      Amazes me that the Treasury people did not just tell business to piss off, after all it is what business tell government all the time. Demonstrates what a pack of neo liberal ideological turkeys run Treasury, when the left get elected perhaps they need to reinforce the message of political / ideological neutrality for public servants.

      • Draco T Bastard 8.1.1
        20 August 2010 at 10:45 am

        It’s not really surprising that Treasury is run by a bunch of neo-liberal ideologues – it’s what they were taught at university. They don’t seem to be able to see beyond that and they certainly can’t see that it’s a theory that just doesn’t work.

  9. vto 9
    20 August 2010 at 10:36 am

    A Friday morning relaxant for all you strung out pollie watchers. Get out on Wellington harbour in this and lose yourself ……………….

  10. Zaphod Beeblebrox 10
    20 August 2010 at 10:53 am

    WTF are our media up to at the moment. Brownlee deserves to be nailed for this

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1008/S00301/oil-gas-safety-environment-protection-critical.htm

  11. The Voice of Reason 11
    20 August 2010 at 11:00 am

    Abbott Family video from across the Tasman:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BcZdzD6-aw

    I’m happy to start a book on the Aussie election. My pick is Labour by 3 seats, Greens to win their first ever lower house seat in Melbourne, Abbott to refuse to resign afterwards on the grounds that, just like with climate change, you shouldn’t blindly trust facts.

  12. Pascal's bookie 12
    20 August 2010 at 11:25 am

    Peter Beinart:

    “Once upon a time, Republicans were so confident that the vast majority of Muslims preferred freedom to jihad that they believed the U.S. could install democracy in Iraq within months. Now, confronted with a group of Muslim Americans who want to build a cultural center that includes Jews and Christians on the board (how many churches and synagogues do that?), GOP leaders call them terrorists because they don’t share Benjamin Netanyahu’s view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Once upon a time, the “war on terror’ was supposed to bring American values to Saudi Arabia. Now Newt Gingrich says we shouldn’t build a mosque in Lower Manhattan until the Saudis build churches and synagogues in Mecca—which is to say, we’re bringing Saudi values to the United States. I wonder how David Petraeus feels about all this. There he is, slogging away in the Hindu Kush, desperately trying to be culturally sensitive, watching GIs get killed because Afghans believe the U.S. is waging a war on Islam, and back home, the super-patriots on Fox News have declared war on Islam.”

    Read the rest

  13. Pascal's bookie 13
    20 August 2010 at 1:49 pm

    Pacific Economic Development Agency Ltd funding is now going out to tender. Funny that. But didn’t the budget already say who is going to get the money?

    • gobsmacked 13.1
      20 August 2010 at 2:03 pm

      Sssshhh … somebody might hear. Bill English is busy deleting a fat file of his own quotes, don’t wake the media.

      Right on cue – if it’s Friday afternoon, it must be backdown time.

  14. joe90 14
    20 August 2010 at 2:04 pm

    Predatory Habits.

    No one could suspect that times were coming when the man who did not gamble would lose all the time, even more surely than he who gambled.
    —Charles Péguy

  15. Pascal's bookie 15
    20 August 2010 at 7:24 pm

    For them that of heard of him, ‘Jesus General’ is organising a wee protest thingie in the US to coincide with some Tea Party events…

    http://sites.google.com/site/burnrebelflagday/

    FTW.

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