Open mike 20/11/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, November 20th, 2015 - 58 comments
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58 comments on “Open mike 20/11/2015 ”

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  1. amirite 1
    20 November 2015 at 7:09 am

    Another day, another Ode to Our Glorious Leader in the N̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶P̶a̶r̶t̶y̶ ̶B̶u̶l̶l̶e̶t̶i̶n̶s̶ NZ Herald and Stuff. Doig a dirty job for Obama and Big Corpo isn’t praiseworthy.

    • savenz 1.1
      20 November 2015 at 8:16 am

      Don’t read that crap. The Guardian, Scoop, https://dimpost.wordpress.com, https://dimpost.wordpress.com, http://thedailyblog.co.nz… others might know other sites to read instead of Herald and Stuff…

      • James 1.1.1
        20 November 2015 at 10:09 am

        Indeed – best to only read news and commentary that you agree with huh?

        • savenz 1.1.1.1
          20 November 2015 at 12:28 pm

          Yep, why pay to read National party propaganda – there are plenty of other news sources to get real opinion. I think he Herald purge of left wing commentators is not something I want to support in a main stream news paper. Pretty Nazi.

          • savenz 1.1.1.1.1
            20 November 2015 at 12:58 pm

            In fact it reminds me of what new management at TV3 did.

            This is a quote from John Campbell/Metro interview

            http://www.metromag.co.nz/current-affairs/john-campbell-after-the-fall/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=John%20Campbell

            ““What was TV3? First of all it was the underdog battler that went into receivership twice and somehow survived. It had a news programme that no one watched, but it just kept trying, and it put comedy on television, it put Westies on television in Outrageous Fortune, it put Polynesians on television in bro’Town, it did great comedy, and there were brilliant people taking great risks… It gave a professional platform for people to earn a living, and to show us ourselves, and to be good.

            “And then along come some business people who think, ‘We’re going to stamp a template on it.’ But actually they’ve missed what TV3 stood for. TV3 had a connection with New Zealand that wasn’t simple, that did celebrate our ability to battle and get on with life, all of those good things we believe about ourselves, the can-do, the number-eight wire, all of that shit, with a lovely sprinkling of parody, of not taking ourselves too seriously.”

            In my view the Herald has done a similar thing to TV3 management, they missed the readership of Herald and purged any slightly left leaning commentary to make it into a very right wing anti intellectual frivolous political party newspaper that is written around the whims of the 1% and can not be considered news anymore.

    • alwyn 1.2
      20 November 2015 at 10:45 am

      Why don’t you just read the Editorial. I’m sure it will make your little chest swell up with pride. All hail the Labour Party.
      A plea to donate to the party that no-one apart from The Herald appears to want.
      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11548120
      It’s a shame there isn’t a great deal of reality in the editorial but this is the Herald after all.

  2. Proud poppy wearer 2
    20 November 2015 at 7:35 am

    What job is he doing for Obama and this big corpo chap you speak of ?

  3. savenz 3
    20 November 2015 at 8:18 am

    In Syria I learned that Islamic State longs to provoke retaliation. We should not fall into the trap.

    As a proud Frenchman I am as distressed as anyone about the events in Paris. But I am not shocked or incredulous. I know Islamic State. I spent 10 months as an Isis hostage, and I know for sure that our pain, our grief, our hopes, our lives do not touch them. Theirs is a world apart…..

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/16/isis-bombs-hostage-syria-islamic-state-paris-attacks

    [lprent: as the caustic replies to your comment say, You should learn to quote to separate what you say from what some else said ]

    • nadis 3.1
      20 November 2015 at 8:36 am

      You should put quotes around something you lift from the internet. For a moment I thought you had something interesting to say.

      [lprent: agreed. Thanks for the heads up. ]

      • Brutus Iscariot 3.1.1
        20 November 2015 at 9:49 am

        Agreed. Mods should edit that post.

        [lprent: The word here is “comment”. Posts refer to what authors say, comments are what commenters say. If you read the policy you will find that I and the other moderators tend to be rather direct about criticising our valuable authors.

        While we make vague attempts to avoid accidentally inflicting fratricide on unwitting critics, we don’t go far out of our way to look at who they are criticising if it sounds like you are dissing an author. It is up to you to be precise enough to avoid accidentally getting banned. Since we read the comments backwards through time and without the context of a thread, I’d suggest that you provide the precise context inside your comment rather than referring to the post.

        Be safe, be precise.

        But thanks for the heads up. ]

  4. Wairua 4
    20 November 2015 at 8:43 am

    None of the flag designs proposed in this referendum reference our polynesian heritage, or wars which led to raupatu, dispossession, and consequences today.

    All of them are ahistorical, products of PR committee compromise.

    None are worth dying for.

    The process is advertised as ‘binding’. By whom ? By what moral or legal right ?

    Will there be a knock on the door by someone at 3 AM saying “you didn’t vote, mate” ?

    John Key has invested a lot in this referendum.

    Don’t do it.

    Remember Wairau, Taranaki, Waitara, and the Waikato ..

    Remember Titokowaru, remember Te Kooti ..

    • maui 4.1
      20 November 2015 at 10:33 am

      Absolutely, I’m most dubious about Red Peak, that apparently looks like a tekoteko panel or the front of a meeting house. Both those things seem to have happened by accident, is there really any meaning there or is it just marketing. I would still prefer the current nz flag, it has a meaning although compromised, school kids get the meaning and it has some history.

      • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1
        20 November 2015 at 10:41 am

        I would still prefer the current nz flag, it has a meaning although compromised, school kids get the meaning and it has some history.

        The only meaning our present flag has is that it shows that we’re still a colony of Britain rather than an independent nation.

        No, I won’t be voting to change the flag but that’s because we haven’t yet made the transition to being a republic.

        • Grindlebottom 4.1.1.1
          20 November 2015 at 11:53 am

          Good point. And even if we had become a republic I’d rather have the current flag than one of these logos as our new national flag.

        • Rosie 4.1.1.2
          20 November 2015 at 12:57 pm

          Ditto Draco. Further helped in that decision by there not being any worthy designs, and because this referendum exists purely to support Key’s legacy project. All good reasons not vote. Would love to see the current flag gone, at the right time.

          Wonder what the turn out will be part one of the referendum?

          Under 40%

        • maui 4.1.2.1
          20 November 2015 at 12:08 pm

          Thanks, that’s what I mean.

          • Sacha 4.1.2.1.1
            20 November 2015 at 6:05 pm

            “Both those things seem to have happened by accident”

            Cmon, it’s carefully designed and they have even explained the references. Not that I really care much until we see associated constitutional reforms discussed.

      • Kevin 4.1.3
        20 November 2015 at 7:18 pm

        So the symbolism in a flag has to be blindingly obvious to you maui?

        It’s all there in the colours and the shapes.

        • McFlock 4.1.3.1
          20 November 2015 at 7:25 pm

          lol flags are a bit like art or architecture.

          I strongly suspect that in many cases colours and shapes are chosen arbitrarily, and the “symbolism” is then bullshitted over the top according to whomever the audience of the sales pitch is going to be.

          Personally I’m voting for the monkey butt flag first and then the current one. The first vote is because the flag most often represents the NZ govt (like at APEC or the UN), and the govt is full of arseholes, the second because I reckon that before we change the flag we should make the current flag less relevant by changing our head of state.

  5. esoteric pineapples 5
    20 November 2015 at 9:04 am

    Interesting article in Stuff today about an Auckland University study that found that: “Children who were exposed to marijuana were almost 50 per cent better at a “global motion task” than those who had no exposure.”

    It found alcohol has the opposite (negative) effect but that exposure to marijuana appears to cancel this out. One implication seems to be that people who drink while pregnant should also smoke marijuana.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/74226745/stoner-mums-babies-excel-in-one-aspect-of-brain-study

    • Quokka 5.1
      20 November 2015 at 9:08 am

      What exactly is a “global motion task” ? Policy should not be based on pseudoscience.

      • You_Fool 5.1.1
        20 November 2015 at 9:52 am

        From the article

        The test involved a set of signal dots moving in one direction and another set of dots moving in random directions. An observer needed to be able to say which way the signal dots were moving.

        The test involves specific brain areas which are most susceptible to development risk factors.

        Also the scientist published their results and were subjected to peer review, which would suggest their research was able to be backed up and wasn’t pseudo anything.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Reports

        • McFlock 5.1.1.1
          20 November 2015 at 1:08 pm

          stoners would make good air traffic controllers? posssssibly….

        • Sacha 5.1.1.2
          20 November 2015 at 6:09 pm

          Interesting. Saw a news story months ago about a study saying aspies are also better at the same test. Can’t recall where (thanks, Twitter).

      • Roflcopter 5.1.2
        20 November 2015 at 9:54 am

        What exactly is a “global motion task” ?

        Being so stoned, you shit your pants in front of everyone.

        • Sabine 5.1.2.1
          20 November 2015 at 10:07 am

          hmmm, i always thought that it was the drunks that shit or pissed themselves.
          At least the drunks passed out in the gutters of Auckland after thrusday/friday/saturday beersies, look like they shit, pissed and vomited on themselves.

          Never seen that on a stoner, they usually just have chocolate all over their face.

          • Paaparakauta 5.1.2.1.1
            20 November 2015 at 12:13 pm

            It’s one thing to fall in love with your own research, another to work out what it means in terms of public health policy.

            Is ‘esoteric pineapples’ working for the marijuana industry ? He or she states that “people who drink while pregnant should also smoke marijuana”.

            Further, “The test involves specific brain areas which are most susceptible to development risk factors.” Which risk factors ? Why ? Please explain.

            Relating specific brain morphology to development involves hugely different levels of analysis.

            It can be read as meaning almost anything.

          • Rosie 5.1.2.1.2
            20 November 2015 at 1:00 pm

            Smiling at your last sentence Sabine.

            The first two, are sadly true. Could be any city centre around NZ.

  6. Tautoko Mangō Mata 6
    20 November 2015 at 9:23 am

    Public Citizen have posted their analysis on the TPP Investment Chapter.
    Key points:
    no new conflict interest rules
    no cap on tribunal costs
    only improvement- partial carve out of tobacco control
    partial carve out indicates weakness of health/environmental clauses
    http://www.citizen.org/documents/analysis-tpp-investment-chapter-november-2015.pdf

    • ianmac 6.1
      20 November 2015 at 9:50 am

      Ther you go Tautoko Mangō Mata. Upset me.
      A terrifying thing that TPPA. Safeguards in earlier leaked documents have been dropped. For example even if a Government won a dispute, it would still be liable for costs of the Tribunal. About $US8million.
      A big document with very very worrying details even though it is written from the point of view of USA.

  7. Karen 7
    20 November 2015 at 9:30 am

    Call to moderators.

    Could the Standard help publicise the Hikoi for Homes tomorrow? Details here:

    http://www.cpag.org.nz/the-latest/hikoi-for-homes-everyone-deserves-a-home/

    I’m going to do the full 3 hours from Glen Innes (in Auckland) but you can just join it in Orakei for the last hour. There are also marches in Christchurch and Wellington.

  8. Morrissey 8
    20 November 2015 at 9:51 am

    Thank God I Wasn’t There
    No. 1: With Peta Mathias in Morocco

    In part eight of ‘Sirocco’, Hicham (pron. Ee’-sham) and Latifa (La’ tee far’) take Peta Mathias and her photographer friend Anna up the coast towards Tangier, where eventually they will be staying.

    We drove off toward Tangier, singing…”

    I decided I would have some henna painting done on my legs, so immediately a girl was called in to do it.”

    Peta Mathias Sirocco (Vintage, 2002)

    • Kevin 8.1
      20 November 2015 at 7:21 pm

      I am amazed you managed to suffer through something with Peta Mathias in it.

      • Morrissey 8.1.1
        23 November 2015 at 10:44 am

        Those two extracts were about all I heard of it. I actually prefer her to some other celebrity cooks, such as Nigella Lawson, the execrable Ramsay and the preternaturally dull Peter Gordon.

  9. Rosemary McDonald 9
    20 November 2015 at 10:19 am

    Seriously interesting interview on Natrad this morning…YES you read right.

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201779566/cancer-treatments-using-nutrient-and-plant-based-chemicals

    Prof Lynnette Fergussen from Auckland Uni publicising recent worldwide research into cancer treatment.

    ” “In particular, many newer targeted therapies are extremely expensive, highly toxic and not effective for rare types of cancer and advanced cancers.”

    “Even when they appear to work, a significant percentage of patients will experience a relapse after only a few months,” she says. “Typically advanced cancers are untreatable and relapses occur when small sub-populations of mutated cells become resistant to therapy. Doctors who try to address this problem with combinations of therapies find that therapeutic toxicity typically limits their ability to stop many cancers.”

    https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news-events-and-notices/news/news-2015/11/plant-and-food-chemicals-may-help-treat-cancers.html

    “The taskforce also wanted to produce an approach to therapy that would have the potential to be very low cost, because many of the latest cancer therapies are deemed unaffordable in low-to-middle income countries.”

    “Accordingly, the task force has laid the groundwork for a solution that should be both inexpensive and effective in making this novel approach available to people who are suffering from cancer throughout the world.”

    The research is supposed to be available fro Elsevier as an open download…but I can’t find at present.

    Putting on my tinfoil hat….this research and it’s overarching premise that cancers can be treated and managed inexpensively will make the Big Pharmaceutical Companies collectively shit themselves.

    I am wondering if this research is being rightly promoted now….before the TPP is set in concrete.

    • Editractor 9.1
      20 November 2015 at 1:38 pm

      I think this is the abstract – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Seminars+in+Cancer+Biology+Ferguson

      The “Free full text” button isn’t working for me at the moment but might become available later.

      Edit: nope, that looks like an older paper, though related. If you click on the first author’s name you also get a list of her other related papers. Interesting topic.

      Edit 2: This is the one, with downloadable PDF – http://www.researchgate.net/publication/274318440_Designing_a_Broad-Spectrum_Integrative_Approach_for_Cancer_Prevention_and_Treatment

      • Rosemary McDonald 9.1.1
        20 November 2015 at 2:21 pm

        @Editractor

        Many thanks for that. Can be a bit tricky for a mere interested person (rather than an academic attached to an institution) to download full texts of serious scientific research papers. Elsevier is a reputable publisher, yes(?), I have many papers published there on my hard drive…mostly to do with pesticide and cancer research.

        I have added this one…my reading for later!

        Again…thanks.

        • Editractor 9.1.1.1
          20 November 2015 at 3:23 pm

          Not all publishers provide open access papers but PubMed is the place to look first. PubMed essentially catalogues most published scientific papers in the biology sphere (open access and not), though judging by this paper they lag behind other outlets.

          One possible way to get papers is to contact the authors directly – an email address for correspondence is often attached to each paper. Once upon a time authors would order reprints of papers that they would manually post out. Whether they would be willing or allowed to send out a PDF now for a pay-walled paper I don’t know. And hopefully they would be receptive to a non-expert who was showing interest.

          Elsevier is one of the biggest scientific publishers, but beyond that my comments should be limited given that I do some work for them. They are also an overall company for a vast range of journals, each with their own editorial staff who make decisions on what is published. I’m pretty sure all their primary research papers will be peer-reviewed though, so it’s probably best to judge a paper on its own merits rather than on who published it.

  10. Rodel 10
    20 November 2015 at 11:58 am

    Richie McCaw (peace be upon him) declines knighthood…in the meantime. Good lad.

    Watch JK drop him like a hot potato, or gradually as the fame euphoria decreases and the potential for vicarious glory diminishes.

  12. Anne 12
    20 November 2015 at 4:23 pm

    Wasn’t sure of her at first, but Andrea Vance is rapidly becoming one of our best MSM journalists. Puts some of the old girls and boys to shame.

    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/andrea-vance-chris-finlayson-stop-fear-mongering-and-go-dark-yourself

  13. Morrissey 13
    20 November 2015 at 5:32 pm

    Moronic Pussy Riot-inspired Kool-Aid drinkers
    manhandled after disrupting Islamic conference in France
    by Justin Wm. Moyer, Washington Post, September 15, 2015

    Members of a feminist protest group known for storming events topless has disrupted an Islamic conference in France and caught what appears to be a bit of a beating in the process.

    Femen, founded in Ukraine, doesn’t have a huge reputation stateside. The group, the subject of a 2014 documentary, is known for its advocacy on behalf of Ukranian rape victims and ambushing Russian President Vladimir Putin — news that isn’t always news on the other side of the Atlantic. But the group’s provocative tactic — as the group’s Facebook page puts it: “Our God is a Woman! Our Mission is Protest! Our Weapon are bare breasts!” — keeps the group in the headlines from time to time.

    Even right-wing media sites like Breitbart were impressed when two young women, sans shirts, took the stage last weekend at what was billed as a “Muslim salon” in Pontoise, France, a town just outside of Paris. The salon, as Buzzfeed reported, included a conversation about “Women’s valuation in Islam.”

    In dramatic video that’s not exactly safe for work, the women take the lectern and start shouting in French: “Nobody enslaves me, nobody owns me, I’m my own prophet.” Messages written on their chests — a Femen trademark — offered similar messages.

    “The two activists (both coming from Muslim families) [gave voice to] hundreds of women, feminists, and associations, all disgusted by this public hate speeches,” the group wrote on Facebook. “It was our duty to interrupt this enslavement event, and to let a scream of freedom be heard in the middle of their submission lessons.”

    The women were quickly escorted offstage. But the escorting seemed to turn into a scuffle as a number of men began kicking the women once they were down.

    A reporter for Buzzfeed France present at the event told the Washington Post that, at the time the women took the stage, the imams they interrupted were actually taking a moderate tone.

    Yet, Perrotin said the protest fit into Femen’s anti-religious, anti-authoritarian message. Perrotin pointed out that they staged a similar protest at Notre Dame last year.

    “It’s the logical fight of Femen,” Perrotin said. “They protest against all forms of misogyny … although some opponents accuse them of Islamophobia.”

    Perrotin also said the use of force was unquestionable.

    “Yes, it was pretty violent,” he said. “… I saw a Femen beaten by a man who did not belong to security.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/15/topless-female-protesters-manhandled-after-disrupting-islamic-conference-in-france/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_1_na

  14. Old mill ann 14
    20 November 2015 at 5:59 pm

    How credible is it that Obama and Turnbell have ‘accidentally’ been recorded having a conversation about Key describing him as a ‘role model’ and ‘ wonderful guy’ in the full glare of the media. This really stinks…

  15. Morrissey 15
    20 November 2015 at 6:00 pm

    “It’s never appropriate to call cops ‘murderers’, particularly
    when they risk their lives to protect us.”—Fox News pundit

    Admittedly you do hear discussions of this calibre on NewstalkZB, especially when Blubberguts Slater and Larry “Lackwit” Williams are involved, but for sheer moronic intensity, Fox News is still the stupidest, the most offensive, the downright worst media outlet in the world….

    Fox hosts slam Quentin Tarantino for protesting police violence

  16. McFlock 16
    20 November 2015 at 6:55 pm

    WTF is going on?
    Besides the headline calling the aussie deportees’ flight “con air”, now the deportees were handcuffed by the NZ cops?

    In a country where they had committed no crime, just to get off a fucking plane?
    And this is after the minister reckoned the cuffs had been an aussy decision – so were they handcuffed by the aussies on the plane, and then the nz cops decided to handcuff innocent citizens, or was it just the nz police who made the call and the minister lied outright?

    Too many different stories. Something stinks.

  17. capn insano 17
    20 November 2015 at 8:31 pm

    I just thought this one was worth sharing, a response to over-privileged tory twats like Hosking and his pontificating on student loan debt;

    https://millennialposse.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/burn-all-student-debt/

  18. Chooky 18
    20 November 2015 at 11:16 pm

    ‘In the fight against ISIS, Russia ain’t taking no prisoners’

    by Pepe Escobar

    Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.

    https://www.rt.com/op-edge/322613-russia-isis-anti-terrorism-operation-syria/