Open mike 21/01/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, January 21st, 2024 - 27 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

27 comments on “Open mike 21/01/2024 ”

  1. Morrissey 1

    "I am not voting for Joe Biden."

    "I'm not gonna vote for someone who funded a genocide. Absolutely not. And I don't think he can recover from that. His best bet right now is to drop out of the race."

    Young people marching for Gaza in Washington D.C. ….

    • Jenny 1.1

      Genocide is something that just can't be forgiven.

      • Morrissey 1.1.1

        I think it's more correctly termed an attempted genocide. They'll never wipe out the Palestinian people though. Or the Yemeni people.

    • Peter 1.2

      "I'm not voting for Joe Biden. I'm voting for the guy who wants to be untouchable, have the power to take out anyone who disagrees with him."

  2. Reality 2

    Impressive numbers at yesterday's well organised hui. Seymour and Peters and Jones may not get their own way in the months ahead.

  3. Dennis Frank 3

    John Campbell went with ten thousand Maori: https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/21/john-campbell-i-saw-peace-joy-and-10000-people-saying-no/

    “Why are you here?”, I asked Tame Iti. “Vibrations”, he replied.

    Nice old man grin under the hat.

    Somehow, the word I keep coming back to is joyful. The National Hui for Unity it was called, and it felt like exactly that.

    the size and standing of Ngāpuhi’s delegation provides some insight into how very significant this hui was. Ngāpuhi aren’t a Kīngitanga iwi. They don’t see Kīngi Tūheitia as their king. And they contain Waitangi within their broad, northern boundaries – home, of course, to the Waitangi commemorations, our most famous form of national hui.

    Yet they came, hundreds of Ngāpuhi. Some wearing korowai made specially for the occasion. Some the direct descendants of Treaty signatories.“Why are you going?” I asked Mane Tahere, the chair of Te Runanga-Ā-Iwi-Ō-Ngāpuhi. “It feels significant that Ngāpuhi are attending in such numbers.” “Because”, he answered, “the challenges we face do not discriminate amongst iwi. We held three hui to discuss whether we should come, and who would come, and what our message would be.

    The final hui was only last Saturday. I wouldn’t have put our rūnanga resources into something we didn’t collectively support. This was hapū rangatiratanga. Hapū after hapū spoke and said we should go.”

    So that's what the king delivered: pan-Maori solidarity. Hey Willie, better put that in your pipe & toke on it awhile, huh?

  4. Dennis Frank 4

    Southern-style public/private partership: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mississippi-hinds-county-coroner-death-notification-policy-rcna132812

    "Hey pardner, you take out any trash lately? Yeah, see the photo. We're up to number 679!" "Hoo, yippie, hi-five it brother!" "Goddam coroner ain't gonna know what hit him!"

    Local cops doing a private cemetery out-back of the cop station seems ever so 21st century. Just goes to show the power of local culture, to normalise behaviour.

    Joe posted the initial link from PBS last night. yes

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/families-in-disbelief-after-hundreds-of-bodies-found-buried-behind-mississippi-jail

      • Dennis Frank 4.1.1

        Public policy makes history even when unreported by the msm:

        Since the early 2000s, thousands of U.S. police officers, sheriffs, border patrol agents, ICE officers and FBI agents have trained with Israeli military and police forces. The ADL’s National Counter-Terrorism Seminar (NCTS) brought U.S. law enforcement agents to visit checkpoints and military prisons, and introduced them to Israeli officials at other sites of apartheid and racial profiling, such as the illegal settlement in Hebron and Ben Gurion airport.

        These exchanges reinforce American law enforcement practices of expanding surveillance, justifying racial profiling and suppressing public protests through use of force. While some of these tactics may be new, the racist ideology underlying their implementation is endemic to U.S. law enforcement since its creation. The contexts of Israel’s regime of military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians, and the U.S. legacy of white supremacy, mutually reinforce each government’s state violence. During these police exchanges, U.S. law enforcement learned tactics developed through Israel’s military occupation and also learned to think of themselves as combatants.

        Boys brainwashed into heroic stances will always mature into macho adults if culture facilitates that: democracy becomes a matter of form rather than substance and sometimes one just can't be bothered with formality…

  5. Dennis Frank 5

    Time for more good news:

    14. The greatest year ever for clean energy

    Thanks to the staggering uptake of wind and solar, energy researchers had to tear up all their old forecasts, including the International Energy Agency (IEA), which announced in October that global fossil fuel use may peak this year, two years earlier than predicted just 12 months ago.

    More than 120 countries, including the world's two largest carbon emitters, China and the United States, also agreed to aim to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030 – a target that if met, would keep the world on track for 1.5°C.

    https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews2023/?ref=future-crunch-newsletter

    Warning: news tends to be ephemeral. Don't get too excited. The answer is still blowing in the wind.

  6. SPC 6

    It seems the Last Week Tonight host John Oliver's decision to promote birds and in particular the Kiwi and its laser eye (flag design of Lucy Gray), is going to reduce the cost of war and defend cities and ships from attacks.

    Well done Kiwi.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/350152903/britains-21-shot-laser-beam-revolutionise-warfare

  7. Taika Waititi was right. We are racist AF*. Look at all these clowns calling John Campbell racist for sticking up for Māori rights and Te Tiriti. Perhaps there's some ignorance but there is also a ton of resentment and bad faith and naked racism. Hundreds of them. The RW hate campaign really worked a treat last year. There’s even one slimeball following Trotter's example and calling for a race war. (I reported it, dunno if X will do anything tho)

    https://x.com/1NewsNZ/status/1748822978702229963?s=20

    (* as fuck)

    • weka 7.1

      that's scary. A fair number look like troll accounts to me, so the numbers are probably less than it appears.

      If you feel like it, can you please DM the one you reported and I will do likewise.

      Off to like/RT Mihingarangi Forbes, because they're going for her today.

      • roblogic 7.1.1

        I went on a mass muting/blocking spree, don't think I want to wade thru that sludge again, sorry

        (found it – will DM)

      • weka 7.1.2

        looking a Mihi's replies, it's the same. Lots of troll accounts, and lots of shit stirring. Twitter has a lot to answer for. And the left isn't without on fault on this either.

        But, I still don't believe this is most of NZ. Yes we have serious racism issues here, and things are going backwards, but all is not lost and what we do next matters, a lot.

        • roblogic 7.1.2.1

          True, it's partly a zeitgeist thing, last gasp of the old Boomers freaking out about losing their privileged place on top of the heap and sharing a tiny bit of their huge piles of wealth

          (Apologies to the good ones on this site… but I have met a lot of cranky old buggers who think like Julian Batchelor and Don Brash)

    • aj 7.2

      We are racist . .

      I fear we have a racist streak as deep as Australia, where The Voice referendum last year the No vote led Yes 60% to 40%.

      I don't expect the coalition to suffer polling drops as a consequence of Seymour's attack on Te Tiriti.

  8. weka 8

    If anyone needs cheering up, a couple of excellent testosterone tweets,

    Jack Black does ACDC Big Ball at the Foo Fighters, Auckland '24 https://youtu.be/zW0x_9JV26k?si=4DaSQap82N_ypi2w via

    @YouTube

    https://twitter.com/SpaceTales/status/1748833871632929134

  9. joe90 9

    If only.

    The RCMP has eased its policy on cannabis use by members, saying simply they must be fit for duty when reporting for work.

    The new substance use policy replaces a 2018 one that required front-line officers and many other employees in “safety-sensitive” positions to refrain from recreational cannabis use for four weeks before duty.

    https://globalnews.ca/news/10239757/rcmp-eases-cannabis-use-policy-for-officers/?