Open mike 22/04/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 22nd, 2010 - 51 comments
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51 comments on “Open mike 22/04/2010 ”

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  1. Bored 1
    22 April 2010 at 8:12 am

    I am still mightily pissed at the eco destroyers that the Nact ecociders are encouraging. Who saw on TV last night the pittiful McKenzie Country farmers dreaming of turning the place green so that they could cut the grass and feed it to cows who live in cages in sheds? Poor bloody cows, they just want to be out and about in a more favourable climate eating grass that is growing on rain water.

    These peoples pursuit of profit is outrageously immoral in every way, yet they seek to justify it by co-opting us as suppposed economic beneficiaries. I’m now going to buy only free range dairy…how I dont know but Im looking.

    • just saying 1.1
      22 April 2010 at 9:37 am

      I couldn’t agree more.

      Went on a summer holiday to southland 2 years ago and couldn’t believe the amount of dairy and cattle farming there. It was easily as cold as a Waikato winter – god knows how those animals survive in the winter. Dairying has got crueller in many ways sincer farmers have got greedier.
      I’ve been buying only free-range beef and sheep meat for a while now. I wish I could stipulate north island beef. The upside is far less meat in my diet.

      I found it interesting that John on Campbell live implored the audience to keep on watching a piece on Ecan last night despite how bored they might feel because of the importance of the issues it raised. It was like “we’re going to cover some real news now, but please dont change the channel.”

      • gingercrush 1.1.1
        22 April 2010 at 11:16 pm

        OMG that is one of the most stupid comments I’ve ever read here. Those poor cows in the cold. Oh dear. They survive fine in winter btw.

        • felix 1.1.1.1
          22 April 2010 at 11:43 pm

          Are you saying cows don’t get cold? Or are you saying you don’t care?

        • RedLogix 1.1.1.2
          23 April 2010 at 8:40 am

          Shedding cows is not a black and white matter. In the Wairarapa there is one interesting example of a dairy farm that has built a large shed for animal shelter, from which the animals are normally free to move to and fro to open paddocks as they please.

          The structure provides protection from wind, sun and the cold.

          Any supplementary feed is available in old-fashioned mangers.

          The benefits are shown to be:

          1. About 20% increased milk production.

          2. A big reduction in mastitis and other common health issues.

          3. A very relaxed and contented herd that is easy to manage and work with. The shed provides a clean mud-free environment for farm workers and vets to interact with them.

          Overall the farmer has expressed delight in the results of his investment. It is of course quite different to the ‘caged up 10 months of the year’ regime proposed by the MacKenzie country crew, and illustrates that animal welfare is a complex matter… it’s not always a straightforward matter of ‘paddock good, barn bad’.

      • Lew 1.1.2
        23 April 2010 at 7:46 am

        Free-range beef and sheep meat, and dairy: you mean, any of it? Because, in this country, it’s all free-range.

        But hey, if it makes you feel better …

        L

  2. Alexandra 2
    22 April 2010 at 9:04 am

    I agree. Dairying is getting grubbier by the day. Unfortunately going free range will not be so easy. According to fonterra separating barn dairy milk from free range will be extremely difficult. Organic will be a safe bet, if barn dairy goes ahead here.

  3. Olwyn 3
    22 April 2010 at 9:10 am

    For some reason, our business people are ever eager to kill any goose that threatens to lay a golden egg. Instead of seeing the success of the dairy industry as an economic positive which might inspire further economic developments, they just want a piece of any action that’s going on until there is no action left in it.

    • vto 3.1
      22 April 2010 at 9:22 am

      A resultant leftover from our recent colonial pioneering history and culture. It not that long ago that all the forests were milled, the fisheries almost nailed, leftover bush burnt for pasture and then erosion. The approach was take take take. Most nobody had any idea of environmental threats. Hard to judge past actions on todays knowledge.

      Can’t really blame individuals – it is part of our very recent tradition. It continues today in certain sectors. Say a farm that has stayed in one family for example, if the gradnfather is alive today he was probably involved in burning and draining.

      Imo that is where the attitude springs from. However it seems to be changing fast. Farming appears to be the last to embrace the change, no doubt because of the common family structure, traditions and longer term timeframes involved. But they are under pressure and the politics will in the end force them to change faster.

      But meantime brutal battles will occur. It is mid-war these very days.

      2c.

      • Bored 3.1.1
        22 April 2010 at 1:16 pm

        I like the comment on this being a hang over from our colonial rip shit and bust days….why dont we call dairying what it really is…GRASS MINING.

  4. Armchair Critic 4
    22 April 2010 at 9:35 am

    That’s a hopeful assessment vto.
    My concern is that farms across the NZ countryside will be fully corporatised and run by international businesses, with NZ-based managers flogging the land and animals for all the profit they can get. Eventually most of the country, outside conservation land and cities, could be owned by a handful of absentee landlords. It’s potentially only a few legislative changes away.

    • nzfp 4.1
      22 April 2010 at 9:37 am

      “Eventually most of the country, outside conservation land and cities, could be owned by a handful of absentee landlords”

      Well it’s happened before – remember Queen Victoria, the New Zealand Company and Wakefield?

      • Marty G 4.1.1
        22 April 2010 at 9:39 am

        yeah, and eventually the govt stepped in and broke up the stations – clues for the future 😉

      • Armchair Critic 4.1.2
        22 April 2010 at 9:52 am

        “remember Queen Victoria, the New Zealand Company and Wakefield?”
        No, I wasn’t born when they were around.
        But, yes, it has happened before, and I understand the main cause of its demise was legislation (rates and taxes were used to encourage the subdivision of large landholdings??). And with a willing government it could happen again.

        • nzfp 4.1.2.1
          22 April 2010 at 12:46 pm

          You’re right – I wasn’t there either – but my Tupuna were and I don’t believe they were treated all that well. If legislation doesn’t work – or doesn’t happen – perhaps New Zealanders (Maori, Pakeha) may consider the methods employed by Te Kooti, Te Rangihaeata, Te Rauparaha, Ti Tokowaru, Hongi Hika, Hone Heke, Tawhiao Potatau Te Wherowhero, George Washington (US) and so on.

          • RedLogix 4.1.2.1.1
            23 April 2010 at 8:46 am

            but my Tupuna were and I don’t believe they were treated all that well.

            So were mine. I’ve written evidence of one of them having a stand-up argument with Hone Heke … and winning her point.

            But as working class folk none of them have been treated all that well by successive govts either.

    • vto 4.2
      22 April 2010 at 9:53 am

      Yes that is the direction it is heading under the current govt but imo they are going against the grain of the wider population.

      You raise another area where my own politics sit to the left – that of foreign ownership of land. It must be stopped. NZers cannot compete with the northern hemisphere capital for our own land and why should we? In addition it is abundantly clear to anyone with an understanding of human history that a tenant community is a weak community.

      Labour last time under Clark seemed to be aiming to be the new natural party of govt, taking the mantle off National. Well It may not have happened then but I think a significant move in that direction was made and I suspect that by the end of the decade that wish may well come true. Or something along those lines. General populace politics is slowly moving ‘left’ in NZ imo. Hopefully such politics will embrace these issues and we will end up with a strong community that is prosperous and living in a lush environment.

      sounds dreamy. hopefully it’s not.

      • Draco T Bastard 4.2.1
        22 April 2010 at 3:32 pm

        Politics in NZ has always been Left. We only had National in government so much because the voting system favoured National.

  5. gobsmacked 5
    22 April 2010 at 9:40 am

    Morning all.

    To brighten your day, enjoy the David Cameron Random Anecdote Generator. Click on link, have a laugh:

    http://www.fridgemagnet.org.uk/toys/dave-met.php

    • Ianmac 5.1
      22 April 2010 at 10:34 am

      Great. Must be why referenda don’t work. 🙂

    • Pascal's bookie 5.2
      22 April 2010 at 10:49 am

      “Last week, I met a Cornish family, who told me that economic migrants needed to get a proper job.”

    • felix 5.3
      22 April 2010 at 11:46 am

      There is a youtube video linked from the fridgemagnet page for the slow kids like me who don’t get the reference, but it has been taken down. Anyone know where another one might live?

  6. prism 6
    22 April 2010 at 10:04 am

    gobsmacked Priceless. A very good link to keep for the variety and I guess they will be adding new gems. By the way do people watch Auto Tunes. We need a bit of a laugh occasionally in between watching the political drivers who rarely seem to get past their learners licence.

    • Draco T Bastard 7.1
      22 April 2010 at 3:39 pm

      Because that is what it is. ANZAC day is the perpetuation not of the grief felt for those who died in Gallipoli but a celebration of a Nation proud to be part of an Empire even if that empire collapsed ages ago. It is the celebration of a Nation basing it’s value not on being independent and proud of it but one in submission to a queen in a far away land and eager to send more young men to die for wars in far away lands.

      I’d agree with that.

  8. Ianmac 8
    22 April 2010 at 10:18 am

    Good news but irrelavent. Those great people who have been showing off bypronouncing the volcano as Eyjafjallajokull is actually the glacier under the volcano Eyjafjoell, which is much easier to say. 🙂

  9. prism 9
    22 April 2010 at 10:57 am

    Minister for Veterans Affairs Judith Collins rides forth on her high horse to take a shot at peace activists purveying white poppies. Oh horror the vips (very inferior people) are at it again, trying to do something beyond the status quo.

    I attend a mid-morning service each Anzac Day and it follows the same routine with the same words, seeming merely a form to remember the dead with no life in the ritual. We could hear a 3 minute briefing from someone in the peace movement, or the aid contingent, or the anti-nuclear activists which would honour our dead in a real way by saying ‘We are carrying on the fight for a better world’. But nothing changes – we can’t do anything different and relevant to now.

    Besides thinking of the reason for the white poppies initiative, we should take a wee space of time to think of the White Rose Resistance group that attempted to stop the spread of dreadfulness that was under way in Germany. Many German people were cowed under the crushing regime that started in the 1930’s. The White Rose group was I think mainly students.
    More about them on Wikipedia.
    Wikipedia heading note – Fritz Scholl (22 September 1918 22 February 1943) was a core and founding member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany . …

  10. Ianmac 10
    22 April 2010 at 12:01 pm

    And the RSA chappie this morning’s radio seemed very reasonable with the line that, “We fought to protect the freedom of speech and so be it for the White Rose group. Although we might have preferred that they were not on Anzac Day.”

  11. prism 11
    22 April 2010 at 12:44 pm

    The RSA spokesperson this morning made a very good impression – thoughtful and reasonable.

    This morning also was the last meeting of the Canterbury ECAN board. Some councillors were weeping, some in black, some carried a coffin representing dead democracy. They finished the meeting abruptly, what was the use of discussing points on the agenda – they would have no weight.

    I wonder if this sort of takeover of an established body was how Hitler and his buddies got established. The little so and so got into politics and worked his way up to Chancellor before he took on the role of World Enslaver. He was able to talk his way to his aims, coupled with some eager thugs, and I wonder is plain-speaking, confident, plausible Rodney Hide in similar mould?

    • Bored 11.1
      22 April 2010 at 1:21 pm

      Have a read of Trotters latest on Bowalleyroad. Hide is as you know a corporatist…..cant use the H or F or M words.

      Also it fills me with sadness that these elected representatives have been treated so shabbily and their reputations blackened. The Nacts are fast becoming a criminal state.

      • prism 11.1.1
        22 April 2010 at 2:15 pm

        Yes I notice that every time the right gets in they don’t just want to govern, they want to overturn previously established systems and insert their own. It makes for at the least an unsettled democracy, and I don’t agree with left and right automatically nay-saying the other party.

        I’ve seen a naive but determined committee, when they took over running an organisation, wreck it. Previous decisions, and the reasons for them, and even the good of the group, doesn’t matter, only the brave, new way they have decided to impose.

        • Bill 11.1.1.1
          22 April 2010 at 3:03 pm

          Problem is when the opposition acquiesces to the imposition of whatever new regime because they hold the ‘good of the group’ (read ‘stability and continuity’) as prime considerations. Meaning that they will not add to any turbulence being unleashed by the new kids on the block, but rather, believe that by tacitly cooperating with the new kids, that turbulence will be minimised and stability and continuity restored… which is good for the group/society

          But it’s not.

          It means in the context of our social democracy that everything drifts inexorably to the corporate right…the ones prepared to unleash mayhem; the ones prepared to slash and burn society and institutional mores simply so their ideology breathes easier. When the opposition assumes power again it will not tear down the nonsense created by the erstwhile new kids, but will institute only gradual reversals for the sake of continuity and stability.

          And so the drift continues over the long term.

          • prism 11.1.1.1.1
            22 April 2010 at 7:35 pm

            Yeah, yeah Bill. That was (seemed) a good argument till you came along.
            The problem is that the incumbents shouldn’t be upsetting all the established systems so that the opposition has to remake everything again.

            Rome wasn’t built in a day is the saying. But with our politicians it would never have consisted of more than a few columns and a lot of bricks.Bit like the present ruins. But oh those were grand days in past Rome. NZ will likely never have grand days again to look back on with our bifurcated (new word) bunch.

  12. Pascal's bookie 12
    22 April 2010 at 5:34 pm

    wee gripe:

    “the govt sez more public servants may lose their jobz because of budget contraintz”

    I’m sure they do sez that.

    Don’t see why it needs to be quoted in the passive voice that the govt would prefer it be announced in though.

  13. vto 13
    22 April 2010 at 5:56 pm

    I see the new Ecan Commissars have been named.

    Fuck me they have some massive powers. Seems that when Bainimarama, I mean Key, finally lets us have elections again the people will have to vote in people to reverse the commissars actions (presuming they get out of line with the Canterbury public).

    Defnitely heated times. Got to about 28 celcius today…

    • Pascal's bookie 13.1
      22 April 2010 at 6:22 pm

      $900/day tv 3 reckoned they’re getting.

      Seems steep to me, is that coming out of rates?

      • Ianmac 13.1.1
        22 April 2010 at 7:38 pm

        Good question. I gather that part of the rates due include a portion for Ecan. Some are with-hold that portion in protest and a trust account is being set up. For each or a group I don’t know. The $900 per day and $1400 per day for the Chair plus powers that the old committee asked for but were denied. Roll on the stripping of the waterways.

    • prism 13.2
      22 April 2010 at 7:40 pm

      Interesting that none of the present councillors, though some shortlisted, were ‘good enough’. The problem seems to be that they were often split on decision making. Answer – sack them and put in like-minded people who will walk as sweetly as line dancers with their ankles tied together. Mind you give them a push….

      • Ianmac 13.2.1
        22 April 2010 at 8:58 pm

        What would be the point if all on a committee were unanimous? Under Parkinson’s Law 7 should be the ideal number on a committee or 9 at the most. 15 as Ecan was, created problems because factions build up.

        Of course an ideal committe would be Smith alone. He would always have a quorum and seldom would he have serious arguement with himself. “Those in favour? Come on there Mr Smith. In favour? Yes Mr Smith. You are right again Mr Smith. Aye Mr Smith. Motion carried unanimously Mr Smith!”

        • prism 13.2.1.1
          22 April 2010 at 9:35 pm

          Long ago part of one of my courses was devoted to group decision making and it said that there was an ideal number for a viable effective committee. Like what you have just said Ianmac. I think that it also said that having too many in the group over the ideal became unwieldy. Shame if that fact has led to ECANs demise.

  14. vto 14
    22 April 2010 at 6:51 pm

    yes.

    rates revolt! who’s in?

  15. outofbed 15
    22 April 2010 at 8:58 pm

    This will teach those pesky Libs Dems
    http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/04/22/tabloids-cover-lib-dems-sensation/

    And I thought our MSM was bad

  16. logie97 16
    22 April 2010 at 9:29 pm

    I commented on yesterday’s Open Mike about the broken promise of more leisure time as industry becomes more robotic… and suggested that the displaced/unemployed would be vilified by the right…

    Some of you might have noticed what the Right in Australian politics (the ones we are trying to catch) are reported as suggesting in today’s Herald… FFS
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/employment/news/article.cfm?c_id=11&objectid=10639969

    • Descendant Of Smith 16.1
      22 April 2010 at 9:54 pm

      I was going through some of my father’s old things recently and came across a Jubilee Magazine for Queen Victoria. What I thought was most interesting was the lovely drawings of children working in the coal mines. They were there just matter of factly, a simple depiction of life as it was – something they were clearly proud enough of, or blase enough about, to put in such an important publication.

      Obviously going back to those days is a good option:

      Mine for your country, save money in education spending.

      I can’t believe that we heading back to the days of vilifying people who don’t want to do a shitty, filthy, dangerous job like mining.

      Much better solution is to stick bankers and share-brokers and loan-sharks and real-estate agents in there to do it. Apparently they are highly valued important people with much needed skills.

      Apparently mining is the most important work you can do for your country.

      Sounds like a match made in heaven.

  17. prism 17
    23 April 2010 at 10:23 am

    DoS Good thinking, sharp, funny, like the reasoning.

    Red Logix Interesting points about open shelter for animals. Sounds like a worthwhile investment too, so good for animals and for managers of.

  18. PhilBee, Auckland 18
    24 April 2010 at 10:45 am

    Why did Peace Movement Aotearoa choose to sell its white poppies in the lead-up to Anzac Day? Pure and simple – it wanted to “cash in’ on the decades of good RSA red poppy day publicity. PMA decided in 2008 to deliberately move to the Anzac period there can be no disguising its intent. It’s no wonder NZers are angry! It should return its white poppy selling to its original position on Hiroshima Day and go the long haul to make the day its own, not try and piggyback on the blood, sweat and lives of our servicemen and women.

    http://yardyyardyyardy.blogspot.com/2010/04/seeing-red-over-white-poppies.html

    PhilBee, Auckland