Open mike 22/09/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 22nd, 2010 - 43 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

Comment on whatever takes your fancy.

The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner).

Step right up to the mike…

43 comments on “Open mike 22/09/2010 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. NickS 1
    22 September 2010 at 7:34 am

    And here’s brilliant post on the South Island’s Alpine Fault, which also deals with the media’s bad habit of saying we’re “overdue” for a big one, when we lack a much longer view of the AF’s seismic history:
    http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2010/09/all-quiet-on-the-alpine-fault/

  2. ZeeBop 2
    22 September 2010 at 7:38 am

    Labour mothballed some planes in the late 1990’s, what don’t the National party
    and its mouth pieces on the morning show know about the reasons. That having the
    planes, the capacity even if not ready, was a defense! With no immediate threat it
    made sense to mothball them, and trying to sell them off and invest in better new
    technology was a GOOD policy. I’m surprised that these supposed experts on
    defense cannot understand that it was a more effective policy – give the lack of
    immediate threats – to have them available to bring into working order.

    Peak oil changes everything, we cannot afford to run them now, National finally
    realize that even having this planes available is no longer important. Globally wars
    will be done much cheaper.

    If any country had started turning out to be a threat to NZ, we’d have UNMOTHBALLED
    them, not have to wait five ten years for new planes to come off the factory line, or
    be pushed to buy inferior or expensive planes from someone else. Labour did right.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.1
      22 September 2010 at 10:53 am

      It was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, we still haven’t got around to replacing them (No, I don’t mean getting new planes) and still seem to have no plans to do so.

      • ZeeBop 2.1.1
        22 September 2010 at 11:21 am

        Peak oil makes hugely expensive jets even more expensive to make, more
        expensive to run, that no modern aggressor would use them in any number.
        The economist has a story that suggests that smaller nations are gravitating to
        cheaper solutions instead of relying on drones and the lock into the US military.
        If I were going to defend NZ I’d go for over the horizon, robosubs, small
        just below the surface, almost like the sea mine of old. Make it look like
        a patch of plastic flotsum. Sprinkle on top unmanned planes, and missile
        batteries on boats, I sure the militrary can think up better solutions that big
        expensives jet squadans.

  3. Bored 3
    22 September 2010 at 7:52 am

    Thanks Nick, is a gripper, good read. Interstingly on earthquakes we have had some noise in the capital re strengthening the most at risk buildings..theres a whole debate to be had around that one.

  5. Jeremy Harris 5
    22 September 2010 at 8:55 am

    @felix, didn’t his replacement say she fully supported Rodney..?

    • Armchair Critic 5.1
      22 September 2010 at 9:15 am

      The quote that is given as showing evidence of her support is:
      I think it is important, particularly in a small party like Act, that the leader has everyone’s total support.And I would do that unreservedly.
      There are a number of ways that could be interpreted.

  6. prism 6
    22 September 2010 at 9:19 am

    Another good read just released. The truth behind James Bond! Real people doing dangerous and mysterious tasks! Sounds riveting – 800 pages of it. Book on British spy network MI6 by Prof Keith Jeffery
    ‘MI6 Ð The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949’.

    The first-ever official history of MI6 reveals that Britain’s foreign spy agency debated assassinating Nazi leaders, landed a spy wearing a wetsuit over his tux at a casino by the sea and experimented with exploding filing cabinets – but also wrangled with other government departments and had to make do on a shoestring budget.

    http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2010/09/21/1578066/uk-spies-spill-secrets-in-official.html

  7. prism 7
    22 September 2010 at 10:33 am

    Carol yes what style, ironic too. The Avengers, sigh, I’m on a nostalgia binge. I enjoyed Maxwell Smart too. And I remember Sapphire and Steel.

    • The Voice of Reason 7.1
      22 September 2010 at 11:04 am

      What about The Prisoner, chaps? I am not a number, I am a free man, dem bones and all that.

      As I recall it was never established who number 6 was spying for or which side kidnapped him when he tried to quit. Which was probably the writer’s dig at how riddled with spies, counter spies and double agents British Intelligence was, and presumably, still is.

  8. Pascal's bookie 8
    22 September 2010 at 11:01 am

    Check this:

    It has been demonstrated that finches raised by foster parents of a different species of finch will later exhibit a lifelong sexual attraction toward the alien species. One wonders how a child’s sexual imprinting mechanism is affected by forcible racial integration and near continual exposure to media stimuli promoting interracial contact. The most serious implication of human sexual imprinting for our genetic future is that it would establish the destructiveness of school integration, especially in the middle and high-school years. One can only wonder to what degree the advocates of school integration, such as former NAACP attorney Jack Greenberg, were conscious of this scientific concept. It also compounds the culpability of media moguls who deliberately popularize miscegenation in films directed toward adolescents and pre-adolescents. In the midst of this onslaught against our youth, parents need to be reminded that they have a natural obligation, as essential as providing food and shelter, to instill in their children an acceptance of appropriate ethnic boundaries for socialization and for marriage.
    The sociobiological warfare that our youth is subjected to is likely to be even more diabolical since it appears to deliberately exploit a biological theory of sexual imprinting at the critical period of sexual maturity. Movies like this past year’s spate of miscegenationist titles, Save the Last Dance, Crazy / Beautiful and O, a parody of Othello, appear deliberately designed to exploit the critical period of sexual imprinting in their target audiences of white pre-adolescent girls and adolescent young women.

    There is now afoot a conscious effort to de-Europeanize and to re-Judaize Christianity, through scriptural revision, internal treachery and external pressure.
    The importance of applying eugenic measures in the West becomes evident from Richard Lynn’s recent work on Dysgenics and his just-released seminal work Eugenics: A Reassessment.

    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/finch-called-atticus.html

    An official candidate for congress for the party of Lincoln, no less. But there ain’t no racism in the GOP, it’s the liberals that are the real racists, you betcha.

    • Vicky32 8.1
      22 September 2010 at 4:23 pm

      The stupid it burns! And the scary – that is well scary! How on earth can he say those things in public?
      Please, despite his comments, don’t blame Christianity for a nutjob like him…
      Deb

  9. randal 9
    22 September 2010 at 11:11 am

    nothing demonstrates the ineptitude of this national government as the bill proposed to stop incarcerated prisoners from voting.
    it is now found to have serious deficiencies that should have been picked up in the committee stages.
    so we now know that national mp’s cant read and comprehend the written word but even worse was the reaction from sandra goudie last night on teevee who wanted to shoot the messenger, a Professor Geddis and then claimed that he couldnt have a say because he wasn’t at the select committee.
    what sandpit did she emerge from?
    her sort of logic you could expect from the opinion columms of twade me but not from an elected representative.

  10. The Voice of Reason 10
    22 September 2010 at 12:24 pm

    In the excitement around the SuperCity election, readers may be forgiven for forgetting that there are other council elections on at the moment. If I lived in Welly, this is the guy I’d want wearing the mayoral chains, and not just because of his answer to question no7, which suggests he’d have the get up and go the capital so sorely needs:

    http://wellingtonista.com/al-mansell-answers-our-questions

    • comedy 10.1
      22 September 2010 at 12:54 pm

      So you’ll be voting for Prast in Auckland then ?

      • The Voice of Reason 10.1.1
        22 September 2010 at 7:01 pm

        Nuh, huh, Ak voters would be nuts to re-elect Banks and Brown is the only alternative.

        But I know Al and while I don’t share his enthusiasm for pharmaceuticals I do like his commitment to his city and its people. His policies are sound and I reckon he’d make a good addition to the council. And he is both honest and witty; rare attributes around most council tables.

    • ennui 10.2
      22 September 2010 at 10:34 pm

      Damn, I have already voted ..

  11. freedom 11
    22 September 2010 at 12:44 pm

    and now with the lives of our commonwealth games’ team in his hands, here is our assertive confident, man with a mission leader unable to have an opinion of his own, again
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10675118

    did anyone ever actually explain his job to him?

  12. Draco T Bastard 12
    22 September 2010 at 1:23 pm

    Despite massive opposition, NZ’s biggest mall approved

    ACC received over 1100 submissions on the enormous development with 68 percent opposed.

    It’s rather amusing reading the justification as well.

    Plans for New Zealand’s largest mall in central Auckland have won approval in part because usage of the existing St Lukes Mall is low and needs to expand, planning commissioners have told the Auckland City Council (ACC).

    It needs to expand because people aren’t going there? I thought that would be an argument to make it smaller.

  13. Draco T Bastard 13
    22 September 2010 at 1:43 pm

    David Cunliffe over at Red Alert seems to be asking the right questions about the SCF bailout.

    The Chair of the Financial Markets Authority Eastablishment Board, Simon Botherway, now has no choice but to step aside pending the outcome of the Ombudsman’s inquiry into the mangament of his potential conflicts of interest in placing Allan and Jean Hubbard into statutory managment.

    • ennui 13.1
      22 September 2010 at 11:03 pm

      .. so Key and Kerr both went to Christs College in Christchurch, and have co-directors in the past ..

      I have heard NZ referred to as “the wild west” overseas, not in a complimentary way.

      Keep it coming, David.

  14. grumpy 14
    22 September 2010 at 2:08 pm

    So, what’s the story with the voter fraud in Auckland? Surprising not to see any coverage on this site.

    • lprent 14.1
      22 September 2010 at 2:37 pm

      Just the usual idiots getting over-zealous.

      The right wing equivalent is to try to make sure that people can’t vote. Typically by closing the roll months before the election. Or underfunding the election officials, or reducing the polling stations. I see that some of these are underway again under the thin guise of ‘rationalization’

      You’d care to comment on those?

      • grumpy 14.1.1
        22 September 2010 at 3:13 pm

        Don’t know anything about what you are talking about but as “DEMOCRACY UNDER ATTACK” featured strongly on these pages, I thought you guys would be right onto this.

        • lprent 14.1.1.1
          22 September 2010 at 3:51 pm

          Do you mean that you think that a few idiots moving peoples vote from one electorate to another constitutes a attack on democracy? There is an easy way to make it disappear of course – institute a MMP system in local body elections. That immediately drops the impact of all of those rorts to virtually zero.

          Of course funding the electoral commission enough that they can locate such problems also gets rid of most of that type of problem as well. Then they can detect it.

          Perhaps you should look at the electoral shenanigans that National inflicted on the population of NZ in the 1990’s so you know what you’re looking for in attacks of democracy. Disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters through fiddling with the election process is far more important. Well unless you’re an idiot more interested in slogans/spin and the appearance of democracy rather than its actual functioning.

          Are you an idiot?

    • Vicky32 14.2
      22 September 2010 at 4:29 pm

      What voter fraud? I have heard nothing about that, not even on the Right’s darling, TV3..
      Deb

  15. The Chairman 15
    22 September 2010 at 2:21 pm

    Desperate residents demand answers
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/canterbury-earthquake/4155231/Desperate-residents-demand-answers

    Many of the residents cannot access emergency funding.

    Housing New Zealand clients being forced to pay rent for properties that were uninhabitable.

  17. Bored 17
    22 September 2010 at 6:45 pm

    How fucking stupid is Stephen Joyce????? Watching the news he has announced that students who did not for the last two years pass 50% of their courses will be unable to get a Student Loan. This is apparently designed to stop the student loan account blowing out. So far so good BUT where the hell do you think these students who cannot afford to go on with their studies go?

    Its simple, they wont get a job (versus 2000 or so applicants for a supermarket pittance in South Auckland recently) so no job, where to? The dole. Thats where the stupidity of this government comes full circle, we save on loans that might be repaid, and spend as much or more on the dole. Which is not recoverable. Nor is the benefit of an education lost. You would have to say to Joyce and his support team, what a pack of thick as pig shit dipsticks. Economic genii no less!

    • NickS 17.1
      22 September 2010 at 9:04 pm

      And don’t forget Joyce lying about it being made known much earlier on.

    • ianmac 17.2
      23 September 2010 at 12:09 am

      Joyce thinks he is very clever. They wanted to get rid of the Student Loan but were too scared to do that upfront. Soooo lets do it by stealth. Both my sons faltered a bit when starting at Uni, but both now have degrees, one with Honours. They might have got knocked out early on by the Uni as well as loosing their Student Loans.

  18. bobo 18
    22 September 2010 at 6:47 pm

    Gee thanks National since you got in…

    Im paying more for car registration..
    My ACC levy has gone up.
    I have to upgrade to the latest version of Myob $250 just to implement your crappy (taxcuts for the rich) gst change, nice lil earner for Myob I must say if every business is forced to upgrade…. all the compliance costs of course weren’t included in Bill English’s tax cut calculator…

    National Inc “where you pay more for less”

    • KJT 18.1
      22 September 2010 at 8:43 pm

      Try “cashbook complete”. NZ software. Just had a free upgrade to the new GST version.

    • NickS 18.2
      22 September 2010 at 9:02 pm

      Wait, Myob is making business pay for what in effect amounts to something that could be fixed by a patch?

      Ahahahahahaha…

      Tell FairGo, if enough people basically know that Myob is ripping them off, it should backfire on them nicely and result in a free patch. Or some enterprising geek will produce a hack which will solve it.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.