Open mike 23/03/2012

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 23rd, 2012 - 107 comments
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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Step right up to the mike…

107 comments on “Open mike 23/03/2012 ”

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  1. muzza 1
    23 March 2012 at 7:19 am

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/6616197/Chamber-in-super-council-push

    The COC around the place are in fact key players in the theft of assets….since when does the COC get to decide when debate should be held about public governence?

    Alamgamate, bankrupt, sell off….

  2. travellerev 2
    23 March 2012 at 7:22 am

    After writing several MSM propaganda posts on why we should attack Syria, why China would be the next empire and a post on Iran were he, while still maintaining that Iran has a repressive regime (most notably for that typical Muslim hatred for women) and we are the good guys, at least comes to the conclusion that attacking them would maybe not be such a good idea (which again is the MSM stance so no surprise there) I would like to present Michael Valley with a challenge!

    More and more information comes out of Libya (not in the MSM of course) indicating that very predictably the “liberation” of Libya doesn’t mean the same for all Libyans and that as was predicted by many geopolitical strategists Libya is now being Balkanised (ad in cut up in three states) by flaming inter tribal rivalries with the tribal area from whence the “revolution” started and the most oil rich looking forward to a hansom reward for assisting in throwing out the only man strong enough to resist the US and removing the only viable obstacle towards the re-colonisation of the African continent (Kony anyone?) Colonel Gaddafi (No I’m not saying he was a nice guy)

    My challenge to Michael Valley is the following. I would like to see his analysis from his point of view which I suspect is that there was no hidden agenda on the part of the Hillary led war crime syndicate called the US/NATO liberation forces and that Libya is now free to do what it wants even if that means the killing of black people by the thousands. That is what freedom means.

    That at least is what the MSM seems to suggest by their dead silence on the developing situation in Libya.

    • McFlock 2.1
      23 March 2012 at 12:34 pm

      That at least is what the MSM seems to suggest by their dead silence on the developing situation in Libya.

      Right. It’s all a conspiracy, nothing to do with the fact that MSM has the attention span of a tweaking flea and is averse to anything that can’t be thoroughly expressed in a 5-second sound bite.

      • Vicky32 2.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 5:57 pm

        Right. It’s all a conspiracy, nothing to do with the fact that MSM has the attention span of a tweaking flea and is averse to anything that can’t be thoroughly expressed in a 5-second sound bite.

        Er, how about both?

  3. logie97 3
    23 March 2012 at 7:37 am

    Jeff Robinson interviewed the chairman of ACC on RNZ Morning Report this morning. Jeff Robinson does not appear to know much about the chairman. Robinson asked him a question, “Have any other ministers of ACC written letters while you have been chairman of ACC?”

    For your info Jeff, The chairman of ACC was appointed by Nick Smith as part of the preparation for the sale of ACC. The chairman of the ACC is/was a member of the Business Round Table. He probably doesn’t party much with members in Mana, the Labour Party, the Greens, or NZF. Doesn’t leave many other parties that he might share a beer at a barbecue with really and “chat about things…” (Chats like our PM did with Ashcroft when he was here.)

    • tc 3.1
      23 March 2012 at 5:20 pm

      Jeff Robinson has been kept on because he toes Griffins line of don’t ask any tough questions, be nice to govt ministers and cronies alike……who’s a good boy then.
      Mercep’s no better, Mary Wilson’s kept her credibility whereas Mora/Ryan etc are about as cutting as a sponge.

      • Rosemary 3.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 8:04 pm

        Linda Clark was the same, just didn’t know how to ask the next question. Some idiot she’d be interviewing would say something that just begged the most obvious next question that would have had them cornered, and what would Clark do every time: miss the chance by asking the next bloody question on her list. Just hopeless. Ryan’s no better. Contrast them with what Kim Hill used to do. Politicians have it so easy here. The Aussies have got it all over us on this, too.

      • Morrissey 3.1.2
        23 March 2012 at 11:54 pm

        Jeff Robinson has been kept on because he toes Griffin’s line of don’t ask any tough questions

        I think you could be right. Yesterday (Thursday) morning Robinson interviewed Phoebe Greenwood from the Guardian about the Toulouse murders at a Jewish school. Pro-Israeli propagandists have been trying their best (or worst) to use the deaths of the children and their teacher to invoke support not for the victims, but for the state of Israel. To do this, they need useful idiots in the media—people like Geoff Robinson.

        His brief interview with Phoebe Greenwood was toe-curlingly, embarrassingly awful….

        ROBINSON: [voice croaking with empathy] Israelis are more STOIC about terror attacks, aren’t they.

        GREENWOOD: Stoic and accustomed. One rabbi here in France says that this is a turning point for the diaspora. Now Jews must RETURN to Israel, for their own safety.

        ROBINSON: [thoughtfully] Mmmmm….

        • Vicky32 3.1.2.1
          24 March 2012 at 1:10 am

           Pro-Israeli propagandists have been trying their best (or worst) to use the deaths of the children and their teacher to invoke support not for the victims, but for the state of Israel.

          What interests me greatly, is how the story has changed! Days ago, it was about three Muslim soldiers murdered by a gunman on a scooter, and the French authorities were not all that fussed. (The lone gunman was assumed to belong to a para-military right wing group..) Then the shooting at the Jewish school happened – sparking the largest manhunt in French history! In about 5 minutes, they found the guy – I mean that – I was listening to the BBC World Service that day – and it took all of 45 minutes from one half hourly news bulletin to the next for them to say ‘the manhunt has begun’ to ‘he’s holed up in an apartment building’… 24 hours later, the perp is dead, he’s said to be an Islamist belonging to Al Quaeda, and Radio NZ describes him as the man who killed “Three Jewish children and four adults’ – giving the impression to anyone who hadn’t been following the story, that all the victims were Jewish! How the gunman’s new backstory fits with his first 3 victims being North African Muslims, doesn’t matter – according to the new story he was just an “Islamist” whatever one of those is – and no explanation is needed…

  4. RedLogix 4
    23 March 2012 at 7:51 am

    Another good JMG read on the American Empire and Capitalism.

    Read the literature of empire from the Victorian period and the connection is impossible to miss. Why did industrial nations want imperial colonies? The reason given in book after book and speech after speech at the time is that the industrial nations needed markets. Free trade rhetoric, then as now, insisted that all an industrial nation had to do was to build a better mousetrap and the world would beat a path to its door, but then as now, that’s not how things worked; the markets that mattered were the ones where a single industrial nation could exclude competitors and impose the unequal exchange of cheap labor and raw materials for expensive manufactured products that would keep the wealth pump churning away.

    • Bored 4.1
      23 March 2012 at 8:17 am

      A good read I agree. The most salient point for me was Greers contention (with which I also agree) that capital aggregation and the consequent impoverishment of the consumer base never gets talked about.

      Greer commented that one of the most incisive commentaries on “capital aggregation” was that of Marx BUT that the Cold War climate limited any institutional interest in what is a very valid criticism. In fact economists and their masters dont actually want capital aggregation examined as it threatens their very assumptions about wealth and distribution there of.

      My take is that this lack of focus on how capital (and finance) aggregate is at the centre of todays crisis and is being ignored totally, along with the other great driver of our current crisis: resource diminution. NZs treasury and politicians of all colours here seem totally blind to both.

      • Uturn 4.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 9:26 am

        If schools, as part of a balanced education, examined just the first three chapters of the first part of the first volume of Das Kapital, in the same way they uphold current flawed economic indoctrination in classes, the world would change overnight.

        Capital

        A Critique of Political Economy

        Karl Marx 1867

        Volume I

        Book One: The Process of Production of Capital

        Part 1: Commodities and Money

        Chapter 3: Money, Or the Circulation of Commodities

        Section 3: Money

        “…The continual movement in circuits of the two antithetical metamorphoses of commodities, or the never ceasing alternation of sale and purchase, is reflected in the restless currency of money, or in the function that money performs of a perpetuum mobile of circulation. But so soon as the series of metamorphoses is interrupted, so soon as sales are not supplemented by subsequent purchases, money ceases to be mobilised; it is transformed, as Boisguillebert says, from ―meuble‖ into ―immeuble, from movable into immovable, from coin into money.

        With the very earliest development of the circulation of commodities, there is also developed the necessity, and the passionate desire, to hold fast the product of the first metamorphosis. This product is the transformed shape of the commodity, or its gold-chrysalis.[39] Commodities are thus sold not for the purpose of buying others, but in order to replace their commodity-form by their money-form. From being the mere means of effecting the circulation of commodities, this change of form becomes the end and aim. The changed form of the commodity is thus prevented from functioning as its unconditionally alienable form, or as its merely transient money-form. The money becomes petrified into a hoard, and the seller becomes a hoarder of money.

        As the production of commodities further develops, every producer of commodities is compelled to make sure of the nexus rerum or the social pledge.[41] His wants are constantly making themselves felt, and necessitate the continual purchase of other people‘s commodities, while the production and sale of his own goods require time, and depend upon circumstances. In order then to be able to buy without selling, he must have sold previously without buying. This operation, conducted on a general scale, appears to imply a contradiction. But the precious metals at the sources of their production are directly exchanged for other commodities. And here we have sales (by the owners of commodities) without purchases (by the owners of gold or silver). [42] And subsequent sales, by other producers, unfollowed by purchases, merely bring about the distribution of the newly produced precious metals among all the owners of commodities. In this way, all along the line of exchange, hoards of gold and silver of varied extent are accumulated. With the possibility of holding and storing up exchange-value in the shape of a particular commodity, arises also the greed for gold. Along with the extension of circulation, increases the power of money, that absolutely social form of wealth ever ready for use. ―Gold is a wonderful thing! Whoever possesses it is lord of all he wants. By means of gold one can even get souls into Paradise.‖ (Columbus in his letter from Jamaica, 1503.) Since gold does not disclose what has been transformed into it, everything, commodity or not, is convertible into gold. Everything becomes saleable and buyable. The circulation becomes the great social retort into which everything is thrown, to come out again as a gold-crystal. Not even are the bones of saints, and still less are more delicate res sacrosanctae, extra commercium hominum able to withstand this alchemy.[43] Just as every qualitative difference between commodities is extinguished in money, so money, on its side, like the radical leveller that it is, does away with all distinctions.[43a] But money itself is a commodity, an external object, capable of becoming the private property of any individual. Thus social power becomes the private power of private persons. The ancients therefore denounced money as subversive of the economic and moral order of things.[43b] Modern society, which, soon after its birth, pulled Plutus by the hair of his head from the bowels of the earth,[44] greets gold as its Holy Grail, as the glittering incarnation of the very principle of its own life.

        In the early stages of the circulation of commodities, it is the surplus use-values alone that are converted into money. Gold and silver thus become of themselves social expressions for superfluity or wealth. This naive form of hoarding becomes perpetuated in those communities in which the traditional mode of production is carried on for the supply of a fixed and limited circle of home wants. It is thus with the people of Asia, and particularly of the East Indies. Vanderlint, who fancies that the prices of commodities in a country are determined by the quantity of gold and silver to be found in it, asks himself why Indian commodities are so cheap. Answer: Because the Hindus bury their money. From 1602 to 1734, he remarks, they buried 150 millions of pounds sterling of silver, which originally came from America to Europe.[40] In the 10 years from 1856 to 1866, England exported to India and China £120,000,000 in silver, which had been received in exchange for Australian gold. Most of the silver exported to China makes its way to India.

        A commodity, in its capacity of a use-value, satisfies a particular want, and is a particular element of material wealth. But the value of a commodity measures the degree of its attraction for all other elements of material wealth, and therefore measures the social wealth of its owner. To a barbarian owner of commodities, and even to a West-European peasant, value is the same as value-form, and therefore, to him the increase in his hoard of gold and silver is an increase in value. It is true that the value of money varies, at one time in consequence of a variation in its own value, at another, in consequence of a change in the values of commodities. But this, on the one hand, does not prevent 200 ounces of gold from still containing more value than 100 ounces, nor, on the other hand, does it hinder the actual metallic form of this article from continuing to be the universal equivalent form of all other commodities, and the immediate social incarnation of all human labour. The desire after hoarding is in its very nature unsatiable. In its qualitative aspect, or formally considered, money has no bounds to its efficacy, i.e., it is the universal representative of material wealth, because it is directly convertible into any other commodity. But, at the same time, every actual sum of money is limited in amount, and, therefore, as a means of purchasing, has only a limited efficacy. This antagonism between the quantitative limits of money and its qualitative boundlessness, continually acts as a spur to the hoarder in his Sisyphus-like labour of accumulating. It is with him as it is with a conqueror who sees in every new country annexed, only a new boundary…”

        • Bored 4.1.1.1
          23 March 2012 at 12:01 pm

          What a splendid passage, thoroughly enjoyed reading about about the ancients finding money was “subversive”….

          In business I find very few employees actually understand how we employers make money…margin…profit. I have always found Marx’s analysis of relation to production and surplus value as the simplest explanation to the uninformed. You can get a straight explanation out of the likes of Freidman, they all try and hide the reality from the “workers”.

          • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1.1
            23 March 2012 at 1:53 pm

            “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

            Henry Ford

            Your right, how the banking system works and how the capitalists actually becomes rich really is hidden from the people. I had my opened when I was in Amway when one of the Diamond level people told a conference that you don’t get rich by working but by having a lot of people work for you. It’s why capitalism is hierarchical and why the books are hidden from the workers. Basically, you have a lot of people below you that do the work but, instead of them being paid directly, you get paid and then you pay the workers. The hidden aspect of the accounts means that the workers don’t know how much you’ve just clipped the ticket and have no say in it.

      • prism 4.1.2
        23 March 2012 at 11:00 am

        @Bored
        I am reading Bruce Jessons Fragments of Labour. He might explain the background to the magnificent and determined lack of thought and wide, wise understanding by our politicians and their Sir Humphreys. On p12 he says

        New Zealand’s lack of intellectual vitality has always been related to its background of colonialism: lacking ideas of their own, New Zealanders have imported them wholesale and uncritically from overseas. In the 1980s, the New Zealand Treasury has been thoroughly colonised by the libertarian ideas of the Chicago school of economics, and has tried to reconstruct New Zealand society in that image.

        He refers to some in Labour having “ideas, less well developed, of social liberalism”….as in the Report of the Royal Commission. “It was only a matter of time before the different sets of ideas clashed”

        • Bored 4.1.2.1
          23 March 2012 at 12:10 pm

          To right Prism, we frown on intellectuals here in NZ, only do “faux” intellectual stuff like film criticism etc etc (all good valid things but never too close to the real meat on socio economic reality).

          Thanks for the tip, will have a read of Jesson. On that note I grabbed a copy of Sutch “The Quest for Security in NZ” at a garage sale recently…well worth a read. NZ prior to the First Labour Government was a very insecure place, we are headed rapidly back to that era courtesy of a millionaire who just does not have a clue (or care I suspect).

      • tc 4.1.3
        23 March 2012 at 5:28 pm

        One outcome of globalisation and consumersim where profit is god and must increase year on year is you end up with few players controlling everything as M&A’s are eventually always approved by weakened anti-monopoly agencies/laws.

        Brands have been used to mask this making people feel like they’re making a choice when the only choice is which marketing/advertising/packaging/presentation won the decision to purchase.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.2
      23 March 2012 at 1:03 pm

      That’s similar to what I’ve been saying for the last few years about the impossibility of exporting our way to wealth.

  5. freedom 5
    23 March 2012 at 7:54 am

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/market-data/currencies/6617519/Kiwi-nosedives-on-China-news

    When you are planning to produce your own NZ based dairy factories, i guess pricing out the competition is to be expected. Is the PM relaxed that this also spits in the face of TPP discussions and exposes the endgame of excessive foreign ownership of our farms ?

    • Draco T Bastard 5.1
      23 March 2012 at 1:59 pm

      I believe it spits in the face of the FTA we have with China as well and certainly makes it look as if the Crafar purchase actually was part of Chinese government action.

  6. Kotahi Tane Huna 6
    23 March 2012 at 8:09 am

    Looks like Fairfax media has finally lost the plot. They faked the moon landings too you know!

    • Hateatea 6.1
      23 March 2012 at 8:27 am

      I just read that and nearly spewed tea all over the laptop screen. The world is full of crazies but it did brighten the first few minutes of my days off

      • Kotahi Tane Huna 6.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 8:43 am

        It’s funny in some respects, but it does have the rather more serious effect of nurturing a racist narrative, not to mention the mental illness of the true believers.

        • muzza 6.1.1.1
          23 March 2012 at 9:36 am

          Would it upset your views on feeling like you are in control of your thoughts bloke?

          Mental illness, true believers…

          Just is not possible that some things can’t be as they seem is it!

          Nah its all black and white!

          • grumpy 6.1.1.1.1
            23 March 2012 at 9:48 am

            ….maybe Egypt and Greece could put a claim into the Waitangi Tribunal?

            I seem to remember someone claiming years ago that an ancient boat had been dug out of a seaside cliff near Timaru?????

            • muzza 6.1.1.1.1.1
              23 March 2012 at 9:57 am

              Hi Grumpy, it is safe to assume that there is much about history, ours and abroad which we have been fed, is little more than self interest!

              I recall a few years back listening to a historian/anthropologist on national radio, while I was home from abroad, saying he was aware of large swaths of NZ historical records and the like being destroyed. I am unable to recall his name, nor provide any links, so was not able to check into his background. He also made reference to some sort of ancient boat!

            • Hateatea 6.1.1.1.1.2
              23 March 2012 at 10:03 am

              Try the Moeraki Boulders near Oamaru.
               
              You may be thinking of this. It is all utter bunkum, of course. You will note that there has been no update with the ‘concrete’ analysis promised
              http://www.gavinmenzies.net/Evidence/15-chinese-ship-construction/

          • Kotahi Tane Huna 6.1.1.1.2
            23 March 2012 at 9:59 am

            No-one seems to know who coined the phrase:

            “Keep an open mind – but not so open that your brain falls out.”

          • Kotahi Tane Huna 6.1.1.1.3
            23 March 2012 at 10:07 am

            Nostradamus predicted that Woolworths would stay open late on a Thursday.

            • Grumpy 6.1.1.1.3.1
              23 March 2012 at 10:46 am

              Clever bastard eh? There is another story about a stone village in a Northland forest. The story is that the archeological report is embargoed to 2060’s. Anyone know anything about that?

        • SpaceMonkey 6.1.1.2
          23 March 2012 at 11:05 am

          It also has a potentially serious effect on the industry that has grown around the grievances.

          • Kotahi Tane Huna 6.1.1.2.1
            23 March 2012 at 11:13 am

            OK, since you seem to be serious about this, I have some conundra for you. In the words of Michael Shermer:

            “Where are the rest of the artifacts of those people? Where are their works of art, their weapons, their clothing, their tools, their trash?”

            Where are the bones of the rats they brought with them?

            One Anonymous Bloke predicts that sooner or later, archaeologists will start receiving death threats over this crap.

            • Grumpy 6.1.1.2.1.1
              23 March 2012 at 11:21 am

              Have you looked a hateatea’s link?

              Interesting stuff, I can see why, if true, some people would want it shut down. A conspiracy here for travellrev?

              • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                23 March 2012 at 11:36 am

                Seven or eight feet eh! That ties in with Northern Hemisphere legends about all the “Tall Bastards” that were driven out by their angrier neighbours.

                The ancient volume (kept under lock and key in the British Museum) “The Righteous Rage of Shorty the Red”, details how Shorty drove them from their homes with the following warning :

                “Yer Talle Bastardds, wu knew nott ur oun Godds, yer’ll niver retoorn hier! If yer doos yer’ll bee bluddy!”

                This and other “Tall Tales” have long been suppressed all over the world.

              • Hateatea …
                23 March 2012 at 11:37 am

                I don’t believe any of it to be true. There are a number of quasi anthropologist / archaeologist crackpots out there who have had a lot of publicity making claims that have been easily refuted on closer examination of the so called evidence.
                I have very good personal reasons for being sceptical about this stuff, none of it attributable to Treaty of Waitangi settlement debates

              • Pascal's bookie …
                23 March 2012 at 11:45 am

                Why would *they* want it shut down grumps?

                Let’s think about it.

                Why would archeologists want to shut down such a ground breaking , and career making discovery? It would be a greater find than Troy, or the opening of the pyramids.

                Why would the state want to hide something that would attract tourists by the plane load and raise huge awareness of NZ. Think of the publicity this would bring, if true.

                Seems to me the threorists here want it to be true for some reason. What is that reason?

                Please tell me it isn’t anything to do with the Treaty. But from reading various pushers of the idea, it seems to be that they have the idea that if someone else got here first, then the Treaty would be null and void. that belief would account for their passion I suppose, if they don’t like the Treaty.

                Perhaps someone could explain to me why the Trety would be null and void though. It’s not a long document.

                If Greeks or celts or egyptions got here first, why would that mean Maori weren’t soveriegn when Pakeha arrived?

                And even if, somehow, it did, we are left with the problem of the Crown covering up something that would get them off the hook for treaty settlements. Why would they do that?

                It’s just a big old pile of pudding son.

                Best left to the lizard brains squeeking away over at farrers place I reckon.

                • Hateatea …
                  23 March 2012 at 12:29 pm

                  It wouldn’t matter if 30 different groups had arrived here at different times from different places. If they were alive to intermarry with Māori, by the time Te Tiriti was signed they would have been well and truly intergrated and therefore part of the various iwi.
                   
                  The trouble is, given that iwi were an oral culture, there would have been waiata and kōrero purākau about there presence. Given the lack of that, it would seem to be unlikely that, should they have ever been here, they were living during the migration period.
                   
                  As well as that, there would be middens, at the very least.
                  Hogwash I say but I am just another layperson. What would I know

                • Hateatea …
                  23 March 2012 at 12:45 pm

                  😉

                  Pascal’s bookie, I like your style 

    • Bored 6.2
      23 March 2012 at 12:12 pm

      Dunno if they lost the plot…we all read the headline because even if its bunk it grabs our attention and sells papers……

  7. Frida 7
    23 March 2012 at 8:59 am

    Yes that was my concern to Kotahi. While it made me laugh out loud initially, I groaned inwards at the fuel it gives the racists. I am just waiting for my redneck, racist uncle to post the link on Facebook….shouldn’t take him long.

    So sick of Fairfax.

    • Grumpy 7.1
      23 March 2012 at 10:49 am

      Don’t worry about it upsetting your fixed views and just labeling it “racist”. You should keep an open mind, like me………

      • Kotahi Tane Huna 7.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 11:20 am

        Truthers unite, you have nothing to lose but your credibility.

      • Frida 7.1.2
        23 March 2012 at 3:54 pm

        Show me the midden pits and other signs of people living here Grumpy and I might open my fixed mind a little. Till then, this sounds like more Muriel Newman-promulgated “stop the uppity Maoris and their uppity claims” bullshit

  8. muzza 8
    23 March 2012 at 10:05 am

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/6625136/Search-and-Surveillance-Bill-passes

    Should be good for filling up those new private prisons I would imagine!

  9. SpaceMonkey 9
    23 March 2012 at 12:29 pm

    I don’t know… I just try to keep an open mind. It is entirely conceiveable that NZ was visited/settled by other cultures pre-Maori. My point was there is a lot of money being made by individuals out of the grievance process which will ensure a vested interest in maintaining a narrative that Maori were the first to NZ, irrespective of any evidence to the contrary.

    • Pascal's bookie 9.1
      23 March 2012 at 12:43 pm

      Spacemonkey.

      1) Lot’s of things are concievable. It’s concievable that NZ was discovered by a reverse engineered invisible spacecat from the far distant future who zipped back in time, snooped about, spotted the place, picked up a few humans and plopped them down with his plopper ray before popping back to his sparkly litterbox in the future. I just concieved it, but it doesn’t count for shit.

      2) “a narrative that Maori were the first to NZ” has no bearing at all on the Treaty of Waitangi. None. Not even a little bit.

      • Hateatea 9.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 12:48 pm

        No 1 – Roflmao

      • SpaceMonkey 9.1.2
        23 March 2012 at 12:55 pm

        Lol re 1… and 2 good point.

      • muzza 9.1.3
        23 March 2012 at 12:58 pm

        “Lot’s of things are concievable. It’s concievable that NZ was discovered by a reverse engineered invisible spacecat from the far distant future who zipped back in time, snooped about, spotted the place, picked up a few humans and plopped them down with his plopper ray before popping back to his sparkly litterbox in the future. I just concieved it, but it doesn’t count for sht”

        What is even more conceiveable than your example, is the level of control and manipulation from monetary flows into almost any industry you could name. There are the known interational infrastructure networks, and there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.

        Controlling money and finance can give almost endless ability to manipulate….

        • Kotahi Tane Huna 9.1.3.1
          23 March 2012 at 1:18 pm

          That’s how you can tell something definitely exists: when it is not “monitored, measured or reported on.” Nice of you to clear that up.

          • muzza 9.1.3.1.1
            23 March 2012 at 1:28 pm

            All the time you have spent working in the AML space Bloke, I thought you would have have had some idea what I was talking about. Oh wait on…

            Can you clear something up for me – Did Nostradamus also say that Woolworths was going to be consigned to the dustbin of NZ supermarket chain history?

            • Kotahi Tane Huna 9.1.3.1.1.1
              23 March 2012 at 2:15 pm

              If AML means “anti-money-laundering”, first you say it’s not being monitored, now you say there’s a whole “space” devoted to it. I wish you’d make your “mind” up.

              • muzza …
                23 March 2012 at 2:22 pm

                Well done, that is what the acronym stood for – Gold Star

                In reality though you have no idea how AML functions or fits inside the world of banking & your silly responses only serve to highlight that fact!

                Maybe you can ask Nostradamus to enlighten you!

                • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                  23 March 2012 at 2:30 pm

                  You are absolutely right – I do not know the details of that particular business. I was merely pointing out the self-contradictory nature of your argument.

                  To recap:

                  1. “…there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.”
                  2. “The AML space”

                  Which is it – is there no monitoring measurement or reporting, or is there in fact an entire network that is dedicated to them?

                  Or do you need me to make you a tin-foil hat before you can work it out?

                  • muzza …
                    23 March 2012 at 3:09 pm

                    Still not quite getting it because you have assumed the word “space” incorrectly from the context I meant it.

                    I will explain this very slowly for you…

                    1. “…there are networks which facillitate money flows which are not monitored, measured or reported on.” – Thats right, there are monitored networks, gateways etc, and there are those which are not reported on, which could be referred to as back doors, and if you had worked in the “AML Space”, you would know what I am talking about, but you dont, so you can’t!

                    2 – AML Space – What I meant here was the the part of the business that AML operates inside of, and also the space that as a contractor, I operated in – AML Space.

                    Maybe not jumpt to conclusions to support your ignorance, but it does amuse me!

                    No need to mention the tin foil hat , because you have made yourself look ignorant enough by now!

                    • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                      23 March 2012 at 3:24 pm

                      And these money laundering channels (which are monitored measured and reported on by law-enforcement agencies), your thesis is they they “give almost endless ability to manipulate” information, which in this case is being used to suppress archaeological data, for unknown reasons.

                      Except of course that doesn’t work on you, because you know the truth.

                      I’ll tell you what happened to all those 7-8′ tall fair-skinned types that used to live here: they moved on, and their descendants formed the HAARP Cabal. I learned this from Buzz Aldrin in a dream, but don’t worry, he’s going to bust them wide open.

                    • muzza …
                      23 March 2012 at 3:54 pm

                      “And these money laundering channels (which are monitored measured and reported on by law-enforcement agencies” – You seem to believe you know alot about it, have you worked in AML? Oh no thats right, we have established by now that you have not! – It’s ok though Bloke, you dont’t have to know everything, its not a competition, but it is good sense to pull back when you have no idea what you are talking about!

                      “your thesis is they they “give almost endless ability to manipulate” – Correct, imagine the level of what is possible when you can control, and hide money flows, into almost any industry. After this you tried to tell me about AML, which we have already established you know nothing about, yet you then decided to try and tell me about my job – Schoolboy!

                      “information, which in this case is being used to suppress archaeological data, for unknown reasons.” – Your words Nostradamus, not mine. I only offered the line that “Controlling money and finance can give almost endless ability to manipulate”, and you then tried to debate the in’s and out’s of my experience of the AML Space – Schoolboy!

                      Time to let you run along now!

                    • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                      23 March 2012 at 4:33 pm

                      In brief, I think the flaw in your argument is that attempts to manipulate are not always successful. You overestimate the power of money.

                      Certainly an individual can probably control aspects of debate – look at the small number of people who currently distort Climatology, for example. But these influences are only ever pertinent within lifetimes. The campaign to distort information about tobacco, for example, successfully fended off the medical profession et al for decades, but no-one seriously questions the fact that smoking is bad for you any more.

                      Things that happened in the distant past, though – who cares enough to spend money to intentionally suppress them? Make no mistake – if there were lots of DNA evidence of European rats (Rattus Rattus, Rattus Norvegicus, whatever) that was carbon dated to pre-Maori times that would be a very big deal. Historians, anthropologists etc. would be all over that like a rash.

                      However, Kiore DNA matches the human DNA chain in exactly the same way – and funnily enough, they match the oral history too – that of the South Pacific being gradually inhabited by the same group of people – a story of deliberate exploration.

                      The “evidence” advanced for counter-claims is based almost universally on cherry-picked information or simple misunderstanding.

                    • NickS …
                      23 March 2012 at 4:51 pm

                      The “evidence” advanced for counter-claims is based almost universally on cherry-picked information or simple misunderstanding.

                      If your follow Reading the Maps you’ll see that it’s primarily driven by racist ideologues, with intersections from New Age mysticism bullshit and a hefty helping of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, when it comes to recruitment to and persistence of these meme sets.

                      So yeah, more wilful cherry picking and complete failure to understand the basics of archaeology, especially when it clashes with a priori beliefs…

                      A lot like young earth creationists really.

    • NickS 9.2
      23 March 2012 at 4:41 pm

      http://archaeologyaotearoa.blogspot.co.nz/

      Read, think, even look up fallacies on wikipedia, then come back and try and argue your line of pure bullshit.

      Because we teh science, teh archaeological evidence, and teh genetics analyses that show Polynesians were first in New Zealand.

      Sheesh, next you’ll be telling us there’s a lot of money invested in evolution, therefore it’s wrongzors, or worse yet, HIV…

      And muzza, I’ll cluebat you on vaccines when I can, Nick be depressed at present and thus all out of teaspoons for trudging through stuff that’s easily found via googling science-based medicine sites.

      • muzza 9.2.1
        23 March 2012 at 5:06 pm

        “Nick be depressed at present ” – Maybe get yourself a vaccination to fix that then eh, or some big pharma pills! As long as they are getting paid, all is good!

        It would be your choice to take the vaccination/pills of course, which was only ever my point. That topic was over weeks ago, but by all means add to your low by wasting your time…

        Rip into it!

        • McFlock 9.2.1.1
          23 March 2012 at 5:43 pm

          I caught autism from my flu jab this year, but a statistically-insignificant solution of henbane cleared it right up.

          • muzza 9.2.1.1.1
            23 March 2012 at 5:58 pm

            Should have given it to the ORU then mate, sounds like they could have used a dose!

            • McFlock 9.2.1.1.1.1
              23 March 2012 at 6:18 pm

              It would have to be a solution diluted thousands of times more to cure the abysmal cash-control, idiotic math, and an overwhelming sense of entitlement held for the 40 years since they were in the school first fifteen that those tossers are afflicted by.
                    
              Why the pricks couldn’t have gone under before we built them a $300mil stadium I don’t know. Oh, wait – it was the idiotic excess of the stadium that got their 3 biggest supporters kicked from local council, so then the council stopped permanently rolling over loans and writing off debts. I think that counts as “irony”.

  10. Clashman 10
    23 March 2012 at 2:01 pm

    More positive effects of the neo-con model in NZ
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794083

    • SpaceMonkey 10.1
      23 March 2012 at 2:49 pm

      “After the shocking figures were revealed last month, Prime Minister John Key agreed the health gap was a wider social issue that needed to be addressed.”

      Cue a move to outsource, sorry “bestsource”, healthcare to Serco. They’re got their fingers in everything else.

  11. aerobubble 11
    23 March 2012 at 2:14 pm

    Roughly 30 years ago NZ radically updated its fiscal laws, but crucially it failed to reward good endeavors and punish bad. Property speculation took off and the wealth of NZ, in a world awash with cheap oil and easy credit, funneled growth in the wrong areas of the economy. And now the economy is suffering, since we need a deeper and wider economy to draw upon, yet we built crap leaky homes,and hire shrill poor managers in the private and public sectors.

    Wakeup NZ, it was easy to grow, now its going to be tough, and no its not the workers fault. In fact we need a German like outlook to employer-employee relationships.

  12. felix 12
    23 March 2012 at 2:24 pm

    It’s Peters vs Hide. Grudge match.

    Radio Live right now, streaming here: http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Portals/0/popup/Listen.htm

  13. Herodotus 13
    23 March 2012 at 2:40 pm

    Death by a 1000 cuts – Just another cut to households. Just been sent from Mercury gas charges going up. Currently paying 7.98/kWh price to go up to 8.99 (increase by 12.6%) but if I fix for 3 years it will be 9.17 (and only an increase of 14.9%). Add on rate increases and other non tradables how can households survive in NZ? Just waiting for interest rates to start increasing.

    • Colonial Viper 13.1
      23 March 2012 at 3:30 pm

      Expect petrol to go up rapidly if a shooting war starts in the Straits of Hormuz.

      • SpaceMonkey 13.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 3:59 pm

        That’s the purpose of the conflict.

      • muzza 13.1.2
        23 March 2012 at 4:05 pm

        The price could “shoot up” just with the continued threat of conflict. If the insurers up premiums for transport/cargo on perceived risk, that will push prices up also.

        Violent conflict will send the price right up – As SpaceMonkey says, thats the purpose of it!

  14. Clashman 14
    23 March 2012 at 3:11 pm

    It just gets worse and worse, I seriously dont know how much more I can take. More corporate welfare?
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794106

    • Pascal's bookie 14.1
      23 March 2012 at 3:23 pm

      What a farce.

      Insurance company goes bust, govt bails them out eating all the shit and leaving the above water parts of the business intact, govt builds a temporary stadium, insurance company sponsors stadium.

      Just fuck off.

    • s y d 14.2
      23 March 2012 at 3:25 pm

      Clashman, thats hilarious, you have to laugh, just like dan “can you believe they got away with this shit” carters smile …

    • Kotahi Tane Huna 14.3
      23 March 2012 at 3:54 pm

      Depends what the liabilities are – but I’m picking they’re going to be more than the $380m we got for the assets.

      No, wait, who got the $380m?

    • tc 14.4
      23 March 2012 at 5:42 pm

      It’s the barefaced ‘F You’ that grates the most…..bet they’re busy cooking up a way to bail out that RU that went bust or have I missed a few meetings …..

  15. s y d 15
    23 March 2012 at 3:26 pm

    “The terms of the bailout will see AMI’s earthquake liabilities transferred to a Crown-owned company, leaving IAG free to pick up the good assets.” Like rugby stadia?

    • Colonial Viper 15.1
      23 March 2012 at 6:40 pm

      Rugby stadia are a useless money losing waste of time. Which is why they always get public money to fund them.

      • Herodotus 15.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 8:58 pm

        Just as well we do not take baseball seriously. I just love the way Amercian communism system works or was that private enterprise !! 😉
        http://www.american.com/archive/2008/april-04-08/a-closer-look-at-stadium-subsidies
        And no longer does the public sector determine the appropriate price to charge private enterprise for use of this publicly supplied resource. Today, sports stadiums are largely the private domain of for-profit businesses that the public sector subsidizes, often with special taxes.
        http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2009/01/3496_nyc_baseball_st.html
        Of that, the public – city, state, and federal taxpayers – are now covering just shy of $1.2 billion, by far the largest stadium subsidy ever. In fact, even discounting the $417 million in property-tax breaks (if you’re inclined to agree with Lieber), it’s still the largest stadium subsidy ever. The Yankees, meanwhile, would be on the hook for just $670 million, after counting property-tax breaks.

  16. muzza 16
    23 March 2012 at 4:26 pm

    But what about the banks, bankers Fraud , Doesn’t count I guess!

    • Bored 16.1
      23 March 2012 at 4:34 pm

      Sharopetrosian is a member of the Armenian Power organized crime group hmmm, there is anopther organised criminal group working the other side of the States, they are known collectively as Goldman Sachs. We have are own GS operative here in NZ.

  17. The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 17
    23 March 2012 at 6:25 pm

    Has anyone else been following this:

    http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/13244696/man-harassed-woman-over-olivia-case/

    I am not sure the criminal justice system needed to be called in for this one. I would have gone with the Mental Health system.

    • McFlock 17.1
      23 March 2012 at 6:43 pm

      Sometimes, the most resource-intensive people are the ones who kind’ve stay just sane enough to keep out of the health system, but in one or two precise areas they are still very irrational, obsessive, and create detailed fantasies over months or years. 
         
      Sucks for everyone involved. And the paperwork is a bitch.
       

      • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 17.1.1
        23 March 2012 at 7:00 pm

        Still. I am grateful. Fucking hilarious.

  18. Reagan Cline 18
    23 March 2012 at 8:00 pm

    I enrolled in a maori language course at southland Polytech in 1993 and the teacher took us through how to introduce youreself, referring to your ancestor and your mountain or lake or whatever. He said his ancestor was Tutankhamen and that was why his surname began with Tut. I got put off by this. Was the guy serious ? I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I never asked.
    I like the truth of people searching the greatest ocean and finding the land of birds. The Egyptians and Phoenicians would never have bothered to voyage son far, even had they been able to. So many resources precious to them much closer to home.
    All humans came from Africa, but this was long before Tutankhamen and the thousands of ancient egyptian years, and the phoenicians.

  19. Morrissey 19
    23 March 2012 at 9:00 pm

    http://jstreet.org/blog/florida-house-senate-pass-troubling-resolutions-regarding-israel/

    Florida House, Senate Pass Troubling Resolutions Regarding Israel
    March 12, 2012 at 10:16 pm

    J Street is concerned about nearly identical resolutions regarding Israel that were passed by the Florida House and Senate last week.

    Those who voted for the resolutions thinking they were simply expressing straightforward support for Israel probably had little clue that the language they endorsed contains the seeds of Israel’s destruction as a democratic state and Jewish homeland. Keeping “the entirety of the land” under Israeli control and granting all those who live there democratic rights (“one law for all people”) is actually the agenda of those who seek a “one-state solution” – a binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, better thought of as the end of Israel as we know it.

    With the demographic data clearly telling us that the number of non-Jews will exceed the number of Jews over time, the formula passed by the Florida legislature leads inexorably to the eradication of Israel as a democratic national home for the Jewish people.

    These Florida resolutions are good examples of what it looks like to hug a friend so tightly that you unintentionally suffocate him.

    We urge both chambers of the Florida Legislature to revoke these egregiously-misguided resolutions and to support the only route to Israel being both Jewish and democratic – a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    http://jstreet.org/blog/florida-house-senate-pass-troubling-resolutions-regarding-israel/

  20. Colonial Viper 20
    23 March 2012 at 9:33 pm

    UK Conservatives pass “Fiscally Neutral” Budget giving tax cuts to millionaires

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEu5uFDlQvg&context=C4cf22e2ADvjVQa1PpcFPzEQVXUK23JLMVr5jqR-JhctteyyNzscM=

    The neolibs must share an international dictionary of bullshit.

    • Draco T Bastard 20.1
      23 March 2012 at 11:13 pm

      Birds of a feather flock together

    • Bill 20.2
      23 March 2012 at 11:27 pm

      The neolibs must share an international dictionary of bullshit</blockquote>

      nope.

      They've just got a simple shared vision and talk to one another, you know…what 'worked' (ie, what b/s line) and what didn't. Not rocket science.

  21. Draco T Bastard 21
    24 March 2012 at 2:03 am

    Research finds that forgiving home loans will save money – the problem?

    But this solution has raised passionate opposition: Many borrowers who are paying their mortgages every month feel it is unfair. Why, they ask, should they have to keep paying the full amount while others who took a loan they ultimately couldn’t afford or saw their house plummet in value get a break? Some economists and policy makers argue that borrowers might intentionally stop paying their mortgages to score a reduction. Indeed, the prospect that the government would help troubled homeowners was a spark that created the Tea Party movement.

    The Tea Partiers and other selfish pricks.

    • Colonial Viper 21.1
      24 March 2012 at 2:18 am

      Too many US citizens don’t give a fuck about anyone else in their communities now. If they can’t clamber off in a lifeboat themselves, they’ll make sure no one else does either.