Open mike 23/04/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 23rd, 2015 - 78 comments
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78 comments on “Open mike 23/04/2015 ”

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  1. stever 1
    23 April 2015 at 6:36 am

    “He became prime minster simply because he could appear like one. He had the front. He was born to it.”

    No, not ours–theirs…but this article really could in many respects be about ours.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/22/tories-panicking-david-cameron-election

    • Morrissey 1.1
      23 April 2015 at 7:15 am

      Did Cameron assault any women in public?

    • Draco T Bastard 1.2
      23 April 2015 at 10:10 am

      Or this bit:

      The temper tantrums are beginning. No one, Labour or Tory, seems to be able to accept that people in Scotland will vote for the party they want to represent them, and they continue to portray democracy in action as an actual threat to democracy.

      Because we’ve had that in NZ as well.

  2. Morrissey 2
    23 April 2015 at 7:18 am

    The Entire Western Media is a Troll Army

    The frantic spell of Western media behaviour could be a case-study in how it is centrally manipulated with a political agenda and thought-control. Editors at major Western media corporations are evidently following a political line cast by Washington and its European allies.

    by FINIAN CUNNINGHAM
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41621.htm
    April 20, 2015

    The multi-billion-dollar Western news media networks are replete with an unquestioning, unwavering anti-Russian agenda. This agenda is recklessly inflaming international tensions to the point of inciting further conflict and even an all-out global war.

    The roll of dishonour includes “stellar” corporate names, from CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Financial Times, Guardian, France 24, Deutsche Welle, and many more. It is a veritable troll army marching in lockstep with their governments’ agenda of disinformation.

    In unison, they are functioning as a global ministry of propaganda.

    Reputable Russian news media have not indulged in the unquestioning Western narrative asserting that Russian aggression is the cause of the entire Ukrainian conflict. In other words, the Russian news industry is providing proper journalistic services.

    Russian media do not talk blindly about Russia’s “annexation of Crimea”. Russian media have refused to toe the Western media line that, against voluminous evidence, denies the Neo-Nazi character of the Western-backed Kiev regime. Therefore, the Western reasoning goes, the Russian media are a Kremlin propaganda tool and Moscow has despatched a “Troll Army” to disseminate disinformation. How richly ironic is that?

    Typically, Western claims of “Kremlin propaganda” are just more assertion layered upon assertion, unsupported by any evidence. The “evidence” is simply that the Russian media do not peddle the mainstream Western viewpoint. So with totalitarian-like mentality, the Western conclusion is that Russian media “must be” propagandist. A US Congressional hearing last week tendentiously described how Russia is “weaponising information” and declared that Russia is “winning the information war”. No evidence is presented, just more provocative assertions piled up on more provocative assertions.

    Paradoxically, the charge of propaganda and media trolls is actually substantiated if applied to the gamut of Western corporate news media.

    We are not talking about clandestine media impostors, bloggers and cyber-trolls on the payroll of the CIA or MI6 who infest the media. We are referring to the entire professional media industry — a multi-billion-dollar global industry.

    Examples abound. Look how the Western media — lock, stock and barrel — went into a collective hysteria over the public absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. It’s astoundingly weird when you look back at that frenzied episode.

    Putin returned to normal work after not being seen in public for over a week, and he has since continued presidential duties, brushing off the brouhaha. Likewise, the Western media seem to have forgotten their fit of madness, even though at the time American and European outlets had gone into a paroxysm over Putin. The madness has subsided, but only a few weeks ago, the Western news media were uniformly transfixed with feverish rumours and speculation on Putin’s absence. Was it a “palace coup?” or “was he dead?” Was he receiving “plastic surgery?” or had his partner “given birth to a baby in Switzerland?”

    This frantic spell of Western media behaviour, based on that incident alone, could be a case-study in how it is centrally manipulated with a political agenda and thought-control. Editors at major Western media corporations are evidently following a political line cast by Washington and…

    Read more….

    • DH 2.1
      23 April 2015 at 1:18 pm

      I think anyone who denies the Russian trolls has their head in the sand… or is one of them. They’re a right pain in the arse, they’ve nearly ruined Liveleak.

    • Paul 2.2
      23 April 2015 at 10:17 pm

      ‘Appalled doesn’t cover it. Disgusted won’t do either. Angry doesn’t come close. Maybe I have yet to learn of a word that would express my feelings on the following topic. There’s a disease, an epidemic, that spreads through out the western world. We are all turning into accomplices to murder. And I still believe we are better than that. Just perhaps not all of us.

      The US, and the rest of the west, have made plenty enemies already without needing to create their own out of thin air – as if there were ever a need to create enemies. But that’s still what we’ve been doing in many places in the world, including Ukraine. And there’s an entire multi-billion machine working just to make us think what someone else wants us to think about these ‘enemies’.

      These days, when you call someone ‘pro-Russian’, that’s about on on the same level as ‘murderer’, rapist, things like that. And that must be why the western press once again resorts to ‘pro-Russian’ as a swear word, or even curse, in reporting on the murders of at least 10 people in Ukraine over the past 3 months. As far as we can see, all were considered ‘allies’ of former President Yanukovych (whatever ‘allies’ may mean in this context) and 2 were journalists (of whom at least 1 was also a historian).’

      Read more….

      http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/04/when-did-we-all-become-murderers/

  3. millsy 3
    23 April 2015 at 7:26 am

    You know if I went to a cafe/eatery and I started chasing one of the waitresses around, and pulling her ponytail, I would probably be trespassed from that establishment.

    If I did the same in my office, I would probably be sacked.

  4. logie97 4
    23 April 2015 at 8:33 am

    So the Cafes’s proprietors and the Herald have started.
    With the establishment in full swing now to protect their man, is anyone taking odds that this waitress will be accused of “honey trap”.

    • Murray Rawshark 4.1
      23 April 2015 at 2:29 pm

      I think it has already started, and the (Tory) owners of the cafe seem to be going along with it. She never mentioned it to us, they say. She has strong political views, they say. She made herself look younger and used a ponytail as entrapment of FJK, they don’t say yet.

  5. vaughan little 5
    23 April 2015 at 8:37 am

    i sent a message to @RachelGlucinaNZ on twitter stating my disapproval of her pretty horrific journalistic behaviour. i recommend others do the same. please keep it abuse-free, since this whole scandal was about abuse to start with.

  6. Hateatea 6
    23 April 2015 at 9:13 am

    I see that there are lots of Key supporters waitress bashing on Stuff as well

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/67975281/Waitress-made-a-moral-decision-to-expose-the-Prime-Minister

    • Murray Rawshark 6.1
      23 April 2015 at 2:32 pm

      I can’t see the comments on Stuff. I don’t mind that at all, but are they only available to Kiwi ip addresses?

      • Hateatea 6.1.1
        23 April 2015 at 2:37 pm

        I am not sure about that, Murray, but the linked story is the only one that seemed to have provision for comments when I was looking this morning.

  7. Philip Ferguson 7
    23 April 2015 at 9:21 am

    16,697 New Zealanders were killed and 41,317 were wounded during World War I. Around another thousand men died within five years of the war’s end, as a result of injuries sustained. The lives of countless other men and women were blighted by the conflict.

    The little Wellington street that I live in once housed numerous shell-shocked returned servicemen; poverty, unemployment, and alcoholism was all the reward of their sacrifice.

    One hundred years on, New Zealand’s rulers glorify war. . .

    full at: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/world-war-1-whats-changed-100-years-on/

  8. Agora 8
    23 April 2015 at 9:27 am

    Hey Morrissey, It is much more efficient to include a relevant quote followed by a link to the source. Something like this ..

    CLINTON’S POPULIST POSTURING CONTINUES

    In a move described by Vox Media as one that “Elizabeth Warren Democrats should cheer,” Hillary Clinton hired former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Gary Gensler to be her chief financial officer. Ostensibly, Gensler is a reformed Wall Street tycoon turned liberal progressive. He spent 18 years as co-head of finance at Goldman Sachs before moving to the Clinton White house in the late nineties and is now touted as the most ardent supporter of Wall Street regulations of derivatives. In his debut government position, Gensler worked side by side with fellow Goldman Sachs “Old Boy,” Robert Rubin, in the cabal within the Clinton White House that de-regulated derivatives in the 1990s.

    http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=ffdc278104b5964bb04b4251e&id=afdf175f50&e=f36be083ee

  9. Michael 9
    23 April 2015 at 9:33 am

    http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/239688-sanders-tries-to-block-trade-bill

    Bernie Sanders has forced delay of consideration of the TPP fast track by the US Senate, in an attempt to block the bill.

  10. jenny kirk 10
    23 April 2015 at 9:33 am

    A call to action from law professor, TPPA expert and ActionStation supporter Jane Kelsey:
    “Foreign corporations already have too much power over our lives! Imagine if they were given special rights to sue our government for hundreds of millions in private offshore courts for acting in the public interest? That’s what is happening now through secretly negotiated international treaties like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the TPPA and the Korea NZ free trade deal.
    You have until Friday to tell the government ‘no’ to foreign investors rights to sue in the Korea treaty, and never again.”

    Friday 5pm is the deadline to get a simple written submission into Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Select Committee.

    The select committee is possibly the last place at which people can take a stand against the Korea-NZ free trade deal. Please get onto it today.

  11. Draco T Bastard 11
    23 April 2015 at 10:11 am

    Morning funnies: Famous Man Owns the Gadget

  12. Morrissey 12
    23 April 2015 at 10:12 am

    How much tax does John Key pay compared to a minimum wage worker?
    by JOHN MINTO, The Daily Blog, 27 August 2014

    Yesterday I did some calculations to find out what tax John Key pays compared to a worker on the minimum wage. …

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/08/27/how-much-tax-does-john-key-pay-compared-to-a-minimum-wage-worker/#!prettyPhoto

  13. ianmac 13
    23 April 2015 at 10:45 am

    Oops! Sharp strong jolt earthquake at Blenheim 10:42 just now. Hope it is not worse elsewhere?

  14. Draco T Bastard 14
    23 April 2015 at 10:51 am

    And this is the reason all GMOs need to be banned ASAP:

    Since the genetic code was deciphered in the 1960s, scientists have assumed that it was used exclusively to write information about proteins. UW scientists were stunned to discover that genomes use the genetic code to write two separate languages. One describes how proteins are made, and the other instructs the cell on how genes are controlled. One language is written on top of the other, which is why the second language remained hidden for so long.

    We really just don’t know what we’re doing when changing DNA sequences.

  15. esoteric pineapples 15
    23 April 2015 at 10:55 am

    Don’t know if this has been noted on The Standard before but the case about the “prominent New Zealander” has now moved to the High Court – http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/crime/prominent-kiwis-case-goes-to-high-court/

    • veutoviper 15.1
      23 April 2015 at 12:41 pm

      Thanks for this. I obviously missed your comment while I was writing up my comment at 17 below. The link I gave to the BOP Times is not working now – so really appreciate you finding the newstalkzb article confirming the transfer of the case to the High Court.

    • Murray Rawshark 15.2
      23 April 2015 at 2:42 pm

      That would have been something like a callover. I originally thought he/she/it would be in the High Court, but there was nothing published on Sunday’s list.

    • Tracey 15.3
      23 April 2015 at 2:52 pm

      usually the High Court transfer means the consequences of whatever the charge/s are is worse?

  16. esoteric pineapples 16
    23 April 2015 at 11:01 am

    This looks like how National will use the law to shut down the only media it doesn’t have control of at the moment – The Internet

    http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/national-wants-to-jail-people-who.html

    • Murray Rawshark 16.1
      23 April 2015 at 2:46 pm

      “A person commits an offence if—

      (a) the person posts a digital communication with the intention that it cause harm to a victim; and
      (b) posting the communication would cause harm to an ordinary reasonable person in the position of the victim; and
      (c) posting the communication causes harm to the victim.”

      All three qualifications have to be satisfied for an offence to occur. An ordinary reasonable person would not be in the position FJK is in with his creepy bullying. Although filthy politicians would try using this law against us, I can’t see it being very effective as written. They’ll probably change it.

  17. veutoviper 17
    23 April 2015 at 11:22 am

    On Monday in open Mike, some of us discussed whether there would be a hearing that day in a District Court (location suppreseed) about a certain highly suppressed court case. Nothing was reported in any of the main media sites that had reported briefly on the case in the past.

    Yesterday, a comment on another blogsite that I will not name (not WO) claimed that there had been a short article in the BOP Times (hard copy only) to the effect that there had been a hearing on Monday, and the case had been transferred from the District Court to the High Court (location again suppressed).

    Lo and behold – this seems to be situation from the lead-in in the link below. Unfortunately the full article is no longer available in the back issues of the BOP Times.

    javascript: showSelectedArticle( ‘60412015042100000000001001’, 17, ‘923236345’, 2 );

    However, this transfer may allow further hearings to be identified through the HC daily lists published online; whereas DC hearings are not published in this way.

  18. fisiani 18
    23 April 2015 at 12:08 pm

    So still no traction on Ponytailgate. You guys must be wondering what if anything can dent the astonishing popularity of Honest John. When even the Council of Women write “We appreciate your apology to her and we understand that your actions were well-intentioned and not meant to offend or do the worker any harm” then no matter what else is said it’s just a bit of froth that will blow away and the image of bloke next door popular larrikin will persist. I can understand the pathetic attempts to make this linger but stop the pretend outrage. It demeans you. There are really important issues in the real world. This is not one of them.

  20. rawshark-yeshe 20
    23 April 2015 at 12:27 pm

    Breaking news … sexual harassment charges against Key

    http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/ponytail-saga-sexual-harassment-complaint-laid-against-john-key-6298530

    I love Graham McCready.

    • Colonial Rawshark 20.1
      23 April 2015 at 12:42 pm

      I think Winston is going to have a field day speaking to his new legislation.

      • rawshark-yeshe 20.1.1
        23 April 2015 at 12:47 pm

        now you have made me spill my coffee up the back of my nose !! lol

        Winston will surf these waves as the master we know he can be !

        Will there be calls for Key to stand down ? Let’s see what fools his coalition partners are prepared to make of themselves if they try to support him.

    • Chooky 20.2
      23 April 2015 at 2:34 pm

      +100.. “I love Graham McCready”…I think he belongs to Penny

  21. vto 21
    23 April 2015 at 12:45 pm

    .

    There is no way John Key can survive

  22. wyndham 22
    23 April 2015 at 1:11 pm

    Another surprise (not ). Jenny Shipley appointed to chair of Oravida.

    No link yet – – – reported on RNZ.

  23. phillip ure 23
    23 April 2015 at 2:30 pm

    labour down to 27.5% in latest roy morgan..(a drop of 3.5% since last poll.)

    ..that’s probably down to littles’ coherent/solution-themed responses to the auckland housing crisis..eh..?

    ..how he just stood there – and waved his arms about..and moved his jaw up and down..

    ..and little else..

    • te reo putake 23.1
      23 April 2015 at 2:37 pm

      Northland effect, Phil. NZF gain at Labour’s expense. The next poll will be really interesting!

      • phillip ure 23.1.1
        23 April 2015 at 2:45 pm

        peters and greens have both gained – national has dropped to 45%..

        ..good news is lat lab/nzf/grns form a majority for the first time since sept ’14..

        ..i still contend little has done little to impress ..for far too long now..

        ..and his response to the housing crisis was laughably abject..

        ..and clearly subservient to the interests of land/house-banking elites..(like mp’s..)

        • Murray Rawshark 23.1.1.1
          23 April 2015 at 2:52 pm

          The list of Labour MPs who own several properties is not a short one.

        • Tracey 23.1.1.2
          23 April 2015 at 2:55 pm

          Interesting drop by Nats… quite large by recent polling standards…

        • phillip ure 23.1.1.3
          23 April 2015 at 4:52 pm

          also kinda farcical how little tries to blame labour having a capital gains tax policy-

          – for their two recent election defeats..

          ..were that it were that simple..eh..?

    • Chooky 23.2
      23 April 2015 at 2:40 pm

      pu….lol

  24. Chooky 24
    23 April 2015 at 2:47 pm

    Do you think John Key will be mooting a “my little pony tail” for his proposed new New Zealand flag?…instead of the Union Jack ? ..or the Southern Cross?

    ….in which case I hope Penny’s McCready gets him first

  25. Tracey 25
    23 April 2015 at 2:56 pm

    Anyone else put in mind of Boris Yeltsin’s buffoonery when thinking of our PM?

  27. emergency mike 27
    23 April 2015 at 4:58 pm

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/9836454/Roger-Sutton-dubbed-the-Bald-Eagle

    John Key cutting off Roger Sutton’s ponytail. “This is really quite fun.”

  28. Potato 28
    23 April 2015 at 4:59 pm

    FFS no wonder we ‘need’ to sell off state housing (and everything else). We, the NZ taxpayer are funding R +D for rich multinationals. Oracle, Bayer and heaven only knows who else?

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11437443

  29. McFlock 29
    23 April 2015 at 5:01 pm

    Interesting – don’t know if anyone else has spotted it, but stuff is trying to talk down ponytailgate as just another of Key’s “awkward moments”.

    Minimise. Victim-blame. Token reparation to pretend it’s all sorted. Make it a joke or “banter”. They’ve pulled out all the stops on this one – but I’m sure that’s just because the PM harrassing women is a non-story, of interest to nobody, right fizzyanus and SSlylands?

    • emergency mike 29.1
      23 April 2015 at 5:18 pm

      To me it started immediately. The first TV1 and TV3 6pm news items yesterday both included women on the street saying they’d be stoked if John Key pulled their hair.

  30. gsays 30
    23 April 2015 at 5:32 pm

    where is the moral backbone of the national party?

    where is the person/people willing to say enough, this must stop.

    the constant obfuscation, mis-leading answers, lapses of memory and out right lying would not be accepted by a child.

    this is a plea to the decency of some of those in the hierarchy (attorney general?, minister of justice?, minister of police?, social welfare minister?) to think beyond themselves, act appropriately and front the prime minister.

    here we are on the eve of one of the most sacred days on the new zealand calender.
    a day where we can reflect on the character of those who have gone before…

    and the domestic and foreign media all printing stories about the premier who cant keep his hands to himself.

    shame on you, sir.

    • McFlock 30.1
      23 April 2015 at 5:36 pm

      Well, much as I won’t vote for him, I suspect that Winston was the last remaining moral backbone of the national party when he ditched it in the early 1990s.

      • gsays 30.1.1
        23 April 2015 at 5:41 pm

        hi mcflock, maybe so…
        although i am no fan of the nats and what they stand for..i am sure that there are a few decent people amongst the tories.

        i just urge some of them to not be afraid and do what they know is right.

  31. rawshark-yeshe 31
    23 April 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Even Monty Python could not have written this .. Oracle gets NZ govt grant of $17.5 million dollars.Please can we be rid of the despicable Steven Joyce et al ? Feed the children? You must be joking. Let’s feed a greedy USA billionaire.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/67998523/americas-cup-team-oracles-new-zealandbased-boat-builders-get-government-grant

  33. Reddelusion 33
    23 April 2015 at 10:10 pm

    Jk at his dopey best is still streets ahead of Gormless little or God help us I’m sorry to be man cunliff, most people see this for what is, stupid yes but a beat up and more so how pathetic the left are with there mock outrage. It’s international news because it’s quirky news story, nothing more, I for one am not embarrassed, what would be embarrassing is having a left wing nut job government

  34. Reddelusion 34
    24 April 2015 at 12:39 am

    I was balanced when I first came here but the crazys I have been exposed to have turned me , thus just trying to balance up opinion on this site, I see this as my morale duty (smile)