Open mike 23/08/2016

69 comments on “Open mike 23/08/2016 ”

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1. Paul 1

   23 August 2016 at 6:18 am

   305 000 in poverty.
   People living in cars, containers and garages.
   Over 4000 people poisoned by polluted water.

   Yet, Audrey Young New Zealand Herald’s political editor, finds this more important to talk about.

   Not their sports editor.
   Not their entertainment editor.
   Their political editor.

   ‘John Key: Don’t jump to conclusions about bugging device found in All Blacks’ hotel.’
   (without mentioning the new spy bill in parliament)

   The media sucks.

   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11698962
   • tc 1.1

     23 August 2016 at 6:52 am

     Young is a willing enabler and shill for key and his cabal.

     CT has probably produced a plan they will work to involving a lot of distraction, this worked a treat last Election. Anything celebrity/all black/sporty JK can hitch his wagon to.
   • adam 1.2

     23 August 2016 at 8:18 am

     Why bother with granny herald.

     Seriously when last week it was all about John Keys ties – this is a paper that is so out of touch Whale Oil looks a better read.
     • The lost sheep 1.2.1

       23 August 2016 at 8:59 am

       Why bother with granny herald.

       Media derangement Syndrome. Paul’s got it bad and is not expected to recover.
       • Reddelusion 1.2.1.1

         23 August 2016 at 1:43 pm

         Also a bad dose of miserablelitus, key symptoms I see misery in everything, and when I don’t I go looking for it , severe symptoms include obsessive googling, uncontrollable desire to cut and paste plus delusions of ones intelligence
     • save nz 1.2.2

       23 August 2016 at 9:53 am

       @Adam +1 – yep don’t click on Granny – you are enabling them.
     • Colonial Viper 1.2.3

       23 August 2016 at 10:46 am

       Not sure why Granny Herald’s role as an approved outlet of the ruling classes is ever in question.

       They might from time to time run a good piece or interview a good economist, but that only happens outside of election years, and it is only there for a veneer of “balance”.
       • Garibaldi 1.2.3.1

         23 August 2016 at 10:52 am

         That’s right CV ,it has always been that way. Just seems to be getting worse.
         I see Gavin Ellis is even getting concerned about the problem with what’s going on.
2. Draco T Bastard 2

   23 August 2016 at 7:39 am

   Putin: Nyet to Neo-liberals, Da to National Development

   There, Glazyev proposed a five-year ‘road map’ to Russia’s economic sovereignty and long-term growth. It was aimed toward building up the country’s immunity to external shocks and foreign influence, and ultimately, toward bringing Russia out of the periphery and into the core of the global economic system. Goals included raising industrial output by 30-35 percent over a five year period, creating a socially-oriented ‘knowledge economy’ via the transfer of substantial economic resources to education, health care and the social sphere, the creation of instruments aimed at increasing savings as a percent of GDP, and other initiatives, <b?including a transition to a sovereign monetary policy.

   I expect character assassination of Russia by the Western MSM will step up quite markedly.
   • TheExtremist 2.1

     23 August 2016 at 8:14 am

     Russia might as well be an oligarchy at this stage so I won’t hold my breath.
     • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1

       23 August 2016 at 8:48 am

       Yes, but it’s an oligarchy at odds with the US oligarchy and if they start getting massive economic boost from a sovereign monetary policy they also become a Good Example of a system that works better than the Western private credit system.
       • TheExtremist 2.1.1.1

         23 August 2016 at 8:54 am

         I’m as suspicious of Russia as I am the US. They are both corrupt dictatorial plutocracies.
         • RedLogix 2.1.1.1.1

           23 August 2016 at 9:36 am

           Try addressing the point of DtB’s comment rather than derailing it. All large nations are corrupt to some degree and Russia is no exception. But that is not all that Russia is about and this is actually a very interesting report.

           You have to keep in mind that while Putin is no angel, in a historic context he is still by far the best leader the Russian people have had since … well ever. Hence his enduring popularity.
           • vto 2.1.1.1.1.1

             23 August 2016 at 9:42 am

             I think Russia has been so demonised and vilified over so many generations that we have absolutely no bloody idea what it is about..

             the mystery wrapping the riddle tied up in an enigma

             one of the most civilised and advanced nations on the planet

             we have no idea
             • RedLogix …

               23 August 2016 at 9:50 am

               Well I have worked there for a short period and spent much of last Friday evening chatting with the head of our Russian office. This absolutely does not qualify me as our resident Russia expert, but it gives me just enough appreciation of what you are saying to confirm you are 100% correct.

               In a nutshell it’s like this: on the surface the Russians are very buttoned down and grim. Think Leonid Brezhnev stereotype. The reason is that that their history teaches them to always be circumspect in the public domain. By contrast in private I found them to be a wonderful mix of mad party animals, scholars and artistic souls.

               And while life in Russia is very tough in many respects, they are as you say a deeply civilised people almost completely misunderstood in the West.
               • Colonial Viper …

                 23 August 2016 at 10:57 am

                 They survived the Golden Horde and still welcome Muslims as a massively growing demographic.

                 They survived Napolean and Hitler and NATO, and still want to engage with Western Europe as military, economic and diplomatic partners.

                 They view their own government authorities as chokingly bureaucratic, and often corrupt, but give Putin far higher approval ratings than any western population gives its own political leaders.

                 Interestingly the West’s efforts to isolate, sanction and demonise Russia has forced that nation’s acceleration towards fully expressing its own civilisational perspective, one which is neither Tsarist nor Soviet in character.
           • TheExtremist 2.1.1.1.1.2

             23 August 2016 at 9:44 am

             Pretty easy to have enduring popularity when you can disappear journalists and jail dissidents.

             No, my point to Draco and his comment was while it may look good on paper I have my serious doubts that Russia is in anyway better or more trustworthy than any other so I take everything with a grain of salt and hefty dose of skepticism.
             • RedLogix …

               23 August 2016 at 9:58 am

               Pretty easy to have enduring popularity when you can disappear journalists and jail dissidents.

               No .. in fact that sort of thing generally causes much unpopularity over time. And in fact the kind of thing you refer to, while it does have an undoubted chilling effect, does not happen all that often. Certainly not remarkably more often than many other places in the world. Even NZ has it’s local and quite recent examples of govt. intimidation of journos it doesn’t like.

               But the point is, while none of this is defendable, it’s not the purpose of DtB’s comment. Which is that for the first time in my adult life a major economy is officially abandoning neo-liberal policy and trying something different.

               And that is news.
               • Draco T Bastard …

                 23 August 2016 at 10:26 am

                 Which is that for the first time in my adult life a major economy is officially abandoning neo-liberal policy and trying something different.

                 And the big part of that difference is the use of sovereign money. If they do it well, and that’s a big if, then Russia will find out very rapidly that it doesn’t need foreign investment or trade and the rest of the world will also realise that. Especially all those poor countries that happen to be dependent upon foreign ‘aid’ – the ‘aid’ that more often than not subsidises private businesses in the country that the aid is coming from.

                 As I say, it becomes an example of a state that’s not dependent upon the present private credit system.
               • TheExtremist …

                 23 August 2016 at 10:45 am

                 Your points are well taken
               • Colonial Viper …

                 23 August 2016 at 11:04 am

                 Which is that for the first time in my adult life a major economy is officially abandoning neo-liberal policy and trying something different.

                 Putin can head in this direction now because the West’s attempts to destabilise Russia by creating issues like a Ukrainian coup, trying to turn Sevastapol in Crimea into a NATO base, Olympics faux drug scandal, blocking Gazprom pipelines into Europe, degrading Russia’s nuclear deterrent by placing ABM systems close to her borders, and others.

                 Not to mention the US continuously attempting to use the western controlled financial, monetary and banking system against Russia.

                 The sum of this has ended up incrementally and effectively discrediting the formerly powerful neoliberals and Atlanticists that Putin has always had to include in his government structures including the central bank.

                 And so now the Kremlin can start heading in a different direction.

                 (As an interesting note, Russia has through all of this continued to supply US forces in Afghanistan with fuel, NASA with rocket engines, and the US military industrial complex with titanium aerospace alloys.)
                 • RedLogix …

                   23 August 2016 at 11:34 am

                   Thanks … interesting points.
                 • Halfcrown …

                   23 August 2016 at 12:57 pm

                   You are so right Colonial, and hasn’t the western airforces adopted the Russian Ejector seat after it had a very good demonstration at the Paris Airshow in 1993 when two of their MIG 29’s collided
                   I remember at the time the air chiefs of the west were astounded that both pilots walked away from this mid air collision.
                   • Colonial Viper …

                     23 August 2016 at 6:47 pm

                     Also Apple incorporating the Russian GLONASS geolocation system into their iPhones alongside the traditional GPS; Samsung has done the same in its flagship Galaxy S phones.

                     Basically, Russia would prefer to partner most closely economically and technologically with the west rather than with China, which is the only option that is left open to Russia nowadays.
               • Psycho Milt …

                 23 August 2016 at 11:09 am

                 Even NZ has it’s local and quite recent examples of govt. intimidation of journos it doesn’t like.

                 Did you seriously write that in response to a comment about the Russian government having journalists murdered?

                 I think it is relevant to the original comment. If an economy is being governed by a guy who thinks the collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy and has journalists who expose his corruption killed, then news of great prospects for success of that economy isn’t good news for liberal society.
                 • Colonial Viper …

                   23 August 2016 at 11:12 am

                   Psycho Milt, the US doesn’t kill its own journalists, but in the 20th and 21st century it has installed and supported plenty of regimes which did.

                   then news of great prospects for success of that economy isn’t good news for liberal society.

                   The Russian people prefer Putin’s mildy conservative traditional societal values style of politics to that of the liberal and neoliberal Atlanticists.

                   by a guy who thinks the collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy

                   In particular, how the Soviet Union collapsed was a tragedy, and specifically the fact that the West used it as an opportunity to maim and gut the country from the inside out.
                   • RedLogix …

                     23 August 2016 at 11:48 am

                     Exactly. PM confuses the fall of the Soviet Union with the neo-liberal gutting of the country post-Gorbachev.

                     I personally saw the heart-breaking poverty and hardship the Russian people endured through the 90’s. And yet Russia was never a poor country, it was always rich in resource both material and cultural. It was poor because it was being looted.

                     In the Soviet era, while there was a lack of political freedom, almost everyone had a warm home, access to a decent education, medical care and some sort of job to go to. A decade later and this happened.

                     I was walking back to my apartment from the center of the city and for a slight change I decided to detour through the war memorial gardens at the end of the main road. About 200m into the park, I could see a small circular monument, with gardens and some seating around an ‘eternal flame’ in memory to all those who’d died defending Russia.

                     As I got closer I could see a figure huddled just out of sight, on the side of that would be normally out of sight from the road. At -10 degC there was a boy, no more than 11 or 12 huddled as best he could for some warmth from the flame. He was clearly homeless, and I stood rooted to the spot for some moments. He could so easily have been my own son, yet there was nothing I could think to do about it.

                     Poverty is a warm country is one thing, in a cold country it’s lethal. And all of this was entirely avoidable, Russia did not have to endure this.
                   • TheExtremist …

                     23 August 2016 at 11:49 am

                     “But America does it too” is not a valid argument.
                   • Colonial Viper …

                     23 August 2016 at 12:34 pm

                     “But America does it too” is not a valid argument.

                     Why is providing information on context and common international behaviour not valid?
                   • TheExtremist …

                     23 August 2016 at 12:44 pm

                     Anytime someone challenges you on Russia’s fairly…errr…poor record in freedom of speech (i.e. assasinating political foes and journalists) you immediately leap to pointing the finger at the US.

                     Yes, the US is a poor international actor but that does not validate Russia’s own behaviour. Russia should be condemened for its actions the same as the US.
                   • Colonial Viper …

                     23 August 2016 at 1:08 pm

                     There’s a really old fashioned idea about proclaiming righteous indignation and condemnation about another nation.

                     It’s that your own nation has the ethical and moral standing to do it from.
                   • Psycho Milt …

                     23 August 2016 at 1:12 pm

                     …the West used it as an opportunity to maim and gut the country from the inside out.

                     Of course, it was all the fault of the wicked West. No ex-Soviet citizens could possibly have had anything to do with looting the place and turning it into a Mafia state, because… well, because the West are the bad guys and that explains everything ever.
                   • swordfish …

                     23 August 2016 at 1:20 pm

                     CV:

                     In particular, how the Soviet Union collapsed was a tragedy, and specifically the fact that the West used it as an opportunity to maim and gut the country from the inside out.

                     RL:

                     … the heart-breaking poverty and hardship the Russian people endured through the 90’s … It was poor because it was being looted.

                     The excellent Prof Stephen F Cohen:

                     A large majority of Russians, as they have regularly made clear in opinion surveys, regret the end of the Soviet Union, not because they pine for “communism” but because they lost a secure way of life.

                     They do not share the nearly unanimous western view that the Soviet Union’s “collapse” was “inevitable” because of inherent fatal defects.

                     They believe instead, and for good reason, that three “subjective” factors broke it up: the way Gorbachev carried out his political and economic reforms; a power struggle in which Yeltsin overthrew the Soviet state in order to get rid of its president, Gorbachev; and property-seizing Soviet bureaucratic elites, the nomenklatura, who were more interested in “privatising” the state’s enormous wealth in 1991 than in defending it.

                     Most Russians, including even the imprisoned oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, therefore still see December 1991 as a “tragedy”.

                     In addition, a growing number of Russian intellectuals have come to believe that something essential was lost – a historic opportunity to democratise and modernise Russia by methods more gradualist, consensual and less traumatic, and thus more fruitful and less costly, than those adopted after 1991.

                     Having ended the Soviet state in a way that lacked legal or popular legitimacy – in a referendum nine months before, 76% had voted to preserve the union – the Yeltsin ruling group soon became fearful of real democracy … Yeltsin’s armed overthrow of the Russian parliament soon followed.

                     Dissolving the union without any preparatory stages shattered a highly integrated economy and was a major cause of the collapse of production across the former Soviet territories, which fell by almost half in the 1990s. That in turn contributed to mass poverty and its attendant social pathologies, which are still, in the words of a respected Moscow economist, the “main fact” of Russian life today.

                     And, as a one-time Yeltsin supporter wrote later, “almost everything that happened in Russia after 1991 was determined to a significant extent by the divvying-up of the property of the former USSR”. Soviet elites took much of the state’s enormous wealth with no regard for fair procedures or public opinion. To enrich themselves, they wanted the most valuable state property distributed from above, without the participation of legislatures. They achieved that, first by themselves, through “spontaneous nomenklatura privatisation”, and after 1991, through Kremlin decrees issued by Yeltsin …

                     … Yeltsin abolished the Soviet Union with the backing of the nomenklatura elites – pursuing the “smell of property like a beast after prey”, as Yeltsin’s chief minister put it – and an avowedly pro-democracy wing of the intelligentsia. Traditional enemies in the pre-Gorbachev Soviet system, they colluded in 1991 largely because the intelligentsia’s radical market ideas seemed to justify nomenklatura privatisation.

                     But the most influential pro-Yeltsin intellectuals were neither coincidental fellow travellers nor real democrats. Since the late 1980s they had insisted that free-market economics and large-scale private property would have to be imposed on Russian society by an “iron hand” regime using “anti-democratic measures”.

                     Like the property-seeking elites, they saw Russia’s newly elected legislatures as an obstacle. Admirers of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, they said of Yeltsin: “Let him be a dictator!” Not surprisingly, they cheered (along with the US government and mainstream media) when he used tanks to destroy Russia’s popularly elected parliament in 1993.

                     And … recent analysis from Cohen on the US MSM’s demonization of Russia:

                     American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War.

                     The history of this degradation is also clear. It began in the early 1990s, following the end of the Soviet Union, when the US media adopted Washington’s narrative that almost everything President Boris Yeltsin did was a “transition from communism to democracy” and thus in America’s best interests.

                     This included his economic “shock therapy” and oligarchic looting of essential state assets, which destroyed tens of millions of Russian lives; armed destruction of a popularly elected Parliament and imposition of a “presidential” Constitution, which dealt a crippling blow to democratization and now empowers Putin; brutal war in tiny Chechnya, which gave rise to terrorists in Russia’s North Caucasus; Yeltsin rigging of his own re-election in 1996; and leaving behind, in 1999, his approval ratings in single digits, a disintegrating country laden with weapons of mass destruction.

                     Indeed, most American journalists still give the impression that Yeltsin was an ideal Russian leader. Since the early 2000s, the media have followed a different leader-centric narrative, also consistent with US policy, that devalues multifaceted analysis for a relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for facts.

                     Russia today has serious problems and many repugnant Kremlin policies. But anyone relying on mainstream American media will not find there any of their origins or influences in Yeltsin’s Russia or in provocative US policies since the 1990s—only in the “autocrat” Putin who, however authoritarian, in reality lacks such power.

                     Nor is he credited with stabilizing a disintegrating nuclear-armed country, assisting US security pursuits from Afghanistan and Syria to Iran or even with granting amnesty, in December, to more than 1,000 jailed prisoners, including mothers of young children.
                   • Colonial Viper …

                     23 August 2016 at 1:40 pm

                     Cheers swordfish. I enjoy listening to the talk show segment that Cohen and John Batchelor does every week.

                     The other side of Cohen’s comments helps explain part of Putin’s popularity.

                     After just a decade and a half in power, Putin has largely economically rehabilitated Russia from the wrecked sold out shell that Yeltsin and the Oligarchs had created out of the old USSR>
                   • weston …

                     23 August 2016 at 8:31 pm

                     The US doesnt kill its own journalists ??really ?some how i doubt that michael hastings is the first name to come to mind died in 2013 after his late model merc hit a palm tree and then burst into flame later the engine of the car was found 100meters or so down the street perhaps the mechanics at mercedes didnt bolt it down properly !! so hard to get good staff these days .
                     Hastings had done a story on Gen Stanley McCrystal which had led to obama accepting his resignation.
                     The other guy who comes to mind was that journo who discovered that drugs were being flown into the states in us military planes to fund a dirty and secret war cant remember which administration that was i think the journos name might have been garry ..webb ?….

                     anyone else remember that story ?
                   • Colonial Viper …

                     23 August 2016 at 8:38 pm

                     The US also imprisoned and interrogated an innocent Al Jazeera journalist in Guantanamo Bay for many years, if that counts.
                 • Garibaldi …

                   23 August 2016 at 11:21 am

                   Psycho Milt. Many Americans have died, by foul means, for questioning Corporate America. Many of them could just as easily be described as journalists rather than whistleblowers.
                   • Colonial Viper …

                     23 August 2016 at 11:27 am

                     Just look at how the First Nations are treated today. As well as homeless veterans.
                   • Psycho Milt …

                     23 August 2016 at 1:18 pm

                     “The open society and its enemies.” A few of its enemies can be found commenting on blogs, attempting to create false equivalence between liberal societies and appallingly illiberal ones. It’s not pleasant to watch.
                 • RedLogix …

                   23 August 2016 at 11:23 am

                   No-one is claiming Putin’s Russia conforms to our Western liberal ideals. But then again considering how rarely we actually live up to these ideals, the point is rather mute.

                   And yes I do understand the large difference between murdering a journalist and raiding their home/office and illegally seizing their computers. But in the context of two very different nations, with different histories and cultures … the chilling effect on journalism might not be so very different.

                   Frankly it doesn’t take a long or hard look to find plenty that is ugly and appalling about any of the major powers. They each tend to specialise in their own particular appalling and none of it is defendable. But at the same time I do try to avoid falling into that weirdly unhelpful binary trap of thinking this is ALL they are about.
                   • In Vino …

                     23 August 2016 at 11:08 pm

                     Thanks RedLogix

                     You are a refreshing informer who breaks the pattern of incessant biased drivel that we get fed.

                     I think that some Germans are still wondering just how the Russians defeated them in World War 2. We didn’t – the Russians did. They defeated 80% of Hitler’s war effort, while we claim victory in fighting only 20% – slow and late.
                     Communist/Socialist/Capitalist hardly mattered. The Russians did it.
                     But, of course, only Capitalism may be seen as successful…
3. adam 3

   23 August 2016 at 8:24 am

   Put behind a pay wall, now my tax dollars are going to pay for it… Yeah right. No wait I really am paying for the shitty thing I could not watch because I won’t help Muppet Murdoch be even more of a slime ball.

   Great cartoon from Mr Evans

   http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/08/23/malcolm-evans-the-last-medal/
4. Sanctuary 4

   23 August 2016 at 8:52 am

   Meanwhile in the alternative universe occupied by the British Conservative party…

   https://twitter.com/HeatherWheeler/status/767756321219379201

   PS – what is the code to post an image directly to this site?
   • lprent 4.1

     23 August 2016 at 9:15 am

     There isn’t one. I can restrict linked video to sites that do maintain moderation control and that check the contents of videos, but I have never found anything similar for images. And there are a number of ways that images can be abused.

     The only possible way is to sequester images while my server side runs scans on them. Then put them into our media library rather than linking to other sites. Since the vast bulk of the site’s data is already images, I’m reluctant to increase the backup footprint. Besides putting the images directly into our site is likely to cause copyright issues.
5. Puckish Rogue 5

   23 August 2016 at 9:36 am

   http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1608/S00252/david-rankin-statement-alleging-sword-attack.htm

   Former National Party leader and Council Candidate hold off “P” sword attacker in West Auckland as TV One news crew flees.

   David Rankin and Don Brash have:

   http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/8392e9004b296f1fd4ebf6bf1c1e5485.jpg

   And as for the media:

   “Mr Rankin will be laying a complaint with TV One’s management over the actions of its staff. “Our team were surprised at the cowardly behaviour of the reporters. We were at risk of being seriously assaulted, or worse, and this man’s child was in extreme danger, but the reporters just fled the scene.”

   Mr Rankin will be approaching TV One management today asking for a full investigation.
   • te reo putake 5.1

     23 August 2016 at 9:40 am

     Desperate stuff. And no, I don’t mean the man with the sword.
     • Puckish Rogue 5.1.1

       23 August 2016 at 9:44 am

       I found it interesting the story on Stuff and the Herald didn’t mention anything about Rankin laying a complaint over the cowardly behaviour of the TV One news crew
   • Cinny 5.2

     23 August 2016 at 10:05 am

     Wondering why Rankin believes the man was on “P” I guess it’s an excuse as to why someone is so angry. Time will tell what the real story is rather than a press release from a right wing council candidate.

     Maybe the reporters backed off to get a wider camera angle?

     Puckish Rogue the second link you posted came up as a 403 forbidden for me
     • Puckish Rogue 5.2.1

       23 August 2016 at 10:47 am

       I wouldn’t worry about it, it was just an image of some big, brass balls
   • framu 5.3

     23 August 2016 at 10:16 am

     hmm – the man with the sword wasnt attempting to attack the child (the child was back in the car presumably) – so its a bit weird to try and claim the journos have done something wrong.

     Im pretty sure the advice from the police would be “dont get involved – call us”

     sure the guy sounds like he was dangerous – but the rest of it all seems to be desperate profile building.

     i struggle to see what a complaint to TVNZ would actually be about – journos arent keepers of law and order after all

     (happy to retract once more info comes to light of course)
     • Puckish Rogue 5.3.1

       23 August 2016 at 10:51 am

       To take on the media in this instance and to call them out as they did you’d assume that Brash and Rankin were on some pretty sure footing to do so

       I mean I know if I was contemplating being a politician the last thing I’d do is take a dump on the media but that’s just me of course
   • TC 5.4

     23 August 2016 at 10:18 am

     Since when did the msm become security personnel for candidates.

     The sense of entitiement is hilarious and misguided as expected.

     Harden up son your not an overpaid manager anymore, a choice you made.
   • Corokia 5.5

     23 August 2016 at 10:26 am

     When interviewed about this on morning report, Brash seemed to think no one had any photos and no one had called the police. Really? Man with sword not filmed? By anyone? Brash sounded concerned for the boy, but no one called police . Really?
     Thought the right wing were big on ” law and order”
     • Puckish Rogue 5.5.1

       23 August 2016 at 10:49 am

       I suspect Brash and Rankin were slightly indisposed with guy with the sword, maybe the one news journos could have called?
       • Cinny 5.5.1.1

         23 August 2016 at 10:36 pm

         Whoops, I guess Rankin did a Lochte, and got a bit carried away with his version of events, Brash tried to paint Rankin and himself as ‘victims’ turns out Brash did a runner.

         TVNZ news boss John Gillespie this morning said the ONE News team did not feel they or Mr Rankin were in any danger from the man.

         “Our team said the man was not waving the sword about nor did he appear to have any violent intent,” Mr Gillespie said in a statement.

         “The sword was pointed towards the ground. The boy with the man was smiling and appeared happy. Our cameraman had finished filming by this point and was packing up his gear.

         “Our team said Mr Rankin approached the man, shook hands with him and spoke to him.

         “Our team were by now in their car ready to leave. Dr Brash had left. Mr Rankin got into his car and as he was driving off, rolled down his window and spoke with the team.

         “Our team were the last to leave.

         “Our team never felt in danger and nor were they concerned about the safety of anyone else.”

         https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/live-stream-one-news-tonight-q01253
6. Chooky 6

   23 August 2016 at 10:46 am

   Hillary Clinton bought?

   ’15k new Hillary emails discovered as evidence of Clinton Foundation pay-to-play scheme grows’

   https://www.rt.com/usa/356782-clinton-emails-bahrain-prince/
   • marty mars 6.1

     23 August 2016 at 11:05 am

     I read that – lots of facts, tenuous connections, and the worst possible conclusions made. It is not news that some try to get access and favours and sometimes they even succeed overtly and/or covertly.
     • Colonial Viper 6.1.1

       23 August 2016 at 6:36 pm

       How is it not news that a US Sec State accepted millions in foreign donations while presiding over decisions affecting those same foreign donors?

       Or is it just the norm now and not newsworthy.
       • te reo putake 6.1.1.1

         23 August 2016 at 7:07 pm

         Could just be that only a few are fooled by right wing attack memes. Particularly memes that aren’t actually true and don’t stand up to scrutiny.
         • weston 6.1.1.1.1

           23 August 2016 at 9:12 pm

           LOL never would have thought you to be a bleeding heart hillary supporter i saw a clip of her once where she was giving a talk in a packed auditorium on …i kid you not free speech …when a guy stands up wearing a tee shirt with something apparrently provocative on it an turns his back to her in order to display it whereupon he is immediately jumped on by two goons who manhandle him very roughly out of the room. Meanwhile hillary doesnt even hesitate for a nanno secend on how its so important to have democratic rights etc etc The other yuk thing was the totally absorbed almost fixated attention of the audience almost noone even turned around when the “protester”was dragged out .They reminded me of a bunch of sheep or christians at a gathering of the flock .Ithought what a fucking cold bitch no way shed get my vote .

           But no obviously a right wing attack meme trp /sarc

           [lprent: You appear to confuse “free speech” with your “right” to be a arrogant offensive fuckwit. Hosts at any venue, both public or private, make the rules about behaviour, just as they do here. “Free speech” doesn’t mean that you or any other gormless idiotic wanker gets the right to crap all over our site, nor like the protagonist in your story – to wave your diseased mind around like a demented stage 3 syphilitic patient. But obviously that is what you think you can and should be able to do.

           Well around here you cannot. On this site you obey our rules as a guest. If you don’t want to then you can take your stupidity elsewhere and whine there like any other tormented puppy after being disciplined for weeing on the carpet. If you look hard enough around the net, I am sure that you can find somewhere that will tolerate adult children with spoilt tantrum issues.

           So I’m giving you 2 weeks freedom from the need to comment here while you read our policies about the behaviour of guests on our site and/or look for another site to be a fuckwit on. Based on your profound ignorance of civilised behaviour, I suspect you will need that kind of time to look up and understand some of the concepts in the policy. Like “guest”, “responsibility”, “respect for hosts”, and what real “sarcasm” looks like.

           And incidentially, I hope you liked me exercising my “free speech” on your pissant behaviour. ]
7. Morrissey 7

   23 August 2016 at 10:51 am

   A Sulphurous Blast from the Past:
   Seven minutes that disgusted New Zealand

   This disgraceful, foul-mouthed, unintelligent spray doesn’t get any better, even after thirteen years. At about the two-minute mark in his ignorant and hateful rant, Paul Holmes opines that “the greatest perk, do-nothing job in the world is at the U.N.”

   In fact, of course, as these bigots invariably do, he was talking about himself….

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNdk7Hsj_R0
8. adam 8

   23 August 2016 at 1:04 pm

   Seems I’m not the only one who thinks that Larry lost his job for criticizing the media establishment. Obama took it well, it just seems all the white people did not think it was funny.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMqgTAVDh7Y
   • ropata 8.1

     24 August 2016 at 12:23 am

     Unlikely, Colbert roasted Bush Jr a lot worse. Difference is Colbert was/is very popular and funny. Wilmore was cutting but just not very funny.
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-a2KeyCAY
9. Plan B 9

   23 August 2016 at 1:20 pm

   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11699382

   Govt has officially gone mad:

   School-age students will be able to enrol in an accredited online learning provider instead of attending school, under new Government legislation.

   The radical change will see any registered school, tertiary provider such as a polytechnic or an approved body corporate be able to apply to be a “community of online learning” (COOL).

   Any student of compulsory schooling age will be able to enrol in a COOL – and that provider will determine whether students will need to physically attend for all or some of the school day.

   It sounds like something from “In the Thick of It”
   • Morrissey 9.1

     23 August 2016 at 2:17 pm

     Someone in the Ministry has been drinking the ACT-supplied COOL-AID.
10. Karen 10

    23 August 2016 at 2:19 pm

    Peeni Henare has made some interesting comments about the claim by Kīngi Tūheitia that Labour had ruled out working with the Māori Party.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/83462254/maori-kings-claims-andrew-little-wont-work-with-maori-party-wrong-labour
11. Plan B 11

    23 August 2016 at 2:20 pm

    Edmund Burke set out in an address to the electors of Bristol in 1774: “Your represen­tative owes you not his industry only but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

    http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/08/why-it-duty-labour-party-try-stop-brexit
    • joe90 11.1

      23 August 2016 at 2:42 pm

      I’m especially partial to Mr Burke’s notion that parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.

      Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different
      and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain,
      as an agent and advocate, against other agents and
      advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one
      nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local
      purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the
      general good, resulting from the general reason of the
      whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have
      chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member
      of parliament. If the local constituent should have an
      interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite
      to the real good of the rest of the community, the
      member for that place ought to be as far, as any other,
      from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg pardon for
      saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly
      drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness
      of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted
      servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer
      you do not wish for.

      http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.html
12. McFlock 12

    23 August 2016 at 4:45 pm

    Just on ethical investments for retirement funds, apparently investment managers can sign up to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.

    It’s not perfect, what with all the different networks of corporate connection, but it does require that environmental, social, and corporate governance issues be part of the fiduciary calculation (i.e. “maximised profits” include the long term good as well as short term mercenary motivations).

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