Open mike 23/12/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 23rd, 2010 - 34 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:

Open mike is your post.

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

Comment on whatever takes your fancy.

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

Step right up to the mike…

34 comments on “Open mike 23/12/2010 ”

  1. Celia waste of space Brown is supposedly a peak oil aware greenie, yet she is in the Compost this morning celebrating the 7’s being played in Wellington until 2016, 4 years after the latest parliamentary report predicts we will be suffering from fuel shortages. What is that line about fiddling while Rome burns?
    The useless sack of green pus, at least Kerry was more truthful about her faith in this idiot system (while stuffing it), Brown is playing both ends IE ‘we’ are running out of oil so need light rail – yippee we can keep partying till 2016.
    She is working on costume ideas, suggestions?
    I think Easter Island stone masons would be appropriate

    spam word – walking … and that is how most will get to the 2016 games 😉

    • some more suggestions

      Creatures from Never Never Land?
      Cockoos from Cloud Cuckoo Land
      or Roman fiddlers

    • jcuknz 1.2

      Well Wellington with the trains running past or stopping at their stadium should enable crowds to attend … not like the Dunedin Stadium km’s from the station and few within walking distances of suburban stations, or at least where they were once upon a time. As for CHCH and AKL?

      • Tigger 1.2.1

        Yeah, this rant makes no sense to me. Wellington is typically awash with people walking to the games from inner city lodgings, buses and trains full of people in costume (since they all want to be able to drink and not have to drive). If it’s going to be held this is a great city to do it in as far as oil usage goes.

        • Bored 1.2.1.1

          What I want to know is where the bike racks are at the stadium and where the on ramp to the John Key Memorial Cycleway is????????????????????????????????????????????????

        • Robert Atack 1.2.1.2

          Sorry Tigger, but if there are next to no planes post peak oil crash 2012 ish, how are the teams going to get here?
          To bring yourself up to speed on why there may not be any planes flying read this report from parliament http://oilcrash.com/articles/wake_up2.htm

          • jcuknz 1.2.1.2.1

            They can allow themselves time to come by surface transport like they did in the older times days 🙂 A week from Aussie, five weeks from the Uk, not impossible.

  2. The Voice of Reason 2

    Now this is weird. The land of the free tried to stop a showing of Fahrenheit 911 being organised by then cabinet Minister Marian Hobbs. Idiots!

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/22/wikileaks-cables-michael-moore-nz

    • Carol 2.1

      The biases of many in the US diplomatic corps do show a lot in the cables: eg the attacks on NZ’s relationship with the UN. The US government was especially anti-UN under President Bush Jnr.

  3. Dan 3

    As a visitor to Christchurch, I marvel at the good fortune of the city to survive the quake without loss of life. The good luck to all be in bed rather than 12 hours earlier on a busy Friday with many in the streets on the way home!
    My question: did anyone ever catch up with the taxi driver whose car was buried by masonry in the middle of Manchester Street? I understand he left a note of some sort saying he was OK.

  4. john 4

    If Climate Change is true?Which it is! The Planet is heating up How come Europeans are getting more ferocious Winters? This article explains why!
    ——————–
    Europe’s Biting winters driven by global warming: scientists
    They explain the process of why this is happening

    The culprit, according to a new study, is the Arctic’s receding surface ice, which at current rates of decline could to disappear entirely during summer months by century’s end.The revealed Ocean is acting as a heat trap, changing Weather patterns.

    “Say the ocean is at zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit),” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

    “That is a lot warmer than the overlying air in the polar area in winter, so you get a major heat flow heating up the atmosphere from below which you don’t have when it is covered by ice. That’s a massive change,” he told AFP in an interview.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101222/ts_afp/scienceclimatewarmingwinter

  5. john 5

    Peak Oil Crisis requires bigger Government not more Privatization,if we are to cope with the Great Transition.

    Whether one likes it or not, the size and complexity of the coming transition will be so great and unprecedented and there will be so much at stake that only governments will have the authority and power to cope with the multitude of problems that are about to emerge. Be it heresy in some as

    In case you missed it, a couple of weeks back the International Energy Agency in Paris got around to disclosing that the all-time peak of global conventional oil production occurred back in 2006. Despite that fact that this declaration was tantamount to announcing the end of the 250-year-old industrial age, few in the mainstream media noted the event and it was left to obscure corners of cyber space to ponder the meaning of it all.

    yet unknowing circles; all this is going to require a massive transfer of resources from private hands to public ones. Take something as simple as jobs. If anyone thinks the employment situation is difficult, wait a few years until the very high priced motor fuels makes discretionary car travel unaffordable. Millions upon millions of jobs in the retail, travel, hospitality, recreational, and dozens of other industries will be lost.

    It is also worth noting that oil is back in the vicinity of $90 a barrel and even Wall Street economists, who are paid to be eternally optimistic, are starting to talk about oil going for$110-120 a barrel in the next year or so.

    http://www.postcarbon.org/article/198393-the-peak-oil-crisis-the-future

  6. Ed 6

    Another ‘under the radar’ change is apparently the loss of free access to details about motor vehicles. Currently we pay for data being collected and stored with warrant of fitness charges and registration charges. Now according to carjam.co.nz, the Nats are going to charge us to access this information.

    I can’t find any public statements about this change, or a reference to a change in legislation or regulation, or anywhere how people will be able to access that information in the future. I realise there was a post about this some time back on The Standard, but the change apprently happens in a week.

    I have been thinking of buying a second-hand car for some time, and have been watching prices on Trademe – and looking up details of some cars on Carjam. It is surprising how many have had a reduction in mileage or a period unregistered – both sending warnings that may not otherwise be known. If that information goes we will be taking greater risks or paying money to get information that has already been paid for – and all to help Key and his mates have more holidays in Hawaii!

    Does anyone know about the new charges and where we will need to go to get information in future?

  7. Draco T Bastard 7

    New Zealand economy declines 0.2 percent

    New Zealand’s economic activity, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), declined 0.2 percent in the September 2010 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today.

    “The decline in GDP this quarter was due to weakness in the primary and goods-producing industries,” national accounts manager Rachael Milicich said. “However, annual GDP rose 1.4 percent compared with the year ended September 2010.”

    So, NACTs tax cuts for the wealthy, instead of stimulating the economy as they promised, is causing the economy to backslide.

    • Bright Red 7.1

      man, Labour’s ability to hurt our economy is amazing, eh? Two years out of office and they’ve caused us to go back into recession.

      At least that’s what Bill English told me.

    • A rise in GST is good for GDP, as is the Christchurch quake, and maybe Pike River … for this quarter.

    • “… two Pacific providers and two mainstream providers – had been chosen to receive $2.3m over two years. Peda is not one of them, though the ministry acknowledges that Peda\’s advocacy led to the money allocation in the first place.”

      Funny that without their initial advocacy there would be no funding from the ministry – at least pasifica youth are getting some resources – that is good.

      “Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs chief executive Colin Tukuitonga defended the length of time it had taken to contract the services.

      “It’s taken a while to get here but given the money involved we wanted to make sure we ran a robust process, and secured the best possible value,” Dr Tukuitonga said.”

      I wonder if colin kept a straight face when he said that. Ah well ’tis the season to be jolly…”

  8. Santi 9

    Is ths the same C. Carter who used to be one of Helen’s ministers? How the mighty (former) Labour star has fallen!!
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10696171

  9. Bored 10

    Just listened to the scussy DPF on the radio, he seems incapable of facing the fact that St Peter Jackson fleeced public opinion at the expense of workers, and was part of a collusion with Warners to fleece the tax payer, a hole Brownlee and Key were all to willing to go down changing employment law for a private companies benefit. Farrar could not see that this was entirely wrong. He is a joke, but we are the butt of it unless we vote out these scheisters.

    • Ed 10.1

      It must be something to with running the most popular blog in the country – all by himself in his spare time while running a polling company that gives him great insights into public opinion – and if you believe all that you will believe Bill English when he tells us that “his economic recovery is still on track” despite the economy contracting. The Slug is a true blue New Zealander though – he s off to Australia for a Christmas break . . .

  10. Deadly_NZ 11

    And now the Politicians get ANOTHER pay rise. whats next make us watch and applaud as they piss off overseas to spend it, a real vote of confidence by the same politicians in our country.

  11. jcuknz 12

    A link worth visiting in connection with the rail contract going to China. A guest thread over at Kiwiblog.
    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/12/kiwirails_construction_contract.html#comment-779709
    I would have expected to find it here 🙂

Links to post

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