Open mike 23/12/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 23rd, 2015 - 133 comments
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133 comments on “Open mike 23/12/2015 ”

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  1. vaughan little 1
    23 December 2015 at 6:38 am

    Open letter to Fisiani.

    Hey Fisiani, now that I’ve stuck up for you (see yesterday’s comments) can you tell the truth on:

    A. whether you’re a collaborative effort – i.e., actually more than one person.
    B. whether your average age is under 25.

    at the risk of causing the odd reader to spray coffee all over their keyboards and halfway up their monitors, it seems to me like you have some native wit that you’d be better off employing in straight pieces. puerile gets old, funnily enough.

    • fisiani 1.1
      23 December 2015 at 3:25 pm

      Just one person with razor sharp insight and approaching 60.
      I come here for the hysterical parallel universe comedy where the fantastic progress of the last seven years is seen as failure. Where Chicken Little would seem an optimist. Where the evidence of distorted thinking is so evident. i want to guide people to the light, the Force, the brighter side of life.

      • Paul 1.1.1
        23 December 2015 at 3:31 pm

        That’s irony, right?

        • Andre 1.1.1.1
          23 December 2015 at 4:24 pm

          No, just a typo. Should have been … guide people to the light, the Farce, …

        • Once was Tim 1.1.1.2
          23 December 2015 at 4:28 pm

          I’m afraid not @Paul. He might even lay claim to once even having voted Labour – especially in an FPP environment.
          Rest assured though – he’s alright Jack. No doubt he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and is a self-made man (Get that? a M A N!) One with a ‘noble African’ handle (all trademarked, commodified and paid up in full)

        • Murray Simmonds 1.1.1.3
          23 December 2015 at 4:38 pm

          ‘Razor-sharp insight” ??????????????????????? Ha,ha,ha to the power of 1000.

          That’s GOT to be irony.

          To the power of 1000.

          • Stuart Munro 1.1.1.3.1
            23 December 2015 at 11:59 pm

            “When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It’s only painful & difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid.”

      • Vaughan Little 1.1.2
        23 December 2015 at 4:38 pm

        Do a straight piece. too much pisstaking rots the brain. if you wrote a decent “positives of the last seven years” that was, you know, grounded in fact rather than posturing, I’m sure the guys here would consider throwing it up as a discussion piece…

      • Expat 1.1.3
        24 December 2015 at 12:46 am

        fisi

        You couldn’t guide a moth to a bright light in the dark, mate.

  2. Whispering Kate 2
    23 December 2015 at 8:14 am

    Ho Ho Ho – looks like its turning to custard for the Government. 6.13 this morning on RNZ Morning Report everything in the economic department is failing – export figures you name it. Wonder why its now relegated to the summer break for news like this to emerge.

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201783928/time-for-a-rethink-of-the-export-target

    • Hami Shearlie 2.1
      23 December 2015 at 8:23 am

      If this starts getting more widely reported I can see pandas on the horizon!

      • mary_a 2.1.1
        23 December 2015 at 1:13 pm

        @ Hami Shearlie (2.1) – I think the distraction in the early new year will still be the flag (second referendum in March). It will hot up as the final vote gets closer, with FJK’s choice in our faces all day, every day.

        But then after that one is all done and dusted, watch the panda issue become the main focus of msm acting on FJK’s instruction next April, when one very “prominent NZer” faces trial! Could even be a “choose the cutest panda” competition, just to distract from what will be going on in the court!

        Wouldn’t mind betting there could well be a media blackout of the court case! Can’t have dear leader being embarrassed through some factual reporting, can we?

        The first quarter of 20016 should be very interesting indeed, with the economy going down the toilet quick smart, the (rigged) flag result and then a “prominent NZer” facing his accusers!

        • Tautuhi 2.1.1.1
          23 December 2015 at 5:25 pm

          Then it will be stroking pussy cats in Parnell, nice photo of Sir John and Lady Key in the Herald with the Xmas Message.

    • Paul 2.2
      23 December 2015 at 8:24 am

      Then Espiner hosts a whitewash of the government’s performance by allowing Boag to propagandise without any intervention.

      • arkie 2.2.1
        23 December 2015 at 10:19 am

        That was an appalling effort by Espiner. While political journalist Jane Patterson sat there silently.

        • Rodel 2.2.1.1
          23 December 2015 at 10:31 am

          Espiner made an ineffectual attempt to shut her up.Not easy with the Boags of this world.

          Her strategy when asked what she thought of Andrew Little was dripping with fake condescendence and tried to make the interview about John Key. Viz.:’Well…Andrew Little …He’s doing quite well .. ..(insert patronizing tone here)..even though he hasn’t got John Key’s charisma or people skills…. Now John Key, this….and John Key. that…’.. ad nauseum. Must get people talking and thinking about John Key.

          The other interviewee, Rob, when asked about Andrew Little, actually talked about Andrew Little as a serious person who hasn’t got time to talk about Key’s triviality .

          I think the Left’s new year’s resolution should be to ignore Key’s banal clowning.

          Oscar Wilde-“There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is NOT being talked about.”.

          • Paul 2.2.1.1.1
            23 December 2015 at 10:36 am

            He did not even try to call her on the blatant spin she was delivering.
            Espiner is not an independent journalist; he is just another embedded corporate plant.

          • Whispering Kate 2.2.1.1.2
            23 December 2015 at 10:38 am

            Michelle Boag should be removed from TV and the Radio, she is an assault on the senses, especially the ears – a true nightmare and heart failure material if you met her on a dark night. As for Espiner he is just a lap dog for Key and his Government – it couldn’t get any worse for this country.

            Am off to do some lovely things like get a cake finished for a dear old lady I visit and get some soothing Baroque Christmas music on and just forget about the creeps who invade our lives by TV and Radio. Even the Listener is a load of hog wash. Whatever did NZ ever do to deserve this useless and corrupted lot dictating to us.

            • thechangeling 2.2.1.1.2.1
              23 December 2015 at 1:14 pm

              Boag is the pretentious, sanctimonious Queen of the superficial, emotive, and bullying bee-arches of the right wing B.S machine.

              • Tautuhi …
                23 December 2015 at 5:27 pm

                JK and Boag actually believe their own BS.

                • Once was Tim …
                  23 December 2015 at 7:03 pm

                  yea but nah ….. neither are the sharpest knAves in the drawer intellectually-woise. That’s why she has to play dress-ups all the time.
                  Two generations back she’d be putting a blue rinse through her hair, living in Karori and talking about what hubby got up to

                • Expat …
                  23 December 2015 at 10:46 pm

                  “JK and Boag actually believe their own BS.”

                  Problem is so does half of NZ.

          • left for deadshark 2.2.1.1.3
            23 December 2015 at 10:39 am

            Very true +1 Rodel

          • Bill 2.2.1.1.4
            23 December 2015 at 11:16 am

            I think the Left’s new year’s resolution should be to ignore Key’s banal clowning.

            On the basis that I’m really slack at putting posts up (It was [may still be if it happens] going to titled ‘Jobby on a Stick’). Anyway, I’ll just say, I’ve had similar thoughts of late. I wouldn’t say ‘ignore’, though. Depersonalise – talk past the image.

            There has been a huge and well crafted project devoted to creating an image of the current Prime Minister that many find appealing. As such, it’s flogging a dead horse to pivot any issue around that image or media personality.

            Essentially people are being asked to take two psychological steps to address any issue at hand. The first step is to go beyond the knee jerk defensiveness (and immediate rejection of substantial matters) that comes from the positive relationship people have towards the image that’s been generated.

            Refusing to name the fucker is a step towards undermining the…hmm…’cult of personality’. “The current Prime Minister” (of New Zealand?) is suitably depersonalised term. The PM…the leader of the Nats etc – they all work to degrees.

            Did I say I’d love to see no more images of New Zealand’s current Prime Minister used as post images here on ‘ts’?

            • Rodel 2.2.1.1.4.1
              23 December 2015 at 3:23 pm

              Bill.I agree. In he last two elections it seemed to me that those on the left
              talked about Key most of the time.i.e. provided him with heaps of free publicity and not enough about their own policies.
              The media is partly to blame as exasperation with Key’s antics makes better copy than dull old policies, sells more papers and gets people listening even if they then go ,”tut-tut” but give up on voting.
              Yes Bill , ‘ignore ‘ is not the right word..maybe it should be dismiss with disdain.
              dismiss= deliberately cease to think about.. (disdain = to regard something as unworthy of consideration).
              Yes I’ll do that.

        • Pat 2.2.1.2
          23 December 2015 at 10:45 am

          haven’t timed it, but with 4 guests it appeared Boag had about 50% of the floor

      • seeker 2.2.2
        23 December 2015 at 3:34 pm

        In my opinion he can always be relied upon to live up to his family name of eSPINer.
        Colin is often not too far behind.

      • Tautuhi 2.2.3
        23 December 2015 at 5:03 pm

        I doubt whether Michelle Boag would understand much about economic performance?

  3. savenz 3
    23 December 2015 at 8:34 am

    Why wait for Kauri dieback disease to decimate our heritage, we can just cut down or ring bark our ancient trees instead?

    Thanks Auckland Council planners and “independent commissioners’ for not noticing the ancient Kauri’s in the 70 page report prepared by the applicants that failed to mention that. Instead burying within the document ‘high value vegetation’ is to be cut down. Deception?

    Not to mention the developers also told the public they would not cut down the trees but since seemed to have changed their minds.

    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/controversial-titirangi-kauri-viciously-attacked-ring-barked

    • maui 3.1
      23 December 2015 at 9:58 am

      This story never ceases to amaze. I’m not sure why the developer didn’t change their mind at the start of this though, obviously not worried about their reputation.

      • weka 3.1.1
        23 December 2015 at 10:13 am

        That would be Jane Greensmith and John Lenihan, who I suspect are more concerned about how much money they stand to lose.

        • Andre 3.1.1.1
          23 December 2015 at 11:34 am

          Ironically, if it’s purely about money, anyone buying into that spot would likely pay more with the tree still standing and sensitively designed and built around. Certainly for me (and my neighbours, about 150m away from the site), large trees right around our houses was a major value-add.

          A couple of other points: in this area the “permitted activity” for clearing bush for a building site is up to 150 sq m or 10% of the section area. There are two houses to be built on two sites of about 1000sq m each, so up to 300sq m allowed to be cleared. Eyeballing what’s already been cleared, it’s about 30m by 30m, so around 900 sq m. Plus a fair few more trees marked with “X” still for the chop. How the f*** did that get consented? Doing a drive past Lenihan and Greensmith’s listed home address elsewhere in Titirangi, it looks they’ve also cleared building sites there way in excess of what is a “permitted activity”.

          So I can’t help wondering if they’ve got a corrupt relationship going on someone (or some people) in council. Also can’t help wondering what the other principals of RCG think of Lenihan’s activities.

          • savenz 3.1.1.1.1
            23 December 2015 at 12:55 pm

            The problem is developers moving into an area, getting a cheap site because they need a make a sensitive design and then undermining the atmosphere and ethos of the area to make money and not bothering with a sensitive design, all while profiting from the reputation of the area of being a bush green belt. These guys just got too greedy, but also exposes the role of the council. Are they just getting fees for plans and virtually rubber-stamping anything not adhering to the rules of district plan.

            So the blame is the developers and planning consultants who have put together reports to hide what they are doing, and then the council for not bothering to do due diligence and then just doing some dubious activities to hide their role and let the trees be chopped further setting a precedent against the plan, public and community by allowing the travesty to continue.

          • weka 3.1.1.1.2
            23 December 2015 at 6:24 pm

            From what I remember from earlier in the year they had back door access to council because they’re architects (?). So possibly not outright corrupt but certainly part of the old neoliberals network.

            I hope they get pariahed. Good on the tree surgeons who downed tools last week, and shame on the ‘security’ company who wielded chainsaws this morning, hope they get named and shamed too.

    • Tautuhi 3.2
      23 December 2015 at 5:05 pm

      Environmental terrorists?

  4. savenz 4
    23 December 2015 at 8:51 am

    From Salon… interesting perspective, Left wing Lite… too close to Right?

    “Hillary Clinton is just Republican lite: Sorry, boomers, but this millennial is still only voting Bernie Sanders”

    http://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/hillary_clinton_is_just_republican_lite_sorry_boomers_but_this_millennial_is_still_only_voting_bernie_sanders/

  5. savenz 5
    23 December 2015 at 9:07 am

    “The United States is scarier than the Islamic State
    Even our closest allies fear that we are a menace militarily and environmentally. The threat is lethal and real”
    PHIL TORRES

    http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/the_united_states_is_scarier_than_the_islamic_state/

    • Tautuhi 5.1
      23 December 2015 at 5:09 pm

      Carpet bombing sorts out all the problems. It was chemical weapons in Vietnam!

      Also I heard ISIS were being trained by the Israelis and ISIS were selling oil to Israel, also told ISIS are selling oil to Turkey for US weapon supplies- fact or fiction?

  6. Halfcrown 6
    23 December 2015 at 9:20 am

    Interesting interview with Steve Keen author of “Debunking Economic’s”

    • RedLogix 6.1
      23 December 2015 at 9:55 am

      Thanks for the linky halfcrown. I always find Steve thought provoking. Since moving to London he’s been doing well.

      • Halfcrown 6.1.1
        23 December 2015 at 10:04 am

        Thanks Red, compliments of the season. I have read his book Debunking Economic’s. Heavy going and I will have to read again to absorb all the facts. I can recommend that one if you have not already read it.

  7. ianmac 7
    23 December 2015 at 9:23 am

    Morning Report this morning. Boag says it is only the Left who are opposing the change of flag.
    Salmond says that 66% oppose the change of flag so Michelle, this is good news for the Left. Touche!

    • Sacha 7.1
      23 December 2015 at 10:49 am

      Those RSA folk are rabid commies, I tells you.

    • Tautuhi 7.2
      23 December 2015 at 5:12 pm

      So Michelle Boag is predicting the next Government will be a Left NZF Coalition, probably 95% right the way the Natzi’s are going at present.

    • Tautuhi 7.3
      23 December 2015 at 5:12 pm

      So Michelle Boag is predicting the next Government will be a Left NZF Coalition, probably 95% right the way the Natzi’s are going at present.

  8. Ad 8
    23 December 2015 at 9:24 am

    There’s a big push to punch a highway through Kahurangi National Park.

    https://nz.news.yahoo.com/local/a/30362464/major-study-to-evaluate-new-road-linking-nelson-and-westport/

    It’s a new 169 kilometre road from Tapawera to Karamea.
    In the Stuff poll with 11,000 votes attached to the article, 57% supported it and 26% opposed.

    Buller Mayor Garry Howard and Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne love it.
    Their point is that 87% of Buller District and much of Tasman District is DOC estate and not open to any other kind of economic activity except tourism.
    So the question of what their people do for jobs other than making life convenient for tourists is a real question.

    Forest and Bird hate the idea. It’s (consultants’ thumbsuck) $100m, or about $2m per kilometre. The Treasury question that Cabinet will have to face is: if you had $100m to spend on the West Coast, would a road be the most beneficial thing for that taxpayer money?

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/west-coast/75126825/forest–bird-attacks-new-national-park-road-plan

    Pretty similar to the Haast to Hollyford road that Minister Smith killed last year. With Joyce open to the idea and in need of a West Coast plan, looks like a major Parliamentary and Cabinet debate for 2016.

    Minister Joyce and the Buller Mayor could possibly pop over to Ruby Bay and Collingwood and consider the high-value, high-capital and job-intensive horticulture and viticulture already going on in Tasman and get a few clues as to answer the question: if you had a spare hundred million for the West Coast ………..

    • savenz 8.1
      23 December 2015 at 9:43 am

      +100 Ad
      Yep, love the two main points in particular..

      “So the question of what their people do for jobs other than making life convenient for tourists is a real question.”
      and
      “if you had $100m to spend on the West Coast, would a road be the most beneficial thing for that taxpayer money?”

      It is about time that NZ has some sort of economic strategy that relies more on utilising what we already have here, making that better, instead of more roads, convention centres and falsifying our data to keep the illusion that NZ is clean and green (I feel after Key was laughed out of Paris the international community might be cottoning on…)

      Instead the government is cancelling any innovation initiatives and giving our science grants and NIWA boats to polluting oil companies….

    • RedLogix 8.2
      23 December 2015 at 9:47 am

      The tramping community has been aware of this one for a while.

      Roads and cars are rapidly becoming a liability while undisturbed wilderness is regarded as increasingly valuable. Most people are still locked into thinking nothing has changed and that life is going to carry on a usual.

      It isn’t.

      Besides the capital and maintenance costs are absurdly poor value. Roads in this part of the country, especially in tight valleys, are subject to high rainfall and massive slips.

      • marty mars 8.2.1
        23 December 2015 at 11:05 am

        yep – this is a non starter as it always is for anyone that knows that country.

      • Chooky 8.2.2
        23 December 2015 at 11:21 am

        +100 Redlogix…part of the charm of that north end of the West Coast including Karamea is that it is at the end of the road and then there is untouched wilderness …just as Glenorchy is at the end of the road…and then untouched wilderness

        People dont come to New Zealand to see roads

        Wilderness and untouched nature is a draw card in itself

        …which people can tramp through if they wish

      • Ad 8.2.3
        23 December 2015 at 11:31 am

        There’s nothing better in the world than getting to the point on a tramp when you can no longer hear cars.

    • Sacha 8.3
      23 December 2015 at 10:51 am

      “if you had $100m to spend on the West Coast, would a road be the most beneficial thing”

      and the same for Northland – is a duplicate highway that doesn’t even reach the region the best way to invest $700m+ ?

      • Ad 8.3.1
        23 December 2015 at 11:35 am

        If I had $100m of taxpayer funds in my pocket (and as Minister I wanted to build some big stuff so I could open it), I’d look to what happened to Queenstown and Wanaka when they upgraded the nearest airport. Huge volumes of rich international people visiting longer, hotels springing up in town, and it becomes a real global destination, capital values through the roof. And for little mayors balancing little budgets, that means rates takes going through the roof.

    • weka 8.4
      23 December 2015 at 10:59 am

      “Pretty similar to the Haast to Hollyford road that Minister Smith killed last year”

      I wish he had killed it but from what I remember he’s just said no to that proposal at that time rather than a blanket no.

      It’s a collossal waste of resources to have to keep fighting these projects again and again. Both those roading projects (and the Queenstown/Milford transport one) have been repeatedly put forward in various forms for 3 decades or more. Time to put a moratorium on new roads in National Parks unless there is a conservation reason for the road, in which case it can go through the normal consent processes.

      Plus, FFS, climate change (and Peak Oil).

      • RedLogix 8.4.1
        23 December 2015 at 11:23 am

        Time to put a moratorium on new roads in National Parks unless there is a conservation reason for the road,

        Bloody good idea.

        What’s even more aggravating is watching DoC complicitly downgrading the existing tracks in order reduce the number of people using the area. In fact there was always a great case for upgrading the Whangapeka to the same standard as the Heaphy, making for a fabulous world-class six-day round trip.

        Instead they’re deliberately letting the tracks in area run down so as to discourage it’s use.

      • left for deadshark 8.4.2
        23 December 2015 at 11:36 am

        That idea should be a good starting postion for Labour and the Greens next election

        Time to put a moratorium on new roads in National Parks unless there is a conservation reason for the road, in which case it can go through the normal consent processes.

    • Kevin 8.5
      23 December 2015 at 11:03 am

      In other words, we have no fucking idea on what we can do to revitalise the west coast economy, so we will build a road.

      Probably no one-lane bridges left…

      • Ad 8.5.1
        23 December 2015 at 11:29 am

        Somewhat frustrating since Golden Bay, Collingwood and Ruby Bay (over in the Tasman region) all show what really intensive and productive use of land looks like. Granted, you’re not going to grow hops in Buller.

        But then until the mid-1980s, no one thought you could make a wine industry out of central Otago, let alone right on the shores of alpine Lake Wanaka. But they did. And it didn’t take a new highway punching through the nearest national park to make happen.

      • alwyn 8.5.2
        23 December 2015 at 1:20 pm

        “Probably no one-lane bridges left…”
        There are quite a lot still there actually.
        There is even one where the road and rail share the same bridge.
        I hope that the train, whatever it is, goes slowly when they come to the bridge.
        Mind you, I don’t know how many rail trips are still there on the coast.
        Pity it rains so much though.

        • weka 8.5.2.1
          23 December 2015 at 6:17 pm

          If it didn’t rain so much there would be no rain forest and the place would be full of aucklanders 😉

          • alwyn 8.5.2.1.1
            23 December 2015 at 7:13 pm

            I hadn’t thought of it in quite that way. More Aucklanders?
            Rain, damn it. More rain! More rain! More rain!
            Send it down Hughie. Save the coast from the alien invasion.

      • Graeme 8.5.3
        23 December 2015 at 3:07 pm

        Yeah, it’s a hangover from the pioneer culture on the coast. Mr Explorer Douglas still lives on.

        There’s 1661.8 km of sealed State HIghway and rural road on the coast linking all the centres of economic importance as of 2009 http://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/land-transport-statistics/docs/2008-2009.pdf ( I doubt it will have grown much) which isn’t perceived to be bringing economic nirvana. How will a further 56km between two very minor townships change this? It doesn’t shorten the Nelson – Westport distance any, it’s the same, or longer.

        So what’s the point, jobs for the consultants? Create a “concept” they can sell to an “investor”? It’ll probably come to an end once they discover their “thumb suck” is light by an order of magnitude, like Haast – Hollyford

    • Tautuhi 8.6
      23 December 2015 at 5:14 pm

      It would be another “Road of National Significance”.

  9. weka 9
    23 December 2015 at 10:27 am

    Not the first time research has shown this,

    For women with low-risk pregnancies, babies delivered at home with a midwife are at no greater risk of harm than those born in hospital with a midwife’s assistance, an Ontario study has found.

    The three-year study of almost 23,000 pregnancies found the risk of adverse birth outcomes was low for both planned home and hospital deliveries and differed little between the two groups, said lead researcher Eileen Hutton of the midwifery education program at McMaster University in Hamilton.

    But researchers found that women who delivered in hospital were more likely to have interventions such as pain relief, labour augmentation, assisted vaginal births or caesarean births, compared to those who delivered at home. There was also a higher rate of episiotomy among women who gave birth in hospital. An episiotomy is a surgical cut made at the opening of the vagina during childbirth to ease delivery and prevent tissues from rupturing.

    Hutton suspects the differences may arise because women who intend to give birth at home may be “more intervention-adverse. For example, in terms of pain relief, they’re more inclined to think ‘I can manage without this and I trust my body and I’m going to do it.’

    “There’s also probably the fact that you are at home, and in your home environment the physiological process of labour may work better,” she said.

    http://www.thespec.com/news-story/6203430-home-birth-with-midwife-no-riskier-than-hospital-birth-mac-study

    • RedLogix 9.1
      23 December 2015 at 10:37 am

      Sighs … are we STILL fighting this battle?

      I always thought it was blindlingly obvious most women will do better in the environment of their own choosing and familiarity.

      • weka 9.1.1
        23 December 2015 at 10:54 am

        Birth politics are still pretty fraught as far as I can tell.

      • Chooky 9.1.2
        23 December 2015 at 11:38 am

        hmm…well as a stoical person who tried to have a home birth( didnt like the idea of medical intervention,particularly male intervention, thought birth was a natural miraculous process etc) and ended up with an emergency cesarean at 3.00 am …after several days of labour…and getting the consultant out of bed

        (and and one disappointed lovely home birthing midwife and another older home birther who was positively hostile after the event when I got home … I let the side down…should have tried harder )

        ….all i can say is thank God ( the Goddess) for medical specialists and monitoring…by the time I got to hospital the baby was under stress ( per moniters) and I was exhausted, couldnt take much more

        …and I was later cheerfully told by my male obstetrics GP who turned up at the hospital ( and who also believed in home births or at least women’s choice)… that the baby and I would have died without medical intervention…I believed him!

        at least I had the choice ( low tech/high tech)….and they were all wonderful( except the older midwife)…but for my daughter i would recommend a high tech birth and take everything that is going in a hospital …especially monitoring and epidurals

        ( cesareans are absolutely fabulous when you need them)

        • RedLogix 9.1.2.1
          23 December 2015 at 12:37 pm

          It’s the hostile politics between the two sides that is so damned futile and disappointing. My two kids were both home births so I’ve a little exposure to it all myself.

          All I ever expected was that everyone involved should work together in the best interests of the babies and mothers.

          • Chooky 9.1.2.1.1
            24 December 2015 at 9:00 am

            well the “hostile politics” are not surprising given the stakes when things go wrong…birth always was potentially dramatic and dangerous for some women…just look at history and the plight of women in the third world

            i was lucky in that I had a midwife who moved very fast when I said i wanted to go to hospital…lucky also that the high tech hospital was only 10 minutes away…lucky I had a GP /obstetrician trained in home births who met us at the hospital… and lucky he had a consultant mate who didnt mind getting up in the early hours and quickly pronouncing emergency cesarean …most lucky I had a healthy robust baby!

            from what I can gather women these days are not so lucky for choice …it is either home birth with a midwife making all the judgment calls and when to go to hospital, with not necessarily immediate full support when they get there…(GP doctors have opted out)…or opting for hospital birth from the beginning with all the high tech ( and risk feeling alienated by the process)

            From my experience , it is not worth the risk… I opted for hospital next time around and an elective cesarean…great for women who can have a home birth and great for women who can breast feed …but women who cant should be celebrated as well ( those babies on bottles look lovely and the mothers look lovely)….My Mother always said she envied women who had cesareans….their babies were so beautiful! ( not scrunched and red)

            • Ian 9.1.2.1.1.1
              24 December 2015 at 6:15 pm

              I was cut out of the womb, wasn’t I? You guys were excited when I was born……

              Now Ian has to solve this BIG CASE.

  11. Morrissey 11
    23 December 2015 at 11:28 am

    “That bitch is a ‘mother’ only in the technical sense.”
    RETURN OF THE GRAVE-ROBBER: A REAL LIFE HORROR STORY

    Five mental health doctors, all in white coats, gather round a computer screen to consider a particularly grievous case. Professor MORRISSEY BREEN leads the convocation….

    PROF. BREEN: This is something that came to our attention late yesterday. It’s a blog post about Chris Kahui, so you can imagine some of the Paul Holmes-type comments that ensue.
    http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2015/12/chris_kahui_attacks_key_and_bennett.html/comment-page-1#comment-1639989

    DOCTOR No. 1: Oh Jesus, do we HAVE to look at this?

    PROF. BREEN: Come on now. You guys work with mental health cases. This is your job.

    DOCTOR No. 2: Yes, but these right wing fellows are, if not simply bewildered, then certainly depraved. They ARE all guys, aren’t they?

    PROF. BREEN: Well, there’s one Catholic woman who writes crackpot stuff about religion and Russia occasionally, but, yes, I think they’re mostly male contributors.

    YOUNG FEMALE DOCTOR: [grimly] Very SAD males.

    PROF. BREEN: Indeed. We’ll start with this comment from someone calling himself “dime”. He writes “what a piece of human garbage”.

    DOCTOR No. 4: To be honest, that’s pretty tame. Lame, but tame.

    PROF. BREEN: Granted. Unfortunately, however, our friend “dime” is the intellectual heavyweight in this forum. It only gets worse from here on. For instance, a sad git called “mara” writes: “This Kahui ought to have fallen down the stairs in prison years ago.”

    ….Disbelieving silence for several seconds….

    DOCTOR No. 1: Fuck me! These MORONS are in institutional care, I take it?
    PROF. BREEN: Sorry, but please bear with me if you can. A bit later a genius named “cmm” writes: “These people are always so keen to dis the white man that brings him the legal system that keeps him alive, gives him money for food, accommodation etc.”

    ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!… Jesus H. CHRIST, these people are D – U – M, DUMB!

    PROF. BREEN: A bewildered soul called nasska writes: “Urban ferals never have & never will benefit from the millions thrown into the black hole that is the Maori grievance industry.” One “PhilP” writes learnedly that Chris Kahui is a “useless piece of shit.”

    DOCTOR No. 4: Good Lord! This is like listening to a morning of Leighton Smith!

    DOCTOR No. 5: Or Michael Laws. Or Sean Plunket. Or Larry “Lackwit” Williams.

    PROF. BREEN: Yes, that’s right. Obviously these people get their talking points from the likes of Smith and Laws.

    DOCTOR No. 3: And the ACT Party.

    PROF. BREEN: Actually, No. 3, you’re close to the truth there. But we’ll get onto that in a minute. Let’s just consider the last couple of examples. Another fellow, “deadrightkev”, writes: “Kahui is a product of trash upbringing and fertilised by a social welfare state dependency problem out of control.” He then manages to top that with this gem: “Treaty settlements are fraud. They should be staying exactly where they should be – in the hands of the taxpayer.”

    YOUNG FEMALE DOCTOR: More like “Deadweight” Kev, methinks.

    ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

    PROF. BREEN: This one is my favorite, though, because he’s honest. Stupid, but honest. One “flash2846” writes learnedly: “Yet another good reason why I and others are racist! Just imagine a murderer of any other race in New zealand saying that shit. Filthy CUNT! needs castrating!!!!”

    ….A stunned silence ensues for several seconds…..

    DOCTOR No. 1: [grimly] Farrar certainly seems to attract the intellectuals.

    DOCTOR No. 3: You know what the most frightening thing about these guys is? They can breed and they can vote.

    ALL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

    PROF. BREEN: Okay. Now some of you might remember this bloke. [He scrolls down the page] Sorry, fellas, before I reveal who it is, I know that like the rest of the country, you thought you’d never have to look at his ugly mug again or listen to one of his ill-informed, hate-filled rants, but he’s back—at least on Kiwiblog.

    DOCTOR No. 1: Who? Murray Deaker?

    DOCTOR No. 4: Not that fucking criminal JOHN BANKS?

    DOCTOR No. 2: Not that dancing fool Rodney “The Perk Taker” Hide?
    http://www.recipeapart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/55ffd0ef0f2a4f2f0375.jpeg

    PROF. BREEN: Now, No. 3, remember how you suggested these halfwits could be channeling the ACT Party. Well, get a load of THIS: “Of course he’s fucking unemployable… But of the two, his former “missus” is the worst in my view…male scum who couldn’t give a fuck about or abuse their progeny are a dime a dozen…somehow we expect more of mothers…That bitch is a “mother” only in the technical sense…and she is probably a killer…she certainly knows who did kill the poor little buggers… the useless mongrel – and I say that even if he didn’t kill his sons – has almost certainly sired a couple more by now….and you can bet your arse those children have “come to the attention of the authorities”

    GENERAL HUBBUB: Jesus! …. What the HELL?… You can virtually feel the spittle!… Was that a quote from the late Paul Holmes?…. Sounds like Cameron Slater… Or John Ansell?… It’s hard to say which part of this is more offensive: the militant display of ignorance or the hatred. …. Are these people in care, and if not, why not? … They can vote, and they can breed…. So tell us, Prof. Breen: who was it?
    PROF. BREEN: I’ll give you three clues. Clue number one: he’s a disgraced ACT M.P.

    DOCTOR No. 4: Jamie “Lock Up His Sisters” Whyte!

    DOCTOR No. 1: Rodney “The Perk Taker” Hide!
    http://www.recipeapart.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/55ffd0ef0f2a4f2f0375.jpeg
    DOCTOR No. 3: Heather Roy!

    DOCTOR No. 2: Doctor Muriel Newman, the dimmest medical practitioner in the world until the advent of Dr Ben Carson!

    PROF. BREEN: All reasonable choices. But not the answer I’m looking for. Clue number two: he was convicted of assaulting a doctor in Tonga.

    ALL: Oh Jesus, no!… I know who it is now. …. I’d blocked that person out of my memory, I’d thought…. No, no, no! Not him!… It’s that monster from the S.S. Trust!

    PROF. BREEN: Clue number three: he stole the identity of a dead baby and was convicted for it, but it still didn’t stop ACT selecting him as a candidate!

    GENERAL HUBBUB: The right dishonorable David fucking Garrett! … He’s the lowest of the low!… Thanks, Prof. Breen, I had banished that zombie into my mental trash can, and now you bring him back from the dead!… Absolutely reprehensible!… Compared to David Garrett, Chris Kahui is Albert fucking Schweitzer.

    PROF. BREEN: Say, I LIKE that comment. I might just modify it a bit and post it up on Kiwiblog….

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4124887/Garrett-gives-details-of-Tonga-brawl-conviction

    • Tim 11.1
      23 December 2015 at 4:52 pm

      Chris Kahui does deserve to be in prison though. Or do you have some other plausible theory for how those injuries happened?

      • Molly 11.1.1
        23 December 2015 at 5:37 pm

        Unless you are privy to all the details of the case, from what was published – there does not seem to be enough evidence to make that decisive judgement call.

        One of my relatives worked in the ICU at that time, and it had been noted by staff that the (somewhat regular) lack of bonding with the mother had occurred, and that substantial at home visits and supports would be necessary to address this. This did not occur after discharge.

        It is by no means uncommon for parents of very premature births to have a resistance to forming bonds with their child. The children are often physically different from expectations of a healthy birth – very skinny, with loose and hairy skin, and it is a form of unconscious mental self-preservation to not invest emotionally if outcomes are uncertain.

        Whether Chris Kahui was responsible for the injuries or not, seemed hard to define given the conflicting evidence that I can recall.

        What is true however, is that a vulnerability was identified and a strategy defined which was not followed up on.

        This is tragedy was indicative of a support system failure as well.

      • Morrissey 11.1.2
        23 December 2015 at 9:51 pm

        You could well be right, Tim. However, the discredited National Party hitman Cameron Slater is not fit to comment on him or anyone else.

        The point of my post was not to defend Chris Kahui, but to show the hypocrisy of the ignorant and bloody-minded lynch-mob that were denouncing him on the right wing blogs. It’s perhaps no surprise to learn that the most foul-mouthed, crudest commenter of all on that particular thread was the disgraced ex-ACT felon David Garrett….

        http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2015/12/chris_kahui_attacks_key_and_bennett.html#comment-1639747

        • Tim 11.1.2.1
          24 December 2015 at 5:56 pm

          I enjoyed your post (as usual) and I’m glad you let those guys know how it is. It just prompted me to think about the case again and left me with a sense of anger – probably at the family as well as Macsyna and Chris, for the way in which all seemed complicit in preventing the truth coming to light at the time… Or at least that is what the media has it seem like.

  12. Chooky 12
    23 December 2015 at 11:47 am

    ‘Druids and pagans gather at Stonehenge for solstice (PHOTOS, VIDEO)’

    https://www.rt.com/uk/326806-stonehenge-winter-solstice-celebrate/

    …”The monument in Wiltshire has long been thought of as a place of magic used by the ancient druids, with mystery surrounding how it was built and its exact use. It is believed to have been built between 2000 and 3000 BC…

  13. marty mars 13
    23 December 2015 at 12:37 pm

    Worth a read to catch up on these victories

    Following a monumental win against the controversial ‘Monsanto law’ in Guatemala last year, the notorious biotech firm took another big hit after Mexico’s Supreme Court suspended a permit to grow genetically modified soybeans across 250,000 hectares on the Yucatán peninsula.
    The judgement stemmed from a constitutional law in Mexico that requires the consideration of indigenous communities affected by development projects. According to the Supreme Court, Monsanto failed to consult the region’s famous Maya beekeepers who filed the case against Monsanto. The beekeepers warned early on that Monsanto’s plan would require the use of “glyphosate, a herbicide classified as probably carcinogenic.” Given that bees are extremely sensitive to their environment, the beekeepers explained that Monsanto’s project jeopardize their communities, their livelihoods and the environment.

    The judge commented in the ruling that co-existence between honey production and GM soybeans is simply not possible.

    https://intercontinentalcry.org/15-indigenous-rights-victories-didnt-hear-2015/

    • Macro 13.1
      23 December 2015 at 2:03 pm

      Great News. A good decision based upon a fair perception of reality. If bees go we as a species will find our diet greatly reduced. ie we will never again live in a land of milk and honey ( or food produced by pollination)
      http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/OnEinsteinBeesandSurvivaloftheHumanRaceHoneyBeeProgramCAESEntomologyUGA.html

      • Tautuhi 13.1.1
        23 December 2015 at 5:17 pm

        70-80% of the world food supply rely on bees for pollination and food production

        • Macro 13.1.1.1
          23 December 2015 at 7:10 pm

          Yes!
          So we would have a very limited diet
          fish and chips – if your lucky…
          🙂

          • weka 13.1.1.1.1
            23 December 2015 at 7:56 pm

            And yet many places in the world had thriving ecosystems before the arrival of the honey bee, which included plants that needed pollination. I’ve been following the bee problem for a long time but lately I’ve been wondering if the issue of the demise of hive bees is about global economics more than humans being able to feed themselves. We should be going back to eating local anyway. The issue isn’t that the almond orchards in California will fail when all the colonies collapse, and how that affects the global food supply, but the fact that that kind of orcharding created the collapse in the first place and is just wrong on all levels.

            Yes, we should be concerned about any species decline, but if we focus on the honey bee/global cropping connections instead of the ecosystem that includes all pollinators then we will just keep shitting in our own nest (and everyone else’s).

            • Macro 13.1.1.1.1.1
              23 December 2015 at 8:01 pm

              Oh I agree – however the demise of the honey bee by wide spread applications of pesticide also includes the demise of all the other local pollinators, and that is what makes the Mexican Supreme Court decision so important.

  14. joe90 14
    23 December 2015 at 1:22 pm

    This is why Douglas, Prebble and co should be hung by their fucking heals.

    Most recently, the privatisation of the timber industry in the 1980s caused “massive job losses and severe poverty” in the west of the district, which had previously been relatively wealthy.

    While the Crown did provide some support to communities in Te Urewera, they were “never near enough to counter the massive disadvantages holding back those communities”.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/75402505/crown-slammed-for-treaty-of-waitangi-breaches-in-te-urewera

    (incandescent, taking dogs to beach)

    • RedLogix 14.1
      23 December 2015 at 2:06 pm

      I remember reading an insider industry report in the early 80’s sometime, projecting that with the amount of timber potentially coming online NZ could support something like 16 world scale timber/pulp/paper mills.

      We never built any of them. Most of the wood got shipped overseas as logs for other people to make money from.

      • Macro 14.1.1
        23 December 2015 at 2:36 pm

        Yep! Douglas and Prebble et al did really well – for themselves.

      • joe90 14.1.2
        23 December 2015 at 4:15 pm

        Despite the injustice and deprivation of the past, which at the time I was only vaguely aware of, the people I knew and worked with in Galatea – Murupara in the 1970’s had found some measure of prosperity.

        And then the 4th Labour Government, their party, my party, didn’t just sell their livelihoods out from underneath them, they did that to lots of us, they abandoned them and their communities became the poverty stricken gang dominated shit holes of the 1990’s.

        That’s what pisses me off RL.

        • marty mars 14.1.2.1
          23 December 2015 at 4:52 pm

          +1 yep they sold us all out and so many of us are still paying the cost – while they get taxpayer funded travel and invitations to conferences – sickening.

        • left for deadshark 14.1.2.2
          23 December 2015 at 6:28 pm

          A fucken disgrace, and I still hear of D Cagill. Did the dogs get their beach trip. 😉
          Oh, and just too wind you up again, down here in Dunedin, the council have employed two Lawyers to save some money, have come up with the idea of getting rid of the word Bitch and heat from the dog control act, they don’t like blurred meaning.
          The former will be replaced with, “female dog in season” I kid you not.

          👿

          • alwyn 14.1.2.2.1
            23 December 2015 at 7:21 pm

            “female dog in season”
            Is that like catching whitebait in season?
            On the West Coast it means 1 September to 14 November.

            • left for deadshark 14.1.2.2.1.1
              23 December 2015 at 7:42 pm

              Or, A back handed complement to the Dog ‘male’ for always being in season, or at least in unison with the said ‘Bitch’.
              But in all seriousness, that nonsense has got to stop, it’s a waste of money etc etc.

              PS: leave those whitebait alone, alwyn…At lest till the first of September

      • Tautuhi 14.1.3
        23 December 2015 at 5:18 pm

        Privatised the forests.

    • weka 14.2
      23 December 2015 at 8:00 pm

      Sorry, but I can’t read past the first line of Māori living in caves and eatint rotten potatoes. I love NZ but there are some shames that we will never get past.

  15. Macro 15
    23 December 2015 at 2:34 pm

    How to win friends and influence people – to join ISIS.
    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/22/david-cameron-us-america-refuses-british-muslim-family-disneyland
    What sort of sick sick society is USA now.

    • Tim 15.1
      23 December 2015 at 2:53 pm

      If it was your job to ensure the people being allowed into the country did not pose a significant security risk do you think it would be easy? Would you be happy if people judged you and your entire society as sick because of a specific decision that was made which we have not heard the justification for? Do you think it is reasonable for someone to join ISIS because they were not allowed to go to Disneyland for reasons that have not yet been made clear?

    • tinfoilhat 16.1
      23 December 2015 at 3:05 pm

      Not sure how that judge’s ruling makes NZ a puppet state of the US.

      Best you read the judge’s full decision before forming opinion, many of those on the political right would have been well advised to do the same regarding the recent decision regarding the illegality of the police search of Nicky Hagar’s home before spouting uninformed opinion.

  17. ianmac 17
    23 December 2015 at 4:28 pm

    Dotcom looses the case but: “Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield confirmed there would be an appeal lodged over the extradition this afternoon.” Might take years to resolve.

  18. mary_a 18
    23 December 2015 at 5:30 pm

    Here it is folks, what you have all been waiting for. It’s about to begin. Episode one of the KEYdashian’s Hawaiian holiday! The fruit of FJK’s loins, begins by missing his girlfriend already! Ahhhh poor baby!

    Yuk! Enough to make one have to dash rather hastily to the toilet!

    http://spy.nzherald.co.nz/spy-news/max-key-pines-away-in-hawaii/

  19. Anne 19
    23 December 2015 at 7:29 pm

    Some good news – we need it.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11565476

    The Greens on the ball.

  20. Bill 20
    23 December 2015 at 7:33 pm

    Welcome to the Empire

    …a family party of 11, about to embark on a dream holiday for which they had saved for months, were approached by officials from US homeland security (at Gatwick…in the UK ffs!) as they queued in the departure lounge and told their authorisation to travel had been cancelled, without further explanation.

    [the bracketed italic added]

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/22/david-cameron-us-america-refuses-british-muslim-family-disneyland

  21. Macro 21
    23 December 2015 at 8:23 pm

    Obviously the Immigration Department is so badly understaffed that it continues to make horrendous decisions….
    the two latest stuff ups:
    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/292617/brothers-cleared-of-human-trafficking-charges
    http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2015/12/23/gordon-campbell-on-the-rejection-of-a-pakistani-polio-worker/

  22. ropata 22
    23 December 2015 at 10:26 pm

    NZ: once was a caring society, becoming cruel and heartless under the NatCorp regime

    Not computer but @johnkeypm policy responsible for classifying cancer patients as jobseekers https://t.co/LW63S8VayD pic.twitter.com/50nMinnsJV— Samuel Mann (@samuelmann) December 23, 2015

  23. Chooky 23
    23 December 2015 at 10:56 pm

    ‘ ‘More devastating than any nuclear war’: John McAfee on the coming cyber war with ISIS’

    https://www.rt.com/usa/326181-world-war-cyber-attacks-mcafee/

    “Every presidential contender says they want to destroy Islamic State, but John McAfee is the only one predicting a war involving cyberattacks, not conventional weapons. “We have to prepare ourselves” for an enemy that is “far more clever,” McAfee told RT.

    Not many people know John McAfee is running for president, but possibly even fewer understand the scope of the war against Islamic State (IS, formely ISIS/ISIL) the way he does.

    When asked if Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s strategy against IS was reasonable, McAfee answered, “No, absolutely not.” That’s an answer most other rivals would agree with, but to McAfee, it’s not about where and how to use the military. To defeat ISIS, America must face its own “cyber illiteracy” and other faults before engaging in what he purports to be the next World War – a cyber war…

    • Esoteric Pineapples 23.1
      23 December 2015 at 11:23 pm

      Cyber wars are going on already. Involving nuclear reactors, airlines etc. Worth doing a Google search on the subject. I read a few blogs on the subject which linked to all sorts of instances reported in the mainstream media.

  24. ropata 24
    23 December 2015 at 10:58 pm

    Will Syria & Iraq become Washington’s Stalingrad?

    But there are some scary parallels between the Nazi Empire of the 1940’s and the Washington Empire and conquests today that revolve around the Petrodollar system that has maintained the dollar reserve currency status since the end of World War Two. This dollar world reserve currency model required that oil was only priced and sold in dollars forced all foreign nations buying and importing oil to keep major dollar reserves to pay for their oil imports guaranteed a permanent and expanding demand for dollars around the world.

    Three Middle East countries first broke the oil/dollar requirement and threatened the petrodollar system including Iraq, Libya and Iran hence the US military attempts to violently overthrow these governments to maintain Washington hegemony and the dollar.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-22/christmas-2015-will-syria-iraq-become-washingtons-stalingrad