Open mike 24/09/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 24th, 2011 - 34 comments
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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34 comments on “Open mike 24/09/2011 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    24 September 2011 at 7:27 am

    Owen Glen writing in the New Zealand Herald yesterday.

    New Zealand agriculture generates $20 billion a year. Our competencies in the high-tech arena are improving and the top 10 exporters alone contribute $3.9 billion.
    Now imagine if we added our mineral riches to this wealth creation mix……

    The added opportunity for us is that fossil fuels – now our fourth biggest export earner – will continue to play an important role in the global economy…..

    Some of our minerals – gold, other metals and low-rank coals – are valued at more than $250 billion…..

    Owen Glen

    My question is this:

    How greedy is Owen Glen, how rich does he want to be?

    Is 1.1 $billion not enough?

    This leads me to another and older rhetorical question:

    If Blood be the price of your accursed wealth, haven’t we already paid it fair?

    • aerobubble 1.1
      24 September 2011 at 9:58 am

      Peak oil means demand outstrips supply, this means a greater economic stress
      on efficient uses of energy rather than the hummer economy. The switch from
      a boardroom driven economy back to the normal invisible hand of Adam Smiths
      day. The unfortuate problem for the very rich is their skill sets are now
      obsolete. Buffett gets it, maybe because he makes his living spotting what
      works and pilling in the cash. I’m not sure anything glen says suggests
      any equal understanding.

      • Lanthanide 1.1.1
        24 September 2011 at 11:52 am

        It also means digging up our fossil fuels is going to be more economically beneficial than ever, and perhaps mandatory if we want to keep living the sort of lifestyle we’ve become accustomed to.

        Of course AFKTT would simply say our current lifestyles are due for massive irreversible decline and we shouldn’t even try to escape that.

        • Colonial Viper 1.1.1.1
          24 September 2011 at 9:01 pm

          Oil is history. Dig up and burn all the coal you want to replace it, but your Boxster S isn’t going to run on coal, and neither is the NZ milk tanker fleet.

    • Joe Bloggs 1.2
      24 September 2011 at 12:38 pm

      My, my, how the left bites the hand that once fed it.

      • grumpy 1.2.1
        24 September 2011 at 2:08 pm

        Especially as it is rumoured that he will fund Erin Leigh’s defamation case against Mallard.

        Retrospective legislation anyone??????

        • Jenny 1.2.1.1
          24 September 2011 at 2:40 pm

          My, my, how the left bites the hand that once fed it.

          Joe Bloggs

          Yes Joe, taking money off such vile creatures usually comes with a price. But where the left still endeavour to keep our principles, the National Party shamelessly slobber over the likes of people like Glen.

          We may “bite the hand that feeds” as you put it, but the Nats are happy to keep kissing it.(And other parts)

          • thejackal 1.2.1.1.1
            24 September 2011 at 2:59 pm

            Strange that the Police aren’t acknowledging my formal complaint concerning Owen Glenn trying to bribe people to vote for National. Be interesting to see if he can wriggle out of that one.

    • KJT 1.3
      25 September 2011 at 5:37 am

      Another one who can’t do accounting. Wonder how he made so much money?

      Gross receipts of 20 billion do not mean that it is earning the country 20 billion.

      That is like saying a builder who charges out at $45/hr makes $45/Hr. In reality he/her would be lucky to get $25 after paying for tools, travel, down time and all the rest.

      It is sneaky but they do it all the time. Use total economic impact (I.E. Flow on jobs like retail) and/or gross receipts for farming and then use net, or industry only, for manufacturing.

    • freedom 2.1
      24 September 2011 at 8:22 am

      “If I hadn’t [already] done the New Year’s honours list, I would’ve given you a knighthood,”

      In the tomes of mirth, many a truth is spoken ?

  3. pollywog 3
    24 September 2011 at 9:03 am

    Fuck the New Zealand rugby union copyright of the term ‘all black’.

    It’s our national team and our rugby union !!! As NZers, if we want to use the term ‘all black’ to make some coin and ‘cash in’ on the rubber wool cup we should bloody well be allowed to do so without strongarm tactics from rugby office narks looking to shut us down.

    Not that i’m using the ‘all blacks’ term anyway, but the way i see it, the NZRU can go fuck itself if i did want to. It reminds me of the NZRU’s bullshit attempted hijacking of the silver fern.

    Now i’m wondering where can i find the specific legalities pertaining to the wider use of the term ‘all black’ ?

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      24 September 2011 at 9:10 am

      I realised how degraded and commercially BS the whole All Blacks franchise has become when i started to see little ® symbols on all the flags and memorabilia.

      Another NZ corporatocracy acquiring another Kiwi icon for their own profits.

      • pollywog 3.1.1
        24 September 2011 at 9:30 am

        hard bro !!!

        like take this fella from a few months ago for instance. All Blacked out… name gets red card

        Mr Sophie was ordered to change his business name and rebrand his store so anything similar to the NZRU’s trademarks were no longer visible, or face legal action.

        He was also told to pay $1500 to cover the NZRU’s legal fees.

        Mr Sophie said he would like to challenge the rugby union in court, but could not afford to: “They are stronger than me and richer than me, I can’t face them”.

        he offered to drop the “All” and be called “Black Tyres and Automotive Care” – a compromise that was rejected.

        Where does the NZRU get off telling anyone to pay it’s legal costs without a court ruling ? Or think it can tell a business it can’t even use the word ‘black’ in it’s name or advertising ?

        or this

        He said he found the order to remove the silver ferns from his branding to be particularly galling.

        “I told them the fern belongs to every New Zealander, it’s on everything from T-shirts to kids’ stickers.”

        But NZRU commercial manager Paul Dalton said the union relied on commercial sponsorship to support rugby across the country and had to protect its trademarks.

        “If businesses are able to use the All Blacks name and our fern trademark without having a relationship with the NZRU, this devalues the investments that our family of sponsors are making.”

        Fuck your family of sponsors Paul Dalton you greedy corporate suckhole. It’s not your fucken fern you cunt and the allblacks don’t belong to adidas or the NZRU. It’s not your team. It’s ours and by it, as an NZer, we have a relationship with them so can do whatever the fuck we like with the term ‘all black’

        Greedy fuckers trying it on with standover tactics and intimidation piss me off eh.

        • vto 3.1.1.1
          24 September 2011 at 9:46 am

          With you 100% on this one mr polly.

          It is complete bullshit. If they have a “family of sponsors” then that is for them to deal with. Leave us and our all blacks and silver ferns out of it. Perhaps we need a mass protest where every business in the land renames to All Blacks. ha ha ha, that would expose them for what they are.

          I have to repeat your strongish words … they are fucking greedy and cunts.

        • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.2
          24 September 2011 at 1:08 pm

          That’s normal practice in capitalism – restrict things so that the capitalists can charge the users more. That’s all that privatisation is at the end of the day – putting arbitrary restrictions on the publics wealth so that a few can benefit.

    • The Voice of Reason 3.2
      24 September 2011 at 9:22 am

      I think the RWC enabling legislation granted the NZRFU a fair bit of control over the use and marketing of the All Blacks brand, pollywog. And obviously, they have trademark protection too.
       
      Still, the game is the important thing and there is a big game tonight … Go the Warriors!

    • millsy 3.3
      24 September 2011 at 10:28 am

      The NZRFU sold out long ago. It has gotten completely out of touch with the supporters and fans at grassroots rugby. It talks about protecting the ‘brand’, but in reality it has diluted it by having the All Blacks play test after test after test. Fans have consitently wanted a return to the old tours but they get Super Rugby and Tri-Nations pap forced on them to the point where it now becomes meaningless, I mean, who remembers who won the 2004 Tri-Nations? What tries were scored? Who was captain?

      And dont get me started on the TV rights going to Sky. I belive that will be the long term downfall of the game.

  4. thejackal 4
    24 September 2011 at 2:57 pm

    Top Gear is Corrupt

    It’s not often that I see eye to eye with George Monbiot. But last week an episode of Top Gear was shown in New Zealand that was clearly bullshit! What is worse is that it was shown not to be factual after first being broadcast in England on 31 July…

  5. thejackal 5
    24 September 2011 at 7:45 pm

    Ignoring the 99%

    Tonight we had forty minutes of rugby reporting on the 6 O’clock news and not one word about the major nuclear protest that has been going on in India for the past ten days, or the huge protest in New York, that has been occupying Wall Street for seven days…

    • logie97 5.1
      24 September 2011 at 8:16 pm

      …and Boscawen has announced he is retiring at the election apparently for family reasons. He will still, however, stand as the ACT candidate in Tamaki. Go figure – what if he was to win the seat – thus demonstrating his continued contempt for the electoral process and presumably force an immediate by-election.

    • Bill 5.2
      24 September 2011 at 8:20 pm

      Mind if Spain or Israeli protests are added to that 99%?

  6. Anne 6
    24 September 2011 at 8:54 pm

    …and Boscawen has announced he is retiring at the election apparently for family reasons.

    For family reasons? Don’t believe it. The man’s a passionate Actoid. My bet is he and Brash have had a fallout. At least that’s one especially ignorant Climate Change denier out of the way.

    • Lanthanide 6.1
      24 September 2011 at 10:15 pm

      The ridiculous thing about this is that it means that none of the current Act MPs are going to be sticking around after the election. The entire lineup is being replaced.

  7. The Voice of Reason 7
    24 September 2011 at 10:19 pm

    Re-tooling?

  8. prism 8
    24 September 2011 at 11:15 pm

    I wrote a letter to the paper about party policies and my view, thinking we should be beginning to discuss election matters now. It seems that the Editor has printed all the letters from a local intermediate class, and all the local things and is starting on current letters but can’t find room for my compliant one. I have to follow this up and find the reason that I’m being given the cold shoulder although if sources have to be quoted that seems an unusual demand for this paper.

    If anyone wonders why people don’t seem to have a real understanding of the issues then it could be this Newspaper Lite recipe or listening to the Golden Oldies or Fiery Fred on one of the talk-back radio shows.

  9. Afewknowthetruth 9
    25 September 2011 at 10:04 am

    Lanthanide.

    ‘Of course AFKTT would simply say our current lifestyles are due for massive irreversible decline and we shouldn’t even try to escape that.’

    Or AFKTT might say that in view of the rapidly declining EROEI now being experienced, any attempt to maintain current economic arrangements is both futile and self-defeating. And it will almost certainly render the Earth uninhabitable for mammalian life forms in a few decades.

    However, since our society is run by ‘the greedy and the stupid’, as noted above, the carnage will contiinue.

    Fracking (hydraulic fracturing of the rocks underlying the agricultural landbase using a lethal mix of chemicals injected after drilling) is now the ‘flavour of the year” amongst eco-vandals. The consequences have been absolutely shocking -poisoning of aquifers, toxic chemical dumpts etc., but energy companies have generated a nice short term profit from such activites. (In the US fracking is accompanied by the mountain top removal version of open-cast coal mining -blow up the muntaina nd push it into the nearesst river valley- and in Canada by turning much of Alberta into a ‘moonscape’ to get to the low EROEI tar sands).

    Such activities are clearly last acts of desperation by the greedy and the selfish to prop up a rapidly failing system at any cost, especially to the next generation.

    Come to think of it, they might not be the last acts of desperation: energy companies are very keen to ramp up drilling in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. And socieities dominated by the uninformed and those with a sense of entitlement will probably demand that such destruction proceed.