Open mike 25/08/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 25th, 2023 - 31 comments
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31 comments on “Open mike 25/08/2023 ”

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    • Mike the Lefty 1.1
      25 August 2023 at 9:32 am

      Seymour's election strategy seems to be "everybody loves a clown".

      But what he doesn't realise that they also quickly tire of them.

    • Corey 1.2
      25 August 2023 at 10:08 am

      Is David Seymour trying to say his party is as corrupt as the African National Congress party of South Africa?

      Because I can totally see that level of fraud and embezzlement coming from Act if they ever led a government, I mean just look at the level of fraud and embezzlement they've had Outside of government in the last 27 years…. From D. A. H to that dude to who stole a dead Childs identity to John Banks.

    • Christopher 1.3
      25 August 2023 at 11:42 am

      Even as a "joke" it's grandiose and gross. A lesson in humility is what David Seymour needs but is, unfortunately, unlikely to receive at the next election.

      [Please stick to your approved user name, thanks – Incognito]

  2. Reality 2
    25 August 2023 at 10:07 am

    Seymour's "jokes" will not be funny at all for those voters he is wanting to make unemployed, or those having their working conditions downgraded.

    Excellent article in The Post today by Max Harris on National/Act and their so-called "bloated bureaucracy". Good to read an in-depth, and intelligent article.

  3. Macro 3
    25 August 2023 at 10:55 am

    Well the Billboards are going up and pleasing to see that if elected to govern the Nats plan to build more railways. I take it that is what they mean when they want to get the country "back on track"!

    OTOH NZ First wants to "take the country back" – the problem is they don't say where, or to what era. 1950's? 1960s? 1970's?…. Let's hope it's not back to the 1920-30's, and the Depression.

    • Mac1 3.1
      25 August 2023 at 12:00 pm

      I read 'take the country back' as meaning the country had gone into others' hands and needed recovering. My questions to that interpretation are "From whom?", "Given to whom?" and "Who is us and who are they that have got our country at the moment?"

      In that reading is some pretty scary dog-whistling.

      The disaffected, the alienated, the sovereign citizenry and the racists all are meant to hear and react to that call. Those so described will make up more than the 5% NZF need.

      Our local NZF candidate called out in one breath "the woke, virtue-signalling socialists".

      His version of NZF is certainly not centrist.

      Similarly, National's 'on track' bill board is another whistle out to all who think that their particular train has been side-lined, shunted off, decommissioned.

      Their problem is to persuade us that a few speed wobbles, late arrivals and delays are actually derailments.

      Their problem is also to persuade the voters that they know how to run a train service, and have the expertise when we know they sold off the last one.

      They have to persuade us that they have business acumen when today we hear that a former National Prime Minister is up for millions of dollars because she did not know how to run a business.

      https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/08/former-pm-dame-jenny-shipley-among-mainzeal-directors-ordered-to-pay-nearly-40-million-in-penalties-plus-interest.html

  4. newsense 4
    25 August 2023 at 11:51 am

    But it’s okay, we’re fast following, eventually farmers say, as shrinking sea ice kills Emperor Penguin chicks.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/25/emperor-penguins-thousands-of-chicks-in-antarctica-likely-died-due-to-record-low-sea-ice-levels

    • UncookedSelachimorpha 5.1
      25 August 2023 at 1:08 pm

      National is the party that understands finance and business….yeah right.

  6. Ad 6
    25 August 2023 at 1:23 pm

    The full bar erupts ecstatic as Trump's mug shot comes up on the big screen:

    • higherstandard 6.1
      25 August 2023 at 1:40 pm

      lol….good laugh for a Friday afternoon

    • Tiger Mountain 6.2
      25 August 2023 at 2:13 pm

      Trumpy gets the dumpy!–not in real terms just yet…but millions live in some hope at least.

    • ianmac 6.3
      25 August 2023 at 4:15 pm

      There are questions about whether it is a mug shot as usually they are taken against a measured background and there is doubt about the measurements such as 6' 3" There is a suspicion that the data is off the claimed data provide by the GOP. Also dodgy about the others too.

      • aj 6.3.1
        25 August 2023 at 7:19 pm

        There are questions about whether it is a mug shot

        Yes. Just theatre, an ongoing soap opera

  7. Peter 7
    25 August 2023 at 2:17 pm

    Something to appeal to Donald Trump for whom big numbers are important.

    The former president has been given the inmate number #P01135809. More fun than the mere '45.'

  8. newsense 8
    25 August 2023 at 2:45 pm

    Would Chippy going a bit more two track be a good idea?

    It’d introduce a bit more of his team, show that he has confidence in them and allow to rise above some of the nonsense, while also not letting National off the hook.

    Nice to hear from Megan Woods and Ginny Anderson this week, painting Willis as Luxon’s carer and getting stuck into his reflexive oppositional politics which show a lack of thought.

    https://www.instagram.com/chrishipkinsmp/

  9. Peter 9
    25 August 2023 at 3:39 pm

    Will there need to be a few new backroom jobs coming up in education to implement the Act policy? Every kid young person from the age of two to 18 will have an account. Get to choose your bank?

    "The ACT Party's education policy also sets out a radical shift to the sector. It would give each child a Student Education Account at the age of two. Each year until a student is 18, $12,000 will be placed into that account. At the age of 18, they will receive a further $30,000 for tertiary education, with up to $50,000 available top academic achievers through a scholarship program. Over half of students will receive a scholarship."

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300957538/nz-election-2023-live-act-would-reinstate-firstyear-tertiary-fees-if-part-of-next-government

  10. Reality 10
    25 August 2023 at 4:45 pm

    Incognito, I use an IPad which doesn't quite work like a laptop and I don't know how to do links. Sorry.

    • Incognito 10.1
      25 August 2023 at 4:58 pm

      Understood, thank you. FYI, my comment was not a Mod note but merely a prompt/hint with a grain of annoyance. It could have been different if you had quoted without linking.

      Hopefully, somebody else with iPad nous can provide clear & simple instructions for you on how to link on that device.

      • francesca 10.1.1
        25 August 2023 at 5:45 pm

        Any hints on how to link to T.S comments from previous days?

        • Belladonna 10.1.1.1
          25 August 2023 at 8:10 pm

          If you find the comment, and 'other click' your mouse (i.e. click with your other mouse button) over the date stamp – immediately under the handle of the commenter – you should see a menu with 'copy link' as an option.

          This will give you the site/thread/comment number – which you can paste (ctrl v) into your new comment.

          I'm sure there is equivalent functionality for phone and tablet access.

    • weka 10.2
      25 August 2023 at 5:30 pm

      Looks pretty much the same as on a phone.

      https://youtu.be/XjQex9pqhi8?si=V-952QjseXTH2C06

  11. newsense 11
    25 August 2023 at 8:33 pm

    Ad- had a bit of a trawl through some of the history curriculum that was available on the website. I’m not really across it all, but I don’t have to be fortunately.

    Amusingly it has the example of Mercer. I got interested in writing about the area post-uni when I noticed the way the motorway change had affected the township and presumably these service centres might have been having a similar ‘globalising’ or destructive effect.
    It was a bit of a strong premise to start from and I didn’t have the guts for the project, though I made some preliminary inquiries.

    For years I’ve heard from people in the tertiary sector that students arrive with strong opinions, but no historical knowledge base to discuss the treaty as part of our constitution or as a basis for a bicultural society. As we’ve seen from recent events with blackface and the KKK dress ups there is a good part of the country that is less diverse and also that wishes to have things frozen in understanding in the era of the 1970s pre-engineering confrontation at Auckland university.

    I mean the important thing about history is to be able to assess sources critically, gather primary sources where possible and make connections within themes of events. That does seem to be part of the curriculum.

    I guess the question is whether by 15 I should have in a New Zealand classroom more knowledge of Luther-King, Gandhi, Michael Collins and Golda Meir than of General Cameron or Te Rauparaha or of the story of my local area. Again I’m not sure what the situation is now- but previously non-violent direct action seemed to be an important strand of social studies at 13. Oh and global warming.

    I’d also say perhaps a piece of critical thinking is to look at the past and look forward. As David Parker said we may be tied by treaties into permitting our land to be sold overseas if we make that permissible once more.

    I have only read for a short time, but it does seem like a substantial amount of work for teachers to design local history curriculum. But perhaps I’ve misunderstood it. Will keep going.

    Not sure what the PC bullshit is yet. Might be more obvious as I get towards the higher levels ir into example resources and lessons. I’d cope better with linear charts, but I’ve never been good with some kinds of visual mapping.

    If you mean, and this was and is a feature elsewhere, the use of Maori terminology, I’d challenge you to produce and defend your own idea of biculturalism.

    If you mean talking to hapu and iwi, this is wonderful. For my school history I interviewed and spoke with all kinds of fascinating people. A local RSA leader who gave me my first alternative view on Churchill and really made me question this idea of mainstream historical narrative, people involved in the Springbok tour protests and a neighbor who’d voted in the 1937 election in Ireland. And at an earlier age local iwi who helped us on a powhiri gave a brief answer on the Moriori in response to a question, which was later much closer to the truth than what many of us believed at the time.

    The only other thing that has always bugged me is the separation of economic and environmental historical study. These are surely always intertwined.

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