My big evening of watching Television
Wednesday 24 April 2013
I try not to watch too much television. It’s partly the advertising barrage, but it’s also the empty and drained feeling that I almost always have after watching a couple of hours of stuff on screen. I almost always feel stupider, and that I have wasted the time; it’s exactly the opposite feeling I have after reading a book for several hours.
I try to always watch Everybody Loves Raymond and any comedy with David Spade in it. I usually try to watch the Letterman show, and a bit of sport occasionally. Otherwise, the television is something best avoided, I believe.
However, when I saw that there was going to be a new Annie Goldson documentary, about New Zealand’s unhappy and deceitful decade-long adventure in Afghanistan, I just had to put the books aside and settle down for an hour. After that, I watched The Vote: Is New Zealand a Racist Country? on TV3’s Plus One channel, and then I stayed on to watch Backbenches on Prime.
I will eventually post up my reviews for each of these programmes, but here are the quick verdicts:
Annie Goldson’s NZ in Afghanistan….. A++ (Exceptionally good documentary.)
The Vote….. E (Bomb. Lowest rating)
Backbenches…. C (Toe-curlingly cringe-inducing, with occasional redemptive bits)
The Vote : New Zealand IS a racist country; imagined all I’d need to write is “we’ll I’ll be f&cked” yet nonetheless scrambled for two pens with the Dixie Chicks “Travelin’ Soldier playing on the radio (wrote this our twice; faceless to watch the impending ugliness).
to continue…
JT: gave the facts; quetsion: “equity” “failures are in the mainstream services which themselves are held up and protected from failing.”
Mae Chen (for the negative); passionate, hasty, aroused.could not help supporting the affirmative;
-acknowledged phenomena of peoples being “shut down” by what practices do occur.
-acknowledged the impact of Key and Prosser blurts; “showed cognisance of what racism is there”.
-essentially Chen asserted that it is all a matter of “degree”
(Nightline ad: “Does the Labour / Greens (NZPower) deal really add up?”; for goodness sake, they pretend balance yet the dominant narrative (people remember the negative) is bad; So “roll up, roll up, see the propaganda show in motion!
Phil Goff; once again, a relativist position to other countries; (at least our minorities are not being shot); yet “sure, there are things that are wrong.”
-on the “maori question”; “an unequal, an unfair society” =? Hello?; “discrimination from unequal beginnings”. Well, when will there be a new beginning?
(people argue from their own perspectives, yet these are demonstrated statistics.
-then it was “we are unique in the world” re redress. Whatever! (not very bright some-times these pollies).
Dunne; “no doubt we are a racist society”.
National poll results re Chinese Investment;
Opposed-82%
Not Opposed-13%
UD-5%
From the affirmative chap next to JT; “we have concentrated (dormitories) of brown skin that cannot be explained away by socio-economic analyses alone.”
On the question “Are Maori too privileged?”
from the national poll results across the four mediums, FB, website, text etc;
Yes-76%
No-24%
Don Brash; “building into law racial preference” then concedes that racism exists.
John Minto; weak question
Garner-“it takes time” Well, I been watching the decline of maori and pasifika s/e, health and education stats for 40 freakin’ years now, so if not Now, then when?
Devoy; (sigh)
-results show “NZers care about race relations”
-“some very serious issues”
-“I think the people have spoken”
-“PEOPLE SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED THAT THEY BELIEVE WE ARE A RACIST COUNTRY”.
(please re-read above statement of causality from Dame Susan Devoy).
Move along , nothing out of order to see here citizens.
yet Mae Chen, again “(racism) not born out by efforts”
hope this is a close-enough approximation; was fairly messy 😉
Well done Helen Kelly for getting this fatal business the kind of attention it deserves – well some attention anyway, as it’s in the main headlines. Jonathan Carson article on Stuff this morning about deaths in the forestry industry:
She knows her father had an accident at work. She knows he never came home.
“Her biggest thing is she doesn’t understand why Daddy couldn’t die when she was bigger,” Ms Frater said.
Shane Frater, 28, was killed instantly when falling tree debris struck his head on a forestry block near Te Pohu on May 1, 2009.
Mr Frater’s death wasn’t an isolated incident in the forestry business. Since 2008, the industry has seen 33 deaths and 874 serious injuries, said New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) president Helen Kelly.
“Despite industry claims that the long-term trend is improving, the figures show there are more people being killed working in our forests now than at any time in the last twenty years.”
New Zealand has twice the death rate of Australia and six times that of the United Kingdom, Ms Kelly said.
This week the Frater family relived their horror when another young man died on the job near New Plymouth – the fourth forestry death in as many months.
Also notifies that it is Workers Memorial Day on Sunday:
Deborah Frater, pictured with daughter, Skyla, is joining five other families of men killed in forestry accidents at a Workers Memorial Day service in Auckland on Sunday.
I suspect the accident rate is increasing in line with the amount of felling taking place, if my memory serves me correctly a lot of newer plantations should be in the harvest cycle many of those on more difficult terrain.
I suspect that there simply aren’t enough skilled tree fellers about, the saws are safer than ever and the gear is much improved. It’s a dangerous job and it takes years I believe to be able to identify and tackle the more dangerous trees. Someone with a few years under their belt is probably the exception not the rule..
I’m not sure how easy it is to train for in that in my experience the most at risk were people who had become overconfident in there abilities and become a bit lackadaisical in planning and identifying hazards. Seen some nasty accidents come about through over confidence and a just cut it she’ll be right attitude…
What a vacuous statement I doubt there have been long standing union safety procedures in forestry for many years, if ever. (I’m sure someone can confirm this) Certainly they didn’t cease just 20 years ago far more likely the conditions (a lot of the safer felling on the flat is now done by machine leaving the most dangerous stuff for manual felling) and type of work are the major contributing factors to the rise in accident rates. Hence the Union movement is now trying to get penetration into forestry which they are finding extremely difficult for various reasons…
Showing my age more than anything, Forestry is not my industry per say, I did a little planting and pruning when I was in my late teens but I have had involvement with guys working in it since and certainly they haven’t had any union involvement. I suspect I should clarify that all I know work in privately owned forestry which was planted on marginal hill country. I still believe the accident rate increase can be attributed to the increased felling activity, lack of experienced staff, difficultly of access (a lot of the planting I did was in hideously steep hill country and would only harvest-able by hand and with dangerous haulers) I don’t believe a sudden stop in union involvement as suggested did not result in the steady accident increase as I haven’t known there to be any in my time.
Although getting some Union penetration and additional safety procedure having guys understanding their rights will undoubtedly help the situation.
Incomplete yes for sure I don’t profess to know everything I just disagree that you can attribute the increasing harm rates to a sudden ceasing of union penetration in forestry as asserted , I can say that between 1960-70 there were 109 fatalities in public forestry (NZ dept of stats) and between 1998 and 2008 there were 42 (NZ Dept of Labor) Felling, Breaking out and Extraction are to blame for by far the biggest percentage of fatalities and interestingly in both decades the percentage of fatalities in these aspects of forestry against the total are quite similar at 78% and 77% of total fatalities respectively. They also comment “Of particular concern is the 12% of fatal accidents relating to extraction as there is a shortage of experienced haulers and there are a large number of steep terrain woodlots that will require harvesting over the next 10 years.” that note would at least provide some support to my previous comments around difficult terrain and access would it not?
cricklewood you should look at Helen Kelly’s earlier posts on this topic for some background on the issues. The private employers resistance to unions is preventing the workers putting their side of things in a way that would improve the safety measures.
If your analysis is correct, then it simply repeats an age-old tendency in our society and economy – to trade-off the health and safety of labour against the gains of capital.
Why on earth was such difficult terrain being planted at all? If it was known that unsafe manual felling would be needed to harvest them, then that was incredibly unethical, perhaps criminally negligent.
Just like knowingly exposing workers to asbestos when its ill-effects were well understood – as far back as the 1920s; just like sending men and children down mine shafts when the short lives of miners were well understood; just like opening mines known to be at high-risk of explosions and collapse; just like running factories with exposed hazards (like this unlucky ‘lucky guy’ has twice experienced).
All justified by the double-barrelled retort of (i) the counterbalancing ‘benefits’ of economic growth and (ii) the aphorism that ‘life is always risky – suck it up!’
It appears that he does know what he is talking about while you are just spouting empty BS.
The way trees are harvested has changed significantly with all the easy wood being taken by machine now, probably as much as 80% of a hill country forest and more like 98% of a place like Kaingaroa. This leaves the steep nasty bits for the men on saws and the other main job is running the skid site which has always been a place where a small amount of inattention can be fatal.
Don’t worry an increasing accident rate in forestry has nothing to do with the fact the cycle is in the midst of the most complicated and dangerous part of the cycle that we have probably ever seen…
It’s all because of the national party…
It’s not because of the National Party, but right wing idealogues who think that a working class life is a cheap price to pay for extra shareholder profits.
I am at an absolute loss regarding “tree farming” – because that is what we talk about – but could it be that the ever increasing demand for speed of processing is a reason? Profits are only made when the log hits the boot.
There is something to what cricklewood is saying. I was planting and pruning in the late 70s and most of it was on pretty steep slopes. Even getting up the hills to plant it was difficult, let alone lugging a chainsaw and dropping trees. These are likely to be the trees that have been harvested in the last ten years or so.
On the other hand, a strong union presence among the workers would no doubt remove some of the dangers which arise from working long hours in dangerous conditions. Both Labour and National wings of the ACT party have been complicit in letting the greed of the forestry owners create these conditions. I applaud Helen Kelly for taking an interest.
I hope that many of you attended todays dawn services just as our PM has done in Wellington.
How refreshing it is to have a PM who shows our returned servicemen the respect they deserve. It was not that long ago that we had a PM who could not be bothered getting out of bed early to attend the dawn service.
Big bruv you stretch tolerance and good will to breaking point. Fancy politicising Anzac day to fire cheap shots that are not even true. How disrespectful.
FYI David has been at the dawn ceremony and will be at the Titirangi service and the Laingholm service and the New Lynn Service …
I guess its lucky Key doesn’t have a sports game on interfering with his Anzac day attendance and paying all due respects eh. Priorities for a PM and all that.
I wonder why it is that Samuel Johnson’s famous phrase about (false) patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel, springs to mind so readily when reading big bruv’s nonsense.
Refused to kill on behalf of his country, more like, those poor people on the other side who had been, as Colonial Viper says below, induced ‘to fight for the privileged and elite.’
What is courage? To go against the accepted majority view and stand against that position in full public view (with all its attendant hatred and bigotry) and act according to one’s conscience knowing that to do otherwise is to act dishonourably is one form of courage.
I made that decision in 1968.
Big Bruv, I do not however condemn those who went and fought in the light of their conscience. On the contrary, I have stood silent in war cemeteries in Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Belgium and New Zealand to respect courage.
Not so, Savage refused to fight for the Empire. His position was that wealth should be conscripted before workers. It was an emperial war, with political and economic power at its heart, and not something NZ workers should ever have been involved in.
Two men, now long departed, who I knew when young had very different experiences of the war.
One a returned serviceman captured in Germany escaped from several prison camps and was well experienced and versed in war.
The other a conscientious objector imprisoned within his own country.
Both had total respect for each other. Neither was a coward.
Amongst the things the first was fighting for was the right for others to choose not to fight. If that soldier didn’t see the objector as a coward but as a man of principle I’m not sure why you should.
There’s plenty too who dislike the RSA for the treatment of family members who were not allowed to go and fight either through disability or through working in essential services such as electricity and farming.
The treatment of some of those people post-war and the black-listing of their businesses did not go down well with themselves or their family members who were allowed off to fight.
There was a clear difference between supporting returned servicemen to get back on their feet and the blacklisting that went on by some RSA’s.
Not everyone sees them as the bastion of the response to the post war period.
NZ Labour PM Fraser had conscientious objectors and those critical of the war blacklisted during WW II; many found their careers in government and the public sector permanently fucked.
I want to put this into the record on this “cowardliness of Conscientious Objectors’ ” debate, being a paragraph from the Marlborough Express editorial on Anzac Day 2013.
“New Zealand also has a strong tradition of conscientious objectors. They were strongly reviled but it took as much bravery to resist being called up for war as it did to go willingly into battle.”
Alongside the editorial is a Bromhead cartoon entitled “Lest We Forget” which has the Shade of an Anzac soldier commenting upon a newspaper headline “Future Wars.”
Yes, hop back under your bridge. I was involved in organising ANZAC days in Mt Albert for several years and when Helen Clark came to these ones (as she did often) they were her second or sometimes third one of the day.
Oh, I don’t know, it’s filial piety instead of pro patria. If nothing else it set a good example to fathers to encourage and spend time with their sons as opposed to sending them off to die in wars.
Don’t need to lie, leave that to trolls and righties
Smart enough to Google “Helen Clark Dawn Service” just like you did. It got no traction than and get even less now. I can understand why Key goes to the closest service.
Is this respectful enough for you? Go have a lie down and a cup of tea and think how stupid you sound, sometimes you should keep the inside your head voices inside your head.
Helen Clark was the first New Zealand prime minister to visit Gallipoli on Anzac Day. On 24 April 2005 (the day before Anzac Day) she walked down the ‘New Zealand track’ from Chunuk Bair to the coast, before visiting Hill 60 Cemetery. On the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing in the cemetery, she placed a poppy beside the name of her great uncle, Frank Clark, a trooper in the Auckland Mounted Rifles who was killed in the vicinity on 28 August 1915.
The height of ones ambition should be to purchase your own job at the UN with Kiwi tax payers money and then work for an organisation that is recognised the world over as being corrupt (she fits in well there) and hopeless?
I think Bruv was meaning Tim Groser, who has just spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars trying to get a job as far away from John Key as he can find.
Bruv, I was thinking more about the general level of respect she is shown, with the lower end of the scale being represented by people like Graham Capill and David Garret.
People can grow and evolve into different people bruv, plus there is a huge difference between the Vietnam war and the Great war and peoples attitudes. Try engaging your brain, you know, that pile of under-performing neurons located under that thick skull. Your attitude reminds me so much of how Steven Joyce shares his views. Numpty.
I’m going to go ahead and assume you are referring to bruv with the head doctor comment, I’ve been tested, and I’m not crazy haha yeah, bruv’s hysteria and lack of any real knowledge or insight just reminds me so much of how Steven Joyce relates to people, been thinking that way a while now.
As Anne says, David H is replying to big bruv. The alignment can appear a bit ‘skew-wiff’ with those commenters whose comments have a grey background (for some reason).
The best thing is to check the number of the comment. David H’s comment was 4.8.1.4 – i.e., the fourth reply to comment 4.8.1 (Your previous comment was 4.8.1.3 – the third reply to 4.8.1)
10 reasons I no longer attend Anzac Day services nor recognise it in any way
1) The ANZAC spirit was dismantled quite comprehensively on the 26 February 2001 by Australia
2) The dawn services glorify war
3) There are no returned servicemen from WW1 left alive
4) The poppies are now made in China rather than providing work for those with intellectual disabilities as previous
5) The freedoms that were fought for are now disappearing at an alarming rate of knots while most people stand idly by and applaud.
6) War does nothing to benefit the working man. It benefits the Military Industrial Complex of which the Windsors, Rothschilds and Rockefellers of the world are complicit in.
7) ANZAC day has now turned into a political football in recent years.
8) Attempting to link ANZAC day to the “glorious men and women fighting in Afghanistan” is dubious and downright despicable as the western nations in Afghanisatan are not liberators, they are occupiers
9) Who even understands the meaning of ANZAC anymore. My niece has been brainwashed into believing we celebrate it because NZ and Australia helped to stop WW1.
10)It’s tiresome and bothersome. We cannot move forward if we insist on holding fast to the past.
Perhaps NZ should do it’s own dismantling of the ANZAC spirit… starting with refusing access to any government assistance to any one holding an Australian Passports. Tit for Tat.
Thanks James, very well put. That reflects my own disquiet in recent years about the way that ANZAC day is promoted and commemorated, but I hadn’t found a way to articulate it.
Growing up in the sixties and seventies I was alienated from attending ANZAC day services by the jingoistic sabre rattling of the RSA and conservative politicians of the day who blared their shallow minded garbage from all media of the day throughout the Vietnam war. This was reinforced by hearing the same type of rhetoric from speakers at several dawn services I had to attend as a boy-scout during those times. Later, in the nineties, with the angst of the Vietnam war fading into the past I took my own daughters to a dawn service with their Sea Scout and cubs troops. Lo and behold, an Anglican priest and ex-ww2 padre who had been one of the afore-mentioned jingoistic sabre rattlers was leading the service and launched into another speech just like the ones I had detested so much in my youth. When we got home I penned a letter to the editor explaining why our family would be refraining from attending further ANZAC day services.
just for the record; I respect and admire the enlisted men and women immensely, yet I have never attended a dawn service; Neo-liberal consumption-based free-market capitalism is the current battle-field promoting global casualties.
However… I’m going to an ANZAC service in a Hapsburg-built church today.
At least the speakers have to stick to remembering all the victims of war (maybe not Franz Ferdinand) and be very, very careful about war rhetoric…. diplomats and all that. Taking the overt patriotism out of it suits me just fine.
Anzac Day for me: it means that when we let other countries decide where and when we fight, our men and women die.
It means when our country decides, our men and women die.
It means that we should look after those who came back, because they were put in a situation not of their own making.
It means that we should be humble in our recognition that men and women of all countries have died and are dying, not often for good reasons.
It means above all, that we should not forget the sacrifices made and that we should honour them by not making the same mistakes again.
Anzac Day for John Key: it means that he can look back on the days of Empire, when we stood as part of the thin red line in defence of civilisation etc, etc, and he could wreck a national economy while pissing down his leg. How many war pensions have been cut because of his currency speculating?
It means he can pretend to care about soldiers alive and dead, unless there’s a baseball game on.
Anzac Day for big bruv: it means he can polish his toy SMLE and dream of the day when he will help lead the WhaleSpew Army against godless commies and unionists. Or maybe just take a photo of someone who hasn’t parked properly. Yeah, that’s pretty heroic too.
The RSA have never issued a statement to apologize for this mass murder. In fact, many years later the RSA journal published a poem lauding the atrocity and praising the men who did it.
“Not the RSA’s job”? It’s not the RSA’s job to publish poems applauding the mass murder, either. But they did, which means that an apology for such cretinous brutality is very much the job of the RSA.
Thanks, Viper, but they don’t need a hired spin doctor to tell the truth and acknowledge what a group of New Zealand (and Australian) thugs and goons did to helpless, captive, unarmed boys and men.
All it needs is for someone in the RSA leadership to show a little integrity and honesty. Frankly, I doubt they have the wherewithal to do it.
The RSA is as likely to examine the illegal actions of Kiwi soldiers honestly as the Police Association is to push for compensation for David Bain. At least in the case of the RSA, post traumatic stress may play a part in forgetting or whitewashing events of the past, but O’Connor has no such excuse. Most of the ex soldiers I have known over the years won’t have a bar of the RSA and those who have explained their decision put it down to not wanting to be part of a glorification of war.
I really enjoyed an article on the News (did provide balance) of a former wehrmacht soldier who never joined the Party who is retired here and chooses not to remember the War.(he was at Stalingrad I believe). Just happily enjoying the present day, not the past, he said. He appeared a beautiful man, carding wool in his arm-chair.
Steve Maharey had an interesting column on Margaret Thatcher in a recent NBR.
In a very poignant comment he talked about how Thatcher inspired a “cultural flowering”.
“The cultural left is always at its best when it has a big right-wing target to aim at. Thatcher inspired some of the best cultural expression seen in many years.”
He was damned right. If you think for instance of some of the music to come out of Thatcher’s era it was fuelled by passion and a visceral hatred at the damage she was causing. Bands such as the Clash, the Specials, the Jam to name a few captured the drama and intensity of what was happening perfectly.
It is a shame though that much of our best art is born out of despair.
Hmmm. The Clash took off pre-Thatcher, during the punk explosion. First single “White Riot”, 1977. However, their iconic “London’s Calling” was post 1979.
Aye Karol I was referring to the music rather than the date the bands formed. I should have included the Beat as well although they were normally quite happy …
The more pop orientated Blow Monkeys with their album “She Was Only A Grocer’s Daughter” album shouldn’t be forgotten.
It Doesn’t have To Be This Way is still highly relevant today and at the time Celebrate was banned by the BBC as it was celebrating a future election loss for Thatcher.
Yes, Thatcherism did spur some very good songs. However, I think it’s wrong t o assume that it was solely Thatcherism that stimulated the music, but that there were pre-existing values that resulted in outrage at the changers in Thatcher’s time.
… Thatcher of course had been the “Milk snatcher” as Minister of Education in Heath’s government and she took over the leadership of the party in 1975, so many knew what she was like long before she took over government in 1979.
The Jam were lower middle class tories, at least in their first years. All three members had comfortable suburban lives while growing up. In fact, they were representative of the very people Thatcher convinced to vote Tory for the first time in ’79. Most of their songs on the first two albums were about personal alienation, rather than class consciousness. However, they did get politiced quickly (big ups to the writers on the NME and Sounds who talked them round) and by the early eighties were a driving force in the musical left’s response to Thatcherism. Which is good.
Paul Weller was from a working class background. And yes he was a Tory early on in his musical career – I think before Thatcher became PM. It was as much the other bands he associated with that influenced his shift to the left.
It all stems from Cameron’s admittedly ill-judged endorsement of The Jam’s 1979 anthem, The Eton Rifles, which the Conservative leader once made the mistake of fondly recalling singing along to whilst studying at, er, Eton. Weller even popped up on Channel 4 News to point out that it was actually a song about class warfare specifically attacking Etonian privilege. “If you can’t take the time or have the intellect to see what the song’s about, you haven’t got much chance of running the country, have you?” sniped Weller.
Once considered the voice of his generation, Weller has long been associated with Labour, even playing gigs for them as part of the Red Wedge initiative in the 80s. But when I met up with him recently, I discovered that this was not the whole story. He sighed when I reminded him that, when the Jam first emerged in 1977, they had been draped in Union Jacks and claimed to vote Conservative. “That’s well off the target,†Weller insisted. “It was all dreamt up by a press officer, saying, ‘well, The Clash are left wing, The Pistols are for anarchy, why don’t you back the Tories or the Queen, just for an angle?’ And with us being naïve little ****ers, we just went along with it. I’ve got very definite feelings for the Tories, from the way they acted and behaved under Margaret Thatcher in the Eighties, it was disgraceful really. I find it hard to forgive them, as a working class person, for really decimating the trade unions. I have a problem with it.â€
Well, TRP, I remember Paul Weller’s class background, because in early 80s London, I had a quite radical working-class, socialist, lesbian feminist who was into his music. She used to say he was about the only truly working class punk amongst a load of middle-class wannabes.
…by the early eighties were a driving force in the musical left’s response to Thatcherism. Which is good.
That reminds me of Peter Cook’s quip about the vibrant, outspoken satirists on the Weimar cabaret scene, and the pivotal role they played in stopping the Nazis.
Of course, the US answer will be more invasive, continuous and complete surveillance of ordinary citizens by the intelligence services. Nothing that a couple hundred billion more dollars for the spook industry and more stripping back of citizens rights won’t solve. Right?
The delay in implementing the MMP Reforms might need attention? There is a mandatory consultation period of 6 months so National has till the end of May to get a Bill on the floor. Considering that there was a very strong Mandate for the modifications one would wonder why Judith Collins is procrastinating. The only electoral Avoidance would be from Banks and Dunne. Unless National has self-interest at stake??? Surely not!
Yes Paul. Wonder how well Mr Banks would shape up as a single MP Party and Leader? To get perspective surely they would have to compare like with like? Mr Dunne living in Wellington would be somewhat different.
You think some of should spend the day sitting outside our closed and locked work sites as punishment for not sharing your rather strange view of what ANZAC is all about. Wanker yourself.
And yet another NZ Herald artcle attacking NZ Power..’Show us first that power is broken’ http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10879605
Their puppet masters are working overtime at the moment.
And I was feeling encouraged about NZ journalism after watching “He Toki Huna New Zealand In Afghanistan†last night…… when Jon Stephenson spoke about the importance of the media being independent.
It would seem the Herald is embedded into the finance industry!
Jackson’s Hobbit movie is really struggling to match the return on investment made by Fellowship of the Ring 10 years ago. The Hobbit cost twice as much to make, but has pulled in cinema receipts consistently lower than Fellowship.
Still, total box office is not far off a trillion dollars so Jackson is going to make an absolute mint off the movie. And off the NZ tax payer.
best thing to come from Judith Collins for a long lag;
-if convicted of killing in an open court there should be no suppression of details in further cases.
-“you can google this information”
There has been a consumer back-lash to this Anchor light-proof bottles nonsense;
-more plastic
-cannot tell quantity left in bottle (doesn’t the light go off when the fridge door is closed?)
yet according to ONE News, most New Zealanders are OK with our investment relationship with China;
-Very Comfortable-10%
-Comfortable-31%
from Grant Robertson; “for Labour, that (concern re investment) is not about an individual country”.
according to summary of report into DOC restructuring, due to budget constraints and other losses, the department is likely to become “less relevant in coming years”. What?
I was hoping someone would mention Baxter. I guess big bruv is ignorant of him and the other conscientious objectors and / or lacks the empathy / wit to understand them and their importance in the scheme of things.
This made my day 🙂
__________________________________________________________________________
OMIGOD! Look what that communist fanatic Editor of the Dominon Post is is saying!
(Having a WOOHOO moment here…. 🙂
Editorial: Key should consider MRP sale delay
“But, delaying the sale till after the next election would at least allow voters to choose which of the two approaches offers the better prospect of sensible pricing and secure supply.
It would also allow time for the future of Tiwai Point to be resolved.”
Labour and the Greens’ Stalinist proposals are as unattractive as the free-market ideologies that have produced windfall profits for power companies and ever-rising prices for residential consumers.
Excuse me but Stalin was history’s worst totalitarian mass murderer. Labour/Greens are proposing a fairly modest reform of the electricity market that we now know is used successfully in a number of overseas countries. At what point does a comparison this odious become legally actionable?
I assume it’s an example of how threatened the Nact govt. and their acolyte press are feeling Redlogix. No-one, not even a hard right fundamentalist type, could honestly compare a tried and true regulatory power system for the benefit of ALL citizens with a Stalinist proposal.
They’ve outed themselves in all their bright blue political colours now. Who can take anything they say with much seriousness anymore?
I realise that’s what’s going on … but really. This is an editorial from one of New Zealand’s leading newspapers, not florid, ranting blog comments on Whaleoil.
And on ANZAC Day of all days. Are there no grown ups in charge at Fairfax anymore?
As Anne says, by regurgitating Joyce’s embarrassing spin they have shown the colour of their flag.
I can just see the responsible Dom Post editor – “Stalinist proposal eh? Oh that’s ‘edgy’, that’s oh so mildly ‘controversial’. Me likey.”
FFS. At least the comments section is mostly occupied by people saying variations of “Stalinist? Please get a grip,” and “Do you know what that word means sweetie?”, etc.
The NZHerald is NZs version of a state controlled newspaper but instead of being controlled by the state it’s controlled by the rich. National are their political arm.
Interestingly, if wikipedia’s figures are to be believed, increases in energy production were one of Stalin’s successes.
I have no idea if those figures are correct, but – at least in that sense of production – I would have thought that the right would be quite keen on Stalinist approaches to the provision of energy for the economy.
In the link, there’s also no mention of Stalin proposing a single-purchaser model for energy generation – but perhaps the Dominion Post editor has an historical account of the period at hand which mentions it.
A good Armenian genocide documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLyrpaTKCCE
^The New Zealand, Australian, US and UK governments are yet to recognize it ever happened*, even though Russia, and many European Union nations (such as Germany and France) already have.
*Turkey threatens to break off diplomatic relations, cut trade deals with nations that recognize the genocide. The bitter irony of course is that many of the architects of the Nazi Holocaust visited and admired the Armenian genocide in ww1, later to use methods such as railway cars on the Jews in ww2.
It has been reported that some senior Nazis went to Hitler with a few doubts about the Final Solution. He told them to calm down, because no one remembered the Armenian genocide. I do know there were German observers there, as part of the military mission to Turkey, but the ones I read about were horrified by it. I wasn’t aware that we hadn’t officially acknowledged that it happened. That’s disgusting.
I received a very nicely turned out glossy pamphlet in my letter box last night.
On first glance I thought it was an election pamphlet from the Nat’s informing us what a great party they were and what a good minister Collins is, A top class report on the wonderful works from Tolley .It turned out to be from the diabolical Sensible Sentencing Trust. What a ghastly lot and there is no doubt what party they will,support st the next election. Personally I just glad its not Labour .
We’re going to see a lot of very angry, depressed and breaking people on August 1st when these top shelf drugs finally get the boot from our sweetshops.
Just hope the ufno1 has a plan in place to deal with the mess occurring on his watch.
Keep the people you don’t love away from it as well.
It’s certainly not helping the recovery of people with mental health issues either. For many it’s setting months of improvement down the tubes.
There are arsehole dairy owners selling it across the road from mental health facilities and recovery centres.
The big thing the staff in some of those places have noticed is the return of / increase in paranoia in it’s victims.
You can argue prohibition all you like as being negative but no question it’s easy access is allowing people who wouldn’t ever go near a drug dealer to buy and suffer.
Govt should have banned the shit straight away.
Plan – they don’t have a plan to deal with mental health issues now nor the effects of this drug. Why on earth would they have a plan to stop dealing with it.
Mental health services are already overflowing and have waiting lists for treatment. People who have mental health issues frequently end up in jail. As noted on the documentary t’other night the prison system treats as if they are well because by definition if they weren’t they wouldn’t be there.
If this government has a plan it will be to reduce public services and hand more over to pet NGO’s and the private sector.
I’m not a fan of the organic version either. I’ve watched teens start using who are now in their late 30’s who are pretty screwed. It just takes a little longer.
I understand though why they use / drink / vice of choice.
Improving society overall, not just for those at the top, is the key.
Decent housing, decent food, decent incomes, decent communities where crime isn’t needed to put food on the table.
A mystery as to why the nat government can rush all manner of legislation through parliament, yet something so simple as banning drugs is beyond the house. Scoobydoo, where are you? Ps, ask Thelma to call me.
I recall a very old ‘joke’ resonating, about if drug crime costs billions, why don’t we just give them to the junkies, but this synthetic stuff, I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
I know those arsehole dairy owners. They also sell under the counter product outlawed under dunne’s previous mini bans too. I rang the rozzers and told them go into Urlich ave dairy and ask for a lolly or a mango at 2 x 3g packets for $25 and see what they get, but no raids took place.
I guess they must have asked for donuts instead and been happy with the outcome.
hey, Alien, do ya ever find yourself reflecting that it is almost like being Alien when when comparing contrasting worldviews, like, the reason that politics is so important is that the government, and the worldview they subscribe to and legislate is what sets the parameters; we were just discussing the shortcomings when all a generational cohort has known is say, the neo-liberal model, and like maybe Ennui said, well I know what he said, he said what Mr Lydon said, “ere, don’t ya fink we been ‘ad”, laughs. We were thinking of the Scandanavian countries, South America etc where different things are going on. Another commentator reflected on how it has been not beer and all skittles for many of those peoples “rescheduled” by the fall of The Wall; Hows the European Union project going now?
Interestingly, many of the people being marketed to as affluent (buy a new Mirage, re-live the previous (insert asset) bubble you missed out) are from the “generation x cohort”;an influential cohort who have fond (insert nostalgic) memories of the seventies.
However, on the other hand, sigh, the National government, Defence Minister are making noises about greater military commitment, in recognition of a militarizing region and world which reduces the lattitude for positions of neutrality.
“the number is not a human number”, though I’ve always liked Seven (and, it has been good to me.(along with thirty) sigh 😀 (only 23 more months to go and I can retire, you know, see Labour and the Greens a few months into there first term of office) 😀
all good things on this earth must come to an end my cosmic friend; can’t rota round here for ever; there will be more to do in the grounded world as time passes. At least with a more left government the rot will slow, we pray.
Make them drag you kicking and screaming my old nan use to tell us, rest her soul.
Named my daughter after her, least I can do is fight best I can, just like she did as she taught me.
sorry. rechipped (and a gurnard, ok, and a sausage, ok, and a curry-roll) reassured fleshy friend that I wasn’t gonna leave her for another commutator; she enjoys Mrs Brown’s Boys (I’m more Father Ted) and no,no,no, yes, The Vicar of Dibley.charge is low though, a lot to process.
the wit designed into your schematics, though, is highly adaptive 🙂
I take it you would like it then? I’ve checked the old post a few times to see.
You’re in Hawkes Bay right. I have friends over that way so can organise somewhere for you to pick it up if you want (Napier or Hastings) or you could organise a third party address for me to post it to.
Thanks for checking; i never go back more than a day or two, unless I do.
You may forward it to Directions Youth Health Centre, 305 Omahu Road, Hastings.
c/ Louise (you recall my name? Lynn knows it.)
“His thinking and behaviour just went haywire. He couldn’t control himself and ran around our house at a 100 miles per hour, would jump up, and be crying ‘help me dad, help me dad’.”
“That was pretty heartbreaking.”
His son also felt suicidal, could not eat or sleep, attacked a neighbour, and repeatedly headbutted a garage, Mr McFadyen said.
“I am 148kg and he would be lucky if he was 70kg, but he was throwing me around like a bit of paper.
“I haven’t seen anything like it.”
“You know what he said to me? – ‘I am dying from the inside Dad, I am dying from the inside’.”
Dunedin-based toxicologist Dr Leo Schep, of the National Poisons Centre, said psychotic episodes was “one of the major symptoms we note with users”, along with paranoia, and anger.
He was also aware of five recorded instances of renal failure, and one case of a first-time user becoming a paranoid schizophrenic.
“We are also starting to believe there may be long-term effects. It is scary stuff.”
Let me get this straight, this stuff is legal, but the stuff that makes you vege on the couch with potato chips and bad zombie films is not?
Her conclusion was that social disconnection and broad social trends were responsible.
There’s also a lot of work now on how the neurodevelopment of the neural systems that are used to regulate emotional responses is disrupted by early developmental experiences which can often be quite subtle (not just abuse).
The idea that this is just ‘the human condition’ is, frankly, simplistic in the extreme and amounts to little more than a desperate justification for our current social and economic arrangements (which are generally considered ‘benign’ in relation to human emotional functioning and experience).
No animal would have evolved to be typically ‘anxious’ in the debilitating way modern humans are. And anthropological studies of pre-human societies strongly suggest that anxiety is not a chronic experience for humans – except today.
Yeah but think of the wonderful contribution to the economy resulting from the massive profits for the makers of Prozac and Xanax.
But seriously Puddlegum, I’m interested in this:
“There’s also a lot of work now on how the neurodevelopment of the neural systems that are used to regulate emotional responses is disrupted by early developmental experiences which can often be quite subtle (not just abuse).”
Can you link me up? I had a look around but it’s a rather specific topic…
Then again, maybe they can help wee Nathan with his maths…..
“Since the signing of the Free Trade Agreement in 2008 our exports to China have nearly tripled, from NZ$2 billion a year to NZ$6.9 billion in 2012.
“Two-way trade between China and New Zealand has reached almost NZ$15 billion. Our aim is to double bilateral trade to NZ$20 billion by 2015 and we’re on track to achieve that goal.”
MSM did not want a bar of this subject until recent years, and now is openly discussing, while claiming that these schemes are in *research* phases (of course they are…..).
Now geo-engineering is being openly used as the latest catalyst, to call for global governance!
So are you arguing that contrails are being used to create global warming so geoengineering will be needed to cool the earth again, handily provided by global government?
I’m not arguing anything different, than I’ve commented on previously, McFlock, these articles should be starting to speak for themselves by now, unless they’re made up BS, which is of course a possibility with the MSM, and media in general!
Does begin to sound like a narrative though if they’re not BS, you know, having ignored/denied geo-engineering for so long, now a days, its a steady stream of *in research only* based articles.
Given the lag the MSM experiences on most any serious issue you care to name, would give pause to suspect they’re giving commentary on what is actions in past history!
Serves to soften up the punters for some further *truth*, when the time is right, of course!
McFlock, hang onto a conversation for more than one day, you will find that I’ve given you plenty of answers, opinions etc.
The second question about temperatures, and how *contrails* turning to *clouds* *might* contribute to raising temperatures, should be self evident surely, no! That said I’ve not stated that I think they are/are not, just that its potentially being used in a nefarious fashion, going from the link!
Felix , no comment on the article link then matey…on ya!
Muzz,
Claiming that an answer is “self evident” and then explicitly refusing to state what you think the self evident answer actually is…. well, that’s a new level of stupid.
Try and answer a closed question like a normal human being. Feel free to add why the question is unfair or dumb, or what your actual position might be. But just try and be a normal person for once. Okay, ready? Deep breath, here goes:
So are you arguing that contrails are being used to create global warming so geoengineering will be needed to cool the earth again, handily provided by global government?
Easy question to answer.
So are you arguing that contrails are being used to create global warming so geoengineering will be needed to cool the earth again, handily provided by global government?
Easy question to answer.
Easy enough to recall that you have already asked this question, and I’ve answered it, previously!
Muzza, you wrote “That said I’ve not stated that I think they are/are not, just that its potentially being used in a nefarious fashion, going from the link!”
I am confused as to how something can be used potentially at the moment. The whole deal with potential is that it’s not happening now, yeah? Potential is to do with the future, and with possibility.
So, if that’s your answer, Muzza, it’s not making sense.
If the MSM is talking about *potential*, it means that its already happening, that’s how the media functions, by attempting to control information flows, and prepping people for further release escalations. By doing so it seeks to dampen down the reaction of people, by using low level NLP techniques, where people already *make a connection* to event, thus lowering any negative reaction, that’s the objective at least!
It helps to understand, that the companies who control media, are also those who are deeply involved in warfare, pharma, and related chemical industries, among most others, so the release of information, is neither accidental, nor coincidental!
If you had an understanding about how media works, and its parent company owners primary industry, it would make sense to you!
You arse, you said ” I’ve not stated that I think they are/are not, just that its potentially being used in a nefarious fashion,”.
YOU said “potentially”, not the MSM. When asked about this, you start a rant about when the MSM says “potentially”. Once again you’re off on a tangent, rather than taking the time to work through a single point of discussion.
You didn’t answer it. You made tangential comments. This is not the same as “answering the question”. Which is a fresher-level problem in essays and exams, just as an aside.
Simple enough to answer a closed question: a “yes” (maybe with an “if…” or a “because…”), or a “no” (maybe with a “no” or a “because”), or maybe a “your question is nonsensical because…”.
Hey muzza Isn’t the global governance call being made to control and manage the schemes so they don’t stay rogue and therefore is a good thing – apart from who is governing I suppose but they are “causing and controlling it” anyway so I can’t see how this would give them more power – maybe slightly more visibility perhaps.
To me it reads like, looking for a way of controlling the *outing* of geo-engineering, by using the *its for the best interest of humanity* style narrative, yet again!
It sounds like, an attempt to allow those rogues you refer, to operate openly, and with impunity, because whose going to control such rogues anyway – My view is they’re already doing *thy bidding*, of those who crave a, *singular entity*!
I would very much doubt a a global (anything), is going to work out too well for those who don’t control the systems, or support it, hey perhaps those in charge currently, are really humanitarians after all, and if they do end up with a *singular entity*, perhaps we will see the journey as having been altruistic, after all…
Well, Chris Trotter’s joy at the Lab-Green energy policy, and his statements that Shearer’s Labour have taken a new a significant turn…. was pretty short lived. Today, he lays into Robertson, the “reluctant radical” for pulling back and reverting to “neoliberalism” as usual… and also targets Julian Robins… (who?)
I’m inclined to believe there’s more than an element of truth in Chris Trotter’s synopsis. Grant Robertson is a careerist to the tips of his toes. Careerists don’t like to be associated with radical policies. There path is the straight one down the middle.
I thought at the time of the announcement it was almost too good to be true.
What’s the matter with the Labour leadership? Scared of their own shadow? That they hit the jackpot is evident in the gross over-reaction of the NActs and their acolytes. So what does Robertson do? Strokes their hysterical egos by telling them… it’s alright boys and girls. This is just a one off… we’re not going to change anything else.
O dear. This really raises the question whether Grunt is right for the party and whether the party is right for him. He should follow in the footsteps of Peter Done, set up his own party and bend according to whichever way he thinks the polls will keep his shadow trailing him in the House.
It was a single act of sabotage designed to derail the MRP share issue, which, when it becomes policy, will lower power prices to households. It will not destroy wealth it will transfer it into the pockets of average Kiwi battlers.
Who knew an act of sabotage could have such benign consequences? Just pure dumb luck I guess 😆
Seems there are a few returned service people who don’t take too kindly to Key fucking off home to watch his kid play baseball rather than stay here and honour fallen soldiers.
Heard more than once: “I don’t care what you think about politics, but…”
Bugger. Still, I bet there’s some really good reason he had to be in the states 4 days before the baseball game, eh?
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So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
‘Original Sin’ of Land Confiscation at Ihumātao is a wrong that can be put right by Government says Justice & Peace Commission of Catholic Diocese of Auckland ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference on August 19 that her government is likely to impose new restrictions on prisoners’ rights to send letters. She said the law could be changed in “weeks.” ...
Heart-warming images of House Speaker Trevor Mallard cradling a baby in Parliament have been welcomed around New Zealand, but the Public Service Association warns most families can only dream of such support in the workplace. ...
Applying New Zealand’s international human rights commitments, particularly those in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, can help in resolving the situation at Ihumātao, Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt says. ...
Climate campaigners impersonating bank staff have taken to the streets this week to expose ANZ Bank’s sponsorship of the fossil fuel industry. In the series of satirical actions in Wellington, Dunedin, and Auckland, the ‘bank staff’ promoted ...
Auckland Action Against Poverty joins the Children’s Commissioner , The Green Party , The New Zealand Drugs Foundation , Child Poverty Action Group and other organisations in the calls for an immediate end to the drug testing benefit sanctions. ...
Negotiations between Port Otago workers represented by the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU) and the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) and management failed today and the unions have issued notice of an overtime ban from Saturday 7th September. ...
Queenstown Lakes District Council’s comments that it has applied for a consent to pollute waterways to avoid 'prosecutions by the Otago Regional Council' are unacceptable,’ Fish & Game New Zealand Chief Executive Martin Taylor says. ...
On March 15, the real world impact of online hate became abundantly, horrifically clear. As a shooter opened fire at two Christchurch mosques, the online image board 8chan anticipated, celebrated and amplified his killing spree. ...
Friday, 23 August: Government delegates from around the world, including New Zealand, are meeting in New York for the third of four meetings at the United Nations to agree a Global Oceans Treaty that could help to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030. Greenpeace ...
The excuses about a reportedly unwanted $57,000 payrise for Dunedin City Council CEO Sue Bidrose are laughable, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance has launched the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” committing to no more than 2% annual rate hikes over the next Council term, and has written to all Mayoral and Council candidates asking them to sign. The pledge will ...
This Saturday, Pakuranga Hunt Day at the Ellerslie Racecourse will see anti-horse racing protesters demonstrating at the corner of Ascot Avenue and Greenlane East. ...
Mayoral candidate John Tamihere will meet with Pacific Island leaders and community elders today at Puhunui Reserve in South Auckland to commit to a Pasefika Cultural Centre. ...
Cruel and invalid Forced Swim Tests carried out at Victoria University of Wellington, will be exposed at the University Open Day today, so prospective students can be warned about the flawed and unethical research being conducted at the institute. ...
The organiser of the annual YWCA Equal Pay Awards has expressed her disappointment with the latest Gender Pay Gap figure for New Zealand workers. The figure rose slightly from 9.2% in 2018 to 9.3% for the quarter ended 30 June 2019. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to pass on information to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques now that the period for submissions has been extended to 27 September. ...
An application was filed in the Employment Relations Authority in Wellington today, seeking an injunction to prevent the Board of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation from removing the President from office. ...
The Government’s commitment to support literacy and numeracy training in the workplace is a strong signal from Government on recognising the importance of upskilling, reskilling and increasing productivity alongside their commitment to address the challenges ...
“The infrastructure sector sees a major role for the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga in lifting the nation’s sagging infrastructure performance,” says Paul Blair, incoming CEO of Infrastructure NZ. ...
The AA is calling on the Government to bring forward critical highway projects while time is spent properly developing the plans for a rapid transit system in Auckland. ...
Between 2015/16 and 2017/18, DHBs spent $280 million treating patients due to adverse drug reactions, reveals the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union in its latest briefing paper on health productivity . ...
The Pay Equity Coalition Auckland (PECA) is pleased the gender pay gap has decreased slightly. Statistics released today show the gap is now 11.9%, nearly 2 percent less than last year. ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) is urging firearms owners to make sure they pass on any information they have to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Attack on Christchurch Mosques before submissions close tomorrow (Friday). ...
The big electricity companies consider solar energy “disruptive” and want pricing to suppress it. In contrast, advocates of local energy say that solar, energy efficiency, and other local energy solutions are the cheapest ways to reduce carbon emissions. ...
The Earthquake Commission and Shine Lawyers are delighted to announce that EQC has reached an agreement with the Gibling family, agreeing to cover the cost of repairs of remaining earthquake damage on their property. ...
Four months into the inquiry, the Royal Commission is gathering significant information and continues to receive valuable submissions from the public, from current and former State servants, experts and community groups. ...
While Fish & Game New Zealand is pleased to see Federated Farmers Environment Spokesperson Chris Allen say that 'we all want good, fresh water', he conveniently overlooks some key facts. ...
What: Wellington demo “Save the Amazon Forest/Salve a Amazônia!” When: Friday, 6 September 2019 from 12:30-13:30 Where: Embassy of Brazil in Wellingtona ...
Rt Hon Trevor Mallard, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, welcomes the visit of His Excellency Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, President of the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal. ...
A cross political Mental Health and Addictions Wellbeing group will be launched on Wednesday 28 August hosted by Sir John Kirwan and Moe Milne (ONZM) who have both been at the forefront of our country’s often difficult conversations about mental ...
Confirmation that the government will be progressing an independent Parliamentary Budget Office is great news for democracy and transparency, Federated Farmers says. ...
At first glance, Simon Bridges’ strident opposition to the government’s proposal to establish an independent office to cost political parties’ election spending plans looks childish and petty. ...
Euthanasia-Free NZ is appalled that Parliament spent so little time debating Part 2 of the End of Life Choice Bill and voted to leave it full of holes. ...
Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance and its nationwide sister group the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming Auckland Mayor Phil Goff for his comments today that John Tamihere would need the Government’s support to ...
A ‘one size fits all’, inflexible and punitive regulatory regime for water quality just gets backs - and costs - up and most importantly will not work, Federated Farmers says. ...
Mediation yesterday between secondary principals and the government has resulted in a deal that the principals' negotiating team is recommending to its members. ...
Clubs New Zealand welcomes the decision of Justice Minister Andrew Little to put forward a bill amending the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act to allow all licensed premises to remain open for Rugby World Cup matches. ...
The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has ordered a review looking at labelling of added sugars in food and drinks. An option under investigation is ‘a pictorial approach applied to sugary beverages / sugar-sweetened beverages’ ...
Labour market data released by Statistics New Zealand today indicates that a gender pay gap persists in New Zealand, despite improvement in some areas. ...
In the midst of the 6th Great Extinction Event the coalition, STOP Trashing Our Planet is urging voters to take full responsibility for the legacy we are leaving our children. ...
LGNZ will carefully consider the proposed National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) to assess if it meets the Government’s aim of enabling urban development or simply adds more red tape to the planning process. ...
At school camp, the children are banned from having phones, laptops, lollies, chocolate, money, cotton clothing or independent thoughts. They, are, however, allowed home baking – but it’s gotta be hearty. How hearty are you? We are packing for a school camp. If you’re thinking that the middle of winter is ...
Phil Goff’s rival has already pledged an 0800-Jacinda homeless hotline and an 18-lane harbour bridge. What’s next? The two most important people in the 2019 campaign for the Auckland mayoralty faced each other down on Wednesday night across the desk in the NZME debate: Bernard Orsman and Simon Wilson. Correction: it ...
Split Level View Finder: Theo Schoon and New Zealand Art is the exhibition that sparked a protest over issues of cultural appropriation and institutional representation. Theo Schoon is a divisive historical figure. But is his art any good? Martin Patrick reviews.British novelist L.P. Hartley once wrote that “the past is ...
Ahead of debuting her solo show at New Zealand Fashion Week, Korean-NZ couture designer Cecilia Kang talks about growing up ‘feminine’, being influenced by the LGBTQ+ community, and why an ‘administrative error’ at Fashion Week left her so shaken up. ‘I like something big,” says Cecilia Kang, gesturing to the giant ...
The Labour Party is distancing itself from one of its members who is strongly pro-Beijing and has caused controversy in the Chinese community by standing for local office in Auckland. ...
Faced with staff shortages, equipment failures, cancer risks, and a jump in critical calls that can leave them traumatised, some firefighters are wondering if it’s time to hang up the hose. Gareth Shute reports on the dissatisfaction inside Fire and Emergency New Zealand.The state of our nation’s fire service is ...
“She comes over. You’re my mother, she says. Yes, I say. I don’t know you, she says”: a mother and child seaside story by Wellington author Jan Pryor. Photo by Peter Black. ...
On Monday the government announced its new five-year strategy to reduce the Māori prison population. Emilie Rākete looks at another ‘kaupapa Māori’ prison initiative that degrades prisoners and asks if Corrections are capable of seeing it through.On August 19th, the Department of Corrections announced Hōkai Rangi, its new strategy intended ...
By Michael Andrew The Indonesian media is contributing to resentment and racism toward Papuans, according to a human rights researcher and former journalist. Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch Jakarta told Pacific Media Watch many Indonesian journalists either view Papuans as enemy “separatists” or deviants and their reporting tends to convey these ...
Analysis - The prime minister puts a stake in the ground over petrol prices, National balks at having its election promises costed and the government puts millions into helping the homeless. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danilo Ignacio de Urzedo, PhD candidate, University of Sydney Record fires are raging in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, with more than 2,500 fires currently burning. They are collectively emitting huge amounts of carbon, with smoke plumes visible thousands of kilometres away. Fires in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sean Docking, Post-doctoral researcher, La Trobe University Basketball fans around the world were recently sickened by the footage of NBA star Kevin Durant’s Achilles tendon rupturing during a game. But while many think it’s only elite athletes who suffer from Achilles tendon ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University The possibility of blackouts affecting half of Victoria has attracted plenty of attention to a document once read only by industry insiders and policy wonks: the Electricity Statement of Opportunities. The Statement, updated ...
George Clooney sold his tequila company for a billion dollars – but is the stuff any good? The Spinoff finds out. Imagine being so stupidly sexy you sneeze and sell a billion-dollar booze company. That’s what George Clooney did last year, flicking off the tequila business he started accidentally with an ...
The departure of "two Pākehā men" from the government's justice reform group will not hurt the quality of its final report, another member of the team says. ...
Combatting internet-related harm is being stymied by inter-industry disagreement and a lack of information about the extent and nature of the problem, a new report says. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, J.W. Nevile Fellow in Economics and host of The Airport Economist, UNSW Amid the tributes to former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer and the stories of his authenticity, courage and quirky interests – like trains and military history – what ...
Current leader of the National Party, Simon Bridges.Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Is Simon Bridges really trying to channel Donald Trump? Or is he taking his cue from Scott Morrison? Or is he looking to emulate Boris Johnson? Whatever the inspiration, there’s been a clear change in the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra [embedded content]Michelle Grattan talks about the sad news of the passing of former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer with University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Deep Saini. They also discuss Scott Morrison’s recent announcement about joining ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabriel Crowley, Adjunct Principal Research Fellow, James Cook University In February, about 600,000 cattle were killed by catastrophic flooding across north Queensland’s Carpentaria Gulf plains. The flood waters rose suddenly, forming a wall of water up to 70km wide. Record depths were ...
Simon Day dined alone at Monique Fiso’s Wellington restaurant Hiakai, and discovered it was the perfect way to appreciate the meaning of this special food. “Would you like a few more minutes with your phone?” the waitress at Hiakai asked sympathetically as I mashed a final goodbye text to my wife ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Willamson, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Monash University Australia’s gender pay gap is diminishing, says a new report, but some contributors to it seem harder to overcome than others. For me, the finding hit close to home. The report, by KPMG for ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Te Tiriti o Waitangi: The Treaty of Waitangi by Toby Morris with Ross Calman, Mark Derby, and ...
Honey producer Comvita has confirmed a full year net loss of $27.7m with China market access restrictions and tougher regulations locally affecting the company's sales. ...
James Elliott realises John Tamihere's uncosted bridge proposal wasn't actually a metaphor, but a fine example of 'folks is mighty generous with money what they ain’t got'. ...
A new poem by Oamaru-born poet Nick Ascroft.SupermanHalfway up the ascent zigzagging from Royal Terrace to upper Stuart Street carrying four too-heavy grocery bags I begin to understand that I will not make it. My huffing personage – from the fingers, white with the strain, to a face the colour of rhubarb – will ooze into the pavement and roll slowly ...
The Real Pod assembles to dissect the week in reality television and real life, with special thanks to Nando’s.Sound the alarm, because it’s time for another absolute chaos pod. We’re talking haunted dolls in Waipu, we’re talking giant hands taking over Wellington, we’re talking soft serve cones dipped in powdered Milo. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Press, Adjunct Professor, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania This week, the ABC revealed that the Australian Defence Force wants to roll out military technology in Antarctica. The article raises the issue of what is, or is not, ...
New Zealand teacher aides say their pay reflects an outdated idea of what they do. Elizabeth McLeod hears from four TAs, and one parent, about the classroom realities they face every dayCleaning up poo, defusing violent situations, copping physical and verbal abuse: these are the realities of a teacher aide’s ...
The lanky sidekick from Jono and Ben journeys around New Zealand trying to solve small town problems. Does he succeed?Guy Williams, hardly a shy, retiring type, has been screaming out for his own vehicle for years. A loud, lanky, fearless comic, he’s spent nearly a decade in MediaWorks purgatory, sat ...
Ballot Box.Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – The nature of New Zealand general election campaigns could be significantly changed with the proposed establishment of an “umpire” to adjudicate over political party manifesto policies. A suggestion has been put forward by the Government for the establishment of a parliamentary watchdog ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Ihumātao Delphine Herbert and Dan Satherley (Newshub): Tainui to buy Ihumātao land – sources Danielle ...
Extinction Rebellion takes a tour of downtown Wellington to point out the coal industry stalwarts and ask why they’re still there in the face of a climate emergency. “There are coal companies in Wellington??”That’s the incredulous response every single time we mention taking the public on a tour of the biggest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel A. Ankeny, Professor of History and Philosophy, and Deputy Dean Research (Faculty of Arts), University of Adelaide The South Australian government recently announced its intention to lift the long-standing statewide moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crops, following a statutory six-week consultation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vicki Sentas, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law, UNSW Being strip searched by the police can be intrusive, humiliating and harmful. Typically, strip searches involve being required to strip naked in front of police officers, who often give the direction to “squat and cough”, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Remond, Clinical Psychologist, University of Technology Sydney Hi, I was just wondering if something’s wrong with me because I’m never happy and never want to do anything and I’m getting really lazy and I really hate school. Thanks – Anonymous ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project; and Online Teacher at Education Queensland’s IMPACT Centre, The University of Queensland From as early as Grade 3 teachers start teaching children how to put across their own points of view. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW It’s four years since then Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned Australia had been heading to “a Greek-style economic future”. He was referring to what he said had been happening under the previous Labor government. When Labor ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samia Khatun, Senior Lecturer, SOAS, University of London Some 1,000 kilometres inland from Sydney, over the Blue Mountains, past the trees that drink the tributaries of the Darling River, there stands a little, red mosque. It marks where the desert begins. The ...
Open mike 25/04/2013 
. . Former Police, Corrections, and Justice Minister in the previous John Key government, Judith Collins, has been ridiculed on social media after posting a comment on Twitter that was patently untrue; . Wrong!! National did not remove Prisoners’ ability to vote. Parliament voted through a Private Member’s Bill ...16 hours ago
Speaker Trevor Mallard was left to look after Jones, while his usual caretaker, Winston Peters, underwent surgery. A truly adorable scene from Parliament yesterday has gone viral, after Speaker Trevor Mallard cradled an extremely drunk Shane Jones in his arms while the House was in session. Loud “awwww”s could be ...1 day ago
Western media have defended their decision not to cover the fires so as not to give them any oxygen. Social media outrage continues to grow around the sentiment that mainstream western media is devoting too little coverage to an ongoing series of fires in the Amazon rainforest, and in doing ...1 day ago
A Long Time Ago, In A Parallel Universe Far, Far Away: The political journalist scratched his head in confusion. Only then did he notice the name of the building: ‘The Jacinda Ardern Presidential Library and Public Resource Centre’. Making his way inside to the information desk, he asked the librarian ...1 day ago
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Nothing from me tody - I'm off to Christchurch to pretend to be other people for a weekend. Normal bloggage should resume on Tuesday. ...2 days ago
Spark is bracing for a customer backlash as rugby fans all across the country struggle to get a picture on their wireless router. With the Rugby World Cup fast approaching, an elderly Taranaki couple are furious after being told that they still won’t be able to watch the tournament, even ...2 days ago
Several explosions have been reported across Auckland, as well-meaning environmentalists have already begun purchasing too much petrol Starting from next week, customers will no longer need a car to purchase petrol directly from the pump, a development that two major fuel providers are billing as an opportunity to help fight ...2 days ago
A new study claims to find that a mother’s exposure to fluoridated water during pregnancy may decrease the IQ of male children – but is it correct? (Photo: Getty Images) Anti-fluoride campaigners are promoting ... 2 days ago
Television advertising has a huge impact on our lives. Even if we don’t recognise that, we know it has to be true, since otherwise why would advertisers spend so much on it? Its significance, however, is greater than simply the influence it has on what we purchase and consume. It ...4 days ago
by Jan Rivers More than 30 years ago a Commission of Inquiry was held in New Zealand to investigate, amongst other things, whether women with cervical cancer were aware that they had been part of a research project and whether they were properly informed of the treatment options ...4 days ago
Everyone Wants To Be Fuhrer: When fascist groups are discussed, the image conjured-up in the minds of most New Zealanders is one of pathetic misfits. This negative impression is reinforced by the latter’s idiotic embrace of the swastika. Even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the baleful legacy ...5 days ago
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...6 days ago
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...7 days ago
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...1 week ago
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Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...1 week ago
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...1 week ago
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...1 week ago
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...1 week ago
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...1 week ago
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...2 weeks ago
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ... 2 weeks ago
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...2 weeks ago
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...2 weeks ago
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...2 weeks ago
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...2 weeks ago
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...2 weeks ago
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...2 weeks ago
On Newshub Nation: Simon Shepherd interviews Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft and international children's rights expert Laura Lundy ...12 hours ago
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has promised to help Muslim women who are interested in politics. ...7 hours ago
At school camp, the children are banned from having phones, laptops, lollies, chocolate, money, cotton clothing or independent thoughts. They, are, however, allowed home baking – but it’s gotta be hearty. How hearty are you? We are packing for a school camp. If you’re thinking that the middle of winter is ...14 hours ago
Phil Goff’s rival has already pledged an 0800-Jacinda homeless hotline and an 18-lane harbour bridge. What’s next? The two most important people in the 2019 campaign for the Auckland mayoralty faced each other down on Wednesday night across the desk in the NZME debate: Bernard Orsman and Simon Wilson. Correction: it ...15 hours ago
Split Level View Finder: Theo Schoon and New Zealand Art is the exhibition that sparked a protest over issues of cultural appropriation and institutional representation. Theo Schoon is a divisive historical figure. But is his art any good? Martin Patrick reviews.British novelist L.P. Hartley once wrote that “the past is ...15 hours ago
Ahead of debuting her solo show at New Zealand Fashion Week, Korean-NZ couture designer Cecilia Kang talks about growing up ‘feminine’, being influenced by the LGBTQ+ community, and why an ‘administrative error’ at Fashion Week left her so shaken up. ‘I like something big,” says Cecilia Kang, gesturing to the giant ...16 hours ago
The Labour Party is distancing itself from one of its members who is strongly pro-Beijing and has caused controversy in the Chinese community by standing for local office in Auckland. ...16 hours ago
Faced with staff shortages, equipment failures, cancer risks, and a jump in critical calls that can leave them traumatised, some firefighters are wondering if it’s time to hang up the hose. Gareth Shute reports on the dissatisfaction inside Fire and Emergency New Zealand.The state of our nation’s fire service is ...17 hours ago
“She comes over. You’re my mother, she says. Yes, I say. I don’t know you, she says”: a mother and child seaside story by Wellington author Jan Pryor. Photo by Peter Black. ...17 hours ago
On Monday the government announced its new five-year strategy to reduce the Māori prison population. Emilie Rākete looks at another ‘kaupapa Māori’ prison initiative that degrades prisoners and asks if Corrections are capable of seeing it through.On August 19th, the Department of Corrections announced Hōkai Rangi, its new strategy intended ...19 hours ago
By Michael Andrew The Indonesian media is contributing to resentment and racism toward Papuans, according to a human rights researcher and former journalist. Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch Jakarta told Pacific Media Watch many Indonesian journalists either view Papuans as enemy “separatists” or deviants and their reporting tends to convey these ...24 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danilo Ignacio de Urzedo, PhD candidate, University of Sydney Record fires are raging in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, with more than 2,500 fires currently burning. They are collectively emitting huge amounts of carbon, with smoke plumes visible thousands of kilometres away. Fires in ...1 day ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sean Docking, Post-doctoral researcher, La Trobe University Basketball fans around the world were recently sickened by the footage of NBA star Kevin Durant’s Achilles tendon rupturing during a game. But while many think it’s only elite athletes who suffer from Achilles tendon ...1 day ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University The possibility of blackouts affecting half of Victoria has attracted plenty of attention to a document once read only by industry insiders and policy wonks: the Electricity Statement of Opportunities. The Statement, updated ...1 day ago
Internet freedom advocates have slammed the Government for proposing censorship of online gambling sites. ...1 day ago
George Clooney sold his tequila company for a billion dollars – but is the stuff any good? The Spinoff finds out. Imagine being so stupidly sexy you sneeze and sell a billion-dollar booze company. That’s what George Clooney did last year, flicking off the tequila business he started accidentally with an ...1 day ago
As Indonesia cracks down on protests in the disputed West Papua territory, the Government has declined to condemn the violence. ...1 day ago
Combatting internet-related harm is being stymied by inter-industry disagreement and a lack of information about the extent and nature of the problem, a new report says. ...1 day ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, J.W. Nevile Fellow in Economics and host of The Airport Economist, UNSW Amid the tributes to former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer and the stories of his authenticity, courage and quirky interests – like trains and military history – what ...1 day ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabriel Crowley, Adjunct Principal Research Fellow, James Cook University In February, about 600,000 cattle were killed by catastrophic flooding across north Queensland’s Carpentaria Gulf plains. The flood waters rose suddenly, forming a wall of water up to 70km wide. Record depths were ...1 day ago
Simon Day dined alone at Monique Fiso’s Wellington restaurant Hiakai, and discovered it was the perfect way to appreciate the meaning of this special food. “Would you like a few more minutes with your phone?” the waitress at Hiakai asked sympathetically as I mashed a final goodbye text to my wife ...1 day ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Willamson, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Monash University Australia’s gender pay gap is diminishing, says a new report, but some contributors to it seem harder to overcome than others. For me, the finding hit close to home. The report, by KPMG for ...1 day ago
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Te Tiriti o Waitangi: The Treaty of Waitangi by Toby Morris with Ross Calman, Mark Derby, and ...1 day ago
Honey producer Comvita has confirmed a full year net loss of $27.7m with China market access restrictions and tougher regulations locally affecting the company's sales. ...1 day ago
James Elliott realises John Tamihere's uncosted bridge proposal wasn't actually a metaphor, but a fine example of 'folks is mighty generous with money what they ain’t got'. ...1 day ago
Fees for company directors are not keeping pace with their rising workload, according to a new survey. ...2 days ago
New Zealand teacher aides say their pay reflects an outdated idea of what they do. Elizabeth McLeod hears from four TAs, and one parent, about the classroom realities they face every dayCleaning up poo, defusing violent situations, copping physical and verbal abuse: these are the realities of a teacher aide’s ...2 days ago
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LIARS OF OUR TIME
No. 2: Colin Craig
“Oh, I have a GREAT sense of humour.”
TV3 News, 24 April 2013
See also…..
No. 1: Barack Hussein Obama….
My big evening of watching Television
Wednesday 24 April 2013
I try not to watch too much television. It’s partly the advertising barrage, but it’s also the empty and drained feeling that I almost always have after watching a couple of hours of stuff on screen. I almost always feel stupider, and that I have wasted the time; it’s exactly the opposite feeling I have after reading a book for several hours.
I try to always watch Everybody Loves Raymond and any comedy with David Spade in it. I usually try to watch the Letterman show, and a bit of sport occasionally. Otherwise, the television is something best avoided, I believe.
However, when I saw that there was going to be a new Annie Goldson documentary, about New Zealand’s unhappy and deceitful decade-long adventure in Afghanistan, I just had to put the books aside and settle down for an hour. After that, I watched The Vote: Is New Zealand a Racist Country? on TV3’s Plus One channel, and then I stayed on to watch Backbenches on Prime.
I will eventually post up my reviews for each of these programmes, but here are the quick verdicts:
Annie Goldson’s NZ in Afghanistan….. A++ (Exceptionally good documentary.)
The Vote….. E (Bomb. Lowest rating)
Backbenches…. C (Toe-curlingly cringe-inducing, with occasional redemptive bits)
The Vote : New Zealand IS a racist country; imagined all I’d need to write is “we’ll I’ll be f&cked” yet nonetheless scrambled for two pens with the Dixie Chicks “Travelin’ Soldier playing on the radio (wrote this our twice; faceless to watch the impending ugliness).
Advertisement: Mad Season :Slip Away :
to continue…
JT: gave the facts; quetsion: “equity” “failures are in the mainstream services which themselves are held up and protected from failing.”
Mae Chen (for the negative); passionate, hasty, aroused.could not help supporting the affirmative;
-acknowledged phenomena of peoples being “shut down” by what practices do occur.
-acknowledged the impact of Key and Prosser blurts; “showed cognisance of what racism is there”.
-essentially Chen asserted that it is all a matter of “degree”
(Nightline ad: “Does the Labour / Greens (NZPower) deal really add up?”; for goodness sake, they pretend balance yet the dominant narrative (people remember the negative) is bad; So “roll up, roll up, see the propaganda show in motion!
Phil Goff; once again, a relativist position to other countries; (at least our minorities are not being shot); yet “sure, there are things that are wrong.”
-on the “maori question”; “an unequal, an unfair society” =? Hello?; “discrimination from unequal beginnings”. Well, when will there be a new beginning?
(people argue from their own perspectives, yet these are demonstrated statistics.
-then it was “we are unique in the world” re redress. Whatever! (not very bright some-times these pollies).
Dunne; “no doubt we are a racist society”.
National poll results re Chinese Investment;
Opposed-82%
Not Opposed-13%
UD-5%
From the affirmative chap next to JT; “we have concentrated (dormitories) of brown skin that cannot be explained away by socio-economic analyses alone.”
On the question “Are Maori too privileged?”
from the national poll results across the four mediums, FB, website, text etc;
Yes-76%
No-24%
Don Brash; “building into law racial preference” then concedes that racism exists.
John Minto; weak question
Garner-“it takes time” Well, I been watching the decline of maori and pasifika s/e, health and education stats for 40 freakin’ years now, so if not Now, then when?
Devoy; (sigh)
-results show “NZers care about race relations”
-“some very serious issues”
-“I think the people have spoken”
-“PEOPLE SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED THAT THEY BELIEVE WE ARE A RACIST COUNTRY”.
(please re-read above statement of causality from Dame Susan Devoy).
Move along , nothing out of order to see here citizens.
yet Mae Chen, again “(racism) not born out by efforts”
hope this is a close-enough approximation; was fairly messy 😉
Well done Helen Kelly for getting this fatal business the kind of attention it deserves – well some attention anyway, as it’s in the main headlines. Jonathan Carson article on Stuff this morning about deaths in the forestry industry:
Also notifies that it is Workers Memorial Day on Sunday:
I suspect the accident rate is increasing in line with the amount of felling taking place, if my memory serves me correctly a lot of newer plantations should be in the harvest cycle many of those on more difficult terrain.
I suspect that there simply aren’t enough skilled tree fellers about, the saws are safer than ever and the gear is much improved. It’s a dangerous job and it takes years I believe to be able to identify and tackle the more dangerous trees. Someone with a few years under their belt is probably the exception not the rule..
I’m not sure how easy it is to train for in that in my experience the most at risk were people who had become overconfident in there abilities and become a bit lackadaisical in planning and identifying hazards. Seen some nasty accidents come about through over confidence and a just cut it she’ll be right attitude…
The accident rate is due to the removal of long-established union safety procedures. Another gift from the ideologues in the National Party.
What a vacuous statement I doubt there have been long standing union safety procedures in forestry for many years, if ever. (I’m sure someone can confirm this) Certainly they didn’t cease just 20 years ago far more likely the conditions (a lot of the safer felling on the flat is now done by machine leaving the most dangerous stuff for manual felling) and type of work are the major contributing factors to the rise in accident rates. Hence the Union movement is now trying to get penetration into forestry which they are finding extremely difficult for various reasons…
You’re showing your extreme ignorance, NZ forests were planted, operated and felled by the public sector for decades before they were privatised.
Learn a bit of your own industry’s history eh?
Showing my age more than anything, Forestry is not my industry per say, I did a little planting and pruning when I was in my late teens but I have had involvement with guys working in it since and certainly they haven’t had any union involvement. I suspect I should clarify that all I know work in privately owned forestry which was planted on marginal hill country. I still believe the accident rate increase can be attributed to the increased felling activity, lack of experienced staff, difficultly of access (a lot of the planting I did was in hideously steep hill country and would only harvest-able by hand and with dangerous haulers) I don’t believe a sudden stop in union involvement as suggested did not result in the steady accident increase as I haven’t known there to be any in my time.
Although getting some Union penetration and additional safety procedure having guys understanding their rights will undoubtedly help the situation.
Your asserted facts are incomplete, and your exposure to the industry both brief and scant.
Incomplete yes for sure I don’t profess to know everything I just disagree that you can attribute the increasing harm rates to a sudden ceasing of union penetration in forestry as asserted , I can say that between 1960-70 there were 109 fatalities in public forestry (NZ dept of stats) and between 1998 and 2008 there were 42 (NZ Dept of Labor) Felling, Breaking out and Extraction are to blame for by far the biggest percentage of fatalities and interestingly in both decades the percentage of fatalities in these aspects of forestry against the total are quite similar at 78% and 77% of total fatalities respectively. They also comment “Of particular concern is the 12% of fatal accidents relating to extraction as there is a shortage of experienced haulers and there are a large number of steep terrain woodlots that will require harvesting over the next 10 years.” that note would at least provide some support to my previous comments around difficult terrain and access would it not?
Dude, you’re just looking bits and pieces up as you go along, you don’t actually have any insight here.
Big call mister stay at home and what has been your forestry working record , for the record.
cricklewood you should look at Helen Kelly’s earlier posts on this topic for some background on the issues. The private employers resistance to unions is preventing the workers putting their side of things in a way that would improve the safety measures.
From 4 March 2013 Kelly’s “The silence is Killing Them”
From 13 March 2013 “Unionists Under the Bed”
Hi cricklewood,
If your analysis is correct, then it simply repeats an age-old tendency in our society and economy – to trade-off the health and safety of labour against the gains of capital.
Why on earth was such difficult terrain being planted at all? If it was known that unsafe manual felling would be needed to harvest them, then that was incredibly unethical, perhaps criminally negligent.
Just like knowingly exposing workers to asbestos when its ill-effects were well understood – as far back as the 1920s; just like sending men and children down mine shafts when the short lives of miners were well understood; just like opening mines known to be at high-risk of explosions and collapse; just like running factories with exposed hazards (like this unlucky ‘lucky guy’ has twice experienced).
All justified by the double-barrelled retort of (i) the counterbalancing ‘benefits’ of economic growth and (ii) the aphorism that ‘life is always risky – suck it up!’
Fool, you have no idea of what you’re talking about.
My turnip has confirmed you are the font of all wisdom Captain Morrissey.
It appears that he does know what he is talking about while you are just spouting empty BS.
The way trees are harvested has changed significantly with all the easy wood being taken by machine now, probably as much as 80% of a hill country forest and more like 98% of a place like Kaingaroa. This leaves the steep nasty bits for the men on saws and the other main job is running the skid site which has always been a place where a small amount of inattention can be fatal.
Logging in inappropriate terrain using inappropriate techniques with inappropriately trained staff.
What do you expect other than fatalities and serious injuries.
What is inappopriate terrain to grow a tree?
Don’t worry an increasing accident rate in forestry has nothing to do with the fact the cycle is in the midst of the most complicated and dangerous part of the cycle that we have probably ever seen…
It’s all because of the national party…
Yes because in a hundred years of organised forestry we’ve never been in this part of the “cycle” before.
No one has said that. Except you.
As above…”Another gift from the ideologues in the National party”
It’s not because of the National Party, but right wing idealogues who think that a working class life is a cheap price to pay for extra shareholder profits.
Nothing, it appears that the inappropriateness is in the cutting it down.
I am at an absolute loss regarding “tree farming” – because that is what we talk about – but could it be that the ever increasing demand for speed of processing is a reason? Profits are only made when the log hits the boot.
It appears that he does know what he is talking about…
Clearly he doesn’t. Neither, clearly, do you.
There is something to what cricklewood is saying. I was planting and pruning in the late 70s and most of it was on pretty steep slopes. Even getting up the hills to plant it was difficult, let alone lugging a chainsaw and dropping trees. These are likely to be the trees that have been harvested in the last ten years or so.
On the other hand, a strong union presence among the workers would no doubt remove some of the dangers which arise from working long hours in dangerous conditions. Both Labour and National wings of the ACT party have been complicit in letting the greed of the forestry owners create these conditions. I applaud Helen Kelly for taking an interest.
I hope that many of you attended todays dawn services just as our PM has done in Wellington.
How refreshing it is to have a PM who shows our returned servicemen the respect they deserve. It was not that long ago that we had a PM who could not be bothered getting out of bed early to attend the dawn service.
Stop lying bruv.
If he had any respect for our servicemen, he would have pulled them out of Afghanistan as soon as he took office.
“I hope that many of you attended todays dawn services ”
Why is that?
Pants on fire big bruv?
What, no baseball game for him today?
No baseball game Viper.
Mind you, at least Key is not in the USA to count his hidden UN bank account as Shearer is.
Did we ever find out how much Shearer has hidden away?, is it two or three million?
And I wonder how that “man of the poor” David (silent t) Cunliffe is spending the day from his Herne Bay mansion?
Big bruv you stretch tolerance and good will to breaking point. Fancy politicising Anzac day to fire cheap shots that are not even true. How disrespectful.
FYI David has been at the dawn ceremony and will be at the Titirangi service and the Laingholm service and the New Lynn Service …
Micky.
http://tvnz.co.nz/content/1078896/411361/article.html
Not true?
Tell me Micky, will silent t be using his “bro” accent today or will he use his Herne Bay accent?
Does he need GPS to find the western suburbs?
I guess its lucky Key doesn’t have a sports game on interfering with his Anzac day attendance and paying all due respects eh. Priorities for a PM and all that.
I wonder why it is that Samuel Johnson’s famous phrase about (false) patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel, springs to mind so readily when reading big bruv’s nonsense.
“When the way is forgotten
Duty and justice appear;
then knowledge and wisdom are born
Along with hypocrisy.
When harmonious relationships dissolve
Then respect and devotion arise;
When a nation falls into chaos
Then loyalty and patriotism are born.
-Chapter 18 : Hypocrisy.
David (silent t) Cunliffe…
Hey, fellas, it looks like this halfwit is trying to be funny!
Well there’s the problem.. he needs the other half to be funny.
The spirit of Anzac Day.
Bruv’s still bumming out that his side lost WWII.
The Generals, bankers and the Economic Elite did just fine from the big wars.
What about grubby little creeps?
Ideally, ordered up and first over the top.
Viper
Speaking of which, you do of course remember how the coward Micky Savage refused to fight for his country don’t you?
There is a current economic battle happening in this country and the real coward refuses to suspend the sale of the people’s asset.
Refused to fight for the privileged and elite? Luck for us you have no such principles.
Refused to kill on behalf of his country, more like, those poor people on the other side who had been, as Colonial Viper says below, induced ‘to fight for the privileged and elite.’
What is courage? To go against the accepted majority view and stand against that position in full public view (with all its attendant hatred and bigotry) and act according to one’s conscience knowing that to do otherwise is to act dishonourably is one form of courage.
I made that decision in 1968.
Big Bruv, I do not however condemn those who went and fought in the light of their conscience. On the contrary, I have stood silent in war cemeteries in Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Belgium and New Zealand to respect courage.
Last time I looked, NZ has never been in a war where it was fighting for itself. We’ve been in wars where we were fighting for Britain.
And the US
“refused to fight for his country”
Not so, Savage refused to fight for the Empire. His position was that wealth should be conscripted before workers. It was an emperial war, with political and economic power at its heart, and not something NZ workers should ever have been involved in.
Blood for butter and beef.
Two men, now long departed, who I knew when young had very different experiences of the war.
One a returned serviceman captured in Germany escaped from several prison camps and was well experienced and versed in war.
The other a conscientious objector imprisoned within his own country.
Both had total respect for each other. Neither was a coward.
Amongst the things the first was fighting for was the right for others to choose not to fight. If that soldier didn’t see the objector as a coward but as a man of principle I’m not sure why you should.
There’s plenty too who dislike the RSA for the treatment of family members who were not allowed to go and fight either through disability or through working in essential services such as electricity and farming.
The treatment of some of those people post-war and the black-listing of their businesses did not go down well with themselves or their family members who were allowed off to fight.
There was a clear difference between supporting returned servicemen to get back on their feet and the blacklisting that went on by some RSA’s.
Not everyone sees them as the bastion of the response to the post war period.
NZ Labour PM Fraser had conscientious objectors and those critical of the war blacklisted during WW II; many found their careers in government and the public sector permanently fucked.
“Last time I looked, NZ has never been in a war where it was fighting for itself. We’ve been in wars where we were fighting for Britain.”
When’s the last time you looked, 1946?
I want to put this into the record on this “cowardliness of Conscientious Objectors’ ” debate, being a paragraph from the Marlborough Express editorial on Anzac Day 2013.
“New Zealand also has a strong tradition of conscientious objectors. They were strongly reviled but it took as much bravery to resist being called up for war as it did to go willingly into battle.”
Alongside the editorial is a Bromhead cartoon entitled “Lest We Forget” which has the Shade of an Anzac soldier commenting upon a newspaper headline “Future Wars.”
“Trouble is, we do forget…”
Ha ha ha, it’s funny because his name sounds slightly like a derogatory term for vagina! 🙄
Yes, hop back under your bridge. I was involved in organising ANZAC days in Mt Albert for several years and when Helen Clark came to these ones (as she did often) they were her second or sometimes third one of the day.
I note that you did not say she attended dawn service Lindsey. Of course if you were to say that it would mean that you are telling lies.
Fancy that….a lefty caught telling lies.
try and keep up with Key preferring to go to sports games instead of paying respects to fallen soldiers.
Oh, I don’t know, it’s filial piety instead of pro patria. If nothing else it set a good example to fathers to encourage and spend time with their sons as opposed to sending them off to die in wars.
Yeah you would have a point except Key is the one quite willing to send other parents’ sons off to die.
And then not attend their funerals.
Slight difference between trained career soldiers who know what they’re enlisting for and conscripted naive canon fodder
You credited Key with setting a good example, that of not sending sons to die. So you were talking about just his own son.
I was being sarcastic *rolls eyes*
“I note that you did not say she attended dawn service Lindsey. Of course if you were to say that it would mean that you are telling lies.
Fancy that….a lefty caught telling lies.”
bruv, you can’t simultaneously accuse Linsdey of lying and of not lying.
Pick one.
Don’t need to lie, leave that to trolls and righties
Smart enough to Google “Helen Clark Dawn Service” just like you did. It got no traction than and get even less now. I can understand why Key goes to the closest service.
Oh look a righty spouting excrement!
You’re using Anzac Day to tell lies, you nasty little troll.
BigBruv is just playing follow the leader
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8596303/PM-defends-spy-boss-breakfast-meeting
”
Asked why he had not been upfront earlier about the date of the breakfast meeting, Key said: “I wasn’t asked about it; I was asked about what meetings I had.” ” Liar Liar Liar
You are a very odd person!!!
Is this respectful enough for you? Go have a lie down and a cup of tea and think how stupid you sound, sometimes you should keep the inside your head voices inside your head.
Helen Clark was the first New Zealand prime minister to visit Gallipoli on Anzac Day. On 24 April 2005 (the day before Anzac Day) she walked down the ‘New Zealand track’ from Chunuk Bair to the coast, before visiting Hill 60 Cemetery. On the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing in the cemetery, she placed a poppy beside the name of her great uncle, Frank Clark, a trooper in the Auckland Mounted Rifles who was killed in the vicinity on 28 August 1915.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/34146/helen-clark-at-gallipoli
Is that the same Helen Clark (along with Goff) who once spat at returning soldiers?
You should send your fantasies in to Republican Penthouse.
Nah Bruv, it’s the same Helen Clark who’s risen higher than you could ever dream of.
Ha ha ha..
You’re kidding right?
The height of ones ambition should be to purchase your own job at the UN with Kiwi tax payers money and then work for an organisation that is recognised the world over as being corrupt (she fits in well there) and hopeless?
“purchase your own job at the UN with Kiwi tax payers money”
lolz how does that work bruv?
I think Bruv was meaning Tim Groser, who has just spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars trying to get a job as far away from John Key as he can find.
Bruv, I was thinking more about the general level of respect she is shown, with the lower end of the scale being represented by people like Graham Capill and David Garret.
Which PM introduced the Prime Minister’s essay competition when she took office and raised the profile of ANZAC day amongst the children …?
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/prime-minister-announces-gallipoli-essay-contest-winners
“Graham Capill and David Garret.”
Lordie, wouldn’t be great to have both those kiddyfiddlers double bunked in the same cell?
Probably been there, done that.
Garret is not a paedophile, and calling him such is not fair. He is a criminal who stole a dead babies identity.
Ha, thanks for the correction, andy. I’m sure Garrett consoles himself with the fact that [r0b: yeah that was over the top].
That comment deserves a ban.
How about it LPrent, or do some have special dispensation?
Yes I have a screenshot
Key will rejoin a big bank or central bank within a year of having left the PMship.
People can grow and evolve into different people bruv, plus there is a huge difference between the Vietnam war and the Great war and peoples attitudes. Try engaging your brain, you know, that pile of under-performing neurons located under that thick skull. Your attitude reminds me so much of how Steven Joyce shares his views. Numpty.
You really are a sick individual. Maybe you need to go and see a psychologist/psychiatrist/head doctor to see if there’s anything that can be saved.
I’m going to go ahead and assume you are referring to bruv with the head doctor comment, I’ve been tested, and I’m not crazy haha yeah, bruv’s hysteria and lack of any real knowledge or insight just reminds me so much of how Steven Joyce relates to people, been thinking that way a while now.
I’m going to go ahead and assume you are referring to bruv.
Yes he is. It’s how the reply function works sometimes. Best to quote what/who you’re referring to…
It is really quite astounding how little insight and intellect he shows. Makes me wonder how he ties his shoelaces in the morning.
Bruv is an intellectual cretin. He’s heading fast towards another permanent ban and the sooner the better.
As Anne says, David H is replying to big bruv. The alignment can appear a bit ‘skew-wiff’ with those commenters whose comments have a grey background (for some reason).
The best thing is to check the number of the comment. David H’s comment was 4.8.1.4 – i.e., the fourth reply to comment 4.8.1 (Your previous comment was 4.8.1.3 – the third reply to 4.8.1)
I thought Helen Clark went in 2000 when she took a bunch of school students who had won a school competition about Gallipoli.
The competition she introduced when coming to office and maintained throughout her Premiership.
big bruv big bullshit
big respect when boy’s baseball
came before soldiers’ funerals
oh yeah so respectful
RIP Lance Corporal Luke Tamatea
10 reasons I no longer attend Anzac Day services nor recognise it in any way
1) The ANZAC spirit was dismantled quite comprehensively on the 26 February 2001 by Australia
2) The dawn services glorify war
3) There are no returned servicemen from WW1 left alive
4) The poppies are now made in China rather than providing work for those with intellectual disabilities as previous
5) The freedoms that were fought for are now disappearing at an alarming rate of knots while most people stand idly by and applaud.
6) War does nothing to benefit the working man. It benefits the Military Industrial Complex of which the Windsors, Rothschilds and Rockefellers of the world are complicit in.
7) ANZAC day has now turned into a political football in recent years.
8) Attempting to link ANZAC day to the “glorious men and women fighting in Afghanistan” is dubious and downright despicable as the western nations in Afghanisatan are not liberators, they are occupiers
9) Who even understands the meaning of ANZAC anymore. My niece has been brainwashed into believing we celebrate it because NZ and Australia helped to stop WW1.
10)It’s tiresome and bothersome. We cannot move forward if we insist on holding fast to the past.
Perhaps NZ should do it’s own dismantling of the ANZAC spirit… starting with refusing access to any government assistance to any one holding an Australian Passports. Tit for Tat.
Thanks James, very well put. That reflects my own disquiet in recent years about the way that ANZAC day is promoted and commemorated, but I hadn’t found a way to articulate it.
Growing up in the sixties and seventies I was alienated from attending ANZAC day services by the jingoistic sabre rattling of the RSA and conservative politicians of the day who blared their shallow minded garbage from all media of the day throughout the Vietnam war. This was reinforced by hearing the same type of rhetoric from speakers at several dawn services I had to attend as a boy-scout during those times. Later, in the nineties, with the angst of the Vietnam war fading into the past I took my own daughters to a dawn service with their Sea Scout and cubs troops. Lo and behold, an Anglican priest and ex-ww2 padre who had been one of the afore-mentioned jingoistic sabre rattlers was leading the service and launched into another speech just like the ones I had detested so much in my youth. When we got home I penned a letter to the editor explaining why our family would be refraining from attending further ANZAC day services.
just for the record; I respect and admire the enlisted men and women immensely, yet I have never attended a dawn service; Neo-liberal consumption-based free-market capitalism is the current battle-field promoting global casualties.
Thanks James for saying what I have thought for years.
Another who can see through all the bullshit.
+1
However… I’m going to an ANZAC service in a Hapsburg-built church today.
At least the speakers have to stick to remembering all the victims of war (maybe not Franz Ferdinand) and be very, very careful about war rhetoric…. diplomats and all that. Taking the overt patriotism out of it suits me just fine.
enjoyed your evocation of human geography the other day rosy; we both did. 😉
Anzac Day for me: it means that when we let other countries decide where and when we fight, our men and women die.
It means when our country decides, our men and women die.
It means that we should look after those who came back, because they were put in a situation not of their own making.
It means that we should be humble in our recognition that men and women of all countries have died and are dying, not often for good reasons.
It means above all, that we should not forget the sacrifices made and that we should honour them by not making the same mistakes again.
Anzac Day for John Key: it means that he can look back on the days of Empire, when we stood as part of the thin red line in defence of civilisation etc, etc, and he could wreck a national economy while pissing down his leg. How many war pensions have been cut because of his currency speculating?
It means he can pretend to care about soldiers alive and dead, unless there’s a baseball game on.
Anzac Day for big bruv: it means he can polish his toy SMLE and dream of the day when he will help lead the WhaleSpew Army against godless commies and unionists. Or maybe just take a photo of someone who hasn’t parked properly. Yeah, that’s pretty heroic too.
“A regrettable incident occurred…”
“The Bedouins resented the treatment, and small knots of them made attempts to defend themselves.”
Read this before you praise our “brave” ANZAC troops….
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1366745575.html
Yep, we certainly have our own share of atrocities in the past.
The RSA have never issued a statement to apologize for this mass murder. In fact, many years later the RSA journal published a poem lauding the atrocity and praising the men who did it.
Not the RSA’s job.
“Not the RSA’s job”? It’s not the RSA’s job to publish poems applauding the mass murder, either. But they did, which means that an apology for such cretinous brutality is very much the job of the RSA.
You’re a clever lad, why don’t you write an apology for them and see if they will publish it.
Thanks, Viper, but they don’t need a hired spin doctor to tell the truth and acknowledge what a group of New Zealand (and Australian) thugs and goons did to helpless, captive, unarmed boys and men.
All it needs is for someone in the RSA leadership to show a little integrity and honesty. Frankly, I doubt they have the wherewithal to do it.
The RSA is as likely to examine the illegal actions of Kiwi soldiers honestly as the Police Association is to push for compensation for David Bain. At least in the case of the RSA, post traumatic stress may play a part in forgetting or whitewashing events of the past, but O’Connor has no such excuse. Most of the ex soldiers I have known over the years won’t have a bar of the RSA and those who have explained their decision put it down to not wanting to be part of a glorification of war.
I really enjoyed an article on the News (did provide balance) of a former wehrmacht soldier who never joined the Party who is retired here and chooses not to remember the War.(he was at Stalingrad I believe). Just happily enjoying the present day, not the past, he said. He appeared a beautiful man, carding wool in his arm-chair.
Steve Maharey had an interesting column on Margaret Thatcher in a recent NBR.
In a very poignant comment he talked about how Thatcher inspired a “cultural flowering”.
“The cultural left is always at its best when it has a big right-wing target to aim at. Thatcher inspired some of the best cultural expression seen in many years.”
He was damned right. If you think for instance of some of the music to come out of Thatcher’s era it was fuelled by passion and a visceral hatred at the damage she was causing. Bands such as the Clash, the Specials, the Jam to name a few captured the drama and intensity of what was happening perfectly.
It is a shame though that much of our best art is born out of despair.
The article is at http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/so-whats-your-alternative-ck-138973
Hmmm. The Clash took off pre-Thatcher, during the punk explosion. First single “White Riot”, 1977. However, their iconic “London’s Calling” was post 1979.
The Jam also came out of the 1970s punk scene.
The Specials formed in 1977. However, their 1980s “Ghost Town” was a haunting response to Thatcherism.
Such bands formative years and values were in the 1970s when socialism was seen as a positive thing and as the way to a better future.
The most interesting thing about Maharey’s article is the (kind of) recant on his previous support of the third way.
Aye Karol I was referring to the music rather than the date the bands formed. I should have included the Beat as well although they were normally quite happy …
The more pop orientated Blow Monkeys with their album “She Was Only A Grocer’s Daughter” album shouldn’t be forgotten.
It Doesn’t have To Be This Way is still highly relevant today and at the time Celebrate was banned by the BBC as it was celebrating a future election loss for Thatcher.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=y_ra8X_8waA&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dy_ra8X_8waA
Not forgetting of course it has one of those classic late 70’s early 80’s sax solos.
“I’ve just about had enough of the sunshine”could easily refer to National’s Brighter Future.
I was under the impression that the Blow Monkeys should be forgotten. So I did!
lol
Some eclecticism in musical taste is allowed. They are still touring and will be in Auckland soon.
http://www.songkick.com/metro_areas/31442-new-zealand-auckland
Did you sulk when Paul Weller left the Jam and formed The Style Council as well?
Not that I’m suggesting that Blow Monkeys are anywhere near the class of The Style Council.
The variety in music in the UK during this period was great there was plenty to enjoy.
Yes, Thatcherism did spur some very good songs. However, I think it’s wrong t o assume that it was solely Thatcherism that stimulated the music, but that there were pre-existing values that resulted in outrage at the changers in Thatcher’s time.
… Thatcher of course had been the “Milk snatcher” as Minister of Education in Heath’s government and she took over the leadership of the party in 1975, so many knew what she was like long before she took over government in 1979.
encouraging to see Maharey write better than he interviews; still no Daryl Le Grew though.
The Jam were lower middle class tories, at least in their first years. All three members had comfortable suburban lives while growing up. In fact, they were representative of the very people Thatcher convinced to vote Tory for the first time in ’79. Most of their songs on the first two albums were about personal alienation, rather than class consciousness. However, they did get politiced quickly (big ups to the writers on the NME and Sounds who talked them round) and by the early eighties were a driving force in the musical left’s response to Thatcherism. Which is good.
Paul Weller was from a working class background. And yes he was a Tory early on in his musical career – I think before Thatcher became PM. It was as much the other bands he associated with that influenced his shift to the left.
Oh, but look, the truth is even more complicated, according to a 2010 Telegraph article:
Cheers, karol, I must have bought the PR spin back in 78!
Well, TRP, I remember Paul Weller’s class background, because in early 80s London, I had a quite radical working-class, socialist, lesbian feminist who was into his music. She used to say he was about the only truly working class punk amongst a load of middle-class wannabes.
Whoops: should be:
I had a quite radical working-class, socialist, lesbian feminist friend who was into his music.
I noticed that, but was too polite to say!
I had a quite radical working-class, socialist, lesbian feminist who was into his music.
I had one of those once too.
What like a pet
…by the early eighties were a driving force in the musical left’s response to Thatcherism. Which is good.
That reminds me of Peter Cook’s quip about the vibrant, outspoken satirists on the Weimar cabaret scene, and the pivotal role they played in stopping the Nazis.
In no particular order.
Specials – Maggie’s Farm
The The – Heartland
Angelic Upstarts – Brighton Bomb
Robert Wyatt – Shipbuilding
Crass – Sheep Farming In The Falklands
The Mekons – Abernant 1984/1985
The Pop Group – Justice
Thanks.
Few there I had missed at the time.
My favourite band of the era. Skids – Working For The Yankee Dollar.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=LCiWXktdyTQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DLCiWXktdyTQ
…play it again joe
Russia previously contacted US authorities “multiple times” regarding Temerlan Tsarnaev
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/04/23/russia-contacted-fbi-multiple-times-concerns-about-alleged-boston-marathon-bomber/ND0bhUdq1Tp1mRuC8xlb8N/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw
Of course, the US answer will be more invasive, continuous and complete surveillance of ordinary citizens by the intelligence services. Nothing that a couple hundred billion more dollars for the spook industry and more stripping back of citizens rights won’t solve. Right?
The delay in implementing the MMP Reforms might need attention? There is a mandatory consultation period of 6 months so National has till the end of May to get a Bill on the floor. Considering that there was a very strong Mandate for the modifications one would wonder why Judith Collins is procrastinating. The only electoral Avoidance would be from Banks and Dunne. Unless National has self-interest at stake??? Surely not!
Some Anzac music: Dominion Road
Like. A lot and I haven’t heard it for ages. Thanks.
And, one or two from the other side of the ditch:
Gobetweens (the greatest Queensland song ever):
Triffids, WA in the house:
The New Five, cheesy but always reminds me of DJ Johnny Topper and wet Melbourne days.:
Nick and Kylie, just coz:
Thanks for that. Go-Betweens reminded me a little of The Church with those guitar strums. Particularly From the Skins And Heart album.
More Anzacy though would be:
Under The Milky Way – The Church
Great Oz band.
Droving Woman – Kevin Carmody, Missy Higgins and Paul Kelly:
Spine tingling – if you can listen all the way to the end
Added bonus – live version of Missy Higgins ‘This is How it goes’
yes, The go betweens; Cattle and Cane
I see the Herald trying to do a hatchet job on Harawira. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10879636
Maybe if they had covered Mana’s big breakfast, then their readers would be aware of what he is doing at the moment!
Yes Paul. Wonder how well Mr Banks would shape up as a single MP Party and Leader? To get perspective surely they would have to compare like with like? Mr Dunne living in Wellington would be somewhat different.
He’s doing fuck all as usual or is he still bagging the other “house niggers”.
What do the bouncy giggling heads who sit behind Key actually do in Parliament, dumbarse? Tits on a bull are more useful than anything you contribute.
Well said, I envy you guys with the quick intelligent wit.
And your contribution about ANZAC Day says it all. How dare you take a day off you wanker.
You think some of should spend the day sitting outside our closed and locked work sites as punishment for not sharing your rather strange view of what ANZAC is all about. Wanker yourself.
And yet another NZ Herald artcle attacking NZ Power..’Show us first that power is broken’ http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10879605
Their puppet masters are working overtime at the moment.
And I was feeling encouraged about NZ journalism after watching “He Toki Huna New Zealand In Afghanistan†last night…… when Jon Stephenson spoke about the importance of the media being independent.
It would seem the Herald is embedded into the finance industry!
Not embedded in it, owned by it.
Peter Jackson trys to rebuild his shitty image using Anzac Day and his dead grandfather: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/last-post-first-light/anzac-day-2013/8594015/Sir-Peter-Jacksons-Anzac-Day-family-ties
Get’s repimped by Farrar: http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/04/jackson_and_anzac_day.html
Probably involves the PM’s office as his ministry is also pushing Jackson-related PR agenda today: http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/new-zealand/8596008/Hobbit-stars-reveal-Kiwi-crush
I’ve no doubt all of this has been done today to cash in on ANZAC day patriotism. What a bunch of cynical fuckers.
My Granddad (a good leftie who fought at Cassino) will be turning in his grave.
Jackson is pathetic. He once made interesting movies, then he went to Hollywood.
He is as corrupt and sad an individual as it is possible to find outside of party politics.
Jackson’s Hobbit movie is really struggling to match the return on investment made by Fellowship of the Ring 10 years ago. The Hobbit cost twice as much to make, but has pulled in cinema receipts consistently lower than Fellowship.
Still, total box office is not far off a trillion dollars so Jackson is going to make an absolute mint off the movie. And off the NZ tax payer.
taking it easy soldier?
Mix of work and play today, Mr GR888. Early start, afternoon of work, now some play 🙂
another unconscious coincidence I just f0und.(it is a strange old world, thanks for pointing it out) 😉
RNZ – re Boston; “US Intelligence slipped up”
best thing to come from Judith Collins for a long lag;
-if convicted of killing in an open court there should be no suppression of details in further cases.
-“you can google this information”
There has been a consumer back-lash to this Anchor light-proof bottles nonsense;
-more plastic
-cannot tell quantity left in bottle (doesn’t the light go off when the fridge door is closed?)
yet according to ONE News, most New Zealanders are OK with our investment relationship with China;
-Very Comfortable-10%
-Comfortable-31%
from Grant Robertson; “for Labour, that (concern re investment) is not about an individual country”.
according to summary of report into DOC restructuring, due to budget constraints and other losses, the department is likely to become “less relevant in coming years”. What?
a little ANZAC Day light reading
Let us pray that that day never comes pointlessly
(as a Variation, an article about Archibald Baxter is on RNZ this evening)
I was hoping someone would mention Baxter. I guess big bruv is ignorant of him and the other conscientious objectors and / or lacks the empathy / wit to understand them and their importance in the scheme of things.
at your service 😀
Ok folks!
This made my day 🙂
__________________________________________________________________________
OMIGOD! Look what that communist fanatic Editor of the Dominon Post is is saying!
(Having a WOOHOO moment here…. 🙂
Editorial: Key should consider MRP sale delay
“But, delaying the sale till after the next election would at least allow voters to choose which of the two approaches offers the better prospect of sensible pricing and secure supply.
It would also allow time for the future of Tiwai Point to be resolved.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/8587747/Editorial-Key-should-consider-MRP-sale-delay
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption / anti-privatisation campaigner’
2013 Auckland Mayoral candidate
http://www.dodgyjohnhasgone.com
😀
Yet lower down in the same article we get:
Excuse me but Stalin was history’s worst totalitarian mass murderer. Labour/Greens are proposing a fairly modest reform of the electricity market that we now know is used successfully in a number of overseas countries. At what point does a comparison this odious become legally actionable?
I assume it’s an example of how threatened the Nact govt. and their acolyte press are feeling Redlogix. No-one, not even a hard right fundamentalist type, could honestly compare a tried and true regulatory power system for the benefit of ALL citizens with a Stalinist proposal.
They’ve outed themselves in all their bright blue political colours now. Who can take anything they say with much seriousness anymore?
I realise that’s what’s going on … but really. This is an editorial from one of New Zealand’s leading newspapers, not florid, ranting blog comments on Whaleoil.
And on ANZAC Day of all days. Are there no grown ups in charge at Fairfax anymore?
Not for a long time, now. And certainly no one who actually understands the history of the Soviet Union.
As Anne says, by regurgitating Joyce’s embarrassing spin they have shown the colour of their flag.
I can just see the responsible Dom Post editor – “Stalinist proposal eh? Oh that’s ‘edgy’, that’s oh so mildly ‘controversial’. Me likey.”
FFS. At least the comments section is mostly occupied by people saying variations of “Stalinist? Please get a grip,” and “Do you know what that word means sweetie?”, etc.
“And on ANZAC Day of all days. Are there no grown ups in charge at Fairfax anymore?”
No
The NZHerald is NZs version of a state controlled newspaper but instead of being controlled by the state it’s controlled by the rich. National are their political arm.
I would frame it as the NZ Herald being the National Party’s PR arm.
Interestingly, if wikipedia’s figures are to be believed, increases in energy production were one of Stalin’s successes.
I have no idea if those figures are correct, but – at least in that sense of production – I would have thought that the right would be quite keen on Stalinist approaches to the provision of energy for the economy.
In the link, there’s also no mention of Stalin proposing a single-purchaser model for energy generation – but perhaps the Dominion Post editor has an historical account of the period at hand which mentions it.
Stalin also liked his eggs lightly poached, but the NZ Herald doesn’t call the menu of every Newmarket cafe “Stalinist”
in stalinist russia, eggs poach you
Oh CV that’s mean. You know you just put a bunch of our right wing friends off poached eggs for life.
Gotta luv the sounds of pig snouts hitting the bottom of the empty trough.
Still is the Dom post running a flyer so that Nact can wind back the sale? They are up to something.
A good Armenian genocide documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLyrpaTKCCE
^The New Zealand, Australian, US and UK governments are yet to recognize it ever happened*, even though Russia, and many European Union nations (such as Germany and France) already have.
*Turkey threatens to break off diplomatic relations, cut trade deals with nations that recognize the genocide. The bitter irony of course is that many of the architects of the Nazi Holocaust visited and admired the Armenian genocide in ww1, later to use methods such as railway cars on the Jews in ww2.
It has been reported that some senior Nazis went to Hitler with a few doubts about the Final Solution. He told them to calm down, because no one remembered the Armenian genocide. I do know there were German observers there, as part of the military mission to Turkey, but the ones I read about were horrified by it. I wasn’t aware that we hadn’t officially acknowledged that it happened. That’s disgusting.
there was an article in The Herald concerning where all the anti-matter went, or didn’t, matter to me.
Here is another Collision Course
I received a very nicely turned out glossy pamphlet in my letter box last night.
On first glance I thought it was an election pamphlet from the Nat’s informing us what a great party they were and what a good minister Collins is, A top class report on the wonderful works from Tolley .It turned out to be from the diabolical Sensible Sentencing Trust. What a ghastly lot and there is no doubt what party they will,support st the next election. Personally I just glad its not Labour .
Keep the people you love away from this crap
We’re going to see a lot of very angry, depressed and breaking people on August 1st when these top shelf drugs finally get the boot from our sweetshops.
Just hope the ufno1 has a plan in place to deal with the mess occurring on his watch.
Keep the people you don’t love away from it as well.
It’s certainly not helping the recovery of people with mental health issues either. For many it’s setting months of improvement down the tubes.
There are arsehole dairy owners selling it across the road from mental health facilities and recovery centres.
The big thing the staff in some of those places have noticed is the return of / increase in paranoia in it’s victims.
You can argue prohibition all you like as being negative but no question it’s easy access is allowing people who wouldn’t ever go near a drug dealer to buy and suffer.
Govt should have banned the shit straight away.
Plan – they don’t have a plan to deal with mental health issues now nor the effects of this drug. Why on earth would they have a plan to stop dealing with it.
Mental health services are already overflowing and have waiting lists for treatment. People who have mental health issues frequently end up in jail. As noted on the documentary t’other night the prison system treats as if they are well because by definition if they weren’t they wouldn’t be there.
If this government has a plan it will be to reduce public services and hand more over to pet NGO’s and the private sector.
Yes, ban this shit, regulate the availability of organic natural versions.
(As an aside I see a lot of fucked up kids on the synthetic crap, memory, concentration, personality, all toast)
I’m not a fan of the organic version either. I’ve watched teens start using who are now in their late 30’s who are pretty screwed. It just takes a little longer.
I understand though why they use / drink / vice of choice.
Improving society overall, not just for those at the top, is the key.
Decent housing, decent food, decent incomes, decent communities where crime isn’t needed to put food on the table.
A mystery as to why the nat government can rush all manner of legislation through parliament, yet something so simple as banning drugs is beyond the house. Scoobydoo, where are you? Ps, ask Thelma to call me.
I recall a very old ‘joke’ resonating, about if drug crime costs billions, why don’t we just give them to the junkies, but this synthetic stuff, I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
I know those arsehole dairy owners. They also sell under the counter product outlawed under dunne’s previous mini bans too. I rang the rozzers and told them go into Urlich ave dairy and ask for a lolly or a mango at 2 x 3g packets for $25 and see what they get, but no raids took place.
I guess they must have asked for donuts instead and been happy with the outcome.
hey, Alien, do ya ever find yourself reflecting that it is almost like being Alien when when comparing contrasting worldviews, like, the reason that politics is so important is that the government, and the worldview they subscribe to and legislate is what sets the parameters; we were just discussing the shortcomings when all a generational cohort has known is say, the neo-liberal model, and like maybe Ennui said, well I know what he said, he said what Mr Lydon said, “ere, don’t ya fink we been ‘ad”, laughs. We were thinking of the Scandanavian countries, South America etc where different things are going on. Another commentator reflected on how it has been not beer and all skittles for many of those peoples “rescheduled” by the fall of The Wall; Hows the European Union project going now?
Interestingly, many of the people being marketed to as affluent (buy a new Mirage, re-live the previous (insert asset) bubble you missed out) are from the “generation x cohort”;an influential cohort who have fond (insert nostalgic) memories of the seventies.
However, on the other hand, sigh, the National government, Defence Minister are making noises about greater military commitment, in recognition of a militarizing region and world which reduces the lattitude for positions of neutrality.
Hey Rogue, is the answer 42?
“the number is not a human number”, though I’ve always liked Seven (and, it has been good to me.(along with thirty) sigh 😀 (only 23 more months to go and I can retire, you know, see Labour and the Greens a few months into there first term of office) 😀
I’ve always liked Seven of nine, but not enough to turn a red eye blue.
Wow! Tertiary Adjunct Unimatrix Zero One, and, you got my number. 😀 deepest longingful sigh…
Would be better with an instruction manual for my translater chip, but it’s good to talk.
“only 23 more months to go and I can retire, you know”
Logan? “She keeps running out, and she runs like girls run. All arms and legs hanging out, lashing out as she goes.”
all good things on this earth must come to an end my cosmic friend; can’t rota round here for ever; there will be more to do in the grounded world as time passes. At least with a more left government the rot will slow, we pray.
Make them drag you kicking and screaming my old nan use to tell us, rest her soul.
Named my daughter after her, least I can do is fight best I can, just like she did as she taught me.
“running-out” came back with “Sorry, we can’t find that song”: l1nks.
Still way too poo to view, save for the chorus.
I’ll do a clip in a minute.
https://soundcloud.com/theal1en/running-out-chorus
sorry. rechipped (and a gurnard, ok, and a sausage, ok, and a curry-roll) reassured fleshy friend that I wasn’t gonna leave her for another commutator; she enjoys Mrs Brown’s Boys (I’m more Father Ted) and no,no,no, yes, The Vicar of Dibley.charge is low though, a lot to process.
the wit designed into your schematics, though, is highly adaptive 🙂
Thirty minus twenty three is seven. Spooky!
thanks for the offer of Office 97.
I take it you would like it then? I’ve checked the old post a few times to see.
You’re in Hawkes Bay right. I have friends over that way so can organise somewhere for you to pick it up if you want (Napier or Hastings) or you could organise a third party address for me to post it to.
Keeps things anonymous.
Thanks for checking; i never go back more than a day or two, unless I do.
You may forward it to Directions Youth Health Centre, 305 Omahu Road, Hastings.
c/ Louise (you recall my name? Lynn knows it.)
Nah didn’t know who you were. Just occasionally you reference Hawkes Bay.
If I can get one of the kids to find it I’ll get them to send it off otherwise I’ll do it in a few weeks or so when I’m next home.
Happy to pass it on. I’ve upgraded to 2010,
Wow.
Let me get this straight, this stuff is legal, but the stuff that makes you vege on the couch with potato chips and bad zombie films is not?
The Age of Anxiety?; think that black dog has bolted (depression and anxiety are frequently co-morbid)
No mention in the article of the research by Jean Twenge on the 1SD shift towards a more anxious youth since the 1950s.
Her conclusion was that social disconnection and broad social trends were responsible.
There’s also a lot of work now on how the neurodevelopment of the neural systems that are used to regulate emotional responses is disrupted by early developmental experiences which can often be quite subtle (not just abuse).
The idea that this is just ‘the human condition’ is, frankly, simplistic in the extreme and amounts to little more than a desperate justification for our current social and economic arrangements (which are generally considered ‘benign’ in relation to human emotional functioning and experience).
No animal would have evolved to be typically ‘anxious’ in the debilitating way modern humans are. And anthropological studies of pre-human societies strongly suggest that anxiety is not a chronic experience for humans – except today.
Yeah but think of the wonderful contribution to the economy resulting from the massive profits for the makers of Prozac and Xanax.
But seriously Puddlegum, I’m interested in this:
“There’s also a lot of work now on how the neurodevelopment of the neural systems that are used to regulate emotional responses is disrupted by early developmental experiences which can often be quite subtle (not just abuse).”
Can you link me up? I had a look around but it’s a rather specific topic…
Anyone wonder why Evil Communist China wasn’t included in the latest toryfear list?
Damned socialist cockies cuddling up to commos…..
.http://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/64167/trade-links-deepen-china-rural-sector-building-fta-which-tripled-exports
Then again, maybe they can help wee Nathan with his maths…..
“Since the signing of the Free Trade Agreement in 2008 our exports to China have nearly tripled, from NZ$2 billion a year to NZ$6.9 billion in 2012.
“Two-way trade between China and New Zealand has reached almost NZ$15 billion. Our aim is to double bilateral trade to NZ$20 billion by 2015 and we’re on track to achieve that goal.”
Excellent links.
US Sequestration
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/31/earth-cooling-schemes-global-signoff
MSM did not want a bar of this subject until recent years, and now is openly discussing, while claiming that these schemes are in *research* phases (of course they are…..).
Now geo-engineering is being openly used as the latest catalyst, to call for global governance!
So are you arguing that contrails are being used to create global warming so geoengineering will be needed to cool the earth again, handily provided by global government?
How do contrails increase global temperatures?
I’m not arguing anything different, than I’ve commented on previously, McFlock, these articles should be starting to speak for themselves by now, unless they’re made up BS, which is of course a possibility with the MSM, and media in general!
Does begin to sound like a narrative though if they’re not BS, you know, having ignored/denied geo-engineering for so long, now a days, its a steady stream of *in research only* based articles.
Given the lag the MSM experiences on most any serious issue you care to name, would give pause to suspect they’re giving commentary on what is actions in past history!
Serves to soften up the punters for some further *truth*, when the time is right, of course!
That didn’t answer either question.
Oh I don’t know. I think it answered a couple.
McFlock, hang onto a conversation for more than one day, you will find that I’ve given you plenty of answers, opinions etc.
The second question about temperatures, and how *contrails* turning to *clouds* *might* contribute to raising temperatures, should be self evident surely, no! That said I’ve not stated that I think they are/are not, just that its potentially being used in a nefarious fashion, going from the link!
Felix , no comment on the article link then matey…on ya!
Muzz,
Claiming that an answer is “self evident” and then explicitly refusing to state what you think the self evident answer actually is…. well, that’s a new level of stupid.
Try and answer a closed question like a normal human being. Feel free to add why the question is unfair or dumb, or what your actual position might be. But just try and be a normal person for once. Okay, ready? Deep breath, here goes:
So are you arguing that contrails are being used to create global warming so geoengineering will be needed to cool the earth again, handily provided by global government?
Easy question to answer.
Easy enough to recall that you have already asked this question, and I’ve answered it, previously!
Get digging perhaps!
Muzza, you wrote “That said I’ve not stated that I think they are/are not, just that its potentially being used in a nefarious fashion, going from the link!”
I am confused as to how something can be used potentially at the moment. The whole deal with potential is that it’s not happening now, yeah? Potential is to do with the future, and with possibility.
So, if that’s your answer, Muzza, it’s not making sense.
Hi Mac,
If the MSM is talking about *potential*, it means that its already happening, that’s how the media functions, by attempting to control information flows, and prepping people for further release escalations. By doing so it seeks to dampen down the reaction of people, by using low level NLP techniques, where people already *make a connection* to event, thus lowering any negative reaction, that’s the objective at least!
It helps to understand, that the companies who control media, are also those who are deeply involved in warfare, pharma, and related chemical industries, among most others, so the release of information, is neither accidental, nor coincidental!
If you had an understanding about how media works, and its parent company owners primary industry, it would make sense to you!
Good luck!
You arse, you said ” I’ve not stated that I think they are/are not, just that its potentially being used in a nefarious fashion,”.
YOU said “potentially”, not the MSM. When asked about this, you start a rant about when the MSM says “potentially”. Once again you’re off on a tangent, rather than taking the time to work through a single point of discussion.
You didn’t answer it. You made tangential comments. This is not the same as “answering the question”. Which is a fresher-level problem in essays and exams, just as an aside.
Simple enough to answer a closed question: a “yes” (maybe with an “if…” or a “because…”), or a “no” (maybe with a “no” or a “because”), or maybe a “your question is nonsensical because…”.
Go on, you can do eeett!
Hey muzza Isn’t the global governance call being made to control and manage the schemes so they don’t stay rogue and therefore is a good thing – apart from who is governing I suppose but they are “causing and controlling it” anyway so I can’t see how this would give them more power – maybe slightly more visibility perhaps.
Hey Marty, that’s one way to look at it I guess.
To me it reads like, looking for a way of controlling the *outing* of geo-engineering, by using the *its for the best interest of humanity* style narrative, yet again!
It sounds like, an attempt to allow those rogues you refer, to operate openly, and with impunity, because whose going to control such rogues anyway – My view is they’re already doing *thy bidding*, of those who crave a, *singular entity*!
I would very much doubt a a global (anything), is going to work out too well for those who don’t control the systems, or support it, hey perhaps those in charge currently, are really humanitarians after all, and if they do end up with a *singular entity*, perhaps we will see the journey as having been altruistic, after all…
Peace
Well, Chris Trotter’s joy at the Lab-Green energy policy, and his statements that Shearer’s Labour have taken a new a significant turn…. was pretty short lived. Today, he lays into Robertson, the “reluctant radical” for pulling back and reverting to “neoliberalism” as usual… and also targets Julian Robins… (who?)
that is hilarious karol…i was just saying the other day 😉
I’m inclined to believe there’s more than an element of truth in Chris Trotter’s synopsis. Grant Robertson is a careerist to the tips of his toes. Careerists don’t like to be associated with radical policies. There path is the straight one down the middle.
I thought at the time of the announcement it was almost too good to be true.
What’s the matter with the Labour leadership? Scared of their own shadow? That they hit the jackpot is evident in the gross over-reaction of the NActs and their acolytes. So what does Robertson do? Strokes their hysterical egos by telling them… it’s alright boys and girls. This is just a one off… we’re not going to change anything else.
What’s more, it’s not even radical policy!
O dear. This really raises the question whether Grunt is right for the party and whether the party is right for him. He should follow in the footsteps of Peter Done, set up his own party and bend according to whichever way he thinks the polls will keep his shadow trailing him in the House.
You are dead right about it not being policy. It was a single act of sabotage designed to derail the MRP share issue. Spare me any other tripe.
gee. that was a quick dump.
It was a single act of sabotage designed to derail the MRP share issue, which, when it becomes policy, will lower power prices to households. It will not destroy wealth it will transfer it into the pockets of average Kiwi battlers.
Who knew an act of sabotage could have such benign consequences? Just pure dumb luck I guess 😆
It’s a very small country, karol.
Bit of cursing at the club today.
Seems there are a few returned service people who don’t take too kindly to Key fucking off home to watch his kid play baseball rather than stay here and honour fallen soldiers.
Heard more than once: “I don’t care what you think about politics, but…”
Bugger. Still, I bet there’s some really good reason he had to be in the states 4 days before the baseball game, eh?
that man is AWOL frequently.
They still remember now? Interesting.
Lest we forget.
what do you make of this rhetorical whip-cracking by Chris Trotter; is that just what he writes to make a dollar, like The Truth?
I heard it mentioned on the bus back from the Cenotaph this morning too.
“Still, I bet there’s some really good reason he had to be in the states 4 days before the baseball game, eh?”
You know very well that he had an excellent reason felix. How else could he get English to sign the GCSB suppresion order that he knew nothing about?
😀
This Public Address article, PUBLIC ADDRESS article about COLIN CRAIG is hilarious, too, or as well, or along with!
oops http://publicaddress.net/southerly/false-claims-that-colin-craig-and-his-defamation/ ; (horse is slower than motor-cycle.
‘
Heh! Gone. Still shows in a google search but, alas, no cache.