Open Mike 26/04/2018

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 26th, 2018 - 97 comments
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97 comments on “Open Mike 26/04/2018 ”

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  1. Tony Veitch (not etc) 1
    26 April 2018 at 6:43 am

    TAX WORKING Group.

    John Minto over on The Daily Blog has a post on the tax working group and a place to make submissions.

    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/04/24/breaking-the-billionaires-grip-on-our-economy-and-our-lives/

    Or, in case you don’t want to read Minto, go straight to the submission page, below.

    The site poses 5 very interesting questions, with room for comments.

    The deadline is 30th April.

    https://taxworkinggroup.govt.nz/have-your-say-future-tax

    Until I started writing in the comments spaces, I never realised how very ‘left’ I am! It made me think of what the tax system could achieve, in terms of making this country more egalitarian. The more submissions the better. RWNJs need not link, of course!

  2. Jenny 2
    26 April 2018 at 7:20 am

    It is not only the Zionists who kill Palestinians

    The Assad regime has bombed the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in South Damascus killing a family of three.

    https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/assad-regime-strikes-kill-family-of-three-in-syria-s-yarmouk-1.723689

    • Sacha 2.1
      26 April 2018 at 7:23 am

      Jenny, what can the labour movement in NZ do about this?

    • spikeyboy 2.2
      26 April 2018 at 4:24 pm

      I would have thought the differences between the two situations were so obvious that no one would try to make a connection but no… a bit disturbing that you can even use those tragic deaths in Gaza in such a way. You can’t really be equating Assad with the IDF wrt Palestinians can you??

    • dukeofurl 3.1
      26 April 2018 at 8:24 am

      Most people think that ministers can tell the public service what to do anyway ?

    • tc 3.2
      26 April 2018 at 10:22 am

      Jones has never been suitable IMO and makes no efforts to hide his lazy contemptuous attitude towards those he’s meant to serve.

      It’s almost as if he’s deliberately trying to create mischief….

    • Rosemary McDonald 3.3
      26 April 2018 at 10:40 am

      I think we have here a classic example of where it just might be appropriate for the messenger to be (metaphorically) shot rather than the message.😉

      Do I expect our democratically elected representatives to control the public service which has control over the expenditure of dollars collected by order of government?

      Your damn tooting I do!

      Do I think Mr Jones should be the one to guide the Public Service towards a brighter and more ‘progressive’ future?

      No. No. No.

      He has little to no regard of the environmental impacts of development…I am seriously impressed there has (so far) been no public bloodletting twixt him and the Greens.

    • gsays 3.4
      26 April 2018 at 3:30 pm

      While most of the lefties would want a neutral public service, a more reptilian approach to the political game would be stacking appointments and positions with ‘right thinking’, like minded people.

  4. Gabby 4
    26 April 2018 at 7:30 am

    He just doesn’t understand why he hasn’t been given his crown yet.

  5. Sanctuary 5
    26 April 2018 at 7:34 am

    Day three of my no more Herald boycott.

    Very pleasant.

    • Incognito 5.1
      26 April 2018 at 9:07 am

      People who give up smoking or another bad habit don’t call it a boycott 😉

    • veutoviper 5.2
      26 April 2018 at 3:12 pm

      Well done, but excuse me if I don’t join in your boycott. I am already very selective on whose articles I read in the Herald but I am not about to give up on reading ones by David Fisher, Matt Nippert or Kirsty Johnston – at least not until they are put behind a paywall.

      On the issue of Deborah Hill Cone and Clarke Gayford, I mentioned in the other threads on these two, that Gayford also now writes regularly in the Travel section of the Herald and could not figure why the editors would allow one Herald writer to diss another one.

      On checking, Hill Cone appears to be a “Herald” writer, while Gayford actually writes for The Herald on Sunday. The Herald and the HOS are not totally joined at the hip with The Herald Editor being Murray Kirkness, while Miriyana Alexander is the Editor of both The Herald on Sunday and the Weekend Herald.

      So, a little bit of internal NZME rivalry perhaps, but hey still good for clicks?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Zealand_Herald

    • Ankerrawshark 5.3
      26 April 2018 at 8:14 pm

      Mine too sanctuary. Not missing the Herald one bit

  7. Tamati Tautuhi 7
    26 April 2018 at 8:01 am

    Mike Hoskins now advising Clarke Gayford with an “e” not to be so reactionary to DHC’s article about him, will these guys ever give up.

    No wonder he spent 3 years in Form 5 at Linwood High School.

    Journalism/Columnists in NZ are almost childlike these days ?

    • dukeofurl 7.1
      26 April 2018 at 8:27 am

      Pleeeese. We are all enjoying our blackout on NZME

    • Ed 7.2
      26 April 2018 at 8:35 am

      Don’t click.
      Boycott the Herald.

      • savenz 7.2.1
        26 April 2018 at 10:41 am

        Unfortunately when Granny decided to save money by trying to avoid paying journalists anymore they forgot what the main point of their existence. Yep you can just fill the pages with articles other people wrote because often they are written with an agenda, you can’t just fill pages with advertorials because then people stop trusting that you are giving them independent advice and you can’t just fill up the paper with click bait because sooner or later you become a laughing stock.

    • tc 7.3
      26 April 2018 at 10:28 am

      Journalism doesn’t exist in the MSM in it’s purset form anymore, it’s repeaters, copy/paste jockeys and stick to the agreed themes/messages despite the facts.

      I pulled up one of their so called journo’s for copy/pasting a Spark release that was pure BS just to see what would happen.

      Their reaction was the same you get from a child that’s been caught red handed in the act or the DP playbook as they’re pretty similar. Deny, Diffuse, derail than refuse to engage when that fails.

  9. Warren Doney 9
    26 April 2018 at 9:56 am

    Is standing in Northcote a good decision by the Green party executive?

    I think it could backfire really badly. This isn’t the Mount Albert electorate, which was a foregone conclusion. The vote could be really close.

    I get that it’s a great opportunity to raise our profile, but how would it look if Labour lost by less than the vote Green gets? How will it look if we get a very small proportion of the vote because people will vote tactically?

    https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/355915/green-party-to-put-foward-candidate-in-northcote-by-election

    • Pat 9.1
      26 April 2018 at 10:35 am

      is a perfectly rational decision and opportunity ….is a reasonably safe National seat, the result will not impact ability to govern, the Greens can test support levels and Govs seldom win by-elections…its no big deal and the clutching of pearls is mind numbingly stupid.

      • savenz 9.1.1
        26 April 2018 at 10:42 am

        That is what they said about Northland. Clearly Labour and Greens need to work out fairer deals… on how they can work together, without splitting the votes and letting Natz back in!

        • Pat 9.1.1.1
          26 April 2018 at 10:58 am

          and how pray tell can this by-election “let the Nats back in”?……answer is it cant…but it can certainly be milked as an opportunity to claim and foster disunity in a coalition…..keep giving those pearls a workout.

          • savenz 9.1.1.1.1
            26 April 2018 at 1:08 pm

            I mean if they can’t work out how to work together not to split the votes, then longer term it will let the Natz in. Same with NZ First.

            • Pat 9.1.1.1.1.1
              26 April 2018 at 1:26 pm

              and what makes you think the Greens running a candidate in this by election (or NZ First ) somehow indicates a lack of ability to ‘work together’?….or do you expect both NZ First and the Greens to never run a candidate in an electorate seat ever …would seem a somewhat strange idea of working “together”.

              • savenz …
                26 April 2018 at 5:18 pm

                Last election Auckland central Labour/Green candidates got 15,787 votes beating 13,198 Nicky Kaye. In Nelson Labour/Green got 22,198 votes beating 16735 for Nick Smith.

                Clearly those electorates would have preferred either a Labour or Green person but instead their votes were split so they got Natz.

                Many voters don’t want a Natz MP, but it’s hard to work out who to vote for as an electorate vote if you like both Labour or Green.

                They need to make it easier for people to know who to vote for for the electorate vote.

                Maybe they tell people to vote an electorate vote Labour and a Green Party vote, but they could at least have some strategy to prevent what’s happening, with Natz electorate people getting through when most people want Green or Labour.

                • Pat …
                  26 April 2018 at 7:35 pm

                  couple of points…..this aint a general election and it aint that close….and you may think that telling voters what to do is a good idea but id suggest most will resent being told what to do and show you what they think of so being ‘told’

                  • Andre …
                    26 April 2018 at 7:38 pm

                    ” … most will resent being told what to do and show you what they think of so being ‘told’ ”

                    With Epsomites being the notable counterexample.

                    • Pat …
                      26 April 2018 at 7:49 pm

                      Notable as a dissimilar example…ACT won the seat originally and the gerrymandering was largely unspoken and is now historical…the same may be said of Ohariu…..would be presumptuous in the extreme to expect the same response from Northcote.

        • Tuppence Shrewsbury 9.1.1.2
          26 April 2018 at 4:28 pm

          Pro-dirty deals, anti-migrants, crazy conspiracy theories about your self nominated opponents.

          You aren’t orange with a blonde wig by any chance?

          • savenz 9.1.1.2.1
            26 April 2018 at 4:41 pm

            Tuppence do you actually have something to say, because most of your comments just seem to be weirdo rebuttals saying stuff through your own opinion on what someone said, which they are not even saying.

            How about you post something you actually believe in rather than just trolling other’s comments. I know original thought is difficult for right wingers, but at least other right winger’s like James actually have an opinion to offer not just straight trolling.

      • AB 9.1.2
        26 April 2018 at 5:36 pm

        Tend to agree Pat.
        What’s gained if Halbert narrowly wins the by-election because the Greens pulled out, and then almost certainly loses it again at the 2020 General when the Greens absolutely have to stand to promote their brand?
        You can be sure that the media would find anti-Labour messages to frame both events – the first would be winning via a ‘dirty-deal’, and the second would be a ‘blow’ and indicate ‘loss of support’.

        Time to be ambitious here – Halbert should aim to win it even with the Greens standing.

    • Sacha 9.2
      26 April 2018 at 1:23 pm

      “The vote could be really close.”

      What have you read that supports that claim?

  10. Tamati Tautuhi 10
    26 April 2018 at 10:16 am

    NZF need to stand a candidate as they appeal to the right wing voters this could help barstardize the National Party votes ?

  11. Poission 11
    26 April 2018 at 10:38 am

    New book of Exodus.

    Go unto the wilderness as your gym fees and lattes are cheaper

    http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/384536-the-great-exodus-out-of-americas-blue-cities

  14. joe90 14
    26 April 2018 at 12:20 pm

    heh

    “When the aging gorilla is confronted with the much more virile, new alpha-male, he shows submissiveness by grooming the alpha-male, but the gesture is actually a vain attempt by the old gorilla to humiliate his much younger rival.” — Jane Goodall pic.twitter.com/fx85I1KwVy— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) April 24, 2018

    https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/988815112097021952

  15. Penitent 15
    26 April 2018 at 12:27 pm

    Testing

    [It is working but your comments have to be approved – MS]

  16. Cemetery Jones 16
    26 April 2018 at 12:58 pm

    Ah, Democrats. They’re so much better than & different to the Republicans. The kind of people we, the Commonwealth left can relate t….

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6vlu1FRaic&feature=youtu.be

    • savenz 16.1
      26 April 2018 at 4:34 pm

      God that is appalling. The police were actually very reasonable!

    • McFlock 16.2
      26 April 2018 at 4:55 pm

      How to lose a job in ten minutes lol.

      Talk about privilege in action, too. I’ve seen cops literally say “fuck it, you’re under arrest for disorderly” in half that time. Let alone US cops.

      Although that “have a nice weekend” towards the end was just blatantly begging her to do something that crosses the white-person threshold for arrest 🙂

      • joe90 16.2.1
        26 April 2018 at 5:06 pm

        Black person threshold.

        How my boyfriend got pulled over by the police for giving a beggar at 7-11 change: A Thread.— Hermione Danger (@kelseybew_) April 25, 2018

        https://twitter.com/kelseybew_/status/989132611854524417

        Unrolled.

        https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/989132611854524417.html

        • McFlock 16.2.1.1
          26 April 2018 at 5:08 pm

          Not buying anything in Starbucks.
          Driving a car.
          Playing in a park.
          And other similarly serious offences.

          • savenz 16.2.1.1.1
            26 April 2018 at 5:37 pm

            Yes I thought of that too, but then thought, support reasonable action by polite police. At the end of the day they have a lot to deal with and the idea should be to keep the reasonable ones, remove the other (racists) out and not put all police into one box.

            • McFlock 16.2.1.1.1.1
              26 April 2018 at 5:52 pm

              Yeah, but that’s actually how cops and most authority figures should be – remain courteous, let the jerk seal their own fate. I’ve done it myself lesser roles. It can be fun, if you have the right chillaxed mindset. It becomes a game of chess that the other person doesn’t know they’re playing – like that bit at 6:20 where basically she talked herself into offering to do what they’d told her to do all along lol.

              But the only reason they could do that was because they didn’t have a surge of adrenaline.

              A lot of that could well be to do with who they pulled over and who turned up to give them a lift home.

              My main thought on privilege though is that she assumed she could talk to the cops that way without immediate repercussion. And she was right. They had multiple opportunities to arrest her if they’d wanted to, but they chose to just make damned sure the camera documented everything.

              I feel sorry for the daughter – the mother will probably blame her for losing the job, if the behaviour is anything to go by.

      • Bill 16.2.2
        26 April 2018 at 5:49 pm

        You don’t think saying to a cop “you may shut the fuck up” wasn’t pole vaulting right on over the line?

        • McFlock 16.2.2.1
          26 April 2018 at 6:02 pm

          True it barely registered on me.

          At the beginning of her intervention it would have been (well, they might have warned her for one), but by the stage she used it she was clearly going to fuckoffskie soon, and if they’d arrested her for that they would have had to listen to her for the entire trip back to the station lol

    • Bill 16.3
      26 April 2018 at 5:45 pm

      wtf was that?!

      Coke on privilege, or privilege on coke?

  17. Sacha 17
    26 April 2018 at 1:24 pm

    First impressions of the ten-year funded transport plan for the Auckland region: https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2018/04/26/atap-2-0-first-details-look-great/

  18. Morrissey 18
    26 April 2018 at 1:44 pm

    Dr Philth is now pretending to support the victims of a sniper
    Thursday 26 April 2018

    Just watched a bit of today’s Dr Philth on three. This episode is grandly captioned: “Stories of horror and hope from Las Vegas. Dr Phil speaks to brave survivors of the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.”

    In the few seconds I could bear to watch, I saw Dr Philth, with that pooch face, empathising at full volume with some victims.

    This is very odd behaviour for Dr Philth, who not that long ago was fulsome in his praise of a far more lethal sniper than the Las Vegas one….

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19082015/#comment-1060544

    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-17112015/#comment-1096957

  19. tracey 19
    26 April 2018 at 1:46 pm

    Interesting article from newsroom about Robertsons budget affirming a neolib government, a far cry from Winstons denunciation of neoliberlism and Arderns criticisms of it.

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/04/25/106148/government-living-by-someone-elses-rules

    • Rosemary McDonald 19.1
      26 April 2018 at 3:22 pm

      But we have a hard core neo liberal public service. These corporate bureaucrats have been controlling how our tax dollars are spent for nearly three decades.

      Bomber had a good piece over at TDB. I largely agree with him… other than siccing Uncle Shane onto them.

      When I become dictator I’ll start with a massive purge of Misery of Health bureaucrats…then possibly retire.😉

      • tracey 19.1.1
        26 April 2018 at 4:18 pm

        I hear you! But we dont need another Cullen.

        • alwyn 19.1.1.1
          26 April 2018 at 5:19 pm

          You’ve already got the original one. Look who is head of the tax working group. And is a Director on the Auckland Transport Board.
          You certainly don’t want another of his ilk I should hope.

          • tracey 19.1.1.1.1
            26 April 2018 at 6:09 pm

            Well he was the man national couldn’t criticise for nearly 9 years cos they agreed with how he was running the economy.

            Could be worse, could be Shipley, but then the Transport Board would have to go into receivership

  20. Draco T Bastard 20
    26 April 2018 at 2:56 pm

    Now Belgium declares loot boxes gambling and therefore illegal

    Hot on the heels of the Netherlands declaring loot boxes are gambling and therefore illegal, Belgium has had its say.

    The Belgian Gaming Commission looked at Star Wars Battlefront 2, FIFA 18, Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and found only Star Wars was not in violation of the country’s gambling legislation – and that’s only because EA stripped out the game’s loot boxes after its launch debacle.

    Which is good. We don’t need to have kids addicted to gambling from playing games.

    Now all we need is for the NZ government to do the same.

  21. tracey 21
    26 April 2018 at 4:19 pm

    ” Guy also says commercial considerations played no part in the decision, which he said was based on “science and risk mitigation”. But that’s contradicted on multiple occasions by MPI emails. In May 2015, MPI’s Richard Fraser, a senior analyst in the aquaculture unit, wrote to aquaculture industry figures: “MPI must consider, assess and manager the legal, trade, reputational and biosecurity risks at all stages of this response.” A month earlier, Fraser said the response “aims to minimise negative impacts to the aquaculture industry, wild fisheries, the environment, socio-cultural values and trade”. The same email trumpeted “No trade implications have been raised by our trading partners” – his emphasis. ”

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/04/25/106218/culture-of-silence-or-a-cover-up

    • Rosemary McDonald 21.1
      26 April 2018 at 5:50 pm

      Well, that answers a few questions I had at the time.It was obvious there was something seriously fishy going on with us supposed to swallow the line that Sanford vessels traveling between Marlborough and Stewart Island were not considered to be a possible mode of transfer of the disease.

      And then, then, the Cawthron Institute getting the lion’s share of the funding pot.

      Shakes head and sighs..

      Thanks Tracey, I would have missed that had you not posted.

      • tracey 21.1.1
        26 April 2018 at 6:10 pm

        Good on Newsroom for the investigation albeit a delving some years too late. Seems the press seem happier to question national Government’s AFTER they are voted out

  22. R.P McMurphy 22
    26 April 2018 at 5:11 pm

    JUST listened to jamie lee ross whine on on Radio New Zealand claiming that the governments roading policy is a rehash of Nationals programme.
    That maybe so but it is not news and why is RadioNewZealand doing this.
    I think clair curran has a big job on her plate making this news organisation pull its bloody socks up.

    • McFlock 22.1
      26 April 2018 at 5:15 pm

      Well, if it is just a rehash he has a point, so it’s fair comment.

      If not, then RNZ should be factchecking what he says. That’s the problem with media at the moment – very few pollys get fact-checked by reporters, and them that do are almost always lefties (or tory politicians the DP crowd hate)

    • tracey 22.2
      26 April 2018 at 6:11 pm

      If he is right then a few Nat voters are being made to look stupid criticising it

      • Graeme 22.2.1
        26 April 2018 at 6:42 pm

        That’s probably what’s got jamie lee ross’s nickers in a bunch, he can’t criticise it…

        • OnceWasTim 22.2.1.1
          26 April 2018 at 7:18 pm

          it doesn’t take much with Jl-R. A little tummy rumble is apt to set him crying for mummy

  23. Paul Campbell 23
    26 April 2018 at 6:45 pm

    I’ve been watching the current Australian enquiry into banks and finance companies, what a bunch of scoundrels!

    Since the same banks also own and run our banks one has to guess that there’s a good chance that they are just as corrupt – is it time for a similar enquiry here?

  24. joe90 24
    26 April 2018 at 6:52 pm

    Check the second bullet point in the image.

    No wonder they’re all as mad as hatters.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dbqq_t2VAAAPf3L.jpg

    The opioid crisis is inside the White House. No way the admiral gets confirmed. In fact, he'll be lucky if he escapes prosecution. The question once again: What did Trump know and when did he know it? pic.twitter.com/iVE0OFUsmt— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) April 25, 2018

    https://twitter.com/bobcesca_go/status/989291402419941376

    • Andre 24.1
      26 April 2018 at 7:33 pm

      I’m surprised at how little mention has been made of the fact he was appointed White House physician in 2013. The usual suspects are starting to mumble about Obama, but I would have expected a full-on blamestorm by now.

  25. greywarshark 25
    26 April 2018 at 8:29 pm

    We’re dragging our knuckles in NZ again. We have more than once been the last western country to trade or use something. Scoop is bringing us up to date as to the latest way that some of our leading farmers have rorted good business standards.

    Now we are buying ‘blood’ fertiliser from Western Sahara.
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1804/S00260/nz-farmers-last-remaining-importers-of-conflict-mineral.htm
    Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) today published its fifth annual overview of companies involved in the purchase and transport of phosphate rock exploited illegally by Morocco in the territory it holds under military occupation: Western Sahara.
    The report details all shipments of Western Sahara’s white gold to importers worldwide for the calendar year 2017. New Zealand based farmers’ cooperatives Ballance Agri-Nutrients and Ravensdown have together imported an estimated 333,000 tonnes of the contentious rock, to the tune of about US $ 30 million….

    The European Union has recently taken measures to limit the cadmium-rate in phosphate-based fertilizers. By 2030, phosphate rock from Morocco (and Western Sahara) will no longer be allowed in the EU single market, as the cadmium level of phosphate rock in North Africa in general is much higher than the allowed ratio.

    WSRW has contacted both Ballance and Ravensdown regarding their continued imports, but the firms did not respond.

    Keywords:
    Illegal
    $millions
    NZ farmers co-operatives (so farmers theoretically should have a say in this.)
    Cadmium
    No response from NZ firms to enquiries.

    It’s awkward though. Is Fiji under a military occupation, or a fait accompli government? I think we should be able to trade with Russia, so where do we draw the line. The resources of the country of Western Sahara are being sold from under their feet. The copper from Western Papua also I think. How does that compare with Judith Collins et al exporting ancient, irreplacable fossilised? kauri trees under a deliberately managed system that narrowly evades being illegal? Is this what happens in a free market? People try to hold onto a rule of law they understand – they have it in their hand, look away, and it’s slipped right through their fingers.

  26. Ed 26
    26 April 2018 at 8:48 pm

    Paul Craig Roberts presents an interesting perspective here.

    Where Is The Shame?

    Now that the Trump, May, and Macron regimes have proven beyond all doubt that they are lawless war criminal regimes, what is next?

    Will the Russian president and foreign minister continue to speak of “our Western partners” and seek common ground with proven lawless war criminals? What would that common ground be?

    How can other governments accept the US, UK, and French governments that intentionally lied about a Russian chemical attack on the Skripals and about a Syrian chemical attack on Douma, risking a third world war, and then themselves attacking Syria on the basis of a transparent lie unsupported by any evidence? How exactly do you conduct diplomatic relations with war criminals?

    You don’t. You put them on trial. Why aren’t Trump, May, and Macron on trial?

    https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/24/where-is-the-shame/

    • joe90 26.1
      26 April 2018 at 9:31 pm

      Paul Craig Roberts, apologist for the confederate south, slavery, racism, the KKK, white supremacy, racial segregation, and more.

      War of Northern Aggression

      […]

      Slavery had nothing whatsoever to do with the war.

      […]

      Thus, Lincoln’s vain attempt to provoke a slave rebellion in the South. Why didn’t such allegedly horribly treated and oppressed slaves revolt when there was no one to prevent it but women and children?

      […]

      It is not only the ruling elite that has a vested interest in the false history of “white racism,” but also the universities and history departments in which the false history is institutionalized and the foundations that have financed black history, women’s studies, and transgender dialogues.

      […]

      The Klu Klux Klan arose as a guerrilla force to stop the predation

      […]

      Blacks, who were unprepared for the task, were put in control of governments so that carpetbaggers could loot and steal. Whites lost the franchise and protection of law as their property was stolen.

      […]

      In the South, and most certainly in Atlanta, where I grew up, schools were neighborhood schools. We were segregated by economic class. I went to school with middle class kids from my middle class neighborhood. I did not go to school with rich kids or with poor kids. This segregation was not racial.

      https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/18/conversation-race-paul-craig-roberts/

      • Ed 26.1.1
        26 April 2018 at 9:35 pm

        It is interesting that a member of Reagan’s government is so critical of the right wing now, though.
        I agree that those views on the US Civil War that you have highlighted are wrong.

  27. Ed 27
    26 April 2018 at 10:09 pm

    More excellent writing by Craig Murray.

    “Macron is frequently described as a French Tony Blair, but to me he seems more a French Margaret Thatcher, seeking to use a jingoistic military policy to distract from very unpopular neo-liberal destruction of worker protections at home. It is hard to believe his peculiar love-in with Trump is going down well in France. The danger is that he will feel obliged to commit to more military adventurism to live up to the hype. I know that those close to Merkel look on all this posing with dour disapproval.”

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/the-noisy-frenchman/

  28. Ed 28
    26 April 2018 at 10:16 pm

    An finally tonight, the peerless John Pilger explains why the BBC is one of world’s most refined propaganda services.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2myKhHzz7s&ebc=ANyPxKq5ces7pixkQGo8VVYpPf7OC-g2qmy-2a4FCjdkDmQf9l9Tcb07UIGSEgKjwpPRjUMYrlUK9C6yGhhEL6NJoIgU7QLFfQ

  29. Richard@Downsouth 29
    26 April 2018 at 10:17 pm

    A little off topic but most staff at my work didn’t get paid Wednesday (usual pay day)… Most got paid today, though some of us with a Credit Union or basically not one of the big banks, will get paid tomorrow…

    I enquired about it and was told ‘Not my fault the banks screwed up…. which left me scratching my head as ANZAC day is hardly something that sneaks up on you

    • greywarshark 29.1
      27 April 2018 at 4:47 pm

      I thought that all the payments were fed into machines that did the transferring of credits. It is not as if there has to be someone counting the notes and coins, putting them in little brown envelopes with the employees’ names on. That is how it used to be.

      How come the machines weren’t programmed? As you say Anzac Day hasn’t just sneaked up on us suddenly.

      • Richard@Downsouth 29.1.1
        27 April 2018 at 10:58 pm

        The payments are all calculated by 9am Monday morning and passed on to the bank for processing, wouldnt have hard to have it put through for Tuesday (like most other Holidays that would affect pay)

  30. eco maori 30
    27 April 2018 at 8:17 am

    The AM Show Climate change is real the people who are deniers are lobbying for oil because they think they can eat and drink their money just like the flat Earth fools. Duncan Many thanks for talking about climate change.
    I advocate for the environment and all our creatures so ECO MAORI Says that’s is a special contribution I will be doing much more as soon as I sort out the sandflys. Just finished milking the mokos are in Town it will be a quiet weekend. Ka kite ano

    • eco maori 30.1
      27 April 2018 at 6:42 pm

      Newshub There you go a creditable witness only credible for the sandflys case cause they call them assets. Assets to help them suppress MAORI these brown assets contracted liers don’t even realise they are helping the sandflys suppress Maori.
      I will forgive them because they no not what they are doing.
      That’s a good way Fonterra is using social media and new technology tracking food from the table to plate that will ease the consurns of the consumer.
      YEA elictric Cars are one of the answers to us Kiwis becoming Carbon neutral we have plenty of scope to generate renewable energy hydro solar wind Jamie Shaw is happy about the changes and so is ECO MAORI Ka pai.
      Its good to see daplomicy is working in Korea Ka pai.
      Just because it is illegal doesn’t mean the sandflys won’t use DNA on the website or whatever they will use whatever they can to satisfy there EGOS.
      Trade training should be compolsery in our prisons get the people working when they get out of prison the old saying working is good for the sole.
      Ka kite ano

      • eco maori 30.1.1
        27 April 2018 at 7:17 pm

        The Crowd Goes Wild WAI and Makere 2 natives Ka pai.
        I hope the first person that you were descusing has good fortunes Kia kaha.
        Many thanks to Buttabean for the great work he is doing with the over weight people.
        Sports is a great way for tangata to climb up there of life Ka kite ano

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