Open mike 26/08/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 26th, 2024 - 26 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

26 comments on “Open mike 26/08/2024 ”

  1. Tony Veitch 1

    How much more ‘evidence’ does our weak weak PM need to act?

    He played the ‘alpha male’ role in sacking a Melissa Lee, but will Winnie allow him to sack Casey Costello?

    I think not – yet her connection to big Tobacco is writ plain to see.

    We need a PM with just a tad of integrity – oh, wait a moment, half his cabinet would be down the road if he had any strength of character.

    But, after all, running NZ and our reputation into the ground is worth it for a knighthood!

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/526139/revealed-politically-charged-tobacco-policy-document-that-nz-first-minister-casey-costello-tried-to-hide

    And an earlier revelation:

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/525918/costello-brushes-off-revelation-tobacco-giant-philip-morris-targeted-nz-first

    Sometime, the shit’s got to stick!

    • dv 1.1

      Earlier this year, Costello denied the document existed. Now, she has released it with parts redacted even though she says she does not know who wrote it.

      BIZZARE

    • Tiger Mountain 1.2

      The RNZ piece covers it all well. Maybe Costello herself wrote it…in any event she will go for a skate if the truth does finally emerge.

      It is not a good look when the CoC reduces school lunches from nutritious hot meals and fruit to dried out sandwiches to save money, but can afford a $216 mill subsidy for the Tobacco Industry.

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 1.3

      Comparing Melissa Lee to Casey Costello ?…It aint gonna happen. 2 very different MP's and situations. Ol' Case is very hard ass. (ex cop an all) and of course her TPU connections.

      Also IMO she would have mucho defensive and offensive weaponry (incl knowledge of insider NACT1 corruption), if Luxon even dared look at her sideways….

      None of which belies that …yes, corrupt as a rotting thing.

      Maybe the best positive is Labour's Ayesha Verrall scalpel on her…

      Verrall said that given the significance of the document, it was implausible Costello did not know its origin.

      "I don't think it's the sort of thing that you can credibly say you don't know where it came from," she said.

      "This lady's past career was as a detective. I don't see how the New Zealand public can reasonably be expected to believe something as tenuous as that."

      Also RNZ (who Ol' Case wont respond to)

      Costello's office did not address questions from RNZ about how she could use this clause if she did not know who wrote the document.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/526139/revealed-politically-charged-tobacco-policy-document-that-nz-first-minister-casey-costello-tried-to-hide

    • Tony Veitch 1.4

      No Right Turn really puts the boot in!

      How on earth can Costello remain a minister an anyone's government?

      Oh, wait, as Debbie said, she's one of the 'other' Prime Minister's people!

      https://norightturn.blogspot.com/search/label/Casey%20Costello

      And Bomber adds his mite as only Bomber can:

      “What the fuck does she have to do to get sacked?”

      https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2024/08/26/what-on-earth-does-casey-costello-have-to-do-to-get-sacked/

  2. Jimmy 2

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/08/25/kaitaia-college-student-receives-opportunities-after-ice-block-sales-struggle/

    "In 2021, the Kaitaia College student began selling Juicies at school over the summer after the canteen closed down."

    The board of trustees need to take a good look at themselves. I'm sure this student will go on to bigger and better things and be very successful.

    • AB 2.1

      It looks like some of these "opportunities" may be more a case of other people leveraging this young man's current media stardom to increase awareness of their own brands.

      I've not seen anything indicating that the Board of Trustees is doing anything other than impartially applying its own rules. If the outcome is bad one they don't need to look at themselves as you suggest, but at the rules.

      Finally, it is interesting how an example of an engaging young guy showing entrepreneurship and an eye for a financial opportunity, is treated with such breathless praise. I guess that's because it validates a powerful myth: that financial success comes from hard work and initiative, and poverty comes from laziness and stupidity.

    • bwaghorn 2.2

      Yip that's what we need kids in our school's profiting from other kids. Definitely the way forward

      • Jimmy 2.2.1

        He only started once the school canteen closed down. So there was a demand for the service.

        Entrepreneurship leads to inequality. We can’t have that!

        • adam 2.2.1.1

          Entrepreneurship leads to inequality. We can’t have that!

          Financialization is what has driven inequality. Not entrepreneurship. Because with Financialization there has been a concentration of wealth, which does nothing for an economy, but concentrate more wealth with those who already have wealth. That was put on hyper drive with Covid19 and it has only got worse since. Capitalism has no out at this point, and that is the bloody problem.

        • bwaghorn 2.2.1.2

          Ok where do you draw the line, ? This young go getter gets away with it every school in nz will have kids hawking their goods in no time at all. At the behest of there parents in most cases

  3. Macro 3

    Ohinemuri River discolouration: Old mine shaft in Karangahake Gorge the cause https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/526052/ohinemuri-river-discolouration-old-mine-shaft-in-karangahake-gorge-the-cause

    It wasn't me.

    Ok I did take a walk there the day before, but it wasn't me!

  4. Hunter Thompson II 4

    Big changes announced to the controversial Fast-Track legislation (or so the government would like us to think).

    Apparently, instead of a trio of ministers making the decisions to ram through environmentally damaging projects, those decisions will now be made by carefully selected groups of stooges who will come up with the same results anyway (or am I being too cynical?)

    A veneer of democracy.

    • dv 4.1

      AND A MORE COSTLY veneer of democracy.

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 4.2

      carefully selected groups of stooges who will come up with the same results anyway (or am I being too cynical?)

      Summed. I thought just the same. And not in any way cynical. You, like myself, (and I sincerely hope many others) see the true shape of the creeps in, and behind, NACT1

  5. Please stop force teaming same sex attracted people with straight people and people with medical conditions. There is no LGBTQI+++ "community".

    Anybody who is same sex attracted is covered by the LGB – everything else is "straight".

    "I" stands for "Intersex" which is an archaic term for people with a difference or variation of sex development (DSD). These are medical conditions – about 40 known syndromes, and they are all variations on either male or female. They prove the sex binary rather than undermining it.

    We now have the Women's Rights Party because Labour and the Green Party have both been captured by Gender Ideology.

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    • SPC 5.1

      Every parliamentary member of the National and ACT parties voted for self ID. The placement of "gender" on the drivers licence and passport occurred while National was in power.

    • The comment related to the post about how Labour should rebuild its support among different voting blocks. One of the identified blocks was termed "LGBTI". My point is that this not a homogenous block and does not exist as a separate community of interest.

      • weka 5.2.1

        I moved it because it potentially would derail the post, and because we’re trying to limit the GC/TA debate here (that’s a change in policy that will take place when TS 3.0 rolls out) in part so we can focus on other things.

    • weka 5.3

      Technically there is a rainbow community that includes T and I/Dsd. The problem isn’t its existence, it’s the particular politics that do the force teaming and actively oppose LGB.

      • Karolyn_IS 5.3.1

        It's more represented by Rainbow/LGBT+ organisations, which these days have a lot of lobbying power, influence and media visibility. I started to feel less aligned to the likes of Pride/Hero when they were neo-liberalised (focus on display, performance, and with a fair bit of corporate sponsorship – also more male-dominant in terms of marketing).

        But the shift from same-sex- attraction to same gender ID attraction has alienated many of us who are LG or B. These organisations accept heterosexual males who ID as women as being 'lesbian'; and heterosexual females who ID as men identifying also identifying as 'gay men'.

  6. adam 6

    Great video spelling out the economic game.

  7. ianmac 8

    Treasury officials warned the Finance Minister that paying for promised cancer medicines would cost $1 billion, forcing trade offs in primary care and mental health ‒ advice Cabinet ignored.

    So the GPs and their teams are expendable, least to the CoC.

    https://www.thepress.co.nz/a/nz-news/350383937/medicines-boost-will-mean-health-trade-offs-and-cost-1b-treasury-warned?lid=14p5rw8oyy5f&utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_press_digi_weekday_bulletin