Open Mike 26/02/2017

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 26th, 2017 - 54 comments
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54 comments on “Open Mike 26/02/2017 ”

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  1. dv 1
    26 February 2017 at 8:11 am

    A heads up
    Can you hear me scam

    http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/25/can-you-hear-me-scam-could-be-stealing-your-details-police-warn-6471711/

    Reported in the US

    A local number will ring you
    The person on the phone will then introduce themselves and the company they supposedly work for
    They then ask: ‘Can you hear me?’
    Your answer is recorded, and if you say ‘yes’, your response will be edited and then used to charge you for products or services without your knowledge.

    Not quite sure how they charge, unless they have accessed you CC

    Not in NZ But probably not far behind.

    • Stephanie Rodgers 1.1
      26 February 2017 at 10:05 am

      You know why “fake news” has become such a phenomenon, and we constantly ask ourselves why other people believe utter bullshit just because someone said it on TV?

      Because it’s 2017 and people still spread crap like this without at least checking Snopes first.
      http://www.snopes.com/can-you-hear-me-scam/

      (Snopes is much more iffy when it comes to political stories, but on basic “is this a scam? Did this person actually give birth to a squid?” nonsense they are a must-read.)

      • Stephanie Rodgers 1.1.1
        26 February 2017 at 10:13 am

        I don’t want to harp on about this, but it is serious. When people start believing absolute rubbish like “if someone records me saying ‘yes’ then they’ll be able to steal money from me” which have no logic and no grounding in reality it means they’re far more likely to believe other “just so” stories. Like “tax cuts for the rich will stimulate the economy, the man on telly said so” or “the government can’t do anything about recessions and job losses, they just happen”.

        We have to be able to think critically about our world and how things happen or we’ll believe anything.

        • dv 1.1.1.1
          26 February 2017 at 11:34 am

          Yes, probably right Stephnie.
          Small thing to be prepared re possible scam.

          • weka 1.1.1.1.1
            26 February 2017 at 11:36 am

            The thing that interests me about it is that there are moves to use voice recording in ways that will lessen privacy and civil rights, and that probably will open us up to scams too.

            The rumour a few years ago was that the WINZ call centre wanted to record voices to build up a voice recognition database for ID purposes, hence the push to get you to speak your way through the queue rather than push a button.

          • Stephanie Rodgers 1.1.1.1.2
            26 February 2017 at 1:16 pm

            It’s not a “small thing” at all. It’s panic-mongering which teaches people bad habits – “oh, I heard they ask “can you hear me”, then it’s a scam, but this lovely young man telling me to give him remote access to my computer sounds credible”. And it has taught the media bad habits – don’t bother actually finding someone who has been scammed, don’t actually interview the relevant police agencies, don’t bother reporting on genuine threats posed by technology and fraud, just got to grab the headline about NEW PHONE RECORDING SCAM!!!! to get more clicks than the next guy.

      • Morrissey 1.1.2
        26 February 2017 at 10:18 am

        Fake news didn’t start with the Trump gang….

        http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/sun1-thumb.jpg

        • weka 1.1.2.1
          26 February 2017 at 10:43 am

          Wait, what? People told lies before DT? Holy fuck.

          • tinfoilhat 1.1.2.1.1
            26 February 2017 at 10:48 am

            i’m shocked… 😆

          • Morrissey 1.1.2.1.2
            26 February 2017 at 1:05 pm

            To be specific, organized lying, disinformation and suppression campaigns have long been with us. Centuries ago, agents of the Church pinned dissenters with fatal labels such as “witch” and “heretic”; progressive and tolerant thinkers in eighteenth-century Britain were routinely silenced with the label “Jacobin”; Mao’s apparatchiks used the damning phrase “capitalist running dog”; and Marxist groups everywhere cursed opponents within their ranks by calling them “revisionists”; American progressives have been called “reds” or “communists” since Pullman hired Pinkerton agents to intimidate and beat up unionized workers in the nineteenth century.

            Trump, Conway, Spicer, De Vos and co., however, have already taken things to a bizarre new level.

        • Stephanie Rodgers 1.1.2.2
          26 February 2017 at 1:17 pm

          Didn’t even mention Trump. Stop projecting your current fixations on everyone else.

          • Morrissey 1.1.2.2.1
            26 February 2017 at 1:26 pm

            Surely the propagation of false news by Trump and his gang is not solely my “current fixation.”

            I thought everyone in the world who was even moderately compos mentis would automatically associate the name “Trump” with the phrase “false news.”

            Apparently I’ve been living in a fool’s paradise.


  2. Morrissey 2
    26 February 2017 at 8:56 am

    Shame on Rep. John Lewis

    We first encountered this sad ex-civil rights fighter-cum-Clinton supporter a month and a half ago, foolishly recycling ludicrous DNC lies about Russian puppet-masters….
    https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-17012017/#comment-1288079

    This wasn’t the first time the former civil rights fighter had told lies for Clinton….

  3. locus 3
    26 February 2017 at 9:17 am

    As Donald Trump pushes the United States toward inaction on climate change, he is likely to find an ally in Russia.

    Russia is the fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. Yet the plan it submitted under the Paris agreement to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 is one of the weakest of any government and actually permits Russia to increase carbon pollution over time. The Paris agreement went into effect last November, but Russia is the only major emitter that has not ratified it. Instead, it has laid out a timetable that would delay ratification for almost three years.

  4. One Anonymous Bloke 4
    26 February 2017 at 9:21 am

    🙄

    …and Pete will be there, every step of the way, to try and make it as dull and bland and meaningless as he is.

    [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.]

    [blatant flaming, take the day off. You know how this works OAB, how many times do you have to be told? – weka]

    [because you’ve been told enough times, but do seem to have made an effort in recent times to post on topic and to include some kind of point in your comments, I’m putting you in premod for a week from tomorrow. It’s easier than having to moderate – weka]

  5. Tautoko Mangō Mata 5
    26 February 2017 at 9:53 am

    I see that money and donations and a slur won the day for Perez over Ellison for Democratic Party President.
    http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/americas/1.756889

  6. Penny Bright 6
    26 February 2017 at 12:29 pm

    Wow! After a close call in the Mt Albert by-election, (congratulations Jacinda and Labour team 🙂 I can now continue to focus on the fight against, in my view, endemic and entrenched NZ corruption.

    (My following comment was recently published on the NBR – ‘subscriber only’ section.)

    In my considered opinion, bribery and corruption at Auckland Transport (AT)
    grew and became entrenched through the ‘collaboration’ model for contracting.

    Who initiated this ‘collaboration’ model for contracting?

    None other than corrupt senior Auckland Transport Manager – Murray
    Noone.

    Who supported and endorsed Murray Noone’s ‘collaboration’ model?

    Former Auckland Transport Chief Operating Officer Fergus Gammie.

    Who took corrupt Murray Noone’s ‘collaboration’ model for contracting to the Auckland Transport Board for their approval?

    Auckland Transport Chief Executive David Warburton.

    When did the BOARD of Auckland Transport approve corrupt Murray Noone’s ‘collaboration’ model for contracting?

    18 May 2011.

    (Check paragraph [301] of the ‘Reasons for the Verdict of Fitzgerald J’ and read this for yourself.

    In my considered opinion, former and current Auckland Transport Executive staff at the highest levels, and the Board of Auckland Transport have helped to develop and entrench corruption, by their support for this ‘collaboration’ model for contracting

    What’s being done about this ‘collaboration’ model’?

    How is it lawful or proper for ANY ‘public official’ to simultaneously be a private consultant?

    How widespread is THIS practice?

    Anybody else asking these HARD questions?

    By trying to pass off bribery and corruption within Auckland Transport as the work of a couple of aberrant employees, in my view, is just lying to the public.

    Because the Board of Auckland Transport have declined to instruct forthwith, their CEO to ensure that Auckland Transport make details of all contracts worth less than $50,000, and ALL sub-contracted contracts equally available for public scrutiny on their website, I have made a formal complaint to the SFO against the Board of Auckland Transport for alleged criminal negligence.

    Penny Bright

    ‘Anti-privatisation / anti-corruption campaigner’.

  7. Macro 7
    26 February 2017 at 2:01 pm

    Not content with insulting and mistreating innocent international travelers to their country the US Border Officials are now turning on their own citizens.
    FFS Muhammad Ali’s son held and questioned for 2 hours by Border Control after returning to Florida from Jamaica with his mother.

    • weka 7.1
      26 February 2017 at 2:18 pm

      How can you be an American if you have an Un-American name? /sarc

      I guess assuming or inheriting a name is now an Un-American activity.

      • Macro 7.1.1
        26 February 2017 at 8:09 pm

        Well I guess you would change your name if it was Drumpf…
        But after his mother was able to show a photo of her and Muhammad – and in doing so being allowed to go through – you might have thought that Border Control would have had enough sense to realize who he was.
        But this is not the first time that this has happened, (I’ve linked before to a NASA scientist who was held up on return, and had to give his cell phone and tablet log ins before they would let him through!) and I’m sure it will not be the last.

        • Sacha 7.1.1.1
          26 February 2017 at 9:33 pm

          Yet they are about to lower their hiring standards further so they can bring on thousands more border agents to handle the increased workload. What could possibly go wrong?

  8. Muttonbird 8
    26 February 2017 at 4:24 pm

    Foster-Smell gone. Told to quit by Bill English in reality, despite Farrar and co bleating that candidate selection is not interfered with by the higher-ups.

    Tui ad right there.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11807937

    Word is he’s a bit of a bully to his staff.

  9. joe90 9
    26 February 2017 at 5:38 pm

    Fuck the supposed fake news/MSM bias, this is what the real free press is about.

    Kurdish journalist Shifa Gardi of #Rudaw TV, killed with a roadside bomb left by ISIS near Mosul while covering ongoing operation RIP! pic.twitter.com/veOkrcdKZB— Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) February 25, 2017

    http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/shifa-gardi-dead-death-photos-kurd-iraq-mosul-isis-news-journalist-killed-died-cause-of/

  10. Muttonbird 10
    26 February 2017 at 8:08 pm

    Bennett spent 7.7million dollars on motels in the three months to December 2016 at a rate 15 times their expectations.

    In Bennett’s own words…

    To be honest, we just had no idea, and that’s part of it. I mean, they’re often hidden from us.

    …and Amy Adams tells us…

    The $2 million was what officials predicted might be needed – remembering that this was the first time we’d established the grant, so it was always going to be a forecast,”

    Amy’s forecast was out by a factor of 15, and counting.

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/02/government-blows-the-budget-on-emergency-housing.html

    • Gabby 10.1
      26 February 2017 at 8:44 pm

      Bit of a lazybones, ole Puller.

    • Whispering Kate 10.2
      26 February 2017 at 8:45 pm

      Muttonbird, its easy to spend money which you haven’t had to work your ass off for. No wonder people rort and try to avoid tax, giving it to these useless idiots is enough to give anybody a bloody pain in the proverbial. Whoever is doing the book keeping and not making sure that money is spent sensibly being heedful that its hard earned income needs the sack immediately for their obvious incompetence – the Minister for a start. Any NZ business running itself like the Government is would be declared bankrupt. Seven million is a bloody disgrace. “To be honest we just had no idea …” explains it completely.

  11. joe90 11
    26 February 2017 at 8:26 pm

    Eve Ensler writes in a series looking at women’s rage around the globe.

    .

    Around the world, women have been suffering political oppression and worse for years, but we do not expect them to be violent. We tell ourselves that women who take up guns are aberrations. We are terrified of women’s rage, their fierceness, and their righteousness, so we create narratives and projections that deny their power of agency and authority. We tell ourselves that they kill for their husbands, that they are merely pawns, used and misused in a men’s game. They don’t have their own politics. Not “real” politics. They get drawn into “bad” situations against their will. They don’t know what they’re doing. We frame these stories any number of ways, but make sure that militant women are never the central characters, never voicing and determining their own story. This is far easier than confronting the depth of female commitment, radicalism, and vision. How does a mother watch her baby starve or her daughter be raped by soldiers of mining companies occupying her land without retaliating? How does a women continue on when she herself has been raped and re-raped by soldiers in a war fought over her country’s resources? How do women not go insane when they witness the daily assault of corporations and their proxy militias on their land, their water, their children, their husbands, their sons?

    https://www.guernicamag.com/female-fighters-series-re-examines-womens-rage-around-the-world/

    https://www.guernicamag.com/special/female-fighters/

    • Sabine 11.1
      26 February 2017 at 9:57 pm

      that was a good read.

      and just because

      22/02/1943 Sophie Scholl was decapitated. As the Volksgericht in Germany at the time thought a good fitting punishment for dropping leaflets with ‘counter propaganda’ or ‘fake news’ if you want.

      she is supposed to have said this:
      http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/217576-the-real-damage-is-done-by-those-millions-who-want

      “The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”

      so i guess the question is, is one a little candle or a flaming torch? And how would we choose to burn?

  12. Gabby 12
    26 February 2017 at 8:46 pm

    Eve’s really gone off on one. Does she have a solution? Hopefully something less abstract than ‘reframing’ the ‘narrative’.

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