Open mike 28/11/2020

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, November 28th, 2020 - 60 comments
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60 comments on “Open mike 28/11/2020 ”

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  1. Andre 1
    28 November 2020 at 7:44 am

    Maybe he thought it would make him look like he actually is the 6'2" he falsely claims, that even his elevator shoes don't get him to?

    https://twitter.com/MongolianMisfit/status/1332118811353501699

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-tiny-desk-meme_n_5fc0a552c5b68ca87f8319b6

    • Chris T 1.1
      28 November 2020 at 8:34 am

      That is actually quite a clever set-up by whoever was doing the staging for the speech, or what ever.

      • McFlock 1.1.1
        28 November 2020 at 2:52 pm

        It's a bit like the bogroll on his shoe as he walked up the steps to Airforce One.

        Even if nobody involved actively hates him, nobody saw the problem, or if they did see the problem nobody cared enough about his image to point it out.

        • Chris T 1.1.1.1
          28 November 2020 at 3:20 pm

          Pretty much.

          TV camera shows close up of what looks like a normal size desk, clever.

          In fact a lot of other presidents have probably done it to get round things when travelling or whatever.

          Trumps problem is he is an arsehole and easy pickings now, with no power anymore, so someone gets to photo it and show how the "fake" works at his expense.

          Imagine there were a lot lining up to do it given his staff loyalty.

          • McFlock 1.1.1.1.1
            28 November 2020 at 5:00 pm

            But this isn't an improvised setting while travelling. He's at the freaking white house. Dude could have actually sat at a normal sized desk, instead of a side table.

            Not everything has to be done behind the Resolute Desk, but shiiiiit…

            • Chris T 1.1.1.1.1.1
              28 November 2020 at 5:14 pm

              Yeah. I apologise. I Googled the actual footage and as you say, it is as was actually shown on the peoples telly.

              Sorry. Just assumed that it was a behind the camera snapshot of how they make shit look real.

              I was wrong 🙂 He is again, just a fricken idiot.

              Edit: Pretty funny though. It is like the dude has run out of any semblence of dignity!

            • Andre 1.1.1.1.1.2
              28 November 2020 at 5:59 pm

              Looking at more photos (lots more on the twitter thread), it looks like it's a silly chair with short legs much more than a silly desk. Most people sitting at that desk look normal, and the top of their thigh is more or less at the rails underneath. But there's a pic of some other dude looking just as weird, it looks like he's in the same chair, and the top of his thigh is way below the rails.

              https://twitter.com/Mantia/status/1332184158882340866

              edit: I’m also curious about what looks like a lot of white powder was sprinkled around, then someone just barely started to vacuum it up before getting shooed out. It could be just how the light reflects off the lie of the rug, but it looks the same from a bunch of different angles and weird reflections from carpet usually change at different angles.

              • Chris T …
                28 November 2020 at 6:07 pm

                The Obama ones look just as funny tbf

              • McFlock …
                28 November 2020 at 7:29 pm

                The carpet looks like a velvet or something.

                Interesting about the desk. A lot of it does seem to be the chair – it looks like dolt45 is sitting an inch or two lower than Obama? But then dolt is also leaning forward bigly in the side shot.

                But the combo of the open jacket and big empty space around him just make it look so much more silly.

    • WeTheBleeple 1.2
      28 November 2020 at 8:48 am

      I'm happy to report his spell has broken. I no longer live within the existential dread of having that fool as leader of the free world. I do not viscerally react to headlines with his name in them, I no longer click, I no longer care.

      I will take great delight in seeing him gone. I will relish the further milestones of election ratification and Biden stepping into office.

      My schadenfreude is not yet sated, but Trump is now about as interesting as a shit on the sidewalk. I will enjoy watching the GOP trying to explain their sedition as they fall to recrimination, blame and fractious infighting.

    • Adrian Thornton 1.4
      28 November 2020 at 10:09 am

      Look Andre you are in the right company as usual …Wall St love your new guy as much as you..no wait.. that's right, they loved Trump too, maybe it turns out Trump and Biden have more interests in common than the media would have us believe….could it be that just their delivery is a little different…?

      Dow climbs 310 points as investors cheer transition to Biden administration

      https://www.businessinsider.com.au/stock-market-news-today-biden-transition-yellen-value-rotation-economy-2020-11?r=US&IR=T

      Joe Biden to rich donors: "Nothing would fundamentally change" if he's elected

      https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/

      Huff Post Reporter: Biden's documented history of trying to cut social security

      • Phillip ure 1.4.1
        28 November 2020 at 10:33 am

        The only thing biden will solve..is trump..

        'cos he sure as hell is no agent of change..

        I am somewhat disturbed by his (repeated) claims that america will now ‘again &#039lead the free world'.

        I feel we could be in for some more regime-change/bombings…

        (all in the name of 'freedom'..of course..)

        and of course..like j. ardern…he is a neoliberal-incrementalist..

        and it seems they are 'ruling'.. for now and the foreseeable future..

        and disaster has been good for both biden and ardern…

        he got in because he isn't trump..

        and ardern was saved from having to explain the woeful experience/performance/promise-non-delivery of her first term..by the virus.

        and we are all the losers..

        (and on a personal note.. i am surprised@ how bummed out I am ..by how all this is turning out..I had no expectations of biden..but I did hold out some hope for ardern…it's clearly time to pack that away again ..)

    • mary_a 1.5
      28 November 2020 at 3:01 pm

      @ Andre (1) … Like Trump's presidency, the WH furnishings, as exampled by the kindergarten desk, are dwindling with him. The buffoon looks more ridiculous than ever in that picture.

  2. Pat 2
    28 November 2020 at 9:31 am

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300168640/heres-why-you-shouldnt-believe-what-youre-told-about-the-housing-market

    Headline says it all…while not complete it at least points the fingers in the right directions.

    • RedBaronCV 2.1
      28 November 2020 at 11:46 am

      Yep interesting read. One thing struck me though -the assumption that we will go back to high immigration in the near future. Why? given that

      -so far GDP per head has stayed pretty constant so there are no economic gains

      -it has had very negative economic consequences around housing supply and wage suppression plus adding to infrastructure costs.

      -it has increased the competition for starter jobs by a massive amount.

      -wage suppression has sent our best and brightest offshore

      -workforce automation is well on the way so we are likely just importing surplus labour

      -immigration is so high in some areas that it pretty much looks like a wave of colonisation

      I'd say that there is a much better case for limiting it severely and dare I say it moving on some of the 267000 visa holders still hanging around here could do a lot for the current house prices. World population is expected to drop I believe is going to drop over this century. The sooner we go for a stable state the better we will cope,

      • Pat 2.1.1
        28 November 2020 at 1:02 pm

        id agree but strongly suspect the need to feed the credit bubble will have immigration back asap…even if its done on the quiet…it is after all the only economic strategy they can imagine.

    • Adrian Thornton 3.1
      28 November 2020 at 10:20 am

      Re Clapton.."I am shocked, shocked, to learn that Clapton is a right-wing asshole"… personally I think just about everything he has done post Cream has been either bland or boring and usually lacking any real substance (with very the occasional glimmer of brilliance)…unlike Jack Bruce who although had his ups and downs, put out some real bangers post Cream including this great LP…

      • joe90 3.1.1
        28 November 2020 at 10:33 am

        Cream was nothing without Mr Baker.

        • Adrian Thornton 3.1.1.1
          28 November 2020 at 10:58 am

          True that, Baker and Bruce now there is a formidable rock rhythm section if there ever was one…probably (IMO) the best Clapton ever sounded was because he had these guys were pushing him along so hard.

        • Phillip ure 3.1.1.2
          28 November 2020 at 11:13 am

          I actually watched that g. baker doc the other day..and would recommend spending the time..

        • Ric Stacey 3.1.1.3
          28 November 2020 at 9:29 pm

          wow, that was good thanks

      • Phillip ure 3.1.2
        28 November 2020 at 11:11 am

        you are correct in that clapton largely blanded out after cream..(much of his latter stuff I will run from the room to avoid..)

        and yep..!..he is a far-right/racist p.o.s..

    • Obtrectator 3.2
      28 November 2020 at 3:23 pm

      So E.C. was happy to indulge in a bit of cultural appropriation, and end up doing very well out of it, but not to give house-room to the originators of said culture? Hmm …..

  4. Stuart Munro 4
    28 November 2020 at 10:30 am

    Why is it that the government is always missing in action for NZ workers?

    Unions question why local fruit-pickers haven't been offered living wage, like foreigners (msn.com)

    RSEs will get the living wage – but kiwis deserve the same.

    Who the hell do our feckless MPs think they are supposed to be working for?

    • arkie 4.1
      28 November 2020 at 10:54 am

      Who the hell do our feckless MPs think they are supposed to be working for?

      She acknowledged voters who had switched allegiances from National.

      "For those amongst you who may not have supported Labour before… to you I say thank you. We will not take your support for granted."

      She said Labour would be a party which works for "every New Zealander".

      The centre holds.

      https://www.odt.co.nz/news/decision-2020/nz-sees-red-labours-landslide-jacindas-vow-all-kiwis

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)

    • WeTheBleeple 4.2
      28 November 2020 at 11:02 am

      It's a glaring inconsistency that surely needs to be addressed.

      I will trot out that now typical word 'unprecedented'. We've not had this situation before as we've not had travel curtailed in such a manner. So the response should get a bit of wiggle room as the government adjust while throwing patches at it.

      I'd expect they ask industry to pay living wages. I'd hope?

      • Stuart Munro 4.2.1
        28 November 2020 at 12:10 pm

        If the government could be trusted to act, it wouldn't be so bad – but they can't. They pushed through an epic failure on freshwater, and got it Greenwashed. Wouldn't have taken much in the way of effort or funding to make it real – but no – our rivers will run with shit till I die of old age. Same will prove true with this – lazy, corrupt politicians posturing for an international audience instead of serving their constituency.

        The shame of it – to be led by such an odious group of self-serving expletives.

    • Adrian Thornton 4.3
      28 November 2020 at 11:11 am

      "Why is it that the government is always missing in action for NZ workers?"…that is an easy question to answer, it is because the New New Zealand Labour party stopped having even any pretence to being a "workers" party in 1984 when the body of the party was taken over by a new aggressive ideological disease known as free market neo liberlisim…

      Which is why here in Hasting Hawkes Bay our newly elected and John Key lovin', opportunist Labour representative Anna Lorke is a better fit in todays Labour NZ than Helen Kelly would have been…think about that for a moment, a sad but true reality for the Left wing in NZ today to somehow over come.

      Turn Labour Left!

      • greywarshark 4.3.1
        28 November 2020 at 11:24 am

        The higher payment demanded for the incoming work force would have been set at that rate to ensure that the growers were not said to be undercutting willing workers here in NZ. The fact that they can afford to pay higher wages and still remain profitable, if that is the case, will be noticed by our workers and a reason for them to make a successful case for higher wages next season.

        Plus some sort of sharing arrangement, so that in good seasons they get a bonus, and in bad seasons, or when the market prices go against them they do not get the bonus. I think that would seem fair to them and keep them coming back each season, hoping for a good one this year.

        • Adrian Thornton 4.3.1.1
          28 November 2020 at 11:41 am

          So let me get this right…are you are saying that Labours sneaky plan is that the NZ orchard industries have to pay a living wage to imported unskilled labour so as not to be seen as undercutting the (not) living wage payed to NZ workers…

          Fuck the local horticultural industries, those aresholes have been cycnically using imported labour to undermine wage growth for New Zealand workers for decades, all the while making huge profits and buying up all the locally owned family orchards all the while…it's revolting, and of course all this is done with NZ Labours blessing…yuk.

          Turn Labour Left!

          • Brigid 4.3.1.1.1
            28 November 2020 at 12:45 pm

            "Fuck the local horticultural industries, those aresholes have been cycnically using imported labour to undermine wage growth for New Zealand workers for decades, all the while making huge profits"

            Bloody oath

            I stayed at a camping ground in Kerikeri a few summers ago. PEP workers crammed themselves into one of the units. They washed their clothes in the fetid river that flowed through the grounds.

            Itinerant workers = second class citizens.

            • WeTheBleeple 4.3.1.1.1.1
              28 November 2020 at 7:16 pm

              People who call others second class = shit.

              • Brigid …
                29 November 2020 at 12:46 pm

                You missed my point entirely.

                I'm not calling them second class citizens; the industry defines them as that and treats them as though they are.

  6. Anne 6
    28 November 2020 at 11:10 am

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/christchurch-mosques-terror-attack-evidence-suppressed-by-royal-commission-for-30-years/UL3B4DJWB7FMNJ7YE3FUZ5R6X4/

    Excerpt from report:

    In a final minute issued yesterday, commissioners Sir William Young and Jacqui Caine said evidence and submissions by public sector chief executives and current and former ministers would be subject to non-publication orders for 30 years.

    National security was cited as a reason for the suppressions…

    Translation: Yeah, we f***ed up big time so we're gonna keep some things secret.

    Yes, there can be compelling reasons for the suppression of certain information, but I wonder how many people over the decades have been denied justice on the grounds that the information sought that would enable them to achieve it… cannot be divulged for "security concerns".

    I have much empathy for members of the Muslim community who have been so adversely affected by what happened.

  8. greywarshark 8
    28 November 2020 at 1:14 pm

    Here is a little Christmas present for the musically inclined. Bill Bailey and adaptable musicians with cow bells 'doing ' The Swan (I think he said).

    • Chris T 8.1
      28 November 2020 at 6:37 pm

      Amazing dude Bill Bailey.

      Seen him live a couple of times. Apparently one of a few with perfect pitch

  9. aom 9
    28 November 2020 at 6:46 pm

    We now have what will probably be the biggest test of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Labour Government – the assassination of yet another Iranian scientist, obviously by state actors. No doubt, POTUS will have plausible deniability but the other actor is pretty obvious. So far, there has been no criticism of the continued commissions of war crimes victimising Palestinians. However, striking the match to cause a Middle East inferno is in a totally different realm. It is past time for the mouse to roar!

  10. mac1 10
    28 November 2020 at 8:37 pm

    The Red tsunami carries on in the provinces. Go Tasman! 13-12.

  11. greywarshark 11
    28 November 2020 at 10:09 pm

    edit
    Labour should be looking out for the people who labour not for great rewards and who are not in the glamour spotlight. Miners, parents, people who stand out in the rain and do important stuff, go up power poles in bad weather, and so on. They used to but becoming managers and distancing themselves from the raw physical has become the norm, and the workers have become the exception to be considered. How did things get so arse-up? Was it just The Third Way?*

    Sir Michael Parkinson known for great tv interviews on his steadfast Dad who did the hard yards.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018774816/sir-michael-and-mike-parkinson-like-father-like-son
    …he enlisted his son Mike, who reshaped the book and gave it a definition.
    “He started writing about the miners themselves, about the job itself, what it was about, and brought it a different kind of a serious and beautifully written account of this extraordinary tribe of men who went in a hole in the ground, like my father, and 40 years later emerged pneumoconiosis and died.”Reflecting on his research for the book, Mike said there were two things that particularly horrified him – the physical aspects of the job and working in darkness.

    "The awful thing about them was they were a forgotten people, everything happened underground," he said. "If you drove past them you would only see the pit head workers, you wouldn't understand that beneath that, 1000 metres under your ground, people were working in unimaginable conditions."

    It was a job that broke men physically, mentally and spiritually, he said.
    "And the one thing it did to my grandfather, it may have diminished him physically but it never broke him mentally, it never broke him spiritually and that is an extraordinary testament to him."

    Above all, he took on the difficult job out of love for his family.
    "He loved the two of us beyond measure, he treated both of us with a great respect and love. He never raised a finger to me," Sir Michael said.
    He got to experience the nature of his father's work at about 14 or 15, when he was taken down into the pit.

    "I've never been so frightened in my life," he said. "What appalled me most of all was the scene that they worked in. My father worked in a scene that was about three-foot, maybe a bit less than that."
    To start work he had to crawl on his stomach for around an hour and then he would work for another eight or nine hours, "digging coal on his belly".

    "He never ever complained and all he could think of was to make myself and my mum happy, for that would have been his greatest fulfilment in life."

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way
    Baron Anthony Giddens – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Giddens#Biography

    When we get really tired of The Third Way, are we then going to turn in a hairpin curve and go back in the other direction that we have been distancing ourselves from?

    https://elephantinthelab.org/the-return-to-science-at-the-turn-of-modernity/
    An old yet powerful principle has emerged from the COVID-19 crisis. It was introduced to the West in the writings of Carl G. Jung, and has its roots in the works of the pre-Socratic Greeks: enantiodromia (enantios – opposite and dromos – running course) (Jung 1968). Put simply, this means when something is pushed to the extreme, it tends to turn into its opposite. There is more than one way to conceptualize this principle, as the idea of the coincidence of opposites has had some form of cultural expression throughout the world.

    When the classical Greek thinker Heraclitus alluded to it, he described it in the form of a natural process of equilibrium, in which cold things warm up and warmer things cool down. Later it found a voice in Plato, and then Hegel’s dialectic. In Daoism, the principle was given the shape of the yin-yang symbol, in which contrasting forces complement each other in an eternal cycle, bringing forth the sacred balance upon which the world rests.

    The riddles presented in these ancient writings are very similar: they all imply that opposing powers are impregnated with the seeds of their own reconciliation. Jung was deeply intrigued by this philosophical strand and used the term prominently to mark a psychical phenomenon. In his observation, the dominance of a radical propensity in conscious life over a long time rouses the unconscious opposite that has been festering below the surface. For him, this overarching dualism was a nearer, personal phenomenon, reflected in one’s struggle with the self.

    Jung’s notion of the archetype of the shadow symbolizes the unconscious invisible properties of an individual’s personality that are not integrated with their conscious identity. A subtle implication contained here is towards the analogy of the good wolf and the bad wolf, the clash between the known and the unknown, the struggle within as the image of the struggle without.

    • Sacha 11.1
      28 November 2020 at 10:22 pm

      But what is the opposite of Third Way?

      • Pat 11.1.1
        29 November 2020 at 8:15 am

        Trump (ism)

      • Stuart Munro 11.1.2
        29 November 2020 at 11:10 am

        Traditional democracy.

        The third way is a cargo cult. It ascribes special status to business people that is really only possessed by a tiny fraction of them, the innovators. Innovators are capable of solving their own problems, so they don't need political influence.

        The rest greatly enjoy lobbying rights, which they immediately abuse, destroying hard fought left gains like steady work hours, penal rates and so forth. Carried on to its inevitable conclusion, you get insanity like a Labour immigration minister de facto endorsing slave ships, and the party apparatus mobilising to defend the practice.

        Third way politics is only possible for the comfortably deluded and the actually corrupt. Workers won't have a bar of the nonsense – employer dishonesty is always in their face and at their expense.

        • greywarshark 11.1.2.1
          29 November 2020 at 1:26 pm

          Third way politics is only possible for the comfortably deluded and the actually corrupt. Workers won't have a bar of the nonsense – employer dishonesty is always in their face and at their expense.

          That is why Jeremy Corbyn was pricked in the back by Labour Party officials, so that his 'life blood' slowly trickled away, not knifed, that would be too direct and obvious. The sly way of fooling most of the people, most of the time is the middle-way. The Blairites who did Corbyn down are Middle-Way proponents. His enthusiasts tended to be young and from the working class, or so I understand. So they were not to be encouraged. Future prosperity for the middle class is more important than embracing all to float upwards supporting each other.

          Are these the opposites – Middle-Way or Middle-Earth. Hobbits or bad habits?