Open mike 30/07/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 30th, 2023 - 12 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


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 …

12 comments on “Open mike 30/07/2023 ”

  1. joe90 1

    In 1997 death threats forced Sinead O’Connor to call off a peace concert in Jerusalem.

    Kahanist Itamar Ben-Gvir took credit for the campaign against her.

    Today, he's Israel's National Security Minister.

    https://news.yahoo.com/campaign-forced-sinead-oconnor-scrap-195049376.html

  2. Ad 2

    So there's the pro-nationalist, pro-nation-state, pro-God, anti-immigration, anti-free trade conservatives …

    https://nationalconservatism.org/national-conservatism-a-statement-of-principles/

    And then there's the anti-nationalist, pro-immigration, pro free trade conservatives. …

    https://www.freedomconservatism.org/p/freedom-conservatism-a-statement

    I was going to do an article comparing the essentially ACT/Libertarian versus NZFirst/Trumpian frame as a policy discusion but then Politico beat me to it:

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/28/conservatives-capitalism-campaigns-00108594

  3. ianmac 3

    What a great mixture of approvals and criticism has Colin. Beyond the pay-wall unfortunately.

    Sir Colin Maiden’s new book: Is New Zealand a fortunate country?Reviewed by Shayne Currie

    But his recommendations span the political divide, and some people may be surprised by some of his positions. For example, he supports a moderate capital gains tax – “maybe about half the normal tax rate”; thinks the Super age should be raised; and says the Serious Fraud Office and judicial system “should be more severe in charging and sentencing white-collar criminals”.

    He says poverty is a “disgrace” and crime and gangs are “out of control”. A social investment model, like one devised by Sir Bill English when he was Social Welfare Minister, should be introduced to identify families at risk of poverty, he says.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/sir-colin-maidens-new-book-is-new-zealand-a-fortunate-country/S2OQI35MXVH7HA7FSN3O4UFBQE/

  4. UncookedSelachimorpha 4

    The left's problem with russia. After the strong showing of support for russian imperialism by some on this site, I found this article on the left's blindness to russian imperialism interesting.

    [Cornel] West called Russia's invasion "criminal" but insisted it was "provoked by the expansion of NATO" and is a "proxy war between the American Empire and the Russian Federation," ….The tell in West's remarks was calling the U.S. an empire but referring to Russia by its de jure name, implicitly erasing its imperial, colonial character.

    And on russian imperialism itself:

    Russia's conquest of Siberia starting in the 1580s, for instance, included the enslavement of indigenous peoples whom it forced to pay tribute in the form of furs known as yasak on pain of death, resulting in starvation as people struggled to meet yasak quotas instead of feeding themselves in a system some historians have compared to Belgian King Leopold II's enslavement of the Congo. Russian Cossack gangs raped and murdered while Orthodox missionaries stamped out native religions and alcoholism and smallpox decimated local populations. Today, indigenous people in Siberia and the Russian Far East frequently live in poverty while Moscow strips their lands' rich natural resources to line the pockets of oligarchs and fuel the glitz of cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, while their men disproportionately make up the cannon fodder that Russia sends to the Ukrainian front.

  5. bwaghorn 5

    https://www.odt.co.nz/business/claim-cash-handout-cheaper-gst-removal

    The government can give everyone $30 a week it would be double what the gst off food would save and cheaper to operate.

    Is chippie so cunning he's got national to float this dog of a policy to see the reaction?

  6. adam 6

    So ocean currents feeding warmth away from the tropics may stop by 2025, coupled with the data coming out about Antarctica it is all a bit bloody scary.

    https://www.space.com/ocean-current-system-shut-down-2025-climate-disaster?

    https://sports.yahoo.com/antarcticas-rapidly-melting-ice-unprecedented-104301660.html

  7. bwaghorn 7

    Nationals flagship policy is ……..

    A road!!!

  8. Patricia Bremner 8

    They are quoting very low prices for it. Who will build it? AI?

  9. Joe90 9

    The faces.

    plus90

    "Ağaçlarıma sarıldım. 'Kestirmeyeceğim çocuklarımı' diye şapur şupur öptüm" Akbelen Ormanı'nı savunan Muğlalı kadınların portreleri

    Translated from Turkish by

    "I hugged my trees. I kissed them smackingly, saying 'I won't cut my children'" Portraits of women from Muğla defending the Akbelen Forest

    https://twitter.com/plus90/status/1684866289456844800

    https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/07/28/we-will-not-give-up-how-a-turkish-forest-became-the-site-of-fierce-coal-mine-resistance