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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, March 31st, 2013 - 72 comments
Categories: open mike -
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Yesterday I tried to link to this post on the prime real estate that is Open Mike post #1… so, finally getting the attention it deserves here it is:
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/03/30/the-myths-and-lies-about-the-domestic-purposes-benefit/
Two things stood out here
– there is no pressure on the parent who does a runner and these are largely male
– that one in two adult women will be in sole charge of a family at some point in their adult lives.
Now, the been there done that group of women, with a few exceptions like PB, are unlikely to be too impressed with the benefit hounding going on and women vote on the left.
Just how much would it cost the labour party to show at least some loyalty to a large group of their demographic and at least oppose some of the hounding. FFS some of it, like sending out letters to people’s 16 year old daughters telling them to go onto contraception aren’t even policies that it will cost anything to reverse ever – they just violate the civil rights of a young girl who has had no say in her domestic situation whosoever.
And, I am repeating myself here, if this is such a good idea for 16 year old girls to get these letters, then perhaps some voluntary group should receive a grant to write letters to all 16 year old girls on the same topic, even the daughters of Nact politicians.
I like this young woman! She is at the center of the “Topless Jihad” – a global protest where women bare their breasts rebelling against female oppression after Amina Tyler posted topless pictures of herself with “My body belongs to me, and is not the source of anyone’s honor” written in Arabic.
Obviously this is found to be highly objectionable so her family shipped her off to a psych ward stating publically that she was suicidal and that is why she has posted the pics.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/amina-tyler-supporters-set-topless-jihad-day-april-4-article-1.1301311#ixzz2P3LzC9D8
Best pic is Amina extending her two fingers, topless, with the words, “fuck your morals”.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/03/30/april-4th-defend-amina/
Kiaora AWW
Here is another perspective worth reflecting on.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life/8486908/Why-protests-must-be-culturally-appropriate
This comment is from Stuff’s blog:
Dear Author: I am a Muslim woman and think Amina’s protest is entirely culturally relevant in post-revolution Tunisia. Read the writing on Amina’s body: “My body is mine, not somebody’s honor” in Arabic. No protest that was universally loved and agreed with changed the world for the better. Please stop speaking for “everyday Muslims” such as myself. We can do without the sweeping generalizations about the “West” and “Islam”. They are simplistic and silly – even from someone taking on this native informant role. Muslim (or western) societies are not homogenous.
Hold onto your hats CHCH.
“The Government has taken three steps:
1. Required EQC to immediately shut down all external email systems – there will be no emails going into the organisation and none will be sent out.
2. Required EQC to immediately shut down all business-to-business systems and data exchanges as well as access into EQC systems by external parties.
3. Asked the Government’s Chief Information Officer Colin MacDonald to investigate and oversee the solutions for issues relating to information management within EQC.
I had to laugh (otherwise I would cry), so now instead of EQC doing nothing Gerry Brownlee has made it mandatory.
I would say the leaks are in all likelyhood deliberate, sent by staff disgruntled with the underhand way eqc is dealing with claims. Either that or they have some seriously incompetent staff with access to data that they really shouldnt. ( ala winz kiosks)
Wondered about just how accidental the EQC leaks really were Cricklewood.
And were the amounts of compensation listed on the released documents actually being given to the claimants or being with-held?
Media Release
Coal Free Mangatawhiri and Auckland Coal Action
Saturday 30th March 2013
Roadside Coal Protest at Mangatawhiri
Coal Free Mangatawhiri and Auckland Coal Action are joining forces on Monday to protest Fonterraʼs proposed new coal mine beside state highway 2.
Protesters will gather from 2pm at Mangatawhiri south of Auckland for the roadside rally protesting Fonterraʼs proposed new Mangatangi Mine.
They hope to engage with people queued in traffic on SH2 on their way back to Auckland.
Local residents, iwi and supporters from Auckland will be calling for ʻno new coalʼ and making the point that ʻcoal cooks the climateʼ in an awareness raising campaign against the proposed mine.
Public submissions on resource consents for the mine, closed this week with Waikato Regional Council and Waikato District Council. Hundreds of submissions were sent in by local residents, iwi and others opposing the proposed new coal mine at Mangatawhiri.
The resource consent applications were made by Fonterraʼs coal mining subsidiary Glencoal Energy Ltd, which is seeking consents for an open cast mine on farmland at Mangatawhiri right beside SH2.
If the mine goes ahead it will be highly visible to anyone driving along SH2. The mine is intended to produce 120,000 tonnes of coal a year to supply the Fonterra dairy factories at Waitoa, Hautapu and Te Awamutu. Fonterraʼs nearby Kopako coal mine is predicted to close in 2014.
Instead of opening a new coal mine in a farming community, locals believe Fonterra should phase out coal in favour of locally available cleaner burning, wood waste.
ENDS
A Farmer’s cooperative turns into a corporation.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/8485681/Investor-tensions-evident-in-Fonterra
At the time of the farmer vote to turn Fonterra into a shareholding corporation there was severe misgivings that farmers, particularly less well off share milkers who had no vote, and whose incomes are reliant on milk prices would suffer, and so it is.
As farms become corporate factories with out roofs that increase profits, by driving down the livelihoods of the producers. Less sharemilkers will enter the industry, resulting in bigger farms staffed with employees, who like most NZ workers over the last three decades will have declining incomes. While, year after year, in favour of better shareholder returns, profits continuously exceed previous records. That is, until the whole top heavy edifice topples over as the profit bubble bursts under the combined weight of lack of skilled farmers without any commitment to the land, and less forgiving climatic conditions that will make farming less productive and rural life harsher for those doing it at the milk face.
The move to squeeze more out of farmers in favour of profits, may have some unforeseen (read forseen) outcomes.
Yeh I saw this too and it was a prefectly predictable outcome. Even at the time it was obvious that the Fonterra managers were going back and back with the proposals no matter how often the farmers voted them down. It was very much in management interests I imagine, to have two groups with vested interests, Farmers and bond holders to play off against each other, for their own gain and ultimately the sort of gain that comes from stock market listing and moving the whole lot into overseas ownership.
Mind you most of them vote for the Nact’s too, be careful what you wish for perhaps?
More legislation written for corporations and against the rights of our people to protest.
Masked as protecting us from our own “reckless and dangerous” behaviour and delivered by the Glove Puppet from Tauranga, Simon Bridges.
Parroting prepared lines, statements that were shameless begging the question and all with a deadpan face the Glove Puppet from Tauranga presented restrictions on our right to protest mineral and oil exploration off our coast.
– http://www.3news.co.nz/Crackdown-on-anti-drilling-protesters/tabid/423/articleID/292432/Default.aspx
Surely this would be unconstitutional and the right to protest protected if this was tested in law by the courts..
New Zealand has no constitution.
Bridges also, when asked, pretty much ruled out putting the O and G revenue into an investment fund (like in other oil rich nations). Which means all this money is going to be frittered on tax cuts.
This vexes me so.
Bridges has been through the rinse, and is likely as anyone else inside Parliament to actually believe in what he’s representing!
West Auckland my foot!
More from the Bank Bailout U$K Austerity Class War:
Disability rights activist Susan Archibald, in Edinburgh, said: ‘We have heard talk about “strivers and skivers”.
‘One person can be a striver one day and then get made redundant. Will they be a skiver the next day? That’s how easy it happens.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2301575/Axe-bedroom-tax–Thousands-protesters-join-demonstrations-cut-benefits.html
“John McArdle, from anti-disability discrimination campaign Black Triangle, said: ‘Every day our campaign receives more messages from desperate people who are on the brink of suicide.
‘This government is killing disabled people, and we must stand together and say enough is enough.’
Have seen this really interesting report on ChristChurch in the http://www.wsws.org website. It’d be good to if we could comment and/or criticise on it?
“Residents face bitter winter in New Zealand’s quake-hit city”
“Residents of the New Zealand city of Christchurch, devastated by the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that killed 185 people in February 2011, are facing a bitter winter. While the National Party government, city council and business investors concentrate on rebuilding the central business district, thousands of people, particularly those in working class suburbs, are into their third year of unresolved social stress and personal dislocation.”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/30/nzch-m30.html
The Money Market’s P@mp John Yankee continues to flog off this Nation’s commonwealth (Asset Sales) and our ability to help and support our own people. The Market in the end does not mind if you end up in a workhouse. 🙁
http://benefitjustice.wordpress.com/ More on the U$K situation likely to come here too. 🙁
”
Workfare
March 18, 2013
This from our colleagues working hard to oppose workfare:
In one of his most disgusting manoeuvres yet, last week Iain Duncan Smith laid legislation to rewrite history to stop the 225,000 people who were sanctioned on his unlawful workfare schemes being able to reclaim what they are due.
To make matters worse, the bill is being rushed through parliament; the second reading; committee stage; and third reading are all scheduled for one day: this Tuesday.
As if this wasn’t outrageous enough, Labour have indicated that they will support the Bill.
Tell your MP to vote against these outrageous attempts to rewrite history and rob people of £130 million in benefit repayments with this one minute online form: http://action.pcs.org.uk/page/speakout/ask-your-mp-to-stop-the-government-changing-the-law-on-workfare”
“The savage attacks on benefits for unemployed, low paid workers, single parents and disabled which will push millions further into poverty and despair.
The vicious attacks on those in the rented sector whose landlords charge huge rents but who now face a cap in their Housing Benefit which is seeing families evicted and shipped out of London to find cheaper accommodation around the country.
The disgusting Bedroom Tax which will force council and social landlord tenants who claim Housing benefit and have a spare room to either pay more rent or downsize to a smaller home. This will hit 600.000 tenants. Tory Welfare minister responsible for this bedroom tax is Lord Freud who has a plush 4 bedroom London home as well as an 8 bedroom mansion elsewhere.”
UK Labour is still enmeshed in Blairism. Doesnt look to be getting out anytime soon.
Looks to me like Thatcherism is still strong. Making beneficiaries work for corporate megastores for free? Welcome back to the 10th century.
“Looks to me like Thatcherism is still strong”
I’d take Blairism over Thatcherism any century.
There really isn’t that much difference between the two. Both thrive on neoliberal claptrap.
Kyle Bass runs Hayman Capital. Here he talks about Japan’s impending financial/demographic implosion (including 10 finance ministers in just the last 5 years).
Not pretty. He makes several references to future severe social discontent as a result.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/30/bank-of-cyprus-depositors-lose-savings
“Bank of Cyprus depositors could lose up to 60% of their savingsCypriot finance officials say initial losses will be 37.5%, but up to 22.5% more could be taken if bank needs further capitalisation
But, but , but TPTB said Cyrpian banks were over-flowing with dirty Russian money, where is it then!
Capital controls will not be coming off, the accounts will be empty before that happens!
And a finger in the eye for Iceland, balance is important in the MSM!
More lies and BS, see how this all works!
So, a year and a half until the next general election, and the Labour party are still shitting on their own doorstep, mired in a fantasy land game plan to win (bribe) back 5% of the middle ground they think will open the door to the treasury.
Dumb arses.
The win is in the numbers who didn’t vote last time.
Bollocks to the sensibilities of centre right politics of nothingness.
Go left, that man.
If the nat’s are the worst negotiators, then NZ Labour must surely rank as worst political strategists, ever.
Not necessarily. The way I see it, this is strategy which is wanted by the *internationalists*, and being rolled out effectively, by giving the NACT a free ride, to what could easily be another 3 years.
As if it matters in real terms who the government is, the decline will continue, as the *foreign owners*, like any good hedge, control both sides of bet!
I’ll rephrase my perspective for the benefit of your world view:
As a lefty voter, NZ Labour must surely rank as worst political strategists, ever.
Try viewing Labour’s actions and strategy from the standpoint of it’s present as a centrist middle class party. One which is focussed on continuing (but socially moderating) the political economic status quo, while appealing to the top 1/3 of income earners.
When you do that it’s approach becomes entirely consistent and coherant.
I’m sure someone believes in what they’re doing, somewhere, playing the game like they are, but whatever the outcome (crushing defeat 😉 ), watching the cogs turn is like them cleaning a hammer with a walnut.
I can’t believe parties facing another three years in opposition aren’t out there getting those stay at home voters interested, engaged and motivating change, unless like said, they don’t really care about the majority of kiwis and pay lip service to the plight facing New Zealanders.
Time for that new left wing party idea to crop up again.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-politicians-are-sensi_b_2978297.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
An honest politician is one who stays bought, or why we are not allowed democracy on anything important, like the economy, and inequality!
And just make sure that no one knows WTF is going on, de-fund polsci.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/21/senate-votes-defund-political-science-research-save-tuition-assistance-budget-bill
But seriously, what answers has political science given us in the last 20 years? The other area to defund is economics, finance and financial engineering.
Yeah, when I think about it CV none worth listening to and to be honest once I’ve sorted out who the unhinged ideologues are and who’s worth listening to I reckon the most astute and nuanced appraisals are usually to be found buried in comments threads.
“I reckon the most astute and nuanced appraisals are usually to be found buried in comments threads.”
And now on live TV during question time, 2pm, channel 22 🙂
Pipe ruptures, who’d a thunk it.
http://www.katv.com/story/21831082/oil-spill-in-mayflower-near-lake-conway-subdivision-evacuated
I thought the Mayflower was one of the first four ships to get to America. They did that on sail I thought. Maybe I am not up with the modern ideas that now it is okay to have a major negative oil spill event every five years or so. Just part of the risk profile engineered in using the modern equipment and modern efficiencies of corporations as accepted by the modern governments.
open-mike 28/03
To: McFlock
You made the allegation, so the burden of proof is yours. Don’t expect me to assist you.
Slander is what this massive hole is all about. Slander was also the issue that was being discussed just before I was moderated into posting on open mike.
Context is everything. The original context was girls 13 and over who were repeatedly soliciting.
If these girls were being harmed, these who was forcing them?
Why are you bringing up Saville now? He is dead, had nothing to do with the South Auckland flap.
Just like you brought up fantasing.
Just like you brought up NABMLA.
You’re just slinging shit to divert from the fact that you’ve got no argument.
I reckon your comments are proof enough. You seem to think that harm can only result from force. And the original point wasn’t about slander, it was about appropriate responses to revelations that adults are paying to screw children. If you reckon a possible slander against yourself is more important, then that also says much about you.
What you reckon isn’t proof, it’s opinion.
I don’t think that.
O.K. Slander is important because it was the issue that was being discussed just before I was moderated into posting on open mike. It would be too convenient for you if I just dropped the issue.
Assuming you meant “then who was forcing them”, why are you raising force if force at the time is irrelevant to harm?
slander is a falsehood, right? What falsehood did I utter? You’re arguing that sex between a thirteen year old and a sixty year old can be consensual for the child, are you not?
McFlock, force is relevant because without anyone forcing the girls the most likely explanation is that they were soliciting of their own free will. The fact that they were doing this repeatedly suggests that they were not being harmed, so non-harm paedophilia is not an oxymoron like you said it was.
Like Redlogix said, paedophilia usually refers to pre-pubescent children, but in the rape culture thread it was also used in the context of older men having sex with teenage girls.
Your falsehood was:
You couldn’t show proof of your allegation, your argument was:
So McFlock, do you think that you can slander other people and just get away with it?
This is all beginning to sound rather familiar.
Frankly, a kid in the lower half of their teens is a child. Legally, as well.
Secondly, children can’t consent or do a contract. They have issues with impulse control, abstraction, and long term planning.
Thirdly, there are economic and other power issues at play in the case of prostitution, and sex in general. These are marked when one party is adult and the other is not. Both adults, fair enough, both can give informed consent all else being equal. Both kids, well both can be making the same mistake if it appears consensual. But an adult and a kid? Any adult with the interests of the child as a concern would bail based on the power imbalance implicit in the relationship.
Even if it were legal.
In general this is true not because they are not able to reach an agreement, but because they are under the power of another, i.e. their parents.
In the case the South Auckland girls the parental power argument isn’t so solid: either the girls are under the power of their parents which makes the parents responsible, or they are not (ie the family is dysfunctional), in which agreement and contract may be possible.
It’s got nothing to do with being under the power of their parents.
Kids can’t give informed consent because they lack experience, information and the ability to process that with long term objectives taken into full consideration.
Wrong again,. it is important for contracts.
SUI JURIS. One who has all the rights to which a freemen is entitled; one who is not under the power of another, as a slave, a minor, and the like.
2. To make a valid contract, a person must, in general, be sui juris. Every one of full age is presumed to be sui juris. Story on Ag. p. 10.
I think you might need a newer legal text. Preferably one that deals with new zealand law.
Just to spell it out: kids, including young teens, cannot consent to sex.
Sex without consent is rape.
You argue that young teens at the very least (you’ve been cagey on the exact age cutoff where you regard any sex=rape) can consent to sex.
That is a defense of child rape.
You are wrong, they can consent if the understand what is involved.
Consent. A concurrence of wills. Voluntarily yielding the will to the proposition of another; acquiescence or compliance therewith. Agreement; the act or result
of coming into harmony or accord. Consent is an act of reason, accompanied with deliberation, the mind weighing as in a balance the good or evil on each side.
You are confusing uninformed consent with actual consent. Knowing someone who was manipulated into “consenting” sex by adults when she was a young teen, and seeing the issues she’s dealt with over the years in no small part due to those experiences, I say that you are deluding yourself. Severely. I don’t know if your reasons are nutty or nefarious, but I sure know “uninformed consent at the time” in no way equals “no-harm sex “.
Wrong again. I said “if they understand what is involved”, which implies informed consent.
Why is it that slanderers refuse to admit they are wrong, but try to divert with straw men and other fallacies?
Sex with under-16s is against New Zealand law. Legally there is no possibility of informed consent.
Arguing you believe in some other philosophy of life does not negate that. Why are you so interested in the topic?
Ah, the “no true rapist” argument.
What you argue for doesn’t exist. And if it did, it would be indistinguishable from apparent but uninformed consent, so essentially you’re arguing that it’s not rape unless harm occurs in subsequent years. Which is pretty pointless moral guidance for someone considering sticking his elderly dick in a 13 year old girl.
Handle, the legality of it is based on fictions.
I’m interested because the issues of sexual predators, family, and protection are closely related to the conflict between legislation and the law of the land. Most people are unaware of how the system misleads them about the nature of the law. The system takes the privilege of oath from the common law but it also denies that the source of this privilege exists.
It is OK to want to protect others without needing an elaborate belief system to justify that. Did you have a particular 13-year old in mind?
Television (was) New Zealand is dropping BBC News which used to come on at off-peak hours, which one would think was a triumph for pragmatic, responsible, budget conscious services. It’s to be replaced by – infomercials. Or to put it another way Info-unmercifuls. Recommendation -Only to be watched in an alcoholic haze. If want to know more Radionz’s Mediawatch today.
Also being dropped by Television NZ (spit) – teletext function. It’s been serving NZ’s for 30 years and is particularly useful for older people. Hence why it is being dropped. Who gives a f..k for older people, they aren’t the advertisers preferred demographic which is – 15 to 55? after that you’re history old codgers!
John Drinnan broke the news of the dropping of BBC World on Friday. Its sad, but is thanks to the government chopping the TVNZ charter and telling it to make more idiot TV to make money (amazing how the same people who moan about our education system being ‘dumbed down’ seem fine with it happening to our television)..
As for Teletext, it was a damn good service. Not only did it provide captions for the deaf, but it provided information services to the general public with very low overheads, via simple RF signal, to a teletext capable TV (which cost a few hundred dollars). It would be way easier for a farmer in Marokopa to look up the weather on teletext than to use his smartphone or tablet.
I think the teletext system was affected by needing updates on its equipment, and TVNZ weren’t prepared to invest in this updating.
All of which is being replaved by Freeview.
open mike 28/03
To: Marty Mars
Paedophilia and raping children are two different things. In the original argument the paedophilia involved teenage girls as young as 13 soliciting. They were not crying rape, they were doing business.
People and corporations don’t have the same status in law. Corporations owe their existence to the state, people do not. It’s not unfair to refuse to give money to something that is of no benefit to you.
What the fuck does the last paragraph of your post at 17 mean, Ugly Truth ? It is utterly unintelligible.
I’m a bit hoha with your pronouncements on “law”. You seem always to get it very wrong.
What it means, North, is that corporations are subject to the law of the state, but people not subject to it. But people in a common law jurisdiction are still subject to the law of the land.
What do you think that I get wrong?
do you pay GST ugly or don’t they have that tax in canada?
I suppose you don’t utilise any of the services that society provides, you know, because you don’t pay tax lol
and as for your line “they were not crying rape” well, enough has been written about that and obviously it doesn’t fit with your morals, beliefs, or actions as evidenced in the threads discussing it. I am not surprised you don’t get what so many have tried to explain to you – it doesn’t fit with your self interest does it?
I don’t pay GST, the shop does. I pay the marked price.
Society doesn’t implement the taxation scheme, the state does.
Get a grip marty, you’re ranting.
lol you pay the marked price – what a hero.
btw have you tried the old agree and ask a question line with the legal system yet?
A beautiful day with mokos so no chance to check TS but I did get to see that prissy little ex-crown prosecutor (you know that shit-arsed wee type, witheringly socially retarded, mock angelic) Simon Bridges on Q + A this morning.
Yeah, he’s the messenger boy with the the news that this corporate-tending-to-facist-if-necessary government is gonna take a hard line with people who “endanger saftey” in protest around foreign rape of our resources.
A black lie of course but your final proof that this government is traitorous. “But they broke the law”. Yeah, right. A law created by a devious harlot of a government which in one out of ten parts has it’s heart outside New Zealand and inside the pockets of the ilk of its leader. The nine out of ten parts are mediocre self-seekers and cargo-cult thickos who follow Key because they believe they could be him one day.
On this day of all days for Christ’s Sake, it’s only gonna make the hard folks go harder. That’s the big joke of it. The world ain’t the Tauranga District Court sitting in its indictable jurisdiction wee Simon. Where you jump up and down with your petty points and strut out of court in the conviction that you’re shit-hot. And where success is winning and when you win that’s ALWAYS justice, definitionally.
It’s been occurring to me for some time that sooner or later there is going to be significant civil unrest in this country. Bring it on Simon Bitch ! Pathetic, atrocious, little ex-crown prosecutor.
Don’t mention the chemtrails, he’s the minister for climate change issues. 😉
north
+1
Me too.
Turned the TV off. Couldn’t even bear to look at the supercilious little toad. He reminds me of a youthful Tony Ryall.
lprent just wondering if there’s a way to edit a comment posted from a tablet using chrome?
I do it all of the time on a android nexus7 with chrome with android. I have noticed that the javascript on my old iPad1 is crap for anything to do with javascript.
But I’ll check. Could you provide any more info about what OS you’re using?
Young Simon had a wee laugh (hehe) on his Facebook page at the idea of slapping the interviewer. Screenshots are lovely things. What a scumbag.