General Debate 19 December 2008

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stephen

The media were all over Labour re: the possible sale/non-sale of Auckland airport, but they’ve barely said a thing about National bizarrely blocking the Aussies from selling an iron sand business to the Hong Kong billionaire guy who bought Wellington’s electricity network…a penny for Bill English’s thoughts?!
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December 19, 2008 8:51am
Pascal

I’ve just been to the Standard. Isn’t it amusing how they’re blaming all of Labour’s mess on National already?
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December 19, 2008 8:54am
dime

I watched a bit of parliment TV over the last week… quick question…

Whos the fat chick Labour MP.. blonde hair, glasses and quite young?

Her delivery in the house is just sad.. she has this constant smirk on her face, like she cant believe how clever she is. its all fake of course. i suspect it came from the years of rejection inflicted on her by dirtbags like me..
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December 19, 2008 9:01am
senzafine

The media were all over Labour re: the possible sale/non-sale of Auckland airport, but they’ve barely said a thing about National bizarrely blocking the Aussies from selling an iron sand business to the Hong Kong billionaire guy who bought Wellington’s electricity network…a penny for Bill English’s thoughts?!

Its an entirely different scenario. We’re talking about a 30% interest in Auckland Airport, versus Iron sands in its entirety.

Also, Auckland Airport has always been deemed newsworthy by the MSM, possibly because as the main gateway to the country, its something that resonates with the populous.
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December 19, 2008 9:02am
expat

What was Aidan Smiths pseudonym on the substandard?
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December 19, 2008 9:09am
getstaffed

Iwi buy Shelly Bay

The huge potential of one of Wellington’s prime waterfront sites Shelly Bay on Miramar peninsula is finally being unlocked.
The former air force base is to be bought as part of a Waitangi Treaty settlement deal by the Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust. Chairman Ngatata Love confirmed the purchase yesterday.

Not sure why “value is unlocked” because it’s been sold. After 40 years of running, cyclying and walking around Miramar peninsular I just hope the coast road remains accessible to the Wellington public.
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December 19, 2008 9:09am
stephen

Its an entirely different scenario. We’re talking about a 30% interest in Auckland Airport, versus Iron sands in its entirety.

Also, Auckland Airport has always been deemed newsworthy by the MSM, possibly because as the main gateway to the country, its something that resonates with the populous.

Yes, it IS an entirely different scenario – foreign company selling to a foreign company. What changes if it goes through?!

I accept that an airport is more interesting though!
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December 19, 2008 9:10am
dad4justice

Nice to see judges give themselves a pay rise, while the CCC bans open fires next year. Maybe the privileged judge could help warm the old folks up. Yeah right, pious pricks don’t care about real people! The elderly look likely to freeze to death and Bob just keeps on giving money to bent property developers. What a mad insane fucked up country! Oh judge, where is the justice you parasite?

Pascal – careful visiting the sub standard blog as the shit hole is rife with contagious diseases.
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December 19, 2008 9:12am
expat

Yep, they are both foreign – good boy. Well done!

Those sands are, as I understand, NZ’s main strategic source of iron.

I’d like to here from those who know more on this topic than I though.

We should however sell Wellington Airport to save the WCC from bankruptcy. Steve?>
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December 19, 2008 9:17am
Chuck Bird

Baby died after bashing by mother

I am feeling very depressed at the moment. I feel I could smash someone if they said the wrong thing to me. I of course I not going to do any such thing. However, if I did I think I would probably end up in jail. Would any Court take into account how I feel – not bloody likely?

Here we have a woman who was admittedly very stressed out. She could have dialled 111 and said she feared she harm the child if she did not get help immediately.

Not surprisingly, Cindy Kiro supports the verdict.

I would bet that given time this child killer will be allowed custody of her other children.

A father often ends up with supervised access because his wife is fearful of him even if the fear is unjustified.

What do others think? Am I being too tough or I am being reasonable in expecting one law for all?

Chuck

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10548875

Baby died after bashing by mother
4:00AM Friday Dec 19, 2008

A Dunedin mother has been sentenced to intensive supervision and community work for causing the death of her 22-month-old twin daughter, who choked to death after being assaulted this year.

The details of the incident were made public for the first time yesterday when the 27-year-old woman was sentenced in the High Court at Dunedin.

She was originally charged with murder but that charge was withdrawn and replaced with the comparatively rare charge of infanticide after two psychiatrists found the balance of the woman’s mind was disturbed by depression at the time she caused the child’s death. She pleaded guilty.

The dark-haired, slightly built woman was in tears as Justice Graham Panckhurst recounted the events of May 26 when her two oldest children were at school and she was at home with her youngest son and the “unwanted” and prematurely born twin girls. At the time, she was effectively a solo parent and “to put it mildly, wasn’t coping”, the judge said.

Because the twins spent seven weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit after their birth at 33 weeks, there were problems with bonding, in particular with the younger.
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December 19, 2008 9:20am
Brian Smaller

A change of subject. Kiwiblog’s poll on what you would rather go without for a fortnight – sex or internet. I cannot believe that the results are 50/50. What is wrong with you people? If the internet is more important than sex your priorities are totally screwed up. You have become robots. Rooting is better than Routers.
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December 19, 2008 9:21am
dad4justice

Brian a lot of kiwi drop kicks like “rooting” a mouse.
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December 19, 2008 9:28am
Pascal

Brian Smaller:

If the internet is more important than sex your priorities are totally screwed up.

Why?
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December 19, 2008 9:28am
dime

Brian – just how much sex are we talking? daily? or one drunken encounter? 😛
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December 19, 2008 9:28am
Pascal

And how many times a day dime? 🙂
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December 19, 2008 9:29am
big bruv

Well said Chuck, I heard Kiro on the radio this morning speaking about this, it was almost enough to make me drive off the road.
I wonder if the person sitting next to me at the lights heard me scream “Fire this fucking maggot Mr Key”

Can you imagine what would have happened to the killer if he had been male?
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December 19, 2008 9:30am
big bruv

Hookers don’t count Dime.
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December 19, 2008 9:30am
dime

bruv – hookers count more than ever! we are in recession… im hoping a drop in demand will help the market produce cheaper hookers 🙂
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December 19, 2008 9:32am
Brian Smaller

Dime – I live in the Hutt valley. They give it away here. And if you are only getting it once per fortnight then perhaps one should stick to the internet.
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December 19, 2008 9:34am
Hoolian

Dime – Was it Carol Beaumont? Not sure why she had a smirk on her face for, she got more of a whipping from Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga in the Maungakiekie electorate than any lesbian unionist should have. But maybe that beating had something to do with the fact that she’s a complete dick.

On another note – why on earth is petrol still so expensive? Its fallen below US$40 a barrell (lower than 2004 levels) but is still relatively high. And why isn’t this an issue that the MSM are pursuing? Seems to me that we’re all getting royally screwed.
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December 19, 2008 9:35am
billyborker

meanwhile, the financila carnage continues to unwind. How many of these “rich pricks” will end up where they belong, in prison?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/18pay.html?_r=1&ref=us

For Dow Kim, 2006 was a very good year. While his salary at Merrill Lynch was $350,000, his total compensation was 100 times that — $35 million.

The difference between the two amounts was his bonus, a rich reward for the robust earnings made by the traders he oversaw in Merrill’s mortgage business.

Mr. Kim’s colleagues, not only at his level, but far down the ranks, also pocketed large paychecks. In all, Merrill handed out $5 billion to $6 billion in bonuses that year. A 20-something analyst with a base salary of $130,000 collected a bonus of $250,000. And a 30-something trader with a $180,000 salary got $5 million.

But Merrill’s record earnings in 2006 — $7.5 billion — turned out to be a mirage. The company has since lost three times that amount, largely because the mortgage investments that supposedly had powered some of those profits plunged in value.
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December 19, 2008 9:38am
dime

Hoolian – nah its not.. but she also sounds delightful lol

its this thing – Moana Mackey. apparently her mother was an MP as well. funnily enough, she was involved with unions before entering parliment..
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December 19, 2008 9:46am
Pascal

As a side thought, the last feudal state in Europe has finally had democratic elections. I was directed to the Wikipedia link on “Sark”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sark_general_election,_2008

Come to think of it, wouldn’t Feudalism be good for NZ too? We might finally be able put all those Labour drones to good use and get them away from stealing wine, elections and whatnot else.

Wait.

Then they’ll poach the deer our lands. Fucking peasants.
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December 19, 2008 9:46am
dime

i should add.. shes a list MP.

no chance in hell she’d get elected otherwise. maybe thats why shes smiling? job for life!
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December 19, 2008 9:47am
Buggerlugs

If Jesus Were Born Today

Child advocates would remove the child from the custody of his mother when
they discovered she was shacking with a guy (not the child’s father) in a
barn. In most jurisdictions that would constitute child neglect.

Of course, Mary would have an underpaid court appointed attorney to represent
her in the dependent-neglect proceeding, and Joseph would be out of luck once
it was determined that paternity could not be established within a reasonable
degree of medical certainty through blood or DNA testing(97% probability that
Joe was the dad is sufficient, but absent divine intervention, that couldn’t
happen, hmmm?). He would be excluded from juvenile court as a stranger to the
proceeding and investigated for possible sexual deviance (all those oxen and
asses around), and he would be told that he had no standing to object since he
was not the natural father of the child and was not yet married to Mary (by
their own admissions they had not yet consummated their union).

The Division of Children and Family Services would ask the court to order Mary
to take parenting classes, and the Court would order that homemaker services be
provided as well, since obviously Mary can’t keep house properly (the place
where the DHS workers found the child was kept remarkably like a barn). Mary
would be allowed to have one visit with Jesus per week at the Centers for Youth
and Families. The visit would be one hour long, and supervised by a therapist
since Jesus would no doubt be put in therapeutic foster care to prevent
psychological damage resulting from the horrible lack of civilization to which
he had been exposed at such a tender age.

At the eighteen month dispositional hearing, the court would consider
terminating parental rights because of Mary’s refusal to bring a paternity suit
against Jesus’ true biological father (or even to identify him to the
satisfaction of the Court). The Court would be appalled at the life choices
Mary would have made: she would have completed her marriage to Joseph (that
suspected sexual deviant) and had more children by him, which was obviously
contrary to Jesus’ best interest. Since Mary and Joseph had fled the
jurisdiction with Jesus once to escape encounters with the authorities, they
would determine that Mary and Joe had nefarious plans to abscond with the Ward
of the State to Egypt again, where they would possibly engage in dangerous and
illegal activities with him. Parental rights would be terminated, and Jesus
would be put up for adoption.

He would be adopted by the Herods, a well-connected and politically powerful
family, who have been searching for just such a child as Jesus. Of course,
Jesus will die in the custody of his adoptive family, because that’s all they
wanted him for in the first place. Social services will NOT have intervened
prior to his death because the state social workers could never imagine someone
as highly placed as the Herods exploiting children or torturing them to death.
The political ramifications for the Herods would have been too severe. In all
likelihood, the social service agencies would cover up the death as one
occurring from accident, and Herod’s good name will be preserved.
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December 19, 2008 9:50am
dad4justice

Buggerlugs that is brilliant, can I send it around the world to countless fathers’ groups?
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December 19, 2008 9:54am
billyborker

If jesus were born today – it would be a miracle.

If your 14 year old daughter came home and said “God got me pregnant”, would you believe her?
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December 19, 2008 9:57am
grumpyoldhori

A month of paid holiday is to long some one posted ?
When you work it through why should we employers pay for any time off, do we owe charity to employees ?
Why have paid statutory days off ?
No one paid me when I was not working so why should employees be any different ?
And yes I did work many a so called xmas day.
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December 19, 2008 10:02am
Lee

“If your 14 year old daughter came home and said “God got me pregnant”, would you believe her?”

Not in New Zealand.
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December 19, 2008 10:07am
labrator

Billy, Meryll Lynch should not have been bailed out. Failings supposed to be the punishment for being stupid with money…
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December 19, 2008 10:07am
billyborker

Its a simple equation – a rested worker is a better worker. One of my early employers, obviously a better man the you grumpy, always spoke of holidays as re-creation. And he was right. It is a small price to pay to achieve a better workforce.

maybe if you’d had more time for re-creation you’d be less grumpy.
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December 19, 2008 10:11am
Lee

I have no problem with statutory holidays, especially for culturally relevant days like Christmas, Waitangi and Anzac Day, but I agree that employers should not be forced to pay their employees for them.
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December 19, 2008 10:14am
Buggerlugs

billyborker – I recall having a few women call out oh God, but I’m not sure whether they were referring to me, looking for divine intervention so they wouldn’t have to have anything to do with me after the birth, or whether it was something else entirely…I should have asked
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December 19, 2008 10:16am
MT_Tinman

Statutory holidays are bullshit!

I work every Xmas day and most others and, by law, at the same rates as any other day.

What else is Xmas day for? The pubs are shut, TV is boring, most forum-type sites are dead and I’m buggered if I’d subject my extended family or friends to 12 unwanted hours of my company when they could be doing something interesting.

Paying employees (thank the gods I no longer have these) for statutory holidays is no problem though as long as their pay is based on a deduction from their weekly wages as part of their contract.
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December 19, 2008 10:27am
wreck1080

PETROL PRICES:::

So, the NZD jumped in value recently, and oil continues falling (from above $40 to below $36 a barrel).

Why are they not cutting pump prices?
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December 19, 2008 10:28am
Lee

“What else is Xmas day for?”

Church and family.
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December 19, 2008 10:31am
david

Re holidays, my problem is that the rate of outgoings while on holiday is invariably much greater than the rate while working. As such, leave is not fiscally neutral and requires an excursion into the savings account to get through. That is one of the reasons why I was happy with three weeks leave and find it both unnecessary and expensive to take a fourth because some wanker in Wellington has done me the favour of forcing me from my workplace for an extra week every year.
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December 19, 2008 10:33am
dad4justice

Cut with the Xmas crap, the correct word for the celebration is CHRISTmas. Oh that will send fugley and stan into another hatemonger session.
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December 19, 2008 10:34am
MT_Tinman

Wreck, it’s my understanding that petrol companies are a business.

Most business have as their objective the making of profit for their shareholders and to do that they sell their goods or services at the highest price they can while competing in their particular market.

Obviously in NZ right now petrol companies have decided that people will pay their current prices.

Good on them, I’ll just pass those prices on to my customers.
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December 19, 2008 10:37am
MT_Tinman

Lee, my family can have my company 365 days a year.

What the hell is “church”?
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December 19, 2008 10:39am
Pascal

Billyborker:

Its a simple equation – a rested worker is a better worker.

It depends on why you work. If work is seen as a chore, then yes. If you’re doing something because you enjoy doing it – what is the point in taking a break from it? Maybe that is the problem with too many people – they end up doing something for money, instead of doing it because they love it.

Blame the iWant generation, I suppose.
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December 19, 2008 10:40am
Chuck Bird

MT_Tinman, as a shareholder in Royal Dutch Shell I could not agree more.
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December 19, 2008 10:42am
Lee

Tinman,

I was of course meaning family in the widest sense. I seriously doubt that you see your grandparents, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces every day.

“What the hell is “church”?”

The place you go to when you don’t want to go to hell.
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December 19, 2008 10:50am
Jack5

The Christchurch Press has arrived, and I find Tahu Potiki, the former chief executive of Ngai Tahu, suggesting the manslaughter verdict in the Auckland tagger case is racist.

Is every case involving Maori and another race to be labelled racist when the Maori party feels the judgment is wrong?

The comment is ironic coming from a former leader of a tribe which while representing five per cent or less of the South Island population, has become rich from settlement of land deals a century and a half ago, and is going back for more money because of what North Island tribes have received. Ngai Tahu also have non-proportional rights to representation on many boards and authorities, such as those which run universities. I don’t hear cries from the vast majority of South Islanders that this is racist.

Then Mr Potiki, who I believe does not live within the Press’s normal distribution range, is on the Press’s panel to select its choice of the South Island’s most powerful people. I would say the paper is bending over backwards to be inclusive, perhaps to the extent of reverse discrimination.

Does all this sound like a racist society? I don’t think so Mr Potiki.
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December 19, 2008 10:54am
kiwipolemicist

On the smutty theme…

What do people think about the doctor who made a nude calendar for a children’s charity?

IMHO the guy isn’t fit fit to be a doctor because he’s clearly out of touch with the concepts of “decency” and “appropriate behaviour with children”.

http://kiwipolemicist.wordpress.com/2008/12/18/unbelievable-a-nude-calendar-for-a-childrens-charity/
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December 19, 2008 10:55am
Lee

“What do people think about the doctor who made a nude calendar for a children’s charity?”

At the very least he is monumentally stupid. Did the phrase “porn for kids” never enter his mind as a possible media headline?
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December 19, 2008 11:00am
big bruv

Church is whatever you bloody want it to be, from what I know of MT Tinman his “church” serves beer, I also happen to know that he worships as often as possible.
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December 19, 2008 11:02am
Fisiani

We go into the summer recess with a warm glow of satisfaction.
Despite the unprecedented projected decade of deficits we have a government that for the first time in a decade focuses on growth rather than on pandering to its puportive support base.

In just two weeks
Already we have seen the passage of huge tax cuts for 2009,2010 and 2011 to rightfully give taxpayers their chance to choose what to do with their hard earned money.
We have passed the 90 day right to employ bill that will allow employers from 1st March to take a chance and give enthusiastic keen workers a real job. A godsend in a time of recession
We have protected those in need who lose their jobs
We have arranged to set badly needed education standards in public schools.
We have arranged to keep the streets clearer of recidivist criminal scum and those who bash ( not gently chastise) kids.
We have stopped the foolishness of importing foreign biofuels that worsen world hunger and have ensured that possibility of having sufficient energy to prevent blackouts

We have the summer break to review line by line wastage and transfer that funding to productive use of government spending.
We have three years to change the Kiwi psyche back to the rugged pioneer mentality that was strong and self sufficient, but was cowed and sapped by socialist dogma. That knows that it is better to ask for forgiveness that to ask for permission.
That knows that we know what is best for us rather than be told by the government.That looks forward to changes to the RMA to get an upgraded Eden Park so that the AB’s can hoist aloft the Rugby World Cup in 2011
Thank goodness the Evil Empire is gone and the good side of the force has prevailed.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
2009 will be tough but there is a good heart and brain at the helm and the course is set to reach the calms.
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December 19, 2008 11:12am
AG

Fisiani:

“Despite the unprecedented projected decade of deficits we have a government that for the first time in a decade focuses on growth rather than on pandering to its puportive support base.”

“Already we have seen the passage of huge tax cuts for 2009,2010 and 2011 to rightfully give taxpayers their chance to choose what to do with their hard earned money.”

No contradiction there, then! Oh, and as for “we have arranged to keep the streets clearer of recidivist criminal scum and those who bash ( not gently chastise) kids” … you do realise the attempt to increase sentences for violence against children will apply to those who physically chastise (ie smack) kids?
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December 19, 2008 11:16am
grumpyoldhori

Jack5, if the stabber had been a Maori and the boy who died a Pakeha from a good family on the Shore who was forced to tag from the pressure of school, think an all white jury would let a hori get away with a manslaughter verdict under the same circumstances ?
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December 19, 2008 11:22am
Fisiani

AG

Can you actually contruct an argument? Try reading my post again theres a good chap/chapess
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December 19, 2008 11:26am
MT_Tinman

Christ Lee, I’m bloody sure I’m not wet enough to want to see my extended family every day, nor, I’m sure, would they want to see me daily but that does not alter the fact that we can, if we wish, contact one another any day of any year (except for one day every four years which is sacrosanct, hence the 365).

As for Hell (the place where you go if you die with your boots off?), there is an old joke that suggests if you end up in Hell you’ll be so busy shaking hands with old friends there’ll be no time for worry.

As long as they serve cold beer that’ll do me.
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December 19, 2008 11:35am
Jack5

GrumpyoldHori, which I’m sure is an inaccurate pen name, writes:” … think an all white jury would let a hori get away with a manslaughter verdict under the same circumstances ?”

I don’t know. But in the current case, I would have to hear the evidence, and look at the jury deliberating. I certainly think it was appalling for a kid to die for tagging, but how do you know the jury’s decision reached was on racist grounds?

Were the jury all white? What does “all white” mean in New Zealand where so many of us are of mixed blood? How would you know a jury was all white in NZ without DNA testing, and I wonder if even that could establish that.

Isn’t it wrong to cry racism so readily? If the decision in the tagger death case was wrong, could it not be wrong on other grounds — for example prejudice against taggers as a whole?

Are taggers all Maori? Did the man convicted attack the boy because he was defacing his property or because the boy was Maori? I just don’t know, but I know it’s wrong to heighten tension by crying racism without solid evidence this is the case.

My point is that Mr Potiki as a community leader should be specially careful about making such accusations.
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December 19, 2008 11:53am
grumpyoldhori

Fisiani, you still want corporate welfare for a business when times are tough ?
Pro rugby is a business, care to explain why some old woman in Auckland who will get nothing from it should help fund Eden park from her fixed small income ?

What are Pro rugby players earning over a million a year owed by ratepayers on fixed incomes in Auckland ?
Should a business not provide it’s own facilities ?
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December 19, 2008 12:19pm
Chuck Bird

“Did the man convicted attack the boy because he was defacing his property or because the boy was Maori?”

Did man convicted attack the boy at all or was he acting in self defence when the boys decided to turn on him?
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December 19, 2008 12:30pm
grumpyoldhori

Jack5, how would my pen name be inaccurate ?
Potiki a community leader, nope, he is a former CEO, that is all.
You seem to be suggesting that race has never played a part in Maori not getting a fair shake with the so called justice system at times.
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December 19, 2008 12:31pm
grumpyoldhori

Chuck Bird, think he should be released to bait the dead boys family each
day ?
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December 19, 2008 12:34pm
Brian Smaller

““What the hell is “church”?”

The place you go to when you don’t want to go to hell.”

Really? I normally go to Hungry Kiwis.
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December 19, 2008 12:36pm
Jack5

Grumpyholdhori – the pen name. You don’t sound that grumpy, or at least any grumpier than the rest of us soapboxers. That’s what I meant.

I don’t deny that Maori have suffered from racism both in getting fair deals and in other ways, but where’s the evidence of racism in the tagger death case?
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December 19, 2008 12:45pm
Chuck Bird

“Chuck Bird, think he should be released to bait the dead boys family each
day ?”

I think he should be allowed bail until sentence or until an appeal is heard if there is an appeal.

There is no evidence that he would bait the dead boys family let alone be a threat to anyone.

It might come as a surprise to you and some on this blog that I loath genuine racism but it cuts both ways.

There has been genuine cases of racism against Maori. However, some Maori make wild claims without a shred of evidence they do disservice to the majority Maori who do not want play the victim card.
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December 19, 2008 1:04pm
dc

Oh come on Gerry Brownlee, “It wasn’t me” is not the Homer Simpson defence, it’s the Bart Simpson defence.

National’s Gerry Brownlee carries on with the cartoon theme, noticing Labour has adopted a “Homer Simpson defence” to the election result. “I wasn’t there, it didn’t happen, it wasn’t me.”

Given that Cullen vaguely resembles an aged version of the original “I didn’t do it boy” this is a terrible gaffe.

And as for Cullen:

“That election was basically won on what one might call, slightly indelicately, the ‘underwear principle’. And that is, it was time for a change. It was not won upon the basis that one wanted different underwear, it was simply a time for a change of underwear.”

Perhaps he would like to change into these.
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December 19, 2008 1:10pm
dave strings

DfJ

There is now clear evidence that Jesus was born on June 18th, whereas December 25th was the traditional gathering and festival of druids after the Winter Solstice (at Stonehenge of course).

So what was that about CHRISTmas?
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December 19, 2008 1:39pm
colinm

Hi all.
Just pondering something.
Anyone interested in helping with a plan to start a groundswell, or lobby group or similar to try and have the many and varied acts by the labour party which could well be actual crimes investigated by police?
Just because they lost the election it doesn’t let them off if they have committed criminal acts.
I’m guessing many people can come up with allegations that could be investigated. I’ll start.
1. The decimation of our armed forces by Mark Burton. It borders on a treasonous act IMHO.
2. The PREFU statement.
3…….
If someone can say draft a letter for us to send to our local MP (I’m a hopeless writer). Or, suggest a plan for action, please post it. I’m willing to put some of my own money into this if there’s enough interest to start something.
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December 19, 2008 1:45pm
dad4justice

dave strings are you saying I should take down my Christmas tree and put a gigantic boulder in the lounge?
Have you string or rocks inside your head?
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December 19, 2008 2:30pm
dad4justice

Or are you a fluid druid?
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December 19, 2008 2:34pm
Ratbiter

shithead4hatred: He put the idea out. You’ve clearly got no comeback, so you just hurl abuse. It’s a great way to deal with life. No wonder the judge didn’t think you were a fit person to look after children! 🙂
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December 19, 2008 2:42pm
dad4justice

Ratbiter, you really do say things like dear sonic did. The laugh is on you regarding my children. Run with facts dirtbag. Goodbye creep.
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December 19, 2008 2:46pm
Ratbiter

So… you can dish the crap out constantly, but you can’t take any of it.

You might like to spend some of your Christmas break thinking about the meaning of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”

But then, you’ll probably just be here the whole time, swearing and cursing at people…
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December 19, 2008 3:14pm
dime

dc – fingers crossed labour keeps thinking they only lost because people wanted a change! i hope they never change and stay out of power!
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December 19, 2008 3:19pm
PhilBest

# grumpyoldhori (464) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 2 Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

“Fisiani, you still want corporate welfare for a business when times are tough ?
Pro rugby is a business, care to explain why some old woman in Auckland who will get nothing from it should help fund Eden park from her fixed small income ?

What are Pro rugby players earning over a million a year owed by ratepayers on fixed incomes in Auckland ?
Should a business not provide it’s own facilities ?”

GrumpyOldHori, I gave you that plus 1 karma point, for best Libertarian post of the day.

I have told you this before, you really ought to talk to Tim Wikiriwhi and work on making Libertarianism the new face of Maori politics. I am sure that Maori would have done 100 times better under a completely laissez faire regime than under the status quo of soft socialism.

I agree with you completely on the “corporate welfare” thing, but I do not regard tax cuts as corporate welfare. Corporate welfare, is giving hard-earned taxpayers money to the country’s least efficient or most stupid businesses; tax cuts, involves raising the average success level of all businesses.

I think governments are absolutely wrong to be throwing “bailout” money at the least efficient and most stupid and even the criminally dishonest, right now, just because there is a crisis and we need to avoid the “consequences” of these businesses falling over. Thus we drag all efficient and responsible businesses and people down and reward all the wrong things.

If there is any case at all to be made for a given figure to be “injected” into the economy in a time of crisis, it most definitely should NOT be targeted at all the wrong people. The figure should be applied to an indiscriminate tax cut or tax holiday for all. That would actually do some good for the economy – the other will be on the WRONG side of having a “neutral” effect.

By the way, I think you would like P.J. O’Rourke’s rule of thumb for whether or not any particular expenditure of taxpayers money is legitimate. Is the expenditure in such a worthy cause that you would steal money from your own mother to support it – yes/no?
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December 19, 2008 3:19pm
PhilBest

Humour – a friend just sent me a link to THIS:

http://www.bleedtheworld.com/

Enjoy, GrumpyOldHori

Karma is sweet……..
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December 19, 2008 3:33pm
Manolo

“I am sure that Maori would have done 100 times better under a completely laissez faire regime than under the status quo of soft socialism. ”

Hear, hear, these words of wisdom.
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December 19, 2008 3:45pm
CraigM

Huge snow storm in the US at the moment. Snowing in Vegas 🙂

I found this : (editing for speed reading)

“The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.

Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

It was written in 1922!!!!!
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December 19, 2008 3:51pm
PhilBest

Hey, this is not bad, Holman W. Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal;

“Put Madoff in Charge of Social Security”

“…..When has the Securities and Exchange Commission ever found a fraud except by reading about it in the newspapers? Anyway, who said the agency was supposed to prevent investors from losing money or relieve them of having to perform due diligence?

Mr. Madoff’s many honorable and accomplished clients chose to deal with their man outside the institutional checks that come from, say, a heavily regulated bank or a highly transparent mutual fund, perhaps one whose parent is also publicly traded and doubly subject to the checks of a watchful stock market. That was their choice.

It is common to wax nostalgic for a time when a man’s word was his bond, business was done on a handshake, etc. This is poppycock. It has always been a client’s job to sort out the dealer who could be trusted from the one who couldn’t. Personal connections may give comfort, but are no substitute for true institutional checks or true experience of a man’s character, which many of Mr. Madoff’s clients seemed not to have.

Instead, they went on “reputation,” which is to say they acquired their faith in Mr. Madoff more or less the way people acquire their faith in global warming and many other things, from people equally as ignorant as they……

“…..In all likelihood, Mr. Madoff was not running a pure Ponzi scheme, but had real assets. He was operating a blind pool, in which investors had no real idea what they owned or how it was performing, relying on Mr. Madoff who reported metronomic returns, brooked no nosiness into his methods, and seemed always willing to pay off investors who wanted to withdraw their money.

He may have been casual from the start about what money he used to pay withdrawals. It is almost inconceivable, though, that he could have built a true Ponzi scheme to a height of $50 billion, in which there were never any real assets, just his superhuman 40-year juggling act to ensure new investors were recruited as needed to provide funds to meet withdrawal requests from earlier investors.

If so, he is a genius who should immediately be put in charge of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

It was Mr. Madoff himself who apparently applied the word “Ponzi” to his crime, in his distraught confession to his sons. His “$50 billion” in reputed losses also appear to be little more than hearsay, his own tremulous characterization of the long-running disaster he’d wrought.

More likely, his firm devolved into a Ponzi scheme only when serious losses hit and he decided not to level with investors but to gamble on a resurrection……”
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December 19, 2008 3:54pm
WebWrat

Wow!

Just took me half an hour to dial up, load Kiwiblog then load General Dabate. Meanwhile I played about 6 games of solitare … fuck I am sick of that game!!!

The big thing that originally got me hooked on KiwiBlog was that it was the fastest blog in the west for loading. Now it’s really slow. The worst part is that it loads all the banners and side bars first, so you have nothing to read while it loads up. Text first, as in No Minister, is best.

Anyhoo.

I see Time Magazine have declared Obama ‘Person Of The Year’, citing his “Bold plans for the future” as the reason.

I don’t actually remember him having any plans for the future, let alone bold ones.
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December 19, 2008 3:57pm
grumpyoldhori

PhilBest, I am far too cynical to join any political party.
Case in point, you will notice that those who call themselves Libertarian in NZ are happy to have their little trotters in the tax payer trough while they are at uni.

If they had any Libertarian pride they would demand to pay the full cost of their education while they are at uni.
Oh, and the cop out that a lot of them use that they will be paying tax after they leave uni holds no water, for a lot go overseas after we have paid for their education.
No, with the Libertarian types I notice that they argue this is what we want YOU do to, not what we do.
You will notice a lot of so called right wing types posting here on how bad socialism is, what they do not post is how much they agree with socialism if it benefits them, like a stadium for the world cup.
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December 19, 2008 4:02pm
dad4justice

Well I be buggered if I don’t well agree with the grumpyoldhori. Well said, good to see somebody lives in the real world outside the socialist sphere of hypercritical learned jerks.
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December 19, 2008 4:08pm
PhilBest

grumpyoldhori, I think your burden of proof of sincerity is impossibly high for the poor under-supported libertarians. If a few of them DID what you say and paid their own way, how will that ever actually achieve the sort of recognition for their cause that it deserved? I would argue, too, that many of those who leave the country in disgust while still young actually get their Uni education, and pay for it, overseas.

I do think there is a difference between the people who just trust Nanny State right from their mothers teat, and cynical Libs who hate it, desire its end, and bilk it of every penny they can in the meantime. Paying your own way only leaves the enemy stronger.

You might tell me then, that all bludgers are filling this valuable role. The acid test there, my friend, is, who do they vote for?
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December 19, 2008 4:43pm
labrator

WebWrat, get an ad blocker! Firefox has plugins, Opera just right-click block content. It’s usually ads that slow sites down!
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December 19, 2008 4:45pm
wikiriwhis business

“You have become robots. Rooting is better than Routers.”

Brian,

you have to remember, internet is a far more realistic endeavour than sex for a lot of the old timers on this site. Its the reason they’re so politically conscious. The sad thing is, even us ones with libido’s have become affected by the buzzing of the Beehive.

Politics should be the realm of 50+ individuals with a wealth of life experience, understanding and sage wisdom. Save a ton of cash on consultants for a start. But lets just be glad the people spoke to keep a democracy we can stil;l spout off in… about sex or politics on computers!
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December 19, 2008 5:01pm
Rex Widerstrom

Buggerlugs says

I recall having a few women call out oh God, but I’m not sure whether they were referring to me

Well I generally apply five simple tests in determining the answer to that question. Was it:

1. Right after I dropped my trousers, and accompanied by gales of laughter?
2. Immediately after I’d achieved satisfaction, such event occurring within 2 minutes or less of 1 above, and said in a tone of amazement?
3. After I’d asked “was it good for you, too?” and said with an air of scorn?
4. As I was putting my trousers back on, and said with an air of abject disappointment?
5. Right after my wallet dropped out and she opened it and saw my payslip, and said in a tone of disgust?

If any or all of the above apply, then yes, she probably was.

😀
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December 19, 2008 5:38pm
Rex Widerstrom

Lee suggests:

“What the hell is “church”?”

The place you go to when you don’t want to go to hell.

No, that’s the U-turn you make just south of Dunedin 😀
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December 19, 2008 5:42pm
grumpyoldhori

PhilBest, poor Libs heh, all I ask of the Libs is that if they are going to want a certain type of government ie free market, that they live by that creed.

It is amusing that I NEVER see Libertarian educated types ranting that the dosh handed around to students, should be handed around to all young people in the same amount.
Libertarians do not need government aid to attend university it can be done part time while working and paying the full cost.
What you have said says that Libertarians are no different from many other young people with their, we are owed attitude.
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December 19, 2008 6:51pm
stephen

I see Time Magazine have declared Obama ‘Person Of The Year’, citing his “Bold plans for the future” as the reason.

Since the 1920s or so, Time Magazine has chosen a person that for better or worse, has most influenced events in that year – I doubt they’ve all of a sudden changed that…
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December 19, 2008 6:56pm
reid

Sorry people, I’m going to do this on every general debate thread until it’s reported that someone has at least considered it.

In the hope that someone in power who may read this blog picks it up for consideration…

Review the taxation rate on redundancy payments. Decades ago it used to be taxed at 5%, now it’s 39%.

This is something significant and meaningful that would be directly targetted and would not cost a lot and would be very popular. Do it and do it now.
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December 19, 2008 8:36pm
WebWrat

# labrator (450) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 4:45 pm

WebWrat, get an ad blocker! Firefox has plugins, Opera just right-click block content. It’s usually ads that slow sites down!
……………….
Thanks for that … I’ll have a go at downloading the plugin.
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December 19, 2008 10:14pm
Jack5

Reid has a good point with tens of thousands of lay-offs looming.

Redundancies in these times may be expected to tide people over more than one tax period. It seems unfair to assess them for tax by lumping them together with income and taxing the lot as annual income. These days this is likely to be compensation for either entire loss of income, or some loss of income (by going on to a lower wage) for years ahead.

If it’s invested the IRD is going to get tax on the interest any way.
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December 19, 2008 10:28pm
calendar girl

reid and Jack5: Be a bit cautious about reducing tax on redundancy payments to, say, 5%. When that situation prevailed up till about the late 1980s, there were all kinds of rorts being perpetrated. Incomes or superannuation contributions were being deferred until termination of employment could be contrived as a “reduncancy”, and even dismissals for non-performance were manipulated the same way in respect of final pay due – it reduced the cost to the employer.

The principle you point to is sensible enough, and something along these lines could be a useful part of the package to help people made reduncant in the downturn. The approach I would suggest, however, is for IRD to have a mechanism to approve a redundancy payment – on the taxpayer’s application – as part of the following tax year’s income and taxed normally as (part of) that year’s total income. That’s more in line with the real purpose of a redundancy payment.
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December 20, 2008 7:16am
Patrick Starr

Hey Grumpyoldhori. See any parallels here?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4798320a11.html

Had ‘brown skinned’ Mr Herman Sakaria been provoked by the ‘white skinned’ teenage criminals and used that large lump of steel pipe in his right hand would he now be in the same situation as Bruce Emery?,
Indeed would the following statement have been made? “Rodney police are applauding Mr Sakaria’s quick thinking and actions”

Fact is both made a decision to confront criminals, and both took a weapon.
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December 20, 2008 10:09am

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