General Debate 19 April 2009

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OECD rank 22 kiwi

How deep will New Zealand’s recession be?
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April 19, 2009 8:59am
billyborker

As deep as the economic analysis on kiwiblog?

As deep as jonkey’s pockets?

As deep as the vultures can talk it down to be?

How deep is your love?

[DPF: Hard to get off topic on general debate but you have managed it for 10 demerits]
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April 19, 2009 9:04am
Patrick Starr

fuck that’s deep
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April 19, 2009 9:25am
Patrick Starr

“Nato forces have rescued 20 fishermen from pirates who launched the latest attack in the Gulf of Aden, but let the Somali hijackers go because they had no authority to arrest them”

dont address the problem and then wonder why it continues?

“There isn’t a silver bullet” to solve the problem, said Roger Middleton, a piracy expert at London-based think-tank Chatham House”

jeez – I can think of one – and it aint silver

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/africa/2345122/Somali-pirates-seize-Belgian-ship
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April 19, 2009 9:35am
virtualmark

Will be very interesting to see what unfolds from the Pirate Bay verdict overnight.

I have sympathies with both sides … we need copyright owners to have incentives to keep investing in good stuff for us to watch/play/listen to … but I also want some pressure put on them to make it available in an easy to use way and at a reasonable price.

But I have no confidence at all on that second part. Left to their own devices I think the big media companies will charge a premium price for second-rate quality, tied up with unworkable DRM. The web has been around for over 15 years now, and they still don’t “get” it.
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April 19, 2009 9:40am
billyborker

Me too – damned if I am going back to paying for porn .
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April 19, 2009 9:56am
goodgod

Interesting interview with Don Brash on Q+A this morning. The key point he made was not lost: National need to communicate exactly how serious the recession is to NZders. Talk of cycleways failed to impress or convince me, and many others, so a big fat fail for them so far. Talk of no further tax cuts also unconvincing.

Interesting to hear that “polls” have NZders saying they don’t want tax cuts and that somehow makes them savy? I’d have though it makes them ignorant of the effect of tax cuts, or not having cuts as the case may be. I have never been polled for any such questions. Not ever. The replies seem to all be leaning toward status quo/socialism. Why would that be?

Repeat request for Q+A producers:

Can we have it moved to prime time – minus the panel. Holmes is doing some excellent work there. It ought to do more for lifting the political intelligence of NZders than any political discussion series so far.
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April 19, 2009 10:06am
pdm

goodgod – what polls – can you elaborate.
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April 19, 2009 10:24am
village idiot

New Zealanders say they don’t want tax cuts, if it means we will have to borrow and indebt our future generations.
Are all New Zealanders Green Party supporters now? How did they become so wise, so quickly?
The mysteries of the National Party’s research unit.
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April 19, 2009 10:52am
village idiot

I mean, National promised tax cuts and now won’t deliver but miraculously, New Zealanders don’t mind at all, in fact, we prefer not to have tax cuts! Are we that fickle, or are we being misrepresented?
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April 19, 2009 10:56am
libertyscott

Let there be tax cuts, let those who don’t want tax cuts donate their cuts to the state or to whoever else they wish.

Indeed, those who want taxes to rise can pay more.
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April 19, 2009 10:59am
reid

Re: the Pirate Bay verdict: Lew has a brilliant post on Kiwipolitico.
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April 19, 2009 11:03am
Manolo

I entirely agree with libertyscott: I also want my tax cut.

I’m prepared to support the hopeless, but not the clueless. Enough of our taxes propping up a disfunctional welfare state
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April 19, 2009 11:21am
stephen

I have never been polled for any such questions. Not ever. The replies seem to all be leaning toward status quo/socialism. Why would that be?

I would’ve thought that is simply because ‘the status quo’ has a very long history in NZ – a biggish welfare state is all we know! Reflected in the way NZ votes for National, then Labour, then National…they are both pretty orthodox, everyone is weirded out by the other guys.
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April 19, 2009 11:21am
s.russell

I believe Muldoon once said people wouldn’t know a deficit if they tripped over it. Now we do. Fiscal prudence has become a totem at which the nation worships. This is why people have gone cold on the idea of tax cuts: the desire for a cut is overwhelmed by horror of a decade of deficits. While such cuts may boost the economy and thus prove self-rectifying, this is a counterintuitive approach most people do not easily embrace. I am rather inclined to the view however, that it is far better for NZ to have a horror of deficits than to be insouciant about them.
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April 19, 2009 11:43am
Neil

I watched Q&A this morning and must say Murray McCully restored a lot faith that I had lost with him. Latterly I have thought of McCully as the surreptitious prince of darkness and spin.
The NZ Foreigh policy of the Clark-era was shrouded in the politically correct salon politics of academics analysing the impossible- pro-Arab,quasi anti-americanism, long gone nuclear free matters and totally flying in the face of mere mortals foreign policies tendencies in NZ.
McCully has restored public opinion and public feelings to policy. How possibly could we back those Palestinians against Israel when Hamas was constantly bombing Israel.Afghanistan remains a war that must not be lost. Imagine Iraq as a totally failed state. Failure there would see international oil markets in a spin. The same in Saudi Arabia if al quaeda succeeds in its nihilistic escapades.
Losing Afghanistan will provide us with with another Somalia. One of our problems in the next 25 years will be the growth of failed states, allowing pirates,international criminals and fascist/communist type individuals back in and holding the world to ransom. James Bond style battling against Spectre is not too far fetched.
Likewise when dealing with the USA. A much more measured hand than Labour.
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April 19, 2009 11:44am
reid

“Why would that be?”

The mainstream center shift to the left during Liarbore’s nine years is quite marked. I can think of only two reasons why that happened, but I’m certain there are others.

Firstly, if the global market had operated under normal cycles during that time, Cullen’s economic mismanagement would have become apparent much sooner and the usual ‘lefties can’t run the economy as well as the conservatives’ dynamic would have surfaced. Because that didn’t happen, the left have shed that millstone and the reef-fish who don’t understand these things now think that lefties can run the economy not only just as well but possibly even better than conservatives.

Secondly Hulun’s extremely assiduous message and media management was responsibly for the dream run they received in the media during their entire first and second terms and for some of the third.

As we all know, Hulun borrowed heaps from Blair and also I think from Clinton as well. That to me is the source to look at to find other reasons for this phenomena. Blair’s press secretary, Alistair ?, was a key conduit to Hulun and his biography will be an interesting and revealing read.
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April 19, 2009 11:57am
MT_Tinman

Patrick Starr (2095) Vote: Add rating 4 Subtract rating 0 Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 9:35 am

“Nato forces have rescued 20 fishermen from pirates who launched the latest attack in the Gulf of Aden, but let the Somali hijackers go because they had no authority to arrest them”

dont address the problem and then wonder why it continues?

I see no problem with letting these scum go.

Just hope they let them go a couple of miles from shore and confiscated their boat(s), ammunition and life jackets before releasing them.
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April 19, 2009 11:59am
reid

“How possibly could we back those Palestinians against Israel when Hamas was constantly bombing Israel.”

That’s a fallacy, Neil. It’s not an either/or question.

If we had not supported Israel’s Christmas bombardment and slaughter of civilians, it did NOT mean that thereby we were supporting Hamas.

That’s the fallacy that some on this blog still can’t get their heads around.

And no apologies for using the word “slaughter,” for that’s precisely what it was.
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April 19, 2009 12:03pm
Redbaiter

” The mainstream center shift to the left during Liarbore’s nine years is quite marked. I can think of only two reasons why that happened, but I’m certain there are others. ”

FFS.. You watched the brilliant and courageous ‘Indoctrinate U’ movie the other day didn’t you?? Didn’t that give you a few more clues, or did the powerful message it conveys just pass you by completely??

The reason the mainstream have drifted left is becasue the left have over the last few decades, shifted their strategy to attacking our culture. Gaining control of our public institutions, our schools, our newspapers and television and radio stations, our entertainment, and from this, our government and our parliament.

They have done the same throughout the west. It is a strategy that has worked so well, but at last, in the US, (where free speech is still supreme) where they have not had the success they had in Europe or NZ, they are being repelled.

Here’s to the tea parties.

The start of the revolution.

Leftists at last getting confronted on their bullshit and their lies and their cultural totalitarianism.

Check this video / web page to see a Republican traitor get his due.

http://www.palmettoscoop.com/2009/04/17/barrett-booed-at-greenville-tea-party/

Tea parties for NZ??

If only.
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April 19, 2009 12:16pm
Redbaiter

Letter from a journalist to the website angryjounalist.com, a web site set up so journalists can vent their spleen over the collapse of their industry. Could be a fake of course, but it sure sounds like a journalist. If its a fake, it s good one.

———————————————-

I’m angry because I’m getting so much hate email today.

I have a buddy who’s a stringer in Africa. He hooks me up with some phone numbers of people in Somalia who know guys who know guys who know pirates. I make some calls, research the pirate community’s side of the situation.

Then I write an article. I mention that the pirates don’t really think of themselves as pirates, and that they try to be kind to their hostages. They’re just poor young guys in a bad situation trying to make a living.

I was as evenhanded and unbiased as I could be. Just because I happen to be a US citizen, I shouldn’t be biased toward my own country, I strive to be a citizen of the world who just happens to have been born in the US. I tried to respect the pirates’ perspective as much as possible, give them equal dignity as fellow human beings. The story was as objective as I could make it. No favoritism for either side, no opinions, just straight reporting.

So my story goes out, and now I’m getting hate email from right-wing lunatics who call me a “traitor,” and worse, just because I gave equal consideration to the plight of the pirates as I did to the people they inconvenience, and the military people who hunt them down.

So now I’m angry. I’m angry at the stupid, backwoods, cousin-marrying, tooth-missing, gun-toting, SUV-driving neanderthals I’m stuck with as fellow US citizens, who don’t even want to consider the poor pirates’ point of view in these recent events, and just want to slam and threaten honest journalists, who are merely trying to bring enlightenment to their dim, backwards, pathetic lives.

I blame the public schools, frankly. They are not doing enough to teach about the UN, NGOs, and other international forums. They are not training the kids to become citizens of the world first and of the country they were randomly born in second. They are doing a disservice to the world community by over-emphasis on “American” things, Americentrism. It makes me sick. It makes me angry.
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April 19, 2009 12:29pm
Redbaiter

Watch CNN fake journalist’s advocacy for Obama while she “reports” on the Tea Parties. The mainstream media and its so called “journalists” are totally perverted to the cause of leftism/ socialsim/ collectivism, and are the biggest danger to individual freedom that exists in the western world today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2baxw_YScxc&feature=related
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April 19, 2009 12:39pm
wreck1080

I see NZ’s busiest speed camera clicked 10,000 speeding cars. This is in Browns Bay.

I thought of an idea, it should be simple to use plate recognition technology to look up if the car is stolen. Guaranteed that stolen cars speed disproportionally to the number out there.

Then, PC Plod is sitting down the road to nab the car when it goes past.
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April 19, 2009 12:57pm
TimG_Oz

Thanks Neil – Is the Q&A online somewhere that I can watch it?

I think your analysis is pretty much spot on – especially with Israel + Hamas. Labour were blinded by political correctness and their own ingrained biases. Even the Australian Labour Party understand World Politics better than NZ Labour.

BTW – I am having Lunch with Kevin Rudd on Friday (OK actually I am attending a luncheon) – and fmr Maj Gen Peter Cosgrove and I will be really interested to hear their take on world politics …
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April 19, 2009 1:00pm
getstaffed

wreck1080 – it’s fine line between keeping the law and order.. and changing the order of law. How would you feel about packs of these little things out hunting our streets?
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April 19, 2009 1:02pm
Redbaiter

“I see NZ’s busiest speed camera clicked 10,000 speeding cars. This is in Browns Bay.”

Clearly the speed limit is wrong.
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April 19, 2009 1:10pm
baxter

GOODGOD:……..The only poll I have seen was by the NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development which appears to be a front organisation for the Greens, the title of the organisation is intended to deceive and clearly does. . As I saw on Q&A the chairman is a Peter NEILSON former Liabour politician and ACC member appointed by H.C> : The poll also seems to be a fraud.
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April 19, 2009 1:14pm
radar

I really don’t think we have the moral authority to complain about what is happening in Fiji when John Key is getting into bed (metaphorically) with Hu Jintao. I know that Fiji hasn’t been a democracy for the last five years, but can someone remind me when was the last time the Chinese Communist Party won an election? That would be never. Double standard me thinks. And why? Simply because of the size of China’s economy, and what they can do for us. Morally bankrupt.

And as for the Tea Parties, where were these people from 2000 to 2008 when the deficit was increasing under Bush? Did it take them eight years to make their signs?

FOX News is giving these parties so much attention. Why didn’t they lavish as much praise on the hundreds of thousands of protesters who marched against the invasion of Iraq? Why are they only shining the spotlight on dissent now? Could it be because there is a Democrat in the Whitehouse? Surely not. They are “fair and balanced”!
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April 19, 2009 1:49pm
reddeath26

@radar-
What are you talking about? Only the left ever do anything wrong. It sounds like you have fallen victim to the left wing conspiracy.
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April 19, 2009 2:26pm
pdm

I notice that having raised the question of polls Goodgod has disappereared when questioned or challenged on them. Why?
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April 19, 2009 3:09pm
s.russell

I really don’t think we have the moral authority to complain about what is happening in Fiji when John Key is getting into bed (metaphorically) with Hu Jintao.

There is an important difference here. China is moving towards democracy (even if excruciatingly slowly), while Fiji is moving VERY rapidly in the opposite direction.
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April 19, 2009 3:12pm
Redbaiter

“China is moving towards democracy (even if excruciatingly slowly),”

Spare me the apologist propaganda please.
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April 19, 2009 3:34pm
noskire

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/2345142/Lisa-Lewis-ejected-for-racy-outfit

Two words: Media Whore
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April 19, 2009 3:59pm
Manolo

I saw Obama taken for a ride by the thuggish clown from Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

The Messiah was given a copy of “The Open Veins Of Latin America” by Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan writer. The book, written decades ago and which I have read, is an unabashed apology of socialism.

Galeano wrote it in praise of a failed ideology in the vain hope of inflicting it in his South American fellows. It didn’t come to pass and with a few exceptions the continent was spared the socialist yoke.
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April 19, 2009 4:29pm
getstaffed

ok, I’m pissed off.

Jetstar have just changed the times of 3 separate day-trips I had booked to Auckland. Flights depart Wellington later in morning, and return from Auckland 3 hours earlier – now 5pm. It’s hardly worth making the trip at all. A quick look at the ‘fine print’ …

The airline does not guarantee it will be able to carry you and your Baggage in accordance with the date and time of the flights specified. [WTF?!?] Schedules may change and flights may be delayed or cancelled for a range of reasons including but not limited to bad weather, air traffic control delays, strikes, technical disruptions, network changes and late inbound aircraft. Flight times do not form part of your contract of carriage with us. Please ensure accurate passenger details are provided in step 3 of the booking process so any changes can be notified. To the extent permitted by law, the airline excludes liability for any costs, expenses, losses or damages incurred by the Passenger as a result of failure to meet a schedule. Travel insurance is recommended.

I wonder how these conditions sits with the Consumer Guarantees Act?

Jetstar – I will not attempt to fly with you again.
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April 19, 2009 6:01pm
Loco Burro

Hey I have been looking at the new NZ Government simulator at UGOV seems quite interesting, the parties are in the middle of negotiating a coalition government. Check it out if you are interested.
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April 19, 2009 7:20pm
TimG_Oz

Hooray! Australia is boycotting the UN hate-fest known as “Durban 2″… although pretty announcing at pretty much the last minute:

http://abc.com.au/news/stories/2009/04/19/2546868.htm

This will make my luncheon with Kevin Rudd a lot less interesting on Friday (otherwise I think a few people would have been bringing buckets of tomatoes)
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April 20, 2009 12:25am

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