General Debate 24 October 2009

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radvad

New slogan for Fox News in the face of unprecedented demonisation from the baby-in-chief and his White House attack dogs:

“Fair and Balanced. And Unafraid”.
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October 24, 2009 7:50am
Grant Michael McKenna

If a woman lives in the same city as you, can she be an ‘exotic’ dancer?
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October 24, 2009 7:52am
Grant Michael McKenna

Further to the Fox News story: Charles Krauthammer’s take http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/22/AR2009102203801.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
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October 24, 2009 8:01am
Viking2

Where is Gen Debate when you need to get stuff out of your head??????
GRRRRRR

Certificates for pupils who stood up to Laws
By KAY BLUNDELL – The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 24/10/2009

KENT BLECHYNDEN/The Dominion Post
H IS FOR HONOURED: Otaki School kids received certificates from Joris de Bres after writing a letter to Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws about changing the name of Wanganui to Whanganui. From left, Rautini Thompson, Maria Logan-Richards, Amokura Rangiheuea gather round Mr de Bres.
Relevant offers

A group of Otaki primary school pupils have been honoured by Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres for acting with dignity in dealing with criticism from Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws.

The pupils, aged 11 to 13, at Otaki School’s kura kaupapa unit, were upset with an angry reply from Mr Laws, whom they wrote to in August urging him to insert the letter “h” in Wanganui.

Mr de Bres presented the girls with certificates yesterday to honour their stance.

“Your message to stand up for yourself is clear. You acted with real dignity and calm and quietly stood up for what you thought when dealing with such rubbish from Wanganui’s mayor.

“There has been a huge response from around the country for what you did. I hope the minister in charge of this issue will decide to correct the spelling,” Mr de Bres said.

He believed the way they had dealt with criticism was an example for everyone in New Zealand.

Ngarui Wihongi-Manukau, Rautini Thompson, Maria Logan-Richards, Amokura Rangiheueu, Teina Davis and Te Rangiamohia Nikora-Davis were disappointed Mr Laws had failed to respond to issues they had raised about the spelling of the town and asked him to apologise.

His reply had said: “There are so many deficiencies of both fact and logic in your letters I barely know where to start. When your class starts addressing the real issues of Maoridom – particularly the appalling rate of child abuse and child murder within Maori society, then I will take the rest of your views seriously.”

“He sounded angry, it was like he was not listening to us because of things happening with our people,” Maria said.

Mr Laws later asked the students to afternoon tea in his mayoral office saying, “If the impression was … I was somehow ‘bullying’ in my reply, I want to assure you it was the last thing from my mind.”

The girls declined the offer.

Although shy about receiving the honour, the girls said they were pleased they had stood up for themselves and would do so again.

Clear inference is that if you don’t like the criticism because of your colour and do not want to discuss that criticism nor the issues that surrounds it then by the good offices at PC central that’s ok and you deserve an honour. Eh????

Those girls have learnt that if you use your race card in the press and appeal to the bleeding hearts of PC control then that makes them the winners. Ah but, life was quite that easy. Lessons too come for them and hard ones too I’d suggest.

Worse though is that a Govt. outfit can promote racisim in such a bare faced way. Time Mr Key booted this dept. out forever.
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October 24, 2009 8:03am
Whafe

Stunning day in Auckland this morning, have not seen a lot of sun of late….. Bring it on……….
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October 24, 2009 8:19am
Patrick Starr

quite a funny and familiar story – (for those with overseas friends)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/news/article.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=10604784
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October 24, 2009 8:23am
dad4justice

Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres is just another well paid parasitic piece of dog turd much like the jellyfish that clutter all Commissions in this crackpot bureaucratic caldron of madness and uselessness. It is way past time to eradicate the vermin that saturate these pathetic government white elephants. What a sick country when you have deranged idiots who are completely devoid of substance and a backbone running the fucked up circus. Take a pill Joris and others. Hi John got a new commission Key meanwhile Helen plays sex in the city. What a disgrace these creeps are. Welcome to the land of the long white lie!
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October 24, 2009 8:27am
Whafe

Patrick, an amusing but true story…………

Having lived abroad for considerable time, the article sums it up well….. 🙂
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October 24, 2009 8:29am
mattyroo

Another top article from Matt Taibbi – of “Vampire Squid” fame….

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30481512/wall_streets_naked_swindle/print

Loved this bit on the American economy: “Our economy is so completely fucked, the rich are running out of things to steal.”

Also, for those interested in a cure to NZ’s economic malaise, have a look at this on the button presentation from Selwyn Pellet of the Productive Economy Council – http://www.slideshare.net/bernardchickey/lets-look-again-at-nz-monetary-policy

Key is supposedly a big fan of the Singapore system, so I wonder why the fuck he is not making moves to emulate it here. Unless, his plan is to rid NZ of all the other politcal parties, so as we can be a single party state, and he can be our Lee Kuan Yew.
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October 24, 2009 8:42am
Andrew W

Had a head cold since yesterday morning phenylephrine is crap.
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October 24, 2009 8:52am
Brian Smaller

Viking2 – I read that this morning as well. That de Bries guy is a complete wanker. Having the Race Relations office give an award to these kids means that they were somehow the victims of race hatred or something similar. What crap. The government should step in and either sack this guy or tell him that Helen is not in charge now.
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October 24, 2009 8:55am
cha

Key is supposedly a big fan of the Singapore system, so I wonder why the fuck he is not making moves to emulate it here. Unless, his plan is to rid NZ of all the other politcal parties, so as we can be a single party state, and he can be our Lee Kuan Yew.

Nah, he just likes the pay scale.
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October 24, 2009 8:56am
mattyroo

Cha, you fucking imbecile. If Key was able to do for New Zealand what Lee Kuan Yew did for Singapore, I and most other New Zealanders would be more than happy for him to be paid 4 million buks a year.

You’re just a typical lefty – cannot stand anybody having more money, or being more successful than you.

The other Sinagporean system Key needs to model in NZ, is bring in the death penalty for possession of drugs – then useless cunts like Philu would be goners. In fact, I would be more than happy to swing the axe!
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October 24, 2009 9:02am
cha

zing…….. straight over ya head, idiot.
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October 24, 2009 9:07am
Tauhei Notts

It is General Debate so I can bring this matter up.
How many of you remember the ravings of the Standardistas et al about the end of civilisation as we know it when the government proposed the 90 day employment trial period.
It has been in force for some months now and I have heard nothing about it.
Have any bloggers any experience with that move?
I would love to read your comments.
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October 24, 2009 9:08am
Inventory2

We’ve just started a new business Tauhei, and hired a woman to help. We’ve told her that she has until Christmas to make herself indispensible. And guess what – she couldn’t be happier, and is well on the way to achieving the goal we gave her!
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October 24, 2009 9:19am
Sonny Blount

Tauhei,

As a small business employer, I have may many times uttered the words ‘we’ve got 90 days so give them a go’ to my manager when asked if they should employ someone. It is a BIG relief.

I have yet to use it to dismiss someone. The 3 thieves I have let go this year have all been caught after the 90 days.
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October 24, 2009 9:19am
philu

don’t say i never do anything for you red..

downloadable life-sized masks of sarah palin..and glenn beck..

ostensibly they are for halloween..

but we won’t ask any questions about what (ahem..!..) you might do with them..

eh..?

http://whoar.co.nz/2009/downloadable-halloween-masks-of-glenn-beckand-sarah-palin/

phil(whoar.co.nz.)
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October 24, 2009 10:17am
philu

and look..!

a new computor game for you..!

fun for righties..!

..eh..?

http://whoar.co.nz/2009/obama-coup-of-2011-is-theme-of-new-computer-game/

“.. A new online computer game attempts to capitalize on the current strain of right-wing paranoia and activism ..

.. embodied by Glenn Beck’s televised blustering and the Tea Party protests ..

.. by allowing players to inhabit a world of the near-future .. that represents a conservative nightmare.

The game, called “2011: Obama Coup Fails,” is hosted by a website called The United States of Earth ..

.. and according to David Corn of Mother Jones, it was developed by “a small group of Ron Paul-loving libertarians living in Brooklyn.”

According to the game’s ham-handed chronology, early next year President Obama begins secret meetings with Felipe Calderon of Mexico and Stephen Harper of Canada ..

.. ostensibly to covertly erode the sovereignty of the United States .. and pave the way for the North American Union.

After the Republican party retakes Congress in the midterm elections..

.. Obama stages a coup before anyone is sworn in.

Afterward the revolution begins: firearms are outlawed, 20 million armed civilians take over local and state governments ..

.. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are interned and die of an “aspirin overdose,” ..

.. and Barack Obama declares himself the “Legendary Lost Imam,” among other fantasies..”

(heh..!..)

have fun..!

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 24, 2009 10:26am
dad4justice

Oh no phool has awoken!! Dam it !!! Time to leave this place. Have a good weekend those of us who not insane drop kick, stoned up,demented, utopian tree huggers.

[DPF: And that is 20 demerits]
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October 24, 2009 10:29am
Luc Hansen

The NZEI and it’s members need to have the courage of their convictions and stand up to the government. I for one don’t want my daughter entering a backward school system in four years time.

Here is an extract from this article: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/richard-garner-a-study-that-should-sound-the-death-knell-for-league-tables-1803630.html discussing this report: http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/index.html

“Professor Robin Alexander’s team has come up with an impressive analysis of what is wrong with our present system. Too much testing, too much concentration on the three R’s to the neglect of a broad and balanced curriculum, and too many “Stalinist” directives from ministers as to how teachers should teach.”

This is scholarly research embodied in a comprehensive project employing 100 researchers. It is not gut instinct, seat of the pants, ideological whimsy as exhibited by Key and Tolley.

I showed here a week or so ago how Tolley misrepresented statistics. I’ll dig it up when I get time.

As the head of the NZEI pointed out, this initiative is from left field, a surprise sprung on a professional sector which has been carefully and methodically heading along a completely different path, utilising best practice from around the world. NZ can actually hold it’s head high in terms of country rankings in, for example, the OECD. More on that later.

Teachers need to get involved in the debate. They should be here, now, getting their points across.
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October 24, 2009 11:05am
starboard

it was like he was not listening to us because of things happening with our people,” Maria said.

..this one’s a goner..she’s already using quotes like ” our people ” …brainwashed at such an early age… dear oh dear…wake up sweetheart..we are all one people here.
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October 24, 2009 11:33am
Akaroa

Hi DPF. May I ask about the rationale – or, rather, the apparent lack thereof – for your having arbitrarily demerited dad4justice 20 points for what – to me at least – seems to have been a fairly inoccuous comment about another blogger?

Not that I am a fan of D4J – or of any other blogger for that matter. Indeed, the whole concept of ‘blogging’, with the hours such activity represents in time simply wasted by those who place their views on this transient insubstantial medium, seems to me to be a peculiar eccentricity of 21st century life.

Why, then, I hear you ask, do I waste my own time in these pages reading blogs? Well, being retired after an industrious and modestly satisfying career and with boundless uncommitted time now available to me I can afford to sometimes browse blog-dom. Some of the views expressed often tend to reinforce my conviction that Society – as people like me once knew it – is – to use a tired colloquialism – heading for hell in a hand-basket!.
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October 24, 2009 11:34am
ernesto

I’m guessing you read the the whole Court of Appeal judgment about the McNee case and decided you were on a hiding to nothing.
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October 24, 2009 11:45am
starboard

May I ask about the rationale – or, rather, the apparent lack thereof – for your having arbitrarily demerited dad4justice 20 points for what – to me at least – seems to have been a fairly inoccuous comment

..because he can ! tee hee..!
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October 24, 2009 11:47am
reid

Just watching an excellent PBS doc called “The Warning” on how Greenspan and a few others resisted the regulation of the financial markets throughout the 90’s and into this first decade.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/

The embedded video has a bug whereby if you leave it playing it will automatically switch to another chapter and the audio keeps going but the video doesn’t. It has a ribbon just above the video which you can use to manually switch chapters that fixes this.
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October 24, 2009 12:06pm
philu

um..!..reid..you seem to be presenting this as some sort of rah rah..! for greenspan..

it details how greenspan was a fucken idjit..

and ignored the ‘the warning’s

what the..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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October 24, 2009 12:28pm
reid

FFS phil, as you know, I’ve been consistently against Greenspan et al since forever.

Just because I’m a conservative doesn’t mean I’m ideologically hidebound to any of their positions. I never have been and I never will be. Unlike certain others on both side of the illusory left-right political spectrum.

As you should have seen if you’d read anything I ever posted here.

eh…
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October 24, 2009 12:36pm
Pita

NIWA chief gets 31 per cent bonus for returning an eight million dollar lost…what would he have made if they had made a profit?

Apparently pay rises were made more than a year ago (according to Iain Rennie) before the recession set in…and before Labour got kicked out on their sorry arses!
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October 24, 2009 1:11pm
MikeNZ

Does it equal the saving made on Salinger’s salary?

What a play, got rid of a AGW whacko and used the money for the big knob.
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October 24, 2009 1:15pm
MikeNZ

Helen Clark is in the poo in NYC according to Ian and Andrei at TGIF.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is
at the centre of a growing controversy at the United
Nations over allegations guests were charged up to
US$250 a head to hear her speak in her capacity as
head of the UN Development Programme.

Makes Rodneys ask a little small ehhh.
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October 24, 2009 1:17pm
Whafe

Hulun Clark would have to pay me to listen to it (her)………..

Sheesh 250 US, whoa, what a waste of money..
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October 24, 2009 1:34pm
side show bob

Just heard last night that we are entertaining the governor general on Thursday. Shit, the wife will make me wear a clean black singlet and I may have to run my fingers through my hair. Hope he has a powerful thirst on, the bar will be open. Anyhow it’s sure to be entertaining.

MikeNZ, please don’t tell me there are people in this world insane enough to pay $250 to hear the Dear One. Unfucking believable. Who does she think she is? Showing her true socialist traits, delusions of grandeur and extortion.
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October 24, 2009 2:06pm
Redbaiter

“Just watching an excellent PBS doc”

Get a brain for chrissakes. Like RNZ here, PBS is the Pravda of the US airwaves. Nobody with more than a skerrick of intelligence pays it any heed.
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October 24, 2009 2:29pm
Redbaiter

Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Marsha Blackburn- remember those names.

Three girls with more balls than the Republican and Democrat parties combined.
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October 24, 2009 2:38pm
Owen McShane

Now here is a great idea from my American friends.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001111-home-based-businesses-resid ential-zoning-and-the-cyber-village
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October 24, 2009 2:39pm
reid

“Get a brain for chrissakes. Like RNZ here, PBS is the Pravda of the US airwaves. Nobody with more than a skerrick of intelligence pays it any heed.”

I’m interested in facts, RB. I don’t care who they come from. We’ve covered this before, yawn.

For an intelligent person, your obduracy in recognising that simple distinction surprises me, especially when the same sin is often committed by ideologically-driven lefties, whom we both claim to abhor. Well, I know I do, the fact you adopt the self-same tactics they do, makes me question your commitment to the VRWC.
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October 24, 2009 2:49pm
billyborker

Redbaiter (7620) Vote: 1 0 Says:

October 24th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman and Marsha Blackburn- remember those names.

Three girls with more balls than the Republican and Democrat parties combined.

Says it all about you, doesn’t it? Can only see women through homo-erotic fantasies.

Says a lot about the Republican Party, too, that it chooses women with balls over women with brains.

[DPF: 20 points for homo-erotic fantasies]
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October 24, 2009 3:03pm
billyborker

well said, reid. I consider myself an old fashioned leftie, the blue collar / white collar, educated type, before the lawyers and spivs took over, but I still listen to Australia’s ABC Radio National and stuff like this – http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/

I don’t like much of their politics, but I do listen to their ideas. After all, as you say, facts, and good ideas, come from a variety of sources. And if you don’t study your enemy, how can you defeat him?
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October 24, 2009 3:07pm
Hurf Durf

What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

October 19, 2009: Arab media in the Persian Gulf have been reporting that Syria, apparently on the orders of Iran, has turned over about 300 long range ballistic missiles to Hezbollah control. The missiles have apparently not left Syria (they would be hard to miss, being driven around southern Lebanon). The reports add that Hezbollah personnel are being trained to operate the missiles.
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October 24, 2009 3:22pm
BlackMoss

An article without a single source or an author — awesome reading…
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October 24, 2009 3:35pm
Andrew W

Akaroa, sometimes DPF hands out demerits if a comment has no purpose other than to start a flame war.
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October 24, 2009 3:39pm
Hurf Durf

I trust Strategy Page more than I trust you, BM.
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October 24, 2009 3:41pm
billyborker

[DPF: 20 points for homo-erotic fantasies]

I wish you’d publish a list of all the things that hack you off so i’d know in advnace. What’s wrong with homo-erotic fantasies? never had one? Yeah right.

Still, one must remember, its your blog, your rules. But those demerits are gay.

[DPF: I judged the comment was intended to provoke a flame war, rather than any sort of discussion]
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October 24, 2009 3:51pm
BlackMoss

HD, I didn’t think I was trying to inform you on the Middle East…?
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October 24, 2009 4:03pm
backster

SIDESHOW::::::I hope your wife isn’t too busy practicing to curtsey to cook the tea.
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October 24, 2009 4:55pm
Hagues

Is it just me or is it really hot in Florida?
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October 24, 2009 5:13pm
Andrew W

I don’t usually pay much attention to karma, but I’m surprised I’ve gotten a bit of negative karma on my 3:39 comment, anyone want to tell me why?
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October 24, 2009 7:12pm
side show bob

Backster if someone was to curtsey around here 9 times out of 10 they are pissed as a parrot. And have to cook my own tea, wife is on the piss with her mates in Wellington, gone to see mumma mia.
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October 24, 2009 7:38pm
dad4justice

[DPF: And that is 20 demerits]

What for David?
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October 24, 2009 8:48pm
Hurf Durf

Did you know…

… that Asian women have been left traumatised and questioned by police investigating missing two-year-old Aisling Symes in New Zealand?

Thanks Wikipedia, I would have never known about the indiscriminate and systematic state-sanctioned traumatising of Asian women if it weren’t for your simplistic little summary.
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October 24, 2009 8:51pm

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