General Debate 24 December 2010

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Ross Nixon

Merry Christmas one and all. Ho, ho, ho!
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December 24, 2010 8:05am
Falafulu Fisi

My Uncle (& his daughter), the one in the red/white shirt playing the violin is staying @ my place in Ponsonby (just visiting from Tonga for holiday). Him and his group are playing the Port of Refugee (popular) tongan song.
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December 24, 2010 8:17am
Viking2

political correctness means that you can no longer say hohoho. Its “ladies of the night, ladies of the night, ladies of the night” and Xmas is ” non religious summer holiday” while Santa “round faced non politically correct person with face hair and large stomach” ohh gees just Plain old Santa will do the rest is too hard for old fella.

Merry Xmas to all and Thankyou to DPF for allowing us all the chnace have our say without being”politcally correct”.

Its the free exchange of idea’s that will make us a better Nation.

Hmm All we need to do is sort out the pollies that run it. oh will that will be for next year all over again.
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December 24, 2010 8:23am
pacman

Falafulu Fisi – can you email me on clive@bpm.net.nz
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December 24, 2010 8:25am
Manolo

Wasting taxpayer’s money away and doling it out to greedy recipients without enough controls.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10696349

And this same minister, Bill English, claims we are on the right track. What a bloody joke!
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December 24, 2010 8:27am
Yvette

“Horrific details have been made public in a police case against parents accused of systematically abusing a nine-year-old girl.
The girl’s mother, 30, faces 33 assault and neglect charges. Her father, 32, faces three.
The police summary states the girl and one of her siblings were put into Child, Youth and Family care in 2008, and the girl was allegedly sexually abused by relatives.
The children were placed back with their parents in December, after which, the defendants reported, the girl behaved in a sexualised way toward her siblings, and threatened and assaulted them. They claim the girl was trying to poison the family by putting chemicals into food, was setting fire to things and trying to get men to have sex with her.
The defendants told police they struggled to cope with her behavioural issues and thus were said to have begun nearly two years of systematic neglect and abuse.”

I am sorry, maybe it is my grasp [or lack of grasp] of English, but in an issue like this which so many people want some understanding, why is the reporting so inept?
The police summary states the girl and one of her siblings were put into Child, Youth and Family care in 2008, and the girl was allegedly sexually abused by relatives.
So when was the girl allegedly sexually abused by relatives? Is the police summary near illiterate or is it the reporter?
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December 24, 2010 8:40am
Falafulu Fisi

I will be joining the Grey Lynn Tongan Methodist brass band tonight, playing the christmas music along franklin road (Ponsonby christmas lights). I will be playing the euphonium, which there will be 2 of us (a younger guy – 21 year old and me – 30s, you wont miss falafulu). The guy with the shirt, Global Warming is Bullshit, would be me, and if you want to say hello, just yell out. My uncle will be playing the violin and his daughter (the 3rd girl from this video) will be playing the trombone. There will be other members of the brass band there as well, but this is the first time that I play with my uncle & his daughter @ the same time. I guess, that it is in the family tradition.

BTW, I learnt how to play euphonium from my uncle. He is a multi-instrumentalist. He’s got a son and a daughter (married) who live in South Auckland, but he chooses to stay with me for his short holiday. I coach his 9 year old grandson in calculus (son of my uncle’s son in Mangere), so I do help my other relative’s childrens education. Anyway, I went with uncle last night to Ponsonby Social Club (and his daughter) and he loved it. In fact we just came back home this morning @ about 6-30am and I’m still drinking (yeeha! – its Christmas). His (my uncle – my 1st cousin) daughter left for home from whiskey bar @ 2am.
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December 24, 2010 8:44am
Viking2

Here we go again. appeasing the Left by the right of left.

Govt reviews case for city rail tunnel
By Mathew Dearnaley
5:30 AM Wednesday Dec 22, 2010

Transport Minister Steven Joyce believes the Government requires further information on the tunnel project, including the benefits of its construction, before getting involved. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Auckland Mayor Len Brown is putting on a brave face after receiving a lukewarm Government review of a glowing business case for his pet transport project – the $2 billion-plus central city rail tunnel.

Although Transport Minister Steven Joyce initially indicated scepticism about a claim in the business case that the tunnel would pay for itself three and a half times over by turning Auckland into an internationally competitive city, Mr Brown is calling the review “another important step” towards getting it dug.

Mr Joyce said yesterday in announcing the review by officials of the Ministry of Transport, the Treasury and the Transport Agency that the business case was a first step, but left questions unanswered.
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December 24, 2010 8:46am
Pete George

the tunnel would pay for itself three and a half times over by turning Auckland into an internationally competitive city

I’ll also indicate scepticism – to become an “internationally competitive city” you need to be able to go round in circles underground, and that generates $7b plus, how? Sounds like bullshit, maybe there’s some grass in the detail.
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December 24, 2010 8:57am
reid

Yvette I understood from previous reports she was placed into the care of relatives when she went into CYFS’ care. They often do that.

What a dreadful case. The girl gets abused, by who knows who – a cousin, uncle, who knows. She tells her parents. Her parents blame her for bringing it up and start on a two year torture campaign. It was apparently the girl’s grandma who’d gone to the house with another daughter to confront the mother about it, that resulted in a fight which resulted in the police being called.
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December 24, 2010 9:07am
TripeWryter

I wasn’t going to say anything today … lot to do, presents to wrap, sweets to make … ahhh Christmas.

I feel rather sorry for the mother / nanny in Auckland who, under pressure from circumstances, forgot to take her four-month-old charge with her when she took her own daughter to the doctor for treatment of an ear ache.

The abandoned baby’s father found her home alone when he returned with nappies he and his wife had forgotten to leave with her.

Now, I’m not going to add to the misery the mother / nanny apparently feels by adding judgment and condemnation on her head. Going by accounts the other day she does not sound like an uncaring woman.

Yesterday she was up in court on the charge, and fined $200. The baby’s father didn’t think that was enough. Other comments he made I find disquieting, and he is beginning to sound vindictive to me.

A headline on Stuff this morning decided that she had ‘escaped’ (escaped what? a public whipping and flogging? beheading?) with a $200 fine.

I would imagine, going by the accounts in the Herald at the weekend, that the fine of $200 would be nothing compared with the self-flagellation the woman would be inflicting on herself for leaving the baby home alone.

She’s escaped nothing. She’ll be turning this over in her head for years.
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December 24, 2010 9:08am
reid

Asked if he was surprised at the level of contact between his Defence Force staff at the time and the US Embassy, he said he was surprised but did not believe it was unethical.

“People do talk but they talk under the basis of confidentiality. That’s how it works in the free world. You make networks, you know them well and you exchange views, informally, off the record sometimes, and it may be reported back.

“That’s how the world actually operates. The tragedy of it is that it will stop the standard diplomacy and the networking which actually has gone on for hundreds of years.“

Small overreaction from Bruce Ferguson: the entire diplomatic world will grind to a halt. No-one will say anything to anyone, anymore, ever again.
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December 24, 2010 9:20am
Chuck Bird

I noticed the following from a comment in the Herald blog. This is the first time have heard about this use of an Air Force plane. Does anyone know if this is true or just a rumour repeated?

Richard (Timaru)
09:45AM Thursday, 23 Dec 2010

WikiLeaks a quid pro quo for Phil Goff

Can Goff also please explain why the tax payers paid when labour was in government for an Airforce plane to be sent to the USA to bring a politician’s husband home.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10695861&pnum=2
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December 24, 2010 9:26am
reid

More evidence of the 5th Liarbore govt’s execrable attitude toward the nation whom they were painting as “very very very good friends.”

Ms Hobbs, who retired from politics in 2008, told the Guardian newspaper she did not recall the event.

“To be honest I can’t remember anything about it at all,” she said. “Possibly my staff didn’t tell me because they knew I wouldn’t take any notice.”

Hands up those of us who saw this attitude happening at the time, yet the 5th Liarbore govt kept lying and lying and lying by denying there was ever anything but good and solid good faith actions. Bad enough there was one US hater and wrecker (Hulun), it appears the attitude was spread throughout the party’s anatomy, like a corrosive cancer. I love Wikileaks.
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December 24, 2010 9:30am
Dave Mann

Compliments Of The Season to everyone here….. to all commenters (right and wrong hahahaha) and especially to the venerable DPF, without who we would not have been here all year moaning, whining sure, but often sharing humour and insights into life in these Shaky Isles.

Cheers! 🙂
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December 24, 2010 9:37am
hj

“God: Narcissistic Personality Disorder
You should count yourself lucky if you never have to deal with someone suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. If you’re a Christian, Jew, or Muslim, though, you may be a lot closer to this mental illness than you realize. I’ve argued elsewhere that the “God” character in western religion exhibits a lot of the attitudes and behaviors normally found in abusive spouses, but it can also be argued that this fictional figure also exhibits the diagnostic characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder — a condition that isn’t too often diagnosed, but which causes significant problems for others caught in its wake.
* Feelings of grandiosity and self-importance (I am God); exaggerating accomplishments (I made you and the world) to the point of lying (I exist and there is a heaven); demands to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements (Worship me and only me because I am great and almighty and I know everything).

* Obsession with fantasies of success, power, brilliance, beauty or perfect love (I will love you, you will love me and we will live happily in eternity).

* Conviction you are unique and special (I am almighty. I am the one and only God).

* Requires excessive adulation, attention and affirmation – or, failing that, wishes to be feared (Worship me. And me only. Or you will feel my wrath. Worse still, you will not come to my party in heaven).

* Feels entitled. Demands automatic compliance with unreasonable expectations for special and favourable priority treatment (Follow my rules and rituals no matter how barmy, or you’ll go to hell. And don’t question me. Because I am God).

* Is ”interpersonally exploitative”: uses others to achieve his or her own ends (Kill in the name of God. Wage war in the name of God. Cut off family members in the name of God. Punish children in the name of God. Discriminate against homosexuals, non-believers and women in the name of God. Spread the word and convert others so I have more power in the name of God).

* Devoid of empathy (Kill in the name of God, etc).

* Behaves arrogantly (I am great and you are sinners); feels ”above the law” (Kill in the name of God, etc).

Catherine Deveny’s description of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is not only accurate, but eerily similar to the behavior and attitudes normally ascribed to God — at least from the perspective outsiders who aren’t chained to dogma that one has to constantly please this narcissist.”

http://atheism.about.com/b/2009/10/19/god-narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm
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December 24, 2010 9:54am
nickb

Interesting article on the budget tax changes, what did everyone else think?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10696274
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December 24, 2010 9:57am
lofty

I wish ALL commentators here a very merry Christmas, and a prosperous New Year.

Thanks David I wish you well.
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December 24, 2010 10:03am
reid

hj if you or anyone else doesn’t already know the answers to Catherine’s observation it really proves nothing more than you’ve obviously made a value judgement in an important nay critical area of life, based on profound and I mean profound ignorance of the dynamics at play.

As someone who does understand the dynamics at play in this arena I urge you not to shut yourself off from considering the question, although I fear your ignorance is so very profound as to render this advice as ineffective as a bushman’s arrow against the hide of an angry, particularly stupid Rhinoceros.
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December 24, 2010 10:08am
nickb

Lol dunno about you guys but I found the quote in this story hilarious for some reason, just seems to totally sum up government:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10696334

“As soon as I became aware of this in November I demanded a report.”
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December 24, 2010 10:11am
reid

In what way nick?
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December 24, 2010 10:14am
nickb

Dunno reid, just made me laugh. What good is a report going to do after the fact?
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December 24, 2010 10:35am
Jack5

Wow, the Red Chinese are trying to take over PGC Wrightson.

This is like Chinese trying to take over Mercedes in Germany or GM in the US.

Wrightson is our key agribusiness after Fonterra. Among its assets is the genetic seed bank that has been built up and is the core of the pastoral industry that sustains NZ.

The link:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/4492513/Chinese-bid-for-PGG-Wrightson
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December 24, 2010 10:41am
voice of reason

““As soon as I became aware of this in November I demanded a report.”

Yeah – if you didnt laugh you’d cry for sure

She’ll have many reports to read over the break – judging by the poor performance of her department.
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December 24, 2010 10:58am
reid

Good spotting Jack. Question is, how can one stop things like this. I agree its a real bad move, but the Chinese will just keep offering more and more till the private owners can’t resist. The OIC has the ability to stop it if its deemed a strategic asset don’t they?

If so then what is more strategic than that seed bank.
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December 24, 2010 11:12am
mawm

Chuck Bird – Can Goff also please explain why the tax payers paid when labour was in government for an Airforce plane to be sent to the USA to bring a politician’s husband home.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10695861&pnum=2

That is a little gem. I wonder if this all happened around the time of the ‘rumours’ circulating about LAX and a Mr P Davis? It, along with much other wikileaks stuff, certainly adds to the evidence that the public persona Clark portrayed was very different to what she actually was.

Bush must have had her by the balls to get her to send troops to Iraq. There is an photo of her in an unguarded moment where she is showing her true feelings for him. It’s here – http://worldeconomy-wingate.blogspot.com/2010/11/was-nz-prime-minister-helen-clark-any.html
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December 24, 2010 11:15am
reid

“Can Goff also please explain why the tax payers paid when labour was in government for an Airforce plane to be sent to the USA to bring a politician’s husband home.”

Guys I’ve scanned those comments, can you please point me to it, sorry to be thick but I can’t help it.
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December 24, 2010 11:36am
Fletch

In America, the FCC has just approved new so-called “Net Neutrality” laws that sound like they’re all about giving freedom and choice, but are they really? James G. Lakely points out in an article in The Washington Examiner hows it’s really about Socialism and Government regulating the internet.

Advocates of imposing “network neutrality” say it’s necessary to ensure a “free” and “open” Internet and rescue the public from nefarious corporations that “control” technology.

Few proposals in Washington have been sold employing such deceptive language — and that’s saying something. But few public policy ideas can boast the unashamedly socialist pedigree of net neutrality.

The modern Internet is a creation of the free market, which has brought about a revolution in communication, free speech, education, and commerce. New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski apparently doesn’t like that. He stated last month the way Internet service providers manage their networks — in response to millions of individual consumer choices — is not sufficiently “fair,” “open” or “free.”

The chairman’s remedy is to claim for the FCC the power to decide how every bit of data is transferred from the Web to every personal computer and handheld device in the nation. This is exactly what the radical founders of the net neutrality movement had in mind.

The concept can be traced to an iconoclastic figure, Richard Stallman, a self-described software freedom activist who introduced the term “copyleft” in the mid-1980s. In his 2002 essay “Free Software, Free Society,” Stallman fiercely attacks the idea that intellectual property rights are one of the keystones of individual liberty, so important that patents and copyrights are affirmatively protected in the body of the Constitution.

According to Stallman, “we are not required to agree with the Constitution or the Supreme Court. [At one time, they both condoned slavery.]” Like slavery, he says, copyright law is “a radical right-wing assumption rather than a traditionally recognized one.” Rebuking those who might find a Marxist flavor in his call for a “digital commons,” Stallman turns the tables, writing: “If we are to judge views by their resemblance to Russian Communism, it is the software owners who are the Communists.”

Eben Moglen’s 2003 treatise The dotCommunist Manifesto is more honest about the thinking behind net neutrality — it’s sprinkled throughout with the language of communism’s great and bloody revolutionaries. The people must “struggle” to “wrest from the bourgeoisie, by degrees, the shared patrimony of humankind” that has been “stolen from us under the guise of ‘intellectual property.’ ”

How does one bring this about? The professor of law and legal history at Columbia University would start with the “abolition of all forms of private property in ideas.”

Most bold and radical of the neutralists is Robert W. McChesney, founder of Free Press — the leading advocacy group in Washington pushing for net neutrality. In an August interview with a Canadian Marxist online publication called the Bullet, McChesney rejoices that net neutrality can finally bring about the Marxist “revolution.”

“At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies,” McChesney said. “We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

He’s right: Net neutrality divests control over the Internet from the private sector to the government. And in typical Marxist fashion, innocuous words — the language of neutralism and liberty — cloak an agenda that would crush freedom.

That’s the agenda President Obama’s FCC is pushing.
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December 24, 2010 11:44am
reid

Apparently, our govt isn’t legitimate.

All Legislative Acts of the Australian, New Zealand or Canadian governments have absolutely no authority and are therefore imposed domestically by force upon the inhabitants of those lands and as a consequence of this revelation, those inhabitants are not bound by such laws.

I think this means we can do what we like and we don’t have to pay taxes anymore.
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December 24, 2010 11:51am
big bruv

Time for a few Kiwblog Christmas pressie’s.

For Dime…….Penicillin
For Redbaiter……a life size poster of John Maynard Keynes
For Kris K……a copy of Richard Dawkins book “the God Delusion”
For Iprent…..a copy of “How to win friends and influence people”
For D4J…..glass cleaner.
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December 24, 2010 11:56am
cha

Adversity really does make for strange bedfellows.

Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson favors marijuana legalization.
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December 24, 2010 11:57am
reid

Fletch there’s a conspiracy theory about Internet2 which is that the current internet will be used to create a crisis, perhaps by causing a power cut or even a nuclear meltdown and this gives the authorities the excuse to shut it down and impose the “much safer” Internet2 which from day one is moderated by the authorities.

I don’t think the politicians realised the game-changing nature of global instant free exchange of ideas. It makes the whole thing in their eyes very dangerous indeed simply because they have no control over the dynamics that develop like for example over this Wikileaks thing.
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December 24, 2010 11:59am
Manolo

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to our host and all readers and contributors, with no exception! 🙂
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December 24, 2010 12:07pm
reid

Isn’t it interesting that Liarbore are vigorously lying their liar heads off about how the Fonterra contracts weren’t even in their minds one little bit.

I mean they obviously know their base will see something sinister in that, were it to be publicly accepted as the truth.

And how completely fucking mental, does that make their base?

I mean, if they didn’t have it in mind they’d not be doing their job properly, is the thinking of the rational, isn’t it. Fucking mental lefties. Crikey they’re funny. It’s like a John Cleese comedy except it’s real. The funniest bit for me is to see them being so very sincere about it all, so very very sincere, hand-on-heart, honest lefties all.
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December 24, 2010 12:23pm
cha

Yeah reid, that well known leftie former Defence Force chief Sir Bruce Ferguson was lying when he said:

the embassy staff member who linked New Zealand’s humanitarian mission to Iraq to deals for Fonterra in one of his diplomatic cables must have been “smoking dope”.
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December 24, 2010 12:30pm
reid

Global warming is why a low temperature record of 42 degrees that had been in place for 169 years in Fort Lauderdale was broken on December 7. Global warming is why people are freezing to death in the northern hemisphere and why they are increasingly finding themselves buried in deeper and deeper snow. Global warming is now an insanity that has been implanted deep into the consciousness of the masses, meaning no matter how cold it gets, it’s getting warmer in the minds of the press and those who control it.
Dr. Willie Soon, astrophysicist and geoscientist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said, “It’s close to being insane to try to keep insisting these changes in carbon dioxide are going to create all of the disasters that the politicians and doomsayers are trying to tell us. Saying the climate system is completely dominated by how much carbon dioxide we have in the system is crazy—completely wrong. Carbon dioxide is not the major driver for the earth/climate system.” Obviously the sun is the major driver, but then we have other factors like air pollution from human and volcanic sources blocking out more light and thus heat, and now we are also having a breakdown in the Gulf loop current as well as a diminishing of the Gulf Stream. What we have, ladies and gentlemen, is heart-thumping climate change that is going to take a frightening toll on humanity.
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December 24, 2010 12:31pm
reid

Er cha the point is not whether or not it was in their minds the point is that everyone rational actually already knew it would have been one of the various factors in the equation. The fact everyone rational already knows is why the lefty reaction is so funny for it factually demonstrates their own electorate is completely mental based on their complete ignorance of standard geopolitical decision-making equations. I mean, you can’t escape it, it means your voters are fucking thick mentals who can’t even count.
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December 24, 2010 12:36pm
Put it away

Insufferable Hollywood liberals Baldwin and Costner sue each other over not making enough profit out of their oil cleanup deal
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/4492473/Baldwin-sues-Costner-over-bad-investment
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December 24, 2010 12:38pm
cha

So you’re a fucking mind reader too reid.
An awesome skill set you’ve got there fella but tell me, do you do your own Tarot readings or are you an 0900 guy?.
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December 24, 2010 12:40pm
Chuck Bird

Reid, go to the link and do a text search on “husband”. That will give you the full text of the person who put in the commnet.
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December 24, 2010 12:42pm
reid

“So you’re a fucking mind reader too reid.”

No, I’m a logician cha.

Thanks Chuck. It’s a very good question, which Goff should indeed explain.
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December 24, 2010 12:54pm
Pete George

WikiLeaks cable: Labour doomed to wander NZ’s political wilderness?

Since the November 2008 election…the Labour Party has struggled to define itself in opposition to attract positive media attention as well as the public’s interest. So far the Labour Party has failed on both counts.

This cable, dated April 2009, is relatively old relative to the current electoral cycle, but is it just as applicable now? I’m not sure that anything substantial has changed.
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December 24, 2010 1:15pm
reid

Something amusing: the truth behind the doomsday stories.

At number 9 with a 7/10 liklihood rating is colony collapse causing mass starvation. I’ve been following that over the years and its very serious indeed. One theory I find quite persuasive is that cell-phone frequencies correspond to the frequency of the wiggle dance they do when telling the hive where the food is. This means that whole hives fly off in the wrong direction and get lost.

I talk about not confusing correlation with causation all the time so at this point I’m interested but skeptical in the coincidence of the timing between the rise of the cellphone towers and the collapse of the bee colonies.
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December 24, 2010 1:21pm
Pete George

Do cellphones have anything to do with helping the varroa mite spread?
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December 24, 2010 1:28pm
cha

Are you sure Hooten didn’t write that report Pete because I doubt that the staffers who reported that street crime, such as scams and pickpockets, is a daily occurrence would have any insight into what voters in NZ think.. unless Reid wrote it…..
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December 24, 2010 1:34pm
Manolo

The peaceful people continue to make the headlines for the wrong reasons: another child killed. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10696324

Not to worry, the whanau will come to te rescue…….and the cycle of violence will repeat again.
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December 24, 2010 1:50pm
nickb

Here is a reminder for those out there of what the Law Commission and National Party are moving us towards:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4493366/Pub-loses-licence-for-speed-drinking

First they came for our election year free speech, then they came for our cellphones in cars, then they came for my beloved pie lab….
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December 24, 2010 1:52pm
nickb

Manolo, if you simply allowed these people to reconnect with their culture, it would all be fixed. The white colonialists came and raped their lands and destroyed the way of life, and hence we have these cases of abuse.

Or so said my university lecturers.
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December 24, 2010 1:55pm
reid

Pete thanks for that link.

…the Clark legacy, which many in Labour will find difficult to let go.

How come good capable ethical people fall for the fallacy that Clark was anything but a hater and a wrecker and her reign is proving to be ultimately in terms of the inheritance she left the nation, rather corrosive and cancerous? It’s interesting how good people can be so blind.
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December 24, 2010 1:55pm
reid

“Do cellphones have anything to do with helping the varroa mite spread?”

Naturally Pete its a separate issue and I’m not sure there’s the same timing coincidence involved. You heard I assume that geneticist talking about that potential solution. Isn’t that good news.
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December 24, 2010 1:57pm
reid

Good doco for those interested in propaganda as practiced by one of its evil masters.
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December 24, 2010 2:02pm
Pete George

Funny that you think Clark was so bad for the country. Labour blogs say similar about Key. Last week on Back Benches both Carter and Mallard were saying how they thought Labour needed to win back the nation next election to rescue it from calamity. Do we really need someone in the middle like WP to save us?
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December 24, 2010 2:04pm
Manolo

Labour and the Luddites want to continue torpedoeing the NZ economy. More taxes and higher prices, scream the socialists.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4493031/ETS-needs-teeth-Labour

Meanwhile, Labour-lite is happy to rely on the sound judgement of the sane and competent Nick Smith.
If this is not jumping from the pan to the fire, what is?
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December 24, 2010 2:07pm
Gooner

Labour wants an ETS with teeth, razor sharp and cutting to the bone of families and businesses:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10696443

The Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) needs to be given “a set of teeth” by the panel that is reviewing it, the Labour Party says.

Climate Change Minister Nick Smith yesterday announced the panel which will study the way the ETS is working and whether it should continue to full implementation.

The scheme makes industries pay for some of their greenhouse gas emissions and is being introduced in stages.

Labour’s climate change spokesman Charles Chauvel said today it should be fully implemented immediately.

“If New Zealand wants to avoid burning a lot of gas to generate electricity, to achieve a long-term turnaround in deforestation and bring about changes in consumer behaviour around energy and transport use we need a stronger ETS,” he said.

“And we need the revenues from the scheme to pay to help bring about these changes, rather than to provide an ongoing subsidy to polluters, as the ETS currently does.”

I look forward to them campaigning on this next year. The quote in bold can be restated as the government needs more money so we can make redistribution promises to our constituents next year.
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December 24, 2010 2:13pm
reid

Funny that you think Clark was so bad for the country. Labour blogs say similar about Key.

At the moment I don’t think Key is very good for the country either Pete. I think he’s better than any other foreseeable alternative but I don’t think he’s got us traveling in the right direction yet and I’m getting a bit tired of waiting.
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December 24, 2010 2:14pm
cha

Also known as thought reform Reid and the method is the core of the religious and corporate cults of today.
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December 24, 2010 2:14pm
Pete George

Not very good is quite different to very bad though. The country actually survived the Clark years, and we are still sort of ok, nothing really drastic yet.

I’d rate Key/National a “just so-so” at this stage. I agree that we need a better motor and a bit more accelerator, but I don’t think we should throw away the seat belts and brakes like some seem to want.
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December 24, 2010 2:21pm
Put it away

Reid “One theory I find quite persuasive is that cell-phone frequencies correspond to the frequency of the wiggle dance they do when telling the hive where the food is. This means that whole hives fly off in the wrong direction and get lost.”

If you find it “persuasive” that a 1.8 gigahertz radio frequency corresponds to a 300 hertz audio frequency, then I should be able to persuade you to buy a bridge
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December 24, 2010 2:22pm
Manolo

Peter George, you seem to forget that before the election Key promised to take the country on a radically different path to the one traveled with Labour. Two years later, we have seen more of the same tired policies. No action, no reform, more taxes (ETS included) and a handful of empty promises.

In hindsight, I can only conclude Key lied with the only purpose of getting elected. He conned the middle classes of New Zealand.
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December 24, 2010 2:31pm
TimG_Oz

Wow, what it is with your crappy roads in NZ? I know it’s holiday time, but it took over two hours to get to Waikanae from Wellington Airport last night. That sucks! Maybe there’s a different way to go than SH1, but sheesh…
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December 24, 2010 2:32pm
Manolo

Tim, welcome to the capital of a developed country with the roads of a decrepit third-world nation!
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December 24, 2010 2:38pm
Pete George

TimG – try the South Island.

Manolo – I’m cutting them slack this term for having to deal with the economy tanking around the world, that wasn’t in their plans and they can’t be blamed for it. Bad timing.

There’ll be no more slack to cut if they don’t signal reasonable moves next year and act on them after the next election (presuming the voters see past the cobwebs encasing WP, they keep seeing Goff as he is, Labour stay out of sorts with the MP, and the Greens get browned off.
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December 24, 2010 2:40pm
Neil

I’m lucky enough to be travelling to Cuba for a three week holiday at the end of February.
I obviously want to take photographs but I have a question I would like some information on.
Cuba apparently works on 110cycles for electricity. My camera battery charger works at 220. Will I need a convertor for that operation, that is switching it from 110 to 220. Are those translators available ? What kind of a plug would be used in that part of the world ?
If anyone has been to Cuba which currency is more useful,Euros,Canadian dollar or Sterling ? I know that the mighty Yankee is very much useless in Cuba.
Hoping someone will put me right.
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December 24, 2010 2:41pm
reid

If you find it “persuasive” that a 1.8 gigahertz radio frequency corresponds to a 300 hertz audio frequency, then I should be able to persuade you to buy a bridge

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/4551946-cell-tower-complaint-filed-with-fcc-on-behalf-of-honey-bees

http://www.emfnews.org/Cell-Phones-and-900-Megahertz-frequency-Diminishing-Bee-Population-Study.html

http://beekeepingtimes.com/index.php/news-&-events/news-from-all-over/48/271-bee-colonies-affected-by-cell-phone-towers-

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60515.shtml

http://insects.about.com/od/antsbeeswasps/tp/CausesofCCD.htm

http://www.slideshare.net/nehakumar01/cell-phone-and-mobile-tower-radiation-hazards

http://poleshift.ning.com/profiles/blogs/bee-expert-says-cell-phones

In conclusion who knows.
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December 24, 2010 2:42pm
reid

“The country actually survived the Clark years, and we are still sort of ok, nothing really drastic yet.”

No we haven’t yet Pete for it’s not what happens during their reign that counts it’s their legacy and so far, Hulun’s legacy sucks on both social and economic fronts. You could see the GFC coming for years and did she position us for it? No sirree for she had votes like students and their parents and grandparents to win with our money. That’s what she preferred to do, rather than paying down debt. That’s my problem with her economically. The cancerous and corrosive bit comes with her social reforms which were even worse than her economic performance.
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December 24, 2010 3:05pm
Put it away

Bit of sad collection their reid lol

1st link “informal complaint” relating to work by a couple of soviet cranks in 1974

2nd link Punjab university ( hahahah seriously) claims the radio broadcasts interfere with the bees sensitivity to the earth’s magnetic field ( nothing to do with the dances)

3rd link is Newspaper report quoting the same ‘research’ as link 2

4th link – random collection of Newspaper articles that quote the same ‘research’ as link 2, or misconstrue some german research on DECT phones and bees ( see below ). The first article says “Before educating yourself on the actual causes of Colony Collapse Disorder, it is imperative to know the two most common misconceptions surrounding the crisis. Cell Phone Towers This theory has been disapproved by the physics professor that co-authored the study himself (Dr. Jochen of the physics department of Koblenz-Landau)6. The studies do not indicate that electromagnetic radiation causes Colony Collapse Disorder. According to Jeff Pettis from USDA, beekeepers work in areas that do not even receive cell phone signals and if there are, signals are extremely low to what the study used8. As Colony Collapse Disorder is new, cell phone towers are not.”

5th link – “A widely-reported theory that cell phones may be to blame for Colony Collapse Disorder proved to be an inaccurate representation of a research study conducted in Germany. Scientists looked for a link between honeybee behavior and close-range electromagnetic fields. They concluded there is no correlation between the inability of bees to return to their hives and exposure to such radio frequencies. The scientists vehemently disavowed any suggestion that cell phones or cell towers are responsible for CCD.”

6th link – dunno, requires flash player which I don’t have on this PC.

7th link – opening sentence “The India research was collected in a shoddy manner,
was not developed and there is no reason to believe that cell phones are significantly and negatively impacting honey bee colonies or insects any place in the world.”

If that’s what persuaded you… I have a very nice bridge and some pyramid schemes for you
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December 24, 2010 3:05pm
reid

Perhaps you didn’t read the last line of that post Put it away.

I used to think it was persuasive and now I’m not sure anymore, thanks for pointing me to some counter-evidence, this is why we have blogs.

My original opinion was based on quite a good paper that I read years ago, which I can’t now re-locate.

It’s not a question of abandoning research, the point of all those links was to show the variety of opinion. Anyone who abandons any line of enquiry into this serious issue is a fool. But thank you, I am sincere in that Put it away.
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December 24, 2010 3:19pm
Pete George

Terrorists in Rome…

Anarchists suspected over blasts

Mail bombs exploded in the hands of employees at the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome, seriously injuring two people and triggering heightened security checks at diplomatic missions.

Italian investigators suspected Thursday’s attacks, less than three hours apart, were the work of anarchists, similar to the two-day wave of mail bombs which targeted several embassies in Athens last month – including those of Chile and Switzerland.

One of last month’s booby-trapped packages, addressed to Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, was intercepted in Italy.

Italian news agency Ansa reported that a claim by anarchists was found in a small box near one of the wounded employees and was being examined by anti-terror police….which Ansa said was made by a group called the Informal Anarchist Federation, or FAI. “Long live FAI, long live anarchy,” the claim reportedly said.

The Informal Anarchist Federation sounds similar to the dreams of the TrueBlue Crew, some of whom keep trying to divert attention to other terrorists.
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December 24, 2010 4:28pm
jcuknz

nickb (1,694) Says:

December 24th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Lol dunno about you guys but I found the quote in this story hilarious for some reason, just seems to totally sum up government:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10696334

“As soon as I became aware of this in November I demanded a report.”

It is AOK Nick … that is the usual way politicians operate, or rather don’t operate, in doing nothing about anything which comes to their attention …. latest one I heard about is the Auckland rail tunnel 🙁
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December 24, 2010 6:57pm
jcuknz

A Christmas funny story for you …. I’ve been breath tested four times in the last two days … once by a sergeant who chased me down a side round after I had driven around a roundabout twice working out where I could get a photo from 🙂

Spare a thought for those who are trying to stop us killing or maining ourselves, along with those who will have to clean up the mess some of us will make over the holiday period …. best wishes to you guys and gals …. and thanks.
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December 24, 2010 7:02pm
jcuknz

Neil … the answer is in your hands …. look at the back of your battery charger and I think you will most likely find “50/60 cycle” and “120/240v” . If this is the case all you need is a plug adaptor to match the NZ angle flat pin plug to I hope for you the American vertical flat pin set up. My chargers have been to the States four times now without any problems 🙂
[It might be 110/230 … no great difference]
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December 24, 2010 7:09pm
jcuknz

Last New Alert I got from the NYT tells me that there is a secret office in the US Treasury Department which is authorising american firms to do business with banned countries … sadly maybe that will stop now the NYT has blown their cover.

Neil .. a PS … v stands for volts and the NZ supply is 230volts … your charger is unusual being solely for our voltage … might be worth trying to get a dual voltage/cycle one. What voltage does the camera need to recharge its battery … chargers usually accept 110/230volts but deliver maybe 6<8 volts to the camera battery. An electrician/good camera shop may be able to help you find an alternative if you do not have the dual voltage/cycle charger.
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December 24, 2010 7:22pm
jcuknz

>>>Fletch ….. Advocates of imposing “network neutrality” say it’s necessary to ensure a “free” and “open” Internet and rescue the public from nefarious corporations that “control” technology.

Few proposals in Washington have been sold employing such deceptive language — and that’s saying something. But few public policy ideas can boast the unashamedly socialist pedigree of net neutrality.<<<

You can see how biased I am … my thought that it is the RWNJs afraid of Wikileaks who are trying to muzzle internet freedom 🙂
But I guess politicians are the same whatever their bent.
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December 24, 2010 7:27pm
side show bob

“The country survived the Clark years” yes Pete and Europe survived the black plague.
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December 24, 2010 7:44pm
Luc Hansen

Now I know what my stepson really thinks of me!

He gave me a copy of the Jan 2011 “Investigate” magazine. Ha ha. The kid’s got style!

In true Wishart style, conspiracies abound, and all is lost without God, at least, the particular version the that looms large in Wishart’s fevered imagination.

And there is a Monckton post-post-~~modern~~ science article on Cancun and the conspiracy of rising temperatures (science? Hell no. My Monckton’s gobbledygook reigns supreme!) and another couple of beauties on education and the non-secular state that I will try to get around to dissecting over my short break, just for fun.

For Xmas, I recommend Rialto channel’s Bill Maher doco “Religuosity” (I think I’ve the spelling right) as good Xmas viewing for all Xtian fundamentalists (ie 98% of Americans, at least, those in jail, funny that) if for no other reason than he gives me plenty of excuses for enjoying the Xmas break, not the least that more than one creative got there well before the Xtians!

Happy sacrificing, all!
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December 24, 2010 10:06pm

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