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Open mike 08/07/2011
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Archives · 2011-07-01 to 2011-07-31 · Page 6
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Searching: posts Sorted by: newest Results: 151–180 of 193
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Murdoch could lose big
The phone-hacking story in England is not only out from under the carpet - it has gone ballistic. Fresh allegations are surfacing hourly, and it gets worse - now there are allegations of the phones of families of slain soldiers being hacked. Rupert Murdoch has…
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Tai Poutini finds new funding stream
Stolen without permission from the Tertiary Education Union (here) - but I pays my dues so I figure they wont mind. -- r0b Te Tai Poutini Polytechnic is receiving an additional $750 million funding from Minister Steven Joyce after changing its name to the South…
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The housing market implications of capital gains tax
The landlords' lobby group is making a lot of noise over Labour's, still unannounced, capital gains policy. They claim that rents will go up, the supply of housing will fall, and it won't stop house prices bubbles. Let's examine those claims. A 2003 study showed…
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Drunk in charge of the country?
http://youtu.be/bEWgRtIoLWo An alert reader sent us this video of Wayne Mapp swaying, slurring and rambling his way through Question Time. Lockwood Smith had to interrupt him several times before he became completely incoherent. Was he drunk? It's hard to explain his behaviour otherwise. PS. What's…
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Thompson gone, Garrett back?
The right's leadership resembles a merry go round of disgraced old white failures. Brash, English, Shirtcliffe, Douglas had their time at the front, were disgraced. Now they're back. Thompson was fired for his appalling behaviour but got a payout. He'll be back in due course.…
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Owning the agenda
Notice how a single announcement (not even officially made) from the opposition Labour Party has generated more interest, excitement and reaction than the last (Sub-Zero) budget? More excitement, in fact, than anything the National government has done in the last three wasted years? The Herald…
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Open mike 07/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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$22 Billion minutiae
There can't be many Kiwis who don't know about the leaky homes crisis. The last National government deregulated the building industry. Bad idea. Cowboy companies used bad materials and bad designs to build thousands of houses that leak and rot. It's a problem worth up…
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Old editors don’t fade away – it’s a pity
I feel sorry for Bernadette Courtney, current editor at the DomPost. The paper's getting slimmer by the day and it's comment pages suffer from a surfeit of ex-editors. We're used to Richard Long in his weekly role as a National Party adviser but this Tuesday's…
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More with less – or else (UK style)
A conservative council in the UK sacked it's entire workforce and offered them their jobs again the next day if they accepted a 5.4% pay cut. This is direct fallout from the Global Financial Crisis of course - that monumental greed-made disaster caused by bankers…
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Nats block pay equity bill
It puzzles me that the Nats have any female supporters. The Nats are no friends to women. During their three year term they have scrapped the Department of Labour’s Pay and Employment Equity Unit (PaEE), and killed off investigations aimed at improving the pay of…
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Te Tai Tokerau final results good for Labour
Of the 1,916 special votes reported on the night a bare 769 made it into the final results. Of which Hone Harawira got 454 and Kelvin Davis got 204. This slightly increased Hone's majority by 250 over election night, but there really isn't anything in it with a…
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Ever wondered..?
What keeps our governmental 'Dream Team' of Bill Key and his sidekick Johnny English so busy that they can't comment on anything to do with their government (like why growth is even lower than forecast at the height of the financial crisis or why debt…
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Another right whinger
There's an odd contradiction in right-wing 'thought'. On the one hand, they're Randian heroes, the wealth creators, modern day Atlases who support the world while 'parasites' try to take their wealth and bring them down. On the other hand, they're victims who need subsidies and…
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The National Party attitude
Retiring National MP John Carter has revealed that he has consumed $77K of public assets for no reason. But it's all such a funny lark! Carter permanently housed two cars at Parliament for 16 years. Hardly drove them. When he got in trouble for using…
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Labour capital gains tax rumours
The buzz around the traps is that Labour will be announcing a capital gains tax next week. The journos are already calling it a bold move and John Key is ranting hysterically. That Labour's winning the media battle is great but, more importantly, this is…
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Open mike 06/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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It gets much much worse
New revelations out today that hacker Glenn Mulcaire who bugged celebrity phones for Murdoch's News of the World also hacked into the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler after she went missing. NoW journalists deleted messages which gave Milly's parents false hope that Milly might…
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Caption Contest
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Bring the SAS home
First, Key denies the SAS were in the Kabul hotel gunfight. Then, media reveals they were there and were injured. Key admits that but denies it was friendly fire. Now, media says SAS got an apology. Key 'can't rule out' friendly fire and is launching…
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The Big Push
There's a march in Auckland on Saturday, to protest the government's massive cuts to the quality and funding of Early Childhood Education sector, and proposal to end 20 hours free for 3-4 year-olds. This protest was meant to be in February, but then the Christchurch…
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Vote for Change stumbles at the startline
Peter Shirtcliffe's Vote for Change is reeling. On Sunday, they had to boot out Alex Fogerty after the Young Nat's neo-Nazi affiliations were made public. Yesterday, they lost their token Leftie, Bob Harvey, when he realised that being used by a collection of capitalist elitists…
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Open mike 05/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Past 8000 posts
Well, our hard working authors have pumped more than 8000 posts into The Standard since August 2007. A thousand of those have been done in the last 150 days (we passed it on Saturday) since Feb 2nd. This is a pretty awesome performance considering that…
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Vote for Change’s heart of darkness
Bomber beat me to breaking the Alex Fogerty story. Peter Shirtcliffe's Anti-MMP Vote For Change group has just 16 members and one of them has turned out to be a neo-Nazi. Is it a case of being so short of mates they'll accept anyone who…
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Privatisation a dirty word?
No Confidence Written by The Jackal at 4:51 PM Steven Joyce was asked some hard questions today by Labour Minister of Communications and Information Technology David Cunliffe concerning Nationals Privatisation plans for New Zealand’s SOEs. Once again the speaker of the house Lockwood Smith came…
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Anti-MMP group white supremacist link
A good piece of detective work by Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury at TUMEKE! has revealed that one of the founding members of the anti-MMP group "Vote for Change" is a white supremacist: So the usual list of National and ACT Party right wing money men are…
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Happy Birthday KiwiSaver
John Key's government celebrated KiwiSaver's 4th birthday on July 1 with cuts to your entitlements. Your $20/week government top-up of your savings will halve, and you'll start paying tax on your employer's contribution. This was the budget that was originally touted as the 'savings' budget,…
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Open mike 04/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...