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Warners bludge $30 mil out of us. Kiwifruit growers get a blank cheque while other firms go under. Farmers have their hands out cause it hasn't rained. Rich finance investors get us to cover their losses. Now, a $10K a night resort wants us to…
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Imagine a world without ageing. A lot of people do. A lot of people are working on it. So far I haven't been too impressed with the progress, but this is getting interesting: Harvard scientists reverse the ageing process in mice – now for humans…
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This piece by Matt McCarten has come up on Open Mike. Here are extracts: Eventually someone will be held culpable Someone has to say it. The collective media swooning for Pike River boss Peter Whittall is just wrong. Of course Whittall is devastated about the…
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David Cameron made the commendable decision to create a national happiness index to compliment GDP but there's a lot of unhappiness in Merry Old England under his rule. To avert fiscal disaster, while allowing bankers and the elite to keep their wealth, Cameron is making…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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With all of the drama surrounding the Wikileaks release of US government diplomatic wires which I and others do not find surprising. What has been intriguing me more is the behavior of the Sweden's director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny. The available information on her…
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I confess that I am used to thinking of China as a polluter, not much concerned with environmental standards or green technology. I am very pleased indeed to find that I am wrong. This account is couched in the competitive terms of the cold war…
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We have four pairs of tickets to give away for the Garagin Way play in Auckland at 181 Hobson St on the nights of Sunday the 5th or Monday the 6th. As the competition we ran was a bit of a fizzer, we'll just give…
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Pike River's lawyers have been pushing to attend the Department of Labour/police interviews with workers. Workers who refuse to have a company lawyer present are being interrogated by the company afterwards about what they were asked and how they responded. Pike are also trying to…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Once again the play is performed. A minister is caught rorting, admits wrong-doing, an investigation is launched, the investigation doesn't ask crucial questions, it finds no fault just confusion on the part of the poor old minister, the rules are changed. English, Worth, Heatley, Wong...…
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From I/S at No Right Turn: Two stories from today's Dominion-Post: Number one:Compromised official gets top job: Months after former Mental Health Commission head Selwyn Katene resigned amid allegations of dishonestly misusing taxpayer funding, he got another top taxpayer-funded job. Dr Katene resigned suddenly from…
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When Chris Finlayson's on the backfoot he starts to sound bitchy. Out comes the name-calling and the put-downs - as if his opponents are going to be scared off. If Finlayson is going to throw a tizzy at anyone it should be National for first…
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Lawmaking is serious business. It is how we as a community, through our elected representatives, set the bounds and frameworks for our behaviour, allowing our community to function. Laws shouldn't be made, things shouldn't be banned, for the hell of it. So why is Parliament…
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It was pretty cool that the next Finance Minister wrote a post about my post yesterday. Even if was to say I was dickishly misinterpreting him :-D I've got a couple of points in reply but the biggest is why is Labour talking about (restrictive)…
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Sometimes I find it hard to believe how the leaders of this world fail to comprehend what appears so obvious to me. What is happening with Wikileaks, or more appropriately, what is about to happen, appears to be playing out along the same lines as…
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As a society we can't seem to bring ourselves to take action on climate change. Despite ever more cogent and apocalyptic warnings that we're going to destroy the environment that gives us life, we aren't going to do anything about it. The failure at Copenhagen,…
capitalism climate change Environment sustainability uk politics
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Given the importance of this debate, I thought I'd just lift this straight from David Cunliffe's post on Red Alert: I guess it’s all in a day’s work, but MartyG on The Standard misintrepeted my position on PPPs in this recent post. 1. His opposition to PPPs…
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Remember how Peter Jackson and Warner Bros pulled the old Hollywood shakedown on us? By making a hollow threat to film elsewhere they got an extra $33 million and a law passed just for them. This was supposedly necessary to save a vital economy gain…
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The other week, Lynn and I made fun of John Key's dream that New Zealand would become the Ireland of the South Seas. Does he still believe we should emulate the Irish? The answer is yes. Key wants to abandon proper process and speed up…
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Probably everyone reading this blog is aware of the Nats' welfare working group lead by Paula Rebstock. Stacked with right wing extremists its recommendations are, predictably, good old fashioned Tory welfare bashing (see also here, here, here, here). The following is a typical quick summary:…
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The service and observance of silence is today. This announcement is from The Press yesterday: Prime Minister John Key has asked for two minutes of national silence to remember the 29 lives lost at Pike River. Key has asked Kiwis for the gesture at 2pm…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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When they're not polluting our rivers or fighting animal welfare laws, our farmers, the 'guardians of the land', are opposing having to pay for their greenhouse emissions. Now, with the Earth having just clocked up its warmest 12 months since records began, farmers are scratching…
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The Nats' stupid slash and burn approach to early childhood education (ECE) is about to hammer families: Parents face $80 a week fees shock The parents of tens of thousands of preschoolers can expect to start paying more for early childhood care next year -…
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By backing a (soft) privatisation policy, David Cunliffe is throwing away a vital point of difference with National and allowing National to move rightwards. Worse, Labour appears to be determined to give up political advantage for dumb policy: public-private partnerships and tolling have a terrible…
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I've just been quite amused this morning reading all of the faux outrage about the Wikileaks 'leaks'. What people seem to not be thinking about is the trend that is inherent in digital age of the flow of information. There has always been an inherent…
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Global reaction to the leaked US cables continues to unfold. The American response so far has been predictable: Hillary Clinton attacks release of US embassy cables Secretary of state leads Obama administration's reaction to WikiLeaks release, saying it attacks fabric of responsible government The US…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...