Open mike 27/06/2020

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94 comments on “Open mike 27/06/2020”

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  1. With NZF in free-fall, Winston now fights for his political survival. Selwyn Manning examines the situation here: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/06/26/must-read-election-campaign-looms-is-it-time-for-labour-to-abandon-nzf/

    Winston Peters insists his party is principled with commonsense as the central premise. But the reality is, Peters is sending a signal to centre-voters (and conservatives who believe Labour is going to win the 2020 General Election) that he and New Zealand First will be their insurance policy. That he, post-election, will stop any non-centrist/conservative policies from getting off the ground.

    Labour strategists must decide whether to campaign as genuinely transformational or try to fake it via sloganeering as usual. Their decision will hinge on perceptions of centrism. Will centrists collectively support progress? Or is Winston right, and they are more likely to use NZF as a handbrake again?

    National was able to juxtaposition Labour as the cause of the fiasco.

    Huh. If the cap fits… Selwyn is a Labour man, of course, so it makes sense for him to blame the Nats. Whereas the public would have formed the same opinion even if the Nats had said nothing!

    day after day for over a week, the public has heard calls from National that the Minister of Health David Clark should resign

    So? Hey Selwyn, are you trying to suggest that incompetent Labour ministers ought to evade responsibility? If so, have the guts to spit the dummy & say so! Don't weasel around the point.

    But then he does conclude sensibly: "it will be in Labour’s and the nation’s interests to paint Winston Peters and his party as disruptive and disloyal to a handshake made in good faith."

    Except that only James Shaw was sufficiently on the ball to make that point last week. All the Labour ministers (including the PM) were too inept.

    1. Winnie is national light so they're anything but progressive and not seeking to level the playing field at all.

      They're stymied and obstructed genuine progressive policies pre covid and are now showing the true colour that Jones, Marks etc all represent.

      Time to stand alone IMO and leave the right wing parties fighting for that vote because you'll never get a better setting for a socially responsible and humane second term using nationals wrecking job in housing, health, education under key/blinglish as starters.

    2. Frank, or they were busy with the real issues of keeping a tricky virus at bay and supporting business workers and infrastructure.

      We are the second most successful country to tackle covid according to WHO.

      Like him or not, David Clarke is in the governance role, Ashley is in the implementation role and Jacinda took the communications role. They excelled until Ashley became too comfortable with no evident community transmission, and gave 55 people exemptions and let 2000 leave after 14 days with no testing.

      The rules had been changed, and Ashley's team were lax in the early implementation. Due to David's earlier personal missteps, he was a great fall guy for the media. Having made a hero of Ashley Bloomfield many in the media were conflicted and wanted David Clarke to be the bad guy. It was not David Clarke who listened to why 2 women should leave isolation early on grounds of compassion.

      The other players in that senario were senior members of the National opposition, Woodhouse Bishop and Muller backing him, ably advised by Hooten? They told an 80% truthful delayed story about the two women, and a mythical tale of a homeless man getting a free stay through tricking the staff and security.

      As the previous story had grains of truth, this second story was examined closely by seconded help from Megan Woods, who then asked in writing, MP Woodhouse for proof. His answer, "It must be true as you spent all that effort looking" Wow, and he wants to be Minister of Health? Playing games in a Pandemic?

      Opposition attacks have been amplified by attack journalism. The journalists in question were incensed that David Clarke did not take Ashley Bloomfield's error as his problem, so they said that denigrated hero Ashley and in their denial they started a flowers for Ashley page. Almost comedy.

      Meanwhile the minister for Health the DGoH and the Prime Minister are proving to be an excellent team in spite of a few learning curves, and they all value each other, and accept each has areas of expertise, and they don't encroach.

      83% approval from New Zealanders. USA AND UK Leaders would love to get that backing for their efforts, but that is unlikely any time soon.

      The thing that shines here is, this Government shows a willingness to take criticism seriously, to put measures in place as quickly as possible, and to answer to the media questions. In the house Winston has backed the Goverment’s efforts

      I say it again, "We don't know how lucky we are"

      1. good factual post. too many on here get sucked in to running here and there, putting out non existing fires.

        1. Thanks incognito, that explains the bile. I had missed they were from the same electorate.

            1. For a brief moment I thought that Clark had once beaten up Woodhouse in the sandpit at pre-school but I had to rule out that possibility. Shame though, because it could have explained so much.

      5. Thank you for your succinct and accurate analysis Patricia Bremner. Dr Bloomfield oversees operations, and any flaws in the quarantine system are down to him and his team. Dr Clark's job as Minister of Health is to make sure that Government policy is being carried out properly and efficiently on the ground, which means he needs to have all the facts and figures on a weekly, if not daily basis. It is his job however to ask the right questions of the systems put in place. so that he can reassure the public that we aren't going to see outbreaks of Covid-19 in the community due to any laxness. In the end the ultimate responsibility does lie with the Minister, and I'm sure that Dr Clark knows that very well.

        1. Thank you Jane. I agree , though in this case reports to both men appear to have been misleading , that should have been picked up through spot checks by Ashley Bloomfield's team.

          David Clark may have asked the questions and he and Ashley received mixed messages during the change over from L2 to L1. At least that appears partly the cause, a well as slow implementation of the changes.

          David has over all responsibility, and Ashley implementation of the health edicts. Ashley apologised as his implementation had flaws.

          Rather than expect Ministers or Public Servants to fall on their swords, the press would in these circumstances be better to ask how the situation could be remedied rather than calling "Off with their heads"
          In this case we are at nearly one full 14 day cycle since L1 and it seems we have escaped bad outcomes, unlike Victoria.

  2. The Kumquat PolPot must be spewing mad. His most obsequious rectal-resident media toady served him up a question so difficult, so far beyond anything he's ever thought about, that Grampa Rage Nappies couldn't even summon up an off-the-cuff lie in response:

    Sean Hannity asked Trump about his "top priority items for a second term."

    But Trump could not answer.

    Instead, he talked about talent being more important than experience, how he had not spent much time in Washington, DC before being elected president and called former National Secrurity Advisor John Bolton an "idiot."

    https://www.salon.com/2020/06/26/trump-stutters-through-softball-question-from-sean-hannity-fails-to-name-a-second-term-priority_partner/

    1. He could have said "Build a wall around my star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame." "Transparent kryptonite would be good."

      Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been defaced yet again, this time in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

      Since the reality TV host became US president in 2016, there have been a number of attempts to vandalise his star including, most successfully, a pickaxe attack in 2018. In 2016, James Lambert Otis, 53, was also recorded using a jackhammer and a pickaxe to remove Trump’s name. The star has also been the subject of protest art, with a wall erected around it in 2016 to symbolize the president’s policy on immigration. The Celebrity Apprentice host, accused of sexually harassing or abusing 25 women, received his star in 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/08/trump-hollywood-walk-of-fame-star-defaced-protests

      1. Wut, his Space Farce haven't deployed one of their invisible force fields to protect it? They must be deep state traitors too!

    2. USA must have ramped up the testing (Sarc) as the number of new cVirus cases is 32k with 5 hrs to go. Looks like they will get 40k today for the first time cf to 20k a week or so back.

        1. Notably, that "some" includes a prominent individual that seems inordinately proud of possessing a red hat.

        2. You want shambles, look across the ditch and checkout the celebrations in the UK Liverpool fans are indulging in.

          Epic failure from both govt's to get the right responses from their citizens this far into it because they never treated it with the correct approach so many people took the 'she'll be right' attitude leaders showed (till one nearly died from it) and look where they are.

          As for Brazil, USA etc well you get the chumps up top at the time and hope they’re competent and humane….methinks the Jurys back in on a few of those cases.

          1. the term "behavioural sink " in its pop meaning comes to mind

            "The sights and smell were horrendous, like nothing I’ve ever come across before. There was the smell of weed, urine and excrement, and we found so many empty beer bottles. There were cans, wrappers, wet wipes and even underpants. It was horrific.”

            https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/26/the-atmosphere-was-ugly-bournemouth-aghast-beach-chaos

            https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

          2. Now the Texas and Florida Rep governors are asking people to wear masks and delaying opening their states, which they're going to get a lot of push back from because of their attitude and recent denials.

  3. Arctic heatwave: it’s 38°C in Siberia. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/25/arctic-heatwave-38c-siberia-science

    Siberia has seen “zombie fires” reignited from deep smouldering embers in peatland. This is bad news, releasing particulate air pollution and more carbon in 18 months than in the past 16 years. The immediate cause? Here in the mid-high northern latitudes, we live in unstable weather under the influence of the polar jet stream. This rapid current of air high above our heads drags weather in a conveyor belt from west to east, with alternating patches of cold and warm air, low and high pressure. Sometimes the weather patterns get stuck, creating a stable period of weather, like a heatwave.

    Dr Tamsin Edwards is a senior lecturer in physical geography at King’s College London – not a climate scientist, but reasons like one. Worth a read.

  4. Expecting the latest Roy Morgan to be released in the next day or two (they've already released the June Consumer Confidence results … their Party Support figures usually follow within 48 hours).

    Seems RM have been polling continuously since the last Election … but until very recently (ie Jan 2018-May 2020) only made their results available to paying clients.

  5. "Simon Wilson: My lunch with Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye"

    Crikey! I have just read a long column by Simon Wilson which is sadly under Premium. If I tried to sum it up then neither Kaye or Muller had anything clear or emphatic to say. Status quo and ambiguous and mostly agreeing with what is currently being done although they would "do it better."

    Am I allowed to quote directly from Simon's column?

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12342318

    1. Pending an opinion from a moderator, Ian, I expect you can. Premium just means available to subscribers only. Unless you signed up to terms & conditions that have a breach of copyright clause, no problem…

    3. PS: From Simon:

      We talked about the post-Covid rebuild and Kaye said, "What I would say is you can trust the public. If you look at business owners, some of them know they will be all right and some of them know, deep down, that they won't. And there's a lot in the middle. So we need clarity. It's important to know that we have to Build Back Better."

      That sounded good. Or did it? What did it mean? Who knows how to provide clarity right now? Build back better: how? ……

      ….What he (Muller) gives you, sitting in a sunny restaurant on a Saturday afternoon, speaking quietly and being so earnest, is a sense of his own exceptionalism. He thinks he's got something that no one else has.

      What is it? He talked and talked, he shared ideas, he's good for that, but he said so little. I still don't know.

      1. That's what Woodhouse said the other day, he would have done the same but "better". I'm curious, is "Build Back Better" in capitals like that? Just if he's sitting at a cafe transcribing what's being said seems strange to cap that phrase.

        3. Build Back Better

          Nikki Kaye referred to a couple of big announcements coming soon when the interview started. Is that going to be their campaign slogan.

          Oh bring it on. Sounds like the title of a kids TV programme.

      2. Sounds like a puff piece by a paid acolyte. Maybe he is and maybe he isn't but it doesn't say much for Simon Wilson's supposedly good thoughtful journalism.

      3. "He thinks he's got something that no one else has."

        Which immediately disqualifies him from any role where he can exercise any power, of any sort, over anyone else. i.e. delusional Messiahs not required.

      4. "What I would say is you can trust the public." Yes Nikki Kaye. You show us how much you trust the public.

        Why do I say that? Well you've got Woodhouse saying that when a claim is made against someone the accused has to prove it isn't true. He does that and you support it knowing that much of the public will accept it. That is unbelievable. Do you want him to be your Minister of Justice?

        The same public also won't be screaming for Woodhouse's head on a stake for acting as he did when he believed there was the possibility of someone spreading covid-19 through the community. There was a need for urgent action. Did he scream the house down, ring all the alarm bells immediately with the agencies dealing with such things? Of course not. An extreme moment for instant action to protect the public? Or time to play political games? You want him to be your Minister of Health?

        Given just those two instances, you can only trust the public to support you or him or your party if you think they're thick. If they are thick they will support you.

        1. Ms Kaye made sure the public could not stay at a particular hotel, because they might not obey the rules and would infect the residents. That kind of trust.

  6. edit
    I think that our present situation can be understood if we look at a particular Monty Python skit. The one where the guys knows a lot of facts, repeats them, is fascinated by them, but doesn't see what relation the facts are to him or herself, real life and society. But when I look for it on google I can't find it.

    These days we are not relating to other humans in an open, accepting way, hence my concern about the word 'mosque' referred to below. We repeat words but don't feel them, talking community but not doing it.

    I remember a line from it – the information freak says that he got mixed up in his mind after reading the encyclopaedia because mosque and mosquito were listed together. (Now I can't find it on youtube and wonder if it has been dropped because of the sensitivity of mentioning the cultural icon).

    We are concentrating on science and progress in that direction, ie technology, 5G, abandonment of interest in human work, ie reading on kindle rather than holding a book made by skilled craftspeople. Being human and living a good, full life appreciating other humans and our hand work and our own, and each others' small achievements. I think it is essential. Get Humanities brought back into tertiary study with a 101 level inserted into every degree! And don’t follow the Waikato University idea of withdrawing from much face to face teaching. Rightfully, protests have been strong from students. ‘People who need people, are the loveliest people in the world’ – song.

  7. Yes get rid of all money systems. Make a play for a World without money. Free download can show a possibility at;

    http://byd0nz.com

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    1. Mod note above. You're really welcome to explain your thinking in response to the post. Get rid of money system, then what?

      1. My response is to long(4pges) thats why I put a link. The idea is too simple for humanity to grasp at this stage of our evolution.lol

          1. one of your comments seems to have disappeared. It got caught in the filter, I removed the bits with all the links, but it doesn't seem to be in the front or back end now, sorry.

  8. Sherson, someone else, and the program's host doing another complete team beatup on labour again on the Nation.

      1. A few do but any leftie should take a bucket. Prior interviews with Megan Woods, then Tracey Martin, then Chloe Swarbrick (sp?) ok

  11. tRump likes war criminals.

    https://twitter.com/HashimThaciRKS/status/1176843832937328640

    A prosecutor investigating crimes committed during Kosovo‘s 1998-99 independence war with Serbia has indicted Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaçi, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

    The indictment was announced as Thaçi was on his way to Washington for a White House meeting with Serbia’s president organised by Richard Grenell, Donald Trump’s controversial ambassador to Germany who was also appointed as the administration’s Balkan peace envoy.

    The meeting had been scheduled for Saturday, but Grenell announced on Twitter on Wednesday evening that Thaçi had cancelled his visit following the announcement. “I respect his decision not to attend the discussions until the legal issues of those allegations are settled,” Grenell wrote. Kosovo’s new prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, will represent the country at the White House meeting.

    Hoti’s predecessor, Albin Kurti, accused Grenell of helping to bring down his government because it had resisted a US-backed deal with Serbia.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/24/kosovo-president-hashim-thaci-indicted-on-war-crimes-charges

    1. Another day, another connection to the world's worst people.

      A MYSTERY IN KOSOVO: Matt Whitaker, who briefly served as President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general, made an appearance on Tuesday at a rally in Kosovo for Kadri Veseli, who is a candidate for prime minister in the county’s elections on Sunday, according to a video of his appearance broadcast on Facebook. (His appearance was first reported by Vice News.) What was he doing there?

      https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2019/10/04/why-was-matt-whitaker-in-kosovo-485598

      https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/06/24/specialist-prosecutors-office-in-the-hague-announces-indictments-for-war-crimes-against-thaci-and-veseli/

  12. Building methods is something that ordinary people need to take an interest in seeing there are so many examples of failures in modern buildings. And note NZ input – something we can take up ourselves – we must sell this to the overseas entities or private equity obese-capitalists who own most building businesses.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018752365/earthquake-design-beyond-code

    Casa Adelante, a breakthrough building in San Francisco, is showing it doesn't have to cost a fortune to build resilient housing that keeps functioning in a big earthquake.

    David Mar, a low-damage design expert from the US, told Kathryn Ryan this social housing project used relatively low-tech techniques combined with an invention by a Professor Geoffrey Rogers at the University of Canterbury.

  13. Some pretty heroic assumptions from Audrey in the Herald today. The media Nat boosters are really hitting their stride.

  14. "By their deeds shall ye know them"

    Anne Tolley quits. To spend time with family, blah blah.

    Translation: I wanted to be Speaker but I know we won't win, so why bother?

      1. You reckon their support of minority rights via publicity is just a ruse to make more money? How could I possibly disagree? 😉

  16. In today's Herald.

    "The government is deciding if and how they will require returning New Zealanders to partially pay for their Covid-19 managed isolation costs."

    I have never received 2 weeks free food and accommodation at any time and anywhere in the world. Of course anyone in quarantine should be paying at least the ordinary costs of daily living in New Zealand and not the tax payer.

  17. Revolutions tend to be very good at destruction, less good at rebuilding. All that most of them succeed in doing is tearing up the rule-book, allowing the psychopaths free rein, with the inevitable distressing results.

    And yet without revolutions, you'd be stuck in a field eking out merely an existence, bowing your head to a lord who's cock you will suck when they tell you to.

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

  18. What a shame adam that you have had such awful experiences that you write about so clearly. There is a commission looking into the misuse of children while in care. Can you save your anecdotes for your submission.

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    1. Speaking of rain and thunder; would all those people in Auckland who have been praying for rain, please stop now. Enough already!

      1. You’re no fun and if you come to my fun-filled music night I’d expect you to crack a wry smile at least at the poor Aucklanders whose houses are flooded by the rain but who are not allowed to wash their cars or water their gardens. It is tough being an Aucklander in times of drought.

    1. Did I read that right – the Swedes only started testing everyone with symptoms in June?

      I wonder what his excuse will be when it's 400 cases a day in Sweden.

  23. Charming.

    Diabetes is already known to be a key risk factor for developing severe COVID-191 and people with the condition are more likely to die2. “Diabetes is dynamite if you get COVID-19,” says Paul Zimmet, who studies the metabolic disease at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

    Now Zimmet is among a growing number of researchers who think that diabetes doesn’t just make people more vulnerable to the coronavirus, but that the virus might also trigger diabetes in some3. “Diabetes itself is a pandemic just like the COVID-19 pandemic. The two pandemics could be clashing,” he says.

    […]

    The study in pancreatic organoids shows how SARS-CoV-2 could be damaging the organ8. Shuibing Chen, a stem-cell biologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, and her colleagues showed that the virus can infect the organoid’s α- and β-cells, some of which then die. Whereas β-cells produce insulin to decrease blood-sugar levels, α-cells produce the hormone glucagon, which increases blood sugar. The virus can also induce the production of proteins known as chemokines and cytokines, which can trigger an immune response that might also kill the cells, according to the study8 published in Cell Stem Cell on 19 June.

    Chen says the experiments suggest that the virus can disrupt the function of key cells involved in diabetes — either by directly killing them or by triggering an immune response that attacks them.

    The virus also attacked pancreatic organoids that had been transplanted into mice, and cells in liver organoids. The liver is important for storing and releasing sugar into the blood stream when it senses insulin.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01891-8

    1. So much worse than the murderous clusterf*ck National would have given us – by not locking down properly because they just couldn't bring themselves to even temporarily turn off the flow of profit to their donors and cronies.

  25. Just stumbling back through the echo chamber. Are SPC and Professor Drowsy still here?

    [I tend to feel sorry for trapped trolls who accidentally stumble back into echo chambers and can’t seem to find their way out. I’m more than willing to show them the Exit. You must be tired from all the trolling you did here the other day so why don’t take a well-deserved rest over the weekend until Monday? – Incognito]

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

  26. I've been reading adult books since age 7

    That's terrible Dennis, that is far too young to be reading porn. That you have done so continuously since suggests you have a real problem.

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

    1. More kindness from the left 🙄 I suggest thinking for at least 3 seconds before you post such vile filth.

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