Open mike 31/05/2023

Written By: notices and features - Date published: - 60 comments
Categories: open mike


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For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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60 comments on “Open mike 31/05/2023”

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    1. 1.1

      Thanks tWiggle, that is thought provoking stuff of the horror kind.

      For every discovery of a breakthrough by AI, there will be equal conundrums. imo.

      Bringing humanity to situations is going to become fraught.

    1. 2.1

      Mark Mitchell is a blithering idiot. Or maybe he is a victim in that the intelligent stuff he said was edited out of the RNZ piece.

      Most crime is the result of social and economic circumstances. Mitchell’s big answer? Boot camp. Jesus wept, drongos rule.

      1. 2.1.1

        Grant Robertson said that kind of approach had been tried before and did not work.

        "It's a policy that's been proven to fail in the past and all it will deliver is fitter, faster criminals," he said.

        "Not only is it me saying that, Sir Peter Gluckman who was the chief science advisor to John Key has said that boot camps don't work. They didn't work in the United Kingdom, they didn't work in New Zealand. National is just reheating failed policies."

        Golriz Ghahraman said it was "probably the most embarrassing failed policy" National could have dug up, and New Zealand deserved better.

        "What we know about young people who get detained for crime is that they have overwhelmingly just experienced a serious trauma – that's domestic or sexual violence … 90 percent have serious learning disability. The stats are really really clear, the research is clear, we know what to do to prevent them from a lifetime of crime and we know that is not bootcamps."

        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/478945/national-party-youth-boot-camps-policy-criticised-as-ineffective-and-populist

        NZ set up its first boot camps in 1971 but they were abandoned in 1981. The boot camps were regarded as a failure with a 71% rate of re-offending among corrective trainees.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_camp_(correctional)

        'Been there, done that, failed' – Luxon's proposed youth military boot camps doomed, lawyer says

        https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/300741616/been-there-done-that-failed–luxons-proposed-youth-military-boot-camps-doomed-lawyer-says

        Chester Borrows, one of few Nats who i did respect (sad he passed away) and Sir Peter Gluckman….

        https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/boot-camps-cliche-says-former-national-minister

        Does that cover it? Nact….ever willing to repeat mistakes. fkwits

    1. 3.1

      The debt ceiling is a cynical Republican party bargaining tool he will just quietly not go ahead with that. Worst that happens is he gets a quiet word from a colleague that any publicity and concessions over the debt ceiling is considered profit by the Republican party.

        1. 3.1.1.1

          That is a reasonable way to explain the politics of these negotiations. It would look better however if her party took the effort to remove the debt ceiling from US politics when they next have that opportunity. At present the Republicans get two plays at the budget, first the budget itself and then funding that budget.

              1. 3.1.1.1.1.1.1

                yet you admonish 'republicans'….while they may be abusing their remit the fact remains that after a history of such abuse the American public continue to provide that ability

  5. 5

    Countdown to freeze prices on 300 products but

    Supermarkets still winning – Consumer NZ

    Consumer NZ head of research and advocacy Gemma Rasmussen said because supermarkets put their own brands on the freezing line, they were still winning.

    "In these instances the supermarket is both the supplier and the retailer, so they can retain higher profit, and it also means that increases their market power over other suppliers."

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/491031/countdown-to-freeze-prices-on-300-products-but-only-two-vegetables-make-the-list

    countdown….to the end of the NZ supermarket duopoly ? When could this actually happen? The sooner the better !

    The duopoly profiteers..

    Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy​ said supermarkets took more than $1 million in excess profits every day.

    “These profits are twice what they should be. We need more competition to drive down prices and give New Zealanders a fairer price at the checkout.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/128586011/a-slap-in-the-face-consumer-nz-calls-for-end-to-excess-supermarket-profits

    And…I found this…interesting. Brad Olsen of Infometrics. A kind of "go-to" for Economic news and supermarket soundbites.

    Connection with Foodstuffs.

    https://www.infometrics.co.nz/report/grocery-supplier-cost-index

    Neutral? IMO ..no.

    The supermarket duopolists have major skin in the game..so desperately want to retain their duopoly. To any and all extent

    Supermarkets shaping the food price story

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018877026/supermarkets-shaping-the-food-price-story

      1. 6.1.1

        And of course it was until recently one of the main headlines on Granny Herald's website – slightly demoted now but still there. I can't see any mention of it on other news outlets LOL. I see you mentioned that Jonathan Coleman did it too back in the day – of those two MPs I much prefer Kiri Allan – she is definitely not useless in my book, whereas I certainly can't say the same for Jonathan Coleman when he was Minister of Health. Some of us have relatively long memories.

  7. 7

    Anyone have a link to Kathleen Stocks speech at the Oxford Union, i.e. her actually speaking?

    I saw an extremist non binary sex denialist glued her hand to the floor as the debate was taking place.

  8. 8

    Taxpayers Union road show exposes their role in 3 Waters

    And have further plans along anti-Māori themes in regional resource management…

    Clips posted from 'The Taxpayers' Union "Hands off our homes" roadshow at their first stop in Otautahi. The TPU speaker [in the first clip] is Callum Purvis.'

    Scroll down through the tweets, with conspiracy dogwhistles, galore World Economic Form, UN, with tacit agreement from National MP.

    Talking about global conspiracies, the NZ TPU is part of the global Atlas alliance (guessing it refers to Atlas Shrugged). A sister organisation in Australia is funding and organising anti-Voice propaganda.

    Who's behind anti-Voice messaging?

    1. 8.1

      Any response to my comment poointing out to you that its possible you have accused Stephen Schwartz from Atomic Analyst to be a paedophile went he may not be?

      As I mentioned in a comment on that thread I did some research on Stephen Schwartz child sex offences and found there were two people of that name who have been charged over child porn, One was a teacher and one was a surgeon.

      It is possible that the Stephen Schwartz from Atomic Analyst (seems he is anti nuclear weapons) is also a paedophile. But given that it is a serious accusation, I think you need to provide evidence that this is the case. Unless you posted the wrong reference to the wrong Stephen Schwartz?

      1. 8.1.1

        As I mentioned in a comment on that thread […]

        Which comment and what thread? It always helps to link to what you’re talking about instead of people having to guess and/or do a search.

        Secondly, you’re barking up the wrong tree, as you have the wrong commenter in your crosshairs.

        You’ll never receive the answers this way …

        1. 8.1.1.1

          Hey Incognito ergo summa laude, how does one link to a previous TS post? It would save me a lot of typing.

          1. 8.1.1.1.1

            There’s a difference between Posts and comments. I assume you mean comments here.

            Each comment has a time & date stamp, which doubles as the URL to that specific comment. You’ll see the address appear (somewhere on your device’s screen) when you hover over it with your cursor.

            Copy & paste that as required. However, with TS comments there’s something peculiar. If you paste them on their own, the revere to the Post URL rather than to the specific comment. You can avoid this by putting a character straight in front or behind the comment URL or by using the Link function of the Text Editor in which you write your comment.

            https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29-05-2023/#comment-1951915

            .https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29-05-2023/#comment-1951915

            https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29-05-2023/#comment-1951915.

            https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-29-05-2023/#comment-1951915

            HTH

            Edit: the TS ‘oddity’ seems to have been fixed, in which case you can ignore that part of my reply. Apologies for the confusion.

            1. 8.1.1.1.1.1

              And thanks too. Perhaps this could go on the TS faq page? Or, embarrassingly, is it already there and I’m too lazy?

        3. 8.1.1.3

          I will leave it up to you Incognito as to whether you want to follow up or take down a comment that is potentially libelous i.e. it is possible someone on this site has accused someone of being a sex offender, when in my very casual look I could only find evidence that the two people who shared his name were convicted of sex offences. Up to you.

          1. 8.1.1.3.1

            When you make accusations of this kind and want Mods to take action, then please include a link and a clear explanation of what the issue is.

            2. 8.1.1.3.1.2

              904

              This is from Joe 90. I googled Stephen Schwartz sex offending and got two different SS from the Atomic Analyst. One was a teacher, the other a surgeon and they had different middle initials. I googled the Atomic Analyst and could not find any references to sex offending (I am certainly not saying that it isn't the case). In the first instance my suggestion would be to ask Joe 90 for evidence, but of course that is up to you

              Your welcome

              29 May 2023 at 5:23 pm

              Gold.

              Stephen Schwartz

              @AtomicAnalyst

              This is not an interview. It's a colonoscopy

              @RonFilipkowski

              ·

              5h

              Mark Levin kicked off his interview of Trump tonight with the kind of tough question that I have been waiting for all year. Now THIS is journalism.

              https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1662969806507655169

              1. 8.1.1.3.1.2.1

                ask Joe 90 for evidence,

                Evidence of what?

                Gold was a reference to the description of Levin's servile interview of tRump as a colonoscopy.

    1. 9.1

      '[Otago] university has known for years that it was heading for borrowing, due to its planned capital expenditure on buildings. In late 2018, the university lodged an application to the Tertiary Education Commission to more than double its "borrowing consent" to $405million — from a prior limit of $170million.'

      Apparently OU has not borrowed (lived beyond its means to upgrade or expand) in the previous 30 years. Oops, planning on low interest rates and upswing in enrolment; then covid, loss of the postgrad-to-citizen pipeline and interest rate rises derailed management plans.

      As it runs out of operating budget in Sept this year, Otago appear to be targetting staffing numbers, rather than shutting down works programmes, after the planned 5% increase in student numbers didn't eventuate this year. OU management also hid the extent of the problems in previous years from staff unions and others; 'the university produces long-range financial forecasts, but has not been able to direct the ODT to a financial plan managing its risks.' Bad, bad OU bigwigs.

      ODT in depth debt coverage

  10. 10

    Good heavens, Chippy just totally destroyed Luxon in QT in the House today!

    Bring on the election debates!

      1. 10.1.1

        That was self inflicted wounds from Willis and Luxon. If they're truly that thick no wonder they're scared of reading Bilingual Road Signs.

      2. 10.1.2

        And ACT and National questioners insist on asking a question that is part of a larger quote and therefore misleading. Ginny Anderson pointed that out today during QT in the House, naming some half dozen different recent dates on which the same question was the lead off to be answered by the same response quoting the full statement.

        Waste of opposition's time and effort really, unless they are attempting to propagate misinformation by repetition which is one of the ploys of propaganda and misinformation.

    1. 11.1

      No wonder why National are having to expend so much energy and adopt more extreme right wing positions to defend their right flank.

      Are their recent retractions of policy part of this strategy?

    1. 13.1

      They have not changed!! What is worrying is the pull to the right. Brash once said "My wife is Asian you know" (Soon was Ex-wife!!)

      The dog whistles about race, road signs being bi-lingual, contraceptive charges for women, guns, and now housing accord flip flop is National trying to stop Act nibbling it's right flank!!

      Comments on Interest.co.nz are hardly flattering fordevil the right.

  14. 14

    For my sins I duly confess to subscribing to the Herald on line – it manages to give me a reason to laugh out loud or become a screaming wreck all in a very short time, reading the comments from the Nact/Act faithful who obviously flock to their shrine each day. Today's offering from one Richard Prebble is grist for their mill – with the headline 'Hipkins v Luxon – the voters' choice is clear'. I won't post the link (unless I'm advised to by the Mods) as it is paywalled – 'PREMIUM'! Of course Chris Luxon is considered almost the second coming (and I say that, being a one time parishioner of St Paul's in Symonds Street, when Richard's father – Archdeacon Kenneth Prebble was vicar) and his son was the Labour MP for Auckland Central), whereas Chris Hipkins is the anti-christ! His op ed was a sickening read as usual, but the commentors flocked to hear what he had to say and were salivating over his every word and madly belittling any dissenters.

  15. 15

    Have a listen to "The Detail" on RNZ tonight.

    It is about how National are going to use Artificial Intelligence to lie to electors and the scariest thing is that the tech experts seem to think that there is nothing wrong with that.

    I think we will see dirty politics from National the likes we have never seen before.

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