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223 Responses to “General Debate 30 November 2009”
I have been away from a computer for three days. What has happened at Kiwiblog? Has everyone here RIPed philu yet and has it made a difference to the general thread?
It seems the Key government is repeating the pattern of the Clark government where the opposition just can’t get traction.
This is still happening in Australia where the Liberals are poised to have their third leader since the last Australian election.
It seems that the population wants to give incumbent governments not changing the world the benefit of the doubt.
However that does not seem to be the case in the USA where the much vaunted and overrated Barack Obama stumbles from one crisis to another. Where the social fabric of a nation is being challenged by governments then the people are quick to punish them.
Clinton survived by moving back to the centre, however I believe Obama has scripted himself firmly to the left with massive tax and spend programmes.
Obama never was put through the test of the media last year. The phenomenon of a black president and anybody but a Republican was too strong. Now all the weaknesses of Obama are being revealed- his naivety,inexperience and poor judgement have been exposed.
Put simply, Obama is a textbook socialist leading a free enterprise country.
A recipe for disaster !!!
Brian – read Saturday’s GD, and you’ll probably want to RIP billyborker as well. He waits until DPF is otherwise occupied then pours out his poison on the disabled child of another poster. He really is beneath contempt.
Listening to John Key on breakfast this morning. What an empty little man, now turning into the same pompous pretentious style as Helen herself. I wish Brash was running the show.
I also noted the carefully scripted interview, almost like a theater show of some sorts: why doesn’t Henry raise the climate scam issue, this is gaining traction world wide, but we in NZ must be kept in the dark, just trust Johny and everything will be all right.
Sick and disgusted, that’s what I am.
Neil – very well put………. Obama is a gone burger, the masses are wising up to the fact it takes far more than being a good speaker in scripted speeches…
Was in the US of A for work 2 weeks ago, the general feeling of the people I talked to re his Noble Peace prize was one of disbelief, most thought it shone a very negative light on Obama….
Brian I was going to say the other day – if you’re looking for a couple of beasts to run on your land – Murray Grays are worth looking at. They’re good for the freezer, but the real bonus about them is that comparatively they have a bit of personality. They love to follow you round when they think you aren’t looking. Very curious and funny. You can get a bit attached to them though. I had one years ago that truly thought he was a dog. Wouldn’t hang out with the others unless you forced him. If you didn’t leave him in the paddocks close to the house he would get really upset making heaps of noise and trying to bust fences.
John Key is continuing to annoy me. He has already dismissed the unreleased 2025 Brash report.
He , like Helen, has trumpeted his vision to increase NZ’s economic performance. Key goes even further, to say the goal is to catch up to Australia where incomes are a whopping 1/3 higher.
Key, like Helen, is doing nothing to achieve this goal. If anything, he has applied the economic brakes with the passing of the ETS. He has also been very good at criticizing other peoples ideas while developing none of his own.
John Key may as well announce to the world that NZ will land a man on Mars.
Chicken Little – thanks – more to think on. My sister has a small farm in northern NSW and was talking to her on the weekend. They have to worry about snakes, foxes, eagles, bush fires, floods, ticks, poisonous bugs/spiders. Makes me glad I am trying this on here in NZ.
dimmocracymum – I am with you. Even Brash as Minister Of Finance would be a big help. I think he would get Key moving in the right direction. (No pun intended)
my buddy and his chick are having a baby. so out of curiosity i jumped onto the WFF site and used the calculator. i was curious how much he would get. turns out he would have to take a pay cut and have 4 kids lol
anyway, i decide to plug in an income of 40k a year, 1 child.
the tax credit is $130 a week!!!! thats $6760 a year!! what tax rate are these people actually paying? 10%?? fuckin hell!
just another example of Dime getting raped by the government.
reward those who leave school early, have kids and pump gas!
“I think Brash would get Key moving in the right direction.”
I reckon the only way to move Key in the correct direction is to roll him and replace him with someone with political vision and courage. Those are qualities Key lacks.
Mr Key said during the 1980s and 1990s New Zealand underwent radical economic reform while Australia took a more incremental approach. The trans-Tasman neighbour was now in much better shape.
Dime (9:15am), yes that is the thing about ‘Working For Families’.
When I lived in Wanganui the nextdoor neighbour chappie was in the bizarre situation of on Tuesdays having $177 deducted from his salary in taxes and acc levies and on Wednesdays $176 would sail into his bank account from ‘Working For Families’.
My view was always to ask “why does the Government not just stop collecting the taxes and put [you] on a 0% tax rate?!?!”
In fairness to my erstwhile neighbours and many thousands of other WFF recipients all the money was spent on ‘necessities of life’ – food, clothing, mortgage payments, childrens school activities etc
Part of the difference Stephen, is we started from a worse ‘beginning’ position.
The economic damage wrought in the economy from 1980-85 meant our macroeconomic imbalances were far worse than Australias. We also pretty much abandoned the reform-path in the mid 1990s, when the Nats moved back to the centre and formed a coalition with Winston. Winston’s economic platform was that NZ’s economic problems were a product of the low national savings rate. Hence the brilliant plan to boost our savings by getting into Government and indulging in an extra $5bn spending spree.
Swiss voters decided during a referendum on November 29 to ban minarets but Switzerland’s biggest Jewish group said that a far-right push to ban the construction of minarets here was a “threat” to religious harmony and hindered the integration of Muslims. .
@Lance, well Brash was a goofy stumbler, but at least he did say what he meant and stuck with it most of the time. He went down because of his integrity. Neville is popular because of an absolute lack of it. It would seem we New Zealanders consider that “leadership” qualities. (I almost puke whenever I hear any of these pollies calling themselves “leaders”)
Key is hardly going to agree to go with all the Brash tax suggestions without also considering what the tax working group come up with. The government will need to weigh up both of these reports with their own preferences, plus their own commitments made to voters. We will find out next year what the result is.
Do we need further proof of how timid and weak the Prime Minister is?
Key goes on to say ”We campaigned on some core commitments, like not raising the age of super or putting the interest back on student loans, and we would be breaking those commitments if we went and did that so we are not going to.”
But conveniently forgets altogether about the tax cuts.
We’ve chosen Neville Key as Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Brian, RIP, when used judiciously, is a great tool.
I haven’t been bothered by either D4J or Phil for days now. I’m actually enjoying the comments section at Kiwiblog again.
I can handle Borker and Luc and Pete etc. But Phil really got my goat, knowing the lazy sod sat around on his arse all day at our expense, and then had the temerity to mock us. I know others on the old “rock and roll”, but they’re in a bad time of their lives, and they’re studying and working to get off it. They’ve got a good attitude, realise the benefit is a helpline, and not a “entitlement”. Unlike Phool.
Pete George:Key is hardly going to agree to go with all the Brash tax suggestions without also considering what the tax working group come up with. The government will need to weigh up both of these reports with their own preferences, plus their own commitments made to voters. We will find out next year what the result is
I suggest, Key will do little to modify the status quo. Status quo = declining relative economic performance.
People are largely happy with this , so long as the welfare (inlcuding WFF) cheques keep rolling in.
I have been waiting for ACT to come out and say “The Prime Minister either accepts what Brash recommends or we are quitting the government on a point of principle” …(probably taking the best part of quarter of a million electors with them)
The Maoris never hesitate to throw their weight around (and you will have noticed that by doing so they get everything they want) so I am eagerly awaiting for ACT to drop this limp dick “we only got 3.8% of the votes” nonsense and start saying “the other 96% are fools; tax cuts, entitlement cuts and spending cuts are vital”
However, knowing ACT as I do they are hardly likely to do anything principled and will simply march into those division lobbies for greater taxes, greater spending, larger government (etc)
The problem ACT have is they are right wing. If they get up and walk out on National, they become irrelevant. its not like they can go with labour/greens next time round. where as the Maori can.
the key to staying in power is to be a small centrist party/whore like dunne. (i dislike him as much as WFF)
Under the Brash flat proposals:
- at 20% if you earn less than 44000 you would pay more tax
- at 25% if you earn less than 71000 you would pay more tax
If the dropped WFF this is accentuated substantially for those with children.
It is an add-on script for Firefox (also known as Remove It Permanently) that surgically ‘blocks’ sections of a webpage/blog. So it is akin to an ignore function. For instance, if you block ‘Philu’, all posts by Philu become invisible.
Shit Shonkey and his arse licking lackeys are fast become a joke. Why would you set up a tax revue group only to reject it’s outcomes? . Shonkey and his finance minister are stinking socialists like the tossers in opposition. The man is full of it.
Also heard that frothing tosser Philin on National radio. Sounding like a bleating sheep that is about to get its throat cut. “Oh no we can’t have a flat tax rate, its not fair, its not fair, its not fair, its not fair”. Fuck off you green eyed dick whacker.
Part of the difference Stephen, is we started from a worse ‘beginning’ position.
The economic damage wrought in the economy from 1980-85 meant our macroeconomic imbalances were far worse than Australias. We also pretty much abandoned the reform-path in the mid 1990s,
Thanks. But by the mid 90s we’d reformed far more (by the sounds) than Australia. We were ‘ahead’ in terms of the system we had, and this system wasn’t drastically altered in the years that followed, was it..? Or is it that Australia undertook reform, just that it never stopped unlike it ‘did’ here?
Turnout was 53 per cent, a relatively low figure by the standards of Swiss democracy. Opponents of the measure saw this as a reflection of apathy among many voters who would not have approved of the ban.
Heh, reminds me of the people here who suggested that those who did not vote in the (Anti-) Smacking Referendum would surely have been in support of a ban on smacking.
The four existing minarets will not be affected by the ban so it must just be a ban on new minarets. Is a minaret a legally definable shape, or is this mainly symbolic like the gang patch ban (and is it as difficult to legally define).
Marcel Stüssi argues that any ban would be incompatible with articles of international law to which Switzerland is a signatory. In any case, cantonal zoning laws already prohibit the construction of buildings that do not match their surroundings.
Erwin Tanner sees the initiative as breaching not only the constitutionally entrenched right to religious freedom, but also the right to freedom of expression, enjoyment of property, and equality.
Well, in broad economic terms the early-mid 90s were a period where NZ did do extremely well. We got the payoff from the 80s reforms. We had a genuine export-led recovery, based on a low inflation economy and rapid job growth.
From the mid-90s onwards though, the reform process stopped or went backwards. The debt reduction undertaken by Birch, meant the Government had more fiscal freedom (the debt servicing component of the budget balance had dwindled dramatically). But rather than that being used support more structural reforms (everybody who has ever looked at tax policies-for-growth, comes out with the same conclusion- low, flat and broad), we got more fiscal indiscipline (e.g. the Winston spend-up).
Phil instead of link whoring to your own site, you should make clear that you did not write that piece, and attribute it instead to the Independent. They are not your own words, and you are not quoting yourself.
Have you been taking creative writing courses from Mr Ihimaera?
Turnout was 53 per cent, a relatively low figure by the standards of Swiss democracy. Opponents of the measure saw this as a reflection of apathy among many voters who would not have approved of the ban.
Heh, reminds me of the people here who suggested that those who did not vote in the (Anti-) Smacking Referendum would surely have been in support of a ban on smacking.
The Times article has it wrong though. 53% is quite high for a referendum in Switzerland. Most times they barely manage 40%, but there was a big campaign from the SVP beforehand. They’ve jaded their electorate with direct democracy. The ban on building has still only gone through with a 57% vote, but it’s gone through because the threshold for referenda is 50%.
The big difference, and the weirdest thing for me when considering, you know, what these things are for, is that this is an obligatory referendum: the result has to be inserted into the Swiss constitution. That means it can be shot down either in the Swiss courts or by the ECHR, because it’s explicitly banning towers built for the purposes of a single religion, not towers built for any form of religion.
Why would you set up a tax revue group only to reject it’s outcomes?
How can tax be entertaining?
That aside, you have the wrong group, the Tax review Group has not yet presented it’s report, this is the Brash led 2025 Taskforce – named for the date the Government aims to catch up with Australia. There is also a Tax Working Group:
The group would not make specific policy recommendations, but offer advice on the fiscal framework, and the structure of personal income tax, corporate tax, GST and tax integrity.
The chairman will be Victoria University Pro Vice-Chancellor and dean of the faculty of commerce and administration, Professor Bob Buckle. The private sector and academic experts on the group will include Rob Cameron, Paul Dunne, Arthur Grimes, Rob McLeod, Gareth Morgan, Mike Shaw, Geof Nightingale, Casey Plunkett, John Shewan, Mark Weldon, John Prebble and David White.
Just go tools>add-ons and search for “Remove it permanently” under the “Get add-ons” tab.
Otherwise a ctrl-F search for RIP on general debate for the 24th is where I found instructions from someone helpful.
I particularly like the little tombstone icon you get bottom right of the screen which tells one how many instances have been removed for one’s viewing pleasure
Once you have installed RIP, go to this website and download this file http://ripwiki.pbworks.com/f/kiwiblogcomment.rip. Open RIP Options by going to tools in Firefox and import the downloaded file. Edit the file by replacing the words “An Idiot” with Philu. Press ok. Done.
“..On Thanksgiving, I spent some time taking stock of my life and the world around me and ..
.. as we’re supposed to do over the holiday, giving thanks for all the joys — little and big — in my life.
One of the larger joys for which I am giving thanks is all of the recent attention that has been lavished on a topic that is near and dear to my heart —
– the cruelty and environmental harm involved in raising animals for food.
I struggled to cohesively construct an article about some of the many recent and important developments on this topic, but there is just too much.
Instead, I decided on a top ten list (a tip of the hat to David Letterman) —
– the 10 most interesting articles on the farmed animal welfare front.
So without further ado:
1. World Bank scientists conclude that eating meat causes more than half of global warming (conservatively).
World Bank agricultural scientists Robert Goodland, who spent 23 years as the Bank’s lead environmental advisor, and Jeff Anhang, a research officer and environmental specialist for the Bank ..
.. argue convincingly that more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to our desire to eat chicken, pigs, and other farmed animals.
That’s right: Add up all the causes of climate change .. and you find that eating meat causes more than everything else combined.
Honestly, this was the biggest point for me:..
.. How can I possibly take the environment seriously if I’m still participating in what is — by far — the biggest contributor to warming?
Which might explain:
2. Prominent Stanford biochemist pledges to focus all his energy on promoting veganism.
Most of us have heard of Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. RK Pachauri from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ..
.. and his lectures all over the world promoting vegetarianism.
Now along comes Dr. Patrick O. Brown who, as reported in (of all places) Forbes ..
.. will spend the next 18 months focused on “put[ting] an end to animal farming.”
Explains Dr. Brown, “‘There’s absolutely no possibility that 50 years from now this system will be operating as it does now…
.. I want to approach this as a solvable problem.’
Solution: ‘Eliminate animal farming on planet Earth.’”
dime (1556) Vote: Add rating 4 Subtract rating 0 Says:
November 30th, 2009 at 10:08 am
The problem ACT have is they are right wing. If they get up and walk out on National, they become irrelevant. its not like they can go with labour/greens next time round. where as the Maori can.
the key to staying in power is to be a small centrist party/whore like dunne. (i dislike him as much as WFF)
Unlike many I remembered how bloody bad other National governments had been and did not move from voting ACT.
The problem ACT has is not that it is right wing but that it has a “leader” who is not taken seriously by NZers – the same problem that cost National the government when Brash was head honcho.
If ACT can act and present a honest right-wing alternative fronted by dignified, successful leader they will become significant quickly and, at least, part of a real government in the near future.
Kiwblogolytes from Ashburton might throw light on whether the alleged writer of a letter in today’s Christchurch Press exists. The letter is over the name of “Sandy Gibson”, Ashburton, and there are several Gibson families in Ashburton. IMHO, the letter has bogus stamped all over it. I’m, sure if a letter made the same sort of racist assault on Maori, the newspaper would have gone to lengths to authenticate the letter writer’s identity.
Here’s what the letter purportedly from a Sandy Gibson it says in part:
“Europeans were cannibals. They loved eating children and teenagers after battles. Remains of chewed bones were found in their tombs.
“No Kiwi invented cars, electricity, the phone or air travel.
“Early settlers were good at taking what wasn’t their own.
“Hone was speaking Pom lingo when he used the f word. There’s no f in the Maori language.
“A Maori uses $1000 of taxpayers’ money. Hide uses $50,000 of taxpayers’ money and that’s OK.”
If anyone posts here a comment alleging to be “Sandy Gibson” to verify they are the letter writer they will need to provide a postal address and phone number for verification.
TBH I think your one hope is that this is all part of a strategy of:
(1) Get elected and build credibility by not doing a bunch of things you say you wont do
(2) Use that credibility to get re-elected without such a long list of “we wonts”
(3) Actually start governing for the benefit of New Zealand
“..Tim Ellis (175) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 0 Says:
November 30th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Phil instead of link whoring to your own site, you should make clear that you did not write that piece, and attribute it instead to the Independent. They are not your own words, and you are not quoting yourself…”
gee..!..tim..
call me old-fashioned..
but i take speechmarks..and an indent..
as a double-statement/disclaimer that i did not write the words..?
what..in your little universe..do you read/take from that indent/speechmarks double..?
Australia is leading the revolt against Al Gore’s great big AGW conspiracy – just as the Aussie geologist and AGW sceptic Professor Ian Plimer predicted it would.
ABC news reports that five frontbenchers from Australia’s opposition Liberal party have resigned their portfolios rather than follow their leader Malcolm Turnbull in voting with Kevin Rudd’s Government on a new Emissions Trading Scheme.
The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.
Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.
Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position.
If anyone posts here a comment alleging to be “Sandy Gibson” to verify they are the letter writer they will need to provide a postal address and phone number for verification.
That cannibal line was pretty damn funny, but you’re bonkers if you think anyone’s going to identify themselves like that here. Check the electoral rolls if you care so much.
I posted On Hone Hawara staying in the Maori Party.
LUCY (335) 9 2 Says:
November 18th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I am still betting he will be forgiven and remain in the Maori Party. Remember there is one standard of behaviour for Maori and another for the rest of us, just as there is one set of laws for politicians and another for the rest of us.
Well the decission still has to be made but would anybody like to bet that he WILL leave the party and that John Key will keep his word and NOT work with him. say $20
While we are at it. Anyone like to take a couple of other wagers.
I bet that drilling for minerals and oil in NZ will NOT go ahead. That the government will bow to the pressure of the invironmentalists (especially those in the UN) and will say it is not in our best interests.
I bet that John Key will go to Copenhagen and WILL SIGN the Copenhagen deal even if other countries dont.
I bet that absolutely NOTHING (except for a lot of smoke and mirrows in the form of more committees and ‘political investigations”) will come out of the Bazley report (cant have the UN etc seeing us as corrupt can we?)
I bet that an independent commission on corruption WILL NOT be established under this government.
Thats all for today folks
(And to think I voted for them what a fool)
Australia is leading the revolt against Al Gore’s great big AGW conspiracy – just as the Aussie geologist and AGW sceptic Professor Ian Plimer predicted it would.
ABC news reports that five frontbenchers from Australia’s opposition Liberal party have resigned their portfolios rather than follow their leader Malcolm Turnbull in voting with Kevin Rudd’s Government on a new Emissions Trading Scheme.
The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.
Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.
Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position.
Except your presentation is a little disingenuous, because to quote Mirabella:
“Putting aside the numbers for and against, this is a flawed scheme that is against the national interest.
“It has the potential to damage so much in Australia for little benefit and before we know what the rest of the world is doing.”
“I can’t think of any other bill that has the potential to alter Australian society so much, and for what? It will seriously hurt small business, farmers and households for a negligible reduction in emissions.”
Tony Smith:
I reject assertions that refusal to support Labor’s scheme equals refusal to support action on climate change.
You can be fully committed to effectively combating climate change without supporting this ETS at this time.
There’s also a leadership challenge going on, and Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin are the mouthiest members of that debate; Eric Abetz describes himself as an “agnostic, not a sceptic”, and has stated that the resignations are a policy issue, and not a leadership issue.
I think it makes overwhelming good sense to delay consideration of the legislation until after a further Senate inquiry and until after Copenhagen and there seems to be a lot of community support for that position…
That was the compromise that many of us invited Mr Turnbull to accept but he flatly refused to, and can I simply dispel the argument that those that seek delay are somehow people that don’t want any action on climate change.
The Greens support this position, Senator Xenophon supports this position and it makes eminently good sense irrespective of if you’re a signed up believe or an absolute sceptic or a bit like me an agnostic in the middle, it makes eminent good sense to have this considered by a Senate committee.
So there are a few different reasons for the resignations, the greatest of which is Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey’s leadership contentions – and the majority of these reasons refer to delaying the bill until after Copenhagen, the effect on the economy from a badly drafted bill and the doubts over Turnbull’s leadership and the challenges issued by Abbott and Hockey.
In other words, it’s not because “Al Gore’s AGW conspiracy” has been exposed, and none of the politicians involved suggest that they don’t believe in AGW or don’t want their ETS on those grounds.
No Phil, quoting something and link whoring to yourself suggests that you wrote the original piece. You were just copying and pasting somebody else’s work without attributing it. That is called plagiarism.
Which is the bigger shame for NZ? That government spending has ballooned so much since 2005 (+$8 billion) that Don Brash says if we got back to that level we could have a 20-25% flat tax rate? Or that John Keyless has so little vision for NZ that he’s pooh-pooing pretty much everything Don has said before the report is even published?
And he’s doing the same with the tax reform group.
Keyless must think we’re idiots. He commissions these reports then tells us all the things he won’t do before they even report back.
Maybe he should just tell us what he *will* do to lift NZ’s economy. Then we’d know where we stand and we could say Don’s fee.
Swifftman – yes it is bliss. I guess ol’ Philu is just emailing his links to himself in some sort of perverse self abuse. Of course I wouldn’t know because I can’t see his posts.
# Murray (3993) Vote: Add rating 7 Subtract rating 0 Says:
November 30th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Luc Hansen is a labour party staffer?
************************
lol I would probably do a better job on policy analysis and presentation than many they have there, but no, not guilty of that one.
Just checking out your blog site – your latest post is a perfect example of why the deniers and conspiracy theorists are so easy to discredit. Here is NIWA’s rebuttal to the fairy tale spun by your band of mischievous fantasists.
Just quickly visiting the Swiss referendum result banning minarets on mosques: I pricked my ears up when the reporter mentioned part of the campaign in favour of the restriction was based on the “threatening” likeness of minarets to modern missiles.
A quick check showed minarets first appeared in within 100 years after Mohammed’s death AD633.
Just goes to show that you only need to fool enough people some of the time, I guess.
Which is the bigger shame for NZ? That government spending has ballooned so much since 2005 (+$8 billion) that Don Brash says if we got back to that level we could have a 20-25% flat tax rate? Or that John Keyless has so little vision for NZ that he’s pooh-pooing pretty much everything Don has said before the report is even published?
The last term of the Clark government is turning out to be rather ruinous. There was a definite lockin of some hefty fiscal expenditures. It’s not too hard to run a budget surplus when the economy is growing quickly. But by early 2008, we just had to slip a whisker below 2% growth to go into deficit. Things had been screwed up badly.
The best measure of fiscal stance is if the economy grows 0%- whether you are in deficit or surplus. I think we have to expect given the fiscal path the Nats inherited, along with the centrist instincts of Key and English, that a deficit was inevitable. But a lot of that is still a consequence of the recession. And I think this centrist instincts were to soften the effect of the recession on households, rather than to push the growth strategy.
I do however, think they have been too fast ‘out of the blocks’ to pour cold water on the idea of serious tax reform. Every report the government has been getting since the McLeod report, says that taxes should be flattened, lowered and broadened. Growing evidence from overseas on the effects of tax cuts, show that this is part of the growth solution. Unfortunately, the tax cuts that were carried out, aren’t well aligned to those taxes most likely to boost growth.
That means the top tax rate has to come down, and it has to come down fast (preferably to match the company tax rate).
1] faiz786 Says: November 25th
2] Sofia Says: November 23rd
3] Jase20000 Says: November 2nd
4] bjchip Says: October 16th
5] Ozy MAndias Says: October 4th
6] EL Says: September 4th
. . .
No big deal made of this in the MSM, but the fact is that John Key got steamrolled by the heavy hitters who appeared at CHOGM over the issue of contributing to a huge international fund aimed at helping developing nations combat climate change.
The Sunday Star-Times yesterday quoted Key as saying that New Zealand “would resist being included in any fund,” and that such a fund would be “just throwing money around.”
Today, the Herald reports how Key caved in completely. No more mention of his cherished “global alliance” to solve livestock methane emissions. I hope he does continue with this, it’s laudable and probably doable, but it was always laughable that such a puny scheme would let us opt out of what is now becoming an unstoppable movement to save the planet.
It’s also laughable how the still secretly skeptical Key continues to resist this worldwide momentum by firstly, a cynical aside, “Let’s see if it gets adopted a Copenhagen,” and secondly, by being perhaps the only leader of a developed nation not at Copenhagen.
My feeling is that the loneliness will get to him and he will be on the plane to Denmark! And be hit with another dose of reality.
In light of the recent referendum where the Swiss have voted to ban (Muslim) new minarets, I thought the following would be of interest:
Home-grown terrorism: our values are not optional for minority groups
It would be better if we enforced Britain’s cultural values on immigrant communities, rather than allowing them to dictate government policy, says Janet Daley.
How do you create a home-grown terrorist? For a while, Britain seemed to hold the copyright on the formula for this. First, you import a huge number of people from places where there are unresolved historical conflicts, with no stipulation that they learn anything about their adopted homeland (not even its language). Then you make no attempt to integrate these groups – which are large enough to constitute self-sustaining communities – into the culture and political traditions of the country that is now their home, nor do you advise the schools to inculcate any sense of pride or pleasure in the new national identity to which they are entitled. Indeed, you do precisely the opposite of this: you positively encourage not only the incomers themselves but their British-born children to maintain a separate, inward-looking ethnic community that stands apart from the mainstream life of the society and whose values may conflict with it.
So eager are you to show that you accept other cultures whose attitudes and assumptions (on, for example, the treatment of women) are opposed to the official values of your society, that you benevolently overlook what is being taught in their schools even when those schools are being supported by government funding. When your Government is caught in the act of having provided such funding, as happened last week with schools in Slough and Haringey, both of which had a history of links with the Muslim extremist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, the ensuing row is on purely technical points: which school officials held, or were connected to people who held, actual positions in the organisation on what dates? The question of whether schools with an explicitly separatist ethos should qualify as providing acceptable basic education is not even addressed.
[continues]
My question is this:
What checks and balances do we have in place here in New Zealand to ensure we don’t end up going down the same path as Britain?
And what would we do if there was a call to build minarets here? Or, for that matter, a call to remove Christian symbolism, such as crosses on clock towers (Palmerston North), on churches, etc., which Muslims may find ‘offensive’.
It is going to be very interesting to see what happens now with this latest ruling regarding banning the further building of minarets in Switzerland.
This highlights issues for all non Muslim countries where there is increasing Muslim immigration, and where Muslims don’t integrate into their newly adopted country. To not address this is both naive and dangerous.
A strange world when people are offended by a prayer tower but not by a symbol of torture and death (sometimes including a model of someone being tortured and killed).
It could be interesting to see if any people who are into being summoned to prayer from a minaret will be offended and review where they bank.
it is interesting how the jewish religous leaders in switzerland have come out decrying this referendum result as an insult/attack against muslims..
who..say these jewish religous leaders..should be ‘welcomed’..
aren’t we so lucky that [Kris K] is so ever-vigilant..?
And I did read about the “Jewish religous leaders in switzerland have come out decrying this referendum result as an insult/attack against muslims” – I think they’re wrong. More fools them.
And Phool, someone has to be vigilant. If you like the idea of having to learn Arabic and living under Sharia Law then keep up with your head in the sand attitude.
@ Luc I was stunned to hear Bill English on the radio this morning saying he “knew no more than what he had read in the media” about what Key had comitted the country to in terms of spending.
“Or, for that matter, a call to remove Christian symbolism, such as crosses on clock towers (Palmerston North),”
In fairness, it wasn’t just (or even mostly) Muslims who wanted the cross removed. It was a lot of ordinary atheist/agnostic residents as well, who were a bit pissed off at having religious symbols looking down on them. And it was some small reaction to the fact that the council was predominantly born-again at the time.
Anyone else thinking of turning up to the “Save the Planet” march in Auckland this Saturday @ Albert Park? I am thinking of turning up with a placard dencouncing the whole thing as a scam and a con and marching and singing that tune right next to Lucy Lawless.
“becoming an unstoppable movement to save the planet.
I think that’s rather optimistic. The lesson we got from Kyoto, is the only way you can develop a political consensus is to do something is by making sure all the painful adjustment costs are postponed as far into the future as possible. That way none of the current leaders get blamed for making voters worse off.
The lesson we got from Clark, is that those that talk about the problem the most, have the worst record of achievement.
The lesson we are getting from Australia, the one Clark delivered, and the one Key has also learned, is that voters baulk at the costs of getting GHG emissions down. So finding ways to postpone these costs is politically attractive. So governments are going to keep finding ways to avoid actually imposing costs on households. Because nobody really has the balls to say that the only way to lower human-GHG emissions, is to make you, the people who voted for me, poorer.
And we have a fairly good idea that everything really depends on getting China, India, the US and the EU to reach an agreement. Nothing we do will matter.
A strange world when people are offended by a prayer tower but not by a symbol of torture and death (sometimes including a model of someone being tortured and killed).
It could be interesting to see if any people who are into being summoned to prayer from a minaret will be offended and review where they bank.
The word minaret derives from lighthouse.
It’s the MEANING behind the symbolism that’s important, Pete.
Minarets are symbolic of both the religion and the political objectives if Islam: world submission to, and domination by, Islam.
The cross, while symbolic of Christ’s torture and death, is, more importantly, representative of what His death achieved on behalf of ALL mankind; the payment of their sins and thereby the offer of salvation for all that would receive Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
Islam desires the death of ALL non Muslims.
Christ died for the sins of ALL men, including Muslims.
One desires to impose itself by force, the other is entirely an offer based on free choice.
PS I don’t really care where Muslims bank. Our values are more important than pandering to the sensibilities of Islam.
Why do some people hate Christianity so much? Why the constant attack on other peoples beliefs?
Unless the Church is somehow fucking with you (like trying to get a metal gig banned grr or something stupid) then why bother?
I see a people labeling Christians as rednecks/idiots etc but get upset when Muslims get labeled as “extreme” or as “terrorists” or as people that want us westerners dead!
What thrill is there in constantly having a go at Christians?!
In case anyone cares, I’m not a religious guy at all. Hell, I’ve never stepped inside a Church. I just get bored with the anti-religion crap.
.
whats next for the day? Israel?
If all god’s children are equal, why is Jesus so special?
MyNameIsJack -
1. Because Jesus is God.
2. Because he suffered that torture – the whipping, being nailed to the cross, the hate etc, all so that you wouldn’t have to. He has taken the blame for any sin you’ve ever committed or ever will, and not just yours but everyone’s. God the Father punished Jesus in your place.
Ashraf Choudhary, Muslim Labour List MP, was certainly vocal on behalf of the Muslim community at the time regarding the Palmerston North clocktower cross. So while there may have been other opposition, the writing is on the wall regarding future Islamic opposition to Christian symbols within New Zealand. Atheists/Agnostics are a whole other issue.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Why do some people hate Christianity so much? Why the constant attack on other peoples beliefs?
Because these irrational beliefs lead to the death of innocent people.
Because these irrational beliefs have caused untold suffering for children at the hands of pedophile priests, priests who have been protected by the church hierarchy, rather than the church standing up for the children.
Because people who hold these irrational beliefs think that their irrational beliefs should give them priveleged access to lawmakers.
Dime, actually about 10 have resigned in Australia over the ETS.
Resignations from the Turnbull frontbench
Tony Abbott – former Howard minister, opposition families, housing, community services and indigenous affairs portfolio.
Nick Minchin – Liberal powerbroker and leader of the opposition in the Senate.
Sophie Mirabella – early childhood education, childcare, women and youth portfolio.
Stephen Parry – Chief Opposition Whip in the Senate.
Eric Abetz – Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.
Michael Johnson – Opposition Whip in the House of Representatives.
Tony Smith – Opposition assistant treasurer.
Mathias Cormann – Opposition parliamentary secretary
Mitch Fifield – Opposition parliamentary secretary
Brett Mason – Opposition parliamentary secretary
Because these irrational beliefs lead to the death of innocent people.
Jack, there have been many more people killed in the name of Atheism than Christianity.
China under Mao Tse Tung, 26.3 million Chinese. According the Walker Report, 63.7 million over the whole period of time of the Communist revolution in China. Solzhenitsyn says the Soviet Union put to death 66.7 million people. Kampuchea destroyed one third of their entire population of eight million Cambodians. The Chinese at two different times in medieval history, somewhere in the vicinity of 35 million and 40 million people. Ladies and gentlemen, make note that these deaths were the result of organizations or points of view or ideologies that had left God out of the equation. None of these involve religion. And all but the very last actually assert atheism.
It is true that it’s possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the detail it produces evil because the individual people are actually living in a rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it can produce it, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God.
And now it means ‘This neighbourhood is ours, you kuffirs stay away”
Absolutely, Brian.
A person doesn’t have to be a Christian to see the threat behind Islam.
And while Dime (2:09 pm) may view us Christians as ‘kill joys’, I think s/he still can discern the very real threat that Islam is to our western democratic societies. Just a note: Islam views the west as ‘Christian’, like it or not. And there is a spiritual component to the threat that Islam represents to us in the west.
“..And Phool, someone has to be vigilant. If you like the idea of having to learn Arabic and living under Sharia Law then keep up with your head in the sand attitude…”
carry on..!..kkk..!
(y’know..!..when i think of you..and your ‘vigilances’..
images of ‘dads’ army’ flood into my mind..
(do you ‘scan the horizon’..?..on a regular basis..?..
And what would we do if there was a call to build minarets here?
We already have Catholic cathedrals, Buddhist stupas, Islamic mosques, and Jewish synagogues. As long as it meets building consent, people can build what they like on private land..
kris – i take the time to defend Christians and you take from it “Dime thinks we are kill joys” lol fact is, ive listened to/been involved in metal for 20 years, we have had a few run ins with church groups wanting concerts banned etc. its a pain in the ass.
oh yeah – im a dude.
as for the threat of islam – you dont have to sell me on it lol
I wonder if the report evaluates the social effects and flow on costs, especially if implemented quickly.
Yes a reasonable question. I’d add that the same evaluation should be also done for the status quo. Actually that’s easier, as we have history as evidence: Slipping down the OCED scale, increased levels of welfare dependency, widening gap with Oz etc.
And a cross on a church could mean to some people “this is His neighbourhood, and if you don’t frequent this place you will go to HELL!”
Going to church, Pete, never saved anyone, or prevents them from going to hell.
Salvation is based purely on your relationship with Christ. And God desires that all would come to Him in repentance that none might end up in hell. This is why Christ came – to save sinners, of which I was one.
This puts it into perspective: “The taskforce was set up as part of a support agreement with the Act Party which has a key policy plank of a flat tax and takes its name from the year that New Zealand aimed to catch up with Australia.”
As does this: “Brash said he realised it would be difficult politically to implement his recommendations.
“Our view is that the recommendations would give us a very good chance of achieving the prime minister’s vision but we do not underestimate the difficulty of the politics involved.”
So is it more theoretical rather than practical/do-able?
Agreed on this one getstaffed, the status quo is not a viable option. It’s a matter of how far to go. Brash’s proposal may lift the average wage to that of Aus, but it may mean a lot less earning wages, for a while at least (and the medium term is guesswork).
kris – i take the time to defend Christians and you take from it “Dime thinks we are kill joys” lol fact is, ive listened to/been involved in metal for 20 years, we have had a few run ins with church groups wanting concerts banned etc. its a pain in the ass.
oh yeah – im a dude.
as for the threat of islam – you dont have to sell me on it lol
I wasn’t actually having a dig at you – I gave you a thumbs up. And I appreciate your defense of those who may express a Christian view, even though you may not share those views. It was your following comment which I presumed may have caused you to view ‘some’ Christians as kill joys:
Unless the Church is somehow fucking with you (like trying to get a metal gig banned grr or something stupid) then why bother?
Sometimes the intent is lost when views are limited to the typed word.
I’m happy with mosques and synagogues and churches and temples being built. I’d just like them to be pretty mosques and synagogues and churches and temples. What happened to the good old days of religiously inspired architects?
@ Pete George – the most astonishing thing in it I have seen so far is the suggestion that if government spending was reduced to 2004 levels the savings would be sufficient to lower individual, corporate and trust maximum tax rates to 20%. I’ll need to drill into the detail to see how they have calculated that because it seems to be too good to be true. Certainly towards the end Labour was desperate to spend to prevent surpluses building up.
The problem with Janet Daley’s little piece is that it’s coming from a deluded position that seems commonplace: they’re in here and they’re changing the law in Europe to suit them. Oh, mercy me, our culture is doooooooomed.
And that’s just not true. Changing the law to suit the culture of immigrants has never been on the cards. Changing the law to ensure equality in line with the anti-discriminatory policies of any civilised government has been: but that’s not changing the law to suit a particular aim except the maxim that all are equal and deserving of equal respect.
When Rowan Williams sparked the Sharia in Britain row, the Labour government – specifically Jack Straw – were first in line to condemn him and strengthen the position of rule of law. The infamous hate speech laws, with what’s popularly known as the Griffin Exception, have been targeted at preachers like Abu Hamza and Anjem Choudary… and generally, the UK government’s support for Israel, with its individual exceptions, has been unswerving. Even the courts have ruled against religious jewelry, and against the use of the niqab, because secular law overrides religion. Any religion. Ethnic minorities – non-white British or Irish people – make up 15% of the UK population. To be honest, that’s not being overrun.
The idea that we’re breeding “home grown” terrorists in the UK and that this is something new is phenomenally narrow minded, and forgets that we spent 30 years breeding home grown terrorists in Northern Ireland. The idea that there’s a lesson to learn from the hell of multiculturalism is idiotic too: as if every kid who learned Irish history in Belfast grew up to be a terrorist; as if every kid who attends a faith school – any faith school – is going to end up a religious extremist. It takes a special kind of person to become a terrorist, and a special kind of person to try and justify their life after death fantasies by taking someone else’s life.
If you want to improve or maintain a culture, or instil an ethos, the best way of going about it is to ban all faith schools; ban all extremist education, Christian, Jewish or Islamic. Otherwise, what you’re looking at is a free society, where we don’t have any right to call for the banning of a religion, its trinkets and its fantasies, and no-one has the right to call for us to worship any godhead, person or dead man.
Take a look at a few of the conclusions from Brash’s report, which will be ignored and quickly shelved by Key and English, two gutless politicians playing Russian roulette with the NZ economy.
“Average tax rates should be substantially reduced, as ambitious expenditure restraint permits. Cutting core Crown expenses to 29 percent of GDP would, for example, allow the maximum personal tax rate, and the company and trust tax rates, all to be reduced to 20 percent.
Ambitious welfare reform measures should be undertaken as a matter of priority to reduce the very large number of people of working age currently receiving welfare benefits.
All businesses owned by central government which are operating in markets where competition is actual or feasible should be sold.
A funder-provider model should be reintroduced in the hospital sector, allowing much greater private sector involvement in the provision of taxpayer-funded services.
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund should be wound up and its assets used to reduce gross government debt.
Mining developments on or under sensitive Crown land should generally be permitted provided that they pass a full cost-benefit analysis.”
Hello, how can you all claim to be technicians when your best man Mr. Key on the job has no idea except for his economic plan has a right wing national money scam? And worse, the only people who are likely beneficiaries of his scheme are national traditional enemies! If Douglas and Hyde can go for a ride, why not Hone and the whanau? Well, at least he can go for a photo op if for nothing else! That’s about if for NZ….
On the shore, the New World at the new Westgate Shopping Mall has a wild food section that often includes crocodile. The ‘Aussie Butcher’ down in Browns Bay can order it in for you. I tend to use them as a source for kangaroo (which is a more regularly stocked item). ‘Roo is something I tend to cook for visitors for summer BBQ.
Either way you’re looking at abut $60-80 per kg, and I’d be happier paying around $40.
I do however, think they have been too fast ‘out of the blocks’ to pour cold water on the idea of serious tax reform. Every report the government has been getting since the McLeod report, says that taxes should be flattened, lowered and broadened.
Chthoniid, totally agree re the last Labour government leaving a ruinous legacy.
If it didn’t cost $200 to attend, I’d go up to Victoria Uni tomorrow and suggest to the tax review group that they withhold their report and call John Key’s bluff. Ask him to state publicly that he will consider the full report before he dismisses any aspect of it. If not, what’s the point of working on the report?
JK was bloody disingenuous on the radio this morning. He said NZ embarked on radical reforms on the 80s but Oz went slower and has come out better. He completely ignored the fact that from the mid 90s there was a complete backing away and un-doing of much of that good work. Especially during the last governments three terms.
If Don Brash’s report is a stalking horse for something less, then I’d rather have the stalking horse.
Brash Act – I want to check the detail on the claim that everyone earning over 14000 would pay less on a flat tax rate of 20% (including or excluding Earner Premium?).
Currently the first 14000 is taxed at 14.2%, 14001-48000 at 22.7%
If you earn less than 46000 your total tax rate is less than 20% so your tax would go up.
Looks like the Climatic Research Centre at the University of East Anglia is doing some serious arse covering.
Should we be surprised?
Post-normal science
The scientific body at the centre of the scandal over the manipulation of climate data to shore up anthropogenic global warming theory, the Climatic Research Centre at the University of East Anglia, has now said it will after all make available the raw data upon which its research was based and which it has been witholding until now.
But guess what: in the Sunday Times Jonathan Leake reports that the centre has actually dumped much of this data:
Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
“..JK was bloody disingenuous on the radio this morning. He said NZ embarked on radical reforms on the 80s but Oz went slower and has come out better..”
malcom..in the textbooks..it is called ‘the rogernomics recession’..
income sucked away from the lowest-paid comes straight out of the bottom-line of the economy..
‘cos that income is always churned straight back into the econoomy..
..buying goods/services..
(if you know anyone who was in retail in those douglas-times..ask them how it ‘went’..
@ Pete George the restriction of government spending to 29% of GDP is apparently the level of spending in 2004 and that is the basis for the maximum 20% tax rate – but this would be the actual rate, not necessarily the marginal rate (as income earners in the transitional ranges and those subject to various abatements can suffer significantly higher marginal rates).
The dude with all the ink is Joshua Brown. He used to front a metal band called Full Devil Jacket ’til he od’d. After rehab he got out of the scene and “found God” as the saying goes (strange saying: God isn’t lost!) but more recently formed a band called Day of Fire – he might kill off some of those stereotypes about Christians eh
Excellent article in the Daily Mail from Australian geological Professor Ian Plimer.
Gooner – If I lived up there I’d be in. There’s more than a few reputations at stake here.
Something that stands out to me is how much the Scientists at UEA (and I fear NASA ), the politicians, bureaucrats and the MSM worldwide have underestimated the power of the Internet. It truly seems set to become the ‘tool of the people’. In posterity this issue may be looked back on as the first muscle flexing of that tool. Winners and losers are yet to be decided.
If you want to improve or maintain a culture, or instil an ethos, the best way of going about it is to ban all faith schools; ban all extremist education, Christian, Jewish or Islamic. Otherwise, what you’re looking at is a free society, where we don’t have any right to call for the banning of a religion, its trinkets and its fantasies, and no-one has the right to call for us to worship any godhead, person or dead man.
The trouble is that even were we to “ban all faith schools; ban all extremist education, Christian, Jewish or Islamic”, we would stiil be left with the ‘religions’ of Atheism, Humanism, Evolution, etc. One need only to look at communism to see that this is a failed experiment – religious free societies don’t work either.
The problem is not ‘religion’ per se, but when one religion/ideology desires to impose its values and beliefs upon non adherents by force. This is Islam’s modus operandi. Islam’s end aims go much further than just “its trinkets and its fantasies”.
People who say they don’t want the social cost, are in danger of becoming boiled frogs. The social cost of the status quo is that NZ is slipping further and further behind and 1 million NZ’s have given up and left. Of my Canterbury University Electrical Engineering class (1995), more than 1/2 now live outside NZ. Most have families now and will never return.
I wish John Key would understand the quiet crisis in this country. If he just wants to be a popular PM, then he should piss off and let NZ have an effective PM. One who leaves a legacy of a better, more prosperous country. All this disingenuous talk about improving NZ and catching up with Oz is a double insult when you see his spectacular inaction and his refusal to countenance any changes which might actually affect that improvement.
Steady as she goes John Boy, don’t rock a sinking boat.
Looks like the Climatic Research Centre at the University of East Anglia is doing some serious arse covering.
Should we be surprised?
Yeah, Melanie Phillips makes it sound really bad. But if you go to the original article she uses as the premise for her “argument”, then you’ll see that the bit she quoted and paraphrased was in fact qualified with the following:
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building…
…Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue.
So not the dumping that would be the result of a massive conspiracy and/or fraud perpetrated on humanity by a liberal elite hungry for the billions of dollars of revenue that their… energy generating studies… or something… will transfer directly into their banks accounts, is it.
Not unless you think that they can see the future and are able to orchestrate a massive conspiracy stretching over decades.
Here’s a tip: Melanie Phillips is a batshit insane, paranoid, manipulative little moo cow.
The trouble is that even were we to “ban all faith schools; ban all extremist education, Christian, Jewish or Islamic”, we would stiil be left with the ‘religions’ of Atheism, Humanism, Evolution, etc. One need only to look at communism to see that this is a failed experiment – religious free societies don’t work either.
The problem is not ‘religion’ per se, but when one religion/ideology desires to impose its values and beliefs upon non adherents by force. This is Islam’s modus operandi. Islam’s end aims go much further than just “its trinkets and its fantasies”.
Oh, please. Don’t pretend your little imaginary friend is any less complicit in the take the world by force and everyone must worship who I worship in exactly the same way I worship, or you’re going to hell and I’m going to help you get there faster than you planned stakes.
You’re just worried that people will find something in it, because there’s no difference between your implausible fantasy and their implausible fantasy, so who cares? Shit, if I adopted their religion and not yours, at least I’d get some valuable language skills in there to boot. Arabic is as valuable as Chinese these days…
And if my lack of belief in anything is a ‘religion’, then I’ll take my tax-free status now, thanks…
Here’s a tip: Melanie Phillips is a batshit insane, paranoid, manipulative little moo cow.
I agree. Having listened to her many times on BBC Radio 4 (Moral Maze, mostly), I’ve concluded that she’s a very twisted and angry women, who subscribes to the “ends justify the means” school of persuasion and debate. She will exaggerate or misrepresent anything to make her point*.
I’ve also read pretty much everything she’s written. It is much harder to identify bat-shit crazy in writing. You have to hear it in debate.
Inventory – the fact that someone who was lame enough to have called a band “Full Devil Jacket”, which has been a support act for the Nickelback, Creed and other nu-metal / faux grunge snorefests, has turned xtian pretty much reinforces stereotypes of xtian
John Key is not to blame for wanting to be popular, or for being ineffectual, or for being so thick he has no actual vision beyond election day.
Do you blame a dog for being a dog? ..or do you blame those who are apologists for the John Keys of the World? the DPF’s? or Whaleoils? or compliant media? or 1001 National party voting chaps who make “oh well so he is a disappointment” *shrugs* comments on blogs?
In 2020 when New Zealand tax rates have increased, living standards have fallen, our wealth has been exported to more desirable locations and we think back and pin point the “John Key torpor” period as a time action should have been taken will he be to blame? or the 5 ACT MPs who backed him to the hilt? or the 20,000 National party members who didn’t quit? who chipped in donations which got him re-elected (confirming in his own mind he was doing the right thing so he went back to sleep), or knocked on doors, or encouraged floating voters they knew to tick the National box; all of these people are collectively to blame when NZ 2020 is a third world basket case; and do not forget you are “choosing” to do all of this – the “otherwise we get a Labour government” argument is both irrelevant and childish.
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building…
If you see no problem with what you’ve just quoted to support your view, then I’m amazed!
Let me translate their words:
We collected the data, then we ‘adjusted’ it, we retained these ‘adjusted’ figures but discarded the original source data.
So all we have left are their ‘massaged’ and ‘revised’ figures, the original data is gonesburger.
No conspiracy here, move along please.
…Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue.
So not the dumping that would be the result of a massive conspiracy and/or fraud perpetrated on humanity by a liberal elite hungry for the billions of dollars of revenue that their… energy generating studies… or something… will transfer directly into their banks accounts, is it.
Not unless you think that they can see the future and are able to orchestrate a massive conspiracy stretching over decades.
Ah, yeah!
This is one of the most massive pseudo scientific frauds perpetrated upon a gullible world populace since … I don’t know when.
Of course, the cat’s out of the bag now, and even the average man in the blogosphere is aware of this fraud.
Premature Elijah. Budget 2010 will give us a good indication whether we have a Key for the future, or whether we remained locked into an unsustainable escalation of costs and taxes.
I’ve also read pretty much everything she’s (Melanie Phillips) written. It is much harder to identify bat-shit crazy in writing. You have to hear it in debate.
So what you’re saying, Malcolm, is that you can’t really fault her writings, but when you listen to her it suddenly becomes obvious that she’s “bat-shit crazy”.
Hmmm, maybe if I were to meet you in person, despite much of your writings appearing to be sound, once I heard your voice I would draw the same conclusions about you.
Kris: He’s a nice guy, that Malcolm, good on paper, but in person he’s “bat-shit crazy”.
For those who have installed RIP, Phool’s latest rantings “income from the lowest paid gets suck away blah blah blah blah blah blah blab, bullshit, horseshit, batshit, the rich get richer, blah, blah, blah, bullshit, horseshit, batshit, blah, blah, blah ” Sounds more like that other green eyed socialist dipstick, Philin, more each day.
Premature Elijah. Budget 2010 will give us a good indication whether we have a Key for the future, or whether we remained locked into an unsustainable escalation of costs and taxes.
The tricky thing about the slow, incremental approach (and this isn’t a new debate, the transformation of E European economies after communism has been marked by the gradualist versus rapid-restructuring debate), is that it assumes you’ve got room to move. NZ’s fast periods of reform have always stemmed from crises. Macroeconomic imbalances converge to create a massive crisis, mandating hard decisions. It also assumes that they won’t be reversed by a less disciplined successor.
While I could see a gradualist approach appealing to the centrist instincts of Key and English, I’m not sure that we have time anymore.
I think we need some very clear signals that getting the economy moving again is a priority. They’ve had their electoral-grace period with the recession and cushioning its effects. I’d like to see something a little bolder coming out of Wellington now. Dropping the top income tax rate down to match the company tax rate would be a good start.
The trouble is that even were we to “ban all faith schools; ban all extremist education, Christian, Jewish or Islamic”, we would stiil be left with the ‘religions’ of Atheism, Humanism, Evolution, etc. One need only to look at communism to see that this is a failed experiment – religious free societies don’t work either.
A ban on religious education doesn’t equate to a ban on religion.
If I were in charge of the government, I’d require all schools to provide x hours of secular education per day, and schools would be funded per-pupil to that extent. If the school wants to teach Christian theology (or Islamic, or Jewish, or ..), they would need to keep the kids in school longer, and meet any additional costs themselves.
<blockquote’d like to see something a little bolder coming out of Wellington now. Dropping the top income tax rate down to match the company tax rate would be a good start.
I agree entirely. They need to be bold, but not brash.
This appears to be just another beat up by the deniers. Here is an exchange on the Real Climate message thread (I haven’t noticed any queries from Kris there)
#963 #
Gavin…
Over a week ago you posted a comment clearly stating that no data had been destroyed or lost. Now it appears you were incorrect. Or is this still not true?
We seem to be hearing it from the horse’s mouth now, so to speak. I feel you are somwhat discredited, and your attempts to validate what are obviously shady, if not wholly conclusive emails, is ridiculous.
If you are reasonable and scientific, surely you agree all information and evidence (both sides) should not only be published, but encouraged into the public domain for all to see?
[Response: What is ridiculous is the implication that because I have an inkling for why CRU can't release its database that you automatically think I'm against releasing things into the public domain. This is completely at odds with my thinking, statements and actions over many years. Ask the people involved with the PCMDI archive, or think about why GISS ModelE is public. So, let me state it again, we should endeavour to have as much as is possible in the public domain. This helps transparency, trust and actual research. Happy? But note that I do not agree with the converse, that everything that is not released cannot be trusted - which appears to be the underlying theme in many commenters minds. There are some valid reasons why some data and code isn't public (the CRU case being an example of that). I stand by my statement that no data has been destroyed. The originating met offices are custodians of their raw data, not CRU. - gavin] (bold added)
Comment by Gavin2 — 29 November 2009 @ 6:37 PM
Of course, the cat’s out of the bag now,
Tell that to the leaders and teams of high powered scientists and lawyers flocking into Copenhagen!
Dear right wingers, you are fucked.
The Nats have turned into a good little Labour party and are doing a fine job.
Going to vote ACT, what with all those signs up at the next electiom repeating the words of Rodders and Douglas, we are entitled ?
I would say there is a damn good chance that the Nats will put a good candidate up in Epsom in 2011 and with the Labour voters backing him Rodders and cohorts will be fucked.
I suggest you push for an education test for voting.
I’d love to share your optimism but I cannot. One year into his term, what does Key to show for?
He’s done little, talked a lot, and sauntered around the place like possessed.
What riles me (and the main reason why I have little time for Key) is his aloofness, his ability to pass the buck feigning ignorance, his timidity, his indecisiveness, all of which I consider deep flaws in in a Prime Minister.
Let’s do no talk about principles or vision, because I’m now convinced Key has none. He’s a political chameleon who changes colours depending on the background.
I’ve also read pretty much everything she’s (Melanie Phillips) written. It is much harder to identify bat-shit crazy in writing. You have to hear it in debate.
So what you’re saying, Malcolm, is that you can’t really fault her writings, but when you listen to her it suddenly becomes obvious that she’s “bat-shit crazy”.
No, you’re taking that the wrong way, Kris. I mention that I’ve read most of what she’s written just so you don’t think my opinion is based solely on hearing her debate on Radio 4. I think she’s bat-shit crazy from both hearing and reading her. She’s a very uptight and angry person in debate on the radio. This is less obvious when she writes as she doesn’t have to respond to people.
Have you ever listened to the Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4? I would recommend it and I think you’d enjoy it. You can get it streaming here:
Serendipitously, the latest programme has Melanie Phillips (and my favourite, Michael Portillo) and it’s about our friend Belle de Jour . And to my eternal shame I never did reply to your last post on that topic, so I humbly offer that link as an alternative.
Wreck – Labour DID close the income gap with Australia – more New Zealanders went to Australia to work under the last Labour government than at any other time in our history
I’m not so sure though that it’s an achievement that Goff should be claiming the credit for!
Let me spell it out simply for you, as I understand it.
CRU mined data, collected by Met offices for a multitude of purposes, not, as far as I know, specifically for the CRU for research purposes. It adjusted the data so they were comparing apples with apples, not apples with melons. Just normal scientific practise. CRU had no further use for the raw data, and dumping it is neither a legal nor ethical problem.
1. Again, why such significant reliance on just a very few people, if there are truly other reliable data sources that show “man-made forcings” and “unprecendented rise”?
[Response: You again have it very wrong. Man-made forcings are discussed extensively in Chapter 2 (not Chapter 6), and I don't know that anyone from CRU is involved in that side of the research. And of course if include all the authors who've worked in the field of paleo-reconstructions that will be 100% of the papers! (A conspiracy, I tell you!). - gavin]
2. You said [947]: “Your point is to insist on some impossible standard so that you can avoid paying any attention to the results. My point is that there are completely open projects that if you were really concerned with evaluating you would do so. That you don’t understand my point, simply underlines the issue. – gavin]
Gavin: How am I insisting on an impossible standard here? The entire point of the scientific method is to allow others to reproduce one’s results.
[Response: You can reproduce the CRU results using the publicly available GHCN data - as indeed GISTEMP and NCDC actually have. If you want to know that the climate has warmed, then we are done (and if you don't like the GHCN data, look at ICOADS, or the glaciers etc.). When CRU does get permission to post its whole database I guarantee that you will still not be happy. You will ask for more data, maybe even going back to the handwritten weather report sheets from every station in the world (which of course CRU does not even have). Without that you will declare that this is still not science because you can't go back in time and reproduce exactly the same measurement. The point is that there are limits on what can be reasonably provided (beyond the specific issue here of the NMS data), and yet your fundamentalist stance will not allow for any leeway. Everything or else. Thus it is an impossible standard. To convince me otherwise, state beforehand what amount of data you will decide is 'enough' data for reproducibility of the temperature record. - gavin]
I like the fundamentalist comment. eg Kris K fanatically believes in his God for which there is NO scientific evidence whatsoever!
OK, Monckton fans, go here and if you have any shred of appreciation for the beautiful thing that is science, don’t come back if your soul is not cleansed
Also, Brian “Head” Welch, a guitarist from the band Korn left that band and became a Christian in 2005. Bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu from Korn also has become a Christian.
Luc, yes science is beautiful, especially when the science is tested and verifiable. When you have scientists fudging data and ‘losing’ the original raw data so that it can’t be peer reviewed then it becomes a joke.
We’re committing millions of dollars toward an unproven theory. That’s a fact.
There is absolutely no proof of AGW; in fact, as the temperature decreases, it’s looking like there is growing evidence to support that the theory is rubbish. If you look at magazine articles during the 20th century you’ll see scaremongering switching from warnings of another coming ice age, then warming, then ice age, then warming.
They are theories only. We’re worried about warming now, but in a few years it’ll swtich to worrying about cooling again.
To John Key, Bill English, and the National Party, I would like to tell you that you are all gutless fucking wonders, and are selling our once great country down the river to ensure you keep your ministerial allowances and limousines.
The most sickening part of this is when I think back to John Keys visit to my university last year. During his speech, he made made clear his concerns about the sustainability of student loans, the age of super entitlement, etc etc. His words could of been from the Taskforce itself, such was his tone and concern about the burgeoning burden of govt spending.
I bring this up because it shows something even more saddening and sickening than those who think John Key is a mere socialist; it actually shows that he believes in much of what the taskforce has recommended, but that he will not act on it for fear of losing votes.
What a sick joke, you gutless wonder.
John Key, the National Socialist Party and yourself have lost my vote for the rest of my life.
Nick, if you want immediate fixes the way you like you may be looking for someone to vote for for a long time.
Even in one term it’s hard for a new government to bring about all the changes it would ideally like to see. Tack on the front of that a major global recession and I think you are demanding far to much too soon.
Fletch, this statement When you have scientists fudging data and ‘losing’ the original raw data so that it can’t be peer reviewed then it becomes a joke. is conspiracy theory crap. The data you are talking about is not lost. It is held by the Met offices who supplied it.
Then you say in fact, as the temperature decreases. Fletch, you are talking here about short term variation that is still completely in agreement with AGW theory.
It is true that climate warming is a theory, because projections cannot become fact until they occur. The problem for you is that the IPCC projections have not become fact simply because the observed facts have outstripped the IPCC’s conservative projections.
Here’s a challenge for you: present just one fact, clearly and concisely, that appears to disprove AGW, and I guarantee I can rebut it within a reasonable time frame.
If you look at magazine articles during the 20th century you’ll see scaremongering switching from warnings of another coming ice age, then warming, then ice age, then warming.
Here’s a challenge for you: present just one fact, clearly and concisely, that appears to disprove AGW, and I guarantee I can rebut it within a reasonable time frame.
Luc, and I bet I can do the opposite; but that is my point right there: there isn’t a consensus one way or the other, therefore nothing should be done about it until we learn more – certainly not the spending of ridiculous amounts of money by governments worldwide.
As for losing the raw data, that’s what they claimed – that they didn’t have it anymore. Rather that than hand it over I guess.
Fletch, there is a consensus. You are just plain wrong. If you spend some time at Real Climate. or even just read my posts above, you will no longer be the misinformed prey of warped individuals.
Since you asked: CO2 always lags warming in the natural climate cycle True or false?.
“What a sick joke, you gutless wonder. John Key, the National Socialist Party and yourself have lost my vote for the rest of my life.”
Nick, you’re obviously clearly astute, since you’re interested both in conservative values and politics which is a relatively rare combo for a young person.
Can I ask, what would you like to see happen, in real-politic terms? Not just naive fantastical idealistic la-la stuff like the lefties crap on about (all the time, endlessly with never ending repetition), but stuff that would actually work and make a difference in the real world?
I don’t believe there is a consensus. Even in America, 32,000 scientists (including over 9000 with PhD’s) have signed a petition saying they don’t buy it – and that’s just in the US.
Meanwhile, John Key is being advised by Peter Gluckman, his new Chief Science Advisor (why do I think of Mr Spock when I read that?) whose field of expertise is in paediatrics.
Oh, and apparently historical data shows that temperature always rises first, followed 800 years LATER by carbon dioxide levels. This is the REVERSE of what global warming theory claims. (Source: Six respected climate and environment scientists)
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
UEA is a research facility who seek data from organisations who collect that data.
Nothing is lost or destroyed. It’s just elsewhere. The raw data is meaningless until it is corrected. That is the scientific method that put men on the moon.
Lucy Hansen, why do you keep referring to a open source software guy, who’s background is cutting & pasting HTML codes? He is not a climatologist nor even a physicist? His supposed domain of expertise is in Systems Theory and Complex Systems. This guy ain’t know the difference between a prostitute and State-Space-Theory (fundamental to dynamical system theory).
What I am trying to say here. Well I can spot guys on the internet who think they understand what they’re talking about, but actually have zero knowledge about the subject/topic. You should try to read discussions on various physics forums on the net so that you can educate yourself on science rather than keep quoting someone who has no clue to science but an expert in cutting & pasting HTML codes then call themselves software-engineer? WHAT? There is nothing engineering about cutting & pasting HTML codes.
Lucy Hansen, I made a brief comment on the Hockey-Stick on this thread from another blog. Note, I know the algorithm they used in the Hockey-Stick paper, inside-out , so I am more qualified in commenting on the issue, then the HTML code cutting/pasting guy you keep referring to.
Copenhagen travel plans made for Key
The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 02/12/2009
Planning is under way for Prime Minister John Key to attend the Copenhagen conference on climate change, as chances grow of a deal at the historic meeting.
Though Mr Key is still refusing to say if he will go to Denmark for the conference, which begins next week, officials have made contingency arrangements for him, including preliminary travel bookings.
Mr Key said on his way last week to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, it was unlikely he would go to Copenhagen because of the slim possibility of any resolutions being hammered out. But as more world leaders book their tickets, pressure is mounting on him to attend. Representatives of 193 countries are now expected in the Danish capital, including 90 leaders.
In Trinidad, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all world leaders to go to Copenhagen “and seal a deal that is ambitious, a deal that is equitable, a deal that satisfies the demands of science”.
So its of to Copenhagen we go when last week it was no.
We need an election urgently.
One for Key. The first thing that he’s done that is positive this week.
The chairman is Greg Muir of Hanover fame.
Tourism chief’s goodbye gift ‘not a good buy’
By NICK CHURCHOUSE – The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 02/12/2009
Tourism New Zealand’s directors have been forced to stump up thousands of dollars of their own for a Dick Frizzell painting after Prime Minister John Key blasted the purchase “excessive expenditure of taxpayer money”.
The painting, commissioned as a farewell gesture for departing Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton, was approved by the board but has not impressed Mr Key, who is also tourism minister.
It is understood Frizzell did the painting for considerably less than it might be worth on the open market, with a price tag of less than $10,000.
But, following Mr Key’s rebuke, the board members paid back most of the purchase price, with a final cost to Tourism NZ of $2000.
A spokesman for Mr Key said he acknowledged Mr Hickton’s long service at Tourism NZ but the board’s choice of gift was “excessive expenditure of taxpayer money”.
“[The prime minister] would expect the board members themselves to make a substantial contribution towards the cost. The Government is firm that it does not want a culture of extravagance in government departments and Crown entities.”
Tourism NZ chairman Greg Muir said in light of the prime minister’s comments, the gift was “more appropriately funded largely by the board members themselves”.
The board had asked Frizzell to commemorate Mr Hickton’s “10 years of outstanding contribution” at Tourism NZ. The artwork was commissioned without Mr Key’s or Mr Hickton’s knowledge.
Mr Hickton’s time at the tourism marketing body saw the introduction and development of the 100% Pure New Zealand brand, now acknowledged as the leading destination brand in the world.
Frizzell said the “price was right” for the painting and he was delighted with how it was received, knowing Mr Hickton was a fan.
“I do like it when I get a commission where everybody is on song. The idea is received with open arms, the execution is spot on, and the price is right and the client goes bonkers when they unwrap it. It was one of those, it was a thrill.”
Mr Muir was paid $58,000 in the past financial year and Tourism NZ directors between $4000 and $25,000. They are Susie Johnstone, Paul Bingham, John Barrett, Glenys Coughlan, Henry van Asch, Malcolm Johns, Jennie Langley and Paul Richardson.
@ Viking2 gosh the money saved might pay the travel costs for at least one of the kaumatua going to Copenhagen or 0.00001% of the weekly deficit. Looking “tough” and “Responsible” on little things is easy.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:13 am
I have been away from a computer for three days. What has happened at Kiwiblog? Has everyone here RIPed philu yet and has it made a difference to the general thread?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:16 am
It seems the Key government is repeating the pattern of the Clark government where the opposition just can’t get traction.
Vote:This is still happening in Australia where the Liberals are poised to have their third leader since the last Australian election.
It seems that the population wants to give incumbent governments not changing the world the benefit of the doubt.
However that does not seem to be the case in the USA where the much vaunted and overrated Barack Obama stumbles from one crisis to another. Where the social fabric of a nation is being challenged by governments then the people are quick to punish them.
Clinton survived by moving back to the centre, however I believe Obama has scripted himself firmly to the left with massive tax and spend programmes.
Obama never was put through the test of the media last year. The phenomenon of a black president and anybody but a Republican was too strong. Now all the weaknesses of Obama are being revealed- his naivety,inexperience and poor judgement have been exposed.
Put simply, Obama is a textbook socialist leading a free enterprise country.
A recipe for disaster !!!
November 30th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Brian – read Saturday’s GD, and you’ll probably want to RIP billyborker as well. He waits until DPF is otherwise occupied then pours out his poison on the disabled child of another poster. He really is beneath contempt.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Brian, this site can be useful: http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:23 am
Cheers Pete – found that one. Good site. Move in ten days.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Listening to John Key on breakfast this morning. What an empty little man, now turning into the same pompous pretentious style as Helen herself. I wish Brash was running the show.
Vote:I also noted the carefully scripted interview, almost like a theater show of some sorts: why doesn’t Henry raise the climate scam issue, this is gaining traction world wide, but we in NZ must be kept in the dark, just trust Johny and everything will be all right.
Sick and disgusted, that’s what I am.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Neil – very well put………. Obama is a gone burger, the masses are wising up to the fact it takes far more than being a good speaker in scripted speeches…
Was in the US of A for work 2 weeks ago, the general feeling of the people I talked to re his Noble Peace prize was one of disbelief, most thought it shone a very negative light on Obama….
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Brian I was going to say the other day – if you’re looking for a couple of beasts to run on your land – Murray Grays are worth looking at. They’re good for the freezer, but the real bonus about them is that comparatively they have a bit of personality. They love to follow you round when they think you aren’t looking. Very curious and funny. You can get a bit attached to them though. I had one years ago that truly thought he was a dog. Wouldn’t hang out with the others unless you forced him. If you didn’t leave him in the paddocks close to the house he would get really upset making heaps of noise and trying to bust fences.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Luc Hansen is a labour party staffer?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:39 am
@dimmocrazy
“I wish Brash was running the show”
He had a go as leader… he fucked it up. Move on
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:40 am
John Key is continuing to annoy me. He has already dismissed the unreleased 2025 Brash report.
He , like Helen, has trumpeted his vision to increase NZ’s economic performance. Key goes even further, to say the goal is to catch up to Australia where incomes are a whopping 1/3 higher.
Key, like Helen, is doing nothing to achieve this goal. If anything, he has applied the economic brakes with the passing of the ETS. He has also been very good at criticizing other peoples ideas while developing none of his own.
John Key may as well announce to the world that NZ will land a man on Mars.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Chicken Little – thanks – more to think on. My sister has a small farm in northern NSW and was talking to her on the weekend. They have to worry about snakes, foxes, eagles, bush fires, floods, ticks, poisonous bugs/spiders. Makes me glad I am trying this on here in NZ.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:41 am
dimmocracymum – I am with you. Even Brash as Minister Of Finance would be a big help. I think he would get Key moving in the right direction. (No pun intended)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Good one, Stuff. Implement a full-page take-over ad that prevents accessing the site completely. “Skip this ad” didn’t work for me.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:13 am
More shite in the Herald today.
Check out the appalling letter from ‘Dr’ Salinger in letters to the editor. The guys a deranged wanker.
And the usual shit from Tapu Misa. Same old, same old. White men = evil; black folk = good.
PATHETIC!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:15 am
my god working for families is a scam.
my buddy and his chick are having a baby. so out of curiosity i jumped onto the WFF site and used the calculator. i was curious how much he would get. turns out he would have to take a pay cut and have 4 kids lol
anyway, i decide to plug in an income of 40k a year, 1 child.
the tax credit is $130 a week!!!! thats $6760 a year!! what tax rate are these people actually paying? 10%?? fuckin hell!
just another example of Dime getting raped by the government.
reward those who leave school early, have kids and pump gas!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:18 am
They have to worry about snakes, foxes, eagles, bush fires, floods, ticks, poisonous bugs/spiders.
And that’s just getting to the bathroom.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:20 am
I think gas-pumpers get 40k in their DREAMS dime. A lot of graduate level jobs start at around 35-45k.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:21 am
“I think Brash would get Key moving in the right direction.”
I reckon the only way to move Key in the correct direction is to roll him and replace him with someone with political vision and courage. Those are qualities Key lacks.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:22 am
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3107467/Key-lukewarm-on-flat-tax-report
What’s the dif, anyone?! If you blame Labour, don’t people often say Labour kept all the stuff Douglas did?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:25 am
“Has everyone here RIPed philu yet and has it made a difference to the general thread?”
I applied RIP to the bludger’s postings and couldn’t be happier with the results. It has made an incredible difference in terms of readibility.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Dime (9:15am), yes that is the thing about ‘Working For Families’.
When I lived in Wanganui the nextdoor neighbour chappie was in the bizarre situation of on Tuesdays having $177 deducted from his salary in taxes and acc levies and on Wednesdays $176 would sail into his bank account from ‘Working For Families’.
My view was always to ask “why does the Government not just stop collecting the taxes and put [you] on a 0% tax rate?!?!”
In fairness to my erstwhile neighbours and many thousands of other WFF recipients all the money was spent on ‘necessities of life’ – food, clothing, mortgage payments, childrens school activities etc
http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:27 am
What Manolo said.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Guess which idiot comes up with a statement like this:
“Crucial climate change talks in Copenhagen next month will fail unless wealthy countries agree to a fund to compensate developing countries”
Hint: the same idiot who won’t go to Kopenhagen unless everybody there is ready to make the deal.
Where do we sign up for revolution?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:28 am
yea well id spend some of my tax cut of food, entertainment, investments etc
if i wasn’t discriminated against for not having kids.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Dime
“just another example of Dime getting raped by the government.
reward those who leave school early, have kids and pump gas!”
Yep, ain’t you happy you voted for National and tax cuts…….oh, hang on a second…..
I think I am beginning to dislike Neville Key and his plastic smile as much as I disliked Helen Klark.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Part of the difference Stephen, is we started from a worse ‘beginning’ position.
The economic damage wrought in the economy from 1980-85 meant our macroeconomic imbalances were far worse than Australias. We also pretty much abandoned the reform-path in the mid 1990s, when the Nats moved back to the centre and formed a coalition with Winston. Winston’s economic platform was that NZ’s economic problems were a product of the low national savings rate. Hence the brilliant plan to boost our savings by getting into Government and indulging in an extra $5bn spending spree.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Swiss voters decided during a referendum on November 29 to ban minarets but Switzerland’s biggest Jewish group said that a far-right push to ban the construction of minarets here was a “threat” to religious harmony and hindered the integration of Muslims. .
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:40 am
@Lance, well Brash was a goofy stumbler, but at least he did say what he meant and stuck with it most of the time. He went down because of his integrity. Neville is popular because of an absolute lack of it. It would seem we New Zealanders consider that “leadership” qualities. (I almost puke whenever I hear any of these pollies calling themselves “leaders”)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:40 am
What’s this RIP ? Did I miss something ?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Key is hardly going to agree to go with all the Brash tax suggestions without also considering what the tax working group come up with. The government will need to weigh up both of these reports with their own preferences, plus their own commitments made to voters. We will find out next year what the result is.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:44 am
@Pete: We’re fandangled if the result is not to cut government spending by 20-30%.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:45 am
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/politics/3108678/John-Key-lukewarm-on-flat-tax-report
Do we need further proof of how timid and weak the Prime Minister is?
Key goes on to say ”We campaigned on some core commitments, like not raising the age of super or putting the interest back on student loans, and we would be breaking those commitments if we went and did that so we are not going to.”
But conveniently forgets altogether about the tax cuts.
We’ve chosen Neville Key as Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Brian, RIP, when used judiciously, is a great tool.
I haven’t been bothered by either D4J or Phil for days now. I’m actually enjoying the comments section at Kiwiblog again.
I can handle Borker and Luc and Pete etc. But Phil really got my goat, knowing the lazy sod sat around on his arse all day at our expense, and then had the temerity to mock us. I know others on the old “rock and roll”, but they’re in a bad time of their lives, and they’re studying and working to get off it. They’ve got a good attitude, realise the benefit is a helpline, and not a “entitlement”. Unlike Phool.
RIP is a thing of beauty.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:47 am
bruv – national have lost my vote. ill switch back to ACT!
course, according to that smarmy DPF post – national will welcome this.
its interesting watching National get comfortable and turn into assholes. interesting might not be the word, more disheartening.
i also think the tone of kiwiblog has changed a bit. some of DPF’s posts remind me of the standard.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I’m voting Act. I voted National thinking they’d make a difference (you know, actually do what they promised, I know, how naive of me). Back to Act.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Pete George:Key is hardly going to agree to go with all the Brash tax suggestions without also considering what the tax working group come up with. The government will need to weigh up both of these reports with their own preferences, plus their own commitments made to voters. We will find out next year what the result is
I suggest, Key will do little to modify the status quo. Status quo = declining relative economic performance.
People are largely happy with this , so long as the welfare (inlcuding WFF) cheques keep rolling in.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I have been waiting for ACT to come out and say “The Prime Minister either accepts what Brash recommends or we are quitting the government on a point of principle” …(probably taking the best part of quarter of a million electors with them)
The Maoris never hesitate to throw their weight around (and you will have noticed that by doing so they get everything they want) so I am eagerly awaiting for ACT to drop this limp dick “we only got 3.8% of the votes” nonsense and start saying “the other 96% are fools; tax cuts, entitlement cuts and spending cuts are vital”
However, knowing ACT as I do they are hardly likely to do anything principled and will simply march into those division lobbies for greater taxes, greater spending, larger government (etc)
http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:08 am
The problem ACT have is they are right wing. If they get up and walk out on National, they become irrelevant. its not like they can go with labour/greens next time round. where as the Maori can.
the key to staying in power is to be a small centrist party/whore like dunne. (i dislike him as much as WFF)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:10 am
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/the-dark-side-of-dubai/
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Current tax rates (M code, including ACC Earner premium, no WFF)
14000 14.2%
20000 16.75%
30000 18.73%
40000 19.73%
50000 20.80%
60000 23.12%
70000 24.77%
80000 26.64%
90000 28.09%
100000 29.25%
150000 32.73%
Under the Brash flat proposals:
- at 20% if you earn less than 44000 you would pay more tax
- at 25% if you earn less than 71000 you would pay more tax
If the dropped WFF this is accentuated substantially for those with children.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Can someone tell me how this RIP works ? Cutting down the full-stop noise pollution would be excellent
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:13 am
@Put it away
It is an add-on script for Firefox (also known as Remove It Permanently) that surgically ‘blocks’ sections of a webpage/blog. So it is akin to an ignore function. For instance, if you block ‘Philu’, all posts by Philu become invisible.
There is no known equivalent in IE or Opera.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Something interesting in Switzerland for haters of minarets and lovers of binding referenda:
Swiss voters ‘back ban on building of minarets’
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Shit Shonkey and his arse licking lackeys are fast become a joke. Why would you set up a tax revue group only to reject it’s outcomes? . Shonkey and his finance minister are stinking socialists like the tossers in opposition. The man is full of it.
Also heard that frothing tosser Philin on National radio. Sounding like a bleating sheep that is about to get its throat cut. “Oh no we can’t have a flat tax rate, its not fair, its not fair, its not fair, its not fair”. Fuck off you green eyed dick whacker.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Thanks. But by the mid 90s we’d reformed far more (by the sounds) than Australia. We were ‘ahead’ in terms of the system we had, and this system wasn’t drastically altered in the years that followed, was it..? Or is it that Australia undertook reform, just that it never stopped unlike it ‘did’ here?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Thanks Chris C. Interesting comment:
Heh, reminds me of the people here who suggested that those who did not vote in the (Anti-) Smacking Referendum would surely have been in support of a ban on smacking.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Does anyone have a link to the firefox function?
Philu I hope will be a distant bad dream soon.
Thanks in advance.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:34 am
The four existing minarets will not be affected by the ban so it must just be a ban on new minarets. Is a minaret a legally definable shape, or is this mainly symbolic like the gang patch ban (and is it as difficult to legally define).
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Well, in broad economic terms the early-mid 90s were a period where NZ did do extremely well. We got the payoff from the 80s reforms. We had a genuine export-led recovery, based on a low inflation economy and rapid job growth.
From the mid-90s onwards though, the reform process stopped or went backwards. The debt reduction undertaken by Birch, meant the Government had more fiscal freedom (the debt servicing component of the budget balance had dwindled dramatically). But rather than that being used support more structural reforms (everybody who has ever looked at tax policies-for-growth, comes out with the same conclusion- low, flat and broad), we got more fiscal indiscipline (e.g. the Winston spend-up).
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Phil instead of link whoring to your own site, you should make clear that you did not write that piece, and attribute it instead to the Independent. They are not your own words, and you are not quoting yourself.
Have you been taking creative writing courses from Mr Ihimaera?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:39 am
ah great! so some loser on 40k with 1 kid is paying about 2.5% tax.
while Dime gets fucked at 30+
Key better not go into the next election saying “we wont touch WFF”
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:43 am
“Key better not go into the next election saying “we wont touch WFF””
..or what? You’ll vote Labour? He doesnt (seemingly) care if you vote Act.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:43 am
The Times article has it wrong though. 53% is quite high for a referendum in Switzerland. Most times they barely manage 40%, but there was a big campaign from the SVP beforehand. They’ve jaded their electorate with direct democracy. The ban on building has still only gone through with a 57% vote, but it’s gone through because the threshold for referenda is 50%.
The big difference, and the weirdest thing for me when considering, you know, what these things are for, is that this is an obligatory referendum: the result has to be inserted into the Swiss constitution. That means it can be shot down either in the Swiss courts or by the ECHR, because it’s explicitly banning towers built for the purposes of a single religion, not towers built for any form of religion.
And so you get the impression of the SVP’s policies, here’s a campaign poster for them.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:43 am
How can tax be entertaining?
That aside, you have the wrong group, the Tax review Group has not yet presented it’s report, this is the Brash led 2025 Taskforce – named for the date the Government aims to catch up with Australia. There is also a Tax Working Group:
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:44 am
@swiftman
Just go tools>add-ons and search for “Remove it permanently” under the “Get add-ons” tab.
Otherwise a ctrl-F search for RIP on general debate for the 24th is where I found instructions from someone helpful.
I particularly like the little tombstone icon you get bottom right of the screen which tells one how many instances have been removed for one’s viewing pleasure
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Download the extension for Firefox (RIP) here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/521
Once you have installed RIP, go to this website and download this file http://ripwiki.pbworks.com/f/kiwiblogcomment.rip. Open RIP Options by going to tools in Firefox and import the downloaded file. Edit the file by replacing the words “An Idiot” with Philu. Press ok. Done.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:49 am
KiwiGreg – yea well thats the problem. i cant move to aussie so i’m fucked.
HOWEVER, if they get bad enough, there will come a time where i vote labour.. get rid of them and hope we get a right wing national party again.
i can endure another term of labour, fuck we survived 9 years.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:50 am
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/top-10-recent-developments-on-factory-farming-and-vegetarianism/
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Unlike many I remembered how bloody bad other National governments had been and did not move from voting ACT.
The problem ACT has is not that it is right wing but that it has a “leader” who is not taken seriously by NZers – the same problem that cost National the government when Brash was head honcho.
If ACT can act and present a honest right-wing alternative fronted by dignified, successful leader they will become significant quickly and, at least, part of a real government in the near future.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Yea good point tinny.
Rodney’s gone from being fat and obnoxious to a soft, wacky guy who appears in womans day.
not sure about one or two of the other ACT! mp’s either. surely they can do better
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Kiwblogolytes from Ashburton might throw light on whether the alleged writer of a letter in today’s Christchurch Press exists. The letter is over the name of “Sandy Gibson”, Ashburton, and there are several Gibson families in Ashburton. IMHO, the letter has bogus stamped all over it. I’m, sure if a letter made the same sort of racist assault on Maori, the newspaper would have gone to lengths to authenticate the letter writer’s identity.
Here’s what the letter purportedly from a Sandy Gibson it says in part:
“Europeans were cannibals. They loved eating children and teenagers after battles. Remains of chewed bones were found in their tombs.
“No Kiwi invented cars, electricity, the phone or air travel.
“Early settlers were good at taking what wasn’t their own.
“Hone was speaking Pom lingo when he used the f word. There’s no f in the Maori language.
“A Maori uses $1000 of taxpayers’ money. Hide uses $50,000 of taxpayers’ money and that’s OK.”
If anyone posts here a comment alleging to be “Sandy Gibson” to verify they are the letter writer they will need to provide a postal address and phone number for verification.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Yahoo!!!
Today’s good news is the reported death of Glen Mills, it seems that the low life has killed himself.
Good riddance.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3109336/HIV-accused-found-dead-reports
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:02 am
I remember the era when Ruth Richardson was Minister of Finance. I still have some fondness for that National iteration.
OTOH, I don’t think we could survive another Labour Government. They campaigned to make our household worse-off and delivered on that promise.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am
TBH I think your one hope is that this is all part of a strategy of:
Vote:(1) Get elected and build credibility by not doing a bunch of things you say you wont do
(2) Use that credibility to get re-elected without such a long list of “we wonts”
(3) Actually start governing for the benefit of New Zealand
November 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am
bruv – yea good news
Jack5 – this line cracked me up. “They loved eating children and teenagers after battles” haha
they just fuckin loved it!!!! couldnt get enough!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:09 am
“..Tim Ellis (175) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 0 Says:
November 30th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Phil instead of link whoring to your own site, you should make clear that you did not write that piece, and attribute it instead to the Independent. They are not your own words, and you are not quoting yourself…”
gee..!..tim..
call me old-fashioned..
but i take speechmarks..and an indent..
as a double-statement/disclaimer that i did not write the words..?
what..in your little universe..do you read/take from that indent/speechmarks double..?
do tell..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Australia is leading the revolt against Al Gore’s great big AGW conspiracy – just as the Aussie geologist and AGW sceptic Professor Ian Plimer predicted it would.
ABC news reports that five frontbenchers from Australia’s opposition Liberal party have resigned their portfolios rather than follow their leader Malcolm Turnbull in voting with Kevin Rudd’s Government on a new Emissions Trading Scheme.
The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.
Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.
Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I hope you introduced yourself in the new members forum
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:14 am
” I want to approach this as a solvable problem
solution ; Eliminate animal farming on plant Earth”
Side show bobs solution to this solvable problem
” Eliminate idiotic Melon two bobs”
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:21 am
If anyone posts here a comment alleging to be “Sandy Gibson” to verify they are the letter writer they will need to provide a postal address and phone number for verification.
That cannibal line was pretty damn funny, but you’re bonkers if you think anyone’s going to identify themselves like that here. Check the electoral rolls if you care so much.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Oh the joy!
That dumb slob philu has vanished from the internet.
Thanks for your help.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:47 am
So with RIP, it is safe to return?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:47 am
yay..!..another troll gone..!
hasn’t it all become so much more civil..?
since the walking-dead/knuckle-draggers rip-ed themselves off..?
..eh..?
let’s hope they stay there..
issues are actually being discussed..
..arguments made..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am
yes glutey..you can block all my comments..
go and follow the instructions..!
go on..!
off you go..!
(you’ll find lots more like you there..
in rip-land..
there are some concerns it may be a blackhole of sorts..
as..once they announce their journey there..
they are never heard of again..
is it because..sans abuse..
they are nothing..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am
You may have already seen these photos, courtesy of Instapundit, but they’re worth looking at again: Inside The Tube
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Bliss.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:56 am
i thought about getting ‘link-whore’ put on a t-shirt..
but i thought people might think i was ‘working’ the buses..
and i would receive unwanted attention/solicitations
(auckland joke..!..)
phil(whoar.co.nz0
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I posted On Hone Hawara staying in the Maori Party.
LUCY (335) 9 2 Says:
November 18th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I am still betting he will be forgiven and remain in the Maori Party. Remember there is one standard of behaviour for Maori and another for the rest of us, just as there is one set of laws for politicians and another for the rest of us.
Well the decission still has to be made but would anybody like to bet that he WILL leave the party and that John Key will keep his word and NOT work with him. say $20
While we are at it. Anyone like to take a couple of other wagers.
I bet that drilling for minerals and oil in NZ will NOT go ahead. That the government will bow to the pressure of the invironmentalists (especially those in the UN) and will say it is not in our best interests.
I bet that John Key will go to Copenhagen and WILL SIGN the Copenhagen deal even if other countries dont.
I bet that absolutely NOTHING (except for a lot of smoke and mirrows in the form of more committees and ‘political investigations”) will come out of the Bazley report (cant have the UN etc seeing us as corrupt can we?)
I bet that an independent commission on corruption WILL NOT be established under this government.
Thats all for today folks
Vote:(And to think I voted for them what a fool)
November 30th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Except your presentation is a little disingenuous, because to quote Mirabella:
“Putting aside the numbers for and against, this is a flawed scheme that is against the national interest.
“It has the potential to damage so much in Australia for little benefit and before we know what the rest of the world is doing.”
“I can’t think of any other bill that has the potential to alter Australian society so much, and for what? It will seriously hurt small business, farmers and households for a negligible reduction in emissions.”
Tony Smith:
I reject assertions that refusal to support Labor’s scheme equals refusal to support action on climate change.
You can be fully committed to effectively combating climate change without supporting this ETS at this time.
There’s also a leadership challenge going on, and Tony Abbott and Nick Minchin are the mouthiest members of that debate; Eric Abetz describes himself as an “agnostic, not a sceptic”, and has stated that the resignations are a policy issue, and not a leadership issue.
I think it makes overwhelming good sense to delay consideration of the legislation until after a further Senate inquiry and until after Copenhagen and there seems to be a lot of community support for that position…
That was the compromise that many of us invited Mr Turnbull to accept but he flatly refused to, and can I simply dispel the argument that those that seek delay are somehow people that don’t want any action on climate change.
The Greens support this position, Senator Xenophon supports this position and it makes eminently good sense irrespective of if you’re a signed up believe or an absolute sceptic or a bit like me an agnostic in the middle, it makes eminent good sense to have this considered by a Senate committee.
So there are a few different reasons for the resignations, the greatest of which is Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey’s leadership contentions – and the majority of these reasons refer to delaying the bill until after Copenhagen, the effect on the economy from a badly drafted bill and the doubts over Turnbull’s leadership and the challenges issued by Abbott and Hockey.
In other words, it’s not because “Al Gore’s AGW conspiracy” has been exposed, and none of the politicians involved suggest that they don’t believe in AGW or don’t want their ETS on those grounds.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
All good with that add-on. Many Thanks.
On Firefox, does anyone know how to restore the ability to issue Karma?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
No Phil, quoting something and link whoring to yourself suggests that you wrote the original piece. You were just copying and pasting somebody else’s work without attributing it. That is called plagiarism.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Which is the bigger shame for NZ? That government spending has ballooned so much since 2005 (+$8 billion) that Don Brash says if we got back to that level we could have a 20-25% flat tax rate? Or that John Keyless has so little vision for NZ that he’s pooh-pooing pretty much everything Don has said before the report is even published?
And he’s doing the same with the tax reform group.
Keyless must think we’re idiots. He commissions these reports then tells us all the things he won’t do before they even report back.
Maybe he should just tell us what he *will* do to lift NZ’s economy. Then we’d know where we stand and we could say Don’s fee.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Swifftman – yes it is bliss. I guess ol’ Philu is just emailing his links to himself in some sort of perverse self abuse. Of course I wouldn’t know because I can’t see his posts.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
chris c – i just cut n pasted an article. you can tell by the way it uses correct punctuation, capital letters etc
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
“..quoting something ..”..(i.e..not claiming as mine..)
they are the key words in that first line..
and render the rest of yr claims..as utter tosh..
speechmarks/indents are accepted as marks of others’ works..
by most..
you can be an exception all by yrself if you like..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
My guess is that the famous news aggregator without a job is busy thrilling people on his own web area.
This will let him infest another political blog area like the standard. They truly deserve each other.
Good to be back folks. Happy days.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
well smaller..stop fucken banging on about me then..!
get on with your post-phil life..!..eh..?
ten/fifteen trolls have self-exiled..out of a claimed 10,000 visitors a day..?
oh well..!
go well..!
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
oh..!..the wit and wisdom of glutey is back..!
joy !..joy..!
(how does it go again..?
drunken/incoherent ramblings..
interspersed with random threats of g.b.h. to dissenters..?
oh..!..how we’ve missed you..!
eh..?..)
well..it’s been a while..
you must have a lot to say..
off you go..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Welcome back, Glutaemus Maximus.
Yes, life is much better when you get rid of the parasite.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Dark, cold, stormy in Northern England. Our son says that weather was good over the weekend. Not long now.
Just being overdosed on Winterbreak/Winterval adverts on TV. Even David Cameron has now eschewd the word Christmas on his greeting cards.
Brown gets more and more Bonkers, and it will be good to get back.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
# Murray (3993) Vote: Add rating 7 Subtract rating 0 Says:
November 30th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Luc Hansen is a labour party staffer?
************************
lol I would probably do a better job on policy analysis and presentation than many they have there, but no, not guilty of that one.
Just checking out your blog site – your latest post is a perfect example of why the deniers and conspiracy theorists are so easy to discredit. Here is NIWA’s rebuttal to the fairy tale spun by your band of mischievous fantasists.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
phil has a point. for those of you that dont like him, you do devote a lot of time discussing him.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
We could always ignore philu AND the people who won’t shut up about how they’re ignoring him.
THEN we could not shut up about how we’re ignoring them all.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Hallelujah! RIP works, and as a consequence, the GD is a much tidier place
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
oh ryan..!
‘t’is an ever-tightening circle..!
of ignorance..
(sorry..!..’ignoring’..silly me..!..)
and you are right..!
the non-ignorers must be ignored..!
them and all their running dogs..
or else..
it will all be futile..!
(‘won’t someone think of the rip-ed..?’..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Just quickly visiting the Swiss referendum result banning minarets on mosques: I pricked my ears up when the reporter mentioned part of the campaign in favour of the restriction was based on the “threatening” likeness of minarets to modern missiles.
A quick check showed minarets first appeared in within 100 years after Mohammed’s death AD633.
Just goes to show that you only need to fool enough people some of the time, I guess.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
@malcolm
The last term of the Clark government is turning out to be rather ruinous. There was a definite lockin of some hefty fiscal expenditures. It’s not too hard to run a budget surplus when the economy is growing quickly. But by early 2008, we just had to slip a whisker below 2% growth to go into deficit. Things had been screwed up badly.
The best measure of fiscal stance is if the economy grows 0%- whether you are in deficit or surplus. I think we have to expect given the fiscal path the Nats inherited, along with the centrist instincts of Key and English, that a deficit was inevitable. But a lot of that is still a consequence of the recession. And I think this centrist instincts were to soften the effect of the recession on households, rather than to push the growth strategy.
I do however, think they have been too fast ‘out of the blocks’ to pour cold water on the idea of serious tax reform. Every report the government has been getting since the McLeod report, says that taxes should be flattened, lowered and broadened. Growing evidence from overseas on the effects of tax cuts, show that this is part of the growth solution. Unfortunately, the tax cuts that were carried out, aren’t well aligned to those taxes most likely to boost growth.
That means the top tax rate has to come down, and it has to come down fast (preferably to match the company tax rate).
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
i am now trying to think of ways to harness all that energy..
from you lot..steaming over there in the corner of that half-world..
..of rip..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I’M IGNORING YOU RAYN SO SHUTUP!!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
RECENT COMMENTS column : whoar.co.nz
1] faiz786 Says: November 25th
Vote:2] Sofia Says: November 23rd
3] Jase20000 Says: November 2nd
4] bjchip Says: October 16th
5] Ozy MAndias Says: October 4th
6] EL Says: September 4th
. . .
November 30th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
No big deal made of this in the MSM, but the fact is that John Key got steamrolled by the heavy hitters who appeared at CHOGM over the issue of contributing to a huge international fund aimed at helping developing nations combat climate change.
The Sunday Star-Times yesterday quoted Key as saying that New Zealand “would resist being included in any fund,” and that such a fund would be “just throwing money around.”
Today, the Herald reports how Key caved in completely. No more mention of his cherished “global alliance” to solve livestock methane emissions. I hope he does continue with this, it’s laudable and probably doable, but it was always laughable that such a puny scheme would let us opt out of what is now becoming an unstoppable movement to save the planet.
It’s also laughable how the still secretly skeptical Key continues to resist this worldwide momentum by firstly, a cynical aside, “Let’s see if it gets adopted a Copenhagen,” and secondly, by being perhaps the only leader of a developed nation not at Copenhagen.
My feeling is that the loneliness will get to him and he will be on the plane to Denmark! And be hit with another dose of reality.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
In light of the recent referendum where the Swiss have voted to ban (Muslim) new minarets, I thought the following would be of interest:
My question is this:
What checks and balances do we have in place here in New Zealand to ensure we don’t end up going down the same path as Britain?
And what would we do if there was a call to build minarets here? Or, for that matter, a call to remove Christian symbolism, such as crosses on clock towers (Palmerston North), on churches, etc., which Muslims may find ‘offensive’.
It is going to be very interesting to see what happens now with this latest ruling regarding banning the further building of minarets in Switzerland.
Vote:This highlights issues for all non Muslim countries where there is increasing Muslim immigration, and where Muslims don’t integrate into their newly adopted country. To not address this is both naive and dangerous.
November 30th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
it is interesting how the jewish religous leaders in switzerland have come out decrying this referendum result as an insult/attack against muslims..
who..say these jewish religous leaders..should be ‘welcomed’..
aren’t we so lucky that kkk is so ever-vigilant..?
why not night-patrols to guard/protect thoses examples of ‘Christian symbolism’..?
kkk..?
you could ‘keep an eye out’ for muslims..at the same time..
ever-vigilant..!..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
A strange world when people are offended by a prayer tower but not by a symbol of torture and death (sometimes including a model of someone being tortured and killed).
It could be interesting to see if any people who are into being summoned to prayer from a minaret will be offended and review where they bank.
The word minaret derives from lighthouse.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
lmao
“becoming an unstoppable movement to save the planet.” HAHAHA
hear that? its unstoppable!!!
and if you disagree with the lefts take on global warming – you’re a denier!!!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Phool 1:36 pm,
And I did read about the “Jewish religous leaders in switzerland have come out decrying this referendum result as an insult/attack against muslims” – I think they’re wrong. More fools them.
And Phool, someone has to be vigilant. If you like the idea of having to learn Arabic and living under Sharia Law then keep up with your head in the sand attitude.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
@ Luc I was stunned to hear Bill English on the radio this morning saying he “knew no more than what he had read in the media” about what Key had comitted the country to in terms of spending.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
“Or, for that matter, a call to remove Christian symbolism, such as crosses on clock towers (Palmerston North),”
In fairness, it wasn’t just (or even mostly) Muslims who wanted the cross removed. It was a lot of ordinary atheist/agnostic residents as well, who were a bit pissed off at having religious symbols looking down on them. And it was some small reaction to the fact that the council was predominantly born-again at the time.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Anyone else thinking of turning up to the “Save the Planet” march in Auckland this Saturday @ Albert Park? I am thinking of turning up with a placard dencouncing the whole thing as a scam and a con and marching and singing that tune right next to Lucy Lawless.
Seriously, I am.
If we get a thousand or so there it could be fun.
Can we muster 1,000 in five days?
What say you Aucklanders?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Also, the cross was not part of the original clock tower, it was a later, shabby, addition.
But never let facts get in the way of a good xtian oh woe is me I’m persecuted moan.
Just one question, Kris, if I may.
If all god’s children are equal, why is Jesus so special?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I think that’s rather optimistic. The lesson we got from Kyoto, is the only way you can develop a political consensus is to do something is by making sure all the painful adjustment costs are postponed as far into the future as possible. That way none of the current leaders get blamed for making voters worse off.
The lesson we got from Clark, is that those that talk about the problem the most, have the worst record of achievement.
The lesson we are getting from Australia, the one Clark delivered, and the one Key has also learned, is that voters baulk at the costs of getting GHG emissions down. So finding ways to postpone these costs is politically attractive. So governments are going to keep finding ways to avoid actually imposing costs on households. Because nobody really has the balls to say that the only way to lower human-GHG emissions, is to make you, the people who voted for me, poorer.
And we have a fairly good idea that everything really depends on getting China, India, the US and the EU to reach an agreement. Nothing we do will matter.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Pete George 1:42 pm,
It’s the MEANING behind the symbolism that’s important, Pete.
Minarets are symbolic of both the religion and the political objectives if Islam: world submission to, and domination by, Islam.
The cross, while symbolic of Christ’s torture and death, is, more importantly, representative of what His death achieved on behalf of ALL mankind; the payment of their sins and thereby the offer of salvation for all that would receive Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
Islam desires the death of ALL non Muslims.
Christ died for the sins of ALL men, including Muslims.
One desires to impose itself by force, the other is entirely an offer based on free choice.
PS I don’t really care where Muslims bank. Our values are more important than pandering to the sensibilities of Islam.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
And now it means ‘This neighbourhood is ours, you kuffirs stay away”
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Why do some people hate Christianity so much? Why the constant attack on other peoples beliefs?
Unless the Church is somehow fucking with you (like trying to get a metal gig banned grr or something stupid) then why bother?
I see a people labeling Christians as rednecks/idiots etc but get upset when Muslims get labeled as “extreme” or as “terrorists” or as people that want us westerners dead!
What thrill is there in constantly having a go at Christians?!
In case anyone cares, I’m not a religious guy at all. Hell, I’ve never stepped inside a Church. I just get bored with the anti-religion crap.
Vote:.
whats next for the day? Israel?
November 30th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
MyNameIsJack -
1. Because Jesus is God.
2. Because he suffered that torture – the whipping, being nailed to the cross, the hate etc, all so that you wouldn’t have to. He has taken the blame for any sin you’ve ever committed or ever will, and not just yours but everyone’s. God the Father punished Jesus in your place.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
bearhunter 1:52 pm & MyNameIsJack 1:55 pm,
Ashraf Choudhary, Muslim Labour List MP, was certainly vocal on behalf of the Muslim community at the time regarding the Palmerston North clocktower cross. So while there may have been other opposition, the writing is on the wall regarding future Islamic opposition to Christian symbols within New Zealand. Atheists/Agnostics are a whole other issue.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
And a cross on a church could mean to some people “this is His neighbourhood, and if you don’t frequent this place you will go to HELL!”
I don’t care about crosses or minarets, neither are my thing, but I don’t think I should try and stop anyone else from using them on their buildings.
I don’t hate Christianity, and I don’t hate Islam, or any other religion. I am just bemused by some of the double standards.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
dime (1565) Vote: 0 0 Says:
November 30th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Why do some people hate Christianity so much? Why the constant attack on other peoples beliefs?
Because these irrational beliefs lead to the death of innocent people.
Vote:Because these irrational beliefs have caused untold suffering for children at the hands of pedophile priests, priests who have been protected by the church hierarchy, rather than the church standing up for the children.
Because people who hold these irrational beliefs think that their irrational beliefs should give them priveleged access to lawmakers.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Dime, actually about 10 have resigned in Australia over the ETS.
Resignations from the Turnbull frontbench
Tony Abbott – former Howard minister, opposition families, housing, community services and indigenous affairs portfolio.
Vote:Nick Minchin – Liberal powerbroker and leader of the opposition in the Senate.
Sophie Mirabella – early childhood education, childcare, women and youth portfolio.
Stephen Parry – Chief Opposition Whip in the Senate.
Eric Abetz – Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.
Michael Johnson – Opposition Whip in the House of Representatives.
Tony Smith – Opposition assistant treasurer.
Mathias Cormann – Opposition parliamentary secretary
Mitch Fifield – Opposition parliamentary secretary
Brett Mason – Opposition parliamentary secretary
November 30th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
jack – how many people in NZ did the church kill last year?
so you don’t like catholic priests and you don’t like lobby groups?
its not like Christian groups will ever have any real power in NZ. we are basically heathens.
do you also feel the same way about Islam?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Jack, there have been many more people killed in the name of Atheism than Christianity.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Brian Smaller 2:06 pm,
Absolutely, Brian.
A person doesn’t have to be a Christian to see the threat behind Islam.
And while Dime (2:09 pm) may view us Christians as ‘kill joys’, I think s/he still can discern the very real threat that Islam is to our western democratic societies. Just a note: Islam views the west as ‘Christian’, like it or not. And there is a spiritual component to the threat that Islam represents to us in the west.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
“..And Phool, someone has to be vigilant. If you like the idea of having to learn Arabic and living under Sharia Law then keep up with your head in the sand attitude…”
carry on..!..kkk..!
(y’know..!..when i think of you..and your ‘vigilances’..
images of ‘dads’ army’ flood into my mind..
(do you ‘scan the horizon’..?..on a regular basis..?..
for signs of ‘those pesky muslims’..?..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Is it a Brash report or a brash political manifesto? I can understand why Key would have reservations about following that advice.
I wonder if the report evaluates the social effects and flow on costs, especially if implemented quickly.
I’m all for reducing taxes and reducing costs, but this comes across as more of a macho financial challenge from a failed leader to his successor.
I’d much prefer Key to be cautious.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Have you read it Pete?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
We already have Catholic cathedrals, Buddhist stupas, Islamic mosques, and Jewish synagogues. As long as it meets building consent, people can build what they like on private land..
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Justice!?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3109957/Meeting-with-attacker-delivers-justice/
Seems like justice for the victims, but what if the victims are happy but the guy is still a threat?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
kris – i take the time to defend Christians and you take from it “Dime thinks we are kill joys” lol fact is, ive listened to/been involved in metal for 20 years, we have had a few run ins with church groups wanting concerts banned etc. its a pain in the ass.
oh yeah – im a dude.
as for the threat of islam – you dont have to sell me on it lol
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Yes a reasonable question. I’d add that the same evaluation should be also done for the status quo. Actually that’s easier, as we have history as evidence: Slipping down the OCED scale, increased levels of welfare dependency, widening gap with Oz etc.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Pete George 2:17 pm,
Going to church, Pete, never saved anyone, or prevents them from going to hell.
Vote:Salvation is based purely on your relationship with Christ. And God desires that all would come to Him in repentance that none might end up in hell. This is why Christ came – to save sinners, of which I was one.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Only media exerts Chthoniid.
This puts it into perspective: “The taskforce was set up as part of a support agreement with the Act Party which has a key policy plank of a flat tax and takes its name from the year that New Zealand aimed to catch up with Australia.”
As does this: “Brash said he realised it would be difficult politically to implement his recommendations.
“Our view is that the recommendations would give us a very good chance of achieving the prime minister’s vision but we do not underestimate the difficulty of the politics involved.”
So is it more theoretical rather than practical/do-able?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Carol Coleman is an idiot.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Agreed on this one getstaffed, the status quo is not a viable option. It’s a matter of how far to go. Brash’s proposal may lift the average wage to that of Aus, but it may mean a lot less earning wages, for a while at least (and the medium term is guesswork).
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Does anybody know a good source of crocodile meat in Auckland that isn’t over-the-top in price?
I baulk at paying $80 per kg when it sells $10-12 in Darwin…
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
dime 2:37 pm,
I wasn’t actually having a dig at you – I gave you a thumbs up. And I appreciate your defense of those who may express a Christian view, even though you may not share those views. It was your following comment which I presumed may have caused you to view ‘some’ Christians as kill joys:
Sometimes the intent is lost when views are limited to the typed word.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
You can get the report here – http://www.2025taskforce.govt.nz/pdfs/2025tf-1streport-nov09.pdf
but its 150 pages if you are printing it out.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God.
European colonisation of the Americas: up to 100.000,000.
But it was in the name of God, so that’s OK.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I’m happy with mosques and synagogues and churches and temples being built. I’d just like them to be pretty mosques and synagogues and churches and temples. What happened to the good old days of religiously inspired architects?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Might have a look at it tonight. Should it be called “the Brash Act”?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
ah..!..clitoiid and his multiple uses for animals..
is that called ‘click ‘n chew’..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
@ Pete George – the most astonishing thing in it I have seen so far is the suggestion that if government spending was reduced to 2004 levels the savings would be sufficient to lower individual, corporate and trust maximum tax rates to 20%. I’ll need to drill into the detail to see how they have calculated that because it seems to be too good to be true. Certainly towards the end Labour was desperate to spend to prevent surpluses building up.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Kris K (1097) @ 1:29 pm
The problem with Janet Daley’s little piece is that it’s coming from a deluded position that seems commonplace: they’re in here and they’re changing the law in Europe to suit them. Oh, mercy me, our culture is doooooooomed.
And that’s just not true. Changing the law to suit the culture of immigrants has never been on the cards. Changing the law to ensure equality in line with the anti-discriminatory policies of any civilised government has been: but that’s not changing the law to suit a particular aim except the maxim that all are equal and deserving of equal respect.
When Rowan Williams sparked the Sharia in Britain row, the Labour government – specifically Jack Straw – were first in line to condemn him and strengthen the position of rule of law. The infamous hate speech laws, with what’s popularly known as the Griffin Exception, have been targeted at preachers like Abu Hamza and Anjem Choudary… and generally, the UK government’s support for Israel, with its individual exceptions, has been unswerving. Even the courts have ruled against religious jewelry, and against the use of the niqab, because secular law overrides religion. Any religion. Ethnic minorities – non-white British or Irish people – make up 15% of the UK population. To be honest, that’s not being overrun.
The idea that we’re breeding “home grown” terrorists in the UK and that this is something new is phenomenally narrow minded, and forgets that we spent 30 years breeding home grown terrorists in Northern Ireland. The idea that there’s a lesson to learn from the hell of multiculturalism is idiotic too: as if every kid who learned Irish history in Belfast grew up to be a terrorist; as if every kid who attends a faith school – any faith school – is going to end up a religious extremist. It takes a special kind of person to become a terrorist, and a special kind of person to try and justify their life after death fantasies by taking someone else’s life.
If you want to improve or maintain a culture, or instil an ethos, the best way of going about it is to ban all faith schools; ban all extremist education, Christian, Jewish or Islamic. Otherwise, what you’re looking at is a free society, where we don’t have any right to call for the banning of a religion, its trinkets and its fantasies, and no-one has the right to call for us to worship any godhead, person or dead man.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
brash wants to cut the minimum wage/slash welfare/super..
all for tax cuts for the rich..
who the fuck does he think will swallow that horseshit..?
close the wage gap with australia..by cutting wages here..
(whew!..einstein..!..how do you figure that..?..)
i get it..!
the ‘gap’ you are trying to close..
is the gap between the rich/elites there..
and the rich/elites here..
eh..?
fuck..!..you must think we are really stupid brash..!
you are the fool who was our little greenspan mini-me..
who creted the bubbles that are bursting all around us..
by the way brash..!
have you seen the footage yet of the man you emulated/followed..
admitting he was ‘wrong’..?
(obviously not..eh..?
as you have just re-packed the same tired/wrong ideology..
you have always peddled..
can i suggest you go and look at that greenspan-footage..
where he..and by obvious implication you (even if you don’t realise it yet).
admits he got it so so wrong..
then go and get some sackcloth and ashes..
and go and sit in a fucken cave for a decade or so..eh..?
stop just hanging around trying to compound your proven errors..eh..?
you are doing yourself no favors..
and are setting a new benchmark in ‘denial’..
not to mention ‘irrelevancy’..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Does anybody know a good source of crocodile meat in Auckland that isn’t over-the-top in price?
Where the hell do you get crocodile meat in Auckland full stop!?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Take a look at a few of the conclusions from Brash’s report, which will be ignored and quickly shelved by Key and English, two gutless politicians playing Russian roulette with the NZ economy.
“Average tax rates should be substantially reduced, as ambitious expenditure restraint permits. Cutting core Crown expenses to 29 percent of GDP would, for example, allow the maximum personal tax rate, and the company and trust tax rates, all to be reduced to 20 percent.
Ambitious welfare reform measures should be undertaken as a matter of priority to reduce the very large number of people of working age currently receiving welfare benefits.
All businesses owned by central government which are operating in markets where competition is actual or feasible should be sold.
A funder-provider model should be reintroduced in the hospital sector, allowing much greater private sector involvement in the provision of taxpayer-funded services.
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund should be wound up and its assets used to reduce gross government debt.
Mining developments on or under sensitive Crown land should generally be permitted provided that they pass a full cost-benefit analysis.”
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Hello, how can you all claim to be technicians when your best man Mr. Key on the job has no idea except for his economic plan has a right wing national money scam? And worse, the only people who are likely beneficiaries of his scheme are national traditional enemies! If Douglas and Hyde can go for a ride, why not Hone and the whanau? Well, at least he can go for a photo op if for nothing else! That’s about if for NZ….
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
On the shore, the New World at the new Westgate Shopping Mall has a wild food section that often includes crocodile. The ‘Aussie Butcher’ down in Browns Bay can order it in for you. I tend to use them as a source for kangaroo (which is a more regularly stocked item). ‘Roo is something I tend to cook for visitors for summer BBQ.
Either way you’re looking at abut $60-80 per kg, and I’d be happier paying around $40.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Chthoniid, totally agree re the last Labour government leaving a ruinous legacy.
If it didn’t cost $200 to attend, I’d go up to Victoria Uni tomorrow and suggest to the tax review group that they withhold their report and call John Key’s bluff. Ask him to state publicly that he will consider the full report before he dismisses any aspect of it. If not, what’s the point of working on the report?
JK was bloody disingenuous on the radio this morning. He said NZ embarked on radical reforms on the 80s but Oz went slower and has come out better. He completely ignored the fact that from the mid 90s there was a complete backing away and un-doing of much of that good work. Especially during the last governments three terms.
If Don Brash’s report is a stalking horse for something less, then I’d rather have the stalking horse.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Brash Act – I want to check the detail on the claim that everyone earning over 14000 would pay less on a flat tax rate of 20% (including or excluding Earner Premium?).
Currently the first 14000 is taxed at 14.2%, 14001-48000 at 22.7%
Vote:If you earn less than 46000 your total tax rate is less than 20% so your tax would go up.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Looks like the Climatic Research Centre at the University of East Anglia is doing some serious arse covering.
Vote:Should we be surprised?
November 30th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
“..JK was bloody disingenuous on the radio this morning. He said NZ embarked on radical reforms on the 80s but Oz went slower and has come out better..”
malcom..in the textbooks..it is called ‘the rogernomics recession’..
income sucked away from the lowest-paid comes straight out of the bottom-line of the economy..
‘cos that income is always churned straight back into the econoomy..
..buying goods/services..
(if you know anyone who was in retail in those douglas-times..ask them how it ‘went’..
those cuts came straight out of their tills..
and/but..the already rich..got much richer..
this is what brash is trying to engender again..
rogernomics 2.0..
bah..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
The fools! Paper shredders emit carbon!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
@ Pete George the restriction of government spending to 29% of GDP is apparently the level of spending in 2004 and that is the basis for the maximum 20% tax rate – but this would be the actual rate, not necessarily the marginal rate (as income earners in the transitional ranges and those subject to various abatements can suffer significantly higher marginal rates).
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
@ dime (2.37pm) – there’s no reason why Christians and metal can’t co-exist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l40ebqgLsY8
The dude with all the ink is Joshua Brown. He used to front a metal band called Full Devil Jacket ’til he od’d. After rehab he got out of the scene and “found God” as the saying goes (strange saying: God isn’t lost!) but more recently formed a band called Day of Fire – he might kill off some of those stereotypes about Christians eh
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Excellent article in the Daily Mail from Australian geological Professor Ian Plimer.
Gooner – If I lived up there I’d be in. There’s more than a few reputations at stake here.
Something that stands out to me is how much the Scientists at UEA (and I fear NASA ), the politicians, bureaucrats and the MSM worldwide have underestimated the power of the Internet. It truly seems set to become the ‘tool of the people’. In posterity this issue may be looked back on as the first muscle flexing of that tool. Winners and losers are yet to be decided.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Chris C 3:05 pm,
The trouble is that even were we to “ban all faith schools; ban all extremist education, Christian, Jewish or Islamic”, we would stiil be left with the ‘religions’ of Atheism, Humanism, Evolution, etc. One need only to look at communism to see that this is a failed experiment – religious free societies don’t work either.
Vote:The problem is not ‘religion’ per se, but when one religion/ideology desires to impose its values and beliefs upon non adherents by force. This is Islam’s modus operandi. Islam’s end aims go much further than just “its trinkets and its fantasies”.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Even Dave Mustaine is churchy now.
http://www.megadeth.com/band.php
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
People who say they don’t want the social cost, are in danger of becoming boiled frogs. The social cost of the status quo is that NZ is slipping further and further behind and 1 million NZ’s have given up and left. Of my Canterbury University Electrical Engineering class (1995), more than 1/2 now live outside NZ. Most have families now and will never return.
I wish John Key would understand the quiet crisis in this country. If he just wants to be a popular PM, then he should piss off and let NZ have an effective PM. One who leaves a legacy of a better, more prosperous country. All this disingenuous talk about improving NZ and catching up with Oz is a double insult when you see his spectacular inaction and his refusal to countenance any changes which might actually affect that improvement.
Steady as she goes John Boy, don’t rock a sinking boat.
/rant off.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Yeah, Melanie Phillips makes it sound really bad. But if you go to the original article she uses as the premise for her “argument”, then you’ll see that the bit she quoted and paraphrased was in fact qualified with the following:
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building…
…Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue.
So not the dumping that would be the result of a massive conspiracy and/or fraud perpetrated on humanity by a liberal elite hungry for the billions of dollars of revenue that their… energy generating studies… or something… will transfer directly into their banks accounts, is it.
Not unless you think that they can see the future and are able to orchestrate a massive conspiracy stretching over decades.
Here’s a tip: Melanie Phillips is a batshit insane, paranoid, manipulative little moo cow.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Oh, please. Don’t pretend your little imaginary friend is any less complicit in the take the world by force and everyone must worship who I worship in exactly the same way I worship, or you’re going to hell and I’m going to help you get there faster than you planned stakes.
You’re just worried that people will find something in it, because there’s no difference between your implausible fantasy and their implausible fantasy, so who cares? Shit, if I adopted their religion and not yours, at least I’d get some valuable language skills in there to boot. Arabic is as valuable as Chinese these days…
And if my lack of belief in anything is a ‘religion’, then I’ll take my tax-free status now, thanks…
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I agree. Having listened to her many times on BBC Radio 4 (Moral Maze, mostly), I’ve concluded that she’s a very twisted and angry women, who subscribes to the “ends justify the means” school of persuasion and debate. She will exaggerate or misrepresent anything to make her point*.
I’ve also read pretty much everything she’s written. It is much harder to identify bat-shit crazy in writing. You have to hear it in debate.
*She’d fit in nicely around here
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Inventory – the fact that someone who was lame enough to have called a band “Full Devil Jacket”, which has been a support act for the Nickelback, Creed and other nu-metal / faux grunge snorefests, has turned xtian pretty much reinforces stereotypes of xtian
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
John Key is not to blame for wanting to be popular, or for being ineffectual, or for being so thick he has no actual vision beyond election day.
Do you blame a dog for being a dog? ..or do you blame those who are apologists for the John Keys of the World? the DPF’s? or Whaleoils? or compliant media? or 1001 National party voting chaps who make “oh well so he is a disappointment” *shrugs* comments on blogs?
In 2020 when New Zealand tax rates have increased, living standards have fallen, our wealth has been exported to more desirable locations and we think back and pin point the “John Key torpor” period as a time action should have been taken will he be to blame? or the 5 ACT MPs who backed him to the hilt? or the 20,000 National party members who didn’t quit? who chipped in donations which got him re-elected (confirming in his own mind he was doing the right thing so he went back to sleep), or knocked on doors, or encouraged floating voters they knew to tick the National box; all of these people are collectively to blame when NZ 2020 is a third world basket case; and do not forget you are “choosing” to do all of this – the “otherwise we get a Labour government” argument is both irrelevant and childish.
http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Chris C 3:46 pm,
If you see no problem with what you’ve just quoted to support your view, then I’m amazed!
Let me translate their words:
We collected the data, then we ‘adjusted’ it, we retained these ‘adjusted’ figures but discarded the original source data.
So all we have left are their ‘massaged’ and ‘revised’ figures, the original data is gonesburger.
No conspiracy here, move along please.
Ah, yeah!
This is one of the most massive pseudo scientific frauds perpetrated upon a gullible world populace since … I don’t know when.
Of course, the cat’s out of the bag now, and even the average man in the blogosphere is aware of this fraud.
How much evidence do ‘you guys’ require?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Premature Elijah. Budget 2010 will give us a good indication whether we have a Key for the future, or whether we remained locked into an unsustainable escalation of costs and taxes.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Really want to reduce government spending? Here’s how to do it:
Get some teen-mother movie star, start an ad campaign saying “sign on for a 40% reduction in government cash emission by 2020″.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Kris, those sort of adjustments are made all the time. Raw data would often be meaningless in comparisons otherwise.
NIWA explain in their response to last week’s accusations:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0911/S00060.htm
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Malcolm 3:56 pm,
So what you’re saying, Malcolm, is that you can’t really fault her writings, but when you listen to her it suddenly becomes obvious that she’s “bat-shit crazy”.
Hmmm, maybe if I were to meet you in person, despite much of your writings appearing to be sound, once I heard your voice I would draw the same conclusions about you.
Kris: He’s a nice guy, that Malcolm, good on paper, but in person he’s “bat-shit crazy”.
… maybe we should meet …
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Pete George 4:21 pm,
Yeah, those second opinions are a real bitch, eh Pete?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
For those who have installed RIP, Phool’s latest rantings “income from the lowest paid gets suck away blah blah blah blah blah blah blab, bullshit, horseshit, batshit, the rich get richer, blah, blah, blah, bullshit, horseshit, batshit, blah, blah, blah ” Sounds more like that other green eyed socialist dipstick, Philin, more each day.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
The tricky thing about the slow, incremental approach (and this isn’t a new debate, the transformation of E European economies after communism has been marked by the gradualist versus rapid-restructuring debate), is that it assumes you’ve got room to move. NZ’s fast periods of reform have always stemmed from crises. Macroeconomic imbalances converge to create a massive crisis, mandating hard decisions. It also assumes that they won’t be reversed by a less disciplined successor.
While I could see a gradualist approach appealing to the centrist instincts of Key and English, I’m not sure that we have time anymore.
I think we need some very clear signals that getting the economy moving again is a priority. They’ve had their electoral-grace period with the recession and cushioning its effects. I’d like to see something a little bolder coming out of Wellington now. Dropping the top income tax rate down to match the company tax rate would be a good start.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
A ban on religious education doesn’t equate to a ban on religion.
If I were in charge of the government, I’d require all schools to provide x hours of secular education per day, and schools would be funded per-pupil to that extent. If the school wants to teach Christian theology (or Islamic, or Jewish, or ..), they would need to keep the kids in school longer, and meet any additional costs themselves.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
<blockquote’d like to see something a little bolder coming out of Wellington now. Dropping the top income tax rate down to match the company tax rate would be a good start.
I agree entirely. They need to be bold, but not brash.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
This appears to be just another beat up by the deniers. Here is an exchange on the Real Climate message thread (I haven’t noticed any queries from Kris there)
#963 #
Gavin…
Over a week ago you posted a comment clearly stating that no data had been destroyed or lost. Now it appears you were incorrect. Or is this still not true?
We seem to be hearing it from the horse’s mouth now, so to speak. I feel you are somwhat discredited, and your attempts to validate what are obviously shady, if not wholly conclusive emails, is ridiculous.
If you are reasonable and scientific, surely you agree all information and evidence (both sides) should not only be published, but encouraged into the public domain for all to see?
[Response: What is ridiculous is the implication that because I have an inkling for why CRU can't release its database that you automatically think I'm against releasing things into the public domain. This is completely at odds with my thinking, statements and actions over many years. Ask the people involved with the PCMDI archive, or think about why GISS ModelE is public. So, let me state it again, we should endeavour to have as much as is possible in the public domain. This helps transparency, trust and actual research. Happy?
But note that I do not agree with the converse, that everything that is not released cannot be trusted - which appears to be the underlying theme in many commenters minds. There are some valid reasons why some data and code isn't public (the CRU case being an example of that). I stand by my statement that no data has been destroyed. The originating met offices are custodians of their raw data, not CRU. - gavin] (bold added)
Comment by Gavin2 — 29 November 2009 @ 6:37 PM
Of course, the cat’s out of the bag now,
Tell that to the leaders and teams of high powered scientists and lawyers flocking into Copenhagen!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Dear right wingers, you are fucked.
Vote:The Nats have turned into a good little Labour party and are doing a fine job.
Going to vote ACT, what with all those signs up at the next electiom repeating the words of Rodders and Douglas, we are entitled ?
I would say there is a damn good chance that the Nats will put a good candidate up in Epsom in 2011 and with the Labour voters backing him Rodders and cohorts will be fucked.
I suggest you push for an education test for voting.
November 30th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
“Premature..”
I’d love to share your optimism but I cannot. One year into his term, what does Key to show for?
He’s done little, talked a lot, and sauntered around the place like possessed.
What riles me (and the main reason why I have little time for Key) is his aloofness, his ability to pass the buck feigning ignorance, his timidity, his indecisiveness, all of which I consider deep flaws in in a Prime Minister.
Let’s do no talk about principles or vision, because I’m now convinced Key has none. He’s a political chameleon who changes colours depending on the background.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
side show bob 4:40 pm,
Do you have to keep dragging that smelly corpse around, it’s even more offensive now than it used to be when alive.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
“I suggest you push for an education test for voting.”
Nah education smart. Give everyone an extra 1 vote for each $10,000 of tax they pay in a year.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Has anyone else wondered about the the choice of photo of Paul Henry that is being used in retarded news items?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv/3110825/Paul-Henrys-retard-fallout-continues
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Still pushing Real Climate, huh Luc? Do you follow the mantra that if you repeat bullshit enough times it finally becomes the truth?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Nah, only give votes to people who have done two years’ military service.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Hah, I hadn’t heard about this. Fuck, I’d pay money to spend a day wandering around seeing the world through his eyes.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Goff made some outrageous statements on newstalk zb. He reckons nz closed the income gap with australia under their tenure.
This, I cannot believe.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Can Paula Henry call Goff a retard on lickspittle TV?
Vote:This country is sad saga of misfits in positions of power!
Ba Ba went the dumbo kiwi.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
No, you’re taking that the wrong way, Kris. I mention that I’ve read most of what she’s written just so you don’t think my opinion is based solely on hearing her debate on Radio 4. I think she’s bat-shit crazy from both hearing and reading her. She’s a very uptight and angry person in debate on the radio. This is less obvious when she writes as she doesn’t have to respond to people.
Have you ever listened to the Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4? I would recommend it and I think you’d enjoy it. You can get it streaming here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search/?q=moral%20maze
Serendipitously, the latest programme has Melanie Phillips (and my favourite, Michael Portillo) and it’s about our friend Belle de Jour
. And to my eternal shame I never did reply to your last post on that topic, so I humbly offer that link as an alternative.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I wonder why then Cullen kept saying that Australia’s superior economic performance in this period was all down to their endowment of minerals.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Caustic Cullen should be facing treason charges.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Wreck – Labour DID close the income gap with Australia – more New Zealanders went to Australia to work under the last Labour government than at any other time in our history
I’m not so sure though that it’s an achievement that Goff should be claiming the credit for!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
SGTH
Let me spell it out simply for you, as I understand it.
CRU mined data, collected by Met offices for a multitude of purposes, not, as far as I know, specifically for the CRU for research purposes. It adjusted the data so they were comparing apples with apples, not apples with melons. Just normal scientific practise. CRU had no further use for the raw data, and dumping it is neither a legal nor ethical problem.
Except for the conspiracy theorists.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Keys on his way back from Trinidad and Tabago…is there anywhere on the planet this man hasnt been since we voted him in ???
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
A couple more from Real Climate
1. Again, why such significant reliance on just a very few people, if there are truly other reliable data sources that show “man-made forcings” and “unprecendented rise”?
[Response: You again have it very wrong. Man-made forcings are discussed extensively in Chapter 2 (not Chapter 6), and I don't know that anyone from CRU is involved in that side of the research. And of course if include all the authors who've worked in the field of paleo-reconstructions that will be 100% of the papers! (A conspiracy, I tell you!). - gavin]
2. You said [947]: “Your point is to insist on some impossible standard so that you can avoid paying any attention to the results. My point is that there are completely open projects that if you were really concerned with evaluating you would do so. That you don’t understand my point, simply underlines the issue. – gavin]
Gavin: How am I insisting on an impossible standard here? The entire point of the scientific method is to allow others to reproduce one’s results.
[Response: You can reproduce the CRU results using the publicly available GHCN data - as indeed GISTEMP and NCDC actually have. If you want to know that the climate has warmed, then we are done (and if you don't like the GHCN data, look at ICOADS, or the glaciers etc.). When CRU does get permission to post its whole database I guarantee that you will still not be happy. You will ask for more data, maybe even going back to the handwritten weather report sheets from every station in the world (which of course CRU does not even have). Without that you will declare that this is still not science because you can't go back in time and reproduce exactly the same measurement. The point is that there are limits on what can be reasonably provided (beyond the specific issue here of the NMS data), and yet your fundamentalist stance will not allow for any leeway. Everything or else. Thus it is an impossible standard. To convince me otherwise, state beforehand what amount of data you will decide is 'enough' data for reproducibility of the temperature record. - gavin]
I like the fundamentalist comment. eg Kris K fanatically believes in his God for which there is NO scientific evidence whatsoever!
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
SGTH, perhaps Luc has been investing in those carbon credits, poor Luc, so sad never mind. Done his dough and just can’t except it. I do hope so.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
The thing is, anyone on any Masterchef any time could kick the arse of anyone ever on Hell’s Kitchen.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
OK, Monckton fans, go here and if you have any shred of appreciation for the beautiful thing that is science, don’t come back if your soul is not cleansed
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Inventory2,
Also, Brian “Head” Welch, a guitarist from the band Korn left that band and became a Christian in 2005. Bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu from Korn also has become a Christian.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Luc, yes science is beautiful, especially when the science is tested and verifiable. When you have scientists fudging data and ‘losing’ the original raw data so that it can’t be peer reviewed then it becomes a joke.
We’re committing millions of dollars toward an unproven theory. That’s a fact.
There is absolutely no proof of AGW; in fact, as the temperature decreases, it’s looking like there is growing evidence to support that the theory is rubbish. If you look at magazine articles during the 20th century you’ll see scaremongering switching from warnings of another coming ice age, then warming, then ice age, then warming.
Vote:They are theories only. We’re worried about warming now, but in a few years it’ll swtich to worrying about cooling again.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
“..wreck1080 (792) Vote: Add rating 1 Subtract rating 0 Says:
November 30th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Goff made some outrageous statements on newstalk zb. He reckons nz closed the income gap with australia under their tenure.
This, I cannot believe..”
i think wreck..you will find he is comparing labour in power..with national in power..
and..given that in nine years in power last time..
nationall raised the minimum wage by 87 cents..
labour didn’t really have to do much to better them..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Ah, the moderate centre left: wrong on “climate change,” wrong on Switzerland, wrong on everything.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3107467/Brash-economic-recommendations-unheeded
To John Key, Bill English, and the National Party, I would like to tell you that you are all gutless fucking wonders, and are selling our once great country down the river to ensure you keep your ministerial allowances and limousines.
The most sickening part of this is when I think back to John Keys visit to my university last year. During his speech, he made made clear his concerns about the sustainability of student loans, the age of super entitlement, etc etc. His words could of been from the Taskforce itself, such was his tone and concern about the burgeoning burden of govt spending.
I bring this up because it shows something even more saddening and sickening than those who think John Key is a mere socialist; it actually shows that he believes in much of what the taskforce has recommended, but that he will not act on it for fear of losing votes.
What a sick joke, you gutless wonder.
Vote:John Key, the National Socialist Party and yourself have lost my vote for the rest of my life.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Nick, if you want immediate fixes the way you like you may be looking for someone to vote for for a long time.
Even in one term it’s hard for a new government to bring about all the changes it would ideally like to see. Tack on the front of that a major global recession and I think you are demanding far to much too soon.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
So have you enjoyed contributing to DPF being number 4 on the Listener’s most powerful (in Media) list?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Fletch, this statement When you have scientists fudging data and ‘losing’ the original raw data so that it can’t be peer reviewed then it becomes a joke. is conspiracy theory crap. The data you are talking about is not lost. It is held by the Met offices who supplied it.
Then you say in fact, as the temperature decreases. Fletch, you are talking here about short term variation that is still completely in agreement with AGW theory.
It is true that climate warming is a theory, because projections cannot become fact until they occur. The problem for you is that the IPCC projections have not become fact simply because the observed facts have outstripped the IPCC’s conservative projections.
Here’s a challenge for you: present just one fact, clearly and concisely, that appears to disprove AGW, and I guarantee I can rebut it within a reasonable time frame.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
That’s a crap reason without even looking analysing the nature of the predictions. Fortunately some have looked at it from a few angles, there was even a paper written on it: http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
No cigar.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Sorry Fletch, I forgot the link to disprove your assertion that temperatures are decreasing.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Luc, and I bet I can do the opposite; but that is my point right there: there isn’t a consensus one way or the other, therefore nothing should be done about it until we learn more – certainly not the spending of ridiculous amounts of money by governments worldwide.
As for losing the raw data, that’s what they claimed – that they didn’t have it anymore. Rather that than hand it over I guess.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Fletch, there is a consensus. You are just plain wrong. If you spend some time at Real Climate. or even just read my posts above, you will no longer be the misinformed prey of warped individuals.
Since you asked: CO2 always lags warming in the natural climate cycle True or false?.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
“What a sick joke, you gutless wonder. John Key, the National Socialist Party and yourself have lost my vote for the rest of my life.”
Nick, you’re obviously clearly astute, since you’re interested both in conservative values and politics which is a relatively rare combo for a young person.
Can I ask, what would you like to see happen, in real-politic terms? Not just naive fantastical idealistic la-la stuff like the lefties crap on about (all the time, endlessly with never ending repetition), but stuff that would actually work and make a difference in the real world?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I don’t believe there is a consensus. Even in America, 32,000 scientists (including over 9000 with PhD’s) have signed a petition saying they don’t buy it – and that’s just in the US.
Meanwhile, John Key is being advised by Peter Gluckman, his new Chief Science Advisor (why do I think of Mr Spock when I read that?) whose field of expertise is in paediatrics.
Oh, and apparently historical data shows that temperature always rises first, followed 800 years LATER by carbon dioxide levels. This is the REVERSE of what global warming theory claims. (Source: Six respected climate and environment scientists)
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
“Here’s a challenge for you: present just one fact, clearly and concisely, that appears to disprove AGW”
The geologic record Luc.
Look at the geologic record.
You know, the stuff that goes back millions of years.
Look at the temp fluctuations in that and guess what?
No humans.Yet fluctuations happened. Crikey. Hello?
Tending to indicate that GW is a cyclical phenomena. AGW is an unproven hysteria.
Then look at the Sun, Luc. You know, that big thing in the sky that turns night into day etc and so forth. It has these things called Sun Cycles
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
ps, From the Times yesterday –
Very convenient ey?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
reid
Got a link?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Fletch
UEA is a research facility who seek data from organisations who collect that data.
Nothing is lost or destroyed. It’s just elsewhere. The raw data is meaningless until it is corrected. That is the scientific method that put men on the moon.
Or do you think that is a conspiracy theory too?
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
“Got a link?”
Yes, but I’m sure you can drive google yourself.
AGW science is not a link war Luc, it’s a truth pact.
We all love the planet.
Post your questions, let me know if you don’t find something valid, I’ll reply tomorrow evening.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Just give me a link, Reid.
Show me the money.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
And the usual suspects defend their fledgling confidence trick.
Newsflash: everything the CRU has produced and everything produced from that is bullshit. Tough luck.
Vote:November 30th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Try this Hurf
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/the-hockey-stick
Vote:December 1st, 2009 at 7:34 am
LOL Ryan – shades of Starship Troopers.
Vote:December 1st, 2009 at 8:20 am
Lucy Hansen, why do you keep referring to a open source software guy, who’s background is cutting & pasting HTML codes? He is not a climatologist nor even a physicist? His supposed domain of expertise is in Systems Theory and Complex Systems. This guy ain’t know the difference between a prostitute and State-Space-Theory (fundamental to dynamical system theory).
What I am trying to say here. Well I can spot guys on the internet who think they understand what they’re talking about, but actually have zero knowledge about the subject/topic. You should try to read discussions on various physics forums on the net so that you can educate yourself on science rather than keep quoting someone who has no clue to science but an expert in cutting & pasting HTML codes then call themselves software-engineer? WHAT? There is nothing engineering about cutting & pasting HTML codes.
Vote:December 1st, 2009 at 8:30 am
Lucy Hansen, I made a brief comment on the Hockey-Stick on this thread from another blog. Note, I know the algorithm they used in the Hockey-Stick paper, inside-out , so I am more qualified in commenting on the issue, then the HTML code cutting/pasting guy you keep referring to.
Vote:December 2nd, 2009 at 6:13 am
Copenhagen travel plans made for Key
The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 02/12/2009
Planning is under way for Prime Minister John Key to attend the Copenhagen conference on climate change, as chances grow of a deal at the historic meeting.
Though Mr Key is still refusing to say if he will go to Denmark for the conference, which begins next week, officials have made contingency arrangements for him, including preliminary travel bookings.
Mr Key said on his way last week to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, it was unlikely he would go to Copenhagen because of the slim possibility of any resolutions being hammered out. But as more world leaders book their tickets, pressure is mounting on him to attend. Representatives of 193 countries are now expected in the Danish capital, including 90 leaders.
In Trinidad, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all world leaders to go to Copenhagen “and seal a deal that is ambitious, a deal that is equitable, a deal that satisfies the demands of science”.
So its of to Copenhagen we go when last week it was no.
Vote:We need an election urgently.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:22 am
One for Key. The first thing that he’s done that is positive this week.
The chairman is Greg Muir of Hanover fame.
Tourism chief’s goodbye gift ‘not a good buy’
By NICK CHURCHOUSE – The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 02/12/2009
Tourism New Zealand’s directors have been forced to stump up thousands of dollars of their own for a Dick Frizzell painting after Prime Minister John Key blasted the purchase “excessive expenditure of taxpayer money”.
The painting, commissioned as a farewell gesture for departing Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton, was approved by the board but has not impressed Mr Key, who is also tourism minister.
It is understood Frizzell did the painting for considerably less than it might be worth on the open market, with a price tag of less than $10,000.
But, following Mr Key’s rebuke, the board members paid back most of the purchase price, with a final cost to Tourism NZ of $2000.
A spokesman for Mr Key said he acknowledged Mr Hickton’s long service at Tourism NZ but the board’s choice of gift was “excessive expenditure of taxpayer money”.
“[The prime minister] would expect the board members themselves to make a substantial contribution towards the cost. The Government is firm that it does not want a culture of extravagance in government departments and Crown entities.”
Tourism NZ chairman Greg Muir said in light of the prime minister’s comments, the gift was “more appropriately funded largely by the board members themselves”.
The board had asked Frizzell to commemorate Mr Hickton’s “10 years of outstanding contribution” at Tourism NZ. The artwork was commissioned without Mr Key’s or Mr Hickton’s knowledge.
Mr Hickton’s time at the tourism marketing body saw the introduction and development of the 100% Pure New Zealand brand, now acknowledged as the leading destination brand in the world.
Frizzell said the “price was right” for the painting and he was delighted with how it was received, knowing Mr Hickton was a fan.
“I do like it when I get a commission where everybody is on song. The idea is received with open arms, the execution is spot on, and the price is right and the client goes bonkers when they unwrap it. It was one of those, it was a thrill.”
Mr Muir was paid $58,000 in the past financial year and Tourism NZ directors between $4000 and $25,000. They are Susie Johnstone, Paul Bingham, John Barrett, Glenys Coughlan, Henry van Asch, Malcolm Johns, Jennie Langley and Paul Richardson.
Vote:December 2nd, 2009 at 8:18 am
@ Viking2 gosh the money saved might pay the travel costs for at least one of the kaumatua going to Copenhagen or 0.00001% of the weekly deficit. Looking “tough” and “Responsible” on little things is easy.
Vote: