And it's all being done here with significant scrutiny or debate,

s/with/without

+1 for transparency on aid delivery.

Fancy McCully making Peters look like a shining light of forward thinking.

Fancy Clayton Cosgrove saving Collin's skin by suggesting she is a failure because she wasn't tough enough.

I believe that should be without.

It seems quite clear that McCully wants to build an empire (again !). He really is the worst of all worlds.

What strikes me about the Key government is the sheer lack of?

Our new Foreign Affairs minister, Mr McCully, is ditching the philosophy of New Zealand's foreign aid programme. And he is doing so unilaterally, "with virtually no consultation, parliamentary scrutiny or public discussion."

Funnily enough, I remember being annoyed with Labour's moves around foreign policy during the start of their Government?

What strikes me about the Key government is the sheer lack of rigour in so many of their decisions.

Agreed. In 2 years time as the chickens start to come home to roost, maybe they'll start to recognise the last lot weren't completely divorced from reality.

It's as if they?

1/ Phil Goff largely agrees with Key. He is the right of the labour party and has a lot of baggage. And since everyone knows he is just an interim leader, he has trouble being regarded as fresh or interesting.

2/ The media?

a minister who still seems to regard ministerial office as something like a fiefdom

Welcome to the Brotherhood.

NZAID have been underwriting Air NZ flights to Niue for the past 4 years, so the extension of such a type of support to Samoa ( as I understand the move is) is not a move that can really be seen as political meddling .

The existing deal was?

Aid works best when it is a regarded as a humanitarian gesture. Government tampering serves only to debase it.

Isn't this exactly the sort of thing we decry Japan doing to get people to join up and vote for them on the IWC?

What strikes me about the Key government is the sheer lack of rigour in so many of their decisions. It's as if they think they can simply spin any unintended consequences.

Who can Argue? Key got the vote, remember?

Breast cancer sufferers having congestive heart failure whilst?

Agreed. In 2 years time as the chickens start to come home to roost, maybe they'll start to recognise the last lot weren't completely divorced from reality.

I remember an earnest bit of satirical dialogue in the 2000 film, Traffic, which earnestly and with great earnestness scorned the 'War on?

Has anyone seen my kitten?

Murray McCully borrowed it

It beggars belief that this government is not coordinating a serious response to environmental issues with whatever?

And somebody was made enough to make NZAID a new website

The existing deal was made under the current arms length process

And the new one wasn't. The two don't seem strictly comparable. NZAID had concluded a three-year arrangement with Samoa, then chose to embark on one with Niue, as part of a wider development plan. Now, the government has effectvely?

And somebody was made enough to make NZAID a new website

Ha ha.

Tony Ryall, Judith Collins, Gerry Brownlee, Lockwood Smith and Murray McCully are the short-hand version of a?

Now, the government has effectvely issued an edict to underwrite flights to two other countries. As I said, it's probably a good thing for those economies. But they've done it by jamming their hands in an already small cookie jar.

But wasn't the point you were trying to make that?

Phil Goff largely agrees with Key. He is the right of the labour party and has a lot of baggage. And since everyone knows he is just an interim leader, he has trouble being regarded as fresh or interesting.

Any idea when we might get a non-interim?

But the government's tourism-centric policies have begun paying dividends. At S$196 million,?

manufacturing flounders, how do you do that?

Put a cod through a mangle.

Russell, an item for next week's programme?

Guardian provides open access to stats to facilitate mashups.

AND

Guardian provides API to open up its content for re-use.

[/threadjack]

Direct action protests would seem to be a start

A number of unions, most notably Unite, have already established a 'Rat Patrol' to name and shame any abusers of the 90-day probation bill.

But dealing with a real issue like the environment, even if the Government accepted it as real,?

Your items are from around '06. Airlines got put through the ringer with high fuel prices in 2008, and are now being smacked by the recession. 3 years is a long time.

The Samoa subsidy is for one year to help?

Like for instance, if President Obama & Ron Kirk agree to an FTA with NZ, on the condition that NZ sings up to an ETS.

ETS beget carbon leakage and that increases pollution. An ETS is a highly regressive tax of no discernible benefit.

the changes do raise the possibility of foreign policy having undue influence on where and on what aid goes,?

Has anyone seen my kitten?

Murray McCully borrowed it

You better hope he's not huffing it. It may be too late.

Which is a shame – you should be paid for that stuff!

McCully just doesn't seem to get it.

Not only would politicising aid mean less chance to tackle the causes of suffering, but it is?

My 'just realised' got in the way of that sentence.

Guardian provides API to open up its content for re-use.

Like, for instance, adding a killfile facility to Comment Is Free?

"It is not my ambition to turn New Zealand into France,"

I don't see why not? Contrary to one of the big lies of the right, France is a wealthy country with good?

France is a wealthy country with good wages, working conditions and welfare benefits.

And cheese. Honestly I cannot get over how average-to-awful cheese is in New Zealand.

I don't see why not? Contrary to one of the big lies of the right, France is a wealthy country with good wages, working conditions and welfare benefits. Not to mention taking less of a hit from the crash than the Anglo-Saxon economies.

Quite. Not perfect, mind, but we could?

And cheese. Honestly I cannot get over how average-to-awful cheese is in New Zealand.

Pardon me? You do realize it's the de facto national currency, right? Clearly you haven't encountered the tasteless orange rubber (occasionally tasteless yellow rubber) that passes for cheese in North America. Kiwi cheese is a beautiful?

And cheese. Honestly I cannot get over how average-to-awful cheese is in New Zealand.

Exactly. Most cheese here is tasteless rubbish. For a country with such a big dairy industry it's such a pity.

Remembering the outstanding cheeses from all over the UK and Europe that I used to get?

Yeah, similar thoughts went through my head with the systematic undoing of Winston. It felt like Winston was the real threat to National and we know what Winston thought of National, so KAPOW, BANG!IMO

Yeah, although I always thought that Winston was more of a smug pr*ck. McCully?

/sarcasm.

These objective and informative videos explain everything a decent, patriotic New Zealander needs to know about the backbone of our economy.

This video, on the other hand... Banned on Youtube.

on the other hand... Banned on Youtube

Pro- whalers will have a field day.

We already have the wine.

I wouldn't go that far. Still have to figure out what a New Zealand winemaker has to do not to win a silver medal or better at some sort of competition.

And cheese. Honestly I cannot get over how average-to-awful cheese is in New Zealand.

Having polished off some rather good Karikaas mature Leyden after dinner, I can't entirely agree with you.

This video, on the other hand... Banned on Youtube.

Might that not have something to do with it being absolute crap?
Just sayin'

a control freak who lacks both talent and judgement?

ahh the days of student radio and a long bitter new right ascendancy..angry Russell

it seems like the dark ages...those lights aren't getting dim are they??? we got the regular strength bulbs back right??

just as well there isn't anyone like?

The first cheese I had from France was so pungent that?

This video, on the other hand... Banned on Youtube.

Might that not have something to do with it being absolute crap?
Just sayin'

If you're going to, like, critique, maybe you could back that up just a little? Perhaps because it's a little derivative of Stuart Page's classic AFFCO effort?

> :-D <

Understood, Mark, though I found the in yer face animal abuse footage pretty artfully disturbing. I took that to be George's point – a video about the really nasty realities underlying the NZ economy.

Too frikin' right. And even with the artificial (or at least contrived) advantage of a local?

France is a wealthy country with good wages, working conditions and welfare benefits.

And cheese. Honestly I cannot get over how average-to-awful cheese is in New Zealand.

And great red wine for $5-$6 a bottle. And a load of things. France rocks quite frankly, even their hiphop isn't too bad?

Did you know for eg that there?

I was raised on Stilton, though sadly even here in the UK the real thing can be hard to find. The stuff in the supermarkets may conform to regulations to carry the label of Stilton but they are mild and bland.

There is a great scene in Lenny Henry's __Chef!__?

In the case of an over ripe Gorganzola there are OSH regulations and fencing requirements, wheels of cheese may require a certain depth of tread and I've even heard of a certain camenbert being detained for causing a public distubance.

rofflenui.

There appears to be an opportunity in the market place. Blessed be the Cheese makers

Except those guys in the Mainland adverts. They annoy me.

And cheese. Honestly I cannot get over how average-to-awful cheese is in New Zealand.
Having polished off some rather good Karikaas mature Leyden after dinner, I can't entirely agree with you.

..and having just had some Mercer medium cumin on crackers for lunch, I would argue that Europe is not?

Except those guys in the Mainland adverts. They annoy me.

They rock! They deserve knighthoods just for "Chubby Cheddar".

Or that I am an abuser of Cheese

Wholly crap! That's one I'm please to say I knew nothing about. And I aim to keep it that way.

..and having just had some Mercer medium cumin on crackers for lunch, I would argue that Europe is not necessarily the only place for all that is aromatic and tasty..

Mercer medium cumin? You and I, to Piedmont, this minute.

Kapiti...go explore!

You don't want to get me started on Kapiti cheeses. To limit myself to the cheeses they stole, the bocconcini, parmesan, mozzarella, brie and camembert (please supply double inverted commas and sarcastic tone on my behalf) are uniformly awful. I just can't find ways of excusing that cultural?

We steal everything except our own kaimoana giovanni!

And I'm fine with it. How do you think Italy got to have the fine gastronomy that it does have? But if you take a cheese with a name and a tradition and a pretty well defined set of procedures, and a?

Not that I'm bitter. But you know nonna? Parmigiano is what built her patch,

Mmmm, Last night's was divine (Italian) and a yummy Spanish Blue up at Nosh.......mmmmmmmm

Yeah, I agree with a lot of that (paticularly the taste factor) – but these are early days: once we grow confident of our developing expertise, we then cease with the stolen nomenclature

Mmmmhhh... I don't know if I can accept that. Cheese and oil and winemakers in New Zealand?

Cheese?

The 2 Kapiti cheeses I've tried & truly relished were Hipi Ma, and a rind-washed gloriously intense number (I've forgotten the name.)

Other than that, I tend to eat locally – Evansdale at Karitane; Barrys Bay over towards Akaroa; goat cheeses from Kumara Junction and Kakanui,?

Picture

I've eaten quite a bit of Stilton over the years,* but find I much prefer a milder blue vein...I have, incidentally, a stoneware jar containing a (now)40yr old?

Classic 'devils on horseback' Mark

Ah, that's what they're called. Cool. Me, I just eat 'em ;-)

Orly? My local butcher makes his own prosciutto. Mmmm...

Never mind what cheese goes with what, can anyone help me in locating the two foods I really, really miss from the UK (I went a bit native during our OE): pork & stilton sausages, and decent haggis. Both available?

decent haggis

I've only tried it locally, not in Scotland, but my experiences to date have indicated that this is an oxymoron.

Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous?