Posts by Mikaere Curtis
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Nine To Noon's discussion this morning was very interesting. The guy who works with violent men (can't recall his name) pointed out that one of the big issues in domestic violence is men attempting to conceal it, and thereby minimise his responsibility.
Veitch did exactly that, when he really should have publicly taken responsibility. Perhaps there would have been a glimmer of hope of him maintaining his career. Not now, he's made too many bad choices.
This is the option that Veitch, a sports journalist, has taken: the sportsman's path to redemption; the media conference confessional.
It's an exercise in weaseling, as far as I'm concerned. He offered "no excuses", except the ones he goes on to state. FFS, I don't care how stress out you are, violence is a choice not a symptom.
For better or worse, this sorry affair is going to be an example to violent men everywhere. I hope Veitch's employers considered this when deciding what action they are going to take.
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Well, I'm sure there's any number of explanations.... but the one that keeps jumping to mind is that they are discussing publicly actual policies that were supposed to be secret because the leaders know they wont be that popular with the voters?
I think it's possible that some of their policies are sensitive (i.e. unpalatable) so they are keeping them secret until the noise of the election campaign is loud enough to drown them out, but it strikes me that there could be another explanation: that they actually don't have many policies due to internal disagreement.
Remember, English and Key were leaders of the two strongest factions in National hence the deal struck whereby English became 2IC. It is also possible that these two factions are actually in strong disagreement on key policies and this has resulted in a policy vacuum.
I think I prefer this theory, if only because it leaves room for National to come up with policy that I'll personally find more acceptable. Who knows, maybe if they can't agree then they'll default to the status quo...
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Consuming less is the ultimate green move, but you can't sell that.
Exactly. It's related to our fixation on continuous economic growth in a world of finite resources. I'd like to see a new indicator that instead of measuring Gross Domestic Product, meaures Gross Domestic Efficiency: how much we need to consume to get a specific outcome. A lower GDE would be a better GDE. Obviously we'd never get anywhere near zero (nor would it be a goal), but I think it would be useful.
For example, it may turn out that returning to glass milk bottles is more efficient (haven't seen the numbers, so can't say for certain).
BUT, we would actually need to take stock of the full cost of an economic activity. I wonder how much a litre of milk would cost if we costed in the downstream effect of polluted waterways, such as the effect on our endangered eel species ?
I'm pretty leery of Green Consumerism because I don't think the thinking behind it is looking at the big picture, only the small picture (profits !).
2/ If either of the above is correct, is it actually more sustainable in a total carbon lifecycle/footprint way to just burn the bottles on your own fire and save the fossil fuels used to transport and compact/burn them, and economise on wood?
I don't know what happens to plastic milk bottles, but wouldn't burning them release noxious chemicals into the atmosphere ?
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Great show Russell. It seems to me that Greg O'Connor is much more reasonable when engaging with people who have actually done the research, and can call him on his more dubious claims. That didn't stop him retreating into his hackneyed "this is what we see from the frontline policing", though.
Favourite part:
Brown: What would you like to see the media do over this, is there something they could do better ?
O'Connor: Aw, just be better informed...
Brown: You guys have to stop giving them bum tips !
Pwnd.
Ross and Nandor were measured and displayed high degrees of knowledge, a rarity in the context of media reporting of drug-related stories.
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Yeah, I saw the cocaine use and thought "What?!?! I don't think so..." but never let the facts get in the way of a good headline.
Then again, I wonder if they considered that fact that an OE is commonplace, and that cocaine is readily available in the primary OE destination - London. So the 4% is not so much a measure of NZ, but more a measure of the narcotic lollyshop that is London.
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But wait a mo', Mikaere why would Darth Key want all those left-wing "Maaris" in general seats where they could make things very tricky indeed?
Isn't it called divide and rule? Each Maori seat would be subsumed by ~9 general seats, and, thanks to the awesomeness of FPP, there would be no automatic effect, except in the most marginal of seats.
The funny thing is, I seem to have more faith in the viability of the Maori Party without the crutch of the Maori seats than you do.
Translation: Trust us, this won't hurt a bit...
How can anyone have any insight into National's policy on any issue of significance? Their approach seems to be to avoid taking a position lest it alienate voters.
Gordon Campbell has a pretty good go over at scoop.
Highlight: National seem very keen on Public Private Partnerships, not only in roads but health and education too. The problem is that they can be used to transfer risk to the public aspect, and profits to the private aspect. Pesky things like the actual details can be concealed behind a wall of "business confidential". George Monbiot has some good articles on the British experience.
Don't know about you, George, but I have a horrible feeling there's going to be a lot of "unsafe ground" whoever wins the next election.
The problem is that National aren't telling us what the deal will be, whereas we actually have Labour's record (in addition to things like Budget documents) to give us a steer. Makes me wonder if National are hiding some pretty unplaletable policy.
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No matter how cute Mikaere tries to be, I find it very very difficult to believe he doesn't know exactly what kind of connotations casually throwing around words like "disenfranchisement" are meant to leave.
Dog whistling was not my intent. You can see how removing the Maori seats also removes the Maori Party from parliament? I feel privileged to be represented by an MP with the mana and capability of Pita Sharples and National seek to take that away. I do not feel that "disenfranchisement" is too strong a word to express my feelings about this, but I suppose that is a matter of opinion.
Between now and the election campaign I'm sure I can come up with alternative terms to describe this ill-conceived policy with Craig-approved connotativeness ;-)
Given the historic patterns of MMP representation in NZ, miraculously abolishing the Maori seats, is pretty unlikely, and almost sounds like scare-mongering.
I freely admit that I was mistaken in believing that removing the Maori seats was going to be a priority for National should they become government. Given recent polls which have indicated that National could govern alone, I considered it a real prospect that they would have the numbers to do this. From my perspective they had both the motivation (eliminating 7 seats that they had given up the ghost on) and, crucially, the potential numbers in parliament to push this through three readings. Then again, one person's eye-opener is another's scaremongering.
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And the fact that you'll get a great deal of debate from people as to whether a law only affects one group of people, or whether other people are affected as well.
If the Scots decide they want to break away from the Union, is that a decision for them, or for all subjects of the UK? It most seriously impacts upon residents of Scotland, but it will have impacts for the rest as well.
ITA, discussion is the way forward and IMHO is what sets us apart from more troubled countries.
I guess this is what it all boils down to: National have indicated that their collective minds are made up and, come 2014 (and assuming they have the numbers), they'll delete the Maori seats. No parley. Craig seems fine with that, I'm not.
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I want to see an inclusive, tolerant society, where every New Zealander is equal before the law.
with its smarmy little implication that Maori have more political rights at the moment than anyone else.
Agreed. And my next thought is "isn't this a charter for having a flat tax regime ?"
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Kyle, you're missing the point. You've chosen examples that have multiple groups of stakeholders and then assumed only one group should have a veto. You've got to talk to all the groups and weigh up how much they are being affected. For example, "dead beat dads" opinions are weighed against the opinions of their children and former partners.
Not so with gay sexuality, it's nobody else's business. Why should homophobes have a say ?
Abolishing Maori seats without obtaining buy-in from those who choose to be on the roll is equivalent.