Posts by Alfie
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It's official... 3News will be killed off at the end of this month to be replaced by Newshub Live with a RadioLIVE connection. Mike and Hillary remain as anchors.
And Carolyn Robinson joins the queue of TV3 staff jumping ship, ostensibly to 'spend more time with her family'.
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Herald Bingo
Katie Ruscoe via The Standard -
Body cartoon -- the Herald.
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When this story originally broke I thought, 'Somebody is out to discredit the anti-1080 brigade.' It was something the SIS might have dreamed up... send one little envelope containing white powder and everyone involved with the anti-1080 campaign is immediately discredited as a terrorist. Effective. And evil.
We now know that the blackmail had a purely financial motive. But if the police took this line with the Kleines, how many other people received similar treatment? As the Kleines appear to be gentle pacifists, I'd imagine almost every known anti-1080 activist in the country was subject to similar secretive searches. And if that is the case, then a number of 'postponement notices' will be due to expire shortly and we may hear further shocking tales like this one.
NZ used to be a perfectly good, honest little country. But at some point our police and security services became empowered to adopt these Stasi-like tactics.
Perhaps excessive paranoia is a compulsory condition of five eyes membership. The secret search of the Kleines, the massive overkill demonstrated in the raid on Kim Dotcom and the dirty tactics employed for the illegal search of Nicky Hager's home suggest this is increasingly the case.
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The Hendo, Buxton, Hide, Drury, Xero circus continues its drawn-out performance in the ChCh High Court. Hendo is charged with running a business while bankrupt. Matt Nippert gets to grips with the ongoing saga.
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Just a reminder folks... Checkpoint with John Campbell begins next Monday -- 5-6.30pm on NatRadio. I'm expecting the first show to tackle some serious issues and hopefully set an agenda other media will be forced to follow.
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David Farrier joins the list of high-profile staff departing TV3. Or as Stuff so eloquently puts it, “David Farrier is leaving leaving TV3.”
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The TPP agreement is due to be signed in little ol’ New Zealand on 4th February. Jane Kelsey condemns government secrecy over when and where this will happen and points to a number of investor-state claims taking place under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Brian Gould writes the TPP signing a denial of democracy and even Liam Messam gets to say "this TPPA is some BS".
In contrast, the Herald seems to have adopted the role of National Party cheerleader in an editorial proclaiming "TPP signing an honour" which neglects to mention the numerous downsides to the agreement.
This is the most comprehensive and far-sighted economic agreement the world has seen in our lifetime, possibly of all time.
FFS! As soon as it become obvious that all of the reader responses were highly critical of the Herald’s stance, they simply closed off the comments. Democracy? Such an outdated concept.
While this piece reads like something dreamed up by a National Party spin doctor, there’s no indication that the Herald is being paid to run this line, as they did recently with the flag debate.
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Hard News: Kia kaha, Helen Kelly, in reply to mpledger,
Even Medsafe seem to have the wrong end of the stick.
Sativex is considered to be a desirable and divertible pharmaceutical due to the inherent nature of its active substances.
Hmmm. $1,000 for a small bottle that's half (non-psychoactive) CDB when you can buy three or four ounces of easily available weed for the same price? I can't see too many drug fiends chasing up Sativex on the black market.
In fact, has there ever been a single reported case of Sativex being misused in NZ? This attitude suggests civil service paranoia rather than the result of any genuine scientific analysis. Maybe the Ministry is staffed with Bob McCoskrie clones.
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Hard News: Kia kaha, Helen Kelly, in reply to Russell Brown,
Do you know if the Medicines Act would have to be amended to get rid of ludicrous provisions like that – or is it just a matter of changing the regulation?
I don't know personally, but according to Helen's TS post, there are eight criteria to be met when applying for a non-pharmaceutical grade product. While most of them are near-impossible to meet, especially for a sick or dying person, I'd say item 4 (hospitalisation) could be dropped overnight if the political will existed.
