Hard News: Not Helping
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Every week the shallowness seems to plumb new depths...
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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?
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I've long thought of McCully as part mischievous child and part Francis Urquhart. He's the kid who can't leave well enough alone, interfering in things because he can, because he's bored, or simply because he wants to see what would happen. It always ends in tears and with broken toys. And then there's the nasty Machiavellian part, which the media portrays with equal wonderment and revulsion as him being the ultimate back room dealer (always on the right side of a coup) and the consumate political power broker. Either make him totally unfit to govern. Combine the two and it's a disaster.
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Has anyone seen my kitten?
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Excellent analysis, Tom.
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 on Herceptin? But we had a mandate! The people spoke!
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Either make him totally unfit to govern.
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
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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 Drugs.' The outgoing drugs Czar gives advice to his successor on the nature of crisis management: the disgraced leader writes two letters to his successor to be opened on his first and second major crises. The first letter says, blame everything on your predecessor. The second says, write two letters...
At the moment the government has the recession as a clear common enemy and Key can spin sunrises as part of his stimulus package, but I expect the first two years of this administration to move from Key's emotional neediness to English looking stern, and then in two years, they'll open the first envelope and repeat its contents at every opportunity. The second will be ignored.
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Has anyone seen my kitten?
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@ Tom - you answer "whatever happened to the opposition" as though Labour is the only opposition party. Unfortunately it seems as though 2/- media disinterest - applies to the Green Party too.
It beggars belief that this government is not coordinating a serious response to environmental issues with whatever it might be thinking about the economic crisis. Instead it is working on irrational projects like gutting the Ministry for the Environment, and increasing natural gas exploitation at a time when overseas the headlines warn of impending environmental disaster.
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And somebody was made enough to make NZAID a new website
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that would be "mad enough". Though "made mad enough" is also fine.
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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 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.
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applies to the Green Party too.
They try all the time. Just ,don't get much.
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And somebody was made enough to make NZAID a new website
Ha ha.
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And somebody was made enough to make NZAID a new website
I read that as Paid enough. Guess that works too, eh?
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McCully is a poor choice for any portfolio. I guess National's problem is that they have so many lightweights and no-hopers in their ranks that they have to put duds in some jobs.
Tony Ryall, Judith Collins, Gerry Brownlee, Lockwood Smith and Murray McCully are the short-hand version of a longer list of people who collectively are all excellent reasons why any sane person would not vote for National.....whatever their ideology might be.
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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 this Samoa deal was being done as a result of meddling by MFAT/McCully whoever?
The Niue deal was done years ago by NZAid on its own,and no one seemed to kick up a huge stink when that part of our aid budget was reappropriated, but now it is a problem ?
Additionally the Cooks Government have a similar scheme where they underwrite an Air NZ service from the US to Rarotonga, ($1.5 million US last year alone)
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@Steve:
you forgot mr Williamson, and... (oh, never mind) -
What Tom said.
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 Labour leader? Or is the plan to shadow national policy, wait 9 years and hope the electorate will decide it's "time for a change"?
The media are not interested in what Labour has to say
That's at least partly because they're in the pocket of the National Party. The left needs a strategy that sets an agenda, rather than letting the media do it. Direct action protests would seem to be a start - if we dump a tonne of recycling in John Key's garden, maybe it'll get on the news and put National's scrapping of recycle bins (for instance) on the agenda?
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I was just doing a little research when I came upon this headline in Islands Business
Samoa: FISHING, TELECOM LOOKING GOOD
But manufacturing flounders
manufacturing flounders, how do you do that?
Anyhow, what I found was this;But the government's tourism-centric policies have begun paying dividends. At S$196 million, it is the country's second largest revenue earner, only slightly behind overseas remittances which stood at S$206 million at the end of 2004.
which raises the question, are we subsidising tourism through Air NZ or the fishing industry? or just Air NZ itself.
When you consider this.Polynesian Airline flights from American Samoa to Apia during the Christmas holidays are already fully booked.
Ref
Something stinks and I don't think it is manufactured flounder. -
manufacturing flounders, how do you do that?
Put a cod through a mangle.
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It beggars belief that this government is not coordinating a serious response to environmental issues with whatever it might be thinking about the economic crisis. Instead it is working on irrational projects like gutting the Ministry for the Environment, and increasing natural gas exploitation at a time when overseas the headlines warn of impending environmental disaster.
The Government does many things, but beggaring belief is not among them. All this was predictable. What matters is presentation, not substance. The Government has more important concerns than impending environmental disaster, matters such as knighthoods. Of course, it is aware that it must be seen to be doing things, such as cracking down on the nation's imaginary crimewave and undoing every piece of legislation enacted by the previous Government. But dealing with a real issue like the environment, even if the Government accepted it as real, would be perilous, since it might result in bad press.
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*warning: threadjack*
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]
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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, would be perilous, since it might result in bad press.
Like for instance, if President Obama & Ron Kirk agree to an FTA with NZ, on the condition that NZ sings up to an ETS. Would the usual USNZFTA advocates still be enthusiastic as they were before? And what if the ELF was to set up shop in NZ and monkeywrench Marsden B?
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Steve: the Samoa subsidy is from this year 2009
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 Samoa assess what their next move is
http://www.samoaobserver.ws/index.php?id=4123&option=com_content&Itemid=62
The agreement was the result of a request by Samoa to New Zealand for assistance, the Prime Minister said.
The agreement signed this week would give one further year of life to Air New Zealand’s LA/Apia/Tonga/Auckland weekly flight.
This link to the United States is “very important” to the tourism industries of Samoa and Tonga, Prime Minister Tuilaepa said.Late last year, Air New Zealand asked both countries to provide a subsidy of $NZ4.8 million (T$9m) each to keep the service going.
Both countries objected.Tuilaepa said the year ahead would be used to assess all aspects of the route including determining whether or not Air New Zealand was truly making a loss.
It also gives Samoa time to consider what the “fall back options” might be, he said.
“If the flight is a loss, then it shouldn’t be continued,” Tuilaepa said.
“As is known other possibilities are being discussed.
“Like diverting the Air Pacific flight to Samoa and then head to America.
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