Daily review 13/12/2022

27 comments on “Daily review 13/12/2022 ”

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1. Incognito 1

   13 December 2022 at 5:34 pm

   The review found “no evidence of favouritism, bias, or undue influence over agency decisions”.

   However, Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes said that while there was no evidence of bias, the agencies’ failure to ask about perceived conflicts – and manage them – could damage public confidence.

   “Poorly managed perceived conflicts of interest can be just as damaging to public trust and confidence as poorly managed actual conflicts of interest,” he said.

   https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/130746029/two-ministries-failed-to-manage-perceived-conflicts-over-nanaia-mahutas-husbands-consulting

   Clearly, some things need to change in the Public Service sector.

   The agencies involved have taken steps to address the issues Hughes identified.

   He will now issue expanded conflicts of interest model standards to agencies, strengthen the controls around identifying and managing conflicts, and write to all chief executives outlining his expectations.

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/480643/nanaia-mahuta-contracts-probe-finds-poor-handling-of-perceived-conflicts-of-interest-but-no-favouritism
   • observer 1.1

     13 December 2022 at 6:13 pm

     Time for some apologies to Nanaia Mahuta.

     But will she get them?
     • Anne 1.1.1

       13 December 2022 at 6:32 pm

       Nope. She won't. Instead her political enemies will double down and misconstrue the findings as somehow 'inadequate' or a 'manipulation of the truth'. They may not use those exact words and will not produce any evidence to back up their claims. They never do.
     • Incognito 1.1.2

       13 December 2022 at 6:42 pm

       Time to start banning!
2. bwaghorn 2

   13 December 2022 at 5:53 pm

   https://news.sky.com/story/congolese-farmers-barred-from-own-land-for-tree-planting-project-by-french-oil-giant-total-energies-12766904

   Its Not only aotearoa that's having communities destroyed by carbon offsetting.
3. Robert Guyton 3

   13 December 2022 at 6:03 pm

   "You demonstrated a lack of professional judgement in the way you dealt with matters”, the judge told Grey. “They bear on your fitness to act as a lawyer.”"

   "Speaking outside court after the appearance, Grey said her time in the cell left her “shaken” and the cold concrete floor had seeped into her bones.

   She had no pen and paper for the three hours she spent in the cell, which was “cruel and inhumane”."

   The in-hu-manity! No pen!! No paper!! 3 hours!!!

   Cruel!

   Inhumane!!

   Seeped!!

   Sue! (we weep for you!)

   https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/130747951/sue-grey-apologises-to-judge-after-disrupting-nelson-court
   • fender 3.1

     13 December 2022 at 6:16 pm

     She's not still using pen and paper surely, hasn't she heard about the paper cuts and the nano-particles in the ink!
     • Belladonna 3.1.1

       14 December 2022 at 7:07 pm

       Papyrus and a quill, surely. Ink made from oak galls. None of this nasty modern technology….
   • Nic the NZer 3.2

     13 December 2022 at 6:46 pm

     What kind of incentives is that creating. I mean the judge imposed inhumane treatment and she didn't even take her case to the Hague, a little bit. She just turned up, shut up and let her court rep speak for her.

     You'll have future judges throwing her out of their court over all kinds of disruption this way.
4. Kat 4

   13 December 2022 at 6:21 pm

   Jacinda to small boy being a dick in parliament today: “He’s such an arrogant prick,” she said.

   https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300764061/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-calls-act-leader-david-seymour-an-arrogant-prick

   I would say Jacinda is just speaking the truth, I just wished she hadn't apologised but then that shows the caliber of the PM.
   • Charlie 4.1

     13 December 2022 at 6:28 pm

     "small boy being a dick in parliament" ha ha ha ha ha
   • observer 4.2

     13 December 2022 at 6:33 pm

     As everyone knows, John Key was such a joker, his insults were just fine, a fun lad having a laugh … but Ardern could never get away with them now.

     (Here's just one example, there are plenty more in Hansard)

     https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/50HansS_20130806_00000362/shearer-david-questions-for-oral-answer-questions-to
     • Lukas 4.2.1

       13 December 2022 at 8:11 pm

       Just so we are clear- the insult you’ve linked to is John Key calling David Shearer a “muppet”?
       • observer 4.2.1.1

         13 December 2022 at 8:19 pm

         Not Shearer. But "muppet", yes.

         Nowhere near Key's worst though. Ever heard Ardern shout at the opposition "you back the rapists"? No. A PM wouldn't do that … but he did.

         https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/51HansD_20151111/volume-710-week-33-wednesday-11-november-2015
         • Kat 4.2.1.1.1

           13 December 2022 at 9:50 pm

           Akshshully… it was the current minister of finance and deputy PM that was being referred to as a 'muppet'….
   • Herodotus 4.3

     13 December 2022 at 8:18 pm

     Pity she is unable to see the number of examples that are in her caucus. Then again there are many within labour that are willing to excuse arrogance when they wear red.
     pity our PM was unable to answer the question truthfully (yet again) had to deflect !!!
     Still unable to admit any fault in her actions
     • Patricia 4.3.1

       13 December 2022 at 9:12 pm

       Oh get a life. You could not do one tenth of that job, and she has to be polite and kind while vile bullies send death threats and other rubbish. She is strong and intelligent, but is very tired of non productive prats like Seeless. He is for the top 5% not for ordinary kiwis.
     • Kat 4.3.2

       13 December 2022 at 9:40 pm

       What part of the question wasn't answered 'truthfully'….I would deduce you either didn't watch the parliamentary exchange or are just completely ignorant.
   • Patricia Bremner 4.4

     13 December 2022 at 8:49 pm

     oh yes.
   • Jimmy 4.5

     14 December 2022 at 11:30 am

     Imagine if Seymour had called Jacinda a "stupid little girl".

     Anyhow, I thought Seymour was supposed to be a "useless Maori"?
5. joe90 5

   13 December 2022 at 6:28 pm

   A reminder for tankie-splainers about about why Eastern Europe and Baltic states are so resolute in their determination to avoid a re-run of Russian dominance and it's inherent cruelty.

   I became briefly obsessed with the concept of collective trauma, and the idea that we have inherited the pain inflicted on our grandparents by Russia and its people. I came across an article by the contemporary Lithuanian writer Vaiva Rykstaite, who spoke of the “pain of blood” she felt. It made so much sense to me: It felt like your entire being is in pain. It feels like sadness and empathy for Ukrainians, anger, hatred, helplessness, a sense of injustice and hopelessness mixed into one, consuming you. I cannot explain it.

   Lithuania was forcefully incorporated into the Soviet Union in July 1940, when the Red Army was on its soil, following secret agreements between the USSR and Germany that divided Europe. Death, rape, arrests and mass deportations followed. It is estimated that from 1940 to 1990, about 1 million people, or around a third of Lithuania’s population, were deported, imprisoned, killed or forced to emigrate. More than 20,000 Lithuanian fighters and their supporters were killed in an armed resistance that continued long after the war.

   It has been eerie and depressing to watch Russia commit the same repertoire of atrocities in Ukraine. The deportations of Ukrainians to Russia make me think of the cattle trains that took an estimated quarter of a million Lithuanians in the 1940s to the frozen wastelands and gulags in Siberia. Tens of thousands perished along the way.

   https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/what-ukraine-means-for-lithuanians-haunted-by-soviet-past/
   • RedLogix 5.1

     13 December 2022 at 7:35 pm

     In 2001 on a trip back from Ekaterinburg to Moscow I made a point of stopping for a day at Perm, and organised a visit to Perm-36. While working in the months prior I had expressed an interest in the history of the gulags and through personal contacts a private visit was organised for me. It was one of the very few relatively intact gulags remaining, and at some stage a local organisation called Memorial turned it into just that – a memorial to the millions who died or suffered horribly in that ghastly system.

     Later on in 2017 another work trip took me to Far East Siberia (a large gold operation). To get there involved a flight from Seoul to Magadan and then a trip along the Kolyma Highway, otherwise known as the Road of Bones . No-one recorded the exact numbers, but literally hundreds of thousands died during that period. And while there is less physical evidence of that monumental cruelty still remaining, if you know the history, the bus trip can only be described as haunting. A beautiful landscape, with a stark and cruel legacy palpably hanging over it.

     Over the years here I have made an brief reference here at TS to these experiences. It is possible to quibble the exact numbers, or the nuances of the moral equivalence to the Holocaust – but as far as I am concerned that once you have murdered more than a million or so people, you have made your point.

     But the crucial difference between Nazism and Stalinism is this; that one is recognised as an undiluted evil, fully repudiated by all sane people, and expunged to the strongest extent possible in the land of it's source. By contrast the Stalinist horror remains ambivalent history – and one that Russia has never confronted and reconciled. And under Putin, Stalin's legacy is being carefully curated and rehabilitated.

     In searching for the links above I found this news item from 2015:

     Russia’s only Gulag memorial is redesigned to celebrate the Gulag

     Source: Grani.ru

     Perm-36, Russia’s only Gulag memorial, has announced its first exhibit since the state seized it from a local nonprofit. What was a museum of Soviet political repression will now showcase the technical means used to keep prisoners detained, focusing more on the guards than the inmates.

     Viktor Shmyrov, the director of the nonprofit that until recently managed Perm-36, told the BBC that the museum is being maintained, but its public presentation is getting a complete overhaul. “Now it’s a museum about the camp system, but not about political prisoners. There’s nothing said about the repressions or about Stalin,” Shmyrov said.
     • joe90 5.1.1

       13 December 2022 at 8:34 pm

       A throw of the dart at lists-memo-ru. One of 172,000 Koreans.

       Na Yun-ho Born in 1891, Korea; Korean; brick factory worker. Lived in: Komi Republic, Syktyvkar. Arrested 21 March 1938 Sentenced: troika at the UNKVD of the Komi ASSR on October 30, 1938, under Art. 58-6 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Sentence: 10 years in prison Source: Book of Memory of the Komi Republic

       https://lists-memo-ru.translate.goog/index14.htm?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

       https://www.dw.com/en/russia-orders-closure-of-human-rights-group-memorial/a-60273615
       • RedLogix 5.1.1.1

         13 December 2022 at 9:08 pm

         Due to the passing of time and the fact of my Russian being rudimentary at best, I cannot recall if the person I met at Perm-36 was a member of Memorial or not. She spoke good enough English for us to converse, and we spent maybe an hour walking about the site. It is not very large – only the one large building remained.

         I was very grateful for the time and effort she made to take me there – everything in Russia was just that much more fraught than you might expect. Even simple tasks can have unforeseen, unexpected complications if you don't have someone to help you.

         She did not lecture me, or go into polemic detail – mostly she let the place speak for itself.
6. Incognito 6

   13 December 2022 at 9:05 pm

   FFS!

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/480652/reported-covid-19-cases-top-8000-today-for-first-time-in-country-s-third-wave
7. observer 7

   13 December 2022 at 9:39 pm

   So to sum up the commenting classes:

   2017-2022: "Labour under Ardern lose touch with earthy, blokey, red-blooded, blue-collar, plain-speaking salt-of-the-earth Kiwis …"

   Today: "She said 'prick'! Shocked, we are! What a potty mouth! Cover your ears at smoko … "
   • weston 7.1

     14 December 2022 at 12:08 am

     The language is changing i guess i seem to recall a certain amount of shock expressed when John Key was called a rich prick by Clarks finance minister a man not short of words i imagine .Perhaps prick is going the way of cunt etc as the working class slowly dies out .People seem to have forgotten already Tim Shadbolt and Bullshit an Jellybeans of the seventies prefering instead to say the americanism BS .As a kid i remember the word bugger was considered quite rude certainly not for childrens vocabluary because the adults at least all knew what it meant !!not sure if thats the case today or if todays puritans even know where theyve come from ?Smoko used to be a word that resounded but not any more i know of only one 'smoko 'shed in the country where the workers are still allowed to smoke !!

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