Yeah, it seems that most people just don’t want to face the fact that neoliberalism whether it is a brutal hard version delivered by Trump, a softer (seemingly ) version offered by Obama, or our own “pragmatic” version offered by Ardern is by it’s very nature diametrically opposed to assisting the world to battle climate change, thereby by extension at it’s ideological heart, opposed to human wellbeing.
But a lot more killing of civilians in Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia. Trump is infinitely cruder and more personally disgusting, but he still lags behind when it comes to the body count.
They are still dying. But then i guess when you only read the news that comforts your world view i can see how some small things such as facts can be overlooked.
btw, i used really simple search terms, such as Trump Iraq etc
Everything you say is correct, Sabine. I share your feelings about Trump. He’s even worse than Obama.
But let’s face it: nearly all the terrible things Trump is doing are continuing on the evil work of the previous Democratic administration. Obama’s lawlessness and contempt for democratic institutions—like the right to work as a journalist, and political asylum, and habeas corpus—paved the way for the horror of this utterly lawless and barbaric regime.
In his first two years in office, Donald Trump launched 238 drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia—way beyond what the ‘Drone President’ Barack Obama did.
But several former U.S. counterterrorism officials and practitioners point to Trump relaxing the standards Obama put in place to authorize a lethal attack in Somalia and likely elsewhere as the wellspring of an explanation.
“The burden of proof on the target was changed to a lesser burden of proof, and so that automatically opens up the aperture when you’re looking at intelligence and you have a probability factor, or a reasonable one, that your target is there,” explained retired Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, who commanded U.S. special operations forces in Africa from April 2015 to June 2017.
Under the Trump administration, the Air Force is spending more on the Hellfire missiles used by armed drones. Hellfire spending in the latter years of Obama administration briefly spiked as the Defense Department stocked up on ammunition to counter the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. But even as the wars in Iraq and Syria wind down, the Trump administration has sought to purchase more drone missiles. Air Force budget documents show a 63 percent increase in Hellfire purchases in Trump’s 2017 budget and an another 20 percent increase in the most recent budget request.
The 542 drone strikes that Obama authorized killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians. As he reportedly told senior aides in 2011: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”
Source: Council on Foreign Relations, January 20, 2017
“542 strikes in 8 years vs 238 in 2 years.
Obama did 68 a year, Trump is on 119 a year”
Man that is one sick argument, how about we just call both of them international terrorists and leave it that?
That’s the reality, Adrian. These Clinton-lite “liberals” also have to come to terms with the fact that it was Obama, not Trump, that started this massive program of separating undocumented parents from their children and incarcerating them. All of it illegal, and condemned under international law.
Trump is certainly more uncouth and personally disgusting. He lacks Obama’s superficial style.
For anyone that’s interested in reality and not just using any topic as an entry to smearing Obama and other Democrats, I suggest doing a search using terms such as family separation policy Obama or similar. Or if you prefer someone else’s preselected links, here’s a couple of fact-checks.
Speakiing truthfully about Obama’s criminal regime is not “smearing” him, it’s speaking truthfully.
Do you deny that Obama’s regime forcibly separated thousands of families?
And you can forget about the Democrats doing anything useful to protect families from further predation. They’re already backing off their promises:
Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus held their first news conference since the midterm elections on Monday, with the caucus expected to grow to nearly 100 members when the new Congress is seated in January. Democrats took a cooler tone when asked about plans to abolish ICE—an idea many progressive congressmembers pushed earlier in the year, at the height of public outcry over the Trump administration’s family separation policy. Caucus co-chair Mark Pocan, who introduced a bill over the summer to do away with the agency, said that abolishing ICE was still on the agenda but that higher priorities for the caucus were healthcare, jobs and “dealing with the culture of corruption.”
You got backup for your statement that “Obama’s regime forcibly separated thousands of families” ?
Coz from the Vox link above:
” We don’t know how many families were separated under the Obama administration, but there’s no reason to believe that it numbered in the thousands even over the eight years that Obama was president. Because it simply wasn’t standard practice. Under Trump, it was.
Both presidents housed “unaccompanied” minors in temporary facilities — but under Obama, they’d pretty much all arrived in the US unaccompanied
The 2014 border “surge” was driven partly by an increase in families attempting to cross into the US from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. But it was primarily driven by an increase in “unaccompanied alien children” — people under 18, coming to the US without parents or guardians — from those same countries. “
Take it up with “body count” mozzarella and his subjective math.
But then if you think the taxonomy of armed conflict begins and ends with “terrorism”, then you are linguistically capable only of considering Obama and Trump (and every other political and military leader in the history of humanity) to be equivalently bad. Newspeak in action: remove the vocabulary, and you remove the ability to express an abstraction.
@Sabine, That’s true, but as it turns out, Hillary doesn’t seem to mind a little abuse of the power dynamic when it comes to the pursuit of pussy either……”Mrs Clinton also told CBS that she believes it was right that her husband, who was 49 at the time, did not resign from office, and that Ms Lewinsky “was an adult”, and was not “an abuse of power” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45865402
Not to mention the very disturbing fact that Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s private plane, dubbed “The Lolita Express” 26 times, but that’s another story.
Mrs. Lewinsky was an adult at 22, and she knew what she was doing. At 22 years of age, she had her own agenda. At some stage women are adults.
Mrs. Clinton is wrong, it was abuse of power, and plenty people told her so after that very dumb statement. And a young women knowing what she was doing, and an old white men abusing his power can both happen at the same time.
And if you really want to bring in Epstein, you might want to bring in Trump, his lawyer Dershowitz and the current Trump secretary of Labour a Mr. Acosta who got Epstein the sweetest plea agreement ever.
So what was the point of your comment ? that Donald Trump bragged about going after a married women like she was a bitch, and that if you are famous enough you get to grab pussy and the pussy will just have to live with that? So cause Clinton got a blowjob Donald Trump is within his rights to grab pussy?
Sure thing. Sure thing.
I’ve been asking people if they share my fear, sadness and anger concerning climate change and our useless leadership – yes, almost all are suffering unless brainwashed by deniers. Parents can be in a particularly bad space.
That means that climate change is embedded deep in the psyche. Talk to people, be calm and kind and see if they share your concerns. We’ve been all alone with ourselves trying to deal with the biggest threat of our lives. Connect and communicate.
That’s good contextualising by David Cormack, co-founder of communications and PR firm, Draper Cormack Group. He shows how democracy works:
“The 2016 Paris Agreement committed most of the world’s countries to enacting policies that would reduce emissions and keep the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees – 2.oc above the pre-industrial revolution temperature. Two years later and C02 emissions are increasing for the first time since 2014. Nailed it guys.”
Can’t solve the problem without correct diagnosis, and voters & protestors not only avoid the need for problem-solving, they even avoid diagnosis of the problem. Here’s his view of how to relate cause & effect: “Those 100 fossil fuel companies that are responsible for nearly three quarters of all harmful emissions became aware of the risks of human induced climate change all the way back in the 1950s. They chose to do nothing. Actually that’s not true, they did do something. They organised strategic disinformation campaigns that delayed any effective policy response or decarbonisation for at least three decades.”
“And not only that, but fossil fuels enjoy some serious subsidies. An IMF paper in 2015 estimated that these subsidies amounted to US$4.9 trillion – just a casual 6.5 per cent of global GDP.” Need I point out that these subsidies have been institutionalised by governments of the left & right for a very long time? Yes, because some contributors here still believe the left are the good guys.
“On the flipside, 3.5 billion people worldwide have contributed just 10% of the emissions due to individual consumption. That’s nearly half the world’s population responsible for a tenth of the problem.” So the solution to most of the problem is to eliminate those subsidies, right? Well, it’s an obvious first step to take, at least.
However it can’t happen due to insufficient leverage from democracy. The elites are insulated from accountability. Just look at the G20 agenda: “G20 Argentina has put forth three agenda priorities for the G20 dialogue in 2018: the future of work, infrastructure for development and a sustainable food future.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_G20_Buenos_Aires_summit
“A number of attending countries have said they focus on the regulation of crypto-currencies at this meeting. Talks between the U.S. and China related to resolving the escalating 2018 China–United States trade war were a central issue of the summit.” The elites deemed climate change too insignificant to put on their agenda.
“Organizing For Bernie is led by a cross-section of senior campaigners from Sanders’ 2016 run… The news comes on the heels of a three-day retreat for progressive leaders called “The Gathering” at the Sanders Institute in Burlington, Vermont. Hosted by Jane Sanders and attended by the likes of Dr. Cornel West, Nina Turner and Bernie Sanders himself, “The Gathering” felt a lot like a kitchen-cabinet strategy session, both for the progressive movement generally, and for a potential Sanders run.”
“Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ 2016 campaign manager, was a notable conference attendee.” “I’ve been contacted by a number of people who are wondering, how do we demonstrate to Bernie that he’s got the support of people across the country?” Weaver said. “Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, raised the stakes considerably. “Let me convey a message from all of us in Europe,” Varoufakis said to Sanders during a panel discussion. “For all those comrades of yours who are now struggling to reclaim our cities, our world … our environment: we need Bernie Sanders to run for president.”” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/03/bernie-sanders-2020-president-senator-mulls-second-white-house-run
“The Democratic field promises to be wide and unsettled, like the Republican primary in 2016. As many as three dozen figures have expressed an interest in running, among them former vice-president Joe Biden, businessman Michael Bloomberg and congressman Beto O’Rourke.”
“Sanders has acknowledged that should he run he could face a number of “good candidates” including “friends, people I have known for a long time”. Among them are several Senate colleagues who could run under the progressive banner: Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the last one of the few members of Congress who endorsed Sanders in 2016.”
““This will be a battle royale,” Cenk Uygur, the founder of the Young Turks news network, said between panels on Friday. “I am asking progressives: whatever you do, do not do a circular firing squad.” He said the number of prospective progressives in the race was a testament to their ascendancy within the party – but he still believed Sanders is the best, most effective messenger for the cause.”
yeah, sure replace one really old white man with another really old white man.
Sure thing.
Sure thing indeed.
Maybe he could run as an independent, at least that way he could potentially peel of all the white working male that continue to vote republican, irrespective of anything. I personally believe that would be the only way for Sanders to win. Will he do it? I doubt. But he should.
Dear, you should know by now that my Vagina rules my life. Literally. It cost me education my brothers got and i did not cause girls marry. It caused me to get raped. It caused me to get paid less then my male counterparts literally all my life. It will cause me less money in retirement. It will cause me less savings. And all the other things that people who are afflicted with the ‘Vagina Syndrome’ suffer from, especially poverty in age. So what was your point about gender again? If ever you had one?
In saying that, what about my comment did you not like? Unless you are just here for cheap shots, shits n giggles?
That i linked to the stats of whom voted for whom in the last election – mid terms, and that yes, white male voted in larger numbers for Republicans then Democrats? Or was it the fact that I believe Sanders would have a better chance of winning white male voters if he were to run as an independent rather then again trying to run as a Dem – a party that he does not belong to. He may caucuses with them, but he does not belong to the Democratic Party.
So considering that the Democratic party does not look like a white old male, why should the Democratic party nominate a white old male who does not belong or does not want to belong to the Democratic party?
And considering that small donors can get up to a lot of cash very quickly, he then could really boast about a peoples campaign. So essentially he does not even have the lack of cash excuse. Again, I personally believe he would win, were he to run as an independent. But i am not sure he actually has the guts to do so.
+100 Sabine
The Dems don’t need to split their vote like they did last time. There are enough progressives in the Dems – despite what commenters on here say. The recent mid-terms showed that dramatically with the Dems winning 38 – 40 seats in the House and a handsome majority of around 33 and a huge increase in younger and women reps. Indeed way more than they had hoped for! The days of the old white male are numbered – thank god. And as an old white male I’m allowed to say that 😉
Cripes Sabine lay off. Progressives don’t need you dripping ennui and spit on everything that is suggested, like old white men again etc’. If men are the problem, let them work hard at being part of the solution. Keep on their tails to see they are performing politically and practically by all means but don’t garotte them before they can start.
It is my opinion that democratic party does not need an old white man to run for President, So no to Joe Biden. It is my opinion that Bernie Sanders – Independent – should not try again and run on a Party Ticket of whom he is not a member of.
You also have not read the part where i actually give Bernie Sanders good chances of actually winning, where he to run as an Independent – beholden to no party – and did most if not all of his fundraising via small donors. I honestly believe he would have a good chance with the white male of both parties D and R, and could potentially pull of a win.
As for your comment of of ‘men being the problem’ that is not at all what i have said, but feel free to point out what i have said that made you think it. Or maybe it is you who unconscious lets your bias believe stuff no one said.
I simply pointed out that the demography that votes for the Democrats, that fundraisers for the Democrats, that does the grass root work for the democrats are women, and people of color. I even attached the statistics of the last elections to show this phenomena in more detail. So if we are to go by that, the D should not nominate another old white man. Cause as far as i have looked the US were run since ever by old white man, with two exceptions, a young white man Kennedy and a young black man Obama. And look as to where it got them.
So maybe you just need to take account of your own feelings first before you put words in my mouth that i never uttered.
Totes agree, the US needs someone other than an old white male as president. Even if only for the general principle that someone making decisions should be someone likely to live quite a long time with the outcomes. But there’s also practical matter that younger presidents have generally done a better job than older presidents. Biden and Sanders are both old enough that there’s a serious question mark as to whether they would maintain their current good health and vigour through a 4 year term. Actuarial information says the odds aren’t good.
Teddy Roosevelt never came into my mind, neither did Clinton, go figure 🙂 .
But the comment really was to the fact that we often elect people who are too old imho as they will not have to live with the results of their governance.
To me it shows a lack of courage to nominated the same people over and over again, a certain reluctance to admit that the world is changing.
So we rehash the same shit over and over again.
I currently see Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris as good contenders. Sherrod Brown in particular is good on workers rights, ‘is white’male’flyover country boy’ without any odd baggage that could be held against him.
Warren will never live down the Pocahontasa slur. But then she is excellent in the Senate.
there are other option in the Democratic party that are equally as good as the Senator from Vermont. (who should run as an Independent and give both some hard times to the R’s and D’s).
There are times I suspect you of James style trolling, but I’ll take the bait anyway…that’s 3 of the most underwhelming candidates ever.
Kamala seems your best bet when fighting the ‘old white male’ candidates that so irk you , but if you actually look at her public stands vs her voting you might want to think twice about that. She might as well be an old white male. Though she’s no Bernie Old White Male…
The problem with Sanders running as an independent is he’s only likely to be a spoiler attracting votes from the left side of the spectrum, thereby helping deliver another term to Agent Drumpfski. He’s very unlikely to pick up any votes from the dayglo daycare escapee’s odd coalition of voters that will even elect a mouldering month-dead corpse if it’s got an R next to it, and middle finger voters.
My only objection to Sherrod Brown is he’ll be a few days short of 68 on Election Day 2020 – to me that’s getting firmly into old white guy territory. The only older presidents will have been Harrison, Ronnie Raygun, and the rotting Halloween pumpkin.
At the mo, Kamala would be my pick. The only white guy I’d be interested in is Beto, but I think there’s a good chance the electorate will have come round to thinking high-level governing competence and experience actually does matter, and four years in the House ain’t quite enough.
He joined the party for a presidential run and left shortly after his primary defeat, and now he’s eyeballing the nomination of a party he didn’t deem fit enough to belong to?
Okay, they’ll all need a lot of campaigning for the level of name recognition that Sander’s positions have earned him but I guess that’s what the party machine is for.
Because the Democratic party has just shown that they have good progressives in their Party being active, fundraising, grassroot organisation, voter registration, running for office – any office. And most of them were women. And most of them were women of colour.
Because the progressives in the Democratic party have just won the house, given the R’s a good run for their money to hold the Senate.
Because the progressives in the Democratic Party have run Democratic candidates in deep red country and won.
Yes and the progressive wing of the Democratic party has more in common with Sanders and the majority of their voters than it does with the ‘moderates’
Who do you think would be better for the Democrats to run in 2020?
I do believe it will depend a lot on whom runs on the 2020 ticket for the R’s.
I don’t see Trump run.
Not because i don’t like him or because i think he is useless. But i think his health will actually be of an issue.
Not sure if the current lot of R’s would be as good as the lot that kept Reagan in office when his Alzheimer should actually has gotten him to an old folks home.
I don’t see Pence run again Trump. Can’t see him win against Trump, to be honest. This might be different that Trump will ‘resign’ for health reasons just before the election and with Pence then being Presnit he could have a chance being re-elected as the incumbent.
you say: Yes and the progressive wing of the Democratic party has more in common with Sanders and the majority of their voters than it does with the ‘moderates’
….. true that, yet , they are all Members of hte Democratic Party, and have run as Democrats, with the full support of the Democratic Party and its grass root members. And there is the difference between these progressives and Bernie Sanders. They are due paying members of the club, and he is not.
Forgive me but isn’t Sherrod Brown an old white male? Which is your 2nd objection to Sanders?
Of mainstream Democrats he is better on most issues but he really doesn’t have the name recognition of Sanders. It would require a massive campaign to familiarise the public with him and his positions, with Sanders you don’t need to do that as much. Also if Sanders is elected as a Democratic President, he would be the Head of the Democratic Party; the leader of ‘the club’.
Sherrod Brown 66 – old white geezer
Bernie Sanders 77 – an even older white geezer
Amy Klobuchar 58 – a not so old white women – i would not mind at all
Kamala Harris – 54 – a not so old not white women – would not mind at all.
You asked whom i would support. I pointed out Sherrod Brown, who is in the same way as Bernie Sanders, but 11 years his junior. And he is electable. – cause that is what we are talking here about? Right, elect ability.
That does not mean i approve of it. i still think that the D need to find someone better, but currently that would my pick.
Would i vote for Bernie Sanders if he were the candidate, yes i would.
You see how that goes when you are not a purist? You see the trees and the forest.
Okay but you were just dismissing Sanders because he is old and white, and also because he is not part of ‘the club’ of the Democratic party. What I’m saying is those ARE purity tests; he has caucused with Democrats for 40 years and he raised $228,164,501 from mostly individual donors at $27 a time, he is the most popular and trusted politician in the US at the moment; theses are factors in his electability too, and as a pragmatist I would argue that having the most popular politician on your side, representing your side (even if he’s not technically a party member), is the most effective way to win elections.
I’m currently preferring Biden for the 2020 run, with Beto as Vice.
Biden has crossover appeal to sane Republicans. Yes, the US has them, and needs them .In stark contrast to the most inexperienced and polarizing “president” in anyone’s lifetime, Biden by instinct and long experience has the ability to reach across the aisle and attract Trump-weary Republicans who couldn’t abide voting for Hillary in ’16. Democrats simply can’t be assured of winning the White House by themselves. The best way to stop Trump getting another term is to form a voting coalition between the ‘Never Trump’ Republicans and the Democrats. Neither Bernie nor any top-drawer Democrat could do that.
He can talk to blue-collar and low-educated whites. Hillary lost in ’16 for lots of reasons (the Comey letter, the Russians working for Trump, and being a terrible orator), but her disastrous tallies in the depressed small cities and towns of the Rustbelt fatally breached the Democratic “blue wall.” Biden was raised in Scranton and instinctively connects with the white workers who voted twice for Obama before switching to Trump. That’s the easiest path to victory over the Republicans as well.
He’s a fighter who gives it as good as he gets. He is who he is; it’s not a pose. Biden was widely criticized last month when he said of Trump, “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.” May not be a sentiment that everyone shares, but it’s the only way – and I mean the only way – that white poor males are ever going to vote for a strong Democrat candidate again. And again not any other Dem candidate comes close to doing that.
Beto and Biden would take out Texas and Florida, and probably get Arizona as well. Crack the south that Republicans have held since Nixon; that would be worth it.
Biden should do one term then bring Beto through for 2024 candidacy.
Of course, Biden has to really want it, and there’s a sense that it’s well time that he either pissed or got off the pot.
Galloway discusses the recent conflict between Ukraine and Russia. We do not want or need a war with Russia. The first 10 minutes are particularly great.
I had actually drafted up a (detailed with links) comment reminding people that we had a situation earlier this year where Ed tried to get around a ban by getting other people to post links etc on his behalf AND tried to sneak back halfway through his ban by using a different identicon*. Unsuccessfully …
I have put my detailed comment into my ‘On standby’ folder in Word – with all the links. It can be resurrected if necessary.
Just curious, does the four include the commenter using the handle Paul (banned until late 2020), who had astonishingly similar interests, opinions, commenting style, and reactions to being challenged that Ed does?
Funny you should ask. I don’t know but that possibility arose earlier this year (cannot recall who raised it) but as the Search function here no longer works the only people who could possibly answer that are moderators etc – possibly only Lynn.
I took a self-imposed break from TS for a year or so and I believe Paul was very active over that period but I don’t recall him or his ban. 2020? Wow.
On a daily basis, “Past tense” uses a blue one and a pink/violet one which he uses regularly but seems to also have two others which only appear rarely – eg when he tried to use one in March and then another he used late at night a couple of months ago and in comments close to ones using his two usuals. IMO/perception (rightly or wrongly) he seemed to be testing that one out to see whether anyone noticed …
It is that sort of disrespect for the moderators and dishonestly that I find contemptible – far more so than the continual authoritarian/dictatorial spamming and trolling.
And no, I am not a stalker! I am a pedant and research/analysis was a big part of my career – with one of my nicknames being “Eagle Eye”. Some of the others are not printable! LOL.
Bryce Edwards on the parliamentary bullying inquiry: “Will complainants confine themselves to using the official channels of what is an inquiry with a relatively narrow ambit and very limited ability to research and achieve much? Already, former parliamentary staff are choosing to go outside of the review, using the media to make their complaints public – see Kirsty Johnston and Derek Cheng’s Herald article from the weekend: Former staff accuse National MP Maggie Barry of bullying.”
“The Barry scandal may be the first of many revelations and allegations to come out about MPs in this fashion. Staffers are likely to see that Mallard’s review is relatively limited in scope and likely impact, and instead choose to go public. I explained some of the review’s shortcomings on The AM Show this morning – see: Simon Bridges bats off Maggie Barry allegations, says staff have a ‘spring in their step’. By front-footing the problem, but at the same time allocating few resources and setting such a limited scope, Mallard is likely hoping he has done just enough to assuage public concern.”
“Herald columnist Lizzie Marvelly has some similar concerns, arguing the inquiry needs more teeth: “While I support the spirit of the review, from the few details currently released to the public, I doubt it has been equipped with enough firepower to make a significant difference. It doesn’t have the power to subpoena documents, and will rely heavily on self-disclosure from affected staff. Most of the information gathered will never be released to either the public or Parliamentary Services” – see: What will spill out when the rug is lifted?”
How big is the can of worms? If they spill out even more into the public arena, pressure may indeed grow to go further than Mallard’s careful restrictions allow.
“The review will need to deal with some of the core issues about how Parliament operates – especially in terms of the peculiar employment arrangements of the staff that work for politicians. Although their bosses are in practice the MPs, legally they are actually employed by the two main agencies of the Parliamentary Service and Ministerial Services.” https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12170550
“This means that, quite often when there is a problem between an MP and employee, a payment is simply made to the employee to make the problem go away. The employee leaves with a payout, and the taxpayer pays for it, with no great consequences for the MP.” A system of tax-payer funded cover-ups isn’t a good look. Not even slightly. It’s a relic of the patriarchy.
“National Party blogger David Farrar has also commented on this problem: “The Parliamentary Service is the employer and hence they pay for any costs of any employment disputes etc. There isn’t a huge financial incentive for MPs to avoid employment disputes. If you changed the arrangement so the parliamentary party or even the MP was the formal employer, then you could well end up with better incentives as if you have to pay out a dissatisfied staff members say $15,000 that is $15,000 less money you have for newsletters etc” – see: Maggie Barry accusations.”
“A further problem is that the parliamentary employment agencies have a reputation for being totally subservient to the MPs, which makes the staff even more vulnerable. One former staffer is quoted by Henry Cooke saying: “When you would go to Ministerial Services they very much had the attitude of ‘Yes, Minister’ ‘Whatever the minster wants the minister gets. They didn’t give a s….'” – see Henry Cooke’s Is Parliament a safe place to work? MPs and Speaker disagree. This is best illustrated by Melanie Reid and Cass Mason’s important article, Bullied at Parliament – and nobody helped.”
“Just how toxic is Parliament?” We’ll see. “The only person who has been seriously bullied around this place is one Winston Peters” said the NZF leader, raising the possibility that we have more than one. Just trying to scare the media?
Duncan Garner worked there 17 years: “Parliament could be a bomb site by the end of this inquiry. You see that place rewards the winner and the loser is humiliated. The more public the humiliation then job done… I expect this review to highlight the total power imbalance between the worker and the MP, the drinking, the relationships, the Wellington wife, the sex, wanted and unwanted, the daily humiliation of the weak and of the wrong.”
No surprise Farrar is enthusiastic about the privatising of parliamentary staff. Donations to, and fundraising by, National are about 2:1 over Labour so if staff were employed directly by the party then National would’ve a massive advantage.
We’ve already seen National are quick to open the chequebook and present the NDAs to staff who have been victims of their machine and need shutting up. This is because they have the money, and lack the morals.
Also interesting that Farrar sees no problem in the status quo – an environment of bad bosses, ritual humiliation, and bullying. This of course runs counter to JA’s determination to bring kindness to politics.
The staff for the MPs are provided by the State Services Commission, and if they are not up to standard then it needs to be dealt with by the Commission. They act as a provider to the MPs, and there should be a meeting, discussion and mediation if there are problems. If the MPs source their own staff and make the decision as to whom to employ then problems would be theirs. But there is a possibility of family members being involved and their work and integrity not being adequate, which is less likely when the staff is in the Commission’f oversight.
Problems of suitability should be able to be expressed and met by the Commission so that the MP has choice, perhaps from five possible and suitable applicants.
That is likely to be impractical, to get those numbers, bit enabling the MP to have choice, which at present I don’t think they do, would be a forward movement.
I sometimes think grey lives on a different planet, but they certainly have very little/no knowledge or understanding of how our government works, or any of the procedures/processes relating to its administration including staffing,
After your ignorant comments about Jews the other night, grey, I will no longer just pass over such comments and ignore them, and will call you out. Also your comments about Public Servants last night on OM at 19.1.
Neither Jews, nor Public Servants are a homogeneous group who all think the same or all act the same – as you implied in those comments and many more over the years. I find such comments not just bloody rude, but ignorant and bigotted.
I stand by my comments above – based on many of your comments I have ignored in the past, or have tried to help your understanding by providing informed replies with lots of information and links to help you.
Moronic Matty McLean all moist-eyed and upset over Maori Santa;
Then, even worse, he gets his balls busted by Hayley Holt.
TVNZ1 Breakfast, Monday 3 December 2018
inaneadj.1 empty, insubstantial; 2 asinine, witless; 3 lacking significance, meaning, or point : silly inane comments.
7:35 a.m.
MATTY THE WEATHER GUY:[eyes moist with emotion, face twisted with sincerity] If you’re a four or five year old child and you don’t see the Santa you were expecting, it would BREAK YOUR HEART.
HAYLEY HOLT: It’s breaking YOUR heart.
….[Stunned silence. MATTY THE WEATHER GUY looks wounded, JACK TAME looks shocked]….
7:41 a.m.
JACK TAME:[grinning enthusiastically] This is great, this is GREAT! I’m GLAD we’re debating this! Isn’t it good that we live in a country where THIS is the biggest issue!
….[Embarrassed silence. HAYLEY HOLT barely restrains herself from indulging in a moue.]….
Doesn’t feel like 22/3 degrees in Auckland. Thunderstorm went on and on and on… but looks like finally clearing. Chaos across the city by all accounts.
Just had our wettest recorded (since 1965) December hour with 31.4 mm in Auckland.
This sounds ridiculous till you see the one-hour record holder, Leigh: with 109 mm in May 2001.
Tried to clear a drain up the road a bit but it wasn’t blocked by leaves, the leaves were hiding that it was full of leaves and silt up to the grill. Doh! They will have to fix their own drain.
I’m at home enjoying my rain garden which didn’t bat an eyelid with 13 000 litres soaked into a 30 sq m footprint. The Kokopu downslope of my section appreciate the effort. Years back I found some aestivating – lying in the damp mud under a rock head to tail like sardines, helpless, with stream completely dry. They can survive weeks like this but it’s not a good look.
Rain gardens replenish groundwater which recharge streams and aquifers while mitigating flood damage.
it was pitch black out here, lots of lightening and thunder.
Cold. Very cold. Very wet. Rotorua.
The darkness gets me. It is supposed to be light till late etc, but nope, yesterday at 7 i had my lights on cause it was dark wet and rainy. It has been dark wet and rainy for several weeks now with occasionally a day of nice dry sunny thrown in.
Most of my gardens are raised to help with drainage now. I started doing that because of heavy clay, and now with all the extra water from rain, it really helps. And mulch to stop erosion if plants aren’t covering the soil. Your weather does sound crap though.
Rotorua’s wastewater has cropped up in the news cycle again. If it’s as clean as they say it is, why aren’t they selling it to Hawke’s Bay farmers 😀
If they can’t dump it or sell it, they can perhaps use it.
I think a large wetlands. Strategically placed to percolate into the land and help maintain groundwater flow for rivers and or/aquifers. Turn it into tourism, conservation, wildlife habitat, boating, walking, bird watching, education, culture, rare timbers, honey, medicines…
I put up a video about cows, methane and surprise, got accused of being a denialist
I realize this is a touchy subject, but people probably misunderstood where I was coming from, I’m not a scientist or have vast in-depth knowledge of climate change.
I posted a video which I thought was interesting as it was saying something completely different from what I’ve seen in the media and thought I’d put it up here and get feedback.
Asking questions doesn’t make one a denialist.
Now about methane
Methane concentrations have increased from around 775 parts per billion in pre-industrial times to around 1800 now, due entirely to human activities
In the video methane and ruminants(cows) was shown to be a natural cycle where methane was endlessly recycled and nothing changed and everything was kept in balance, obviously if more cattle are added then the amount of methane would increase.
So I went and had a look to see if cow/beef numbers have increased massively in the past 50 years and surprisingly they’ve been rather static.
That also got me thinking pre industrial there must have been a shit tonne of natural ruminants like Bison , Deer etc. and before them big animals like mammoths which would have been belching out methane by the tonne as well as many wetlands which have been destroyed due to farming
The question the author was trying to answer was why methane levels didn’t start to rise until the industrial age.
According to the author One reason methane levels remained flat was that cattle and other ruminants (wild and domesticated) lived in intact grassland ecosystems and helped build healthy soils that contain soil microbes called methanotrophs that reduce atmospheric methane (2). Thus maintained grassland ecosystems function as methane sinks, and bank as much as 15% of the earth’s methane (3) Tillage for crops reduces the soil’s capacity to bank methane (as does exposed uncovered soil) plus also releases carbon into the atmosphere (4). Use of synthetic fertilizers also adversely impacts soil methanotrophs (5). Glyphosate in no tilled systems according to industry funded research doesn’t impact soil microbial activity. Though research by other researchers contradicts this industry perspective and details how herbicides like glyphosate adversely change the makeup of soil microbes (6).
If that is the case because all our dairy and beef is grass fed we do not actually have that much of an impact on global methane levels? should we even be paying carbon taxes?
Or if we do shouldn’t it be more vegetable growers and not so much farmers?
The author points the finger more at natural gas and writes.
Meanwhile the methane from fracking and natural gas extraction, transportation and refining, in general, apparently has been underestimated significantly maybe by 5 times or 500% per some recent studies on this topic (9). Not to mention China is massively increasing their use of natural gas and fracking. Coincidentally, the largest increases in methane levels occurred in the 1960’s when natural gas use increased significantly- nearly ten-fold.
Remember not a heretic, just asking questions and trying to increase knowledge.
With regard to any complex system, descriptions inevitably simplify it. It’s how the mind works – just look at how much a map simplifies the territory it represents. Nothing wrong with what you wrote, just keep in mind that other factors will be missing. Only a specialist can be expected to fully account for all methane sources and sinks!
The only point for me to quibble is re cattle numbers, so I copied this from a govt website: “The total number of dairy cattle increased 68.6 percent, from 3.84 million in 1994 to 6.47 million in 2017”. So whatever gave you the impression they’ve been static for half a century seems wrong.
Globally? “The world cattle inventory in 2017 is at 998.3 million head. The population of the world in 2017 is estimated at 7.4 billion people. The world’s cattle inventory per capita is .13 head. Uruguay has the most cattle per capita in the world followed by New Zealand & Argentina. Uruguay has 3.44 head of cattle per capita. Five countries have more cattle than people: Uruguay, New Zealand, Argentina, Australia & Brazil.” http://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-vs-human-population-country-0-111575
So you don’t consider cows(ruminants) to be the evil they’ve been made out to be?
I’m not a farmer or have ever been involved in the farming industry, my interest in this is that taxpayers are going to be whacked with carbon taxes because of cow methane emissions.
Well I’ve agreed with the carbon tax in principle since I first encountered it almost 30 years ago. I would reserve judgment on any legislation until it is designed and written. Bad laws always need revision or elimination.
See how it works in practice. Market forces always produce a race to the bottom, eh? Adding to that pressure is problematic. I don’t think we need more farmers driven to suicide: enough of that already from the free market, eh?
The problem remains that farming cows (and sheep) by current methods results in more methane emissions and resulting warming than alternative uses of that land. (Well, maybe rice paddies are worse, but CBF looking it up). In New Zealand’s case, there were no significant methane producing wild animals in pre-industrial times, so the argument that methane from modern farm animals are just stepping into the place of a pre-existing natural cycle becomes nonsense right from the starting point. That’s without even taking a close look at how the last few decades’ worth of shift to dairy conversions, general intensification and other changes in our mix from sheep to cattle have changed our emissions profile.
The intensive farming practices we now use are not part of a natural cycle. As your LA chefs link notes, synthetic fertilizers, tilling, etc generally adversely affect the methanotrophs in soils. I vaguely recall something about how the types of grasses we feed farmed cattle, together with the changes we’ve induced by selectively breeding cattle for increased milk production also increase methane production over the original wild animals (no, I CBF trying to find those references again). Given that all emissions from whatever source are a problem, even if the argument the modern practices are simply continuing at pre-industrial levels were true (which is highly unlikely), the fact that emissions could be reduced by changing those practices is yet another reason agriculture should be held accountable for its emissions.
However, when it comes to reducing those emissions, I part company with a lot of greenies in that I support use of all reasonable tools such as genetic modification for such projects as the high metabolisable energy grasses developed here in NZ, but need to be tested overseas because of local opposition and regs. Note also that meat from non-ruminants such as chicken, pork, kangaroo, horse also has much less methane emission and less warming effect than beef and sheep, for those (like me) who find going full vegetarian a bit too far.
Yes, fracking probably contributes a lot more than industry owns up to. As probably do other fossil fuel activities (I suspect coal mining in particular). There’s a lot of ongoing effort to measure and quantify all that. And no, they shouldn’t be let off the hook because of some kind of special pleading argument either. Nor should other agricultural activities like rice growing or palm oil.
A couple of useful initial links about atmospheric methane. The Skeptical Science is definitely old, but the comments are worth reading. And the usual caveats about wikipedia, but the tables are useful.
The problem remains that farming cows (and sheep) by current methods results in more methane emissions and resulting warming than alternative uses of that land. (Well, maybe rice paddies are worse, but CBF looking it up). In New Zealand’s case, there were no significant methane producing wild animals in pre-industrial times, so the argument that methane from modern farm animals are just stepping into the place of a pre-existing natural cycle becomes nonsense right from the starting point.
Isn’t methane a global issue?, the cows in NZ replace some of the Bison herd that got wiped out in the US?
Isn’t that why we have to take climate change so seriously, otherwise it’s a waste of time us doing anything because our emissions are infinitesimal and if we all drop dead tomorrow it wouldn’t make one iota of difference.
I think you are missing the intesification part. As you pointed out in the first comment Ruminant animals use to roam and the spreading of dung contributed to the health of soil that increased its ability to soak Methane. Just from my reading of what you had (I am no expert either) I would imagine that containing the same or more animals in smaller area’s counters some of the balance that was obtained through soil storage. It would also I imagine contribute to less absorbtion of waste and hence increased run off that gets in to our water ways.
Yes, methane is a global problem. So is CO2, which the general public is already paying for under the ETS (a tiny fraction of what should be paid, but payment nonetheless). Along with a bunch of other problem gases like refrigerants.
Why should agriculture get a free ride? Especially when there’s high emissions and low emissions ways of farming, and the entire point of using emissions pricing like the ETS or greenhouse gas tax is to incentivise people to change what they’re doing to a lower emissions mode. Y’know pricing signals, market forces and all that stuff.
We don’t need the headache trying to push something the public aren’t ready to swallow (GE). Also a lot of BS passes for truth in corporate sponsored science these days. I don’t trust em to save my world.
Put the research dollars into homoacetogens. Selectively breed them in a biodigestor to effectively take up methane in low hydrogen environments (better compete with methanogens in the rumen). Then, (some of) the components of methane would go toward SCFA’s for milk and meat production instead of global warming.
You could inoculate these bacteria on the red kelp that reduce methane but also
lower meat/milk yield a little. The methane would get a double hit and be reduced considerably, meat/milk production should remain the same or even improve.
The HME grasses aren’t a corporate money-grubbing scheme, they were developed by one of our government agencies. So while I’m extremely suspicious of any kind of GE breakthrough technologies touted by a corporate sales weasel, I don’t feel quite the need to be as suspicious of the motives and integrity of government funded scientists that aren’t being driven by a profit motive. Some suspicion is still warranted, to be sure, as is an expectation that benefits will be exaggerated and drawbacks not talked about as much as they should be.
As to where to put research dollars, it’s not an either or thing. We can look at a big selection of different approaches. No one single thing is going to “save us”, improvements will mostly come from a bunch of smaller things. Besides, “saving us” is kind of an irrelevant idea since we’re already fucked, the question now is how bad is it going to get.
Hi Red, thanks but I will try not to hang around too much – end up annoying too many. Though it is difficult to find places to exchange political thoughts out in the outer world …
No … actually in the past you’ve only ended up annoying a tiny Identity politics fringe …
… by committing the Cardinal Sin of advocating the classic Leftist notion of universally applicable human rights, rather than the self-interested particularism currently fashionable among Luvvie elites (who disproportionately appear to emanate from remarkably Privileged backgrounds).
If I remember rightly, you were essentially hounded off this site by one or two individuals from the Intersectional fringe who:
– had rarely if ever commented here before
– nevertheless posed as regulars
– purported to speak for everyone else
– aggressively attempted to isolate you / treat you as a heretic
.
The last two are, of course, the classic manoeuvres of Cult enforcers.
“By 1876 piecemeal reform efforts had created a bewildering range of different franchises for freeholders, leaseholders, householders, goldminers, lodgers, ratepayers and Māori (Māori men had been granted universal suffrage in 1867, to vote in four special Māori seats). There seemed to be majority support in Parliament for a simple manhood suffrage, but further action was undermined by the unstable political scene of the late 1870s.”
“In 1878 two rival bills were introduced: one by Robert Stout, the young attorney-general in George Grey’s government, the other by his predecessor, Frederick Whitaker, then in Opposition. Whitaker’s radical bill – it proposed proportional representation and allocating Māori seats on a per capita basis – failed to gain support. The government bill stalled in the Legislative Council (the upper house) and was eventually abandoned.”
“Grey’s government was soon defeated and a new election held. In October 1879 John Hall formed a new government and Whitaker returned to Cabinet. He introduced a new Qualification of Electors Bill, granting the vote to all adult European males after 12 months’ residence in New Zealand and six months in an electorate. This was comfortably passed on 19 December.”
“The next election, on 9 December 1881, was the first held under the new franchise and also the first in which voting in all European electorates took place on the same day. Manhood suffrage had an immediate impact. In 1879 there were 82,271 registered voters – about 71% of the adult male Pākehā population. In 1881 there were 120,972 (91%).” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/universal-male-suffrage-introduced
The establishment of Māori seats was partly to allow for those with communal property rights the right to vote as only landowners possessed that privilege, but also, I believe, to establish a system that mimicked true suffrage but did not provide it.
It’s worthwhile looking into if you have no prior knowledge of that history.
Wow – thats a voice from the vast! How long is it? Welcome back,
As another “v”, it is great to see you. And yes, let’s celebrate men’s anniversary of their vote next year. As a woman, it was great to celebrate women’s 125th this year, but I am an equality advocate and definitely agree we should celebrate the 140th.
I was not aware of this, so its my today’s ‘you learn something new every day’ moment.
I did know that the vote was restricted to the male elite landed classes etc but was not aware that it would be the 140th anniversary next year of it being widened albeit still only to males.
As Molly points out the history of Maori voting is much bigger than just the 1867 allowances.
Perhaps we could look at some posts over the summer break on these issues …
Euthanasia and the eternal discourse and debate and discussion about ethics and possible loss of some months, years of life as if we are appealing to a parole board for the right to be released, and someone might get some money and help with their life instead of waiting for years and having the capital saved used up by profit-making companies looking after the bodies of slowly dying people …. And the opinions of the fine members of the medical profession who don’t want change and who assume godly responsibility which they then say they don’t want, and religion that tries to interfere with the individual’s right to go to God or face the time beyond if there is such, and everyone who doesn’t care about what others want, and don’t want to facilitate loving concerned action following a pattern laid down by law with suitably appointed people from a group who have registered as willing to help with the right attitudes of compassion and probity. How is this for a brick rant from someone who feels very strongly that we are remiss personally and nationally in preventing legal euthanasia to be planned, consulted o n, developed and begun.
One of my main concerns is that we currently have no systems that are well-resourced and robust enough to make the clinical decisions and necessary precautions against unwarranted euthanasia treatments.
Our healthcare system – already underresourced – is not suitably equipped for a role of such gravity and surety.
I wrote a small comedy segment on euthanasia a couple of night ago. It’s probably in poor taste but the idea of how far it could be taken. And when corporate minds see it as opportunity.
Ad jingle
Have you had enough
Don’t worry about your stuff
You can leave it with us
0800 Free Bus
WtB
After one gets resigned to the idea of getting older, and actually dying (how can the world continue without me thought) then laughing at death jokes is possible. I like Terry Pratchett’s DEATH in capitals, he makes him very sure and certain, except when he goes off the beaten path. Do you like Pratchett?
I like the idea of people developing micro business ideas. You could sell your jingle to an alternative card manufacturer, I think it would get sales as black humour.
Molly thanks
But you add to the problem – refusing to face up to the need for euthanasia. The health system can’t cope, and still life is being artificially extended with medications and regular resuscitations and aid. Saying the health system should be improved before anything is done just avoids admitting that the whole system is overloaded, demand is exceeding the ability to ever cope, and some hard decisions will be forced on us eventually.
I and others want decisions to carry forward our proposals for euthanasis made now when the outcomes will be kindly and soft, not hard. So please everybody pull finger. We are sick of waiting for you tentative people to listen and act intelligently. People cast themselves as kind and concerned when they are just not wanting to accept real life needs.
I understand the need for dignified choice to end life. I have recently watched a friend go through chemotherapy treatment for leukemia. She says that at times she wished to die and would have welcomed the relief, and even though – thankfully she is in remission – she is not comfortable with the idea that doctors (in a fallible health system) would be given the authority to make that decision.
I support rights of those who are in unremitting pain or health to choose the manner in which they live – or die. I’m just not convinced that there will be protocols and resources in place to ensure that that right will not be misused or abused.
If you want to discuss how that is to be achieved – then I’m willing to listen.
(I also think we should at the same time be concerned about the underresourcing of our health system for those who are working towards a better quality of life, and effective pain management and support. Having euthanasia as a well-funded option may influence any moves towards that resourcing. So, the two issues are connected.)
Thank you Molly for your thoughts and i will get to them later. At present I need to get out in the sun, we have some at present. I am concerned at the hard lines being taken on TS just lately, it seems as if the commenters here given their heads would bring in an authoritarian system rather than a co-operative form of democracy, more participative than domineering the rank and file approach. It is screwing my head.
I think euthanasia, along with other topics such as abortion benefit from ongoing and sincere discussion. I do have concerns re the evolution of euthanasia both as it is proposed and if it is ever implemented. But will wait till you get back.
Update on the UK govt’s war against parliament: “On 13 November, the Commons unanimously agreed to a motion put down by Labour calling for the legal advice on the Brexit deal to be published “in full”. Conservative MPs were told to abstain after it became clear that the government was not certain of winning the vote when the DUP said it would vote with Labour.”
Yesterday a motion was tabled in parliament that “calls on MPs to find “ministers in contempt for their failure to comply” and is signed by Labour’s Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer, the DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds, and the Scottish National party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green party.” This will be voted on later today, so we may wake up tomorrow to the news that the UK cabinet has been found to have acted in contempt of parliament.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday the United States wants to end subsidies for electric cars and other items including renewable energy sources.
Asked about actions planned after General Motors announced U.S. plant closings and layoffs last week, Kudlow said he expected subsidies for buying electric cars will end in 2020 or 2021. Kudlow said the Trump administration sees an end to other subsidies, including on “renewables.”
“As a matter of our policy, we want to end all of those subsidies. And by the way, other subsidies that were imposed during the Obama administration, we are ending, whether it’s for renewables and so forth,” Kudlow told reporters.
edit: buggered if I can get the translate html to work so here’s the google translation cut and paste
Favor the small beginnings of the villages and town centers. (Stop the construction of large commercial areas around major cities that kill the small business) + free parking in city centers.
Large Housing Isolation Plan. (make ecology by saving households).
That WHOLESALE (Macdo, google, Amazon, Carrefour …) pay LARGE and that the small (artisans, TPE PME) pay small.
Same social security system for everyone (including artisans and autoentrepreneurs). End of the RSI.
The pension system must remain in solidarity and therefore socialized. (No point of retirement).
End of the tax hike on fuel.
No retirement below 1,200 euros.
Any elected representative will be entitled to the median salary. His transport costs will be monitored and reimbursed if they are justified. Right to the restaurant ticket and the holiday voucher.
The wages of all French people as well as pensions and allowances must be indexed to inflation.
Protecting French industry: prohibiting relocation. Protecting our industry is protecting our know-how and our jobs.
End of detached work. It is abnormal that a person who works on French territory does not benefit from the same salary and the same rights. Anyone who is authorized to work on French territory must be on a par with a French citizen and his employer must contribute at the same level as a French employer.
For job security: further limit the number of fixed-term contracts for large companies. We want more CDI.
End of the CICE. Use this money for the launch of a French hydrogen car industry (which is truly ecological, unlike the electric car.)
End of the austerity policy. We are ceasing to repay the interest on the debt that is declared illegitimate and we are starting to repay the debt without taking the money from the poor and the poorest but by fetching the $ 80 billion in tax evasion.
That the causes of forced migration are treated.
That asylum seekers be treated well. We owe them housing, security, food and education for the miners. Work with the UN to have host camps open in many countries around the world, pending the outcome of the asylum application.
That the unsuccessful asylum seekers be returned to their country of origin.
That a real integration policy is implemented. Living in France means becoming French (French language course, History of France course and civic education course with certification at the end of the course).
Maximum salary set at 15,000 euros.
That jobs are created for the unemployed.
Increase of disabled allowances.
Limitation of rents. + moderate rent housing (especially for students and precarious workers).
Prohibition to sell property belonging to France (airport dam …)
Substantial means granted to the justice system, the police, the gendarmerie and the army. That law enforcement overtime be paid or recovered.
All the money earned by highway tolls will be used to maintain highways and roads in France and road safety.
As the price of gas and electricity has increased since privatization, we want them to become public again and prices fall significantly.
Immediate closure of small lines, post offices, schools and maternity wards.
Let’s bring wellness to our seniors. Prohibition of making money on the elderly. The gray gold is finished. The era of gray well-being begins.
Maximum 25 students per class from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Substantial means brought to psychiatry.
The People’s Referendum must enter the Constitution. Creating a readable and effective site, supervised by an independent control body where people can make a proposal for a law. If this bill obtains 700,000 signatures then this bill will have to be discussed, completed, amended by the National Assembly which will have the obligation, (one year to the day after obtaining the 700,000 signatures) to submit it. to the vote of all the French.
Back to a 7-year term for the President of the Republic. (The election of deputies two years after the election of the President of the Republic made it possible to send a positive or negative signal to the President of the Republic concerning his policy, so it helped to make the voice of the people heard.)
Retirement at age 60 and for all those who have worked in a trade using the body (mason or boner for example) right to retirement at 55 years.
A 6-year-old child not guarding himself alone, continuation of the PAJEMPLOI help system until the child is 10 years old
A decision about a Wellington development but one that relates to all the country’s coastline. http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=114621
3/12/2018
Appeal Court rejects plan for new development at Shelly Bay
(And has some thoughtful comments making relevant points which
would seem to have been worthy of notice by WCC.)
By the way Scoop raised its crowdfunding for its Scoop 3.0 project.
Ports of Auckland will fund the construction of a facility which will produce hydrogen fromtap water. The process uses electrolysis to split water into hydrogen (which is then stored for later use) and oxygen, which is released into the air. Demonstration vehicles will be able to fill up with hydrogen at the facility, which will be just like filling up a car with CNG or LPG. Hydrogen is used in the fuel cell to create electricity which powers the car. The only by-product of the process is water.
Are the words ‘tap water’ significant? I am not sure but highlighted it because it is a familiar resource and I know more about it than petrol, batteries, lithium etc. which I don’t get out of a tap.
Kia ora The Am Show that’s a good poll 70 % of people back raising the age of legally drinking alcohol two 20 years of age you know that it’s about balancing thing on the facts and not on the lies and proper gander spread by some trolls who the neo’s are pouring money into there hip pocket to create chaos .
There you go the britexit Paris riots the alt right have some countrys by the.
short and curly s the fuel rise in Paris doe not even bring there price of fuel anywhere near to the prices we pay here.
I agree we want the best for our children I say we need to change the way we teach one thing I know when one keep using the same model making the same mistake all the time and wonder why the education sector keep failing the poor & the minority cultures some thing is wrong . Time to look outside the square box and find simple changes to improve the low % of the mokopuna’s in those categories getting a higher education / Trade employment skills start these trade training at school.
Tova there you go dairydack is a big problem like Pee Crack ect these are causing a lot of harm.
I say using the shaming of nuclear weapons is the way to go and banning them to all the money spent on nuclear weapons could make billions of peoples lives much more healthy & happier.
It was ka pai to see that Jacinda has been ranked the 20 most powerful Wahine of Papatuanuku .
There you go a lot the next generation know exactly what is causing the most harm to OUR Society the facts steers us in the face .
Carly sugar TAX is what is needed now Britain took ten years of debating to do this we are the 3 highest country in Papatuanuku for Obesity Ka kite ano .This tax will save lives and billions in future health cost Its no rocket science
Action to fight global warming is coming whether world leaders like it or not, school student Greta Thunberg has told the UN climate change summit, accusing them of behaving like irresponsible children.
Many thanks to Greta Thunberg, for her big effort and the Great Idea to get all the World’s children to protest about what some parents are doing to there future dening or inaction to combat climate change Greta Thunberg 15, told UN summit that students are acting in absence of global leadership Mana Wahine 5 month’s of protesting at Parliament .
Thunberg began a solo climate protest by striking from school in Sweden in August. But more than 20,000 students around the world have now joined her. The school strikes have spread to at least 270 towns and cities in countries across the world, including Australia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the US and Japan.
“For 25 years countless people have come to the UN climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise. So I will not beg the world leaders to care for our future,” she said. “I will instead let them know change is coming whether they like it or not.”
“Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago,” she said. “We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with. We have to make our voices heard.”
The conference of nearly 200 nations is taking place in Katowice, Poland, and its main task is to turn the vision of tackling global warming agreed in Paris in 2015 into concrete action. On Monday, Sir David Attenborough told the summit that without action “the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon”.
We know who is behaving the worst Ka kite ano Links below.
Many thanks to Elon Mus as well If its was not for him the oil barons would be winning the war in carbon v green energy I am a big fan of Nikola Tesla we know the bad people won the war against him.
Of all Musk’s companies, Tesla may be the most famous. Its namesake Nikola Tesla was a great innovator but asocial and died penniless while others capitalised on his inventions.
The company itself has made impressive strides and has just hit the goal of making 7000 Model-3 Tesla cars a week.
“They kind of maybe don’t get enough credit for that – because Elon made some ridiculous predictions for how many cars they’d be producing by now, and they’re behind that – but to be making 7000 cars a week at this point in their life is quite an achievement.
“It’s very hard to go up against the motor industry and the oil industry with a new car company in the United States and to get through an economic recession at the same time – and to convert people to this idea that electric cars can be better than petrol
McKenzie is convinced the shift to electric is coming.
“Ten years might be a little bit optimistic but I would not be surprised if half of the cars on the road in 10 years time were electric.
“If you look back to the era of the motor vehicle surpassing horse and buggies – from 1910 to 1921, that’s the time it took for horse and buggies to disappear from the streets in America – the space of 11 years.
Meanwhile, China is investing massively in what it’s calling ‘new energy’ vehicles, with a series of new electric vehicle companies like BYD starting up.
“What’s happening in China is really encouraging and the government there is extremely supportive of transitioning. All that production will inevitably lead to greater supply and – along with the improvement of battery technology and recycling – is bound to drop the price of electric cars dramatically.
“Battery prices are dropping rapidly, they’ve dropped 80 percent in the last six years.
“In Tesla’s case they’ve got partnerships for recycling them and they’re going to do a lot of recycling at the Gigafactory which is this massive factory they’re building in the desert in Nevada.
“They want to build another dozen of these around the world. It’s so big that they’ve only constructed a third of it so far and it takes about two hours just to walk around that one third.”
“At the end of their life every part of the battery can be reused.
“That is kind of like the secret missing ingredient to what could power a new energy economy: the wind doesn’t blow all the time and the sun doesn’t shine at night, so those sources are kind of inconstant – but you can make them constant if you have enough batteries storing energy ready to deploy whenever you want and put them everywhere around the world. The suppression of electric vehicles has also been sustained through lobbying and campaigns, he says.
“Fossil fuel groups have been lobbying and campaigning and spreading disinformation about electric cars for a long time now – and continue to.
“Most recently the Koch brothers – who are two of the richest people who have ever existed … last year they funded this campaign called ‘Fuelling US Forward’ which was supposed to espouse the benefits of glorious fossil fuels, but actually instead focused on taking down Elon Musk and taking down electric cars.”
He says one of the things the company was trying to suggest was that electric cars are worse for the environment than petrol, which “is just not true”.
“Even in the dirtiest coal grid situations electric cars are better for the environment when you account for the total production costs than even the most efficient gasoline vehicles … that’s out of a study from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
McKenzie says although he’s a fan of electric, he’s not as excited about autonomy as some others. Ka kite ano P.S you see people Eco’s word about oil barons are the TRUTH links below. https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018673706/hamish-mckenzie-the-tesla-revolution.
Kai ora Newshub That’s is a good breakthrough that the Australian scientist have found a new blood test that can detect cancer ka pai I seen that the scientist are new Australians some people don’t get it that immigrants can add a lot to a country talent trump .
Lloyd there you go Eco Maori will say know more on the brexit .
Its cool that the meningococcal vaccines are being administered in Northland ka pai.
The 100 bilion fund is a very good start to our investments into dumping carbon .
Thats a huge Christmas tree in Britain the mokospuna’s love Christmas.
Andrew there are people who like to push people buttons that fan at the basketball in America new he would get under that player skin and —–him off Ka kite ano
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
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Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
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Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney LanaElcova/Shutterstock Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the ...
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Bob Carr intends to launch legal action against Winston Peters and Julie Anne Genter is facing a second allegation of bullying. Both sucked the air out of an announcement on education, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra A key part of the Albanese government’s political strategy is to fill the news cycle with its presence and messaging. Ministers are deployed to the maximum, even when they’ve little to say. This week ...
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Obama tells bankers to thank him, boasts of boosting oil production…
Trump with better social skills and a nicer hairdo
Yeah, it seems that most people just don’t want to face the fact that neoliberalism whether it is a brutal hard version delivered by Trump, a softer (seemingly ) version offered by Obama, or our own “pragmatic” version offered by Ardern is by it’s very nature diametrically opposed to assisting the world to battle climate change, thereby by extension at it’s ideological heart, opposed to human wellbeing.
and less grabbing of the pussy
But a lot more killing of civilians in Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia. Trump is infinitely cruder and more personally disgusting, but he still lags behind when it comes to the body count.
they are still dying in all of these countries. Trump has not stopped a single bomb.
and Trump is of course not selling weapons to the Saudis to bomb yemen, no siree.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?num=50&ei=aaMFXN36G9bpwQP0_oaQCA&q=Trump+Yemen+Saudi+Arabia&oq=Trump+Yemen+Saudi+Arabia&gs_l=psy-ab.3…43263.47951..48118…0.0..0.322.4095.0j21j1j1……0….1..gws-wiz…….0j0i131i67j0i67j0i131j0i3j0i10.22_Sn8nvxHQ
and he will finish the war in Afghanistan by privatising it to Mr. Prince – Betsy de Vos brother of Black water fame any day now. Right?
https://www.google.co.nz/search?num=50&ei=TqMFXLv2FtPpwQPfiI6oCA&q=Afghanistan+Trump&oq=Afghanistan+Trump&gs_l=psy-ab.3…18179.25458..25913…7.0..0.256.5456.1j22j7……0….1..gws-wiz…..0..0j0i22i30j0i67j0i131.2IMN6u3MzVA
Palestine is doing brilliant last i checked. That embassy in Jerusalem made all the issues go away, right?
https://www.google.co.nz/search?num=50&ei=J6MFXLGBNc3ywQOSrqbYCg&q=Palestine+Trump&oq=Palestine+Trump&gs_l=psy-ab.3…32054.37095..37366…0.0..0.317.4239.0j21j1j1……0….1..gws-wiz…..0..0j0i22i10i30j0i22i30j0i67j0i131j0i131i67j0i3.YNIHeGdruow
Iraq, oh well, if these geezers would just simply give the oil up to the US then all would be wonderful, or do you prefer the original german? Wundervoll.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?num=50&ei=D6MFXL7uGNCb9QPisY3QBQ&q=Iraq+Trump&oq=Iraq+Trump&gs_l=psy-ab.3…20940.22699..22980…0.0..0.193.1737.0j10……0….1..gws-wiz…….0j0i71j0i131j0i22i30.NDHXuVJe-dw
They are still dying. But then i guess when you only read the news that comforts your world view i can see how some small things such as facts can be overlooked.
btw, i used really simple search terms, such as Trump Iraq etc
Everything you say is correct, Sabine. I share your feelings about Trump. He’s even worse than Obama.
But let’s face it: nearly all the terrible things Trump is doing are continuing on the evil work of the previous Democratic administration. Obama’s lawlessness and contempt for democratic institutions—like the right to work as a journalist, and political asylum, and habeas corpus—paved the way for the horror of this utterly lawless and barbaric regime.
FFS Morrie please stop telling LIES!!
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-ramped-up-drone-strikes-in-americas-shadow-wars
Your ill-informed comments are an embarrassment
Your math is atrocious.
542 strikes in 8 years vs 238 in 2 years.
Obama did 68 a year, Trump is on 119 a year.
How’s that for math?
“542 strikes in 8 years vs 238 in 2 years.
Obama did 68 a year, Trump is on 119 a year”
Man that is one sick argument, how about we just call both of them international terrorists and leave it that?
That’s the reality, Adrian. These Clinton-lite “liberals” also have to come to terms with the fact that it was Obama, not Trump, that started this massive program of separating undocumented parents from their children and incarcerating them. All of it illegal, and condemned under international law.
Trump is certainly more uncouth and personally disgusting. He lacks Obama’s superficial style.
For anyone that’s interested in reality and not just using any topic as an entry to smearing Obama and other Democrats, I suggest doing a search using terms such as family separation policy Obama or similar. Or if you prefer someone else’s preselected links, here’s a couple of fact-checks.
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/21/17488458/obama-immigration-policy-family-separation-border
https://www.apnews.com/91e9489c7f434099a987bed7defd3f1d
Speakiing truthfully about Obama’s criminal regime is not “smearing” him, it’s speaking truthfully.
Do you deny that Obama’s regime forcibly separated thousands of families?
And you can forget about the Democrats doing anything useful to protect families from further predation. They’re already backing off their promises:
You got backup for your statement that “Obama’s regime forcibly separated thousands of families” ?
Coz from the Vox link above:
” We don’t know how many families were separated under the Obama administration, but there’s no reason to believe that it numbered in the thousands even over the eight years that Obama was president. Because it simply wasn’t standard practice. Under Trump, it was.
Both presidents housed “unaccompanied” minors in temporary facilities — but under Obama, they’d pretty much all arrived in the US unaccompanied
The 2014 border “surge” was driven partly by an increase in families attempting to cross into the US from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. But it was primarily driven by an increase in “unaccompanied alien children” — people under 18, coming to the US without parents or guardians — from those same countries. “
Take it up with “body count” mozzarella and his subjective math.
But then if you think the taxonomy of armed conflict begins and ends with “terrorism”, then you are linguistically capable only of considering Obama and Trump (and every other political and military leader in the history of humanity) to be equivalently bad. Newspeak in action: remove the vocabulary, and you remove the ability to express an abstraction.
“ill informed”?
Wow, that’s pretty harsh, Maccers.
@Sabine, That’s true, but as it turns out, Hillary doesn’t seem to mind a little abuse of the power dynamic when it comes to the pursuit of pussy either……”Mrs Clinton also told CBS that she believes it was right that her husband, who was 49 at the time, did not resign from office, and that Ms Lewinsky “was an adult”, and was not “an abuse of power”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45865402
Not to mention the very disturbing fact that Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s private plane, dubbed “The Lolita Express” 26 times, but that’s another story.
Mrs. Lewinsky was an adult at 22, and she knew what she was doing. At 22 years of age, she had her own agenda. At some stage women are adults.
Mrs. Clinton is wrong, it was abuse of power, and plenty people told her so after that very dumb statement. And a young women knowing what she was doing, and an old white men abusing his power can both happen at the same time.
And if you really want to bring in Epstein, you might want to bring in Trump, his lawyer Dershowitz and the current Trump secretary of Labour a Mr. Acosta who got Epstein the sweetest plea agreement ever.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-jeffrey-epstein-scandal-pederast-acosta/
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/28/politics/alex-acosta-jeffrey-epstein/index.html
https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/sex-trafficking-victim-i-was-recruited-at-mar-a-lago-by-jeffrey-epstein-M735zR0HKUGUm7hnFcEAUw/
So what was the point of your comment ? that Donald Trump bragged about going after a married women like she was a bitch, and that if you are famous enough you get to grab pussy and the pussy will just have to live with that? So cause Clinton got a blowjob Donald Trump is within his rights to grab pussy?
Sure thing. Sure thing.
ICYMI, the long, sordid, Epstein story.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html
A big day today: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/109062397/government-to-publicly-release-mental-health-inquiry
Herald reports on climate change…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12170609
And it’s not a load of crap.
I’ve been asking people if they share my fear, sadness and anger concerning climate change and our useless leadership – yes, almost all are suffering unless brainwashed by deniers. Parents can be in a particularly bad space.
That means that climate change is embedded deep in the psyche. Talk to people, be calm and kind and see if they share your concerns. We’ve been all alone with ourselves trying to deal with the biggest threat of our lives. Connect and communicate.
The tide MUST turn. Critical mass is close.
That’s good contextualising by David Cormack, co-founder of communications and PR firm, Draper Cormack Group. He shows how democracy works:
“The 2016 Paris Agreement committed most of the world’s countries to enacting policies that would reduce emissions and keep the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees – 2.oc above the pre-industrial revolution temperature. Two years later and C02 emissions are increasing for the first time since 2014. Nailed it guys.”
Can’t solve the problem without correct diagnosis, and voters & protestors not only avoid the need for problem-solving, they even avoid diagnosis of the problem. Here’s his view of how to relate cause & effect: “Those 100 fossil fuel companies that are responsible for nearly three quarters of all harmful emissions became aware of the risks of human induced climate change all the way back in the 1950s. They chose to do nothing. Actually that’s not true, they did do something. They organised strategic disinformation campaigns that delayed any effective policy response or decarbonisation for at least three decades.”
“And not only that, but fossil fuels enjoy some serious subsidies. An IMF paper in 2015 estimated that these subsidies amounted to US$4.9 trillion – just a casual 6.5 per cent of global GDP.” Need I point out that these subsidies have been institutionalised by governments of the left & right for a very long time? Yes, because some contributors here still believe the left are the good guys.
“On the flipside, 3.5 billion people worldwide have contributed just 10% of the emissions due to individual consumption. That’s nearly half the world’s population responsible for a tenth of the problem.” So the solution to most of the problem is to eliminate those subsidies, right? Well, it’s an obvious first step to take, at least.
However it can’t happen due to insufficient leverage from democracy. The elites are insulated from accountability. Just look at the G20 agenda: “G20 Argentina has put forth three agenda priorities for the G20 dialogue in 2018: the future of work, infrastructure for development and a sustainable food future.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_G20_Buenos_Aires_summit
“A number of attending countries have said they focus on the regulation of crypto-currencies at this meeting. Talks between the U.S. and China related to resolving the escalating 2018 China–United States trade war were a central issue of the summit.” The elites deemed climate change too insignificant to put on their agenda.
A problem shared is a problem doubled
A.
Matt Taibbi, Contributing Editor @ Rolling Stone, reports: “A movement to draft Bernie Sanders to run for president in 2020 is launching today, with the aim of building an organizational structure so the Vermont Senator can start campaigning at a moment’s notice.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-2020-presidential-run-762393/
“Organizing For Bernie is led by a cross-section of senior campaigners from Sanders’ 2016 run… The news comes on the heels of a three-day retreat for progressive leaders called “The Gathering” at the Sanders Institute in Burlington, Vermont. Hosted by Jane Sanders and attended by the likes of Dr. Cornel West, Nina Turner and Bernie Sanders himself, “The Gathering” felt a lot like a kitchen-cabinet strategy session, both for the progressive movement generally, and for a potential Sanders run.”
“Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ 2016 campaign manager, was a notable conference attendee.” “I’ve been contacted by a number of people who are wondering, how do we demonstrate to Bernie that he’s got the support of people across the country?” Weaver said. “Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, raised the stakes considerably. “Let me convey a message from all of us in Europe,” Varoufakis said to Sanders during a panel discussion. “For all those comrades of yours who are now struggling to reclaim our cities, our world … our environment: we need Bernie Sanders to run for president.”” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/03/bernie-sanders-2020-president-senator-mulls-second-white-house-run
“The Democratic field promises to be wide and unsettled, like the Republican primary in 2016. As many as three dozen figures have expressed an interest in running, among them former vice-president Joe Biden, businessman Michael Bloomberg and congressman Beto O’Rourke.”
“Sanders has acknowledged that should he run he could face a number of “good candidates” including “friends, people I have known for a long time”. Among them are several Senate colleagues who could run under the progressive banner: Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the last one of the few members of Congress who endorsed Sanders in 2016.”
““This will be a battle royale,” Cenk Uygur, the founder of the Young Turks news network, said between panels on Friday. “I am asking progressives: whatever you do, do not do a circular firing squad.” He said the number of prospective progressives in the race was a testament to their ascendancy within the party – but he still believed Sanders is the best, most effective messenger for the cause.”
With the “Left” split, the Republicans (Trump) will win.
But the Democrats are only Left in name, so go Bernie!
yeah, sure replace one really old white man with another really old white man.
Sure thing.
Sure thing indeed.
Maybe he could run as an independent, at least that way he could potentially peel of all the white working male that continue to vote republican, irrespective of anything. I personally believe that would be the only way for Sanders to win. Will he do it? I doubt. But he should.
https://edition.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls
sabine: You inhabit an alternative universe there!
have you considered working for the good of all regardless of gender?
go on try it!
Dear, you should know by now that my Vagina rules my life. Literally. It cost me education my brothers got and i did not cause girls marry. It caused me to get raped. It caused me to get paid less then my male counterparts literally all my life. It will cause me less money in retirement. It will cause me less savings. And all the other things that people who are afflicted with the ‘Vagina Syndrome’ suffer from, especially poverty in age. So what was your point about gender again? If ever you had one?
In saying that, what about my comment did you not like? Unless you are just here for cheap shots, shits n giggles?
That i linked to the stats of whom voted for whom in the last election – mid terms, and that yes, white male voted in larger numbers for Republicans then Democrats? Or was it the fact that I believe Sanders would have a better chance of winning white male voters if he were to run as an independent rather then again trying to run as a Dem – a party that he does not belong to. He may caucuses with them, but he does not belong to the Democratic Party.
So considering that the Democratic party does not look like a white old male, why should the Democratic party nominate a white old male who does not belong or does not want to belong to the Democratic party?
And considering that small donors can get up to a lot of cash very quickly, he then could really boast about a peoples campaign. So essentially he does not even have the lack of cash excuse. Again, I personally believe he would win, were he to run as an independent. But i am not sure he actually has the guts to do so.
so dear, what is your issue whit my comment?
+100 Sabine
The Dems don’t need to split their vote like they did last time. There are enough progressives in the Dems – despite what commenters on here say. The recent mid-terms showed that dramatically with the Dems winning 38 – 40 seats in the House and a handsome majority of around 33 and a huge increase in younger and women reps. Indeed way more than they had hoped for! The days of the old white male are numbered – thank god. And as an old white male I’m allowed to say that 😉
Sabine You have become that which you purport to despise!
targeting gender or race vote is simply wrong and possessing a vagina will never make it right.
As well as being unethical is is a road to electoral failure. but i wonder if you care?
Cripes Sabine lay off. Progressives don’t need you dripping ennui and spit on everything that is suggested, like old white men again etc’. If men are the problem, let them work hard at being part of the solution. Keep on their tails to see they are performing politically and practically by all means but don’t garotte them before they can start.
It is my opinion that democratic party does not need an old white man to run for President, So no to Joe Biden. It is my opinion that Bernie Sanders – Independent – should not try again and run on a Party Ticket of whom he is not a member of.
You also have not read the part where i actually give Bernie Sanders good chances of actually winning, where he to run as an Independent – beholden to no party – and did most if not all of his fundraising via small donors. I honestly believe he would have a good chance with the white male of both parties D and R, and could potentially pull of a win.
As for your comment of of ‘men being the problem’ that is not at all what i have said, but feel free to point out what i have said that made you think it. Or maybe it is you who unconscious lets your bias believe stuff no one said.
I simply pointed out that the demography that votes for the Democrats, that fundraisers for the Democrats, that does the grass root work for the democrats are women, and people of color. I even attached the statistics of the last elections to show this phenomena in more detail. So if we are to go by that, the D should not nominate another old white man. Cause as far as i have looked the US were run since ever by old white man, with two exceptions, a young white man Kennedy and a young black man Obama. And look as to where it got them.
So maybe you just need to take account of your own feelings first before you put words in my mouth that i never uttered.
To be pedantic, Teddy Roosevelt was younger than Kennedy, and Clinton and Obama were only a few years older.
http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/america/unitedstates/presidents/byage.htm
Totes agree, the US needs someone other than an old white male as president. Even if only for the general principle that someone making decisions should be someone likely to live quite a long time with the outcomes. But there’s also practical matter that younger presidents have generally done a better job than older presidents. Biden and Sanders are both old enough that there’s a serious question mark as to whether they would maintain their current good health and vigour through a 4 year term. Actuarial information says the odds aren’t good.
Teddy Roosevelt never came into my mind, neither did Clinton, go figure 🙂 .
But the comment really was to the fact that we often elect people who are too old imho as they will not have to live with the results of their governance.
To me it shows a lack of courage to nominated the same people over and over again, a certain reluctance to admit that the world is changing.
So we rehash the same shit over and over again.
I currently see Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris as good contenders. Sherrod Brown in particular is good on workers rights, ‘is white’male’flyover country boy’ without any odd baggage that could be held against him.
Warren will never live down the Pocahontasa slur. But then she is excellent in the Senate.
there are other option in the Democratic party that are equally as good as the Senator from Vermont. (who should run as an Independent and give both some hard times to the R’s and D’s).
There are times I suspect you of James style trolling, but I’ll take the bait anyway…that’s 3 of the most underwhelming candidates ever.
Kamala seems your best bet when fighting the ‘old white male’ candidates that so irk you , but if you actually look at her public stands vs her voting you might want to think twice about that. She might as well be an old white male. Though she’s no Bernie Old White Male…
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/kamala-harris-trump-obama-california-attorney-general
The problem with Sanders running as an independent is he’s only likely to be a spoiler attracting votes from the left side of the spectrum, thereby helping deliver another term to Agent Drumpfski. He’s very unlikely to pick up any votes from the dayglo daycare escapee’s odd coalition of voters that will even elect a mouldering month-dead corpse if it’s got an R next to it, and middle finger voters.
My only objection to Sherrod Brown is he’ll be a few days short of 68 on Election Day 2020 – to me that’s getting firmly into old white guy territory. The only older presidents will have been Harrison, Ronnie Raygun, and the rotting Halloween pumpkin.
At the mo, Kamala would be my pick. The only white guy I’d be interested in is Beto, but I think there’s a good chance the electorate will have come round to thinking high-level governing competence and experience actually does matter, and four years in the House ain’t quite enough.
Sanders is not a Democrat.
He joined the party for a presidential run and left shortly after his primary defeat, and now he’s eyeballing the nomination of a party he didn’t deem fit enough to belong to?
/
But he is still the most popular politician in the US (especially with Democratic party members), so why do you insist on this party purity test?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/243539/americans-maintain-positive-view-bernie-sanders.aspx
Critisising someone who wants to use the machine of a party they won’t join ain’t a purity test.
Sanders has had his moment and came up short and quite frankly, after 45 men, the last thing the world needs is another geriatric male leading the US.
The thing is popular people actually win elections.
Who do you think would be better for the Democrats to run in 2020?
Harris or Gillibrand. And if they run a bloke, Brown, O’Rourke, or Murphy with Duckworth, or one of the above on the ticket.
Okay, they’ll all need a lot of campaigning for the level of name recognition that Sander’s positions have earned him but I guess that’s what the party machine is for.
Because the Democratic party has just shown that they have good progressives in their Party being active, fundraising, grassroot organisation, voter registration, running for office – any office. And most of them were women. And most of them were women of colour.
Because the progressives in the Democratic party have just won the house, given the R’s a good run for their money to hold the Senate.
Because the progressives in the Democratic Party have run Democratic candidates in deep red country and won.
Yes and the progressive wing of the Democratic party has more in common with Sanders and the majority of their voters than it does with the ‘moderates’
Who do you think would be better for the Democrats to run in 2020?
Currently i am liking Sherrod Brown to be honest, and i think he would be getting the tick of approval from Bernie Sanders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherrod_Brown
I do believe it will depend a lot on whom runs on the 2020 ticket for the R’s.
I don’t see Trump run.
Not because i don’t like him or because i think he is useless. But i think his health will actually be of an issue.
Not sure if the current lot of R’s would be as good as the lot that kept Reagan in office when his Alzheimer should actually has gotten him to an old folks home.
I don’t see Pence run again Trump. Can’t see him win against Trump, to be honest. This might be different that Trump will ‘resign’ for health reasons just before the election and with Pence then being Presnit he could have a chance being re-elected as the incumbent.
you say: Yes and the progressive wing of the Democratic party has more in common with Sanders and the majority of their voters than it does with the ‘moderates’
….. true that, yet , they are all Members of hte Democratic Party, and have run as Democrats, with the full support of the Democratic Party and its grass root members. And there is the difference between these progressives and Bernie Sanders. They are due paying members of the club, and he is not.
Forgive me but isn’t Sherrod Brown an old white male? Which is your 2nd objection to Sanders?
Of mainstream Democrats he is better on most issues but he really doesn’t have the name recognition of Sanders. It would require a massive campaign to familiarise the public with him and his positions, with Sanders you don’t need to do that as much. Also if Sanders is elected as a Democratic President, he would be the Head of the Democratic Party; the leader of ‘the club’.
Sherrod Brown 66 – old white geezer
Bernie Sanders 77 – an even older white geezer
Amy Klobuchar 58 – a not so old white women – i would not mind at all
Kamala Harris – 54 – a not so old not white women – would not mind at all.
You asked whom i would support. I pointed out Sherrod Brown, who is in the same way as Bernie Sanders, but 11 years his junior. And he is electable. – cause that is what we are talking here about? Right, elect ability.
That does not mean i approve of it. i still think that the D need to find someone better, but currently that would my pick.
Would i vote for Bernie Sanders if he were the candidate, yes i would.
You see how that goes when you are not a purist? You see the trees and the forest.
Okay but you were just dismissing Sanders because he is old and white, and also because he is not part of ‘the club’ of the Democratic party. What I’m saying is those ARE purity tests; he has caucused with Democrats for 40 years and he raised $228,164,501 from mostly individual donors at $27 a time, he is the most popular and trusted politician in the US at the moment; theses are factors in his electability too, and as a pragmatist I would argue that having the most popular politician on your side, representing your side (even if he’s not technically a party member), is the most effective way to win elections.
I’m currently preferring Biden for the 2020 run, with Beto as Vice.
Biden has crossover appeal to sane Republicans. Yes, the US has them, and needs them .In stark contrast to the most inexperienced and polarizing “president” in anyone’s lifetime, Biden by instinct and long experience has the ability to reach across the aisle and attract Trump-weary Republicans who couldn’t abide voting for Hillary in ’16. Democrats simply can’t be assured of winning the White House by themselves. The best way to stop Trump getting another term is to form a voting coalition between the ‘Never Trump’ Republicans and the Democrats. Neither Bernie nor any top-drawer Democrat could do that.
He can talk to blue-collar and low-educated whites. Hillary lost in ’16 for lots of reasons (the Comey letter, the Russians working for Trump, and being a terrible orator), but her disastrous tallies in the depressed small cities and towns of the Rustbelt fatally breached the Democratic “blue wall.” Biden was raised in Scranton and instinctively connects with the white workers who voted twice for Obama before switching to Trump. That’s the easiest path to victory over the Republicans as well.
He’s a fighter who gives it as good as he gets. He is who he is; it’s not a pose. Biden was widely criticized last month when he said of Trump, “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.” May not be a sentiment that everyone shares, but it’s the only way – and I mean the only way – that white poor males are ever going to vote for a strong Democrat candidate again. And again not any other Dem candidate comes close to doing that.
Beto and Biden would take out Texas and Florida, and probably get Arizona as well. Crack the south that Republicans have held since Nixon; that would be worth it.
Biden should do one term then bring Beto through for 2024 candidacy.
Of course, Biden has to really want it, and there’s a sense that it’s well time that he either pissed or got off the pot.
Galloway discusses the recent conflict between Ukraine and Russia. We do not want or need a war with Russia. The first 10 minutes are particularly great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa38TRPM2Qo
[Disputing moderation is normally an instant ban, maui. Take this as your one and only warning.TRP]
Thanks substitute Ed, been a few hours since that was posted..
lols
Snide.
ехидный
Ed’s sock done did it.
Exactly, fender.
Good to see TRP has stepped in quickly.
I had actually drafted up a (detailed with links) comment reminding people that we had a situation earlier this year where Ed tried to get around a ban by getting other people to post links etc on his behalf AND tried to sneak back halfway through his ban by using a different identicon*. Unsuccessfully …
I have put my detailed comment into my ‘On standby’ folder in Word – with all the links. It can be resurrected if necessary.
* He has four at my last count.
Just curious, does the four include the commenter using the handle Paul (banned until late 2020), who had astonishingly similar interests, opinions, commenting style, and reactions to being challenged that Ed does?
Funny you should ask. I don’t know but that possibility arose earlier this year (cannot recall who raised it) but as the Search function here no longer works the only people who could possibly answer that are moderators etc – possibly only Lynn.
I took a self-imposed break from TS for a year or so and I believe Paul was very active over that period but I don’t recall him or his ban. 2020? Wow.
On a daily basis, “Past tense” uses a blue one and a pink/violet one which he uses regularly but seems to also have two others which only appear rarely – eg when he tried to use one in March and then another he used late at night a couple of months ago and in comments close to ones using his two usuals. IMO/perception (rightly or wrongly) he seemed to be testing that one out to see whether anyone noticed …
It is that sort of disrespect for the moderators and dishonestly that I find contemptible – far more so than the continual authoritarian/dictatorial spamming and trolling.
And no, I am not a stalker! I am a pedant and research/analysis was a big part of my career – with one of my nicknames being “Eagle Eye”. Some of the others are not printable! LOL.
Since you seem to be a collector of these things …
https://thestandard.org.nz/poto-williams-statement-after-meeting-with-willie-jackson/#comment-1297975
Be kind to Ed, he is concerned about threats to NZ and wants a better outcome than might be. Sincere.
Try moving on DJ Ward who seems sincere in hating females and despising people in general and too prolific with comments.
ed picked up another ban?
Only a couple of days. See OM 3 Dec at 20 and 20.1.1 – also Daily Review 3 Dec at 9 and 9.1.
The video in 5 above put up by ‘m’ is a repeat of OM 3 Dec @ 20 put up by ‘e’.
Conspiracy theory of the day = is ‘m’ the alter ego of ‘e’ ? LOL.
butbutbut using sockpuppets to pretend that one has more support than one actually does would be dishonest 😮
Do I hear an irritating little insect whine around a handle with academic pretensions and lax personal grooming?
Nah, don’t think so. “m” has very different verbal mannerisms. Just a groupie, I reckon.
Bryce Edwards on the parliamentary bullying inquiry: “Will complainants confine themselves to using the official channels of what is an inquiry with a relatively narrow ambit and very limited ability to research and achieve much? Already, former parliamentary staff are choosing to go outside of the review, using the media to make their complaints public – see Kirsty Johnston and Derek Cheng’s Herald article from the weekend: Former staff accuse National MP Maggie Barry of bullying.”
“The Barry scandal may be the first of many revelations and allegations to come out about MPs in this fashion. Staffers are likely to see that Mallard’s review is relatively limited in scope and likely impact, and instead choose to go public. I explained some of the review’s shortcomings on The AM Show this morning – see: Simon Bridges bats off Maggie Barry allegations, says staff have a ‘spring in their step’. By front-footing the problem, but at the same time allocating few resources and setting such a limited scope, Mallard is likely hoping he has done just enough to assuage public concern.”
“Herald columnist Lizzie Marvelly has some similar concerns, arguing the inquiry needs more teeth: “While I support the spirit of the review, from the few details currently released to the public, I doubt it has been equipped with enough firepower to make a significant difference. It doesn’t have the power to subpoena documents, and will rely heavily on self-disclosure from affected staff. Most of the information gathered will never be released to either the public or Parliamentary Services” – see: What will spill out when the rug is lifted?”
How big is the can of worms? If they spill out even more into the public arena, pressure may indeed grow to go further than Mallard’s careful restrictions allow.
“The review will need to deal with some of the core issues about how Parliament operates – especially in terms of the peculiar employment arrangements of the staff that work for politicians. Although their bosses are in practice the MPs, legally they are actually employed by the two main agencies of the Parliamentary Service and Ministerial Services.” https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12170550
“This means that, quite often when there is a problem between an MP and employee, a payment is simply made to the employee to make the problem go away. The employee leaves with a payout, and the taxpayer pays for it, with no great consequences for the MP.” A system of tax-payer funded cover-ups isn’t a good look. Not even slightly. It’s a relic of the patriarchy.
“National Party blogger David Farrar has also commented on this problem: “The Parliamentary Service is the employer and hence they pay for any costs of any employment disputes etc. There isn’t a huge financial incentive for MPs to avoid employment disputes. If you changed the arrangement so the parliamentary party or even the MP was the formal employer, then you could well end up with better incentives as if you have to pay out a dissatisfied staff members say $15,000 that is $15,000 less money you have for newsletters etc” – see: Maggie Barry accusations.”
“A further problem is that the parliamentary employment agencies have a reputation for being totally subservient to the MPs, which makes the staff even more vulnerable. One former staffer is quoted by Henry Cooke saying: “When you would go to Ministerial Services they very much had the attitude of ‘Yes, Minister’ ‘Whatever the minster wants the minister gets. They didn’t give a s….'” – see Henry Cooke’s Is Parliament a safe place to work? MPs and Speaker disagree. This is best illustrated by Melanie Reid and Cass Mason’s important article, Bullied at Parliament – and nobody helped.”
“Just how toxic is Parliament?” We’ll see. “The only person who has been seriously bullied around this place is one Winston Peters” said the NZF leader, raising the possibility that we have more than one. Just trying to scare the media?
Duncan Garner worked there 17 years: “Parliament could be a bomb site by the end of this inquiry. You see that place rewards the winner and the loser is humiliated. The more public the humiliation then job done… I expect this review to highlight the total power imbalance between the worker and the MP, the drinking, the relationships, the Wellington wife, the sex, wanted and unwanted, the daily humiliation of the weak and of the wrong.”
No surprise Farrar is enthusiastic about the privatising of parliamentary staff. Donations to, and fundraising by, National are about 2:1 over Labour so if staff were employed directly by the party then National would’ve a massive advantage.
We’ve already seen National are quick to open the chequebook and present the NDAs to staff who have been victims of their machine and need shutting up. This is because they have the money, and lack the morals.
Also interesting that Farrar sees no problem in the status quo – an environment of bad bosses, ritual humiliation, and bullying. This of course runs counter to JA’s determination to bring kindness to politics.
The staff for the MPs are provided by the State Services Commission, and if they are not up to standard then it needs to be dealt with by the Commission. They act as a provider to the MPs, and there should be a meeting, discussion and mediation if there are problems. If the MPs source their own staff and make the decision as to whom to employ then problems would be theirs. But there is a possibility of family members being involved and their work and integrity not being adequate, which is less likely when the staff is in the Commission’f oversight.
Problems of suitability should be able to be expressed and met by the Commission so that the MP has choice, perhaps from five possible and suitable applicants.
That is likely to be impractical, to get those numbers, bit enabling the MP to have choice, which at present I don’t think they do, would be a forward movement.
The staff for the MPs are provided by the State Services Commission,
Bollocks. They are employed by Parliamentary Service but they are selected by the MPs themselves.
Exactly, solkta.
I sometimes think grey lives on a different planet, but they certainly have very little/no knowledge or understanding of how our government works, or any of the procedures/processes relating to its administration including staffing,
You are so bloody rude vv all you needed to say was that I was incorrect.
After your ignorant comments about Jews the other night, grey, I will no longer just pass over such comments and ignore them, and will call you out. Also your comments about Public Servants last night on OM at 19.1.
Neither Jews, nor Public Servants are a homogeneous group who all think the same or all act the same – as you implied in those comments and many more over the years. I find such comments not just bloody rude, but ignorant and bigotted.
I stand by my comments above – based on many of your comments I have ignored in the past, or have tried to help your understanding by providing informed replies with lots of information and links to help you.
Moronic Matty McLean all moist-eyed and upset over Maori Santa;
Then, even worse, he gets his balls busted by Hayley Holt.
TVNZ1 Breakfast, Monday 3 December 2018
inane adj. 1 empty, insubstantial; 2 asinine, witless; 3 lacking significance, meaning, or point : silly inane comments.
7:35 a.m.
MATTY THE WEATHER GUY: [eyes moist with emotion, face twisted with sincerity] If you’re a four or five year old child and you don’t see the Santa you were expecting, it would BREAK YOUR HEART.
HAYLEY HOLT: It’s breaking YOUR heart.
….[Stunned silence. MATTY THE WEATHER GUY looks wounded, JACK TAME looks shocked]….
7:41 a.m.
JACK TAME: [grinning enthusiastically] This is great, this is GREAT! I’m GLAD we’re debating this! Isn’t it good that we live in a country where THIS is the biggest issue!
….[Embarrassed silence. HAYLEY HOLT barely restrains herself from indulging in a moue.]….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/nz-has-possibly-two-worst-breakfast-tv.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/does-anyone-choose-to-watch-ones-lousy.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/jack-tame-emotes-after-newtown.html
Does anyone feel the summer? Cause its thunder and lightening, very very frightening here in Rotorua.
Looks like winter, feels like winter, i don’t think spring/summer ever arrived.
22.5 degrees in the North right now heading for a high of 24.
Doesn’t feel like 22/3 degrees in Auckland. Thunderstorm went on and on and on… but looks like finally clearing. Chaos across the city by all accounts.
Just had our wettest recorded (since 1965) December hour with 31.4 mm in Auckland.
This sounds ridiculous till you see the one-hour record holder, Leigh: with 109 mm in May 2001.
Tried to clear a drain up the road a bit but it wasn’t blocked by leaves, the leaves were hiding that it was full of leaves and silt up to the grill. Doh! They will have to fix their own drain.
I’m at home enjoying my rain garden which didn’t bat an eyelid with 13 000 litres soaked into a 30 sq m footprint. The Kokopu downslope of my section appreciate the effort. Years back I found some aestivating – lying in the damp mud under a rock head to tail like sardines, helpless, with stream completely dry. They can survive weeks like this but it’s not a good look.
Rain gardens replenish groundwater which recharge streams and aquifers while mitigating flood damage.
Tanks help too.
Tanks for that WtB.
it was pitch black out here, lots of lightening and thunder.
Cold. Very cold. Very wet. Rotorua.
The darkness gets me. It is supposed to be light till late etc, but nope, yesterday at 7 i had my lights on cause it was dark wet and rainy. It has been dark wet and rainy for several weeks now with occasionally a day of nice dry sunny thrown in.
All my veggies in the garden are stunted.
Most of my gardens are raised to help with drainage now. I started doing that because of heavy clay, and now with all the extra water from rain, it really helps. And mulch to stop erosion if plants aren’t covering the soil. Your weather does sound crap though.
Rotorua’s wastewater has cropped up in the news cycle again. If it’s as clean as they say it is, why aren’t they selling it to Hawke’s Bay farmers 😀
If they can’t dump it or sell it, they can perhaps use it.
I think a large wetlands. Strategically placed to percolate into the land and help maintain groundwater flow for rivers and or/aquifers. Turn it into tourism, conservation, wildlife habitat, boating, walking, bird watching, education, culture, rare timbers, honey, medicines…
You’d only need to convert one or two farms…
From daily review.
https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-03-12-2018/#comment-1557996
I put up a video about cows, methane and surprise, got accused of being a denialist
I realize this is a touchy subject, but people probably misunderstood where I was coming from, I’m not a scientist or have vast in-depth knowledge of climate change.
I posted a video which I thought was interesting as it was saying something completely different from what I’ve seen in the media and thought I’d put it up here and get feedback.
Asking questions doesn’t make one a denialist.
Now about methane
Methane concentrations have increased from around 775 parts per billion in pre-industrial times to around 1800 now, due entirely to human activities
In the video methane and ruminants(cows) was shown to be a natural cycle where methane was endlessly recycled and nothing changed and everything was kept in balance, obviously if more cattle are added then the amount of methane would increase.
So I went and had a look to see if cow/beef numbers have increased massively in the past 50 years and surprisingly they’ve been rather static.
That also got me thinking pre industrial there must have been a shit tonne of natural ruminants like Bison , Deer etc. and before them big animals like mammoths which would have been belching out methane by the tonne as well as many wetlands which have been destroyed due to farming
I then came across this article which I found interesting.
https://lachefnet.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/la-chefs-editorial-methane-and-global-warming/
The question the author was trying to answer was why methane levels didn’t start to rise until the industrial age.
According to the author
One reason methane levels remained flat was that cattle and other ruminants (wild and domesticated) lived in intact grassland ecosystems and helped build healthy soils that contain soil microbes called methanotrophs that reduce atmospheric methane (2). Thus maintained grassland ecosystems function as methane sinks, and bank as much as 15% of the earth’s methane (3) Tillage for crops reduces the soil’s capacity to bank methane (as does exposed uncovered soil) plus also releases carbon into the atmosphere (4). Use of synthetic fertilizers also adversely impacts soil methanotrophs (5). Glyphosate in no tilled systems according to industry funded research doesn’t impact soil microbial activity. Though research by other researchers contradicts this industry perspective and details how herbicides like glyphosate adversely change the makeup of soil microbes (6).
If that is the case because all our dairy and beef is grass fed we do not actually have that much of an impact on global methane levels? should we even be paying carbon taxes?
Or if we do shouldn’t it be more vegetable growers and not so much farmers?
The author points the finger more at natural gas and writes.
Meanwhile the methane from fracking and natural gas extraction, transportation and refining, in general, apparently has been underestimated significantly maybe by 5 times or 500% per some recent studies on this topic (9). Not to mention China is massively increasing their use of natural gas and fracking. Coincidentally, the largest increases in methane levels occurred in the 1960’s when natural gas use increased significantly- nearly ten-fold.
Remember not a heretic, just asking questions and trying to increase knowledge.
With regard to any complex system, descriptions inevitably simplify it. It’s how the mind works – just look at how much a map simplifies the territory it represents. Nothing wrong with what you wrote, just keep in mind that other factors will be missing. Only a specialist can be expected to fully account for all methane sources and sinks!
The only point for me to quibble is re cattle numbers, so I copied this from a govt website: “The total number of dairy cattle increased 68.6 percent, from 3.84 million in 1994 to 6.47 million in 2017”. So whatever gave you the impression they’ve been static for half a century seems wrong.
Globally? “The world cattle inventory in 2017 is at 998.3 million head. The population of the world in 2017 is estimated at 7.4 billion people. The world’s cattle inventory per capita is .13 head. Uruguay has the most cattle per capita in the world followed by New Zealand & Argentina. Uruguay has 3.44 head of cattle per capita. Five countries have more cattle than people: Uruguay, New Zealand, Argentina, Australia & Brazil.” http://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-vs-human-population-country-0-111575
The comparative table on that page rates NZ @ 2.17 per capita, Argentina 1.22, Australia 1.14, Brazil 1.08. I found a graph that shows the global cattle population has reached a plateau: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263979/global-cattle-population-since-1990/
So you don’t consider cows(ruminants) to be the evil they’ve been made out to be?
I’m not a farmer or have ever been involved in the farming industry, my interest in this is that taxpayers are going to be whacked with carbon taxes because of cow methane emissions.
Well I’ve agreed with the carbon tax in principle since I first encountered it almost 30 years ago. I would reserve judgment on any legislation until it is designed and written. Bad laws always need revision or elimination.
See how it works in practice. Market forces always produce a race to the bottom, eh? Adding to that pressure is problematic. I don’t think we need more farmers driven to suicide: enough of that already from the free market, eh?
Ok, if not denialist, then special pleading.
The problem remains that farming cows (and sheep) by current methods results in more methane emissions and resulting warming than alternative uses of that land. (Well, maybe rice paddies are worse, but CBF looking it up). In New Zealand’s case, there were no significant methane producing wild animals in pre-industrial times, so the argument that methane from modern farm animals are just stepping into the place of a pre-existing natural cycle becomes nonsense right from the starting point. That’s without even taking a close look at how the last few decades’ worth of shift to dairy conversions, general intensification and other changes in our mix from sheep to cattle have changed our emissions profile.
The intensive farming practices we now use are not part of a natural cycle. As your LA chefs link notes, synthetic fertilizers, tilling, etc generally adversely affect the methanotrophs in soils. I vaguely recall something about how the types of grasses we feed farmed cattle, together with the changes we’ve induced by selectively breeding cattle for increased milk production also increase methane production over the original wild animals (no, I CBF trying to find those references again). Given that all emissions from whatever source are a problem, even if the argument the modern practices are simply continuing at pre-industrial levels were true (which is highly unlikely), the fact that emissions could be reduced by changing those practices is yet another reason agriculture should be held accountable for its emissions.
However, when it comes to reducing those emissions, I part company with a lot of greenies in that I support use of all reasonable tools such as genetic modification for such projects as the high metabolisable energy grasses developed here in NZ, but need to be tested overseas because of local opposition and regs. Note also that meat from non-ruminants such as chicken, pork, kangaroo, horse also has much less methane emission and less warming effect than beef and sheep, for those (like me) who find going full vegetarian a bit too far.
Yes, fracking probably contributes a lot more than industry owns up to. As probably do other fossil fuel activities (I suspect coal mining in particular). There’s a lot of ongoing effort to measure and quantify all that. And no, they shouldn’t be let off the hook because of some kind of special pleading argument either. Nor should other agricultural activities like rice growing or palm oil.
A couple of useful initial links about atmospheric methane. The Skeptical Science is definitely old, but the comments are worth reading. And the usual caveats about wikipedia, but the tables are useful.
https://skepticalscience.com/methane-and-global-warming.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane
The problem remains that farming cows (and sheep) by current methods results in more methane emissions and resulting warming than alternative uses of that land. (Well, maybe rice paddies are worse, but CBF looking it up). In New Zealand’s case, there were no significant methane producing wild animals in pre-industrial times, so the argument that methane from modern farm animals are just stepping into the place of a pre-existing natural cycle becomes nonsense right from the starting point.
Isn’t methane a global issue?, the cows in NZ replace some of the Bison herd that got wiped out in the US?
Ummm, don’t you think they might have a beef and dairy industries in the US? And many times the equivalent of Bison?
Just saying you can’t look at NZ in isolation.
Isn’t that why we have to take climate change so seriously, otherwise it’s a waste of time us doing anything because our emissions are infinitesimal and if we all drop dead tomorrow it wouldn’t make one iota of difference.
Then there is those huge areas of South America cleared of rainforest to graze beef. There has been intensification all over the globe.
I think you are missing the intesification part. As you pointed out in the first comment Ruminant animals use to roam and the spreading of dung contributed to the health of soil that increased its ability to soak Methane. Just from my reading of what you had (I am no expert either) I would imagine that containing the same or more animals in smaller area’s counters some of the balance that was obtained through soil storage. It would also I imagine contribute to less absorbtion of waste and hence increased run off that gets in to our water ways.
Yes, methane is a global problem. So is CO2, which the general public is already paying for under the ETS (a tiny fraction of what should be paid, but payment nonetheless). Along with a bunch of other problem gases like refrigerants.
Why should agriculture get a free ride? Especially when there’s high emissions and low emissions ways of farming, and the entire point of using emissions pricing like the ETS or greenhouse gas tax is to incentivise people to change what they’re doing to a lower emissions mode. Y’know pricing signals, market forces and all that stuff.
We don’t need the headache trying to push something the public aren’t ready to swallow (GE). Also a lot of BS passes for truth in corporate sponsored science these days. I don’t trust em to save my world.
Put the research dollars into homoacetogens. Selectively breed them in a biodigestor to effectively take up methane in low hydrogen environments (better compete with methanogens in the rumen). Then, (some of) the components of methane would go toward SCFA’s for milk and meat production instead of global warming.
You could inoculate these bacteria on the red kelp that reduce methane but also
lower meat/milk yield a little. The methane would get a double hit and be reduced considerably, meat/milk production should remain the same or even improve.
The HME grasses aren’t a corporate money-grubbing scheme, they were developed by one of our government agencies. So while I’m extremely suspicious of any kind of GE breakthrough technologies touted by a corporate sales weasel, I don’t feel quite the need to be as suspicious of the motives and integrity of government funded scientists that aren’t being driven by a profit motive. Some suspicion is still warranted, to be sure, as is an expectation that benefits will be exaggerated and drawbacks not talked about as much as they should be.
As to where to put research dollars, it’s not an either or thing. We can look at a big selection of different approaches. No one single thing is going to “save us”, improvements will mostly come from a bunch of smaller things. Besides, “saving us” is kind of an irrelevant idea since we’re already fucked, the question now is how bad is it going to get.
Note how, despite their absolute awareness of public perception, they carry on with GE regardless.
Clonal monoculture, when the call is clearly for biodiversity.
Arrogant much.
Then you cheer lead GE instead of discussing a valid solution that wouldn’t screw our GE free status.
But discussion is not relevant because climate change.
And Crisp’r….
Here’s someone on it’s use on human embryos this morning (Science Deadline)
“University of Otago lecturer Dr Jeanne Snelling, from the Bioethics Centre and Faculty of Law, said the initial reports were “extremely concerning”.
“Most of the international scientific community agree that it the science is far too premature for CRISPR research to be used in a clinical context.”
So why are y’all claiming it’s perfectly safe for plants and animals?
Scientists in lockstep, parroting each other. Brilliant people talking utter horseshit.
It’s almost 2019, and will be 140 years since men got the vote.
Yay, let’s celebrate
It seems pretty much nobody is aware of this
Hi … welcome back. As for a sensible response to your comment … my self-censor won that small battle 🙂
Hi Red, thanks but I will try not to hang around too much – end up annoying too many. Though it is difficult to find places to exchange political thoughts out in the outer world …
No … actually in the past you’ve only ended up annoying a tiny Identity politics fringe …
… by committing the Cardinal Sin of advocating the classic Leftist notion of universally applicable human rights, rather than the self-interested particularism currently fashionable among Luvvie elites (who disproportionately appear to emanate from remarkably Privileged backgrounds).
If I remember rightly, you were essentially hounded off this site by one or two individuals from the Intersectional fringe who:
– had rarely if ever commented here before
– nevertheless posed as regulars
– purported to speak for everyone else
– aggressively attempted to isolate you / treat you as a heretic
.
The last two are, of course, the classic manoeuvres of Cult enforcers.
It would be easier for those who don’t know what’s going on if you’d say who hounded vto off the board. I don’t know what Intersectional fringe means.
Edgy haircut?
“By 1876 piecemeal reform efforts had created a bewildering range of different franchises for freeholders, leaseholders, householders, goldminers, lodgers, ratepayers and Māori (Māori men had been granted universal suffrage in 1867, to vote in four special Māori seats). There seemed to be majority support in Parliament for a simple manhood suffrage, but further action was undermined by the unstable political scene of the late 1870s.”
“In 1878 two rival bills were introduced: one by Robert Stout, the young attorney-general in George Grey’s government, the other by his predecessor, Frederick Whitaker, then in Opposition. Whitaker’s radical bill – it proposed proportional representation and allocating Māori seats on a per capita basis – failed to gain support. The government bill stalled in the Legislative Council (the upper house) and was eventually abandoned.”
“Grey’s government was soon defeated and a new election held. In October 1879 John Hall formed a new government and Whitaker returned to Cabinet. He introduced a new Qualification of Electors Bill, granting the vote to all adult European males after 12 months’ residence in New Zealand and six months in an electorate. This was comfortably passed on 19 December.”
“The next election, on 9 December 1881, was the first held under the new franchise and also the first in which voting in all European electorates took place on the same day. Manhood suffrage had an immediate impact. In 1879 there were 82,271 registered voters – about 71% of the adult male Pākehā population. In 1881 there were 120,972 (91%).” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/universal-male-suffrage-introduced
“…Māori (Māori men had been granted universal suffrage in 1867, to vote in four special Māori seats).
The history of Māori voting is much more interesting than that small inclusion. And it might surprise many to find that Māori voting rights in general elections was only achieved during our generation – in 1967. (Edit: my generation)
The establishment of Māori seats was partly to allow for those with communal property rights the right to vote as only landowners possessed that privilege, but also, I believe, to establish a system that mimicked true suffrage but did not provide it.
It’s worthwhile looking into if you have no prior knowledge of that history.
Wow – thats a voice from the vast! How long is it? Welcome back,
As another “v”, it is great to see you. And yes, let’s celebrate men’s anniversary of their vote next year. As a woman, it was great to celebrate women’s 125th this year, but I am an equality advocate and definitely agree we should celebrate the 140th.
I was not aware of this, so its my today’s ‘you learn something new every day’ moment.
Hi veutoviper,, yep few people know that men never had the vote either..
.. all power and voting was held by those in the elites – property owners, lords and those types..
I think it is important to understand this because it shows what our true battle is – namely, a class battle and not a gender battle.
I did know that the vote was restricted to the male elite landed classes etc but was not aware that it would be the 140th anniversary next year of it being widened albeit still only to males.
As Molly points out the history of Maori voting is much bigger than just the 1867 allowances.
Perhaps we could look at some posts over the summer break on these issues …
Advance in NZ organic food marketing and environmental packaging etc.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018674043/plastic-free-shopping-venture-expanding
Where there is money, guns and law-breaking, it is dangerous territory.
Poaching game animals etc. has been on air this morning on Radionz.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018674049/to-the-point-of-collapse-wildlife-trafficking-uncovered
Euthanasia and the eternal discourse and debate and discussion about ethics and possible loss of some months, years of life as if we are appealing to a parole board for the right to be released, and someone might get some money and help with their life instead of waiting for years and having the capital saved used up by profit-making companies looking after the bodies of slowly dying people …. And the opinions of the fine members of the medical profession who don’t want change and who assume godly responsibility which they then say they don’t want, and religion that tries to interfere with the individual’s right to go to God or face the time beyond if there is such, and everyone who doesn’t care about what others want, and don’t want to facilitate loving concerned action following a pattern laid down by law with suitably appointed people from a group who have registered as willing to help with the right attitudes of compassion and probity. How is this for a brick rant from someone who feels very strongly that we are remiss personally and nationally in preventing legal euthanasia to be planned, consulted o n, developed and begun.
And this:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/euthanasia-debate/108951681/an-irremediable-life-the-rare-plight-of-a-woman-who-wants-to-be-allowed-to-die
One of my main concerns is that we currently have no systems that are well-resourced and robust enough to make the clinical decisions and necessary precautions against unwarranted euthanasia treatments.
Our healthcare system – already underresourced – is not suitably equipped for a role of such gravity and surety.
I wrote a small comedy segment on euthanasia a couple of night ago. It’s probably in poor taste but the idea of how far it could be taken. And when corporate minds see it as opportunity.
Ad jingle
Have you had enough
Don’t worry about your stuff
You can leave it with us
0800 Free Bus
With no annoying counselors.
WtB
After one gets resigned to the idea of getting older, and actually dying (how can the world continue without me thought) then laughing at death jokes is possible. I like Terry Pratchett’s DEATH in capitals, he makes him very sure and certain, except when he goes off the beaten path. Do you like Pratchett?
I like the idea of people developing micro business ideas. You could sell your jingle to an alternative card manufacturer, I think it would get sales as black humour.
Pratchett, I don’t not like it, but I never sought it out.
The jingle follows some other material on euthanasia for a stand up set.
I could certainly churn out dark gift cards.
Births
“Another mouth to feed?
How wonderful!”
Deaths
“Sorry for your loss. Dibs on the Silverware.”
Sorry – meant to reply to grey above. Have deleted duplicate comment.
Molly thanks
But you add to the problem – refusing to face up to the need for euthanasia. The health system can’t cope, and still life is being artificially extended with medications and regular resuscitations and aid. Saying the health system should be improved before anything is done just avoids admitting that the whole system is overloaded, demand is exceeding the ability to ever cope, and some hard decisions will be forced on us eventually.
I and others want decisions to carry forward our proposals for euthanasis made now when the outcomes will be kindly and soft, not hard. So please everybody pull finger. We are sick of waiting for you tentative people to listen and act intelligently. People cast themselves as kind and concerned when they are just not wanting to accept real life needs.
I understand the need for dignified choice to end life. I have recently watched a friend go through chemotherapy treatment for leukemia. She says that at times she wished to die and would have welcomed the relief, and even though – thankfully she is in remission – she is not comfortable with the idea that doctors (in a fallible health system) would be given the authority to make that decision.
I support rights of those who are in unremitting pain or health to choose the manner in which they live – or die. I’m just not convinced that there will be protocols and resources in place to ensure that that right will not be misused or abused.
If you want to discuss how that is to be achieved – then I’m willing to listen.
(I also think we should at the same time be concerned about the underresourcing of our health system for those who are working towards a better quality of life, and effective pain management and support. Having euthanasia as a well-funded option may influence any moves towards that resourcing. So, the two issues are connected.)
Thank you Molly for your thoughts and i will get to them later. At present I need to get out in the sun, we have some at present. I am concerned at the hard lines being taken on TS just lately, it seems as if the commenters here given their heads would bring in an authoritarian system rather than a co-operative form of democracy, more participative than domineering the rank and file approach. It is screwing my head.
All good grey. Enjoy that sunshine.
I think euthanasia, along with other topics such as abortion benefit from ongoing and sincere discussion. I do have concerns re the evolution of euthanasia both as it is proposed and if it is ever implemented. But will wait till you get back.
For the MOW lovers and responsible smart government.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018674057/bob-the-nation-s-builder
Update on the UK govt’s war against parliament: “On 13 November, the Commons unanimously agreed to a motion put down by Labour calling for the legal advice on the Brexit deal to be published “in full”. Conservative MPs were told to abstain after it became clear that the government was not certain of winning the vote when the DUP said it would vote with Labour.”
Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, “told the Commons on Monday that the government had made a mistake at the time. He said: “We should have opposed it,” although he added that he would not have complied even if the vote had been lost. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/03/cabinet-minister-suspension-brexit-legal-advice-deal
Yesterday a motion was tabled in parliament that “calls on MPs to find “ministers in contempt for their failure to comply” and is signed by Labour’s Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer, the DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds, and the Scottish National party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green party.” This will be voted on later today, so we may wake up tomorrow to the news that the UK cabinet has been found to have acted in contempt of parliament.
One forward, two back.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday the United States wants to end subsidies for electric cars and other items including renewable energy sources.
Asked about actions planned after General Motors announced U.S. plant closings and layoffs last week, Kudlow said he expected subsidies for buying electric cars will end in 2020 or 2021. Kudlow said the Trump administration sees an end to other subsidies, including on “renewables.”
“As a matter of our policy, we want to end all of those subsidies. And by the way, other subsidies that were imposed during the Obama administration, we are ending, whether it’s for renewables and so forth,” Kudlow told reporters.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-autos-idUSKBN1O22D4?
Latest wingnut slur; the Kashoggi murderers donated to the Clinton Foundation.
The way the saddies throw money around, that would hardly be surprising joey.
Battling the BoBo’s.
https://www.dw.com/en/france-revolts-against-emmanuel-macron-and-the-elite/a-46568328
The list of demands from a movement with no leader and no policies, but apparently anyone can turn up in a hi-vis vest they’re part of the movement.
https://www.cnews.fr/france/2018-12-03/la-liste-des-revendications-des-gilets-jaunes-801586?
edit: buggered if I can get the translate html to work so here’s the google translation cut and paste
Favor the small beginnings of the villages and town centers. (Stop the construction of large commercial areas around major cities that kill the small business) + free parking in city centers.
Large Housing Isolation Plan. (make ecology by saving households).
That WHOLESALE (Macdo, google, Amazon, Carrefour …) pay LARGE and that the small (artisans, TPE PME) pay small.
Same social security system for everyone (including artisans and autoentrepreneurs). End of the RSI.
The pension system must remain in solidarity and therefore socialized. (No point of retirement).
End of the tax hike on fuel.
No retirement below 1,200 euros.
Any elected representative will be entitled to the median salary. His transport costs will be monitored and reimbursed if they are justified. Right to the restaurant ticket and the holiday voucher.
The wages of all French people as well as pensions and allowances must be indexed to inflation.
Protecting French industry: prohibiting relocation. Protecting our industry is protecting our know-how and our jobs.
End of detached work. It is abnormal that a person who works on French territory does not benefit from the same salary and the same rights. Anyone who is authorized to work on French territory must be on a par with a French citizen and his employer must contribute at the same level as a French employer.
For job security: further limit the number of fixed-term contracts for large companies. We want more CDI.
End of the CICE. Use this money for the launch of a French hydrogen car industry (which is truly ecological, unlike the electric car.)
End of the austerity policy. We are ceasing to repay the interest on the debt that is declared illegitimate and we are starting to repay the debt without taking the money from the poor and the poorest but by fetching the $ 80 billion in tax evasion.
That the causes of forced migration are treated.
That asylum seekers be treated well. We owe them housing, security, food and education for the miners. Work with the UN to have host camps open in many countries around the world, pending the outcome of the asylum application.
That the unsuccessful asylum seekers be returned to their country of origin.
That a real integration policy is implemented. Living in France means becoming French (French language course, History of France course and civic education course with certification at the end of the course).
Maximum salary set at 15,000 euros.
That jobs are created for the unemployed.
Increase of disabled allowances.
Limitation of rents. + moderate rent housing (especially for students and precarious workers).
Prohibition to sell property belonging to France (airport dam …)
Substantial means granted to the justice system, the police, the gendarmerie and the army. That law enforcement overtime be paid or recovered.
All the money earned by highway tolls will be used to maintain highways and roads in France and road safety.
As the price of gas and electricity has increased since privatization, we want them to become public again and prices fall significantly.
Immediate closure of small lines, post offices, schools and maternity wards.
Let’s bring wellness to our seniors. Prohibition of making money on the elderly. The gray gold is finished. The era of gray well-being begins.
Maximum 25 students per class from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Substantial means brought to psychiatry.
The People’s Referendum must enter the Constitution. Creating a readable and effective site, supervised by an independent control body where people can make a proposal for a law. If this bill obtains 700,000 signatures then this bill will have to be discussed, completed, amended by the National Assembly which will have the obligation, (one year to the day after obtaining the 700,000 signatures) to submit it. to the vote of all the French.
Back to a 7-year term for the President of the Republic. (The election of deputies two years after the election of the President of the Republic made it possible to send a positive or negative signal to the President of the Republic concerning his policy, so it helped to make the voice of the people heard.)
Retirement at age 60 and for all those who have worked in a trade using the body (mason or boner for example) right to retirement at 55 years.
A 6-year-old child not guarding himself alone, continuation of the PAJEMPLOI help system until the child is 10 years old
I’m sorry to have to report….
….that the good folks at Kiwiblog have taken to my new series like a cat takes to water.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/12/general_debate_4_december_2018.html/comment-page-1#comment-2373705
A decision about a Wellington development but one that relates to all the country’s coastline.
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=114621
3/12/2018
Appeal Court rejects plan for new development at Shelly Bay
(And has some thoughtful comments making relevant points which
would seem to have been worthy of notice by WCC.)
By the way Scoop raised its crowdfunding for its Scoop 3.0 project.
Hydrogen in Auckland.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1812/S00048/ports-of-auckland-to-build-hydrogen-production-facility.htm
4/12/18
Ports of Auckland to build Auckland’s first hydrogen production and refuelling facility
Auckland Council, KiwiRail & Auckland Transport supporting the project
Investing for a sustainable future…
Ports of Auckland will fund the construction of a facility which will produce hydrogen fromtap water. The process uses electrolysis to split water into hydrogen (which is then stored for later use) and oxygen, which is released into the air. Demonstration vehicles will be able to fill up with hydrogen at the facility, which will be just like filling up a car with CNG or LPG. Hydrogen is used in the fuel cell to create electricity which powers the car. The only by-product of the process is water.
Are the words ‘tap water’ significant? I am not sure but highlighted it because it is a familiar resource and I know more about it than petrol, batteries, lithium etc. which I don’t get out of a tap.
Artesian well water for the maserati, you can have tap.
Kia ora The Am Show that’s a good poll 70 % of people back raising the age of legally drinking alcohol two 20 years of age you know that it’s about balancing thing on the facts and not on the lies and proper gander spread by some trolls who the neo’s are pouring money into there hip pocket to create chaos .
There you go the britexit Paris riots the alt right have some countrys by the.
short and curly s the fuel rise in Paris doe not even bring there price of fuel anywhere near to the prices we pay here.
I agree we want the best for our children I say we need to change the way we teach one thing I know when one keep using the same model making the same mistake all the time and wonder why the education sector keep failing the poor & the minority cultures some thing is wrong . Time to look outside the square box and find simple changes to improve the low % of the mokopuna’s in those categories getting a higher education / Trade employment skills start these trade training at school.
Tova there you go dairydack is a big problem like Pee Crack ect these are causing a lot of harm.
I say using the shaming of nuclear weapons is the way to go and banning them to all the money spent on nuclear weapons could make billions of peoples lives much more healthy & happier.
It was ka pai to see that Jacinda has been ranked the 20 most powerful Wahine of Papatuanuku .
There you go a lot the next generation know exactly what is causing the most harm to OUR Society the facts steers us in the face .
Carly sugar TAX is what is needed now Britain took ten years of debating to do this we are the 3 highest country in Papatuanuku for Obesity Ka kite ano .This tax will save lives and billions in future health cost Its no rocket science
Action to fight global warming is coming whether world leaders like it or not, school student Greta Thunberg has told the UN climate change summit, accusing them of behaving like irresponsible children.
Many thanks to Greta Thunberg, for her big effort and the Great Idea to get all the World’s children to protest about what some parents are doing to there future dening or inaction to combat climate change Greta Thunberg 15, told UN summit that students are acting in absence of global leadership Mana Wahine 5 month’s of protesting at Parliament .
Thunberg began a solo climate protest by striking from school in Sweden in August. But more than 20,000 students around the world have now joined her. The school strikes have spread to at least 270 towns and cities in countries across the world, including Australia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the US and Japan.
“For 25 years countless people have come to the UN climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise. So I will not beg the world leaders to care for our future,” she said. “I will instead let them know change is coming whether they like it or not.”
“Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago,” she said. “We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with. We have to make our voices heard.”
The conference of nearly 200 nations is taking place in Katowice, Poland, and its main task is to turn the vision of tackling global warming agreed in Paris in 2015 into concrete action. On Monday, Sir David Attenborough told the summit that without action “the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon”.
We know who is behaving the worst Ka kite ano Links below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/04/leaders-like-children-school-strike-founder-greta-thunberg-tells-un-climate-summit.
Many thanks to Elon Mus as well If its was not for him the oil barons would be winning the war in carbon v green energy I am a big fan of Nikola Tesla we know the bad people won the war against him.
Of all Musk’s companies, Tesla may be the most famous. Its namesake Nikola Tesla was a great innovator but asocial and died penniless while others capitalised on his inventions.
The company itself has made impressive strides and has just hit the goal of making 7000 Model-3 Tesla cars a week.
“They kind of maybe don’t get enough credit for that – because Elon made some ridiculous predictions for how many cars they’d be producing by now, and they’re behind that – but to be making 7000 cars a week at this point in their life is quite an achievement.
“It’s very hard to go up against the motor industry and the oil industry with a new car company in the United States and to get through an economic recession at the same time – and to convert people to this idea that electric cars can be better than petrol
McKenzie is convinced the shift to electric is coming.
“Ten years might be a little bit optimistic but I would not be surprised if half of the cars on the road in 10 years time were electric.
“If you look back to the era of the motor vehicle surpassing horse and buggies – from 1910 to 1921, that’s the time it took for horse and buggies to disappear from the streets in America – the space of 11 years.
Meanwhile, China is investing massively in what it’s calling ‘new energy’ vehicles, with a series of new electric vehicle companies like BYD starting up.
“What’s happening in China is really encouraging and the government there is extremely supportive of transitioning. All that production will inevitably lead to greater supply and – along with the improvement of battery technology and recycling – is bound to drop the price of electric cars dramatically.
“Battery prices are dropping rapidly, they’ve dropped 80 percent in the last six years.
“In Tesla’s case they’ve got partnerships for recycling them and they’re going to do a lot of recycling at the Gigafactory which is this massive factory they’re building in the desert in Nevada.
“They want to build another dozen of these around the world. It’s so big that they’ve only constructed a third of it so far and it takes about two hours just to walk around that one third.”
“At the end of their life every part of the battery can be reused.
“That is kind of like the secret missing ingredient to what could power a new energy economy: the wind doesn’t blow all the time and the sun doesn’t shine at night, so those sources are kind of inconstant – but you can make them constant if you have enough batteries storing energy ready to deploy whenever you want and put them everywhere around the world. The suppression of electric vehicles has also been sustained through lobbying and campaigns, he says.
“Fossil fuel groups have been lobbying and campaigning and spreading disinformation about electric cars for a long time now – and continue to.
“Most recently the Koch brothers – who are two of the richest people who have ever existed … last year they funded this campaign called ‘Fuelling US Forward’ which was supposed to espouse the benefits of glorious fossil fuels, but actually instead focused on taking down Elon Musk and taking down electric cars.”
He says one of the things the company was trying to suggest was that electric cars are worse for the environment than petrol, which “is just not true”.
“Even in the dirtiest coal grid situations electric cars are better for the environment when you account for the total production costs than even the most efficient gasoline vehicles … that’s out of a study from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
McKenzie says although he’s a fan of electric, he’s not as excited about autonomy as some others. Ka kite ano P.S you see people Eco’s word about oil barons are the TRUTH links below.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018673706/hamish-mckenzie-the-tesla-revolution.
Kai ora Newshub That’s is a good breakthrough that the Australian scientist have found a new blood test that can detect cancer ka pai I seen that the scientist are new Australians some people don’t get it that immigrants can add a lot to a country talent trump .
Lloyd there you go Eco Maori will say know more on the brexit .
Its cool that the meningococcal vaccines are being administered in Northland ka pai.
The 100 bilion fund is a very good start to our investments into dumping carbon .
Thats a huge Christmas tree in Britain the mokospuna’s love Christmas.
Andrew there are people who like to push people buttons that fan at the basketball in America new he would get under that player skin and —–him off Ka kite ano