Paging Pascal’s bookie,wakey wakey, here’s the reply to your rude interruption of the debate in yesterday’s ‘Open Mike’,
Note that ALL of the actions in ‘Operation Cyclone’ were the result of secret ‘directive 166’ signed first by President Jimmy Carter and later expanded by President Ronald Reagan,
Your claims that Arab groups fighting in the Afghan/Soviet war were only funded and armed by Saudi and other Arab states funneled through the Pakistani intelligence service are rather spurious considering the information now available,
Operation Cyclone- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,
Bugger, another link that won’t, don’t know what’s with that, but ask the question of Google ‘US funds for groups fighting in Afghan/Soviet war’ and it should take to the page i tried to link to…
If your in for a ‘looong read’ which details ALL the players in the Afghan/Soviet war, the personal connections from the CIA to President Ronald Reagan meeting bin Laden’s older brother at the White-House, (along with such niceties as some of the ‘high-ups’ in bin Laden’ various organizations being aided by the CIA to repeatedly gain visa to enter the US despite being on the ‘terrorist watchlist’) there’s this,
You’ve ignored most of what I said, and have, as predicted, conflated mujaheddin with AQ.
Here’s your initial; claim:
You have to get with the real picture, prior to September 11 Al Qaeda were US funded and armed assets during the Soviet/Afghan war
Operation cyclone was about supporting the mujaheddin, and there is no conclusive evidence that OBL was funded. The implication that he was directly funded by the US is even harder to substantiate, which is probably why you are having such a hard time coming up with any good direct sources or quotes.
Nope i haven’t confused Al Qaeda and the Mujaheddin at all, they were all inter-connected during the Afghan/Soviet war so what funded the Mujahidden also at the same time funded Al Qaeda,
Riiiight, perhaps you think i mean that the CIA passed suitcases full of used 20’s directly to bin Laden, spurious, the funding went to the Pakistani intelligence network from the US, (billions of dollars),and was then distributed by the Pakistani intelligence network either directly as arms or laundered through the BCCI bank,
I suggest you read ‘The complete 911 Timeline: The Soviet-Afghan war which you obviously haven’t otherwise you would not be replying with such lame comments…
I’ve read the timeline. It’s a bit of a curate’s egg to be honest. It often claims certain things to be facts based on not much more than “x reported that unnamed source told him y”, which is a data point to be sure, but absent corroboration, not one that given much weight.*
It would better if it just left it at the ‘X reports’ and laid of on the implications that Y was true.
Based on what you’ve written though. I’d suggest you need to do a lot more reading. A good primer is “The Looming Tower”. It really is worth the time and money invested if you want to know what everyone is claiming and how much evidence exists for the claims.
Nope i haven’t confused Al Qaeda and the Mujaheddin at all, they were all inter-connected during the Afghan/Soviet war so what funded the Mujahidden also at the same time funded Al Qaeda,
I said you conflated the Mujaheddin and AQ.
‘Conflate’, as in, ‘assume that funding one is the same as funding the other’, as in, “so what funded the Mujahidden also at the same time funded Al Qaeda”.
You claimed AQ was a cia/US asset during the 70s and 80’s war. As suppport for this, the only thing you’ve presented is that the US gave money to the ISI to distribute to Mujaheddin. As I predicted.
I think you need to read that timeline yourself, pay attention to it this time.
Now how about justifying your doubts about Assad’s weapons? ( Prediction: ‘The US claimed saddam had WMD in 03 but he didn’t; therefore Assad doesn’t have them now’)
And tell me about my belief system and how it hasn’t changed; another unsupported statement you claimed to have some knowledge about.
*(It’s ironic that many of the claims in the timeline rely on a single MSM report of a statement made by an individual, but I guess that because the timeline itself isn’t MSM, you think, well, I don’t know what you think, but it’s amusing none-the-less)
Yes exactly, during the Afghan/Soviet war Al Qaeda was not so called, what funded the Mujahidden also funded all the Saudi’s and ‘other’s’ who joined the fight,
If you had of read the timeline you would know that bin Laden spent a large part of that war on the Pakistan side of the border funnelling the Saudi and ‘other’ fighters along with the arms across the border to the two main groups of Mujahidden,
It is obvious from the Presidential ‘directive 166’ and operation cyclone that the CIA supplied Osama bin Laden with arms and money and just as obvious that as proof of this you would only accept a ‘confession’ from both the CIA and the White-House which obviously will not be forthcoming,
Carry on with your hilarious belief in the goodness of apple pie and Uncle Sam,
Next you will be denying that prior to the first bombing of the world trade center bin Laden had a recruitment and funding office operating in New York and other US cities…
It isn’t ‘obvious’ at all, it’s an assumption based on ‘not much’. What is obvious is that your ‘knowledge’ stems from things like ‘the timeline’ which you seem to put an enormous weight on. Which is fine as far as it goes, but it’s not analysis, and it’s based on superficial stuff. You should try ‘books’.
Carry on with your hilarious belief in the goodness of apple pie and Uncle Sam,
citation required.
My belief is that the US wasn’t in any sort of control of what was going on, especially with regard to OBL. You seem to think that the US is some sort of ghost in the machine, that everything that happens, happens at their direction.
You claimed that AQ was a CIA asset in the 80s. That’s just laughable and you’ve provided no evidence for it. As is your claim that AQ are ‘basically mercenaries and guns for hire’.
No evidence for doubt about Assad’s wepaons either then?
Yes i should hunt out the book printed by ‘Time’ magazine which says much the same as what i have been saying and much the same as what the timeline also says not to forget the Wikipedia,
You are now retreating to a pathetic default position where you put up comments about what you ‘think’ i think,
Where have i said that the US were in immediate control of bin Laden??? well i didn’t, not even a slight insinuation,
What the CIA was ultimately in control of,(yes along with the Saudi’s) was the money and arms flow to the Pakistani’s who then used bin Laden and others to distribute these arms among the Jihadists,
Provided along with these arms and monies was also an ongoing series of satellite images of specific targets which they wished attacked,
Were the CIA on the ground at any time in Afghanistan giving orders, not likely their involvement was a supposed secret,(in terms of deniability), why do you think they suffered the Pakistani’s skimming the money supposedly for use in Afghanistan,
Untill recently even ‘Presidential directive 166’ was classified information and at the time that directive was issued by Carter it was simply a matter between His administration and the CIA with no over-sight from any other body…
“Where have i said that the US were in immediate control of bin Laden??? well i didn’t, not even a slight insinuation,”
” He who was captured [Mohamed al-Zawahiri] is just as likely to be in the employ of either the UN or the US via the Saudi Government,
You have to get with the real picture, prior to September 11 Al Qaeda were US funded and armed assets during the Soviet/Afghan war,”
That’s a pretty clear ‘insinuation’.
It doesn’t much look like, ‘Prior to forminh AQ OBL was raising funds and distributing them in Afghanistan and had some links with the ISI, who were also distributing US monies’.
But if that’s all you meant by ’employ’ and ‘US funded and armed assets’ and ‘AQ’, then fine I guess.
What you are describing is ‘deniability’, if the US provided the arms, money, and satellite photo’s through a third party to those opposing the Soviet’s in Afghanistan who is funding such opposition, the third party perhaps???…
And if you think anyone would need WMD as a Casus belli to go into Syria at the moment, you should read a newspaper from the last year. They could have gone in under ‘ duty to protect’ at any time.
You could try evaluating why they haven’t, (hint: it’s a shit fight with no good options) but that might challenge your pre-concieved notions about what’s going on.
Are these the same caring foreign countries who are supplying arms, financing and logistical support to the Rebels and assorted Salafi jihadists tearing up civilian areas?
what funded the Mujahidden also funded all the Saudi’s and ‘other’s’ who joined the fight,
large parts of your timeline directly contradict this. Much of the US funding was skimmed by the ISI if your timeline is to be taken as gospel. The funding OBL was attracting from wealthy saudis is what carried the war, according to your timeline. But your timeline contradicts itself in several places, doesn’t it?
Yeah i have read it close enough to know your talking s**t when you claim that the ‘timeline’ shows that ”the funding bin Laden was attracting from wealthy Saudis is what carried the war”…
Now how about justifying your doubts about Assad’s weapons? ( Prediction: ‘The US claimed saddam had WMD in 03 but he didn’t; therefore Assad doesn’t have them now’)
More like – information and claims about middle east WMD in 2003 proved extremely unreliable, information and claims about middle east WMD in 2013 may be equally unreliable.
of course it makes sense. In 1991 WMD was not seen as the all-encompassing rationale for invasion and regime change that it became after 9/11. Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait was the big trigger for allied action in 1991, not WMD.
What’s that got to do with doubting whether or not Assad has WMD?
I reckon he’s got them, based on the fact he claims to have them, is not a member of any of the relevant treaties banning them, and what we know about his programs.
Bad12 seems to think it’s doubtful, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it or say why.
So you accept the point that the environment surrounding the treatment of WMD has moved far on from 1991? Good.
Now, if Assad has WMD he’s had them for years and not used them against civilians AFAIK. So now we are back to the post 9/11 WMD pretext for regime change a la Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.
BTW Syria does not have the most powerful WMD in the Middle East not governed by international treaties, by far. But you know this.
But the reactions are all important PB. After all, Assad has probably had WMD for many years (and Israel likely has the most powerful WMD of any middle east country). But today, after 9/11 and 2003, it’s become an effective pretext for waging war. A true, presumptive, convenient, casus belli a la Iraq.
Great quote from Sarah Teather in the UK Parliament during a debate on social security reforms…so applicable here too…and further evidence of the Crosby technique that they have just bought into there…so familiar!
“In an atmosphere of uncertainty and limited resources, where every family in this country is struggling, there is a natural tendency to try and find someone to blame for our own woes. A fissure already exists between the working and non-working poor. Hammering on that faultline with the language of shirkers and strivers will have long-term impacts on public attitudes, on attitudes of one neighbour against another. It will make society less generous, less sympathetic, less able to co-operate. The marginalisation of the undeserving poor will place one group outwith society entirely over time and leave them less able to make choices about their own lives and less able to participate. That fragmentation of society is, for me, the spectre of broken Britain and it is one that we should worry about hastening at our peril.”
Unfortunately all across the Western World the same template of denigration is being applied by politicians,
Unemployment is simply a reflection of the success or FAILURE of the economic ism adhered to by the various political factions, rather than address the FAILURE of such policy they choose to address negatively the visible manifestation of the FAILURE, the unemployed,
Economically there’s a wealth transfer occurring which is at the heart of the unemployment numbers where as the 1%ers gather unto themselves greater amounts of ‘wealth’ the middle classes who act as (sometimes unwitting), agents of that wealth transfer are protected by the political system directly favoring one class over another,
Symptoms of this overt favoring of the middle classes being, interest free student loans, working for families tax credits, tax cuts, so called ma and pa asset sales, and ‘plans’ to shoe horn those who can afford to service a 300+ thousand dollar mortgage into home ownership,
The only one of such policies that i would qualify as being based upon ‘NEED’ would be the interest free student loans,
Having said that, education should be funded from ‘Social Credit’ and not from the taxpayer base which is simply a means by which education is allowed to be rationed among the population…
And how the lying bastard politicians shamelessly beat that drum to divide society……..their primary purpose being to win and lengthen tenure at the public trough. All the while loftily proclaiming how decent-values stuffed they are and how much they care. They’re scum really.
And how the majority of the players in the embedded media, self-important oracles along for the ride, delightedly, effervescently often, report on how well the drum is beaten…….on how well the “game” is played.
+1 and the current Labour caucus is playing that tune to the delight of the hollowmen. This theme will get rolled out against then in 2014.
How many troughers do you see in the likes of Ducky, Kingy, etc now all been there done that, tried and failed again yet not standing aside for the fresh blood.
The basic problem is that to get most people to understand the intricacies of the Global Financial Crisis and the wholesale looting of various countries treasuries by the rich is too difficult yet people need someone to blame. Western media continuously plays up the desirability of being rich and consuming excessively so the wealthy cannot be attacked. And since the demise of the Soviet Union communists cannot be blamed, even though the Tea Party delusionally thinks they can.
So who do we have left? Beneficiaries are the easiest to bash. There is always one individual amongst a group of hundreds of thousands that can be accused of some sort of shirking behaviour and then they can be blamed for all our problems.
I agree with the gist of this sentiment, however it’s not that pointing out the bad guys is hard, they are the Douglas/Richardson/Fay/Richwhite/Key crowd.
It’s that it’s impossible to point to any good guys around who are presenting Real Alternatives.
Here’s film director Ken Loach making the same point, devastatingly, on BBC television, goading the leonine Thatcher henchman Michael Heseltine into a display of apoplectic fury… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6OLguh7_P8
He makes the good point that i often make, here in New Zealand some 7 billion dollars of owed tax is either ‘avoided’ or evaded’ annually,
If that ‘avoidance’ were to be classes as criminal evasion and effort brought to bear on actually collecting this owed taxation Governments wouldn’t be scrabbling round looking to point the finger of blame at the unemployed who have no means of avoiding such tax, for their, (Governments), stupid mismanagement of the economy,
The same excuse of course will be trotted out here as that Tory piece of s**t trotted out in the Utube vid, ”Oh we can’t expect the rich to pay all the tax they owe, they will en masse take all their wealth and flee the country”,
Luckily i don’t get to sit in the same room as any of these ‘people’, hearing such speech drives me into spasms of violent thought…
“The basic problem is that to get most people to understand the intricacies of the Global Financial Crisis and the wholesale looting of various countries treasuries by the rich is too difficult”
Without wanting to sound self serving, that’s an added bonus to my fight to save stan heather park in Hamilton West. Not only would it safeguard a community facility, but give the local people a clear example of wealth transfer in their backyards. The ideas I’ve sent to various parties and organisations and all without reply, show how this local issue could set a national agenda for 2014. It’s so simple, I can’t understand why no-one’s doing it already.
Show the people the fight, teach them how to win it, help them to victory. Whoever does that could take the 6 west ward councillors in the 2013 local elections, and perhaps a good shot at forcing a cup of tea from sue moroney in 2014.
4-10k votes elected 6 ward wallies. Our three suburbs could do that easy.
Hi Al1en. Very nice. A concrete in your face issue used as a demonstrator for the values we are talking about. It allows those in the neighbourhood to inquire further into political economics, without having to start a postgrad degree in the subject.
I’d be very interested in reading some more detail on your ideas – would you please forward to lee.adama@gmx.com? (I will reply via the Std if that’s OK).
No worries, though you’ll have to wade through my pigeon English to get there.
The choice here is more money to a developer or free food for the hungry.
\Doesn’t get more in your face and direct than that. Classic good v evil clash.
Beat them here over a local issue, and who knows what a nationwide launch could achieve?
I’d go at least 5% with the right personnel.
Nice work, go hard.
How can Hardaker claim “”It’s good news for the city as it will be open to the public.” when it’s being turned from park into developed suburbia.
Some mates of hamilton rugby no doubt will be profiting nicely as it’s now reported as sold. Historically wouldn’t this have been gifted to them like Ellerslie racecouse was so sort of like selling on your inheritance.
How the F did such a booming city get into such a mess TA ? The growth in/around Te Rapa with suburbia and te Awa /the base etc, what happened.
Hardaker was on TV (campbell live) when the Chiefs were winning something at last, extolling how Hamilton is a rugby town and how she’s right behind Hamilton rugby. Hypocrite politicians, I shit them.
Asked all those questions, got no answers. The head of the Hamilton rugby union couldn’t ‘remember’ the name of the secret developer that just stumped up $2m, six months before the new district plan is live.
If it smells, looks and tastes like shit, it usually is.
If the rezoning is refused, then the market price drops drastically. Worthless to a developer, priceless to a trust run market garden.
Just got to announce a better use for the land than a money maker for the 1% and raise the cash by donation and all sales of my anonymous cd.
Being part of the 99% means there’s more of us than them, right? Makes it won before it even starts. 😆
Best Practice Dec.12: Did you know that it is estimated by 2026 20,000 NZers will require palliative care to rest in peace?
Pain-the most prevalent symptom preceding all deaths occurring in palliative care settings on NZ
Opioids, also indicated for the treatment of breathlessnes in p.c, sigh, deep breath,
Pain Assessment-STAS-Support Team Assessment Schedule
or,
PACSLAC for seniors
“Total Pain”-a subjective experience, influenced by
physical-psychological-social-spiritual elemants
threshold may be raised through positive influences
-improved sleep, companionship, sympathy,sic (empathy), fear reduction
expression of negative emotions valid: REAL frustrations exist about bureaucracy, diagnostic delays, lack of resources and treatment failure.
1. Morphine the most extensively studied, widely available and commonly used opioid in p.c
-active opioid metabolites can accumulate through impairments
-opioid toxicity; myoclonic spasms, excessive sedation, confusion, restlessness, hallucination
2.Oral oxy-codone (that’s slipped into NZ in recent times; severely abused in the U.S)
Adversities;
constipation expected
Nausea-distressing yet often transitory; trial various anti-emetics
-Haloperidol if chemo-receptor trigger zone induced
-Metoclopramide if reduced G.I motility
-Cyclizine-if vestibular stimulation
Drowsiness-often transitory,resolved over a period of days; persistence may indicate toxicity
11.8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land. (13, admittedly, we are aliens and strangers upon the earth)
Surah 13: 32 Mocked were many Messengers
Before thee: but I granted
Respite to the Unbelievers
And finally I punished them:
Then how terrible was My requital!
Pr.11.6
A kindhearted woman gains respect, but ruthless men gain only wealth.
(I have never been interested in the work of sacha baron cohen, his cousin Simon, yes; and Seinfeld? Woody Allen on a donut, such self-obsessed characters about nothing imo)
In the year following the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia more people went to gaze at the empty space than in the year before: Presence (seen the art work on the cover) Absence
“We are in a predominantly mechanical, materialistic phase that has led to a desacralizing of the cosmos. This may yet have disastrous ecological consequences, given the predictions of climate science, though the worst may be abated by recovering the “ancient ideas of sacred groves or holy springs”, The deep truth about matter which neither Descartes or Newton realized, is that over the course of four billion years, molten rocks transformed themselves into monarch butterflies,blue herons and the exalted music of Mozart (Rock me Amadeus) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/amadeus/. Ignorant of this stupendous process (stupidly) we fell into the fantasy that our role here was to reign (Objectively) over matter.
-Journey of the Universe; Brian Swimme (comologist) and Mary Tucker (ecologist)
“We have to admit the disastrous course of Business as usual; Rather, invest in scientific research, including in the Social Sciences, to find all possible openings (any port in a storm); agree to a great extent on what can be done; negotiate in Good Faith as to who will do what; and stick with the overall plan through thick and thin, despite inevitable short-term crises”
“Earth is negotiating with us right now and waiting patiently-cometh the hour, cometh the political Leadership?-for a Good Faith reply. If humans don’t make it, the universe has plenty of time and space to evolve intelligence again, yet humanity will be sloughed off as if we had never been”
-Joel Primack (physicist) and Nancy Abrams (philosopher)
Not concluding that everyone will agree on what is “sacred” http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/gray_12_10.html
one conclusion is that sacred values lie at the heart of 21st century conflicts. Further,until they are recognized as such, these conflicts will Escalate and Perpetuate, not be won or lessened.
(reasearch has shown that “Palestinian hard-liners were more willing to recognize the right of Israel to exist, if the Israelis apologized for suffering caused to Palestinians civilians in the 1948 war) -Vernon
Why is our century worse than any other?
Is it that in the stupor of fear and grief
It has plunged it’s fingers in the blackest ulcer,
Yet cannot bring relief?
Westward the sun is dropping,
And the roofs of towns are dropping in it’s light.
Already death is chalking doors with crosses
And calling the ravens and the ravens are in flight.
-Anna Akhmatova
Karl Marx was playing a parlour game
with his daughters. To their question
What is the quality one should most abhor?
he wrote; Servility.
This was found-a scrap of paper
amongst the family albums and letters;
it is the most essential of all
the Complete Works.
-Robert Gray
It takes much time to kill a tree
The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.
Also as an aside is there any chance that someone could have got my email address from here to add me on facebook? I got a random friend request from someone with some high profile left leaning friends and cannot figure out why they would have added me. I realise more than likely it was just someone adding me by accident, but thought I would check if anyone else had got this or there was any chance it came from here.
I think it would be highly unlikely it came from here.
Might be a fb group or like you made a while ago?
The other option is that it’s someone you did actually meet ages ago and forgot about – happened to me a couple of times. Turned out they knew me from years back.
Dom
-Treaty spawns a Legion of lawyers
-thankfully settlements have risen
yet,
-numbers of lawyers willing to “represent” falling
-$$$ stacked in govts court
-HNZ earthquake-prone stocks unsettling people
-17 Billion bicycles, I mean planets above Beijing
– 1 Trillion dollar platinum Federal coin
-“silliness before disaster”-Krugman
-(accounting manoeuvres only deploy ’til February 😉
-The Biggest Bank in The Whole Wide World, China’s ICBC growing a branch in NZ
-“primed” to launch-Amanda Lu
-unlikely to need to stop at red lights-Claire Matthews
meanwhile, back in the kitchen (Aus “dome of heat”)
-Bureau of Meteorology’s temperature forecast chart adds Deep Purple (Oh my love it’s a long way, where you’re from it’s a long way) and Pink to spectrum and extend range to 54 Degrees C
(all time record high, 50.7 C in 1960 at Oodnadatta)
Are you on a benefit, scared of facing life off the benefit, have you been shafted on the benefit, are you perhaps even informed and know that a nasty piece of legislation called the “Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill” is right before Parliament now, being looked at by the Social Services Committee, likely to hear more submissions soon???
Better WAKE up, LEARN what the hell goes down and on, have a read of the bill on Parliament’s website, or on the sites found under following links:
I get it, your parents are rich, your parents are secure middle class, you have some savings, you studied and will get a good and well-paying job, if need be in Australia, you will “never” have to rely on the dole or any other benefit, as you will be fit and healthy for ALL times, right?!
Learn the bloody lessons of live, open your lazy ears and eyes, take a look, have a read, as this is extremely important. No, it will not just “deal to” so-called “bludgers”, “breeding solo mums” and “maligners” on sick and invalid’s benefits. The whole system will change, it will get REAL mean and you will in most cases be affected at one or another time in YOUR bloody life, dear reader.
Now the Ministry of Social (Under) Development, of social exclusion, of meanness, under the bullying Minister in charge, has launched a bloody SURVEY, to serve it’s cause and get the ignorant, blue eyed, naive and good-believing folk out there to offer ideas, suggestions and feed-back on the reforms, solely designed to “assist” the poor and so much neglected sick, injured and disabled into real good value work!?
Propaganda from and for the bottom level of inputters has never been any “sweeter”, not even Master demagogues like Goebbels, Mussolini and Hitler would have thought of such a smart scheme to “involve” all those so “concerned”.
So there you are, able to give your “input”. I am sure Farrar, Whale soil and whatever kinds of their following have already been online day and night, to offer their “advice” and support to MSD.
So dear Standardistas, get off your bloody arses, go there, and deliver also your, and your valued friend’s advice, suggestions and feedback now. It must be done, or the masters of demagoguery will win.
Get onto it, tell them what you think and feel on the MSD website, NOW, please!!!
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Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. ...
The following was my submission made on the “Fast Track Approvals Bill”. This potential law will give three Ministers unchecked powers, un-paralled since the days of Robert Muldoon’s “Think Big” projects.The submission is written a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it’s irreverent because the FTAB is in itself not worthy of respect. ...
One Could Reduce Child Poverty At No Fiscal CostFollowing the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families have been added, the best known being ‘Working for Families’, introduced in 2005. ...
Buzz from the Beehive A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”. Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew ...
1. What was The Curse of Jim Bolger?a. Winston Peters b. Soon after shaking his hand, world leaders would mysteriously lose office or shuffle off this mortal coilc. Could never shake off the Mother of All Budgetsd. Dandruff2. True or false? The Chairman of a Kiwi export business has asked the ...
Jack Vowles writes – New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. ...
Chris Trotter writes – MELISSA LEE should be deprived of her ministerial warrant. Her handling – or non-handling – of the crisis engulfing the New Zealand news media has been woeful. The fate of New Zealand’s two linear television networks, a question which the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications ...
TL;DR: The podcast above features co-hosts and , along with regular guests Robert Patman on Gaza and AUKUS II, and on climate change.The six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the ...
Policymakers rarely wish to make plain or visible their desire to dismantle environmental policy, least of all to the young. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent ...
I like to keep an eye on what’s happening in places like the UK, the US, and over the ditch with our good mates the Aussies. Let’s call them AUKUS, for want of a better collective term. More on that in a bit.It used to be, not long ago, that ...
TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
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 ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
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. ...
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. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
The Fast-track Bill, if passed, would allow three Ministers, unchallenged and unchecked, to approve the immediate extraction and exhaustion of one-off resources. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne iamharin/Shutterstock For many people, the term “bulk billed” refers to a GP visit they don’t have to pay ...
Emmas Hislop, Sidnam and Wehipeihana discuss what’s in a name. Emma Sidnam: Hello Emmas! Thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is related to what’s been on my mind for a while. It’s very important. You see we’ve recently had some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Sievers, Research Fellow, Global Wetlands Project, Australia Rivers Institute, Griffith University Chris Brown Humans love the coast. But we love it to death, so much so we’ve destroyed valuable coastal habitat – in the case of some types of habitat, ...
Josh Thomson on the 80s milk ad jingle he can’t stop singing, the beauty of The Simpsons, why Jersey Shore is as good as Shakespeare and more. For someone who spends a lot of time on our screens, popping up in everything from 7 Days to Taskmaster, Educators to Good ...
In apparent defiance of the Biden administration, the Netanyahu government has now initiated missile strikes against Iran. Last Saturday night (Sunday morning in New Zealand) Iran launched more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against Israeli military targets. With the assistance of US, UK and possibly French forces, ...
Māori representation brings a perspective that encompasses not only the interests of Māori communities but also a broader, holistic approach to environmental stewardship and community well-being, principles deeply embedded in Te Ao Māori (the Māori ...
This week in Auckland, a group of young people took over the microphone at a ministerial press conference, to explain why they oppose the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. One young woman said, ‘We’re here because we love Aotearoa New Zealand. We want to raise our children in an environment that’s thriving, ...
The summer was wonderful. Evie was wonderful, too; finally a teenager, finally worthy of long, hot days. She shaved her legs for the first time and bought cut-off shorts from the op-shop that made them look long. She got a Warehouse singlet so tight on her new shape that her ...
When Thomas James was on his solo camp as part of Outward Bound, the keen outdoorsman didn’t find it too challenging, as others often do. In what might just be the perfect illustration of his character, he saw it as a great opportunity to solve a few problems. “I thought, ...
From the unstable and drippy to the hi-tech and pretty, here’s our ranking of all the tunnels you can drive through in this country. The first tunnel seems to have been built in 2200BC in Babylonia, kicking off a global phenomenon for digging holes in order to get places more ...
Lucinda Bennett on the art of being greedy but resourceful. This is an excerpt from our weekly food newsletter, The Boil Up. When I picture the market, it is always this time of year. Crisp air, dripping nose, counting coins with cold fingers. Sunlight pale, filtered through specks of dew still ...
Zoë Colling’s favourite piece in the ‘That’s So Last Century’ collection is a lubrication chart for a sewing machine from the ’60s. It’s about the size of a postcard, and carefully maintained. “I like it that this piece of ephemera highlights that manual and technical side of the skill involved ...
Kia Ora Gaza A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to ...
With submissions closing today, Macassey-Pickard says groups around the country have been supporting a huge range of people to make their submissions. ...
Our response to the new legislation is informed by targeted conversations with practitioners working in the system and through an implementation lens. ...
The new ‘Fast-track Approvals Bill’ would give just three Ministers the power to approve or deny development projects. They would avoid the usual checks and balances that are in place to protect rivers, land, the ocean, and communities. ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
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Paging Pascal’s bookie,wakey wakey, here’s the reply to your rude interruption of the debate in yesterday’s ‘Open Mike’,
Note that ALL of the actions in ‘Operation Cyclone’ were the result of secret ‘directive 166’ signed first by President Jimmy Carter and later expanded by President Ronald Reagan,
Your claims that Arab groups fighting in the Afghan/Soviet war were only funded and armed by Saudi and other Arab states funneled through the Pakistani intelligence service are rather spurious considering the information now available,
Operation Cyclone- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/operation_cyclone
Bugger, another link that won’t, don’t know what’s with that, but ask the question of Google ‘US funds for groups fighting in Afghan/Soviet war’ and it should take to the page i tried to link to…
If your in for a ‘looong read’ which details ALL the players in the Afghan/Soviet war, the personal connections from the CIA to President Ronald Reagan meeting bin Laden’s older brother at the White-House, (along with such niceties as some of the ‘high-ups’ in bin Laden’ various organizations being aided by the CIA to repeatedly gain visa to enter the US despite being on the ‘terrorist watchlist’) there’s this,
Complete 911 Timeline: The Soviet/Afghan war.
http://www.historycommons.org>…>Afghanistan>complete911timeline
If that link fails, try asking google the same question i refer to after my earlier link didn’t work…
It’s all pretty weak, and anticipated in my comment.
I suggest we take this over there, so that it doesn’t clutter this thread, and so that people can see the context.
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-07012013/comment-page-1/#comment-570950
You’ve ignored most of what I said, and have, as predicted, conflated mujaheddin with AQ.
Here’s your initial; claim:
You have to get with the real picture, prior to September 11 Al Qaeda were US funded and armed assets during the Soviet/Afghan war
Operation cyclone was about supporting the mujaheddin, and there is no conclusive evidence that OBL was funded. The implication that he was directly funded by the US is even harder to substantiate, which is probably why you are having such a hard time coming up with any good direct sources or quotes.
I’ll repost this in the relevant thread.
Nope i haven’t confused Al Qaeda and the Mujaheddin at all, they were all inter-connected during the Afghan/Soviet war so what funded the Mujahidden also at the same time funded Al Qaeda,
Riiiight, perhaps you think i mean that the CIA passed suitcases full of used 20’s directly to bin Laden, spurious, the funding went to the Pakistani intelligence network from the US, (billions of dollars),and was then distributed by the Pakistani intelligence network either directly as arms or laundered through the BCCI bank,
I suggest you read ‘The complete 911 Timeline: The Soviet-Afghan war which you obviously haven’t otherwise you would not be replying with such lame comments…
I’ve read the timeline. It’s a bit of a curate’s egg to be honest. It often claims certain things to be facts based on not much more than “x reported that unnamed source told him y”, which is a data point to be sure, but absent corroboration, not one that given much weight.*
It would better if it just left it at the ‘X reports’ and laid of on the implications that Y was true.
Based on what you’ve written though. I’d suggest you need to do a lot more reading. A good primer is “The Looming Tower”. It really is worth the time and money invested if you want to know what everyone is claiming and how much evidence exists for the claims.
Nope i haven’t confused Al Qaeda and the Mujaheddin at all, they were all inter-connected during the Afghan/Soviet war so what funded the Mujahidden also at the same time funded Al Qaeda,
I said you conflated the Mujaheddin and AQ.
‘Conflate’, as in, ‘assume that funding one is the same as funding the other’, as in, “so what funded the Mujahidden also at the same time funded Al Qaeda”.
You claimed AQ was a cia/US asset during the 70s and 80’s war. As suppport for this, the only thing you’ve presented is that the US gave money to the ISI to distribute to Mujaheddin. As I predicted.
I think you need to read that timeline yourself, pay attention to it this time.
Now how about justifying your doubts about Assad’s weapons? ( Prediction: ‘The US claimed saddam had WMD in 03 but he didn’t; therefore Assad doesn’t have them now’)
And tell me about my belief system and how it hasn’t changed; another unsupported statement you claimed to have some knowledge about.
*(It’s ironic that many of the claims in the timeline rely on a single MSM report of a statement made by an individual, but I guess that because the timeline itself isn’t MSM, you think, well, I don’t know what you think, but it’s amusing none-the-less)
Yes exactly, during the Afghan/Soviet war Al Qaeda was not so called, what funded the Mujahidden also funded all the Saudi’s and ‘other’s’ who joined the fight,
If you had of read the timeline you would know that bin Laden spent a large part of that war on the Pakistan side of the border funnelling the Saudi and ‘other’ fighters along with the arms across the border to the two main groups of Mujahidden,
It is obvious from the Presidential ‘directive 166’ and operation cyclone that the CIA supplied Osama bin Laden with arms and money and just as obvious that as proof of this you would only accept a ‘confession’ from both the CIA and the White-House which obviously will not be forthcoming,
Carry on with your hilarious belief in the goodness of apple pie and Uncle Sam,
Next you will be denying that prior to the first bombing of the world trade center bin Laden had a recruitment and funding office operating in New York and other US cities…
It isn’t ‘obvious’ at all, it’s an assumption based on ‘not much’. What is obvious is that your ‘knowledge’ stems from things like ‘the timeline’ which you seem to put an enormous weight on. Which is fine as far as it goes, but it’s not analysis, and it’s based on superficial stuff. You should try ‘books’.
Carry on with your hilarious belief in the goodness of apple pie and Uncle Sam,
citation required.
My belief is that the US wasn’t in any sort of control of what was going on, especially with regard to OBL. You seem to think that the US is some sort of ghost in the machine, that everything that happens, happens at their direction.
You claimed that AQ was a CIA asset in the 80s. That’s just laughable and you’ve provided no evidence for it. As is your claim that AQ are ‘basically mercenaries and guns for hire’.
No evidence for doubt about Assad’s wepaons either then?
Yes i should hunt out the book printed by ‘Time’ magazine which says much the same as what i have been saying and much the same as what the timeline also says not to forget the Wikipedia,
You are now retreating to a pathetic default position where you put up comments about what you ‘think’ i think,
Where have i said that the US were in immediate control of bin Laden??? well i didn’t, not even a slight insinuation,
What the CIA was ultimately in control of,(yes along with the Saudi’s) was the money and arms flow to the Pakistani’s who then used bin Laden and others to distribute these arms among the Jihadists,
Provided along with these arms and monies was also an ongoing series of satellite images of specific targets which they wished attacked,
Were the CIA on the ground at any time in Afghanistan giving orders, not likely their involvement was a supposed secret,(in terms of deniability), why do you think they suffered the Pakistani’s skimming the money supposedly for use in Afghanistan,
Untill recently even ‘Presidential directive 166’ was classified information and at the time that directive was issued by Carter it was simply a matter between His administration and the CIA with no over-sight from any other body…
“Where have i said that the US were in immediate control of bin Laden??? well i didn’t, not even a slight insinuation,”
” He who was captured [Mohamed al-Zawahiri] is just as likely to be in the employ of either the UN or the US via the Saudi Government,
You have to get with the real picture, prior to September 11 Al Qaeda were US funded and armed assets during the Soviet/Afghan war,”
That’s a pretty clear ‘insinuation’.
It doesn’t much look like, ‘Prior to forminh AQ OBL was raising funds and distributing them in Afghanistan and had some links with the ISI, who were also distributing US monies’.
But if that’s all you meant by ’employ’ and ‘US funded and armed assets’ and ‘AQ’, then fine I guess.
What you are describing is ‘deniability’, if the US provided the arms, money, and satellite photo’s through a third party to those opposing the Soviet’s in Afghanistan who is funding such opposition, the third party perhaps???…
Sigh.
Your initial claim was that AQ was a CIA asset, and that based on that Al Zawahiri was likely to be in the employ of the UN, via the Saud regime.
That’s ridiculous.
Now you are saying that OBL possibly got some money from the ISI before AQ was even formed.
Weapons of mass destruction??? now where have i heard that before…
What did you mean by that?
Do you doubt he has them? On what grounds?
And if you think anyone would need WMD as a Casus belli to go into Syria at the moment, you should read a newspaper from the last year. They could have gone in under ‘ duty to protect’ at any time.
You could try evaluating why they haven’t, (hint: it’s a shit fight with no good options) but that might challenge your pre-concieved notions about what’s going on.
Duty to protect? LOL
Are these the same caring foreign countries who are supplying arms, financing and logistical support to the Rebels and assorted Salafi jihadists tearing up civilian areas?
what funded the Mujahidden also funded all the Saudi’s and ‘other’s’ who joined the fight,
large parts of your timeline directly contradict this. Much of the US funding was skimmed by the ISI if your timeline is to be taken as gospel. The funding OBL was attracting from wealthy saudis is what carried the war, according to your timeline. But your timeline contradicts itself in several places, doesn’t it?
Have you really read it? Closely?
Yeah i have read it close enough to know your talking s**t when you claim that the ‘timeline’ shows that ”the funding bin Laden was attracting from wealthy Saudis is what carried the war”…
It’s a claim made in the Timeline, not one I made.
notice heaps of “a source within x” in the MSM these days
sooo, where is the mandate to verify sources?
‘First draft of history’ and all that.
More like – information and claims about middle east WMD in 2003 proved extremely unreliable, information and claims about middle east WMD in 2013 may be equally unreliable.
But that’s no better.
The situation is closer to Iraq in 91. Care to claim he didn’t have WMD then?
Since 9/11, your example has become less relevant and mine more so. Blame Bush/Cheney for this environment.
That makes no sense at all.
Saying ‘Bush Cheney’ doesn’t render logical fallacies valid, it just adds another to the mix.
of course it makes sense. In 1991 WMD was not seen as the all-encompassing rationale for invasion and regime change that it became after 9/11. Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait was the big trigger for allied action in 1991, not WMD.
What’s that got to do with doubting whether or not Assad has WMD?
I reckon he’s got them, based on the fact he claims to have them, is not a member of any of the relevant treaties banning them, and what we know about his programs.
Bad12 seems to think it’s doubtful, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it or say why.
So you accept the point that the environment surrounding the treatment of WMD has moved far on from 1991? Good.
Now, if Assad has WMD he’s had them for years and not used them against civilians AFAIK. So now we are back to the post 9/11 WMD pretext for regime change a la Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.
BTW Syria does not have the most powerful WMD in the Middle East not governed by international treaties, by far. But you know this.
We’re not ‘back to’ anything.
We were talking about whether or not he has them. The reactions to that, do not effect the likelihood of that.
But the reactions are all important PB. After all, Assad has probably had WMD for many years (and Israel likely has the most powerful WMD of any middle east country). But today, after 9/11 and 2003, it’s become an effective pretext for waging war. A true, presumptive, convenient, casus belli a la Iraq.
By the way, in todays stupid languaging a 100 year old chlorine, mustard gas or phosgene shell would be correctly considered “WMD”. Hopeless.
johnny boy’s gotta lotta ‘D’s on his report card, Frankly Speaking 🙁
Great quote from Sarah Teather in the UK Parliament during a debate on social security reforms…so applicable here too…and further evidence of the Crosby technique that they have just bought into there…so familiar!
“In an atmosphere of uncertainty and limited resources, where every family in this country is struggling, there is a natural tendency to try and find someone to blame for our own woes. A fissure already exists between the working and non-working poor. Hammering on that faultline with the language of shirkers and strivers will have long-term impacts on public attitudes, on attitudes of one neighbour against another. It will make society less generous, less sympathetic, less able to co-operate. The marginalisation of the undeserving poor will place one group outwith society entirely over time and leave them less able to make choices about their own lives and less able to participate. That fragmentation of society is, for me, the spectre of broken Britain and it is one that we should worry about hastening at our peril.”
The beneficiary painting the roof couldn’t be a better example of ‘A fissure already exists between the working and non-working poor.’
Unfortunately all across the Western World the same template of denigration is being applied by politicians,
Unemployment is simply a reflection of the success or FAILURE of the economic ism adhered to by the various political factions, rather than address the FAILURE of such policy they choose to address negatively the visible manifestation of the FAILURE, the unemployed,
Economically there’s a wealth transfer occurring which is at the heart of the unemployment numbers where as the 1%ers gather unto themselves greater amounts of ‘wealth’ the middle classes who act as (sometimes unwitting), agents of that wealth transfer are protected by the political system directly favoring one class over another,
Symptoms of this overt favoring of the middle classes being, interest free student loans, working for families tax credits, tax cuts, so called ma and pa asset sales, and ‘plans’ to shoe horn those who can afford to service a 300+ thousand dollar mortgage into home ownership,
The only one of such policies that i would qualify as being based upon ‘NEED’ would be the interest free student loans,
Having said that, education should be funded from ‘Social Credit’ and not from the taxpayer base which is simply a means by which education is allowed to be rationed among the population…
And how the lying bastard politicians shamelessly beat that drum to divide society……..their primary purpose being to win and lengthen tenure at the public trough. All the while loftily proclaiming how decent-values stuffed they are and how much they care. They’re scum really.
And how the majority of the players in the embedded media, self-important oracles along for the ride, delightedly, effervescently often, report on how well the drum is beaten…….on how well the “game” is played.
Damn…….there are even knighthoods in the offing.
+1 and the current Labour caucus is playing that tune to the delight of the hollowmen. This theme will get rolled out against then in 2014.
How many troughers do you see in the likes of Ducky, Kingy, etc now all been there done that, tried and failed again yet not standing aside for the fresh blood.
The basic problem is that to get most people to understand the intricacies of the Global Financial Crisis and the wholesale looting of various countries treasuries by the rich is too difficult yet people need someone to blame. Western media continuously plays up the desirability of being rich and consuming excessively so the wealthy cannot be attacked. And since the demise of the Soviet Union communists cannot be blamed, even though the Tea Party delusionally thinks they can.
So who do we have left? Beneficiaries are the easiest to bash. There is always one individual amongst a group of hundreds of thousands that can be accused of some sort of shirking behaviour and then they can be blamed for all our problems.
People need simple targets.
I agree with the gist of this sentiment, however it’s not that pointing out the bad guys is hard, they are the Douglas/Richardson/Fay/Richwhite/Key crowd.
It’s that it’s impossible to point to any good guys around who are presenting Real Alternatives.
+1
Need to do more than point out the Bad guys as well – need to point out that the entire socio-economic system is a failure.
Gareth’s retrospective is helpful
Here’s film director Ken Loach making the same point, devastatingly, on BBC television, goading the leonine Thatcher henchman Michael Heseltine into a display of apoplectic fury…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6OLguh7_P8
He makes the good point that i often make, here in New Zealand some 7 billion dollars of owed tax is either ‘avoided’ or evaded’ annually,
If that ‘avoidance’ were to be classes as criminal evasion and effort brought to bear on actually collecting this owed taxation Governments wouldn’t be scrabbling round looking to point the finger of blame at the unemployed who have no means of avoiding such tax, for their, (Governments), stupid mismanagement of the economy,
The same excuse of course will be trotted out here as that Tory piece of s**t trotted out in the Utube vid, ”Oh we can’t expect the rich to pay all the tax they owe, they will en masse take all their wealth and flee the country”,
Luckily i don’t get to sit in the same room as any of these ‘people’, hearing such speech drives me into spasms of violent thought…
“The basic problem is that to get most people to understand the intricacies of the Global Financial Crisis and the wholesale looting of various countries treasuries by the rich is too difficult”
Without wanting to sound self serving, that’s an added bonus to my fight to save stan heather park in Hamilton West. Not only would it safeguard a community facility, but give the local people a clear example of wealth transfer in their backyards. The ideas I’ve sent to various parties and organisations and all without reply, show how this local issue could set a national agenda for 2014. It’s so simple, I can’t understand why no-one’s doing it already.
Show the people the fight, teach them how to win it, help them to victory. Whoever does that could take the 6 west ward councillors in the 2013 local elections, and perhaps a good shot at forcing a cup of tea from sue moroney in 2014.
4-10k votes elected 6 ward wallies. Our three suburbs could do that easy.
But nope, not going to happen.
Hi Al1en. Very nice. A concrete in your face issue used as a demonstrator for the values we are talking about. It allows those in the neighbourhood to inquire further into political economics, without having to start a postgrad degree in the subject.
I’d be very interested in reading some more detail on your ideas – would you please forward to lee.adama@gmx.com? (I will reply via the Std if that’s OK).
No worries, though you’ll have to wade through my pigeon English to get there.
The choice here is more money to a developer or free food for the hungry.
\Doesn’t get more in your face and direct than that. Classic good v evil clash.
Beat them here over a local issue, and who knows what a nationwide launch could achieve?
I’d go at least 5% with the right personnel.
I’ll send you something later tonight.
Thanks.
Nice work, go hard.
How can Hardaker claim “”It’s good news for the city as it will be open to the public.” when it’s being turned from park into developed suburbia.
Some mates of hamilton rugby no doubt will be profiting nicely as it’s now reported as sold. Historically wouldn’t this have been gifted to them like Ellerslie racecouse was so sort of like selling on your inheritance.
How the F did such a booming city get into such a mess TA ? The growth in/around Te Rapa with suburbia and te Awa /the base etc, what happened.
Hardaker was on TV (campbell live) when the Chiefs were winning something at last, extolling how Hamilton is a rugby town and how she’s right behind Hamilton rugby. Hypocrite politicians, I shit them.
Asked all those questions, got no answers. The head of the Hamilton rugby union couldn’t ‘remember’ the name of the secret developer that just stumped up $2m, six months before the new district plan is live.
If it smells, looks and tastes like shit, it usually is.
If the rezoning is refused, then the market price drops drastically. Worthless to a developer, priceless to a trust run market garden.
Just got to announce a better use for the land than a money maker for the 1% and raise the cash by donation and all sales of my anonymous cd.
Being part of the 99% means there’s more of us than them, right? Makes it won before it even starts. 😆
Councils all over the country are flogging off open spaces and community facilities like they are going out of fashion.
“Some wonderful responses to our Chatham Oi-lands story!”
Summer Noelle doggedly keeping it light
I’ve still had no reply from Noelle McCarthy, following her timid handling yesterday of the American writer Mark Bowden….
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-08012013/comment-page-1/#comment-570645
She did, however, have time to read out several emails, all of them whimsical and non-threatening comments about the “Chatham Oi-lands.”
Obviously there is no room on “Summer Noelle” for anything resembling debate, let alone dissent. Maybe she thinks she’s still working at NewstalkZB.
RNZ is turning into ZB under Griffin. She got caught out for plagarism from memory last time around.
Wouldn’t summer be a good time to give some fresh local talent some airtime rather than this recycled common garden variety hack.
Does Richard Griffin actually have an influence on the programming now? That prospect is almost too depressing to contemplate.
Perhaps RNZ should turn over its summer air time to the Access radio/student radio stations…
“New Zealand’s status as a test-playing cricket nation in question; lack of depth, or out of our depth”
is Hell other people?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre
is literatures’ function ultimately a bourgeois substitute for real “authentic” commitment in the world?
beavering on, (more on Nausea to follow)
Best Practice Dec.12: Did you know that it is estimated by 2026 20,000 NZers will require palliative care to rest in peace?
Pain-the most prevalent symptom preceding all deaths occurring in palliative care settings on NZ
Opioids, also indicated for the treatment of breathlessnes in p.c, sigh, deep breath,
Pain Assessment-STAS-Support Team Assessment Schedule
or,
PACSLAC for seniors
“Total Pain”-a subjective experience, influenced by
physical-psychological-social-spiritual elemants
threshold may be raised through positive influences
-improved sleep, companionship, sympathy,sic (empathy), fear reduction
expression of negative emotions valid: REAL frustrations exist about bureaucracy, diagnostic delays, lack of resources and treatment failure.
1. Morphine the most extensively studied, widely available and commonly used opioid in p.c
-active opioid metabolites can accumulate through impairments
-opioid toxicity; myoclonic spasms, excessive sedation, confusion, restlessness, hallucination
2.Oral oxy-codone (that’s slipped into NZ in recent times; severely abused in the U.S)
3. Fentanyl
Adjuvant analgesics
Indications
neuropathic- tri-cyclics, anti-epileptics
bone pain- NSAIDS
skeletal muscle spasm- relaxants, benzos etc
smooth muscle spasm- anti-cholinergics, anti-muscurinics
intra-cranial pressure
liver capsule stretch
tenesmus (gotta go) – steroids
Adversities;
constipation expected
Nausea-distressing yet often transitory; trial various anti-emetics
-Haloperidol if chemo-receptor trigger zone induced
-Metoclopramide if reduced G.I motility
-Cyclizine-if vestibular stimulation
Drowsiness-often transitory,resolved over a period of days; persistence may indicate toxicity
11.8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land. (13, admittedly, we are aliens and strangers upon the earth)
Surah 13: 32 Mocked were many Messengers
Before thee: but I granted
Respite to the Unbelievers
And finally I punished them:
Then how terrible was My requital!
Pr.11.6
A kindhearted woman gains respect, but ruthless men gain only wealth.
(I have never been interested in the work of sacha baron cohen, his cousin Simon, yes; and Seinfeld? Woody Allen on a donut, such self-obsessed characters about nothing imo)
These are the Gangs from New York I like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_of_New_York:_Music_from_the_Miramax_Motion_Picture
-Hawkeye
In the year following the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 by Vincenzo Peruggia more people went to gaze at the empty space than in the year before: Presence (seen the art work on the cover) Absence
“We are in a predominantly mechanical, materialistic phase that has led to a desacralizing of the cosmos. This may yet have disastrous ecological consequences, given the predictions of climate science, though the worst may be abated by recovering the “ancient ideas of sacred groves or holy springs”, The deep truth about matter which neither Descartes or Newton realized, is that over the course of four billion years, molten rocks transformed themselves into monarch butterflies,blue herons and the exalted music of Mozart (Rock me Amadeus) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/amadeus/. Ignorant of this stupendous process (stupidly) we fell into the fantasy that our role here was to reign (Objectively) over matter.
-Journey of the Universe; Brian Swimme (comologist) and Mary Tucker (ecologist)
“We have to admit the disastrous course of Business as usual; Rather, invest in scientific research, including in the Social Sciences, to find all possible openings (any port in a storm); agree to a great extent on what can be done; negotiate in Good Faith as to who will do what; and stick with the overall plan through thick and thin, despite inevitable short-term crises”
“Earth is negotiating with us right now and waiting patiently-cometh the hour, cometh the political Leadership?-for a Good Faith reply. If humans don’t make it, the universe has plenty of time and space to evolve intelligence again, yet humanity will be sloughed off as if we had never been”
-Joel Primack (physicist) and Nancy Abrams (philosopher)
Not concluding that everyone will agree on what is “sacred”
http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/gray_12_10.html
one conclusion is that sacred values lie at the heart of 21st century conflicts. Further,until they are recognized as such, these conflicts will Escalate and Perpetuate, not be won or lessened.
(reasearch has shown that “Palestinian hard-liners were more willing to recognize the right of Israel to exist, if the Israelis apologized for suffering caused to Palestinians civilians in the 1948 war) -Vernon
Why is our century worse than any other?
Is it that in the stupor of fear and grief
It has plunged it’s fingers in the blackest ulcer,
Yet cannot bring relief?
Westward the sun is dropping,
And the roofs of towns are dropping in it’s light.
Already death is chalking doors with crosses
And calling the ravens and the ravens are in flight.
-Anna Akhmatova
Karl Marx was playing a parlour game
with his daughters. To their question
What is the quality one should most abhor?
he wrote; Servility.
This was found-a scrap of paper
amongst the family albums and letters;
it is the most essential of all
the Complete Works.
-Robert Gray
It takes much time to kill a tree
The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.
-Dylan
Apologies if this has already been posted, but here is a very interesting article about the effects of austerity:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/when-a-guess-is-as-good-as-a-forecast-20130108-2cep8.html
Don’t know how to embed the link.
Also as an aside is there any chance that someone could have got my email address from here to add me on facebook? I got a random friend request from someone with some high profile left leaning friends and cannot figure out why they would have added me. I realise more than likely it was just someone adding me by accident, but thought I would check if anyone else had got this or there was any chance it came from here.
easiest way is to fb message the person and ask.
Yeah I have but they haven’t responded and it’s not anywhere near important enough for me to follow up with another message.
I think it would be highly unlikely it came from here.
Might be a fb group or like you made a while ago?
The other option is that it’s someone you did actually meet ages ago and forgot about – happened to me a couple of times. Turned out they knew me from years back.
Dom
-Treaty spawns a Legion of lawyers
-thankfully settlements have risen
yet,
-numbers of lawyers willing to “represent” falling
-$$$ stacked in govts court
-HNZ earthquake-prone stocks unsettling people
-17 Billion bicycles, I mean planets above Beijing
– 1 Trillion dollar platinum Federal coin
-“silliness before disaster”-Krugman
-(accounting manoeuvres only deploy ’til February 😉
-The Biggest Bank in The Whole Wide World, China’s ICBC growing a branch in NZ
-“primed” to launch-Amanda Lu
-unlikely to need to stop at red lights-Claire Matthews
meanwhile, back in the kitchen (Aus “dome of heat”)
-Bureau of Meteorology’s temperature forecast chart adds Deep Purple (Oh my love it’s a long way, where you’re from it’s a long way) and Pink to spectrum and extend range to 54 Degrees C
(all time record high, 50.7 C in 1960 at Oodnadatta)
Cobra II
http://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Cobra_II.html?id=CyuUZlAFXHUC&redir_esc=y
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/25/the-endgame-is-a-well-researched-highly-critical-look-at-u-s-policy-in-iraq.html
The End Game
those who give have all things, those who withhold, nothing.
-Hindu proverb (sounds a little like Mana)
HALLO ALL!
Are you on a benefit, scared of facing life off the benefit, have you been shafted on the benefit, are you perhaps even informed and know that a nasty piece of legislation called the “Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill” is right before Parliament now, being looked at by the Social Services Committee, likely to hear more submissions soon???
Better WAKE up, LEARN what the hell goes down and on, have a read of the bill on Parliament’s website, or on the sites found under following links:
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2012/0067/latest/DLM4542304.html
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Legislation/Bills/5/2/a/00DBHOH_BILL11634_1-Social-Security-Benefit-Categories-and-Work-Focus.htm
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC/Documents/Evidence/?Custom=00DBHOH_BILL11634_1
I get it, your parents are rich, your parents are secure middle class, you have some savings, you studied and will get a good and well-paying job, if need be in Australia, you will “never” have to rely on the dole or any other benefit, as you will be fit and healthy for ALL times, right?!
Learn the bloody lessons of live, open your lazy ears and eyes, take a look, have a read, as this is extremely important. No, it will not just “deal to” so-called “bludgers”, “breeding solo mums” and “maligners” on sick and invalid’s benefits. The whole system will change, it will get REAL mean and you will in most cases be affected at one or another time in YOUR bloody life, dear reader.
Now the Ministry of Social (Under) Development, of social exclusion, of meanness, under the bullying Minister in charge, has launched a bloody SURVEY, to serve it’s cause and get the ignorant, blue eyed, naive and good-believing folk out there to offer ideas, suggestions and feed-back on the reforms, solely designed to “assist” the poor and so much neglected sick, injured and disabled into real good value work!?
Have a look at this piece:
http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/welfare-reform/july-2013/ill-health-disability-feedback.html
Propaganda from and for the bottom level of inputters has never been any “sweeter”, not even Master demagogues like Goebbels, Mussolini and Hitler would have thought of such a smart scheme to “involve” all those so “concerned”.
So there you are, able to give your “input”. I am sure Farrar, Whale soil and whatever kinds of their following have already been online day and night, to offer their “advice” and support to MSD.
So dear Standardistas, get off your bloody arses, go there, and deliver also your, and your valued friend’s advice, suggestions and feedback now. It must be done, or the masters of demagoguery will win.
Get onto it, tell them what you think and feel on the MSD website, NOW, please!!!
Sorry to bother you Lyn but I keep getting an unresponsive script on the pages in here, is it me or you?
Error is.
Script: http://s0.wp.com/wp-content/js/devicepx-jetpack.js?ver=201302:22
Cheers
Probably Me. Looking at a cache setting and I can only really test it on the live site (so I do it late at night).
But maybe not that error is from wordpress.com… A javascript file that isn’t getting sent?