We are talking big returns to shareholders and as we all know the American political system propped up by donors and massive amounts of money.
The revolving door between Washington DC and lobbying firms and regulatory appointments is undeniable.
When I talk of healing schisms in this country this is where the grace comes in.
Rogan and his guests may not be factually correct 100% of the time. Often, the vibe is what is important. After all, some of the guests have had very powerful interests come after them, in ways we can't imagine.
It's not that Rogan and guests make mistakes sometimes. It's that Rogan fosters a culture of alarm and poor critical thinking. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone has 20 million follower youtube where critical thinking is not a primary featuer.
the vibe thing I understand. People want a good cultural fit. This is why I think the liberal left have basically opened the door to the right gaining power. An approach of 'you must think like us or you are wrong and will be punished' is a massive fail on so many levels, and we can't even have a conversation about it. But the left aren't platforming the proto-fascists, and the left also has a need for good cultural fit. Everyone is scared and doubling down. At some point we have to learn how to be human with each other again.
There's a strong audience for counter intuitive "new" takes on science and culture. People love novelty and the idea that mainstream knowledge is wrong (freakanomics, blink,…)
As a massively propagandised culture, Americans intuit that something is wrong, but guys like Rogan, Trump, and crazy preachers are selling snake oil solutions and blaming outgroups instead of accurately diagnosing the real problem: oligarchy and crony capitalism
It's an excellent propaganda tactic, keeping the public confused and unable to tell real from fake. Makes them easier to control and stops actual democracy from breaking out.
completely agree about the intuition and how it gets distorted through modern culture (not that I think it's a new thing, but politics, MSM, SM and so on have particular ways of distorting, let's just call it neoliberal capitalism).
I saw a talk once (IRL!) many years ago (before the internets lol) where a Otago Uni bod was presenting research that people often had strong intuitive reactions against things like nuclear power or GE.
Those intuitions often have a legitimate base, it's just that people don't necessarily have the conceptual language to express them in a more rationality or science based way.
Not sure the SM bullshit stops democracy from breaking out, people were already neoliberalised before the internet. For instance we saw the decline of student protests on NZ campuses in the 90s. It's worse since the internet, and even more now with SM. We have the added problem of people being frightened by the polycrisis and looking for ways to both make sense of life in a crisis that won't end in their lifetime as well as an escape from the stress. Someone standing up and saying what they want to hear is powerful. I just wish the left was better at it
Brain chemistry and imaging studies show that regularly consuming online outrage creates a measurable physical addiction to the brain chemicals released in response. Regular outrage consumption also increases cortisol levels, and leads to changes in brain structure that reduces our capacity to process information, changes that are very similar to those seen in people under constant overwhelming stress. I have been reading Joined-up thinking by Hannah Critchlow, published in 2022, which goes into this in great detail.
For social media engagement, the value of stimulating outrage is more money. "..outrage leads to more attention, which in turn leads to more outrage among other users. Outrage therefore usually means virality, attention, longer user times, etc., and thus also higher profits for platform operators. This leads to negative content with a high potential for outrage being technically supported by the platforms’ algorithms. Researchers at New York University even found that content with moral-emotional wording receives a technical boost of around 20 percent in social media."
Outrage and the political process of othering, eg, of Jews or trans people, helps prime users to political manipulation. So the 'vibe' gsays says is captured by Rogan, is in fact unhappiness and stress channelled by Rogan into his smorgasboard of rw ideas, and is in turn, exploited by demagogues like Trump and Posy Parker.
The book 'Joined-up thinking' primarily is about the chemistry and social interaction involved in collective action. Critchlow shows how, unsurprisingly, adding diversity and a greater proportion of women to groups increases the quality of group decision-making measurably, even markedly, as long as the process of planning is consensual and inclusive, not just lip service. I'd recommend this book strongly for anyone who wants to understand more about how our brains and our hard-wired social responses are co-opted negatively, but also more positively, what strong collective decision-making looks like. It goes beyond intellectual debate to a more holistic understanding of how our physical hardware affects our ideas and beliefs.
that's really good. Here's the thing though. Rogan and KJK are both meeting a need in addition to using manipulation to feed an addiction. In the case of KJK, women were and are fucked off at having our rights sidelined. She wouldn't have built such a large following if that wasn't already happening. Likewise, there is a significant proportion of the population who don't trusts science or the MSM or the mainstream generally. Rogan meets the need for them to be heard.
The problem the left has is that it sees those groups of people as wrong and currently takes the position that they should be ostracised. Those groups of people outnumber us, hence the shit show in the US.
I'd be interested if Critchlow has active solutions that the left can use. Having more women involved isn't news to many of us (I've long argued that we should put the aunties and grandmothers in charge of things, not least because they know how to share). The question is how can the left do that in ways that don't provoke a backlash. I agree that it's important to not do it as lip service.
The response to the anti-DEI backlash shouldn't be to double down (we are outnumbered and we will lose). It's to change the narrative while we still can to one that both retains equity and makes sense to the large number of mainstream people who are trying to find meaning in the world. They're the ones that determine who governs.
The anti DEI bandwagon is a great example of complete lies that the right wing spread against left wing movements. Their audience might not be initially resentful or suspicious but their slanted stories about radical Maaris taking da water, or da Mexicans taking our jerbs, or the wimminfolk getting freebies, brings out the worst in people. And gets the working class fighting each other over stupid shit instead of identifying our common enemy
I didn't know the world's richest man had been embraced into the heart of the British intellectual establishment. The Brit intelligensia seem to be having a problem with it:
I was privileged to be made visiting professor of science communication at Heidelberg University in Germany… Tasked with running several seminars on topics of my choice, one of the subjects I chose was: should scientists be political advocates? After reading and talking to people from all sides of the debate, I ended up believing that scientists should try very hard to stay politically neutral.
In a nutshell, my argument is that the public trusts scientists more than politicians because it believes they are impartial and objective experts. Scientists who stray beyond the evidence and become campaigners or advocates for particular policies risk losing that trust.
My final lecture in Heidelberg asked about scientists’ role in an age of polarisation and misinformation. My answer was that the public interest is best served by scientists staying out of politics, doing the best science they can do and communicating it openly without fear or favour.
Neutering scientists is traditional, of course, so she's on safe ground. Yet we got climate change due to that convention of normalcy, so I prefer moral guidance.
Neutering scientists is traditional, of course, so she’s on safe ground. Yet we got climate change due to that convention of normalcy, so I prefer moral guidance.
This makes no sense whatsoever! For example, what neutering and by who? What convention of normalcy caused (!?) CC and how? And preference to/over what, scientific evidence? None of this seems to be connected to content of your comment!?
Okay, sorry if I was too cryptic. James Hansen is one counter-example of course. He persistently spoke out to try for political leverage despite the ivory-tower syndrome imposed by tradition. Her advocacy of neutrality I see as an ongoing attempt to neuter scientists: render them impotent politically. I believe they ought to have as much of a right to free speech as anyone else.
I've been following scientific controversies with active interest since I was a teenager and aware of the power of science since atomic bomb testing turned my nights bright orange a few times in the 1950s. I share with Musk being a physics grad (he also graduated in economics) but his venturing with Trump into making govt efficient could have downsides for govt scientists that the Brit scientists are paranoid about so I'll criticise him if he does any inappropriate culling…
I’m sorry, but I don’t follow your reasoning at all.
Assuming you’re referring to Fiona Fox, why would she as chief executive of the Science Media Centre and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society wish to ‘neuter’ scientists!? Her intention & goal is the exact opposite of what you accuse her of. You seem to confuse political neutrality with silencing (which is what Trump & Musk are doing). Your free speech comment confirms that you’ve created a straw man, possibly even in your own mind.
I still don’t know what convention of normalcy caused (!?) CC and how, and why you prefer “moral guidance” over what exactly?
It could be a generational difference between us. She wrote "Scientists who stray beyond the evidence and become campaigners or advocates for particular policies" to disallow those who add interpretation and meaning to evidence. That's a blatant attempt to emasculate that group!
It's precisely what Hansen had to do to blow the whistle on the establishment. And recall how the left remained in collusion with the right in their denial stance despite Hansen's repeated warnings thro the '90s.
Throughout my adult life the media have tried to suppress scientific evidence of public harm being done by this that & the other. Pesticides, PCBs etc.
Employers of scientists routinely prevented them speaking out, so the alt media was the only way forward in the '70s & '80s. Govt in western countries worked with corporations to prevent disclosure until a semblance of transparency gradually began to be used like a fig leaf to cover the moral nudity of the establishment. She should be trying to empower the voice of science in the public interest. Her advocacy of neutrality merely maintains the normalcy of a morally corrupt control system. Re Trump & Musk, it remains to be seen if their agenda is to target the Deep State or merely pretend to do that in the guise of improving govt operational efficiency. They could even be serious about trying to achieve the latter. Your theory is also feasible; the influence of T's father may have been too internalised too young (re fascist tendencies). I haven't ruled that out – but Musk is a self-declared centrist…
Stuff today in The Post has an article on the Centrist, the only link I can find to it is on PressReader, which I can access via my local library account on my phone.
It reports that the site, with only one name as site owner, is a news aggregator, mixed in with op-ed pieces, all of which carry no bylines, and with a sprinkle from dubious rw propagnda outlets.
'Centrist' ads claim unbiased media, but analysis shows a clear rw bias. It has pushed political stances, for example, attacking (surprise, surprise) the idea of a wealth tax. There is subtle, but constant, anti EV bias. The article also examines the shadowy Grenon, who is moving up to controlling The Herald.
"The Centrist's rw perspective isn't inherently problematic. The potential concern is how it may be perceived as repackaging rw views as neutral…while sometimes bypassing journalistic practices that inform readers and ensure accountability….It is the systematic promotion of specific economic and social views that happen to align with one political faction under the guise of aggregation"
Unfortunately we can't cite text from the PressReader but my scan of the appraisal there leads me to join you in deeming the Centrist slanted to the right and therefore a deceit strategy operating in the guise of centrism.
The example of the top 311 paying an average of 9% tax, low enough to be risible, is a good example. We can thank Labour for approving that status quo continually, altho it has been recently attempting to suggest that it may transcend that traditional timidity.
Any genuine centrist media org would support a policy of equity in taxation. Riddling the tax code with escape clauses to allow the rich to crawl out those holes has been a bipartisan part of normalcy way too long already!
re the conversation above, the NZ far right are gearing up to take another run at the Greens, this time the MP who took over the list seat left by Tana. Probably would have been a twitter silo, but now Peters is involved and indirectly implying that Doyle is a paedophile.
This was entirely predictable. What happens next depends on the depths that the MSM will sink to. I expect Plunkett will amplify it on The Platform, not sure beyond that.
Can't really stop the baying mob, but the response needs to go beyond liberal reactions against calling a gay man a paedophile. I don't think Doyle is a child sex abuser, but maybe he is? Maybe Peters is as well. How would we know? This is why we have child safeguarding, because it's not possible to know which men are dangerous (and some women).
The sane responses to concern in the public that go beyond the baying mob is to talk about child safeguarding and address prejudice against gay people.
That liberals have either blocked child safeguarding conversations or ridiculed them, is part of why we are in this situation. It's not the baying mob we have to convince now, it's the people who will look at the images and start to wonder.
And part of that wondering is because the liberalisation of sex has outstripped mainstream society. This article about the situation in the UK is pertinent and essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the broader dynamics at play. There will be a natural tendency to say oh it's just one person (or in this case, two), but it's not, any more than it is in the het population. The problem is the erosion of child safeguarding, and we just have to stop being so resistant to that conversation.
btw, I don't actually know if Doyle is gay (and it's not really any of our business). He self-IDs as non-binary and is a GP MP, which would be enough for the far right to go rapid.
the twitter trolls/astroturfers have turned up. If you are following on twitter, these are new accounts (not many followers) who are digging dirt or shit stirring. Probably from the Dirty Politics crew, or any number of RW orgs who want to harm the Greens or the left.
lol…O'Brien, Landy, Baker, Shields, McRae, Lipanovic, Redbaiter, Holyhekatuiteka, Tamiki, etc, etc,… a veritable who's who of cookers, cranks, and anti-trans voices, have all shown up…
well duh, I just explained that the hard right were driving this. I didn't say they were new accounts, I said I was starting to see new accounts joining in.
"The co-founder of a Surrey LGBTQ+ group has been found guilty of raping a 12-year-old boy he met on Grindr.
Stephen Ireland, 41, was convicted of raping the child in the Addlestone flat he shared with David Sutton, 27, on 19 April 2024.
Ireland, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, was also found guilty of three counts of causing a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of sexual assault of a child under 13 and six counts of making indecent images of children.
Sutton, who also volunteered with the organisation, was found guilty of three counts of making indecent photographs of children and one count of possession of an extreme pornographic image."
the write up in the Critic piece about that (in my comment) is worth reading. It talks about what is happening at Surrey Pride now, basically pretending that it didn't happen, and two of the men running SP are former lovers of one of the men convicted. It also mentions other similar cases.
What should be happening is a wide ranging public and private discussion about why these men have ended up in these positions, and how to prevent it in the future. But of course that would require a conversation about boundaries and putting limits on sexual expression, so unlikely I think.
This says a lot about priorities. 12th of March was the day the summing up happened in the court case.
Can you guess what else happened on the 12th of March? Runnymede Council awarded Pride in Surrey one of its Civic Awards. Its Pride Hub community centre was chosen as Cultural Organisation of the Year. Could they have shown less sensitivity towards a 12-year-old victim of rape than handing a gong to the project that was his rapist’s brainchild?
2.gay men targeting younger males, as heterosexual men do younger females is a known male behaviour pattern.
3.that in this case the gay males doing it were part of a LGBT+ group rather than a LGB group, is what it is. In times past there was no separation between the two groups.
Child safe guarding is not specifically a LGBT+ issue.
There is child poverty (societal), there is parental neglect and or child abuse (family upbringing) and there are predators.
These can be people of a priesthood, a christian ministry, in faith based (and state) care homes and schools. Victims are female and male youth.
That there is a kulturekampf effort by some on the right to revisit equal citizenship (no discrimination based on sex or sexuality) via "gender identity" is what it is.
Child safe guarding is not specifically a LGBT+ issue.
Very true, but LGBT+ has some specific issues distinct from say the Catholic Church. The main one being the liberal push for sex positivity meeting the erosion of boundaries as intentional philosophy from queer theory.
Some of us have commented in the past about the blurring of boundaries as there's been a shift from historic Pride marches with a big focus on adult sexuality to the current desire to make them family friendly. Hence things like pup tents at Pride with kids sitting with men in their sexual fetish gear.
Another example of the failure of boundaries was rainbow dildo butt monkey, where an adult act NGO was contracted to provide child entertainment at a public library and they sent a man in a rainbow monkey suit with a giant phallus and bare butt.
Or Desmond is Amazing, child drag star, posing with naked men.
There are not isolate examples, they're part of a pattern. What happens when women try at talk about this is we get told we're prudes. That's part of the erosion of safeguarding. It's not the RW position that we're seeing today where hatred of queer culture is mixed in with concern for kids, it's a different position that is progressive, but not at the expense of kids. And you are right, it's not just LGBT+, it's in fact an issue of adult sexuality generally and where men's rights and desires trump those of children.
It may be, the LGB pride movement may have a problem with focus on their acceptance of their sexuality and normalising their families at the same public event.
It seems "age" inappropriate when done at the same time.
The other.
It may be that when this includes/transfers to LGBT+ there is something else going on.
Maybe because the transgender does not involve, biological men as fathers or biological women as mothers, it is not just seen as "age" inappropriate. But also involves promoting acceptance of their "transvestite" appearance … and to children not their own.
{Of course children are only there with their own parents consent and generally for some performance/to the children costumed story telling, but other parents want to prevent these gatherings in public places – censor books etc}.
don't really know what you are saying there sorry.
But, yes, it's about age appropriateness, but also, the politics that is saying let's push the boundaries on public sexuality without regard to people for whom this is not ok. In this case, children.
It both exposes them to adult sexuality in ways that aren't ok, but it also removes barriers that prevent paedophiles from having access to children ie safeguarding.
I'm not sure it's about the T per se, more so the queer culture's insistence on subverting norms and transgressing boundaries. Which again, is about appropriateness, but also there is a strain of queer culture that basically says sex with kids is ok. Talking about that is inhibited because of the taboo on talking about gay men that sexually abuse kids.
Maybe because the transgender does not involve, biological men as fathers or biological women as mothers, it is not just seen as "age" inappropriate. But also involves promoting acceptance of their "transvestite" appearance … and to children not their own.
I don't really understand this.
The stories are legion about, particularly fathers/husbands, ie biological men in the pursuit of transgender, or transvestite really, activities, who break the hearts of their families by their choices to put their AGP fantasies above their lives as husbands, male friends, fathers and family members.
Some parents do have concerns about 'family friendly' so-called, drag queens/cross dressers appearing at libraries and other places. Of course some women do too but as Weka says 'What happens when women try at talk about this is we get told we're prudes. That's part of the erosion of safeguarding.'
The fact that the Free Speech Union considers the acceptance or not of drags in libraries is a free speech issue while many, often women (those terrible prudes) consider it to be a child safety/safeguarding issue shows the gap.
As Weka says 'it's in fact an issue of adult sexuality generally and where men's rights and desires trump those of children'.
Again as Weka says
But, yes, it's about age appropriateness, but also, the politics that is saying let's push the boundaries on public sexuality without regard to people for whom this is not ok. In this case, children.
So apparently now we, as a society, see no need (or feel constrained in asking) to ensure that public displays of often male sexuality to be toned down in public places. Everything is left to the parents, the caregivers…..to me this is a strange mix of classic RW/libertarian stuff and boosting the acceptance of people whose lives are different often seen as a kind leftie thing to do. Very laissez faire but placing a possibly unfair burden of parents who get little backing from society.
Perhaps those women who could not 'see the joke', back in the day, should rise up and grab the honour of being a prude. With my prude cap firmly in place I wonder at the Pride Parades saying they are family friendly yet making little attempt to tone down some parade items so they are actually family friendly.
On Mrs Google family friendly is given this meaning 'A family-friendly product or service is one that is considered to be suitable for all members of an average family.' (original bolding)
I am well aware of the fun/liveliness of adult entertainment that includes innuendo and drag. Also of the actual family fun innuendo/Dame & handsome boys(ie women) in pantomimes. I'm also thinking that without a solid grounding in fairy stories where things present differently to what they are, some of the drag costuming/ideas would be pretty much unintelligible to children.
Some of what is seen at Pride Parades leaves too little to the imagination, and suffers for this both from an adult's and child's point of view.
I've found this incredibly difficult to write being used to taking a fair, large and liberal view of most things…….
it's quite difficult to talk about child safeguarding also because we just don't use those concepts much. I remember seeing it being discussed in the UK GC context and realising there was a lot of formal things I didn't actually know that much about. I think we take them for granted, much like we did with women's sex based rights until they started to be removed.
I don't even know if we have child safeguarding organisations in NZ, nor how government and NGO policy is informed.
So apparently now we, as a society, see no need (or feel constrained in asking) to ensure that public displays of often male sexuality to be toned down in public places. Everything is left to the parents, the caregivers…..to me this is a strange mix of classic RW/libertarian stuff and boosting the acceptance of people whose lives are different often seen as a kind leftie thing to do. Very laissez faire but placing a possibly unfair burden of parents who get little backing from society.
this is a good point. The problem we have now is that so much of the sexual expressions are public. Long gone is 'in the privacy of your own home'. It's not hard to see where this is going if we don't stop and have a public conversation about it. And yes, it's men's sexuality that's pushed the farthest, unsurprisingly.
I wonder why still 23% of people polled support removing the Living Wage requirement for government-contracted cleaners, security guards, and caterers.
Who woulda thunk it that a violent thug and poster boy for toxic masculinity who's been credibly accused of rape and sex trafficking would choke and violently assault a woman.
The landlord is supposed to have never had it so good.
But their enabler is neither a competent manager of the economy nor for the society, so the migration inflow is down and the migration outflow is up.
developers with unsold townhouse stock have placed some of their units into the rental market.
This will slow supply of new building. With rent price flat-lining the rising cost of maintenance, rates and insurance cost negate any advantage from falling interest cost. Thus property value gain looks to be minimal.
As fewer people become or remain landlords and developers start to sell their excess stock into rising demand from home buyers the supply of rental property will tighten up.
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Questions 1. Where and what is this protest?a. Hamilton, angry crowd yelling What kind of food do you call this Seymour?b.Dunedin, angry crowd yelling Still waiting, Simeon, still waitingc. Wellington, angry crowd yelling You’re trashing everything you idiotsd. Istanbul, angry crowd yelling Give us our democracy back, give it ...
Two blueprints that could redefine the Northern Territory’s economic future were launched last week. The first was a government-led economic strategy and the other an industry-driven economic roadmap. Both highlight that supporting the Northern Territory ...
In December 2021, then-Climate Change Minister James Shaw finally ended Tiwai Point's excessive pollution subsidies, cutting their "Electricity Allocation Factor" (basically compensation for the cost of carbon in their electricity price) to zero on the basis that their sweetheart deal meant they weren't paying it. In the process, he effectively ...
Green MP Tamatha Paul has received quite the beat down in the last two days.Her original comments were part of a panel discussion where she said:“Wellington people do not want to see police officers everywhere, and, for a lot of people, it makes them feel less safe. It’s that constant ...
US President Donald Trump has raised the spectre of economic and geopolitical turmoil in Asia. While individual countries have few options for pushing back against Trump’s transactional diplomacy, protectionist trade policies and erratic decision-making, a ...
Jobs are on the line for back-office staff at the Department of Corrections, as well as at Archives New Zealand and the National Library. A “malicious actor” has accessed and downloaded private information about staff in districts in the lower North Island. Cabinet has agreed to its next steps regarding ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics and climate; on the fifth anniversary of the arrival of Covid and the ...
Hi,As giant, mind-bending things continue to happen around us, today’s Webworm is a very small story from Hayden Donnell — which I have also read out for you if you want to give your sleepy eyes a rest.But first:As expected, the discussion from Worms going on under “A Fist, an ...
The threat of a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan dominates global discussion about the Taiwan Strait. Far less attention is paid to what is already happening—Beijing is slowly squeezing Taiwan into submission without firing a ...
After a while you start to smile, now you feel coolThen you decide to take a walk by the old schoolNothing has changed, it's still the sameI've got nothing to say but it's okaySongwriters: Lennon and McCartney.Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today, a spectacle you’re probably familiar with: ten ...
In short this morning in our political economy: Chris Bishop attempted to rezone land in Auckland for up to 540,000 new homes last year, but was rejected by Cabinet, NZ Herald’s Thomas Coughlan reports this morning in a front page article.Overnight, Donald Trump put 25% tariffs on all car and ...
US President Donald Trump is certainly not afraid of an executive order, signing 97 since his inauguration on 20 January. In minerals and energy, Trump has declared a national emergency; committed to unleashing US (particularly ...
Aotearoa has an infrastructure shortage. We need schools, hospitals, public housing. But National is dead set against borrowing to fund any of it, even though doing so is much cheaper than the "public-private partnership" model they prefer. So what will National borrow for? Subsidising property developers: The new scheme, ...
QUESTION:What's the difference between the National government loosening up the RMA so that developers can decide for themselves what's a good idea or not, and loosening up the building regulations in the early 1990s so that a builder could decide for themselves what was a good idea or not?ANSWER:Well in ...
Last month’s circumnavigation by a potent Chinese naval flotilla sent a powerful signal to Canberra about Beijing’s intent. It also demonstrated China’s increasing ability to threaten Australia’s maritime communications, as well as the entirety of ...
David Parker gave a big foreign policy speech this morning, reiterating the party's support for an independent (rather than boot-licking) foreign policy. Most of which was pretty orthodox - international law good, war bad, trade good, not interested in AUKUS, and wanting a demilitarised South Pacific (an area which presumably ...
Hi Readers,I’ve been critical of Substack in some respects, and since then, my subscriber growth outside of my network has halted to zero.If you like my work, please consider sharing my work.I don’t control the Substack algorithms but have been disappointed to see ACT affiliated posts on the app under ...
The Independent Intelligence Review, publicly released last Friday, was inoffensive and largely supported the intelligence community status quo. But it was also largely quiet on the challenges facing the broader national security community in an ...
If the Chinese navy’s task group sailing around Australia a few weeks ago showed us anything, it’s that Australia has a deterrence gap so large you can drive a ship through it. Waiting for AUKUS ...
Think you've had enoughStop talking, help us get readyThink you’ve had enoughBig business, after the shakeupLyrics: David Bryne.Yesterday, I saw the sort of headline that made me think, “Oh, come on, this can’t be real.” At this point, the government resembles an evil sheriff in a pantomime, tying the good ...
Kiwis working while physically and mentally unwell is costing businesses $46 billion per year, according to new research. The Tertiary Education Commission is set to lose 22 more jobs, following 28 job cuts in April last year. Beneficiaries sanctioned with money management cards will often be unable to pay rent, ...
Last week, Matthew Hooton wrote an op-ed, published in NZME, that essentially says that if Luxon secures a trade deal with India, that alone, would mean Luxon deserved a second term in government.Hooton said Luxon displayed "seriousness and depth" in New Dehli. He praised Luxon for ‘doubling down’ on the ...
This is a re-post from the Climate BrinkLast September the Washington Post published an article about a new paper in Science by Emily Judd and colleagues. The WaPo article was detailed and nuanced, but led with the figure below, adapted from the paper: The internet, being less prone to detail and nuance, ran ...
Reception desk at GP surgery: if you have got this far you’re doing well, given NZ is spending just a third of other OECD countries on primary health care. Photo: Lynn GrievesonMōrena. Long stories shortest in our political economy today: New Zealand is spending just a third of other OECD ...
This week ASPI launched Pressure Points, an interactive website that analyses the Chinese military’s use of air and maritime coercion to enforce Beijing’s excessive territorial claims and advance its security interests in the Indo-Pacific. The ...
This week ASPI launched Pressure Points, an interactive website that analyses the Chinese military’s use of air and maritime coercion to enforce Beijing’s excessive territorial claims and advance its security interests in the Indo-Pacific. The ...
This is a guest post by placemaker Paris Kirby.Featured Image: Neon Lucky Cat on Darby Street, city centre. Created and built by Aan Chu and Angus Muir Design (Photo credit: Bryan Lowe)Disclaimer:I am a Senior Placemaking and Activation Specialist at Auckland Council; however, the views expressed ...
This is a guest post by placemaker Paris Kirby.Featured Image: Neon Lucky Cat on Darby Street, city centre. Created and built by Aan Chu and Angus Muir Design (Photo credit: Bryan Lowe)Disclaimer:I am a Senior Placemaking and Activation Specialist at Auckland Council; however, the views expressed ...
In short: New Zealand is spending just a third of the OECD average on primary health care and hasn’t increased that recently. A slumlord with 40 Christchurch properties is punished after relying on temporary migrant tenants not complaining about holes in the ceiling. Westpac’s CEO is pushing for easier capital ...
The international economics of Australia’s budget are pervaded by a Voldemort-like figure. The He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is Donald Trump, firing up trade wars, churning global finance and smashing the rules-based order. The closest the budget papers come ...
Sea state Australian assembly of the first Multi Ammunition Softkill System (MASS) shipsets for the Royal Australian Navy began this month at Rheinmetall’s Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence in Redbank, Queensland. The ship protection system, ...
The StrategistBy Linus Cohen, Astrid Young and Alice Wai
Sea state Australian assembly of the first Multi Ammunition Softkill System (MASS) shipsets for the Royal Australian Navy began this month at Rheinmetall’s Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence in Redbank, Queensland. The ship protection system, ...
The StrategistBy Linus Cohen, Astrid Young and Alice Wai
Some thoughts on the Signal Houthi Principal’s Committee chat group conversation reported by Jeff Goldberg at The Atlantic. It is obviously a major security breach. But there are several dimensions to it worth examining. 1) Signal is an unsecured open source platform that although encrypted can easily be hacked by ...
Australia and other democracies have once again turned to China to solve their economic problems, while the reliability of the United States as an alliance partner is, erroneously, being called into question. We risk forgetting ...
Machines will take over more jobs at Immigration New Zealand under a multi-million-dollar upgrade that will mean decisions to approve visas will be automated – decisions to reject applications will continue to be taken by staff. Health New Zealand’s commitment to boosting specialist palliative care for dying children is under ...
She works hard for the moneySo hard for it, honeyShe works hard for the moneySo you better treat her rightSongwriters: Michael Omartian / Donna A. SummerMorena, I’m pleased to bring you a guest newsletter today by long-time unionist and community activist Lyndy McIntyre. Lyndy has been active in the Living ...
The US Transportation Command’s Military Sealift Command (MSC), the subordinate organisation responsible for strategic sealift, is unprepared for the high intensity fighting of a war over Taiwan. In the event of such a war, combat ...
Tomorrow Auckland’s Councillors will decide on the next steps in the city’s ongoing stadium debate, and it appears one option is technically feasible but isn’t financially feasible while the other one might be financially feasible but not be technically feasible. As a quick reminder, the mMayor started this process as ...
In short in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on March 26:Three Kāinga Ora plots zoned for 17 homes and 900m from Ellerslie rail station are being offered to land-bankers and luxury home builders by agent Rawdon Christie.Chris Bishop’s new RMA bills don’t include treaty principles, even though ...
Stuff’s Sinead Boucher and NZME Takeover Leader James (Jim) GrenoonStuff Promotes Brooke Van VeldenYesterday, I came across an incredulous article by Stuff’s Kelly Dennett.It was a piece basically promoting David Seymour’s confidante and political ally, ACT’s #2, Brooke Van Velden. I admit I read the whole piece, incredulous at its ...
One of the odd aspects of the government’s plan to Americanise the public health system – i.e by making healthcare access more reliant on user pay charges and private health insurance – is that it is happening in plain sight. Earlier this year, the official briefing papers to incoming Heath ...
April 1 used to be a day when workers could count on a pay rise with stronger support for those doing it tough, but that’s not the case under this Government. ...
Winston Peters is shopping for smaller ferries after Nicola Willis torpedoed the original deal, which would have delivered new rail enabled ferries next year. ...
The Government should work with other countries to press the Myanmar military regime to stop its bombing campaign especially while the country recovers from the devastating earthquake. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to scrap proposed changes to Early Childhood Care, after attending a petition calling for the Government to ‘Put tamariki at the heart of decisions about ECE’. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill today that will remove the power of MPs conscience votes and ensure mandatory national referendums are held before any conscience issues are passed into law. “We are giving democracy and power back to the people”, says New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters. ...
Welcome to members of the diplomatic corp, fellow members of parliament, the fourth estate, foreign affairs experts, trade tragics, ladies and gentlemen. ...
In recent weeks, disturbing instances of state-sanctioned violence against Māori have shed light on the systemic racism permeating our institutions. An 11-year-old autistic Māori child was forcibly medicated at the Henry Bennett Centre, a 15-year-old had his jaw broken by police in Napier, kaumātua Dean Wickliffe went on a hunger ...
Confidence in the job market has continued to drop to its lowest level in five years as more New Zealanders feel uncertain about finding work, keeping their jobs, and getting decent pay, according to the latest Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index. ...
The Greens are calling on the Government to follow through on their vague promises of environmental protection in their Resource Management Act (RMA) reform. ...
“Make New Zealand First Again” Ladies and gentlemen, First of all, thank you for being here today. We know your lives are busy and you are working harder and longer than you ever have, and there are many calls on your time, so thank you for the chance to speak ...
Hundreds more Palestinians have died in recent days as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues and humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, is blocked. ...
National is looking to cut hundreds of jobs at New Zealand’s Defence Force, while at the same time it talks up plans to increase focus and spending in Defence. ...
It’s been revealed that the Government is secretly trying to bring back a ‘one-size fits all’ standardised test – a decision that has shocked school principals. ...
The Green Party is calling for the compassionate release of Dean Wickliffe, a 77-year-old kaumātua on hunger strike at the Spring Hill Corrections Facility, after visiting him at the prison. ...
The Green Party is calling on Government MPs to support Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence and illegal actions in Palestine, following another day of appalling violence against civilians in Gaza. ...
The Green Party stands in support of volunteer firefighters petitioning the Government to step up and change legislation to provide volunteers the same ACC coverage and benefits as their paid counterparts. ...
At 2.30am local time, Israel launched a treacherous attack on Gaza killing more than 300 defenceless civilians while they slept. Many of them were children. This followed a more than 2 week-long blockade by Israel on the entry of all goods and aid into Gaza. Israel deliberately targeted densely populated ...
Living Strong, Aging Well There is much discussion around the health of our older New Zealanders and how we can age well. In reality, the delivery of health services accounts for only a relatively small percentage of health outcomes as we age. Significantly, dry warm housing, nutrition, exercise, social connection, ...
Shane Jones’ display on Q&A showed how out of touch he and this Government are with our communities and how in sync they are with companies with little concern for people and planet. ...
Labour does not support the private ownership of core infrastructure like schools, hospitals and prisons, which will only see worse outcomes for Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is disappointed the Government voted down Hūhana Lyndon’s member’s Bill, which would have prevented further alienation of Māori land through the Public Works Act. ...
The Labour Party will support Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill which would allow sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. ...
The Government’s new procurement rules are a blatant attack on workers and the environment, showing once again that National’s priorities are completely out of touch with everyday Kiwis. ...
The Government’s new planning legislation to replace the Resource Management Act will make it easier to get things done while protecting the environment, say Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop and Under-Secretary Simon Court. “The RMA is broken and everyone knows it. It makes it too hard to build ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay has today launched a public consultation on New Zealand and India’s negotiations of a formal comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. “Negotiations are getting underway, and the Public’s views will better inform us in the early parts of this important negotiation,” Mr McClay says. We are ...
More than 900 thousand superannuitants and almost five thousand veterans are among the New Zealanders set to receive a significant financial boost from next week, an uplift Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says will help support them through cost-of-living challenges. “I am pleased to confirm that from 1 ...
Progressing a holistic strategy to unlock the potential of New Zealand’s geothermal resources, possibly in applications beyond energy generation, is at the centre of discussions with mana whenua at a hui in Rotorua today, Resources and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is in the early stages ...
New annual data has exposed the staggering cost of delays previously hidden in the building consent system, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I directed Building Consent Authorities to begin providing quarterly data last year to improve transparency, following repeated complaints from tradespeople waiting far longer than the statutory ...
Increases in water charges for Auckland consumers this year will be halved under the Watercare Charter which has now been passed into law, Local Government Minister Simon Watts and Auckland Minister Simeon Brown say. The charter is part of the financial arrangement for Watercare developed last year by Auckland Council ...
There is wide public support for the Government’s work to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity protections, says Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard. “The Ministry for Primary Industries recently completed public consultation on proposed amendments to the Biosecurity Act and the submissions show that people understand the importance of having a strong biosecurity ...
A new independent review function will enable individuals and organisations to seek an expert independent review of specified civil aviation regulatory decisions made by, or on behalf of, the Director of Civil Aviation, Acting Transport Minister James Meager has announced today. “Today we are making it easier and more affordable ...
The Government will invest in an enhanced overnight urgent care service for the Napier community as part of our focus on ensuring access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown has today confirmed. “I am delighted that a solution has been found to ensure Napier residents will continue to ...
Health Minister Simeon Brown and Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey attended a sod turning today to officially mark the start of construction on a new mental health facility at Hillmorton Campus. “This represents a significant step in modernising mental health services in Canterbury,” Mr Brown says. “Improving health infrastructure is ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has welcomed confirmation the economy has turned the corner. Stats NZ reported today that gross domestic product grew 0.7 per cent in the three months to December following falls in the June and September quarters. “We know many families and businesses are still suffering the after-effects ...
The sealing of a 12-kilometre stretch of State Highway 43 (SH43) through the Tangarakau Gorge – one of the last remaining sections of unsealed state highway in the country – has been completed this week as part of a wider programme of work aimed at improving the safety and resilience ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters says relations between New Zealand and the United States are on a strong footing, as he concludes a week-long visit to New York and Washington DC today. “We came to the United States to ask the new Administration what it wants from ...
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee has welcomed changes to international anti-money laundering standards which closely align with the Government’s reforms. “The Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) last month adopted revised standards for tackling money laundering and the financing of terrorism to allow for simplified regulatory measures for businesses, organisations and sectors ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour says he welcomes Medsafe’s decision to approve an electronic controlled drug register for use in New Zealand pharmacies, allowing pharmacies to replace their physical paper-based register. “The register, developed by Kiwi brand Toniq Limited, is the first of its kind to be approved in New ...
The Coalition Government’s drive for regional economic growth through the $1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund is on track with more than $550 million in funding so far committed to key infrastructure projects, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. “To date, the Regional Infrastructure Fund (RIF) has received more than 250 ...
[Comments following the bilateral meeting with United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; United States State Department, Washington D.C.] * We’re very pleased with our meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio this afternoon. * We came here to listen to the new Administration and to be clear about what ...
The intersection of State Highway 2 (SH2) and Wainui Road in the Eastern Bay of Plenty will be made safer and more efficient for vehicles and freight with the construction of a new and long-awaited roundabout, says Transport Minister Chris Bishop. “The current intersection of SH2 and Wainui Road is ...
The Ocean Race will return to the City of Sails in 2027 following the Government’s decision to invest up to $4 million from the Major Events Fund into the international event, Auckland Minister Simeon Brown says. “New Zealand is a proud sailing nation, and Auckland is well-known internationally as the ...
Improving access to mental health and addiction support took a significant step forward today with Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey announcing that the University of Canterbury have been the first to be selected to develop the Government’s new associate psychologist training programme. “I am thrilled that the University of Canterbury ...
Health Minister Simeon Brown has today officially opened the new East Building expansion at Manukau Health Park. “This is a significant milestone and the first stage of the Grow Manukau programme, which will double the footprint of the Manukau Health Park to around 30,000m2 once complete,” Mr Brown says. “Home ...
The Government will boost anti-crime measures across central Auckland with $1.3 million of funding as a result of the Proceeds of Crime Fund, Auckland Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee say. “In recent years there has been increased antisocial and criminal behaviour in our CBD. The Government ...
The Government is moving to strengthen rules for feeding food waste to pigs to protect New Zealand from exotic animal diseases like foot and mouth disease (FMD), says Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard. ‘Feeding untreated meat waste, often known as "swill", to pigs could introduce serious animal diseases like FMD and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held productive talks in New Delhi today. Fresh off announcing that New Zealand and India would commence negotiations towards a Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, the two Prime Ministers released a joint statement detailing plans for further cooperation between the two countries across ...
Agriculture and Trade Minister Todd McClay signed a new Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) today during the Prime Minister’s Indian Trade Mission, reinforcing New Zealand’s commitment to enhancing collaboration with India in the forestry sector. “Our relationship with India is a key priority for New Zealand, and this agreement reflects our ...
Agriculture and Trade Minister Todd McClay signed a new Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) today during the Prime Minister’s Indian Trade Mission, reinforcing New Zealand’s commitment to enhancing collaboration with India in the horticulture sector. “Our relationship with India is a key priority for New Zealand, and this agreement reflects our ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of two new Family Court Judges. The new Judges will take up their roles in April and May and fill Family Court vacancies at the Auckland and Manukau courts. Annette Gray Ms Gray completed her law degree at Victoria University before joining Phillips ...
Health Minister Simeon Brown has today officially opened Wellington Regional Hospital’s first High Dependency Unit (HDU). “This unit will boost critical care services in the lower North Island, providing extra capacity and relieving pressure on the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and emergency department. “Wellington Regional Hospital has previously relied ...
Namaskar, Sat Sri Akal, kia ora and good afternoon everyone. What an honour it is to stand on this stage - to inaugurate this august Dialogue - with none other than the Honourable Narendra Modi. My good friend, thank you for so generously welcoming me to India and for our ...
Check against delivery.Kia ora koutou katoa It’s a real pleasure to join you at the inaugural New Zealand infrastructure investment summit. I’d like to welcome our overseas guests, as well as our local partners, organisations, and others.I’d also like to acknowledge: The Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, and other Ministers from the Coalition ...
Anna Rawhiti-Connell joins Duncan Greive to analyse two of the most-discussed cultural artefacts of the year so far. It’s been a rough PR month for Meta, with two of the most-discussed cultural artefacts of the year both directly concerning their two biggest products. On this week’s episode of The ...
The change to the Health and Safety at Work Act would mean the land owner would still be responsible for risks where their work is in the immediate vicinity, but not from the activity itself. ...
Claire Mabey and Alex Casey discuss Ali Mau’s memoir, No Words for This, which is released today.This review discusses sexual abuse and includes details from throughout the book, including new information.Claire Mabey: Alex, we’ve both read No Words for This by Ali Mau – I’d love to start ...
Parliamentary Services is working with the MP Benjamin Doyle and the Green Party around the received threats, and those are being escalated to police where necessary. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a top contender for the title of Great American Novel, turns 100 on April 10. A century later, it is invoked to help ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a secondary school teacher living in a small town shares her approach to spending and saving. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Female. Age: 27. Ethnicity: Pākehā. ...
The National Party is unconcerned the gap between the right and left blocs has tightened since the election, off the back of a fresh political poll. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aya Mousa, Senior Research Fellow in Women’s Cardiometabolic Health, Monash University Maksym Dykha/Shutterstock Good health care depends on evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. They translate the best available research into recommendations that shape diagnosis, treatment, and prevention strategies. But what happens ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has finally ended weeks of speculation and named the election date for the national parliament. After months of unofficial campaigning, Australians will now be treated to a festival ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Frew, Lecturer in Mycorrhizal Ecology, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University marian galicia/Shutterstock If you’re walking outdoors, chances are something remarkable is happening under your feet. Vast fungal networks are silently working to keep ecosystems alive. These ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Deane, Professor of Trade Law, Taxation and Climate Change, Queensland University of Technology RobynCharnley/Shutterstock The future of Australia’s key climate policy is uncertain after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said a Coalition government would review the measure, known as the “safeguard ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stuart Richards, Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of South Australia Drowning in streaming choices? If so, you’re not alone – as our experts have a particularly wide range of picks this month. From musicals and comedy, to serial killers and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jesse Austin-Stewart, Lecturer, School of Music and Screen Arts, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University Getty Images One year after Video Ezy opened its first store in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Broadcasting Act 1989 was introduced. It established frameworks and ...
The ferries will now be delivered in 2029, writes Alice Neville in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.‘Yes to affordability, no to extravagance’: Winston Peters unveils his ‘pragmatic’ ferry plan After December’s anticlimactic announcement of an announcement, Winston Peters’ long-awaited ...
Analysis: The first RNZ-Reid Research poll shows how powerful a good week of headlines devoid of distractions can be for the coalition government in a razor-sharp electoral landscape, writes RNZ political editor Jo Moir. ...
Wellington City councillor Rebecca Matthews is one of New Zealand’s most effective advocates for housing reform. But it appears the Labour Party doesn’t want her any more. On Sunday, April 6, the Wellington Labour Party will vote to confirm its nominees for council candidates in the local body election later ...
Retirement commissioner Jane Wrightson talks to Frances Cook about her money regrets, and the changes she’d like to see for New Zealanders. Even people whose job it is to think about money all day can have money regrets. For retirement commissioner Jane Wrightson, she knows exactly what hers is: she didn’t ...
“The RMA is broken, and everyone knows it.”“The RMA is akin to a gale-force head wind, battling any attempts to develop anything, anywhere.”“The RMA has enabled a cottage industry of lawyers and consultants, drafting thousands of pages of papers and reports, all designed to block new roads, new wind farms, ...
About 40 years ago we bought a bach at Paekākāriki. It sat atop a sand dune looking out to Kāpiti Island. A pipe brought water up to the house, and in the so-called kitchen a garden tap could pour cold water into a sink which then emptied onto the sand ...
Researchers and artists are discovering amazing things about the power of dance to promote collaboration and social inclusion. And it’s not just about community – there’s incredible stuff going on in your brain tooBack in the early 1990s, Nicholas Rowe was an up-and-coming dancer performing the role of a peasant ...
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Analysis: The recent debate surrounding the need for a potential ban on engineered stone (often used in benchtops) has brought to light the serious health risks such as accelerated silicosis, lung cancer and chronic pulmonary diseases associated with inhaling the dust from the cutting and grinding of this product. However, ...
NewsroomBy Anne Bardsley, Kristiann Allen and Jenny Salmond
Israeli-Palestinian relations have always been more complex than the usual naratives.Before the fateful UN decision to partition Palestine in 1947, leftwing binationalist parties, going back decades, sought a Jewish-Arab working class alliance against Arab feudalism, Jewish bourgeoisie, and British imperialism.In mid-2023 I heard similar ‘idealist’ alternative beliefs among progressive Israelis ...
It was the battle of the interveners.On Monday, Federated Farmers and Tātau Tātau o Te Wairoa Trust, parties that joined Ngāi Tahu’s freshwater claim against the Attorney-General, gave their closing legal arguments before Justice Melanie Harland in Christchurch’s High Court.The positions were almost polar opposites.All declarations sought by Ngāi Tahu ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra This election is already shaping up as very much about energy. But notably, ambitions for and debate about combatting climate change have receded in recent times. Peter Dutton has his proposal for an east ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Ryan, Lecturer in Criminology, Deakin University When a jury in the New South Wales Supreme Court found Kristian White guilty of manslaughter, it was the first verdict of its kind in recent Australian history. The verdict is significant because it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and Clinical Academic Gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University Kristi Blokhin/Shutterstock People are being asked to check the use-by dates of bagged salad products they’ve purchased recently after a number of Australian supermarkets issued recalls due to potential bacterial ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Morgan, Research Associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would withdraw Australia’s bid to co-host next year’s global climate summit if the Coalition wins the federal election. Australia has lobbied hard for the right ...
Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith delivered an apology to some 400 people at the marae, for Crown actions he said had caused harm and prejudiced Ngāti Hāua for over a century. ...
On a less controversial note…
Through the years we have found corporations to be using science and politicians to lie to us to protect profits.
Oil companies, tobacco companies, banks and, let's be honest, pharmaceutical companies.
We are talking big returns to shareholders and as we all know the American political system propped up by donors and massive amounts of money.
The revolving door between Washington DC and lobbying firms and regulatory appointments is undeniable.
When I talk of healing schisms in this country this is where the grace comes in.
Rogan and his guests may not be factually correct 100% of the time. Often, the vibe is what is important. After all, some of the guests have had very powerful interests come after them, in ways we can't imagine.
It's not that Rogan and guests make mistakes sometimes. It's that Rogan fosters a culture of alarm and poor critical thinking. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone has 20 million follower youtube where critical thinking is not a primary featuer.
the vibe thing I understand. People want a good cultural fit. This is why I think the liberal left have basically opened the door to the right gaining power. An approach of 'you must think like us or you are wrong and will be punished' is a massive fail on so many levels, and we can't even have a conversation about it. But the left aren't platforming the proto-fascists, and the left also has a need for good cultural fit. Everyone is scared and doubling down. At some point we have to learn how to be human with each other again.
There's a strong audience for counter intuitive "new" takes on science and culture. People love novelty and the idea that mainstream knowledge is wrong (freakanomics, blink,…)
As a massively propagandised culture, Americans intuit that something is wrong, but guys like Rogan, Trump, and crazy preachers are selling snake oil solutions and blaming outgroups instead of accurately diagnosing the real problem: oligarchy and crony capitalism
It's an excellent propaganda tactic, keeping the public confused and unable to tell real from fake. Makes them easier to control and stops actual democracy from breaking out.
completely agree about the intuition and how it gets distorted through modern culture (not that I think it's a new thing, but politics, MSM, SM and so on have particular ways of distorting, let's just call it neoliberal capitalism).
I saw a talk once (IRL!) many years ago (before the internets lol) where a Otago Uni bod was presenting research that people often had strong intuitive reactions against things like nuclear power or GE.
Those intuitions often have a legitimate base, it's just that people don't necessarily have the conceptual language to express them in a more rationality or science based way.
Not sure the SM bullshit stops democracy from breaking out, people were already neoliberalised before the internet. For instance we saw the decline of student protests on NZ campuses in the 90s. It's worse since the internet, and even more now with SM. We have the added problem of people being frightened by the polycrisis and looking for ways to both make sense of life in a crisis that won't end in their lifetime as well as an escape from the stress. Someone standing up and saying what they want to hear is powerful. I just wish the left was better at it
Brain chemistry and imaging studies show that regularly consuming online outrage creates a measurable physical addiction to the brain chemicals released in response. Regular outrage consumption also increases cortisol levels, and leads to changes in brain structure that reduces our capacity to process information, changes that are very similar to those seen in people under constant overwhelming stress. I have been reading Joined-up thinking by Hannah Critchlow, published in 2022, which goes into this in great detail.
For social media engagement, the value of stimulating outrage is more money. "..outrage leads to more attention, which in turn leads to more outrage among other users. Outrage therefore usually means virality, attention, longer user times, etc., and thus also higher profits for platform operators. This leads to negative content with a high potential for outrage being technically supported by the platforms’ algorithms. Researchers at New York University even found that content with moral-emotional wording receives a technical boost of around 20 percent in social media."
Outrage and the political process of othering, eg, of Jews or trans people, helps prime users to political manipulation. So the 'vibe' gsays says is captured by Rogan, is in fact unhappiness and stress channelled by Rogan into his smorgasboard of rw ideas, and is in turn, exploited by demagogues like Trump and Posy Parker.
The book 'Joined-up thinking' primarily is about the chemistry and social interaction involved in collective action. Critchlow shows how, unsurprisingly, adding diversity and a greater proportion of women to groups increases the quality of group decision-making measurably, even markedly, as long as the process of planning is consensual and inclusive, not just lip service. I'd recommend this book strongly for anyone who wants to understand more about how our brains and our hard-wired social responses are co-opted negatively, but also more positively, what strong collective decision-making looks like. It goes beyond intellectual debate to a more holistic understanding of how our physical hardware affects our ideas and beliefs.
that's really good. Here's the thing though. Rogan and KJK are both meeting a need in addition to using manipulation to feed an addiction. In the case of KJK, women were and are fucked off at having our rights sidelined. She wouldn't have built such a large following if that wasn't already happening. Likewise, there is a significant proportion of the population who don't trusts science or the MSM or the mainstream generally. Rogan meets the need for them to be heard.
The problem the left has is that it sees those groups of people as wrong and currently takes the position that they should be ostracised. Those groups of people outnumber us, hence the shit show in the US.
I'd be interested if Critchlow has active solutions that the left can use. Having more women involved isn't news to many of us (I've long argued that we should put the aunties and grandmothers in charge of things, not least because they know how to share). The question is how can the left do that in ways that don't provoke a backlash. I agree that it's important to not do it as lip service.
The response to the anti-DEI backlash shouldn't be to double down (we are outnumbered and we will lose). It's to change the narrative while we still can to one that both retains equity and makes sense to the large number of mainstream people who are trying to find meaning in the world. They're the ones that determine who governs.
The anti DEI bandwagon is a great example of complete lies that the right wing spread against left wing movements. Their audience might not be initially resentful or suspicious but their slanted stories about radical Maaris taking da water, or da Mexicans taking our jerbs, or the wimminfolk getting freebies, brings out the worst in people. And gets the working class fighting each other over stupid shit instead of identifying our common enemy
you might enjoy this
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1378202973526007
Brian Easton has written a good piece on PPPs.
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/public-private-partnerships
He goes more into the ‘technology’ of PPPs and doesn’t delve into the ideological aspects, unfortunately.
I didn't know the world's richest man had been embraced into the heart of the British intellectual establishment. The Brit intelligensia seem to be having a problem with it:
Gosh, I wondered, what percentage of the members is that?? About 200%, it seems.
Fiona Fox is chief executive of the Science Media Centre and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society. She gives her personal view of the controversy here: https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-views-of-the-uk-2025-february-if-the-royal-society-expels-musk-it-could-harm-trust-in-science/
Neutering scientists is traditional, of course, so she's on safe ground. Yet we got climate change due to that convention of normalcy, so I prefer moral guidance.
This makes no sense whatsoever! For example, what neutering and by who? What convention of normalcy caused (!?) CC and how? And preference to/over what, scientific evidence? None of this seems to be connected to content of your comment!?
Okay, sorry if I was too cryptic. James Hansen is one counter-example of course. He persistently spoke out to try for political leverage despite the ivory-tower syndrome imposed by tradition. Her advocacy of neutrality I see as an ongoing attempt to neuter scientists: render them impotent politically. I believe they ought to have as much of a right to free speech as anyone else.
I've been following scientific controversies with active interest since I was a teenager and aware of the power of science since atomic bomb testing turned my nights bright orange a few times in the 1950s. I share with Musk being a physics grad (he also graduated in economics) but his venturing with Trump into making govt efficient could have downsides for govt scientists that the Brit scientists are paranoid about so I'll criticise him if he does any inappropriate culling…
I’m sorry, but I don’t follow your reasoning at all.
Assuming you’re referring to Fiona Fox, why would she as chief executive of the Science Media Centre and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society wish to ‘neuter’ scientists!? Her intention & goal is the exact opposite of what you accuse her of. You seem to confuse political neutrality with silencing (which is what Trump & Musk are doing). Your free speech comment confirms that you’ve created a straw man, possibly even in your own mind.
I still don’t know what convention of normalcy caused (!?) CC and how, and why you prefer “moral guidance” over what exactly?
It could be a generational difference between us. She wrote "Scientists who stray beyond the evidence and become campaigners or advocates for particular policies" to disallow those who add interpretation and meaning to evidence. That's a blatant attempt to emasculate that group!
It's precisely what Hansen had to do to blow the whistle on the establishment. And recall how the left remained in collusion with the right in their denial stance despite Hansen's repeated warnings thro the '90s.
Throughout my adult life the media have tried to suppress scientific evidence of public harm being done by this that & the other. Pesticides, PCBs etc.
Employers of scientists routinely prevented them speaking out, so the alt media was the only way forward in the '70s & '80s. Govt in western countries worked with corporations to prevent disclosure until a semblance of transparency gradually began to be used like a fig leaf to cover the moral nudity of the establishment. She should be trying to empower the voice of science in the public interest. Her advocacy of neutrality merely maintains the normalcy of a morally corrupt control system. Re Trump & Musk, it remains to be seen if their agenda is to target the Deep State or merely pretend to do that in the guise of improving govt operational efficiency. They could even be serious about trying to achieve the latter. Your theory is also feasible; the influence of T's father may have been too internalised too young (re fascist tendencies). I haven't ruled that out – but Musk is a self-declared centrist…
Stuff today in The Post has an article on the Centrist, the only link I can find to it is on PressReader, which I can access via my local library account on my phone.
Decoding the rightward lean of the 'Centrist'
It reports that the site, with only one name as site owner, is a news aggregator, mixed in with op-ed pieces, all of which carry no bylines, and with a sprinkle from dubious rw propagnda outlets.
'Centrist' ads claim unbiased media, but analysis shows a clear rw bias. It has pushed political stances, for example, attacking (surprise, surprise) the idea of a wealth tax. There is subtle, but constant, anti EV bias. The article also examines the shadowy Grenon, who is moving up to controlling The Herald.
"The Centrist's rw perspective isn't inherently problematic. The potential concern is how it may be perceived as repackaging rw views as neutral…while sometimes bypassing journalistic practices that inform readers and ensure accountability….It is the systematic promotion of specific economic and social views that happen to align with one political faction under the guise of aggregation"
Unfortunately we can't cite text from the PressReader but my scan of the appraisal there leads me to join you in deeming the Centrist slanted to the right and therefore a deceit strategy operating in the guise of centrism.
The example of the top 311 paying an average of 9% tax, low enough to be risible, is a good example. We can thank Labour for approving that status quo continually, altho it has been recently attempting to suggest that it may transcend that traditional timidity.
Any genuine centrist media org would support a policy of equity in taxation. Riddling the tax code with escape clauses to allow the rich to crawl out those holes has been a bipartisan part of normalcy way too long already!
https://www.thepress.co.nz/nz-news/360622167/decoding-rightward-lean-centrist
re the conversation above, the NZ far right are gearing up to take another run at the Greens, this time the MP who took over the list seat left by Tana. Probably would have been a twitter silo, but now Peters is involved and indirectly implying that Doyle is a paedophile.
https://x.com/winstonpeters/status/1905710771558097343
https://nitter.net/winstonpeters/status/1905710771558097343#m
This was entirely predictable. What happens next depends on the depths that the MSM will sink to. I expect Plunkett will amplify it on The Platform, not sure beyond that.
Can't really stop the baying mob, but the response needs to go beyond liberal reactions against calling a gay man a paedophile. I don't think Doyle is a child sex abuser, but maybe he is? Maybe Peters is as well. How would we know? This is why we have child safeguarding, because it's not possible to know which men are dangerous (and some women).
The sane responses to concern in the public that go beyond the baying mob is to talk about child safeguarding and address prejudice against gay people.
That liberals have either blocked child safeguarding conversations or ridiculed them, is part of why we are in this situation. It's not the baying mob we have to convince now, it's the people who will look at the images and start to wonder.
And part of that wondering is because the liberalisation of sex has outstripped mainstream society. This article about the situation in the UK is pertinent and essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the broader dynamics at play. There will be a natural tendency to say oh it's just one person (or in this case, two), but it's not, any more than it is in the het population. The problem is the erosion of child safeguarding, and we just have to stop being so resistant to that conversation.
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-lgbtq-movement-has-a-paedophile-problem/
btw, I don't actually know if Doyle is gay (and it's not really any of our business). He self-IDs as non-binary and is a GP MP, which would be enough for the far right to go rapid.
the twitter trolls/astroturfers have turned up. If you are following on twitter, these are new accounts (not many followers) who are digging dirt or shit stirring. Probably from the Dirty Politics crew, or any number of RW orgs who want to harm the Greens or the left.
lol…O'Brien, Landy, Baker, Shields, McRae, Lipanovic, Redbaiter, Holyhekatuiteka, Tamiki, etc, etc,… a veritable who's who of cookers, cranks, and anti-trans voices, have all shown up…
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https://xcancel.com/search?q=benjamin%20doyle&src=typed_query&f=live
well duh, I just explained that the hard right were driving this. I didn't say they were new accounts, I said I was starting to see new accounts joining in.
You don't need too many of these high profile cases around.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx28yj34zgpo
"The co-founder of a Surrey LGBTQ+ group has been found guilty of raping a 12-year-old boy he met on Grindr.
Stephen Ireland, 41, was convicted of raping the child in the Addlestone flat he shared with David Sutton, 27, on 19 April 2024.
Ireland, who co-founded Pride in Surrey in 2018, was also found guilty of three counts of causing a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of sexual assault of a child under 13 and six counts of making indecent images of children.
Sutton, who also volunteered with the organisation, was found guilty of three counts of making indecent photographs of children and one count of possession of an extreme pornographic image."
the write up in the Critic piece about that (in my comment) is worth reading. It talks about what is happening at Surrey Pride now, basically pretending that it didn't happen, and two of the men running SP are former lovers of one of the men convicted. It also mentions other similar cases.
What should be happening is a wide ranging public and private discussion about why these men have ended up in these positions, and how to prevent it in the future. But of course that would require a conversation about boundaries and putting limits on sexual expression, so unlikely I think.
This says a lot about priorities. 12th of March was the day the summing up happened in the court case.
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-lgbtq-movement-has-a-paedophile-problem/
Three points
1.what was a 12 year old doing on grinder?
2.gay men targeting younger males, as heterosexual men do younger females is a known male behaviour pattern.
3.that in this case the gay males doing it were part of a LGBT+ group rather than a LGB group, is what it is. In times past there was no separation between the two groups.
Child safe guarding is not specifically a LGBT+ issue.
There is child poverty (societal), there is parental neglect and or child abuse (family upbringing) and there are predators.
These can be people of a priesthood, a christian ministry, in faith based (and state) care homes and schools. Victims are female and male youth.
That there is a kulturekampf effort by some on the right to revisit equal citizenship (no discrimination based on sex or sexuality) via "gender identity" is what it is.
Very true, but LGBT+ has some specific issues distinct from say the Catholic Church. The main one being the liberal push for sex positivity meeting the erosion of boundaries as intentional philosophy from queer theory.
Some of us have commented in the past about the blurring of boundaries as there's been a shift from historic Pride marches with a big focus on adult sexuality to the current desire to make them family friendly. Hence things like pup tents at Pride with kids sitting with men in their sexual fetish gear.
Another example of the failure of boundaries was rainbow dildo butt monkey, where an adult act NGO was contracted to provide child entertainment at a public library and they sent a man in a rainbow monkey suit with a giant phallus and bare butt.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/13/the-rainbow-dildo-butt-monkey-is-no-laughing-matter/
Or Desmond is Amazing, child drag star, posing with naked men.
There are not isolate examples, they're part of a pattern. What happens when women try at talk about this is we get told we're prudes. That's part of the erosion of safeguarding. It's not the RW position that we're seeing today where hatred of queer culture is mixed in with concern for kids, it's a different position that is progressive, but not at the expense of kids. And you are right, it's not just LGBT+, it's in fact an issue of adult sexuality generally and where men's rights and desires trump those of children.
One side of it.
It may be, the LGB pride movement may have a problem with focus on their acceptance of their sexuality and normalising their families at the same public event.
It seems "age" inappropriate when done at the same time.
The other.
It may be that when this includes/transfers to LGBT+ there is something else going on.
Maybe because the transgender does not involve, biological men as fathers or biological women as mothers, it is not just seen as "age" inappropriate. But also involves promoting acceptance of their "transvestite" appearance … and to children not their own.
{Of course children are only there with their own parents consent and generally for some performance/to the children costumed story telling, but other parents want to prevent these gatherings in public places – censor books etc}.
And onto health practice as per children …
don't really know what you are saying there sorry.
But, yes, it's about age appropriateness, but also, the politics that is saying let's push the boundaries on public sexuality without regard to people for whom this is not ok. In this case, children.
It both exposes them to adult sexuality in ways that aren't ok, but it also removes barriers that prevent paedophiles from having access to children ie safeguarding.
I'm not sure it's about the T per se, more so the queer culture's insistence on subverting norms and transgressing boundaries. Which again, is about appropriateness, but also there is a strain of queer culture that basically says sex with kids is ok. Talking about that is inhibited because of the taboo on talking about gay men that sexually abuse kids.
I don't really understand this.
The stories are legion about, particularly fathers/husbands, ie biological men in the pursuit of transgender, or transvestite really, activities, who break the hearts of their families by their choices to put their AGP fantasies above their lives as husbands, male friends, fathers and family members.
Some parents do have concerns about 'family friendly' so-called, drag queens/cross dressers appearing at libraries and other places. Of course some women do too but as Weka says 'What happens when women try at talk about this is we get told we're prudes. That's part of the erosion of safeguarding.'
The fact that the Free Speech Union considers the acceptance or not of drags in libraries is a free speech issue while many, often women (those terrible prudes) consider it to be a child safety/safeguarding issue shows the gap.
As Weka says 'it's in fact an issue of adult sexuality generally and where men's rights and desires trump those of children'.
Again as Weka says
So apparently now we, as a society, see no need (or feel constrained in asking) to ensure that public displays of often male sexuality to be toned down in public places. Everything is left to the parents, the caregivers…..to me this is a strange mix of classic RW/libertarian stuff and boosting the acceptance of people whose lives are different often seen as a kind leftie thing to do. Very laissez faire but placing a possibly unfair burden of parents who get little backing from society.
Perhaps those women who could not 'see the joke', back in the day, should rise up and grab the honour of being a prude. With my prude cap firmly in place I wonder at the Pride Parades saying they are family friendly yet making little attempt to tone down some parade items so they are actually family friendly.
On Mrs Google family friendly is given this meaning 'A family-friendly product or service is one that is considered to be suitable for all members of an average family.' (original bolding)
I am well aware of the fun/liveliness of adult entertainment that includes innuendo and drag. Also of the actual family fun innuendo/Dame & handsome boys(ie women) in pantomimes. I'm also thinking that without a solid grounding in fairy stories where things present differently to what they are, some of the drag costuming/ideas would be pretty much unintelligible to children.
Some of what is seen at Pride Parades leaves too little to the imagination, and suffers for this both from an adult's and child's point of view.
I've found this incredibly difficult to write being used to taking a fair, large and liberal view of most things…….
it's quite difficult to talk about child safeguarding also because we just don't use those concepts much. I remember seeing it being discussed in the UK GC context and realising there was a lot of formal things I didn't actually know that much about. I think we take them for granted, much like we did with women's sex based rights until they started to be removed.
I don't even know if we have child safeguarding organisations in NZ, nor how government and NGO policy is informed.
this is a good point. The problem we have now is that so much of the sexual expressions are public. Long gone is 'in the privacy of your own home'. It's not hard to see where this is going if we don't stop and have a public conversation about it. And yes, it's men's sexuality that's pushed the farthest, unsurprisingly.
Some advice about using AI.
https://youtube.com/shorts/rVlmbhwn0RM?si=qNXSOiDAknTfUNcd
Class warfare is still not popular in NZ despite the Coalition’s populist trickery.
https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/2503/Living_Wage_procurement_rules_survey_report.pdf
I wonder why still 23% of people polled support removing the Living Wage requirement for government-contracted cleaners, security guards, and caterers.
Who woulda thunk it that a violent thug and poster boy for toxic masculinity who's been credibly accused of rape and sex trafficking would choke and violently assault a woman.
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https://www.tmz.com/2025/03/26/andrew-tate-girlfriend-claims-he-attacked-her-during-sex/
https://www.tmz.com/photos/image_png_20250327_ca8ff9bc8d434a51b8352ed913c631d6/
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JD getting his Onan on…
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The landlord is supposed to have never had it so good.
But their enabler is neither a competent manager of the economy nor for the society, so the migration inflow is down and the migration outflow is up.
This will slow supply of new building. With rent price flat-lining the rising cost of maintenance, rates and insurance cost negate any advantage from falling interest cost. Thus property value gain looks to be minimal.
https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/tony-alexander-rental-markets-dramatic-turn-why-landlords-are-worried-47246
Personal Declaration – the bright-line test was introduced on 1 October 2015, a CGT should apply on all investment property purchased after this date. As tax on CG made from 2015 to 2021 is the best revenue source for government. And thus should be government policy in 2026.
Fletcher Building closing home building factory because of a market downturn
https://archive.li/frLHI#selection-4669.0-4689.53