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Covid19 Vaccine Rollout and Global Inequality

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:46 am, February 2nd, 2021 - 24 comments

2023-2024 for a global rollout 0f the Covid vaccine will put stark lines of demarcation between which populations can trade and travel easily, and those who can’t.

Twelve months of living with Covid

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:58 am, February 1st, 2021 - 21 comments

One year on from the declaration by the WTO that Covid was a public health emergency and with the benefit of hindsight it is interesting to see who heeded the scientific advice and how it worked out.

Having a say on how NZ transitions to a post-carbon society

Written By: weka - Date published: 6:11 am, January 31st, 2021 - 99 comments

Now is the time for people power. The government is about to ask us what we think about New Zealand’s plan on climate action.

UPDATED with links to the report and media analysis.

Queue jumping the Covid vaccine rollout

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:52 am, January 27th, 2021 - 96 comments

National and ACT are concerned that New Zealand is not at the front of the queue obtaining Covid vaccine supplies. Even though our Covid status is still outstanding with no community transmission having happened for months, and even though to realistically open our borders every country in the world will have had to achieve herd immunity.

Is New Zealand’s The Best Little Economy In The World?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:23 am, January 26th, 2021 - 53 comments

New Zealand is the best-managed country in the world. And currently has one of the best economies.

Hong Kong arrests uncovering an ‘ugly plot?’

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 6:15 pm, January 25th, 2021 - 6 comments

Retired Hong Kong Final Court of Appeal Judge Henry Litton raises some important questions about the motivations of the 53 would-be legislators recently arrested in Hong Kong. Five Eyes countries including New Zealand were quick to condemn the arrests, but Litton states their aim was to implement a wider plot called “10-steps to mutual destruction,” and to use their powers as legislators to create chaos.

Both sides reporting in the time of Trump

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:08 am, January 24th, 2021 - 85 comments

You would think that after the Trump years the media would be turning away from the reporting of “both sides” of an issue and in many cases they are. But there is a recent example of a hold out urging that extremist views should be given media attention.

PM Ardern and President Biden as a comparison

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:30 am, January 23rd, 2021 - 34 comments

On his first day in office Joe Biden executed 17 executive orders making wide scale change to the Trump Administration’s policies.

Are Revolutions A Good Idea?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:30 am, January 23rd, 2021 - 24 comments

Revolt? Revolution? Pain in the ass? Depends, like comedy, on timing. And which side of history you end up on.

Is Ted Cruz the dumbest politician ever?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:59 am, January 22nd, 2021 - 33 comments

Now that Donald Trump has more time to play golf and attend court there will be jockeying for leadership of the Republican Party, or what will be left of it once Trump’s new Patriot Party emerges. One early contender is Ted Cruz. There is a problem with him however, he is an imbecile.

Everybody gets a pardon

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:50 am, January 20th, 2021 - 32 comments

Donald Trump’s final decision as President may be to pardon a number of people. There is speculation that the exercise of the Presidential prerogative of mercy may have a price attached …

Brash Bassett and Hide take up blogging

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:00 am, January 19th, 2021 - 100 comments

A new political blog has appeared. But rather than involving a fresh presentation of new ideas in an attempt to engender debate this blog has three tired old has beens who are well past their use by date engage in some climate change denial and race baiting.

Regulate big tech now

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:54 am, January 18th, 2021 - 63 comments

If we had seen our Prime Minister fall from power because three companies decided that their dominance in society should be used to bring her down, we would be outraged. Yet that pretty much just happened in the United States.

Freedom of speech – the knife-edge.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 4:43 pm, January 17th, 2021 - 18 comments

I have a problem with dimwits waving around a slogan of “free speech” without understanding it. Ignorant fools more interested in screaming slogans than understanding the constraints of their ‘right’. The events of the last 4 years in the USA have made that very clear. So I thought I’d point out a few facts of life about constraints on freedom of speech – with a sidetrack through Trumps’ incitements to riot.

The twitter purge

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:19 am, January 14th, 2021 - 109 comments

Over the past few days Twitter has suspended not only Donald Trump’s twitter account but 70,000 accounts world wide many associated with the propagation of Qanon conspiracies.

The Parler purge

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:04 am, January 12th, 2021 - 87 comments

Parler, which attracted right wing extremists because of its refusal to apply any rules to what people said, has had its application banned by Google and Apple and Amazon has now refused to host its data. But it has also had all of user’s data downloaded and archived and made available to everyone, including law enforcement authorities. Think Dirty Politics but on industrial scale.

The Republican ostrich effect

Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:54 am, January 11th, 2021 - 21 comments

Reading the effect of the Wednesday riot at the US Congress has been interesting. The Trump position has as usual been as infantile and self-adsorbed as all of his disaster of a presidency has been. The Republican politicians have been been more nuanced. But it looks to me like they would like to not rely on cheeseburgers to stop Donald Trump running again in 2024.

The ugly finale of the Trump Presidency

Written By: nickkelly - Date published: 1:02 am, January 9th, 2021 - 150 comments

Wednesday’s insurrection further tarnishes America’s reputation as a credible democratic nation. Significant changes will be needed before this reputation can be restored and it is hard to be optimistic that the US political system is capable of reforming itself in the way it needs to.

Anatomy of a failed coup

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:58 am, January 8th, 2021 - 175 comments

America’s descent into chaos was almost completed yesterday. An amazingly inept display by local police saw a takeover of Congress and a temporary disruption of the confirmation of the clearly expressed view of the majority of Americans.

US democracy is under threat

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:44 am, January 7th, 2021 - 43 comments

Short post to update on developments in Washington.

Trump’s next 48 hours

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:18 am, January 6th, 2021 - 66 comments

With crucial Senate run off races in Georgia and Congress meeting to receive the declared results of the US election and with Republicans determined to oppose the results at every turn the next couple of days will be very significant for America’s future. Update (lprent): The democratic senators from Georgia are called as victors. A riot pushed by an irresponsible President Trump happened at the Capitol building with people dead. Congress subsequently made a determined proclamation that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are confirmed a the newly elected president and vice-president. As for Donald Trump – goodbye to unstable rubbish..

The UK is now the world’s Covid cot case

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:09 am, January 6th, 2021 - 25 comments

Well after the emergence of a mutated Covid virus that is much easier to spread and faced with surging infection rates Boris Johnson has put England into a lockdown similar but not as strong as New Zealand’s original lockdown. But the question is, has he done too little too late?

Prison conditions

Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:56 pm, January 4th, 2021 - 27 comments

Statements by the Minister for Corrections and Corrections themselves asserting that there had been no complaints about prison conditions at Waikeria, in the face of the Ombudsman’s report, just look to me to be pure sophistry and bullshit. The report on conditions in the high security make grim reading. Even ignoring the inmates protest – I want to protest about the waste of my taxes in providing such a unproductive, inhumane and outright evil environment.

How low will Bridges go?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:00 am, January 2nd, 2021 - 24 comments

Simon Bridges has spent the last week casting aspersions on people who have tragically died at Music Festivals in an attempt to score culture war inspired political points and undermine the Government’s new pill testing law.

Chris Bishop goes woof woof on variant ‘B.1.1.7’

Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:26 pm, December 28th, 2020 - 43 comments

I realise that this would normally be our silly season, but it seems a bit macabre with the northern winter death toll. But nothing really excuses Chris Bishop for being a complete dickhead in barking for immediate offshore testing for travellers from the UK. It is pointless. The government are a bit more sensible. They’re instituting an extra test at our border.

Trump pardons buddies

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:24 am, December 27th, 2020 - 13 comments

Donald trump has in the past couple of days issued a number of pardons to people including former members of his campaign team, Jared Kushner’s father, a group of contractors involved in the massacre of 14 Iraqi civilians including a 14 year old boy and Ben Carson’s best friend.

Plan B activists still think NZ should be like Sweden

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:50 am, December 26th, 2020 - 171 comments

In a letter published in the Royal New Zealand College of Medical Practitioners journal Plan B academics have criticised the Government’s Covid elimination strategy because of the economic effects at the same time that recently announced growth figures show the economy grew in the past 12 months despite Covid.

A Few Good Green Wins

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:37 am, December 23rd, 2020 - 22 comments

There is always plenty of bad news when it comes to nature in New Zealand, but this year has had an accumulation of good.

Must New Zealand Pay Back All This Public Debt?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:34 am, December 20th, 2020 - 22 comments

Without much fanfare, Minister Robertson has used 2020’s crisis to bury the historic scourge of monetarism and within it the excuses of the governments that used it as a pretext to sell off our key government income generators.

Operation warped

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:05 am, December 20th, 2020 - 30 comments

Donald Trump has spent the past week stuffing up the vaccine roll out in some states, fighting attempts to cancel the Trump wall and blaming China for Russian hacks on American institutions and corporations.

The Government’s finances are in very good shape

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:55 am, December 17th, 2020 - 66 comments

The Government’s finances are in remarkably good shape. Who would have predicted that dealing properly with a global pandemic would have had better results for the economy than timidly dealing with it and trying to ensure that economic activity continued? But by international levels our Government debt is already low and maybe now is the time to spend on vital areas such as poverty, climate change and the housing crisis.