A lot of pale, stale men have trouble with capable women, especially women who aren’t lilly-white and subservient. Brash, Prostetnic Vogon Joyce, Billshit, Mapp, Penguin, Whaleoil… They only vary in how they dress up their misogyny and racism.
And unfortunately, there are a lot of bros on the supposed ‘left’ who dismiss feminism and anti-racism as ‘identity politics.’
Post tomorrow. He seems to want to destroy the chances of peace in different parts of the world just to divert the flow if indictments coming the White House’s way.
It is so obvious what he is doing but it ain’t going to work in the long run. Mueller needs to get his skates on ‘asap’ and drive this crazy creep and his team of enablers out of the White House!
What’s the difference between Kim Jong un and Donald Trump?
Well, one is an old spoiled brat with orange hair and the other is a young spoiled brat with black hair. Apart from that – nothing.
It’s a chess game, with sacrifices of minor pieces. Mueller’s playing a careful game of chess. Flipping Flynn is an indicator of that – punishing him to the fullest extent of the law might be fair, but it may end his broader investigation. He wants testimony against the higher-ups that he can use in a court and defend, not just a few minor scalps.
A lot of criminals have got away because of some procedural slip-up or contentious testimony.
The strategy used against organised crime is to go for the vulnerable lower-ranking soldiers and turn them and then work your way up the ladder until you have a solid case against the people at the top. Mueller’s treating the Trump administration as he would the Mafia.
Just a reminder of what Grabba the Hutt thought was equivalent.
” “It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider,” Trump said in the interview when Howard Stern asked how he handled making sure he wasn’t contracting STDs from the women he was sleeping with.
The business-mogul-turned-politician elaborated on the fact in the interview, calling women’s vaginas “potential landmines” and saying “there’s some real danger there.” ”
The comments on this story cast a new light on Paul Quin’s attack on Golriz Ghahraman. These are pertinent facts on Quin that our MSM could have checked up on before breathlessly printing his smears. But instead of doing some basic journalistic checks on Quin’s credibility in this area, they allowed his lies to be published and IMHO they became complicit in a dirty politics hatchet job.
“…Quin’s attack on Ghahraman is classic Rwandan PR strategy which he practiced and honed while working for that government’s PR department: attack any critics of the regime with claims of genocide denial, cower them into submission and hope that eventually they will resign…”
In my view Fairfax owe Ghahraman an apology, but fat chance she’ll get one – the media these days are happy to be unaccountable disseminator of smears and complicit in spreading lies when it suits them, then scuttle off and whine about jounalistic privilege when someone does come after them.
I see the vile Farrar was on Mora’s show again today. He gets away with his dirty politics filthy hatchet job scot free to play the vicar’s tea party with NatRad’s genteel enabler. Who was complaining about my use of the phrase “white male privilege” the other day? QED.
Mora is an utter disgrace.
He shows no interest in the bigger issues.
He never challenges the hateful opinions of rabid far right extremists like Franks and Farrar; instead he gives their vile views a public platform. A cosy little chat room where their neoliberal ideologies seem so harmless and temperate.
Mora is actually more dangerous than Hosking.
He probably is not concerned about his house – more worried about what his bosses would do if he let someone like Bomber Bradbury speak again.
Yes – it is a polite right-wing chatroom with feeble pretence of real left-wing contribution.
A bit like ‘From 9 to Noon’ on Monday morning’s politics session, to my mind. Once again, the Left are barely represented at all.
Radio NZ needs to lift its game.
So many ACT voices, the party of the 1%.
According to you definition, Mora is a timorous puppet only employed by Griffin because he doesn’t rock the boat and gently massages the right wing views of most of his panellists so they appear more humane than they are.
I listened to Mora for about 10 years now and he will never say what his age…..he appears to be completely paranoid about anyone finding this out. He left Otago Boys High in 1971 so I am guessing 64.
it pisses me off that he will have Rabid Act Franks and Dirty Politics Farrar on the show but has banned Bradbury.
If Penguin has a child, you have to ask him what kind of world he wants to make for it. Is it one in which empathy and ethics don’t matter, in which winning by any means is all that matters, in which losing is your own fault and altitude is what you use to shit on people lower down?
In the U.K. ansd the rest of the world, people are waking up to the scam that is ‘clean green New Zealand.’
‘There can’t be a more successful tourism marketing campaign than “100% Pure New Zealand”. And New Zealand is seen as a world leader in another respect: how its farmers sell their food globally without government subsidies. But the tension between these two successes has been exposed by Sir Tim Smit, the co-founder of the Eden Project in Cornwall.
Smit has sparked a minor international incident by declaring that New Zealand is “so pure the people of Christchurch won’t even swim in the river Avon. Most of the lakes are full of algae. It is like a beautiful person with cancer.” He was speaking to British landowners pondering the New Zealand model for post-Brexit agriculture. British farmers currently receive £3bn in subsidies each year; environment secretary Michael Gove must design a much smaller subsidy system – or scrap it altogether.
Smit argues that New Zealand is no inspiration despite its farmers surviving the removal of subsidies in 1984. Their response has been to intensify, and export milk to China.
Landscapes that George Monbiot might describe as sheep-wrecked are now cattle-wrecked; the cost, argues Smit, is water quality, as nitrates from fertilisers flood into rivers. Smit’s critique has been endorsed not only by Greenpeace New Zealand but also by the chief executive of New Zealand’s fish and game council, Martin Taylor, who calls the country’s clean, green image “a facade”.’
Endorsed by fish and game and greenpeace. Specialists in half truths,innuendo,hyperbole and filthy lies feeding into a gullible population of townsfolk. THe river Avon catchment is city ,not farmland. Algae grows in lakes naturally and most of our lakes are not FULL of algae. Nitrates don’t flood into rivers.I get sick of all this perverted propoganda from all the usual suspects.
I am sick of all the propoganda bleated out monotonously by greenpeace,fish and game and other traitorous bastards. They never mention the world leading environmental management that NZ agriculture is immersing itself in. Warmer tenperatures and irrigation is lifting pasture production significantly ,which is leading to higher profitability and more profit to spend on environmental management.
Hang on a minute.The idiots at greenpeace and fish and game don’t like irrigation ,even from water stored in the wet times. Talk about fruitloops
The only traitorous bastards are people like you who’ll deny reality because they’re doing well. The people who will bring about the collapse of society and, the way things are going, the majority of life on Earth for their own greed.
i’ve recently changed my work to being a casual shepherd/fencer it’s taken me on to 3 new large sheep and beef farms, two of them have most of easy country creeks and wet lands fenced and the third is planning it for the near future
bwaghorn
Probably what the situation is about fenced clean creeks and good water and farming, is that the biggest polluters are from the tiny bit of the business pie that is dairy farming. Even there it may be from the big conglomerations of farms probably owned by Queen and Wall Street farmers. Farmers have to start speaking out about the facts from their own sector, not just huddle together behind the Federated Farmers union. That outfit is about as useful to farmers in general as tits on a bull.
So differentiate yourselves, raise your standards where people can see them as meaning quality, not like those others! Farmers could unite into guilds speaking for your group, your interests, your value to the country and the land – say the Sheep and Beef Grazing Guild. Sound odd? – only because it hasn’t been pushed before.
The present system for farmers is about as useful to them generally as the Federation of Labour was for workers – they caved in to dirty economics. Farmers are suffering with bad publicity from dirty water, and it’s not caused by the huge majority of them. Why put up, why not farmers point the finger at those causing the problem and besmirching the brand? What are ya men/women or mice?
” Farmers are suffering with bad publicity from dirty water,” the bad publicity was unfortunately needed to get things moving ,(no this dosen’t mean ive forgiven labour for its wedge politics at the election)
i was just pointing out that things are happening ,but there is still some shoddy shit going on next to easily fenced rivers.
im not linked to the feds in any way btw, and am to busy getting by at the mo to be involved politically
bwaghorn
Just keeping up to date with what is going on and keeping in touch with the bloggers is being involved. It’s good to read you. And we all need to just know there are others out there who are alive! So cheers and have a good Christmas and New Year.
When i was writing before I was in the midst of a vision of what could happen, not thinking of you going out there single handed. Just too much for anyone. But I wish farmers could start thinking about splitting up into interest and quality groups as guilds are and assert their differences.
The overseas owned company Transdev sounds applalling.
This is what happens when you sell pubic assets to foreign private interests.
Profits over people.
Governments that sell their country and people’s assets should be tried for treason.
Of course they’re appalling. They made their initial start as Veolia, happily taking payment from the Germans in WWII for ferrying Jewish people to those horrendous camps.
The media write another about freak weather conditions and fail to mention the words climate change. No wonder fools like Soper get away with their nonsense.
‘New Zealand is off to a “concerning” start to summer, after some of the worst rainfall patterns in over a century.
A NIWA monthly climate summary for November showed we suffered rainfall levels “well below normal” and temperatures “well above average” for many parts of the country.’
Goodness, present reality, the really bad news and you’ll frighten the horses!
No, we must not. So just limit the bad news to someone’s hair getting pulled, or parking spaces being cut in front of businesses, or a really spectacular car crash, or some yachtspeople who can’t hack sea v yacht having expensive rescues mounted for them, or whatever the USA is doing. Or not being able to prevent or increase people dying, or being born, or having sex, or using drugs – these have become the mundane – and ignore the background, the context; use the gapfiller of everyday problems and often trivial concerns. Life happens while we are thinking of other things.
My daily news diet is not what it once was.It was the TV news that lost me first. Too infantilising, too breathless, too frustrating.The Herald was next. You could look past the reactionary framing while it was being a decent newspaper of record, but once Shayne Currie began unleashing all ...
Hit the road Jack and don't you come backNo more, no more, no more, no moreHit the road Jack and don't you come back no moreWhat you say?Songwriters: Percy MayfieldMorena,I keep many of my posts, like this one, paywall-free so that everyone can read them.However, please consider supporting me as ...
This might be the longest delay between reading (or in this case re-reading) a work, and actually writing a review of it I have ever managed. Indeed, when I last read these books in December 2022, I was not planning on writing anything about them… but as A Phuulish Fellow ...
Kia Ora,I try to keep most my posts without a paywall for public interest journalism purposes. However, if you can afford to, please consider supporting me as a paid subscriber and/or supporting over at Ko-Fi. That will help me to continue, and to keep spending time on the work. Embarrassingly, ...
There was a time when Google was the best thing in my world. I was an early adopter of their AdWords program and boy did I like what it did for my business. It put rocket fuel in it, is what it did. For every dollar I spent, those ads ...
A while back I was engaged in an unpleasant exchange with a leader of the most well-known NZ anti-vax group and several like-minded trolls. I had responded to a racist meme on social media in which a rightwing podcaster in the US interviewed one of the leaders of the Proud ...
Hi,If you’ve been reading Webworm for a while, you’ll be familiar with Anna Wilding. Between 2020 and 2021 I looked at how the New Zealander had managed to weasel her way into countless news stories over the years, often with very little proof any of it had actually happened. When ...
It's a long white cloud for you, baby; staying together alwaysSummertime in AotearoaWhere the sunshine kisses the water, we will find it alwaysSummertime in AotearoaYeah, it′s SummertimeIt's SummertimeWriters: Codi Wehi Ngatai, Moresby Kainuku, Pipiwharauroa Campbell, Taulutoa Michael Schuster, Rebekah Jane Brady, Te Naawe Jordan Muturangi Tupe, Thomas Edward Scrase.Many of ...
Last year, 292 people died unnecessarily on our roads. That is the lowest result in over a decade and only the fourth time in the last 70 years we’ve seen fewer than 300 deaths in a calendar year. Yet, while it is 292 people too many, with each death being ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob HensonFlames from the Palisades Fire burn a building at Sunset Boulevard amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The fast-moving wildfire had destroyed thousands of structures and ...
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.The Regulatory Standards Bill, as I understand it, seeks to bind parliament to a specific range of law-making.For example, it seems to ensure primacy of individual rights over that of community, environment, te Tiriti ...
Happy New Year!I had a lovely break, thanks very much for asking: friends, family, sunshine, books, podcasts, refreshing swims, barbecues, bike rides. So good to step away from the firehose for a while, to have less Trump and Seymour in your day. Who needs the Luxons in their risible PJs ...
Patrick Reynolds is deputy chair of the Auckland City Centre Advisory Panel and a director of Greater Auckland In 2003, after much argument, including the election of a Mayor in 2001 who ran on stopping it, Britomart train station in downtown Auckland opened. A mere 1km twin track terminating branch ...
For the first time in a decade, a New Zealand Prime Minister is heading to the Middle East. The trip is more than just a courtesy call. New Zealand PMs frequently change planes in Dubai en route to destinations elsewhere. But Christopher Luxon’s visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 5, 2025 thru Sat, January 11, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
The decade between 1952 and the early 1960s was the peak period for the style of music we now call doo wop, after which it got dissolved into soul music, girl groups, and within pop music in general. Basically, doo wop was a form of small group harmonising with a ...
The future teaches you to be aloneThe present to be afraid and coldSo if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists…And if you tolerate thisThen your children will be nextSongwriters: James Dean Bradfield / Sean Anthony Moore / Nicholas Allen Jones.Do you remember at school, studying the rise ...
When National won the New Zealand election in 2023, one of the first to congratulate Luxon was tech-billionaire and entrepreneur extraordinaire Elon Musk.And last year, after Luxon posted a video about a trip to Malaysia, Musk came forward again to heap praise on Christopher:So it was perhaps par for the ...
Hi,Today’s Webworm features a new short film from documentary maker Giorgio Angelini. It’s about Luigi Mangione — but it’s also, really, about everything in America right now.Bear with me.Shortly after I sent out my last missive from the fires on Wednesday, one broke out a little too close to home ...
So soon just after you've goneMy senses sharpenBut it always takes so damn longBefore I feel how much my eyes have darkenedFear hangs in a plane of gun smokeDrifting in our roomSo easy to disturb, with a thought, with a whisperWith a careless memorySongwriters: Andy Taylor / John Taylor / ...
Can we trust the Trump cabinet to act in the public interest?Nine of Trump’s closest advisers are billionaires. Their total net worth is in excess of $US375b (providing there is not a share-market crash). In contrast, the total net worth of Trump’s first Cabinet was about $6b. (Joe Biden’s Cabinet ...
Welcome back to our weekly roundup. We hope you had a good break (if you had one). Here’s a few of the stories that caught our attention over the last few weeks. This holiday period on Greater Auckland Since our last roundup we’ve: Taken a look back at ...
Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partnerSometimes I feel like my only friendIs the city I live in, The City of AngelsLonely as I am together we crySong: Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith, Flea, John Frusciante.A home is engulfed in flames during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area. ...
Open access notablesLarge emissions of CO2 and CH4 due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra, Torn et al., Nature Communications:Climate warming may accelerate decomposition of Arctic soil carbon, but few controlled experiments have manipulated the entire active layer. To determine surface-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide and ...
It's election year for Wellington City Council and for the Regional Council. What have the progressive councillors achieved over the last couple of years. What were the blocks and failures? What's with the targeting of the mayor and city council by the Post and by central government? Why does the ...
Over the holidays, there was a rising tide of calls for people to submit on National's repulsive, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, along with a wave of advice and examples of what to say. And it looks like people rose to the occasion, with over 300,000 ...
The lie is my expenseThe scope of my desireThe Party blessed me with its futureAnd I protect it with fireI am the Nina The Pinta The Santa MariaThe noose and the rapistAnd the fields overseerThe agents of orangeThe priests of HiroshimaThe cost of my desire…Sleep now in the fireSongwriters: Brad ...
This is a re-post from the Climate BrinkGlobal surface temperatures have risen around 1.3C since the preindustrial (1850-1900) period as a result of human activity.1 However, this aggregate number masks a lot of underlying factors that contribute to global surface temperature changes over time.These include CO2, which is the primary ...
There are times when movement around us seems to slow down. And the faster things get, the slower it all appears.And so it is with the whirlwind of early year political activity.They are harbingers for what is to come:Video: Wayne Wright Jnr, funder of Sean Plunket, talk growing power and ...
Hi,Right now the power is out, so I’m just relying on the laptop battery and tethering to my phone’s 5G which is dropping in and out. We’ll see how we go.First up — I’m fine. I can’t see any flames out the window. I live in the greater Hollywood area ...
2024 was a tough year for working Kiwis. But together we’ve been able to fight back for a just and fair New Zealand and in 2025 we need to keep standing up for what’s right and having our voices heard. That starts with our Mood of the Workforce Survey. It’s your ...
Time is never time at allYou can never ever leaveWithout leaving a piece of youthAnd our lives are forever changedWe will never be the sameThe more you change, the less you feelSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan.Babinden - Baba’s DayToday, January 8th, 2025, is Babinden, “The Day of the baba” or “The ...
..I/We wish to make the following comments:I oppose the Treaty Principles Bill."5. Act binds the CrownThis Act binds the Crown."How does this Act "bind the Crown" when Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which the Act refers to, has been violated by the Crown on numerous occassions, resulting in massive loss of ...
Everything is good and brownI'm here againWith a sunshine smile upon my faceMy friends are close at handAnd all my inhibitions have disappeared without a traceI'm glad, oh, that I found oohSomebody who I can rely onSongwriter: Jay KayGood morning, all you lovely people. Today, I’ve got nothing except a ...
Welcome to 2025. After wrapping up 2024, here’s a look at some of the things we can expect to see this year along with a few predictions. Council and Elections Elections One of the biggest things this year will be local body elections in October. Will Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Canadians can take a while to get angry – but when they finally do, watch out. Canada has been falling out of love with Justin Trudeau for years, and his exit has to be the least surprising news event of the New Year. On recent polling, Trudeau’s Liberal party has ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Much like 2023, many climate and energy records were broken in 2024. It was Earth’s hottest year on record by a wide margin, breaking the previous record that was set just last year by an even larger margin. Human-caused climate-warming pollution and ...
Submissions on National's racist, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill are due tomorrow! So today, after a good long holiday from all that bullshit, I finally got my shit together to submit on it. As I noted here, people should write their own submissions in their own ...
Ooh, baby (ooh, baby)It's making me crazy (it's making me crazy)Every time I look around (look around)Every time I look around (every time I look around)Every time I look aroundIt's in my faceSongwriters: Alan Leo Jansson / Paul Lawrence L. Fuemana.Today, I’ll be talking about rich, middle-aged men who’ve made ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 29, 2024 thru Sat, January 4, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Hi,The thing that stood out at me while shopping for Christmas presents in New Zealand was how hard it was to avoid Zuru products. Toy manufacturer Zuru is a bit like Netflix, in that it has so much data on what people want they can flood the market with so ...
And when a child is born into this worldIt has no conceptOf the tone of skin it's living inAnd there's a million voicesAnd there's a million voicesTo tell you what you should be thinkingSong by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N'Dour.The moment you see that face, you can hear her voice; ...
While we may not always have quality political leadership, a couple of recently published autobiographies indicate sometimes we strike it lucky. When ranking our prime ministers, retired professor of history Erik Olssen commented that ‘neither Holland nor Nash was especially effective as prime minister – even his private secretary thought ...
Baby, be the class clownI'll be the beauty queen in tearsIt's a new art form, showin' people how little we care (yeah)We're so happy, even when we're smilin' out of fearLet's go down to the tennis court and talk it up like, yeah (yeah)Songwriters: Joel Little / Ella Yelich O ...
Open access notables Why Misinformation Must Not Be Ignored, Ecker et al., American Psychologist:Recent academic debate has seen the emergence of the claim that misinformation is not a significant societal problem. We argue that the arguments used to support this minimizing position are flawed, particularly if interpreted (e.g., by policymakers or the public) as suggesting ...
What I’ve Been Doing: I buried a close family member.What I’ve Been Watching: Andor, Jack Reacher, Xmas movies.What I’ve Been Reflecting On: The Usefulness of Writing and the Worthiness of Doing So — especially as things become more transparent on their own.I also hate competing on any day, and if ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by John Wihbey. A version of this article first appeared on Yale Climate Connections on Nov. 11, 2008. (Image credits: The White House, Jonathan Cutrer / CC BY 2.0; President Jimmy Carter, Trikosko/Library of Congress; Solar dedication, Bill Fitz-Patrick / Jimmy Carter Library; Solar ...
Morena folks,We’re having a good break, recharging the batteries. Hope you’re enjoying the holiday period. I’m not feeling terribly inspired by much at the moment, I’m afraid—not from a writing point of view, anyway.So, today, we’re travelling back in time. You’ll have to imagine the wavy lines and sci-fi sound ...
Completed reads for 2024: Oration on the Dignity of Man, by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola A Platonic Discourse Upon Love, by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Of Being and Unity, by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola The Life of Pico della Mirandola, by Giovanni Francesco Pico Three Letters Written by Pico ...
Welcome to 2025, Aotearoa. Well… what can one really say? 2024 was a story of a bad beginning, an infernal middle and an indescribably farcical end. But to chart a course for a real future, it does pay to know where we’ve been… so we know where we need ...
Welcome to the official half-way point of the 2020s. Anyway, as per my New Years tradition, here’s where A Phuulish Fellow’s blog traffic came from in 2024: United States United Kingdom New Zealand Canada Sweden Australia Germany Spain Brazil Finland The top four are the same as 2023, ...
Completed reads for December: Be A Wolf!, by Brian Strickland The Magic Flute [libretto], by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder The Invisible Eye, by Erckmann-Chatrian The Owl’s Ear, by Erckmann-Chatrian The Waters of Death, by Erckmann-Chatrian The Spider, by Hanns Heinz Ewers Who Knows?, by Guy de Maupassant ...
Well, it’s the last day of the year, so it’s time for a quick wrap-up of the most important things that happened in 2024 for urbanism and transport in our city. A huge thank you to everyone who has visited the blog and supported us in our mission to make ...
Leave your office, run past your funeralLeave your home, car, leave your pulpitJoin us in the streets where weJoin us in the streets where weDon't belong, don't belongHere under the starsThrowing light…Song: Jeffery BuckleyToday, I’ll discuss the standout politicians of the last 12 months. Each party will receive three awards, ...
Hi,A lot’s happened this year in the world of Webworm, and as 2024 comes to an end I thought I’d look back at a few of the things that popped. Maybe you missed them, or you might want to revisit some of these essay and podcast episodes over your break ...
Hi,I wanted to share this piece by film editor Dan Kircher about what cinema has been up to in 2024.Dan edited my documentary Mister Organ, as well as this year’s excellent crowd-pleasing Bookworm.Dan adores movies. He gets the language of cinema, he knows what he loves, and writes accordingly. And ...
Without delving into personal details but in order to give readers a sense of the year that was, I thought I would offer the study in contrasts that are Xmas 2023 and Xmas 2024: Xmas 2023 in Starship Children’s Hospital (after third of four surgeries). Even opening presents was an ...
Heavy disclaimer: Alpha/beta/omega dynamics is a popular trope that’s used in a wide range of stories and my thoughts on it do not apply to all cases. I’m most familiar with it through the lens of male-focused fanfic, typically m/m but sometimes also featuring m/f and that’s the situation I’m ...
Hi,Webworm has been pretty heavy this year — mainly because the world is pretty heavy. But as we sprint (or limp, you choose) through the final days of 2024, I wanted to keep Webworm a little lighter.So today I wanted to look at one of the biggest and weirdest elements ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 22, 2024 thru Sat, December 28, 2024. This week's roundup is the second one published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, ...
We’ll have a climate change ChristmasFrom now until foreverWarming our hearts and mindsAnd planet all togetherSpirits high and oceans higherChestnuts roast on wildfiresIf coal is on your wishlistMerry Climate Change ChristmasSong by Ian McConnellReindeer emissions are not something I’d thought about in terms of climate change. I guess some significant ...
KP continues to putt-putt along as a tiny niche blog that offers a NZ perspective on international affairs with a few observations about NZ domestic politics thrown in. In 2024 there was also some personal posts given that my son was in the last four months of a nine month ...
I can see very wellThere's a boat on the reef with a broken backAnd I can see it very wellThere's a joke and I know it very wellIt's one of those that I told you long agoTake my word I'm a madman, don't you knowSongwriters: Bernie Taupin / Elton JohnIt ...
.Acknowledgement: Tim PrebbleThanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work..With each passing day of bad headlines, squandering tax revenue to enrich the rich, deep cuts to our social services and a government struggling to keep the lipstick on its neo-liberal pig ...
This is from the 36th Parallel social media account (as brief food for thought). We know that Trump is ahistorical at best but he seems to think that he is Teddy Roosevelt and can use the threat of invoking the Monroe Doctrine and “Big Stick” gunboat diplomacy against Panama and ...
Don't you cry tonightI still love you, babyAnd don't you cry tonightDon't you cry tonightThere's a heaven above you, babyAnd don't you cry tonightSong: Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so”, said possibly the greatest philosopher ever to walk this earth, Douglas Adams.We have entered the ...
The Green Party welcomes the extension of the deadline for Treaty Principles Bill submissions but continues to call on the Government to abandon the Bill. ...
Complaints about disruptive behaviour now handled in around 13 days (down from around 60 days a year ago) 553 Section 55A notices issued by Kāinga Ora since July 2024, up from 41 issued during the same period in the previous year. Of that 553, first notices made up around 83 ...
The time it takes to process building determinations has improved significantly over the last year which means fewer delays in homes being built, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “New Zealand has a persistent shortage of houses. Making it easier and quicker for new homes to be built will ...
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Work is set to get underway on a new bus station at Westgate this week. A contract has been awarded to HEB Construction to start a package of enabling works to get the site ready in advance of main construction beginning in mid-2025, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“A new Westgate ...
Minister for Children and for Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence Karen Chhour is encouraging people to use the resources available to them to get help, and to report instances of family and sexual violence amongst their friends, families, and loved ones who are in need. “The death of a ...
Uia te pō, rangahaua te pō, whakamāramatia mai he aha tō tango, he aha tō kāwhaki? Whitirere ki te ao, tirotiro kau au, kei hea taku rātā whakamarumaru i te au o te pakanga mo te mana motuhake? Au te pō, ngū te pō, ue hā! E te kahurangi māreikura, ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says people with diabetes and other painful conditions will benefit from a significant new qualification to boost training in foot care. “It sounds simple, but quality and regular foot and nail care is vital in preventing potentially serious complications from diabetes, like blisters or sores, which can take a long time to heal ...
Associate Health Minister with responsibility for Pharmac David Seymour is pleased to see Pharmac continue to increase availability of medicines for Kiwis with the government’s largest ever investment in Pharmac. “Pharmac operates independently, but it must work within the budget constraints set by the government,” says Mr Seymour. “When this government assumed ...
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The ranting and ravings of Barry Soper.
Does he have an issue with capable women?
#1. Golriz Ghahraman
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11949313
2. Jacinda Ardern
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11947781
3. Susan Devoy
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11952064
A pattern seems to be emerging.
From Soper it could be said to be a fractious fractal.
“…Does he have an issue with capable women..?”
The answer to your question is yes.
A lot of pale, stale men have trouble with capable women, especially women who aren’t lilly-white and subservient. Brash, Prostetnic Vogon Joyce, Billshit, Mapp, Penguin, Whaleoil… They only vary in how they dress up their misogyny and racism.
And unfortunately, there are a lot of bros on the supposed ‘left’ who dismiss feminism and anti-racism as ‘identity politics.’
Awesome photo Mickey.
Astonishing Trump is shifting the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. That’s functionally putting a major US military installation on the Jordanian border.
What an idiot.
Post tomorrow. He seems to want to destroy the chances of peace in different parts of the world just to divert the flow if indictments coming the White House’s way.
It is so obvious what he is doing but it ain’t going to work in the long run. Mueller needs to get his skates on ‘asap’ and drive this crazy creep and his team of enablers out of the White House!
What’s the difference between Kim Jong un and Donald Trump?
Well, one is an old spoiled brat with orange hair and the other is a young spoiled brat with black hair. Apart from that – nothing.
#MAGA – MuellerAin’tGoingAway
Mueller needs to get his skates on ‘asap’
It’s a chess game, with sacrifices of minor pieces. Mueller’s playing a careful game of chess. Flipping Flynn is an indicator of that – punishing him to the fullest extent of the law might be fair, but it may end his broader investigation. He wants testimony against the higher-ups that he can use in a court and defend, not just a few minor scalps.
A lot of criminals have got away because of some procedural slip-up or contentious testimony.
The strategy used against organised crime is to go for the vulnerable lower-ranking soldiers and turn them and then work your way up the ladder until you have a solid case against the people at the top. Mueller’s treating the Trump administration as he would the Mafia.
I reckon you’re crediting Donnie Dotard with more strategic thinking than he’s capable of.
Moving the embassy to Jerusalem was a campaign promise, and it’s something easy to do by decree and call it winning.
Trump is a tool.
It’s not Trumps agenda, he’s a pawn
Destroying ‘peace’ as an agenda, belongs to others…
That photo explains it, quite clearly
Trump has given into the establishment and now follows their warmongering agenda.
Just a reminder of what Grabba the Hutt thought was equivalent.
” “It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider,” Trump said in the interview when Howard Stern asked how he handled making sure he wasn’t contracting STDs from the women he was sleeping with.
The business-mogul-turned-politician elaborated on the fact in the interview, calling women’s vaginas “potential landmines” and saying “there’s some real danger there.” ”
http://people.com/politics/trump-boasted-of-avoiding-stds-while-dating-vaginas-are-landmines-it-was-my-personal-vietnam/
The comments on this story cast a new light on Paul Quin’s attack on Golriz Ghahraman. These are pertinent facts on Quin that our MSM could have checked up on before breathlessly printing his smears. But instead of doing some basic journalistic checks on Quin’s credibility in this area, they allowed his lies to be published and IMHO they became complicit in a dirty politics hatchet job.
http://opiniojuris.org/2017/11/28/a-shameless-attack-on-golriz-ghahraman/
“…Quin’s attack on Ghahraman is classic Rwandan PR strategy which he practiced and honed while working for that government’s PR department: attack any critics of the regime with claims of genocide denial, cower them into submission and hope that eventually they will resign…”
Also:
http://digitaldjeli.com/2012/amnesty-international-denounces-use-of-torture-in-rwandan-military-detention-rwandan-pr-reacts/
In my view Fairfax owe Ghahraman an apology, but fat chance she’ll get one – the media these days are happy to be unaccountable disseminator of smears and complicit in spreading lies when it suits them, then scuttle off and whine about jounalistic privilege when someone does come after them.
I see the vile Farrar was on Mora’s show again today. He gets away with his dirty politics filthy hatchet job scot free to play the vicar’s tea party with NatRad’s genteel enabler. Who was complaining about my use of the phrase “white male privilege” the other day? QED.
Mora is an utter disgrace.
He shows no interest in the bigger issues.
He never challenges the hateful opinions of rabid far right extremists like Franks and Farrar; instead he gives their vile views a public platform. A cosy little chat room where their neoliberal ideologies seem so harmless and temperate.
Mora is actually more dangerous than Hosking.
All he worries about is the price of his house.
He probably is not concerned about his house – more worried about what his bosses would do if he let someone like Bomber Bradbury speak again.
Yes – it is a polite right-wing chatroom with feeble pretence of real left-wing contribution.
A bit like ‘From 9 to Noon’ on Monday morning’s politics session, to my mind. Once again, the Left are barely represented at all.
Radio NZ needs to lift its game.
So many ACT voices, the party of the 1%.
According to you definition, Mora is a timorous puppet only employed by Griffin because he doesn’t rock the boat and gently massages the right wing views of most of his panellists so they appear more humane than they are.
You might say that – I could not possibly comment!
“Mora is actually more dangerous than Hosking”. Bullshit. That insidious prick has more than ten times the market penetration than Mora.
I listened to Mora for about 10 years now and he will never say what his age…..he appears to be completely paranoid about anyone finding this out. He left Otago Boys High in 1971 so I am guessing 64.
it pisses me off that he will have Rabid Act Franks and Dirty Politics Farrar on the show but has banned Bradbury.
If Penguin has a child, you have to ask him what kind of world he wants to make for it. Is it one in which empathy and ethics don’t matter, in which winning by any means is all that matters, in which losing is your own fault and altitude is what you use to shit on people lower down?
In the U.K. ansd the rest of the world, people are waking up to the scam that is ‘clean green New Zealand.’
‘There can’t be a more successful tourism marketing campaign than “100% Pure New Zealand”. And New Zealand is seen as a world leader in another respect: how its farmers sell their food globally without government subsidies. But the tension between these two successes has been exposed by Sir Tim Smit, the co-founder of the Eden Project in Cornwall.
Smit has sparked a minor international incident by declaring that New Zealand is “so pure the people of Christchurch won’t even swim in the river Avon. Most of the lakes are full of algae. It is like a beautiful person with cancer.” He was speaking to British landowners pondering the New Zealand model for post-Brexit agriculture. British farmers currently receive £3bn in subsidies each year; environment secretary Michael Gove must design a much smaller subsidy system – or scrap it altogether.
Smit argues that New Zealand is no inspiration despite its farmers surviving the removal of subsidies in 1984. Their response has been to intensify, and export milk to China.
Landscapes that George Monbiot might describe as sheep-wrecked are now cattle-wrecked; the cost, argues Smit, is water quality, as nitrates from fertilisers flood into rivers. Smit’s critique has been endorsed not only by Greenpeace New Zealand but also by the chief executive of New Zealand’s fish and game council, Martin Taylor, who calls the country’s clean, green image “a facade”.’
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/04/new-zealand-britain-countryside-michael-gove-brexit?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=255245&subid=12977235&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
Endorsed by fish and game and greenpeace. Specialists in half truths,innuendo,hyperbole and filthy lies feeding into a gullible population of townsfolk. THe river Avon catchment is city ,not farmland. Algae grows in lakes naturally and most of our lakes are not FULL of algae. Nitrates don’t flood into rivers.I get sick of all this perverted propoganda from all the usual suspects.
You are in denial of the environmental crisis facing ourcwaterways.
You ignore Science.
Do you also deny climate change?
Just wanting to get a feel for the level of your refusal to accept Science.
I am sick of all the propoganda bleated out monotonously by greenpeace,fish and game and other traitorous bastards. They never mention the world leading environmental management that NZ agriculture is immersing itself in. Warmer tenperatures and irrigation is lifting pasture production significantly ,which is leading to higher profitability and more profit to spend on environmental management.
Hang on a minute.The idiots at greenpeace and fish and game don’t like irrigation ,even from water stored in the wet times. Talk about fruitloops
Keep talking to yourself….
The only traitorous bastards are people like you who’ll deny reality because they’re doing well. The people who will bring about the collapse of society and, the way things are going, the majority of life on Earth for their own greed.
I get sick of people like you who are prepared to foul every river and lake in the country for extra few dollars.
You are the fruitloop Ian. Wake up and get your head out of the sand.
i’ve recently changed my work to being a casual shepherd/fencer it’s taken me on to 3 new large sheep and beef farms, two of them have most of easy country creeks and wet lands fenced and the third is planning it for the near future
bwaghorn
Probably what the situation is about fenced clean creeks and good water and farming, is that the biggest polluters are from the tiny bit of the business pie that is dairy farming. Even there it may be from the big conglomerations of farms probably owned by Queen and Wall Street farmers. Farmers have to start speaking out about the facts from their own sector, not just huddle together behind the Federated Farmers union. That outfit is about as useful to farmers in general as tits on a bull.
So differentiate yourselves, raise your standards where people can see them as meaning quality, not like those others! Farmers could unite into guilds speaking for your group, your interests, your value to the country and the land – say the Sheep and Beef Grazing Guild. Sound odd? – only because it hasn’t been pushed before.
The present system for farmers is about as useful to them generally as the Federation of Labour was for workers – they caved in to dirty economics. Farmers are suffering with bad publicity from dirty water, and it’s not caused by the huge majority of them. Why put up, why not farmers point the finger at those causing the problem and besmirching the brand? What are ya men/women or mice?
” Farmers are suffering with bad publicity from dirty water,” the bad publicity was unfortunately needed to get things moving ,(no this dosen’t mean ive forgiven labour for its wedge politics at the election)
i was just pointing out that things are happening ,but there is still some shoddy shit going on next to easily fenced rivers.
im not linked to the feds in any way btw, and am to busy getting by at the mo to be involved politically
bwaghorn
Just keeping up to date with what is going on and keeping in touch with the bloggers is being involved. It’s good to read you. And we all need to just know there are others out there who are alive! So cheers and have a good Christmas and New Year.
When i was writing before I was in the midst of a vision of what could happen, not thinking of you going out there single handed. Just too much for anyone. But I wish farmers could start thinking about splitting up into interest and quality groups as guilds are and assert their differences.
Strike by train staff this friday in Auckland – so no trains running.
Good on them!!!
The overseas owned company Transdev sounds applalling.
This is what happens when you sell pubic assets to foreign private interests.
Profits over people.
Governments that sell their country and people’s assets should be tried for treason.
Of course they’re appalling. They made their initial start as Veolia, happily taking payment from the Germans in WWII for ferrying Jewish people to those horrendous camps.
QFT
The media write another about freak weather conditions and fail to mention the words climate change. No wonder fools like Soper get away with their nonsense.
‘New Zealand is off to a “concerning” start to summer, after some of the worst rainfall patterns in over a century.
A NIWA monthly climate summary for November showed we suffered rainfall levels “well below normal” and temperatures “well above average” for many parts of the country.’
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/12/new-zealand-weather-concerning-start-to-summer.html
Wake up New Zealand – it’s here and it’s going to get worse.
The media isn’t going to help.
Goodness, present reality, the really bad news and you’ll frighten the horses!
No, we must not. So just limit the bad news to someone’s hair getting pulled, or parking spaces being cut in front of businesses, or a really spectacular car crash, or some yachtspeople who can’t hack sea v yacht having expensive rescues mounted for them, or whatever the USA is doing. Or not being able to prevent or increase people dying, or being born, or having sex, or using drugs – these have become the mundane – and ignore the background, the context; use the gapfiller of everyday problems and often trivial concerns. Life happens while we are thinking of other things.
Just one word – YES. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/99597674/speculation-grows-over-new-waikato-dhb-chair