Funny how models based on "the science" still seem to be considerably more accurate than models based on "nothing is really changing outside of norms over the history of humanity" or "sunspots".
"Reality has always been overflowing with entities whose essences are baptized in inquiry. We are at a crossroads of understanding and bondage. Who are we? Where on the great journey will we be aligned?"
If current models of the effects of increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases on atmospheric and ocean temperatures, sea level, et al. are not credible, would you care to hazard a guess as to whether these models are under- or over-estimating the effects/risks?
Guess we'll know soon enough.
"Since all models are wrong the scientist must be alert to what is importantly wrong. It is inappropriate to be concerned about mice when there are tigers abroad."
yep – we all saw how wrong this was and clayton tears are not needed or wanted.
The head of Oranga Tamariki says she has deep regret and is truly sorry about how the Ministry tried to uplift a newborn baby in Hastings, after a review found there were mistakes into how the case was handled.
This follows a release of its practice review into the way staff tried to take the six-day-old baby from his mother at Hawke's Bay Hospital in May.
but
Oranga Tamariki stood by its decision to get involved as it had safety concerns but how it went about it was wrong, Moss said.
As trial began in the case against Roger Stone for charges he threatened a witness and lied about his attempts to contact Wikileaks, up the street other bad faith actors in Trump's orbit took a meeting with an attorney for Julian Assange. pic.twitter.com/LIY9Ddx3PX
At approximately 3pm today Senator Rand Paul's office held a meeting with Gareth Peirce, a celebrated human rights advocate and British lawyer who currently is representing Julian Assange on matters concerning his extradition to the US.
As a solicitor representing a client facing extradition on political charges under the draconian Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes and abuses, Gareth is duty-bound to leave no stone unturned in advocating for her client —but this meeting landed at deeply troubling time.
This week Rand Paul has repeatedly pulled threads at the already threadbare fabric of democratic process by calling on members of the media and others to unmask the identity of the alleged whistleblower.
Whistleblower protection, like source protection, is a foundational tenet in journalistic ethics, and (unless something recently changed) remains paramount within Wikileaks.
Today’s meeting between Julian Assange’s attorney and Rand Paul’s staff was an affront to every core belief once held sacred by Wikileaks supporters. It never should have happened.
To add insult to injury today Rand Paul blocked a resolution reaffirming the Senate's support for whistleblower protections. Protecting the safety of sources is not “fake outrage,” it’s a baseline to due process in these proceedings.
In addition to showing contempt for whistleblowers & sources, Rand Paul has also shown contempt for journalists from the mainstream & alternative media alike, including fighting to revoke the press credentials of @AbbyMartin who once asked him hard questions about US drone policy
mentions The already horrid optics of this meeting are compounded when it is revealed the individual who purportedly brokered the meeting between Julian Assange's lawyer and Rand Paul's office is none other than Roger Stone protege and Alt-Light Palme d'Or, Cassandra Fairbanks.
mentions This meeting did not speak truth to power …it pulled at the pant legs of it.
mentions This meeting did not lift up the ideals that at one time in 2010 made Wikileaks great …it undermined those ideals in a most brutal way.
mentions This meeting couldn't possibly help Julian Assange in his fight against charges for publishing information about US war crimes …instead it conflates them with a partisan spat that is threatening the safety of another whistleblower seeking to hold those in power to account.
I've yet to see any media call out the Repug push to expose the whistleblower for what it really can only be: a blatant attempt to intimidate other potential whistleblowers and scare them away from whistleblowing.
NEW: Rand Paul is on the Senate floor pushing a bill to make Edward Snowden a retroactive whistler blower, and the press gallery erupts: "HE WASN'T A WHISTLE BLOWER!"
Rand Paul is definitely playing a different game to most of the rest of the Repugs, though I'm not ready to guess at what his end-game might be. (No, I don't think he's a Pooteepuppet, though there is likely some convergence of interests)
But people are complicated, even utter assholes can do worthwhile things now and then. Rand Paul's sticking up for Snowden seems to fall into that category, even though it may be in service of some as-yet obscure asshole goal.
Earlier in the year he was quietly boosting foreign oligarchs with his opposition to sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 project. At around the same time he was holding up funding for a 9/11 victims
An opportunist weasel looking to line his own pockets, I reckon.
Rand Paul is one of the few repug politicians I suspect might actually have some pretty strong political principles that he generally sticks to, rather than being primarily interested in feathering his own nest and clawing onto is sinecure.
Touble is that those principles are libertarian, so whatever good he might advocate he approaches fromn the opposite direction. I.e. protecting Snowden is consistent with trying to make government infintesimally small, so it's the same impulse that makes him want to destroy all government healthcare systems (not sure about his ideas on VA – he'd probably want it government funded but privatised).
Whereas even a light socialist would say Snowden deserves a pass because he exposed mass surveillance that preserves nationalistic capitalist hegemony, and that everyone is entitled to healthcare, food, and housing even if capitalism doesn't provide it to them.
maui, your previous evasions notwithstanding, I'm still interested in whether you think it's OK for the president to withhold Congress approved and taxpayer funded aid to try to extort a foreign country into smearing a political opponent of the president?
Go on and pretend it's just a hypothetical if it makes it easier for you to answer. It's a very simple question that only needs a “yes it’s OK” or “no it’s not OK” answer.
Do you know that Trumps IQ is that of Einstein's? He is by far not dumb. Do you know hes a Master Chess player and he taught Barron, Top of the game in the world. Hes playing 4D Chess with people and driving them crazy. Its hilarious. Just so you know, Dumb he is not.
Aw c'mon, give him credit, he's the absolute undisputed master of seagull chess. Y'know, where you flap in squawking loudly, shit all over the board, knock all the pieces over, strut around like you've won, and flap out again still squawking loudly.
I doubt he even knows how each chess piece moves and even if by a miracle he does he'd cheat his arse off like he does in every other aspect of his life from golf to numbers at his parade. He would be good at moving the pieces on one of those magnetic chess sets that are so so small you can hardly hold them, for obvious reasons.
"Despite supporting the bill National have set out several changes to the law that they would make in their first 100 days if elected, including removing the controversial methane target and asking an independent commission to set it."
After the White House cut off military aid to Ukraine, Donald Trump’s top officials scrambled to get it restored but were unable to organise a meeting with the president, in part because his staff were too busy pursuing his interest in buying Greenland, according to newly released congressional testimony.
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited understanding about their nation’s democratic system. Results from the 2019 National Assessment Program – Civics and ...
Pinged $65 for overstaying 10 minutes in a parking block? Put away your hard-earned cash and read this first.Hopefully, by now, I’ve already established myself at The Spinoff as the resident tightarse, determined to avoid all unfair and unnecessary punishments (see: oversize baggage charges). Today, I’m focusing my attention on ...
Nuclear weapons states and their allies risk reputational ruin if they flout a new UN Treaty, Carolina Panico argues The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will come into force this month, on January 22, 2021, turning nuclear weapons into illegal objects. It is an achievement that ...
How does one turn into a rabid extremist over the description of a children’s bike? Emily Writes looks at Facebook comments so you don’t have to.You’ve been there, I know it. You’re scrolling along, trying to avoid QAnon conspiracy theories and Trump apocalypse memes when a story catches your eye. ...
Joe Biden is now the President of the United States and many people across America and throughout the world will consequently be breathing more easily. But while the erratic, unpredictable and irresponsible years of the Trump Presidency may be over, ...
Tough border testing for New Zealand honey imports to Japan is re-igniting the conversation about the use of the weed killer glypohsate in New Zealand. ...
The Taxpayers Union should be aware of the law and of the history of ACC. The ACC is a legal system introduced in 1974 to replace the common law right of accident victims to sue for damages for personal injury sustained as a result of negligence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne Terrorism, political extremism, Donald Trump, social media and the phenomenon of “cancel culture” are confronting journalists with a range of agonising free-speech dilemmas to which there are no easy answers. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney You’ve just come from your monthly GP appointment with a new script for your ongoing medical condition. But your local pharmacy is out of stock of your usual medicine. Your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanna D’Alessandro, Professor & ARC Future Fellow, University of Sydney On Wednesday this week, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at at 415 parts per million (ppm). The level is the highest in human history, and is growing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Renwick, Professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington It might be summer in New Zealand but we’re in for some wild weather this week with forecasts of heavy wind and rain, and a plunge in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited understanding about their nation’s democratic system. Results from the 2019 National Assessment Program – Civics and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University Last week, the McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney came under fire for their (since removed) policy stating “only transgender women who’ve undergone a gender reassignment surgery are allowed entry”. The policy was ...
There are good grounds for optimism after the guardrails of American democracy held firm through to Joe Biden's inauguration today as President, writes Stephen Hoadley Pessimism abounds about the perilous condition of American democracy. Commentators and headline writers proffer memes such as ‘broken and divided nation’, ‘the threat from within’. ...
*This article was originally appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Donald Trump will forever be remembered as the president who was impeached twice - and for his rhetoric that struck a chord so deep in America that it will take years to dissipate. Donald Trump leaves Washington with the lowest approval ...
A new plan shows how and where the Government will build 8,000 new state housing places it funded in Budget 2020, Marc Daalder reports Jacinda Ardern has kicked off the political year with a major announcement, promising hundreds of new state housing places in regional centres across the country. With ...
This is the full transcript of President Joe Biden's speech after being sworn in at his inauguration this morning in Washington DC Chief Justice Roberts, Vice President Harris, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, Vice President Pence, and my distinguished guests, my fellow Americans, this is America's day. This ...
Analysis: President Donald Trump has left the White House, and his deputy chief of staff confirms he is withdrawing his candidacy to lead the OECD. New Zealander Christopher Liddell withdrew his nomination to be Secretary-General of the powerful 37-member OECD and was one of the last members of the Trump Administration to depart ...
Kate Wills is facing stage four cancer with the same fierce approach she takes into her ocean swimming - never say can't. Even on the mornings Kate Wills feels wretched from her fortnightly chemotherapy treatment, she drags herself up at 5am and goes swimming. “I have to. It’s my job – to ...
Some costs associated with meetings speak for themselves, others are less conspicuous. Victoria University of Wellington's Val Hooper lays those costs out, making suggestions on where we can rein them in. Meetings – when last did we count the costs? And so it’s back to work and one of the ...
Andrew Paul Wood assesses the best-selling picture book by Grahame Sydney It's no great secret the commercially very successful Grahame Sydney has a long-standing beef that his work doesn’t receive more critical and institutional approval. I sympathise about the lack of critical attention, but I can understand why. The Discourse™ ...
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Analysis: It has been easy to ignore anyone daring to criticise or even question any aspect of the government’s Covid-19 response. Their voices have rarely been heard, and when they have been raised they have been quickly and decisively howled down by the favoured coterie of academics. ...
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Congratulations to all the people who have worked so hard for so long to get the Zero Carbon Act across the line.
Standing ovation!
And yet…
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/11/duncan-garner-james-shaw-butt-heads-over-climate-change-emergency-declaration.html
You gotta watch the stupid to believe it.
I'm referring to D Garner.
Pardon me if this is already up, but sea level rise is likely more imminent than previously believed.
Did Al Gore revise his prediction?
Who knows – never followed him.
Computer modelling revisions.
Likely.
Perhaps you should listen to the link – it's a sampling, not a modelling error.
It is computer modeled. All of it.
I'd read the nature article which serves only to illustrate, graphically how the science has been and continues to be inaccurate.
That is. Not credible.
Funny how models based on "the science" still seem to be considerably more accurate than models based on "nothing is really changing outside of norms over the history of humanity" or "sunspots".
Comparison is: The Science versus The Science.
The Science has been wildly inaccurate. Therefore is not credible.
Also not credible. Dragging in that funny irrelevance of a comparison.
"Reality has always been overflowing with entities whose essences are baptized in inquiry. We are at a crossroads of understanding and bondage. Who are we? Where on the great journey will we be aligned?"
If current models of the effects of increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases on atmospheric and ocean temperatures, sea level, et al. are not credible, would you care to hazard a guess as to whether these models are under- or over-estimating the effects/risks?
Guess we'll know soon enough.
yep – we all saw how wrong this was and clayton tears are not needed or wanted.
but
Yeah that shows the sincerity of the apology – luckily we have more inquiries to get the truth out.
I'd call the changes made as a result of this a win. Gotta take what you can get unfortunately.
“The “but” is where the shit comes out”, – Richard Bandler
Pretty weak attitude imo
Shit gets weirder and weirder.
At approximately 3pm today Senator Rand Paul's office held a meeting with Gareth Peirce, a celebrated human rights advocate and British lawyer who currently is representing Julian Assange on matters concerning his extradition to the US.
As a solicitor representing a client facing extradition on political charges under the draconian Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes and abuses, Gareth is duty-bound to leave no stone unturned in advocating for her client —but this meeting landed at deeply troubling time.
This week Rand Paul has repeatedly pulled threads at the already threadbare fabric of democratic process by calling on members of the media and others to unmask the identity of the alleged whistleblower.
Whistleblower protection, like source protection, is a foundational tenet in journalistic ethics, and (unless something recently changed) remains paramount within Wikileaks.
Today’s meeting between Julian Assange’s attorney and Rand Paul’s staff was an affront to every core belief once held sacred by Wikileaks supporters. It never should have happened.
To add insult to injury today Rand Paul blocked a resolution reaffirming the Senate's support for whistleblower protections. Protecting the safety of sources is not “fake outrage,” it’s a baseline to due process in these proceedings.
In addition to showing contempt for whistleblowers & sources, Rand Paul has also shown contempt for journalists from the mainstream & alternative media alike, including fighting to revoke the press credentials of @AbbyMartin who once asked him hard questions about US drone policy
mentions The already horrid optics of this meeting are compounded when it is revealed the individual who purportedly brokered the meeting between Julian Assange's lawyer and Rand Paul's office is none other than Roger Stone protege and Alt-Light Palme d'Or, Cassandra Fairbanks.
mentions This meeting did not speak truth to power …it pulled at the pant legs of it.
mentions This meeting did not lift up the ideals that at one time in 2010 made Wikileaks great …it undermined those ideals in a most brutal way.
mentions This meeting couldn't possibly help Julian Assange in his fight against charges for publishing information about US war crimes …instead it conflates them with a partisan spat that is threatening the safety of another whistleblower seeking to hold those in power to account.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1192160499670106112.html
I've yet to see any media call out the Repug push to expose the whistleblower for what it really can only be: a blatant attempt to intimidate other potential whistleblowers and scare them away from whistleblowing.
Or something else..
Rand Paul is definitely playing a different game to most of the rest of the Repugs, though I'm not ready to guess at what his end-game might be. (No, I don't think he's a Pooteepuppet, though there is likely some convergence of interests)
But people are complicated, even utter assholes can do worthwhile things now and then. Rand Paul's sticking up for Snowden seems to fall into that category, even though it may be in service of some as-yet obscure asshole goal.
Earlier in the year he was quietly boosting foreign oligarchs with his opposition to sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 project. At around the same time he was holding up funding for a 9/11 victims
An opportunist weasel looking to line his own pockets, I reckon.
Rand Paul is one of the few repug politicians I suspect might actually have some pretty strong political principles that he generally sticks to, rather than being primarily interested in feathering his own nest and clawing onto is sinecure.
Touble is that those principles are libertarian, so whatever good he might advocate he approaches fromn the opposite direction. I.e. protecting Snowden is consistent with trying to make government infintesimally small, so it's the same impulse that makes him want to destroy all government healthcare systems (not sure about his ideas on VA – he'd probably want it government funded but privatised).
Whereas even a light socialist would say Snowden deserves a pass because he exposed mass surveillance that preserves nationalistic capitalist hegemony, and that everyone is entitled to healthcare, food, and housing even if capitalism doesn't provide it to them.
Yeah, but his defenses of fake-tan fuhrer make it look like he doesn't understand that libertarian is not the same thing as libertine.
fair call
Leaking a phone call between world leaders so the Dems have an excuse for impeachment is not whistleblowing.
maui, your previous evasions notwithstanding, I'm still interested in whether you think it's OK for the president to withhold Congress approved and taxpayer funded aid to try to extort a foreign country into smearing a political opponent of the president?
Go on and pretend it's just a hypothetical if it makes it easier for you to answer. It's a very simple question that only needs a “yes it’s OK” or “no it’s not OK” answer.
Nope, not satire.
http://archive.li/3KBar#selection-326.1-411.20
Aw c'mon, give him credit, he's the absolute undisputed master of seagull chess. Y'know, where you flap in squawking loudly, shit all over the board, knock all the pieces over, strut around like you've won, and flap out again still squawking loudly.
I doubt he even knows how each chess piece moves and even if by a miracle he does he'd cheat his arse off like he does in every other aspect of his life from golf to numbers at his parade. He would be good at moving the pieces on one of those magnetic chess sets that are so so small you can hardly hold them, for obvious reasons.
"Despite supporting the bill National have set out several changes to the law that they would make in their first 100 days if elected, including removing the controversial methane target and asking an independent commission to set it."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/117244331/national-will-support-climate-change-zero-carbon-bill
It would appear that Russel Norman was right
What did Norman say? That getting National on board wasn't worth it?
Pretty much….will see if I can find the quote
cheers, I'd like to read some good analysis of this position.
Magic undie drawers are a thing.
https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/04/09/writer-shared-invisible-work-friend-husband-never-noticed-fair-say-struck-chord/
The rabid hole goes deep