"Bishop" Tamaki claims he has been tested for Covid and its come back negative. He is refusing to reveal whether he is vaccinated or not. I'll wager a bet he's fully vaccinated!
@ Anne (1.1) … come to think of it, the Apostle Bishop has been out of circulation for a couple of weeks! If he hasn't got/had Covid, then I think we can guarantee he and Mrs T have both been vaccinated!
So here's what voting for the political left and right promises us:
So far, the climate pledges that countries have submitted to the United Nations' registry of pledges put the world on track for 2.7-C of warming.
The International Energy Agency said Thursday that new promises announced at the COP26 summit – if implemented – could hold warming to below 1.8C… It remains to be seen whether those promises will translate into real-world action.
Warming of 2.7C would deliver "unliveable heat" for parts of the year across areas of the tropics and subtropics. Biodiversity would be enormously depleted, food security would drop, and extreme weather would exceed most urban infrastructure's capacity to cope, scientists said.
The difference between 1.5C and 2C is critical for Earth's oceans and frozen regions. "At 1.5C, there's a good chance we can prevent most of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheet from collapsing," said climate scientist Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University.
That would help limit sea level rise to a few feet by the end of the century – still a big change that would erode coastlines and inundate some small island states and coastal cities. But blow past 2C and the ice sheets could collapse, Mann said, with sea levels rising up to 10 metres – though how quickly that could happen is uncertain.
Warming of 1.5C would destroy at least 70 percent of coral reefs, but at 2C more than 99 percent would be lost. That would destroy fish habitats and communities that rely on reefs for their food and livelihoods.
Please forgive me for posting this here when it's a diversion from the topic you've posted on here. I just wanted to increase the chances you'd see this by spotting my reply to your post.
Have you ever seen this brilliant little animated clip of Taranaki Maunga's geological history? I came across it last year (or perhaps it was early this year) and have been sending it on to Taranaki-ites I encounter ever since, becos many of them too find it so fascinating.
I already knew the Egmont Volcano (as I think volcanologists still call it) is considered most unusual for the number of times it has destroyed & rebuilt itself in the place, but to see the process by which Taranaki province has been actually built by explosions & outpourings from the firey depths is awesome, imo.
That's terrific! Thanks Gezza. The museum here has a more sedate version which I saw in my first year back here – you know how tourists push a button nowadays to run the vid for themselves? Didn't have some of the excellent detail in yours.
Incidentally, my prof career was as video editor so I know a good product when I see one due to having made television commercials (in the '70s/'80s) then new & current affairs stories ('90s).
Didn't know about the three collapses of Mt Taranaki, nor how recent the most recent rebuild happened (around the start of the Iron Age). Did you notice the linear trajectory of the total eruption timeline commencing with the Sugar Loaves? West to East. Similar to Hawaii although that is a longer path with a few more eruption centers (all now islands) and heads SE from memory.
Since I did Geology I as part of my physics degree (which included geophysics) I explain this effect via plate tectonics. Magma emerges sporadically from a common origin below the slowly shifting crust, breaks through that at intervals. Thus the linear pattern of volcanoes with oldest at one end and youngest at the other.
Yes Dennis. I’d always climb Paritutu (part of the sugarloaves, I believe) forcthe exercise & the view on every trip back to my turangawaewae & I knew also that the Kaitaki & Puakai ranges are remnants of earlier volcanos.
Although I have done no formal study in the field I’ve had a strong amateur interest in volcanalogy, geology & seismicity ever since I left school.
I’ve done a lot of investigation into Welly’s earthquake history & geology. This place has some layered beach rock formations that are now at right angles to how they were originally laid down as classic sedimentary layers. That’s how much Wellington has been sqeezed & twisted by the awesome forces of nature.
Indeed it is. Peculiar how the local authorities call it a rock, when it towers over nearby Mt Moturoa, which they call a mountain! Seems double the height.
Reminds me of that other traditional local govt nonsense here: calling Te Henui a stream when anyone can see at a glance that it is actually a river. Colonial imbeciles casting a long shadow…
Certainly a river by the time it gets to town & comes out at East End. The mouth is a 15-20 min brisk walk down the beach from Fitzroy & I often walked there. It’s a very beautiful river in town, too.
My late uncle had a home 2 houses up from the Northgate Bridge & I often walked the Te Henui riverbank there, heading East.
The nearby Lemon Street Cemetery just over the road from his place is very old & I think datescback to the earliest Pākehā settlerment. There’s a colonial soldiers’ plot in it.
My dad once pointed out to me how many of the gravestones were for people who died young, & drowned. He said that was because, in the early days, many people couldn’t swim & were swept away in flooding times fording the many different streams & rivers radiating out in all directions from Mt Taranaki.
We left NP just after my 13th birthday, August '62. Some political memories from childhood in the 1950s: front door of our house slamming with a crash when one set of grandparents exited after a political argument with the other set.
Of course the women primarily contributed ineffectual attempts at peacemaking. The roosters escalated it into a yelling match each time. My mother's father was a hardline Labour Englishman, had the gift of the gab & could run verbal rings around anyone. My father's father was a pillar of the colonial infrastructure, a hardline National supporter. He ran the railways for the entire province of Taranaki in the 1960s but the prior decade of arguments he was merely station master at NP.
Dear Lord Dennis that reminds me of my Christmas's in the past as a wee one. My grandparents were much the same, Dad's side were "business" and Tory through and through, my mother's were poms who came out in steerage and were dirt poor all their lives. Granddad was a master gardener and kept homesteads in pristine condition, Grandma was always the cook. In service it was called and it reigned here just fine through the early part of the 20th C.
On the day we had to separate them, one set in the front room room and the other in the back room. The two Grandma's weren't too bad and would tuck into the sherry and swop notes but it would truly get out of hand if we didn't subdue the two couples. Oh it was happy days for us kids.
Smiling as I remember it, but my dear paternal granddad, Pop, a retired Taranaki country village police sergeant, and a dyed in the wool Labour supporter, once threw one of my visiting maternal uncles – a priest – out of his house for making some remark or other supportive of the National government of the time.
Can’t now remember if it was during Holyoake’s or Muldoon’s administrations. Whatever his offence was I was a very young teenager & it was over my head. I’d never ever before seen him so angry.
Mum eventually smoothed thing over & harmony between the two families was restored, but those two never discussed politics with each other again.
That was smart of them. Peaceful coexistence can be achieved via evasion of controversy like that. I always seem to prefer catharsis instead! Either I lance the boil with precision, and everyone reacts by floundering around because it never occurred to them such a thing was possible, or I provoke a godalmighty clash so everyone is forced to thrash the thing out & dispose of it.
I was always very dark-haired & very tanned in Summer, spending as much time as I could outside walking the Tasman-pounded beach or playing or exploring along the nearby Waiwhakaiho river.
So my family nickname (as was dad’s, in his boyhood) was Rangi.
Pop always greeted me when I walked in with “Tena koe, Rangi”. (I just heard it as “Tenarkway” before I knew anything about te reo. Māori wasn’t spoken much when & where I grew up.
Was years before I realised that, as a Taranaki country cop, Pop was used to interacting with local Māori & had much respect for their culture.
Really interesting Gezza. I went to a series of lectures by Jim Healy in Rotorua on Taupo in 1973 and this brought back memories. He would have loved the video lol we used an overhead projector.
I trained & got a certificate in operating a variety of 16 mm film projectors, Patricia.
They were finicky things compared to videos & players today or even a decade ago.
They used a constantly moving mechanical ratchet claw to drag several frames past the projector light; used to surprise me how smooth the projected images were in motion.
“If you continue to vote for the business as usual parties, don’t feel guilty. You can’t help it if you were born to be [a retard] normal.”
……………………………………………….
I’ve tried very hard to follow & understand the arguments of climate change skeptics because there’s always the danger in the scientific world of group think & govt funding turning conclusions the funding provider wants to see.
But I’ve given up that endeavour now, because, imo, there’s just far too much visible evidence that inexorable global warming is happening & producing all sorts of weird & damaging climatic & weather events, often on some very large scales, that don’t seem to happened with anything like the frequency we are seeing all over the globe now.
But – who to vote for? Arrrghh! The Greens? I dunno. Too many purists, perhaps, & we really need to see some thinking & new technologies advanced asap as well as reestablishing some older less damaging practices for humans’ daily living.
I did read a bunch of books by climate sceptics about a decade back, own several. Made a few good points. Eventually realised weight of evidence invalidated their overall stance. Re Greens, two problems. First, they're shackled by the system (democracy); second, they've allowed identity politics and political positioning to become severe handicaps.
All three factors working together stop folks seeing them as the solution. I've voted Green for 11 successive general elections but currently they just irritate me. I was an office holder for a few of the earliest years but tribal identification has become tenuous!
Too many purists, perhaps, & we really need to see some thinking & new technologies advanced asap as well as reestablishing some older less damaging practices for humans’ daily living.
Yes. That's pretty much my vision too. We will muddle through making some terrible mistakes and then stumble into magnificence almost by accident.
Right now it's the hated capitalists who're busy doing the actual de-carbonising, while the purity point collectors here sit about moralising to their keyboards.
How did we come to this? A country that has always prided itself on its ability and willingness to work together has fractured.
Bill Ralston in yesterday’s Herald proclaimed that the country has been divided by the delta outbreak, and he might seem therefore to have been making my point for me. But he is referring to the various and differential ways in which the pandemic and its consequences have impacted on us – geographically, for example, and in our readiness or otherwise to get vaccinated.
I am talking about a different phenomenon – the increasingly obvious tendency in some parts of society to allow political convictions to dictate attitudes to the pandemic in a very particular way.
The people I have in mind are those who do not merely allow their political preferences to determine their approval or otherwise of the government’s response to the pandemic (though that is all too obviously true in many cases).
No, I am drawing attention to something more unexpected and, for that reason, noteworthy. There has, sadly, emerged a body of opinion which – asked to choose whether they would wish to see the government succeed in its attempt to bring the pandemic under control – would rather see the delta variant continue to prosper amongst us.
Surely not, you may say. Surely everyone would have as a top priority that the pandemic should stop wreaking its havoc amongst us. Surely, we would wish to see the vulnerable protected, and life return to normal.
For the people I have in mind, however, such a normally desirable outcome would be bought at too high a price, if the consequence was that the government should earn some kudos. They would, it seems, prefer that the pandemic should proceed unchecked, rather than that the government should be able to claim that it has navigated a way through the crisis.
Some of those people would go even further. They would actively try to frustrate the government’s efforts by, for example, refusing vaccination or the wearing of masks or scanning. These attitudes, and the priority accorded to political goals rather than the general welfare, demonstrate just how extreme are the views of this part of society. How sad that the government is having to fight not just the virus but some of our own fellow-citizens as well.
I agree that it's remarkable for Gould (a typical mainstreamer) to marvel when he suddenly becomes aware that partisans exist. They have been amongst us all our lives, Bryan, so how come you only just discovered this part of reality??
One would think that a successful political career within the British Labour Party would have alerted him to the fact much earlier in life.
DF, partisan? A strong supporter of a cause or a person. contrarian more like. A person who rejects or goes against public opinion.
Rude, implying that someone should have known about a situation prior to it happening as you did with Brian.
Discussion point. Why this is happening after the earlier successes?
Robert posted this for us to discuss the content. Many of us knew there were contrarians out there, but not the number or the depth of malice which is fracturing society. Do you know why this has increased? Personally I think people have been brainwashed by rubbish on the internet, or in their social circle. It is serious, as families split and take sides over health mandates to the point of destroying our progress.
There is nowhere in this entire area that the land is not confiscated
From Mokau to Maxwell.
Parihaka (on the north island of Aotearoa/New Zealand) is seen by many nationally and internationally as a symbol of non-violent resistance, and a Maori struggle for contemporary and historical justice . Speaking of the history of Parihaka and Taranaki through stories of key events in the struggle to retain Maori lands and culture, Te Miringa Hohaia (Taranaki iwi – Kaitiaki of the Te Paepae o Te Raukura meeting house and marae at Parihaka Paa) chronicles the early period of the British invasion, settlement, and series of attacks upon Parihaka and the resistance to these colonizing efforts. Many conflicts are repelled led by the likes of Riwha Titokowaru, (1823-1888), and through the Parihaka leadership of Te Whiti o Rongomai (1815-1907), and Tohu Kākahi, (1828-1907), the struggle is transformed into a non-violent resistance movement peppered with sophisticated armed resistance when necessary. Some of the systematic, oppressive techniques used by the proto-nationalist government forces and subsequently the New Zealand government to wrest control of the land and the attempts to disenfranchise the Maori people are illustrated. This general history is made specific and personal and then woven back to reflect the imperatives of agency, of resisting, and of carrying constructive actions forward into peace.
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Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)New Zealand Government’s Fast Track legislation. Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government ...
Tara Ward talks to presenter Naomi Toilalo about the new TV show that turns food waste into a three course feast. Naomi Toilalo is standing in the warehouse at Good Neighbour Tauranga, helping unpack the two-and-a-half tonnes of rejected food that will arrive at the community support hub that day. ...
Scout is our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Scout’s human, Avril, for her support. Dog name: Scout (named after the little girl in To Kill a Mockingbird – she inherited the independent spirit ...
Megan Alatini takes us through her life in TV, including ‘terrible’ daytime TV, the class of Carol Hirschfeld and her most embarrassing TrueBliss moment. When she responded to a vague newspaper ad asking “do you have what it takes to be a popstar?” 25 years ago, Megan Alatini never guessed ...
A new exhibition in Wellington showcases the faces behind your local goods and services. Back in 1977, when I was a fine arts student at the University of Canterbury, I took a series of photographs of Christchurch shopkeepers. The photos were for a calendar – a project for my end ...
Toomaj and his resistance to tyranny through his songs have become an icon for the youth of Iran, so his sentence has hit the nation hard. Toomaj Salehi is not the first artist to pay the price for standing with the people. ...
My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels. The night we went down to the creek, we ...
Newsroom, home of satire. My long-running weekly satirical series The Secret Diary has moved to Newsroom and will appear every Saturday, with Victor Billot’s wildly popular satirical Odes continuing to appear every Sunday. Diaries, Odes – while serious political columnists toil at meaningful opinions and stroke their chins to an ...
Tara Ward unravels the many nuanced layers of a cartoon about talking dogs.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. It’s not often an episode of a children’s cartoon has adults sobbing into their sleeves, but that’s exactly what happened this week when ...
Working as a doctor in developing countries to help communities achieve better health outcomes is nothing short of a life goal for Jessica Tater. The University of Otago medical student has her sights firmly set on joining the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) when she qualifies ...
There’s an island in the far reaches of Auckland’s territory, sitting off the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, 30 minutes by air from the city or four hours on the slow boat. Aotea Great Barrier is off-grid, it has a population of fewer than a thousand people … and most ...
Asia Pacific Report An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces. “A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
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You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Pacific Media Watch Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders. According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in ...
Destiny Church protester gets Covid, and a reminder to re-read his Bible:
Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, chapter 6: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
"Bishop" Tamaki claims he has been tested for Covid and its come back negative. He is refusing to reveal whether he is vaccinated or not. I'll wager a bet he's fully vaccinated!
@ Anne (1.1) … come to think of it, the Apostle Bishop has been out of circulation for a couple of weeks! If he hasn't got/had Covid, then I think we can guarantee he and Mrs T have both been vaccinated!
It was his destiny.
"Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.” – Jedi Master Yoda.
@ observer (1) … hee hee, love it
So here's what voting for the political left and right promises us:
If you continue to vote for the business as usual parties, don't feel guilty. You can't help it if you were born to be
a retardnormal.Hi Dennis
Please forgive me for posting this here when it's a diversion from the topic you've posted on here. I just wanted to increase the chances you'd see this by spotting my reply to your post.
Have you ever seen this brilliant little animated clip of Taranaki Maunga's geological history? I came across it last year (or perhaps it was early this year) and have been sending it on to Taranaki-ites I encounter ever since, becos many of them too find it so fascinating.
I already knew the Egmont Volcano (as I think volcanologists still call it) is considered most unusual for the number of times it has destroyed & rebuilt itself in the place, but to see the process by which Taranaki province has been actually built by explosions & outpourings from the firey depths is awesome, imo.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GljllvKlTac
That's terrific! Thanks Gezza. The museum here has a more sedate version which I saw in my first year back here – you know how tourists push a button nowadays to run the vid for themselves? Didn't have some of the excellent detail in yours.
Incidentally, my prof career was as video editor so I know a good product when I see one due to having made television commercials (in the '70s/'80s) then new & current affairs stories ('90s).
Didn't know about the three collapses of Mt Taranaki, nor how recent the most recent rebuild happened (around the start of the Iron Age). Did you notice the linear trajectory of the total eruption timeline commencing with the Sugar Loaves? West to East. Similar to Hawaii although that is a longer path with a few more eruption centers (all now islands) and heads SE from memory.
Since I did Geology I as part of my physics degree (which included geophysics) I explain this effect via plate tectonics. Magma emerges sporadically from a common origin below the slowly shifting crust, breaks through that at intervals. Thus the linear pattern of volcanoes with oldest at one end and youngest at the other.
Yes Dennis. I’d always climb Paritutu (part of the sugarloaves, I believe) forcthe exercise & the view on every trip back to my turangawaewae & I knew also that the Kaitaki & Puakai ranges are remnants of earlier volcanos.
Although I have done no formal study in the field I’ve had a strong amateur interest in volcanalogy, geology & seismicity ever since I left school.
I’ve done a lot of investigation into Welly’s earthquake history & geology. This place has some layered beach rock formations that are now at right angles to how they were originally laid down as classic sedimentary layers. That’s how much Wellington has been sqeezed & twisted by the awesome forces of nature.
*Pouakai (I thought that looked wrong somehow).
*seismology (not seismicity) – same.
https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/taranaki/places/egmont-national-park/things-to-do/tracks/pouakai-range-tramping-tracks/
The amazing Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust park is in the Pouakais, & is well worth a visit when the rhodos are in full bloom.
Paritutu (part of the sugarloaves, I believe
Indeed it is. Peculiar how the local authorities call it a rock, when it towers over nearby Mt Moturoa, which they call a mountain! Seems double the height.
Reminds me of that other traditional local govt nonsense here: calling Te Henui a stream when anyone can see at a glance that it is actually a river. Colonial imbeciles casting a long shadow…
Certainly a river by the time it gets to town & comes out at East End. The mouth is a 15-20 min brisk walk down the beach from Fitzroy & I often walked there. It’s a very beautiful river in town, too.
My late uncle had a home 2 houses up from the Northgate Bridge & I often walked the Te Henui riverbank there, heading East.
The nearby Lemon Street Cemetery just over the road from his place is very old & I think datescback to the earliest Pākehā settlerment. There’s a colonial soldiers’ plot in it.
My dad once pointed out to me how many of the gravestones were for people who died young, & drowned. He said that was because, in the early days, many people couldn’t swim & were swept away in flooding times fording the many different streams & rivers radiating out in all directions from Mt Taranaki.
We left NP just after my 13th birthday, August '62. Some political memories from childhood in the 1950s: front door of our house slamming with a crash when one set of grandparents exited after a political argument with the other set.
Of course the women primarily contributed ineffectual attempts at peacemaking. The roosters escalated it into a yelling match each time. My mother's father was a hardline Labour Englishman, had the gift of the gab & could run verbal rings around anyone. My father's father was a pillar of the colonial infrastructure, a hardline National supporter. He ran the railways for the entire province of Taranaki in the 1960s but the prior decade of arguments he was merely station master at NP.
Dear Lord Dennis that reminds me of my Christmas's in the past as a wee one. My grandparents were much the same, Dad's side were "business" and Tory through and through, my mother's were poms who came out in steerage and were dirt poor all their lives. Granddad was a master gardener and kept homesteads in pristine condition, Grandma was always the cook. In service it was called and it reigned here just fine through the early part of the 20th C.
On the day we had to separate them, one set in the front room room and the other in the back room. The two Grandma's weren't too bad and would tuck into the sherry and swop notes but it would truly get out of hand if we didn't subdue the two couples. Oh it was happy days for us kids.
Nice to hear Kate. Yeah my two sets did manage to steer clear of the controversy some visits, and uneasy truce prevailed.
Smiling as I remember it, but my dear paternal granddad, Pop, a retired Taranaki country village police sergeant, and a dyed in the wool Labour supporter, once threw one of my visiting maternal uncles – a priest – out of his house for making some remark or other supportive of the National government of the time.
Can’t now remember if it was during Holyoake’s or Muldoon’s administrations. Whatever his offence was I was a very young teenager & it was over my head. I’d never ever before seen him so angry.
Mum eventually smoothed thing over & harmony between the two families was restored, but those two never discussed politics with each other again.
That was smart of them. Peaceful coexistence can be achieved via evasion of controversy like that. I always seem to prefer catharsis instead! Either I lance the boil with precision, and everyone reacts by floundering around because it never occurred to them such a thing was possible, or I provoke a godalmighty clash so everyone is forced to thrash the thing out & dispose of it.
I was always very dark-haired & very tanned in Summer, spending as much time as I could outside walking the Tasman-pounded beach or playing or exploring along the nearby Waiwhakaiho river.
So my family nickname (as was dad’s, in his boyhood) was Rangi.
Pop always greeted me when I walked in with “Tena koe, Rangi”. (I just heard it as “Tenarkway” before I knew anything about te reo. Māori wasn’t spoken much when & where I grew up.
Was years before I realised that, as a Taranaki country cop, Pop was used to interacting with local Māori & had much respect for their culture.
🙄 *Here’s the missing close bracket ) for para 3
Hate it when I do that. 😠
Proof-reading is a reflex for me now. Rangi = sky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangi_and_Papa
Really interesting Gezza. I went to a series of lectures by Jim Healy in Rotorua on Taupo in 1973 and this brought back memories. He would have loved the video lol we used an overhead projector.
I trained & got a certificate in operating a variety of 16 mm film projectors, Patricia.
They were finicky things compared to videos & players today or even a decade ago.
They used a constantly moving mechanical ratchet claw to drag several frames past the projector light; used to surprise me how smooth the projected images were in motion.
Oh. Just realised I didn’t your comment properly.
An overhead projector? How dull, in comparison 😕. Big ups to video animations.
👍🏼 😀
🙄 😠 *read your comment properly.
“If you continue to vote for the business as usual parties, don’t feel guilty. You can’t help it if you were born to be [a retard] normal.”
……………………………………………….
I’ve tried very hard to follow & understand the arguments of climate change skeptics because there’s always the danger in the scientific world of group think & govt funding turning conclusions the funding provider wants to see.
But I’ve given up that endeavour now, because, imo, there’s just far too much visible evidence that inexorable global warming is happening & producing all sorts of weird & damaging climatic & weather events, often on some very large scales, that don’t seem to happened with anything like the frequency we are seeing all over the globe now.
But – who to vote for? Arrrghh! The Greens? I dunno. Too many purists, perhaps, & we really need to see some thinking & new technologies advanced asap as well as reestablishing some older less damaging practices for humans’ daily living.
I did read a bunch of books by climate sceptics about a decade back, own several. Made a few good points. Eventually realised weight of evidence invalidated their overall stance. Re Greens, two problems. First, they're shackled by the system (democracy); second, they've allowed identity politics and political positioning to become severe handicaps.
All three factors working together stop folks seeing them as the solution. I've voted Green for 11 successive general elections but currently they just irritate me. I was an office holder for a few of the earliest years but tribal identification has become tenuous!
Too many purists, perhaps, & we really need to see some thinking & new technologies advanced asap as well as reestablishing some older less damaging practices for humans’ daily living.
Yes. That's pretty much my vision too. We will muddle through making some terrible mistakes and then stumble into magnificence almost by accident.
Right now it's the hated capitalists who're busy doing the actual de-carbonising, while the purity point collectors here sit about moralising to their keyboards.
Yay, technology will save us all, just like the American cavalry. sarc.
Saved us for about 250,000 years.
Right on, brother. 👍🏼
Will be part of the solution this time too. It’s inevitable, imo.
Bryan Gould asks (in full):
Bill Ralston in yesterday’s Herald proclaimed that the country has been divided by the delta outbreak, and he might seem therefore to have been making my point for me. But he is referring to the various and differential ways in which the pandemic and its consequences have impacted on us – geographically, for example, and in our readiness or otherwise to get vaccinated.
I am talking about a different phenomenon – the increasingly obvious tendency in some parts of society to allow political convictions to dictate attitudes to the pandemic in a very particular way.
The people I have in mind are those who do not merely allow their political preferences to determine their approval or otherwise of the government’s response to the pandemic (though that is all too obviously true in many cases).
No, I am drawing attention to something more unexpected and, for that reason, noteworthy. There has, sadly, emerged a body of opinion which – asked to choose whether they would wish to see the government succeed in its attempt to bring the pandemic under control – would rather see the delta variant continue to prosper amongst us.
Surely not, you may say. Surely everyone would have as a top priority that the pandemic should stop wreaking its havoc amongst us. Surely, we would wish to see the vulnerable protected, and life return to normal.
For the people I have in mind, however, such a normally desirable outcome would be bought at too high a price, if the consequence was that the government should earn some kudos. They would, it seems, prefer that the pandemic should proceed unchecked, rather than that the government should be able to claim that it has navigated a way through the crisis.
Some of those people would go even further. They would actively try to frustrate the government’s efforts by, for example, refusing vaccination or the wearing of masks or scanning. These attitudes, and the priority accorded to political goals rather than the general welfare, demonstrate just how extreme are the views of this part of society. How sad that the government is having to fight not just the virus but some of our own fellow-citizens as well.
Bryan Gould
8 November 2021
https://bryangould.com/how-did-we-come-to-this-2/
[link added. It would help enormously if when you cut and paste, you also copy across the URL (not a difficult thing to do), thanks – weka]
I agree that it's remarkable for Gould (a typical mainstreamer) to marvel when he suddenly becomes aware that partisans exist. They have been amongst us all our lives, Bryan, so how come you only just discovered this part of reality??
One would think that a successful political career within the British Labour Party would have alerted him to the fact much earlier in life.
Chris Bishop…..d'oh.
Clearly Gould has not been reading The Standard.
DF, partisan? A strong supporter of a cause or a person. contrarian more like. A person who rejects or goes against public opinion.
Rude, implying that someone should have known about a situation prior to it happening as you did with Brian.
Discussion point. Why this is happening after the earlier successes?
Robert posted this for us to discuss the content. Many of us knew there were contrarians out there, but not the number or the depth of malice which is fracturing society. Do you know why this has increased? Personally I think people have been brainwashed by rubbish on the internet, or in their social circle. It is serious, as families split and take sides over health mandates to the point of destroying our progress.
I agree, Patricia, and have little sympathy with DF's sneering comment. It seems to me that we may have been divided and conquered …
I mean, I kinda agree. It sure looks like some people are eager to sabotage the pandemic response, for a variety of reasons.
But where's this a cut&paste from?
Bryan Gould's blog feed – just look over on the bottom right of this page.
link added.
mod note for you Robert.
From Mokau to Maxwell.
Parihaka (on the north island of Aotearoa/New Zealand) is seen by many nationally and internationally as a symbol of non-violent resistance, and a Maori struggle for contemporary and historical justice . Speaking of the history of Parihaka and Taranaki through stories of key events in the struggle to retain Maori lands and culture, Te Miringa Hohaia (Taranaki iwi – Kaitiaki of the Te Paepae o Te Raukura meeting house and marae at Parihaka Paa) chronicles the early period of the British invasion, settlement, and series of attacks upon Parihaka and the resistance to these colonizing efforts. Many conflicts are repelled led by the likes of Riwha Titokowaru, (1823-1888), and through the Parihaka leadership of Te Whiti o Rongomai (1815-1907), and Tohu Kākahi, (1828-1907), the struggle is transformed into a non-violent resistance movement peppered with sophisticated armed resistance when necessary. Some of the systematic, oppressive techniques used by the proto-nationalist government forces and subsequently the New Zealand government to wrest control of the land and the attempts to disenfranchise the Maori people are illustrated. This general history is made specific and personal and then woven back to reflect the imperatives of agency, of resisting, and of carrying constructive actions forward into peace.
https://vimeo.com/291006767
See a second student tests positive for Covid at Auckland Grammar and the principal has closed the college for the year.
Too risky if Hipkins reopens schools for new entrant to year 10 this year.
The government are having to make some really hard decisions on a daily basis.
Mt Albert Grammar.