Daily review 14/11/2024
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5:30 pm, November 14th, 2024 - 10 comments
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- Working people will pay for static inflation
Data released by Statistics New Zealand today showed that inflation remains unchanged at 2.2%, defying expectations of further declines, said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Economist Craig Renney. “While inflation holding steady might sound like good news, the reality is that prices for the basics—like rent, energy, and insurance—are still rising. ...3 hours ago - DB Punches Down.
I never mentioned anythingAbout the songs that I would singOver the summer, when we'd go on tourAnd sleep on floors and drink the bad beerI think I left it unclearSong: Bad Beer. Songwriter: Jacob Starnes Ewald.Last night, I was watching a movie with Fi and the kids when I glanced ...4 hours ago - What Trump’s second inauguration means for us
Last night I spoke about the second inauguration of Donald Trump with in a ‘pop-up’ Hoon live video chat on the Substack app on phones.Here’s the summary of the lightly edited video above:Trump's actions signify a shift away from international law.The imposition of tariffs could lead to increased inflation ...6 hours ago - Growing Auckland
An interesting article in Stuff a few weeks ago asked a couple of interesting questions in it’s headline, “How big can Auckland get? And how big is too big?“. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t really answer those questions, instead focusing on current growth projections, but there were a few aspects to ...6 hours ago - “That would never happen here!”
Today is Donald J Trump’s second inauguration ceremony.I try not to follow too much US news, and yet these developments are noteworthy and somehow relevant to us here.Only hours in, parts of their Project 2025 ‘think/junk tank’ policies — long planned and signalled — are already live:And Elon Musk, who ...15 hours ago - Gordon Campbell On The Looming Conflicts Within The Trump Presidency
How long is it going to take for the MAGA faithful to realise that those titans of Big Tech and venture capital sitting up close to Donald Trump this week are not their allies, but The Enemy? After all, the MAGA crowd are the angry victims left behind by the ...16 hours ago - Finally
Back in March, Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier resigned after hitting the age limit for his office. And now, almost a year later, parliament has finally gotten around to appointing a replacement: John Richard Allen is likely to take over the role of chief ombudsman from Peter Boshier, who still ...22 hours ago - Close To The Edge.
California Burning: The veteran firefighters of California and Los Angeles called it “a perfect storm”. The hillsides and canyons were full of “fuel”. The LA Fire Department was underfunded, below-strength, and inadequately-equipped. A key reservoir was empty, leaving fire-hydrants without the water pressure needed for fire hoses. The power companies had ...24 hours ago - Sabotaging te Tiriti
The Waitangi Tribunal has been one of the most effective critics of the government, pointing out repeatedly that its racist, colonialist policies breach te Tiriti o Waitangi. While it has no powers beyond those of recommendation, its truth-telling has clearly gotten under the government's skin. They had already begun to ...1 day ago
- National Hugging Day
I don't mind where you come fromAs long as you come to meBut I don't like illusionsI can't see them clearlyI don't care, no I wouldn't dareTo fix the twist in youYou've shown me eventually what you'll doSong: Shimon Moore, Emma Anzai, Antonina Armato, and Tim James.National Hugging Day.Today, January ...1 day ago - Rwanda’s Kagame: from Saviour to Tyrant?
Is Rwanda turning into a country that seeks regional dominance and exterminates its rivals? This is a contention examined by Dr Michela Wrong, and Dr Maria Armoudian. Dr Wrong is a journalist who has written best-selling books on Africa. Her latest, Do Not Disturb. The story of a political murder ...1 day ago - NZ now frozen, listless, mean & hopeless
The economy isn’t cooperating with the Government’s bet that lower interest rates will solve everything, with most metrics indicating per-capita GDP is still contracting faster and further than at any time since the 1990-96 series of government spending and welfare cuts. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short in ...1 day ago - Welcome to American Hell
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This is a re-post from the Climate Brink I have a new paper out today in the journal Dialogues on Climate Change exploring both the range of end-of-century climate outcomes in the literature under current policies and the broader move away from high-end emissions scenarios. Current policies are defined broadly as policies in ...1 day ago - A silver lining for cycling?
Long story short: I chatted last night with ’s on the substack app about the appointment of Chris Bishop to replace Simeon Brown as Transport Minister. We talked through their different approaches and whether there’s much room for Bishop to reverse many of the anti-cycling measures Brown adopted.Our chat ...1 day ago
- Will swapping Shane Reti for Simeon Brown make any difference?
Last night I chatted with Northland emergency doctor on the substack app for subscribers about whether the appointment of Simeon Brown to replace Shane Reti as Health Minister. We discussed whether the new minister can turn around decades of under-funding in real and per-capita terms. Our chat followed his ...1 day ago
- The cabinet metastasises
Christopher Luxon is every dismal boss who ever made you wince, or roll your eyes, or think to yourself I have absolutely got to get the hell out of this place.Get a load of what he shared with us at his cabinet reshuffle, trying to be all sensitive and gracious.Dr ...2 days ago - Puberty blockers
The text of my submission to the Ministry of Health's unnecessary and politicised review of the use of puberty blockers for young trans and nonbinary people in Aotearoa. ...2 days ago - Why the TikTok Ban Was Just a Stunt
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Sometimes I wake in the middle of the nightAnd rub my achin' old eyesIs that a voice from inside-a my headOr does it come down from the skies?"There's a time to laugh butThere's a time to weepAnd a time to make a big change"Wake-up you-bum-the-time has-comeTo arrange and re-arrange and ...2 days ago - Luxon flicks Reti’s hospital pass to Brown
Former Health Minister Shane Reti was the main target of Luxon’s reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short to start the year in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate: Christopher Luxon fired Shane Reti as Health Minister and replaced him with Simeon Brown, who Luxon sees ...2 days ago - Can we have a normal Minister of Transport now?
Yesterday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced a cabinet reshuffle, which saw Simeon Brown picking up the Health portfolio as it’s been taken off Dr Shane Reti, and Transport has been given to Chris Bishop. Additionally, Simeon’s energy and local government portfolios now sit with Simon Watts. This is very good ...2 days ago
- Signs of panic
The sacking of Health Minister Shane Reti yesterday had an air of panic about it. A media advisory inviting journalists to a Sunday afternoon press conference at Premier House went out on Saturday night. Caucus members did not learn that even that was happening until yesterday morning. Reti’s fate was ...2 days ago - Gordon Campbell On The Rise Of Simeon Brown
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- The ‘Martin With Thirty-One Queens’ Chess Challenge
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Rise up o children wont you dance with meRise up little children come and set me freeRise little ones riseNo shame no fearDon't you know who I amSongwriter: Rebecca Laurel FountainI’m sure you know the go with this format. Some memories, some questions, letsss go…2015A decade ago, I made the ...3 days ago - In Defence of Golriz Ghahraman
In 2017, when Ghahraman was elected to Parliament as a Green MP, she recounted both the highlights and challenges of her role -There was love, support, and encouragement.And on the flipside, there was intense, visceral and unchecked hate.That came with violent threats - many of them. More on that later.People ...3 days ago - Too tiny to matter; enough to change everything
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- Bastards Abound
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Hit the road Jack and don't you come backNo more, no more, no more, no moreHit the road Jack and don't you come back no moreWhat you say?Songwriters: Percy MayfieldMorena,I keep many of my posts, like this one, paywall-free so that everyone can read them.However, please consider supporting me as ...1 week ago - Review: The Narnia books, by C.S. Lewis (1950-1956) – Part One
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On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia ...1 week ago
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Kia Ora,I try to keep most my posts without a paywall for public interest journalism purposes. However, if you can afford to, please consider supporting me as a paid subscriber and/or supporting over at Ko-Fi. That will help me to continue, and to keep spending time on the work. Embarrassingly, ...1 week ago
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There was a time when Google was the best thing in my world. I was an early adopter of their AdWords program and boy did I like what it did for my business. It put rocket fuel in it, is what it did. For every dollar I spent, those ads ...1 week ago - The disinformation grift in NZ.
A while back I was engaged in an unpleasant exchange with a leader of the most well-known NZ anti-vax group and several like-minded trolls. I had responded to a racist meme on social media in which a rightwing podcaster in the US interviewed one of the leaders of the Proud ...1 week ago
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Hi,If you’ve been reading Webworm for a while, you’ll be familiar with Anna Wilding. Between 2020 and 2021 I looked at how the New Zealander had managed to weasel her way into countless news stories over the years, often with very little proof any of it had actually happened. When ...1 week ago - Summertime in Aotearoa
It's a long white cloud for you, baby; staying together alwaysSummertime in AotearoaWhere the sunshine kisses the water, we will find it alwaysSummertime in AotearoaYeah, it′s SummertimeIt's SummertimeWriters: Codi Wehi Ngatai, Moresby Kainuku, Pipiwharauroa Campbell, Taulutoa Michael Schuster, Rebekah Jane Brady, Te Naawe Jordan Muturangi Tupe, Thomas Edward Scrase.Many of ...1 week ago - 2024 sets some new road safety records
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Happy New Year!I had a lovely break, thanks very much for asking: friends, family, sunshine, books, podcasts, refreshing swims, barbecues, bike rides. So good to step away from the firehose for a while, to have less Trump and Seymour in your day. Who needs the Luxons in their risible PJs ...1 week ago - Hamilton Central Station: Britomart 2.0
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The decade between 1952 and the early 1960s was the peak period for the style of music we now call doo wop, after which it got dissolved into soul music, girl groups, and within pop music in general. Basically, doo wop was a form of small group harmonising with a ...1 week ago
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The future teaches you to be aloneThe present to be afraid and coldSo if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists…And if you tolerate thisThen your children will be nextSongwriters: James Dean Bradfield / Sean Anthony Moore / Nicholas Allen Jones.Do you remember at school, studying the rise ...1 week ago - Elon Musk Adores Chris Luxon
When National won the New Zealand election in 2023, one of the first to congratulate Luxon was tech-billionaire and entrepreneur extraordinaire Elon Musk.And last year, after Luxon posted a video about a trip to Malaysia, Musk came forward again to heap praise on Christopher:So it was perhaps par for the ...1 week ago - American Carnage
Hi,Today’s Webworm features a new short film from documentary maker Giorgio Angelini. It’s about Luigi Mangione — but it’s also, really, about everything in America right now.Bear with me.Shortly after I sent out my last missive from the fires on Wednesday, one broke out a little too close to home ...1 week ago
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So soon just after you've goneMy senses sharpenBut it always takes so damn longBefore I feel how much my eyes have darkenedFear hangs in a plane of gun smokeDrifting in our roomSo easy to disturb, with a thought, with a whisperWith a careless memorySongwriters: Andy Taylor / John Taylor / ...2 weeks ago - A Bully of Billionaires
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- L.A. Burns
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There are still struggles ahead with rising rents, rates, insurance and high unemployment, despite today’s inflation data. ...2 hours ago - Government spin won’t pay the rent
The latest Consumer Price Index figures show rents rising almost twice as fast as general inflation. ...2 hours ago - Aotearoa must step up as Trump plays with climate fire
The Green Party is calling on the Government to stand firm and work with allies to progress climate action as Donald Trump signals his intent to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords once again. ...1 day ago
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The time it takes to process building determinations has improved significantly over the last year which means fewer delays in homes being built, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “New Zealand has a persistent shortage of houses. Making it easier and quicker for new homes to be built will ...2 weeks ago
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Uia te pō, rangahaua te pō, whakamāramatia mai he aha tō tango, he aha tō kāwhaki? Whitirere ki te ao, tirotiro kau au, kei hea taku rātā whakamarumaru i te au o te pakanga mo te mana motuhake? Au te pō, ngū te pō, ue hā! E te kahurangi māreikura, ...3 weeks ago
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Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says people with diabetes and other painful conditions will benefit from a significant new qualification to boost training in foot care. “It sounds simple, but quality and regular foot and nail care is vital in preventing potentially serious complications from diabetes, like blisters or sores, which can take a long time to heal ...3 weeks ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Marie Brennan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Waikato Shutterstock/KV4000 Every day, about 48.5 tonnes of space rock hurtle towards Earth. Meteorites that fall into the ocean are never recovered. But the ones that crash on land can spark debates ...2 hours ago
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Alex Casey and Tara Ward assemble a list of demands for James Meager, the first minister for the South Island. South islanders, rejoice, for there is now one man dedicated to ensuring that each and every 1,260,000 of us has our voices heard in parliament. This week Rangitata MP James ...2 hours ago
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COMMENTARY: By Steven Cowan, editor of Against The Current New Zealand’s One News interviewed a Gaza journalist last week who has called out the Western media for its complicity in genocide. For some 15 months, the Western media have framed Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza as a “legitimate” war. Pretending ...3 hours ago
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Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the government has been taking the problem of economic growth seriously, and its work on that so far has been "significant". ...4 hours ago
- Buyers have more power in ‘deep’ property downturn, new figures show
REINZ stats show sales down 27.4 percent in December compared to November and up 1.8 percent from a year earlier. ...5 hours ago
- It’s science, not fiction: high-tech drones may soon be fighting bushfires in Australia
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The chips are down:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360482519/live-treaty-principles-bill-passes-first-reading-not-haka-interrupts-voting
What happens when a ventriloquist gets a microphone …
Note that while Seymour looks like Rimmer, he speaks with his mouth horizontal like a ventriloquist.
Populism is about creating a narrative so others to react as directed/manipulated.
David Seymour has had a good day's work. He's done what he set out to do.
from Julius Caesar Act 3, sc. 2, [line 265]
You think? Only if Mickey Savage is right & Seymour merely wants a circus. I'm confident he's wrong about that. Seymour is a zealot. He actually believes he will get everyone discussing his proposal on its natural merits.
I've an open mind sufficiently to be willing to consider such hypothetical merits, but since reading & re-reading his principles hasn't made them evident to me, I doubt they even exist. So I reckon he's delusional. Nonetheless his demeanour is persistently rational, so my diagnosis is that he's a true believer in some arcane rightist ideology.
"Nonetheless his demeanour is persistently rational, so my diagnosis is that he's a true believer in some arcane rightist ideology….."
Yes he has imbibed heavily on the kool aid fed to him in a babies bottle by Don Brash and other like minded ignoramus devotees of the far right doctrines and Jim Crow laws……
Oh yes, he's a true believer. But he's not naive enough to think that it will happen by having everyone amicably agree to his Bill.
‘Flood the zone with shit’ – from the Steve Bannon play-book.
Who woulda thunk it…
@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social
The Middle East North African (MENA) Chamber of Commerce wants to know why Trump broke his promise to them to call for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine and Lebanon on Nov 6. They actually believed him.
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:t6ubj2wlhc34awzcymh3qpur/bafkreic7hlhgjt4xz7ivxkkmlmmhimqw2fbas2kbq5p72fwi4cegcoqndu@jpeg
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:t6ubj2wlhc34awzcymh3qpur/post/3latd564flk2f?
Wow. Literacy rates USA
https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2022-2023
Watched in amazement fake Maori Dave Seymour (distant engagement unless it's convenient), and his two fake Maori sidekicks, Karen Chour (removed from her whakapapa early), and Nicole McKee (just into guns, really).
These three, very comfortable in their soft, colonist seats, were paralysed at the prospect of a Haka, a challenge which they should be very familiar with.
Seymour couldn't even acknowledge the challenge was from Te Ao Maori, to him it was just meaningless disruption to his powerful Pakeha agenda.
A picture of what Rimmer and his rich, white backers want was on display today in those very short minutes.