Daily review 18/12/2020

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, December 18th, 2020 - 28 comments
Categories: Daily review - Tags:

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

28 comments on “Daily review 18/12/2020 ”

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  1. Ad 1
    18 December 2020 at 5:52 pm

    We've just had a credible terrorist threat greater than that of March 15.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/123751610/otago-uni-graduation-threat-surpassed-magnitude-of-christchurch-terror-attack

    Quote:

    An attack threatened against Otago university graduation ceremonies would have “surpassed” the March 15 terror massacres, court documents reveal.

    A 22-year-old woman has been charged with threatening to carry out a firearms and explosives attack against students in Dunedin on December 7 and 8.

    The threat was of a “magnitude surpassing the March 15 Christchurch mosque massacres”, charge sheets show.

    I am truly looking forward to Prime Minister Ardern doing more than emoting her way out of this specific named threat greater than the Christchurch attack. New Zealand's security apparatus just got their failures handed to them, again.

    [Reformatted quote for clarity]

    • weka 1.1
      18 December 2020 at 6:53 pm

      Doesn't the fact that it was stopped before it happened suggest our security worked this time?

      Interesting that she got bail. The article is kind of light on detail.

      • Ad 1.1.1
        18 December 2020 at 7:08 pm

        It indicates that we are a sustained target and Christchurch was a pattern.

        The threat successfully hit the lives of thousands of graduands and their families who had flown down.

        So a successful intervention would have stopped the threat and stopped the disruption to our lives.

        There will be some more detail to follow in the Court proceedings. But only some.

        • SPC 1.1.1.1
          18 December 2020 at 8:17 pm

          It indicates that we are a sustained target

          She was charged with threatening an attack, not planning one. Says it all.

          • Ad 1.1.1.1.1
            18 December 2020 at 9:01 pm

            She threatened to commit an attack using firearms and explosives targeting graduation ceremonies.

            So with Police evaluating the threat, Otago university shut down all its graduations, and they found out who she was, she was arrested and charged.

            Thankfully you don't evaluate terror threats to New Zealanders.

            • weka 1.1.1.1.1.1
              18 December 2020 at 9:53 pm

              and then she was given bail. If she had been planning an attack I doubt that would have happened.

              "It indicates that we are a sustained target and Christchurch was a pattern."

              We are a sustained target from what? We don't even know what her motivations were.

              • SPC …
                18 December 2020 at 9:56 pm

                My guess, given her age, is a failure to complete a course successfully and not graduating. Presumably someone with common sense assessed that as part of identifying who made the threat.

                • McFlock …
                  18 December 2020 at 10:51 pm

                  That's all up in the air.

                  It could be like the guy who left a fake bomb in the foyer as he walked into an exam he really hoped would get cancelled so he could get an aegrotate pass (true story). Or it could be the other end of the intent scale (likely short on competence, though).

                  The courts will do their thing. If it was just someone looking to not tell the parents they dropped out… that escalated a bit on them, lol

            • SPC 1.1.1.1.1.2
              18 December 2020 at 9:54 pm

              Likewise

              I am truly looking forward to Prime Minister Ardern doing more than emoting her way out of this specific named threat greater than the Christchurch attack. New Zealand's security apparatus just got their failures handed to them, again.

              The emotional and psychological issues of an individual, and their criminal charge consequences have little to do with our security apparatus or the PM, but the courts and medical professionals.

              • Ad …
                18 December 2020 at 11:07 pm

                It is precisely because her intent was discovered that she was arrested and charged. Note also she didn't act alone:

                https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/123751610/otago-uni-graduation-threat-surpassed-magnitude-of-christchurch-terror-attack

                "Another person who the defendant met on an internet dating site is alleged to have also taken part in the offending. That person has not been arrested, police said."

                If this was a mere therapeutic lapse she would be being sectioned under the Health Act. This is a threatened terror attach greater than that of Christchurch 15th, so it is a Police matter.

                It's important to New Zealand because of that terror threat. Clearly enough for Police to require all graduations be stopped in Dunedin this December.

                • McFlock …
                  18 December 2020 at 11:34 pm

                  If they arrested someone for actually planning anything close to chch, I strongly doubt bail would be much of a possibility.

                  There was some jerk a few years before chch who did the anonymous threat thing at the same university. It's not necessarily related to any medical issues, some people are just morons. Maybe they want to avoid an event, maybe they just like making everyone jump.

                  But as soon as you assume it's just some jerk before you know who is behind it, the paper bag explodes in your face.

                • SPC …
                  18 December 2020 at 11:53 pm

                  Intent and act. Your words. And not alone, but the other person is not being charged …

                  There is no charge of planning any act.

                  It appears someone made a threat, and to those at an event/events involving more people than gather at a mosque. And because of that the events were called off and someone is being charged for threatening violent action. End of.

    • SPC 1.2
      18 December 2020 at 8:06 pm

      We’ve known we were a target since

      1. 2007 (Tuhoe)
      2. 9/11
      3. 1992 (CTO)
      4. March 1942 (German)
      5. 1885 (Russia)
      • Ad 1.2.1
        18 December 2020 at 8:08 pm

        Are you saying that the execution of the New Zealanders on March 15th is the same as the Tuhoe raids?

        Please, for the widows and widowers, spell it all out.

        • SPC 1.2.1.1
          18 December 2020 at 8:11 pm

          We've just had a credible terrorist threat greater than that of March 15.

          Hardly. More likely she has never owned a gun.

          • Ad 1.2.1.1.1
            18 December 2020 at 8:58 pm

            Details won't come out until hearing in February.

            What was the message you wanted us to understand from your list above?

          • Stuart Munro 1.2.1.1.2
            18 December 2020 at 9:53 pm

            Yup – although the knowledge and logistics are relatively simple, most folk are not up to killing large numbers of their fellow citizens on their first go. Plenty of folk get angry enough to threaten to kill – but talk is cheap.

            The Christchurch shooter was unusual in being well equipped, with a thought out plan, and considerable redundancy in the form of extra weapons and ammo. Absent Abdul Aziz he might have gone on to kill another 50.

      • Incognito 1.2.2
        18 December 2020 at 8:34 pm

        You forgot 10 July 1985.

  2. Gabby 2
    18 December 2020 at 5:57 pm

    I am truly looking forward to finding out if the 22yo had access to firearms and explosives.

    • McFlock 2.1
      18 December 2020 at 7:07 pm

      Kind of irrelevant whether someone making such a threat actually has the means to carry it out. Until you know for sure they're a fantasist, it has to be treated as credible.

      I mean, most personnel might treat it as a drill rather than getting amped up for their portrayal in the latest NZ homegrown ghoulsploitation miniseries or movie, but you still follow procedure and go through the process.

      Because the penalty for ignoring a committed offender is pretty bad.

  3. Anker 3
    18 December 2020 at 7:41 pm
    • Ad something worked that the attack was averted. Thank god. Don’t know enough to know if it’s a pattern. Allowed to attend medical appointments could suggest someone with a mental illness. Very different from Chechnya terrorist
    • Anne 3.1
      18 December 2020 at 8:10 pm

      Allowed to attend medical appointments could suggest someone with a mental illness.

      Yes. And the fact the person appeared "shaken" at the court hearing today and has been allowed bail provided one or both of her parents are with her at all times.

  4. arkie 4
    18 December 2020 at 8:16 pm

    This is a good move:

    The prime minister and other politicians will not get a pay increase for the next three years.

    …

    Earlier this year, an amendment was enacted to temporarily reduce MPs' salaries by up to 20 percent, which will continue until 6 January 2021.

    In June, Ardern expressed frustration over how long it took for that change to take effect.

    When it expires, salaries will revert to what the authority has stated in its latest determination (as above) which set MPs' pay at the same level as was set on 1 July 2017.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/433200/prime-minister-and-mp-salaries-capped-for-three-years

  5. Robert Guyton 5
    18 December 2020 at 9:18 pm

    For RedLogix:

    "What if scarcity is just a cultural construct, a fiction that fences us off from gift economies? When I examine Serviceberry economics, I don’t see scarcity, I see abundance shared: photosynthate is usually not in short supply, since sun and air are perpetually renewable resources."

    https://emergencemagazine.org/story/the-serviceberry/

    • Stuart Munro 5.1
      18 December 2020 at 10:06 pm

      A great read Robert, thanks.

      This idea of the gift economy is deeply culturally bound in Asia, where at least twice a year families gather, and gifts, usually of money are exchanged. The head of the family (usually a grandmother) gets the bulk of the serious giving, and status is attached to generosity to her. Children also receive gifts, for which they bow to the responsible relative. One need not give gifts, but if not you lose the opportunity to gain status, and the children will not bow to you. Grandmothers often recycle some of their gifts to the grandchildren or single adolescents. Governments also understand that they are expected to deliver, and a lack of delivery is accompanied by a corresponding lack of respect.

    • RedLogix 5.2
      19 December 2020 at 12:18 am

      Without any sense of trying to disparage the underlying idea of that essay, which I would suggest speaks to a profound spiritual idea (that essentially we all exist to be of service to each other), there is a mistaken conflation between the spiritual and the material going on here.

      photosynthate is usually not in short supply, since sun and air are perpetually renewable resources

      They may be perpetually renewable, yet they are also fundamentally diffuse and intermittent. This means that at any given moment there are strict constraints on what is available. The author does sort of recognise this:

      Of course, sometimes there’s not enough rain, and then the scarcity ripples through the web of relationships, for sure. That is real scarcity: when the rains don’t come. A physical limitation with repercussions that are shared, just as abundance is shared. That kind of scarcity is not what troubles me.

      Well it damn well should trouble him because this is exactly the constraint our pre-industrial ancestors lived with … and the result was a grinding material poverty stretching endlessly from one generation to the next with few exceptions.

      Still I'm pleased you raised this; it's directly related to the next post I'm writing at the moment. There's a certain synchronicity going on here cool

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    Perhaps the biggest change that will come to the Beehive as the new government settles in will be a fundamental culture change. The era of endless consultation will be over. This looks like a government that knows what it wants to do, and that means it knows what outcomes ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    4 days ago

  • No More Winnie Blues.
    So what do you think of the coalition’s decision to cancel Smokefree measures intended to stop young people, including an over representation of Māori, from taking up smoking? Enabling them to use the tax revenue to give other people a tax cut?David Cormack summed it up well:It seems not only ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    4 days ago

  • 2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47
    A chronological listing of news and opinion articles posted on the Skeptical Science  Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Nov 19, 2023 thru Sat, Nov 25, 2023.  Story of the Week World stands on frontline of disaster at Cop28, says UN climate chief  Exclusive: Simon Stiell says leaders must ‘stop ...
    Skeptical Science
    5 days ago

  • Some of it is mad, some of it is bad and some of it is clearly the work of people who are dangerous ...
    On announcement morning my mate texted:Typical of this cut-price, fake-deal government to announce itself on Black Friday.What a deal. We lose Kim Hill, we gain an empty, jargonising prime minister, a belligerent conspiracist, and a heartless Ayn Rand fanboy. One door closes, another gets slammed repeatedly in your face.It seems pretty ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    5 days ago

  • “Revolution” is the threat as the Māori Party smarts at coalition government’s Treaty directi...
    Buzz from the Beehive Having found no fresh announcements on the government’s official website, Point of Order turned today to Scoop’s Latest Parliament Headlines  for its buzz. This provided us with evidence that the Māori Party has been soured by the the coalition agreement announced yesterday by the new PM. “Soured” ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 days ago

  • The Good, the Bad, and the even Worse.
    Yesterday the trio that will lead our country unveiled their vision for New Zealand.Seymour looking surprisingly statesmanlike, refusing to rise to barbs about his previous comments on Winston Peters. Almost as if they had just been slapstick for the crowd.Winston was mostly focussed on settling scores with the media, making ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    6 days ago

  • When it Comes to Palestine – Free Speech is Under Threat
    Hi,Thanks for getting amongst Mister Organ on digital — thanks to you, we hit the #1 doc spot on iTunes this week. This response goes a long way to helping us break even.I feel good about that. Other things — not so much.New Zealand finally has a new government, and ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago

  • Thank you Captain Luxon. Was that a landing, or were we shot down?
    Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.Also in More Than A FeildingFriday The unboxing And so this is Friday and what have we gone and done to ourselves?In the same way that a Christmas present can look lovely under the ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago

  • Cans of Worms.
    “And there’ll be no shortage of ‘events’ to test Luxon’s political skills. David Seymour wants a referendum on the Treaty. Winston wants a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Labour’s handling of the Covid crisis. Talk about cans of worms!”LAURIE AND LES were very fond of their local. It was nothing ...
    Bowalley Road
    6 days ago

  • Disinformation campaigns are undermining democracy. Here’s how we can fight back
    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Misinformation is debated everywhere and has justifiably sparked concerns. It can polarise the public, reduce health-protective behaviours such as mask wearing and vaccination, and erode trust in science. Much of misinformation is spread not ...
    Skeptical Science
    6 days ago

  • Peters as Minister
    A previous column looked at Winston Peters biographically. This one takes a closer look at his record as a minister, especially his policy record.1990-1991: Minister of Māori Affairs. Few remember Ka Awatea as a major document on the future of Māori policy; there is not even an entry in Wikipedia. ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    6 days ago

  • The New Government: 2023 Edition
    So New Zealand has a brand-spanking new right-wing government. Not just any new government either. A formal majority coalition, of the sort last seen in 1996-1998 (our governmental arrangements for the past quarter of a century have been varying flavours of minority coalition or single-party minority, with great emphasis ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    6 days ago

  • The unboxing
    And so this is Friday and what have we gone and done to ourselves?In the same way that a Christmas present can look lovely under the tree with its gold ribbon but can turn out to be nothing more than a big box holding a voucher for socks, so it ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago

  • A cruel, vicious, nasty government
    So, after weeks of negotiations, we finally have a government, with a three-party cabinet and a time-sharing deputy PM arrangement. Newsroom's Marc Daalder has put the various coalition documents online, and I've been reading through them. A few things stand out: Luxon doesn't want to do any work, ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    6 days ago

  • Hurrah – we have a new government (National, ACT and New Zealand First commit “to deliver for al...
    Buzz from the Beehive Sorry, there has been  no fresh news on the government’s official website since the caretaker trade minister’s press statement about the European Parliament vote on the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement. But the capital is abuzz with news – and media comment is quickly flowing – after ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago

  • Christopher Luxon – NZ PM #42.
    Nothing says strong and stable like having your government announcement delayed by a day because one of your deputies wants to remind everyone, but mostly you, who wears the trousers. It was all a bit embarrassing yesterday with the parties descending on Wellington before pulling out of proceedings. There are ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    6 days ago

  • Coalition Government details policies & ministers
    Winston Peters will be Deputy PM for the first half of the Coalition Government’s three-year term, with David Seymour being Deputy PM for the second half. Photo montage by Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: PM-Elect Christopher Luxon has announced the formation of a joint National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government with a ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago

  • “Old Coat” by Peter, Paul & Mary.
     THERE ARE SOME SONGS that seem to come from a place that is at once in and out of the world. Written by men and women who, for a brief moment, are granted access to that strange, collective compendium of human experience that comes from, and belongs to, all the ...
    Bowalley Road
    6 days ago

  • Weekly Roundup 23-November-2023
    It’s Friday again! Maybe today we’ll finally have a government again. Roll into the weekend with some of the articles that caught our attention this week. And as always, feel free to add your links and observations in the comments. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    7 days ago

  • Geoffrey Miller: New Zealand’s strategy for COP28 in Dubai
    The COP28 countdown is on. Over 100 world leaders are expected to attend this year’s UN Climate Change Conference in in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which starts next Thursday. Among the VIPs confirmed for the Dubai summit are the UK’s Rishi Sunak and Brazil’s Lula da Silva – along ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    7 days ago

  • Coalition talks: a timeline
    Media demand to know why a coalition government has yet to be formed. ...
    My ThinksBy boonman
    7 days ago

  • The Hoon around the week to Nov 24
    Luxon was no doubt relieved to be able to announce a coalition agreement has been reached, but we still have to wait to hear the detail. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    7 days ago

  • Passing Things Down.
    Keeping The Past Alive: The durability of Commando comics testifies to the extended nature of the generational passing down of the images, music, and ideology of the Second World War. It has remained fixed in the Baby Boomers’ consciousness as “The Good War”: the conflict in which, to a far ...
    Bowalley Road
    7 days ago

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2023
    Open access notables How warped are we by fossil fuel dependency? Despite Russia's invasion of Ukraine, 35-40 million cubic meters per day of Russian natural gas are piped across Ukraine for European consumption every single day, right now. In order to secure European cooperation against Russian aggression, Ukraine must help to ...
    Skeptical Science
    1 week ago

  • New Zealand welcomes European Parliament vote on the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement
    A significant milestone in ratifying the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was reached last night, with 524 of the 705 member European Parliament voting in favour to approve the agreement. “I’m delighted to hear of the successful vote to approve the NZ-EU FTA in the European Parliament overnight. This is ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Further humanitarian support for Gaza, the West Bank and Israel
    The Government is contributing a further $5 million to support the response to urgent humanitarian needs in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, bringing New Zealand’s total contribution to the humanitarian response so far to $10 million. “New Zealand is deeply saddened by the loss of civilian life and the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 weeks ago

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