Daily review 19/06/2023

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, June 19th, 2023 - 9 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 …

9 comments on “Daily review 19/06/2023 ”

  1. Dennis Frank 1

    When does a resignation actually happen? When you declare the intention to do it in a couple of days time? So the PM believes, upon being advised by his lawyers. Common sense tells us it actually happens when you do it. Intent and action are two different things! Govt lawyers disagree with that logic.

    So the good news is that Alice isn't in Wonderland, Aotearoa is. Have another toke, get used to it. The govt will have more such thinking up their sleeve.

    Hipkins told reporters at a press conference earlier that he had treated an email Foon sent him last Friday saying he was resigning as a resignation letter. He read the email out to reporters.

    "I am resigning as the Race Relations Commissioner as I didn't declare the amount of money MY Gold Investments was receiving from MSD. I'll resign Sunday," Hipkins said the email said.

    Hipkins said he took that at face value. "When he writes and says, I am resigning, I take that as a resignation," Hipkins said. "The advice I have received is that it was a resignation letter and the Government was correct to accept it as a resignation letter." However, Foon initially contested that.

    He said that as he had said in the email that he'd formally resign on Sunday, his resignation hadn't come into effect when it was announced by the Government in a statement on Friday afternoon. Foon said he was surprised when news broke on Friday of his resignation and he hadn't formally resigned. "I thought, 'oh gosh, I haven't even put in my formal resignation letter to [Russell]'. I said, it must have leaked out of the Prime Minister's Office." Hipkins was asked whether his office had leaked out his pending resignation. "No, I disagree. He had emailed in his resignation. We were receiving media queries about his resignation and answered those."

    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/06/prime-minister-chris-hipkins-responds-amid-confusion-over-meng-foon-s-resignation-as-race-relations-commissioner.html

    So there you have it. Something has happened as soon as someone says it will happen soon. You have it officially from the beehive. All facts will have to be reinterpreted accordingly, from this day forth – unless sanity prevails instead.

    • bwaghorn 1.1

      Maybe foon should stay away from the email machine in the wee small hours

      • Dennis Frank 1.1.1

        Well he said he sent it Friday morning. Didn't say wee small hours tho it could have been. But his demeanour in the interviews seems quite grounded – he's more bemused than irritated by the situation. Rightly so, I reckon.

        I suspect the PM hasn't yet grasped the guts of the situation. As soon as the media ask him if declaration of intent is the same as action his fate will hinge on his response. If he replies that no, they're two different things, his stance will seem self-contradictory. If he replies that they're the same, folks will laugh at him & figure he's too simpleminded to be a credible prime minister. His ratings will tank, if that scenario plays out.

        To survive, he must choose the first option. Will the media realise his dilemma & expose it? If they do, he’ll have to do some nifty reframing!

  2. Shanreagh 2

    So there you have it. Something has happened as soon as someone says it will happen soon. You have it officially from the beehive. All facts will have to be reinterpreted accordingly, from this day forth – unless sanity prevails instead.

    I wonder if anyone has done an investigation showing if there is a link between length of time in Govt and the less the likelihood will be that people such as Meng Foon ie those in public office will be treated humanely and fairly?

    In the meantime all PS & public appointees should button up in case someone, somewhere takes the bit between their teeth, changes conventions to suit themselves, plays it all out in public and nek minnit Bob's your uncle and Betsy's your aunt & you have a done deal.

    Sounds like Shakespeare or Henry 11 where the thought is father to the action, usually by others.

    'Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" (also expressed as "troublesome priest" or "meddlesome priest") is a quote attributed to Henry II of England preceding the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170.'

    'While the quote was not expressed as an order, it prompted four knights to travel from Normandy to Canterbury, where they killed Becket. The phrase is commonly used in modern-day contexts to express that a ruler's wish may be interpreted as a command by his or her subordinates'. Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest%3F#:~:text=%22Will%20no%20one%20rid%20me,Archbishop%20of%20Canterbury%2C%20in%201170.

    • Dennis Frank 2.1

      the thought is father to the action

      Causal relations between thought & action have long been a favoured topic of philosophers. It's refreshing to see it dramatised in real life rather than abstract, eh?

      I often muse upon the metaphysical subtext in such archetypal situations. For instance, the relation between thought & action is a triad to a neopythagorean like me, to whom simple integers are natural archetypes.

      A mathematician would front with this equation: thought plus action = outcome. When the outcome is an event, t + a = e. As you can see, the equality relation in maths is also a triad – the symbol in the middle, with stuff each side of that. Archetypes are extremely influential elements of nature! This is deep Green thinking.

      Three creates process in nature (start/operation/end). But to return to causal relations, we're players in a group game, so the science of complexity applies too. Indeterminacy, uncertainty, tipping points etc. One must factor in context: parliament, staffers, lawyers. Causal influence emanates into the situation from all these, not just from Foon. Deep Green thinking must combine the Gaian view with leading-edge science.

  3. Joe90 3

    Likely the very last person to know Trotsky.

    Leon Trotsky

    @DailyTrotsky

    Esteban Volkov, grandson of Leon Trotsky, passed away today at the age of 97. In 2017 he was interviewed about the life and politics of his grandfather. Here is what he concluded

    https://twitter.com/DailyTrotsky/status/1670147277200015366

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/17/este-j17.html

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