When it comes to housing, we have things much worse here than investors like Mr King would have us believe, both internationally and according to standards of basic decency.
More than 40,000 peoplelive on the streets, in emergency housing or in substandard shelters in New Zealand, and thousands of children suffer from preventable diseases like whooping cough and rheumatic fever because they live in cold, damp, overcrowded homes; yet 33,000 vacant houses in Auckland alone gather dust, deliberately left empty by property speculators rubbing their hands with glee while prices increase. That’s f**ked.
Pardon me, but that’s absolutely f**ked, and anyone with a functioning conscience should agree that it’s f**ked.
The Labour government’s proposed changes to New Zealand’s rental system suggest bare-minimum protections for tenants, and we need them yesterday.
Opposition by the Property Investors Federation is heartless and self-interested, and Mr King’s suggestion that tenants actually enjoy the extra costs landlords heap on them is a sick joke.
I wonder if tenants don’t need a body to counter the self-serving spin of slumlords, the way unions have had to dilute the narrative of exploitive employers. Some kind of tenants union maybe.
Andrew King responded in the comments section making it clearer that what he actually said was that some tenants liked paying the letting fee because it let them secure the property ahead of others.
I call Bullshit, as you only pay the letting fee once the rental company agrees to let the property to you. You pay the letting fee with your bond and your first two weeks of rent.
So essentially in order to move into a property you need to be able to sort at the very least 6 weeks of rental money or 7 weeks. 3 – 4 weeks bond, 2 weeks rent, 1 week of rent + GST for letting fee.
Yep, BS. We have letting fees because the margins are so skinny for the property management divisions of Real Estate franchises that without them many operations would cease to be viable.
It used to be called ‘key money’ and the reason they could get away with it previously was the shortage of rentals.
For prime commercial properties the key money was enormous.
I’m not sure what you mean Duke. I thought key money for residential properties had always been illegal. These days letting fees are so common WINZ have been adding them to ‘move-in’ grants for several years.
Property management companies generally charge owners around 8% of the rent income. This sum is then split approx 50/50 between the property manager and the parent office franchise.
50 properties returning an average of $400 per week rent provide the property management division with an income of $1600 per week. Split 50/50 = $800 for the office and $800 for the manager. The manager is generally obliged to pay for their vehicle, phone, ACC and tax from their $800. This equates to an in the hand wage of about $400 per week.
This is why the industry has become dependent on letting fees. 3-4 new lets each month doubles incomes.
As Sabine points out, Mr Kings reasons for a letting fee are BS. The industry model would fall over if letting fees were banned…or a new creative way to milk end users and/or owners introduced.
And also a conflict of interest to have private health insurance or children in private schools. They should use the systems they are responsible for maintaining.
Bring back the stocks I say. Stack em up in the town centres so we can hurl cabbages and tomatoes at them. When sufficiently sodden with tomato juice, remove them to a desert island and leave them to drown in the rising sea levels.
Seriously, they’re brain-addled letters are still showing up in the ‘letters to the editor’ section of the newspapers. Why are newspapers printing them? And don’t anyone come the free speech garbage with me. These people are indeed crackpots and they should not be given platforms from which they can spread their dangerous message to the gullible.
Such people were locked up in WW2, and we’re in a war situation right now due to Climate Change.
Get real, Anne. Tomatoes???? Not at their current price!
Seriously, a good ‘get real’ speech. Good on the Samoan PM.
And Morrison is not getting off to a good start with Australia’s Pacific neighbours, as mentioned in that article:
“Australia’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison, is under pressure from some members of his party to abandon Australia’s commitment to reducing emissions under the Paris agreement.
His immediate predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, was due to attend the forum, but Morrison has announced he is sending his new foreign minister, Marisa Payne, a move the opposition Labor party condemned as “an insult to our neighbours” as well as “a serious strategic mistake”.”
As not mentioned, instead he went to Indonesia to sign a free trade agreement.
But this frenchy had enough and quit live on radio
Quote” Mr. Hulot was initially best known to the French public for presenting television shows that aimed to raise awareness about the environment. He later created an environmental foundation and was nominated in 2012 by the French presidency as a special climate envoy ahead of the 2015 Paris summit meeting that led to the signing of the climate deal.
“The planet is becoming a sauna, our natural resources are running out, biodiversity is melting like snow in the sun, and it still isn’t being handled like a priority issue,” he lamented on Tuesday.Quote End.
The French politicians may prefer light-hearted, clever humour to serious stuff that makes life more precarious and difficult in their role as people’s leaders serving the people democratically. But one revolution doesn’t solve all centuries’ problems. See below –
Maybe they should use Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot as a bon bon in between the sour and irksome task of listening to modern M. Hulot. Every hour, after intense and unpleasant discussion, a little more of M. Hulot’s Holiday to decrease their indigestion.
Short clips:
May 1968 events in France – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968_events_in_France
The volatile period of civil unrest in France during May 1968 was punctuated by demonstrations … The student occupations and wildcat general strikes initiated across France were ….. While Communist leaders later denied that they had planned an armed uprising, and extreme militants only comprised 2% of the populace, …
Protests of 1968 · Wildcat strike action · Gaullist Party
In between there have been the Second World War 1939-1945,
and the First World War 1914-1918. (They were the largest military conflicts in human history. Both wars involved military alliances between different groups of countries. Wikipedia)
French Revolution of 1848 – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution_of_1848
On May 31, 15,000 jobless French rioted as rising xenophobia persecuted Belgian workers in the north. In 1848, 479 newspapers were founded alongside a 54% decline in the number of businesses in Paris, as most wealth had evacuated the city.
The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies that lasted from 1789 until 1799. It was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire.
French Revolution – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution
Well I thought it was a bad thing that M Hulot stepped down because he wasn’t being heard. And I suggested that the French are not living up to the ideals of their numerous revolutions, and should be listening to M Hulot even if they have to take a break for air and some relaxation FTTT.
garners just pissy because the government didn’t jump when he said around the sick traveller .
Ardern calmed businesses nerves and nailed it by standing down the bully pending investigation .that’s a pass in my books.
Little duncs just a pretender to hoskings toxic throne.
I agree Garner has gone over the top with his criticism – especially in the second half of the article. But there is some truth in what he says. Two cabinet minsters are showing signs they are wanting, and both of them are women. Not a good look.
Far better to cut their losses as soon as is practicable… before they become liabilities. Helen Clark did it and so did John Key.
Garner , the guy who said his name being amoung those leaked on the dating website Ashley Madison, was an imposter.
His 3rd marriage broke up less than 18 months later.
Trouble with Jacinda is she was not strong enough from the start as we all respecrt a strong woman as our leader dont we.
History told us that when faced with aggression such as Britains war with Argintena over the Falklands Island invassion Margret Thatcher stepped up to that challenge but when a junior Labour MP like Clare curran hands a hand grenade to her oer Curran’s botch-ups, all jacinda did was just cowered and folded.
So she needs to harden up and look decisive now; – as time is ticking.
Just look at jacindas Government now folding to the trucking lobby as she allows the Aucklander Phil Twyiord train wreck to roll on, – as he announces a massive road spending program of $11 Billion for just roading improvements for trucking freight to Ports and not allowing for any money for any regional rail services!!!!!!!
What a fuck-up that was!!!
Another lost cause or broken promises to her generation that faces “Climate change – her generations nucear moment”
Different leaders have different styles and I think that our PM should stick to her style and not try to become like (copy) so many other so-called (male) leaders. I think the PM is doing just fine; she ain’t perfect but that’s a ridiculous standard anyway and depends on whom you ask anyway (as in: you cannot please everyone all the time).
“National leader Simon Bridges – his hunt for the person who leaked his travel expenses could put him on a collision course with MPs who don’t want the party trawling through their private emails and might explode in his face if it turns out to be a National MP” Stuff.
Governments should ignore business and business should have no say in the running of the country. They’re the ones that are getting it all wrong because all they want is to get richer and they simply don’t care how much it costs the rest of us.
I recall a meeting with Michael Barnett CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber back in the early 2000’s where he stated that “what is good for business is good for New Zealand”. Many bought into that notion. Barnett still buys into it even today. At the time that quip didn’t quite gel with me as I had seen too many business’s prosper from being ruthless operators and some horrific polluters of the environment. Since then it has certainly become obvious that what was good for many business’s has been really bad for New Zealand.
True, but until we get another option the status quo will continue: most people can’t remain alive unless employed in a business. Remember the old socialist idea that governments ought to fund everyone’s subsistence? Socialist governments kept business to provide the money to do so. Which alternative to business funding do you advise us to switch to instead of that?
True, but until we get another option the status quo will continue: most people can’t remain alive unless employed in a business.
Change all businesses so that they’re a self-owned cooperative.
Remember the old socialist idea that governments ought to fund everyone’s subsistence? Socialist governments kept business to provide the money to do so.
And they failed because they kept the old, failed business model. The same business model that goes back thousands of years and which has always brought about the destruction of the society that used it.
Which alternative to business funding do you advise us to switch to instead of that??
The government owns all the resources in the country. Because of this they can simply create money and pay it out to utilise those resources, to hire people to produce what the country needs.
Yes, I agree with that brief outline of a viable alternative. Next step is for others to get on board in support. Then a political party to campaign on the basis of Monty Python’s slogan: “and now for something completely different”!
Keith ought to do an update of that analysis with appropriate conclusions and where to from here, eh? If you know the guy, suggest it to him. I recall attending a UBI seminar he presented in the early nineties, plus several of his papers were included in our process by JF when she led the GP economic policy working group back then. For those interested, here’s the Rankin site: http://new.rankinfile.co.nz/
Interesting data here about productivity and population growth. Getting rid of a few myths like for example that Israel is some sort of powerhouse of productivity.
It also is nailing what is going wrong with NZ, instead of spending tax money on high value investment and actually making ” high value things” or even “high value services” we are hinging our future on spending it on houses and roads to house more people who work at places like Burger King and hotels on close to minimum wages… or selling off our assets to others and just getting a small clip on the ticket. The stats show this will not work, our productivity is declining and at the bottom of the OECD.
Sadly, NZ ranks in the bottom 5 OECD countries for productivity and Israel and NZ are both there with the same problem, rapidly expanding populations. The costs to create all that new infrastructure are huge and NZ has an even more bizarre strategy of getting in low wage workers so therefore putting the burden on supporting them on the rest of the population taking more taxes away from productive areas they could be spending on as well as increasing social problems like more people in prison while crying nobody will employ them. Why would they, there are migrant labour hire firms touting cheap labour at every corner and making a killing being the middle man??? Likewise the private education firms aimed at foreigners, also making a killing while providing an appalling level of education and many having to be closed down, and funnelling in cheap workers.
We all hear about all the lobbying about how we need all these migrants for tourism. Nothing about opportunity for Maori interest to advance in. I would have thought the tourists visiting a country want to see indigenous people working in those places otherwise they might as well be in another country. The Maori economy is 15%, tourism is growing, wouldn’t that be a better combination to explore, and look at practically reducing the terrible statistics for many Maori and creating opportunities for them in?
The Maori economy is 15%, tourism is growing, wouldn’t that be a better combination to explore, and look at practically reducing the terrible statistics for many Maori and creating opportunities for them in?
Tourism, as we’re learning, is a really expensive form of low paying work. A few people may do well from it but the rest of the country will be worse off.
And that’s before we take climate change into account.
I’m all for the government investing in high value manufacturing and better education to support it but the government actually needs to be limiting tourism.
save nz and DracoTBastard
You are getting dangerously close to the truth there, and confirming the theories around the problems. I’m afraid that someone will knock on your door late at night and we will never hear from you again. Please keep safe, it seems that there is a glimmer of light coming through here.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
(from 1 September 1939 WH Auden)
“I’ve argued for some years, that rapid population growth can crowd out other business activities. The basic logic is pretty simple. New people – whether born or migrant – need new capital stock. A modern economy requires rather a lot of (physical) capital per person (houses, roads, offices, schools, shops, machines etc) and real resources that have to be devoted to meeting the needs and demand of the new people, can’t be used for other purposes. It is often those “other purposes” that seem to get squeezed out – in particular, investment in the tradables sector. People have to live somewhere, so that demand is often more inelastic (insensitive to changes in price) than is potential investment in support of new business opportunities”
Productivity is a myth that drives the problems we all are ecountering todaay with air pollution, climarte change and decreasing oxgen levels in our atmospheric air we breathe so we are well on the way to extingquishing our lives as we chast the ellusive “productivity”
last week the World health organisation rleased the findings of the largest study of the human damage caused by air pollution and it confirms that living near busy “productive” roads will cause brain damage and other damages to us all so we are really stuffed now.
Breaking News – Pollution ‘harms cognitive intelligence’
Air pollution could cause a significant reduction in intelligence, major study says
• Research finds that long-term exposure to air pollution impeded people’s performance in both verbal and math tests.
• More than four million people die each year from exposure to outdoor air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.
Air pollution could cause a significant reduction in intelligence, major study says
• Research finds that long-term exposure to air pollution impeded people’s performance in both verbal and math tests.
• More than four million people die each year from exposure to outdoor air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.
Productivity is a myth that drives the problems we all are ecountering todaay with air pollution, climarte change and decreasing oxgen levels in our atmospheric air we breathe so we are well on the way to extingquishing our lives as we chast the ellusive “productivity”
It’s not productivity doing that – it’s the profit drive and the greed of the capitalists.
Increasing productivity means one of two things in a society.
1. The society can shift people away from one industry into another while still providing everything that the first industry provided.
2. Could go from not providing enough of something to providing enough without increasing the number of people used in that industry. This usually also comes with increases in efficiency – in using less resources to provide the same or more.
More than four million people die each year from exposure to outdoor air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.
Last time I looked (admittedly quite a few years ago) there were an estimated 400 premature deaths in NZ from road pollution. More than half of them in Auckland.
Has Duncan nailed the terrible leaker who has been troubling Simon Bridges? I think it is a real shame that there has been no closure on such a simple problem.
Makes poor Simon look even less competent than Duncan – who knows everything.
I certainly hope Helen is keeping jacinda briefed Robert;
As I recieved several letters from Helen Clark as PM during the stormy days in 2003 when the arrogant roading lobby was pushing massive amounts of truck traffic through our residential ‘noise sensittive quiet zones’ areas in Napier.
Helen Clark took the lead to assist us,and she slowed their activities back to a reasonable manner and she arranged to have provided ($2m) – two million Dolllars for our community groups to get some much needed ‘mitigation’ for our 24hr 2400 truck activities roaming thriough our residential ‘quiet noise zones’ and since then the trucking lobby under national have been successful in trebbling road freight levels and ruining our health and lives.
Helen needs to assist Jacinda and to do what helen did to send Phil Twyford here to the HB Expressway to meet with our community Committee as Helen did and she confirmed this with us in a letter she sent to me as secretary of our residential area and she made good on her promises made to us by sending her minister for transport Mark Gosche then in 2003 with Finance Minister Michael Cullen and the CEO of Transit NZ (NZTA now) to meet with our committee then on the noisy poorly built “HB Expressway” to help so our community.
It is now Jacinda’s turn to step up as ‘champion for our community in Napier’ as Helen Clark was then in 2003.
Parliamentary commisioners report was warning government to act and they did then and need to again now sadly.
Helen Clark has been mentoring Jacinda Ardern for almost 20 years, cleangreen. After finishing university in 2001, Ardern worked as a researcher in Helen Clark’s office in Parliament when Clark was PM and they have been close friends and colleagues ever since. Clark is only one of many – but one of the most influential, who have helped Ardern over the years to grow and learn to the point that she was elected as Leader of the Labour Party at the age of 37.
Nah, she didn’t; she said, “…people wouldn’t have kept their jobs..” – the violent image you invoked is yours, not hers; Helen’s far more nuanced with her language than you are, naki and that’s just one criticism I have of your “naki” style comment.
I read in that link of Helen Clark’s interview: She said we live in an era “where you just have to expect the unexpected”.
“When you’re planning, you need to put the wildest scenarios on the table, because anything is possible.”
The other part of that saying is…’but you can’t count on it’.
Helen Clark didn’t say anything unexpected this time, but followed a line that would be expected from her talking about her preoccupations and her time. And thinking of the wildest scenarios – if that happens it is quickly reined in by groupthink, peer pressure and Treasury intelligence and overview.
Helen Clark’s opinion should be kept under wraps; it is no more welcome to me as a citizen than Jenny Shipley’s. Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark could usefully talk about every quarter, but we elected Jacinda and I expect to hear her speak up about her vision and practical polices for us as we voters expected. I don’t want to hear the unexpected of Helen Clark usurping Jacinda in the news or anywhere.
Helen did very well in her day which is not now. So I suggest she doesn’t muddy the waters as we have enough old Labourites eager to put their oar in already. We are rowing and trying to go in the right direction, and old Labourites seem more inclined to the right adding to the RW-aligned pullers; and the result is direction diversion and going round in circles, literally.
“Nah, she didn’t; she said, “…people wouldn’t have kept their jobs..” – the violent image you invoked is yours, not hers”
Bullshit, next time learn to read the link before making a fool of yourself.
“Speaking to the Rotorua Daily Post after a Q&A session at the Property Council New Zealand national conference in Rotorua today, Clark said heads would have rolled if Labour’s youth camp sex scandal had occurred on her watch.”
See 8.2.4: reality really is goddam slippery to get a hold of sometimes! Like an eel. Ever try to grab one? Both you & RG were right. Just another instance of folks assuming stuff is either true or false. Both/and logic often applies instead.
I look for quotation marks. When I see them, I assume that inside of them is what a person said. When someone else says,”this person said”, I’m doubly careful not to accept the attribution without finding more reliable evidence. Clark may have said what naki claims, but there was no convincing evidence for that in the link he provided. I reckon.
Reality? “The former prime minister told the Rotorua Daily Post yesterday that heads would have rolled had the scandal occurred under her leadership. “Draw your own conclusions, go back to how I dealt with things like this, people wouldn’t have kept their jobs,” she said.”
I do often think of You and the good causes you promote.
Sometimes I wonder if very shortly Councils, Provinces and Government will force every car off the roads and highways that race across our marvellous North Island.
Just so that 50 Ton Trucks and their loads can take over and Kill at will. Wreck constantly the Roads into subsidence and rip up the peace. Day and Night.
There is hardly a foot of free width either side of our monster trucks- thundering along with a quivering trailer behind – at outrageous speed. Highway One is a war zone
All I know, is that very few Trains kill people. Heaps of Trucks kill heaps of people.
I hope with You that our lovely East Coast has Rail replaced – quick smart! Cleangreen.
Transcript:
And then, this orange apparition had the nerve to say she worked for him. You lugubrious leach! You doppelgänger of deceit and deviance! You lethal liar! You dimwitted dictator! You foolish fascist! She ain’t work for you. She worked above you! She worked beyond you! Get your preposition right! Then he got the nerve to say he goin’ grab it.
That ain’t what Aretha Franklin said. “I’m gonna give you something you can feel.” Like the brothers in the streets say, “Tap lightly. Like a woodpecker with a headache.” So don’t you sully the memory of our great Queen. Aretha Franklin was an original. Never one like her before. Never another like her afterwards.
One of the funniest moments at Aretha’s funeral was when Michael Eric Dyson, upon acknowledging the guests, said “to President Clinton, and her husband Bill”.— john oliver (@joliver46) August 31, 2018
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday that Syrian rebels are planning a chemical weapons attack, with the aim of blaming it on the Syrian government to provoke a military response from the West……
…..The ministry also claimed that a private British contractor is helping the rebels stage the attack, according to news agency AFP…..
……”The militants have the task of simulating the rescue of the victims of the chemical weapons attack dressed in the clothes of the famous ‘White Helmets’,” it said.
” “I had two years of psychotherapy which were amazing but it was going to Peru and drinking ayahuasca, which is a class A drug in this country, that got to the root of my depression,” the comedian Simon Amstell has said. He is far from alone.”
This is from a Guardian opinion essay: “Ayahuasca rituals can be profoundly beneficial – if they’re done properly”. Good to see younger folk pursuing a transcendence pathway.
“In the west, ayahuasca can be portrayed as a shortcut to enlightenment, a product you can buy that will make you deep, or an “extreme” tourist experience. It’s become increasingly popular among tech millionaires who are, in the words of one report, looking to “find shortcuts to success in the ultra-competitive tech scene”. It seems unlikely ayahuasca was put on this Earth to help Bay Area tech bros crush the opposition.” But hey, you never know!
Christians spent the past couple of millennia explaining that `God moves in mysterious ways’. However, now that he has mysteriously relocated elsewhere, better to face reality and acknowledge that ayahuasca is part of Gaia, and ingestion is part of Gaian process. Those fit to play an ongoing part survive, wiser from the experience. Any entrepreneur seeking competitive advantage will spot that trend fast & leap onto it.
There was a decade or so in the hippie era when natural intelligence got powerfully enhanced via usage of plant allies – millions of us shared those experience before younger trend followers trashed the scenes with mindless hedonism. Western culture improved considerably as a result of the leading edge but the bad mental health produced by the capitalist system continues to victimise younger generations. Let’s hope their leading edge can also generate millions who wise up rather than turn into human vegetables!
I’ve only just started reading the comments, some of which are very interesting; it’s definitely not just “younger folk pursuing a transcendence pathway”.
Let’s hope their leading edge can also generate millions who wise up rather than turn into human vegetables!
Bit too late for that; many are stuck in a catachthonic state/world through their ‘pursuit’ of instant gratification, greed & gain, and thirst for power & control.
The most insightful poem In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke shows that the path is not for the fainthearted. It happens to be my favourite poem 🙂
Oh yeah, I forgot the link, thanks. Didn’t realise there were comments available. Usual selection of retards & sceptics, then this: “hallucinogens can be tremendously helpful, do nothing much, or be very harmful. depends what’s in your head, what drug, what surroundings and companions for the trip.” Sensible.
“mushrooms: they grow on the golf courses near where my family live in Ireland and I’ve had some beautiful, gentle experiences with them.” Lucky! I’m just nostalgic, left tripping behind long ago. Catalysis & transcendence can be done without a plant ally. Incidentally, for readers who never read Castaneda, the ally is a tool – used as means to an end. The hippie thing turned to mush as soon as trend-followers started seeing it as an end in itself.
“Unlike LSD and shrooms, Ayahuasca gives people a “this is the truth” experience. Seems to active whatever part of the brain that gives us the “ring of truth” feeling.” I never went to Central or South America so I can’t endorse this from experience.
IrascibleOldGit89: “Being a true shallow suburbanite, I’m not sure how I’d react to taking powerful hallucinogens with Amazonian shamen, but I’m quite partial to imbibing modest amounts of novel lysergamides from time to time. Shame Theresa had one of her moral panics and banished the industry from the UK – it’s quite a global money spinner, I do believe…”
Well yes, with capitalism on its last legs any new industry ought to be got up & running pronto. I hope he gets together with IrascibleOldGits1-88 & forms a tribe of them. Can the internet enable such networking?
Personally I find the information around mushrooms and mental health to be fascinating.
“A number of small studies have found psychedelics to show promise in treating mental health disorders like depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder, often where other treatments have failed.
Now UK researchers are about to take part in the first major trials into whether one of these hallucinogenic drugs could be more effective than a leading antidepressant in the treatment of depression.
Researchers at Imperial College London are to compare the magic mushroom compound psilocybin with a leading SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) antidepressant, escitalopram, in a large trial expected to take at least two years.”
The clinical trial mentioned in the BBC article is not all that large (50 participants) and lists Professor David Nutt as the Principal Investigator: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03429075
Nutt is a well-known not to say controversial scientist who strongly advocates for re-classification of drugs such as tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis based on the actual harm they are causing (cannabis is quite a safe drug based on the evidence of social harm it causes; alcohol is ranked highly in terms of social harm).
Although (these) drugs have potential to be beneficial they could also be used with less desirable intentions such as re-programming people (AKA brainwashing) or crime fighting, e.g. Devil’s Breathhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscine#Society_and_culture
She is doing the Sydney one tomorrow (Sun) via satellite because the Aussie govt have not yet made a final decision on her visa application.
The Sydney event is not her alone. She was/is appearing as part of a much bigger event – the Antidote Festival – at the Sydney Opera House involving many other speakers etc. Tickets for her session only were/are AUD39.
Her other appearances in Aussie are not until next Friday, 7 Sept in Melbourne and Tues 11 Sept in Brisbane. So there is still time for a visa for those events to be issued. Tickets for those longer speaking engagements are AUD72 – AUD 249 for VIP Meet and Greet.
Her NZ appearances are Auckland next Sat, 8 Sept and Wellington Sun, 9 Sept, and barring any last minute changes of mind etc, the decision yesterday to grant her a special direction all but means her NZ visa will be issued. NZ prices are $59 – $249 for the VIP Meet and Greet.
Momentum gathering around some kind of US military action in Venezuela: Rubio, as well as some in DC bureaucracy openly discussing now. A friend with high-level DC contacts told me recently “I’m afraid they’re gonna do something crazy.” https://t.co/X7pnlzVA71— Brian Winter (@BrazilBrian) August 31, 2018
Marco Rubio , a Republican senator from Florida, held a meeting at the White House with Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton , in which they spoke about the deep crisis that Venezuela is going through and its implications for the United States and Latin America. .
“For months and years I wanted the solution in Venezuela to be a non-military and peaceful solution, simply to restore democracy, there is a National Assembly elected by the people that has been clouded by this dictatorship,”
Rubio began when consulted for his meeting with Bolton.
I think there is an argument, very strong, that can be made at this time that Venezuela and the regime of (Nicolás) Maduro has become a threat
“I believe that the Armed Forces of the United States are only used in the event of a threat to national security, I believe that there is an argument, very strong , that can be made at this time that Venezuela and the (Nicolás) Maduro regime has become a threat to the region and even to the United States. ”
He said that in his meeting with Bolton, this topic was discussed in general. ” (The Government of) Maduro is a government that supports drug traffickers, guerrillas and terrorist groups that are threatening the stability of Colombia .”
Haha, they have broken away from the USD! Who’s next? Iran? Turkey!, hehehe. China, Russia, Japan; all selling US Fed bonds. Who’s buying? Can only be the US Fed, buying back their own bonds! The crash is coming, can’t wait.
“If anyone truly believes we can keep the same number of cows, cut emissions, and increase profits they’re mad. As in insane. Our Ag minister is insane.”
Great to see California State is passing a very strong net neutrality law.
This will set up a real fight with the FCC and a general federal-level fight. We’ll have to see whether Tom Wheeler the Obama appointee there is willing to really bend the ear of the majority there to revisit the issue.
The proposed rules in California go further than rules passed by Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission in 2015. The legislation not only transforms the FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rules into California law, but it also bars internet service providers from offering sponsored content, zero-rating or other deals that could provide an economic incentive to broadband companies to discriminate against content riding on their networks. Such offerings allow a company to pay data charges so that certain content doesn’t count against a wireless subscriber’s data plan.
Additionally, the bill allows the state to oversee commercial interconnection deals to ensure broadband companies can’t use their market power to charge hefty amounts from corporate customers. Interconnection deals are agreements between companies that provide internet content, such as Netflix, and ISPs, such as Comcast and Verizon.
Large internet service providers, such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, oppose the California law. While they say they support the basic idea of net neutrality, they argue that bans on things like zero-rating and paid-priority, which could allow companies to pay broadband providers to get their services delivered faster than competitors, limit their ability to try new business models. The big broadband providers say without the ability to experiment with new business models, they’ll have to charge consumers more for their services in the future.
What will be critical is whether the Democrat Party accept SuperPac money from Caifornia-domiciled big-tech companies who oppose any net neutrality. Generally the big internet companies support Democrats. If they accept the money, it signals that they are less likely to side with the California legislature and less likely to revisit the issue should they get a Senate majority from the November mid-terms.
“big-tech companies who oppose any net neutrality”
Thats surprising , any evidence of that. I thought the people own own the net infrastructure were the only ones to make money out of net priority.
Apple and Google dont want to pay to get their data their first and they would see their own profits at risk of going to those whos only job is infrastructure
“Taking a swipe at UK Prime Minister Theresa May as she struggled to dance with schoolchildren during her visit to South Africa this week, controversial British columnist Katie Hopkins tweeted: “Whites are being slaughtered in South Africa & inexplicably Appeaser May chooses to crucify herself”.
Hopkins’ tweet was the latest example of a global campaign to portray South Africa’s once dominant white population as a victimised minority under attack.
Her comments reflect the growing influence of South Africa’s conservative Afrikaner groups who are conducting global lobbying campaigns to support their message that white farmers are being targeted and killed, that the government is seizing their land, they are being discriminated against by affirmative action programmes and that their language is being sidelined.
…The BBC has found that there is no reliable data to suggest farmers are at greater risk of being murdered than the average South African.”
The outlaw Israeli regime told Al Jazeera not to show a documentary called The Lobby. Sadly for its credibility as a news organization, Al Jazeera obeyed.
outlaw Israeli regime huh?
there has never been a country called Palestine in the history of the world.
they are Bedouin who are a grouping of nomadic Arab people who have historically inhabited the desert regions in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and the Levant.
nomadic people ok.
Here’s a Central Banking trick from the Arabs. NZ and Australia could do the same. Australian Treasury could be funded from RBNZ, while they return finance to NZ Treasury from their Central Bank. Extend the balance sheets with a little regional QE number. Nice-one, mate. So long as it’s spent on long-term economic transition, and not lost on the pokies.
Trucking companies must be the biggest moaners in NZ. If only we could get more freight on the railways we already have.
Ken Shirley – ex Labour?
Ken Shirley, chief executive of trucking industry lobby group the Road Transport Forum…
Mr Shirley said the government’s pledged commitment to road safety was a good sign, but the greatest road safety improvements would come from investing in new highways.
“The biggest safety gains actually come from the big highway investment projects – the Roads Of National Significance – they have delivered spectacular improvement in safety and they’re the very projects that are now on hold.”
(Has the safety improvement been so good on TRONS?)
National:
National associate transport spokesperson Brett Hudson said the government’s policies were “totally out of whack”….
They didnt build the RONs for ‘the safety ‘- it was to suit the trucking industry.
The ordinary SH improvements and critical safety improvements were plundered to feed the fund for RONs.
Even the new route for the Manawatu Gorge back in 2012 was shelved in favour of some piece meal changes. All that money gone to waste as the new route has had to be done anyway – but slowly.
Even the spending for Aucklands CRL was delayed starting after after approval to begin was given- the Council kicked it off with its own money- because RONS had taken all the money
Ken Shirley and his ilk is backed by the oil industry who constantly lobby’s government relentlessly every day till they wear politicians down.
That is why things like RONs got to be paid by the taxpayer for the trucking industry.
Simple as that and if Phil twyford is a smart politician he should place sunset clauses all over his plans to reverse the roading projects for rail uptake so that when national does take over again they wont reinstate RONs again to keep milking the taxpayerr for the beneit of the trucking industry as it is just a rort.
The hui there you go Eco Maori has not seen any maori living the golden years not many if any are enjoying the good life when we get the silver back I see heap’s of Pakeha living the golden years .
The forestry industry industry on the East Coast’s was sold to maori as a big money spinner for maori but when I went to Ruatoria home the house’s look run down so not much money is flowing into the town .
I know how they work they will keep all the cream contracting jobs for Pakeha and give maori all the un profitable jobs to maori.
How does Eco Maori know this well that was one of the factors that caused my business to fail .
The reality is that this phenomenon is happening to Maori in all industry’s that is why we are so young old and BROKE. Many thanks Mihinarangi .
Ka kite ano
Goon morning Marae Jenny May kai pai for Matua Brown for telling that Gisborne City Councillor off for using raciest remakes about maori .
What he choses / Pakeha not to acknowledge is that I was all the Hard work of Maori tipunas /ancestors who have made Aotearoa so wealthy the East Coast was the back bone of Aotearoa in the Old day’s and thats a fact have a look at the farming and other industry’s. I no that the Pakeha can spinn there ——— back on maori .
I say the we need more statues of our tipuna..
Kia Kaha ka kite ano . Quade should play for Maori
Good evening Newshub the Senator John McCain funeral service give’s Eco Maori hope that we are going to leave OUR mokopuna’s a good future ka pai.
I say just for a ap and clients %35 cost that goes to Uber eats is to high .
No to lease hold land deals that’s my opinion enough said .
That’s the way Britain no honers ie Sir for un Honorable people .
Yes I have seen Rainier forestry do that in mangatu forest Gisborne has been striped of a lot of trees that were not mature so much for thinking about the future for the mokopuna’s.
Good story on Myanmar Michael Ka pai
Nicky you got the Star and the good job
Ka kite ano
Eco Maori has been studying OUR history back 5000 years and every time man has suppresed wahine the eventual out come has been a desaster War so I’m on the correct path’s in promoting OUR Wahine they are the majority of my offspring Kia kaha ka kite ano here a link below. P.S & equality
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – 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 is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
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 Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
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Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
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 ...
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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 ...
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Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
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Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
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Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
A week that began in triumph ended in an all-too-familiar disaster for the Green Party. Duncan Greive asks if there’s something in the mission that breaks its best and brightest. A long, strange week for the Green party began with a fantastic poll result. On one level this is hardly ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Vanuatu’s former prime minister and opposition MP Ishmael Kalsakau has stepped down — just two days after he confirmed he was the rightful opposition leader. Kalsakau, MP for Port Vila, confirmed to ABC’s Pacific Beat, and the Vanuatu Daily Post on Thursday that he ...
What’s to blame for the coalition’s choppy start? Six months in, and the mojo meter is in the doldrums. A new poll would put National out of power and sees its leader, Chris Luxon, sliding in popularity. How much is it about policy, how much coalition management and a perception ...
The striking report goes far beyond the proposed repeal of the Oranga Tamariki Act’s Treaty of Waitangi provision, and its impact should be felt far beyond the unique circumstances of the claim it addresses. Earlier this week, the Waitangi Tribunal released an interim report on the government’s proposed repeal of ...
The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
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In my opinion, it should be a considered a conflict of interest for any MP to be a landlord.
Claiming tenants like letting fees is a sick joke that underlines the need for change
Madeleine Holden – Newshub, August 31, 2018
Well said.
I wonder if tenants don’t need a body to counter the self-serving spin of slumlords, the way unions have had to dilute the narrative of exploitive employers. Some kind of tenants union maybe.
Like Renters United.
https://www.rentersunited.org.nz/join/
Andrew King responded in the comments section making it clearer that what he actually said was that some tenants liked paying the letting fee because it let them secure the property ahead of others.
I call Bullshit, as you only pay the letting fee once the rental company agrees to let the property to you. You pay the letting fee with your bond and your first two weeks of rent.
So essentially in order to move into a property you need to be able to sort at the very least 6 weeks of rental money or 7 weeks. 3 – 4 weeks bond, 2 weeks rent, 1 week of rent + GST for letting fee.
Me thinks the bullshitter does protest to much.
Yep, BS. We have letting fees because the margins are so skinny for the property management divisions of Real Estate franchises that without them many operations would cease to be viable.
The other way round .
It used to be called ‘key money’ and the reason they could get away with it previously was the shortage of rentals.
For prime commercial properties the key money was enormous.
I’m not sure what you mean Duke. I thought key money for residential properties had always been illegal. These days letting fees are so common WINZ have been adding them to ‘move-in’ grants for several years.
Property management companies generally charge owners around 8% of the rent income. This sum is then split approx 50/50 between the property manager and the parent office franchise.
50 properties returning an average of $400 per week rent provide the property management division with an income of $1600 per week. Split 50/50 = $800 for the office and $800 for the manager. The manager is generally obliged to pay for their vehicle, phone, ACC and tax from their $800. This equates to an in the hand wage of about $400 per week.
This is why the industry has become dependent on letting fees. 3-4 new lets each month doubles incomes.
As Sabine points out, Mr Kings reasons for a letting fee are BS. The industry model would fall over if letting fees were banned…or a new creative way to milk end users and/or owners introduced.
Which probably means that these people are bribing the agents with the bribe then being incorporated into the letting fee so as to hide it.
And also a conflict of interest to have private health insurance or children in private schools. They should use the systems they are responsible for maintaining.
+100
Just saying what we’re all thinking… 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/31/world-leaders-who-deny-climate-change-should-go-to-mental-hospital-samoan-pm
Bring back the stocks I say. Stack em up in the town centres so we can hurl cabbages and tomatoes at them. When sufficiently sodden with tomato juice, remove them to a desert island and leave them to drown in the rising sea levels.
Seriously, they’re brain-addled letters are still showing up in the ‘letters to the editor’ section of the newspapers. Why are newspapers printing them? And don’t anyone come the free speech garbage with me. These people are indeed crackpots and they should not be given platforms from which they can spread their dangerous message to the gullible.
Such people were locked up in WW2, and we’re in a war situation right now due to Climate Change.
Yep… it should be ‘their’ not they’re.
Out of bed on the wrong side this morning.
Get real, Anne. Tomatoes???? Not at their current price!
Seriously, a good ‘get real’ speech. Good on the Samoan PM.
And Morrison is not getting off to a good start with Australia’s Pacific neighbours, as mentioned in that article:
“Australia’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison, is under pressure from some members of his party to abandon Australia’s commitment to reducing emissions under the Paris agreement.
His immediate predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, was due to attend the forum, but Morrison has announced he is sending his new foreign minister, Marisa Payne, a move the opposition Labor party condemned as “an insult to our neighbours” as well as “a serious strategic mistake”.”
As not mentioned, instead he went to Indonesia to sign a free trade agreement.
Get real, Anne. Tomatoes???? Not at their current price!
Oops, I don’t eat tomatoes. 😳
Neither do I at present due to price! LOL. I must get ‘with it ‘on smilies. Liked your comment though!
Not sure if you saw this.
But this frenchy had enough and quit live on radio
Quote” Mr. Hulot was initially best known to the French public for presenting television shows that aimed to raise awareness about the environment. He later created an environmental foundation and was nominated in 2012 by the French presidency as a special climate envoy ahead of the 2015 Paris summit meeting that led to the signing of the climate deal.
“The planet is becoming a sauna, our natural resources are running out, biodiversity is melting like snow in the sun, and it still isn’t being handled like a priority issue,” he lamented on Tuesday.Quote End.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/world/europe/france-environment-minister-nicolas-hulot.html
The French politicians may prefer light-hearted, clever humour to serious stuff that makes life more precarious and difficult in their role as people’s leaders serving the people democratically. But one revolution doesn’t solve all centuries’ problems. See below –
Maybe they should use Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot as a bon bon in between the sour and irksome task of listening to modern M. Hulot. Every hour, after intense and unpleasant discussion, a little more of M. Hulot’s Holiday to decrease their indigestion.
Short clips:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZGUIpdc0i4
S’il vous plaît profiter du film en langue française.
(https://archive.org/details/TatiLesVacancesDeMonsieurHulot
May 1968 events in France – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968_events_in_France
The volatile period of civil unrest in France during May 1968 was punctuated by demonstrations … The student occupations and wildcat general strikes initiated across France were ….. While Communist leaders later denied that they had planned an armed uprising, and extreme militants only comprised 2% of the populace, …
Protests of 1968 · Wildcat strike action · Gaullist Party
In between there have been the Second World War 1939-1945,
and the First World War 1914-1918. (They were the largest military conflicts in human history. Both wars involved military alliances between different groups of countries. Wikipedia)
French Revolution of 1848 – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution_of_1848
On May 31, 15,000 jobless French rioted as rising xenophobia persecuted Belgian workers in the north. In 1848, 479 newspapers were founded alongside a 54% decline in the number of businesses in Paris, as most wealth had evacuated the city.
The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies that lasted from 1789 until 1799. It was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire.
French Revolution – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution
i honestly don’t follow you. Sometimes i really don’t get it.
Maybe this is a better way of looking at the resignation of the French Environmental Minister.
La Belle Verte
Well I thought it was a bad thing that M Hulot stepped down because he wasn’t being heard. And I suggested that the French are not living up to the ideals of their numerous revolutions, and should be listening to M Hulot even if they have to take a break for air and some relaxation FTTT.
Duncan nails it this morning.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/106739975/labour-goes-from-charm-offensive-to-utterly-useless-in-72-hours
Sums up labour’s week well.
garners just pissy because the government didn’t jump when he said around the sick traveller .
Ardern calmed businesses nerves and nailed it by standing down the bully pending investigation .that’s a pass in my books.
Little duncs just a pretender to hoskings toxic throne.
I agree Garner has gone over the top with his criticism – especially in the second half of the article. But there is some truth in what he says. Two cabinet minsters are showing signs they are wanting, and both of them are women. Not a good look.
Far better to cut their losses as soon as is practicable… before they become liabilities. Helen Clark did it and so did John Key.
Garner , the guy who said his name being amoung those leaked on the dating website Ashley Madison, was an imposter.
His 3rd marriage broke up less than 18 months later.
Good comment there James.
Trouble with Jacinda is she was not strong enough from the start as we all respecrt a strong woman as our leader dont we.
History told us that when faced with aggression such as Britains war with Argintena over the Falklands Island invassion Margret Thatcher stepped up to that challenge but when a junior Labour MP like Clare curran hands a hand grenade to her oer Curran’s botch-ups, all jacinda did was just cowered and folded.
So she needs to harden up and look decisive now; – as time is ticking.
Just look at jacindas Government now folding to the trucking lobby as she allows the Aucklander Phil Twyiord train wreck to roll on, – as he announces a massive road spending program of $11 Billion for just roading improvements for trucking freight to Ports and not allowing for any money for any regional rail services!!!!!!!
What a fuck-up that was!!!
Another lost cause or broken promises to her generation that faces “Climate change – her generations nucear moment”
trucking lobby ‘ = one.
jacindas generation Climate change nuclear moment. = zero.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could have a powerful female leader who could drive forcefully the wasting of human life for political gain.
Different leaders have different styles and I think that our PM should stick to her style and not try to become like (copy) so many other so-called (male) leaders. I think the PM is doing just fine; she ain’t perfect but that’s a ridiculous standard anyway and depends on whom you ask anyway (as in: you cannot please everyone all the time).
Stuff nails it this morning.
So who’s up and who’s down this week?
UP
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Immigration Minister Iain Lees Galloway, Civil Defence Minister Kris Faafoi.
DOWN
National leader Simon Bridges, Labour Party president Nigel Haworth, Customs Minister Meka Whaitiri.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/106694559/below-the-beltway
Sums up National’s week well.
National is a joke.
“National leader Simon Bridges – his hunt for the person who leaked his travel expenses could put him on a collision course with MPs who don’t want the party trawling through their private emails and might explode in his face if it turns out to be a National MP” Stuff.
This proves things.
1. Garner ( like most to the corporate media puppets), in return for a five figure salary, pimps for the deep state.
2 You pimp for the deep state.
Called business nerves – hahahahahahaha you’re delusional if you think that.
They should bring the women home.
Oh and there was the borrowing by housing NZ via the loophole.
Labour is a joke.
A joke in power and your lot aren’t even a bad joke so ha ha ha james
You can’t even manage to make a comment here without screwing it up, or is this an example of your recurring dyslexia?
The joke is you.
Governments should ignore business and business should have no say in the running of the country. They’re the ones that are getting it all wrong because all they want is to get richer and they simply don’t care how much it costs the rest of us.
Business is killing us.
I recall a meeting with Michael Barnett CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber back in the early 2000’s where he stated that “what is good for business is good for New Zealand”. Many bought into that notion. Barnett still buys into it even today. At the time that quip didn’t quite gel with me as I had seen too many business’s prosper from being ruthless operators and some horrific polluters of the environment. Since then it has certainly become obvious that what was good for many business’s has been really bad for New Zealand.
where he stated that “what is good for business is good for New Zealand”. Many bought into that notion.
It’s the Randian con: basically saying, “What makes me rich is good for everyone.”
It’s amazing they’ve got away with such self-serving BS for so long, without the whole world laughing int heir faces.
Nailed it DTB. (Phrase of the day).
Completely spot on, as ever.
True, but until we get another option the status quo will continue: most people can’t remain alive unless employed in a business. Remember the old socialist idea that governments ought to fund everyone’s subsistence? Socialist governments kept business to provide the money to do so. Which alternative to business funding do you advise us to switch to instead of that?
Change all businesses so that they’re a self-owned cooperative.
And they failed because they kept the old, failed business model. The same business model that goes back thousands of years and which has always brought about the destruction of the society that used it.
Technically, the government doesn’t need funding. Indications are that it’s government spending and deficits that keeps private businesses going.
The government owns all the resources in the country. Because of this they can simply create money and pay it out to utilise those resources, to hire people to produce what the country needs.
Like this.
Yes, I agree with that brief outline of a viable alternative. Next step is for others to get on board in support. Then a political party to campaign on the basis of Monty Python’s slogan: “and now for something completely different”!
Keith ought to do an update of that analysis with appropriate conclusions and where to from here, eh? If you know the guy, suggest it to him. I recall attending a UBI seminar he presented in the early nineties, plus several of his papers were included in our process by JF when she led the GP economic policy working group back then. For those interested, here’s the Rankin site: http://new.rankinfile.co.nz/
Interesting data here about productivity and population growth. Getting rid of a few myths like for example that Israel is some sort of powerhouse of productivity.
https://croakingcassandra.com/2017/05/18/two-improbable-outposts/
It also is nailing what is going wrong with NZ, instead of spending tax money on high value investment and actually making ” high value things” or even “high value services” we are hinging our future on spending it on houses and roads to house more people who work at places like Burger King and hotels on close to minimum wages… or selling off our assets to others and just getting a small clip on the ticket. The stats show this will not work, our productivity is declining and at the bottom of the OECD.
Sadly, NZ ranks in the bottom 5 OECD countries for productivity and Israel and NZ are both there with the same problem, rapidly expanding populations. The costs to create all that new infrastructure are huge and NZ has an even more bizarre strategy of getting in low wage workers so therefore putting the burden on supporting them on the rest of the population taking more taxes away from productive areas they could be spending on as well as increasing social problems like more people in prison while crying nobody will employ them. Why would they, there are migrant labour hire firms touting cheap labour at every corner and making a killing being the middle man??? Likewise the private education firms aimed at foreigners, also making a killing while providing an appalling level of education and many having to be closed down, and funnelling in cheap workers.
We all hear about all the lobbying about how we need all these migrants for tourism. Nothing about opportunity for Maori interest to advance in. I would have thought the tourists visiting a country want to see indigenous people working in those places otherwise they might as well be in another country. The Maori economy is 15%, tourism is growing, wouldn’t that be a better combination to explore, and look at practically reducing the terrible statistics for many Maori and creating opportunities for them in?
More
Tourism, as we’re learning, is a really expensive form of low paying work. A few people may do well from it but the rest of the country will be worse off.
And that’s before we take climate change into account.
I’m all for the government investing in high value manufacturing and better education to support it but the government actually needs to be limiting tourism.
save nz and DracoTBastard
You are getting dangerously close to the truth there, and confirming the theories around the problems. I’m afraid that someone will knock on your door late at night and we will never hear from you again. Please keep safe, it seems that there is a glimmer of light coming through here.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
(from 1 September 1939 WH Auden)
“I’ve argued for some years, that rapid population growth can crowd out other business activities. The basic logic is pretty simple. New people – whether born or migrant – need new capital stock. A modern economy requires rather a lot of (physical) capital per person (houses, roads, offices, schools, shops, machines etc) and real resources that have to be devoted to meeting the needs and demand of the new people, can’t be used for other purposes. It is often those “other purposes” that seem to get squeezed out – in particular, investment in the tradables sector. People have to live somewhere, so that demand is often more inelastic (insensitive to changes in price) than is potential investment in support of new business opportunities”
https://croakingcassandra.com/2017/05/18/two-improbable-outposts/
100% SaveNZ.
Productivity is a myth that drives the problems we all are ecountering todaay with air pollution, climarte change and decreasing oxgen levels in our atmospheric air we breathe so we are well on the way to extingquishing our lives as we chast the ellusive “productivity”
last week the World health organisation rleased the findings of the largest study of the human damage caused by air pollution and it confirms that living near busy “productive” roads will cause brain damage and other damages to us all so we are really stuffed now.
Taske a look at this;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=-m3HfZke6_w
Breaking News – Pollution ‘harms cognitive intelligence’
Air pollution could cause a significant reduction in intelligence, major study says
• Research finds that long-term exposure to air pollution impeded people’s performance in both verbal and math tests.
• More than four million people die each year from exposure to outdoor air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.
Air pollution could cause a significant reduction in intelligence, major study says
• Research finds that long-term exposure to air pollution impeded people’s performance in both verbal and math tests.
• More than four million people die each year from exposure to outdoor air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.
It’s not productivity doing that – it’s the profit drive and the greed of the capitalists.
Increasing productivity means one of two things in a society.
1. The society can shift people away from one industry into another while still providing everything that the first industry provided.
2. Could go from not providing enough of something to providing enough without increasing the number of people used in that industry. This usually also comes with increases in efficiency – in using less resources to provide the same or more.
Last time I looked (admittedly quite a few years ago) there were an estimated 400 premature deaths in NZ from road pollution. More than half of them in Auckland.
Hi James
Has Duncan nailed the terrible leaker who has been troubling Simon Bridges? I think it is a real shame that there has been no closure on such a simple problem.
Makes poor Simon look even less competent than Duncan – who knows everything.
Observer Tokoroa;
Thanks for that; – you put a smile on my saddened face today; thanks eternally for that.
Helen Clark said heads would have rolled if Labour’s youth camp sex scandal had
occurred on her watch.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12116497
Yes I have always deeply admired helen clark she was the very best we had.
As usual the press used their Venom to make Helen look somewhat evil when she was the most effective woman Prime minister we had.
Helen needs to coach Jacinda up here now.
Most National past PM’s did this so i dont see any issues in suggesting this.
Jacinda has a lot to learn and now is the time to begin.
Jacinda began learning long ago, cleangreen and any discussions with Helen today won’t be the first.
Robert;
I certainly hope Helen is keeping jacinda briefed Robert;
As I recieved several letters from Helen Clark as PM during the stormy days in 2003 when the arrogant roading lobby was pushing massive amounts of truck traffic through our residential ‘noise sensittive quiet zones’ areas in Napier.
Helen Clark took the lead to assist us,and she slowed their activities back to a reasonable manner and she arranged to have provided ($2m) – two million Dolllars for our community groups to get some much needed ‘mitigation’ for our 24hr 2400 truck activities roaming thriough our residential ‘quiet noise zones’ and since then the trucking lobby under national have been successful in trebbling road freight levels and ruining our health and lives.
Helen needs to assist Jacinda and to do what helen did to send Phil Twyford here to the HB Expressway to meet with our community Committee as Helen did and she confirmed this with us in a letter she sent to me as secretary of our residential area and she made good on her promises made to us by sending her minister for transport Mark Gosche then in 2003 with Finance Minister Michael Cullen and the CEO of Transit NZ (NZTA now) to meet with our committee then on the noisy poorly built “HB Expressway” to help so our community.
It is now Jacinda’s turn to step up as ‘champion for our community in Napier’ as Helen Clark was then in 2003.
Parliamentary commisioners report was warning government to act and they did then and need to again now sadly.
Labour’s resolutions to our long standing transport issues and how to solve them as suggested by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in his 2005 report seen here. https://www.pce.parliament.nz/media/pdfs/Hawkes-Bay-Expressway-Noise-and-air-quality-issues-June-2005.pdf
My idea of coaching/mentoring is to enable people to be the best they can be. Your idea seems somewhat different?
Helen Clark has been mentoring Jacinda Ardern for almost 20 years, cleangreen. After finishing university in 2001, Ardern worked as a researcher in Helen Clark’s office in Parliament when Clark was PM and they have been close friends and colleagues ever since. Clark is only one of many – but one of the most influential, who have helped Ardern over the years to grow and learn to the point that she was elected as Leader of the Labour Party at the age of 37.
Nah, she didn’t; she said, “…people wouldn’t have kept their jobs..” – the violent image you invoked is yours, not hers; Helen’s far more nuanced with her language than you are, naki and that’s just one criticism I have of your “naki” style comment.
Don’t use the n-word, please!
k
I read in that link of Helen Clark’s interview:
She said we live in an era “where you just have to expect the unexpected”.
“When you’re planning, you need to put the wildest scenarios on the table, because anything is possible.”
The other part of that saying is…’but you can’t count on it’.
Helen Clark didn’t say anything unexpected this time, but followed a line that would be expected from her talking about her preoccupations and her time. And thinking of the wildest scenarios – if that happens it is quickly reined in by groupthink, peer pressure and Treasury intelligence and overview.
Helen Clark’s opinion should be kept under wraps; it is no more welcome to me as a citizen than Jenny Shipley’s. Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark could usefully talk about every quarter, but we elected Jacinda and I expect to hear her speak up about her vision and practical polices for us as we voters expected. I don’t want to hear the unexpected of Helen Clark usurping Jacinda in the news or anywhere.
Helen did very well in her day which is not now. So I suggest she doesn’t muddy the waters as we have enough old Labourites eager to put their oar in already. We are rowing and trying to go in the right direction, and old Labourites seem more inclined to the right adding to the RW-aligned pullers; and the result is direction diversion and going round in circles, literally.
“Nah, she didn’t; she said, “…people wouldn’t have kept their jobs..” – the violent image you invoked is yours, not hers”
Bullshit, next time learn to read the link before making a fool of yourself.
“Speaking to the Rotorua Daily Post after a Q&A session at the Property Council New Zealand national conference in Rotorua today, Clark said heads would have rolled if Labour’s youth camp sex scandal had occurred on her watch.”
Naki man
It’s that nuance you lack. Why not stick to rugby. Things are so much more straightforward there.
See 8.2.4: reality really is goddam slippery to get a hold of sometimes! Like an eel. Ever try to grab one? Both you & RG were right. Just another instance of folks assuming stuff is either true or false. Both/and logic often applies instead.
I look for quotation marks. When I see them, I assume that inside of them is what a person said. When someone else says,”this person said”, I’m doubly careful not to accept the attribution without finding more reliable evidence. Clark may have said what naki claims, but there was no convincing evidence for that in the link he provided. I reckon.
Reality? “The former prime minister told the Rotorua Daily Post yesterday that heads would have rolled had the scandal occurred under her leadership. “Draw your own conclusions, go back to how I dealt with things like this, people wouldn’t have kept their jobs,” she said.”
The anonymous journo who put this on the TVNZ website may be telling the truth, may be misreporting what Bryce Edwards said, may be misreporting what HC said.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/helen-clark-wouldnt-have-meant-fire-youth-camp-sex-scandal-missile-jacinda-ardern-says-political-analyst
Hi Cleangreen
I do often think of You and the good causes you promote.
Sometimes I wonder if very shortly Councils, Provinces and Government will force every car off the roads and highways that race across our marvellous North Island.
Just so that 50 Ton Trucks and their loads can take over and Kill at will. Wreck constantly the Roads into subsidence and rip up the peace. Day and Night.
There is hardly a foot of free width either side of our monster trucks- thundering along with a quivering trailer behind – at outrageous speed. Highway One is a war zone
All I know, is that very few Trains kill people. Heaps of Trucks kill heaps of people.
I hope with You that our lovely East Coast has Rail replaced – quick smart! Cleangreen.
Best regards
Observer Tokoroa;
Thanks for the hands up here.
We hope Helen & jacinda read my latest respose to Robert up on 8.1.1.1. right above here.
Happy reading.
50 tonnes?
Its more than that. HGV are now over 60 tones.
oh my goodness, bring out the fainting couch 🙂
someone who knew Aretha Franklin well and took offense at the works of the orange menace “She worked for me”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=117&v=5ggTnrPmBVI
the quality is not the greatest so but still.
Transcript:
And then, this orange apparition had the nerve to say she worked for him. You lugubrious leach! You doppelgänger of deceit and deviance! You lethal liar! You dimwitted dictator! You foolish fascist! She ain’t work for you. She worked above you! She worked beyond you! Get your preposition right! Then he got the nerve to say he goin’ grab it.
That ain’t what Aretha Franklin said. “I’m gonna give you something you can feel.” Like the brothers in the streets say, “Tap lightly. Like a woodpecker with a headache.” So don’t you sully the memory of our great Queen. Aretha Franklin was an original. Never one like her before. Never another like her afterwards.
Go sister. Any colour – leave our respected ones alone. Don’t try to smooch off them; it detracts from both.
Quite the homegoing.
Russia claims rebels in Idlib, with the help of British contractors, are planning to gas their own people and blame it on Assad.
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-claims-syrian-rebels-planning-idlib-chemical-weapons-attack/a-45223057
” “I had two years of psychotherapy which were amazing but it was going to Peru and drinking ayahuasca, which is a class A drug in this country, that got to the root of my depression,” the comedian Simon Amstell has said. He is far from alone.”
This is from a Guardian opinion essay: “Ayahuasca rituals can be profoundly beneficial – if they’re done properly”. Good to see younger folk pursuing a transcendence pathway.
“In the west, ayahuasca can be portrayed as a shortcut to enlightenment, a product you can buy that will make you deep, or an “extreme” tourist experience. It’s become increasingly popular among tech millionaires who are, in the words of one report, looking to “find shortcuts to success in the ultra-competitive tech scene”. It seems unlikely ayahuasca was put on this Earth to help Bay Area tech bros crush the opposition.” But hey, you never know!
Christians spent the past couple of millennia explaining that `God moves in mysterious ways’. However, now that he has mysteriously relocated elsewhere, better to face reality and acknowledge that ayahuasca is part of Gaia, and ingestion is part of Gaian process. Those fit to play an ongoing part survive, wiser from the experience. Any entrepreneur seeking competitive advantage will spot that trend fast & leap onto it.
There was a decade or so in the hippie era when natural intelligence got powerfully enhanced via usage of plant allies – millions of us shared those experience before younger trend followers trashed the scenes with mindless hedonism. Western culture improved considerably as a result of the leading edge but the bad mental health produced by the capitalist system continues to victimise younger generations. Let’s hope their leading edge can also generate millions who wise up rather than turn into human vegetables!
Thanks for that and here’s the link for those who’d want to read the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/31/ayahuasca-tourists-risk-death-henry-miller-colombia
I’ve only just started reading the comments, some of which are very interesting; it’s definitely not just “younger folk pursuing a transcendence pathway”.
Bit too late for that; many are stuck in a catachthonic state/world through their ‘pursuit’ of instant gratification, greed & gain, and thirst for power & control.
The most insightful poem In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke shows that the path is not for the fainthearted. It happens to be my favourite poem 🙂
Oh yeah, I forgot the link, thanks. Didn’t realise there were comments available. Usual selection of retards & sceptics, then this: “hallucinogens can be tremendously helpful, do nothing much, or be very harmful. depends what’s in your head, what drug, what surroundings and companions for the trip.” Sensible.
“mushrooms: they grow on the golf courses near where my family live in Ireland and I’ve had some beautiful, gentle experiences with them.” Lucky! I’m just nostalgic, left tripping behind long ago. Catalysis & transcendence can be done without a plant ally. Incidentally, for readers who never read Castaneda, the ally is a tool – used as means to an end. The hippie thing turned to mush as soon as trend-followers started seeing it as an end in itself.
“Unlike LSD and shrooms, Ayahuasca gives people a “this is the truth” experience. Seems to active whatever part of the brain that gives us the “ring of truth” feeling.” I never went to Central or South America so I can’t endorse this from experience.
IrascibleOldGit89: “Being a true shallow suburbanite, I’m not sure how I’d react to taking powerful hallucinogens with Amazonian shamen, but I’m quite partial to imbibing modest amounts of novel lysergamides from time to time. Shame Theresa had one of her moral panics and banished the industry from the UK – it’s quite a global money spinner, I do believe…”
Well yes, with capitalism on its last legs any new industry ought to be got up & running pronto. I hope he gets together with IrascibleOldGits1-88 & forms a tribe of them. Can the internet enable such networking?
“Usual selection of retards…”
best if you don’t use that term thanks.
Personally I find the information around mushrooms and mental health to be fascinating.
“A number of small studies have found psychedelics to show promise in treating mental health disorders like depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder, often where other treatments have failed.
Now UK researchers are about to take part in the first major trials into whether one of these hallucinogenic drugs could be more effective than a leading antidepressant in the treatment of depression.
Researchers at Imperial College London are to compare the magic mushroom compound psilocybin with a leading SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) antidepressant, escitalopram, in a large trial expected to take at least two years.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44575139
Fascinating stuff!
The clinical trial mentioned in the BBC article is not all that large (50 participants) and lists Professor David Nutt as the Principal Investigator: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03429075
Nutt is a well-known not to say controversial scientist who strongly advocates for re-classification of drugs such as tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis based on the actual harm they are causing (cannabis is quite a safe drug based on the evidence of social harm it causes; alcohol is ranked highly in terms of social harm).
He visited New Zealand in February of this year: https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018633601/prof-david-nutt-it-s-irrational-to-deny-people-access-to-lsd
Although (these) drugs have potential to be beneficial they could also be used with less desirable intentions such as re-programming people (AKA brainwashing) or crime fighting, e.g. Devil’s Breath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyoscine#Society_and_culture
Just on the news Chelsea Manning is still doing her Aussie gigs but via video.
That’s like paying 200 bucks to watch one of her youtube videos.
Personally would be saying “No. Money back please”
Get your facts right.
She is doing the Sydney one tomorrow (Sun) via satellite because the Aussie govt have not yet made a final decision on her visa application.
The Sydney event is not her alone. She was/is appearing as part of a much bigger event – the Antidote Festival – at the Sydney Opera House involving many other speakers etc. Tickets for her session only were/are AUD39.
Her other appearances in Aussie are not until next Friday, 7 Sept in Melbourne and Tues 11 Sept in Brisbane. So there is still time for a visa for those events to be issued. Tickets for those longer speaking engagements are AUD72 – AUD 249 for VIP Meet and Greet.
Her NZ appearances are Auckland next Sat, 8 Sept and Wellington Sun, 9 Sept, and barring any last minute changes of mind etc, the decision yesterday to grant her a special direction all but means her NZ visa will be issued. NZ prices are $59 – $249 for the VIP Meet and Greet.
Think you might be confusing my facts with the news reporters
But all good
First, Idiocracy, and now Wag the Dog.
Marco Rubio , a Republican senator from Florida, held a meeting at the White House with Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton , in which they spoke about the deep crisis that Venezuela is going through and its implications for the United States and Latin America. .
Rubio began when consulted for his meeting with Bolton.
I think there is an argument, very strong, that can be made at this time that Venezuela and the regime of (Nicolás) Maduro has become a threat
“I believe that the Armed Forces of the United States are only used in the event of a threat to national security, I believe that there is an argument, very strong , that can be made at this time that Venezuela and the (Nicolás) Maduro regime has become a threat to the region and even to the United States. ”
He said that in his meeting with Bolton, this topic was discussed in general. ” (The Government of) Maduro is a government that supports drug traffickers, guerrillas and terrorist groups that are threatening the stability of Colombia .”
https://translate.google.co.nz/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=https://www.infobae.com/america/venezuela/2018/08/30/marco-rubio-no-descarto-la-opcion-militar-de-eeuu-en-venezuela-las-circunstancias-han-cambiado/&prev=search
Haha, they have broken away from the USD! Who’s next? Iran? Turkey!, hehehe. China, Russia, Japan; all selling US Fed bonds. Who’s buying? Can only be the US Fed, buying back their own bonds! The crash is coming, can’t wait.
Xtian POS relishes the impending impoverishing and suffering of perhaps hundreds of millions of ordinary folk.
All the oil in the ground and owned by the people of Venezuela, makes the US elites very mad.
Rachel Stewart.
“If anyone truly believes we can keep the same number of cows, cut emissions, and increase profits they’re mad. As in insane. Our Ag minister is insane.”
Click bait.
She gets it from reading the Guardian, where you have to be more absolutist than the Pope.
The Kaiser didnt take too much notice of the Grey River Argus back in 1914 either.
Great to see California State is passing a very strong net neutrality law.
This will set up a real fight with the FCC and a general federal-level fight. We’ll have to see whether Tom Wheeler the Obama appointee there is willing to really bend the ear of the majority there to revisit the issue.
The proposed rules in California go further than rules passed by Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission in 2015. The legislation not only transforms the FCC’s 2015 net neutrality rules into California law, but it also bars internet service providers from offering sponsored content, zero-rating or other deals that could provide an economic incentive to broadband companies to discriminate against content riding on their networks. Such offerings allow a company to pay data charges so that certain content doesn’t count against a wireless subscriber’s data plan.
Additionally, the bill allows the state to oversee commercial interconnection deals to ensure broadband companies can’t use their market power to charge hefty amounts from corporate customers. Interconnection deals are agreements between companies that provide internet content, such as Netflix, and ISPs, such as Comcast and Verizon.
Large internet service providers, such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, oppose the California law. While they say they support the basic idea of net neutrality, they argue that bans on things like zero-rating and paid-priority, which could allow companies to pay broadband providers to get their services delivered faster than competitors, limit their ability to try new business models. The big broadband providers say without the ability to experiment with new business models, they’ll have to charge consumers more for their services in the future.
What will be critical is whether the Democrat Party accept SuperPac money from Caifornia-domiciled big-tech companies who oppose any net neutrality. Generally the big internet companies support Democrats. If they accept the money, it signals that they are less likely to side with the California legislature and less likely to revisit the issue should they get a Senate majority from the November mid-terms.
Big test for free speech in its biggest power.
“big-tech companies who oppose any net neutrality”
Thats surprising , any evidence of that. I thought the people own own the net infrastructure were the only ones to make money out of net priority.
Apple and Google dont want to pay to get their data their first and they would see their own profits at risk of going to those whos only job is infrastructure
I made that distinction in the paragraph above.
Happy to reinforce that with “big-tech network companies…”
It will be a fight regardless since the FCC vote was along party-appointment-allegiance lines.
Good to read some facts instead of the propaganda
“Taking a swipe at UK Prime Minister Theresa May as she struggled to dance with schoolchildren during her visit to South Africa this week, controversial British columnist Katie Hopkins tweeted: “Whites are being slaughtered in South Africa & inexplicably Appeaser May chooses to crucify herself”.
Hopkins’ tweet was the latest example of a global campaign to portray South Africa’s once dominant white population as a victimised minority under attack.
Her comments reflect the growing influence of South Africa’s conservative Afrikaner groups who are conducting global lobbying campaigns to support their message that white farmers are being targeted and killed, that the government is seizing their land, they are being discriminated against by affirmative action programmes and that their language is being sidelined.
…The BBC has found that there is no reliable data to suggest farmers are at greater risk of being murdered than the average South African.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45336840
Profiles in Lack of Courage
No. 1: Al Jazeera
The outlaw Israeli regime told Al Jazeera not to show a documentary called The Lobby. Sadly for its credibility as a news organization, Al Jazeera obeyed.
outlaw Israeli regime huh?
there has never been a country called Palestine in the history of the world.
they are Bedouin who are a grouping of nomadic Arab people who have historically inhabited the desert regions in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and the Levant.
nomadic people ok.
Idiot.
+ 1
Here’s a Central Banking trick from the Arabs. NZ and Australia could do the same. Australian Treasury could be funded from RBNZ, while they return finance to NZ Treasury from their Central Bank. Extend the balance sheets with a little regional QE number. Nice-one, mate. So long as it’s spent on long-term economic transition, and not lost on the pokies.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/qatar-turkey-central-banks-ink-currency-swap-deal-180820072749514.html
(NZ Govt 2018 have already added employment-level as a new consideration for setting RBNZ cash-rate, this fits with the above.)
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/03/rbnz-mandate-changed-also-target-employment/
Trucking companies must be the biggest moaners in NZ. If only we could get more freight on the railways we already have.
Ken Shirley – ex Labour?
Ken Shirley, chief executive of trucking industry lobby group the Road Transport Forum…
Mr Shirley said the government’s pledged commitment to road safety was a good sign, but the greatest road safety improvements would come from investing in new highways.
“The biggest safety gains actually come from the big highway investment projects – the Roads Of National Significance – they have delivered spectacular improvement in safety and they’re the very projects that are now on hold.”
(Has the safety improvement been so good on TRONS?)
National:
National associate transport spokesperson Brett Hudson said the government’s policies were “totally out of whack”….
“The government claims to be focused on safety but if they truly were about that, then they’d be building more of those well-engineered roads, not just looking at some makeshift changes,” he said.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/365462/government-left-dangerous-road-off-priority-list
They didnt build the RONs for ‘the safety ‘- it was to suit the trucking industry.
The ordinary SH improvements and critical safety improvements were plundered to feed the fund for RONs.
Even the new route for the Manawatu Gorge back in 2012 was shelved in favour of some piece meal changes. All that money gone to waste as the new route has had to be done anyway – but slowly.
Even the spending for Aucklands CRL was delayed starting after after approval to begin was given- the Council kicked it off with its own money- because RONS had taken all the money
100% dukeofoul.
Ken Shirley and his ilk is backed by the oil industry who constantly lobby’s government relentlessly every day till they wear politicians down.
That is why things like RONs got to be paid by the taxpayer for the trucking industry.
Simple as that and if Phil twyford is a smart politician he should place sunset clauses all over his plans to reverse the roading projects for rail uptake so that when national does take over again they wont reinstate RONs again to keep milking the taxpayerr for the beneit of the trucking industry as it is just a rort.
The end of us….oops, I mean ice.
The hui there you go Eco Maori has not seen any maori living the golden years not many if any are enjoying the good life when we get the silver back I see heap’s of Pakeha living the golden years .
The forestry industry industry on the East Coast’s was sold to maori as a big money spinner for maori but when I went to Ruatoria home the house’s look run down so not much money is flowing into the town .
I know how they work they will keep all the cream contracting jobs for Pakeha and give maori all the un profitable jobs to maori.
How does Eco Maori know this well that was one of the factors that caused my business to fail .
The reality is that this phenomenon is happening to Maori in all industry’s that is why we are so young old and BROKE. Many thanks Mihinarangi .
Ka kite ano
Goon morning Marae Jenny May kai pai for Matua Brown for telling that Gisborne City Councillor off for using raciest remakes about maori .
What he choses / Pakeha not to acknowledge is that I was all the Hard work of Maori tipunas /ancestors who have made Aotearoa so wealthy the East Coast was the back bone of Aotearoa in the Old day’s and thats a fact have a look at the farming and other industry’s. I no that the Pakeha can spinn there ——— back on maori .
I say the we need more statues of our tipuna..
Kia Kaha ka kite ano . Quade should play for Maori
Good evening Newshub the Senator John McCain funeral service give’s Eco Maori hope that we are going to leave OUR mokopuna’s a good future ka pai.
I say just for a ap and clients %35 cost that goes to Uber eats is to high .
No to lease hold land deals that’s my opinion enough said .
That’s the way Britain no honers ie Sir for un Honorable people .
Yes I have seen Rainier forestry do that in mangatu forest Gisborne has been striped of a lot of trees that were not mature so much for thinking about the future for the mokopuna’s.
Good story on Myanmar Michael Ka pai
Nicky you got the Star and the good job
Ka kite ano
Eco Maori has been studying OUR history back 5000 years and every time man has suppresed wahine the eventual out come has been a desaster War so I’m on the correct path’s in promoting OUR Wahine they are the majority of my offspring Kia kaha ka kite ano here a link below. P.S & equality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClU3fctbGls
Well I stuffed that up lol