I think with the gangs its about intimidation. You just never feel safe in your own home and never know when the bullets are going to come flying through the windows. Should you open your curtains or too risky.
I guess the verdict in the Depp vs. Heard is a warning that fame, hubris and believing your own bullshit sometimes won't save you from a jury.
I have no doubt that Heard and Depp had an absolutely awful time together, but quite why they simply can't admit it was a disastrous decision to get married, that they both went places they didn't think they were capable of going and just flush the dunny, take the lessons and move on older, wiser and a bit sadder I don't know. Now Heard will be forever championed as a victim by every freaking middle class postmodern feminist with a newspaper column and Depp will be legally vindicated, but never quite rehabilitated. Mud sticks, where there is smoke there is fire, etc etc etc.
But both of them are now reputationally ruined and will probably never find really lucrative work again. Everyone lost except the lawyers and the media circus reporting on it.
Is it too long a bow to connect this with this story and lament that we live in a world where it is always someone else's fault for your acts of commission or omission?
Agree. I have champions on both sides in my family.
I've resorted to the response, that I think they both behaved badly in the relationship, and I don't see any need for the media to report on the details of that behaviour – nor do I want to know!
And in relation to the Otago incident:
While I would like more ‘joined up’ care of the elderly – it is indeed challenging when there are multiple agencies involved – none of whom talk to each other, and all of whom rely on an often elderly, unwell or confused, patient to co-ordinate the care.
The excuse of ‘privacy legislation’ has a lot to answer for.
In this case, the daughter is clearly deflecting from the evident fact that neither she nor any other family member made any effort to contact her mother, or sound the alarm, in the weeks after she left hospital.
It’s always easiest to blame ‘somebody else’
I have not followed the court case. I am only aware it was 5 men and 2 women that made the decision to decide she defamed him by accusing him of domestic abuse and that this was malicious. Which means she is now bankrupt.
Being an angry drunk is not domestic abuse but just cause for a divorce.
I think an industry critic put it best, his career was already effectively over because he turned up at work not knowing his lines and getting angry on set.
I don't know if feminists will champion Heard as a victim, but they will be more wary of the law being used to silence women who make claims about abuse.
In Sweden there were a dozen cases where women who made public assault accusations were put on trial, and all were convicted.
I hadn't actually followed it that much, but from the little I did see it was kind of obvious while he might be considered a bit of a weirdo by some, she could equally be considered a bit of a nutbar. (I am in the later camp btw. She obviously has issues)
Wouldn't have wanted to be on a jury dealing in a case with 2 actors. Their living is making people believe they are not who they are. We are talking about a dude who made it look right there would be a dude with scissors for hands.
I think at the end of the day the right decision was made, but she ain't going to do their careers any favours. Though he will probably still be alright, as he is a money drawing machine.
If it were me and I was Depp and worth, even after throwing away so much money, and still worth 150 – 250 million would say "Keep the cash. I don't want to make you destitute", just to rub it in.
Sanctuary says .. both of them are reputationally ruined and will probably never find really lucrative work again .. ha ha ha ha, thanks for the giggle at your ignorant statement. Did you not read the news that Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese and Quenton Tarintino are all lining up to get Mr Depp in their next movies?
I wonder how many of this woman’s outrageous unverified propaganda stories our local war promotors Joe 90, Jenny How to get There and others have gleefully covered these pages with?…quite a few I would imagine….. some of these Standard commentators would do themselves this site and the cause of the Ukrainian people a service, if they closely read and take note of some of the contents of the open letter published by Ukrainian media on the subject of propaganda…some of which is pasted below.
Ukraine Official Fired Over Handling of Russian Sexual Assault Claims
"The move to dismiss Denisova came after outrage about the wording used in public reports about alleged sexual assaults committed by Russians, as well as the alleged dissemination in those reports of unverified information"
"Ukrainian media outlets and journalists signed an open letter in which they requested that reports concerning rape and sexual assault be "published with caution,"
""it is important to understand that sexual crimes during war are an instrument of genocide, an instrument of waging war without rules, but they cannot serve as illustrative material to inflame the emotions of the audience."
“one member of the Ukrainian parliament, Pavlo Frolov, provided a number of reasons why Denisova was removed, including “the numerous details of ‘unnatural sexual offenses’ and child sexual abuses in the occupied territories, which were unsupported by evidence and only harmed Ukraine.”
[stop taking pot shots at other commenters. You’ve already been warned about this. Next time you can expect a ban. If you can’t stick to the politics then you will lose your commenting privileges. Personally, I’m also sick of your patronising tone. – weka]
Shows the Ukrainian govt authorities have a good deal more integrity and probity than than Russia – whose state run media pundits are routinely talking up in the most grotesque, irresponsible terms nuclear attack on NATO.
and to focus your mind, the conversation in the backend will now be about how long a ban. Last ban for the same thing was only a month ago, and it was for a week. You seem to be ignoring moderation, so my feeling is to give a much longer educational ban and so mods can stop wasting our time on this.
You are a long term commenter here, you know how the place works. Stop attacking or taking potshots at other commenters (hint: just stop talking about other commenters altogether), stick to the politics. Pay attention to what moderators says. If you are unclear, ask for clarification. Reread the Policy (top of the page).
OK fair enough I will take that on board…a question for you though.. doesn’t concern you that some very regular people here on TS, almost every day copy and paste wholly unsubstituted stories (propaganda) on the Ukraine conflict? and it is often of a revolting nature. And so lazily done, that they just paste up tweets straight from people like Lyudmila Denisova without a thought or bothering to take even a moment to check its authenticity….or a thought to the integrity of TS platform for that matter.
I have often asked these people for verification to the claims,, but of course am just ignored.
He who claimed victimhood over my calling him names repeatedly continues his name calling and attempts at calling out all who oppose his obsessional unwavering dedication to HIS TRUTH AND ONLY HIS TRUTH.
Which is something like: Russia's OK, just roll over and expose your belly.
When I'm grasping for straws there's generally a milkshake at hand.
@DB Brown…I have never in my life claimed victimhood on anything, anywhere at any time…so how about you put up a link.
You are probably referring to the time when you began swearing at me on this site one evening….almost like that evening you really liked that DB Brown just a bit to much.
I actually thought that was pretty funny.
[no way am I spending time today on a flame war. I told you to focus on the politics and not the other commenters. You can clearly see that I told DB to leave it alone, yet here you are poking it with a stick. You appear to not understand what is happening here, but I am sick of explaining it and you’ve been told in the past. One month ban. – weka]
Russian state outlet TASS reported Monday that an initial cargo of 2,700 tonnes of Ukrainian steel would be shipped some 100 miles from Mariupol to the Russian port of Rostov-on-Don. No commercial transaction or payment for the cargo was mentioned; the nearest producer, Mariupol's massive Azovstal plant, was destroyed and seized after a monthslong siege.
Metinvest, the Ukrainian owner and operator of Azovstal, has accused Russian forces of stealing its products from the seaport.
Relevance ? What was the relevance of your comment in the first place ?oh right russians are thieves etc etc etc etc etc kinda boring joe .Pretty obvious the russians having just got the port open again wouldve just loaded the first ship with anything they could find lying around and in that regard they wouldve been able to find any amount of scrap steel if once upon a time it belonged to the ukrainians id say it was the least of their worries !
The point about the article The Truman Show is that it completely dissects the whole Zelensky fantasy show revealing the shabby truth behind the facade of course its just one persons opinion but the author obviously knows his stuff and presents a very compelling and imo far more ' relevant ' take than yours for example.
I don't follow the Russian invasion of the Ukraine discussions, including on TS, so I literally don't know what you are talking about. If you have a problem you want to point out to the mods, then explain it clearly and provide direct links.
If instead you are saying that people on TS post politics that you disagree with, welcome to the club, we're all in that position. This is the point of TS. Authors put up posts, people get to discuss that, we have a robust debate ethic which means that people can argue hard. We have some rules around providing evidence for claims of fact, but people are free to express their opinion about whatever they choose.
If you believe that something someone has posted has no basis on fact, then the mahi is for you to demonstrate how. Put up your own arguments, your own links and explain what is wrong with someone's argument.
(saying that someone's source is inauthentic isn't enough, you have to explain how)
If you find people are ignoring you, perhaps consider that this is at least in part related to your own behaviours. The patronising tone I've mentioned, and the attacking people. Calling people lazy. And so on.
It's hard to know how deep the manipulation of public discourse is. The bottom has never been found.
Last night, @BBCRadio4 aired a documentary which repeatedly accused me and other academics of spreading Russian disinformation.
In a glaring and twisted irony, this amounted to an apparent smear operation that would not seem out of place on Kremlin media. Here’s why…
After all, there is such a thing as truth ~ Victor Serge
I wonder how many of this woman’s outrageous unverified propaganda Fastories our local war promotors Joe 90, Jenny How to get There…..
No need to wonder any more Adrian, I can tell you exactly how many. For me, personally, exactly zero.
Because of the 'Fog Of War', because I know propaganda is tool of war for all sides.
I have deliberately avoided discussions of atrocities which are disputed, For instance I have never got involved in the disputes over the alleged massacre In Bucha.
And instead have concentrated on evidence that can't be disputed or denied. Like for instance the destruction of Homs, and I have put up this evidence and asked the question of apologists for Russian and Assad atrocities, if this is not evidence of genocide? Not one of you have ever had the courage to venture an opinion.
Putting up evidence of blasted cities, evidence which cannot be denied, or explained away, or excused, is always met with silence.
Only recently have I strayed from this policy. It was after I saw the video and read the evidence of the Tadamon massacre. And immediately I realised that the evidence of this act of genocide, like the flattening of cities, was also irrefutable.
The Tadamon Massacre…
Amnesty International. Posted 14 May 2022 1:38pm
By Kristvan Benedict
By Mansour Omari
…When a leaked video of a horrific massacre committed in 2013 by Assad regime officials came out on 28 April, I tried to avoid watching it or writing about it. This was impossible. The killings occurred in an area close to where I lived in Damascus. I had to watch it to check if I recognised any victims….
….Assad regime officials shot 41 blindfolded, handcuffed men into a pit. Their bodies were set on fire – some were possibly still alive, already in agony from being shot and falling into the death pit. They were set on fire with nowhere to run to and nobody to help them….
….The first victim to be recognised and confirmed by his family was Wasim Siyam, a Syrian-Palestinian baker from Yarmouk camp in Damascus, married with two daughters.
I have only one message that I want you, and the others like you to hear, Adrian. They are the words spoken by the Russian speaking villagers of Eastern Ukraine.
If you change your email address in the field, the system treats you as a new commenter and holds back the comment. Please keep a record of what email address you are using.
you’ve changed your email address (it used to be a shorter version). This is why I said keep a copy, so if you don’t post for a while you can remember what it is. Lots of people use fake addresses, that’s not a problem. Using a new or altered one does what I said above.
people on a mobile can switch to the Desktop version if they want to see comments properly nested and tell who is replying to whom. Link at the bottom of every page.
Russian parliament member Oleg Matveychev then sent a chilling warning to Poland, declaring its borders would be “worthless” if it chooses to intervene more directly in the conflict.
I have seen some in the Russian media saying things like, that not to worry about a nuclear war. Because we all have to die some day. And that all the Russians who die in a nuclear war will go to heaven but those who die in the West will go to hell.
With the lack of MSM fair coverage of the PM it is refreshing to read Jo Moir's more balanced approach. Her take on the Oval Office visit was a case in point.
A phrase I hear bandied around a lot by mainly left-wing politicians is the phrase "excessive profits".
I thought what better place to ask the question about how to determine whether profits are "excessive" or not.
From a right wing perspective, profits reflect factors such as, competition in the market, the need to generate capital for future growth, the need to cover risk, and return on the assets invested compared to less risky options.
So, one billion in profit might seem like a lot. But, if it is known that the organisation is making that return on $100 billion of invested assets (1% return), and the environment is highly risky, then the organisation may have been better to have not been in the market at all, and have left its money in the bank.
The example I gave demonstrates the concept of a "safe"profit.
So, lets say a business has a profit of $1000 on $50000 turnover. It doesn't take much to go wrong for that profit to be wiped out and switched into a loss. So, profits need to be large enough to account for the risk involved.
In some markets, where businesses have extremely good controls, and there is a high degree of predictability, then they can likely operate on much lower profit margins because their risk is a lot lower.
For instance, for all the stick that Supermarkets get, they actually generate very low profits in percentage terms. They aim to make their profits on high volume. The reason they are able to survive on such low margins is that they have such good controls.
Most smaller businesses wouldn’t have anything like that degree of efficiency, and so would need a much higher profit margin in most cases.
I would expect that to be the case as the market is very competitive and banks essentially operate in a cost-plus type environment. So, fixed term loans are backed by the same term loans the banks are financed by, and floating rates adjust automatically.
And they tend to be larger organisations with strong control structures, so they shouldn't often be hit by unexpected costs that erode their position.
In the US, the ROE (return on equity) for banks was recently 5.31%.
So far as supermarkets go, I think we need to change our price expectations as consumers if we want suppliers treated fairly. That implies better prices for suppliers, which means higher prices for consumers.
The first two of those have to be covered by revenue rather than profit as they are ongoing expenses. The second two are definitely funded out of profit though. The other main uses for profit are income tax and distribution to owners who normally expect a higher return than term deposit interest rates to make it worth the effort.
The first two of those have to be covered by revenue rather than profit as they are ongoing expenses.
Is that accounting semantics? If a company has money left over, why wouldn't they spend it on increasing wages or extra overheads?
The second two are definitely funded out of profit though. The other main uses for profit are income tax and distribution to owners who normally expect a higher return than term deposit interest rates to make it worth the effort.
I was thinking of those as overheads, but I'm not a business person so am probably using the wrong language 🙂
Is that accounting semantics? If a company has money left over, why wouldn't they spend it on increasing wages or extra overheads?
Employee salaries are op-ex, because it's a cost of doing business.
[NB: this is why so many businesses were potentially in strife during the Covid lockdowns, since salaries are paid out of revenue. No money coming in, means no money to pay employees]
Would the employees be equally keen to have their wages cut if the company isn't doing so well? That's what happens to shareholders – there's no dividend given in a bad year.
What (I think) you're getting at here is some form of profit sharing model. Where employees share in the overall profit of the company at the end of the financial year. Some firms do this – often through a bonus scheme.
actually what I meant was that as a business becomes more profitable, it can use some of that profit to pay a higher wage. What I think you are saying is that they shouldn't because it's not income that can be relied upon?
But yes, definitely sharing profit too, good idea.
Yeah. Profit is not able to be relied on – and doesn't always come in a nice even stream (some months are 'good' for cashflow, others are not) – which makes it very difficult to just raise salaries in the expectation that you'll have a nice EOY result.
If that's your goal (enabling employees to benefit from the business – when they're increasing the profitability of that business) – then I think that profit sharing is a better methodology.
Revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods or services related to the company's primary operations. Profit, which is typically called net profit or the bottom line, is the amount of income that remains after accounting for all expenses, debts, additional income streams, and operating costs.
Profit is the goal of a business (otherwise you might just as well leave the money in the bank, earning passive interest)
Any business should be aiming to be profitable: (though startups typically aren’t until multiple years in – they’re earning out their venture capital, and reinvesting in the growth of the business)
But the amount of profit can be aimed for, but not guaranteed.
There are two types of accounting profit commonly talked about in analysing business performance, gross profit and net profit, but practically net profit is the aim of business and what is usually being referred to when someone uses the word "profit" in a business context, where your examples leaned more on gross profit.
To explain, revenue is generally made by selling or leasing something (e.g. goods or services), whether directly to consumers, or to other businesses.
Whatever that product is, it needs to be sold for more than it cost to make/buy or the business will go under eventually. For a shop, they buy goods for less than they sell them, and we often call the difference between those two figures "the mark-up" if applied to the cost of the product or "margin" if applied to the selling price, and the accounting term for the profit from this is gross profit.
For example, a dairy buys a box of 24 x 600mL bottles of Coke from Coca-Cola for $2 per bottle = $48 for the box, and sells them for $4 each = $96.
In this example, the mark-up is 100% of the cost, the margin is 50% of the price, and the gross profit is $2 per bottle = $48 per box.
For simplicity, this ignores GST, and issues with the stock like waste (e.g. expired product), mistakes (e.g. errors on the till), theft etc.
Now we pay other expenses like wages and overheads e.g. lease/rental costs, utilities etc. out of the gross profit, and the remainder is net profit. The percentage of net profit compared to revenue is often also called the margin. From net profit, tax is paid, and then we decide what to do with the rest of it (distribute to owners, reinvest in the business, retain as cash buffer etc.).
This is obviously a highly simplified example, but hopefully helps give an idea.
In a shop, higher wages require one or more of higher gross profit, savings in other expenses, higher productivity and/or lower net profit.
Higher gross profit can be a result of either or both of:
Higher mark-up/margin from higher prices and/or lower costs (e.g. in the above example, Coca-Cola offers a cheap deal or a free box of product)
Higher volumes
Lower expenses is harder, but some examples are shopping around for cheaper utilities or moving location to somewhere with cheaper rent.
Higher productivity is essentially staff taking less time for the same amount of work/output e.g. installing a self-checkout reduces the staff time required for the same sales, and the savings could be put towards higher wages.
Lower net profit requires the employer to accept less money which is unlikely but might happen if there is a labour shortage or a union involved.
this is paywalled, so I can't see the context, but upshot appears to be that gas companies are saying that meeting climate obligations will cost them money. Yes, that's exactly what happens when we spend decades ignoring the advice and cautions. What I want to know is how much profit those companies are making and what is being done with that? Their business model needs to change.
I put up this example because it demonstrates a clear conflict between public good and the profit-drive business model. There are people who want to make money even if it costs us everything.
Ignore the money for a moment and consider what those assets are…..they underpin our lives currently and remain needed until replaced by something other even if nationalised, and many already are.
yes. However, at some point the idea that we have to have x service because we already have it, is not going to work. The sooner we talk about that, the better. We have time to change currently (no-one is saying remove all gas this year), but there will come a point when we don't.
Like the gas companies, we've all had plenty of warning.
FF for energy and cement production peaked in 2005 and are now at 1986 levels per capita,6.94t (co2 euiv) in 2020 vs 6.94t in 1986.Every wind farmed that has been installed has replaced FF generation.(little excess generation as consumption matches generation on avge.)
The government thinking on the stranded assets (gas lines and pumps etc) is that there will be some use in the reticulation systems for biogas,and or methanol.( Biogas coming from the central plateau) You do not remove infrastructure that may have alternative uses.
I meant gas supply, not infrastructure. Afaik new installs are banned from 2025.
My point remains. People can lament that they need gas, but there will be no gas when civilisation collapses so it's a moot point. We need to shift our thinking to 'how can we transition?', not "we can't transition because…'
we no how we can transition,it was in the released statements as well as pre announced.The limits for energy transition are on unexpected external costs and delays,high NZ construction costs (20% inflation last 12 months),RMA delays in the planning stage.
There needs to be either a large delay in large scale projects,or an increased series of smaller projects as distribution can contain costs.
Rule 1 is not to have excessive high capital costs in an energy project,as the costs will be inflationary.
The transition from gas to electric supply isn't quite as simple and straightforward as just buying a new appliance.
Fine for cooking and heating (you can switch to an electric stove, and get electric heating/heat pump). Just costs extra $$$ for appliances – but can schedule as part of appliance lifecycle.
But water isn't anything like as straightforward. Houses with gas hotwater systems do not have the inbuilt space to install a hotwater cylinder for electric generation. This may require very expensive retrofitting, or may actually not be possible in some units/apartments without infringing on the neighbours, or significantly reducing your living space.
My comment wasnt so much directed that people are unwilling (though i believe most are) it was more that we dont have either the wherewithal or the time to make the transition WHILE maintaining a semblance of order while we go from one paradigm to the other…and ultimately we dont understand the limitations the reduced energy consumption implies….but nevermind, we will find out soon enough.
This may require very expensive retrofitting, or may actually not be possible in some units/apartments without infringing on the neighbours, or significantly reducing your living space.
Out door DHW heat pumps. $5/6K. Three times or more efficient than gas or conventional electric water heating so they'll pay for themselves pretty damn quickly.
My comment wasnt so much directed that people are unwilling (though i believe most are) it was more that we dont have either the wherewithal or the time to make the transition WHILE maintaining a semblance of order while we go from one paradigm to the other…
I disagree. The pace at which we locked down in March 2020 suggests that we can in fact make change fast. Different order of things, but chaos didn't ensue.
and ultimately we dont understand the limitations the reduced energy consumption implies
In what way? I've been in peak oil and then climate circles for more than a decade, and this is pretty well understood. Transition Towns and permaculture circles take a more proactive view and design systems that already powering down.
The biggest elemental price increases since its last update at the end of 2021 were for stairs and balustrades, which went up 17.4% due to increases in precast concrete and structural steel, followed by substructure (10.1%), site preparation (9.7%), framework (8.3%), and windows and exterior doors (8%).
Oh come on. We don't have to build houses the way we do. We know that concrete is going to become less viable as we get closer to catastrophe, and we know that we don't have a future proofed supply of steel. So keep those things for essentials and start developing building practices that work within the limits.
Retrofit existing buildings rather than replacing them.
Stop throwing large amounts of build materials in the dump and set up systems for reuse.
Build from timber. Transition our forestry to take account of this.
Develop other materials that can sit alongside that.
and so on.
We don't have a shortage of houses in NZ. We have a shortage of available rentals and buys. There are so many ways we could start to live within our limits, we just don't want to (or lack the imagination of how)
Belladonna, we have a long time to resolve those problems. And, every new build in most places in NZ should have passive solar design, including solar hot water.
This may require very expensive retrofitting, or may actually not be possible in some units/apartments without infringing on the neighbours, or significantly reducing your living space.
Out door DHW heat pumps. $5/6K. Three times or more efficient than gas or conventional electric water heating so they'll pay for themselves pretty damn quickly.
So just how do you fit these into an apartment complex? Or a townhouse where the only outside space is nowhere near the required plumbing?
The point is that there are some dwellings which don't have outside space usable. And their inside space requires 13 m2 clear space – which is quite a lot out of a small apartment.
6K (plus whatever is required for installation) is also a really high up-front cost. Your water-heating costs would have to be in the range of $10/month in order for it to pay off over 10 years. Which I doubt.
Do you have a link to the 3x more efficient claim? I suspect that is in relation to conventional hw systems, not gas.
NYT piece on the legacy of Neutron Jack, the father of excessive profits.
And in more than 100 conversations for “The Man Who Broke Capitalism,” my new book, from which this article is adapted, a broad range of people said some version of the same thing: While it has been more than two decades since Mr. Welch was C.E.O. of G.E., his legacy still affects millions of American households.
Almost immediately after Mr. Welch retired in September 2001 with a $417 million severance package, G.E. went into a tailspin from which it would never recover.
His pupils, though, went on to run dozens of other major companies, including Home Depot, Albertson’s, Chrysler and Boeing. Most of them failed.
And in the decades since Mr. Welch assumed power, the economy at large has come to resemble his skewed priorities. Wages stagnated and jobs moved overseas. C.E.O. pay went stratospheric and buybacks and dividends boomed. Factories closed and companies found ways to pay fewer taxes
I have not heard any MP's define what "excessive profit " is. It makes me wonder if David Clark and other Labour MP's thinks anything above break even would be an 'excessive profit'.
Not sure why Weka doesn't understand your last paragraph…seems perfectly clear. If I had $100 billion it would have been better to put in a term deposit (risk free) at 2% and earned $2 billion (instead of risking in a business venture and only earning $1 billion or 1%).
For the supermarkets, the Commerce Commission defined it by comparison to equivalent overseas markets as the starting point (I say starting point because obviously things like distance/shipping costs and NZ regulation/legislation can be factors as well). That's probably as useful a definition as any for NZ.
Back when I was looking at buying a business, most business brokers considered a standard annual return on investment (ROI) to be 25% (to take into account risk), so that's a figure that could be used as a benchmark, perhaps increased for high-risk areas like cafes.
We have a new Mary Whitehouse prospect and she is no prude and looking for a husband, she will never ever divorce.
Her name is Louise Perry and she writes for the New Statesperson.
And the feminist bible for the 21stC (her book) is called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century.
Channeling every feminists inner Jordan Peterson she cites evolutionary theory
Perhaps Perry’s most revolutionary move is to take apart the predominant feminist idea that rape is always about power, not sex – and turn to evolutionary theory.
She argues that men and women are biologically different and that rape is somehow hard-wired into some males.
She is facing head on the idea that rape cannot be stopped by “consent workshops” and rapists re-socialised. This is patently not working.
So she argues for women to opt out of enabling porn, legalised prostitution, drinking and hook-up dating apps (seeing these as part of rape culture) and encourages separation from men until marriage – and of course she opposes on demand divorce. She cites all the statistics about the declining rate of marriage and prefers church marriages to those with celebrants.
She is so clearly offering herself to man who wants a church wedding to a feminist.
A bit like Christabel Pankhurst
Christabel urged abstention for men and women alike and argued vehemently against lowering high standards of sexual morality. She insisted that the suffragist's political militancy must be coupled with a lifestyle which was both sexually and morally above reproach. In her book on prostitution and VD, The Great Scourge, she summarized the behavioral mandates inherent in her theories in the slogan, "Votes for women, chastity for men!"
By this time, a trace of racism had crept into Christabel's theories and policies. She began to argue that because male lust would lead to the degeneration of racial strength and the production of half-caste children, this eventually would weaken the British Empire. Therefore, women needed the vote for racial reasons as well as for personal ones because they had "a service to render to the state as well as the home, to the race as well as the family."
While in Paris, Christabel also joined the lesbian feminist circle led by Princess Edmond de Polignac (Winnaretta Singer ), but there is no indication that she ever adopted a gay lifestyle.***
In Confession #1, "Why I never Married," she explained that she had remained single in order to demonstrate "my own personal unending unyieldingness as a leader."
When Christabel Pankhurst visited her mother in Canada and the United States in 1921, she became increasingly interested in Second Adventism, a movement which proclaimed the Second Coming of Christ. In 1922, she published her first Second Adventist books (The Lord Commeth! and Pressing Problems of the Closing Age) … In The Fighting Pankhursts, David Mitchell argues that "in the U.S. and Canada, Christabel Pankhurst raised Second Adventism almost single-handedly from its backstreet fundamentalist rut, lending it a dull gleam of intellectual prestige."
I can't see men and women having changed that much.
What has changed is disruptor tech in the sex space. We see it cause massive social damage in communication (Facebook/Twitter), housing (AirBnb), travel (Uber), and food (Uber Eats).
And so Tinder, etc, is also emboldening both men and women into very high risk situations. Is swiping right seen as tacit consent by many under developed brains?
I do agree with Perry that dating apps encourage rape culture, or at least don't do anything to reduce it.
Not so many years ago the advice on first dates was to go to a safe place to vet the guy. Before then last century the female was most at risk when drunk and alone at off licence gatherings.
Now it's leaving bars/night clubs with someone they had just met (esp if not looking out for spiked drinks), or the hook up app – maybe people might consider using one where guys get rated for risk (screening on registering and on site hook up inter-action feedback).
What has changed more fundamentally is the law – removing the lawfulness of being allowed to rape your wife and the willingness to talk about it.
I don't think we can ever know how much previous generations raped their spouses and partners. It was lawful and not talked about. I'm aware of one old acquaintance long since passed who was raped repeatedly on her wedding night, left, was returned to the marriage the next day by her parents and was raped practically every night (period, pregnant – didn't matter). She left once she got a pension at 60 and had her first income.
A friend was raped in her workplace at 17. Never reported to the police, her family to this day don't know and she will never tell them. Still suffers emotionally 40 years later from that and the other violence that occurred at the time.
It's a different world now. Having talked in my younger years to quite a few older women about this stuff I definitely think it is better. There is a certain rose tint to looking at the past that can hide how bad it was for many.
James K Baxter's letters revealed some of this past norm. And for those who think it wasn't a norm should think about why it was legally protected for so long if it wasn't.
In it Baxter writes: "Sex relations with wife resumed. This at least gives some common ground to stand on to clear up difficulties. Achieved by rape. From a very clear knowledge no other way could break down J's reservations & that she was gradually shoving herself round the bend. She seems ten times happier in herself. But it looks as if each new act will have to repeat the rape pattern."
Have seen a bit of that in researching our family tree and it was not just wives, sometimes it was daughters as well. Once I was an adult, my aunts opened up a bit more about life as children and it sure sounded like there were some older male relatives who were to be given a wide berth, including avoiding their company without another adult chaperone.
There's been a noticeable increase in porn access for younger people.
Porn itself has become more extreme and violent.
It is reasonable to theorise that this, along with what you have mentioned has had some influence on sexual attitudes and behaviours, which also influence social public behaviours.
I've recently done a lot of reading on the porn topic, and it's a really different landscape now from when I was young.
It's hard to see how it wouldn't impact, and unfortunately the effect seems to be negative.
Well. We have just had a whole bunch of people on here, claim that watching movies, especially violent military fantasies, have no effect on behaviour.
So. Are they going to argue todays violent and over the top, porn, equally has no effect??
Certainly different from our youth. Hunting out National Geographics to find naked breasts.
"Well. We have just had a whole bunch of people on here, claim that watching movies, especially violent military fantasies, have no effect on behaviour."
Missed that, thankfully, (Was probably busy reading about porn…)
"Certainly different from our youth. Hunting out National Geographics to find naked breasts."
Not my inclination, but I agree.
It's a Brave New World out there in respect to porn.
One item I read was a statistic on young people who used porn as a model for their own sexual behaviours. IIRC it was over 30% for young women, and over 50 % for young men.
(I'll adjust/correct this if I can find the source, doing a mixture of digital and print media)
Gonzo porn is a leader in porn viewership, and it is typically violent and misogynistic in nature. It's a real concern.
Which gives the lie to the right wing fantasy about "hordes of teenage mums on benefits”. More knowledge must help in that regard.
However I was rather shocked going back to High school, as a Teacher, how much open dis-respect that exists now between young people. All the education about consent, respect and the rest, doesn't seem to be gelling.
The younger people are, the more difficulty they have in distinguishing between acting and real life. Plenty of evidence that youngsters shouldn’t be exposed to porn. How you do that, is a problem that is likely unfixable.
Has anyone seen the bit where Joe Biden tells Ardern that her "addiction to wasteful spending" has caused global inflation? I heard a whisper that he was especially agitated about a "slow train to Hamilton". I've tried to find it – but no luck.
the idea that men can be feminine is to be supported. But what those two are doing is colonisation. Jeffrey wants girls to transcend their sex, this is misogyny. If you are NB, you can't be girl. Be feminine (adopt expressions not traditionally allowed for men), but don't co-opt girlhood.
And at the very least, grow the fuck up and stop blurring the line between children, adults and sexuality. That's me giving them the benefit of the doubt.
There will of course be people who think this is prudish, or transphobic, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt too that they don't know about the history of PIE, or men with their sexual fetishes on display in the kids tent at Pride, or naked with the child drag queens, or the push for acceptance of non-practicing pedophiles and so on. All this is happening openly and publicly and the left is see no evil monkey going lalala. Oh yeah, and rainbow dildo butt monkey.
The blurring of multiple lines, due to the unquestioning acceptance of Queer Theory is leading to multiple safeguarding and unconsented involvement in sexual acts, such as exhibitionism, indecent exposure and humiliation fetishes.
Pride events, originally intended to show that homosexuality was a sexual orientation, not a sexual behaviour, in some countries, has morphed into a bizarre display of adult sexual fetishes and exhibitionism that many gays and lesbians want no part of.
Public invitations are issued to families to bring kids to let them learn about diversity. Wider public funding often supports such events.
The tweet below is a breaking of child safeguarding principles at a Pride parade.
Upthread, is another unverified origin dogging fetish image. Didn't want to post it directly on TS. You'll understand why if you view. It looks to be in a public space, and a more extreme version of the one with the small girl.
The major child safeguarding breach has already happened though in the first picture. From then on it's a question of degrees. The introduction, familiarisation and normalisation of adult sexual behaviours and fetishes for that child has already taken place..
NZ is not here, thank goodness, but neither was the UK at one point.
The other issue here is that when one performs one's kink in public, it can be a sexual act without consent from the people nearby. This is another line being crossed and eroded without any political or social scrutiny (apart from GC people online). This matters for obvious consent reasons (and we're still not good at that) and also because if you take the kids out of the picture there are still issues for adults and this erosion in the name of sex positivity then also plays into child safeguarding.
We're a long way from the privacy of one's bedroom concepts.
The driver had returned to their vehicle on Willis St on Tuesday evening to find a flyer on the windscreen saying “your gas guzzler kills”.
The flyer said the tyres had been deflated, but a check of the vehicle didn’t reveal any apparent damage.
However, the driver nearly crashed just past the Porirua off ramp, on Transmission Gully, when one of their tyres deflated.
A source involved in the investigation said a stone, or piece of gravel, was screwed into the valve cap, causing a slow deflation of the tyre.
It follows directions given by the global Tyre Extinguishers group…
Activism that targets and attempts attempts to shame random individuals is a self-indulgent performatice farce. (And wilfully malicious and dangerous.)
The hard work is getting the public on side when demanding institutional and regulatory reform, These 'acts' will not help.
Heavens! This could so easily have resulted in a death – either the people in the vehicle or some other random member of the public – in another vehicle or a cyclist/pedestrian.
If caught, I'd hope to see them prosecuted severely – attempted manslaughter, perhaps. A deliberate action, taken with the foreknowledge that severe harm could result. The 'gravel-in-the-valve-cap' action can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to have a tyre deflate while driving – massively increasing the risk to the people in the vehicle and everyone around it.
This is an entirely 'forseeable' result from their illegal action. Illegal, because they don't own the car and are tampering with the safe operation of it.
I think that there was something similar a few years ago – with 1080 protestors loosening the nuts on the wheels of DOC worker cars, which was referred to the police, but I don't know the outcome.
Silly is letting down tyres. Criminally dangerous is jamming gravel in the valve, so the tyre only deflates while being driven.
Also cowardly. Protestors chaining themselves to drilling rigs or gluing themselves to roads (XR in Britain) have the courage of their convictions – they're prepared to be arrested, tried and even sentenced for their actions. These cowards can't even sign their own threats.
What was 'unintended' about the consequences? They clearly (through their actions) wanted the tyre to deflate while the car was being driven. Nothing unintended about that.
Consider this: a "tyre extinguisher" inserts gravel into a valve so that they can scarper while the noisy deflation takes place. They do not imagine for a moment that the tire might deflate at a later date. They are horrified by the outcome.
I'm only speculating, as you are, but can you show that your theory is more valid than mine?
OK. I can buy your possible scenario. Though the sound of escaping air isn't particularly loud (as anyone who's actually pumped up a tyre knows).
[Not that I think it’s likely – and it makes them out to be fairly stupid, in the best of lights.]
If they are actually horrified at the outcome. I confidently look forward to them handing themselves in at the local police station, and owning their actions.
I don't believe that they wanted the car to be driven while it was still deflating. But they do appear to have been negligent on this. There's the idea that the NZ flier told the driver it was dangerous to drive, but I haven't seen evidence of that. Had a look at the UK version and it says nothing of the sort.
From the Tyre Extinguisher's pamphlet (thanks, Molly).
"The whole process should take about 10 seconds."
I am not condoning their behaviour, just clarifying their intentions/expectations around the use of gravel (or lentils 🙂
Any protest action could have serious outcomes; a driver, distracted by the placard a protester is holding aloft, could crash. A person with a heart-condition, apoplectic with rage could suffer cardiac arrest at the sight of children marching against climate change, etc.
Messing with tyres though, has proved more serious than (I bet) the Tyre Extinguishers first thought.
a woman needing to take her sick child to the doctor suddenly, in the rain in the middle of winter, goes out and finds the tyres deflated on her car. TE believe that "you will have no difficulty getting around without your gas guzzler, with walking, cycling or public transport".
The whole strategy looks flawed from the start. I'm guessing young men (and probably some older ones) who didn't run this past the Aunties first.
Sadly, this escalation into 'extreme, violent and utterly stupid' actions by protestors, is likely to be met by equally escalating responses from their victims.
that's a different issue imo. The TE action is problematic in who it targets and how it does it.
The HS2 protest is pretty standard blockade (looking at that video) and the security guards are clearly assaulting them. You're always going to get people who don't support the protest being angry about it, but business are legit protest targets. We desperately need a lot of such protests to wake people up. They're non-violent.
The security guards aren't victims, nor are businesses. In some cases we can argue that workers are, but if they're still being paid and keeping their jobs that's a harder argument.
Public perception is a big part of whether protests work or not, but negative reactions aren't inherently bad. I don't know enough about the HS2 protests to have a sense of how they are going. I don't think stopping those kinds of actions is warranted though.
The impact of the action was either to shame or aggravate the very members of the public they should be persuaded to aid in political, regulatory or institutional change.
The dangerous consequences of interfering with a motor vehicles ability to travel safely were apparent.
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
There are now only a few days left to give feedback on the Draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport 2024-34 (see our earlier post this week on GPS submission guides). As we’ve reported, the GPS is a disaster for Local Government, so we were particularly interested to hear ...
Willis has pledged to go ahead with the debt-funded tax cuts, despite growing opposition from her own supporters worried about appearing fiscally irresponsible. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for ...
Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
1. Who has just been given the accolade New Zealander of the Year?a. The Kokakob. The Cook Strait Ferryc. Fair God. Dr Jim Salinger 2. Which of these is an affront to decent society?a. Dame Edna Everageb. Mrs Doubtfire c. Dr. Frank-N-Furterd. Brian 3. Who is Penny Simmonds?a. The aspiring actress in Big ...
New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
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 ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The cruelty of short-term memory loss is that each time you ask where she is, you get the fresh shock and grief of the news. That was Dad's day yesterday.Comfortingly, it seems to be less so today. Last night he looked crumpled, today he seems more settled. There's a card ...
Photo by Alvan Nee on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 29 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellsford, Onehunga, Westhaven marina – Gavin Strawhan walks the meanish streets of New Zealand in his entertaining debut novel The Call, almost sure to roar into the number 1 position on the Nielsen bestseller chart, its front cover bearing a rave from somebody: “A really good and genuinely ...
On a Thursday in February, at Wellington’s Conservation House, the Conservation Authority, a statutory body advising the eponymous department and minister, Tama Potaka, opened its 195th meeting. Under consideration that afternoon was an agenda item written by Tim Bamford, chief advisor in the Department of Conservation’s biodiversity, heritage and visitors ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Thursday 28 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
I'm glad I don't live in South Auckland. It's like the wild west now.
At least there were no ram raids last night.
Auckland shootings: Person reportedly injured in drive-by shooting overnight – NZ Herald
You might like Top Gun.
Yep enjoyed the original and will try to see the new one this weekend.
I’m sure you will enjoy it as much as the Wild West and South Auckland.
Jimmy-I think that is the first time anyone has been hit in the drive by shootings-correct?
I think one was just grazed. But if I was this bloke, I would be feeling pretty lucky and would be down the road buying a Lotto ticket!
Auckland gang feud: Flatmates shot at eating dinner, one injured – NZ Herald
Agreed….but the whole thing seems a bit weird….more warning shots than genuine attempts to kill/injure.
I think with the gangs its about intimidation. You just never feel safe in your own home and never know when the bullets are going to come flying through the windows. Should you open your curtains or too risky.
I guess the verdict in the Depp vs. Heard is a warning that fame, hubris and believing your own bullshit sometimes won't save you from a jury.
I have no doubt that Heard and Depp had an absolutely awful time together, but quite why they simply can't admit it was a disastrous decision to get married, that they both went places they didn't think they were capable of going and just flush the dunny, take the lessons and move on older, wiser and a bit sadder I don't know. Now Heard will be forever championed as a victim by every freaking middle class postmodern feminist with a newspaper column and Depp will be legally vindicated, but never quite rehabilitated. Mud sticks, where there is smoke there is fire, etc etc etc.
But both of them are now reputationally ruined and will probably never find really lucrative work again. Everyone lost except the lawyers and the media circus reporting on it.
Is it too long a bow to connect this with this story and lament that we live in a world where it is always someone else's fault for your acts of commission or omission?
Agree. I have champions on both sides in my family.
I've resorted to the response, that I think they both behaved badly in the relationship, and I don't see any need for the media to report on the details of that behaviour – nor do I want to know!
And in relation to the Otago incident:
While I would like more ‘joined up’ care of the elderly – it is indeed challenging when there are multiple agencies involved – none of whom talk to each other, and all of whom rely on an often elderly, unwell or confused, patient to co-ordinate the care.
The excuse of ‘privacy legislation’ has a lot to answer for.
In this case, the daughter is clearly deflecting from the evident fact that neither she nor any other family member made any effort to contact her mother, or sound the alarm, in the weeks after she left hospital.
It’s always easiest to blame ‘somebody else’
I have not followed the court case. I am only aware it was 5 men and 2 women that made the decision to decide she defamed him by accusing him of domestic abuse and that this was malicious. Which means she is now bankrupt.
Being an angry drunk is not domestic abuse but just cause for a divorce.
I think an industry critic put it best, his career was already effectively over because he turned up at work not knowing his lines and getting angry on set.
I don't know if feminists will champion Heard as a victim, but they will be more wary of the law being used to silence women who make claims about abuse.
In Sweden there were a dozen cases where women who made public assault accusations were put on trial, and all were convicted.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/05/06/in-sweden-defamation-claims-against-metoo-raise-fears-of-a-return-to-the-culture-of-silence_5982637_4.html
https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/03/09/saying-metoo-in-the-swedish-legal-system-the-importance-of-believing-women/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/15/opinion/cissi-wallin-fredrik-virtanen-metoo-sweden.html
I hadn't actually followed it that much, but from the little I did see it was kind of obvious while he might be considered a bit of a weirdo by some, she could equally be considered a bit of a nutbar. (I am in the later camp btw. She obviously has issues)
Wouldn't have wanted to be on a jury dealing in a case with 2 actors. Their living is making people believe they are not who they are. We are talking about a dude who made it look right there would be a dude with scissors for hands.
I think at the end of the day the right decision was made, but she ain't going to do their careers any favours. Though he will probably still be alright, as he is a money drawing machine.
If it were me and I was Depp and worth, even after throwing away so much money, and still worth 150 – 250 million would say "Keep the cash. I don't want to make you destitute", just to rub it in.
Sanctuary says .. both of them are reputationally ruined and will probably never find really lucrative work again .. ha ha ha ha, thanks for the giggle at your ignorant statement. Did you not read the news that Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese and Quenton Tarintino are all lining up to get Mr Depp in their next movies?
I wonder how many of this woman’s outrageous unverified propaganda stories our local war promotors Joe 90, Jenny How to get There and others have gleefully covered these pages with?…quite a few I would imagine….. some of these Standard commentators would do themselves this site and the cause of the Ukrainian people a service, if they closely read and take note of some of the contents of the open letter published by Ukrainian media on the subject of propaganda…some of which is pasted below.
Ukraine Official Fired Over Handling of Russian Sexual Assault Claims
"The move to dismiss Denisova came after outrage about the wording used in public reports about alleged sexual assaults committed by Russians, as well as the alleged dissemination in those reports of unverified information"
"Ukrainian media outlets and journalists signed an open letter in which they requested that reports concerning rape and sexual assault be "published with caution,"
""it is important to understand that sexual crimes during war are an instrument of genocide, an instrument of waging war without rules, but they cannot serve as illustrative material to inflame the emotions of the audience."
“one member of the Ukrainian parliament, Pavlo Frolov, provided a number of reasons why Denisova was removed, including “the numerous details of ‘unnatural sexual offenses’ and child sexual abuses in the occupied territories, which were unsupported by evidence and only harmed Ukraine.”
https://www.newsweek.com/lyudmila-denisova-ukraine-commissioner-human-rights-removed-russian-sexual-assault-claims-1711680
[stop taking pot shots at other commenters. You’ve already been warned about this. Next time you can expect a ban. If you can’t stick to the politics then you will lose your commenting privileges. Personally, I’m also sick of your patronising tone. – weka]
Shows the Ukrainian govt authorities have a good deal more integrity and probity than than Russia – whose state run media pundits are routinely talking up in the most grotesque, irresponsible terms nuclear attack on NATO.
mod note.
and to focus your mind, the conversation in the backend will now be about how long a ban. Last ban for the same thing was only a month ago, and it was for a week. You seem to be ignoring moderation, so my feeling is to give a much longer educational ban and so mods can stop wasting our time on this.
You are a long term commenter here, you know how the place works. Stop attacking or taking potshots at other commenters (hint: just stop talking about other commenters altogether), stick to the politics. Pay attention to what moderators says. If you are unclear, ask for clarification. Reread the Policy (top of the page).
OK fair enough I will take that on board…a question for you though.. doesn’t concern you that some very regular people here on TS, almost every day copy and paste wholly unsubstituted stories (propaganda) on the Ukraine conflict? and it is often of a revolting nature. And so lazily done, that they just paste up tweets straight from people like Lyudmila Denisova without a thought or bothering to take even a moment to check its authenticity….or a thought to the integrity of TS platform for that matter.
I have often asked these people for verification to the claims,, but of course am just ignored.
BTW my email address looks to be correct.
'integrity'
He who claimed victimhood over my calling him names repeatedly continues his name calling and attempts at calling out all who oppose his obsessional unwavering dedication to HIS TRUTH AND ONLY HIS TRUTH.
Which is something like: Russia's OK, just roll over and expose your belly.
When I'm grasping for straws there's generally a milkshake at hand.
did you see the bit about not attacking other commenters? That applies to everyone. Give it a rest, the mods have this in hand.
@DB Brown…I have never in my life claimed victimhood on anything, anywhere at any time…so how about you put up a link.
You are probably referring to the time when you began swearing at me on this site one evening….almost like that evening you really liked that DB Brown just a bit to much.
I actually thought that was pretty funny.
[no way am I spending time today on a flame war. I told you to focus on the politics and not the other commenters. You can clearly see that I told DB to leave it alone, yet here you are poking it with a stick. You appear to not understand what is happening here, but I am sick of explaining it and you’ve been told in the past. One month ban. – weka]
mod note. My very strong suggestion is you pay attention to what mods are saying to you and consider what this site is for.
Here ya go.
/
Russian state outlet TASS reported Monday that an initial cargo of 2,700 tonnes of Ukrainian steel would be shipped some 100 miles from Mariupol to the Russian port of Rostov-on-Don. No commercial transaction or payment for the cargo was mentioned; the nearest producer, Mariupol's massive Azovstal plant, was destroyed and seized after a monthslong siege.
Metinvest, the Ukrainian owner and operator of Azovstal, has accused Russian forces of stealing its products from the seaport.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/russian-state-media-confirms-extraction-of-grain-steel-from-ukraine
https://rossaprimavera-ru.translate.goog/news/6213fe34?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Did you see this joe ? from your link , The Truman Show very interesting article concerning the fantasy concoction part of the Ukraine story .
https://rossaprimavera-ru.translate.goog/article/6453b6f5?utm_source=widget&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
And the relevance to the innate corruption and dishonesty of the Russian invaders is…?
Relevance ? What was the relevance of your comment in the first place ?oh right russians are thieves etc etc etc etc etc kinda boring joe .Pretty obvious the russians having just got the port open again wouldve just loaded the first ship with anything they could find lying around and in that regard they wouldve been able to find any amount of scrap steel if once upon a time it belonged to the ukrainians id say it was the least of their worries !
The point about the article The Truman Show is that it completely dissects the whole Zelensky fantasy show revealing the shabby truth behind the facade of course its just one persons opinion but the author obviously knows his stuff and presents a very compelling and imo far more ' relevant ' take than yours for example.
Thanks for the link much obliged !!
Why do you continue to excuse the murderous thugs?
Read the article maybe you'll figure out why?
Weak.
I don't follow the Russian invasion of the Ukraine discussions, including on TS, so I literally don't know what you are talking about. If you have a problem you want to point out to the mods, then explain it clearly and provide direct links.
If instead you are saying that people on TS post politics that you disagree with, welcome to the club, we're all in that position. This is the point of TS. Authors put up posts, people get to discuss that, we have a robust debate ethic which means that people can argue hard. We have some rules around providing evidence for claims of fact, but people are free to express their opinion about whatever they choose.
If you believe that something someone has posted has no basis on fact, then the mahi is for you to demonstrate how. Put up your own arguments, your own links and explain what is wrong with someone's argument.
(saying that someone's source is inauthentic isn't enough, you have to explain how)
If you find people are ignoring you, perhaps consider that this is at least in part related to your own behaviours. The patronising tone I've mentioned, and the attacking people. Calling people lazy. And so on.
It's hard to know how deep the manipulation of public discourse is. The bottom has never been found.
After all, there is such a thing as truth ~ Victor Serge
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1531889802001391616.html
No need to wonder any more Adrian, I can tell you exactly how many. For me, personally, exactly zero.
Because of the 'Fog Of War', because I know propaganda is tool of war for all sides.
I have deliberately avoided discussions of atrocities which are disputed, For instance I have never got involved in the disputes over the alleged massacre In Bucha.
And instead have concentrated on evidence that can't be disputed or denied. Like for instance the destruction of Homs, and I have put up this evidence and asked the question of apologists for Russian and Assad atrocities, if this is not evidence of genocide? Not one of you have ever had the courage to venture an opinion.
Putting up evidence of blasted cities, evidence which cannot be denied, or explained away, or excused, is always met with silence.
Only recently have I strayed from this policy. It was after I saw the video and read the evidence of the Tadamon massacre. And immediately I realised that the evidence of this act of genocide, like the flattening of cities, was also irrefutable.
I have only one message that I want you, and the others like you to hear, Adrian. They are the words spoken by the Russian speaking villagers of Eastern Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgmKygmkqSA
.
Doesn't make the Pootinistas the good guys.
If you change your email address in the field, the system treats you as a new commenter and holds back the comment. Please keep a record of what email address you are using.
I think I reentered my usual email address because it was blank. I am an ignoramus in these matters though.
you’ve changed your email address (it used to be a shorter version). This is why I said keep a copy, so if you don’t post for a while you can remember what it is. Lots of people use fake addresses, that’s not a problem. Using a new or altered one does what I said above.
What does that even mean?…and how does that relate in any way to my comment?
Maybe you meant to say something like this…yes the Russians probably don’t rape babies but you just remember they are still the baddies…
I read that as a response (from Weka) to Gabby not to Adrian Thornton.
people on a mobile can switch to the Desktop version if they want to see comments properly nested and tell who is replying to whom. Link at the bottom of every page.
Genocidal thugs are threatening Europe, again.
https://twitter.com/SenatorMarkDaly/status/1532073563435724800
Russian parliament member Oleg Matveychev then sent a chilling warning to Poland, declaring its borders would be “worthless” if it chooses to intervene more directly in the conflict.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/a-real-war-has-started-russian-state-media-warns-nato-nations-against-assisting-ukraine/I6A4PP2CR2I7MM7WCJEAYG5OHM/
Some of that Russian media is nuts.
I have seen some in the Russian media saying things like, that not to worry about a nuclear war. Because we all have to die some day. And that all the Russians who die in a nuclear war will go to heaven but those who die in the West will go to hell.
With the lack of MSM fair coverage of the PM it is refreshing to read Jo Moir's more balanced approach. Her take on the Oval Office visit was a case in point.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/the-twists-and-turns-of-six-minutes-in-the-oval-office?utm_source=Friends+of+the+Newsroom&utm_campaign=825adace1a-Daily_Briefing+02.06.2022&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-825adace1a-95522477
A phrase I hear bandied around a lot by mainly left-wing politicians is the phrase "excessive profits".
I thought what better place to ask the question about how to determine whether profits are "excessive" or not.
From a right wing perspective, profits reflect factors such as, competition in the market, the need to generate capital for future growth, the need to cover risk, and return on the assets invested compared to less risky options.
So, one billion in profit might seem like a lot. But, if it is known that the organisation is making that return on $100 billion of invested assets (1% return), and the environment is highly risky, then the organisation may have been better to have not been in the market at all, and have left its money in the bank.
Profit is for things like
I don't get your last paragraph, an example would help. How can excessive be judged out of context?
The example I gave demonstrates the concept of a "safe"profit.
So, lets say a business has a profit of $1000 on $50000 turnover. It doesn't take much to go wrong for that profit to be wiped out and switched into a loss. So, profits need to be large enough to account for the risk involved.
In some markets, where businesses have extremely good controls, and there is a high degree of predictability, then they can likely operate on much lower profit margins because their risk is a lot lower.
For instance, for all the stick that Supermarkets get, they actually generate very low profits in percentage terms. They aim to make their profits on high volume. The reason they are able to survive on such low margins is that they have such good controls.
Most smaller businesses wouldn’t have anything like that degree of efficiency, and so would need a much higher profit margin in most cases.
How would you assess the big banks profits and their cost of.. capital?
It looks like banks have fairly thin margins as well.
I would expect that to be the case as the market is very competitive and banks essentially operate in a cost-plus type environment. So, fixed term loans are backed by the same term loans the banks are financed by, and floating rates adjust automatically.
And they tend to be larger organisations with strong control structures, so they shouldn't often be hit by unexpected costs that erode their position.
In the US, the ROE (return on equity) for banks was recently 5.31%.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040815/what-level-return-equity-common-company-banking-sector.asp
So better than “leaving their money in the bank”, especially since they are already banks!!
To my mind both banks and supermarkets are highly-evolved versions of that eternal parasite – the clever, sly middleman.
Squeeze the suppliers, and pay them the least possible. Then squeeze the end-customer so that they pay the most possible.
Whilst doing so, build a dissembling structure to make it all seem fair, and so disguise the actual profit-gouging.
Little changes over time…
So far as supermarkets go, I think we need to change our price expectations as consumers if we want suppliers treated fairly. That implies better prices for suppliers, which means higher prices for consumers.
And again, the middleman's profit-gouging is out of sight..
The first two of those have to be covered by revenue rather than profit as they are ongoing expenses. The second two are definitely funded out of profit though. The other main uses for profit are income tax and distribution to owners who normally expect a higher return than term deposit interest rates to make it worth the effort.
Is that accounting semantics? If a company has money left over, why wouldn't they spend it on increasing wages or extra overheads?
I was thinking of those as overheads, but I'm not a business person so am probably using the wrong language 🙂
Employee salaries are op-ex, because it's a cost of doing business.
[NB: this is why so many businesses were potentially in strife during the Covid lockdowns, since salaries are paid out of revenue. No money coming in, means no money to pay employees]
Would the employees be equally keen to have their wages cut if the company isn't doing so well? That's what happens to shareholders – there's no dividend given in a bad year.
What (I think) you're getting at here is some form of profit sharing model. Where employees share in the overall profit of the company at the end of the financial year. Some firms do this – often through a bonus scheme.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/010915/how-does-revenue-sharing-work-practice.asp
actually what I meant was that as a business becomes more profitable, it can use some of that profit to pay a higher wage. What I think you are saying is that they shouldn't because it's not income that can be relied upon?
But yes, definitely sharing profit too, good idea.
Yeah. Profit is not able to be relied on – and doesn't always come in a nice even stream (some months are 'good' for cashflow, others are not) – which makes it very difficult to just raise salaries in the expectation that you'll have a nice EOY result.
If that's your goal (enabling employees to benefit from the business – when they're increasing the profitability of that business) – then I think that profit sharing is a better methodology.
👍
What's the relationship between profit and revenue? Is profit always the excess that accrues unexpectedly?
Stolen definition 🙂
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/122214/what-difference-between-revenue-and-profit.asp
Profit is the goal of a business (otherwise you might just as well leave the money in the bank, earning passive interest)
Any business should be aiming to be profitable: (though startups typically aren’t until multiple years in – they’re earning out their venture capital, and reinvesting in the growth of the business)
But the amount of profit can be aimed for, but not guaranteed.
There are two types of accounting profit commonly talked about in analysing business performance, gross profit and net profit, but practically net profit is the aim of business and what is usually being referred to when someone uses the word "profit" in a business context, where your examples leaned more on gross profit.
To explain, revenue is generally made by selling or leasing something (e.g. goods or services), whether directly to consumers, or to other businesses.
Whatever that product is, it needs to be sold for more than it cost to make/buy or the business will go under eventually. For a shop, they buy goods for less than they sell them, and we often call the difference between those two figures "the mark-up" if applied to the cost of the product or "margin" if applied to the selling price, and the accounting term for the profit from this is gross profit.
For example, a dairy buys a box of 24 x 600mL bottles of Coke from Coca-Cola for $2 per bottle = $48 for the box, and sells them for $4 each = $96.
In this example, the mark-up is 100% of the cost, the margin is 50% of the price, and the gross profit is $2 per bottle = $48 per box.
For simplicity, this ignores GST, and issues with the stock like waste (e.g. expired product), mistakes (e.g. errors on the till), theft etc.
Now we pay other expenses like wages and overheads e.g. lease/rental costs, utilities etc. out of the gross profit, and the remainder is net profit. The percentage of net profit compared to revenue is often also called the margin. From net profit, tax is paid, and then we decide what to do with the rest of it (distribute to owners, reinvest in the business, retain as cash buffer etc.).
This is obviously a highly simplified example, but hopefully helps give an idea.
that's a really good explanation, thanks.
Where do wages increases fit into that? The gross profit has to be stable enough over time?
In a shop, higher wages require one or more of higher gross profit, savings in other expenses, higher productivity and/or lower net profit.
Higher gross profit can be a result of either or both of:
Lower expenses is harder, but some examples are shopping around for cheaper utilities or moving location to somewhere with cheaper rent.
Higher productivity is essentially staff taking less time for the same amount of work/output e.g. installing a self-checkout reduces the staff time required for the same sales, and the savings could be put towards higher wages.
Lower net profit requires the employer to accept less money which is unlikely but might happen if there is a labour shortage or a union involved.
this is paywalled, so I can't see the context, but upshot appears to be that gas companies are saying that meeting climate obligations will cost them money. Yes, that's exactly what happens when we spend decades ignoring the advice and cautions. What I want to know is how much profit those companies are making and what is being done with that? Their business model needs to change.
https://twitter.com/Davidxvx/status/1532113943857991680
I put up this example because it demonstrates a clear conflict between public good and the profit-drive business model. There are people who want to make money even if it costs us everything.
Ignore the money for a moment and consider what those assets are…..they underpin our lives currently and remain needed until replaced by something other even if nationalised, and many already are.
yes. However, at some point the idea that we have to have x service because we already have it, is not going to work. The sooner we talk about that, the better. We have time to change currently (no-one is saying remove all gas this year), but there will come a point when we don't.
Like the gas companies, we've all had plenty of warning.
FF for energy and cement production peaked in 2005 and are now at 1986 levels per capita,6.94t (co2 euiv) in 2020 vs 6.94t in 1986.Every wind farmed that has been installed has replaced FF generation.(little excess generation as consumption matches generation on avge.)
The government thinking on the stranded assets (gas lines and pumps etc) is that there will be some use in the reticulation systems for biogas,and or methanol.( Biogas coming from the central plateau) You do not remove infrastructure that may have alternative uses.
I meant gas supply, not infrastructure. Afaik new installs are banned from 2025.
My point remains. People can lament that they need gas, but there will be no gas when civilisation collapses so it's a moot point. We need to shift our thinking to 'how can we transition?', not "we can't transition because…'
we no how we can transition,it was in the released statements as well as pre announced.The limits for energy transition are on unexpected external costs and delays,high NZ construction costs (20% inflation last 12 months),RMA delays in the planning stage.
There needs to be either a large delay in large scale projects,or an increased series of smaller projects as distribution can contain costs.
Rule 1 is not to have excessive high capital costs in an energy project,as the costs will be inflationary.
when I say 'we' I was referring to the general population a la Pat's comment. Most people aren't willing to change at the pace we need to. Yet.
The pace is that which we can afford,and inflation is making all options unsustainable unless demand and expectations are reduced.
https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=144918
The RBNZ and all central bankers have both signaled and moved to strangle inflation,high interest rates are here and staying.
The transition from gas to electric supply isn't quite as simple and straightforward as just buying a new appliance.
Fine for cooking and heating (you can switch to an electric stove, and get electric heating/heat pump). Just costs extra $$$ for appliances – but can schedule as part of appliance lifecycle.
But water isn't anything like as straightforward. Houses with gas hotwater systems do not have the inbuilt space to install a hotwater cylinder for electric generation. This may require very expensive retrofitting, or may actually not be possible in some units/apartments without infringing on the neighbours, or significantly reducing your living space.
My comment wasnt so much directed that people are unwilling (though i believe most are) it was more that we dont have either the wherewithal or the time to make the transition WHILE maintaining a semblance of order while we go from one paradigm to the other…and ultimately we dont understand the limitations the reduced energy consumption implies….but nevermind, we will find out soon enough.
This may require very expensive retrofitting, or may actually not be possible in some units/apartments without infringing on the neighbours, or significantly reducing your living space.
Out door DHW heat pumps. $5/6K. Three times or more efficient than gas or conventional electric water heating so they'll pay for themselves pretty damn quickly.
I disagree. The pace at which we locked down in March 2020 suggests that we can in fact make change fast. Different order of things, but chaos didn't ensue.
In what way? I've been in peak oil and then climate circles for more than a decade, and this is pretty well understood. Transition Towns and permaculture circles take a more proactive view and design systems that already powering down.
Oh come on. We don't have to build houses the way we do. We know that concrete is going to become less viable as we get closer to catastrophe, and we know that we don't have a future proofed supply of steel. So keep those things for essentials and start developing building practices that work within the limits.
Retrofit existing buildings rather than replacing them.
Stop throwing large amounts of build materials in the dump and set up systems for reuse.
Build from timber. Transition our forestry to take account of this.
Develop other materials that can sit alongside that.
and so on.
We don't have a shortage of houses in NZ. We have a shortage of available rentals and buys. There are so many ways we could start to live within our limits, we just don't want to (or lack the imagination of how)
Belladonna, we have a long time to resolve those problems. And, every new build in most places in NZ should have passive solar design, including solar hot water.
@Jo90
So just how do you fit these into an apartment complex? Or a townhouse where the only outside space is nowhere near the required plumbing?
The point is that there are some dwellings which don't have outside space usable. And their inside space requires 13 m2 clear space – which is quite a lot out of a small apartment.
6K (plus whatever is required for installation) is also a really high up-front cost. Your water-heating costs would have to be in the range of $10/month in order for it to pay off over 10 years. Which I doubt.
Do you have a link to the 3x more efficient claim? I suspect that is in relation to conventional hw systems, not gas.
Or we could just make our own gas weka its perfectly doable
true!
Yeah, won't someone think about the multi millionaires running companies with multi billions of assets.
NYT piece on the legacy of Neutron Jack, the father of excessive profits.
And in more than 100 conversations for “The Man Who Broke Capitalism,” my new book, from which this article is adapted, a broad range of people said some version of the same thing: While it has been more than two decades since Mr. Welch was C.E.O. of G.E., his legacy still affects millions of American households.
Almost immediately after Mr. Welch retired in September 2001 with a $417 million severance package, G.E. went into a tailspin from which it would never recover.
His pupils, though, went on to run dozens of other major companies, including Home Depot, Albertson’s, Chrysler and Boeing. Most of them failed.
And in the decades since Mr. Welch assumed power, the economy at large has come to resemble his skewed priorities. Wages stagnated and jobs moved overseas. C.E.O. pay went stratospheric and buybacks and dividends boomed. Factories closed and companies found ways to pay fewer taxes
https://archive.ph/tRrhB
I have not heard any MP's define what "excessive profit " is. It makes me wonder if David Clark and other Labour MP's thinks anything above break even would be an 'excessive profit'.
Not sure why Weka doesn't understand your last paragraph…seems perfectly clear. If I had $100 billion it would have been better to put in a term deposit (risk free) at 2% and earned $2 billion (instead of risking in a business venture and only earning $1 billion or 1%).
For the supermarkets, the Commerce Commission defined it by comparison to equivalent overseas markets as the starting point (I say starting point because obviously things like distance/shipping costs and NZ regulation/legislation can be factors as well). That's probably as useful a definition as any for NZ.
Back when I was looking at buying a business, most business brokers considered a standard annual return on investment (ROI) to be 25% (to take into account risk), so that's a figure that could be used as a benchmark, perhaps increased for high-risk areas like cafes.
No wonder so many Evangelical pastors see the hand of Satan in this government…
Charities with operating expenses over $140,000 a year will have to explain why they are sitting on so much cash in future, following the completion of a review of the Charities Act. As well as increasing transparency for larger churches
With all those gifts it's more the Heart of Santa.
We have a new Mary Whitehouse prospect and she is no prude and looking for a husband, she will never ever divorce.
Her name is Louise Perry and she writes for the New Statesperson.
And the feminist bible for the 21stC (her book) is called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century.
Channeling every feminists inner Jordan Peterson she cites evolutionary theory
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/300603182/the-sexual-revolution-has-backfired-on-women
So she argues for women to opt out of enabling porn, legalised prostitution, drinking and hook-up dating apps (seeing these as part of rape culture) and encourages separation from men until marriage – and of course she opposes on demand divorce. She cites all the statistics about the declining rate of marriage and prefers church marriages to those with celebrants.
She is so clearly offering herself to man who wants a church wedding to a feminist.
A bit like Christabel Pankhurst
https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/pankhurst-christabel-1880-1958
Christabel's relationships *** (did not involve rape, nor produce children … but of course that was because … ).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/11/vanessathorpe.theobserver
I can't see men and women having changed that much.
What has changed is disruptor tech in the sex space. We see it cause massive social damage in communication (Facebook/Twitter), housing (AirBnb), travel (Uber), and food (Uber Eats).
And so Tinder, etc, is also emboldening both men and women into very high risk situations. Is swiping right seen as tacit consent by many under developed brains?
I do agree with Perry that dating apps encourage rape culture, or at least don't do anything to reduce it.
Not so many years ago the advice on first dates was to go to a safe place to vet the guy. Before then last century the female was most at risk when drunk and alone at off licence gatherings.
Now it's leaving bars/night clubs with someone they had just met (esp if not looking out for spiked drinks), or the hook up app – maybe people might consider using one where guys get rated for risk (screening on registering and on site hook up inter-action feedback).
What has changed more fundamentally is the law – removing the lawfulness of being allowed to rape your wife and the willingness to talk about it.
I don't think we can ever know how much previous generations raped their spouses and partners. It was lawful and not talked about. I'm aware of one old acquaintance long since passed who was raped repeatedly on her wedding night, left, was returned to the marriage the next day by her parents and was raped practically every night (period, pregnant – didn't matter). She left once she got a pension at 60 and had her first income.
A friend was raped in her workplace at 17. Never reported to the police, her family to this day don't know and she will never tell them. Still suffers emotionally 40 years later from that and the other violence that occurred at the time.
It's a different world now. Having talked in my younger years to quite a few older women about this stuff I definitely think it is better. There is a certain rose tint to looking at the past that can hide how bad it was for many.
James K Baxter's letters revealed some of this past norm. And for those who think it wasn't a norm should think about why it was legally protected for so long if it wasn't.
In it Baxter writes: "Sex relations with wife resumed. This at least gives some common ground to stand on to clear up difficulties. Achieved by rape. From a very clear knowledge no other way could break down J's reservations & that she was gradually shoving herself round the bend. She seems ten times happier in herself. But it looks as if each new act will have to repeat the rape pattern."
Have seen a bit of that in researching our family tree and it was not just wives, sometimes it was daughters as well. Once I was an adult, my aunts opened up a bit more about life as children and it sure sounded like there were some older male relatives who were to be given a wide berth, including avoiding their company without another adult chaperone.
There's been a noticeable increase in porn access for younger people.
Porn itself has become more extreme and violent.
It is reasonable to theorise that this, along with what you have mentioned has had some influence on sexual attitudes and behaviours, which also influence social public behaviours.
I've recently done a lot of reading on the porn topic, and it's a really different landscape now from when I was young.
It's hard to see how it wouldn't impact, and unfortunately the effect seems to be negative.
Well. We have just had a whole bunch of people on here, claim that watching movies, especially violent military fantasies, have no effect on behaviour.
So. Are they going to argue todays violent and over the top, porn, equally has no effect??
Certainly different from our youth. Hunting out National Geographics to find naked breasts.
"Well. We have just had a whole bunch of people on here, claim that watching movies, especially violent military fantasies, have no effect on behaviour."
Missed that, thankfully, (Was probably busy reading about porn…)
"Certainly different from our youth. Hunting out National Geographics to find naked breasts."
Not my inclination, but I agree.
It's a Brave New World out there in respect to porn.
One item I read was a statistic on young people who used porn as a model for their own sexual behaviours. IIRC it was over 30% for young women, and over 50 % for young men.
(I'll adjust/correct this if I can find the source, doing a mixture of digital and print media)
Gonzo porn is a leader in porn viewership, and it is typically violent and misogynistic in nature. It's a real concern.
Young people today seem to be better at keeping themselves safe. In regards to pregnancy anyway. Teenage fertility rate in New Zealand – Figure.NZ
Which gives the lie to the right wing fantasy about "hordes of teenage mums on benefits”. More knowledge must help in that regard.
However I was rather shocked going back to High school, as a Teacher, how much open dis-respect that exists now between young people. All the education about consent, respect and the rest, doesn't seem to be gelling.
The younger people are, the more difficulty they have in distinguishing between acting and real life. Plenty of evidence that youngsters shouldn’t be exposed to porn. How you do that, is a problem that is likely unfixable.
If watching Top Gun: Maverick makes more people enlist in the military then thats a good thing
I'll bow to your greater knowledge in regards to violent and over the top, porn.
I prefer the over the top funny stuff: "Have you got stuck making the bed again stepmom?"
'Hunting out National Geographics to find naked breasts.'
But why? Why did you need to? Did it not occur to you that the breasts were part of a sentient being. One like your sister, mother, aunt,daughter?
And Young women don't go gaga over rugby players. Right?
your first set of quotes needs a link SPC.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/300603182/the-sexual-revolution-has-backfired-on-women
Has anyone seen the bit where Joe Biden tells Ardern that her "addiction to wasteful spending" has caused global inflation? I heard a whisper that he was especially agitated about a "slow train to Hamilton". I've tried to find it – but no luck.
Two adult men with huge amounts of followers talking about their expression of girlhood.
https://www.tiktok.com/@dylanmulvaney/video/7103679534020742446?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=6910238550492448258
Support for those with gender dysphoria distress, has morphed into non-scrutiny of other aspects of queer theory.
There would rightly be criticism of two grown women acting this way, but this display and similar are promoted and celebrated.
the idea that men can be feminine is to be supported. But what those two are doing is colonisation. Jeffrey wants girls to transcend their sex, this is misogyny. If you are NB, you can't be girl. Be feminine (adopt expressions not traditionally allowed for men), but don't co-opt girlhood.
And at the very least, grow the fuck up and stop blurring the line between children, adults and sexuality. That's me giving them the benefit of the doubt.
There will of course be people who think this is prudish, or transphobic, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt too that they don't know about the history of PIE, or men with their sexual fetishes on display in the kids tent at Pride, or naked with the child drag queens, or the push for acceptance of non-practicing pedophiles and so on. All this is happening openly and publicly and the left is see no evil monkey going lalala. Oh yeah, and rainbow dildo butt monkey.
https://twitter.com/varindeus/status/1532275914284965888
Trans people should also be standing up and saying no fucking way are we associating ourselves with this.
The blurring of multiple lines, due to the unquestioning acceptance of Queer Theory is leading to multiple safeguarding and unconsented involvement in sexual acts, such as exhibitionism, indecent exposure and humiliation fetishes.
Pride events, originally intended to show that homosexuality was a sexual orientation, not a sexual behaviour, in some countries, has morphed into a bizarre display of adult sexual fetishes and exhibitionism that many gays and lesbians want no part of.
Public invitations are issued to families to bring kids to let them learn about diversity. Wider public funding often supports such events.
The tweet below is a breaking of child safeguarding principles at a Pride parade.
Upthread, is another unverified origin dogging fetish image. Didn't want to post it directly on TS. You'll understand why if you view. It looks to be in a public space, and a more extreme version of the one with the small girl.
The major child safeguarding breach has already happened though in the first picture. From then on it's a question of degrees. The introduction, familiarisation and normalisation of adult sexual behaviours and fetishes for that child has already taken place..
NZ is not here, thank goodness, but neither was the UK at one point.
https://twitter.com/tcbtttc/status/1532441519105490955
completely agree. How did we get to the point of dropping safeguarding? Is it because most people don't know what it is?
Fatherly is in the US, their own unique brand of crazy.
(I addressed the tail image on twitter, because I don't think that is at Pride, but it could easily have been).
Yes, I couldn't find the source so wanted to be clear it was not attributed to a Pride event.
However, the line between the image above and that one – to me – is fairly thin.
Appropriate boundaries have already been breached.
same.
The other issue here is that when one performs one's kink in public, it can be a sexual act without consent from the people nearby. This is another line being crossed and eroded without any political or social scrutiny (apart from GC people online). This matters for obvious consent reasons (and we're still not good at that) and also because if you take the kids out of the picture there are still issues for adults and this erosion in the name of sex positivity then also plays into child safeguarding.
We're a long way from the privacy of one's bedroom concepts.
That Fatherly article is full of red flags…
I despise this promotion of the most egregious parts of Queer Theory to kids, under the rainbow umbrella.
Thanks again Weka and Molly for posting.
I am wondering what it will take for some progressives to wake up
Unfortunate but not unforseeable result:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/128838319/police-tracking-climate-activists-after-tampering-with-car-causing-near-miss
"
Activism that targets and attempts attempts to shame random individuals is a self-indulgent performatice farce. (And wilfully malicious and dangerous.)
The hard work is getting the public on side when demanding institutional and regulatory reform, These 'acts' will not help.
Heavens! This could so easily have resulted in a death – either the people in the vehicle or some other random member of the public – in another vehicle or a cyclist/pedestrian.
If caught, I'd hope to see them prosecuted severely – attempted manslaughter, perhaps. A deliberate action, taken with the foreknowledge that severe harm could result. The 'gravel-in-the-valve-cap' action can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to have a tyre deflate while driving – massively increasing the risk to the people in the vehicle and everyone around it.
This is an entirely 'forseeable' result from their illegal action. Illegal, because they don't own the car and are tampering with the safe operation of it.
I think that there was something similar a few years ago – with 1080 protestors loosening the nuts on the wheels of DOC worker cars, which was referred to the police, but I don't know the outcome.
Profoundly stupid action.
According to the dipshit in the can't see me pants, any injuries or loss of life would be justifiable collateral damage.
Missed that interesting convo. Have now added my 2c worth.
Annoying that silly acts like these are giving anti AGW activists a bad name.
Things like that just piss people off.
I cheered the people chaining themselves to exploration rigs. I'm not going to cheer for those letting tyres down.
Not just silly, criminally dangerous.
Silly is letting down tyres. Criminally dangerous is jamming gravel in the valve, so the tyre only deflates while being driven.
Also cowardly. Protestors chaining themselves to drilling rigs or gluing themselves to roads (XR in Britain) have the courage of their convictions – they're prepared to be arrested, tried and even sentenced for their actions. These cowards can't even sign their own threats.
Unintended consequences. This why all protest action needs wise counsel.
What was 'unintended' about the consequences? They clearly (through their actions) wanted the tyre to deflate while the car was being driven. Nothing unintended about that.
How do you know this, Belladonna?
Have you experience with gravel and valves? Are you party to the groups planning?
I expect not, yet you confidently declare an understanding of their motives.
Nope. Criminal stupidity isn't in my CV.
Can you suggest any alternative motive that they might have had?
Or are you just proposing that they are so stupid, that they can't foresee the obvious consequences of their actions.
Consider this: a "tyre extinguisher" inserts gravel into a valve so that they can scarper while the noisy deflation takes place. They do not imagine for a moment that the tire might deflate at a later date. They are horrified by the outcome.
I'm only speculating, as you are, but can you show that your theory is more valid than mine?
OK. I can buy your possible scenario. Though the sound of escaping air isn't particularly loud (as anyone who's actually pumped up a tyre knows).
[Not that I think it’s likely – and it makes them out to be fairly stupid, in the best of lights.]
If they are actually horrified at the outcome. I confidently look forward to them handing themselves in at the local police station, and owning their actions.
Oooh, Look. Flying pigs…..
Don't hold your breath
Don't look up.
Don't turn around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuJfEMO_wXs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKXLkWrBo7o
I'm a child of the '80s so my uncool contribution is:
https://youtu.be/2pOjWBuODeo?t=81
As I was studying German at the time, I knew all the words to the original version, but it's only the English one that has context here.
Here's the clue you need to solve the question, Belladonna (from Molly's comment)
"A source involved in the investigation said a stone, or piece of gravel, was screwed into the valve cap, causing a slow deflation of the tyre.
It follows directions given by the global Tyre Extinguishers group…"
Those directions will reveal whether the group meant serious harm by their actions. All else is prejudiced "reckons", my own included 🙂
I don't believe that they wanted the car to be driven while it was still deflating. But they do appear to have been negligent on this. There's the idea that the NZ flier told the driver it was dangerous to drive, but I haven't seen evidence of that. Had a look at the UK version and it says nothing of the sort.
https://www.tyreextinguishers.com/how-to-deflate-an-suv-tyre
The action was immature, had no clear intent other than shaming or inconveniencing random individuals, and potentially harmful.
It doesn't need excusing. Those activists need redirecting.
How will they know?
From the Tyre Extinguisher's pamphlet (thanks, Molly).
"The whole process should take about 10 seconds."
I am not condoning their behaviour, just clarifying their intentions/expectations around the use of gravel (or lentils 🙂
Any protest action could have serious outcomes; a driver, distracted by the placard a protester is holding aloft, could crash. A person with a heart-condition, apoplectic with rage could suffer cardiac arrest at the sight of children marching against climate change, etc.
Messing with tyres though, has proved more serious than (I bet) the Tyre Extinguishers first thought.
a woman needing to take her sick child to the doctor suddenly, in the rain in the middle of winter, goes out and finds the tyres deflated on her car. TE believe that "you will have no difficulty getting around without your gas guzzler, with walking, cycling or public transport".
The whole strategy looks flawed from the start. I'm guessing young men (and probably some older ones) who didn't run this past the Aunties first.
some both/and perspectives on twitter,
https://twitter.com/Davidxvx/status/1532151803675963392
Sadly, this escalation into 'extreme, violent and utterly stupid' actions by protestors, is likely to be met by equally escalating responses from their victims.
Look at the responses to this XR youtube video (designed to protest their activists being assaulted).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZkii8Bnc1Q
Massive support for the security guys (regardless of the potential injury to the XR protester), very little for the protestor.
that's a different issue imo. The TE action is problematic in who it targets and how it does it.
The HS2 protest is pretty standard blockade (looking at that video) and the security guards are clearly assaulting them. You're always going to get people who don't support the protest being angry about it, but business are legit protest targets. We desperately need a lot of such protests to wake people up. They're non-violent.
The security guards aren't victims, nor are businesses. In some cases we can argue that workers are, but if they're still being paid and keeping their jobs that's a harder argument.
Public perception is a big part of whether protests work or not, but negative reactions aren't inherently bad. I don't know enough about the HS2 protests to have a sense of how they are going. I don't think stopping those kinds of actions is warranted though.
More Pub memes.the sound of escaping air can be quiet loud and violent.
but do agree stupid and criminal.
"quiet loud" unfortunate juxtaposition, left for dead 🙂
That's a poor excuse.
The target for the action was poorly chosen.
The impact of the action was either to shame or aggravate the very members of the public they should be persuaded to aid in political, regulatory or institutional change.
The dangerous consequences of interfering with a motor vehicles ability to travel safely were apparent.