Morning…. Key is the worst kind of cold hearted slimeball… … And his scumbag natz gang are just shocking human beings….. Does politics do that to them, or what?
“Us” & “Them”. Laid out right there by James. Maybe ‘us’ lefties should wear little stars or something? Since we are one of ‘them’ & not one if ‘us’? Read & weep (or leap for joy, if you are one of ‘them’)…
“The Auckland Regional Public Health Service announced that the number of cases of rheumatic fever was 36 per cent higher for the first half of this year compared with the same period last year.” How’s that for a measure of poverty & the health of the country? Not much rheumatic fever on the golf course or Koru lounge I guess. Enjoy your (min wage served) coffee.
Actually he made the “us and them” argument with the “And his scumbag natz gang are just shocking human beings” comment – by infference people with his / her political view arnt.
I was simply pointing out s/he is a bitter and twisted person with a sad outlook on life, and us scumbag natz arnt actually shocking human beings – we just dont all have such a sad and pathetic outlook.
A positive attitude does great things.
I have one and yes – I wake up most mornings feeling good about the day, the country and the future.
I really don’t know who you activist lefties get through the day…all this horror going on in NZ. It must be hard not to pack your bags and join your bothers and sisters in anyone of the socialist heavens that are dotted around the globe.
BTW james is dead right, it all starts with a positive attitude 🙂
Agree , surround yourself with negativity and you can’t help but be negative.
Be an interesting ex[experiment if you took some one like Nick and placed him/her in a large group of positive happy people, I’d bet money within a week or two his/her outlook on life would change
completely.
& yet mention the name Andrew Little & you little guys get all negative & bitter & call him names like Angry & Chicken like you are on a school ground.
But hey I get it, criticise the Govt = Negative, praising the Govt = Positive.
I ain’t no lickspittle, so call me negative, coming from the likes of you sewer dwellers I take it as a compliment. & also, I do wake cheery, my life is good, my job is OK, my bands have records coming out so I feel like a winner, so suck on that!
Actually – I doubt I have called him Angry or chicken little (if I did it would have been a “one off”).
“Morning…. Key is the worst kind of cold hearted slimeball… … And his scumbag natz gang are just shocking human beings….. Does politics do that to them, or what?”
That was the comment I was replying to – hardly “criticise the Govt = Negative, praising the Govt = Positive” is it.
Yet you go to the likes of calling us sewer dwellers – I think this says a lot more about you than us.
I used to think of key as as a sub prime bubble blower ….
Now I think of him as the bail out boy ……….and wonder how much charity he took from the u.s.a tax payers when they bailed out his bankrupt worthless ponzi merrill lynch shares ……
“Merrill lost more than $27 billion that year. In all, 696 executives received more than $1 million each for helping to crash the storied firm…..”
“Bank of America completed the acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co on 1 January 2009.”
…..John keys major paper wealth ( that we know of ) is Bank of America Shares ……
BM hates hand outs, or so he would have us believe ……..
I wonder what he thinks about Key taking millions in a hand out for staying invested in the toxic reckless and in the end bankrupt Merrill Lynch disaster…..
““Bank of America’s fraud resulted in “one of the biggest reverse transfers of wealth in history – from pensioners to financiers.” ….
john keys Register of Pecuniary Interests of Members of Parliament
2008: 2 Interests (such as shares and bonds)in companies and business entities
Little Nell – property investment
MerrillLynch – investment banking
JacksonMining – gold mining ……………………
And after then the bailout ………….
2009: 2 Interests (such as shares and bonds) in companies and business entities
Little Nell – property investment
Bank of America – banking
Jackson Mining – gold mining
““Bank of America’s fraud resulted in “one of the biggest reverse transfers of wealth in history – from pensioners to financiers.” ….
It’s what happens when you allow the capitalists to rule. They make laws that allows them to own and control the wealth of the nation and charge everyone else for the use of it.
The inevitable end result is massive poverty and deprivation – just as we’re seeing.
“The Household Net Worth Survey disclosed that 10 per cent of people own 60 per cent of the country’s wealth, and 40 per cent own a total of 3 per cent.”
There is fertile ground here for the Labour/Green bloc to put forward policies for more fairness and equality in this country. Grasp the nettle.
Rodney hide speaking common sense for once in the Herald, and it’s not about Labour, perhaps his visit the other day, gave him some foresight into others, and he’s trying to be a little fairer.
IDNK but it was a good article, have to give him up’s when deserved.
Lovely weather, for ducks.
Someone stole my whole letter box Friday night, I was annoyed, a tad, smidgeon, bloody expensive to replace, and after driving around the block several times it was nowhere to be seen, which is unusual drunks usually biff them not far from the scene of their artwork.
So post on FB for Tokoroa that day, um we woke up there’s two letterboxes in our back yard, some of our mates got qa little drunk last night, happy to drop off, 1 hour later letterbox back, good laugh and off they went, drunk as skunks they were and ended up with a couple letterboxes, ahh the joys of youth.
But how often does the return thing happen!!! so cool. No problems when it happens just return or fix the damage.. nice. Good on Tokoroa, I reckon if that was a lot of places, the letterbox would never have been returned.
Want to harvest some votes come election time?
I’ve just spent a week hanging with the clan waghorn (not the real name) Two of whom are young single parents ,one he ,one she , both working full time jobs while juggling children , and school holidays are a thing they hate , more holiday programmes are needed , why not in list uni students to provide care and entertainment .
if they didn’t have family support they would have to quit their jobs
Health and safety has gone to insane new levels.
Wag seniors went to an open home and every one had a safety induction as they entered the house ffs
A builder tells me that every electric tool has to have it’s cable checked every 3 months at a cost, and that people visiting the house the are having built have to wear steel caps and a helmet ffs.
oh and according someone who has access to at least a dozen schools says global funding is ”bulk funding on steroids”
…why not in list uni students to provide care and entertainment .
Because they don’t have time.
A builder tells me that every electric tool has to have it’s cable checked every 3 months at a cost
A lot cheaper than the builders or someone else’s life.
Electrical equipment does wear out just like everything else. Resistance builds up in cables until it becomes dangerous, insulation may get cracked in the harsh conditions of a building site and other things go wrong.
I agree on the health & safety b waghorn. It has gone stupid, especially the bureaucracy of it all. Checking & testing appliances isn’t that onerous but the documentation and record keeping is. Tradespeople spend a lot of time just proving they’re complying with health & safety requirements (that’s the only reason they have to document everything)
The biggest contributor appears to be incremental changes in liability for accidents. If someone does something stupid on your site & hurts themself you’re the one held liable for their stupidity unless you can prove you took all reasonable steps to ensure their safety. So you have to cover your arse with this bollocks of site induction, visitor safety clothing etc etc.
It’s killing the small business. They can’t amortise the costs of safety compliance as much as the big business can & it makes them less & less competitive.
you’re the one held liable for their stupidity unless you can prove you took all reasonable steps to ensure their safety. So you have to cover your arse with this bollocks of site induction, visitor safety clothing etc etc.
i think your view is half right half wrong DH
for anyone who is fully aware of the hazards on a buiding site or who uses sharp/power tools it would take less than 2 minutes to describe the hazards and any required safety measures to visitors…. not a time-consuming or costly effort, and it’s not unreasonable to expect site owners to take appropriate measures to minimise risk…..e.g. for power tools: remove from where kids can play with them, inspect/test cable/cutoff switches daily (tick a box/date to confirm), prevent access to area of ongoing work etc.
The real problem with H&S is that some people think it is “covering their arse” when they warn others that there’s hot water coming out of a bath tap, like the notices i saw in some hotels in the UK – Just plain stupid…. and it undermines proper consideration and respect for the intent of H&S legislation
it is not “reasonable” nor the intent of H&S legislation to require people to wear safety clothing if there are no hazards that require it.
it is not “reasonable” for people who are inexperienced in dealing with workplace hazards and risk controls to give ‘safety’ briefings or to give safety advice….
The example given of requiring safety boots to visit an open home only emphasises the ignorance of the people stating this ‘requirement’. It is in no way a good argument for challenging H&S legislation…. but it is a good argument for ensuring that safety inductions are only given at hazardous sites by qualified people
Not sure you’ve got that right locus. “Reasonable'” is a subjective term and in most cases the courts tend to look at it from the vista of the “normal person”.
It’s difficult to consider a visitor to a site as a normal person in any shape or form. They could be anyone, from genius to imbecile, so the level of what is and what is not reasonable in terms of safety for the visitor is wildly speculative. H&S legislation doesn’t really specify to what level of stupidity or IQ we have to cater for and even if it did we’d never be able to identify it anyway.
ACC can confirm how imbecilic us humans can be so, rationally, it’s not really possible to be too careful. Businesses, and people, do indeed need to cover their arses in these situations.
true – it may be better not to rely too heavily on the word reasonable – for e.g. there’s a few people who think its ‘reasonable’ to remove the pit from an avocado by embedding a sharp knife while holding it in the other hand
However, when it comes to changing people’s attitudes and getting commitment to safety in the workplace, there must be discussion and education about what managing risk really means and what is ‘reasonable’ in this context
… maybe i wasn’t clear in my earlier comment – i fully support H&S legislation requiring businesses to correctly assess hazards and dangers and be required to remove, isolate and reduce the likelihood of an accident occurring and to protect people from the consequences
i’ve always had a bit of a beef about the phrase “cover their arses” because to me it gives the impression that somehow the last barrier in place to protect people (safety boots, hard hats, etc) is all that a business needs to do ‘show’ that they are complying with H&S – While safety clothing may be important or essential, it is the last thing on the list that a business should do in terms of managing safety
As you rightly point out, people (and particularly businesses) take all sorts of ‘stupid’ risks. More than a few businesses cut corners to save money or time and do whatever they can get away with until legislation stops them.
H&S legislation covering safety in the design of hazardous equipment, its operation, testing and inspection is necessary – as are regulatory requirements for businesses that manage or operate in hazardous worksites.
Keep in mind, locus, that the discussion was about H&S going too far, it wasn’t about the principle of workplace safety.
The safety precautions that businesses take are generally related to historical events in similar situations. Take your hotel hot water bath tap for example;
If someone has previously burnt themselves on the hot tap in a hotel (and I believe that has occurred on more than one occasion) then it’s not that insensible for hotels to warn people about hot water. They know hot water burns ergo if someone did burn themself, and they weren’t warned about it, the hotel could be held negligent.
You think it’s over the top because you’d never burn yourself on the hot tap. But the hotel isn’t concerned about you they’re concerned about the lowest common denominator, thus the proliferation of safety regulations for imbeciles. A problem with that is the rest of us have to suffer these fools rules as well.
“Health and safety has gone to insane new levels.
Wag seniors went to an open home and every one had a safety induction as they entered the house ffs”
That’s not a problem with the health and safety legislation, that’s a problem with real estate agents (and agencies) not understanding how the law applies to them and over-reacting.
“A builder tells me … that people visiting the house the are having built have to wear steel caps and a helmet ffs.”
The builder also does not understand the new legislation.
The Presidential Debate Commission released a short statement US Friday time that Trump’s microphone set up was in fact defective, like he had been claiming for days.
Seems that at least part of the problem is the drumpfuck didn’t use it the way he was told to.
“According to a source with knowledge of conversations with the debate commissioners, part of the issue rested with Trump touching his microphone, something candidates had been told not to do because the microphones were “calibrated exactly” to the candidate’s voices.”
I suppose you agree with your man the don on these wild rantings
“Speaking to a crowd of nearly 5,000 in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, Trump made some of his wildest accusations yet about his opponent and the integrity of American elections. Trump attacked his Democratic rival in starkly personal terms. He said of her “she has bad temperament, she could actually be crazy” and went on to imply that she had been unfaithful for her husband. “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth. And really folks, why should she be, right,” Trump said.”
…”“If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region,” Maria Zakharova said during a talk show, which is to be aired fully later on Saturday and has been cited by RIA.
With no government in Damascus, there will be a power vacuum in Syria, which “so-called moderates, who are, in reality, not moderate at all but just terrorists of all flavors, would fill; and there will be no dealing with them,” the diplomat predicted.
“And later it would be aggravated the way it happened in Iraq. We know that [Saddam Hussein’s] Iraqi Army became the basis of the Islamic State. Everything that both the [US-led] coalition and Russia are fighting now stems from it,” Zakharova said….
Your problem, Rawshark, is that you are too prepared to “switch off.” How about giving the matter at hand some serious consideration instead of writing it off with a glib dismissal like that?
Strong remnants of the western imperial/colonial mindset:
Some people from other cultures are trying to say something to us, but its a lot of effort to pay attention to their primitive smoke signals
And chances are that they aren’t saying anything important and furthermore, being backward and weak they can’t do anything to stop us so who cares what noises they make as it’s not going to change a single thing we do?
Any building site, hard hat, steel capped boots, that’s been the norm for years.
Not to sure on the open home safety induction, that’s not any rule.
3 months for cable checks? I did think it was 2 years, from the engineering co I worked at or was it a year? Hmmm. they came in from the local Electrical company and stickers all the appliances, and cables etc, but not every three months.
Earliest yearly.
anyways don’t panic I have it under good authority Paula Bennett is right on it and a hungry group of well paid National party experts on the feild are on their way to loopy rules bust, a loopy rule near you
Heard of Myth busters, here in NZ we have loopy *uckers.
“3 months for cable checks? I did think it was 2 years, from the engineering co I worked at or was it a year? Hmmm. they came in from the local Electrical company and stickers all the appliances, and cables etc, but not every three months.”
I think its 3 or 4 years for the company I worked for.
It varies, to find out for certain you need to buy the relevant standard (usually AS/NZS3760-2010) which costs about $100.
For factories, workshops, places of manufacture, assembly, maintenance or fabrication equipment including Class 1, Class 2, cord sets, cord extensions and EPODs have to be tested every 6 months.
In an environment where the equipment or flexible power cord is subject to flexing in normal use or is open to abuse or is in a hostile environment it’s every 12 months (that I would think covers construction sites, tradies tools etc)
(In the opposite environment to the above, ie non flexing & non hostile etc it’s every 5 years)
Hire equipment requires test & tag every 3months, plus inspection on each hire
RCDs need a push button test by the user every 3-6 months
Those flags should be at half-mast for his thousands of victims;
Arch-criminal Shimon Peres was the antithesis of a man of peace.
He was a prime instigator of Israel’s internationally condemned nuclear program, and his personal catch-phrase was “Settlements everywhere.” As one of the commentators in the following video notes, “He was a genocidal maniac who murdered thousands.”…
I don’t think you possess either the knowledge or the judgement to make such a statement.
The comparison of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people to the oppression of Jews in Europe in the 1930s and ’40s is often made by Israeli people of conscience, and even by Israeli politicians, including Moshe Dayan and David Ben Gurion himself. Less than a decade ago, the hardline Israeli politician Yosef “Tommy” Lapid made the same point….
Lapid said in a weekly commentary on Israel Radio in early 2007, after airing of video footage showing a Palestinian woman being viciously verbally attacked through the iron bars on the veranda of her downtown Hebron home by a neighboring Israeli woman settler – who among other things called the Palestinian woman a “Sharmuta” (“whore”), that what was happening in Hebron reminded him of persecution endured by Jews in his native Yugoslavia on the eve of World War Two. “It was not crematoria or pogroms that made our life in the diaspora bitter before they began to kill us, but persecution, harassment, stone-throwing, damage to livelihood, intimidation, spitting and scorn,” Lapid said in his radio commentary.
“When the world heard that Shimon Peres had died, it shouted “Peacemaker!” But when I heard that Peres was dead, I thought of blood and fire and slaughter.
I saw the results: babies torn apart, shrieking refugees, smouldering bodies. It was a place called Qana and most of the 106 bodies – half of them children – now lie beneath the UN camp where they were torn to pieces by Israeli shells in 1996. I had been on a UN aid convoy just outside the south Lebanese village. Those shells swished right over our heads and into the refugees packed below us. It lasted for 17 minutes…
The 50 year Israeli colonisation of occupied Palestinian land is, of course, at the heart of the conflict.
And the greatest single increase of Israeli settlers on Palestinian land – a 50 per cent rise – took place not under Right-wing Sharon or Netanyahu Likud Administrations but rather in 1992-96 under the supposedly “dovish” Labor governments of “peace-makers” Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres at the high-water mark of the Oslo peace accords.
Israel has now effectively annexed 42 per cent of the West Bank, with 300,000 settlers there and another 200,000 in East Jerusalem
The romanticisation of Peres and Rabin in the MSM has been all too predictable.
Both saw the Oslo “Peace Process” as a Palestinian surrender. As Peres told a gathering of ambassadors in Jerusalem during the second stage of the Oslo process, the permanent settlement envisaged by Oslo would categorically not involve any establishment of a functioning Palestinian state. In other words: no meaningful departure from the long-standing Likud-Labor consensus that there was to be no “additional Palestinian state in the Gaza district and in the area between Israel and Jordan” (“additional” because Israeli leaders and propagandists like to portray Jordan as the Palestinian State).
As Israeli political scientist, Meron Benvenisti, described the bounds of the mainstream Israeli spectrum during Oslo: at one extreme, “a peace which imposes an unconditional surrender on the Palestinians,” at the other, “a peace with somewhat more generous terms of surrender.”
Like all other Israeli leaders, then, Peres was a Rejectionist when it came to the two-state settlement predicated on International Law. Although it’s certainly true that he managed to cynically manipulate a series of American Celebs (read Useful Idiots) in his Peace Foundation charade with the aim of cultivating a Peace-Maker image within the western media (I remember dear old Sharon Stone suggesting she’d “kiss just about anybody” if she thought it would end the conflict.
Extraordinary that he should be portrayed as a great man of peace, “haunted by Israel’s failure to find an enduring settlement with the Palestinians.”
The 50 year Israeli colonisation of occupied Palestinian land is, of course, at the heart of the conflict.
It’s more like 70 years. The entirety of Israel is an invasion of Palestinian land with it’s creation being fully against the UN Charter.
The romanticisation of Peres and Rabin in the MSM has been all too predictable.
Of course it has. Can’t go round telling people that the West and the UN has been supporting a massive invasion and oppression of an entire people for the benefit of another people and all, seemingly, because a few people didn’t want Jews living in their countries.
Extraordinary that he should be portrayed as a great man of peace, “haunted by Israel’s failure to find an enduring settlement with the Palestinians.”
Probably haunted by the fact that he hadn’t been able to totally destroy the Palestinian people.
Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
“Hamas has not recognized the three principles insisted on by the Quartet (the United States, EU, UN, and Russia): renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of prior international agreements.”
The destruction of the state of Israel != complete extermination of the Jews.
Interestingly enough, the creation of Israel was the unjust action that’s caused all the problems and it was fully against the UN charter of protecting states from invasion.
3 months for cable checks? I did think it was 2 years, from the engineering co I worked at or was it a year? Hmmm. they came in from the local Electrical company and stickers all the appliances, and cables etc, but not every three months.
There doesn’t seem to be anything on the energysafety site that mandates anything other than a formal test, tag and record regime, daily visual inspections and RCD push button tests and a requirement for electrical testing of kit after repairs are made.
Democracy is in bad shape if its core principles are subordinate to economic principles such as expediency and efficiency. I think this is the case and is a root cause of rising inequality and it needs to be challenged.
Recently, several arguments were put forward here on TS why, in political elections, not all candidates deserve equal air time and exposure. Without exception, these arguments were rooted in neo-liberal thinking! I wrote this comment because this was a fairly typical example of how neo-liberalism has invaded our lives and our thinking; it has become the reference framework of our time and it has a domineering influence on the framing of socio-politico issues and, as such, on the narrative of most written & spoken publications and communications.
A candidate’s popularity and public support are often determined through political polls, which are intrinsically flawed, at best. To avoid perpetuating these flaws polls should be ignored altogether, i.e. all candidates should be treated equally and fairly, and not be included or excluded on the basis of flawed information. To exclude a candidate a priori is to deem him/her and/or his/her policy platform inferior.
Similarly, no (democratic) system can or should pick winners. Any attempt at pre-selecting winners, to narrow down the field for the final contest leaves it open to lobbying, manipulation or worse. This selection bias is an obvious problem but it also shuts out voices & opinions that are thus more likely to stay chronically ignored. In any case, it is about fair representation, not just simply winning, and moves to skew the process will further entrench inequality.
Another reason to triage the candidates is to allow more time for each pre-selected candidate to have his/her say and for a bigger share of public attention. In other words, make it easier for the public by limiting their choice to just 2-3 candidates. This unlevels the playing field in favour of picked winners; one could call this unfair competition.
There is no need to draw a line somewhere or pick a point that is appropriate if this is intrinsically undemocratic. If barriers are raised for some to have their say it is no longer a decision-making process by and for the collective. Taking this one step further, it could encourage ‘disobedience’ with the collective decisions and ignoring the (democratic) authority of the collective. How many steps away is this from neo-liberalism?
The quality and principles of the democratic process should never be sacrificed for reasons such as better allocation of ‘resources’ (time, public attention span, number of page views, viewer’s ratings, etc.) since this, in turn, undermines its capacity and fundamental role in allocation of all resources for the collective.
Will any of this put people further off engaging with politics or will it appeal? Obviously, people have busy lives, short attention spans and many distractions. But people also realise that once you start to chip away at the democratic foundations of our society and when you do not safeguard these against ‘wear & tear’ it leads to unintended and undesirable consequences.
Well, I s’pose its cos this is where most of the flash celebrity media types live so it stands to reason our floods are flash as opposed to your region’s floods which I s’pose doesn’t have any flash celebrities living in it.
I mean Auckland’s got Mike Hosking so of course the floods are going to be flash. 😈
Sadly, she has spoken an inconvenient truth, we are riddled with structural and institutional racism in this country and most people are blissfully unaware of the very real negative consequences. It is much easier to blame the victims of that racism than deal with the underlying issues.
“I’m sick of hearing the lie that Māori signed away their sovereignty with the Treaty. Read the Treaty – the Maori language version that Hobson and most of the Rangatira actually signed. Read the speeches – recorded by William Colenso at the time and published as a book. Māori were being asked for permission to set up a system to govern the unruly Pākeha, not to rule Māori. Hence decades of war when Pākeha decided to change the rules.”
Like millions of others, she believed that President Obama was a Muslim. And like so many she had gotten to know online through social media, she also believed that he was likely gay, that Michelle Obama could be a man, and that the Obama children were possibly kidnapped from a family now searching for them.
It was a mistake to laugh at fascism. As I said, demagoguery exploits this: demagogues look down on these people with the same condescension as you suppose the Beltway elites do. After all, they’re dumb people who pay taxes. Smart people don’t as Orange Jesus has told us.
I you think that he really gives a gold-plated shit for these people, you must be delusional.
Did you hear the lovely story Clinton told about the poverty that her mother came from, and her hard working small business father, the draper?
How Clinton would help him in his workshop when she was a child, so that gave her an understanding of the trials and tribulations of ordinary working people.
It was so touching and humanising.
Now about that 20 mile trip to the Rothschild’s fundraiser that she took by private jet.
BTW Trump is leading in Hillary Clinton’s home state Arkansas by +24.5%
Just out of curiosity, how do you think Clinton should have made that 20 mile trip from Martha’s Vineyard to Nantucket if not by private jet? Swimming?
Key has already planted the seed, laying down good reasoning for it. Therefore, it would be difficult for him to now argue against that reasoning.
Another aspect that is beneficial to a land tax over Labour’s new build only policy is a land tax will help cover the infrastructure cost burden that comes with building new homes.
Labour’s position (limiting offshore investors to only buying new builds) still puts international demand pressure on local land supply, thus driving up the cost of land, hence adding to the overall cost of housing. Which defeats the objective.
Both Anne Frank’s family, and you, should ask about the role of huge American corporations like the Ford Motor Company, and American banks like JP Morgan Chase in making the Third Reich a tangible physicality.
It is these global mega-corporations and financiers who support Clinton.
It was the N*zis who ran the trains and the gas chambers you patronising sack of shit. Don’t you fucking lecture me on how N*zis were doing the will of other people. That was THEIR ideology, their actions. Their spawn are the ones waving flags for your hero now.
Polish your jackboots if you like mate, you can always have someone else to blame using that logic.
Steady on. It is true that big US money helped support the Third Reich during the 1930s. It does not mean that they knew what the manic Nazis would eventually do, but it still does not reflect well upon the policies of our very right-wing US Corporates. It is sometimes a habit of theirs, going by US interference in other countries since.
It’s not my problem that you are so close to this that your brain turns off.
It was the N*zis who ran the trains and the gas chambers
But who built and funded them?
That was THEIR ideology, their actions.
So fucking what? Without a compliant greedy corporate machinery, that ideology would have been just another flash in the pan bout of crazy paranoid schizo that no one would have noticed or paid attention to.
Look up the photo of Henry Ford receiving Nazi Germany’s highest civilian honour. His company enabled the Blitzkrieg.
Why do you think I would bother responding to you and your arcane claptrap on any other level when on more than one occasion I’ve indicated I’d rather you fucking ignored me you muppet.
Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.
The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.
Trump's ex-accountant for more than 30 years: "The guy was building incredible net worth and not paying tax on it" https://t.co/mCwgHKg6eJ— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 2, 2016
How does a business genius lose $916M in a year the stock market returned 37%?Unless it was a Brewster's Millions-like wager!? https://t.co/ZNH87Q9GAC— Micah Zenko (@MicahZenko) October 2, 2016
If you admit his financial fiddling is the same, why are you shaking your pom poms for this emotionally unstable eugenics-obsessed, nuke-loving, elitist tax-evading, accused rapist, racist misogynist?
“Buuuut KKKillary eats live kittens!” and a stab at google is less of a response than a tic or conditioned reflex. It has no content. You can google anything. Every time you type that you admit that Trump is the same as what you claim to despise.
You like to cherry-pick polls that agree with you, even Nate Silver’s synergistic poll …when it agrees with you. I suppose now that your predicted bounce for Trump didn’t eventuate (in fact Clinton had the sharp rise according to 538, will you be back to reading Dilbert for secret messages from Yoda Adams?
I hardly think Hillary Clinton is ideal or even good, and American plutocracy is corrupt and she won’t fix it, and Trump won’t change one thing for the better – he boasts of taking advantage of the housing crisis that threw so many poor working people out of their homes, he boasts of evading taxes, his tax plan will cut taxes enormously for the rich and he openly crows of his intention to commit war crimes (an overt policy of targeting civilian non-combatants and torture will all be increased, he says) – there is NOT ONE THING that he will do that will help the poor and he has a Strangelovean love of aggression that will drag America into still more bloody wars.
As well as that, frankly, there is the brownshirted elephant in the room that you “shrug” at. Fascism is a thing to dread and to stop because its even worse – it is certainly not some aesthetic faux pas to be brushed off.
You should look at the actual unashamed N*zis cheering Trump alongside you. Have a look at the people he’s appointing like Pence, an appallingly misogynist religious fundamentalist, as his running mate… and ask yourself some serious questions about basic human decency.
Do you just have schadenfreude contemplating the damage he’ll do? I’ve not seen one indication that you care about the people he has hurt or boasts of intending to hurt.
I’ve explained my position on Trump. He will be the better POTUS for NZ, he will be the better POTUS for the Asia Pacific, and he will seek de-confliction with both China and Russia by defanging the neocons in D.C.
I understand that the US Deep State may not allow any of this to happen.
For the American people, I fear that I do not hold much hope for betterment of their situation under either Clinton or Trump.
He will seek a safer Pacific? A man who’s promised a trade war with China if he doesn’t get his own way? Someone with the self-control of General Jack D. Ripper?
I understand that the US Deep State may not allow any of this to happen.
Setting up for “The election was rigged!” already, I see.
For the American people, I fear that I do not hold much hope for betterment of their situation under either Clinton or Trump.
Ugh, the sort of hypocritical unctuousness suitable for Uriah Heep.
But Clinton doesn’t do TRADE wars. She does ACTUAL wars of regime change and neocon hubris, as well as brinksmanship in the South China Sea and the Middle East/Eastern Europe with Russia.
I explained my position and rationale; I can understand why you might not like it, but if you don’t want to hear it, simply don’t ask me next time.
And trade wars harm no-one? And they can’t escalate if one side is a thin-skinned narcissist who asks “If we have nuclear weapons, why don’t we use them?”
A friend of Donald Trump’s recently approached him to suggest that he will eventually have to release his tax returns, as every presidential nominee has for decades. The friend told Trump that he should do it before the GOP convention to ensure everyone can process what’s in the returns and help make any revelations “old news” by November. If Trump didn’t do that, he was warned, the odds of politicized leaks from his returns were high, citing several examples from the Obama era, including the illegal leaking of some of Romney’s tax information by the IRS in 2012
“What will you do if the returns come out as part of an October surprise?” Trump was asked. Trump pondered the question and replied, “I’ll say they aren’t mine.” That stunning answer is the essence of Donald Trump. “It’s exactly what I’d expect him to say,” Fox Business’s Charlie Gasparino, who has known Trump for decades, told me.
A Public Park which Aucklanders cant get access too unless your a member of the Remuera Golf Club which the Auckland Rate payers subsidies members at $12k/head! They got a contract running to 2091 from the council! Fuck’em build houses on it! http://www.remueragolfclub.com/home
Something random: I was wondering if anyone out there knows if this Ofisa Tonu’u from http://www.labour.org.nz/auckland_candidates (Puketapapa Local Board) is the former All Black?
Jesus Christ. Your blithe indifference to the concept of culpability suggests the moral development of a spoiled infant.
Without a compliant greedy corporate machinery, that ideology would have been just another flash in the pan bout of crazy paranoid schizo that no one would have noticed or paid attention to.
Look up the photo of Henry Ford receiving Nazi Germany’s highest civilian honour. His company enabled the Blitzkrieg.
There have been plenty of witch hunts and pogroms done on the cheap with happy volunteer labour. Without the intention to do evil, that money could have been spent growing daffodils.
A wee pointer on learning history: google and the teachings of Dogbert do not educate you.
N*zism and its cousin fascism were no “flash in the pan” but broad an deep movements with sympathetic movements and parties in many states, even Britain (Moseley’s lot). If you knew the slightest bit about history, which clearly you do not, you would know that mere blind corporate investment in factories is not what motivates millions to slaughter millions. It was the choice of N*zis to do so with their many, many adherents. If you care to “look up” the writings of Himmler on “Blood and Soil” and “Living Space” you’ll see the basis of their ideology and decisions. There are some pretty weird occultist beliefs behind Himmler too.
That “flash in the pan” is more of a bale of straw needing a spark.
Ford etc are probably unknowingly complicit, though Ford was a rabid anti-semite and admired the N*zis.
However, those who choose to commit atrocities – the leaders and their millions of followers – are the ones responsible. They are not absolved by silly insistence that the sole source of evil in the world is an American boardroom and nowhere else.
Talking about modern day atrocities and those who commit them, and those sickeningly self righteous left wing progressives who go on to give it a pass
Remind me whose US administration it was who starved and deprived millions of Iraqi children of medical care and food through sanctions such that 500,000 of those children died, and when their Sec State was asked about it on TV she said that “it was worth it.”
Clue: one of the current Presidential candidates was married to him.
As evidenced by all he’s been saying and doing? With all his racisms and misogyny? With his active support for and from N*zis? I’m not just name calling and saying he’s “poopy-pants” or whatever. The bedsheets, the swastikas and the goose stepping among his supporters is all real… But at heart he’s a liberal?
(So I equate him with Hitler? Yeah I do. So does Anne Frank’s family – and they were there seeing it the first time around.)
Latest is a pledge to sign a federal law allowing discrimination against LGBT people on the basis of “religious freedom” exclusively for right wing Christians. Liberal, right?
Anyway, that’s been covered, so what you’re saying is a flat lie. Repeating it won’t make it true.
I know perfectly well what the answer is, and spare me your crocodile tears for people you simply use yourself as tokens in your rhetorical games.
I said evil is evil and there is no game you can play that absolves one side or renders it irrelevant. What you did was a rhetorical diversion and now you are deliberately misrepresenting me.
Every time you say “Hillary eats live kittens” you are saying that eating live kittens is wrong. True indeed, but if another person eats live kittens, two wrongs have been committed, not one. No blame has been lifted. This does not bring balance to the Force. Trump remains a loathsome bastard with the support of loathsome bastards.
I say he’s a loathsome bastard releasing old demons that will not be stopped easily and they are worse than you can imagine with your limited faculties and weird obsession.
“Do you really think this is some weird arithmetic where points on one side cancel points on the other?”
See the False Equivalence post. That’s CV too a T. He can’t get his head around “not supporting Trump does not equal supporting Clinton”. All comments regarding Trump, Russia or Putin are met with the same response. Deflect to Clinton and accuse the questioner of somehow being complicit in allowing the West to bomb the shit out of everywhere.
Pure speculation on my part, but CVs presentation is similar to people who have been disillusioned and betrayed. Their world is turned upside down, what they pledged allegiance to they now hate, they feel abject and as catharsis obsessively latch on to clear incarnations of what disappointed them as a hate figure and a hero who more often than not is a scourge by proxy (collateral damage be damned).
Not really psychology, more lit crit (which is my “official” area of expertise) and CVs not really a literary character of course.
rhinocrates, it seems that you and the rest of the righteous liberal lefty establishment better get ready to lose the election on Nov 8 to a bunch of racist, red neck, misogynist, gay hating, uneducated, deplorables and irredeemables, then.
But you have his number – the mind numbingly distorted convolutions he makes to try and escape his own tail. Lies built on bullshit topped with lashings of fake tears and throw your granny under the bus political points scoring – and trump is just as bad
rhinocrates, it seems that you and the rest of the righteous liberal lefty establishment better get ready to lose the election on Nov 8 to a bunch of racist, red neck, misogynist, gay hating, uneducated, deplorables and irredeemables, then.
BTW how is your precious LGTBQ community doing in Libya nowadays, since Hillary Clinton allowed Islamic extremists to implode and take over the country?
Wake up and smell the real evil, the real dehumanising haters.
In Libya, the LGBTQ community have to live within the strictures of a more socially and religiously conservative society.
How is that statement different from Russia? All I read from you is Western backed LGBT discrimination bad, Russian state sponsored homophobia and discrimination is merely “the strictures of a more socially and religiously conservative society.”
They must be doing pretty well – the Russian President distributes homoerotic photos of himself to the media, which is more than you can say for most countries.
Schadenfreude? I’m going to get my comeuppance am I?
My “precious” LGBT community? I think my friends there prefer “fabulous.”
Your sarcasm shows your callousness. Yet then there are more crocodile tears for LGBT people in Syria that you dismissed so sarcastically. Mere rhetorical tokens again, not real people.
Somehow I think I can be forgiven for thinking of you playing with action figures going “Grrrr! Yarrr! Take that faggot-lover!”
The real evil? There’s only one?
Where do you get the impression that I support Clinton? I’ve never said such a thing. Is it from from the voices in your head? It is as if you were at a performance of Hamlet and all you hear is “Blah blah blah blah Clinton!”, then go to a park and hear the tulips muttering “Clinton, Clinton, Clinton.” You are genuinely obsessed.
Morbidly interesting in a way… and I must admit to deliberately needling him. I’m a writer and I’m thinking my next-novel-but-one which might look at the rise of an extremist group (kind of a theme in the one I’m working on now). Crazy would-be Fuhrers are plentiful and most fail, but like a storm, if the field is charged, lighting will strike. The “charge” is the millions who will become their followers. CV shows me how formerly sane and decent individuals (and he’s still driven by a speck of moral ardour) can become so obsessed with simple equations of black and white that they’re willing to follow a demagogue.
I’m a writer too. Had a few pieces published in international and NZ magazines. Was a stringer for Remix in Auckland while living in London – had a few articles published.
I don’t do journalism anymore though – was a brief foray. I like the creative form.
I have a full time, well paid job. But I still spend time working on a novel of sorts. While I am only 36 my story is interesting enough to validate a memoir.
Yep – this could be the beginning of the end. From Trump tower, trumps old lawyer verified it.
I wondered why clinton didn’t pounce on it at the debate – planted a seed and must have known something was growing… or maybe she is just a talking head who couldn’t not follow the script – hmmm
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 ...
Buzz from the Beehive One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening. Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or ...
A ballot for 4 Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Insurance Contracts Bill (Duncan Webb) Income Tax (Clean Transport FBT Exclusion) Amendment Bill (Julie Anne Genter) Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill (Greg Fleming) Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) ...
One of the strongest narratives about "our" spy agencies is that they are basically institutional traitors, working for foreign powers (or just themselves), without any control or oversight by the elected government. And today, we have yet another report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which explicitly confirms this. ...
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 ...
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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
Morning…. Key is the worst kind of cold hearted slimeball… … And his scumbag natz gang are just shocking human beings….. Does politics do that to them, or what?
Morning sunshine. It’s a little early to be so bitter and twisted isn’t it.
It must be terrible waking up on a Sunday feeling like that.
Have a coffee, and try to start the day again with a positive attitude. Then you will know how nice it feels to be one of us.
“Us” & “Them”. Laid out right there by James. Maybe ‘us’ lefties should wear little stars or something? Since we are one of ‘them’ & not one if ‘us’? Read & weep (or leap for joy, if you are one of ‘them’)…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11720811
“The Auckland Regional Public Health Service announced that the number of cases of rheumatic fever was 36 per cent higher for the first half of this year compared with the same period last year.” How’s that for a measure of poverty & the health of the country? Not much rheumatic fever on the golf course or Koru lounge I guess. Enjoy your (min wage served) coffee.
Actually he made the “us and them” argument with the “And his scumbag natz gang are just shocking human beings” comment – by infference people with his / her political view arnt.
I was simply pointing out s/he is a bitter and twisted person with a sad outlook on life, and us scumbag natz arnt actually shocking human beings – we just dont all have such a sad and pathetic outlook.
A positive attitude does great things.
I have one and yes – I wake up most mornings feeling good about the day, the country and the future.
As long as no one complains eh comrade?
I really don’t know who you activist lefties get through the day…all this horror going on in NZ. It must be hard not to pack your bags and join your bothers and sisters in anyone of the socialist heavens that are dotted around the globe.
BTW james is dead right, it all starts with a positive attitude 🙂
Agree , surround yourself with negativity and you can’t help but be negative.
Be an interesting ex[experiment if you took some one like Nick and placed him/her in a large group of positive happy people, I’d bet money within a week or two his/her outlook on life would change
completely.
& yet mention the name Andrew Little & you little guys get all negative & bitter & call him names like Angry & Chicken like you are on a school ground.
But hey I get it, criticise the Govt = Negative, praising the Govt = Positive.
I ain’t no lickspittle, so call me negative, coming from the likes of you sewer dwellers I take it as a compliment. & also, I do wake cheery, my life is good, my job is OK, my bands have records coming out so I feel like a winner, so suck on that!
Actually – I doubt I have called him Angry or chicken little (if I did it would have been a “one off”).
“Morning…. Key is the worst kind of cold hearted slimeball… … And his scumbag natz gang are just shocking human beings….. Does politics do that to them, or what?”
That was the comment I was replying to – hardly “criticise the Govt = Negative, praising the Govt = Positive” is it.
Yet you go to the likes of calling us sewer dwellers – I think this says a lot more about you than us.
I used to think of key as as a sub prime bubble blower ….
Now I think of him as the bail out boy ……….and wonder how much charity he took from the u.s.a tax payers when they bailed out his bankrupt worthless ponzi merrill lynch shares ……
“Merrill lost more than $27 billion that year. In all, 696 executives received more than $1 million each for helping to crash the storied firm…..”
“Bank of America completed the acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co on 1 January 2009.”
…..John keys major paper wealth ( that we know of ) is Bank of America Shares ……
BM hates hand outs, or so he would have us believe ……..
I wonder what he thinks about Key taking millions in a hand out for staying invested in the toxic reckless and in the end bankrupt Merrill Lynch disaster…..
““Bank of America’s fraud resulted in “one of the biggest reverse transfers of wealth in history – from pensioners to financiers.” ….
john keys Register of Pecuniary Interests of Members of Parliament
2008: 2 Interests (such as shares and bonds)in companies and business entities
Little Nell – property investment
MerrillLynch – investment banking
JacksonMining – gold mining ……………………
And after then the bailout ………….
2009: 2 Interests (such as shares and bonds) in companies and business entities
Little Nell – property investment
Bank of America – banking
Jackson Mining – gold mining
““Bank of America’s fraud resulted in “one of the biggest reverse transfers of wealth in history – from pensioners to financiers.” ….
I dont speak Spanish, Korean or Belarusian.
FIFY “we just dont all have such a sad and empathetic outlook.”
James reminds me of the lady on the Briscoes ads……”Weee! Weee! Weee!”
Every day is a great day when the system is geared to favour your questionable existence over everybody else’s
James confirms what a load of patronising t***s they are once again
What a progressive country we are….
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11720811
Ouch, the right wonder why those damn crazy lefties are getting so worked up.
Who’d have thought we all were pissed off at exactly those things he wrote.
Oh well, here’s another journo not following Keys “brighter future ” mantra. How long before he gets fired ?
It’s what happens when you allow the capitalists to rule. They make laws that allows them to own and control the wealth of the nation and charge everyone else for the use of it.
The inevitable end result is massive poverty and deprivation – just as we’re seeing.
This is the nub of the article:
“The Household Net Worth Survey disclosed that 10 per cent of people own 60 per cent of the country’s wealth, and 40 per cent own a total of 3 per cent.”
There is fertile ground here for the Labour/Green bloc to put forward policies for more fairness and equality in this country. Grasp the nettle.
Rodney hide speaking common sense for once in the Herald, and it’s not about Labour, perhaps his visit the other day, gave him some foresight into others, and he’s trying to be a little fairer.
IDNK but it was a good article, have to give him up’s when deserved.
Lovely weather, for ducks.
Someone stole my whole letter box Friday night, I was annoyed, a tad, smidgeon, bloody expensive to replace, and after driving around the block several times it was nowhere to be seen, which is unusual drunks usually biff them not far from the scene of their artwork.
So post on FB for Tokoroa that day, um we woke up there’s two letterboxes in our back yard, some of our mates got qa little drunk last night, happy to drop off, 1 hour later letterbox back, good laugh and off they went, drunk as skunks they were and ended up with a couple letterboxes, ahh the joys of youth.
But how often does the return thing happen!!! so cool. No problems when it happens just return or fix the damage.. nice. Good on Tokoroa, I reckon if that was a lot of places, the letterbox would never have been returned.
ha!
Return to Sender? 🙂
Elvis is in the building ladies and gentlemen..
That was a good one. Nice 1
When I was living there it wouldn’t have been and it would have been dangerous to try and get it back.
“Rodney hide speaking common sense…”
Indeed.
Check it out people:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11719057
Want to harvest some votes come election time?
I’ve just spent a week hanging with the clan waghorn (not the real name) Two of whom are young single parents ,one he ,one she , both working full time jobs while juggling children , and school holidays are a thing they hate , more holiday programmes are needed , why not in list uni students to provide care and entertainment .
if they didn’t have family support they would have to quit their jobs
Health and safety has gone to insane new levels.
Wag seniors went to an open home and every one had a safety induction as they entered the house ffs
A builder tells me that every electric tool has to have it’s cable checked every 3 months at a cost, and that people visiting the house the are having built have to wear steel caps and a helmet ffs.
oh and according someone who has access to at least a dozen schools says global funding is ”bulk funding on steroids”
Because they don’t have time.
A lot cheaper than the builders or someone else’s life.
Electrical equipment does wear out just like everything else. Resistance builds up in cables until it becomes dangerous, insulation may get cracked in the harsh conditions of a building site and other things go wrong.
Once a year would be often enough , keeping in mind builders use cut switch’s and in general don’t want to die.
Plenty of students work in the holidays ,
And that would be fully supported by you builder friend complaining about it…
Oh, wait.
I have family in the construction industry and they’re really not as good on their equipment as you say and the cut switches can fail as well.
I agree on the health & safety b waghorn. It has gone stupid, especially the bureaucracy of it all. Checking & testing appliances isn’t that onerous but the documentation and record keeping is. Tradespeople spend a lot of time just proving they’re complying with health & safety requirements (that’s the only reason they have to document everything)
The biggest contributor appears to be incremental changes in liability for accidents. If someone does something stupid on your site & hurts themself you’re the one held liable for their stupidity unless you can prove you took all reasonable steps to ensure their safety. So you have to cover your arse with this bollocks of site induction, visitor safety clothing etc etc.
It’s killing the small business. They can’t amortise the costs of safety compliance as much as the big business can & it makes them less & less competitive.
You know what really kills a small business? When someone is seriously injured or killed due to their poor practices.
What a stupid comment. Businesses fail for a great many reasons and on percentages very few fail because of poor safety practices.
i think your view is half right half wrong DH
for anyone who is fully aware of the hazards on a buiding site or who uses sharp/power tools it would take less than 2 minutes to describe the hazards and any required safety measures to visitors…. not a time-consuming or costly effort, and it’s not unreasonable to expect site owners to take appropriate measures to minimise risk…..e.g. for power tools: remove from where kids can play with them, inspect/test cable/cutoff switches daily (tick a box/date to confirm), prevent access to area of ongoing work etc.
The real problem with H&S is that some people think it is “covering their arse” when they warn others that there’s hot water coming out of a bath tap, like the notices i saw in some hotels in the UK – Just plain stupid…. and it undermines proper consideration and respect for the intent of H&S legislation
it is not “reasonable” nor the intent of H&S legislation to require people to wear safety clothing if there are no hazards that require it.
it is not “reasonable” for people who are inexperienced in dealing with workplace hazards and risk controls to give ‘safety’ briefings or to give safety advice….
The example given of requiring safety boots to visit an open home only emphasises the ignorance of the people stating this ‘requirement’. It is in no way a good argument for challenging H&S legislation…. but it is a good argument for ensuring that safety inductions are only given at hazardous sites by qualified people
Not sure you’ve got that right locus. “Reasonable'” is a subjective term and in most cases the courts tend to look at it from the vista of the “normal person”.
It’s difficult to consider a visitor to a site as a normal person in any shape or form. They could be anyone, from genius to imbecile, so the level of what is and what is not reasonable in terms of safety for the visitor is wildly speculative. H&S legislation doesn’t really specify to what level of stupidity or IQ we have to cater for and even if it did we’d never be able to identify it anyway.
ACC can confirm how imbecilic us humans can be so, rationally, it’s not really possible to be too careful. Businesses, and people, do indeed need to cover their arses in these situations.
true – it may be better not to rely too heavily on the word reasonable – for e.g. there’s a few people who think its ‘reasonable’ to remove the pit from an avocado by embedding a sharp knife while holding it in the other hand
However, when it comes to changing people’s attitudes and getting commitment to safety in the workplace, there must be discussion and education about what managing risk really means and what is ‘reasonable’ in this context
… maybe i wasn’t clear in my earlier comment – i fully support H&S legislation requiring businesses to correctly assess hazards and dangers and be required to remove, isolate and reduce the likelihood of an accident occurring and to protect people from the consequences
i’ve always had a bit of a beef about the phrase “cover their arses” because to me it gives the impression that somehow the last barrier in place to protect people (safety boots, hard hats, etc) is all that a business needs to do ‘show’ that they are complying with H&S – While safety clothing may be important or essential, it is the last thing on the list that a business should do in terms of managing safety
As you rightly point out, people (and particularly businesses) take all sorts of ‘stupid’ risks. More than a few businesses cut corners to save money or time and do whatever they can get away with until legislation stops them.
H&S legislation covering safety in the design of hazardous equipment, its operation, testing and inspection is necessary – as are regulatory requirements for businesses that manage or operate in hazardous worksites.
Keep in mind, locus, that the discussion was about H&S going too far, it wasn’t about the principle of workplace safety.
The safety precautions that businesses take are generally related to historical events in similar situations. Take your hotel hot water bath tap for example;
If someone has previously burnt themselves on the hot tap in a hotel (and I believe that has occurred on more than one occasion) then it’s not that insensible for hotels to warn people about hot water. They know hot water burns ergo if someone did burn themself, and they weren’t warned about it, the hotel could be held negligent.
You think it’s over the top because you’d never burn yourself on the hot tap. But the hotel isn’t concerned about you they’re concerned about the lowest common denominator, thus the proliferation of safety regulations for imbeciles. A problem with that is the rest of us have to suffer these fools rules as well.
“Health and safety has gone to insane new levels.
Wag seniors went to an open home and every one had a safety induction as they entered the house ffs”
That’s not a problem with the health and safety legislation, that’s a problem with real estate agents (and agencies) not understanding how the law applies to them and over-reacting.
“A builder tells me … that people visiting the house the are having built have to wear steel caps and a helmet ffs.”
The builder also does not understand the new legislation.
If anyone wants to read up more about this:
https://www.propertytalk.com/forum/showthread.php?40728-H-amp-S-foolishness-has-sunk-to-new-depths&p=404674#post404674
Trump was right
His debate microphone and sound levels had problems, admits the “Presidential Debate Commission”.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/30/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-the-commission-on-presidential-debates/91349488/
interesting…i wonder why?
Perhaps even inanimate objects know he’s a loser?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8_7Orhey-g
Heard him sniffing well enough, must of been good Mexican shit.
So meh, excuses from the king of excuse makers, pathetic.
The Presidential Debate Commission released a short statement US Friday time that Trump’s microphone set up was in fact defective, like he had been claiming for days.
Did the faulty microphone make him say the really stupid things he said?
Oh, not at all, that was 100% Trump
Yet we all heard his words – no bonus for some – I spose he will have to up the pay grade for his next dark op microphone fix.
CVs link says it affected the volume in the auditorium.
Why the rest of the country thought he was a loser is anyone’s guess
Seems that at least part of the problem is the drumpfuck didn’t use it the way he was told to.
“According to a source with knowledge of conversations with the debate commissioners, part of the issue rested with Trump touching his microphone, something candidates had been told not to do because the microphones were “calibrated exactly” to the candidate’s voices.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/trump-debate-mic-issues-228968#ixzz4Ls4YQKyT
I agree that on the night, Killary was the more polished, more prepared, more professional politician.
I suppose you agree with your man the don on these wild rantings
“Speaking to a crowd of nearly 5,000 in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, Trump made some of his wildest accusations yet about his opponent and the integrity of American elections. Trump attacked his Democratic rival in starkly personal terms. He said of her “she has bad temperament, she could actually be crazy” and went on to imply that she had been unfaithful for her husband. “I don’t even think she’s loyal to Bill, if you want to know the truth. And really folks, why should she be, right,” Trump said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/02/donald-trump-renews-voter-warning-and-says-clinton-could-be-crazy
I suppose he was pissed that the porn movie he was in was released.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-playboy-porn_us_57eee2fbe4b0c2407cde0fd2
Oh he likes some sex tapes more than others.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/trump-opinions-on-sex-tapes-228969
The Clinton campaign attacked him on “temperament” first, and as we have seen before, Trump is pretty easy to bait and rile up by the Clinton camp.
I am pretty sure they will try more of the same at Debate Two and try and get him to blow a fuse on live TV in front of tens of millions.
He’d better fix that sniff otherwise people will talk…
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie,……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwRvafqi_-U
And that’s what we need, more “professional” politicians.
If fully half was devoted, there can’t be much to go around.
/
LOL that is funny – 50% WTF
His piss poor performance wasn’t due to a faulty microphone, apparently.
/
joe 90: I’m still predicting an easy victory Trump Nov 8.
I’m guessing by 30 to 40 electoral votes.
The main cause is that Democrats and minorities will stay at home instead of voting for Hillary.
What they don’t ask on the msm…Is the USA end game to fracture Syria and release the rest of the Golan Heights to Israel?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/world/middleeast/israel-will-never-give-golan-heights-to-syria-netanyahu-vows.html
‘Direct aggression by US against Damascus to cause ‘tectonic shift’ in Middle East – Moscow’
https://www.rt.com/news/361294-us-aggression-damascus-tectonic-shift/
…”“If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region,” Maria Zakharova said during a talk show, which is to be aired fully later on Saturday and has been cited by RIA.
With no government in Damascus, there will be a power vacuum in Syria, which “so-called moderates, who are, in reality, not moderate at all but just terrorists of all flavors, would fill; and there will be no dealing with them,” the diplomat predicted.
“And later it would be aggravated the way it happened in Iraq. We know that [Saddam Hussein’s] Iraqi Army became the basis of the Islamic State. Everything that both the [US-led] coalition and Russia are fighting now stems from it,” Zakharova said….
” the diplomat predicted.”
right, file, under many ulterior motives.
and switch off.
Your problem, Rawshark, is that you are too prepared to “switch off.” How about giving the matter at hand some serious consideration instead of writing it off with a glib dismissal like that?
Strong remnants of the western imperial/colonial mindset:
Some people from other cultures are trying to say something to us, but its a lot of effort to pay attention to their primitive smoke signals
And chances are that they aren’t saying anything important and furthermore, being backward and weak they can’t do anything to stop us so who cares what noises they make as it’s not going to change a single thing we do?
We do take notice of them when they talk to us in our language, as they did on Sept. 11, 2001 and in Paris last year.
+1
@ Richard Rawshark
Diplomats on the ground are not always wrong .
Look at the facts…isnt this is what has happened in Iraq, Libya and now they are trying to make happen in Syria
1) …the leader is got rid of /taken out on some pretext
2.) the government collapses and with it law and order breaks down
3.) the country is plundered
4.) the country is splintered and war riven between rival factions and religious groups and terrorists
5.) Isis takes over in the chaos…slaughter ensues
6.) the people flee their lands as refugees to Europe
6.) USA/Israel hand in the Middle East is strengthened
Any building site, hard hat, steel capped boots, that’s been the norm for years.
Not to sure on the open home safety induction, that’s not any rule.
3 months for cable checks? I did think it was 2 years, from the engineering co I worked at or was it a year? Hmmm. they came in from the local Electrical company and stickers all the appliances, and cables etc, but not every three months.
Earliest yearly.
anyways don’t panic I have it under good authority Paula Bennett is right on it and a hungry group of well paid National party experts on the feild are on their way to loopy rules bust, a loopy rule near you
Heard of Myth busters, here in NZ we have loopy *uckers.
“3 months for cable checks? I did think it was 2 years, from the engineering co I worked at or was it a year? Hmmm. they came in from the local Electrical company and stickers all the appliances, and cables etc, but not every three months.”
I think its 3 or 4 years for the company I worked for.
It varies, to find out for certain you need to buy the relevant standard (usually AS/NZS3760-2010) which costs about $100.
For factories, workshops, places of manufacture, assembly, maintenance or fabrication equipment including Class 1, Class 2, cord sets, cord extensions and EPODs have to be tested every 6 months.
In an environment where the equipment or flexible power cord is subject to flexing in normal use or is open to abuse or is in a hostile environment it’s every 12 months (that I would think covers construction sites, tradies tools etc)
(In the opposite environment to the above, ie non flexing & non hostile etc it’s every 5 years)
Hire equipment requires test & tag every 3months, plus inspection on each hire
RCDs need a push button test by the user every 3-6 months
And etc etc …..
Those flags should be at half-mast for his thousands of victims;
Arch-criminal Shimon Peres was the antithesis of a man of peace.
He was a prime instigator of Israel’s internationally condemned nuclear program, and his personal catch-phrase was “Settlements everywhere.” As one of the commentators in the following video notes, “He was a genocidal maniac who murdered thousands.”…
https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/781340003653652480
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/30/media-hails-shimon-peres-as-man-of-peace-but-doesnt-bother-to-ask-arabs/
A great man may he rest in peace.
Achieved more is his life than all the bleaters and moaners on blogs around the world combined .
People like you wrote similar eulogies for another “great man” who perished in April 1945…..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_Hamsun%27s_obituary_of_Adolf_Hitler
Well that comparison places you in bat shit crazy camp, say no more
I don’t think you possess either the knowledge or the judgement to make such a statement.
The comparison of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people to the oppression of Jews in Europe in the 1930s and ’40s is often made by Israeli people of conscience, and even by Israeli politicians, including Moshe Dayan and David Ben Gurion himself. Less than a decade ago, the hardline Israeli politician Yosef “Tommy” Lapid made the same point….
https://palestine-mandate.com/tag/tommy-lapid
Hardly a “great man”…more like a war criminal!
By Robert Fisk ( The Independent) on Peres:
‘Shimon Peres was no peacemaker. I’ll never forget the sight of pouring blood and burning bodies at Qana –
Peres said the massacre came as a ‘bitter surprise’. It was a lie: the UN had repeatedly told Israel the camp was packed with refugees’
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/shimon-peres-dies-israel-qana-massacre-never-forget-no-peacemaker-robert-fisk-a7334656.html
“When the world heard that Shimon Peres had died, it shouted “Peacemaker!” But when I heard that Peres was dead, I thought of blood and fire and slaughter.
I saw the results: babies torn apart, shrieking refugees, smouldering bodies. It was a place called Qana and most of the 106 bodies – half of them children – now lie beneath the UN camp where they were torn to pieces by Israeli shells in 1996. I had been on a UN aid convoy just outside the south Lebanese village. Those shells swished right over our heads and into the refugees packed below us. It lasted for 17 minutes…
The 50 year Israeli colonisation of occupied Palestinian land is, of course, at the heart of the conflict.
And the greatest single increase of Israeli settlers on Palestinian land – a 50 per cent rise – took place not under Right-wing Sharon or Netanyahu Likud Administrations but rather in 1992-96 under the supposedly “dovish” Labor governments of “peace-makers” Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres at the high-water mark of the Oslo peace accords.
Israel has now effectively annexed 42 per cent of the West Bank, with 300,000 settlers there and another 200,000 in East Jerusalem
The romanticisation of Peres and Rabin in the MSM has been all too predictable.
Both saw the Oslo “Peace Process” as a Palestinian surrender. As Peres told a gathering of ambassadors in Jerusalem during the second stage of the Oslo process, the permanent settlement envisaged by Oslo would categorically not involve any establishment of a functioning Palestinian state. In other words: no meaningful departure from the long-standing Likud-Labor consensus that there was to be no “additional Palestinian state in the Gaza district and in the area between Israel and Jordan” (“additional” because Israeli leaders and propagandists like to portray Jordan as the Palestinian State).
As Israeli political scientist, Meron Benvenisti, described the bounds of the mainstream Israeli spectrum during Oslo: at one extreme, “a peace which imposes an unconditional surrender on the Palestinians,” at the other, “a peace with somewhat more generous terms of surrender.”
Like all other Israeli leaders, then, Peres was a Rejectionist when it came to the two-state settlement predicated on International Law. Although it’s certainly true that he managed to cynically manipulate a series of American Celebs (read Useful Idiots) in his Peace Foundation charade with the aim of cultivating a Peace-Maker image within the western media (I remember dear old Sharon Stone suggesting she’d “kiss just about anybody” if she thought it would end the conflict.
Extraordinary that he should be portrayed as a great man of peace, “haunted by Israel’s failure to find an enduring settlement with the Palestinians.”
It’s more like 70 years. The entirety of Israel is an invasion of Palestinian land with it’s creation being fully against the UN Charter.
Of course it has. Can’t go round telling people that the West and the UN has been supporting a massive invasion and oppression of an entire people for the benefit of another people and all, seemingly, because a few people didn’t want Jews living in their countries.
Probably haunted by the fact that he hadn’t been able to totally destroy the Palestinian people.
“haunted by Israel’s failure to find an enduring settlement with the Palestinians.”
With Hamas wanting the complete extermination of Jews, it does make it a little hard to find an enduring settlement.
[citation needed]
And we actually do know that the Jews want to wipe out the Palestinians. They say so all the bloody time.
The Palestinians are the victims of an unjust invasion that the rest of the world forced upon them.
Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
http://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/880818a.htm
“Hamas has not recognized the three principles insisted on by the Quartet (the United States, EU, UN, and Russia): renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of prior international agreements.”
http://www.cfr.org/israel/hamas/p8968
…renunciation of violence…
You mean like Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom have renounced violence?
The destruction of the state of Israel != complete extermination of the Jews.
Interestingly enough, the creation of Israel was the unjust action that’s caused all the problems and it was fully against the UN charter of protecting states from invasion.
There doesn’t seem to be anything on the energysafety site that mandates anything other than a formal test, tag and record regime, daily visual inspections and RCD push button tests and a requirement for electrical testing of kit after repairs are made.
http://www.energysafety.govt.nz/appliances-fittings/electrical-appliances-fittings/operational-safety/test-tag-regime
http://www.energysafety.govt.nz/appliances-fittings/electrical-appliances-fittings/operational-safety/safe-use-of-appliances-and-tools#cords
http://www.energysafety.govt.nz/appliances-fittings/electrical-appliances-fittings/operational-safety/testing-appliances-after-work-completed
Me too, I’ve noticed the reply function coming and going this morning (Firefox, Windows 8)
Democracy is in bad shape if its core principles are subordinate to economic principles such as expediency and efficiency. I think this is the case and is a root cause of rising inequality and it needs to be challenged.
Recently, several arguments were put forward here on TS why, in political elections, not all candidates deserve equal air time and exposure. Without exception, these arguments were rooted in neo-liberal thinking! I wrote this comment because this was a fairly typical example of how neo-liberalism has invaded our lives and our thinking; it has become the reference framework of our time and it has a domineering influence on the framing of socio-politico issues and, as such, on the narrative of most written & spoken publications and communications.
A candidate’s popularity and public support are often determined through political polls, which are intrinsically flawed, at best. To avoid perpetuating these flaws polls should be ignored altogether, i.e. all candidates should be treated equally and fairly, and not be included or excluded on the basis of flawed information. To exclude a candidate a priori is to deem him/her and/or his/her policy platform inferior.
Similarly, no (democratic) system can or should pick winners. Any attempt at pre-selecting winners, to narrow down the field for the final contest leaves it open to lobbying, manipulation or worse. This selection bias is an obvious problem but it also shuts out voices & opinions that are thus more likely to stay chronically ignored. In any case, it is about fair representation, not just simply winning, and moves to skew the process will further entrench inequality.
Another reason to triage the candidates is to allow more time for each pre-selected candidate to have his/her say and for a bigger share of public attention. In other words, make it easier for the public by limiting their choice to just 2-3 candidates. This unlevels the playing field in favour of picked winners; one could call this unfair competition.
There is no need to draw a line somewhere or pick a point that is appropriate if this is intrinsically undemocratic. If barriers are raised for some to have their say it is no longer a decision-making process by and for the collective. Taking this one step further, it could encourage ‘disobedience’ with the collective decisions and ignoring the (democratic) authority of the collective. How many steps away is this from neo-liberalism?
The quality and principles of the democratic process should never be sacrificed for reasons such as better allocation of ‘resources’ (time, public attention span, number of page views, viewer’s ratings, etc.) since this, in turn, undermines its capacity and fundamental role in allocation of all resources for the collective.
Will any of this put people further off engaging with politics or will it appeal? Obviously, people have busy lives, short attention spans and many distractions. But people also realise that once you start to chip away at the democratic foundations of our society and when you do not safeguard these against ‘wear & tear’ it leads to unintended and undesirable consequences.
+1
I know Mr Peres was not a monster, Anne. Compared to Netanyahu, he was a decent man. Compared to Netanyahu.
I just don’t think a person with his record should be honoured by having the flags at half-mast, as Obama ordered all government departments to do.
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2016/09/30/ive-got-debbie-wasserman-schultzs-back-obama-ive-got-israels-back-obama-im-lowering-the-flag-to-half-mast-for-peres-obama-but-when-it-comes-to-black-youths-killed-by-kil/
Thinking of “Compared to Netanyahu”, I wonder if Obama’s order was a message to Netanyahu. The two have a very frosty relationship.
Eighty plus thousand dollars, two years later and still no pond?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/kapiti/84689565/kapiti-council-closes-water-feature-because-it-could-evaporate
What’s going on Kapiti Coasters?
On a side note, did anybody notice how the article above was spun?
The pond has a leak that they can’t seem to locate, yet the way the article was written, evaporation has largely been given the blame.
Clinton lead in Pennsylvania almost gone
Clinton +10% against Trump 6 weeks ago, +6% three weeks ago.
Now at only +1.8%.
Those of you watching the US race will understand how significant this move away from Clinton is.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/pa/pennsylvania_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5964.html
very interesting…thanx
Testing….
It’s Sunday so lets have a bit of a laugh for a change.
Just heard a news item :- Auckland has had heavy rain and there is FLASH flooding.
Funny that I thought, Typical Auckland couldn’t have your ordinary everyday flooding, no, being Auckland they had to have “FLASH” flooding.
Why is it Auckland always gets the best?
Well, I s’pose its cos this is where most of the flash celebrity media types live so it stands to reason our floods are flash as opposed to your region’s floods which I s’pose doesn’t have any flash celebrities living in it.
I mean Auckland’s got Mike Hosking so of course the floods are going to be flash. 😈
Yeah, I notice Auckland always gets these new newfangled “Weather Bombs,” too.
Yet in Wellington we only get wind 😛
“Yet in Wellington we only get wind”
I kid you not. A teaspoon of Fennel seeds does the trick
Interesting read
http://e-tangata.co.nz/news/when-i-turned-five-i-turned-bad
Sadly, she has spoken an inconvenient truth, we are riddled with structural and institutional racism in this country and most people are blissfully unaware of the very real negative consequences. It is much easier to blame the victims of that racism than deal with the underlying issues.
A very interesting project running pretty much on solar and seawater:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-01/sundrop-farms-opens-solar-greenhouse-using-no-fresh-water/7892866
http://www.sundropfarms.com/
And at the other end of tech scale:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-02/compost-hot-water-shower-build/7894588
Conscious Capitalism
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/84821036/felicity-caird-business-answers-lie-in-conscious-capitalism
Nice comment on the fbook from Nandor Tanczos
“I’m sick of hearing the lie that Māori signed away their sovereignty with the Treaty. Read the Treaty – the Maori language version that Hobson and most of the Rangatira actually signed. Read the speeches – recorded by William Colenso at the time and published as a book. Māori were being asked for permission to set up a system to govern the unruly Pākeha, not to rule Māori. Hence decades of war when Pākeha decided to change the rules.”
Thanks for that, a useful succinct explanation.
Try not to laugh. Once you get past the obvious, it’s pretty sad. Demagoguery fosters and exploits this kind of thinking.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/finally-someone-who-thinks-like-me/2016/10/01/c9b6f334-7f68-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html?tid=sm_tw
Like millions of others, she believed that President Obama was a Muslim. And like so many she had gotten to know online through social media, she also believed that he was likely gay, that Michelle Obama could be a man, and that the Obama children were possibly kidnapped from a family now searching for them.
Clearly an irredeemable household of ignorant deplorables.
Yes, so easy to laugh at these rubes, isn’t it.
The beltway elite reading this WaPo article must have chuckled.
I find the Washington Post an inspiring read every know and then and I’d hardly say I’m part of the beltway elite.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/10/01/10-years-ago-her-son-killed-amish-children-their-families-immediately-accepted-her-into-their-lives/
That is an inspiring, sympathetic read.
It’s the paper that brought down Nixon too.
It was a mistake to laugh at fascism. As I said, demagoguery exploits this: demagogues look down on these people with the same condescension as you suppose the Beltway elites do. After all, they’re dumb people who pay taxes. Smart people don’t as Orange Jesus has told us.
I you think that he really gives a gold-plated shit for these people, you must be delusional.
Did you hear the lovely story Clinton told about the poverty that her mother came from, and her hard working small business father, the draper?
How Clinton would help him in his workshop when she was a child, so that gave her an understanding of the trials and tribulations of ordinary working people.
It was so touching and humanising.
Now about that 20 mile trip to the Rothschild’s fundraiser that she took by private jet.
BTW Trump is leading in Hillary Clinton’s home state Arkansas by +24.5%
Just out of curiosity, how do you think Clinton should have made that 20 mile trip from Martha’s Vineyard to Nantucket if not by private jet? Swimming?
Like everyone else out there does, by million dollar power yacht
Hillary’s childhood home
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=hillary+clinton+childhood+home&espv=2&biw=1440&bih=770&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjiq5qtyrvPAhUBNpQKHb8GAQMQsAQIGQ#imgrc=v5SrXfm7xKco1M%3A
WIKILEAKS reveals George Soros instructed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state – surprising no one.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/wikileaks-reveals-george-soros-directly-instructed-hillary-clinton-as-secretary-at-state/
“What I would do is push Government to stop foreign investment in existing houses,” Goff said on the Hui this morning.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11721048
Why not go for the tax option, Goff?
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11628459
Key has already planted the seed, laying down good reasoning for it. Therefore, it would be difficult for him to now argue against that reasoning.
Another aspect that is beneficial to a land tax over Labour’s new build only policy is a land tax will help cover the infrastructure cost burden that comes with building new homes.
Labour’s position (limiting offshore investors to only buying new builds) still puts international demand pressure on local land supply, thus driving up the cost of land, hence adding to the overall cost of housing. Which defeats the objective.
No wonder actual n*zis love the guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yh0jAxOxGE&feature=youtu.be
Of course you have to have the “right genes.”
If you were young and Black for example, there’s every chance that you might be a criminal “super predator” with “no conscience” and “no empathy.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0uCrA7ePno
If actual n*zis supported Clinton you’d have a point.
/
Investment bankers and hedge funds support Hillary.
That’s even worse.
5ppm perhaps *snort
Anne Frank’s family disagree:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/anne-franks-step-sister-says-donald-trump-is-acting-like-hitler-a6838531.html
Incidentally, my stepfather’s cousins were in the same annexe… and then the same camp. They left in the form of smoke.
Both Anne Frank’s family, and you, should ask about the role of huge American corporations like the Ford Motor Company, and American banks like JP Morgan Chase in making the Third Reich a tangible physicality.
It is these global mega-corporations and financiers who support Clinton.
See what I mean, now.
Damn, they tried the wrong people at Nuremberg!
It was the N*zis who ran the trains and the gas chambers you patronising sack of shit. Don’t you fucking lecture me on how N*zis were doing the will of other people. That was THEIR ideology, their actions. Their spawn are the ones waving flags for your hero now.
Polish your jackboots if you like mate, you can always have someone else to blame using that logic.
With the help of companies like IBM who played a part running the camps and the American banks who financed so much of it
Along with the nation’s responsible for creating the conditions leading to the rise of the Third Reich, CV’s point is valid
Claiming to have direct connection neither increases your perspective nor does it diminish anyone else’s
Steady on. It is true that big US money helped support the Third Reich during the 1930s. It does not mean that they knew what the manic Nazis would eventually do, but it still does not reflect well upon the policies of our very right-wing US Corporates. It is sometimes a habit of theirs, going by US interference in other countries since.
I should have mentioned General Electric as well.
It’s not my problem that you are so close to this that your brain turns off.
But who built and funded them?
So fucking what? Without a compliant greedy corporate machinery, that ideology would have been just another flash in the pan bout of crazy paranoid schizo that no one would have noticed or paid attention to.
Look up the photo of Henry Ford receiving Nazi Germany’s highest civilian honour. His company enabled the Blitzkrieg.
Given the amount of time you blatantly spend trawling the net, the links you post are sub standard
Trawling the net only to satiate your confirmation bias and self stated ABT position will be making you sick if you are not already
The Bush Family support and have supported The Clintons for decades and you can’t get more na*i/fasc*st than that!
Pull yourself together it’s getting ridiculous
Clueless chump says what …..?…..yawn
And you don’t even have the emotional nous to respond with anything other than a confirmation of my assessment!
Whomever or wherever you are and for the sake of those close to you, try a little harder to expand your thinking capacity mate
Why do you think I would bother responding to you and your arcane claptrap on any other level when on more than one occasion I’ve indicated I’d rather you fucking ignored me you muppet.
Smack dab in the middle of his ongoing meltdown, too.
Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.
The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
popcorn…..
https://thinkprogress.org/one-year-of-trumps-tax-returns-were-just-revealed-now-we-know-why-he-won-t-release-the-rest-a68e88a6038a#.r6xofr4qi
I think Trump has been doing the same thing with his taxes as all the mega-corporations which support Hillary are doing.
If you admit his financial fiddling is the same, why are you shaking your pom poms for this emotionally unstable eugenics-obsessed, nuke-loving, elitist tax-evading, accused rapist, racist misogynist?
“Buuuut KKKillary eats live kittens!” and a stab at google is less of a response than a tic or conditioned reflex. It has no content. You can google anything. Every time you type that you admit that Trump is the same as what you claim to despise.
You like to cherry-pick polls that agree with you, even Nate Silver’s synergistic poll …when it agrees with you. I suppose now that your predicted bounce for Trump didn’t eventuate (in fact Clinton had the sharp rise according to 538, will you be back to reading Dilbert for secret messages from Yoda Adams?
I hardly think Hillary Clinton is ideal or even good, and American plutocracy is corrupt and she won’t fix it, and Trump won’t change one thing for the better – he boasts of taking advantage of the housing crisis that threw so many poor working people out of their homes, he boasts of evading taxes, his tax plan will cut taxes enormously for the rich and he openly crows of his intention to commit war crimes (an overt policy of targeting civilian non-combatants and torture will all be increased, he says) – there is NOT ONE THING that he will do that will help the poor and he has a Strangelovean love of aggression that will drag America into still more bloody wars.
As well as that, frankly, there is the brownshirted elephant in the room that you “shrug” at. Fascism is a thing to dread and to stop because its even worse – it is certainly not some aesthetic faux pas to be brushed off.
You should look at the actual unashamed N*zis cheering Trump alongside you. Have a look at the people he’s appointing like Pence, an appallingly misogynist religious fundamentalist, as his running mate… and ask yourself some serious questions about basic human decency.
Do you just have schadenfreude contemplating the damage he’ll do? I’ve not seen one indication that you care about the people he has hurt or boasts of intending to hurt.
I’ve explained my position on Trump. He will be the better POTUS for NZ, he will be the better POTUS for the Asia Pacific, and he will seek de-confliction with both China and Russia by defanging the neocons in D.C.
I understand that the US Deep State may not allow any of this to happen.
For the American people, I fear that I do not hold much hope for betterment of their situation under either Clinton or Trump.
He will seek a safer Pacific? A man who’s promised a trade war with China if he doesn’t get his own way? Someone with the self-control of General Jack D. Ripper?
I understand that the US Deep State may not allow any of this to happen.
Setting up for “The election was rigged!” already, I see.
For the American people, I fear that I do not hold much hope for betterment of their situation under either Clinton or Trump.
Ugh, the sort of hypocritical unctuousness suitable for Uriah Heep.
I have no problem with TRADE wars Rhinocrates.
But Clinton doesn’t do TRADE wars. She does ACTUAL wars of regime change and neocon hubris, as well as brinksmanship in the South China Sea and the Middle East/Eastern Europe with Russia.
I explained my position and rationale; I can understand why you might not like it, but if you don’t want to hear it, simply don’t ask me next time.
And trade wars harm no-one? And they can’t escalate if one side is a thin-skinned narcissist who asks “If we have nuclear weapons, why don’t we use them?”
Idiot.
+100 CV…well said
Aww ref, they must be some other blokes……
A friend of Donald Trump’s recently approached him to suggest that he will eventually have to release his tax returns, as every presidential nominee has for decades. The friend told Trump that he should do it before the GOP convention to ensure everyone can process what’s in the returns and help make any revelations “old news” by November. If Trump didn’t do that, he was warned, the odds of politicized leaks from his returns were high, citing several examples from the Obama era, including the illegal leaking of some of Romney’s tax information by the IRS in 2012
“What will you do if the returns come out as part of an October surprise?” Trump was asked. Trump pondered the question and replied, “I’ll say they aren’t mine.” That stunning answer is the essence of Donald Trump. “It’s exactly what I’d expect him to say,” Fox Business’s Charlie Gasparino, who has known Trump for decades, told me.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435254/donald-trumps-tax-returns-delegates-should-abstain-if-he-wont-release
Allegedly this is comedy satire, but it looks pretty much like the real thing to me…
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/10/02/watch_trump_and_clinton_debate_in_the_snl_season_opener.html
A Public Park which Aucklanders cant get access too unless your a member of the Remuera Golf Club which the Auckland Rate payers subsidies members at $12k/head! They got a contract running to 2091 from the council! Fuck’em build houses on it!
http://www.remueragolfclub.com/home
It would make a great camp ground over summer. I bet the chef could put on a mean buffet too!
Agree +100 great for housing and Public parks
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=11720284
”To say that the dam will inevitably have that effect is like saying that anyone who owns an axe will inevitably become an axe murderer.”
According to this man greenpeace haven’t done their homework around the ruataniwha dam
Something random: I was wondering if anyone out there knows if this Ofisa Tonu’u from http://www.labour.org.nz/auckland_candidates (Puketapapa Local Board) is the former All Black?
Yep, I’m sure he’ll do well.
Reply button’s playing up again, so:
So fucking what?
Jesus Christ. Your blithe indifference to the concept of culpability suggests the moral development of a spoiled infant.
Without a compliant greedy corporate machinery, that ideology would have been just another flash in the pan bout of crazy paranoid schizo that no one would have noticed or paid attention to.
Look up the photo of Henry Ford receiving Nazi Germany’s highest civilian honour. His company enabled the Blitzkrieg.
There have been plenty of witch hunts and pogroms done on the cheap with happy volunteer labour. Without the intention to do evil, that money could have been spent growing daffodils.
A wee pointer on learning history: google and the teachings of Dogbert do not educate you.
N*zism and its cousin fascism were no “flash in the pan” but broad an deep movements with sympathetic movements and parties in many states, even Britain (Moseley’s lot). If you knew the slightest bit about history, which clearly you do not, you would know that mere blind corporate investment in factories is not what motivates millions to slaughter millions. It was the choice of N*zis to do so with their many, many adherents. If you care to “look up” the writings of Himmler on “Blood and Soil” and “Living Space” you’ll see the basis of their ideology and decisions. There are some pretty weird occultist beliefs behind Himmler too.
That “flash in the pan” is more of a bale of straw needing a spark.
Ford etc are probably unknowingly complicit, though Ford was a rabid anti-semite and admired the N*zis.
However, those who choose to commit atrocities – the leaders and their millions of followers – are the ones responsible. They are not absolved by silly insistence that the sole source of evil in the world is an American boardroom and nowhere else.
Talking about modern day atrocities and those who commit them, and those sickeningly self righteous left wing progressives who go on to give it a pass
Remind me whose US administration it was who starved and deprived millions of Iraqi children of medical care and food through sanctions such that 500,000 of those children died, and when their Sec State was asked about it on TV she said that “it was worth it.”
Clue: one of the current Presidential candidates was married to him.
“Talking about…”
That’s a really clumsy and childish attempt at a diversion, even for you.
Do you really think this is some weird arithmetic where points on one side cancel points on the other?
Who exactly does that absolve?
Go back to your sand pit.
Says the man trying to equate Donald Trump, a liberal New York Democrat at heart, with Adolf Hitler.
By the way, the answer you couldn’t stomach was Clinton.
And for the 500,000 to 600,000 Syrian deaths so far, the answer is Obama/Clinton.
But none of these Iraqi people or Syrian people or Libyan people are your relatives, right?
Liberal New York Democrat at heart
As evidenced by all he’s been saying and doing? With all his racisms and misogyny? With his active support for and from N*zis? I’m not just name calling and saying he’s “poopy-pants” or whatever. The bedsheets, the swastikas and the goose stepping among his supporters is all real… But at heart he’s a liberal?
(So I equate him with Hitler? Yeah I do. So does Anne Frank’s family – and they were there seeing it the first time around.)
Latest is a pledge to sign a federal law allowing discrimination against LGBT people on the basis of “religious freedom” exclusively for right wing Christians. Liberal, right?
Anyway, that’s been covered, so what you’re saying is a flat lie. Repeating it won’t make it true.
I know perfectly well what the answer is, and spare me your crocodile tears for people you simply use yourself as tokens in your rhetorical games.
I said evil is evil and there is no game you can play that absolves one side or renders it irrelevant. What you did was a rhetorical diversion and now you are deliberately misrepresenting me.
Every time you say “Hillary eats live kittens” you are saying that eating live kittens is wrong. True indeed, but if another person eats live kittens, two wrongs have been committed, not one. No blame has been lifted. This does not bring balance to the Force. Trump remains a loathsome bastard with the support of loathsome bastards.
I say he’s a loathsome bastard releasing old demons that will not be stopped easily and they are worse than you can imagine with your limited faculties and weird obsession.
So: idiot and a liar.
“Do you really think this is some weird arithmetic where points on one side cancel points on the other?”
See the False Equivalence post. That’s CV too a T. He can’t get his head around “not supporting Trump does not equal supporting Clinton”. All comments regarding Trump, Russia or Putin are met with the same response. Deflect to Clinton and accuse the questioner of somehow being complicit in allowing the West to bomb the shit out of everywhere.
Pure speculation on my part, but CVs presentation is similar to people who have been disillusioned and betrayed. Their world is turned upside down, what they pledged allegiance to they now hate, they feel abject and as catharsis obsessively latch on to clear incarnations of what disappointed them as a hate figure and a hero who more often than not is a scourge by proxy (collateral damage be damned).
Not really psychology, more lit crit (which is my “official” area of expertise) and CVs not really a literary character of course.
Keep on piling up the personal attacks and abuse, Rhinocrates, I don’t mind, get it out of your system.
rhinocrates, it seems that you and the rest of the righteous liberal lefty establishment better get ready to lose the election on Nov 8 to a bunch of racist, red neck, misogynist, gay hating, uneducated, deplorables and irredeemables, then.
By the way,
and you’ll be at the front cheering them on, smiling slyly as they begin metaphorically fashioning their nooses.
Metaphorically?
thought it was a bit too much without that
But you have his number – the mind numbingly distorted convolutions he makes to try and escape his own tail. Lies built on bullshit topped with lashings of fake tears and throw your granny under the bus political points scoring – and trump is just as bad
How’s the Kermadecs, you impressed with the response of the Left yet?
Just saw his response. It’s the Kermadecs now. Proves your point really.
More impressive than your lefty cred, CV.
You’re about as left as my right nut.
rhinocrates, it seems that you and the rest of the righteous liberal lefty establishment better get ready to lose the election on Nov 8 to a bunch of racist, red neck, misogynist, gay hating, uneducated, deplorables and irredeemables, then.
BTW how is your precious LGTBQ community doing in Libya nowadays, since Hillary Clinton allowed Islamic extremists to implode and take over the country?
Wake up and smell the real evil, the real dehumanising haters.
Hows the LGTB community doing in Russia?
How’s the LGTBQ community doing in the areas of Syria taken over by Western/US backed Jihadists?
In Russia, the LGBTQ community have to live within the strictures of a more socially and religiously conservative society.
In Libya, the LGBTQ community have to live within the strictures of a more socially and religiously conservative society.
How is that statement different from Russia? All I read from you is Western backed LGBT discrimination bad, Russian state sponsored homophobia and discrimination is merely “the strictures of a more socially and religiously conservative society.”
Uh. Sure mate, no difference between life in Moscow or St Petersburg and life in Sirte.
So some discrimination is OK in your world.
They must be doing pretty well – the Russian President distributes homoerotic photos of himself to the media, which is more than you can say for most countries.
Like this?:
http://www.konbini.com/en/files/2015/09/Putin.jpg
Come to think of it, I rather like this one:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9dxNnekD3xg/UwJGYcfjRNI/AAAAAAAAAa0/tuJw6Q928d4/s1600/Putin+poster+-+web.jpg
Schadenfreude? I’m going to get my comeuppance am I?
My “precious” LGBT community? I think my friends there prefer “fabulous.”
Your sarcasm shows your callousness. Yet then there are more crocodile tears for LGBT people in Syria that you dismissed so sarcastically. Mere rhetorical tokens again, not real people.
Somehow I think I can be forgiven for thinking of you playing with action figures going “Grrrr! Yarrr! Take that faggot-lover!”
The real evil? There’s only one?
Where do you get the impression that I support Clinton? I’ve never said such a thing. Is it from from the voices in your head? It is as if you were at a performance of Hamlet and all you hear is “Blah blah blah blah Clinton!”, then go to a park and hear the tulips muttering “Clinton, Clinton, Clinton.” You are genuinely obsessed.
Get help.
Like I said, questioning CV makes you a Clinton supporter
Morbidly interesting in a way… and I must admit to deliberately needling him. I’m a writer and I’m thinking my next-novel-but-one which might look at the rise of an extremist group (kind of a theme in the one I’m working on now). Crazy would-be Fuhrers are plentiful and most fail, but like a storm, if the field is charged, lighting will strike. The “charge” is the millions who will become their followers. CV shows me how formerly sane and decent individuals (and he’s still driven by a speck of moral ardour) can become so obsessed with simple equations of black and white that they’re willing to follow a demagogue.
It’s all material. Hopefully it’s only material.
I’m a writer too. Had a few pieces published in international and NZ magazines. Was a stringer for Remix in Auckland while living in London – had a few articles published.
I don’t do journalism anymore though – was a brief foray. I like the creative form.
But yes, CV has a very…binary POV.
Not an easy living. Good luck. I’m hoping that academic editing gigs will stabilise my income as long as I have time for the creative side.
I have a full time, well paid job. But I still spend time working on a novel of sorts. While I am only 36 my story is interesting enough to validate a memoir.
In writing it I am learning a lot about myself.
Look in the mirror mate you’re the one following me around writing screeds of personal hate.
CV…I am with you all the way on this one…Trump is a better option than Clinton…the very thought of her being next President makes me shudder
Chur, Chooky 🙂
I’m with a large fraction of Americans who can’t stomach either of them. Unfortunately NOT voting doesn’t help.
Nor am I willing to make any predictions; as I’ve said all along any damn thing could, and likely will happen. This is a chaos election.
Prick will be lucky not to join Bernie Madoff.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html
Timing, brevity, monumental losses in a boom year with the possibility the leak was from within his own camp.
A masterful piece of ratfucking.
http://www.vox.com/2016/10/1/13134976/trump-tax-documents
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/10/donald-trumps-1996-tax-returns-leaked-from-trump-tower
Yep – this could be the beginning of the end. From Trump tower, trumps old lawyer verified it.
I wondered why clinton didn’t pounce on it at the debate – planted a seed and must have known something was growing… or maybe she is just a talking head who couldn’t not follow the script – hmmm