I can imagine Patrick Gower with a microphone in Shearer’s face… what’s the vote count, how can we believe it’s what you say if you don’t give us the vote count? Even though it’s a secret ballot. Then Shearer getting blasted all over the news if he doesn’t give the secret answer…
Which MP’s are going to be true to their beliefs that Shearer is not leadership material?
It will be interesting to see how many, if any? of the Labour caucus back their convictions and cast a no confidence vote in Shearer as leader. Also there should be a number of MP’s taking direction from their LEC to force a wider vote from the party membership surely? I will find it hard to swallow if atleast 6 votes are not confirmed nay sayers.
Beautiful day today! Winning the Labour/Greens government the country so badly needs takes a big step forward in a few hours. Well done to all those LP activists who helped democratise the party, particularly those like myself who wanted Cunliffe but will work for the good of the party and for the good of NZ even if he won’t be leader.
Yep, but I wouldn’t expect major changes. Too early to dump dead wood like Mallard et al. That can wait till closer to the election, when it would be too risky to challenge Shearer’s call.
Apparently the only way to kill a zombie is to take out the head.
Anyhoo, in lieu of Rogue Trooper:
…Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass,
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
Hope someone has an attack on the National government lined up for running alongside the leadership vote. One inch up for labour (provided quality vote etc) and one inch down for national.
Otherwise of course the only political news will be “more leadership conflict for labour”
The Independent (UK) this weekend has an article about an event “today” that commemorates the 2nd wave Women’s Movement in the UK.
Today hundreds of the veteran activists from some of Britain’s most famous protests, ranging from Greenham Common to the miners’ strike, will gather for the first time. The worlds of social campaigning, politics and art come together today in a “Silver Action” event at the Tate Modern, London, where some 400 women campaigners aged over 60 will talk about their work.
Damn! Wish I could be there. That was the context in which I truly became politicised while living in London. I recognise one or two names in the article of women I knew at some point back then. Also the women mentioned and the range of their activities back in the 60s and 70s, show just how strongly the UK Women’s Movement was embedded in the grass roots left: its origins in Ruskin College – a place for educating trade unionists and people from “disadvantaged” backgrounds, with no formal qualifications: initially set up for educating working class men.
Although, I guess commemorations are fine, but there’s still too many crucial political struggles going on.
More than 700 pedestrians have been hit by cars at Auckland intersections over the past four years, and most victims were not paying attention to vehicles around them, distracted by cellphones or music players or succumbing to their own impatience.
When we moved to Vienna we couldn’t work out why drivers were impatient with our pausing before crossing the road at uncontrolled intersections, else they very courteously waited for us to cross. What a difference. Then we found out that cars must stop for pedestrians. It’s the law. The world didn’t end.
Indeed, while many drivers here are sensitive to pedestrians, many others are totally intolerant and/or oblivious. Since my accident the year before last (a result of my own carelessness), I am way more sensitive to how one careless moment can cause devastating impacts on the body. It continues to amaze me the number of drivers who speed across pedestrian crossings unaware that some of us are waiting to cross.
When I took driving lessons in the UK, before going for my UK licence, I was strongly schooled to visually scan around up-coming pedestrian crossings, looking for pedestrians, and preparing to stop in case an unexpected pedestrian stepped out. It is now pretty much second nature to me to do that.
Yes, we found UK drivers, in smaller cities in particular, very observant. I was actually talking about driver behaviour at intersections while walking today, which is probably why I picked up on the article. With a trip back to NZ imminent I’d strangely drifted back into stopping and waiting for cars at T-junctions, as I would do in NZ, without realising it, after about 4 or 5 crossings with drivers waiting for us to cross it gradually dawned on me what I was doing. I’ll have to be careful not reverse the error while back home.
Yep, the entire population sems to have forgotten that the streets were created for pedestrians. Cars came much much later and should be secondary in importance. Good luck with that though as today when that fact is mentioned people merely glaze over as it has never occured to them, such is the presumption that the streets were created for cars.
The streets most places are pretty dismal today. Try walking somewhere and you will find hardly any other people walking the streets or even in public places. The streets are ugly places now with whizzing cars and fumes, grey-black tarseal and concrete covering as many square metres as possible, hard, glare, noise, danger.
+1
I’m probably a little oversensitive to this issue because I walk a lot and have had a fair few inconsiderate drivers on controlled and uncontrolled crossings (it also really annoys me that the traffic light phasing doesn’t favour pedestrians, but that’s another story). It’s become sort of a hobby to compare drivers’ general attitudes toward pedestrians in different places.
The car traffic seems to go very fast in Vienna. When the crossing is controlled by lights I think that car drivers (quite rightly) assume that there will be no pedestrians on the road nor any jaywalkers. Therefore traffic clears quickly until the next phase for pedestrians. I noticed that it was very unwise to cross without the green- angry drivers! Maybe we pedestrians should follow the rules, but after a lifetime of drifting across when I feel like it, hard to change.
On the arterial routes, yes they do. I don’t know if there are variable speed limits in town, but it’s likely given the difference between those roads and others. I guess also with pedestrians having the right of way every where else drivers are not too keen when you cross on a red on an arterial route. Same with driving slowly in the fast lane…
Having grown up and lived for many years in Vienna, my hometown, I agree that they do drive faster, especially the “professional traffic” after 8am and pedestrians are directed by a road code in the same way as drivers. Driving slow in the fast lanes will get the professional drivers to pressure you to change lanes. Of cause it all looks denser due to the sheer volume- Vienna has about 2 mil people on 400 m2, compare Auckland with 1.3mil people on 1000 m2 – and with it the amount of vehicles, private and company on that spec of land. The driver license is another point. It is obtained after a very rigorous process (expensive) and tests both written and oral. People need to be at least 18 and have to have a full license before being allowed onto the road – there are no learners licenses. All in all – certainly not a dreamy ride.
However, the number of private cars is actually only 390 approx per 1000 people. This is mostly due to the fact that one really does not need a car in Vienna due to the excellent public transport service. I really mean that, not because I am from there but it is true.
I love your hometown Foreign Waka! Half time here and half in New Zealand would be perfect 😉
Yes, we don’t have a car and use the integrated public transport (trains, buses and trams) or walk to get around. A reduction in car-parking has also reduced the value of car ownership. We were accosted once by a couple of FPO people to sign a petition against the reductions. We spent ages telling them how good the transport system was and how we didn’t need a car before we realised who they were and the answers they were after. Woops. Of course with the central city pedestrianised it also makes it easier to do without a car when living in the inner ring.
The driver’s training does show. Drivers are observant around town and know what they’re doing.
Hey look, I am sorry to be a bastard (ironic huh?) but as one of your favourite (and continual) assertions is that Labour is a right-wing party I really have to call you out on something.
Don’t humour the poor simple-minded soul, Draco. One of those post-menopausal late-developers who clog up lecture rooms and demand extra explanations all the time.
Or the private school debater who oozes confidence and stupidity, only to be shell-shocked at university when their textbook (read “pro forma”) presentation is identified as failing to address the single fundamental factor that collapses their entire position.
On RadioNZ National program the Slippery lead National Government’s focus for 2013 is to be discussed in terms of what the ‘life-time’ cost of beneficiaries is,
In other words the present National Government having absolutely no idea how to stem the flow of red ink in the Governments accounts will now discuss in quiet polite voices how they plan to take away from those legal entitlements to welfare so as to be able to trumpet some bullshit balancing of the books as an election strategy for November 2014,
Should be a good listen if only to see which group of those currently receiving benefits are about to get it in the neck the hardest during the next 12 months…
If that is the case then I hope opposition parties do similar on, for example, lifetime costs borne by wage and salary earners to support the little tax paid by businesses such as farmers who take their gains through tax-free capital gain.
There are countless others.
It is overdue for fire to be fought with fire. This government gets away with all sorts of bullshit and the oppositions just whimper around the edges like sooky cowards with no chutzpa. Wussies.
Long may the Stalinist purge continue with too many MPs scared to vote to give us a say. Now the King/Mallard cabal will come after you one by one.
Andrew Little just forget Rongotai but be very worried about your list ranking too. The Stalinist cabal are going to centralise their power on list selection….you heard it here first! And all the others on the list, or with a seat they want to retire you from, just watch it…Prasad, Chauvel, Dyson, Robertson, Street….you’re going down.
But I’m off, no more pamphlet deliveries, no more donations, wine auctions, fundraisers….not off to join another party but I won’t be voting for Labour again.
Yep – Ad, Benghazi, Draco – both of us are also sad, and resigned. At least it will free up any spare time over the next couple of years NOT feeling obliged to attend meetings, organise, deliver pamphlets, raise funds, etc.
Labour should be able to form a government, with Winston’s help, even if it gets as low as 31% or 32%. But, the historic mission and purpose of the Labour Party seems to have been forgotten, at the very time that it is needed more than ever.
That is actually the point, especially younger ones have lost faith in a voting system where 32% with a bit of wiggle is perceived to be able to govern. Why? That is so far away from any majority that one can only wonder. Is that what Mr Shearer builds his confidence on? If it is even contemplated that 32% can go anywhere than FPP has never been changed.
OK, that was all as enlightening as MUD, the only point of real interest was Paula, the Minister of removing people form their entitlements, giving as a reason for the disparity in the figures of actual unemployed and the number of those currently collecting the dole is that both Sickness beneficiaries and those who receive the DPB who also have children over the age of 5 are now being included in the figures of the unemployed,
What tho of the heart of the discussion,
This ‘discussion’ centers on the figures that if those currently receiving a welfare benefit were to receive that benefit for a ‘lifetime’ the cost to the Government would be 78 billion dollars, (shock horror spit),
Lets put aside the little ‘fact’ for the moment that such a proposition FAILS at the first hurdle in that very few of those people as a % will receive those benefits ‘for a lifetime’, instead lets play the game as the Paula’s (Bennett and Rebstock) do, as monetarists,
Remembering all the while that the GROSS COST of all those benefits over a ‘lifetime’ is 78 billion dollars,(gasp shock horror) we can judge this against Government revenue from the figure that this is currently 60.6 billion dollars a year, (leaving aside for the moment that we are in the middle of a recession),
So, in ten years that Government revenue would have been 600 billion dollars set against a ‘lifetime’ welfare bill of 78 billion dollars,
In fifty years of Government revenue the total Government revenue collected will be, excuses here as my riffmatic aint so hot, a ball park figure of 3000 billion dollars against a ‘lifetime’ welfare bill of 78 billion dollars, and, say that slowly to yourself to see just how ridiculous the Paula’s are being in using such a figure as a crude club to attempt to turn people against beneficiaries,
Now being good little monetarists, (well just for this morning anyway), we in all honesty have to look at this equation from around all aspects of this 78 billion dollars GROSS that the Government in all it’s largesse will pay out over that ‘lifetime’ of payment,
Taxation!!! yes TAXATION, the Paula’s (Bennett and Rebstock) are using GROSS figures to arrive at the figure of 78 billion dollars, SO, using back of an envelope figures we can ‘see’ that direct taxation of that 78 billion dollars will result in 15% of that 78 billion NOT being paid to those beneficiaries at all,
Indirect taxation, you know the stuff, petrol tax, tobacco tax, tax tax tax etc, will result in the Government within 2 days of having paid out any of this 78 billion dollars recouping another 10% of the 78 billion dollars,
And, last but not least GS fucking T, at 15% will mean that within 2 days of having paid out any of the 78 billion dollars the Government will have raked back in another 15% of that 78 billion dollars,
But wait there’s more, yes sadly more, Beneficiaries spend what little monies they receive as part of that 78 billion dollars within 2 days into the local economy, what’s left after taxation is extracted that is, the goods and services bought by those beneficiaries from local providers are again taxed as profit from the pockets of those the beneficiaries buy the goods and services off of,
So here’s the Paula’s(Bennett and Rebstock), equation again from a ballpark income of 3000 billion dollars over a ‘lifetime’, 78 billion dollars will be paid out in welfare benefits 40% of which the Government will have within 2 days of paying this money out recouped as TAXATION,
What then to make of the 2 Paula’s(Bennett and Rebstock) shock horror 78 billion dollar ‘lifetime’ cost of welfare benefits, bullshit, simply blatant fucking bullshit is the best i can at this point muster from my limited vocabulary…
Would such short statement not be the job of labor in the house when these figures are being thrown around and hence have to be reported in the same way as Mrs Bennets statement?
Lolz, i dont’t think Bullshit is a word allowed,(under standing orders), to be uttered in the House, i wonder tho if ‘equine defecation’ might slip through…
“This ‘discussion’ centers on the figures that if those currently receiving a welfare benefit were to receive that benefit for a ‘lifetime’ the cost to the Government would be 78 billion dollars, (shock horror spit),”
and any journo worth the title would respond with “yeah but thats a sack or horseshit and you know it”
Paula, the Minister of parting people from what was once their legal entitlements, unintentionally painted Her and the other Paula’s (Rebstocks), monetary assertion of the ‘lifetime’ cost of beneficiaries as bullshit in the RadioNZ National interview this morning pointing out that the unemployment figures show that that benefit isn’t the ‘problem’ as the majority of those who access the unemployment benefit do so for short periods,
So, we now know that Paula has no pressing inducement to further attack unemployment benefit recipients besides having them prove that they have been looking for work,
She said as much also about the recipients of DPB, which just leads me to the conclusion that the most vulnerable cohort of mostly single people in our society are in the next 18 months to be subjected to Paula’s ‘help’ to move them off of that particular benefit,
Paula a number of times during the interview pointed out that Invalids Beneficiaries are paid a higher rate of benefit than those who receive the unemployment benefit, this is of course because the invalids benefit is expected by those who receive it and the Medical Professionals who test these individuals for work capability befor signing the relevant paper-work do not expect such people to be in any condition to work for a number of years if ever,
Paula tho knows best and we can assume that the National Government ‘plan’ to move 40,000 individuals ‘off benefit’ will be directed at these individuals, the economics of which National have given as much thought to as the 78 billion dollar ‘lifetime cost’ of benefits i will get down to discussing later…
now, anyhoo, this is just for the locals, and then i will sit back out of your hair.
an argillaceous liason around the ear as a scruffily draped phaethon parked a Malt magnesia exertion beneath the quasia dilantern.purslonely, it’s a bitter sweet sola number. Mind the salt Sister shiney washer, Let Robin save the day from the pun under your bed. To the emperor we dispose (please don’t let my tyre down; I enjoyed the walk) A pound a round The Globe. Beep Beep bop a loo bop
a little melting. Talk about pissisting down a man’s deep furrows.tick The Other Kind a pair of brown eyes walk alone (to be Farr, I’ve always followed the news to see what’s blown up today)
spinning wheel goes round and round the Gestalt chair, yet no bodies there.took the money and run.
On his way into the caucus, David Cunliffe said it was a secret ballot so he would not discuss how he would vote. In January he had said he would endorse Mr Shearer. Mr Shearer outflanked Mr Cunliffe in an effective challenge at the party conference last year.
Many other MPs going in also refused to say how they would vote, saying it was a secret ballot.
Slight difference between a frontbencher refusing to endorse the leader at conference while voting to change the election format into a form that might be advantageous for him (while the leader abstained from that vote), and a backbencher who has previously endorsed the leader walking into the caucus room on the day of what looks like a routine confidence endorsement.
A secretive funding organisation in the United States that guarantees anonymity for its billionaire donors has emerged as a major operator in the climate “counter movement” to undermine the science of global warming, The Independent has learnt . . .
In my internet travelling, I often come across the denialist position that climate change is a conspiracy. Ironic situation is ironic.
Well, after THAT news today it may be safe to assume that the only champagne corks popping tonight will be in the abodes of Team Shearer and those of the right wingers.
Instead lets raise a glass of red to The Greens and give a nod to Mana. All power to you. All power to us as voters too. We need to rally togther and to unify. Its up to us as well. Collectively and individually we have to get those non voters educated and motivated. Its a big task ahead.
. . . Shooting the messenger is still a favourite pastime of despotic regimes and corporate institutions and their lawyers, who use various types of silencers on their weaponry, aimed at those who light even a candle to disturb the dark of corruption . . .
Just for something different eh vto? You Cantabrians must be built of strong stuff. I’d have been a mess along time ago if I was in your shoes. The heaving earth beneath your feet is one thing but it must be something else to have the strength to take on insurers and cope with being treated like irksome peasants by a contemptuous govt. Kia Kaha.
Ha, yeah cheers, but we are mere mortals and I think most populations would just deal with it all the same way. As for being a mess – yep, there is plenty mess in the population. Strung out and worn out. Especially when the Great Earth Monster lets loose right under your arse…
“The Panel” continues its ghastly decline
Radio NZ National, Monday 4 March, 2013
Jim Mora, Jonathan Krebs, Tino Pereira
We are already into the fourth week of this year’s version of Jim Mora’s program “The Panel”. Sadly, the producers have made no innovations or improvements to the format at all; Jim’s volubility is as insufferable as ever, his blithe condescension is if anything even worse, and the “talent” is drawn from the same stagnant pool of lacklustre sycophants as it was last year, and the year before.
Today’s edition was typical….
MORA: All right, the next subject is ACC payouts. Some of these claims to ACC are hilarious! There were fifty claims for sunburn! Hur hur hur hur hur!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Hur hur hur hur hur! Fourteen thousand claims for insect bites…
TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: There were one hundred and ninety-five claims for windsurfing and—hur, hur, hur, hur!—two hundred and eleven for bodyboard injuries!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!
JIM MORA: Hur hur hur! And 938 barbecue injuries! Hur hur hur hur hur!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!
TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Professor Grant Duncan from Massey University joins us. Hur hur
hur hur!
PROFESSOR DUNCAN: I am concerned about this apparent trivialization of injuries.
MORA: Uhhhh….
PROFESSOR GRANT DUNCAN: I don’t think these injuries are trivial. If you get stung by a swarm of wasps you need to get yourself to hospital. I think it’s dangerous if we start to trivialize injuries like this.
MORA: Hmmmm. Inevitable with media reportage though….
SOAPBOX….
MORA: Now’s the time we find out what our Panelists have been thinking about. Jonathan, you want to talk about university fees?
KREBS: Yeah, I don’t have anything that’s really NEEDLING me at the moment, Jim, but my daughter Harriet is off to university and I have had to pay $6,000 for her accommodation and $7,000 for course fees, which made me pucker up a bit!
Thankfully rain fade brought me to my senses but it’s a doozy ain’t it? Poor buggers! Still, I guess it pays the mortgage aye and its cleaner than the usual form of prostitution. They can probably wait till they get home before they have to have a shower!
What if David Cunliffe started his own party, i’m sure he would get a truckload of
support, who needs the s–t that has been dished out to him, just a thought.
UNWATCHABLE! SEVEN SHARP IS A DISASTER
One’s dreadful new current affairs show will not survive
SEVEN SHARP, Inaugural broadcast, Television One, Monday 4 March 2013
Alison Mau, Greg Boyed, Jesse Mulligan and assorted others
Alison Mau’s credibility, already pretty unimpressive, has plunged to an all-time low over the weekend, following her ludicrous few days of dishonestly lionizing “Sir” Paul Holmes as the greatest broadcaster who ever lived. It was ominous that she debased her currency so grievously just before this show’s opening.
Anybody who has looked at his Twitter account or seen him try to ad-lib while reading the News knows that Greg Boyed is about as funny as a parking ticket. On the evidence of tonight’s show, his idea of humour is to make sarcastic remarks. Not funny sarcastic remarks, though; Boyed is no Charlie Brooker. His first contribution to the dreadful three-person opening remarks sequence, was to make a sarcastic swipe at Titewhai Harawira, smirking with derision as he called her “that paragon of reason.” It was the sort of remark that the late Paul Holmes would have made, but Boyed has none of Holmes’s leavening wit.
Jesse Mulligan, who is billed as a comedian, decided to go for the big laughs: “Now we were going to have the Prime Minister cut a ribbon for the start of the show, but he wasn’t available.” Then he laughed: “Naaah, actually he WAS available, he just didn’t want to come on. Ha ha ha ha ha!” Tellingly, neither Alison Mau nor Greg Boyed could squeeze out a laugh to support the poor fellow. They were clearly wishing the ground would swallow them up. And so, no doubt, were most viewers.
Barry Soper’s South African squeeze Heather Du Plessis-Allan announced that she was going to do a “puff-piece” on John Key. “What else would you expect?” she laughed. And that’s just what she did.
I bailed after five minutes. It was simply unwatchable.
observing the political machinations (under the hood and on the deck) in this country, it is no surprise we have wrong-headed where we are going. Kubrick may be correct, no amount of writing on The Wall this season and as for roman Ghosts! In ADDition, any suggestions other than auto-pilot or Siberia? What is reaped is what is grown to make of no effect when one leg is shorter than the other or missing benignly. It’s a minefield on a moon lit night through vanity and vineyards across the red cod reef Clive; If not, a co-ordinated portamanto is being drawn as we pick up after others (my notes have been binned in the recycling, blown away like the sand of a mandala) I really don’t mind if we sit this one Out (we may make you feel but we can’t help but think…back to the scrap heap) 🙁
Last Post for our loyal side-kick soldier.
Get LAo Daily (this cat’s not comin’ back) arrivederci, auf wiedersehen pets. bye 🙁 🙂
observing the political machinations in this country, it is no surprise we have wrong-headed where we are going. Kubrick may be correct; no amount of writing will break down The Wall this season and as for roman Ghosts? In Addition, any suggestions other than auto-pilot or Siberia? What is reaped is what is grown to make of no effect when one leg is shorter than the other or missing altogether.It’s a mine-field on a moonlit night through vanity and vineyards across a red cod sand-Bar.If not a co-ordinated portamanto is being drawn.Picking up after others as I deposited my own notes in a recycling bin, blown away like a sand mandala. Really don’t mind if I sit this one Out
(we may make you feel but we can’t help but think…off to the scrap heap again).
Last Post for our trusty side-kick soldier.Get LAotea Daily. (this cat’s not coming back).
2/3rd of the page down on the left side entitles Inside John Keys Office a nice little 4.5 min vomit fest of Key love in talk about 1 sided reporting. But they have to do somethinf after that crap 7 Sharp Maybe they could get Hooton on it a crap writer on a crap show.
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I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of BirminghamSpace exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of ...
Michael Head, University of SouthamptonThe UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government ...
So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
Lost Opportunity: The powerful political metaphor of the Maori Party leading the despised and marginalised from danger to safety, is one Labour could have pre-empted by taking the uprising at Waikeria Prison much more seriously. AS WORD OF Rawiri Waititi’s successful intervention in the Waikeria Prison stand-off spreads, the Maori ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
America's Cup team American Magic has spoken publicly after their boat Patriot capsized when on its way to their first win of the Challenger Selection Series yesterday. Patriot dramatically capsized yesterday, becoming temporarily airborne before crashing back into the water and tipping. The boat, helmed by New Zealander Dean Barker, could not be ...
It’s a seemingly age old question: why do Auckland’s beaches become unswimmable after every single downpour? Stewart Sowman-Lund investigates.Ah, the beach. A staple of the New Zealand summer. Unless, of course, you’re based in Auckland and it’s raining. The start of 2021 has been a lot like every other New ...
We have opened a book, among members of the Point of Order team, on how long it will be before the PM offers to sort out the land dispute at Wellington’s Shelly Bay and (to win the double) how much the settlement will cost taxpayers. Just a few weeks ago ...
Breakfast TV news is back for 2021, and Tara Ward got up early to watch. “Thank god it’s almost Christmas,” John Campbell said during the opening minutes of Breakfast’s premiere episode of the year. “2021’s been rough so far. I’m buggered”. We’re all buggered, to be fair, but I’m worried that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Pearson, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Griffith University The blame for the recent assault on the US Capitol and President Donald Trump’s broader dismantling of democratic institutions and norms can be ...
Despite a popular and unifying leader of the governing party, divisions both in policy and culture will test the progressive movement, writes Peter McKenzie.‘I think we’re confused.” Marlon Drake is an organiser for the Living Wage Movement. His job takes him all over Wellington, trying to convince businesses to increase ...
Covid-19 Recovery Minister Chris Hipkins says vaccinations should be available to the public by the middle of the year, but other countries are prioritised. ...
It’s as true now as it ever has been: nowhere else offers an education experience like that of Dunedin. But rather than resting on their laurels, the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic have plans to make the city an even more inspiring place for students.From high in the summit ...
Haggis, neeps and tatties and whisky may not be a traditional spread for a summer gathering in NZ, but trust Auckland city councillor and Kiwi-Scot Cathy Casey on this one. Gie it laldy! Rule one: Hold it on (or near) January 25Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759. Since the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University It could be argued artificial intelligence (AI) is already the indispensable tool of the 21st century. From helping doctors diagnose and treat patients to rapidly advancing new drug discoveries, it’s our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University Through recent natural disasters, global upheavals and a pandemic, Australia’s political centre has largely held. Australians may have disagreed at times, but they have also kept faith with governmental norms, eschewing the false ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Seale, Associate professor, UNSW Health workers are at higher risk of COVID infection and illness. They can also act as extremely efficient transmitters of viruses to others in medical and aged care facilities. That’s why health workers have been prioritised to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Orchard, Adjunct Lecturer, Monash University Last week, somewhat overshadowed by the events in Washington, the Democrats took control of the US Senate. The Democrats now hold a small majority in both the House and the Senate until 2022, giving President-elect Joe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mittul Vahanvati, Lecturer, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University Heatwaves, floods, bushfires: disaster season is upon us again. We can’t prevent hazards or climate change-related extreme weather events but we can prepare for them — not just as individuals ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandie Shean, Lecturer, School of Education, Edith Cowan University Starting school is an important event for children and a positive experience can set the tone for the rest of their school experience. Some children are excited to attend school for the first ...
Some families in emergency housing are reporting their children are becoming emotionally distressed because of their living conditions. Demand for emergency accommodation has escalated this past year with the number of emergency housing grants increasing by half. Data showed nearly 10,000 people were given an Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant between ...
Summer reissue: Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden are back for a second season of On the Rag, and where better to start than with the mysterious, exhausting world of wellness?First published June 23, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
With few Covid-19 infections and negiligible natural immunity, New Zealand faces being a victim of its own success when it is left till last to get the vaccines, argues Dr Parmjeet Parmar. ...
Steve Braunias reports on a literary cancelling. The Corrections department has refused to allow Jared Savage's best-selling book Gangland inside prison on the grounds that it "promotes violence and drug use". An inmate at Otago Corrections Facility in Dunedin was sent a copy of the book – but it was ...
New data from the CTU’s annual work life survey shows a snapshot of working people’s experiences and outlook heading out of 2020 and into the new year. Concerningly 42% of respondents cite workplace bullying as an issue in their workplace - a number ...
An international player, selector and self-confessed cricket stats nerd, Penny Kinsella has now played a hand in recording the rich history of the women's game in New Zealand. Penny Kinsella’s cricketing career was perched on the cusp of change for the White Ferns. “My first tour to Australia, we ...
The dramatic capsize of American Magic brought out the best in the America's Cup sailing fraternity. But, Suzanne McFadden asks, what does it mean to the crippled New York Yacht Club campaign and to the Prada Cup? It was a scene as unreal as it was calamitous. Right at the moment the ...
The current number of members of parliament is starting to get too low for the job we expect them to do, argues Alex Braae. As a general rule, with the possible exception of their families, nobody likes backbench MPs. But it’s nevertheless time we accepted that parliament should have more of ...
The experience in the Brazilian city of Manaus reveals how mistaken, and dangerous, the herd-immunity-by-infection theory really is. As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop ...
As New Zealand gears up to fight climate change, experts warn that we need to actually reduce emissions, not just plant trees to offset our greenhouse gases. ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank is fighting to protect cash, and those who still use it. ...
So Shearer probably slept well last night, but reckons he hasn’t sounded out his support for today’s vote.
Hope it’s not a foregone 100%.
CV said the other day that the ballot is secret, so theoretically we shouldn’t know the numbers afterwards.
I can imagine Patrick Gower with a microphone in Shearer’s face… what’s the vote count, how can we believe it’s what you say if you don’t give us the vote count? Even though it’s a secret ballot. Then Shearer getting blasted all over the news if he doesn’t give the secret answer…
Yeah Gower is one of the new breed of ‘nasty make it up’ type of reporter. Can’t get a story then just make one up.
So if its a secret vote. How can anyone trust the outcome? As we don’t know what happened.
Which MP’s are going to be true to their beliefs that Shearer is not leadership material?
It will be interesting to see how many, if any? of the Labour caucus back their convictions and cast a no confidence vote in Shearer as leader. Also there should be a number of MP’s taking direction from their LEC to force a wider vote from the party membership surely? I will find it hard to swallow if atleast 6 votes are not confirmed nay sayers.
Each and every Labour MP has a choice today.
Put their hand on heart, look at their colleagues, envision their membership, and
say they have Confidence in the Leadership of the Labour Party or
withhold that in favour of a Party wide 40/40/20 debate and democratic selection process.
+100
And we have every right to expect that of our Labour MPs. +100
Beautiful day today! Winning the Labour/Greens government the country so badly needs takes a big step forward in a few hours. Well done to all those LP activists who helped democratise the party, particularly those like myself who wanted Cunliffe but will work for the good of the party and for the good of NZ even if he won’t be leader.
The next step?
Policy.
“The next step?”
Caucus reshuffle? Can’t do policy without the people in place.
Yep, but I wouldn’t expect major changes. Too early to dump dead wood like Mallard et al. That can wait till closer to the election, when it would be too risky to challenge Shearer’s call.
“Too early to dump dead wood like Mallard et al.”
It can be argued that it’s already too late rather than too early – just saying.
Deadwood does not dump itself. Trevor wants a comfortable retirement sorted.
morning everyone…is this the day Labour dies?
Apparently the only way to kill a zombie is to take out the head.
Anyhoo, in lieu of Rogue Trooper:
…Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass,
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
And good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye,
the day the music died.
note
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology
That is an Excellent and Just saying
Hope someone has an attack on the National government lined up for running alongside the leadership vote. One inch up for labour (provided quality vote etc) and one inch down for national.
Otherwise of course the only political news will be “more leadership conflict for labour”
The Independent (UK) this weekend has an article about an event “today” that commemorates the 2nd wave Women’s Movement in the UK.
Damn! Wish I could be there. That was the context in which I truly became politicised while living in London. I recognise one or two names in the article of women I knew at some point back then. Also the women mentioned and the range of their activities back in the 60s and 70s, show just how strongly the UK Women’s Movement was embedded in the grass roots left: its origins in Ruskin College – a place for educating trade unionists and people from “disadvantaged” backgrounds, with no formal qualifications: initially set up for educating working class men.
Although, I guess commemorations are fine, but there’s still too many crucial political struggles going on.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10863254&ref=rss
When we moved to Vienna we couldn’t work out why drivers were impatient with our pausing before crossing the road at uncontrolled intersections, else they very courteously waited for us to cross. What a difference. Then we found out that cars must stop for pedestrians. It’s the law. The world didn’t end.
Indeed, while many drivers here are sensitive to pedestrians, many others are totally intolerant and/or oblivious. Since my accident the year before last (a result of my own carelessness), I am way more sensitive to how one careless moment can cause devastating impacts on the body. It continues to amaze me the number of drivers who speed across pedestrian crossings unaware that some of us are waiting to cross.
When I took driving lessons in the UK, before going for my UK licence, I was strongly schooled to visually scan around up-coming pedestrian crossings, looking for pedestrians, and preparing to stop in case an unexpected pedestrian stepped out. It is now pretty much second nature to me to do that.
Yes, we found UK drivers, in smaller cities in particular, very observant. I was actually talking about driver behaviour at intersections while walking today, which is probably why I picked up on the article. With a trip back to NZ imminent I’d strangely drifted back into stopping and waiting for cars at T-junctions, as I would do in NZ, without realising it, after about 4 or 5 crossings with drivers waiting for us to cross it gradually dawned on me what I was doing. I’ll have to be careful not reverse the error while back home.
I’ve almost been hit at intersections. It wasn’t because I wasn’t paying attention but because the drivers were running red lights.
Yep, the entire population sems to have forgotten that the streets were created for pedestrians. Cars came much much later and should be secondary in importance. Good luck with that though as today when that fact is mentioned people merely glaze over as it has never occured to them, such is the presumption that the streets were created for cars.
The streets most places are pretty dismal today. Try walking somewhere and you will find hardly any other people walking the streets or even in public places. The streets are ugly places now with whizzing cars and fumes, grey-black tarseal and concrete covering as many square metres as possible, hard, glare, noise, danger.
Bleeeaargh !
Yeah, I’d agree with that. IMO, it’s part of the reason that main-street is closing down. It’s just such a boor to actually go to them.
The other reason is that online shopping is faster, easier and far far cheaper.
Chch is great for cycling now…well, through the city it is. Shame that only happened after the city was flattened.
Don’t underestimate how socially destructive the automobile has been, and continues to be
More short documentaries on pedestrians here
Some moron paid Stephan Fry to talk about how Wellington cyclists should bow down to drivers. Apparently drivers should be thanked when they do not kill those pesky/arrogant/arsehole cyclists. Whoever was involved in that video is a dick.
+1
I’m probably a little oversensitive to this issue because I walk a lot and have had a fair few inconsiderate drivers on controlled and uncontrolled crossings (it also really annoys me that the traffic light phasing doesn’t favour pedestrians, but that’s another story). It’s become sort of a hobby to compare drivers’ general attitudes toward pedestrians in different places.
The car traffic seems to go very fast in Vienna. When the crossing is controlled by lights I think that car drivers (quite rightly) assume that there will be no pedestrians on the road nor any jaywalkers. Therefore traffic clears quickly until the next phase for pedestrians. I noticed that it was very unwise to cross without the green- angry drivers! Maybe we pedestrians should follow the rules, but after a lifetime of drifting across when I feel like it, hard to change.
On the arterial routes, yes they do. I don’t know if there are variable speed limits in town, but it’s likely given the difference between those roads and others. I guess also with pedestrians having the right of way every where else drivers are not too keen when you cross on a red on an arterial route. Same with driving slowly in the fast lane…
Having grown up and lived for many years in Vienna, my hometown, I agree that they do drive faster, especially the “professional traffic” after 8am and pedestrians are directed by a road code in the same way as drivers. Driving slow in the fast lanes will get the professional drivers to pressure you to change lanes. Of cause it all looks denser due to the sheer volume- Vienna has about 2 mil people on 400 m2, compare Auckland with 1.3mil people on 1000 m2 – and with it the amount of vehicles, private and company on that spec of land. The driver license is another point. It is obtained after a very rigorous process (expensive) and tests both written and oral. People need to be at least 18 and have to have a full license before being allowed onto the road – there are no learners licenses. All in all – certainly not a dreamy ride.
However, the number of private cars is actually only 390 approx per 1000 people. This is mostly due to the fact that one really does not need a car in Vienna due to the excellent public transport service. I really mean that, not because I am from there but it is true.
I love your hometown Foreign Waka! Half time here and half in New Zealand would be perfect 😉
Yes, we don’t have a car and use the integrated public transport (trains, buses and trams) or walk to get around. A reduction in car-parking has also reduced the value of car ownership. We were accosted once by a couple of FPO people to sign a petition against the reductions. We spent ages telling them how good the transport system was and how we didn’t need a car before we realised who they were and the answers they were after. Woops. Of course with the central city pedestrianised it also makes it easier to do without a car when living in the inner ring.
The driver’s training does show. Drivers are observant around town and know what they’re doing.
Morning Draco!
Hey look, I am sorry to be a bastard (ironic huh?) but as one of your favourite (and continual) assertions is that Labour is a right-wing party I really have to call you out on something.
I look forward to your response
Don’t humour the poor simple-minded soul, Draco. One of those post-menopausal late-developers who clog up lecture rooms and demand extra explanations all the time.
lol
Or the private school debater who oozes confidence and stupidity, only to be shell-shocked at university when their textbook (read “pro forma”) presentation is identified as failing to address the single fundamental factor that collapses their entire position.
On RadioNZ National program the Slippery lead National Government’s focus for 2013 is to be discussed in terms of what the ‘life-time’ cost of beneficiaries is,
In other words the present National Government having absolutely no idea how to stem the flow of red ink in the Governments accounts will now discuss in quiet polite voices how they plan to take away from those legal entitlements to welfare so as to be able to trumpet some bullshit balancing of the books as an election strategy for November 2014,
Should be a good listen if only to see which group of those currently receiving benefits are about to get it in the neck the hardest during the next 12 months…
If that is the case then I hope opposition parties do similar on, for example, lifetime costs borne by wage and salary earners to support the little tax paid by businesses such as farmers who take their gains through tax-free capital gain.
There are countless others.
It is overdue for fire to be fought with fire. This government gets away with all sorts of bullshit and the oppositions just whimper around the edges like sooky cowards with no chutzpa. Wussies.
Not all the opposition. The Greens are seriously getting some good hits in but Labour are out to lunch.
+1
And Shearer has been confirmed as leader.
Thanks god thats over.
Now discussions can turn to something interesting and useful
And now all those that were hoping for Labour to become more democratic can start looking for a better party without feeling any guilt.
Long may the Stalinist purge continue with too many MPs scared to vote to give us a say. Now the King/Mallard cabal will come after you one by one.
Andrew Little just forget Rongotai but be very worried about your list ranking too. The Stalinist cabal are going to centralise their power on list selection….you heard it here first! And all the others on the list, or with a seat they want to retire you from, just watch it…Prasad, Chauvel, Dyson, Robertson, Street….you’re going down.
But I’m off, no more pamphlet deliveries, no more donations, wine auctions, fundraisers….not off to join another party but I won’t be voting for Labour again.
Totally agree, for my partner and I as well.
pathetic that they can think of nothing but those little jobs rather than find any courage.
Shearer will deliver the polls in 2014 as they are, within a tolerance of 29-32%.
The rest is now counterfactual history.
just utter sadness.
Yep – Ad, Benghazi, Draco – both of us are also sad, and resigned. At least it will free up any spare time over the next couple of years NOT feeling obliged to attend meetings, organise, deliver pamphlets, raise funds, etc.
Labour should be able to form a government, with Winston’s help, even if it gets as low as 31% or 32%. But, the historic mission and purpose of the Labour Party seems to have been forgotten, at the very time that it is needed more than ever.
That is actually the point, especially younger ones have lost faith in a voting system where 32% with a bit of wiggle is perceived to be able to govern. Why? That is so far away from any majority that one can only wonder. Is that what Mr Shearer builds his confidence on? If it is even contemplated that 32% can go anywhere than FPP has never been changed.
32% Labour 14% Greens 5% NZ First (and Hone out in the cold as being too left) is still over the line…but also a monstrosity in of itself.
Stalin comparison right at the front.
Yay.
That cuts donw my “give a fuck” time allocation significantly.
OK, that was all as enlightening as MUD, the only point of real interest was Paula, the Minister of removing people form their entitlements, giving as a reason for the disparity in the figures of actual unemployed and the number of those currently collecting the dole is that both Sickness beneficiaries and those who receive the DPB who also have children over the age of 5 are now being included in the figures of the unemployed,
What tho of the heart of the discussion,
This ‘discussion’ centers on the figures that if those currently receiving a welfare benefit were to receive that benefit for a ‘lifetime’ the cost to the Government would be 78 billion dollars, (shock horror spit),
Lets put aside the little ‘fact’ for the moment that such a proposition FAILS at the first hurdle in that very few of those people as a % will receive those benefits ‘for a lifetime’, instead lets play the game as the Paula’s (Bennett and Rebstock) do, as monetarists,
Remembering all the while that the GROSS COST of all those benefits over a ‘lifetime’ is 78 billion dollars,(gasp shock horror) we can judge this against Government revenue from the figure that this is currently 60.6 billion dollars a year, (leaving aside for the moment that we are in the middle of a recession),
So, in ten years that Government revenue would have been 600 billion dollars set against a ‘lifetime’ welfare bill of 78 billion dollars,
In fifty years of Government revenue the total Government revenue collected will be, excuses here as my riffmatic aint so hot, a ball park figure of 3000 billion dollars against a ‘lifetime’ welfare bill of 78 billion dollars, and, say that slowly to yourself to see just how ridiculous the Paula’s are being in using such a figure as a crude club to attempt to turn people against beneficiaries,
Now being good little monetarists, (well just for this morning anyway), we in all honesty have to look at this equation from around all aspects of this 78 billion dollars GROSS that the Government in all it’s largesse will pay out over that ‘lifetime’ of payment,
Taxation!!! yes TAXATION, the Paula’s (Bennett and Rebstock) are using GROSS figures to arrive at the figure of 78 billion dollars, SO, using back of an envelope figures we can ‘see’ that direct taxation of that 78 billion dollars will result in 15% of that 78 billion NOT being paid to those beneficiaries at all,
Indirect taxation, you know the stuff, petrol tax, tobacco tax, tax tax tax etc, will result in the Government within 2 days of having paid out any of this 78 billion dollars recouping another 10% of the 78 billion dollars,
And, last but not least GS fucking T, at 15% will mean that within 2 days of having paid out any of the 78 billion dollars the Government will have raked back in another 15% of that 78 billion dollars,
But wait there’s more, yes sadly more, Beneficiaries spend what little monies they receive as part of that 78 billion dollars within 2 days into the local economy, what’s left after taxation is extracted that is, the goods and services bought by those beneficiaries from local providers are again taxed as profit from the pockets of those the beneficiaries buy the goods and services off of,
So here’s the Paula’s(Bennett and Rebstock), equation again from a ballpark income of 3000 billion dollars over a ‘lifetime’, 78 billion dollars will be paid out in welfare benefits 40% of which the Government will have within 2 days of paying this money out recouped as TAXATION,
What then to make of the 2 Paula’s(Bennett and Rebstock) shock horror 78 billion dollar ‘lifetime’ cost of welfare benefits, bullshit, simply blatant fucking bullshit is the best i can at this point muster from my limited vocabulary…
Yep
.
Yep. Bullshit alright.
Would such short statement not be the job of labor in the house when these figures are being thrown around and hence have to be reported in the same way as Mrs Bennets statement?
Lolz, i dont’t think Bullshit is a word allowed,(under standing orders), to be uttered in the House, i wonder tho if ‘equine defecation’ might slip through…
“This ‘discussion’ centers on the figures that if those currently receiving a welfare benefit were to receive that benefit for a ‘lifetime’ the cost to the Government would be 78 billion dollars, (shock horror spit),”
and any journo worth the title would respond with “yeah but thats a sack or horseshit and you know it”
not holding my breath though
Paula, the Minister of parting people from what was once their legal entitlements, unintentionally painted Her and the other Paula’s (Rebstocks), monetary assertion of the ‘lifetime’ cost of beneficiaries as bullshit in the RadioNZ National interview this morning pointing out that the unemployment figures show that that benefit isn’t the ‘problem’ as the majority of those who access the unemployment benefit do so for short periods,
So, we now know that Paula has no pressing inducement to further attack unemployment benefit recipients besides having them prove that they have been looking for work,
She said as much also about the recipients of DPB, which just leads me to the conclusion that the most vulnerable cohort of mostly single people in our society are in the next 18 months to be subjected to Paula’s ‘help’ to move them off of that particular benefit,
Paula a number of times during the interview pointed out that Invalids Beneficiaries are paid a higher rate of benefit than those who receive the unemployment benefit, this is of course because the invalids benefit is expected by those who receive it and the Medical Professionals who test these individuals for work capability befor signing the relevant paper-work do not expect such people to be in any condition to work for a number of years if ever,
Paula tho knows best and we can assume that the National Government ‘plan’ to move 40,000 individuals ‘off benefit’ will be directed at these individuals, the economics of which National have given as much thought to as the 78 billion dollar ‘lifetime cost’ of benefits i will get down to discussing later…
hope someones recorded that
Easily accessed i assume via the RadioNZ web-site /nine to noon…
😉
now, anyhoo, this is just for the locals, and then i will sit back out of your hair.
an argillaceous liason around the ear as a scruffily draped phaethon parked a Malt magnesia exertion beneath the quasia dilantern.purslonely, it’s a bitter sweet sola number. Mind the salt Sister shiney washer, Let Robin save the day from the pun under your bed. To the emperor we dispose (please don’t let my tyre down; I enjoyed the walk) A pound a round The Globe. Beep Beep bop a loo bop
a little melting. Talk about pissisting down a man’s deep furrows.tick The Other Kind a pair of brown eyes walk alone (to be Farr, I’ve always followed the news to see what’s blown up today)
spinning wheel goes round and round the Gestalt chair, yet no bodies there.took the money and run.
Interesting to read this in the Herald today:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10863308
Where are the crowds of idiots screeching “OMG! David Cunliffe didn’t endorse the leader! He’s mounting a coup!”
Why is his answer good enough today, but it wasn’t good enough at Conference?
Is he going to be demoted again for refusing to endorse Shearer?
Chess, that is the name of the game. People who work like the last roman emperors lot have not got my vote.
Slight difference between a frontbencher refusing to endorse the leader at conference while voting to change the election format into a form that might be advantageous for him (while the leader abstained from that vote), and a backbencher who has previously endorsed the leader walking into the caucus room on the day of what looks like a routine confidence endorsement.
Tax cuts for their own and a bedroom tax for others. Tory arses.
Slash and Burn Tyres
http://www.rtcc.org/climate-ambition-could-slash-value-of-big-oil-firms/
Zone O2out
http://www.rtcc.org/ozone-hole-affecting-antarctics-ability-to-absorb-carbon-dioxide/
Lawyers Bunsen Burners and Dunny
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Money-Politics-and-the-Sc-by-Adnan-Al-Daini-130203-17.html
Oh well.
.
The link to the Independent’s story makes for frustrating reading.
In my internet travelling, I often come across the denialist position that climate change is a conspiracy. Ironic situation is ironic.
yes BLiP, saw that article Independently a little while back.
Well, after THAT news today it may be safe to assume that the only champagne corks popping tonight will be in the abodes of Team Shearer and those of the right wingers.
Instead lets raise a glass of red to The Greens and give a nod to Mana. All power to you. All power to us as voters too. We need to rally togther and to unify. Its up to us as well. Collectively and individually we have to get those non voters educated and motivated. Its a big task ahead.
@ Rosie
+1 😀
.
So, what happens in Australia when a couple of journalists reveal high-level corruption and cover up . . . that goes on and on and on? Well, government and its authorities ignore it then goes after the journalists and their sources.
.
what a surprise
Fuck, another wee whopper just whacked Chch. Guess 4.4, 8km deep, centred 5km east.
Just for something different eh vto? You Cantabrians must be built of strong stuff. I’d have been a mess along time ago if I was in your shoes. The heaving earth beneath your feet is one thing but it must be something else to have the strength to take on insurers and cope with being treated like irksome peasants by a contemptuous govt. Kia Kaha.
Ha, yeah cheers, but we are mere mortals and I think most populations would just deal with it all the same way. As for being a mess – yep, there is plenty mess in the population. Strung out and worn out. Especially when the Great Earth Monster lets loose right under your arse…
Great Earth Monster? Has Gerry the Hutt been given a new nickname I am not aware of?
“The Panel” continues its ghastly decline
Radio NZ National, Monday 4 March, 2013
Jim Mora, Jonathan Krebs, Tino Pereira
We are already into the fourth week of this year’s version of Jim Mora’s program “The Panel”. Sadly, the producers have made no innovations or improvements to the format at all; Jim’s volubility is as insufferable as ever, his blithe condescension is if anything even worse, and the “talent” is drawn from the same stagnant pool of lacklustre sycophants as it was last year, and the year before.
Today’s edition was typical….
MORA: All right, the next subject is ACC payouts. Some of these claims to ACC are hilarious! There were fifty claims for sunburn! Hur hur hur hur hur!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Hur hur hur hur hur! Fourteen thousand claims for insect bites…
TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: There were one hundred and ninety-five claims for windsurfing and—hur, hur, hur, hur!—two hundred and eleven for bodyboard injuries!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!
JIM MORA: Hur hur hur! And 938 barbecue injuries! Hur hur hur hur hur!
JONATHAN KREBS: Ha ha ha ha ha!
TINO PEREIRA: Ha ha ha ha ha!
MORA: Professor Grant Duncan from Massey University joins us. Hur hur
hur hur!
PROFESSOR DUNCAN: I am concerned about this apparent trivialization of injuries.
MORA: Uhhhh….
PROFESSOR GRANT DUNCAN: I don’t think these injuries are trivial. If you get stung by a swarm of wasps you need to get yourself to hospital. I think it’s dangerous if we start to trivialize injuries like this.
MORA: Hmmmm. Inevitable with media reportage though….
SOAPBOX….
MORA: Now’s the time we find out what our Panelists have been thinking about. Jonathan, you want to talk about university fees?
KREBS: Yeah, I don’t have anything that’s really NEEDLING me at the moment, Jim, but my daughter Harriet is off to university and I have had to pay $6,000 for her accommodation and $7,000 for course fees, which made me pucker up a bit!
….and so on, and so on, and so on….
Just started watching seven sharp… It’s fluffier than my bellybutton lint, what a joke of a current affairs show.
Thankfully rain fade brought me to my senses but it’s a doozy ain’t it? Poor buggers! Still, I guess it pays the mortgage aye and its cleaner than the usual form of prostitution. They can probably wait till they get home before they have to have a shower!
Slippery the Prime Minister will be having lots of fun at the Waitangi Marae tomorrow…
What if David Cunliffe started his own party, i’m sure he would get a truckload of
support, who needs the s–t that has been dished out to him, just a thought.
UNWATCHABLE! SEVEN SHARP IS A DISASTER
One’s dreadful new current affairs show will not survive
SEVEN SHARP, Inaugural broadcast, Television One, Monday 4 March 2013
Alison Mau, Greg Boyed, Jesse Mulligan and assorted others
Alison Mau’s credibility, already pretty unimpressive, has plunged to an all-time low over the weekend, following her ludicrous few days of dishonestly lionizing “Sir” Paul Holmes as the greatest broadcaster who ever lived. It was ominous that she debased her currency so grievously just before this show’s opening.
Anybody who has looked at his Twitter account or seen him try to ad-lib while reading the News knows that Greg Boyed is about as funny as a parking ticket. On the evidence of tonight’s show, his idea of humour is to make sarcastic remarks. Not funny sarcastic remarks, though; Boyed is no Charlie Brooker. His first contribution to the dreadful three-person opening remarks sequence, was to make a sarcastic swipe at Titewhai Harawira, smirking with derision as he called her “that paragon of reason.” It was the sort of remark that the late Paul Holmes would have made, but Boyed has none of Holmes’s leavening wit.
Jesse Mulligan, who is billed as a comedian, decided to go for the big laughs: “Now we were going to have the Prime Minister cut a ribbon for the start of the show, but he wasn’t available.” Then he laughed: “Naaah, actually he WAS available, he just didn’t want to come on. Ha ha ha ha ha!” Tellingly, neither Alison Mau nor Greg Boyed could squeeze out a laugh to support the poor fellow. They were clearly wishing the ground would swallow them up. And so, no doubt, were most viewers.
Barry Soper’s South African squeeze Heather Du Plessis-Allan announced that she was going to do a “puff-piece” on John Key. “What else would you expect?” she laughed. And that’s just what she did.
I bailed after five minutes. It was simply unwatchable.
observing the political machinations (under the hood and on the deck) in this country, it is no surprise we have wrong-headed where we are going. Kubrick may be correct, no amount of writing on The Wall this season and as for roman Ghosts! In ADDition, any suggestions other than auto-pilot or Siberia? What is reaped is what is grown to make of no effect when one leg is shorter than the other or missing benignly. It’s a minefield on a moon lit night through vanity and vineyards across the red cod reef Clive; If not, a co-ordinated portamanto is being drawn as we pick up after others (my notes have been binned in the recycling, blown away like the sand of a mandala) I really don’t mind if we sit this one Out (we may make you feel but we can’t help but think…back to the scrap heap) 🙁
Last Post for our loyal side-kick soldier.
Get LAo Daily (this cat’s not comin’ back) arrivederci, auf wiedersehen pets. bye 🙁 🙂
observing the political machinations in this country, it is no surprise we have wrong-headed where we are going. Kubrick may be correct; no amount of writing will break down The Wall this season and as for roman Ghosts? In Addition, any suggestions other than auto-pilot or Siberia? What is reaped is what is grown to make of no effect when one leg is shorter than the other or missing altogether.It’s a mine-field on a moonlit night through vanity and vineyards across a red cod sand-Bar.If not a co-ordinated portamanto is being drawn.Picking up after others as I deposited my own notes in a recycling bin, blown away like a sand mandala. Really don’t mind if I sit this one Out
(we may make you feel but we can’t help but think…off to the scrap heap again).
Last Post for our trusty side-kick soldier.Get LAotea Daily. (this cat’s not coming back).
arrivederci auf wiedersehen pets. bye. 🙁 🙂
Something for the late nite insomniac and other’s warning it could make you sick
http://tvnz.co.nz/news
2/3rd of the page down on the left side entitles Inside John Keys Office a nice little 4.5 min vomit fest of Key love in talk about 1 sided reporting. But they have to do somethinf after that crap 7 Sharp Maybe they could get Hooton on it a crap writer on a crap show.
lolz @ “I never drink in the daytime.”