Is there no end to msm promoting this family? It’s become an obsession with media!
This time it’s Stephie Key (aka Cherry Lazar) once more, indulging in public self advancement through her soft porn “art.” Incidentally it’s interesting to note most, if not all of her “art” involves mainly herself!
Never ending self gratification through public promotion seems to be a genetic trait, obviously passed from father to both offspring!
Nope, no end. Watch as Max is the new phenom, the PM is invincible, the Greens are the worst bullies out there, and expert opinion on that face book face time thingy thats all the rage these days.
Gawd, I wonder how many new social problems are created by people reading this crap.
I read the article out of curiosity – it wasn’t much different to a similar story about a year or so ago about Ms Key. Her father has no shame : a real caring father would not be putting his children thru the media like that. Because you can bet your bottom dollar that these stories about his children are all designed to make him look good ! Yuk !
If you’re happy about Key’s family being used like this when the going is good … you don’t get to use the ‘keep his family out of it’ excuse when the shit hits the fan.
All part of the setup, get the kids out there with the msm promoting and praising them as good honest nice kids making their way in the big bad world who just happen to have a rich powerful dad.
It’s what script writers call building empathy so you feel sorry for them when the big bad world does what it’s always done. Better call Saul runs along this line.
What intrigues me is how much the DP crew will be involved in the big bad world phase with staged cyber bullying etc like their recent dog whistling rant on RNZ site.
Yep – although the obsession is more about generating clicks than it is about promoting the Key whanau, IMHO. I’d like to think its entirely mercantile as opposed to political chicanery designed to promote John Key. Either way, the MSM knows that it is, in effect, dangling Max and Stephie over an Otago University orientation piss-up like a piñata. The MSM fawning adulation of the Key Kids is designed to bring out the bullies (egged on by agent provocateurs) in order to generate more click-bait stories about “all those nasty lefties”.
Its got to the stage now where the MSM is generating its own news and, in deliberately using the Key Kids, exposing itself as the real bully.
Bullying that may or may not lead to the suicide of children of politicians doesn’t get worse than this….
During an aggressive campaign in 1975, Muldoon dubbed Rowling “a shiver looking for a spine to run up”. …”Being a nice guy is clearly a disability in politics and it was certainly not a good attribute in the 1975 campaign,” Rowling said ruefully years later, “It was played as a weakness against strength. I didn’t fight a very good campaign. I was tentative and people didn’t want that.”
And it didn’t stop there. The bullying of Rowling (btw the man who sacked Roger Douglas) was so bad that a ‘citizens for Rowling’ group was formed – it included Edmund Hillary. I remember the talk at the time of the pressure on the Rowling family.
His daughter, Kim, killed herself in 1978.
The cynical me thinks the current PM knows his history and is using it in reverse.
Brian Gould drew parallels between John Key and Robert Muldoon back in 2011. In his article, Brian said the two were quite different personalities because Key is “by nature a conciliator and seeker of consensus” but, like Muldoon, he dominates the media narrative.
Now, in 2015, we know that the nature of Key as discerned by Brian is actually a Crosby-Textor confection and, really, he is just as nasty as Muldoon ever was. Worse, I reckon. The difference between Muldoon’s era and Key’s reign comes down to the exponential use of PR by government and the internet. Key can, on the surface, be all about conciliation and consensus but that image is supported by a well-funded and clandestine Dirty Politics Machine doing the wetwork for him. Muldoon, at least, had the guts to do his out in the open, mostly.
Incessant joking, Key is so unlike Muldoon. Key much more like Trump, that aged vulture who is current picking over the corpse that is modern converativism, the grand old party, whose years of arrogant deliberate we wont change nothing politics has finally died.
Edit to add: one small action you can take against the MSM is to install an advertising and trackers blocker. I use these ones. They require a bit of fiddling about with to block everything and you sometimes have to tweak them for particular sites in order to, say, play a video or fill in a form or comment. But, wow, do they speed up page loading and eliminate screen clutter. There are versions for cell phones too.
Unfortunately for some they also just create problems or slow systems down (I’ve used ghostery a couple of times and always end up turning it off. I can’t even get my normal flashblocker to work properly now, so many new websites simply don’t work, or the blocker works very unevenly).
I really wish the geek community would sort this out, because at the moment in order to stop tracking one needs a higher level of skill that most of the population possess. EFF have some good guides and I’ve had some good advice here on ts, but never managed to find something that didn’t cause more problems than it solved.
Research shows that most people want more privacy controls but end up using the internet without them because they need the internet.
They are used by us for putting the name details into your comments, and by the google and statcounter trackers for us to keep track of visitors for stats.
If you drop the cookies, then the latter former means you will probably have to enter your details for each comment. In the case of the former latter, it just means the stats for visits and unique visitors are out – but those are deeply inaccurate measures anyway.
The Herald for one needs to take a long hard look at itself and then get sorted.
A quick search on the website shows about 60 odd hits for Max Key for the 2015 year alone. A number of those seem to have been sourced off his public postings. So there they are busy feeding the flames then crying out “oh look it’s getting to hot for him”.
And if people who set their social media settings to private attract a whole lot less attention.
“Democrats have a lot riding on Hillary Clinton. Which is why the word ‘immunity’ should make them very nervous.
….”
_____________________________________________
Well, at least you are being even handed, Penny.
You are polluting both The Standard and Kiwiblog with your cut and paste drivel.
I see there’s more from you below.
If we had a voting mechanism here, like they do over at Kiwiblog, I’m sure you would find that very few people are interested in your view.
I don’t think he’s finished just yet. Thom Hartmann on The Big Bicture had a good piece on how the media are mischievously adding the super delegate votes to Hillary’s total, when the super delegates can change their vote right up until the end of the Primaries.
And the super delegates have done that to Hillary before when she was running against Obama. At one point she led Obama by a 2-1 ratio but over the course of the campaign many saw her as too divisive a leader and they gradually trickled Obama’s way. History could well repeat.
Careful people……Key Schlong Ill and family must be gushed over……..they are our New Camelot after all. Any departure from awed gush you’re cyberbullying.
Hang on…….who said anything about ‘cyberbullying’ ? Oh that’s right, it was Key Schlong Ill……..followed (on cue) by Watkins, Young and Trev’ of the Herald I daresay, Soper…….
Yes we are witnessing a very cynical and staged event to garner sympathy for the kids to compensate for dads rough ride.
Also further distractions required as a prominent nz’er is closer to being unmasked which is likely to trigger key loyalists to re-evaluate their Demi god in all his shonky dodgy ways.
tc – you don’t think the prominent nzer who now has such a cushy job up north is going to be named and shamed in the MSM when he comes up for trial, do you ? This secrecy around him is going to continue right up to the type of sentence he gets – or even if he gets one. Plus there is also word around that the long “delay” in the trial has been designed to make him look better, and to somehow fudge the evidence coming from witnesses. ie the longer its delayed the less inclined the witnesses might be in talking about it.
A lengthy wait for any trial would usually just aggravate the distress of the complainants as they have to keep reliving it at lengthy intervals and can’t get on with reconstructing their lives.
Facebook looks set to pay more UK tax but it might not be as much as you think
March 5, 2016 4.48am AEDT
Facebook has said it will pay more in UK taxes from 2017.
The news comes hot on the heels of the much-derided settlement of Google’s decade-long tax dispute with the UK tax authority. It also comes a day after it emerged that Facebook is paid more by HMRC for adverts than it pays in tax.
Facebook has encountered heavy criticism for its tax dealings – not for their legality, but for how fair they are. In 2014 the company’s UK operations, Facebook UK Limited, reported a corporation tax payment of only £4,327. The company’s UK subsidiary reported a turnover of £105m and a gross profit of £103m, but this was wiped out by a massive administrative expense of £131m, leaving a pre-tax operating loss of £28m.
Companies trade with a view to making a profit, but since 2011 Facebook has been reporting accounting losses. Its audited UK accounts for 2014 do not provide any information about the composition of the administrative expenses, a key element in its reported losses and a possible reason for low tax.
Facebook has promised to change its business model and the way it records its sales revenues from advertising.
Currently, Facebook books a number of its sales to UK customers through its Irish subsidiary, Facebook Ireland Limited.
But it is set to pay millions more in taxes after a decision to allow profits from major advertisers initiated in the UK to be taxed in the UK.
Facebook executives said in an internal post reported by the BBC that “UK sales made directly by our UK team will be booked in the UK, not Ireland.
Facebook UK will then record the revenue from these sales”.
The change in Facebook’s business model does not necessarily signal a new era in which Facebook will pay millions in tax that some might assume.
One way to prevent Facebook and other big multinational companies from minimising their taxes would be to implement a system known as unitary taxation, which can eliminate the tax advantages of all intra-group transactions.
But unitary taxation has received virtually no attention from the OECD’s recent Base Erosion Profit Shifting (BEPS) project, which was geared toward reforming the international system for taxing companies.
…..
__________________________________
Hadn’t you noticed that nobody responds to you apart from the occasional sarcastic coment about your rates? It is not that people agree with you – it is more like they just don’t care enough to enter into any sort of dialogue.
Fuck off you disingenuous troll. That’s what I say to anyone who puts words in my mouth and misrepresents my political views and values. Right now it’s hard to imagine a worse candidate for a Mayor than someone who lies about other people’s views and thinks it’s ok to do so for their own agenda.
Kim Hill lets another shameless propagandist have his say, uninterrupted.
RNZ National, Saturday 5 March 2016, 8:12 a.m.
His C.V., as printed on the RNZ website, certainly sounds impressive: “Jamie McIntyre consults on national security issues, blogs on the military and media (Jamie McIntyre’s Behind Frenemy Lines), and is Adjunct Professor of Multimedia Journalism at the University of Maryland. His career spans four decades, from the local news round at WTOP radio in Washington D.C. to Al Jazeera America’s National Security Correspondent based at the Pentagon. He was in the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, and he broke the news of Saddam Hussain’s capture. He is currently on special assignment at PBS NewsHour, where he has investigated the Pentagon’s plans to spend $US1 trillion on upgrading America’s nuclear arsenal, some of which is 60 years old.”
The actuality, however, is not so impressive….
KIM HILL: How come you haven’t been captured by the establishment?
JAMIE McINTYRE: Y’know, I and other reporters are allowed to roam the corridors of the Pentagon at will. I doubt whether you can do that in any other country in the world, even over there in New Zealand.
………..
KIM HILL: Why is Iran not allowed to have nuclear weapons? It just seems to be taken for granted that they can’t have them. Why?
JAMIE McINTYRE: Well, the United States sees itself as the good guys. [snickers awkwardly at the absurdity of that statement]
KIM HILL: Of COURSE.
JAMIE McINTYRE:[adopting a serious tone] But Iran has a track record of supporting organisations deemed to be terrorist, and of being anti-Israel.
Hill, who cannot be so dim as to believe a word of that unsupported stream of nonsense, failed to challenge it. I decided to send her a wake-up message….
Why did you suggest Jamie McIntyre is something other than he is?
Dear Kim,
You asked Jamie McIntyre why he had “not been captured by the establishment”. That question implied that he is an independent and rigorous journalist; what he said during the interview demonstrated he was anything but independent or rigorous.
When you asked him why Iran should not have a nuclear arsenal, McIntyre claimed that the United States are “the good guys” and then he launched into a reiteration of official rhetoric, claiming that Iran “has a track record of supporting organisations deemed to be terrorist and of being anti-Israel.”
Jamie McIntyre spoke with wonderment about how he is allowed to wander freely about the corridors of the Pentagon. His bland endorsement of Pentagon—and State Department—rhetoric shows just why he and other “journalists” like him are allowed to wander so freely: with their credulous repetition of black propaganda against official enemies, “journalists” like Jamie McIntyre are effectively agents of the Pentagon.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
More ignorant—or is it deliberate—recycling of propaganda by Kim Hill….
No National MP could be bothered attending the tangi for the late, great Ranginui Walker. Absolutely shameful considering his immense mana and all the work he did for the Waitangi Tribunal.
He used to write in the Listener before Pamela Stirling turned it into the rightwing travesty it is today. Here he is on the Don Brash Orewa speech:
Thank for the link Karen, I looked the other day for Listener columns and couldn’t find any. Am hoping some of the pre-internet ones will get republished.
That is shameful that no Nats attended his tangi. This is where we are now.
Did any Labour MPs have the nerve to go? (Bearing in mind Helen Clark’s cynical decision to out-Brash Brash after she was spooked by the success of the Orewa speech.)
What is it with this site? I couldn’t access The Standard home page yesterday. Still can’t today – just get this:
This web page is not available
ERR_CONTENT_DECODING_FAILED
Seems the only pages I can access today are “Open Mike 05032016” and “Jeanette Fitzsimons Call to Scrap the ETS”. The only way I can get in to these is by using my bookmark to the Comment Formatting page, then clicking on threads via the right side Comments summary box.
Even so, I can’t access the “Intersections” post, “Young Nats Run Away…” yesterdays “Daily Review”, “John Key Lies…” in fact pretty much most other pages I click on in Comments are producing the above “page not available” result.
Looks like I might as well just give up on here because I have constant access problems and no idea why that is. It only ever happens here. Not a caching problem. Clearing cache does nothing. 🙁
Edit: Update. Oh FFS, I managed to post this comment, and now suddenly everything’s available!! Stuffed if I know what’s going on.
I’ve been having the same issue over the last 24hrs.
Why is this site the ONLY one I continually have trouble with when it comes to loading, Not just recently but ever since I started visiting?
osx 10.6.8 / firefox 44.0.2 (no ad blockers etc)
Great discussion on the latest Keiser Report with Steve Keen and Ross Ashcroft on Australia’s housing bubble and exposure to mortgage debt, and, by default (mentioned), New Zealand’s exposure too…
It’s not what you eat, it’s how it’s produced that determines the ethics. Here’s an interesting exploration of omnivore vs vegan ethics, which also shows that context is everything (it’s looking at site specific food production, in this case in Australia).
Replacing red meat with grain products leads to many more sentient animal deaths, far greater animal suffering and significantly more environmental degradation. Protein obtained from grazing livestock costs far fewer lives per kilogram: it is a more humane, ethical and environmentally-friendly dietary option.
So, what does a hungry human do? Our teeth and digestive system are adapted for omnivory. But we are now challenged to think about philosophical issues. We worry about the ethics involved in killing grazing animals and wonder if there are other more humane ways of obtaining adequate nutrients.
Relying on grains and pulses brings destruction of native ecosystems, significant threats to native species and at least 25 times more deaths of sentient animals per kilogram of food. Most of these animals sing love songs to each other, until we inhumanely mass-slaughter them.
…
The challenge for the ethical eater is to choose the diet that causes the least deaths and environmental damage. There would appear to be far more ethical support for an omnivorous diet that includes rangeland-grown red meat and even more support for one that includes sustainably wild-harvested kangaroo.
There is a wild meat group in Australia – I have not been aware of one here, but perhaps there is. I know that when I ordered a pasta dish with the little blue mussels at the the pub in Melbourne, someone from the wild foods camp commented approvingly. I yearn for old school ways of eating, with the farms close to the cities and meat being a high days/holy days kind of food. I am not opposed to meat eating per se, but do not think that animals should be reduced to fodder either.
That’s pretty much where I’m at too Olwyn. Family farms whose purpose is to produce food and provide a living for multiple people rather than big business that treats animals as stock units (not that some family farms haven’t been prone to animal cruelty as well). Often in these arguments we are comparing one set of bads for another. Let’s replace feedlot beef with Monsanto soy. Whereas the vision you present allows us to behave ethically on a number of fronts and produce food sustainably with regard for the wider ecosystems. I like the meat on high days concept. There’s also the idea from many cultures that you eat small amounts of meat often, but the end result is less meat than we eat now without going to the hard extreme of veganism (which is never going to be sustainable).
I know lots of people that eat feral rabbit, venison, goat, pig etc. I liked the Australian perspective of large tracts of land being able to support smaller populations of feral animals for harvest. We could do this in a smaller scale in NZ too.
I like the meat on high days concept. There’s also the idea from many cultures that you eat small amounts of meat often, but the end result is less meat than we eat now without going to the hard extreme of veganism (which is never going to be sustainable). I think those ways of doing things are consistent with each other – the “small amounts of meat often” bit adds up to a whole animal being used, and not just the most desirable bits.
Often in these arguments we are comparing one set of bads for another. Let’s replace feedlot beef with Monsanto soy. I couldn’t agree more! Everything gets reduced to “How would you like your corporatism?”
How long before something is done about the, in my view, significant ‘conflict of interest’ in Auckland Council being a member of the private sector lobby group for developers – the NZ Property Council?
FYI – I raised this matter directly at the following Auckland Council Special Governing Body meeting:
(Scroll to 7.50 minutes to see/ hear for yourself my presentation to the Special Auckland Council Governing Body held on 24 February 2016, on the ‘out of scope’ rezoning changes made behind closed doors by the Auckland Council Unitary Plan Committee.)
FYI – I was the only Auckland Mayoral candidate who addressed Auckland Council at this meeting.
Same dodgy buzz here in Wellington Penny. Councillor for Northern ward, Deputy Mayor and now Mayoral candidate on the Labour ticket, Justin Lester, sits on the executive of the Wellington branch of the NZ Property Council.
No conflict of interest has been declared.
Our city planning manager, is the former husband of one of Wellington biggest residential developers and did at least declare a conflict of interest over his relationship with that person, although nobody seems to have told the Mayor, as it is was her office that requested he sort out issues regarding anti social behaviour by developers and contractors in my neighbourhood. They simply denied he had a conflict of interest when I raised it.
The northern suburbs are at the mercy of mass development. All work is undertaken on a non notified basis. There are no plans on any of the developments to mitigate environmental damage, outside of rules about not letting sediment get into creeks.
After battling with the council, including the above mentioned councillor, and the developer for 18 months I’ve come to the conclusion that there is an incredibly unhealthy relationship between the council and developers here in Wellington.
Had there been plans in place to protect and enhance the environment, build in areas close to public transport and close to shops and amenities, or at least allow for commercial areas within residential areas, to undertake construction in a way that is respectful towards residents and to build low cost housing I wouldn’t see a problem. It has been the complete opposite and theres only two winners, the developers and the council.
All you ever wanted to know about neoliberal economics and Global Housing Bubbles …in particular Australia (NZ bank implications) and UK…and elsewhere…and where to for baby boomers, millennials, aspirationals etc
“In this special episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy are joined by Professor Steve Keen, author of Debunking Economics, and Ross Ashcroft of RenegadeInc.com and the crowd-funded series, Meet the Renegades. They discuss housing bubbles in Australia, housing policy in the UK, and the rise of Donald Trump as a sign of the great recession happening outside the property bubble cities in which both politicians and journalists live.”
And while you lot are at it, why don’t you “Give a little” to Penny Bright to help pay her rates and arrears, she seems hard done by !!
[lprent: Completely off topic. Banned one week for diversion and another week for trolling. Moved to Open Mike. If I see you deliberately do this kind of stupidity again, I’ll be less lenient. ]
“American presidential election politics is a cross between a talent show and a beauty contest. Being smart and coherent does not necessarily pay dividends. Case in point: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Both are front-runners of their parties. Trump is idiosyncratic and raw; Clinton the ultimate establishment insider. Is this a choice, or merely bad theater?
CrossTalking with Brandon Andrews, David Paul Kuhn, and Lionel.”
Just found out about this wee historical gem – which, in my view, is both pertinent and potentially politically embarrassing for Hillary Clinton?
So – back in 1964 now Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton – worked (as a Republican?) on the 1964 election campaign of Republican segregationist Presidential candidate – Barry Goldwater.
So much for Hillary Clinton’s ‘civil rights’ credentials?
Barry Goldwater was never supposed to be supported as the Republican Presidential candidate at their convention, because he was regarded by ‘establishment’ Republicans as being ‘unelectable’.
Is history going to repeat itself?
This time I’m referring to Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Convention?
A 1996 NPR interview with Hillary Clinton has recently resurfaced, in which the current Democratic front-runner shockingly embraced conservatism and reiterated how proud she was to support a segregationist presidential candidate.
In the interview, Clinton told NPR’s Scott Simon that her political beliefs were “rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with,” and talked about being a “Goldwater girl” in 1964:
……
Barry Goldwater served five terms as a United States Senator for Arizona and was the Republican nominee for President in the Election of 1964. He is credited with reviving the conservative movement in the United States in the 1960’s.
Although rebuffed nationally by the electorate, he mobilized a new wave of young conservatives who transferred their support toRonald Reagan, the winner in the election of 1980.
……
Goldwater’s book, Conscience of a Conservative, published in 1960, made him a hero to anti-communist and anti-New-Deal Republicans. The movement to get the 1964 Republican nomination for Goldwater was not taken seriously by establishment Republicans, who regarded him as so obviously unelectable that the convention would never nominate him.
However, Goldwater’s principal opponent in 1964 was Nelson Rockefeller, whose divorce and remarriage to a younger woman created a backlash. The birth of a child to his new wife just before the California primary probably cost him that election and provided Goldwater with a huge delegate count.
After that, no plausible opponent emerged capable of stopping Goldwater. He was nominated at the national convention in xxx and gave a ringing defense of conservatism in his acceptance speech which energized his supporters but appalled moderates.
….
So – while Hillary Clinton is supporting the Republican Presidential candidate who supports segregation, Barry Goldwater – Bernie Sanders is getting arrested for desegregation?
Who has the most trustworthy track record in supporting the civil liberties of Afro-Americans?
2. Being Arrested For Desegregation: As a student at the University of Chicago, Sanders was active in both the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1962, he was arrested for protesting segregation in public schools in Chicago; the police came to call him an outside agitator, as he went around putting up flyers around the city detailing police brutality.
…..
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For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
We’ve been meaning t write something on Cuba and the coronavirus but have just discovered a very good article on the subject in the US left publication Jacobin. The article looks at how Cuba, a poor country but one where capitalism has been done away with, is leading the way ...
In 2018, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - two British citizens who had purportedly been stripped of their citizenship by the British government - were captured while fighting for Isis in Syria. The British government then conspired to hand them over to the US, and agreed to provide evidence ...
Transformers: The disaster of the Great Depression was transformed into a new and fairer society by the democratic socialism of the First Labour Government. The disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic offers a similar transformative possibility to the Labour-NZ First-Green Government. Seize the time, Jacinda! You will never have a better ...
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...
Associate Prof George Thomson, Louise Delany, Prof Nick WilsonWhile it is possible that New Zealand can use intense public health controls to eradicate COVID-19 from the country – we must also plan for other scenarios where thousands of New Zealanders are sick – including many urgently hospitalised.1 Better resilience ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Alex Casey speaks to a dream expert about why so many people are suddenly remembering their vivid and often horrible dreams. As the days begin to blur together and the only thing we get between sleeps is unimaginably horrible news and an embarrassing tootle around the block, it’s no surprise ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...
Medical centres across the country are condensing services, moving online, and ushering in pandemic plans. Josie Adams assesses what it’s like to access and provide essential medical care under alert level four.On Monday, Sandra Russell woke up before dawn and drove to Milford to get her blood tested. She has ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, writer and doctor Glenn Colquhoun, with the second of his Letters to Hone Tūwhare and his Travelling Band of Constant Companions. ...
ANALYSIS:By Haiqing Yu of RMIT University and Michael Keane of Curtin University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play. China played ...
Tech giant Google has released a giant global data set which shows how different countries are locking down, and which NZ regions are most compliant with its lockdown.A giant set of reports released by Google, created using its anonymised cellphone location data reveals the scale of human behaviour change the ...
Comedian Penny Ashton writes on the necessity of the arts, especially during lockdown.On March 22, everyone’s favourite fiscal bloodhounds, the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, sent out a tweet in response to Creative New Zealand’s announcement that it will dedicate an emergency response package to helping New Zealand’s artists, in the ...
Wellington writer Philippa Swan’s new novel TheNight of All Souls is an homage to Pulitzer-winning and all-round fabulous American writer Edith Wharton. Wharton died in 1937 but, Swan writes, she’s very much of the moment. Nobody does social distancing like Wharton did. While Wharton was still comparatively young, she created the ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level four. The country is shut down, apart from essential services. For updated official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is funded by The Spinoff Members. To support this work, join The ...
Normally heaving year-round, Queenstown has ground to an eerie halt as Covid-19 cases rise and tourism income plummets, reports Paul Taylor. On a hill behind Queenstown's coronavirus Covid-19 community testing centre, the resort's iconic Skyline gondola sits motionless. More than 17 million people are estimated to have ridden the gondola ...
Are we drinking more in the lockdown? Hard to know, writes David Slack, but we’re certainly having to get creative about it. Almost every phone call I’ve answered this week has begun the same way: “You still off the drink, then?” Fair question. What a time to be not drinking. ...
Kiwi clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson is stuck with her family in Spain and has written a guide in Nature: "Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak." It’s Day 17 of the Covid-19 lockdown in Spain. In a small village on the Mediterranean coast, about ...
"Will our ills be cured? Will our feet carry us? For how long?": a short story set in Henderson by West Auckland writer Serie Barford.I learned to drive a tractor when I was a kid feeding out hay with my cousins on a dairy farm down the line. I ...
Without active testing in the community our Covid-19 picture isn’t complete, an epidemiologist says. David Williams reports. There are worse places to be self-isolating than Whakatāne, in the Bay of Plenty, says Bridget Robson, who lives on a two-acre block and keeps chickens. “We live in a beautiful part of ...
How do you hold a funeral service with the country in lockdown? Where there’s a will – and a tech-savvy uncle – there’s a way, Erin Kavanagh-Hall discovered.I was floating somewhere in the Cook Strait when I heard my grandfather’s funeral had been cancelled.I should elaborate. It was a Monday, ...
‘Stay in your bubble’ didn’t exist 100 years ago, but our ancestors would want us to know how essential it is to do so, says Jai Breitnauer.It was a warm but slightly grey January day in 2019 when I pulled the car over to the side of SH1, just south ...
David Clark’s misadventure in mountain biking was a stupid, but ultimately forgivable offence. The bigger problem is the continued uncertainty around what is and isn’t appropriate activity in lockdown, as Sam Sachdeva writes. Given the pressure he and his Cabinet colleagues are under, it is little surprise Health Minister David ...
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...
Every day at 1pm New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announces precise figures on the number of confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in the country. He is working on the best information available, and during this week the level of community transmission was put at around ...
Most of New Zealand's MPs are in lockdown just like the rest of us, confined to their neighbourhoods and stuck in their bubbles. Checkpoint called a few to ask them what they're doing. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Deery, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, University of Melbourne “Stupid coronavirus!” I heard my six-year-old mumble while talking in her sleep. Earlier that day her swimming and basketball lessons were cancelled, a birthday party postponed, and she had to race with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University “Zoombombing” in case you haven’t heard, is the unsavoury practice of posting distressing comments, pictures or videos after gatecrashing virtual meetings hosted by the videoconferencing app Zoom. With hundreds of millions ...
Analysis - A leading epidemiologist says health authorities 'really have no idea' of the extent of community spread, Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee gets its teeth into what's going on during the lockdown and the horrendous economic imp ...
The fifth in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ...
The Finance Minister says struggling companies will be able to put some debt into hibernation, under new legislation unveiled today. Watch the latest government update here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government.This article ...
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling What does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like? For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Gallasch, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,” wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), “but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the ...
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Of the larger European countries, Italy is now in third place for known cases per person in the population. Spain has overtaken Switzerland for ...
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and Te Kaahui o Rauru are celebrating the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South Taranaki Bight. The Court of Appeal found that there ...
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...
Pacific Media Watch The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has strongly condemned the shoot-to-kill order by President Rodrigo Duterte this week as a ‘dangerous’ opening to target and kill anyone in a public space. “We are raising the alarm in the international community on President ...
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...
Four PhD students engaged a clinical psychologist to help them navigate an uncertain time in their studies. They share their findings here.As four PhD students from Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research we, like many others, can’t stop reading and talking about the unfolding events that have gripped our ...
The SpinoffBy Ashleigh Rushton, Lisa McLaren, Marion Tan & Sara Harrison
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Kang, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney Young people in Australia are among the fastest-growing group to contract COVID19. According to the Department of Health, there are now more cases in Australia among people aged 20 – 29 years than any ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Pattinson, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times. But it can be even harder when you’re anxious or have something on your mind – a global pandemic, for example. ...
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...
The Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand is delighted that the government has moved quickly to provide an initial financial support package for pharmacy. The $15 million package was paid this week to pharmacy contract holders. Pharmaceutical Society president ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...
A new poem by Wellington poet and bookseller Ash Davida Jane. washed up! it gets tiring pushing the fire alarm every nightbut things keep catching on fireor sometimes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Welcome to the second edition of our lockdown Top 10s. A reminder that this chart has nothing to do with sales or launches or the publishing cycle; these are just books the Unity team love – and this week it’s westerns, full of big skies and long rides and showdowns.AUCKLANDAll ...
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster’s plan to cover revenue shortfalls through borrowing without cutting low priority spending is immoral, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . “Businesses and households across the country are meeting financial challenges ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin John Brophy, Emeritus Professor of Creative writing, University of Melbourne “Katrina, I had in mind a prayer, but only this came,” Bruce Dawe wrote to his infant daughter, new-born, in intensive care, her life in the balance, declaring as poets must ...
The shock closure of Bauer NZ – and with it all of the country’s current affairs magazines – is a stark reminder of the fragile state of local media, writes Mel Bunce, the author of a book on the subject.It is a dark week for journalism in New Zealand, with ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāmere/FridayWe made it to the end of week one e te whānau. It wasn’t that hard! In fact it was… Māori made easy.To end our week of pronunciation practice we’re going to revisit everything we ...
India faces more challenges battling Covid-19 than any other country in the world. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, hundreds of different languages spoken, and an estimated 80% of the workforce daily wage earners currently without jobs, it could be a recipe for disaster.I’ve been living in India for more than three ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi of Pacific Media Watch The Vanuatu government is using the Covid-19 to impose draconian measures and authoritarian rule by end of last month. Wholesale censorship of all Covid-19 related content has been instituted. Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) took the extraordinary step to ...
People with lower credit scores increased their borrowing upon news of the lockdown, while those with higher scores dropped away. March data from the credit-reporting agency Centrix, which runs credit checks on behalf of banks, finance companies, online lenders, and buy now pay later schemes, showed credit inquiries dropped sharply ...
Small business owners say commercial rent relief is desperately needed if they are to survive past the Covid-19 disruptions. While the wage subsidy helped with staff costs, there is currently no government assistance for commercial rent - which typically accounts for 40 percent of a firm's fixed costs. Landlords and ...
SkyCity is making 200 staff redundant as part of cost cutting because of the Covid-19 virus. The casino operator said it had no choice but to cut the size of the workforce given that once business resumes it will be at much reduced level. Chief executive Graeme Stephens said it's ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University At several points in the history of our planet, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused extreme global warming, prompting the majority of species on Earth to die out. In ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand. Today’s contentMedia Henry Cooke (Stuff): There’s no easy way for Government to save media drowning. But a fast fix is ...
Just after midday a cyclist was killed on a straight road on a clear day, after being hit by a van in North Canterbury. Lucinda Rees from NZ School Speeds is asking for the mandatory cyclist/vulnerable road user passing gap, which is in consultation, ...
By Indra Singh in Suva Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says that if Fijians continue to disregard the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic directives from authorities, a nationwide 24-hour curfew could be imposed. His comments come as Fiji yesterday recorded its two latest coronavirus cases, taking the total to seven. Bainimarama said ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée.Yes, a few cyclists out and about. I remember my first bike bought from Farmers around 1942, five shillings a ...
Internal memos from NZ’s biggest magazine company, which announced its sudden closure yesterday, state they were lobbying to change a ban on publication. But the minister responsible, Kris Faafoi, has doubled down on rejecting that position, calling those internal communications ‘contradictory’ to what they said to him directly.Magazine publishing giant ...
Up to 100,000 foreigners could be seeking to leave the country in coming weeks, now the Government has relaxed domestic travel restrictions for them. ...
The loss of a loved one can be difficult in the best of times. But it’s even more painful when the planes are grounded.Late on Saturday night, three days into New Zealand’s level four lockdown, Harish got a call from his sister in India telling him that his father had ...
Health Minister David Clark has flouted the Government's advice to exercise locally after confirming he drove to a park to go mountain biking on Thursday. ...
Covid-19 cases top 1m; Trump brags he's #1 on Facebook and says he knows about the virus because a 'friend' got it; UK testing scandal grows; Cats more vulnerable to virus than dogsTicking up to a million cases: A gruesome landmark was passed today when we go over one million ...
“So do not fear, I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” Isaiah 41:10 COVID-19 - Lock down: one week on Welcome to the latest Policy Watch ...
Workers at the Port of Lyttelton are resisting the introduction of casual cargo handlers due to concerns about COVID19. RMTU South Island Organizer John Kerr says there is concern about a Lyttelton Port Company (LPC) proposal to "bring in ...
Open mike 05/03/2016 
Open mike is your post.
. . April 3: Day 9 of living in lock-down… Another late-start to my work day. Everything is temporarily upended as clients are shuffled around so we can minimise our “bubble” by reducing the number of people we help. One of my colleagues has been removed from his clients; his ...3 hours ago
We must root out the traitors among us! ...18 hours ago
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...1 day ago
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...1 day ago
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...1 day ago
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...1 day ago
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...2 days ago
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...2 days ago
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...2 days ago
46 Articles Physical science of global warming & effects Global response of evapotranspiration ratio to climate conditions and watershed characteristics in a changing environment Greenhouse effect: the relative contributions of emission height and total absorption Observations & observational methods of global warming & effects Climate change induced a ...3 days ago
Image credit: Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ... 3 days ago
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...3 days ago
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...4 days ago
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...5 days ago
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...7 days ago
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...1 week ago
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights: In this legal blog we outline some ...1 week ago
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...1 week ago
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world". Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...1 day ago
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...1 week ago
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The scale of what we face right now is unlike anything we have ever seen before. Overcoming it is our common purpose. ...1 week ago
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...24 hours ago
Alex Casey speaks to a dream expert about why so many people are suddenly remembering their vivid and often horrible dreams. As the days begin to blur together and the only thing we get between sleeps is unimaginably horrible news and an embarrassing tootle around the block, it’s no surprise ...25 mins ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference. These may vary from the full day's numbers released in the Ministry of Health's spreadsheet of ...2 hours ago
ANALYSIS: By Haiqing Yu of RMIT University and Michael Keane of Curtin University China has gradually emerged out of its shadow of despair as the epicentre where the coronavirus pandemic started. Now, there is face saving required – as well as agenda-setting in the global power play. China played ...5 hours ago
Normally heaving year-round, Queenstown has ground to an eerie halt as Covid-19 cases rise and tourism income plummets, reports Paul Taylor. On a hill behind Queenstown's coronavirus Covid-19 community testing centre, the resort's iconic Skyline gondola sits motionless. More than 17 million people are estimated to have ridden the gondola ...9 hours ago
Are we drinking more in the lockdown? Hard to know, writes David Slack, but we’re certainly having to get creative about it. Almost every phone call I’ve answered this week has begun the same way: “You still off the drink, then?” Fair question. What a time to be not drinking. ...9 hours ago
Kiwi clinical psychologist Desiree Dickerson is stuck with her family in Spain and has written a guide in Nature: "Seven tips to manage your mental health and well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak." It’s Day 17 of the Covid-19 lockdown in Spain. In a small village on the Mediterranean coast, about ...9 hours ago
"Will our ills be cured? Will our feet carry us? For how long?": a short story set in Henderson by West Auckland writer Serie Barford. I learned to drive a tractor when I was a kid feeding out hay with my cousins on a dairy farm down the line. I ...10 hours ago
Without active testing in the community our Covid-19 picture isn’t complete, an epidemiologist says. David Williams reports. There are worse places to be self-isolating than Whakatāne, in the Bay of Plenty, says Bridget Robson, who lives on a two-acre block and keeps chickens. “We live in a beautiful part of ...10 hours ago
David Clark’s misadventure in mountain biking was a stupid, but ultimately forgivable offence. The bigger problem is the continued uncertainty around what is and isn’t appropriate activity in lockdown, as Sam Sachdeva writes. Given the pressure he and his Cabinet colleagues are under, it is little surprise Health Minister David ...10 hours ago
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...19 hours ago
Most of New Zealand's MPs are in lockdown just like the rest of us, confined to their neighbourhoods and stuck in their bubbles. Checkpoint called a few to ask them what they're doing. ...19 hours ago
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...22 hours ago
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...23 hours ago
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...23 hours ago
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...23 hours ago
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...24 hours ago
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...24 hours ago
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...24 hours ago
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...1 day ago
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...1 day ago
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...1 day ago
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening. The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...1 day ago
Vodafone says its continuing to see significant increases in calls and data on its networks after the first week of level 4 lockdown. ...1 day ago
People with lower credit scores increased their borrowing upon news of the lockdown, while those with higher scores dropped away. March data from the credit-reporting agency Centrix, which runs credit checks on behalf of banks, finance companies, online lenders, and buy now pay later schemes, showed credit inquiries dropped sharply ...1 day ago
Small business owners say commercial rent relief is desperately needed if they are to survive past the Covid-19 disruptions. While the wage subsidy helped with staff costs, there is currently no government assistance for commercial rent - which typically accounts for 40 percent of a firm's fixed costs. Landlords and ...1 day ago
SkyCity is making 200 staff redundant as part of cost cutting because of the Covid-19 virus. The casino operator said it had no choice but to cut the size of the workforce given that once business resumes it will be at much reduced level. Chief executive Graeme Stephens said it's ...1 day ago
Up to 100,000 foreigners could be seeking to leave the country in coming weeks, now the Government has relaxed domestic travel restrictions for them. ...1 day ago
Health Minister David Clark has flouted the Government's advice to exercise locally after confirming he drove to a park to go mountain biking on Thursday. ...1 day ago
Covid-19 cases top 1m; Trump brags he's #1 on Facebook and says he knows about the virus because a 'friend' got it; UK testing scandal grows; Cats more vulnerable to virus than dogs Ticking up to a million cases: A gruesome landmark was passed today when we go over one million ...1 day ago
Is there no end to msm promoting this family? It’s become an obsession with media!
This time it’s Stephie Key (aka Cherry Lazar) once more, indulging in public self advancement through her soft porn “art.” Incidentally it’s interesting to note most, if not all of her “art” involves mainly herself!
Never ending self gratification through public promotion seems to be a genetic trait, obviously passed from father to both offspring!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11600258
Nope, no end. Watch as Max is the new phenom, the PM is invincible, the Greens are the worst bullies out there, and expert opinion on that face book face time thingy thats all the rage these days.
Gawd, I wonder how many new social problems are created by people reading this crap.
http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/77561157/Political-Week-Max-Key-cyberbullying-a-sign-that-politics-is-getting-too-nasty
“Gawd, I wonder how many new social problems are created by people reading this crap.”
You can take solace from the fact the print MSM will not be with us for much longer
Absolutely sickening.
I read the article out of curiosity – it wasn’t much different to a similar story about a year or so ago about Ms Key. Her father has no shame : a real caring father would not be putting his children thru the media like that. Because you can bet your bottom dollar that these stories about his children are all designed to make him look good ! Yuk !
You need to get you KDS under control.
You’re seeing stuff that’s not there.
If you’re happy about Key’s family being used like this when the going is good … you don’t get to use the ‘keep his family out of it’ excuse when the shit hits the fan.
As it inevitably will.
Just don’t read that shit, if you can avoid it. If the Herald notices people aren’t clicking on their clickbait, they’ll stop putting it out.
No they will not. If it gets many clicks that’s a bonus, granny is an integral part of nacts pr machine.
Saturation and repetition of memes requires a consistent presence so the sheeple sub consciously take it in.
All part of the setup, get the kids out there with the msm promoting and praising them as good honest nice kids making their way in the big bad world who just happen to have a rich powerful dad.
It’s what script writers call building empathy so you feel sorry for them when the big bad world does what it’s always done. Better call Saul runs along this line.
What intrigues me is how much the DP crew will be involved in the big bad world phase with staged cyber bullying etc like their recent dog whistling rant on RNZ site.
Yep – although the obsession is more about generating clicks than it is about promoting the Key whanau, IMHO. I’d like to think its entirely mercantile as opposed to political chicanery designed to promote John Key. Either way, the MSM knows that it is, in effect, dangling Max and Stephie over an Otago University orientation piss-up like a piñata. The MSM fawning adulation of the Key Kids is designed to bring out the bullies (egged on by agent provocateurs) in order to generate more click-bait stories about “all those nasty lefties”.
Its got to the stage now where the MSM is generating its own news and, in deliberately using the Key Kids, exposing itself as the real bully.
Bullying that may or may not lead to the suicide of children of politicians doesn’t get worse than this….
And it didn’t stop there. The bullying of Rowling (btw the man who sacked Roger Douglas) was so bad that a ‘citizens for Rowling’ group was formed – it included Edmund Hillary. I remember the talk at the time of the pressure on the Rowling family.
His daughter, Kim, killed herself in 1978.
The cynical me thinks the current PM knows his history and is using it in reverse.
‘
Brian Gould drew parallels between John Key and Robert Muldoon back in 2011. In his article, Brian said the two were quite different personalities because Key is “by nature a conciliator and seeker of consensus” but, like Muldoon, he dominates the media narrative.
Now, in 2015, we know that the nature of Key as discerned by Brian is actually a Crosby-Textor confection and, really, he is just as nasty as Muldoon ever was. Worse, I reckon. The difference between Muldoon’s era and Key’s reign comes down to the exponential use of PR by government and the internet. Key can, on the surface, be all about conciliation and consensus but that image is supported by a well-funded and clandestine Dirty Politics Machine doing the wetwork for him. Muldoon, at least, had the guts to do his out in the open, mostly.
Incessant joking, Key is so unlike Muldoon. Key much more like Trump, that aged vulture who is current picking over the corpse that is modern converativism, the grand old party, whose years of arrogant deliberate we wont change nothing politics has finally died.
Quite the little swot our current PM.
He probably has that piece on one of his toilet doors so he can read and have a laugh every time he sits down for a pee.
[Sorry – angry that he gets away with this manipulation]
‘
Everyone should be so angry.
Edit to add: one small action you can take against the MSM is to install an advertising and trackers blocker. I use these ones. They require a bit of fiddling about with to block everything and you sometimes have to tweak them for particular sites in order to, say, play a video or fill in a form or comment. But, wow, do they speed up page loading and eliminate screen clutter. There are versions for cell phones too.
https://adblockplus.org/
https://www.ghostery.com/
Unfortunately for some they also just create problems or slow systems down (I’ve used ghostery a couple of times and always end up turning it off. I can’t even get my normal flashblocker to work properly now, so many new websites simply don’t work, or the blocker works very unevenly).
I really wish the geek community would sort this out, because at the moment in order to stop tracking one needs a higher level of skill that most of the population possess. EFF have some good guides and I’ve had some good advice here on ts, but never managed to find something that didn’t cause more problems than it solved.
Research shows that most people want more privacy controls but end up using the internet without them because they need the internet.
EFF have their own browser extension that gives you control over tracking cookies. Works a treat: https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
That one makes my computer go crazy too, so I just end up turning it off. I probably need to upgrade the OS and try again.
You can happily block cookies on this site.
They are used by us for putting the name details into your comments, and by the google and statcounter trackers for us to keep track of visitors for stats.
If you drop the cookies, then the
latterformer means you will probably have to enter your details for each comment. In the case of theformerlatter, it just means the stats for visits and unique visitors are out – but those are deeply inaccurate measures anyway.[lprent: oops – fixed. ]
Meh.
Whether or not you like her outputs, she’s at least trying it overseas under a different brand name.
Barack Obama’s kids are really nice, aren’t they…real role models. JK take note.
The Herald for one needs to take a long hard look at itself and then get sorted.
A quick search on the website shows about 60 odd hits for Max Key for the 2015 year alone. A number of those seem to have been sourced off his public postings. So there they are busy feeding the flames then crying out “oh look it’s getting to hot for him”.
And if people who set their social media settings to private attract a whole lot less attention.
Absolutely sure that Bernie Sanders is finished?
Perhaps not …..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/03/democrats-have-a-lot-riding-on-hillary-clinton-which-is-why-the-word-immunity-should-make-them-very-nervous/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_1_na
“Democrats have a lot riding on Hillary Clinton. Which is why the word ‘immunity’ should make them very nervous.
….”
_____________________________________________
In my view – it ain’t over till it’s over …..
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Well, at least you are being even handed, Penny.
You are polluting both The Standard and Kiwiblog with your cut and paste drivel.
I see there’s more from you below.
If we had a voting mechanism here, like they do over at Kiwiblog, I’m sure you would find that very few people are interested in your view.
charming
I don’t think he’s finished just yet. Thom Hartmann on The Big Bicture had a good piece on how the media are mischievously adding the super delegate votes to Hillary’s total, when the super delegates can change their vote right up until the end of the Primaries.
And the super delegates have done that to Hillary before when she was running against Obama. At one point she led Obama by a 2-1 ratio but over the course of the campaign many saw her as too divisive a leader and they gradually trickled Obama’s way. History could well repeat.
Careful people……Key Schlong Ill and family must be gushed over……..they are our New Camelot after all. Any departure from awed gush you’re cyberbullying.
Hang on…….who said anything about ‘cyberbullying’ ? Oh that’s right, it was Key Schlong Ill……..followed (on cue) by Watkins, Young and Trev’ of the Herald I daresay, Soper…….
Yes we are witnessing a very cynical and staged event to garner sympathy for the kids to compensate for dads rough ride.
Also further distractions required as a prominent nz’er is closer to being unmasked which is likely to trigger key loyalists to re-evaluate their Demi god in all his shonky dodgy ways.
Gotta mitigate potential damage to the brand
tc – you don’t think the prominent nzer who now has such a cushy job up north is going to be named and shamed in the MSM when he comes up for trial, do you ? This secrecy around him is going to continue right up to the type of sentence he gets – or even if he gets one. Plus there is also word around that the long “delay” in the trial has been designed to make him look better, and to somehow fudge the evidence coming from witnesses. ie the longer its delayed the less inclined the witnesses might be in talking about it.
A lengthy wait for any trial would usually just aggravate the distress of the complainants as they have to keep reliving it at lengthy intervals and can’t get on with reconstructing their lives.
How should multinational companies be taxed so that they pay their fair share of taxes?
https://theconversation.com/facebook-looks-set-to-pay-more-uk-tax-but-it-might-not-be-as-much-as-you-think-55781
Facebook looks set to pay more UK tax but it might not be as much as you think
March 5, 2016 4.48am AEDT
Facebook has said it will pay more in UK taxes from 2017.
The news comes hot on the heels of the much-derided settlement of Google’s decade-long tax dispute with the UK tax authority. It also comes a day after it emerged that Facebook is paid more by HMRC for adverts than it pays in tax.
Facebook has encountered heavy criticism for its tax dealings – not for their legality, but for how fair they are. In 2014 the company’s UK operations, Facebook UK Limited, reported a corporation tax payment of only £4,327. The company’s UK subsidiary reported a turnover of £105m and a gross profit of £103m, but this was wiped out by a massive administrative expense of £131m, leaving a pre-tax operating loss of £28m.
Companies trade with a view to making a profit, but since 2011 Facebook has been reporting accounting losses. Its audited UK accounts for 2014 do not provide any information about the composition of the administrative expenses, a key element in its reported losses and a possible reason for low tax.
Facebook has promised to change its business model and the way it records its sales revenues from advertising.
Currently, Facebook books a number of its sales to UK customers through its Irish subsidiary, Facebook Ireland Limited.
But it is set to pay millions more in taxes after a decision to allow profits from major advertisers initiated in the UK to be taxed in the UK.
Facebook executives said in an internal post reported by the BBC that “UK sales made directly by our UK team will be booked in the UK, not Ireland.
Facebook UK will then record the revenue from these sales”.
…….
_____________________________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Is it time to introduce ‘unitary taxation’ for multinational companies?
https://theconversation.com/facebook-looks-set-to-pay-more-uk-tax-but-it-might-not-be-as-much-as-you-think-55781
The change in Facebook’s business model does not necessarily signal a new era in which Facebook will pay millions in tax that some might assume.
One way to prevent Facebook and other big multinational companies from minimising their taxes would be to implement a system known as unitary taxation, which can eliminate the tax advantages of all intra-group transactions.
But unitary taxation has received virtually no attention from the OECD’s recent Base Erosion Profit Shifting (BEPS) project, which was geared toward reforming the international system for taxing companies.
…..
__________________________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate
What is ‘Unitary Taxation’?
http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Towards_Unitary_Taxation_1-1.pdf
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
[These posts are increasingly resembling spam. That’s enough for today. Stop now, please. BLiP]
SO sorry.
Apologise is all I can do.
Silly me thought ‘Open Mike’ was the place to raise ideas for informed debate and discussion?
Making sure multinational companies can’t evade tax isn’t a topic worthy of debate?
In my view it is.
I for one had not heard of the concept of ‘Unitary Tax’.
Had others?
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Hadn’t you noticed that nobody responds to you apart from the occasional sarcastic coment about your rates? It is not that people agree with you – it is more like they just don’t care enough to enter into any sort of dialogue.
I’m guessing many people scroll on past (I do). Lynn could probably tell how many people follow links from her comments.
I can’t be bothered saying anything to her about the spam, because she’s always right and everyone else is always wrong.
So Weka – you don’t care about tax evasion by multinational companies?
I do.
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Fuck off you disingenuous troll. That’s what I say to anyone who puts words in my mouth and misrepresents my political views and values. Right now it’s hard to imagine a worse candidate for a Mayor than someone who lies about other people’s views and thinks it’s ok to do so for their own agenda.
So Weka – why don’t you have a civilised debate about this issue?
It’s a rather important one – isn’t it?
I ASKED you a question and got, in my view, an unnecessary offensive and semi-hysterical, apoplectic reply.
Sheesh!
Some of you ‘commenters’ on The Standard, in my view (and experience) can be worse than those on Kiwiblog!
(And that’s saying something … 🙂
Have a cuppa and calm yourself Weka ….
Kind regards
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
When not even the trolls bother to reply you Penny – time to get the message.
more charming comments. such nice people exist. eh penny?
Generally, we expect people on here to come up with some thinking of their own, not just post the thinking of others.
Try harder.
Kim Hill lets another shameless propagandist have his say, uninterrupted.
RNZ National, Saturday 5 March 2016, 8:12 a.m.
His C.V., as printed on the RNZ website, certainly sounds impressive: “Jamie McIntyre consults on national security issues, blogs on the military and media (Jamie McIntyre’s Behind Frenemy Lines), and is Adjunct Professor of Multimedia Journalism at the University of Maryland. His career spans four decades, from the local news round at WTOP radio in Washington D.C. to Al Jazeera America’s National Security Correspondent based at the Pentagon. He was in the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, and he broke the news of Saddam Hussain’s capture. He is currently on special assignment at PBS NewsHour, where he has investigated the Pentagon’s plans to spend $US1 trillion on upgrading America’s nuclear arsenal, some of which is 60 years old.”
The actuality, however, is not so impressive….
KIM HILL: How come you haven’t been captured by the establishment?
JAMIE McINTYRE: Y’know, I and other reporters are allowed to roam the corridors of the Pentagon at will. I doubt whether you can do that in any other country in the world, even over there in New Zealand.
………..
KIM HILL: Why is Iran not allowed to have nuclear weapons? It just seems to be taken for granted that they can’t have them. Why?
JAMIE McINTYRE: Well, the United States sees itself as the good guys. [snickers awkwardly at the absurdity of that statement]
KIM HILL: Of COURSE.
JAMIE McINTYRE: [adopting a serious tone] But Iran has a track record of supporting organisations deemed to be terrorist, and of being anti-Israel.
Hill, who cannot be so dim as to believe a word of that unsupported stream of nonsense, failed to challenge it. I decided to send her a wake-up message….
Why did you suggest Jamie McIntyre is something other than he is?
Dear Kim,
You asked Jamie McIntyre why he had “not been captured by the establishment”. That question implied that he is an independent and rigorous journalist; what he said during the interview demonstrated he was anything but independent or rigorous.
When you asked him why Iran should not have a nuclear arsenal, McIntyre claimed that the United States are “the good guys” and then he launched into a reiteration of official rhetoric, claiming that Iran “has a track record of supporting organisations deemed to be terrorist and of being anti-Israel.”
Jamie McIntyre spoke with wonderment about how he is allowed to wander freely about the corridors of the Pentagon. His bland endorsement of Pentagon—and State Department—rhetoric shows just why he and other “journalists” like him are allowed to wander so freely: with their credulous repetition of black propaganda against official enemies, “journalists” like Jamie McIntyre are effectively agents of the Pentagon.
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
More ignorant—or is it deliberate—recycling of propaganda by Kim Hill….
If she wants to stay employed in the words of Dylan ‘you gonna have to serve somebody….’
No National MP could be bothered attending the tangi for the late, great Ranginui Walker. Absolutely shameful considering his immense mana and all the work he did for the Waitangi Tribunal.
He used to write in the Listener before Pamela Stirling turned it into the rightwing travesty it is today. Here he is on the Don Brash Orewa speech:
http://www.listener.co.nz/uncategorized/state-of-the-nation/
National MP’s do as they are told and he wasn’t on their side so it’s not surprising
Thank for the link Karen, I looked the other day for Listener columns and couldn’t find any. Am hoping some of the pre-internet ones will get republished.
That is shameful that no Nats attended his tangi. This is where we are now.
Did any Labour MPs have the nerve to go? (Bearing in mind Helen Clark’s cynical decision to out-Brash Brash after she was spooked by the success of the Orewa speech.)
Yes, Labour MPs did attend.
We don’t have the Clark Labour govt any more Morrissey. I expect current MPs have their own relationship with Maoridom now.
What is it with this site? I couldn’t access The Standard home page yesterday. Still can’t today – just get this:
Seems the only pages I can access today are “Open Mike 05032016” and “Jeanette Fitzsimons Call to Scrap the ETS”. The only way I can get in to these is by using my bookmark to the Comment Formatting page, then clicking on threads via the right side Comments summary box.
Even so, I can’t access the “Intersections” post, “Young Nats Run Away…” yesterdays “Daily Review”, “John Key Lies…” in fact pretty much most other pages I click on in Comments are producing the above “page not available” result.
Looks like I might as well just give up on here because I have constant access problems and no idea why that is. It only ever happens here. Not a caching problem. Clearing cache does nothing. 🙁
Edit: Update. Oh FFS, I managed to post this comment, and now suddenly everything’s available!! Stuffed if I know what’s going on.
+1
I had the same problem. I noticed that, while this blog did not appear, a link to Whaleoil’s cesspit was the second from the top.
Why on earth would THAT be the case?
I’ve been having the same issue over the last 24hrs.
Why is this site the ONLY one I continually have trouble with when it comes to loading, Not just recently but ever since I started visiting?
osx 10.6.8 / firefox 44.0.2 (no ad blockers etc)
Meet the new ACT Party spokesman for Youth Affairs
He’s actually a step up in quality from the likes of John “Cabbage” Banks, Jamie “Lock Up His Sisters” Whyte, David “Gruesome” Garrett, Stephen Franks, Dr Muriel Newman and David Seymour….
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11600143
Great discussion on the latest Keiser Report with Steve Keen and Ross Ashcroft on Australia’s housing bubble and exposure to mortgage debt, and, by default (mentioned), New Zealand’s exposure too…
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/334369-episode-max-keiser-883/
That was an excellent episode of the Keiser Report.
It’s not what you eat, it’s how it’s produced that determines the ethics. Here’s an interesting exploration of omnivore vs vegan ethics, which also shows that context is everything (it’s looking at site specific food production, in this case in Australia).
Replacing red meat with grain products leads to many more sentient animal deaths, far greater animal suffering and significantly more environmental degradation. Protein obtained from grazing livestock costs far fewer lives per kilogram: it is a more humane, ethical and environmentally-friendly dietary option.
So, what does a hungry human do? Our teeth and digestive system are adapted for omnivory. But we are now challenged to think about philosophical issues. We worry about the ethics involved in killing grazing animals and wonder if there are other more humane ways of obtaining adequate nutrients.
Relying on grains and pulses brings destruction of native ecosystems, significant threats to native species and at least 25 times more deaths of sentient animals per kilogram of food. Most of these animals sing love songs to each other, until we inhumanely mass-slaughter them.
…
The challenge for the ethical eater is to choose the diet that causes the least deaths and environmental damage. There would appear to be far more ethical support for an omnivorous diet that includes rangeland-grown red meat and even more support for one that includes sustainably wild-harvested kangaroo.
https://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659
There is a wild meat group in Australia – I have not been aware of one here, but perhaps there is. I know that when I ordered a pasta dish with the little blue mussels at the the pub in Melbourne, someone from the wild foods camp commented approvingly. I yearn for old school ways of eating, with the farms close to the cities and meat being a high days/holy days kind of food. I am not opposed to meat eating per se, but do not think that animals should be reduced to fodder either.
That’s pretty much where I’m at too Olwyn. Family farms whose purpose is to produce food and provide a living for multiple people rather than big business that treats animals as stock units (not that some family farms haven’t been prone to animal cruelty as well). Often in these arguments we are comparing one set of bads for another. Let’s replace feedlot beef with Monsanto soy. Whereas the vision you present allows us to behave ethically on a number of fronts and produce food sustainably with regard for the wider ecosystems. I like the meat on high days concept. There’s also the idea from many cultures that you eat small amounts of meat often, but the end result is less meat than we eat now without going to the hard extreme of veganism (which is never going to be sustainable).
I know lots of people that eat feral rabbit, venison, goat, pig etc. I liked the Australian perspective of large tracts of land being able to support smaller populations of feral animals for harvest. We could do this in a smaller scale in NZ too.
I like the meat on high days concept. There’s also the idea from many cultures that you eat small amounts of meat often, but the end result is less meat than we eat now without going to the hard extreme of veganism (which is never going to be sustainable). I think those ways of doing things are consistent with each other – the “small amounts of meat often” bit adds up to a whole animal being used, and not just the most desirable bits.
Often in these arguments we are comparing one set of bads for another. Let’s replace feedlot beef with Monsanto soy. I couldn’t agree more! Everything gets reduced to “How would you like your corporatism?”
NZ law defines an organised criminal group as a structured group of three or more persons.
The video below contains a good discussion on the Government’s latest response to gangs and more.
+100…very good discussion thanks
Could TTIP Privatise the NHS?
Could Tpp stop the sun rising ?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/04/08/obama-may-block-sun-rays-to-end-global-warming.html
If Key could figure out a way to monetise it.
+100…a must watch!…possible serious implications for New Zealand’s free health system with the signing of TPPA ?
…do we want a privatised health care system like USA’s corporate captured health system?….hell no!
If you can stand it – live feed of Trump rally in New Orleans.
How long before something is done about the, in my view, significant ‘conflict of interest’ in Auckland Council being a member of the private sector lobby group for developers – the NZ Property Council?
FYI – I raised this matter directly at the following Auckland Council Special Governing Body meeting:
(Scroll to 7.50 minutes to see/ hear for yourself my presentation to the Special Auckland Council Governing Body held on 24 February 2016, on the ‘out of scope’ rezoning changes made behind closed doors by the Auckland Council Unitary Plan Committee.)
FYI – I was the only Auckland Mayoral candidate who addressed Auckland Council at this meeting.
Kind regards,
Penny Bright
Same dodgy buzz here in Wellington Penny. Councillor for Northern ward, Deputy Mayor and now Mayoral candidate on the Labour ticket, Justin Lester, sits on the executive of the Wellington branch of the NZ Property Council.
No conflict of interest has been declared.
Our city planning manager, is the former husband of one of Wellington biggest residential developers and did at least declare a conflict of interest over his relationship with that person, although nobody seems to have told the Mayor, as it is was her office that requested he sort out issues regarding anti social behaviour by developers and contractors in my neighbourhood. They simply denied he had a conflict of interest when I raised it.
The northern suburbs are at the mercy of mass development. All work is undertaken on a non notified basis. There are no plans on any of the developments to mitigate environmental damage, outside of rules about not letting sediment get into creeks.
After battling with the council, including the above mentioned councillor, and the developer for 18 months I’ve come to the conclusion that there is an incredibly unhealthy relationship between the council and developers here in Wellington.
Had there been plans in place to protect and enhance the environment, build in areas close to public transport and close to shops and amenities, or at least allow for commercial areas within residential areas, to undertake construction in a way that is respectful towards residents and to build low cost housing I wouldn’t see a problem. It has been the complete opposite and theres only two winners, the developers and the council.
+100 Go Penny ( Auckland is hotting up in more ways than one)
All you ever wanted to know about neoliberal economics and Global Housing Bubbles …in particular Australia (NZ bank implications) and UK…and elsewhere…and where to for baby boomers, millennials, aspirationals etc
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/334369-episode-max-keiser-883/
“In this special episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy are joined by Professor Steve Keen, author of Debunking Economics, and Ross Ashcroft of RenegadeInc.com and the crowd-funded series, Meet the Renegades. They discuss housing bubbles in Australia, housing policy in the UK, and the rise of Donald Trump as a sign of the great recession happening outside the property bubble cities in which both politicians and journalists live.”
And while you lot are at it, why don’t you “Give a little” to Penny Bright to help pay her rates and arrears, she seems hard done by !!
[lprent: Completely off topic. Banned one week for diversion and another week for trolling. Moved to Open Mike. If I see you deliberately do this kind of stupidity again, I’ll be less lenient. ]
She’s a greenhouse effect denier, you lot can have her.
Now you really have crossed the line in cruelty and unusual punishmentsOAB 😀
Thank you. I hope you will be very happy together.
I suggest an Auction, Kiwiblog vs Standard,
Highest bidders get to ban Penny and restrict her to the opposing blog. All proceeds to Child Cancer.
I suggest Princess Party Pinko Penguin is not the sort of person that anyone other than a right winger would want to be associated with.
His low character is well documented.
Appears to be loading without the error messages for me, Lynn.
A bit slow but you did say that..
thx.. I’ll try putting on the one layer of compression that it is meant to have.
Figured my way through it (eventually) I think.
This should be correct now
Killing Joke — New Cold War
http://www.metrolyrics.com/new-cold-war-lyrics-killing-joke.html
+100 adam…like it!
A Change is Gonna come…lets hope it is a good one….
Sam Cooke ‘A Change is Gonna Come’
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sam-cooke-dies-under-suspicious-circumstances-in-la
‘Trump’ s hostile takeover’
https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/334499-trump-clinton-presidential-election/
“American presidential election politics is a cross between a talent show and a beauty contest. Being smart and coherent does not necessarily pay dividends. Case in point: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Both are front-runners of their parties. Trump is idiosyncratic and raw; Clinton the ultimate establishment insider. Is this a choice, or merely bad theater?
CrossTalking with Brandon Andrews, David Paul Kuhn, and Lionel.”
Just found out about this wee historical gem – which, in my view, is both pertinent and potentially politically embarrassing for Hillary Clinton?
So – back in 1964 now Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton – worked (as a Republican?) on the 1964 election campaign of Republican segregationist Presidential candidate – Barry Goldwater.
So much for Hillary Clinton’s ‘civil rights’ credentials?
Barry Goldwater was never supposed to be supported as the Republican Presidential candidate at their convention, because he was regarded by ‘establishment’ Republicans as being ‘unelectable’.
Is history going to repeat itself?
This time I’m referring to Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Convention?
http://usuncut.com/politics/npr-interview-hillary-clinton-was-proud-of-her-conservatism/
A 1996 NPR interview with Hillary Clinton has recently resurfaced, in which the current Democratic front-runner shockingly embraced conservatism and reiterated how proud she was to support a segregationist presidential candidate.
In the interview, Clinton told NPR’s Scott Simon that her political beliefs were “rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with,” and talked about being a “Goldwater girl” in 1964:
……
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h4011.html
Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater served five terms as a United States Senator for Arizona and was the Republican nominee for President in the Election of 1964. He is credited with reviving the conservative movement in the United States in the 1960’s.
Although rebuffed nationally by the electorate, he mobilized a new wave of young conservatives who transferred their support toRonald Reagan, the winner in the election of 1980.
……
Goldwater’s book, Conscience of a Conservative, published in 1960, made him a hero to anti-communist and anti-New-Deal Republicans. The movement to get the 1964 Republican nomination for Goldwater was not taken seriously by establishment Republicans, who regarded him as so obviously unelectable that the convention would never nominate him.
However, Goldwater’s principal opponent in 1964 was Nelson Rockefeller, whose divorce and remarriage to a younger woman created a backlash. The birth of a child to his new wife just before the California primary probably cost him that election and provided Goldwater with a huge delegate count.
After that, no plausible opponent emerged capable of stopping Goldwater. He was nominated at the national convention in xxx and gave a ringing defense of conservatism in his acceptance speech which energized his supporters but appalled moderates.
….
_______________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
+100 Penny…interesting about Hillary Clinton !…doesnt surprise me….anyone on the Left who supports her should read a bit more history imo
Cheers Chooky – there’s more ….
So – while Hillary Clinton is supporting the Republican Presidential candidate who supports segregation, Barry Goldwater – Bernie Sanders is getting arrested for desegregation?
Who has the most trustworthy track record in supporting the civil liberties of Afro-Americans?
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/20-examples-bernie-sanders-powerful-record-civil-and-human-rights-1950s
2. Being Arrested For Desegregation: As a student at the University of Chicago, Sanders was active in both the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1962, he was arrested for protesting segregation in public schools in Chicago; the police came to call him an outside agitator, as he went around putting up flyers around the city detailing police brutality.
…..
_________________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
yes Sanders is authentic….Hillary is a phony and worse
http://libaryofimages.com/image.php?pic=https://cdn.thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Albania_flag-5.jpg
that should be Hillary’s flag