Yet despite the best efforts of ideological warriors in Beijing and Washington, the uncomfortable truth is that China and the United States are both likely to emerge from this crisis significantly diminished. Neither a new Pax Sinica nor a renewed Pax Americana will rise from the ruins. Rather, both powers will be weakened, at home and abroad. And the result will be a continued slow but steady drift toward international anarchy across everything from international security to trade to pandemic management. With nobody directing traffic, various forms of rampant nationalism are taking the place of order and cooperation. The chaotic nature of national and global responses to the pandemic thus stands as a warning of what could come on an even broader scale.
"As the world looked for American leadership in responding to what was becoming a global crisis, both in public health and in the economy, that American leadership was not forthcoming."
Rudd said America was effectively withdrawing from leading international bodies, including the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Human Rights Council and the World Health Organisation.
"You could list the other institutions from which the Americans are absenting themselves," he said.
"The response in Beijing is hip hip hooray! There hasn't even been a fight at the O.K. Corral. Instead, the Americans have simply said, 'we're not here anymore.'"
Which is something I've been saying for a while now. The entire post WW2 global order has been based on an implicit US security of trade guarantee; and now the Yanks are going home. I realise the rabid anti-US left will think this is good news, but fail completely to imagine anything replacing it.
The entire post WW2 global order has been based on an implicit US security of trade guarantee; and now the Yanks are going home. I realise the rabid anti-US left will think this is good news, but fail completely to imagine anything replacing it.
Well as someone relatively uninformed in matters to do with Foreign Affairs, may I start the ball rolling:
Is it perhaps time to bury the chequered past and build cordial relations with Russia – Putin not withstanding? They are a resilient nation with an incredible cultural past who, despite their tendencies towards authoritarian rule, seem to be considerably more stable than their American counterparts.
For example if America chooses to isolate itself from the rest of the world and under the Trump regime that is going to the outcome… then maybe other alliances need to be explored for future world stability.
Which reminds me:
A series of podcasts entitled "The Service" concerning NZ responses to the Cold War years begins this coming Monday (8th June) on RNZ. It promises to reveal for the first time a major operation which took place in 1986 around the time of the anti-nuclear legislation passed by the Lange government. Sounds like it could be very interesting – especially for those of us who were impacted during the 70s and 80s for our anti-nuclear beliefs.
There is no obvious opportunity between Russia and NZ. Much more valuable would be an unprecedented rapport between Germany and Russia … that would be a massive game changer for both nations.
I was distracted from my line of thought by an outside source. 🙂
Hence I forgot to add the necessary proviso of a close link with a strong Europe. Germany is the obvious choice. Has the advantage of balancing the negative forces currently emanating from America with the more positive vibes from a relatively stable Europe.
In 2014 a trade delegation was practically on the plane to Russia for a FTA when Crimea happened ,so had to pull back
Meanwhile Fonterra went quietly on trading
Then in 2018 Winston was once more making noises about resuming the FTA with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan when the schemoozle in Salisbury happened
I remember the British Ambassador being quite strident about a unified stand against Russia .Winston folded, but I think his idea had been to lessen our dependence on China
Thanks for that link. I was probably too dismissive of our trade relationship with Russia; it has value and when opportunities arise they should be taken.
But geo-politically the ability of NZ and Russia to trade is largely predicated on secure shipping between Vladivostok and Auckland, and long thin trans-shipment across Siberia by rail. It's a less than ideal route in an unstable world, one that neither nation would necessarily be able to defend.
And the idea of setting up a trade deal with Russia goes back to the 1970s. Dr. William Sutch was attempting to set in motion a trade deal with the Soviets when he was pinged by the SIS as a KGB agent. In those days paranoia was so rampant, a person only needed to look at a Soviet Official and he/she was deemed to be a spy. 🙄
Poor old Sutch. It killed him in the end and his crime? He was years ahead of his time.
Is it perhaps time to bury the chequered past and build cordial relations with Russia
Would be one of my dearest wishes too. I whole-heartedly agree with your view of the Russian people.
I'm very ambivalent about Putin; on the scale of authoritarian threat he's nowhere near as dangerous Xi Xinping. He's a remarkably intelligent and strategic thinker, and has the interests of his people at heart. He stands head, shoulders and a fair bit of the torso above any other Russian leader of the past 200 years.
Yet Russia is not a liberal country, and it has almost no democratic tradition of accountability that we would recognise, much of their most senior political leadership is drawn from the intelligence community (and very thin in numbers) and facing intractable defense challenges, Putin is probably the best kind of leader you could hope for in such an environment. And someone the West has betrayed numerous times, much to our long term detriment.
then maybe other alliances need to be explored for future world stability.
From the perspective of NZ, the obvious immediate option is as SE Asian alliance pulling together Japan, Korea, Taiwan (as a fully independent nation), Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and of course Australia.
If I was running MFAT I'd have my professionals working their peer contacts in these nations as hard as, exploring possibilities and laying the ground work for a full on trade and defense alliance in the SE Asian region. I'd be very optimistic the time is now right for this.
Russia has had circumstances but I won't hear of her being not up to democracy. Which is to say, the principle of fairness which all humans are, by definition, up to.
You need to read more carefully; my point is that Russia has very little history democracy, and given the way the democratic West so grossly betrayed the Russians in the 90's you can hardly blame them for not being keen on repeating the experiment.
Of course you are right, there is no reason why with time and the right circumstances a more robust Russian democracy may well emerge.
I educated myself on Turgenev, and, most of all, Chekhov — that's the specific basis of my belief Russia deserves democracy. That they spoke to me via human ideals. Read all the Russian novelists. Preferred them.
Dugin’s ideas have attracted allies in the West to the pursuit of a new anti-liberal world order based on a rejection of individual freedoms and human rights in favour of traditional cultural hierarchies. As a leader of Russia’s National Bolshevik Party, Dugin fostered a broad alliance of reactionary radicals with a goal of “leftist fascism and rightist communism.” His philosophy has been adopted in service of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political project to resurrect a Russian-led empire in Europe and Asia. He has enjoyed so much influence that the magazine Foreign Affairs dubbed him “Putin’s Brain.”
Dr. Michael Millerman gave a fascinating talk about Dugin's ideas and stinging critique of the liberal democratic order, and how Western ideals are viewed in Russia (available somewhere on YT). I doubt Russian democracy would look anything like what we have in Europe
Putin is a shit. Sure, our democracies don't mostly include the heart of people's rule. It at least requires a commanding attitude, where NZ fell through. It mostly requires a party devoted to the rule of the people, like Scandinavia. Democracy always looks similar, why I've found America suspect.
Until we collectively build a global institution that takes the place of, and improves on the US led order, then it will be a fair bit of both.
On the active anarchy side of the question we will see the three traditional areas of the world prone to hot conflict re-emerge.
China is already under considerable internal stress and the death-throes of the CCP cannot help but be ugly.
Once all the major players in the Middle East realise the US is no longer interested in imposing a political reality in the region, it will be 'burn it all down' time. Oil shipments in particular will become deeply insecure.
Europe faces a choice of either dramatically reforming the EU to become a full federal integrating the divergent interests of Northern and Southern Europe, or collapsing into the very tribal hot wars that were the reason it was formed in the first place. Again without the US imposing a military reality in the region, it will default to the old ones.
Mass migrations, especially out of sub-Saharan Africa, will continue to stress Europe's ability to economically and socially integrate. Nigeria remains one of the few large nations struggling with both mass absolute poverty and very high population growth. (The two are always closely correlated.)
On the entropy side the collapse of the trade order means the prosperity building of the post WW2 era comes to an end in many places. Climate change and environmental degradation will continue to erode our natural capital, and COVID 19 will not the last pandemic.
In human terms we are much more sensitive to the prospect of losing what we have, than the possibility of getting something we don't yet have. As both anarchy and entropy continue to accelerate we will see populations everywhere react badly. Populists and autocrats will gain more power, liberal democracy will be on the retreat everywhere it cannot or is not defended.
I see Rudd proving once again proving he is the enemy of the left.
Have to say redlogix your lack of imagination on this issue is a bit disappointing. Anarchy is always preferable to a one world government. Seriously, the lead players in that racket are racist, misogynistic, empire building, elitist dogfuckers.
Anarchy is always preferable to a one world government.
One world government, or more probably a global federation of all the nations, is absolutely inevitable. It is the direction history has been heading in for at least 10,000 years or more. A progressive model of history, one built on the idea of increasing capacity for of larger and more complex societies, and broader more inclusive moral horizons is supported by all the evidence.
By contrast anarchy, however you care to define it, has absolutely no track record other than abject failure by comparison.
Setting aside any subjective judgement on the two models, it seems the one you are backing has been firmly rejected by evolution if nothing else.
Judging by the postures of current superpowers, the only form of global unity they seek is at gunpoint; one global empire imposing its will on everyone else.
Geography, the end of cheap oil, and human nature makes a global government very unlikely, and I don't want to be around to see it.
According to apocalyptic literature, Armageddon has to occur before we get 1000 years of peace.
Have you read this?! The pitchforks are coming for us plutocrats
"Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us."
Really interesting Robert , but note not one word about climate catastrophe and the folly of perpetual growth , or the hazards of a culture mired in endless consumerism.
Just, if plutocrats are to survive we need to cut the commoners a bit of slack so they can afford to buy our useless crap
Consume more locally grown food, craft items and locally owned and staffed factory produced goods made to last and be repairable and recyclable. Somehow direct the yearning for brand new status symbol cars, houses, clothes, boats to items that condense individual wealth, like art works, jewellery and accessories. Grand old houses, old boats and old cars in posh parts of Auckland show that recycled goods actually enhance status.
Yes, francesca, you are quite right. His thinking still bound by his culture but he's stirring that up from within and that's encouraging. He's ripe, I think, for an epiphany that shifts the location of his awareness from his cranium to his chest 🙂
He's still pushing on the problems caused by inequity and the unrestrained pursuit and accumulation of wealth. He still appears to be fundamentally a capitalist, but wants the capitalism in a mixed economy to be much better managed and regulated, as well as getting the wealthy and highly-paid to contribute much more back to maintaining the society that enabled their wealth and high pay.
He's definitely on to it and being a trillionaire has a far better chance of communicating those ideas to his peers than anyone else further down the food chain
Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen.
Or perhaps something about the harm Facebook is doing to political discourse and why everyone should delete Facebook from their devices and their lives, and especially should never ever ever click on a Facebook-mediated link.
Extra cruft makes it harder to identify the destination whether the link is visible in full or only when hovering. It’s a tax on attention, and for what benefit.
I find that having to take extra action to see where a link goes makes it less likely I will actually bother with it. And I have yet to bother to find out the equivalent of hovering on the other devices I use.
Because of that, I'll embed a link when it's just backup for a point, or further info a particularly interested reader may find interesting. But if directing a reader to the link is the main point of the comment, then having the link right out in the open works better for me.
The problem isn't just FB, anyone with a pulse or a skerrick of decency would stop using it after the Chch murders.
There seems to be a deep, almost primal need to be 'connected', whether it is extreme FOMO, the pain of not knowing something when google is right there or some other driver.
I have had a few conversations lately where someone else's phone/internet/device habits are having a profoundly negative effect on a relationship.
I suppose what I am getting at is FB etc, are merely tools, the problem is we are misusing the tools.
Instead of berating those who can't quite bring themselves to vote for a tired old white plutocrat with a penchant for pawing small children and uninvited sniffing of female hair, why not attempt to understand?
Insulting them as purists and morons doesn't work
Here's a fairly robust statement from Caitlin Johnstone in a longer opinion piece
"And that is exactly what a US president’s real job is. Not to end police brutality and systemic racism, not to make changes which benefit the American people, and certainly not to make the world a less violent and murderous place, but to say pretty words which lull the public into a pleasant propaganda-induced coma while the sociopathic oligarchs who really run things rob them blind."
And a much longer and considered article by Jonathan Cook
excerpt
"If the US has a cynical political system, deeply corrupted by money, younger voters wonder whether adding to that cynicism – with the left always voting for one of two evil candidates – can actually ever change the system or simply reinforces it. The older left has failed politically. But might one of the reasons be that for decades it has acted so cynically? Younger voters want to break with cynical politics. If the left is ever going to start looking more attractive, they argue, it needs to stop engaging cynically with a cynical system."
… can't quite bring themselves to vote for a tired old white plutocrat with a penchant for pawing small children and uninvited sniffing of female hair…
That is not the reason why he's a terrible person and a terrible candidate. Nor is it his notorious habit of lying. Nor is it his cretinous decision to plagiarize from, of all people, Neil Kinnock. What makes Biden unacceptable to millions of people with a conscience is the fact that he has been on the wrong side of nearly every major moral and political issue during his career in politics.
At this point in the political cycle, it doesn't matter whether the motivation is moronism or actual malice, the net effect of whining about Biden's flaws without mention of the Fanta Fascist's vastly worse heinousness on every topic is to functionally act as another soldier in the army of Drumpfkins. So stick it up your ass back where it came from.
At this stage Blumenthal and Greenwald have definitely reached useful idiot status (or worse), despite what bright spots they may have in their previous work. Or whatever rare lucid good points they may still make.
TBH, I haven't paid much attention to Scahill. But publishing that piece on March 10 after the primary was effectively decided, rather than earlier when the facts and arguments could have made a difference, strongly suggests Scahill has also attained useful idiot status (or worse).
Just to be clear Andre – are you requiring that people simply not mention Biden's obvious flaws in case that contributes in some way to Trump's re-election? And if everyone goes obediently silent in this manner, will they be allowed to resume saying these things when Biden becomes President? Or will that also be disallowed as undermining Biden's presidency and contributing to the possible victory of whatever Republican monster follows Trump?
Just wondering, that if we voluntarily suspend truth-telling, under what circumstances we get it back.
I expect those that present themselves as some sort of journalists to occasionally pay some attention to the monstrosities committed by the incumbent in between bagging the much milder failings of the alternative (that does not hold power). Greenwald in particular has conspicuously failed to do this.
Sure, when anyone is in power, hold them to account. But I do expect to see a sense of proportion and consideration of the big picture before I'll consider someone to be worth paying attention to. The likes of Johnstone, Blumenthal, Mate and others apparently held in high regard by convergence moonbats fail badly on that score
There is a properly nuanced position somewhere in all this. I thought in this interview with Marianne Williamson she got close to it. At one point saying something like, "I don't want to say anything that will further increase cynicism about the Democratic nominee" but at the same time she stressed the need for "radical truth-telling". I had previously thought she was a bit nutty, so was wrong on that.
It is the wonderful political strategy of – "Vote for sleepy joe or else.."
Close, Ainsley, close. It may not be wonderful, but It's the only likely strategy to avoid the 'or else'.
Unless a third party candidate emerges and starts polling over 30%, and splits all states to a three way fight, if Usians don't vote for Biden, that means they're okay with Trump for another four years. It's that simple.
Just wondering, that if we voluntarily suspend truth-telling, under what circumstances we get it back.
Indeed, very well put. This 'lesser of two evils' race to the bottom has no exit lane. Trump in my view is a high functioning psychopath, but the reason why so many Americans feel they have no political choice can be summed up in two words … Clinton, Biden.
Many Americans seem to have voted against Clinton. She really was a terrible choice probably worse than the 2020 presumptive nominee.
The problem is that Biden will be so vulnerable during term that objectivity will at earliest be established after he is done. For some reason Andre seems against both pressure to move left on policy and an examination of weaknesses of the candidate both of which Trump will be attacking. Its hard to understand why he wants the democrats to run such a weak candidate. My best guess is that he is enjoying the politics as name calling.
@ Andre, Do you realize that every time someone critiques Biden you come on here all frothing at the mouth and the first thing you say is that they are whining, every damn time…so OK we all get it, we all know you are a lap dog of the liberal status quo, so unless you have anything new or relevant to bring t the debate, why don't you go and yap yap yap somewhere else.
plutocrat with a penchant for pawing small children
That accusation is simply a disgusting smear that has been perpetuated by sick people who have an unworthy political agenda. The accusation is based upon a photo take out of context and when the truth is revealed shows just how despicable the accusation is.
The photo has not been edited, but it has been cropped and taken out of context. The image shows Joe Biden and his grandson Robert Hunter Biden II at Beau Biden’s funeral on June 6, 2015. Robert is one of the two children the late Beau Biden had with his wife Hallie Biden. Footage of the exact moment in which the picture was taken shows that Joe was comforting his grandson Robert, who had just lost his father.
The original, uncropped photograph was taken by the AP ( here ).
Video showing the photographed moment gives us context. It shows Biden comforting Robert before entering St. Anthony of Padua church in Wilmington, Delaware, where the service was held ( here ). Biden can be seen touching his grandson’s head, before pulling him toward him and appearing to kiss his cheek. He then pats Robert’s back.
If you make a statement such as that you either prove it or shut up.
“MUCH ADO ABOUT THAT FORUM: Vivi, the 10-year-old girl who asked Biden a question at Tuesday’s AFT forum, is “proud” of her interaction with him, according to a new statement from her teacher, even if social media seized on it as another “creepy Biden” moment.
— The teacher, Lucia Moreno, a Houston Federation of Teachers member, released a statement through her union after receiving several media calls on Wednesday about the moment. After Biden answered Vivi’s question, he told her, “I’ll bet you’re as bright as you are good-looking.” When she told him her favorite subject is journalism, he led her to the back to meet the press corps and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders.
— Pictures of the moment made the rounds on Twitter, with some calling it “creepy.” Just before entering the race, Biden weathered allegations that his handsy style made some women uncomfortable.
— Moreno, who runs an after-school journalism program, gave this statement: “I took two of my students to the AFT Votes Town Hall with Vice President Biden yesterday to show them the power of journalism, activism and politics, and I was deeply proud that Vivi — who is the daughter of a Salvadoran immigrant — was able to ask the Vice President a question and interact with him directly. After the event when I spoke to her mother, she told me she would treasure the experience of her daughter meeting a politician who believes in family values and understands the experiences of immigrants. Today, when we returned to the classroom, Vivi was equally proud of the moment and excited to tell the entire school about the learning experience she had.”
Well said, Macro. The death of Beau Biden was well documented at the time. His brother can be seen comforting the boy Robert earlier in the video. Only very sick minds would think of using a still photo in such a way.
The man's gotta live to the lifestyle he's accustomed to, and after all, prostitution is legal – in fact it's almost become fashionable among those that don't have to rely on it.
To be fair that's not the only contribution Sturgess makes
He runs a very generous community fund and has helped out local not for profit organizations heaps
He runs his farms well,treats his workers well,stayed away from the easy profits of dairy and bought up businesses that are all about production and jobs
More groveling towards the bludgers this morning, from the usual suspects RNZ National, Sunday 7 June 2020, 9:48 a.m.
JIM MORA: Are the people of Los Angeles still charmed by Harry and Meghan?
RUSSELL MYERS:[speaking slowly and deliberately to convey gravitas] I think L.A. is charmed by Harry and Meghan… [skip several minutes of blather]…. I think they've played an absolute BLINDER during the coronavirus crisis.
JIM MORA: All right, and finally Prince Andrew. Gone, and never coming back, Russell?
RUSSELL MYERS: I don't think there's any way back for Andrew, and probably that's a good thing overall. ….
9:44 Prince Harry's Los Angeles plans 'in tatters'
Having provoked a crisis in the monarchy and furor in the media when he and wife Meghan Markle asked the Queen to step down as senior royals in January, Prince Harry's Los Angeles dream is turning into something of a nightmare due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Daily Mirror Royal Editor Russell Myers joins the show with all the latest. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday
The Unions have been part of the Republican alliance for some time now. The Democrats abandoned their class interests in favour of identity politics. Most union members are in highly diverse ethnically and the movement as a whole voted with their feet.
As for the Police Unions, maybe we need to understand these are ordinary working class people doing a tough, shitty and essential job.
Progressives are quick to (correctly) note that the roots of crime are socially and culturally constructed. But they are more reluctant to accept the reality that one reason for the prevalence of police brutality may be that police are operating in brutal environments. Rates of post-traumatic stress disorder among police officers are much higher than among the general population; around one in four police officers has suicidal thoughts.
In the New Yorkerprofile of Darren Wilson—the police officer who killed the African American teenager Michael Brown in the city of Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, setting off the Black Lives Matter movement—what struck me the most was how much violence Wilson had encountered before he ever met Brown. At one stop, he was met with the bodies of two dead women and a two-year-old child covered in blood crawling between them. It is possible that the anti-social or violent behavior by both common criminals and the police is influenced by the environments they live and work in as well.
In other words: If we want to reduce police shootings, we have to reduce violent crime. “The strongest implication from our data is if we can reduce those crime rates, we are going to decrease the number of people who are fatally shot by police,” Johnson said.
Yet even such reactionary organisations such as the Charles Koch Institute finds that practices such as the militarisation of police are really unhelpful for police doing the job the community expects from them and disengages the police from the community.
What about the Second Ammendment militarisation of the population? A nation that permits open carry ensures a literal arms race between the population and the police.
Yet if the US can avoid burning down the White House in the next week or so, I'm very hopeful for their long term prospects.
Race is of course one element of this event; but it's not the only one. The destruction of good US manufacturing jobs is directly responsible for the deprivation and alienation of minority working class. The good news is that these jobs are going to be re-shored from China over the next few years.
The US will trend very successfully toward an autarky. No matter how hard it tries to fuck it up, it has all the regional security and resources necessary, combined with it's uniquely benign and productive geography. If these protests succeed in triggering serious political reform they will have been entirely justified.
It's notable which protests drew the militarised response: it was the unarmed protests with large proportions of people of colour. When the almost exclusively white gun nutters showed up with their weapons they got the softly softly kid gloves response. That difference will have been well noted.
What is also noted is that the left whole-heartedly approves of strong military responses to white protesters, while silently standing by on the looting and violence enabled under the cover the broader, mostly peaceful, BLM protests.
Let's be clear on what we agree on: George Floyd's death … fucked up; protest bad policing and economic insecurity … fine. Looting, arson and beating up shopkeepers protecting their livelihoods … fucked up. 95% of everyone left and right, lines up to tick these boxes.
Unless of course your real goal is to 'burn it all down'. In which case a full metal jacket military response is the only option.
No argument about what's fucked up. But take a good look at who's falsely conflating the peaceful unarmed protests with the looting and arson perpetrated by unrelated opportunists. And what the political motive for that false conflating might be.
So sly you could pin a tail on it and call it a Dennis.
[Two birds with one stone, this time! Well done! You still haven’t learned that your ‘witty’ one-liners are nothing but flaming insults and putdowns of other commenters. I guess we’ll just have to up the dose. Banned for one week. At this rate, you’ll be gone for a long time soon, unless you change your behaviour – Incognito]
It'll be a hard job, if it can be done at all in these increasingly stressful times. UK writer and TV producer G F Newman has more than once aired the notion that criminals and police often come from similar backgrounds, have similar mentalities, and that it can simply be chance – ill or otherwise – that decides which side of the fence they end up on. He also reckons 90% of police are corrupt in greater or lesser degree. Very likely the situation is little different in the US.
Clement Blair Peach (25 March 1946 – 24 April 1979) was a New Zealand teacher who died after an anti-racism demonstration in Southall, Middlesex, England
As far as I can find within our lifetime,We in NZ have been so fortunate that protesting has not led to the highest price to be paid,
Link-spamming when not in the context of the comment thread. We have advertisers who pay to hire our space to pay for the servers. Link-spammer do not contribute, so why should we allow you to advertise here? You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.
The unresonable ineffectiveness of mathematics in social science.
Hundreds of researchers attempted to predict six life outcomes, such as a child’s grade point average and whether a family would be evicted from their home. These researchers used machine-learning methods optimized for prediction, and they drew on a vast dataset that was painstakingly collected by social scientists over 15 y. However, no one made very accurate predictions. For policymakers considering using predictive models in settings such as criminal justice and child-protective services, these results raise a number of concerns. Additionally, researchers must reconcile the idea that they understand life trajectories with the fact that none of the predictions were very accurate.
Just heard on AJ TV that a mink farm in the Netherlands has transmission from mink animals to humans. China imports a lot of mink fur from the Netherlands.
The trust has gone in the USA between the police and the Afro American community. Until trust is restored the marches will continue. It is obvious why there is no trust as police officers are breaking the law.
I feel that the numbers participating in the marches would be higher were there no Covid-19. It is good to see a representation of cultures. I was very impressed with what Rev Sharpton said at Floyd's funeral.
But he only went two and a half times. I'm still trying to work out how you can half go someplace . Did he put a foot inside the bunker and a foot outside and therefore he was half in and half out?
I see this tune is getting a lot of downloads in the states over the past week or so….still some of the smoothest rappers around IMO.well apart from Chuck D maybe?
Given Dr Dre and Ice T now have a combined worth of a billion dollars and live in mansions no where near anywhere with dodgy cops, the song has kind of lost it's impact for me personally.
So are you saying that anything one does artistically should be judged on the actions taken though out the rest of their lives?…I personally think that is a very naive and unrealistic position to take,
For Afro Americans sure they got wealth. But they still get pulled over and deal with the same shit by police, like all the other Afro Americans. I'd suggest you talk to some wealthy or middle class Afro Americans Chris T, because you just talking shit at the moment. Because in American one thing money don't buy you if your Afro American, is a pass on the shit you get from the police.
"The report cites a senior UK government source who said the Skripals had been given new identities and support to start a new life."
So these people who were facing such a diabolical existential threat from the Russians, they couldn't be interviewed to describe what happened to them or where they were in those missing morning hours in March 2018 are now outed as being in NZ
If we are to believe this , and frankly I find it difficult, who's providing the extreme security they'd need
If this is correct and it may well be then the british government is being it's usual arrogant self. IIRC there was a proposal made quite some time back – where the British were going to resettle here under a new name, an individual who had been convicted as a minor of a crime but the outcry stopped it. So nothing new I'm afraid.
The latest focus of the moment, the race riots in America. We getting het up about it.
And the unwillingness of the middle class politically interested to address our vicious war on Maori since 1984 (yes, I know the benefit cuts came in 1991). You all leave it on the floor, unprepared to pick it up.
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Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
I was initially resistant to the idea often suggested to me that the Government should deliver an arts strategy. The whole point of the arts and creativity is that people should do whatever the hell they want, unbound by the dictates of politicians in Wellington. Peter Jackson, Kiri Te Kanawa, Eleanor ...
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https://youtu.be/taAHtUDo18Q
An informed view from Kevin Rudd.
Or a similar article published locally:
Which is something I've been saying for a while now. The entire post WW2 global order has been based on an implicit US security of trade guarantee; and now the Yanks are going home. I realise the rabid anti-US left will think this is good news, but fail completely to imagine anything replacing it.
Well as someone relatively uninformed in matters to do with Foreign Affairs, may I start the ball rolling:
Is it perhaps time to bury the chequered past and build cordial relations with Russia – Putin not withstanding? They are a resilient nation with an incredible cultural past who, despite their tendencies towards authoritarian rule, seem to be considerably more stable than their American counterparts.
For example if America chooses to isolate itself from the rest of the world and under the Trump regime that is going to the outcome… then maybe other alliances need to be explored for future world stability.
Which reminds me:
A series of podcasts entitled "The Service" concerning NZ responses to the Cold War years begins this coming Monday (8th June) on RNZ. It promises to reveal for the first time a major operation which took place in 1986 around the time of the anti-nuclear legislation passed by the Lange government. Sounds like it could be very interesting – especially for those of us who were impacted during the 70s and 80s for our anti-nuclear beliefs.
Sure. Let's swap milk powder for Ladas. The Niva is still in production, and there's even a five-door model now!
There is no obvious opportunity between Russia and NZ. Much more valuable would be an unprecedented rapport between Germany and Russia … that would be a massive game changer for both nations.
Maybe we can swap milk powder for nukes? No?
I was distracted from my line of thought by an outside source. 🙂
Hence I forgot to add the necessary proviso of a close link with a strong Europe. Germany is the obvious choice. Has the advantage of balancing the negative forces currently emanating from America with the more positive vibes from a relatively stable Europe.
In 2014 a trade delegation was practically on the plane to Russia for a FTA when Crimea happened ,so had to pull back
Meanwhile Fonterra went quietly on trading
Then in 2018 Winston was once more making noises about resuming the FTA with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan when the schemoozle in Salisbury happened
I remember the British Ambassador being quite strident about a unified stand against Russia .Winston folded, but I think his idea had been to lessen our dependence on China
https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/countries-and-regions/europe/russia/#:~:text=On%209%20November%202010%2C%20New,following%20events%20in%20the%20Ukraine.
Thanks for that link. I was probably too dismissive of our trade relationship with Russia; it has value and when opportunities arise they should be taken.
But geo-politically the ability of NZ and Russia to trade is largely predicated on secure shipping between Vladivostok and Auckland, and long thin trans-shipment across Siberia by rail. It's a less than ideal route in an unstable world, one that neither nation would necessarily be able to defend.
And the idea of setting up a trade deal with Russia goes back to the 1970s. Dr. William Sutch was attempting to set in motion a trade deal with the Soviets when he was pinged by the SIS as a KGB agent. In those days paranoia was so rampant, a person only needed to look at a Soviet Official and he/she was deemed to be a spy. 🙄
Poor old Sutch. It killed him in the end and his crime? He was years ahead of his time.
Is it perhaps time to bury the chequered past and build cordial relations with Russia
Would be one of my dearest wishes too. I whole-heartedly agree with your view of the Russian people.
I'm very ambivalent about Putin; on the scale of authoritarian threat he's nowhere near as dangerous Xi Xinping. He's a remarkably intelligent and strategic thinker, and has the interests of his people at heart. He stands head, shoulders and a fair bit of the torso above any other Russian leader of the past 200 years.
Yet Russia is not a liberal country, and it has almost no democratic tradition of accountability that we would recognise, much of their most senior political leadership is drawn from the intelligence community (and very thin in numbers) and facing intractable defense challenges, Putin is probably the best kind of leader you could hope for in such an environment. And someone the West has betrayed numerous times, much to our long term detriment.
then maybe other alliances need to be explored for future world stability.
From the perspective of NZ, the obvious immediate option is as SE Asian alliance pulling together Japan, Korea, Taiwan (as a fully independent nation), Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and of course Australia.
If I was running MFAT I'd have my professionals working their peer contacts in these nations as hard as, exploring possibilities and laying the ground work for a full on trade and defense alliance in the SE Asian region. I'd be very optimistic the time is now right for this.
In total agreement including the torso bit. 😉
I must confess that torso allusion was entirely accidental
Russia has had circumstances but I won't hear of her being not up to democracy. Which is to say, the principle of fairness which all humans are, by definition, up to.
You need to read more carefully; my point is that Russia has very little history democracy, and given the way the democratic West so grossly betrayed the Russians in the 90's you can hardly blame them for not being keen on repeating the experiment.
Of course you are right, there is no reason why with time and the right circumstances a more robust Russian democracy may well emerge.
I educated myself on Turgenev, and, most of all, Chekhov — that's the specific basis of my belief Russia deserves democracy. That they spoke to me via human ideals. Read all the Russian novelists. Preferred them.
Heard of Aleksandr Dugin?
Dr. Michael Millerman gave a fascinating talk about Dugin's ideas and stinging critique of the liberal democratic order, and how Western ideals are viewed in Russia (available somewhere on YT). I doubt Russian democracy would look anything like what we have in Europe
Putin is a shit. Sure, our democracies don't mostly include the heart of people's rule. It at least requires a commanding attitude, where NZ fell through. It mostly requires a party devoted to the rule of the people, like Scandinavia. Democracy always looks similar, why I've found America suspect.
Anarchy or entropy?
..come together in perfect harmony
Until we collectively build a global institution that takes the place of, and improves on the US led order, then it will be a fair bit of both.
On the active anarchy side of the question we will see the three traditional areas of the world prone to hot conflict re-emerge.
China is already under considerable internal stress and the death-throes of the CCP cannot help but be ugly.
Once all the major players in the Middle East realise the US is no longer interested in imposing a political reality in the region, it will be 'burn it all down' time. Oil shipments in particular will become deeply insecure.
Europe faces a choice of either dramatically reforming the EU to become a full federal integrating the divergent interests of Northern and Southern Europe, or collapsing into the very tribal hot wars that were the reason it was formed in the first place. Again without the US imposing a military reality in the region, it will default to the old ones.
Mass migrations, especially out of sub-Saharan Africa, will continue to stress Europe's ability to economically and socially integrate. Nigeria remains one of the few large nations struggling with both mass absolute poverty and very high population growth. (The two are always closely correlated.)
On the entropy side the collapse of the trade order means the prosperity building of the post WW2 era comes to an end in many places. Climate change and environmental degradation will continue to erode our natural capital, and COVID 19 will not the last pandemic.
In human terms we are much more sensitive to the prospect of losing what we have, than the possibility of getting something we don't yet have. As both anarchy and entropy continue to accelerate we will see populations everywhere react badly. Populists and autocrats will gain more power, liberal democracy will be on the retreat everywhere it cannot or is not defended.
Sobering; it doesn’t bode well.
I see Rudd proving once again proving he is the enemy of the left.
Have to say redlogix your lack of imagination on this issue is a bit disappointing. Anarchy is always preferable to a one world government. Seriously, the lead players in that racket are racist, misogynistic, empire building, elitist dogfuckers.
Anarchy is always preferable to a one world government.
One world government, or more probably a global federation of all the nations, is absolutely inevitable. It is the direction history has been heading in for at least 10,000 years or more. A progressive model of history, one built on the idea of increasing capacity for of larger and more complex societies, and broader more inclusive moral horizons is supported by all the evidence.
By contrast anarchy, however you care to define it, has absolutely no track record other than abject failure by comparison.
Setting aside any subjective judgement on the two models, it seems the one you are backing has been firmly rejected by evolution if nothing else.
So your going with racist, misogynistic, empire building, elitist dogfuckers then.
A fine contribution to robust debate.
Total class mate, total class.
Hard to have a debate when all I'm reading is liberal gobshit.
Fair enough but why then pile on more shit?
Judging by the postures of current superpowers, the only form of global unity they seek is at gunpoint; one global empire imposing its will on everyone else.
Geography, the end of cheap oil, and human nature makes a global government very unlikely, and I don't want to be around to see it.
According to apocalyptic literature, Armageddon has to occur before we get 1000 years of peace.
Maybe hold off leaning either way until after January 21 next year.
Have you read this?! The pitchforks are coming for us plutocrats
"Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us."
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014?fbclid=IwAR2XYIAwEYVR7bqZbKwX0ooFVJGrf9Q4KeNpOkYfr8_xm8Zfjny_aDW6ySU
Sigh. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014
Sorry. I did it again. Enthusiasm over-rode memory. Plus, early morning.
Really interesting Robert , but note not one word about climate catastrophe and the folly of perpetual growth , or the hazards of a culture mired in endless consumerism.
Just, if plutocrats are to survive we need to cut the commoners a bit of slack so they can afford to buy our useless crap
The guy has balls all the same
'Stop hoarding wealth because climate change' is a much harder sell. He knows who he needs to convince and it's not us.
Consume more locally grown food, craft items and locally owned and staffed factory produced goods made to last and be repairable and recyclable. Somehow direct the yearning for brand new status symbol cars, houses, clothes, boats to items that condense individual wealth, like art works, jewellery and accessories. Grand old houses, old boats and old cars in posh parts of Auckland show that recycled goods actually enhance status.
Yes, francesca, you are quite right. His thinking still bound by his culture but he's stirring that up from within and that's encouraging. He's ripe, I think, for an epiphany that shifts the location of his awareness from his cranium to his chest 🙂
Hanauer has had 6 years since it was published. Wonder where his thinking is at now?
Googling Hanauer turns up plenty.
He's still pushing on the problems caused by inequity and the unrestrained pursuit and accumulation of wealth. He still appears to be fundamentally a capitalist, but wants the capitalism in a mixed economy to be much better managed and regulated, as well as getting the wealthy and highly-paid to contribute much more back to maintaining the society that enabled their wealth and high pay.
Ought we to snuff out signs of intelligent life when they arrive only partly-formed?
He's definitely on to it and being a trillionaire has a far better chance of communicating those ideas to his peers than anyone else further down the food chain
We even get a mention:
Time to disabuse these guys of the belief that they have the option to come here.
The same guy, Nick Hanauer did a Ted Talk way back when about how rich people don't create jobs:
https://youtu.be/CKCvf8E7V1g
A friend visited a rural home recently and they were sweeping up broken glass
Behind the door was a narrow tall display case with a notice inside
"IN CASE OF TYRANNY BREAK GLASS"
There were two empty pegs near the top …
and the outline of a …..
PITCH FORK
Yes. Some of the 0.1% are awake.
Sacha, you need to run a post on putting an internet link onto text
Not at all – I hardly do that myself.
Or perhaps something about the harm Facebook is doing to political discourse and why everyone should delete Facebook from their devices and their lives, and especially should never ever ever click on a Facebook-mediated link.
I'm mainly concerned about the 'readability' of the link for other people. Makes it harder to decide whether to click or not.
That's true, although you can rest you mouse over a hyperlink and check the destination.
Extra cruft makes it harder to identify the destination whether the link is visible in full or only when hovering. It’s a tax on attention, and for what benefit.
I find that having to take extra action to see where a link goes makes it less likely I will actually bother with it. And I have yet to bother to find out the equivalent of hovering on the other devices I use.
Because of that, I'll embed a link when it's just backup for a point, or further info a particularly interested reader may find interesting. But if directing a reader to the link is the main point of the comment, then having the link right out in the open works better for me.
The problem isn't just FB, anyone with a pulse or a skerrick of decency would stop using it after the Chch murders.
There seems to be a deep, almost primal need to be 'connected', whether it is extreme FOMO, the pain of not knowing something when google is right there or some other driver.
I have had a few conversations lately where someone else's phone/internet/device habits are having a profoundly negative effect on a relationship.
I suppose what I am getting at is FB etc, are merely tools, the problem is we are misusing the tools.
Sometimes tools are fine and the problem is indeed users are misusing them.
Sometimes there is something fundamentally problematic with the actual tools.
Sometimes the tool supplier is fundamentally problematic.
Instead of berating those who can't quite bring themselves to vote for a tired old white plutocrat with a penchant for pawing small children and uninvited sniffing of female hair, why not attempt to understand?
Insulting them as purists and morons doesn't work
Here's a fairly robust statement from Caitlin Johnstone in a longer opinion piece
"And that is exactly what a US president’s real job is. Not to end police brutality and systemic racism, not to make changes which benefit the American people, and certainly not to make the world a less violent and murderous place, but to say pretty words which lull the public into a pleasant propaganda-induced coma while the sociopathic oligarchs who really run things rob them blind."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55184.htm
And a much longer and considered article by Jonathan Cook
excerpt
"If the US has a cynical political system, deeply corrupted by money, younger voters wonder whether adding to that cynicism – with the left always voting for one of two evil candidates – can actually ever change the system or simply reinforces it. The older left has failed politically. But might one of the reasons be that for decades it has acted so cynically? Younger voters want to break with cynical politics. If the left is ever going to start looking more attractive, they argue, it needs to stop engaging cynically with a cynical system."
https://braveneweurope.com/jonathan-cook-why-the-lefts-case-for-lesser-evil-sounds-hollow
Not wanting to distract from the above pieces, Bill Hicks said this over 25 years ago.
That's the thing with truth, it does not change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIiCjhCBDaM
Edit: Contains the odd ‘f-bomb’.
… can't quite bring themselves to vote for a tired old white plutocrat with a penchant for pawing small children and uninvited sniffing of female hair…
That is not the reason why he's a terrible person and a terrible candidate. Nor is it his notorious habit of lying. Nor is it his cretinous decision to plagiarize from, of all people, Neil Kinnock. What makes Biden unacceptable to millions of people with a conscience is the fact that he has been on the wrong side of nearly every major moral and political issue during his career in politics.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/31/how-joe-biden-fueled-the-latin-american-migration-crisis/
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/jeremy-scahill-makes-the-definitive-case-against-joe-biden/
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1239358590013620224?lang=en
Useful idiots gonna useful idiot.
At this point in the political cycle, it doesn't matter whether the motivation is moronism or actual malice, the net effect of whining about Biden's flaws without mention of the Fanta Fascist's vastly worse heinousness on every topic is to functionally act as another soldier in the army of Drumpfkins. So stick it up your ass back where it came from.
https://arcdigital.media/why-are-internet-radicals-helping-putins-russia-6ff2978b172e
Glenn Greenwald, Max Blumenthal, and Jeremy Scahill are "useful idiots"? That's a lot funnier than your lame "Fanta Fascist" and "Drumpfkin" quips.
At this stage Blumenthal and Greenwald have definitely reached useful idiot status (or worse), despite what bright spots they may have in their previous work. Or whatever rare lucid good points they may still make.
TBH, I haven't paid much attention to Scahill. But publishing that piece on March 10 after the primary was effectively decided, rather than earlier when the facts and arguments could have made a difference, strongly suggests Scahill has also attained useful idiot status (or worse).
Just to be clear Andre – are you requiring that people simply not mention Biden's obvious flaws in case that contributes in some way to Trump's re-election? And if everyone goes obediently silent in this manner, will they be allowed to resume saying these things when Biden becomes President? Or will that also be disallowed as undermining Biden's presidency and contributing to the possible victory of whatever Republican monster follows Trump?
Just wondering, that if we voluntarily suspend truth-telling, under what circumstances we get it back.
I expect those that present themselves as some sort of journalists to occasionally pay some attention to the monstrosities committed by the incumbent in between bagging the much milder failings of the alternative (that does not hold power). Greenwald in particular has conspicuously failed to do this.
Sure, when anyone is in power, hold them to account. But I do expect to see a sense of proportion and consideration of the big picture before I'll consider someone to be worth paying attention to. The likes of Johnstone, Blumenthal, Mate and others apparently held in high regard by convergence moonbats fail badly on that score
Sure, because the only good independent journalism is when it sings from the same mainstream song sheet.
There is a properly nuanced position somewhere in all this. I thought in this interview with Marianne Williamson she got close to it. At one point saying something like, "I don't want to say anything that will further increase cynicism about the Democratic nominee" but at the same time she stressed the need for "radical truth-telling". I had previously thought she was a bit nutty, so was wrong on that.
It is the wonderful political strategy of – "Vote for sleepy joe or else.."
Close, Ainsley, close. It may not be wonderful, but It's the only likely strategy to avoid the 'or else'.
Unless a third party candidate emerges and starts polling over 30%, and splits all states to a three way fight, if Usians don't vote for Biden, that means they're okay with Trump for another four years. It's that simple.
And the "or else" is now pretty fucking obviously terrible.
The "or else" of working people will catch onto the con of the eliets and dogfucker politicans who support their oppression.
Ok.. thanks for wading in and showing the strategy in action.
What's your strategy?
Whinge about biden and hope he still wins? Or whinge about Biden in the hope dolt45 gets re-elected and things get even worse?
Just wondering, that if we voluntarily suspend truth-telling, under what circumstances we get it back.
Indeed, very well put. This 'lesser of two evils' race to the bottom has no exit lane. Trump in my view is a high functioning psychopath, but the reason why so many Americans feel they have no political choice can be summed up in two words … Clinton, Biden.
Many Americans seem to have voted against Clinton. She really was a terrible choice probably worse than the 2020 presumptive nominee.
The problem is that Biden will be so vulnerable during term that objectivity will at earliest be established after he is done. For some reason Andre seems against both pressure to move left on policy and an examination of weaknesses of the candidate both of which Trump will be attacking. Its hard to understand why he wants the democrats to run such a weak candidate. My best guess is that he is enjoying the politics as name calling.
They've got what they've got now.
Both sides are quibbling about their own, but it's just distraction.
It's Biden or Trump – there's no pretending anything else.
Their weaknesses and strengths are best considered at head-to-head time.
Or, yankistan suffers from collective psychpathy and sees nothing wrong with the liar Chump.
@ Andre, Do you realize that every time someone critiques Biden you come on here all frothing at the mouth and the first thing you say is that they are whining, every damn time…so OK we all get it, we all know you are a lap dog of the liberal status quo, so unless you have anything new or relevant to bring t the debate, why don't you go and yap yap yap somewhere else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zju5s5PyDY
Who is the US Green Party Presidential candidate?
Don't think they've fixed on one yet
Jill Stein is still there , and Ralph Nader, there may even be some congress type person
Exactly.
The actual voter desire for an alternative to Trump or Biden is near-zero.
So much so that the hard left (and indeed the Libertarians) have yet to even propose one.
Oh ahhh right wing slurs "Useful idiots"
Why not throw in "Putin Puppet" or "reds under the bed" or some other horse shit anti left slur whilst your at it Andre.
Total class mate, total class.
That accusation is simply a disgusting smear that has been perpetuated by sick people who have an unworthy political agenda. The accusation is based upon a photo take out of context and when the truth is revealed shows just how despicable the accusation is.
If a grandfather cannot comfort his grandson at the funeral of his father it's a pretty sick world.
There are others Macro .I personally had not ever heard of the grandson thing and don't think it has been widely published .
The ones I refer to are young girls
If you make a statement such as that you either prove it or shut up.
“MUCH ADO ABOUT THAT FORUM: Vivi, the 10-year-old girl who asked Biden a question at Tuesday’s AFT forum, is “proud” of her interaction with him, according to a new statement from her teacher, even if social media seized on it as another “creepy Biden” moment.
— The teacher, Lucia Moreno, a Houston Federation of Teachers member, released a statement through her union after receiving several media calls on Wednesday about the moment. After Biden answered Vivi’s question, he told her, “I’ll bet you’re as bright as you are good-looking.” When she told him her favorite subject is journalism, he led her to the back to meet the press corps and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders.
— Pictures of the moment made the rounds on Twitter, with some calling it “creepy.” Just before entering the race, Biden weathered allegations that his handsy style made some women uncomfortable.
— Moreno, who runs an after-school journalism program, gave this statement: “I took two of my students to the AFT Votes Town Hall with Vice President Biden yesterday to show them the power of journalism, activism and politics, and I was deeply proud that Vivi — who is the daughter of a Salvadoran immigrant — was able to ask the Vice President a question and interact with him directly. After the event when I spoke to her mother, she told me she would treasure the experience of her daughter meeting a politician who believes in family values and understands the experiences of immigrants. Today, when we returned to the classroom, Vivi was equally proud of the moment and excited to tell the entire school about the learning experience she had.”
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-education/2019/05/30/two-2020-contenders-argue-school-meals-should-be-free-for-all-students-441900
Well said, Macro. The death of Beau Biden was well documented at the time. His brother can be seen comforting the boy Robert earlier in the video. Only very sick minds would think of using a still photo in such a way.
Hamish Price comes to my mind.
Yes it seems we have just as sick smear mongering here as overseas. The misuse of a photo of Jacinda and Olivia Madgwick is a very sad example.
https://www.vox.com/2019/6/13/18663399/joe-biden-10-year-old-hyde-women
https://twitter.com/i/events/930120742422716416?lang=en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCf2Nfd9iCc
The guy's a creep
Hooton confirmed on the payroll: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12337682
The man's gotta live to the lifestyle he's accustomed to, and after all, prostitution is legal – in fact it's almost become fashionable among those that don't have to rely on it.
(See your 8 below – case in point)
Super rich guy Tom Sturgess makes donation of $100k to eco-sanctuary, headline news. What wonderful generosity etc.
Tom Sturgess wealth according to NBR rich list 2014: $280m (donation = 0.04% of that, $1 for every $2500 he has)
Median net wealth of NZers: $340k. Equivalent donation = $122
Instead of handing all the power to the rich people, tax them and fund things that we all support with public spending.
Wealth tax!
To be fair that's not the only contribution Sturgess makes
He runs a very generous community fund and has helped out local not for profit organizations heaps
He runs his farms well,treats his workers well,stayed away from the easy profits of dairy and bought up businesses that are all about production and jobs
He doesn't strip and sack
He,s Rich ok but he hasn't cut and run
Been a citizen for over 20 years
The eco sanctuary is the better for his input
Time to collect on the pork-barrelling: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300029052/election-decider-shane-jones-confirmed-as-nz-firsts-northland-candidate
More groveling towards the bludgers this morning, from the usual suspects RNZ National, Sunday 7 June 2020, 9:48 a.m.
JIM MORA: Are the people of Los Angeles still charmed by Harry and Meghan?
RUSSELL MYERS: [speaking slowly and deliberately to convey gravitas] I think L.A. is charmed by Harry and Meghan… [skip several minutes of blather]…. I think they've played an absolute BLINDER during the coronavirus crisis.
JIM MORA: All right, and finally Prince Andrew. Gone, and never coming back, Russell?
RUSSELL MYERS: I don't think there's any way back for Andrew, and probably that's a good thing overall. ….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/dont-mention-hookers-or-cocaine.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/05/murdering-rich-bastard-condemned-around.html
Jim Mora stays at the shallow end of the pool.
The shallow, nasty end of the pool, where the reptiles gather.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/principled-broadcasters-cogitate-about.html
A good read on the really uncomfortable relationship between the broader union movement and police unions.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-labor-movement-faces-a-reckoning-over-police-unions_n_5eda9958c5b640424ef70cd2
The Unions have been part of the Republican alliance for some time now. The Democrats abandoned their class interests in favour of identity politics. Most union members are in highly diverse ethnically and the movement as a whole voted with their feet.
As for the Police Unions, maybe we need to understand these are ordinary working class people doing a tough, shitty and essential job.
Yet even such reactionary organisations such as the Charles Koch Institute finds that practices such as the militarisation of police are really unhelpful for police doing the job the community expects from them and disengages the police from the community.
https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/issue-areas/criminal-justice-policing-reform/militarization-of-police/
What about the Second Ammendment militarisation of the population? A nation that permits open carry ensures a literal arms race between the population and the police.
Yet if the US can avoid burning down the White House in the next week or so, I'm very hopeful for their long term prospects.
Race is of course one element of this event; but it's not the only one. The destruction of good US manufacturing jobs is directly responsible for the deprivation and alienation of minority working class. The good news is that these jobs are going to be re-shored from China over the next few years.
The US will trend very successfully toward an autarky. No matter how hard it tries to fuck it up, it has all the regional security and resources necessary, combined with it's uniquely benign and productive geography. If these protests succeed in triggering serious political reform they will have been entirely justified.
Even before the pandemic, and well before the George Floyd horror, Andrew Yang was saying that vast numbers of ordinary Americans no longer believe their political system serves their needs. The pandemic has of course only served to increase inequality, already at record highs.
It's notable which protests drew the militarised response: it was the unarmed protests with large proportions of people of colour. When the almost exclusively white gun nutters showed up with their weapons they got the softly softly kid gloves response. That difference will have been well noted.
What is also noted is that the left whole-heartedly approves of strong military responses to white protesters, while silently standing by on the looting and violence enabled under the cover the broader, mostly peaceful, BLM protests.
Let's be clear on what we agree on: George Floyd's death … fucked up; protest bad policing and economic insecurity … fine. Looting, arson and beating up shopkeepers protecting their livelihoods … fucked up. 95% of everyone left and right, lines up to tick these boxes.
Unless of course your real goal is to 'burn it all down'. In which case a full metal jacket military response is the only option.
No argument about what's fucked up. But take a good look at who's falsely conflating the peaceful unarmed protests with the looting and arson perpetrated by unrelated opportunists. And what the political motive for that false conflating might be.
Neither of those things is noted. Where'd you summon that up from?
Bizarre 1st para @10.1.1.1.1.1 – RL trying to 'fit' reality to his world view.
So sly you could pin a tail on it and call it a Dennis.
[Two birds with one stone, this time! Well done! You still haven’t learned that your ‘witty’ one-liners are nothing but flaming insults and putdowns of other commenters. I guess we’ll just have to up the dose. Banned for one week. At this rate, you’ll be gone for a long time soon, unless you change your behaviour – Incognito]
See my Moderation note @ 4:51 PM.
It'll be a hard job, if it can be done at all in these increasingly stressful times. UK writer and TV producer G F Newman has more than once aired the notion that criminals and police often come from similar backgrounds, have similar mentalities, and that it can simply be chance – ill or otherwise – that decides which side of the fence they end up on. He also reckons 90% of police are corrupt in greater or lesser degree. Very likely the situation is little different in the US.
Clement Blair Peach (25 March 1946 – 24 April 1979) was a New Zealand teacher who died after an anti-racism demonstration in Southall, Middlesex, England
As far as I can find within our lifetime,We in NZ have been so fortunate that protesting has not led to the highest price to be paid,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Blair_Peach#:~:text=Clement%20Blair%20Peach%20(25%20March,in%20Southall%2C%20Middlesex%2C%20England.
Bit embarrassing, but I had never heard of him.
That is quite atrocious.
In that wiki article, there is link to a quite good tribute song to him from 1980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otacja5LDJY
That tune is better than quite good my friend, it is a serious classic cut from a pivotal protest record…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forces_of_Victory
Bit embarrassing, but I had never heard of him.
???!!??
Have you ever considered a job at RNZ National?
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/more-evidence-of-jesse-mulligans.html
Link-spamming when not in the context of the comment thread. We have advertisers who pay to hire our space to pay for the servers. Link-spammer do not contribute, so why should we allow you to advertise here? You can link to your own site provided it isn’t excessive, explains why you think it should be read (so people can decide not to go there without clicking into it), is short, and you either do it in OpenMike or within the context of the post or surrounding comments.
https://thestandard.org.nz/policy/#banning
Four links today. No or insufficient explanation provided. Becoming tedious, again 🙁
Sorry about that. Bit more self-discipline needed in Chez Breen, methinks.
N.B. No hyperlink in this post.
Ta
You’re a quick learner, Mr Breen!
The unresonable ineffectiveness of mathematics in social science.
Hundreds of researchers attempted to predict six life outcomes, such as a child’s grade point average and whether a family would be evicted from their home. These researchers used machine-learning methods optimized for prediction, and they drew on a vast dataset that was painstakingly collected by social scientists over 15 y. However, no one made very accurate predictions. For policymakers considering using predictive models in settings such as criminal justice and child-protective services, these results raise a number of concerns. Additionally, researchers must reconcile the idea that they understand life trajectories with the fact that none of the predictions were very accurate.
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/15/8398
The problem with diophantine sets.
Great to hear we are still currently more than fractals and algorhythms.
We do it better here.
https://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/publications
… algorhythms … is that music composed by an AI?
Sorry. I'll leave now.
Very interesting and not all too surprising IMHO.
https://data.govt.nz/use-data/analyse-data/government-algorithm-transparency-and-accountability/draft-algorithm-charter/
I assume this has stalled somewhat due to the pandemic.
Is the mink coat a source of Covid-19?
Just heard on AJ TV that a mink farm in the Netherlands has transmission from mink animals to humans. China imports a lot of mink fur from the Netherlands.
Unlikely via fur IMO.
Fur is generally tanned & I doubt virus would survive that (given that much less harsh plain old soap & water works).
How did the minks get the virus? From Batman?
5G
Of course, the missing link. Duh!!
AJ TV did not say how the minks got the virus.
And unlikely from Batman.
As for the Duh see what happens.
From Ozzy Osbourne? Has he been touring the Netherlands in the last year?
Fortunately the swedish navy can track the minks.
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/12/world/sweden-says-those-russian-subs-were-minks.html
I’ve always suspected there was a Russian connection that would surface sooner or later.
The trust has gone in the USA between the police and the Afro American community. Until trust is restored the marches will continue. It is obvious why there is no trust as police officers are breaking the law.
I feel that the numbers participating in the marches would be higher were there no Covid-19. It is good to see a representation of cultures. I was very impressed with what Rev Sharpton said at Floyd's funeral.
It's 2020. Of course a river had to run red like blood.
https://twitter.com/EdClowes/status/1268809489454706688
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1268809489454706688.html
https://www.space.com/oil-spill-arctic-circle-satellite-photos.html
@ Observer Tokoroa:
I did see the slight name change and thought it was a typo.
I don’t know what happened but your last couple of comments came through unchanged so I suspect it happened at your (the client) end.
Let’s wait and see what happens when your ban ends, thanks.
1601
How to bunker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iJA2cVXUAA
But he only went two and a half times. I'm still trying to work out how you can half go someplace . Did he put a foot inside the bunker and a foot outside and therefore he was half in and half out?
I see this tune is getting a lot of downloads in the states over the past week or so….still some of the smoothest rappers around IMO.well apart from Chuck D maybe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7-TTWgiYL4
Given Dr Dre and Ice T now have a combined worth of a billion dollars and live in mansions no where near anywhere with dodgy cops, the song has kind of lost it's impact for me personally.
So are you saying that anything one does artistically should be judged on the actions taken though out the rest of their lives?…I personally think that is a very naive and unrealistic position to take,
No it is still a good song.
I just think they would look a bit silly if they tried to do it live again.
Huh? Dre & Cube are still black.
And very privileged
For Afro Americans sure they got wealth. But they still get pulled over and deal with the same shit by police, like all the other Afro Americans. I'd suggest you talk to some wealthy or middle class Afro Americans Chris T, because you just talking shit at the moment. Because in American one thing money don't buy you if your Afro American, is a pass on the shit you get from the police.
Unlike you not to be impressed by wealth. They're Wealth Creators Driving the Market Economy ennathaday.
I have never been impressed by wealth.
But thanks for inventing things
Sure you haven't.
All you have to do is quote me doing it or admit you are talking shit.
It can't be that hard if you are not talking shit.
I'm a plant-guy. This guy's a plant-guy.
https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaNativePlantSociety/videos/289482348749147/
Really good to watch
good guy in a field of healing echinacea
Do newspapers just get to make shit up ?
Apparently the Skripals are in NZ.
"The report cites a senior UK government source who said the Skripals had been given new identities and support to start a new life."
So these people who were facing such a diabolical existential threat from the Russians, they couldn't be interviewed to describe what happened to them or where they were in those missing morning hours in March 2018 are now outed as being in NZ
If we are to believe this , and frankly I find it difficult, who's providing the extreme security they'd need
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300029359/exrussian-spy-sergei-skripal-and-daughter-yulia-start-over-in-nz-after-poisonings–report
NZ is seen as some mythical place at the bottom of the world where anyone can disappear
In actual fact we're all pretty connected and blab like anything so its the last place to come and disappear.
francesca
Not planning to disappear, in my view; perhaps "hidden in plain sight"
They’ll have to have full on elocution lessons!
And what about Sergei’s special buckwheat.
Gonna grow it for him Robert?
If this is correct and it may well be then the british government is being it's usual arrogant self. IIRC there was a proposal made quite some time back – where the British were going to resettle here under a new name, an individual who had been convicted as a minor of a crime but the outcry stopped it. So nothing new I'm afraid.
Is it just me or has Ardern's promised 20% ministerial pay cut seemed to have disappeared under the radar?
Unless I have missed a story.
Inform yoursel'.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/personal-finance/news/article.cfm?c_id=12&objectid=12332277
I googled “ministerial cuts NZ” and got this.
Thanks!
The Bill has been passed.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/bills-and-laws/bills-proposed-laws/document/BILL_97813/remuneration-authority-covid-19-measures-amendment-bill
AFAIK, the determinations are not in place yet but cannot be changed after 30 June 2020.
Do you know how to do a search yourself?
The latest focus of the moment, the race riots in America. We getting het up about it.
And the unwillingness of the middle class politically interested to address our vicious war on Maori since 1984 (yes, I know the benefit cuts came in 1991). You all leave it on the floor, unprepared to pick it up.
Disgusting.
Arms Race?
800,000 mostly urban Police
80 MILLION gun nut rednecks mostly in the rural food producing regions
That race was lost long ago in the US