Professor Greg Newbold says “white collar criminals do more damage to society than the gangs” ?
Yep I would agree as it is the Asian gangs bringing in the methamphetamine into NZ and distributing through our traditional gangs like the Mongrel Mob & the Head Hunters ?
The profits are then normally washed through the real estate and construction sector ?
Yes they do, but white collar crime seems to be legal aka how many of the business roundtable became rich by buying up cheap government assets sold off, how many people are profiting from current assets sell offs and government construction contracts.
Making the criminal legal is why we have so many lawyers per capita in this country, even more than the UK!
If you want to screw over people in this country but don’t have the connections to government as per above, no problem, it’s so easy. Just set up a company and then ‘go bankrupt’ owing millions and make poorer people bankrupt and then set up another company and start again… Lucky their are so many bankruptcy lawyers and big 5 who can help the government on behalf of the tax payer paying them big bucks
… this is not just the big guys people, anyone can do it, even one tradie I had the misfortune to encounter had been bankrupted 4 times leaving big debts, by Price Waterhouse the last one and was even trading under the same name, so was not obvious it was a different company! I rang PWC liquidator and asked why is he still allowed to be in business, and they said, that the public had to lay another complaint… I mean 5 times should be pretty obvious that that person should be in jail, not still on the scene. The liquidators even let him keep his van so he could continue with the poor business practices. It was unbelievable.
If he was simply a tradie, chances are he was being taken to the cleaners by the scoundrels he was subbing to – in recognition of that, state departments can be quite lenient with such people. I know – been there, done that!
IT IS difficult to overstate the scale of the damage caused by so-called white-collar crime.
If white-collar crime formed part of the backdrop to our banking collapse, then it follows that every citizen of the State is a victim of such crime by way of increased taxes, loss of national sovereignty, wide-ranging youth unemployment, restricted services and life opportunities, and so on.
Even leaving banking aside, tax evasion and the flouting of the law in such areas as the environment, health and safety, planning, competition and the running of companies, strains public resources, endangers people’s health, reduces the quality of the built environment, puts businesses at risk and rips off consumers on an ongoing basis.
White collar crimes costs an estimated $600-750 billion dollars in America or roughly 5% of GDP. This massive cost is more than all other crimes combined. Let me repeat that. White collar crime does more damage to society than all forms of stealing and violence combined. Contrary to the common perception, the most dangerous criminal is not a youth in a hoody, but a middle aged man in a suit. The biggest hot spots for crime are not the ghettoes, but the financial districts. It is not in council estates, but commercial offices that most criminals spend their time.
There’s actually quite a lot of research out there showing the same thing going back decades. I’ll leave you with this quote:
Because of the huge sums of money involved, on a strictly financial level corporate crime dwarfs all conventional property offences. Indeed, a single act of corporate crime in a nation can cause more financial damage than all conventional crime in that nation for an entire year, combined (White & Habibis 2005, p. 130). A study in the 1980s showed that “for every dollar taken by conventional crime, about 40 dollars were stolen by criminals wearing suits and ties” (Newbold 2000, p. 44). Money taken from the individual also causes indirect, but very real, damage to people surrounding the victims; “for every person injured by the collapse of a company, ten others – wives, children, creditors and their families – are seriously affected by it” (Charles Sturt, cited in Newbold 2000, p. 45). It also harms economies in general, which affects most everyone in a society (Newbold 2000, p. 45).
And yet despite all that the politicians focus on the minor stuff. Probably because they get their donations and careers from the white collar criminals.
That Irish TImes link didn’t seem to work for me. The other two didn’t describe a comparison of the direct and indirect costs of different kinds of crime, for example between “white collar” and “all others”. A link within the second citation simply went “error 404”.
It’s fine to claim that in a financial crime affects not just the specific person who is damaged, but that is true of most other crimes as well.
I would fully agree that financial crime is under-reported and under-policed in New Zealand. And I would agree that the rich afford better lawyers to get away with it more often, because that is what I have seen.
For an academic of good experience, Greg Newbold needs to be a whole bunch more precise about his claims. I also don’t mind academics having a strong class filter on their claims, so long as they back themselves up.
White collar frauds and economic crime costs the country billions of dollars each year, government officials have concluded.
Minister for the Serious Fraud Office Anne Tolley said many Ministries had been working for two years on a “Cost of Economic Crime” report that was due to be presented to cabinet soon.
Newbold was in Pare in the ’70s or ’80s, got sent down for drugs IIRC. I read his book, don’t remember much of it now except to recall it wasn’t a bad read.
I’m not sure I could agree with the statement. IMO the serious damage is done by those who tend to be above the law.
“The Big Huey”.
And since then, it’s become more and more about punishment, and less about any type of rehabilitation.
Even the Honorable Don McKinnon was into rehab in those days assisting with prison debating teams, etc.
Now its got so bad, we see NGOs having to do even more basic things (such as with literacy and numeracy) which SHOULD be an inherent part of the system
There are two journo commentators not to be missed:
David Slack “Slack at the Back” (SST) and Steve Braunais. Both of them brilliant.
I agree about Winston. I hope he shows his coalition partners how to handle the crap coming out of the mouths of their opponents – not just sit there like numpties and take it.
Propagandists Not Journalists
Exhibit 1: The ghoulish ISABEL KIRSHNER of the New York Times
“Jihad Abu Jamous, 30, from Bani Suheila, a village near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, set off for the border in a taxi with his wife, Ghadir, and their four children. He didn’t come back. His widow said he had moved toward the fence and was shot in the head. It was not clear whether he was throwing stones at the time.”
New York Times, “After Gaza Clash, Israel and Palestinians Fight With Videos and Words” April 1, 2018
Morrissey…….when the power elites throughout the world collude with the settler colonial project in Palestine, as they have done since 1948, this is an example of how war crimes are rationalised through the corporate media. Killing unarmed protesters and clearly identified medics helping the injured, as has been happening in the last month in the Gaza Strip, are now accepted as the price of allowing the criminal Netanyahu and his far right government in Israel to grab more and more Palestinian land and deny the basic human rights of the lawful owners. Our government need to be making clear and strong statements about this ongoing genocide, and keep repeating it.
“Being stupid is not a crime”
True, and we’re all fortunate that’s the case.
Encouraging other people to be stupid for the purpose of making a profit oneself isn’t a crime either.
So criminality isn’t always the best test of whether something is right or not.
Neither have many on the right Ad.
One of the more outspoken commentators on the stupidity of Lotto is Don Brash. He has always said it is stupid.
For example
“I haven’t bought a Lotto ticket, ever. I think most of those gambling activities are really a very regressive form of taxation. They are particularly hard on low-income people, who cherish the myth that they’ll have all their financial woes fixed if they can just win Lotto.” http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/9161761/Brash-and-the-art-of-parsimony
I guess that will lead to people who don’t like Brash running out to get their ticket for tonight’s draw. If Don is against it they will want to show that they disagree with him.
Don is right of course as the odds against winning anything much are ridiculous. That doesn’t stop me buying a ticket whenever it goes over $20 million though. I know the odds but I get some pleasure from the dream.
They are particularly hard on low-income people, who cherish the myth that they’ll have all their financial woes fixed if they can just win Lotto.
This is actually wrong. IMO, for most low income people buying lotto is the only hope that they have. It’s why lotto sales tend to go up in a recession.
That is certainly a spectacularly quick change of heart.
At 12.19pm you think
“Lotteries are simply ripping people off”.
Then by 12.26pm you propose
“This is actually wrong. IMO, for most low income people buying lotto is the only hope that they have”.
I am not surprised of course. As I said in my comment
” If Don is against it they will want to show that they disagree with him.”
You, discovering what Don thinks, have immediately flipped your opinion so that you can now take the opposite view to him.
Sad really. Still I suppose you manage to rationalise this in the deep turgid recesses of your mind.
The only sad thing is your habit of misinterpreting comments to suit yourself.
Draco had no change of heart that I can see. Lotteries ripping people off is not contradictory to Lotteries being a poor but only source of hope to the poor because employment offers even less hope…
Putting your thoughts into other people’s words by selective quoting is a sad activity. You need a better pastime, alwyn.
” that I can see”.
That’s nice dear.
Of course you don’t see anything. As the saying goes
“There are none so blind as those who will not see”.
That is, of course, a selective quote. It was selected because it describes you perfectly.
As expected – total failure to counter the explanation of why Draco had had no change of heart. Instead, shallow, insulting sophistry.
Alwyn, you really do need a healthier pastime.
That’s an average annual net profit of nearly $40,000 per year..
That’s on an outlay of $126 per week. Which I know is more than most people can afford or are willing to outlay, but if you want to profit you have to spend as much as you can possibly afford. I’m not on a high income but I don’t have a family to worry about and I’m confident enough to spend that much each week even sometimes going 4 weeks or more without winning a cent.
It’s working so far. I could now play $126 per week for the next 20 years win nothing at all every week for the entire 20 years and would break even. So I look at it as I’m playing for the next 20 years for free.
Sorry Adam – too many (ex)English or Language teachers amongst us for that to have gone unnoticed. Had I disagreed, I would be more likely to comment, or more likely, just spell the word correctly when replying.
Good of you to point out ‘forlorn’ – a word with sad connotations that best describes the plight of the poor. (Sorry – relatively poor, for those righties who pretend that everyone has a fair chance…)
State houses were then seen as a stop-gap measure, to tide the tenants over until they found a place of their own.
Talk about re-writing history. They were not built to be merely a stop-gap measure at all. They were long term family homes where successive generations could bring up their children in a safe and stable environment. It’s true some were able to eventually buy their own homes but many more stayed in those homes for the rest of their lives.
Soper is either super ignorant or is redefining the truth to fit a certain political bias for the benefit of those who don’t know their history.
Edit: in fact most of the article is a ‘redefining of the truth’. Most of the tenants were – and I suspect still are – normal stable individuals.
It was hasty read. Missed that bit. Does that mean he reads The Standard? That’s good to know. I’ll be use every opportunity to ridicule the ignorant piece of
Anne. The Standard is widely read by political journalists, political scientists, PR people, and politicians ex and current alike, don’t you worry about that!
This is why it’s important to get your thoughts down here with links whenever you are able and whenever the injustice of the right wing rears it’s ugly head. To make a comment both adds to the voice of social consciousness, and makes a record of your opinion.
It does make a difference, and contributes to the necessary counter argument to corporate media. I’m talking Hooten, Trevett, Soper, etc.
“The Standard is widely read by political journalists, political scientists, PR people, and politicians ex and current alike, don’t you worry about that!”
I didn’t realise it. Never mind, I’m not changing my style to satisfy a bunch of mealy mouthed, self entitled, arrogant journos… turned PR acolytes for greedy, even more self entitled, ignorant Nat politicos and their sycophantic support base of trolls and nitwits. 😉
I don’t think you need to worry about too many politicians and journalists reading the standard Anne .. and if they are it’ll mostly be for the laughs.
I bet ms is. His posts are always rational and well thought through.
Btw, I forgot to finish the last sentence @6.1. I. 1. I was trying to think of a really shitty descriptive word that was appropriate for a ‘family friendly’ blog like TS, then got sidetracked. 😈
Exactly. Total bullshit to say they werent ‘homes for life’
Up till the deregulation of the banking sector in the 80s, vast majority of working families werent eligible for a home mortgage as the money was rationed by the banks ( mainly saving banks) – none of this borrowing overseas to fund local residential mortgages.
You had to be a well established customer to boot and quite substantial deposit ( saved with the bank of course) to show your ability to repay.
+1. I think he’s beginning to find out that his days are numbered and the erratic personal attacks on politicians for the purposes of his own headlines are not going to carry him far into him retirement.
Watch his young, young wife Heather Duplicity-Allen drop him when his political access finally runs out.
Also, a lot of State houses were used for Public Servants on transfer. In the early 1970’s a friend of mine and his family were moved from Welllington to Auckland with the Labour Department (as it was then). They got a state house in GI as part of the transfer package.
The only certain ‘unintended consequence’ I can see is that the complicity of the middle classes in creating our class based dystopia has come back to bite them.
Whatever the original intention on state houses various things seemed to have gone wrong.
Firstly thinking selling them off was a good idea.
Secondly whoever is getting them seems to be pretty arbitrary – had friends who were migrants got a state house in mission bay, and were on $100,000k… couldn’t believe it because even then 20 years ago, it was considered hard to get into a state house and they were not hiding their wages or anything. Then they were allowed to buy the state house at a 10% discount. (Which they didn’t, as they had already left the country after gaining residency in the UK, but left behind their parents in the state house, because they had to be resident for approx 5 years to get citizenship).
Thirdly, if they have tenants who are P heads in there, there has to be another place to put them once they are evicted, you would think some sort of drug rehab might be a good idea and then some sort of supervised housing for them and their family.
Fourthly – we need to have real measures to get rid of P, not scams like MethCon.
Fifthly we need real jobs for people to work in, if we have a plethora of jobs that need government assistance to top up wages in the service industry for example and all over wages in real terms not going up while the cost of living is soaring, is that a win for this country????
Sixly, we need to decide are we continuing in our low wage economy and driving out our educated youth by having them compete for jobs with people trying to gain residency. Then look at do we want to sully our NZ degrees with some of the questionable courses being put out there…
The state housing stock is so out of proportion when it comes to homes per capita. I think it is at a 1949 figure.
This is the fault of the government in the last 20 years. Immigration in the last decade has not helped the situation, it is not an immigrants fault.
Non residents and those who have not been resident for 3 years have had an entitlement to purchase an existing home. There is more than enough land in NZ to do a new build.
Instead homes are having to be built because non residents and those having residency for less than 3 years were able to compete against NZ citizens and committed residents for an existing home.
When it comes to student numbers the rental situation is temporary.
What does the government need to do to accelerate building affordable homes for people who are fully committed to the country?
1937 was a vintage year for building homes and many more
glorious years followed. NZ can do it again.
“It’s certainly a change from their attitude over the past three years when 300 state house tenants were shown the door for methamphetamine-related transgressions, ironically the same number of curious people who traipsed through the first state house in Wellington way back in 1937 after the Prime Minister of the time Mickey Savage struggled through the door with a dining table”
I had a few thoughts; that he’s been reading The Standard so much he’s unconsciously typed Mickey Savage instead of Michael Joseph Savage.. or is he having a sly dig at one the authors here. Was it deliberate or accidental?
He is just doing that fau familiarity thing commentors do when they are implying a close insider knowledge, whilst simultaneously serving a backhander to the object of commentary. (“Struggle” suggestive of not being used to manual labour, instead of a humble action taken by a great man).
Just an example of where our county is at. Yesterday a friend of mine was walking along Queen ST in Auckland. The All blacks were at the ASB Bank as some sort of promotion, meanwhile at the intersection of that road, a homeless man?? was being worked on by paramedics… is that really the brighter future that we were all promised, big winners and quite a lot of big losers?
According to some boffhead on Country Life on RNZ this morning, nitrogen pollution is caused by those naughty nitrogen fixing plants clover and gorse.
Wanker
Listen to the link.
He posits that legumes are a cause of nitrogen pollution.
He’s not referring top any scientific report that supports that.
Note that he does not suggest any other cause of Nitrogen pollution, like extreme stocking rates, or the application of nitrogen to the soil.
If legumes are a cause of pollution these days, why was Nitrogen pollution not a problem 80 years ago when clover was first widely used a a pasture plant?
So what science are you referring to that you suggest suits my bias?
What is my bias?
Yeah, those fucking scientists what the fuck would they know ?.
Much better to pull to pull uninformed ignorance out of your arse than go by researched facts any day.
If its good enough for the Donald its good enough for you,eh.
Methinks the sciencey type got his mucking furds wuddled due to the stress of trying to sound casual under pressure.
WE all know what he was trying to say…so go easy, eh?
It was a very good piece about an excellent environmental initiative involving refugees from Lincoln.
Well the actual clip would be nice, rather than some fucker selectively quoting some other fucker’s selective quotes and paraphrasing of what the original fucker said.
Reminds me of the time I read a book chapter that argued with a four page peer reviewed article about one guy’s single sentence in a two page opinion piece in a trade advertising magazine. Mountains out of molehills.
Don’t get me wrong, Stewart’s pretty good at laying into the entire partisanship hypocrisy.
But you know these youtube vids: someone tags it as “A eviscerates/pwns/demolishes B”, and it turns out that A said something either not very convincing or merely not completely praiseworthy of B, if anything at all. And those moments of your life are now gone.
As is usual the DomPost has an article applauding Martinborough getting rid of plastic bags in Supermarkets.
The Dom does this in a paper that is home delivered wrapped in not one but two plastic bags. Each of them is made of much thicker plastic than a shopping bag. They are also not usable as bin liners which is what I do with my grocery bags.
Thus they campaign for scrapping multi use bags while they use multiple single use bags to deliver their paper each day.
They are as hypocritical as their local MP. Just like Grant they want one law for themselves and another for everyone else. Not the same law of course. In Grant’s case it is selling access to the Minister of Finance. I think I should start saving up the Dom wrapping plastic and deliver it back to them, dropping it on the floor of their office foyer, once a week.
Anyone willing to join in?
I will only be doing it for a couple more weeks though. The only reason I am getting the paper is that they are giving it away free and that only lasts a month.
“Write them a letter”?
What on earth do you think that is going to accomplish? You surely don’t believe that they would publish it. It would be dumped straight into the rubbish bin and I would simply have wasted the cost of the stamp.
No, returning the plastic to the paper will force them to do something about it. Even if that is only sweeping it up and dumping it. If a number of people did the same thing they might stop creating the rubbish in the first place. It would mean they had to put the paper in the letterbox, at least on wet days, but so what?
It’s become a bit of a thing in the UK. Shoppers unwrapping all the stuff they’ve bought at the supermarket and leaving the mountains of plastic behind in the trolleys. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-43559636
But there is alwyn taking his usual arrogant and ‘superior’ attitude; deliberately misunderstanding the sarcastic nature of Gabby’s instruction (do you really need a sarc tag every time, alwyn?) and then flooding the Ethernet with more garbage. Alwyn – you need a healthier pastime.
In the meantime I continue to be amazed at your claimed ability to determine what other people mean by their comments.
I am also appalled by your stalking of me on this site. I really am not interested in the sick obsessions you appear to indulge in and the insane comments you make about me.
Get over it you old drunk. It does you no good to exhibit such perverted jealousy of your superiors.
… a great idea! “I think I should start saving up the Dom wrapping plastic and deliver it back to them, dropping it on the floor of their office foyer, once a week.
Anyone willing to join in?”
REALLY we read this
Especially given todays environment, with Fonterra’s PR advertising campaign to show the +ve side of farming and the M.Bovis issue and the threat to our economy. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/104382640/waikato-councils-take-hard-line-on-truckies-illegally-dumping-stock-effluent
Others are also worried effluent discarded on roads could hinder efforts to stop Mycoplasma bovis from spreading in the region.
But a spokesperson from stock transportation firm Waitoa Haulage said there weren’t enough effluent dumping stations, not only in the Matamata-Piako district but throughout New Zealand
“We have been promised more (dumping stations) time and time again, but they were never delivered.”
Not a behaviour to gain support of the masses
“An email from Bishop Joseph said the rest of the money would be put in a a separate account, not to be released without his permission, according to reports.”
Not being big on religion I don’t know why they’d do this but, on the face of it, its certainly not a good look
If you’re doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch, get it in writing. His word isn’t worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.
“when the polls close in Northcote”.
At the same time as every other Parliamentary election in New Zealand.
7:00 pm.
If you live there and haven’t voted you really will have to get your skates on.
Yeah, I had a lot of time for PM, too. Frequently disagreed, often agreed, and if he got the wrong end of something he owned it. The ban was a damn shame.
It was only when one of their got sinbinned that the All Blacks got three tries in fast order.
For at least the first two thirds of the game the packs were about even, and for the first half the territory was pretty even. Last thirty minutes was a disaster.
Finally good to see Auckland’s public transport system actually work well for once; the trains actually worked on time, and most of the City’s buses were pressed into service. It worked.
It’s well time the All Blacks lost, for the good of the game, and Dunedin would be the right place to see it happen.
The All BLacks have not been in the national interest for quite some time, it has all jumped the shark somewhat and become delusional. In these increasingly unsecure times, NZ rugby has become a increasing security liability, estranging traditional relations among other things.
But there is no sensible oversight for such things in modern New Zealand.
Well, Commentators both agreed that the Yellow card was unjustified. The unjustified Yellow card (especially when Sam Cane did more to earn one later on, but nothing happened) changed the course of the game by upsetting the near-balance.
Tonight’s win was more a cause for guilt than rejoicing.
NZ has to be careful. NZ is the biggest country in the world where rugby is the main winter sport. Most other countries – Rugby needs to work bloody hard to even make itself significant.
Many others around the world still believe France was robbed in the last World Cup final.
Tonight’s game did NZ and Rugby NO GOOD AT ALL.
But this comment is for those silly enough to care.
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To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of BirminghamSpace exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of ...
Michael Head, University of SouthamptonThe UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government ...
So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
Lost Opportunity: The powerful political metaphor of the Maori Party leading the despised and marginalised from danger to safety, is one Labour could have pre-empted by taking the uprising at Waikeria Prison much more seriously. AS WORD OF Rawiri Waititi’s successful intervention in the Waikeria Prison stand-off spreads, the Maori ...
Dear friends, it’s been a covidious year,A testing time for all of us here—Citizens of an island nationIn a state of managed isolation,A team (someone said) five million strong,Making it up as we went along:Somehow in typical Kiwi fashion,Without any wild excess ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Dec 27, 2020 through Sat, Jan 2, 2021Editor's Choice7 Graphics That Show Why the Arctic Is in Trouble Arctic Sea Ice: NSIDC It’s no secret that the Arctic is ...
One of the books I read in 2020 was She, by H. Rider Haggard (1887). I thoroughly enjoyed it, as being an exemplar of a good old-fashioned adventure story. I also noted with amusement ...
Scottish doctor Malcolm Kendrick looks at the pandemic and the responses to it 30th December 2020 I have not written much about COVID19 recently. What can be said? In my opinion the world has simply gone bonkers. The best description can be found in Dante’s Inferno, written many hundreds of ...
I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL for your ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank is fighting to protect cash, and those who still use it. ...
Good morning and welcome to this one-off edition of The Bulletin, covering major stories from the last few weeks.A quick preamble to this: Today’s special edition of The Bulletin is all about filling you in on some of the stories you might have missed over the summer period. Perhaps you had ...
Summer reissue: In this episode of Bad News, Alice Snedden is forced to confront her own mortality before hosting a very special dinner party to get to grips with the euthanasia debate.First published August 27, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
The contrast between the words of John F Kennedy and today’s anti-democratic demagogue is inescapable, writes Dolores Janiewski I still remember three eloquent speeches by an American president. One happened in January 1961 and spoke about a “torch being passed to a new generation”. Two years later and one day apart, ...
The debate over cutting down a large macrocarpa to make way for a new residential development has highlighted a wider agreement between developers and protesters: that we also need to be planting far more trees. At the corner of Great North Road and Ash Street in Avondale, a 150-year-old macrocarpa stands its ground ...
More infectious variants of Covid-19 are increasingly being intercepted at the country’s borders, but the minister running New Zealand’s response is resisting pressure to accelerate vaccination plans despite demands from health experts as well as political friends and foes, Justin Giovannetti reports.New Zealand’s first Covid-19 jabs will be administered in ...
As CEO of her iwi rūnanga, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was on the frontline protecting her community during the first outbreak of Covid-19. Now that more virulent strains threaten to breach our borders, the Māori Party co-leader calls on the government to introduce much stricter measures.As we enter the New Year I ...
The Prada Cup challenger series starts today. Suzanne McFadden goes behind the scenes of the world's only live yachting regatta to see what's in store for the next five weeks. At 6am on race days, Iain Murray wakes up and immediately checks the weather outside his Auckland window. “It’s all ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland This story contains spoilers for Bridgerton The first season of Bridgerton, Netflix’s new hit show based on Julia Quinn’s novels, premiered on December 25 last year. The show is set in London, during the ...
The New Zealand government believes its own negotiations with Rio Tinto will be resolved "fairly quickly" now there is certainty about the future of the Tiwai Point smelter. ...
Amanda Thompson and her family are attempting to cut back on the meat, so they gave all the vego sausies the local supermarket had to offer a hoon on the barbie. Here are the results.I was a vegetarian once. Even the best of us take a well-meaning wrong turn on ...
The Taxpayers’ Union welcomes the call by Wellington City Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons for a shift to land value based rates charges. Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "Local government leaders across the country should join in Fitzsimons’s call ...
It’s been described as ‘pointless revenge’, but impeaching the president has a firm moral purpose, argues Michael Blake – setting a limit to what sorts of action a society will accept.A House majority, including 10 Republicans, voted today to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection”. The vote will initiate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bryan Cranston, Lead Academic Teacher – Politics & Social Science (Swinburne Online), Swinburne University of Technology In a historic vote today, Donald Trump became the only US president to be impeached twice. By a margin of 232–197, the Democrat-controlled US House of ...
Hurrah. The PM is back to posting her announcements on the government’s official website, her deputy is back in the business of self-congratulation, Rio Tinto is back in the business of sucking up cheap electricity to produce aluminium at Tiwai Point, near Bluff. And overseas students (some, anyway) can come ...
The electricity sector, Government and people of Southland are rejoicing after Tiwai Point aluminium smelter owner Rio Tinto announced the major industrial would be open until the end of 2024, Marc Daalder reports Stakeholders in the electricity sector and across Southland are celebrating the extension of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter's ...
If you’ve been on social media this week, you may well have come across a surge in interest in sea shanties. We asked a veteran of the style why. In case you missed it, soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. If that sentence is even ...
“It is basic human decency to speak up and protect any vulnerable child from harm, so withholding information in child abuse cases and allowing the abuse to happen by not speaking up is, put simply, a cowardly move,” says Jess McVicar Co-Leader ...
Allowing 1,000 returning international students back to New Zealand is the right move by the Government, and hopefully we will be able to welcome more, says ExportNZ Executive Director Catherine Beard. "International education has contributed ...
A majority of the House of Representatives have voted to make Donald Trump the first US president ever to be impeached twice, formally charging him in his waning days in power with inciting an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Follow the ...
The Youth of NZ will be standing up for climate action once again on January 26th outside of Parliament for School Strike 4 Climate NZ’s 100 Days 4 Action campaign rally. “We believe it is vital to hold our new Labour-led government to account ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Rotorua Lakes District Council to urgently release the engineering report on the public safety and structural integrity of the visible foundation-misalignment and lean of the City’s Hemo Gorge monument to government ...
Changes in income and movement in and out of poverty over time are only weakly associated with higher rates of child hospitalisation in New Zealand, according to a new University of Auckland study. Published today in PLOS ONE, the collaborative study led by Dr ...
With a long, hot summer upon us, pet owners are urged to be extra mindful of their pet’s health and safety. Unusually warm weather can quickly take its toll on furry family members, who aren’t well equipped for dealing with blazing heat. The National ...
The Council for Civil Liberties is challenging a claim by former National Party leader Simon Bridges that people should have total freedom of expression on Twitter. ...
A century of sexual abuse of women in New Zealand is analysed in a University of Auckland study. The newly-published research looks back as far as 1922 by analysing interviews with thousands of women about their lifetime experiences. The study indicates ...
62,686 more native trees will be planted in New Zealand in 2021 thanks to generous Kiwis who chose to go green for Christmas gifting. <img src="https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2101/cf409712f141732a8543.jpeg" width="720" height="540"> Trees That Count, a programme ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By Arturo López-LevyOakland, CaliforniaUnfortunately, the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, encouraged by the Inciter-in-Chief, will not be the last act of mischief. Trump is insisting on causing as much damage as possible to the interests and values ...
Professor Greg Newbold says “white collar criminals do more damage to society than the gangs” ?
Yep I would agree as it is the Asian gangs bringing in the methamphetamine into NZ and distributing through our traditional gangs like the Mongrel Mob & the Head Hunters ?
The profits are then normally washed through the real estate and construction sector ?
Yes they do, but white collar crime seems to be legal aka how many of the business roundtable became rich by buying up cheap government assets sold off, how many people are profiting from current assets sell offs and government construction contracts.
Making the criminal legal is why we have so many lawyers per capita in this country, even more than the UK!
If you want to screw over people in this country but don’t have the connections to government as per above, no problem, it’s so easy. Just set up a company and then ‘go bankrupt’ owing millions and make poorer people bankrupt and then set up another company and start again… Lucky their are so many bankruptcy lawyers and big 5 who can help the government on behalf of the tax payer paying them big bucks
… this is not just the big guys people, anyone can do it, even one tradie I had the misfortune to encounter had been bankrupted 4 times leaving big debts, by Price Waterhouse the last one and was even trading under the same name, so was not obvious it was a different company! I rang PWC liquidator and asked why is he still allowed to be in business, and they said, that the public had to lay another complaint… I mean 5 times should be pretty obvious that that person should be in jail, not still on the scene. The liquidators even let him keep his van so he could continue with the poor business practices. It was unbelievable.
If he was simply a tradie, chances are he was being taken to the cleaners by the scoundrels he was subbing to – in recognition of that, state departments can be quite lenient with such people. I know – been there, done that!
What evidence does he provide for this claim?
‘White-collar crime does a lot more damage than conventional crime’
The Other Kind Of Crime
There’s actually quite a lot of research out there showing the same thing going back decades. I’ll leave you with this quote:
And yet despite all that the politicians focus on the minor stuff. Probably because they get their donations and careers from the white collar criminals.
That Irish TImes link didn’t seem to work for me. The other two didn’t describe a comparison of the direct and indirect costs of different kinds of crime, for example between “white collar” and “all others”. A link within the second citation simply went “error 404”.
It’s fine to claim that in a financial crime affects not just the specific person who is damaged, but that is true of most other crimes as well.
I would fully agree that financial crime is under-reported and under-policed in New Zealand. And I would agree that the rich afford better lawyers to get away with it more often, because that is what I have seen.
For an academic of good experience, Greg Newbold needs to be a whole bunch more precise about his claims. I also don’t mind academics having a strong class filter on their claims, so long as they back themselves up.
So, the person who’s researched this for decades and written books on it needs to be more precise while being interviewed by a journalist?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8291073/Economic-crime-costs-NZ-billions-each-year
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/257185/economic-crime-costs-up-to-$9-point-4bn
Unfortunately this article only lists the cost of retail crime at $1.2 billion. But that does seem to indicate that he’s right.
Newbold was in Pare in the ’70s or ’80s, got sent down for drugs IIRC. I read his book, don’t remember much of it now except to recall it wasn’t a bad read.
I’m not sure I could agree with the statement. IMO the serious damage is done by those who tend to be above the law.
Yes. The white-collar criminals.
“The Big Huey”.
And since then, it’s become more and more about punishment, and less about any type of rehabilitation.
Even the Honorable Don McKinnon was into rehab in those days assisting with prison debating teams, etc.
Now its got so bad, we see NGOs having to do even more basic things (such as with literacy and numeracy) which SHOULD be an inherent part of the system
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12066912
Braunias at his best.
Personally I’ll be quite pleased if Winston gives some in the cabinet and government a bloody good tool up.
There are two journo commentators not to be missed:
David Slack “Slack at the Back” (SST) and Steve Braunais. Both of them brilliant.
I agree about Winston. I hope he shows his coalition partners how to handle the crap coming out of the mouths of their opponents – not just sit there like numpties and take it.
Person status for our natural landmarks (I guess that includes aquifers). What a brilliant idea.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/travel/kiwi-traveller/104553006/why-more-of-new-zealands-natural-treasures-need-person-status
Propagandists Not Journalists
Exhibit 1: The ghoulish ISABEL KIRSHNER of the New York Times
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/06/08/is-isabel-kershner-saying-its-okay-to-shoot-him-in-the-head-if-he-was-throwing-a-stone/
Propagandists Not Journalists is compiled by Hector Stoop and presented by Morrissey Breen, for Daisycutter Sports, Inc.
Morrissey…….when the power elites throughout the world collude with the settler colonial project in Palestine, as they have done since 1948, this is an example of how war crimes are rationalised through the corporate media. Killing unarmed protesters and clearly identified medics helping the injured, as has been happening in the last month in the Gaza Strip, are now accepted as the price of allowing the criminal Netanyahu and his far right government in Israel to grab more and more Palestinian land and deny the basic human rights of the lawful owners. Our government need to be making clear and strong statements about this ongoing genocide, and keep repeating it.
Holy crap…someone called Christina won €90,000,000 through Lottoland.
That’s a record for online gambling.
And how much has Lottoland won from the suckers who “play” on it?
Being stupid is not a crime.
Being lucky and a sucker is just an occasional joy for the rest.
“Being stupid is not a crime”
True, and we’re all fortunate that’s the case.
Encouraging other people to be stupid for the purpose of making a profit oneself isn’t a crime either.
So criminality isn’t always the best test of whether something is right or not.
Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean that it’s right.
This, of course, is why the RWNJs like deregulation. It makes immoral actions legal.
Worst defence of the vulgarity of lotteries ever…
Joy is not built on the vain hope of breaking out of poverty.
The left has never understood the pleasure of vice.
All they can see is the need to exercise power.
Calling BS on that one. What power, moreover the lack of it. Good God man, what waffle is that?
If you think that the fallon hope with lottery is a pleasure vice, your understanding of what makes up a pleasure vice, is soft.
edit: Who is this left you speak of?
Neither have many on the right Ad.
One of the more outspoken commentators on the stupidity of Lotto is Don Brash. He has always said it is stupid.
For example
“I haven’t bought a Lotto ticket, ever. I think most of those gambling activities are really a very regressive form of taxation. They are particularly hard on low-income people, who cherish the myth that they’ll have all their financial woes fixed if they can just win Lotto.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/9161761/Brash-and-the-art-of-parsimony
I guess that will lead to people who don’t like Brash running out to get their ticket for tonight’s draw. If Don is against it they will want to show that they disagree with him.
Don is right of course as the odds against winning anything much are ridiculous. That doesn’t stop me buying a ticket whenever it goes over $20 million though. I know the odds but I get some pleasure from the dream.
This is actually wrong. IMO, for most low income people buying lotto is the only hope that they have. It’s why lotto sales tend to go up in a recession.
Employment sure as hell doesn’t work.
BS
I’m about to have a beer. This is a vice that I enjoy.
Lotteries are simply ripping people off.
That is certainly a spectacularly quick change of heart.
At 12.19pm you think
“Lotteries are simply ripping people off”.
Then by 12.26pm you propose
“This is actually wrong. IMO, for most low income people buying lotto is the only hope that they have”.
I am not surprised of course. As I said in my comment
” If Don is against it they will want to show that they disagree with him.”
You, discovering what Don thinks, have immediately flipped your opinion so that you can now take the opposite view to him.
Sad really. Still I suppose you manage to rationalise this in the deep turgid recesses of your mind.
The only sad thing is your habit of misinterpreting comments to suit yourself.
Draco had no change of heart that I can see. Lotteries ripping people off is not contradictory to Lotteries being a poor but only source of hope to the poor because employment offers even less hope…
Putting your thoughts into other people’s words by selective quoting is a sad activity. You need a better pastime, alwyn.
” that I can see”.
That’s nice dear.
Of course you don’t see anything. As the saying goes
“There are none so blind as those who will not see”.
That is, of course, a selective quote. It was selected because it describes you perfectly.
As expected – total failure to counter the explanation of why Draco had had no change of heart. Instead, shallow, insulting sophistry.
Alwyn, you really do need a healthier pastime.
Ah, a RWNJ misrepresenting me – what a surprise.
You really are a bad liar.
Not necessarily a vain hope if you play it right.
My annual net winnings from playing lotto over the last 4 years: (Have played for longer than that but started doing it properly 4 years ago)
2015 – $32,624
2016 – $23,910
2017 – $51,300
2018 – $26,337 (so far)
That’s an average annual net profit of nearly $40,000 per year..
That’s on an outlay of $126 per week. Which I know is more than most people can afford or are willing to outlay, but if you want to profit you have to spend as much as you can possibly afford. I’m not on a high income but I don’t have a family to worry about and I’m confident enough to spend that much each week even sometimes going 4 weeks or more without winning a cent.
It’s working so far. I could now play $126 per week for the next 20 years win nothing at all every week for the entire 20 years and would break even. So I look at it as I’m playing for the next 20 years for free.
The great majority of people don’t have $126 of disposable income a week to spend.
Let alone spending weeks going with losing that $126.
So you think you might just be an outlier on that one? And if you look I said a fallon hope, which no one spotted.
When I should have said – forlorn hope. Not a vain hope, forlorn.
Sorry Adam – too many (ex)English or Language teachers amongst us for that to have gone unnoticed. Had I disagreed, I would be more likely to comment, or more likely, just spell the word correctly when replying.
Good of you to point out ‘forlorn’ – a word with sad connotations that best describes the plight of the poor. (Sorry – relatively poor, for those righties who pretend that everyone has a fair chance…)
You must have a system?
A.
I am sure he will sell the system to you if you are silly enough to believe him.
Games within games….?
“Barry Soper: Why David Seymour has a point about state housing ”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12066506
(There’s a clue in that article for anyone interested)
If you you’re referring to the line;
State houses were then seen as a stop-gap measure, to tide the tenants over until they found a place of their own.
Talk about re-writing history. They were not built to be merely a stop-gap measure at all. They were long term family homes where successive generations could bring up their children in a safe and stable environment. It’s true some were able to eventually buy their own homes but many more stayed in those homes for the rest of their lives.
Soper is either super ignorant or is redefining the truth to fit a certain political bias for the benefit of those who don’t know their history.
Edit: in fact most of the article is a ‘redefining of the truth’. Most of the tenants were – and I suspect still are – normal stable individuals.
It was his dig at The Standard Anne. (Who was Prime Minister in 1937?)
It was hasty read. Missed that bit. Does that mean he reads The Standard? That’s good to know. I’ll be use every opportunity to ridicule the ignorant piece of
Anne. The Standard is widely read by political journalists, political scientists, PR people, and politicians ex and current alike, don’t you worry about that!
This is why it’s important to get your thoughts down here with links whenever you are able and whenever the injustice of the right wing rears it’s ugly head. To make a comment both adds to the voice of social consciousness, and makes a record of your opinion.
It does make a difference, and contributes to the necessary counter argument to corporate media. I’m talking Hooten, Trevett, Soper, etc.
“The Standard is widely read by political journalists, political scientists, PR people, and politicians ex and current alike, don’t you worry about that!”
😆
I didn’t realise it. Never mind, I’m not changing my style to satisfy a bunch of mealy mouthed, self entitled, arrogant journos… turned PR acolytes for greedy, even more self entitled, ignorant Nat politicos and their sycophantic support base of trolls and nitwits. 😉
I don’t think you need to worry about too many politicians and journalists reading the standard Anne .. and if they are it’ll mostly be for the laughs.
That was my take on it Anne, some big egos in the political scene and perhaps an author here is getting up a few noses.
I bet ms is. His posts are always rational and well thought through.
Btw, I forgot to finish the last sentence @6.1. I. 1. I was trying to think of a really shitty descriptive word that was appropriate for a ‘family friendly’ blog like TS, then got sidetracked. 😈
Exactly. Total bullshit to say they werent ‘homes for life’
Up till the deregulation of the banking sector in the 80s, vast majority of working families werent eligible for a home mortgage as the money was rationed by the banks ( mainly saving banks) – none of this borrowing overseas to fund local residential mortgages.
You had to be a well established customer to boot and quite substantial deposit ( saved with the bank of course) to show your ability to repay.
Soper is just a bitter, twisted clapped-out old journo in the early stages of Dementia.
+1. I think he’s beginning to find out that his days are numbered and the erratic personal attacks on politicians for the purposes of his own headlines are not going to carry him far into him retirement.
Watch his young, young wife Heather Duplicity-Allen drop him when his political access finally runs out.
Yeah I take issue with the “stop gap measure”. John Key was raised in a State house.
People mistakenly believe that this means they were on the bones of their arses. ACTUALLY the state house was offered as a reward for success.
If our media would do research and shit this would have been made clear long ago.
Also, a lot of State houses were used for Public Servants on transfer. In the early 1970’s a friend of mine and his family were moved from Welllington to Auckland with the Labour Department (as it was then). They got a state house in GI as part of the transfer package.
Unfortunately Soper has been diagnosed with a condition where he struggles with the truth and reality, the condition has worsened in recent years.
Liarbouritis?
You spelled it wrong. Its Liarbilityitis.
Mycoplasma bias.
Soper made a huge blooper some months back when he suggested it was the maori seats ‘ which won it for labour’
hes been a political commentator for decades and doesnt know how MMP works ( If labour won no maori seats they would just get 7 extra list seats)
The only certain ‘unintended consequence’ I can see is that the complicity of the middle classes in creating our class based dystopia has come back to bite them.
Click to Edit –
Whatever the original intention on state houses various things seemed to have gone wrong.
Firstly thinking selling them off was a good idea.
Secondly whoever is getting them seems to be pretty arbitrary – had friends who were migrants got a state house in mission bay, and were on $100,000k… couldn’t believe it because even then 20 years ago, it was considered hard to get into a state house and they were not hiding their wages or anything. Then they were allowed to buy the state house at a 10% discount. (Which they didn’t, as they had already left the country after gaining residency in the UK, but left behind their parents in the state house, because they had to be resident for approx 5 years to get citizenship).
Thirdly, if they have tenants who are P heads in there, there has to be another place to put them once they are evicted, you would think some sort of drug rehab might be a good idea and then some sort of supervised housing for them and their family.
Fourthly – we need to have real measures to get rid of P, not scams like MethCon.
Fifthly we need real jobs for people to work in, if we have a plethora of jobs that need government assistance to top up wages in the service industry for example and all over wages in real terms not going up while the cost of living is soaring, is that a win for this country????
Sixly, we need to decide are we continuing in our low wage economy and driving out our educated youth by having them compete for jobs with people trying to gain residency. Then look at do we want to sully our NZ degrees with some of the questionable courses being put out there…
bloody imgrints.
The state housing stock is so out of proportion when it comes to homes per capita. I think it is at a 1949 figure.
This is the fault of the government in the last 20 years. Immigration in the last decade has not helped the situation, it is not an immigrants fault.
Non residents and those who have not been resident for 3 years have had an entitlement to purchase an existing home. There is more than enough land in NZ to do a new build.
Instead homes are having to be built because non residents and those having residency for less than 3 years were able to compete against NZ citizens and committed residents for an existing home.
When it comes to student numbers the rental situation is temporary.
What does the government need to do to accelerate building affordable homes for people who are fully committed to the country?
1937 was a vintage year for building homes and many more
glorious years followed. NZ can do it again.
He got paid to write that?
The clue was in this paragraph here;
“It’s certainly a change from their attitude over the past three years when 300 state house tenants were shown the door for methamphetamine-related transgressions, ironically the same number of curious people who traipsed through the first state house in Wellington way back in 1937 after the Prime Minister of the time Mickey Savage struggled through the door with a dining table”
I had a few thoughts; that he’s been reading The Standard so much he’s unconsciously typed Mickey Savage instead of Michael Joseph Savage.. or is he having a sly dig at one the authors here. Was it deliberate or accidental?
He is just doing that fau familiarity thing commentors do when they are implying a close insider knowledge, whilst simultaneously serving a backhander to the object of commentary. (“Struggle” suggestive of not being used to manual labour, instead of a humble action taken by a great man).
Clue solved. Author is a pompous ass.
The Big Lie in Soper’s article:
The first state house was rented for almost 15 years then purchased by its first tenant, then sold back to the state thirty years after that when the tenants/oweners died. It also went to a council employee, a tram driver, because in those days regular workers deserved a decent home.
Soper is trying to paint a home for life as a temporary stop-gap. Rewriting history.
Death of Canadian man living in 24-hour coffee shop sparks housing outcry
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/07/canada-death-homeless-man-tim-hortons-vancouver
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/08/vancouver-declares-5-of-homes-empty-and-liable-for-new-tax
Just an example of where our county is at. Yesterday a friend of mine was walking along Queen ST in Auckland. The All blacks were at the ASB Bank as some sort of promotion, meanwhile at the intersection of that road, a homeless man?? was being worked on by paramedics… is that really the brighter future that we were all promised, big winners and quite a lot of big losers?
Yes it was.
BREAKING
Deep rooted legumes cause pollution
According to some boffhead on Country Life on RNZ this morning, nitrogen pollution is caused by those naughty nitrogen fixing plants clover and gorse.
Wanker
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018648442
Fun fact… cannabis loves nitrogen.
I wonder if dairy was scrapped for medicinal marijuana, just how fast the land and water would be re-balanced…hmmmmm
So you only accept science that’s suits your bias?
Listen to the link.
He posits that legumes are a cause of nitrogen pollution.
He’s not referring top any scientific report that supports that.
Note that he does not suggest any other cause of Nitrogen pollution, like extreme stocking rates, or the application of nitrogen to the soil.
If legumes are a cause of pollution these days, why was Nitrogen pollution not a problem 80 years ago when clover was first widely used a a pasture plant?
So what science are you referring to that you suggest suits my bias?
What is my bias?
Yeah, those fucking scientists what the fuck would they know ?.
Much better to pull to pull uninformed ignorance out of your arse than go by researched facts any day.
If its good enough for the Donald its good enough for you,eh.
Methinks the sciencey type got his mucking furds wuddled due to the stress of trying to sound casual under pressure.
WE all know what he was trying to say…so go easy, eh?
It was a very good piece about an excellent environmental initiative involving refugees from Lincoln.
Recommended.
What do you think he was trying to say?
I wonder if John Stewart will come to little old NZ on his new comedy tour?
p.s. – Stewart calls BS on Russia hysteria.
Well the actual clip would be nice, rather than some fucker selectively quoting some other fucker’s selective quotes and paraphrasing of what the original fucker said.
Reminds me of the time I read a book chapter that argued with a four page peer reviewed article about one guy’s single sentence in a two page opinion piece in a trade advertising magazine. Mountains out of molehills.
You going to have to wait for the comedy central special.
Don’t get me wrong, Stewart’s pretty good at laying into the entire partisanship hypocrisy.
But you know these youtube vids: someone tags it as “A eviscerates/pwns/demolishes B”, and it turns out that A said something either not very convincing or merely not completely praiseworthy of B, if anything at all. And those moments of your life are now gone.
As is usual the DomPost has an article applauding Martinborough getting rid of plastic bags in Supermarkets.
The Dom does this in a paper that is home delivered wrapped in not one but two plastic bags. Each of them is made of much thicker plastic than a shopping bag. They are also not usable as bin liners which is what I do with my grocery bags.
Thus they campaign for scrapping multi use bags while they use multiple single use bags to deliver their paper each day.
They are as hypocritical as their local MP. Just like Grant they want one law for themselves and another for everyone else. Not the same law of course. In Grant’s case it is selling access to the Minister of Finance. I think I should start saving up the Dom wrapping plastic and deliver it back to them, dropping it on the floor of their office foyer, once a week.
Anyone willing to join in?
I will only be doing it for a couple more weeks though. The only reason I am getting the paper is that they are giving it away free and that only lasts a month.
Write them a letter wally.
“Write them a letter”?
What on earth do you think that is going to accomplish? You surely don’t believe that they would publish it. It would be dumped straight into the rubbish bin and I would simply have wasted the cost of the stamp.
No, returning the plastic to the paper will force them to do something about it. Even if that is only sweeping it up and dumping it. If a number of people did the same thing they might stop creating the rubbish in the first place. It would mean they had to put the paper in the letterbox, at least on wet days, but so what?
It’s become a bit of a thing in the UK. Shoppers unwrapping all the stuff they’ve bought at the supermarket and leaving the mountains of plastic behind in the trolleys.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-43559636
But there is alwyn taking his usual arrogant and ‘superior’ attitude; deliberately misunderstanding the sarcastic nature of Gabby’s instruction (do you really need a sarc tag every time, alwyn?) and then flooding the Ethernet with more garbage. Alwyn – you need a healthier pastime.
You claim to be, or at least to have been, a teacher.
I suppose this is the sort of “healthier pastime” you indulge in?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104319596/mum-losing-hope-of-hearing-from-teen-who-skipped-the-country-with-her-former-teacher
In the meantime I continue to be amazed at your claimed ability to determine what other people mean by their comments.
I am also appalled by your stalking of me on this site. I really am not interested in the sick obsessions you appear to indulge in and the insane comments you make about me.
Get over it you old drunk. It does you no good to exhibit such perverted jealousy of your superiors.
Another load of malevolent, wishful waffle. Appallingly unconvincing, sorry.
… a great idea! “I think I should start saving up the Dom wrapping plastic and deliver it back to them, dropping it on the floor of their office foyer, once a week.
Anyone willing to join in?”
REALLY we read this
Especially given todays environment, with Fonterra’s PR advertising campaign to show the +ve side of farming and the M.Bovis issue and the threat to our economy.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/104382640/waikato-councils-take-hard-line-on-truckies-illegally-dumping-stock-effluent
Others are also worried effluent discarded on roads could hinder efforts to stop Mycoplasma bovis from spreading in the region.
But a spokesperson from stock transportation firm Waitoa Haulage said there weren’t enough effluent dumping stations, not only in the Matamata-Piako district but throughout New Zealand
“We have been promised more (dumping stations) time and time again, but they were never delivered.”
Not a behaviour to gain support of the masses
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104584553/church-withholds-60000-raised-to-help-poisoned-waikato-family
“An email from Bishop Joseph said the rest of the money would be put in a a separate account, not to be released without his permission, according to reports.”
Not being big on religion I don’t know why they’d do this but, on the face of it, its certainly not a good look
Frank Zappa.
Be good to hear the bishop’s story.
William Burroughs I believe
Ah yes, Words Of Advice For Young People. Thanks for the reminder 🙂
/like
That’s the one, with these dudes
Some of the churches here in NZ have not been particularly community orientated enough said.
Anyone know when the polls close in Northcote? Who of any significance will be rushing to the Birkenhead booths at this time of night?
“when the polls close in Northcote”.
At the same time as every other Parliamentary election in New Zealand.
7:00 pm.
If you live there and haven’t voted you really will have to get your skates on.
Most days I still come on here and scan the recent comments for the crass logo…
Which one is that, then?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/93/The_Crass_logo.png/220px-The_Crass_logo.png
who uses that, here?
Psycho Milt. Wow seems to be a fan.
Ah, true.
Yeah, I had a lot of time for PM, too. Frequently disagreed, often agreed, and if he got the wrong end of something he owned it. The ban was a damn shame.
+1 In reply to McFlock at 17.1.1.1
Thought I pressed reply, but got a new number.
Bit sorry for the French team tonight.
It was only when one of their got sinbinned that the All Blacks got three tries in fast order.
For at least the first two thirds of the game the packs were about even, and for the first half the territory was pretty even. Last thirty minutes was a disaster.
Finally good to see Auckland’s public transport system actually work well for once; the trains actually worked on time, and most of the City’s buses were pressed into service. It worked.
It’s well time the All Blacks lost, for the good of the game, and Dunedin would be the right place to see it happen.
“It’s well time the All Blacks lost, for the good of the game, and Dunedin would be the right place to see it happen.”
No it would not, the ABs should only lose when the opposition play better, such as not that long ago
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2017/oct/21/australia-v-new-zealand-third-bledisloe-cup-test-live
The All BLacks have not been in the national interest for quite some time, it has all jumped the shark somewhat and become delusional. In these increasingly unsecure times, NZ rugby has become a increasing security liability, estranging traditional relations among other things.
But there is no sensible oversight for such things in modern New Zealand.
Well, Commentators both agreed that the Yellow card was unjustified. The unjustified Yellow card (especially when Sam Cane did more to earn one later on, but nothing happened) changed the course of the game by upsetting the near-balance.
Tonight’s win was more a cause for guilt than rejoicing.
NZ has to be careful. NZ is the biggest country in the world where rugby is the main winter sport. Most other countries – Rugby needs to work bloody hard to even make itself significant.
Many others around the world still believe France was robbed in the last World Cup final.
Tonight’s game did NZ and Rugby NO GOOD AT ALL.
But this comment is for those silly enough to care.
Some music Eco Maori listen to back in the day link below
https://youtu.be/VlXcF0WwFT
Ka kite ano