The Whitehouse must be getting desperate. In another application of standard US grievous hypocrisy, it has resorted to emotional blackmail in an effort to manufacture consent for the unliteral bombing of a sovereign state. Meanwhile, in an unusually honest manner, the “Villa in the jungle”, Israel’s actual position on the matter is made clear by former Israeli consul general in New York, Alon Pinkas:
. . . This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie. Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria . . .
Couldn’t have worked out better for Israel than if the Knesset had planned it all along . . . oh, hang on.
I was reading recently about early Israel settlement idealist Jews. And the Yom Kippur war of 1973 involving attacks by Syria and Egypt. I guess, remembering that, Israelis won’t be too quick to make any move to aid them that will weaken themselves or use up their resources.
“She said: ‘I had just commenced speaking when I felt a hand between my legs on my lower buttocks. I was wearing jeans. I jumped back, turned around, and saw Tony Abbott laughing about two feet away. The people in the audience began laughing and jeering’, Miss Wilson said.”
.. that’s just what’s on the public record. In common parlance he’s known as a bit of a
‘rough diamond’. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Bob Hawke had a colourful
past and broad extra-curricular experience can be an asset for a man of the people ..
but Abbott is leading a party created by royalist Melbourne grandee Bob Menzies,
inhabited by people who often barely deigned to recognise a colourless Sydney suburban personality like John Howard. There was, however, no argument with success ..
It may yet come back to haunt him. With a contracting Australian economy and the end of the China boom, it promises to be an interesting few years .. on both sides of the Tasman.
The common parlance among people I know is “fucked in the head scumbag.” If he’d been born and bred in Paramatta, he would probably have spent time in prison. Instead, he was chosen by the Liberals as something special quite early on and every “indiscretion” had top rank lawyers defending the prick.
Murray O
It sounds a little like John Mortimer’s relentless climber up the political ladder Leslie Titmus – Paradise Postponed and ? Have you read the books Murray? He wrote good books – had a good head for character parts.
Better get a few Aussies over to help with the detent… oops refugee centre building then. They know how to do it, and because we sure don’t have enough houses (and they own a fair chunk of the rentals anyway).
They can also be reassured that if they’re need healthcare, are made redundant or need disaster relief etc that they’re not discriminated against.
Just a final thought on the TV3 poll on Firday putting Cunliffe in front. Fair enough on the general public figures, but TV3 say
“…– but looking at just Labour voters – Cunliffe is even stronger, sitting at 45.6 percent…”
Now, how many Labour party members could they have actually interviewed? The poll was of 500 people. Assuming Labour has, say, 20,000 members then on average TV3 would have only interviewed 4-5 Labour party members. Which leads to another question – how do they know the people on the phone who self-identified as Labour party members actually were NZLP members? Did they poll anyone who answered who was in a union as a NZLP member because their union is an affiliate?
I can’t see any other way around it, TV3’s poll figure for the Labour party membership is very, very fishy. I can’t help but wonder if the whole poll was just part of the TV3 campaign for Shane Jones, trumpeting dodgy figures to promote their man.
TV 3’s poll was done by a company that does online polling with panels of people. So presumably the panels are drawn from people registered with them, and for whom they have a lot of background information. I surmise they call on panels of people, selected for how much they represent the section of society they are researching.
I believe that they we looking at self-identified Labour supporters, ie who vote Labour in the general elections. Which as you say probably doesn’t reflect those members and hurriedly reactivated past members who will be voting in this election.
I’ve been watching these polls and wondering how they identify Labour Party members. It has to be self identified (Labour wouldn’t hand out their list) unless Labour is polling from eligible members?
“Caucus votes are worth more than other votes cast, with 34 MPs making up 40 per cent of the vote; the support of 17 MPs would give Mr Robertson almost 30 per cent of the total allowable vote.”
How did she get 30%, I make it 17 over 34 * 40% = 20%
Despite the popular support for Mr Cunliffe, Mr Robertson still has by far the greatest support in caucus, thought to be at least 17 votes out of 34; with 10 for Mr Cunliffe and five for Mr Jones.
Caucus votes are worth more than other votes cast, with 34 MPs making up 40 per cent of the vote; the support of 17 MPs would give Mr Robertson almost 30 per cent of the total allowable vote.
Her comment that the support of 17 MPs would give Mr Robertson almost 30 per cent of the total allowable vote is clearly wrong. It only gives him 20% of the vote and with distribution of preferences the caucus vote could be all tied up.
“The board said matters of religion were also outside the ERA’s jurisdiction. ” IF that turns out to be true then taxpayer funding should also be outside the jurisdiction of Tamaki College. Was having this discussion with someone yesterday. We both agreed that a school (reluctantly) can be free to be religious based but not a single dollar of taxpayer money should be put into that school. If people want an invisible friend to tell them how to live that is their prerogative but myself and selected taxpayers have no obligation to pay for it.
I find it particularly annoying when you see a Teaching job add, for a State funded school, FFS, which says, “must support the special character of the school”. I.E. Believe in implausable beings in the sky.
Yup. Any “argument” which is deemed by the arguer to be “won” because I can’t prove their invisible friend DOESNT exist actually has no place in education and I am worried that such thinkers are in charge of teaching our children.
National Party MP Alfred Ngaro allegedly punched an atheist teacher at his son’s school for not bowing his head during a prayer.
Ngaro, a list MP and former chairman of the Tamaki College Board of Trustees, was last week dragged into the Employment Relations Authority dispute between Tamaki College and former art teacher Christopher Scott Roy.
Roy claims he was constructively dismissed because he is an atheist and Tamaki College saw Christianity as “a core responsibility to which he was indifferent”.
Roy added a new allegation to his employment claim, telling ERA member Tania Tetitaha that in 2009 he was assaulted by Ngaro as he was leaving a First XV rugby after-match function at Kings College.
. . . Kings College officials had asked if anyone objected to a prayer or karakia being said before they ate.
Roy said he did not take part due to his atheism but rather looked around the room as everyone else bowed their head.
Ngaro, whose son was in the Tamaki First XV, came up to him and got “right in my face” after the prayer, Roy told the ERA hearing, eyeballing him just a few centimetres from his face.
Representatives from Kings College saw the behaviour and asked after his well-being, and if he wanted security guards present, Roy said. As he went to leave he was confronted outside by Ngaro, who lashed out at him, punching him on the back of his head.
One of the then-Tamaki First XV members, Unaloto Pita, confirmed to the Sunday Star-Times that a scuffle had taken place involving Roy as he left the Kings College function. Pita said he did not see who assaulted the teacher.
Ngaro, appearing in person at the ERA hearing, categorically denied the assault.
Roy said not going to the police was “the worst mistake of my life” but at the time he thought he would jeopardise any future employment opportunities.
he has an interesting background. Until your article I hadn’t heard of him
“Ngaro is of Cook Islands descent.[1] Ngaro’s father Daniel Ngaro from Aitutaki[2] and Pukapuka he was a union delegate, and the family has a long tradition of voting for the Labour Party.[1] His mother, Toko Kirianu, is from Mangaia.[2]
Ngaro trained as an electrician and was self-employed in the trade for five years.[3] As per his grandmother’s wish,[2] he then completed a theology degree and became a pastor at the Tamaki Community Church.[4] He later won a Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leader Award for his work on the Tamaki Transformation Project.[5]
Ngaro served as the Auckland District Health Board’s Pacific committee chairman and as the Tamaki College board of trustees chairman.[1] He is a member of various advisory committees for the Ministry of Social Development
There has been a 60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice compared to this time last year, they equivalent of almost a million square miles.
In a rebound from 2012’s record low an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores, days before the annual re-freeze is even set to begin.
This sounds like old news, I seem to recall it was predicted there would be an increase in cooling , some time back.
IPCC better get those wheels spinning to come up with something in its reports which stacks up, regarding these anomalies .
Ice surface areas is a completely daft measurement suitable for the simple and jonolists. A moments thought would tell you that there is a massive difference in cooling potential between thick sea ice and a thin coverage, most notably in how much energy is required to melt it. Anyone who has had to deice an old fridge is well aware of that. The ice cover referred to in the article is a very thin surface freeze liable to be broken up (and melted) in the next storm.
However idiots do rather like surface area as a measurement presumably because it is simple enough for them to grasp.. And I guess that defines you muzza.
The rest of the article is more interesting even though it highlights just a handful of climatologists (ie Curry) and refers to all of the others as being the IPCC – the sign of a jonolist’s “balance”.
Climate is multi-cyclic and there is an expectation of a leveling off and even a fall in average global temperatures because of the pacific oscillations and a number of other local climatic patterns. The nett effect is that more energy has been pushed into the oceans for later release than would happen on average. It makes absolutely no difference to the overall heat balances over a century – it is just a decadal shift. Furthermore the expectation was in the 2000’s that we’d see some falls in average work temperatures, but in fact we have seen peaks above 1997 several times.
That was despite the much higher than expected loss of cooling ice masses in the Arctic ice sheet, Greenland’s ice sheet, and in the West Antarctic. There were also increases in ice volumes in East Antarctica that are hard to explain unless more water vapour is getting in past the jetstream (paradoxically snowfall is a indicator of increased temperatures if you’re at the coldest and therefore driest place in the world).
Effectively heat going into melting ice masses keeps overall world temperatures down for a time, but gets less and less effective as those ice masses disappear. But if you’re focused on a single value of temperature over a decade or two to define changes in climate, then you’d have to be a fool…
“In a rebound from 2012′s record low”… “a 60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice compared to this time last year”.
Surface area /= ice volume; the thickness of the ice-sheet will be minimal thus far – we’ll have to wait until later in the season to see how that results.
Sea ice extent for August 2013 averaged 6.09 million square kilometers (2.35 million square miles). This was 1.03 million square kilometers (398,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average for August, but well above the level recorded last year, which was the lowest September extent in the satellite record. Ice extent this August was similar to the years 2008 to 2010. These contrasts in ice extent from one year to the next highlight the year-to-year variability attending the overall, long-term decline in sea ice extent.
So much more accurate when you get it from the scientists rather than newspapers with an ideological bent.
Wow, Emirates Team New Zealand absolutely smoked Oracle in race 3 of the America’s Cup just now. Isn’t it great to see New Zealanders being recognised as fearless builders of advanced, world beating technology rather than constantly patronised Hobbits?
And I must say I am starting to look forward to all the parties that’ll be happening in Auckland’s downtown.
yup, see comment above, they are sailing better than us but we have the faster boat. In 3 of the 4 races so far we made BIG sailing blunders… only one of them resulted in a loss.
The predicted huge response from the public and a financial bonanza, has been a huge fizzer. So if NZ should win will it be a poisoned chalice for Auckland?
sporting public loves a winner. So if the team wins the public will be temporarily happy, imo.
given the lead of TNZ seems to be the result of the designers, then the spin-off tot he boat building industry should continue provided the designers are based in NZ.
I also understand if TNZ wins they might move to the 45s and dump the 75s. The other day I saw the youth Amercias cup or something in the 45s and there were far more countries and log jams at the marks. Looked exciting.
Raising the minimum wage leads to more unemployment???, only if your economic education stopped at 101,
Yet another in the series of links which whips those with an infants education into silence over their false claims on the effects of raising the minimum wage…
What is broken SSLands is your self made delusion of economic genius, of more import of course is that not inconsiderable fact that after November 2014 the Neoliberal consensus will have been finally smashed,
Now if you have been reading the many links that have been provided to you over the past week we here at the Standard might have moved your economic education past that of a simpleton’s 101 level,(tho i have my doubts about your ability to do so as you give every appearance of having a love of wallowing in a simpletons level of intellect,
For your further education i will kindly provide you with this:
”Out-put growth in the measured sector averaged 2.6% per annum from 1978 to 2007″,
The main driver of this out-put growth was LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY of +2% per annum”,
Seeing as you consider yourself to be the economic genius perhaps you could explain this little gem for us all,
”In Nevada USA where the minimum is $7.25 an hour the jobless rate is 10.2 percent”,
”In Vermont USA where the minimum is $8.60 an hour the unemployment rate is 5.1 percent’,
My explanation of that glaring difference in minimum wages and unemployment figures in 2 different states of the USA would simply say that those on the higher minimum are spending that money into their local economy thus creating the far better figures for unemployment than what the other State suffers,
Plan B for Syria:
5 or 6 prime targets identified. (A palace, a communication centre or two, barracks etc)
A date set.
The general area surrounding the targets swamped with leaflets/broadcasts warning civilians to leave the areas before target date.
Missiles fired as warned on date given.
Damage done with minimal collateral damage.
How about that as my plan?
From what’s being said, the list is growing. Once you decide to hit, you start looking for ways to get more bang for your buck. More birds to kill with the stone, as it were.
the talk now about changing the outcome of the war, in favour of moderate elements of the FSA suggests that Assad’s assets won’t be the only thing targeted. The FSA can’t compete with the extremist groups.
It’s looking more and more like Lebanon in the eighties, with w whole bunch of wars being faught in the sme place and between the same people.
eg, Iran + Hezb +Assad + US + FSA vs AQ.
Iran + Assad + Hezb vs FSA + AQ +US
AQ + Hezb + Assad Vs FSA + US
In Lebanon the different fights wern’t just in theory. Groups actively killing each other in one of the wars, were trading weapons and intelligence and co-operating on the battlefield in another.
With a sprinkling of The Shadow and dim lights for atmosphere indicating the forces of evil and smiling assassins with madness and megalomania in their eyes.
What’s in it for the USA apart from more armament sales to the government? Are they working their way along the Middle East? Is it a practice place to trial their latest weaponry? Is the Defence budget too big to fall over? Is it a proxy war for Israel, and what have Israel done for them as a quid pro quo? Where are the Saudis in this? Bush was supposed to be close to some Saudis who were close to Al Queda.
Now that is confusing. Don’t anybody try to provide me a rational answer, in fact anything at all. I don’t want to know acshually. It’s an idle thought and I already have my worrying time all allocated. Some mathematician could provide some interesting stats on the permutations of all the countries in the world who are involved in war at some level at any one time.
Here is a link to a page from the Daily Mail. No it is no longer on the official site (funny that) but on the waybackwhen site. (awesome archive of stuff we wouldn’t otherwise have access too anymore) the page is an article published on 29th of January 2013 and tells of a leaked email and gives us a view into the secret machinations leading up to the pending attack on Syria and whattayaknow… they were gagging for a false flag chemical attack on Syrian civilians to force an invasion into Syria!
No wonder that page has been removed from the official DM site and replaced with the most hideous war mongering propaganda.
But conspiring? No Sir never! Not our modern enlightened governments in our “really” Democratic countries! They would never do that to us!
Yeah, nah. An unproven email from people who may or may not exist sarcastically referring to Washington’s supposed support for a single CW bombing is hardly evidence of anything. Ev.
I think the clues that this reference is bullshit can be found in the names ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Infowars’.
Infowars seems to bother you doesn’t it. You keep mentioning it in relation to links while I probably linked to well backed up and linked articles from that site about maybe 5 times over the last 8 years. Or do you mention INFOWARS in the hope to smear whatever I post?
And a well linked to other sources article it was too so no problem there for me but again it is a problem for you. Ok, maybe 6 times in the last 8 years? Dipshit.
Ha! I think you and I both know who the didpshit is here, Ev. Next time read the link before posting. Or, better, yet, save the right wing fantasies for your own site.
Funny how you do that right wing fantasy thing again. Just smearing and trolling. I think many would actually classify me as left wing as my preference for the MANA party is no secret. Not that it matters to me. I think that left and right are a paradigm pushed on us to keep us separated from each other and to stop us from fighting the 0.01% owning everything and you are a dumbass for complying. Have a nice day dipshit! 😈
Sorry, pal, having no class understanding is not a defence. You are right wing. You run a right wing website. You publish right wing comments here and get abusive when the narrow perspective you push gets highlighted. Like it or not, using rightwing sites such as the Daily Mail and Infowars to back your fantasies does not make you left wing. Funny that. Particularly so when you don’t even appear to have read the link you posted. Here’s a clue for ya; the headlines don’t always tell the full story.
For those of you not familiar with TRP smearing and trolling techniques here is what I believe in and stand for:
I believe in a just society where there is far more equality than there is now. I believe in workers rights and the need to protect them. I believe in fair taxes and that includes the rich. I believe that the weak and poor should be protected and that in a civilized country there should be free healthcare and a social support system. I believe in open and accountable government. I believe in the protection of our ecosystems and the protection of them. I believe in equality and marriage rights for all regardless of their gender. I believe that greed is serious disease and that people suffering from the obsessive need to have more than they could possibly need should be in hospitals for the criminally insane and expect that some day they will be.
In my ideal world there would be no war, no corruption and peace based on respect, love and compassion.
So tell me again why I am right wing? And to show I understand this should come from both sides I’ll refrain from calling you a dipshit again, how’s that?
Cheers about the restraint, Ev. I hope you stick to it.
My estimation of your politics is based entirely on what you write. That’s the only way I know you. The list above is all very well, but it’s not backed up by what you do online, which primarily is run a rightwing blog narrowly focussed on absurd conspiracy theories. You are a climate change denier, a supporter of the racist theory that Barack Obama is not an American and a fevered believer that 9/11 was an inside job. These last 3 are all righty obsessions and they define your digital presence.
When your blog starts regularly featuring articles about workers’ rights, healthcare etc., I might reassess my view of you. But for the moment your output is overwhelmingly right wing. And, btw, if you deny the need for class analysis (your right/left paradigm), then why are you upset as being identified as right wing anyway?
I am not. It says more about you and your need to classify me than about me. Absurd is the fact that you deny the science which tells us that buildings do not collapse in freefall speed into dust clouds after an office fire.
But other than that. What do you find so right wing about my writings?
Ok, I’ll bite. Can you cite any comment of mine that denies the science? I’m picking not, because it’s the science that proves 9/11 deniers wrong. That and the intervening 12 years without any actual evidence of a gummint/NWO/illuminati conspiracy 😉
So not a single one of my writings then? And I don’t think you ever gave good solid evidence to the contrary. You are a troll who smears and throws mud in the hopes that something will stick. You are what I would call a sad case
When NZ Labour get in they should speak to the Oz government in their regular confabs and stress that we want to be treated fairly when we are in Oz. Then they should ask when they will be changing those laws that discriminate against us, their friends and allies. And if they won’t do anything by a certain time, then we should withdraw social assistance for Oz people here.
Why should we be paying for the health treatment of Oz managers and their families, who come here to utilise our ‘sub-human’ resources (less developed beings than those in Oz). Education, would no doubt be a choice of free or private (which includes government funding) up to tertiary, and then they can study in Oz or if in NZ pay on the same basis that we do in Oz. They won’t even let NZ students have student transport travel concessions I understand. Also there are people that have NZ family (Mr Abbott!) who may be able to utilise health treatment if they can organise themselves around our regulations. I have heard of that being considered.
We can’t afford to carry these shiralees. (Oz Swag, burden, load. Etymology: From one of the Australian Aboriginal languages).
And we don’t want the same rotten treatment that Oz has meted out to their Aborigines in the past. They have made some attempt to respect, repair past wrongs and honour them lately. But then having all that racism and negativism loose and available, they have combined it, focussed it and fired it at us.
Do you really think the OZ Labor or Liberal government gives a f… about this especially as this is a significant budget item.
I am not supporting what the OZ labor and Liberal government are doing but I do understand the what is happening.
Sometime down the track the OZ government will say this is unfair (maybe via a court decision) and the solution will be Kiwis will be entitled to the same benefits and right as say a Brit moving to OZ by something along these lines:
Kiwi’s will need a work visa (i.e meet OZ immigration selection policy) if they want to stay beyond say 2 years. To uphold previous agreement with NZ kiwis will be allowed open travel to OZ BUT the open work visa will now have a time frame. It allows OZ to pick off the qualified and those with money in their pocket (especially Kiwis returning down under).
Yeah Watching wasn’t that what we had. You had to be in Oz for a while before you qualified, you had to be working. And do I think that Oz gives it time of day? Well I already commented on the possibility of them not doing so, as they apparently have when the matter has been raised with them. Or that’s what we are told, I haven’t got any spy info on that, no tapes over the teacups, no gps over the glasses, no leaks from the lagers. So who knows what has been said by our pollies apart from sqawk or sfa.
The point is that it is easy for the Aussies to find excuses for not reversing this discriminatory abuse of our political ally relationship. And for our own respect, and savings on expenditure on the undeserving, we should follow suit. And put the money instead into an insurance scheme that NZs there and/or family can pay into which will provide the wherewithal to get them back here when the dream of better opportunities crashes. The stories of destitution are building up.
Aye!
In Australians’ eyes, since Howard – we’ve become lesser beings than bloody Tasmanians! (unless of course we achieve some sort of fame and can be claimed as an Okker).
I remember as a kid growing up in Victoria, thinking that NZ was another state until I was put right. A journey to Sydney by road meant a mandatory stop at the border where one’s boot was searched for fruit and any contraband. Kiwis owned half of Bondi (now by South Africans, who are treated somewhat better than the Kiwis in the ‘ANZAC brotherhood’). The Kiwi dollar was on a par or worth more, and my primary school contemporaries were somewhat jealous.
(That was because the only “bloody Abbos” they encountered were those living rough in the park, or during school holidays when parents would send their kids to the big smoke for us t babysit, and they had to deal daily with greesers and bloody spiks daily)
Nah – fuk ’em. Let em rot in their bigotry and mine themselves to death. Thank God I no longer have an Australian passport (not that one ever required a passport to travel between Australia and NZ).
Agreed – and until they do, they should drop the NZ in “ANZAC”. Supposedly something that represents a fair suck of the save for Kiwi and Okker brothers and sisters alike. Instead, all it represents is a morning one day a year to acknowledge hard times during war, a statue or two, and a way of forgetting that only 40 or so years ago – the tables were turned and opposite (with NZ being a more attractive prospect)
It’s not all bad. There are possibly more Kiwi PhD students in Australia on Australian scholarships than there are in Aotearoa on Kiwi scholarships. Any Kiwi gets free hospital care in Oz, on the same basis that Aussies get it in Aotearoa. Although I couldn’t access any benefits if I had to stop working, I get free medical care under Medicare. This is probably better than what I’d get back home. Since I’ve got liver cancer and am now waiting for a transplant, this means something significant to me.
There is discrimination against us, but not really in the health area. Benefits, yeah, and lack of access to student loans, plus we can’t go and help them fight for Amerika unless Key sends us, but I think you’ve got some of the details a bit wrong, GW. Anyway, I agree that it stinks that we pay tax and don’t receive all the things paid for by that tax.
I am trying to find a speaker for my students on the Privacy Act. Specifically I am trying to find someone who can talk to them about why “nothing to fear so nothing to hide” is NOT a good reason to breach privacy?
Anyone have any ideas and contact details of
potential speakers. My students are first and foremost sport students, not law students.
Here is a link to a trailer for a 5 hour (English) documentary released by Luogocomune.net named The new Pearl Harbor. The makers of this film are keen for it to be shared far and wide and don’t hold on to copyrights so I’m happy to oblige.
At least I’m not the only one. Your’e on to it.
Cheers for bringing that to my attention.
But wait, there’s more.
SYRIA.
Don’t turn off your TV. Keep watching.
WW3 in real time.
An answer for CV. who asked me You say that “printing” money (in reality, electronically crediting it to a Treasury account) will cause the debt loading to go up. Why?
The reason CV this creates debt is because credit gets spent by real people for real goods and real services.
Credit does not exist in a vacuum, if it is generated to pay for existing interest on debt made possible by prior credit creation somewhere somebody has a claim against it. Credit is either for expenditure for something real, or more latterly something to enable debts to be propped up whilst current expenditure continues.
Its about that point when things get really strange….logically if you print dollars the total available against goods and services in exchange should by rights diminish the value of the dollar (inflation) but as we know recessions are deflationary….I could explain but Illargi at theautomaticearth.com does better.
Firstly the issuance of money can be done debt free and it is not the same as extending, or creating credit.
If the government prints 100 x $100 notes, it has created $10,000 in money, with no associated creation of debt.
That $10,000 in cash can then be used to destroy $10,000 worth of existing debt. Interestingly, the physical cash still exists at the end of this process, and can continue to circulate in the economy.
.logically if you print dollars the total available against goods and services in exchange should by rights diminish the value of the dollar (inflation) but as we know recessions are deflationary
A high level of monetary inflation is extraordinarily hard to achieve. It usually requires some or all of the following:
– Massive war.
– Currency collapse.
– Massive destruction of infrastructure and productive capavity.
– Failure of government tax and tax enforcement systems.
The bit you have missed is that money (once created) gets spent….whether you classify it as a debt or a credit is debatable. The goods it is spent on must be paid for somewhere some how with good / services / work etc….are you proposing to pay for everything with thin air?
He also doesn’t get that the money created increases the supply of money and therefore lowers its speculative value. So it will work when used with a deft touch, but increasing use exponentially increases the probability of a currency collapse.
Currently the government/RB simply use interest rates as a method of adjusting the money supply, but the shortcoming there is that it doesn’t really circulate the new money outside of the banking sector.
but increasing use exponentially increases the probability of a currency collapse.
Reference please. Relating to any one of the major central banks openly acknowledged to be printing money in the last few years eg. BoJ, BoE, Fed, ECB etc. will be fine.
Indeed.
My point is not that it shouldn’t be done, just that it’s not a consequence-free blank cheque for all our economic and inequality ills. It requires more skill and subtlety than your anti-intellectualism is capable of.
He also doesn’t get that the money created increases the supply of money and therefore lowers its speculative value.
Which happens every day/year as the private banks print huge amounts of money. Of course, most of that just goes back to the bankster sector making them richer and neither causing the currency collapse or inflation.
EDIT:
To be more precise, what you see is inflation in mortgages and share prices – areas where a few people (the rich) get access to the tools of high finance for speculative gambling but this is seen as a Good Thing.
Currently the government/RB simply use interest rates as a method of adjusting the money supply,
Which doesn’t work because the private banks then add extra interest on top of that. The real effect is that the private banks are incentivised to massively over produce money and they do so with little or no constraint.
Which doesn’t work because the private banks then add extra interest on top of that. The real effect is that the private banks are incentivised to massively over produce money and they do so with little or no constraint.
Doesn’t that contradict itself? If interest rates provide an incentive one way or another to banks to overproduce $$$, then they do affect the money supply, if indirectly.
“People and their visions, you’ll see them everywhere
Atomic people, they’ll all move away
It’s a mass Exodus day, today; Non Stop Sex (or, “What Lesbians think about penises”).
This site translates the key remarks this way: “The Syrian people have suffered much during the past two years. More than 100,000 were killed and seven to eight million have become displaced. Prisons are overflowing with people and they have turned stadiums into prisons. On the one hand the people have suffered a chemical attack by their own government. On the other, they have to await for US bombs today”
I already dealt with the crock of crap the other day. But really, linking to *the* home of really stupid jonolists (now that the News of the world is dead)..
Basically in classic Telegraph style, it adopts an attitude that thin ice extent similar to the average for the last decade (apart from the last two years) is astonishing and essentially repudiates a decades long thinning of the ice volume in in Arctic.. It poses a single person Curry as being of equal weight as the whole IPCC.
Basically written by a scientifically illiterate gormless fool, and now linked to by another one…
He had to fight his way through a lot from QoT duelling with a Ramsay and others at the beginning. Is that then trielling or quatelling or quarelling? Abortion etc. Very important but I wish that discussion about the Constitution could arouse as much heat, which could then be piped to my house and save a day’s electricity.
There were also some very long and detailed ones. It’s asking a bit much of these pollies rushing around NZ and trying to remember where and who they are each morning to pick out too many queries.
Ah, the bloggers. Shearer wants to dismiss it as background noise, saying that that is all it is worthy of.
“The influence of people sitting anonymously in front of computer screens behind darkened curtains is not something I think we should be taking as seriously as we do.”
He characterises it as “certainly a concerted effort to attack right before a Labour Party conference”.
Was discussing the national well-being later yesterday with a manager of a Youth Health centre; like Alice, the funders are ‘going the wrong way’. According to her, “they (Ministry, DHB’s) are not allowing them to do what needs to be done”: Integrated case-management.
I dislike Greg O’Connor. He is supposed to represent the Police trade union and has always seemed quite right wing and an apologist for all their new useful tools for hitting shooting people etc. But when the police do need some advocacy as now, he is all uncertain and equivocal.
It’s a yes for police to work in pairs especially when working from a car. It’s no time for police to be macho, or spout that crap you hear too often, ‘If the crims did what they were supposed to do, it (whatever) wouldn’t be needed’. That’s the very reason we have police.
The pollies have to either allow for this in the budget or stop this mass netting of the thousands of the public with road blocks and breath testing and looking into police records hoping to get 100 unpaid fines and people over the alcohol limit. And then there’s the causing damage and injury chasing the excitable ones to prevent them causing damage and injury.
Stop this (expensive) madness, this setting of unreasonable targets by pollies many of whom are themselves not meeting the expectations of the public because of their incompetency. It’s dumbarse right wing economics. The sort that wanted to penalise a funeral director in the 1980’s I think, for not calculating his likely future earnings right so he could pay tax in advance of such earnings. Which of course were mostly gathered from the estates of people who had just died. Which can only be guessed at in advance, unless you are the Syrian government.
There is also a possibility that a rogue unit of the Syrian government forces, or some mid level commanders were responsible – i.e. nothing to do with Assad or the senior levels of the Syrian govt.
So what is the US going to do? Strike at and degrade Syria’s command and control infrastructure, because there was chemical weapons use due to unsatisfactory command and control?
I was reading a Jane’s defence article today work that was updated over the weekend and all arrows/ evidence points to the Assad regime as the FSA does not have the capacity to mount a CW attack. But in saying that the report also stated there are Hard-core elements of the FSA that are openly seeking WMD’s (CW and BW argents) and if they did conduct that attack last week then its now gotten very untidy or heading that way very fast.
I’m starting to think this Civil war could the West’s Munich moment “dam with do and dam if we don’t”.
I thought there will be one deadline for all the votes and then they will be counted up so caucus does not, before voting, get advance information of the membership and affiliates votes.
If otherwise, then the rules would have explicitly stated that.
I think it’s correct that the two section of the party are represented.
Is it the position or symbol or just that its an ABC Hipkins doing the counting.
Actually look to tims barnetts background if one is concerned, not that I am.
The count will go in the second round to cunliffe then the real fight begins…can’t wait.
Who is overseeing the conuting process?
What are the checks and balances?
I don’t trust Hipkins to count my online vote, or to maintain confidentiality about the tally from the caucus.
If this become a stitch up job by the old hands welding the power of the old party behind the scenes then the new found democratic rights of the members have been tramples upon.
What are they so scared of…unsettling the staus quo and the trough perhaps.
Time to see off the old non reactionaries and then the Tory raiders…
I think Shane Jones name being announced as leader of the NZLP is a very realistic possibility. An SJ led party would have no real difference to the 5th Labour and 5th National governments, which some of the establishment wouldnt mind.
Six days to go and it’s all rumours, speculation, gossip, sniping. Time for nerves of steel, folks. Let’s not get caught up in all the crap that’s flying around. That’s just playing into the Nats’ hands, and the likes of Duncan Garner. No time for galloping paranoia
Also, I haven’t got my voting papers yet, or the email with a pin number. I desperately want to vote so it’s hard to be patient. Got to thinking about people in other countries where democracy is much more fragile. Asked myself how far would I walk to be able to cast my vote? How long would I stand in the rain? Answers: 25 miles; 4 hours. (I hope I don’t ever have to prove it.)
I would get on phone to head office and demand that they send you an email immediately. How hard can it be to ensure emails go out the day you contact them
Just caught up with an episode of Backbenches from a couple of weeks ago in which Trevor Mallard claimed that The Standard is an “anti-Labour” website.
Which is a bit like a borer claiming that the pesticides are anti-timber.
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Asia Pacific Report A West Papuan resistance leader has condemned the United Nations role in allowing Indonesia to “integrate” the Melanesian Pacific region in what is claimed to be an “egregious act of inhumanity” on 1 May 1963. In an open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Organisasi Papua Merdeka-OPM ...
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Recent extreme weather events showed the importance of a well-functioning insurance system, says Commerce and Consumer Affairs minister Andrew Bayly. ...
By Jo Moir, RNZ News political editor, and Craig McCulloch, deputy political editor New Zealand’s Labour Party is demanding Winston Peters be stood down as Foreign Minister for opening up the government to legal action over his “totally unacceptable” attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. In an interview on RNZ’s ...
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The Wellington-based Reserve Force soldier is now almost three years into his New Zealand Army career with 5th/7th Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment. ...
"The Government needs to release the review immediately as this reckless approach to change risks disjointed decision making and creates more distress and uncertainty for staff," Fitzsimons said. ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Jeremiah Manele has been elected Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, polling 31 votes to 18 over rival candidate and former opposition leader Mathew Wale with one abstention. The final result of the election by secret ballot was announced by the Governor-General, Sir David Vunagi, ...
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The NZQA proposal released to staff today would involve a net loss of 35 roles. There are 66 roles being disestablished with 13 of those currently vacant, and 31 new roles proposed, said Fleur Fitzsimons Public Service Association Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga ...
Alex Casey talks to Loren Taylor, the writer, director and star of new film The Moon is Upside Down, about assembling her dream ensemble cast, toilet paper pads and turning literal dreams into reality. There’s a moment in The Moon is Upside Down where frazzled anaesthetist Briar (Loren Taylor) gets ...
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Workers at a major ASB contact centre in Auckland have voted to take strike action and withdraw their labour following disappointing pay negotiations with the employer and an "offer" to workers that would leave them worse off than the previous year. ...
As the government tries to get the country back on track with a school phone ban, Tara Ward has an idea for where they should turn their attention to next.New Zealand students returned to school on Monday morning, but their cellphones did not. The government’s new phone ban began ...
The Labour Party is demanding Peters be stood down, saying "he's embarrassed the country" with a "totally unacceptable" attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. ...
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance, whose members were victims of a China-backed cyber attack, is discussing forming a standing committee to deal with foreign influence. ...
The PSA is concerned that the voluntary redundancies being offered to staff by Stats NZ will impact on the agency’s ability to deliver on its core functions. ...
Results ranged from surprisingly yum to soul-destroying. I love cooking. The kitchen is a hearth of culinary creation, of sensory delights, of gastronomic poetry. I also can’t afford anything nice. Why does a pack of instant noodles and some milk cost ten bucks? I love you, Aotearoa, but I miss ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Police in Solomon Islands are on high alert ahead of the election of the prime minister today. The two candidates for the top job are former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele at the head of the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation, which is ...
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‘
The Whitehouse must be getting desperate. In another application of standard US grievous hypocrisy, it has resorted to emotional blackmail in an effort to manufacture consent for the unliteral bombing of a sovereign state. Meanwhile, in an unusually honest manner, the “Villa in the jungle”, Israel’s actual position on the matter is made clear by former Israeli consul general in New York, Alon Pinkas:
Couldn’t have worked out better for Israel than if the Knesset had planned it all along . . . oh, hang on.
That’s quite a candid admission.
Unfortunately the average Israeli, is as much a sacrifice as the Americans, or Arab tribes have been, and are going to be.
I was reading recently about early Israel settlement idealist Jews. And the Yom Kippur war of 1973 involving attacks by Syria and Egypt. I guess, remembering that, Israelis won’t be too quick to make any move to aid them that will weaken themselves or use up their resources.
“We didn’t think that it would Blow up with such might…even the ghost came.
Get on with it guys. Abbott will soon be asking Key for pointers ..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/9140853/Key-expects-strong-ties-with-Abbott
This country needs an effective opposition ..
Tony’s a real charmer.
“She said: ‘I had just commenced speaking when I felt a hand between my legs on my lower buttocks. I was wearing jeans. I jumped back, turned around, and saw Tony Abbott laughing about two feet away. The people in the audience began laughing and jeering’, Miss Wilson said.”
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/17/1089694611809.html
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/17/1089694611809.html
.. that’s just what’s on the public record. In common parlance he’s known as a bit of a
‘rough diamond’. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Bob Hawke had a colourful
past and broad extra-curricular experience can be an asset for a man of the people ..
but Abbott is leading a party created by royalist Melbourne grandee Bob Menzies,
inhabited by people who often barely deigned to recognise a colourless Sydney suburban personality like John Howard. There was, however, no argument with success ..
It may yet come back to haunt him. With a contracting Australian economy and the end of the China boom, it promises to be an interesting few years .. on both sides of the Tasman.
The common parlance among people I know is “fucked in the head scumbag.” If he’d been born and bred in Paramatta, he would probably have spent time in prison. Instead, he was chosen by the Liberals as something special quite early on and every “indiscretion” had top rank lawyers defending the prick.
Murray O
It sounds a little like John Mortimer’s relentless climber up the political ladder Leslie Titmus – Paradise Postponed and ? Have you read the books Murray? He wrote good books – had a good head for character parts.
Haven’t read those, sorry.
Prediction: Kiwis will be coming back home in their thousands. A Coalition gift to the Cunliffe Labour Government.
Better get a few Aussies over to help with the detent… oops refugee centre building then. They know how to do it, and because we sure don’t have enough houses (and they own a fair chunk of the rentals anyway).
They can also be reassured that if they’re need healthcare, are made redundant or need disaster relief etc that they’re not discriminated against.
Just a final thought on the TV3 poll on Firday putting Cunliffe in front. Fair enough on the general public figures, but TV3 say
“…– but looking at just Labour voters – Cunliffe is even stronger, sitting at 45.6 percent…”
Now, how many Labour party members could they have actually interviewed? The poll was of 500 people. Assuming Labour has, say, 20,000 members then on average TV3 would have only interviewed 4-5 Labour party members. Which leads to another question – how do they know the people on the phone who self-identified as Labour party members actually were NZLP members? Did they poll anyone who answered who was in a union as a NZLP member because their union is an affiliate?
I can’t see any other way around it, TV3’s poll figure for the Labour party membership is very, very fishy. I can’t help but wonder if the whole poll was just part of the TV3 campaign for Shane Jones, trumpeting dodgy figures to promote their man.
TV 3’s poll was done by a company that does online polling with panels of people. So presumably the panels are drawn from people registered with them, and for whom they have a lot of background information. I surmise they call on panels of people, selected for how much they represent the section of society they are researching.
I believe that they we looking at self-identified Labour supporters, ie who vote Labour in the general elections. Which as you say probably doesn’t reflect those members and hurriedly reactivated past members who will be voting in this election.
I’ve been watching these polls and wondering how they identify Labour Party members. It has to be self identified (Labour wouldn’t hand out their list) unless Labour is polling from eligible members?
Voted last week anyway so polls mean shit to me.
Audrey Young – from the mornings NZ Herald
“Caucus votes are worth more than other votes cast, with 34 MPs making up 40 per cent of the vote; the support of 17 MPs would give Mr Robertson almost 30 per cent of the total allowable vote.”
How did she get 30%, I make it 17 over 34 * 40% = 20%
Am I doing something wrong?
Audrey is better at the qualitative than the quantitative. Without even bothering to startup a calculator you are correct
Yes, you can BS the qualitative, but not the quantitative…but it didn’t stop Audrey from trying.
yeah but who reading it will check her numbers?
She’s massaging the numbers a bit. Young is estimating Robertson has the support of more than 17 MPs. She says:
Her comment that the support of 17 MPs would give Mr Robertson almost 30 per cent of the total allowable vote is clearly wrong. It only gives him 20% of the vote and with distribution of preferences the caucus vote could be all tied up.
Whatever the maths, Caucus… ignore your Labour voters at your peril.
What do you mean at your peril?
What peril will there be if Caucus votes differently to the Party?
Always knew there was something wrong with that little cryptofascist.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/8572418/National-MP-possibly-rabid-and-drooling
“The board said matters of religion were also outside the ERA’s jurisdiction. ” IF that turns out to be true then taxpayer funding should also be outside the jurisdiction of Tamaki College. Was having this discussion with someone yesterday. We both agreed that a school (reluctantly) can be free to be religious based but not a single dollar of taxpayer money should be put into that school. If people want an invisible friend to tell them how to live that is their prerogative but myself and selected taxpayers have no obligation to pay for it.
I find it particularly annoying when you see a Teaching job add, for a State funded school, FFS, which says, “must support the special character of the school”. I.E. Believe in implausable beings in the sky.
Yup. Any “argument” which is deemed by the arguer to be “won” because I can’t prove their invisible friend DOESNT exist actually has no place in education and I am worried that such thinkers are in charge of teaching our children.
This goes to this now.
A teacher claims he was forced to quit his job at Auckland’s Tamaki College because he was an atheist.
Dont know what happened.
They’ve massively altered the story to edit out all mention of Ngaro punching the teacher in the back of the head. Same for the Herald article.
I guess his lawyers have been busy this morning.
Original text of the article:
IF true, the PM will sack him immediately.
pause for laughter
he has an interesting background. Until your article I hadn’t heard of him
“Ngaro is of Cook Islands descent.[1] Ngaro’s father Daniel Ngaro from Aitutaki[2] and Pukapuka he was a union delegate, and the family has a long tradition of voting for the Labour Party.[1] His mother, Toko Kirianu, is from Mangaia.[2]
Ngaro trained as an electrician and was self-employed in the trade for five years.[3] As per his grandmother’s wish,[2] he then completed a theology degree and became a pastor at the Tamaki Community Church.[4] He later won a Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leader Award for his work on the Tamaki Transformation Project.[5]
Ngaro served as the Auckland District Health Board’s Pacific committee chairman and as the Tamaki College board of trustees chairman.[1] He is a member of various advisory committees for the Ministry of Social Development
Select Committees
Social Services
Justice & Electoral”
His maiden speech
http://www.national.org.nz/Article.aspx?ArticleID=37747
I thought Tamaki was a state school and therefore that no teacher or student had to be forced to kowtow to religious beliefs.
National MP possibly rabid and drooling?
Whose the wry humourist at stuff then?
* doh make that ‘who is the wry humourist at stuff then?’
lol, you can make stuff urls say anything you like. Everything after the last “/” is a playground.
e.g. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/8572418/John-Key-promises-higher-standards-Alfred-Ngaro-delivers
Aha. Well played, I may be able to have fun with that little bit of learning.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10294082/Global-warming-No-actually-were-cooling-claim-scientists.html
This sounds like old news, I seem to recall it was predicted there would be an increase in cooling , some time back.
IPCC better get those wheels spinning to come up with something in its reports which stacks up, regarding these anomalies .
Ice surface areas is a completely daft measurement suitable for the simple and jonolists. A moments thought would tell you that there is a massive difference in cooling potential between thick sea ice and a thin coverage, most notably in how much energy is required to melt it. Anyone who has had to deice an old fridge is well aware of that. The ice cover referred to in the article is a very thin surface freeze liable to be broken up (and melted) in the next storm.
However idiots do rather like surface area as a measurement presumably because it is simple enough for them to grasp.. And I guess that defines you muzza.
The rest of the article is more interesting even though it highlights just a handful of climatologists (ie Curry) and refers to all of the others as being the IPCC – the sign of a jonolist’s “balance”.
Climate is multi-cyclic and there is an expectation of a leveling off and even a fall in average global temperatures because of the pacific oscillations and a number of other local climatic patterns. The nett effect is that more energy has been pushed into the oceans for later release than would happen on average. It makes absolutely no difference to the overall heat balances over a century – it is just a decadal shift. Furthermore the expectation was in the 2000’s that we’d see some falls in average work temperatures, but in fact we have seen peaks above 1997 several times.
That was despite the much higher than expected loss of cooling ice masses in the Arctic ice sheet, Greenland’s ice sheet, and in the West Antarctic. There were also increases in ice volumes in East Antarctica that are hard to explain unless more water vapour is getting in past the jetstream (paradoxically snowfall is a indicator of increased temperatures if you’re at the coldest and therefore driest place in the world).
Effectively heat going into melting ice masses keeps overall world temperatures down for a time, but gets less and less effective as those ice masses disappear. But if you’re focused on a single value of temperature over a decade or two to define changes in climate, then you’d have to be a fool…
Nice one LP, you’re about as predictable as a bowel movement.
Yep. I prefer that people know what I think – then they don’t have to waste time trying to guess.
“In a rebound from 2012′s record low”… “a 60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice compared to this time last year”.
Surface area /= ice volume; the thickness of the ice-sheet will be minimal thus far – we’ll have to wait until later in the season to see how that results.
A Real Hole Near The Pole
So much more accurate when you get it from the scientists rather than newspapers with an ideological bent.
Wow, Emirates Team New Zealand absolutely smoked Oracle in race 3 of the America’s Cup just now. Isn’t it great to see New Zealanders being recognised as fearless builders of advanced, world beating technology rather than constantly patronised Hobbits?
And I must say I am starting to look forward to all the parties that’ll be happening in Auckland’s downtown.
Yup, it looks like unless our boat breaks Oracle are fucked.
Of course Barker will now have to get knighted even though it appears the designers are the ones who have made this for us by making a faster boat.
Oracle just won
yup, see comment above, they are sailing better than us but we have the faster boat. In 3 of the 4 races so far we made BIG sailing blunders… only one of them resulted in a loss.
The predicted huge response from the public and a financial bonanza, has been a huge fizzer. So if NZ should win will it be a poisoned chalice for Auckland?
If you look at our high end boat building industry the bonanza is happening. One of nationals few good investments.
sporting public loves a winner. So if the team wins the public will be temporarily happy, imo.
given the lead of TNZ seems to be the result of the designers, then the spin-off tot he boat building industry should continue provided the designers are based in NZ.
I also understand if TNZ wins they might move to the 45s and dump the 75s. The other day I saw the youth Amercias cup or something in the 45s and there were far more countries and log jams at the marks. Looked exciting.
Always thought it should be in 45’s.
The 40′ multihull racing in Europe, with their tight courses and thrills and spills, is awesome.
Even as a sailing enthusiast I have to admit that watching 12 metres was like watching grass grow.
I just hope they do not revert to monohulls.
me too @ monohulls. 45s are like dodgems on water. I havent seen 40s multi hulls.
Raising the minimum wage leads to more unemployment???, only if your economic education stopped at 101,
Yet another in the series of links which whips those with an infants education into silence over their false claims on the effects of raising the minimum wage…
http://www.policymic.com/…/minimum-wage-bill-obama-s-9-proposal-won-t-i...
The link is broken
here you go
http://www.policymic.com/articles/41325/minimum-wage-bill-obama-s-9-proposal-won-t-increase-unemployment
Studies
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf
http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf
http://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jecsur/v22y2008i1p187-212.html
How raising the minimum wage will boost the economy
http://www.epi.org/files/2012/ib341-raising-federal-minimum-wage.pdf
Nice to see you here bright an early on a Monday morning.
“Nice to see you here bright an early on a Monday morning.”
It is hardly early at 0957. Or were you drunk yet again last night?
9:29am in NZ but not in Australia where you live.
Oh, and you are welcome for the fresh links.
Well that made me smile this morning, thanks Tracey.
What is broken SSLands is your self made delusion of economic genius, of more import of course is that not inconsiderable fact that after November 2014 the Neoliberal consensus will have been finally smashed,
Now if you have been reading the many links that have been provided to you over the past week we here at the Standard might have moved your economic education past that of a simpleton’s 101 level,(tho i have my doubts about your ability to do so as you give every appearance of having a love of wallowing in a simpletons level of intellect,
For your further education i will kindly provide you with this:
”Out-put growth in the measured sector averaged 2.6% per annum from 1978 to 2007″,
The main driver of this out-put growth was LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY of +2% per annum”,
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/research-policy/tprp/08-02/05.htm
Seeing as you consider yourself to be the economic genius perhaps you could explain this little gem for us all,
”In Nevada USA where the minimum is $7.25 an hour the jobless rate is 10.2 percent”,
”In Vermont USA where the minimum is $8.60 an hour the unemployment rate is 5.1 percent’,
My explanation of that glaring difference in minimum wages and unemployment figures in 2 different states of the USA would simply say that those on the higher minimum are spending that money into their local economy thus creating the far better figures for unemployment than what the other State suffers,
What’s your explanation SSLands…
Lolz, thanks Tracey, saved me again, i have a dream as per M.L. King, nothing so lofty as Martin tho, i just want my links to work…
got your back
for Bill owed sails,
Toads.
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils
With it’s sickening poison-
Just for paying a few bills!
That’s out of proportion.
Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losels, loblolly-men, louts-
They don’t end as paupers;
Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
They seem to like it.
Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets- and yet
No one actually starves .
Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout Stuff your pension !
But I know, all too well, that’s the stuff
That dreams are made on:
For something sufficiently toad-like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,
And will never allow me to blarney
My way to getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.
I don’t say, one bodies the other
One’s spiritual truth;
But I do say it’s hard to lose either,
When you have both.
just Larkin’ about. 🙂
They fuck you up, your boss and supervisor …
Plan B for Syria:
5 or 6 prime targets identified. (A palace, a communication centre or two, barracks etc)
A date set.
The general area surrounding the targets swamped with leaflets/broadcasts warning civilians to leave the areas before target date.
Missiles fired as warned on date given.
Damage done with minimal collateral damage.
How about that as my plan?
Anyone heard anything from Mrs Assad recently?
the lady from Wainuiomata?
I wonder if visa mastercard could remove her cards as a protest??
or Britain could revoke her citizenship…
http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/the-controversial-life-of-syrian-first-lady-asma-al-assad-193241101.html
But they won’t they’ll prob go for the usual list of targets, which if the Syrians have any common sense are now just empty buildings.
From what’s being said, the list is growing. Once you decide to hit, you start looking for ways to get more bang for your buck. More birds to kill with the stone, as it were.
the talk now about changing the outcome of the war, in favour of moderate elements of the FSA suggests that Assad’s assets won’t be the only thing targeted. The FSA can’t compete with the extremist groups.
It’s looking more and more like Lebanon in the eighties, with w whole bunch of wars being faught in the sme place and between the same people.
eg, Iran + Hezb +Assad + US + FSA vs AQ.
Iran + Assad + Hezb vs FSA + AQ +US
AQ + Hezb + Assad Vs FSA + US
In Lebanon the different fights wern’t just in theory. Groups actively killing each other in one of the wars, were trading weapons and intelligence and co-operating on the battlefield in another.
Babylon 5
With a sprinkling of The Shadow and dim lights for atmosphere indicating the forces of evil and smiling assassins with madness and megalomania in their eyes.
What’s in it for the USA apart from more armament sales to the government? Are they working their way along the Middle East? Is it a practice place to trial their latest weaponry? Is the Defence budget too big to fall over? Is it a proxy war for Israel, and what have Israel done for them as a quid pro quo? Where are the Saudis in this? Bush was supposed to be close to some Saudis who were close to Al Queda.
Now that is confusing. Don’t anybody try to provide me a rational answer, in fact anything at all. I don’t want to know acshually. It’s an idle thought and I already have my worrying time all allocated. Some mathematician could provide some interesting stats on the permutations of all the countries in the world who are involved in war at some level at any one time.
Here is a link to a page from the Daily Mail. No it is no longer on the official site (funny that) but on the waybackwhen site. (awesome archive of stuff we wouldn’t otherwise have access too anymore) the page is an article published on 29th of January 2013 and tells of a leaked email and gives us a view into the secret machinations leading up to the pending attack on Syria and whattayaknow… they were gagging for a false flag chemical attack on Syrian civilians to force an invasion into Syria!
No wonder that page has been removed from the official DM site and replaced with the most hideous war mongering propaganda.
But conspiring? No Sir never! Not our modern enlightened governments in our “really” Democratic countries! They would never do that to us!
Yeah, nah. An unproven email from people who may or may not exist sarcastically referring to Washington’s supposed support for a single CW bombing is hardly evidence of anything. Ev.
I think the clues that this reference is bullshit can be found in the names ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Infowars’.
Infowars seems to bother you doesn’t it. You keep mentioning it in relation to links while I probably linked to well backed up and linked articles from that site about maybe 5 times over the last 8 years. Or do you mention INFOWARS in the hope to smear whatever I post?
The quote that forms the basis for the Mail article comes from Infowars. Do you not read your own links before posting them?
And a well linked to other sources article it was too so no problem there for me but again it is a problem for you. Ok, maybe 6 times in the last 8 years? Dipshit.
Ha! I think you and I both know who the didpshit is here, Ev. Next time read the link before posting. Or, better, yet, save the right wing fantasies for your own site.
Funny how you do that right wing fantasy thing again. Just smearing and trolling. I think many would actually classify me as left wing as my preference for the MANA party is no secret. Not that it matters to me. I think that left and right are a paradigm pushed on us to keep us separated from each other and to stop us from fighting the 0.01% owning everything and you are a dumbass for complying. Have a nice day dipshit! 😈
Sorry, pal, having no class understanding is not a defence. You are right wing. You run a right wing website. You publish right wing comments here and get abusive when the narrow perspective you push gets highlighted. Like it or not, using rightwing sites such as the Daily Mail and Infowars to back your fantasies does not make you left wing. Funny that. Particularly so when you don’t even appear to have read the link you posted. Here’s a clue for ya; the headlines don’t always tell the full story.
Pal assumes a gender I am not.
For those of you not familiar with TRP smearing and trolling techniques here is what I believe in and stand for:
I believe in a just society where there is far more equality than there is now. I believe in workers rights and the need to protect them. I believe in fair taxes and that includes the rich. I believe that the weak and poor should be protected and that in a civilized country there should be free healthcare and a social support system. I believe in open and accountable government. I believe in the protection of our ecosystems and the protection of them. I believe in equality and marriage rights for all regardless of their gender. I believe that greed is serious disease and that people suffering from the obsessive need to have more than they could possibly need should be in hospitals for the criminally insane and expect that some day they will be.
In my ideal world there would be no war, no corruption and peace based on respect, love and compassion.
So tell me again why I am right wing? And to show I understand this should come from both sides I’ll refrain from calling you a dipshit again, how’s that?
Purgatory? Must have been the T=words I used.
Cheers about the restraint, Ev. I hope you stick to it.
My estimation of your politics is based entirely on what you write. That’s the only way I know you. The list above is all very well, but it’s not backed up by what you do online, which primarily is run a rightwing blog narrowly focussed on absurd conspiracy theories. You are a climate change denier, a supporter of the racist theory that Barack Obama is not an American and a fevered believer that 9/11 was an inside job. These last 3 are all righty obsessions and they define your digital presence.
When your blog starts regularly featuring articles about workers’ rights, healthcare etc., I might reassess my view of you. But for the moment your output is overwhelmingly right wing. And, btw, if you deny the need for class analysis (your right/left paradigm), then why are you upset as being identified as right wing anyway?
I am not. It says more about you and your need to classify me than about me. Absurd is the fact that you deny the science which tells us that buildings do not collapse in freefall speed into dust clouds after an office fire.
But other than that. What do you find so right wing about my writings?
Ok, I’ll bite. Can you cite any comment of mine that denies the science? I’m picking not, because it’s the science that proves 9/11 deniers wrong. That and the intervening 12 years without any actual evidence of a gummint/NWO/illuminati conspiracy 😉
So not a single one of my writings then? And I don’t think you ever gave good solid evidence to the contrary. You are a troll who smears and throws mud in the hopes that something will stick. You are what I would call a sad case
When NZ Labour get in they should speak to the Oz government in their regular confabs and stress that we want to be treated fairly when we are in Oz. Then they should ask when they will be changing those laws that discriminate against us, their friends and allies. And if they won’t do anything by a certain time, then we should withdraw social assistance for Oz people here.
Why should we be paying for the health treatment of Oz managers and their families, who come here to utilise our ‘sub-human’ resources (less developed beings than those in Oz). Education, would no doubt be a choice of free or private (which includes government funding) up to tertiary, and then they can study in Oz or if in NZ pay on the same basis that we do in Oz. They won’t even let NZ students have student transport travel concessions I understand. Also there are people that have NZ family (Mr Abbott!) who may be able to utilise health treatment if they can organise themselves around our regulations. I have heard of that being considered.
We can’t afford to carry these shiralees. (Oz Swag, burden, load. Etymology: From one of the Australian Aboriginal languages).
And we don’t want the same rotten treatment that Oz has meted out to their Aborigines in the past. They have made some attempt to respect, repair past wrongs and honour them lately. But then having all that racism and negativism loose and available, they have combined it, focussed it and fired it at us.
Do you really think the OZ Labor or Liberal government gives a f… about this especially as this is a significant budget item.
I am not supporting what the OZ labor and Liberal government are doing but I do understand the what is happening.
Sometime down the track the OZ government will say this is unfair (maybe via a court decision) and the solution will be Kiwis will be entitled to the same benefits and right as say a Brit moving to OZ by something along these lines:
Kiwi’s will need a work visa (i.e meet OZ immigration selection policy) if they want to stay beyond say 2 years. To uphold previous agreement with NZ kiwis will be allowed open travel to OZ BUT the open work visa will now have a time frame. It allows OZ to pick off the qualified and those with money in their pocket (especially Kiwis returning down under).
Yeah Watching wasn’t that what we had. You had to be in Oz for a while before you qualified, you had to be working. And do I think that Oz gives it time of day? Well I already commented on the possibility of them not doing so, as they apparently have when the matter has been raised with them. Or that’s what we are told, I haven’t got any spy info on that, no tapes over the teacups, no gps over the glasses, no leaks from the lagers. So who knows what has been said by our pollies apart from sqawk or sfa.
The point is that it is easy for the Aussies to find excuses for not reversing this discriminatory abuse of our political ally relationship. And for our own respect, and savings on expenditure on the undeserving, we should follow suit. And put the money instead into an insurance scheme that NZs there and/or family can pay into which will provide the wherewithal to get them back here when the dream of better opportunities crashes. The stories of destitution are building up.
Aye!
In Australians’ eyes, since Howard – we’ve become lesser beings than bloody Tasmanians! (unless of course we achieve some sort of fame and can be claimed as an Okker).
I remember as a kid growing up in Victoria, thinking that NZ was another state until I was put right. A journey to Sydney by road meant a mandatory stop at the border where one’s boot was searched for fruit and any contraband. Kiwis owned half of Bondi (now by South Africans, who are treated somewhat better than the Kiwis in the ‘ANZAC brotherhood’). The Kiwi dollar was on a par or worth more, and my primary school contemporaries were somewhat jealous.
(That was because the only “bloody Abbos” they encountered were those living rough in the park, or during school holidays when parents would send their kids to the big smoke for us t babysit, and they had to deal daily with greesers and bloody spiks daily)
Nah – fuk ’em. Let em rot in their bigotry and mine themselves to death. Thank God I no longer have an Australian passport (not that one ever required a passport to travel between Australia and NZ).
Agreed – and until they do, they should drop the NZ in “ANZAC”. Supposedly something that represents a fair suck of the save for Kiwi and Okker brothers and sisters alike. Instead, all it represents is a morning one day a year to acknowledge hard times during war, a statue or two, and a way of forgetting that only 40 or so years ago – the tables were turned and opposite (with NZ being a more attractive prospect)
It’s not all bad. There are possibly more Kiwi PhD students in Australia on Australian scholarships than there are in Aotearoa on Kiwi scholarships. Any Kiwi gets free hospital care in Oz, on the same basis that Aussies get it in Aotearoa. Although I couldn’t access any benefits if I had to stop working, I get free medical care under Medicare. This is probably better than what I’d get back home. Since I’ve got liver cancer and am now waiting for a transplant, this means something significant to me.
There is discrimination against us, but not really in the health area. Benefits, yeah, and lack of access to student loans, plus we can’t go and help them fight for Amerika unless Key sends us, but I think you’ve got some of the details a bit wrong, GW. Anyway, I agree that it stinks that we pay tax and don’t receive all the things paid for by that tax.
I am trying to find a speaker for my students on the Privacy Act. Specifically I am trying to find someone who can talk to them about why “nothing to fear so nothing to hide” is NOT a good reason to breach privacy?
Anyone have any ideas and contact details of
potential speakers. My students are first and foremost sport students, not law students.
I am in Auckland
Maybe try the Rev. Mua Strickson-Pua, Tracey. He can do a good rendering of Pastor Niemoller.
Here is a link to a trailer for a 5 hour (English) documentary released by Luogocomune.net named The new Pearl Harbor. The makers of this film are keen for it to be shared far and wide and don’t hold on to copyrights so I’m happy to oblige.
At least I’m not the only one. Your’e on to it.
Cheers for bringing that to my attention.
But wait, there’s more.
SYRIA.
Don’t turn off your TV. Keep watching.
WW3 in real time.
Pacific leaders’ meeting exposes hypocrisy of US rhetoric about Syria and WMDs:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2013/09/wmds-sinful-in-syria-but-forgettable-in.html
I don’t know if many of you actually watch Russia Today but yesterday a 12 minutes segment aired world wide actually alleges that 9/11 was indeed a false flag event.
Russian TV? Oh well, chances are good that they’d know.
Got through most of the report. Same old bunk. Gladio led to some interesting reading, though.
An answer for CV. who asked me You say that “printing” money (in reality, electronically crediting it to a Treasury account) will cause the debt loading to go up. Why?
The reason CV this creates debt is because credit gets spent by real people for real goods and real services.
Credit does not exist in a vacuum, if it is generated to pay for existing interest on debt made possible by prior credit creation somewhere somebody has a claim against it. Credit is either for expenditure for something real, or more latterly something to enable debts to be propped up whilst current expenditure continues.
Its about that point when things get really strange….logically if you print dollars the total available against goods and services in exchange should by rights diminish the value of the dollar (inflation) but as we know recessions are deflationary….I could explain but Illargi at theautomaticearth.com does better.
Firstly the issuance of money can be done debt free and it is not the same as extending, or creating credit.
If the government prints 100 x $100 notes, it has created $10,000 in money, with no associated creation of debt.
That $10,000 in cash can then be used to destroy $10,000 worth of existing debt. Interestingly, the physical cash still exists at the end of this process, and can continue to circulate in the economy.
A high level of monetary inflation is extraordinarily hard to achieve. It usually requires some or all of the following:
– Massive war.
– Currency collapse.
– Massive destruction of infrastructure and productive capavity.
– Failure of government tax and tax enforcement systems.
The bit you have missed is that money (once created) gets spent….whether you classify it as a debt or a credit is debatable. The goods it is spent on must be paid for somewhere some how with good / services / work etc….are you proposing to pay for everything with thin air?
He also doesn’t get that the money created increases the supply of money and therefore lowers its speculative value. So it will work when used with a deft touch, but increasing use exponentially increases the probability of a currency collapse.
Currently the government/RB simply use interest rates as a method of adjusting the money supply, but the shortcoming there is that it doesn’t really circulate the new money outside of the banking sector.
Reference please. Relating to any one of the major central banks openly acknowledged to be printing money in the last few years eg. BoJ, BoE, Fed, ECB etc. will be fine.
How’s the USD going again?
That’s why you have Government spend the money into circulation.
Indeed.
My point is not that it shouldn’t be done, just that it’s not a consequence-free blank cheque for all our economic and inequality ills. It requires more skill and subtlety than your anti-intellectualism is capable of.
Which happens every day/year as the private banks print huge amounts of money. Of course, most of that just goes back to the bankster sector making them richer and neither causing the currency collapse or inflation.
EDIT:
To be more precise, what you see is inflation in mortgages and share prices – areas where a few people (the rich) get access to the tools of high finance for speculative gambling but this is seen as a Good Thing.
Which doesn’t work because the private banks then add extra interest on top of that. The real effect is that the private banks are incentivised to massively over produce money and they do so with little or no constraint.
Doesn’t that contradict itself? If interest rates provide an incentive one way or another to banks to overproduce $$$, then they do affect the money supply, if indirectly.
That is exactly how it is done now, apart from a small % of transactions which occur with physical cash.
I’m not stating anything theoretical, just what is happening now, every day.
just getting back to the really serious stuff for a mo’…
..this is really something everyone should hear..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i93-hlwULUk
..it’s a singer called little willie john..(unsure if that is a hookers’ in-joke/typecast..or what..)..
..and he is doing the standard ‘fever’ like you have never heard it done before..
..i just found it..and it has jumped to the top of my shake-people-by-the-shoulders-and-say:’you must listen to this!’-music-list..
..and it is so good i am putting out there with a money back guarantee..
..and i am just trying to un-peel myself from the ceiling – after listening to it twice in a row..
..(i think i need a cup of tea..and a you-know-what..)
..and i mean it when i say..’enjoy,..!’
phillip ure..
it aint the size, it’s what you do with IT
“People and their visions, you’ll see them everywhere
Atomic people, they’ll all move away
It’s a mass Exodus day, today; Non Stop Sex (or, “What Lesbians think about penises”).
“..it aint the size, it’s what you do with IT..
i pulled this out of my archives..
..and i think you need to listen to this guy..
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/sep/06/norm-macdonald-me-doing-standup
..he starts off ruminating on death..and then moves onto penis size..
..and in particular..
..that chimera you quote..
(he is also very very funny..with it..)
phillip ure..
so..so; I’m a Jimeoin fan (and other Irish comedians). Michael McIntyre’s observations can be very funny. 😉
Nah There is only one version of Fever Just Miss Peggy Lee with drums and bass.
Absolutely amazing singer
yes..of course ron..you can’t go past peggy lee doing it..
..but (good as it is) we have all heard that multiple times..
..didn’t this one have the shock/delight of the new..?..
..for you..?
..i mean..hasn’t he got the most fucken amazing voice..?..
..and his timing..?
..and the minimalism/tightness of the backing/production..?
..whoar..!..
..phillip ure..
But those were Foreign Children and really didn’t matter.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/sarin-syrian-chemical-weapons-cameron
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/world/middleeast/with-the-world-watching-syria-amassed-nerve-gas.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
saw Kerry on the newz off drumming up more Tin Soldiers in Britain to jump into the fire.
sigh
This site translates the key remarks this way: “The Syrian people have suffered much during the past two years. More than 100,000 were killed and seven to eight million have become displaced. Prisons are overflowing with people and they have turned stadiums into prisons. On the one hand the people have suffered a chemical attack by their own government. On the other, they have to await for US bombs today”
http://www.juancole.com/2013/09/president-gassing-divisions.html
and another little hate-piece in the MSM today:
http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Robertson-vs-Cunliffe/tabid/674/articleID/37760/Default.aspx
Deniers:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10294082/Global-warming-No-actually-were-cooling-claim-scientists.html
I already dealt with the crock of crap the other day. But really, linking to *the* home of really stupid jonolists (now that the News of the world is dead)..
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-09092013/#comment-693411
Basically in classic Telegraph style, it adopts an attitude that thin ice extent similar to the average for the last decade (apart from the last two years) is astonishing and essentially repudiates a decades long thinning of the ice volume in in Arctic.. It poses a single person Curry as being of equal weight as the whole IPCC.
Basically written by a scientifically illiterate gormless fool, and now linked to by another one…
So did Grant Robertson ever bother to turn up and respond to any of the many questions his post triggered?
Nah, didn’t think so. He must have one of those one-way internets.
He did not answer questions individually, but he did answer several in one go:
http://thestandard.org.nz/grant-robertson-2/#comment-693066
felix
http://thestandard.org.nz/grant-robertson-2/#comment-693066
He had to fight his way through a lot from QoT duelling with a Ramsay and others at the beginning. Is that then trielling or quatelling or quarelling? Abortion etc. Very important but I wish that discussion about the Constitution could arouse as much heat, which could then be piped to my house and save a day’s electricity.
There were also some very long and detailed ones. It’s asking a bit much of these pollies rushing around NZ and trying to remember where and who they are each morning to pick out too many queries.
Yeah it’s probably impossible. I wonder how Cunliffe managed it?
Not that blogs matter anyway, of course…
I hope your curtains are pulled tight.
Why’s that CV?
Must conform to the stereotype…
Ah, so.
Here is Bryce Edwards on the media circus around this ‘primary’ and Jones etc. The Standard gets a link.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11121797
“Brighter Future”?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11121457
“nearly 2/3, that’s Two Thirds , 66% (or thereabouts) of young New Zealanders showing signs of depressed mood”.
Was discussing the national well-being later yesterday with a manager of a Youth Health centre; like Alice, the funders are ‘going the wrong way’. According to her, “they (Ministry, DHB’s) are not allowing them to do what needs to be done”: Integrated case-management.
Then the pollies wonder why kids self medicate.
It’s not just integrated case management though – it’s the constrained life we’re presenting to them, imo.
and Manufacturing dips in June 1/4 (Drought)
Said , Assad to Charlie Rose ( Ivan to G.I Joe); “there is no evidence, and if there is, the US administration should show it” (para.)
“Anything but sleep you rogue
glow’ring at the moon…
skirlin’ like a kenna-what…
waukenin’ sleepin’ folk
Wearit is the mither that has a stoorie wean”.
+1 ghostrider….sounds good
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/maori-voters-want-shane-jones-labour-leader-poll-5577770
Would be interesting to compare Jones with Nanaia in a poll of Maori voters.
Well done Clare Curran, you’ve cemented your title as Captain Stupid.
Interesting typo on the TV3 website.
Looks like slippery’s already in training for his next career move!
I dislike Greg O’Connor. He is supposed to represent the Police trade union and has always seemed quite right wing and an apologist for all their new useful tools for hitting shooting people etc. But when the police do need some advocacy as now, he is all uncertain and equivocal.
It’s a yes for police to work in pairs especially when working from a car. It’s no time for police to be macho, or spout that crap you hear too often, ‘If the crims did what they were supposed to do, it (whatever) wouldn’t be needed’. That’s the very reason we have police.
The pollies have to either allow for this in the budget or stop this mass netting of the thousands of the public with road blocks and breath testing and looking into police records hoping to get 100 unpaid fines and people over the alcohol limit. And then there’s the causing damage and injury chasing the excitable ones to prevent them causing damage and injury.
Stop this (expensive) madness, this setting of unreasonable targets by pollies many of whom are themselves not meeting the expectations of the public because of their incompetency. It’s dumbarse right wing economics. The sort that wanted to penalise a funeral director in the 1980’s I think, for not calculating his likely future earnings right so he could pay tax in advance of such earnings. Which of course were mostly gathered from the estates of people who had just died. Which can only be guessed at in advance, unless you are the Syrian government.
Anyone who doesn’t suspect that O’Connor is a paid mouthpiece for the weapons industry first and a union rep second is naive in the extreme.
I’ll include most of the media in that too, as they usually introduce him as the “Police Commissioner”. He never corrects them btw.
So has anyone seen the evidence the US says it has that the Syrian Government chemicaled their people?
Has John Kerry done anything to provide that evidence to an open and transparent third party for verification by that party and the public?
Has John Kerry said what the evidence is?
Has the USA said anything which is not hyperbole?
Where is the evidence?
What is the evidence?
Is it the same as that for Iraq and WMD?… because it sounds so far exactly like Iraq and WMD.
Where is it? Where is the evidence?
+1 vto….reckon they are blaming the wrong side …ie the rebels did it …they have more reasons to
……more to the point, where is the evidence the rebels didnt do the gassing?
….and if the US backed rebels did the gassing …..how wicked is that, if the US bombs Syria?
The crucial question: Where is the evidence?
There is also a possibility that a rogue unit of the Syrian government forces, or some mid level commanders were responsible – i.e. nothing to do with Assad or the senior levels of the Syrian govt.
So what is the US going to do? Strike at and degrade Syria’s command and control infrastructure, because there was chemical weapons use due to unsatisfactory command and control?
It’s dumbass day.
I was reading a Jane’s defence article today work that was updated over the weekend and all arrows/ evidence points to the Assad regime as the FSA does not have the capacity to mount a CW attack. But in saying that the report also stated there are Hard-core elements of the FSA that are openly seeking WMD’s (CW and BW argents) and if they did conduct that attack last week then its now gotten very untidy or heading that way very fast.
I’m starting to think this Civil war could the West’s Munich moment “dam with do and dam if we don’t”.
Chris Trotter better be wrong. He thinks caucus may attempt to ‘fix’ the leadership vote.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/09/09/is-someone-planning-to-fix-labours-leadership-election/
I thought there will be one deadline for all the votes and then they will be counted up so caucus does not, before voting, get advance information of the membership and affiliates votes.
If otherwise, then the rules would have explicitly stated that.
Hipkins should not be involved in counting votes. That’s the concern.
That too.
I think it’s correct that the two section of the party are represented.
Is it the position or symbol or just that its an ABC Hipkins doing the counting.
Actually look to tims barnetts background if one is concerned, not that I am.
The count will go in the second round to cunliffe then the real fight begins…can’t wait.
Who is overseeing the conuting process?
What are the checks and balances?
I don’t trust Hipkins to count my online vote, or to maintain confidentiality about the tally from the caucus.
Cleverly, Labour have subcontracted out the process to electionz.
If this become a stitch up job by the old hands welding the power of the old party behind the scenes then the new found democratic rights of the members have been tramples upon.
What are they so scared of…unsettling the staus quo and the trough perhaps.
Time to see off the old non reactionaries and then the Tory raiders…
It wouldnt suprise me if they did.
I think Shane Jones name being announced as leader of the NZLP is a very realistic possibility. An SJ led party would have no real difference to the 5th Labour and 5th National governments, which some of the establishment wouldnt mind.
Six days to go and it’s all rumours, speculation, gossip, sniping. Time for nerves of steel, folks. Let’s not get caught up in all the crap that’s flying around. That’s just playing into the Nats’ hands, and the likes of Duncan Garner. No time for galloping paranoia
Also, I haven’t got my voting papers yet, or the email with a pin number. I desperately want to vote so it’s hard to be patient. Got to thinking about people in other countries where democracy is much more fragile. Asked myself how far would I walk to be able to cast my vote? How long would I stand in the rain? Answers: 25 miles; 4 hours. (I hope I don’t ever have to prove it.)
I would get on phone to head office and demand that they send you an email immediately. How hard can it be to ensure emails go out the day you contact them
Just caught up with an episode of Backbenches from a couple of weeks ago in which Trevor Mallard claimed that The Standard is an “anti-Labour” website.
Which is a bit like a borer claiming that the pesticides are anti-timber.
😀 (Mallard is such a sitting duck).
If the ABC Labour MPs are successful in dumping Cunliffe who will they select as the deputyJones?