…….pacing ourselves at the pace of our competitors, and being relentlessly honest about the economic implications of the transition.
If Generation Zero has issues with these principles, I’d love to hear what they are – because from my perspective that is the exact kind of level-headed, pragmatic and measured approach that New Zealand would expect from National.
……Generation Zero is trying to paint climate change as a partisan issue, with the Labour and Green Party in one corner, and National in the other. We are seeking to move climate change beyond partisan politics to provide stability to this issue……
Tod Muller and the National Party need to be put to the test.
When National was the government, Kennedy Graham on behalf of the Green Party organised an all Party conference on climate change in parliament, which the National party and ACT deliberately and actively boycotted. Not one National MP or representative turned up.
I challenge James Shaw to call such a conference again.
Yeah I was wearing my heart on my sleeve there. You can find convenient quotes and stats for most anything if you enter the right search terms. It’s not science but it can sure sound like it to the uninformed.
“an all Party conference on climate change in parliament, which the National party and ACT deliberately and actively boycotted. Not one National MP or representative turned up.”.
You seem to have an interesting interpretation of “boycotting”.
The National Party MPs seem to have taken an active interest in the subject and there were quite a lot of them involved in the exercise.
” In October 2015, Graham formed a cross-party group, GLOBE-NZ, working on climate change. GLOBE-NZ is a national chapter of GLOBE-International, and has 35 MP’s as members drawn from all seven political parties represented in the 51st Parliament. As chairman of the national chapter, Graham contracted a London-based consultancy, Vivid Economics, to prepare a report on “transformational pathways to carbon neutrality for New Zealand”. The report, Net Zero in New Zealand: Scenarios to achieve domestic emission reduction the second half of the century, was launched in the New Zealand Parliament in March 2017. The initiative is regarded as a major step forward in clarifying inter-party discourse and debate on New Zealand’s national climate change policy” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Graham
Among the committee, listed here https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/mps-collaborate-across-party-lines-in-response-to-climate-change/
I can see at least 9 who were in the National Party.
Bishop, McIndoe, Scott, McKelvie, Mitchell, Muller, Simpson, Smith and Barclay were all National I believe.
It is certainly a bit hard to argue that they all boycotted the group isn’t it?
In the debate on the report https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20170413_20170413_12
Smith and Simpson both spoke as well as Seymour from ACT and Paula Bennett.
What on earth do you mean by your “boycott” comment?
But first what you are talking about Alwyn is a lot of back room committees.
Where National party participation usually acts as a brake, and where they can manipulate and backpedal out of the public eye.
What I was specifically talking about was the public all party conference on climate change that was organised by Kennedy Graham in the Old Legislative Chamber in Parliament.
At this public event. National made it very clear that they would not attend and they didn’t
It is all very well, Alwyn for the Nats to be involved in all sorts of alphabet soup of acronym back room groups, but taking a public stand with the other parliamentary parties? This was a step too far for the National Party MPs. An action which exposed the National Party as deeply sectarian and viciously opposed to any genuine bipartisanship on climate change.
Have National changed. I doubt it. But I could be wrong, that is why I think that the climate change minister needs to repeat Kennedy Graham’s initiative and call an all up party conference on climate change in parliament.
Let’s see if National MPs and reps boycott or attend such a public event.
My guess is that National will again choose to boycott.
This will be the acid test of the sincerity of the National Party’s bipartisanship when it comes to climate change, by which they will be measured against all other parliamentary parties.
It shows he has a flair for writing propaganda. Spin that seems plausible on the face of it. However, to see how it plays to the gallery, read the comments. I got the impression it was more than a 50/50 split, it was more against the Nats.
I give the guy credit for trying to reposition them as part of the solution. It will reassure those in his support base who think National should move with the times. His support for James Shaw’s approach validates it – but we must reserve judgment until the result of the process can be appraised.
I think he would make a better leader for the bluegreens than Nick Smith. I wonder if they think so. Lack of leadership is their primary problem! There are 27 in that photo, and that’s just the Bluegreen Executive: https://bluegreens.national.org.nz/about_bluegreens
“The Bluegreens approach is underpinned by five principles that we are now applying in Government to the broad range of environmental challenges facing New Zealand:
Resource use must be based on sustainability
Economic growth and improving the environment can and must go hand in hand
Good science is essential to quality environmental decision making
People respond best to change when engaged and given incentives
New Zealanders have a unique birthright to access and enjoy our special places
Our Bluegreens caucus has grown from the two founding members in 1998 to the current diverse team.”
The economic growth principle is the flaw in their thinking – the other four principles are valid. This all reminds us that the Values Party schism casts an extremely long shadow, and the Green political movement in Aotearoa is still as divided as ever. But I’m confident the bridge James has built will reduce that divide as time passes.
Not likely, Tamati! Conservative Greens have voted National since the seventies. The effect that has had is to keep the Green vote down – about half what it would be otherwise. It’s because the environmental activists of Aotearoa have constituted a strong movement since they stopped the Manapouri dam – almost half a century ago, but many prioritised short-term success so they decided to work with govt rather than against it. Pragmatists.
As regards Nat marketing, it never seems very clever. Just a rear-guard action to try and limit progress. Residual colonialism, basically. Notice you never see the brand in public apart from their website. Such subtlety is by design. The idea is to retain control of their half of the movement. I often describe it as `keep the dog in the kennel’. Anyone who thinks their dog doesn’t need a regular run is a moron, right?
Nick Smith is definitely not Blue-Green he is an environmental terrorist like Trump, Key, Bridges, Brownlee etc pro Oil & Mining Corporates set out to destroy what is left of the environment IMHO.
Yes, Todd Muller does have a flair for writing propaganda.
Going on about bi-partisanship and consensus, and then saying in the next breath, that immediately on a change of government National will repeal the moratorium on issuing new oil and gas exploration permits.
What’s bi-partisan, about that?
Nothing.
Muller also talks about kicking action on climate change down the road twenty or thirty years.
Which is what draws him to attack Generation Zero, who want to do something about climate change in the here and now.
One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all,
And in the darkness bind them.
This is the only sort of consensus that Todd Muller is interested in.
Gen Zero should stop needlessly picking at scabs and start picking their fights better.
Shaw, Upton, Parker and Muller are near to cross-parliamentary support for legislation that binds for generations. They have been working on it for over a year already,
The bases of both Greens and National will likely go nuts at the compromises when its made public.
It’s going to be up to these actual political party reps to bind policy enough to take climate change away from perpetual electoral cycles. No more arguments, just get to work.
It certainly didn’t hurt New Zealand that Key and Obama got on so well did it?
I’m sure that Ardern and Trump would hit it off very well. After all they do have so much in common.
Morrissey they don’t particularly like you over at Kiwiblog, not many likes, you are not Redneck Enough. I had the same problem about 10 years ago, I ended up suffering from a PTSD post traumatic stress disorder and had to leave with my tail between my legs.
You mean not bigoted enough. Most of the truly vile crap we are bombarded with comes not from working people—i.e. rednecks—but white-collar thugs like Mike Hosking, Don Brash, John Ansell, Sir Robert Jones. None of them would know a shovel from a jackhammer.
I had the same problem about 10 years ago, I ended up suffering from a PTSD post traumatic stress disorder and had to leave with my tail between my legs.
Yikes! I’d better monitor my own health. Someone on Kiwiblog maliciously supplied me with the name of a psychiatrist this morning; maybe I should get in contact.
New campaign for a 21th century trade agenda
Monday, 7 January 2019, 9:34 am
Press Release: Professor Jane Kelsey
7 January 2019
For immediate release
Launch of JusTrade.nz heralds a new campaign for a 21th century trade agenda
The website JusTrade.nz, launched today, heralds a new forward-looking campaign for a progressive 21st century trade agenda.
The JusTrade project builds on a two-day hui in late October that debated what an alternative and progressive trade strategy for Aotearoa New Zealand should look like. The live-streaming attracted over 17,000 page views. The website carries videos and transcriptions of all ten panels.
Hui convenor, University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey, says ‘for too long we’ve been told there is no alternative to the current model, epitomised in the recently adopted Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.’
‘Today, the global trade regime faces an existential crisis. Mega-negotiations are being abandoned, delayed or pared down, and the World Trade Organization is fractured and paralysed.’
And ‘Critique is no longer enough. If anything is to really change, we need to step away from the existing framework and take a first-principles approach to rethinking what will work for the 21st century.’
Ha! I’ll believe that when I see it! The quote is absolutely correct, but can anyone remember when the left actually practiced what they preached? So I’m calling their bluff: let’s see those principles, pronto!
Of course, it they actually existed, they’d be up front in the press release, wouldn’t they? And if Kelsey has spent the past decade mulling them over (as well as protesting their lack), you’d think she’d have been able to identify at least one!
Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume she has some in mind but wants to organise a consensus around them. The press release suggests a process will now occur to produce a consensual, principled, output. Let’s hope for the best.
Otherwise it’s just typical leftist sham: all show, no substance, like Sue Bradford’s left-wing think-tank – another decade-long brainstorming exercise with no result.
Interesting article on NZ population growth, immigration still happening big time, no wonder housing prices still high and in short supply here in NZ, demand is out stripping supply.
Still don’t know why timber is so expensive here in NZ ?
I do love the Statistics Department Mr Dunstan’s optimism when he said
“the population estimates would be revised once the final Census results were out.”.
We won’t see any realistic results from that Census in any of our lifetimes.
oh, snap – I thought you just wanted to shit on a Green minister. But maybe your objective is to argue that the population denominators are meaningless, so you can pretend that nothing improves under this government – the bad numbers might go down and the good numbers up, but unless you can put together an accurate rate we cannot know if there’s been any real change.
Which explains why you wanted an interim census in 2021, when you think a census can be sorted out and completed in five months. You get three years of saying the government has no demonstrable improvements before the next election.
Yes he talked about it during his show MOATS this week.
Such an inspiration.
[Ed. I had a long think overnight about your behaviour on this site. This morning I went back to check previous moderation notes and it is clear you have been repeatedly warned and occasionally banned for spamming, abuse and wasting moderator timeover the last 12 months. Yet, nothing changes. Yesterday, you indicated that you see your role as being to protect TS from “Blairite bullies”. This is not a service The Standard requires. In addition, you made two comments that suggested re-education and forced labour was a legitimate response to people who had views different to yours on climate change. This is an absolutely abhorrent position on a human level and, is, in effect, intimidation directed at other TS commenters. TS has clear policy on comments that discourage others from contributing to the site. Permanent ban. TRP]
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Based on past history, I fully expect another commenter to pop up soon using a short male name as a handle, a predilection for posting videos from that convergence point of moonbat far-lefties and alt-right wingnuts, a fetish for veganism and conspiracy theories, and a hectoring tone that alienates everyone that’s not fully bought into the exact same viewpoint.
Every time you whine that someone isn’t saying or doing or paying attention to something you think they should be. Such as your whine at comment 2 today.
I agree. (Francesca 9.1.2)
Ed (and Morrissey) make this forum an interesting place and worth visiting. They are gentle but sharp in their comments and rarely lower themselves to the level of their detractors.
@ TRP, I have tried finding Ed’s comments were you accuse him of “intimidation directed at other TS commenters.” but couldn’t find anything , could you please put up a link to these comments please.
And the mod comment was that it was in effect intimidation of other commenters. We might know that Ed is a full of shit blowhard, but others might think he doesn’t just mean it, he’s trying to bring it about. And if the offence is too minor to be detected by other people, they might become more circumspect about commenting for fear of the EdEds knocking on their door.
Can’t see how that is intimidating other commenters myself – he’s talking about well known cricketers who probably have never commented on here. There are a couple of other regular commenters who use much more intimidating language toward others on a regular basis…
I thought this comment from Joe in the same thread (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-09-01-2018-2/#comment-1569753), which you didn’t pick up on? calling another commenter a “vile prick” was an actual example of intimidating other commenters. But hey he is on the right side of the law so to speak.
I’ve just spent a couple of days with a man who thinks this was his 84th Christmas. But being the sole survivour of an extended family of Kulaks sent to a forced labour camp, he’s guessing.
So yeah, in my world anyone who advocates for reeducation and forced labour is indeed a vile prick.
Are serious? please say that you are, because if that is what warrants a permanent ban, then The Standard has some real fundamental problems around moderation and it’s application.
permaban was the mod’s decision based on that incident being a continuation of behaviour about which ed had been repeatedly warned. Amnesties periodically occur, anyway.
My opinion of the reasonableness of the decision is irrelevant – it’s not my site. But you and Maui seem to be having difficulty what the moderator wrote, whereas it seems pretty plain to me. So I’m simply trying to explain my understanding of what occurred.
There can be insults against individuals allowed, although pointless abuse is against site policy. But outright intimidation and calls for violence are well against site policy.
@McFlock “But outright intimidation and calls for violence are well against site policy.”
Give me a break…that is just plain outright bullshit, there is just no equivalence from what Ed said and to your statement or TRP’s “and, is, in effect, intimidation directed at other TS commenters” for that matter.
If they continue to wilfully lie about climate change after a brief education course, then they should be sent to Bangladesh to build sea walls.
My italics.
The use of the normative in tandem with the passive indicates a desire for it to happen and a lack of ability to refuse the proposal (and therefore use of force to extract the seawall-constructing labour).
Come on man, that is quite obviously just someone getting passionate in a debate, and then saying some shit, so fucking what, if that is all it takes to make someone feel intimidated, then I would say it is them who has the problem (probably stemming from some deep rooted unresolved trauma that needs professional psychological help) , and not Ed… maybe some people should either harden up a bit, or go and sort out their shit and come back when they can stand up to a robust debate..this isn’t playcentre.
The last thing wanted on a political forum is for everyone to have to tip toe around like they are walking on broken glass, for fear of triggering off someones neurosis.
You have read lprent’s reply to you at 9.1.3.2, haven’t you?
Coz that lays out pretty clearly the problem is ongoing behaviour issues. TRP’s moderation note makes the same point. Focusing on just the last straw is ignoring the mountain of crap that overloaded the camel to begin with.
I can/t see why you should be so protective of ed Adrian. You have written more about him and his rights than he would have written in dozen of his comments.
What makes this blog strong is people like you thinking and writing about politics, exchanging information and we all end up knowing more. Ed was like a seagull that flies over and drops one on the words you are reading.
Ed tended to dominate the site with summaries about his obsessions. And having USA or world conflicts as the first thing on the blog each morning was stultifying for the blog; finding Ed dominating prime position so often was a bore. He does come up with some good points, but usually about things other than NZ, and can’t control his takeover tendencies of the blog.
Ed was low on NZ stuff, and high on telling us about his likes and dislikes and making our minds up for us. He has been a sort of Likes/Dislikes system and has given us evidence of why we have decided rightly, that they aren’t wanted on this blog.
permaban was the mod’s decision based on that incident being a continuation of behaviour about which ed had been repeatedly warned. Amnesties periodically occur, anyway.
What a load of old cobblers. Ed’s comment deemed “intimidatory” by some (mostly by those who feel a need to harass and snark at his every comment) had absolutely nothing to do with his previous behaviour. He was banned previously for posting multiple videos without descriptions. Before that I think he was banned for not clearly defining when he was quoting someone else. He came back and learned from both of those bannings and modified his behaviour.
Yeah pointless abuse, there’s a dime a dozen of that, have you heard of BM? Yet Ed gets sent packing for saying two people who don’t exist on this site should work overseas. Fuckn hell.
Ed, stop being a disingenuous little twerp. You know as well as any of us that you were talking about people being forced to go to a far away place and there being forced to labour because of their ideas.
Forced… yeah forced. My god, and I thought he said ‘should’! in order to do something constructive. Mind you I have never, ever known Ed to make throw away comments..
‘Little twerp’ oh yes that is not intimidating other commenters… That won’t discourage the commentariat at all I’m sure… Perhaps you want to really intimidate and offend by suggesting a NZ First style boot camp for non-existent persons.
They wouldn’t be that hard for me to find. Bearing in mind the state of the search after the wordpress 5 update at present it’d be hard for others to do a search for Ed’s comments (getting around to fixing search in these “dog days”)..
Most of them are probably rhetorical claptrap and more based on idiotic and simply dumb labels about groups of other people (like ‘Blairites’ and a pile of other labels) rather than the reality of what people are actually saying.
But they are exclusionary, repeated, and often seem to be designed to avoid actually thinking and expressing his own opinions, and certainly he seldom explains his ideas in any depth so that others can pick holes in those ideas. Which is what the site is for.
If we wanted meaningless and unthinking waffle using labels, then we could just tune into Mike Hoskings or talkback radio.
The second problem is that Ed (both as Ed and as his other handles over the last decade) just keeps doing the kinds of behaviors that he gets moderated and warned for. He changes behaviour for a short time, then reverts. I have a kitten that has a massively faster behavioral change response than Ed has.
For instance I actually have a personal moderator watch running at present for his first comment behaviors on OpenMIke for instance after my last warning about that. I think that most of the active moderators past and present have similar exasperated watches for Ed. All of which suck effort out of us. I don’t even bother reading his comments in any depth these days. I just scan them for (bad) behaviour – just like I do for any other troll.
The point is that this site is there for robust debate. Ed doesn’t provide much (if any). We keep having to try to reform his behaviour. That is a lot of extra work. It is a behavioral problem because it just wastes everyone’s time.
BTW: Perhaps you’d like to point to any comment where Ed actually made a significiant contribution to the debate in what he wrote himself. That could be more a better way of arguing about a ban…
Thank you! Sweet Jesus it’s been an effort to point out that Ed just regurgitates and positulates in his unctuous way that supporting people is the same as having an opinion and adding to the debate.
was TRP looking in the mirror when he wrote out his ban spiel …. the sort of spiel which discourages others from contributing to the site….. no one feels intimidated by Ed ….
bully boy mods on the other hand are a different matter
To me …. TRP will always be the moderator who stands by and allows abuse of people who disclose they were victims of sexual abuse.
“As everyone knows, most diplomats in US embassies are actually CIA agents. They have made the ultimate sacrifice of their brains, and should be venerated, regardless of whether the culprits are Russians or crickets. Fortunately, they can be retired and given jobs as analysts at NBC where their brain damage will be considered a career asset. Unfortunately, there is a limit to how many analysts NBC can hire, so the rest can be given jobs in the State Department.
The fact this incident couldn’t be pinned on the Russians is just another example of their deviousness. The Russians were probably aware of the crickets’ activities and did nothing to stop them, which is essentially as bad as if they’d done it themselves. So they clearly have a moral responsibility for the brain damage.”
Thanks for that francesca, love reading Greenwalds reporting, he is always on the mark and always manages to slip in a couple of pointed lines that make me laugh.
I sent links to both the DM videos to RNZ this morning, suggesting that maybe this year they could help play a more considered role in their coverage of world news and especially US politics.
Christ – is she still around? I thought she might have trotted off back to the Punjab to be waited on hand and foot. It’s been a while since she deigned to touch base with Kathryn Ryan
Oh yeah, forgot this piece that talks about the absolutely bizarre place that many ‘liberals’ and so called ‘progressives’ have got themselves in lionizing the CIA and FBI for fucks sake…and again quite a bit of this bizarro behavior is seen right here on The Standard…
William Arkin On Homeland Security’s Creeping Fascism and Why the CIA & FBI Won’t Save Us From Trump
He didn’t mention the deep state though, did he? So, like any typical msm frontperson, his analysis is shallow. He’s right about the creeping fascism, even if HS staff don’t wear brown shirts or jackboots, but he fails to join the dots.
Still, he was articulate, made a good point about American imperialism (“I think we’ve bombed nine countries in the past year”) and fingered Trump as someone who wouldn’t even know how to find the dept of Homeland Security. As an insider, this invalidation of the `Trump is fascist’ thesis popular with some commentators here is definitely helpful to the simple-minded.
I noticed a passing reference to American military involvement in Honduras. Given that all the Hondurans travelling through Mexico so they can enter the USA and become victims of Homeland Security prefer that fate to the one they left behind, I’m wondering what the hell the US miltary is actually doing there. Anyone know?
Thanks francesca. A good report by The Conversation, of which part is worth reproducing here as essential context for the migration:
“the election of Manuel Zelaya, a liberal reformist, as president in 2006. He led on progressive measures such as raising the minimum wage. He also tried to organize a plebiscite to allow for a constituent assembly to replace the country’s constitution, which had been written during a military government. However, these efforts incurred the ire of the country’s oligarchy, leading to his overthrow by the military in June 2009.”
“The 2009 coup, more than any other development, explains the increase in Honduran migration across the southern U.S. border in the last few years. The Obama administration has played an important role in these developments. Although it officially decried Zelaya’s ouster, it equivocated on whether or not it constituted a coup, which would have required the U.S. to stop sending most aid to the country.” When is a coup not a coup? When expediency requires denial.
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in particular, sent conflicting messages, and worked to ensure that Zelaya did not return to power. This was contrary to the wishes of the Organization of American States, the leading hemispheric political forum composed of the 35 member-countries of the Americas, including the Caribbean. Several months after the coup, Clinton supported a highly questionable election aimed at legitimating the post-coup government.”
So the Democrats worked hard to create the political conditions the migrants are fleeing from. Helping the fascists is democratic behaviour, apparently, or at least they must believe so. You can see why they get hysterical in their attempt to depict Trump as fascist. The pot must always claim that the kettle is blacker. Is there anyone left who thinks Democrats are good people?
@Dennis Frank, well said.
“You can see why they get hysterical in their attempt to depict Trump as fascist. The pot must always claim that the kettle is blacker. Is there anyone left who thinks Democrats are good people?”
The recent (Nov 2017) elections were also mired in most probable fraud. The opposition was winning when suddenly the count was suspended.
When it resumed, Hernandez was winning
@mickysavage, are you saying that you believe that the CIA detest all Trump stands for?…wow.
I know they don’t like his less interventionist and more inward world outlook, but apart from that what other of Trumps policies do they ‘detest’?
Maybe your time would be better spent opposing what should be the antidote to this terrible Trump/Right Wing slide, namely the idiots that run the Democratic party and who plainly, would rather see Trump in power than any shift to the Left, exactly the same ideology that pervades parts of UK Labour (and Labour NZ, but I guess you already know that)..they are the reason we have Trump and Co…they have effectively taken away the traditional Left wing safety valve that people turn to when they are hurting, and replaced it with Liberalism, a debunked ideology that has no credibility left whatsoever.
Personally I choose to ignore Trump and concentrate on working ( if only in a small way) toward a real Left wing alternative..that is the kryptonite that will destroy this man made orange monster.
And where has socialism worked, especially in countries of significant population and diversity Shite even China worked that out I also think the US working class have worked that out especially with so many basket case left wing experiences on thier doorstep Contary to your view the new crazynkeft of Democrat party will see TruMo do another term, they are gold for the attack adds and Trumps mocking style
Depending on the definition of socialism you’re talking about:
Scandinavia and much of northern and western Europe, Vietnam, Chile under Allende, several central American nations before other nations funded insurgencies against democratically elected governments, Cuba until it’s closest and largest trading partner launched a multi-decade boycott of anyone who does business with them.
Can you identify a common factor that challenged or ended a variety of socialist governments?
Is a bewildered person likely to be able to answer a question that several generations of socialists have been unable to answer in any country? Worth a try though. Lateral thinking is what we need.
I see the dude from the Tooting Popular Front has identified why Corbyn wants Brexit. Apparently he has had past success campaigning for re-nationalisation. EU rules forbid it.
Serious street cred for a socialist. I can see why he doesn’t want to remind the public about this, nor other Labour MPs! But it alerts us to the likely title of Labour’s next election campaign: Back to the Future.
Yes, he does make a good point: “To his credit, Corbyn has (so far) refused to be baited into making Labour the media story in the run up to the parliamentary vote, which is due on either January 14 or 15. In his recent statements on Brexit, Corbyn has adroitly kept the focus on what May can and should be doing, not on what Labour might do, or should do, sometime in future. The time for Labour to show its hand will come later, after May has finally run out of options. A controversial statement on Brexit by Corbyn at this point would be the answer to May’s prayers.”
“if Corbyn backed May and her deal in the mid January parliamentary vote, Labour would be finished. The young who have flocked to Corbyn would desert him in droves. [The poll] indicates Labour’s share of the vote would slump another eight points – from 34 per cent to 26 per cent – if its MPs join with the Tories to support the prime minister’s Brexit deal. This would be even worse than the 28 per cent share secured by Labour under Michael Foot”. Gah!!
” DER SPIEGEL: And now you want to go back to the future?
Corbyn: What we’ve been saying on both sides of the Atlantic is about redistribution of wealth and power. Bernie Sanders has quite a good line. He says: “America can afford anything except the inequality it’s got.”
DER SPIEGEL: You will turn 70 next year. Are you planning to stand in the next general election?
Corbyn: I’m very young. I’m very healthy. I run. I’m a vegetarian. I eat porridge every morning. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t do anything bad. I am sorry if that makes me sound boring.”
There is nowhere “capitalism” has worked, without a healthy dose of socialism.
In fact all the “capitalist” experiments are disaster zones. Honduras being but one example. Argentina has never recovered fully from their Neo-liberal experiment. Recovery from ours will take decades, if ever.
Weird that media, and even commentators on here, ignore the, many, right wing capitalist disasters. Russia, The US rust belt, Puerto Rico, Honduras, etc You know, the places people really are fleeing from.
Sorry that doesn’t make sense to me, if you agree that the lack of alternative provided by a captured Democratic Party is largely responsible for the likes of Trump, then surely logic dictates that the solution to the problem of Trump is real progressive change within the Democratic party?
And yes I would regard you as a class sell out if you allowed yourself to be baited into supporting a non progressive Democratic Party through fear of Trump.
This whole one step forward, two steps backwards for workers the poor and disenfranchised that seems to be locked into operating manual of the centre left has got to end now, not tomorrow.
Nicely demonstrating how the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Let’s say you had a single vote in November 2016. You couldn’t make the dems suddenly turn to socialism. It’s Clinton vs Trump. Realistically, it would be one of those two. That’s it. workers should do this, dems should do that, repugs should do the other – you have zero control over that, other than one vote. Do you vote for Clinton and against Trump? For Trump and against Clinton? One is worse than the other. Throwing away your vote on a third party does nothing to stop the worst candidate winning. What do you do? Because that’s reality.
No, the reality is that the third way liberals who have co opted most Left leaning parties in the west have been using your bullshit argument for nearly thirty years now..ie cynically using fear to direct your vote.
The fact is that workers and the poor are suffering anyway, so why should or would they give a fuck about your ridiculous analogy?
The strangest thing to me is that smart guys like you and mickysavage still believe the same fucking lies that you were feed last time, and the time before that and the time before that.
Can’t you see that you have been suckered in to game where the results are ALWAYS the same.
The enemy of good is being bullied around like a pawn out of fear and not being guided by your moral and ethical internal compass, and calling bullshit on this liberal centrist ideology that has plainly run it’s course, and is now continuing only as a destructive force that survives solely by exploiting and destroying both humans and the planet in it’s insane search of endless growth.
It’s not an analogy. It actually happened. People had a choice between dolt45 and Clinton.
The workers who aren’t being paid because of the shutdown are suffering more than they would have. The people relying on the downstream effects of those workers’ incomes are suffering more than they would have. The would-be auto workers not hired because of the higher cost of steel to build the cars are suffering. The people worried their healthcare would be stripped away again were suffering.
Even if you go the other way and think more people would have suffered under Clinton, the point remains that one was better than the other in terms of the suffering of workers and poor people. The odds of them being exactly as bad as the other are cosmic.
So you can vote for the lesser evil, vote for the greater evil, or do nothing to stop the greater evil winning.
Just stop and think. What would you do with your ballot paper?
Stein = do nothing to stop the greater evil winning.
Sure, here you can vote green. Hell, I’ve voted Green for exactly that reason. But November 2016 POTUS election, Green/third party/write-in was a wasted vote. One viable candidate is less bad than the other. Which one do you vote for?
The reason I’m pushing it is that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. And pretending that two evils are identical or equivalent is one way to get good people to do nothing.
Shitting on “third way liberals” might make you feel righteous, but the only reason the third way was grabbed as a strategy was because the traditional left way got well and truly fucked in the ballot booth.
It is not a matter of me feeling righteous, it is a matter of no doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result…
btw how is Trump any worse than Bush II
Or for that matter how is Trump worse than Clinton on foreign policy, as that is all that really concerns us right?
lol so you’ve gone from concern for workers and the poor to “all that really concerns us”. So much international worker collaboration.
But it’s not about expecting anything different, or even whether dolt45 is better than Clinton or the other way around. It’s about minimising the obvious harm. One is better than the other, even though both are bad.
If the position we are in at the ballot is the same as the last time we were there, then the rational thing to do is to do the same thing as before (choose the least worst) and then try to change the situation we face at the next ballot.
“Of two evils choose neither” -Charles Spurgeon, is often misused in the realm of social media to discourage Christians from voting in political elections (either entirely or certain candidates). But Spurgeon is being taken out of context.
Worse still, this claimed fuller quote often attributed to him, was not Spurgeon at all, but Michael Marcavage “Of two evils, choose neither,” he said, “Christians must turn from the endless cycle of voting for the lesser of evils and expecting an unrighteous act to produce a righteous result. From a communist to a cultist, choosing the lesser of two evils is still evil, and never should we do evil that good may come”. – Michael Marcavage.
A flooded new stadium (due to climate change) which will then morph into a marine reserve, with tourists permitted to dive & view the locals for an exorbitant fee. Presumably, by then, it will have become known as Goff’s Folly.
Individual-1 might indeed be immune from prosecution while he continues to hold his current job. And the people tasked with overseeing him and that hold the power to terminate his employment may be disinclined to even think about fulfilling their responsibilities and duties. That doesn’t mean his business empire is safe from a RICO prosecution and seizure.
E-Ferries for the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland would also be a good idea for the Manukau Harbour, imagine we could catch an E-Ferry from Waiuku to Onehunga Wharf, not a silly idea IMHO.
“Hybrid regimes are nations where consequential irregularities exist in elections regularly preventing them from being fair and free. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opponents, non independent judiciaries, and have widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.”
So what has been happening there recently? “In January 2017, President Juan Orlando Hernández announced that the Special Commission for Police Reform Restructuring will extend its mandate until 2018. As of May, nearly 4,000 of the more than 9,000 police officers evaluated by the commission had been removed, including many for alleged involvement in corruption or criminal acts. However, none of the police officers expelled upon orders of the commission has been convicted to date for alleged involvement in criminal activities including human rights abuses.”
The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) “described Honduras in August 2016 as one of the “most hostile and dangerous countries for human rights defenders” in the Americas.”
“Twenty-five journalists were murdered between 2014 and 2016 according to the human rights ombudsman, CONADEH, which also revealed in its 2016 report that 91 percent of killings of journalists since 2001 remain unpunished. Most recently, journalist Carlos William Flores was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle in Cortes, near the Guatemalan border. Flores directed a television program, “Sin Pelos en la Lengua,” which was critical of major agribusiness enterprises linked to deforestation in the area.”
“To date, eight men have been charged with the murder in March 2016 of environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres, including an army major and the former environment manager of Desarrollo Energético S.A. (DESA), the company behind the Agua Zarca dam project that Cáceres was campaigning against at the time of her death.”
“At the behest of the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), Congress passed the Law on Clean Politics, which came into force in March 2017. The law created a framework to prevent organized crime from contributing to political campaigns and to hold parties and candidates accountable for financing their campaigns illegally. In July 2017, the MACCIH announced that it would investigate the funding and government concession granted to DESA for the Agua Zarca Dam project for possible corruption and money laundering.”
“For fiscal year 2017, the US Congress allotted US$95.3 million in bilateral aid to Honduras. Members of Congress reintroduced the “Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act” (H.R. 1299) on March 2, 2017. The bill would suspend US funding for the country’s police and military operations until the Honduras government prosecutes and convicts those who ordered and carried out the murder of Cáceres, in addition to other killings and attacks against other activists; investigate and prosecute members of military and police forces who have allegedly violated human rights; withdraw the military from domestic policing; establish effective protections for human rights defenders; and strengthen rule of law.”
“In May 2016, after prosecutors filed murder charges against an employee of DESA, the Dutch development bank, FMO, and the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation, Finnfund, announced they would suspend payments of their loans to the Agua Zarca Dam. In June 2017, both funders told the Guardian that they would withdraw completely from the Agua Zarca project. The third and largest investor in the project, the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (CABEI), also announced that it would no longer fund the project.”
Sorry for so much block quoting, but I’m hoping the moderator will agree that it provides a balanced view, in which the shit that has been going down is producing some appropriate high-level responses that seem good news. The struggle for law and order is clearly ongoing, however. Savagery and victimisation remain normal.
If I earn the average NZ wage (50K) and save 100% of that… I only have to work for two million two hundred and forty thousand years to catch up to Bezos.
Alternately, if two million two hundred and forty thousand average earners saved everything for a year we could collectively make a Bezos.
But if there were more than one Bezos in the market would value decline? Currently you can get 2.08 Zuckerbergs for a Bezos but that might change.
We could put GE to good use and clone Thiel as 44.8 Thiels make a Bezos. Nobody would care as nobody is buying Thiel, they’re all just gawkers.
While nobody outside the entertainment industry has been able to determine the value of a Trump he is made up of at least some Thiels, a smattering of Zuckerbergs, and a smearing of Bezos.
Think it was on RNZ this morning or yesterday I heard he again passed Gates to become world #1. A puzzle, that, given that Forbes reckons it happened March 2018. https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#1b05be35251c
It’s tough at the top: 121 dropped off the list “including all 10 Saudi Arabians.” Buffett at #3, Zuckerberg @5, Carlos Slim down to 7, Koch brothers 8&9, Ellison 10. Elon Musk #54, Rupert Murdoch #94. #148 is Graeme Hart. #190 George Soros. Trump also ran, #259. #388 Richard Branson.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that RNZ reported it had happened again. Forbes only ever rates them annually and I’m unaware of any other such rating of the wealthiest people that may have been their source. If they mentioned a source on the report, I missed that, and can’t find the report on their website…
There was an early 1980s TV series called Brass, with Timothy West and Barbara Ewing. I remember one lovely scene where West, as the landowning industrialist, was talking about how he could donate a hundred pounds to the poor in the town, and they would only get a few pence each. But if they each gave him a few pence, he would be substantially better off, and that’s why capitalism is better than socialism. Very funny show.
Another bit had a worker stuck two steps up a ladder on a very tall factory chimney he’d had to clean – he’d dealt with the fear of falling by saying it was mostly safe and “it were only ‘t last foot that killed thee”. When he came down again, he couldn’t overcome the mortal fear of descending that last foot 🙂
““it were only ‘t last foot that killed thee”
Yes McFlock. I remember that line well as the bloke confidently clambered down the ladder then froze with one rung to go. Very funny and a great metaphor for life and I use it to reassure my wife when she is boarding a plane. She is not amused.
Fuck. No. Just no. This is why we have health&safety.
Reminds me of stories from the foundries granddad worked in in the North, with men jumping from crucible to crucible to sweep the slag off. Apparently one guy fell in.
While Putin and his oligarch cronies have been busy stealing $Billions from the Russian people and squirreled it away in London banks, French villas, Miami condominiums and super yachts, 25% of Russians have yet to have access to an indoor toilet.
According to a new report by Russia’s state statistical agency, Rosstat, 35 million Russians live in houses or apartments without indoor toilets, 47 million do not have hot water, 29 million don’t have any running water inside their residences, and 22 million do not have central heating (ehorussia.com/new/node/17679).
In fact, only 62.7 percent of the Russian population has the usual accoutrements of modern existence – water in the house, plumbing, heating and gas or electric ranges, Rosstat says, a fact that must seem incredible to those who visit only Moscow or St. Petersburg but a fact of life for those who lives beyond the ring roads of the capitals.
Mozz and Ed won’t like this Joe, Putin Is a paragon of purity don’t you know, now those evil brits and yanks whole different story, just ask George “Purr” Galloway
Mind you, home ownership in Russia is around 84% and trending up , whereas the same in NZ is 64.58% and trending down
Rural areas of Russia surely could do with a few improvements, just as our housing
(leaky homes because of lax regulations, poverty in Northland, people living in garages and cars, slum landlordism)aint anything to crow about
Cue the knee jerk required whataboutism response
I lived with out electricity for 25 years, bucketed in water and longed for a flush toilet.
Ah, those days
Still haven’t got one, composting instead 2000 tiger worms do the job , outside on the veranda(in a separate room of course)
Free housing privatization began in Russia in 1992. Then they were allowed to issue ownership of apartments, rooms in dormitories and other residential premises located in the municipal, federal and departmental housing stock.
Pelin Ünker is one of more than 160 journalists and media workers imprisoned by Erdogan’s regime.
🔖 Yes, we‘re not scared, as journalists. But it doesn’t mean that we're so brave. How a doctor is supposed to look after a patient, journalists are obliged to look out for public interest.
I would like to thank everyone who provide support. Journalism is not a crime. 🎈
Turkish journalist Pelin Ünker has been sentenced to jail over the Paradise Papers investigation after being found to have defamed her nation’s former prime minister and two of his sons.
An Istanbul court sentenced the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ member to imprisonment for 13 months for “defamation and insult.”
Ünker, who reported that former prime minister Binali Yildirim and his sons owned companies in Malta in the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet, was also fined $US1615.
Prime minister from May 2016 to July 2018, Yildirim became speaker of Turkey’s Grand National Assembly after the post of Prime Minister was abolished.
Serious Fraud Office.
In the past As at 30 January 2015 the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had prosecuted company officers such as directors and accountants involved in eleven finance companies, securing convictions against twenty people for a range of offences against the Crimes Act and Securities Act.,,,
Between May 2006 and the end of 2012 there were sixty-seven finance company collapses in New Zealand; including companies entering into liquidation, receivership or moratoria.[1] An inquiry by the New Zealand Parliament estimated losses at over $3 billion that affected between 150,000 and 200,000 depositors.[2]
The most high-profile collapses were South Canterbury Finance, Hanover Finance and Bridgecorp Holdings. The collapse radically reduced the size and importance of the non-bank finance sector in New Zealand.
According to the Reserve Bank, at the height of financial expansion prior to the 2007 crisis, non-bank lenders had assets of about $25 billion and made up 8 percent of lending by financial institutions. By late 2013 the size of the finance sector was half its previous size and accounted for only 3 percent of institutional lending.[3] In the years following the beginning of the collapses, sweeping legislative and regulatory changes were made, aimed at improving oversight and regulation of the finance industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finance_company_collapses,_2006%E2%80%932012_(New_Zealand)
So NZ private business companies are well controlled now? Now – government funding is being investigated. https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/summerreport/audio/2018678014/sfo-warns-billions-of-public-funds-potentially-misused The chief executive of the financial crime investigation agency, Julie Read, said she expected up to 5 percent of government funding to be obtained or used fraudulently.
In the 2017 financial year, that would have been worth nearly $5 billion, from the Crown’s total expenditure of $99.8b….
Citing the Auckland Transport case, where former employees were convicted for accepting more than $1 million worth of bribes in 2016, Ms Read said some organisations overlooked checks and balances when receiving or allocating
funds.
Kate Newton , Senior Journalist, In Depth
@katenewtonnz kate.newton@radionz.co.nz
Axed over the Christmas break, told to be out by lunchtime after 50 years’ loyalty – this is redundancy in New Zealand, where there’s no mandatory notice period or compensation payments and little support for those searching for new work.
The laws aren’t formed for ordinary humans. Once you realise that politicians and civil servants aren’t working for us but a ‘higher power’ it cleanses the mind of all confusion. Everything then can be ironical and we realise we are having a mind melt when we start expecting normal.
“The U.S. has accused Kaspersky Lab of working with Russian spies. But sources say the company exposed a massive breach that U.S. authorities missed.
The 2016 arrest of a former National Security Agency contractor charged with a massive theft of classified data began with an unlikely source: a tip from a Russian cybersecurity firm that the U.S. government has called a threat to the country.”
Good story, eh? One for LP to do an expert evaluation of, I reckon. So much for the Democrat’s favourite spin-line: Russian hackers are the enemy. Evaporated!
“A Google search on the Twitter handle found someone using the same Hal999999999 username on a personal ad seeking female sex partners. The anonymous ad, on a site for people interested in bondage and sado-masochism, included a real picture of Martin and identified him as a 6-foot-4-inch 50-year-old male living in Annapolis, Md. A different search led them to a LinkedIn profile for Hal Martin, described as a researcher in Annapolis Junction and “technical advisor and investigator on offensive cyber issues.”
Seems safe to predict that this dude won’t go down as the cleverest spy in history. A strong contender for the title of dumbest. Bring back Blackadder.
So much for the Democrat’s favourite spin-line: Russian hackers are the enemy. Evaporated!
Huh? How does that follow?
Computer security companies, regardless where they are, are pretty much on the other side of the fence. Sure they tend to hire quite a lot of hackers – but usually after they want to or are forced to stop hacking for themselves, criminal gangs or intelligence services. For security companies, not hacking is the basis of their business. They just know a lot about ways that people can hack systems. They also usually have quite intrusive employment policies and employee contracts about what employees are allowed to do. Among other reasons that is so that they don’t have the security forces or hacker groups trying to penetrate their organisations. It is also why they have some pretty scary firewalls.
Kaspersky and the few other computer security research groups outside of the US are most notable because they aren’t as constrained by the legal gags that the US maintains on their resident security research groups. So they tend to report more of the day zero exploits that the US and other western security forces use. Just like you find that the US groups are pretty good at reporting on security holes in use by the Russian, Chinese, and North Korean hacker groups both government and ‘free lance’.
But having kasperky or any other security company helping to control exploits doesn’t mean fuck all about what the blackhat hackers from any of those places get up to. After all who in the hell would want more exploitable hacks available on the open market. It is bad for business.
“Huh? How does that follow?” I was just being flippant. It was a reference to the anti-Russian paranoia prevalent in Democrat attack-dog tactics nowadays. You know, how they try to revive Cold War thinking in order to position themselves as the responsible establishment party.
Because his focus was on the technical side? It’s his forté. But if he was too busy to read it fully & consider the implications, I hope he gets around to it later.
I’ve used Kaspersky on windows systems since some time in the 90s. Never had any issues with them and they’re a damn sight less less of a load on the systems than the other systems I’ve used. These days I use only use them for Android because I don’t use Windows for my personal systems any more – too much effort and there are better alternatives.
But like any bit of software that relies on network access for analysis and updates it is a security risk, exactly as is indicated in that article. I just don’t think that they are a particularly high one for me. Certainly I have never detected them doing anything dodgy when I have tested it.
Well, what’s your feeling about the implications of the exposé? As regards the general theory that the Russian regime is using hackers to subvert US democracy in general rather than just trying to ensure HC didn’t get elected, for instance? Do you think this company is being used by Putin? Perhaps just one or more employees, rather than management?
Sorry, think I confused myself there. Could they have done it to try to create the false impression that they operate independently of their govt, to create plausible deniability for Putin?
I see Lime scooters have had their license extended.
I have mixed thoughts on this.
We do need to get people out of their cars.
But are lime scooters the solution?
In “1996, when parliament was thrown into a post-election paralysis Winston Peters and NZ First, holding the balance of power, negotiated the first MMP government. “We had to go to work to be paid. But we weren’t allowed to do any work constitutionally, right?” Hooton says “right?” a lot, as a kind a rhetorical punctuation mark.”
“So it was great for the first couple of weeks you got to work about 10, office morning tea, out for a boozy lunch, back to the office at four to check out, right? But it got a bit much so I booked a one-way ticket to Mumbai. I backpacked through India and China and Mongolia and Sri Lanka for about a year and then ran out of money and went back for a year in Wellington to work for Lockwood, who [had become] trade minister.”
“His month in Mongolia came to a fruition of sorts more than two decades later. After a series of return visits, including to advise on the formation of the Mongolian Green Party and “to look at a mad idea to set up a sheep farm to supply the Saudi market”, he ended up appointed as Mongolia’s honorary consul in New Zealand.”
Yep. But No Collusion!
Here is a timeline of Manafort’s involvement – as we know so far:
Consider the timeline of some key events below.
It shows that the email hacks paralleled Manafort’s increased responsibility on the campaign.
But even as Russia’s operation to release dirt on Hillary was proceeding (and Russians were reaching out to George Papadopoulos to dangle emails as well), Michael Cohen was negotiating a Trump Tower deal, via Felix Sater, which was premised on a meeting between him — and then later, Trump — and Vladimir Putin. On June 9 — the same day that Don Jr told Aras Agalarov’s representatives that the Trumps would revisit sanctions if Trump was elected — Cohen even started to book his travel for that meeting. He canceled those plans, however, on the same day Russia’s role in hacking the DNC became public.
But two key figures in the operation did meet at the St. Petersburg Forum: Deripaska and Millian. And Millian would pick up the Trump Tower deal after the RNC Convention, laundering it, at that point, through a junior staffer who had proven to be a useful go-between for the Russians.
We don’t know whether Deripaska, whom Steele was pitching as a viable partner to counter Russian organized crime, was a source for Steele’s dossier. We do know that Manafort is the one who pushed Trump to discredit the Russian investigation by attacking the dossier.
Timeline
January 12, 2016: Steele writes Bruce Ohr to say Oleg Deripaska may obtain a visa for later that year
January 20: Michael Cohen speaks with Dmitry Peskov’s personal assistant for 20 minutes about Trump Tower deal
January 21: Putin’s office contacts Felix Sater about Trump Tower deal
February 21: Steele sends Ohr Orbis reporting claiming Deripaska was not a tool of the Kremlin
February 29: Manafort drafts proposal to work for “free” for Trump
March 19: GRU hacks John Podesta
March 29: After the intervention of Roger Stone and Tom Barrack, Manafort joins the Trump campaign, initially only as Convention Chair
April: Manafort asks Kilimnik,”How do we use to get whole?”
April 18: GRU hacks into DNC via DCCC
April 26: George Papadopoulos learns Russians are offering election assistance in form of leaked emails
April 27: In first foreign policy speech Papadopoulos includes signal to Russians to meet
May 4: Cohen tells Sater he’ll do a trip to Russia before the Convention; Trump will do one after
May 5: Sater passes on Peskov invite to Cohen to attend St. Petersburg Forum to meet Putin or Medvedev
May 19: Manafort formally named campaign chair
May 21: Manafort forwards request for Trump meeting to Rick Gates, warning against sending a signal
June 3: Rob Golstone starts arranging meeting with Don Jr.
June 7: Manafort meets with Trump and Trump announces he’ll have an announcement about Hillary
June 8: GRU releases first emails via dcleaks
June 9: Trump Tower meeting presents dirt for sanctions relief; Cohen makes plans for trip to St. Petersburg Forum
June 14: WaPo reveals Russia hacked DNC; Cohen cancels plan for St. Petersburg trip
June 15: Guccifer 2.0 created
June 16-19: St. Petersburg forum (Putin does attend)
June 20: First Steele report, allegedly relying on Millian as one source
July 7: Manafort tells Kilimnik he’s willing to provide Deripaska private briefings; Ohr call with Steele about Deripaska
Week of July 15: Trump campaign prevents change making platform more belligerent to Ukraine
July 21: Sater visits Trump Tower
July 22: George Papadopoulos asks Ivan Timofeev to help prep for a meeting with Sergei Millian; Millian would eventually pitch Papadopoulos on Trump Tower Moscow deal
August 3: Manafort and Kilimnik meet in New York
August 17: Manafort fired from campaign
August: Manafort and Tom Barrack take boat trip, meet Kilimnik
October 18: Steele and Ohr discuss dispute between Ukraine and RUSAL
January 11 or 12, 2017: Manafort contacts Reince Priebus to tell him how to use the Steele dossier to discredit Russian investigation (remember, Manafort insists he didn’t lie about meeting with Trump officials, because those meetings happened before inauguration)
January 27: Papadopoulos agrees to meet FBI without a lawyer, in part in hopes of sustaining possibility of a job with Trump Admin and possibly a deal with Millian
January or February 2017: Manafort meets Kilimnik in Madrid.
George, a Hawaiian tree snail—and the last known member of the species Achatinella apexfulva—died on New Year’s Day. He was 14, which is quite old for a snail of his kind.
George was born in a captive breeding facility at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in the early 2000s, and soon after, the rest of his kin died. That’s when he got his name—after Lonesome George, the Pinta Island tortoise who was also the last of his kind.
For over a decade, researchers searched in vain for another member of the species for George to mate with, to no avail. (Though these snails are hermaphrodites, two adults must mate to produce offspring, and researchers refer to George as a “he.”)
[…]
About a decade ago, it was commonly believed that over 90 percent of Hawaii’s snail species were gone. Researchers have re-discovered dozens of species that they thought were extinct, however, and found several new species.
The snails that remain in Hawaii are in serious trouble, though. Most are only found on a single ridge or valley, and in recent years, declines have accelerated as introduced predators have started invading their last refuges.
“We’ve had populations that have been monitored for over a decade, and they seemed stable… then, within the past two years they’ve completely disappeared,” says Sischo. “We’ve all broken down and cried in the field.”
These snails are likely to go extinct within months or a few years, Sischo says, unless they’re protected in the wild or brought into the lab.
Here you go shonkys & his main man steven joyce turned a state department into a decitfull orgianization . These people use websites to bait promises a deal thats to good to be true rope people into breaking the LAW set them up and nab them for a crime that was instigated by the state next minute BUSTED The person setting up broke desprate people do not care they are stuffing up a inercint sole life why because they will get a bonus for every person they nab .
Government to question MBIE over fake persona training
4:54 pm on 9 January 2019
The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is being summoned to the Beehive for a ‘please explain’ over a training course in using fake online personas to gather intelligence
MBIE signed a contract with Wellington based consultancy ZX Security in December 2017 that has been published on the Ministry’s website and outlines the details of the social media training course.
“The service provider will deliver an advanced social media training course to Ministry using false personas on social media for verification and investigation purposes,” the contract says.
Ministry staff have received training on how to spot a fake profile, maintain multiple identities using “techniques for creating a backstop (history) for your online personas”, and send and receive anonymous text messages and emails.
The contract also offered optional training modules, including automated harvesting, image metadata analysis, and creating a dossier.
To date, no MBIE staff had done the extra modules.
“During this workshop the attendees will use the skills gained during the course to create a detailed dossier on a group or individual,” the contract says. Ka kite ano links below. P.S The sandflys do that all the time baiting poor people
Oceans
Warming oceans likely to raise sea levels 30cm by end of century – study
Seawater temperature is rising faster than predicted, which is likely to worsen extreme weather events around the world
The world’s oceans are warming at a faster rate than previously estimated, new research has found, raising fresh concerns over the rapid progress of climate change.
Warming oceans take up more space, a process known as thermal expansion, which the study says is likely to raise sea levels by about 30cm by the end of the century, on top of the rise in sea levels from melting ice and glaciers. Warmer oceans are also a major factor in increasing the severity of storms, hurricanes and extreme rainfall.
Rising sea levels will claim homes around English coast, report warns
Read more
Oceans store heat so effectively that it would take decades for them to cool down, even in the unlikely scenario that greenhouse gas emissions were halted urgently.
The report, published on Thursday in the journal Science, found that the warming of the oceans was accelerating and was matching the predictions of climate change models, which have shown global temperature rises are likely to lead to extreme weather across the world
The new Science paper analysed four studies published between 2014 and 2017, which corrected for discrepancies between different types of ocean temperature measurements and gaps in measurements.
Satellite monitoring, buoys and ships are all used to gather data on the effect of climate change on the oceans. In the past decade, a network of 4,000 buoys known as Argo has provided an unprecedented data set on the temperature, salinity and acidification of oceans.
By taking the four studies, with different methodologies, into consideration the authors of the new analysis were able to build a fuller picture than was previously possible, with calculations extrapolated back to the 1970s. Ka kite ano links below.
P.S we can not wait for the POLLIES to do the correct thing we must make changes for the better future for the grandchildren
The whole world can see he has cheated his way into the White House he did not even belevie he won on the night of Amercian President election his mouth was that wide open one could have driven a bus through it.
Washington (CNN)As special counsel Robert Mueller wraps up his Russia probe, investigators have focused on conflicting public statements by President Donald Trump and his team that could be seen as an effort to influence witnesses and obstruct justice, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The line of questioning adds to indications that Mueller views false or misleading statements to the press or to the public as obstruction of justice. That could set up a potential flashpoint with the White House and the Trump legal team should that become part of any final report from the Mueller investigation.
Mueller hasn’t addressed the issue publicly, but prosecutors have dropped hints that they view public statements as possibly key in influencing witnesses.
Court filings from the plea of Michael Cohen, the President’s former personal lawyer, included allegations related to false public statements — not usually considered illegal since they aren’t made directly to investigators. A December sentencing memo filed by Mueller’s office notes that Cohen’s lies were amplified in public statements, “including to other potential witnesses.” The memo said this was done partly “in the hopes of limiting the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election — an issue of heightened national interest.”
That includes the President’s role in crafting the misleading Air Force One statement in the summer of 2017 on the now infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians attended by Donald Trump Jr., the President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Another episode centers on Trump’s attempt to have his then-White House counsel Don McGahn disavow articles reporting that McGahn threatened to quit over Trump’s pressure to fire Mueller, according to one source familiar with the matter. McGahn refused to publicly say that the stories were false, which prompted more anger from the President.
The President publicly has said he wouldn’t fire Mueller and hadn’t thought about it, which other witnesses have told Mueller’s investigators isn’t true. Ana to kai Ka kite ano links below.
Kia ora Newshub it’s not on those people throwing a kitten out of a moving car window. The USA government department shut down is trump game
I’m a organ donner I say it’s a good thing. Ikea store will bring more competition to the Aotearoa retail market.
Its cool people are donating a lot more second hand goods this year that’s the Kiwi spirit give to the needy.
A warming Tangaroas is hard on the wild sea creature and caged fish can not find cooler water and they can easily die. That’s a cool set of glasses for the blind people helping them navigate surrounding with voice and computer tech Emma the new tech is booming Ka pai.
Sir Ernest Shackleton picked up supplies from Dunedin Aotearoa the old wooden beer being restored in Antarctic is cool Ka kite ano.
Generation Zero is trying to change the climate in a corner with the Labor Party and the Green Party and, on the other hand, the national one. We want to move towards climate change outside the biased policy to provide stability in this …
Todd Muller and the National Party have to be examined.
When the national government was, Kennedy Graham on behalf of the Green Party organized a conference of all parties on climate change in parliament, which boycotted the Jatiya Party and the law deliberately and actively. Not a single member of parliament or representative.
Tā’i, hyām̐, āmāra jagatē, yē kē’u punarbibēcanāra ēbaṁ jōrapūrbaka śramakē samarthana karē, sēṭi āsalē ēkaṭi durbala pañcāśa.
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314/5000
I’ve spent a few days just a man who believes that this is his 84th Christmas. But he was sent to labor camp because he was the only survivor of an extended family of kulak, he was guessing.
So, yes, in my world, anyone who supports reconsideration and forced labor, is actually a weak fifty.
Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a 2010 SAS killing raid in Afghanistan. The most recent Colmar Brunton ...
In New Zealand, we've just had the report of the Hit and Run inquiry, which found that a New Zealand led raid had accidentally killed civilians, including a child. meanwhile, around the same time, the British SAS was conducting its own raids in Afghanistan, and theirs were a hell of ...
In addition to establishing a process for setting emissions reductions plans, the Zero Carbon Act established a process for managing the risks of climate change. The first part of this is the preparation of regular risk assessments, looking at the risks to our economy, society, environment, and ecology. The first ...
Over on The spinoff, Amnesty International's Meg de Ronde has a response to Friday's release of the Hit and Run report. And in response to Attorney-General David Parker's claim that the government was being "transparent" by releasing the report, its titled "we shouldn’t have to work this hard to get ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study FindsAs climate change raises sea levels, storm surges and high tides will ...
There's an election next month, so you'd be expecting political parties to be telling us what they stand for and what they'd do if they'd win. But while the Greens have given us a detailed policy platform, and National has talked about roads and austerity, Labour, currently leading the polls ...
"Who's youse accusin' of innference?" Without the timely intervention of a team of top American political consultants and campaign experts, Boris Yeltsin would never have won his second term as President of the Russian Federation. The Russians waited 20 years to return the favour.WHEN IT COMES to the disinformation game, ...
As polling day in the American presidential election draws closer, things are looking bad for Donald Trump. The polls show that he is tracking well behind his Democrat rival. Most people assume that the President will be striving might and main to avoid what looks increasingly likely to be a ...
Our health professionals do an amazing job. Image credit: Wikipedia – Cardiac surgery. Finally, I have got back to these rankings. A long period in hospital and computer problems meant the June 2020 rankings were abandoned. Now, with a new personal defibrillator implanted in my chest and a new hard ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 26 through Sat, Aug 1, 2020Editor's ChoiceThe four types of climate denier, and why you should ignore them allThe shill, the grifter, the egomaniac and the ideological ...
Over the last few days, reports have emerged of people travelling from New Zealand and testing positive for Covid-19 upon arrival at their destination. First in South Korea and now in Australia. What might these positive tests mean?They’re false-positives As Toby Morris and I have explained before, there are ...
Former National Minister - Wayne MappYou could tell that the Hit and Run book by investigative journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson was right on the money by the way former National Party Minister of Defence, Wayne Mapp, reacted to its now largely vindicated claims.Even though the recent inquiry into ...
So, the Hit and Run inquiry has reported back, and found some appalling shit at NZDF and NZSIS. And while they quibble a few of the details - the name of a dead child - they basicly uphold Hager and Stephenson's version of events. The SAS went to those villages. ...
We are failing to think though the interdependencies in an economy. We miss economist Bryan Philpott (1921-2000). I miss him personally – we used to have such great discussions – but this column is about how the nation misses his economic experience and wisdom. We tend to ...
Michelle Boag - LeakerThe Heron report (PDF) was released yesterday, and it was a bit disappointing to say the least. It correctly found that former National Party president Michelle Boag and National Party MP Hamish Walker were politically motivated in leaking peoples private medical information, but didn’t look further into ...
On different trajectories and from different ends of the political spectrum, last night’s One News/Colmar Brunton poll has the Green Party and ACT converging around the five percent mark. And, as odd as it may sound, they head into the election campaign with a lot in common.Putting the Greens and ...
Truth In Advertising: Labour, it would seem, is the party that knows nothing about running the economy right up until the moment that it does. HOW DID LABOUR acquire its reputation for being a poor economic manager? As with most things political and historical, it’s a long story.In the beginning, the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Government rulemakers looking to decide how much money to spend to avoid adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere need a good estimate of what a warming climate will cost in social damages, for example through more extreme weather events. That point makes ...
Fact Check: New Zealand’s own relationship with China might, however, be salvageable if our own Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was willing to equip its minister, Winston Peters, with a few facts. Legislating for the protection of national security – the very action our Foreign Minister is decrying – ...
I hope we can all agree that charging only certain returning expats for isolation costs is the right call. Instead of a blanket fee, which may have resulted in a small number of Kiwis deciding not to return home because of financial reasons, the Government has chosen to implement a ...
Back at the beginning of this government, the Greens made a foolish decision to support the Electoral Integrity Act - demanded by Winston Peters to keep his own backbench in line as part of his coalition deal with Labour - as an act of good faith within the coalition. It ...
SATURDAY AUGUST 1Artefact (Prime, 7.30pm). The series presented by Dame Anne Salmond screened on Māori Television, but is totally worth revisiting if you saw it the first time. Dame Anne tells the stories of taonga that highlight the history of Aotearoa. Further reading: this 2013 interview with Dame Anne by the lovely ...
Have unions and the Government sold workers short with their attempt at fixing the so-called “Hobbit Law”? Unionist Ian Powell argues that the union movement has been outmanoeuvered, and the Government has agreed to a new piece of anti-worker legislation that retains the principles of the previous National Government’s hated ...
Most of the claims made by anti-fluoride propagandists are simply wrong. Image source:Fluoridation and the ‘sciency’ facts of critics Anti-fluoride propagandists continually cite studies from areas of endemic fluorosis in their arguments against ...
An article in the EETimes suggests that advances in autonomous vehicles are not moving as quickly as expected because those working on them have confused complicated problems with complex ones. Engineering can only take you so far in complex worlds. Complicated systems tend to have fairly predictable inputs, processes and outputs. Complex systems (like ...
Last week, after Judith Collins announced that National would be cruel and vicious to kiwis caught overseas by the pandemic, and rob them at the border if they returned home, Labour looked like it was falling all over itself to cry "me too". But now, it looks like kindness has ...
If entry into New Zealand from abroad is safe, it should be allowed. People arriving from places that are Covid-free, or no more risky than New Zealand, and who get here on flights that do not intersect with risky places, should return to normal travel arrangements. Currently, the Cook ...
Liz SlootenScientists from the University of Otago, working with colleagues from around the world, have found that New Zealand right whales are doing much better than right whales in other parts of the world. The research was published as the feature article in the journal Marine Ecology Progress ...
Back in 2019, the government asked for a comprehensive, independent review of the Resource Management Act and associated legislation. That review has now reported back and recommended a complete repeal and re-enactment. Despite the headlines, this is not a "scrapping" - we're still going to have a resource management law, ...
By Associate Professor Mik Black, Department of Biochemistry, University of OtagoThe increased availability of complex biological data sets means that analysis and computation are becoming critically important skills for New Zealand’s future scientists. Because of this, we need to be doing everything we can to help our students develop ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzIs humanity doomed? If in 2030 we have not reduced ...
Britain's spy agencies are supposedly overseen by various watchdogs, including the investigatory powers tribunal. But it turns out that MI6 at least has contempt for those watchdogs, and attempted to interfere with the operations of the tribunal by concealing evidence from its judges: MI6 has been accused of “inappropriate interference” ...
Daphna Whitmore So far this year over 7.4 million people have died from preventable communicable diseases. There were 4.3 million children who died under the age of five. Nearly one million people have died of HIV/AIDS in the past six months. A similar number of people have died from malaria ...
Four weeks ago I wrote about the last time a sizable asteroid hit our planet – the ‘Tunguska Event’ of 1908, when an object about 50 metres across exploded above the Siberian taiga – but smaller cosmic rocks shoot close by Earth fairly frequently. In the past 42 hours ...
Last month, China imposed a new "national security law" on Hong Kong. The law imposes a penalty of life imprisonment for secession, subversion, and "colluding with foreign forces" - which basicly means peacefully advocating for democracy or independence. It has been used to crush peaceful protests and interpreted by the ...
Powerful Connection: Neoliberalism is the antithesis of everything that has traditionally been associated with the feminine aspects of human nature. Kindness and compassion, nurturance and inclusiveness: such qualities have no place in the neoliberal order. When Jacinda proclaimed her determination to practice the “politics of kindness”, she was, wittingly or ...
The bad news: Jacinda Ardern still wants to bill exiled kiwis for returning home. The good news: it would require a law change, which the Greens won't back, so she'll need to go grovelling to National. The other good news: she's running out of time to do it. This ...
. . For the mainstream media, today (22 July) was even a better day than yesterday. More Sex. More Politics. More Sex AND Politics. Yesterday, the msm dealt with Andrew Falloon. The obscure backbench MP had been found to have sent pornographic images to at least four women. The woman’s ...
If you want to understand what is happening in this year’s election campaign, it’s worth looking to the past for guidance. Colin James delves into recent contests and finds some interesting parallels. July 28 is 53 days before the 2020 election. Just 53 days before the 2017 election ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters Wildfires burned much less acreage in the U.S. than average during the first half of the year, but with hot and dry conditions expected over much of the nation in the coming months, fire activity is likely to ramp up. ...
Today a full bench of the High Court is hearing Andrew Borrowdale's challenge to the legality of the COVID-19 lockdown. That lockdown ended two months ago, so the point seems moot - but it was never about ending it. Instead, as Andrew Geddis points out, its about a key principle ...
So far, this has been a relatively policy-free election campaign. The government has been trying to keep a low profile, on the basis that anything they say will only piss someone off, so better to say as little as possible. When its not knifing its leader, National has promised roads, ...
I hardly ever comment on polls, because horse-race politics is superficial and boring and most changes are statistically meaningless and so unworthy of attention (let alone the excitement they provoke amongst mathematically illiterate political journalists desperate to fill airtime). But we've now had two polls in a row showing Labour ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on its inquiry into the operation of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020. As you'd expect, they find that the law was "necessary and appropriate", but would like to see a permanent replacement providing for health emergency powers as the Health ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... John Cook in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Major new climate study rules out less severe global warming scenariosAn analysis finds the most ...
It hasn’t taken long for the advent of Judith Collins as National party leader to change the tone of the political debate. After several days of headlines and airwaves dominated by reports of a National MP sending pornographic images to young women, the National leader had had enough of that ...
Don Franks An already fired up general election looks like getting even edgier. When final votes have been counted, a rather unlikely coalition government now seems possible As National and Labour implode with sexual proclivities while New Zealand First fling their last toys from the cot, others show more maturity. ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, July 19 through Sat, July 25, 2020Editor's ChoiceThe Climate Expert Who Delivered News No One Wanted to Hear From 2009: How a scientist known as the “father of global ...
There’s ultimately two key narratives overall that are seeking to take front row in order to reshape the world as a whole going forward from the COVID pandemic. The first is a very desperate attempt to reimpose “a return” to what is perceived as “the old normal”, quite impossible. ...
Henry Anderson-Elliott, University of CambridgeOn the morning of August 31 2017, I didn’t meet a remarkable polar bear. It was my third week of fieldwork-based out of Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, studying the conservation of the bears on the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Having spent a few days transcribing interviews in ...
SUNDAY JULY 26Country Calendar (TVNZ 1, 7.00pm). Tonight, kiwifruit growing in the King Country. Crazy!Normal People (TVNZ 1, 10.30pm). Holy cow, if you thought it was slow on a binge-watch, imagine what it's like in weekly doses. Nevertheless, it's like Richard Linklater's Boyhood – you don't really see the scope of ...
. . “The Martians had no resistance to the bacteria in our atmosphere to which we have long since become immune. Once they had breathed our air, germs, which no longer affect us, began to kill them. The end came swiftly. All over the world, their machines began to stop ...
In October 2018, Sealord's fishing boat Ocean Dawn repeatedly bottom-trawled in a Benthic Protection Area on the Chatham Rise. It was a crime which devastated a pristine marine environment. And today, they've been properly punished for it: Sealord has today been ordered to forfeit a $24 million fishing vessel for ...
Jovan Byford, The Open UniversityWith prospects of a COVID-19 vaccine looking up, attention is also turning to the problem of anti-vax ideas. According to a recent survey, one in six Britons would refuse a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. Although vaccine hesitancy is a complex problem with ...
Paula Koelemeijer, Royal Holloway and Stephen Hicks, Imperial College LondonSeismic activity doesn’t just come from earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides. Everyday human activity also gives rise to vibrations that travel through the ground as seismic waves, something we call “anthropogenic noise”. When pandemic lockdown measures brought daily life to a ...
Last night, the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2020 was passed unanimously by Parliament. The Act updates the 1972 Equal Pay Act to create a bargaining framework for equal pay claims and hopefully avoid the need to take them to court. It doesn't go far enough - there's no pay transparency ...
The New Zealand government has done the right thing and granted journalist Behrouz Boochani refugee status: Eight months after arriving in New Zealand, acclaimed author Behrouz Boochani has been granted refugee status. The Kurdish-Iranian writer joins a small group of successful applicants – with almost two thirds of asylum ...
Carve-Up: 120 years after the Eight-Power Intervention of 1900 the racist assumptions of the Western powers vis-à-vis China have hardly changed at all. They still arrogate to themselves the right to dispose of the future of the Chinese people as they see fit. There remains the same racist assumption that ...
Both Labour and National are talking about requiring people arriving in New Zealand to pay $3,000 of the cost of the mandatory managed isolation/quarantine period. The policy has been criticised as “shameful”. There are petitions against it. I have some concerns about the politics behind the proposal, but I’m neither ...
Auckland Philippines Solidarity and Migrante Aotearoa are jointly holding a rally to speak up for human rights in the Philippines. The human rights situation in the Philippines has deteriorated significantly since President Duterte came to power in 2016. As many as 27,000 people have been killed in police operations during ...
Just where in the economic spectrum does the current National Party stand? In government, a political party is so busy it rarely has time to have a political ideology (neoliberals and communists excepted). Most policy is driven by necessity, instinct (which, I suppose, is a kind of ideology) ...
Together, Not Apart: In political terms, 2020 represents the exact reverse of 1984. Then, the tide was running with the challengers. Now, it is running with the incumbents. If Labour and the Greens can plausibly guarantee to keep us working and keep us safe, then traditional demographic voting patterns will ...
Hosted by Selwyn Manning and EveningReport.nz, ” A View from Afar” is a podcast series dedicated to exploring current affairs, international relations, political events and military-security issues from somewhat uncommon angles. In this first episode we continue the coverage of the Portland protests first offered on these pages. The conversation ...
A ballot for five Member's Bills was held today and the following bills were drawn: Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill (No 2) (Shane Reti) Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill (Louisa Wall) Lawyers and Conveyancers (Employed Lawyers Providing Free Legal Services) Amendment Bill ...
A farmer in Te Anau has slashed and burned 800 hectares of native forest: A Te Anau farmer accused of slashing and burning down 800 hectares of native forest in two years has been served with an interim court order to stop. Southland District Council says Peter Chartres caused ...
WELLINGTON – Thursday July 23, 2020 Good morning everybody. I’m the latest leader of the National Party. It’s me! Judith Collins. There has been a lot said over the past week month few months years about the culture within the National Party. Today I would like to clear a few ...
Last night, the New Plymouth District Council approved the creation of a Māori ward to ensure that Māori would have a voice in their local government. Its the second time they've tried to do this - an earlier attempt in 2015 was overturned by a racist referendum. And predictably, there ...
Investing in our people, backing businesses, and upgrading infrastructure and housing throughout the country - it's been another week of progress for New Zealanders as we deliver our plan to recover and rebuild. ...
July was another busy month, packed with key investments aimed at progressing our economic recovery as we rebuild New Zealand. We extended support for businesses, helped create jobs through local infrastructure projects, and kept working to clean up our waterways so Kiwis can access safe clean water. Check out the ...
The Green Party is calling for the Defence Force Chiefs in place between 2010-2017 to front up and explain how dishonesty, process and policy failures within the Defence Force led to ‘a series of incorrect statements in briefings to ministers and public releases’ regarding alleged breaches of international torture prevention ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
Thanks to our strong health response, New Zealand’s economy is more open than many other countries. But as COVID continues to surge around the world, the economic consequences of the virus will continue to be a challenge, which is why we have a detailed plan to help New Zealand bounce ...
The Green Party are ensuring that New Zealanders who were overseas when COVID-19 hit will not be charged for the cost of isolation or quarantine if they return home to live. ...
It's been another week of creating jobs, supporting local businesses, and investing in infrastructure up and down the country - all of which are helping to keep our economy moving post-COVID-19. ...
The Green Party have secured legislative amendments in a bill expected to pass third reading this week, to ensure better rules for school teachers and staff, so they can de-escalate children with diverse needs and cognitive differences, such as autism, rather than using unnecessary and often traumatising force. ...
New Zealand needs to be more aggressive in pursuing economic opportunities and resist the short-term thinking affecting some of its major industry, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says.Mr Peters told Wellington Chamber of Commerce members this morning that the planned closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter will have ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has ridiculed the National Party "circus", with the politician saying it was in "chaos" after the resignation of another MP.Rangitata MP Andrew Falloon announced on Monday he would retire from politics after he allegedly sent inappropriate pornographic images to a young woman. Following a ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters today outlined what he saw as the requirements to re-open New Zealand's borders for tourists and travellers. If New Zealand was dealing solely with an Australian state such as Tasmania, we wouldn't need a vaccine, said Mr Peters, but these moves were complicated by the ...
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters appears to have prompted last-minute alterations to proposed legislation for commercial landlords and their tenants. Mr Peters told reporters on Wednesday said that he was making sure the proposed bill was in step with what the parties had actually agreed to. He said he ...
Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprise and New Zealand First List MP Shane Jones attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new NZ Post "super depot" in Wellington. The state-owned postal service, which got $280 million from the Coalition Government last month, is expanding its operations to handle surging parcel volumes. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First CHECK AGAINST DELIVERYIntroduction Good afternoon. Welcome to you all here today and party supporters watching from around the country. We appreciate your hard work keeping New Zealand First strong; thank you for keeping the faith. Sixty-three days out from Election Day, ...
The diversity of conservation boards around Aotearoa is increasing with 47 appointments to 14 of the 15 conservation boards across New Zealand announced today by the Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage. ...
The Green Party is honoured to be remembering former co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons today at a public memorial service in the heart of Wellington at the Cathedral of St. Paul’s. Following her passing in March, this celebration of her life brings together her friends, family and colleagues to honour her life ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has announced a $2.5 million boost for South Westland to help a regional alliance of local businesses and government agencies provide nature based jobs. ...
Investing in infrastructure is one major way we can create jobs, stimulate the economy, and keep New Zealand moving post COVID-19. That's why this week we rolled out a massive number of infrastructure announcements - in Tairāwhiti, Wairarapa, Otago, Southland and more! ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters says the National Party’s Auckland Transport announcement today is a breath-taking plan on the never never. While it is promising to see that National all of a sudden has rediscovered railways in Auckland, including trains ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP A range of projects announced by the Hon Shane Jones in Southland and Otago will build communities and create jobs, according to New Zealand First List MP Mark Patterson. The town of Gore received funding to build a new public library and ...
News that Rio Tinto has announced that it is planning to wind-down operations at the Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter could not have a come at a worse time for the people of Southland. While it has been clear that Rio Tinto was never going to support Southlanders over the long haul, ...
Whenua/land, roto/lakes and awa/rivers in the central North Island will benefit from increased habitat protection with new biosecurity investment across iwi and Crown-managed lands and lakes announced Conservation and Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage in Rotorua today. ...
As part of a broader plan to reduce the increasing amount of rubbish ending up in New Zealand’s landfills, the Government is to fund new recycling infrastructure and expand the national waste levy scheme.$124 million Government investment in recycling infrastructurePlans confirmed to increase and expand the waste ...
The Government is providing an investment totalling more than $100 million for regions to protect against and mitigate the effects of climate change, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones have announced. Six regions will receive funding from the $3 billion allocated to infrastructure projects from the ...
Three major local projects at Te Kuiti and Otorohanga have been given the money to get moving after the impact of Covid 19, says the Minister of Māori Development Hon Nanaia Mahuta. The projects range from a Sports Centre for Te Kuiti, a redevelopment of the Otorohanga Kiwi House and ...
The Coalition Government has extended three New Zealand Defence Force deployments to the Middle East and Africa by two years, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “These deployments promote peace in the Middle East and Africa by protecting civilians and countering the spread of ...
The release of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment shows that the progress this Government has made to solve the climate crisis is essential to creating cleaner and safer communities across New Zealand. “Because of this report, we can see clearer than ever that the action our Government is taking ...
The second round of the Community Resilience Fund is now open for applications for sport and recreation organisations experiencing financial hardship between 1 July and 30 September 2020. “The fund opens today for five weeks – closing on September 6. The amount awarded will be decided on a case-by-case basis ...
Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today declared Rakitū Island, off the coast of Aotea/Great Barrier Island, predator free. “I’m delighted to announce that with rats now gone, Rakitū is officially predator free. This is a major milestone because Rakitū is the last DOC administered island in the Hauraki Gulf Marine ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.75 million to restore significant historic sites at Ōhaeawai in the Far North, upgrade marae and fund fencing and riparian planting. Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones made the announcements following a service at the historic St Michael’s Anglican Church at Ōhaeawai today. Just ...
The Chatham Islands will receive close to $40 million for projects that will improve its infrastructure, add to its attraction as a visitor destination, and create jobs through a planned aquaculture venture, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the islands, first ...
The Government is delivering more initiatives to reduce energy hardship and to give small electricity consumers a voice, Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods said today. “In addition to the initiatives we have already delivered to support New Zealand families, we are responding to the Electricity Price Review with further ...
Government, iwi, NGOs and rehabilitation groups are working together to turn around the fortunes of the nationally endangered hoiho/yellow-eyed penguin following a series of terrible breeding seasons. The Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage helped launch the Five Year Action Plan at the annual Yellow-Eyed Penguin symposium in Dunedin today. “I ...
The membership of the Tourism Futures Taskforce has now been confirmed, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis announced at an event at Whakarewarewa in Rotorua today. “The main purpose of the independent Tourism Futures Taskforce is to lead the thinking on the future of tourism in New Zealand,” Kelvin Davis said. Joining ...
More than $300 million in funding has been approved to protect strategic tourism businesses, drive domestic tourism through regional events and lift digital capability in the tourism industry, Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. A $400 million Tourism Recovery Package was announced at Budget 2020, and with today’s announcements is ...
From 2021 permits will be required for New Zealanders wanting to export hard-to-recycle plastic waste. The Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage, today announced the requirements as part of New Zealand’s commitments to the Basel Convention, an international agreement of more than 180 countries which was amended in May ...
The building and construction sector is still showing strong growth, with the number of new dwellings consented up more than 8 per cent compared to last year, reflecting a welcome confidence in the Government’s COVID-19 response package, Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa says. “While it is still too ...
Government investment of $23 million for Bay of Plenty flood protection will allow local communities to address long-standing flood risks and provide jobs, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced in Rotorua today. These projects are being funded by the Infrastructure Reference Group’s (IRG) shovel ...
Investment for projects that will create hundreds of jobs in Rotorua were announced today by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. These projects will provide opportunities for economic development in a region that has been hard hit by COVID-19,” Winston Peters said. Fletcher ...
For the first time, primary schools will have access to funding for counsellors for their students, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. “A major investment of $75.8 million will provide greater access to guidance counsellors to help primary and secondary school students deal with mental health and wellbeing issues,” ...
Defence Minister Ron Mark today welcomed the release of the Report of the Government Inquiry into Operation Burnham and related matters, and the Government response. “I thank the Inquiry for their thorough and detailed report, on a highly complex issue. I accept the recommendations of the report, and fully support ...
Forestry Minister Shane Jones has announced $6 million of One Billion Trees funding for seven regional initiatives to create jobs and provide long-lasting environmental and economic benefits. The projects range from improving one of the poorest-quality water catchments in Otago to restoring 52km of waterways around Hokianga Harbour. Six of the ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters today announced $5.5 million in funding from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) for two Kawerau projects and says this is a significant boost for the people of Kawerau. “These projects will bring much-needed investment and will create up to 60 jobs for locals,” Mr Peters ...
Kaingaroa Village in the Bay of Plenty is to get $5 million to help fund a comprehensive upgrade of its infrastructure, facilities and housing, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. Mr Tabuteau travelled to the remote village to make the announcement, telling Kaingaroa residents how the funding ...
The Rangiuru Business Park project near Te Puke is getting $18 million from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF), Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This is all about unlocking the potential of this region. When it’s finished, the Rangiuru Business Park will be the Bay of Plenty’s ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has today announced that a $26 million investment in Ōpōtiki will see important public amenities upgraded and further progress made on new aquaculture opportunities. “The people of Ōpōtiki have been waiting decades for real investment in key infrastructure, and support for the incredible aquaculture opportunities ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio wishes to congratulate the Cook Islands community throughout Aotearoa for the 9th year of Te ‘Epetoma o Te Reo Māori Kūki ‘Āirani, the Cook Islands Language Week. “This is a proud milestone that reflects on the huge effort made by the Cook ...
Aucklanders in the Eastern Suburbs will soon have more ways to get around, with Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter kicking off construction on Section 2 of Te Ara Ki Uta Ki Tai, the Glen Innes to Tāmaki Drive Shared Path today. The Glen Innes ...
The Government is stepping up the fight against measles and protecting hundreds of thousands more young adults by investing up to $40 million for a year-long measles-catch-up campaign and $23 million to fully fund and develop the National Immunisation Solution, Associate Minister of Health Julie Anne Genter announced at Mangere ...
Attorney-General David Parker has today released the findings of the Government inquiry held into Operation Burnham and related events. The operation took place on 21-22 August 2010 in Tirgiran Valley, Afghanistan, and was carried out by NZSAS troops and other nations’ forces operating as part of the International Security Assistance ...
From tomorrow, community groups around New Zealand can apply to a $36 million fund established to encourage locally-led solutions as communities rebuild and recover from COVID-19, announced Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni and Minister for Community and Voluntary Sector Poto Williams. “The Community Capability and Resilience Fund (CCRF) builds ...
The Government has committed to improving Māori health and wellbeing over the next five years. The Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health) today released Whakamaua: Māori Health Action Plan 2020-2025 which sets the pathway towards achieving healthy futures for all Māori. “As kaitiaki of the system, the Ministry of Health ...
New environmental standards will make the re-consenting of existing marine farms more consistent across the country. The new regulations for the National Environmental Standards for Marine Aquaculture (NES-MA) will come into effect on 1 December, Environment Minister David Parker and Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash said. “The NES-MA removes complexities and ...
Today marks a milestone as the Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni and Minister for Māori Development Nanaia Mahuta co-sign an Addendum – with the Iwi Chairs of Te Rarawa, Ngāi Takoto and Te Aupōuri – to the Te Hiku o Te Ika Iwi-Crown Social Development and Wellbeing Accord (the ...
The Veterans’ Support Amendment Bill (No 2) passed its third reading today and will become law, announced Minister for Veterans Ron Mark. This amends the Veterans’ Support Act 2014 in response to recommendations from the 2018 review of the operation of the Act by Professor Ron Paterson. “Veterans have been ...
Minister for Racing Winston Peters says race courses can improve safety with this year’s first round of funding from the Racing Safety Development Fund. The Racing Safety Development Fund makes available $990,000 for distribution over two funding rounds for the 2020/21 financial year. “The racing industry is integral to the ...
The Government’s commitment to increase primary sector jobs and opportunities has been further boosted today with the re-opening of the Taratahi Agriculture Centre, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The Wairarapa-based training centre is reopening its doors after two years to deliver industry taster and familiarisation courses, to help workers displaced ...
New Zealanders are being invited to help recognise the work of the many “unsung heroes” in our ethnic communities during COVID-19. “Aotearoa New Zealand is home to 920,000 people who identify their ethnicity as Middle Eastern, Latin American, African, Asian, and Continental European. During the extraordinary time of the COVID-19 ...
The Government is allocating $40 million to assist with the cost of mediation and arbitration for New Zealand businesses and landlords to resolve issues about adjusting rent as they face the economic impacts of COVID-19, Justice Minister Andrew Little said. The Government had previously announced funding to improve access to ...
The Government has announced details of a planned new law to give Police the power to conduct random roadside drug testing of drivers, Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter and Minister of Police Stuart Nash announced today. The Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill was introduced to the house today ...
More warmer, drier homes and a big building boost for regional centres across New Zealand are two of the major benefits from a $500 million investment in the upgrade and renewal of state homes. Associate Housing Minister Kris Faafoi has confirmed the multi-million dollar expansion of the Kāinga Ora – ...
The Government will provide $8 million towards the revitalisation of the Paihia waterfront in the iconic Bay of Islands, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Bay of Islands is the cornerstone of Northland tourism and Paihia the hub for maritime-based tourism and recreation in the area. “Weather and economic ...
Health Minister Chris Hipkins welcomes confirmation of Canterbury DHB’s move into state-of-the-art Christchurch Hospital Hagley building which will serve the community well for decades to come. The Ministry of Health is on track to hand over the facility on 10 August 2020. Sterile Services is due to be operational on ...
Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk Timor-Leste’s Journalist Association (AJTL) and journalism students marched through the streets of the capital Dili today calling on the government to scrap plans to change the law to make defamation a criminal offence. Under the proposed law journalists could face jail sentences. Opponents of the proposed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Household Finances, Grattan Institute The announcement of stage 4 restrictions in Victoria marks a new, and depressing, stage in Australia’s response to COVID-19. The new measures will close non-essential retailers and most child-care centres across Melbourne, and impose ...
China said on Monday it will suspend its extradition agreement with New Zealand in response to Wellington suspending its existing extradition treaty with Hong Kong, Reuters reports. ...
China said on Monday it will suspend its extradition agreement with New Zealand in response to Wellington suspending its existing extradition treaty with Hong Kong, Reuters reports. ...
On Saturday the man behind Game of Thrones hosted the ceremony for the prestigious Hugo Awards. Sam Brooks recaps. In a blog post just over a year ago, American writer George R.R. Martin said that New Zealand had “formal written permission” to jail him if he didn’t have The Winds of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Wood, Chief executive officer, Grattan Institute How do you occupy a child for long enough to get any work done? This will be the question confronting more than 150,000 Melbourne families for at least the next six weeks. The Stage 4 ...
China said on Monday it will suspend its extradition agreement with New Zealand in response to Wellington suspending its existing extradition treaty with Hong Kong, Reuters reports. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Non-essential retailers across Melbourne will be shut except for “click and collect” and delivery sales, and industries including meatworks and construction will be drastically scaled back, under Victoria’s unprecedented lockdown. The business shutdown details came ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Russo, Associate Professor, Director Cabrini Monash University Department of Nursing Research, Monash University Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced sweeping changes to businesses across metropolitan Melbourne, including closure of retail stores and restrictions on some industries, including construction. The new constraints ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan University In what seems to be a common occurrence, Chinese video-sharing app TikTok is once again in the headlines. After months of speculation about national security risks and users’ data being harvested by ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk Controversial Papua New Guinea citizen Joe Chan has been arrested in Malaysia – this time under the name Djoko Soegiarto Tjandra. And also this time as an Indonesian, a wanted and convicted fugitive and graft convict, reports the PNG Post-Courier. He has been on the run ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Can we trust New Zealand’s military? There must now be serious doubt, given the landmark report released on Friday concluding the investigation into allegations made in the book Hit and Run by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson about a ...
We need to crack on with building the systems and infrastructure necessary to be able to safely accommodate far more travellers than the system can currently handle. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Trigg, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of English Literature, University of Melbourne In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic. The Greeks are at the gates, and the city ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says there are plans to increase testing of staff at airports and isolation facilities and to equip GPs to ramp up testing. ...
What happens when New Zealand’s queen of K-Pop rallies a room full of kids to become homegrown popstars? You get TVNZ On Demand’s K-Pop Academy.Korean pop music – or “K-pop” – is, arguably, the biggest musical genre on the planet. BTS is its most famous name, but South Korea is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University Creative destruction “is the essential fact about capitalism”, wrote the great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. New technologies and processes continuously revolutionise the economic structure from within, “incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is condemning Kaikoura District Council and Tararua District Council for failing to identify earthquake-prone buildings , as required by law. Union spokesperson Louis Houlbrooke says, “These Councils broke the law ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) has welcomed today’s release of the first National Climate Change Risk Assessment , but say that unless it’s paired up with a framework that enables councils to act on the assessments, communities will be ...
With women leading both major parties and the highest number of female MPs (38%) since women were first allowed to stand for Parliament in 1919, it’s time that proper attention was paid to one of the most fatal of women’s cancers. ...
Taxpayer handouts to electric car buyers will not save the planet, says the car review website dogandlemon.com . Editor Clive Matthew-Wilson, who has studied electric cars for over a decade, says: “The lobby group Drive Electric , which wants the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, UNSW With Victorians heading into a new round of even harsher lockdown measures, there will again be a focus on how people will cope — the ...
Respected business journalist Rod Oram visits the Nelson region next week to give two talks on the opportunities that Covid-19 presents for New Zealand to tackle climate change, poverty and what he calls “other deeply systemic failures”. Oram has ...
Transparency and clear disclosure of actions and policies have been key to the COVID-19 response, Reserve Bank Head of Financial System Policy and Analysis Toby Fiennes said delivering a speech in Wellington today. Market discipline is one of the three ...
Latest from the Beehive- The tourist industry is the biggest beneficiary of government funding distributed as loans or grants from an array of programmes and pots in the past few days. The $311 million of funding involved has resulted in the $400 million Tourism Recovery Package being fully allocated. Invitations, ...
As Victoria locks down again over a second wave of Covid-19, Andrew Geddis looks at how New Zealand might respond should community transmission be again detected here Melbourne’s adoption of “stage 4” restrictions to combat its Covid-19 outbreak - stay-at-home orders, limited exercise time, a night-time curfew - are a timely warning to us here ...
A major new report has outlined the biggest and most pressing risks New Zealand faces from climate change, and they go well beyond the science of changing weather patterns. What’s all this then?One of the most dangerous and concerning aspects of climate change is the unpredictability of it all. Some ...
The country's first national climate change risk assessment has identified 10 significant areas that need to be urgently addressed by the government in the next six years. ...
The first ever National Climate Change Risk Assessment has found 'New Zealand’s climate is warming, sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe', Marc Daalder reports Over the next 70 years, wildfires and extreme storms will become more common in New Zealand, vast swathes ...
Time is running out to make voting easy in the 2020 General Election and referendums. About 500,000 eligible New Zealanders still haven’t enrolled to vote and half of them are under the age of 30. “Make voting easy this year by getting your enrolment ...
By Bryan Kramer, Papua New Guinea’s Minister of Police Assistant Commissioner Lesa Gale of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) staged a press conference to announce the arrest of five members of an Australian drug syndicate connected to the recent drug bust in PNG. This was a multi-agency operation that had ...
Announcing eight new episodes coming soon to The Spinoff and RNZ.Good news for people who love Bad News – Alice Snedden’s docu-comedy series tackling some of Aotearoa’s most contentious social and political issues is back for a second season.Like the first, which saw Alice go head-to-head with Don Brash in ...
One of the puzzling aspects of the global Coronavirus pandemic has been the absence of an international accord to grapple with the greatest challenge since the Second World War. After the global financial crisis of 2008-9, world leaders agreed to devise solutions – US presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama, ...
The Crazy Rich Asians author creates froth that may in fact be genius, says Sam Brooks. Kevin Kwan’s first novel Crazy Rich Asians had the kind of success every populist author dreams of. It became a beloved bestseller, which turned into a slightly less beloved trilogy, which then turned into ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Labour's economic plan is to focus on Covid recovery with investment in training and jobs, and that National's plan to reduce debt would mean $80 billion in cuts. ...
heTruly making a difference to New Zealanders’ mental health means addressing factors that go far beyond the health system’s remit. There’s a plan ready to go, writes Shaun Robinson of the Mental Health Foundation, and the next government must put it into action. “I need help.” That’s how many of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Celia Harris, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney University We are all living through a major historical event, a once-in-a-century pandemic that has radically changed how we work, learn, travel, socialise and spend our free time. But for many of us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Howard Manns, Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University Things are really jeffed up for Karens right now. The Miley (“coronavirus”) did a Melba (“made yet another a comeback”), and Joe and Jane Bloggs are being drongos. In the process, “Karen” has become the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Moore, Social Researcher, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania In his book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe writes that settler Australians wilfully misunderstood, hid and destroyed evidence of Aboriginal Australians’ farming practices. My analysis of secondary school textbooks shows this behaviour ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Grodach, Professor and Director of Urban Planning & Design, Monash University COVID-19 and the growing recession concentrated in the services sector will not just increase social inequality, but accelerate the growing spatial divide in our cities. As our new research report ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Glennda Scully, Professor, Curtin University The COVID-19 pandemic has driven a surge of calls to domestic violence support services, as survivors of violence spend more time at home with their abusers due to lockdowns and other restrictions. Many feel they can’t leave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carly Osborn, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Adelaide In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic. There is a genre of novel that I have relied upon for many ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 3, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news, politics and the Covid-19 crisis, updated throughout the day. Get in touch at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz7.45am: PM defends limited border chargesJacinda Ardern has defended the government’s decision to only charge Kiwis returning back into ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Exploring the rapid rise of Billy TK’s NZ Public Party, report finds senior military officers misled ministers over Operation Burnham, and Lake Taupō water monitoring to be led by iwi.Within the space of a few months, Billy Te Kahika Jr ...
There are four big decisions to get ready to make in this year's elections. As well as picking a preferred party and candidate, voters will vote on the End of Life Choice Bill and whether they support a bill which would legalise cannabis. Here are the basics on the Cannabis Legalisation and ...
The Health Ministry ticked off the aged care sector for restricting visitors to rest homes before the national lockdown. David Williams reports On March 17, the coronavirus outbreak was seemingly in its infancy – yet it was closer to pushing politicians into drastic action than many thought. Ministry of Health ...
As the cannabis referendum draws nearer, Finlay Macdonald takes note of a new book about New Zealand's attitude towards marijuana Like any number of New Zealanders, I have a rich store of anecdote about my personal relationship with weed. Youthful adventure, horticultural experimentation, bad cabbage, Thai sticks and close shaves ...
We are more comfortable than ever telling stories about intimate experiences in public, so why is miscarriage still such a taboo subject? I recall my mother telling me a story, many years ago, about losing a baby to miscarriage. She had experienced bleeding and been told by her doctor to go home, put ...
Whether in the boardroom, or behind the lens, Angela Ruske has played a crucial part in the Otago Nuggets' golden NBL basketball season. As the Otago Nuggets were on their way to grasping their first men's NBL title, Angela Ruske was trying to stay calm courtside by focusing through her camera lens. ...
When do we get a prime minister who looks like New Zealand, asks Laura O’Connell Rapira.I want a Māori prime minister. I want a trans Samoan deputy prime minister and I want a former refugee as speaker of the house.I want a Muslim mayor. I want a disabled deputy mayor ...
People like me already don’t know when we will see ‘home’ again, thanks to the forthcoming border fees, writes Jai Breitnauer. We don’t need to be judged for it too.About eight weeks ago we got a message we had been dreading – my father-in-law was in hospital having been in ...
New Zealanders are about to vote on two of the most polarising social issues of our time - how much do you know about the cannabis and end of life referendums? In less than five weeks, New Zealanders will vote on two polarising issues in referendums, held at the same ...
What's in the diary for this week? Newsroom Pro collates the newsworthy events you need to know about. Today | 6 July sdfsdf sfsdf sfds Tuesday | 7 July sdfsdf sfsdf sfds Wednesday | 8 July sdfsdf sfsdf sfds Thursday | 9 July sdfsdf sfsdf sfds ...
Social Credit has prevailed in the first round of its High Court challenge to the Overseas Investment Office decision to grant Chinese owned company Hong Kong Jingang permission to take over New Zealand’s second largest milk processing company, Westland ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As Melbourne moved to an extraordinary 8pm to 5am daily curfew and Stage 4 restrictions, and Victoria declared a “state of disaster”, Scott Morrison took to social media with a message for the embattled residents. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rodney Tiffen, Emeritus Professor, Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney James Murdoch is not the most obvious candidate for editorial heroism. His route to resigning from the News Corp board because of “disagreements over certain editorial content” has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Sydney A “state of disaster” has been declared for the whole of Victoria from 6pm, Sunday August 2, for a month. How is this different from the existing “state of emergency” and what powers ...
As the state of Victoria continues to record shocking new Covid-19 numbers – 671 cases today – a strict new stage 4 lockdown is being imposed. Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist at the University of South Australia explains what the means.Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that metropolitan Melbourne will move ...
Jacinda Ardern’s “kind” government rather unkindly wants to push through under urgency this week amendments to residential rental tenancy law that are both unworkable and vicious, Tenancies War spokesman Mike Butler said today. If the Residential Tenancies ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that metropolitan Melbourne will move to “stage 4” restrictions from 6pm Sunday, as new cases of COVID-19 continue to rise. The state recorded another 671 cases and ...
“We welcome the protest letter signed by European Ambassadors against Israel's plans to commence construction in the illegal settlement of "Givat Hamatos" and possibly the so-called E1 Area on the outskirts of occupied Jerusalem. However, ...
By RNZ Pacific Nineteen more cases of covid-19 have been confirmed in Papua New Guinea, taking the total number so far in the country to 91. The Pandemic Response Controller, David Manning, announced the new cases in the capital Port Moresby where almost 80 of PNG’s cases had been confirmed ...
Open Mike 10/01/2019 
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Just when you thought the embarrassingly servile ‘Fast Follower’ doctrine had departed the country along with John Key.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/109826913/new-zealand-needs-a-government-that-isnt-blinded-by-green-ideology-nats
Tod Muller and the National Party need to be put to the test.
When National was the government, Kennedy Graham on behalf of the Green Party organised an all Party conference on climate change in parliament, which the National party and ACT deliberately and actively boycotted. Not one National MP or representative turned up.
I challenge James Shaw to call such a conference again.
Let’s see if National turn up this time.
National and scientific understanding are two mutually exclusive things IMHO ?
Just look at ECAN and the state of Canterbury’s Rivers ?
Absolutely.
National are only interested in selected science, typically out of context. They are rotten to the core but will say anything to get your vote.
“…National are only interested in selected science…”
To be fair there are a great deal of left-wing/environmentalists who do the same.
Like the Greens supporting the use of 1080 ?
Yeah I was wearing my heart on my sleeve there. You can find convenient quotes and stats for most anything if you enter the right search terms. It’s not science but it can sure sound like it to the uninformed.
“an all Party conference on climate change in parliament, which the National party and ACT deliberately and actively boycotted. Not one National MP or representative turned up.”.
You seem to have an interesting interpretation of “boycotting”.
The National Party MPs seem to have taken an active interest in the subject and there were quite a lot of them involved in the exercise.
” In October 2015, Graham formed a cross-party group, GLOBE-NZ, working on climate change. GLOBE-NZ is a national chapter of GLOBE-International, and has 35 MP’s as members drawn from all seven political parties represented in the 51st Parliament. As chairman of the national chapter, Graham contracted a London-based consultancy, Vivid Economics, to prepare a report on “transformational pathways to carbon neutrality for New Zealand”. The report, Net Zero in New Zealand: Scenarios to achieve domestic emission reduction the second half of the century, was launched in the New Zealand Parliament in March 2017. The initiative is regarded as a major step forward in clarifying inter-party discourse and debate on New Zealand’s national climate change policy”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Graham
Among the committee, listed here
https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/mps-collaborate-across-party-lines-in-response-to-climate-change/
I can see at least 9 who were in the National Party.
Bishop, McIndoe, Scott, McKelvie, Mitchell, Muller, Simpson, Smith and Barclay were all National I believe.
It is certainly a bit hard to argue that they all boycotted the group isn’t it?
In the debate on the report
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/HansDeb_20170413_20170413_12
Smith and Simpson both spoke as well as Seymour from ACT and Paula Bennett.
What on earth do you mean by your “boycott” comment?
I will tell you what I am talking about.
But first what you are talking about Alwyn is a lot of back room committees.
Where National party participation usually acts as a brake, and where they can manipulate and backpedal out of the public eye.
What I was specifically talking about was the public all party conference on climate change that was organised by Kennedy Graham in the Old Legislative Chamber in Parliament.
At this public event. National made it very clear that they would not attend and they didn’t
It is all very well, Alwyn for the Nats to be involved in all sorts of alphabet soup of acronym back room groups, but taking a public stand with the other parliamentary parties? This was a step too far for the National Party MPs. An action which exposed the National Party as deeply sectarian and viciously opposed to any genuine bipartisanship on climate change.
Have National changed. I doubt it. But I could be wrong, that is why I think that the climate change minister needs to repeat Kennedy Graham’s initiative and call an all up party conference on climate change in parliament.
Let’s see if National MPs and reps boycott or attend such a public event.
My guess is that National will again choose to boycott.
This will be the acid test of the sincerity of the National Party’s bipartisanship when it comes to climate change, by which they will be measured against all other parliamentary parties.
It shows he has a flair for writing propaganda. Spin that seems plausible on the face of it. However, to see how it plays to the gallery, read the comments. I got the impression it was more than a 50/50 split, it was more against the Nats.
I give the guy credit for trying to reposition them as part of the solution. It will reassure those in his support base who think National should move with the times. His support for James Shaw’s approach validates it – but we must reserve judgment until the result of the process can be appraised.
I think he would make a better leader for the bluegreens than Nick Smith. I wonder if they think so. Lack of leadership is their primary problem! There are 27 in that photo, and that’s just the Bluegreen Executive: https://bluegreens.national.org.nz/about_bluegreens
“The Bluegreens approach is underpinned by five principles that we are now applying in Government to the broad range of environmental challenges facing New Zealand:
Resource use must be based on sustainability
Economic growth and improving the environment can and must go hand in hand
Good science is essential to quality environmental decision making
People respond best to change when engaged and given incentives
New Zealanders have a unique birthright to access and enjoy our special places
Our Bluegreens caucus has grown from the two founding members in 1998 to the current diverse team.”
The economic growth principle is the flaw in their thinking – the other four principles are valid. This all reminds us that the Values Party schism casts an extremely long shadow, and the Green political movement in Aotearoa is still as divided as ever. But I’m confident the bridge James has built will reduce that divide as time passes.
If National are going to start marketing themselves as Blue-Green they could eat into the Green Party Vote ?
They’re actually Blue-Mean.
And it’s going to be a struggle to overcome the perception of their water policy…
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/96461304/statue-of-environment-minister-with-his-pants-down-delivered-to-canterbury-regional-council
Not likely, Tamati! Conservative Greens have voted National since the seventies. The effect that has had is to keep the Green vote down – about half what it would be otherwise. It’s because the environmental activists of Aotearoa have constituted a strong movement since they stopped the Manapouri dam – almost half a century ago, but many prioritised short-term success so they decided to work with govt rather than against it. Pragmatists.
As regards Nat marketing, it never seems very clever. Just a rear-guard action to try and limit progress. Residual colonialism, basically. Notice you never see the brand in public apart from their website. Such subtlety is by design. The idea is to retain control of their half of the movement. I often describe it as `keep the dog in the kennel’. Anyone who thinks their dog doesn’t need a regular run is a moron, right?
Of course. How much we won’t know.
Start?!?
Nick Smith is definitely not Blue-Green he is an environmental terrorist like Trump, Key, Bridges, Brownlee etc pro Oil & Mining Corporates set out to destroy what is left of the environment IMHO.
Yes, Todd Muller does have a flair for writing propaganda.
Going on about bi-partisanship and consensus, and then saying in the next breath, that immediately on a change of government National will repeal the moratorium on issuing new oil and gas exploration permits.
What’s bi-partisan, about that?
Nothing.
Muller also talks about kicking action on climate change down the road twenty or thirty years.
Which is what draws him to attack Generation Zero, who want to do something about climate change in the here and now.
One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all,
And in the darkness bind them.
This is the only sort of consensus that Todd Muller is interested in.
He is a Trumpster ?
Bolsonaro in Brazil is going to start clearing more rain forest in Brazil, Muller should get together with Trump and Bolsonaro.
Gen Zero should stop needlessly picking at scabs and start picking their fights better.
Shaw, Upton, Parker and Muller are near to cross-parliamentary support for legislation that binds for generations. They have been working on it for over a year already,
The bases of both Greens and National will likely go nuts at the compromises when its made public.
It’s going to be up to these actual political party reps to bind policy enough to take climate change away from perpetual electoral cycles. No more arguments, just get to work.
Why doesn’t 60 Minutes ever interrogate Netanyahu
based on Human Rights Watch/Amnesty reports?
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2019/01/08/why-doesnt-60-minutes-ever-interrogate-netanyahu-based-on-human-rights-watch-amnesty-reports/
Holding Israel to account is just not done.
And then people wonder why we’re in such trouble.
A fun new angle on decolonisation from Singaporean comic Jinx Jeo – from 2min mark: https://youtu.be/hN6gX9X4vWE
Would YOU play golf with a reprobate?
It doesn’t seem to be a problem for Barack Obama or John Key. Or for Larry David….
Like +100%
Jacinda should take up golf and go and play with Trump in Florida like Key did with Obama.
It certainly didn’t hurt New Zealand that Key and Obama got on so well did it?
I’m sure that Ardern and Trump would hit it off very well. After all they do have so much in common.
My latest drama, entitled Why the f*** are we in Afghanistan?,
is not currently garnering rave reviews over on Kiwiblog.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2019/01/general_debate_10_january_2019.html/comment-page-1#comment-2398815
Admire your courage going to Kiwiblog each morning Like +100%
So bold.
I just use it for headlines and emphasis, Sacha. I’m very aware of the aesthetics of my posts.
Awareness of ridiculous content is sadly lacking, however.
Dopey, haven’t you got a witch-hunt to join somewhere?
Look at moi !
That’s the one – you hit the nail on the head imo. Nothing more and nothing less than ‘look at moi’.
Ya got me, Sacha—and ya got me GOOD!
It is called marketing.
In that thread I think Harvey Wilson summed you up well Mozz
I’ve dispatched poor old Harv as humanely as possible.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2019/01/general_debate_10_january_2019.html/comment-page-1#comment-2399008
The I is strong in you mozz, your posts are not that important and seem to be more about showing how smart you think you are, get over yourself
They seem to irritate you, though, my bewildered friend. That’s good—it probably means you’re thinking about things.
Bewildered is exactly that.
Morrissey they don’t particularly like you over at Kiwiblog, not many likes, you are not Redneck Enough. I had the same problem about 10 years ago, I ended up suffering from a PTSD post traumatic stress disorder and had to leave with my tail between my legs.
Bewildered is exactly that.
Possibly the most appropriate nickname on this mostly excellent forum.
Morrissey they don’t particularly like you over at Kiwiblog, not many likes,
Oh I get my fair share. I got a whole bunch just this morning:
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2019/01/general_debate_10_january_2019.html/comment-page-1#comment-2398858
….you are not Redneck Enough.
You mean not bigoted enough. Most of the truly vile crap we are bombarded with comes not from working people—i.e. rednecks—but white-collar thugs like Mike Hosking, Don Brash, John Ansell, Sir Robert Jones. None of them would know a shovel from a jackhammer.
I had the same problem about 10 years ago, I ended up suffering from a PTSD post traumatic stress disorder and had to leave with my tail between my legs.
Yikes! I’d better monitor my own health. Someone on Kiwiblog maliciously supplied me with the name of a psychiatrist this morning; maybe I should get in contact.
Not irritation, mild amusement at best 👍
Fabulous! As the late great Danny Watson would say: You have a good one, Bewildered.
Brilliant well structured and thought out. Like +100%
Top-end adolescent-grade malice: the Barbecued Brutus cuts off emergency funds to California’s wildfire areas.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-fema-aid-california-wildfires_us_5c360ff5e4b0dbd06602784d
We give our full support for Jane Kelsey on this publicly inspired,movement to curb greedy globalists influence to rort the worlds poor yet again.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1901/S00006/new-campaign-for-a-21th-century-trade-agenda.htm
New campaign for a 21th century trade agenda
Monday, 7 January 2019, 9:34 am
Press Release: Professor Jane Kelsey
7 January 2019
For immediate release
Launch of JusTrade.nz heralds a new campaign for a 21th century trade agenda
The website JusTrade.nz, launched today, heralds a new forward-looking campaign for a progressive 21st century trade agenda.
The JusTrade project builds on a two-day hui in late October that debated what an alternative and progressive trade strategy for Aotearoa New Zealand should look like. The live-streaming attracted over 17,000 page views. The website carries videos and transcriptions of all ten panels.
Hui convenor, University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey, says ‘for too long we’ve been told there is no alternative to the current model, epitomised in the recently adopted Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.’
‘Today, the global trade regime faces an existential crisis. Mega-negotiations are being abandoned, delayed or pared down, and the World Trade Organization is fractured and paralysed.’
And ‘Critique is no longer enough. If anything is to really change, we need to step away from the existing framework and take a first-principles approach to rethinking what will work for the 21st century.’
Ha! I’ll believe that when I see it! The quote is absolutely correct, but can anyone remember when the left actually practiced what they preached? So I’m calling their bluff: let’s see those principles, pronto!
Of course, it they actually existed, they’d be up front in the press release, wouldn’t they? And if Kelsey has spent the past decade mulling them over (as well as protesting their lack), you’d think she’d have been able to identify at least one!
Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume she has some in mind but wants to organise a consensus around them. The press release suggests a process will now occur to produce a consensual, principled, output. Let’s hope for the best.
Otherwise it’s just typical leftist sham: all show, no substance, like Sue Bradford’s left-wing think-tank – another decade-long brainstorming exercise with no result.
Interesting article on NZ population growth, immigration still happening big time, no wonder housing prices still high and in short supply here in NZ, demand is out stripping supply.
Still don’t know why timber is so expensive here in NZ ?
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/new-zealands-population-fast-approaching-5-million.html?variant=tb_v_1
Let’s do this Jacinda and Winnie on immigration, big time fraud or plain old bs
Still not sure what happening on this Immigration Issue still bringing heaps into NZ while not looking after our own people ?
Would imagine it is Labour and Winston just saying one thing in opposition and then not carrying through in govt.
There has been a lot of that
I do love the Statistics Department Mr Dunstan’s optimism when he said
“the population estimates would be revised once the final Census results were out.”.
We won’t see any realistic results from that Census in any of our lifetimes.
oh, snap – I thought you just wanted to shit on a Green minister. But maybe your objective is to argue that the population denominators are meaningless, so you can pretend that nothing improves under this government – the bad numbers might go down and the good numbers up, but unless you can put together an accurate rate we cannot know if there’s been any real change.
Which explains why you wanted an interim census in 2021, when you think a census can be sorted out and completed in five months. You get three years of saying the government has no demonstrable improvements before the next election.
It’s so expensive because the owners are selling it raw to China.
Another case of the profit drive bringing about the worst possible outcome.
Galloway goes vegan with surprise ending! Seems we have another convert.
Yes he talked about it during his show MOATS this week.
Such an inspiration.
[Ed. I had a long think overnight about your behaviour on this site. This morning I went back to check previous moderation notes and it is clear you have been repeatedly warned and occasionally banned for spamming, abuse and wasting moderator timeover the last 12 months. Yet, nothing changes. Yesterday, you indicated that you see your role as being to protect TS from “Blairite bullies”. This is not a service The Standard requires. In addition, you made two comments that suggested re-education and forced labour was a legitimate response to people who had views different to yours on climate change. This is an absolutely abhorrent position on a human level and, is, in effect, intimidation directed at other TS commenters. TS has clear policy on comments that discourage others from contributing to the site. Permanent ban. TRP]
Indeed Ed, that’s where I found out about it.
“But we’ve got thousands of people watching this” that line made me chuckle.
Liked how he bumps into a fan in the shop at the end too, It must happen to him a lot.
so much for robust debate
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Based on past history, I fully expect another commenter to pop up soon using a short male name as a handle, a predilection for posting videos from that convergence point of moonbat far-lefties and alt-right wingnuts, a fetish for veganism and conspiracy theories, and a hectoring tone that alienates everyone that’s not fully bought into the exact same viewpoint.
And a predilection for using more than one identicon (and thus different email addresses) and testing new ones out late at night.
Bring back Ed, he is hilarious and know one barring Mozz and a couple of other likely travelers takes him seriously
Christ, he’s only been banned a few hours. Surely the “Bring Back Ed” campaign is a bit…early?
And where were you bastards during any of my seven bans from this site?
The site is less with out you Mozz 😊
Where were we? Why, weeping into our beers, natch!
His zombie will be back soon enough. Meanwhile the mozzie provides plenty of lolz amongst the whining.
“Whining”? Could you direct us to one instance of this writer, i.e., moi, whining?
Wining on the other hand….
Every time you whine that someone isn’t saying or doing or paying attention to something you think they should be. Such as your whine at comment 2 today.
If someone is not complacent like you, ergo he/she is a whiner.
Got it.
I agree. (Francesca 9.1.2)
Ed (and Morrissey) make this forum an interesting place and worth visiting. They are gentle but sharp in their comments and rarely lower themselves to the level of their detractors.
@ TRP, I have tried finding Ed’s comments were you accuse him of “intimidation directed at other TS commenters.” but couldn’t find anything , could you please put up a link to these comments please.
here’s one.
And the mod comment was that it was in effect intimidation of other commenters. We might know that Ed is a full of shit blowhard, but others might think he doesn’t just mean it, he’s trying to bring it about. And if the offence is too minor to be detected by other people, they might become more circumspect about commenting for fear of the EdEds knocking on their door.
Can’t see how that is intimidating other commenters myself – he’s talking about well known cricketers who probably have never commented on here. There are a couple of other regular commenters who use much more intimidating language toward others on a regular basis…
I thought this comment from Joe in the same thread (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-09-01-2018-2/#comment-1569753), which you didn’t pick up on? calling another commenter a “vile prick” was an actual example of intimidating other commenters. But hey he is on the right side of the law so to speak.
Calling someone a vile prick does not imply that you want to torture them and then send them to a forced labour camp.
edit: But that’s just my interpretation of a moderator’s decision. Seems reasonable to me, though.
@mauī, great point, don’t tell there is some sort of ‘class war’ going on here?
I’ve just spent a couple of days with a man who thinks this was his 84th Christmas. But being the sole survivour of an extended family of Kulaks sent to a forced labour camp, he’s guessing.
So yeah, in my world anyone who advocates for reeducation and forced labour is indeed a vile prick.
Are serious? please say that you are, because if that is what warrants a permanent ban, then The Standard has some real fundamental problems around moderation and it’s application.
permaban was the mod’s decision based on that incident being a continuation of behaviour about which ed had been repeatedly warned. Amnesties periodically occur, anyway.
My opinion of the reasonableness of the decision is irrelevant – it’s not my site. But you and Maui seem to be having difficulty what the moderator wrote, whereas it seems pretty plain to me. So I’m simply trying to explain my understanding of what occurred.
There can be insults against individuals allowed, although pointless abuse is against site policy. But outright intimidation and calls for violence are well against site policy.
@McFlock “But outright intimidation and calls for violence are well against site policy.”
Give me a break…that is just plain outright bullshit, there is just no equivalence from what Ed said and to your statement or TRP’s “and, is, in effect, intimidation directed at other TS commenters” for that matter.
My italics.
The use of the normative in tandem with the passive indicates a desire for it to happen and a lack of ability to refuse the proposal (and therefore use of force to extract the seawall-constructing labour).
Come on man, that is quite obviously just someone getting passionate in a debate, and then saying some shit, so fucking what, if that is all it takes to make someone feel intimidated, then I would say it is them who has the problem (probably stemming from some deep rooted unresolved trauma that needs professional psychological help) , and not Ed… maybe some people should either harden up a bit, or go and sort out their shit and come back when they can stand up to a robust debate..this isn’t playcentre.
The last thing wanted on a political forum is for everyone to have to tip toe around like they are walking on broken glass, for fear of triggering off someones neurosis.
You have read lprent’s reply to you at 9.1.3.2, haven’t you?
Coz that lays out pretty clearly the problem is ongoing behaviour issues. TRP’s moderation note makes the same point. Focusing on just the last straw is ignoring the mountain of crap that overloaded the camel to begin with.
OK Adrian, I’ve explained my perspective. What do you think Ed was banned for, specifically?
I can/t see why you should be so protective of ed Adrian. You have written more about him and his rights than he would have written in dozen of his comments.
What makes this blog strong is people like you thinking and writing about politics, exchanging information and we all end up knowing more. Ed was like a seagull that flies over and drops one on the words you are reading.
Ed tended to dominate the site with summaries about his obsessions. And having USA or world conflicts as the first thing on the blog each morning was stultifying for the blog; finding Ed dominating prime position so often was a bore. He does come up with some good points, but usually about things other than NZ, and can’t control his takeover tendencies of the blog.
Ed was low on NZ stuff, and high on telling us about his likes and dislikes and making our minds up for us. He has been a sort of Likes/Dislikes system and has given us evidence of why we have decided rightly, that they aren’t wanted on this blog.
What a load of old cobblers. Ed’s comment deemed “intimidatory” by some (mostly by those who feel a need to harass and snark at his every comment) had absolutely nothing to do with his previous behaviour. He was banned previously for posting multiple videos without descriptions. Before that I think he was banned for not clearly defining when he was quoting someone else. He came back and learned from both of those bannings and modified his behaviour.
Yeah pointless abuse, there’s a dime a dozen of that, have you heard of BM? Yet Ed gets sent packing for saying two people who don’t exist on this site should work overseas. Fuckn hell.
should work overseas
Ed, stop being a disingenuous little twerp. You know as well as any of us that you were talking about people being forced to go to a far away place and there being forced to labour because of their ideas.
Forced… yeah forced. My god, and I thought he said ‘should’! in order to do something constructive. Mind you I have never, ever known Ed to make throw away comments..
‘Little twerp’ oh yes that is not intimidating other commenters… That won’t discourage the commentariat at all I’m sure… Perhaps you want to really intimidate and offend by suggesting a NZ First style boot camp for non-existent persons.
Ed, stop being a disingenuous little twerp.
You said:
If they continue to wilfully lie about climate change after a brief education course, then they should be sent…
They wouldn’t be that hard for me to find. Bearing in mind the state of the search after the wordpress 5 update at present it’d be hard for others to do a search for Ed’s comments (getting around to fixing search in these “dog days”)..
Most of them are probably rhetorical claptrap and more based on idiotic and simply dumb labels about groups of other people (like ‘Blairites’ and a pile of other labels) rather than the reality of what people are actually saying.
But they are exclusionary, repeated, and often seem to be designed to avoid actually thinking and expressing his own opinions, and certainly he seldom explains his ideas in any depth so that others can pick holes in those ideas. Which is what the site is for.
If we wanted meaningless and unthinking waffle using labels, then we could just tune into Mike Hoskings or talkback radio.
The second problem is that Ed (both as Ed and as his other handles over the last decade) just keeps doing the kinds of behaviors that he gets moderated and warned for. He changes behaviour for a short time, then reverts. I have a kitten that has a massively faster behavioral change response than Ed has.
For instance I actually have a personal moderator watch running at present for his first comment behaviors on OpenMIke for instance after my last warning about that. I think that most of the active moderators past and present have similar exasperated watches for Ed. All of which suck effort out of us. I don’t even bother reading his comments in any depth these days. I just scan them for (bad) behaviour – just like I do for any other troll.
The point is that this site is there for robust debate. Ed doesn’t provide much (if any). We keep having to try to reform his behaviour. That is a lot of extra work. It is a behavioral problem because it just wastes everyone’s time.
BTW: Perhaps you’d like to point to any comment where Ed actually made a significiant contribution to the debate in what he wrote himself. That could be more a better way of arguing about a ban…
Thank you! Sweet Jesus it’s been an effort to point out that Ed just regurgitates and positulates in his unctuous way that supporting people is the same as having an opinion and adding to the debate.
was TRP looking in the mirror when he wrote out his ban spiel …. the sort of spiel which discourages others from contributing to the site….. no one feels intimidated by Ed ….
bully boy mods on the other hand are a different matter
To me …. TRP will always be the moderator who stands by and allows abuse of people who disclose they were victims of sexual abuse.
Shame on you TRP ………..
Ok, I’ll bite. What are you on about?
Longtime Reporter Leaves NBC Saying Media Is “Trump Circus” That Encourages Perpetual War.
I think few contributors on this site would do well to maybe listen to this interview.
Big money in War and Social Unrest for the Corporate’s and the One Percenter’s 1%.
Great interview Adrian
Thanks for that
Have a look at this NBC newsreader presenting very convincingly and “sincerely” a total fraud
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/07/nbc-and-msnbc-blamed-russia-for-using-sophisticated-microwaves-to-cause-brain-injuries-in-u-s-diplomats-in-cuba-the-culprits-were-likely-crickets/
Greenwald supplies the missing info
Arkin’s a hero
And a very apt comment below the Greenwald piece
“As everyone knows, most diplomats in US embassies are actually CIA agents. They have made the ultimate sacrifice of their brains, and should be venerated, regardless of whether the culprits are Russians or crickets. Fortunately, they can be retired and given jobs as analysts at NBC where their brain damage will be considered a career asset. Unfortunately, there is a limit to how many analysts NBC can hire, so the rest can be given jobs in the State Department.
The fact this incident couldn’t be pinned on the Russians is just another example of their deviousness. The Russians were probably aware of the crickets’ activities and did nothing to stop them, which is essentially as bad as if they’d done it themselves. So they clearly have a moral responsibility for the brain damage.”
Thanks for that francesca, love reading Greenwalds reporting, he is always on the mark and always manages to slip in a couple of pointed lines that make me laugh.
I sent links to both the DM videos to RNZ this morning, suggesting that maybe this year they could help play a more considered role in their coverage of world news and especially US politics.
I don’t expect to hear back from them.
Why pay attention to the likes of Glenn Greenwald when you’ve got really great “foreign correspondents” like Dame Ann Leslie….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/matthew-paris-on-stabbings-in-london.html
….and Jack Hitt?
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/02/bradley-manning-show-trial-begins-in.html
Christ – is she still around? I thought she might have trotted off back to the Punjab to be waited on hand and foot. It’s been a while since she deigned to touch base with Kathryn Ryan
I like this piece from The Breen Report – first link by Morrissey above.
Matthew Paris on the stabbings in London; How much do they pay this fellow for these witterings? (May 23, 2013)
If only Morrissey could get paid a bundle for his witterings, he could be in Paris talking about Paris, and mingling amongst higher calibre witterers.
Oh yeah, forgot this piece that talks about the absolutely bizarre place that many ‘liberals’ and so called ‘progressives’ have got themselves in lionizing the CIA and FBI for fucks sake…and again quite a bit of this bizarro behavior is seen right here on The Standard…
William Arkin On Homeland Security’s Creeping Fascism and Why the CIA & FBI Won’t Save Us From Trump
He didn’t mention the deep state though, did he? So, like any typical msm frontperson, his analysis is shallow. He’s right about the creeping fascism, even if HS staff don’t wear brown shirts or jackboots, but he fails to join the dots.
Still, he was articulate, made a good point about American imperialism (“I think we’ve bombed nine countries in the past year”) and fingered Trump as someone who wouldn’t even know how to find the dept of Homeland Security. As an insider, this invalidation of the `Trump is fascist’ thesis popular with some commentators here is definitely helpful to the simple-minded.
I noticed a passing reference to American military involvement in Honduras. Given that all the Hondurans travelling through Mexico so they can enter the USA and become victims of Homeland Security prefer that fate to the one they left behind, I’m wondering what the hell the US miltary is actually doing there. Anyone know?
Training the Honduras security services
http://theconversation.com/how-us-policy-in-honduras-set-the-stage-for-todays-migration-65935
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/07/crisis-of-honduras-democracy-has-roots-in-us-tacit-support-for-2009-coup
Thanks francesca. A good report by The Conversation, of which part is worth reproducing here as essential context for the migration:
“the election of Manuel Zelaya, a liberal reformist, as president in 2006. He led on progressive measures such as raising the minimum wage. He also tried to organize a plebiscite to allow for a constituent assembly to replace the country’s constitution, which had been written during a military government. However, these efforts incurred the ire of the country’s oligarchy, leading to his overthrow by the military in June 2009.”
“The 2009 coup, more than any other development, explains the increase in Honduran migration across the southern U.S. border in the last few years. The Obama administration has played an important role in these developments. Although it officially decried Zelaya’s ouster, it equivocated on whether or not it constituted a coup, which would have required the U.S. to stop sending most aid to the country.” When is a coup not a coup? When expediency requires denial.
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in particular, sent conflicting messages, and worked to ensure that Zelaya did not return to power. This was contrary to the wishes of the Organization of American States, the leading hemispheric political forum composed of the 35 member-countries of the Americas, including the Caribbean. Several months after the coup, Clinton supported a highly questionable election aimed at legitimating the post-coup government.”
So the Democrats worked hard to create the political conditions the migrants are fleeing from. Helping the fascists is democratic behaviour, apparently, or at least they must believe so. You can see why they get hysterical in their attempt to depict Trump as fascist. The pot must always claim that the kettle is blacker. Is there anyone left who thinks Democrats are good people?
@Dennis Frank, well said.
“You can see why they get hysterical in their attempt to depict Trump as fascist. The pot must always claim that the kettle is blacker. Is there anyone left who thinks Democrats are good people?”
That line is a keeper..
Is there anyone left who thinks Democrats are good people?
There’s a bloke called “Andre” who buys wholesale every thing the Clintonistas say. And a depressing number of others, as well.
The recent (Nov 2017) elections were also mired in most probable fraud. The opposition was winning when suddenly the count was suspended.
When it resumed, Hernandez was winning
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/18/honduras-election-president-juan-orlando-hernandez-declared-winner-amid-unrest
Interesting.
Wonder how many people have died in Honduras over the last hundred plus years because of the actions of US capitalists.
Sh, sh.
Not allowed to mention Honduras, only Venezuela.
But. Ignore Venezuala’s long history of plutocracy and right wing corruption.
And the fact most refugees at present fleeing South America is from the purist capitalist disaster, Honduras.
Lionising the CIA? For opposing Trump and detesting all he stands for?
Strange equivalence.
@mickysavage, are you saying that you believe that the CIA detest all Trump stands for?…wow.
I know they don’t like his less interventionist and more inward world outlook, but apart from that what other of Trumps policies do they ‘detest’?
Maybe your time would be better spent opposing what should be the antidote to this terrible Trump/Right Wing slide, namely the idiots that run the Democratic party and who plainly, would rather see Trump in power than any shift to the Left, exactly the same ideology that pervades parts of UK Labour (and Labour NZ, but I guess you already know that)..they are the reason we have Trump and Co…they have effectively taken away the traditional Left wing safety valve that people turn to when they are hurting, and replaced it with Liberalism, a debunked ideology that has no credibility left whatsoever.
Personally I choose to ignore Trump and concentrate on working ( if only in a small way) toward a real Left wing alternative..that is the kryptonite that will destroy this man made orange monster.
And where has socialism worked, especially in countries of significant population and diversity Shite even China worked that out I also think the US working class have worked that out especially with so many basket case left wing experiences on thier doorstep Contary to your view the new crazynkeft of Democrat party will see TruMo do another term, they are gold for the attack adds and Trumps mocking style
Depending on the definition of socialism you’re talking about:
Scandinavia and much of northern and western Europe, Vietnam, Chile under Allende, several central American nations before other nations funded insurgencies against democratically elected governments, Cuba until it’s closest and largest trading partner launched a multi-decade boycott of anyone who does business with them.
Can you identify a common factor that challenged or ended a variety of socialist governments?
Is a bewildered person likely to be able to answer a question that several generations of socialists have been unable to answer in any country? Worth a try though. Lateral thinking is what we need.
I see the dude from the Tooting Popular Front has identified why Corbyn wants Brexit. Apparently he has had past success campaigning for re-nationalisation. EU rules forbid it.
Serious street cred for a socialist. I can see why he doesn’t want to remind the public about this, nor other Labour MPs! But it alerts us to the likely title of Labour’s next election campaign: Back to the Future.
Brussels didn’t complain when half the Banks in Britain were nationalised during the GFC.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3187946/Financial-crisis-Banks-nationalised-by-Government.html
Gordon Campbell has a rational explanation for Corbyn’s position on Brexit…albeit a slightly cynical one
http://werewolf.co.nz/2019/01/gordon-campbell-on-the-reactionary-politics-of-fear/
Yes, he does make a good point: “To his credit, Corbyn has (so far) refused to be baited into making Labour the media story in the run up to the parliamentary vote, which is due on either January 14 or 15. In his recent statements on Brexit, Corbyn has adroitly kept the focus on what May can and should be doing, not on what Labour might do, or should do, sometime in future. The time for Labour to show its hand will come later, after May has finally run out of options. A controversial statement on Brexit by Corbyn at this point would be the answer to May’s prayers.”
“if Corbyn backed May and her deal in the mid January parliamentary vote, Labour would be finished. The young who have flocked to Corbyn would desert him in droves. [The poll] indicates Labour’s share of the vote would slump another eight points – from 34 per cent to 26 per cent – if its MPs join with the Tories to support the prime minister’s Brexit deal. This would be even worse than the 28 per cent share secured by Labour under Michael Foot”. Gah!!
” DER SPIEGEL: And now you want to go back to the future?
Corbyn: What we’ve been saying on both sides of the Atlantic is about redistribution of wealth and power. Bernie Sanders has quite a good line. He says: “America can afford anything except the inequality it’s got.”
DER SPIEGEL: You will turn 70 next year. Are you planning to stand in the next general election?
Corbyn: I’m very young. I’m very healthy. I run. I’m a vegetarian. I eat porridge every morning. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t do anything bad. I am sorry if that makes me sound boring.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-labour-leader-corbyn-we-can-t-stop-brexit-a-1237594.html
@Bewildered…Wrong.
Socialism has worked perfectly well in “New Deal” USA. 50’s and 60’s New Zealand, almost all the Northern European countries. Costa Rico.
https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Americas/Costa-Rica-OVERVIEW-OF-ECONOMY.html
There is nowhere “capitalism” has worked, without a healthy dose of socialism.
In fact all the “capitalist” experiments are disaster zones. Honduras being but one example. Argentina has never recovered fully from their Neo-liberal experiment. Recovery from ours will take decades, if ever.
Weird that media, and even commentators on here, ignore the, many, right wing capitalist disasters. Russia, The US rust belt, Puerto Rico, Honduras, etc You know, the places people really are fleeing from.
Note the worst standard of living and lowest performing economies in the USA are States that have had red (republican) Governments for the longest time. It is actually worse to be poor in Arkansas, than India’s poorest State.
A good basis for comparison, as US States are otherwise very similar.
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2018/03/13/red-states-blue-states-two-economies-one-nation/
Greece, notably, was one of the last countries in Europe, to get rid of a right wing Fascist Government.
I regard Trump as being even worse than the democrats. If that makes me a class sell out then indeed I am a class sellout.
Sorry that doesn’t make sense to me, if you agree that the lack of alternative provided by a captured Democratic Party is largely responsible for the likes of Trump, then surely logic dictates that the solution to the problem of Trump is real progressive change within the Democratic party?
And yes I would regard you as a class sell out if you allowed yourself to be baited into supporting a non progressive Democratic Party through fear of Trump.
This whole one step forward, two steps backwards for workers the poor and disenfranchised that seems to be locked into operating manual of the centre left has got to end now, not tomorrow.
Nicely demonstrating how the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Let’s say you had a single vote in November 2016. You couldn’t make the dems suddenly turn to socialism. It’s Clinton vs Trump. Realistically, it would be one of those two. That’s it. workers should do this, dems should do that, repugs should do the other – you have zero control over that, other than one vote. Do you vote for Clinton and against Trump? For Trump and against Clinton? One is worse than the other. Throwing away your vote on a third party does nothing to stop the worst candidate winning. What do you do? Because that’s reality.
No, the reality is that the third way liberals who have co opted most Left leaning parties in the west have been using your bullshit argument for nearly thirty years now..ie cynically using fear to direct your vote.
The fact is that workers and the poor are suffering anyway, so why should or would they give a fuck about your ridiculous analogy?
The strangest thing to me is that smart guys like you and mickysavage still believe the same fucking lies that you were feed last time, and the time before that and the time before that.
Can’t you see that you have been suckered in to game where the results are ALWAYS the same.
The enemy of good is being bullied around like a pawn out of fear and not being guided by your moral and ethical internal compass, and calling bullshit on this liberal centrist ideology that has plainly run it’s course, and is now continuing only as a destructive force that survives solely by exploiting and destroying both humans and the planet in it’s insane search of endless growth.
It’s not an analogy. It actually happened. People had a choice between dolt45 and Clinton.
The workers who aren’t being paid because of the shutdown are suffering more than they would have. The people relying on the downstream effects of those workers’ incomes are suffering more than they would have. The would-be auto workers not hired because of the higher cost of steel to build the cars are suffering. The people worried their healthcare would be stripped away again were suffering.
Even if you go the other way and think more people would have suffered under Clinton, the point remains that one was better than the other in terms of the suffering of workers and poor people. The odds of them being exactly as bad as the other are cosmic.
So you can vote for the lesser evil, vote for the greater evil, or do nothing to stop the greater evil winning.
Just stop and think. What would you do with your ballot paper?
Vote Greens.
Stein = do nothing to stop the greater evil winning.
Sure, here you can vote green. Hell, I’ve voted Green for exactly that reason. But November 2016 POTUS election, Green/third party/write-in was a wasted vote. One viable candidate is less bad than the other. Which one do you vote for?
The reason I’m pushing it is that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. And pretending that two evils are identical or equivalent is one way to get good people to do nothing.
Shitting on “third way liberals” might make you feel righteous, but the only reason the third way was grabbed as a strategy was because the traditional left way got well and truly fucked in the ballot booth.
It is not a matter of me feeling righteous, it is a matter of no doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result…
btw how is Trump any worse than Bush II
Or for that matter how is Trump worse than Clinton on foreign policy, as that is all that really concerns us right?
lol so you’ve gone from concern for workers and the poor to “all that really concerns us”. So much international worker collaboration.
But it’s not about expecting anything different, or even whether dolt45 is better than Clinton or the other way around. It’s about minimising the obvious harm. One is better than the other, even though both are bad.
If the position we are in at the ballot is the same as the last time we were there, then the rational thing to do is to do the same thing as before (choose the least worst) and then try to change the situation we face at the next ballot.
“Of two evils choose neither” -Charles Spurgeon, is often misused in the realm of social media to discourage Christians from voting in political elections (either entirely or certain candidates). But Spurgeon is being taken out of context.
Worse still, this claimed fuller quote often attributed to him, was not Spurgeon at all, but Michael Marcavage “Of two evils, choose neither,” he said, “Christians must turn from the endless cycle of voting for the lesser of evils and expecting an unrighteous act to produce a righteous result. From a communist to a cultist, choosing the lesser of two evils is still evil, and never should we do evil that good may come”. – Michael Marcavage.
https://gfmanchester.com/misusing-spurgeons-two-evils-quote
Interesting – hadn’t read that before.
Eden Park Auckland just about Bankrupt and Phil Goff wants to build an Underwater Stadium on Auckland’s Waterfront what next ?
A flooded new stadium (due to climate change) which will then morph into a marine reserve, with tourists permitted to dive & view the locals for an exorbitant fee. Presumably, by then, it will have become known as Goff’s Folly.
Upgrade it to an Open Air Kelly Tarlton’s perhaps with Orca’s & Dolphins.
and politicians in wetsuits
a buffalo with an aqualung
Gfoffoloffle will invite central govt to come to the partee.
Individual-1 might indeed be immune from prosecution while he continues to hold his current job. And the people tasked with overseeing him and that hold the power to terminate his employment may be disinclined to even think about fulfilling their responsibilities and duties. That doesn’t mean his business empire is safe from a RICO prosecution and seizure.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/trump-organization-rico-racketeering-mueller.html?via=homepage_taps_top
E-Ferries for the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland would also be a good idea for the Manukau Harbour, imagine we could catch an E-Ferry from Waiuku to Onehunga Wharf, not a silly idea IMHO.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12180197
Aotearoa is #4 on the Democracy Index. Honduras is #82, just below Fiji, and just above Ukraine. It’s defined as hybrid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Classification_definitions
“Hybrid regimes are nations where consequential irregularities exist in elections regularly preventing them from being fair and free. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opponents, non independent judiciaries, and have widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.”
So what has been happening there recently? “In January 2017, President Juan Orlando Hernández announced that the Special Commission for Police Reform Restructuring will extend its mandate until 2018. As of May, nearly 4,000 of the more than 9,000 police officers evaluated by the commission had been removed, including many for alleged involvement in corruption or criminal acts. However, none of the police officers expelled upon orders of the commission has been convicted to date for alleged involvement in criminal activities including human rights abuses.”
The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) “described Honduras in August 2016 as one of the “most hostile and dangerous countries for human rights defenders” in the Americas.”
“Twenty-five journalists were murdered between 2014 and 2016 according to the human rights ombudsman, CONADEH, which also revealed in its 2016 report that 91 percent of killings of journalists since 2001 remain unpunished. Most recently, journalist Carlos William Flores was shot and killed by unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle in Cortes, near the Guatemalan border. Flores directed a television program, “Sin Pelos en la Lengua,” which was critical of major agribusiness enterprises linked to deforestation in the area.”
“To date, eight men have been charged with the murder in March 2016 of environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres, including an army major and the former environment manager of Desarrollo Energético S.A. (DESA), the company behind the Agua Zarca dam project that Cáceres was campaigning against at the time of her death.”
“At the behest of the Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), Congress passed the Law on Clean Politics, which came into force in March 2017. The law created a framework to prevent organized crime from contributing to political campaigns and to hold parties and candidates accountable for financing their campaigns illegally. In July 2017, the MACCIH announced that it would investigate the funding and government concession granted to DESA for the Agua Zarca Dam project for possible corruption and money laundering.”
“For fiscal year 2017, the US Congress allotted US$95.3 million in bilateral aid to Honduras. Members of Congress reintroduced the “Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act” (H.R. 1299) on March 2, 2017. The bill would suspend US funding for the country’s police and military operations until the Honduras government prosecutes and convicts those who ordered and carried out the murder of Cáceres, in addition to other killings and attacks against other activists; investigate and prosecute members of military and police forces who have allegedly violated human rights; withdraw the military from domestic policing; establish effective protections for human rights defenders; and strengthen rule of law.”
“In May 2016, after prosecutors filed murder charges against an employee of DESA, the Dutch development bank, FMO, and the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation, Finnfund, announced they would suspend payments of their loans to the Agua Zarca Dam. In June 2017, both funders told the Guardian that they would withdraw completely from the Agua Zarca project. The third and largest investor in the project, the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (CABEI), also announced that it would no longer fund the project.”
Sorry for so much block quoting, but I’m hoping the moderator will agree that it provides a balanced view, in which the shit that has been going down is producing some appropriate high-level responses that seem good news. The struggle for law and order is clearly ongoing, however. Savagery and victimisation remain normal.
If I earn the average NZ wage (50K) and save 100% of that… I only have to work for two million two hundred and forty thousand years to catch up to Bezos.
Alternately, if two million two hundred and forty thousand average earners saved everything for a year we could collectively make a Bezos.
But if there were more than one Bezos in the market would value decline? Currently you can get 2.08 Zuckerbergs for a Bezos but that might change.
We could put GE to good use and clone Thiel as 44.8 Thiels make a Bezos. Nobody would care as nobody is buying Thiel, they’re all just gawkers.
While nobody outside the entertainment industry has been able to determine the value of a Trump he is made up of at least some Thiels, a smattering of Zuckerbergs, and a smearing of Bezos.
“Amazon’s chief Jeff Bezos is the first person with a net worth surpassing $150 billion in the 3 decades that Forbes has tracked the richest Americans.” https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/#43e261831b23
Think it was on RNZ this morning or yesterday I heard he again passed Gates to become world #1. A puzzle, that, given that Forbes reckons it happened March 2018. https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#1b05be35251c
It’s tough at the top: 121 dropped off the list “including all 10 Saudi Arabians.” Buffett at #3, Zuckerberg @5, Carlos Slim down to 7, Koch brothers 8&9, Ellison 10. Elon Musk #54, Rupert Murdoch #94. #148 is Graeme Hart. #190 George Soros. Trump also ran, #259. #388 Richard Branson.
“he again passed Gates to become world #1. A puzzle, that, given that Forbes reckons it happened March 2018”
Easy – up then down then up again.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that RNZ reported it had happened again. Forbes only ever rates them annually and I’m unaware of any other such rating of the wealthiest people that may have been their source. If they mentioned a source on the report, I missed that, and can’t find the report on their website…
I didn’t mean to be flippant. Not sure which other rankings they draw on.
There was an early 1980s TV series called Brass, with Timothy West and Barbara Ewing. I remember one lovely scene where West, as the landowning industrialist, was talking about how he could donate a hundred pounds to the poor in the town, and they would only get a few pence each. But if they each gave him a few pence, he would be substantially better off, and that’s why capitalism is better than socialism. Very funny show.
Another bit had a worker stuck two steps up a ladder on a very tall factory chimney he’d had to clean – he’d dealt with the fear of falling by saying it was mostly safe and “it were only ‘t last foot that killed thee”. When he came down again, he couldn’t overcome the mortal fear of descending that last foot 🙂
Nice. That is funny. Never saw the show so I check you tube for clips.
first one I find he’s asking after a horse
‘He killed another stable boy this morning.
Oh that’s lucky, they’re due their wages this afternoon’
““it were only ‘t last foot that killed thee”
Yes McFlock. I remember that line well as the bloke confidently clambered down the ladder then froze with one rung to go. Very funny and a great metaphor for life and I use it to reassure my wife when she is boarding a plane. She is not amused.
Meet Fred Dibnah.
Fuck. No. Just no. This is why we have health&safety.
Reminds me of stories from the foundries granddad worked in in the North, with men jumping from crucible to crucible to sweep the slag off. Apparently one guy fell in.
He does an awesome set of short films on chimney stack demolition as well.
The man had balls of steel.
Love the drinking and climbing episode.
I’ve been tempted to use them in health and safety inductions.
I love that he’ll sit on a bosun’s chair at top of chimney, but he was worried about not being able to swim if he fell in the small lake.
Climbing those huge ladders with a smoke dangling out his mouth. This guys like a real life Barry Crump character except, y’know, not a kiwi.
Amazing.
thanks joe.
utterly compelling.
Very clear picture of the rotten perspective. WeTheBeeple
Makes it plain how out of kilter and horrible it all is.
While Putin and his oligarch cronies have been busy stealing $Billions from the Russian people and squirreled it away in London banks, French villas, Miami condominiums and super yachts, 25% of Russians have yet to have access to an indoor toilet.
According to a new report by Russia’s state statistical agency, Rosstat, 35 million Russians live in houses or apartments without indoor toilets, 47 million do not have hot water, 29 million don’t have any running water inside their residences, and 22 million do not have central heating (ehorussia.com/new/node/17679).
In fact, only 62.7 percent of the Russian population has the usual accoutrements of modern existence – water in the house, plumbing, heating and gas or electric ranges, Rosstat says, a fact that must seem incredible to those who visit only Moscow or St. Petersburg but a fact of life for those who lives beyond the ring roads of the capitals.
http://russialist.org/one-russian-in-four-lacks-an-indoor-toilet-one-of-many-signs-there-are-now-four-distinct-russias/
Mozz and Ed won’t like this Joe, Putin Is a paragon of purity don’t you know, now those evil brits and yanks whole different story, just ask George “Purr” Galloway
Mind you, home ownership in Russia is around 84% and trending up , whereas the same in NZ is 64.58% and trending down
Rural areas of Russia surely could do with a few improvements, just as our housing
(leaky homes because of lax regulations, poverty in Northland, people living in garages and cars, slum landlordism)aint anything to crow about
Cue the knee jerk required whataboutism response
I lived with out electricity for 25 years, bucketed in water and longed for a flush toilet.
Ah, those days
Still haven’t got one, composting instead 2000 tiger worms do the job , outside on the veranda(in a separate room of course)
Free houses.
Free housing privatization began in Russia in 1992. Then they were allowed to issue ownership of apartments, rooms in dormitories and other residential premises located in the municipal, federal and departmental housing stock.
https://lenta.ru/news/2016/02/29/privatization/
Interesting that home ownership is 85% but indoor dunnies are only 75%. In NZ, you’d expect renters to be the ones squatting outdoors in the winter.
Rural areas traditionally have outhouses
Dealing with their own shit so to speak
Many apartments of the old Soviet style would have shared toilets
Why only renters?
I know heaps of home owners with long drops
and outhouses
I actually prefer an outside toilet
It’s a country thing
I’ve lived in the country.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-09/linkedin-co-founder-who-bankrolled-russian-bot-false-flag-also-funded-left-wing
Don’t give in to the hatred….J90
Pelin Ünker is one of more than 160 journalists and media workers imprisoned by Erdogan’s regime.
Turkish journalist Pelin Ünker has been sentenced to jail over the Paradise Papers investigation after being found to have defamed her nation’s former prime minister and two of his sons.
An Istanbul court sentenced the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ member to imprisonment for 13 months for “defamation and insult.”
Ünker, who reported that former prime minister Binali Yildirim and his sons owned companies in Malta in the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet, was also fined $US1615.
Prime minister from May 2016 to July 2018, Yildirim became speaker of Turkey’s Grand National Assembly after the post of Prime Minister was abolished.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/turkish-journalist-sentenced-to-prison-over-paradise-papers-investigation/
https://expressioninterrupted.com/census/
Kick em out of Nato
Serious Fraud Office.
In the past
As at 30 January 2015 the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had prosecuted company officers such as directors and accountants involved in eleven finance companies, securing convictions against twenty people for a range of offences against the Crimes Act and Securities Act.,,,
Between May 2006 and the end of 2012 there were sixty-seven finance company collapses in New Zealand; including companies entering into liquidation, receivership or moratoria.[1] An inquiry by the New Zealand Parliament estimated losses at over $3 billion that affected between 150,000 and 200,000 depositors.[2]
The most high-profile collapses were South Canterbury Finance, Hanover Finance and Bridgecorp Holdings. The collapse radically reduced the size and importance of the non-bank finance sector in New Zealand.
According to the Reserve Bank, at the height of financial expansion prior to the 2007 crisis, non-bank lenders had assets of about $25 billion and made up 8 percent of lending by financial institutions. By late 2013 the size of the finance sector was half its previous size and accounted for only 3 percent of institutional lending.[3] In the years following the beginning of the collapses, sweeping legislative and regulatory changes were made, aimed at improving oversight and regulation of the finance industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finance_company_collapses,_2006%E2%80%932012_(New_Zealand)
So NZ private business companies are well controlled now? Now – government funding is being investigated.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/summerreport/audio/2018678014/sfo-warns-billions-of-public-funds-potentially-misused
The chief executive of the financial crime investigation agency, Julie Read, said she expected up to 5 percent of government funding to be obtained or used fraudulently.
In the 2017 financial year, that would have been worth nearly $5 billion, from the Crown’s total expenditure of $99.8b….
Citing the Auckland Transport case, where former employees were convicted for accepting more than $1 million worth of bribes in 2016, Ms Read said some organisations overlooked checks and balances when receiving or allocating
funds.
September 2018 is the date for this investigative report. Has anything changed yet?
New Zealand In Depth
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/in-depth/365540/why-being-made-redundant-in-nz-is-so-tough
Why being made redundant in NZ is so tough
3:54 pm on 3 September 2018
Kate Newton , Senior Journalist, In Depth
@katenewtonnz kate.newton@radionz.co.nz
Axed over the Christmas break, told to be out by lunchtime after 50 years’ loyalty – this is redundancy in New Zealand, where there’s no mandatory notice period or compensation payments and little support for those searching for new work.
“where there’s no mandatory notice period or compensation payments and little support for those searching for new work.”
Thats because, according to the business.govt.nz site….”Although redundancy is about roles, not people, people are affected.“.
In other words its ‘the role’ that is redundant, and ‘roles’ don’t have rights, meantime the effect on an actual human is simply the byproduct.
Bastards.
The laws aren’t formed for ordinary humans. Once you realise that politicians and civil servants aren’t working for us but a ‘higher power’ it cleanses the mind of all confusion. Everything then can be ironical and we realise we are having a mind melt when we start expecting normal.
“The U.S. has accused Kaspersky Lab of working with Russian spies. But sources say the company exposed a massive breach that U.S. authorities missed.
The 2016 arrest of a former National Security Agency contractor charged with a massive theft of classified data began with an unlikely source: a tip from a Russian cybersecurity firm that the U.S. government has called a threat to the country.”
So guess what the FBI knee jerk action was.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/09/russia-kaspersky-lab-nsa-cybersecurity-1089131
Good story, eh? One for LP to do an expert evaluation of, I reckon. So much for the Democrat’s favourite spin-line: Russian hackers are the enemy. Evaporated!
“A Google search on the Twitter handle found someone using the same Hal999999999 username on a personal ad seeking female sex partners. The anonymous ad, on a site for people interested in bondage and sado-masochism, included a real picture of Martin and identified him as a 6-foot-4-inch 50-year-old male living in Annapolis, Md. A different search led them to a LinkedIn profile for Hal Martin, described as a researcher in Annapolis Junction and “technical advisor and investigator on offensive cyber issues.”
Seems safe to predict that this dude won’t go down as the cleverest spy in history. A strong contender for the title of dumbest. Bring back Blackadder.
Huh? How does that follow?
Computer security companies, regardless where they are, are pretty much on the other side of the fence. Sure they tend to hire quite a lot of hackers – but usually after they want to or are forced to stop hacking for themselves, criminal gangs or intelligence services. For security companies, not hacking is the basis of their business. They just know a lot about ways that people can hack systems. They also usually have quite intrusive employment policies and employee contracts about what employees are allowed to do. Among other reasons that is so that they don’t have the security forces or hacker groups trying to penetrate their organisations. It is also why they have some pretty scary firewalls.
Kaspersky and the few other computer security research groups outside of the US are most notable because they aren’t as constrained by the legal gags that the US maintains on their resident security research groups. So they tend to report more of the day zero exploits that the US and other western security forces use. Just like you find that the US groups are pretty good at reporting on security holes in use by the Russian, Chinese, and North Korean hacker groups both government and ‘free lance’.
But having kasperky or any other security company helping to control exploits doesn’t mean fuck all about what the blackhat hackers from any of those places get up to. After all who in the hell would want more exploitable hacks available on the open market. It is bad for business.
“Huh? How does that follow?” I was just being flippant. It was a reference to the anti-Russian paranoia prevalent in Democrat attack-dog tactics nowadays. You know, how they try to revive Cold War thinking in order to position themselves as the responsible establishment party.
Ah yes but you actually read the article.
I suspect IPrent did not.
Because his focus was on the technical side? It’s his forté. But if he was too busy to read it fully & consider the implications, I hope he gets around to it later.
I’ve used Kaspersky on windows systems since some time in the 90s. Never had any issues with them and they’re a damn sight less less of a load on the systems than the other systems I’ve used. These days I use only use them for Android because I don’t use Windows for my personal systems any more – too much effort and there are better alternatives.
But like any bit of software that relies on network access for analysis and updates it is a security risk, exactly as is indicated in that article. I just don’t think that they are a particularly high one for me. Certainly I have never detected them doing anything dodgy when I have tested it.
Well, what’s your feeling about the implications of the exposé? As regards the general theory that the Russian regime is using hackers to subvert US democracy in general rather than just trying to ensure HC didn’t get elected, for instance? Do you think this company is being used by Putin? Perhaps just one or more employees, rather than management?
Sorry, think I confused myself there. Could they have done it to try to create the false impression that they operate independently of their govt, to create plausible deniability for Putin?
I see Lime scooters have had their license extended.
I have mixed thoughts on this.
We do need to get people out of their cars.
But are lime scooters the solution?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12188128
Just a part of it.
Interesting news coming out from India.
150 million go on 2 day General Strike.
Spinoff features i/v with all-round renaissance man: “He’s a lot of things: a commentator, political PR guy, Twitter scrapper, dad, recovering alcoholic – even Mongolian ambassador. But Matthew Hooton’s main focus at the moment is chalking up a philosophy Master’s in London.” https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/10-01-2019/im-completely-squeaky-clean-an-interview-with-matthew-hooton/
In “1996, when parliament was thrown into a post-election paralysis Winston Peters and NZ First, holding the balance of power, negotiated the first MMP government. “We had to go to work to be paid. But we weren’t allowed to do any work constitutionally, right?” Hooton says “right?” a lot, as a kind a rhetorical punctuation mark.”
“So it was great for the first couple of weeks you got to work about 10, office morning tea, out for a boozy lunch, back to the office at four to check out, right? But it got a bit much so I booked a one-way ticket to Mumbai. I backpacked through India and China and Mongolia and Sri Lanka for about a year and then ran out of money and went back for a year in Wellington to work for Lockwood, who [had become] trade minister.”
“His month in Mongolia came to a fruition of sorts more than two decades later. After a series of return visits, including to advise on the formation of the Mongolian Green Party and “to look at a mad idea to set up a sheep farm to supply the Saudi market”, he ended up appointed as Mongolia’s honorary consul in New Zealand.”
Thread.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1082998527792476160.html
Yep. But No Collusion!
Here is a timeline of Manafort’s involvement – as we know so far:
One of the big questions about Trump’s wall is how effective it will be. This guy from the construction industry identifies the potential issues:
NYT gets it wrong again
Turns out it wasn’t Deri-close-to-the-Kremlin -paska after all that Manafort wanted to send the polling data to
https://www.rt.com/usa/448427-manafort-russia-collusion-polling/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/new-york-times-corrects-report-on-which-oligarchs-paul-manafort-wanted-to-give-polling-data
Humans, huh.
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The world’s loneliest snail is no more.
George, a Hawaiian tree snail—and the last known member of the species Achatinella apexfulva—died on New Year’s Day. He was 14, which is quite old for a snail of his kind.
George was born in a captive breeding facility at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in the early 2000s, and soon after, the rest of his kin died. That’s when he got his name—after Lonesome George, the Pinta Island tortoise who was also the last of his kind.
For over a decade, researchers searched in vain for another member of the species for George to mate with, to no avail. (Though these snails are hermaphrodites, two adults must mate to produce offspring, and researchers refer to George as a “he.”)
[…]
About a decade ago, it was commonly believed that over 90 percent of Hawaii’s snail species were gone. Researchers have re-discovered dozens of species that they thought were extinct, however, and found several new species.
The snails that remain in Hawaii are in serious trouble, though. Most are only found on a single ridge or valley, and in recent years, declines have accelerated as introduced predators have started invading their last refuges.
“We’ve had populations that have been monitored for over a decade, and they seemed stable… then, within the past two years they’ve completely disappeared,” says Sischo. “We’ve all broken down and cried in the field.”
These snails are likely to go extinct within months or a few years, Sischo says, unless they’re protected in the wild or brought into the lab.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/01/george-the-lonely-snail-dies-in-hawaii-extinction/
destroy the wilderness and loose the wildlife
Here you go shonkys & his main man steven joyce turned a state department into a decitfull orgianization . These people use websites to bait promises a deal thats to good to be true rope people into breaking the LAW set them up and nab them for a crime that was instigated by the state next minute BUSTED The person setting up broke desprate people do not care they are stuffing up a inercint sole life why because they will get a bonus for every person they nab .
Government to question MBIE over fake persona training
4:54 pm on 9 January 2019
The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is being summoned to the Beehive for a ‘please explain’ over a training course in using fake online personas to gather intelligence
MBIE signed a contract with Wellington based consultancy ZX Security in December 2017 that has been published on the Ministry’s website and outlines the details of the social media training course.
“The service provider will deliver an advanced social media training course to Ministry using false personas on social media for verification and investigation purposes,” the contract says.
Ministry staff have received training on how to spot a fake profile, maintain multiple identities using “techniques for creating a backstop (history) for your online personas”, and send and receive anonymous text messages and emails.
The contract also offered optional training modules, including automated harvesting, image metadata analysis, and creating a dossier.
To date, no MBIE staff had done the extra modules.
“During this workshop the attendees will use the skills gained during the course to create a detailed dossier on a group or individual,” the contract says. Ka kite ano links below. P.S The sandflys do that all the time baiting poor people
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/379727/government-to-question-mbie-over-fake-persona-training
Oceans
Warming oceans likely to raise sea levels 30cm by end of century – study
Seawater temperature is rising faster than predicted, which is likely to worsen extreme weather events around the world
The world’s oceans are warming at a faster rate than previously estimated, new research has found, raising fresh concerns over the rapid progress of climate change.
Warming oceans take up more space, a process known as thermal expansion, which the study says is likely to raise sea levels by about 30cm by the end of the century, on top of the rise in sea levels from melting ice and glaciers. Warmer oceans are also a major factor in increasing the severity of storms, hurricanes and extreme rainfall.
Rising sea levels will claim homes around English coast, report warns
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Oceans store heat so effectively that it would take decades for them to cool down, even in the unlikely scenario that greenhouse gas emissions were halted urgently.
The report, published on Thursday in the journal Science, found that the warming of the oceans was accelerating and was matching the predictions of climate change models, which have shown global temperature rises are likely to lead to extreme weather across the world
The new Science paper analysed four studies published between 2014 and 2017, which corrected for discrepancies between different types of ocean temperature measurements and gaps in measurements.
Satellite monitoring, buoys and ships are all used to gather data on the effect of climate change on the oceans. In the past decade, a network of 4,000 buoys known as Argo has provided an unprecedented data set on the temperature, salinity and acidification of oceans.
By taking the four studies, with different methodologies, into consideration the authors of the new analysis were able to build a fuller picture than was previously possible, with calculations extrapolated back to the 1970s. Ka kite ano links below.
P.S we can not wait for the POLLIES to do the correct thing we must make changes for the better future for the grandchildren
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/10/warming-oceans-likely-to-raise-sea-levels-30cm-by-end-of-century-study
The whole world can see he has cheated his way into the White House he did not even belevie he won on the night of Amercian President election his mouth was that wide open one could have driven a bus through it.
Washington (CNN)As special counsel Robert Mueller wraps up his Russia probe, investigators have focused on conflicting public statements by President Donald Trump and his team that could be seen as an effort to influence witnesses and obstruct justice, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The line of questioning adds to indications that Mueller views false or misleading statements to the press or to the public as obstruction of justice. That could set up a potential flashpoint with the White House and the Trump legal team should that become part of any final report from the Mueller investigation.
Mueller hasn’t addressed the issue publicly, but prosecutors have dropped hints that they view public statements as possibly key in influencing witnesses.
Court filings from the plea of Michael Cohen, the President’s former personal lawyer, included allegations related to false public statements — not usually considered illegal since they aren’t made directly to investigators. A December sentencing memo filed by Mueller’s office notes that Cohen’s lies were amplified in public statements, “including to other potential witnesses.” The memo said this was done partly “in the hopes of limiting the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election — an issue of heightened national interest.”
That includes the President’s role in crafting the misleading Air Force One statement in the summer of 2017 on the now infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians attended by Donald Trump Jr., the President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Another episode centers on Trump’s attempt to have his then-White House counsel Don McGahn disavow articles reporting that McGahn threatened to quit over Trump’s pressure to fire Mueller, according to one source familiar with the matter. McGahn refused to publicly say that the stories were false, which prompted more anger from the President.
The President publicly has said he wouldn’t fire Mueller and hadn’t thought about it, which other witnesses have told Mueller’s investigators isn’t true. Ana to kai Ka kite ano links below.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/10/politics/robert-mueller-trump-obstruction-battle/index.html
Kia ora Newshub it’s not on those people throwing a kitten out of a moving car window. The USA government department shut down is trump game
I’m a organ donner I say it’s a good thing. Ikea store will bring more competition to the Aotearoa retail market.
Its cool people are donating a lot more second hand goods this year that’s the Kiwi spirit give to the needy.
A warming Tangaroas is hard on the wild sea creature and caged fish can not find cooler water and they can easily die. That’s a cool set of glasses for the blind people helping them navigate surrounding with voice and computer tech Emma the new tech is booming Ka pai.
Sir Ernest Shackleton picked up supplies from Dunedin Aotearoa the old wooden beer being restored in Antarctic is cool Ka kite ano.
Generation Zero is trying to change the climate in a corner with the Labor Party and the Green Party and, on the other hand, the national one. We want to move towards climate change outside the biased policy to provide stability in this …
Todd Muller and the National Party have to be examined.
When the national government was, Kennedy Graham on behalf of the Green Party organized a conference of all parties on climate change in parliament, which boycotted the Jatiya Party and the law deliberately and actively. Not a single member of parliament or representative.
Āmi mātra kaẏēka dina atibāhita karēchi ēmana ēkajana mānuṣa yini biśbāsa karēna yē ēṭi tāra 84 tama krisamāsa. Kintu kulākēra ēkaṭi bardhita paribārēra ēkamātra bēm̐cē thākāra kāraṇē tini śrama śibirē pāṭhiẏēchilēna, tini anumāna karachēna.
Tā’i, hyām̐, āmāra jagatē, yē kē’u punarbibēcanāra ēbaṁ jōrapūrbaka śramakē samarthana karē, sēṭi āsalē ēkaṭi durbala pañcāśa.
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I’ve spent a few days just a man who believes that this is his 84th Christmas. But he was sent to labor camp because he was the only survivor of an extended family of kulak, he was guessing.
So, yes, in my world, anyone who supports reconsideration and forced labor, is actually a weak fifty.