…….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.”
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.
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.
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played.“Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
"The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
Pacific Media Watch Earthwise hosts Lois and Martin Griffiths. Earthwise presenters Lois and Martin Griffiths on Plains FM 96.9 community radio talk to Dr David Robie, a New Zealand author, independent journalist and media educator with a passion for the Asia-Pacific region. David talks about the struggle to raise awareness ...
Pacific Media Watch Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who was held for 12 hours at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, says Israeli forces rounded up Palestinian journalists at the facility and made them kneel on the ground for hours, while naked and blindfolded. “The occupation forces handcuffed and blindfolded us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute chinasong, Shutterstock Electricity customers in four Australian states can breathe a sigh of relief. After two years in a row of 20% price increases, power prices have finally stabilised. In many places they’re ...
Chumbawamba have reportedly issued the deputy PM a cease-and-desist notice after he used their song 'Tubthumping' before his state of the nation speech. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney kitzcorner/Shutterstock The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Shutterstock Why are musicians so keen to get played on the radio? It can’t be because of the money. In Australia they are paid at rates so low they ...
"Farmers make a point not to tell our urban cousins how to live, yet Chlöe from central Auckland is hell-bent on having her say about farmers," says ACT Rural Communities spokesman Mark Cameron. “On her first day in the House as Green ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Tuesday 19 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
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….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx5jTXNnCZw
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNOAKMdlzNs
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqZ6Kraadjo
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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pvD_1ELTL4
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.
https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Perspective/dp/1843310279
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W_7uIapoHc
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T00zEt1-3VA
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.
https://twitter.com/pelinunker/status/1082725985269755905
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPRp0VT9PxA
“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://twitter.com/dmeaser/status/1082998527792476160
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:
https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1083169537263054849
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.
/
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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-PwQnQcmEA
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
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/10/warming-oceans-likely-to-raise-sea-levels-30cm-by-end-of-century-study
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE0KtLy5j8w
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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxGcZarAl1A
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.