Probably because those bands got big before the disco era, when tunes were the catchy hook that made them hits. The disco beat replaced tunes in ’76. Supremes hit #1 in ’64, Jackson 5 in ’67, Village People in ’73. From memory, which is becoming somewhat unreliable nowadays…
Wow Ad, that is probably unlikely for the present series here, and diminishes the performances of our team in Pakistan. Granted India will be an acid test.
Methane can be stabilised. The science appears clear that this only needs to reduce and stabilise over time, not achieve net zero. So, lets believe in this science as it is the best knowledge that we have as we head off on this path into unchartered territory.
There was no reference to support the statement.
Can anyone point to the appropriate research?
“Earlier this year, Frame and six other scientists published a paper that argued short-lived gases, like methane, should be accounted for differently in emission budgets because of their lesser warming potential over time.
Frame’s view – which he’s sticking to in the face of the IPCC report – is that cuts to methane can be made later, before global warming peaks. Carbon dioxide’s a “stock” pollutant while methane’s a “flow” pollutant – one builds up and the other dissipates. “I would wait on doing more on methane until you see that you’ve really got the CO2 under control.”
methane may well be able to be treated as a flow IF the atmospheric levels hadnt over doubled in the past 150 years or so (and are still increasing)….so logically before they can be treated as a flow the levels need to reduced.
All GHG gases can be treated as a flow as it actually is a flow.
In to the atmosphere >> removed from atmosphere >> In to the atmosphere
That’s happening even now.
The problem is that the ‘In to the atmosphere’ far exceeds the ‘removed from atmosphere’ and so we end up with an increase of those gases in the atmosphere which then changes the climate.
As it is, we need to radically reduce the amount of GHG emissions that we’re making and that’s going to require radical action. As far as farming goes – we need reduce the number of farms until we only produce enough food to support ourselves. Forget exporting of food – we just can’t afford it.
The letter saying methane could be stabilised. Lincoln University appear to have done a study. Perhaps that is what he is referring to?
His request for the Minister to give farming time to change was sad.
Shaw, with the best will in the world can not hold back the damage, and 12 years is 12 years.
To buy time, farming has to buy in big time, lower both carbon and methane , then they may get a little time relief.
He keeps mentioning emotion, and how decisions need to be made without emotion.
This letter is indicative of where sympathetic farmers are, and as Southland is so far right in politics, it is a step forward imo.
It is certainly an amazing shift from that farmer holding up the sign “She’s a pretty little Communist” in Te Aroha.
There are recognised stages of grief and some were evident in this letter.
Quite a shift since Jacinda stood up and said “Climate Change is the most important challenge we face”
Farming—especially the enormous dairy farms—in alliance with irresponsible and corrupt politicians, is a menace to this country.
JOHN KEY: Well that might be Mike Joy’s view, but I don’t share that view.
STEPHEN SACKUR: But he is very well qualified, isn’t he? He’s looked, for example, at the number of species threatened with extinction in New Zealand, he’s looked at the fact that half your lakes, 90% of your lowland rivers, are now classed as polluted.
KEY: Look, I’d hate to get into a flaming row with one of our academics, but he’s offering his view. I think any person that goes down to New Zealand …
SACKUR: Yeah but he’s a scientist, it’s based on research, it’s not an opinion he’s plucked from the air.
KEY: He’s one academic, and like lawyers, I can provide you with another one that will give you a counterview. Anybody who goes down to New Zealand and looks at our environmental credentials, and looks at New Zealand, then I think for the most part, in comparison with the rest of the world, we are 100% pure – in other words, our air quality is very high, our water quality is very high.
Probably only for your life – he will never wear out. In the future the situation will be that old bloggers never die; they will leave waiting algorithms to be triggered by particular words which will answer every reply drawing from a number of random sentences.
Yesterday was not exactly the Day of the Dumb Bastards. That infamous 24 hours occurred in September ’03. * No, yesterday was, as usual, just another Day of the Sad Gits.
Starting at 8:01 a.m. (Keeping Stock: “Hooray; no moderation!”—22 upvotes) all, or nearly all, their obsessions were covered. Those obsessions are:
1.) Māori privilege, Māori criminality, Māori culture; Māori identity. Paulus airs this carefully thought out thesis: “But of course the difference is that most Australian Aboriginals are 100%, whereas there are no pure 100% Maori.” A thinker called Tall Man joins in: “I’m ‘part aboriginal’. Just you wait when my ‘people’ get into the money I’ll be there tongue hanging out….. Yeah nah. What I have I made, what I will get is what I create. Why can’t maori think like that?”
2.) empathy for the beleaguered rich and condemnation of the lazy poor;
3.) hatred of “Cindy” (Jacinda Ardern) and murderous envy of “Jethro” (Clarke Gayford). calendar girl sneers at “our lightweight Ardern” and garners 21 upvotes. RW Capitalist chimes in: “Light weight … difficult to understand, how a mammal with so little brain function, could still be breathing. SLG may be a compliment.” (18 likes)
4.) contempt for the underperforming Simon Bridges;
5.) a Bob Jones level of disregard for rules and regulations. “The Herald is pushing the nonsense that it is unacceptable that to even have a wine with a meal,” fumes Chuck Bird, and slightlyrighty agrees: “I am observing high amounts of zealotry when it comes to alcohol and the enforcement of regulations.”
6.) veneration of the late Margaret Thatcher. Simon comments, in apparent high seriousness, on the sinking of the General Belgrano: “Great stuff. Overall the Falklands war helped defeat the genocidal left.” (23 upvotes). mikenmildagain, one of the sane people on this site—yes, there are a few—contests that remarkable view: “That’s the first time I’ve seen the Argentinean junta described as the genocidal left.” (26 downvotes) This dissenting view is smartly shot down by Tall Man: “Probably a lot of “firsts” for you on this blog. After all, you do seem to occupy the ignorant left side of the political spectrum.”
8.) veneration of Trump and his henchmen. Scott writes: “Yesterday in a fiery exchange presidential spokesperson Kelly Anne Conway tore into CNN “reporter” Jim Acosta. She called him a smart arse to his face! I love it when Trump and his administration call out the press. The news media for years and years have got away with their leftist propaganda. Trump and his associates are the only ones who stand up to the out-of-control press. If we only had politicians here on the right who would do the same!” (39 likes)
9.) “multiculturalism” —–> crime. Some taxi-drivers in Halifax, Ontario have been arrested on sex-assault charges. DigNap15 snarls: “The weak Canadians get what they deserve!” (20 likes) Then, eleven minutes later he has another thought and posts a follow-up: “And the weak Germans and Swedes and Poms” (19 likes.) kowtow agrees: “Yep , too many of them make a virtue of embracing “multiculturalism”. Now they can live with the consequences.” (16 likes)
10.) marijuana (general consensus: bad); Ben Shapiro; bureaucracy; oral sex; Mark Lundy; the Mongrel Mob; Pete George; vegans; Jair Bolsonaro (a hero, of course), cricket…..
Well, nobody can argue that rightist culture isn’t diverse. You’ve compiled overwhelming evidence against that. Too toxic for me. Wading through their swamp regularly in your thigh-high gumboots, eh? Preaching at the denizens within? Or just in the research spirit of the social ecologist, to learn what mass psychology motivates them? It would be better to draw some informative conclusions lest readers here see the listings as a form of cultural pollution…
Kiwiblog’s like going into One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets The Living Dead meets the Mongrel Mob wannabes who missed out because their IQ’s didn’t reach 67. Directed by the Voice of the Establishment, David Farrar.
Thanks very much, Tamati. I actually like the people over there. They’re not as bad as one might think on first contact. Yes, some of them say some shocking things, but I doubt they really believe most of the extreme things they say.
Similarly, there are some pretty hair-raising opinions voiced on this site.
That’s the point Morrissey, you have fingered an outstanding point: some of them say some shocking things, but I doubt they really believe most of the extreme things they say.
The are mostly blowhards who just want to pass an opinion, irritate, get superior. TS has a destiny to be a pretty serious discussion about our society, our environment, and what we can do about it. There isn’t time for too much fence sitting, and time-passing. Being on TS isn’t a replacement for a pub discussion.
That’s the difference between the RW, who are either ascetic in pursuit of profit, or hedonistic at the core, and the LW who can be ascetic in pursuit of higher wages etc and hedonistic, but can be dragged back by the remaining values to the people that they have, so that the betterment of society and compassion can be inserted in Slot B; and sometimes up to A.
The Loch Mess monster? Or one of those aliens from the swamp.
We might hope for a Yoda but i think it is the wrong swamp. We could learn good things from Yoda. He says use the Force. Then do, not say you’ll try. There is no try.
It’s clear that Aristotle thinks that slavery was good for those who were born natural slaves, as without masters they wouldn’t have known how to run their lives.
The Greek philosopher Plato thought similarly that it was right for the ‘better’ to rule over the ‘inferior’.
Thousands of years and the RWNJs haven’t changed their tune. They, of course, consider themselves the ‘betters’.
Wow – are you actually applying left/right to Aristotle and Plato?
I’ve done 3 years Classical Studies, 2 years Latin and over 5 years in political science and this is the very first time I have heard anyone apply left/right to BCE philosophers.
I highly doubt you are actually qualified enough to make such a statement (you have such hubris?) when it is one that no one qualified has suggested so, you know, [citation needed]
Secondly because the “attitudes and philosophies are the same” – what part of plato’s or Aristotles philosophy is/was right-wing? Which philosophers would you consider left-wing (from the same period please)
Interesting. looking at Plato’s Gorgias, the comment about slaves used in Draco’s link appears to be very much out of context.
Plato loved dialogues, where Socrates would debate with various archetypes of opponent and then masterfully (sometimes in a contrived way) demolishing naive philosophical positions or picking holes in categorical statements. The quote in the BBC link of DTB says Plato supported slavery, but the comment was actually made by one of Socrates’ foils (Callicas).
Now, the caveat on this comment is that the last time I read Plato, I studied a paper on that book a few months later and realised I’d understood almost nothing even though I’d thought I had a handle on it. So maybe Socrates ended up demonstrating that slavery was a fine thing indeed. But it looks to me on the surface of it that he’s completely ripping shit out of the ‘might makes right’ doctrine. I especially liked the bit about the doctor apportioning food.
The RW always resort to this minute discussion of crossed t’s or spelling or what are your credentials. Aligning themselves with superior philosophers from millenia ago. Democratic tendencies R’Out.
I highly doubt you are actually qualified enough to make such a statement (you have such hubris?) when it is one that no one qualified has suggested so, you know,
OMG, No on else has made the same comparison so you must be wrong.
Yes Draco, yes.
From WP – “The false dilemma fallacy can also arise simply by accidental omission of additional options rather than by deliberate deception. For example, “Stacey spoke out against capitalism, therefore she must be a communist”
From Draco – “Plato spoke in favour of slavery therefore he’s Right-Wing”
I’ve seen it in books several times. Usually called aristocrat, meaning conservative. This from the relevant wiki implies a benign elitism hierarchy:
“Plato lists three classes in his ideal society. Producers or Workers: The laborers who make the goods and services in the society. Auxiliaries/Soldiers: Those who keep order in the society and protect it from invaders. Guardians (Philosopher kings) — those who are the most intelligent, rational, self-controlled, in love with wisdom, and well suited to make decisions for the community, and who promote the interests of the society as a whole.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_political_philosophy
Pretty much every philosopher who envisioned an ideal society said that the most suited and capable people should rule, and they should rule for the benefit of society. That applies to everyone from monarchists to communists (where people suited to managing contribute according to their skillset). To flip it around, very few said “society should be ruled by a narcissist who serves only their own interests”. Ayn Rand, comes to mind, but with very little company. Hobbes and other monarchists of around that era asserted to some degree or other hereditary monarchy was a capable trade-off to prevent anarchy, and that the knowledge of imminent succession enabled training and a lifetime of preparation for the role – heavy on the implicit acceptance of noblesse oblige, and also that it was the work of God and therefore infallible (inbreeding politely ignored).
Plato’s PK wasn’t hereditary, nor were there generally proxies of wealth or strength (e.g. “I am rich, therefore I will be the best ruler” or “I am ruthless and killed my competitors, therefore I deserve to rule”) included, if I recall broadly correctly. And the philosopher king certainly wasn’t supposed to follow the Right wing thinking of “what is good for me and my rich and/or powerful friends is what is good for the society”.
Democracy is about the only one that allows some chance of periodically selecting an imbecile to rule, which is why its entire approach is to organise the transition away from particular rulers, rather than installing or justifying them. Even then, there’s usually some sort of faith in the ability of voters en masse to usually pick equivalently capable rulers, rather than focussing on the merits of a population simply being able to choose its own path to hell.
Yeah, that’s mostly my view too. With the possible exception of this bit: “the philosopher king certainly wasn’t supposed to follow the Right wing thinking of “what is good for me and my rich and/or powerful friends is what is good for the society”.”
Debatable, that. Historical evidence of such people is notable for the lack. Amongst Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius is the obvious candidate. I doubt any examination of his rule would produce evidence of him serving anything other than the insitution of the patriarchy.
One could also go for my tribe’s emperor, Charlemagne. A successful warrior who ruled as that rarest of creatures, a genuine christian, and established an education system for his subjects that became the prototype for all public education since. However power-sharing was never on his agenda. Quite the contrary!
However, I do agree that the next king of England will fit the philosopher king description accurately. You only need to follow the money to see how he has implemented his philosophy, and in his book he explains why & how.
It’s possible that both “philosopher” and “king” have lost something in the translation. Plato was talking about a merit-based ruler who considered situations rationally and in great depth. And Plato made clear the ruler should rule in the interests of society.
Whether such an example has existed in history is irrelevant to whether Plato was even remotely “right wing”.
Inasmuch as Charles will not rule as king, you’re technically correct, but I’m confident that he will be an exemplar in combining the philosopher role with the status of king.
Having read the book, I’m better-informed about that. I won’t argue about your final statement – I can’t see any relevance. How right-wing any aristocrat may have been is pure conjecture. Won’t stop many from seeing a correlation though, and jumping to the general conclusion.
Read up the thread. The discussion is happening literally because Draco called Plato a RWNJ.
Kings, or any ruler, can be smart, dumb, cruel, kind, rational, impulsive, self-serving, or serve the public good. Then they die or are replaced in some other manner. The discussion was about whether a particular philosopher’s ideas constituted being “right wing”. I think most of Plato’s works could go either way – any right wing or left wing society could follow his political philosophy.
Oh, okay. In that case, I agree with you about Plato, inasmuch as left-wingers are inclined to operate within the context of a class hierarchy as often as not.
Pretty much every philosopher who envisioned an ideal society said that the most suited and capable people should rule, and they should rule for the benefit of society.
That’s pretty much what we have with the ideal cabinet of Donald J. Trump, isn’t it? Who could be more suitable, capable and beneficial rulers of any country than the esteemed forementioned Trump, ably backed up by such stratospheric talents as Giuliani, De Vos, Pence, Pompeo, Mnuchin, Bolton, Carson, Perry, Nielsen….
Actually it’s been pretty productive – did some reno, got a large item delivered and installed, did some chores. Then some jerk came along and talked about dolt45. for no reason whatsoever
I understand that dolt45 is an outstanding example of a bad ruler. Bringing him into a serious and actually quite interesting discussion of Plato and foundational political theory as a joke is like laughing about fatal haemorrhoid surgery at a keynote address on proctology. Timing is everything, and it’s one thing you don’t have in an asynchronous communication medium.
On the topic of climate change: I found this very interesting advertorial for Schneider Electric. It makes some good points about retrofitting:
“retrofitting is […] often forgotten: Typically, examples of “sustainable living” feature new buildings, new cars, and new city designs. But by 2050, it will neither be feasible nor economically wise to rebuild what is already put in place.”
“Dallas County, the ninth largest county in the U.S., government spent $600,000 on 54 buildings for improvements including mechanical system upgrades, water conservation controls and fixtures, and lighting with motion sensors. The project is expected to reduce utility bills by 31 percent, ultimately saving $73 million over 10 years.”
How’s that for a return on investment.
And this:
“Schneider Electric is among the few companies who have a business case aligned with moving humanity out of ecological overshoot. With this, these companies have a baked-in economic advantage: On average they are aligned with the growing need of living within the means of our one planet. This exposes the companies to an expanding market, a feature that makes it much more likely for such companies to be successful in the long run compared to companies that are incompatible with one-planet prosperity and will inevitably face a shrinking demand.”
Companies that retrofit and actively support retrofitting the planet will gain loyal consumer bases. Sounds great right!
Schneider Electric have been naughty! There’s a 2016 $6.8M fine for breaching EPA standards, 16 bribery charges in 2014, and 2018 raids in France concerning alleged collusion and corruption.
So this company is keen to retrofit the planet, at cartel prices, while it’s factories continue to pollute, and if there’s an issue a little bribery can fix it.
And none of this comes as any surprise.
We can take the good from the advertorial however. Retrofitting buildings can make a significant difference. Also, for business, a significant economic difference.
Passive heating, passive cooling, natural lighting, sensor operated systems to minimize use… There’s a lot of good ideas out there to help turn your business or home into a more efficient space.
Even perpetual economic growth isn’t a fatal flaw in and of itself. It’s fully possible to envisage continuing growth from people providing services to each other accompanied by decreasing resource usage. Automation and efficiency improvements can do that if managed well.
It’s growth in consumption of finite resources that’s the problem. In fact, it’s ongoing consumption of finite resources that’s a problem, until that consumption of finite resources goes to zero and we’re fully renewable.
Quite right. However this nuanced view has failed to get traction in politics. Growth is good being a powerful complex meme, and addiction psychology being beyond the mental grasp of media operatives.
Russel Norman advocated Green growth when he was co-leader. I didn’t mind that, since he rationalised it as using tech to trend business towards sustainability. Biomimicry suggests using growth in nature as the new paradigm: businesses flourish like plants, then die in due course, while others emerge. Steady-state economics becoming the norm half a century after conception.
what you both describe is not growth….its continued activity with a diminishing resource use….the antithesis of growth, named Degrowth, and is the only viable option and the need for its implementation is exceedingly time constrained.
Yes, but growth in nature is a thing. It comes & goes. So framing it on that basis is a way to bridge the gap between the enterprise dimension of capitalism (growth-producing) and the Green fundamentalist view (growth kills nature). The bluegreens, I thought, would do this. Their failure doesn’t just damage their credibility, it operates as a handicap for all.
Growth in nature is indeed a thing….growth in the terms of a lifecycle which includes a natural limit , if those limits are exceeded what happens?….a forrest for example cannot continue to grow forever outside its environmental confines and the individual components of that environment require a balance that is controlled biologically……there is no endless growth in nature but our current economic model claims to have rewritten the laws of nature (physics)…..one hell of a marketing pitch but patently false as is increasingly evident.
His views arnt widely popular but his book title is accurate, nature does indeed bat last
There is no output without input and ALL activity requires input…existing requires resources…never mind the desire for ease. It is IMPOSSIBLE to continue to grow (anything) ad infinitum in a finite environment…and we have passed that point.
It would be worth considering that this finite environment dosnt need our existence , indeed it is in the process of ridding itself of us.
Not at all. But you have to base your systems on natural ecology, that which grows in production and complexity. When the waste of one is the food/fuel of the next a whole raft of products can be realised within a single system.
As systems develop biodiversity increases and more and more connections between species and processes become apparent.
Industry could learn much from natural systems. We have a lot of disconnected competitive entities all jostling to make money and in the process throwing it away – advertising, competition, proprietary rights yadda yadda. Work in isolation pumping out dollars and waste you are not part of an ecosystem you are kind of parasitic.
Good permacultural systems thinking. Cycles are a hard concept for rightists to grasp, but I think it unwise to dismiss the bluegreen trend as merely greenwash. Up to around a decade ago I would have agreed, but since then they’ve been on a convergence trajectory.
-every country pursing a growth in economic activity….so pretty much every country in the world (19 with negative growth but not necessarily by choice)
I realised that if you cut down ‘growth’ you might end up with ‘grot’. Here is a bit of Reggie Perrin in his store Grot, where you can get just the right thing to give to People you Hate.
And people who hate us have bought up just about everything in the shop to make little deals with, rather than give away (have I got a bridge for you!).
Ikea, destroyers of the environment…
“the key issue with IKEA from an environmentalist’s point of view is that the company encourages the mass-consumption of goods that generally need to be replaced after a few years, putting an increasing strain on the world’s natural resources. In her 2009 book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, Ellen Ruppel Shell argues that IKEA – by some measures the world’s third-largest consumer of wood – sells products with a limited lifespan and that, by claiming its products are ‘sustainable’ and come from ‘renewable’ sources, effectively encourage consumers to replace like with like, rather than spending more on longer-lasting products.”
( a funny article, because its trying to be pro ikea while telling us how flawed and destructive the basic business model is…it can’t be easy being a environmentally aware Capitalist.)
Cargo Cult mentality in full swing here. Most of what IKEA stocks can be found in The Warehouse anyway, just under a different brand name. But each to their own.
You may well think this isn’t relevant to the converted on the left, but given Carlson’s massive influence on Fox and his massive conservative influence, it bodes very well for the populist messaging that Warren already has down.
It also works surprisingly well read in a New Zealand context if you can mentally edit out the accent.
Carlson is not to be underestimated. He is the founder and editor of the often-misleading Daily Caller in addition to all of his other platforms. He knows how to communicate that’s for sure.
The irony of an heir to the Swanson frozen food fortune railing against capitalism, while earning millions as a Fox host, should not be lost on anyone.
I can appreciate that he is an opponent of laissez-faire, Libertarian and AnCap ideas but I still tend to agree with Jon Stewart in 2004; Carlson’s use of his platforms has been damaging to the political discourse.
These cases where he is closer to the political centre are countered by him promulgating the ‘white genocide’ myth.
Glasgow had the highest murder rate of any western European city: 63 victims per million. An innovative approach to gangs turned it into one of the safest cities in the UK.
Real discrimination against women comes largely I think because men resent women being the gender that can give life to a new person, and therefore is unwittingly powerful over all. Self-made men are particularly pissed about this!
And after looking at that it will probably have penetrated the minds of all as to how bodily appearance, looking ‘good’ and right, are embedded in female’s sensibilities from a very early age.
In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood there is a quote something like ‘Men are afraid that women will laugh at them; and women are afraid that men will kill them.’
While the book/series is set in some Dystopian future, there are many parallels with the fundamentalist teachings and practices of today. Many christian women say nothing of their lot, for it is ‘not their place to’.
I posit that a large proportion of today’s misogyny originated with, and remains with, religions.
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. 1 Corinthians 14:34
He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 1 Kings 11:3
If, however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. Deuteronomy 22:20-21.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22-24.
That’s the mob I’m familiar with. The Torah and other ‘gospels’ are no better.
Which is why we need to get rid of religion. Even Judaism. The sooner the better.
Someone I know went back to the Jehovah’s Witnesses a while back and has gone from independent woman to totally buying into all that ‘women are inferior’ BS. Become a total prude too.
Real discrimination against women comes largely I think because men resent women being the gender that can give life to a new person, and therefore is unwittingly powerful over all. Self-made men are particularly pissed about this!
It’s a dead giveaway with any religion. If the magical superhero arrived in the world through something other than normal birth nine months after normal sex between a man and a woman, it’s a religion predicated on fear and hate of women, with all their slimy biological yuckiness.
So now also the “eco” plan now comes to grief as well here!!!!!!!!
Apparently now it seems that “air tight homes’ are now deemed as “dangerous” to us all too.
Time to open windows and let some ventilation in to expel the toxic VOC’s.
It seems that for ‘every benefit’ comes some ‘unintended consequences’ now.
Full marks to this NZ company ‘Tether’ and for their CEO Brandon Van Blerk for telling the truth about ‘sealed homes’ as not being fully safe, as they trap volatile organic chemicals (VOC’s) inside them, and dangerously poisoning the inside air and the residents.
Insulation can worsen unhealthy home issues
Tuesday, 18 December 2018, 11:41 am
Press Release: Tether
PRESS RELEASE
Tether Limited
18 December 2018
Kiwis cautioned that insulation can worsen unhealthy home issues
An air tight home does not equal a healthy home and may even exacerbate the damp, stagnant conditions that lead to mould, mildew and respiratory problems likes asthma and pneumonia among children and older adults in New Zealand.
CEO of healthy home monitoring technology company Tether, Brandon Van Blerk, said while Government making home insulation a priority is a good thing, over emphasis on insulation might actually make the problems worse.
“Good insulation should go hand-in-hand with adequate ventilation and air exchange because good insulation alone makes a home airtight, and that will lead to moisture problems and a build up of noxious gases, harmful particles like dust and mould spores and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).”
“A healthy home has the trinity of 1. Good insulation, 2. Adequate ventilation and 3. Efficient air exchange.”
Decades ago I remember it being argued that NZ homes were airy and uninsulated but that those who lived in them were healthier and had greater resistance to colds and flu, especially compared to those who lived in warm centrally heated airtight well-insulated homes. At the extremes I guess those who lived in tents would be healthier still. (Air conditioning can spread infections on warm humid air.)
We do like to be comfortable though don’t we?
Was just thinking on this yesterday, how climate change could put the air conditioning power demands really high, and the poor who can’t afford it.
We certainly need passive cooling and heating in our designs. Whether we can afford power or not, if we know how to do this (we do) not doing it is a waste of power for the buildings lifetime.
I have an air inlet for a cooling cupboard placed 5 feet up on a sun exposed brick wall – Just W.T.F…
Drop that same opening to ground level and shade it out with shrubs – huge improvement. Put a new opening on the shaded side of the house, add shrubs, and an outlet up high on the opposite hot side of the house and I got a breeze through the house.
I can’t afford a damn air conditioner. All buildings should have a breeze built in. See if you can fiddle round with windows on shaded and bright sides and get one running.
Decades ago I remember it being argued that NZ homes were airy and uninsulated but that those who lived in them were healthier and had greater resistance to colds and flu, especially compared to those who lived in warm centrally heated airtight well-insulated homes.
That sounds like bollocks put about to justify having cold, damp houses that were cheap to build and thus maximised profits for the developers.
If the UK has a problem with the new Eu border, while doesn’t Ireland? Why is Ireland choosing to scrap the peace agreement with the north and not even holding a referendum? Is Ireland waiting to see how the UK Eu agree the new relationship?
I can’t see the Eu, any more than the UK, rushing to build customs border control.
So why has May so successful put the eu off talking, it’s in the interest for the UK,Ireland, businesses all to continue working… ..only a hard brexit will work since nobody is accepting the reality that the UK is leaving. Until everyone affected is in tge room, the doors locked and not opened until its done.
I can’t see the Eu wanting people let into the uk crossing the border in Ireland and entering the eu, or vis vevia, Syria’s buying tickets to Ireland… ..so where is the eu commitment to the peace agreement?
The UK needs Europe more than Europe needs the UK. Europe doesn’t need to renegotiate its trade network from scratch. Europe is more open to immigration than the UK wants to be, so illegal immigration from UK into Europe won’t be a huge problem. Europe has much higher GDP than UK.
why then does the pound and eu buy roughly the same number of dollars.
And yes sure a dysfunctional multipolar collective of foreign languages should by the virtue of its larger population dominate the relationship but there’s the assumption, Britain is also a part of a dysfunctional trading English speaking block, the commonwealth.Germany has Turks and now Syrians, Britian has south Asians and caribbians…
The joke is that brexit exposes the Tories up for the incompetents they are. Instead of dealing with those left behind, it let itself believe the eu was the problem.
Sorry.Parts from the world going into the UK, to build cars say, for the eu market… …or other goods going to the UK… look I jus don’t aged with comparisons of the UK and Eu. Also UK germany are more comparable, since a lot of what germany exports takes parts from the uk, and cars, or wharever.
Even on a UK/germany comparison, as I pointed out before the UK is more reliant on exports to Germany than vice versa. And Germany can get parts from anywhere in the EU for cheaper than a trade deal with the UK.
So in the five years after a hard Brexit the UK will have barriers put on 10% of its export market. Germany can choose where else it buys from. British manufacturing gets bollocked unless the rest of the world suddenly open up to the UK – which it’s not going to do. Meanwhile, czech manufacturers supply the parts Germany wants. UK gets shut out of cooperative contracts like Typhoon and CERN. What will Europe or Germany weep over not getting from UK?
“The remarks drew online ridicule. Some say that if prayers work, the government should set up the Ministry of Magic and make Thailand a superpower. Others say that they also pray for the junta to leave politics but it did not work out.”
Magical thinking hasn’t been flavour of the month in western civilisation since the 17th century. Science replaced it. In the counter-culture, it flourished briefly again but so many interesting things happened that the generation born in the fifties got weirded-out, and scooted back to moronic conservatism.
The good news is that Lyall Watson books are still around, so anyone interested in the magical dimension of nature can get up to speed easily. As long as one becomes adept at not becoming captive to any delusion, Castenada still provides a model on the application side of things. Flawed, inasmuch as the guru thing ended up claiming him as victim. But we lack a useful model of how to apply shamanic practice in contemporary political contexts. When I raised this question at a political meeting of around 40 people around five or six years ago I got sustained applause, but no answer.
You didn’t notice? It was the previous sentence: how to apply shamanic practice in contemporary political contexts. I have a few clues on the topic due to my personal history as change-maker, but I was hoping for more. I noticed long ago that being a fast learner & fast mover is a problematic path (peer group drops off the pace).
Hmmmm… okay, I did notice, but…I could have drawn that inference/inferred that, but you didn’t ask, or state a question…so, now that you’ve asked and I’m not applauding without answering, here goes…”how do we apply shamanic practice in contemporary political contexts” – that’s it, just to be clear? Effectively, is my answer; effectively if you mean to effect change. I’m very interested in this discussion; would you care to elaborate a little so that I can getafix on your intent, I’d like to bat ideas back and forward…
Can do but probably more suitable for the weekend topic of how to get there, but the already mentioned theme is more important. The one that Andre suggested.
Changemaking involves catalysis. It involves shifting mass consciousness (which is where shamanic function comes in). It involves an orientation to the time axis, one that transcends passive acceptance of the current reality as predetermining the future by default.
Science hasn’t even yet accepted that we actually have an innate orientation to the time axis. Psychology is a barren field populated by folks with small minds. Post Jung, I mean. Minimal progress. Political psychology, the key arena, is devoid of content.
I tried that. Everyone sat down to the meal, I said “grace”, and everyone laughed. I suppose you could argue that I shifted mass consciousness for the group…
Too right Dennis. I don’t do grace now. I thought recently; why? We and I have taken everything too casually. Post war – what could go wrong? Now I am a bit sharper prior to my senescence.
No doubt taking a while to process the cognitive dissonance. “Huh? What did she just say?” I presume you were a child at the time. Kids are often inadvertent subversives, in those years before convention and group-think tighten their grip. I hope the lord didn’t punish you for disrespect.
Never heard of humans thinking bumblebees out of a house. But several times I’ve observed bumblebees successfully thinking humans out of their houses. Including once through an open window.
Ha! Funny, but now that you have heard of thinking them out, will you apply the scientific principle and test my hypothesis/proposal/claim?
Give it a go and get back to us with your findings.
Dunno about bees, but flies are usually pretty easy if you know their behaviour. I open the bathroom door ajar, and the bathroom window fully. Fly gets attracted into bathroom, can’t get back into rest of house, flies out window. Flies that come in window don’t get into rest of house, fly out window again. They usually like to go from dark to light.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that observing animal behaviour and using the knowledge to get rid of them is in the same ballpark as praying or thinking them away, though. If I do swat a sitting fly, I aim behind it to take advantage of its launch mechanism.
My thinking doesn’t make it jump packwards, its reflexes do.
Owing to the stress and strain i haven’t wiped my cobwebs again. I have one at the base of a window that is near a corner, where the blowflies buzz over to. If they walk along the base of the window they will get caught in an arm of the web, buzz madly then I see some long legs arise and a mad dash for spider to get it while it’s hot. Watched a couple of flies go that way. Otherwise they get encouraged out. Swatting can knock them down and they may spill juveniles.
I once sat on a bumblebee that had overnighted in my pyjamas. Bugger bit me multiple times back side of my tenders but once the stinging subsided, I thought all would be well. Nope.
I arrived home mid morning after an early surf with things below feeling rather tight, so I dropped my strides and there they were, the pair of ’em were the size of oranges, and growing.
Eventually antihistamines calmed things down but oh dear, the pain and discomfort.
hehehe Reminds me of time I was riding my m’bike in a pair of shorts. A wasp went up the left leg. Ahhhhhhhhhh. I stood up on the foot rests and managed to bring the bike to a stop but ooooh I shall never forget that. Nor the time I sat on the sofa and there was a wasp sitting on it – I nearly hit the roof. lol
Reminds me of a story our psychology lecturer told us to demonstrate the nature of a phenomena.
A thistle – that is no phenomena
A bee – that is no phenomena
A horse – that is no phenomena
But a horse, sitting on a bee, sitting on a thistle – that is a phenomena.
We had a morris 8 with a wind out windscreen on a trip to the beach wearing only a sarong i meet with a wasp in the worst of spots, i was very pleased to get into the ocean
Oh yeah! I remember those. I had a Ford 10 and a mate and I shared a Standard when were at college. Used to drive it up the Akatarawas after school each day – until it ran its big end bearings. 🙁 His dad was a mechanic, and being wise to the after school drag racing up a very windy hill road decided that the best solution was that the car was unfixable. 😉 We sold it off as parts netting 15 quid which was 5 more than we paid for it! Paid for our petrol – which as I recall was around 2/6 a gallon in those days.
Probably works better when combined with action. I did this with a possum, after buying the old harbour-master’s villa, up on the hill overlooking the old jetty at Port Waikato.
For those who don’t know, it was a port for the coastal trade until the sixties. I’ve got a 10×8 photocopy of an old photo taken from the air, showing a tanker in port at that jetty. Then the farmers stripped the Waikato river hillsides for more farmland, the silt was deposited at the river mouth, and tankers could no longer get in.
Anyway a noise woke me one night, and I could tell it was in the kitchen area, so I came out cautiously, flicked on the light, and the biggest possum I’ve ever seen was sitting calmly on the middle of the dining table watching me. Size of a wallaby, in a similar stance. I thought for a few secs, then sidled carefully around it & opened the window on the far side, then sidled back again.
It must have observed this just as carefully, as it immediately, in leisurely fashion, exited. So the technique works if the creature observes the exit.
Portals are vital. A possum can’t usually exit where there is no point of exit. Usually. Bats, I’m not so sure 🙂
Animals sometimes have difficulty identifying open portals. I’ve noticed. I catch, in my hands, one or two blackbirds a day in my kitchen. They don’t seem to mind being exported.
I think that by our thoughts we create our own reality. I’ve never seen bumble bees as something to wish to move so have never tried.
Away from NZ I see people with quite a different view on supernatural forces and more accepting of their impacts , my natural inbuilt western cynicism is something I’m yet to conquer but i find my perceptions continualy challenged.
The progressive left has traditionally viewed human interaction as being about language and choice and the dynamics of sociality. Whereas the right view the world as something to control via science and prediction of human behaviour, which is impossible to do, therefore provides the wrong analysis.
Well ghosts or spirits, we have one in my NZ house ; my late wife far more open than me would talk about her, now I mix with mainly Thai people and all who visit mention her presence, without prompting. Hard to explain.
Here in Thailand every house has a small house outside for spirits of past family we leave food, It doesn’t dissapper, but my wife will often wake with story from someone who visited in the night and usually the message is relevent.
After a death and cremation about 90 days the family and friends gather, the ashes are collected from the crematorium and a bucket of water and the best clothes of the deceased are put by the gate, he washes himself and dresses and joins in the party, the amazing part is the water moves, who knows but I don’t think anyone can conjure earthquakes at will so I’m left believing it is the spirit that disturbs it.
“accidentally”???
The people who filter Kinder’s stuff – they’re charged with reality-checking, aren’t they??
Who could miss that?
No one.
They’re going for outrage as a marketing tool.
They didn’t know? Why not just have an extra balloon making two, to show how Kinder offers that bit more. But three? How about a bit of paper with a joke (yolk) on it or an offer, that would be doing something about plstic rubbish. Which that toy was. Neither useful or ornamental.
Career MAGA scammer scams MAGA fools, and swatts former employees, too.
Brian Kolfage, the decorated Iraq War veteran spearheading the massive, viral fundraising campaign to build President Trump’s border wall, who has a history of peddling right-wing misinformation on Facebook, pushed the limits of misleading content in pursuit of online traffic and profits until he was ultimately banned from the platform, according to multiple former employees and a review of internal communications.
The 37-year-old has spent more than a decade carefully crafting his public persona as an altruistic, conservative public figure, but people who have worked with the veteran told BuzzFeed News he can be vengeful and malicious, and that the pursuit of profits above all else fueled his behavior.
The veteran has also spearheaded other crowdfunding ventures over the years, raising thousands of dollars on GoFundMe with the promise of helping mentor fellow vets at military hospitals, but spokespersons for the medical centers said they have no record of Kolfage working at their facilities or donating any money.
Someone as deeply involved in the suppression of democracy and free speech as Obama was has no business commenting about “populist movements” or anything else.
Golf is what he should be doing—along with his equally irresponsible Kiwi financier chum.
Springsteen Apologizes for B. Obama Collaboration Singer expresses “regret that I was not both more informed and more discerning” when he sang for B. Obama in 2012
by Philip Lasmy and Mart Westhauss, chiPforkt, Jan. 11, 2019
Bruce Springsteen has apologized for collaborating with B. Obama in 2012. “I am deeply horrified by the irrefutable stories of mass killing surrounding B. Obama,” the rock legend said in a statement, posted on his Twitter. “I regret that I was not both more informed and more discerning when I worked with him previously. I fully support all victims of extrajudicial killings, and it’s my hope that there will be a path to justice.”
Springsteen sang to B. Obama worshippers in Wisconsin on the final day of campaigning in the 2012 US Election. The rock legend capped his appearance by playing the anthem “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
Springsteen’s apology follows Lady Oprah’s, who also worked with Obama in 2012. In a statement posted to Twitter last night, Oprah said that she intends to remove all traces of her collaborations with Obama from her mind. The apologies arrive as people continue to speak out publicly about B. Obama’s history of extrajudicial killing and his relentless persecution of journalists and whistle-blowers.
What was the fiction, Sacha? Are you trying to say that B. Obama was not involved in thousands of extrajudicial killings and did not relentlessly persecute journalists and whistle-blowers?
Really? Come on now—get serious.
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Oh, I SEE-E-E-E-EEEE! You think the average reader here is so thick that he/she won’t appreciate that it’s SATIRE. You want me to FLAG it for them, do you? Just in case they can’t work it out for themselves?
No, Sacha, that’s not going to happen. You can helpfully wave a flag marked “SATIRE” if you like, but I don’t think many people need such prompting.
Just saw an excellent story of how two old guys spent 15 years building a walking track in to the Koropuka Falls in the Caitlins, so everyone can go & see it fairly easily. Reminds us of the role voluntarism will play in maintaining & regenerating community in the non-monetarised part of society. It was on TV1. They got DOC approval to do it.
Very prescient, if not precognitive! A reporter brings this up at a Trump press conference… Trump: “Dude, I’m just living the dream. It’s because the Democrats voted for a fence. I knew it had to be a wall.”
I agree with Mere Berryman I have reshurched my Ngati Porou history and its totally diffrent to the storys I was told .I also see a lot of storys glorifying the english settlors and belittling Tangata whenua any true storys that show Maori mana are hidden. Everyone knows that this justice system is having a kaka on Eco Maori.
Mere Berryman: it’s time we did better by Māori students
From The Weekend, 9:05 am on 5 January 2019
New Zealand’s education system is failing Māori students by continuing to marginalise their culture, says Waikato University professor Mere Berryman, a 2017 New Zealander of the Year finalist.
The Treaty of Waitangi promised both Māori and non-Māori equal shares of all the benefits that the colonial government was going to provide, yet what we’ve found that education has provided is a very western perspective that is about one history rather than both our histories.”
‘[The teachers] ask the Chinese girl about her culture and they try and tell me about mine’, Berryman was told by one Māori student.
This one-sided storytelling not only disadvantages Māori New Zealanders, she says.
“Māori have missed out because their histories are not being told authentically, but so too have non-Māori because they haven’t learnt about Māori histories [alongside European colonial history]. They’ve learnt a particular version of those events.”
Berryman says she was shocked when a 2001 government report revealed that the experience of many Māori students still hadn’t improved since she and her siblings were in primary school, but wasn’t surprised when a 2017 report confirmed the depth and continuation of the problem
Racism is something that we’re not good at talking about in New Zealand, but we all need to acknowledge its existence … Until we all work to understand [racism], I don’t believe, as a society, we will be able to move forward.”
Currently, about 70 percent of students are served “exceptionally well” by the education system, Berryman says.
“But 20 percent are doing a lot less well with and many of them are Māori.”
The other 10 percent – which Berryman believes is a growing group – are impoverished immigrant and Pakeha students “often living in really risky situations”, she says.
trumps clinging to his toy wall is putting millions of peoples lives at risk and the poor people who don’t have the money to bounce back from disaster are going to pay the price of this tantrum
Beleaguered firefighters put on hold by government shutdown
“If you don’t do the hiring on time, then you can’t do the training on time, then you are not ready for the next fire season,” a nonprofit leader said.
Controlled burns have been put on hold. Fire training sessions have been canceled. The hiring of hundreds of seasonal firefighters has been delayed.
The nation’s wildland fire service — trying to regroup this winter after two of the biggest and deadliest fire seasons on record — has instead been cast into a state of anxiety by the three-week-old partial government shutdown. That’s because some firefighters with the Forest Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management are among the approximately 800,000 government employees either furloughed or working without a guarantee of pay.
The shutdown has affected hundreds of regular fire and support personnel at those agencies, along with seasonal “hotshots” and others who swell the fire lines during the forest and brush fire emergencies that have swept through the West with increasing
emergencies that have swept through the West with increasing intensity nearly every summer and fall, according to wildfire experts. A Senate Appropriations Committee report estimates that as many as 5,000 Forest Service firefighters may be working without pay.
Analysts say the sidelining of some firefighters comes at a difficult time because of the increasing length and arduousness of the fire calendar. After battling what was then the largest fire in California history in 2017, the Thomas Fire, and the deadliest fire in California history in November, the Camp Fire, firefighters do not appreciate going untrained and unpaid.
If you don’t do the hiring on time, then you can’t do the training on time, then you are not ready for the next fire season,” said Goulette of the Watershed Center, which is based in the Northern California town of Hayfork. “And with fire season expanding in California and across the West, you better be ready. Spring does not last as long as it used to.”
Fire experts and climate scientists say warmer and drier weather has prolonged recent fire seasons, making winter recovery time even more precious for firefighters to regroup. “There can be a little over 300 days a year now that someone is fighting a fire somewhere,” said Whittington, “compared to 200 or 250 days in the past. So the time to get over the last fire year and prepare for the next one is incredibly short.”
Ka kite ano links below
Interesting eco maori naming problems brought on to firefighters by lack of funding, poor systems, things not being done in a timely fashion,
A Senate Appropriations Committee report estimates that as many as 5,000 Forest Service firefighters may be working without pay.
And this at a time when the USA i confronted by terrible fires. Fat cats in politics, career politicians. It doesn’t work, and they need to have a set limit and then on their way.
Kia ora Newshub its not on tamariki are getting beat up for there shoes and the offenders get away with it WTF.
The scam of the deaf cards being sold as a charity te scam is the capitalist way no.
Ka pai to China sending the world pictures of the far side of te Marama.
Ka pai for the Winton rugby match for Blair Vining it was cool for Mils to play to for Blairs bucket list game all the best to Blair and his whano.
Good on Sea Shepherd for stopping the poachers by pulling up there illegal drift nets there actions are causing the extintion of Mexico ‘s Vaquita porpoise there are only 30 left we must protect all of our creatures from over exploitation.
There you go the Ice is melting very fast at the antartica Ross sea ice shelf the sea’s are warming and rising fast that will cause a lot of animals to die.
That show me how famous the All Blacks are the Theatre show getting big views in Amercia some people need tissues as they are crying about the All Blacks Mana & fame I say they should be thanking them for making Papatuanuku Rugby so Great. Ka kite ano
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
e.g.
Mixed-use skyscrapers
Mixed-use skyscrapers were proposed and built by architect Ken Yeang.[6] Yeang proposes that instead of hermetically sealed mass-produced agriculture, plant life should be cultivated within open air, mixed-use skyscrapers for climate control and consumption. This version of vertical farming is based upon personal or community use rather than the wholesale production and distribution that aspires to feed an entire city.
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
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Am I living under a rock or was this event poorly advertised?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=12188251
The Jacksons, The Supremes, The Village People, all here, and I had no idea.
Being a punk rocker of course it was stock standard position to hate disco, but reality is those tunes were so good I still remember a lot of them.
Probably because those bands got big before the disco era, when tunes were the catchy hook that made them hits. The disco beat replaced tunes in ’76. Supremes hit #1 in ’64, Jackson 5 in ’67, Village People in ’73. From memory, which is becoming somewhat unreliable nowadays…
Village people was 77.
Okay, so they actually were a disco band.
Kinda wondered why Sri Lanka were being such easy beats at cricket here.
And now we know.
A corruption probe so big the whole team is being offered amnesty.
https://www.icc-cricket.com/media-releases/970385
If you put a gun to my head, in the last two ODIs, NZs bowling attack looked like it had a wager or two.
Not that I think that happened.
Wow Ad, that is probably unlikely for the present series here, and diminishes the performances of our team in Pakistan. Granted India will be an acid test.
A Southland farmer’s climate change letter to Minister James Shaw https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/109853971/a-southland-farmers-climate-change-letter-to-minister-james-shaw
I was interested in the statement about methane,
That letter is barely literate, no wonder the scientific claims he makes are dubious.
“All farmers need to look at what small changes they can make to reduce their emissions.”
I suspect he is referencing this….
“Earlier this year, Frame and six other scientists published a paper that argued short-lived gases, like methane, should be accounted for differently in emission budgets because of their lesser warming potential over time.
Frame’s view – which he’s sticking to in the face of the IPCC report – is that cuts to methane can be made later, before global warming peaks. Carbon dioxide’s a “stock” pollutant while methane’s a “flow” pollutant – one builds up and the other dissipates. “I would wait on doing more on methane until you see that you’ve really got the CO2 under control.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/10/08/269361/ipcc-report-intensifies-methane-battle
methane may well be able to be treated as a flow IF the atmospheric levels hadnt over doubled in the past 150 years or so (and are still increasing)….so logically before they can be treated as a flow the levels need to reduced.
Yeah, sounds like bollocks.
All GHG gases can be treated as a flow as it actually is a flow.
In to the atmosphere >> removed from atmosphere >> In to the atmosphere
That’s happening even now.
The problem is that the ‘In to the atmosphere’ far exceeds the ‘removed from atmosphere’ and so we end up with an increase of those gases in the atmosphere which then changes the climate.
As it is, we need to radically reduce the amount of GHG emissions that we’re making and that’s going to require radical action. As far as farming goes – we need reduce the number of farms until we only produce enough food to support ourselves. Forget exporting of food – we just can’t afford it.
The letter saying methane could be stabilised. Lincoln University appear to have done a study. Perhaps that is what he is referring to?
His request for the Minister to give farming time to change was sad.
Shaw, with the best will in the world can not hold back the damage, and 12 years is 12 years.
To buy time, farming has to buy in big time, lower both carbon and methane , then they may get a little time relief.
He keeps mentioning emotion, and how decisions need to be made without emotion.
This letter is indicative of where sympathetic farmers are, and as Southland is so far right in politics, it is a step forward imo.
It is certainly an amazing shift from that farmer holding up the sign “She’s a pretty little Communist” in Te Aroha.
There are recognised stages of grief and some were evident in this letter.
Quite a shift since Jacinda stood up and said “Climate Change is the most important challenge we face”
Methane “degrades” into C02, after a decade or so, but in the meantime warms like crazy! Shouldn’t we keep that stuff out of the atmosphere?
“His request for the Minister to give farming time to change ”
The selfish lazy feckers have had decades already. Successive govts have bent over backwards to coddle them. Time to pay the piper.
Farming—especially the enormous dairy farms—in alliance with irresponsible and corrupt politicians, is a menace to this country.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/10/one-does-have-to-ask-should-they-get.html
Don’t start doing an Ed will you Morrissey – emphatic opinions about things we already know and have well-thought-out opinions about.
Crikey! Thanks for the heads up, Mr Shark.
How IS Ed, by the way? Is he really banned FOR LIFE?
Probably only for your life – he will never wear out. In the future the situation will be that old bloggers never die; they will leave waiting algorithms to be triggered by particular words which will answer every reply drawing from a number of random sentences.
Say… I like the sound of that.
It would be dull compared to your protean approach.
Thank you Shark! You’re the bee’s knees, I tell you.
JK ain’t that smart even though a majority of New Zealanders thought he was at 3 x General Elections, 2008/2011/2014 ?
The “left wing” Argentine junta and the “fraud” Chomsky.
Welcome to Kiwiblog!
General Debate Jan. 10, 2019
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2019/01/general_debate_10_january_2019.html#comments
Yesterday was not exactly the Day of the Dumb Bastards. That infamous 24 hours occurred in September ’03. * No, yesterday was, as usual, just another Day of the Sad Gits.
Starting at 8:01 a.m. (Keeping Stock: “Hooray; no moderation!”—22 upvotes) all, or nearly all, their obsessions were covered. Those obsessions are:
1.) Māori privilege, Māori criminality, Māori culture; Māori identity. Paulus airs this carefully thought out thesis: “But of course the difference is that most Australian Aboriginals are 100%, whereas there are no pure 100% Maori.” A thinker called Tall Man joins in: “I’m ‘part aboriginal’. Just you wait when my ‘people’ get into the money I’ll be there tongue hanging out….. Yeah nah. What I have I made, what I will get is what I create. Why can’t maori think like that?”
2.) empathy for the beleaguered rich and condemnation of the lazy poor;
3.) hatred of “Cindy” (Jacinda Ardern) and murderous envy of “Jethro” (Clarke Gayford). calendar girl sneers at “our lightweight Ardern” and garners 21 upvotes. RW Capitalist chimes in: “Light weight … difficult to understand, how a mammal with so little brain function, could still be breathing. SLG may be a compliment.” (18 likes)
4.) contempt for the underperforming Simon Bridges;
5.) a Bob Jones level of disregard for rules and regulations. “The Herald is pushing the nonsense that it is unacceptable that to even have a wine with a meal,” fumes Chuck Bird, and slightlyrighty agrees: “I am observing high amounts of zealotry when it comes to alcohol and the enforcement of regulations.”
6.) veneration of the late Margaret Thatcher. Simon comments, in apparent high seriousness, on the sinking of the General Belgrano: “Great stuff. Overall the Falklands war helped defeat the genocidal left.” (23 upvotes). mikenmildagain, one of the sane people on this site—yes, there are a few—contests that remarkable view: “That’s the first time I’ve seen the Argentinean junta described as the genocidal left.” (26 downvotes) This dissenting view is smartly shot down by Tall Man: “Probably a lot of “firsts” for you on this blog. After all, you do seem to occupy the ignorant left side of the political spectrum.”
7.) clueless recycling of the most unhinged American fringe journals. harvey wilson and Maggy Wassilieff discuss, in tones of the most perfect seriousness, how Noam Chomsky is… (wait for it)…. a tool of the military.
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2019/01/general_debate_10_january_2019.html/comment-page-1#comment-2399074
8.) veneration of Trump and his henchmen. Scott writes: “Yesterday in a fiery exchange presidential spokesperson Kelly Anne Conway tore into CNN “reporter” Jim Acosta. She called him a smart arse to his face! I love it when Trump and his administration call out the press. The news media for years and years have got away with their leftist propaganda. Trump and his associates are the only ones who stand up to the out-of-control press. If we only had politicians here on the right who would do the same!” (39 likes)
9.) “multiculturalism” —–> crime. Some taxi-drivers in Halifax, Ontario have been arrested on sex-assault charges. DigNap15 snarls: “The weak Canadians get what they deserve!” (20 likes) Then, eleven minutes later he has another thought and posts a follow-up: “And the weak Germans and Swedes and Poms” (19 likes.) kowtow agrees: “Yep , too many of them make a virtue of embracing “multiculturalism”. Now they can live with the consequences.” (16 likes)
10.) marijuana (general consensus: bad); Ben Shapiro; bureaucracy; oral sex; Mark Lundy; the Mongrel Mob; Pete George; vegans; Jair Bolsonaro (a hero, of course), cricket…..
ad absurdum….
* https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/day-of-dumb-bastards-sept-26-2003.html
Well, nobody can argue that rightist culture isn’t diverse. You’ve compiled overwhelming evidence against that. Too toxic for me. Wading through their swamp regularly in your thigh-high gumboots, eh? Preaching at the denizens within? Or just in the research spirit of the social ecologist, to learn what mass psychology motivates them? It would be better to draw some informative conclusions lest readers here see the listings as a form of cultural pollution…
Kiwiblog’s like going into One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets The Living Dead meets the Mongrel Mob wannabes who missed out because their IQ’s didn’t reach 67. Directed by the Voice of the Establishment, David Farrar.
… or Head Hunter Prospects who weren’t accepted ?
Morrissey,
There you are, dear.
Whatever are you doing over here?
We’ve been searching for you for hours.
Did you lose you way?
Now come RIGHT back.
Thanks Maggy. I’ll be there, pronto. Give everyone a great big HUG for me, will you?
Except for that old rapscallion and nun-botherer Captain Mainwaring, of course.
Did you go to the Mental Asylum this morning for some entertainment, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is a good description Like +100%
Thanks very much, Tamati. I actually like the people over there. They’re not as bad as one might think on first contact. Yes, some of them say some shocking things, but I doubt they really believe most of the extreme things they say.
Similarly, there are some pretty hair-raising opinions voiced on this site.
That’s the point Morrissey, you have fingered an outstanding point:
some of them say some shocking things, but I doubt they really believe most of the extreme things they say.
The are mostly blowhards who just want to pass an opinion, irritate, get superior. TS has a destiny to be a pretty serious discussion about our society, our environment, and what we can do about it. There isn’t time for too much fence sitting, and time-passing. Being on TS isn’t a replacement for a pub discussion.
That’s the difference between the RW, who are either ascetic in pursuit of profit, or hedonistic at the core, and the LW who can be ascetic in pursuit of higher wages etc and hedonistic, but can be dragged back by the remaining values to the people that they have, so that the betterment of society and compassion can be inserted in Slot B; and sometimes up to A.
Nicely put, my friend.
They hope we read and feel disturbed by them.
Throwing stones in the pond to see what rises.
The Loch Mess monster? Or one of those aliens from the swamp.
We might hope for a Yoda but i think it is the wrong swamp. We could learn good things from Yoda. He says use the Force. Then do, not say you’ll try. There is no try.
Philosophers justifying slavery
Thousands of years and the RWNJs haven’t changed their tune. They, of course, consider themselves the ‘betters’.
Wow – are you actually applying left/right to Aristotle and Plato?
I’ve done 3 years Classical Studies, 2 years Latin and over 5 years in political science and this is the very first time I have heard anyone apply left/right to BCE philosophers.
Have you actually got an argument as to why I shouldn’t?
The attitudes and philosophies are the same.
I highly doubt you are actually qualified enough to make such a statement (you have such hubris?) when it is one that no one qualified has suggested so, you know, [citation needed]
Secondly because the “attitudes and philosophies are the same” – what part of plato’s or Aristotles philosophy is/was right-wing? Which philosophers would you consider left-wing (from the same period please)
So many [citation needed]. Otherwise you are just – https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
Interesting. looking at Plato’s Gorgias, the comment about slaves used in Draco’s link appears to be very much out of context.
Plato loved dialogues, where Socrates would debate with various archetypes of opponent and then masterfully (sometimes in a contrived way) demolishing naive philosophical positions or picking holes in categorical statements. The quote in the BBC link of DTB says Plato supported slavery, but the comment was actually made by one of Socrates’ foils (Callicas).
Now, the caveat on this comment is that the last time I read Plato, I studied a paper on that book a few months later and realised I’d understood almost nothing even though I’d thought I had a handle on it. So maybe Socrates ended up demonstrating that slavery was a fine thing indeed. But it looks to me on the surface of it that he’s completely ripping shit out of the ‘might makes right’ doctrine. I especially liked the bit about the doctor apportioning food.
The RW always resort to this minute discussion of crossed t’s or spelling or what are your credentials. Aligning themselves with superior philosophers from millenia ago. Democratic tendencies R’Out.
OMG, No on else has made the same comparison so you must be wrong.
/sarc
Yeah, I think the hubris lies with you.
[Citations needed]
Seriously – where are your citations?
Still no citations?
Figures
Also you fallacy is thus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Nope.
Yes Draco, yes.
From WP – “The false dilemma fallacy can also arise simply by accidental omission of additional options rather than by deliberate deception. For example, “Stacey spoke out against capitalism, therefore she must be a communist”
From Draco – “Plato spoke in favour of slavery therefore he’s Right-Wing”
Also [citations needed]
Yes we get that one almost all the time. Ed, et al are particularly fond of it.
I’ve seen it in books several times. Usually called aristocrat, meaning conservative. This from the relevant wiki implies a benign elitism hierarchy:
“Plato lists three classes in his ideal society. Producers or Workers: The laborers who make the goods and services in the society. Auxiliaries/Soldiers: Those who keep order in the society and protect it from invaders. Guardians (Philosopher kings) — those who are the most intelligent, rational, self-controlled, in love with wisdom, and well suited to make decisions for the community, and who promote the interests of the society as a whole.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_political_philosophy
Applying modern ideas of left and right in a historical context dating back nearly 3000 years is stupid and you should feel stupid
Since I was very careful not to do that, you should feel stupid for seeing something that isn’t there! To a hammer, everything looks like a nail…
Pretty much every philosopher who envisioned an ideal society said that the most suited and capable people should rule, and they should rule for the benefit of society. That applies to everyone from monarchists to communists (where people suited to managing contribute according to their skillset). To flip it around, very few said “society should be ruled by a narcissist who serves only their own interests”. Ayn Rand, comes to mind, but with very little company. Hobbes and other monarchists of around that era asserted to some degree or other hereditary monarchy was a capable trade-off to prevent anarchy, and that the knowledge of imminent succession enabled training and a lifetime of preparation for the role – heavy on the implicit acceptance of noblesse oblige, and also that it was the work of God and therefore infallible (inbreeding politely ignored).
Plato’s PK wasn’t hereditary, nor were there generally proxies of wealth or strength (e.g. “I am rich, therefore I will be the best ruler” or “I am ruthless and killed my competitors, therefore I deserve to rule”) included, if I recall broadly correctly. And the philosopher king certainly wasn’t supposed to follow the Right wing thinking of “what is good for me and my rich and/or powerful friends is what is good for the society”.
Democracy is about the only one that allows some chance of periodically selecting an imbecile to rule, which is why its entire approach is to organise the transition away from particular rulers, rather than installing or justifying them. Even then, there’s usually some sort of faith in the ability of voters en masse to usually pick equivalently capable rulers, rather than focussing on the merits of a population simply being able to choose its own path to hell.
Yeah, that’s mostly my view too. With the possible exception of this bit: “the philosopher king certainly wasn’t supposed to follow the Right wing thinking of “what is good for me and my rich and/or powerful friends is what is good for the society”.”
Debatable, that. Historical evidence of such people is notable for the lack. Amongst Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius is the obvious candidate. I doubt any examination of his rule would produce evidence of him serving anything other than the insitution of the patriarchy.
One could also go for my tribe’s emperor, Charlemagne. A successful warrior who ruled as that rarest of creatures, a genuine christian, and established an education system for his subjects that became the prototype for all public education since. However power-sharing was never on his agenda. Quite the contrary!
However, I do agree that the next king of England will fit the philosopher king description accurately. You only need to follow the money to see how he has implemented his philosophy, and in his book he explains why & how.
No, he won’t.
It’s possible that both “philosopher” and “king” have lost something in the translation. Plato was talking about a merit-based ruler who considered situations rationally and in great depth. And Plato made clear the ruler should rule in the interests of society.
Whether such an example has existed in history is irrelevant to whether Plato was even remotely “right wing”.
Inasmuch as Charles will not rule as king, you’re technically correct, but I’m confident that he will be an exemplar in combining the philosopher role with the status of king.
Having read the book, I’m better-informed about that. I won’t argue about your final statement – I can’t see any relevance. How right-wing any aristocrat may have been is pure conjecture. Won’t stop many from seeing a correlation though, and jumping to the general conclusion.
Read up the thread. The discussion is happening literally because Draco called Plato a RWNJ.
Kings, or any ruler, can be smart, dumb, cruel, kind, rational, impulsive, self-serving, or serve the public good. Then they die or are replaced in some other manner. The discussion was about whether a particular philosopher’s ideas constituted being “right wing”. I think most of Plato’s works could go either way – any right wing or left wing society could follow his political philosophy.
In DtB’s world we’re all RWNJ’s.
Oh, okay. In that case, I agree with you about Plato, inasmuch as left-wingers are inclined to operate within the context of a class hierarchy as often as not.
To me it’s like calling the ancient Incas environmentalists because they didn’t use petrol or drive cars
Would you call them environmentalists, though, for their use of charcoal to create super-soil?
Then they must be right wingers.
lol totally, changing the land rather than using it according to what it can sustainably provide
Pretty much every philosopher who envisioned an ideal society said that the most suited and capable people should rule, and they should rule for the benefit of society.
That’s pretty much what we have with the ideal cabinet of Donald J. Trump, isn’t it? Who could be more suitable, capable and beneficial rulers of any country than the esteemed forementioned Trump, ably backed up by such stratospheric talents as Giuliani, De Vos, Pence, Pompeo, Mnuchin, Bolton, Carson, Perry, Nielsen….
wtf are you going on about now?
Jesus H. Christ—another humour failure from this perpetually foul-tempered former thespian.
It’s been another long and unhappy day for you, clearly. Cold shower time?
Actually it’s been pretty productive – did some reno, got a large item delivered and installed, did some chores. Then some jerk came along and talked about dolt45. for no reason whatsoever
“for no reason whatsoever”.
Really? You couldn’t see how the Trump cabinet might be the perfect illustration of what you called “the most suited and capable people”?
Or do I have to tag it like our friend Sacha wants, i.e., /sarc?
I understand that dolt45 is an outstanding example of a bad ruler. Bringing him into a serious and actually quite interesting discussion of Plato and foundational political theory as a joke is like laughing about fatal haemorrhoid surgery at a keynote address on proctology. Timing is everything, and it’s one thing you don’t have in an asynchronous communication medium.
Fair point. My timing was about as good as my taste, I guess.
I’ll get my coat.
A sensitive story for sensitive farmers and those supporting them. Up for a BAFTA this.
https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2018/10/09/73-cows/
Change can happen but it starts INSIDE.
On the topic of climate change: I found this very interesting advertorial for Schneider Electric. It makes some good points about retrofitting:
“retrofitting is […] often forgotten: Typically, examples of “sustainable living” feature new buildings, new cars, and new city designs. But by 2050, it will neither be feasible nor economically wise to rebuild what is already put in place.”
“Dallas County, the ninth largest county in the U.S., government spent $600,000 on 54 buildings for improvements including mechanical system upgrades, water conservation controls and fixtures, and lighting with motion sensors. The project is expected to reduce utility bills by 31 percent, ultimately saving $73 million over 10 years.”
How’s that for a return on investment.
And this:
“Schneider Electric is among the few companies who have a business case aligned with moving humanity out of ecological overshoot. With this, these companies have a baked-in economic advantage: On average they are aligned with the growing need of living within the means of our one planet. This exposes the companies to an expanding market, a feature that makes it much more likely for such companies to be successful in the long run compared to companies that are incompatible with one-planet prosperity and will inevitably face a shrinking demand.”
Companies that retrofit and actively support retrofitting the planet will gain loyal consumer bases. Sounds great right!
https://www.overshootday.org/energy-retrofit/
But, it’s much more interesting than that…
Schneider Electric have been naughty! There’s a 2016 $6.8M fine for breaching EPA standards, 16 bribery charges in 2014, and 2018 raids in France concerning alleged collusion and corruption.
So this company is keen to retrofit the planet, at cartel prices, while it’s factories continue to pollute, and if there’s an issue a little bribery can fix it.
And none of this comes as any surprise.
We can take the good from the advertorial however. Retrofitting buildings can make a significant difference. Also, for business, a significant economic difference.
Passive heating, passive cooling, natural lighting, sensor operated systems to minimize use… There’s a lot of good ideas out there to help turn your business or home into a more efficient space.
Desperately trying to continue a flawed model
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12188595
Spot the 6 letter flaw.
Even perpetual economic growth isn’t a fatal flaw in and of itself. It’s fully possible to envisage continuing growth from people providing services to each other accompanied by decreasing resource usage. Automation and efficiency improvements can do that if managed well.
It’s growth in consumption of finite resources that’s the problem. In fact, it’s ongoing consumption of finite resources that’s a problem, until that consumption of finite resources goes to zero and we’re fully renewable.
Quite right. However this nuanced view has failed to get traction in politics. Growth is good being a powerful complex meme, and addiction psychology being beyond the mental grasp of media operatives.
Russel Norman advocated Green growth when he was co-leader. I didn’t mind that, since he rationalised it as using tech to trend business towards sustainability. Biomimicry suggests using growth in nature as the new paradigm: businesses flourish like plants, then die in due course, while others emerge. Steady-state economics becoming the norm half a century after conception.
what you both describe is not growth….its continued activity with a diminishing resource use….the antithesis of growth, named Degrowth, and is the only viable option and the need for its implementation is exceedingly time constrained.
Yes, but growth in nature is a thing. It comes & goes. So framing it on that basis is a way to bridge the gap between the enterprise dimension of capitalism (growth-producing) and the Green fundamentalist view (growth kills nature). The bluegreens, I thought, would do this. Their failure doesn’t just damage their credibility, it operates as a handicap for all.
Growth in nature is indeed a thing….growth in the terms of a lifecycle which includes a natural limit , if those limits are exceeded what happens?….a forrest for example cannot continue to grow forever outside its environmental confines and the individual components of that environment require a balance that is controlled biologically……there is no endless growth in nature but our current economic model claims to have rewritten the laws of nature (physics)…..one hell of a marketing pitch but patently false as is increasingly evident.
His views arnt widely popular but his book title is accurate, nature does indeed bat last
+ 1 yep the law of diminishing returns seems to always clog the growth gears eventually and more often quite quickly nowadays.
Youve invented perpetual motion?
There is no output without input and ALL activity requires input…existing requires resources…never mind the desire for ease. It is IMPOSSIBLE to continue to grow (anything) ad infinitum in a finite environment…and we have passed that point.
It would be worth considering that this finite environment dosnt need our existence , indeed it is in the process of ridding itself of us.
Bluegreen is just greenwashed blue.
Sustainable growth – an oxymoron?
Not at all. But you have to base your systems on natural ecology, that which grows in production and complexity. When the waste of one is the food/fuel of the next a whole raft of products can be realised within a single system.
As systems develop biodiversity increases and more and more connections between species and processes become apparent.
Industry could learn much from natural systems. We have a lot of disconnected competitive entities all jostling to make money and in the process throwing it away – advertising, competition, proprietary rights yadda yadda. Work in isolation pumping out dollars and waste you are not part of an ecosystem you are kind of parasitic.
The waste of one industry feeds the next
e.g. Brewery -> aquaculture -> market garden -> worm farm -> orchard -> brewery…
e.g. Forestry -> Biochar and Mycology -> Market Gardens -> composters -> Forestry
e.g. Seafood Processing -> Farming -> Aquaculture – > Seafood processing
Treat every waste stream as potential income/input to another product and examine how to convert it.
Good permacultural systems thinking. Cycles are a hard concept for rightists to grasp, but I think it unwise to dismiss the bluegreen trend as merely greenwash. Up to around a decade ago I would have agreed, but since then they’ve been on a convergence trajectory.
and there is one unavoidable outcome of sustainability….a reduction in human population…which need not be a big problem but will likely be so.
Who’s desperately trying to continue a flawed model?
What is this flawed model?
What is the flaw?
Is this a typo hunt?
-every country pursing a growth in economic activity….so pretty much every country in the world (19 with negative growth but not necessarily by choice)
-growth
-growth
-no
I realised that if you cut down ‘growth’ you might end up with ‘grot’. Here is a bit of Reggie Perrin in his store Grot, where you can get just the right thing to give to People you Hate.
We had Grot running this country down from 2008 until 2017.
And people who hate us have bought up just about everything in the shop to make little deals with, rather than give away (have I got a bridge for you!).
Hahaha. This idea would probably work as an online store.
lol…i had forgotten about that great series
Sooooo good!
Reginald adapts in a flash!
And that’s the only bit you need to read to understand that what he’s saying is just more of the same failed financial system as we already have.
The public sector should never borrow money.
All public sector spending should be government created money. No borrowed money and no interest to pay. Government bonds should not exist.
IKEA is coming – 200 new jobs! But……
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ikea-unions/unions-accuse-ikea-of-undermining-workers-rights-in-three-markets-idUSKCN1M721G
Ikea, destroyers of the environment…
“the key issue with IKEA from an environmentalist’s point of view is that the company encourages the mass-consumption of goods that generally need to be replaced after a few years, putting an increasing strain on the world’s natural resources. In her 2009 book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, Ellen Ruppel Shell argues that IKEA – by some measures the world’s third-largest consumer of wood – sells products with a limited lifespan and that, by claiming its products are ‘sustainable’ and come from ‘renewable’ sources, effectively encourage consumers to replace like with like, rather than spending more on longer-lasting products.”
https://theecologist.org/2011/oct/19/behind-brand-ikea
( a funny article, because its trying to be pro ikea while telling us how flawed and destructive the basic business model is…it can’t be easy being a environmentally aware Capitalist.)
Ikea the tax dodgers..
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/18/eu-probes-ikea-after-dutch-deals-reduce-tax-bill-by-1bn
Cargo Cult mentality in full swing here. Most of what IKEA stocks can be found in The Warehouse anyway, just under a different brand name. But each to their own.
Ikea who wants to assemble it? Can’t see the attraction myself and Aussies love it.
Tucker Carlson rails against US capitalism.
OK Sure this is Tucker Carlson on Fox News.
Now that you’ve got over that, have a watch as he rails against capitalism and rule by capitalists elites. It’s causing some stir over in Fox land.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-mitt-romney-supports-the-status-quo-but-for-everyone-else-its-infuriating
It’s like he’s ingested a fair amount of Elizabeth Warren’s book, and he expands a bit with the Vox people.
https://www.vox.com/2019/1/10/18171912/tucker-carlson-fox-news-populism-conservatism-trump-gop
You may well think this isn’t relevant to the converted on the left, but given Carlson’s massive influence on Fox and his massive conservative influence, it bodes very well for the populist messaging that Warren already has down.
It also works surprisingly well read in a New Zealand context if you can mentally edit out the accent.
Carlson is not to be underestimated. He is the founder and editor of the often-misleading Daily Caller in addition to all of his other platforms. He knows how to communicate that’s for sure.
The irony of an heir to the Swanson frozen food fortune railing against capitalism, while earning millions as a Fox host, should not be lost on anyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Caller
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Carlson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson
Interesting person. His wiki link points out he bulk buys nicotene gum from NZ.
I can appreciate that he is an opponent of laissez-faire, Libertarian and AnCap ideas but I still tend to agree with Jon Stewart in 2004; Carlson’s use of his platforms has been damaging to the political discourse.
These cases where he is closer to the political centre are countered by him promulgating the ‘white genocide’ myth.
Ann Coulter
@AnnCoulter
Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. — and also make it WEALTH tax.
only income taxes don’t work anymore because there are so many loopholes to reduce it or use tax havens
Better to have a tax like transaction taxes and get the money as it moves around the world
Also taxes that use that model aka Robin Hood taxes rampant consumption which we need to nip in the bud before the planet is destroyed.
Glasgow had the highest murder rate of any western European city: 63 victims per million. An innovative approach to gangs turned it into one of the safest cities in the UK.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/glasgow-crime?utm_source=More%20Stories&utm_medium=internal
Outstanding. Thank you.
Real discrimination against women comes largely I think because men resent women being the gender that can give life to a new person, and therefore is unwittingly powerful over all. Self-made men are particularly pissed about this!
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/379893/nepal-woman-and-children-die-in-banned-menstruation-hut
I understand that in the Jewish religion, menstruating women have to sit in
a separate position in their religious space.
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/jewish-women-on-menstruation
And after looking at that it will probably have penetrated the minds of all as to how bodily appearance, looking ‘good’ and right, are embedded in female’s sensibilities from a very early age.
In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood there is a quote something like ‘Men are afraid that women will laugh at them; and women are afraid that men will kill them.’
While the book/series is set in some Dystopian future, there are many parallels with the fundamentalist teachings and practices of today. Many christian women say nothing of their lot, for it is ‘not their place to’.
I posit that a large proportion of today’s misogyny originated with, and remains with, religions.
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. 1 Corinthians 14:34
He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 1 Kings 11:3
If, however the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. Deuteronomy 22:20-21.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22-24.
That’s the mob I’m familiar with. The Torah and other ‘gospels’ are no better.
Which is why we need to get rid of religion. Even Judaism. The sooner the better.
Someone I know went back to the Jehovah’s Witnesses a while back and has gone from independent woman to totally buying into all that ‘women are inferior’ BS. Become a total prude too.
Real discrimination against women comes largely I think because men resent women being the gender that can give life to a new person, and therefore is unwittingly powerful over all. Self-made men are particularly pissed about this!
It’s a dead giveaway with any religion. If the magical superhero arrived in the world through something other than normal birth nine months after normal sex between a man and a woman, it’s a religion predicated on fear and hate of women, with all their slimy biological yuckiness.
Yes, separating menstrating women being an example of “yuckiness”.
So now also the “eco” plan now comes to grief as well here!!!!!!!!
Apparently now it seems that “air tight homes’ are now deemed as “dangerous” to us all too.
Time to open windows and let some ventilation in to expel the toxic VOC’s.
It seems that for ‘every benefit’ comes some ‘unintended consequences’ now.
Full marks to this NZ company ‘Tether’ and for their CEO Brandon Van Blerk for telling the truth about ‘sealed homes’ as not being fully safe, as they trap volatile organic chemicals (VOC’s) inside them, and dangerously poisoning the inside air and the residents.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE1812/S00078/insulation-can-worsen-unhealthy-home-issues.htm
Insulation can worsen unhealthy home issues
Tuesday, 18 December 2018, 11:41 am
Press Release: Tether
PRESS RELEASE
Tether Limited
18 December 2018
Kiwis cautioned that insulation can worsen unhealthy home issues
An air tight home does not equal a healthy home and may even exacerbate the damp, stagnant conditions that lead to mould, mildew and respiratory problems likes asthma and pneumonia among children and older adults in New Zealand.
CEO of healthy home monitoring technology company Tether, Brandon Van Blerk, said while Government making home insulation a priority is a good thing, over emphasis on insulation might actually make the problems worse.
“Good insulation should go hand-in-hand with adequate ventilation and air exchange because good insulation alone makes a home airtight, and that will lead to moisture problems and a build up of noxious gases, harmful particles like dust and mould spores and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).”
“A healthy home has the trinity of 1. Good insulation, 2. Adequate ventilation and 3. Efficient air exchange.”
This has been known for so long. WTF is wrong with designers?
Design college…
lol look at who issued the press release – a company targeting their home monitoring devices at landlords so the they can “educate tenants”.
It’s a bit like the research that said dishcloths can cross-contaminate – sponsored by a paper towel company.
Beating up a known and manageable problem in order to sell their stuff – in the latest case, big brother monitoring of tenants for their landlords.
Exactly.
hotcakes.
Decades ago I remember it being argued that NZ homes were airy and uninsulated but that those who lived in them were healthier and had greater resistance to colds and flu, especially compared to those who lived in warm centrally heated airtight well-insulated homes. At the extremes I guess those who lived in tents would be healthier still. (Air conditioning can spread infections on warm humid air.)
We do like to be comfortable though don’t we?
Was just thinking on this yesterday, how climate change could put the air conditioning power demands really high, and the poor who can’t afford it.
We certainly need passive cooling and heating in our designs. Whether we can afford power or not, if we know how to do this (we do) not doing it is a waste of power for the buildings lifetime.
I have an air inlet for a cooling cupboard placed 5 feet up on a sun exposed brick wall – Just W.T.F…
Drop that same opening to ground level and shade it out with shrubs – huge improvement. Put a new opening on the shaded side of the house, add shrubs, and an outlet up high on the opposite hot side of the house and I got a breeze through the house.
I can’t afford a damn air conditioner. All buildings should have a breeze built in. See if you can fiddle round with windows on shaded and bright sides and get one running.
Dig
a
hole.
Sitting in a hole is no fun. Just ask the residents of Massey.
That sounds like bollocks put about to justify having cold, damp houses that were cheap to build and thus maximised profits for the developers.
Ah, so good of a CEO to come out and justify us having cold, damp houses killing us.
Everyone who’s done 3rd form science knows that we need to actually breath and so we don’t build airtight homes. That’d just be stupid.
If the UK has a problem with the new Eu border, while doesn’t Ireland? Why is Ireland choosing to scrap the peace agreement with the north and not even holding a referendum? Is Ireland waiting to see how the UK Eu agree the new relationship?
I can’t see the Eu, any more than the UK, rushing to build customs border control.
So why has May so successful put the eu off talking, it’s in the interest for the UK,Ireland, businesses all to continue working… ..only a hard brexit will work since nobody is accepting the reality that the UK is leaving. Until everyone affected is in tge room, the doors locked and not opened until its done.
I can’t see the Eu wanting people let into the uk crossing the border in Ireland and entering the eu, or vis vevia, Syria’s buying tickets to Ireland… ..so where is the eu commitment to the peace agreement?
Syria is buying tickets to Ireland?
Got any links to confirm that statement?
The UK needs Europe more than Europe needs the UK. Europe doesn’t need to renegotiate its trade network from scratch. Europe is more open to immigration than the UK wants to be, so illegal immigration from UK into Europe won’t be a huge problem. Europe has much higher GDP than UK.
why then does the pound and eu buy roughly the same number of dollars.
And yes sure a dysfunctional multipolar collective of foreign languages should by the virtue of its larger population dominate the relationship but there’s the assumption, Britain is also a part of a dysfunctional trading English speaking block, the commonwealth.Germany has Turks and now Syrians, Britian has south Asians and caribbians…
The joke is that brexit exposes the Tories up for the incompetents they are. Instead of dealing with those left behind, it let itself believe the eu was the problem.
I don’t get what you’re going for: what has the exchange rate got to do with GDP?
And what do you mean by “dealing with those left behind”?
UK has a large non European market. Comparing the UK singularly with the whole of EU is remarkable. Better to compare with Germany surely.
Germany doesn’t negotiate its own export deals. Merkel had to explain this to dolt45 a wee while ago.
around 54% of UK exports go to European trade partners.
16% of EU exports go to the UK.
EU has to renegotiate 16% of its export markets.
UK has to renegotiate all of its export markets.
Germany negotiates no export markets.
UK gets only 7% of Germany’s exports. Germany gets 10.6% of UK exports.
Sorry.Parts from the world going into the UK, to build cars say, for the eu market… …or other goods going to the UK… look I jus don’t aged with comparisons of the UK and Eu. Also UK germany are more comparable, since a lot of what germany exports takes parts from the uk, and cars, or wharever.
Everyone loses from Brexit, the Tories the most.
Even on a UK/germany comparison, as I pointed out before the UK is more reliant on exports to Germany than vice versa. And Germany can get parts from anywhere in the EU for cheaper than a trade deal with the UK.
So in the five years after a hard Brexit the UK will have barriers put on 10% of its export market. Germany can choose where else it buys from. British manufacturing gets bollocked unless the rest of the world suddenly open up to the UK – which it’s not going to do. Meanwhile, czech manufacturers supply the parts Germany wants. UK gets shut out of cooperative contracts like Typhoon and CERN. What will Europe or Germany weep over not getting from UK?
Possible solution to all our climate problems.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30361993
“The remarks drew online ridicule. Some say that if prayers work, the government should set up the Ministry of Magic and make Thailand a superpower. Others say that they also pray for the junta to leave politics but it did not work out.”
Magical thinking hasn’t been flavour of the month in western civilisation since the 17th century. Science replaced it. In the counter-culture, it flourished briefly again but so many interesting things happened that the generation born in the fifties got weirded-out, and scooted back to moronic conservatism.
The good news is that Lyall Watson books are still around, so anyone interested in the magical dimension of nature can get up to speed easily. As long as one becomes adept at not becoming captive to any delusion, Castenada still provides a model on the application side of things. Flawed, inasmuch as the guru thing ended up claiming him as victim. But we lack a useful model of how to apply shamanic practice in contemporary political contexts. When I raised this question at a political meeting of around 40 people around five or six years ago I got sustained applause, but no answer.
What, Dennis, was your question? I’m up for it (depending on what it was 🙂
You didn’t notice? It was the previous sentence: how to apply shamanic practice in contemporary political contexts. I have a few clues on the topic due to my personal history as change-maker, but I was hoping for more. I noticed long ago that being a fast learner & fast mover is a problematic path (peer group drops off the pace).
Hmmmm… okay, I did notice, but…I could have drawn that inference/inferred that, but you didn’t ask, or state a question…so, now that you’ve asked and I’m not applauding without answering, here goes…”how do we apply shamanic practice in contemporary political contexts” – that’s it, just to be clear? Effectively, is my answer; effectively if you mean to effect change. I’m very interested in this discussion; would you care to elaborate a little so that I can getafix on your intent, I’d like to bat ideas back and forward…
Can do but probably more suitable for the weekend topic of how to get there, but the already mentioned theme is more important. The one that Andre suggested.
Changemaking involves catalysis. It involves shifting mass consciousness (which is where shamanic function comes in). It involves an orientation to the time axis, one that transcends passive acceptance of the current reality as predetermining the future by default.
Science hasn’t even yet accepted that we actually have an innate orientation to the time axis. Psychology is a barren field populated by folks with small minds. Post Jung, I mean. Minimal progress. Political psychology, the key arena, is devoid of content.
Sunday it is then!
Today shamanic thinking is saying grace before a meal.
I tried that. Everyone sat down to the meal, I said “grace”, and everyone laughed. I suppose you could argue that I shifted mass consciousness for the group…
Too right Dennis. I don’t do grace now. I thought recently; why? We and I have taken everything too casually. Post war – what could go wrong? Now I am a bit sharper prior to my senescence.
“Blessings on the blossoms,
Blessings on the fruits;
Blessings on the leaves and stems,
And blessing on the roots.”
Nice, simple, humble and not preachy or academic.
Thank you Robert.
The Selkirk Grace, is a prayer said afore eatin that’s attreebute tae Robert Burns:
“Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be Thankit!”
The only time I was ever asked to say “grace” I said:
For what we are about to receive may the Lord be truly thankful.
Everyone was too polite to laugh.
No doubt taking a while to process the cognitive dissonance. “Huh? What did she just say?” I presume you were a child at the time. Kids are often inadvertent subversives, in those years before convention and group-think tighten their grip. I hope the lord didn’t punish you for disrespect.
I was about 18 yrs old. I think the lord gave up on me around that time. Mind you it was mutual separation.
I’ve heard you can “think” bumblebees out of your house through an open window.
Bruce. Have you tried this (in order to debunk the idea?)
Never heard of humans thinking bumblebees out of a house. But several times I’ve observed bumblebees successfully thinking humans out of their houses. Including once through an open window.
Ha! Funny, but now that you have heard of thinking them out, will you apply the scientific principle and test my hypothesis/proposal/claim?
Give it a go and get back to us with your findings.
Dunno about bees, but flies are usually pretty easy if you know their behaviour. I open the bathroom door ajar, and the bathroom window fully. Fly gets attracted into bathroom, can’t get back into rest of house, flies out window. Flies that come in window don’t get into rest of house, fly out window again. They usually like to go from dark to light.
Easier than trying to swat them.
Yes.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that observing animal behaviour and using the knowledge to get rid of them is in the same ballpark as praying or thinking them away, though. If I do swat a sitting fly, I aim behind it to take advantage of its launch mechanism.
My thinking doesn’t make it jump packwards, its reflexes do.
Owing to the stress and strain i haven’t wiped my cobwebs again. I have one at the base of a window that is near a corner, where the blowflies buzz over to. If they walk along the base of the window they will get caught in an arm of the web, buzz madly then I see some long legs arise and a mad dash for spider to get it while it’s hot. Watched a couple of flies go that way. Otherwise they get encouraged out. Swatting can knock them down and they may spill juveniles.
I keep the house full of cobwebs through the summer to catch the flies, cheaper than toxic fly spray and use’s less energy than a fly swat.
Not gonna risk it. My self-esteem wouldn’t survive losing a brainpower battle with a bumblebee.
I once sat on a bumblebee that had overnighted in my pyjamas. Bugger bit me multiple times back side of my tenders but once the stinging subsided, I thought all would be well. Nope.
I arrived home mid morning after an early surf with things below feeling rather tight, so I dropped my strides and there they were, the pair of ’em were the size of oranges, and growing.
Eventually antihistamines calmed things down but oh dear, the pain and discomfort.
hehehe Reminds me of time I was riding my m’bike in a pair of shorts. A wasp went up the left leg. Ahhhhhhhhhh. I stood up on the foot rests and managed to bring the bike to a stop but ooooh I shall never forget that. Nor the time I sat on the sofa and there was a wasp sitting on it – I nearly hit the roof. lol
Reminds me of a story our psychology lecturer told us to demonstrate the nature of a phenomena.
A thistle – that is no phenomena
A bee – that is no phenomena
A horse – that is no phenomena
But a horse, sitting on a bee, sitting on a thistle – that is a phenomena.
Have you read/watched “Ferdinand”?
We had a morris 8 with a wind out windscreen on a trip to the beach wearing only a sarong i meet with a wasp in the worst of spots, i was very pleased to get into the ocean
Oh yeah! I remember those. I had a Ford 10 and a mate and I shared a Standard when were at college. Used to drive it up the Akatarawas after school each day – until it ran its big end bearings. 🙁 His dad was a mechanic, and being wise to the after school drag racing up a very windy hill road decided that the best solution was that the car was unfixable. 😉 We sold it off as parts netting 15 quid which was 5 more than we paid for it! Paid for our petrol – which as I recall was around 2/6 a gallon in those days.
Probably works better when combined with action. I did this with a possum, after buying the old harbour-master’s villa, up on the hill overlooking the old jetty at Port Waikato.
For those who don’t know, it was a port for the coastal trade until the sixties. I’ve got a 10×8 photocopy of an old photo taken from the air, showing a tanker in port at that jetty. Then the farmers stripped the Waikato river hillsides for more farmland, the silt was deposited at the river mouth, and tankers could no longer get in.
Anyway a noise woke me one night, and I could tell it was in the kitchen area, so I came out cautiously, flicked on the light, and the biggest possum I’ve ever seen was sitting calmly on the middle of the dining table watching me. Size of a wallaby, in a similar stance. I thought for a few secs, then sidled carefully around it & opened the window on the far side, then sidled back again.
It must have observed this just as carefully, as it immediately, in leisurely fashion, exited. So the technique works if the creature observes the exit.
Portals are vital. A possum can’t usually exit where there is no point of exit. Usually. Bats, I’m not so sure 🙂
Animals sometimes have difficulty identifying open portals. I’ve noticed. I catch, in my hands, one or two blackbirds a day in my kitchen. They don’t seem to mind being exported.
Like potty training children ?
I think that by our thoughts we create our own reality. I’ve never seen bumble bees as something to wish to move so have never tried.
Away from NZ I see people with quite a different view on supernatural forces and more accepting of their impacts , my natural inbuilt western cynicism is something I’m yet to conquer but i find my perceptions continualy challenged.
Let’s talk more about these things…
The progressive left has traditionally viewed human interaction as being about language and choice and the dynamics of sociality. Whereas the right view the world as something to control via science and prediction of human behaviour, which is impossible to do, therefore provides the wrong analysis.
Well ghosts or spirits, we have one in my NZ house ; my late wife far more open than me would talk about her, now I mix with mainly Thai people and all who visit mention her presence, without prompting. Hard to explain.
Here in Thailand every house has a small house outside for spirits of past family we leave food, It doesn’t dissapper, but my wife will often wake with story from someone who visited in the night and usually the message is relevent.
After a death and cremation about 90 days the family and friends gather, the ashes are collected from the crematorium and a bucket of water and the best clothes of the deceased are put by the gate, he washes himself and dresses and joins in the party, the amazing part is the water moves, who knows but I don’t think anyone can conjure earthquakes at will so I’m left believing it is the spirit that disturbs it.
That’s good stuff, Bruce…getting challenged…breaking it down…becoming open…
Human senses operate within a narrow band…yet ego and hubris operate in broadband…
Doubtless, there is copious activity going on outside our senses and egos capability to handle…
Another toymaker accidentally makes another offensive toy by mistake.
They need to have people reality check these toys sometimes.
Hateful surprise: Offensive toy found inside Kinder chocolate egg
11 Jan, 2019 9:54am
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12188639
“accidentally”???
The people who filter Kinder’s stuff – they’re charged with reality-checking, aren’t they??
Who could miss that?
No one.
They’re going for outrage as a marketing tool.
They didn’t know? Why not just have an extra balloon making two, to show how Kinder offers that bit more. But three? How about a bit of paper with a joke (yolk) on it or an offer, that would be doing something about plstic rubbish. Which that toy was. Neither useful or ornamental.
Hmmm… it looks like the Maggie Barry Affair is not over yet:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/01/department-of-conservation-confirms-staff-member-removed-from-maggie-barry-s-office.html
Career MAGA scammer scams MAGA fools, and swatts former employees, too.
Brian Kolfage, the decorated Iraq War veteran spearheading the massive, viral fundraising campaign to build President Trump’s border wall, who has a history of peddling right-wing misinformation on Facebook, pushed the limits of misleading content in pursuit of online traffic and profits until he was ultimately banned from the platform, according to multiple former employees and a review of internal communications.
The 37-year-old has spent more than a decade carefully crafting his public persona as an altruistic, conservative public figure, but people who have worked with the veteran told BuzzFeed News he can be vengeful and malicious, and that the pursuit of profits above all else fueled his behavior.
The veteran has also spearheaded other crowdfunding ventures over the years, raising thousands of dollars on GoFundMe with the promise of helping mentor fellow vets at military hospitals, but spokespersons for the medical centers said they have no record of Kolfage working at their facilities or donating any money.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/briannasacks/veteran-trump-wall-brian-kolfage-immigration-facebook
Previously on TS
What type of ‘populist’ are you?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/10/we-the-people-the-battle-to-define-populism
Interesting piece, well written. However, the alarm bells should go off when you encounter a sentence like this:
The rise of “populist movements”, Barack Obama said in a speech last summer,…
Obama was not, and is not, a credible or serious commentator.
is anyone?….besides his contribution was only as an example
Someone as deeply involved in the suppression of democracy and free speech as Obama was has no business commenting about “populist movements” or anything else.
Golf is what he should be doing—along with his equally irresponsible Kiwi financier chum.
Springsteen Apologizes for B. Obama Collaboration
Singer expresses “regret that I was not both more informed and more discerning” when he sang for B. Obama in 2012
by Philip Lasmy and Mart Westhauss, chiPforkt, Jan. 11, 2019
Bruce Springsteen has apologized for collaborating with B. Obama in 2012. “I am deeply horrified by the irrefutable stories of mass killing surrounding B. Obama,” the rock legend said in a statement, posted on his Twitter. “I regret that I was not both more informed and more discerning when I worked with him previously. I fully support all victims of extrajudicial killings, and it’s my hope that there will be a path to justice.”
Springsteen sang to B. Obama worshippers in Wisconsin on the final day of campaigning in the 2012 US Election. The rock legend capped his appearance by playing the anthem “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
Springsteen’s apology follows Lady Oprah’s, who also worked with Obama in 2012. In a statement posted to Twitter last night, Oprah said that she intends to remove all traces of her collaborations with Obama from her mind. The apologies arrive as people continue to speak out publicly about B. Obama’s history of extrajudicial killing and his relentless persecution of journalists and whistle-blowers.
https://pitchfork.com/news/phoenix-apologize-for-r-kelly-collaboration/
Can you please label fiction appropriately.
What was the fiction, Sacha? Are you trying to say that B. Obama was not involved in thousands of extrajudicial killings and did not relentlessly persecute journalists and whistle-blowers?
Really? Come on now—get serious.
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Oh, I SEE-E-E-E-EEEE! You think the average reader here is so thick that he/she won’t appreciate that it’s SATIRE. You want me to FLAG it for them, do you? Just in case they can’t work it out for themselves?
No, Sacha, that’s not going to happen. You can helpfully wave a flag marked “SATIRE” if you like, but I don’t think many people need such prompting.
Don’t give up your day job.
Just saw an excellent story of how two old guys spent 15 years building a walking track in to the Koropuka Falls in the Caitlins, so everyone can go & see it fairly easily. Reminds us of the role voluntarism will play in maintaining & regenerating community in the non-monetarised part of society. It was on TV1. They got DOC approval to do it.
Pardon for what? Just drop
the bogus charges against him.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/01/julian-assanges-living-conditions-are-more-akin-to-a-dissident-in-stasi-era-germany-than-an-award-winning-publisher-with-asylum/
https://twitter.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1083140191362048000
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trackdown-trump-character-wall/
Stranger than fiction.
https://twitter.com/jedshug/status/1083444172626018304
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1083444172626018304.html
In the same way, Ian Fleming modelled his villain Goldfinger on the real life architect Ernő Goldfinger, who Fleming detested.
https://twitter.com/steve_lieber/status/910575231667806208
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-wall-comic-strip/
Very prescient, if not precognitive! A reporter brings this up at a Trump press conference… Trump: “Dude, I’m just living the dream. It’s because the Democrats voted for a fence. I knew it had to be a wall.”
Trump is just upping the anti, “it’s the Art of the Deal”, it’s just negotiating, Trump does not lose.
This one really pissed me off just now:
https://twitter.com/ropata/status/1083678283563118593
Someone else jumped in: *sigh*
https://twitter.com/ropata/status/1083681792819744769
We need to start a “Bring Back Ed Campaign” I am missing his sarcasim.
I agree with Mere Berryman I have reshurched my Ngati Porou history and its totally diffrent to the storys I was told .I also see a lot of storys glorifying the english settlors and belittling Tangata whenua any true storys that show Maori mana are hidden. Everyone knows that this justice system is having a kaka on Eco Maori.
Mere Berryman: it’s time we did better by Māori students
From The Weekend, 9:05 am on 5 January 2019
New Zealand’s education system is failing Māori students by continuing to marginalise their culture, says Waikato University professor Mere Berryman, a 2017 New Zealander of the Year finalist.
The Treaty of Waitangi promised both Māori and non-Māori equal shares of all the benefits that the colonial government was going to provide, yet what we’ve found that education has provided is a very western perspective that is about one history rather than both our histories.”
‘[The teachers] ask the Chinese girl about her culture and they try and tell me about mine’, Berryman was told by one Māori student.
This one-sided storytelling not only disadvantages Māori New Zealanders, she says.
“Māori have missed out because their histories are not being told authentically, but so too have non-Māori because they haven’t learnt about Māori histories [alongside European colonial history]. They’ve learnt a particular version of those events.”
Berryman says she was shocked when a 2001 government report revealed that the experience of many Māori students still hadn’t improved since she and her siblings were in primary school, but wasn’t surprised when a 2017 report confirmed the depth and continuation of the problem
Racism is something that we’re not good at talking about in New Zealand, but we all need to acknowledge its existence … Until we all work to understand [racism], I don’t believe, as a society, we will be able to move forward.”
Currently, about 70 percent of students are served “exceptionally well” by the education system, Berryman says.
“But 20 percent are doing a lot less well with and many of them are Māori.”
The other 10 percent – which Berryman believes is a growing group – are impoverished immigrant and Pakeha students “often living in really risky situations”, she says.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-weekend/audio/2018677651/mere-berryman-it-s-time-we-did-better-by-maori-students
Yeah I heard part of that interview on RNZ, it was good stuff. This captured the heart of the issue:
Berryman also mentioned that 170 years of colonisation is a huge factor in Maori underperformance.
trumps clinging to his toy wall is putting millions of peoples lives at risk and the poor people who don’t have the money to bounce back from disaster are going to pay the price of this tantrum
Beleaguered firefighters put on hold by government shutdown
“If you don’t do the hiring on time, then you can’t do the training on time, then you are not ready for the next fire season,” a nonprofit leader said.
Controlled burns have been put on hold. Fire training sessions have been canceled. The hiring of hundreds of seasonal firefighters has been delayed.
The nation’s wildland fire service — trying to regroup this winter after two of the biggest and deadliest fire seasons on record — has instead been cast into a state of anxiety by the three-week-old partial government shutdown. That’s because some firefighters with the Forest Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management are among the approximately 800,000 government employees either furloughed or working without a guarantee of pay.
The shutdown has affected hundreds of regular fire and support personnel at those agencies, along with seasonal “hotshots” and others who swell the fire lines during the forest and brush fire emergencies that have swept through the West with increasing
emergencies that have swept through the West with increasing intensity nearly every summer and fall, according to wildfire experts. A Senate Appropriations Committee report estimates that as many as 5,000 Forest Service firefighters may be working without pay.
Analysts say the sidelining of some firefighters comes at a difficult time because of the increasing length and arduousness of the fire calendar. After battling what was then the largest fire in California history in 2017, the Thomas Fire, and the deadliest fire in California history in November, the Camp Fire, firefighters do not appreciate going untrained and unpaid.
If you don’t do the hiring on time, then you can’t do the training on time, then you are not ready for the next fire season,” said Goulette of the Watershed Center, which is based in the Northern California town of Hayfork. “And with fire season expanding in California and across the West, you better be ready. Spring does not last as long as it used to.”
Fire experts and climate scientists say warmer and drier weather has prolonged recent fire seasons, making winter recovery time even more precious for firefighters to regroup. “There can be a little over 300 days a year now that someone is fighting a fire somewhere,” said Whittington, “compared to 200 or 250 days in the past. So the time to get over the last fire year and prepare for the next one is incredibly short.”
Ka kite ano links below
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/beleaguered-firefighters-put-hold-government-shutdown-n957456
Interesting eco maori naming problems brought on to firefighters by lack of funding, poor systems, things not being done in a timely fashion,
A Senate Appropriations Committee report estimates that as many as 5,000 Forest Service firefighters may be working without pay.
And this at a time when the USA i confronted by terrible fires. Fat cats in politics, career politicians. It doesn’t work, and they need to have a set limit and then on their way.
Just had a strange visit I smell some thing the cheats will bring bad waiura to there whole whano and I will be watching saying ana to kai.
A Eco Maori Video for the minute
A Eco Maori Video for the minute
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
Kia ora Newshub its not on tamariki are getting beat up for there shoes and the offenders get away with it WTF.
The scam of the deaf cards being sold as a charity te scam is the capitalist way no.
Ka pai to China sending the world pictures of the far side of te Marama.
Ka pai for the Winton rugby match for Blair Vining it was cool for Mils to play to for Blairs bucket list game all the best to Blair and his whano.
Good on Sea Shepherd for stopping the poachers by pulling up there illegal drift nets there actions are causing the extintion of Mexico ‘s Vaquita porpoise there are only 30 left we must protect all of our creatures from over exploitation.
There you go the Ice is melting very fast at the antartica Ross sea ice shelf the sea’s are warming and rising fast that will cause a lot of animals to die.
That show me how famous the All Blacks are the Theatre show getting big views in Amercia some people need tissues as they are crying about the All Blacks Mana & fame I say they should be thanking them for making Papatuanuku Rugby so Great. Ka kite ano
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
e.g.
Mixed-use skyscrapers
Mixed-use skyscrapers were proposed and built by architect Ken Yeang.[6] Yeang proposes that instead of hermetically sealed mass-produced agriculture, plant life should be cultivated within open air, mixed-use skyscrapers for climate control and consumption. This version of vertical farming is based upon personal or community use rather than the wholesale production and distribution that aspires to feed an entire city.