I am not sure I really care about “punishing” her on behalf of those who had the cash to invest. I no longer believe in ma and pa investors, garden faeries are more believable. Stuffed if I want taxes spent protecting the rich from the predations of other rich people: if they can afford to invest it they can afford to lose it, or be taxed.
It surprises me that the home is apparently not in a trust, so she’ll lose it anyway. The quality of Directors these day eh? She should have at least known how to protect her own assets even if she didn’t have a clue about protecting the easy money of the investors looking for super returns.
Great, if people save instead of consume and try to invest that capital to keep themselves out of poverty in old age they are according to Leftists like you “EVIL CAPITALIST SCUM WHO DESERVE TO GET FUCKED!!!”.
You might wish to check out who the average investor was: it was not you and me. The small ones who saved and scrimped were pretty much a tiny minority. Look at SCF, the “Ma and Pa” investors got a guarantee and ripped the tax payer big time. Look at the “ma and pa” 2.5% of the NZ population who bought MRP shares…are they you and me? Fuck them, Let the buyer beware.
On the other hand there are the savers who believe in banks for long term security. Think more about how their savings get rorted by tax / inflation / bank rip offs etc.
Moral does not equal integrity either. An investor with integrity will be aware they’re getting pretty high interest for taking pretty high risks. They’ll check out the background of the Directors before they invest, weigh it up and wear it when they take a loss, not withstanding the criminal charges a Director, or ‘financial planners’ should get if they mislead.
This is also why it’s curious that this Director doesn’t have her home in a Trust. Finance company directors aren’t known for integrity nor for selling homes to pay back investors.
So you also believe that a savings bank deposit is the only “moral” wealth anyone is allowed to have?
Nope, that’s completely immoral. Or, to be more precise, expecting interest on it is.
What about kiwisaver?
Completely immoral as well as it seeks to prop up an immoral system. It can’t, of course, as the system depends upon ever increasing debt and use of oil neither of which is possible.
Completely immoral as well as it seeks to prop up an immoral system. It can’t, of course, as the system depends upon ever increasing debt and use of oil neither of which is possible.
Best investment – put excess money into things that will promote survival and resiliency in the future (that’s not accrual of money in case it’s not obvious).
Draco, what do you think about organisations like Prometheus?
Isn’t the problem with under-investment in NZ that everyone now knows the market here is just dangerously risky for small players, and you don’t know which advisers you can trust when they are all probably more heavily attuned to taking their personal cut of transactions than worrying about your personal risk?
Mr Turkey Brain aka KP. State your working credentials before you accuse me of that. Do you run companies? Do you understand the workings of general ledgers, P&Ls, tax accounting, finance, contracts etc? Is it something you have to apply to company operations, sales, profitability on a daily basis? Demonstrate that and I might consider your flippant charge of illiteracy worthy of debate.
PS The leftist anti capitalist bit…what the hell did I say that was necessarily leftist per se? Who are these “capitalists” of whom you speak?
You might wish to check out who the average investor was: it was not you and me. The small ones who saved and scrimped were pretty much a tiny minority. Look at SCF, the “Ma and Pa” investors got a guarantee and ripped the tax payer big time. Look at the “ma and pa” 2.5% of the NZ population who bought MRP shares…are they you and me? Fuck them, Let the buyer beware.
Ennui, do you have some figures on that? Leaving aside MRP, how many people who got burned in the finance company collapses were of what class and income bracket?
I have seen a finance companies books but cannot comment on that publicly as it was in confidence. I will have a look around the public records however and report back what is there.
Cut one was revealing, read this little beauty http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/econresearch/3198451.pdf does not give hard numbers but if you read between the lines pages 3 to 5 you get the flavour of huge under investment in finance because disposable income is too low and housing seen as safer with better returns.
You’re vigorous for so early on a Saturday morning there KP. Triple-shot was it ?
Rosy simply points-up that empathy for others doing it hard is an unknown quantity amongst many who have “done well”. The ones who cluck disgustedly, point judgmental fingers, then cheer Boss Hogg Bennett when she launches yet another dog-whistling salvo against beneficiaries and other “unworthy” types.
The “done-well” become vaguely aware of the concept only when they themselves are reduced to the level of their “lessers”. Even then it’s not actually empathy. It’s essentially sympathy, for themselves.
I support Rosy in making that point without you jamming your abusive words into her mouth.
Hope your day improves. Im sure it can. Just summon up some humility, offer it up to your own petard, and ask politely that you be hoisted down a little.
Doesn’t matter who you “thought” you were replying to – given the “ideologially driven” screech you’re broadly into your reply can be taken up by many.
Got nothing to do with belief – just the facts of what actually happens in a capitalist society. A few get very rich and well off while everyone else becomes poorer.
Well, actually it does Draco, because you have made a blanket statement that every capitalist (without defining what ‘capitalist’ means to you) is ‘scum’.
You seem to believe and hold the opinion that ‘capitalist’ is a single entity where, in actual fact, there are sharp degrees of capitalism.
“just the facts of what actually happens in a capitalist society. A few get very rich and well off while everyone else becomes poorer.”
That has happened, and can always happen, under any ideology. The best we can do is mitigate the bad while trying to exemplify the good.
I think capitalism can work just fine. Does that me a ‘capitalist’ because you need to define your terms here. We touched on this on The Daily Blog where you suggested that capitalism = Right Wing but used neo-liberalism as an example. Neo-liberalism is a type of capitalism, not capitalism in itself. I am not a neo-liberal, but I am a proponent Social-market economy capitalism. They are different beasts.
Well, actually it does Draco, because you have made a blanket statement that every capitalist (without defining what ‘capitalist’ means to you) is ‘scum’.
They’re the biggest bludgers in the world. Seemingly their sole purpose in life is to have an income from other peoples work. That’s what investment means in our society and what having money in the bank is. To have an income generated by the work of others.
It’s what our entire society is geared for but it only works for the few as to produce a high income from it it needs to clip the ticket of as many people as possible. It’s why globalisation happens – to increase the number of people that the rich can steal from.
We don’t need foreign investment as we have all the resources we need right here in NZ – the actual physical resources, the education and the people – and yet the governments keep saying that we do and making it possible for foreigners to buy up NZ. The only reason for foreign investment to happen is for the rich of other countries to steal from us as well as their own people because they’ve reached the limits of their own economy (a firm in a local economy can only grow so much but a global firm can grow so much bigger – the limits are still there though).
I am not a neo-liberal, but I am a proponent Social-market economy capitalism. They are different beasts.
What a crock of shit, Draco. It is hard to find a starting point in order to address your bizarre uttering so I’ll just address the relevant points here.
“They’re the biggest bludgers in the world. Seemingly their sole purpose in life is to have an income from other peoples work.”
Who is ‘they’? Are ‘they’ the ‘capitalists’? You’ll have to define your term here. Are ‘they’ those whose actively seek to use capitalism as an economic system to benefit themselves at the expense of others? Or those who benefit from the capitalist system without ever considering it as the ruling economic paradigm? Your use of ‘they’ and ‘the capitalists’ is so ill defined as to be useless.
“No, not really.”
Yes, really. You understand there is a difference between laissez faire neo-liberalism and Social-Market Economy, right? One promotes privatisation of everything from the police to healthcare while the other supports and fund social welfare, education and health (to name but a few). This is your problem Draco, you have an extremely binary view of the world. Black, white, On, off. Which, to be frank, is a conservative, right-wing view. One that you cloak in left-wing rhetoric but it is a ‘us/them’ mentality all the same which reeks of no true scotsman fallacy.
“It’s always centred around private ownership and the dead weight loss of profit and it is that which makes capitalism, any variant of it, right wing.”
False.
Private ownership of goods =/= right-wing. Capitalism =/= right-wing.
Do you own anything, Draco? Have you ever benefited from interest, investment or Kiwisaver?
Capitalism is the major problem. People making a habit of using their existing wealth to garner additional unearned wealth, while the labour utilised on the way gets fuck all.
I fail to understand why you remain in NZ. The country does not have a communist party in power nor is it likely to have in the near future. You are so far left you should wear a harness to arrest your fall.
That’s a bit unfair. I wouldn’t say Draco T Bastard is hard left for thinking every capitalist is a scumbag! Most capitalists have attained their wealth from the suffering of the poor after all. If you recognize or have been a victim of a corrupted system, then viewing those who have benefited from that corruption as being scum is entirely justified.
It might not be strictly correct in terms of all rich people aren’t capitalist scum, but it is entirely justified to have formed such beliefs because of the failures inherent within capitalism, namely that it increases inequality. Such a view as Draco has expressed is therefore not extreme at all, unless you’re arguing that inequality is somehow justified?
“unless you’re arguing that inequality is somehow justified?”
no, i doubt they would go so far as ‘justified’, they would turn off at ‘necessary’ and take the link road back to Imperialism via the scenic vistas of ‘entitlement’ 😎
Here’s a better idea.
How about we release a number of women serving time in Arohata or Wiri for minor property crimes equal to the total amount that this woman ripped off. And let them serve out the rest of their sentences in this Remuera Mansion. I am sure they won’t mind. And it would be a big saving on the tax payer.
May 10, 2013 Assange speech about to read by Daniel Ellsberg in San Francisco for Global Exchange Human Rights Award tonight
(Noam Chomsky and Jacob Appelbaum also present)
Thank you for this honor.
I am very happy to be sharing it with Noam Chomsky whose generosity and strength of character I have felt personally. Noam, you are the sea–relentless and enduring. You have crashed wave after wave of understanding into towering cliffs of lies, eroding them at their base. If the rotten foreshore of empire collapses it will be for this reason. You have inspired and continue to inspire many, including me.
Thank you to the people in this room for supporting this award. I’m going to thank you and Dan in the best way I know. By keeping this speech short. Then you can go and do the important thing. Make alliances to fight for WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning and me. Don’t think you can escape just because I am not there. We have a lot more spies in this room than the FBI.
San Francisco and the Bay Area is important to us. We fought our first big court case in the San Francisco federal courts in 2008; That was no coincidence. If we were going to have a fight, anywhere in the world, then I wanted it to be in San Francisco. I structured WikiLeaks to encourage attacks on us to be drawn to San Francisco (sorry about that). The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Freedom of the Press Foundation and many of our other defenders are based here. If any state of the Union is going to save the United States from itself, it will be California. Washington sees that too–that’s why we’re being prosecuted in Virginia and Maryland.
Noam’s presence in this room –useful, even though he’s from Massachusetts– reflects something very special. Cross generational solidarity. From Dan and Noam to Michael Ratner, from Kiki to me, from Jacob to Bradley Manning. The issues of each demi-generation are being understood as a continuation into the present. My fight is right now. But so is Bradley Manning’s. So is Jacob’s. I want Dan, Noam and Jacob–all of you here–together with me in this fight because I know you understand. Our conflict tests every aspect of character, but it has also shown it in many and I am proud of them.
Remember that Bradley Manning’s trial starts on June 3. It is scheduled to run for twelve to sixteen weeks. The prosecution is bringing 141 witnesses. That is a show trial. A twelve-week off-Broadway extravaganza being performed at Fort Mead. Its legal and political result will directly feed into the larger prosecution of WikiLeaks.
What is to be done? The answer is easy. It has always been easy. Stop saying “not in my name” and start saying “over my dead body”. That’s what we did. It works. Do it.
Sorry, haven’t you heard, he is a Feminist pariah? Assange is a white guy with CIA backed false rape allegations made against him which the feminasties have swallowed hook, sinker and line.
You will accused of “rape culture” supporter in a political necklacing, Morrissey, if you are not careful.
KP, Who knows? But the comment does not help because right now we need EVERY believer in justice and fair play to put their support very publicly behind Bradley Manning.
“right now we need EVERY believer in justice and fair play”
[Deleted]
[lprent: So you took that as an opportunity to offensively insulting my half of my relatives again. Cretinous misogynistic drivel. And I too believe in delivering justice and fair play. I delete the ravings of bigoted fuckwits. ]
The western garment industry exploits the vulnerable, largely women, in poor countries, so they can make exorbitant profits, and try to buy off our resistance with relatively cheap clothing.
“throwing out some obscure points that most feminists have never heard of.”
The examples I give are of ideas central to Feminist ideology – Critical Theory, Feminist “Theory”, “Queer Theory” – all psuedo intellectual drivel that has wrecked the Humanities.
k_p has been given enormous leeway in recent days with multiple warnings for his horrible bigotry and false accusations. It doesn’t seem to be working. Again and again he spouts nonsense about the views of others, as he always has.
I wonder if he ought to be given some sort of penance to perform. Perhaps the severity of the penance could be determined by the quality of his answer to your question above.
k_p drops in and repeats a cherry-picked one liner, making accusations about feminism. He brandishes it like a weapon, jumps up and down claiming victory, then runs away without seriously engaging.
Yes, we know that, but perhaps it’s time to pull the plug? He’s derailing at best, but his intention is to intimidate and his method is stalking. Maybe no single post has violated any rule, but perhaps his pattern has to be considered?
He’s definitely a misogynist and he’s clearly trying to bully specific women he’s very obsessively targeted, and he consistently tries to derail threads to shut down discussion.
Moreover, he ignores repeated warnings about appropriate conduct.
It’s all very well if Karol and The Queen of Thorns have thick skins, but I worry that he’s driving off other potential contributors – as he intends to.
Indeed. Manning too often gets neglected and he is suffering a the result of his brave act in passing over the damning information about the US military.
My first tertiary education was in education, especially education of those with disabilities. I learned things about biology, neurology, and how people learn, and child development. This learning formed the basis of much of my later learning inside and outside the uni.
The human brain is a wondrous thing. I learn more about it every day, but some people’s brain functioning remains curiously obscure.
I’m appalled at Manning’s treatment, but the fact of the matter is that he committed treason in the eyes of the law. It is inconceivable that he wouldn’t be punnished in some way, but torture is unacceptable.
It is often overlooked. The entire document is a flow on from those three simple words. It was the People he was defending, but I do have my doubts you even grasp what that means.
He swore the U.S. Armed Forces Oath of Enlistment
This includes the propagandized ‘against all enemies foreign and domestic’ line.
He concentrated this time on the domestic bit.
Freedom, I presume that you do realize you’re trying to argue in good faith with the Kiwi equivalent of a Soviet commissar.
If you’re engaging in that futile exercise as an intellectual workout, that’s fine. As long as you don’t expect anything like enlightened or serious debate.
…the fact of the matter is that he committed treason in the eyes of the law.
What a disgusting, Wieselian hypocrite you are. As those of us who do not share your Maoist/Stalinist view of the world know, is not treason to bring war crimes to the attention of the world.
And spare us the bombast about being “appalled” by mistreatment of which you have repeatedly endorsed on this forum.
It is inconceivable that he wouldn’t be punnished [sic] in some way…
It is conceivable that he would be lauded and honoured in a state that valued human rights and the rule of law.
….but torture is unacceptable.
But you endorse the torturers and say that the person who exposed them “committed treason”. If I did not know better, I would think you were merely another bewildered mouth-breathing NewstalkZB listener.
For anyone with a shred of commonsense or common decency, here’s a reminder of why the full vengeance of the state is being unleashed on Manning and Assange…. http://www.collateralmurder.com/
…which the feminasties have swallowed hook, sinker and line.
Some nasty and politically aligned women have chosen to accept the British government’s black propaganda, but Swedish Rape Crisis has, like anyone honest, condemned the British-U.S. government campaign.
and the lead prosecutor, a woman, resigned from the case. A lot of of media are saying she resigned because the case was unravelling faster than a cardigan caught in a cartoon cartwheel
I think the ladies did the right thing: go public. Let the court of public opinion judge the hoteliers with their cash. Conversely if you legislate you only force legal acceptance, which is worth nothing compared to mind share.
Just observing that the guesthouse proprietor refused to allow a lesbian couple to share a bed because they would be accommodating “behaviour that is sodomy.”
That doesn’t go quite so well as Hillary Sodom Clinton—which I am sure, by the way, is actually used by the legion of extreme right wing “Christian” Hillary-haters—but it is not bad, I suppose.
TRP……..(apologies Morrissey – I’m a fan of yours)……..shouldn’t it be MorrisOddomy ? OK, not as good as either of yours’ but I’m a little hobbled today.
Consequent upon Kiwi Promethium alleging I’m on synthetic cannabis and Bowel Motion counselling that I should lay off the drink in the mornings. Have a good day folks. Must back to ma Twelve Steps.
Ironically – sodomy is anything that isn’t straight missionary position (hard right fundy def.) and given the Ruskin’s love of prying into other consenting adults sex-lives, methinks then it’s fair to speculate that the Ruskin’s hath done much sodomy themselves 👿
Ergo, they should kick themselves out of their dwelling since apparently “no sodomites allowed” is the golden rule thou shalth not break.
But owner Karen Ruskin said she and husband Michael could dictate what went on at the property: “Homosexuals have a whole industry of hotels that they can go to,” she said.
Legally a business cannot discriminate on the basis of stuff that falls under the Human Rights Act iirc and you can bet these two muppets would scream blue murder along that line if they suddenly got booted from a business due to being fundamentalist christians.
Bring on the rainbow cluebat of bad PR and legal challenges!
as noted in the corresponding thread; we all know about sublimation, delusional projection, distortion, superiority complexes and repression do we not.
“No one becomes equal by the killing of another innocent life. That’s not equality, that’s enmity.” – Ryan Bomberger
Supporting mothers in having the ‘right’ to work from 9-3 tax free, in ‘most’ jobs, if they choose to do so, means that children will be feed before school.Amongst other things.
Now doesn’t all that bring new meaning to the words ‘productivity gains’ now, and in the next generations! 😎
Four conclusions can be drawn from this.
1) Our continued civilisation is under threat on this planet.
2) More people in NZ know about Aaron Gilmore than details about climate change.
3) The NZ Herald is a poor excuse for journalism.
4) There is a link between 1,2 and 3.
Jeeez they are a fiesty lot today on open mike TRP, every day is still like Sunday for Morrissey and KP can’t get much higher. “Sodom Clinton” heh what next.
Must be something about the weekend that brings out the warrior in them! Sadly, I’m off to footy, so I’ll have to wait till tonight to catch up with various witterings. Have a good one, TM.
Just what is it that makes today’s Labour leaders so dithering, so unappealing?
Let’s not beat about the bush: David Shearer is a terrible, ineffective, wishy-washy Labour leader.
But as bad as Shearer might be, here’s one fellow who is even worse. Pity the good people of Great Britain if this is all they can put up against Dave Snooty and his Eton chums…
The neoliberals captured the British Labour Party when Blair took over.
There is no one for workers to vote for in the UK.
People are that desperate for an alternative and the corporations are ensuring there is not one.
Elie Wiesel: Break Your Silence and Come with Us to Gaza!
When Elie Wiesel spoke at Saint Louis University on December 1, 2009, three women challenged him to break his silence about Gaza and to travel with them on the Gaza Freedom March to see for himself the devastation caused by Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and the ongoing siege.
Keen has his eye on margin debt. This is the money people borrow from their stockbrokers to expand their holdings of shares. Keen says the ratio is now 70%, meaning with $300,000 you can borrow $1 million worth of shares.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Steve has found a relationship between the change in margin debt and the level of asset prices. Even more importantly, he points to a correlation between the acceleration in margin debt and the rise in asset prices.
If his theory holds true, this means we’re relying on the acceleration of margin debt to drive rising share prices. And when that acceleration slows down, equity prices will fall.
Thing is, it’s more borrowing that both National and Labour are after with their affordable homes. More people buying = more borrowing and thus we get an increase in money in the system raising GDP. It’s not sustainable and must crash but the politicians will just push some other barrow that achieves the same end – more borrowing.
The only winners in such a system are the people who print the money with interest on it – the private banks.
No one has the stomach to reform our debt based money supply. It’s possibly the biggest no-no in the capitalist banking framework that we have locked ourselves into.
and it is one simple question every person can consider for themselves without having to wave a flag or sign a paper or anything. All they have to do is spend a moment of honest contemplation. Something many more should do, more often than we do. I am as guilty as any of that failing.
Here are ten facts you may wish to pop into tonight’s dinner conversations. I know, I know, facts are so infuriating when they completely contradict hysterical fantasies, but reality is like that, facts are facts and lies are just business. http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/10/16/10-eye-opening-facts-about-hemp/
Instead of building its future, New Zealand is disintergrating. An average house for a family should not cost $750,000. Things are out of control. A future requires a society to obtain levels of sustainability.
(If you do not believe that, good luck to you and yours.)
There is not one single reason hemp should not become a primary industry in NZ.
Building. Medicines. Food. Textiles. Plastics. Fuel. It just goes on and on and on.
We could be making milllions of dollars from hemp and hemp related industries if we wanted to, at the very least we could be saving billions if we chose to. The employment opportunities, the related economic growth, the social benefits, the sustainability bonuses, these are not things that should be dismissed lightly. But we all know the drill.
We have a problem, we look for a solution.
Whenever hemp is investigated as a viable solution, BAM ! straight into the wall !
It does have a very bad habit of highlighting sustainability nightmares. Mostly though, there are good responsible reasons given why not to go forward and they usually hold water as strongly as a $2 bucket.
However you spin it, money influence and engrained propaganda are difficult to overcome without forcing a fundamental breakthrough in how people comprehend the machine around them, and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon if some of the wanderers we meet here are anything to go by. I get that.
To the reader, I ask you. Will ignoring it all, solve any of the issues?
Shall we let blinkers crop the vista of our future?
A future requires a society to obtain levels of sustainability.
Building. Medicines. Food. Textiles. Plastics. Fuel.
I cannot see a single reason hemp should not become a primary industry in NZ.
This is quite a big deal, we get that, but ….
Anyone know why he was here?
What the event was?
Who the other businessmen that are mentioned were?
What this piece of US-focused dross is meant to be conveying?
“How Class Works – Richard Wolff Examines Class ”
Shows up the class war of selling our Power companies whose future profits will accrue to the wealthy instead of the commons.
“Working for an employer is like rowing an oar as a galley slave. You can quit and jump overboard but you splash right into the great ocean of unemployment, exclusive professional guilds, multi-level marketing scams, lying temp agencies, credit card debt, college loan scams, a 90% self-employment failure rate due to competition and deficient government benefits. You are forced to swim to and board another galley. Now all the galley ships have robotic oarsmen and you sink beneath the waves.”
I’m gradually learning more about the Second World War. There is so much to know and it has always been in my background, occasionally coming to the fore. Now I am older and less hopeful about humanity I have been reading about Resistance fighters etc.
This morning I am looking at The White Rose on wikepedia. That was the name that a group of protesting and defiant young people mostly students used as their symbol. When studying events in Germany between the wars it becomes obvious that the country had been occupied mentally internally by this authoritarian and brutal regime far before the 1939 declaration of war against Germany.
The things that are so emotionally expressed in these students’ words have been applied to what is going on in NZ. Many of these young people died at Nazi hands. One group were beheaded in 1943 I think in a public square.
So what happens every day to limit human rights and step up authoritarianism and fascism must be looked at carefully. Some quotes from the German group:
If everyone waits until the other man makes a start, the messengers of avenging Nemesis will come steadily closer. (From Leaflet 1, urging immediate initiative by the reader. Nemesis of course punished those who had fallen to the temptation of hubris.)
…why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanised state system presided over by criminals and drunks? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right – or rather, your moral duty – to eliminate this system? (From Leaflet 3)
Why do German people behave so apathetically in the face of all these abominable crimes, crimes so unworthy of the human race? … The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals….[The German] must evidence not only sympathy; no, much more: a sense of complicity in guilt….For through his apathetic behaviour he gives these evil men the opportunity to act as they do…. he himself is to blame for the fact that it came about at all! Each man wants to be exonerated ….But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty!… now that we have recognized [the Nazis] for what they are, it must be the sole and first duty, the holiest duty of every German to destroy these beasts. (From Leaflet 2)
One of the episodes is about the Soviet partisan war against the Germans.
Also consider – 4 out of 5 German soldiers killed in WWII were killed on the Eastern Front.
The D-Day landings at Normandy in 1944, although an important step in securing western europe, were not very relevant to Germany’s final defeat. Germany had already long lost the war in 1943, at the Battle of Kursk.
The role of the ANZACs is not to be unterestimated. Had they not kept Rommel tied up in North Africa, the Soviets might not have had time to rearm after the Ribbentrop-Molotov fiasco.
Not to mention that if the Germans had secured fuel supplies from the middle east then their strategies in Russia wouldn’t have been so skewed by the need to secure oilfields during Barbarossa.
Ultimately it was the inability of Germany to get a few essential strategic materials from outside of their conquered territories that lost them the battles. It forced them to make strategic mistakes.
They made strategic errors, yes, but their big error was going into total war with Russia AND America. Either one could have out produced, outgunned and out fought Germany in the long run. By wars end Russia and the USA were just getting warmed up and Germany was a smoking ruin which had run out of manpower and the ability to re-arm. Also, the conventional war had just about run it’s course anyway. The US had the A bomb. They also had the means to deliver it anywhere in German territory. Germany were close to a bomb, but had lost air superiority and were a long way from having true ICBM’s.
I agree that North African action greatly limited German options. Further, the horrific two and a half year siege of Leningrad was a disaster for Germany – it tied down 20% of their eastern forces even as 500-1000 Leningrad citizens starved to death daily.
As for forced mistakes…Hitler regarded himself as a military super-genius and things went down hill rapidly when he decided to put himself in charge of all military operations. Not letting his army withdraw from Stalingrad and deciding that a quarter million cut off German forces could be resupplied by air? Mad.
The Afrika Korps wouldn’t have even been noticed on the Russian Front. It swallowed up whole Army Groups. Rommel fought against a few divisions which made up the 8th Army. Operation Barbarossa kicked off seventeen months before the second Battle of El Alamein, which was three years after Ribbentrop and Molotov divided up Poland.
If anything, the Red Army saved Egypt for the British Empire, not the other way around.
It helped that Hitler made a few bad choices as well, peeling off elsewhere when he had a chance to press home his advantage. I think one of them was to push down into Ukraine when he could have taken Moscow before winter.
You would’ve thought that Germany would not want to make Napolean’s same mistakes in Russia.
Hitler did need to capture the industrial centre of Kiev so there was a strategic purpose to that. However, delays to capturing Moscow created huge problems for the Germans, and it allowed the Soviets to ship in elite eastern divisions to bolster the Moscow front.
Trying to go after the caucuses and Stalingrad and Moscow at the same time was never going to work. Classic Art of War – if you try to be everywhere, everywhere you will be weak.
You also have to factor in the massive intelligence failures of the Nazis regarding the USSR. They completely underestimated the size of the soviet forces and their massive reserves. They underrated the intelligence and determination of the soviet soldiers and officers who, after initial mass surrenders, chose to thereafter fight on behind advancing German lines even after being encircled and were a constant threat to their rear and flanks, as well as to their fronts.
They had no idea that the soviets even had the T34 and KV tanks, far superior to the panzer III and IV’s, nor that they had developed aircraft like the Mig 3, Yak 3, La 5 and 7’s, Il 2 and 10 shturmovics, and their katyushas etc. They never gave any consideration to the industrial capacity of the USSR and their ability to dismantle and reassemble their armaments factories well out of reach of German short-range bombers. Even though lend-lease provided them with allied war materiel, the USSR proved itself able to produce all manner of war materiel in such high volumes they were easily able to replace their losses as the war dragged on, when the Germans could not.
If you can get access to the War Memorial Museum library, then that’d be about the best source in NZ on some of the resistance movements.
Not only did we have people scattered throughout europe and the pacific and they wrote stuff down, but we also got quite a lot of refugees and emigres pre and post war who did as well. It seems like most of the hardcopy wound up there.
There was a year when I was a kid where I was attempting to soak up that library.
The same steady withdrawl of rights is happening now in NZ, but the populance finds it hard to get a fix on it and react. Much easier to join in the scrum on Mr Gilmore’s flaws than that of democratic rights or security from spying etc. We need a serious focus to prevent the slide. Sympathise with the Germans of the 30’s because they by the time they realised the significance of what they had lost it was too late to resist.
(Read about a butcher in Vienna who was anti-Nazi until the day the German army marched into Austria and declared the country to be part of the German Nazi empire. The next day the butcher marched down the road waving the German flag. “Survival,” he said.)
A survivor of a high-level ring involving child sacrifice, torture and trafficking went public today in an exclusive disclosure and interview with Freedom Central’s Mel Ve and ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett.
Toos Nijenhuis, a fifty four year old physiotherapist and mother of five from Holland, was tortured, raped and used experimentally from the age of four years old by wealthy and powerful men around the world, including top officials of churches and governments.
And, Nijenhuis claims, these crimes are continuing today, including the ritual sacrifice of children in rural Holland.
Is that tinfoil hat too tight again. Show me on the doll where the Illuminati touched you?
Seriously? I’m not doubting she suffered terrible abuse, but she’s quite obviously projecting this elaborate fantasy onto it to try and give that horrible abuse some meaning. Another similar and widespread projection onto childhood sexual abuse is alien abduction. There is no global satanic conspiracy and this sort of nonsense just distracts from the horrible mundane reality of child abuse.
To The Handlers;
Risk is not necessary. Scientific development concept
Bone-modern-marrow admirably sails, bracing
the vigorous weight of the People while The Struggles
with the Persians remaining indecisive, abundant Africa
is being recovered from the vandal al1ens.
You can pencil that in three places
(Ray-guns are a fetish for steam-Punks,
may be buried with Wessex culture) We all
harden up with influence and Able instrumental guidance;
Plumb the depths, clean out the pipes, dispose the waste.
Quelle : Lectiones geometricae; pictures italicized
(or a combination Friend rice, Edgar; #23 8)
Eponymous / Mick Ronson Priestley (Whats My Name)
contend more in written acts than words.
The Shepherd’s crook, cuts right across the diagonal;
“he came to minister, not to be ministered to”.
“and let no-one attempt to reclaim (them) from the stigmata of their new master”.
Let no-one trouble them for the record of their transaction is in the temple.
A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 15, 2024 thru Sat, December 21, 2024. Based on feedback we received, this week's roundup is the first one published soleley by category. We are still interested in ...
Well, I've been there, sitting in that same chairWhispering that same prayer half a million timesIt's a lie, though buried in disciplesOne page of the Bible isn't worth a lifeThere's nothing wrong with youIt's true, it's trueThere's something wrong with the villageWith the villageSomething wrong with the villageSongwriters: Andrew Jackson ...
ACT would like to dictate what universities can and can’t say. We knew it was coming. It was outlined in the coalition agreement and has become part of Seymour’s strategy of “emphasising public funding” to prevent people from opposing him and his views—something he also uses to try and de-platform ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading ...
So the Solstice has arrived – Summer in this part of the world, Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. And with it, the publication my new Norse dark-fantasy piece, As Our Power Lessens at Eternal Haunted Summer: https://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/winter-solstice-2024/as-our-power-lessens/ As previously noted, this one is very ‘wyrd’, and Northern Theory of Courage. ...
The Natural Choice: As a starter for ten percent of the Party Vote, “saving the planet” is a very respectable objective. Young voters, in particular, raised on the dire (if unheeded) warnings of climate scientists, and the irrefutable evidence of devastating weather events linked to global warming, vote Green. After ...
The Government cancelled 60% of Kāinga Ora’s new builds next year, even though the land for them was already bought, the consents were consented and there are builders unemployed all over the place. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political ...
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on UnsplashEvery morning I get up at 3am to go around the traps of news sites in Aotearoa and globally. I pick out the top ones from my point of view and have been putting them into my Dawn Chorus email, which goes out with a podcast. ...
Over on Kikorangi Newsroom's Marc Daalder has published his annual OIA stats. So I thought I'd do mine: 82 OIA requests sent in 2024 7 posts based on those requests 20 average working days to receive a response Ministry of Justice was my most-requested entity, ...
Welcome to the December 2024 Economic Bulletin. We have two monthly features in this edition. In the first, we discuss what the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update from Treasury and the Budget Policy Statement from the Minister of Finance tell us about the fiscal position and what to ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have submitted against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, slamming the Bill as a breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and an attack on tino rangatiratanga and the collective rights of Tangata Whenua. “This Bill seeks to legislate for Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles that are ...
I don't knowHow to say what's got to be saidI don't know if it's black or whiteThere's others see it redI don't get the answers rightI'll leave that to youIs this love out of fashionOr is it the time of yearAre these words distraction?To the words you want to hearSongwriters: ...
Our economy has experienced its worst recession since 1991. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, December 20 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below ...
Twas the Friday before Christmas and all through the week we’ve been collecting stories for our final roundup of the year. As we start to wind down for the year we hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and new year. If you’re travelling please be safe on ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the year’s news with: on climate. Her book of the year was Tim Winton’s cli-fi novel Juice and she also mentioned Mike Joy’s memoir The Fight for Fresh Water. ...
The Government can head off to the holidays, entitled to assure itself that it has done more or less what it said it would do. The campaign last year promised to “get New Zealand back on track.” When you look at the basic promises—to trim back Government expenditure, toughen up ...
Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment:Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance ...
Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guests and , ...
“Like you said, I’m an unreconstructed socialist. Everybody deserves to get something for Christmas.”“ONE OF THOSE had better be for me!” Hannah grinned, fascinated, as Laurie made his way, gingerly, to the bar, his arms full of gift-wrapped packages.“Of course!”, beamed Laurie. Depositing his armful on the bar-top and selecting ...
Data released by Statistics New Zealand today showed a significant slowdown in the economy over the past six months, with GDP falling by 1% in September, and 1.1% in June said CTU Economist Craig Renney. “The data shows that the size of the economy in GDP terms is now smaller ...
One last thing before I quitI never wanted any moreThan I could fit into my headI still remember every single word you saidAnd all the shit that somehow came along with itStill, there's one thing that comforts meSince I was always caged and now I'm freeSongwriters: David Grohl / Georg ...
Sparse offerings outside a Te Kauwhata church. Meanwhile, the Government is cutting spending in ways that make thousands of hungry children even hungrier, while also cutting funding for the charities that help them. It’s also doing that while winding back new building of affordable housing that would allow parents to ...
It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management.This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up ...
This morning I awoke to the lovely news that we are firmly back on track, that is if the scale was reversed.NZ ranks low in global economic comparisonsNew Zealand's economy has been ranked 33rd out of 37 in an international comparison of which have done best in 2024.Economies were ranked ...
Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis seems intent on portraying herself as that damsel in distress. According to Willis, this country’s current economic problems have all been caused by the spending ...
Similar to the cuts and the austerity drive imposed by Ruth Richardson in the 1990’s, an era which to all intents and purposes we’ve largely fiddled around the edges with fixing in the time since – over, to be fair, several administrations – whilst trying our best it seems to ...
String-Pulling in the Dark: For the democratic process to be meaningful it must also be public. WITH TRUST AND CONFIDENCE in New Zealand’s politicians and journalists steadily declining, restoring those virtues poses a daunting challenge. Just how daunting is made clear by comparing the way politicians and journalists treated New Zealanders ...
Dear Nicola Willis, thank you for letting us know in so many words that the swingeing austerity hasn't worked.By in so many words I mean the bit where you said, Here is a sea of red ink in which we are drowning after twelve months of savage cost cutting and ...
The Open Government Partnership is a multilateral organisation committed to advancing open government. Countries which join are supposed to co-create regular action plans with civil society, committing to making verifiable improvements in transparency, accountability, participation, or technology and innovation for the above. And they're held to account through an Independent ...
Today I tuned into something strange: a press conference that didn’t make my stomach churn or the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Which was strange, because it was about the torture of children. It was the announcement by Erica Stanford — on her own, unusually ...
This is a must watch, and puts on brilliant and practical display the implications and mechanics of fast-track law corruption and weakness.CLICK HERE: LINK TO WATCH VIDEOOur news media as it is set up is simply not equipped to deal with the brazen disinformation and corruption under this right wing ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi Acting Secretary Erin Polaczuk is welcoming the announcement from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden that she is opening consultation on engineered stone and is calling on her to listen to the evidence and implement a total ban of the product. “We need ...
The Government has announced a 1.5% increase in the minimum wage from 1 April 2025, well below forecast inflation of 2.5%. Unions have reacted strongly and denounced it as a real terms cut. PSA and the CTU are opposing a new round of staff cuts at WorkSafe, which they say ...
The decision to unilaterally repudiate the contract for new Cook Strait ferries is beginning to look like one of the stupidest decisions a New Zealand government ever made. While cancelling the ferries and their associated port infrastructure may have made this year's books look good, it means higher costs later, ...
Hi there! I’ve been overseas recently, looking after a situation with a family member. So apologies if there any less than focused posts! Vanuatu has just had a significant 7.3 earthquake. Two MFAT staff are unaccounted for with local fatalities.It’s always sad to hear of such things happening.I think of ...
Today is a special member's morning, scheduled to make up for the government's theft of member's days throughout the year. First up was the first reading of Greg Fleming's Crimes (Increased Penalties for Slavery Offences) Amendment Bill, which was passed unanimously. Currently the House is debating the third reading of ...
We're going backwardsIgnoring the realitiesGoing backwardsAre you counting all the casualties?We are not there yetWhere we need to beWe are still in debtTo our insanitiesSongwriter: Martin Gore Read more ...
Willis blamed Treasury for changing its productivity assumptions and Labour’s spending increases since Covid for the worsening Budget outlook. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, December 18 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast above ...
Today the Auckland Transport board meet for the last time this year. For those interested (and with time to spare), you can follow along via this MS Teams link from 10am. I’ve taken a quick look through the agenda items to see what I think the most interesting aspects are. ...
Hi,If you’re a New Zealander — you know who Mike King is. He is the face of New Zealand’s battle against mental health problems. He can be loud and brash. He raises, and is entrusted with, a lot of cash. Last year his “I Am Hope” charity reported a revenue ...
Probably about the only consolation available from yesterday’s unveiling of the Half-Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) is that it could have been worse. Though Finance Minister Nicola Willis has tightened the screws on future government spending, she has resisted the calls from hard-line academics, fiscal purists and fiscal hawks ...
The right have a stupid saying that is only occasionally true:When is democracy not democracy? When it hasn’t been voted on.While not true in regards to branches of government such as the judiciary, it’s a philosophy that probably should apply to recently-elected local government councillors. Nevertheless, this concept seemed to ...
Long story short: the Government’s austerity policy has driven the economy into a deeper and longer recession that means it will have to borrow $20 billion more over the next four years than it expected just six months ago. Treasury’s latest forecasts show the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s fiscal strategy of ...
Come and join myself and CTU Chief Economist for a pop-up ‘Hoon’ webinar on the Government’s Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) with paying subscribers to The Kākā for 30 minutes at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream to watch our chat. Don’t worry if ...
In 1998, in the wake of the Paremoremo Prison riot, the Department of Corrections established the "Behaviour Management Regime". Prisoners were locked in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day, with no fresh air, no exercise, no social contact, no entertainment, and in some cases no clothes and ...
New data released by the Treasury shows that the economic policies of this Government have made things worse in the year since they took office, said NZCTU Economist Craig Renney. “Our fiscal indicators are all heading in the wrong direction – with higher levels of debt, a higher deficit, and ...
At the 2023 election, National basically ran on a platform of being better economic managers. So how'd that turn out for us? In just one year, they've fucked us for two full political terms: The government's books are set to remain deeply in the red for the near term ...
AUSTERITYText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy spreadsheet insists This pain leads straight to glory (File not found) Read more ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi are saying that the Government should do the right thing and deliver minimum wage increases that don’t see workers fall further behind, in response to today’s announcement that the minimum wage will only be increased by 1.5%, well short of forecast inflation. “With inflation forecast ...
Oh, I weptFor daysFilled my eyesWith silly tearsOh, yeaBut I don'tCare no moreI don't care ifMy eyes get soreSongwriters: Paul Rodgers / Paul Kossoff. Read more ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob HensonIn this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the ...
In August, I wrote an article about David Seymour1 with a video of his testimony, to warn that there were grave dangers to his Ministry of Regulation:David Seymour's Ministry of Slush Hides Far Greater RisksWhy Seymour's exorbitant waste of taxpayers' money could be the least of concernThe money for Seymour ...
Willis is expected to have to reveal the bitter fiscal fruits of her austerity strategy in the HYEFU later today. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Tuesday, December 17 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus podcast ...
On Friday the government announced it would double the number of toll roads in New Zealand as well as make a few other changes to how toll roads are used in the country. The real issue though is not that tolling is being used but the suggestion it will make ...
The Prime Minister yesterday engaged in what looked like a pre-emptive strike designed to counter what is likely to be a series of depressing economic statistics expected before the end of the week. He opened his weekly post-Cabinet press conference with a recitation of the Government’s achievements. “It certainly has ...
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people to get vaccinated but only after you’ve cut the funding to where they could get vaccinated. This has been the case all year with public ...
And if there is a GodI know he likes to rockHe likes his loud guitarsHis spiders from MarsAnd if there is a GodI know he's watching meHe likes what he seesBut there's trouble on the breezeSongwriter: William Patrick Corgan Read more ...
Here’s a quick round up of today’s political news:1. MORE FOOD BANKS, CHARITIES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS AND YOUTH SOCIAL SERVICES SET TO CLOSE OR SCALE BACK AROUND THE COUNTRY AS GOVT CUTS FUNDINGSome of Auckland's largest foodbanks are warning they may need to close or significantly reduce food parcels after ...
Iain Rennie, CNZMSecretary and Chief Executive to the TreasuryDear Secretary, Undue restrictions on restricted briefings This week, the Treasury barred representatives from four organisations, including the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi, from attending the restricted briefing for the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update. We had been ...
This is a guest post by Tim Adriaansen, a community, climate, and accessibility advocate.I won’t shut up about climate breakdown, and whenever possible I try to shift the focus of a climate conversation towards solutions. But you’ll almost never hear me give more than a passing nod to ...
A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty ImagesMōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
Hi all,I'm pretty overwhelmed by all your messages and emails today; thank you so very much.As much as my newsletter this morning was about money, and we all need to earn money, it was mostly about world domination if I'm honest. 😉I really hate what’s happening to our country, and ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on ...
I started writing this morning about Hobson’s Pledge, examining the claims they and their supporters make, basically ripping into them. But I kept getting notifications coming through, and not good ones.Each time I looked up, there was another un-subscription message, and I felt a bit sicker at the thought of ...
Once, long before there was Harry and Meghan and Dodi and all those episodes of The Crown, they came to spend some time with us, Charles and Diana. Was there anyone in the world more glamorous than the Princess of Wales?Dazzled as everyone was by their company, the leader of ...
The collective right have a problem.The entire foundation for their world view is antiscientific. Their preferred economic strategies have been disproven. Their whole neoliberal model faces accusations of corporate corruption and worsening inequality. Climate change not only definitely exists, its rapid progression demands an immediate and expensive response in order ...
Just ten days ago, South Korea's president attempted a self-coup, declaring martial law and attempting to have opposition MPs murdered or arrested in an effort to seize unconstrained power. The attempt was rapidly defeated by the national assembly voting it down and the people flooding the streets to defend democracy. ...
Hi,“What I love about New Zealanders is that sometimes you use these expressions that as Americans we have no idea what those things mean!"I am watching a 30-something year old American ramble on about how different New Zealanders are to Americans. It’s his podcast, and this man is doing a ...
What Chris Penk has granted holocaust-denier and equal-opportunity-bigot Candace Owens is not “freedom of speech”. It’s not even really freedom of movement, though that technically is the right she has been granted. What he has given her is permission to perform. Freedom of SpeechIn New Zealand, the right to freedom ...
All those tears on your cheeksJust like deja vu flow nowWhen grandmother speaksSo tell me a story (I'll tell you a story)Spell it out, I can't hear (What do you want to hear?)Why you wear black in the morning?Why there's smoke in the air? Songwriter: Greg Johnson.Mōrena all ☀️Something a ...
National has only been in power for a year, but everywhere you look, its choices are taking New Zealand a long way backwards. In no particular order, here are the National Government's Top 50 Greatest Misses of its first year in power. ...
The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...
The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...
In response to a new report from ERO, the Government has acknowledged the urgent need for consistency across the curriculum for Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools. ...
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...
Thank you for the invitation to speak with you tonight on behalf of the political party I belong to - which is New Zealand First. As we have heard before this evening the Kinleith Mill is proposing to reduce operations by focusing on pulp and discontinuing “lossmaking paper production”. They say that they are currently consulting on the plan to permanently shut ...
Auckland Central MP, Chlöe Swarbrick, has written to Mayor Wayne Brown requesting he stop the unnecessary delays on St James Theatre’s restoration. ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says Health New Zealand will move swiftly to support dozens of internationally-trained doctors already in New Zealand on their journey to employment here, after a tripling of sought-after examination places. “The Medical Council has delivered great news for hardworking overseas doctors who want to contribute ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has appointed Sarah Ottrey to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). “At my first APEC Summit in Lima, I experienced firsthand the role that ABAC plays in guaranteeing political leaders hear the voice of business,” Mr Luxon says. “New Zealand’s ABAC representatives are very well respected and ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced four appointments to New Zealand’s intelligence oversight functions. The Honourable Robert Dobson KC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, and the Honourable Brendan Brown KC has been appointed as a Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants. The appointments of Hon Robert Dobson and Hon ...
Improvements in the average time it takes to process survey and title applications means housing developments can progress more quickly, Minister for Land Information Chris Penk says. “The government is resolutely focused on improving the building and construction pipeline,” Mr Penk says. “Applications to issue titles and subdivide land are ...
The Government’s measures to reduce airport wait times, and better transparency around flight disruptions is delivering encouraging early results for passengers ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Improving the efficiency of air travel is a priority for the Government to give passengers a smoother, more reliable ...
The Government today announced the intended closure of the Apollo Hotel as Contracted Emergency Housing (CEH) in Rotorua, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. This follows a 30 per cent reduction in the number of households in CEH in Rotorua since National came into Government. “Our focus is on ending CEH in the Whakarewarewa area starting ...
The Government will reshape vocational education and training to return decision making to regions and enable greater industry input into work-based learning Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds says. “The redesigned system will better meet the needs of learners, industry, and the economy. It includes re-establishing regional polytechnics that ...
The Government is taking action to better manage synthetic refrigerants and reduce emissions caused by greenhouse gases found in heating and cooling products, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds says. “Regulations will be drafted to support a product stewardship scheme for synthetic refrigerants, Ms. Simmonds says. “Synthetic refrigerants are found in a ...
People travelling on State Highway 1 north of Hamilton will be relieved that remedial works and safety improvements on the Ngāruawāhia section of the Waikato Expressway were finished today, with all lanes now open to traffic, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“I would like to acknowledge the patience of road users ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister, Penny Simmonds, has announced a new appointment to the board of Education New Zealand (ENZ). Dr Erik Lithander has been appointed as a new member of the ENZ board for a three-year term until 30 January 2028. “I would like to welcome Dr Erik Lithander to the ...
The Government will have senior representatives at Waitangi Day events around the country, including at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, but next year Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has chosen to take part in celebrations elsewhere. “It has always been my intention to celebrate Waitangi Day around the country with different ...
Two more criminal gangs will be subject to the raft of laws passed by the Coalition Government that give Police more powers to disrupt gang activity, and the intimidation they impose in our communities, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. Following an Order passed by Cabinet, from 3 February 2025 the ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Justice Christian Whata as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Whata’s appointment as a Judge of the Court of Appeal will take effect on 1 August 2025 and fill a vacancy created by the retirement of Hon Justice David Goddard on ...
The latest economic figures highlight the importance of the steps the Government has taken to restore respect for taxpayers’ money and drive economic growth, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Data released today by Stats NZ shows Gross Domestic Product fell 1 per cent in the September quarter. “Treasury and most ...
Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour today announced legislation changes to strengthen freedom of speech obligations on universities. “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the concept of academic freedom and there is concern that universities seem to be taking a more risk-averse ...
Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, and Internal Affairs Minister, Brooke van Velden, today launched a further Public Safety Network cellular service that alongside last year’s Cellular Roaming roll-out, puts globally-leading cellular communications capability into the hands of our emergency responders. The Public Safety Network’s new Cellular Priority service means Police, Wellington ...
State Highway 1 through the Mangamuka Gorge has officially reopened today, providing a critical link for Northlanders and offering much-needed relief ahead of the busy summer period, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“The Mangamuka Gorge is a vital route for Northland, carrying around 1,300 vehicles per day and connecting the Far ...
The Government has welcomed decisions by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and Ashburton District Council confirming funding to boost resilience in the Canterbury region, with construction on a second Ashburton Bridge expected to begin in 2026, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Delivering a second Ashburton Bridge to improve resilience and ...
The Government is backing the response into high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Otago, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard says. “Cabinet has approved new funding of $20 million to enable MPI to meet unbudgeted ongoing expenses associated with the H7N6 response including rigorous scientific testing of samples at the enhanced PC3 ...
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“A director of Dominion Finance, which lost investors more than $176 million, wants to serve home detention in her $6.8 million Remuera mansion.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10882946
Stick bricks in her coat pockets and throw her in the swimming pool.
I am not sure I really care about “punishing” her on behalf of those who had the cash to invest. I no longer believe in ma and pa investors, garden faeries are more believable. Stuffed if I want taxes spent protecting the rich from the predations of other rich people: if they can afford to invest it they can afford to lose it, or be taxed.
It surprises me that the home is apparently not in a trust, so she’ll lose it anyway. The quality of Directors these day eh? She should have at least known how to protect her own assets even if she didn’t have a clue about protecting the easy money of the investors looking for super returns.
Great, if people save instead of consume and try to invest that capital to keep themselves out of poverty in old age they are according to Leftists like you “EVIL CAPITALIST SCUM WHO DESERVE TO GET FUCKED!!!”.
Sigh.
You might wish to check out who the average investor was: it was not you and me. The small ones who saved and scrimped were pretty much a tiny minority. Look at SCF, the “Ma and Pa” investors got a guarantee and ripped the tax payer big time. Look at the “ma and pa” 2.5% of the NZ population who bought MRP shares…are they you and me? Fuck them, Let the buyer beware.
On the other hand there are the savers who believe in banks for long term security. Think more about how their savings get rorted by tax / inflation / bank rip offs etc.
“savings get rorted by tax / inflation / bank rip offs etc.”
You aren’t telling me anything their I’m not already aware of.
You are in la la land though if you think bank deposits are the only legitimate form of investment or will ever give good investment returns.
Finance companies play an important role in the economy, too bad that poor regulation and inforcement have blown that sector up – NZ is poorer for it.
But you are obviously too ideologically driven to realise the importance of investment for personal and national wealth creation.
Learn how to read and reason, Get the facts first. Idiot.
You are financially illiterate.
Financial integrity does not equal financial illiteracy.
So you also believe that a savings bank deposit is the only “moral” wealth anyone is allowed to have?
Anything else brings suspicion and accusations of being a “Capitalist Enroader!”.
What about kiwisaver?
Moral does not equal integrity either. An investor with integrity will be aware they’re getting pretty high interest for taking pretty high risks. They’ll check out the background of the Directors before they invest, weigh it up and wear it when they take a loss, not withstanding the criminal charges a Director, or ‘financial planners’ should get if they mislead.
This is also why it’s curious that this Director doesn’t have her home in a Trust. Finance company directors aren’t known for integrity nor for selling homes to pay back investors.
What about Kiwisaver?
Nope, that’s completely immoral. Or, to be more precise, expecting interest on it is.
Completely immoral as well as it seeks to prop up an immoral system. It can’t, of course, as the system depends upon ever increasing debt and use of oil neither of which is possible.
“What about kiwisaver?
Completely immoral as well as it seeks to prop up an immoral system. It can’t, of course, as the system depends upon ever increasing debt and use of oil neither of which is possible.
Best investment – put excess money into things that will promote survival and resiliency in the future (that’s not accrual of money in case it’s not obvious).
Draco, what do you think about organisations like Prometheus?
http://www.prometheus.co.nz/
Isn’t the problem with under-investment in NZ that everyone now knows the market here is just dangerously risky for small players, and you don’t know which advisers you can trust when they are all probably more heavily attuned to taking their personal cut of transactions than worrying about your personal risk?
” What about kiwisaver?
Completely immoral as well as it seeks to prop up an immoral system.”
Are you in the Kiwisaver scheme Draco, or did you opt out?
Saving bank deposits were the choices of our parents and grandparents generations. They seem to do pretty alright.
You seem to be speaking the same language of those who support the so-called MOM for SOE’s.
Mr Turkey Brain aka KP. State your working credentials before you accuse me of that. Do you run companies? Do you understand the workings of general ledgers, P&Ls, tax accounting, finance, contracts etc? Is it something you have to apply to company operations, sales, profitability on a daily basis? Demonstrate that and I might consider your flippant charge of illiteracy worthy of debate.
PS The leftist anti capitalist bit…what the hell did I say that was necessarily leftist per se? Who are these “capitalists” of whom you speak?
You might wish to check out who the average investor was: it was not you and me. The small ones who saved and scrimped were pretty much a tiny minority. Look at SCF, the “Ma and Pa” investors got a guarantee and ripped the tax payer big time. Look at the “ma and pa” 2.5% of the NZ population who bought MRP shares…are they you and me? Fuck them, Let the buyer beware.
Ennui, do you have some figures on that? Leaving aside MRP, how many people who got burned in the finance company collapses were of what class and income bracket?
I have seen a finance companies books but cannot comment on that publicly as it was in confidence. I will have a look around the public records however and report back what is there.
Cut one was revealing, read this little beauty http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/econresearch/3198451.pdf does not give hard numbers but if you read between the lines pages 3 to 5 you get the flavour of huge under investment in finance because disposable income is too low and housing seen as safer with better returns.
You’re vigorous for so early on a Saturday morning there KP. Triple-shot was it ?
Rosy simply points-up that empathy for others doing it hard is an unknown quantity amongst many who have “done well”. The ones who cluck disgustedly, point judgmental fingers, then cheer Boss Hogg Bennett when she launches yet another dog-whistling salvo against beneficiaries and other “unworthy” types.
The “done-well” become vaguely aware of the concept only when they themselves are reduced to the level of their “lessers”. Even then it’s not actually empathy. It’s essentially sympathy, for themselves.
I support Rosy in making that point without you jamming your abusive words into her mouth.
Hope your day improves. Im sure it can. Just summon up some humility, offer it up to your own petard, and ask politely that you be hoisted down a little.
You got yourself all confused North, if you check the thread I wasn’t replying to Rosy, at that point I didn’t notice she had posted.
Synthetic marijuana was it, North?
Not needed in the North, dickhead.
Doesn’t matter who you “thought” you were replying to – given the “ideologially driven” screech you’re broadly into your reply can be taken up by many.
Disingenuous is what you are.
Um, that’s the whole basis of capitalism. What you’re actually demanding is that people don’t have to pay the costs of the risks that they take.
And, yes, every capitalist out there is scum who wants money for nothing. That too is part and parcel of capitalism.
Shorter Draco:
“And, yes, every person who doesn’t believe as I do is scum who want money for nothing.”
You have an extremely binary view of the world, Draco.
Got nothing to do with belief – just the facts of what actually happens in a capitalist society. A few get very rich and well off while everyone else becomes poorer.
“Got nothing to do with belief”
Well, actually it does Draco, because you have made a blanket statement that every capitalist (without defining what ‘capitalist’ means to you) is ‘scum’.
You seem to believe and hold the opinion that ‘capitalist’ is a single entity where, in actual fact, there are sharp degrees of capitalism.
“just the facts of what actually happens in a capitalist society. A few get very rich and well off while everyone else becomes poorer.”
That has happened, and can always happen, under any ideology. The best we can do is mitigate the bad while trying to exemplify the good.
I think capitalism can work just fine. Does that me a ‘capitalist’ because you need to define your terms here. We touched on this on The Daily Blog where you suggested that capitalism = Right Wing but used neo-liberalism as an example. Neo-liberalism is a type of capitalism, not capitalism in itself. I am not a neo-liberal, but I am a proponent Social-market economy capitalism. They are different beasts.
They’re the biggest bludgers in the world. Seemingly their sole purpose in life is to have an income from other peoples work. That’s what investment means in our society and what having money in the bank is. To have an income generated by the work of others.
It’s what our entire society is geared for but it only works for the few as to produce a high income from it it needs to clip the ticket of as many people as possible. It’s why globalisation happens – to increase the number of people that the rich can steal from.
We don’t need foreign investment as we have all the resources we need right here in NZ – the actual physical resources, the education and the people – and yet the governments keep saying that we do and making it possible for foreigners to buy up NZ. The only reason for foreign investment to happen is for the rich of other countries to steal from us as well as their own people because they’ve reached the limits of their own economy (a firm in a local economy can only grow so much but a global firm can grow so much bigger – the limits are still there though).
No, not really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
It’s always centred around private ownership and the dead weight loss of profit and it is that which makes capitalism, any variant of it, right wing.
What a crock of shit, Draco. It is hard to find a starting point in order to address your bizarre uttering so I’ll just address the relevant points here.
“They’re the biggest bludgers in the world. Seemingly their sole purpose in life is to have an income from other peoples work.”
Who is ‘they’? Are ‘they’ the ‘capitalists’? You’ll have to define your term here. Are ‘they’ those whose actively seek to use capitalism as an economic system to benefit themselves at the expense of others? Or those who benefit from the capitalist system without ever considering it as the ruling economic paradigm? Your use of ‘they’ and ‘the capitalists’ is so ill defined as to be useless.
“No, not really.”
Yes, really. You understand there is a difference between laissez faire neo-liberalism and Social-Market Economy, right? One promotes privatisation of everything from the police to healthcare while the other supports and fund social welfare, education and health (to name but a few). This is your problem Draco, you have an extremely binary view of the world. Black, white, On, off. Which, to be frank, is a conservative, right-wing view. One that you cloak in left-wing rhetoric but it is a ‘us/them’ mentality all the same which reeks of no true scotsman fallacy.
“It’s always centred around private ownership and the dead weight loss of profit and it is that which makes capitalism, any variant of it, right wing.”
False.
Private ownership of goods =/= right-wing. Capitalism =/= right-wing.
Do you own anything, Draco? Have you ever benefited from interest, investment or Kiwisaver?
Thanks for the clarification.
Capitalism is the major problem. People making a habit of using their existing wealth to garner additional unearned wealth, while the labour utilised on the way gets fuck all.
hey Contrarian, have you heard about the trickle down theory?
it’s going to be a great economic boon for everybody.
It’s so exciting,
i can’t wait
I fail to understand why you remain in NZ. The country does not have a communist party in power nor is it likely to have in the near future. You are so far left you should wear a harness to arrest your fall.
That’s a bit unfair. I wouldn’t say Draco T Bastard is hard left for thinking every capitalist is a scumbag! Most capitalists have attained their wealth from the suffering of the poor after all. If you recognize or have been a victim of a corrupted system, then viewing those who have benefited from that corruption as being scum is entirely justified.
It might not be strictly correct in terms of all rich people aren’t capitalist scum, but it is entirely justified to have formed such beliefs because of the failures inherent within capitalism, namely that it increases inequality. Such a view as Draco has expressed is therefore not extreme at all, unless you’re arguing that inequality is somehow justified?
“unless you’re arguing that inequality is somehow justified?”
no, i doubt they would go so far as ‘justified’, they would turn off at ‘necessary’ and take the link road back to Imperialism via the scenic vistas of ‘entitlement’ 😎
Oh so you now accept that we’re not overrun by North Korean answers do you Dunmbarse. Jesus you’re an egg. Piss off to Slater Porn.
You shouldn’t start drinking so early…….. Wanker.
Here’s a better idea.
How about we release a number of women serving time in Arohata or Wiri for minor property crimes equal to the total amount that this woman ripped off. And let them serve out the rest of their sentences in this Remuera Mansion. I am sure they won’t mind. And it would be a big saving on the tax payer.
Splendid and creative idea.
Jenny for Minister of Justice and Housing. I love that idea.
May 10, 2013
Assange speech about to read by Daniel Ellsberg in San Francisco for Global Exchange Human Rights Award tonight
(Noam Chomsky and Jacob Appelbaum also present)
Thank you for this honor.
I am very happy to be sharing it with Noam Chomsky whose generosity and strength of character I have felt personally. Noam, you are the sea–relentless and enduring. You have crashed wave after wave of understanding into towering cliffs of lies, eroding them at their base. If the rotten foreshore of empire collapses it will be for this reason. You have inspired and continue to inspire many, including me.
Thank you to the people in this room for supporting this award. I’m going to thank you and Dan in the best way I know. By keeping this speech short. Then you can go and do the important thing. Make alliances to fight for WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning and me. Don’t think you can escape just because I am not there. We have a lot more spies in this room than the FBI.
San Francisco and the Bay Area is important to us. We fought our first big court case in the San Francisco federal courts in 2008; That was no coincidence. If we were going to have a fight, anywhere in the world, then I wanted it to be in San Francisco. I structured WikiLeaks to encourage attacks on us to be drawn to San Francisco (sorry about that). The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Freedom of the Press Foundation and many of our other defenders are based here. If any state of the Union is going to save the United States from itself, it will be California. Washington sees that too–that’s why we’re being prosecuted in Virginia and Maryland.
Noam’s presence in this room –useful, even though he’s from Massachusetts– reflects something very special. Cross generational solidarity. From Dan and Noam to Michael Ratner, from Kiki to me, from Jacob to Bradley Manning. The issues of each demi-generation are being understood as a continuation into the present. My fight is right now. But so is Bradley Manning’s. So is Jacob’s. I want Dan, Noam and Jacob–all of you here–together with me in this fight because I know you understand. Our conflict tests every aspect of character, but it has also shown it in many and I am proud of them.
Remember that Bradley Manning’s trial starts on June 3. It is scheduled to run for twelve to sixteen weeks. The prosecution is bringing 141 witnesses. That is a show trial. A twelve-week off-Broadway extravaganza being performed at Fort Mead. Its legal and political result will directly feed into the larger prosecution of WikiLeaks.
What is to be done? The answer is easy. It has always been easy. Stop saying “not in my name” and start saying “over my dead body”. That’s what we did. It works. Do it.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rk78hl
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Assange
https://www.eff.org/
http://somersetbean.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/new-ts-for-launch-of-fpf.html
Sorry, haven’t you heard, he is a Feminist pariah? Assange is a white guy with CIA backed false rape allegations made against him which the feminasties have swallowed hook, sinker and line.
You will accused of “rape culture” supporter in a political necklacing, Morrissey, if you are not careful.
KP, Who knows? But the comment does not help because right now we need EVERY believer in justice and fair play to put their support very publicly behind Bradley Manning.
“right now we need EVERY believer in justice and fair play”
[Deleted]
[lprent: So you took that as an opportunity to offensively insulting my half of my relatives again. Cretinous misogynistic drivel. And I too believe in delivering justice and fair play. I delete the ravings of bigoted fuckwits. ]
That’s right lprent, censor anything that doesn’t concur with your feminist dogma.
What’s wrong lprent, that it enrages you when I point out crazy feminist propaganda like the “E=mc2 is a sexed equation” nonsense.
You are no better than a fundamentalist Christian.
*sigh* more of your dogma, k_p, throwing out some obscure points that most feminists have never heard of.
Tell that to the 1000+ people (mainly women) who died in the Bangladesh garment factory collapse.
The western garment industry exploits the vulnerable, largely women, in poor countries, so they can make exorbitant profits, and try to buy off our resistance with relatively cheap clothing.
“throwing out some obscure points that most feminists have never heard of.”
The examples I give are of ideas central to Feminist ideology – Critical Theory, Feminist “Theory”, “Queer Theory” – all psuedo intellectual drivel that has wrecked the Humanities.
That’s your feminist contribution to knowledge.
[lprent: enough bullshit. bye. ]
Please explain how that “E=mc2 is a sexed equation” is central to Critical Theory, Feminist “Theory”, “Queer Theory”?
k_p has been given enormous leeway in recent days with multiple warnings for his horrible bigotry and false accusations. It doesn’t seem to be working. Again and again he spouts nonsense about the views of others, as he always has.
I wonder if he ought to be given some sort of penance to perform. Perhaps the severity of the penance could be determined by the quality of his answer to your question above.
k_p drops in and repeats a cherry-picked one liner, making accusations about feminism. He brandishes it like a weapon, jumps up and down claiming victory, then runs away without seriously engaging.
Yes, we know that, but perhaps it’s time to pull the plug? He’s derailing at best, but his intention is to intimidate and his method is stalking. Maybe no single post has violated any rule, but perhaps his pattern has to be considered?
He’s definitely a misogynist and he’s clearly trying to bully specific women he’s very obsessively targeted, and he consistently tries to derail threads to shut down discussion.
Moreover, he ignores repeated warnings about appropriate conduct.
It’s all very well if Karol and The Queen of Thorns have thick skins, but I worry that he’s driving off other potential contributors – as he intends to.
reminds me of our PM on any old day in the House
The examples I give are of ideas central to Feminist ideology
Citation needed. As usual. 🙄
Don’t hold your breath.
Indeed. Manning too often gets neglected and he is suffering a the result of his brave act in passing over the damning information about the US military.
“Manning too often gets neglected”
By you maybe, not by me.
You went to Uni right karol? What did you study?
My first tertiary education was in education, especially education of those with disabilities. I learned things about biology, neurology, and how people learn, and child development. This learning formed the basis of much of my later learning inside and outside the uni.
The human brain is a wondrous thing. I learn more about it every day, but some people’s brain functioning remains curiously obscure.
We’re learning more and more about bigotry. Things will get interesting when someone invents a cure.
there is a great new adventure sport called chuteless base jumping he could try,
I’m appalled at Manning’s treatment, but the fact of the matter is that he committed treason in the eyes of the law. It is inconceivable that he wouldn’t be punnished in some way, but torture is unacceptable.
“he committed treason” or the equally strong footed view :
He was upholding the Constitution of the Republic that he was serving.
Perhaps you would like to point out which bit of said Constitution he was upholding when he comitted treason against it?
‘We the People’ is a pretty good place to start.
It is often overlooked. The entire document is a flow on from those three simple words. It was the People he was defending, but I do have my doubts you even grasp what that means.
He swore the U.S. Armed Forces Oath of Enlistment
This includes the propagandized ‘against all enemies foreign and domestic’ line.
He concentrated this time on the domestic bit.
but you knew that already
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/imgart/frny13-d1-diary-metrpolitan-punk-02.jpg
“This is what punk was all about—about truth and justice and making a better world,”
Freedom, I presume that you do realize you’re trying to argue in good faith with the Kiwi equivalent of a Soviet commissar.
If you’re engaging in that futile exercise as an intellectual workout, that’s fine. As long as you don’t expect anything like enlightened or serious debate.
Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it.
that is an insult to the integrity and resourcefulness of a Soviet commissar. 🙂
Populuxe1 is more like the boot buckle worn by the Soviet commissar.
Rigid, functional but largely ineffectual to the goings on around him.
(i’ma gonna pay for that one i bet)
Well, a decent political commissar will keep his boot buckle pretty and polished up
So basically you’ve got nothing except handwaving and fantasy. Typical.
…the fact of the matter is that he committed treason in the eyes of the law.
What a disgusting, Wieselian hypocrite you are. As those of us who do not share your Maoist/Stalinist view of the world know, is not treason to bring war crimes to the attention of the world.
And spare us the bombast about being “appalled” by mistreatment of which you have repeatedly endorsed on this forum.
It is inconceivable that he wouldn’t be punnished [sic] in some way…
It is conceivable that he would be lauded and honoured in a state that valued human rights and the rule of law.
….but torture is unacceptable.
But you endorse the torturers and say that the person who exposed them “committed treason”. If I did not know better, I would think you were merely another bewildered mouth-breathing NewstalkZB listener.
For anyone with a shred of commonsense or common decency, here’s a reminder of why the full vengeance of the state is being unleashed on Manning and Assange….
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
Maoist? Hahahahaahahaha
What colour is the sky in your little fantasy world?
Your blind and rabid reiteration of government propaganda is comparable to the sort of comical craziness that came out of Red China in the 1960s.
I didn’t recognise the first blush when I read it this morning
…which the feminasties have swallowed hook, sinker and line.
Some nasty and politically aligned women have chosen to accept the British government’s black propaganda, but Swedish Rape Crisis has, like anyone honest, condemned the British-U.S. government campaign.
and the lead prosecutor, a woman, resigned from the case. A lot of of media are saying she resigned because the case was unravelling faster than a cardigan caught in a cartoon cartwheel
Link?
Or lie ?
Hyperlink?
Back to the old “cite everything” strategy, I see.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=assange+prosecutor+resigns&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&redir_esc=&ei=ZxWOUaaeFOyiiAeEtIGIBA
why would i say something like that without it being true? FFS, so boring !
Actually, that was for morrissey’s claim about rape crisis coming to assange’s support.
But to be fair, I didn’t see anything about the prosecutor’s motives for leaving the case in that google search you linked.
The trouble is that so many people heavily filter what they see or interpret on this issue that yeah, I want to see links for any claim they make.
just like TV ONE; it’s a Predicament!
“We have a lot more spies in this room than the FBI”
And the likes of Ian Fletchers are planted into Key spying positions while the “rotten foreshore of empire collapses”.
Well well, another gold star for an arrogant, mysogynist narcissist and a mendacious, hypocritical old fart.
“”Why do they assume that we have to change our standards, our values, to accommodate behaviour that is sodomy?””
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8659922/Guesthouse-refuses-to-let-gay-couple-sleep-together
Seems bigotry is perfectly fine though.
I think the ladies did the right thing: go public. Let the court of public opinion judge the hoteliers with their cash. Conversely if you legislate you only force legal acceptance, which is worth nothing compared to mind share.
The Pilgrim Planet Lodge. No sodomy.
LOL, they look like twins!
Who??? John Key and Aaron Gilmore ? Why they even dress the same. Maybe secretly separated Siamese twins?
“”Why do they assume that we have to change our standards, our values, to accommodate behaviour that is sodomy?”
So lesbians practice sodomy over and above any other sexual pairing? Riiight.
Don’t tell the heteros or they’ll be wanting to do the sodomy too.
What’s this about lesbians? Can you be more specific please?
hey Morrissey … rtfm 😈
hey Morrissey … rtfm 😈
WABM 🙄
“Can you be more specific please?”
Just observing that the guesthouse proprietor refused to allow a lesbian couple to share a bed because they would be accommodating “behaviour that is sodomy.”
Well, you know Rosy………just generally………Sodom and Gonorrh(oe)a.
It’s all in the same GPS ballpark.
As in Hillary Sodom Clinton?
As in Morrisodomy?
That doesn’t go quite so well as Hillary Sodom Clinton—which I am sure, by the way, is actually used by the legion of extreme right wing “Christian” Hillary-haters—but it is not bad, I suppose.
Keep it up, Te Reo!
TRP……..(apologies Morrissey – I’m a fan of yours)……..shouldn’t it be MorrisOddomy ? OK, not as good as either of yours’ but I’m a little hobbled today.
Consequent upon Kiwi Promethium alleging I’m on synthetic cannabis and Bowel Motion counselling that I should lay off the drink in the mornings. Have a good day folks. Must back to ma Twelve Steps.
Ironically – sodomy is anything that isn’t straight missionary position (hard right fundy def.) and given the Ruskin’s love of prying into other consenting adults sex-lives, methinks then it’s fair to speculate that the Ruskin’s hath done much sodomy themselves 👿
Ergo, they should kick themselves out of their dwelling since apparently “no sodomites allowed” is the golden rule thou shalth not break.
Legally a business cannot discriminate on the basis of stuff that falls under the Human Rights Act iirc and you can bet these two muppets would scream blue murder along that line if they suddenly got booted from a business due to being fundamentalist christians.
Bring on the rainbow cluebat of bad PR and legal challenges!
as noted in the corresponding thread; we all know about sublimation, delusional projection, distortion, superiority complexes and repression do we not.
“No one becomes equal by the killing of another innocent life. That’s not equality, that’s enmity.” – Ryan Bomberger
Supporting mothers in having the ‘right’ to work from 9-3 tax free, in ‘most’ jobs, if they choose to do so, means that children will be feed before school.Amongst other things.
Now doesn’t all that bring new meaning to the words ‘productivity gains’ now, and in the next generations! 😎
No, it just sounds like more uninformed ideological crap from you.
From the Guardian online today……
“Global carbon dioxide in atmosphere passes milestone level”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/may/10/carbon-dioxide-highest-level-greenhouse-gas
From the Herald online today….
“Do you know who I am now?”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10882882
Four conclusions can be drawn from this.
1) Our continued civilisation is under threat on this planet.
2) More people in NZ know about Aaron Gilmore than details about climate change.
3) The NZ Herald is a poor excuse for journalism.
4) There is a link between 1,2 and 3.
Happy 400 ppm day, folks. Gonna be a warm one.
Jeeez they are a fiesty lot today on open mike TRP, every day is still like Sunday for Morrissey and KP can’t get much higher. “Sodom Clinton” heh what next.
Must be something about the weekend that brings out the warrior in them! Sadly, I’m off to footy, so I’ll have to wait till tonight to catch up with various witterings. Have a good one, TM.
Just what is it that makes today’s Labour leaders so dithering, so unappealing?
Let’s not beat about the bush: David Shearer is a terrible, ineffective, wishy-washy Labour leader.
But as bad as Shearer might be, here’s one fellow who is even worse. Pity the good people of Great Britain if this is all they can put up against Dave Snooty and his Eton chums…
Those hurrah henrys got enough bucks to finish their collars properly, surely ?
The neoliberals captured the British Labour Party when Blair took over.
There is no one for workers to vote for in the UK.
People are that desperate for an alternative and the corporations are ensuring there is not one.
hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way…
ashes and diamonds
foe and friend
we were all equal in the end
They haven’t yet silenced Chunkymark “The Artist Taxi Driver” and his “BBC Sucks O Cocks News” on YouTube. Ya gotta watch this one – it’s hilarious.
Elie Wiesel: Break Your Silence and Come with Us to Gaza!
When Elie Wiesel spoke at Saint Louis University on December 1, 2009, three women challenged him to break his silence about Gaza and to travel with them on the Gaza Freedom March to see for himself the devastation caused by Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and the ongoing siege.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4wkR1IUUE8
Three years later, and the old hypocrite has still not gone to Gaza.
The Stock Market Is a Debt-Fueled Bubble: Steve Keen
Thing is, it’s more borrowing that both National and Labour are after with their affordable homes. More people buying = more borrowing and thus we get an increase in money in the system raising GDP. It’s not sustainable and must crash but the politicians will just push some other barrow that achieves the same end – more borrowing.
The only winners in such a system are the people who print the money with interest on it – the private banks.
No one has the stomach to reform our debt based money supply. It’s possibly the biggest no-no in the capitalist banking framework that we have locked ourselves into.
a great little video doing the rounds, with an interesting question
http://www.upworthy.com/watch-these-straight-people-answer-a-question-gay-people-have-been-asked-for-years-6?c=gt1
funny how it gets down to a very simple question. Great clip freedom.
and it is one simple question every person can consider for themselves without having to wave a flag or sign a paper or anything. All they have to do is spend a moment of honest contemplation. Something many more should do, more often than we do. I am as guilty as any of that failing.
Great clip. So true.
Here are ten facts you may wish to pop into tonight’s dinner conversations. I know, I know, facts are so infuriating when they completely contradict hysterical fantasies, but reality is like that, facts are facts and lies are just business.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/10/16/10-eye-opening-facts-about-hemp/
Greens have been going on about that for awhile although I think that ALCP have more in depth policies on it.
Instead of building its future, New Zealand is disintergrating. An average house for a family should not cost $750,000. Things are out of control. A future requires a society to obtain levels of sustainability.
(If you do not believe that, good luck to you and yours.)
There is not one single reason hemp should not become a primary industry in NZ.
Building. Medicines. Food. Textiles. Plastics. Fuel. It just goes on and on and on.
We could be making milllions of dollars from hemp and hemp related industries if we wanted to, at the very least we could be saving billions if we chose to. The employment opportunities, the related economic growth, the social benefits, the sustainability bonuses, these are not things that should be dismissed lightly. But we all know the drill.
We have a problem, we look for a solution.
Whenever hemp is investigated as a viable solution, BAM ! straight into the wall !
It does have a very bad habit of highlighting sustainability nightmares. Mostly though, there are good responsible reasons given why not to go forward and they usually hold water as strongly as a $2 bucket.
However you spin it, money influence and engrained propaganda are difficult to overcome without forcing a fundamental breakthrough in how people comprehend the machine around them, and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon if some of the wanderers we meet here are anything to go by. I get that.
To the reader, I ask you. Will ignoring it all, solve any of the issues?
Shall we let blinkers crop the vista of our future?
A future requires a society to obtain levels of sustainability.
Building. Medicines. Food. Textiles. Plastics. Fuel.
I cannot see a single reason hemp should not become a primary industry in NZ.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/8661224/Like-China-Rens-still-a-wild-card
This is quite a big deal, we get that, but ….
Anyone know why he was here?
What the event was?
Who the other businessmen that are mentioned were?
What this piece of US-focused dross is meant to be conveying?
Good news.
http://www.680news.com/2013/05/10/ex-dictator-efrain-rios-montt-convicted-of-genocide-in-guatemala/
Strange that even the basics of US involvement in Guatemala since the 1950s have not rated a mention in the MSM.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_Guat.html
Reagan refused to invite our PM David Lange to the White House, while right behind this murderer.
Despicable –
http://www.soaw.org/about-the-soawhinsec/soawhinsec-grads/notorious-grads
http://www.soaw.org/category-table/3873-guatemala-rios-montt-and-the-soa
USAID used to destabilise as well.
Wikileaks just keeps on giving.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/10/big-labors-tool-of-empire/
“How Class Works – Richard Wolff Examines Class ”
Shows up the class war of selling our Power companies whose future profits will accrue to the wealthy instead of the commons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGOA2WedIQo
“Working for an employer is like rowing an oar as a galley slave. You can quit and jump overboard but you splash right into the great ocean of unemployment, exclusive professional guilds, multi-level marketing scams, lying temp agencies, credit card debt, college loan scams, a 90% self-employment failure rate due to competition and deficient government benefits. You are forced to swim to and board another galley. Now all the galley ships have robotic oarsmen and you sink beneath the waves.”
RD Wolff makes a good political economic case for democratic socialism.
so does The Standard
I’m gradually learning more about the Second World War. There is so much to know and it has always been in my background, occasionally coming to the fore. Now I am older and less hopeful about humanity I have been reading about Resistance fighters etc.
This morning I am looking at The White Rose on wikepedia. That was the name that a group of protesting and defiant young people mostly students used as their symbol. When studying events in Germany between the wars it becomes obvious that the country had been occupied mentally internally by this authoritarian and brutal regime far before the 1939 declaration of war against Germany.
The things that are so emotionally expressed in these students’ words have been applied to what is going on in NZ. Many of these young people died at Nazi hands. One group were beheaded in 1943 I think in a public square.
So what happens every day to limit human rights and step up authoritarianism and fascism must be looked at carefully. Some quotes from the German group:
Excellent documentary series on WWII from the Soviet perspective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A6UWkK2U4s
One of the episodes is about the Soviet partisan war against the Germans.
Also consider – 4 out of 5 German soldiers killed in WWII were killed on the Eastern Front.
The D-Day landings at Normandy in 1944, although an important step in securing western europe, were not very relevant to Germany’s final defeat. Germany had already long lost the war in 1943, at the Battle of Kursk.
The role of the ANZACs is not to be unterestimated. Had they not kept Rommel tied up in North Africa, the Soviets might not have had time to rearm after the Ribbentrop-Molotov fiasco.
Not to mention that if the Germans had secured fuel supplies from the middle east then their strategies in Russia wouldn’t have been so skewed by the need to secure oilfields during Barbarossa.
Ultimately it was the inability of Germany to get a few essential strategic materials from outside of their conquered territories that lost them the battles. It forced them to make strategic mistakes.
They made strategic errors, yes, but their big error was going into total war with Russia AND America. Either one could have out produced, outgunned and out fought Germany in the long run. By wars end Russia and the USA were just getting warmed up and Germany was a smoking ruin which had run out of manpower and the ability to re-arm. Also, the conventional war had just about run it’s course anyway. The US had the A bomb. They also had the means to deliver it anywhere in German territory. Germany were close to a bomb, but had lost air superiority and were a long way from having true ICBM’s.
I agree that North African action greatly limited German options. Further, the horrific two and a half year siege of Leningrad was a disaster for Germany – it tied down 20% of their eastern forces even as 500-1000 Leningrad citizens starved to death daily.
As for forced mistakes…Hitler regarded himself as a military super-genius and things went down hill rapidly when he decided to put himself in charge of all military operations. Not letting his army withdraw from Stalingrad and deciding that a quarter million cut off German forces could be resupplied by air? Mad.
The Afrika Korps wouldn’t have even been noticed on the Russian Front. It swallowed up whole Army Groups. Rommel fought against a few divisions which made up the 8th Army. Operation Barbarossa kicked off seventeen months before the second Battle of El Alamein, which was three years after Ribbentrop and Molotov divided up Poland.
If anything, the Red Army saved Egypt for the British Empire, not the other way around.
It helped that Hitler made a few bad choices as well, peeling off elsewhere when he had a chance to press home his advantage. I think one of them was to push down into Ukraine when he could have taken Moscow before winter.
You would’ve thought that Germany would not want to make Napolean’s same mistakes in Russia.
Hitler did need to capture the industrial centre of Kiev so there was a strategic purpose to that. However, delays to capturing Moscow created huge problems for the Germans, and it allowed the Soviets to ship in elite eastern divisions to bolster the Moscow front.
Trying to go after the caucuses and Stalingrad and Moscow at the same time was never going to work. Classic Art of War – if you try to be everywhere, everywhere you will be weak.
You also have to factor in the massive intelligence failures of the Nazis regarding the USSR. They completely underestimated the size of the soviet forces and their massive reserves. They underrated the intelligence and determination of the soviet soldiers and officers who, after initial mass surrenders, chose to thereafter fight on behind advancing German lines even after being encircled and were a constant threat to their rear and flanks, as well as to their fronts.
They had no idea that the soviets even had the T34 and KV tanks, far superior to the panzer III and IV’s, nor that they had developed aircraft like the Mig 3, Yak 3, La 5 and 7’s, Il 2 and 10 shturmovics, and their katyushas etc. They never gave any consideration to the industrial capacity of the USSR and their ability to dismantle and reassemble their armaments factories well out of reach of German short-range bombers. Even though lend-lease provided them with allied war materiel, the USSR proved itself able to produce all manner of war materiel in such high volumes they were easily able to replace their losses as the war dragged on, when the Germans could not.
If you can get access to the War Memorial Museum library, then that’d be about the best source in NZ on some of the resistance movements.
Not only did we have people scattered throughout europe and the pacific and they wrote stuff down, but we also got quite a lot of refugees and emigres pre and post war who did as well. It seems like most of the hardcopy wound up there.
There was a year when I was a kid where I was attempting to soak up that library.
The same steady withdrawl of rights is happening now in NZ, but the populance finds it hard to get a fix on it and react. Much easier to join in the scrum on Mr Gilmore’s flaws than that of democratic rights or security from spying etc. We need a serious focus to prevent the slide. Sympathise with the Germans of the 30’s because they by the time they realised the significance of what they had lost it was too late to resist.
(Read about a butcher in Vienna who was anti-Nazi until the day the German army marched into Austria and declared the country to be part of the German Nazi empire. The next day the butcher marched down the road waving the German flag. “Survival,” he said.)
I agree ianmac, I spent some time there just yesterday and have real fear it is being repeated en masse.
A survivor of a high-level ring involving child sacrifice, torture and trafficking went public today in an exclusive disclosure and interview with Freedom Central’s Mel Ve and ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett.
Toos Nijenhuis, a fifty four year old physiotherapist and mother of five from Holland, was tortured, raped and used experimentally from the age of four years old by wealthy and powerful men around the world, including top officials of churches and governments.
And, Nijenhuis claims, these crimes are continuing today, including the ritual sacrifice of children in rural Holland.
http://itccs.org/2013/05/08/child-sacrifice-and-trafficking-in-holland-and-abroad-an-eyewitness-comes-forward-and-names-her-torturers/
Is that tinfoil hat too tight again. Show me on the doll where the Illuminati touched you?
Seriously? I’m not doubting she suffered terrible abuse, but she’s quite obviously projecting this elaborate fantasy onto it to try and give that horrible abuse some meaning. Another similar and widespread projection onto childhood sexual abuse is alien abduction. There is no global satanic conspiracy and this sort of nonsense just distracts from the horrible mundane reality of child abuse.
Oh shucks another online spychology diagnosis.
Well why should you have all the fun with your diagnoses of sociopathy for the entire NACT caucus and so forth? Or did the Illuminati touch you too?
So are online psych diagnoses credible or not? Or only credible when they come from you?
Well either we can both be right or we can both be wrong. I’m fine either way, so take your pick.
You’ll have to ask Dr. Prentice.
cornell
“she’s quite obviously projecting this elaborate fantasy onto it to try and give that horrible abuse some meaning”
Obviously, meaning in your deranged opinion.
Institutional sexual abuse is nothing new.
Republican theory is not even wrong
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/facts-are-in-and-paul-ryan-is-wrong.html
not even “investing in new hospitals”, just ideology.
To The Handlers;
Risk is not necessary. Scientific development concept
Bone-modern-marrow admirably sails, bracing
the vigorous weight of the People while The Struggles
with the Persians remaining indecisive, abundant Africa
is being recovered from the vandal al1ens.
You can pencil that in three places
(Ray-guns are a fetish for steam-Punks,
may be buried with Wessex culture) We all
harden up with influence and Able instrumental guidance;
Plumb the depths, clean out the pipes, dispose the waste.
Quelle : Lectiones geometricae; pictures italicized
(or a combination Friend rice, Edgar; #23 8)
Eponymous / Mick Ronson Priestley (Whats My Name)
contend more in written acts than words.
The Shepherd’s crook, cuts right across the diagonal;
“he came to minister, not to be ministered to”.
“and let no-one attempt to reclaim (them) from the stigmata of their new master”.
Let no-one trouble them for the record of their transaction is in the temple.
Signs Of The End Of The Age, Watch!
Damn. The weird crash of php5-fpm and then apache happened again.
Reading the logs.
I think I’ll pull the APC offline as whatever is happening seems to be too low level to get logged.
Expect the odd outage for the next hour while I juggle the server.
Found. Fixed. Off for a walk while the weather lasts
This.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html
Hollywood Irons another 15% out of the NZ Film Submission taxpayer.Man