More proof that we are surely the stupidest species on the planet. Hurricanes increasing in frequency and severity due to AGW, so instead of mitigating AGW, let’s use more fossil fuels to try and maintain the facade that everything will be alright if we can just out-tech nature and our own mistakes.
Considering the number of wind turbines that they’re talking about I suspect most, if not all, fossil fuel generation in the US could be decommissioned.
Mr Hoffman determined to take a pretty substantial amount of a Class A drug, while having two young children. I think, after 23 years, what he did was spectacularly selfish.
Hmm, so far, Mr Hoffman’s herion overdose – of which he alone is responsible – is somehow also about smoking, bacon, alcohol consumption, children trapped in cars, and the Kiwi way. Stop flailing about. His use of heroin does not reflect on anyone but himself.
Mr Hoffman – particularly after 23 years – is responsible for taking heroin. And is responsible for the consequences. No one else.
Ad, that is a seriously stupid comment, there is only one other substance in the world that matches the addictive power of Heroin and that is Nicotine,
If you have no understanding of addiction you should get an education as addiction by definition is to use a substance or take actions,(as in the use of pokey machines), that no matter how ‘responsible’ you are in your other actions in life it becomes impossible for you to not use the products which are the subject of the addiction…
And how did he become addicted? Do you think he unwittingly started using Heroin without knowing its addictive reputation?
He is responsible for his own addiction, and his own death. Denying this worries me. We need to teach our children to take accountability for their own actions, our communities will be better off for it.
That may or may not be true, many people i know have become addicted to all sorts of things blissfully unaware of the literature screaming about the addictive nature of whatever it is they have become addicted to,
There is also the ‘i will try a little just once school of addicts’ along with some peoples personal ego which tells them that they will never become an addict to anything as they consider themselves far too strong,
Attempting to teach your children the risks of addiction while obviously the right thing to do also has in a small % the opposite effect, much like teaching children the do’s and don’ts of sex, that small % thus educated in the dangers will just have to go out and try it anyway,
There is another means of death that has killed many of those addicted to Heroin where the addict used to cooking X amount of the drug does so on that one occasion only to tragically find that the product has not been ‘stepped on’, diluted with another non-toxic product to the extent of what the addict has normally shot up their veins, which simply causes them an instant and fatal overdose…
Phillip, i think you will find that there is much clinical research about Heroin/Nicotine addiction that says exactly what i have just said in the comment above about Nicotine addiction,
All addictive substances effect individuals to a greater or lesser extent as far as the extent of the individuals addictions are manifested,
i know people in the 70,s when street level addiction to Heroin was at it’s height who could ping up on a regular basis, to the extent that you would consider them ‘junkies’ who could when supply run out withdraw from Heroin without a problem,
Other heavy users of the time i personally know could take or leave the drug having no addiction problem with it, does that make you as ‘weak as piss’???,
You should obviously do more research on the subject befor insulting anyone with an addiction to anything which seems to be your modus operendi,
Is ex-Prime Minister Helen Clark ‘as weak as piss’, She also described the addiction to Nicotine as i have…
Actually Phillip having considered your disjointed bullshit reply i think your whole problem is that you suffer from being not only totally ‘up yourself’ but also that you are a typical whining fucking junky too piss weal to kick the habit,
As i pointed out above, addiction to anything will effect those addicted in different ways, because your addiction took a while to establish means nothing, except to your overblown ego, many are addicted on their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd taste of heroin,(more fool them and you, having heard the story of the addictive nature of heroin from an older sibling at age 14 i decided not to indulge although all my friends of the time became jumkies),
As far as the comments of Helen Clark goes on the subject of Nicotine/Heroin addiction i should imagine that She got Her information from the likes of the US CDC or any one of the many universities that have conducted addiction studies into the relative effects of the two substances as opposed to you who seemingly only requires the information to come via your personally compromised drug addled junkies brain,
My experience is that nicotine is harder to kick than heroin. As this is different from Phil’s experience, it is obviously invalid.
I think you have hit on an important point, bad12. Many people stop using narcotics but spend the rest of their lives talking about how their drug experience changed their life, how they feel urges every day, etc, etc. While I will mention my experiences on the odd occasion that they are relevant, I’m glad to see the back of the shit, and of the lifestyle. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who carries on about it all the time, like Russel Brand, hasn’t taken back control of their own life.
I agree Murray – which is where my ‘street cred’ attempted humour came from above. There are a lot of addictions out there and i think in many ways our society endorses addictive personalities and their particular poison of choice as part of the neolib experiment – in a similar way to making everything a competition or popularity contest.
Phillip, seriously, you will have to try and contain yourself, such antagonism might have you via the fight or flight mechanism running full tilt into a serious drug relapse,
You know what they say Phillip, ”once a sniveling fucking junky, always a sniveling fucking junky”, put in a far more mild description and delivery Phillip, although you are by now possibly far to enraged and/or brain damaged to be able to comprehend this, all addicts are simply one small step away from their next relapse,(those of them that are not bald faced liars claiming to be ‘free’ while secretly indulging themselves that is),
Nope, smoking cigarettes is my addiction and i satisfy myself that while doing so might compromise the length of time my mortal self gets to spend on the planet in a negative way, as i grow all of my own the addiction doesn’t compromise me in any other way,
Your obsession with fat amuses me but under analysis the way in which you attempt to ‘use’ this s a means of battering/bettering other commentrs here is both childish,
For your info the only animal i eat is fish, BUT, shock-horror, once a week i go to the local take-away and have a yummy bacon and egg burger, oh god think of the poor piggy being badly raised in it’s sty just so i can consume a small part of it’s back leg, it just makes me want to sob…
AW Phillip, your remarks are just sooo cutting that they hurt, actually your latest effort at the English language which you also fail miserably at is akin to the well used wet bus ticket except of course in your case the arm swinging it is that of a true whimp,
Funnily enough having puffed on the baccy for the best part of 44 odd years 20+ a day and 20 of those smoking unfiltered boob weed you would think that i would be truly a candidate to be riddled with the big C,
Sorry to disappoint you tho Phillis recent blood tests and x-rays show nothing amiss, except the bizarre case of the missing osteophyte from the lip of L4 on the lumbar spine, bizarre being that as a piece of bone growth they don’t just disappear, especially ones as large as that one appeared to be,
Yes i know Phillis, 1 bacon and egg burger a week is so sacrilegious in your wee tiny world view you actually think that such can damage my or anyone’s health, perhaps it’s not so much a belief of yours Phillis but a wish because in your wee mind that craves those drugs so fiercely every day you transfer your self hate onto those around you who do not agree with your bizarre views or the heroic self image you attempt to portray by ‘pretending’ to be drug free,
As to your question of alcohol, no. fish, vege, brown rice, multi grain bread, whole wheat flour, fruit, that’s my diet,
With of course that fucking yummy bacon and egg burger once a week,Salurpies big time,
By the way Phillis, what exactly did you do with this masters degree, it seems you simply wasted the resources of the education system to get this degree and now you spend all your time online pontificating about shit very few people care about and if the truth was only known very few read either,
That masters degree certainly didn’t stop you driveling like the village idiot in barely understandable sentences and i would suggest all in all you might as well have remained a whining junky at least the smack would have shut you up on the odd occasion,
In conclusion you seem to have wasted your life first on being a junky and secondly on gaining a masters degree which you appear to have put to no good use whatsoever…
I think we need to understand why he went back to using heroin before we can make any judgement at all. After 23 years, I don’t think it was the addiction that had him going back.
Fair point Draco, and perhaps the question ties in with my comment below about the nature of the Afghan poppy crop,
Perhaps among His peer group use of the drug is more common than we know of and being subjected to ‘rave reviews’ of the latest Afghan originated product had Him curious enough to have a taste,
i have one friend, now a P head, who started using Heroin in His teens, He has been re-habbed a number of times in the past 30 years and while telling anyone who cared to listen that He was ‘drug-free’ continued to use whenever He could source the drug going to some quite extraordinary lengths at times trying to create the product out of other peoples flowers half inched from their gardens…
Ad, perhaps, then again this years supply out of Afghanistan might have hit the retail market in a far more pure form than previously,
There has to be a ‘reason’ why such a mountainous inhospitable country has been the target of invasion down through the centuries and in reality the only commodity of great value produced there being the opium poppy looks in my opinion to be ‘it’,
You could say that the logical reason for the refusal to leave Afghansitan by the US is to stop the Taliban from again taking control of the country,
Then again it was the Taliban along with it’s ‘other crimes’ who stopped the production from the poppy fields, creating a serious dent in the supply of the ‘best’ heroin to be produced anywhere in the world,
Under US occupation the production of heroin from the production of the Afghan poppy fields has grown exponentially the longer the US has remained, it’s a multi billion dollar industry with even the brother of the Afghan Prez,(looking after the Prez’s interests perhaps???),said to be involved,
Think the CIA’s Air America of the Indo-China wars with a rational decision having been made by those marketing the product to not have it flood the streets ‘it’ being reserved as the province of the elite…
Ad
What about Rob Hall who called his wife from Everest where he was going to die, leaving her with their children to bring up alone. Wasn’t he selfish, not giving up on his addiction to climbing high lumps of rock topped with snow, a dangerous, harsh climate and location? Once he had children wouldn’t a good man have denied himself that risk-taking activity?
True addiction (not pu’s obsession with veganism) is something that I’m incredibly glad I’ve not yet had on my back (even my involuntary tobacco-free periods are not overly painful). As I understand it, Hoffman was clean for 20-odd years and it still came back to bite him in the arse.
We aren’t talking about someone being selfish and ignoring people who love him – as I understand it from people close to me, addiction is a fog that blinds you to everything except your weakness, a fog that you need to constantly beat back and fight simply in order to function as a human being. And sometimes it envelopes you anyway, especially if you are tired or it can hide something painful to be aware of.
there but for the grace of quantum uncertainty, I guess 🙂
+1
And I have noticed in myself and others I know how we seem to have an addictive response to much in life. It is tremendously hard to change direction, stop eating too much, drinking, whatever seems to be the norm for us even when it is counter-productive.
And the way that others relate to us, some get strokes from succeeding in sport and will play with broken bits in the body, ruin their health immediately or later as they become aged. Some get a kick from stirring up others, and being different from the common herd, and some are committed to better ways and only addiction to that idea keeps them sacrificing their working and leisure time for
the big goal, rather than their own advancement.
Some people here will be interested in the radio report on residues in food. Safe food campaign – imported grapes with about 35 different detected residues – local watchdog says incredibly small amounts, just as safe to eat as organic food! This, says official outfit Ag something like Agcarm, is just scaremongering (by greenies).
I certainly believe in quality of life over quantity – quite the hedonist, me.
The trouble with addiction is that it drags you back even when you don’t feel good doing it – I know an alcoholic who normally keeps it within social limits, but every year or two slips into levels that are disgraceful. Now, I tend to be a dick when drunk, too, but this person has that “shame” thing going on, where they wake up the next day and are mortified, and periodically hit a sub-basement of behaviour (if not rock-bottom) that drives them sober for a while.
Me, not so much.
That person I would say is largely enslaved by their addiction. Me, I’m more of a dick, regardless of any chemical dependency. My level of addiction does not outweigh my sense of shame or what I would like for a better quality of life. Their level of addiction brings down their quality of life and their ability to function in society.
Phil, my point is that I’ve never tried to quit. To steal from Milton, I might be regarded as “To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds Timorous and slothful”.
I embrace my lifestyle, all my habits are at a level where the cost is an acceptable exchange for the quality of life.
To compare that with people I know whose addictions do take an unacceptable toll on their quality of life yet they cannot stop that habit would be hypocritical sympathy-seeking. I’ve never mortgaged the family home to finance a habit, I’ve never destroyed relationships with people I love, and I’ve never ended up in jail, because of my addictions. I just roll along, chillaxed about most things and with not a care or responsibility in the world. In that I am very lucky.
Willingly partaking of a bad habit is not “addiction”. Addiction is when you can’t stop when you try. I almost certainly do have chemical dependencies on one or two things, but I’ve never felt them to any degree because my appetites for them are largely satiated at a socially and financially and personally acceptable level. Although the latest tax hike has tweaked my tobacco habits a touch, I’m not losing sleep over it.
Ad, you may be right, but what would you have done to help Mr. Hoffman stop using heroin? Unless you have a solution to discuss, your comment is not particularly helpful.
Philip …I find what you say interesting ie it does give an understanding of the terrible addiction factor…
Mallory Manning the beautiful young woman murdered by the Mongrel Mob in Christchurch was on the methadone treatment and was working as a prostitute….but refused to pay the Mongrel Mob a portion of her earnings for working on Manchester St ….the Mongrel Mob regarded this street as their patch and demanded money from all the prostitutes working here.
I have always thought that although prostitution should be legal for women self employed working from their homes or a house …..it should be illegal for pimps and illegal on the public streets…apart from being a public nuisance …..it is dangerous , even more dangerous without policing
Interesting changes ahead for RadioNZ National might help make the old favorite more listenable with hopefully a more robust debate on the issues of the day being the end result,
Pity ‘Nine to Noon’ isn’t suffering the same revamp as in my opinion it’s become a bland irrelevancy where issues of the day are treated with scant regard while ‘candy floss’ becomes topics of intense scrutiny, obviously the lack of National Government Ministerial involvement in the ‘hot’ issues of the day sadly devalue the content of the program, but, as a reason not to have intense political debate the non-show of the Government to put their views should never be a ‘reason’ not to have the political debate on air as an ongoing conversation,
Mora’s ‘movement’ a sign of abysmal ratings, or the pressure of the ongoing commentary of a critical nature much of which has been published right here???…
JS, Lolz, hopefully, an improvement that is, Mora on checkpoint for those horrified by the idea might not be too bad as checkpoint is more ‘straight news’ than magazine type program,
Shorter too which is a bonus, i usually listen to the first half hour of checkpoint and then switch to the TV news,(possibly just as brain damaging as listening to Mora all afternoon)…
Personally, I am happy to see Mercep off Morning Report as he annoys me intensely; but if he takes over in the afternoons from Mora that is just shuffling the deck chairs IMO.
The possibility of Mora on Checkpoint appals me ………..
I see the reasonaing is to soften or offset mary’s perceived interview technique.
That saddens me. I was hoping she was moving to morning report. I don’t care who the person is, they need to have their views drilled down, and Mary does that. Reminds of Kim Hill.
Mary is the best so why spoil it by including Mora – programme will soon go down.
What is he going to do that Mary has not been able to do.
Unless Mary is lined up for better things closer to the election.
Radio NZ announced these changes themselves via a news item I caught while driving home from work yesterday evening. I’m pleased that Susie Ferguson has been mooted for Morning Report. I can’t quite figure out how the hybrid Mora/Wilson The Panel/Checkpoint thing is going to work out?
Phillip, totally agree, i tune most of Ryan out where it becomes simply background noise, which is a pity because on the odd ocassion that there is something of interest being talked about i miss half of it,
Lolz, i have taken to doing silent penance all afternoon when Mora is on…
From the Herald link
* Geoff Robinson retiring from Morning Report, to be replaced by Guyon Espiner.
* Simon Mercep moving to Afternoons show. Current host Jim Mora joins Checkpoint with Mary Wilson.
* Susie Ferguson tipped to join Espiner on Morning Report.
I haven’t seen Guy Espiner lately. What do others know about him, his approach, and his leanings?
I have heard Susie Ferguson. Was it her that was critical of the Maori protests spoiling the Waitangi Day commemorations?
I don’t know why you bad12 are so hot against Ryan. We can’t have a pure news radio station. You are overlooking the fact that she has the sort of wide knowledge needed to interview the world, and is interested in so much, and the ability to sound pleasant and speak clearly for hours. She can and does ask hard questions and not that noticeably centre right, and is far superior to Jim Mora in this.
As for Checkpoint, Mary Wilson does it well and works her life around it. Going to those very early mornings, might have been a bridge too far. I wonder if she was asked?
And I can’t imagine that Mora will add anything that improves the output from that slot. The other way. He is good with people, chat about locations, interesting people, and appreciated for his support for musicians. Can’t he have an hour doing that in the afternoons, and perhaps a piece on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Then he could get some work on commercial radio to bring his hours up.
Greywarbler,ok then seeing as i have not been specific i will do so, my main complaint regarding Ryan, besides the ‘candyfloss’ which seems to be the hallmark of Her show is that on a number of occasions when discussing political matters of the day,(not with Hooton and Williams), there has been blah blah about the issue,
Then, we get a statement from Ryan that X National Government Minister was invited to speak to the issue but refused,
End result, the issue is not further discussed which leaves Ryan as the ‘enabler’ of the National Government’s killing of issues that either their Ministers cannot stand up to scrutiny over and/or are of an embarrassing nature to the present Government,
My view is that Ryan should have simply invited opposition MP’s to also discuss the issue and if the National Government Ministers still refuse to front tough on them,
To be fair perhaps i am only looking at the symptoms and it may now be that stations policy that if the relevant Government Minister declines to appear then the issue is allowed to die…
Good point Bad12 I noticed that bit about them – the NACTs not turning up – so we’ll go onto the next item.
I agree they should have them both lined up. And go on with the one that is left. That would make the shy ones more inclined to find the time!
I wish you would write that down and respectfully send it to Radionz pointing out that you are a politics junkie and a connosieur of interviews and think this would be the appropriate measure to ensure that the subject gets aired in a timely fashion. And don’t tell me to do it as I do write the odd email suggestion myself, can’t always be at it.
For you other anti-Mora people, I fell over laughing at this Twitter thread by Giovanni Tiso yesterday re Mora (hope the link works as I am only just coming to grips with Twitter)
Unfortunately Ryan is a ‘3rd Wayer’ thru’ and thru’ . It’s often a trendy leftie’s way of coming across as ‘fair and balanced’. (Shades of Rosemary McLeod). Ryan, I suspect (along with producer) is not above recommending spots for mates and accomplices.
Politically – she’s becoming really tiresome – never forgetting to mention, on occasion, her time in ‘the Gallery’ – as if that were some badge of honour.
She’s obviously managed to negotiate very generous leave entitlements – I only wish it was permanent so that the usual locum (Lyn Freeman) could take over – except that would take her away from “Standing Room Only”
..and to my mind the biggest buzz from these online radio streams (that you choose/tweak at will..and simple as to set up..even i could do it..)..
..you rediscover the delights of/from finding music that you really dig..
..that you didn’t know existed..
..and that is pretty cool..
..(bless those little algorithms..!..eh..?..)
..another great feature of these streams..(i have 35 different genre-streams..that i have on shuffle..)…is that there is a thumbs-down button on yr screen..
..so..should a song play you don’t like..you can down-thumb it..
..and the next song will then start..
..and..(once again..those clever algorithms)..that track will never play again on yr stream..
phillip ure….”the relentless neo-lib-defence/fox-talking-points trotted out by ryan”
…um no you are wrong!!!!
….interviewers can not simply do a doctrinaire party political broadcast
….interviewers have to ask questions from the other side…… and the Neo Lib side… as that is most predominant ‘other side’ ( devil side) in society under NACT
… interviewers have to ask questions from the opposing point of view …..particularly the side they dont agree with personally…..in order to elicit the information for the listener….who then makes up their own mind.
……listen carefully to Katherine Ryan’s programme and you pick up a lot of useful information
…as regards Matthew Hooton(right) versus (left)Mike Williams( which is no real ‘versus’ at all)….there does need to be a stronger voice articulating the Left viewpoint….a Hone Harawira or Jim Anderton or Sue Bradford or Jane Kelsey for example
….that said, I quite like Mike Williams as a soft left liberal
Kathryn Ryan is a very good interviewer…very subtle and allows her interviewees to speak freely in a warm environment
like Kim Hill also …different interview style…more confrontational but great
….in the end no one radio person can satisfy all listeners…..and in the end I even came to appreciate Jim Mora’s style…even although he is a tad too conservative and middle of the road for my tastes
Christ! – I hope you’re not putting Ryan in the same category as Hill are you?
Whilst I agree Ryan “allows her interviewees to speak freely in a warm environment”, that environment is often very warm and cosy to some, whilst not others.
You should go back (way way back) over some of those “From the Right, and From the not-so-Right” spots and do a content analysis some time. It’s only when a Hooter throws a complete hissy fit does she pull it up and allow a “not-so-Right” to get a word in edgeways or anyways.
But ……. no doubt she’ll be a future candidate for an ONZ for services to narrowcasting.
You don’t happen to know her do you Chooky? It’s just that I’m surprised at your appraisal of her.
Tim
You make some points I agree with. But I wonder are you an armchair interviewer? Or perhaps you think she is not as good as she should be after all her time in the job.
But the political pair – which goes pear-shaped for me – I think that she sees her role as to move through the topics set for the day, and not to be interfering, to be in the background. I think that is why she lets them go, they are to be free to discuss and she stops them when they go too long or get over-heated!
no i dont know her…and i dont know Kim Hill…and i dont know anybody …i live far ,far away across many hills and mountains ….us chooks only know chooks
….if you listen to Ryan’s programme you can hear some pretty interesting and occasionally very radical stuff…..at least as radical and thought provoking as Kim Hill…(.i am not talking about Hooton versus Williams…she just lets Hooton run at the mouth….and I have to say i like listening to Possum because he gives you an idea how he and the Right are spinning ….but he does need a sharper Left opponent … maybe Jane Kelsey or Sue Bradford or Jim Anderton? ( dont know that you can blame Ryan for Williams…maybe she didnt choose him )
Chooky – I agree her interviewing skills aren’t too shabby and I find her guests interesting – RIGHT up until the time politics become involved.
E.G. – very interesting stuff on caving (for example) recently, OR her dealing with the ‘Countdown’ issssyooo.
It’s just that her ‘3rd way ‘bent’ (aka prejudice) begins to show when politics are involved.
I think (as far as I can work out, I’m perhaps 2 or 3 degrees removed). NOT bloody far enough.
I’m just really tired of our so called ‘MSM’ generally – which with a few exceptions is increasingly a band of hacks who’ve engineered a certain comfort zone that no longer keeps them on their toes and doesn’t do much for what we expect. PSB should, by its very nature, challenge the status quo, investigate, AND take risks – whether it’s in news and current affairs, the arts, or in providing educational material.
RNZ does quite a good job on weekends – weekDAYS its become trite/hackneyed/boring/comfortable.
I’m sorry, but her (Rinny RyRy) ‘space’ in the media has come about by what we would once have called an ‘old boy network’ which has allowed her a very generous position in public service broadcasting, AND which is also increasingly letting old boys to roll out their spin. (Sorry Geoff R – but same shit different stink with Yawning Report too)
I’m somewhat encouraged, and SURPRISED at recent changes (long overdue) at RNZ btw – they leave ninetonoon unaffected – but I suspect that’s Stage 2.
The BBC of course is going through much of the same. Unfortunately we’re slightly worse off in that we only have ONE PSB radio network and nothing on TV (aside from Maori TV with which I had some involvement before it went to air)
Funding is of course an issue.
But …..
we should have
…. a news and current affairs network along with programmes of general interest
—- Concert FM delivering more than it does
…… something LIKE ‘the Wireless” delivering what it does over the airwaves along with NZ and indigenous music
AT THE VERY LEAST.
Same with TV
….. TVNZ7 plus more over more than 1 PSB network and NOT simply Maori TV – as good as it is (and btw – TVNZ could get some ‘learnings’ (:p) from the way it manages to deliver on the size of its budget.
BUT…..
….. when was the last time you saw the NZSO, or the NZ Opera or Ballet on Air (TV), OR NZ bands, and up and coming musicians and artists being represented – given live airtime, OR even a roundup of news headlines from our P.I. neighbours (given Auckland’s demographic), OR local/regional news and info other than that provided by (say SIT).AND I mean on Free-to-Air.
I’m getting side-tracked I know – but I sincerely hope when there is a change of gubbamint, and a wee way down the track, those occupying those comfy little pozzies don’t feign surprise when they get necked. Flogging off publicly funded intellectual property (for example) for pay TV profit (e.g. Heartland); allowing monopolistic and anti-competitive broadcast behaviour…. (actually very EASILY fixed)
anyway …. change is in the queue and I’m hoping it becomes a priority. The ‘in crowd’ aren’t going to be too happy – but fuck ’em – the medium exists for the public and NOT as a platform for taking various egos for a walk.
@ Tim…I think i agree with you wholeheartedly….the media could be so much, much, more than it is….and therefore the populace could be lifted to new levels
..i think you should write a post on it
…i guess i gave up on tv.long ago ..generally watch videos/tv drama series from videos/documentaries/music from video …i dont even watch tv news …so i dont get angry about tv any more ( i do watch tv at election times however)
….as regards radio…K Ryan, Kim Hill, Chris Laidlaw , Morning Report, mid-day news, Checkpoint and nothing else
…K.Ryan is not too bad…she walks a fine line…..eg.from one of her interviews I learned that Goldman Sachs was reviewing /evaluating Kiwi Bank…..this was well before it was discussed on this site ( in fact i brought it up here, because I wanted to know what other’s knew about it ….and they didnt)….. there are a lot of gems underneath the easy listening patina of nine to noon…and I dont think K.Ryan is at all conservative.
Fascinating to do such restructuring in an election year.
Am reading Hager’s Hollow Men” again.
He has some interesting evidence of the right’s attitutde toward the media. It’s not a conspiracy to suspect manipulation. Admittedly Hager never suggests (so far that I can recall) that media were complicit in it per se. Obviously Joyce’s networks in private radio would be large.
“In my book The Hollow Men, when the ACT Party campaign manager Brian Nicolle was privately coordinating a leadership coup for Don Brash within the National Party, he identified private radio as especially sympathetic to the right. “We need to target key talkback hosts in [Newstalk] ZB and [Radio] Pacific,” he wrote to Brash, “there are plenty sympathetic.” The plan was to “produce some common lines that become the ‘mantra’ on your journey to become leader of National and the country” (p. 47)”
I like the diverse styles of Kathryn, Kim, Jim, Brian and Mary and the diverse content and am even getting used to Simon’s feverish style. Much better than the shock dicks on commercial (retard) radio, and Paul Henry Z z z z z z yawn!
Don’t think I’d like to be married to Mary and her interrogations though..she’s frightening.
David Cunliffe good on National Radio this morning….sounded strong and confident!
….talking about Charter Schools receiving a hell of a lot more money than State Schools of equivalent size or larger
….and why all the closures of small State Schools( because they cost too much or were inefficient) to be replaced by small Charter Schools?….which will end up poaching from neighbouring State Schools….causing more decline in State Schools..(.that was the gist I think)
…not an innocent political sideshow either….but a deliberate piece of social engineering designed ultimately to undermine State secular free high quality education …..and in the end subvert New Zealand democracy
….cunning plan by Neo Lib Capitalists originating in USA to privatise NZ education
Can’t disagree with you there, the other point of note is that education being heavily unionized is simply a target for Tories,
But as you say the wider plan is to insert the ‘private sector’ as ticket clippers in some way shape or form into all aspects of the Governments ‘spend’, the obvious result of that is taxpayers will pay more to receive less…
Ad ignorance is bliss .
Some people have highly addictive personalities.
With multipule addictions like Seymore Hoffman.
These personality types tend to be able to get rid of one addiction only to be taken over by other addictions.
Money addiction ie hoarding money can be an addiction never satisfied with how much you have.
In my work helping with fostering children and helping street children parental multipule addictions are very common are virtually impossible to sort out.
..many narcotics users turn to alcohol when/if they kick the junk..
..(and debatable which is worse..)
..i myself have been addicted to tobacco/alcohol/heroin/cocaine/mandrax/downers/crack-cocaine/animal-flesh/fat/bye-products..(‘jonesing’ for cheese..?..anyone..?..)..
..i am currently a non-user of all the above..
(and am fast becoming addicted to sit-ups etc..perhaps the healthiest of all the other addiction-options on offer..i feel..)
..but i also have to say that of all the above..
..that the only one i still have to maintain vigilance/personal-dialogue/arguments about..
..is heroin..
..(the thought of a cocaine-bender just makes me feel like a cup of tea and a wee lie-down..
..it’s a very ‘tiring’ drug..that one..
..and crack-cocaine..?..whoar..!..the most scary/obsessive of all of them..)
..and of course..all those reading this who ‘jones’ for any of the above..
..(just sallivate at the thought of that cold beer..or six..eh..?..
..or a cheesy-whatever..?..)
..all those people are in denial about their current health/life-threatening addictions..
..so really..
..who reading this is not addicted to multiples of the above..?
Careful Phil! I mean switching bad addictions for good ones is not necessarily a bad thing, but just be careful that at anytime it can jump up and bite you in the bum – that’s if a tumor or cancer doesn’t get you first.
I’m just glad you didn’t find religion – altho’ if that works for you, all good too!
Big Huey
The traditional non-vote in Europe is as likely to benefit the radical right as the centre-left. This analysis of Norway’s election suggests the radical right message resonates with the working class.
The centre-left can’t rely on pulling these traditional non-voters. I guess there are two options – ignore the non-voters – hope they stay at home and try to grab more of the centre (the Shearer option), or head further to the left to create a more radical message that resonates a least as much as that of the far right. Such as the radical left in Greece.
Obviously NZ has its unique make-up, but the voter dissatisfaction with the status quo is similar. National’s Waitangi whistles can also be interpreted as a grab for the traditional working class non-voter, imo.
Exactly. Nothing short of a real alternative is ever going to work for people who are most cynical about the status quo.
Look at the working class support for the tea-party. It may be a case of turkeys supporting an early christmas, but at least it’s not supporting more of exactly the same bullshit. “Deer hunting with Jesus – dispatches from America’s Class War” is well worth a read, imo.
Average household debt fell slightly from 2008 to 2011, but has increased again in the past two years.
And that would be the reason for the “improving” economy – more debt means more money and thus more spending. Obviously this is just as sustainable as it was before the GFC and so we can expect another crash sometime in the future driven by the private banks reckless lending and which we will have to bailout once again.
The “average wage” is usually said to be almost $1100 a week, or $57,000 a year, but this year the Salvation Army says the best figure to use is the average for employees only, excluding employers and the self-employed.
No, the best one to use is the median income which was, according to StatsNZ, $844 (salary and wage earners) and $575 from all sources.
The headline is misleading – with almost everything getting a C rating or less about the best that could be said was that things were staying about the same – maybe.
The book is published by McGill University, so the author is quite likely to be Canadian. If so his focus on the five eyes countries is not surprising.
Which just goes to show how young democracy is, and how short a time, if any, it has actually involved genuine freedom.
Or more accurately….it shows how young the governance structures we use are and yet they have routinely descended into overt authoritarianism. (1930s Germany, Chile 1970s, Spain 1930s…a list as long as a toilet roll if we were to exhaustive. And then those wonderful little ‘markers’, such as the Red Scares of the early 1900s and the 50s in the USA, tanks on Scottish streets post WWI, 50s lockout in NZ….basically another list as long as a toilet roll )
edit – I totally misread your comment, aye? Oh well, as a short illustrative list to underscore your point then 😉
whoa – Germany, yeah maybe. Chile? Outright coup d’etat that destroyed the democratic governance structures. Spain I’d need to look into to see if Franco got elected before letting loose with his army.
This is why privately nats and their supporters pretend they are joking when they say a dictatorship is much more efficient than a democraccy.
We saw a bit of it in Henry’s patronisingly elitist comment about dumb people not being aallowed to votes. Funny thing is NACT supporters assume it could never include them.
I heard the Salvation Army spokesperson speaking on child poverty this morning. When they speak they should hone in on comments from pollies and point out the woolliness of the comment, and then give the facts about the poor conditions they want addressed by the pollies. What a contrast that would be woolly PR puff and gritty reality and a mention of a success already achieved that needs to be replicated. They can even talk about real people as long as they remain anonymous and are not identifiable.
After Poorer Benefit’s little puff piece about NZ being one of best and most generous in the world for welfare, and far better than most of the world, he could have said ‘Which parts of the world are those exactly?’
And ‘I can’t agree with that on the information that I have.’
This morning he just made the general comment, correctly, that it is not the amount of money that is given, it is what you can buy with it. But there were too many indirect comments that could have fitted into a ‘blame the beneficiary for bad management’, if that was the attitude of the listener.
From Scoop : “But The Salvation Army remains deeply concerned at the lack of progress in reducing child poverty, family violence, the harmful use of alcohol, and the failure to address criminal re-offending and serious crime.”
I don’t think the radio interview came up with enough. There has to be more than just a constant repetition of – looking at the ‘underlying causes of poverty’ and talking about child abuse.
The bigoted go straight to – ahha that’s all those feckless breeders having babies when they can’t make enough effort to get a job so they take the easy way out and get pregnant, and then can’t do a decent job of that and it ends in child abuse from their latest boyfriend, and they are incapable of getting out of poverty because of their own slackness and then they get into fights and fall out with their boyfriends and then there is domestic violence.
The worth and value of most female beneficiaries never gets recognised also the fact that so much opportunity is withheld from them, which would change much of the above if offered.
These would be largely polytechnic courses or the like where they could learn with their children in a playgroup in the room. Studying NCEA units in helpful stuff, then later the former training incentives where they either learn, or maintain their useful employment skills ie word processing, computer program use, phone and reception communication, and trade skills, and they would gain more benefit with each new NCEA unit.
Helping in a practical way with transport – having a small bus doing a circuit picking up mothers and children to go to class and returning them. Or having a large taxi with a contract to do it. Bringing in medical checks for the family while training.
The emphasis would be to lift the self-expectations, the skills, the life training, and limit the loneliness and the isolation and drudgery of poverty with little joy and hope, that can result in a peer group of people with no ideas on how to better that.
There needs to be an emphasis on loss of potential to society, on the way these women would achieve all the things society wants from them, if given the assistance while their children were small and to find the steps to volunteer or part-time work, with income top-ups.
The bulk of them have been in relationships for some years, are older, had the children in those relationships and have then been left holding all the responsibility for both parents. I don’t know that you can assume they are undereducated or less able and it may be patronising to do so.
Given the workload that many carry, the amount of money they provide for their children’s needs-most, the successful relationships they have with their families, the lack of any serious criminal offending (ACT & Nact MP’s provide more criminals % wise) and lack of addictions, they are in fact among the most successful adults in our society.
The basic problem is that they are trying to do what two parents do, face highly conflicting objectives (work but don’t leave the kids home alone), while being harried by the welfare. None of this of course applies to the adult who dodges their responsibilities and their must be a good case for turning WINZ loose on them..
Or we could just give them a bit more money and stop making their choices for them. Most of them were competent adults before they became single parents and they didn’t lose that overnight.
The British police have apparently adopted or trialled body cameras and have referred to domestic incidents as where they are useful. NZ police are thinking of them too. If the economy and sharing of the wealth of our nation more fairly, does not improve, there will be more domestic incidents as people have to carve out a lesser sort of life from the unpromising hard-faced society that encloses them.
It could happen, if the country is going to slide further into increased poverty and under-privilege, that some areas will undertake to police themselves. This was the case in the poor area of Naples which Thomas Belmonte studied. And also Harlem in New York. Taxis would not go there.
A band of men who are under contract to police for the state, and if that state has no concept of service to all the people, will be people who become a burden and source of anguish and anxiety to those people as they operate. Their interest will be mainly in serving the wealthy, and they will be biased towards property protection (as I understand they already are). The poor people may well find a way to effectively bar them from some suburban enclaves, which has probably happened already with gangs to some extent.
Quick thinking for self-preservation? The man in control of hang-gliders’ safety at a departure point in Canada, when he saw his last ‘pilot’ plummet, swallowed his video memory card! She fell 300 metres because he did not ensure she was properly shackled, and he did not find that because he did not do a safety check before flight. It might be that anyone embarking on some hazardous activity where a small company has great responsibility, should say ‘what are the safety check practices you carry out’ and then ensure each one has been done.
+1 😀
Perhaps sausages (and pies) coming to the fore in NZs minds says something about how entwined they are into our psyche.
Could have a scoring system as to who deserves the most bad marks, with sausages or pies denoting different classes of transgression. ‘That was a cream pie’ winner, or definitely a Double Brat-worst for that pollie’. We could get quite inventive with the fillings too and make it a discriminating feast of insults.
but it seems to me that, rather than making a trade-off between realism and tractability, modern macroeconomics has simply made an a priori decision that coordination problems are not a relevant macroeconomic concern.
As I read through this link from DTB, I thank God that I was able to take some late-in-life university papers which brought my reading ability to a higher level so that a collection of multi-syllable words in a discussion about the abstruse argument that is economics, did not immediately set me running to the backyard with a crushing sense of inferiority and redundancy. Instead I am sitting still typing this at the computer. But my ability has now improved to the extent that I believe that I am justified in feeling irritability.
As I read more about economics I begin to understand the mind of man is very good at working in the abstract which is ‘so’ economics. You understand this when reading about one who measured the circumference of the planet in 276BC, about. Economics was something they ate for breakfast.
Some of them:
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Ancient Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης, IPA: [eratostʰénɛːs]; English /ɛrəˈtɒsθəniːz/; c. 276 BC[1] – c. 195/194 BC[2]) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist.
He is best known for being the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth, which he did by applying a measuring system using stades, or the length of stadiums during that time period.
(So he knew about stadiums and can be said to be the father of Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr, what an eminent patron.)
And:
Thales (624-547 B.C., Ionian) was a Greek philosopher who traveled widely in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and brought astronomical records from these cultures back to Greece. He believed that the Earth is a disk floating on an endless ocean. Legend has it that he correctly predicted a solar eclipse in the year 585 B.C.
(This idea has been shamelessly boot-legged by Terry Pratchett, but it is possible that Thales connections will soon be filing for an intellectual property infringement.)
There was –
Omar Khayyam (1048-1131, Persian) was a great scientist, philosopher, and poet. He compiled many astronomical tables and performed a reformation of the calendar which was more accurate than the Julian and came close to the Gregorian. An amazing feat was his calculation of the year to be 365.24219858156 days long, which is accurate to the sixth decimal place!
(He set an early record which still stands proud today even if we have invented another few numbers!)
Hmm.
So if the stade was a measurement of length, did Eratosthenes have an economic unit based on the cost vs benefits of a stadium? Because if we extrapolate from the dunedin FoBar stadium, it might explain why macroeconomics is so fucked. 🙂
It might be more chicken and egg…..maybe the economists knew about the Eratosthane stadium cost v benefit unit, and allowed the whole thing to go ahead knowing that because they had never been right about anything, well it did not really matter. Priests are after all nothing unless seen and heard. The rest is gullible faith.
@DTB
Never fear the evangelists will be out in force if there is a whiff of apostasy. See what happens when the Greens dare to challenge economic orthodoxy even when evidence and reason contradict orthodoxy.
(Forwarded in the public interest – there are a number of tenants in Tamaki who are currently facing 90 day eviction notices):
_______________________________________________________________________________
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NZ FIRST and MOUNTAINSIDE FM invites you to hear
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“….bennett does ‘not know’ how many working-families are in poverty..(ed:..seriously..?..w.t.f.is her brief..?..if not to know basic facts such as that..?.)
..ardern notes at the current rate it would take 160 yrs to fix poverty..
..bennett is reduced to babbling serial-cliches..”
The system is not fixable because it is not broken. It is working, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to give the insiders their royal prerogatives, and to shove the regulations, the laws, and the debt up the asses of everyone else.
Shane Jones has earned his parliamentary salary for the year by bringing up the Oz supermarket debacle in Parliament. That is a very informative piece from nz Herald Ad, and in the little voice bite from Key was illuminating.
He thinks that the matter should actually be regarded as an Australasian one. This is our PM. And he doesn’t really care if we are being shafted by Australia!!!! Have a listen to this pantwaist.
I have alwys felt his “Great Moving Right Sow, on Thatcherism and its impact, was a very important article.
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You're nearly a good laughAlmost a jokerWith your head down in the pig binSaying, 'Keep on digging.'Pig stain on your fat chinWhat do you hope to findDown in the pig mine?You're nearly a laughYou're nearly a laughBut you're really a crySongwriter: Roger Waters.NZ First - Kiwi Battlers.Say what you like ...
This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Climate denial is dead. Renewable energy denial is here. As “alternative facts” become the norm, it’s worth looking at what actual facts tell us about how renewable energy sources like solar and wind are lowering the price of electricity. As ...
SIR GEOFFREY PALMER is worried about democracy. In his Newsroom website post of 27 January 2025 he asserts that “the future of democracy across the world now seems to be in question.” Following a year of important electoral contests across the world, culminating in Donald Trump’s emphatic recapture of the ...
The Government hasn’t stopped talking about growth since the Prime Minister made his “yes” speech at the Auckland Chamber of Commerce last week. But so far, the measures announced would seem hardly likely to suddenly pitch New Zealand into the fast-growth East Asian league. The digital nomad announcement hardly deserved ...
It's election year for Wellington City Council and for the Regional Council. What have the progressive councillors achieved over the last couple of years. What were the blocks and failures? What's with the targeting of the mayor and city council by the Post and by central government? Why does the ...
Someone defames you anonymously online. Can you find out who it is? Maybe. There are legal avenues to seek a court order that an internet host reveal the identity of the person. One of them is called a Norwich Pharmacal order, but as Hugh Tomlinson KC points out, it only ...
The results of the 2025 Mood of the Workforce survey have been released, with working people revealing deep concerns regarding their work lives, housing, health care, and perceptions of the coalition government in Aotearoa New Zealand.Christopher Luxon has signalled that National may campaign on asset sales in the next election, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to stand firm and work with allies to progress climate action as Donald Trump signals his intent to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords once again. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Jon Kroll and Aimee McCammon have been appointed to the New Zealand Film Commission Board, Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “I am delighted to appoint these two new board members who will bring a wealth of industry, governance, and commercial experience to the Film Commission. “Jon Kroll has been an ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has hailed a drop in the domestic component of inflation, saying it increases the prospect of mortgage rate reductions and a lower cost of living for Kiwi households. Stats NZ reported today that inflation was 2.2 per cent in the year to December, the second consecutive ...
Two new appointed members and one reappointed member of the Employment Relations Authority have been announced by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden today. “I’m pleased to announce the new appointed members Helen van Druten and Matthew Piper to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) and welcome them to ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Understanding Te Tiriti by Roimata Smail (Wai Ako Press, $25) No better time to get ...
The committee has published this list to inform the public about its work, and to give clarity to submitters who have contacted the committee asking if they will be invited to make an oral submission. ...
Alex Casey and Gabi Lardies dissect their Laneway 2025 experience. Gabi Lardies: Hi Alex :))))))) Congratulations on not getting sunburnt. Everyone I talked to at Laneway yesterday was braving the sun for one thing. Charli XCX. How was your brat experience?Alex Casey: We will talk about the rest of ...
The US President's suggestion, which sparked enormous debate globally, has been labelled as a threat, not a proposal, by the Federation of Islamic Associations. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine McCarthy, Senior Lecturer in Interior Architecture, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Interior of Auckland South Men’s Prison.Getty Images Prisons are not colourful places. Typically, they are grey or some variation of a monochrome colour scheme. But increasingly, ...
FICTION1Tree of Nourishment (Kāwai 2) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)Interesting to note that the author of the biggest-selling New Zealand novel in Waitangi Week is Māori (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai, and Ngāti Kahungunu).2 Kāwai: For Such a Time as This (Kāwai 1) by Monty Soutar (David ...
Remembering the renowned New Zealand writer, who died on February 5, 2025. The Stopover When the trout rise like compassion It is worth watching when the hinds come down from the hills with a new message it will be as well to listen. – Brian Turner Poet, environmentalist, sportsman, journalist, ...
Survivors can choose to have former High Court judge Paul Davison assess their individual claims to tailor payments to their personal circumstances. ...
Are we too modest when it comes to celebrating our putrid plant life?She’s beauty. She’s grace. She smells like a decaying corpse and lurks in the backrooms of Auckland Zoo, wallowing tragically in a bucket. In recent weeks an Australian corpse plant named Putricia has captured the noses and ...
Politicians from the coalition government received a frosty reception at Waitangi this year, but Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka says the pōwhiri that received so much attention was just one part of many events throughout the week. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Allen, Postdoctoral research associate, Griffith University A humpback whale mother and calf on the New Caledonian breeding grounds.Mark Quintin All known human languages display a surprising pattern: the most frequent word in a language is twice as frequent as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Keogh, Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University Jordan Mailata is an Australian-born NFL star who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles as an offensive left tackle. This position favours very tall, heavy and strong athletes who ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nigel Tucker, Research Associate in Environment and Sustainability, James Cook University TREAT volunteers planting treesTREAT Like ferns and the tides, community conservation groups come and go. Many achieve their goal. Volunteers restore a local wetland or protect a patch of urban ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karyn Healy, Honorary Principal Research Fellow in Psychology, The University of Queensland Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock The start of the school year means new classes, routines, after-school activities and sometimes even a new school. This can be a really exciting time for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kerrie Sadiq, Professor of Taxation, QUT Business School, and ARC Future Fellow, Queensland University of Technology The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released a discussion paper this week on investment tax breaks. The study looks at whether tax incentives, such as instant ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Naomi Zouwer, Visual Artist and Lecturer in Teacher Education, University of Canberra Galleries and art museums can be intimidating and alienating even for adults. Imagine it from a child’s point of view. Stern security guards in uniforms stationed the doors, bags checked, ...
The clock is ticking in the great chain chase. 2025 is an election year in New Zealand. Not the general variation, obviously, but the local form. If you’re thinking of running, nominations open in just five months, and your chances are good – about 50% across the various races; in ...
Political aspects of Waitangi week may be moved in 2026, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell for The Bulletin.To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Celebration and on-the-ground politics For the third year in a row, I have returned from Waitangi full of food and deep regrets about not ...
Arriving at Ōnuku Marae, it was easy to see why Prime Minister Christopher Luxon chose the venue to mark Waitangi Day.Kayakers paddled around Akaroa Harbour under clear blue skies, with the marae barely a stone’s throw from the shore.Luxon’s decision to skip traditional events at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds this ...
Thanks to increased operating costs and new fare structures, many public transport users in Auckland are now paying more for trains, buses and ferries. Shanti Mathias explains what’s behind the changes. Schools are back around the country, but in Auckland, kids aren’t the only ones to have returned to a ...
In a special Waitangi edition of Gone By Lunchtime, Ātea editor Liam Rātana and politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith recap a politically charged few days at the Treaty Grounds. Our Waitangi 2025 coverage is possible because of the 13,000-plus Spinoff members who regularly pay to support our work. If you aren’t a member ...
Analysis: Waitangi Day belongs to Māori first, as mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga take centre stage.Our Waitangi 2025 coverage is possible because of the 13,000-plus Spinoff members who regularly pay to support our work. If you aren’t a member yet, now is the time.Walking around the treaty grounds, te reo Māori ...
Chart 1: An unfortunate starting pointComment: Far from fighting fit, the economy limps into 2025 carrying some baggage. Two years of rolling recessions have left per capita output 4.8 percent below the 2022 peak. That’s as at September. The December quarter is looking flattish.A return to growth beckons this year. ...
Val Smith reckons if you knew her in her 20s, she’d be the last woman you’d imagine taking up lawn bowls.Yet here she is, three decades later, retiring from the international game after playing an astounding 667 internationals for the BlackJacks.One of the true greats in New Zealand bowls history, ...
If you want to be a famous sport writer in New Zealand, you probably shouldn’t specialise in football.The beautiful game usually takes a back seat here … but that could all be changing.With two teams now in the Australian football league, vocal and growing crowds, and some fantastic players looking ...
Analysis: The international rules-based order has come under increasing stress and strain over the last decade and looks likely to continue on the same rocky path for the foreseeable future. In the Pacific, political tensions and competition between powerful states – the United States and its allies, and China – ...
Analysis: Growth trumps everything was the message from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s recent state of the nation address. His declaration came on the heels of similar announcements calling for growth at all costs from the new president of the USA and from many other world leaders. As usual news media ...
More expensive than emissions reductions, but could save lives as Superstorms become more devastating.
Geo engineering anyone?
http://www.earthtechling.com/2013/12/can-offshore-wind-turbines-slow-hurricanes/
More proof that we are surely the stupidest species on the planet. Hurricanes increasing in frequency and severity due to AGW, so instead of mitigating AGW, let’s use more fossil fuels to try and maintain the facade that everything will be alright if we can just out-tech nature and our own mistakes.
/facepalm
Considering the number of wind turbines that they’re talking about I suspect most, if not all, fossil fuel generation in the US could be decommissioned.
“..The mind of a heroin addict: the struggle to get clean and stay sober..
.For a heroin addict – recovery is a life-long process.
Philip Seymour Hoffman had been clean for 23 years before he relapsed in 2013 –
– and died from an apparent overdose last week.
To many people who have never grappled with addiction –
– it can be difficult to comprehend the desperate desire to use –
– even after so many years sober.
To gain deeper insight into drug addiction –
– we asked recovering heroin users to share their experiences with us.
Nearly 300 people responded –
– describing their struggle to get clean –
– and the ongoing battle to stay sober.
Here we publish a selection of those responses..”
(cont..)
http://www.theguardian.com/society/interactive/2014/feb/11/heroin-addiction-recovery-readers-response-interactive
phillip ure..
Mr Hoffman determined to take a pretty substantial amount of a Class A drug, while having two young children. I think, after 23 years, what he did was spectacularly selfish.
@ ad..
..and you are an ignorant/judgmental-fool..
..(so that’s that sorted..)
..and how is that cancer-causing flesh/fat-addiction you have going on..going..?
..and passing it on to yr children..eh..?
..how both ignorant and ‘spectacularly-selfish’ is that..?
..and..can’t stop it/give it up..?
..how piss-weak is that..?
..and you sneer at heroin addicts..?
..you ignorant fool..
..(you want bacon with that..?..)
phillip ure..
No sneering other than from you on another tiresome righteous roll.
Mr Hoffman should be evaluated both for what he did, and for the consequences of what he did.
@ ad..and yrslf..?
..with yr flesh-fat-addiction..?
..just in denial..are we..?
..and what do you think the ‘consequences’ are of you passing on yr flesh/fat-addiction to yr children..?
..the ‘normals’ in yr life..will be looked upon in the future with as much horror as we now view children trapped in cars with cigarette-smokers..
..but you are too pig-ignorant to have the slightest awareness of that..
..and..like the booze..?..do we..?
..it/that’s..the kiwi-way..
..eh..?..
..and a little fucken medical-fact/quizz for you..
..two people..
..one uses (medicinal-quality/clean) narcotics for 20 yr..then stops..
..other drinks heavily for 20 yrs..then stops..
..guess which one will be most longterm fucked-over by their 20 yr addiction..?
..whose liver will be most rooted..?
..eh..?
..(d’ya want a beer with that bacon..?..)
..phillip ure//
Hmm, so far, Mr Hoffman’s herion overdose – of which he alone is responsible – is somehow also about smoking, bacon, alcohol consumption, children trapped in cars, and the Kiwi way. Stop flailing about. His use of heroin does not reflect on anyone but himself.
Mr Hoffman – particularly after 23 years – is responsible for taking heroin. And is responsible for the consequences. No one else.
Ad, that is a seriously stupid comment, there is only one other substance in the world that matches the addictive power of Heroin and that is Nicotine,
If you have no understanding of addiction you should get an education as addiction by definition is to use a substance or take actions,(as in the use of pokey machines), that no matter how ‘responsible’ you are in your other actions in life it becomes impossible for you to not use the products which are the subject of the addiction…
@ bad..hate to disagree with someone who is agreeing with me..
..but..having undergone withdrawals from both..
..on a scale of severity running from one to ten..
..tobacco is one..
..heroin is nine..
..that heroin/tobacco-line is usually trotted out by self-excusing tobacco-addicts..
..personally..i view those still addicted to tobacco..
..and trotting out that excuse..
..as weak as piss..
..on the scale of things..
..tobacco was no big thing to give up..
..phillip ure..
And how did he become addicted? Do you think he unwittingly started using Heroin without knowing its addictive reputation?
He is responsible for his own addiction, and his own death. Denying this worries me. We need to teach our children to take accountability for their own actions, our communities will be better off for it.
That may or may not be true, many people i know have become addicted to all sorts of things blissfully unaware of the literature screaming about the addictive nature of whatever it is they have become addicted to,
There is also the ‘i will try a little just once school of addicts’ along with some peoples personal ego which tells them that they will never become an addict to anything as they consider themselves far too strong,
Attempting to teach your children the risks of addiction while obviously the right thing to do also has in a small % the opposite effect, much like teaching children the do’s and don’ts of sex, that small % thus educated in the dangers will just have to go out and try it anyway,
There is another means of death that has killed many of those addicted to Heroin where the addict used to cooking X amount of the drug does so on that one occasion only to tragically find that the product has not been ‘stepped on’, diluted with another non-toxic product to the extent of what the addict has normally shot up their veins, which simply causes them an instant and fatal overdose…
ad = mono-view..
..he/she lives in a simple world..
..absolutely chocka-block with absolutes..
..eh..?..ad..?
..are you addicted to absolutes..?
..d’yareckon..?
phillip ure..
Phillip, i think you will find that there is much clinical research about Heroin/Nicotine addiction that says exactly what i have just said in the comment above about Nicotine addiction,
All addictive substances effect individuals to a greater or lesser extent as far as the extent of the individuals addictions are manifested,
i know people in the 70,s when street level addiction to Heroin was at it’s height who could ping up on a regular basis, to the extent that you would consider them ‘junkies’ who could when supply run out withdraw from Heroin without a problem,
Other heavy users of the time i personally know could take or leave the drug having no addiction problem with it, does that make you as ‘weak as piss’???,
You should obviously do more research on the subject befor insulting anyone with an addiction to anything which seems to be your modus operendi,
Is ex-Prime Minister Helen Clark ‘as weak as piss’, She also described the addiction to Nicotine as i have…
in the street cred addiction Olympics you didn’t medal mate 🙂
umm..!..
..a fact about heroin addiction you may not be aware of..
..is that it actually takes quite a long time to get yr first ‘habit’..
..the honeymoon-period with that drug is longer than most would expect..
..but the key difference with nicotine is that a nicotine habit is a nicotine habit..
..end of story..
..whereas each succeeding heroin habit you get..kicks in sooner..is even more addictive..
..and the withdrawals also increase in intensity..
..so i quite believe yr tales of people seemingly using for a while..heavily even..
..and not going thru that heavy a withdrawal..
..and that increasing severity is what made me finally pull the plug..
..and is what keeps me away to this day..
..’cos i didn’t finally stop thru any great exercise of moral-willpower/or the like..
..having gone thru more nasty withdrawals than i care to remember..
..i hadn’t used for a number of years…(and had been travelling..)
..and i returned to sydney..and ran into an old drug-buddy and his wife..on the street..
..and went to their house..where i was offered smack..
..i thought..’one night..what the hell..!’..
..so i indulged..slept on their sofa..
..and woke in the morning with an overwhelming urge to have more heroin..now..!
..and within one week of using..i was where a one to two yr habit wd have had me in the past..
..and that scared the hell out of me..
..so i ran away..and locked myself into a room for a few days..
..to go thru the severe withdrawals such a small amount after so long had left me with..
..and after that..i knew i had reached the tipping-point..
..where the ensuing pain so overwhelmed that initial/transitory pleasure..
..to such a degree..
..i knew i couldn’t go there again..
..(and re yr clark-comment..?..seriously..?
..and really..bad..on this particular subject..
..don’t you think i may have a tad more experience/knowledge..
..than that shown in some throwaway comment from clark..?..)
..and as i originally said..nicotine one…heroin nine..
..you..and most others..really have no fucken idea what that experience is like..
phillip ure..
.
Actually Phillip having considered your disjointed bullshit reply i think your whole problem is that you suffer from being not only totally ‘up yourself’ but also that you are a typical whining fucking junky too piss weal to kick the habit,
As i pointed out above, addiction to anything will effect those addicted in different ways, because your addiction took a while to establish means nothing, except to your overblown ego, many are addicted on their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd taste of heroin,(more fool them and you, having heard the story of the addictive nature of heroin from an older sibling at age 14 i decided not to indulge although all my friends of the time became jumkies),
As far as the comments of Helen Clark goes on the subject of Nicotine/Heroin addiction i should imagine that She got Her information from the likes of the US CDC or any one of the many universities that have conducted addiction studies into the relative effects of the two substances as opposed to you who seemingly only requires the information to come via your personally compromised drug addled junkies brain,
Here’s a little reading for you,
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/quit-how-to-quit/you…/nicotine
http://www.nytimes.com/…/nicotine-harder-to-kickthan-heroin-habit.html
http://www.whyquit.com/whyquit/A-henningfield-benowitz.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/…/why-nicotine-is-as-addictive-as-heroin...
If, as usual my ‘links’ don’t work i found all those links by Googling: ”Nicotine considered as addictive as heroin”…
Don/t hold back bad12. There is a lot to be said for you, one is that your ‘column inches’ are a lot more fact-packed into them than phillip u’s.
Lolz, why thank you greywarbler, tho i must admit to straying into the realm of bullshit on the odd occasion…
My experience is that nicotine is harder to kick than heroin. As this is different from Phil’s experience, it is obviously invalid.
I think you have hit on an important point, bad12. Many people stop using narcotics but spend the rest of their lives talking about how their drug experience changed their life, how they feel urges every day, etc, etc. While I will mention my experiences on the odd occasion that they are relevant, I’m glad to see the back of the shit, and of the lifestyle. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who carries on about it all the time, like Russel Brand, hasn’t taken back control of their own life.
I agree Murray – which is where my ‘street cred’ attempted humour came from above. There are a lot of addictions out there and i think in many ways our society endorses addictive personalities and their particular poison of choice as part of the neolib experiment – in a similar way to making everything a competition or popularity contest.
“..but also that you are a typical whining fucking junky too piss weal to kick the habit..”
really..?…i haven’t used since the late 80’s.
..so what the fuck are you banging on about..
..you fucken fool….
..and still smoking ciggies..are we..?
..seriously hooked on flesh/fat..?..
..body crapping out from it..?
..and fucken sneer on..eh..?
..i offer my experience/knowledge gained..
..over 20 yrs of fucken heavy using/withdrawing…
..(as opposed to the many weekend warriors..who ‘just got a bit fluey’ when they stopped..
..but i already explained the accelerated-effects from each habit..
..what can’t you fucken understand about that..?)
..i have nothing more to say..
..you can either fucken accept it or not..
..i’m not gonna play tag with yr self/serving/apologising/aggraindising/boo-hoo!-bullshit…about nicotine..
..except..’really..?..’
“..as opposed to you who seemingly only requires the information to come via your personally compromised drug addled junkies brain…”
..really..?..there..bad..?..
..well..after i kicked the junk..
..i went to university..and got a masters degree..
..so..basically..fuck you..eh..?..
..what have you done lately..?
..and..what’s yr poison..?..(aside from the ciggies..)
..hic..!
..on ‘nerve-pills’..?
..how about you list yr current addictions..
..phillip ure..
Phillip, seriously, you will have to try and contain yourself, such antagonism might have you via the fight or flight mechanism running full tilt into a serious drug relapse,
You know what they say Phillip, ”once a sniveling fucking junky, always a sniveling fucking junky”, put in a far more mild description and delivery Phillip, although you are by now possibly far to enraged and/or brain damaged to be able to comprehend this, all addicts are simply one small step away from their next relapse,(those of them that are not bald faced liars claiming to be ‘free’ while secretly indulging themselves that is),
Nope, smoking cigarettes is my addiction and i satisfy myself that while doing so might compromise the length of time my mortal self gets to spend on the planet in a negative way, as i grow all of my own the addiction doesn’t compromise me in any other way,
Your obsession with fat amuses me but under analysis the way in which you attempt to ‘use’ this s a means of battering/bettering other commentrs here is both childish,
For your info the only animal i eat is fish, BUT, shock-horror, once a week i go to the local take-away and have a yummy bacon and egg burger, oh god think of the poor piggy being badly raised in it’s sty just so i can consume a small part of it’s back leg, it just makes me want to sob…
gee bad..
..yr ignorances are as wide as they are deep..eh..?
..and seeing you are so liberal with the ad homs..
..a fat unhealthy fuck..aren’t ya..?
..and which decade are you in..?
..in yr to-be-fore-shortened life..
..’cos if the baccy doesn’t get you..
..the bacon/cheese/fat will..
..and the combination..?
..washed down with a few beers..eh..?
..puff-puff-glug-glug-chew-chew..eh..?
..(and you sneer @ vegan health-freak ex-junkies..?..seriously..?..)
..bad..this is yr life..
..and that is kinda sad..
..got diabetes yet..?
..heading there..?
..phillip ure..
AW Phillip, your remarks are just sooo cutting that they hurt, actually your latest effort at the English language which you also fail miserably at is akin to the well used wet bus ticket except of course in your case the arm swinging it is that of a true whimp,
Funnily enough having puffed on the baccy for the best part of 44 odd years 20+ a day and 20 of those smoking unfiltered boob weed you would think that i would be truly a candidate to be riddled with the big C,
Sorry to disappoint you tho Phillis recent blood tests and x-rays show nothing amiss, except the bizarre case of the missing osteophyte from the lip of L4 on the lumbar spine, bizarre being that as a piece of bone growth they don’t just disappear, especially ones as large as that one appeared to be,
Yes i know Phillis, 1 bacon and egg burger a week is so sacrilegious in your wee tiny world view you actually think that such can damage my or anyone’s health, perhaps it’s not so much a belief of yours Phillis but a wish because in your wee mind that craves those drugs so fiercely every day you transfer your self hate onto those around you who do not agree with your bizarre views or the heroic self image you attempt to portray by ‘pretending’ to be drug free,
As to your question of alcohol, no. fish, vege, brown rice, multi grain bread, whole wheat flour, fruit, that’s my diet,
With of course that fucking yummy bacon and egg burger once a week,Salurpies big time,
By the way Phillis, what exactly did you do with this masters degree, it seems you simply wasted the resources of the education system to get this degree and now you spend all your time online pontificating about shit very few people care about and if the truth was only known very few read either,
That masters degree certainly didn’t stop you driveling like the village idiot in barely understandable sentences and i would suggest all in all you might as well have remained a whining junky at least the smack would have shut you up on the odd occasion,
In conclusion you seem to have wasted your life first on being a junky and secondly on gaining a masters degree which you appear to have put to no good use whatsoever…
I think we need to understand why he went back to using heroin before we can make any judgement at all. After 23 years, I don’t think it was the addiction that had him going back.
Fair point Draco, and perhaps the question ties in with my comment below about the nature of the Afghan poppy crop,
Perhaps among His peer group use of the drug is more common than we know of and being subjected to ‘rave reviews’ of the latest Afghan originated product had Him curious enough to have a taste,
i have one friend, now a P head, who started using Heroin in His teens, He has been re-habbed a number of times in the past 30 years and while telling anyone who cared to listen that He was ‘drug-free’ continued to use whenever He could source the drug going to some quite extraordinary lengths at times trying to create the product out of other peoples flowers half inched from their gardens…
Ad, perhaps, then again this years supply out of Afghanistan might have hit the retail market in a far more pure form than previously,
There has to be a ‘reason’ why such a mountainous inhospitable country has been the target of invasion down through the centuries and in reality the only commodity of great value produced there being the opium poppy looks in my opinion to be ‘it’,
You could say that the logical reason for the refusal to leave Afghansitan by the US is to stop the Taliban from again taking control of the country,
Then again it was the Taliban along with it’s ‘other crimes’ who stopped the production from the poppy fields, creating a serious dent in the supply of the ‘best’ heroin to be produced anywhere in the world,
Under US occupation the production of heroin from the production of the Afghan poppy fields has grown exponentially the longer the US has remained, it’s a multi billion dollar industry with even the brother of the Afghan Prez,(looking after the Prez’s interests perhaps???),said to be involved,
Think the CIA’s Air America of the Indo-China wars with a rational decision having been made by those marketing the product to not have it flood the streets ‘it’ being reserved as the province of the elite…
Ad
What about Rob Hall who called his wife from Everest where he was going to die, leaving her with their children to bring up alone. Wasn’t he selfish, not giving up on his addiction to climbing high lumps of rock topped with snow, a dangerous, harsh climate and location? Once he had children wouldn’t a good man have denied himself that risk-taking activity?
good call.
True addiction (not pu’s obsession with veganism) is something that I’m incredibly glad I’ve not yet had on my back (even my involuntary tobacco-free periods are not overly painful). As I understand it, Hoffman was clean for 20-odd years and it still came back to bite him in the arse.
We aren’t talking about someone being selfish and ignoring people who love him – as I understand it from people close to me, addiction is a fog that blinds you to everything except your weakness, a fog that you need to constantly beat back and fight simply in order to function as a human being. And sometimes it envelopes you anyway, especially if you are tired or it can hide something painful to be aware of.
there but for the grace of quantum uncertainty, I guess 🙂
+1
And I have noticed in myself and others I know how we seem to have an addictive response to much in life. It is tremendously hard to change direction, stop eating too much, drinking, whatever seems to be the norm for us even when it is counter-productive.
And the way that others relate to us, some get strokes from succeeding in sport and will play with broken bits in the body, ruin their health immediately or later as they become aged. Some get a kick from stirring up others, and being different from the common herd, and some are committed to better ways and only addiction to that idea keeps them sacrificing their working and leisure time for
the big goal, rather than their own advancement.
Some people here will be interested in the radio report on residues in food. Safe food campaign – imported grapes with about 35 different detected residues – local watchdog says incredibly small amounts, just as safe to eat as organic food! This, says official outfit Ag something like Agcarm, is just scaremongering (by greenies).
I certainly believe in quality of life over quantity – quite the hedonist, me.
The trouble with addiction is that it drags you back even when you don’t feel good doing it – I know an alcoholic who normally keeps it within social limits, but every year or two slips into levels that are disgraceful. Now, I tend to be a dick when drunk, too, but this person has that “shame” thing going on, where they wake up the next day and are mortified, and periodically hit a sub-basement of behaviour (if not rock-bottom) that drives them sober for a while.
Me, not so much.
That person I would say is largely enslaved by their addiction. Me, I’m more of a dick, regardless of any chemical dependency. My level of addiction does not outweigh my sense of shame or what I would like for a better quality of life. Their level of addiction brings down their quality of life and their ability to function in society.
“there but for the grace of quantum uncertainty, I guess”
love it!
so..mcflock..you are addicted to tobacco..?
..but you have never had a ‘true-addiction’..?
..who are you trying to kid..?..yrslf..?
..and i’ll bet the thought of not being able to eat flesh/fat makes you break out in a cold-sweat..
..eh..?
..you do know what defines ‘addiction’..don’t you..?
..and..like a beer..?..do we..?
.philip ure..
Phil, my point is that I’ve never tried to quit. To steal from Milton, I might be regarded as “To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds Timorous and slothful”.
I embrace my lifestyle, all my habits are at a level where the cost is an acceptable exchange for the quality of life.
To compare that with people I know whose addictions do take an unacceptable toll on their quality of life yet they cannot stop that habit would be hypocritical sympathy-seeking. I’ve never mortgaged the family home to finance a habit, I’ve never destroyed relationships with people I love, and I’ve never ended up in jail, because of my addictions. I just roll along, chillaxed about most things and with not a care or responsibility in the world. In that I am very lucky.
Willingly partaking of a bad habit is not “addiction”. Addiction is when you can’t stop when you try. I almost certainly do have chemical dependencies on one or two things, but I’ve never felt them to any degree because my appetites for them are largely satiated at a socially and financially and personally acceptable level. Although the latest tax hike has tweaked my tobacco habits a touch, I’m not losing sleep over it.
re.. ‘the quality of life’..
..from smoking/drinking/gorging on fat/flesh..?
..preferably all @ once..?
..this is a ‘good time’..eh..?
..and you call that a ‘quality’ life..?
..really..?
..you haven’t lived yet..eh..?
..on so so many levels..
..and yes..i’ve been where you are now..
..but maybe more so..
..and seriously..!
..get a life..!..eh..?
..phillip ure..
I eat the babies of sheep and drink rich liquors, and when finish inhale the smoke of burning leaves, and yes that is delightful to me.
And dude, if you’d found a higher state of being you wouldn’t be such a sanctimonious prick.
By the way, the topic was addiction. Learn to focus. I’m drunk – what’s your excuse?
Lolz mac, that’s funny…
This “whoar” thing could be spelt “war” sometimes..
Ad, you may be right, but what would you have done to help Mr. Hoffman stop using heroin? Unless you have a solution to discuss, your comment is not particularly helpful.
Philip …I find what you say interesting ie it does give an understanding of the terrible addiction factor…
Mallory Manning the beautiful young woman murdered by the Mongrel Mob in Christchurch was on the methadone treatment and was working as a prostitute….but refused to pay the Mongrel Mob a portion of her earnings for working on Manchester St ….the Mongrel Mob regarded this street as their patch and demanded money from all the prostitutes working here.
I have always thought that although prostitution should be legal for women self employed working from their homes or a house …..it should be illegal for pimps and illegal on the public streets…apart from being a public nuisance …..it is dangerous , even more dangerous without policing
@ chooky..
..i think the cops were somewhere else..
..on the night..
..chasing pot..
..probably..
..that’s so much easier than protecting prostitutes from mob-stand-over..
..eh..?
..phillip ure..
They should have been chasing meat and flesh addicts..
..eh?..
Phil I thought you might like this – it seems once again Marijuana is a wonder drug that can fix the irrecoverable.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/11/marijuana-hiv_n_4767901.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037&ir=Politics
Let not get into a discussion on the environmental aspects of growing hemp.
Instead, lets just look at how good it is as a drug in medicine.
chrs 4 that adam..i have used it @ whoar..
..here is the headline in adams’ link..
“..Marijuana May Stop The Spread Of HIV – Study Finds..”
..phillip ure..
Interesting changes ahead for RadioNZ National might help make the old favorite more listenable with hopefully a more robust debate on the issues of the day being the end result,
Pity ‘Nine to Noon’ isn’t suffering the same revamp as in my opinion it’s become a bland irrelevancy where issues of the day are treated with scant regard while ‘candy floss’ becomes topics of intense scrutiny, obviously the lack of National Government Ministerial involvement in the ‘hot’ issues of the day sadly devalue the content of the program, but, as a reason not to have intense political debate the non-show of the Government to put their views should never be a ‘reason’ not to have the political debate on air as an ongoing conversation,
Mora’s ‘movement’ a sign of abysmal ratings, or the pressure of the ongoing commentary of a critical nature much of which has been published right here???…
Interesting.
Where did you find this bad12?
JS, sorry my linking is really ‘bad’, the ‘movements’ at RadioNZ National were detailed on the Herald On-line this morning…
Ta,
Sounds like an improvement.
JS, Lolz, hopefully, an improvement that is, Mora on checkpoint for those horrified by the idea might not be too bad as checkpoint is more ‘straight news’ than magazine type program,
Shorter too which is a bonus, i usually listen to the first half hour of checkpoint and then switch to the TV news,(possibly just as brain damaging as listening to Mora all afternoon)…
Here you are
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11200279
And here is RNZ’s own item on the changes
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/235854/changes-at-radio-new-zealand
Personally, I am happy to see Mercep off Morning Report as he annoys me intensely; but if he takes over in the afternoons from Mora that is just shuffling the deck chairs IMO.
The possibility of Mora on Checkpoint appals me ………..
@ veuto..
..+ 1..
..phillip ure..
Ta. Still the fact that there will be significantly less of Mora has got to be a boon.
I see the reasonaing is to soften or offset mary’s perceived interview technique.
That saddens me. I was hoping she was moving to morning report. I don’t care who the person is, they need to have their views drilled down, and Mary does that. Reminds of Kim Hill.
I think the reasoning is mostly to lighten the load for Wilson on CP. It’s got to be hard yakka.
I doubt it will ‘soften’ the show much. Good cop, bad cop is tougher than bad cop.
who will be the good cop?
@ tracey..
..yeah..mary’s good at her job..
..phillip ure..
+1 Tracey. Mary the best.
Mary is the best so why spoil it by including Mora – programme will soon go down.
What is he going to do that Mary has not been able to do.
Unless Mary is lined up for better things closer to the election.
Radio NZ announced these changes themselves via a news item I caught while driving home from work yesterday evening. I’m pleased that Susie Ferguson has been mooted for Morning Report. I can’t quite figure out how the hybrid Mora/Wilson The Panel/Checkpoint thing is going to work out?
Nine to Noon is great…..Katherine Ryan is great!
@ chooky..
um..!..no..!
..the relentless neo-lib-defence/fox-talking-points trotted out by ryan..
..have driven me to pandora for those hours..
..in fact..national radio is close to losing me..
..i will try breakfast again when the new combo starts..
..but i haven’t been able to listen to mercep..
..and with both ryan and mora..
..i will have a listen as to what they are doing..
..and less and less..are they keeping me there..
..and that panel-discourse has..most days..
..just gone from merely bad/simplistic/relentlessly far-rightwing..
..to almost cartoonish..
..it is all so tired/cliched/well-worn/endlessly-repeated..
..you could almost have a drinking-game..
..guessing the exact words of the nominated panelists’ answers..
..phillip ure..
Phillip, totally agree, i tune most of Ryan out where it becomes simply background noise, which is a pity because on the odd ocassion that there is something of interest being talked about i miss half of it,
Lolz, i have taken to doing silent penance all afternoon when Mora is on…
i turn off Mora but listen to Ryan
From the Herald link
* Geoff Robinson retiring from Morning Report, to be replaced by Guyon Espiner.
* Simon Mercep moving to Afternoons show. Current host Jim Mora joins Checkpoint with Mary Wilson.
* Susie Ferguson tipped to join Espiner on Morning Report.
I haven’t seen Guy Espiner lately. What do others know about him, his approach, and his leanings?
I have heard Susie Ferguson. Was it her that was critical of the Maori protests spoiling the Waitangi Day commemorations?
I don’t know why you bad12 are so hot against Ryan. We can’t have a pure news radio station. You are overlooking the fact that she has the sort of wide knowledge needed to interview the world, and is interested in so much, and the ability to sound pleasant and speak clearly for hours. She can and does ask hard questions and not that noticeably centre right, and is far superior to Jim Mora in this.
As for Checkpoint, Mary Wilson does it well and works her life around it. Going to those very early mornings, might have been a bridge too far. I wonder if she was asked?
And I can’t imagine that Mora will add anything that improves the output from that slot. The other way. He is good with people, chat about locations, interesting people, and appreciated for his support for musicians. Can’t he have an hour doing that in the afternoons, and perhaps a piece on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Then he could get some work on commercial radio to bring his hours up.
Greywarbler,ok then seeing as i have not been specific i will do so, my main complaint regarding Ryan, besides the ‘candyfloss’ which seems to be the hallmark of Her show is that on a number of occasions when discussing political matters of the day,(not with Hooton and Williams), there has been blah blah about the issue,
Then, we get a statement from Ryan that X National Government Minister was invited to speak to the issue but refused,
End result, the issue is not further discussed which leaves Ryan as the ‘enabler’ of the National Government’s killing of issues that either their Ministers cannot stand up to scrutiny over and/or are of an embarrassing nature to the present Government,
My view is that Ryan should have simply invited opposition MP’s to also discuss the issue and if the National Government Ministers still refuse to front tough on them,
To be fair perhaps i am only looking at the symptoms and it may now be that stations policy that if the relevant Government Minister declines to appear then the issue is allowed to die…
Good point Bad12 I noticed that bit about them – the NACTs not turning up – so we’ll go onto the next item.
I agree they should have them both lined up. And go on with the one that is left. That would make the shy ones more inclined to find the time!
I wish you would write that down and respectfully send it to Radionz pointing out that you are a politics junkie and a connosieur of interviews and think this would be the appropriate measure to ensure that the subject gets aired in a timely fashion. And don’t tell me to do it as I do write the odd email suggestion myself, can’t always be at it.
For you other anti-Mora people, I fell over laughing at this Twitter thread by Giovanni Tiso yesterday re Mora (hope the link works as I am only just coming to grips with Twitter)
https://twitter.com/gtiso/status/433039033304772608
PS – you have to click on the link in the comment re Rachel’s comment to see it. IT was “Burn the house down”.
Says it all!
Unfortunately Ryan is a ‘3rd Wayer’ thru’ and thru’ . It’s often a trendy leftie’s way of coming across as ‘fair and balanced’. (Shades of Rosemary McLeod). Ryan, I suspect (along with producer) is not above recommending spots for mates and accomplices.
Politically – she’s becoming really tiresome – never forgetting to mention, on occasion, her time in ‘the Gallery’ – as if that were some badge of honour.
She’s obviously managed to negotiate very generous leave entitlements – I only wish it was permanent so that the usual locum (Lyn Freeman) could take over – except that would take her away from “Standing Room Only”
@ tim..
..aye..freeman is also ‘good’
..she is mistress of the the use of ‘the silence’..
..is quite relaxed about using a mini-sound vaccuum to spur the interviewer to reveal/say more..
..unlike ryan..who seems to sit there waiting for her opportunity to interrupt..
..freeman lets interview subjects say/finish what they are trying to say..
..it is a skill that is rare amongst interviewers..
..and i listen to nine-to-noon..if freeman is relieving..
..phillip ure..
@ bad..
..end yr ‘silent-penance’..
..go seek pandora/spotify..
..it’s free..
..and to my mind the biggest buzz from these online radio streams (that you choose/tweak at will..and simple as to set up..even i could do it..)..
..you rediscover the delights of/from finding music that you really dig..
..that you didn’t know existed..
..and that is pretty cool..
..(bless those little algorithms..!..eh..?..)
..another great feature of these streams..(i have 35 different genre-streams..that i have on shuffle..)…is that there is a thumbs-down button on yr screen..
..so..should a song play you don’t like..you can down-thumb it..
..and the next song will then start..
..and..(once again..those clever algorithms)..that track will never play again on yr stream..
..how cool is that..?..eh..?
phillip ure..
.
phillip ure….”the relentless neo-lib-defence/fox-talking-points trotted out by ryan”
…um no you are wrong!!!!
….interviewers can not simply do a doctrinaire party political broadcast
….interviewers have to ask questions from the other side…… and the Neo Lib side… as that is most predominant ‘other side’ ( devil side) in society under NACT
… interviewers have to ask questions from the opposing point of view …..particularly the side they dont agree with personally…..in order to elicit the information for the listener….who then makes up their own mind.
……listen carefully to Katherine Ryan’s programme and you pick up a lot of useful information
…as regards Matthew Hooton(right) versus (left)Mike Williams( which is no real ‘versus’ at all)….there does need to be a stronger voice articulating the Left viewpoint….a Hone Harawira or Jim Anderton or Sue Bradford or Jane Kelsey for example
….that said, I quite like Mike Williams as a soft left liberal
@ chooky..
..i fully understand the oppositional-interview…
..but ryan lacks subtlety using that..(and the fox-talking-points are a step too far..)
..and ryan also has a problem letting interviews take on their own lives..and maybe going in directions not predicted by the question-list..
..(something hill is the mistress of..)
..and a conversation/interview will be getting really interesting..
..and ryan will miss all those signals..
..and will just blunder on in with her next prepared-question/fox news talking-point..
..and i like yr bradford/kelsey call..
..and totally disagree with you re williams..
..the man is drenched/soaked in hubris..
..phillip ure..
Kathryn Ryan is a very good interviewer…very subtle and allows her interviewees to speak freely in a warm environment
like Kim Hill also …different interview style…more confrontational but great
….in the end no one radio person can satisfy all listeners…..and in the end I even came to appreciate Jim Mora’s style…even although he is a tad too conservative and middle of the road for my tastes
Christ! – I hope you’re not putting Ryan in the same category as Hill are you?
Whilst I agree Ryan “allows her interviewees to speak freely in a warm environment”, that environment is often very warm and cosy to some, whilst not others.
You should go back (way way back) over some of those “From the Right, and From the not-so-Right” spots and do a content analysis some time. It’s only when a Hooter throws a complete hissy fit does she pull it up and allow a “not-so-Right” to get a word in edgeways or anyways.
But ……. no doubt she’ll be a future candidate for an ONZ for services to narrowcasting.
You don’t happen to know her do you Chooky? It’s just that I’m surprised at your appraisal of her.
Tim
You make some points I agree with. But I wonder are you an armchair interviewer? Or perhaps you think she is not as good as she should be after all her time in the job.
But the political pair – which goes pear-shaped for me – I think that she sees her role as to move through the topics set for the day, and not to be interfering, to be in the background. I think that is why she lets them go, they are to be free to discuss and she stops them when they go too long or get over-heated!
no i dont know her…and i dont know Kim Hill…and i dont know anybody …i live far ,far away across many hills and mountains ….us chooks only know chooks
….if you listen to Ryan’s programme you can hear some pretty interesting and occasionally very radical stuff…..at least as radical and thought provoking as Kim Hill…(.i am not talking about Hooton versus Williams…she just lets Hooton run at the mouth….and I have to say i like listening to Possum because he gives you an idea how he and the Right are spinning ….but he does need a sharper Left opponent … maybe Jane Kelsey or Sue Bradford or Jim Anderton? ( dont know that you can blame Ryan for Williams…maybe she didnt choose him )
Chooky – I agree her interviewing skills aren’t too shabby and I find her guests interesting – RIGHT up until the time politics become involved.
E.G. – very interesting stuff on caving (for example) recently, OR her dealing with the ‘Countdown’ issssyooo.
It’s just that her ‘3rd way ‘bent’ (aka prejudice) begins to show when politics are involved.
I think (as far as I can work out, I’m perhaps 2 or 3 degrees removed). NOT bloody far enough.
I’m just really tired of our so called ‘MSM’ generally – which with a few exceptions is increasingly a band of hacks who’ve engineered a certain comfort zone that no longer keeps them on their toes and doesn’t do much for what we expect. PSB should, by its very nature, challenge the status quo, investigate, AND take risks – whether it’s in news and current affairs, the arts, or in providing educational material.
RNZ does quite a good job on weekends – weekDAYS its become trite/hackneyed/boring/comfortable.
I’m sorry, but her (Rinny RyRy) ‘space’ in the media has come about by what we would once have called an ‘old boy network’ which has allowed her a very generous position in public service broadcasting, AND which is also increasingly letting old boys to roll out their spin. (Sorry Geoff R – but same shit different stink with Yawning Report too)
I’m somewhat encouraged, and SURPRISED at recent changes (long overdue) at RNZ btw – they leave ninetonoon unaffected – but I suspect that’s Stage 2.
The BBC of course is going through much of the same. Unfortunately we’re slightly worse off in that we only have ONE PSB radio network and nothing on TV (aside from Maori TV with which I had some involvement before it went to air)
Funding is of course an issue.
But …..
we should have
…. a news and current affairs network along with programmes of general interest
—- Concert FM delivering more than it does
…… something LIKE ‘the Wireless” delivering what it does over the airwaves along with NZ and indigenous music
AT THE VERY LEAST.
Same with TV
….. TVNZ7 plus more over more than 1 PSB network and NOT simply Maori TV – as good as it is (and btw – TVNZ could get some ‘learnings’ (:p) from the way it manages to deliver on the size of its budget.
BUT…..
….. when was the last time you saw the NZSO, or the NZ Opera or Ballet on Air (TV), OR NZ bands, and up and coming musicians and artists being represented – given live airtime, OR even a roundup of news headlines from our P.I. neighbours (given Auckland’s demographic), OR local/regional news and info other than that provided by (say SIT).AND I mean on Free-to-Air.
I’m getting side-tracked I know – but I sincerely hope when there is a change of gubbamint, and a wee way down the track, those occupying those comfy little pozzies don’t feign surprise when they get necked. Flogging off publicly funded intellectual property (for example) for pay TV profit (e.g. Heartland); allowing monopolistic and anti-competitive broadcast behaviour…. (actually very EASILY fixed)
anyway …. change is in the queue and I’m hoping it becomes a priority. The ‘in crowd’ aren’t going to be too happy – but fuck ’em – the medium exists for the public and NOT as a platform for taking various egos for a walk.
@ Tim…I think i agree with you wholeheartedly….the media could be so much, much, more than it is….and therefore the populace could be lifted to new levels
..i think you should write a post on it
…i guess i gave up on tv.long ago ..generally watch videos/tv drama series from videos/documentaries/music from video …i dont even watch tv news …so i dont get angry about tv any more ( i do watch tv at election times however)
….as regards radio…K Ryan, Kim Hill, Chris Laidlaw , Morning Report, mid-day news, Checkpoint and nothing else
…K.Ryan is not too bad…she walks a fine line…..eg.from one of her interviews I learned that Goldman Sachs was reviewing /evaluating Kiwi Bank…..this was well before it was discussed on this site ( in fact i brought it up here, because I wanted to know what other’s knew about it ….and they didnt)….. there are a lot of gems underneath the easy listening patina of nine to noon…and I dont think K.Ryan is at all conservative.
Fascinating to do such restructuring in an election year.
Am reading Hager’s Hollow Men” again.
He has some interesting evidence of the right’s attitutde toward the media. It’s not a conspiracy to suspect manipulation. Admittedly Hager never suggests (so far that I can recall) that media were complicit in it per se. Obviously Joyce’s networks in private radio would be large.
“In my book The Hollow Men, when the ACT Party campaign manager Brian Nicolle was privately coordinating a leadership coup for Don Brash within the National Party, he identified private radio as especially sympathetic to the right. “We need to target key talkback hosts in [Newstalk] ZB and [Radio] Pacific,” he wrote to Brash, “there are plenty sympathetic.” The plan was to “produce some common lines that become the ‘mantra’ on your journey to become leader of National and the country” (p. 47)”
@ tracey..+ 1..
..there is also the fact that the right media help each other/work in unison..
..whereas the left-media that does exist..
..largely..is so shit at acknowledging each others’ work/efforts..
..eh..?
..that is getting a little better..but not much..
..phillip ure..
I like the diverse styles of Kathryn, Kim, Jim, Brian and Mary and the diverse content and am even getting used to Simon’s feverish style. Much better than the shock dicks on commercial (retard) radio, and Paul Henry Z z z z z z yawn!
Don’t think I’d like to be married to Mary and her interrogations though..she’s frightening.
David Cunliffe good on National Radio this morning….sounded strong and confident!
….talking about Charter Schools receiving a hell of a lot more money than State Schools of equivalent size or larger
….and why all the closures of small State Schools( because they cost too much or were inefficient) to be replaced by small Charter Schools?….which will end up poaching from neighbouring State Schools….causing more decline in State Schools..(.that was the gist I think)
Yes a good point from David Cunliffe this morning, Charter schools $40,000 per pupil per year, State schools $7000 per pupil per year,
National/ACT robbing the public purse to splash out largesse on the Political Sideshow of Charter schools…
…not an innocent political sideshow either….but a deliberate piece of social engineering designed ultimately to undermine State secular free high quality education …..and in the end subvert New Zealand democracy
….cunning plan by Neo Lib Capitalists originating in USA to privatise NZ education
Can’t disagree with you there, the other point of note is that education being heavily unionized is simply a target for Tories,
But as you say the wider plan is to insert the ‘private sector’ as ticket clippers in some way shape or form into all aspects of the Governments ‘spend’, the obvious result of that is taxpayers will pay more to receive less…
FTFY
we’re already there. Been feudal again since about 1992.
Ad ignorance is bliss .
Some people have highly addictive personalities.
With multipule addictions like Seymore Hoffman.
These personality types tend to be able to get rid of one addiction only to be taken over by other addictions.
Money addiction ie hoarding money can be an addiction never satisfied with how much you have.
In my work helping with fostering children and helping street children parental multipule addictions are very common are virtually impossible to sort out.
@..tricledown..
..aye..
..many narcotics users turn to alcohol when/if they kick the junk..
..(and debatable which is worse..)
..i myself have been addicted to tobacco/alcohol/heroin/cocaine/mandrax/downers/crack-cocaine/animal-flesh/fat/bye-products..(‘jonesing’ for cheese..?..anyone..?..)..
..i am currently a non-user of all the above..
(and am fast becoming addicted to sit-ups etc..perhaps the healthiest of all the other addiction-options on offer..i feel..)
..but i also have to say that of all the above..
..that the only one i still have to maintain vigilance/personal-dialogue/arguments about..
..is heroin..
..(the thought of a cocaine-bender just makes me feel like a cup of tea and a wee lie-down..
..it’s a very ‘tiring’ drug..that one..
..and crack-cocaine..?..whoar..!..the most scary/obsessive of all of them..)
..and of course..all those reading this who ‘jones’ for any of the above..
..(just sallivate at the thought of that cold beer..or six..eh..?..
..or a cheesy-whatever..?..)
..all those people are in denial about their current health/life-threatening addictions..
..so really..
..who reading this is not addicted to multiples of the above..?
..phillip ure..
Careful Phil! I mean switching bad addictions for good ones is not necessarily a bad thing, but just be careful that at anytime it can jump up and bite you in the bum – that’s if a tumor or cancer doesn’t get you first.
I’m just glad you didn’t find religion – altho’ if that works for you, all good too!
Big Huey
High voter turn-out may increase votes for the right
The traditional non-vote in Europe is as likely to benefit the radical right as the centre-left. This analysis of Norway’s election suggests the radical right message resonates with the working class.
Similarly in Austria the young voted far right in big numbers in the 2013 election.
The centre-left can’t rely on pulling these traditional non-voters. I guess there are two options – ignore the non-voters – hope they stay at home and try to grab more of the centre (the Shearer option), or head further to the left to create a more radical message that resonates a least as much as that of the far right. Such as the radical left in Greece.
Obviously NZ has its unique make-up, but the voter dissatisfaction with the status quo is similar. National’s Waitangi whistles can also be interpreted as a grab for the traditional working class non-voter, imo.
Exactly. Nothing short of a real alternative is ever going to work for people who are most cynical about the status quo.
Look at the working class support for the tea-party. It may be a case of turkeys supporting an early christmas, but at least it’s not supporting more of exactly the same bullshit. “Deer hunting with Jesus – dispatches from America’s Class War” is well worth a read, imo.
More Bullshit spin from the MSM.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11200232
How do we counter this rubbish being printed ona a daily basis.
start your own broadsheet.
look no further than ‘The Clinic’ from Chile for inspiration and get right to it!
Daily basis? The Salvation Army’s annual ‘state of the nation’ report?
Are you objecting to the report itself or the Heralds’s presentation of it?
MSM
Which bits are objectionable?
the bits owned by fairfax, for a start.
You answered your own question.
And that would be the reason for the “improving” economy – more debt means more money and thus more spending. Obviously this is just as sustainable as it was before the GFC and so we can expect another crash sometime in the future driven by the private banks reckless lending and which we will have to bailout once again.
No, the best one to use is the median income which was, according to StatsNZ, $844 (salary and wage earners) and $575 from all sources.
The headline is misleading – with almost everything getting a C rating or less about the best that could be said was that things were staying about the same – maybe.
My comments re the Paul Henry Show and the interview with Dean Barker (I put it on the wrong post) is now up online Herald anyway.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11200293
Did barker really blame dalton for agreeing to a lay day?
Looks like a good read whatever your politics…
http://www.mqup.ca/democracy-in-decline-products-9780773543508.php
A bit disturbing grumpy. I wonder how much the super multinationals restrict our NZ democracy. Or the big Banks for that matter.
Interesting that the author (deliberately or inadvertently) picked the “Five Eyes” members.
Looks like a pretty even handed approach. Note he also covers things like international trade agreements etc.
I have ordered my copy.
The book is published by McGill University, so the author is quite likely to be Canadian. If so his focus on the five eyes countries is not surprising.
” five of the world’s oldest democracies – the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. – See more at: http://www.mqup.ca/democracy-in-decline-products-9780773543508.php#sthash.6Ro4jrh4.dpuf
Which just goes to show how young democracy is, and how short a time, if any, it has actually involved genuine freedom.
Or more accurately….it shows how young the governance structures we use are and yet they have routinely descended into overt authoritarianism. (1930s Germany, Chile 1970s, Spain 1930s…a list as long as a toilet roll if we were to exhaustive. And then those wonderful little ‘markers’, such as the Red Scares of the early 1900s and the 50s in the USA, tanks on Scottish streets post WWI, 50s lockout in NZ….basically another list as long as a toilet roll )
edit – I totally misread your comment, aye? Oh well, as a short illustrative list to underscore your point then 😉
whoa – Germany, yeah maybe. Chile? Outright coup d’etat that destroyed the democratic governance structures. Spain I’d need to look into to see if Franco got elected before letting loose with his army.
“Social and political decisions, Allan argues, must be based on counting every adult in a nation state as equal . – See more at: http://www.mqup.ca/democracy-in-decline-products-9780773543508.php#sthash.6Ro4jrh4.dpuf”
This is why privately nats and their supporters pretend they are joking when they say a dictatorship is much more efficient than a democraccy.
We saw a bit of it in Henry’s patronisingly elitist comment about dumb people not being aallowed to votes. Funny thing is NACT supporters assume it could never include them.
Looks like an interesting book – asked Auckland Libraries to get it.
Found this – thought is was good
Be warned this clip is not-for-the-pc inclined.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=404516989568534
Brings the realities of fanciful ideologies back to earth eh?
What’s politically incorrect about that?
I think you are getting ‘not PC’ mixed up with ‘Nor Safe For Work’
Enjoyed it.
I heard the Salvation Army spokesperson speaking on child poverty this morning. When they speak they should hone in on comments from pollies and point out the woolliness of the comment, and then give the facts about the poor conditions they want addressed by the pollies. What a contrast that would be woolly PR puff and gritty reality and a mention of a success already achieved that needs to be replicated. They can even talk about real people as long as they remain anonymous and are not identifiable.
After Poorer Benefit’s little puff piece about NZ being one of best and most generous in the world for welfare, and far better than most of the world, he could have said ‘Which parts of the world are those exactly?’
And ‘I can’t agree with that on the information that I have.’
This morning he just made the general comment, correctly, that it is not the amount of money that is given, it is what you can buy with it. But there were too many indirect comments that could have fitted into a ‘blame the beneficiary for bad management’, if that was the attitude of the listener.
Was a good interview
From Scoop : “But The Salvation Army remains deeply concerned at the lack of progress in reducing child poverty, family violence, the harmful use of alcohol, and the failure to address criminal re-offending and serious crime.”
I don’t think the radio interview came up with enough. There has to be more than just a constant repetition of – looking at the ‘underlying causes of poverty’ and talking about child abuse.
The bigoted go straight to – ahha that’s all those feckless breeders having babies when they can’t make enough effort to get a job so they take the easy way out and get pregnant, and then can’t do a decent job of that and it ends in child abuse from their latest boyfriend, and they are incapable of getting out of poverty because of their own slackness and then they get into fights and fall out with their boyfriends and then there is domestic violence.
The worth and value of most female beneficiaries never gets recognised also the fact that so much opportunity is withheld from them, which would change much of the above if offered.
These would be largely polytechnic courses or the like where they could learn with their children in a playgroup in the room. Studying NCEA units in helpful stuff, then later the former training incentives where they either learn, or maintain their useful employment skills ie word processing, computer program use, phone and reception communication, and trade skills, and they would gain more benefit with each new NCEA unit.
Helping in a practical way with transport – having a small bus doing a circuit picking up mothers and children to go to class and returning them. Or having a large taxi with a contract to do it. Bringing in medical checks for the family while training.
The emphasis would be to lift the self-expectations, the skills, the life training, and limit the loneliness and the isolation and drudgery of poverty with little joy and hope, that can result in a peer group of people with no ideas on how to better that.
There needs to be an emphasis on loss of potential to society, on the way these women would achieve all the things society wants from them, if given the assistance while their children were small and to find the steps to volunteer or part-time work, with income top-ups.
The bulk of them have been in relationships for some years, are older, had the children in those relationships and have then been left holding all the responsibility for both parents. I don’t know that you can assume they are undereducated or less able and it may be patronising to do so.
Given the workload that many carry, the amount of money they provide for their children’s needs-most, the successful relationships they have with their families, the lack of any serious criminal offending (ACT & Nact MP’s provide more criminals % wise) and lack of addictions, they are in fact among the most successful adults in our society.
The basic problem is that they are trying to do what two parents do, face highly conflicting objectives (work but don’t leave the kids home alone), while being harried by the welfare. None of this of course applies to the adult who dodges their responsibilities and their must be a good case for turning WINZ loose on them..
Or we could just give them a bit more money and stop making their choices for them. Most of them were competent adults before they became single parents and they didn’t lose that overnight.
This article about charter schools by Pat Booth should be emailed to all Right Wing MPs, especially to the dirty rat Banksie, Hekia and ShonKey:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/local-blogs/off-pat/9703915/Whos-done-the-homework
The British police have apparently adopted or trialled body cameras and have referred to domestic incidents as where they are useful. NZ police are thinking of them too. If the economy and sharing of the wealth of our nation more fairly, does not improve, there will be more domestic incidents as people have to carve out a lesser sort of life from the unpromising hard-faced society that encloses them.
It could happen, if the country is going to slide further into increased poverty and under-privilege, that some areas will undertake to police themselves. This was the case in the poor area of Naples which Thomas Belmonte studied. And also Harlem in New York. Taxis would not go there.
A band of men who are under contract to police for the state, and if that state has no concept of service to all the people, will be people who become a burden and source of anguish and anxiety to those people as they operate. Their interest will be mainly in serving the wealthy, and they will be biased towards property protection (as I understand they already are). The poor people may well find a way to effectively bar them from some suburban enclaves, which has probably happened already with gangs to some extent.
Quick thinking for self-preservation? The man in control of hang-gliders’ safety at a departure point in Canada, when he saw his last ‘pilot’ plummet, swallowed his video memory card! She fell 300 metres because he did not ensure she was properly shackled, and he did not find that because he did not do a safety check before flight. It might be that anyone embarking on some hazardous activity where a small company has great responsibility, should say ‘what are the safety check practices you carry out’ and then ensure each one has been done.
Over 200,000 signatures for the Today we fight back effort.
Degrees of bratwoorst ne c’est pas?
Judith Collins called Metira Turei a “sensitive wee sausage” over her reaction to the clothing issue.
Yesterday I thought Collins appeared more as a “very angry snarler” when asked by journalists about the opposition’s discussions with KDC.
+1 😀
Perhaps sausages (and pies) coming to the fore in NZs minds says something about how entwined they are into our psyche.
Could have a scoring system as to who deserves the most bad marks, with sausages or pies denoting different classes of transgression. ‘That was a cream pie’ winner, or definitely a Double Brat-worst for that pollie’. We could get quite inventive with the fillings too and make it a discriminating feast of insults.
lol
Economists with hurt feelings
It seems that some macro-economists are upset that the BS that they’re peddling isn’t being taken as gospel any more.
but it seems to me that, rather than making a trade-off between realism and tractability, modern macroeconomics has simply made an a priori decision that coordination problems are not a relevant macroeconomic concern.
As I read through this link from DTB, I thank God that I was able to take some late-in-life university papers which brought my reading ability to a higher level so that a collection of multi-syllable words in a discussion about the abstruse argument that is economics, did not immediately set me running to the backyard with a crushing sense of inferiority and redundancy. Instead I am sitting still typing this at the computer. But my ability has now improved to the extent that I believe that I am justified in feeling irritability.
As I read more about economics I begin to understand the mind of man is very good at working in the abstract which is ‘so’ economics. You understand this when reading about one who measured the circumference of the planet in 276BC, about. Economics was something they ate for breakfast.
Some of them:
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Ancient Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης, IPA: [eratostʰénɛːs]; English /ɛrəˈtɒsθəniːz/; c. 276 BC[1] – c. 195/194 BC[2]) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist.
He is best known for being the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth, which he did by applying a measuring system using stades, or the length of stadiums during that time period.
(So he knew about stadiums and can be said to be the father of Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr, what an eminent patron.)
And:
Thales (624-547 B.C., Ionian) was a Greek philosopher who traveled widely in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and brought astronomical records from these cultures back to Greece. He believed that the Earth is a disk floating on an endless ocean. Legend has it that he correctly predicted a solar eclipse in the year 585 B.C.
(This idea has been shamelessly boot-legged by Terry Pratchett, but it is possible that Thales connections will soon be filing for an intellectual property infringement.)
There was –
Omar Khayyam (1048-1131, Persian) was a great scientist, philosopher, and poet. He compiled many astronomical tables and performed a reformation of the calendar which was more accurate than the Julian and came close to the Gregorian. An amazing feat was his calculation of the year to be 365.24219858156 days long, which is accurate to the sixth decimal place!
(He set an early record which still stands proud today even if we have invented another few numbers!)
Hmm.
So if the stade was a measurement of length, did Eratosthenes have an economic unit based on the cost vs benefits of a stadium? Because if we extrapolate from the dunedin FoBar stadium, it might explain why macroeconomics is so fucked. 🙂
McFlock
You’re brilliant, masterly, showy….
It might be more chicken and egg…..maybe the economists knew about the Eratosthane stadium cost v benefit unit, and allowed the whole thing to go ahead knowing that because they had never been right about anything, well it did not really matter. Priests are after all nothing unless seen and heard. The rest is gullible faith.
re: dunedin stadium, it just looked to me like one or two councilors were after a nice piece of the pi…
it is by dr Mapp and he peddles it here whenever he can.
@DTB
Never fear the evangelists will be out in force if there is a whiff of apostasy. See what happens when the Greens dare to challenge economic orthodoxy even when evidence and reason contradict orthodoxy.
(Forwarded in the public interest – there are a number of tenants in Tamaki who are currently facing 90 day eviction notices):
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* THE SOCIAL HOUSING REFORM ( Affects all tenants).
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(Forwarded in the public interest).
q-time commentary..
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/new-zealand-parliament-list-of-questions-for-oral-answer-wednesday-12-february-2014/
(excerpt..)
“….bennett does ‘not know’ how many working-families are in poverty..(ed:..seriously..?..w.t.f.is her brief..?..if not to know basic facts such as that..?.)
..ardern notes at the current rate it would take 160 yrs to fix poverty..
..bennett is reduced to babbling serial-cliches..”
phillip ure
Burnit’s brief… is not to know basic facts such as that, FIFY.
I reckon the author’s right.
The system is not fixable because it is not broken. It is working, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to give the insiders their royal prerogatives, and to shove the regulations, the laws, and the debt up the asses of everyone else.
Burn it to the ground.
Burn it to the ground.
Burn it to the ground.
Merry Christmas.
http://www.popehat.com/2013/12/23/burn-the-fucking-system-to-the-ground/
Shane Jones in the House gets Labour on side with the farmers for the first time since SMPs:
“It’s the Countdown shakedown”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11200838
Shane Jones has earned his parliamentary salary for the year by bringing up the Oz supermarket debacle in Parliament. That is a very informative piece from nz Herald Ad, and in the little voice bite from Key was illuminating.
He thinks that the matter should actually be regarded as an Australasian one. This is our PM. And he doesn’t really care if we are being shafted by Australia!!!! Have a listen to this pantwaist.
He also leads tonight on TV1
Stuart Hall left wing cultural theorist – thought to have coined the term “Thatcherism” – died on the 10th UK time, 82 years.
Not keen on Ed Miliband. Critiques of the media and “race”; and on moral panics and “race”..
A founder of the New Left review – Guardian obit.
I have alwys felt his “Great Moving Right Sow, on Thatcherism and its impact, was a very important article.
Interesting (at least as much as “Stuff” ever is or ever can be) …..
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/9723130/Looks-like-Slater-is-Keys-Peters-source
“Oi dun heffa tell ya” says key – in response to a Jonolist’s request as to who the sauce was regarding Winnie the Poo’s visit to the KDC Manse.
Quelle Surprise ….. Blubber boy and not – they would have us know – NOT Joi Soi Ess Boi.
Neither is something I’d have wished a sleepy hobbit pubic to know if I were a John Koi.
Let’s watch 3 News tonight to see how BukToofPaddy spins it! No doubt he’ll be desperate to put it in the contex of a SKLOOOSIV