NATO meets in Warsaw and raises tensions with Russia.
They are militarising the Baltic countries and preparing for war.
We are returning to the Cold War.
Why is this not news in this country ?!!
NATO has 28 member states and an additional 22 countries in its Partnership for Peace Programme. Defending them from invasion is most of its scope and remit.
The 4,000 NATO troops now stationed on Russia’s doorstep have basically been put there by western countries as sacrificial trip wires.
In a shooting war with Russia, all 4,000 NATO troops would be dead in the first two hours of fighting as Russia rolls 90,000 men across the Baltics.
The real issue that Russia has is with the “missile defence shield” which has been based in Romania. Within the next few years, that system will be upgradeable to nuclear tipped NATO warheads able to reach Moscow and St Petersburg within minutes of launch.
NATO is actively destabilising the security of its own member states. That is not the purpose of its existence. But apparently selling more arms to more countries is.
NATO’s mandate is to protect the security and military integrity of its member states.
Not to take actions which destroy the strategic balance in Europe. Nor to undermine the security of its core members and station offensive nuclear weapons on Russia’s doorstep.
And this is what NATO has been doing by expanding right up to Russia’s borders.
Frankly, if NATO does not accept that Russia has legitimate national security and foreign policy interests in Europe that need to be taken into account, then a war will be inevitable.
And a war in Europe is going to hurt everyone except the United States who are conveniently far away across the Atlantic moat.
In reality Europe and Russia are natural political, economic and trading partners.
But a military alliance, NATO has acted to undermine all this natural political and economic partnership in favour of what the German foreign minister calls “loud sabre rattling and warmongering” against Russia.
Not surprised that with your attitude, you’re a Clinton supporter.
What are your thoughts? Russia would far prefer to be economic, political and security partners with western Europe instead of China.
Culturally, economically, and in terms of trade and energy, good relations with Russia would benefit both Europe and Russia immensely.
But no, let’s just destabilise the borderlands of Russia, encourage Muslim militancy on its doorstep, and push NATO bases right next to the Russian border.
Across the caucuses, from South Ossestia to Crimea, Georgia to Ukraine, Russian aggression is common knowledge.
If independent sovereign nation states want or need the protection of Nato, then there is no issue. Those nations have the right to be protected from Putin’s little war games.
If you don’t accept free nations have the right to be protected from a larger aggressor, then you’ve just shown a nasty little chink in your armour.
Across the caucuses, from South Ossestia to Crimea, Georgia to Ukraine, Russian aggression is common knowledge.
Russia is going to defend interests in its own border areas that the US attempts to destabilise.
Georgia killed Russian peace keepers. Crimea voted to go with Russia instead of the disintegrating fascist/ukro-nazi regime in Kiev.
The US spent US$2B destabilising the democratically elected Ukranian government and facilitated a coup there.
The new unconstitutional Ukranian government then started shelling its own towns in the Donbass. So Russia gave any soldiers who requested leave to defend those towns.
You may propagandise Putin’s Russia at will, but all it does it expose your position.
Thus at no point are you to be taken seriously in this field of debate.
It’s impossible to have a reasonable conversation with propagandists.
Victoria Nuland (a top neocon, who famously said “fuck the EU”) says USA has spent US$5B over 20 years to “democratise” the Ukraine and tear it away from Russia.
look i don’t much care about CV, he does his shtick and that it is.
But frankly please leave gendered insults out of it. Call him a prick if you must, it would suit him. But this stupid flaming of the both of you is getting very very boring.
Now we not only have to scroll by the Nat bots , but by you two guys as well. Just boring.
For the record, Putin’s pussy isn’t a gendered insult, but refers to CV being a pet/tool of Putin as in the picture link, so not an inferred/implied slang word for vagina.
Of course I could altogether avoid upsetting the fragile sensibilities of others and just use Comrade kitty or Catkinski instead.
@Ad – no reply button
i don’t think i call people a pussy, interfering a lower being i.e. female or in this case a play thing of putin or ‘sextoy’ of putin.
Calling someone a prick cause they are? Guilty as charged. But again, i hardly call women pricks. 🙂
I was contemplating an entire post defending the US and NATO. Maybe another time.
But a related, further tweak for you:
Plenty on the left and right have heralded a great U.S. imperial collapse for over a decade. But the reality when decline is in your face is scary. That’s why those post-Soviet countries went running to NATO in the first place. Unlike the Soviets, no-one was holding a gun to their heads. Quite the contrary, which is the point.
Let’s start imagining the Britain dissolves into four states, held together with duct tape. Less and less to defend, less and less to be defended with. Less and less for the US to bother defending.
Starts getting pretty cold out there doesn’t it? Starts feeling just a little like what the Baltic states are feeling after Azerbaijan and Georgia and Ukraine essentially fell.
The parallels inside a post-Brexit Britain compared to the original purpose of the EU, also remind us of why NATO was formed in the first place in 1949 as the Cold War was getting going. Russia in particular needs constant reminders that there will be no rolling troops and tanks over anything.
That’s why those post-Soviet countries went running to NATO in the first place. Unlike the Soviets, no-one was holding a gun to their heads. Quite the contrary, which is the point.
Get your facts right Ad.
These countries wanted closer economic ties with the EU and greater prosperity for their peoples.
And they were told, if you want closer ties with EU, the precondition is that you join our military alliance NATO first.
Not only that, but you also have to start to sever your ties with Russia.
This was a deliberate western strategy to destabilise the military strategic status quo on Russia’s door step.
Now I ask again – how has it become NATO’s mandate and mission to destabilise the security of its own member states while chasing new members right up to the Russian border?
Also, the US operates plenty of regime changing NGOs in eastern europe, just like it does in central and south america.
Poland is an interesting case though – strong historical reasons to not want Russian influence. Many of the eastern bloc have equally developed antipathy – irregardless of US aims. I don’t think a forcible reabsorbtion up to the borders of Germany can be considered benign. Putin needs to hear the waspish voice of one of the NPC nations in my old videogames “Learn to be content with what you have…”
Russia does not want poor rundown Poland. But it especially does not want Poland turned into a staging post for antagonistic military forces and US nuclear weapons pointed at it.
The be satisfied with what you have line is a good one – but NATO didn’t listen to it 20 years ago and they aren’t listening to it now.
Through some kind of bizarre rupture in the space-time continuum, this thread seems to have been transported back to the Red Scare of the late 40s/early 50s.
Aggressive Godless Communism destroying all we Americans hold dear. God-Damn filthy Ruskies !!! Is there no end to their Evil ways ??? Thank God for those moral exemplars – US Elites (and in Ad’s case, the Vatican) – riding selflessly to the rescue and stopping this dangerous virus from spreading and infecting innocent God-fearing men and women throughout this great Country of ours. USA !, USA !, USA !
You might ask: “Say, what can we do about this Evil Red virus ?”
Why, Mister, the answer is clear – surround those God-Damn Ruskies with a whole heap’n help’n of Nukes right on their God-Damn doorstep. That’ll stop their aggression in its tracks and halt the dangerous Domino Effect real good.
Or … as Monty Python put it …
Voice Over “So Miss Johnson returned to her typing and dreamed her little dreamy dreams, unaware as she was of the cruel trick fate had in store for her. For Miss Johnson was about to fall victim of the dreaded international Chinese Communist Conspiracy. (lots of little yellow men pour into the office) Yes, these fanatical thieves under the leadership of the so-called Mao Tse-tung (who appears in the animation) had caught Miss Johnson off guard for one brief but fatal moment and destroyed her. (Miss Johnson is submerged in a tide of yellow men) Just as they are ready to do anytime free men anywhere waver in their defence of democracy.
(A sailing ship with American flag sails in over yellow men. Zoom in on the flag: Uncle Sam appears in front of it)
Uncle Sam Yes, once again American defence proves its effectiveness against international communism. Using this diagram of a tooth to represent any small country, we can see how international communism works by eroding away form the inside (diagram of tooth rotting from inside and collapsing) When one country or tooth falls victim to international communism, its neighbours soon follow. (the remaining teeth fall sideways into the gap) In dentistry, this is known as Domino Theory. but with american defence the decay is stopped before it starts and that’s why nine out of ten small countries choose American defense … ”
America apparently cares so much about the people of Georgia and Crimea and the Donbass that it is now NATO’s duty to: destabilise Russia’s borderlands, place nuclear capable missile systems pointed right at Russia, and move in extra destroyers and aircraft carriers to further militarise the region.
Because turning up with more weapon systems shows that we care, apparently. The neocon doctrine.
One of the few things I like about Brexit is how it’s giving a shake to all kinds of old postwar institutions, including NATO. Those late-joining EU nations will be recalculating exactly why they signed up in the first place.
I think we all needed that recalibration.
A decade ago we were expecting that, together with the collapse of Imperial U.S., the BRICS would rise in power and start to replace the old Western dominance in diplomatic, military, and economic terms.
Not so fast, it turned out.
Those old post Cold-War dynamics have got a long way to run. In South Africa, Brazil, and Russia, corruption and governance failures have proved catastrophic. China’s growth is trending rapidly downwards from 6%. The U.S. retains its power, and remains the driving force behind NATO. The EU and the old-power relationships have quite some endurance left.
In fact, Further Tweak Alert, when it comes to catalyzing global action and providing the decisive voice in whether any problem gets addressed at a global level – Russian invasion, Islamic State, Climate Change, Ebola, etc etc – no other country’s say comes close to Washington’s.
Brexit + Russia + EU radicalization across Europe’s borders has been a stark reminder to Obama’s administration that the pivot to Asia was very poorly framed.
Rather than a series of rotating pivots that seem to rapidly cancel each other out, Washington needs to perfect a 360-degree model of leadership. It’s not impossible for a really experienced new President to achieve. After all, if US diplomats can balance negotiations about a freed-up Cuba, a nuclear-free Iran, a carbon-reduced climate, and free trade agreements, then they can parallel that kind of working spectrum in their regional defence overtures as well.
There was a hard disk failure this morning. The rebuild was somewhat aggressive because the spare disk was somewhat slow and it effectively stopped the site.
I’ve tuned it down so it takes longer, but has less disruption. However the site will remain a bit sluggish for a while.
I’ll probably wind up fixing that array in the next few days so that rebuilds aren’t that much of a problem.
Does Bernie Sanders represent the future of the Democratic Party?
FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver does the breakdown on whether this really is a 1968 moment. Do Sanders’ supporters really represent a strong leftwards drift within the Democratic Party, or are they are in majority more dissatisfied with the other candidates?
He has an interesting statistical breakdown on where this is going, here:
10% own 50% but pay only 37%? Is this true, coz thats dynamite, that means not only that progressive taxation has be done away with but that we over incentivize wealth. Wealth just gets wealthier while everyone else carries them by paying some of their taxes. aka slavery, aka serfdom, aka K.Marx and das capital. Amd you wonder why our kids cant get into housing, wealth is buying it up and cutting our wages coz we dont pay mortgages. This is not what the right or left stand for, yet both parties are incapable of speaking the truth, no representation without taxation, we should not be representing the needs of wealth while they are not paying their way.
If only the nats promises that they would lift wages for all had of hadn’t of been bullshit, more of us wouldn’t need the employers wage subsidy programme that working for families is.
here’s something some of you might find interesting:
The Employment Court had found that:
a) any evidence of systemic undervaluation of the work in question derived from current or historical or structural gender discrimination must be taken into account; and
b) evidence of wages paid by other employers or in other industries could be taken into account if wages paid by the defendant employer or other employers in the same industry would be an inappropriate comparator
Neo-lib neo-cons, are not capitalists, not pure capitalists ideologues, no as we are now seeing, they want to reintroduce aristocracy. Superior rights for wealthier individuals. Sure while we were seeing ongoing cheaper energy, they could look like market egalitarians, but was just show, they were shifting the tax burden onto the plebs. Lord Key, Lord Little, Lord Peter, paid lordly salaries and aren’t interesyed in talking about the real crisis, sure they have to articulate the stressed areas, but big picture the trnds are not being talked about. in energy costs, in taxation rises on the plebs, on how lower standards and rorting are a consequence of Thatcherite hands off approaches to governance.
+++major implications about public and the police here, technology assassination on domestic soil using military weapons +++
A frightening precedent: Can we talk about the Dallas police using a bomb robot to kill a man?
The Dallas PD using a bomb robot to kill gunman Micah Johnson has opened the door to a new world of policing
Isreal/ Palestine here we come. Likewise Egypt and the muslim brothers.
Really good idea to flame race tensions in the US! It will really work for them to abandon the legal system and just start blowing guilty black people up with robots. sarc.
What is the difference between sending in a robot with a bomb, controlled by a policeman on the other end, to the police shooting someone from 300 meters away?
“What is the difference between sending in a robot with a bomb, controlled by a policeman on the other end, to the police shooting someone from 300 meters away?
Both are wrong.
That why you should support pesky little things like trials. And getting to the truth of the matter, rather than the usual knee jerk revenge killing that sucks us all further and further down the rabbit hole.
The cause of this was because police have become too cavalier in their killing of people. Just to remind you. As you seemed to have forgotten.
You are wrong and here’s why you’re wrong. There are times when police have to kill someone, when they’re given no other option but to take someone’s life.
So to say the police shouldn’t kill anyone ever is just naïve.
Yes taking someone alive is always preferable but it isn’t always possible. So yes if a life has to be taken by the police then if it can be taken without harm to the police then that would be the best option.
This man showed how well prepared he was, how well trained he was so until anymore information is known I have no issues with the police taking the man down and that they managed it without harming themselves or anyone else is a good thing, a very good thing.
At that point in the night, who was the perp posing an imminent threat to, is one question.
If the answer was no one – then why was he killed?
They say that police negotiators had been talking to him. Had they been genuinely negotiating with him – or had they actually just been stalling so that this IED bearing robot could be put together and used on the perp.
BTW apparently we aren’t propagandised in the west, that only happens in poor brown countries with dictators.
Patently unfair there PR…….Adam said police have become “too cavalier” in their killing of people. Your comment completely ignores what he actually said and puts words into his mouth, to satisfy your strange self.
Have you watched the Baton Rouge execution ? The man is on the ground, completely contained, under two cops. The one nearest the camera pulls his gun from its holster, he places it about an inch above the man’s heart, waits, and then fires. He intended to execute the man. He acted in leisurely, beastly, deliberation. I would not weep, indeed I would rejoice were someone to execute him !
Patently unfair there PR…….Adam said police have become “too cavalier” in their killing of people. Your comment completely ignores what he actually said and puts words into his mouth, to satisfy your strange self.
Have you watched the Baton Rouge execution ? The man is on the ground, completely contained, under two cops. The one nearest the camera pulls his gun from its holster, he places it about an inch above the man’s heart, waits, and then fires. He intended to execute the man. He acted in leisurely, beastly, deliberation. I would not weep, indeed I would rejoice were someone to execute him in equally summary fashion !
The least the cops could’ve done is stun bombed him first. Plenty of time to use HE if that fails.
US cops have a different legal framework to NZ, here we still have some of the doctrine of equivalent force. No, I don’t want armed police, though Korea manages it without them going psycho. Guns for AO squad only – they have the training and the maturity.
I reckon he’s onto something with the shape-shifting lizard-people thing, and they’re even here. You seen what’s on the menu at the Nat’s fave eating place, Antoine’s? Pig’s trotter, paua and snail congee with tempura oysters…mmm,mm.
Donald Trump is as popular in the US today as Hillary Clinton. Some polls say he may even be more popular.
Both Trump and Clinton are Democrats. They differ from each other only because Clinton is politically correct and Trump is not.
Trump’s relative success is down to his rejection of political correctness, and this is a move that is not only bringing support to Trump but also to many other politicians around the western world. The voters are fed up with political correctness.
Shame the NZ Labour party is too reactionary to adapt to this mood. If they could, it would increase their voter appeal substantially.
Trump is a more extreme version of John Key, there’s not much to like there. The only thing I like is his rejection of Wall Street and advocacy for Main Street, and strengthening the middle-class. Unfortunately his actual policies (lower taxes, repealing ObamaCare) will probably kill the middle class.
Hillary is a cold, calculating villain in the vein of Tony Blair but without the charisma, a total puppet of the Establishment elite. She makes Trump look left wing.
I guess Americans say “In God we trust” because their politicians are so terrible.
Picking ? You mean ‘hoping’ don’t you CV…….shitty little anarchist don’t have a fucking clue where your home is anymore, you. Ever wondered about how boringly unintelligible is your Big Fat Can of Bitter Feelings ?
Almost right RB. What the masses across the western world seem to be fed up with is the whole political process. (PC is just a subset of that).
For at least the last 35 years since Reagan/Thatcher (and arguably longer) western governments have pillaged their public treasuries and public assets in the name of neoliberalism, and all of the gains in productivity from others hard work has accrued to the accounts of the top 1%
Despite attempting to elect governments that work for the people, we just have a revolving door that perpetuates the same economic shit.
The NZ Labour party needs to do the opposite of what you say.
Sticking to their founding social-democratic principles, Labour will restore its appeal to people who actually care about NZ, and have a conscience.
(see also the movements around Sanders, Corbyn, (early) Obama)
Doncha love it when the right pretends to instruct the left about what the lefties should do to win votes?…and people who still use obsolete language..’political correctness’ is sooo 20th century.’.
There has been no shortage of opportunities to puncture this image, with breathtaking scandals revealing the ‘true nature’ of Key’s post-politics. Nevertheless, in the face of hypocrisy, cynical manipulation and character failings, the public have defied rational civic expectations either in their disinterest or in their rallying around Key. As enjoyment and desire become central to sustaining Key’s base, his popularity should force the left to question some of its rational humanist conceptions.
That article makes so many hits it’s hard to know which bit to quote.
Keep up the good work CV.
To all you American loving, neolib ( third way ) labourites – two things….
1) The USA lost its way in 1944 when FDR died and has been an horrific military machine ever since both overtly and covertly. Their model of capitalism has failed their own country and the rest of the world.
2) Give up pretensions that neoliberalism is working for the people the Labour Party is meant to represent – its not. Period. Get back to your founding principles.
“Brussels urgently needs a €150 billion bailout to begin a major recapitalization program for its banks, according to Deutsche Bank’s David Folkerts-Landau.
In the aftermath of UK’s Brexit vote, the focus of attention has switched to Italy’s banking sector, which has accumulated €360 billion in bad loans, and growing.
A former member of the ECB executive board Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, and now chairman at Societe Generale, has warned the banking crisis in Italy could spread to the entire EU.
“Europe is extremely sick and must start dealing with its problems extremely quickly, or else there may be an accident. I’m no doomsday prophet, I am a realist,” he said in an interview to Welt am Sonntag.
According to Folkerts-Landau, Brussels should follow Washington’s steps that helped US banks with a $475 billion bailout.
“In Europe, the bailout does not need to be so large. A €150 billion program should be enough to help European banks recapitalize,” he said.
The decline in bank stocks is only the symptom of a much larger problem, which is low growth, high debt and dangerous deflation, Folkerts-Landau added…
We dont only bail out the banks, there currency speculation raises the cost of debt, and money depreciates.
If the EU collapses will it bring down the economic system?
Greeks are already using a village type bartering system
The big problem is Deutche Bank. A bailout of Italian banks will help protect Deutche Bank from its exposure. However because the ECB doesn’t back up european banks its a game of chicken between Italy and Germany as to who must bail out their banks and take on more debt first.
Yup, higher food prices forecast, shortfalls in science funding, suspended infrastructure projects, manufacturing sector redundancies and a dire outlook for renewables. That’s pretty fucking shrewd.
/
*(Not that he will do anything about it. Making it hard to determine which type of leader is more morally corrupt.
One who persists in denying the reality in spite of all the evidence, or one who admits the reality and then knowingly and willingly oversees a huge increases in his country’s greenhouse gas emissions, in spite of all the evidence. And in spite of commitments he gave to the Pacific Nations at Majuro.)
What did John Key sign our country up to in Majuro in 2013?
Clauses H and I
We commit to be Climate Leaders.
To lead is to act. In supporting this Declaration, a government, economic entity, company, civil society organization or individual commits to demonstrate climate leadership through action that contributes to the urgent reduction and phase down of greenhouse gas pollution.
The state of being deceitful and untrustworthy.
“it was an example of his perfidy”
synonyms: treachery, duplicity, deceit, perfidiousness, deceitfulness, disloyalty, infidelity, faithlessness, unfaithfulness, betrayal, treason, falseness, falsity, double-dealing, dishonesty, two-facedness, untrustworthiness, breach of trust; More
A survey carried out in 2007 on climate change gave the following responses:
[115]
Not really a problem 8%
A problem for the future 13%
A problem now 42%
An urgent and immediate problem 35%
Don’t know 2%
In August 2012, a Horizons poll showed that 64.4 per cent of respondents wanted Parliament to do more to respond to global warming. 67.5 per cent of respondents wanted business to do more to address global warming. Horizons commented that the poll “makes a strong case for more political action”.
[116]
In the 2007 poll if you add, “A problem now” to “An urgent and immediate problem” you get 77% of those polled. Since that poll, and the 2012 poll that found that over 60% wanted parliament and business to do more on climate change, climate change has become much more apparent, and the future for humanity and life on this planet is looking decidedly dire to anyone who cares to see.
I imagine that the figures are much higher now, than the 70 or 60 percent published figures of a few years ago.
These are the sort of figures that political gurus and advisors should be noting. They are much higher than the winning margins enjoyed by either the government or the opposition.
But what have we seen?
In the 2011 and 2014 elections climate change was virtually universally ignored as an election issue, and it looks likely that this will be repeated again in the 2017 elections.
Climate change is the government’s worst performing portfolio. with the possible exception of housing. It is an issue where the government could take some real hits from the opposition parties.
Unlike housing insecurity, climate change is a problem for all people, even more conservative and well off voters. This reality has been reflected in the recent conversion of the Right Wing ACT Party from being the last hold out of climate deniers in parliament to, in the words of David Seymour the ACT Leader, “Lukewarmist”. Meaning (I presume), that like John Key and the National Government, ACT accepts the reality of climate change, but opposes doing anything about it.
This opens up real possibilities for the opposition parties.
(So far), instead we have seen virtual silence
Will the opposition parties accept the challenge?
Or are they also so deeply enmeshed and tangled up with the fossil fuel lobby that they will again let this opportunity go by?
What will it take?
The alarms are deafening and we are trapped in a burning house.
Will it take a major disaster for our parliamentary leaders to untangle themselves from the fossil fuel lobby?
Let us hope that real action on climate change does not have to wait to be paid for in blood (by which time it may be too late), and that the opposition parties will take this fight to the government.
Hi jenny, the big problem is the public say they want the government to do something, however any meaningful change would render the party unelectable.
The public didn’t want asset sales and voted for a party that campaigned on selling them.
The public thought a CGT was needed but rejected it at the polling booth.
The way I see it I the change must come from the flax roots. From those of us with spare time and other resources.
For an few years now I have been adjusting for a societal change.
I heard and agree it is easier to fall from the footpath to the gutter than from the penthouse.
It’s the folks in the penthouse and the upper floors who will be resisting any meaningful change.
All the government
“…. the big problem is the public say they want the government to do something, however any meaningful change would render the party unelectable.” gsays
Hi gsays, the big problem is the public have never been given the chance to make that decision.
People have never had the chance to vote on climate change issues.
You never know they might surprise you.
It is what is called leadership.
On every major policy aspect of the climate issue National and Labour are in agreement. And the Green Party people have told me, in no uncertain terms, that they will not be embarrassing the Labour Party over this, especially now that the MoU has been signed.
It is my opinion that the first political party that finds the courage needed to stand up to the fossil fuel lobby and run on this issue will do well, and probably better than they normally would.
The demands should be simple and clear.
‘No new coal mines’
‘End deep sea oil drilling and all other extreme fossil fuel technologies’
‘End all subsidies for fossil fuel companies’
Instead plough that money into providing a just transition for the workforces of these industries to jobs that don’t fry the planet.
‘Scrap the plans for a multi-lane motorway tunnel under the Waitemata’
‘Swap the $11 billion set aside for more motorways into public transport instead’
‘Ratify the Majuro Declaration on Climate Change in parliament’
It amazes me really all the reasons and excuses that are given that our political representatives cannot champion the fight against climate change.
gsays “unelectable” claim, (not backed up with any evidence) is the same claim that is made for Corbyn or Sanders. The real fear is that these people and the causes they champion are very electable.
And so all measures fair and foul must be used to keep them off the ballot.
The same with climate change.
My fear is that the 2017 election will be the same as 2014 election, and the 2011 election, and by the time our political classes finally wake up to the threat and start to campaign on doing something about it, it will be too late.
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On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
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NATO meets in Warsaw and raises tensions with Russia.
They are militarising the Baltic countries and preparing for war.
We are returning to the Cold War.
Why is this not news in this country ?!!
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/07/11/natos-new-agenda-frighteningly-clear-prepare-war-russia/
About time NATO put some wellie about.
You’re kidding, right?
It really does matter that Russia invaded the Ukraine.
Europe is not in a post-military-invasion world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#Enlargement
NATO has 28 member states and an additional 22 countries in its Partnership for Peace Programme. Defending them from invasion is most of its scope and remit.
Preparing not to be invaded is a very good idea.
Partnership for peace…
Defending them from invasion…
Good grief some people are thick headed
The 4,000 NATO troops now stationed on Russia’s doorstep have basically been put there by western countries as sacrificial trip wires.
In a shooting war with Russia, all 4,000 NATO troops would be dead in the first two hours of fighting as Russia rolls 90,000 men across the Baltics.
The real issue that Russia has is with the “missile defence shield” which has been based in Romania. Within the next few years, that system will be upgradeable to nuclear tipped NATO warheads able to reach Moscow and St Petersburg within minutes of launch.
NATO is actively destabilising the security of its own member states. That is not the purpose of its existence. But apparently selling more arms to more countries is.
That’s utter fucking bullshit Ad.
NATO’s mandate is to protect the security and military integrity of its member states.
Not to take actions which destroy the strategic balance in Europe. Nor to undermine the security of its core members and station offensive nuclear weapons on Russia’s doorstep.
And this is what NATO has been doing by expanding right up to Russia’s borders.
Frankly, if NATO does not accept that Russia has legitimate national security and foreign policy interests in Europe that need to be taken into account, then a war will be inevitable.
And a war in Europe is going to hurt everyone except the United States who are conveniently far away across the Atlantic moat.
In reality Europe and Russia are natural political, economic and trading partners.
But a military alliance, NATO has acted to undermine all this natural political and economic partnership in favour of what the German foreign minister calls “loud sabre rattling and warmongering” against Russia.
Not surprised that with your attitude, you’re a Clinton supporter.
Says Putin’s predictable pussy lol
please leave pussies out of this.
prick would be the better word.
What are your thoughts? Russia would far prefer to be economic, political and security partners with western Europe instead of China.
Culturally, economically, and in terms of trade and energy, good relations with Russia would benefit both Europe and Russia immensely.
But no, let’s just destabilise the borderlands of Russia, encourage Muslim militancy on its doorstep, and push NATO bases right next to the Russian border.
Across the caucuses, from South Ossestia to Crimea, Georgia to Ukraine, Russian aggression is common knowledge.
If independent sovereign nation states want or need the protection of Nato, then there is no issue. Those nations have the right to be protected from Putin’s little war games.
If you don’t accept free nations have the right to be protected from a larger aggressor, then you’ve just shown a nasty little chink in your armour.
Russia is going to defend interests in its own border areas that the US attempts to destabilise.
Georgia killed Russian peace keepers. Crimea voted to go with Russia instead of the disintegrating fascist/ukro-nazi regime in Kiev.
The US spent US$2B destabilising the democratically elected Ukranian government and facilitated a coup there.
The new unconstitutional Ukranian government then started shelling its own towns in the Donbass. So Russia gave any soldiers who requested leave to defend those towns.
You may propagandise Putin’s Russia at will, but all it does it expose your position.
Thus at no point are you to be taken seriously in this field of debate.
It’s impossible to have a reasonable conversation with propagandists.
Georgia shelled Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL8187260
Crimeans vote overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/crimea-referendum-how-why-and-where-next-for-soon-to-be-divided-ukraine-9195310.html
Victoria Nuland (a top neocon, who famously said “fuck the EU”) says USA has spent US$5B over 20 years to “democratise” the Ukraine and tear it away from Russia.
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/february/09/victoria-nulands-ukraine-gate-deceptions/
“please leave pussies out of this.
prick would be the better word.”
http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j355/OutCider2/pussy_zps8qxdz1kb.jpg
Wow Peter – you are taking it up or down a level with that shit – hard to tell when using the creepy scale
Creativity and humour make for great social commentary. Up or down is all relative to the beholder, but the satire stands all the same.
You seem like such a man wimp lol
A wee hint cos you’re posting like some out of date lab mp – putting lol after everything you say is silly – use it fleetingly for effect.
lolololol
“putting lol after everything you say is silly – use it fleetingly for effect.”
Looking at how you get rattled and cry off in arguments almost every time you’re challenged, I’ll take your hint under advisement.
lol
Another insightful contribution from Peter Stalker Smith
Do you forsee a time when you might post a purposeful comment, or is it the stalking which lifts your skirt?
That’s twice you’ve followed one of my posts, and though I don’t consider it stalking, you may wish to practice what you preach, or not. lol
If responding to cv’s negative bullshit dogma is so upsetting, ask cv to stop writing negative bullshit dogma.
look i don’t much care about CV, he does his shtick and that it is.
But frankly please leave gendered insults out of it. Call him a prick if you must, it would suit him. But this stupid flaming of the both of you is getting very very boring.
Now we not only have to scroll by the Nat bots , but by you two guys as well. Just boring.
You use gendered insults regularly.
Stop it yourself before you ask it of others.
For the record, Putin’s pussy isn’t a gendered insult, but refers to CV being a pet/tool of Putin as in the picture link, so not an inferred/implied slang word for vagina.
Of course I could altogether avoid upsetting the fragile sensibilities of others and just use Comrade kitty or Catkinski instead.
@Ad – no reply button
i don’t think i call people a pussy, interfering a lower being i.e. female or in this case a play thing of putin or ‘sextoy’ of putin.
Calling someone a prick cause they are? Guilty as charged. But again, i hardly call women pricks. 🙂
“i don’t think i call people a pussy, interfering a lower being i.e. female or in this case a play thing of putin or ‘sextoy’ of putin.”
Where the F did you get sex toy from?
That’s bizarre. 🙂
I thought you’d love that one.
I was contemplating an entire post defending the US and NATO. Maybe another time.
But a related, further tweak for you:
Plenty on the left and right have heralded a great U.S. imperial collapse for over a decade. But the reality when decline is in your face is scary. That’s why those post-Soviet countries went running to NATO in the first place. Unlike the Soviets, no-one was holding a gun to their heads. Quite the contrary, which is the point.
Let’s start imagining the Britain dissolves into four states, held together with duct tape. Less and less to defend, less and less to be defended with. Less and less for the US to bother defending.
Starts getting pretty cold out there doesn’t it? Starts feeling just a little like what the Baltic states are feeling after Azerbaijan and Georgia and Ukraine essentially fell.
The parallels inside a post-Brexit Britain compared to the original purpose of the EU, also remind us of why NATO was formed in the first place in 1949 as the Cold War was getting going. Russia in particular needs constant reminders that there will be no rolling troops and tanks over anything.
Get your facts right Ad.
These countries wanted closer economic ties with the EU and greater prosperity for their peoples.
And they were told, if you want closer ties with EU, the precondition is that you join our military alliance NATO first.
Not only that, but you also have to start to sever your ties with Russia.
This was a deliberate western strategy to destabilise the military strategic status quo on Russia’s door step.
Now I ask again – how has it become NATO’s mandate and mission to destabilise the security of its own member states while chasing new members right up to the Russian border?
Also, the US operates plenty of regime changing NGOs in eastern europe, just like it does in central and south america.
Poland is an interesting case though – strong historical reasons to not want Russian influence. Many of the eastern bloc have equally developed antipathy – irregardless of US aims. I don’t think a forcible reabsorbtion up to the borders of Germany can be considered benign. Putin needs to hear the waspish voice of one of the NPC nations in my old videogames “Learn to be content with what you have…”
Russia does not want poor rundown Poland. But it especially does not want Poland turned into a staging post for antagonistic military forces and US nuclear weapons pointed at it.
The be satisfied with what you have line is a good one – but NATO didn’t listen to it 20 years ago and they aren’t listening to it now.
Hungary is a prize – damn their academics are good! & they have precious metal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITn-ZFWaquw
Through some kind of bizarre rupture in the space-time continuum, this thread seems to have been transported back to the Red Scare of the late 40s/early 50s.
Aggressive Godless Communism destroying all we Americans hold dear. God-Damn filthy Ruskies !!! Is there no end to their Evil ways ??? Thank God for those moral exemplars – US Elites (and in Ad’s case, the Vatican) – riding selflessly to the rescue and stopping this dangerous virus from spreading and infecting innocent God-fearing men and women throughout this great Country of ours. USA !, USA !, USA !
You might ask: “Say, what can we do about this Evil Red virus ?”
Why, Mister, the answer is clear – surround those God-Damn Ruskies with a whole heap’n help’n of Nukes right on their God-Damn doorstep. That’ll stop their aggression in its tracks and halt the dangerous Domino Effect real good.
Or … as Monty Python put it …
Voice Over “So Miss Johnson returned to her typing and dreamed her little dreamy dreams, unaware as she was of the cruel trick fate had in store for her. For Miss Johnson was about to fall victim of the dreaded international Chinese Communist Conspiracy. (lots of little yellow men pour into the office) Yes, these fanatical thieves under the leadership of the so-called Mao Tse-tung (who appears in the animation) had caught Miss Johnson off guard for one brief but fatal moment and destroyed her. (Miss Johnson is submerged in a tide of yellow men) Just as they are ready to do anytime free men anywhere waver in their defence of democracy.
(A sailing ship with American flag sails in over yellow men. Zoom in on the flag: Uncle Sam appears in front of it)
Uncle Sam Yes, once again American defence proves its effectiveness against international communism. Using this diagram of a tooth to represent any small country, we can see how international communism works by eroding away form the inside (diagram of tooth rotting from inside and collapsing) When one country or tooth falls victim to international communism, its neighbours soon follow. (the remaining teeth fall sideways into the gap) In dentistry, this is known as Domino Theory. but with american defence the decay is stopped before it starts and that’s why nine out of ten small countries choose American defense … ”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGv2wqJJmbc&w=640&h=360%5D
The west is so incredibly propagandised.
America apparently cares so much about the people of Georgia and Crimea and the Donbass that it is now NATO’s duty to: destabilise Russia’s borderlands, place nuclear capable missile systems pointed right at Russia, and move in extra destroyers and aircraft carriers to further militarise the region.
Because turning up with more weapon systems shows that we care, apparently. The neocon doctrine.
Spoken like a true believer, comradeski.
Ever thought of crowd funding for a one way ticket to moscow?
And to think, in an alternate universe, you could have been a labour mp.
No wonder they got shot of you.
I love the fact you are using my former Labour Party candidacy against me. Formerly Labour is one of the biggest political parties in NZ.
Just in a meeting but will come back and really really tweak you all shortly.
One of the few things I like about Brexit is how it’s giving a shake to all kinds of old postwar institutions, including NATO. Those late-joining EU nations will be recalculating exactly why they signed up in the first place.
I think we all needed that recalibration.
A decade ago we were expecting that, together with the collapse of Imperial U.S., the BRICS would rise in power and start to replace the old Western dominance in diplomatic, military, and economic terms.
Not so fast, it turned out.
Those old post Cold-War dynamics have got a long way to run. In South Africa, Brazil, and Russia, corruption and governance failures have proved catastrophic. China’s growth is trending rapidly downwards from 6%. The U.S. retains its power, and remains the driving force behind NATO. The EU and the old-power relationships have quite some endurance left.
In fact, Further Tweak Alert, when it comes to catalyzing global action and providing the decisive voice in whether any problem gets addressed at a global level – Russian invasion, Islamic State, Climate Change, Ebola, etc etc – no other country’s say comes close to Washington’s.
Brexit + Russia + EU radicalization across Europe’s borders has been a stark reminder to Obama’s administration that the pivot to Asia was very poorly framed.
Rather than a series of rotating pivots that seem to rapidly cancel each other out, Washington needs to perfect a 360-degree model of leadership. It’s not impossible for a really experienced new President to achieve. After all, if US diplomats can balance negotiations about a freed-up Cuba, a nuclear-free Iran, a carbon-reduced climate, and free trade agreements, then they can parallel that kind of working spectrum in their regional defence overtures as well.
And now, I’ll see you tomorrow.
I must invent an Adbusters persona.
There was a hard disk failure this morning. The rebuild was somewhat aggressive because the spare disk was somewhat slow and it effectively stopped the site.
I’ve tuned it down so it takes longer, but has less disruption. However the site will remain a bit sluggish for a while.
I’ll probably wind up fixing that array in the next few days so that rebuilds aren’t that much of a problem.
Appreciated lprent.
Interesting view of Hillary the working politician as different to Hillary the campaigner. A long read but worth getting through.
http://www.vox.com/a/hillary-clinton-interview/the-gap-listener-leadership-quality
Does Bernie Sanders represent the future of the Democratic Party?
FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver does the breakdown on whether this really is a 1968 moment. Do Sanders’ supporters really represent a strong leftwards drift within the Democratic Party, or are they are in majority more dissatisfied with the other candidates?
He has an interesting statistical breakdown on where this is going, here:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/does-bernie-sanders-represent-the-future-of-the-democratic-party/
10% own 50% but pay only 37%? Is this true, coz thats dynamite, that means not only that progressive taxation has be done away with but that we over incentivize wealth. Wealth just gets wealthier while everyone else carries them by paying some of their taxes. aka slavery, aka serfdom, aka K.Marx and das capital. Amd you wonder why our kids cant get into housing, wealth is buying it up and cutting our wages coz we dont pay mortgages. This is not what the right or left stand for, yet both parties are incapable of speaking the truth, no representation without taxation, we should not be representing the needs of wealth while they are not paying their way.
If only the nats promises that they would lift wages for all had of hadn’t of been bullshit, more of us wouldn’t need the employers wage subsidy programme that working for families is.
odd not sure how this reply to lost sheep ended up all alone, i wasn’t ranting to myself , honest.
here’s something some of you might find interesting:
The Employment Court had found that:
a) any evidence of systemic undervaluation of the work in question derived from current or historical or structural gender discrimination must be taken into account; and
b) evidence of wages paid by other employers or in other industries could be taken into account if wages paid by the defendant employer or other employers in the same industry would be an inappropriate comparator
http://www.humanrights.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/e-bulletins/2015cases.html#21d0b719f24091a427ded1d7539a9fd7
Very interested if that gets appealed.
The Talleys will be particularly interested.
Neo-lib neo-cons, are not capitalists, not pure capitalists ideologues, no as we are now seeing, they want to reintroduce aristocracy. Superior rights for wealthier individuals. Sure while we were seeing ongoing cheaper energy, they could look like market egalitarians, but was just show, they were shifting the tax burden onto the plebs. Lord Key, Lord Little, Lord Peter, paid lordly salaries and aren’t interesyed in talking about the real crisis, sure they have to articulate the stressed areas, but big picture the trnds are not being talked about. in energy costs, in taxation rises on the plebs, on how lower standards and rorting are a consequence of Thatcherite hands off approaches to governance.
Immigration policy: 106 per cent of net new housing demand
https://croakingcassandra.com/2015/06/23/immigration-policy-106-per-cent-of-net-new-housing-demand/
+++major implications about public and the police here, technology assassination on domestic soil using military weapons +++
A frightening precedent: Can we talk about the Dallas police using a bomb robot to kill a man?
The Dallas PD using a bomb robot to kill gunman Micah Johnson has opened the door to a new world of policing
http://www.salon.com/2016/07/11/a_frightening_precedent_can_we_talk_about_the_dallas_police_using_a_bomb_robot_to_kill_a_man/
This is a good thing, it kept other police from potential harm. If you don’t like this are you ok with police using pistols, using rifles, snipers?
All kill at a distance, all require a human to pull the trigger, push the button, make the decision to kill etc
Isreal/ Palestine here we come. Likewise Egypt and the muslim brothers.
Really good idea to flame race tensions in the US! It will really work for them to abandon the legal system and just start blowing guilty black people up with robots. sarc.
What is the difference between sending in a robot with a bomb, controlled by a policeman on the other end, to the police shooting someone from 300 meters away?
“What is the difference between sending in a robot with a bomb, controlled by a policeman on the other end, to the police shooting someone from 300 meters away?
Both are wrong.
That why you should support pesky little things like trials. And getting to the truth of the matter, rather than the usual knee jerk revenge killing that sucks us all further and further down the rabbit hole.
The cause of this was because police have become too cavalier in their killing of people. Just to remind you. As you seemed to have forgotten.
You are wrong and here’s why you’re wrong. There are times when police have to kill someone, when they’re given no other option but to take someone’s life.
So to say the police shouldn’t kill anyone ever is just naïve.
Yes taking someone alive is always preferable but it isn’t always possible. So yes if a life has to be taken by the police then if it can be taken without harm to the police then that would be the best option.
This man showed how well prepared he was, how well trained he was so until anymore information is known I have no issues with the police taking the man down and that they managed it without harming themselves or anyone else is a good thing, a very good thing.
The police may have conducted a paramilitary assassination in a civilian setting.
Let’s see if there is a full investigation into the decision made to use a remote controlled vehicle borne IED to kill this man.
This technique is an anti-insurgency technique used in Iraq by American soldiers to kill Islamic fighters.
This discussion is more evidence of the propaganda peddled so much in the west.
The PTB control the framing of how we are to see the issue.
‘The police had no choice’.
‘He was well prepared..’.
Only coz that is what we are told.
At that point in the night, who was the perp posing an imminent threat to, is one question.
If the answer was no one – then why was he killed?
They say that police negotiators had been talking to him. Had they been genuinely negotiating with him – or had they actually just been stalling so that this IED bearing robot could be put together and used on the perp.
BTW apparently we aren’t propagandised in the west, that only happens in poor brown countries with dictators.
You Sir can’t see the woods for the trees.
Ignoring a escalation and ignoring the revenge nature of the killing is the problem.
I was talking specifically about this case, but also to the revenge killings that the cops currently have a filthy peachement.
So again Puckish Rouge you refuse to look at this slow destruction of society by a police force unable to do the job without murder.
Patently unfair there PR…….Adam said police have become “too cavalier” in their killing of people. Your comment completely ignores what he actually said and puts words into his mouth, to satisfy your strange self.
Have you watched the Baton Rouge execution ? The man is on the ground, completely contained, under two cops. The one nearest the camera pulls his gun from its holster, he places it about an inch above the man’s heart, waits, and then fires. He intended to execute the man. He acted in leisurely, beastly, deliberation. I would not weep, indeed I would rejoice were someone to execute him !
Patently unfair there PR…….Adam said police have become “too cavalier” in their killing of people. Your comment completely ignores what he actually said and puts words into his mouth, to satisfy your strange self.
Have you watched the Baton Rouge execution ? The man is on the ground, completely contained, under two cops. The one nearest the camera pulls his gun from its holster, he places it about an inch above the man’s heart, waits, and then fires. He intended to execute the man. He acted in leisurely, beastly, deliberation. I would not weep, indeed I would rejoice were someone to execute him in equally summary fashion !
The least the cops could’ve done is stun bombed him first. Plenty of time to use HE if that fails.
US cops have a different legal framework to NZ, here we still have some of the doctrine of equivalent force. No, I don’t want armed police, though Korea manages it without them going psycho. Guns for AO squad only – they have the training and the maturity.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11673027
I’d like to take this seriously but I really can’t
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11672797
Now be honest, does anyone here think this guy might, you know, be not completely wrong in some of his theories?
I reckon he’s onto something with the shape-shifting lizard-people thing, and they’re even here. You seen what’s on the menu at the Nat’s fave eating place, Antoine’s? Pig’s trotter, paua and snail congee with tempura oysters…mmm,mm.
🙂
More than a few over at the sewer think that guy is entirely plausible.
I’ll bet he’s entertaining though 🙂
This article gets more believable every day
http://wonkette.com/542081/new-zealand-prime-minister-claims-hes-not-a-lizard-person-which-is-exactly-what-lizard-people-would-say
Maybe Peter Jackson should remake V – while the cast is on set so to speak.
Donald Trump is as popular in the US today as Hillary Clinton. Some polls say he may even be more popular.
Both Trump and Clinton are Democrats. They differ from each other only because Clinton is politically correct and Trump is not.
Trump’s relative success is down to his rejection of political correctness, and this is a move that is not only bringing support to Trump but also to many other politicians around the western world. The voters are fed up with political correctness.
Shame the NZ Labour party is too reactionary to adapt to this mood. If they could, it would increase their voter appeal substantially.
Curse all people who believe in respect for others, I say. They have no place in geriatric Tauranga society. And Winston is a socialist.
haha… let’s build a wall and make Tasmania pay for it
RCP average of polls has Clinton 4.5 points ahead of Trump.
I am still picking an easy Trump win in November.
Trump is a more extreme version of John Key, there’s not much to like there. The only thing I like is his rejection of Wall Street and advocacy for Main Street, and strengthening the middle-class. Unfortunately his actual policies (lower taxes, repealing ObamaCare) will probably kill the middle class.
Hillary is a cold, calculating villain in the vein of Tony Blair but without the charisma, a total puppet of the Establishment elite. She makes Trump look left wing.
I guess Americans say “In God we trust” because their politicians are so terrible.
Picking ? You mean ‘hoping’ don’t you CV…….shitty little anarchist don’t have a fucking clue where your home is anymore, you. Ever wondered about how boringly unintelligible is your Big Fat Can of Bitter Feelings ?
Almost right RB. What the masses across the western world seem to be fed up with is the whole political process. (PC is just a subset of that).
For at least the last 35 years since Reagan/Thatcher (and arguably longer) western governments have pillaged their public treasuries and public assets in the name of neoliberalism, and all of the gains in productivity from others hard work has accrued to the accounts of the top 1%
Despite attempting to elect governments that work for the people, we just have a revolving door that perpetuates the same economic shit.
The NZ Labour party needs to do the opposite of what you say.
Sticking to their founding social-democratic principles, Labour will restore its appeal to people who actually care about NZ, and have a conscience.
(see also the movements around Sanders, Corbyn, (early) Obama)
Doncha love it when the right pretends to instruct the left about what the lefties should do to win votes?…and people who still use obsolete language..’political correctness’ is sooo 20th century.’.
The political logic of desire
That article makes so many hits it’s hard to know which bit to quote.
Keep up the good work CV.
To all you American loving, neolib ( third way ) labourites – two things….
1) The USA lost its way in 1944 when FDR died and has been an horrific military machine ever since both overtly and covertly. Their model of capitalism has failed their own country and the rest of the world.
2) Give up pretensions that neoliberalism is working for the people the Labour Party is meant to represent – its not. Period. Get back to your founding principles.
CV’s ‘work’ is bitterness. And bated breath masochistic anticipation of a Trump presidency. Fucking mad !
Interesting times. Black Lives matters keep protesting, and the police keep over reacting. This is going to get out of hand again.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/82021018/keep-our-assets-run-john-minto-as-christchurch-mayoral-candidate
One way to guarantee Lianne Dalziel getting back in I suppose but good on him for giving it a go
Blueskin Bay wind generator declined:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/390093/no-wind-farm-blueskin-bay
Auckland mayoral candidate loses latest court case, is offered standard deal to defer rates payments until sale or death: http://www.newshub.co.nz/politics/penny-bright-loses-appeal-over-34k-in-unpaid-rates-2016071215
Maybe Brexit was a shrewd economic move:
”Europe is extremely sick’, says Deutsche Bank chief economist’
https://www.rt.com/business/350622-european-banks-crisis-deutsche-bank/
“Brussels urgently needs a €150 billion bailout to begin a major recapitalization program for its banks, according to Deutsche Bank’s David Folkerts-Landau.
In the aftermath of UK’s Brexit vote, the focus of attention has switched to Italy’s banking sector, which has accumulated €360 billion in bad loans, and growing.
A former member of the ECB executive board Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, and now chairman at Societe Generale, has warned the banking crisis in Italy could spread to the entire EU.
“Europe is extremely sick and must start dealing with its problems extremely quickly, or else there may be an accident. I’m no doomsday prophet, I am a realist,” he said in an interview to Welt am Sonntag.
According to Folkerts-Landau, Brussels should follow Washington’s steps that helped US banks with a $475 billion bailout.
“In Europe, the bailout does not need to be so large. A €150 billion program should be enough to help European banks recapitalize,” he said.
The decline in bank stocks is only the symptom of a much larger problem, which is low growth, high debt and dangerous deflation, Folkerts-Landau added…
We must bail out the banks with tax payer billions. The ordinary citizens, they can get screwed.
We dont only bail out the banks, there currency speculation raises the cost of debt, and money depreciates.
If the EU collapses will it bring down the economic system?
Greeks are already using a village type bartering system
Many Italians don’t have bank accounts because they distrust bankers and their institutions
Italians could not care less if the banks crash and burn. Little to nothing will impact them further than the difficulties faced in recent years
Deutsche calling for an ‘EU’ bailout is laughable
bollocks much of Italy banks bonds are held by Ma and pa Italians
Italians do not give a toss about the banking system, the EU or the Eurozone
They want out and do not care if the banks collapse
Their way of life revolves around small local, traditional ways of business
Let it crash, then lets see how badly the world needs banks shall we!
The big problem is Deutche Bank. A bailout of Italian banks will help protect Deutche Bank from its exposure. However because the ECB doesn’t back up european banks its a game of chicken between Italy and Germany as to who must bail out their banks and take on more debt first.
Yup, higher food prices forecast, shortfalls in science funding, suspended infrastructure projects, manufacturing sector redundancies and a dire outlook for renewables. That’s pretty fucking shrewd.
/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/02/royal-norfolk-show-brexit-vote-farmers-food-producers
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/is-brexit-bad-for-science/488624/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-uk-construction-sector-heading-for-brick-wall-as-infrastructure-projects-suspended-a7109681.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/900d015a-3ba2-11e6-9f2c-36b487ebd80a.html?siteedition=uk
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/28/siemens-freezes-new-uk-wind-power-investment-following-brexit-vote
an alternative view
‘KeiserReport: Brexit special with Mitch Feierstein (25Jun16)’
Yes it is true, even John Key* disagrees with Donald Trump when it comes to climate change.
http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-vs-the-world-on-the-climate-crisis-1917224058.html
*(Not that he will do anything about it. Making it hard to determine which type of leader is more morally corrupt.
One who persists in denying the reality in spite of all the evidence, or one who admits the reality and then knowingly and willingly oversees a huge increases in his country’s greenhouse gas emissions, in spite of all the evidence. And in spite of commitments he gave to the Pacific Nations at Majuro.)
http://www.21stcentech.com/climate-change-update-majuro-declaration-climate-leadership/
What did John Key sign our country up to in Majuro in 2013?
Clauses H and I
Perfidy
pəːfɪdi
noun literary
The state of being deceitful and untrustworthy.
“it was an example of his perfidy”
synonyms: treachery, duplicity, deceit, perfidiousness, deceitfulness, disloyalty, infidelity, faithlessness, unfaithfulness, betrayal, treason, falseness, falsity, double-dealing, dishonesty, two-facedness, untrustworthiness, breach of trust; More
https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=perfidy%20definition
From Wikipedia; Climate Change New Zealand page.
In the 2007 poll if you add, “A problem now” to “An urgent and immediate problem” you get 77% of those polled. Since that poll, and the 2012 poll that found that over 60% wanted parliament and business to do more on climate change, climate change has become much more apparent, and the future for humanity and life on this planet is looking decidedly dire to anyone who cares to see.
I imagine that the figures are much higher now, than the 70 or 60 percent published figures of a few years ago.
These are the sort of figures that political gurus and advisors should be noting. They are much higher than the winning margins enjoyed by either the government or the opposition.
But what have we seen?
In the 2011 and 2014 elections climate change was virtually universally ignored as an election issue, and it looks likely that this will be repeated again in the 2017 elections.
Climate change is the government’s worst performing portfolio. with the possible exception of housing. It is an issue where the government could take some real hits from the opposition parties.
Unlike housing insecurity, climate change is a problem for all people, even more conservative and well off voters. This reality has been reflected in the recent conversion of the Right Wing ACT Party from being the last hold out of climate deniers in parliament to, in the words of David Seymour the ACT Leader, “Lukewarmist”. Meaning (I presume), that like John Key and the National Government, ACT accepts the reality of climate change, but opposes doing anything about it.
This opens up real possibilities for the opposition parties.
(So far), instead we have seen virtual silence
Will the opposition parties accept the challenge?
Or are they also so deeply enmeshed and tangled up with the fossil fuel lobby that they will again let this opportunity go by?
What will it take?
The alarms are deafening and we are trapped in a burning house.
Will it take a major disaster for our parliamentary leaders to untangle themselves from the fossil fuel lobby?
Let us hope that real action on climate change does not have to wait to be paid for in blood (by which time it may be too late), and that the opposition parties will take this fight to the government.
Hi jenny, the big problem is the public say they want the government to do something, however any meaningful change would render the party unelectable.
The public didn’t want asset sales and voted for a party that campaigned on selling them.
The public thought a CGT was needed but rejected it at the polling booth.
The way I see it I the change must come from the flax roots. From those of us with spare time and other resources.
For an few years now I have been adjusting for a societal change.
I heard and agree it is easier to fall from the footpath to the gutter than from the penthouse.
It’s the folks in the penthouse and the upper floors who will be resisting any meaningful change.
All the government
Hi gsays, the big problem is the public have never been given the chance to make that decision.
People have never had the chance to vote on climate change issues.
You never know they might surprise you.
It is what is called leadership.
On every major policy aspect of the climate issue National and Labour are in agreement. And the Green Party people have told me, in no uncertain terms, that they will not be embarrassing the Labour Party over this, especially now that the MoU has been signed.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-climate-change-policy-a-vote-winner-for-majority-of-australians-20160513-gouwbf.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/27/3773105/climate-change-wedge-issue-2016/
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/laser-talks/politicians-can-win-climate/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/26/our-democracy-has-been-bought-to-win-on-climate-we-have-to-take-it-back
It is my opinion that the first political party that finds the courage needed to stand up to the fossil fuel lobby and run on this issue will do well, and probably better than they normally would.
The demands should be simple and clear.
‘No new coal mines’
‘End deep sea oil drilling and all other extreme fossil fuel technologies’
‘End all subsidies for fossil fuel companies’
Instead plough that money into providing a just transition for the workforces of these industries to jobs that don’t fry the planet.
‘Scrap the plans for a multi-lane motorway tunnel under the Waitemata’
‘Swap the $11 billion set aside for more motorways into public transport instead’
‘Ratify the Majuro Declaration on Climate Change in parliament’
http://www.21stcentech.com/climate-change-update-majuro-declaration-climate-leadership/
It amazes me really all the reasons and excuses that are given that our political representatives cannot champion the fight against climate change.
gsays “unelectable” claim, (not backed up with any evidence) is the same claim that is made for Corbyn or Sanders. The real fear is that these people and the causes they champion are very electable.
And so all measures fair and foul must be used to keep them off the ballot.
The same with climate change.
My fear is that the 2017 election will be the same as 2014 election, and the 2011 election, and by the time our political classes finally wake up to the threat and start to campaign on doing something about it, it will be too late.
i agree with all the suggestions made:
no new coal mines or oil wells, no new roads and invest in public transport etc.
you are right, it is called leadership and wellington is woefully short of leaders.
more like a bunch of managers, administraters and toughers, all with an eye on the latest polling to see what their opinions are this week.
meanwhile i will keep doing the little red hen antics: who will help plant this seed, who will help harvest this food ?