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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, June 13th, 2020 - 32 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Are there any farmers out there who can tell me whether this warm but fairly dry winter is on balance good because the feed is growing, or bad because the rain isn't enough to re-fill the water tables?
The last month has been good next to ruapehu after the frosts left . Needs to be a mild winter after the bitch summer and autumn. Only just approaching normal river and creek levels . We grew 20% less grass for the year according to our excellent vets monthly newsletter.
If my youth in Hawkes Bay is any guide, the biggest problem isn't a warmish and dryish winter. It will be heading into next summer with well below average water tables. If there is a second long, dry and hot summer that will spell catastrophe.
It's trending to a La Nina at the moment, better rainfall for the north and east of the North Island (north easterly source dominant) – not so good for the southern half of the South Island or the West Coast.
The CoronaKoresh is really feeling the absence of his mass adoration events from his Branch Covidians. But his acolytes feel the need to put weasel words on the invites basically saying if you get sick and die, tough shit buddy.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/11/politics/trump-campaign-rally-coronavirus/index.html
Tom Cotton (ultra reactionary Repug senator, Arkansas) may have just successfully renamed the Washington Monument.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tom-cotton-washington-monument_n_5ee3170ac5b67fa8b892423d
The wingnut fight is really getting watchable in Alabama. The nastier it gets, the better the chances of Doug Jones keeping that senate seat for the Dems (but realistically, it’s still just a pleasant fantasy).
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/502126-sessions-tuberville-senate-runoff-heats-up-alabama
Hi Andre, bolton's book is coming out at the end of the month. That ought to set a cat among the pigeons.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/boltons-book-recounts-chaos-turmoil-trump-white-house/story?id=71223055&cid=social_twitter_abcn
The fucker wouldn't front up and testify when it might have made a difference in the impeachment hearings. Hard to see it changing many minds now, at most it'll just harden pre-existing positions. That makes it just a money-grifting opportunity. So yeah, nah.
Bugger! Just want to add I'm enjoying and really appreciate your coverage, info sharing and comments regarding the US election. Thanking you very much
Thanks Cinny. The variety of reaction I'm getting, from whom, and on what specific topics, is something I'm finding very interesting.
Isn't the Tangerine Turkey threatening to sue?
Yep. But Simon & Schuster say they're going ahead with the release despite the threat.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/12/politics/bolton-book-publishing-june/index.html
😉
I'm saving up me Unity Books tokens, starting now.
Pretty sure Buzzy Bees will fund the diff when I offload a few self-improvement and management theory novels.
Of course it could all turn out to be a load of white moustached muff and merkin – nothing ventured, nothing gained
LMFAO !!!!!!!!!!
In a country as geographically and demographically diverse as the United States, it should come as no surprise America’s coronavirus epidemic wasn’t the same everywhere. Functionally, the United States has experienced two epidemics.
The first was in the Northeast Corridor, America’s most densely populated footprint stretching from Washington DC in the south to Boston in the north. The epidemic hit hardest in the greater New York City region. NYC is the United States’ densest population center, the region with the best inter- and intra-city transport infrastructure, as well as its heaviest international travel and transit locations – all factors which encouraged rampant COVID spread.
America’s second epidemic was…everywhere else. Outside of the Northeast Corridor, American cities are far apart and not well connected with transport infrastructure. When travelling around the country, most Americans use personal cars or passenger jets. When COVID started, airline use dropped by over 95% year-on-year and people largely stopped intra-city travel. As such the virus still spread, but more slowly.
The difference explains much of the divergence among Americans as to how they view the virus. The Northeast Corridor got hit hard, and that heavily-urbanised corridor is among America’s most politically liberal regions. So the “Left” takes the virus pretty seriously.
By contrast, most of America’s rural towns and smaller cities lean more politically conservative, with the less populous parts of the country tending in a libertarian direction. So many on the “Right” – and especially the populist right – wonder what’s the big deal?
While policy responses are all over the map, America’s political split as regards COVID perceptions are not ideological. To a large degree, America’s left and right have experienced different epidemics. It is perfectly natural that their perceptions reflect that.
That's about to change. Moving forward, both groups of states are about to experience similar caseload increases, largely due to an unrelated pair of epidemiological disasters.
The first such epidemiological disaster was Memorial Day. After the country was cooped up for two months, people especially in the more libertarian inclined states wanted out, and the three-day Memorial Day weekend enabled them to cut loose. Mass parties were the unsurprising result.
The second epidemiological disaster is the ongoing series of protests against police brutality and racial inequality. SARS-COVID-2 doesn't care about the righteousness of the cause; it just wants to reproduce.
In three to five weeks the USA may well experience a traumatic and unifying event.
This Vox piece includes a really good graph showing the different regional trajectories of the COVID epidemic.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/6/12/21288009/new-covid-spikes-arizona-florida-carolinas-texas
It's useful to continue to remind ourselves that a dominant mode of transmission appears to be superspreading at specific types of events – those that gather large numbers of people into close proximity to make loud noises at each other. Bars. Weddings. Parties. Choir practice. Political rallies (presumably). Protests (quite likely). Concerts. etc.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/just-10-20-of-covid-19-cases-behind-80-of-transmission-studies-suggest/
In the last 3 days US has reported about 20, 23 and 26k cases each day
At 26k day is still got a couple hrs to go.
Interestingly Memorial day was about 2 weeks ago.
Yep, Trump looks stuffed. Google’USA’ and ‘Covid’, and it should produce a graph (at least it does for me). See how the recent trend is very much up?
Thanks the different states data is scary
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
is a good site for world data
Just doing it's thing, again.
http://archive.li/6DpKn/1cc2eae98901240956de613052c702890afa7e81.jpg
Kids being kids.
/
https://twitter.com/somanylakes/status/1271118881101238272
All looks like playbook insurgency used by the US to overthrow democratically elected Central American govts in order to install their own puppets. Highly organised violent rioting and looting, supported by the victims of it ( mostly large corporates), and the notion of racism to be used whenever divide-and-conquer is required. Want to stand up to the lock down?….I don’t think so! Just wait for the spilling of “white” blood to add fuel to burning property. All the while decent folk of all colour watch a ploy to remove the police and no doubt replace it with a totalitarian state which will fit perfectly with the WER’s “ reset”. I’m sure Jacinda will protect the 1990 Bill of Rights Act from parliamentary overreach, and undue influence by our 5 eyes masters.
The odious, fake Captain Hamilton has been sent away… wonderful news.
Here is a piece of dishonesty from RNZ "opinion" today
"It comes in the wake of a remarkable government-led act of collective solidarity that has sacrificed businesses and livelihoods in the cause of protecting those who would have been most vulnerable to Covid-19"
The above statement is False because "businesses and livelihoods" were never "sacrificed" they were munted by the worldwide effects of Covid-19. It was the informed opinion of public health ,Government, and NZ Public that the act of collective solidarity was necessary to minimise the damage to business and livelihoods from Covid-19 by protecting the primary ingredients, people and a functioning society!.
The "opinion" piece offers no reasoning on this matter , so I assume that the idea is to keep slipping this falsehood into other statements so that some people believe it without question.
“ Informed opinion of public health” . Listen, since US has removed its funding from WHO, it’s largest donor is Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation. During the “ decade of vaccines” 2011 to 2020, Gates has enriched himself by over $USD 50b. Now he also funds the World bank and GPMB, World Economic Forum, Gavi, Cepi, (vaccine alliance), Johns Hopkins University. Along with the Wellcome Trust, Gates is now dictating NZ health policy, whether we like it or not.
As soon as our fearful health sector feel obligated to note Covid19 as cause of death on a 96 year olds death cert, you know we are casting common sense aside.
So his business model is to get personally even more wealthy by having a healthy population?
Bill "dastardly" Gates!
Clippity-clop absurdity.
https://twitter.com/jenbrea/status/1271148784316108800
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/case-for-liberalism-tom-cotton-new-york-times-james-bennet.html
Always important to look outside the echo chamber to see what the ordinary voters are saying. Remember Simon Bridges' Facebook post during lockdown, and the furious response, from Kiwis across the political spectrum? It was the beginning of the end for Simon.
Things are looking bad for Todd Muller.
Thousands of comments, the vast majority are critical, but if you take out the biased leftie comments … um, the vast majority are critical. Not least from the right.
Blue Implosion: The Sequel.
More awesomeness from Sarah Cooper
https://youtu.be/qQfetkoGrpU
Kia Ora
Newshub.
That's good more money for virus testing we need to be vigilant.
The sports was great.
Compostable coffee cups That's what we need all our single use things to be made of.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora
The Am Show.
Yes look around the world and see the mess a lot of people will want to come to Aotearoa.
That's is cool using dogs to check people for the virus.
The evedince is in the Nordic county's that have low incarnation rate.
We have to educate people about Aotearoa true history not just the one sided story that is displayed now.
Ka kite Ano.