fact is that you will find this type of ‘vegetable’ oil, in any oil that is labelled ‘vegetable oil’, in any supermarket of the country.
fact is that they used to lable palm oil ‘palm oil’ but they don’t anymore as the destruction caused has been known now for many many years, and people refused to buy the stuff in the mid nineties, and some people still don’t buy anything not clearly labelled. i.e. sunflower oil, olive oil etc.
fact is that just because it is labelled ‘vegetable’ does not mean it will not kill animals and destroy habitat.
fact is also that Jacinda Ardern and her coalition will be flawed.
As well as destroying the environment locally and internationally by deforestation there have also been studies that show farmers using PKE and intensive farming techniques (aka extensive use of supplementary feed) makes farmers more vulnerable financially as they start overstocking and then have go into debt to feed that intensively farmed stock during droughts or bad prices. Funny enough also helps the NZ environment too, not to have so much intensive farming and stock in areas that are not a good fit and rely on means like irrigation and supplementary feed.
Absolutely save NZ. The supplements mean the land is producing above and beyond what it is capable of – and thus above and beyond what it is capable of processing = pollution.
Ah to be the envy of the world and so move us toward becoming a giant feedlot churning out basic commodities. Thanks Fonterra, you’re so visionary.
Fonterra now won’t accept Milk from farms that use more than 3kg of PKE per cow.
Testing is done daily, if farms feed more than this they receive a financial penalty.
Other dairy companies do not do this as yet.
I believe that 2015 recommendation was a pre-emptive move by Fonterra due to anticipated consumer backlash. Before that daily consumption rates were expected to be around 20 – 22 kilos. as it is the level of dry feed is the same, just not the tainted PKE – which may not drop the stocking levels at all.
Nothing to do with being a pre-emptive move to avoid consumer backlash.
Milk from cows that have been fed high levels of PKE has a different composition than grass fed cows.
Long story short, Fonterra finds it difficult to manufacture milk that has had high levels of PKE so they don’t want it.
You may not like the reasons for limiting PKE, but it is still a massive reduction in PKE use on Fonterra farms.
Had a quick look for a PKE article I read a few years back where it seemed that Fonterra was actively encouraging the use. It was then I became aware of the ecological impact our current model for the dairy industry was having overseas. Can’t find it now though. However, there was an identification of NZ dairy being one of the main purchasers of PKE. If Fonterra was unaware of that possible consumer backlash, they are not keeping an eye on the game.
It is interesting that the manufacturing process is the reason that they are asking farmers for a reduction. If that is the case, I assume that different processes or products are now being made, otherwise it took them long enough.
If Fonterra were actively promoting PKE as a supplementary feed and have now changed the criteria, it is the farmers that are also being affected with changing and conflicting advice – often after investing capital in higher stock levels with certain outlay parameters.
Nonsense! Fonterra’s Edendale milk power plant uses HUGE amounts of lignite, dirty brown coal, round the clock! Truck load after truck load after truck load!
The point of this post was firstly, to illustrate the lengths that commercial interests will go to protect a lucrative but immoral trade from any cricticism or censure.
Which pointed out the need for legislation to bring these rogues into line.
If Jacinda Ardern can stand up to the powerful coal lobby over Te Kuha Coal mine expanding onto conservation land, and defy the oil and gas lobby by refusing their demand to issue them any new off shore exploration permits.
Why hasn’t she done something about ending this despicable trade?
you mean like being rich with a gold toilet and fake teeth and comb over establishment?
or are you talking about people on the standard that might find ed a bit to much?
as for the Palm Kernel, Palm Oil, Vegetable Oil, brouhahah, Ed is late to he Party. Very Very late. That realization happened for many in the mid 90’s.
“as for the Palm Kernel, Palm Oil, Vegetable Oil, brouhahah, Ed is late to he Party. Very Very late. That realization happened for many in the mid 90’s.”
How very ‘right on’ of you, Sabine. The usual Shit progressives could learn to drop.
Because you knew this 20plus years ago, it gives you the right to down on folk getting it now?
no, it does not.
but it also give us oldies that have been avoiding this shit, have talked in real live to people about it, have donated to various organisations a right to say “it is not news’.
As for Ed, i don’t like preachers. I don’t care if they are roman catholic, or protestant, or vegan.
He has his good points, but it is maybe time that he realises that just because he discovered something that no one ever spoke to him about, or that he never saw on tv, does not mean we or some of us don’t know it.
now other then that, have you got an issue with the facts that I spoke about?
In regards to pke, I have nothing to add, couldn’t agree more etc.
As for your and others attitude to Ed, yes.
Firstly the ‘new’ aspect to this is that this ad has been banned and as Jenny points out, had an early life for Greenpeace.
Joe made this Greenpeace point in an equally dismissive way when Ed first posted it.
Beyond the obvious environmental devastation issues, the fact that the ad was banned sends shivers.
Also bear in mind it is a big grocery chain (900stores in UK) that seems to be an industry leader is even more chilling (boom boom). http://about.iceland.co.uk
For me this brings up questions, who complained to get this banned?
We all learn at different times but the way some react to Ed, closes down conversation, exchange of ideas and shifts things to the personal.
Most people who visit here do not comment.
For all their faults so far, the governments message of kindness would not go too far astray.
he realises that just because he discovered something that no one ever spoke to him about, or that he never saw on tv, does not mean we or some of us don’t know it.
Perhaps its time that you realised that just because you know something doesn’t mean that everybody else does.
Then there’s the fact that if it’s still happening then it still needs to be reported about. All your actions in the 1990s hasn’t stopped the destruction.
By establishment I mean institutional centrists I suppose. Those who are for nothing and against everything, and against nothing and for everything.
Ed is passionate, yes, but pretty mild and very consistent.
I’ve learned something new over the last few days on palm oil both here and elsewhere. It’s not a fight which should be over because institutional centrists have barely moved on it. This is the kind of fight which requires radical activism.
This fight has been fought for a long time, and sadly imho has been lost.
Not because people like you, Ed, i or many others have stopped using it, actively trying to not buy it even in its hidden form, but essentially due to government selling the land and the rights to companies for pennies on a dollar, and sadly Orang Utans have no value for these people. No more then people or animals have value in NZ when we give away our ground water to bottling companies cause why not. And yet, we can’t seem to do much about that either?
there was radical activism in the late 80’s mid 90’s which forced labeling laws to state the content of the ‘vegetable oils’, it resulted in Palm Oil to literally disappear from our shelfs in supermarkets.
Instead they are now selling Palm Oil Kernel – industry to industry – i.e. Industrial Agriculture as a cheap food supplement.
This little christmas clip is nothing new, nor is the censuring of it. Media is a profit driven industry and they will ban what will harm profit.
So maybe we should start giving up our TV’s then. Stop watching it. All of it, even Dr. Who. Maybe if profits go down media will wake up. But can you imagine all 8 billion of us doing that?
coming here and posting articles that are neither new nor anything else is now ‘revolutionary’? Really?
Latin: revolutio, “a turn around”) is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolt against the government, typically due to perceived oppression (political, social, economic).
seriously, i don’t actually care that much. But can we please stay in the reality based world and not create saints out of nothing.
Many of the issues that Ed talks about have been around for many many years. Many people have advertised veganism or vegetarianism many millenia before ED was born, see India.
He is not always wrong, he is not always right, but he ain’t no revolutionary nor a saint. He is a poster with his personal interests. But he talks very little about anything new.
If Ed is revolutionary, what was Weka then? And she at least wants to change things for the better on the ground rather then just come here and post one link after the other link of what ever outrage is du jour today.
Ed seems to want to ‘own’ TS. He tells people what to do, but not once and then letting other people comment. He jumps in and out numerous times and dominates the thread with his opinions.
If he feels strongly about something let him write a post about it and present the facts and his opinion once or twice and let other people have a go, and they will bring aee thought and links to the matter.
I notice diminishing numbers of people with joined-up ideas leading to better ideas for citizens and the future coming here. I don’t know whether it is because of people like Ed who appear take up writing here as a hobby to fill in their time, or that it’s like a garden that has been left with bare soil which gets colonised by weeds.
> I don’t know whether it is because of people like Ed
I suspect people jumping on Ed, are much more offputting to new readers, than Ed himself is
(Edit:) You come on a left wing site and you kinda expect to find a harmless, vegan, pot smoking peacenik. What you don’t expect to find is a dozen other people screaming at him to STFU…
There are something like a dozen responses to that comment (including “+1″s), all disagreeing with it with various levels of invective, and from the political spectrum of commenters at the time. Which is a pretty impressive number of responses with a consistent refrain.
Gotta say, your characterisation of the response isn’t entirely fair.
I would describe what Ed does is questioning the MSM narrative concerning Putin.
A long way from supporting.
I think we would agree the MSM profit seeking, click baity habits is the greatest obstacle to most progressive ideas.
Neither does repeating Putin’s propaganda like Ed does – in fact it prevents the Left from addressing chronic atrocities like those in Syria – which is the whole point of it.
It would be nice indeed to make progress, but Putin is not by any means the revolution we are looking for.
@Gsays – Actually he doesn’t question the MSM narrative – he derides it, rejecting it en bloc. The Guardian for example is not a completely reliable source – notably on Corbyn, but each piece stands or falls on its merits.
If he ever questioned Russian narratives, or those of his preferred sources – self-styled “independent” vloggers from the ranter end of the spectrum, I’d leave him to it.
FFS, Ed hasn’t even commented on today’s OM (so far.)
I’d settle for Ed being given a fair go. Sabine is correct that Ed champions some ‘old’ causes, but if the issues are unresolved and/or getting worse, then what’s so wrong about trying to raise awareness?
It’s the apparent closed-mindedness of the ‘holding a grudge against Ed‘ brigade that’s most off-putting. When, in the immediate discussion about the environmental and economic folly of palm oil production and use, Stuart Munro (@8.57 am) drops this:
You support a murderous asshole like Putin and I’ll jump on you too.
The Old Left had an excuse for misguided Russophilia – Ed doesn’t.
then you know Ed will continue to be personally attacked for his views and style by the usual suspects (j90, SM, James). And to what end?
All of us have been occasionally attacked. Some leave some stay.
It is that comment about the ‘establishment’ going after Ed that i find just laughable. And i would state this with any other name insert.
As for us being a silly NZ blog, who cares, and who defines what is silly?
Really, the point is that some of us come here to get the news in a condensed form, or come to see if any organizing is being done, or see if some organizing could be done. And of course the occasional sparring with the one or other commentator about stuff.
I do however believe that there is a segment of the population, here and elsewhere that needs a savior to rally behind, and it seems some are happy to elevate Ed to that place. And frankly that is a load of horse manure. Ed no more has the truth then any other person here.
And those that are afraid of ‘censure’, wake up. We have censures on naked people, genitalia, sex, age appropriate content, heck, we refuse to show the dead of war cause it could upset us emotionally while showing all sorts of violence in ‘tv dramas’ and all sorts of media selfcensure – Heck don’t try to write the news as you see fit in Russia – you might end up dead, or in the US – you might be called an enemy of the state.
Even this is nothing new. We know. We have known for a long time.
Many have changed eating habits, driving habits, living arrangements, but unless all of us, inclusive Ed turn off the TV, stop reading the news to complain about, stop buying cheap shit in shops out of boredom, essentially give up live as we know it now, go to the land and start plowing it, or do a no dig garden etc, there will be no change.
In twenty years time there will be a new Ed. No more wrong or right then the current Ed. Essentially its not that people have a grudge against Ed and those that are like him, newly converted members of the constantly outraged, its that it is boring if it comes without solutions. And i look for solutions that are community based. I can’t change Syria, i can’t change the US, but i can change small things in my community and that is what we should be talking more about.
How can we proof our own communities for the world that will be, cause our world is slowly but surely dying out in floods, droughts, fires, mudslides, one decimated species at a time, if we only want to be outraged?
> I can’t change Syria, i can’t change the US, but i can change small things in my community … go to the land and start plowing it, or do a no dig garden etc
To get him to practice a few basics Drowsy – elementary critical treatment of his sources, and not repeating blackguards without cause.
Ed has posted a practically infinite series on how bad the white helmets are – without ever coming to grips with them in any credible fashion.
His critique of Bellingcat was not factual inaccuracy – their principle responsibility as a journalistic outfit – but that they impugned Putin. It’s just not good enough.
Ed himself rarely hesitates to indulge in personal attacks – he’s not much better at them than he is at arguments though, so they often go unnoticed.
you said: > I can’t change Syria, i can’t change the US, but i can change small things in my community … go to the land and start plowing it, or do a no dig garden etc
But instead you come here and yell at Ed
A.
You know what A. i am still not yelling. 🙂 I am just not sure about the beatification of St. Ed.
and yes, like you A. i come here. Go figure. I must be the establishment.
[lprent: The reply button disappears at about 10 indents. A: gotta stop somewhere otherwise the we get one word per line. B: wordpress only allows 10. C: that gives em an idea… ]
I can live with whom i am. Been doing it for a while, am comfortable with my self. Thanks.
But please explain to me who is the ‘establishment’ of the Standard that gives posters a hard time?
Would that be posters that might disagree with you ? or with Ed? Or with someone else? Like seriously, a lot of posters disagree with me, such is the world. So please explain Establishment to me.
People that don’t march lockstep with a few posters here?
Because frankly we are loosing good posters, commentators and there are days were all of thee posts are just people whinging about the Guardian, the Herald, the Radio, various radio personalities and posting links upon links to stuff but essentially saying nothing much of substance.
Yes – I think you have less in common with Corbyn, and more with ranters like George Galloway.
Your disdain for cold warriors clearly does not extend to Putin, who is the cold war espiocrat par excellence, so you run a mighty double standard there.
What you simply do is repeat Putin’s propaganda – Corbyn’s foreign policy is relatively sophisticated, and goes right over your head.
The establishment is the neoliberal establishment, set up up by Thatcher and Blair in the UK, Reagan and Clinton in the US and put in place by Douglas and Richardson in NZ.
This extremist economic ideology has ruled untrammelled for 34 years.
We still live in a NZ where the Labour Party has not disavowed the neoliberal cult.
The tentacles of the neoliberal establishment are everywhere – in politics, in the civil service, in Universities, in the media.
We are still sold the mantra.
There is no alternative.
There is an alternative
Eco socialism.
It’s that or the planet dies.
That’s why the Iceland ad was banned.
It threatened the establishment.
In front of the world, America has shown everyone what a piss weak president they have. He would not walk a step to honour the American soldiers WWI. Because of rain drops.
In front of the great State of California the same piss weak president has poured out his piss weak insults on the devastated, the dead and dying in the fierce hell fires – fiddling like a mad man with his insipid tweets.
America is at its Weakest. Surely they can rid themselves of the current Whitehouse Fool.
when you want to bring about the Endtimes in order to get raptured, when all you care is tax cuts and gutting the social welfare net, when all you want is money money money, then he is the perfect president.
the orange turd will always be as good or as bad as those around him, he will be as good or as bad as his ‘courtiers’ as they are the ones that influence his decisions and his decision making.
Sadly the emperor has not clothes, his family has no clothes, the republican senate has no clothes, but everyone wants to discuss the evil that is a women called Nancy Pelosi. 🙂
so yeah, they will not rid themselves of the current occupant, cause surely any day now he will make america white again, which is synonymous with ‘great’ .
“..when all you care for is tax cuts and gutting the social welfare net, when all you want is money money money, then he (trump) is the perfect president “.
The extra long Black Coated Fool – hanging around like a dark cloud of hate and horror. President Insane.
He ain’t going to be impeached and he will probably be re-elected.
News out today is talk that Hilary Clinton is going to run again. If this turns out to be true, they might as well start designing the orange ones new second term business cards now
I think that Hillary would find that there are a few very good candidates that might run, and that for better or for worse her time has past.
And i think that she will actually be ok with it.
Rain might badly affect the appearance of his hair piece. If someone took a photo of him with a drowned rat look it would upset his political image and standing. He should have adopted wet gear cover as defence forces, civil defence, fire service would wear. That would have made him look manly, and one of the real people.
With his class, it is perception that counts, of course.
But it saved the world from having to see, Trumps hair,wet,straggly,hanging past his shoulders with his bald pate shining brightly through the remnants.
Yeah it stops him looking like the rest of us would be without our cosmetic implants and inputs and outputs etc. We need to form sympathetic clubs of brave people with the slogan, “Only plain, unadorned people here’.
Actually thinking about that, there is a vanguard group of men who eschew! hair on their heads, and let their beards grow to their waists and wide enough to wrap round their shoulders in cold winters. I guess I’m a bit late with this idea for a club showing simply how it is.
ZZ Top for President (either or both)
With these guys we could get double dose of wisdom if they were President
conjointly. And they have a sense of humour about themselves. Great.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u-zEGGp5qY
And this is completely unrelated but shows blokes with more esprit de corps than Trump (who wouldn’t even know what that means.)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD0evP6dCJg
“America’s Got Talent” alum Benton Blount abruptly lost his opening-act gig on ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons’ concert tour after his pro-Trump Facebook post got him temporarily banned from the social media website.
We still await official confirmation on the content of the Kashoggi tape recording – also on how it was made. Initial reports from Turkey seemed to come from leaks in the government and/or their investigating team, suggesting it was made via his watch, and recorded him screaming as his fingers were being chopped off – nothing on that since. However the existence of a tape recording is now official:
“Erdoğan is understood to remain unconvinced about Prince Mohammed remaining in power. On Saturday, the Turkish leader claimed Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Britain, France and Germany had been given audio tapes that recorded the killing of Khashoggi, who was killed by a team of 15 security officials who had flown to Istanbul and lain in wait for him to enter the Saudi consulate to sign marriage papers on 2 October. Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau confirmed Canadian spies had listened to audio depicting the last moments of Khashoggi’s life. Germany later followed suit, in what appeared to be a co-ordinated effort to maintain pressure on Riyadh.”
“What was recorded on the tapes remains the centrepiece of the case against the Kingdom, and could help answer whether the crown prince himself was incriminated in the conversations. His chief domestic aide, Saad al-Qahtani, was sacked two weeks after the assassination, as was a deputy intelligence chief. Mohammed bin Salman insists he played no role and his defenders have insisted the hitmen over-reached in a bid to please their masters. Intelligence officials in the region, and in Europe remain incredulous at the claim.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/12/saudi-arabia-crown-prince-mohammed-wings-clipped-as-khashoggi-death-rattles-riyadh
Seems very significant that the recording is being shared with Canada. Widening the circle like this at the top level of geopolitics is rare. I presume the key players have decided a broad consensus is essential for the leverage they are intending to apply. Realpolitik may not suffice. Evil requires a response of overwhelming force to eliminate it and/or prevent the spread. Tolerance sends the wrong signal. Are western leaders rediscovering their mojo?
Moral guidance has been absent at the top level for so long many assume it is irrecoverable. Can Trump grow a spine? Will they run it by Putin? And the Chinese leader? I presume they will decide to use the UN, so the answer must be yes. If not, it’ll be a tacit concession that the UN is a dead duck, useless for anything but posturing & inadequate peace-keeping.
To be a “good” MP you need to be fluently credible. Some of our intelligent considerate MPs fail to ignite because, I think, they are carefully analysing what effect their words will have on those who are listening. A sort of instant echo chamber. The result is a hesitant speaker who commands no respect.
I think 2-3 of previous Labour Leaders suffered from this not because they lacked talent but lacked the ability to express their thoughts.
Kelvin is a good hardworking bloke but does not come across well.
Clearly Chris you have never experienced speaking to a large audience. An intelligent person may be “listening” to their own words just before they emerge and questioning whether they are right and will no be understood. Result? Hesitancy. How about you try speaking off the cuff to say 500,000 on National Radio.
Your mate Key covered it by speaking in contradictory terms and smiling boyishly.
Too right greywarshark. Some see things black or white and can be certain. Some of us see a lot of grey with splodges of black and white and can not often give a straight answer. Ask my wife!
Easy to speak when your mind is full of simplistic slogans.
Real life, as truly intelligent people know, is full of complication, buts and maybes.
Putting across complicated concepts accurately and correctly is a lot harder than saying “Labour did it too”.
I like the old Polynesian concept of the talking Chief, and the doing Chief. No one expected the crop expert or the Navigator, to be an orator.
The real bosses, on a Marae, don’t do the public speaking. But you can sure see them rolling their eyes on the back bench, when a blowhard goers on too long..
Which just reinforces the fact that Kelvin should not be the Acting PM, ever. Rightly or wrongly, we expect our Acting PMs to be able to explain a point of view, or policy, or decision.
Kelvin doesn’t seem to be able to do that, therefore he shouldn’t be the Acting PM. It doesn’t mean he isn’t good at other things.
On the marae it may be the kuias who get restive, and show it, even though it’s the men who get to do the talking on most marae. Or that’s what I have heard?
Thanks I feel love – and it is not correct to say Maoris either is it. It is an ongoing thing learning to speak te reo well, even if only partially.
Kia kaha to me.
I got an idea of the strength of determination of aunties. I think from Witi Ihimaeras book Pounamu Pounamu. In the story I remember about a rugby game between hapu, the aunties played and were so tricky, if the others seemed to be winning advantage, one of the aunties might get hold of the ball and sit on it till all her side were back in their defensive positions.
The game would come to a standstill while the players argued and pleaded with the auntie to release the ball. It was a lovely little story though I don’t know if true at some time, but could be I think.
Kelvin did not come across well with Hoskings this morning. Basically said ILG, Shane Jones and Phil Twyford all doing marvelous jobs! Geez he sets a very low bar!
My favourite response – time for repeat – ‘Don’t be so quick to ‘eave ‘alf a brick’
It could be worse, we could have Gnashional and be gnashing our teeth. We already have inadequate medical care including dental, after years of these poseurs. I don’t say that the Labour Coalition are always marvellous, but many times they come near.
Those million trees cannot be planted on different ground – can they? Will have to trash them. Or wait a minute. A different hill or two? Problem solved.
“Acting Prime Minister Kelvin Davis says that almost a million seedlings that were not planted for a Government-backed forestry project will not be wasted because there is plenty of other land that can be used.”
nope, i just ask you to show where the no mates party and its supporters over the nine years they have been in power attempted to plant any trees, rather then just cut them down to ship overseas, or put a fake art on the swamp kauri to export overseas.
I find it funny that you want to blame someone for not doing enough while at the same time supporting a party that has a record of doing fuck all.
Wait… who are you blaming? After reading the article, I’d say local iwi rather than the government messed up.
“Ngāti Hine documents seen by the Herald show the iwi did not have enough money to replant the entire forest block itself and had failed to find a commercial partner to take on a joint venture.
Ngāti Hine Forestry Trust chairman Pita Tipene did not respond to requests for comment.”
So if you or I had contracted someone and they failed to live up to our expectations by not completing their obligations, would we be to blame or would it be the fault of our contractor?
Bad example. If I used your money to contract someone, and they did a bad job, then you should criticise me as well as the contractor. Because I would have made a bad choice and in the process wasted your money.
Note “a Treasury briefing paper released through the OIA showed Treasury urging Finance Minister Grant Robertson to reject a $116m grant scheme because of the “the lack of detail around grants” and a $127m partnership package, again because “little detail” came with the Budget bid.”
Wethebleep
If you are making ironic statements can you assure us of that by ending /sarc. With the breadth of assertions we get here it is hard to know what is really thought.
“On Sunday, Los Angeles fire chief Daryl Osby told the Guardian that climate change was undeniably a part of why the fires were more devastating and destructive than in years past.” It seems undeniable, but deniers keep on denying, so all is not quite what it may seem, huh? The mass psychology of denial of reality is a predominant trend of our times. Leftists denying free speech are just a small part of that sociopathy. When denial starts killing people, a countervailing force is required. Also, the mass psychology of denial enabled institutions to victimise helpless children for generations: comprehension of how it operates is essential.
“The emergency now equals the 1933 Griffith Park disaster in Los Angeles as the deadliest California wildfire on record… David Bowie’s long-term pianist Mike Garson tweeted on Saturday about losing his home and studio… Miley Cyrus said that she lost her home but escaped with her fiancé, the actor Liam Hemsworth, and their animals… Katy Perry and Rod Stewart also criticised Trump over his tweets.”
also if you want to open up federal parks to mining, logging and the likes , it makes perfect sense when the turd complains about ‘ This is NOT ‘proper’ Forrest management.
at the end of the day, people like him and those that support him don’t care about climate change or anything.
There is money to be made, and they rightly assume that the one with the most money will the insulated against all odds the longest.
That you and i and others can’t breathe, die in fires, or floods, or mudslides, or or or is of no importance. We are units to be pressed for profit and we when outlived our purpose of extracting productivity and profit we are to die, silently if possible.
A whole town burned, Paradise Valley, 27000 people, just lost their homes, 29 people are officially dead, many found in their cars trying to escape (very similar to a devastating fire a few years ago in OZ) and over 200 are still missing.
Its sad that the rich have lost their homes but they have good insurance and will just move to somewhere else nice, the 27.000 people currently in shelters might not have that option.
Understanding what is reality which has to be faced will have been dented by too much television creating suspension of disbelief. Even news is not a case of seeing is believing. And listening and watching media gets in the way of thinking for yourself, and reading can help but are the books and newspapers presenting unslanted news. The more people get scared, the more they turn to cults which give a spurious sense of confidence and stability within their sheep pens for their flock.
The rest of humanity howling about the dreadful happenings caused by other people and their machines, or climate change and nature’s aweful powers seem like shrieking wind gusts, or mad people. Don’t look at them Martha, they are evil.
Yes, well put. The wisdom of the crowd is the bright side of mass psychology – crowd-sourcing solutions often works surprisingly well (as anyone who has done brainstorming in group situations tends to realise). The dark side isn’t just denial, there’s worse stuff with that, and history is replete with instances.
Postmodernism in the nineties denied that evil is real. A nuanced response was noticeably lacking in the media around this at the time. We must be careful to not assume warped people are evil – often they suffer ptsd from bad childhoods. I saw Norm Hewitt telling Duncan Garner the other day why he does non-violence counselling/advocacy work. Quite a story!
Dennis Frank
I am enjoying reading your thoughts and vision. All power to your fingertips and thinking brain and trickle down that wisdom! And we will still find things to disagree with of course, that’s par for the course, but it is great to see ideas that fit the present reality and venturing beyond.
“The tinderbox conditions in California were already dangerous in January when Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones warned of the “growing problem” of fire insurance unavailability within the state.”
What is the story about a ‘change of shipping routes’ which has resulted in non-supply of bananas? They are a food that we eat in large amounts. How often are we going to strijke non-delivery of imported things we need?
We are so dependent on imports of so many things. The thinkers have registered that this is not good sense but the hunting capitalist dogs who have followed the scent of more money for them, and left us unself-sustaining.
My freezer still has a bag of bananas from last year. New bunches are emerging now. I try to give plants to people with young families they look at me like an alien – then go to the store and buy them, visible chemical residues and all. They’ll complain when they can’t get some.
Meantime, I’m expanding: berries, nuts, cherries, guavas, olives, avocados, figs and more added just this year. Personal responsibility. I am over waiting on anyone.
Shipping route changes? Military nonsense, or global warming perhaps…
When Jacinda gave out those mandarin trees to Kiwibuild owners, the original thought was for lemons. but her adviser mentioned if they died, “Lemons turn out to be Lemons” would be the headlines… I had a fly on the wall at the garden centre the purchase was made.
Can’t even plant trees without caution the right (with manicured nails) will find fault.
But we could be planting our own banana crops there’s a few regions with the micro climates to pull it off.
interesting, i am on a group of veggie garderners on fb, and up north, bananas are growing with relative ease as are pinapples.
But hey, climate change and this and that can’t be it ,cause that would be inconvenient.
I am looking at weather patterns here in the middle of the north island now and gosh it is the strangest thing.
have planted my veggies as always, hoping to grow as much and freeze/can or dry surplus.
We are truly living in interesting times.
btw, England just discovered that most of their food is imported and comes by ship. Yes, the intellect that brought Brexit not once thought about something as simple as where does our food come from.
Here is hoping, but then again, we still have a bit more garden the most of the English ever had. Lordships n such.
Its gonna be a few hard miles that they will have to walk. And in saying that, unless you grow your food here in NZ you will eat the same stale veggies grown in hothouses, seasons be damned, as do the English.
I had three Swiss visit my garden today. They marvelled at the huge size things they are familiar with at home as modestly sized, growing here to “outrageous” proportions. “Paradise”, the said, “No insect pests, no diseases…no snakes! We are greatly blessed here in NZ. If only we could tailor our behaviour to reflect just how fortunate we are! WTB sounds as though he/she is working on it!
Can’t generalise like that Sabine. Britain has been taking our imports for years and was our biggest customer which enabled the farmers here to have some certainty for their produce. Then UK joined EU and there was a fair amount of negative thinking about that, so they didn’t manage to include allowance for all our trade (I suppose there was discussion?).
Some years ago there was a move in UK to limit travelling miles for their food so there has been a move there to partially limit imports.
Too right. 300,000 logged rides since introduction of Lime and 66 ACC claims, of which we don’t seem to know how many are more serious than cuts and bruises.
Cf any Saturday in winter time – how many rugby related ACC injuries are there EVERY single week? Ridiculous.
But playing rugby is an activity sport keeping people fit. Powered scooters do the opposite. They also actively discourage walking if they are on the pavement.
‘Moral panic’ is a bit of a loaded description.
If someone is intending to making a profit while externalising some of their costs onto the taxpayer – in this case the cost of injury – then people are rightly a bit miffed. It’s no different from farmers polluting waterways or trucking companies destroying roads.
I can see how to cool urbanites it looks like moral panic – coming as it does from old fuddy duddies with zero knowledge of craft beers. However there are more fundamental issues in play. It actually illustrates how these self-styled cool ‘disrupters’ are incredibly dependent on the physical and cultural infrastructure of the world they are so keen to disrupt.
You equate the sexual assault of several young people at a labour camp Where criminal charges have been laid – to a guy I don’t know who had a princess themed party.
He was far worse than that. He kept pulling the hair of that young woman in that cafe in Auckland, even after she begged him to stop. He then tried to buy her silence with a couple of bottles of wine.
On the one hand he supports Trump who is anti-immigrant, anti-LBGT, who uses prostitutes extra-maritally, and whose most famous quote is, “grab ’em by the pussy’. And on the other he’s convinced the NZ Labour Party has an endemic sexual abuse culture based on the actions of an errant youth or two.
James is also very supportive of the new Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is anti-black, anti-LGBT, anti-maternity leave, and anti-environment. His most famous quote is, “(Rosario) is not worth raping; she is very ugly”.
I think from this we have a pretty clear portrait of James of this board. An urban red-neck who pretends to have concerns for the honour of women but whose regular commentary suggests otherwise.
I think you need to look up the synonyms and antonyms of the word charismatic and tell us again about your support for Jair Bolsonaro.
I note that you expressed your warm feelings toward him in direct response to a comment about our Prime Minister who you see as not charismatic at all.
I’ll like Shane Jones if he gets on and does practical helpful things in the regions supporting reasonable initiatives and infrastructure and bettering standards of living. The regions are slipping and their sad about it, and we all should get behind them and make sure they get a better deal.
At present there is in Northland fears of a new strain, stronger, of some bug that bugs them! I remember the story of Florence Harsant Te Maari, who rode round there and other regions in early 20th century telling people about the revolt against alcohol and its debilitating effects. She found whole villages dying of disease without aid, cordoned off to stop it spreading by medical authorities who had not followed up with sufficient help and medications. She had to secretly slip through herself to get the word out and so she could get help for herself.
I don’t want to see regions being ignored and discarded again. It could happen as these drongoes who are running us with their smooth tongues and oily theories and trick-box paradigms and who follow the USA line could do what they have done to uneconomic regions there – for instance, Flint with its putrid drinking water, and the good stuff being bottled for and exported for profit. Industrially based cities have declared bankruptcy. I
It’s unfair to mention McGonagall and not give a piece of his offerings.
This one is about how they pushed him out of Dundee. I don’t know if it
would work on anyone else. He did not accept any poetic rule except that it should rhyme.
A New Year’s Resolution to Leave Dundee by William Topaz McGonagall
Welcome! thrice welcome! to the year 1893,
For it is the year I intend to leave Dundee,
Owing to the treatment I receive,
Which does my heart sadly grieve.
Every morning when I go out
The ignorant rabble they do shout
‘There goes Mad McGonagall’
In derisive shouts as loud as they can bawl,
And lifts stones and snowballs, throws them at me;
And such actions are shameful to be heard in the city of Dundee.
And I’m ashamed, kind Christians, to confess
That from the Magistrates I can get no redress.
Therefore I have made up my mind in the year of 1893
To leave the ancient City of Dundee,
Because the citizens and me cannot agree.
The reason why? — because they disrespect me,
Which makes me feel rather discontent.
Therefore to leave them I am bent;
And I will make my arrangements without delay,
And leave Dundee some early day.
Bad poetry didn’t die with the Dryden of Dundee; it revived in a big way with some dreadful pop lyrics in the 1970s. I thought–and still think–that Rose Royce was one of the great disco groups, and in particular I love their classic “I Wanna Get Next To You.” It’s marred awfully, however, by the opening couplet, viz.
Sittin’ here
In this chair….
Also truly awful are these three lines from Walter Egan’s “Magnet and Steel”:
With you I’m not shy, to show the way I feel
With you I might try, my secrets to reveal
For you are a magnet and I am steel
Even worse than those botched and cloth-eared attempts at scansion are rap lyrics, which generally lack wit. Take that epic tryhard Eminem, for instance. His sleazy and unclever fantasizing about what he’d like to do to the Spice Girls is an abject example of….
…continues ranting and raving in this vein for hours…
Go easy on slim shady mozza, he may not be your cup of tea but he is good at what he does.
“Little hellions kids feeling rebellious
Embarrassed, their parents still listen to Elvis
They start feeling like prisoners helpless
‘Til someone comes along on a mission and yells “bitch”
A visionary, vision is scary,
Could start a revolution, pollutin’ the air waves a rebel
So let me just revel and bask
In the fact that I got everyone kissing my ass”
“Though I’m not the first king of controversy
I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley
To do black music so selfishly
And use it to get myself wealthy”
Don’t get me wrong there is a lot of very bad poetry in rap, not just bad but harmful, misogynistic hate speech.
My palms are sweaty, need enough rhymes to keep this rap steady, have I used spaghetti already, or a Yeti at a wedding throwing confetti at Steady Eddie…
Eminems aight… but those who think he’s some kinda genius who can’t be copied, well, they all reading their own press releases cos it’s BS.
Morrissey
Don’t be so quick to heave ‘alf a brick. We need NZ First and they do their best from their thinking of the conservative people. Even you M, are not perfect but you are appreciated.
Kiddy-whacking isn’t the worst sort of behaviour in our society. It has just become the scapegoat that we throw stones at while we ignore all the other beastly things we do. There were egregious punishment cases that needed the parents to go through re-education which couldn’t be done, because they had never been any in the first place. (Another example of NZ lack of reasoned standards.) Those parents need to be guided individually as to how children behave at certain ages and understand their psychology, why the kids act the way they do, and why the adult responds in a certain way and how to prevent either violence or psychological hurting, and what level of authority and limits there should be instead of feeling threatened when they misbehave.
I agree, Cinny, it’s a surprisingly intelligent decision – for which our government deserves credit, and if she drove it through then I respect her initiative & perseverence. Will be interesting to see how the balance between healing & accountability is handled, eh?
Warning!! A joke in this piece by Graham Elwood will offend the sensitive, and the hard right. Also another warning – it contains a far right loony nut bag who thinks killing people is fine. 6.31 – but video really ends at 5.57 rest is ads.
That tweet by the Democrat at the end is rather interesting. Iran was democratic but the US decided that they didn’t like and staged a coup and then put in their own puppet monster.
One of the trolls on here has difficulty in understanding American politics.
He / She claims that Mr Trump has a huge following.
In fact, he has only one quarter 1/4 of the vote 2016 and probably less following the recent election in 2018.
So how come he is President ? Because of a massive cooking of the books process, known as the “Electoral Commission”. A mere 538 persons are chosen to elect the President. The huge citizen Voters count for nothing.
Which is why Trump got in as President. Quite simply because Voters don’t count in American Politics. Canada and New Zealand run reasonably well, because voting Citizens count in those Countries.
Polls since 1967 have shown that a majority of Americans favor the president and vice president being elected by the nationwide popular vote, instead of by the Electoral College.[11][12] REF Wikipedia.
Trump is basically a small time player with a small corrosive brain. Plus his long Black Hatred Coat.
On Sunday I flew off the handle after reading a reply by Dennis to one of my posts. I now realize that he was arguing in good faith, and that I was wrong and unfair to label him with the opprobrious epithets that I did.
Sorry, Dennis.
Anyone wishing to see for him/herself just how out of line I was can follow the whole thing by clicking on the following link….
That’s exactly what I’m apologizing for, Antoine. There certainly are depraved halfwits amongst us, sadly. Just look at the ACT Party, the S.S. Trust, and the Hobson’s Choice gang. However, Dennis is not one of them.
Thanks Morrissey, that’s a pleasant surprise. Apologies are an ancient way of restoring goodwill & mutual respect – social media would benefit from restoration of that form of interaction. Good on you.
I’m well aware of that, adam. Indeed, Kennedy probably beat Nixon in 1960 for the same reasons.
But it’s worse, and more shameless, now than ever.
Then of course, on top of everything else, the Democrats suffer from having such brilliant “strategists” as Warren Christopher “running” their “negotiations”….
(While they are about it, maybe the government should be worried about anybody with a warm body and ability to lie and cheat the paperwork being able to become a NZ permanent resident or citizen, and those who were not born in NZ, don’t live in NZ, contribute little to nothing here, but still get to keep permanent residency and citizenship and therefore the OIA don’t apply anyway and they get that free health, education and voting rights on their ‘holidays’ here while people are toiling away on low wages here to provide for them, should be looked at.)
Natz managed a lot of ‘urgent’ law changes very quickly, maybe inertia is the issue for the Greens as well as Labour and NZ First who also campaigned on reducing foreign sales?
… the foreign buyers made more than a million in profit but only fined $847k…. that’s certainly sending the message to ignore OIA if you can make a buck, you still get to make a profit even if you are caught. Thanks NZ government! sarcasm.
Fair call, I reckon. Obviously they can’t do it themselves but they could at least go public with a diagnosis of what’s wrong with the law, and explain precisely how they’d change it. That would reassure the broader Green movement.
Concurrent lobbying of Labour & NZF for a law change would be sensible & it would be a mistake to assume that they aren’t doing so already.
“it would be a mistake to assume that they aren’t doing so already.”.. how slow can they go.
Labour led government did the foreign residential sales ‘reform’ already, so that would have been a natural place to deal with the OIA,. Their work on the foreign residential sales has more holes in it than Swiss cheese… aka Singapore & OZ buyers can buy any property, anybody in the world can buy NZ new residential housing…. and of course the biggest issue in also how easy it is to just become a NZ resident or citizen and then even these few rules don’t count.
Probably because Labour and NZ First forgot to read their 6000 page rebrand TPPA and work out the future consequences for a lowly 7 out of 10 trade deal which trades our sovereignty on houses, land, assets and profits to get lead taps, more plastic and asbestos trains and poor environmental regulation.
Likewise the fine print on all the other great trade deals seems to be an issue.
Weird how NZ’s rock star economy has so much debt now while our kids live in cars and it costs someone 1/4 of their wage to drive to work.
Lucky latte’s are a flowing with that $2 p/h barista with the coffee delivered by the clapped out truck subcontractor who is ‘independently’ contracted on less than minimum wages. Our internet is so bad possibly because Chorus subcontractors had 97% breaches of employment law when checked by the Labour inspectorate.
Yep +1 Greens for not supporting TPPA deal, but they seem to have given up on important quality issues going forward or being a strong advocate on that subject… and rubber stamping OIA seems part of the apathy rather than urgency to make significant changes against the establishment not just go for the easy targets of middle NZ aka petrol taxes and cycle lanes.
Likewise Labour, sucking up to big business is different from standing up to bad business which is what the Green used to do but now appears cold on the issue.
savenz
I don’t see that we can afford to spend time fighting to the death for full integrity of everything or even much beyond the minimum plus some built in resilience, and if I hear again that we want ‘the best in the world’ I’ll have to restrain myself from kicking that person. The term ‘best practice’ is also extremely irritating when I find myself having to real rule books about process and health and safety that impede honest micro and small business and income boosting. Why is it that companies can break useful laws and force their way into the market at will, and ordinary Joes and Josies have to meet draconian perfectionism? Shane Jones you’re known for bluffness; can you call the pea-brained Departments and their Uriah-like minions off the bureaucratic nonsense and send them out to work in the fields like the Chinese re-educating dictators.
We are up against the mincing bureaucrats, and don’t cares in the country too much, and our time in this still pleasant place is limited. Soon it will be encroaching disasters that will completely fill our minds, airwaves and screens (notice how we get blow-by-blow info about USA disasters, plus people on the ground interviews as if we ar hearing our next-door neighbours.) If some of the NZ buggers finally wake up and think of our whole country instead of their own pleasure and self-satisfaction, it will be too late to make much difference. And they will and it will be mea culpa but I’ll just look at their sincere but still mendacious faces and think so what.
So I think try to see how the lefties can get things done that make some difference. So much time is being wasted while people niggle about this and that. Like old-fashioned oldies who don’t find anything today is any good. Well F.O. people like that, it’s time for pragmatic idealism. So let’s hear some implementation strategies from you savenz as you have a good grounding in thinking and understanding of what’s going on out there.
Do they know how? Is it something they’ve done before?
Off the top of my head here is one notable example:
S59 of the Crimes Act –
Or have you forgotten?
But it takes time to change the law – even when you have a couple of MPs in Cabinet.
Perhaps you might look up how laws are actually legislated in NZ, and then look at the responsibilities of Ministers of Govt to uphold the laws for which they are responsible. I’m sure that at this very moment, Govt Depts are drafting amendments to a multitude of Acts for consideration by the Crown Law office before being presented to Parliament.
That was Sue Bradford. No longer in Parliament. Does Eugenie Sage know what to do? Has she run any law changes since Lab/Greens took power, or is she known to have any in the works?
Labour are purely a light weight version of the National China Party, and are very pro Chinese purchases of NZ Assets after all it was Helen who got the ball rolling on land and house sales to Chinese buyers. Doubt whether Jacindarella will do anything about it ?
This was from NZ News on FB and shared by a farmer who would normally vote blue, maybe the farmers are starting to hate John Key and opportunity for NZ First?
“In 2008 New Zealand’s population was 4.2 million people, and total government debt was 10.3 billion dollars.
By 2017, after nine years of the John Key led National government New Zealand’s population had climbed to over 4.7 million, a gain of over 500,000 people and net government debt had soared to $66.4 billion a rise of $56.1 billion!
But how could this be? For nine years Kiwis have been told that we have a rockstar economy, that we have economic growth, and that the economy is doing well!
The truth is that Kiwis have been lied to.
New Zealand has not had economic growth all we have had is massive population growth, and our economy has not been keeping up with the enormous inflows of people.
In 2008 New Zealand did not have capacity in our schools for another 500,000 people, we did not have capacity in our hospitals for another 500,000 people, we did not have capacity on our major motorways for another 500,000 people, and we did not have enough housing stock for another 500,000 people. But that did not stop the National Party who used immigration to fool the public into believing we had a strong economy by opening the floodgates, even while they were running current account deficits and borrowing money to help infrastructure cope with the massive new demands.
For the last ten years, the New Zealand economy has been underpinned by construction activity. This is not construction activity associated with economic growth ( which would be paid for out of foreign exchange earnings, ) it is construction activity associated with population growth (building houses) and has been funded in the main by a massive increase in the country’s mortgage debt.
Mortgage debt increased from around 130 billion dollars in 2008 to over 250 billion in 2016 as Key and English used immigration to prop up the National Party.
John Key isn’t the first to use immigration to create a false economy, Helen Clark also relied on it, and Jacinda Ardern is carrying on, even though pre-election promises were contrary.
So why did Key do this to fellow Kiwis?
John Key said on a number of occasions that governments live and die on employment, in other words, the voting public will retain a political party if they feel things are going well and their jobs are ok. Most of the New Zealand public do not understand the economy, and even today most are unaware that under Key total debt in New Zealand has ballooned to a historic 500 billion dollars.
John Key never said that immigration was good for the economy and he never said it was good for the environment, his priority was to retain power so he could continue to be PM and if that meant misleading the voters,( like a lot of politicians do) then so be it.
If New Zealand wants to be a wealthy country, then we must protect our number one source of wealth, our environment, and we need a small population. The larger our population becomes, the poorer we will become.”
Ahem. Is anyone with a beefy neck listening? Or a wiry aesthetically slim one who believes in austerity for us and posterity for him/her?
And I wouldn’t mind a few clicks to separate paras here and there – I don’t count those as interference with the original text, just signposts on the pathso I don’t bypass a place to stop and absorb some useful thing.
It’s sort of like the computer games where you pick up useful stuff as you go along that you can utilise from your arsenal when under attack or danger.
Magic remains an unsuitable topic in contemporary society, for a bunch of very good reasons. Primarily for promotion of delusional outlooks on life and effects on mental health. However acts of magic can be effective in politics, since human groups are complex systems and all it takes to trigger a phase shift is a single person acting with power in the right place at the right time. The Brits remain in stasis, awaiting such a one!
“Regrettably, a great many others in the political class have succumbed to wilful blindness, choosing the craven option of quiet complicity, rather than the harder path that a public recognition of reality would entail. They claim only to be enacting the “will of the people”, expressed in the 2016 referendum, as though they have no corollary responsibility to respond as representatives of their constituents to all that has emerged in the past two and a half years about the likely form and consequences of Brexit.”
“In this context, the resignation of Jo Johnson on Friday was much more significant than his brother Boris’s in July …the first time that a senior remainer, a minister sometimes tipped as a future Tory leader, has left the government over our prospective exit from the EU. And he did so because he believes, correctly, that the prime minister is presenting the nation “with a choice between two deeply unattractive outcomes, vassalage and chaos”.”
“All the logic – remember that? – points to an extension of article 50, more talks and a people’s vote. Much more probable is a political collapse in which May is ousted, or a general election is forced by parliamentary impasse – or both.” Yes, I do remember logic – a rather boring type of cerebral process, but useful in physics & maths. May’s deployment of it proves the limited utility it has as a political tool. Crisis looming, hard Brexit seeming inevitable now…
This is awfully long – I kept finding useful links and thinking where they fitted into the larger picture that we keep forgetting about while we watch the sitcoms of politics and everyday attempts at satire by esteemed capitalists and their ilk that actually aren’t funny.
A few facts re the USA with or without Robbin sTump Hood and his merry men and women.
About Flint, Michigan and their state-of-the-art state water bottling welcome, while the citizens have a putrid system for their own city use, and have to buy bottled water to be satisfied they aren’t killing themselves. (And there used to be a fear of Russians or some black-hearted furriner or terrorist poisoning public water. In the USA they do it to each other!) And now they have a disposal problem of all the plastic bottles. Great, technology can solve all our problems. We thought when they said that, it was for a good result for us all. But wait, the quote didn’t specify what!
So I don’t know if there’s any way to find out how tied to “Big Water” our Governor is. I do know, however, that his former Chief of Staff, Dennis Muchmore, is married to Deb Muchmore, who happens to be a corporate spokesperson for Nestlé. If her name sounds familiar, it might be because, not too many years ago, she was the one explaining to us in Michigan why it was OK for Nestlé’s Ice Mountain brand to export so much of our most precious natural resource from Mecosta County. “Nestlé brings jobs and supports the economy,” she said at the time. “Ice Mountain cannot by law stop the flow of springs when they withdraw water,” Muchmore added. “They have not dried up any wells. No streams have dried up. No ecosystems have been harmed. The science backs this up.” Of course, this didn’t prove to be the case. As the result of a subsequent court case, in which it was brought to light that the Michigan Department for Environmental Quality (MDEQ) had seen a “measurable impact on certain waters and wetlands” in the Muskegon aquifer as a result of Nestlé’s pumping, the plant was forced to cut its production by half. [It’s still unclear what the long range effects of years of extraction will be. http://markmaynard.com/2016/01/while-its-nice-that-people-are-sending-bottles-of-water-to-flint-i-cant-help-but-wonder-where-that-money-is-going/
Bankrupt USA cities? On Thursday, the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection after being saddled with debts totaling more than $18.5 billion. That makes Detroit the largest city in the United States ever to file for bankruptcy — the previous record was held by Stockton, California, which was half the size and owed $26 million. Jul 18, 2013 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/07/18/USA cities bandrupt interactive map
We don’t know how lucky we are sang John Clarke!
(He went to Australia and died early. Perhaps he was lucky. The rest of us can’t get the constipated conservatives to pass into law a reasoned, ethical system of choosing how to die even for people already terminally ill. While they wail about the growing cost of coping with our last four years of decline.)
We have been lucky. (Saying – Those were the best years of my life. I wish I had enjoyed them more.l) But not for long; can thinking people cut through the wilful ignorance and get people thinking about the problems looming so we can alleviate them, and prepare for further steps after alleviation has run its course? Can we get people building intentional communities where everybody has a say and they aren’t patriarchal cults or authoritarian closed camps?
Listen, read, watch for the following episodes in this fascinating series!
Somebody here recently put up a link to Scottish chap – name won’t come to me.
I am halfway through listening to it when I’ve time. But he mentioned Apple and how it seems to be nearing the moon because it is sitting on such a growing mound of cash and assets.
Overseas cash repatriation is an issue that’s been important to multinational corporations for a long time. It’s estimated that more than $2.6 trillion in corporate profits have been sitting in foreign bank accounts waiting for a tax break to be freed up. Apple’s overseas cash alone amounted to $252.3 billion, a treasure trove the company had been loathe to repatriate due to how much it would lose paying foreign cash taxes.
The new GOP tax law allows U.S. companies to repatriate cash at reduced rates for a limited time. As a part of the tax reform, repatriation tax rates could be as low as 8%, compared to the 35% companies traditionally pay to repatriate that money, the New York Times reports.
Why not be practical you USA tax experts. Money is a theoretical substance anyway. Keep it flowing with reasonable concessions. Treat it like a game of chess and maneouvre your opponent corporates around for the good of the country and the world’s economy. And so says this thinking pawn.
The USA went off the gold standard because it was too limiting for building vast private empires and large projects and innovations. Now they are treating the count of resultant figures recorded on some substance that shows up when energy is supplied, everything ephemerally visible, as if it the wealth was still able to be marshalled and guarded in a physical way. Concepts mateys, get your agile minds thinking around this taxable hoard and get it moving you creeps.
Yours sincerely, wellwisher.
Corsi and his WingNutDaily were primary promoters of the birther smears.
BREAKING: Roger Stone pal Jerome Corsi tells my colleague @annaschecter that Mueller's investigators informed Corsi about a week ago he will be indicted for perjury. "When they have your emails and phone records…they're very good at the perjury trap," he says.— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) November 12, 2018
Corsi says he was questioned extensively about a trip he took to Italy with his wife 2 years ago…he says it was for their anniversary. https://t.co/tPkmQ07IxK
Progressive Kyrsten Sinema drifted to the incrementalist centre, and it looks like she’s taken a blood red state.
Arizona’s Senate race isn’t over. But Kyrsten Sinema should be feeling awfully good about her chances.
Down narrowly on election night, the Democratic congresswoman overtook Republican Martha McSally two days later and has since padded her lead to nearly 32,000 votes as mail-in ballots have been tallied. At this point, it would take a stunning reversal for the Republican to mount a comeback, since the vast majority of outstanding votes are in areas of the state where Sinema is ahead, in some cases by significant margins.
Just crunched: the percentage of white men as a share of House Democrats is set to decline from 41% to 38% as a result of the 2018 election.Meanwhile, the percentage of white men as a share of House Republicans is on track to rise from 86% to *90%.*— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 11, 2018
I never like the left blaming the media for being unfairly treated, but when even Bloomberg starts to notice, it’s clearly getting bad.
Just in case any fool on the left thinks it would be easy to implement a Financial Transactions Tax, in the form of ATM fees:
“Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (universally known as AMLO) does not take office until next month, but Mexico’s stock market on Thursday suffered its biggest one-day decline in since 2011, plunging 5.81 percent, after his party’s leader in the Senate announced plans to stop banks from levying fees on ATM withdrawals and on other transactions.
On Friday morning, the Senate leader, Ricardo Monreal, said that he made this announcement without first talking to AMLO. He added that the matter was still under consideration, but that the rights of bank customers were important, and that the Senate was an autonomous body. Then on Friday afternoon, AMLO gave a press conference in which he ruled out “any modification” of Mexico’s banking regulations during his first three years in office.”
And where was the international investor (or anoy other) outcry when the new President Bolsinaro promised to gut the Brazilian pension scheme, backbone of the social welfare of Brazil?
Tumbleweed.
Mexicans might wonder why Brazil’s populist government is given the benefit of the doubt and theirs isn’t. International investors have an impression of a populist government in Mexico that is not yet ready for prime time. Mexicans may well have an impression of international capitalists bullying their elected leaders over matters that are little or none of their business.
Regrettably while the left can wave their moral wand and tell the investor community to go fuck themselves, the investor community actually fucks you over.
> And where was the international investor (or anoy other) outcry when the new President Bolsinaro promised to gut the Brazilian pension scheme, backbone of the social welfare of Brazil?
Just to be clear, it really needs gutting (even from a centre-left perspective). For example, things are not right when (some) civil servants can retire at 55 on a full pension far in excess of the average wage. That money should be going into e.g. education.
And now for something completely different:
……. that issue re immigration that’s caused so much comment and speculation on TS and in the MSM in recent days.
Something quite a few already knew, but the many others eagre for a ‘gotcha’ moment were desperate to use in the service of opinion pieces and spin lines and QT:
Maybe have a listen to Checkpoint tonight…..you’ll get a bit more of an insight into the gNat connection.
Btw……Did you notice how the gNats and their agents have gone all quiet recently?
In the wake of the March 15 mass-murder, the government moved swiftly to ban semi-automatic firearms, weapons for which there is really no case for being allowed to own in New Zealand. and now, it has announced phase two of ...
Local body politicians are concerned that the hostile online environment might deter people from running, and want British-style laws to prevent "online attacks". So what sorts of attacks are they concerned about? Death threats (illegal under the Crimes Act)? Sustained ...
When allegations emerged that civilians had been killed during an SAS raid in Afghanistan, NZDF was absolutely unequivocal in its denials, both the Ministers and the public. Since then, we've learned that they were well aware that there were reports ...
Over the past few months, we've seen a number of local authorities respond to public pressure over climate change by declaring a climate emergency. So what should they do next? Writing in The Spinoff, Sarah Thomson has some suggestions. Most ...
I have been unimpressed with Western corporate media coverage of the tensions involving Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. They repeat the line that Iran is the source of current tensions, that it is a major sponsor of terrorism, that ...
Victory, But Not Ours: Trump uses his deplorable words in exactly the same way as C.S. Lewis' wicked queen, Jadis, used her single 'Deplorable Word'. To win – no matter what the cost. He knows the power of words. He ...
Seeking Refuge: Were Jesus, Mary and Joseph fleeing persecution in Palestine or Judea? Were they Palestinians or Jews? Green MP, Golriz Ghahraman, in describing the Holy Family as Palestinian refugees, touched off a firestorm of controversy, demonstrating the sinister ease ...
Much like Tuvalu, the manmade climate change Cult love to tell people the Maldives is almost totally underwater. In fact the dishonest Maldives Govt d on the same bandwagon, believing they would receive billions of dollars aid from other Countries ...
According to every manmade climate change cultist on Earth, the pacific islands of Tuvalu are being flooded by rising sea levels. In fact, incredibly even a google search will bring up an immediate claim the islands are almost underwater! The ...
Firstly, it’s important you know that I am not paid by fossil fuel companies, nor do I have any association with them at all, and in fact I’m not a fan of any industry that doesn’t do it’s best to ...
As the entry on Wikipedia shows (and no, one doesn’t necessarily have to regard Wikipedia as the be-all and end-all of truth, because it isn’t on a great many things, to agree with the following): “…a fallacious argument that concludes ...
by Daphna Whitmore The story of how the world awoke to a big injustice is starting to be told. The Pacific Games held this month in Samoa is another chapter. On the podium was Laurel Hubbard, the giant transgender weightlifter, ...
Our conversations and push against specific supremacist and ultra-Nationalist groups, and the pseudo-intellectual underpinnings of them, need to mature at all levels. But in doing so, it’s going to have to include a more thorough and brutally honest self-examination ...
Why do so many people mistrust the police? Because they pull shit like this:The police are flouting the rules on breath testing, carrying out tests in people's homes to catch them out sometimes up to two hours after they were ...
I have been reading and listening to the aftermath of Trump’s comments about the four female first term Democratic representatives, all of whom are “people of color.” I found the US coverage interesting both as evidence of partisanship and the ...
The Herald reports that the housing shortage / bubble has hit a new level:New Zealand is short of 130,000 homes, the tally having risen lately by 30,000, two economists say. Jarrod Kerr and Jeremy Couchman, Kiwibank economists said: "This time ...
Milk producer Fonterra is one of New Zealand's biggest coal-users, using it to power all its South Island (and a few of its North Island) dairy factories. They'd previously "committed" to not building any new coal boilers after 2030. Now, ...
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...
Yesterday the government released its discussion document on action on agricultural emissions. As sadly usual, it proposed enormous subsidies for farm emissions, including for nitrogen-based fertiliser. This is a huge mistake. In addition to being one of the chief drivers ...
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act (this replaced their previous plans to hold a secret consultation with handpicked people). 285 people submitted on ...
Always Playing Catch-Up: Throughout the 1970s, the purchasing power of the ordinary worker’s pay packet – the only meaningful measure of his or her wealth – was being eaten away every passing year by seemingly inexorable rises in the cost-of-living. ...
The Interim Climate Change Committee's report on Action on agricultural emissions: Evidence, analysis and recommendations was finally released today, and as you might guess from the title, it is recommending that we actually act, rather than let farmers keep ...
On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...
Agriculture is our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for 48% of the total. It follows that meeting any credible emissions reduction target requires cutting agricultural emissions, most likely by having fewer cows. But National thinks people shouldn't be ...
How scummy is the UK Home Office? This scummy:The Home Office lied to EU member states to remove victims of human trafficking and modern slavery in breach of European law, according to whistleblowers. Legal experts have said the practice is ...
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...
“We wuz robbed!” is the classic cry of the disappointed losers of a closely contested sporting contest – it is very much to the credit of the Black Caps that we heard no such sentiment from them following the stunning ...
The Youth Parliament is being held this week, and some of the youth MPs are campaigning for a lower voting age:Molly Doyle, 17, is one Youth MP who wants this to change. She is part of a non-partisan campaign run ...
Up till now, Australia has made its living by digging up coal and exporting it to other countries, destroying the global climate in the process. But now they have a new option: exporting solar power:The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep ...
Later this month, thousands of people are expected to march to parliament as part of the #HandsOffOurTamaraki movement. At its heart, the movement is about preserving whānau and demanding that the state stop removing children from their whānau, hapū and iwi. ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh The recent statements made by the former FARC commander, Carlos Lozada (legal name Julian Gallo), where, from his seat in Congress, he praised the Colombian Army demonstrate how low the farianos have sunk. Lozada began by ...
A Woman’s Place is on the Podium was a public meeting in London on 10 July to discuss women’s sports and the impact of transwomen competing against women. The venue was sold out with a packed hall of 750 people. ...
Last month I talked about the no-fly movement: people who refuse to fly or limit it to absolute necessity to avoid destroying the climate. Now, that movement has a somewhat surprising new member: Dutch airline KLM:Dutch airline KLM has launched ...
In the 1960's, humanity faced a terrible threat: global thermonuclear war. Nuclear weapons were uniquely destructive and dangerous, and if more countries got them, the logic of MAD and the pre-emptive strike would put us on a hair-trigger to destruction. ...
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...
Matariki has been and gone, but this year we saw a couple of op-eds arguing that it should be a public holiday, replacing the foreign monarch's fake birthday. And now, New Zealand Republic - a group which campaigns for an ...
The discussion on the quality of economic advice, which we reported last week, has spilled over into a discussion about whether so many senior appointments should be of non-New Zealanders. Recall I discussed the failure to develop career paths within ...
When Nicky Hager revealed US footage of the Operation Burnham raid, obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, one of the obvious questions was whether Ministers had seen it - and in particular, whether they'd been told that it ...
Northern Ireland is the Alabama of the UK: a backwards region where women and gay people are denied fundamental rights. But Westminster has just decided to fix that:MPs have voted resoundingly to extend same-sex marriage and access to abortion to ...
There's a problem with "synthetic cannabis", and not just the one you think. It's the name.We're in the midst of a wave of news stories that link synthetic drugs to serious harm, through deadly road accidents and accidental overdoses (which ...
Ranjit Kauri, The Dancing Maharani and Other Stories, Swansea, Head and Heart, 2019, £6.99; reviewed by Don Franks Working people are not the same country to country. Our struggles for a better life take place in surroundings of very different ...
Let's Do Them! All Jacinda Ardern has to do to clinch the 2020 General Election is frighten the bejesus out of the electorate by describing in the most graphic terms imaginable what will happen to all the positive beginnings her ...
It may be that we have all misinterpreted the somewhat surprising “bromance” between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. It has been all too easy to assume that it is Kim who is cosying up to Trump rather than the ...
by Michael Roberts So the full circle is completed. The corrupt pro-business conservative New Democracy party in Greece that was ousted by the anti-capitalist Syriza party in 2015 has been returned to office in yesterday’s general election, with an outright ...
When the Australian government passed a series of new spy laws over the last few years, they pinky-promised that they wouldn't use them to spy on journalists and subvert freedom of the press. They lied:The anti-encryption laws passed by the ...
From 1975 to 1989, the spy agencies of South America's right-wing military dictatorships cooperated in Operation Condor, a joint campaign of extermination against the continent's left. Roughly 400,000 people were imprisoned, 30,000 disappeared, and 60,000 murdered - kidnapped, tortured, executed, ...
When she was standing for office, Jacinda Ardern promised she would take abortion out of the Crimes Act. And to be fair, there was some early action on that, with an immediate referral of the issue to the Law Commission ...
When the government introduced the Zero Carbon Bill, people rightly asked what they planned to do to reduce transport emissions, which basicly had no policy at all other than the ETS. Today, they responded, announcing a "feebate" system which would ...
At almost every level, the problem with medicinal cannabis is a lack of good information. In the US, FDA regulations make it hard to research. Most doctors aren't familiar with what research there is and most patients don't know either. ...
Redline is critical of Corbyn for his political weaknesses, but he’s no anti-Semite. There is no substance to the McCarthyist witch-hunt being run by the right wing, and the pro-Israel lobby inside and outside the Labour Party in the UK. ...
The government's billion trees program is the sort of policy which could make a real difference to our emissions and the fight against climate change. But climate scientist Jim Salinger isn't convinced:The Forestry Minister Shane Jones' one billion trees won't ...
Last month the government was celebrating another surplus. Meanwhile, children are starving:One in five children are living in households where putting food on the table is a struggle, according to a new report from the Ministry of Health. It found ...
Show Me The Money! The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Auckland mayoral challenger, Tamihere, has some solid points to make. ...
If we are to avoid making the earth uninhabitable, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to practically nothing over the next decade. But that will still leave us with the problem of the carbon we have already emitted, which ...
Former Waikato DHB CEO Nigel Murray allegedly misused public funds, spending more than $120,000 of public money on unjustified travel. He was forced to resign and the Serious Fraud Office began an investigation. But despite the SFO finding that the ...
Jeremy Corbyn, we are told, is being advised – not least by his deputy (as well as by some of his would-be successors) – that he must come “off the fence” on the Brexit issue if he wants to bolster ...
The End of Life bill has been read a second time and is now heading for the House for further debate. Personally, I support the proposal. I don't ever epect to take advantage of the Bill's provisions myself, but as ...
Before the substantive issue which this column is about – whether there has been a deterioration in the economic advice given to the government – a paragraph about the budget leaks.read more ...
Below is a translation of the editorial in the June 24 round of weekly workplace bulletins issued all over France by the revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvriere. Last Saturday, 8,000 people took to the streets of Belfort (eastern France) to ...
Why hasn't Parliament followed the lead set by our local authorities and declared a climate emergency? The answer is the National Party:The Prime Minister’s admission that she is open to the idea of declaring a climate change emergency is nothing ...
Back in May the government released its Zero Carbon Bill. While much of the bill was welcome, there was one big exception: it contained a secrecy clause, requiring the Climate Change Commission to maintain secrecy over practically everything it does. ...
by Phil Duncan This past week has marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall Inn riots in Christopher Street, New York, the event generally regarded as kicking off the gay liberation movement. Quite a few articles have ...
Southland - land of coal-burning dairy farmers - has become the first region in the country to explicitly vote against declaring a climate emergency. Their reason? They didn't want to "devalue" the word "emergency". Its an argument addressed powerfully in ...
New Zealand has a problem with police chases: officers going after fleeing drivers like rabid dogs, without any consideration for proportionality or public safety, often with fatal results. And according to an in-depth article in the Guardian today, the UK ...
The first full week of the firearms buy-back and amnesty has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time. “Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country, ...
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...
Million-dollar start to gun collection eventsPolice Minister Stuart Nash says a solid start has been made to the gun buyback and amnesty after the first weekend of community collection events. “Gun owners will walk away with more than ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash has praised Police and gun owners after the first firearms collection event saw a busy turnout at Riccarton Racecourse in Christchurch. “Police officers and staff have put a tremendous effort into planning and logistics for the ...
Seventy-eight new Police constables are heading out to the regions following today’s graduation of a new recruit wing from the Royal New Zealand Police College. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the record high number of new Police officers being recruited, ...
Media statement on behalf of Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie and Donna Marie Tai Tokerau Hall: Māori Television has admitted publishing false allegations about former High Court justice, Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie, and his wife, Donna Hall, and it has ...
Announcement today by the Prime Minister of further gun law reform is being shrouded by fear, so that scrutiny of the law is seen as an affront to the victims of the horror attack in March. The Prime Minister acknowledged ...
Misgivings about the practicality and cost of a firearms register is likely to dominate feedback from rural areas on the second round of proposed Arms Act amendments, Federated Farmers says. ...
School Strike 4 Climate NZ organisers Sophie Handford and Raven Maeder delivered a clear message to over 600 local government mayors, chairs, chief executives and councillors at the recent LGNZ conference : make climate change a priority. ...
The Police Association, Te Aka Hāpai backs the government’s emphasis on public safety as the driver of its second tranche of amendments to New Zealand’s firearms law, announced today. ...
The growing housing shortage crisis about more than supply and demand- it is about inequity. Recently released analysis by Kiwibank shows that last year’s “severe” shortage of housing has worsened, with the shortfall growing from 100,000 to 130,0000 ...
One of the country’s largest district health boards has a severe shortage of hospital specialists, says the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is joining opposition to possible regulations on the strength of nicotine vaping liquid. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “The Government would certainly benefit from regulations on the strength ...
The Meat Industry Association (MIA) is calling for significant changes to the Zero Carbon Bill with a new analysis using the Government’s preferred modelling indicating that the proposed methane targets are excessive if all other gases go to net zero. ...
Victoria University Feminist Organisation and ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa, in conjunction with the VUW Feminist Law Students, Organise Aotearoa, Fem Force, and with the support of VUW Student Association announced they are sponsoring a march ...
With the Government's firearm buyback scheme starting to draw over 30,000 police man hours away from fighting crime, the safety of law abiding citizens is being compromised. ...
Social Credit Party leader Chris Leitch is calling on the sale of Westland Milk to Chinese company Yili to be put on hold pending an approach to the Government by Westland Milk for funding assistance. ...
Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa seems intent on ensuring the Government’s vaping legislation will heavily target flavours and nicotine levels – a move that would be completely counterproductive to helping Kiwis quit smoking and achieving ...
A new website has launched in response to recent RNZ reporting about Police in Dunedin unlawfully entering people’s homes and breath-testing them. “I was disgusted when I saw what they cops were doing in Dunedin. Their behaviour undermines all of ...
The Head of the New Zealand Maori Council has called for the Government to hold an immediate investigation into the global cosmetics company Sephora after they were caught dumping waste hundreds and thousands of waste paper products embedded with ...
Hundreds of whanau and Maori leaders gathered at a hui in Mangere last weekend where they voted unanimously for an inquiry into Oranga Tamariki. The historic meeting called for a child welfare framework to be developed by Maori, for Maori. ...
Simon Shepherd: The government says its agreement with farmers, that they should pay for agricultural emissions, is historic. But there's no agreement on how. One proposal says farmers should pay a 5 per cent emissions tax. Another suggests farmers ...
The O’Brien Institute for Public Health at Calgary University has just released their report on fluoridation. This institute has, up to now, been staunchly in favour of fluoridation. However, yesterday, with regards to fluoride’s effect on the brain, ...
July 19 (BusinessDesk) - The government is looking to tighten control and impose harsher penalties after the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak revealed cracks in the country's stock management system. ...
Kia Anga Mua Ngā Hapū o Ngāpuhi (KAM) has reached a pivotal milestone following a hui yesterday at Waitangi with the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little. ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that the Government spent $133,530 on producing its ‘Wellbeing Budget’ document, a cost blowout largely driven by spending on graphic design and photography. The $133,530 price tag compares to $86,268 ...
Kahungunu Māori Language Awards. Nominations closed on 5 July 2019, and were judged by the Senior Management Team of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated. The judges wish to acknowledge the very high calibre of all nominations received making it a very ...
High Court of Australia Judge, Justice Stephen Gageler, will address recent criticism of court judgment delays in Australia, at the University of Canterbury (UC) on 23 July at 6.15pm. ...
This summary is provided to assist in the understanding of the Inquiry’s proceedings but does not constitute the official record. The full Minute is available at the link below. ...
The Tertiary Education Commission is laying charges under section 292A of the Education Act 1989 against three individuals for making a false representation for the purpose of receiving, or continuing to receive, free tertiary education from a tertiary education ...
New Zealand food businesses today welcomed a trio of new food safety tools, designed to make it faster, easier and more affordable to follow the rules and keep consumers safe. ...
AUT research shows that Māori children are almost four times more likely than those of European descent to be placed out of home by child protection services ...
The Government announced today that grants of up to $2,500 for energy efficient heaters are now available as part of the Government’s Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. ...
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...
Information sessions on proposals for The Medicinal Cannabis Scheme take place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the next fortnight. The sessions are open to anyone with an interest in learning more about the proposed scheme. ...
“Our children are our most vulnerable, most innocent victims and we do not want to see any more children harmed by these ‘known sex offenders’. The safety of our community must be the paramount consideration.” ...
“The announcement that Fonterra will immediately stop installing any new coal boilers or increasing capacity to burn coal is the signal that the biomass fuel supply industry welcomes” said Brian Cox, Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association. ...
18 July 2019-- Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) today welcomed Fonterra’s commitment to build no new coal plants, a “no brainer” for the climate crisis the world faces. The group has been urging this transition for six years now and ...
The increase in demand for cage-free eggs is set to continue according to animal rights organisation SAFE, who says the egg industry should expect this and prepare. ...
Wellington, New Zealand – 350 Pacific made a formal submission to the New Zealand Government’s Environment Parliamentary Select Committee on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors (PCWs) based in ...
There used to be a school of thought on the centre right side of politics that the best way to neuter the Greens as a political force would be to let them have a spell in government. Then, according to ...
Today (18 July) is Nelson Mandela International Day when the United Nations highlights the importance of humane conditions of imprisonment. In New Zealand our prisons are overcrowded and understaffed. At 214 prisoners per 100,000 people, we have the fifth ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa will take legal action over the lengthy delay in implementing pay increases for teachers. Novopay announced yesterday that teachers would have to wait until 11 September to see pay increases that they won when they settled ...
EDS has filed its submission on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. The Bill sets targets for greenhouse gas reductions, provides for the government to set a series of carbon budgets, and sets up a new, independent, Climate ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has identified an absurd case of mission creep at Wellington City Council: the decision to spend $21,750 on two Consumer NZ investigations into different brands of bike lights. ...
The Motor Trade Association is welcoming the release of the Government’s new draft road safety strategy. MTA Chief Executive Craig Pomare says the association is pleased to see vehicle safety has been made a priority in the Road to Zero ...
The Department of Conservation continue to repeat the same old story about attacks on staff and how it is affecting their role in protecting our precious wildlife. NZ herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12249704 ...
The government's silence on the fact that the country's second-largest milk processor is on the brink of becoming 25% Chinese Government owned has been deafening. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Second round of gun law changes announced, hundreds with conditions like Down syndrome get early Kiwisaver, and a major refusal to participate in March 15 inquiry.The second major phase of ...
Almost as soon as it was announced, the Royal Commission tasked with probing the lead-up and response to the terrorist attacks in March attracted criticism, both over the process and its engagement with Muslim groups. Former race relations commissioner Joris ...
Following the Silver Ferns’ World Cup victory, another New Zealand team playing korfball – netball’s European cousin - are about to make world championship history of their own. ...
A victim of domestic violence has had to find alternative accommodation after Oranga Tamariki breached her privacy for the second time in three years. ...
While researching NZ on Air for a recent history, Duncan Greive noticed a shocking 30 year trend.News broke over the weekend that Love Island NZ, Three’s biggest announcement of the year, will now not screen in 2019, and realistically is unlikely ...
Joseph Nunweek joins the adoring throngs gathered at the Melbourne Town Hall to watch the New Zealand prime minister. The warm feeling is contagious, but a question hangs in the airThursday, 18 July: a big night for New Zealanders in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Martin Parkinson, secretary of the Prime Minister’s department, has cleared Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop of breaching the government’s code of ministerial standards with their ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentForeign affairs – Australia Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Ardern in ...
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of Big Little Lies, which generated as much social media conversation as its first season did critical acclaim, for better and worse.Light spoilers for the second season of Big Little Lies.Big Little Lies felt like the ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie Indonesia recently hosted a bold public relations window-dressing expo in Auckland presenting itself as a “Pacific” nation while attempting to provide an unconvincing impression of normality in the two Melanesian provinces known collectively as West ...
Taxing vacant land would be too complex to implement and achieve little - it would be better for the Government to push local councils to implement rates based on land value rather than capital value. ...
The Māori Affairs Select Committee has recommended that anyone wanting to use the word 'Parihaka' for commercial purposes must get permission from the Parihaka Papakainga Trust. ...
European politics is a strange business. Where voters can choose candidates, who disappear after the elections. Where right-wing governments nominate left-sounding candidates. ...
Ruby Porter’s debut novel, Attraction, is a lucid, layered story of three young women on a road trip across the North Island. It’s one of the best books we’ve read this year. Here, Ruby writes about her grandmother – who ...
ByRNZ Pacific West Papuan fighters have killed an Indonesian soldier in a renewed threat to Jakarta’s road project there. State news agency Antara reported the hit-and-run attack on Saturday took place in Nduga regency, where pro-independence forces are ...
In 2003 the Silver Ferns won the Netball World Cup, breaking the Australian Diamonds’ 16-year winning streak. In 2019, they’ve just done the same thing. Leana de Bruin was a rookie in that 2003 team, and talked to The Spinoff ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University A Perth man who pleaded guilty to distributing an intimate image of his ex-girlfriend without her consent has been sentenced to a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminal Justice, Charles Sturt University The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code ...
One of the many unspoken rules of British life is that when one is drinking at the pub with others, one buys rounds. For the naive New Zealander, it’s stressful AF, says Elle Hunt.At the pub one Friday night in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland Dry, moist, productive, hacking, chesty, whooping, barking, throaty. These are just some of the terms people use to describe their cough. While we’re deep ...
What if you could grow a house from seed or 3D print a new subdivision in a week? The housing sector is ripe for disruption – could technology be the magic bullet we need?Jo Aitken sounds like she’s pitching an ...
The architect of the incredible turnaround the Silver Ferns have enjoyed is now off-contract. So now that the World Cup has been won, how can Netball NZ keep Noeline Taurua on the books? Radio NZ’s Ravinder Hunia recounts the journey ...
By RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years. According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him ...
More must be done to tackle critical skill shortages in project management and leadership, the head of the Registered Master Builders Association says. ...
Fifteen tracks, 22 guests, one album. The Spinoff Music listens to Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project and considers why each track really shouldn’t work – and the sometimes surprising reasons why they do.1. Beautiful People – KhalidKhalid and Ed ...
Emily Writes on her journey from reasonable trepidation to sweet love for the video game Minecraft.It was barely a week after I said to my sister “I don’t let the boys play any games” that my children’s Minecraft obsession began. ...
New Zealanders with life-shortening congenital conditions will have early access to their KiwiSavers after a man with Down Syndrome convinced the government to change the rules. ...
Sephora store employees may have swept some confetti down Auckland city’s drains on Saturday, and people got angry… at an entire generation. On Saturday, French cosmetics giant Sephora opened its first New Zealand store on Auckland’s Queen Street. Excited makeup enthusiasts ...
More than 20,000 Aucklanders don’t have access to regular showers or the ability to wash their clothing. Alice Webb-Liddall tags along on a shift with Orange Sky, who are giving homeless people back these basic needs.On an overcast Friday morning ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Senior Fellow, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University If the first week of the 46th Parliament was heavily ceremonial – dominated by the new governor-general, a raft of first-time MPs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University In a world run ragged by multiple crises and an unravelling of American global leadership, military confrontation in the Gulf poses risks ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Dalton, Conjoint Senior Lecturer School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle Over recent months, the news has been saturated with headlines claiming we’re experiencing a “killer flu season”. Researchers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, PhD Candidate – Wildlife Cameraman, The University of Queensland Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalise on the billion-dollar success of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Over the past few weeks, artists from around Australia have been creating small artworks depicting the endangered black-throated finch and sending them ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Sydney New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian made a “captain’s call” in recent months that raised the ire of many parents, teachers and education groups. She ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Beer, Dean, Research and Innovation, University of South Australia Australia’s biggest city is abuzz with news of yet another housing development declared unsafe for human habitation. This time it is apartments ...
Open Mike 13/11/2018 
In the wake of the March 15 mass-murder, the government moved swiftly to ban semi-automatic firearms, weapons for which there is really no case for being allowed to own in New Zealand. and now, it has announced phase two of ...14 hours ago
I have been unimpressed with Western corporate media coverage of the tensions involving Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. They repeat the line that Iran is the source of current tensions, that it is a major sponsor of terrorism, that ...2 days ago
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Much like Tuvalu, the manmade climate change Cult love to tell people the Maldives is almost totally underwater. In fact the dishonest Maldives Govt d on the same bandwagon, believing they would receive billions of dollars aid from other Countries ...2 days ago
As the entry on Wikipedia shows (and no, one doesn’t necessarily have to regard Wikipedia as the be-all and end-all of truth, because it isn’t on a great many things, to agree with the following): “…a fallacious argument that concludes ...2 days ago
by Daphna Whitmore The story of how the world awoke to a big injustice is starting to be told. The Pacific Games held this month in Samoa is another chapter. On the podium was Laurel Hubbard, the giant transgender weightlifter, ...3 days ago
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The vileness continues
Supermarket’s Christmas ad about deforestation, palm oil ruled too ‘political’ for British TV
ABC News, November 12, 2018
Here is the ad.
The vileness continued……
Some facts:
New Zealand is the world’s biggest importer of PKE
Fonterra, New Zealand’s biggest company, has been linked to deforestation for the production of Palm Oil
Deforestation is a major factor in climate change
Before her election to Prime MInister, Jacinda Ardern said “climate change is my generation’s Nuclear Free Moment”
Millions of moments have passed and this vile trade still continues
fact is that you will find this type of ‘vegetable’ oil, in any oil that is labelled ‘vegetable oil’, in any supermarket of the country.
fact is that they used to lable palm oil ‘palm oil’ but they don’t anymore as the destruction caused has been known now for many many years, and people refused to buy the stuff in the mid nineties, and some people still don’t buy anything not clearly labelled. i.e. sunflower oil, olive oil etc.
fact is that just because it is labelled ‘vegetable’ does not mean it will not kill animals and destroy habitat.
fact is also that Jacinda Ardern and her coalition will be flawed.
from 2015
https://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/25-sneaky-names-palm-oil.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_oil
As well as destroying the environment locally and internationally by deforestation there have also been studies that show farmers using PKE and intensive farming techniques (aka extensive use of supplementary feed) makes farmers more vulnerable financially as they start overstocking and then have go into debt to feed that intensively farmed stock during droughts or bad prices. Funny enough also helps the NZ environment too, not to have so much intensive farming and stock in areas that are not a good fit and rely on means like irrigation and supplementary feed.
Absolutely save NZ. The supplements mean the land is producing above and beyond what it is capable of – and thus above and beyond what it is capable of processing = pollution.
Ah to be the envy of the world and so move us toward becoming a giant feedlot churning out basic commodities. Thanks Fonterra, you’re so visionary.
Cue Joe 90 dismissive comment……
Fonterra now won’t accept Milk from farms that use more than 3kg of PKE per cow.
Testing is done daily, if farms feed more than this they receive a financial penalty.
Other dairy companies do not do this as yet.
I believe that 2015 recommendation was a pre-emptive move by Fonterra due to anticipated consumer backlash. Before that daily consumption rates were expected to be around 20 – 22 kilos. as it is the level of dry feed is the same, just not the tainted PKE – which may not drop the stocking levels at all.
Nothing to do with being a pre-emptive move to avoid consumer backlash.
Milk from cows that have been fed high levels of PKE has a different composition than grass fed cows.
Long story short, Fonterra finds it difficult to manufacture milk that has had high levels of PKE so they don’t want it.
You may not like the reasons for limiting PKE, but it is still a massive reduction in PKE use on Fonterra farms.
Sorry, was on different device and links didn’t go through:
Fonterra PKE bombshell bewilders farmers – Stuff 2015 article
Fonterra farmers have a year to adapt to palm kernel changes before penalty – Stuff 2017 article
Had a quick look for a PKE article I read a few years back where it seemed that Fonterra was actively encouraging the use. It was then I became aware of the ecological impact our current model for the dairy industry was having overseas. Can’t find it now though. However, there was an identification of NZ dairy being one of the main purchasers of PKE. If Fonterra was unaware of that possible consumer backlash, they are not keeping an eye on the game.
It is interesting that the manufacturing process is the reason that they are asking farmers for a reduction. If that is the case, I assume that different processes or products are now being made, otherwise it took them long enough.
If Fonterra were actively promoting PKE as a supplementary feed and have now changed the criteria, it is the farmers that are also being affected with changing and conflicting advice – often after investing capital in higher stock levels with certain outlay parameters.
Can you link your info . I find it very hard to believe a cow can eat 22 lbs of pke
How about zero PKE if they want to make a stand for the environment!
Also are they still using coal fired kilns for drying the milk powder?
I don’t think they are using coal, definitely not in the modern driers.
Gas and electricity I think.
Nonsense! Fonterra’s Edendale milk power plant uses HUGE amounts of lignite, dirty brown coal, round the clock! Truck load after truck load after truck load!
Here coal too.
“Also are they still using coal fired kilns for drying the milk powder?”
They don’t have any kilns. But they do have coal fired boilers.
Thanks that must be what I was thinking of. I think Greenpeace was lobbying them to get rid of the coal. Not sure if they did it or not?
“Thanks that must be what I was thinking of. I think Greenpeace was lobbying them to get rid of the coal. Not sure if they did it or not?:
No they have not.
Yes. I think we need a law the enforces feed for animals only to be grown in NZ. Get us to living within our means.
The point of this post was firstly, to illustrate the lengths that commercial interests will go to protect a lucrative but immoral trade from any cricticism or censure.
Which pointed out the need for legislation to bring these rogues into line.
If Jacinda Ardern can stand up to the powerful coal lobby over Te Kuha Coal mine expanding onto conservation land, and defy the oil and gas lobby by refusing their demand to issue them any new off shore exploration permits.
Why hasn’t she done something about ending this despicable trade?
Ed has been highlighting this case over the last few days under immense criticism by the establishment. He’s copped some very nasty flack for it.
The establishment?
establishment?
you mean like being rich with a gold toilet and fake teeth and comb over establishment?
or are you talking about people on the standard that might find ed a bit to much?
as for the Palm Kernel, Palm Oil, Vegetable Oil, brouhahah, Ed is late to he Party. Very Very late. That realization happened for many in the mid 90’s.
“as for the Palm Kernel, Palm Oil, Vegetable Oil, brouhahah, Ed is late to he Party. Very Very late. That realization happened for many in the mid 90’s.”
How very ‘right on’ of you, Sabine. The usual Shit progressives could learn to drop.
Because you knew this 20plus years ago, it gives you the right to down on folk getting it now?
no, it does not.
but it also give us oldies that have been avoiding this shit, have talked in real live to people about it, have donated to various organisations a right to say “it is not news’.
As for Ed, i don’t like preachers. I don’t care if they are roman catholic, or protestant, or vegan.
He has his good points, but it is maybe time that he realises that just because he discovered something that no one ever spoke to him about, or that he never saw on tv, does not mean we or some of us don’t know it.
now other then that, have you got an issue with the facts that I spoke about?
In regards to pke, I have nothing to add, couldn’t agree more etc.
As for your and others attitude to Ed, yes.
Firstly the ‘new’ aspect to this is that this ad has been banned and as Jenny points out, had an early life for Greenpeace.
Joe made this Greenpeace point in an equally dismissive way when Ed first posted it.
Beyond the obvious environmental devastation issues, the fact that the ad was banned sends shivers.
Also bear in mind it is a big grocery chain (900stores in UK) that seems to be an industry leader is even more chilling (boom boom).
http://about.iceland.co.uk
For me this brings up questions, who complained to get this banned?
We all learn at different times but the way some react to Ed, closes down conversation, exchange of ideas and shifts things to the personal.
Most people who visit here do not comment.
For all their faults so far, the governments message of kindness would not go too far astray.
QFT
That’s some serious 1984 shit happening.
Perhaps its time that you realised that just because you know something doesn’t mean that everybody else does.
Then there’s the fact that if it’s still happening then it still needs to be reported about. All your actions in the 1990s hasn’t stopped the destruction.
By establishment I mean institutional centrists I suppose. Those who are for nothing and against everything, and against nothing and for everything.
Ed is passionate, yes, but pretty mild and very consistent.
I’ve learned something new over the last few days on palm oil both here and elsewhere. It’s not a fight which should be over because institutional centrists have barely moved on it. This is the kind of fight which requires radical activism.
This fight has been fought for a long time, and sadly imho has been lost.
Not because people like you, Ed, i or many others have stopped using it, actively trying to not buy it even in its hidden form, but essentially due to government selling the land and the rights to companies for pennies on a dollar, and sadly Orang Utans have no value for these people. No more then people or animals have value in NZ when we give away our ground water to bottling companies cause why not. And yet, we can’t seem to do much about that either?
there was radical activism in the late 80’s mid 90’s which forced labeling laws to state the content of the ‘vegetable oils’, it resulted in Palm Oil to literally disappear from our shelfs in supermarkets.
Instead they are now selling Palm Oil Kernel – industry to industry – i.e. Industrial Agriculture as a cheap food supplement.
This little christmas clip is nothing new, nor is the censuring of it. Media is a profit driven industry and they will ban what will harm profit.
So maybe we should start giving up our TV’s then. Stop watching it. All of it, even Dr. Who. Maybe if profits go down media will wake up. But can you imagine all 8 billion of us doing that?
Ed has been amazing in this area, even revolutionary. It is a pity that others will try and take the credit that he only deserves.
coming here and posting articles that are neither new nor anything else is now ‘revolutionary’? Really?
Latin: revolutio, “a turn around”) is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolt against the government, typically due to perceived oppression (political, social, economic).
seriously, i don’t actually care that much. But can we please stay in the reality based world and not create saints out of nothing.
Many of the issues that Ed talks about have been around for many many years. Many people have advertised veganism or vegetarianism many millenia before ED was born, see India.
He is not always wrong, he is not always right, but he ain’t no revolutionary nor a saint. He is a poster with his personal interests. But he talks very little about anything new.
If Ed is revolutionary, what was Weka then? And she at least wants to change things for the better on the ground rather then just come here and post one link after the other link of what ever outrage is du jour today.
Ed seems to want to ‘own’ TS. He tells people what to do, but not once and then letting other people comment. He jumps in and out numerous times and dominates the thread with his opinions.
If he feels strongly about something let him write a post about it and present the facts and his opinion once or twice and let other people have a go, and they will bring aee thought and links to the matter.
I notice diminishing numbers of people with joined-up ideas leading to better ideas for citizens and the future coming here. I don’t know whether it is because of people like Ed who appear take up writing here as a hobby to fill in their time, or that it’s like a garden that has been left with bare soil which gets colonised by weeds.
> I don’t know whether it is because of people like Ed
I suspect people jumping on Ed, are much more offputting to new readers, than Ed himself is
(Edit:) You come on a left wing site and you kinda expect to find a harmless, vegan, pot smoking peacenik. What you don’t expect to find is a dozen other people screaming at him to STFU…
A.
Thank you A. Ed-xactly.
You support a murderous asshole like Putin and I’ll jump on you too.
The Old Left had an excuse for misguided Russophilia – Ed doesn’t.
Of course some on here refer to multiple murders as hero’s and a lot of this forum is silent on the matter.
There are something like a dozen responses to that comment (including “+1″s), all disagreeing with it with various levels of invective, and from the political spectrum of commenters at the time. Which is a pretty impressive number of responses with a consistent refrain.
Gotta say, your characterisation of the response isn’t entirely fair.
Yeah James just lied.
Fun going through old posts. Miss a few of those bods and good to see so many still around.
I would describe what Ed does is questioning the MSM narrative concerning Putin.
A long way from supporting.
I think we would agree the MSM profit seeking, click baity habits is the greatest obstacle to most progressive ideas.
> You support a murderous asshole like Putin and I’ll jump on you too.
You can ‘jump on’ whoever the hell you like on the Internet, but don’t imagine you make the world a better place in the process.
A.
Neither does repeating Putin’s propaganda like Ed does – in fact it prevents the Left from addressing chronic atrocities like those in Syria – which is the whole point of it.
It would be nice indeed to make progress, but Putin is not by any means the revolution we are looking for.
@Gsays – Actually he doesn’t question the MSM narrative – he derides it, rejecting it en bloc. The Guardian for example is not a completely reliable source – notably on Corbyn, but each piece stands or falls on its merits.
If he ever questioned Russian narratives, or those of his preferred sources – self-styled “independent” vloggers from the ranter end of the spectrum, I’d leave him to it.
> Neither does repeating Putin’s propaganda like Ed does – in fact it prevents the Left from addressing chronic atrocities like those in Syria
Oh, don’t be silly. This is a small New Zealand blog. No one here is going to “address atrocities in Syria”, half a world away.
A.
FFS, Ed hasn’t even commented on today’s OM (so far.)
I’d settle for Ed being given a fair go. Sabine is correct that Ed champions some ‘old’ causes, but if the issues are unresolved and/or getting worse, then what’s so wrong about trying to raise awareness?
It’s the apparent closed-mindedness of the ‘holding a grudge against Ed‘ brigade that’s most off-putting. When, in the immediate discussion about the environmental and economic folly of palm oil production and use, Stuart Munro (@8.57 am) drops this:
then you know Ed will continue to be personally attacked for his views and style by the usual suspects (j90, SM, James). And to what end?
All of us have been occasionally attacked. Some leave some stay.
It is that comment about the ‘establishment’ going after Ed that i find just laughable. And i would state this with any other name insert.
As for us being a silly NZ blog, who cares, and who defines what is silly?
Really, the point is that some of us come here to get the news in a condensed form, or come to see if any organizing is being done, or see if some organizing could be done. And of course the occasional sparring with the one or other commentator about stuff.
I do however believe that there is a segment of the population, here and elsewhere that needs a savior to rally behind, and it seems some are happy to elevate Ed to that place. And frankly that is a load of horse manure. Ed no more has the truth then any other person here.
And those that are afraid of ‘censure’, wake up. We have censures on naked people, genitalia, sex, age appropriate content, heck, we refuse to show the dead of war cause it could upset us emotionally while showing all sorts of violence in ‘tv dramas’ and all sorts of media selfcensure – Heck don’t try to write the news as you see fit in Russia – you might end up dead, or in the US – you might be called an enemy of the state.
Even this is nothing new. We know. We have known for a long time.
Many have changed eating habits, driving habits, living arrangements, but unless all of us, inclusive Ed turn off the TV, stop reading the news to complain about, stop buying cheap shit in shops out of boredom, essentially give up live as we know it now, go to the land and start plowing it, or do a no dig garden etc, there will be no change.
In twenty years time there will be a new Ed. No more wrong or right then the current Ed. Essentially its not that people have a grudge against Ed and those that are like him, newly converted members of the constantly outraged, its that it is boring if it comes without solutions. And i look for solutions that are community based. I can’t change Syria, i can’t change the US, but i can change small things in my community and that is what we should be talking more about.
How can we proof our own communities for the world that will be, cause our world is slowly but surely dying out in floods, droughts, fires, mudslides, one decimated species at a time, if we only want to be outraged?
> I can’t change Syria, i can’t change the US, but i can change small things in my community … go to the land and start plowing it, or do a no dig garden etc
But instead you come here and yell at Ed
A.
To get him to practice a few basics Drowsy – elementary critical treatment of his sources, and not repeating blackguards without cause.
Ed has posted a practically infinite series on how bad the white helmets are – without ever coming to grips with them in any credible fashion.
His critique of Bellingcat was not factual inaccuracy – their principle responsibility as a journalistic outfit – but that they impugned Putin. It’s just not good enough.
Ed himself rarely hesitates to indulge in personal attacks – he’s not much better at them than he is at arguments though, so they often go unnoticed.
can’t reply to you below no reply button.
you said: > I can’t change Syria, i can’t change the US, but i can change small things in my community … go to the land and start plowing it, or do a no dig garden etc
But instead you come here and yell at Ed
A.
You know what A. i am still not yelling. 🙂 I am just not sure about the beatification of St. Ed.
and yes, like you A. i come here. Go figure. I must be the establishment.
[lprent: The reply button disappears at about 10 indents. A: gotta stop somewhere otherwise the we get one word per line. B: wordpress only allows 10. C: that gives em an idea… ]
> I must be the establishment.
Own it 😉
A.
I must be the establishment.
Own it 😉
A.
I can live with whom i am. Been doing it for a while, am comfortable with my self. Thanks.
But please explain to me who is the ‘establishment’ of the Standard that gives posters a hard time?
Would that be posters that might disagree with you ? or with Ed? Or with someone else? Like seriously, a lot of posters disagree with me, such is the world. So please explain Establishment to me.
People that don’t march lockstep with a few posters here?
Because frankly we are loosing good posters, commentators and there are days were all of thee posts are just people whinging about the Guardian, the Herald, the Radio, various radio personalities and posting links upon links to stuff but essentially saying nothing much of substance.
Sorry I don’t know what the ‘establishment’ is either. It was Muttonbird who brought that up.
A.
Well said Antoine.
Took me a while but that is what I am getting at above.
Yes A I am surprised by the number of Cold War warriors I bump into here when I simply promote a foreign policy Jeremy Corbyn would advocate for.
Yes – I think you have less in common with Corbyn, and more with ranters like George Galloway.
Your disdain for cold warriors clearly does not extend to Putin, who is the cold war espiocrat par excellence, so you run a mighty double standard there.
What you simply do is repeat Putin’s propaganda – Corbyn’s foreign policy is relatively sophisticated, and goes right over your head.
> Yes A I am surprised by the number of Cold War warriors I bump into here when I simply promote a foreign policy Jeremy Corbyn would advocate for.
Maybe you should stick to your Turnips and leave foreign policy alone as it just seems to wind people up
A.
Good Lord, has someone been claiming Ed’s a saint now? You read it here first.
Thanks Maui.
“The establishment”. – your run foil hat is slipping.
If only I knew what this meant.
Put simply, it’s a term that folk who have nothing to add, lack imagination to consider ideas, want to derail threads and like to troll, use.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
The establishment is the neoliberal establishment, set up up by Thatcher and Blair in the UK, Reagan and Clinton in the US and put in place by Douglas and Richardson in NZ.
This extremist economic ideology has ruled untrammelled for 34 years.
We still live in a NZ where the Labour Party has not disavowed the neoliberal cult.
The tentacles of the neoliberal establishment are everywhere – in politics, in the civil service, in Universities, in the media.
We are still sold the mantra.
There is no alternative.
There is an alternative
Eco socialism.
It’s that or the planet dies.
That’s why the Iceland ad was banned.
It threatened the establishment.
Where?
Here and here
The responses criticising Ed for the comment are disproportionate I’m sure you will agree.
It’s A Pity
In front of the world, America has shown everyone what a piss weak president they have. He would not walk a step to honour the American soldiers WWI. Because of rain drops.
In front of the great State of California the same piss weak president has poured out his piss weak insults on the devastated, the dead and dying in the fierce hell fires – fiddling like a mad man with his insipid tweets.
America is at its Weakest. Surely they can rid themselves of the current Whitehouse Fool.
when you want to bring about the Endtimes in order to get raptured, when all you care is tax cuts and gutting the social welfare net, when all you want is money money money, then he is the perfect president.
the orange turd will always be as good or as bad as those around him, he will be as good or as bad as his ‘courtiers’ as they are the ones that influence his decisions and his decision making.
Sadly the emperor has not clothes, his family has no clothes, the republican senate has no clothes, but everyone wants to discuss the evil that is a women called Nancy Pelosi. 🙂
so yeah, they will not rid themselves of the current occupant, cause surely any day now he will make america white again, which is synonymous with ‘great’ .
Yes Sabine
“..when all you care for is tax cuts and gutting the social welfare net, when all you want is money money money, then he (trump) is the perfect president “.
The extra long Black Coated Fool – hanging around like a dark cloud of hate and horror. President Insane.
Poor America
“America is at its Weakest. Surely they can rid themselves of the current Whitehouse Fool.”
Of course they can. In a couple of years when the elections happen.
But people outside the main centres love him – there is a good chance he will be re-elected.
Which will be great entertainment watching the anti trump people.
Let me remind you of the great words of a fellow named Stalin.
it matters not who votes, it matters who counts. 🙂
so your or my vote means jackshit if it isn’t counted and accepted.
I wouldn’t hold my breathe of getting rid of him
He ain’t going to be impeached and he will probably be re-elected.
News out today is talk that Hilary Clinton is going to run again. If this turns out to be true, they might as well start designing the orange ones new second term business cards now
That will be brilliant!!!!!!!
They can reuse all those Hillary for president stickers.
And yep – trump will win again over her.
I think that Hillary would find that there are a few very good candidates that might run, and that for better or for worse her time has past.
And i think that she will actually be ok with it.
Rain might badly affect the appearance of his hair piece. If someone took a photo of him with a drowned rat look it would upset his political image and standing. He should have adopted wet gear cover as defence forces, civil defence, fire service would wear. That would have made him look manly, and one of the real people.
With his class, it is perception that counts, of course.
Actually it was because of bone spurs!
http://eveningharold.com/2018/11/11/light-rain-plays-havoc-with-my-bone-spur-insists-trump/
Nah, velumiphobia!
But it saved the world from having to see, Trumps hair,wet,straggly,hanging past his shoulders with his bald pate shining brightly through the remnants.
Yeah it stops him looking like the rest of us would be without our cosmetic implants and inputs and outputs etc. We need to form sympathetic clubs of brave people with the slogan, “Only plain, unadorned people here’.
Actually thinking about that, there is a vanguard group of men who eschew! hair on their heads, and let their beards grow to their waists and wide enough to wrap round their shoulders in cold winters. I guess I’m a bit late with this idea for a club showing simply how it is.
ZZ Top for President (either or both)
With these guys we could get double dose of wisdom if they were President
conjointly. And they have a sense of humour about themselves. Great.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u-zEGGp5qY
Beards – beat these!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHVES0eMrdw
And this is completely unrelated but shows blokes with more esprit de corps than Trump (who wouldn’t even know what that means.)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD0evP6dCJg
Billy Gibbons is all class.
“America’s Got Talent” alum Benton Blount abruptly lost his opening-act gig on ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons’ concert tour after his pro-Trump Facebook post got him temporarily banned from the social media website.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/political-post-by-americas-got-talent-alum-gets-him-kicked-off-tour
We still await official confirmation on the content of the Kashoggi tape recording – also on how it was made. Initial reports from Turkey seemed to come from leaks in the government and/or their investigating team, suggesting it was made via his watch, and recorded him screaming as his fingers were being chopped off – nothing on that since. However the existence of a tape recording is now official:
“Erdoğan is understood to remain unconvinced about Prince Mohammed remaining in power. On Saturday, the Turkish leader claimed Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Britain, France and Germany had been given audio tapes that recorded the killing of Khashoggi, who was killed by a team of 15 security officials who had flown to Istanbul and lain in wait for him to enter the Saudi consulate to sign marriage papers on 2 October. Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau confirmed Canadian spies had listened to audio depicting the last moments of Khashoggi’s life. Germany later followed suit, in what appeared to be a co-ordinated effort to maintain pressure on Riyadh.”
“What was recorded on the tapes remains the centrepiece of the case against the Kingdom, and could help answer whether the crown prince himself was incriminated in the conversations. His chief domestic aide, Saad al-Qahtani, was sacked two weeks after the assassination, as was a deputy intelligence chief. Mohammed bin Salman insists he played no role and his defenders have insisted the hitmen over-reached in a bid to please their masters. Intelligence officials in the region, and in Europe remain incredulous at the claim.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/12/saudi-arabia-crown-prince-mohammed-wings-clipped-as-khashoggi-death-rattles-riyadh
Seems very significant that the recording is being shared with Canada. Widening the circle like this at the top level of geopolitics is rare. I presume the key players have decided a broad consensus is essential for the leverage they are intending to apply. Realpolitik may not suffice. Evil requires a response of overwhelming force to eliminate it and/or prevent the spread. Tolerance sends the wrong signal. Are western leaders rediscovering their mojo?
Moral guidance has been absent at the top level for so long many assume it is irrecoverable. Can Trump grow a spine? Will they run it by Putin? And the Chinese leader? I presume they will decide to use the UN, so the answer must be yes. If not, it’ll be a tacit concession that the UN is a dead duck, useless for anything but posturing & inadequate peace-keeping.
Isn’t Saudi on the UN human rights seat… oh the irony
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/01/how-saudi-arabia-kept-its-un-human-rights-council-seat
Have the UN toilets all got one of those Human Rights seats?
This is hilarious. Espiner doesn’t even need to try and confuse Kelvin – Kelvin does it to himself.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018670946
To be a “good” MP you need to be fluently credible. Some of our intelligent considerate MPs fail to ignite because, I think, they are carefully analysing what effect their words will have on those who are listening. A sort of instant echo chamber. The result is a hesitant speaker who commands no respect.
I think 2-3 of previous Labour Leaders suffered from this not because they lacked talent but lacked the ability to express their thoughts.
Kelvin is a good hardworking bloke but does not come across well.
“I think, they are carefully analysing what effect their words will have on those who are listening.”
Of the problems Kelvin has in any interview on a remotely important subject, it doesn’t seem over analysing his answers is one of them
Clearly Chris you have never experienced speaking to a large audience. An intelligent person may be “listening” to their own words just before they emerge and questioning whether they are right and will no be understood. Result? Hesitancy. How about you try speaking off the cuff to say 500,000 on National Radio.
Your mate Key covered it by speaking in contradictory terms and smiling boyishly.
Well we know to acknowledge we aren’t all the same. That is why there are so many quotes about differences, such as –
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” –
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bertrand_russell_121392
I think that handles the Kelvin is a little hesitant in his speech criticism.
and
‘There are three types of people in this world: those who can count, and those who can’t.’
http://wisdomquotes.com/short-quotes/
And we find a good representation of all on this blog.
Too right greywarshark. Some see things black or white and can be certain. Some of us see a lot of grey with splodges of black and white and can not often give a straight answer. Ask my wife!
Easy to speak when your mind is full of simplistic slogans.
Real life, as truly intelligent people know, is full of complication, buts and maybes.
Putting across complicated concepts accurately and correctly is a lot harder than saying “Labour did it too”.
I like the old Polynesian concept of the talking Chief, and the doing Chief. No one expected the crop expert or the Navigator, to be an orator.
The real bosses, on a Marae, don’t do the public speaking. But you can sure see them rolling their eyes on the back bench, when a blowhard goers on too long..
Those are all valid points, KJT.
Which just reinforces the fact that Kelvin should not be the Acting PM, ever. Rightly or wrongly, we expect our Acting PMs to be able to explain a point of view, or policy, or decision.
Kelvin doesn’t seem to be able to do that, therefore he shouldn’t be the Acting PM. It doesn’t mean he isn’t good at other things.
On the marae it may be the kuias who get restive, and show it, even though it’s the men who get to do the talking on most marae. Or that’s what I have heard?
“All the kuia” – there is no plural (well not by adding an S to it).
Thanks I feel love – and it is not correct to say Maoris either is it. It is an ongoing thing learning to speak te reo well, even if only partially.
Kia kaha to me.
Most definitely.
And the Kaumatua know, they had better say what the Kuia tell them to say.
Some of the “Aunties” are terrifying! LOL.
I got an idea of the strength of determination of aunties. I think from Witi Ihimaeras book Pounamu Pounamu. In the story I remember about a rugby game between hapu, the aunties played and were so tricky, if the others seemed to be winning advantage, one of the aunties might get hold of the ball and sit on it till all her side were back in their defensive positions.
The game would come to a standstill while the players argued and pleaded with the auntie to release the ball. It was a lovely little story though I don’t know if true at some time, but could be I think.
Yes K JT.
Willie Jackson’s got the gift of the gab .
Kelvin did not come across well with Hoskings this morning. Basically said ILG, Shane Jones and Phil Twyford all doing marvelous jobs! Geez he sets a very low bar!
My favourite response – time for repeat – ‘Don’t be so quick to ‘eave ‘alf a brick’
It could be worse, we could have Gnashional and be gnashing our teeth. We already have inadequate medical care including dental, after years of these poseurs. I don’t say that the Labour Coalition are always marvellous, but many times they come near.
This government can’t even plant trees.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12157577
What’s the count of the billion trees now ? 300?
How many trees were planted under the no mates government? Not by private groups and charities but by government?
Duh!
Whats that got to do with labour stuffing up another of their flagship policies ?
Worst attempt at deflecting ever.
Those million trees cannot be planted on different ground – can they? Will have to trash them. Or wait a minute. A different hill or two? Problem solved.
“Acting Prime Minister Kelvin Davis says that almost a million seedlings that were not planted for a Government-backed forestry project will not be wasted because there is plenty of other land that can be used.”
nope, i just ask you to show where the no mates party and its supporters over the nine years they have been in power attempted to plant any trees, rather then just cut them down to ship overseas, or put a fake art on the swamp kauri to export overseas.
I find it funny that you want to blame someone for not doing enough while at the same time supporting a party that has a record of doing fuck all.
but your concern is noted.
[disgusted look]
Pack of incompetents
A.
Wait… who are you blaming? After reading the article, I’d say local iwi rather than the government messed up.
“Ngāti Hine documents seen by the Herald show the iwi did not have enough money to replant the entire forest block itself and had failed to find a commercial partner to take on a joint venture.
Ngāti Hine Forestry Trust chairman Pita Tipene did not respond to requests for comment.”
It was the Government, using taxpayer funds, that chose a partner that was unable to deliver
A.
So if you or I had contracted someone and they failed to live up to our expectations by not completing their obligations, would we be to blame or would it be the fault of our contractor?
Bad example. If I used your money to contract someone, and they did a bad job, then you should criticise me as well as the contractor. Because I would have made a bad choice and in the process wasted your money.
A.
Fair call Antoine.
Note “a Treasury briefing paper released through the OIA showed Treasury urging Finance Minister Grant Robertson to reject a $116m grant scheme because of the “the lack of detail around grants” and a $127m partnership package, again because “little detail” came with the Budget bid.”
A.
I know right. They’ve probably got plastic buckets and spades up there too.
You should write an article telling us how to do it so there’s no more mistakes.
I hear the last count is only 75.
Wethebleep
If you are making ironic statements can you assure us of that by ending /sarc. With the breadth of assertions we get here it is hard to know what is really thought.
I thought all the signposts were there regarding sarcasm:
1. James started the thread.
I don’t read James. He rarely if ever says anything useful, while I notice that you do. Hence my comment.
Nope, not 300, but 60,642,000 as of 5 Nov 2018.
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/funding-and-programmes/forestry/planting-one-billion-trees/tracking-progress-of-the-one-billion-trees-programme/
Neil Young after the wildfire destroyed his home: “California is vulnerable – not because of poor forest management as DT (our so-called president) would have us think. We are vulnerable because of climate change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/nov/12/neil-young-donald-trump-california-fires-climate-change
“On Sunday, Los Angeles fire chief Daryl Osby told the Guardian that climate change was undeniably a part of why the fires were more devastating and destructive than in years past.” It seems undeniable, but deniers keep on denying, so all is not quite what it may seem, huh? The mass psychology of denial of reality is a predominant trend of our times. Leftists denying free speech are just a small part of that sociopathy. When denial starts killing people, a countervailing force is required. Also, the mass psychology of denial enabled institutions to victimise helpless children for generations: comprehension of how it operates is essential.
“The emergency now equals the 1933 Griffith Park disaster in Los Angeles as the deadliest California wildfire on record… David Bowie’s long-term pianist Mike Garson tweeted on Saturday about losing his home and studio… Miley Cyrus said that she lost her home but escaped with her fiancé, the actor Liam Hemsworth, and their animals… Katy Perry and Rod Stewart also criticised Trump over his tweets.”
also if you want to open up federal parks to mining, logging and the likes , it makes perfect sense when the turd complains about ‘ This is NOT ‘proper’ Forrest management.
at the end of the day, people like him and those that support him don’t care about climate change or anything.
There is money to be made, and they rightly assume that the one with the most money will the insulated against all odds the longest.
That you and i and others can’t breathe, die in fires, or floods, or mudslides, or or or is of no importance. We are units to be pressed for profit and we when outlived our purpose of extracting productivity and profit we are to die, silently if possible.
A whole town burned, Paradise Valley, 27000 people, just lost their homes, 29 people are officially dead, many found in their cars trying to escape (very similar to a devastating fire a few years ago in OZ) and over 200 are still missing.
Its sad that the rich have lost their homes but they have good insurance and will just move to somewhere else nice, the 27.000 people currently in shelters might not have that option.
Its just sadness all around.
Understanding what is reality which has to be faced will have been dented by too much television creating suspension of disbelief. Even news is not a case of seeing is believing. And listening and watching media gets in the way of thinking for yourself, and reading can help but are the books and newspapers presenting unslanted news. The more people get scared, the more they turn to cults which give a spurious sense of confidence and stability within their sheep pens for their flock.
The rest of humanity howling about the dreadful happenings caused by other people and their machines, or climate change and nature’s aweful powers seem like shrieking wind gusts, or mad people. Don’t look at them Martha, they are evil.
Yes, well put. The wisdom of the crowd is the bright side of mass psychology – crowd-sourcing solutions often works surprisingly well (as anyone who has done brainstorming in group situations tends to realise). The dark side isn’t just denial, there’s worse stuff with that, and history is replete with instances.
Postmodernism in the nineties denied that evil is real. A nuanced response was noticeably lacking in the media around this at the time. We must be careful to not assume warped people are evil – often they suffer ptsd from bad childhoods. I saw Norm Hewitt telling Duncan Garner the other day why he does non-violence counselling/advocacy work. Quite a story!
Dennis Frank
I am enjoying reading your thoughts and vision. All power to your fingertips and thinking brain and trickle down that wisdom! And we will still find things to disagree with of course, that’s par for the course, but it is great to see ideas that fit the present reality and venturing beyond.
“The tinderbox conditions in California were already dangerous in January when Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones warned of the “growing problem” of fire insurance unavailability within the state.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-wildfires-property-insurers-cancel-policies-because-of-risk/
and that was back in August, before the latest bout…..hows the aptly named FIRE economy going to function without its ‘I’?
What is the story about a ‘change of shipping routes’ which has resulted in non-supply of bananas? They are a food that we eat in large amounts. How often are we going to strijke non-delivery of imported things we need?
We are so dependent on imports of so many things. The thinkers have registered that this is not good sense but the hunting capitalist dogs who have followed the scent of more money for them, and left us unself-sustaining.
My freezer still has a bag of bananas from last year. New bunches are emerging now. I try to give plants to people with young families they look at me like an alien – then go to the store and buy them, visible chemical residues and all. They’ll complain when they can’t get some.
Meantime, I’m expanding: berries, nuts, cherries, guavas, olives, avocados, figs and more added just this year. Personal responsibility. I am over waiting on anyone.
Shipping route changes? Military nonsense, or global warming perhaps…
When Jacinda gave out those mandarin trees to Kiwibuild owners, the original thought was for lemons. but her adviser mentioned if they died, “Lemons turn out to be Lemons” would be the headlines… I had a fly on the wall at the garden centre the purchase was made.
Can’t even plant trees without caution the right (with manicured nails) will find fault.
But we could be planting our own banana crops there’s a few regions with the micro climates to pull it off.
Diversification = resilience.
interesting, i am on a group of veggie garderners on fb, and up north, bananas are growing with relative ease as are pinapples.
But hey, climate change and this and that can’t be it ,cause that would be inconvenient.
I am looking at weather patterns here in the middle of the north island now and gosh it is the strangest thing.
have planted my veggies as always, hoping to grow as much and freeze/can or dry surplus.
We are truly living in interesting times.
btw, England just discovered that most of their food is imported and comes by ship. Yes, the intellect that brought Brexit not once thought about something as simple as where does our food come from.
I’ve hosted a few artists from the UK. They fall over themselves when they try food from my garden. Just take a bite then sit there gobsmacked.
Most have no idea what’s been taken from them in exchange for convenience. Not to mention the planet.
Food miles and miles and miles….
Go the locals!
Here is hoping, but then again, we still have a bit more garden the most of the English ever had. Lordships n such.
Its gonna be a few hard miles that they will have to walk. And in saying that, unless you grow your food here in NZ you will eat the same stale veggies grown in hothouses, seasons be damned, as do the English.
I had three Swiss visit my garden today. They marvelled at the huge size things they are familiar with at home as modestly sized, growing here to “outrageous” proportions. “Paradise”, the said, “No insect pests, no diseases…no snakes! We are greatly blessed here in NZ. If only we could tailor our behaviour to reflect just how fortunate we are! WTB sounds as though he/she is working on it!
Can’t generalise like that Sabine. Britain has been taking our imports for years and was our biggest customer which enabled the farmers here to have some certainty for their produce. Then UK joined EU and there was a fair amount of negative thinking about that, so they didn’t manage to include allowance for all our trade (I suppose there was discussion?).
Some years ago there was a move in UK to limit travelling miles for their food so there has been a move there to partially limit imports.
Lime Scooters is the stupidest moral panic I’ve ever seen.
Too right. 300,000 logged rides since introduction of Lime and 66 ACC claims, of which we don’t seem to know how many are more serious than cuts and bruises.
Cf any Saturday in winter time – how many rugby related ACC injuries are there EVERY single week? Ridiculous.
Or the number of acc claims from non-powered scooters.
Similarly, scooters and skateboards are recreational exercise equipment and have health benefits as such.
Lime scooters are a means if transport.
Lime scooters – transports of delight!
But playing rugby is an activity sport keeping people fit. Powered scooters do the opposite. They also actively discourage walking if they are on the pavement.
I heard that there are more scooter claims for ACC than Lime scooter claims so the moral outrage is bizarre.
‘Moral panic’ is a bit of a loaded description.
If someone is intending to making a profit while externalising some of their costs onto the taxpayer – in this case the cost of injury – then people are rightly a bit miffed. It’s no different from farmers polluting waterways or trucking companies destroying roads.
I can see how to cool urbanites it looks like moral panic – coming as it does from old fuddy duddies with zero knowledge of craft beers. However there are more fundamental issues in play. It actually illustrates how these self-styled cool ‘disrupters’ are incredibly dependent on the physical and cultural infrastructure of the world they are so keen to disrupt.
Very pleased the government will be including religious organisations in the state child abuse inquiry.
Thank you Tracy Martin for caring and looking out for our most vulnerable.
Pity they aren’t including labour youth camps also.
Pity they aren’t including the ponytail puller also.
Don’t even joke about sexual abuse James, it’s bad form and shows a complete lack of understanding, compassion and class.
I’m not joking.
I’m not joking.
And it was the way labour handled it – that showed a complete lack of understanding, compassion and class.
You really want to go there…. ok then….Princess parties show a complete lack of class.
Your turn James…….because it’s a competition and worries about the feelings of those who have been abused.
You equate the sexual assault of several young people at a labour camp Where criminal charges have been laid – to a guy I don’t know who had a princess themed party.
Re the labour camp, the police were involved.
Re the princess party, did you not read dirty politics?
A catholic PM would turn a blind eye, like bill english did.
A PM who liked to stroke young girls hair, then did a runner and quit his job, liked to turn a blind eye as well.
But my post was about including the church in the child abuse investigation and praise for doing so.
A PM who liked to stroke young girls hair…
He was far worse than that. He kept pulling the hair of that young woman in that cafe in Auckland, even after she begged him to stop. He then tried to buy her silence with a couple of bottles of wine.
cheap and probably from his blind trust vineyards, too.
He should have been jailed for that as his position of power made it far worse.
James is more than a little inconsistent on this.
On the one hand he supports Trump who is anti-immigrant, anti-LBGT, who uses prostitutes extra-maritally, and whose most famous quote is, “grab ’em by the pussy’. And on the other he’s convinced the NZ Labour Party has an endemic sexual abuse culture based on the actions of an errant youth or two.
James is also very supportive of the new Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is anti-black, anti-LGBT, anti-maternity leave, and anti-environment. His most famous quote is, “(Rosario) is not worth raping; she is very ugly”.
I think from this we have a pretty clear portrait of James of this board. An urban red-neck who pretends to have concerns for the honour of women but whose regular commentary suggests otherwise.
Really? Very supportive of Jair Bolsonaro huh?
Find a single post to back that up.
You can’t because you simply put are are liar.
I bet the best you can find is that I said he was charismatic – but that is not being “very supportive” or even indicating that I liked him at all.
You are a liar and should be called out as such.
Oh dear. Must have touched a nerve.
No – just telling complete lies.
I think you need to look up the synonyms and antonyms of the word charismatic and tell us again about your support for Jair Bolsonaro.
I note that you expressed your warm feelings toward him in direct response to a comment about our Prime Minister who you see as not charismatic at all.
Did somebody say “princess parties”?
http://media.beam.usnews.com/1d/47/d7f5a173446899808909a5efb751/170202-donaldtrump-editorial.jpg
Ewwwww Morrissey, dang!
Oh, the irony:
Tracy Martin? Far from “caring and looking out for our most vulnerable”, she’s an advocate of kiddy-whacking.
https://www.greens.org.nz/news/press-release/nz-first-putting-politics-child-protection
Shane Jones, Ron Mark, Thrasher Martin, Mark Patterson. New Zealand First is a real achilles heel for this government.
Salisbury School, she backed them all the way. I think she is a fantastic MP, not perfect, but who is.
Personally I don’t like Shane Jones at all, he maybe poetic with his words, but I just don’t like him.
I’ll like Shane Jones if he gets on and does practical helpful things in the regions supporting reasonable initiatives and infrastructure and bettering standards of living. The regions are slipping and their sad about it, and we all should get behind them and make sure they get a better deal.
At present there is in Northland fears of a new strain, stronger, of some bug that bugs them! I remember the story of Florence Harsant Te Maari, who rode round there and other regions in early 20th century telling people about the revolt against alcohol and its debilitating effects. She found whole villages dying of disease without aid, cordoned off to stop it spreading by medical authorities who had not followed up with sufficient help and medications. She had to secretly slip through herself to get the word out and so she could get help for herself.
I don’t want to see regions being ignored and discarded again. It could happen as these drongoes who are running us with their smooth tongues and oily theories and trick-box paradigms and who follow the USA line could do what they have done to uneconomic regions there – for instance, Flint with its putrid drinking water, and the good stuff being bottled for and exported for profit. Industrially based cities have declared bankruptcy. I
I don’t like Shane Jones at all, he maybe poetic with his words
If the poet is William McGonagall.
It’s unfair to mention McGonagall and not give a piece of his offerings.
This one is about how they pushed him out of Dundee. I don’t know if it
would work on anyone else. He did not accept any poetic rule except that it should rhyme.
A New Year’s Resolution to Leave Dundee by William Topaz McGonagall
Welcome! thrice welcome! to the year 1893,
For it is the year I intend to leave Dundee,
Owing to the treatment I receive,
Which does my heart sadly grieve.
Every morning when I go out
The ignorant rabble they do shout
‘There goes Mad McGonagall’
In derisive shouts as loud as they can bawl,
And lifts stones and snowballs, throws them at me;
And such actions are shameful to be heard in the city of Dundee.
And I’m ashamed, kind Christians, to confess
That from the Magistrates I can get no redress.
Therefore I have made up my mind in the year of 1893
To leave the ancient City of Dundee,
Because the citizens and me cannot agree.
The reason why? — because they disrespect me,
Which makes me feel rather discontent.
Therefore to leave them I am bent;
And I will make my arrangements without delay,
And leave Dundee some early day.
Thanks for that, Shark. Wonderful!
Bad poetry didn’t die with the Dryden of Dundee; it revived in a big way with some dreadful pop lyrics in the 1970s. I thought–and still think–that Rose Royce was one of the great disco groups, and in particular I love their classic “I Wanna Get Next To You.” It’s marred awfully, however, by the opening couplet, viz.
Also truly awful are these three lines from Walter Egan’s “Magnet and Steel”:
Even worse than those botched and cloth-eared attempts at scansion are rap lyrics, which generally lack wit. Take that epic tryhard Eminem, for instance. His sleazy and unclever fantasizing about what he’d like to do to the Spice Girls is an abject example of….
…continues ranting and raving in this vein for hours…
Go easy on slim shady mozza, he may not be your cup of tea but he is good at what he does.
“Little hellions kids feeling rebellious
Embarrassed, their parents still listen to Elvis
They start feeling like prisoners helpless
‘Til someone comes along on a mission and yells “bitch”
A visionary, vision is scary,
Could start a revolution, pollutin’ the air waves a rebel
So let me just revel and bask
In the fact that I got everyone kissing my ass”
“Though I’m not the first king of controversy
I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley
To do black music so selfishly
And use it to get myself wealthy”
Don’t get me wrong there is a lot of very bad poetry in rap, not just bad but harmful, misogynistic hate speech.
My palms are sweaty, need enough rhymes to keep this rap steady, have I used spaghetti already, or a Yeti at a wedding throwing confetti at Steady Eddie…
Eminems aight… but those who think he’s some kinda genius who can’t be copied, well, they all reading their own press releases cos it’s BS.
Yes, admittedly he does have his moments, g.
However, I still prefer Colin Craig.
Ahh Craig the bard, what he lacks in ability he makes up for in delivery.
Morrissey
Don’t be so quick to heave ‘alf a brick. We need NZ First and they do their best from their thinking of the conservative people. Even you M, are not perfect but you are appreciated.
Kiddy-whacking isn’t the worst sort of behaviour in our society. It has just become the scapegoat that we throw stones at while we ignore all the other beastly things we do. There were egregious punishment cases that needed the parents to go through re-education which couldn’t be done, because they had never been any in the first place. (Another example of NZ lack of reasoned standards.) Those parents need to be guided individually as to how children behave at certain ages and understand their psychology, why the kids act the way they do, and why the adult responds in a certain way and how to prevent either violence or psychological hurting, and what level of authority and limits there should be instead of feeling threatened when they misbehave.
I hope the coalition keeps together, Shark. I guess I’m just a worrier.
Go NZ First!
I agree, Cinny, it’s a surprisingly intelligent decision – for which our government deserves credit, and if she drove it through then I respect her initiative & perseverence. Will be interesting to see how the balance between healing & accountability is handled, eh?
Warning!! A joke in this piece by Graham Elwood will offend the sensitive, and the hard right. Also another warning – it contains a far right loony nut bag who thinks killing people is fine. 6.31 – but video really ends at 5.57 rest is ads.
That tweet by the Democrat at the end is rather interesting. Iran was democratic but the US decided that they didn’t like and staged a coup and then put in their own puppet monster.
Seems that that Democrat has forgotten history.
He is a war monger, so I’m not surprised he has selective memory.
The Trolls Hole
One of the trolls on here has difficulty in understanding American politics.
He / She claims that Mr Trump has a huge following.
In fact, he has only one quarter 1/4 of the vote 2016 and probably less following the recent election in 2018.
So how come he is President ? Because of a massive cooking of the books process, known as the “Electoral Commission”. A mere 538 persons are chosen to elect the President. The huge citizen Voters count for nothing.
Which is why Trump got in as President. Quite simply because Voters don’t count in American Politics. Canada and New Zealand run reasonably well, because voting Citizens count in those Countries.
Polls since 1967 have shown that a majority of Americans favor the president and vice president being elected by the nationwide popular vote, instead of by the Electoral College.[11][12] REF Wikipedia.
Trump is basically a small time player with a small corrosive brain. Plus his long Black Hatred Coat.
He has changed US and EU politics for a generation.
He has defeated all his left foes and tamed the mainstream media.
He stands in Republican terms at least as high as Reagan already.
Good or bad Donald Trump is the Hegelian Spirit of the Age.
Apology to Dennis Frank
On Sunday I flew off the handle after reading a reply by Dennis to one of my posts. I now realize that he was arguing in good faith, and that I was wrong and unfair to label him with the opprobrious epithets that I did.
Sorry, Dennis.
Anyone wishing to see for him/herself just how out of line I was can follow the whole thing by clicking on the following link….
[laughs] Have you considered just not calling random people on the internet “depraved halfwits”?
A.
That’s exactly what I’m apologizing for, Antoine. There certainly are depraved halfwits amongst us, sadly. Just look at the ACT Party, the S.S. Trust, and the Hobson’s Choice gang. However, Dennis is not one of them.
Thanks Morrissey, that’s a pleasant surprise. Apologies are an ancient way of restoring goodwill & mutual respect – social media would benefit from restoration of that form of interaction. Good on you.
Yeah I should own that I reacted badly at least.
Sorry for calling you names Dennis.
And you are too thick to understand he won the most votes in the areas which allowed him to become president.
He won it under the rules and the same setup as Hillary lost.
You see that’s why he is president of the US and not a small time player.
He “won” like Bush “won” in 2000: by a program of massive voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering.
You say that like it somthing new Morrissey. The US republic has been a place of disenfranchisement and gerrymandering right from the start.
I’m well aware of that, adam. Indeed, Kennedy probably beat Nixon in 1960 for the same reasons.
But it’s worse, and more shameless, now than ever.
Then of course, on top of everything else, the Democrats suffer from having such brilliant “strategists” as Warren Christopher “running” their “negotiations”….
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/10/democrats-should-remember-al-gore-won-florida-in-2000-but-lost-the-presidency-with-a-preemptive-surrender/
If the law is wrong, change it, Greens!
Green MP Eugenie Sage accused of ‘rubber-stamping’ land sales to foreigners
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/375777/green-mp-eugenie-sage-accused-of-rubber-stamping-land-sales-to-foreigners
(While they are about it, maybe the government should be worried about anybody with a warm body and ability to lie and cheat the paperwork being able to become a NZ permanent resident or citizen, and those who were not born in NZ, don’t live in NZ, contribute little to nothing here, but still get to keep permanent residency and citizenship and therefore the OIA don’t apply anyway and they get that free health, education and voting rights on their ‘holidays’ here while people are toiling away on low wages here to provide for them, should be looked at.)
> If the law is wrong, change it, Greens!
Do they know how? Is it something they’ve done before?
A.
Natz managed a lot of ‘urgent’ law changes very quickly, maybe inertia is the issue for the Greens as well as Labour and NZ First who also campaigned on reducing foreign sales?
The other issue, is how many foreign sales are not declared anyway.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12011961
… the foreign buyers made more than a million in profit but only fined $847k…. that’s certainly sending the message to ignore OIA if you can make a buck, you still get to make a profit even if you are caught. Thanks NZ government! sarcasm.
> Natz managed a lot of ‘urgent’ law changes very quickly
Right, so they know how to do it, but do the Greens?
A.
Fair call, I reckon. Obviously they can’t do it themselves but they could at least go public with a diagnosis of what’s wrong with the law, and explain precisely how they’d change it. That would reassure the broader Green movement.
Concurrent lobbying of Labour & NZF for a law change would be sensible & it would be a mistake to assume that they aren’t doing so already.
“it would be a mistake to assume that they aren’t doing so already.”.. how slow can they go.
Labour led government did the foreign residential sales ‘reform’ already, so that would have been a natural place to deal with the OIA,. Their work on the foreign residential sales has more holes in it than Swiss cheese… aka Singapore & OZ buyers can buy any property, anybody in the world can buy NZ new residential housing…. and of course the biggest issue in also how easy it is to just become a NZ resident or citizen and then even these few rules don’t count.
I do agree. Not trying to defend them against that critique but, to be fair, there’s probably plenty of other priorities making demands on their time…
Probably because Labour and NZ First forgot to read their 6000 page rebrand TPPA and work out the future consequences for a lowly 7 out of 10 trade deal which trades our sovereignty on houses, land, assets and profits to get lead taps, more plastic and asbestos trains and poor environmental regulation.
Likewise the fine print on all the other great trade deals seems to be an issue.
Weird how NZ’s rock star economy has so much debt now while our kids live in cars and it costs someone 1/4 of their wage to drive to work.
Lucky latte’s are a flowing with that $2 p/h barista with the coffee delivered by the clapped out truck subcontractor who is ‘independently’ contracted on less than minimum wages. Our internet is so bad possibly because Chorus subcontractors had 97% breaches of employment law when checked by the Labour inspectorate.
Yep +1 Greens for not supporting TPPA deal, but they seem to have given up on important quality issues going forward or being a strong advocate on that subject… and rubber stamping OIA seems part of the apathy rather than urgency to make significant changes against the establishment not just go for the easy targets of middle NZ aka petrol taxes and cycle lanes.
Likewise Labour, sucking up to big business is different from standing up to bad business which is what the Green used to do but now appears cold on the issue.
savenz
I don’t see that we can afford to spend time fighting to the death for full integrity of everything or even much beyond the minimum plus some built in resilience, and if I hear again that we want ‘the best in the world’ I’ll have to restrain myself from kicking that person. The term ‘best practice’ is also extremely irritating when I find myself having to real rule books about process and health and safety that impede honest micro and small business and income boosting. Why is it that companies can break useful laws and force their way into the market at will, and ordinary Joes and Josies have to meet draconian perfectionism? Shane Jones you’re known for bluffness; can you call the pea-brained Departments and their Uriah-like minions off the bureaucratic nonsense and send them out to work in the fields like the Chinese re-educating dictators.
We are up against the mincing bureaucrats, and don’t cares in the country too much, and our time in this still pleasant place is limited. Soon it will be encroaching disasters that will completely fill our minds, airwaves and screens (notice how we get blow-by-blow info about USA disasters, plus people on the ground interviews as if we ar hearing our next-door neighbours.) If some of the NZ buggers finally wake up and think of our whole country instead of their own pleasure and self-satisfaction, it will be too late to make much difference. And they will and it will be mea culpa but I’ll just look at their sincere but still mendacious faces and think so what.
So I think try to see how the lefties can get things done that make some difference. So much time is being wasted while people niggle about this and that. Like old-fashioned oldies who don’t find anything today is any good. Well F.O. people like that, it’s time for pragmatic idealism. So let’s hear some implementation strategies from you savenz as you have a good grounding in thinking and understanding of what’s going on out there.
Do they know how? Is it something they’ve done before?
Off the top of my head here is one notable example:
S59 of the Crimes Act –
Or have you forgotten?
But it takes time to change the law – even when you have a couple of MPs in Cabinet.
Perhaps you might look up how laws are actually legislated in NZ, and then look at the responsibilities of Ministers of Govt to uphold the laws for which they are responsible. I’m sure that at this very moment, Govt Depts are drafting amendments to a multitude of Acts for consideration by the Crown Law office before being presented to Parliament.
> S59 of the Crimes Act
That was Sue Bradford. No longer in Parliament. Does Eugenie Sage know what to do? Has she run any law changes since Lab/Greens took power, or is she known to have any in the works?
A.
Sue didn’t do it all herself, she had support from her caucus, and at the time she was a Green MP.
Yes.
Yes, they know how but they still have to work with others to get it changed and some of those others may not want to change it.
NZ 1st or Labour want to continue ‘‘rubber-stamping’ land sales to foreigners’? Really?
A.
Labour certainly gives indications that it does. That’s why they’re talking about minor restrictions rather a complete ban.
Labour are purely a light weight version of the National China Party, and are very pro Chinese purchases of NZ Assets after all it was Helen who got the ball rolling on land and house sales to Chinese buyers. Doubt whether Jacindarella will do anything about it ?
This was from NZ News on FB and shared by a farmer who would normally vote blue, maybe the farmers are starting to hate John Key and opportunity for NZ First?
“In 2008 New Zealand’s population was 4.2 million people, and total government debt was 10.3 billion dollars.
By 2017, after nine years of the John Key led National government New Zealand’s population had climbed to over 4.7 million, a gain of over 500,000 people and net government debt had soared to $66.4 billion a rise of $56.1 billion!
But how could this be? For nine years Kiwis have been told that we have a rockstar economy, that we have economic growth, and that the economy is doing well!
The truth is that Kiwis have been lied to.
New Zealand has not had economic growth all we have had is massive population growth, and our economy has not been keeping up with the enormous inflows of people.
In 2008 New Zealand did not have capacity in our schools for another 500,000 people, we did not have capacity in our hospitals for another 500,000 people, we did not have capacity on our major motorways for another 500,000 people, and we did not have enough housing stock for another 500,000 people. But that did not stop the National Party who used immigration to fool the public into believing we had a strong economy by opening the floodgates, even while they were running current account deficits and borrowing money to help infrastructure cope with the massive new demands.
For the last ten years, the New Zealand economy has been underpinned by construction activity. This is not construction activity associated with economic growth ( which would be paid for out of foreign exchange earnings, ) it is construction activity associated with population growth (building houses) and has been funded in the main by a massive increase in the country’s mortgage debt.
Mortgage debt increased from around 130 billion dollars in 2008 to over 250 billion in 2016 as Key and English used immigration to prop up the National Party.
John Key isn’t the first to use immigration to create a false economy, Helen Clark also relied on it, and Jacinda Ardern is carrying on, even though pre-election promises were contrary.
So why did Key do this to fellow Kiwis?
John Key said on a number of occasions that governments live and die on employment, in other words, the voting public will retain a political party if they feel things are going well and their jobs are ok. Most of the New Zealand public do not understand the economy, and even today most are unaware that under Key total debt in New Zealand has ballooned to a historic 500 billion dollars.
John Key never said that immigration was good for the economy and he never said it was good for the environment, his priority was to retain power so he could continue to be PM and if that meant misleading the voters,( like a lot of politicians do) then so be it.
If New Zealand wants to be a wealthy country, then we must protect our number one source of wealth, our environment, and we need a small population. The larger our population becomes, the poorer we will become.”
Ahem. Is anyone with a beefy neck listening? Or a wiry aesthetically slim one who believes in austerity for us and posterity for him/her?
And I wouldn’t mind a few clicks to separate paras here and there – I don’t count those as interference with the original text, just signposts on the pathso I don’t bypass a place to stop and absorb some useful thing.
It’s sort of like the computer games where you pick up useful stuff as you go along that you can utilise from your arsenal when under attack or danger.
“Magical thinking has persisted until now, but time’s up.” Damn! Just when we needed it most! Oh well, a Guardian writer, so he’s probably got it wrong. Let’s hope.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2018/nov/11/peoples-vote-brexit
Magic remains an unsuitable topic in contemporary society, for a bunch of very good reasons. Primarily for promotion of delusional outlooks on life and effects on mental health. However acts of magic can be effective in politics, since human groups are complex systems and all it takes to trigger a phase shift is a single person acting with power in the right place at the right time. The Brits remain in stasis, awaiting such a one!
“Regrettably, a great many others in the political class have succumbed to wilful blindness, choosing the craven option of quiet complicity, rather than the harder path that a public recognition of reality would entail. They claim only to be enacting the “will of the people”, expressed in the 2016 referendum, as though they have no corollary responsibility to respond as representatives of their constituents to all that has emerged in the past two and a half years about the likely form and consequences of Brexit.”
“In this context, the resignation of Jo Johnson on Friday was much more significant than his brother Boris’s in July …the first time that a senior remainer, a minister sometimes tipped as a future Tory leader, has left the government over our prospective exit from the EU. And he did so because he believes, correctly, that the prime minister is presenting the nation “with a choice between two deeply unattractive outcomes, vassalage and chaos”.”
“All the logic – remember that? – points to an extension of article 50, more talks and a people’s vote. Much more probable is a political collapse in which May is ousted, or a general election is forced by parliamentary impasse – or both.” Yes, I do remember logic – a rather boring type of cerebral process, but useful in physics & maths. May’s deployment of it proves the limited utility it has as a political tool. Crisis looming, hard Brexit seeming inevitable now…
This is awfully long – I kept finding useful links and thinking where they fitted into the larger picture that we keep forgetting about while we watch the sitcoms of politics and everyday attempts at satire by esteemed capitalists and their ilk that actually aren’t funny.
A few facts re the USA with or without Robbin sTump Hood and his merry men and women.
About Flint, Michigan and their state-of-the-art state water bottling welcome, while the citizens have a putrid system for their own city use, and have to buy bottled water to be satisfied they aren’t killing themselves. (And there used to be a fear of Russians or some black-hearted furriner or terrorist poisoning public water. In the USA they do it to each other!) And now they have a disposal problem of all the plastic bottles. Great, technology can solve all our problems. We thought when they said that, it was for a good result for us all. But wait, the quote didn’t specify what!
So I don’t know if there’s any way to find out how tied to “Big Water” our Governor is. I do know, however, that his former Chief of Staff, Dennis Muchmore, is married to Deb Muchmore, who happens to be a corporate spokesperson for Nestlé. If her name sounds familiar, it might be because, not too many years ago, she was the one explaining to us in Michigan why it was OK for Nestlé’s Ice Mountain brand to export so much of our most precious natural resource from Mecosta County. “Nestlé brings jobs and supports the economy,” she said at the time. “Ice Mountain cannot by law stop the flow of springs when they withdraw water,” Muchmore added. “They have not dried up any wells. No streams have dried up. No ecosystems have been harmed. The science backs this up.” Of course, this didn’t prove to be the case. As the result of a subsequent court case, in which it was brought to light that the Michigan Department for Environmental Quality (MDEQ) had seen a “measurable impact on certain waters and wetlands” in the Muskegon aquifer as a result of Nestlé’s pumping, the plant was forced to cut its production by half. [It’s still unclear what the long range effects of years of extraction will be.
http://markmaynard.com/2016/01/while-its-nice-that-people-are-sending-bottles-of-water-to-flint-i-cant-help-but-wonder-where-that-money-is-going/
Bankrupt USA cities?
On Thursday, the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection after being saddled with debts totaling more than $18.5 billion. That makes Detroit the largest city in the United States ever to file for bankruptcy — the previous record was held by Stockton, California, which was half the size and owed $26 million. Jul 18, 2013
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/07/18/USA cities bandrupt interactive map
See what the clever, slippery financiers did about Detroit.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petesaunders1/2018/07/19/detroit-five-years-after-bankruptcy/#62999a8dcfeb
Key interfered with our pension fund building. Financiers are now interfering with ones that have already been built in the USA.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirement/more-retirees-are-broke-and-going-bankrupt/ar-BBLzUuR
https://wqad.com/2018/05/09/rock-island-and-moline-among-20-illinois-cities-a-watchdog-group-says-should-declare-bankruptcy/
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/bankrupt-public-employee-pensions-the-next-big-financial-crisis/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/upshot/the-great-disconnect-megacities-go-global-but-lose-local-links.html
This is interesting in a depressing sort of way.
https://www.toptenz.net/10-things-happen-united-states-went-bankrupt.php
We don’t know how lucky we are sang John Clarke!
(He went to Australia and died early. Perhaps he was lucky. The rest of us can’t get the constipated conservatives to pass into law a reasoned, ethical system of choosing how to die even for people already terminally ill. While they wail about the growing cost of coping with our last four years of decline.)
We have been lucky. (Saying – Those were the best years of my life. I wish I had enjoyed them more.l) But not for long; can thinking people cut through the wilful ignorance and get people thinking about the problems looming so we can alleviate them, and prepare for further steps after alleviation has run its course? Can we get people building intentional communities where everybody has a say and they aren’t patriarchal cults or authoritarian closed camps?
Listen, read, watch for the following episodes in this fascinating series!
Somebody here recently put up a link to Scottish chap – name won’t come to me.
I am halfway through listening to it when I’ve time. But he mentioned Apple and how it seems to be nearing the moon because it is sitting on such a growing mound of cash and assets.
So here is link about the corporates and their stash.
http://fortune.com/2018/01/18/apple-overseas-cash-repatriation-gop-tax-plan/
Overseas cash repatriation is an issue that’s been important to multinational corporations for a long time. It’s estimated that more than $2.6 trillion in corporate profits have been sitting in foreign bank accounts waiting for a tax break to be freed up. Apple’s overseas cash alone amounted to $252.3 billion, a treasure trove the company had been loathe to repatriate due to how much it would lose paying foreign cash taxes.
The new GOP tax law allows U.S. companies to repatriate cash at reduced rates for a limited time. As a part of the tax reform, repatriation tax rates could be as low as 8%, compared to the 35% companies traditionally pay to repatriate that money, the New York Times reports.
Why not be practical you USA tax experts. Money is a theoretical substance anyway. Keep it flowing with reasonable concessions. Treat it like a game of chess and maneouvre your opponent corporates around for the good of the country and the world’s economy. And so says this thinking pawn.
The USA went off the gold standard because it was too limiting for building vast private empires and large projects and innovations. Now they are treating the count of resultant figures recorded on some substance that shows up when energy is supplied, everything ephemerally visible, as if it the wealth was still able to be marshalled and guarded in a physical way. Concepts mateys, get your agile minds thinking around this taxable hoard and get it moving you creeps.
Yours sincerely, wellwisher.
Corsi and his WingNutDaily were primary promoters of the birther smears.
Perjury trap.
damn, they caught me lyin!!!
lol
Context.
i am going to need a huge bucket of buttered popcorn when this all comes to a movie theater near us. Bugger James Bond, that is so outdated now.
Progressive Kyrsten Sinema drifted to the incrementalist centre, and it looks like she’s taken a blood red state.
Arizona’s Senate race isn’t over. But Kyrsten Sinema should be feeling awfully good about her chances.
Down narrowly on election night, the Democratic congresswoman overtook Republican Martha McSally two days later and has since padded her lead to nearly 32,000 votes as mail-in ballots have been tallied. At this point, it would take a stunning reversal for the Republican to mount a comeback, since the vast majority of outstanding votes are in areas of the state where Sinema is ahead, in some cases by significant margins.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/12/2018-arizona-senate-election-sinema-mcsally-984928
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/republican-concedes-arizona-dems-pick-jeff-flakes-senate-seat/
called, she won.
Nice.
Things are changing, slowly.
I never like the left blaming the media for being unfairly treated, but when even Bloomberg starts to notice, it’s clearly getting bad.
Just in case any fool on the left thinks it would be easy to implement a Financial Transactions Tax, in the form of ATM fees:
“Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (universally known as AMLO) does not take office until next month, but Mexico’s stock market on Thursday suffered its biggest one-day decline in since 2011, plunging 5.81 percent, after his party’s leader in the Senate announced plans to stop banks from levying fees on ATM withdrawals and on other transactions.
On Friday morning, the Senate leader, Ricardo Monreal, said that he made this announcement without first talking to AMLO. He added that the matter was still under consideration, but that the rights of bank customers were important, and that the Senate was an autonomous body. Then on Friday afternoon, AMLO gave a press conference in which he ruled out “any modification” of Mexico’s banking regulations during his first three years in office.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-11/oil-plunges-why-it-complicates-an-already-complicated-economy
And where was the international investor (or anoy other) outcry when the new President Bolsinaro promised to gut the Brazilian pension scheme, backbone of the social welfare of Brazil?
Tumbleweed.
Mexicans might wonder why Brazil’s populist government is given the benefit of the doubt and theirs isn’t. International investors have an impression of a populist government in Mexico that is not yet ready for prime time. Mexicans may well have an impression of international capitalists bullying their elected leaders over matters that are little or none of their business.
Regrettably while the left can wave their moral wand and tell the investor community to go fuck themselves, the investor community actually fucks you over.
> And where was the international investor (or anoy other) outcry when the new President Bolsinaro promised to gut the Brazilian pension scheme, backbone of the social welfare of Brazil?
Just to be clear, it really needs gutting (even from a centre-left perspective). For example, things are not right when (some) civil servants can retire at 55 on a full pension far in excess of the average wage. That money should be going into e.g. education.
A.
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/douglas-rain-the-sinister-voice-of-hal-in-2001-a-space-odyssey-dies-20181112-p50fl8.html?
And now for something completely different:
……. that issue re immigration that’s caused so much comment and speculation on TS and in the MSM in recent days.
Something quite a few already knew, but the many others eagre for a ‘gotcha’ moment were desperate to use in the service of opinion pieces and spin lines and QT:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/108561285/immigration-minister-not-given-karel-sroubeks-full-criminal-history
Wonder how the Woodlouse knew about it then. He got his own feed maybe.
Maybe have a listen to Checkpoint tonight…..you’ll get a bit more of an insight into the gNat connection.
Btw……Did you notice how the gNats and their agents have gone all quiet recently?
It’s world kindness day afterall. Can someone link the Checkpoint items if when they come up? Thanks.
To my Nemesis been fixing my computer they have cost me thousands I will never back down