In this episode of the Summer Solutions 2019 for the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy are joined by Dr. Michael Hudson, author of many books, including “And Forgive Them Their Debts,’ for his ideas on solutions to the ever growing wealth and income gap currently ‘solved’ with ever increasing amounts of debt. They discuss the reason for the huge surge in this wealth and income gap that began in the early seventies as the top once percent ran off with all the productivity gains. What role, if any, does the post-Bretton-Woods-all-fiat-dollar-reserve-system play in this economic injustice? The discussion then moves to Representative Brad Sherman’s recent claim that, "An awful lot of our international power comes from the fact that the U.S. dollar is the standard unit of international finance and transactions. Clearing through the New York Fed is critical for major oil and other transactions.”
Красная Армия Japan will not develop and invest in the creation of fifth-generation mobile networks. This is stated on the official website of the Ministry of High Technologies of the country. Officials expressed the opinion that the creation of a faster Internet than previously is dangerous for the population and may adversely affect people’s health and labor productivity.
Concerned citizens express outrage, heartache and concern regarding the Town's lack of due diligence, lack of solidarity with the citizens and lack of fortitude to STOP the small cell installation in Huntington NY. Facts regarding 5G and a list of the new small cell sites are listed in this video!
We are scientists engaged in the study of biological and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF). Based upon peer-reviewed, published research, we have serious concerns regarding the ubiquitous and increasing exposure to EMF generated by electric and wireless devices. These include–but are not limited to–radiofrequency radiation (RFR) emitting devices, such as cellular and cordless phones and their base stations, Wi-Fi, broadcast antennas, smart meters, and baby monitors as well as electric devices and infra-structures used in the delivery of electricity that generate extremely-low frequency electromagnetic field (ELF EMF).
sad – they tried and they failed. We need to know why this was such a fail.
Fish and Game is horrified by reports that nearly 1000 native fish have died in a botched transfer project. Wellington branch manager Phil Teal says virtually none of the 921 rare brown mudfish transferred to a new site by the Carterton District Council have survived.
…He said the wetland site at Daleton Road in Carterton was also used to discharge partially treated wastewater from the council's treatment plant.
The transfer project cost Wairarapa ratepayers $161,000 and Mr Teal said the public should be demanding answers from the council.
He said an independent inquiry by the Department of Conservation was also needed.
WDC can't stop raw sewage spewing into raglan harbour yet still allow the Rongatai dev to connect to it.
They also aren't touching the single lane bridge across the harbour whereas the dev has a flash new bridge of its own to ensure they join the growing jams.
Developers do as they please in NZ as they’ve the Legal guns and legislative terrain to blow opposition away.
These fish are extremely sensitive like the Galaxiids – lacking scales. Any number of things could have taken them out but I think the problem was putting them where sewage discharges. Poisoned by bacteria or fungi or xenobiotics or metal.
The sewage plant sounds like a mish-mash of ideas rather than a comprehensive treatment plant but I'd need to see if to see if it's as bad as it sounds. Sounds like an accountants sewage plant with add-ons after public outcry for environmental issues.
If anyone was actually serious about our native fish surviving into the future they would making whitebaiting bi annual (at the lest) and eradicate trout from our water ways.
I once interviewed Rod McDowell and he told me off the record that in his view with out major government intervention NZ native fresh water fish were heading for mass extinction.
I mean seriously, an introduced apex predator like the trout that is not only allowed to be in our waters, but is still actively introduced and has more protections than our own fish is fucking insane…they are nothing more than ferrets of the watersways, the natives haven't got a chance, kill them on sight I say, I know I do.
I am not for one minute suggesting that Americans and Japanese are mentally disabled.
But I am praising them for having used electricity in their households and Skyscrapers for over a hundred enlightened years.
Prior to that they used coal and oil. Which are deadly. And which you seem to want to return to. They are in fact the highest Carcinogens that we have in daily use. Thousands thousands of people die from Diesel daily.
All because people are supporting the Oil Companies.
May I ask when will you be taking electricity out of the houses of America and Japan ? Are you really that stupid ?
Concerned citizens express outrage, heartache and concern regarding the Town's lack of due diligence, lack of solidarity with the citizens and lack of fortitude to STOP the small cell installation in Huntington NY. Facts regarding 5G and a list of the new small cell sites are listed in this video!
The people of the above video have electricity, but they obviously consider cell phone 4g 5g and wifi etc an order of magnitude more dangerous and intrusive. Especially the concentrated intensity of the cell phone towers permeating the very atmosphere we need to live in.
Farrar claims that “Certainly things have gone horribly wrong in Wellington in the last couple of years.”, and among a list he gives, the first is
“The two Councils have destroyed the bus network, and can’t even work together to fix it.”
Now it is my understanding that the Council responsible for transport is the regional council – perhaps Farrar is thinking Wellington should have had all Councils amalgamated as in Auckland – that has gone so well for National . . .
But regarding the bus contracts, they were let before the last election, under rules set by Gerry Brownlee (they were available on a website, but I can’t find it now – I do hope it has been changed!).
The rules Regional Council had to follow for public transport contracts were to seek competitive tenders, to enable contracts for parts of the region to encourage competition, and to base contracts on price. This the regional council did, and it is arguable that Wellington got just what National wanted. After all, who would argue in favour of a more expensive contract, and why would you look for competence? Of course the fragmentation of services meant a re-design of routes by yet another agency, complex contracts, and when some routes needed further change then the lawyers must have fed on contract changes. More opportunities to clip the ticket – neo-liberal heaven! Now we find that the companies cannot pay the wages to recruit enough drivers (and the multiple contracts make moving drivers harder). Given the contract is with the public sector, the neo-lib answer is probably that the Council should pay more – but if the contracts did not allow for adequate wages that is again just what the government wanted . . . – of course the implication has been that the Council has erred in not paying more . . .
So now some services are being cancelled for lack of drivers – again that is as designed – almost certainly they will be those where the number of passengers did not justify the service anyway – Brownlee knew what he was doing!
The comments on Kiwiblog are amusing – various posters see a great future in the principle behind the name, and are calling for an Auckland Party (cit-rats became a joke, com-res hasn’t done well, why not an “Auckland Party”!). If the various city parties combined, they could even call themselves the New Zealand Party, or, dare we say it, the National Party!
The party website is informative as anyone would expect : https://thewellingtonparty.org/ but from the Stuff article, having Hughes, Morrison and Mihaka all running in wellington Central, and four or five other candidates, how could they possibly lose!
Councils everywhere are incapable of addressing that which needs to be addressed, be it basic services, transport, climate change impacts or whatever….they are structurally flawed and growth is simply highlighting the deficiencies. It is delusional to believe that any grouping can or will change that.
Lori Mattix, who had a liaison with him aged 15, explained: ‘I never thought of David Bowie as a paedophile. He would f**k anything. If he liked it he would f**k it.’
Early girlfriend Dana Gillespie concurred, telling me: ‘As far as sex went, if it moved, he was there. Man, woman, old or young. Times have changed and it doesn’t always look so good in black and white now, but in those days we were just having fun; there were no rules.’
…. The sexual free-for-all characterised his open marriage to Angie, whom he wed in 1970. She wrote in her autobiography: ‘David made a virtual religion of slipping the lance of love into almost everyone around him.’
I don't think his personal sins and foibles should stop anyone listening to his music. But Yadana Saw and her hiveminded colleagues at RNZ National obviously do.
This is really strange coming from you guys, I remember only too well and also very recently that all you lot ( Sacha, marty mars and others ) were losing your shit over Assange over what you said was his mistreatment of woman, and now defending Bowie fucking 15 year old girls, holy shit what a bunch of hypocrites.
Guess if you can write a few good tunes you get a free pass, is that how it goes for you?
Assange should have practiced his guitar a bit more eh.
Bowie's crimes are exhaustively documented, and he and his followers boasted about them incessantly. Assange committed no crime, unless journalism is now a criminal enterprise. The lurid Soviet-style sex fantasy concocted by the British and U.S. intelligence services has as much rigour as that case cooked up against Peter Ellis by the Christchurch Police and a few demented psychiatrists.
Problem is many on here don't seem to be able to produce an original thought in their head, and lack what seems to be any critical thought process at all.
It they read it in The Guardian or whatever..it must be true..end of story for this lot.
It they read it in The Guardian or whatever..it must be true..end of story for this lot.
The propaganda that daily emanates from the Guardian and the very similar BBC is dutifully repeated in our media by the likes of John Campbell, Kathryn Ryan, Kim Hill, Bernard Hickey, and Patrick Gower.
Over at NewstalkZzzzzB, meanwhile, they recycle Fox News and the Spectator as reflexively and as irresponsibly.
I remember only too well and also very recently that all you lot ( Sacha, marty mars and others ) were losing your shit over Assange over what you said was his mistreatment of woman, and now defending Bowie fucking 15 year old girls…
Why does the word "consent" seem either completely unheard-of or just plain irrelevant to so many men when it comes to the morality of sex?
Also: despite the enthusiastic participation of the 15-year-olds in question, if the Police had been made aware of the incident they would have wanted to interview Mr Bowie, and if he'd instead resisted extradition, jumped bail and spent years hiding out in a foreign embassy, I'd probably have a fairly low opinion of him too.
Whatever..you hypocrites, you guys are so full of shit it defies logic, but then as I have seen first hand through parts of my life, some humans can justify and defend and/or enable almost any type of bad behaviour if they get cornered and feel they need too…guess you are in that club, well done.
Haven't seen you or your pals show the moral outrage toward Bowie that you all spewed out towards Assange when you were told to do so by the Guardian is all I''m saying.
Or is 'enthusiastic participation' from a 15 yo girl OK in your books..,,because as far as I know wether that 15 yo girl consents or not, is it is still considered illegal,and that girl would be considered a minor, so in other words and according to the law, Bowie was fucking children.
Now I am not actually offering moral judgment on this, i am just stating what the law is, and undisputed stories about who Bowie had sex with, in this case a under age girl…no you are the ones who presented yourselves as the rulers on what is considered moral when it comes to sexual relations in your stances on Assange..wee man.
Why does the word "consent" seem either completely unheard-of or just plain irrelevant to so many men when it comes to the morality of sex?
In the case of 15 year olds, perhaps it's to do with them not being considered mature enough to give their consent.
Also: despite the enthusiastic participation of the 15-year-olds in question, if the Police had been made aware of the incident they would have wanted to interview Mr Bowie, and if he'd instead resisted extradition, jumped bail and spent years hiding out in a foreign embassy, I'd probably have a fairly low opinion of him too.
So as Bowie didn't resisted extradition, jumped bail and spend years hiding out in a foreign embassy are you saying you condone him having sex with underage girls?
In the case of 15 year olds, perhaps it's to do with them not being considered mature enough to give their consent.
What the law says, and what individuals choose to do, are sometimes not the same. The law says a 15-year-old isn't allowed to drink alcohol, and yet I did so (and drove afterwards, often enough). I would also have been more than happy if someone wanted to fuck me, hell anyone let alone a famous celebrity, which sadly no-one at the time did (don't cry, readers, someone took pity on me later on).
…are you saying you condone him having sex with underage girls?
Somehow I can't imagine Bowie was living in fear of what Psycho Milt might think of him for having fucked underage girls. My point, which somehow seems to need making over and over again on these threads, is that if sex with you leaves a woman feeling the need to visit a police station, ur doin it wrong.
Not sure anyone's argued that wikileaks should be boycotted specifically because Assange is an accused rapist.
Caravaggio was a murderer. Good paintings, though.
The outcome of boycott/noboycott is binary, but the decision-making is not.
Work quality and uniqueness is one factor. Severity and frequency of crimes is another (as a judge might look at sentence length). Degree of input the criminal had into the work is another (e.g. boycott Deadwood because Jeffrey Jones is in it? What if Swearengen were played by [alleged criminal]Kevin Spacey?). How long ago were the crimes, and were they a lifetime practise? Will my boycott affect the criminal's ability to profit from this or future work, or help deter future criminals?
From my perspective, all this and probably more mushes into a single boycott/noboycott outcome. Sometimes it's a conscious "argh, shit, I really liked him, he's not on my playlist until he owns it" (louisCK). Sometimes it's just that the abuser is no longer a selling point, the billing they get in the cinema might as well be a blank space or even a shitstain.
So I'm not going to parse what Bowie did. It was wrong. Is he on my playlist? not really. Did I play the embed? Yup. Was that wrong or inconsistent? Maybe. But fuck it, it's a Sunday and I'm at the office.
@ McFlock , I grew up in the AKL art scene in the late 1960's, and have been involved in one way or another with artists in all fields since, so believe me this whole issue is nothing new to me, I learnt long long ago to separate art from art creator, in both the fine arts and in music.
A great song or painting about romantic love would forever be coloured if you discovered that it was created a few weeks after the creator beat their lover to death, or a few weeks after they'd met the person they would be in love with for the next fifty years, or both. The context of the creation adds texture to it, whether we want it or not.
You are adamant, without any basis, that he is innocent of that accusation. That is a stupid position to take, but not uncommon in a society where women are routinely disbelieved. But your bias goes so far as to have you deny the literal truth that he has been accused of rape. What little judgement you have has been clouded by your ego.
Ha! As if this pursuit of Assange is driven by women and not the secret police of two rogue nations. The young women badgered and inveigled to go along, for a short time, with this murderous travesty almost immediately made it clear they wanted no charges brought against him. Your zealous desire to see him destroyed stands in stark contrast to their courage.
the literal truth that he has been accused of rape.
No he has not.
There were never any rape charges against Assange. What happened is this. Two Swedish women took Assange into their beds in their homes and had consensual sex with him. No condom was used. The women or one of them wanted Assange to take a test so she could be reassured that he had no disease that could be sexually transmitted. Assange foolishly refused. The woman went to the police to see if Assange could be coerced to take the test. Out of this came the investigation that was closed without charges. Assange was free to leave Sweden.
He foolishly went to the UK, Washington’s prime puppet state. Once there Washington prevailed on a female Swedish prosecutor to reopen questioning of Assange.
No real reason was ever given for the female Swedish prosecutor to reopen the questioning. One possible reason is Washington’s money. It was clear to Assange’s lawyers that the extradition request was a trick to get him back in Swedish hands so that he could be handed over to Washington. Assange fought the extradition, but a corrupt British court to comply with Washington ruled that Assange could be extradited for questioning even though there were no changes against him. This ruling shocked everyone who thought British judges had integrity.
Two Swedish women took Assange into their beds in their homes and had consensual sex with him. Consent was granted on the explicit basis that he used a condom. No condom was used. Therefore it was non-consensual sex, which is more properly known as "rape". The women or one of them wanted Assange to take a test so she could be reassured that he had no disease that could be sexually transmitted.
What about my apology too? Or have you found some non existent post of mine.
On Wednesday 17 April, shortly after Julian Assange had, at the behest of the Trump regime, been dragged out of political asylum, put in front of a biased and abusive "judge", and imprisoned, Te Reo Putake instigated a gloating, outrageous thread entitled "Assange Must Be Extradited." He summarily banned half a dozen people who dared to defend journalism and the rule of law, and he excised their posts. Later in the thread he admitted (to Brigid, who had protested about his conduct) that he had devised the "admittedly click baity title" in order to "get people to read the post, Brigid. Obviously, some of my fans here love being outraged, so it was a good way to get their blood pressure up." Such antics constituted, he joked, "churnalism at its finest."
At 10.33 p.m. you chose to add the following comment to that Red China-style festival of abuse, contempt, denunciation, and malice:
yep – it’s pretty basic consent issue – if no consent then rape – simple.
So you supported the bullies and the slanderers, by amplifying their callous lies. It's a post of yours all right, and it's anything but "non-existent."
the context of that comment was in relation to the law around consent in NZ. It was a comment on the difference between Sweden and NZ and NOT about what you implied it was about.
Paraphrasing a dictionary defnition of "rape" only amplifies people opposed to rape.
Last I looked, journalism didn't involve rape.
I think that somehow you might have inadvertantly conflated two distinct issues. I'm sure you haven't realised it and that this is the first person to explain that the subject of a person's "journalism" is distinct from the subject of whether that journalist is also a rapist.
I look forward to you acknowledging the disinction betwen the two subjects in a calm and dignified manner in the near future.*
I hope you don't mind me saying that THAT song is a LITTLE bit of a controversial CHOICE, a-a-a-a-and I'm really interested why you were brave enough to be choosing a David Bowie clip at this time. Marty, w-w-what will happen is that, I'm pretty sure this thread is going to get very BUSY with this choice.
What would you SAY to-o-o-o Standard readers, who may say "We CAN'T listen to this music any more"?
Not at all, Mr Shark. If I was the "link whore" that Kiwibloggers constantly accuse me of being, I would have provided a link to my site. But I didn't.
My intention was not to garner extra “hits” on my own site, but to provoke and tease people about the glaring hypocrisy and faux morality that engenders purse-lipped denunciation of the imagined and unproven crimes of Michael Jackson, while ignoring the real crimes of someone like David Bowie.
But, in case anyone wants to see the providence of that little anti-Bowie tirade in 8.2, feel free to click HERE….
Yes, but better than Mike Hosking! Morrissey just has to knock him off his perch in mid squawk then he'd be in to the big bucks. Mike is I am afraid a bit like the Norwegian parrot that can be sold again and again because of notable features that excite and appeal to a phalanx of gullible people.
As the day wears wearily on and you need a touch of the light here is a 1989 version of the parrot sketch with extras at the end. You may not have seen this older version, it's amusing with a different end.
I don't care what Neil Young or David Bowie have done. All that I care about is their music. My position is very different to that of Yadana Saw, who for reasons even she would not be able to explain convincingly, is nervous about playing records by Michael Jackson.
You'd think the fact his records were shite would be enough reason. I'm always happy for people to not play Michael Jackson for me, whatever the reason.
So you're having a go at them for not playing MJ songs?
No, I'm having a go at them for their selective and hypocritical display of "moralising". Like any well bred and discerning person, I choose not to play Michael Jackson songs—but on grounds of personal preference, not because I'm afraid of offending some sniffy busybodies "who may say 'We CAN'T listen to this music any more'."
How about Gary Glitter? Do you want them on the playlist, too?
Gary Glitter's still on my playlist. Objectively I know it's a load of old cobblers, but to 12-year-old me it was the dog's bollocks and that tends to stick with you.
I've never said I wanted him banned. Of course, he should never have had a job as a sports reporter in the first place, not because he is a violent and despicable person, which he clearly is, but because he knows fuck-all about sports.
Earlier you attempted to Bowie shame Sacha because of a report of underage sex and hyper sexuality. Isn't it a tad hypocritical and a bit rich how you'll then link to a convicted paedophile and refuse to condemn a man who broke a woman's back?
Earlier you attempted to Bowie shame Sacha because of a report of underage sex and hyper sexuality.
Errrr, no, I wasn't trying to "Bowie shame Sacha", I was applying to Bowie the same moronic logic that censorious people—the kinds of people that make Yadana Saw so fearful—apply to Michael Jackson.
Isn't it a tad hypocritical and a bit rich how you'll then link to a convicted paedophile and refuse to condemn a man who broke a woman's back?
I have repeatedly condemned Veitchfor his ignorance about sports [1], his sexism [2] and his racism [3] and then, after the revelations of his crimes, for his violence. [4]
Well it's all out in the open now, on the record, so we'll just leave it there for posterity. People can work it out for themselves how it all looks, but from my vantage point, it doesn't come over too well for you at all.
Let's just shut out discussion of sexual mores from Open Mike and have a special one where the matter can be discussed from top to bottom. ~~SEX~~ Now I have Your Full Attention is such a cheap jibe – and so reliable.
Jeez master Breen, you make it hard to Garner sympathy for your arguement. I get yr point about hypocrisy in regards to Assange bashers and the other issue about Jackson/black/bad-Bowie/white/look the other way.
After VV filled us all in on Yadana Saw's background and history, surely you could find another example to hang this bug bear on.
She was certainly nervous as some poor soul trying to negotiate ideological quicksand in a Radio Moskva studio during the 1930s. As for being "sensitive", I think you mean "fearful of being sneered at or reprimanded by some black-garbed pecksniff."
Yenta Hodge's daughter is Deputy Editor for BBC News at Six and News at Ten: the British State Propaganda organ is blatantly biased to the extreme right.
Thought I would put up a link to some who feature in the BBC Who's Who.
1.) Amol Rajan is the voluble BBC Media Editor, always appearing and giving his take on events. He was one time editor of Levedev's Independent and was at the FCO early on for a year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38054561
2.) James Harding was the Head of News. He arrived at the BBC along with James Purnell, one time chair of LFoI and ex Labour MP, and Ceri Thomas.
3) Tony Hall was a successor to Mark Thompson, the Director General who presided over the Savile evil. Thompson is married to Jane Blumberg, daughter of a US physicist. Thompson visited Sharon in Israel in 2005 to reassure him that BBC reports on Israel were fair! It was originally said he was accompanied by his wife but the BBC would not confirm that.
4.) Under Thompson's watch, the DEC appeal for Gaza after the Cast Lead slaughter was not aired by the BBC. Caroline Thomson, no longer at the BBC, was his sidekick who also took a decision not to broadcast Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Children, a radio play. Thompson is now CEO at the New York Times. At the BBC in 2010 he was being paid just under £1million.
5.) Ms Thomson is now the chair of OXFAM. (YCNMIU)
6.) Harding left the BBC and set up his own media outfit called Turquoise.
7.) James Purnell is still at the BBC as Head of Radio, Head of Strategy and Digital. Before, he had worked privately for Blair, was a SPAD at No 10 and was given two jobs (DCMS and Pensions) by Brown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Purnell
8.) Lastly, Lizzi Watson, Margaret Hodge's daughter from her first marriage, is currently the Deputy Editor for BBC News at Six and News at Ten, i.e. the country's main news provider. As you know, Hodge (MP Lab Barking) has been instigating the anti-Semitism smears against Jeremy Corbyn. https://twitter.com/islingtonlizzi?lang=en
Does the anti-Corbyn bias that we see and hear get passed down the line?
9.) All in all, 'Bought by and Sold to Israel' and Paid For by the licence fee payers. Just some of the stuff that is in the public domain. There is probably much more that we will never know about.
Joseph McCarthy tried the same trick you're trying. Just read out the names and make them sound as Jewish as possible. Generally the media can just let such vile fools hang themselves; the bias is with those who are hunting people down.
Here's how the real pro's did what you are trying:
You can do similar slurs with those 30 Jewy-sounding names who are testifying on the issue within Labour UK to the Equality and Human Right Commission.
Failing that, you could stop the slurs and listen to the evidence they have to say about anti-semitism within the Labour Party instead of attacking the messengers.
Corbyn has been as weak and pushed around by activists on the anti-semitic issues within his party as has has been on Brexit. This is not surprising from a person who has actually never before stood successfully for any legislation in Parliament, proved totally unwhippable, or led anything in his life.
To catch you up, the EHRC launched a formal investigation into whether Labour “unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people” from the Jewish community in May, saying it had received a number of complaints about Labour’s handling of allegations. It's not the BBC doing this.
Not even sunlight can disinfect Labour UK from the damage that Corbyn has now done.
People like you never take any kind of criticism because their righteousness drives and blinds them.
You seek bias in every person in the media, and you'll find it because that perfect place your righteousness drives you towards does not even exist in your mind, so it’s invented as a future no-place. U-topia.
Societies grow into systems. The systems require management and are therefore increasingly wielded, like a tool or a weapon, by those who have power. The rest of the population is still needed to do specific things. But the citizens are not needed to contribute to the form or direction of the society. The more "advanced" the civilization, the more irrelevant the citizen becomes.
There are better descriptions of human agency around.
JR Saul's version stands as pretty pre-internet and pre-social media.
If you can get hold of it, he does a really good one comparing the development of Canada and the United States as societies and as geographies: Confessions of a Siamese Twin.
It's a pretty good analogue for the New Zaland – Australia relationship.
we have seen the effects of networked systems and the outcome of catastrophic collapse eg Haldane and May.
In the run-up to the recent financial crisis, an increasingly elaborate set of financial instruments emerged, intended to optimize returns to individual institutions with seemingly minimal risk. Essentially no attention was given to their possible effects on the stability of the system as a whole. Drawing analogies with the dynamics of ecological food webs and with networks within which infectious diseases spread, we explore the interplay between complexity and stability in deliberately simplified models of financial networks. We suggest some policy lessons that can be drawn from such models, with the explicit aim of minimizing systemic risk.
a lack of diversity in risk models as networking increased or to put it another way a sterility of thinking. as HM suggest.
The analytic model outlined earlier demonstrates that the topology ofthe financial sector’s balance sheet has fundamental implications for thestate and dynamics of systemic risk. From a public policy perspective,two topological features are key15.First, diversity across the financial system. In the run-up to the crisis,and in the pursuit of diversification, banks’ balance sheets and risk management systems became increasingly homogenous. For example,banks became increasingly reliant on wholesale funding on the liabilities side of the balance sheet; in structured credit on the assets side of thei rbalance s eet; and managed the resulting risks using the same value -at- risk models. This desire for diversification was individually rational from a risk perspective. But it came at the expense of lower diversity across the system as whole, thereby increasing systemic risk. Homogeneity bred fragility
Similarly if a profession's textbooks (widely cited by social engineers) were wrong in their assumptions on statistical testing,would you not feel a little uncomfortable or indeed cynical.
It is foolish to not pay attention to what Ad says. He is likely to get to solid ground in a sentence, compared to yourself Morrissey in numbers of paragraphs.
It is foolish to not pay attention to what Ad says.
So far today he's peddled Blairite black propaganda, i.e. lies, about Jeremy Corbyn, and he's called me a McCarthyite.
He is likely to get to solid ground in a sentence,
If by "solid ground" you mean abusive, demeaning and not terribly creative name-calling, then, yes, he quickly gets to "solid ground."
compared to yourself Morrissey in numbers of paragraphs.
???? I work hard at writing lean, well organized pieces, whether they're short replies like this or longer essays or, on the odd occasion, play scripts. I'd put up anything from my oeuvre against his complacent and self-satisfied little rants.
Failing that, you could stop the slurs and listen to the evidence they have to say about anti-semitism within the Labour Party instead of attacking the messengers.
Will there be some evidence at some point? So far it all seems to be a very successful anti-Corbyn propaganda campaign with nothing to back it up.
The joy of this is that there are now two legal avenues in which the evidence against the Labour Party handling of anti-semitism will play out as evidence.
BBC's programme has alerted everyone to what is to come.
Labour has gone on the attack rather than front it, so now it will all play out in the courts, and get further amplified in the media.
That's where the likes of Morrisey will find the evidence, rather than attacking the BBC.
This is a propaganda campaign against Corbyn that's been going on for a year already, and we might finally see some evidence to back it up at some point in the future? I'll believe it when I see it. My money is on both the EHRC investigation and any libel case being entirely about how Labour handled allegations of anti-semitism, with pretty much no evidence of anti-semitism actually presented.
@Morissey and @Psycho Milt, there are a couple of links about the astonishing Panorama episode aired in the UK, made by a former Sun journalist, about the alleged "crisis of anti-semitism" in the UK Labour Party:
For anyone interested in the ongoing crisis re- the baiting of Iran by the Trump regime and the effects on Britain and ultimately the rest of us… the following link is a must read:
Trump’s America is an ugly, dangerous creation from which old certainties recoil. The US alliance can no longer be relied upon. The Darroch affair is a timely warning to step back and take stock. And it’s no good saying Trump will soon be gone. The way the divided Democrats are behaving, he could still be calling the shots in 2025.
This "death star" presidency is no ally for NZ either, and our government should accordingly base their decisions relating to this regime on reality and not the past!
Trump didn't start the baiting of Iran. It started in 1953, when the U.S. and its U.K. vassal conspired to smash Iranian democracy.
Trump's instability and unpredictability, and especially the presence of John Bolton, only make things more dangerous, but the policies, and these utterly unjust "sanctions", were not dreamed up by him or his crazy inner cabal.
Agree. Trump didn't start it. Successive US governments have been using the baiting technique and yes… other nations have followed suit. However Trump and Co. are taking it to a whole new level which has the potential to destroy our very existence and he can only be stopped if western governments stop cow-towing to the maniacal regime and conspire to be rid of this regime.
The 'death star' presidency – a great appellation. The warnings are there for any sane politicians to see also the jerks pulling the strings on we puppets, passing their jerks on to us.
The National Addiction Centre say the Government's lack of action over alcohol regulation, following recommendations made in a recent mental health inquiry, suggests outside influences are involved.
Health Minister Dr David Clark said he wouldn't dignify such suggestions with a response.
"You gotta follow the money and ask who is benefiting from the status quo," Simon Adamson, the National Addiction Centre director, said.
…
"There is a lot of money being made by the alcohol industry and the supermarket industry so we could speculate that there's been some strong lobbying going on," said Adamson.
I expect he's right and there is a lot of lobbying going on, just like there is from every other industry or interest group. That's water off Clark's back.
To get the real situation, ignore the money and ask who's benefiting from the status quo. The answer is "Me and hundreds of thousands of others like me who buy alcohol at the supermarket every week, and most of us vote in general elections." Now, that the Minister does care about…
I'm arguing that attempting to eradicate drug addiction from a society is a doomed enterprise regardless of the proposed mechanism, but the mechanism of taking a punitive approach to recreational drug users has been proven beyond dispute to be among the more stupid ones. Clamp down on one drug, people start using others – there is no drug-free society just waiting for us to get the right policy mix in place. Repairing the damage done by over-indulgence in recreational drugs is a cost society just has to bear, much like it does for the damage done by over-eating, playing sports, fucking etc.
Who do you believe is attempting to eradicate booze?
Anti-alcohol lobbyists, for a start. Like the alcohol industry, they also are lobbyists with an agenda and should be seen in that light. And the fact that you call people who drink alcohol "pissheads" but use no pejoratives to describe tobacco smokers suggests you're in the same camp.
Moreover, most that drink aren't addicted.
Which makes the anti-alcohol lobby's constant attempt to fuck with us all the more annoying.
the damaged caused is the price we have to pay to keep the price of booze low for the piss heads.
Good to know, with this stance on alcohol and it's users, you've also now dropped your objection to high taxation of tobacco products for the cancer makers.
Unlike booze, most tobacco users are highly addicted to the product.
Moreover, the price of tobacco is far from low. And it tends to damage the user and not the wider society. Increasing the cost is what is driving the wider damage with the vast increase in shop holdups.
You called the alcoholics 'piss heads', not me, so as addicts, it's apple for apple.
Yeah, the reason tobacco is not cheap is because of the taxes, the same sort of taxes you want to put on booze to minimise the uptake and usage. An orange for an orange.
Will you also be a hypocrite, if the high taxes come in, and slam the government if and when scum rip off bottle shops?
No. I didn't say anything about alcoholics. You are clearly clutching.
Thus, my position holds. The majority of those that drink aren't addicted as smokers are, so lifting the price will have a better effect as most don't need to have that drink. Unlike smoking.
Additionally, taxes on tobacco have largely exceeded their effectiveness. We are largely down to the hardcore addicts that won't quit regardless the tax.
Moreover, it's not just about lifting prices. However, I'm sure your already knew that, but it didn't fit with you narrative.
Taxes raised on drinks, for exactly the same reason as those raised on tobacco, make it exactly the same thing you've been whining on about here since for ever.
It's not just my thoughts. The reality is, most drinkers aren't addicts, thus they don't need that drink as a smoker needs that smoke. Which clearly is the point you missed.
There's a point there? I guess there's an implied one that you personally believe addicts shouldn't have their fix taxed but recreational users should. Good luck turning that into a coherent and enforceable policy.
Taxing the fix of an addict doesn't stop them from being addicted.
That bold assertion is somewhat undermined by the numbers of smokers who've given up due to cost increases via taxation. (NB: like you, I'm unhappy with the level of taxes charged on cigarettes, but that's based on a general principle that it's beyond the state's remit to punish people for their recreational drug choices, not because I bullshit myself about addiction. Also NB: I'm not and never have been a tobacco smoker.)
Whereas, taxing recreational users will have a far better impact on their recreational use.
People's recreational drug use is none of the government's business. It's entitled to tax the drug to recover health costs, but anything beyond that is just arbitrary exercise of authority.
Drinking is over rated anyway. There are far better recreational drugs…
Your opinions on what recreational drugs people should or shouldn't use are of value only to you.
That bold assertion is somewhat undermined by the numbers of smokers who've given up due to cost increases via taxation.
Only slightly, you are talking around 5% opposed to the 13.8 that continue to smoke, hence strengthening my assertion. Along with the 45 per cent of Maori women between 18 and 24 that smoke now, and which the number isn't reducing.
Addiction to smoking is not bullshit, it's the main factor people aren't giving up.
Along with the fact that users are addicted, my opposition is based on the fact it's gone too far and is hurting the poor who are already hurting, while destroying our once safe and peaceful society. We are getting down to the hardcore smokers that aren't going to give up easily. Hell, some of them actually enjoy it. It's their vice and they are never going to stop.
People's recreational drug use is none of the government's business. It's entitled to tax the drug to recover health costs, but anything beyond that is just arbitrary exercise of authority.
Cover health costs? What about the costs of the wider damaged it creates?
Could you quantify the tobacco price-fuelled "vast increase in shop holdups"?
I know the idea is common ‘knowledge’, but I'm having trouble finding the supporting evidence using Google searches.
‘Smoke and Mirrors’, or ‘Smoke in (Y)Our Eyes’?
"The authors note it is difficult to assess adverse impacts, because of the lack of high quality trend and current data. For example, they describe increasing media reports of retail robberies involving cigarettes, and growing retailer concerns. However, they also note that lack of reliable longitudinal data on tobacco-related crimes makes it impossible to assess whether such robberies are actually increasing, and, if so, whether any observed increases are due to higher tobacco excise taxes, points we have made previously. Similarly, there are few data on trends in imported or crime-related illicit tobacco supply, making it difficult for the Report authors to verify or disprove claims that these are increasing."
A total of 1237 aggravated robberies were recorded at dairies and petrol stations from June 2016 to May 2017, up 87 per cent on the previous 12 months.
Thanks Chair; what proportion of that shocking annual increase in robberies was due to the increase in tobacco excise tax?
Regardless of the reasons, that's an appalling increase in aggravated robberies under a National-led government. Aren't they supposed to be tough on Law'n'Order? No doubt you were critical of National's poor performance at the time, in your own "lefty" "more left than most" way
"Police Minister Stuart Nash says the extra subsidy is a short-term measure, and in the long-term the Government was working to tackle organised crime and get more police officers in the community."
What proportion of that shocking annual increase in robberies was due to the increase in tobacco excise tax?
Zero. It was all just a big coincidence – not.
I was critical of the tax, and have been for sometime now.
Hard on crime you say. So how is putting a bad ass motherfucker in jail with a bunch of other bad ass motherfuckers meant to result in them being rehabilitated once they come out? The whole system seems flawed from the get go.
Data is yet to be kept on that. Although, cigarettes were often targeted in these robberies. And it's logical to assume the main related cause for such an sharp and sudden increase was the tax.
Do you see any other new or outstanding reasons for it? Apart from the tax, little if anything had changed in that year.
I did like the bit where he diverged from the link and showed his had:
I suspect there is more than just lobbying go on, there will most likely also be party donations given from those sectors.
Party donations are public record. If the industry donated anything of note, the notes would be online, and they'd be thrown around with soggy abandon.
To achieve the smokefree goal, the team of researchers led by Nick Wilson says the Government needs "to massively increase investment" in established interventions, including cessation support and mass media campaigns, while also continuing with substantial tobacco tax increases, "or else add substantive new strategies into the intervention mix."
"Indigenous peoples experience disproportionately high rates of commercial tobacco use, and consequently disproportionately high rates of tobacco-related death and disease. Philip Morris International (PMI) appears to be interested in building a veneer of social responsibility, so that it can bolster corporate credibility and leverage this to influence political debates about tobacco control policy. If PMI was serious about its aims for a smoke-free world, it would cease its opposition to evidenced-based measures to reduce smoking rates, such as advertising bans, tax increases and plain packaging. Further, the tobacco industry would cease commercial tobacco manufacturing, marketing, lobbying and litigation. The tobacco industry has a long history of deliberately colluding in covering up, denying, confusing and questioning the science on smoking-related morbidity and mortality. As a business, PMI’s goal is to safeguard and extend shareholder profits, thus it is rapidly expanding into the lucrative AND markets. PMI has never demonstrated genuine concern for the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples, and has a history of ignoring and undermining scientific evidence. The tobacco industry’s interest in Indigenous peoples has been to appropriate our names and imagery along with the tobacco plant itself, with the sole intent of furthering tobacco sales and profits."
Indeed, alcohol and tobacco are two important contributing factors to NZ health inequalities and not only in NZ. Junk food and sugary drinks would be another one.
The process of removing Tamariki has stirred anger among Māori not seen in 15 years.
"So it's the first kotahitanga or unity meeting since foreshore and seabed," said Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chief executive John Tamihere.
Helen Clark's Foreshore and Seabed comments triggered a political movement. Delegates say the Newsroom video of the attempted removal of a baby from its mother had a similar impact.
I was thinking last night I've yet to see a TV news report on this subject that gave any hint the removal of babies from parents is done for a reason, rather than being a dastardly plot by central government to kidnap children. Have any journos bothered to mention it?
That reason (at times) may merely be a suspicion of harm leading to the Family Court making an interim Order and removing the child without talking to the child’s parent, guardian or caregiver first.
the Minister has defended from this very position, even crasher collins has said 'just stop hitting the kids' – although to be fair, i've only heard it on the radio cos we don't have telly.
With its renowned Church of the Good Shepherd, pristine blue waters and crystal clear night skies, Lake Tekapo in the Mackenzie Basin is one of the must-do stops in any tour of the South Island.
Getting specialist training to turn our kids into World champions has been in the news lately. Should schools be grabbing kids to train them to be All Blacks?
One infant was learning to putt before he could walk and constant support from his Dad turned him into a golfing prodigy and a World champion. Guess who that is?
Another lad was very skilled but from an early age he was encouraged to try any sport that he fancied. By the time he was in his 20s he specialised in tennis and became a World Champion. Guess who that is?
The professed necessity of hyperspecialisation forms the core of a vast, successful and sometimes well-meaning marketing machine, in sport and beyond.
Happy Bastille Day everyone! If you were unwise enough to be watching breakfast television exactly nine years ago, you would have been repulsed by the following little exchange….
A great game that abs played a big part in with some great tries of their own Who was nz halfback Loveridge or Donaldson, some shocking passing, accepting quality of ball in those days, also ruck area a mess compared to protection halfbacks get today I also note TV coverage has improved out of sight
First there will be evidence before the Equality and Human Rights Commission on anti-semitism within UK Labour. 30 activists will testify so far.
And now we will get to see what it looks like to people thinking about voting Labour when they see how their party is run, when it's exposed in open court as well.
"Two of the whistleblowers who featured in last week’s explosive BBC Panorama programme entitled Is Labour Anti-Semitic? – Sam Matthews and Louise Withers Green – contacted the Observer last night to say they had instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to act on their behalf because they believed the party had defamed them in its response to their claims. Others who spoke to Panorama are also understood to be considering contacting Lewis to represent them in libel actions.
On the evening the programme was aired, a Labour spokesman said: “It appears these disaffected former officials include those who have always opposed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, worked to actively to undermine it and have both personal and political axes to grind. This throws into doubt their credibility as sources.”
Anyone want to work for Labour after that?
With that kind of attitude from UK Labour's leadership, it's going to be something else when their next sexual harassment or bullying case comes around.
Fascinating and terrifying Drowsy M Kram. So many cases seem to end in "settlement out of court" which takes us in a different direction. Giving in because the cost is too high and not because of justice?
And the efforts that the Crosby Textor goes to to use anti-democratic processes and close down people like Nicky Hager is appalling. If Key had been a good man he would have refused to be part of the process.
So thank goodness we have Steven Price and Nicky to help us all.
I have just been through an eleven month defamation case. Fortunately, we mostly won. About 20 to 1 if it was a score. If I was ever going to be sued like this, I am pleased that the suer was a man of Lynton Crosby’s standing and that his case against me was so weak….
Unfortunately, defamation is a tool that can be used by any well resourced company or individual against people who have annoyed them or who they do not like. This has serious implications for journalism and public accountability — potentially chilling freedom of speech about the people who most deserve scrutiny and criticism — since the sad fact is that it is much safer for a news organisation to criticise poor people than rich and powerful ones.
Your citation was a copy-and-paste from LifeboatNews; a raw and uncritiqued tribute to the Momentum-maddened extremists boiling into a fully benzadrine-popped, arm-waving, foam-flecked, beat-the-messenger, do-what-the-Leaders-office-pays-you-to medically-assisted pink frothy head explosion worthy of Alec Jones on a five-day Sandy Hook jag.
The results will be the same for them both, in court.
That does seem to be the aim of the propaganda, yes. The Israeli lobby get what they want, the anti-Corbyn faction in Labour get what they want, left-of-centre voters get shafted.
Clearly, parties are learning from it – the bogus claim from the NZ Jewish Council the other day that Golriz Ghahraman had insulted Jews saw an immediate, humiliating apology from James Shaw rather than the laughter that their bogus claim warranted. That reaction may be a lot more politically astute than UK Labour's, but it's also poisonous to political discourse.
1) During 1984-90, much of the social welfare and services net was still more or less kept in place, those laid off during those years were able to "hang in there", as the cuts to welfare and steep increases in state housing rents didnt kick in until 1991-95.
2) The corporatisation wasnt a *bad* thing, but selling everything off to the private sector was.
3) Much of the larger changes werent brought in until 1987-90.
4) The Muldoon goverment was already starting to bring in measures to deregulate the economy. The Think Big projects had heavy private sector involvement (part of the Clyde Dam project was designed and built via the contracting process we take for granted today).
5) The SMP's that everyone were complaining about were only brought in about 1975-76.
I think people need to let the idea of everything being wonderful before 1984 and then turning to shit thereafter go, and realise that the truth is much more complicated. Personally I think the real damage was done after 1990, with deregulation and privatisation of electricity, slashing of health and education, the changes to housing policy, and of course, the benefit cuts and ECA.
You might want to have a look at McAloon's economic history "Judgements of All Kinds", which has a good bibliography on that section of our political history, as well as earlier policy frameworks.
He's pretty kind, but you can see the counterfactual New Zealand that might have emerged without the policy violence of that Lange-Douglas first term.
millsy The opportunities to make changes and fight our way out of our strong paper bag got limited, then decimated, and we were subsumed under neo lib models that were The Only Thing.
Washington (CNN)The US Department of Agriculture has suspended data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report, citing cost cuts — a move that robs researchers and the honeybee industry of a critical tool for understanding honeybee population declines, and comes as the USDA is curtailing other research programs.
It’s also another step toward undoing President Barack Obama’s government-wide focus on protecting pollinators, including bees and butterflies, whose populations have plummeted in recent years.
Doesn’t sound good but is nzh only US source the Washington Post, it’s hardly an impartial source
Oh yes it's accurate alright. Did you know that since June 2017 the WH has not had any Scientific advice whatsoever.* All scientific staff at the WH who were there to advise the President on Scientific matters have left and have not been replaced. Meanwhile this is not the first attack on bees (an insect absolutely essential to humans survivability) by this administration.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) annual honeybee count has fallen victim to budget cuts, CNN reported Saturday.
The suspension of the Honey Bee Colonies report is at least the third bee-related data set to be halted or reduced under the Trump administration, and comes three weeks after Trump's U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the emergency use of bee-killing pesticide sulfoxaflor on 13.9 million acres. It also comes as the population of bees, which help pollinate a third of edible crops, has been declining since 2006.
"This is yet another example of the Trump administration systematically undermining federal research on food safety, farm productivity and the public interest writ large," Union of Concerned Scientistseconomist Rebecca Boehm told CNN.
The survey began in 2015 and tracks the number of honeybees in each state by quarter. The most recent report, scheduled to be released in August, will only include data taken from January 2018 to April 2019, the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service said in a statement released July 1.
"The decision to suspend data collection was not made lightly but was necessary given available fiscal and program resources," the statement said.
A USDA spokesperson told CNN the suspension was "temporary" but did not say how long it might last.
The loss of the data set comes at a crucial time for honeybees. A University of Maryland-led study released in June found that U.S. beekeepers lost 38 percent of their colonies last winter, the greatest winter loss since the university's research began in 2006,
The US will soon have an Acting Labor Sec, an Acting DHS Sec and no Dep Sec, an Acting Defense Sec and no Dep Sec, an Acting White House Chief of Staff, an Acting CBP Commiss., an Acting ICE Dir, an Acting USCIS Dir, an Acting UN Ambassador, an Acting FDA Commiss., An Acting OMB Director, an Acting Secretary of the Army, an Acting Secretary of the Air Force, an Acting DHS Under Secretary for Management, no DHS Under Secretary for Science & Tech, no DHS Under Secretary for Strategy, and an Acting FEMA Director. (PS: it’s hurricane season!)
Trump prefers acting heads because he can control them more easily. The sheer volume of acting heads shows
-A) Trump has an unstable government
-B) Trump isn’t interested in congressional oversight inherent in the confirmation process – more chiseling away at the constitution.
I thought we all knew it at the time but it has now been confirmed.
Edit: I think the British Public Servants might have it wrong. This particular release is not so much an undermining of them, but an important message to the British people about what is going on with the current US Administration. They have a right to know just as we would have a right to know in similar circumstances.
Those creeping sharia conspiracy theories have as much evidence behind them as that desperate DNC fantasy about Russian masterminds stealing the election.
Of course tRump's pick to replace Acosta is a vile human who argued sweatshops should be allowed to use indentured labour.
On July 12, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta will be replaced on an acting basis by Deputy Secretary of Labor Patrick Pizzella. As Mother Jones reported after reviewing hundreds of pages of billing records and emails, Pizzella worked in the late 1990s with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to promote a sweatshop economy in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory.
[…]
The agreement between the islands and the United States granted two exemptions. First, the CNMI could set its own minimum wage. Second, the commonwealth would be allowed to make its own immigration laws. CNMI officials initially requested control of immigration to ensure that the indigenous population would not be overwhelmed by newcomers. But adecade later, garment manufacturers and the CNMI’s government decided to use the exemption to import unlimited guest workers to make clothes for companies like Brooks Brothers and Banana Republic. The clothes they produced were stamped “Made in the USA” and exported to the United States tariff-free. Between 1985 and 1998, CNMI garment exports grew from almost nothing to more than $1 billion annually—over a third of total CNMI business revenue.
“Things were just completely out of control,” says Allen Stayman, the top Interior Department official assigned to the CNMI from 1993 to 1999. Recruiters illegally required many foreign workers to pay fees in order to land jobs in the CNMI, causing them to go into debt that they’d have to work to pay off. Others signed “shadow contracts” in which they promised their employers not to unionize, date, or practice a religion while working in the CNMI. Some were made to sleep a dozen to a room, with barbed wire surrounding their barracks. If workers complained, the CNMI government, which had close ties to the garment industry, could deport them immediately. In 1992, Willie Tan, a top garment industry baron, paid a $9 million settlement in a Labor Department suit alleging he’d failed to pay workers overtime and theCNMI’s minimum wage of $2.15 an hour—compared with $4.25 elsewhere in the United States. The settlement was the largest in Labor Department history at the time.
New Zealand has the highest house price to rent ratio in the world, and the highest house price compared to income (a ratio of 156.8), while Canada has the highest real house prices and the biggest percentage of credit to households, with New Zealand just behind, according to Shah [Bloomberg economist Niraj Shah]…
New Zealand household credit is the equivalent of 94 per cent of gross domestic product. That compared with 100.7 per cent of GDP in Canada, 76.3 per cent in the US, and Australia's 120.3 per cent…
The Government's foreign buyer ban, an attempt to curb house prices, has seen a significant drop in home ownership by overseas residents. House sales to overseas buyers dropped 81 per cent in the March quarter compared to the same time last year, Statistics New Zealand data shows.
The 5 Eyes don't see what's in front of them. Australia is stuffed and too much milk will pollute the country in a big way. At lease coal and mining can be left in the ground, left piled up and the pollution will not stink like sour milk. Please keep buying our milk peeps out in the world, till we can wean ourselves off this panacea, and on to paracetamols, or anything.
It’s not like Mnuchin or any other administration appointees have ties to Wall Street.
Is Donald Trump’s erratic behavior fueling a business model? Some Wall Street options traders are beginning to suspect so. They’ve taken note, with increasing alarm, of people making strange bets tied to Trump’s actions and then cashing in bigly when the odd bets pay off. “If you had the ability to make hundreds of millions of dollars, or billions, and you knew how to hide it and it was impossible to find, wouldn’t you do it?” a longtime Wall Street options trader asks me sarcastically.
There is an old saw on Wall Street about how if you could somehow get tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal today, you could make a fortune. Advance knowledge of presidential actions might provide a similar advantage, and some unusual trading patterns are fueling gossip and suspicion on the Street.
Condolences to Matua Prime Whanau for there great loss of a leader.
Mike Smith it's cool that you have consersens about our mokopuna future environment But Papatuanuku wasn't built in a day all in good time our government is changing our policy on climate change I know it's looks slow but time are changing and the oil barons money pulls alot of strings in there effort to convince people climate is not happening Yeah Right
Eco Maori Tau toko the tangata whenua who are protesting there whenua been sold by camping on te whenua ka Pai
Ka Pai to our rangatihi for going to Parlament that's what we need more Maori standing up and becoming Leaders. That gives Eco Maori a sore face. I was listening to some of Ngati Porou up and coming Leaders a few weeks ago on Radio Ngati Porou.
There you go the wealth make there own rules. Eco Maori knows what it like not trusting the people on street Zoie as they will be sandfly's that are swarming at the minute.
It's awesome that NIWA is helping dairyfarmer with the measurements of there methane gas from bovine it's not a big change but the it's a start. A lot better than the last lot.
Garth and Tom all the best in your goals it's a good cause The John charity Kerwin foundation for mental health. P.S. I'm having problems with my viewing devices
I think it's good our government is changing roads rules and spending more money on safety features
Ask Dick if the common poor people can afford his safety driving course or does he plan that only wealth tangata can drive in the future.
I think it's awesome that furniture is going to be legerslated so the furniture is fire restint.
Noverpay is nationals stuff up that Labour is cleaning up national should have used local tangata to develop the software not foreign people who stuff it up.
kellyann conner/ conway is a redneck like her boss.
The Himalayan trust does good mahi for the poor people that part of Papatuanuku.
Ingrid I hope tawhitimate doesn't tangi as much as he did on Sunday when I was on the Napier Taupo road .
Condolences to the 100 year old kuia sorry I missed her name Whanau.
The taxpayers union is irrelevant .He jordan is just a altright national attack MUT.
Ka Pai to the Grand Rod tribes for there celebratetion of there Waka traveling gathering it cool that tangata whenua O Aotearoa is invited to there celebratetion.
Eco Maori backs the Hawaiians who are protesting that huge telescope being planted on there sacred Monga / Mountain the ruling class of Hawaii don't even consider te tangata whenua O Hawaii cultural reason for protesting that telescope being forced on them.
I ran across a recent essay from The Brothers Krynn, which attempts to map common horror monsters onto the Seven Deadly Sins: https://canadianculturecorner.substack.com/p/horror-monsters-and-vice My interest, however, is not in the meat of the piece, but rather the opening paragraph: It is an interesting fact that in recent decades, Vampires have ...
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000. Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s ...
TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above that was recorded yesterday afternoon above between and The Kākā’s climate correspondent : An independent review panel into the emergency response to Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawkes Bayconcluded “that ...
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Open access notables A survey of interventions to actively conserve the frozen North, van Wijngaarden et al., Climatic Change:The frozen elements of the high North are thawing as the region warms much faster than the global mean. The dangers of sea level rise due to melting glacier ice, increased ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
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New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found ...
Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
Mining company Trans-Tasman Resources has unexpectedly withdrawn its application for a consent to suck the valuable metals vanadium and titanium from the Taranaki seafloor, as it apparently wagers on the Government’s new fast-track process. It had spent two-and-a-half days putting its case to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision-making committee, at ...
Contrary to the Associate Minister of Education’s claims, analysis of Healthy School Lunches Programme - Ka Ora, Ka Ako assessments has revealed it provides excellent value for the taxpayer dollar, as a groundswell of public opposition to Government ...
Greenpeace says wannabe Taranaki seabed miner Trans-Tasman Resources is likely banking on Christopher Luxon’s fast-track process to side-step proper scrutiny of its Taranaki seabed mining proposal by bailing out of the Environmental Protection Agency hearing ...
Kiwis Against Seabed mining today slammed Australian owned would-be seabed miner Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) for abandoning its application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to mine the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight. The company ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Months after COVID vaccines were introduced in 2021, governments and private organisations mandated them for various groups. Health and aged care workers were among the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, CEO and Founder of Diraq, UNSW Sydney Diraq For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A national Essential poll, conducted March 20–24 from a sample of 1,150, gave the Coalition a 50–44 lead including undecided, a reversal ...
The Taxpayers’ Union has today made a formal request under the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information () for information held about how New Zealand Members of Parliament are spending taxpayer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne A Byzantine depiction of the Eucharist in Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv.Jacek555/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA A nasty quarrel arose in the 11th century over what kind of bread should be used in holy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick Hesp, Professor, Flinders University Patrick Hesp In some parts of Australia, coastal dunes are retreating from the ocean at an alarming rate, as waves carve up the beach and wind blows the sand inland. But coastal communities are largely ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Heemsbergen, Senior Lecturer, Digital, Political, Media, Deakin University With an impressive 60% of the US smartphone market, Apple is undeniably big, but not a clear monopoly. Yet, years of innovation by Apple have effectively given the company its own exclusive ...
Whether you’re facing layoffs or are just an emotional junior staffer, it’s always a good idea to scout out a good crying place before you need it. It’s an incredibly hard time for Wellington. Across the city, thousands of public servants are hearing tough news about redundancies and layoffs. Government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Professor, Curtin University Nuclear explosions on a neutron star feed its jets. Danielle Futselaar and Nathalie Degenaar, Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, CC BY-SA How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney Earlier this week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie accused the AFL of conducting “off the books” illicit drug testing to identify players using substances of abuse, then inappropriately withdrawing them from matches ...
The Government’s announcement that it will scrap plans for a vast marine sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands is ‘shameful’ and will make it impossible for Aotearoa New Zealand to meet its international commitments, says the World Wide Fund for Nature ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The federal government has bowed to pressure from the car industry, announcing it will relax proposed emissions rules for utes and vans and delay enforcement of the new standards ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Rutland, Professor Emerita, University of Sydney In his latest book, Jewish Life in Medieval Spain, Jonathan Ray focuses on the tumult of the 14th century in Spain – a time of the plague, civil strife and war between the two largest ...
While creating a slate of world-class shows, Whakaata Māori also developed a generation of world-class creatives. Television is an odd word. It mixes the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, and its most literal meaning is “far-off sight”. In the contemporary and living language of te reo Māori, “whakaata” as a ...
Yesterday the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza. This significant step and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza prompted an urgent debate in the New Zealand Parliament. Leader ...
The Government’s decision to reduce access to continuous glucose monitors (CGM) not only threatens the lives of children with type 1 diabetes and increases the potential for ‘Dead in Bed’ syndrome, but also threatens the health of their parents an ...
Apples are available year-round, but the wide variety on offer involves intensive scientific research – and large-scale commercialisation. What’s beautiful, red, sweet and crunchy? Tony Martin’s favourite kind of apple: Sassy. The CEO of apple and pear breeding organisation Prevar, Martin’s fondness for Sassy represents professional success as well as ...
Family violence specialist service Shine is calling on employers to stop asking for proof of domestic violence in order for employees to access domestic violence leave. The call comes five years after the introduction of the Domestic Violence ...
The Deputy Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is calling for public submissions on the Budget Policy Statement 2024. The Budget Policy Statement 2024 (BPS) sets out the Government's priorities for the 2024 Budget. It explains the approach ...
Brutal government spending cuts that will see the size of the Ministry for Pacific Peoples slashed by 40% will hit Pasifika communities hard, the PSA says. The Ministry has told staff that it is seeking voluntary redundancies, and to redeploy and reassign ...
I live with five people I mostly love, but our different ideas about generosity are starting to really irk me.Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,This is a bit of a random one but here goes. I’m 22 and work an OK job (OK meaning I get paid ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nicholas, Senior Lecturer in Language and Literacy Education, Deakin University Earlier this month, the New South Wales government announced it would roll out programs for gifted students in every public school in the state. This comes amid concerns gifted school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney Massachusetts General Hospital In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tombs, Howard Paterson Chair of Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago The 5th-century Maskell panel showing Jesus in a loincloth.British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA When Jesus is shown on the cross, he is almost always depicted wearing a loincloth around ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock When you think about a red object, you might picture a red carpet, or the massive ruby in the Queen’s crown. Indeed, Western monarchies and marketing from brands such ...
COMMENTARY:Jewish Voice for Peace The UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday — and for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians, the United States abstained rather than vetoing it. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, ...
Asia Pacific Report A New Zealand investigative journalist and author says the US spy system hosted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) appears to be a controversial intelligence system used in global capture-kill operations. Writing a commentary for RNZ News today, Nicky Hager, author of Secret Power, a 1996 ...
While Nicola Willis wouldn’t give any details on its size, she said a package of tax cuts is definitely still coming in this year’s budget, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming the investigation into the Department of Internal Affairs after it was revealed that the Department’s Chief Executive personally reached out to expedite a DJs passport application. Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns ...
Finance minister Nicola Willis delivers her first budget statement, and unwittingly helps Joel MacManus save his relationship. Nicola Willis strode into the Beehive Theatrette. Around me, on the green foldout seats, were the country’s top business and political journalists. They were all here to see her announce the Budget Policy ...
Twenty years ago today, Māori Television launched after much controversy. Jamie Tahana looks back on its survival and impact across two decades. Chad Chambers stepped onto the stage, the brim of his cap casting a shadow across his face. His smile beamed as bright as his white freezing works gumboots, ...
A lengthy response to the recently released draft Government policy statement on transport will soon be delivered from Auckland Council to Minister of Transport Simeon Brown. A submission raising concerns about funding distribution and the plan’s treatment of Auckland passed through the council’s transport committee on Wednesday, despite some councillors ...
The unidentified foreign intelligence operation discussed in a scathing report by New Zealand’s Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) last week appears to be a controversial United States intelligence system. The IGIS report said the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was “improper” ...
In this episode of the Summer Solutions 2019 for the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy are joined by Dr. Michael Hudson, author of many books, including “And Forgive Them Their Debts,’ for his ideas on solutions to the ever growing wealth and income gap currently ‘solved’ with ever increasing amounts of debt. They discuss the reason for the huge surge in this wealth and income gap that began in the early seventies as the top once percent ran off with all the productivity gains. What role, if any, does the post-Bretton-Woods-all-fiat-dollar-reserve-system play in this economic injustice? The discussion then moves to Representative Brad Sherman’s recent claim that, "An awful lot of our international power comes from the fact that the U.S. dollar is the standard unit of international finance and transactions. Clearing through the New York Fed is critical for major oil and other transactions.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_XtIPoBHx8
https://web.archive.org/web/20190620143250/https://topnewsrussia.ru/09/06/2019/japan-abandoned-the-development-of-5g-networks-for-the-health-of-citizens.html
Красная Армия Japan will not develop and invest in the creation of fifth-generation mobile networks. This is stated on the official website of the Ministry of High Technologies of the country. Officials expressed the opinion that the creation of a faster Internet than previously is dangerous for the population and may adversely affect people’s health and labor productivity.
Источник: https://web.archive.org/web/20190620143250/https://topnewsrussia.ru/09/06/2019/japan-abandoned-the-development-of-5g-networks-for-the-health-of-citizens.html
Small Cells are NOT welcome here
Concerned citizens express outrage, heartache and concern regarding the Town's lack of due diligence, lack of solidarity with the citizens and lack of fortitude to STOP the small cell installation in Huntington NY. Facts regarding 5G and a list of the new small cell sites are listed in this video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKPcoc6CiLo&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0ZbJUAHghvZnj6WuX82FaT4r9C4qV1JdjEiN4XuEhaLvpSqVkzrTEsp2E
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington,_New_York
We are scientists engaged in the study of biological and health effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF). Based upon peer-reviewed, published research, we have serious concerns regarding the ubiquitous and increasing exposure to EMF generated by electric and wireless devices. These include–but are not limited to–radiofrequency radiation (RFR) emitting devices, such as cellular and cordless phones and their base stations, Wi-Fi, broadcast antennas, smart meters, and baby monitors as well as electric devices and infra-structures used in the delivery of electricity that generate extremely-low frequency electromagnetic field (ELF EMF).
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/5g-danger-hundreds-of-respected-scientists-sound-the-alarm-about-health-effects-as-5g-networks-go-up-nationwide
Erickson buried the studies done in the last millennium which showed a disturbing shall we say 'correlation' .
Bad for business even on the 1g/2g.
This is part one of a good audio podcast giving the history of tRump …
You'll learn a lot, gain insights and get a few laughs ….
Listen to part 2 if you want to skip to the more current stuff
It actually starts at 8mins 25 secs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osOkysoJgcc
sad – they tried and they failed. We need to know why this was such a fail.
Haha haha good one expecting something from that.
WDC can't stop raw sewage spewing into raglan harbour yet still allow the Rongatai dev to connect to it.
They also aren't touching the single lane bridge across the harbour whereas the dev has a flash new bridge of its own to ensure they join the growing jams.
Developers do as they please in NZ as they’ve the Legal guns and legislative terrain to blow opposition away.
These fish are extremely sensitive like the Galaxiids – lacking scales. Any number of things could have taken them out but I think the problem was putting them where sewage discharges. Poisoned by bacteria or fungi or xenobiotics or metal.
The sewage plant sounds like a mish-mash of ideas rather than a comprehensive treatment plant but I'd need to see if to see if it's as bad as it sounds. Sounds like an accountants sewage plant with add-ons after public outcry for environmental issues.
A big white (man) elephant.
https://cdc.govt.nz/services/wastewater/
As for the price to move some fish, there's cronyism in there someplace. It's ridiculous.
Possibly the same cronyism delivering piss poor wastewater management.
If anyone was actually serious about our native fish surviving into the future they would making whitebaiting bi annual (at the lest) and eradicate trout from our water ways.
I once interviewed Rod McDowell and he told me off the record that in his view with out major government intervention NZ native fresh water fish were heading for mass extinction.
I mean seriously, an introduced apex predator like the trout that is not only allowed to be in our waters, but is still actively introduced and has more protections than our own fish is fucking insane…they are nothing more than ferrets of the watersways, the natives haven't got a chance, kill them on sight I say, I know I do.
Hi There JohnM
I am not for one minute suggesting that Americans and Japanese are mentally disabled.
But I am praising them for having used electricity in their households and Skyscrapers for over a hundred enlightened years.
Prior to that they used coal and oil. Which are deadly. And which you seem to want to return to. They are in fact the highest Carcinogens that we have in daily use. Thousands thousands of people die from Diesel daily.
All because people are supporting the Oil Companies.
May I ask when will you be taking electricity out of the houses of America and Japan ? Are you really that stupid ?
Concerned citizens express outrage, heartache and concern regarding the Town's lack of due diligence, lack of solidarity with the citizens and lack of fortitude to STOP the small cell installation in Huntington NY. Facts regarding 5G and a list of the new small cell sites are listed in this video!
The people of the above video have electricity, but they obviously consider cell phone 4g 5g and wifi etc an order of magnitude more dangerous and intrusive. Especially the concentrated intensity of the cell phone towers permeating the very atmosphere we need to live in.
Lera Lynn: The Only Thing Worth Fighting For
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tklA8sSXYBM
Yes! Rarely is despair so damn comforting…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EJdEdk9g2E
A couple of days ago Kiwiblog got excited about a new development in Wellington:
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2019/07/the_wellington_party_-_vote_for_competence.html
which Stuff duly reported:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/114209468/rightwing-wellington-party-to-contest-council-elections
Farrar claims that “Certainly things have gone horribly wrong in Wellington in the last couple of years.”, and among a list he gives, the first is
“The two Councils have destroyed the bus network, and can’t even work together to fix it.”
Now it is my understanding that the Council responsible for transport is the regional council – perhaps Farrar is thinking Wellington should have had all Councils amalgamated as in Auckland – that has gone so well for National . . .
But regarding the bus contracts, they were let before the last election, under rules set by Gerry Brownlee (they were available on a website, but I can’t find it now – I do hope it has been changed!).
The rules Regional Council had to follow for public transport contracts were to seek competitive tenders, to enable contracts for parts of the region to encourage competition, and to base contracts on price. This the regional council did, and it is arguable that Wellington got just what National wanted. After all, who would argue in favour of a more expensive contract, and why would you look for competence? Of course the fragmentation of services meant a re-design of routes by yet another agency, complex contracts, and when some routes needed further change then the lawyers must have fed on contract changes. More opportunities to clip the ticket – neo-liberal heaven! Now we find that the companies cannot pay the wages to recruit enough drivers (and the multiple contracts make moving drivers harder). Given the contract is with the public sector, the neo-lib answer is probably that the Council should pay more – but if the contracts did not allow for adequate wages that is again just what the government wanted . . . – of course the implication has been that the Council has erred in not paying more . . .
So now some services are being cancelled for lack of drivers – again that is as designed – almost certainly they will be those where the number of passengers did not justify the service anyway – Brownlee knew what he was doing!
The comments on Kiwiblog are amusing – various posters see a great future in the principle behind the name, and are calling for an Auckland Party (cit-rats became a joke, com-res hasn’t done well, why not an “Auckland Party”!). If the various city parties combined, they could even call themselves the New Zealand Party, or, dare we say it, the National Party!
The party website is informative as anyone would expect : https://thewellingtonparty.org/ but from the Stuff article, having Hughes, Morrison and Mihaka all running in wellington Central, and four or five other candidates, how could they possibly lose!
Councils everywhere are incapable of addressing that which needs to be addressed, be it basic services, transport, climate change impacts or whatever….they are structurally flawed and growth is simply highlighting the deficiencies. It is delusional to believe that any grouping can or will change that.
Deck chairs on the Titanic
50 years ago this was released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXSGocWifAg
… planet earth is blue and there's nothing we can do…
Stands up amazingly well. #respec
#respec
???
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-talking-about-bowies-sexual-misconduct-matters_b_9009230
https://jezebel.com/what-should-we-say-about-david-bowie-and-lori-maddox-1754533894
Are you feeling jealous? He's dead, Morrissey – there's no chance of him fucking you now.
I don't think his personal sins and foibles should stop anyone listening to his music. But Yadana Saw and her hiveminded colleagues at RNZ National obviously do.
This is really strange coming from you guys, I remember only too well and also very recently that all you lot ( Sacha, marty mars and others ) were losing your shit over Assange over what you said was his mistreatment of woman, and now defending Bowie fucking 15 year old girls, holy shit what a bunch of hypocrites.
Guess if you can write a few good tunes you get a free pass, is that how it goes for you?
Assange should have practiced his guitar a bit more eh.
Bowie's crimes are exhaustively documented, and he and his followers boasted about them incessantly. Assange committed no crime, unless journalism is now a criminal enterprise. The lurid Soviet-style sex fantasy concocted by the British and U.S. intelligence services has as much rigour as that case cooked up against Peter Ellis by the Christchurch Police and a few demented psychiatrists.
Problem is many on here don't seem to be able to produce an original thought in their head, and lack what seems to be any critical thought process at all.
It they read it in The Guardian or whatever..it must be true..end of story for this lot.
It they read it in The Guardian or whatever..it must be true..end of story for this lot.
The propaganda that daily emanates from the Guardian and the very similar BBC is dutifully repeated in our media by the likes of John Campbell, Kathryn Ryan, Kim Hill, Bernard Hickey, and Patrick Gower.
Over at NewstalkZzzzzB, meanwhile, they recycle Fox News and the Spectator as reflexively and as irresponsibly.
I remember only too well and also very recently that all you lot ( Sacha, marty mars and others ) were losing your shit over Assange over what you said was his mistreatment of woman, and now defending Bowie fucking 15 year old girls…
Why does the word "consent" seem either completely unheard-of or just plain irrelevant to so many men when it comes to the morality of sex?
Also: despite the enthusiastic participation of the 15-year-olds in question, if the Police had been made aware of the incident they would have wanted to interview Mr Bowie, and if he'd instead resisted extradition, jumped bail and spent years hiding out in a foreign embassy, I'd probably have a fairly low opinion of him too.
Whatever..you hypocrites, you guys are so full of shit it defies logic, but then as I have seen first hand through parts of my life, some humans can justify and defend and/or enable almost any type of bad behaviour if they get cornered and feel they need too…guess you are in that club, well done.
So, you ask for an explanation, and when I give one you say "Whatever" and go back to your accusations. Quelle surprise.
yep pretty basic stuff but too much for the wee adrian
Haven't seen you or your pals show the moral outrage toward Bowie that you all spewed out towards Assange when you were told to do so by the Guardian is all I''m saying.
Or is 'enthusiastic participation' from a 15 yo girl OK in your books..,,because as far as I know wether that 15 yo girl consents or not, is it is still considered illegal,and that girl would be considered a minor, so in other words and according to the law, Bowie was fucking children.
Now I am not actually offering moral judgment on this, i am just stating what the law is, and undisputed stories about who Bowie had sex with, in this case a under age girl…no you are the ones who presented yourselves as the rulers on what is considered moral when it comes to sexual relations in your stances on Assange..wee man.
put up ONE post that I have done in support or against assange – you can't cos you're a fucken liar – fuck off bullshit artist.
You forgot to say “please” 😉
Settle down motherfucker.
You also forgot to say “please” 😉
Or is 'enthusiastic participation' from a 15 yo girl OK in your books…
For me? No. For other people? Not really my business. Might be of interest to the Police if there's a complaint, though. Don't you think?
In the case of 15 year olds, perhaps it's to do with them not being considered mature enough to give their consent.
So as Bowie didn't resisted extradition, jumped bail and spend years hiding out in a foreign embassy are you saying you condone him having sex with underage girls?
In the case of 15 year olds, perhaps it's to do with them not being considered mature enough to give their consent.
What the law says, and what individuals choose to do, are sometimes not the same. The law says a 15-year-old isn't allowed to drink alcohol, and yet I did so (and drove afterwards, often enough). I would also have been more than happy if someone wanted to fuck me, hell anyone let alone a famous celebrity, which sadly no-one at the time did (don't cry, readers, someone took pity on me later on).
…are you saying you condone him having sex with underage girls?
Somehow I can't imagine Bowie was living in fear of what Psycho Milt might think of him for having fucked underage girls. My point, which somehow seems to need making over and over again on these threads, is that if sex with you leaves a woman feeling the need to visit a police station, ur doin it wrong.
Not sure anyone's argued that wikileaks should be boycotted specifically because Assange is an accused rapist.
Caravaggio was a murderer. Good paintings, though.
The outcome of boycott/noboycott is binary, but the decision-making is not.
Work quality and uniqueness is one factor. Severity and frequency of crimes is another (as a judge might look at sentence length). Degree of input the criminal had into the work is another (e.g. boycott Deadwood because Jeffrey Jones is in it? What if Swearengen were played by [alleged criminal]Kevin Spacey?). How long ago were the crimes, and were they a lifetime practise? Will my boycott affect the criminal's ability to profit from this or future work, or help deter future criminals?
From my perspective, all this and probably more mushes into a single boycott/noboycott outcome. Sometimes it's a conscious "argh, shit, I really liked him, he's not on my playlist until he owns it" (louisCK). Sometimes it's just that the abuser is no longer a selling point, the billing they get in the cinema might as well be a blank space or even a shitstain.
So I'm not going to parse what Bowie did. It was wrong. Is he on my playlist? not really. Did I play the embed? Yup. Was that wrong or inconsistent? Maybe. But fuck it, it's a Sunday and I'm at the office.
@ McFlock , I grew up in the AKL art scene in the late 1960's, and have been involved in one way or another with artists in all fields since, so believe me this whole issue is nothing new to me, I learnt long long ago to separate art from art creator, in both the fine arts and in music.
Yeah, that line has always been bullshit.
A great song or painting about romantic love would forever be coloured if you discovered that it was created a few weeks after the creator beat their lover to death, or a few weeks after they'd met the person they would be in love with for the next fifty years, or both. The context of the creation adds texture to it, whether we want it or not.
…. because Assange is an accused rapist.
He's not. There were, and are, no charges for rape against him. You're simply smearing him, for the umpteenth time in your case.
He has been accused of rape.
You are adamant, without any basis, that he is innocent of that accusation. That is a stupid position to take, but not uncommon in a society where women are routinely disbelieved. But your bias goes so far as to have you deny the literal truth that he has been accused of rape. What little judgement you have has been clouded by your ego.
…where women are routinely disbelieved.
Ha! As if this pursuit of Assange is driven by women and not the secret police of two rogue nations. The young women badgered and inveigled to go along, for a short time, with this murderous travesty almost immediately made it clear they wanted no charges brought against him. Your zealous desire to see him destroyed stands in stark contrast to their courage.
the literal truth that he has been accused of rape.
No he has not.
Fixed it for you.
Also: details of the rape allegations here.
Have never commented about Assange. You must be thinking of somebody else.
Sorry about that, my apologies.
What about my apology too? Or have you found some non existent post of mine.
What about my apology too? Or have you found some non existent post of mine.
On Wednesday 17 April, shortly after Julian Assange had, at the behest of the Trump regime, been dragged out of political asylum, put in front of a biased and abusive "judge", and imprisoned, Te Reo Putake instigated a gloating, outrageous thread entitled "Assange Must Be Extradited." He summarily banned half a dozen people who dared to defend journalism and the rule of law, and he excised their posts. Later in the thread he admitted (to Brigid, who had protested about his conduct) that he had devised the "admittedly click baity title" in order to "get people to read the post, Brigid. Obviously, some of my fans here love being outraged, so it was a good way to get their blood pressure up." Such antics constituted, he joked, "churnalism at its finest."
At 10.33 p.m. you chose to add the following comment to that Red China-style festival of abuse, contempt, denunciation, and malice:
So you supported the bullies and the slanderers, by amplifying their callous lies. It's a post of yours all right, and it's anything but "non-existent."
You're a liar too moonbreem
the context of that comment was in relation to the law around consent in NZ. It was a comment on the difference between Sweden and NZ and NOT about what you implied it was about.
Paraphrasing a dictionary defnition of "rape" only amplifies people opposed to rape.
Last I looked, journalism didn't involve rape.
I think that somehow you might have inadvertantly conflated two distinct issues. I'm sure you haven't realised it and that this is the first person to explain that the subject of a person's "journalism" is distinct from the subject of whether that journalist is also a rapist.
I look forward to you acknowledging the disinction betwen the two subjects in a calm and dignified manner in the near future.*
*actual results may vary
I hope you don't mind me saying that THAT song is a LITTLE bit of a controversial CHOICE, a-a-a-a-and I'm really interested why you were brave enough to be choosing a David Bowie clip at this time. Marty, w-w-what will happen is that, I'm pretty sure this thread is going to get very BUSY with this choice.
What would you SAY to-o-o-o Standard readers, who may say "We CAN'T listen to this music any more"?
Morrissey
Are you trying to use The Standard to excite comments to your own blog?
Not at all, Mr Shark. If I was the "link whore" that Kiwibloggers constantly accuse me of being, I would have provided a link to my site. But I didn't.
My intention was not to garner extra “hits” on my own site, but to provoke and tease people about the glaring hypocrisy and faux morality that engenders purse-lipped denunciation of the imagined and unproven crimes of Michael Jackson, while ignoring the real crimes of someone like David Bowie.
But, in case anyone wants to see the providence of that little anti-Bowie tirade in 8.2, feel free to click HERE….
http://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/07/yadana-saw-nervously-transgresses-fatwa.html
Are you trying to use The Standard
He's just trying to have the same 'conversation' on a false premise today as we had to endure yesterday.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13-07-2019/#comment-1636649
Some folk never learn. Need better hobbies.
What was the false premise you're alluding to, Sacha?
Yes, but better than Mike Hosking! Morrissey just has to knock him off his perch in mid squawk then he'd be in to the big bucks. Mike is I am afraid a bit like the Norwegian parrot that can be sold again and again because of notable features that excite and appeal to a phalanx of gullible people.
As the day wears wearily on and you need a touch of the light here is a 1989 version of the parrot sketch with extras at the end. You may not have seen this older version, it's amusing with a different end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-wvteFJ0f8
Hosking?
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/02/toni-streets-exquisite-live-on-air.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/no-mihi-forbes-no-john-campbellbut.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/fair-and-balanced-mike-hosking.html
hang on i've had a letter from a mr b reen
"don't play stuff cos im not racist
b reen"
Ha mr reen you have shown, what, sorry hold on a sec, where was I , oh yes… and now for another tune…
Good one, marty.
https://i.imgflip.com/1cx5fe.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj-dojvvkYc
reveal your dossier on this hero
I don't care what Neil Young or David Bowie have done. All that I care about is their music. My position is very different to that of Yadana Saw, who for reasons even she would not be able to explain convincingly, is nervous about playing records by Michael Jackson.
You'd think the fact his records were shite would be enough reason. I'm always happy for people to not play Michael Jackson for me, whatever the reason.
Fair comment. That's not what motivates those nervous people at RNZ, however.
So you're having a go at them for not playing MJ songs?
How about Gary Glitter? Do you want them on the playlist, too?
So you're having a go at them for not playing MJ songs?
No, I'm having a go at them for their selective and hypocritical display of "moralising". Like any well bred and discerning person, I choose not to play Michael Jackson songs—but on grounds of personal preference, not because I'm afraid of offending some sniffy busybodies "who may say 'We CAN'T listen to this music any more'."
How about Gary Glitter? Do you want them on the playlist, too?
Why not? Come on Alien, shake dat t'ing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Msnt4lLm-g
So you'd have no problem with Veitch being back on TV?
Gary Glitter's still on my playlist. Objectively I know it's a load of old cobblers, but to 12-year-old me it was the dog's bollocks and that tends to stick with you.
I've never said I wanted him banned. Of course, he should never have had a job as a sports reporter in the first place, not because he is a violent and despicable person, which he clearly is, but because he knows fuck-all about sports.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/tony-veitch-do-you-get-hit-on-much-mar.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/01/tony-veitch-urges-us-player-to-smash.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/tony-veitch-reckons-he-could-hear-fear.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/veitch-watch-no-3-forced-to-apologise.html
Earlier you attempted to Bowie shame Sacha because of a report of underage sex and hyper sexuality. Isn't it a tad hypocritical and a bit rich how you'll then link to a convicted paedophile and refuse to condemn a man who broke a woman's back?
Earlier you attempted to Bowie shame Sacha because of a report of underage sex and hyper sexuality.
Errrr, no, I wasn't trying to "Bowie shame Sacha", I was applying to Bowie the same moronic logic that censorious people—the kinds of people that make Yadana Saw so fearful—apply to Michael Jackson.
Isn't it a tad hypocritical and a bit rich how you'll then link to a convicted paedophile and refuse to condemn a man who broke a woman's back?
I have repeatedly condemned Veitchfor his ignorance about sports [1], his sexism [2] and his racism [3] and then, after the revelations of his crimes, for his violence. [4]
[1] https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/daisycutter-sports-world-cup-special.html
[2] https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/07/tony-veitch-newstalkzb-in-action-dec-28.html
[3] https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/07/tony-veitch-calls-james-blake-worlds.html
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/profiles-in-lack-of-courage-brian-ashby.html
[4] https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/kerre-woodham-reacts-to-elderly-caller.html
Well it's all out in the open now, on the record, so we'll just leave it there for posterity. People can work it out for themselves how it all looks, but from my vantage point, it doesn't come over too well for you at all.
… from my vantage point, it doesn't come over too well for you at all.
Really? You will of course explain that rather ominous statement.
It means that even ET thinks you look like a dick.
Tee hee
You going all matt mcarseole on us morpissey?
No, Gaybb, I was imitating that frightened practitioner of hivemind, Yadana Saw. Only the names were changed, from Michael to David.
Let's just shut out discussion of sexual mores from Open Mike and have a special one where the matter can be discussed from top to bottom. ~~SEX~~ Now I have Your Full Attention is such a cheap jibe – and so reliable.
Jeez master Breen, you make it hard to Garner sympathy for your arguement. I get yr point about hypocrisy in regards to Assange bashers and the other issue about Jackson/black/bad-Bowie/white/look the other way.
After VV filled us all in on Yadana Saw's background and history, surely you could find another example to hang this bug bear on.
Her background has nothing to do with it. Why was she so frightened about even mentioning the name of Michael Jackson?
Perhaps because she works for the state broadcaster and is a sensitive to others attitudes.
She was certainly nervous as some poor soul trying to negotiate ideological quicksand in a Radio Moskva studio during the 1930s. As for being "sensitive", I think you mean "fearful of being sneered at or reprimanded by some black-garbed pecksniff."
Yenta Hodge's daughter is Deputy Editor for BBC News at Six and News at Ten: the British State Propaganda organ is blatantly biased to the extreme right.
Thought I would put up a link to some who feature in the BBC Who's Who.
1.) Amol Rajan is the voluble BBC Media Editor, always appearing and giving his take on events. He was one time editor of Levedev's Independent and was at the FCO early on for a year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38054561
2.) James Harding was the Head of News. He arrived at the BBC along with James Purnell, one time chair of LFoI and ex Labour MP, and Ceri Thomas.
Apologists for Israel take top posts at BBC
23 April 2013 https://electronicintifada.net/content/apologists-israel-take-top-posts-bbc/12395
3) Tony Hall was a successor to Mark Thompson, the Director General who presided over the Savile evil. Thompson is married to Jane Blumberg, daughter of a US physicist. Thompson visited Sharon in Israel in 2005 to reassure him that BBC reports on Israel were fair! It was originally said he was accompanied by his wife but the BBC would not confirm that.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thompson_(media_executive)#Accusations_of_pro-Israeli_editorial_stance
4.) Under Thompson's watch, the DEC appeal for Gaza after the Cast Lead slaughter was not aired by the BBC. Caroline Thomson, no longer at the BBC, was his sidekick who also took a decision not to broadcast Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Children, a radio play. Thompson is now CEO at the New York Times. At the BBC in 2010 he was being paid just under £1million.
5.) Ms Thomson is now the chair of OXFAM. (YCNMIU)
6.) Harding left the BBC and set up his own media outfit called Turquoise.
7.) James Purnell is still at the BBC as Head of Radio, Head of Strategy and Digital. Before, he had worked privately for Blair, was a SPAD at No 10 and was given two jobs (DCMS and Pensions) by Brown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Purnell
8.) Lastly, Lizzi Watson, Margaret Hodge's daughter from her first marriage, is currently the Deputy Editor for BBC News at Six and News at Ten, i.e. the country's main news provider. As you know, Hodge (MP Lab Barking) has been instigating the anti-Semitism smears against Jeremy Corbyn.
https://twitter.com/islingtonlizzi?lang=en
Does the anti-Corbyn bias that we see and hear get passed down the line?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hodge
9.) All in all, 'Bought by and Sold to Israel' and Paid For by the licence fee payers. Just some of the stuff that is in the public domain. There is probably much more that we will never know about.
Orig. posted by Mary at The Lifeboat News…. http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1563039156.html
This is good backgrounding Morrissey thanks for links.
Joseph McCarthy tried the same trick you're trying. Just read out the names and make them sound as Jewish as possible. Generally the media can just let such vile fools hang themselves; the bias is with those who are hunting people down.
Here's how the real pro's did what you are trying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnKTgmOJr78
You can do similar slurs with those 30 Jewy-sounding names who are testifying on the issue within Labour UK to the Equality and Human Right Commission.
Failing that, you could stop the slurs and listen to the evidence they have to say about anti-semitism within the Labour Party instead of attacking the messengers.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jul/11/labour-antisemitism-30-whistleblowers-to-give-evidence-to-ehrc
Corbyn has been as weak and pushed around by activists on the anti-semitic issues within his party as has has been on Brexit. This is not surprising from a person who has actually never before stood successfully for any legislation in Parliament, proved totally unwhippable, or led anything in his life.
To catch you up, the EHRC launched a formal investigation into whether Labour “unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people” from the Jewish community in May, saying it had received a number of complaints about Labour’s handling of allegations. It's not the BBC doing this.
Not even sunlight can disinfect Labour UK from the damage that Corbyn has now done.
Your ignorance is astounding, as are your cynicism and dishonesty. I pay no attention to what you say.
That is because you are a bigot who is afraid to hear the truth of submissions in a public hearing on the matter.
Your McCarthyism won't work.
Nope, you ain't got it. Sorry.
I just knew you couldn't help yourself.
People like you never take any kind of criticism because their righteousness drives and blinds them.
You seek bias in every person in the media, and you'll find it because that perfect place your righteousness drives you towards does not even exist in your mind, so it’s invented as a future no-place. U-topia.
Try another comment. You know you want to.
Human nature stands in the way of social engineers (see Pinker the bland slate)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D-64tfoU8AM4MV7.jpg:large
Societies grow into systems. The systems require management and are therefore increasingly wielded, like a tool or a weapon, by those who have power. The rest of the population is still needed to do specific things. But the citizens are not needed to contribute to the form or direction of the society. The more "advanced" the civilization, the more irrelevant the citizen becomes.
Voltaire's Bastards (1992)
There are better descriptions of human agency around.
JR Saul's version stands as pretty pre-internet and pre-social media.
If you can get hold of it, he does a really good one comparing the development of Canada and the United States as societies and as geographies: Confessions of a Siamese Twin.
It's a pretty good analogue for the New Zaland – Australia relationship.
we have seen the effects of networked systems and the outcome of catastrophic collapse eg Haldane and May.
In the run-up to the recent financial crisis, an increasingly elaborate set of financial instruments emerged, intended to optimize returns to individual institutions with seemingly minimal risk. Essentially no attention was given to their possible effects on the stability of the system as a whole. Drawing analogies with the dynamics of ecological food webs and with networks within which infectious diseases spread, we explore the interplay between complexity and stability in deliberately simplified models of financial networks. We suggest some policy lessons that can be drawn from such models, with the explicit aim of minimizing systemic risk.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09659
Sauls outcomes for a corporate coup d'etat held up well.
Sorry the link doesn't work for me.
Could you explain the reference to Haldane and May.
a lack of diversity in risk models as networking increased or to put it another way a sterility of thinking. as HM suggest.
The analytic model outlined earlier demonstrates that the topology ofthe financial sector’s balance sheet has fundamental implications for thestate and dynamics of systemic risk. From a public policy perspective,two topological features are key15.First, diversity across the financial system. In the run-up to the crisis,and in the pursuit of diversification, banks’ balance sheets and risk management systems became increasingly homogenous. For example,banks became increasingly reliant on wholesale funding on the liabilities side of the balance sheet; in structured credit on the assets side of thei rbalance s eet; and managed the resulting risks using the same value -at- risk models. This desire for diversification was individually rational from a risk perspective. But it came at the expense of lower diversity across the system as whole, thereby increasing systemic risk. Homogeneity bred fragility
Similarly if a profession's textbooks (widely cited by social engineers) were wrong in their assumptions on statistical testing,would you not feel a little uncomfortable or indeed cynical.
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/obsonline/textbook-analysis-uncovers-erroneous-explanations-of-statistical-significance.html
Criticism? All you offer is rancid abuse. If it were witty, or clever, that might be a mitigating factor.
Now you can look back on all your comments in 9, and feel what you've tried to do to others.
Funny the way weak and cowardly analysts such as yourself turn on themselves.
As you are about to see with UK Labour, eventually such slurs end up in court.
It is foolish to not pay attention to what Ad says. He is likely to get to solid ground in a sentence, compared to yourself Morrissey in numbers of paragraphs.
It is foolish to not pay attention to what Ad says.
So far today he's peddled Blairite black propaganda, i.e. lies, about Jeremy Corbyn, and he's called me a McCarthyite.
He is likely to get to solid ground in a sentence,
If by "solid ground" you mean abusive, demeaning and not terribly creative name-calling, then, yes, he quickly gets to "solid ground."
compared to yourself Morrissey in numbers of paragraphs.
???? I work hard at writing lean, well organized pieces, whether they're short replies like this or longer essays or, on the odd occasion, play scripts. I'd put up anything from my oeuvre against his complacent and self-satisfied little rants.
Failing that, you could stop the slurs and listen to the evidence they have to say about anti-semitism within the Labour Party instead of attacking the messengers.
Will there be some evidence at some point? So far it all seems to be a very successful anti-Corbyn propaganda campaign with nothing to back it up.
The joy of this is that there are now two legal avenues in which the evidence against the Labour Party handling of anti-semitism will play out as evidence.
BBC's programme has alerted everyone to what is to come.
Labour has gone on the attack rather than front it, so now it will all play out in the courts, and get further amplified in the media.
That's where the likes of Morrisey will find the evidence, rather than attacking the BBC.
This is a propaganda campaign against Corbyn that's been going on for a year already, and we might finally see some evidence to back it up at some point in the future? I'll believe it when I see it. My money is on both the EHRC investigation and any libel case being entirely about how Labour handled allegations of anti-semitism, with pretty much no evidence of anti-semitism actually presented.
Fair enough.
I'm happy to see what turns up in both venues.
@Morissey and @Psycho Milt, there are a couple of links about the astonishing Panorama episode aired in the UK, made by a former Sun journalist, about the alleged "crisis of anti-semitism" in the UK Labour Party:
Jeremy Corbyn's take:
https://www.thecanary.co/breaking-news/2019/07/13/corbyn-many-inaccuracies-in-panorama-probe-into-anti-semitism-in-labour/
A former BBC staffer's point of view:
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2019/07/13/ex-bbc-presenter-exposes-the-dark-side-of-panoramas-incredibly-suspect-episode-on-corbyn/
A debunking:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1149426426665455622.html
And hilariously, the British public are not buying it:
https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2019/07/13/bbc-hatchet-job-on-jeremy-corbyn-immediately-backfires-as-labour-takes-remarkable-poll-lead/
Thanks for that, Wolfie. Very interesting indeed.
Oh, I nearly forgot—Power to the People!
For anyone interested in the ongoing crisis re- the baiting of Iran by the Trump regime and the effects on Britain and ultimately the rest of us… the following link is a must read:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/13/this-death-star-presidency-is-no-ally-for-modern-britain
The final sentence sums up the situation well:
This "death star" presidency is no ally for NZ either, and our government should accordingly base their decisions relating to this regime on reality and not the past!
Trump didn't start the baiting of Iran. It started in 1953, when the U.S. and its U.K. vassal conspired to smash Iranian democracy.
Trump's instability and unpredictability, and especially the presence of John Bolton, only make things more dangerous, but the policies, and these utterly unjust "sanctions", were not dreamed up by him or his crazy inner cabal.
Agree. Trump didn't start it. Successive US governments have been using the baiting technique and yes… other nations have followed suit. However Trump and Co. are taking it to a whole new level which has the potential to destroy our very existence and he can only be stopped if western governments stop cow-towing to the maniacal regime and conspire to be rid of this regime.
And how is he and his maniacal regime going to be got rid of? The Democratic Party’s fantasy-obsessed “leaders” clearly lack the will to do anything.
https://www.thenation.com/article/how-did-russiagate-begin/
The 'death star' presidency – a great appellation. The warnings are there for any sane politicians to see also the jerks pulling the strings on we puppets, passing their jerks on to us.
Darth Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU_Jdts5rL0
The National Addiction Centre say the Government's lack of action over alcohol regulation, following recommendations made in a recent mental health inquiry, suggests outside influences are involved.
Health Minister Dr David Clark said he wouldn't dignify such suggestions with a response.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/07/government-accused-of-pandering-to-alcohol-industry.html
"You gotta follow the money and ask who is benefiting from the status quo," Simon Adamson, the National Addiction Centre director, said.
…
"There is a lot of money being made by the alcohol industry and the supermarket industry so we could speculate that there's been some strong lobbying going on," said Adamson.
I expect he's right and there is a lot of lobbying going on, just like there is from every other industry or interest group. That's water off Clark's back.
To get the real situation, ignore the money and ask who's benefiting from the status quo. The answer is "Me and hundreds of thousands of others like me who buy alcohol at the supermarket every week, and most of us vote in general elections." Now, that the Minister does care about…
I suspect there is more than just lobbying go on, there will most likely also be party donations given from those sectors.
But is sounds like you are arguing that the damaged caused is the price we have to pay to keep the price of booze low for the piss heads.
I'm arguing that attempting to eradicate drug addiction from a society is a doomed enterprise regardless of the proposed mechanism, but the mechanism of taking a punitive approach to recreational drug users has been proven beyond dispute to be among the more stupid ones. Clamp down on one drug, people start using others – there is no drug-free society just waiting for us to get the right policy mix in place. Repairing the damage done by over-indulgence in recreational drugs is a cost society just has to bear, much like it does for the damage done by over-eating, playing sports, fucking etc.
Who do you believe is attempting to eradicate booze?
Moreover, most that drink aren't addicted.
Who do you believe is attempting to eradicate booze?
Anti-alcohol lobbyists, for a start. Like the alcohol industry, they also are lobbyists with an agenda and should be seen in that light. And the fact that you call people who drink alcohol "pissheads" but use no pejoratives to describe tobacco smokers suggests you're in the same camp.
Moreover, most that drink aren't addicted.
Which makes the anti-alcohol lobby's constant attempt to fuck with us all the more annoying.
Good to know, with this stance on alcohol and it's users, you've also now dropped your objection to high taxation of tobacco products for the cancer makers.
Apples and oranges
Unlike booze, most tobacco users are highly addicted to the product.
Moreover, the price of tobacco is far from low. And it tends to damage the user and not the wider society. Increasing the cost is what is driving the wider damage with the vast increase in shop holdups.
You called the alcoholics 'piss heads', not me, so as addicts, it's apple for apple.
Yeah, the reason tobacco is not cheap is because of the taxes, the same sort of taxes you want to put on booze to minimise the uptake and usage. An orange for an orange.
Will you also be a hypocrite, if the high taxes come in, and slam the government if and when scum rip off bottle shops?
No. I didn't say anything about alcoholics. You are clearly clutching.
Thus, my position holds. The majority of those that drink aren't addicted as smokers are, so lifting the price will have a better effect as most don't need to have that drink. Unlike smoking.
Additionally, taxes on tobacco have largely exceeded their effectiveness. We are largely down to the hardcore addicts that won't quit regardless the tax.
Moreover, it's not just about lifting prices. However, I'm sure your already knew that, but it didn't fit with you narrative.
Some one is clutching, and it aint me.
Taxes raised on drinks, for exactly the same reason as those raised on tobacco, make it exactly the same thing you've been whining on about here since for ever.
You just can't have it both ways.
Those that drink are not largely addicts opposed to those that smoke. And that is the difference you are continually failing to see.
Don't you like to say, along the lines of 'who will it affect most'?
So you're full of compassion for smokers but not drunks.
Again, will you condemn the government if and when slimeballs start to rob off licences because of the tax policy you want introduced?
…so lifting the price will have a better effect as most don't need to have that drink.
You don't need to have that computer you're using, either. Our thoughts on what someone else needs or doesn't need has a net value of $0.00.
It's not just my thoughts. The reality is, most drinkers aren't addicts, thus they don't need that drink as a smoker needs that smoke. Which clearly is the point you missed.
There's a point there? I guess there's an implied one that you personally believe addicts shouldn't have their fix taxed but recreational users should. Good luck turning that into a coherent and enforceable policy.
Taxing the fix of an addict doesn't stop them from being addicted.
Whereas, taxing recreational users will have a far better impact on their recreational use.
Drinking is over rated anyway. There are far better recreational drugs out there for when it comes to partying and creativeness.
Taxing the fix of an addict doesn't stop them from being addicted.
That bold assertion is somewhat undermined by the numbers of smokers who've given up due to cost increases via taxation. (NB: like you, I'm unhappy with the level of taxes charged on cigarettes, but that's based on a general principle that it's beyond the state's remit to punish people for their recreational drug choices, not because I bullshit myself about addiction. Also NB: I'm not and never have been a tobacco smoker.)
Whereas, taxing recreational users will have a far better impact on their recreational use.
People's recreational drug use is none of the government's business. It's entitled to tax the drug to recover health costs, but anything beyond that is just arbitrary exercise of authority.
Drinking is over rated anyway. There are far better recreational drugs…
Your opinions on what recreational drugs people should or shouldn't use are of value only to you.
Only slightly, you are talking around 5% opposed to the 13.8 that continue to smoke, hence strengthening my assertion. Along with the 45 per cent of Maori women between 18 and 24 that smoke now, and which the number isn't reducing.
Addiction to smoking is not bullshit, it's the main factor people aren't giving up.
Along with the fact that users are addicted, my opposition is based on the fact it's gone too far and is hurting the poor who are already hurting, while destroying our once safe and peaceful society. We are getting down to the hardcore smokers that aren't going to give up easily. Hell, some of them actually enjoy it. It's their vice and they are never going to stop.
Cover health costs? What about the costs of the wider damaged it creates?
Could you quantify the tobacco price-fuelled "vast increase in shop holdups"?
I know the idea is common ‘knowledge’, but I'm having trouble finding the supporting evidence using Google searches.
‘Smoke and Mirrors’, or ‘Smoke in (Y)Our Eyes’?
A total of 1237 aggravated robberies were recorded at dairies and petrol stations from June 2016 to May 2017, up 87 per cent on the previous 12 months.
Thanks Chair; what proportion of that shocking annual increase in robberies was due to the increase in tobacco excise tax?
Regardless of the reasons, that's an appalling increase in aggravated robberies under a National-led government. Aren't they supposed to be tough on Law'n'Order? No doubt you were critical of National's poor performance at the time, in your own "lefty" "more left than most" way
It's a bit brutal to let the market of law-and-order determine who can still retail tobacco.
Any government (Labour or National-led) should be able to regulate dispensaries for combusted cancerous products, just like alcohol shops are.
"Police Minister Stuart Nash says the extra subsidy is a short-term measure, and in the long-term the Government was working to tackle organised crime and get more police officers in the community."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/101080017/dairy-owners-will-be-able-to-up-their-security-thanks-to-government-subsidy
Far too many liquor and tobacco outlets in NZ, IMHO, but addictive products are always going to be good little earners.
Zero. It was all just a big coincidence – not.
I was critical of the tax, and have been for sometime now.
Hard on crime you say. So how is putting a bad ass motherfucker in jail with a bunch of other bad ass motherfuckers meant to result in them being rehabilitated once they come out? The whole system seems flawed from the get go.
We can agree it wasn't zero, but I didn’t ask what it wasn't.
Asking if you had any idea what it was? It’s OK if you’ve no idea at all.
Data is yet to be kept on that. Although, cigarettes were often targeted in these robberies. And it's logical to assume the main related cause for such an sharp and sudden increase was the tax.
Do you see any other new or outstanding reasons for it? Apart from the tax, little if anything had changed in that year.
Wonder if at least some of the increase might be related to another rather soggy National parrty attack line that The Chairman was peddling here a few days ago? https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-09-07-2019/#comment-1635449
So much sogginess – how do you avoid becoming bogged down?
Today has been another particularly soggy day. When I read Chair’s comments, my screen fogs up.
National party attack line?
As you can clearly see (in that linked comment) I merely stated a few genuine facts and made a little summary at the end.
Next minute, you Labour Party cheerleaders get all offended and see these true facts as an attack.
You lot need to face reality and deal with it.
Shooting the messenger doesn't change the facts.
“Wonder if at least some of the increase might be related… ”
Unlikely to explain the sudden spike. Albeit the hardship and whatnot would most likely be behind the normal rate of robberies.
He's as wet as the weather.
I did like the bit where he diverged from the link and showed his had:
Party donations are public record. If the industry donated anything of note, the notes would be online, and they'd be thrown around with soggy abandon.
I consider myself a ‘lefty‘, indeed a friend of left and “more left than most“.
The Chairman is adept with speculation masquerading as fact – and to what end?
Aren’t these tax increases a rare and much-needed example of bipartisan political agreement? Why undermine that?
https://www.drugfoundation.org.nz/news-media-and-events/well-done-on-tobacco-tax-prime-minister-why-not-for-alcohol/
[28 April 2010]
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-mcivor-mornings/audio/dr-marewa-glover-tobacco-tax-is-not-helping/
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11647467
Dr Nick Wilson: https://www.otago.ac.nz/wellington/departments/publichealth/staff/otago024455.html
"Indigenous peoples experience disproportionately high rates of commercial tobacco use, and consequently disproportionately high rates of tobacco-related death and disease. Philip Morris International (PMI) appears to be interested in building a veneer of social responsibility, so that it can bolster corporate credibility and leverage this to influence political debates about tobacco control policy. If PMI was serious about its aims for a smoke-free world, it would cease its opposition to evidenced-based measures to reduce smoking rates, such as advertising bans, tax increases and plain packaging. Further, the tobacco industry would cease commercial tobacco manufacturing, marketing, lobbying and litigation. The tobacco industry has a long history of deliberately colluding in covering up, denying, confusing and questioning the science on smoking-related morbidity and mortality. As a business, PMI’s goal is to safeguard and extend shareholder profits, thus it is rapidly expanding into the lucrative AND markets. PMI has never demonstrated genuine concern for the health and well-being of Indigenous peoples, and has a history of ignoring and undermining scientific evidence. The tobacco industry’s interest in Indigenous peoples has been to appropriate our names and imagery along with the tobacco plant itself, with the sole intent of furthering tobacco sales and profits."
https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2019/05/10/tobaccocontrol-2018-054792.full
Indeed, alcohol and tobacco are two important contributing factors to NZ health inequalities and not only in NZ. Junk food and sugary drinks would be another one.
The process of removing Tamariki has stirred anger among Māori not seen in 15 years.
"So it's the first kotahitanga or unity meeting since foreshore and seabed," said Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency chief executive John Tamihere.
Helen Clark's Foreshore and Seabed comments triggered a political movement. Delegates say the Newsroom video of the attempted removal of a baby from its mother had a similar impact.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/07/oranga-tamariki-m-ori-leaders-issue-strong-call-to-action-over-uplifts.html
I was thinking last night I've yet to see a TV news report on this subject that gave any hint the removal of babies from parents is done for a reason, rather than being a dastardly plot by central government to kidnap children. Have any journos bothered to mention it?
That reason (at times) may merely be a suspicion of harm leading to the Family Court making an interim Order and removing the child without talking to the child’s parent, guardian or caregiver first.
If so, it would be nice if reporters would actually report that, instead of running a parade of unexplained outrage.
that would require addressing the cause rather than the symptom….too hard basket
the Minister has defended from this very position, even crasher collins has said 'just stop hitting the kids' – although to be fair, i've only heard it on the radio cos we don't have telly.
Can we match this in NZ for attractiveness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apcLT_F5VYc Flash mobs singing like this – perhaps popping up everywhere in song month = to be organised and put in our events calendars?
and a lovely holiday park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbgcWnHuO9M
And what flash mobs are up on youtube under New Zealand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLzPgBXHAJQ NZ Symphony – only NZ one that stands out.
and a lovely holiday park:
Yeuccckkk. Butlins for Italians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDQGJj6fU0o
How does one say "Hi di hi!" in Rome?
Please, shoot me now.
Why choose to rain on this parade Rosemary?
The correct names will set you free
and if you want a real treat – go and have a look at this amazing site
http://www.kahurumanu.co.nz/atlas
Getting specialist training to turn our kids into World champions has been in the news lately. Should schools be grabbing kids to train them to be All Blacks?
One infant was learning to putt before he could walk and constant support from his Dad turned him into a golfing prodigy and a World champion. Guess who that is?
Another lad was very skilled but from an early age he was encouraged to try any sport that he fancied. By the time he was in his 20s he specialised in tennis and became a World Champion. Guess who that is?
And what about doctors and engineers and lawyers?https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/12/generalise-dont-specialise-why-focusing-too-narrowly-is-bad-for-us?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
This Day in History: July 14, 2010
Happy Bastille Day everyone! If you were unwise enough to be watching breakfast television exactly nine years ago, you would have been repulsed by the following little exchange….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/07/paul-henry-calls-susan-boyle-retarded.html
If you'd been up a bit earlier, however, you would have heard something far more uplifting….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/07/lloyd-scott-upset-at-having-to-read.html
Football fans exactly forty years ago were treated to an awesome spectacle of Gallic speed, power and flair….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqltQ_f_QGY
A great game that abs played a big part in with some great tries of their own Who was nz halfback Loveridge or Donaldson, some shocking passing, accepting quality of ball in those days, also ruck area a mess compared to protection halfbacks get today I also note TV coverage has improved out of sight
The All Black halfback was Mark Donaldson.
👍
First there will be evidence before the Equality and Human Rights Commission on anti-semitism within UK Labour. 30 activists will testify so far.
And now we will get to see what it looks like to people thinking about voting Labour when they see how their party is run, when it's exposed in open court as well.
"Two of the whistleblowers who featured in last week’s explosive BBC Panorama programme entitled Is Labour Anti-Semitic? – Sam Matthews and Louise Withers Green – contacted the Observer last night to say they had instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to act on their behalf because they believed the party had defamed them in its response to their claims. Others who spoke to Panorama are also understood to be considering contacting Lewis to represent them in libel actions.
On the evening the programme was aired, a Labour spokesman said: “It appears these disaffected former officials include those who have always opposed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, worked to actively to undermine it and have both personal and political axes to grind. This throws into doubt their credibility as sources.”
Anyone want to work for Labour after that?
With that kind of attitude from UK Labour's leadership, it's going to be something else when their next sexual harassment or bullying case comes around.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/13/whistleblowers-to-sue-labour-as-antisemitism-row-deepens
Dirty Politics? (‘How attack politics is poisoning…’, etc.)
http://www.nickyhager.info/crosby-v-hager-defamation-proceedings-as-political-weapon/
Fascinating and terrifying Drowsy M Kram. So many cases seem to end in "settlement out of court" which takes us in a different direction. Giving in because the cost is too high and not because of justice?
And the efforts that the Crosby Textor goes to to use anti-democratic processes and close down people like Nicky Hager is appalling. If Key had been a good man he would have refused to be part of the process.
So thank goodness we have Steven Price and Nicky to help us all.
Again thanks to Drowsy:
http://www.nickyhager.info/crosby-v-hager-defamation-proceedings-as-political-weapon/
The Grauniad? Yes, you would be dumb enough to cite that discredited propaganda weapon.
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2019/894-dump-the-guardian.html
That's the spirit. Keep attacking messengers centre, left, and right, and rely only on the flakiest and most histrionic of sources.
After their attacks on those who came forward, UK Labour are going to pay for it all.
???
The only person around here who supports the attacking of messengers is you. I'm not the only one to read your attacks on Julian Assange.
And what would you know about whether a source is “flaky” or not? You don’t read enough to make such a statement.
Your citation was a copy-and-paste from LifeboatNews; a raw and uncritiqued tribute to the Momentum-maddened extremists boiling into a fully benzadrine-popped, arm-waving, foam-flecked, beat-the-messenger, do-what-the-Leaders-office-pays-you-to medically-assisted pink frothy head explosion worthy of Alec Jones on a five-day Sandy Hook jag.
The results will be the same for them both, in court.
Anyone want to work for Labour after that?
Depends on whether the description was accurate or not, doesn't it?
Which will now play out in court.
This is going to go really badly, and turn more towards the Liberal Democrats when they are rising.
That does seem to be the aim of the propaganda, yes. The Israeli lobby get what they want, the anti-Corbyn faction in Labour get what they want, left-of-centre voters get shafted.
Clearly, parties are learning from it – the bogus claim from the NZ Jewish Council the other day that Golriz Ghahraman had insulted Jews saw an immediate, humiliating apology from James Shaw rather than the laughter that their bogus claim warranted. That reaction may be a lot more politically astute than UK Labour's, but it's also poisonous to political discourse.
Hear hear!
Happy 35th birthday Rogernomics.
Though you could argue that:
1) During 1984-90, much of the social welfare and services net was still more or less kept in place, those laid off during those years were able to "hang in there", as the cuts to welfare and steep increases in state housing rents didnt kick in until 1991-95.
2) The corporatisation wasnt a *bad* thing, but selling everything off to the private sector was.
3) Much of the larger changes werent brought in until 1987-90.
4) The Muldoon goverment was already starting to bring in measures to deregulate the economy. The Think Big projects had heavy private sector involvement (part of the Clyde Dam project was designed and built via the contracting process we take for granted today).
5) The SMP's that everyone were complaining about were only brought in about 1975-76.
I think people need to let the idea of everything being wonderful before 1984 and then turning to shit thereafter go, and realise that the truth is much more complicated. Personally I think the real damage was done after 1990, with deregulation and privatisation of electricity, slashing of health and education, the changes to housing policy, and of course, the benefit cuts and ECA.
You might want to have a look at McAloon's economic history "Judgements of All Kinds", which has a good bibliography on that section of our political history, as well as earlier policy frameworks.
He's pretty kind, but you can see the counterfactual New Zealand that might have emerged without the policy violence of that Lange-Douglas first term.
millsy The opportunities to make changes and fight our way out of our strong paper bag got limited, then decimated, and we were subsumed under neo lib models that were The Only Thing.
USA Pence visits migrants ' tough stuff' but it is the Democrats (Demon-rats) fault.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/13/pence-visits-caged-unwashed-overcrowded-migrants-tough-stuff
Obedient scribe gets in early with a convenient puff piece on long-time tory Glenda Hughes before she throws her hat in the Welli council race: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/114181635/glenda-hughes-the-unlikely-conservative
Who killed Cock Robin?
We now know who to look for when trying to identify the sneaker-leaker or the most unreliable one in the clan.. Anyone with a Mike Hosking haircut.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/394339/police-identify-suspect-for-ambassador-s-leaked-memos
Only Boris Johnson benefits from taking out a key institutional supporter of Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
Smells like a stitch up.
https://twitter.com/fascinatorfun/status/1150138138750259200
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-party-richard-tice-darroch-18206347
Because who needs bees?
https://twitter.com/KnickmeyerEllen/status/1149747869961687040
Washington (CNN)The US Department of Agriculture has suspended data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report, citing cost cuts — a move that robs researchers and the honeybee industry of a critical tool for understanding honeybee population declines, and comes as the USDA is curtailing other research programs.
It’s also another step toward undoing President Barack Obama’s government-wide focus on protecting pollinators, including bees and butterflies, whose populations have plummeted in recent years.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/06/politics/honeybees-study-usda-donald-trump-budget-cuts/index.html
Doesn’t sound good but is nzh only US source the Washington Post, it’s hardly an impartial source
Oh yes it's accurate alright. Did you know that since June 2017 the WH has not had any Scientific advice whatsoever.* All scientific staff at the WH who were there to advise the President on Scientific matters have left and have not been replaced. Meanwhile this is not the first attack on bees (an insect absolutely essential to humans survivability) by this administration.
https://www.ecowatch.com/usda-suspends-honeybee-survey-2639125764.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/452528-critics-worry-trump-turning-blind-eye-to-honeybee-decline
Meanwhile:
The US will soon have an Acting Labor Sec, an Acting DHS Sec and no Dep Sec, an Acting Defense Sec and no Dep Sec, an Acting White House Chief of Staff, an Acting CBP Commiss., an Acting ICE Dir, an Acting USCIS Dir, an Acting UN Ambassador, an Acting FDA Commiss., An Acting OMB Director, an Acting Secretary of the Army, an Acting Secretary of the Air Force, an Acting DHS Under Secretary for Management, no DHS Under Secretary for Science & Tech, no DHS Under Secretary for Strategy, and an Acting FEMA Director. (PS: it’s hurricane season!)
Trump prefers acting heads because he can control them more easily. The sheer volume of acting heads shows
-A) Trump has an unstable government
-B) Trump isn’t interested in congressional oversight inherent in the confirmation process – more chiseling away at the constitution.
*https://www.cbsnews.com/news/science-division-of-white-house-office-now-empty-as-last-staffers-depart/?fbclid=IwAR13igwXNuQWOraSXRGQLyZpSsJAHyPiDtyiPzMtb86TDoUk4anRlJyqgEE
Meanwhile:
Leak number two has been revealed:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48978484
I thought we all knew it at the time but it has now been confirmed.
Edit: I think the British Public Servants might have it wrong. This particular release is not so much an undermining of them, but an important message to the British people about what is going on with the current US Administration. They have a right to know just as we would have a right to know in similar circumstances.
The plot indeed thickens.
This bloke, too.
https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1149708178688552960
https://spectator.us/fred-fleitz-confrontational/
Those creeping sharia conspiracy theories have as much evidence behind them as that desperate DNC fantasy about Russian masterminds stealing the election.
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-worst-most-embarrassing-u-s-media-failures-on-the-trumprussia-story/
Of course tRump's pick to replace Acosta is a vile human who argued sweatshops should be allowed to use indentured labour.
On July 12, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta will be replaced on an acting basis by Deputy Secretary of Labor Patrick Pizzella. As Mother Jones reported after reviewing hundreds of pages of billing records and emails, Pizzella worked in the late 1990s with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to promote a sweatshop economy in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory.
[…]
The agreement between the islands and the United States granted two exemptions. First, the CNMI could set its own minimum wage. Second, the commonwealth would be allowed to make its own immigration laws. CNMI officials initially requested control of immigration to ensure that the indigenous population would not be overwhelmed by newcomers. But a decade later, garment manufacturers and the CNMI’s government decided to use the exemption to import unlimited guest workers to make clothes for companies like Brooks Brothers and Banana Republic. The clothes they produced were stamped “Made in the USA” and exported to the United States tariff-free. Between 1985 and 1998, CNMI garment exports grew from almost nothing to more than $1 billion annually—over a third of total CNMI business revenue.
“Things were just completely out of control,” says Allen Stayman, the top Interior Department official assigned to the CNMI from 1993 to 1999. Recruiters illegally required many foreign workers to pay fees in order to land jobs in the CNMI, causing them to go into debt that they’d have to work to pay off. Others signed “shadow contracts” in which they promised their employers not to unionize, date, or practice a religion while working in the CNMI. Some were made to sleep a dozen to a room, with barbed wire surrounding their barracks. If workers complained, the CNMI government, which had close ties to the garment industry, could deport them immediately. In 1992, Willie Tan, a top garment industry baron, paid a $9 million settlement in a Labor Department suit alleging he’d failed to pay workers overtime and the CNMI’s minimum wage of $2.15 an hour—compared with $4.25 elsewhere in the United States. The settlement was the largest in Labor Department history at the time.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/trump-pick-to-run-labor-department-promoted-sweatshops-on-remote-us-islands/
Tiny statues of Trump with signs inviting dogs to 'pee on me' appear across Brooklyn
Lower level than toxic USA and their playful politicians who will in time, kill everything worthwhile in the world.
I was leaving ANZ anyways but this just seals the deal. Sounds like they have multiple issues at every level.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/114105242/daughter-complains-over-anz-bank-managers-deathbed-visit-to-her-mother
I'm beginning to warm to Elizabeth Warren.
Yup, the smartest one in the room.
https://twitter.com/NinjaEconomics/status/1146071027891544070
Hooray we win on the world stage!!
New Zealand has the highest house price to rent ratio in the world, and the highest house price compared to income (a ratio of 156.8), while Canada has the highest real house prices and the biggest percentage of credit to households, with New Zealand just behind, according to Shah [Bloomberg economist Niraj Shah]…
New Zealand household credit is the equivalent of 94 per cent of gross domestic product. That compared with 100.7 per cent of GDP in Canada, 76.3 per cent in the US, and Australia's 120.3 per cent…
The Government's foreign buyer ban, an attempt to curb house prices, has seen a significant drop in home ownership by overseas residents. House sales to overseas buyers dropped 81 per cent in the March quarter compared to the same time last year, Statistics New Zealand data shows.
The 5 Eyes don't see what's in front of them. Australia is stuffed and too much milk will pollute the country in a big way. At lease coal and mining can be left in the ground, left piled up and the pollution will not stink like sour milk. Please keep buying our milk peeps out in the world, till we can wean ourselves off this panacea, and on to paracetamols, or anything.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/114227809/new-zealand-at-risk-of-a-house-price-crash-bloomberg
You really couldn't make this shit up.
https://twitter.com/CaslerNoel/status/1149744094899593217
https://twitter.com/amybrewster2016/status/1149868993303498753
Gotta be a coincidence.
It’s not like Mnuchin or any other administration appointees have ties to Wall Street.
Is Donald Trump’s erratic behavior fueling a business model? Some Wall Street options traders are beginning to suspect so. They’ve taken note, with increasing alarm, of people making strange bets tied to Trump’s actions and then cashing in bigly when the odd bets pay off. “If you had the ability to make hundreds of millions of dollars, or billions, and you knew how to hide it and it was impossible to find, wouldn’t you do it?” a longtime Wall Street options trader asks me sarcastically.
There is an old saw on Wall Street about how if you could somehow get tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal today, you could make a fortune. Advance knowledge of presidential actions might provide a similar advantage, and some unusual trading patterns are fueling gossip and suspicion on the Street.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/the-mystery-of-the-wall-street-trump-trades
Thirty four years ago, Freddie Mercury conquered the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkFHYODzRTs&feature=youtu.be
Kia Ora Te So Maori News.
Condolences to Matua Prime Whanau for there great loss of a leader.
Mike Smith it's cool that you have consersens about our mokopuna future environment But Papatuanuku wasn't built in a day all in good time our government is changing our policy on climate change I know it's looks slow but time are changing and the oil barons money pulls alot of strings in there effort to convince people climate is not happening Yeah Right
Eco Maori Tau toko the tangata whenua who are protesting there whenua been sold by camping on te whenua ka Pai
Ka Pai to our rangatihi for going to Parlament that's what we need more Maori standing up and becoming Leaders. That gives Eco Maori a sore face. I was listening to some of Ngati Porou up and coming Leaders a few weeks ago on Radio Ngati Porou.
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
There you go the wealth make there own rules. Eco Maori knows what it like not trusting the people on street Zoie as they will be sandfly's that are swarming at the minute.
It's awesome that NIWA is helping dairyfarmer with the measurements of there methane gas from bovine it's not a big change but the it's a start. A lot better than the last lot.
Garth and Tom all the best in your goals it's a good cause The John charity Kerwin foundation for mental health. P.S. I'm having problems with my viewing devices
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
I think it's good our government is changing roads rules and spending more money on safety features
Ask Dick if the common poor people can afford his safety driving course or does he plan that only wealth tangata can drive in the future.
I think it's awesome that furniture is going to be legerslated so the furniture is fire restint.
Noverpay is nationals stuff up that Labour is cleaning up national should have used local tangata to develop the software not foreign people who stuff it up.
kellyann conner/ conway is a redneck like her boss.
The Himalayan trust does good mahi for the poor people that part of Papatuanuku.
Ingrid I hope tawhitimate doesn't tangi as much as he did on Sunday when I was on the Napier Taupo road .
Ka kite ano
Kia Ate Ao Maori News.
Condolences to Kens Eruea Whanau .
Condolences to the 100 year old kuia sorry I missed her name Whanau.
The taxpayers union is irrelevant .He jordan is just a altright national attack MUT.
Ka Pai to the Grand Rod tribes for there celebratetion of there Waka traveling gathering it cool that tangata whenua O Aotearoa is invited to there celebratetion.
Eco Maori backs the Hawaiians who are protesting that huge telescope being planted on there sacred Monga / Mountain the ruling class of Hawaii don't even consider te tangata whenua O Hawaii cultural reason for protesting that telescope being forced on them.
Ka kite ano