I know it sounds bad but I’m enjoying having no Govt as it’s not as awful as I’m used to.
The downside is while the evil is not being rammed through (under urgency) no good can happen.
I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
I expecially like the free time to think of other things now as we dont have National ‘Spindoctors’ ramming stuff down our ‘mind’ every time they float another stupid idea – or tell us what’s good for us and to be thankful of them.
They were just to bloody blatent and bossy, and way to keen on propadanda and brainwashing, but it failed to work.
With everything going on in NZ and around the world, this piece of nonsense is the headline news in today’s NZH! It should be the plight of the homeless in this country, not a headline featuring John Key’s plans to build a new home. Who gives a flying f**k anyway. Just another obscene rich prick flaunting his wealth!
Nick
You miss the point I think. We are not talking about little girls, so don’t lay on the sarcasm. Being an annoying creep using his position of authority
is what was being criticised.
@ 2.3 Enough is Enough … True, you have a point there. But I saw red as soon as I viewed the headline. I didn’t bother reading the article, because to me I considered the headline alone tabloid trash. Definitely not worthy of being news, indicating to me the low level NZ media has really sunk to.
Good on you mary a – good to know what is happening out there with pollies past and present, and good to not have to read it oneself so don’t bother about grumps and gripes.
This is the property bought for $5 million in 2005 and sold 12 years later for $20 million- a profit of $1.2 million per annum, on top of the retention of 500 sq m. for the new house.
Meanwhile, the Salvation Army ran a fund raising day for the homeless. It quoted the figure of 1:100 New Zealanders who are inadequately housed.
Another legacy of the 2008-17 National government.
Good to see police reevaluating how to stop locking up mentally ill people. Maybe more of an issue in the cities – here in the country there is good coordination between police and crisis mental health as far as i can tell. Locking people up who are suffering in this way is not the answer imo.
Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2016
Shortly before Donald Trump took the podium at the annual Values Voter Summit, attendees received a pamphlet calling homosexuality a “public health crisis”.
The pamphlet, distributed by the anti-LGBTQ activist organisation MassResistance, claims the “sexual revolution” and the “mainstreaming of homosexuality” have created a public health crisis in America.
Julian Assange embarresses Amy Goodman/Democracy Now! with their unfortunate and misguided obsession with the alleged Russian interference in the US election… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdG6iE4a84
Yes we should all remember it was that the Russians in 1940 did not capitulate to the Germans that saved us all from loosing the war.
As the ‘eastern front’ nazi invasion of Russia action caused Germany to loose most of its military might and later loose the war. Russia was then alied to us all.
Yes we should all remember it was that the Russians in 1940 did not capitulate to the Germans that saved us all from loosing the war.
Yeah, because in 1940 the Russians were way too busy, occupying Poland and invading Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, as part of their deal with their Nazi besties to divvy up Europe.
That is a fact, but it is also a fact that the Russians destroyed the power of the German army as an offensive fighting force, thereby saving Europe from fascism.
Facts and enormity of size of losses, would arouse anxiety and stress and
fight or flight response in Russian authority I think and survival and protection
would lead to all sorts of behaviour that would stated coldly now in present conditions sound insupportable.
Google:
How many Russian soldiers were killed in ww2?
America would lose slightly more than 400,000 soldiers (killed or missing) and almost no civilians during World War II and the USSR, depending on which historian you believe, would lose at least 11,000,000 soldiers (killed and missing) as well as somewhere between 7,000,000 and 20,000,000 million of its civilian …
Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College – WWII Soviet Experience http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/about/living_history/wwii_soviet_experience.dot
Though,had the Germans decided to push straight to Moscow and not waste time going into the Ukraine, things may have been different. The Wehrmact needed to take the Soviet capital before winter, as they were not equipped for a winter war.
Russia historically often had more than one capital – it’s not clear that the Soviet Union would’ve collapsed even if it had fallen. The precedent of the failed French invasion would have been psychologically important – taking Moscow didn’t win the war for Napoleon, perhaps it wouldn’t have for Hitler.
That is a fact, but it is also a fact that the Russians destroyed the power of the German army as an offensive fighting force, thereby saving Europe from fascism.
It’s also a fact that the Wehrmacht hugely damaged the Red Army, thereby saving Europe from communism. I don’t think either fact warrants a vote of thanks.
Agreed, although the USSR figures are pretty suspect – the regime had a vested interest in booking up as many as possible of its own victims to German military action, so there’s no telling what the actual figure is.
joe90
Did you say that you were Polish-connected in one of your comments?
I was looking at the Wikipedia list and the number of civilian kilings in uprisings and put-downs was huge. And so many killed in some countries.
I wonder will the EU go down if Britain exits? And would old enmities flair again? If thy could have the EU amended, with less bureaucracy and some semblance of border control Europe could continue to put up with each other and keep the bogeymen and women from gaining strength.
Yes we should all remember it was that the Russians in 1940 did not capitulate to the Germans that saved us all from loosing the war.
We should all remember something you just made up? The Reich and the Soviet Union were effectively allies in 1940, having made an agreement in 1939 to divide Europe up between them. Europe is certainly very lucky there was a falling-out among the thieves, but there are no Russians to thank for that.
I never travel because I can’t afford to offset the carbon and I’d never go to the states if I did, but I hear you have to hand over all sorts of personal grooming items that have never ever been used in a terrorist attack when going through airports.
Anyway good they caught him because that device would have destroyed a lot of people if it had gone off as planned.
USA Today, Fox News, CBS, NPR are all national. And that’s just the first page of results. While The Intercept is particularly skilled at feeding grievance complexes, they are just as prone to misrepresentation for their own ends as anyone else. Maybe even more so.
Like I said at start Andre, if you actually took the time to read, white terrorism, not a simple crime, but terrorism. That was my criticism of your links as well. Have a look at the pages, joe90 did a good job about my point as well.
So are you happy to push a white supremacist agenda?
Apart from vague references to wanting to start a war, it’s unclear so far if there was any religious or political motive driving Estes. Which would reasonably account for a responsible newsroom being reluctant to call it terrorism. Although if he just wanted random warfare, there would be a case for describing him as an anarchist terrorist.
I’m pretty sure this little tidbit was in at least one of the links further up, but here it is again anyway:
“Though he was described as being white in police press releases while they were searching for him, online jail records list his ethnicity as being a Native American.”
This happened in the USA – where a all to common, and usual approach to politics, is to define people by their skin colour. Do I agree with that approach, no I don’t.
But in the context of where this happen, and what they are reporting, skin colour is relevant. My point simply. The MSM media did not cover this as a raging front page news story about terrorism. Even when the parameters of political motivate violence were made public. Why? As I said, the colour of his skin has major impact, and the fact he is not a Muslim is another major factor.
Hang on noddy ive read joes comments for years and that accusation is fucken bullshit. Just because you framed it as a question doesn’t make it okay imo.
My interest in indigenous rights made this quite clear – i used to reguarily post about under reported struggles and the differing rights some people get including being marginalised by the state and media via the descriptor terrorist.
My only issue with you raising this issue is your racist tag – it’s stupid.
No, your accusations that others are racist because they disputed your specific assertion is stupid. Note I’m not saying you are stupid, I’m not saying racism is stupid, I’m saying what you wrote is stupid. I am not personally attacking you. I am talking about what you wrote not you as a person – whew, hope that ensures no misunderstanding.
This is being swept under the carpet. Just wait till another Muslim explodes a bomb or what ever. The tirade will begin within minutes. We will get wall to wall coverage for days.
The virtual opposite happens if the person is white (US definition – not mine), and not a Muslim. Almost deathly quite, or a very quick spin in the 24 hour news cycle, and it’s gone.
Didn’t the news story (what you reckoned never existed due to “no coverage”) say the latest guy put explosives in a fruit preserving jar and left it outside the terminal? Yeah, lethal, but not exactly going to “kill hundreds of people”, is it. It’s a dick, with no evidence of anyone willing to fight his “war” alongside him, making a bomb that he’s now claiming wasn’t even set to go off.
And your dirty bomb guy was sentenced to 30 years for planning a bomb that the FBI built for him. Not the first time they’ve done that, if I recall correctly, and toes the line between entrapment and giving the suspect enough rope to warrant serious charges. But in that specific case I wouldn’t expect to hear anything for, oh, 25 years or so.
Lots of stories about the white guy who actually shot hundreds of people, though. There’s a clue for ye.
All but two Adelie penguin chicks have starved to death in their east Antarctic colony, in a breeding season described as “catastrophic” by experts….
Adelie penguins are the most southerly breeding bird in the world
Photo: Cultura/Brett Phibbs
Unusually high amounts of ice late in the season meant adults had to travel further for food.
It is the second bad season in five years after no chicks survived in 2015.
Conservation groups are calling for urgent action on a new marine protection area in the east Antarctic to protect the colony of about 36,000.
Perhaps some coming new parents might like to give their wee girl the name Adele, which would be very meaningful in the light of the above.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the US was “more than ever isolated” and could not change the nuclear deal.
In a televised speech, Mr Rouhani said Tehran was committed to the deal and accused Mr Trump of making baseless accusations.
In a joint statement, the UK, Germany and France said they were “concerned” by Mr Trump’s move but remained committed to the deal. But they added they also “shared concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile programme and regional activities”.
What this world would be like if the world wars had not occured and all of the deaths, atrocities and world wide suffering had not occured, and all the soldiers hadn’t died or become fucked up from seeing the death of their friends and their enemies.
The world population would be a bit bigger. Would the brains that were left intact have come up with solutions to the issues we face or would we be even worse off now. Does anyone know of an alternative history exploring this?
You might Like Robert Silverberg’s Roma Eterna – in which Rome never fell.
But the outcome might not be as good as might be imagined – public health systems in many countries date from the war, as do many beneficial technologies initially developed for anti-social reasons. Wars, like the deaths of monarchs, present an opportunity for change which sometimes has positive results.
Just a little musing – so much was devastated and those times helped form the attitudes of the west especially, that has led to massive consumption, commodification and so on.
They’re a funny lot the Romans – their early success was very much as a community working together – but their later days were marked by the rise of predatory corporate enterprises like the slave grain farms. These sent the peasants broke, whose second sons had been the mainstay of the legions.
If we’re looking for model governance Jared Diamond’s description of Japan’s response to ecological disaster in the 1700s is probably better than anything Europe has to offer. They fixed things.
The reporter was asking about accounts that soldiers returning from Vietnam had been spat on by antiwar activists. I had told her the stories were not true. I told her that, on the contrary, opponents of the war had actually tried to recruit returning veterans. I told her about a 1971 Harris Poll survey that found that 99 percent of veterans said their reception from friends and family had been friendly, and 94 percent said their reception from age-group peers, the population most likely to have included the spitters, was friendly.
[…]
But you don’t believe the stories, right? she asked. Acknowledging that I could not prove the negative — that they were not true — I went on to say there is no corroboration or documentary evidence, such as newspaper reports from the time, that they are true. Many of the stories have implausible details, like returning soldiers deplaning at San Francisco Airport, where they were met by groups of spitting hippies. In fact, return flights landed at military air bases like Travis, from which protesters would have been barred. Others include claims that military authorities told them on returning flights to change into civilian clothes upon arrival lest they be attacked by protesters. Trash cans at the Los Angeles airport were piled high with abandoned uniforms, according to one eyewitness, a sight that would surely have been documented by news photographers — if it had existed.
A mother of 8 killed when having a skydive in tandem, her instructor collided with another instructor. This is the nail in the coffin of NZ as being a country that should be advertising itself as the (safe) adventure capital of the world, or something alike. We shouldn’t be trusted with running a cake stall. But hey we can’t have cake stalls now because the cakes probably aren’t safe to eat because they haven’t been made in a kitchen that has met commercial standards.
But people can go trustingly into life-risking activities and the self-control to ensure that prevention rules, precautionary approaches are adopted by all, just in case,
and even after the Scottish father came here and criticised the last ‘accident’ and suggested we were careless and irresponsible, we still have this sort of shit occurring. It is disgraceful and makes me ashamed to be a New Zealander.
When can someone start pulling the rug out from under the feet of these smarmy smart-arses, too young, and too little in touch with society to care enough to be given this responsibility for people’s lives.? Does anyone in government feel able to have strong, careful regulations and the regular hard-nosed nosy interfering, checker-upper that the regs are met, and ensure that they haven’t been bought off by business?
I’m sick of watching these free market shits play at running the country, bribing their way into parliament through rising house prices and spurious ‘stable’ financial conditions. The horse has bolted from the stable, and the caretakers overseeing the place are too lazy to go in search of it. They should be harnessed to a machine, bend their backs and start planting out a new crop of promises that will grow to maturity to feed a new set of horses, in a better stable!
And where on Radionz is there any detail about this on their site? Quad bike accident. Toddler found in pool. Forestry success. But mother of 8 killed at Queenstown, I think. I can’t check because I can’t find it. Perhaps it should be kept quiet, embarrassing to tourism.
I don’t think that RNZ is keeping it quiet etc has anything to do with it, Greywarshark. I did check their website and agree that I could not find anything.
As I presume you know, RNZ has been under massive funding restraints for the last nine years under National.
Some big changes have been made in their News area in just the last couple of weeks – eg redundancies of some longstanding staff members, leading to Brent Edwards resigning in protest/support of these staff. Things are in a bit of disarray at present in the News area.
They need our support – not our criticism at the moment.
They need to know we notice. By keeping on being mild-mannered Clark Kent over the years, the neo libs have got away with their bad doings and almost finished us. Time to don our blue suits with the triangle on the front and do our superman saves NZ bit.
Thanks joe90
It was very silly of me to think that I would be hearing NZ news. Of course the news gatherers search for all tragedies of western nations as important for us to know about. You hear more important NZ news listening to Rural Report.
And whatever happens outside English-speaking nations is however relatively unimportant.
A mother of 8 killed when having a skydive in tandem, her instructor collided with another instructor. This is the nail in the coffin of NZ as being a country that should be advertising itself as the (safe) adventure capital of the world, or something alike. We shouldn’t be trusted with running a cake stall. But hey we can’t have cake stalls now because the cakes probably aren’t safe to eat because they haven’t been made in a kitchen that has met commercial standards.
This tragedy happened in Australia, you silly person.
Persistent contrail over Pokeno today. First one I’ve seen in NZ, but I’ve only recently returned from Europe, where reflective climate mitigation is active all summer. What’s the story Kiwis?
So aluminum solid fuel technology can’t be mixed with liquid petroleum fuel systems. Hope you’re right, but from what I remember of third-year chemistry you’re wrong. Trusting Kiwis only allow silica based photo-chemicals. Is catalyst tech to seed clouds also feasible? Just looks like photo-chemical smog to me.
I have no idea what you’re talking about, but then I’m not sure you do, either. Context is a wonderful thing, and links are also quite spectacular in their own right.
Yo, Andre. Any of your mates got a small digger I can borrow? Somewhere around the mid Sep, oh and again for a day in 2020. Scored kauri 😉
“Herald reports that the damage was believed to have been caused by digging for swamp kauri were dismissed as “fake news” by Refining NZ chief executive Sjoerd Post today.” (The NZ Hearld, Sep2017
Not so funny bro. In north western Europe it is just eyes-open-obvious the whole summer long. Are you joking off the idea of climate mitigation? Seems obvious to me that tainting jet fuel would have significant reductions to global temperatures. Don’t forget that photo-chemical smog in the atmosphere approximately balances out the GHG effects of CO2. Basic climate science, son. Are you suggesting the UN is doing nothing with all that Paris Accord money? I thought the deal was to mitigate against the effects of increasing levels of GHGs.
Who pays the UN “Paris Accord money”? That would actually be cool, because that money would be traceable. We wouldn’t have to rely on your word for it, son, we’d have the UN reports showing how many megatonnes of “photo-chemical smog” they dispersed, and where. I just thought countries were doing things like phasing out petrol and diesel cars.
You really think the accounts will be transparent? Our National Security Laws are orthodox, and written to permit censorship of information in the national interest. Info is actively removed from the net. eg. Wikispooks was once chocca with solids. UN goons smashed it (because they care about us so much, yeah right). JFK was talking about weather control before he died, long long ago. Tech has improved. Trust in the State hasn’t improved, eg: https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-10-need-a-story-about-the-detroit-mom-who-has-been-thrown-in-jail-for-refusing-to-vaccinate-check-out-330-recording-of-the-court-case.html Yeah truth hurts Mr F, so harden up and play politics, or go find another sport.
…but all that darkness is endless, we need to seek the light. Like the lead-fuel “mistake”, we don’t need more aluminum in our brains. But the silica can be used to support agriculture. Political momentum behind climate mitigation, requires transparency first.
oh, so they are giving billions to car manufacturers for “research”, yeah typical.
Good luck digging out info on where the money goes. I couldn’t find anything other and articles saying how hard the detail is to find.
So who is giving billions to car manufacturers for research?
Because it looks to me like the French are just saying “you have twenty or so years to come up with a compliant product, or you’re out of the car business”.
Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I- Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from 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 public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
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:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
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 ...
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. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
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 Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
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I know it sounds bad but I’m enjoying having no Govt as it’s not as awful as I’m used to.
The downside is while the evil is not being rammed through (under urgency) no good can happen.
I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
You and me both – Her.
I expecially like the free time to think of other things now as we dont have National ‘Spindoctors’ ramming stuff down our ‘mind’ every time they float another stupid idea – or tell us what’s good for us and to be thankful of them.
They were just to bloody blatent and bossy, and way to keen on propadanda and brainwashing, but it failed to work.
With everything going on in NZ and around the world, this piece of nonsense is the headline news in today’s NZH! It should be the plight of the homeless in this country, not a headline featuring John Key’s plans to build a new home. Who gives a flying f**k anyway. Just another obscene rich prick flaunting his wealth!
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11932527
That’s what I thought. Waste of space as per usual.
Interesting article.
The solid platinum taps are a classy touch, you’d expect that with Sir John though.
You actually read it!
Yep, probably one of the better articles they’ve had on the Herald lately.
If they had articles of this quality more regularly I’d be sorely tempted to go out and buy a copy at the moment it’s all a bit left wing for me.
Lol comedy gold
BM = ashamedly a national voter.
Haha exactly Ffloyd
Read it? He positively drooled
Yeah his unwanted creepy touch of the hair of women. Real classy old dim jonny.
Yes Marty, little girls, disgusting creep.
Nick
You miss the point I think. We are not talking about little girls, so don’t lay on the sarcasm. Being an annoying creep using his position of authority
is what was being criticised.
“solid platinum taps are a classy touch”
Yes totally – along with the gold-plated a*se-wipes – so many of whom one encounters online.
You mean classy, as in the life and times of the nouveau riche? Do you know if Paula has her own guest room?
To answeryour question, clearly you give a fuck to have come here and given the story oxygen, and greater coverage though your link.
@ 2.3 Enough is Enough … True, you have a point there. But I saw red as soon as I viewed the headline. I didn’t bother reading the article, because to me I considered the headline alone tabloid trash. Definitely not worthy of being news, indicating to me the low level NZ media has really sunk to.
Yes MARY_A
I dont even read that rag, it would insult my intellegence.
+1
Good on you mary a – good to know what is happening out there with pollies past and present, and good to not have to read it oneself so don’t bother about grumps and gripes.
This is the property bought for $5 million in 2005 and sold 12 years later for $20 million- a profit of $1.2 million per annum, on top of the retention of 500 sq m. for the new house.
Meanwhile, the Salvation Army ran a fund raising day for the homeless. It quoted the figure of 1:100 New Zealanders who are inadequately housed.
Another legacy of the 2008-17 National government.
Are you listening, please, Winston?
Good to see police reevaluating how to stop locking up mentally ill people. Maybe more of an issue in the cities – here in the country there is good coordination between police and crisis mental health as far as i can tell. Locking people up who are suffering in this way is not the answer imo.
Can’t link to Herald article sorry.
This one presumably – very interesting. Lets just hope it works.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11931965
Thank you
You’re welcome. Had just read it and still had it on another tab.
Always a tweet.
Shortly before Donald Trump took the podium at the annual Values Voter Summit, attendees received a pamphlet calling homosexuality a “public health crisis”.
The pamphlet, distributed by the anti-LGBTQ activist organisation MassResistance, claims the “sexual revolution” and the “mainstreaming of homosexuality” have created a public health crisis in America.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-speech-values-voter-summit-massresistance-anti-lgbtq-pamphlet-homosexuality-health-hazard-a7999501.html
Julian Assange embarresses Amy Goodman/Democracy Now! with their unfortunate and misguided obsession with the alleged Russian interference in the US election…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdG6iE4a84
Yes we should all remember it was that the Russians in 1940 did not capitulate to the Germans that saved us all from loosing the war.
As the ‘eastern front’ nazi invasion of Russia action caused Germany to loose most of its military might and later loose the war. Russia was then alied to us all.
So why do they treat the Russians so badly now??
Um… Stalins post war atrocities?
Stalin died over 50 years ago, so I fail to see why that is relevant.
Because Putin seems to be following in his footsteps?
Yeah, because in 1940 the Russians were way too busy, occupying Poland and invading Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, as part of their deal with their Nazi besties to divvy up Europe.
/
That is a fact, but it is also a fact that the Russians destroyed the power of the German army as an offensive fighting force, thereby saving Europe from fascism.
Facts and enormity of size of losses, would arouse anxiety and stress and
fight or flight response in Russian authority I think and survival and protection
would lead to all sorts of behaviour that would stated coldly now in present conditions sound insupportable.
Google:
How many Russian soldiers were killed in ww2?
America would lose slightly more than 400,000 soldiers (killed or missing) and almost no civilians during World War II and the USSR, depending on which historian you believe, would lose at least 11,000,000 soldiers (killed and missing) as well as somewhere between 7,000,000 and 20,000,000 million of its civilian …
Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College – WWII Soviet Experience
http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/about/living_history/wwii_soviet_experience.dot
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
The facts and images lead me to believe that war is a no-win project!
Though,had the Germans decided to push straight to Moscow and not waste time going into the Ukraine, things may have been different. The Wehrmact needed to take the Soviet capital before winter, as they were not equipped for a winter war.
Russia historically often had more than one capital – it’s not clear that the Soviet Union would’ve collapsed even if it had fallen. The precedent of the failed French invasion would have been psychologically important – taking Moscow didn’t win the war for Napoleon, perhaps it wouldn’t have for Hitler.
Apparently Stalin was basically not going to leave Moscow – he was all in.
Dunno how true that is, but it’s an interesting question as to whether the Soviet Union would have survived losing both Moscow and Stalin together.
That is a fact, but it is also a fact that the Russians destroyed the power of the German army as an offensive fighting force, thereby saving Europe from fascism.
It’s also a fact that the Wehrmacht hugely damaged the Red Army, thereby saving Europe from communism. I don’t think either fact warrants a vote of thanks.
It’s shocking how hard hit the stats show for those countries in Joe90s comment.
Look down the last column – % of deaths of 1939 population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Agreed, although the USSR figures are pretty suspect – the regime had a vested interest in booking up as many as possible of its own victims to German military action, so there’s no telling what the actual figure is.
The 1929-1933 collectivization claimed between 6 and 11 million lives and the purges of 1936-38 another 700,000 . Stalin’s orders 270 and 227 and his barrier troops saw 157,593 Red Army troops executed for cowardice and nearly half a million sent to penal battalions, where the majority perished.
And then there were combat casualties….
joe90
Did you say that you were Polish-connected in one of your comments?
I was looking at the Wikipedia list and the number of civilian kilings in uprisings and put-downs was huge. And so many killed in some countries.
I wonder will the EU go down if Britain exits? And would old enmities flair again? If thy could have the EU amended, with less bureaucracy and some semblance of border control Europe could continue to put up with each other and keep the bogeymen and women from gaining strength.
Yes we should all remember it was that the Russians in 1940 did not capitulate to the Germans that saved us all from loosing the war.
We should all remember something you just made up? The Reich and the Soviet Union were effectively allies in 1940, having made an agreement in 1939 to divide Europe up between them. Europe is certainly very lucky there was a falling-out among the thieves, but there are no Russians to thank for that.
“So why do they treat the Russians so badly now??”
You ever go behind the Iron Curtain?
The Iron Curtain sounds like last century’s decoration.
May it never come back.
Anyone got the link to Bryce Edwars follow up article?
Lynn? Did he contact you?
” A follow-up column will look at signs of a Labour-NZ government. “
if that gets put up a few here will have to eat some humble pie after the outrage at his one the day before on the nats chances, should be funny
All anyone needed to do was go to the Harold website, go to the politics tab, and it’s right there.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11932628
Come on Winston, don’t keep us hanging on .. we might lose interest in democracy.
[Sade sings ‘Smooth Operator’ in the background …]
White terrorists get away with no coverage. Big ups to theintercept for getting this story out.
https://theintercept.com/2017/10/11/terrorist-donald-trump-airport-bomber-estes-asheville/
Why are the NZ media not covering this stuff?
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=nz+news+North+Carolina+bomb&oq=nz+news+North+Carolina+bomb&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64l2.8698j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
White terrorism – free pass.
Probably if it had gone off it would have made the news as terrorism – it certainly fits the criteria imo.
I notice at the bottom of the article a link to a Greenwald article declaring the word terrorism a meaningless propaganda term.
Correct he if I’m wrong, but you still take your shoes off at USA airports, becasue of a failed bomber.
I like the Greenwald piece too.
I never travel because I can’t afford to offset the carbon and I’d never go to the states if I did, but I hear you have to hand over all sorts of personal grooming items that have never ever been used in a terrorist attack when going through airports.
Anyway good they caught him because that device would have destroyed a lot of people if it had gone off as planned.
It was in plenty of US news outlets.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=asheville+airport+bomb&rlz=1C1CHZL_enNZ731NZ731&ei=fnPhWbyqNYWy0ATluo6AAw&start=10&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=662
I’m going to call BS on your google search there Andre. The bulk of the reporting was local and affiliates. Not very much from the MSM.
Edit: or like the MSM CBS piece, hidden under the crime section.
USA Today, Fox News, CBS, NPR are all national. And that’s just the first page of results. While The Intercept is particularly skilled at feeding grievance complexes, they are just as prone to misrepresentation for their own ends as anyone else. Maybe even more so.
Like I said at start Andre, if you actually took the time to read, white terrorism, not a simple crime, but terrorism. That was my criticism of your links as well. Have a look at the pages, joe90 did a good job about my point as well.
So are you happy to push a white supremacist agenda?
If anyone wants a more balanced look at why this incident received the coverage it did, here’s a couple to start with.
http://www.snopes.com/2017/10/12/asheville-airport-bomb-attempted/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/13/557629826/suspect-in-would-be-airport-bombing-nabbed-with-help-from-rei
Apart from vague references to wanting to start a war, it’s unclear so far if there was any religious or political motive driving Estes. Which would reasonably account for a responsible newsroom being reluctant to call it terrorism. Although if he just wanted random warfare, there would be a case for describing him as an anarchist terrorist.
Now it’s not terrorism, why am I not surprised by your response Andre.
Are you a white supremacist?
I’m pretty sure this little tidbit was in at least one of the links further up, but here it is again anyway:
“Though he was described as being white in police press releases while they were searching for him, online jail records list his ethnicity as being a Native American.”
http://heavy.com/news/2017/10/michael-christopher-estes-asheville-airport-bomber-suspect/
Given that, it seems to me there would be a lot more grounds for complaint about racism and white privilege if he had been called a terrorist.
Skin colour is a shit proxy for ethnicity. Personally, saying someone is white is pretty meaningless imo unless it is an attempt to show privilege.
This happened in the USA – where a all to common, and usual approach to politics, is to define people by their skin colour. Do I agree with that approach, no I don’t.
But in the context of where this happen, and what they are reporting, skin colour is relevant. My point simply. The MSM media did not cover this as a raging front page news story about terrorism. Even when the parameters of political motivate violence were made public. Why? As I said, the colour of his skin has major impact, and the fact he is not a Muslim is another major factor.
Yep your point was simple and a pity you’re so arrogant you can’t see the other arguments for what they are.
What other arguments – that he was not a terrorist, and he was not white?
Clausewitz
“War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.”
meh
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/10/10/north-carolina-airport-bomb-suspect/749938001/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-man-left-jar-filled-with-explosive-chemicals-nails-at-north-carolina-airport/
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/10/13/man-who-planted-bomb-at-nc-airport-wanted-to-fight-war-on-u-s-soil-fbi-says.html
joe90 did you look at any of you links and where they came up within their own services?
Obviously not…
And as I said THIS WAS AN ACT OF TERRORISM!!! not a crime for the crime pages.
Should I surmise from your meh, you happy pushing a racist agenda?
Hang on noddy ive read joes comments for years and that accusation is fucken bullshit. Just because you framed it as a question doesn’t make it okay imo.
I’m not accusing him of anything, I’m just saying meh is open for interpretation.
He is big enough and ugly enough to respond in more than one word.
I’m not talking for him but I note he put THREE links in as well. You gone rogue now?
I was talking about all three links. Have a look what section they are in.
My point is simple. If your white and terrorist you get a free pass. If saying that offends you or is rouge – then I’m rogue.
My interest in indigenous rights made this quite clear – i used to reguarily post about under reported struggles and the differing rights some people get including being marginalised by the state and media via the descriptor terrorist.
My only issue with you raising this issue is your racist tag – it’s stupid.
So racism is stupid?
No, your accusations that others are racist because they disputed your specific assertion is stupid. Note I’m not saying you are stupid, I’m not saying racism is stupid, I’m saying what you wrote is stupid. I am not personally attacking you. I am talking about what you wrote not you as a person – whew, hope that ensures no misunderstanding.
This is being swept under the carpet. Just wait till another Muslim explodes a bomb or what ever. The tirade will begin within minutes. We will get wall to wall coverage for days.
The virtual opposite happens if the person is white (US definition – not mine), and not a Muslim. Almost deathly quite, or a very quick spin in the 24 hour news cycle, and it’s gone.
Remember this guy? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/19/death-ray-plot-muslims-obama-glendon-scott-crawford-new-york
One day in the news, then out. Never to be spoken of again.
How long will this last in the news cycle? This is a guy who tried to kill hundreds of people to start a war.
Didn’t the news story (what you reckoned never existed due to “no coverage”) say the latest guy put explosives in a fruit preserving jar and left it outside the terminal? Yeah, lethal, but not exactly going to “kill hundreds of people”, is it. It’s a dick, with no evidence of anyone willing to fight his “war” alongside him, making a bomb that he’s now claiming wasn’t even set to go off.
And your dirty bomb guy was sentenced to 30 years for planning a bomb that the FBI built for him. Not the first time they’ve done that, if I recall correctly, and toes the line between entrapment and giving the suspect enough rope to warrant serious charges. But in that specific case I wouldn’t expect to hear anything for, oh, 25 years or so.
Lots of stories about the white guy who actually shot hundreds of people, though. There’s a clue for ye.
So terrorist bombs are OK now if they don’t kill to many people McFlock?
Hard to find your point when you keep changing what it means to be a terrorist.
Am I right in thinking political motivation is no longer on the table, as a definition of terrorist, even for a lone wolf?
So lets be clear you are say terrorism needs to not only cause terror, but they must not act alone, and must not be a dickhead? Is that right?
World news –
The climate change that the vulnerable can do nothing to alter and maybe people can limit it to bearable but for what or whom?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/341564/penguin-chicks-starve-in-catastrophic-antarctic-season
All but two Adelie penguin chicks have starved to death in their east Antarctic colony, in a breeding season described as “catastrophic” by experts….
Adelie penguins are the most southerly breeding bird in the world
Photo: Cultura/Brett Phibbs
Unusually high amounts of ice late in the season meant adults had to travel further for food.
It is the second bad season in five years after no chicks survived in 2015.
Conservation groups are calling for urgent action on a new marine protection area in the east Antarctic to protect the colony of about 36,000.
Perhaps some coming new parents might like to give their wee girl the name Adele, which would be very meaningful in the light of the above.
and
Trump – nuclear power, people in other countries not renegging on nuclear deal,
big thumbs down on facing reality and caring.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/341539/trump-strikes-blow-against-iran-nuclear-deal
Herbs sang our ideas in Ne Nukes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVdW2O4EzEQ
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the US was “more than ever isolated” and could not change the nuclear deal.
In a televised speech, Mr Rouhani said Tehran was committed to the deal and accused Mr Trump of making baseless accusations.
In a joint statement, the UK, Germany and France said they were “concerned” by Mr Trump’s move but remained committed to the deal. But they added they also “shared concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile programme and regional activities”.
NZ music:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/musicalchairs/audio/2530442/no-nukes-how-nz-music-helped-us-ban-the-bomb
I have been wondering
What this world would be like if the world wars had not occured and all of the deaths, atrocities and world wide suffering had not occured, and all the soldiers hadn’t died or become fucked up from seeing the death of their friends and their enemies.
The world population would be a bit bigger. Would the brains that were left intact have come up with solutions to the issues we face or would we be even worse off now. Does anyone know of an alternative history exploring this?
Many of the people who write Alternative history fiction, do it within the war. A good book is 1632 by Eric Flint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1632_series
Stephen Fry comes close with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_History_(novel) I found it morbid.
So you have an opening to write a novel marty mars.
Thanks
You might Like Robert Silverberg’s Roma Eterna – in which Rome never fell.
But the outcome might not be as good as might be imagined – public health systems in many countries date from the war, as do many beneficial technologies initially developed for anti-social reasons. Wars, like the deaths of monarchs, present an opportunity for change which sometimes has positive results.
Agreed, Rome never fell, their militancy just went underground – no secret who runs BIS in Basel.
Thanks Stuart.
Just a little musing – so much was devastated and those times helped form the attitudes of the west especially, that has led to massive consumption, commodification and so on.
They’re a funny lot the Romans – their early success was very much as a community working together – but their later days were marked by the rise of predatory corporate enterprises like the slave grain farms. These sent the peasants broke, whose second sons had been the mainstay of the legions.
If we’re looking for model governance Jared Diamond’s description of Japan’s response to ecological disaster in the 1700s is probably better than anything Europe has to offer. They fixed things.
Surprise, a RWNJ/sewer mainstay is made up.
“So where do these stories come from?”
The reporter was asking about accounts that soldiers returning from Vietnam had been spat on by antiwar activists. I had told her the stories were not true. I told her that, on the contrary, opponents of the war had actually tried to recruit returning veterans. I told her about a 1971 Harris Poll survey that found that 99 percent of veterans said their reception from friends and family had been friendly, and 94 percent said their reception from age-group peers, the population most likely to have included the spitters, was friendly.
[…]
But you don’t believe the stories, right? she asked. Acknowledging that I could not prove the negative — that they were not true — I went on to say there is no corroboration or documentary evidence, such as newspaper reports from the time, that they are true. Many of the stories have implausible details, like returning soldiers deplaning at San Francisco Airport, where they were met by groups of spitting hippies. In fact, return flights landed at military air bases like Travis, from which protesters would have been barred. Others include claims that military authorities told them on returning flights to change into civilian clothes upon arrival lest they be attacked by protesters. Trash cans at the Los Angeles airport were piled high with abandoned uniforms, according to one eyewitness, a sight that would surely have been documented by news photographers — if it had existed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/myth-spitting-vietnam-protester.html?
I notice on my last email from James Shaw that he signs off as co leader – does anyone know when the process to select the other co leader begins?
Next party conference.
Thanks mate
A mother of 8 killed when having a skydive in tandem, her instructor collided with another instructor. This is the nail in the coffin of NZ as being a country that should be advertising itself as the (safe) adventure capital of the world, or something alike. We shouldn’t be trusted with running a cake stall. But hey we can’t have cake stalls now because the cakes probably aren’t safe to eat because they haven’t been made in a kitchen that has met commercial standards.
But people can go trustingly into life-risking activities and the self-control to ensure that prevention rules, precautionary approaches are adopted by all, just in case,
and even after the Scottish father came here and criticised the last ‘accident’ and suggested we were careless and irresponsible, we still have this sort of shit occurring. It is disgraceful and makes me ashamed to be a New Zealander.
When can someone start pulling the rug out from under the feet of these smarmy smart-arses, too young, and too little in touch with society to care enough to be given this responsibility for people’s lives.? Does anyone in government feel able to have strong, careful regulations and the regular hard-nosed nosy interfering, checker-upper that the regs are met, and ensure that they haven’t been bought off by business?
I’m sick of watching these free market shits play at running the country, bribing their way into parliament through rising house prices and spurious ‘stable’ financial conditions. The horse has bolted from the stable, and the caretakers overseeing the place are too lazy to go in search of it. They should be harnessed to a machine, bend their backs and start planting out a new crop of promises that will grow to maturity to feed a new set of horses, in a better stable!
And where on Radionz is there any detail about this on their site? Quad bike accident. Toddler found in pool. Forestry success. But mother of 8 killed at Queenstown, I think. I can’t check because I can’t find it. Perhaps it should be kept quiet, embarrassing to tourism.
I don’t think that RNZ is keeping it quiet etc has anything to do with it, Greywarshark. I did check their website and agree that I could not find anything.
As I presume you know, RNZ has been under massive funding restraints for the last nine years under National.
Some big changes have been made in their News area in just the last couple of weeks – eg redundancies of some longstanding staff members, leading to Brent Edwards resigning in protest/support of these staff. Things are in a bit of disarray at present in the News area.
They need our support – not our criticism at the moment.
They need to know we notice. By keeping on being mild-mannered Clark Kent over the years, the neo libs have got away with their bad doings and almost finished us. Time to don our blue suits with the triangle on the front and do our superman saves NZ bit.
Queensland,
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2017/10/14/experienced-skydiver-among-three-killed.html
Thanks joe90
It was very silly of me to think that I would be hearing NZ news. Of course the news gatherers search for all tragedies of western nations as important for us to know about. You hear more important NZ news listening to Rural Report.
And whatever happens outside English-speaking nations is however relatively unimportant.
A mother of 8 killed when having a skydive in tandem, her instructor collided with another instructor. This is the nail in the coffin of NZ as being a country that should be advertising itself as the (safe) adventure capital of the world, or something alike. We shouldn’t be trusted with running a cake stall. But hey we can’t have cake stalls now because the cakes probably aren’t safe to eat because they haven’t been made in a kitchen that has met commercial standards.
This tragedy happened in Australia, you silly person.
Streuth!
https://www.3wisemen.co.nz/the-streuth.html
Struggling to find peps to Bully tonight BM…
BBC 100 Women names 100 influential and inspirational women around the world every year.
“Indonesia has never had a political figure like Susi Pudjiastuti.
When President Joko Widodo was asked why he appointed her back in 2014, he said he needed “a crazy person in order to make a breakthrough”.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41438279
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4ebZRQSieY
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/10/05/prince-charles-to-susi-you-are-a-pioneer.html
https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/news/45159/countries-fight-illegal-fishing/
Go Susi!
Bob Dylan at the March on Washington.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY2lQV3ADfc&feature=youtu.be
Persistent contrail over Pokeno today. First one I’ve seen in NZ, but I’ve only recently returned from Europe, where reflective climate mitigation is active all summer. What’s the story Kiwis?
Are you talking about chemtrails? Is it actually a thing these days, or are you just spraying vinegar over your lawn to disperse them?
NZs population density is so low it’s a waste of the chemicals to use them south of the Bombays. The pilot must have forgot to turn the valves off.
So aluminum solid fuel technology can’t be mixed with liquid petroleum fuel systems. Hope you’re right, but from what I remember of third-year chemistry you’re wrong. Trusting Kiwis only allow silica based photo-chemicals. Is catalyst tech to seed clouds also feasible? Just looks like photo-chemical smog to me.
I have no idea what you’re talking about, but then I’m not sure you do, either. Context is a wonderful thing, and links are also quite spectacular in their own right.
http://www.agriculturedefensecoalition.org/
oka-ay…
my doubt is increasing…
Oh wow. The things that happen when you see a bit of fun snark and play along a bit. Then it turns out we’ve got a real live one on our hands.
Yo, Andre. Any of your mates got a small digger I can borrow? Somewhere around the mid Sep, oh and again for a day in 2020. Scored kauri 😉
“Herald reports that the damage was believed to have been caused by digging for swamp kauri were dismissed as “fake news” by Refining NZ chief executive Sjoerd Post today.” (The NZ Hearld, Sep2017
Not so funny bro. In north western Europe it is just eyes-open-obvious the whole summer long. Are you joking off the idea of climate mitigation? Seems obvious to me that tainting jet fuel would have significant reductions to global temperatures. Don’t forget that photo-chemical smog in the atmosphere approximately balances out the GHG effects of CO2. Basic climate science, son. Are you suggesting the UN is doing nothing with all that Paris Accord money? I thought the deal was to mitigate against the effects of increasing levels of GHGs.
Math would help, son.
Who pays the UN “Paris Accord money”? That would actually be cool, because that money would be traceable. We wouldn’t have to rely on your word for it, son, we’d have the UN reports showing how many megatonnes of “photo-chemical smog” they dispersed, and where. I just thought countries were doing things like phasing out petrol and diesel cars.
You really think the accounts will be transparent? Our National Security Laws are orthodox, and written to permit censorship of information in the national interest. Info is actively removed from the net. eg. Wikispooks was once chocca with solids. UN goons smashed it (because they care about us so much, yeah right). JFK was talking about weather control before he died, long long ago. Tech has improved. Trust in the State hasn’t improved, eg: https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-10-need-a-story-about-the-detroit-mom-who-has-been-thrown-in-jail-for-refusing-to-vaccinate-check-out-330-recording-of-the-court-case.html Yeah truth hurts Mr F, so harden up and play politics, or go find another sport.
…but all that darkness is endless, we need to seek the light. Like the lead-fuel “mistake”, we don’t need more aluminum in our brains. But the silica can be used to support agriculture. Political momentum behind climate mitigation, requires transparency first.
So, no indication of payments to the UN in the Paris Accord, then.
Which means no UN money for chemtrail distribution.
Which means you need to come up with another fantasy to fervently believe.
oh, so they are giving billions to car manufacturers for “research”, yeah typical.
Good luck digging out info on where the money goes. I couldn’t find anything other and articles saying how hard the detail is to find.
So who is giving billions to car manufacturers for research?
Because it looks to me like the French are just saying “you have twenty or so years to come up with a compliant product, or you’re out of the car business”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c6HsiixFS8
Well, if it truly was a social-creditor that shot JFK, then I need to score better buds – http://www.agriculturedefensecoalition.org/