I suspect over 8 million vaccinations to adults, in NZ alone, with serious side effects in less than double figures, for one.
Compelling real world evidence, that the vaccination is as harmless as anything gets.
Compared with the potential, proven, harm to children from covid, and the harm from their Teachers, Carers, elderly relatives, food suppliers etc, getting covid.
Unless like some on here,, you think every sneeze after covid vaccination, is because of the vaccination.
Wow. Just wow, only a few adverse reactions? Look at the medsafe data, which they themselves say is only about 5% of what actually happens. I too would love to see the data that medsafe used as the trial for the children's version was small and only for a short time.
Again wow. You are aware of the heart issues surely. The MOH has put out an advisary letter about them. These people are turning up in our hospitals. In this case correlation does equal causation. Do we want this for our children?
Again wow. Where are you getting this from. Worldwide children are not dieing of covid. The Danish, German and UK data tells us this. Why would we put children at a known risk of heart etc. issues when only those with comorbidities are in any way at risk from the disease. Why would we not just vaccinate those at risk rather than create risk with mass vaccination?
and wow to you. why would we educate everybody when only some want to learn? why not just educate those with potential ,rather than create knowledge with mass education.??
24 million children in the US have received a Covid vaccination and only two deaths of children have been reported to VAERS. Both of these children were in fragile health before vaccination and had multiple chronic medical conditions. Independent investigation of these two cases did not suggest a causal link between death and vaccination
These are the FACTS from verified sources reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Multiple independently verified studies have shown significant reduction in severity of Covid symptoms, hospitalisation rate and deaths if you have received a Covid vaccination.
The unvaccinated who get Covid infect far more people, require more hospital intervention and this is driving some nation's health systems into the ground. We do not want this in New Zealand, which is why we are heading towards 95% vaccination of eligible people.
People who can't get their head around how the VAERS system works are certainly not people whose views on vaccination are rational.
And I am horrified that there are anti vaxxers who are arguing against vaccination of children. We should not let these misinformed people propose a herd immunity experiment on our children
anti-vaxxers are fighting a losing battle, ignoring history, science, common sense, empathy for others ,etc, etc, armed only with outrage, selfishness and stupidity. you can educate the stupid, but it doesnt stick. however, we do have a duty to these people, as fellow humans. they dont even understand anologies. the sad but interesting thing about ignoring medical science is you become a statistic and subject for autopsy earlier than usual.
You said you were curious as to what data, what studies, what information Medsafe's experts used to decide it was safe to vaccinate children with Pfizer’s product.
They have a website which gives contact details. I suggest you contact them and ask them. I'm sure you're serious enough about the questions to follow-up with them.
The 600 number of child deaths is essentially bogus. As Harvard Prof. of Medicine and Epidemiologist Martin Kulldorrf says below.
Dr. Kulldorff: "By now it’s about 350 or so reported deaths by COVID in the U.S. for children. We don’t even know how many of those are truly COVID, because nobody has bothered to go through all those electronic health records, which I think CDC should do, as Marty Makary, a professor at John Hopkins has been urging, but that hasn’t been done. So we don’t know exactly how many, but it is at most 350."
In Sweden, upper-secondary schools moved online while lower-secondary schools remained open during the spring of 2020. A comparison of parents with children in the final year of lower-secondary and first year of upper-secondary school shows that keeping the former open had limited consequences for the overall transmission of the virus. However, the infection rate doubled among lower-secondary teachers relative to upper-secondary ones.
The one country that could have definitively answered that question has apparently failed to collect any data. Bucking a global trend, Sweden has kept day care centers and schools through ninth grade open since COVID-19 emerged, without any major adjustments to class size, lunch policies, or recess rules. That made the country a perfect natural experiment about schools' role in viral spread that many others could have learned from as they reopen schools or ponder when to do so. Yet Swedish officials have not tracked infections among school children—even when large outbreaks led to the closure of individual schools or staff members died of the disease.
A more up to date (and in some ways more thorough) presentation by Jessica Rose (Aug 27) can be found by typing VAERS UPDATE for CCCA (Canadian COVID Care Alliance) into youtube. Again – it's a long one.
There appears to be a lack of understanding of how our labour force worked pre-pandemic which may explain the problems now. The student visa scheme supplied a huge number ( up to 200,000 ) of casual workers doing the “ shit “ jobs, hotspo and horticultural work mainly. My take is that the offshore visitors replaced the young Kiwis who took off after school/ uni to do their OE and took up similar jobs offshore, and because of the 2 year limit meant starting a career over there made little sense. Now back here most are moving directly into careers and foregoing the “ holiday , year off “ jobs on returning and into their chosen career or previously trained-for occupations. Celebrating, a la Stuart Nash, getting rid of the ‘ kids in vans ‘ is very short sighted. We can and should not rely on Pasifika labour in the future ,we have almost cleaned out the islands of their own essential young very much to the detriment of their soon to be, hopefully recovering economies.
The police consolidate their power over people they consider outliers in our woke society. People who are supposedly a threat to the powers that be. Dare I say… people who may be able to defend themselves and fight back?
I have witnessed this type of behaviour. In fact I have been subjected to it by police in quite a random way.
The problem with the police starts with Cuddles Coster who won his commissionership over a far more abled candidate who was a real cop. One with a backbone. And that was the problem…the government whom I assume advises the GG in the selection process, wanted a politician, not a copper. Boy, did they get one.
A forlorn hope of mine would be an incoming National government telling Cuddles he's not wanted. If that cost the taxpayer big money to shift this guy sideways, I say money well spent.
The other problem I see is the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional. Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.
'the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional. Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.'
Let me break it down for you: Let's use simple steps.
''The standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional.''
Growing up, I can't recall a police officer with a pot belly. There may have been some, but I never saw them.' So what's changed? KFC or accepted physical standards for a serving officer to maintain?
That leads to my concern with middleclass new recruits. First our education system takes away their ability to think on their feet( in my opinion). Their general home life is safe and secure. They have never had to tough it out over three days without food in their stomach. They have never been embarrassed in front of others because they have nothing. If they do wrong they are sent to their room or grounded. A feral may have done nothing wrong, but still ends up getting beaten by someone because that someone is having a bad hair day. That lifestyle builds resilience, viciousness and cunning. Into that cauldron must step a new police recruit. That's why I have seen them flounder, be out thought and scared. I don't blame them. Police college can only prepare you so far. In times past being from the middleclass wasn't a problem because life was still reality based and everyone was reasonably fit. The underclass problem was still developing.
The solution: Mandatory training for recruits in areas like South Auckland for two years probation. Mandatory social work in similar areas as part of police training.
I accompanied a social worker relative once on a house call. What I saw, heard and smelt is still burnt into my mind.
Here's a somewhat tame and in a way, funny clip. However, it points to a way of life a new recruit will have to understand and master…it's a doorway into the dark side of life.
Obviously he suffers from Short Man Syndrome. I went to YouTube & read some of the comments. Mostly, from the spelling & ghetto-style-affecteda-language used, Māori commenters I’d say.
They all thought he was a complete joke. Several commented on the hilariously peculiar strutting & the shorts-pulling. Others noticed they girls weren’t remotely scared & howvlucky he was one of them didn’t smack him.
A couple of commenters posted akong the lines “wait till they tell their brothers get there”.
Sounds like it was in Hamilton, from the comments.
That said, I did find it unsettling no males intervened & told him to piss off.
The point is even though those ladies could handle themselves, the fact is a woman was being kicked and nobody did a thing. Even the narrator mentions this dick stepping out a woman, but he does nothing. To be fair, society is so dangerous now that stepping in to help could cost you your life as happened a few years back when a man was knifed to death for trying to stop a feral beating a woman.
If the police did this to a gang then you know there'd be media stories claiming the police are racist by picking on gangs, that lawyers would be crawling out of the woodwork and that the gangs (the leaders are not stupid) would be hitting up whatever politician they own decrying these actions
Thats why they target the individuals in cases like this
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
If its good enough for the police to use this to target individuals then why isn't it good enough for the police to target gang pads/HQs?
'They told Keenan they had reason to believe he had gang affiliations and was not fit to hold a firearms licence.'
Again the same reasoning, if its good enough for the individual then why not the gangs.
Meh.
Reading the article, the "mocking" seems to have been a hot mic moment when they didn't know there was a mic – he was outside, no?
As for taking guns first and returning them after everything's sorted out and there wasn't really a problem, I'm cool with that. Better than the other way around.
The issue of antiques does create a problem, though, especially in regards to museums etc. Different threat level, but still enough to rob someone with – just ask Dick Turpin.
'They told Keenan they had reason to believe he had gang affiliations and was not fit to hold a firearms licence.'
Gee can you think of other places where people might have gang affiliations because I sure can't
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
Good thing they went after this guy rather than, oh I don't know, any of the known gang pads
Pretty sure that if the local cops had reliable info that guns were actually being stored at a particular gang pad at a particular time, they'd pop over for a visit there, too.
What you're asking for is nothing to do with gun control, you just want the cops to routinely turn over the houses of anyone with a possible connection to gangs without needing any evidence to do so.
‘What you're asking for is nothing to do with gun control, you just want the cops to routinely turn over the houses of anyone with a possible connection to gangs without needing any evidence to do so.'
The police just did exactly that, I want them to do the exact same thing they did to this guy, under the exact same arms act cited.
I'll repeat that bit again for you since you obviously missed it:
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the nearest gang pad might just have members of a gang?
I believe that the reason the police target the individual and not the gang is because the individual is a softer target, does not have the same PR representation as the gangs, does not not have the same perceived support of the gangs and certainly doesn't have the same legal resources as the gang
Theres a mob property in main street raetihi, last year I drove past , 2 detective type cars parked at the front door , officers inside , 2 uniform cops on the other side of the road covering the building with semi rifles at the ready, I'm picking they'd popped round for more than a cup of tea.
100% agreed. Legal means only. No breaking the laws, the police are not above the laws themselves.
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
If its good enough for one its good enough for all, don't you agree?
Safer? The safest thing to say is there's a lot of crap spouted about the police and gangs. Apparently the cops leave them alone, don't dare touch them.
Can't think why then there are regular stories in the media about big drug busts, and photos of drugs, and money and guns and reference to gang people arrested.
Theres a difference between busts and some cops turning up at someones door to confiscate some weapons which may or, especially in this case, may not be illegal
The police consolidate their power over people they consider outliers in our woke society. People who are supposedly a threat to the powers that be. Dare I say… people who may be able to defend themselves and fight back?
Against the police? People with guns who decide to fight back against the police have killed & wounded quite a few of our police officers. Several of these shooters have had criminal histories, or psychiatric/psychological issues. Not surprising the police are wary of such people ,or gun owners that are reported by the public as posting hateful comments and/or seemingly being mentally unstable.
But in this and other cases??
It certainly sounds like in this case it was a complete cock up & the police officers involved went about confiscating the guns in a very unprofessional manner, with the family claiming to have multiple evidences on CCTV video & audio of their total lack of professionalism. The fact they later wrote to him (but he’d died by the time the letter was received) to say he could collect his guns suggests they should not have confiscated them in the first place.
But we don’t know the full facts. E.g. He may have improved his home gun security in the intervening time. We’re only getting his family’s & lawyer’s side of the story. I think a complaint to the IPCA is definitely worthwhile.
I have witnessed this type of behaviour. In fact I have been subjected to it by police in quite a random way.
So you say. Did they confiscate your gun(s) or are you drawing an analogy with some other different type of interaction with police that you see as their being unreasonable, bullying, or in some other way unfair or unprofessional?
The problem with the police starts with Cuddles Coster who won his commissionership over a far more abled candidate who was a real cop. One with a backbone. And that was the problem…the government whom I assume advises the GG in the selection process, wanted a politician, not a copper. Boy, did they get one.
I won’t argue with that final conclusion of yours that they got a “politician” because the Police Commissioner’s job has nearly always required the appointee to be politically astute while maintaining the fiction that they always act completely independently of the government and are not subject to political direction or intervention.
But in my view the other primary contending candidate Mike Clement would not have been significantly different. By the time they get to Deputy Commissioner level they know the Commissioner’s job is a politically sensitive role requiring careful & cautious handling. One doesn’t go against the government’s wishes.
And Mike Clement was being investigated by the IPCA, accused of interfering in the appointment of a superintendent at the time the govt were looking to fill the role. I can’t recall the outcome but he subsequently retired with praises from the Police Minister.
A forlorn hope of mine would be an incoming National government telling Cuddles he’s not wanted. If that cost the taxpayer big money to shift this guy sideways, I say money well spent.
The next one might be a woman? A couple of female senior policepersons were in the original running.
The other problem I see is the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies.
I haven’t seen any pot-bellied police officers down here in North Welly, but if a few middle-aged or older ones are desk-bound it wouldn’t be surprising. I don’t know what the physical fitness requirements to be maintained are once they’ve qualified to join the force.
Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional.
You’re just going to have to live with that. I’m not a great fan of tats either. But they’re so ubiquitous among younger folk now that it’d be crazy to rule out young men or women who meet the requirements because they have tatoos. And many 20-something young Māori I encounter proudly display moko on arms & legs to signal their iwi affiliations. We need more Māori Pirihama. Be crazy to rule them out.
Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.
I think they get pretty thorough training both at the Police College & on the streets. You don’t need a lifetime of abuse & violence to learn what it’s like & how to deal with it. It’s not shied away from as part of their training. And some recruits DO come from that kind of background, as I understand it. No doubt they share their experiences during training.
As far as I know they still have to meet stringent physical fitness standards to get into the police.
Our police are not perfect. No country’s are. But I’d rather support them, & criticise them only when they act badly, than denigrate them all as a force. It’s not a job I’d take on.
Good post. I will let most of it stand as a different take ( some would say more reasoned) on what I wrote, believe and quoted.
Some cherry picking.
Regarding Costa. He wasn't the frontline favourite among officers at the time of his selection. He blows Mike Clement out of the water academic wise. But Clement has far more front line skills eg working in the undercover programme. Yes, a commissioner to a degree has to be a politician, but he also sets the tone for officers and staff who work under him. Having the support of your front line is a great way to start and build a culture. At the moment if you believe The Police Association and talkback( police officers calling in), morale is low. Serving officers don't believe police HQ has their backs. An example of that is Costa not arming police as a matter of routine. I wonder if Clement would have?
''I think they get pretty thorough training both at the Police College & on the streets. You don’t need a lifetime of abuse & violence to learn what it’s like & how to deal with it. It’s not shied away from as part of their training.''
I disagree with that for the reasons given. Others can make their own mind up regarding my views.
''So you say. Did they confiscate your gun(s) or are you drawing an analogy with some other different type of interaction with police that you see as their being unreasonable, bullying, or in some other way unfair or unprofessional.''
Nothing to do with guns, but everything to do with attitude. Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking.
He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser. My peripheral vision picked up the other officers grinning. The officer questioning me gave them a wry smile, looked back at me and said '' well, bugger off.'' That was it. To this day, I don't have a clue what went down. He didn't even ask for my particulars. I think they just wanted a little fun on a boring Sunday morning at my expense.
Another time in a Bunnings carpark, I was stopped by two cops who demanded to see what was in my bag. I was just opening my bag when a staff worker called out to the officers and pointed to another person. I received no apology. Something like: ''sorry mate, wrong person.'' would have been nice.
I could recount other incidents. I'm not anti cop. They have a shit job…but, as the years roll on, I'm losing more respect for them. In fact, I wonder if the cops have lost a passion for their job, and just consider us all crooks? That said most cops I have dealt with have been decent good people, its just that growing feral element that I have encountered that worries me.
Clement may have had the background & skills to handle front line police with more support from them because they believed he “had their back”.
I don’t know whether he’d have had them all now routinely armed or whether he’d have arrived at the same situation they’re at now at with Tactical Response Teams with AOS level training (who have immediate access to firearms if needed) being trialled.
These seem like a mere step away from the Tactical Response Teams, which I recall weren’t being used as originally intended (they were reportedly even seen doing routine traffic stops) but were dumped because of more heavily policed communities’ & political opposition. They were possibly dumped too early, they could perhaps have been simply better managed & more appropriately tasked.
If crims keep shooting at unarmed coppers, they’ll be routinely armed eventually. There’ll be enough public support for it once we start having too many police fatalities & a big enuf % of the cops demand the right to be armed or they’ll leave the force. I hope it doesn’t come to that soon, but one day it might. Then some wrongful & accidental police shootings will probably happen.
After doing a bit more googling to find out what happened to Clement’s IPCA complaint, it turns out he was the front runner for the Commissioner’s job & someone leaked that he had an IPCA investigation underway & torpedoed his chances. The actions he took that was being investigated for some might consider were creditable & a sign of his moral values.
The personal experiences you recount would have irritated me too. These days I do find some younger cops are too abrupt to the point of rudeness if you ask them what’s going on. You might just get an annoyed scowl & “Move on please”. The days of the friendly (always tall) cop on the beat in the main street are long gone. Even as teenage “larrikins” we could always have a brief chat & a joke with the cops. They always seemed calm & skilled at defusing tense situations of young fullas full of booze eyeing each other up for a scrap.
But then, people had more respect for the police. I’d like to see a return to Community-based police stations & cops on the beat in the streets, where they & the Community get to know & trust each other, but I doubt it will happen. It would cost more than governments will want to spend. I also think we need more police.
''But then, people had more respect for the police. I’d like to see a return to Community-based police stations & cops on the beat in the streets, where they & the Community get to know & trust each other.''
That would be a great help. Unfortunately, it will never happen, as you have pointed out. It's all about the one size fits all corporate model. Nuances in delivery of service doesn't fit into that model.
Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking. He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser.
Reminds me of a similar incident I experienced in '72 when I was doing the hippie thing. I was talking to my girlfriend who was in her car, through her driver window, standing alongside, when a car pulled up on the other side of me with two guys in the front seats.
The one in the passenger seat asked me what I was doing. Surprised, I said "None of your business." Turned back to my girlfriend, continuing the conversation. Didn't even hear him leap out of the car. Next thing I knew he'd slammed me up against her car.
Being non-violent, I didn't resist & it was a bit of a blur immediately except he (I think) asked me further questions, which I answered. I vaguely recall pointing out that I was talking to my girlfriend. Maybe he asked her to confirm but I have no memory of that. Anyway, he cooled down & jumped back in the car & they drove off. Both car & guys were mufti.
We called them dees in those days. Detectives, that meant. In Auckland, common. Dunno whether all were drug squad or not. Of course the yanks called all cops pigs & that caught on here too. However they didn't all act like pigs. The ones that invaded Ak university & beat up some professors during the Agnew visit did stick up their hand for that honorific.
Crikey, compared to you I got off lightly, Dennis. Lucky they didn't have tasers in those days or you may have received ''the jerkies” to go with your body slam.
Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking.
He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser. My peripheral vision picked up the other officers grinning. '
In my 40s would be my guess. The young officer was a Maori, so BOY wasn't a racial slur but more a normal way for Maori to talk … It was one smooth sentence '' where are you going boy?'' Maybe I shouldn't have used a comma in the above comment.
KJT. I don’t think there was as much illegality as rumoured, it’s a lot harder to get away with it now and the kids were a lot more aware of their worth in a restrained labour market, so the difference between legal and cashies was marginal for the risk. One salient point was that most of the money paid was really spent locally on essentials and fun stuff like festivals and touristy stuff, and total hours worked were generally not close to full time as they were moving around to see the country and spend time with fellow travellers.
I deliberately went foe 200k rather than 300k as a lot of them didn’t need to work such as those from the wealthier countries whose parents gave them a poultice of money to get out of the house and when those ones did turn up they were pretty lazy.
In the SI if you are a local and aren’t working you must be incapacitated or similar and there are a still huge number of my over 70 cohort who are still working and not generally because of nessesity either.
,
Certainly was a large proportion in Northland.
Whether the tourists needed to work, or not, the local youngsters we can see now, who can finally put their hospitality, or agriculture training to use, shows how many of those jobs, were filled by temporary visa’s or under the table backpackers.
As for the idea that anyone who wants to work can now get a job.
There are many barriers to employment. Wages below the cost of living and lack of accommodation where the work is, are just two.
Fab to see mainstreamers displaying their ability to predict the future but they forgot to mention whether they used scrying, the pendulum, or reading tea leaves.
Being mainstreamers there's no way they would have been able to use astrology or the I Ching, of course! I guess it's a genuine sign that the long hegemony of science is finally abating. About time!
Which the Romans learnt from the Etruscans, and was eagerly embraced by scientists. Even today today they dissect plenty of creatures – although the extent to which they learn about the future seems surprising moot…
They're looking at said viscera with the wrong eyes – it's the shine on the surface of liver etc. that told and foretold 🙂 (a la crystal ball/magic mirror)
I favour the mystique button in the psyche (that gets pushed) theory which I agree is likely to be triggered by a shiny effect…
However I gather that one finding of (the pseudoscience of) psychology is that people tend to see what they're looking for.
The mainstreamers doing the predicting were probably seeking to reassure both themselves & readers that the future will be same old same old. Which it probably won't be.
We certainly interpret what we "see", using our cultural lens, but the inner-eye is clearer and surely looking straight into the heart of the matter. How to unfilter, and damp-down all that interpreting…
And we now have scientific incorporation of chaos, which means the future is as likely to be produced by discontinuity as continuity.
Xi dismounts the dais after watching the goose-stepping, trips, and his skull doesn't bounce well. Chief Assistant Honcho assumes command as Xi lies in coma, decides to invade Taiwan while Sleepy Joe is having a nap, initiates WWIII.
Except not! When the order goes out to fire the missiles from the American, Russian & Chinese leaders, nothing happens after their red buttons get pushed. The old 1950s wiring has become so corroded that the electrons encounter gaps they can't jump across.
The Omicron variant is perhaps the most contagious respiratory virus ever; nothing any govt could have done would have prevented or changed it in the slightest once it arrives. Public 'health policy' as we know it has become irrelevant.
There is significant short term disruption here in Australia, but for the most part life is going on. People are scaling back their activities for the duration, and learning to 'live with it'.
The surge will peak here in Australia within the month and the reasonable expectation is that it will settle back into being another endemic virus similar to seasonal influenza or the common cold. It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it.
"nothing any govt could have done would have prevented or changed it in the slightest once it arrives."
Unless it was preceded by another version, say, an delta version, that, un-checked by Government programmes, had devastated the community, choked the hospital system and wrecked the economy, in which case, the Omicron version would race through an already incapacitated society to much greater ill effect.
You mean that as being analogous to a government response wrecking an economy and devastating communities?
Since there appears to be zero immunity conferred by Delta, the effect of Omicron on health care systems will be what it's going to be. (Though, not firing a good number of nurses, doctors and other health care workers might have crossed someones mind in light of the fact “pandemic”)
Of course, a government response that had followed their own pandemic pre-planning documents and allowed for the use of efficacious anti-virals in the early stage of infection: that had promoted simple health messages like Vit D and eating better food and possibly exercising more…
Although, I forget – that messaging would not have had any effect.
Far better to message around accepting the injection of an experimental medicine (that doesn't do as advertised) and back it up with coercive pressures while offering precisely zero actual pre-hospital treatments.
"It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it."
Except of course that naturally acquired immunity will similarly apply selective pressure to the virus…but with greater risk of a bad outcome compared to vaccine-acquired immunity.
Do you know how many, if any, mutations of concern have arisen in highly vaccinated countries? Do you really believe all vaccines mutate viruses, or only this virus or a particular vaccine?
How would you explain the elimination/reduction rather than mutations of diseases like smallpox, polio, measles leading to greater outbreaks once vaccines were introduced?
I'm not seeing any pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any "evolutionary pressure". The covid virus does that quite naturally, and all by itself.
It mutated thanks to its spread though numerous populations
Yup. That was mouse populations apparently. (And then it jumped back to human populations) 🙂
I'm not seeing any pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any "evolutionary pressure".
The risk of pushing the evolution of a virus by deploying a leaky 'vaccine' on a universal basis is very real and has been documented and studied in Marek's virus.
The science of complexity validates your view. Indeterminate trajectories are inherent. Both systems and subsystems get triggered into shifts of state by tiny environmental triggers.
Nature is the environment (Gaia is the whole system), humanity & covid are subsystems interacting. In this relational view, simplicity lies in the binary ebb & flow of interaction between both subsystems and complexity lies in the multitude of systemic alterations within both.
In 2015, my collaborators and I published a scientific paper about a chicken virus you have likely never heard of. At the time, it got some media attention and has been cited by other scientists in the years since…
… Sacrificing chickens was not the solution the poultry industry adopted for Marek’s disease virus. Instead, more potent vaccines were developed. Those newer vaccines provided excellent disease control, and no lethal breakthrough variants of Marek’s have emerged in over 20 years…
… In the history of human and animal vaccines, there have not been many cases of vaccine-driven evolution. But in every one of them, individuals and populations have always been better off when vaccinated…
… At every point in the 50-year history of vaccination against Marek’s disease, an individual chicken exposed to the virus was healthier if it was vaccinated. Variants may have reduced the benefit of vaccination, but they never eliminated the benefit. Evolution is no reason to avoid vaccination.
This. From an author of the Marek's study you're concerned about.
And the vaccines involved were a completely different type. The key issue with COVID is the vaccines we have do not prevent infection to any useful degree, yet they impose a selection pressure.
Do you have any other examples of the pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any evolutionary pressure? It seems some modelling suggests it might happen, but I can't find anything other that these suppositions.
Otoh – a vaccine more targeted to the omicron would reduce that likelihood by being less 'leaky'? That's what the WHO is looking for.
Do you have any other examples of the pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any evolutionary pressure?
Obviously not. We've never done a mass roll out of a leaky vaccine in the middle of a pandemic of a highly infectious respiratory virus.
Your linked article is a de-facto admission that the vaccines have been a total failure in preventing Omicron. Also note how hilarious is this?
And why would we be vaccinating against Omicron? All the evidence to date tells us it's acute illness is considerably less severe. It's too soon to know about it's long term chronic impact, but all other things being equal, it's probably going to be of less concern than seasonal influenza.
At which point the mandates have no justification whatsoever.
Obviously not. We've never done a mass roll out of a leaky vaccine in the middle of a pandemic of a highly infectious respiratory virus.
I meant some other human disease, – like flu.I should have been clearer.
Your linked article is a de-facto admission that the vaccines have been a total failure in preventing Omicron. Also note how hilarious is this?
I think by now everyone knows the purpose of the current vaccines in Omicron is to cut (not wipe-out) transmission. And to reduce hospitalisations and serious illness, so they definitely hvae value, but it would be of huge benefit to have improved prevention – especially if another mutation pops up. Also, people will get tired of going for boosters every few months. Will be good to get something with more efficacy.
And why would we be vaccinating against Omicron?
As above – reduce transmission, reduce hospitalisation, reduce serious illness
At which point the mandates have no justification whatsoever
As above – plus add in save the health system and healthcare workers – no-one should have to work in the environment they're expected to. All the politicians seem to treat them as robots that can keep going and going with little respite.
Agree that with a vaccine better at preventing disease we'll have little need for mandates beyond what we have for seasonal flu.
Re: Reuters – I'll keep that in mind. I linked in this case, because I'd seen the head of WHO making the statement about new vaccines on Al Jazeera, and this article pretty much covers that ground.
Get your booster to stay safe this summerhttps://covid19.govt.nz
People aged 18 and over can now get a vaccine booster 4 months after their second dose. Visit a walk-in vaccination centre or book by calling 0800 28 29 26. You can book online from 17 January.
The mental gymnastics required to undermine NZ's vaccination programme during the COVID-19 pandemic are extraordinary.
And why would we be vaccinating against Omicron?
How Mild Is Omicron Really? [14 January 2022]
“I think it’s pretty clear Omicron causes less severe disease than the Delta variant, but that’s not saying much,” University of Western Australia epidemiologist and biostatistician Zoë Hyde writes in an email to The Scientist. “We know that Delta was more than twice as severe as the original strain, and if Imperial College is right to say that Omicron is about 40-45% less likely to put people in hospital [than Delta was], we’re back to 2020 but with a more contagious strain.”
Omicron: Is 'natural immunity' better than a vaccine? [14 January 2022]
And how does Omicron factor into immunity? The Omicron wave is so new there is no conclusive data available yet on the quality of immunity provided via infection, but it's likely to be similar to other variants, said Schulze zur Wiesch. That means that if you've been infected with Omicron over the past few weeks, you're probably safe from reinfection for the next few months.
But because Omicron has a higher transmissibility rate than previous strains, higher levels of antibodies are needed to prevent infection. Immunity gained via only two vaccines or infection to earlier COVID variants (like Delta or Alpha) won't necessarily prevent Omicron infection, he said, adding that regardless of whether you've been previously infected or double-vaccinated, a booster is your best defense against (re)infection.
The effectiveness of protection against Omicron provided by "natural immunity" from other COVID variants may be as low as 19%, according to a study conducted by the Imperial College London COVID-19 response team in late December 2021.
With that said, early findings generally indicate that as long as you have some form of immunity — either through two doses of a vaccine or past infection plus a singe dose — your course of an Omicron infection is likely to be mild.
… Despite the unknowns, one thing is clear to Schulze zur Wiesch: Unless you were infected by Omicron in the last week or two, a vaccine or booster is your best chance at avoiding a COVID infection and giving it to others.
Whether anyone will be held to account for the moral and health security failures unfolding in various countries, only time will tell – thank goodness Australia’s (and NZ’s) level of vaccination against COVID-19 is relatively high.
Daily COVID-19 death toll in Australia, 1 – 15 January 2022:
14, 6, 7, 5, 18, 12, 18, 25, 23, 22, 27, 49, 57, 56, 49.
The point that you seem to have missed is that newer strains (specifically 'hot' strains) could survive in the leaky vaccine environment and those 'hot' variants killed any unvaccinated 'sentinel' chickens that were housed next to vaccinated ones.
In normal situations, the 'hot' variants would not have come to dominate, as they would have been too 'hot' for the environment they were trying to replicate in and died out.
If you want to (very darkly) project that scenario into a possible pathway for the leaky vaccines we’re using for Covid, then ‘hot’ strains develop, and without an endless round of boosters to keep effectiveness topped up, people die – all people either not vaccinated or whose vaccination lapses for some reason or another.
edit – the way to avoid any such possibility is to target the use of leaky vaccines, as is done with flu. Better still. Use whatever effective ant–virals we have to hand (cocktails of known drugs if necessary), as per the governments Pandemic Preparedness documents.
The Barrington group of scientists are herd immunity advocates and the Declaration was funded by a Libertarian thinktank that is also associated with climate change denial
The John Snow Memorandum highlights the errors of the "mass infection" argument.
"It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it."
The evolving argument of some that somehow the Covid vaccine is putting evolutionary pressure on the disease is another Barrington style argument. An interesting study relating to this looks specifically at 'leaky vaccinations'
"Here, we use transmission experiments involving Marek disease virus (MDV) in chickens to show that vaccination with a leaky vaccine substantially reduces viral load in both vaccinated individuals and unvaccinated contact individuals they infect. Consequently, contact birds are less likely to develop disease symptoms or die, show less severe symptoms, and shed less infectious virus themselves, when infected by vaccinated birds. These results highlight that even partial vaccination with a leaky vaccine can have unforeseen positive consequences in controlling the spread and symptoms of disease."
And you have some evidence to challenge the study's authors and reviewers?
Who work in:
Division of Genetics and Genomics, The Roslin Institute, Easter Bush, Midlothian, United Kingdom
USDA, Agricultural Research Service, US National Poultry Research Center, Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America
Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences & Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Stanford University, USA
Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil
I what way do you imagine you have any reason to think you are more qualified to pass judgement than an actual Professor of Immunology?
No, I am merely qualified to trust the authors of a report that was published in The Lancet in October two years ago, which is now quite clearly supported by a deluge of data, and which pointed out that
"Controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive."
It may be of interest to others reading this thread that the John Snow Memorandum is a grass roots initiative, that unlike the Barrington declaration, has not received any outside or politically motivated funding. It is a collaborative, inclusive initiative supported by 6,900 scientists, researchers & healthcare professionals who believe that robust public health measures, like those implemented by Japan, New Zealand and Vietnam can control transmission of Covid and allow life to return to near normal.
I certainly do not support the rantings of a defensive Professor who has consistently supported the idea of herd immunity, the opening up schools, workplaces and borders and who argues the nonsense that:
There is currently no medical emergency, but you have been cultivating such a condition for two years now because of lust for power, budgets and control
Controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive."
That made sense two years ago and back then I would have agreed totally. Time has passed and it's clear now that all low cost and effective therapeutics were to be rigorously sidelined, and the vaccines turned out neither particularly safe nor especially effective.
Face it – Omicron has rendered the entire global vaccination program to date pretty much a waste of money, and their mandates have caused an immense amount of social polarisation and discord. And that may not even be the worst of it.
The vaccines have not saved us – and yet the moral and political power allocated to them ensures their enthusiasts will double down forever.
A study completed in S.Africa (which supercedes the very early study that suggested the Covid vaccine may not be effective against Omicron), was published on 29 Dec 2021. This study compared 133,437 Omicron Covid positive PCR test results of fully vaccinated and non vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
The study results indicated that two shots of the Pfizer vaccination is 70% effective against Omicron, i.e. still effective but not as effective as the 90% protection provided against the Delta variant.
There are no population based studies as yet confirming Pfizer's lab results showing a booster shot of the vaccine increases antibody protection 25-fold compared with the initial two-dose series
However, HERE is an excellent Twitter thread just published by a British epidemiologist summarising the UK Health Security Agency's latest review of the infection severity risk of Omicron
That letter is around general hospitalisation for Omicron and includes 'incidentally +ve' hospital patients. That's fair enough, but not the same as looking at fully vaccinated and non vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
That paper you linked states – Unless otherwise stated, ‘transmission’, ‘virus’, and ‘viral load’ refer to the pathogenic MDV strain and not the vaccine virus strain.
And since it's 'vaccine virus strains' that are the issue at hand….
In the original study from 2015, – Our data show that anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.
&
To confirm that virus shed into the environment was a robust proxy for overall bird-to-bird transmission potential, we co-housed birds infected with our three most virulent strains with immunologically-naïve sentinel birds (Experiment 2). When unvaccinated birds were infected with the two most lethal strains (Md5 and 675A), they were all dead within 10 days (Fig 2A), before substantial viral shedding had begun (S2 Fig). Consequently, no sentinel birds in those isolators became infected (Fig 2B) and none died (Fig 2C). In contrast, when HVT-vaccinated birds were infected with either of those hyperpathogenic strains, they survived for 30 days or more (Fig 2A), allowing substantial viral shedding (S2 Fig). All co-housed sentinels consequently became infected (Fig 2B) and went on to die as a result of MDV infection
Locus. Do you even scan (never mind read) the links you post? I'm going to skip the fact you used a wikileaks source as being somehow worthwhile and just mention that "the conversation" link claims –
The declaration begins with the false premise that governments intend to lock down society
I guess folks were dreaming.
It also was not funded by the Koch Brothers (a Libertarian thinktank that is also associated with climate change denial) – that being an endlessly repeated smear intended to have people dismiss what signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration were attempting to bring up for public debate and discussion.
Fck. Saint Fauci is on record as demanding the public debate be quashed before it could get started (via hit jobs and smear pieces).
Locus. Do you even scan (never mind read) the links you post? I'm going to skip the fact you used a wikileaks source as being somehow worthwhile and just mention that "the conversation" link claims –
Why have you decided to make this a personal attack?
One of my links was to Wikipedia, (why would you say "wikileaks"?), which I use as an open source of basic information. In this case I used it for the definition of the Barrington Declaration, and a summary of who has challenged it. What was noted in Wikipedia was that the
Bylines Times journalist Nafeez Ahmed described the AIER as a "institution embedded in a Koch-funded network that denies climate science while investing in polluting fossil fuel industries".
There are several credible media sources that have identified libertarian organisations partnered with or funding the AIER. This is an interesting review reported in The Guardian
On the other hand, when I'm providing information about important recent studies I reference the scientific or medical journals that the studies were published in. I do this because they are peer reviewed.
I'm heartily sick of people using antivax lie promoting websites as a 'source of truth'.
The economy doesn’t work if people can’t work. So the first economic priority during a pandemic must be to keep people healthy enough to keep working, producing, delivering and buying.
Well I never, who'd have thunk it?
Perhaps, just perhaps, our government's approach was right all along! I'm gobsmacked!
Yep, and yet "Stupid is as stupid does" – individual vaccine hesitancy is fair enough, but promoting vaccine hesitancy is giving aid and comfort to the virus, imho.
To anyone eligible for a vaccine booster – please, please, get it as soon as possible.
Get your booster to stay safe this summer
People aged 18 and over can now get a vaccine booster 4 months after their second dose. Visit a walk-in vaccination centre or book by calling 0800 28 29 26. You can book online from 17 January.
Opinion: Does the vaccine actually work? Details in the data
[14 January 2022]
We now have 'irrefutable' proof vaccinations reduce chances of catching COVID We now have proof that vaccinations reduce our chances of catching COVID. Take the data from Science Table (the COVID-19 advisory for Ontario) athttps://covid19-sciencetable.ca/ontario-dashboard/that shows that people are 1.6 times more likely to catch COVID if they are unvaccinated. To be clear, I’m not worried about catching it myself, but I surely don’t want to pass it on to aging parents or immuno-compromised friends who could die from it.
Since Omicron is so catchy, and many more people will likely catch it, let’s look at the data showing that vaccination reduces symptoms of the illness, and reduces the need for hospitalization and ICU beds. From the same website, unvaccinated people are 4.75 times more likely to be admitted to hospital, and 10.8 times more likely to end up in the ICU.
We should be screaming these numbers from the rooftops, not shaming people for not understanding the rationale for vaccination. I don’t believe that anyone WANTS our health-care professionals off sick, unable to care for all other health emergencies. I don’t believe that anyone WANTS to be the reason that someone else can’t get life-saving treatment because they are taking up a bed in hospital or the ICU with COVID that they could be managing at home if they had gotten the vaccination. I don’t believe that anyone WANTS to bring the virus to their grandparents and see them end up in hospital fighting for their lives.
Anti-vax and vaccine hesitant: what is the impact of those refusing to get jabbed? [14 January 2022]
What impact is all this having? There’s no doubt that the unvaccinated are making the pandemic considerably worse. The ONS found that the Covid death rate in England among people who had a second jab was 96% lower than in those who were unvaccinated between January and October last year.
At present, the risk of hospitalisation from the Omicron variant is 90% lower for those who have received a booster shot. Conversely, the UK Health Security Agency estimates that unvaccinated adults are around eight times more likely to be admitted to hospital than those who have been jabbed.
The latest figures show that unvaccinated patients accounted for 61% of the patients admitted to critical care with Covid-19 in the UK in December, though they make up only 10% of the population. Obviously these cases add greatly to the pressure on the NHS. It’s also clear now that though vaccinated people do contract and spread Covid, unvaccinated people do so at higher rates.
My wife, Clare, is an optimist and I find it galling that she refuses to share some of my more negative predictions about the future. I sometimes wonder if her optimism is a form of self-delusion.
If so, she’s not alone. According to researchers from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, self-delusion is very common. In a recent paper in the journal Philosophical Psychology, they describe different techniques we use to protect our fragile egos from the harsh realities of life. Many of these techniques, I must admit, I recognise.
First, there is the ‘reorganisation of beliefs’. An example of this is parents who are convinced their child is brilliant and blame bad grades on the teacher. Another technique, if you are determined to hold on to your beliefs, is to avoid going anywhere where those beliefs might be challenged. And if they are challenged, why not just reject what you are being told by casting doubt on the credibility of the source?
Finally, you can just tune out the stuff you don’t want to hear. Perhaps your doctor tells you that you are in good shape but could do with losing some weight. All you hear is: ‘You’re in good shape.’
Does it matter? In many circumstances a bit of self-delusion can be a good thing.
Amen to that – otoh some self-awareness of self-delusion tendencies can be a good thing too, particularly during a pandemic.
This is behaving like the 1918 Call It What You Like Flu epidemic which apparently ripped through the country in 3 months, only sparing those who may have had some residual immunity from the 1890 Russian version. Imagine the carnage this time if we didn’t have the medical knowledge and technology and a VACCINE that is giving an elevated level of protection. Omicron would be killing all of those compromised by co-morbidities that are now covered if the slower Alpha and Delta had not bought us time and cover.
Not to mention excellent political courage and intelligence and empathy.
The fact that the PMs boyfriend cant even front to say I was wrong shows me the PM is not my leader,Ive got to find another party,it wont be someone who treats me and my country with contempt.
good on you. glad that you have thought long and deeply about all of the this. cant be going off half-cocked. when you find that party, dont moan when they treat you and the country as an experiment, asset to be flogged, etc, etc.
Freedom means people can make decisions that other people disagree with. If you don't want people to have that freedom then feel free to find a more authoritarian party.
Freedom means people can make decisions that other people disagree with
Yup. Like declining the opportunity to have an injection that does not perform as advertised, and not facing life altering consequences imposed by third parties (ie – government)
If the partner of the PM commenting incorrectly on the type of Covid test available (a news story with zero relevance to all the policies and decisions of government) is your definition of
someone who treats me and my country with contempt.
then I hate to break it to you but you will not find a single country – never mind party, never mind politician – who meets your standards.
Tip: if you're going to act outraged, don't chew the scenery. No Oscar for you.
please remember that people can read your previous posts, to find out how attached you are to said party. So ease up on the porkies. "I'm loyal Labour but now I'm quitting" was already old about a week after the internet began.
you're skating on thin ice there. If there is a connection between CG and Sroubek, put up the evidence. Otherwise stop with the slurs. This is a political blog, make a political argument or go to FB.
The Danes have accused Russia of cooking up a bogus letter to a US Senator, purportedly from Greenland's foreign minister, saying there would be an independence referendum. US Senator Tom Cotton reckons he gave Trump the idea to buy Greenland.
Footage of pretty sizeable unstoppable sequence of tsunami waves maybe a metre or more high currently hitting Nukualofa just shown on 1ewes at 6.
Coming from that erupting Tongan volcano, which is said to be exploding so loudly it’s rattling windows in Nukualofa, 65 kilometres away. The skies are so full of ash it’s quite dark there, according to a local female reporter.
Fingers crossed there are no fatalities, there have been tsunami warnings over the past few days telling people to stay away from waterfronts & beaches, but the reporter is clearly very concerned about some people living on low lying islands & peninsulas with no high ground to go to.
Sounds like the tsunamis are hitting all the Tongan islands.
Sailed past Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha-apai 4 years ago on passage from NZ. It had only erupted and appeared above sea the year before and wasn't on the charts. Tongatapu and the Ha-apais are low lying islands with no hills to speak of so must be pretty scary for anyone on the coast. We last had a tsunami warning in Great Barrier Island when the earthquake happened in Kaikoura. Slept through the warnings and nothing happened, but friends on a boat in Whangamata were to to go up a hill.
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Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Dell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...
Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...
In today’s digital world, screenshots have become an indispensable tool for communication and documentation. Whether you need to capture an important email, preserve a website page, or share an error message, screenshots allow you to quickly and easily preserve digital information. If you’re an Asus laptop user, there are several ...
A factory reset restores your Gateway laptop to its original factory settings, erasing all data, apps, and personalizations. This can be necessary to resolve software issues, remove viruses, or prepare your laptop for sale or transfer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to factory reset your Gateway laptop: Method 1: ...
“You talking about me?”The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...
Roger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past week’s editions.State of humanity, 20242024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?Full story Share ...
Determining the hardest sport in the world is a subjective matter, as the difficulty level can vary depending on individual abilities, physical attributes, and experience. However, based on various factors including physical demands, technical skills, mental fortitude, and overall accomplishment, here is an exploration of some of the most challenging ...
The allure of sport transcends age, culture, and geographical boundaries. It captivates hearts, ignites passions, and provides unparalleled entertainment. Behind the spectacle, however, lies a fascinating world of financial investment and expenditure. Among the vast array of competitive pursuits, one question looms large: which sport carries the hefty title of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
ACT's Rural Communities and Veterans spokesman Mark Cameron responds to cancellations and protests of ANZAC Day commemorations in Wellington. He says, "These pitiful attempts to detract from ANZAC Day are not at all indicative of the feelings of mainstream ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Pōneke based peace activists staged a silent protest at the ANZAC day service to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in war and genocide, and urge the government to take concrete steps to stop the genocide in Palestine. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magdalena M.E. Bunbury, Postdoctoral Researcher, James Cook University Burial with a horse at the Rákóczifalva site, Hungary (8th century AD).Sándor Hegedűs, Hungarian National Museum, CC BY How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been ...
Amanda Thompson doesn’t really do Anzac Day. But what she does do is remember the people she knew who had a lifetime to remember stuff they didn’t really want to, because of a war they didn’t ask for. And she does make Anzac biscuits.First published in 2021.All my ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Willis, Postdoctoral Researcher, CSIRO Xavier Boulenger/Shutterstock In the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon ...
With our collective remembrance, and steadfast belief in our common humanity, we strengthen our hope and resolve to do what we can to foster dialogue and understanding, and to heal divisions in our pursuit of peace. ...
Principal reasons for the opposition is the loss of the public’s democratic right to have “a fair say” and the vital need for a government free from corruption, said Casey Cravens of Dunedin, president of the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater ...
Never mind the scoreboard – in the 2000 Bledisloe Cup decider, the real trans-Tasman battle was won before kickoff.First published in 2016. The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game pre-Y2K was a 22-18 loss to South Africa in the ...
I’m on the wrong side of 40, I never pursued creative work and now my job is killing my soul. Help! Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,May I start with the least original conversation opener you’re likely to hear around the motu at the moment, particularly in Wellington: ...
“Never again - No AUKUS” was the message of the wreath laid at this morning’s national ANZAC Day commemorative service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park this morning by the Stop AUKUS group. ...
Until this month, Auckland swimmer Hazel Ouwehand had never met a qualifying time in an Olympic event for a New Zealand team, even as a junior. Now she’s very likely off to the Paris Olympics after swimming well under the qualifying standard in the 100m butterfly twice – both in ...
While Anzac Day has experienced a resurgence in recent years, our other day of remembrance has slowly faded from view.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Original illustrations by Hope McConnell.First published in 2022.The high school’s head girl and ...
Australian and New Zealand volunteers fought together in the Waikato War, yet still its place in the Anzac tradition is unacknowledged by our defence forces or Returned Services Association.First published in 2018.When I was a boy cub I attended Anzac Day services in the South Auckland suburb of ...
A poem by Wellington writer Tayi Tibble.Hoki Mai She kisses him goodbye with her eyes still wet and alight from their last swim in the Awatere river. At the train station celebration, she leads the Kapa Haka but her voice keeps breaking under and over itself like waves. ...
A poem from Bill Manhire’s 2017 book of verse Some Things to Place in a Coffin.My World War I Poem Inside each trench, the sound of prayer. Inside each prayer, the sound of digging. Image courtesy of Auckland War Memorial Museum. ...
There are three books I have wolfed down in one sitting over the last two years. Colleen Maria Lenihan’s gorgeous and sad debut Kōhine, Noelle McCarthy’s memoir Grand about becoming her mother and then unbecoming her, and now Hine Toa, a staunch yet gentle self-portrait by living legend Ngāhuia te ...
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Asia Pacific Report Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States. The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong Australian teddy bear bees are cute and fluffy, but get a look at that massive (unbarbed) stinger! James Dorey Photography Most of us have been stung by a bee and we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Roberts, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong Aussie~mobs/FlickrVictor Farr, a private in the 1st Infantry Battalion, was among the first to land at Anzac Cove just before dawn on April 25 1915. Victor Farr ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Gregory Moore I had the good fortune to care for the sugar gum at The University of Melbourne’s Burnley Gardens in Victoria where I worked for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University Just when we think the price of rentals could not get any worse, this week’s Rental Affordability Snapshot by Anglicare has revealed low-income Australians are facing a housing crisis like ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Holmes, Professorial Fellow in Sport, University of Canberra When the news broke last weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive to a banned drug in early 2021 and were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games six months later ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cally Jetta, Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead; College for First Nations, University of Southern Queensland Australian War MemorialAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, as well as sensitive historical information ...
RNZ News Melissa Lee has been ousted from New Zealand’s coalition cabinet and stripped of the Media portfolio, and Penny Simmonds has lost the Disability Issues portfolio in a reshuffle. Climate Change and Revenue Minister Simon Watts will take Lee’s spot in cabinet. Simmonds was a minister outside of cabinet. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University laurello/Shutterstock Some reports and popular books, such as Bill Gammage’s Biggest Estate on Earth, have argued that extensive areas of Australia’s forests were kept open through frequent burning by ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon framing the demotion of two ministers as the portfolios getting "too complex" is a charitable way of saying they weren't up to the job. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra With Jim Chalmers’s third budget on May 14, Australians will be looking for some more cost-of-living relief – beyond the tax cuts – although they have been warned extra measures will be modest. As ...
Analysis: Melissa Lee has lost the media portfolio and her spot in Cabinet after multiple failed attempts to find solutions for a media industry in crisis. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister announced Lee would be losing her spot in Cabinet along with her media and communications ministerial portfolio. The job ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Wilmot, Senior Lecturer, Film, Deakin University Among the many Australian who served during the second world war, there is a small group of people whose stories remain largely untold. These are the Muslim men and women who, while small in number, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Saunders, PhD Candidate, University of Canberra There has been much analysis and praise of Justice Michael Lee’s recent judgement in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Channel Ten. Many people were openly relieved to read Lee’s “forensic” and “nuanced” application of law ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathy Gibbs, Program Director for the Bachelor of Education, Griffith University zEdward_Indy/Shutterstock Around one in 20 people has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It’s one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood and often continues into adulthood. ADHD is diagnosed ...
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I am curious as to what data, what studies, what information Medsafe's experts used to decide it was safe to vaccinate children with Pfizer’s product?
I suspect over 8 million vaccinations to adults, in NZ alone, with serious side effects in less than double figures, for one.
Compelling real world evidence, that the vaccination is as harmless as anything gets.
Compared with the potential, proven, harm to children from covid, and the harm from their Teachers, Carers, elderly relatives, food suppliers etc, getting covid.
Unless like some on here,, you think every sneeze after covid vaccination, is because of the vaccination.
Wow. Just wow, only a few adverse reactions? Look at the medsafe data, which they themselves say is only about 5% of what actually happens. I too would love to see the data that medsafe used as the trial for the children's version was small and only for a short time.
How many times do we need to say?.
"Correlation is not causation".
If vaccination was "causing all this harm" don't you think it would be showing up in hospitalisations and excess deaths?
Where are we keeping all these "vaccine injured people"?
Meanwhile. Delta cases in NZ are dropping, despite easing restrictions. Because vaccination is working.
Again wow. You are aware of the heart issues surely. The MOH has put out an advisary letter about them. These people are turning up in our hospitals. In this case correlation does equal causation. Do we want this for our children?
Do you really want hundreds of children or their carers, sick or dying of COVID like the UK and USA?
The anti vaccers cognitive dissonance is mind boggling.
Again wow. Where are you getting this from. Worldwide children are not dieing of covid. The Danish, German and UK data tells us this. Why would we put children at a known risk of heart etc. issues when only those with comorbidities are in any way at risk from the disease. Why would we not just vaccinate those at risk rather than create risk with mass vaccination?
and wow to you. why would we educate everybody when only some want to learn? why not just educate those with potential ,rather than create knowledge with mass education.??
Weird analogy. Not even in the same ball park, but thank you for the laugh.
Worldwide, children are dying from Covid
Since 1 April 2020 in the USA alone (CDC official record of US deaths of children from COVID)
16,386,758 (more than 16 million) 12 to 18 year old in the US have received a COVID vaccination, and 7,844,160 (more than 7 million) 5 to 11 year olds have received a vaccination. (CDC official record of children who have received Covid vaccination in the USA)
24 million children in the US have received a Covid vaccination and only two deaths of children have been reported to VAERS. Both of these children were in fragile health before vaccination and had multiple chronic medical conditions. Independent investigation of these two cases did not suggest a causal link between death and vaccination
These are the FACTS from verified sources reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Multiple independently verified studies have shown significant reduction in severity of Covid symptoms, hospitalisation rate and deaths if you have received a Covid vaccination.
The unvaccinated who get Covid infect far more people, require more hospital intervention and this is driving some nation's health systems into the ground. We do not want this in New Zealand, which is why we are heading towards 95% vaccination of eligible people.
People who can't get their head around how the VAERS system works are certainly not people whose views on vaccination are rational.
And I am horrified that there are anti vaxxers who are arguing against vaccination of children. We should not let these misinformed people propose a herd immunity experiment on our children
anti-vaxxers are fighting a losing battle, ignoring history, science, common sense, empathy for others ,etc, etc, armed only with outrage, selfishness and stupidity. you can educate the stupid, but it doesnt stick. however, we do have a duty to these people, as fellow humans. they dont even understand anologies. the sad but interesting thing about ignoring medical science is you become a statistic and subject for autopsy earlier than usual.
Ok, 2 years use. Apart from that a long-winded ‘I don’t know’.
I part company with your view of harmless.
Where did you do your mind reading course? You are overdue for a refresher, or should that be a booster?
You can pop your Pfizer pom poms away for now,
You said you were curious as to what data, what studies, what information Medsafe's experts used to decide it was safe to vaccinate children with Pfizer’s product.
They have a website which gives contact details. I suggest you contact them and ask them. I'm sure you're serious enough about the questions to follow-up with them.
Overview here
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-authorizes-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-emergency-use-children-5-through-11-years-age
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-regulator-approves-use-of-pfizerbiontech-vaccine-in-5-to-11-year-olds
If you want to delve deeper there's links at the same sites
Thanks HS, I will have a look later.
Jessica Rose provides weekly VAERS updates here https://i-do-not-consent.netlify.app/
There are a lot of data.
The following youtube presentation is a bit of an overview from April last year (it's long)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMY2tdFNkRU
Six hundred children have been killed by COVID-19 in the US – World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org)
Which, as acknowledged by the CDC, is on the low side as daft Repub legislatures limit testing to hide the extent of their murderous culpability.
The 600 number of child deaths is essentially bogus. As Harvard Prof. of Medicine and Epidemiologist Martin Kulldorrf says below.
Dr. Kulldorff: "By now it’s about 350 or so reported deaths by COVID in the U.S. for children. We don’t even know how many of those are truly COVID, because nobody has bothered to go through all those electronic health records, which I think CDC should do, as Marty Makary, a professor at John Hopkins has been urging, but that hasn’t been done. So we don’t know exactly how many, but it is at most 350."
https://rightsfreedoms.wordpress.com/2021/08/20/harvard-epidemiologist-martin-kulldorff-on-vaccine-passports-the-delta-variant-and-the-covid-public-health-fiasco/
Only a few paragraphs into your link and the interviewee, Kulldorf, is factually wrong about Sweden.
Another Yank that cannot comprehend a world outside the USA.
So, Sweden did shut down schools did they?
They did. But not enough, apparently.
Uppsala University
Summary:
In Sweden, upper-secondary schools moved online while lower-secondary schools remained open during the spring of 2020. A comparison of parents with children in the final year of lower-secondary and first year of upper-secondary school shows that keeping the former open had limited consequences for the overall transmission of the virus. However, the infection rate doubled among lower-secondary teachers relative to upper-secondary ones.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210212101842.htm
The one country that could have definitively answered that question has apparently failed to collect any data. Bucking a global trend, Sweden has kept day care centers and schools through ninth grade open since COVID-19 emerged, without any major adjustments to class size, lunch policies, or recess rules. That made the country a perfect natural experiment about schools' role in viral spread that many others could have learned from as they reopen schools or ponder when to do so. Yet Swedish officials have not tracked infections among school children—even when large outbreaks led to the closure of individual schools or staff members died of the disease.
https://www.science.org/content/article/how-sweden-wasted-rare-opportunity-study-coronavirus-schools
A more up to date (and in some ways more thorough) presentation by Jessica Rose (Aug 27) can be found by typing VAERS UPDATE for CCCA (Canadian COVID Care Alliance) into youtube. Again – it's a long one.
The report she co-authored (note: Elsevier are being sued because they withdrew it after publication and right before the FDA were deciding on injecting children) is(n’t) here…A Report on Myocarditis Adverse Events in the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in Association with COVID-19 Injectable Biological Products
Thanks Bill, I will give them a look later.
There appears to be a lack of understanding of how our labour force worked pre-pandemic which may explain the problems now. The student visa scheme supplied a huge number ( up to 200,000 ) of casual workers doing the “ shit “ jobs, hotspo and horticultural work mainly. My take is that the offshore visitors replaced the young Kiwis who took off after school/ uni to do their OE and took up similar jobs offshore, and because of the 2 year limit meant starting a career over there made little sense. Now back here most are moving directly into careers and foregoing the “ holiday , year off “ jobs on returning and into their chosen career or previously trained-for occupations. Celebrating, a la Stuart Nash, getting rid of the ‘ kids in vans ‘ is very short sighted. We can and should not rely on Pasifika labour in the future ,we have almost cleaned out the islands of their own essential young very much to the detriment of their soon to be, hopefully recovering economies.
The estimate was up to 300 000 in NZ before covid.
Ignoring the many thousands more backpackers and tourists, working illegally for industries such as hospitality.
yep. A system that was suppressing wages and work conditions and making it hard for locals to make a living.
The police consolidate their power over people they consider outliers in our woke society. People who are supposedly a threat to the powers that be. Dare I say… people who may be able to defend themselves and fight back?
But in this and other cases??
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/127444880/family-want-apology-after-police-allegedly-mock-amputee-gun-owner
I have witnessed this type of behaviour. In fact I have been subjected to it by police in quite a random way.
The problem with the police starts with Cuddles Coster who won his commissionership over a far more abled candidate who was a real cop. One with a backbone. And that was the problem…the government whom I assume advises the GG in the selection process, wanted a politician, not a copper. Boy, did they get one.
A forlorn hope of mine would be an incoming National government telling Cuddles he's not wanted. If that cost the taxpayer big money to shift this guy sideways, I say money well spent.
The other problem I see is the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional. Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.
You should moonlight as a…comedian!
Not the sharpest, Blade.
In the drawer.
Neither is Cuddles Costa. But hey…let’s not let a old, now dead man, and the innocent public get in the way of decent liberal policing, eh Robert?
Now that attitude is as blunt as your pruning knife.
Please expand on you insightful comment. If you are having a problem expressing yourself ….plagiarise something.
Your critique of police recruits….pot bellies,never had a hiding….etc…seriously!
Perhaps you could try addressing the comment and actually contributing to the website. The article if true is pretty concerning.
I am responding to this….
'the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional. Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.'
Thx all the same.
Let me break it down for you: Let's use simple steps.
''The standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies. Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional.''
Growing up, I can't recall a police officer with a pot belly. There may have been some, but I never saw them.' So what's changed? KFC or accepted physical standards for a serving officer to maintain?
That leads to my concern with middleclass new recruits. First our education system takes away their ability to think on their feet( in my opinion). Their general home life is safe and secure. They have never had to tough it out over three days without food in their stomach. They have never been embarrassed in front of others because they have nothing. If they do wrong they are sent to their room or grounded. A feral may have done nothing wrong, but still ends up getting beaten by someone because that someone is having a bad hair day. That lifestyle builds resilience, viciousness and cunning. Into that cauldron must step a new police recruit. That's why I have seen them flounder, be out thought and scared. I don't blame them. Police college can only prepare you so far. In times past being from the middleclass wasn't a problem because life was still reality based and everyone was reasonably fit. The underclass problem was still developing.
The solution: Mandatory training for recruits in areas like South Auckland for two years probation. Mandatory social work in similar areas as part of police training.
I accompanied a social worker relative once on a house call. What I saw, heard and smelt is still burnt into my mind.
Here's a somewhat tame and in a way, funny clip. However, it points to a way of life a new recruit will have to understand and master…it's a doorway into the dark side of life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqbcxM97X_8
Presumably you have had a few hidings…in life…and look how you turned…out!
I rest my case.
My daughter was confronted by a similar piece of excrement in Point Erin Park, Ponsonby. I think she was more worried for her dog than herself.
The excrement picked on the wrong girl, shes First Dan Karate Shotokan. As far as im aware hes still taking his kai via a straw. lol
Good for her, Hetzer. Notice how in the clip no one came to the girls aid?
Thirty years ago, if a man did that, he would have been dealt to by other men? That would still happen today in the right part of town.
yeppers
Obviously he suffers from Short Man Syndrome. I went to YouTube & read some of the comments. Mostly, from the spelling & ghetto-style-affecteda-language used, Māori commenters I’d say.
They all thought he was a complete joke. Several commented on the hilariously peculiar strutting & the shorts-pulling. Others noticed they girls weren’t remotely scared & howvlucky he was one of them didn’t smack him.
A couple of commenters posted akong the lines “wait till they tell their brothers get there”.
Sounds like it was in Hamilton, from the comments.
That said, I did find it unsettling no males intervened & told him to piss off.
No one came to their aid because those young ladies looked like they were capable of kicking his sorry arse all on their own.
The point is even though those ladies could handle themselves, the fact is a woman was being kicked and nobody did a thing. Even the narrator mentions this dick stepping out a woman, but he does nothing. To be fair, society is so dangerous now that stepping in to help could cost you your life as happened a few years back when a man was knifed to death for trying to stop a feral beating a woman.
I'd like to know how many gang pads/homes have been raided versus other less scary homes
If they're 'worried about gangs and weapons surely they'd take on the groups more likely to fight back
Or did I just answer my own question…
Do you feel safer?
How many gang members make up the prison population??
Hoe did said prisoners make it to jail?
Did they knock on the door asking to be locked up, ? Or did the cops perchance go catch them bad boys???
Deadly reposte!
Robert you need to get out of Riverton more.
If the police did this to a gang then you know there'd be media stories claiming the police are racist by picking on gangs, that lawyers would be crawling out of the woodwork and that the gangs (the leaders are not stupid) would be hitting up whatever politician they own decrying these actions
Thats why they target the individuals in cases like this
You're right, Pucky. I was being needlessly flippant.
You do seem though, to have something of a fixation on gangs.
You're opinions about police behaviour with regard gangs are flavoured by your anger?
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
If its good enough for the police to use this to target individuals then why isn't it good enough for the police to target gang pads/HQs?
'They told Keenan they had reason to believe he had gang affiliations and was not fit to hold a firearms licence.'
Again the same reasoning, if its good enough for the individual then why not the gangs.
Remember this:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/mongrel-mob-leader-says-members-wont-hand-in-their-guns/DY3UKD2J3XFQJAYXOJXMWAE27M/
'Will gangs get rid of their weapons? No. Because of who we are, we can't guarantee our own safety," he told Stuff.'
You're not allowed firearms for protection so why isn't every gang pad getting raided?
Are you ok with different rules for different people?
I'm okay with taking the actions that are most effective, doable and safe.
Good, we're in agreement then.
So why aren't the police going after gangs more, like they did with this guy (who as it turned out did nothing wrong)
I'll repeat it again:
'I'd like to know how many gang pads/homes have been raided versus other less scary homes'
How many or are the police just going after safer, less politically advantaged, weaker individuals
We recognise your desire to know, Pucky!
When you find out, please share.
I'm sure it's on the search warrant form – a tickbox for "scary place".
I'm surprised that on a left wing political blog theres not more people up in arms about the police over stepping their boundaries
Anything to maintain the illusion of safety I suppose
Meh.
Reading the article, the "mocking" seems to have been a hot mic moment when they didn't know there was a mic – he was outside, no?
As for taking guns first and returning them after everything's sorted out and there wasn't really a problem, I'm cool with that. Better than the other way around.
The issue of antiques does create a problem, though, especially in regards to museums etc. Different threat level, but still enough to rob someone with – just ask Dick Turpin.
'They told Keenan they had reason to believe he had gang affiliations and was not fit to hold a firearms licence.'
Gee can you think of other places where people might have gang affiliations because I sure can't
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
Good thing they went after this guy rather than, oh I don't know, any of the known gang pads
But they knew this guy had guns.
Pretty sure that if the local cops had reliable info that guns were actually being stored at a particular gang pad at a particular time, they'd pop over for a visit there, too.
What you're asking for is nothing to do with gun control, you just want the cops to routinely turn over the houses of anyone with a possible connection to gangs without needing any evidence to do so.
‘But they knew this guy had guns.’
I have guns, should I be raided?
‘What you're asking for is nothing to do with gun control, you just want the cops to routinely turn over the houses of anyone with a possible connection to gangs without needing any evidence to do so.'
The police just did exactly that, I want them to do the exact same thing they did to this guy, under the exact same arms act cited.
I'll repeat that bit again for you since you obviously missed it:
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the nearest gang pad might just have members of a gang?
I believe that the reason the police target the individual and not the gang is because the individual is a softer target, does not have the same PR representation as the gangs, does not not have the same perceived support of the gangs and certainly doesn't have the same legal resources as the gang
Have the cops received information that you also have close gang connections while holding a firearms license?
Very likely. But I suspect your local "gang pad" does not have anyone with a current firearms license living there.
Theres a mob property in main street raetihi, last year I drove past , 2 detective type cars parked at the front door , officers inside , 2 uniform cops on the other side of the road covering the building with semi rifles at the ready, I'm picking they'd popped round for more than a cup of tea.
Should be hitting them once a month at least, once a week would be better.
Harry and harass the gangs, using legal means only, constantly. It won't stamp them out but it will curtail their activities.
I'd guess legal means ,means needing probably cause,you know verifiable, provable in court reasons for search?
Believe me I dont like gangs, but I'd like an unleashed law enforcement less.
100% agreed. Legal means only. No breaking the laws, the police are not above the laws themselves.
'Police did not have a search warrant, but gave Keenan a letter citing the 1983 Arms Act, suggesting he was either a member of, or had close affiliations with, a gang or organised crime group.'
If its good enough for one its good enough for all, don't you agree?
fixed it for you.
Safer? The safest thing to say is there's a lot of crap spouted about the police and gangs. Apparently the cops leave them alone, don't dare touch them.
Can't think why then there are regular stories in the media about big drug busts, and photos of drugs, and money and guns and reference to gang people arrested.
Theres a difference between busts and some cops turning up at someones door to confiscate some weapons which may or, especially in this case, may not be illegal
The police consolidate their power over people they consider outliers in our woke society. People who are supposedly a threat to the powers that be. Dare I say… people who may be able to defend themselves and fight back?
Against the police? People with guns who decide to fight back against the police have killed & wounded quite a few of our police officers. Several of these shooters have had criminal histories, or psychiatric/psychological issues. Not surprising the police are wary of such people ,or gun owners that are reported by the public as posting hateful comments and/or seemingly being mentally unstable.
But in this and other cases??
It certainly sounds like in this case it was a complete cock up & the police officers involved went about confiscating the guns in a very unprofessional manner, with the family claiming to have multiple evidences on CCTV video & audio of their total lack of professionalism. The fact they later wrote to him (but he’d died by the time the letter was received) to say he could collect his guns suggests they should not have confiscated them in the first place.
But we don’t know the full facts. E.g. He may have improved his home gun security in the intervening time. We’re only getting his family’s & lawyer’s side of the story. I think a complaint to the IPCA is definitely worthwhile.
I have witnessed this type of behaviour. In fact I have been subjected to it by police in quite a random way.
So you say. Did they confiscate your gun(s) or are you drawing an analogy with some other different type of interaction with police that you see as their being unreasonable, bullying, or in some other way unfair or unprofessional?
The problem with the police starts with Cuddles Coster who won his commissionership over a far more abled candidate who was a real cop. One with a backbone. And that was the problem…the government whom I assume advises the GG in the selection process, wanted a politician, not a copper. Boy, did they get one.
I won’t argue with that final conclusion of yours that they got a “politician” because the Police Commissioner’s job has nearly always required the appointee to be politically astute while maintaining the fiction that they always act completely independently of the government and are not subject to political direction or intervention.
But in my view the other primary contending candidate Mike Clement would not have been significantly different. By the time they get to Deputy Commissioner level they know the Commissioner’s job is a politically sensitive role requiring careful & cautious handling. One doesn’t go against the government’s wishes.
And Mike Clement was being investigated by the IPCA, accused of interfering in the appointment of a superintendent at the time the govt were looking to fill the role. I can’t recall the outcome but he subsequently retired with praises from the Police Minister.
A forlorn hope of mine would be an incoming National government telling Cuddles he’s not wanted. If that cost the taxpayer big money to shift this guy sideways, I say money well spent.
The next one might be a woman? A couple of female senior policepersons were in the original running.
The other problem I see is the standard of police officers. Some have pot bellies.
I haven’t seen any pot-bellied police officers down here in North Welly, but if a few middle-aged or older ones are desk-bound it wouldn’t be surprising. I don’t know what the physical fitness requirements to be maintained are once they’ve qualified to join the force.
Many are tattooed to the max and to me that looks unprofessional.
You’re just going to have to live with that. I’m not a great fan of tats either. But they’re so ubiquitous among younger folk now that it’d be crazy to rule out young men or women who meet the requirements because they have tatoos. And many 20-something young Māori I encounter proudly display moko on arms & legs to signal their iwi affiliations. We need more Māori Pirihama. Be crazy to rule them out.
Many new recruits are from middleclass families. That means they probably have never had a hiding in their life, or been subjected to constant irrational abuse from people who have more in common with primates than human beings. Many young officers are also deficient physically. That needs to change.
I think they get pretty thorough training both at the Police College & on the streets. You don’t need a lifetime of abuse & violence to learn what it’s like & how to deal with it. It’s not shied away from as part of their training. And some recruits DO come from that kind of background, as I understand it. No doubt they share their experiences during training.
As far as I know they still have to meet stringent physical fitness standards to get into the police.
Our police are not perfect. No country’s are. But I’d rather support them, & criticise them only when they act badly, than denigrate them all as a force. It’s not a job I’d take on.
Good post. I will let most of it stand as a different take ( some would say more reasoned) on what I wrote, believe and quoted.
Some cherry picking.
Regarding Costa. He wasn't the frontline favourite among officers at the time of his selection. He blows Mike Clement out of the water academic wise. But Clement has far more front line skills eg working in the undercover programme. Yes, a commissioner to a degree has to be a politician, but he also sets the tone for officers and staff who work under him. Having the support of your front line is a great way to start and build a culture. At the moment if you believe The Police Association and talkback( police officers calling in), morale is low. Serving officers don't believe police HQ has their backs. An example of that is Costa not arming police as a matter of routine. I wonder if Clement would have?
''I think they get pretty thorough training both at the Police College & on the streets. You don’t need a lifetime of abuse & violence to learn what it’s like & how to deal with it. It’s not shied away from as part of their training.''
I disagree with that for the reasons given. Others can make their own mind up regarding my views.
''So you say. Did they confiscate your gun(s) or are you drawing an analogy with some other different type of interaction with police that you see as their being unreasonable, bullying, or in some other way unfair or unprofessional.''
Nothing to do with guns, but everything to do with attitude. Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking.
He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser. My peripheral vision picked up the other officers grinning. The officer questioning me gave them a wry smile, looked back at me and said '' well, bugger off.'' That was it. To this day, I don't have a clue what went down. He didn't even ask for my particulars. I think they just wanted a little fun on a boring Sunday morning at my expense.
Another time in a Bunnings carpark, I was stopped by two cops who demanded to see what was in my bag. I was just opening my bag when a staff worker called out to the officers and pointed to another person. I received no apology. Something like: ''sorry mate, wrong person.'' would have been nice.
I could recount other incidents. I'm not anti cop. They have a shit job…but, as the years roll on, I'm losing more respect for them. In fact, I wonder if the cops have lost a passion for their job, and just consider us all crooks? That said most cops I have dealt with have been decent good people, its just that growing feral element that I have encountered that worries me.
Great work stories, Blade!
What do you mean?
Tripe (rhymes with hype)
Troll rhymes with Lol.
All fair points, & well made, Blade.
Clement may have had the background & skills to handle front line police with more support from them because they believed he “had their back”.
I don’t know whether he’d have had them all now routinely armed or whether he’d have arrived at the same situation they’re at now at with Tactical Response Teams with AOS level training (who have immediate access to firearms if needed) being trialled.
These seem like a mere step away from the Tactical Response Teams, which I recall weren’t being used as originally intended (they were reportedly even seen doing routine traffic stops) but were dumped because of more heavily policed communities’ & political opposition. They were possibly dumped too early, they could perhaps have been simply better managed & more appropriately tasked.
If crims keep shooting at unarmed coppers, they’ll be routinely armed eventually. There’ll be enough public support for it once we start having too many police fatalities & a big enuf % of the cops demand the right to be armed or they’ll leave the force. I hope it doesn’t come to that soon, but one day it might. Then some wrongful & accidental police shootings will probably happen.
After doing a bit more googling to find out what happened to Clement’s IPCA complaint, it turns out he was the front runner for the Commissioner’s job & someone leaked that he had an IPCA investigation underway & torpedoed his chances. The actions he took that was being investigated for some might consider were creditable & a sign of his moral values.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/deputy-commissioner-mike-clement-interfered-when-plum-job-given-to-senior-officer-censured-over-crude-sexual-jokes/GEPE7S5VOBBYA7DX3OYVR3KUYE/
The personal experiences you recount would have irritated me too. These days I do find some younger cops are too abrupt to the point of rudeness if you ask them what’s going on. You might just get an annoyed scowl & “Move on please”. The days of the friendly (always tall) cop on the beat in the main street are long gone. Even as teenage “larrikins” we could always have a brief chat & a joke with the cops. They always seemed calm & skilled at defusing tense situations of young fullas full of booze eyeing each other up for a scrap.
But then, people had more respect for the police. I’d like to see a return to Community-based police stations & cops on the beat in the streets, where they & the Community get to know & trust each other, but I doubt it will happen. It would cost more than governments will want to spend. I also think we need more police.
' It would cost more than governments will want to spend. I also think we need more police.'
Agree with both
Just a correction: The Tactical Response Teams are being trialled in place of the Armed Response Teams. (I used TRT above twice.)
''But then, people had more respect for the police. I’d like to see a return to Community-based police stations & cops on the beat in the streets, where they & the Community get to know & trust each other.''
That would be a great help. Unfortunately, it will never happen, as you have pointed out. It's all about the one size fits all corporate model. Nuances in delivery of service doesn't fit into that model.
Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking. He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser.
Reminds me of a similar incident I experienced in '72 when I was doing the hippie thing. I was talking to my girlfriend who was in her car, through her driver window, standing alongside, when a car pulled up on the other side of me with two guys in the front seats.
The one in the passenger seat asked me what I was doing. Surprised, I said "None of your business." Turned back to my girlfriend, continuing the conversation. Didn't even hear him leap out of the car. Next thing I knew he'd slammed me up against her car.
Being non-violent, I didn't resist & it was a bit of a blur immediately except he (I think) asked me further questions, which I answered. I vaguely recall pointing out that I was talking to my girlfriend. Maybe he asked her to confirm but I have no memory of that. Anyway, he cooled down & jumped back in the car & they drove off. Both car & guys were mufti.
We called them dees in those days. Detectives, that meant. In Auckland, common. Dunno whether all were drug squad or not. Of course the yanks called all cops pigs & that caught on here too. However they didn't all act like pigs. The ones that invaded Ak university & beat up some professors during the Agnew visit did stick up their hand for that honorific.
Crikey, compared to you I got off lightly, Dennis. Lucky they didn't have tasers in those days or you may have received ''the jerkies” to go with your body slam.
'
Three cops pulled up in a police car outside a dairy I had exited. As I walked away, one cop called out" Where are you going, boy.'' ''Home, officer'', I said, and continued walking.
He jumped out of the car and said '' I'll tell you when you can go, boy -understand?'' ''Listen'', he continued, ''if you fuck me around I will give you the 'jerkies.'' He pointed to his taser. My peripheral vision picked up the other officers grinning. '
How old were you when this happened..Blade.?
In my 40s would be my guess. The young officer was a Maori, so BOY wasn't a racial slur but more a normal way for Maori to talk … It was one smooth sentence '' where are you going boy?'' Maybe I shouldn't have used a comma in the above comment.
KJT. I don’t think there was as much illegality as rumoured, it’s a lot harder to get away with it now and the kids were a lot more aware of their worth in a restrained labour market, so the difference between legal and cashies was marginal for the risk. One salient point was that most of the money paid was really spent locally on essentials and fun stuff like festivals and touristy stuff, and total hours worked were generally not close to full time as they were moving around to see the country and spend time with fellow travellers.
I deliberately went foe 200k rather than 300k as a lot of them didn’t need to work such as those from the wealthier countries whose parents gave them a poultice of money to get out of the house and when those ones did turn up they were pretty lazy.
In the SI if you are a local and aren’t working you must be incapacitated or similar and there are a still huge number of my over 70 cohort who are still working and not generally because of nessesity either.
,
Certainly was a large proportion in Northland.
Whether the tourists needed to work, or not, the local youngsters we can see now, who can finally put their hospitality, or agriculture training to use, shows how many of those jobs, were filled by temporary visa’s or under the table backpackers.
As for the idea that anyone who wants to work can now get a job.
There are many barriers to employment. Wages below the cost of living and lack of accommodation where the work is, are just two.
Interesting perspectives on China for 2022. A holding year, bau for China.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/127505177/what-will-happen-in-china-in-2022-here-are-12-predictions
Fab to see mainstreamers displaying their ability to predict the future but they forgot to mention whether they used scrying, the pendulum, or reading tea leaves.
Being mainstreamers there's no way they would have been able to use astrology or the I Ching, of course! I guess it's a genuine sign that the long hegemony of science is finally abating. About time!
Entrails.
Which the Romans learnt from the Etruscans, and was eagerly embraced by scientists. Even today today they dissect plenty of creatures – although the extent to which they learn about the future seems surprising moot…
They're looking at said viscera with the wrong eyes – it's the shine on the surface of liver etc. that told and foretold 🙂 (a la crystal ball/magic mirror)
I favour the mystique button in the psyche (that gets pushed) theory which I agree is likely to be triggered by a shiny effect…
However I gather that one finding of (the pseudoscience of) psychology is that people tend to see what they're looking for.
The mainstreamers doing the predicting were probably seeking to reassure both themselves & readers that the future will be same old same old. Which it probably won't be.
We certainly interpret what we "see", using our cultural lens, but the inner-eye is clearer and surely looking straight into the heart of the matter. How to unfilter, and damp-down all that interpreting…
And we now have scientific incorporation of chaos, which means the future is as likely to be produced by discontinuity as continuity.
Xi dismounts the dais after watching the goose-stepping, trips, and his skull doesn't bounce well. Chief Assistant Honcho assumes command as Xi lies in coma, decides to invade Taiwan while Sleepy Joe is having a nap, initiates WWIII.
Except not! When the order goes out to fire the missiles from the American, Russian & Chinese leaders, nothing happens after their red buttons get pushed. The old 1950s wiring has become so corroded that the electrons encounter gaps they can't jump across.
Future annihilation turns into present insulation. Everybody lives happily ever after…
Why our government has been doing the right thing all along.
https://theconversation.com/healthy-humans-drive-the-economy-were-now-witnessing-one-of-the-worst-public-policy-failures-in-australias-history-174606?fbclid=IwAR1woocIGm-ZJuJy5sWDwEEdEmLlcWawmFMRzpEX0Fm2nbxQkj0EfasBFZk
The Omicron variant is perhaps the most contagious respiratory virus ever; nothing any govt could have done would have prevented or changed it in the slightest once it arrives. Public 'health policy' as we know it has become irrelevant.
There is significant short term disruption here in Australia, but for the most part life is going on. People are scaling back their activities for the duration, and learning to 'live with it'.
The surge will peak here in Australia within the month and the reasonable expectation is that it will settle back into being another endemic virus similar to seasonal influenza or the common cold. It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it.
"nothing any govt could have done would have prevented or changed it in the slightest once it arrives."
Unless it was preceded by another version, say, an delta version, that, un-checked by Government programmes, had devastated the community, choked the hospital system and wrecked the economy, in which case, the Omicron version would race through an already incapacitated society to much greater ill effect.
Yes?
You mean that as being analogous to a government response wrecking an economy and devastating communities?
Since there appears to be zero immunity conferred by Delta, the effect of Omicron on health care systems will be what it's going to be. (Though, not firing a good number of nurses, doctors and other health care workers might have crossed someones mind in light of the fact “pandemic”)
Of course, a government response that had followed their own pandemic pre-planning documents and allowed for the use of efficacious anti-virals in the early stage of infection: that had promoted simple health messages like Vit D and eating better food and possibly exercising more…
Although, I forget – that messaging would not have had any effect.
Far better to message around accepting the injection of an experimental medicine (that doesn't do as advertised) and back it up with coercive pressures while offering precisely zero actual pre-hospital treatments.
"It should remain the dominant variant indefinitely, unless we're stupid enough to put it under evolutionary pressure with a 'vaccine' for it."
Except of course that naturally acquired immunity will similarly apply selective pressure to the virus…but with greater risk of a bad outcome compared to vaccine-acquired immunity.
Covid-19 did not mutate via any vaccine. It mutated thanks to its spread though numerous populations. The more it replicates, the greater the chance of something dangerous to humans arising, as per the virus that causes influenza.
Do you know how many, if any, mutations of concern have arisen in highly vaccinated countries? Do you really believe all vaccines mutate viruses, or only this virus or a particular vaccine?
How would you explain the elimination/reduction rather than mutations of diseases like smallpox, polio, measles leading to greater outbreaks once vaccines were introduced?
I'm not seeing any pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any "evolutionary pressure". The covid virus does that quite naturally, and all by itself.
It mutated thanks to its spread though numerous populations
Yup. That was mouse populations apparently. (And then it jumped back to human populations) 🙂
I'm not seeing any pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any "evolutionary pressure".
The risk of pushing the evolution of a virus by deploying a leaky 'vaccine' on a universal basis is very real and has been documented and studied in Marek's virus.
The science of complexity validates your view. Indeterminate trajectories are inherent. Both systems and subsystems get triggered into shifts of state by tiny environmental triggers.
Nature is the environment (Gaia is the whole system), humanity & covid are subsystems interacting. In this relational view, simplicity lies in the binary ebb & flow of interaction between both subsystems and complexity lies in the multitude of systemic alterations within both.
This. From an author of the Marek's study you're concerned about.
https://theconversation.com/vaccines-could-affect-how-the-coronavirus-evolves-but-thats-no-reason-to-skip-your-shot-165960
Marek is a totally different virus in a completely different species.
Yes, I'm aware of that. but that's the example Bill gave me.
And the vaccines involved were a completely different type. The key issue with COVID is the vaccines we have do not prevent infection to any useful degree, yet they impose a selection pressure.
Do you have any other examples of the pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any evolutionary pressure? It seems some modelling suggests it might happen, but I can't find anything other that these suppositions.
Otoh – a vaccine more targeted to the omicron would reduce that likelihood by being less 'leaky'? That's what the WHO is looking for.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-says-more-research-needed-vaccine-efficacy-against-omicron-2022-01-11/
It is possible that we'll end up with an influenza-type situation with vaccines modified for variants each year, isn't it?
It is possible that we'll end up with an influenza-type situation with vaccines modified for variants each year, isn't it?
That's how I see the situation & I'd even replace possible with likely.
Do you have any other examples of the pathway for a vaccine putting covid under any evolutionary pressure?
Obviously not. We've never done a mass roll out of a leaky vaccine in the middle of a pandemic of a highly infectious respiratory virus.
Your linked article is a de-facto admission that the vaccines have been a total failure in preventing Omicron. Also note how hilarious is this?
And why would we be vaccinating against Omicron? All the evidence to date tells us it's acute illness is considerably less severe. It's too soon to know about it's long term chronic impact, but all other things being equal, it's probably going to be of less concern than seasonal influenza.
At which point the mandates have no justification whatsoever.
I meant some other human disease, – like flu.I should have been clearer.
I think by now everyone knows the purpose of the current vaccines in Omicron is to cut (not wipe-out) transmission. And to reduce hospitalisations and serious illness, so they definitely hvae value, but it would be of huge benefit to have improved prevention – especially if another mutation pops up. Also, people will get tired of going for boosters every few months. Will be good to get something with more efficacy.
As above – reduce transmission, reduce hospitalisation, reduce serious illness
As above – plus add in save the health system and healthcare workers – no-one should have to work in the environment they're expected to. All the politicians seem to treat them as robots that can keep going and going with little respite.
Agree that with a vaccine better at preventing disease we'll have little need for mandates beyond what we have for seasonal flu.
Re: Reuters – I'll keep that in mind. I linked in this case, because I'd seen the head of WHO making the statement about new vaccines on Al Jazeera, and this article pretty much covers that ground.
Get your booster to stay safe this summer https://covid19.govt.nz
People aged 18 and over can now get a vaccine booster 4 months after their second dose. Visit a walk-in vaccination centre or book by calling 0800 28 29 26. You can book online from 17 January.
The mental gymnastics required to undermine NZ's vaccination programme during the COVID-19 pandemic are extraordinary.
Whether anyone will be held to account for the moral and health security failures unfolding in various countries, only time will tell – thank goodness Australia’s (and NZ’s) level of vaccination against COVID-19 is relatively high.
Daily COVID-19 death toll in Australia, 1 – 15 January 2022:
14, 6, 7, 5, 18, 12, 18, 25, 23, 22, 27, 49, 57, 56, 49.
The point that you seem to have missed is that newer strains (specifically 'hot' strains) could survive in the leaky vaccine environment and those 'hot' variants killed any unvaccinated 'sentinel' chickens that were housed next to vaccinated ones.
In normal situations, the 'hot' variants would not have come to dominate, as they would have been too 'hot' for the environment they were trying to replicate in and died out.
If you want to (very darkly) project that scenario into a possible pathway for the leaky vaccines we’re using for Covid, then ‘hot’ strains develop, and without an endless round of boosters to keep effectiveness topped up, people die – all people either not vaccinated or whose vaccination lapses for some reason or another.
edit – the way to avoid any such possibility is to target the use of leaky vaccines, as is done with flu. Better still. Use whatever effective ant–virals we have to hand (cocktails of known drugs if necessary), as per the governments Pandemic Preparedness documents.
Is it true Queensland have decided on the 'let it rip' policy?
Sounds like the remedy is worse than the cure eh, in praxis.
The emotive outburst from Professor Qimron in his letter to the Israeli government reflects his invested opinions in having signed the Great Barrington Declaration. Read here for how this has been challenged Facts about the Barrington Declaration, and here: 5 Failings of the Barrington Declaration
The Barrington group of scientists are herd immunity advocates and the Declaration was funded by a Libertarian thinktank that is also associated with climate change denial
The John Snow Memorandum highlights the errors of the "mass infection" argument.
The evolving argument of some that somehow the Covid vaccine is putting evolutionary pressure on the disease is another Barrington style argument. An interesting study relating to this looks specifically at 'leaky vaccinations'
This is what the authors of the study have to say:
nice work, thanks.
I what way do you imagine you have any reason to think you are more qualified to pass judgement than an actual Professor of Immunology?
That study you quoted is utter bunk.
And you have some evidence to challenge the study's authors and reviewers?
Who work in:
There you go. You're happy to use reference to authority when it agrees with your opinion, but reject it when it does not.
Reality however doesn't care too much for our opinions.
No, I am merely qualified to trust the authors of a report that was published in The Lancet in October two years ago, which is now quite clearly supported by a deluge of data, and which pointed out that
It may be of interest to others reading this thread that the John Snow Memorandum is a grass roots initiative, that unlike the Barrington declaration, has not received any outside or politically motivated funding. It is a collaborative, inclusive initiative supported by 6,900 scientists, researchers & healthcare professionals who believe that robust public health measures, like those implemented by Japan, New Zealand and Vietnam can control transmission of Covid and allow life to return to near normal.
I certainly do not support the rantings of a defensive Professor who has consistently supported the idea of herd immunity, the opening up schools, workplaces and borders and who argues the nonsense that:
Controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive."
That made sense two years ago and back then I would have agreed totally. Time has passed and it's clear now that all low cost and effective therapeutics were to be rigorously sidelined, and the vaccines turned out neither particularly safe nor especially effective.
Face it – Omicron has rendered the entire global vaccination program to date pretty much a waste of money, and their mandates have caused an immense amount of social polarisation and discord. And that may not even be the worst of it.
The vaccines have not saved us – and yet the moral and political power allocated to them ensures their enthusiasts will double down forever.
A study completed in S.Africa (which supercedes the very early study that suggested the Covid vaccine may not be effective against Omicron), was published on 29 Dec 2021. This study compared 133,437 Omicron Covid positive PCR test results of fully vaccinated and non vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
The study results indicated that two shots of the Pfizer vaccination is 70% effective against Omicron, i.e. still effective but not as effective as the 90% protection provided against the Delta variant.
There are no population based studies as yet confirming Pfizer's lab results showing a booster shot of the vaccine increases antibody protection 25-fold compared with the initial two-dose series
However, HERE is an excellent Twitter thread just published by a British epidemiologist summarising the UK Health Security Agency's latest review of the infection severity risk of Omicron
That letter is around general hospitalisation for Omicron and includes 'incidentally +ve' hospital patients. That's fair enough, but not the same as looking at fully vaccinated and non vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with respiratory problems.
That paper you linked states – Unless otherwise stated, ‘transmission’, ‘virus’, and ‘viral load’ refer to the pathogenic MDV strain and not the vaccine virus strain.
And since it's 'vaccine virus strains' that are the issue at hand….
In the original study from 2015, – Our data show that anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.
&
To confirm that virus shed into the environment was a robust proxy for overall bird-to-bird transmission potential, we co-housed birds infected with our three most virulent strains with immunologically-naïve sentinel birds (Experiment 2). When unvaccinated birds were infected with the two most lethal strains (Md5 and 675A), they were all dead within 10 days (Fig 2A), before substantial viral shedding had begun (S2 Fig). Consequently, no sentinel birds in those isolators became infected (Fig 2B) and none died (Fig 2C). In contrast, when HVT-vaccinated birds were infected with either of those hyperpathogenic strains, they survived for 30 days or more (Fig 2A), allowing substantial viral shedding (S2 Fig). All co-housed sentinels consequently became infected (Fig 2B) and went on to die as a result of MDV infection
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198
And a mainstream article on the same study for easy reading –
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous
Locus. Do you even scan (never mind read) the links you post? I'm going to skip the fact you used a wikileaks source as being somehow worthwhile and just mention that "the conversation" link claims –
The declaration begins with the false premise that governments intend to lock down society
I guess folks were dreaming.
It also was not funded by the Koch Brothers (a Libertarian thinktank that is also associated with climate change denial) – that being an endlessly repeated smear intended to have people dismiss what signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration were attempting to bring up for public debate and discussion.
Fck. Saint Fauci is on record as demanding the public debate be quashed before it could get started (via hit jobs and smear pieces).
Why have you decided to make this a personal attack?
One of my links was to Wikipedia, (why would you say "wikileaks"?), which I use as an open source of basic information. In this case I used it for the definition of the Barrington Declaration, and a summary of who has challenged it. What was noted in Wikipedia was that the
There are several credible media sources that have identified libertarian organisations partnered with or funding the AIER. This is an interesting review reported in The Guardian
On the other hand, when I'm providing information about important recent studies I reference the scientific or medical journals that the studies were published in. I do this because they are peer reviewed.
I'm heartily sick of people using antivax lie promoting websites as a 'source of truth'.
lol – yup. Wikipedia – which is garbage for pretty much anything beyond dates and names in the socio/political sphere.
The paper you referenced on the virus front was not a study on vaccine strains of Mareks.
Can't see how you see my responses as "personal attacks".
+100
Essential reading.
Well I never, who'd have thunk it?
Perhaps, just perhaps, our government's approach was right all along! I'm gobsmacked!
yes, if you are too sick to work, you are not going to be buying much. what a bugger eh?
Yeah … Who'da thunk… Not Scomo.
Yep, and yet "Stupid is as stupid does" – individual vaccine hesitancy is fair enough, but promoting vaccine hesitancy is giving aid and comfort to the virus, imho.
To anyone eligible for a vaccine booster – please, please, get it as soon as possible.
Get your booster to stay safe this summer
People aged 18 and over can now get a vaccine booster 4 months after their second dose. Visit a walk-in vaccination centre or book by calling 0800 28 29 26. You can book online from 17 January.
Amen to that – otoh some self-awareness of self-delusion tendencies can be a good thing too, particularly during a pandemic.
This is behaving like the 1918 Call It What You Like Flu epidemic which apparently ripped through the country in 3 months, only sparing those who may have had some residual immunity from the 1890 Russian version. Imagine the carnage this time if we didn’t have the medical knowledge and technology and a VACCINE that is giving an elevated level of protection. Omicron would be killing all of those compromised by co-morbidities that are now covered if the slower Alpha and Delta had not bought us time and cover.
Not to mention excellent political courage and intelligence and empathy.
Karel Sroubek case: Delayed appeal will decide convicted drug smuggler's fate – NZ Herald
Just call Clarke I'm sure he can sort it out.
The fact that the PMs boyfriend cant even front to say I was wrong shows me the PM is not my leader,Ive got to find another party,it wont be someone who treats me and my country with contempt.
good on you. glad that you have thought long and deeply about all of the this. cant be going off half-cocked. when you find that party, dont moan when they treat you and the country as an experiment, asset to be flogged, etc, etc.
Freedom means people can make decisions that other people disagree with. If you don't want people to have that freedom then feel free to find a more authoritarian party.
Freedom means people can make decisions that other people disagree with
Yup. Like declining the opportunity to have an injection that does not perform as advertised, and not facing life altering consequences imposed by third parties (ie – government)
If the partner of the PM commenting incorrectly on the type of Covid test available (a news story with zero relevance to all the policies and decisions of government) is your definition of
someone who treats me and my country with contempt.
then I hate to break it to you but you will not find a single country – never mind party, never mind politician – who meets your standards.
Tip: if you're going to act outraged, don't chew the scenery. No Oscar for you.
PS Another tip for "Lilman". When you say
Ive got to find another party
please remember that people can read your previous posts, to find out how attached you are to said party. So ease up on the porkies. "I'm loyal Labour but now I'm quitting" was already old about a week after the internet began.
How is your new life in Australia?
you're skating on thin ice there. If there is a connection between CG and Sroubek, put up the evidence. Otherwise stop with the slurs. This is a political blog, make a political argument or go to FB.
Don't think Clarke had anything to do with that. That was Richie Hardcore texting Jacinda directly regarding Karel Sroubek.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/110018901/karel-sroubek-a-good-guy-richie-hardcore-says-in-text-to-pm-jacinda-ardern
Pataua and Lilman you call him… you seem to want more information. The Election is next year so save your DP ’till then.
The Danes have accused Russia of cooking up a bogus letter to a US Senator, purportedly from Greenland's foreign minister, saying there would be an independence referendum. US Senator Tom Cotton reckons he gave Trump the idea to buy Greenland.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-accuses-china-russia-iran-espionage-threat-2022-01-13/
Didn't Trump suggest the US buy Greenland?
It would have been a good deal if it had gone through
Footage of pretty sizeable unstoppable sequence of tsunami waves maybe a metre or more high currently hitting Nukualofa just shown on 1ewes at 6.
Coming from that erupting Tongan volcano, which is said to be exploding so loudly it’s rattling windows in Nukualofa, 65 kilometres away. The skies are so full of ash it’s quite dark there, according to a local female reporter.
Fingers crossed there are no fatalities, there have been tsunami warnings over the past few days telling people to stay away from waterfronts & beaches, but the reporter is clearly very concerned about some people living on low lying islands & peninsulas with no high ground to go to.
Sounds like the tsunamis are hitting all the Tongan islands.
https://twitter.com/sakakimoana/status/1482218193619865600
Major volcanic event underway in Tonga,with subsequent tsunami events.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2022/01/another-tsunami-warning-issued-for-tonga.html
This follows from the previous eruption.
https://twitter.com/CIMSS_Satellite/status/1481794444416462848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1481794444416462848%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FCIMSS_Satellite2Fstatus2F1481794444416462848widget%3DTweet
Pressure wave took under three hours to reach dunedin.
http://www.physics.otago.ac.nz/eman/weather_station/weather_data/graph_pressure.png
It's a biggie.
https://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/content/tonga-size-of-eruption-put-into-perspective-x4-infographics
https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=Tonga%20volcano&src=typed_query
Yep.
NZ tidal buoys now showing effects.
https://www.geonet.org.nz/tsunami
Sailed past Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha-apai 4 years ago on passage from NZ. It had only erupted and appeared above sea the year before and wasn't on the charts. Tongatapu and the Ha-apais are low lying islands with no hills to speak of so must be pretty scary for anyone on the coast. We last had a tsunami warning in Great Barrier Island when the earthquake happened in Kaikoura. Slept through the warnings and nothing happened, but friends on a boat in Whangamata were to to go up a hill.