Chinese President expands country’s military powers to defend interests abroad
Eryk Bagshawme 21:07, Jun 14 2022
“For the first time in a while, China’s state-owned enterprises, provincial and local governments, private companies, and citizens will be forced to compete for a piece of a pie that is no longer growing,”
[Craig Singleton, former US diplomat and a senior China fellow at the hawkish Washington think-tank the Foundation for Defence of Democracies]
While that is a great soundbite – it assumes two things. One is that human growth can be accurately modelled as bacteria in a petrie dish. Secondly it assumes our evolution will forever be constrained to just this one planet.
Over the long run of time, human development has seen us discover and exploit a series of new and previously unanticipated forms of resource. After millions of years of hunter-gatherer existence which never saw the total number of humans on the whole planet rise above 10m – suddenly we had agriculture that exploited the irrigation, fertilisation and transport capacity of major river basins. If it had the security benefit of being surrounded by desert – then like Egypt the resulting civilisation could sustain itself for thousands of years at a wholly new level.
Then in relatively quick succession the excess capacity released by agriculture allowed us to harness new energy sources – wind, coal, oil and gas. None of which were suspected before they became manifest – and allowed us to expand to almost 10b humans. And astonishingly enough in this past few decades only turn into an almost new species with a very stable – even declining – population growth rate. This shift could not have been imagined even so little as a century ago. Malthus would be astonished and dismayed at how badly his predictions have turned out.
In the interests of balance I do not want to paint an overly rosy picture here. History gives us no comfort, progress is not linear and locally it often reverses catastrophically. We are more than capable, in our collective distress and confusion, of self-inflicting terrible wounds upon ourselves
But if there is one crucial theme that motivates me to write here more than anything else it is this idea – that humanity is on the cusp of a unified, global adulthood that will see us shift toward new coherent purposes and motivations. In this sense I can agree with your quote above – the growth and turbulent period of childhood and adolescence could not last forever. Nor will we bound to our planetary mother indefinitely – we will leave home.
It's not a great soundbite. It's blunt and easily dismissed. It shouldn't be used by anyone who really intends to find solutions to the problems we are beset by here on planet earth, imo.
This however, is a great soundbite:
"unified, global adulthood that will see us shift toward new coherent purposes and motivations."
It's the kind of thing I hear from the yoga-mums, crystal-healers, GoddessWarriorwomen and shamanic-praticioners, many of whom set up tents outside of Parliament recently and plied their trade.
How curious that you've arrived at the same place they have, RedLogix 🙂
From a technical point of view, I’ve always baulked at the idea of a “finite” planet. I understand the sentiment and recognise that some resources are finite (those that can’t be restored) but think of the materials that rain down upon us from space; sunlight being the primary resource, but certainly not the only one. It seemed to me that the planet is in fact, increasing in substance.
There was once a dreadfully wicked hobgoblin. One day he had a simply marvelous idea. He was going to make a looking glass that would reflect everything that was good and beautiful in such a way that it would look dreadful or at least not very important. When you looked in it, you would not be able to see any of the good or the beautiful in yourself or in the world. Instead, this looking glass would reflect everything that was bad or ugly and make it look very important. The most beautiful landscapes would look like heaps of garbage, and the best people would look repulsive or would seem stupid. People's faces would be so changed that they could not be recognized, and if there was anything that a person was ashamed of or wanted to hide, you could be sure that this would be just the thing that the looking glass emphasized.
The hobgoblin set about making this looking glass, and when he was finished, he was delighted with what he had done. Anyone who looked into it could only see the bad and the ugly, and all that was good and beautiful in the world was distorted beyond recognition. One day the hobgoblin's assistants decided to carry the looking glass up to the heavens so that even the angels would look into it and see themselves as ugly and stupid.
They hoped that perhaps even God himself would look into it! But, as they reached the heavens, a great invisible force stopped them and they dropped the dreadful looking glass. And as it fell, it broke into millions of pieces.
And now came the greatest misfortune of all. Each of the pieces was hardly as large as a grain of sand, and they flew about all over the world. If anyone got a bit of glass in his eye there it stayed, and then he would see everything as ugly or distressing. Everything good would look stupid. For every tiny splinter of the glass possessed the same power that the whole glass had!
Some people got a splinter in their hearts, and that was dreadful, too, for then their hearts turned into lumps of ice and could no longer feel love. The hobgoblin watched all this and he laughed until his sides ached. ….
—from The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen
More truth in these harsh old fables than we like to think.
Sounds like the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
In Anderson's story the hobgoblin (“dreadfully wicked” is redundant, surely 🙂 at least, is happy. I wonder if he crafted the mirror itself to look beautiful? I suspect he will have, if he was intending that people would look into it.
In Anderson's story the hobgoblin (“dreadfully wicked” is redundant,
For plain English aficionados perhaps. But repetition and tautology are the stuff of fairy tales, the stimulation of the imagination and the passing on of possibly universal truths vanity, being happy with what we are etc.
I have a theory that not enough reading to people is being done, not enough fiction reading with a wide use of language. When you look at the words that trip up people (grown ups) this is evident. Hobgoblins and the hierarchy of goodies and baddies such as elves, goblins, fairies, pixies etc and the ability to use them today to describe behaviour.
Michael Wood, in his powerful speech about the motivations behind the occupiers of Parliament grounds, was stark proof of this. The reactions by others showing the depth of misunderstanding of what should be a common language and the inability to work through descriptive language with all its mechanisms, ie figures of speech had an impact on me
While we need to 'tell stories' ie frame ideas so they are easily understandable as opposed to chunks of scientific knowledge we might be wise to investigate whether nowadays people understand stories as a way of imparting ideas. Telling stories to adults as a way of passing on ideas relies on those adults having a background knowledge of stories and their function.
Little bit away from the Chinese link.
The phrase is better expressed, in my view, 'you cannot have endless growth' or 'you should not have endless growth' or we don't need endless growth or moving to the aspirational how do we stop endless growth for growths sake?
To explain that you have to marshall all those early stories, Shakespearean tales, truths from other countries (eg about giving people things as opposed to teaching people things), Biblical allusions, whakatauki eg Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua. The people fade from view but the land remains. Today, this sacred land remains, and bears witness to a hope that is endemic to the human spirit…Also important are things such as work/life balance etc.
I agree with and enjoyed, all that you wrote there, Shanreagh. I wonder if you are a fan of storyteller Martin Shaw, or any others of his ilk – people who value highly, storytelling, recounting myths and the purpose of legend in our lives.
"Bearing in mind that much of the stuff we send into space falls back down again, only a few hundred tonnes of spacecraft have actually escaped Earth’s gravity since the first space programmes began.
This is tiny compared with the quantity of hydrogen and other gases that escape continuously into space from the upper atmosphere. This has been estimated at between ESA says 90 t per day 30,000 and 65,000 tonnes per year.
Earth also gains about 40,000 tonnes per year in the form of meteorites and space dust. Overall, though, the planet gets slightly lighter each year. But this only amounts to around a trillionth of a per cent, as Earth is very, very heavy at 5.97 × 1024 kilograms."
Nitrogen, pat, seems to be everywhere. Some of it is created by lightening, some by industry. The bulk of it though, seems to have arrived here from afar. Plants in my garden capture and sequester nitrogen in the form of nitrate, I believe, making it available for other plants to uptake. Birds eat those plants and their guano becomes the vehicle for further transfer of nitrogen in some form or other. Ammonia is in there somewhere. Urine from cows fed on urea-forced grass is high in nitrate content and the animal excretes it as fast as it can to avoid being poisoned. The carrying liquid filters down through the soil, into the groundwater and further out into the creeks and rivers. Some of it though, is converted by bacteria into N2O, a potent greenhouse gas. Industry devised a biocide to render inert the bacteria responsible for this conversion, but it proved unpalatable to the market so the production of N2O on New Zealand dairy farms continues unabated.
These observations may not be the case, in fact. Never the less, they paint a picture of complexity and wonder, at least to me 🙂
To my mind, anyone who believes that we ever will migrate to another planet is a naive young fool who has not seriously faced our failings. Writing science fiction is one thing: making space ships to travel such distances is another.
Especially when people are too 'optimistic' to face the 6th great extinction which is galloping towards us like the horses of the Apocolypse.
While that is a great soundbite – it assumes two things. One is that human growth can be accurately modelled as bacteria in a petrie dish. Secondly it assumes our evolution will forever be constrained to just this one planet.
Hi Red I think we need to sort out some terms. When we talk about 'human growth'. what do we mean by this term 'growth'?
I kind'a feel here Red, (and forgive me if I am wrong), but that you, (not I), have somewhat conflated human population growth with economic growth.
People are not bacteria, as the average standard of living in a society goes up, as personal liberty and opportunities become more available, as more of your offspring are likely to survive, people tend to prefer smaller families, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
This is the opposite of what happens to mindless bacteria in a petri dish. Without any faculty for personal choice, – provided with the resources to reproduce, bacteria reproduce exponentially, until they totally exhaust all the resources in the petri dish till they perish.
Ignoring people's personal choice and agency, and comparing humanity to bacteria in a petri dish is where the Malthusian nightmare of runaway overpopulation falls apart.
Human population and wealth are linked, but not directly.
However the general trend is that human population growth and average personal wealth are inversely proportional.
But average personal wealth is not what is referred to by economists when they are talking about 'Growth'.
Measures of Economic Growth & Living Standards – GDP, GDP/Capita, GNI, Green GDP
….let us consider different measures of economic growth….
[@ 4:43 minutes]
…..GDP just looks at output, the quantity of output. The quality of output has been ignored completely. ie The negative examples, of production are ignored completely and are not going to be included in our figure. Things like the cost of air pollution, resource depletion, environmental degradation, deforestation, loss of bio-diversity, desertification, All these negative examples are not going to be included at all……
….income inequality, nothing is mentioned in GDP. Nothing about the distribution of income at all…
….we can also argue that there are many other quality of life aspects that would increase living standards that GDP does not take into account. For example health outcomes. The level of healthcare, the level of education in society the level of freedom, of gender equality, the level of democracy. All these factors, clearly will increase living standards but are not taken into account.
Imperialism is being practiced all around the globe by the rival economic blocs. Where these rival economies can't expand their influence by soft power, they resort to hard power. Behind the velvet glove is the iron fist.
Where growth economies butt up against political borders they breach them, invasion and war is the result. When growth economies butt up against the carrying capacity of the planet, they breach those as well. Environmental destruction and climate collapse is the result.
Is war and climate collapse inevitable then?
No. But it will require a complete paradigm change.
Ancient slave economies have in common with modern growth economies that they also demand expansion. Slaves die, they grow too old to work, they win their freedom through manumission, they runaway, they rebel. Expansion and invasion and wars to capture new slaves. is as important to slave societies as invasion and wars to capture new markets and monopolise resources is to growth economies. But you knew that. You got the T-shirt.
A Russian talking head riffs on defending the descendants of former occupiers.
It assumes that the Russian Federation has the right to protect the descendants of former subjects of the Russian Empire, just like the descendants of citizens of the USSR
Thus, Russia had the right to protect the inhabitants of Gotland from discrimination by the Swedish authorities. It turns out that formally our country cannot claim the island, but it has the right to protect its inhabitants.
Tweet containing a screenshot of question from an Auckland University exam, that shows direct influence of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion on education.
A guaranteed fail if any Gender Critical thoughts are expressed. One such Gender Critical thought I immediately had was that it is Queer Theory that informs gender ideology. Transgender theory is yet another term that seeks to obfuscate.
Admittedly, passing this particular question is not on my to do list. But this approach influences the next cohort of sociologists. Gender Critical graduates, often counsellors or psychologists will be few and far between.
People who think this is a good thing, are usually unable to define what gender Critical is – other than 'mean'.
Take a gender critical view at @AucklandUni and you will be failed. No discussion. No debate.
Why do we chastise teenage girls when they cut themselves, but celebrate them when they find a doctor to do it for them? When a teenage girl cuts herself, or starves herself, we try to help the human being. We do not sanctify the behavior. Why are we now celebrating a symptom?
I don't share all of the wider views of my partner of 35+ yrs, and he, likewise does not share mine.
If however, he expresses a view that I agree with. That's it. A view I agree with.
Amazingly, this works in the wider world too. If someone with whom I have agreed with, says something I find objectionable, or abhorrent, I will take the time to challenge that view. However, despite that, we will still retain a point of agreement.
This is how robust discussions take place, and perspectives are widened.
I suspicion you're hinting that perhaps Heying has views that are perhaps not suitable for wider sharing? I am not very good at subtle or hints…obviously…so it would be appreciated if you could indicate which particular views of Heying's you are referring to. Just so I know what not to share.
I'm also interested in any comments on the topic you originally posted, Rosemary.
You know, the one about self-harming girls being offered surgery without even considering this approach may be state funded self-harm?
"But wait a minute—I pressed the top surgeon. He also offered this service to teens who claim they are “non-binary”—that is, declare a gender identity neither male nor female. How did he know that a non-binary person had no breasts? How could he be sure that a non-binary person had a nose?
“You know, I long ago stopped trying to totally understand this,” he said. "
It is so comforting to know that prisoners get compo when they jump the fence in order to escape but this worker is pulled over the table. What is wrong with our public service? Can we still call them by that name?
This is a logical consequence of what happens when employers shift their costs to workers and the workers are now "self-employed".
This has occurred across many businesses e.g. courier drivers, trucking, care giving, cleaning.
We stood by during the 80's and 90's as good employers who paid good wages were driven out as they couldn't compete against those who paid low wages and shifted their cots to employees – not just physical costs but sick leave, annual leave etc as well. It is a bit unfair to blame ACC it’s the wider problem causing this.
Still happening today. It is time this rort was stopped and an 8 hour working day, 40 hour working week with time and a half paid after that and on weekends. There are firms that charge you weekend work at time and a half and double time who don't pay that to their workers actually doing the work.
Dominic Drumm, owner of Westferry Property Services in Auckland, said he was competing with rivals that employed their cleaners as “contractors” allowing them to pay them less than he pays the people he employs directly.
It is so comforting to know that prisoners get compo when they jump the fence in order to escape
Don't let the ACC Amendment Act 2010 disentitling inmates from receiving compensation for injuries received while committing crime get in the way of your pearl clutching.
Just tested and then updated the site to WordPress 6.0. I've been a bit busy recently, but I have been stuck in a waiting room for a nurse to deal with a dressing for an infected finger.
Let me know if anything seems amiss. I still need to check and update the mobile version.
Open source project…. The flex is pretty good these days – the number of additional rules you have to use has been going down against standard wordpress.
I rather like the block editing, it has started to get to the point of being quite useful. The biggest hassle is the complications with existing plugins. At some point I'm going to need to remove the plugin support for the old editor so that there aren't conflicts with things like facebook and video on the block editor.
But next long work at home holiday, which I haven't had since 2017 due to lack of a suitable workspace at home, I'll do some upgrades. But that will be after we buy a new house with room for two separated home offices.
I'm going to have a look at doing a new skin for this site with some of the updated tools. Mostly just flexing the columns out of their rigid 1280px width limit, and providing a fold down to the menu
I've played with a number of the 'news' orientated tool kits like Newspaper (daily blog uses it). But they appear to be a failure in motion – they have regression / deprecated errors on each update of both the Newspaper and with the updates of WordPress.
The advantage with this desktop site skin has been its simplicity. It has been running with the same theme since 2010 with essentially few changes. Mostly what it lacks is the flex.
The mobile version we have been using since 2013 is pretty good and works well on phones. But I'd like to get up to the current version (that I have paid for about 18 months) that I haven't had time to integrate and test. I'd like to flex it out with the desktop version.
Talkback educated me about vaping yesterday( ZB 11.20am)
I have never really thought much about vaping, except how funny some vapers look surrounded by a huge cloud of mist. I have also noticed the prevalence of vaping amongst college pupils ( later confirmed).
The first caller I heard related a conversation he'd had with a principal of a large secondary school. The principal said vaping in his school was a pandemic. He had watched bright children and sport champions become withdrawn, lose interest in school, and start to look physically ill.
I couldn't see the connection with vaping.
The next caller put her 16 year old daughter on the phone. She spoke of all her friends vaping; their problems, and how she herself was trying to give up. Another caller threatened his son with boarding school and confiscation of his phone if he didn't stop vaping. It worked and apparently the caller said his son became a different person when he gave up vaping.
I again failed to see the connection between physical and mental decline and vaping.
The next caller filled in the blanks. He had worked for a company that imported bulk flavouring agents from China. These bulk drums had a warning: not for use by humans. These products were used by vape companies to manufacture different flavourings for vapers. As he said, original vaping products were reasonably safe. These new products were an unknown quantity, plus some flavours still had nicotine added.
So it's quite possible kids who are vaping, may be ingesting ingredients similar to synthetic drugs used in the past? That is a very scary thought.
New York Times Presents series of documentaries (the first season) has an episode on vaping, & the selling of it. Very good episode. & the Tesla one season 2 is an eye opener too.
Kiwibank – simultaneously putting existing home loan customers under financial stress by significantly raising their interest rates – while offering up to $10,000 to new home mortgage borrowers.
Let's be clear, banks will make profits whether the market goes down or up, because NZ homeowners are culturally reluctant to walk away from their homes even when under huge financial stress.
"Whether you're a first home buyer, looking for your next home or are ready to switch, get 1% of your new home loan with Kiwibank as a cash contribution, up to $10,000. This is a little extra to make life a little easier.
For example, if your new home loan with us is $540,000, you may be eligible for a cash contribution of $5,400."
Interest rates are going up because the cost of borrowing is,The yield on government 10 yr bonds rose to 4.24% and as the RBNZ (may update) said an investor in Auckland gets a higher return on government stock then a housing investment.
Housing in NZ is unsustainable as the cost of a median wage vs median house price is twice what is affordable.
The recent drivers were QE, low interest rates,and an inability to think by the Bourgeios on demand sect who thought they had an app for property investment.
Either 10% mortgage rates or a 40% fall in property price are needed for affordable homes (the loss will return the median price back around 24 months) the US fed has signalled a .5 rise tomorrow,the market is pricing .75,signalling to the fed they want the hit now to remove all doubt.
Won't these .75 speculators also win the most if the Fed goes above .75? I guess it will be a real imposition on them if the Fed only delivers .5 then.
Yes, I understand why the interest rates are going up.
My point – obviously badly made – was that banks will pass on those rises to existing customers without blinking, while using the profits generated by those customers, to encourage others to get into debt during a slowing/ falling market.
If it's culture which defines our relationship with property, it is a sick culture:
“New Zealand’s probably the one country that’s even more housing obsessed than Australia,” Economist Leith van Onselen of Australian blog Macrobusiness says.
Obsessed to the extent that the housing market has swallowed the economy, last year the value of New Zealand’s housing stock surged to nearly five times New Zealand’s GDP.
For context, Australia’s is not much better at just over four times, but the United States has housing stock valued at closer to twice its GDP last year.
One of the things Ardern and her government is trying to do is (gently) steer this country away from such obsession. People voted for it in huge numbers and they know it has to be done, so why the tears?
When talking about the cultural obsession with property, the demographics should be divided into homeowners, landlords and speculators. The latter two need further separation into degrees of investment.
The division is important.
The different groups have different reasons for both acquiring property, which affects the degrees to which they will sacrifice for their investment.
I do not recall Labour promising to crash housing prices though. House-owners have become attached to all that 'free' income for doing nothing productive.
No they didn't promise to crash home prices but they did promise to fix the housing market, part of which you could argue is to change the culture. No real sign of the latter yet but certainly signs of the former.
''About 50 protesters showed up outside of the new Te Aratai College in Linwood, waving flags and signs as cars tooting in support drove by.
They could be heard yelling "shame on police" and "give us our jobs back", while others shouted, "you have destroyed our lives"
You have destroyed our lives. Guys, you can bet that's going to generate hate. More hate than that aimed at Bennett or Key.
Now, I know what you are thinking. 50 to100 feral protesters ( depending on which news outlet), so what? Well, here's so what: each of those protesters probably has 10,000 or more Kiwis that agree with them IN THAT REGARD.
That's one stuff-up the government's responsible for: not making provision for people to get the jobs back once the mandates were lifted. They also could've hammered home that the mandates were temporary. It's all well and good in hindsight, but it would've reduced the pushback if they had've done that.
Agree. The government, and society in general, just moved on after the mandates were lifted without regard for those who had lost their jobs and had basically been thrown on the scrap heap. Stranger still, some employers didn't want them back. That's loyalty for you.
That's predicated on the assumption made by the government and some employers that people who refused to get the jab were both morally and legally reprehensible regardless of the reason for their refusal.
Forcing dedicated frontline staff out of their jobs, upending their lives, and duly fucking up the health system in the name of policy is the reprehensible thing here.
That's predicated on the correct assumption made by the government and some employers that the majority of people who refused to get the jab were both morally and legally reprehensible regardless of their excuses for their refusal.
No, let me fix it for you. The Covid jab was started before all final safety results were available to the Ministry of Health. Those results still may be outstanding( I'm not pulling my research out again)? This was clearly stated on the MOH website at the time. So we may be talking of ''buyer beware.'' being legislated against by the government.
You seem to be labouring under the delusion that viruses are rational and everyone had time to sit around and natter about it. This is a global war against a lethal enemy that has not signed the Geneva Convention, and does not wait around for fools to bray.
Viruses aren't alive. The medical fraternity tie themselves in knots to even explain what viruses are. Some say discarded strands of DNA..others say something else.
So, Bob is dead. He wakes up. Gets into a bed and hijacks the living occupants of said bed for his own purposes. But…bob is dead?
''For about 100 years, the scientific community has repeatedly changed its collective mind over what viruses are. First seen as poisons, then as life-forms, then biological chemicals, viruses today are thought of as being in a gray area between living and nonliving: they cannot replicate on their own but can do so in truly living cells and can also affect the behaviour of their hosts profoundly. ''
Thats scandelous Blade, the MoH releasing a vaccine before appropriate safety data is collected. You will of course be providing references to back up your allegation? and providing context about how significant a breach of protocol it was.
Now I'll just have to revise my thinking a bit due to the other govt criticism I am hearing, that the vaccine roll out was too slow.
''Medsafe has now renewed the provisional approval for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 2 years, until 3 November 2023. Provisional Consent renewal is routine and has been applied previously to other medicines.
Provisional approval means the pharmaceutical company must meet certain conditions, including supplying more data from its clinical trials around the world as they progress. ''
Read the rest of the article. It may help your case. I look forward to your reply.
Its actually a missunderscandal (sorry I don't know of any English equivalent of this word).
Here's the explanation (to be fair it was very carefully hidden at the bottom of the short page in fine same size print),
"Under New Zealand legislation, there is no ability to have different levels of approval for one vaccine or medicine. For example, Medsafe cannot grant full consent for the Pfizer vaccine for adults and maintain provisional consent for adolescents 12 to 15 years old (or in future applications such as 5 – 11-year-olds). This is one of the reasons why Medsafe has not moved to full approval in New Zealand for this vaccine at this time. "
So rather than going ahead without safety results Medsafe is explicitly not going ahead without the safety results. More specifically in particular age categories. As we also know Medsafe had not yet in 2021 but later approved the vaccine for 5-11 year olds once that data became available in early 2022.
'' Medsafe had not yet in 2021 but later approved the vaccine for 5-11 year olds once that data became available in early 2022.''
EitherPfizer’s is giving us POSSIBLE tainted data, or Medsafe is a sleep at the wheel.
Did you read anything about this in our local media? I didn't. That's my point, questions remain that should have been answered before Medsafe gave the go ahead to vaccinate younger age groups.
You will find other links where BMJ replies to Facebook ''fact checkers''…and other where some scientists think the issues raised weren't indicative of data corruption.
Seeing as how your of a legal mind you will understand the case is going poorly when the prosecution starts withdrawing charges. In this case a reduced charge of Medsafe being 'asleep at the wheel' having received the data, rather than proceeding without the data.
"EitherPfizer’s is giving us POSSIBLE tainted data, or Medsafe is a sleep at the wheel."
It seems also POSSIBLE that Pfizer gave us perfectly good data and Medsafe doesn't engage in narcoleptic automobile use. In fact with a large amount of real world vaccine usage data this producing basically similar performance to the trial (across multiple countries) this seems highly likely.
Since you were unaware of this story (I was aware of it) you will also want to understand that its related to the original adult vaccine trials and specifically one of the agencies (of 153) which carried out only one part of the trial. Fortunately the trial involved 152 other such agencies doing similar sub-trials and as far as we know only this one had anything like serious concerns involved in its work.
Frankly its unclear what your alleging here. Medsafe is not able to do FDA investigations, so if the FDA decided there is nothing to see here they can hardly draw any other conclusions.
and again, no Medsafe should not have waited for all age group trials to be completed before releasing the adult vaccine. This would have delayed vaccination start until January of 2022.
Why would you want to re-employ someone who has shown no regard for their colleagues' safety. Especially the health workers. No sympathy here.
You'll be pleased to know Sacha, that after a brief period of being paid as Peter's carer, the Universe returned to rights and that payment was cancelled because I chose not to take the Pfizer Product. Largely because it was new and experimental and I had spoken to too many people who had needed days incapacitated in bed to recover from their shots to risk leaving Peter without an experienced carer…even for a short while.
Peter refused it because of increasing neurological instability associated with his spinal cord injury made him very reluctant to risk exacerbating that…such issues being widely recorded adverse effects of the jab. The fact that neither of us felt free to discuss these concerns with any health professional made us even more reluctant. Censorship will have that effect.
We both got Covid in March. Got sick, didn't die, got better. No meds, no hospital. A few weeks later we organised to have a few hours per week of relief care so that I could go shopping and not have to worry about Peter being alone for hours. Local carer, suitably triple vaxxed, sits and chats (the times available were well outside our usual hands- on care times and the skills required are beyond their level of experience) while I do the necessary .
So, oh the bleeding irony, when said triple vaxxed (and morally and legally acceptable) carer went partying of a weekend, came here and chatted the following day and developed a sore throat and tested positive for Covid the day after.
So, Sacha. Explain to me how Peter and I are supposed to react to this.
The Pfizer Product does not prevent infection, transmission or symptomatic disease.
The mandates were never justified for any category of worker.
How is the health system holding up? You know, the one we were supposed to be saving by getting the jab? How many fully vaxxed health workers at any one time were absent from work at the various DHBs over the past two months?
I really appreciate your contributions on this subject, Rosemary. Your patience, eloquence and real life experience are a valuable contribution.
I sometimes want to engage with those who think everything is tickety-boo with the state's response, Pfizer's product rushed into the market with the FDA's asterisk concerning no other alternative/emergency and then mandating its use. Akin to another post here in TS about folk being anti-woke. There are similarities in the mindset: assuredness of their position and when evidence emerges suggesting it may not be as we have been led to believe, you get …. crickets. So I largely don't bother.
The video you posted a week (two weeks ?) ago, with the Scandinavian professor who would not now recommend the mRNA vaccines to anyone unless they were old or have serious health issues was sobering.
Christine Stabell-Benn (Danish) knows her stuff. She has done vaccines forever and it not afraid to acknowledge the bad with the good. She is a hard core scientist…who cares. Rare these days. This pre -dates Covid, and shows how all is not necessarily good in the vaccine arena.
…all is not necessarily good in the vaccine arena.
Absolutely – vaccines and other preventative health interventions aren't perfect. And yet, as Prof. Stabell Benn observes @13:30 minutes:
This makes vaccines the largest uptapped resource for improving health globally. – Prof. Stabell Benn
She knows her stuff, and further asserts that the polarised vaccine debate is hindering the wider acceptance of her research results, and delaying the development and roll-out of (more beneficial) live vaccines.
Seems that polarisation in the vaccine area might be counterproductive to improving health, so no (more) polarisation from me.
Thank you. And from my part I apologise for my 'tad personal' snark last night. Current events are unnerving to anyone following them closely and sometimes it spills over when it should not.
"They also could've hammered home that the mandates were temporary. "
That is precisely what they did do… over and over again. Especially Ardern. She emphasised it for all the media outlets. Something I particularly noticed though, there were few journalists, reporters and other commentators who picked up on it in their summaries. Not saying it was a deliberate ploy but yet another example of their often lazy reporting.
In NZ, poll size, and the inclinations of the pollsters, render may results dubious. They are more a vehicle for the bandwagon effect than an objective measure of public opinion.
The leader of Belarus has polls that claim 90% support. But there were massive nationwide street protests against his 're-election'. Generally speaking, that wouldn't occur were his polling genuine.
It's funny how the 'pull yourself up by your socks' types become victims immediately should hardship befall them. And by hardship, I mean nothing more than accumulating excess a little slower than the ridiculous rate they've grown accustomed to. The free ride has slowed a little due to global conditions.
"Ruined my life."
Such drama queens. So utterly incapable of self reflection their entire life is apparently ruined by local government – not their decisions, their efforts, their actions or their inability to adapt.
Worked alongside Inuit people in the Canadian Arctic in 2018. Quiet wiry people but you probably do not ever want to piss them off. Opposite of snowflakes.
At dinner one night I asked one of them where he came from – thinking he would FIFO'ing in from one of the 17 settlements that are spread out over the huge expanse of Nunavut. (Essentially it is a territory larger than Western Europe with a total population around the size of Gisbourne.)
Much to my bafflement he said 'Oh – around here'. ' Cambridge Bay?' I asked – being the nearest settlement I knew of. 'No – around here about 4km away'. Well that had me beat – because there is absolutely nothing but frozen wilderness for at least 100km in every direction. Turns out he really did grow up there – married and had four kid all in an tiny, isolated group of stone huts – lined with animal pelts and heated with seal oil lamps. Everything had to be hunted and processed by them the hard and dangerous way.
It was -25degC outside at the time – a temperature he was grumbling about. Because of climate change was about 30degC too fucking hot for him.
One of the more bizarre conversations I have ever had.
The British SAS did research on why some troopers were better suited to different climatic conditions. I would assume because some troopers handled certain conditions better than others. The conditions you describe would kill me. I can hardly function once the temp drops below -3 C. However, heat has little affect on me. I crave it. I find winter time hell.
I'm the exact opposite – I found the arctic cold invigorating. It is fair to say that what we get in NZ is that miserable damp cold around within five or ten degrees of zero – where nothing is properly dry and it is impossible to feel comfortable.
However when it gets below about -15degC however all the moisture in the air has frozen out and there is no liquid phase water left. Most of the time I was there it was between -20 and -40degC outside and that is a quite different experience.
In the camp there was no water except in the showers and kitchen that were constantly heated. I could shower and wrap a towel around me and walk 15m down the corridor to my room and my hair would be bone dry when I got there. Everything wet just sublimated dry instantly.
We had three major building about 2min walk apart to get between, and on my first week or so I would rug up with all my warm gear. But then I discovered if the wind was not too bad I could do it in my t-shirt – yes it was cold and I am no more immune to exposure or frostnip than anyone else – but I found that enjoyable. On other occasions I got to walk about 40min away from camp, but once I had gotten around a corner and out of sight I started to feel very isolated and alone. That was as far as I was prepared to go.
There was an alternative path for me to go from the back of the processing building and down to the camp by another route past the power plant. That was much less used and not well lit – but I enjoyed it until one night I got that sense something was watching. Sure enough we found wolf track the next morning just 10m or so from where I had been blithering along. Stuck to the main route after that.
The coldest we got to was -63degC including windchill, getting on the plane one morning. That was brutal – 2 minutes of that fully kitted up was quite enough.
"one night I got that sense something was watching"
That's an interesting experience, RedLogix. Experiments have been done to determine whether people can in fact "feel" hidden eyes upon them and it turns out, we can, in fact.
A disjointed comment probably done on the fly after seeing your fellow drones extinguished by a wasp. I see Robert is trolling in support, so I will take your korero with a grain of salt…ok, a pinch of honey.
''Such drama queens. So utterly incapable of self reflection their entire life is apparently ruined by local government – not their decisions, their efforts, their actions or their inability to adapt.''
I take it you mean central government?
The point has flown right over your head. What they are, aren't or what you think of them is immaterial. What one of them might do is.
So you've joined those losers making veiled threats now "What one of them might do is"
Should we be scared?
There's people losing their shit over the price of gas right now I can't help the precious dears if they've zero foresight.
As for the protestors, I couldn't care less how many 'real people' decided to get in bed with those white supremacist tossers. If you lie down with dogs…
For the record you aint a wasp you're an immature lightweight. Your contributions are garbage. You are as dumb as fuck.
Oh, man. I'm in love with this woman. Finally, someone with the guts to lay it on the line. This type of tokenism has riled me for some time. It is misread by liberals as everyone being on board with te reo and Maori culture. The reality is it's just white wokisters wanting to be able to say: ''US TOO!!
Quote:
"I encourage te reo use but in no way will I tolerate tokenistic use of reo by govt agencies as an attempt to show govt depts are culturally competent.''
No, you misunderstand. You misunderstand what I have written previously. If you are going to use te reo, you do it properly. And not on an ad hoc basis.
If on the face of it she wants less or no Te Reo if it is not done somehow properly, then the Minister is wrong on multiple counts.
– Use of Te Reo is strongly encouraged in most Departments whether she calls it 'tokenistic' or not.
– Use of Te Reo in most Departments isn't reversible now. It's been going on for many years and accelerated under this government.
– The Minister is not an arbiter of what is or is not 'tokenistic' whether she thinks she is or not. All Ministries get advice on how and when it is used, and most have specialists in-house.
– The Minister should instead should show where Ministries are doing this well, such as in the multiple mana whenua partnerships with DoC all over the place which are of course all bilingual.
It's the kind of timesome moral policing that achieves nothing except play into the hands of the media. Clearly she has tried to walk it all back with "misunderstood", but it was dumb and I am sure the PMs' department will have told her so.
He is right about what she is saying. I defer to this expert Māori leader about what language she wants to see in reports. Given the timing, the message may have been about the previous Minister. Why would my preferences matter.
Come, come, Robert, you know that we are not real men here on The Standard, (magnificent beards or not), but rather wokester wimps and "poor deluded fools". 🙂
I sense that Blade, despite being an organic farmer, au fait with the use of biochar, vortexes and seawater fertilisers, has a face as hairless as a baby's.
Of course Blade may claim to have cultivated a Methuselah-like beard to match his organic 10 acre lifestyle but I'll take that with a grain of bought-off-farm charcoal (how much charcoal did you say you bought, Blade, to cover your 10-acres needs? Quite a lot, I'd imagine and I imagine you imagine too!).
Aye, Robert, I see Blade as the most pretentious yet obvious troll that we have encountered to date. Pretentions of pure innocence combined with material that smacks of evil intent, and then volumnious denial.. often 'on an ad hoc basis'.
From where does Blade get all the time to contribute so generously?
And why does he put so much effort into doing so? And why does he somehow remind me of earlier trolls going under other names? Language patterns?
Yes I would love to visit Blade's organic farm too.
Implied allegations? Well, I am glad they are not full allegations! I am aging, and the only name of a past troll I can remember at the moment is a guy who went for a while by the name of Chuck. The site have already told me that such accusations are unwise, and that while they try to track such things, they cannot be sure that they are aware of all that is happening, but that I should refrain from accusations. That was years ago now.
So fair enough; I withdraw my 'implied allegations'.
I'd add "tone" and "underlying intent".
There was a guy, very clever indeed, who used to post here or on Frogblog, who talked about being “on the spectrum” and also this aspect of commenting patterns. He used an algorithmic programme of some sort (maybe built it himself” to determine whether “anonymous of Tawa” was also “anonymous of Helensville”. I wish I could remember his name. I wish he still posted here.
You may be amused to know I once attended a four day flow form workshop at Taruna College in 1988 led by none other than John Wilkes himself.
I was living in Kawerau at the time and it was in the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Bola. I had taken my mountain bike through the old Motu Road (and struggled through some monumental slips) and stayed with a friend who ran 2,000 acres of hill country farm north of Matawai. It took four days to reach him, and he was incredibly surprised anyone turned up at all. Stayed a week to help him get some fences sorted and then headed out to the coast. Went north and stayed at my home marae then, south to Hastings. A bit of an adventure just getting there.
The course was most memorable for the remarkable collection of other people there. PP was of course there, but lots of other really fascinating people with far more real life experience than I had. I enjoyed it immensely even if I did feel like a bit of an imposter is such rare company.
Still plan on building one when we get back to NZ. I have a perfect spot for it in mind. Will be nine bowls long at least, four chambers each – and very beautiful if I have my way.
PP stayed here with us, back in the day. Will you hand-form your flow form bowls from clay? I had a simple form here long ago, but it's been lost somehow. I love the swish. I keep axolotyls now and bet they'd love a spin in one, for an invigorating short-while, at least 🙂
The only ones I have seen were cast in some form. I had not thought of hand making them in clay but it makes sense if you want each one to be slightly different.
It has interested me to know how the claims of "champions of small hardworking kiwis/small business owners" (otherwise known as the National party) stand up. So I did a little "unscientific" research – using Wiki – to see what "Start-up/self-employed" experience the current National party Caucus had. Several (and I got bored after reading the first 13 ranked profiles) went straight from Academia into consultancies/political staffing jobs. Many, like the leader appeared to have walked into already well established and bankrolled organisations, or inherited considerable wealth. None would appear to have been from "battling little Kiwi" backgrounds.
So I would suggest they are hardly justified in calling out the government MPs as "out of touch/lacking experience".
… (I got bored after reading the first 13 ranked profiles) went straight from Academia into consultancies.
If you had struggled to the bitter end, I doubt the outcome would have been any different.
When you say they went from Academia… bear in mind most went to expensive private schools where one's shot at academic prowess and consultancy work had far more to do with who Daddy knew than any budding talent.
I did a similar exercise an election or three ago here based on the number of teachers and academics that National loved to disparage were found on the Labour benches.. There were many in National….
Genter, “Her financial hero is American Herman Daly, who was one of the first economists to talk about the incompatibility of infinite economic growth in a finite world.”
Makes you wonder where we are heading. Constant need to increase population and grow the economy might be a disaster in the long run.
As the Bitcoin/Ethereum crash continues, the combined reduction in energy consumption of these networks now equals that of a country like Austria
The reduction in global carbon emissions could be 110,000 metric tons of CO2 per day – almost as much as global CO2 reductions by EVs pic.twitter.com/8cVHlewbYP
I think you might be mixing up two different aspects of ACC. Prisoners do not get earnings related compensation (compo) because they are not wage or salary-earners.
Both injured people would be entitled to any private medical treatment for their injuries being heavily subsidised by ACC, provided they could prove their injuries were caused by an accident and not by disease. (nb This might sound straight forward, but it is surprisingly complex, particularly where age -related degeneration might be a factor in any injury caused by an accident.)
Damn, I was hoping Lynn's upgrade would fix the problems I have in posting. It hasn't, but I only had to go through part of the usual rigmarole to be able to post here, so things might be looking up. But it has dropped to the bottom again. Apologies
Hi,From an incredibly rainy day in Los Angeles, I just wanted to check in. I guess this is the day Trump may or may not end up in cuffs? I’m attempting a somewhat slower, less frenzied week. I’ve had Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s new record on non-stop, and it’s been a ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
RNZ has been shining their torch into corners where lobbyists lurk and asking such questions as: Do we like the look of this?and Is this as democratic as it could be?These are most certainly questions worth asking, and every bit as valid as, say:Are weshortchanged democratically by the way ...
RNZ has continued its look at the role of lobbyists by taking a closer look at the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Andrew Kirton. He used to work for liquor companies, opposing (among other things) a container refund scheme which would have required them to take responsibility for their own ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has left for Beijing for the first ministerial visit to China since 2019. Mahuta is to meet China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang where she might have to call on all the diplomatic skills at her command. Almost certainly she will face questions on what role ...
TL;DR:The Opportunities Party’s Leader Raf Manji is hopeful the party’s new Teal Card, a type of Gold card for under 30s, will be popular with students, and not just in his Ilam electorate where students make up more than a quarter of the voters and where Manji is confident ...
When I was a kid New Zealand was actually pretty green. We didn’t really have plastic. The fruit and veges came in a cardboard box, the meat was wrapped in paper, milk came in a glass bottle, and even rubbish sacks were made of paper. Today if you sit down ...
Looking back through the names of our Police Ministers down the years, the job has either been done by once or future party Bigfoots – Syd Holland, Richard Prebble, Juduth Collins, Chris Hipkins – or by far lesser lights like Keith Allen, Frank Gill, Ben Couch, Allen McCready, Clem Simich, ...
Chris Trotter writes – The Crown is a fickle friend. Any political movement deemed to be colourful but inconsequential is generally permitted to go about its business unmolested. The Crown’s media, RNZ and TVNZ, may even “celebrate” its existence (presumably as proof of Democracy’s broad-minded acceptance of diversity). ...
Four out of the five people who have held the top role of Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff since 2017 have been lobbyists. That’s a fact that should worry anyone who believes vested interests shouldn’t have a place at the centre of decision making. Chris Hipkins’ newly appointed Chief of ...
Feedback on Auckland Council’s draft 2023/24 budget closes on March 28th. You can read the consultation document here, and provide feedback here. Auckland Council is currently consulting on what is one of its most important ever Annual Plans – the ‘budget’ of what it will spend money on between July ...
by Molten Moira from Motueka If you want to be a woman let me tell you what to do Get a piece of paper and a biro tooWrite down your new identification And boom! You’re now a woman of this nationSpelled W O M A Na real trans woman that isAs opposed ...
Buzz from the Beehive New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti is hosting the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers for three days from today, welcoming Education Ministers and senior officials from 18 Pacific Island countries and territories, and from Australia. Here’s hoping they have brought translators with them – or ...
Let’s say you’ve come all the way from His Majesty’s United Kingdom to share with the folk of Australia and New Zealand your antipathy towards certain other human beings. And let’s say you call yourself a women’s rights activist.And let’s say 99 out of 100 people who listen to you ...
James Shaw gave the Green party's annual "state of the planet" address over the weekend, in which he expressed frustration with Labour for not doing enough on climate change. His solution is to elect more Green MPs, so they have more power within any government arrangement, and can hold Labour ...
RNZ this morning has the first story another investigative series by Guyon Espiner, this time into political lobbying. The first story focuses on lobbying by government agencies, specifically transpower, Pharmac, and assorted universities, and how they use lobbyists to manipulate public opinion and gather intelligence on the Ministers who oversee ...
Nick Matzke writes – Dear NZ Herald, I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland. I teach evolutionary biology, but I also have long experience in science education and (especially) political attempts to insert pseudoscience into science curricula in ...
James Shaw has again said the Greens would be better ‘in the tent’ with Labour than out, despite Labour’s policy bonfire last week torching much of what the Government was doing to reduce emissions. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Green Party has never been more popular than in some ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler Poor air quality is a long-standing problem in Los Angeles, where the first major outbreak of smog during World War II was so intense that some residents thought the city had been attacked by chemical weapons. Cars were eventually discovered ...
Yesterday I was reading an excellent newsletter from David Slack, and I started writing a comment “Sounds like some excellent genetic heritage…” and then I stopped.There was something about the phrase genetic heritage that stopped me in tracks. Is that a phrase I want to be saying? It’s kind of ...
Brian Easton writes – Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go ...
This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War. While it strongly opposed the US-led invasion, New Zealand’s then Labour-led government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark did deploy military engineers to try to help rebuild Iraq in mid-2003. With violence soaring, their 12-month deployment ended without being renewed ...
After seventy years, Auckland’s motorway network is finally finished. In July 1953 the first section of motorway in Auckland was opened between Ellerslie-Panmure Highway and Mt Wellington Highway. The final stage opens to traffic this week with the completion of the motorway part of the Northern Corridor Improvements project. Aucklanders ...
National’s appointment of Todd McClay as Agriculture spokesperson clearly signals that the party is in trouble with the farming vote. McClay was not an obvious choice, but he does have a record as a political scrapper. The party needs that because sources say it has been shedding farming votes ...
Rays of white light come flooding into my lounge, into my face from over the top of my neighbour’s hedge. I have to look away as the window of the conservatory is awash in light, as if you were driving towards the sun after a rain shower and suddenly blinded. ...
The columnists in Private Eye take pen names, so I have not the least idea who any of them are. But I greatly appreciate their expert insight, especially MD, who writes the medical column, offering informed and often damning critique of the UK health system and the politicians who keep ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Mar 12, 2023 thru Sat, Mar 18, 2023. Story of the Week Guest post: What 13,500 citations reveal about the IPCC’s climate science report IPCC WG1 AR6 SPM Report Cover - Changing ...
Buzz from the Beehive The building of financial capability was brought into our considerations when Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced she had dipped into the government’s coffers for $3 million for “providers” to help people and families access community-based Building Financial Capability services. That wording suggests some ...
Do you ever come across something that makes you go Hmmmm?You mean like the song?No, I wasn’t thinking of the song, but I am now - thanks for that. I was thinking of things you read or hear that make you stop and go Hmmmm.Yeah, I know what you mean, ...
By the end of the week, the dramas over Stuart Nash overshadowed Hipkins’ policy bonfire. File photo: Lynn GrieveasonTLDR: This week’s news in geopolitics and the political economy covered on The Kākā included:PM Chris Hipkins’ announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but ...
When word went out that Prime Minister Chris Hipkins would be making an announcement about Stuart Nash on the tiles at parliament at 2:45pm yesterday, the assumption was that it was over. That we had reached tipping point for Nash’s time as minister. But by 3pm - when, coincidentally, the ...
Two senior economists challenge some of the foundations of current economics. It is easy to criticise economic science by misrepresenting it, by selective quotations, and by ignoring that it progresses, like all sciences, by improving and abandoning old theories. The critics may go on to attack physics by citing Newton.So ...
Photo by Walker Fenton on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week again when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kaka for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on Riverside (we’ve moved from Zoom) for our chat about the week’s news with ...
In a nice bit of news, my 2550-word deindustrial science-fiction piece, The Dream of Florian Neame, has been accepted for publication at New Maps Magazine (https://www.new-maps.com/). I have published there before, of course, with Of Tin and Tintagel coming out last year. While I still await the ...
And so this is Friday, and what have we learned?It was a week with all the usual luggage: minister brags and then he quits, Hollywood red carpet is full of twits. And all the while, hanging over the trivial stuff: existential dread, and portents of doom.Depending on who you read ...
When I changed the name of this newsletter from The Daily Read to Nick’s Kōrero I was a bit worried whether people would know what Kōrero meant or not. I added a definition when I announced the change and kind of assumed people who weren’t familiar with it would get ...
There was a time when a political party’s publicity people would counsel against promoting a candidate as queer. No matter which of two dictionary meanings the voting public might choose to apply – the old meaning of odd, strange, weird, or aberrant, or the more recent meaning of gay, homosexual ...
Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session for paying subscribers about the week that was for the next hour, including:PM Chris Hipkins announcement of the rest of a policy bonfire to save a combined $1.7 billion, but which blew up ...
Even though concern over the climate change threat is becoming more mainstream, our governments continue to opt out of the difficult decisions at the expense of time, and cost for future generations. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: Now we have a climate liability number to measure the potential failure of the ...
Thomas Cranmer writesLike it or not, the culture wars have entered New Zealand politics and look set to broaden and intensify. The culture wars are often viewed as an exclusively American phenomenon, but the reality is that they are becoming increasingly prominent in countries around the world, ...
Here’s an analogy for the Stuart Nash saga. If people are to be forgiven for their sins,Catholic dogma requires two factors to be present. There has to be a sincere act of confession about what has been done, but also a sincere act of contrition, which signals a painful ...
Here’s an analogy for the Stuart Nash saga. If people are to be forgiven for their sins,Catholic dogma requires two factors to be present. There has to be a sincere act of confession about what has been done, but also a sincere act of contrition, which signals a painful ...
Human Destabilisers: Russia now has a new strategic weapon – migratory waves of unwelcome human-beings. Desperate people with different coloured skins and different religious beliefs arriving at, or actually breaching, the national borders of Russia’s enemies can wreak as much havoc, culturally and politically, as a hypersonic missile exploding in the ...
Hi,After Webworm contributor Hayden Donnell wrote his latest piece, ‘RIP to Millennials Killing Everything’, he delivered this exciting and important bonus content.It will make more sense if you’ve read his piece.David. Read more ...
Hi,Before we get to Hayden’s column — RIP to Millennials Killing Everything — a quick observation.There was a day last week where it had suddenly reached 10pm and I hadn’t eaten all day. Hunger had suddenly gripped me with a panicky all-consuming force, so I jumped onto Uber Eats and ...
We add some of the CMIP6 models to the updateable MSU comparisons. After my annual update, I was pointed to some MSU-related diagnostics for many of the CMIP6 models (24 of them at least) from Po-Chedley et al. (2022) courtesy of Ben Santer. These are slightly different to what ...
In a memorable Pulp Fiction scene, Vincent inadvertently shoots their backseat passenger in the head. This leads our heroes Jules and Vincent to express alarm about their predicament.We're on a city street in broad daylight here!says Vincent. We gotta get this car off the roads. You know cops tend to ...
Primary, secondary and kindergarten teachers are all on strike today, demanding higher pay and an end to systematic understaffing. While the former is important - wages should at least keep up with inflation - its the latter which is the real issue. As with the health system, teachers have been ...
So the teachers are on strike, marching across Aotearoa today to press their demands for better pay and working conditions.Children remained in bed this brisk morning, many no doubt quite pleased about a day off school. Parents perhaps taking the day off to look after the kids, or working from ...
After the Cold War the consensus among Western military strategists was that the era of Big Wars, defined as peer conflict between large states with full spectrum military technologies, was at an end, at least for the foreseeable future. The … Continue reading → ...
Dairy giant Fonterra has posted a 50% lift in net profit to $546m, doubled its interim dividend, and is proposing a return of capital of 50c a share, injecting a note of optimism into the nation’s dairy industry. Fonterra’s strong performance is against a backdrop of market volatility. It ...
Buzz from the Beehive The bothersome economic news today is that New Zealand’s GDP fell by 0.6% in the December quarter, weaker than market forecasts of a fall of around 0.2% and much weaker than the Reserve Bank’s assumption of a 0.7% rise. This followed the even-more-bothersome news yesterday that ...
Ouch: Hipkins’ policy bonfire has resulted in an expensive self-administered removal of a Budgetary foot with an explosive device. File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Bonfires can be dangerous things when they get out of control. They also create a lot of smoke and heat and burn the grass. ...
* Dr Bryce Edwards writes – I teach a first-year course at Victoria University of Wellington about government and the political process in New Zealand. In “Introduction to Government and Law”, students learn there are rules preventing senior public servants from getting involved in big political debates – as we ...
I teach a first year course at Victoria University of Wellington about government and the political process in New Zealand. In “Introduction to Government and Law”, students learn there are rules preventing senior public servants from getting involved in big political debates – as we have recently witnessed with Rob ...
An issue of integrity has claimed the first ministerial scalp in Prime Minister Chris Hipkins’ premiership. Police Minister Stuart Nash lasted mere weeks in the role after admitting in a radio interview this morning that he had called Police Commissioner Andrew Coster to ask him if police were going to ...
For some time now we’ve known that the cost and completion timeframe for the City Rail Link would increase. Yesterday we finally learned by just how much. Costs City Rail Link Ltd (CRL Ltd) today confirms it has submitted a formal funding request to its Sponsors – the Crown and ...
The Government’s decision to back peddle on lowering speed limits is hitting potholes. At this stage, although it is part of the Government’s reprioritisation efforts to free up money to alleviate cost of living increases, the speed limit change looks unlikely to do that. And it appears that it ...
The University of Otago – the oldest university in New Zealand – towers over my home city of Dunedin. When classes are on, something like a fifth of Dunedin’s population are university students. It is also the largest employer in the South Island. To say that this is a ...
Last weekend brought the latest instalment in Stuff’s bravura satirical series Of course you can afford a house! Just dig deeper!I love how much their appreciation of humour has evolved in just a few short years since the days when I would get to produce, for a few meagre dollars, ...
Australia’s move to strengthen its defence capability with five nuclear-powered attack submarines underlines how relatively defenceless New Zealand is in the Pacific. Kiwis may gasp that the Labor government in Australia recognises it must outlay $400bn on the nuclear subs, but this ensures that Australia is not exposed ...
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The quarterly ETS auction was held today. In the past, these have seen collusion by big players to game the price and force a dump of extra credits from the cost-containment reserve (essentially, trying to pick stuff up cheap now in the belief that it will be more valuable later). ...
Buzz from the Beehive Exempting bikes, electric bikes and scooters from fringe benefit tax looked like something of a sop for a Green Party that had good grounds to grumble after a bunch of climate change measures was tossed on to the PM’s policy bonfire. The combustibles included the clean car ...
Today is a Member's Day, the first of the year. Unfortunately it also looks to be a boring one. First, there's a two hour debate on the budget policy statement (somehow inexplicably "member's business", despite it being fundamentally a government thing). Then there's a couple of "private bills" - people ...
Most days, Chris Hipkins and James Shaw seem a bit like the Seals and Crofts of the centre-left: Earnest, inoffensive, and capable of quite nice harmonies at times. They blow gently through the jasmine in your mind, but you know they’re never going to rock your world. Back in 2020, ...
The reflection gazed back at him. Pale and a little paunchy, he wasn’t a well man.He had a toga made from a fitted sheet and it kept bunching up under his armpits.His Laurel wreath was made from some Christmas tree branches he’d found in the shed, not a real pine ...
Yesterday we covered the government’s latest policy/delivery changes with a focus on light rail. But there was another important transport part of the announcement: The government will also intends to scale back its road safety plans. The programmes that are being reprioritised include: Significantly narrowing the speed reduction programme to ...
Unbridled Consumption: This civilisation we have built (we being the whole human species) is the most astonishingly wonderful thing homo sapiens has ever seen. We love it. We cannot imagine how awful life would be without it. And, we most certainly are not going to co-operate with anyone who advises ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Let’s start with the absolute truisms.Politics is the art of the possibleHalf of something is better than all of nothingLet us now consider these with reference to the Under New Management government.What is a supporter of progressive politics to make of the abandonment of various policies, as announced in recent post-cabinet ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised in their State of the Planet speech today. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party after the election must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised today. ...
You will never truly understand, from the pictures you’ve seen in the newspapers or on the six o-clock news, the sheer scale of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle. ...
We’re boosting incomes and helping ease cost of living pressures on Kiwis through a range of bread and butter support measures that will see pensioners, students, families, and those on main benefits better off from the start of next month. ...
The error Labour Ministers made by stopping work on a beverage container return scheme will be reversed by the Greens at the earliest opportunity as part of the next Government. ...
“Cabinet needs to do better - and today has shown exactly why we need Green Ministers in cabinet, so we can prioritise action to cut climate pollution and support people to make ends meet,” says Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson. ...
Biggest increase in food prices for over three decades shows the need for an excess profit tax on corporations to help people put food on the table. ...
The Green Party has today launched a submission guide to help Aucklanders give crucial input and prevent potentially disastrous Auckland Council budget proposals. ...
With calls growing for inquiries and action on bank profits, the Greens say the Government has all the information it needs to act now and put a levy on banks. ...
As large parts of Aotearoa recover from two of the worst climate disasters we have ever experienced, it would be a huge mistake for the Government to deprioritise climate action from future transport investments, the Green Party says. ...
The Green Party is celebrating the signing of a historic United Nations Ocean Treaty, and calls on the new Oceans and Fisheries Minister to urgently step up protection for Aotearoa’s oceans. ...
This year has seen a series of extreme weather events, unparalleled in New Zealand’s recent history. From Cape Reinga in the far north down to the Tararua Ranges, families and businesses across the country have suffered enormous loss and hardship. While the severe weather hasn’t directly affected every part of ...
The Government’s priority to keep New Zealand at the cutting edge of food production and lift our sustainability credentials continues by backing the next steps of a hi-tech vertical farming venture that uses up to 95 per cent less water, is climate resilient, and pesticide-free. Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor visited ...
E nga mana, e nga iwi, e nga reo, e nga hau e wha, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou kātoa. Warm Pacific greetings to all. It is an honour to host the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers here in Tāmaki Makaurau. Aotearoa is delighted to be hosting you ...
The new renal unit at Taranaki Base Hospital has been officially opened by the Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall this afternoon. Te Huhi Raupō received around $13 million in government funding as part of Project Maunga Stage 2, the redevelopment of the Taranaki Base Hospital campus. “It’s an honour ...
Defence Minister Andrew Little has marked the arrival of the country’s second P-8A Poseidon aircraft alongside personnel at the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s Base at Ohakea today. “With two of the four P-8A Poseidons now on home soil this marks another significant milestone in the Government’s historic investment in ...
Aotearoa New Zealand will provide further humanitarian support to those seriously affected by last month’s deadly earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, says Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta. “The 6 February earthquakes have had devastating consequences, with almost 18 million people affected. More than 53,000 people have died and tens of thousands more ...
Migrant communities across New Zealand are represented in the new Migrant Community Reference Group that will help shape immigration policy going forward, Immigration Minister Michael Wood announced today. “Since becoming Minister, a reoccurring message I have heard from migrants is the feeling their voice has often been missing around policy ...
Construction has begun on major works that will deliver significant safety improvements on State Highway 3 from Waitara to Bell Block, Associate Minister of Transport Kiri Allan announced today. “This is an important route for communities, freight and visitors to Taranaki but too many people have lost their lives or ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has today appointed Ginny Andersen as Minister of Police. “Ginny Andersen has a strong and relevant background in this important portfolio,” Chris Hipkins said. “Ginny Andersen worked for the Police as a non-sworn staff member for around 10 years and has more recently been chair of ...
Six further bailey bridge sites confirmed Four additional bridge sites under consideration 91 per cent of damaged state highways reopened Recovery Dashboards for impacted regions released The Government has responded quickly to restore lifeline routes after Cyclone Gabrielle and can today confirm that an additional six bailey bridges will ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for China tomorrow, where she will meet with her counterpart, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in Beijing. This will be the first visit by a New Zealand Minister to China since 2019, and follows the easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions between New Zealand and China. ...
Education Ministers from across the Pacific will gather in Tāmaki Makaurau this week to share their collective knowledge and strategic vision, for the benefit of ākonga across the region. New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti will host the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers (CPEM) for three days from today, ...
A vital transport link for communities and local businesses has been restored following Cyclone Gabrielle with the reopening of State Highway 5 (SH5) between Napier and Taupō, Associate Minister of Transport Kiri Allan says. SH5 reopened to all traffic between 7am and 7pm from today, with closure points at SH2 (Kaimata ...
Internal Affairs Minister Barbara Edmonds has thanked generous New Zealanders who took part in the special Lotto draw for communities affected by Cyclone Gabrielle. Held on Saturday night, the draw raised $11.7 million with half of all ticket sales going towards recovery efforts. “In a time of need, New Zealanders ...
The Government has announced funding of $3 million for providers to help people, and whānau access community-based Building Financial Capability services. “Demand for Financial Capability Services is growing as people face cost of living pressures. Those pressures are increasing further in areas affected by flooding and Cyclone Gabrielle,” Minister for ...
Minister of Education, Hon Jan Tinetti, has announced appointments to the Board of Education New Zealand | Manapou ki te Ao. Tracey Bridges is joining the Board as the new Chair and Dr Therese Arseneau will be a new member. Current members Dr Linda Sissons CNZM and Daniel Wilson have ...
Fifteen ākonga Māori from across Aotearoa have been awarded the prestigious Ngarimu VC and 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Scholarships and Awards for 2023, Associate Education Minister and Ngarimu Board Chair, Kelvin Davis announced today. The recipients include doctoral, masters’ and undergraduate students. Three vocational training students and five wharekura students, ...
High Court Judge Jillian Maree Mallon has been appointed a Judge of the Court of Appeal, and District Court Judge Andrew John Becroft QSO has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Mallon graduated from Otago University in 1988 with an LLB (Hons), and with ...
The economy has continued to show its resilience despite today’s GDP figures showing a modest decline in the December quarter, leaving the Government well positioned to help New Zealanders face cost of living pressures in a challenging global environment. “The economy had grown strongly in the two quarters before this ...
Aucklanders now have more ways to get around as Transport Minister Michael Wood opened the direct State Highway 1 (SH1) to State Highway 18 (SH18) underpass today, marking the completion of the 48-kilometre Western Ring Route (WRR). “The Government is upgrading New Zealand’s transport system to make it safer, more ...
This section contains briefings received by incoming ministers following changes to Cabinet in January. Some information may have been withheld in accordance with the Official Information Act 1982. Where information has been withheld that is indicated within the document. ...
Aotearoa New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta reaffirmed her commitment to working together with the new Government of Fiji on issues of shared importance, including on the prioritisation of climate change and sustainability, at a meeting today, in Nadi. Fiji and Aotearoa New Zealand’s close relationship is underpinned by the Duavata ...
The Government is delivering a coastal shipping lifeline for businesses, residents and the primary sector in the cyclone-stricken regions of Hawkes Bay and Tairāwhiti, Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan announced today. The Rangitata vessel has been chartered for an emergency coastal shipping route between Gisborne and Napier, with potential for ...
The Government will progress to the next stage of the NZ Battery Project, looking at the viability of pumped hydro as well as an alternative, multi-technology approach as part of the Government’s long term-plan to build a resilient, affordable, secure and decarbonised energy system in New Zealand, Energy and Resources ...
This morning I was made aware of a media interview in which Minister Stuart Nash criticised a decision of the Court and said he had contacted the Police Commissioner to suggest the Police appeal the decision. The phone call took place in 2021 when he was not the Police Minister. ...
The Government’s sharp focus on trade continues with Aotearoa New Zealand set to host Trade Ministers and delegations from 10 Asia Pacific economies at a meeting of Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Commission members in July, Minister for Trade and Export Growth Damien O’Connor announced today. “New Zealand ...
$25 million boost to support more businesses with clean-up in cyclone affected regions, taking total business support to more than $50 million Demand for grants has been strong, with estimates showing applications will exceed the initial $25 million business support package Grants of up to a maximum of $40,000 per ...
80 per cent of 2021 Resident Visas applications have been processed – three months ahead of schedule Residence granted to 160,000 people 84,000 of 85,000 applications have been approved Over 160,000 people have become New Zealand residents now that 80 per cent of 2021 Resident Visa (2021RV) applications have been ...
The Government continues to invest in New Zealand’s burgeoning space industry, today announcing five scholarships for Kiwi Students to undertake internships at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. Economic Development Minister Stuart Nash congratulated Michaela Dobson (University of Auckland), Leah Albrow (University of Canterbury) and Jack Naish, Celine Jane ...
The Lead Coordination Minister for the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques travels to Melbourne, Australia today to represent New Zealand at the fourth Sub-Regional Meeting on Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Security. “The Government is committed to reducing the threat of terrorism ...
The health and safety practices at our nation’s ports will be improved as part of a new industry-wide action plan, Workplace Relations and Safety, and Transport Minister Michael Wood has announced. “Following the tragic death of two port workers in Auckland and Lyttelton last year, I asked the Port Health ...
Bikes, electric bikes and scooters will be added to the types of transport exempted from fringe benefit tax under changes proposed today. Revenue Minister David Parker said the change would allow bicycles, electric bicycles, scooters, electric scooters, and micro-mobility share services to be exempt from fringe benefit tax where they ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta will hold bilateral meetings with Fiji this week. The visit will be her first to the country since the election of the new coalition Government led by Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sitiveni Rabuka. The visit will be an opportunity to meet kanohi ki ...
The Government is introducing the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill to ensure the recovery and rebuild from Cyclone Gabrielle is streamlined and efficient with unnecessary red tape removed. The legislation is similar to legislation passed following the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes that modifies existing legislation in order to remove constraints ...
Approximately 1.4 million people will benefit from increases to rates and thresholds for social assistance to help with the cost of living Superannuation to increase by over $100 a pay for a couple Main benefits to increase by the rate of inflation, meaning a family on a benefit with children ...
$1 billion in savings which will be reallocated to support New Zealanders with the cost of living A range of transport programmes deferred so Waka Kotahi can focus on post Cyclone road recovery Speed limit reduction programme significantly narrowed to focus on the most dangerous one per cent of state ...
The remaining state of national emergency over the Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay regions will end on Tuesday 14 March, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. Minister McAnulty gave notice of a national transition period over these regions, which will come into effect immediately following the end of the ...
The Government is today delivering on one of its commitments as part of the New Zealand Government’s Dawn Raids apology, welcoming a cohort of emerging Pacific leaders to Aotearoa New Zealand participating in the He Manawa Tītī Scholarship Programme. This cohort will participate in a bespoke leadership training programme that ...
Industry Transformation Plan to transform advanced manufacturing through increased productivity and higher-skilled, higher-wage jobs into a globally-competitive low-emissions sector. Co-created and co-owned by business, unions and workers, government, Māori, Pacific peoples and wider stakeholders. A plan to accelerate the growth and transformation of New Zealand’s advanced manufacturing sector was launched ...
New Zealand will provide support for Pacific countries to prevent the spread of harmful animal diseases, Associate Minister of Agriculture Meka Whaitiri said. The Associate Minister is attending a meeting of Pacific Ministers during the Pacific Week of Agriculture and Forestry in Nadi, Fiji. “Highly contagious diseases such as African ...
The Public Transport Futures project will deliver approximately: 100 more buses providing a greater number of seats to a greater number of locations at a higher frequency Over 470 more bus shelters to support a more enjoyable travel experience Almost 200 real time display units providing accurate information on bus ...
An author on the death of a baby and "a calm respectful grace" The normal world was out there. The clocks and the jobs and the traffic and the mortgages and the death. Especially the death. Death in suburbia means funerals with piped fake Celtic music despite the fact ...
One of New Zealand’s brightest young netball talents, Paris Lokotui has returned to the court 10 months after a knee reconstruction. Now she hopes her tough journey back paves a better way for other Māori and Pasifika players. Paris Lokotui remembers the moment time stood still. The 21-year-old was playing ...
A month on from Cyclone Gabrielle, many residents in Muriwai are still living in limbo, unable to return to their homes "I can't look back because it's too sad. I can't look forward because it is too daunting." Kat Corbett's Muriwai home remains out-of-bounds more than a month after ...
The Climate Change Commission's chair says the Government's decisions to ignore its advice could weaken the country's most important climate policy. ...
Coconut plantations are far from being ‘natural’ environments, coconut oil is high in saturated fats, and, despite the advertising, most of the global supply of coconut oil doesn’t come from the Pacific Islands eitherOpinion: Coconut oil has gained a halo as a natural health product, with claims it can ...
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By Hamish Cardwell, RNZ News senior journalist There is “is much to win by trying” to take action on climate change — that is a key finding in a major new international climate report the UN chief is calling a “survival guide for humanity”. It is something of a mic ...
A pōwhiri, a pie, and a grilling from primary school kids: Today was the day the boy from the Hutt who grew up to be prime minister went home for a visit. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Australia’s decision to buy three nuclear-powered submarines and build another eight is so expensive that, for the A$268 billion to $368 billion price tag, we could give a million dollars ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Denniss, Adjunct Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Australia has 116 new coal, oil and gas projects in the pipeline. If they all proceed as planned, an extra 1.4 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases would be released into ...
Figures unearthed by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union reveal that the growth in public sector managers is almost twice that of frontline social, health and education workers. Since 2017, the frontline workforce for social services, health and education ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University A referendum will be held later this year to enshrine a First Nations’ Voice to Parliament into the Australian constitution. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Haoyang Zhai, PhD Candidate, The University of Melbourne Alexander Schimmeck/Unsplash Since its inception in 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has officially promoted an atheist and materialist ideology. But belief systems in China are making a comeback – and ...
Scott Robertson has been announced successor to Ian Foster as head coach of the All Blacks, completing a controversial and highly idiosyncratic appointment process. He will assume the role in 2024, following the world cup at the end of this year. The contract for the breakdancing current coach of the ...
Multicultural New Zealand (MNZ) has expressed concern about events scheduled to take place in Auckland and Wellington on March 25th and 26th, respectively. The events will feature British anti-transgender activist, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull. MNZ is ...
Race Relations Day is celebrated annually in New Zealand on March 21st to promote and celebrate diversity, inclusivity, and harmony among different cultural, ethnic, and religious groups. As part of Race Relations Day 2023, Multicultural New Zealand ...
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown’s suggestion to make council budget cuts by reducing staffing hours and replacing librarians and library assistants with volunteers is concerning says New Zealand’s library association. “Limiting access to the valued ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mohiuddin Ahmed, Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security, Edith Cowan University Shutterstock Google and Microsoft are on a mission to remove the drudgery from computing, by bringing next-generation AI tools as add-ons to existing services. On March 16, Microsoft announced an ...
The Auckland mayor’s decision to keep the media at arm’s length makes every interview he does grant a rare and exciting event, like a new Avatar movie. Stewart Sowman-Lund ranks them all from least to most exciting.Wayne Brown has a well-reported lack of affection for the media. In his ...
Tabloid Jubi in Jayapura The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has called on the international community to “pay serious attention” to the escalated violence happening in West Papua. Head of ULMWP’s legal and human rights bureau, Daniel Randongkir, said that since the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) ...
ANALYSIS:By Bronwyn Hayward, University of Canterbury This decade is the critical moment for making deep, rapid cuts to emissions, and acting to protect people from dangerous climate impacts we can no longer avoid, according to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The synthesis report ...
Across five of the latest polls for which results are published, Labour now has an edge over National. A new Talbot Mills poll, as reported by the Herald, has Labour up four points to 37%, with National down two points to 34%. The results, which draw on fieldwork across the first ...
Statement from Dr Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, WWF-New Zealand CEO Today's IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Synthesis Report (AR6) highlights that an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels is the best way to avoid the planet overshooting 1.5°C and risking total climate ...
The first in a two-part series revealing insights into the working life of a librarian. For privacy reasons, all names – including place names – have been changed. Te Whare Pukapuka o Poutama is a composite library.It’s 9.30AM on a mid-January Monday, high summer, school holidays. Kaitiaki Pukapuka ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elen Shute, Researcher, Flinders University One bird bucks the stereotype of Australia’s raucous parrots – the mysterious and critically endangered night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis). Rather than flying around in noisy flocks or eating fruit in trees, the night parrot roosts all day ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Gainsbury, Deputy Director, Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, University of Sydney shutterstock The Perottett government’s promise to introduce mandatory “cashless gambling” in New South Wales by 2028 – something for which anti-gambling activists and public-health ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is warning that the state of our roads could be the next infrastructure crisis if the Government does not adequately fund maintenance costs. LGNZ commissioned a report by one of the country’s leading economists, Brad ...
Today Canstar is proud to release its second Consumer Pulse report, which delves into the financial worries, hopes and dreams of more than 20,000 New Zealanders over the past two years. The report, released annually, tracks Kiwis’ finances and reveals ...
SAFE is again urging the Government to ban greyhound racing sooner rather than later, following a raft of severe injures in Christchurch yesterday. Sugar rose suffered a severe tail injury yesterday at Addington raceway. Her tail was partially amputated ...
In the wake of revelations that Chris Hipkins' chief of staff, Andrew Kirton, lobbied against the Container Return Scheme on behalf of the liquor industry shortly before the scheme was scrapped by the Prime Minister, Greenpeace is calling for the scheme ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Komesaroff, Professor of Medicine, Monash University Libkos/AP/AAP A year after Russia’s invasion, Ukraine is in ruins. At least 8,000 civilians have died, with millions displaced. Generations of infrastructure have been destroyed. Large tracts of the environment and agricultural land ...
The Opportunities Party have proposed a new Teal Deal between taxpayers and young Kiwis - which includes fully-funded healthcare and public transport, and a Kiwisaver kickstarter in exchange for national civic service. Raf Manji, Leader of The Opportunities ...
There are plenty of practical ways the city could make multi-modal transport more accessible – but have they all been consigned to the too-hard basket?How can Auckland start mitigating its impact on the climate crisis? Our biggest city’s sustainable solution must start with transport, its number one source of ...
Long overdue legislation to unlock the economic and export potential of natural health products must not accidentally add more red tape that harms the growing sector and consumers, industry body Natural Health Products New Zealand told Members of ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards. Political Roundup: Shining a bright light on lobbyists in politicsPolitical scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Four out of the five people who have held the top role of Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff since 2017 have been lobbyists. That’s a fact that should worry anyone who ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Fougerouse, Research Fellow, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences and The Institute for Geoscience Research (TIGeR), Curtin University Shutterstock Thirty-seven years ago, on April 26 1986, the reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered a catastrophic meltdown. In ...
The New Zealand Chiropractors’ Association (NZCA) will today (21st March 2023) tell Parliament’s Health Select Committee that the profession opposes the proposed Therapeutic Products Bill in its entirety in its present form and in particular its ...
The final Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the climate crisis came out this morning. The report contains no new science but is a summary of eight years of research by hundreds of scientists and the last three IPCC reports published in August 2021, February and April 2022 ...
Bay of Plenty District Commander Superintendent Tim Anderson: Police accept the findings by the Independent Police Conduct Authority into an incident involving an officer who tasered a man in the cells at Tauranga District Court in February 2019. ...
Few festivals have escaped the summer of 2023 unscathed. Before the sun blessed Womad with a rare guest appearance, the Taranaki festival got a drenching too. According to my pink and blue wristband, we were partying like it was “2022”. That was the first sign that things haven’t been going ...
Patient Voice Aotearoa’s Dr Malcolm Mulholland will today at 3.30 appear before the Health Select Committee to voice opposition to parts of the Therapeutic Products Bill on behalf of Kiwi patients. “The Bill threatens to obstruct access to unfunded ...
FIRST Union, the union for bank workers across New Zealand, is supporting calls for an immediate inquiry into bank profits and proposing a levy on excess profits to fund the establishment of a Ministry of Green Works . The March 2023 KPMG Financial ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Hayward, Professor of Politics, University of Canterbury Earth Negotiations Bulletin, CC BY-ND This decade is the critical moment for making deep, rapid cuts to emissions, and acting to protect people from dangerous climate impacts we can no longer avoid, ...
There is a growing campaign to remove the costs associated with cervical screening in Aotearoa. Alex Casey explains.What’s all this then? In July, Aotearoa is getting a big shiny new cervical screening programme after years and years and years of delays. The dreaded three-yearly smear test will be exchanged ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Heim, PhD researcher, University of Southern Queensland ESA Since time immemorial, humans around the world have gazed up in wonder at the night sky. The starry night sky has not only inspired countless works of music, art and poetry, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Marks, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Strategy, Government and Alliances, Western Sydney University Bianca de Marchi/AAP A gambler would probably feel the odds favour a Labor win at the upcoming New South Wales election. But, as Scott Morrison proved in 2019, underdog ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne), Curtin University nery zarate/unsplash, CC BY-SA Vaping regularly makes headlines, with some campaigning to make e-cigarettes more available to help smokers quit, while others are keen to see vaping products ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University Shutterstock As part of its aspiration to be “Tiriti-led”, the University of Otago has embarked on a consultation ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emily Brayshaw, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney 1MilliDollars/Unsplash In 2017, Julia Hobbs of British Vogue declared Crocs “have an unrivalled ability to repel onlookers and induce sneers”. But over the two decades since the notoriously ugly shoes were ...
A new investigation on the role of lobbyists raises fresh questions about whether we need better disclosure of who they are and who they work for, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Flip Grater decided to give up her career in music to pursue her other passion of vegan delicatessens. Now, her meat-free versions of chorizo, pastrami, and turkey have launched her business and landed her products in foodstuffs supermarkets. She talks to Simon Pound about Grater Goods’ rapid success, and expanding ...
“This is it; 2023 will be the last opportunity New Zealand has to get a government that will confront the climate emergency with the urgency it demands,” says the Green Party’s co-leader and climate change spokesperson, James Shaw. Speaking after ...
Today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, released its ‘synthesis report’, summarising six previous reports. Greenpeace says that the latest report confirms the industrial drivers of climate change, its dire planetary impacts, and ...
Phase One Ventures chief executive Mahesh Muralidhar has been selected by local party members as National’s candidate in Auckland Central for the 2023 General Election. “I want to thank our local party members for backing me to campaign for ...
On the holy terror and absolute love of parenting Picked up by Octavia outside the book shop, the kid and I clambered into the back, to the soundtrack of classic hits from what seemed to be a tape she was playing. We were thankful to get in. The sun ...
A new investigative series from RNZ reveals just how broken the government communications machine is, writes Duncan Greive.Investigative journalist Guyon Espiner is peeling back the lid on the world of external lobbyists and corporate affairs strategists employed by the public sector. His new series, being published on RNZ this ...
Fresh from a Melbourne rally that attracted neo-Nazi supporters, British anti-transgender rights speaker Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull is scheduled to appear at two events in Aotearoa. So what’s the lowdown? Another controversial international speaker wants to visit New Zealand, and, as expected, reaction has covered the full spectrum from outrage to support. ...
The Detail finds out why a law change in 2017 has led to a proliferation of independent taxi drivers – and why they're leaving some passengers feeling ripped off Not all taxis are created equal. RNZ newsreader Evie Ashton found this out the hard way, after Dave Chapelle's recent show at Auckland's ...
Companies have tended to be louder in lobbying politicians against climate change mitigation rather than in favour of it. This election, that needs to change ...
Latest Caspian Report. The comment thread is useful too:
You can't have endless growth on a finite planet.
You can't have endless growth on a finite planet.
While that is a great soundbite – it assumes two things. One is that human growth can be accurately modelled as bacteria in a petrie dish. Secondly it assumes our evolution will forever be constrained to just this one planet.
Over the long run of time, human development has seen us discover and exploit a series of new and previously unanticipated forms of resource. After millions of years of hunter-gatherer existence which never saw the total number of humans on the whole planet rise above 10m – suddenly we had agriculture that exploited the irrigation, fertilisation and transport capacity of major river basins. If it had the security benefit of being surrounded by desert – then like Egypt the resulting civilisation could sustain itself for thousands of years at a wholly new level.
Then in relatively quick succession the excess capacity released by agriculture allowed us to harness new energy sources – wind, coal, oil and gas. None of which were suspected before they became manifest – and allowed us to expand to almost 10b humans. And astonishingly enough in this past few decades only turn into an almost new species with a very stable – even declining – population growth rate. This shift could not have been imagined even so little as a century ago. Malthus would be astonished and dismayed at how badly his predictions have turned out.
In the interests of balance I do not want to paint an overly rosy picture here. History gives us no comfort, progress is not linear and locally it often reverses catastrophically. We are more than capable, in our collective distress and confusion, of self-inflicting terrible wounds upon ourselves
But if there is one crucial theme that motivates me to write here more than anything else it is this idea – that humanity is on the cusp of a unified, global adulthood that will see us shift toward new coherent purposes and motivations. In this sense I can agree with your quote above – the growth and turbulent period of childhood and adolescence could not last forever. Nor will we bound to our planetary mother indefinitely – we will leave home.
It's not a great soundbite. It's blunt and easily dismissed. It shouldn't be used by anyone who really intends to find solutions to the problems we are beset by here on planet earth, imo.
This however, is a great soundbite:
"unified, global adulthood that will see us shift toward new coherent purposes and motivations."
It's the kind of thing I hear from the yoga-mums, crystal-healers, GoddessWarriorwomen and shamanic-praticioners, many of whom set up tents outside of Parliament recently and plied their trade.
How curious that you've arrived at the same place they have, RedLogix 🙂
Good. I like it when – despite our outwardly different lives and views – we discover that nonetheless we share a lot more common humanity than not.
From a technical point of view, I’ve always baulked at the idea of a “finite” planet. I understand the sentiment and recognise that some resources are finite (those that can’t be restored) but think of the materials that rain down upon us from space; sunlight being the primary resource, but certainly not the only one. It seemed to me that the planet is in fact, increasing in substance.
There was once a dreadfully wicked hobgoblin. One day he had a simply marvelous idea. He was going to make a looking glass that would reflect everything that was good and beautiful in such a way that it would look dreadful or at least not very important. When you looked in it, you would not be able to see any of the good or the beautiful in yourself or in the world. Instead, this looking glass would reflect everything that was bad or ugly and make it look very important. The most beautiful landscapes would look like heaps of garbage, and the best people would look repulsive or would seem stupid. People's faces would be so changed that they could not be recognized, and if there was anything that a person was ashamed of or wanted to hide, you could be sure that this would be just the thing that the looking glass emphasized.
The hobgoblin set about making this looking glass, and when he was finished, he was delighted with what he had done. Anyone who looked into it could only see the bad and the ugly, and all that was good and beautiful in the world was distorted beyond recognition. One day the hobgoblin's assistants decided to carry the looking glass up to the heavens so that even the angels would look into it and see themselves as ugly and stupid.
They hoped that perhaps even God himself would look into it! But, as they reached the heavens, a great invisible force stopped them and they dropped the dreadful looking glass. And as it fell, it broke into millions of pieces.
And now came the greatest misfortune of all. Each of the pieces was hardly as large as a grain of sand, and they flew about all over the world. If anyone got a bit of glass in his eye there it stayed, and then he would see everything as ugly or distressing. Everything good would look stupid. For every tiny splinter of the glass possessed the same power that the whole glass had!
Some people got a splinter in their hearts, and that was dreadful, too, for then their hearts turned into lumps of ice and could no longer feel love. The hobgoblin watched all this and he laughed until his sides ached. ….
—from The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen
More truth in these harsh old fables than we like to think.
Sounds like the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
In Anderson's story the hobgoblin (“dreadfully wicked” is redundant, surely 🙂 at least, is happy. I wonder if he crafted the mirror itself to look beautiful? I suspect he will have, if he was intending that people would look into it.
For plain English aficionados perhaps. But repetition and tautology are the stuff of fairy tales, the stimulation of the imagination and the passing on of possibly universal truths vanity, being happy with what we are etc.
I have a theory that not enough reading to people is being done, not enough fiction reading with a wide use of language. When you look at the words that trip up people (grown ups) this is evident. Hobgoblins and the hierarchy of goodies and baddies such as elves, goblins, fairies, pixies etc and the ability to use them today to describe behaviour.
Michael Wood, in his powerful speech about the motivations behind the occupiers of Parliament grounds, was stark proof of this. The reactions by others showing the depth of misunderstanding of what should be a common language and the inability to work through descriptive language with all its mechanisms, ie figures of speech had an impact on me
While we need to 'tell stories' ie frame ideas so they are easily understandable as opposed to chunks of scientific knowledge we might be wise to investigate whether nowadays people understand stories as a way of imparting ideas. Telling stories to adults as a way of passing on ideas relies on those adults having a background knowledge of stories and their function.
Little bit away from the Chinese link.
The phrase is better expressed, in my view, 'you cannot have endless growth' or 'you should not have endless growth' or we don't need endless growth or moving to the aspirational how do we stop endless growth for growths sake?
To explain that you have to marshall all those early stories, Shakespearean tales, truths from other countries (eg about giving people things as opposed to teaching people things), Biblical allusions, whakatauki eg Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua. The people fade from view but the land remains. Today, this sacred land remains, and bears witness to a hope that is endemic to the human spirit…Also important are things such as work/life balance etc.
I agree with and enjoyed, all that you wrote there, Shanreagh. I wonder if you are a fan of storyteller Martin Shaw, or any others of his ilk – people who value highly, storytelling, recounting myths and the purpose of legend in our lives.
Newstalk ZB. Obviously got a heavy dose of those splinters.
It seemed to me that the planet is in fact, increasing in substance.
Absolutely. I am a great fan of mysteries.
Tangibly, dust from space, drawn here by our gravitational field, settles upon us at a surprising rate!
Accretion certainly.
However there is a lot of atmosphric skimming as gases escape the gravitational pull in a semi-random walk.
The atmosphere gets replaced from nuclear heating from the earths core releasing bound gases.
The question is where the balance lies. But ultimately it is likely to be like Mars.
But it will take some time.
40kt of meteorite and interstellar dust PA.
https://www.nature.com/articles/380323a0
So it's not dandruff!
I knew it!
Discovered in Canterbury no less.
theres always a but…
"Bearing in mind that much of the stuff we send into space falls back down again, only a few hundred tonnes of spacecraft have actually escaped Earth’s gravity since the first space programmes began.
This is tiny compared with the quantity of hydrogen and other gases that escape continuously into space from the upper atmosphere. This has been estimated at between ESA says 90 t per day 30,000 and 65,000 tonnes per year.
Earth also gains about 40,000 tonnes per year in the form of meteorites and space dust. Overall, though, the planet gets slightly lighter each year. But this only amounts to around a trillionth of a per cent, as Earth is very, very heavy at 5.97 × 1024 kilograms."
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg24232301-200-has-all-the-hardware-sent-into-space-affected-earths-gravity/#ixzz7WEebt6XC
What, all of it, Poission?
all of it
Just the measurements from upward radar at UC.
Dissipation is part of the second law of TD,
Nitrogen, pat, seems to be everywhere. Some of it is created by lightening, some by industry. The bulk of it though, seems to have arrived here from afar. Plants in my garden capture and sequester nitrogen in the form of nitrate, I believe, making it available for other plants to uptake. Birds eat those plants and their guano becomes the vehicle for further transfer of nitrogen in some form or other. Ammonia is in there somewhere. Urine from cows fed on urea-forced grass is high in nitrate content and the animal excretes it as fast as it can to avoid being poisoned. The carrying liquid filters down through the soil, into the groundwater and further out into the creeks and rivers. Some of it though, is converted by bacteria into N2O, a potent greenhouse gas. Industry devised a biocide to render inert the bacteria responsible for this conversion, but it proved unpalatable to the market so the production of N2O on New Zealand dairy farms continues unabated.
These observations may not be the case, in fact. Never the less, they paint a picture of complexity and wonder, at least to me 🙂
i think you are correct….however it will first take a catastrophe of some magnitude to happen to bring it all about……
"Nor will we bound to our planetary mother indefinitely – we will leave home."
Leaving behind a smouldering mess?
Striking out for some an unspoiled planet that we can … well, you know.
Getting off the planet in a clever device doesn't make us "grown-ups". Just look at those who are leading the way on this (Mr Musk et al.)
Grown-ups?
Hobgoblin help us!
To my mind, anyone who believes that we ever will migrate to another planet is a naive young fool who has not seriously faced our failings. Writing science fiction is one thing: making space ships to travel such distances is another.
Especially when people are too 'optimistic' to face the 6th great extinction which is galloping towards us like the horses of the Apocolypse.
Fix this planet now, or face extinction.
(I like the idea of a hobgoblin, though..)
Hi Red I think we need to sort out some terms. When we talk about 'human growth'. what do we mean by this term 'growth'?
I kind'a feel here Red, (and forgive me if I am wrong), but that you, (not I), have somewhat conflated human population growth with economic growth.
People are not bacteria, as the average standard of living in a society goes up, as personal liberty and opportunities become more available, as more of your offspring are likely to survive, people tend to prefer smaller families, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
This is the opposite of what happens to mindless bacteria in a petri dish. Without any faculty for personal choice, – provided with the resources to reproduce, bacteria reproduce exponentially, until they totally exhaust all the resources in the petri dish till they perish.
Ignoring people's personal choice and agency, and comparing humanity to bacteria in a petri dish is where the Malthusian nightmare of runaway overpopulation falls apart.
Human population and wealth are linked, but not directly.
However the general trend is that human population growth and average personal wealth are inversely proportional.
But average personal wealth is not what is referred to by economists when they are talking about 'Growth'.
Oops! Forgot to include the link:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/300613347/chinese-president-expands-countrys-military-powers-to-defend-interests-abroad
Looks like a perfect, albeit ancient, prescription of empire building. How very unimaginative of Xi.
Unimaginative? Certainly Ancient? Hardly.
Growth economies demand expansion
Imperialism is being practiced all around the globe by the rival economic blocs. Where these rival economies can't expand their influence by soft power, they resort to hard power. Behind the velvet glove is the iron fist.
Where growth economies butt up against political borders they breach them, invasion and war is the result. When growth economies butt up against the carrying capacity of the planet, they breach those as well. Environmental destruction and climate collapse is the result.
Is war and climate collapse inevitable then?
No. But it will require a complete paradigm change.
Social Justice is climate justice.
It's very ancient. Been there, done that, got the "I Survived the Bronze Age Collapse of 1200 BCE" T-shirt. The Romans had similar trouble.
Ancient slave economies have in common with modern growth economies that they also demand expansion. Slaves die, they grow too old to work, they win their freedom through manumission, they runaway, they rebel. Expansion and invasion and wars to capture new slaves. is as important to slave societies as invasion and wars to capture new markets and monopolise resources is to growth economies. But you knew that. You got the T-shirt.
A Russian talking head riffs on defending the descendants of former occupiers.
It assumes that the Russian Federation has the right to protect the descendants of former subjects of the Russian Empire, just like the descendants of citizens of the USSR
Thus, Russia had the right to protect the inhabitants of Gotland from discrimination by the Swedish authorities. It turns out that formally our country cannot claim the island, but it has the right to protect its inhabitants.
https://ren-tv.translate.goog/blog/iurii-gorodnenko/980271-rossiiskie-poddannye-vstupaiut-v-nato?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Tweet containing a screenshot of question from an Auckland University exam, that shows direct influence of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion on education.
A guaranteed fail if any Gender Critical thoughts are expressed. One such Gender Critical thought I immediately had was that it is Queer Theory that informs gender ideology. Transgender theory is yet another term that seeks to obfuscate.
Admittedly, passing this particular question is not on my to do list. But this approach influences the next cohort of sociologists. Gender Critical graduates, often counsellors or psychologists will be few and far between.
People who think this is a good thing, are usually unable to define what gender Critical is – other than 'mean'.
Morena Molly. I subscribe to evolutionary biologist Heather Heying's substack, and this popped into my inbox this morning. It is an exchange of letters between Heying and Abigail Shrier in 2020, and makes an interesting read. If that link fails… https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/the-torment-and-tragedy-of-teenage?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&s=r
Why do we chastise teenage girls when they cut themselves, but celebrate them when they find a doctor to do it for them? When a teenage girl cuts herself, or starves herself, we try to help the human being. We do not sanctify the behavior. Why are we now celebrating a symptom?
Thanks, Rosemary. I've read that and also recommend it.
It is useful to google an author, say Heather Heying, to inform whether to share their wider views.
I don't share all of the wider views of my partner of 35+ yrs, and he, likewise does not share mine.
If however, he expresses a view that I agree with. That's it. A view I agree with.
Amazingly, this works in the wider world too. If someone with whom I have agreed with, says something I find objectionable, or abhorrent, I will take the time to challenge that view. However, despite that, we will still retain a point of agreement.
This is how robust discussions take place, and perspectives are widened.
…perspectives are widened. Yes. Sometimes I think perhaps that folks are afraid that if they widen their perspective their brains might fall out.
Now that image is firmly planted in my brain I'm going back out to deal to some more kikuyu.
it's also how community and society sustain themselves rather than say falling into irreconcilable divisions and then war.
Gidday Matiri.
I suspicion you're hinting that perhaps Heying has views that are perhaps not suitable for wider sharing? I am not very good at subtle or hints…obviously…so it would be appreciated if you could indicate which particular views of Heying's you are referring to. Just so I know what not to share.
I'm also interested in any comments on the topic you originally posted, Rosemary.
You know, the one about self-harming girls being offered surgery without even considering this approach may be state funded self-harm?
Shocking! They spell out if you take a gender critical position you will fail! Our universities are requiring "right think". 1984 folks.
I will be interested to hear how Hipkins et al respond to this
It is so comforting to know that prisoners get compo when they jump the fence in order to escape but this worker is pulled over the table. What is wrong with our public service? Can we still call them by that name?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/west-auckland-scaffolder-fighting-for-acc-compensation-after-losing-both-arms/LCWTHUUOLKYHEZGEOPF6ITHFBM/
This is a logical consequence of what happens when employers shift their costs to workers and the workers are now "self-employed".
This has occurred across many businesses e.g. courier drivers, trucking, care giving, cleaning.
We stood by during the 80's and 90's as good employers who paid good wages were driven out as they couldn't compete against those who paid low wages and shifted their cots to employees – not just physical costs but sick leave, annual leave etc as well. It is a bit unfair to blame ACC it’s the wider problem causing this.
Still happening today. It is time this rort was stopped and an 8 hour working day, 40 hour working week with time and a half paid after that and on weekends. There are firms that charge you weekend work at time and a half and double time who don't pay that to their workers actually doing the work.
Dominic Drumm, owner of Westferry Property Services in Auckland, said he was competing with rivals that employed their cleaners as “contractors” allowing them to pay them less than he pays the people he employs directly.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/128954704/the-massive-industry-in-which-companies-pretend-to-have-no-employees
Don't let the ACC Amendment Act 2010 disentitling inmates from receiving compensation for injuries received while committing crime get in the way of your pearl clutching.
//
Just tested and then updated the site to WordPress 6.0. I've been a bit busy recently, but I have been stuck in a waiting room for a nurse to deal with a dressing for an infected finger.
Let me know if anything seems amiss. I still need to check and update the mobile version.
Interesting how they are moving not only towards full site block editing but flexbox for layouts. Trouble keeping up. 🙂
Open source project…. The flex is pretty good these days – the number of additional rules you have to use has been going down against standard wordpress.
I rather like the block editing, it has started to get to the point of being quite useful. The biggest hassle is the complications with existing plugins. At some point I'm going to need to remove the plugin support for the old editor so that there aren't conflicts with things like facebook and video on the block editor.
But next long work at home holiday, which I haven't had since 2017 due to lack of a suitable workspace at home, I'll do some upgrades. But that will be after we buy a new house with room for two separated home offices.
I'm going to have a look at doing a new skin for this site with some of the updated tools. Mostly just flexing the columns out of their rigid 1280px width limit, and providing a fold down to the menu
I've played with a number of the 'news' orientated tool kits like Newspaper (daily blog uses it). But they appear to be a failure in motion – they have regression / deprecated errors on each update of both the Newspaper and with the updates of WordPress.
The advantage with this desktop site skin has been its simplicity. It has been running with the same theme since 2010 with essentially few changes. Mostly what it lacks is the flex.
The mobile version we have been using since 2013 is pretty good and works well on phones. But I'd like to get up to the current version (that I have paid for about 18 months) that I haven't had time to integrate and test. I'd like to flex it out with the desktop version.
Talkback educated me about vaping yesterday( ZB 11.20am)
I have never really thought much about vaping, except how funny some vapers look surrounded by a huge cloud of mist. I have also noticed the prevalence of vaping amongst college pupils ( later confirmed).
The first caller I heard related a conversation he'd had with a principal of a large secondary school. The principal said vaping in his school was a pandemic. He had watched bright children and sport champions become withdrawn, lose interest in school, and start to look physically ill.
I couldn't see the connection with vaping.
The next caller put her 16 year old daughter on the phone. She spoke of all her friends vaping; their problems, and how she herself was trying to give up. Another caller threatened his son with boarding school and confiscation of his phone if he didn't stop vaping. It worked and apparently the caller said his son became a different person when he gave up vaping.
I again failed to see the connection between physical and mental decline and vaping.
The next caller filled in the blanks. He had worked for a company that imported bulk flavouring agents from China. These bulk drums had a warning: not for use by humans. These products were used by vape companies to manufacture different flavourings for vapers. As he said, original vaping products were reasonably safe. These new products were an unknown quantity, plus some flavours still had nicotine added.
So it's quite possible kids who are vaping, may be ingesting ingredients similar to synthetic drugs used in the past? That is a very scary thought.
Thats across the entire vaping community it seems.
I asked a colleagues what's in their vape as it looked like detergent and the volume of smoke was huge.
He didn't know know nor did the rest of the vapers at the 'spot'. All professionals oblivious to what they're sucking on.
It's becoming a strange… and dangerous world, TC.
But not vapid.
Quite the leap you have there.
Maybe. Why?
Why would someone catastrophise without evidence?
''So it's quite possible kids who are vaping, may be ingesting ingredients similar to synthetic drugs used in the past?''
flavourings —> drugs
Says more about you than about 'kids'.
Really?
Flavourings -> unknown ingredients.
Synthetic drugs -> unknown ingredients.
Deleterious physical and mental effects noted in both cases.
? – Used at the end of a sentence to indicate a question. · (figuratively, informal) A state of doubt or uncertainty.
I'm afraid I must conclude you MAY be a troll… albeit a clever one.
Unlike poor Robert above.
Remember that conjecture word, Blade. There's conjecture, reckons and a third place where the discombobulated gather to share their wares.
Am struggling to see for what flavourings might be used if not for humans.
The problem as always is nicotine, regardless of what else they put with it. Cigarette companies doing an end-run around regulators.
New York Times Presents series of documentaries (the first season) has an episode on vaping, & the selling of it. Very good episode. & the Tesla one season 2 is an eye opener too.
Kiwibank – simultaneously putting existing home loan customers under financial stress by significantly raising their interest rates – while offering up to $10,000 to new home mortgage borrowers.
Let's be clear, banks will make profits whether the market goes down or up, because NZ homeowners are culturally reluctant to walk away from their homes even when under huge financial stress.
https://www.kiwibank.co.nz/personal-banking/home-loans/getting-a-home-loan/cash-contribution/
Interest rates are going up because the cost of borrowing is,The yield on government 10 yr bonds rose to 4.24% and as the RBNZ (may update) said an investor in Auckland gets a higher return on government stock then a housing investment.
Housing in NZ is unsustainable as the cost of a median wage vs median house price is twice what is affordable.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1026956/house-price-to-income-ratio-new-zealand/
The recent drivers were QE, low interest rates,and an inability to think by the Bourgeios on demand sect who thought they had an app for property investment.
Either 10% mortgage rates or a 40% fall in property price are needed for affordable homes (the loss will return the median price back around 24 months) the US fed has signalled a .5 rise tomorrow,the market is pricing .75,signalling to the fed they want the hit now to remove all doubt.
Won't these .75 speculators also win the most if the Fed goes above .75? I guess it will be a real imposition on them if the Fed only delivers .5 then.
They would have already priced in 1/2 of the next signaled rise,and decreased a trade cost.
So all this commentary demanding interest rate rises is also conveniently lobying to reduce the costs of financial trades?
Altruism is not a motive of traders.(kpi's and bonuses are)
Yes, I understand why the interest rates are going up.
My point – obviously badly made – was that banks will pass on those rises to existing customers without blinking, while using the profits generated by those customers, to encourage others to get into debt during a slowing/ falling market.
If it's culture which defines our relationship with property, it is a sick culture:
One of the things Ardern and her government is trying to do is (gently) steer this country away from such obsession. People voted for it in huge numbers and they know it has to be done, so why the tears?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/128954010/its-the-interest-rates-stupid–house-prices-and-interest-rates-create-political-pain
Australias is higher now,as they experienced the same bubble (despite the population decreasing by 500K) 10t$
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/total-value-dwellings/latest-release
Ah, well. The NZ government is delivering results!
High priced unaffordable homes is a bad result,
But we are now below Australia's housing to GDP ratio. You have to recognise that as an achievement by the NZ Labour government.
OCR in australia is 0.85,here 2,we rose in nov last year.
The median multiple in NZ is just over 9 (down slightly this year) in Australia it is 8.
The median multiple (median house to median income) has increased 50% under labour making the houses the most unaffordable globally.
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/house-price-income-multiples
Take that to the electorate
When talking about the cultural obsession with property, the demographics should be divided into homeowners, landlords and speculators. The latter two need further separation into degrees of investment.
The division is important.
The different groups have different reasons for both acquiring property, which affects the degrees to which they will sacrifice for their investment.
I do not recall Labour promising to crash housing prices though. House-owners have become attached to all that 'free' income for doing nothing productive.
No they didn't promise to crash home prices but they did promise to fix the housing market, part of which you could argue is to change the culture. No real sign of the latter yet but certainly signs of the former.
Here's one for Sanctuary, Louis, Tony Veitch and Stu Munro.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/protesters-gather-at-opening-of-te-aratai-college-in-christchurch-as-jacinda-ardern-speaks/M7WHTEHTYVFXZNJI4ME3NPQW4E/
Quote:
''About 50 protesters showed up outside of the new Te Aratai College in Linwood, waving flags and signs as cars tooting in support drove by.
They could be heard yelling "shame on police" and "give us our jobs back", while others shouted, "you have destroyed our lives"
You have destroyed our lives. Guys, you can bet that's going to generate hate. More hate than that aimed at Bennett or Key.
Now, I know what you are thinking
. 50 to100 feral protesters ( depending on which news outlet), so what? Well, here's so what: each of those protesters probably has 10,000 or more Kiwis that agree with them IN THAT REGARD.
My original post.
That's one stuff-up the government's responsible for: not making provision for people to get the jobs back once the mandates were lifted. They also could've hammered home that the mandates were temporary. It's all well and good in hindsight, but it would've reduced the pushback if they had've done that.
Agree. The government, and society in general, just moved on after the mandates were lifted without regard for those who had lost their jobs and had basically been thrown on the scrap heap. Stranger still, some employers didn't want them back. That's loyalty for you.
Why would you want to re-employ someone who has shown no regard for their colleagues' safety. Especially the health workers. No sympathy here.
So removing yourself from the work place shows no regard for your colleagues' safety?
People who cared did that before it became compulsory. The whingers who shat on parliament’s lawn were not amongst those.
That's predicated on the assumption made by the government and some employers that people who refused to get the jab were both morally and legally reprehensible regardless of the reason for their refusal.
Refusing to play your part in universal public health protections is practically reprehensible. Dress it up however you like.
Dress 1 – previous allergic reactions to vaccinations.
Forcing dedicated frontline staff out of their jobs, upending their lives, and duly fucking up the health system in the name of policy is the reprehensible thing here.
That's predicated on the correct assumption made by the government and some employers that the majority of people who refused to get the jab were both morally and legally reprehensible regardless of their excuses for their refusal.
FIFY.
No, let me fix it for you. The Covid jab was started before all final safety results were available to the Ministry of Health. Those results still may be outstanding( I'm not pulling my research out again)? This was clearly stated on the MOH website at the time. So we may be talking of ''buyer beware.'' being legislated against by the government.
You seem to be labouring under the delusion that viruses are rational and everyone had time to sit around and natter about it. This is a global war against a lethal enemy that has not signed the Geneva Convention, and does not wait around for fools to bray.
Viruses aren't alive. The medical fraternity tie themselves in knots to even explain what viruses are. Some say discarded strands of DNA..others say something else.
So, Bob is dead. He wakes up. Gets into a bed and hijacks the living occupants of said bed for his own purposes. But…bob is dead?
How the hell does that work?
Addendum:
''For about 100 years, the scientific community has repeatedly changed its collective mind over what viruses are. First seen as poisons, then as life-forms, then biological chemicals, viruses today are thought of as being in a gray area between living and nonliving: they cannot replicate on their own but can do so in truly living cells and can also affect the behaviour of their hosts profoundly. ''
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-viruses-alive-2004/
Thats scandelous Blade, the MoH releasing a vaccine before appropriate safety data is collected. You will of course be providing references to back up your allegation? and providing context about how significant a breach of protocol it was.
Now I'll just have to revise my thinking a bit due to the other govt criticism I am hearing, that the vaccine roll out was too slow.
Not the link I wanted, but near enough.
https://covid.immune.org.nz/news-insights/provisional-approval-pfizer-vaccine-extended
Quote:
''Medsafe has now renewed the provisional approval for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 2 years, until 3 November 2023. Provisional Consent renewal is routine and has been applied previously to other medicines.
Provisional approval means the pharmaceutical company must meet certain conditions, including supplying more data from its clinical trials around the world as they progress. ''
Read the rest of the article. It may help your case. I look forward to your reply.
Thanks. That link has totally changed my mind.
Its actually a missunderscandal (sorry I don't know of any English equivalent of this word).
Here's the explanation (to be fair it was very carefully hidden at the bottom of the short page in
finesame size print),"Under New Zealand legislation, there is no ability to have different levels of approval for one vaccine or medicine. For example, Medsafe cannot grant full consent for the Pfizer vaccine for adults and maintain provisional consent for adolescents 12 to 15 years old (or in future applications such as 5 – 11-year-olds). This is one of the reasons why Medsafe has not moved to full approval in New Zealand for this vaccine at this time. "
So rather than going ahead without safety results Medsafe is explicitly not going ahead without the safety results. More specifically in particular age categories. As we also know Medsafe had not yet in 2021 but later approved the vaccine for 5-11 year olds once that data became available in early 2022.
Your welcome.
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
This article dated: BMJ 2021;375:n2635
You wrote:
'' Medsafe had not yet in 2021 but later approved the vaccine for 5-11 year olds once that data became available in early 2022.''
Either Pfizer’s is giving us POSSIBLE tainted data, or Medsafe is a sleep at the wheel.
Did you read anything about this in our local media? I didn't. That's my point, questions remain that should have been answered before Medsafe gave the go ahead to vaccinate younger age groups.
You will find other links where BMJ replies to Facebook ''fact checkers''…and other where some scientists think the issues raised weren't indicative of data corruption.
Again that's not the point.
You are also welcome.
Seeing as how your of a legal mind you will understand the case is going poorly when the prosecution starts withdrawing charges. In this case a reduced charge of Medsafe being 'asleep at the wheel' having received the data, rather than proceeding without the data.
"Either Pfizer’s is giving us POSSIBLE tainted data, or Medsafe is a sleep at the wheel."
It seems also POSSIBLE that Pfizer gave us perfectly good data and Medsafe doesn't engage in narcoleptic automobile use. In fact with a large amount of real world vaccine usage data this producing basically similar performance to the trial (across multiple countries) this seems highly likely.
Since you were unaware of this story (I was aware of it) you will also want to understand that its related to the original adult vaccine trials and specifically one of the agencies (of 153) which carried out only one part of the trial. Fortunately the trial involved 152 other such agencies doing similar sub-trials and as far as we know only this one had anything like serious concerns involved in its work.
Frankly its unclear what your alleging here. Medsafe is not able to do FDA investigations, so if the FDA decided there is nothing to see here they can hardly draw any other conclusions.
and again, no Medsafe should not have waited for all age group trials to be completed before releasing the adult vaccine. This would have delayed vaccination start until January of 2022.
"I'm not pulling my research out again"
From where?
whistles nonchalantly
I considered responding to Blade, Robert, but you put it much more elegantly than I ever could.
Fundamentally sound, Robert.
Cheers, gentlemen.
Lol…you poor deluded fools. I can understand Robert having difficulties, but the rest of you? And you Veitch. You wrote:
''I considered responding to Blade, Robert, but you put it much more elegantly than I ever could.
''
You give credit to a troll?
Tony declined to respond, Blade.
Not give credit.
Mac1’s comment is…fundamentally sound.
Blade – you have taught me that there is such a thing as a malicious bleeding heart.
Thanks
Why would you want to re-employ someone who has shown no regard for their colleagues' safety. Especially the health workers. No sympathy here.
You'll be pleased to know Sacha, that after a brief period of being paid as Peter's carer, the Universe returned to rights and that payment was cancelled because I chose not to take the Pfizer Product. Largely because it was new and experimental and I had spoken to too many people who had needed days incapacitated in bed to recover from their shots to risk leaving Peter without an experienced carer…even for a short while.
Peter refused it because of increasing neurological instability associated with his spinal cord injury made him very reluctant to risk exacerbating that…such issues being widely recorded adverse effects of the jab. The fact that neither of us felt free to discuss these concerns with any health professional made us even more reluctant. Censorship will have that effect.
We both got Covid in March. Got sick, didn't die, got better. No meds, no hospital. A few weeks later we organised to have a few hours per week of relief care so that I could go shopping and not have to worry about Peter being alone for hours. Local carer, suitably triple vaxxed, sits and chats (the times available were well outside our usual hands- on care times and the skills required are beyond their level of experience) while I do the necessary .
So, oh the bleeding irony, when said triple vaxxed (and morally and legally acceptable) carer went partying of a weekend, came here and chatted the following day and developed a sore throat and tested positive for Covid the day after.
So, Sacha. Explain to me how Peter and I are supposed to react to this.
The Pfizer Product does not prevent infection, transmission or symptomatic disease.
The mandates were never justified for any category of worker.
How is the health system holding up? You know, the one we were supposed to be saving by getting the jab? How many fully vaxxed health workers at any one time were absent from work at the various DHBs over the past two months?
I really appreciate your contributions on this subject, Rosemary. Your patience, eloquence and real life experience are a valuable contribution.
I sometimes want to engage with those who think everything is tickety-boo with the state's response, Pfizer's product rushed into the market with the FDA's asterisk concerning no other alternative/emergency and then mandating its use. Akin to another post here in TS about folk being anti-woke. There are similarities in the mindset: assuredness of their position and when evidence emerges suggesting it may not be as we have been led to believe, you get …. crickets. So I largely don't bother.
The video you posted a week (two weeks ?) ago, with the Scandinavian professor who would not now recommend the mRNA vaccines to anyone unless they were old or have serious health issues was sobering.
Thanks again for your efforts.
Your appreciation is appreciated gsays.
Christine Stabell-Benn (Danish) knows her stuff. She has done vaccines forever and it not afraid to acknowledge the bad with the good. She is a hard core scientist…who cares. Rare these days. This pre -dates Covid, and shows how all is not necessarily good in the vaccine arena.
Absolutely – vaccines and other preventative health interventions aren't perfect. And yet, as Prof. Stabell Benn observes @13:30 minutes:
She knows her stuff, and further asserts that the polarised vaccine debate is hindering the wider acceptance of her research results, and delaying the development and roll-out of (more beneficial) live vaccines.
Seems that polarisation in the vaccine area might be counterproductive to improving health, so no (more) polarisation from me.
Thank you. And from my part I apologise for my 'tad personal' snark last night. Current events are unnerving to anyone following them closely and sometimes it spills over when it should not.
Cheers.
Thanks RL. Apologies from me too; all the best to you and yours.
"They also could've hammered home that the mandates were temporary. "
That is precisely what they did do… over and over again. Especially Ardern. She emphasised it for all the media outlets. Something I particularly noticed though, there were few journalists, reporters and other commentators who picked up on it in their summaries. Not saying it was a deliberate ploy but yet another example of their often lazy reporting.
And each of these students probably has 10,000 or more of their countryfolk agreeing with them..
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300613657/prime-minister-mobbed-for-selfies-during-christchurch-high-school-visit
Reckons are easy.
Political polls reckon better.
Polling (like any other kind of survey) is tricky.
Here's the story of a famous one.
In NZ, poll size, and the inclinations of the pollsters, render may results dubious. They are more a vehicle for the bandwagon effect than an objective measure of public opinion.
The leader of Belarus has polls that claim 90% support. But there were massive nationwide street protests against his 're-election'. Generally speaking, that wouldn't occur were his polling genuine.
It's funny how the 'pull yourself up by your socks' types become victims immediately should hardship befall them. And by hardship, I mean nothing more than accumulating excess a little slower than the ridiculous rate they've grown accustomed to. The free ride has slowed a little due to global conditions.
"Ruined my life."
Such drama queens. So utterly incapable of self reflection their entire life is apparently ruined by local government – not their decisions, their efforts, their actions or their inability to adapt.
Is "snowflake" the appropriate term here?
No, that's cultural appropriation.
Whose culture? Inuit?
No. The Inuit have at least 20 different words for a 'Snowflake'. My culture is limited by straight talk to calling a snowflake a snowflake.
Worked alongside Inuit people in the Canadian Arctic in 2018. Quiet wiry people but you probably do not ever want to piss them off. Opposite of snowflakes.
At dinner one night I asked one of them where he came from – thinking he would FIFO'ing in from one of the 17 settlements that are spread out over the huge expanse of Nunavut. (Essentially it is a territory larger than Western Europe with a total population around the size of Gisbourne.)
Much to my bafflement he said 'Oh – around here'. ' Cambridge Bay?' I asked – being the nearest settlement I knew of. 'No – around here about 4km away'. Well that had me beat – because there is absolutely nothing but frozen wilderness for at least 100km in every direction. Turns out he really did grow up there – married and had four kid all in an tiny, isolated group of stone huts – lined with animal pelts and heated with seal oil lamps. Everything had to be hunted and processed by them the hard and dangerous way.
It was -25degC outside at the time – a temperature he was grumbling about. Because of climate change was about 30degC too fucking hot for him.
One of the more bizarre conversations I have ever had.
The British SAS did research on why some troopers were better suited to different climatic conditions. I would assume because some troopers handled certain conditions better than others. The conditions you describe would kill me. I can hardly function once the temp drops below -3 C. However, heat has little affect on me. I crave it. I find winter time hell.
I'm the exact opposite – I found the arctic cold invigorating. It is fair to say that what we get in NZ is that miserable damp cold around within five or ten degrees of zero – where nothing is properly dry and it is impossible to feel comfortable.
However when it gets below about -15degC however all the moisture in the air has frozen out and there is no liquid phase water left. Most of the time I was there it was between -20 and -40degC outside and that is a quite different experience.
In the camp there was no water except in the showers and kitchen that were constantly heated. I could shower and wrap a towel around me and walk 15m down the corridor to my room and my hair would be bone dry when I got there. Everything wet just sublimated dry instantly.
We had three major building about 2min walk apart to get between, and on my first week or so I would rug up with all my warm gear. But then I discovered if the wind was not too bad I could do it in my t-shirt – yes it was cold and I am no more immune to exposure or frostnip than anyone else – but I found that enjoyable. On other occasions I got to walk about 40min away from camp, but once I had gotten around a corner and out of sight I started to feel very isolated and alone. That was as far as I was prepared to go.
There was an alternative path for me to go from the back of the processing building and down to the camp by another route past the power plant. That was much less used and not well lit – but I enjoyed it until one night I got that sense something was watching. Sure enough we found wolf track the next morning just 10m or so from where I had been blithering along. Stuck to the main route after that.
The coldest we got to was -63degC including windchill, getting on the plane one morning. That was brutal – 2 minutes of that fully kitted up was quite enough.
"one night I got that sense something was watching"
That's an interesting experience, RedLogix. Experiments have been done to determine whether people can in fact "feel" hidden eyes upon them and it turns out, we can, in fact.
I wonder how that works?
A disjointed comment probably done on the fly after seeing your fellow drones extinguished by a wasp. I see Robert is trolling in support, so I will take your korero with a grain of salt…ok, a pinch of honey.
''Such drama queens. So utterly incapable of self reflection their entire life is apparently ruined by local government – not their decisions, their efforts, their actions or their inability to adapt.''
I take it you mean central government?
The point has flown right over your head. What they are, aren't or what you think of them is immaterial. What one of them might do is.
So you've joined those losers making veiled threats now "What one of them might do is"
Should we be scared?
There's people losing their shit over the price of gas right now I can't help the precious dears if they've zero foresight.
As for the protestors, I couldn't care less how many 'real people' decided to get in bed with those white supremacist tossers. If you lie down with dogs…
For the record you aint a wasp you're an immature lightweight. Your contributions are garbage. You are as dumb as fuck.
Oh, man. I'm in love with this woman. Finally, someone with the guts to lay it on the line. This type of tokenism has riled me for some time. It is misread by liberals as everyone being on board with te reo and Maori culture. The reality is it's just white wokisters wanting to be able to say: ''US TOO!!
Quote:
"I encourage te reo use but in no way will I tolerate tokenistic use of reo by govt agencies as an attempt to show govt depts are culturally competent.''
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/former-conservation-minister-kiri-allan-calls-out-tokenistic-use-of-te-reo-at-doc/XAXTVIAQC2NXEUMJFOKN7NU2YY/
You misunderstand the Minister. She wants more Te Reo not less.
No, you misunderstand. You misunderstand what I have written previously. If you are going to use te reo, you do it properly. And not on an ad hoc basis.
That's possible too.
If on the face of it she wants less or no Te Reo if it is not done somehow properly, then the Minister is wrong on multiple counts.
– Use of Te Reo is strongly encouraged in most Departments whether she calls it 'tokenistic' or not.
– Use of Te Reo in most Departments isn't reversible now. It's been going on for many years and accelerated under this government.
– The Minister is not an arbiter of what is or is not 'tokenistic' whether she thinks she is or not. All Ministries get advice on how and when it is used, and most have specialists in-house.
– The Minister should instead should show where Ministries are doing this well, such as in the multiple mana whenua partnerships with DoC all over the place which are of course all bilingual.
It's the kind of timesome moral policing that achieves nothing except play into the hands of the media. Clearly she has tried to walk it all back with "misunderstood", but it was dumb and I am sure the PMs' department will have told her so.
No, he is right on this one. She wants meaningful reo or none.
Oh, please! Straight into perfect reo, tikanga and understanding of te Ao Maori?
Please think again.
It ain't easy.
Cut some slack.
Give a person a break.
Calm the farm.
People are trying. Trying to learn, accommodate, align, be respectful.
If they sound awkward, send them some love. How would YOU sound?
Be kind 🙂
He is right about what she is saying. I defer to this expert Māori leader about what language she wants to see in reports. Given the timing, the message may have been about the previous Minister. Why would my preferences matter.
"Oh, man."
Really?
Are you only addressing the men here on The Standard?
Come, come, Robert, you know that we are not real men here on The Standard, (magnificent beards or not), but rather wokester wimps and "poor deluded fools". 🙂
I sense that Blade, despite being an organic farmer, au fait with the use of biochar, vortexes and seawater fertilisers, has a face as hairless as a baby's.
Of course Blade may claim to have cultivated a Methuselah-like beard to match his organic 10 acre lifestyle but I'll take that with a grain of bought-off-farm charcoal (how much charcoal did you say you bought, Blade, to cover your 10-acres needs? Quite a lot, I'd imagine and I imagine you imagine too!).
Aye, Robert, I see Blade as the most pretentious yet obvious troll that we have encountered to date. Pretentions of pure innocence combined with material that smacks of evil intent, and then volumnious denial.. often 'on an ad hoc basis'.
From where does Blade get all the time to contribute so generously?
And why does he put so much effort into doing so? And why does he somehow remind me of earlier trolls going under other names? Language patterns?
Yes I would love to visit Blade's organic farm too.
How about an Open Day?
Trolls usually drop and run, and rarely engage with points of argument as Blade does. And demanding that people dox themselves is a really bad idea.
Fair enough.
On second thoughts,.. Rubbish.
We are not talking about what trolls usually do. We are talking about an individual who could well be an exception.
Secondly, did I actually demand that anybody do anything at all?
Good call, In Vino, and just what I thought… "Trolls usually" tries to obscure non-usual troll behaviour – well done you.
Trolls usually hide beneath the arches of bridges…
So if this troll isn't, he can't be a troll..
smiles
''And why does he put so much effort into doing so? And why does he somehow remind me of earlier trolls going under other names? Language patterns.''
Those are serious implied allegations. You will need to back that up. Give us some names so the site can have these checked out.
Implied allegations? Well, I am glad they are not full allegations! I am aging, and the only name of a past troll I can remember at the moment is a guy who went for a while by the name of Chuck. The site have already told me that such accusations are unwise, and that while they try to track such things, they cannot be sure that they are aware of all that is happening, but that I should refrain from accusations. That was years ago now.
So fair enough; I withdraw my 'implied allegations'.
Looking forward to further respectful debate.
Cool.
"Language patterns"
Spot on.
I'd add "tone" and "underlying intent".
There was a guy, very clever indeed, who used to post here or on Frogblog, who talked about being “on the spectrum” and also this aspect of commenting patterns. He used an algorithmic programme of some sort (maybe built it himself” to determine whether “anonymous of Tawa” was also “anonymous of Helensville”. I wish I could remember his name. I wish he still posted here.
You may be amused to know I once attended a four day flow form workshop at Taruna College in 1988 led by none other than John Wilkes himself.
I was living in Kawerau at the time and it was in the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Bola. I had taken my mountain bike through the old Motu Road (and struggled through some monumental slips) and stayed with a friend who ran 2,000 acres of hill country farm north of Matawai. It took four days to reach him, and he was incredibly surprised anyone turned up at all. Stayed a week to help him get some fences sorted and then headed out to the coast. Went north and stayed at my home marae then, south to Hastings. A bit of an adventure just getting there.
The course was most memorable for the remarkable collection of other people there. PP was of course there, but lots of other really fascinating people with far more real life experience than I had. I enjoyed it immensely even if I did feel like a bit of an imposter is such rare company.
Still plan on building one when we get back to NZ. I have a perfect spot for it in mind. Will be nine bowls long at least, four chambers each – and very beautiful if I have my way.
You never fail to amaze 🙂
PP stayed here with us, back in the day. Will you hand-form your flow form bowls from clay? I had a simple form here long ago, but it's been lost somehow. I love the swish. I keep axolotyls now and bet they'd love a spin in one, for an invigorating short-while, at least 🙂
The only ones I have seen were cast in some form. I had not thought of hand making them in clay but it makes sense if you want each one to be slightly different.
It has interested me to know how the claims of "champions of small hardworking kiwis/small business owners" (otherwise known as the National party) stand up. So I did a little "unscientific" research – using Wiki – to see what "Start-up/self-employed" experience the current National party Caucus had. Several (and I got bored after reading the first 13 ranked profiles) went straight from Academia into consultancies/political staffing jobs. Many, like the leader appeared to have walked into already well established and bankrolled organisations, or inherited considerable wealth. None would appear to have been from "battling little Kiwi" backgrounds.
So I would suggest they are hardly justified in calling out the government MPs as "out of touch/lacking experience".
Corporate work and business consulting does count as business experience.
Not in question. Much easier to take a few risks with other peoples' money – a bit like another of our whiz kid former PM's.
If you had struggled to the bitter end, I doubt the outcome would have been any different.
When you say they went from Academia… bear in mind most went to expensive private schools where one's shot at academic prowess and consultancy work had far more to do with who Daddy knew than any budding talent.
"who Daddy knew"
Elegant!
I did a similar exercise an election or three ago here based on the number of teachers and academics that National loved to disparage were found on the Labour benches.. There were many in National….
Here's the reference. https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-21072015/#comment-1048166
Quite an interesting discussion actually…..
Yes, that was interesting.
10 /10 to ianmac who wrote:
21 July 2015 at 10:33 am
Genter, “Her financial hero is American Herman Daly, who was one of the first economists to talk about the incompatibility of infinite economic growth in a finite world.”
Makes you wonder where we are heading. Constant need to increase population and grow the economy might be a disaster in the long run.
Sounds like the first 13 mirror the Prime Minister's experience….
… I assume you read the whole of my post.
"It was unclear what protesters outside the school were campaigning against."
They done like the evil media and they done like Marxism and someone's got a hang up on Satan. That seems the basis of their complaint.
We're getting lucky.
Response to foreign waka at 3
I think you might be mixing up two different aspects of ACC. Prisoners do not get earnings related compensation (compo) because they are not wage or salary-earners.
Both injured people would be entitled to any private medical treatment for their injuries being heavily subsidised by ACC, provided they could prove their injuries were caused by an accident and not by disease. (nb This might sound straight forward, but it is surprisingly complex, particularly where age -related degeneration might be a factor in any injury caused by an accident.)
Damn, I was hoping Lynn's upgrade would fix the problems I have in posting. It hasn't, but I only had to go through part of the usual rigmarole to be able to post here, so things might be looking up. But it has dropped to the bottom again. Apologies