Give the calls over the past years to raise the superannuation age, it would be worth looking into poverty and unemployment rates among those who are 60-64 and if they have become worse off since the NS age was last raised from 60-65 from 1991 – 2001. I don’t think that this has been looked into.
I think it is time we thought about putting the age back to 60.
Why would you put it back to 60? Most of us are still perfectly capable of working at that age, and there are systems in place for those that aren’t. There’s plenty to fix in our country before we get to that. If there’s money to throw around it would be better to raise the super rate for those that are now eligible, wouldn’t it?
I am about to turn 60 in June. Have no intention of retiring until I can’t code well.
But my knees ache when I get up from the low sofa and I find flights of 5 stairs discouraging when I meet them on a daily basis. But e-biking is fun.
Not all of us can wind up writing code on our butts in a freezing aircond office. The 5 months of working outside in Singapore last year on site might have been an experience. But one that I wouldn’t want to repeat too frequently.
I also couldn’t be a farm worker, factory worker, soldier or bar man as I was in my youth. It’d kill me fast.
I suspect that super needs to be more flexible about giving it to people who are working, especially since the changes to secondary tax remove the clawbacks.
They aren’t particularly good. But there are (or maybe were) various provisions for people to get pensions down to about age 55 if they were unable to hold down a job and had to retire early. These may have been subsumed into other benefit systems.
Apart from the impossibility of getting another job after 50, let alone 55 for most, due to extreme ageism in this country.
Just had two more of our staff permanently medically unfit to work.
Ironically, one was only in his 40’s, from work related conditions.
A few years ago ACC, would have helped, but now ACC, staff specialize in pretending work related illnesses are “age related” even when it relates to a previous injury.
Now they go in the hilariously named, “jobseekers”, where some wet behind the ears, who can’t spell, takes compulsory courses in resume writing.
While WINZ pretends they have a chance, in a job market where even fit, keen young people, miss out.
I know many builders, nurses, seafarers, fishermen and other workers where it takes a serious toll on your body, who struggle to work to 55, let alone 60. I was lucky, as I had another trade i could do, at Management level, at 50, after RSI stopped me building. I can still cope with the physical demands of the job. Hopefully for a few more years.
Not to mention so many, skilled and unskilled, manual workers, have had “precarious” employment since the 80’s “reforms”. With their savings and houses long gone.
University educated paper pushers don’t have a fucking clue.
The lucky “boomers” only ever applied to a minority. Admittedly a large one. The lives of many never recovered after the “reforms”.
We have dumped our children, and are starting to do the same to our elderly. The “brighter future” for North shore speculators.
Privatisation of super has worked just as well as all the other privatisations.
KJT
I think you spell it out well,
The ordinary working person on ordinary pay may have managed to put away some money in their lifetime if they haven’t had to move and
have lived in their home a long time paying an ordinary mortgage.
The rest will probably have been stuffed with high prices for housing or accommodation, by the colonial land grab from the overseas money machines.
If a 65 year old person goes on working in their own business that is paying its way then good on them, and they should get some super and good medical help.
If they have listened to neolib advice that benefits are bad, and being self-sustaining is good and stay on after 65 or 67 because they can and are still capable, then they take away the opportunity for another to be promoted and earn some money towards their own retirement. It is another way of boomers soaking up advantages for themselves despite being patted on the head by self-professed wise advisors on retirement.
One of the answers is to require all capable seniors beyond 60 or 65 to do voluntary work. They will be paid their super, and their helpful work in areas of need, which they can choose, for varying hours a week as suitable to them, will be regarded as work. It would be just another form of ‘Work for the Dole’. And that is fair and reasonable practice, and beneficial to both nation and the individual when designed to fit their abilities, and personal situations in a way that enhances their lives.
The country would be a better place to live, would rise in its standards, and the citizen involvement would result in them keeping an eye on its progress and its politicians, because they have personal, physical skin in the game. No sitting around making complaints about their theories of how things should be, totally unrealistic ones.
The maori party policy of a age band from 60 through to 70 is still the best idea . If you take it early you get a bit less but im ok with that as most of sweat of the brow types live on less all our lives .
I worked as a gardener developing gardens on several large properties all my working life, well since the age of 34. (and managed to raise 4 children on my own on that pay)
I still have one big garden I keep on for sentimental reasons
I can tell you I was mighty pleased to stop at the age of 65 and was ready to stop well before that
So your personal circumstances should dictate public policy. Why is the left so self absorbed and willing to take handouts? That’s isn’t socialism. It’s lazy greed
Don’t be silly! Of course, public policy should be completely disconnected from personal circumstances unless you’re Mr Mean or Ms Ave Rage.
Superannuation is most definitely socialism in action! It allows or should allow the lower paid workers and members of society a decent retirement income after they have slaved all their working lives for the capitalists.
Yes, Robert. I felt very sad. A great friend and I lit candles in the Notre Dame in 1990. She was of Maori and French connections, and while we are also discussing the pension…. Marina died 5 years before she would have received it, as many Maori people do.
It’s not just a religious symbol, it’s a symbol of civic and national identity, and and amazing work of art and engineering.
The organisation of its structure and the little clues and tweaks enable us to gain a connection to the minds of its builders almost a thousand years ago. The personal touches to some of the features build a human connection with the artists long deceased.
Whether the beams were numbered in arabic or roman numerals gives us a clue as to the timescale of how that mathematical advance spread across Europe first as a secret guild tool and then as an accepted part of “higher education”.
And finally, the sheer mass of the imposing structure built with crude tools and human power over several lifetimes is a tribute to our ancestors and a testament to what we are capable of today.
“just an old building”. Holy shitfuckballs. For it to be destroyed would be a global loss, like losing the pyramids or Anker Wat (again).
Thank you McFlock – well said. I have been there. I lived in Lyon for 2 years, visiting Paris only briefly.
All of France will be bleeding over this, but you can bet that they will restore it.
I marvelled at the restoration done in West Germany after WW2. This will be no different.
No repeat of Christchurch Cathedral conundrum, you can be sure.
Not sure why Rosemary is stirring. Feeding and sheltering the poor is indeed worthy, but can Rosemary really believe that cultural monuments which mark moments of civilization are of no value?
Has a site of feeding the poor ever been recognised, let alone inspired?
“Not sure why Rosemary is stirring. ” So, expressing an opinion that differs from what is obviously the norm is “stirring”? Interesting, and I’ll bear that in mind during the next ‘discussion’ on the perils and pitfalls of free speech.
“Feeding and sheltering the poor is indeed worthy, (so pleased to see that actually writ, here, on the Left’s last bastion 😉 ) but can Rosemary really believe that cultural monuments which mark moments of civilization are of no value?
Rosemary is getting crankier and more cynical as tempus fugits and has given up all hope that somehow mankind (yes, YOU) is capable of evolving much further. I’m not exactly convinced that these monuments to man’s ingenuity and enterprise and sheer determination (we’ll put aside any squeamishness that perhaps not all involved in the hard graft were fired and inspired entirely by the desire to raise the stones to the Heavens for the Glory of God) are the best places to focus our thought for a survivable future. Does one stand in awe at the astounding capability of human endeavour, or does one merely bide a wee reflecting that at least for a short time, as a species, we were actually capable of achieving Great Erections?
Perhaps I see these as monuments to our lost civilisation?
Because surely to God, any species that can construct something so absolutely awesomely technologically sophisticated can feed and house the poor and marginalised and halt climate change in it’s tracks?
Rosemary, you are stirring all right.
Surprisingly to you maybe, I agree that mankind seems incapable of evolving much further. This is because I believe that mankind has succeeded in destroying his own environment: climate change, as we like to call it, is likely to wipe us all out – rich and poor alike.
I have often pondered about how those medieval marvels were built. I suspect that the blood and suffering of the poor in those days was immense – that Notre Dame is a monument to the powerful built through the near slavery and blood and suffering and deaths of the poor. The cruelty and suffering of the poor in those days was, I would say, worse than most of the poor suffer nowadays – certainly in France. So what are you really railing at, Rosemary?
There probably isn’t much human future (although we are not supposed to say that) and for advanced countries the poverty was worse in the past, if still morally intolerable now.
Yes, I too would like a nice little site where some of the poor could be fed for a little while.
But I would not see it as a landmark in the evolution (or devolution?) of human society.
You are wrong.
Man can construct great art, but he seems utterly incapable of creating a just society, and looks fully capable of destroying his own environment. No point in complaining – that is how it is.
Man can construct great art, but he seems utterly incapable of creating a just society …
There’s no comparison between these two!
Any talented skilled person can produce art in a relatively short time. Any genius can create great art within their (usually short) lifetime. It takes a whole population and many generations and (in no particular order) inspirational leaders, great thinkers, brave radical activists, to name a few, to create something that approaches a just society.
For the same token, it is ‘easier’ to create an image of a black hole 55 million light-years away than to let a woman shine.
Jesus christ I’ve known some glum bastards in my time, but I’ll never understand how someone can be so consumed in being glum that they can’t take a second to appreciate something so awesome, or worry about it when it is in danger, and think that is a normal way to live.
I took more than a second to appreciate the awesomeness….”Because surely to God, any species that can construct something so absolutely awesomely technologically sophisticated….” see, see, …”can feed and house the poor and marginalised and halt climate change in it’s tracks?”
Do you think, McFlock, that in the year 3019 our decedents will look around in awe and wonder at the Earth in all her rehabilitated glory?
Will our multi- times great grandies bathe in clean rivers and sit down to wholesome meals, safe in the knowledge that all on the planet are similarly blessed? Will they go to sleep in their homes after hearing stories about how their ancestors a thousand years ago decided that humans had inflicted enough pain and suffering on the Planet and her inhabitants and collectively undertook to Put Things Right?
What it represents to me Rosemary as an Athiest it represents all the skills artistry and passion of generations. It is NOT just an old building It represents what the western society is all about complete with its faults
It is tragic, a priceless treasure has been semi-destroyed. Let’s hope it is rebuilt.
Putting the Paris homeless in it will NOT solve the problems the world has today
You regularly piss on religious related discussions using derogatory language…along with others here…
Respect, my foot…how hypocritical can you get…you reckon, Andre…
My read is Rosemary was highlighting a truism of attitudes frequenting this place….while also offering thoughts on another practical use for the site …
Empathy is the issue. Grief for what is lost. Compassion for their pain. Some comfort in that some parts are saved.My six year old niece visited Notre Dame three days ago. She is inconsolable, her parents write, because she loved that building. She understands.
Oh jeez, can we all please not have yet another long thread of One Two’s content-free pseudo-delphic attempted put-downs of others’ thinking abilities and the obvious responses thereto?
The put down was yours…to Rosemary…I simply pointed out the hypocrisy in your comment…which along with your smears and abuse…is a regular feature of your musings…
And when you don’t like being called out…you cry for moderation…
What is it with you ALMC guys…serve up continual abuse and derogatory statements…then ask for protection when a mirror is held up to each of you…
You contentious so and so One Two. Why can’t you let other people make strong statements in their own time and way without putting your critical and negative oar in. This is an example of freedom of speech and expression which is reasonable and you are trying to crush it.
Notre Dame soared into the air towards heaven expressing the uplifting thoughts of the puny humans who got together and built this over centuries.
Appreciating beauty that we have created ourselves, something grand and with ‘lofty’ views and also appreciating the fine skilled work and hard graft that was put in by people who could put aside the everyday and seek a lasting monument to greatness, is part of our advanced human society.
It is something to look at and wonder at, and embedded in it are human dreams and intellectual longings, and the complete range of human endeavour and intelligence.
The Paris homeless are the same as the homeless everywhere, needy and ill-used. But it is barbaric to not care about the destruction of monuments to ideals that may never be realised, at least while they remain they remind us of the desire and effort to transcend the vicissitudes of life. The Taliban deliberately destroyed ancient monuments hand-carved and apparently ever-lasting. The USA and other countries have destroyed precious places to break the spirit of the people.
Now fire in a loft has affected this building with its lofty purview. Most sad.
People there will inevitably say – Hitler asked ‘Is Paris burning’ so how come this could happen in peacetime? There were insufficient fire-prevention installations apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Paris_Burning%3F_(book)
“…is part of our advanced human society.
It is something to look at and wonder at, and embedded in it are human dreams and intellectual longings, and the complete range of human endeavour and intelligence.”
Have you been there, Rosemary McDonald? It has immense spiritual value, similar to the spiritual uplift I saw at Glencoe in Scotland when I visited the church where my McDonald ancestor was married. Age, connection, beauty.
No. France was not on the list of holiday destinations in my youth in the UK. Old buildings abound in the UK…bit of a yawn fest after a while. There was a certain delight when some of the Peers had to open up their stately homes to the public for money to pay their taxes….eww….having to let the riff raff in must have really hurt.
Scandinavia…and apart from a few museums with viking longboats, the Fram and the KonTiki, I don’t remember much in the way of Scandinavians resting on their architectural or technological laurels to attract the tourists.
Scotland, of course, being Scots and all that….yes. But only to the extent that loathing of royalty and the so called upper classes is at a genetic memory level. Yes, I do ‘remember’ Glencoe, (sniveling, slimy, treacherous Campbells, may them and all their decedents rot etc etc.) but at some point we have to move forward.
Keeping harping back to real and perceived injustices and horrors from centuries ago benefits whom? Many a Scotsman has snotted into his glass, blaming past injustices for his propensity for the drink. At some stage one has to wipe of the chip and move on.
Emigrate is of course what my lot did. Away from the old squabbles.Just as the old Protestant/Catholic divide was also largely forgotten in NZ. My joke with my wife is that I married a member of a Campbell-affiliated clan. By marriage we mend the old hurts. Not even an issue for us. Just an historical awareness, a cultural sharing, a part of identity.
At Glencoe I was shown around by our tour driver who also was a Glencoe McDonald on his mother’s side. There are three islands in the loch where clans met to talk over and agree to deals and where the dead were buried, close to the water and the underworld, which reminded me of a walk along Spirit’s Bay when I was a young man.
It’s good to seek and find the connections between people rather than the differences.
I first went to see Notre Dame simply because it was one of those things to do when you go to Paris. I was completely unprepared for the overwhelming sense of awe which flooded over me when I stood inside and looked up toward the magnificent round stained glass window. I had to sit down and just let it wash over me and found myself close to tears. It is not just a building.
I find myself close to tears again this morning and can hardly bear to look at the photos and videos of it burning.
It’s hugely culturally significant. It stands as a stunning example of what beautiful works can be achieved by people working together seeking spiritual nourishment, while simultaneously standing as a reminder that all throughout history there have been small classes of the powerful so intent on their personal ends that they get off on exploiting the masses to achieve that gratification.
The engineering of it is truly remarkable. It stands as an incredible embodiment of what can be achieved using evolutionary development with low-performance materials and very limited theoretical understanding or analysis tools.
It’s economically significant. Notre Dame is part of the tourist drawcard for Paris.
It’s simply aesthetically pleasing to go and spend time there, regardless of any underlying views about the religious ideas it represents.
Yet you want to trash all this for short term relief of a social problem that can and should be addressed independently. There’s no shortage of places and ways to help the homeless that don’t involve trashing such a significant part of our shared heritage. I’m disgusted.
edit: here’s a worthwhile read on just part of why Notre Dame matters.
To be totally honest, at a personal level that’s my reaction too. If I’m gonna travel and brave the crowds at historical tourist attractions I’d much rather it was outside my cultural background. Give me Great Zimbabwe or Chan-Chan or Luxor or Chichen Itza or Borobudur any day.
I get about the …”The engineering of it is truly remarkable. It stands as an incredible embodiment of what can be achieved using evolutionary development with low-performance materials and very limited theoretical understanding or analysis tools.” I really do….but for all that, here in 2019, how far have we evolved from those days of “the powerful so intent on their personal ends that they get off on exploiting the masses to achieve that gratification.”?
Not very far I fear. Hence my plan to care for a facility to care for the needs of the decedents of the exploited downtrodden to rise from the rubble.
Andre…you do understand that it was not moi who set fire to Notre Dame?
Like, I am not personally responsible for the bloody thing being on fire?
Like, suggesting that instead of an expensive rebuild of a monument to mankind’s folly a place devoted to the welfare of the most vulnerable be erected instead is not me somehow destroying French civilization as we know it?
Here’s another blow for you to process, there’s enough of the existing structure to rebuild and Macron and local authorities have vowed to do the rebuild.
“The French leader has repeatedly said he won’t reintroduce a wealth tax on the country’s richest people — one of the protesters’ major demands.
The yellow vest movement, prompted by a fuel tax hike in November, has expanded into a broader revolt against Macron’s policies, which protesters see as favoring the rich and big businesses. Their protests, which often turned violent, especially in Paris, provoked a major domestic crisis that sent Macron’s popularity to record low levels.”
Conservative commentator Mark Steyn said the French were “among the most godless people” in the modern Western world during a Notre Dame fire segment on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.
[…]
Another analysis by Pew Research Center in December 2018 found that France’s religious commitment among adults was higher compared to other European nations In the analysis, 34 countries were ranked by four individual measures of religiosity: Importance of religion, worship attendance, frequency of prayer and belief in God. Based on the analysis, France was deemed the ninth-least religious country in Europe, with Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Czech Republic, Denmark and Estonia all found to be less religious.
“On Twitter, white nationalist Richard Spencer hoped that the fire “serves to spur the White man into action.” Noted Islamophobe Pam Gellar opined that Islam had something to do with it.”
just didn’t think these people were this low – my bad
Islam is apparently responsible for all the horrors that plague stupid racist white men — male pattern baldness, erectile dysfunction, the irresistible compulsion to prove themselves dribbling simpletons whenever they open their mouths.
Richard Spencer could do with another smack in the gob to be honest. Never heard of Pam Gellar, but she sounds adorable.
Pamela Geller, Brigitte Gabriel, Sam Harris, all have interesting perspectives on Islam. I particularly like Sam Harris’ “motherlode of bad ideas” comment.
Jeez, what next? Are flying water tankers even a thing?? I suppose if they are it could be seen as a practical suggestion, but I don’t recall anything other than choppers using those big buckets that can open at the bottom.
One imagines the city authorities being reluctant to have one of those unloading over the Île de la Cité. I don’t think Trump’s good at imagining, though.
I’m curious how close the nearest one would actually be. Or how close even the nearest chopper with a monsoon bucket is and how soon it could get there.
If it was a good idea to hit ancient stone masonry with fifty tons on water dropped from a great height I guess the good burghers of all the major European cities containing medieval architecture would give them a jolly good shower on an annual basis. The fact that they don’t is a good indication that gentler methods are preferred.
They considered using aerial water bombing but then reckoned that the weight of the water falling on the damaged roof would have done even more damage. Of course tRump has no appreciation of anything other than himself, so he would have missed that vital piece of information.
I feel like a cat that has brought in a mouse as a gift. But looking at Nietzsche’s thoughts being analysed was interesting while we are thinking tangentially on religion and the value of churches. When we attempt to grapple with the confusions of the day, we walk in the footsteps of these great thinkers. Nietzsche thinks we have abandoned God and Christianity in our seeking for truth. And we will not be happy – we won’t be able to handle ‘our’ truth!
In this sense, Nietzsche sees the Enlightenment pursuit of Truth as being one and the same with the goal of Christianity. The values of individual dignity and human equality esteemed by the Enlightenment and dressed up by philosophers in the language of rational objectivity are for Nietzsche Christian values.
Thus, to him, the Enlightenment, far from being the repudiation of the Christian world-view, is its continuation, and a supreme example of what Nietzsche castigates as the ‘prejudices of philosophers’ (Beyond Good and Evil). The chief philosophic prejudice, according to Nietzsche, is the pretence to pursue objective truth.
Nietzsche interprets philosophy as being successive attempts by great minds to flee from the face of reality and construct higher worlds, from Plato’s ‘Theory of Forms’ to Kant’s ‘thing-in-itself’ and, in so doing, ‘revenge themselves against life’ (Twilight of the Idols: III, 6). In its pursuit of the ‘will to truth’ the Enlightenment made inevitable its own collapse; the unrestrained pursuit of truth leads to its own devaluation…
The death of God unleashes an age of nihilism, when ‘there is no goal, no answer to the question: why?’ and ‘the highest values devalue themselves’ (The Will to Power: 2). In other words, with the death of God comes the collapse of the very values that have dominated the West for two thousand years.
This time on our practically non existent Public Health service. No, not the hospitals and the ambulances but the folks trying to influence policy that will “look after the collective health of our nation.”
“”The leadership position for public health in New Zealand, is held by the Director of Public Health, a position now held – after being vacant for some years – by Dr Caroline McElnay.
It’s a position required by legislation.
Skegg describes McElnay as very good but points out despite the title, she is not part of the Ministry of Health executive leadership team.
“They [the Ministry of Health] have an executive leadership team which has got about 10 people on. It’s quite big, but the director of public health is not there. So, you can see the amount of priority, the Ministry is giving to public health.”
The executive leadership team has 16 members. There is deputy director-general population health and prevention on the team, but the director of public health is not included.
Also required by legislation is a division within the Ministry of Health call the Public Health Group.
“The public health group in recent years has just been just a remnant actually. Just a very small number of people. You can’t even find them on the Ministry of Health website,” said Skegg.
He believes the Ministry is “totally overwhelmed” administering personal health services.
“There just aren’t the experts in the Ministry of Health that a country like New Zealand needs to plan and oversee public health programs and to respond to emergencies.”
How do we score?
Once New Zealand was referred to as the campylobacter capital of the world by food safety experts.
It’s estimated there are 30,000 cases per year, most caught from fresh chicken. A report released in 2018 shows 60 to 90 percent of fresh chicken has high levels of the bacteria which can cause stomach illness and lead to complications such as arthritis and the paralysing Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Skegg said the Ministry for Primary Industries has declined to lower the allowable contamination levels for fresh chicken any further.
“The Ministry for Primary Industries won’t even agree to put a warning label on the packages to tell people.””
Nothing much has changed….industry lobby groups and biased officials continue to failed to respond when the health of the public s at risk.
Brian Easton has a good column on equity in health care:
“Healthcare
What has happened to healthcare is nicely illustrated by an international analysis of healthcare systems by the prestigious (American) Commonwealth Fund. It compares 11 countries (it always finds the US has the worst system). In 2017 it found New Zealand’s ranking was 8th (out of 11) on the equity dimension, ahead of France, Canada and the US. We were behind Britain, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Germany and Australia.” https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/have-we-abandoned-the-egalitarian-society
Yes, Easton has written oft times about our health system, and some of his earlier work was almost prophetic.
You’d think that a mass education/consciousness raising campaign on the dangers of under-cooking chicken would be a no brainer….especially if it were couched in more politically acceptable ‘cost to the health sector/loss of earnings’ terms . Like wise for sugar and alcohol consumption.
But no. We’d hate to annoy our funders wouldn’t we?
I recall it’s our chicken *suppliers* who are at fault, with way more processed carcasses and cuts sporting a coat of bacteria than is allowed in other countries. If they refuse to lift their game to international standards, the solution proposed by NZ’s expert on this, Prof Michael Baker, is for govt to regulate that only frozen chicken can be supplied to the public. Tick tock.
The first thing to remember about this health grading ianmac link 3.2 was that it covered only 11 countries that are regarded as developed. So we are near bottom as a country on a number of things. Would some measures indicate clearly all the lows or would some be hidden by averaging out?
Among all adults, we came
9th of those with cost-access-related problems,
7th= in terms of those had skipped dental care in the past year because of cost; and
10th in terms of those who had waited two months or longer for a specialist appointment.
” Of course there was inequality in the egalitarian society before 1985, but it was rare for the rich to show it, to display, what Thorstein Veblen called, ‘conspicuous consumption’. After 1985 it became common to flaunt how rich you were.”
Not only how rich, but how privileged. Privilege in the disability environment is exemplified by the disparities between ACC and MOH. There are two regular publications in NZ featuring articles pertaining to spinal cord impairment. Both were set up shortly after ACC were ‘persuaded’ to fund 24/7 home based care to tetraplegics (rather than forcing close family to provide unpaid care). Both publications feature inspirational tales of sporting and artistic achievements, travel and access to the latest adaptive tech. Great, if you’re funded by ACC. Tough shit if you’re not. And while both organisations purport to represent ALL with spinal impairment, they seldom publish articles highlighting the disparities and profound differences in rights and entitlements.
The last article printed in both publications were contributed by both my partner and myself some years ago.
We’ve given up on both organisations, as they both not only refuse to acknowledge the rank privilege of their ACC funded members but continue to publish brag pieces of how great life can be with a spinal cord injury if only one has the right attitude.
So what has that got to do with the arrest of a whistle blower, and probable extradition to the USA, for no other reason than the USA does not like having its dirty laundry put on show?
Sorry
I’ve done it too, but I do have a life and I’m about to get on with it, so wont be clogging up TS with any more pointless replies to TRP.His mind is set in concrete.
I once overheard an elderly acquaintance say to another “You be comforted by your prejudices and I’ll be comforted by mine”
I think thats where we’re at
Having just commented on the recent Assange post I thought I would make a couple of observations here.
I didn’t notice whistleblower mentioned at all in the post or the comments.
In the tags list for the article, the likes of whistleblower and ‘truth to power’ are not to be found. Domestic violence, patriarchy, abuse of power are all there.
It is hard to discuss that subject when you feel you have to tiptoe and whisper when in contrast you have folks with the fertiliser spreader on full spraying anyone that didn’t bring a rain coat.
Strictly speaking he’s not a whistle blower, ie not working in an organisation and leaking damning info. But without him, whistleblowers do not have the means of bringing their information in to the light of day
As a wee gloat, I am off to the big smoke to catch The Raconteurs tomorrow night at The Powerstation.
Very excited to see Jack White, have loved listening to him for yonks, especially his latest solo album.
First rocker I have seen look cool with the flying V guitar.
Bob Mould always looked awkward with his.
Band tight, but still had a jam/improvising edge to it.
The drummer had a Gene Kruper feel to some of the songs particularly ‘Gyp’ Dig the slowness.
5 or 6 guitars on Mr Whites rack. Sorry I couldn’t name what styles there were apart from his flying V.
A couple of sing along moments: Steady as she goes and Now that you’re gone.
Highlights: an impromptu You don’t understand me fantastic piano, Blue veins, and a bonus Carolina drama.
A BIG plus was no phones. There was a plan to have phones stored away in bags but they didn’t arrive so plan turned into a plea that was respected.
Talk about blinkered TRP
If you can’t see that there’s something off over an Interpol Red notice being issued (usually reserved for terrorists and murderers)for a sexual misdemeanour a Standard writer in 2010 was perfectly willing to admit to :
you are practising a peculiar form of wilful self blinkering yourself
The article you link to is factually wrong, the only reason the Swedish prosecutors could not interrogate Assange was their own unwillingness to travel to the UK to do so, and they were criticised by the Swedish Bar and in 2014 by a Swedish Court for this very thing.
There was nothing to stop them doing so , and many precedents for doing so, which points to them not treating Assange the same as other individuals wanted for questioning
Assange was available, under house arrest for 15 months ,with electronic leg manacles for questioning if justice for the Swedish women was really the name of the game.
Long before he jumped bail in 2012
Has anyone ever had an Interpol Red notice put on them for the same allegations?
No wonder Assange and most of the civilised world at that time smelled a rat
A concerted campaign to character assassinate Assange in the intervening years has served its purpose…manufacturing consent amongst the gullible so that the state can wreak its vengeance on Assange, no holds barred and shut down true journalism once and for all
The message out there for journalists and publishers is that the only information allowed is that provided by the state
+100
It seems to me so many people have lost sight of the main issue here. Patrick Cockburn nails it:
” “Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,” and “ha, ha, I hit them” say the pilots of a US Apache helicopter in jubilant conversation as they machine-gun Iraqi civilians on the ground in Baghdad on 12 July 2007……..”
“……Lost in this dog-fight is what Assange and WikiLeaks really achieved and why it was of great importance in establishing the truth about wars being fought on our behalf in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.
This is what Daniel Ellsberg did when he released the Pentagon Papers about the US political and military involvement in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967. Like Assange, he exposed official lies and was accused of putting American lives in danger though his accusers were typically elusive about how this was done.
But unless the truth is told about the real nature of these wars then people outside the war zones will never understand why they go on so long and are never won. Governments routinely lie in wartime and it is essential to expose what they are really doing. I remember looking at pictures of craters as big as houses in an Afghan village where 147 people had died in 2009 and which the US defence secretary claimed had been caused by the Taliban throwing grenades. In one small area called Qayara outside Mosul in in 2016-17, the US air force admitted to killing one civilian but a meticulous examination of the facts by The New York Times showed that the real figure was 43 dead civilians including 19 men, eight women and 16 children aged 14 or under”
I just looked at Notre Dame burning on stuff a 36 second video and at 25 seconds a snippet of the next video protruded onto the screen and I couldn’t see how to turn it off. It was a skeleton thousands of years old but I didn’t want to see it then or at all.
On line Media is very intrusive of pushing video at you. Sometimes I can be looking at a quite long text with numerous pictures in and the audio starts and then I have to go back to the beginning and turn it off – it seems the damned things are opt-out rather than leaving it to person to opt-in. Don’t like the system.
Even with all the denizens of words shoveled out by Australian Julian Assange and the Videos of his Australian friend John Pilger, we are still as war mongering as ever.
Assange adds spice, because he has a tendency to avoid the Summons of High Level Government. He Flees and makes up highly convoluted torturous scripts between destinations.
He is thought to be a “Whistleblower” replete with spledid sources of Sex. Sometimes Staff – it would seem. Consent being way way afar from his driving passion. His recent stay with the obliging Ecaudor Embassy left a Cat and a wall of Feces. So it is said. The Embassy got tired of him.
Journalists and Embassies (of inquisitive mind) want to keep close to Assange – feces not withstanding. But a mere small slice of Spy – and any particular Journalist will be captured on Sovereign Intelligence by the United States of America who have 46 Bases on our Planet.
Spies have a long Life. In prison, 35 years is the going rate. No matter where our Ozzie Julian goes – his whistle will be removed from his cat. Journalists the same.
Wonderful thing – the Internet. Wonderful Wars – the Killing Wars.
Condolences Ad, this will be very close to home for you.
Condemnation must rest on the construction company; a monumental breach of H&S protocols. Being familiar with hot work procedures on large construction sites it seems someone has some very tough questions to answer.
Congratulations to the firefighters who’ve pulled off a miracle to save the core structure.
Cheers Red.
It makes me want to chuck in the day job – satisfying as it is – and go work on its art conservation and structural rebuilds for a few years.
Sure it’s just stone and copper, not God.
But for me it carries more human sweat, candle soot, and mixed-up tenebrae dimness than anything in Rome.
“Condemnation must rest on the construction company”
you
“The cathedral was begun in 1160 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and largely completed by 1260, though it was modified frequently in the following centuries. In the 1790s”
Is that your problem? Yes poor form finding something funny in another’s comment during these dark times. Don’t ever do it gabby you’ll get shade thrown at you – that is my advice.
“Pope Francis issued a statement late on Monday expressing the Vatican’s ‘shock and sadness’ at ‘the news of the terrible fire that devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a symbol of Christianity in France and in the world.”’
‘We express closeness to the French Catholics and the people of Paris and we assure our prayers for the firemen and those who are doing everything possible to face this dramatic situation,’ the statement read.”
—
No word about dipping his hand into the vast Catholic Church coffers to restore the Cathedral though. They will probably leave that to the taxpayers of France and generosity of a few wealthy individuals.
I came down here straightaway to say my piece about that piece of … John Roughan retiring from the Herald. Expect you’ve addressed it above me. ‘Wise man ‘ according to the ex-Herald editor on the weekly media watch section of RNZ National 9 to Noon. He’s been writing anonymously their editorial for 30 years. Right-wing tosser writer of John Key’s biography. Always found him densely vile. As reflective as mud. Where the Herald’s heart lies, with their 4 daily pounder columnists for the rich, leaving alone the utterly ridiculous Leighton Smith. Association with his nonsense is Trumpian, Herald. But then again you’ve had Roughan for 30 years. And enabled Whale-oil etc. Do you care about your country? Or do you put money first? Rhetorical, you strangle-tied twots.
Hear about Leighton Smith – soothing the comfortably off for all their years.
Can understand that a little bit of him to a questioning brain would cause despair, luckily most keep their brains in cold storage and inactive, saving them in case they are needed for some emergency later.
Bit of Don McLean here. The Herald does all these things that Don mentions in Prime Time in his sarcastic way. It does have some factual, thoughtful stuff, but
the thought is too often adulterated.
Well will you take the car, or will you take the trip?
Remove annoying hair from your upper lip
What’s it really worth? Does she really care?
What’s the best shampoo that I can use on my hair?
Hey what’s the real future of democracy?
How’re we gonna streamline the bureaucracy?
Hey, hey, the cost of life has gone sky-high
Does the deodorant I’m using really keep me dry?
Kia ora The AM Show.
The subcontractors should be payed a deposit for their work so if the main company goes broke they could get some money back.
Captial gains tax is a must people like Mark just can’t see that all earning should be taxed not just the common poor people paying all the tax.
Batteries technology is advancing fast now that the technology is to big to be held back by the oil barrons.
I think it’s good that the Kenyan families are sueing Boeing for the losses of their love ones this is needed to keep big companies HOUNEST in our WORLD .
I think that NZ Acc act is bullshit Acc doesn’t pay the injured fairly when one is injured you need more money not less try living on 80 % of your wage while injured.??????? The kicker is you can not SUE when wronged that just protects the upper class at the expense of the common person.
RYAN I agree with you heaps of money for the church in France and no money pouring in for all the starving children around the world. Go figure. Eco Maori Tau toko the people who got arrested in Britain fighting to get human caused Global Climate change back in the MEDIA with all the distraction that have come up as of late KIA KAHA.
Ka kite ano
2017 https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/332928/nz-s-biowaste-profits-going-to-waste New Zealand is missing out on a multi-billion-dollar waste product industry, according to the Bioenergy Association….
“The announcement by Queensland University of Technology that it is leading a $14 million research programme to develop profitable processes for turning livestock-industry wastes into bioenergy and other bioproducts, such as fertilisers, animal feeds, chemicals and plastics, shows what we should and could do here,” Mr Cox said.
“That project in conjunction with Meat & Livestock Australia shows the value of cross-sector coordination.”
Mr Cox said by 2040, biomass and waste-based industries could supply more than 15 percent of New Zealand’s energy needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent.
“You would think that with opportunities such as this, that the government would b
“If we can use our ability as a leading technology developer in America’s Cup yacht racing, we can use that capability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
To keep climate change under 2 degrees Celcius, the average world citizen will need to eat 75 percent less beef, 90 percent less pork and half the number of eggs they are today, while tripling their consumption of beans and pulses and quadrupling the amount of nuts and seeds they eat, according to a new study published in Nature magazine.
The University of Oxford’s Marco Springmann, who led the research team, talks to Kathryn about their findings.
So what exactly is a flexitarian?
Someone who eats red meat once a week maximum and otherwise eats predominantly a plant-based diet of fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts and whole grains, Dr Springmann says.
Dietary guidelines are often out of touch with scientific knowledge but this is as cutting edge as it gets, he says.
“Think about it as technological innovation, but an innovation for diet.”
Less animal food production would reduce deforestation and freshwater consumption, but increased water efficiency will still be required and support given to farmers in adopting more sustainable and non-polluting practices, he says.
Eco Maori backs the climate change CHAMPION’S all around Papatuanuku
Thousands of people have taken part in the civil disobedience protests, blockading four landmarks in the capital in an attempt to force the government to take action on the escalating climate crisis.
Now the activist group Extinction Rebellion says it is planning to step up its action to disrupt rail and tube lines in London.
A spokesman said: “People really don’t want to do this but the inaction of the government in the face of this emergency leaves us little choice.”
Ka kite ano links below .
We need to have more respect for OUR WILDLIFE as we are the guardians of that wildlife for OUR decendints come on wake the fuck UP
New research shows the Maui’s dolphin is sliding closer to extinction, but it is far from the only species struggling to cope in New Zealand’s water, forests and rivers. Environment reporter Isaac Davison looks at 10 mammals and birds that are clinging to survival.
Top 5 birds
1. New Zealand Fairy Tern
Ka kite ano links below
Kia ora Newshub.
Well if the Prime minister says its not the correct time for a capital gains tax so be it.
Well most big construction projects go up the Auckland City rail project will save the country a lot of carbon from being burned.
Its sad about the church in France Lloyd looks like you need some Kiwi Kai.
That’s cool that food aid is reaching the poor people in Venezuela it doesn’t have to be like that.
I have seen a few shocking videos.
How do we know what the preserve or the amount of prosessed meat those people eat in that study was the meat grass feed or what I will take it with a grain of salt. There have been many conflicting story on eggs sugar salt WTF.
That’s the way the Mana Wahine of Sudan taking the power of Sudan government and getting equal rights for Wahine KIA KAHA Mana Wahine from ECO Maori.
Yes the big tech companies need to start protecting the people. Ka kite ano
Here you go Whanau OUR Austrailian tangata whenua cousins have it much HARDER thank us . We can thank OUR tipuna for every thing we have now but Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa are being treated like 3 rate people in OUR own Whenua Ma te wa this is going to change as we will have the power to rule it won’t come eazy we will have to be on OUR toes as the cheats that don’t want MAORI to have the Mana will use ANYONE they can and use ANYTHING they can dream up to suppress tangata whenua Wairua Mana and these people have the power of the state to USE to keep Maori down but NO WE WILL WIN IN THE END
The family of an Aboriginal woman who died in custody in Perth last week say she was mistakenly arrested by police who did not check her identity before restraining her in her mother’s house, hours before she lost consciousness.
Cherdeena Wynne, 26, died in hospital on Tuesday, five days after she became unresponsive while handcuffed by police on a side street off Albany Highway.
Less than two hours before falling unconscious, the mother-of-three was arrested and held on the ground in her mother’s house in Victoria Park, according to her family, in what they say was a case of racial profiling and mistaken identity.
Deaths inside: Indigenous Australian deaths in custody
Her mother, Shirley Wynne, and grandmother, Jennifer Clayton, are calling for eyewitnesses to come forward.
Her death comes 20 years after her father, Warren Cooper, died in custody after being found unresponsive in a police watchhouse in Albany. Cooper was also 26 years old.
“It’s time for this to stop,” Clayton told Guardian Australia. “I have lost my son and now I have lost a granddaughter.” Ka kite ano links below . P.S we will fight for all our indignous cousin MANA
Whanau you see Whanau Bob Eddy Peter and many other musical artist waita ring true to this day some from hundreds of years ago .
The wicked get stronger close freind worste enemy worste enemy best freind .
I have had a revalation the other day that made all that has happened in my past become logical and from that revalation I have figured out the sandflys have had me on there radar for 32 years .
The revalation that I have been working on for 3 month’s tell’s me why some people from te tairawhiti were treating Eco Maori so bad they did not know who they were stuffing with now they no my Mana .
Whanau if you have been head down ass up working hard and treating everyone with respect and you FIND that you have gone know were your { maunga is still a ant hill }some one close is shitting on YOUR MANA so look closely into your past and present and find the persons shitting on your MANA and keep a close eye on them
Ka kite ano P.S It could the state shitting on your mana to some of the people were actors for the state.
Kia ora Newshub.
Ma te wa for the capital gains tax Jacinda will have plenty of TIME to chase that goal you know that old saying better to wait till the time is correct than push shit up hill.
Animals spear parts for humans is just around the corner.
I the crooks are drawn to the honey business and Manakua honey is big money and draws more crooks that guy looks like the fall guy.
Many thanks to all the people who put their time and effort in to protesting about climate change in Britain and around the world to get the story out there OVER trumps interference of the true information on climate change around Papatuanukue.
Yes I seen the Tau toko for ECO Maori last night people are learning the TRUTH Ka pai I say NO more Ka kite ano P.S I’m glad I was to busy this morning I would have been to exposed to judy. Keith is one of my favourite actors
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka KotahiThe fact that a ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland SmartS/Shutterstock Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines. Many of us think the age of steam has ended. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
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Give the calls over the past years to raise the superannuation age, it would be worth looking into poverty and unemployment rates among those who are 60-64 and if they have become worse off since the NS age was last raised from 60-65 from 1991 – 2001. I don’t think that this has been looked into.
I think it is time we thought about putting the age back to 60.
Why would you put it back to 60? Most of us are still perfectly capable of working at that age, and there are systems in place for those that aren’t. There’s plenty to fix in our country before we get to that. If there’s money to throw around it would be better to raise the super rate for those that are now eligible, wouldn’t it?
I am about to turn 60 in June. Have no intention of retiring until I can’t code well.
But my knees ache when I get up from the low sofa and I find flights of 5 stairs discouraging when I meet them on a daily basis. But e-biking is fun.
Not all of us can wind up writing code on our butts in a freezing aircond office. The 5 months of working outside in Singapore last year on site might have been an experience. But one that I wouldn’t want to repeat too frequently.
I also couldn’t be a farm worker, factory worker, soldier or bar man as I was in my youth. It’d kill me fast.
I suspect that super needs to be more flexible about giving it to people who are working, especially since the changes to secondary tax remove the clawbacks.
Well said, lprent.
JanM…” ….and there are systems in place for those that aren’t.”
What systems?
They aren’t particularly good. But there are (or maybe were) various provisions for people to get pensions down to about age 55 if they were unable to hold down a job and had to retire early. These may have been subsumed into other benefit systems.
All gone. As far as I know.
Apart from the impossibility of getting another job after 50, let alone 55 for most, due to extreme ageism in this country.
Just had two more of our staff permanently medically unfit to work.
Ironically, one was only in his 40’s, from work related conditions.
A few years ago ACC, would have helped, but now ACC, staff specialize in pretending work related illnesses are “age related” even when it relates to a previous injury.
Now they go in the hilariously named, “jobseekers”, where some wet behind the ears, who can’t spell, takes compulsory courses in resume writing.
While WINZ pretends they have a chance, in a job market where even fit, keen young people, miss out.
I know many builders, nurses, seafarers, fishermen and other workers where it takes a serious toll on your body, who struggle to work to 55, let alone 60. I was lucky, as I had another trade i could do, at Management level, at 50, after RSI stopped me building. I can still cope with the physical demands of the job. Hopefully for a few more years.
Not to mention so many, skilled and unskilled, manual workers, have had “precarious” employment since the 80’s “reforms”. With their savings and houses long gone.
University educated paper pushers don’t have a fucking clue.
The lucky “boomers” only ever applied to a minority. Admittedly a large one. The lives of many never recovered after the “reforms”.
We have dumped our children, and are starting to do the same to our elderly. The “brighter future” for North shore speculators.
Privatisation of super has worked just as well as all the other privatisations.
KJT
I think you spell it out well,
The ordinary working person on ordinary pay may have managed to put away some money in their lifetime if they haven’t had to move and
have lived in their home a long time paying an ordinary mortgage.
The rest will probably have been stuffed with high prices for housing or accommodation, by the colonial land grab from the overseas money machines.
If a 65 year old person goes on working in their own business that is paying its way then good on them, and they should get some super and good medical help.
If they have listened to neolib advice that benefits are bad, and being self-sustaining is good and stay on after 65 or 67 because they can and are still capable, then they take away the opportunity for another to be promoted and earn some money towards their own retirement. It is another way of boomers soaking up advantages for themselves despite being patted on the head by self-professed wise advisors on retirement.
One of the answers is to require all capable seniors beyond 60 or 65 to do voluntary work. They will be paid their super, and their helpful work in areas of need, which they can choose, for varying hours a week as suitable to them, will be regarded as work. It would be just another form of ‘Work for the Dole’. And that is fair and reasonable practice, and beneficial to both nation and the individual when designed to fit their abilities, and personal situations in a way that enhances their lives.
The country would be a better place to live, would rise in its standards, and the citizen involvement would result in them keeping an eye on its progress and its politicians, because they have personal, physical skin in the game. No sitting around making complaints about their theories of how things should be, totally unrealistic ones.
An excellent summation. Thank you.
“We have dumped our children, and are starting to do the same to our elderly. The “brighter future” for North shore speculators.”
Yep.
Solid statement, kjt…
Also Lp at 1.1.1
Cheers to both…
KiwiSaver has been a stunning success? How has the addition of private superfunds been a bad thing?
Or should New Zealanders be spending all their money rather than saving it and hoping the government does what KJT wants? Idiot
The maori party policy of a age band from 60 through to 70 is still the best idea . If you take it early you get a bit less but im ok with that as most of sweat of the brow types live on less all our lives .
As someone in the physical field still I concur. In the ideal reality manual workers would retire at 40, after that we are running on our rims.
Lowering it to 16 would make more sense.
I worked as a gardener developing gardens on several large properties all my working life, well since the age of 34. (and managed to raise 4 children on my own on that pay)
I still have one big garden I keep on for sentimental reasons
I can tell you I was mighty pleased to stop at the age of 65 and was ready to stop well before that
So your personal circumstances should dictate public policy. Why is the left so self absorbed and willing to take handouts? That’s isn’t socialism. It’s lazy greed
Don’t be silly! Of course, public policy should be completely disconnected from personal circumstances unless you’re Mr Mean or Ms Ave Rage.
Superannuation is most definitely socialism in action! It allows or should allow the lower paid workers and members of society a decent retirement income after they have slaved all their working lives for the capitalists.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Pyramid_of_Capitalist_System.jpg
Notre Dame Cathedral is burning.
I spend a lot of good times there a long time ago. Oh la tristesse!
The collapsing spire is a shock.
Yes, Robert. I felt very sad. A great friend and I lit candles in the Notre Dame in 1990. She was of Maori and French connections, and while we are also discussing the pension…. Marina died 5 years before she would have received it, as many Maori people do.
Yeah, I’m really hoping they’ve pulled some of the art out for the renovations. Poor Paris.
All of the bronzes were out.
Monument to a benevolent deity destroyed by fire???
Perhaps a divine message?
Demolish, clear the rubble and build shelter and support services for the city’s homeless.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Paris_homeless
good grief, seriously , good fucking grief.
this chruch was started to build in 1160 finished almost two hundred years later, and has stood for 850 nows.
go find a different tree to leave your piss.
Just go away.
Seriously Sabine….it is just an old building.
What does it represent to you?
Never been there, never seen it for real.
Not religious.
But the news saddens me greatly.
It’s not just a religious symbol, it’s a symbol of civic and national identity, and and amazing work of art and engineering.
The organisation of its structure and the little clues and tweaks enable us to gain a connection to the minds of its builders almost a thousand years ago. The personal touches to some of the features build a human connection with the artists long deceased.
Whether the beams were numbered in arabic or roman numerals gives us a clue as to the timescale of how that mathematical advance spread across Europe first as a secret guild tool and then as an accepted part of “higher education”.
And finally, the sheer mass of the imposing structure built with crude tools and human power over several lifetimes is a tribute to our ancestors and a testament to what we are capable of today.
“just an old building”. Holy shitfuckballs. For it to be destroyed would be a global loss, like losing the pyramids or Anker Wat (again).
Thank you McFlock – well said. I have been there. I lived in Lyon for 2 years, visiting Paris only briefly.
All of France will be bleeding over this, but you can bet that they will restore it.
I marvelled at the restoration done in West Germany after WW2. This will be no different.
No repeat of Christchurch Cathedral conundrum, you can be sure.
Not sure why Rosemary is stirring. Feeding and sheltering the poor is indeed worthy, but can Rosemary really believe that cultural monuments which mark moments of civilization are of no value?
Has a site of feeding the poor ever been recognised, let alone inspired?
“Not sure why Rosemary is stirring. ” So, expressing an opinion that differs from what is obviously the norm is “stirring”? Interesting, and I’ll bear that in mind during the next ‘discussion’ on the perils and pitfalls of free speech.
“Feeding and sheltering the poor is indeed worthy, (so pleased to see that actually writ, here, on the Left’s last bastion 😉 ) but can Rosemary really believe that cultural monuments which mark moments of civilization are of no value?
Rosemary is getting crankier and more cynical as tempus fugits and has given up all hope that somehow mankind (yes, YOU) is capable of evolving much further. I’m not exactly convinced that these monuments to man’s ingenuity and enterprise and sheer determination (we’ll put aside any squeamishness that perhaps not all involved in the hard graft were fired and inspired entirely by the desire to raise the stones to the Heavens for the Glory of God) are the best places to focus our thought for a survivable future. Does one stand in awe at the astounding capability of human endeavour, or does one merely bide a wee reflecting that at least for a short time, as a species, we were actually capable of achieving Great Erections?
Perhaps I see these as monuments to our lost civilisation?
Because surely to God, any species that can construct something so absolutely awesomely technologically sophisticated can feed and house the poor and marginalised and halt climate change in it’s tracks?
Rosemary, you are stirring all right.
Surprisingly to you maybe, I agree that mankind seems incapable of evolving much further. This is because I believe that mankind has succeeded in destroying his own environment: climate change, as we like to call it, is likely to wipe us all out – rich and poor alike.
I have often pondered about how those medieval marvels were built. I suspect that the blood and suffering of the poor in those days was immense – that Notre Dame is a monument to the powerful built through the near slavery and blood and suffering and deaths of the poor. The cruelty and suffering of the poor in those days was, I would say, worse than most of the poor suffer nowadays – certainly in France. So what are you really railing at, Rosemary?
There probably isn’t much human future (although we are not supposed to say that) and for advanced countries the poverty was worse in the past, if still morally intolerable now.
Yes, I too would like a nice little site where some of the poor could be fed for a little while.
But I would not see it as a landmark in the evolution (or devolution?) of human society.
You are wrong.
Man can construct great art, but he seems utterly incapable of creating a just society, and looks fully capable of destroying his own environment. No point in complaining – that is how it is.
There’s no comparison between these two!
Any talented skilled person can produce art in a relatively short time. Any genius can create great art within their (usually short) lifetime. It takes a whole population and many generations and (in no particular order) inspirational leaders, great thinkers, brave radical activists, to name a few, to create something that approaches a just society.
For the same token, it is ‘easier’ to create an image of a black hole 55 million light-years away than to let a woman shine.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/life/112045936/its-easier-to-photograph-a-black-hole-than-let-a-woman-shine
Jesus christ I’ve known some glum bastards in my time, but I’ll never understand how someone can be so consumed in being glum that they can’t take a second to appreciate something so awesome, or worry about it when it is in danger, and think that is a normal way to live.
I took more than a second to appreciate the awesomeness….”Because surely to God, any species that can construct something so absolutely awesomely technologically sophisticated….” see, see, …”can feed and house the poor and marginalised and halt climate change in it’s tracks?”
Do you think, McFlock, that in the year 3019 our decedents will look around in awe and wonder at the Earth in all her rehabilitated glory?
Will our multi- times great grandies bathe in clean rivers and sit down to wholesome meals, safe in the knowledge that all on the planet are similarly blessed? Will they go to sleep in their homes after hearing stories about how their ancestors a thousand years ago decided that humans had inflicted enough pain and suffering on the Planet and her inhabitants and collectively undertook to Put Things Right?
Nah…it’ll be this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUTZmSyDErg
Using it as a set-up for the next variation on your favourite theme isn’t “appreciation”.
And let’s not forget you started with “it’s just an old building”.
Idiocracy was off on a number of levels (particularly genetics and IQ). The only clip that comes to mind for this discussion is from the simpsons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUVVbjdDjiQ
Well you have all become glummer all day. This has been going on all day. Enjoy!
“What does it represent to you?”
What it represents to me Rosemary as an Athiest it represents all the skills artistry and passion of generations. It is NOT just an old building It represents what the western society is all about complete with its faults
It is tragic, a priceless treasure has been semi-destroyed. Let’s hope it is rebuilt.
Putting the Paris homeless in it will NOT solve the problems the world has today
You really have no respect for anything but your particular little hobbyhorses, have you?
You regularly piss on religious related discussions using derogatory language…along with others here…
Respect, my foot…how hypocritical can you get…you reckon, Andre…
My read is Rosemary was highlighting a truism of attitudes frequenting this place….while also offering thoughts on another practical use for the site …
You wouldn’t be able to understand – it’s above your empathy paygrade. Stick to telling everyone you’re brainy cos that seems to work lol
Empathy is the issue. Grief for what is lost. Compassion for their pain. Some comfort in that some parts are saved.My six year old niece visited Notre Dame three days ago. She is inconsolable, her parents write, because she loved that building. She understands.
“You wouldn’t be able to understand – it’s above your empathy paygrade. Stick to telling everyone you’re brainy cos that seems to work lol”
Early contender for post of the day 😆
You believe to know enough about my comments to make such a claim…You don’t…You can’t…becauae you’re angry and abusive…
But through your repeated ALM aggressive abusive rants…I understand plenty…about you…your birthday spew was quite something…eh…
Triggered by my highlighting just how full of it you are…how incorrect you were by calling me a liar…multiple times…
I’ll re-post the lot…if you like…
Now…if my comments bring out your feelings of inadequacy…that’s your problem, marty…
But have the awereness to know..I’ve got your number…
Everytime!
Oh jeez, can we all please not have yet another long thread of One Two’s content-free pseudo-delphic attempted put-downs of others’ thinking abilities and the obvious responses thereto?
Asking (begging) for moderation now…is it, Andre…
The put down was yours…to Rosemary…I simply pointed out the hypocrisy in your comment…which along with your smears and abuse…is a regular feature of your musings…
And when you don’t like being called out…you cry for moderation…
What is it with you ALMC guys…serve up continual abuse and derogatory statements…then ask for protection when a mirror is held up to each of you…
Andre pseudo delphic Lol You are very readable these days.
Please let’s just leave it here. Rather than having yet another Battley Townswomen’s Guild Re-enactment of Pearl Harbor (kitten edition)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoiIrQjc6R8
You contentious so and so One Two. Why can’t you let other people make strong statements in their own time and way without putting your critical and negative oar in. This is an example of freedom of speech and expression which is reasonable and you are trying to crush it.
Notre Dame soared into the air towards heaven expressing the uplifting thoughts of the puny humans who got together and built this over centuries.
Appreciating beauty that we have created ourselves, something grand and with ‘lofty’ views and also appreciating the fine skilled work and hard graft that was put in by people who could put aside the everyday and seek a lasting monument to greatness, is part of our advanced human society.
It is something to look at and wonder at, and embedded in it are human dreams and intellectual longings, and the complete range of human endeavour and intelligence.
The Paris homeless are the same as the homeless everywhere, needy and ill-used. But it is barbaric to not care about the destruction of monuments to ideals that may never be realised, at least while they remain they remind us of the desire and effort to transcend the vicissitudes of life. The Taliban deliberately destroyed ancient monuments hand-carved and apparently ever-lasting. The USA and other countries have destroyed precious places to break the spirit of the people.
Now fire in a loft has affected this building with its lofty purview. Most sad.
People there will inevitably say – Hitler asked ‘Is Paris burning’ so how come this could happen in peacetime? There were insufficient fire-prevention installations apparently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Paris_Burning%3F_(book)
“…is part of our advanced human society.
It is something to look at and wonder at, and embedded in it are human dreams and intellectual longings, and the complete range of human endeavour and intelligence.”
And somehow appropriate in goes up in flames.
Andre…pray tell, what is it about this building that deserves particular respect?
Have you been there, Rosemary McDonald? It has immense spiritual value, similar to the spiritual uplift I saw at Glencoe in Scotland when I visited the church where my McDonald ancestor was married. Age, connection, beauty.
No. France was not on the list of holiday destinations in my youth in the UK. Old buildings abound in the UK…bit of a yawn fest after a while. There was a certain delight when some of the Peers had to open up their stately homes to the public for money to pay their taxes….eww….having to let the riff raff in must have really hurt.
Scandinavia…and apart from a few museums with viking longboats, the Fram and the KonTiki, I don’t remember much in the way of Scandinavians resting on their architectural or technological laurels to attract the tourists.
Scotland, of course, being Scots and all that….yes. But only to the extent that loathing of royalty and the so called upper classes is at a genetic memory level. Yes, I do ‘remember’ Glencoe, (sniveling, slimy, treacherous Campbells, may them and all their decedents rot etc etc.) but at some point we have to move forward.
Keeping harping back to real and perceived injustices and horrors from centuries ago benefits whom? Many a Scotsman has snotted into his glass, blaming past injustices for his propensity for the drink. At some stage one has to wipe of the chip and move on.
Emigrate to the other side of the globe perhaps?
So when the Scottish emigrated they built temples and cathedrals to the Scottish rite .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Rite_Cathedral_(Indianapolis)
Emigrate is of course what my lot did. Away from the old squabbles.Just as the old Protestant/Catholic divide was also largely forgotten in NZ. My joke with my wife is that I married a member of a Campbell-affiliated clan. By marriage we mend the old hurts. Not even an issue for us. Just an historical awareness, a cultural sharing, a part of identity.
At Glencoe I was shown around by our tour driver who also was a Glencoe McDonald on his mother’s side. There are three islands in the loch where clans met to talk over and agree to deals and where the dead were buried, close to the water and the underworld, which reminded me of a walk along Spirit’s Bay when I was a young man.
It’s good to seek and find the connections between people rather than the differences.
I first went to see Notre Dame simply because it was one of those things to do when you go to Paris. I was completely unprepared for the overwhelming sense of awe which flooded over me when I stood inside and looked up toward the magnificent round stained glass window. I had to sit down and just let it wash over me and found myself close to tears. It is not just a building.
I find myself close to tears again this morning and can hardly bear to look at the photos and videos of it burning.
One of the finest examples of French gothic architecture there is, stunningly beautiful inside and out and approaching its 700th birthday
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris
As iconic to the french as the opera house is to Australia or the pyramids are to Egypt.
In no particular order.
It’s hugely culturally significant. It stands as a stunning example of what beautiful works can be achieved by people working together seeking spiritual nourishment, while simultaneously standing as a reminder that all throughout history there have been small classes of the powerful so intent on their personal ends that they get off on exploiting the masses to achieve that gratification.
The engineering of it is truly remarkable. It stands as an incredible embodiment of what can be achieved using evolutionary development with low-performance materials and very limited theoretical understanding or analysis tools.
It’s economically significant. Notre Dame is part of the tourist drawcard for Paris.
It’s simply aesthetically pleasing to go and spend time there, regardless of any underlying views about the religious ideas it represents.
Yet you want to trash all this for short term relief of a social problem that can and should be addressed independently. There’s no shortage of places and ways to help the homeless that don’t involve trashing such a significant part of our shared heritage. I’m disgusted.
edit: here’s a worthwhile read on just part of why Notre Dame matters.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/4/15/18311758/notre-dame-fire-victor-hugo-hunchback
I have to disagree as a kid I was dragged around these old buildings so boring to me they are just building’s.
To be totally honest, at a personal level that’s my reaction too. If I’m gonna travel and brave the crowds at historical tourist attractions I’d much rather it was outside my cultural background. Give me Great Zimbabwe or Chan-Chan or Luxor or Chichen Itza or Borobudur any day.
But I get it why Notre Dame really matters.
Why drag your boring thoughts around on this blog Peter T?
What happened to “A quiet ‘that sounds bad'” ?
“Yet you want to trash all this …”
No. And kindly don’t put words in my mouth.
I get about the …”The engineering of it is truly remarkable. It stands as an incredible embodiment of what can be achieved using evolutionary development with low-performance materials and very limited theoretical understanding or analysis tools.” I really do….but for all that, here in 2019, how far have we evolved from those days of “the powerful so intent on their personal ends that they get off on exploiting the masses to achieve that gratification.”?
Not very far I fear. Hence my plan to care for a facility to care for the needs of the decedents of the exploited downtrodden to rise from the rubble.
Thank you for your reply.
“Yet you want to trash all this …”
No. And kindly don’t put words in my mouth.
I do apologise. Your exact words were “Demolish, clear the rubble …”.
Andre…you do understand that it was not moi who set fire to Notre Dame?
Like, I am not personally responsible for the bloody thing being on fire?
Like, suggesting that instead of an expensive rebuild of a monument to mankind’s folly a place devoted to the welfare of the most vulnerable be erected instead is not me somehow destroying French civilization as we know it?
Good. I’m glad we cleared that up. 🙂 🙂
Here’s another blow for you to process, there’s enough of the existing structure to rebuild and Macron and local authorities have vowed to do the rebuild.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/notre-dame-cathedral-fire-paris_n_5cb4bc32e4b0ffefe3b4b72e
Whew!
Thank goodness!
The French soul would be lost without it’s spiritual home.
And of course there’s pots of dosh in the economy to pay for it….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/frances-macron-to-respond-to-yellow-vest-economic-crisis/2019/04/15/c132c242-5f8a-11e9-bf24-db4b9fb62aa2_story.html?utm_term=.24e07d2e8294
“The French leader has repeatedly said he won’t reintroduce a wealth tax on the country’s richest people — one of the protesters’ major demands.
The yellow vest movement, prompted by a fuel tax hike in November, has expanded into a broader revolt against Macron’s policies, which protesters see as favoring the rich and big businesses. Their protests, which often turned violent, especially in Paris, provoked a major domestic crisis that sent Macron’s popularity to record low levels.”
Entire nations and their ancient cultural sites get destroyed…including by French lead air strikes…
So…yeah…perspective…
They saved Jesus’s head-dress, or summat, according to RNZ news, without interposing ‘supposed’. Simple sentences beloved of modern media.
Very sad – beautiful building
I have a hunch it was an inside job.
Thats a very serious accusation there young Igor.
Yes, Kevin – your hunch could get quite a few backs up.
Ah -huh.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/notre-dame-cathedral-fire-conspiracy-theories_n_5cb4ce57e4b098b9a2d825c7
I’m sure Fox can blame Ilhan Omar for it. Somehow.
Wasn’t she seen stuffing a flaming hijab under the foundations – if only a metaphorical one?
The batshit crazies are too much even for Faux.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-shep-smith-neil-cavuto-shut-down-notre-dame-fire-conspiracy-theories?ref=home
Well, too much for some.
Conservative commentator Mark Steyn said the French were “among the most godless people” in the modern Western world during a Notre Dame fire segment on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.
[…]
Another analysis by Pew Research Center in December 2018 found that France’s religious commitment among adults was higher compared to other European nations In the analysis, 34 countries were ranked by four individual measures of religiosity: Importance of religion, worship attendance, frequency of prayer and belief in God. Based on the analysis, France was deemed the ninth-least religious country in Europe, with Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Czech Republic, Denmark and Estonia all found to be less religious.
https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-guest-says-french-among-most-godless-people-western-world-1397506
That religion is a real beam mattering half a shit to deal to others. Ridiculous plutocracy.
unbelievable
“On Twitter, white nationalist Richard Spencer hoped that the fire “serves to spur the White man into action.” Noted Islamophobe Pam Gellar opined that Islam had something to do with it.”
just didn’t think these people were this low – my bad
Islam is apparently responsible for all the horrors that plague stupid racist white men — male pattern baldness, erectile dysfunction, the irresistible compulsion to prove themselves dribbling simpletons whenever they open their mouths.
Richard Spencer could do with another smack in the gob to be honest. Never heard of Pam Gellar, but she sounds adorable.
Pamela Geller, Brigitte Gabriel, Sam Harris, all have interesting perspectives on Islam. I particularly like Sam Harris’ “motherlode of bad ideas” comment.
Neither here nor there though is it shadders.
You might not think so if you were this woman https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/07/iranian-woman-who-removed-headscarf-sentenced-to-two-years.
You omitted passive-aggressive lawn-mowing and scrotal itch
And this from Trump: “Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-notre-dame-fire_n_5cb4c426e4b082aab08a079e
Jeez, what next? Are flying water tankers even a thing?? I suppose if they are it could be seen as a practical suggestion, but I don’t recall anything other than choppers using those big buckets that can open at the bottom.
DC 10 air tanker.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WG06xAbBf3Q
But still, Trump is a tit.
One imagines the city authorities being reluctant to have one of those unloading over the Île de la Cité. I don’t think Trump’s good at imagining, though.
I’m curious how close the nearest one would actually be. Or how close even the nearest chopper with a monsoon bucket is and how soon it could get there.
Sécurité Civile has a fleet of fire-fighting aircraft based in Marseille.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9curit%C3%A9_Civile#Water_bomber_group
If it was a good idea to hit ancient stone masonry with fifty tons on water dropped from a great height I guess the good burghers of all the major European cities containing medieval architecture would give them a jolly good shower on an annual basis. The fact that they don’t is a good indication that gentler methods are preferred.
He does realise what the purpose of a roof is, right?
They considered using aerial water bombing but then reckoned that the weight of the water falling on the damaged roof would have done even more damage. Of course tRump has no appreciation of anything other than himself, so he would have missed that vital piece of information.
Just waiting for Orange is the New Twank to tell them to use lots of asbestos fireproofing in the rebuild, and he’s got just the supplier for it.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/russian-asbestos-trump_face/
The stupid hurts.
https://twitter.com/Partisangirl/status/1117847713750470656
Anaykh
I feel like a cat that has brought in a mouse as a gift. But looking at Nietzsche’s thoughts being analysed was interesting while we are thinking tangentially on religion and the value of churches. When we attempt to grapple with the confusions of the day, we walk in the footsteps of these great thinkers. Nietzsche thinks we have abandoned God and Christianity in our seeking for truth. And we will not be happy – we won’t be able to handle ‘our’ truth!
In this sense, Nietzsche sees the Enlightenment pursuit of Truth as being one and the same with the goal of Christianity. The values of individual dignity and human equality esteemed by the Enlightenment and dressed up by philosophers in the language of rational objectivity are for Nietzsche Christian values.
Thus, to him, the Enlightenment, far from being the repudiation of the Christian world-view, is its continuation, and a supreme example of what Nietzsche castigates as the ‘prejudices of philosophers’ (Beyond Good and Evil). The chief philosophic prejudice, according to Nietzsche, is the pretence to pursue objective truth.
Nietzsche interprets philosophy as being successive attempts by great minds to flee from the face of reality and construct higher worlds, from Plato’s ‘Theory of Forms’ to Kant’s ‘thing-in-itself’ and, in so doing, ‘revenge themselves against life’ (Twilight of the Idols: III, 6). In its pursuit of the ‘will to truth’ the Enlightenment made inevitable its own collapse; the unrestrained pursuit of truth leads to its own devaluation…
The death of God unleashes an age of nihilism, when ‘there is no goal, no answer to the question: why?’ and ‘the highest values devalue themselves’ (The Will to Power: 2). In other words, with the death of God comes the collapse of the very values that have dominated the West for two thousand years.
To use the Jungian phrase, the death of God brings man before the ‘void’, from which he turns away in ‘horror’.[1] Nietzsche’s great fear is that once men come to realize the full implications of the death of God, they will conclude that nothing is worth striving for…
https://www.therethinkingsociety.com/rethinkinarticles/2019/1/30/nietzsche-and-the-end-of-modernity
Thanks for that , was wondering about him. And now why at 52 despite many snoutlings around do I still not really know what existensialism is?
Yet another excellent bit of work from Newsroom.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/04/16/531451/nzs-deadly-public-health-battle
This time on our practically non existent Public Health service. No, not the hospitals and the ambulances but the folks trying to influence policy that will “look after the collective health of our nation.”
“”The leadership position for public health in New Zealand, is held by the Director of Public Health, a position now held – after being vacant for some years – by Dr Caroline McElnay.
It’s a position required by legislation.
Skegg describes McElnay as very good but points out despite the title, she is not part of the Ministry of Health executive leadership team.
“They [the Ministry of Health] have an executive leadership team which has got about 10 people on. It’s quite big, but the director of public health is not there. So, you can see the amount of priority, the Ministry is giving to public health.”
The executive leadership team has 16 members. There is deputy director-general population health and prevention on the team, but the director of public health is not included.
Also required by legislation is a division within the Ministry of Health call the Public Health Group.
“The public health group in recent years has just been just a remnant actually. Just a very small number of people. You can’t even find them on the Ministry of Health website,” said Skegg.
He believes the Ministry is “totally overwhelmed” administering personal health services.
“There just aren’t the experts in the Ministry of Health that a country like New Zealand needs to plan and oversee public health programs and to respond to emergencies.”
How do we score?
Once New Zealand was referred to as the campylobacter capital of the world by food safety experts.
It’s estimated there are 30,000 cases per year, most caught from fresh chicken. A report released in 2018 shows 60 to 90 percent of fresh chicken has high levels of the bacteria which can cause stomach illness and lead to complications such as arthritis and the paralysing Guillain-Barre syndrome.
Skegg said the Ministry for Primary Industries has declined to lower the allowable contamination levels for fresh chicken any further.
“The Ministry for Primary Industries won’t even agree to put a warning label on the packages to tell people.””
Nothing much has changed….industry lobby groups and biased officials continue to failed to respond when the health of the public s at risk.
We truly are a backward country.
Is a backward country one in which people don’t cook chicken? Or cook it properly?
undercooked chook is one of the ways to get ill.
tossing a salad after handling raw chicken, without washing hands adequately will do it to.
tongs, spoons, chopping boards…
it would be great if the companies involved in chicken would lift their game.
Brian Easton has a good column on equity in health care:
“Healthcare
What has happened to healthcare is nicely illustrated by an international analysis of healthcare systems by the prestigious (American) Commonwealth Fund. It compares 11 countries (it always finds the US has the worst system). In 2017 it found New Zealand’s ranking was 8th (out of 11) on the equity dimension, ahead of France, Canada and the US. We were behind Britain, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Germany and Australia.”
https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/have-we-abandoned-the-egalitarian-society
Yes, Easton has written oft times about our health system, and some of his earlier work was almost prophetic.
You’d think that a mass education/consciousness raising campaign on the dangers of under-cooking chicken would be a no brainer….especially if it were couched in more politically acceptable ‘cost to the health sector/loss of earnings’ terms . Like wise for sugar and alcohol consumption.
But no. We’d hate to annoy our funders wouldn’t we?
I recall it’s our chicken *suppliers* who are at fault, with way more processed carcasses and cuts sporting a coat of bacteria than is allowed in other countries. If they refuse to lift their game to international standards, the solution proposed by NZ’s expert on this, Prof Michael Baker, is for govt to regulate that only frozen chicken can be supplied to the public. Tick tock.
The first thing to remember about this health grading ianmac link 3.2 was that it covered only 11 countries that are regarded as developed. So we are near bottom as a country on a number of things. Would some measures indicate clearly all the lows or would some be hidden by averaging out?
Among all adults, we came
9th of those with cost-access-related problems,
7th= in terms of those had skipped dental care in the past year because of cost; and
10th in terms of those who had waited two months or longer for a specialist appointment.
His column was focussed on “equity” rather than the whole Health System. To be just ahead of USA is horrifying don’t you think Grey?
” Of course there was inequality in the egalitarian society before 1985, but it was rare for the rich to show it, to display, what Thorstein Veblen called, ‘conspicuous consumption’. After 1985 it became common to flaunt how rich you were.”
Not only how rich, but how privileged. Privilege in the disability environment is exemplified by the disparities between ACC and MOH. There are two regular publications in NZ featuring articles pertaining to spinal cord impairment. Both were set up shortly after ACC were ‘persuaded’ to fund 24/7 home based care to tetraplegics (rather than forcing close family to provide unpaid care). Both publications feature inspirational tales of sporting and artistic achievements, travel and access to the latest adaptive tech. Great, if you’re funded by ACC. Tough shit if you’re not. And while both organisations purport to represent ALL with spinal impairment, they seldom publish articles highlighting the disparities and profound differences in rights and entitlements.
The last article printed in both publications were contributed by both my partner and myself some years ago.
We’ve given up on both organisations, as they both not only refuse to acknowledge the rank privilege of their ACC funded members but continue to publish brag pieces of how great life can be with a spinal cord injury if only one has the right attitude.
Where is the media outrage over the Assange arrest?
FFS, even Fox News gets it.
https://youtu.be/SnwC_1Pf9VQ
Here’s what you’re looking for Kevin: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/15/left-blinkered-claims-julian-assange-sexual-assault
So what has that got to do with the arrest of a whistle blower, and probable extradition to the USA, for no other reason than the USA does not like having its dirty laundry put on show?
It’s an opinion piece nothing more, sad we have to rely on Fox for journalism now.
Please don’t start The Raving Potato, off again.
Sorry
I’ve done it too, but I do have a life and I’m about to get on with it, so wont be clogging up TS with any more pointless replies to TRP.His mind is set in concrete.
I once overheard an elderly acquaintance say to another “You be comforted by your prejudices and I’ll be comforted by mine”
I think thats where we’re at
Having just commented on the recent Assange post I thought I would make a couple of observations here.
I didn’t notice whistleblower mentioned at all in the post or the comments.
In the tags list for the article, the likes of whistleblower and ‘truth to power’ are not to be found. Domestic violence, patriarchy, abuse of power are all there.
It is hard to discuss that subject when you feel you have to tiptoe and whisper when in contrast you have folks with the fertiliser spreader on full spraying anyone that didn’t bring a rain coat.
Strictly speaking he’s not a whistle blower, ie not working in an organisation and leaking damning info. But without him, whistleblowers do not have the means of bringing their information in to the light of day
As a wee gloat, I am off to the big smoke to catch The Raconteurs tomorrow night at The Powerstation.
Very excited to see Jack White, have loved listening to him for yonks, especially his latest solo album.
First rocker I have seen look cool with the flying V guitar.
Bob Mould always looked awkward with his.
First time in Aotearoa, first gig outside the state’s since 2011.
Steady as she goes!
Here is their newish song:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kHpWUTCAR4I
Lucky. Will be a great gig. Report back.
Storming gig.
Band tight, but still had a jam/improvising edge to it.
The drummer had a Gene Kruper feel to some of the songs particularly ‘Gyp’ Dig the slowness.
5 or 6 guitars on Mr Whites rack. Sorry I couldn’t name what styles there were apart from his flying V.
A couple of sing along moments: Steady as she goes and Now that you’re gone.
Highlights: an impromptu You don’t understand me fantastic piano, Blue veins, and a bonus Carolina drama.
A BIG plus was no phones. There was a plan to have phones stored away in bags but they didn’t arrive so plan turned into a plea that was respected.
Thanks – very envious 🙁
This guy used to play a flying V pretty damn good. Watch his video and you too can be a rock star!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH6-hz4WuG8
Rockstars you didnt hear about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETlq0HThiPc
Talk about blinkered TRP
If you can’t see that there’s something off over an Interpol Red notice being issued (usually reserved for terrorists and murderers)for a sexual misdemeanour a Standard writer in 2010 was perfectly willing to admit to :
https://thestandard.org.nz/marianne-ny-making-an-arse-of-swedish-law/
you are practising a peculiar form of wilful self blinkering yourself
The article you link to is factually wrong, the only reason the Swedish prosecutors could not interrogate Assange was their own unwillingness to travel to the UK to do so, and they were criticised by the Swedish Bar and in 2014 by a Swedish Court for this very thing.
There was nothing to stop them doing so , and many precedents for doing so, which points to them not treating Assange the same as other individuals wanted for questioning
Assange was available, under house arrest for 15 months ,with electronic leg manacles for questioning if justice for the Swedish women was really the name of the game.
Long before he jumped bail in 2012
Has anyone ever had an Interpol Red notice put on them for the same allegations?
No wonder Assange and most of the civilised world at that time smelled a rat
A concerted campaign to character assassinate Assange in the intervening years has served its purpose…manufacturing consent amongst the gullible so that the state can wreak its vengeance on Assange, no holds barred and shut down true journalism once and for all
The message out there for journalists and publishers is that the only information allowed is that provided by the state
+100
It seems to me so many people have lost sight of the main issue here. Patrick Cockburn nails it:
” “Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,” and “ha, ha, I hit them” say the pilots of a US Apache helicopter in jubilant conversation as they machine-gun Iraqi civilians on the ground in Baghdad on 12 July 2007……..”
“……Lost in this dog-fight is what Assange and WikiLeaks really achieved and why it was of great importance in establishing the truth about wars being fought on our behalf in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.
This is what Daniel Ellsberg did when he released the Pentagon Papers about the US political and military involvement in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967. Like Assange, he exposed official lies and was accused of putting American lives in danger though his accusers were typically elusive about how this was done.
But unless the truth is told about the real nature of these wars then people outside the war zones will never understand why they go on so long and are never won. Governments routinely lie in wartime and it is essential to expose what they are really doing. I remember looking at pictures of craters as big as houses in an Afghan village where 147 people had died in 2009 and which the US defence secretary claimed had been caused by the Taliban throwing grenades. In one small area called Qayara outside Mosul in in 2016-17, the US air force admitted to killing one civilian but a meticulous examination of the facts by The New York Times showed that the real figure was 43 dead civilians including 19 men, eight women and 16 children aged 14 or under”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/15/calling-assange-a-narcissist-misses-the-point/
Thanks for bringing us back to ground aj – sometimes facts and reasons get lost in the rhetoric.
Or more amusingly
‘larious!!
“Authorised by Americas’s bitches”
I just looked at Notre Dame burning on stuff a 36 second video and at 25 seconds a snippet of the next video protruded onto the screen and I couldn’t see how to turn it off. It was a skeleton thousands of years old but I didn’t want to see it then or at all.
On line Media is very intrusive of pushing video at you. Sometimes I can be looking at a quite long text with numerous pictures in and the audio starts and then I have to go back to the beginning and turn it off – it seems the damned things are opt-out rather than leaving it to person to opt-in. Don’t like the system.
Thoughts with France today, so sad to see a historical building go up in flames. The amount of history that may be lost is devastating.
The Assange Gaps & Craps
Even with all the denizens of words shoveled out by Australian Julian Assange and the Videos of his Australian friend John Pilger, we are still as war mongering as ever.
Assange adds spice, because he has a tendency to avoid the Summons of High Level Government. He Flees and makes up highly convoluted torturous scripts between destinations.
He is thought to be a “Whistleblower” replete with spledid sources of Sex. Sometimes Staff – it would seem. Consent being way way afar from his driving passion. His recent stay with the obliging Ecaudor Embassy left a Cat and a wall of Feces. So it is said. The Embassy got tired of him.
Journalists and Embassies (of inquisitive mind) want to keep close to Assange – feces not withstanding. But a mere small slice of Spy – and any particular Journalist will be captured on Sovereign Intelligence by the United States of America who have 46 Bases on our Planet.
Spies have a long Life. In prison, 35 years is the going rate. No matter where our Ozzie Julian goes – his whistle will be removed from his cat. Journalists the same.
Wonderful thing – the Internet. Wonderful Wars – the Killing Wars.
Da faqueue wonabaht obitoki?
What – do the hokey tokey?
Notre Dame fire.
I’ve visited every second year for over a decade.
Burnt out and needs rebuilding:
good Catholic Church metaphor.
heh
Fire is very purifying – hence witches.
Condolences Ad, this will be very close to home for you.
Condemnation must rest on the construction company; a monumental breach of H&S protocols. Being familiar with hot work procedures on large construction sites it seems someone has some very tough questions to answer.
Congratulations to the firefighters who’ve pulled off a miracle to save the core structure.
Cheers Red.
It makes me want to chuck in the day job – satisfying as it is – and go work on its art conservation and structural rebuilds for a few years.
Sure it’s just stone and copper, not God.
But for me it carries more human sweat, candle soot, and mixed-up tenebrae dimness than anything in Rome.
la croix est resté intact
https://twitter.com/LPLdirect/status/1117932764232331265
… the groin is on fire. Poor bugger, that’s even worse than the rotunda.
It sucks, but gotta look on the humerous side…
The humerus is not that far from the groin..
lol good one
“Condemnation must rest on the construction company”
you
“The cathedral was begun in 1160 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and largely completed by 1260, though it was modified frequently in the following centuries. In the 1790s”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris
bugger those fly by nighters are well gone now.
Edit – I know that isn’t what you meant but I couldn’t let a joke go by.
lols
S’alright mardymardy, I’m sure arsons closer to home are equally hilarious.
Sounds like you have something on your mind that you want to fess up to. Not sure it’s a great audience for that to be fair.
I don’t go round torching taonga mardymardy, if that’s what you’re suggesting, and I get little amusement from it.
Oh Gabby you are an example to us all. And we do take you as seriously as you take everyone else you write about.
Yours greywarry
Good – don’t start torching treasures or buildings please cos that won’t be a good look and potentially dangerous.
You won’t mind the odd chuckle at the tribulations of those you value above the common herd though will you mardymardy?
Is that your problem? Yes poor form finding something funny in another’s comment during these dark times. Don’t ever do it gabby you’ll get shade thrown at you – that is my advice.
You’re right mardymardy, poor form indeed, hopefully you’ll manage to restrain your mirth over the next flood/massacre/conflagration.
Just be the bigger person gabby – you know you’re talking shit now.
Classic mardymardy, you wag.
Thread.
https://twitter.com/GreggFavre/status/1117847726786371585
https://tttthreads.com/thread/1117847726786371585.html
Before and after images of the cathedral’s post revolution reconstruction by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.
http://www.paris-unplugged.fr/1840-notre-dame-avant-restauration/
Most of those parts are gone.
I’d like to see it brought back to what it was before it was ransacked by the Revolutionaries.
“Pope Francis issued a statement late on Monday expressing the Vatican’s ‘shock and sadness’ at ‘the news of the terrible fire that devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame, a symbol of Christianity in France and in the world.”’
‘We express closeness to the French Catholics and the people of Paris and we assure our prayers for the firemen and those who are doing everything possible to face this dramatic situation,’ the statement read.”
—
No word about dipping his hand into the vast Catholic Church coffers to restore the Cathedral though. They will probably leave that to the taxpayers of France and generosity of a few wealthy individuals.
Faux News tried to dunk on Bernie over Medicare For All. Oops.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-2020-democrat-presidential-primary-medicare-for-all-switch_n_5cb51675e4b0ffefe3b58e7d
I came down here straightaway to say my piece about that piece of … John Roughan retiring from the Herald. Expect you’ve addressed it above me. ‘Wise man ‘ according to the ex-Herald editor on the weekly media watch section of RNZ National 9 to Noon. He’s been writing anonymously their editorial for 30 years. Right-wing tosser writer of John Key’s biography. Always found him densely vile. As reflective as mud. Where the Herald’s heart lies, with their 4 daily pounder columnists for the rich, leaving alone the utterly ridiculous Leighton Smith. Association with his nonsense is Trumpian, Herald. But then again you’ve had Roughan for 30 years. And enabled Whale-oil etc. Do you care about your country? Or do you put money first? Rhetorical, you strangle-tied twots.
Hear about Leighton Smith – soothing the comfortably off for all their years.
Can understand that a little bit of him to a questioning brain would cause despair, luckily most keep their brains in cold storage and inactive, saving them in case they are needed for some emergency later.
Bit of Don McLean here. The Herald does all these things that Don mentions in Prime Time in his sarcastic way. It does have some factual, thoughtful stuff, but
the thought is too often adulterated.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW7jrDAx22
Kia ora The AM Show.
The subcontractors should be payed a deposit for their work so if the main company goes broke they could get some money back.
Captial gains tax is a must people like Mark just can’t see that all earning should be taxed not just the common poor people paying all the tax.
Batteries technology is advancing fast now that the technology is to big to be held back by the oil barrons.
I think it’s good that the Kenyan families are sueing Boeing for the losses of their love ones this is needed to keep big companies HOUNEST in our WORLD .
I think that NZ Acc act is bullshit Acc doesn’t pay the injured fairly when one is injured you need more money not less try living on 80 % of your wage while injured.??????? The kicker is you can not SUE when wronged that just protects the upper class at the expense of the common person.
RYAN I agree with you heaps of money for the church in France and no money pouring in for all the starving children around the world. Go figure. Eco Maori Tau toko the people who got arrested in Britain fighting to get human caused Global Climate change back in the MEDIA with all the distraction that have come up as of late KIA KAHA.
Ka kite ano
P.S went off topic but I have seen someone being under arm bowled from ACC
Some interesting older items from Radionz
2017
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/332928/nz-s-biowaste-profits-going-to-waste
New Zealand is missing out on a multi-billion-dollar waste product industry, according to the Bioenergy Association….
“The announcement by Queensland University of Technology that it is leading a $14 million research programme to develop profitable processes for turning livestock-industry wastes into bioenergy and other bioproducts, such as fertilisers, animal feeds, chemicals and plastics, shows what we should and could do here,” Mr Cox said.
“That project in conjunction with Meat & Livestock Australia shows the value of cross-sector coordination.”
Mr Cox said by 2040, biomass and waste-based industries could supply more than 15 percent of New Zealand’s energy needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent.
“You would think that with opportunities such as this, that the government would b
“If we can use our ability as a leading technology developer in America’s Cup yacht racing, we can use that capability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
2018
On food and making a difference by eating different.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018668273/is-becoming-flexitarian-the-best-thing-we-can-do-for-the-planet
full interview duration 16′ :03″
To keep climate change under 2 degrees Celcius, the average world citizen will need to eat 75 percent less beef, 90 percent less pork and half the number of eggs they are today, while tripling their consumption of beans and pulses and quadrupling the amount of nuts and seeds they eat, according to a new study published in Nature magazine.
The University of Oxford’s Marco Springmann, who led the research team, talks to Kathryn about their findings.
So what exactly is a flexitarian?
Someone who eats red meat once a week maximum and otherwise eats predominantly a plant-based diet of fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts and whole grains, Dr Springmann says.
Dietary guidelines are often out of touch with scientific knowledge but this is as cutting edge as it gets, he says.
“Think about it as technological innovation, but an innovation for diet.”
Less animal food production would reduce deforestation and freshwater consumption, but increased water efficiency will still be required and support given to farmers in adopting more sustainable and non-polluting practices, he says.
Eco Maori backs the climate change CHAMPION’S all around Papatuanuku
Thousands of people have taken part in the civil disobedience protests, blockading four landmarks in the capital in an attempt to force the government to take action on the escalating climate crisis.
Now the activist group Extinction Rebellion says it is planning to step up its action to disrupt rail and tube lines in London.
A spokesman said: “People really don’t want to do this but the inaction of the government in the face of this emergency leaves us little choice.”
Ka kite ano links below .
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/16/extinction-rebellion-climate-protesters-disrupt-london-rail-tube-lines-blockade-landmarks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZHcuKeau8M
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSBplq40BjI
We need to have more respect for OUR WILDLIFE as we are the guardians of that wildlife for OUR decendints come on wake the fuck UP
New research shows the Maui’s dolphin is sliding closer to extinction, but it is far from the only species struggling to cope in New Zealand’s water, forests and rivers. Environment reporter Isaac Davison looks at 10 mammals and birds that are clinging to survival.
Top 5 birds
1. New Zealand Fairy Tern
Ka kite ano links below
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10797165
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BskpWYz_n_M
Kia ora Newshub.
Well if the Prime minister says its not the correct time for a capital gains tax so be it.
Well most big construction projects go up the Auckland City rail project will save the country a lot of carbon from being burned.
Its sad about the church in France Lloyd looks like you need some Kiwi Kai.
That’s cool that food aid is reaching the poor people in Venezuela it doesn’t have to be like that.
I have seen a few shocking videos.
How do we know what the preserve or the amount of prosessed meat those people eat in that study was the meat grass feed or what I will take it with a grain of salt. There have been many conflicting story on eggs sugar salt WTF.
That’s the way the Mana Wahine of Sudan taking the power of Sudan government and getting equal rights for Wahine KIA KAHA Mana Wahine from ECO Maori.
Yes the big tech companies need to start protecting the people. Ka kite ano
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/vqnwqsJYyiU
Here you go Whanau OUR Austrailian tangata whenua cousins have it much HARDER thank us . We can thank OUR tipuna for every thing we have now but Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa are being treated like 3 rate people in OUR own Whenua Ma te wa this is going to change as we will have the power to rule it won’t come eazy we will have to be on OUR toes as the cheats that don’t want MAORI to have the Mana will use ANYONE they can and use ANYTHING they can dream up to suppress tangata whenua Wairua Mana and these people have the power of the state to USE to keep Maori down but NO WE WILL WIN IN THE END
The family of an Aboriginal woman who died in custody in Perth last week say she was mistakenly arrested by police who did not check her identity before restraining her in her mother’s house, hours before she lost consciousness.
Cherdeena Wynne, 26, died in hospital on Tuesday, five days after she became unresponsive while handcuffed by police on a side street off Albany Highway.
Less than two hours before falling unconscious, the mother-of-three was arrested and held on the ground in her mother’s house in Victoria Park, according to her family, in what they say was a case of racial profiling and mistaken identity.
Deaths inside: Indigenous Australian deaths in custody
Her mother, Shirley Wynne, and grandmother, Jennifer Clayton, are calling for eyewitnesses to come forward.
Her death comes 20 years after her father, Warren Cooper, died in custody after being found unresponsive in a police watchhouse in Albany. Cooper was also 26 years old.
“It’s time for this to stop,” Clayton told Guardian Australia. “I have lost my son and now I have lost a granddaughter.” Ka kite ano links below . P.S we will fight for all our indignous cousin MANA
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/15/its-time-for-this-to-stop-aboriginal-woman-dies-in-custody-20-years-after-her-father
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74NCfS3h2JY
Whanau you see Whanau Bob Eddy Peter and many other musical artist waita ring true to this day some from hundreds of years ago .
The wicked get stronger close freind worste enemy worste enemy best freind .
I have had a revalation the other day that made all that has happened in my past become logical and from that revalation I have figured out the sandflys have had me on there radar for 32 years .
The revalation that I have been working on for 3 month’s tell’s me why some people from te tairawhiti were treating Eco Maori so bad they did not know who they were stuffing with now they no my Mana .
Whanau if you have been head down ass up working hard and treating everyone with respect and you FIND that you have gone know were your { maunga is still a ant hill }some one close is shitting on YOUR MANA so look closely into your past and present and find the persons shitting on your MANA and keep a close eye on them
Ka kite ano P.S It could the state shitting on your mana to some of the people were actors for the state.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE4TpnYIsW4
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
https://youtu.be/05ZNay0S2zE
This song fits my revolution quite good.
Kia ora Newshub.
Ma te wa for the capital gains tax Jacinda will have plenty of TIME to chase that goal you know that old saying better to wait till the time is correct than push shit up hill.
Animals spear parts for humans is just around the corner.
I the crooks are drawn to the honey business and Manakua honey is big money and draws more crooks that guy looks like the fall guy.
Many thanks to all the people who put their time and effort in to protesting about climate change in Britain and around the world to get the story out there OVER trumps interference of the true information on climate change around Papatuanukue.
Yes I seen the Tau toko for ECO Maori last night people are learning the TRUTH Ka pai I say NO more Ka kite ano P.S I’m glad I was to busy this morning I would have been to exposed to judy. Keith is one of my favourite actors