Great, the west has started financial world war 3 with Russia. And this week Obama is going to sign into law the provision of lethal US military aid to Ukraine. Which is the US way of provoking Russia into sending armoured columns into Ukraine. Because just as the US would not allow nuclear missiles with a 10 minute flight time to Washington DC to be based in Cuba, Russia is certainly not going to allow similar in Ukraine.
And at the time when the Russkies had nuke missiles in Cuba, the Yanks had nuclear missiles in Turkey and Italy pointed at Russia. Although the deal was mutual removal, when the Soviet leadership removed their missiles from Cuba, the US government (Kennedy) kept theirs in Turkey and Italy.
When you’re imperialist top-dog you make up the rules to suit yourself, as in the days when Britannia ruled the waves and waived the rules.
Not sure what conclusions I’d draw from it, apart from sanctions can destroy the russian economy but won’t necessarily effect any political change. The Russian economy is dire, I’ve seen people blabbing on about how insulated Russia will be bvecause of their foreign reserves – these have declined 20% in 2014, 10% in the last 3 weeks. Previous examples of currency collapse show you can burn through all those in a month if things get dire. The Ruble will trade at 200 within 3 months. Just rewind to 1998. Banks have stopped quoting on USDRUB – that is the start of the death spiral. While the fall in the ruble insulates somewhat against the fall in oil, every other import becomes unobtainable for the average Russian. The real problem in Russia is too much is being siphoned off by Putin and his cronies.
Putin is a declared billionaire and will have plenty of undeclared cash/gold and assets also stashed away in foreign Countries. Russia revolves on corrupt practices, it’s normal.
I have a Russian girlfriend that studied management here. Apart from being stunningly beautiful, smart & quick witted, she was from a wealthy family. I once questioned her about where the wealth came from and joked ” your old man isn’t involved with the Russian mafia is he.” she laughed and said “everyone is linked to the mafia and black market, how you think my parents come here to NZ once a year and me travel home or holiday in Europe every year, it’s part of our culture.” She invited me to go out for dinner with them next time they come over. Her mother was warm and bubbly, her father was reserved and serious and spent alot of time talking stern on his mobile phone. He was big and tall and had the straightest back I’ve ever seen. I asked her later after we dropped them at their motel, your dad looks like an army man, she laughed and replied ex army General who fought with honour in Afghanistan, he has lots of medals. She told me the ex army men just transferred the power they had to running businesses. Sounded more like racketeering to me.
You just have to look at Putin for your answer, he make the rest of the World leaders look like pussy cats. Coupled with the Russian’s close assoiation with China and I’d say no match whatsoever CV.
@ Skinny
It’s what you do when there is the opportunity. This country was stripped of great public entities which were bought relatively cheaply by fast guys, when Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble got the wind in their sails. Serious money was made when they either resold them at a profit or built other aspects into them.
As soon as neo lib came in NZ and some top private positions were created in the place of public, a new guy in Auckland was off overseas with his wife and I think they managed to find hotel rooms at $2,000 a night. It seemed like a triumphal blow out at the cost of the stupid what they seemed to view as the ordinary mass of yobboes in the street. Their mantra was, and is, government can’t do anything right. The greed-gatherers got drunk on power and opportunity here just as they have in Russia.
Yeah Fay & his side kick merchant banker partner duped the taxpayer. I remember Fay’s first lieutenant drunkenly boasting at my sisters wedding how well they had done out of asset stripping our railways. I physically had to restrain my brother (who was a loco driver & got sucked into taking transrail shares by smooth talking Preeble) from knocking him out. This clown turned up at the swanky reception with a young hussey in tow and his own bottles of Dom. His ex was there and he started making a right Charlie of himself harassing her. My other brother and myself done the honours grabbed champagne Charlie and through him in the pool to cool off, much to everyone’s laughter. He stormed off, jumped in his porsche, dropped a burnout down the road like a spoilt brat. Yes plenty of money grabbing happening in the 80’s.
I’ve seen people blabbing on about how insulated Russia will be bvecause of their foreign reserves – these have declined 20% in 2014, 10% in the last 3 weeks. Previous examples of currency collapse show you can burn through all those in a month if things get dire.
Pah! Russian gold reserves have been climbing steeply all through 2012-2013-2014, including record purchases in the last couple of months. Whatever inaccurate and propagandised sources you are reading, you should get new ones.
Russian gold reserves might be increasing but not their total reserves.
I wouldn’t rely on ZeroHedge for great insight. “Tyler Durden” has been calling for a market correction in the S&P500 since about 1400, though he went remarkably quite around 1700. great gossip site but that’s what you’d expect from a convicted Bulgarian inside trader. His view on the world is always distinctly bearish – to paraphrase many others he has called about 35 of the last 2 market corrections. And he has a distinct political bias – which is fine, just correct for that.
Russia has been a buyer of gold, latest data I can see (31/10/14 via IMF) is that their total reserves are USD416.2 billion, of which gold holdings are 37.575 million oz. At $1193 per/oz that gold is worth about $44.8 billion, so a bit more than 10% of reserves. A ton of gold sounds impressive but is “only” worth around US$38.7 mm. So a purchase of 77 tons of gold is ~3 billion. Not too significant in the scale of Russia’s reserves or in the daily turnover of gold trading – London bullion exchange clears around $18 billion of physical gold a day, then add in futures trading.
Russia has around US$700 billion of foreign debt with 125 billion due in 2015 – that won’t roll over. Before the current turmoil the Russian govt was planning on spending 1.5 trillion rubles over the next 3 years, will be a lot more now.
Just wait and see how this current ruble devaluation pans out – right now Russia is experiencing full on capital flight – when the dust settles we’ll see what position a) their reserves are in, b) domestic inflation, c) growth. I’m picking all 3 will be disastrous. Plenty of smarter people than me are seeing a bleak outlook.
I don’t think Russia will disappear, they’ve survived worse than this. The first link I put up today is a much more nuanced view of what might happen. But equally Russia won’t win either – fascist states never do, but they can lash out militarily.
Be careful who you are calling “fascist” – it is the declining US empire which is an amalgamation of corporate, financial, governmental and military power that lashes out internationally.
If you do a checklist of the classical signs of a fascist state, no major nation ticks as many as Putin’s Russia.
The US has got a long way to decline. Russian GDP is now about $950 billion.
Here’s how that compares to some other entities:
State of North Rhine Westphalia $800 billion
City of Los Angeles $630 billion
City of New York $1.1 billion
Chicago+ Boston + Philadelphia $1.02 trillion
States of Washington + Maryland + Indiana$ 1 trillion
State of Texas 1.4 trillion
To really put it in perspective, Russian nominal GDP is now about 6 times larger than NZ.
TA when you talk to CR you are allowed to use initials. But not HH as that may be construed as being flippant. You’ll catch on to the finer nuances in time.
#dirtypolitics is, of course, the hashtag version of Dirty Politics, the title of a book by screaming conspiracy theorist Nicky Hager, whose insistence on pursuing his rights has currently brought the entire New Zealand legal system to a halt. The aftermath of the book’s publication also gave rise to Whaledump (third) and Rawshark (eighth).
“I can only suppose that a hacker has penetrated the special Google voting software,” said a near-comatose Brown. “I’ve asked Pete George to investigate.”
Meanwhile, while the NZ pm is trying to spin the events as justification for enhanced surveillance, the Aus pm is noting the abject failure of their newly upgraded system.
Despite multiple charges against him, obvious signs of instability, and calls from within his own community for his investigation, and he himself virtually jumping up and down saying “Pick Me! I’m going to do something!” – though “known to them”, the deranged loner was “Not on the appropriate watchlists”.
“If I can be candid with you, that is the question that we were asking ourselves around the national security committee of the cabinet today,” Mr Abbott said.
“How can someone who has had such a long and chequered history, not be on the appropriate watch lists, and how can someone like that be entirely at large in the community?”
NSW Premier Mike Baird echoed this: “We are all outraged that this guy was on the street … the community has every right to feel upset. I’m incredibly upset,” he said.
I was wondering if someone has worked out an Israeli body count rate of exchange. Perhaps 1 Israeli = 20 Palestinians, 5 houses, 2 olive groves, 1 school, and 1 hospital.
It’s a tough world currency this balancing the political values for each side, though fairly stable in its extreme unfairness.
With more state house evictions coming soon – Let me keep reminding people – YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Neoliberalisms madness has infected the whole western world.
I’ve been listening to Mr Ludbrook, president of the Northland Fed farmers saying that because the deaths on quad bikes died of crushing injuries and not of head injuries, that the wearing of helmets should be a personal issue. This in response to a Marlborough couple getting $20,000 fines each for repeated refusal to wear quad bike helmets, purchasable for about $120.
Surely the fact that people don’t die of head injuries is a tribute to the wearing of helmets? All those people who hit their heads on the ground, rocks, trees, posts etc have survived- great.
Or is he saying that there are lots of people not wearing helmets and having accidents but their heads don’t get involved fatally?
Or is he saying that the people who died of crushing injuries weren’t wearing helmets but got no head injury?
Or they were wearing helmets but got no fatal head injury – which is what I’d expect if they wore helmets?
It defies logic to argue that helmet wearing should be a personal issue because people who die on quad bikes die of crush injuries but didn’t get head injuries because they wore helmets.
In other words, can he argue logically that the absence of death by head injury had nothing to do with helmets?
I think the man is a libertarian fishing for arguments to not be forced to wear a helmet on a quad bike, especially when repeated refusals might cost the offender $20,000.
He’s been on National radio, but the interviewer did not challenge his logic nor did the other side get an airing as to 1) why people should wear helmets on quad bikes, 2) why they should be compelled and 3). why a fine of $20,000 should apply and be awarded.
Nor did the particular aspects of this case get discussed. In all fairness to the judge, the lawmakers, the enforcing agencies, the court system, farm employees, farming family members and the taxpayer, the issue should have been more widely discussed rather than only permit a muddled-thinking libertarian talk about being reasonable.
I didn’t hear the Ludbrook interview, just the news about the fines. I suspect their will be a RW backlash about the “unfairness” of the fines.
My thought at the time was the couple had been warned several times about not wearing their helmets on their quad bikes, so they had plenty of opportunity to prevent receiving the fines. Why didn’t they comply? Serious question.
The agriculture sector is up there for workplace injuries:
and I seem to recall Helen Kelly from the CTU mentioning the highest rates for workplace death last year occurred in this sector, ahead of the forestry sector.
So why would you want to chance it by not wearing Personal Protective Equipment? What do you have to lose by simply just putting your PPE on in the workplace, the farm? Your stubborn pride?
My concern is not for those two fined but for workers and families in the industry.
I was a farm worker for three years, and safety was an issue. I can imagine the 18 year old farm worker told by his non helmet wearing boss, or the child told by their non-helmet wearing mother or father, to get on the quad bike and go do a job. No helmet provided, no helmet available, and no expectation that a prudent person should wear one.
The element of compulsion gives protection to the vulnerable. As it did with compulsory bike helmet use for our helmet wearing kids who longer got jeered at by the foolish but could quote the law and find safety with it.
“My concern is not for those two fined but for workers and families in the industry.”
Absolutely mac1. It’s those with the responsibility for others safety (eg, boss, parent as above) that need to lead by example. It’s their duty to promote a safety culture.
Too often in NZ, workplace H&S protocols are cynically referred to as tick box exercises. Too many times I’ve seen employers grudgingly and speedily go through an H&S procedure with a new employee without any thought for the reason or importance of it, and seem to miss the concept that they need to promote a safety culture not just for the sake of compliance but for safety itself.
mac1
Talking about bike helmets, I was surprised at the fervent negative attitude of a man in a bike hiring business who says that his European customers won’t wear them. He talks about Netherlands where nobody wears helmets. They also have a very flat country and are more self centrolled and disciplined than we are in my opinion.
I have heard others putting down helmets. Why do they think we now have them?
Some men are just so narcissistic and self-centred that they have trouble obeying any rules and guidelines.
No doubt the non helmet wearing promotors also expect the rest of us to pay their medical costs. Funny how individual choice is not equated with individual responsibility.
For that argument to have any weight you would have to provide stats and analysis on car accident head inuries that could be prevented by helmet wearing.
Hey I aint a professor having to prove some thesis.
Try anecdote as a first step. Average open road car crash – how many without head injuries? I would suggest very few. Certainly more head injuries than non-head injuries. Makes the argument for car helmets more compelling than the argument for cycle helmets, actual ..
“Try anecdote as a first step. Average open road car crash – how many without head injuries? I would suggest very few. Certainly more head injuries than non-head injuries. Makes the argument for car helmets more compelling than the argument for cycle helmets, actual..”
I think that prohibition laws are based on stats and risk vs benefit. So we don’t reduce the open road limit to 50km/hr because the lives lost at 100km are not worth the lots time if we all drove more slowly. In order to make that judgement for society as a whole, the numbers would have to be crunched.
Anecdata is fine in some situations, but in this case I really do think you’d have to compare head injuries preventable by helmets in cars and weight that up against other factors like moveability, head space, inconvenience etc.
If we really wanted to reduce head injuries in car accidents we would lower the speed limit and redesign roads and put check points outside every pub car park.
I think the only reason this hasn’t been attempted is the same sort of reason that alcohol is given a free run in our society – it would make too many people grumpy. Cyclists are a small group but car drivers are everyone.
I think the argument and the stats and facts would win but people don’t always like facts and stats, they prefer to stick head in sand, fingers in ears, and cry “nya nyah nyah – cant hear you…”
Not if the helmets were light like cycle helmets or slim and close fitting, or even made of glass so that sight is not obstructed……
Seems to be fine for motor-racing drivers and they need far more of those convenience things like manouervering (can never spell that word) and wide vision and quick physical actions than those of us dawdling around in Honda citys and Hillman avengers..
Each year over 600,000 people are treated in emergency departments (EDs) for bicycle-related injuries and 824 die from this type of injury. Head injury is the most common cause of death and serious disability in bicycle-related crashes; head injuries are involved in about 60 percent of the deaths, and 30 percent of the bicycle-related ED visits.
Of course, the reason why we’re seeing airbags in cars is because people would refuse to wear helmets in them.
I heard this song on the radio this morning. It is an evocative piece of atmospheric electronica music written for Eric Garner, the man who died at the hands of Police, earlier on in the year. You might recall they suspected he was selling tax free fags.
We Are Temporary explain:
“The five-minute 22-second piece includes some of Garner’s last words, as recorded on cellphone video, on July 17 to the NYPD, seconds before one of its officers put Garner in a chokehold and killed him. At the 2:25 mark, the bass and drums cut out as Garner can be heard telling the officers, “I’m minding my business; please, just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone.”
It’s not an easy listen, says Roberts, who’s 35 and lives in Bushwick. “It is a little manipulative. I’m aware of the fact that Garner’s life and the situation might be more complex than the video shows, but I think what I wanted to do is allow the music to create empathy for a person who was dying.
“For me, there’s something really desperate and childlike in ‘please,’ and I wanted that to come across.” ”
‘What can you say about a society whose food production must be hidden from public view? In which the factory farms and slaughterhouses supplying much of our diet must be guarded like arsenals to prevent us from seeing what happens there? We conspire in this concealment: we don’t want to know. We deceive ourselves so effectively that much of the time we barely notice that we are eating animals, even during once-rare feasts, such as Christmas, which are now scarcely distinguished from the rest of the year.’
Mr Murphy, addressing Labour party members at the Glasgow Emirates Arena, declared: “This is a fresh start for Scottish Labour. Scotland is changing and so too must Scottish Labour. I’m ambitious for our party because I’m ambitious for our country.”
“The majority are fulfilled, getting on, getting by, being successful. A minority are falling behind, denied opportunity, trapped, unable to escape the hardship of their upbringing.
“That inequality is wrong and it is my driving purpose, it is our driving purpose, it is the Scottish Labour Party’s driving purpose to end that type of inequality once and for all.”
Mr Murphy said the best way to tackle poverty was to boost the economy.
“The most effective anti poverty measure is a successful economy,” he said.
“It’s about backing businesses, it’s about creating jobs, because if redistribution is our aim, which it is, then we need more wealth not less. We want more entrepreneurs, not fewer. A growing middle class that more families are able to join.
“The debate about how we spend our wealth starts with how we earn it.”
He sounds just like FJK.
“It’s about backing businesses, it’s about creating jobs, because if redistribution is our aim, which it is, then we need more wealth not less.”
We just need to wait for that “more wealth” to be made before the redistribution starts. Somehow, I don’t think we should hold our breath.
Presenting Russia’s banks: now cut off from the outside world as the second cold war goes nuclear, at least when it comes to the financial system:
Such banks as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. this week started rejecting requests from institutional clients to engage in certain ruble-denominated repurchase agreements and other transactions designed to raise cash, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bankers and traders say the moves to restrict some ruble transactions have become increasingly widespread among major Western financial institutions this week, even as the same institutions continue to try to profit from the ruble’s wild swings. The moves, which the banks are deploying to protect themselves against further swings in the currency, have the potential to add to the strain on Russia’s financial system.
Goldman in recent days largely stopped doing longer-term ruble-denominated repurchase agreements, or repos, in which securities or other assets are swapped in exchange for cash, said a person familiar with the matter. The Wall Street bank is still doing short-duration ruble repos, those that mature in less than a year, this person said.
Not sure who you want me to have sympathy for here.
This US corporate action won’t kill them – it will drive their clients and their assets into the hands of China. That isn’t in US interests either state or corporate.
An excellent write up. Just glanced at it then was hooked.
The New Yorker:
The Big Kill
New Zealand’s crusade to rid itself of mammals.
By Elizabeth Kolbert …”Sirocco’s chaperone, a Department of Conservation ranger named Alisha Sherriff, had brought along a little metal container, which she passed among the visitors. Inside was half a cup’s worth of Sirocco’s shit.
“Have a good sniff,” she suggested.
“It’s earthy!” one woman exclaimed.
“I think it smells smoky, with notes of honey,” Sherriff said. When the container came to me, I couldn’t detect any honey, but the bouquet did strike me as earthy, with hints of newly mown hay. Sherriff had also brought along a ziplock bag with some of Sirocco’s feathers. These, too, had a strong, sweetish scent.
New Zealand birds tend to smell, which was not a problem when the islands’ top predators were avian, since birds hunt by sight. But, as mammals hunt with their noses, it’s become yet another liability…..” http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/22/big-kill
Looked up Sirocco NZs spokesbird and after a few shots of a wise and questing kakapo who pops up but yek! The well known conservationist, laying down his life for the planet.
No that’s my point. It’s Key looking confidentially enthusiastic – Smith might have appeared further on but I cut the connection fast. Too much yek is toxic, I have to watch my health.
The authorities warn about legionella when handling compost etc, and a mask should be worn. As yet no health alerts have gone out about watching and listening to yek but I think they are overdue. However it should be added, that there is likely to be a window of contamination with yek as in ebola. Trouble is no-one is sure of how to know when the threshhold of infection is crossed.
In a regularly article in the ‘Rural News’ titled agtwits called a “irreverant and hypothetical look at what’s happening in the rural world”
sbrowninggreen:Don’t you you just love MMP when a tree-hugging,organic-munching,treat Ebola-with-homeopathy nutjod like me gets into Parliament and is given the green party’s responsibility for ag#whythegreenssuck#iamaclown.
Damienoconnormp: So the self serving unionist beat the gaggling gay for the leadership of the party viola,I’m back on the back bench again.#evenwheniwnilose#whatdidisaywrong
@littleandrewlabour:I have little interest in farming,Little to offer agriculture and Little chance of changing labours anti-farming attitude. I guess I’m to little to late.#redflag#unionforever
Johnkeypm: I was going to text Andrew Little to congratulate him on winning the Labour leadership.However, I can’t because it would mean that I’m in proactive contact with a vile,poisonous, delusional loser.#delete message
#roflmao
I’ve copied as accurately as possible seems pretty nasty in spots for what’s meant to be light hearted
Sounds as if the writer has played rugby a lot and gone straight back on the field after being slightly concussed too many times. It has cumulative effects I’ve heard. Add regular jars of ale and after a while of that, anything that differs slightly from the known and prescribed norm is strange and amusing.
It reeks of attack to me .further on in the same paper there’s this
“WANTED” A Political home for labour agriculture spokesman Damien O’Connor. A solid, talented and knowledgeable performer, he has been hung out to dry by his own party which seems to have no interest in agriculture apart from imposing a cgt and cuddling with the Greens who essentially want a return to peasant farming.
This is evidence of the ignorance in the farming sector.
It is no wonder that for generations they have claimed they want to leave the land in a better state than when they got it, yet the evidence shows that they have done exactly the opposite.
See claiming all farmers are bad just confirms some of what fukwits like who ever wrote that stuff i posted above say about the left, there are plenty of good farmers doing good stuff.
Of course there are, including a big chunk of mine …
It was a generalisation and I didn’t say all farmers are bad – I merely looked at the claims they have on average been making for the last couple of generations or so, and looked at the average evidence around those claims, and come up with an answer to their claim.
And if I might be so bold as to generalise even more – I see this all the time in our circles. That which you outlined in your original comment above is, imo, the average view of the average farmer (including the bad ones, and excluding the good ones). They are very pig-headed and stubborn. They spend so much time in their one world that they cannot fathom anything different ( or so says my opinion, after most of life in and out of such circles) – which is of course a very human trait and if I was now a farmer I would likely be doing the same ….
If you understand the terminologies than next step is to learn how to use them properly.
As for not believing my claim – non problema. It is my experience but you haven’t been by my side during that time so I can see how it can be difficult.
@ b waghorn
It just reeks of some of the empty minds we get here regularly. Bereft of any sense of how little they utilise their own intelligence they build themselves up by mocking those who do. Unwilling to test their own ideas and find them wanting, they hold onto untested myths which they accept as sureties, and then throw scorn on those who look outside the square for different possibilities.
Those people consider different ideas that when tested may prove unsuitable. Those who never dare to think out something individually, only to find it doesn’t work, or isn’t correct, remain safe, always protecting themselves from the scorn their type pours out on the thinkers and questers.
The reason I put these things here is to highlight what turns up in rural papers on occasion, in the hope that if any readers here that are linked to Labour and the Greens might come up with ways to counter it.
I was watching Newsroom, a US tv show which traverses many issues. On this episode one of the journalists is interviewing someone who has created an App enabling “citizen journalists” to post the whereabouts of celebrities on a map for the titilation of fellow citizens.
It turns out it was based on a real website called gawker stalker and a real interview. It made me think of the constant pandering to base human behaviour that is substituting journalism.
It reaaly is worth watching, especially for the website owners reactions.
From Mohammad Reza Alizadehfard: Syd Hostage: Who was Haron Monis?
1. He was born in Iran in a city called Borojerd.
2. His birth name is Mohammad Hassan Manteghi Borojerdi.
3. He was the director of a travel/tourism agency in Iran
4. He stole about $200,000 from his customers and escaped to Australia.
5. Iranin authorities through Interpol police asked Australian
government to hand him back to Iranian judiciary system. However,
Australia refuses to do so as He claimed he is a political refugee and
Iranian regime prosecuted him because of his liberal/democratic beliefs.
Australian government gave him political asylum in 1996.
6. In 2007
Sheikh Kamal Mosalmani, head of Australian Shia Council, wrote a letter
to ASIO warning them about his suspicious activities.
7. He presented himself as a Shia cleric with no confirmed official or formal education.
8. In 2014 Nov, he announced on his website renouncing Shia Islam and
paying allegiance to “the Caliphate of time Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi”, the
head of ISIL. Australian government was aware of his conversion and
support for ISIL in the last month.
(This the exact Arabic quote from his website:
أطيعوا الله و أطيعوا الرسول و أولي الأمر منكم
البيعة مع الله و رسوله و أمير المؤمنين – أبايع الله و رسوله و خليفة المسلمين
الحمد لله رب العالمين و الصلاة و السلام على نبينا محمد و على اله و
أصحابه أجمعين و التابعين منهم والسلام على أمير المؤمنين خليفة المسلمين
إمام عصرنا الحاضر و الحمد لله الذي جعل لنا خليفة في الأرض و إماما يدعونا
إلى الإسلام و الإعتصام بحبل الله سبحانه و تعالى. و الحمد لله الذي
شرّفني ببيعة إمام زماننا . إنّ الذين يبايعون خليفة المسلمين فإنما
يبايعون الله و رسوله يد الله فوق أيديهم . و قال رسول الله صلى عليه و سلم
من مات و لم يعرف إمام زمانه مات ميتة جاهلية . والحمد لله الذي لم يجعلني
من الذين ماتوا و لم يعرفوا إمام زمانهم . و الحمد لله على نعمة الإيمان و
كفى بها نعمة و أفوض أمري إلى الله إنّ الله بصير بالعباد
والسلام على من اتبع الهدى
هارون – سيدني أستراليا
الإثنين 24 محرم 1436
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
في الزمن السابق قد رفعت راية غير راية الإسلام فأستغفر الله و أتوب اليه و
أقسم بالله العظيم أن لا أرفع راية غير راية رسول الله صل الله عليه و سلم
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
9. And as you all may know he has been charged for writing hate letters
to Australian soldiers ‘family, 40 sexual assaults and killing of his
wife. The last but not least he was known to have psychological issues.
So, If we want to play blame game who is the one to be blamed first and foremost?
%————————————————————
From me: While real political refugees get treated like shit, it looks like criminals who steal from people the government doesn’t like get the red carpet treatment. Compare this case with what happened to Ahmed Zaoui in Aotearoa.
In the Alice books they have a tea party. I think they end up by picking on a dormouse which has been quietly sleeping and presents an easy target for malicious behaviour. When the tea party protagonists have used their cups and spoons, they move on to the next setting. But of course they eventually go round again to settings with old dirty utensils.
It seems that some people with excessive powers are incapable of cleaning up their act. They carry their dirty habits with them, and the downward slide in standards and ‘hygiene’ goes on. More powers just increases the slovenly moral behaviour.
Little must be fuming having to put up with these fools, and he has every reason to be the angry man the right are trying to portray him as. Labour still need to sweep a lot more out the door before they will even be in the game next election, some of these old heads have to much baggage.
Experience is a good thing for Lawyers, Tradesmen, Accounts etc, but not necessarily in Hookers or Politicians because eventually the Baggage gets to heavy to carry and the makeup starts to run.
Previously an outspoken critic of Iranian government, was interviewed by Australian media in 2001, loved Western society…
As predicted, the suspect amid the “Sydney Siege,” has long been on the radar of Australian law enforcement, as well as a frequent visitor to Australia’s court system.
Before that, however, he came to Australia as a political refugee, an opponent of what he called the “Iranian regime,” and was even interviewed by Australia’s ABC network in 2001 as part of an ongoing anti-Iranian propaganda campaign. ….
Saddam Hussein was a poster boy for a while, then he lost favour, was hunted and captured and is now dead. So all malefactors can find a golden period of amnesty and tolerance insufficient to make them happy and give them a long life.
That Sydney guy was trouble with a capital T. But Oz politicians and spooks found him useful for their propaganda machine, and gave him a long rope, and the public have suffered from that. The deaths result from the hands of their Oz two-faced, machiavellian political masters who are subservient to an anti Middle East hegemony.
I really, really, really hope Elizabeth Warren runs for US President in 2016. She’s the only one not afraid to attack the banks, and even Obama — her own party’s president. She may be one of the only ones left not bought and paid for by Wall St.
Don’t kid yourself. She’s as corrupt and as heartless as anyone in Congress….
At a town hall in August, she defended Israel’s shelling of targets in Gaza, saying that Israel had a right to defend itself against attacks from Hamas.
“America has a very special relationship with Israel,” she said, according to the Cape Cod Times. “Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.”
In this article [1], Bloomberg (Ye Xie, Katia Porzecanski and Pietro D. Pitts) wonder who will seize Venezuelan assets if the government defaults.
A better question would be “How will Bloomberg’s reporting change when Venezuela doesn’t default?”
The global economic meltdown that took place a few years ago, and from which we are still recovering, answered for us. The reporting won’t change at all.
Being an elite investor, big credit rating agency or highly regarded economist means never having to say you’re sorry. It is quite a prestigious group that couldn’t see (or wouldn’t admit to seeing) gargantuan housing bubbles in the USA and elsewhere that led to worst global economic recession since WWII. The big credit rating agencies gave mortgage backed securities the highest possible ratings just before they blew up. The Federal Reserve of Boston put out a paper [2] exploring why the vast majority of the professional economists proved as useless as “the markets”.
We must add to the list of the “never-accountable-for-anything” corporate news agencies like Bloomberg who hype the “concerns” of all these people. The appalling track record is always a non-issue.
The fact that our media are not reporting the reasons and geopolitics behind the collapse in oil prices shows that our media is not telling us what’s really going going on.
Our media, not Russia’s, is the one we concern ourselves about, as it impacts on our own perception of reality more.
This short blog post and the linked PDF document is the result of a collaborative effort by Anne-Marie Blackburn, Dana Nuccitelli, Bärbel Winkler, Ken Rice and John Cook. When the climate change (mis)information briefs pushed by David Legates and others started to make the rounds in January 2021 we wondered whether ...
A part of this morning's transport announcement which hasn't got a lot of attention yet: biofuels are back: “Our Government has agreed in principle to mandate a lower emitting biofuel blend across the transport sector. Over time this will prevent hundreds of thousands of tonnes of emissions from cars, ...
After almost twenty years of ignoring the Māori vote, National may run in the Māori seats again: A former National MP is excited the party could stand a candidate in the Māori electorate seats for the first time since 2002. One News reported last night that National's leader Judith ...
If one stubbornly clings to the Elimination strategy (I don’t support it, but that will have to wait for another occasion) then try to get it right. You need secure borders. We have attempted this with a very large measure of success. It has not been perfect as the Covid-19 Response ...
Diaspora: perception departs from reality In this collection of articles are two papers currently captivating the attention of people following the science and emergence of climate change, especially the rapid variety we've accidentally unleashed and which is now unfolding around us. The synthesis and review article Earth's Ice Imbalance by Slater ...
The ultra-rich have done very, very well out of the pandemic. Globally, the wealth of the ten richest people rose by US$540 billion last year, enough money to pay for the pandemic in its entirity. And in New Zealand, local billionaire Graeme Hart saw his wealth increase by almost NZ$3.5 ...
Postmodernism has long been looked upon as an indecipherable ideology and a source of amusement. In 1996 Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, had a hoax article published in ‘Social Text’ an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. In ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Anew study in Nature Sustainability incorporates the damages that climate change does to healthy ecosystems into standard climate-economics models. The key finding in the study by Bernardo Bastien-Olvera and Frances Moore from the University of California at Davis: The models have been underestimating the ...
In a recent interview with RNZ (14th of January), NZ Council of Civil Liberties Chair Thomas Beagle, in response to Simon Bridges condemnation of the post-Trump Twitter purge of local far Right and other accounts, said the following: “Cos the thing about freedom of expression is that it’s not just ...
Let’s be clear: if Trump is not politically killed off once and for all, he will become a MAGA Dracula, rising from the dead to haunt US politics for years to come and giving inspiration to his wretched family of grifters and thousands of deplorables well into the next decade. ...
Since its demise as an imperial power, and especially its deindustrialisation under Thatcher, the UK's primary economic engine has been its role as a money laundry, using its network of overseas territories as tax havens to enable rich people around the world to steal from the societies they live in. ...
Last month OMV quit the Great South Basin and surrendered its offshore exploration permits outside of Taranaki. This month, Australian-owned Beach Energy has done the same: Beach Energy Resources New Zealand has decided to abandon all of its oil and gas exploration permits off the South Island coast, including ...
The new Northland case has been linked to the South African strain of Covid-19, one of a number of new, more contagious Covid variants. Here’s how they emerge and why. Let’s start with the basics. The genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for Covid-19 is a strand of RNA ...
MARVIN HUBBARD, US citizen by birth, New Zealand citizen by choice, Quaker and left-wing activist, has been broadcasting his show, "Community or Chaos", on Otago Access Radio for the best part of 30 years. On 24 November last year, I spoke with him about the outcome of the 2020 General ...
This is a guest blog post by Daniel Tamberg, Potsdam, co-founder and director of SCIARA GmbH. The non-profit organisation SCIARA is developing and operating a flexible software platform for scientific simulation games that allows thousands of players to explore, design and understand possible climate futures together. Decision-makers in politics, business, ...
Yesterday's Gone: Cold shivers are running up and down the spines of conservatives everywhere. Donald Trump may have gone, but all the signs point to there being something much more momentous in the wind-shift than a simple return to the status quo ante. A change is gonna come. ONE COULD ...
Is it possible to live and let live in the post-Trump era? The online campaign to vilify Christopher Liddell, ex-White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to Trump, makes for an interesting case study. Liddell is a New Zealander whose illustrious career in corporate America once earned him plaudits ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 17, 2021 through Sat, Jan 23, 2021Editor's Choice12 new books explore fresh approaches to act on climate changeAuthors explore scientific, economic, and political avenues for climate action ...
This discussion is from a Twitter thread by Martin Kulldorff on 20 December 2020. He is a Professor at Harvard Medical School specialising in disease surveillance methods, infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety. His Twitter handle is @MartinKulldorff #1 Public health is about all health outcomes, not just a single ...
The Treasury forecasts suggest the economy is doing better than expected after the Covid Shock. John Kenneth Galbraith was wont to say that economic forecasting was designed to make astrology look good. Unfair, but it raises the question of the purpose of economic forecasts. Certainly the public may treat them ...
Q: Will the COVID-19 vaccines prevent the transmission of the coronavirus and bring about community immunity (aka herd immunity)? A: Jury not in yet but vaccines do not have to be perfect to thwart the spread of infection. While vaccines induce protection against illness, they do not always stop actual ...
Joe Biden seems to be everything that Donald Trump was not – decent, straightforward, considerate of others, mindful of his responsibilities – but none of that means that he has an easy path ahead of him. The pandemic still rages, American standing in the world is grievously low, and the ...
Keana VirmaniFrom healthcare robots to data privacy, to sea level rise and Antarctica under the ice: in the four years since its establishment, the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund has supported over 30 projects.Rebecca Priestley, receiving the PM Science Communication Prize (Photo by Mark Tantrum) Associate Professor ...
Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Michael Cowling, CQUniversity AustraliaWe’ve probably all been there. We buy some new smart gadget and when we plug it in for the first time it requires an update to work. So we end up spending hours downloading and updating before we can even play with our new toy. But ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Zero emission buses, cleaner cars and environmentally-friendly biofuels will soon be hitting New Zealand’s roads, as the Government delivers on its election promise to make our transport network more sustainable. ...
The Green Party is already delivering on its commitment for cleaner, climate-friendly transport through our Cooperation Agreement with the Government. ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
Prudence Steven QC, barrister of Christchurch has been appointed as an Environment Judge and District Court Judge to serve in Christchurch, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. Ms Steven has been a barrister sole since 2008, practising in resource management and local government / public law. She was appointed a Queen’s ...
The Government is delivering on its first tranche of election promises to take action on climate change with a raft of measures that will help meet New Zealand’s 2050 carbon neutral target, create new jobs and boost innovation. “This will be an ongoing area of action but we are moving ...
The Government is investing up to $10 million to support 30 of the country’s top early-career researchers to develop their research skills. “The pandemic has had widespread impacts across the science system, including the research workforce. After completing their PhD, researchers often travel overseas to gain experience but in the ...
A Waitomo-based Jobs for Nature project will keep up to ten people employed in the village as the tourism sector recovers post Covid-19 Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “This $500,000 project will save ten local jobs by deploying workers from Discover Waitomo into nature-based jobs. They will be undertaking local ...
Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw spoke yesterday with President Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. “I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak with Mr. Kerry this morning about the urgency with which our governments must confront the climate emergency. I am grateful to him and ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta today announced three diplomatic appointments: Alana Hudson as Ambassador to Poland John Riley as Consul-General to Hong Kong Stephen Wong as Consul-General to Shanghai Poland “New Zealand’s relationship with Poland is built on enduring personal, economic and historical connections. Poland is also an important ...
Work begins today at Wainuiomata High School to ensure buildings and teaching spaces are fit for purpose, Education Minister Chris Hipkins says. The Minister joined principal Janette Melrose and board chair Lynda Koia to kick off demolition for the project, which is worth close to $40 million, as the site ...
A skilled and experienced group of people have been named as the newly established Oranga Tamariki Ministerial Advisory Board by Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis today. The Board will provide independent advice and assurance to the Minister for Children across three key areas of Oranga Tamariki: relationships with families, whānau, and ...
The green light for New Zealand’s first COVID-19 vaccine could be granted in just over a week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. “We’re making swift progress towards vaccinating New Zealanders against the virus, but we’re also absolutely committed to ensuring the vaccines are safe and effective,” Jacinda Ardern said. ...
The Minister for ACC is pleased to announce the appointment of three new members to join the Board of ACC on 1 February 2021. “All three bring diverse skills and experience to provide strong governance oversight to lead the direction of ACC” said Hon Carmel Sepuloni. Bella Takiari-Brame from Hamilton ...
The Government is investing $9 million to upgrade a significant community facility in Invercargill, creating economic stimulus and jobs, Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene have announced. The grant for Waihōpai Rūnaka Inc to make improvements to Murihiku Marae comes from the $3 billion set ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
By Adi Briantika in Jakarta A group of Papuan students in front of the House of Representatives (DPR) building in Jakarta, who were planning to hold a protest action opposing the extension of Papuan Special Autonomy (Otsus), have been arrested and taken to the Metro Jaya regional police headquarters. “Around ...
By RNZ News The two new cases of covid-19 confirmed yesterday in New Zealand are the South African variant and initial results show they are connected to the Northland case at the Pullman Hotel. This morning the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, confirmed to Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Overhype can be a dead giveaway of under-confidence. When Anthony Albanese on Thursday compared his situation to that of Joe Biden, it sounded rather desperate. Some journalists, he said, had predicted a certain Trump win. ...
The New Zealand public sector and judiciary has again been ranked the least corrupt in the world. The 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released today by global anti-corruption organization Transparency International ranks New Zealand first equal ...
New Zealand is again ranked first equal with Denmark in the Transparency International annual index of perceived levels of public sector corruption. Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier has welcomed New Zealand’s position in the 2020 index. He says New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Kaufman, Research Fellow, Vaccine Uptake Group, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute The federal government’s A$23.9 million COVID-19 vaccination information campaign, launchedyesterday, aims to reassure the public about vaccine safety and effectiveness. It will also provide information about the vaccine rollout. We’ve ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he’s joined by Hongi Luo, brand director at TikTok.In terms of cultural reach and impact, the ...
After Covid devastated its 2020, Basement Theatre comes roaring into 2021 with its Summer Season. Here’s the rundown of shows in-store, with some comments from programmer Nisha Madhan.Pre-FringeLust IslandWhen’s it on: February 2-6, 8pmWho’s involved: The women of improv troupe Hearthrobs (McKenzie’s Daughters, Salem Bitch Trials), including Brynley Stent, Alice ...
The whānau of Te Ahikaiata Turei supported by Māori and non-Māori staff at Unitec will take back a portrait of the Tūhoe leader who led the establishment of Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae and the values that brought the institute back from the brink of ...
A poll across the Early Childhood Education community found 93% in favour of pausing the ‘lunchbox rules’, or the Ministry of Education’s new Food Safety/choking changes to the Licensing Criteria, which came into effect on 25 January. “The message ...
Cycling advocates are calling for the transformation of urban transport, as New Zealand races to cut carbon. The Climate Change Commission will release its initial advice on Sunday 31 January. “Bikes and e-bikes are perfect for many local trips, ...
Three Ministers, led by the PM, joined in chorus today to warble about a bunch of measures aimed at helping to meet New Zealand’s 2050 carbon neutral target, create new jobs and boost innovation. Mind you, the measures mentioned seem to be more matters of decisions yet to be made ...
Michelle Kidd defines her role at Auckland’s specialist family violence court as te kaiwhakatere – the navigator. It’s a one-of-a-kind job, helping guide defendants through the court system. And there’s no one better suited to it than Whaea Michelle.First published November 24, 2020.Whaea Michelle is part of Frame, a series of short ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sallie Yea, Associate professor & Principal Research Fellow, La Trobe University Each year, thousands of men and boys labour under extremely exploitative conditions on commercial fishing vessels owned by Taiwanese, Chinese and South Korean companies. The Taiwanese fleet, which operates in all ...
Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis believes the Crown should maintain responsibility for the care and protection of at-risk and vulnerable children, regardless of their race. Moreover, he is confident his all-Maori team of advisers will not be taking race into account as they help to improve Oranga Tamariki’s care and protection of ...
It’s easy to sacrifice John Banks. It’s a lot harder for brands, sports organisations and government to truly stop funding racism. Are they willing to try?Yesterday John Banks, the former Auckland mayor and MP, became subject to one of the fastest firings in media history when audio covering his approving ...
A community is outraged after Auckland Council granted consent for a row of trees planted by local kids to be removed along a revitalised waterway in South Auckland, reports Justin Latif. An Auckland Council decision to give contractors the all-clear to chop down 12 mānuka and kānuka trees shading Māngere’s Tararata ...
Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu hopes that the recent changes to Oranga Tamariki leadership present an opportunity for a long overdue paradigm shift that will place whānau at the heart of the child welfare sector. Pouārahi Helen Leahy says that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rice, Professor of Management, University of New England Elon Musk is now the world’s richest person, edging out previous title holder Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. His rocketing fortune is due to the booming share price of Tesla, the maker of electric vehicles ...
There are now three returnees who contracted the virus in the Auckland isolation facility then left into the community while positive. These are some of the questions that need to be resolved. At 10.20pm last night the Ministry of Health confirmed that the two cases they’d been treating as probable ...
Having a hard time remembering to scan in on the NZ Covid Tracer app when you’re out and about? Get this song stuck in your head and you’ll never forget again.Learn the lyrics:Aotearoa, it’s time to get scanning!I mean if you think about it, it never really wasn’t time we ...
We conclude our week-long examination of New Zealand writer Roderick Finlayson with a review of his stories by John Newton Roger Hickin’s Cold Hub Press is one of the small miracles of contemporary New Zealand publishing. Over the last decade, on what can only be a shoe-string budget, the ...
Thursday 28th January, AUCKLAND: Drive Electric, the not-for-profit with one mission – making electric vehicle uptake in New Zealand mainstream, welcomes the announcement by the Government today as a sign of what’s to come through 2021, and we are confident ...
The Government announced today key policy decisions on the proposed clean car policies. The MIA has stated on many occasions that we support well thought out and constructive policies that will lead to an increased rate in the reduction of CO2 emissions from ...
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Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 28, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
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Great, the west has started financial world war 3 with Russia. And this week Obama is going to sign into law the provision of lethal US military aid to Ukraine. Which is the US way of provoking Russia into sending armoured columns into Ukraine. Because just as the US would not allow nuclear missiles with a 10 minute flight time to Washington DC to be based in Cuba, Russia is certainly not going to allow similar in Ukraine.
And at the time when the Russkies had nuke missiles in Cuba, the Yanks had nuclear missiles in Turkey and Italy pointed at Russia. Although the deal was mutual removal, when the Soviet leadership removed their missiles from Cuba, the US government (Kennedy) kept theirs in Turkey and Italy.
When you’re imperialist top-dog you make up the rules to suit yourself, as in the days when Britannia ruled the waves and waived the rules.
Phil
This is a good view of how both sides see each other:
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/viewing-russia-inside#axzz3M3XjUDKd
Not sure what conclusions I’d draw from it, apart from sanctions can destroy the russian economy but won’t necessarily effect any political change. The Russian economy is dire, I’ve seen people blabbing on about how insulated Russia will be bvecause of their foreign reserves – these have declined 20% in 2014, 10% in the last 3 weeks. Previous examples of currency collapse show you can burn through all those in a month if things get dire. The Ruble will trade at 200 within 3 months. Just rewind to 1998. Banks have stopped quoting on USDRUB – that is the start of the death spiral. While the fall in the ruble insulates somewhat against the fall in oil, every other import becomes unobtainable for the average Russian. The real problem in Russia is too much is being siphoned off by Putin and his cronies.
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/ruble-implodes-is-it-1998-all-over-again-mD4759gESfG4QbugVxZAdQ.html
The only real pressure point on Putin is more likely to come from his oligarch mates:
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000339649
I suspect that is the bet the Americans and Germans are making.
Putin is a declared billionaire and will have plenty of undeclared cash/gold and assets also stashed away in foreign Countries. Russia revolves on corrupt practices, it’s normal.
I have a Russian girlfriend that studied management here. Apart from being stunningly beautiful, smart & quick witted, she was from a wealthy family. I once questioned her about where the wealth came from and joked ” your old man isn’t involved with the Russian mafia is he.” she laughed and said “everyone is linked to the mafia and black market, how you think my parents come here to NZ once a year and me travel home or holiday in Europe every year, it’s part of our culture.” She invited me to go out for dinner with them next time they come over. Her mother was warm and bubbly, her father was reserved and serious and spent alot of time talking stern on his mobile phone. He was big and tall and had the straightest back I’ve ever seen. I asked her later after we dropped them at their motel, your dad looks like an army man, she laughed and replied ex army General who fought with honour in Afghanistan, he has lots of medals. She told me the ex army men just transferred the power they had to running businesses. Sounded more like racketeering to me.
Do you think that the current decaying American empire is a match for a Russia led by people like your g/f’s family.
You just have to look at Putin for your answer, he make the rest of the World leaders look like pussy cats. Coupled with the Russian’s close assoiation with China and I’d say no match whatsoever CV.
@ Skinny
It’s what you do when there is the opportunity. This country was stripped of great public entities which were bought relatively cheaply by fast guys, when Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble got the wind in their sails. Serious money was made when they either resold them at a profit or built other aspects into them.
As soon as neo lib came in NZ and some top private positions were created in the place of public, a new guy in Auckland was off overseas with his wife and I think they managed to find hotel rooms at $2,000 a night. It seemed like a triumphal blow out at the cost of the stupid what they seemed to view as the ordinary mass of yobboes in the street. Their mantra was, and is, government can’t do anything right. The greed-gatherers got drunk on power and opportunity here just as they have in Russia.
Yeah Fay & his side kick merchant banker partner duped the taxpayer. I remember Fay’s first lieutenant drunkenly boasting at my sisters wedding how well they had done out of asset stripping our railways. I physically had to restrain my brother (who was a loco driver & got sucked into taking transrail shares by smooth talking Preeble) from knocking him out. This clown turned up at the swanky reception with a young hussey in tow and his own bottles of Dom. His ex was there and he started making a right Charlie of himself harassing her. My other brother and myself done the honours grabbed champagne Charlie and through him in the pool to cool off, much to everyone’s laughter. He stormed off, jumped in his porsche, dropped a burnout down the road like a spoilt brat. Yes plenty of money grabbing happening in the 80’s.
Pah! Russian gold reserves have been climbing steeply all through 2012-2013-2014, including record purchases in the last couple of months. Whatever inaccurate and propagandised sources you are reading, you should get new ones.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-31/russian-banks-buy-1814-tons-gold-2013
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-19/gold-rises-after-unusual-russian-central-bank-gold-buying-announcement
Russian gold reserves might be increasing but not their total reserves.
I wouldn’t rely on ZeroHedge for great insight. “Tyler Durden” has been calling for a market correction in the S&P500 since about 1400, though he went remarkably quite around 1700. great gossip site but that’s what you’d expect from a convicted Bulgarian inside trader. His view on the world is always distinctly bearish – to paraphrase many others he has called about 35 of the last 2 market corrections. And he has a distinct political bias – which is fine, just correct for that.
Russia has been a buyer of gold, latest data I can see (31/10/14 via IMF) is that their total reserves are USD416.2 billion, of which gold holdings are 37.575 million oz. At $1193 per/oz that gold is worth about $44.8 billion, so a bit more than 10% of reserves. A ton of gold sounds impressive but is “only” worth around US$38.7 mm. So a purchase of 77 tons of gold is ~3 billion. Not too significant in the scale of Russia’s reserves or in the daily turnover of gold trading – London bullion exchange clears around $18 billion of physical gold a day, then add in futures trading.
Russia has around US$700 billion of foreign debt with 125 billion due in 2015 – that won’t roll over. Before the current turmoil the Russian govt was planning on spending 1.5 trillion rubles over the next 3 years, will be a lot more now.
Just wait and see how this current ruble devaluation pans out – right now Russia is experiencing full on capital flight – when the dust settles we’ll see what position a) their reserves are in, b) domestic inflation, c) growth. I’m picking all 3 will be disastrous. Plenty of smarter people than me are seeing a bleak outlook.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/15/russias-economy-is-doomed-its-that-simple/
this is out of date:
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/USDRUB:CUR
Currently trading at 70, been as high as 79.
Russia has all the energy in the world. It also has about 40% of the EU’s gas requirements.
It just needs to wait things out and continue to work with the rest of the BRICS.
Let’s see how things play out. My bet is Russia wins.
no your 40% number is incorrect. It’s 28% and the most dependent countries are the ex-soviet satellites.
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/25/5936521/why-europe-wont-punish-russia-in-one-map
I don’t think Russia will disappear, they’ve survived worse than this. The first link I put up today is a much more nuanced view of what might happen. But equally Russia won’t win either – fascist states never do, but they can lash out militarily.
Be careful who you are calling “fascist” – it is the declining US empire which is an amalgamation of corporate, financial, governmental and military power that lashes out internationally.
If you do a checklist of the classical signs of a fascist state, no major nation ticks as many as Putin’s Russia.
The US has got a long way to decline. Russian GDP is now about $950 billion.
Here’s how that compares to some other entities:
State of North Rhine Westphalia $800 billion
City of Los Angeles $630 billion
City of New York $1.1 billion
Chicago+ Boston + Philadelphia $1.02 trillion
States of Washington + Maryland + Indiana$ 1 trillion
State of Texas 1.4 trillion
To really put it in perspective, Russian nominal GDP is now about 6 times larger than NZ.
Go Putin!
@ Philip F
Britannia ruled the waves and waived the rules.
Very neat aphorism I think.
They already have the cash for this misadventure their CR. Or there reassurance fund.
A back door to funding and a new term we may hear more of – The European Initiative.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/12/11/16479/long-term-blank-check-war-spending?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=watchdog&utm_medium=publici-email&goal=0_ffd1d0160d-40abf15259-100020097&mc_cid=40abf15259&mc_eid=c346e018f7
What the hell is CR adam? Is that the new white power way of addressing another human being?
😆
TA when you talk to CR you are allowed to use initials. But not HH as that may be construed as being flippant. You’ll catch on to the finer nuances in time.
Oh I’ve got those nuances well and truly sussed now. You have too by the looks. 😉
And not only flippant, but white supremacist too, don’t forget.
Stalker much
If you don’t want your double standards exposed you shouldn’t show them. 🙂
Stalker much
“..More Nails in the Drug War Coffin: Top Stories of 2014..
..There’s been so much going on with drug policy reform this year -’
– it wouldn’t all fit in a ‘Top 10″ list..”
(cont..)
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/drug-war-coffin-nails-top-stories-2014-0
(also of interest..is that ex-junkie russell brand has done a doco on drugs..
..that has been very well received..)
“..This might be the only time almost all of Twitter agree with Russell Brand..
..This week has seen a social media turn-around for the star –
– following the airing of BBC 3′s Russell Brand: End the Drugs War..”
(cont..)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/this-might-be-the-only-time-almost-all-of-twitter-agreed-with-russell-brand-9928057.html
‘cos unlike what some claim..my campaigning on this isn’t just because i want to smoke a joint..(i can do that already..eh..?..)
..it’s also because of my experience/history of having been addicted to heroin/cocaine/crack etc..
..that showed me that just about everything that is now done about ‘drugs’..is just so so wrong..on so so many levels..
..(and don’t get me started on that vile muck methadone..the ‘nazi-smack’..
..a textbook illustration/example of the maxim of the cure being worse than what it purports to heal..)
Interested and encouraging list that Phil.
Jebus, 105 opiate overdoses in the US per day…
Hard News top ten words of the year: “Dirty Politics” #1:
That article is a good round up of many of the recent issues on political social media.
Some Australian left-wing commentators on Sydney siege.
On the first day: http://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/on-the-sydney-siege/
On the day after: http://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/the-sydney-siege-the-day-after/
And something the mainstream news media, for some reason, choose not to cover much at all; US drone strikes and how they kill 28 people for every one target: http://rdln.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/us-drones-target-one-murder-twenty-eight/
Phil
Somebody should ask John Key’s view on his mates murdering 28 people for every 1 target …. drill down into it with Key ….
Which is more important? 28 people in Pakistan, or 2 people in Sydney?
Meanwhile, while the NZ pm is trying to spin the events as justification for enhanced surveillance, the Aus pm is noting the abject failure of their newly upgraded system.
Despite multiple charges against him, obvious signs of instability, and calls from within his own community for his investigation, and he himself virtually jumping up and down saying “Pick Me! I’m going to do something!” – though “known to them”, the deranged loner was “Not on the appropriate watchlists”.
“If I can be candid with you, that is the question that we were asking ourselves around the national security committee of the cabinet today,” Mr Abbott said.
“How can someone who has had such a long and chequered history, not be on the appropriate watch lists, and how can someone like that be entirely at large in the community?”
NSW Premier Mike Baird echoed this: “We are all outraged that this guy was on the street … the community has every right to feel upset. I’m incredibly upset,” he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-martin-place-siege-gunman-was-known-to-asio-but-not-on-terror-watch-list-20141216-128hdj.html
@ vto..
..key has been quite open about how we help with the targeting of those drone attacks..
..those attacks in which 28 innocent men/women/children are slaughtered..
..for every ‘terrorist’ killed..
..his hands are drenched with/in the blood of these innocents..
..and as this is done by him in our name..
..so are ours..
..we..by siding with america..by actively helping in the execution of these killings..
..and by in general being such eager spear-carriers for america..
..we are also ‘the bad guys’..
I was wondering if someone has worked out an Israeli body count rate of exchange. Perhaps 1 Israeli = 20 Palestinians, 5 houses, 2 olive groves, 1 school, and 1 hospital.
It’s a tough world currency this balancing the political values for each side, though fairly stable in its extreme unfairness.
(we need some of this to happen here..)
“..Mom Calls C-SPAN To Scold Pundit Sons On Live TV..”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/16/mother-calls-cspan-to-yell-at-brothers-on-live-tv_n_6334652.html
A list and explanation of roles of those responsible for the US breaking their own constitution and using torture.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/12/12/15221/whos-responsible-cias-torture-policy?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=watchdog&utm_medium=publici-email&goal=0_ffd1d0160d-40abf15259-100020097&mc_cid=40abf15259&mc_eid=c346e018f7
With more state house evictions coming soon – Let me keep reminding people – YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Neoliberalisms madness has infected the whole western world.
http://libcom.org/news/protest-staves-eviction-liverpool-family-16122014
I meant to put this up a few days ago – Asks some tough questions about health and our attitude towards that concept.
http://libcom.org/blog/healthcare-only-tiny-part-health-13122014
I know this is an old blog – but re-read this the other day – and found it very much on the money.
http://libcom.org/library/dear-jamie-oliver
Watched all your links Adam. Pretty depressing stuff. No wonder people don’t want to know and skirt around the difficult stuff.
I’ve been listening to Mr Ludbrook, president of the Northland Fed farmers saying that because the deaths on quad bikes died of crushing injuries and not of head injuries, that the wearing of helmets should be a personal issue. This in response to a Marlborough couple getting $20,000 fines each for repeated refusal to wear quad bike helmets, purchasable for about $120.
Surely the fact that people don’t die of head injuries is a tribute to the wearing of helmets? All those people who hit their heads on the ground, rocks, trees, posts etc have survived- great.
Or is he saying that there are lots of people not wearing helmets and having accidents but their heads don’t get involved fatally?
Or is he saying that the people who died of crushing injuries weren’t wearing helmets but got no head injury?
Or they were wearing helmets but got no fatal head injury – which is what I’d expect if they wore helmets?
It defies logic to argue that helmet wearing should be a personal issue because people who die on quad bikes die of crush injuries but didn’t get head injuries because they wore helmets.
In other words, can he argue logically that the absence of death by head injury had nothing to do with helmets?
I think the man is a libertarian fishing for arguments to not be forced to wear a helmet on a quad bike, especially when repeated refusals might cost the offender $20,000.
He’s been on National radio, but the interviewer did not challenge his logic nor did the other side get an airing as to 1) why people should wear helmets on quad bikes, 2) why they should be compelled and 3). why a fine of $20,000 should apply and be awarded.
Nor did the particular aspects of this case get discussed. In all fairness to the judge, the lawmakers, the enforcing agencies, the court system, farm employees, farming family members and the taxpayer, the issue should have been more widely discussed rather than only permit a muddled-thinking libertarian talk about being reasonable.
I didn’t hear the Ludbrook interview, just the news about the fines. I suspect their will be a RW backlash about the “unfairness” of the fines.
My thought at the time was the couple had been warned several times about not wearing their helmets on their quad bikes, so they had plenty of opportunity to prevent receiving the fines. Why didn’t they comply? Serious question.
The agriculture sector is up there for workplace injuries:
http://www.dol.govt.nz/whss/statistics.asp
and I seem to recall Helen Kelly from the CTU mentioning the highest rates for workplace death last year occurred in this sector, ahead of the forestry sector.
So why would you want to chance it by not wearing Personal Protective Equipment? What do you have to lose by simply just putting your PPE on in the workplace, the farm? Your stubborn pride?
My concern is not for those two fined but for workers and families in the industry.
I was a farm worker for three years, and safety was an issue. I can imagine the 18 year old farm worker told by his non helmet wearing boss, or the child told by their non-helmet wearing mother or father, to get on the quad bike and go do a job. No helmet provided, no helmet available, and no expectation that a prudent person should wear one.
The element of compulsion gives protection to the vulnerable. As it did with compulsory bike helmet use for our helmet wearing kids who longer got jeered at by the foolish but could quote the law and find safety with it.
“My concern is not for those two fined but for workers and families in the industry.”
Absolutely mac1. It’s those with the responsibility for others safety (eg, boss, parent as above) that need to lead by example. It’s their duty to promote a safety culture.
Too often in NZ, workplace H&S protocols are cynically referred to as tick box exercises. Too many times I’ve seen employers grudgingly and speedily go through an H&S procedure with a new employee without any thought for the reason or importance of it, and seem to miss the concept that they need to promote a safety culture not just for the sake of compliance but for safety itself.
Yes and with the regulator Work Safe being empowered the Bosses are all positioning the liability back on the workers, which is just typical.
Once a boss tells a worker to were a helmet then surely it is up to the worker to do it , bosses cannot monitor there workers at all times.
I think the fines are excessive a drink driver is far more dangerous and 3rd time offenders get $1000 fine
mac1
Talking about bike helmets, I was surprised at the fervent negative attitude of a man in a bike hiring business who says that his European customers won’t wear them. He talks about Netherlands where nobody wears helmets. They also have a very flat country and are more self centrolled and disciplined than we are in my opinion.
I have heard others putting down helmets. Why do they think we now have them?
Some men are just so narcissistic and self-centred that they have trouble obeying any rules and guidelines.
“.. Why do they think we now have them?..”
control-freak/nanny-state gone mad..
..that’s why we ‘have them’..
..and far be it from me to speak for all men..
..but i think as many women wd oppose cycle-helmets as do men..
..helmet-hair is gender-neutral..
No doubt the non helmet wearing promotors also expect the rest of us to pay their medical costs. Funny how individual choice is not equated with individual responsibility.
wear a helmet when you drive a car then – same argument exactly
sheesh
How is it the same argument ?
Surely a better but still not correct argument would be to wear a seat belt when you drive a car.
Do you recall the argument for forcing people on bikes to wear helmets? The number of head injuries in the average bike accident.
How many people who have a car crash on the open road come out without head injuries?
Same argument
Wear a helmet when you drive a car.
For that argument to have any weight you would have to provide stats and analysis on car accident head inuries that could be prevented by helmet wearing.
Hey I aint a professor having to prove some thesis.
Try anecdote as a first step. Average open road car crash – how many without head injuries? I would suggest very few. Certainly more head injuries than non-head injuries. Makes the argument for car helmets more compelling than the argument for cycle helmets, actual ..
“Try anecdote as a first step. Average open road car crash – how many without head injuries? I would suggest very few. Certainly more head injuries than non-head injuries. Makes the argument for car helmets more compelling than the argument for cycle helmets, actual..”
I think that prohibition laws are based on stats and risk vs benefit. So we don’t reduce the open road limit to 50km/hr because the lives lost at 100km are not worth the lots time if we all drove more slowly. In order to make that judgement for society as a whole, the numbers would have to be crunched.
Anecdata is fine in some situations, but in this case I really do think you’d have to compare head injuries preventable by helmets in cars and weight that up against other factors like moveability, head space, inconvenience etc.
If we really wanted to reduce head injuries in car accidents we would lower the speed limit and redesign roads and put check points outside every pub car park.
I think the only reason this hasn’t been attempted is the same sort of reason that alcohol is given a free run in our society – it would make too many people grumpy. Cyclists are a small group but car drivers are everyone.
I think the argument and the stats and facts would win but people don’t always like facts and stats, they prefer to stick head in sand, fingers in ears, and cry “nya nyah nyah – cant hear you…”
The reason cyclists were made to wear helmets is because it was an easy thing to do with great benefit.
Ditto seat belts. And prohibiting cell phone use in cars.
Wearing a helmet in a car is not straight forward for a whole bunch of reasons, so it’s not as simple as saying it would be unpopular.
Not if the helmets were light like cycle helmets or slim and close fitting, or even made of glass so that sight is not obstructed……
Seems to be fine for motor-racing drivers and they need far more of those convenience things like manouervering (can never spell that word) and wide vision and quick physical actions than those of us dawdling around in Honda citys and Hillman avengers..
Car Accident TBI
Bicycle Helmet Usage and Head Injury Prevention
Of course, the reason why we’re seeing airbags in cars is because people would refuse to wear helmets in them.
@ weka..
“..Wearing a helmet in a car is not straight forward for a whole bunch of reasons,..”
cd u give us a couple of those reasons..?
..’cos following yr logic around cycle-helmets..
..the case for car-driver helmets is compelling..
..(especially if you are going to be driving over 50 k per hr…
..now there’s a policy..!..target the speedsters..!..)
Thanks DtB. Always good to have the stats facts.
I look forward to seeing increasing numbers of people voluntarily wearing helmets when driving their cars……
http://www.pmlydon.com/2011/make-it-a-law-help-protect-us-from-ourselves/
http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/news/channing-tatum-and-jonah-hill-drive-football-helmet-car-on-set-of-22-jump-street.jpg
http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/usa/images-5/car-helmets.jpg
i think we should all have to wear big rubber/foam-rings..
..around our waists..
..all the time..
..then we wd be at no risk of bumping into each other..
..why should everyone else have to pay for those injuries..?
..when universal rubber/foam-rings wd take care of that..?
..and yes..!..rugby players/the all blacks..wd have to wear them too..!..
..do you know how much acc now pays out each yr on rugby-injuries..?
..whoar..!
..it makes bike-injuries look like chump-change…
..and yes..it will change the game..
..but you can’t be too careful now..can you..?
Save on birth control to re stopping people bumping into each other
yes..the benefits of the ring-solution are many and multi-faceted..
..and a natural form of contraception is definitely one of them..
..as only rubber/foam fanciers/fetishists will be turned on by the ring..
..it wd probably save acc money/make financial sense for acc to supply the compulsory-rings for free…
(and hey..!..if peter jackson is looking for a new ring-riff.?
..to make a new trilogy out of..
..and then a prequel-trilogy after that..?
..just saying..!..)
and of course..cyclists that fall off..will just bounce..
..and roll down the road..
and i am pretty sure that weka..representing the control-freak wing of the greens..
(‘you must wear a helmet..!..and no..!..you can’t smoke a joint..!..
..and don’t you even think of getting on a bicycle after smoking a joint..!’..
..i think the greens actually support breathyliser-locks on all bikes..
..’blow before you go..!’..)
..will be in wholehearted support of the idea of the ring…
(..probably wishes she thought of it..)
I have always said that cars and trucks should be made of soft bouncy rubber rather than bone-crunching flesh-tearing metal.
now yr talking..!
..those wellington buses cd definitely do with big rubber bump-guards..
..metal on flesh hurts so…
“I have always said that cars and trucks should be made of soft bouncy rubber rather than bone-crunching flesh-tearing metal.”
Could make pedestrians wear helmets when crossing roads…
…or we could design and built roads and paths that are fit for purpose and let people go about their business without being armour-plated.
Ahead of their time?
now yr talking..!
..those puffy-ones wd be perfect compulsory-suits for all cyclists..
..you can’t be too careful..!
I heard this song on the radio this morning. It is an evocative piece of atmospheric electronica music written for Eric Garner, the man who died at the hands of Police, earlier on in the year. You might recall they suspected he was selling tax free fags.
We Are Temporary explain:
“The five-minute 22-second piece includes some of Garner’s last words, as recorded on cellphone video, on July 17 to the NYPD, seconds before one of its officers put Garner in a chokehold and killed him. At the 2:25 mark, the bass and drums cut out as Garner can be heard telling the officers, “I’m minding my business; please, just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please just leave me alone.”
It’s not an easy listen, says Roberts, who’s 35 and lives in Bushwick. “It is a little manipulative. I’m aware of the fact that Garner’s life and the situation might be more complex than the video shows, but I think what I wanted to do is allow the music to create empathy for a person who was dying.
“For me, there’s something really desperate and childlike in ‘please,’ and I wanted that to come across.” ”
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2014/12/listen_to_i_cant_breathe_the_song_about_eric_garner.php
‘What can you say about a society whose food production must be hidden from public view? In which the factory farms and slaughterhouses supplying much of our diet must be guarded like arsenals to prevent us from seeing what happens there? We conspire in this concealment: we don’t want to know. We deceive ourselves so effectively that much of the time we barely notice that we are eating animals, even during once-rare feasts, such as Christmas, which are now scarcely distinguished from the rest of the year.’
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/16/perpetual-denial-food-meat-production-environmental-devastation
JIM MURPHY ELECTED SCOTTISH LABOUR LEADER.
Mr Murphy, addressing Labour party members at the Glasgow Emirates Arena, declared: “This is a fresh start for Scottish Labour. Scotland is changing and so too must Scottish Labour. I’m ambitious for our party because I’m ambitious for our country.”
“The majority are fulfilled, getting on, getting by, being successful. A minority are falling behind, denied opportunity, trapped, unable to escape the hardship of their upbringing.
“That inequality is wrong and it is my driving purpose, it is our driving purpose, it is the Scottish Labour Party’s driving purpose to end that type of inequality once and for all.”
Mr Murphy said the best way to tackle poverty was to boost the economy.
“The most effective anti poverty measure is a successful economy,” he said.
“It’s about backing businesses, it’s about creating jobs, because if redistribution is our aim, which it is, then we need more wealth not less. We want more entrepreneurs, not fewer. A growing middle class that more families are able to join.
“The debate about how we spend our wealth starts with how we earn it.”
Read more here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11291800/Jim-Murphy-announced-as-new-Scottish-Labour-Party-leader.html
He sounds just like FJK.
“It’s about backing businesses, it’s about creating jobs, because if redistribution is our aim, which it is, then we need more wealth not less.”
We just need to wait for that “more wealth” to be made before the redistribution starts. Somehow, I don’t think we should hold our breath.
What it means to piss off the western empire: financial, banking and capital attack
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-16/western-banks-cut-liquidity-russian-entities
What do you expect?
You come to me for a loan and I say what is your collateral?
You say “these Russian ruble denominated assets”
What would you do?
This is about assets; It’s a financial cold war between a dying empire and its pretenders. There’s nothing else to be said about it.
Not sure who you want me to have sympathy for here.
This US corporate action won’t kill them – it will drive their clients and their assets into the hands of China. That isn’t in US interests either state or corporate.
Tony Abbott, what a guy
http://thesauce.co/achievements-of-the-abbott-government/
it’s a blip-list..
..with an aussie accent…
(while looking for something else..i stumbled upon this..
..back in february i told labour what they had to do to avoid a caning from national/key..
..i guess they weren’t listening..
..and what i warned of..they didn’t heed..
..and what i said would happen if they didn’t..did..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2014/commentwhoar-ed-the-mire-labour-find-themselves-in-how-to-get-out-of-that-mire-and-how-to-avoid-an-election-campaign-caning-from-keynational/
An excellent write up. Just glanced at it then was hooked.
The New Yorker:
The Big Kill
New Zealand’s crusade to rid itself of mammals.
By Elizabeth Kolbert
…”Sirocco’s chaperone, a Department of Conservation ranger named Alisha Sherriff, had brought along a little metal container, which she passed among the visitors. Inside was half a cup’s worth of Sirocco’s shit.
“Have a good sniff,” she suggested.
“It’s earthy!” one woman exclaimed.
“I think it smells smoky, with notes of honey,” Sherriff said. When the container came to me, I couldn’t detect any honey, but the bouquet did strike me as earthy, with hints of newly mown hay. Sherriff had also brought along a ziplock bag with some of Sirocco’s feathers. These, too, had a strong, sweetish scent.
New Zealand birds tend to smell, which was not a problem when the islands’ top predators were avian, since birds hunt by sight. But, as mammals hunt with their noses, it’s become yet another liability…..”
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/22/big-kill
Looked up Sirocco NZs spokesbird and after a few shots of a wise and questing kakapo who pops up but yek! The well known conservationist, laying down his life for the planet.
is it nick ‘the gurner’ smith..?
No that’s my point. It’s Key looking confidentially enthusiastic – Smith might have appeared further on but I cut the connection fast. Too much yek is toxic, I have to watch my health.
The authorities warn about legionella when handling compost etc, and a mask should be worn. As yet no health alerts have gone out about watching and listening to yek but I think they are overdue. However it should be added, that there is likely to be a window of contamination with yek as in ebola. Trouble is no-one is sure of how to know when the threshhold of infection is crossed.
since when was key yek…?
..and for why..?
..(what am i missing here..?..)
“..(what am i missing here..?..)”
Heaps, bro.
say ‘thank you!’..
..i gave it to u on a plate..
Nga mihi.
In a regularly article in the ‘Rural News’ titled agtwits called a “irreverant and hypothetical look at what’s happening in the rural world”
sbrowninggreen:Don’t you you just love MMP when a tree-hugging,organic-munching,treat Ebola-with-homeopathy nutjod like me gets into Parliament and is given the green party’s responsibility for ag#whythegreenssuck#iamaclown.
Damienoconnormp: So the self serving unionist beat the gaggling gay for the leadership of the party viola,I’m back on the back bench again.#evenwheniwnilose#whatdidisaywrong
@littleandrewlabour:I have little interest in farming,Little to offer agriculture and Little chance of changing labours anti-farming attitude. I guess I’m to little to late.#redflag#unionforever
Johnkeypm: I was going to text Andrew Little to congratulate him on winning the Labour leadership.However, I can’t because it would mean that I’m in proactive contact with a vile,poisonous, delusional loser.#delete message
#roflmao
I’ve copied as accurately as possible seems pretty nasty in spots for what’s meant to be light hearted
Wow!
Sounds as if the writer has played rugby a lot and gone straight back on the field after being slightly concussed too many times. It has cumulative effects I’ve heard. Add regular jars of ale and after a while of that, anything that differs slightly from the known and prescribed norm is strange and amusing.
It reeks of attack to me .further on in the same paper there’s this
“WANTED” A Political home for labour agriculture spokesman Damien O’Connor. A solid, talented and knowledgeable performer, he has been hung out to dry by his own party which seems to have no interest in agriculture apart from imposing a cgt and cuddling with the Greens who essentially want a return to peasant farming.
This is evidence of the ignorance in the farming sector.
It is no wonder that for generations they have claimed they want to leave the land in a better state than when they got it, yet the evidence shows that they have done exactly the opposite.
Ignorance on a grand scale.
See claiming all farmers are bad just confirms some of what fukwits like who ever wrote that stuff i posted above say about the left, there are plenty of good farmers doing good stuff.
Of course there are, including a big chunk of mine …
It was a generalisation and I didn’t say all farmers are bad – I merely looked at the claims they have on average been making for the last couple of generations or so, and looked at the average evidence around those claims, and come up with an answer to their claim.
And if I might be so bold as to generalise even more – I see this all the time in our circles. That which you outlined in your original comment above is, imo, the average view of the average farmer (including the bad ones, and excluding the good ones). They are very pig-headed and stubborn. They spend so much time in their one world that they cannot fathom anything different ( or so says my opinion, after most of life in and out of such circles) – which is of course a very human trait and if I was now a farmer I would likely be doing the same ….
Prejudice and preconceived ideas confirmed then vto. Sigh
No you are wrong Jimmy.
Not pre-judged because as mentioned opinion is based on a lifetime of direct and indirect experience.
And not preconceived because as mentioned opinion is based on a lifetime of direct and indirect experience.
You should learn the meaning of words before using them. Sigh.
I understand the terminology no problem vto, just dont beleive you.
If you understand the terminologies than next step is to learn how to use them properly.
As for not believing my claim – non problema. It is my experience but you haven’t been by my side during that time so I can see how it can be difficult.
@ b waghorn
It just reeks of some of the empty minds we get here regularly. Bereft of any sense of how little they utilise their own intelligence they build themselves up by mocking those who do. Unwilling to test their own ideas and find them wanting, they hold onto untested myths which they accept as sureties, and then throw scorn on those who look outside the square for different possibilities.
Those people consider different ideas that when tested may prove unsuitable. Those who never dare to think out something individually, only to find it doesn’t work, or isn’t correct, remain safe, always protecting themselves from the scorn their type pours out on the thinkers and questers.
The reason I put these things here is to highlight what turns up in rural papers on occasion, in the hope that if any readers here that are linked to Labour and the Greens might come up with ways to counter it.
Agreed. I read those publications and notice what you point out too. It is common.
Sssorry if this has been posted before.
I was watching Newsroom, a US tv show which traverses many issues. On this episode one of the journalists is interviewing someone who has created an App enabling “citizen journalists” to post the whereabouts of celebrities on a map for the titilation of fellow citizens.
It turns out it was based on a real website called gawker stalker and a real interview. It made me think of the constant pandering to base human behaviour that is substituting journalism.
It reaaly is worth watching, especially for the website owners reactions.
Is this another example of dirty politics?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11364950
You havent actually read the book then?
“Is this another example of dirty politics?”
No.
From Mohammad Reza Alizadehfard: Syd Hostage: Who was Haron Monis?
1. He was born in Iran in a city called Borojerd.
2. His birth name is Mohammad Hassan Manteghi Borojerdi.
3. He was the director of a travel/tourism agency in Iran
4. He stole about $200,000 from his customers and escaped to Australia.
5. Iranin authorities through Interpol police asked Australian
government to hand him back to Iranian judiciary system. However,
Australia refuses to do so as He claimed he is a political refugee and
Iranian regime prosecuted him because of his liberal/democratic beliefs.
Australian government gave him political asylum in 1996.
6. In 2007
Sheikh Kamal Mosalmani, head of Australian Shia Council, wrote a letter
to ASIO warning them about his suspicious activities.
7. He presented himself as a Shia cleric with no confirmed official or formal education.
8. In 2014 Nov, he announced on his website renouncing Shia Islam and
paying allegiance to “the Caliphate of time Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi”, the
head of ISIL. Australian government was aware of his conversion and
support for ISIL in the last month.
(This the exact Arabic quote from his website:
أطيعوا الله و أطيعوا الرسول و أولي الأمر منكم
البيعة مع الله و رسوله و أمير المؤمنين – أبايع الله و رسوله و خليفة المسلمين
الحمد لله رب العالمين و الصلاة و السلام على نبينا محمد و على اله و
أصحابه أجمعين و التابعين منهم والسلام على أمير المؤمنين خليفة المسلمين
إمام عصرنا الحاضر و الحمد لله الذي جعل لنا خليفة في الأرض و إماما يدعونا
إلى الإسلام و الإعتصام بحبل الله سبحانه و تعالى. و الحمد لله الذي
شرّفني ببيعة إمام زماننا . إنّ الذين يبايعون خليفة المسلمين فإنما
يبايعون الله و رسوله يد الله فوق أيديهم . و قال رسول الله صلى عليه و سلم
من مات و لم يعرف إمام زمانه مات ميتة جاهلية . والحمد لله الذي لم يجعلني
من الذين ماتوا و لم يعرفوا إمام زمانهم . و الحمد لله على نعمة الإيمان و
كفى بها نعمة و أفوض أمري إلى الله إنّ الله بصير بالعباد
والسلام على من اتبع الهدى
هارون – سيدني أستراليا
الإثنين 24 محرم 1436
————————————————————————————————————————————————————
في الزمن السابق قد رفعت راية غير راية الإسلام فأستغفر الله و أتوب اليه و
أقسم بالله العظيم أن لا أرفع راية غير راية رسول الله صل الله عليه و سلم
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
9. And as you all may know he has been charged for writing hate letters
to Australian soldiers ‘family, 40 sexual assaults and killing of his
wife. The last but not least he was known to have psychological issues.
So, If we want to play blame game who is the one to be blamed first and foremost?
%————————————————————
From me: While real political refugees get treated like shit, it looks like criminals who steal from people the government doesn’t like get the red carpet treatment. Compare this case with what happened to Ahmed Zaoui in Aotearoa.
Plenty of egg to go around the Australian security, surveillance and immigration services.
The answer must to reward such stellar performance by giving them more powers!
In the Alice books they have a tea party. I think they end up by picking on a dormouse which has been quietly sleeping and presents an easy target for malicious behaviour. When the tea party protagonists have used their cups and spoons, they move on to the next setting. But of course they eventually go round again to settings with old dirty utensils.
It seems that some people with excessive powers are incapable of cleaning up their act. They carry their dirty habits with them, and the downward slide in standards and ‘hygiene’ goes on. More powers just increases the slovenly moral behaviour.
An excellent thought experiment
Radio: “U.S. troops say they were locked in coffin-like boxes and endured countless near-drownings.”
A Republican-voting housewife comments: “The Taliban says it was legal, so that’s OK with me.”
https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/544822901640531968/photo/1
I see Phil Goof has apologised.
Little must be fuming having to put up with these fools, and he has every reason to be the angry man the right are trying to portray him as. Labour still need to sweep a lot more out the door before they will even be in the game next election, some of these old heads have to much baggage.
Experience is a good thing for Lawyers, Tradesmen, Accounts etc, but not necessarily in Hookers or Politicians because eventually the Baggage gets to heavy to carry and the makeup starts to run.
Who Created Cartoon Character “Man Haron Monis” Behind “Sydney Siege” Circus?
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/12/who-created-cartoon-character-man-haron.html
by Tony Cartalucci , Activist Post
Previously an outspoken critic of Iranian government, was interviewed by Australian media in 2001, loved Western society…
As predicted, the suspect amid the “Sydney Siege,” has long been on the radar of Australian law enforcement, as well as a frequent visitor to Australia’s court system.
Before that, however, he came to Australia as a political refugee, an opponent of what he called the “Iranian regime,” and was even interviewed by Australia’s ABC network in 2001 as part of an ongoing anti-Iranian propaganda campaign. ….
Read more….
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/12/who-created-cartoon-character-man-haron.html
Saddam Hussein was a poster boy for a while, then he lost favour, was hunted and captured and is now dead. So all malefactors can find a golden period of amnesty and tolerance insufficient to make them happy and give them a long life.
That Sydney guy was trouble with a capital T. But Oz politicians and spooks found him useful for their propaganda machine, and gave him a long rope, and the public have suffered from that. The deaths result from the hands of their Oz two-faced, machiavellian political masters who are subservient to an anti Middle East hegemony.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/the-speech-that-could-make-elizabeth-warren-president_b_6319142.html
I really, really, really hope Elizabeth Warren runs for US President in 2016. She’s the only one not afraid to attack the banks, and even Obama — her own party’s president. She may be one of the only ones left not bought and paid for by Wall St.
Don’t kid yourself. She’s as corrupt and as heartless as anyone in Congress….
At a town hall in August, she defended Israel’s shelling of targets in Gaza, saying that Israel had a right to defend itself against attacks from Hamas.
“America has a very special relationship with Israel,” she said, according to the Cape Cod Times. “Israel lives in a very dangerous part of the world, and a part of the world where there aren’t many liberal democracies and democracies that are controlled by the rule of law. And we very much need an ally in that part of the world.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/elizabeth-warren-israel-113141.html
that is the only chink in her armour i have seen..
..what about the rest of the warren-package..?
..and you wd prefer clinton..?
Who will be Discredited When Venezuela Doesn’t Default? Nobody.
https://zcomm.org/zblogs/who-will-be-discredited-when-venezuela-doesnt-default-nobody/
by JOE EMERSBERGER, 17 December 2014
In this article [1], Bloomberg (Ye Xie, Katia Porzecanski and Pietro D. Pitts) wonder who will seize Venezuelan assets if the government defaults.
A better question would be “How will Bloomberg’s reporting change when Venezuela doesn’t default?”
The global economic meltdown that took place a few years ago, and from which we are still recovering, answered for us. The reporting won’t change at all.
Being an elite investor, big credit rating agency or highly regarded economist means never having to say you’re sorry. It is quite a prestigious group that couldn’t see (or wouldn’t admit to seeing) gargantuan housing bubbles in the USA and elsewhere that led to worst global economic recession since WWII. The big credit rating agencies gave mortgage backed securities the highest possible ratings just before they blew up. The Federal Reserve of Boston put out a paper [2] exploring why the vast majority of the professional economists proved as useless as “the markets”.
We must add to the list of the “never-accountable-for-anything” corporate news agencies like Bloomberg who hype the “concerns” of all these people. The appalling track record is always a non-issue.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-15/who-gets-citgo-s-assets-if-venezuela-defaults-.html
[2] http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/ppdp/2010/ppdp1005.pdf
This pic is the lesson that the RWNJs, neoliberals and other Randian types have forgotten.
And you think the NZ media sucks up to the government……
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/16/7402469/putin-russia-ads
They’re not that much different from what we get on Channel 9 in Brisbane. And yes, the Kiwi media does suck up to Key.
The fact that our media are not reporting the reasons and geopolitics behind the collapse in oil prices shows that our media is not telling us what’s really going going on.
Our media, not Russia’s, is the one we concern ourselves about, as it impacts on our own perception of reality more.